All posts by: Dinah Winnick

“This is the moment [Obama] and his presidency promised to deliver,” writes UMBC political science professor Thomas Schaller in Salon, of the fight over the payroll tax cut extension. “This is,” he suggests, “a moment  for the president to demonstrate the resolve that earned his hopeful believers’ support three years ago, and it comes as he begins asking the electorate for another four-year lease on the Oval Office.”

Beyond supporting the payroll tax cut extension, Schaller argues, “the president should go a step further and call out the GOP’s Tea Party wing,” which blocked the passage of a two-month extension earlier this week. “He can’t let their stalling tactics break him,” Schaller writes, “Because this is not just the fight of his presidency — it could very well be the fight for his presidency.” Read the full column at Salon.com.

“With the Iowa caucuses less than three weeks away, the narrowed Republican presidential contest between Romney, Newt Gingrich, and the surging Ron Paul remains a muddle,” writes UMBC political science professor Thomas Schaller in Salon.com. This landscape has led Romney to focus on a new strategy to win the GOP presidential nomination: surviving a tough fight in January to win more favorable states in February.

Schaller argues that the crucial step for Romney is to attack Gingrich “using a negative television and radio blitz on the issue of Medicare to win Florida’s pivotal seniors.” He suggests, “If Romney can pair his younger support four years ago with a better performance among Florida seniors this year, he can win Florida on January 31.” Such a win might carry him through to February’s primaries in Colorado, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota and Nevada, where he was successful in 2008.

UMBC political science professor Thomas Schaller offered insight on the upcoming GOP primary election in two publications today. In the Colorlines article, “Why (Very White) Iowa and New Hampshire Mean So Much in Politics,” Schaller commented, “The prominence and first-in-nation position of Iowa and New Hampshire do elevate white primary voters over non-white ones, and in both parties.” However, the electoral process is beginning to change to better account for our nation’s diversity. According to Schaller, “Both parties, and especially the Democrats—who receive the lion’s share of the black and Latino vote in general election—have tried to address this inequality by moving Nevada and South Carolina up earlier into the calendar.”
Schaller also commented in a Baltimore Sun article that suggested for Maryland to have an impact on the primary, “Gingrich and Romney would have to come to a draw in several early battles.” For Schaller, “The real question is do they make it to March or do we have a clear winner by the end of February.”

In his latest Baltimore Sun commentary, “Newt Gingrich Is the GOP’s Only Serious Candidate,” UMBC political science professor Thomas Schaller argues that despite claims of his unelectability, Gingrich stands out as unique in the GOP presidential field. Schaller calls Gingrich “the Republicans’ one-man walking, talking think tank” and argues, “he will be able to conduct a serious debate about America’s future because he’s the only GOP contender who has spent the past three decades actually pondering the problems, large and small, facing the country.” Read the column to learn more about Schaller’s 2010 interview with Gingrich and their conversation on Gingrich’s book “To Save America.”