Must-read: The Time William F. Buckley Wanted to Nuke Vietnam
August 03, 2012
Bill Clinton will headline a New York City fundraiser for Priorities USA Action, the "super PAC" founded by former aides to President Obama, the
New York Times reports.
"The event -- a briefing for potential donors to the pro-Obama group -- cements Mr. Clinton as one of the top rainmakers for Mr. Obama, a politician with whom he once clashed. Mr. Clinton also appeared at a high-dollar New York fund-raiser for Mr. Obama in June and will formally present him for the Democratic presidential nomination at the party's quadrennial convention a few weeks from now."
National Journal finds the two presidential campaigns and their outside supporters "have purchased $457 million in television advertising. Voters in Florida have each seen more than $88 million in advertising, while Virginia voters have seen over $63 million in television spots."
First Read: "For those who have departed on their August recess, we salute you -- for going down as one of the most unproductive, contentious, and unpopular Congresses in modern history. So in addition to last summer's debt-ceiling debacle, the Super Committee's failure, and the near-government shutdown during 2011, Congress has failed to come together to pass a comprehensive farm bill. And Senate Republicans yesterday filibustered a cybersecurity bill."
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So here's your current Congress: Republicans are working to block or dismantle laws; Democrats are focusing on protecting what's already law; and no one is getting stuff done. As we wrote earlier this week, one of the most profound changes on Capitol Hill is the job requirement. It's no longer about bringing home deliverables to your state or congressional district (like roads, bridges, or new schools). Instead, it's about scoring ideological points and waging partisan crusades."
Rep. Walter Jones (R-NC) told
The Hill that Mitt Romney's refusal to release more than two years of tax returns could hurt him in the presidential election.
Said Jones: "I don't think this will go away. And if we're still talking about this in September, he's in deep trouble."
A
Smart Politics review "of the 2012 presidential electoral projection maps released by 12 major media outlets finds they yield 10 different lists designating the most competitive states to watch this cycle (e.g. battleground / swing / toss-up)."
"Only two states appeared on the lists of each of the dozen media outlets under analysis: Florida and Virginia. Another five states were listed by 11 outlets: Colorado, Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, and Ohio followed by North Carolina at eight, Wisconsin at seven, Michigan at four, Arizona, Missouri, New Mexico, and Pennsylvania at two, and Indiana and Minnesota at one."
"As long as it's not me, I'll be cool."
-- Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R), quoted by
CNN, when asked who he thought Mitt Romney would choose as his running mate.
James Wolcott notes that in the run-up to the 2012 presidential election "publishers are rolling out the political artillery, aiming to capitalize on the dread afflicting the party out of power, its fear that another four years of the current White House resident will plunge us into doom, chaos, and fire."
"An edge of desperation drives these books, gives friction to their reiterations, but it isn't the urgency that this is the last shot to stop Obama before he completes the Kenyan conquest for which he was baptized beneath the red moon. It's the understanding that if Obama is re-elected no one's going to want to read a hopped-up tirade about his second term, when each day drags him closer to lame-duck status. Have to get your licks in now, if you're a conservative, rest up, file your bamboo stakes, and anticipate the juicy possibility of Hillary Clinton in 2016."
"When you're rich, you want a Republican in office."
-- Porn star Jenna Jameson, quoted by
CBS News, endorsing Mitt Romney for president at a San Francisco strip club.
"Gay rights activists and other supporters of marriage equality plan a national 'Kiss In' at Chick-fil-A restaurants Friday to protest the fast-food chain owners' opposition to same-sex unions," the
Washington Post reports.
"Participants are encouraged to come to the fast-food chains and kiss a fellow demonstrator of the same sex."
"The people of America recognize that the slowdown in jobs that occurred during the early years of the Bush administration were the result of a perfect storm. And an effort by one candidate to somehow say, 'Oh, this recession and the slowdown in jobs was the result of somehow this president magically being elected' -- people in America just dismiss that as being poppycock. And they recognize it as that."
-- Mitt Romney,
defending President George W. Bush in 2004.
See more...
The U.S. economy added 163,000 jobs last month as compared to an expectation of just 95,000 new jobs,
Wonk Wire reports.
Nonetheless, the unemployment rate inched up to 8.3% as more people sought work.
First Read: "As we said before, anything above 150,000 new jobs per month is good
news for Obama. But expect Mitt Romney and the Republicans to focus on
the slight tick up in the unemployment rate."
John Ellis: "President Barack Obama's re-election campaign has spent more than $100 million on advertising over the last 3 months. Much, if not most, of it has been produced to shred Mitt Romney's reputation and suppress turnout among white voters who might vote for Romney. The outlook for August is more of the same. The outlook for September and October is probably a lot more of the same."
"The 2012 president election, boiled down to its remaining variables, is about two things: (1) white voters who voted for Barrack Obama last time and have since grown disillusioned and, (2) white voters who stayed home in 2008 rather than vote for John McCain but may vote this time. The Obama campaign's goal is to make both groups stay home rather than vote. It's not a 'negative campaign' they're running. It's purposefully toxic."
Bottom line: "If President Obama gets 40% of the white vote, he has a chance to win re-election. If President Obama gets 35% of the white vote, he's finished."
Politico: "Ever since his national debut at the 2004 Democratic convention, Barack Obama's calling card has been that he practices consensus-oriented politics that transcend traditional divisions. But four years after his historic presidential election, the country he sought to bring together is even more divided than when he launched his candidacy. And no place is more polarized than the South. Any hope that the nation's first black president would usher in a period of reconciliation in the old Confederacy has crashed on the rocks of a harsh reality: African-Americans overwhelmingly support him and whites make up much of the opposition. Far from being a transformational figure in the South, Obama has instead reinforced the region's oldest and sturdiest divide."
The South is "at once the heart of the Obama resistance but also a region that is crucial to his reelection hopes. If he loses Florida, North Carolina and Virginia, it's a virtual certainty that he'll be a one-term president."
Peggy Noonan: "The oldest cliché in presidential politics is that no normal person cares about the election until after Labor Day, when the kids are back in school. It's a cliché because it's always been true. I've seen it. But I don't think it's true anymore, and in fact has been changing for some time."
"The cliché is replaced by a new one: The screens are everywhere. There's no place to hide from presidential candidates anymore. For a solid year they follow you from the TV monitor in the airport to the one in the taxi; you check your smartphone and they're in the inbox telling you their plans and asking for money. You get home, turn on the TV, fire up the computer, and they're there."
The Week makes the counterintuitive case.
Open Secrets finds that candidates this cycle have collectively spent more than $130 million on their own campaigns ahead of the November elections.
Interestingly, just 11 of the 58 candidates in 2010 who spent at least $500,000 supporting their own campaigns won their general elections.
Bloomberg notes President Obama has had more success defining Mitt Romney than Romney.
Todd Purdum: "All presidential candidates depend on biographical narrative to define themselves to voters. Jimmy Carter was the Man from Plains and Bill Clinton the Man from Hope. George W. Bush was the Sinner Who Went Straight and John McCain was the War Hero Who Never Gave Up. Barack Obama was the Fresh Face from Nowhere, who embodied the American Dream. Every one of these men, by the time he ran for president, stood atop a thick biographical record--books and articles, testimonials from old friends, memoirs and tracts, soul-baring interviews. One had a sense of how they thought, how they reacted, what made them tick--and as time went on, it was generally easy to see how their actions fit the people we knew."
"And Romney is... who? What? It's hard to know, because he doesn't like to tell us."
August 02, 2012
After Mitt Romney told Sen. Harry Reid to "
put up or shut up" on charges that the GOP presidential nominee avoided paying taxes fro 10 years,
UPI reports Reid issued a statement saying again that he has "an extremely credible source" and that Romney "is hiding something."
Said Reid: "It's clear Romney is hiding something, and the American people deserve to know what it is."
Maggie Haberman: "Reid is playing a very rough, no-rules game here. But, unless tthere is serious blowback, it aappears to be somewhat risk-free."
First Read: "While it's technically correct that the Obama campaign is outspending the Romney campaign in TV advertising in the battleground states, you can't say the same thing when adding all the outside groups. Right now, Team Romney -- the campaign, the RNC, and all the GOP-leaning outside groups -- is outspending Team Obama (campaign, DNC, outside groups) this week by a nearly 2-to-1 margin, $25 million to $14 million. That $25 million, in fact, is more than we've seen from one side during any other week this cycle."
"What's more, Team Romney has enjoyed this ad-spending edge for much of the past month."
The Week takes on
Newsweek's much talked about cover story.
Mitt Romney traveling spokesman Rick Gorka, "whose
curse-laden flap with the press in Poland rounded out the news reports culminating Romney's trip, is 'taking some time off the trail' after a week abroad,"
ABC News reports.
Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) has cleary gotten under Mitt Romney's skin with his
allegations that the GOP hopeful has not paid federal taxes for a decade: The
Daily Caller reports that Romney just told Reid to "put up or shut up" on Sean Hannity's radio show.
Said Romney: "Harry's going to have to describe who it is he spoke with because that's
totally and completely wrong. It's untrue, dishonest and inaccurate.
It's wrong. So I'm looking forward to have Harry reveal his sources and
we'll probably find out it's the White House."
The Atlantic: Speculation About Romney's Taxes Goes Off the Rails
Even before today's
Pew Research poll showing President Obama with a double-digit lead nationally over Mitt Romney,
Nate Silver's latest election forecast gives Obama a 70.8% chance of winning the Electoral College -- an all time high this year.
"It's the vote in November that counts - not the polls in August - but they represent the most conspicuous sign that incumbent presidents are hard to defeat, and that Mr. Romney has some work left to do to win the Electoral College."
CNN: "Here's one clue: Romney's longtime adviser Beth Myers, who has been tasked with heading up the campaign's search for a running mate, will be traveling with the Republican presidential hopeful on Thursday when he arrives in Colorado to meet with GOP governors, according to a source familiar with the trip."
"Romney will hold a public event with several Republican governors in Basalt before attending a fundraiser in Aspen later in the evening. A who's who of top GOP officeholders, strategists and donors are gathered in the ski resort town for a retreat hosted by the Republican Governors Association."
A new
Pew Research survey shows President Obama opening up a wide lead over Mitt Romney in the presidential race, 51% to 41%.
Key findings: "By a 52% to 37% margin, more voters say they have an unfavorable than favorable view of Romney... Obama's image remains, by comparison, more positive -- 50% offer a
favorable assessment of the president, 45% an unfavorable one."
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