It was a busy news day for the political world yesterday, and President Obama’s speech in Cincinnati was largely overlooked. That’s a shame — the remarks were actually an example of the White House message coming together in ways we haven’t heard before.

The president spoke with the Brent Spence Bridge in the background, a main connecting point for Ohio and Kentucky. Obama joked that it was “purely accidental” that he picked a locale relevant to the constituents of House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), but it was obviously not a coincidence — the president is presenting infrastructure investments as the centerpiece of his economic agenda, and that the fact that the Brent Spence Bridge has been deemed “functionally obsolete” — like John Boehner, one audience member shouted out — helps underscore the larger point.

But the speech didn’t just make an effective case for creating jobs by improving bridges, roads, highways, rails, and airports. He also did so by naming names and calling out “Republicans.”

“So my question is, what’s Congress waiting for? Why is it taking so long? … Part of the reason I came here is because Mr. Boehner and Mr. McConnell, those are the two most powerful Republicans in government. They can either kill this jobs bill, or they can help pass this jobs bill…. I know that when Senator McConnell visited the closed bridge in Kentucky, he said that, ‘Roads and bridges are not partisan in Washington.’ That’s great. I know that Paul Ryan, the Republican in charge of the budget process, recently said that ‘you can’t deny that infrastructure does creates jobs.’ That’s what he said.

“Well, if that’s the case, there’s no reason for Republicans in Congress to stand in the way of more construction projects. There’s no reason to stand in the way of more jobs. Mr. Boehner, Mr. McConnell, help us rebuild this bridge. Help us rebuild America. Help us put construction workers back to work. Pass this bill.”

Obama also responded to the most common GOP talking point.

“Now, the Republicans, when I talked about this earlier in the week, they said, well, this is class warfare. You know what, if asking a billionaire to pay their fair share of taxes, to pay the same tax rate as a plumber or a teacher is class warfare, then you know what, I’m a warrior for the middle class. I’m happy to fight for the middle class. I’m happy to fight for working people. Because the only warfare I’ve seen is the battle against the middle class over the last 10, 15 years.”

And he specifically called out McConnell’s misguided priorities.

“Maybe some of the people in Congress would rather settle their differences at the ballot box than work together right now. In fact, a while back, Senator McConnell said that his ‘top priority’ — number-one priority — was ‘to defeat the President.’ That was his top priority.

“Not jobs, not putting people back to work, not rebuilding America. Beating me. Well, I’ve got news for him, and every other member of Congress who feels the same way. The next election is 14 months away, and I’ll be happy to tangle sometime down the road. But the American people right now don’t have the luxury of waiting to solve our problems for another 14 months. A lot of folks are living paycheck to paycheck. A lot of folks are just barely getting by. They need us to get to work right now. They need us to pass this bill.”

It’s awfully difficult to have any optimism at all about the political process, especially with House Republicans poised to force another shutdown crisis. But there’s little doubt that the White House is very serious about the American Jobs Act, and is going all in, investing time, energy, and resources into this effort. Those hoping for real follow through from Obama are getting their wish.

And nearly as important, the president and his team are also sharpening their message — “I’m a warrior for the middle class” is a great, overdue line — and taking the fight to Republicans, directly and aggressively.

As a practical matter, a speech delivered at 3 p.m. on a weekday in Southwestern Ohio is going to have a limited audience. But that’s all the more reason for the White House to keep the pressure on, bringing the message to even more audiences.

By any objective measure, Mitt Romney has flip-flopped more often, on more issues, than any American politician in a generation. It’s quite embarrassing — the guy reinvents himself periodically, shedding one version with one set of positions, and becoming an entirely new person with new positions. Mitt Romney is like a box of chocolates — you never know what you’re going to get.

So, when the subject of consistency came up in last night’s debate, it was a rare opportunity for Rick Perry to hammer Romney on one of his biggest vulnerabilities. But the Texas governor, who’s just genuinely awful in these debates, somehow managed to screw it up.

PERRY: I think Americans just don’t know sometimes which Mitt Romney they’re dealing with. Is it the Mitt Romney that was on the side of against the Second Amendment before he was for the Second Amendment? Was it — was before he was before the social programs, from the standpoint of he was for standing up for Roe v. Wade before he was against Roe v. Wade? He was for Race to the Top, he’s for Obamacare, and now he’s against it. I mean, we’ll wait until tomorrow and — and — and see which Mitt Romney we’re really talking to tonight.

WALLACE: Governor Romney?

ROMNEY: I’ll use the same term again: Nice try. Governor, I’m — I wrote a book two years ago, and I laid out in that book what my views are on a wide range of issues. I’m a conservative businessman. I haven’t spent my life in politics. I spent my life in business. I know how jobs come, how jobs go. My positions are laid out in that book. I stand by them. Governor Perry, you wrote a book six months ago. You’re already retreating from the positions that were in that book.

PERRY: Not an — not an — not an inch, sir.

ROMNEY: Yeah, well, in that book, it says that Social Security was forced upon the American people. It says that, by any measure, Social Security is a failure. Not to 75 million people. And you also said that - - that Social Security should be returned to the states. Now, those are the positions in your book. And simply, in my view, I stand by my positions. I’m proud of them.

Let me get this straight. The issue of flip-flops came up, and Perry let Romney get the better of him? Seriously? The most shamelessly inconsistent politician in recent memory simply ran circles around Perry on the subject of policy reversals?

Let me make this really easy for Perry. It’s a list that’s so obvious, even he should be able to memorize it: Romney is a former one-term governor who supported abortion rights, gay rights, gun control, immigration reform, and combating climate change, who distanced himself from Reagan, attended Planned Parenthood fundraisers, and helped create the blueprint for the Affordable Care Act. Romney was for the bank bailout before he was against it; he was against the auto industry rescue before he was for it; and he was for the stimulus before he was against it. Republican primary voters haven’t heard much about any of this, but it’s likely they’d find this history interesting.

Hearing Romney proclaim, “I stand by my positions,” may be the single most amusing thing said by a Republican this year.

How did Perry manage to flub this opportunity?

It’s hard to predict what will be the dominant issues on voters’ minds a year from now, but it seems unlikely that foreign policy will be a driving factor in the 2012 presidential race. That said, for those who take the issue seriously, Rick Perry’s candidacy ought to be considered a bad joke.

In last night’s debate, this exchange was just remarkable.

The moderator asked the Texas governor, “[I]f you were president, and you go a call at 3 a.m. telling you that Pakistan had lost control of its nuclear weapons, at the hands of the Taliban, what would be your first move?”

It’s not that Perry hesitated; it’s that his response was, substantively, gibberish. “Well obviously, before you ever get to that point you have to build a relationship in that region,” he said. “That’s one of the things that this administration has not done. Yesterday, we found out through Admiral Mullen that Haqqani has been involved with — and that’s the terrorist group directly associated with the Pakistani country. So to have a relationship with India, to make sure that India knows that they are an ally of the United States.

“For instance, when we had the opportunity to sell India the upgraded F-16’s, we chose not to do that. We did the same with Taiwan. The point is, our allies need to understand clearly that we are their friends, we will be standing by there with them. Today, we don’t have those allies in that region that can assist us if that situation that you talked about were to become a reality.”

I’m not even sure what Perry was trying to say.

And as a factual matter, the governor didn’t even have his facts straight: “India made the decision to not buy F-16s and instead go with another military jet. It was not the U.S. choice. The Obama administration actually lobbied hard for the sale and the aerospace firm had assured India that its F-16s would be ‘much more advanced’ than the fighters provided to Pakistan.”

Sure, Perry is a fairly new candidate with no meaningful foreign policy experience, and maybe if he brushed up on the basics, he wouldn’t appear quite this incompetent. But at a certain level, that’s not reassuring — he’s been on the trail for over a month, and doesn’t appear to have invested any time at all in learning anything at all. Indeed, Perry has dabbled in foreign policy quite a bit lately, but with consistently ridiculous results. Hell, the other day, Perry blamed “instability in the Middle East” on President Obama “apologizing for America’s exceptionalism,” which is plainly idiotic.

I don’t imagine Perry is interested in my advice, but I’d recommend he take a couple of days to sit down with some books and foreign policy experts, so he can learn the basics. At this point, the notion of this guy playing a leadership role on the international stage is just laughable.

Last night was the third Republican debate in just the last 15 days, and one could only guess how the audience would embarrass the party this time.

Two weeks ago, debate attendees cheered executions. Last week, some in the audience backed letting uninsured Americans die. And last night, the audience booed a U.S. Army soldier fighting in Iraq.

For those who can’t watch clips online, the question came via video from Stephen Hill, who said, “In 2010, when I was deployed to Iraq, I had to lie about who I was, because I’m a gay soldier, and I didn’t want to lose my job. My question is, under one of your presidencies, do you intend to circumvent the progress that’s been made for gay and lesbian soldiers in the military?”

This led to immediate derision from the audience — because nothing says “support the troops” like booing a U.S. Army serviceman currently in Iraq.

For his part, Santorum responded, “I would say, any type of sexual activity has absolutely no place in the military.” He added that the administration has given gay and lesbian troops “a special privilege,” which would end under a Santorum presidency. The audience cheered enthusiastically.

Just to clarify, Rick Santorum, a presidential candidate and former two-term U.S. senator, believes the troops should steer clear of “any type of sexual activities.” In other words, Santorum apparently envisions celibacy for all active U.S. military personnel.

I wonder how that would affect recruitment rates?

All joking aside, these debate audiences are quickly becoming a story unto themselves. Generally, debates matter insofar as we learn something about the candidates. And to be sure, the realization that one of these nine Republicans stands a reasonably good chance of becoming the leader of the free world in about 17 months is more than a little frightening.

But this month, what we’re learning about the audiences seems nearly as important, and every bit as disconcerting. There’s just an element of callousness — of ugliness — to Republican politics in 2011. When deaths are applauded and troops are booed, it’s hard to escape the fact that the party appears to have gone badly off the rails.

Paul Begala added, “As happened in previous debates, the audience in the Fox News/Google debate stole the show — and shocked the conscience. When a gay soldier asked a question, the audience booed. They booed a man who is risking his life for their freedom. Rarely have I seen a more unpatriotic public display…. I may start a betting pool on what the Republicans will boo in the next debate: puppies? Ronald Reagan? Ronald Reagan’s puppies?”

When the House Republicans’ temporary spending measure (or CR, for “continuing resolution”) failed on Wednesday night, the GOP leadership effectively had two broad options. House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) could move to the middle, stop playing games with emergency disaster relief, pick up Democratic votes, and resolve the dispute. The threat of a government shutdown would disappear, and lawmakers could enjoy a week off.

Or Boehner and Republican leaders could move to the right, make the spending bill worse, pass a plan they know will be rejected, and invite another government shutdown crisis.

Which course did the GOP leadership choose? Take a wild guess.

Washington lurched toward another potential government shutdown crisis Friday, as the House approved a Republican-authored short-term funding measure designed to keep government running through Nov. 18 that Democrats in the Senate immediately vowed to reject.

In an after-midnight roll call, House Republican leaders persuaded conservatives early Friday morning to support a stop-gap bill nearly identical to one they had rejected just 30 hours earlier.

“Nearly identical,” but not entirely. Boehner and Republican leaders followed through on their threat to hold disaster aid hostage, but bought off some far-right votes by adding $100 million in cuts to a Department of Energy loan program the GOP loved until a few weeks ago.

So, instead of trying to reach a sensible compromise, the Speaker and his team deliberately chose to invite yet another standoff that threatens to shut down the government. Indeed, GOP officials told reporters last night they would promptly leave town today to make the threat more explicit — either the Senate approves the House bill or the government shuts down in seven days, because House members won’t be around to even try to reach a deal.

Of course, Senate leaders are saying exactly what they’ve been saying all along: they’re not going to pass the House bill. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) will kill the House version today, and will probably urge House leaders to stick around and do their jobs rather than leave town.

All of this, by the way, is just to keep the government’s lights on until November. Americans, for whatever reason, have elected ill-tempered, right-wing children to run the House of Representatives, and the result is not only one crisis followed by another, but a government that struggles badly to even complete the most basic of tasks. Indeed, yesterday, GOP leaders could have very easily chosen a more responsible course and ended the burgeoning fiasco, but they made matters worse on purpose.

If House Republicans do promptly flee to the airport today, and the Senate rejects the House measure as expected, President Obama will likely call members back to Washington early next week. The shutdown deadline is Friday, Sept. 30, at midnight.

Another Republican presidential candidate debate — the third in three weeks — is set to get started in a few minutes. I’ll probably have some thoughts in the morning, but in the meantime, I thought I’d leave up an open thread for those who tuned in.

Who do you think won? Who went after whom most and why? Did the audience applaud at wildly inappropriate times?

The floor is yours.

Today’s edition of quick hits:

* Wall Street: “U.S. stocks plummeted Thursday, along the rest of the world’s markets, as investors reacted to a dour outlook on the U.S. economy from the Federal Reserve and worried about the fate of European banks…. The sell-off was triggered by Wednesday’s gloomy news from the Federal Reserve, which said that it sees ‘significant downside risks’ to the U.S. economy.”

* First-time unemployment claims: “Applications for jobless benefits decreased 9,000 in the week ended Sept. 17 to 423,000, Labor Department figures showed today. Economists forecast 420,000 claims, according to the median estimate in a Bloomberg News survey.”

* That’s quite a charge: “Pakistan’s intelligence agency aided the insurgents who attacked the American Embassy in Kabul last week, Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the Senate on Thursday.”

* At the U.N.: “Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad triggered a mass exodus from the U.N. General Assembly’s chamber Thursday with a combative speech that blasted the United States and other Western powers and questioned whether Islamist terrorists were behind the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks…. He also criticized the Obama administration for killing Osama bin Laden, suggesting that the al-Qaeda leader could have been the star witness at a trial that would reveal the true culprits behind the attacks on New York and Washington.”

* Big Dog on Israel: “Who’s to blame for the continued failure of the Middle East peace process? Former President Bill Clinton said today that it is Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — whose government moved the goalposts upon taking power, and whose rise represents a key reason there has been no Israeli-Palestinian peace deal.”

* Will the Murray/Hensarling super-committee embrace the idea for CBO jobs scores? Apparently not.

* Labor’s efforts paid off in the Senate last night: “The AFL-CIO and organized labor in general is breathing a sigh of relief after the Senate Appropriations Committee narrowly defeated — in a tie vote Wednesday night — an effort to gut the National Labor Relations Board and prevent it from filing suits against companies that move operations to right-to-work states. “

* Did the Justice Department buy $16 muffins? Not really, but they myth is likely to endure.

* Great piece from Phil Keisling on “the tax debate we want and need.”

* Daniel Luzer takes a look at how employers talk about unemployment, with an eye towards higher ed.

* The White House’s “We The People” petition site goes live. It seems like a good idea.

* We know Fox News takes liberties with the truth. We know Fox Business plays fast and loose, too. But did you know even Fox Sports misleads viewers? (thanks to reader A.W.)

* Remember the “Ground Zero Mosque,” which wasn’t a mosque and wasn’t at Ground Zero? Well, Park51 opened yesterday, and no one noticed or cared. Civilization appears to be intact; the memory of the 9/11 attacks is unaffected; and the zealots who tried to make this into a story continue to look like foolish.

Anything to add? Consider this an open thread.

President Obama has presented an economic agenda that appears pretty popular. Several recent polls show strong, bipartisan support, both for the job creation measures, and the ideas for debt reduction.

The NYT’s Matt Bai, however, urges caution, because the president now supports “a proposed tax increase on the wealthy.” Bai, who calls the tax push the president’s “signature issue,” argues, “No matter how popular such a tax increase may be in isolation, Obama’s proposal is very likely to affirm the fears of some sizable contingent of voters who pulled the lever for him last time — fears that he is, at bottom, a conventional liberal of the 1970s variety.”

There are quite a few problems with this analysis. For one thing, the tax provisions are not the president’s “signature issue,” at least not for those who view the plan outside the lens of Fox News. They’re part of a larger financing package, but if anything is the “signature issue,” it’s Obama’s near-constant talk about infrastructure, which he pushed again today along the Ohio-Kentucky border.

For another, even this focus on tax policy is overly narrow. Bai neglects to mention that while the White House is eyeing increased sacrifice from the very wealthy starting in 2013, the president is also calling for significant tax breaks for the middle class and small businesses almost immediately. Is this also reminiscent of “a conventional liberal of the 1970s variety”? Or are these provisions too often ignored because they fail to fit into the preferred media narrative about Obama being a “tax raiser” on “job creators”?

But perhaps the most jarring part of Bai’s observation is the notion that Obama will give voters the wrong impression by pursuing a tax policy that Bai concedes is “popular.” Once the electorate knows the president wants higher taxes on the rich, the argument goes, voters who reluctantly backed him in 2008 will be repulsed.

As Greg Sargent explained, there’s one big piece of evidence that points in the opposite direction: the 2008 presidential election.

The notion that Obama’s current push to raise taxes on the rich will alienate his own 2008 supporters is complicated a bit by the fact that Obama campaigned on tax hikes for the rich in 2008. Indeed, that was a topic of widespread analysis at the time: Many commentators noted that Obama appeared to be winning on the issue of taxes, even though Dems aren’t supposed to be able to do this. On the eve of the election, the Washington Post noted with wonderment that despite his call for letting the tax cut on those over $250,000 expire, “for the first time in decades, Democrats appear to have the upper hand in the debate over taxes.” […]

Obama is certainly going to lose a “sizable contingent of voters who pulled the lever for him last time,” but it’s hard to see why a primary impetus for this would be that he’s campaigning aggressively on the very same position he held when they voted for him last time. I’m open to the suggestion that Obama’s restatement of a position he’s held for years will suddenly revive fears of bad old conventional 1970s liberalism among his supporters, even though it didn’t last time around, but such a pronouncement is crying out for a bit of evidence to back it up.

Bai’s not the only one drawing these dubious conclusions, of course, but it is striking to see the disconnect between the American mainstream and pundits’ assumptions about the American mainstream.

After last night’s failure in the House on a continuing resolution, Congress is eight days from a government shutdown with no clear avenue on how to resolve the impasse. It led one senator to share an interesting perspective with Ezra Klein.

Last night, during an interview with a senator on another topic, the news of the stopgap’s failure came over the transom. “This is what it’s like now,” said the suddenly tired-sounding legislator. “The new definition of success around here is just keeping the lights on.”

That’s a good line. It’s also true.

After the 2010 midterms, a handful of exceedingly optimistic pundits thought congressional Republicans would work constructively on actual policymaking in this Congress. For all the disagreements between the parties, these optimists imagined possible deals on issues like immigration and energy policy.

But nearly nine months into this Congress, those optimists look pretty silly. We’ve reached the point where everyone is quite impressed when Washington manages, after painful disputes that seem to drag on endlessly, to somehow keep the lights on. Passing meaningful legislation is a pipe dream, if not literally laughable.

At this point, the political world is relieved when federal policymakers struggle to just barely complete the most basic tasks. We’ve set the bar for success so low, avoiding shutdowns is somehow deemed an accomplishment.

Also note, this isn’t going to get better — as the election season draws closer, it’s going to get worse. And so long as congressional Republicans remain radicalized, there’s no reason to think conditions will improve after this Congress, either.

The public didn’t recognize or appreciate it, but 2009 and 2010 were pretty extraordinary for getting stuff done in Washington, despite Republican efforts to break the Senate. We won’t see a period of productivity like that again for a very long time.

Worst of all, this is what Americans said they wanted when they voted last year.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry has been a Republican presidential candidate for about six weeks now, but he’s been reluctant to sit down for real broadcast interviews. Perry is, however, willing to chat on the air with Fox News’ Sean Hannity, leading to insightful exchanges like this one, flagged by Ian Millhiser.

HANNITY: Some people said, well, you used the term once “secession.” That’s not anything — is that something you believe?

PERRY: No, and I never used that term, at all.

HANNITY: Then why was it reported so heavily?

PERRY: I have no idea to be real honest with you, because it was never a really factual piece of reporting. It was shouted out by an individual at an event — at a Tea Party, actually — and I said, “Listen, America is a great country. We have no reason why we would ever dissolve this union.”

Well, no, that’s not quite what he said.

In early 2009, Perry was so outraged by Democratic efforts to clean up Republican messes, he pushed the rhetorical envelope much further than he should have. The governor denounced the United States government as “oppressive,” arguing that it was “time to draw the line in the sand and tell Washington that no longer are we going to accept their oppressive hand in the state of Texas.” Soon after, he said he doesn’t want to “dissolve” the union of the United States, “But if Washington continues to thumb their nose at the American people, you know, who knows what might come out of that.”

A month prior, Perry said of Texas, “[W]hen we came into the nation in 1845, we were a republic, we were a stand-alone nation. And one of the deals was, we can leave anytime we want. So we’re kind of thinking about that again.”

Did Perry specifically use the word “secession”? There’s no evidence of that*. But it’s entirely fair to say Perry dabbled in secessionist rhetoric, which in itself should be considered scandalous in the 21st century.

Hannity, as it turns out, did not follow-up on this point during the interview. I can’t imagine why not.

* fixed

I’ve been a little surprised by the extent to which the Republican presidential race has avoided a debate about “RomneyCare.” I expected to be one of the key issues in the race, and so far, Mitt Romney has barely had to defend his record at all. With about five months to go before GOP voters start weighing in, it’s largely been a non-issue.

But it’s still out there, just below the surface.

In an interview with Laura Ingraham, Sen. John Thune — one of the original conservative elite heartthrobs earlier this year until he opted against a run — said Mitt Romney needs to go further than he has when it comes to the Massachusetts health care plan.

“Would you advise Mitt Romney to say something different today on RomneyCare than he has?” Ingraham asked.

“Well, I think it would be great, I suppose if he would come out and, I mean I think there are a lot of people who over the years who have, since this thing passed in Massachusetts, have looked at it and said gosh I wish he would come out and then disown it or disavow it,” Thune said. “It doesn’t sound like he is going to do that.”

When Ingraham pressed, asking, “Should he?” Thune answered, “Well, frankly, I would like to see that, but I am not advising the campaign.” [emphasis added]

It’s easy to forget, but six months ago, this was one of the key questions in Republican circles: would Romney apologize for his only accomplishment in government? Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) expected one, but he was hardly alone. Mike Huckabee said Romney should express regret for his health care policy, and so did Rudy Giuliani. Karl Rove urged Romney to admit he was wrong; and prominent conservative activists throughout the GOP base also demanded he “acknowledge he made a mistake.”

Romney, for good or ill, ignored all of this in the Spring, and the calculation appears to have largely paid off — the questions have faded and the race has moved on.

But John Thune is a considered a Golden Boy in many Republican circles, and the fact that even he still wants Romney to “disown” or “disavow” the Massachusetts reform law suggests the issue hasn’t completely gone away.

For the record, in case anyone’s forgotten, Romney’s health care accomplishment is his only success story during his only experience in public office, but it became toxic when it helped serve as the blueprint for the Affordable Care Act. “RomneyCare” even includes an individual mandate, which the Republican mainstream now considers fundamentally evil.

If this somehow becomes a dominant issue in the GOP presidential race, I’m still not sure how Romney prevents this from becoming a huge mess.

About a month ago, Warren Buffett, the chairman and chief executive of Berkshire Hathaway, made a strong case in support of raising taxes on those who enjoy enormous wealth. He noted, among other things, that he has a lower tax burden, as a percentage of his income, than anyone in his office. Millionaires and billionaires, Buffett said, “have been coddled long enough by a billionaire-friendly Congress. It’s time for our government to get serious about shared sacrifice.”

It led the White House to propose something called the “Buffett Rule.” The general idea is that “millionaires shouldn’t be able to use loopholes and avoidance strategies to end up paying lower tax rates than middle-class families.”

It’s not surprising that Republicans oppose the idea. But this kind of response is just silly.

The GOP is making a concerted effort to pressure billionaire investment guru Warren Buffett to release his tax returns to the public.

Republicans say Buffett — the public face of Obama’s proposed “Buffett rule” to increase taxes on the wealthy — needs to reveal his finances if his views on tax rates are going to serve as the basis for Obama administration policy.

“Will Warren Buffett release his tax returns so we can see why he should be the standard for tax policy?” Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) questioned in a tweet Thursday.

“If he’s going to be the gold standard, so to speak, in terms of what our tax policy should be, yeah, let’s look at it [his tax returns],” Cornyn told ABC News.

It’s not just Cornyn, by the way. Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) and Rep. Tim Huelskamp (R-Kan.) have also said they want to see Buffett’s tax returns.

These guys are badly missing the point. Buffett, in this case, is a recognizable figure, known for having great wealth and for arguing that the rich need to make greater sacrifices for the public good. The White House is using the Berkshire Hathaway chief to demonstrate a larger point about tax fairness, or in this case, the lack thereof.

The issue here isn’t some fluke of the tax code affecting one specific Nebraskan; the problem is more systemic. The Tax Policy Center crunched the numbers: “40 percent of taxpayers with incomes between 30K and 40K pay more than 12.9 percent of their income in income and payroll taxes; meanwhile, 25 percent of people with incomes over $1M pay less than 12.6 percent of their income in these taxes. This suggests that there are a lot of very-high-income guys paying a lower tax rate than their secretaries.”

If Republicans want to argue this isn’t a problem, fine; we can have the debate. If they want to argue that the very wealthy should have less of a tax burden, fine; we can debate that, too.

But if they’re inclined to think billionaires should pay a higher percentage of their income in taxes than the working class, GOP officials would be better off looking at the inequitable tax code, not Warren Buffett’s returns.

The New York Times has an item this morning about tonight’s Republican debate, and it featured this Getty Images photograph, taken before the start of last week’s debate.

It wouldn’t be especially interesting, except I also remember seeing this photograph several hundred times four years ago.

With the latter image, then-candidate Barack Obama explained he puts his hand over his heart for the Pledge of Allegiance, but sings during the National Anthem. It seemed entirely reasonable, and hardly worth a fuss. Nevertheless, those desperate to paint Obama as somehow less American used the image to question his patriotism. It was an ugly and offensive smear campaign — the effort to define Obama as The Other has never entirely gone away — and this one photograph was included in countless chain emails.

And yet, there’s that shot of Perry. I can’t speak to the context — whether it was during the Pledge or the Anthem is unclear just by looking at it — but note the similarities. In the 2007 picture, Hillary Clinton and Bill Richardson are seen with their hands on their hearts, but Obama has his hands at his side. In the 2011 picture, Michele Bachmann and Mitt Romney have their hands on their hearts, but Rick Perry has his hands at his side.

This leaves me curious. Will the picture of the Republican candidates lead to widespread questions about Perry’s patriotism? Will be it be shown, over and over again, on cable news? Will the Texas governor be asked for an explanation?

Or is there some quality about Perry and Obama that makes the former’s patriotism beyond reproach and the latter’s suspect?

Today’s installment of campaign-related news items that won’t necessarily generate a post of their own, but may be of interest to political observers:

* The latest debate for the Republican presidential candidates is tonight in Orlando.

* Mitt Romney has a huge lead in New Hampshire’s Republican presidential primary, leading the GOP field with 41% support in a new Suffolk poll. Rick Perry, the national frontrunner, is running fourth in the Granite State, according to this poll.

* In Florida, a new Quinnipiac poll offers better news for the Texas governor. Perry leads Romney in the Sunshine State, 31% to 22%. No other candidate is in double digits.

* On a related note, after Romney went after Perry again on Social Security with voters in Florida, Perry’s spokesperson replied, “As he has so many times in the past, Mr. Romney seems to forget he’s a Republican.” Ouch.

* House Dems may have won the money race in August, but their Senate counterparts did not. The National Republican Senatorial Committee outraised the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee last month, $2.96 million to $2.5 million.

* As if the RNC didn’t have enough trouble with its nominating calendar, Michigan is moving forward with plans to hold its presidential primary on Feb. 28, in violation of party rules.

* Republican presidential hopeful Jon Huntsman has begun laying off staff, and has asked consultants to work without pay for much of the summer. That’s generally not a good sign.

* The top tier continue to pick up endorsements — Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) is now backing Romney, while Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback (R) is supporting Perry.

* Republican presidential hopeful Michele Bachmann is apparently opposed to the Arab Spring, and criticized President Obama for allowing the Mubarak government to fall in Egypt.

* And in Illinois, thanks to redistricting, Reps. Joe Walsh (R) and Randy Hultgren (R) will face off against one another next year in a GOP primary.