MITT Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts and presumptive Republican presidential candidate, is taking a leaf out of President Barack Obama's book and offering a chance to win dinner with a celebrity as an incentive to potential donors.
MITT Romney's skeletons came tumbling out of the closet this week, the day after President Barack Obama made history as the first-ever president of the US to come out in support of same-sex marriage.
BACK in 2008 the John McCain presidential campaign ran an ad attacking Barack Obama: "He is the biggest celebrity in the world, but is he ready to lead?"
Mitt Romney, the most boring guy in US politics, said something quite funny this week.
RICK Santorum, with his hungry political eye undoubtedly fixed firmly on the 2016 elections, quit the Republican presidential race this week, leaving Mitt Romney as the almost sure candidate to run against President Barack Obama in the November election.
A MITT Romney lookalike runs around an empty warehouse wearing a wicked grin and carrying a machine gun firing mud shots at life-sized cardboard cut-outs of Rick Santorum.
DEMOCRATS are up in arms over stricter voter identification laws that Republican-run states are pushing to enact in this election year.
THE Republican presidential nomination race expands to 10 states this week. Alaska, Georgia, Idaho, Massachusetts, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Vermont and Virginia will hold primaries or caucuses on what has become known as Super Tuesday.
I ATTENDED a discussion at the New York Times this week about race and politics, with particular focus on the impact race issues have had on the Republican presidential nomination contest.
YOU know an important election is coming up when politicians roll out the big guns in an effort to impress constituencies. In South Africa, President Jacob Zuma, with his eye fixed on Mangaung, blames the inherited problem of "structural unemployment, which goes back to the 1970s" for the fact that he couldn't deliver the 500000 jobs he had promised last year.
The last four remaining Republican presidential candidates descended on the Sunshine State, Florida, this week to try to win votes ahead of Tuesday's primary in Miami.
Most people steer clear of casual discussions about politics and religion in social settings because of the kind of fire those topics can fuel.
THERE is always someone crazier than you. That sounds like a line from a cool song, but it's something I find myself saying over and over in my head while walking the streets of New York City or riding the subway.
PRESIDENT Jacob Zuma has been accused by many of being a people-pleaser who tells everyone what they want to hear - but the worst flip-flopper you will come across in the political world has got to be Mitt Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts who looks set to win the Republican nomination in the US .
AMERICANS love heroes. Any deed, no matter how big or small, can make you a hero, and the hero-worshipping can be fascinating to watch.
THE US war in Iraq is officially over - eight years and many billions of dollars later. In that time more than 100000 Iraqis and 4500 US troops have been killed.
I USED to tell friends that I would divorce my husband at the drop of a hat if he did the slightest thing wrong . I would not wait for any explanations, I told them, I would just leave. They all nodded their agreement and vowed to do the same.
THERE are several ways someone who thirsts for fame can get their moment in the spotlight in this age of celebutantes and mindless TV.
WHEN I was growing up, the festive season meant lots of time spent with family and friends we had not seen all year. It was a time of reflection, when even the worst drunk in the community would clean himself up and make his way to church on Christmas Day, even though, in the afternoon, he would be back to his old self.
THE US Republican Party presidential hopefuls are a laugh-a-minute. I took the liberty of compiling some of my favourite flubs heard on the campaign trail.
A FEW years ago I attended a cousin's wedding where Durban funny man Felix Hlophe was programme director. He threw in a few jokes while the speakers walked up to the podium.
THE Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement in lower Manhattan enters its eighth week and before they go any further, the occupiers need to either re-evaluate their strategy or go home.
BERNIE Madoff, the disgraced Wall Street financier who is serving a 150-year prison sentence for running the biggest Ponzi scheme in US history, says he knows he ruined lives.
THERE are two subjects American politicians will always agree on: terrorists and dictators.
In Herman Cain's Utopia, racism does not hold back anybody in the US. It exists only in lazy black people's minds. Poverty is self-inflicted, the federal tax system can be revolutionised with a simple mathematical plan, and unicorns roam the land, healing it of all its social ills.
'WE are the 99% ," a phrase chanted by the protesters who have taken over Lower Manhattan as part of the Occupy Wall Street movement, will reverberate in the minds of everyone who has been anywhere near that area in the past two or three weeks.
I have an unhealthy relationship with Law & Order, the crime TV drama series that's been going for over 20 years. I'm not picky either. I'll watch anything from the franchise, whether it's the original Law & Order or Criminal Intent orSpecial Victims Unit.
TWO men were murdered in two southern states in the US on Wednesday night. Both were killed under that heinous, but legal, form of homicide known as capital punishment.
There are new rumours of a sex scandal in US politics and this time a woman is making the headlines. The long-awaited unauthorised biography of Sarah Palin by Joe McGinniss, The Rogue: Searching for the Real Sarah Palin, comes out this week.
TODAY is the 10th anniversary of 9/11, that fateful day which forever changed the face of the US, in a matter of minutes. Many, including President Barack Obama and former New York mayor Rudi Giuliani, say the US is stronger and safer than it was before the attacks.
The threat of Hurricane Irene hitting the New York area and causing as much damage as Hurricane Katrina was scary but fascinating.
ONE of the worst feelings in the world is being robbed. Most people who have gone through this will tell you that, while they may be upset about the loss of their belongings, the trauma lies more in the loss of their security. They feel violated. If their house was robbed, they imagine these masked strangers invading their private sanctuary and desecrating it. If they were mugged, the memory of the mugger's hands on them as he grabs their personal property traumatises them.
The two Republicans who have emerged as the party's chief challengers in the 2012 presidential race think global warming science is "phony" and "a hoax".
PRESIDENT Barack Obama's birthday month has been less than enjoyable. First there was that foolishness with the debt deal, which led to Standard & Poor's downgrading the US credit rating from AAA to AA+.
Johannesburg's new executive mayor, Parks Tau, and his team came around to my side of the world this week to meet the mayor of New York City, Mike Bloomberg.
I REMEMBER my grade 1 teacher vividly. Well, back then, in 1983, when I was five-and-a-half and had just started boarding school in Harding, KwaZulu-Natal, grade 1 was known as sub A.
I went to see a South African Off-Broadway play, MoLoRa, on Wednesday night, which, after the Sade concert last month, was the most moving event I have experienced in a while.
WHEN the June 30 deadline to Rica sim cards loomed, I watched with amusement as some social network status updates bemoaned the violation of the updater's right to privacy and people cursing "the Man" for seeking to bug their cellphone conversations.
It may be a hard truth to swallow, but Casey Anthony's acquittal of the murder of her two-year-old daughter, Caylee, is proof that the US's justice system works.
THE New York Senate voted last week to legalise same-sex marriage, a huge victory for the gay and lesbian community in this state.
THE little girl was two months shy of her third birthday. She had brown hair, beautiful, big brown eyes and a smile that could have probably won over the hardest cynic. Home videos of her running around, laughing, playing with her mother and her grandparents show her as a normal, energetic, happy toddler.
WHEN I was in high school, one of the worst days of the week for me during the warmer months was when we had to hit the swimming pool for physical education class.
Here we go again. Another week, another US male politico caught with his pants down - this time in a Twitter peep show.