Newark Mayor Cory Booker’s off-message criticism of the Obama campaign’s attacks on Mitt Romney’s background at Bain Capital gave the campaign an untimely, unwanted headache this week. But more significantly, it exposed a tension that’s developing between the Democratic Party’s centrist wing and its more-outspoken liberal base—one that threatens to fester more openly if President Obama fails to win a second term.

Talk to economists and people who work in the financial markets these days   and what you’ll hear is reminiscent of the ominous warnings that you occasionally hear from pilots about strong weather fronts. We’re facing not one wave of turbulence, but several.

Is it just my imagination, or have politics and politicians grown smaller?

Life is really about the moments and whether we’re ready to take advantage of them. We can meet someone and have a wonderful connection, then back off because of fear or preexisting plans and hope that another moment comes along. But many times, when that moment or person is gone, we never have the opportunity again. The same holds true in politics.

Who says crowds are wise? When it comes to political prognostication, you learn which opinions you can ignore.

The Left has succeeded more at reshaping the culture than remaking the structure of the economy.

In the 2004 election, both sides knew Ohio would be the state in which the presidency was won or lost. Sen. John Kerry’s campaign spent months and millions trying to persuade voters in suburban counties. But as they canvassed, they were surprised by what they found—or rather what they didn’t find: volunteers for President George W. Bush’s campaign.

The unions that matter most to President Obama and Mitt Romney are not between same-sex couples, but between France and Germany and Greece and Spain. We are about to enter the third consecutive election where social issues will not dominate. The latest CBS News/New York Times poll shows 62 percent of registered voters describing the economy and jobs as the top issue in the presidential campaign. Next is the budget deficit, with 11 percent. Broadly defined, 73 percent of registered voters consider fiscal or economic issues most important. When nearly three-quarters of those most likely to vote focus on one issue, nothing else matters.

For those who think Sen. Richard Lugar’s defeat was primarily attributable to running a weak campaign or for living outside of Indiana for decades, I’ve got one number in dissent: 38 percent. That’s the shockingly low percentage of the vote the six-term senator won this month, with a margin of defeat larger than any other senator in a primary over the past three decades. That’s a 2006 Rick Santorum-like loss, for a politician who had been accustomed to coasting to landslide victories. It suggests that even if Lugar had run a top-notch campaign, he would have been susceptible to forces outside of his control: a Republican electorate looking for new faces and more-outspoken conservative leadership.

The bid by Verizon Wireless to buy spectrum and enter into joint marketing agreements with a group of cable firms was bound to spark concern. After all, Verizon is already the nation’s biggest wireless provider. But, so far, critics have yet to reveal a smoking gun that would prompt federal regulators to block the deal outright. As a result, the agreements are likely to get approved, but the government could add conditions aimed at addressing some of the competitive issues.