During one of the worst economic times in American history, one might think providing a challenger to oppose the mediocre President Barack Obama would be a simple task for the Republican Party, the party that gave us Abraham Lincoln and Ronald Reagan. It has proved to be anything but simple.

Unless you work in the banking industry or a non-bank financial business like a mortgage company, debt-collecting or payday lending, you took it on the chin in the U.S. Senate recently.

If Gov. Paul LePage were a doctor, he might be sued for malpractice: He has not only prescribed the wrong medicine for a shortfall in Maine’s health care safety net, he has diagnosed the wrong disease.

In the race between a fast-spreading and potentially hazardous technology and government attempts to regulate it, the regulators come in a distant second.

Gov. Paul LePage claims that an explosion in demand for MaineCare services is the real reason for a deficit in the program, justifying his proposal for deep cuts that affect 65,000 people.

No one expects challengers in a U.S. presidential race to present realistic economic plans. Promise them anything, their campaign consultants advise. On that score, GOP frontrunner Newt Gingrich’s tax reform plan exceeds expectations.

Economic development usually means chasing after a business, hoping to get it to move some of its jobs to your state, city or town.

Nero probably didn’t really fiddle while Rome burned; for one thing, fiddles as we know them today didn’t exist yet, and for another, historians at the time dismissed the story as a rumor.

Diplomacy is all about talking — with everyone. Friends and foes and those whose intentions are murky. Myanmar is still a mystery, but credit President Barack Obama with breaking the silence.

Republicans who would rather defeat Barack Obama than fix the national budget woes have latched onto a false campaign theme: The president is not patriotic, they say.