THE LIFE OF THE PARTYBY PEGGY NOONANWALL STREET JOURNALThe White House and the campaign have not been able to make a case for their guy. They're just trying to make a case against the other guy. But Mr. Clinton might actually be able to make the case, and he just may do it by making a case for the Democratic Party. No one has talked about the Democratic Party in a long time. Democrats don't talk about it because they feel they're on the run, and have brand problems. The president doesn't talk about it either, which is remarkable. You'd think he'd want to rally the troops. But he doesn't seem to love his party all that much. Mr. Clinton does, though, and that ol' man, with his white hair and reading glasses, can bring you back. He can ring. He can walk you back to FDR and JFK and Bobby, he can remind you why the party exists, what it's done, what it has always meant to do.THE ROMNEY DEMOCRATSEDITORIALWALL STREET JOURNALNo fewer than 19 Democrats broke with Nancy Pelosi and voted with Republicans to extend the current rates on all taxpayers for another year. ... By the way, the 19 don't generally represent affluent districts. Democrats from wealthy areas like Manhattan, Marin County or Greenwich are all for soaking the rich. Most of the Romney 19 are from middle-class suburbs or rural areas. ... None of this is likely to deter President Obama from his class-warfare rounds, since he's staked his re-election on it. But the large defection ought to reassure Republicans, and Mitt Romney, that their tax argument stressing growth and reform has political appeal, in addition to its policy merits.
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ROMNEY’S EXCELLENT TRIPBY CHARLES KRAUTHAMMERWASHINGTON POSTLook at how Romney was received. In Israel, its popular prime minister lavished on him a welcome so warm as to be a near-endorsement. In Poland, Romney received an actual endorsement from Lech Walesa, former dissident, former president, Cold War giant, Polish hero. Two staunch U.S. allies salute a man they would like to see lead the free world. Yet the headlines were “shove it” and “culture.” Scorecard? Romney’s trip was a major substantive success: one gaffe (Britain), two triumphs (Israel and Poland) and a fine demonstration of foreign-policy fluency and command — wrapped, however, in a media narrative of surpassing triviality. ROMNEY'S TAX HIKEBY DAVID FIRESTONENEW YORK TIMESThe Romney campaign’s increasingly desperate attempts to dismiss a new study of its tax plan are a pretty good sign that the study is devastating. ... It’s been well known for a while that Mr. Romney’s tax plan was a mathematical impossibility. He promised to reduce marginal tax rates by 20 percent, eliminate the estate tax and the alternative minimum tax, and end the capital gains tax for middle-income taxpayers – all while not lowering the amount of revenue coming into the treasury. Mr. Romney said he would offset those losses by ending a series of loopholes, but has yet to cite a single loophole he would delete. ... Mr. Romney managed to skate through the primaries with an empty grab-bag of tax giveaways, and may have thought that anti-Obama anger would let him get away with it in the general election, too. A definitive study like this one makes it clear his hollowness will have a heavy price.