Obama has ignored the fact that in our system neither party ever has all the advantages.

Political dysfunction. Partisanship at record levels. Attack politics run amok. And public approval of Congress scraping the single digits (Sen. John McCain is fond of saying it's down to blood rlatives and paid staff).

While markets are again correctly obsessing over Italy and Spain’s poor economic growth prospects, as reflected in markedly higher government bond yields for those two countries, they seem to have taken their eye off two upcoming political events that could usher in a new and more serious phase of the...

The scene came to mind Wednesday when I saw an instantly infamous clip of Eric Fehrnstrom, Mitt Romney’s communications director, comparing his candidate to a children’s toy.

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 fascinating departure from the usual pabulum from centrists who insist that they are neither right nor left is nothing less than a desperate abandonment of Obama and the Democratic party in order to preserve the credibility of the ideas driving Obama and the Democratic party.

An independent or third-party candidate, whether an ideological one such as George Wallace or a non-ideologue such as John Anderson or Ross Perot, would fall short. But consider three ways a third candidate can affect the outcome of a presidential contest.

Barack Obama is obviously scrambling in his attempt to win re-election. He has proclaimed himself the underdog and has given up his pretense of being a pragmatic centrist compromiser in favor of harsh class warfare rhetoric. But it's worth taking note of what he has squandered.