Month: April 2012

Romney Hires Bush White House Political Czar

Jon Ponder

George W. Bush with Ed Gillespie
George W. Bush with Ed Gillespie
Politico:

Moving to broaden his campaign organization beyond his close-knit cadre of advisers, Mitt Romney is bringing on former Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie as a senior adviser, POLITICO has learned.

Gillespie will be a sort of strategist without portfolio to the likely GOP presidential nominee, offering counsel on planning for the Tampa convention, the candidate’s message and a general election strategy for a campaign that is already moving beyond the primary.

Gillespie joined the Bush White House as a top political operative — officially “counselor to the president” — in June 2007. Later that year, after Karl Rove jumped ship, Gillespie took over political operations at the White House, a job that, as had also been the case with Rove, he unofficially shared with Roger Ailes, president of Fox News. Here’s how the New York Times described Gillespie back then:

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Petition by Civil Rights Group Prompts Coca-Cola, Kraft and Pepsi to Cut Ties with ALEC

Jon Ponder

Efforts by by ColorOfChange and others are paying off. Via NPR:

logos-coke-kraft-pepsiCoca-Cola Co. has terminated its relationship with a conservative group seen by some as an incubator for a string of new state voter ID laws and a marketer of laws like Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” self-defense statute.

The Atlanta-based soft drink maker said its focus with the American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC, was on combating “discriminatory” food and beverage taxes, not on issues “that have no direct bearing” on its business.

The decision to “discontinue its membership” came Wednesday, just a few hours after the black online advocacy group ColorofChange began a campaign against the company’s support of ALEC.

Kraft Foods also dropped out tonight. Pepsi — an ALEC member for 10 years — informed Color of Change in January that it would not renew its membership for 2012.

The corporate leader for ALEC is, of course, the Koch brothers industries, and many energy and industrial companies are major funders of the group. What is more surprising is that dozens of the best known consumer brands are also big donors. A few of these include:

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Republicans Flip-Flop on Federal Power: No on Obamacare Last Week, Yes on DOMA This Week

Jon Ponder

Andrew Cohen at the Atlantic:

Congress has no constitutional authority to punish people who don’t want to have health insurance, Paul Clement argued last week before the United States Supreme Court. This week? The heralded attorney is arguing, to another panel of federal judges, that Congress has plenty of constitutional authority to punish people who don’t want to marry someone of the opposite sex. Last week, Clement defended states’ rights and labeled as “unprecedented” the federal health care policy. This week, he says that Congress can dictate terms of a federal marriage policy over the objections of states which have legalized same-sex marriage.

Welcome to the forlorn world of the Defense of Marriage Act, the teetering federal law which defines marriage as solely that between a man and a woman and thus deprives same-sex married couples of certain federal rights and privileges.

Mainstream Republicans Support Romney Because They Assume He’s Faking Right-Wing Views

Jon Ponder

Stu Rothenberg:

Nobody — not his critics and not his allies — really believes Mitt Romney.

Romney’s great problem in the GOP race, as pretty much everyone has already observed, is that conservatives don’t really believe that he is one of them.

Despite all his conservative rhetoric — on taxes, government spending, traditional marriage, immigration, abortion and health care — conservatives aren’t buying it. They believe that Romney is simply pandering to them because he knows that is what he needs to do to lock up the Republican nomination.

Whether it is his multiple positions over the years on abortion, his support for an individual mandate in Massachusetts, his Mormon faith or simply his profile as a wealthy, impeccably dressed businessman, the most conservative Republican voters (many of whom are evangelicals) don’t believe that he is a passionate conservative who is ready to take on the political establishment.

What’s interesting about Romney and his supporters is that, despite his conservative rhetoric, moderates and country club conservatives continue to support his candidacy.

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Has Florida Become the Homer Simpson of America?

Trish

The Florida brand is being portrayed in a negative light each and every day on all of the major networks.

State Sen. Chris Smith (D – Ft. Lauderdale), (who might have missed the Bush v. Gore case) announcing his own task force to look into Florida’s NRA-penned “Stand Your Ground” law which is being used to justify killing Trayvon Martin. Gov. Rick Scott says he will also have a task force to examine the law, but only after special prosecutor Angela Corey concludes her investigation of the death. We presume that if that inquiry goes well for the shooter, the governor will see no further need to consider the law.

California GOP Power Couple Quits Party

Jon Ponder

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Mindy Tucker Fletcher
Mindy Tucker Fletcher
The hits just keep on comin’ for the California Republican Party. Driven by tea party forces, it has become radically out of synch with the state’s left-leaning electorate. As a result, the California GOP is penniless, leaderless and bleeding registrations — today, barely 30 percent of California voters are registered Republicans, compared with 44 percent registered Democrats and 21 percent independents.

Democrats hold every statewide office and, thanks to a new redistricting system once favored by the California GOP — despite its near-bankruptcy, the party funded not one but two rounds of ballot initiatives to get it passed but is now underwriting lawsuits to have the redistricting plan overturned — the party is on a glide path to devastating losses in U.S. House and state Legislature races in November.

The latest casualty in the party’s death spiral is the defection of one its few — maybe even its only — young power couples. Assmb. Nathan Fletcher, a candidate for mayor of San Diego, and his wife, the former Mindy Tucker, who served in high profile positions in the George W. Bush administration, the Republican National Committee and the Schwarzenegger administration, announced last week that they had abandoned the Republican Party for good and registered as independents.

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Pres. Obama Determined to Depress Support Among Youth Vote, Liberal Base in California

Jon Ponder

The Obama Justice Department’s escalation of its assault on medical marijuana services in California are politically foolish and reckless:

Federal agents struck at the heart of California’s medical marijuana movement, raiding the nation’s first pot trade school and a popular dispensary, both run by one of the state’s most prominent and provocative activists, Richard Lee.

The raids in Oakland by the Internal Revenue Service and Drug Enforcement Administration sent a shudder through the medical cannabis trade and angered the plant’s devotees, who believe the federal government is trampling on California law and the wishes of voters who approved medical marijuana use nearly 16 years ago.

Now they are wondering what message the federal government is trying to send. President Obama promised during his 2008 campaign not to prosecute medical marijuana users who comply with state law, and Deputy Atty. Gen. David Ogden reiterated that position in a 2009 memo that many credit with helping spark the medical pot boom.

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Santorum Lies about Higher Education – Again

Jon Ponder

SANTORUM: I was just reading something last night from the state of California. And that the California universities – I think it’s seven or eight of the California system of universities don’t even teach an American history course. It’s not even available to be taught.

Meanwhile in Realityville:

Berkeley, Irvine, Davis, Los Angeles, Merced, Riverside, San Diego, Santa Barbara, and Santa Cruz all offer numerous American history courses. All require students to take U.S. history before they can graduate.

In the past few months Santorum has “called colleges ‘indoctrination mills’ that make students liberal and Godless, and labeled President Obama a ‘snob’ for wanting kids to get educated. ‘Oh, I understand why he wants you to go to college. He wants to remake you in his image,’ Santorum said.”