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A former Baltimore-based developer who led a White House effort on infrastructure and government innovation is leaving the job, the White House said Friday.

By John Fritze

Feb 16, 2018

This legislation will strip out dirty forms of energy currently allowed under Maryland’s Renewable Portfolio Standard

Remember when presidents picked the best and the brightest for important cabinet positions?

Gymnast Laurie Hernandez is the winner of Season 23 of "Dancing With the Stars."

With just weeks to go before the presidential election, many Carroll County officials indicate they will cast their vote for Donald Trump, though few say they are totally satisfied with their options.

Today, delegates to the upcoming convention face a vote of even greater impact than the one I faced in 2008: to potentially make Donald Trump the Republican presidential nominee. I urge them to do everything in their power to prevent that catastrophe.

Students of old discussed philosophy, studied foreign languages and communed with nature. Today's young people? Not so much.

Jonah Goldberg: The path to an independent candidacy is perilous. But if you're of the opinion that Mr. Trump and Hillary Clinton aren't acceptable options, the perilous path is the only one available.

Martin O'Malley formally withdrew his name from the Maryland presidential ballot on Friday, avoiding the potential for an embarrassing home state result in the April primary.

By John Fritze

Feb 6, 2016

While Marylanders have three more months before the state's primary election on April 26, the Times checked in with some of Carroll's elected officials at the county and state level to discuss what candidates they are supporting in the 2016 presidential race.

Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson's campaign announced a shakeup on Thursday as both his campaign manager and chief spokesman abruptly called it quits.

By John Fritze

Dec 31, 2015

Jonah Goldberg: A little over a year ago, when Ben Carson was gearing up to run for president, I whether he was ready for what lay ahead. We now have our answer: No.

Strategic patience is a difficult and valuable quality in an era of ever-shrinking news cycles and 24/7 social media carping. The temptation to react instantly to every controversy is hard to resist. So far, Cruz and Rubio have been the Kutuzovs of the race, while Jeb Bush and Donald Trump look an awful lot like the Napoleons.

For Ben Carson, a former Baltimore County man who still belongs to a Seventh-day Adventist church in Spencerville, Md., faith has long played a central role in his life and his work as a physician. But it has increasingly also worked to his advantage on the campaign trail.

By John Fritze

Oct 31, 2015

With less than 100 days to go before the Iowa caucuses, presidential hopefuls with dwindling bank accounts and bottom-scraping poll numbers are beginning to weigh the risks of staying in the race versus getting out.

Don't blame CNN's Anderson Cooper. As moderator of the first TV debate among Democratic candidates, he tried.

By David Zurawik

Oct 13, 2015

The top editor of the Gallup polling organization declared the other day that the nation's primary door-knocking operation was going to stop surveying who's ahead and who's behind in the course of the 2016 primary elections. That seems akin to a baseball umpire giving up calling balls and strikes.

By Jules Witcover

Oct 12, 2015

Having thoroughly intimidated the rest of the Republican Party's 2016 presidential field and won a goodly number of its voters' hearts with his tough-guy persona, Donald Trump has decided to tackle their minds.

By Jules Witcover

Oct 5, 2015

The GOP is a headless horseman devoid of direction, tradition and a responsible leader, says Jules Witcover.

Dr. Ben Carson, the retired Johns Hopkins neurosurgeon and former Marylander, is hitting his stride in his bid for the GOP presidential nomination just in time for the second GOP debate.

By John Fritze

Sep 15, 2015

Democrats need a Biden candidacy if only to restore credibility to Hillary Clinton's campaign

Donald Trump is winning in media coverage, but he won't win the GOP nomination, says Jules Witcover.

Carly Fiorina may be the only GOP candidate who can credibly take on Donald Trump's bluster, says David Horsey.

The GOP needs to make clear Donald Trump doesn't speak for the Republican Party, lest it go down with him.

Borrowing a page from the presidential campaign, the two Democrats running for Senate in Maryland are taking aim at Wall Street — and each other — in a bid for voters fed up with the nation's financial industry.

By John Fritze

Aug 10, 2015

Like it or not, Donald Trump isn't going to be easily knocked from the head of the GOP pack, but several other candidates emerged as ones to watch in Thursday's debate

The GOP is once again showing it's out of touch with women, threatening a government shutdown next month over funding of Planned Parenthood in an effort to curtail abortions. Never mind that federal funds can't legally be spent on abortions except in rare cases. Never mind that abortion services are a small percentage of what Planned Parenthood does. Never mind that if the women's health care group is defunded, it will restrict access to birth control, increasing unwanted pregnancies and,

Public-opinion polls, once employed by political consultants to gauge the concerns of voters as a means to shape their candidates' campaigns more effectively, have become the tail that wags the dog.

By Jules Witcover

Aug 3, 2015

Do we really have to deal with this political craziness for 16 months? Not only is it annoying, but some of it is downright embarrassing for our nation. No wonder so many people don't vote. By the time voters get through a two-year campaign season, they are fed up with all the candidates.

If even a Republican presidential candidate with an A-plus rating from the NRA can see that stricter gun laws are needed, there is a chance the U.S. could close its deadly loopholes.

The Donald's recklessly insensitive assault on John McCain finally stiffened the other Republicans' spines, says Jules Witcover.

A fatal blunder?

Given his tactlessness and glaring lack of presidential qualifications, Donald Trump's participation in the first of the GOP debates next month would guarantee fireworks.

Leonard Pitts says those who refuse to recognize the Charleston massacre as racism should be profoundly ashamed.

In order from most recently announced, here are the announced candidates for the 2016 presidential election.

The long reintroduction of Hillary Clinton to the American public as a presidential candidate is getting to look like the coming-out of a wealthy and spoiled debutante.

Conservatives like Wayne LaPierre are done being subtle about their desire for a white, male president.

Underpinning the coverage of the Hillary Clinton email scandal is a double standard: She is being pilloried for email practices that are widely used throughout government from local school districts up to the federal level, from junior up to senior administrators and from many past as well as current officials.

Sometimes it takes corporate leaders to fight policies as shameful as Indiana's religious-freedom law

Ted Cruz is disregarding the general election by targeting the conservative right wing for the primary, says Jules Witcover.

Jeb Bush easily chased off Mitt Romney from running for the 2016 GOP presidential nomination, Witcover writes.

The GOP continues to be dominated by right-wing ideologists convinced that purity can triumph over political reality.

Mike Huckabee has little chance of becoming president, but he could decide who the GOP nominee will be, Jonah Goldberg says.

There seems to be only one year that is not an election year, and that is the first year of a new president's first term.