It was unbelievable: As soon as Newt Gingrich failed to win both Alabama and Mississippi in the GOP race for president, most members of the mainstream media and political strategists with whom I talked readily admitted, off the record, that he was the most qualified among the Republican candidates to serve as president.

WASHINGTON -- August is upon us, beaches beckon, and Michele Bachmann has set the self-improvement bar high.

WASHINGTON -- The Republican presidential candidates, their sinews stiffened and their blood summoned up, may rightly dread Wednesday's version of what are inexplicably called debates.

Make no mistake about it. Both Herman Cain and Newt Gingrich know exactly what they are doing.

WASHINGTON -- The operative maxim in cable television can be summed up as follows: Is it good teevee?

WASHINGTON -- Another debate, another installment of "The Dating Game." Will the eventual winner be contestant Number One, Two ... Eight?

Washington -- A debt crisis is a terrible thing to waste in a presidential election season, and Democrats and Republicans alike are responding on cue.

WASHINGTON -- Rick Perry's rapid lead over previous Republican front-runner Mitt Romney was predictable.

"Leading from behind." That's what an unnamed White House aide told the New Yorker's Ryan Lizza that Barack Obama was doing on Libya.

Never before has there been a televised presidential candidates debate so short a time before the Iowa Republicans' Ames straw poll.

Barack Obama did not watch the Republican presidential candidates' debate in Manchester, N.H., on Monday night, we are told. He was busy addressing a campaign fundraising event in Miami.

The race for the Republican presidential nomination finally seems to be gelling.