Commentaries

Enjoy a selection of my commentaries below. To see the full listing of commentaries, please click here.

Alexander plays a winning tune

Can “little platoons” of Americans win battles the “big battalions” of the federal government have been losing? Lamar Alexander intends to find out. The soft-spoken, mild-mannered man from Maryville, Tenn., joins U.S. Sens. Bob Dole, R-Kan., and Phil Gramm, R-Texas, as one of the GOP’s Big Three presidential contenders. But unlike the acerbic Senate majority…

Polls’ accuracy turns on turnout

Public opinion polls have dominated the 1996 election cycle. One reason: There are simply more polls. Example: According to the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research, there were 10 presidential “trial heats” between September 1 and election day in 1968. This year that number will exceed 125. Even worse, the horse race aspect of the…

Calif.’s demise overdramatized

LOS ANGELES — Eastern media love to hate California: “The Promised Land now seems like the Valley of the Damned,” opined U.S. News & World Report in the wake of recent natural disasters — earthquakes, fires and mudslides — which came on top of recession, deep cuts in defense spending, cratering real estate values, a…