We got mixed signals from a turbulent political week. Barack Obama seems to be enjoying an uptick in polls, moving toward 50 percent approval. But his weakness was apparent in his State of the Union address: issues. 

It's highly unusual in a presidential debate for two Republican candidates -- the two leading in current national polls -- to heap praise on a liberal Democratic senator. But in the Fox News debate in Sioux City Thursday night both Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney had very good words to say for Oregon's Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden.

We have been studying Washington politics and Congress for more than 40 years, and never have we seen them this dysfunctional. In our past writings, we have criticized both parties when we believed it was warranted. Today, however, we have no choice but to acknowledge that the core of the problem lies with the Republican Party.

The U.S. health system is recognized as the world's leader in clinical innovation, yet millions of Americans do not have health insurance, reducing their access to those life-enhancing and life-saving treatments. AEI has invited twenty academic experts from around the country as well as members of the...

The Romney campaign is applying the same strategy to the new GOP front-runner, Newt Gingrich. Will it work? Here's why it may not.

The Republican presidential candidates, except for Ron Paul, haven’t been paying much attention to young voters in the primaries and caucuses so far. But any Republican nominee — which is to say, probably Mitt Romney, or maybe Newt Gingrich or Rick Santorum — had better be paying attention to them in the summer and fall.

This was a debate full of surprises, at least for me. The first: CNN’s John King showed some forebearance in not leading off with a question to Rick Santorum on his statements on contraception and other cultural issues.

In his new book, To Save America (Regnery Publishing, 2010), former Speaker of the House and AEI senior fellow, Newt Gingrich argues that the United States is not at a crossroad--rather, it is on the edge of a dangerous precipice.