Visitors to the Basilica of the National Shrine in northeast Washington often do a double take when they see Newt Gingrich and his familiar shock of white hair slip into a pew for the noon Mass on Sundays. The former Speaker of the House is known for many things, but religious zeal is not one of them. In fact, the social conservatives who fueled his Republican revolution in 1994 often complained about Gingrich's lack of interest in issues like ...

While his Republican party has been flailing and losing and dwindling to its base, Florida Governor Charlie Crist has remained extremely popular by governing from the middle. He's stocked his administration with Democrats, appointed a fairly liberal African-American Democrat to the state Supreme Court, expanded voting rights for felons, crusaded against global warming, and enthusiastically supported President Obama's stimulus package. Crist's crossover appeal — along with his powerhouse skills as a fundraiser and campaigner — has made him a ...

President Obama complained Tuesday about opposition scare tactics against a proposed health care overhaul but said that failing to fix problems in the current system would be the scariest outcome of all. Obama addressed a supportive town hall meeting that contrasted with combative events held by Democratic Congress members, which have generated heated and sometimes disruptive responses. Also Tuesday, hostile crowds shouted questions and made angry statements against proposed health-care legislation at meetings in Pennsylvania and Missouri led by ...

A hostile crowd shouted questions and made angry statements Tuesday at a town hall meeting on health care in Pennsylvania led by Democratic Sen. Arlen Specter. The meeting drew an overflow of about 250 people, with more gathered outside the hall to demonstrate for and against President Obama's push to expand health insurance for 46 million people without coverage while bringing down costs. It was the latest in a series of emotional public meetings on the health care issue that ...

A national poll released Monday indicates the Democratic Party is becoming less popular with voters but suggests that Republicans haven't been able to capitalize on the Democrats' downturn. Fifty-two percent of people questioned in the CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey said they have a favorable opinion of the Democratic Party, down 6 percentage points from February. Forty-one percent said they have a positive view of the Republican Party, up 2 percentage points from February. "Most Americans still have ...

Democrats are accusing Republicans of organizing "angry mobs" to disrupt town hall meetings across the country, but conservatives say the protests are a sign of the opposition to President Obama's health care plans. The Democratic National Committee released a Web video Wednesday charging that Republican operatives "have no plan for moving our country forward, so they've called out the mob." The video shows footage of angry constituents and protesters at recent events and then flashes pictures of Senate Minority Leader ...

To be a young person and a conservative is such a rare combination these days it approaches an act of defiance. Voters in their teens and 20s backed President Obama by a 2-to-1 ratio over John McCain last year, amid a flood of support from musicians, movie stars and other youth icons. Late-night TV hosts lampoon Sarah Palin and Dick Cheney as punchlines while MTV throws support to left-leaning causes such as gay marriage. But hundreds of young people ...

"Read my lips: No new taxes." That famous phrase from George H.W. Bush came as he accepted his party's presidential nomination at the Republican National Committee convention in 1988. At the time, it was exactly the red meat Republicans were looking for. But campaigning and governing are two very different things. Bush was elected as the nation was slipping into a recession. When confronted with a growing national deficit, he had to find a source of revenue. That ...

Republican politicians and human-rights activists rarely agree on how to treat terrorist suspects, but they are unwitting allies in opposition to the Obama Administration's latest proposal: the creation of a special facility in the continental U.S. where Gitmo inmates could be detained, tried and imprisoned. President Obama's interagency task force on detention policy is considering such a plan, and the most likely locations are the military prison in Fort Leavenworth, Kans., and a soon-to-close maximum-security prison in Standish, ...

About 40 minutes into Chris Christie's talk July 27 at the Bethel United Methodist Church in Pennsauken, N.J., he got the question. The Republican candidate for governor is a former U.S. Attorney who made his name prosecuting corrupt Garden State politicians — 140 of them in seven years. So it's not surprising that Christie can hardly go an hour these days without someone asking him about last week's dramatic arrests of 44 people — including three mayors, two state ...