Everyone seems to be pessimistic about America these days. In poll after poll, Americans worry about their future. Pundits, myself included, write despairingly about the monumental challenges we face. Academics plan seminars on America's decline.

Evan Bayh's surprise announcement that he would not seek a third term has sent shockwaves through the pundit class on an otherwise quiet President’s Day.  It also upset a year’s worth of comfortable predictions that Republicans would never take back the Senate in 2010.  This, combined with other recent political developments, places a 50-50 Senate within reach for the Republican caucus.

WASHINGTON -- Only two things are infinite -- the expanding universe and Democrats' hostility to the District of Columbia's school choice program. Killing this small program, which currently benefits 1,300 mostly poor and minority children, is odious and indicative. It is a small piece of something large -- the Democrats' dependency agenda, which aims to multiply the ways Americans are dependent on government.

Shake-ups raise risk for Democrats...

It was another week, another telltale of the turbulence besetting New England Democrats.

One of the party’s biggest names, US Representative Patrick J. Kennedy of Rhode Island, announced he will not seek reelection, 37 days after Senator Christopher J. Dodd of Connecticut did the same. In between, a little-known Republican, Scott Brown, knocked Washington off-kilter by winning the Massachusetts Senate seat of Kennedy’s late father, Edward M. Kennedy.

WASHINGTON -- In 2013, when President Mitch Daniels, former Indiana governor, is counting his blessings, at the top of his list will be the name of his vice president: Paul Ryan. The former congressman from Wisconsin will have come to office with ideas for steering the federal government to solvency.