Author: Matt Wolfson

It’s a fairly safe assertion to make that the Claremont Colleges are home to few if any Newt Gingrich supporters. Yet Gingrich deserves consideration by supporters and detractors alike, because there is a chance that he will become the Republican presidential nominee and therefore will take up a small space

Just over two months in, the sheen has already worn off Occupy Wall Street. Previously enshrined in the public imagination as a group of heroic callers-out of corporate capitalist cronyism, its image has morphed. As a host of commentators have pointed out—some in these pages—OWS has suffered from its members’

Turning to the Republican presidential nominating contest, it looks like the ground has shifted decisively in Mitt Romney’s favor. But the show isn’t quite over; Rick Perry will not go down without a fight. He has a huge war chest and influential friends, and he takes personal pride in his

Let’s forget for a moment about the electoral landscape of reality and turn to Hollywood’s take on our political life. It’s not that Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich, the Tea Partiers, Nancy Pelosi, the Wall Street occupiers, and Barney Frank aren’t fun. But George Clooney—full-time actor, sometime political activist—looks more presidential

Something extremely unexpected is happening to the political landscape: the left is coming back to life. In Massachusetts, Harvard law professor Elizabeth Warren is challenging Republican incumbent Scott Brown for the Senate seat he won in a special election last year. A video of Warren speaking at a small fundraiser

To call these past few months Barack Obama’s “winter of discontent” is an insult to the concept of discontent. An indicator of the depth of his trouble: Last week, Anthony Weiner’s old district in New York City went for a Republican contender in the special election for the first time

Last week, what is likely to be the full contingent of contenders for the Republican presidential nomination met for the first two widely-publicized debates of the 2012 electoral cycle, offering the American public a comprehensive look at the options for replacing 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue’s increasingly hapless inhabitant. In the spirit

On April 4, Barack Obama officially launched his reelection campaign with a video, “It Begins with Us,” which, in a nod to the “hope and change” days of 2008, features Americans from all walks of life talking about the need to reelect him. Obama's announcement was not a surprise to

Every so often a serious but accessible international relations book or documentary comes along and catches popular notice. Its success is a decent indicator of how well-educated, reasonable Americans view the changes in the world. Thomas Friedman’s The Lexus and the Olive Tree, for example, redefined how many people understand

Maybe discrediting the domino effect was premature. A month after Egyptian protests brought down Hosni Mubarak’s dictatorship, oppressive regimes across North Africa and the Middle East are quaking and crumbling. Some experts are speculating about the dawn of a “fourth era” in the region. (The last one started in 1979,