Past Articles by Mara Liasson
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Obama Moves Aggressively Into Damage Control Mode President Obama is in the middle of a series of scandals. But are they serious enough to undermine his second term? Veterans of past Washington scandals assess the potential for political peril, and what the president can do about it. |
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Obama Moves Aggressively Into Damage Control Mode President Obama is in the middle of a series of scandals. But are they serious enough to undermine his second term? Veterans of past Washington scandals assess the potential for political peril, and what the president can do about it. |
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With Texas Trip, Obama Tries To Steer Focus Back To Economy It has been a difficult spring for the president. He couldn't get Congress to work with him on the sequester or gun control legislation. Now he appears to be making an effort to get back to the issues Americans say they care most about. |
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With Texas Trip, Obama Tries To Steer Focus Back To Economy It has been a difficult spring for the president. He couldn't get Congress to work with him on the sequester or gun control legislation. Now he appears to be making an effort to get back to the issues Americans say they care most about. |
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With Texas Trip, Obama Tries To Steer Focus Back To Economy It has been a difficult spring for the president. He couldn't get Congress to work with him on the sequester or gun control legislation. Now he appears to be making an effort to get back to the issues Americans say they care most about. |
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Political Battle Over Health Law Starts Next Chapter In the three years since the Affordable Care Act became law, public opinion has remained deeply divided with as many Americans opposing the law as supporting it. When Americans begin signing up for health insurance under the act, opinion may finally begin to shake loose. Some people without access to insurance gain it and others encounter new bureaucracies. |
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Political Battle Over Health Law Starts Next Chapter In the three years since the Affordable Care Act became law, public opinion has remained deeply divided with as many Americans opposing the law as supporting it. When Americans begin signing up for health insurance under the act, opinion may finally begin to shake loose. Some people without access to insurance gain it and others encounter new bureaucracies. |
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Political Battle Over Health Law Starts Next Chapter In the three years since the Affordable Care Act became law, public opinion has remained deeply divided with as many Americans opposing the law as supporting it. When Americans begin signing up for health insurance under the act, opinion may finally begin to shake loose. Some people without access to insurance gain it and others encounter new bureaucracies. |
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Political Battle Over Health Law Starts Next Chapter In the three years since the Affordable Care Act became law, public opinion has remained deeply divided with as many Americans opposing the law as supporting it. When Americans begin signing up for health insurance under the act, opinion may finally begin to shake loose. Some people without access to insurance gain it and others encounter new bureaucracies. |
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White House Undecided On Action For Syria Crossing 'Red Line' President Obama has said repeatedly that the use of chemical weapons by the Syrian government against its own people was a red line, and crossing it would bring U.S. action. On Thursday, the administration said that the intelligence community "does assess with vary degrees of confidence" that the regime has used such weapons "on a small scale." Yet the administration also contends that these findings fall short of the red line. |
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What's Next In The Gun Control Debate? Gun-control groups are regrouping after a bill to tighten background checks for gun sales failed to overcome a filibuster last week in the Senate. The failure was not only a stinging defeat for President Obama, it was also a setback for the new players in the debate. |
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Immigration Proves A 'Rubik's Cube' For Many Republicans They don't want to offend Hispanic voters, but they don't want to turn off the GOP base either, says Ron Bonjean, a former Republican leadership aide. And competing for Hispanic votes is not a top priority for the sizable number of Republican rank and file who still see the bill as amnesty. |
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Immigration Proves A 'Rubik's Cube' For Many Republicans They don't want to offend Hispanic voters, but they don't want to turn off the GOP base either, says Ron Bonjean, a former Republican leadership aide. And competing for Hispanic votes is not a top priority for the sizable number of Republican rank and file who still see the bill as amnesty. |
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Sen. Rand Paul Tries To Repair GOP's Image With Minorities Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky gave a speech Wednesday at Howard University in Washington, D.C. He began by posing this question to the audience at the historically black school: How did the party that elected the first black U.S. senator, the party that elected the first 20 African-American Congressmen become a party that now loses 95 percent of the black vote? |
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Obama's Late Budget Submission A Strategic Move President Obama submits his budget on Wednesday and he's more than two months late. But there's a political strategy behind his tardiness — he waited until after both House Republicans and Senate Democrats passed their budget plans. |
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Is Caroline Kennedy Qualified To Be Ambassador To Japan? President Obama is expected to name Caroline Kennedy, daughter of former President John Kennedy, ambassador to Japan. The job that has been critical to U.S. trade and business interests with the world's third largest economy. |
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Is Caroline Kennedy Qualified To Be U.S. Ambassador To Japan? President Obama is expected to name Caroline Kennedy, daughter of former President John F. Kennedy, ambassador to Japan. The job has been critical to U.S. trade and business interests with the world's third largest economy. But Kennedy has no prior experience in government or business. |
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Is Caroline Kennedy Qualified To Be U.S. Ambassador To Japan? President Obama is expected to name Caroline Kennedy, daughter of former President John F. Kennedy, ambassador to Japan. The job has been critical to U.S. trade and business interests with the world's third largest economy. But Kennedy has no prior experience in government or business. |
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Brain Mapping Project Could Help Find Cures For Alzheimer's, Epilepsy President Obama has announced a new initiative on brain mapping alongside neuroscientists and others. |
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GOP Encouraged To Shift Positions On Immigration, Gay Marriage National attitudes and electoral demographics are changing so fast on issues like gay marriage and immigration that the GOP is struggling to keep up without alienating its social conservative base. |
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GOP Encouraged To Shift Immigration, Gay Marriage Positions National attitudes and electoral demographics are changing so fast on issues like gay marriage and immigration that the GOP is struggling to keep up without alienating its social conservative base. |
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RNC Report Calls For Community Outreach, Revamped Primary Rules The Republican Party has issued a blistering assessment of why it lost the 2012 election. |
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RNC Election Report Calls For Minority Outreach, Primary Changes The Republican Party has issued a blistering assessment of why it lost the 2012 election. Focused groups described the party as narrow minded and out of touch. The report recommended many changes to become competitive again. |
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RNC Report A Postmortem On Failed 2012 Election After failing to take the presidency or U.S. Senate in 2012 and losing House seats, Republicans launched the "Growth and Opportunity Project" to understand what went wrong. Party Chairman Reince Priebus and others toured the country and released a report with recommendations on Monday. |
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For GOP Hopefuls, CPAC Is The Place To Be This Week The Conservative Political Action Conference is drawing a huge crowd of politicians, activists and Republican presidential hopefuls, all looking to break the Republican Party's recent string of presidential election losses. It kicked off Thursday with speeches by two young senators interested in the White House — Marco Rubio of Florida and Rand Paul of Kentucky. |
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It's Still Early, But GOP Hopefuls Test The Waters For 2016 From Chris Christie to Jeb Bush, a slew of potential candidates for president have been getting attention. Most of them are speaking this week at the Conservative Political Action Conference, but a few pointedly were not asked. |
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It's Still Early, But GOP Hopefuls Test The Waters For 2016 From Chris Christie to Jeb Bush, a slew of potential candidates for president have been getting attention. Most of them are speaking this week at the Conservative Political Action Conference, but a few pointedly were not asked. |
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Republicans Face Off Over Strategy For Picking Candidates The big donors behind Karl Rove's Crossroads superPAC have started a new project to vet and recruit Republican candidates they believe can win. But some anti-establishment groups have viewed the project as an inside-the-Beltway power grab. |
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Republicans Face Off Over Strategy For Picking Candidates The big donors behind Karl Rove's Crossroads superPAC have started a new project to vet and recruit Republican candidates they believe can win. But some anti-establishment groups have viewed the project as an inside-the-Beltway power grab. |
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Jeb Bush May Have Changed His Mind On Immigration With 2016 Bid In Sight When former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush got to work on his new book on immigration, he was expected to be out in front of his party urging a broader conversation with Hispanics and more open legislation. After all, he had previously supported a pathway to citizenship for immigrants here illegally. Instead, it's fellow Florida Republican Marco Rubio in the lead, and Bush who's explaining an apparent reversal on the issue of citizenship. Both are likely candidates for president in 2016. |
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Obama's Second Term Cabinet Nears Completion With New Nominations President Obama named a new Department of Energy secretary, a new budget director and a new head for the Environmental Protection Agency on Monday. All three will require confirmation by the Senate. |
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One Strategy For A GOP Overhaul? Follow The Democrats' Example Following November's losses, there's wide agreement among Republicans that the party has to change. A former George W. Bush speechwriter says one model to study is how the Democrats bounced back after a similar political exile in the late 1980s. |
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One Strategy For A GOP Overhaul? Follow The Democrats' Example Following November's losses, there's wide agreement among Republicans that the party has to change. A former George W. Bush speechwriter says one model to study is how the Democrats bounced back after a similar political exile in the late 1980s. |
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Obama Tries To Build Public Pressure On Congress Over Looming Budget Cuts President Obama went to Newport News, Va., on Tuesday to highlight the effect automatic budget cuts will have on the military and its civilian workforce if sequestration takes effect on Friday. |
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Automatic Budget Cuts Near As Democrats, GOP Stand Firm It looks like the across the board spending cuts that were never supposed to happen are going to — at least for a while. It's another sign of Washington's dysfunction. |
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Automatic Budget Cuts Near As Democrats, GOP Stand Firm It looks like the across the board spending cuts that were never supposed to happen are going to — at least for a while. It's another sign of Washington's dysfunction. |
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Automatic Budget Cuts Near As Democrats, GOP Stand Firm It looks like the across the board spending cuts that were never supposed to happen are going to — at least for a while. It's another sign of Washington's dysfunction. |
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Automatic Budget Cuts Near As Democrats, GOP Stand Firm It looks like the across the board spending cuts that were never supposed to happen are going to — at least for a while. It's another sign of Washington's dysfunction. |
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Automatic Budget Cuts Near As Democrats, GOP Stand Firm It looks like the across the board spending cuts that were never supposed to happen are going to — at least for a while. It's another sign of Washington's dysfunction. |
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Automatic Budget Cuts Near As Democrats, GOP Stand Firm It looks like the across the board spending cuts that were never supposed to happen are going to — at least for a while. It's another sign of Washington's dysfunction. |
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Obama Speech To Set Second Term's Tone President Obama's State of the Union address Tuesday night will pick up where his inaugural speech left off. He's expected to bring up the issues of the economy, overhauling immigration, gun control and the budget. |
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Public Pressure, Background Checks Central To Obama Gun Control Strategy Gun control historically has been one of the most divisive issues in Congress, between the parties and even inside the Democratic coalition. Yet some in President Obama's own party say he has put together a gun agenda that is sweeping without being too painful for most Democrats to support. |
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Public Pressure, Background Checks Central To Obama Gun Control Strategy Gun control historically has been one of the most divisive issues in Congress, between the parties and even inside the Democratic coalition. Yet some in President Obama's own party say he has put together a gun agenda that is sweeping without being too painful for most Democrats to support. |
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Hillary Clinton Leaving The Stage — At Least For Now — And On A High Note The secretary of state ends her tenure Friday as a respected national figure with sky-high approval ratings. "I don't see myself getting back into politics," she says. But that hasn't slowed speculation about a 2016 presidential bid. |
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Hillary Clinton Leaving The Stage — At Least For Now — And On A High Note Hillary Clinton ends her tenure as secretary of state Friday a respected national figure with sky high approval ratings. "I don't see myself getting back into politics," she says. But that hasn't slowed speculation about a 2016 presidential bid. |
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Hillary Clinton Leaving The Stage — At Least For Now — And On A High Note The secretary of state ends her tenure Friday as a respected national figure with sky-high approval ratings. "I don't see myself getting back into politics," she says. But that hasn't slowed speculation about a 2016 presidential bid. |
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Senators Unveil Plan To Fix Immigration System A bipartisan group of Senators on Monday presented a plan to overhaul the nation's immigration laws. Despite support in the Senate, there will be strong resistance to immigration overhaul from conservative Republicans in the House who operate under a different political calculus. |
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Obama's Second Inaugural Address Didn't Win Over Many Republicans Many Republicans were hoping for something akin to the president's 2004 convention speech where he talked about there being no red America or blue America but the United States of America. |
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Does Obama's Second-Term Agenda Need Beefing Up? President Obama is sworn in for a second term in office next week. He has an ambitious agenda for the next for years, but is it ambitious enough? |
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Obama Calls On Congress To Act To Reduce Gun Violence President Obama has signed into law 23 executive orders allowing federal agencies to strengthen the existing background check system and improve the tracking of stolen guns. But the big items like universal background checks and a ban on assault weapons and high capacity magazines will need congressional action. |
