Andrew Romano

Tea Party candidates love to talk about fiscal austerity. They say that President Obama has been on a dangerous spending binge, and that only they have the fortitude and courage to stop him. But they rarely get specific about how, exactly, they intend to balance the budget. Thankfully, one candidate now has. The only problem? His specifics are bonkers.

Tea Partiers engage with the Constitution in such a selective manner that they're clearly relying on it more as an instrument of self--affirmation and political division than a source of policy inspiration. Welcome to the new culture war.

When GOP presidential hopefuls say they're focused on helping the party win as many seats as possible in upcoming midterm elections, they're not lying, per se.

Self-described "angry voters" no more likely to vote; Democrats trusted more than GOP on key issues.

To survive in a hostile world, guys need to embrace girly jobs and dirty diapers. Why it's time to reimagine masculinity at work and at home.

John Boehner, the 10-term Republican congressman from Ohio and current House minority leader, seems like a pleasant enough fellow. He enjoys a good round of golf. His voice is smooth and sonorous. His resplendent ocher tan never fades, even in winter.

Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels is small, stiff, and unimposing, so why is he attracting legions of fans? Hint: it's not the motorcycle.

If Republicans were in charge from January 2009 onward—and if they were now given carte blanche to enact the proposals they say they want to—the projected 2010–2020 deficits would be larger than under Obama, and fewer people would probably be employed.

Remember how 2010 was supposed to be the year that the righteous anger of millions of ordinary Americans swept the usual suspects out of Washington in an anti-establishment tsunami of unprecedented size and scope? Never mind.

Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow. But someday soon, political and fiscal forces will conspire to make tax hikes very hard for Republicans to resist.

While Palin and Co. are using the Ground Zero mosque controversy to burnish their far-right bona fides, Romney is seizing on the kerfuffle as an opportunity to do something else entirely: prove that he's the only grown-up Republican in the 2012 race.

Despite all the hype, Tuesday's election results show that the Glenn Beck brigade is a long way from taking back the country.

At times, New Jersey can seem like the least romantic of states. OK, make that all of the time. So the idea of tastemakers and trendsetters taking their cues from the Garden State has always seemed ridiculous. Especially in the most Jersey-phobic place on the planet: New York City.

Some Republicans want to impose a Reaganite purity test on this fall's candidates. Today, though, the 40th president himself wouldn't pass it.

The troubled war in Afghanistan is a growing political problem for President Barack Obama. According to a new NEWSWEEK Poll, the lasting impact of his decision to fire Gen. Stanley McChrystal—a move most Americans support—has been to raise doubts about the war and undermine confidence in the commander in chief.

Chris Christie is on a crusade in New Jersey to cut spending, balance the budget, and find a conservative solution to the state's current fiscal crisis—and he's making a lot of enemies along the way. Is this the future of the GOP?

While my colleagues get the details about marriage right, they miss the big picture. Or at least my big picture. For them, the irrationality of marriage is the reason why modern men and women shouldn't get hitched. For me, it's the reason they should.

As mandated by the laws of punditry, the day after a big election is usually spent trying to reduce the previous evening's results into one easily digestible narrative. But last night's results from California—and from the rest of the country—defy easy categorization. Maybe that's for the best.

Everyone says that the Democratic Party is going to lose scores of congressional seats in November's midterm elections—even the Democrats themselves. But behind the scenes, the party is doing everything it can to ensure that its losses aren't nearly as bad as the pundits expect. Will the plan work?

Tuesday's contests in Alabama, Mississippi, and New Mexico have given the pundits yet another opportunity to prattle on about "anti-establishment" fever. But here's what the results really tell us about the 2010 midterms.

Watergate. Contragate. Monicagate. Troopergate. And now ... Sestakgate? For the past few days, Republicans have been buzzing about Joe Sestak's claim—now a few months old—that the Obama administration offered him a job in D.C. in exchange for dropping out of the Democratic Senate primary in Pennsylvania and (theoretically) letting establishment pick Arlen Specter cruise unopposed to victory. (Of course, Sestak refused, which is why he's now the nominee.) Obama Press Secretary Robert Gibbs...

You'd think, amid all the hubbub, that Paul could count on the support at least one set of allies: his fellow libertarians. But even they are turning against the Kentuckian. What did he do wrong now?

Last night, almost no one in Idaho was happier than the supporters of a state representative named Raul Labrador. That's because Labrador managed to come from behind to defeat Vaughn Ward 48 percent to 39 percent in the First District's Republican House primary, even though Ward, a former Nevada state director for John McCain '08, had outraised Labrador nine-to-one ($1.5 million to $173,000) as a top-tier member of the GOP's "Young Guns" program—and had received Sarah Palin's coveted...

Earlier today, I gently mocked Barney Frank's proposal to televise the FinReg conference committee meetings. My argument: given that the real negotiations will still take place behind closed doors, TV cameras will probably do more to boost partisanship than transparency: Democrats will seize on the TV time to declare that any Republican who refuses to vote for the bill—which is what all of the as-yet-unnamed conferees are expected to do—is an enemy of Main Street.

This morning, Politico reported that Democrats are now seeking to finish FinReg by resurrecting "the House-Senate conference committee"--and that House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank, "even wants C-SPAN there to capture their decision making and expose members who vote with Wall Street."

And so it ends, not with a bang but a whimper. Yesterday, Honolulu City Councilman Charles Djou, a Republican, won the special election in Hawaii's First Congressional District to replace Rep.

Rand Paul is a purist. If his qualifications for that title were ever in doubt, they're not anymore. Less than 36 hours after Kentucky Republicans chose Paul as their 2010 U.S. Senate nominee, the Bowling Green ophthalmologist has now plunged head first into a scalding vat of political hot water by declaring that the 1964 Civil Rights Act should not have prohibited private business owners from discriminating against potential customers because of the color of their skin.

In the days leading up to Tuesday's electoral extravaganza--which featured heated Senate primaries in Kentucky, Arkansas, and Pennsylvania, plus a bellwether special election in the Keystone State's 12th District--the national political press struggled to find a fitting name for the event. "Turbulent Tuesday" was Politico's pick. "Incumbent Armageddon" was The Fix's.  For awhile, I stayed out of the debate.

What do Kagan's articles from 'The Daily Princetonian' tell us about the potential Supreme Court justice?

Prepare yourself. Political types are billing tomorrow as a Super Duper Tuesday of sorts—"a date that ranks as the most important of the election calendar so far," according to Politico's Charles Mahtesian.