Tag: Campaign 2012
Define “Power”
It’s not strictly about me because I’m not looking for any power at all.
Rep. Ron Paul (R-Tx), demonstrating, as with his stand on women’s rights, that his i’s don’t dot and his t’s don’t cross. Paul is running for president of the United States, arguably the most powerful job there is in America, outside of conservative talk radio host.
Republican TV Host Joe Scarborough Outraged over Mitt Romney’s ‘Lie’
Mitt Romney, the GOP frontrunner, has never let the fact that he is really bad at lying slow him down one bit. But Romney told such a bald-faced lie at a campaign stop in Ohio on Monday that it sent Joe Scarborough, the stalwart Republican host of “Morning Joe” on MSNBC, into paroxysms of apoplexy during Tuesday morning’s show.
The controversy arose after Buzzfeed writer Andrew Kaczynski uncovered an op-ed last week that was written by Romney and published in USA Today in July 2009, during the debate over health-insurance reform. In the article, Romney urged Pres. Obama to adopt the individual mandate — the system developed by the right-wing Heritage Foundation that Romney had deployed when he was governor of Massachusetts — as the central cost-saving mechanism in the federal health-insurance reform plan:
Gingrich Super PAC Rushes in to Buy Ads on Limbaugh Show
But the Los Angeles Times reports that at least one advertiser has rushed in to show support for Limbaugh’s rampant misogyny with an increased ad buy:
A spokesman for Winning Our Future, a “super PAC” backing former House Speaker Newt Gingrich’s presidential bid, said the group purchased more airtime. “He apologized and we’re satisfied,” said spokesman Rick Tyler, who said the group began advertising with the program two weeks ago.
The “Winning” super PAC is funded almost entirely with multimillion dollar donations from Sheldon Adelson, owner of two high-profile casinos in Las Vegas, the Venetian and the Sands. Adelson’s wife Miriam also donated millions to the Gingrich fund. The Adelsons’ donations have kept the Gingrich campaign going well past its “sell by” date.
What’s telling about this move is that Gingrich is an infamous serial philanderer who left both his first and second wives in favor of his mistresses not long after each woman had been diagnosed with a serious illness — his first wife Jackie with cancer and second wife Marianne with multiple sclerosis.
So it is likely that operatives at the pro-Gingrich PAC figured they had nothing to lose in supporting Limbaugh, because no self-respecting woman would vote for Newt Gingrich in the first place.
Rush Limbaugh Is Employed by a Subsidiary of Romney’s Bain Capital
The chances that Rush Limbaugh will be fired for disparaging women whose insurance covers their contraceptives as “sluts” last week have always fallen safely within the range of slim to none. Limbaugh is, hands down, his employer’s biggest revenue producer, and even if he were caught with the proverbial live boy or dead girl, his bosses at Clear Channel Communications, a multi billion-dollar right-wing radio network based in Texas, would be hard-pressed to send him packing.
But as the controversy over his lies and smears has played out, a key factor related to the politics behind the scandal has generally been overlooked. Clear Channel is a subsidiary of Bain Capital, the firm founded by GOP presidential frontrunner, Mitt Romney in 1984. And although Romney officially resigned from Bain in 1999,he left the company with a deal in place that continues to add millions in income to Romney’s fortune every year. (These millions in revenue were the subject of a campaign controversy earlier this year when Romney was forced to admit he only pays around 15 percent in taxes on his income from Bain.)
In 2008, Bain bought Clear Channel, whose on-air roster includes such heavyweights in right-wing broadcasting as Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, Michael Savage and, the heaviest weight of them all, Rush Limbaugh.
Earlier this year, allegations surfaced on the far right that Clear Channel’s influential on-air personalities, including Limbaugh, were in the bag for Romney and so were marginalizing fringe candidates like Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul:
Two Months into Republicans’ Clown Car Primary, WSJ/NBC Poll Finds Voters Turning against the GOP – Again
In the midterm elections just two years ago, voters punished Democrats for the crime of passing universal health care by voting to give Republicans control of the House. Now, a new Wall St. Journal/NBC poll finds that these same voters appear to be changing their minds again:
55 percent of respondents — including 35 percent of Republicans — believe the Democratic Party does a better job than the GOP in appealing to those who aren’t hard-core supporters.How damaging has the primary season — with all of its debates, attack ads and scrutiny — been for the Republican Party?
Forty percent of all adults say the GOP contest so far has made them feel less favorable about the party, while 12 percent say they now have a more favorable impression. Forty-seven percent say it’s had no impact.
Even among Republicans, 23 percent maintain the primary season has given them a less favorable opinion of the party, versus 16 percent who say it’s been positive.
In addition, 55 percent of respondents — including 35 percent of Republicans — believe the Democratic Party does a better job than the GOP in appealing to those who aren’t hard-core supporters. Just 26 percent say the Republican Party does a better job on this front.
And, as we noted here, the poll found that Mitt Romney’s favorable rating has dropped down into George W. Bush territory. He has a 28 percent favorable rating among all respondents and a 22 percent favorable rating among independents.
George W. Romney? Romney Now As Unpopular As Bush Was – Approval Rating Drops to 28%
28%
Mitt Romney’s favorable rating, according to the new Wall St. Journal/NBC poll. And there is even worse news for the putative GOP nominee. Among independents, the voters who will likely decide the election in November, Romney’s approval is six points lower — just 22 percent. If something about these disastrously low numbers for a national politician have a ring of familiarity, it may be that they call to mind the approval ratings of George Bush in the final years of his presidency, including his all-time low favorable rating of 25 percent, in 2008, according to Gallup. In fact, George W. Bush was the most unpopular president in the history of presidential polling. Now it’s looking like Mitt Romney could become the most unpopular nominee for the presidency in history.
Santorum Forced to Admit President Never Said Everyone Must Go To College
Rick Santorum came thisclose to admitting he has repeatedly lied about Pres. Obama’s position on higher education this weekend, and it happened on in an interview with Chris Wallace on “Fox News Sunday“:
“I agree with the president that we should have options for a variety of training.”
– Rick SantorumWallace pressed Santorum on the issue of higher education. The candidate had recently called Obama a “snob” for wanting “everybody in America to go to college,” but Wallace pointed out that what Obama actually encouraged was for all Americans to have at least one year of higher education or some kind of vocational training or apprenticeship.
Santorum acknowledged that he might have made a mistake.
“Look, maybe I’ve read some comments where at least it was characterized that the president said we should go to four-year colleges,” he said. “If I was in error, you said you haven’t found that, I certainly read that… if it was an error, I agree with the president that we should have options for a variety of training.”
We’ll just have to take Rick Santorum on his word, as he might say, that he misheard Pres. Obama on the multiple occasions when he has called for increasing resources for community colleges and similar job-training facilities. For example, we’ll have to assume Santorum blanked out during the president’s 2012 State of the Union Speech when he made this reference to the decades-old, public-private job training programs at Central Piedmont Community College in Charlotte:
Apocalypse Redux: Romney Did Not Win Michigan – Tied with Santorum in Delegate Count
Headlines early yesterday suggested that Mitt Romney had avoided an apocalypse by winning the primary in Michigan, the state where he was born and where his father was governor. But by the end of the day, the official count produced a different verdict.
