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Lee Smith is a veteran journalist whose work appears in Real Clear Investigations (which named the Whistleblower), the Federalist, and Tablet. Smith reported from the Middle East for a decade after the 9/11 attacks and wrote the critically acclaimed The Strong Horse: Power, Politics, and the Clash of Arab Civilizations. A Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute, Smith is a frequent guest on television and radio, national and international, including Fox News, CNN, and France 24.
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Looks like a Romney will be in the mix in Trump’s GOP. The Republican National Committee chose Ronna Romney McDaniel to succeed Reince Priebus, who will serve as the White House Chief of Staff. The details from 
This is a preview from Friday morning’s The Daily Shot newsletter. Subscribe 
Many were predicting a floor battle Monday at the the Republican National Convention and they certainly got one.
I joined the GOP when I turned 18, just weeks after Ronald Reagan’s re-election. Since I was unable to vote in that race, I accompanied one of my conservative friends to the polling place as a kind of silent vote. I had become a big Reagan fan in high school and began learning more about conservatism through Goldwater, various books on the Cold War, and National Review. (That made me quite the hit with the ladies, as you might imagine.)
My 
Those of us on the right often refer to Republicans as the stupid party. Our politicians have a peculiar predilection toward self-inflicted wounds, and an almost miraculous ability to misread the priorities of the base. Our technology lags behind that of the Democrats in terms of locating and mobilizing voters. In so many ways, the epitaph of stupid is a fitting one for our political class. Their stupidity would seem to only be surpassed by that of us, the Republican voters.
There was a time when the Republican National Committee was terrified that Donald Trump would launch a third-party run. Now their biggest fear should be Trump as the face of the Republican party.
For political junkies, it’s kind of the ultimate fantasy. Every four years it gets mentioned, but only in passing and it never actually happens. We’re talking, of course, about a brokered convention — when no single candidate has secured their party’s nomination on or before the first ballot. It’s the stuff of legends. Guys in fedoras and suspenders making secret deals in smoke-filled rooms. There have been a few