Will this come back to haunt Romney as the primaries approach?
-Azam
Mitt Romney in 2002: “My views are progressive“
Ouch.
Reblogged from Yahoo! Politics!
Sub-Zeno
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The Gingrich Surge
First, it was Bachmann, who performed well in Iowa and who many proclaimed to be a ‘first tier’ candidate. But her strategy of generating anger against Washington using some…’misinformed’ assertions instead generated controversy, and her inability to dictate clearly what policies she would support as President (beyond repealing many of the current administration’s accomplishments) meant she didn’t spend too long in the spotlight.
Then, it was Perry. But his ambiguous and uncertain positions on issues important to GOP voters such as job creation and illegal immigration, coupled with poor debate performances, meant his time at the top was short lived.
Then, there was Cain. But he stuttered badly over even relatively simple questions on issues where ‘9-9-9’ wasn’t an obvious solution, particularly on foreign policy. Once problems over his personal life got in the way, it was clear that there was not much fuel left in the Cain Train.
Now we have the Newt Gingrich surge. There’s reason to be skeptical about how important this surge actually is - see above. Then again, we could be seeing the emergence of a real contended; via Polls and Votes, here’s Gingrich vs. Romney in the first four Republican Primary states:
Romney, typically first or second in many national polls, has had typically stable poll numbers, but in the last few months his support has declined. Many of those who previously placed their trust in Romney as President may now be moving to Gingrich instead.
Additionally, no surge in support for a candidate has been as large as that for Gingrich. Part of this could be due to a smaller Republican field; with the suspension of Cain’s campaign, it will be interesting to see whether Gingrich can benefit even further by attracting voters searching for a new candidate to support.
- Sanch
ABC News: Romney Strategy Against Gingrich
ABC News reports this morning in The Note on the expected Romney campaign strategy against Newt Gingrich, who is now challenging Romney for frontrunner status. ABC reports that the Romney campaign held a series of meetings over last weekend to develop the strategy, below:
–Romney will not go…
Reblogged from The Golden Report
While the Occupy Wall Street movement is most associated with economic issues, many of its supporters care about a wide variety of issues.
-Azam
I am 25 yrs. old. I have lived in the USA for 22 yrs. I was born in Mexico and brought over in search of a “BETTER” life. I work and pay taxes but i have NO rights. I am fortunate I have a job but i live in constant fear. I am an undocumented immigrant. I AM THE 99%. #OCCUPYWS
Reblogged from We Are the 99 Percent
Occupy Wall Street’s translation of Republican terminology
-Azam
Reblogged from Occupy* Posters, Protest Signs, and Banners
The Washington Money Machine and the Harrisburg Money Machine
NPR’s Planet Money Blog has a great podcast up about how members of Congress raise money from lobbyists and PACs in Washington, DC. The “in Washington, DC” part is key here. They all raise money back home from voters, too, but the Planet Money team is trying to investigate how the political fundraising infrastructure influences politicians. They find a lot of great clues, but they don’t actually get into any of the rooms where the events take place. Though they try.
I have actually been into some of those rooms. Well, not those rooms. The Harrisburg equivalent. Yes, local legislatures rely on the Capitol fundraising events as well. I can tell you from firsthand knowledge that, in Harrisburg, it’s all about the breakfasts. There are lots of hotels all around the Pennsylvania Capitol Building, and early every morning lots and lots of event rooms are playing host to little breakfast fundraisers, much like the ones Planet Money describes in the podcast linked above.
If you want to keep an eye on them, Greenlee Partners, a prominent lobbying firm in the Commonwealth, keeps a handy calendar on its website.
When I was working as the lobbyist for the organization formerly known as ACORN, I managed to talk my way into a few (very few) of these events without paying. The idea was that by getting into these rooms we could meet people with money to spend on elections and convince them to direct some of that money to our grassroots operation.
I didn’t make it happen.
But I did see the money machine from the inside and it’s… pretty boring. I ate some nice cantaloupe, but I didn’t see any smoke-filled-room-style deals getting cut (I didn’t talk my way into any of the power players’ parties, either). That’s not to say nothing was going on. No doubt, a big part of the payoff of going to such events is simply being seen by the elected official and chatting enough so they remember and appreciate the fact that you were there.
So don’t think just because your voting for a state legislator and not a national one that money doesn’t play a role. It does. There are “Friends of Whomever” holding J.V. versions of the D.C. fundraisers near state capitol buildings all over this country.
How ‘fair’ have the debates been?
During yesterday’s Republican presidential debate hosted by CNN on national security, @n4cerinc tweeted in effect that CNN were giving more time to Ron Paul and Huntsman to allow CNN to manipulate people’s perception of conservative positions on the issue of national security. Last week, Bachmann’s campaign accused CBS of bias when it was implied in an email that Bachmann would receive fewer questions than her fellow candidates in the CBS debate on foreign policy. Jon Huntsman twice referred to how little attention he’s given during debates, standing on the end and receiving few questions. Ron Paul and his supporters have also argued that debate moderators don’t give him a fair amount of response time during the debates.
This got me wondering - have candidates been given an equal opportunity to express their ideas and views during the debates?
Already, I can hear cries of no, from Gary Johnson and his supporters who believe he is being intentionally shut out of the debates in spite of his comparable polling stats with candidates who are up on stage. I’m not going to comment on whether more or fewer candidates should be up on the debate stage; I’m more interested in whether the debate moderators give each candidate an equal opportunity to state their views.
To look this up, I went through each of the transcripts for the last 10 debates, noting the number of responses each candidate gave. Responses include direct answers to questions posed by moderators, answers to follow up questions (that were not clarification or repeat questions), and comments made about answers given by fellow candidates. There was a little bit of subjectivity - how many ‘responses’ to count for back-and-forth arguments like those between Perry and Romney? - but I think that over a range of ten debates we get a pretty good idea of whether any single candidate has been allowed more responses over the others.
I didn’t factor in words per response and talk time allowed per candidate, as I didn’t really have time to calculate either for all ten debates. Given that the debates hold relatively strict time limits, I’m not sure whether including those variables would significantly change the results (though I may well be wrong!).
Here’s a table with the data - I included all of the debates completed thus far except for the May 5th debate (too few candidates), the Palmetto Freedom Forum (different debate format), the Douglas-Lincoln style debate (too few candidates) and the Thanksgiving Family Forum (no transcript available online).
Here’s some graphs for a visual comparison:
Romney has been allowed many more responses per debate than the other candidates. Perry might have been up at a similar level to Romney at the end of October, but not so today; a few more debates, and he may fall to the same level as his fellow competitors. The remaining candidates are given a similar number of responses per debate, though Cain and Bachmann are edging ahead slightly. If anything, Santorum and Huntsman probably have more right to argue that they’re being short-changed than Bachmann and Paul.
As for debate equality, you can see that the lines are beginning to converge after being well dispersed over the last few months. Just as the candidates are getting better at responding to the moderators’ questions, the moderators seem to be getting better at giving candidates a fair chance to express their views.
- Sanch
Is the Super Committee in super trouble? Former U.S. Secretary of Labor Robert Reich draws a cartoon.
-Azam
Reblogged from The New Republic
