Commentary by Michael Barone

A Lackluster Year for Obama and His Would-Be Successors by Michael Barone

Just about everyone agrees that 2013 was not a good year for President Obama. His job approval plummeted as the Obamacare rollout cratered. His oft-promised pivot to Asia was as much of a dud as his oft-promised pivot to the economy.

But it must also be said that the Republican politicians who have been touted as possible successors to the 44th president didn't have sparkling years either. Each has encountered a setback to his prospects for either the Republican nomination or as a general election candidate.

Abortion Defines the Political Parties, 41 Years After Roe V. Wade By Michael Barone

It is 41 years since the Supreme Court handed down the Roe v. Wade decision, effectively legalizing abortion everywhere in the United States. Ever since, it has been a source of controversy -- and confusion.

Millennials Unhappy With Obama's War on the Young by Michael Barone

What do young Americans want? Something different from what they've been getting from the president they voted for by such large margins.

Evidence comes in from various polls. Voters under 30, the millennial generation, produced numbers for Barack Obama 13 percentage points above the national average in 2008 and 9 points above in 2012.

But in recent polls, Obama approval among those under 30 has been higher than the national average by only 1 percentage point (Quinnipiac), 2 points (ABC/Washington Post) and 3 points (YouGov/Economist).

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Population Declining in States With Relatively High Dependence on Government by Michael Barone

The Census Bureau's holiday treat is its release of annual state population estimates, to be digested slowly in the new year.

The headline from this year's release is that population growth from July 2012 to July 2013 was 0.72 percent, lower than in the two preceding years and the lowest since the Great Depression 1930s.

This reflects continuing low, below-replacement-rate birth rates and lower immigration than in 1982-2007. Net immigration from Mexico evidently continues to be zero.

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Robert Gates Book Portrays Obama as a Different Kind of President by Michael Barone

Like just about everybody else in Washington and many across the country, I've been reading the excerpts from former Defense Secretary Robert Gates' book Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary of War.

It presents a significantly more negative picture of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton than Gates' statements in office led anyone to expect.

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The Democrats' Feckless Attacks on Income Inequality by Michael Barone

As Barack Obama scrambles to eviscerate key sections of his own signature health care law, he and other Democrats are trying to shift voters' focus to another issue -- income inequality.

Unfortunately, the solutions they advocate are pitifully inadequate or painfully perverse.

Right and Left of the Hispanic Vote By Michael Barone

It is widely accepted that Hispanics will become a larger share of the American electorate in the years to come.  

Democracy and Peace Pushed Farther Away by Michael Barone

In 1793, the envoy Lord Macartney appeared before the Qianlong emperor in Beijing and asked for British trading rights in China. "Our ways have no resemblance to yours, and even were your envoy competent to acquire some rudiments of them, he could not transport them to your barbarous land," the long-reigning (1736-96) emperor replied in a letter to King George III.

"We possess all things," he went on. "I set no value on strange objects and have no use for your country's manufactures."

The emperor had a point. China at that time, according to economic historian Angus Maddison, had about one-third of world population and accounted for about one-third of world economic production.

Today's China, of course, has a different attitude toward trade. Since Deng Xiaoping's market reforms started in 1978, it has had enormous growth based on manufacturing exports.

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Peña Proves Himself an Efficient Reformer By Michael Barone

Most Americans have an image of Mexico as a nation convulsed by violent drug wars and sending hundreds of thousands of desperate immigrants across our southern border.

That image is out-of-date. The drug war has largely quieted down and scarcely affects most of the country while, according to the Pew Hispanic Center, net migration from Mexico to the United States since 2007 has fallen to zero.

Christmastime and the Family Structure by Michael Barone

Christmastime is an occasion for families to come together. But the family is not what it used to be, as my former American Enterprise Institute colleague Nick Schulz argues in his short AEI book "Home Economics: The Consequences of Changing Family Structure."

It's a subject that many people are uncomfortable with. "Everyone either is or knows and has a deep personal connection to someone who is divorced, cohabiting, or gay," Schulz writes. "Great numbers of people simply want to avoid awkward talk of what are seen as primarily personal issues or issues of individual morality."

Bill to Increase Sanctions on Iran by Michael Barone

Sometimes it seems like things are upside down.

Barack Obama and his Obamacare administrators are continually making laws, through blogpost (suspending the employer mandate) and bulletin (suspending the individual mandate).

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Obamacare Shows America's Aversion to Big Government Policies By Michael Barone

As the fifth year of the Obama presidency draws to a close, it may be time to examine the unspoken but powerful assumption behind the policies of the president and his party.

John Boehner's Successful Year on Policy and Politics by Michael Barone

All this year, House Speaker John Boehner has been taking criticism from all quarters.

He is a squish selling out to the Obama administration and the Democrats, many conservatives charged when he engineered bipartisan (mostly Democratic) approval of higher tax rates on high earners rather than go over the fiscal cliff.

Obamacare's Rocky Rollout Improves Republicans' 2014 Outlook By Michael Barone

Democratic National Chairman Debbie Wasserman Schultz says that Obamacare will be a vote-winner for Democrats in 2014. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid says the same thing.

Obama Abandons Friends Abroad in Hopes of Appeasing Foes by Michael Barone

Watching the twists and turns of American foreign policy while reading Christopher Clark's The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914 is an unnerving experience.

Clark's history, unlike many on the outbreak of World War I, starts not with the assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo in June 1914, but a dozen or so years earlier. He examines the muddled internal politics behind the foreign policies of major and minor powers -- and how often they were incomprehensible to each other.

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Obamacare's Architects Plugged Their Ears and Misled Public By Michael Barone

In 1970 the eccentric but insightful economist Albert Hirschman published a book called "Exit, Voice and Loyalty." It explored how people respond when a private firm's or a government agency's performance is deteriorating.

For Pakistan and the United States, it's one Delusion After Another By Michael Barone

Not many foreign policy experts would argue with the proposition that the country with which the United States has the most problematic relationship is Pakistan.  

Welcome to the Kludgeocracy By Michael Barone

How is it possible that Barack Obama did not know that his beloved healthcare.gov website was a botch? That's a question many thoughtful people (including thoughtful Democrats) are asking.

We heard him say that he wouldn't have boasted that it would be as easy to use as amazon.com or obitz.com had he known that it wouldn't. I'm not "stupid enough," he said at his Nov. 14 press conference. Most Americans agree that's true.

For Obamacare Architects, Problems are Features, not Bugs by Michael Barone

The defects of the Obamacare website have become well known. But the problems with the law go further than the website. These problems are not incidental, but central to its design and the intentions of its architects.

Many Obamacare backers, including Barack Obama, would prefer "single-payer" health insurance. The government would pay for everything and you would get health care for free.

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A Devastating Poll on Obama -- and Obamacare By Michael Barone

"The Affordable Care Act's political position has deteriorated dramatically over the last week." That, coming from longtime Obamacare cheerleader and Washington Post blogger Ezra Klein, was pretty strong language. And it was only Wednesday.