Each week in the Friday Roundup, Riding the Tiger takes a look at the major news stories of the week involving the presidential election of 2012.

Electoral Horse Race. Chris Cillizza, writer of the Washington Post’s “The Fix,” spoke at the Miller Center’s forum today on how the Post will cover the election, and said that President Obama starts with an edge in the race for electoral votes. Larry Sabato also gave Obama an edge at the starting block with 247 electoral votes, while Romney starts with 206. During his appearance on “The View” on Monday, President Obama said he is “going to win” the election. But, according to Gallup, Romney is gaining favorability, with a rating this week of 50%, nearly matching Obama’s 52%. Meanwhile, a USA Today/Gallup poll examined the American public’s beliefs about who will win. According to the poll’s findings: 

Fifty-six percent of Americans think Barack Obama will win the 2012 presidential election, compared with 36 percent who think Mitt Romney will win. Democrats are more likely to believe that Obama will win than Republicans are to believe Romney will. Independents are nearly twice as likely to think that Obama, rather than Romney, will prevail.

Fifty-eight years ago today, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously issued its landmark decision in Brown v. Board of Education that "separate educational facilities" for black and white students were "inherently unequal" and therefore unconstitutional. The ruling overturned the May 18, 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson ruling that continued to uphold the legality of Jim Crow laws and other forms of racial discrimination. But has real progress been made? How might politicians consider racial inequality in debates over education reform this election season?

This Friday at 11am, the Miller Center Forum will feature the Washington Post’s Marcus Brauchli and Chris Cillizza on “The Long Battle Ahead: The 2012 Presidential Election and How The Washington Post Will Cover It.” You can watch live online at www.millercenter.org.

How should journalists cover the campaign, and how have they done so in past elections? For one perspective, we turn to Nicole Hemmer, postdoctoral fellow at the United States Studies Centre at the University of Sydney and former Miller Center National Fellow. 

Griping about the press is one of America’s oldest political traditions, a rite of passage for presidential candidates. This time around, however, journalists have matched candidates in their complaints about media coverage.

Mitt Romney easily won the primary contests in Nebraska and Oregon on Tuesday. In Nebraska, Romney won with 71 percent support. This vote was a beauty contest, as the state's delegates will be chosen at the state convention on July 14. In Oregon, Romney earned 73 percent.

Romney's victories occured in the wake of an announcement on Monday that Ron Paul would cease campaigining and spending money in the states with remaining primaries, effectively ending his bid for the Republican nomination.

President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney each delivered commencement addresses this week to core constituents of their respective party’s base. It is fair to say that both speeches were campaign speeches. Of course this wasn’t the first time in history that presidential candidates have delivered commencement addresses for campaign purposes or to justify policies. We dug into our archives here at the Miller Center to highlight a number of memorable commencement speeches from presidential history.
 

Each week in the Friday Roundup, Riding the Tiger takes a look at the major news stories of the week involving the presidential election of 2012.

News this week was dominated by President Obama’s affirmation that same-sex marriage should be legal. This week's roundup also highlights foreign policy in the elections, primaries, VEEPwatch, the  Wisconsin recall election and 2012 negative primary ads.

On Tuesday, Senator Richard Lugar, a six-term Senator from Indiana, lost the Republican primary to State Treasurer Richard Mourdock. Earlier this week, Chris Cilliza at The Fix, who will be speaking at a Miller Center forum on Friday, May 18, asserted that Senator Lugar could have taken steps to avert loss, but he was unable or unwilling to change his campaign tactics and rhetoric. Other analysts have also argued that Senator Lugar simply lost touch with his electoral base.  Senator Lugar used his concession speech, which Ezra Klein at the Washington Post called “searing,” to contribute to the discourse on partisan cleavages and what it means for governance.

Many scholars have noted that partisan rancor is not just a current phenomenon… 

Vice President Joe Biden, and his relationship with President Barack Obama, is attracting quite a bit of attention this week. In addition, we’re witnessing a rather remarkably public and early campaign for the selection of the Republican vice presidential candidate this election. Michael Nelson recently wrote on Riding the Tiger that the vice presidency has been an office of real prominence and influence for well over a generation. At the same time, the vice president must also take care to stay within the bounds of the office and play second fiddle to the president and the broader goals of his administration. As Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said this week, “Being a vice president is kind of like being a first lady. You are there to support and serve the president. There is no job description.”

In a series of posts, we will dig into our archives at the Miller Center to explore the contributions of previous vice presidents and see what they’re doing now. We begin with J. Danforth Quayle, who served as the 44^th Vice President of the United States in the administration of George H. W. Bush. 

Today’s post is from Eric M. Patashnik, professor of public policy and politics in the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy, and Jeffery Jenkins, associate professor of politics and GAGE faculty associate at the Miller Center. They are the coeditors of Living Legislation: Durability, Change and the Politics of American Lawmaking. This post originally appeared on The Monkey Cage.

The Supreme Court is expected to rule on the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act in June. If Intrade is right, there is about a 60 percent chance that the individual mandate will be found unconstitutional. But suppose the smart money is wrong and the mandate is upheld. Will the Affordable Care Act then be completely secure?

Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney won all three primary contests on May 8 -- in Indiana, North Carolina, and West Virginia -- in a race that has narrowed to two remaining contestants: Romney and Ron Paul. While there is no question that Romney will be the eventual Republican Party nominee, there are still eleven states that will hold primaries before June 26.

On Wednesday, the Miller Center welcomes Peter Bergen for a forum on his new book, Manhunt: The Ten-Year Search for Bin Laden--from 9/11 to Abbottabad. Today's post on Obama and national security comes from Stephen Knott, Professor of National Security Affairs at the U.S. Naval War College, and author of Rush to Judgment: George W. Bush, the War on Terror, and His Critics.

For the first time in decades the Democratic Party will nominate a presidential candidate whose reputation as a tough, formidable Commander-in-Chief seems secure. Throughout much of the Cold War, the Republican Party held an edge on the “toughness” issue, be it Goldwater vs. Johnson, or Nixon vs. McGovern, or Reagan vs. Carter and Mondale, or Bush vs. Dukakis. Not since 1960, when John F. Kennedy condemned the Eisenhower/Nixon administration for passively standing by while the Soviet Union surpassed the United States has the Democratic Party been so well positioned to outflank the GOP on an issue Republicans once owned.

Each week in the Friday Roundup, Riding the Tiger takes a look at the major news stories of the week involving the presidential election of 2012.

The one-year anniversary of the killing of Osama bin Laden and President Obama’s surprise visit to Afghanistan to sign the Strategic Partnership Agreement dominated headlines this week and drew attention to the role of foreign and national security policy in the election. Romney and Obama have started the attacks early and, folks, it ain’t pretty. 

On Sunday, April 29, the Miller Center partnered with ABC’s “This Week with George Stephanopoulos” on the second of six special episodes examining some of the key issues heading into the 2012 Election.  On Sunday, six distinguished panelists discussed and debated whether or not America’s economic recovery is “built to last.” Today’s guest post is from historian and former Miller Center Fellow Julia Ott offering her assessment of the arguments presented in the debate.  

On Sunday, George Stephanopoulos asked a panel of six distinguished commentators whether or not America’s economic recovery is built to last.  No one answered “no” outright, but pessimism pervaded.  

On Sunday, April 29, the Miller Center partnered with ABC’s “This Week with George Stephanopoulos” on the second of six special episodes examining some of the key issues heading into the 2012 Election.  On Sunday, six distinguished panelists discussed and debated whether or not America’s economic recovery is “built to last.” Today’s guest post is from historian Brian Domitrovic offering his assessment of the arguments presented in the debate.

Paul Krugman said some misleading things in this debate. “This is not especially worse than the recovery from the 2001 recession,” for example. And, “If you actually just look at the job gains, or lack thereof, they’re more or less on track.”

Today, we bid adieu to Newt Gingrich, who officially announced he will end his campaign for the Republican Party presidential nomination. His campaign produced many memorable moments (check out this ABC video of Gingrich’s greatest hits), not least of which was his grandiose promise that by the end of his second term, “we will have the first permanent base on the moon, and it will be American.” Alas, after 354 days on the campaign trail and more than $4 million in debt, Gingrich only won two states (South Carolina and Georgia) out of the 38 states that have held Republican primaries/caucuses thus far.