This year also marks the first time that three different Republican candidates have won the first trio of contests — still further evidence of how unsettled and dissatisfied the party’s voters are in a year when they are anxious to unseat a vulnerable incumbent president.

Newt Gingrich wins South Carolina primary

White House Chief of Staff Bill Daley resigns

Michele Bachmann drops her bid for the White House

Mitt Romney wins Iowa Caucus

Rick Santorum finishes a very close second

Holder Signals Tough Review of New State Laws on Voting

Re: Occupy Wall Street

Protests that originated in New York City, and have spread around the world, against corporate greed, social inequality and related issues.

Protesters refer to themselves as the 99% protesting against the 1 %.

Even though the candidates have spent months — or in the cases of Mr. Romney and Mr. Gingrich, years — introducing themselves, there is a palpable lack of passion for their candidacies. It is an intense yearning to defeat Mr. Obama that creates the enthusiasm, rather than the notion of one of the candidates serving in the Oval Office.

Obama to Vie for Arizona as Latino Numbers Rise

The number of people who disagree with the Tea Party has also risen among the general public, according to the most recent of the polls in the Pew analysis, taken this month. Among the public, 27 percent said they disagreed with the Tea Party and 20 percent said they agreed — a reversal from a year ago, when 27 percent agreed and 22 percent disagreed. -11/29/2011

President Obama, who campaigned on repealing the breaks for the wealthy, angered his base last year when he agreed to extend all the tax cuts beyond their original expiration, at the end of 2010. This time, the president has vowed to veto any effort to extend the tax breaks on upper-income Americans.

Now, some political analysts argue that Obama, even with his reelection behind him, would be unwilling to risk the political damage to his party of allowing taxes on the middle class to rise.

The key question as the debate moves into next year is whether Obama would be willing to veto the entire range of Bush cuts, including those for middle-income Americans, in order to raise taxes on the wealthy. Republican aides say party lawmakers will oppose any efforts to separate the tax cuts.

On supercommittee, growing doubts about reaching a debt deal

-11/14/2011. Thanksgiving Deadline