Gop

The Republican presidential primary campaign so far hasn't produced a nominee, but it has had one clear outcome -- worsening the GOP's image among the young, the better-educated and the non-white. That finding, from the Pew Research Center survey released Wednesday, could be a serious handicap for the party in elections this fall and in years to come, said Pew's director, Andrew Kohut. "The Republicans really are the party of white people, and especially older white people," Kohut told reporters as the poll was released.

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. - President Obama pushed back against the idea of U.S. influence being in decline - and against Republican criticism of his stewardship - telling the Air Force Academy's graduating class that around the world "there's a new confidence in our leadership. " Republican critiques hold otherwise, suggesting that Obama has "led from behind" in international efforts, cut the military and responded weakly to the rise of contending powers. But as he set off Wednesday on a two-day western tour, Obama used the commencement address to make a forceful argument for a policy that downplays unilateral American action in favor of partnerships with other countries, one that maintains "military superiority" even as it welcomes "the rise of peaceful, responsible emerging powers.

After listening to the nasty attacks of Gingrich, Dole, Wilson, Gramm et al., I finally figured out what GOP stands for: the Grouchy Old Party. JIM MALLON San Luis Obispo

Deborah Pauly, the outspoken Villa Park councilwoman who drew community ire when she protested outside an Islamic charity event, was removed this week from a leadership position with the Orange County Republican Party's central committee. Party officials said Pauly, who is running for county supervisor, has been a divisive figure. Her removal comes a month after Orange businessman Bob Walters mailed out letters supporting Pauly's candidacy on a "George Wallace for President" letterhead.

  Join the Politics Now team at 5 p.m. PDT for live coverage of tonight's presidential debate in New Hampshire.        

The "tea party" movement is rapidly becoming just another faction of the national Republican Party. Originally a grass-roots expression of anger at both parties, tea party groups eyed Democrats and Republicans with suspicion. And the parties were skeptical of the tea party too. But in recent months, the GOP's natural election-year appetite for voters, campaign volunteers and donors has caused the Republicans to take a more welcoming approach, and the tea partyers have responded.

WASHINGTON -- First there was the "tea party" protester. Now meet the Tea-publican. Conservative activists who once protested the political establishment are now flooding the lowest level of the Republican Party apparatus hoping to take over the party they once scorned -- one precinct at a time. Across the country, tea party groups that had focused on planning rallies are educating members on how to run for GOP precinct representative positions. The representatives help elect county party leaders, who write the platform and, in some places, determine endorsements.

In September 1960, several dozen young conservative intellectuals descended on National Review editor William F. Buckley Jr.'s estate in Sharon, Conn., to draft a manifesto. Terse but sweeping, it demanded victory over rather than coexistence with "international communism," and declared that when "government interferes with the work of the market economy, it tends to reduce the moral and physical strength of the nation." Known as the Sharon statement, it helped forge the modern conservative movement.

Donald Trump is declaring his independence. After years as a registered Republican, the outspoken real estate mogul has filed paperwork to become an unaffiliated voter in his home state of New York. Trump made the change official Thursday, a move prompted by his stated interest in mounting a third-party presidential run in 2012. "Mr. Trump has said for almost a year that if he is not satisfied with who the Republican candidate is, he may elect to run as an independent," spokesman Michael Cohen said Friday.

Republicans continued efforts to advance the Keystone XL oil pipeline, hoping to bypass President Obama's decision to shelve the project and drive a political wedge between Democrats on the issue. The GOP-led House's Energy and Commerce Committee approved legislation on Tuesday that would remove the project's approval from the administration's jurisdiction and require the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to decide whether to approve the project within 30 days. “We've got to move the Keystone XL pipeline forward, despite the president's effort to kill it - and this bill does just that,” said Rep. Lee Terry (R-Neb.)

Last year's tussle over increasing the federal debt limit showed Congress at its worst, paralyzed by dueling ideologies and incapable of striking a grand bargain. The eventual compromise by lawmakers and the White House raised the debt ceiling enough to last until the end of 2012 or early 2013, giving voters a chance to shuffle the deck in Washington before the next round of negotiations. House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio), however, has been calling on Congress to take up the issue before the election, saying Congress shouldn't wait He's got a point, but the debt ceiling bill is the wrong place for that debate.

After years in which California Republican lawmakers took their marching orders from out-of-state anti-tax groups, some GOP candidates are now refusing to sign no-tax pledges. It's a welcome development. The candidates should be applauded for their independence. The difference between today and two years ago is stark, as Times staff writers Michael J. Mishak and Anthony York reported Saturday. Back then, candidates seeking the Republican nomination for the Assembly and state Senate weren't serious contenders unless they signed the so-called taxpayer protection pledge, which was enforced by Grover Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform.

It's come to this: Joe Biden compared Mitt Romney to a horse. The vice president, campaigning in New Hampshire on Tuesday, argued that Romney has it wrong when he tells voters that things "have gotten much worse" and that Obama administration policies are to blame. Biden was armed with a chart that showed monthly job losses that grew in the final months of the George W. Bush administration began to diminish after President Obama took office, and eventually turned into job growth.

It is a ritual of the vice presidential audition: A contender for the role of running mate tries to profess just enough interest, but not too much. On Tuesday evening at the Reagan Presidential Library, it was Paul D. Ryan's turn to play coy when the Wisconsin congressman was asked whether he would say yes to Mitt Romney. "You know, that's somebody else's decision, months away, and that's a conversation I need to have with my wife before I have it all with you," Ryan told a crowd that filled an auditorium at the hilltop library in Simi Valley.

WASHINGTON -- The chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission who was championed by watchdogs for his cautious approach to nuclear power but criticized by Republicans in Congress for an overly hard-charging style has announced he will step down. Gregory Jaczko, who led the commission's efforts to protect Americans in Japan during the nuclear crisis at Fukushima and played a key role in fighting the nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain as a former top aide to Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.)

Handsome, youthful, Cuban American and Republican, U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida has been mentioned repeatedly as a potential running mate for Mitt Romney - in part because of hopes that the presence of the first Latino on a major national ticket would draw that key voting group Romney's way. But outside of his enormously important home state, the prospect for that sort of boost seems less than likely. Some voters would probably be attracted by the idea of a Latino, any Latino, being that close to the White House.

Mitt Romney seems to be riding into Super Tuesday with the "Big Mo," though a new national poll shows the extent to which the bruising nomination battle has hurt the GOP. The former Massachusetts governor had as good a weekend as one could have, especially on the eve of voting in 10 states that control more than 400 convention delegates. Romney was the winner of caucuses in Washington, and scored endorsements from the second-ranking Republican in the House, Eric Cantor, and a leading budget hawk in the Senate, Tom Coburn of Oklahoma.

Another day, another poll that shows that public antagonism toward Congress is at record levels. But as the 2012 election draws closer, the latest numbers suggest that incumbents, particularly Republicans, could pay a high price next year. According to a survey released Thursday by the Pew Research Center for People & the Press, two in three voters say most members of Congress should be voted out of office in 2012. The House flipped to Democratic control in 2006 and then back to the Republicans last year as the public has continually registered its disapproval regardless of which party has been in charge.

SACRAMENTO - For years, running for office as a Republican in California boiled down to one core pledge, bound by a candidate's signature and enforced with a vengeance: no new taxes. Not anymore. The state's new political landscape, scrambled by freshly drawn voting districts and new election rules, has given rise to a handful of GOP hopefuls proudly bucking the anti-tax orthodoxy. Their candidacies have the potential to end years of partisan gridlock here. It would have been unimaginable in the last election, just two years ago: At least five viable Republican contenders for the Assembly are refusing to sign the no-tax pledge that helped ensure protracted budget negotiations and gimmick-laden spending plans as California limped from one fiscal crisis to another.

YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio - Vice President Joe Biden and unofficial Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney skirmished over the economy and their ability to improve it in swing-state appearances Wednesday that underscored each side's positioning on the key issue in November's general election. Biden and other Democrats are seeking to disqualify Romney in the minds of voters as an alternative to President Obama. Polls consistently have found that voters give Romney better marks for his potential handling of the economy than they give Obama for dealing with it. Romney and other Republicans have long criticized the president's moves on the economy.