Monday, February 06, 2012 2:48:06 AM
Mitt and the middle class
U.S. Republican presidential candidate and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney mingles with the crowd after speaking at a campaign stop in Eagan, Minnesota, February 1, 2012.
REUTERS/Craig Lassig
By David Rohde [ http://blogs.reuters.com/david-rohde ]
February 2, 2012
Mitt Romney’s declaration [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tqSrpynRTlk ] that he wasn’t concerned about “the very poor” was lampooned by Republicans and Democrats alike this week. But his next statement in a CNN interview is the one that could determine the fate of his candidacy.
“I’m concerned about the very heart of America,” Romney said, adding later: “My focus is on middle-income Americans.”
With astonishing speed, the 2012 presidential election is becoming a referendum on how best to help the American middle class. So far, Romney’s solutions are likely to be far more pleasing to the Republican base than the general electorate.
Reduce corporate taxes by 25 percent. Increase oil and gas drilling. Repeal Obamacare and Dodd-Frank. Cut non-security discretionary spending by 5 percent. Weaken unions. And reduce the federal workforce by 10 percent.
Where, Democrats contend, is the benefit to the middle class?
The conservative answer reflects the yawning ideological gap that will become more apparent in the months ahead. While Obama and Democrats call for the federal government — and society as a whole — to ensure that individuals have the opportunity to increase their social mobility, Romney and Republicans concentrate on broad economic growth.
“Republicans are focused much more on having a rising tide that lifts all boats, even if it lifts more yachts than dinghies,” said Scott Winship, a fellow at the Brookings Institution. “It’s very striking when compared to Obama’s very individual focus on human capital and a federal role in increasing it.”
As he has done in his approach to foreign policy [ http://blogs.reuters.com/david-rohde/2012/01/20/the-world-according-to-romney/ ], Romney is trying to channel his inner Reagan in economic policy [ http://mittromney.com/sites/default/files/shared/BelieveInAmerica-PlanForJobsAndEconomicGrowth-Full.pdf ]. While Democrats contend that George W. Bush’s use of supply-side, unregulated, trickle-down economics caused the Great Recession, Reagan’s economic doctrine is alive and well on the right.
“Most of our problems now relate to this asset bubble that formed; it wasn’t so much what Bush did or didn’t do,” Winship argued. “The ’80s in retrospect were not a bad period economically. I think it’s hard to argue that trickle-down will end up hurting the poor or reducing middle-class opportunities.”
Winship and some conservative economists also go a step further. In a series of recent posts [ http://www.nationalreview.com/agenda/288306/guest-post-scott-winship-obama-administrations-questionable-mobility-claims-reihan-sal ], they question a central liberal narrative: that middle-class wages have stagnated since Reagan’s presidency. Terry Fitzgerald, an economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, has argued [ http://www.minneapolisfed.org/pubs/region/08-09/income.pdf ] that the rapid postwar growth of the American middle class has slowed over the last 30 years, but the middle class has still increased in size.
“From 1947 to 1975, was very fast growth,” Fitzgerald told me. “It was slower since then, but it hasn’t been stagnation.”
Fitzgerald argued that economic studies showing little increase in the median income of American households are skewed by social changes, not only economic ones. Beginning in the late 1970s, high divorce rates reduced the percentage of American households made up of married couples from 63 percent in 1976 to 50 percent in 2006. Single-parent families earn far less than two-parent families, Fitzgerald argues, and drive down the median income.
Richard Burkhauser, a Cornell University economist, contends that the value of benefits families receive from the government and employers are also not included in studies showing meager increases. When the value of these benefits is included, he argues, the stagnation of middle-class incomes disappears.
Liberal economists scoff at such findings. They say a comprehensive study [ http://cbo.gov/ftpdocs/124xx/doc12485/10-25-HouseholdIncome.pdf ] by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office included such factors and still found tepid middle-class wage growth since 1979. Jared Bernstein, a former chief economic adviser to Vice-President Joseph R. Biden Jr., said supply-side economics failed in the 1980s and the 2000s and would fail again.
“Not only did it fail to reach the vast majority of American families, it actually contributed to the worst recession since the Great Depression,” Bernstein told me. “I can say with complete confidence that the supply-side, deregulate, trickle-down model is a failed model.”
“When I look at all the Republican candidates,” he added, “this is still at the heart of their thinking.”
Meanwhile, Romney, who is trying to unseat an incumbent, embraces a suffering-middle-class narrative. Doing otherwise would be political suicide. The bogey-man, he argues, is government intervention. Top-down economic growth will ease Middle America’s woes, not government programs.
Obama, on the other hand, regularly unveils new federal initiatives that he says will reduce the cost of college, make it easier for homeowners to refinance, and return manufacturing jobs to the United States. The philosophical difference could not be more profound — or more reminiscent of the 1980s.
One or two of Romney’s ideas are close to those of Obama. Unlike every other Republican candidate, the former Massachusetts governor supports instituting automatic increases in the federal minimum wage to keep pace with inflation. And he talks about the central role that increasing American exports and retraining workers could have in reviving the middle class in a globalized economy. But the similarities end there.
Romney argues that the federal government should get out of the job-training business, for example, and devolve all such efforts to the states. Asked for a specific step that would aid the middle class, Andrea Saul, a campaign spokesperson, cited a Romney proposal to eliminate all interest, dividend and capital-gains taxes for people earning less than $200,000. She argued that the philosophy of Barack Obama, not Ronald Reagan, was gutting America’s middle class.
“President Obama’s big government policies have been disastrous for the middle class,” Saul said in an email Thursday. “Mitt Romney is focused on helping those middle-income Americans who have been hurt worst by the Obama economy.”
In the months ahead, we’ll see if Middle America buys it.
David Rohde is a Reuters columnist and former reporter for the New York Times. He is a two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the author, with Kristen Mulvihill, of "A Rope and a Prayer: A Kidnapping from Two Sides."
Copyright 2012 Reuters
http://blogs.reuters.com/david-rohde/2012/02/03/mitt-and-the-middle-class/ [with comments] [also at http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/02/the-middle-class-and-mitt/252510/ (with comments)]
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Romney, the Rich and the Rest
By CHARLES M. BLOW
Published: February 3, 2012
No one should be surprised that the Tin Man has a tin ear.
After all, Mitt Romney is the same multimillionaire who joked that he was “unemployed [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EiHYcwdBlu0 ]” while he was “earning” more in one day than most Americans earn in a year and paying a lower rate on those earnings than most Americans do.
This is the same man who bragged last month that he liked to fire people [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBfWB64iHAs ] at a time when nearly 13 million people are out of work and who accepted the endorsement this week of Donald Trump, who has made “You’re Fired!” his television catchphrase.
This is the same man who in November claimed that federal employees are making “a lot more money than we are.” What?! We? What we? Please direct me to the federal employees with the $20 million paychecks. In fact, The Washington Post pointed out [ http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/post/federal-employees-make-average-26-percent-less-than-private-workers-labor-agency-reports/2011/11/04/gIQAse5emM_blog.html ] in November that federal employees on average “are underpaid by 26.3 percent when compared with similar nonfederal jobs, a ‘pay gap’ that increased by about 2 percentage points over the last year while federal salary rates were frozen.”
And who could forget his remark that “corporations are people [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2h8ujX6T0A ].” Classic.
But this week when Romney said that he wasn’t concerned about the very poor [ http://money.cnn.com/2012/02/01/news/economy/romney_poor/index.htm ] in this country, he jumped in the pickle barrel and went over the waterfall.
First, his statement:
“I’m not concerned about the very poor. We have a safety net there. If it needs repair, I’ll fix it. I’m not concerned about the very rich. They’re doing just fine. I’m concerned about the very heart of America — the 90-95 percent of Americans who right now are struggling.”
Romney went on to say that his campaign was focused on “middle-income Americans” and that “we have a very ample safety net” for the poor.
He later tried to clarify [ http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2012/02/01/romney-says-poor-comment-needs-context/ ], saying that his comments needed context. Then he said that the comments were a “misstatement” and that he had “misspoke.” Yeah, right.
Where to begin?
First, a report from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities [ http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=3658 ] last month pointed out that Romney’s budget proposals would take a chainsaw to that safety net. The report points out that cuts proposed by Romney would be even more draconian than a plan from Representative Paul Ryan: “Governor Romney’s budget proposals would require far deeper cuts in nondefense programs than the House-passed budget resolution authored by Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan: $94 billion to $219 billion deeper in 2016 and $303 billion to $819 billion deeper in 2021.”
What does this mean for specific programs? Let’s take the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, since “food stamps” have been such a talking point in the Republican debates. The report says the Romney plan “would throw 10 million low-income people off the benefit rolls, cut benefits by thousands of dollars a year, or some combination of the two. These cuts would primarily affect very-low-income families with children, seniors and people with disabilities.”
Does that sound like a man trying to “fix” our social safety nets? Absolutely not. Romney is so far up the beanstalk that he can no longer see the ground.
Then let’s take the fact that a report last month by the Tax Policy Center [ http://politicalcorrection.org/blog/201201050012 ] found that his tax plan would increase after-tax income for millionaires by 14.5 percent while increasing the after-tax income of those making less than $20,000 by less than 1 percent and of those making between $30,000 and $40,000 by less than 3 percent.
For a man who’s not worried about the rich, he sure seems to want them to rake in more cash.
This has nothing to do with context. This has everything to do with a caviar candidate’s inability to relate to a chicken-soup citizenry.
Then there is the “ample safety net” nonsense. No one who has ever been on the low end of the income spectrum believes this, not even Republicans. According to a Pew Research Center survey [ http://www.people-press.org/2012/02/02/lower-income-republicans-say-government-does-too-little-for-poor-people/ ] conducted in October, even most Republicans and Republican-leaning independents who make less than $30,000 a year, which accounts for about a quarter of all Republicans, say that the government doesn’t do enough to help the poor. Only a man who has never felt the sting of poverty or seen its ravages would say such a thing.
But perhaps the most pernicious part of his statement was the underestimating of the rich and poor and the elasticized expansion of the term “middle income” or middle class. Romney suggests that 95 percent of Americans are in this group. Not true.
According to the Census Bureau [ http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty/about/overview/index.html ], the official poverty rate in 2010 was 15.1 percent.
And that’s the income poor. It doesn’t even count the “asset poor.” A report issued this week by the Corporation for Enterprise Development [ http://assetsandopportunity.org/scorecard/about/main_findings/ ] found that 27 percent of U.S. households live in “asset poverty.” According to the report, “These families do not have the savings or other assets to cover basic expenses (equivalent to what could be purchased with a poverty level income) for three months if a layoff or other emergency leads to loss of income.”
On the other hand, the definition of “rich” is more nebulous. However, according to a December Gallup report, Americans set the rich threshold at $150,000 in annual income. And according to the U.S. Census Bureau 8.4 percent of households had an income of $150,000 or more in 2010.
So at the very least, nearly a fourth of all Americans are either poor or rich.
That would leave about three-fourths somewhere in the middle, but not all middle class. Tricking the poor to believe they’re in it, and allowing the wealthy to hide in it, is one of the great modern political deceptions and how we’ve arrived at our current predicament.
According to a New York Times/CBS News poll conducted last month, nearly a fifth of families making less than $15,000 said that they were middle class and nearly two-fifths of those making more than $100,000 said that they were middle class.
Romney is not only cold and clumsy, he’s disastrously out of touch, and when talking about real people, out of sorts. If only he had a heart, and if only that heart was connected to his brain.
© 2012 The New York Times Company
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/04/opinion/blow-romney-the-rich-and-the-rest.html [with comments]
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Paul Defends Romney On 'Poor' Comment
February 4, 2012
http://www.wdsu.com/r/30376772/detail.html [with comments]
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Coulter to Romney: ‘You owe me’
By Jeff Poor - The Daily Caller
Published: 6:39 PM 02/02/2012 | Updated: 2:56 PM 02/04/2012
Nearly a year ago at the annual CPAC conference in Washington, D.C., conservative commentator Ann Coulter said, “If you don’t run Chris Christie, [Gov. Mitt] Romney will be the nominee, and we’ll lose.” But something changed over the summer, and now Coulter is touting the former Massachusetts governor.
In her column on Wednesday, Coulter, the author of “Demonic: How the Liberal Mob Is Endangering America [ http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0307353486 ],” even praised [ http://dailycaller.com/2012/02/02/2012/02/01/three-cheers-for-romneycare/ ] so-called RomneyCare, which resulted in attacks [ http://www.therightscoop.com/mark-levins-rebuttal-of-ann-coulters-three-cheers-for-romneycare-article/ ] from [ http://campaign2012.washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/beltway-confidential/coulters-shameful-defense-romneycare/354411 ] various voices on the right.
But on Sean Hannity’s radio show on Thursday, she offered an explanation why she has been so outspoken in promoting Romney’s candidacy, which she said had a lot to do with getting the right candidate to defeat President Barack Obama.
“I think this election is very important,” Coulter said. “I think it’s going to be very hard for Republicans to win it. It’s hard to take out a sitting president. Republicans have taken out a sitting president twice in the last hundred years. Once was in 1920, once was in 1980. And I’ve gone back and looked at how Ronald Reagan did it in 1980. And one of the things that’s very striking coming from his advisers, his pollster is that they were going to present him as Mr. Charm School, Mr. Calm and Gentlemanly. And he was a man of peace.”
She explained tactics Reagan’s inner circle used to defeat then-incumbent President Jimmy Carter, who she said was a much easier target than Obama.
“A week before the election he took out a half hour ad with testimonials as such as Henry Kissinger,” she said. “He said things like, ‘peace is not a partisan issue.’ In the debates, he was coached and coached and coached. He used to be calm and gentlemanly. And by the way, I don’t think Jimmy Carter was as much of a charmer as Barack Obama is. Poll after poll after poll has shown that the American people do not like Barack Obama policies, but they like his family. He’s excruciatingly charming. He has a lovely family. It is not a personal hatred toward him, I mean except for some who do transfer politics to the personal.”
And she added that it isn’t that Romney is moderate in his ideology, but moderate in his temperament.
“As I wrote in last week’s column, I think Romney is the most conservative on the issues, on the positions — for example, on illegal immigration, and yet he is moderate in his temperament,” she said. “So I think he is by far and away the most — strongest candidate of the four we have right now.”
Later in her appearance, Hannity asked Coulter who she thought Romney should surround himself with as president. She said that she “better have his ear” and recalled an encounter with Romney.
“Did I tell you I met him at a fundraiser?” Coulter said. “I went up to him. I was about to leave. But I said — I just wanted to go up to him and tell him, ‘You owe me and you better be as right-wing a president as I’m telling everybody you’re going to be.’”
Coulter said she also plugged Christie to be his running mate, but said the former Massachusetts governor said “oh don’t worry” or something to that effect.
Copyright © 2012 The Daily Caller
http://dailycaller.com/2012/02/02/coulter-to-romney-you-owe-me-video/ [with comments]
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Romney Emphasizes Patriotism – A Lot
Mitt Romney’s latest string of campaign stops has been heavy on patriotism.
(credit: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
February 3, 2012 5:35 PM
EAGAN, Minn. (AP) — Mitt Romney talks about his love for America almost every day. Twice now, the Republican presidential front-runner has even broken into song.
“Oh beautiful, for spacious skies, for amber waves of grain,” Romney crooned Wednesday, standing on stage in a warehouse here as the crowd sang along. He did the same earlier in the week at a Florida retirement community.
Those performances were a campaign-trail crescendo of sorts for Romney. He has spent months traveling — from Iowa to New Hampshire to South Carolina to Florida — proclaiming “I love America” and declaring his appreciation for what he often calls “the national hymns of our nation.” Among them: “The Star-Spangled Banner” and “America the Beautiful,” which he calls his favorite partly because his mother used to sing it.
While all politicians emphasize patriotism, Romney arguably takes it to a whole new level. He sprinkles this adoration-of-the-nation theme throughout his typical campaign speech that he delivers at least once a day. The pitch is short on policy. Instead, it’s almost entirely an ode to patriotism. He has built his entire campaign around the theme. His logo, his bus and the paperback version of his latest book are all tagged “Believe in America.”
It’s intended to help him appeal to voters who believe America is in decline — but who remain optimistic about their own futures in a country that’s always emphasized hard work as a way to get ahead. And by design or not, Romney’s pronouncements also are rife with suggestions that his opponents, particularly President Barack Obama, don’t share his appreciation of country.
“I will never apologize for America,” Romney says often — suggesting that Obama has done just that, even though the president hasn’t.
Romney also emphasizes what he calls his belief that America is exceptional — implying that his Democratic rival has a different view even though Obama has said that he sees the country as exceptional, too. All that plays to a belief in conservative circles that Obama has traveled the country making excuses for America’s involvement in foreign countries.
“We have a president who I don’t think understands the nature of America, the power of opportunity and freedom,” Romney told a crowd in Derry, N.H., last month. “I want to bring these things back to America so we have a brighter future for our kids.”
During an appearance in North Liberty, Iowa, Romney said: “The president said he wants to fundamentally transform America. . I kind of like America. I’m not looking for it to be fundamentally transformed into something else. I don’t want it to become like Europe.” It’s a comment he’s repeatedly made.
It’s no secret why he’s chosen this pitch.
Over the last decade, polls have regularly found that roughly half of all Americans — and in most cases way more than that — think the nation is going in the wrong direction. The exceptions occurred during George W. Bush’s first term and during the first few months of Obama’s presidency.
In November, 54 percent of Americans said in an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll that the country’s recent rough patch is the start of a longer-term global decline where the U.S. is no longer the leading country in the world. Some 40 percent suggested it was temporary.
Despite the pessimism about America’s standing in the world, people have grown more optimistic than they have been in recent years that America itself is growing stronger. Only 37 percent said things would get better over the next five years when surveyed by NBC/Wall Street Journal in August 2010. That number jumped to 53 percent in January, coinciding with growth in the economy.
In some cases, Romney gets corny and he repeatedly combines the lines with a story about how his parents drove him across the country in the family Rambler to see America’s national parks.
“I love the founding documents,” the candidate says frequently before crowds as he quotes from the Declaration of Independence. “I love the Constitution!” is another Romney favorite. That includes, by the way, everything that’s been added to it. “I love all the amendments!” he said in September. “I love the Second Amendment. I love the 10th Amendment.”
The construction of some of Romney’s remarks rankle Democrats, who have continuously defended Obama from ongoing accusations that he is “other” or un-American.
“You can make an accusation about what you believe somebody wants to do, but that’s very different than saying that someone doesn’t understand the nature of their country,” said Kiki McLean, a longtime Democratic strategist who has worked on several presidential campaigns. “So then the question comes: Are you insinuating something?”
Democrats have always been vulnerable to questions of their patriotism given their frequent anti-war stances and criticism of the status quo. But the spotlight has been even brighter on the first black president and one who has a foreign-sounding name.
Obama has faced repeated questions about his citizenship and right to be president, as well as his religion. His wife, first lady Michelle Obama, set off a conservative firestorm during the 2008 primary campaign when she said, “For the first time in my adult lifetime, I am really proud of my country.”
Romney aides say his words are simply a reflection of the candidate’s beliefs and aren’t disparaging of Democrats. And the former Massachusetts governor occasionally acknowledges that Democrats also care about the country.
“Good Democrats love America, too,” Romney said at a chilly outdoor rally in West Des Moines the day of the Iowa caucuses. And in August, Romney mentioned Obama and told NBC News, “I know he loves America.”
Even so, Romney has sought to use patriotic themes to appeal to Americans’ inherent belief in their country as he blames Obama for allowing the country to decline.
“These last three years,” Romney says often, “they are a detour, not our destiny.”
© Copyright 2012 The Associated Press
http://washington.cbslocal.com/2012/02/03/romney-emphasizes-patriotism-a-lot/ [no comments yet]
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Santorum Warns Of Doomsday Under Obama
Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum speaks at a town hall meeting at the Tea Party and Republicans Uniting Nevada Conservatives (TRUNC) office on Jan. 31, 2012 in Las Vegas, Nev.
(credit: Ethan Miller/Getty Images)
February 3, 2012 5:54 AM
LAKEWOOD, Colo. (AP) — Rick Santorum’s campaign slogan could very well be one word: doomsday.
To hear him tell it, the United States will collapse under the weight of its health care system and basic freedoms will be history. Iran will annihilate Israel and then South Carolina if Iran isn’t blocked from building a nuclear weapon. And divorce will yield higher taxes for all Americans.
Unless, of course, Republicans pick Santorum as the party’s presidential nominee and he goes on to defeat President Barack Obama.
“Go back and read what the sirens did once you arrived on that island,” Santorum warned students at Colorado Christian University this week, invoking mythology. “They devour you. They destroy you. They consume you.”
“Ladies and gentleman we cannot listen to the siren song,” he added. “We cannot listen to President Obama and we can’t listen to those in our party who want to be just a little bit less than what the Democrats and the left is doing to our country.”
It was standard fare for the former Pennsylvania senator. He doesn’t mince words in campaign speeches in which he describes how — in his view — the country is heading down the wrong path and the government is growing too big. Gloom and doom usually pepper his remarks. And he often argues that America will falter if he fails to win the nomination.
“You have honor to live up to, to hand off to the next generation as least as great a country as given to you. And you all know that is in jeopardy,” he told a crowd in Colorado Springs.
The dire warnings contrast directly with the sunny optimism his top rivals often exude.
GOP front-runner Mitt Romney talks about how much he loves America. And Newt Gingrich lectures on the nation’s unique place in the world and its potential to free the world.
They are following legions of other politicians who have used optimism to court voters with visions of the country’s greatness.
Ronald Reagan ousted Jimmy Carter in 1980 by asking whether Americans wanted a chance for a better tomorrow. Four years later, Reagan won with his rhetoric about America as a “shining city on a hill,” a notion borrowed from a 17th-century Puritan. Bill Clinton captured the presidency by appealing to voters’ middle-class struggles and urging them “don’t stop thinking about tomorrow.”
George W. Bush captured the White House in 2000 with the promise to restore dignity to the office after the scandal-ridden Clinton years. And Obama won his first term in the White House on a message of hope and change, appealing to voters’ desire to turn the page after eight years of Bush.
At times, Santorum seems to be doing the exact opposite, currying favor with voters by appealing to their frustrations with Washington as he looks to regain his own political footing after three consecutive losses in the GOP nomination race.
“Every once in a while Rick may get passionate and come across as angry, but Americans can appreciate that, because a lot of people out there are angry at where we are right now and they’re looking for a fighter who understands their struggle,” Santorum spokesman Hogan Gidley said.
The former senator pitches himself as the only politician standing between a wholesale meltdown of American values and a political tsunami for his GOP.
On the health care overhaul, Santorum warns: “Be careful what you do … because once the government creates a right, it can tell you how to exercise that right.”
On Obama’s regulations, he says: ‘Under Obamacare, you are going to have to provide insurance coverage, free coverage, for things that are absolutely against the teaching of the Catholic Church: free sterilization, free abortions. … This is just the tip of the iceberg of what we can expect.”
On Iranian policy, he warns that Tehran first would destroy Israel and then turn its sights on the United States. “They cannot have a nuclear weapon, because you, in Greenville, will not be safe,” he said in South Carolina.
And on declining marriage rates, he adds: “Taxes go up and the economy struggles. We know that marriage and the two-parent family is the unit upon which this country was founded.”
Santorum also constantly warns that neither Romney nor Gingrich would be an effective challenger to Obama and says he’s sounding the alarm against a political disaster.
“Barack Obama, in a debate or in this election, is going to destroy Mitt Romney on the issue of health care,” Santorum told a crowd in Woodland Park.
As for Gingrich, he says this of the former House speaker: “Way too erratic.”
© Copyright 2012 The Associated Press
http://washington.cbslocal.com/2012/02/03/santorum-warns-of-doomsday-under-obama/ [with comments]
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Santorum looks for votes in Missouri
GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum shook hands with James Dobson on Friday at Grace Bible Church in Columbia, Mo.
Courtesy of Peter Yankowsky
“This is a time for doing your duty,” the GOP candidate tells a John Knox Village audience.
By DAVE HELLING
The Kansas City Star
Posted on Fri, Feb. 03, 2012 11:23 PM
On Friday, Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum urged more than 750 people in Lee’s Summit to breathe life into Missouri’s quiet primary — and his own campaign — by casting ballots in next Tuesday’s statewide vote.
“This is a time for doing your duty,” he told the audience at John Knox Village. “This is not a rally speech. This is not a rally time.”
The former senator from Pennsylvania touched on a series of subjects in his roughly 55-minute address, including health care reform, President Barack Obama’s performance, and the nation’s reliance on faith and God to meet its challenges.
And he criticized his main Republican opponents: former governor Mitt Romney and former House speaker Newt Gingrich.
“I promise you, no moon colonies,” Santorum said, referring to a Gingrich pledge.
He also said he was “appalled” at Romney’s statement that he was not concerned with the very poor because “we have a safety net there.” The GOP front-runner later said he misspoke.
“We need a candidate who cares about 100 percent of Americans,” Santorum told the crowd.
After his speech, Santorum told reporters that a Missouri victory could give him an important boost. Santorum won the Iowa caucuses but hasn’t won any primary state so far.
“This is a pretty important state,” he said. “Let’s see how we do.”
But Santorum’s daylong Missouri swing may highlight the strange nature of the state’s presidential primary: Even if he wins Tuesday, Santorum won’t get any convention delegates here.
Indeed, the “beauty contest” nature of the vote has kept Romney and GOP candidate Ron Paul out of Missouri in the days leading to Feb. 7, and Gingrich isn’t even on the ballot.
The tangled primary has caused serious hand-wringing in Missouri, whose taxpayers will shell out $7 million or more for a mainly symbolic election.
But a growing chorus of political scientists, opinion writers and politicians maintain that Missouri is just one damaged gear in a broken presidential selection process. The nation’s entire primary system, they contend, confuses voters and candidates alike — threatening the perceived legitimacy of the outcome.
“Our system is haphazard, based on patches accumulated over 222 years,” said political scientist Larry Sabato of the University of Virginia. “We are left with the two parties trying, somehow, to make a Rube Goldberg-like system work.”
For example:
• The rules for Nevada’s caucuses today differ from county to county. Caucus sites will open at different times. The results are binding on delegates.
• Republicans in Minnesota and Colorado will caucus next Tuesday — and their votes will be non-binding.
• Gingrich has filed a complaint over how delegates will be allocated after Florida’s primary.
• Only Paul and Romney are on the Virginia ballot. Santorum learned Friday he isn’t on the Indiana ballot — and promised a challenge.
• Missouri’s Republican primary is open to Democrats. Florida’s primary was not.
• Iowa’s votes were miscounted on caucus night, initially depriving Santorum of his victory.
Democrats aren’t immune from the primary confusion. In Missouri, Tuesday’s results are binding on convention delegates. And in 2008, the role of hazy “superdelegates” tied up the party for months.
“It’s a crazy system,” said Richard Berg-Andersson, founder of TheGreenPapers.com, which catalogs primary rules and outcomes for every state.
Santorum told reporters in Lee’s Summit that he is particularly worried about different requirements for candidates to get on the ballot.
“It would be better if the states had a little bit more uniformity on their ballot access,” he said.
But efforts to standardize primary and caucus rules within political parties have fizzled, experts said. It’s almost impossible to get states to agree on when to hold primaries, let alone agree on how votes should be counted or delegates selected.
Four years ago, University of Virginia political science professor James Ceaser wrote that the primary process resembled that of a banana republic.
“It’s a strange process when the rules are being made up at the time the process is taking place,” he said Friday.
But he and others said damage from a convoluted primary usually disappears after a party picks its nominee. Even in 2008 — when Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton battled for months — the push for major reforms dwindled after the general election.
“I wouldn’t want to say the solution is to have one set of rules for everybody,” Ceaser said.
On Friday, Santorum said he would follow Missouri’s rules, which include a party caucus in March.
And he appealed to the audience to vote for more than just a change in federal programs or economic policy.
“This is an election about freedom,” he said. “America isn’t about jobs.”
Shari Steen of Peculiar, Mo., said she was impressed.
“I was delighted to hear about his stand on economics, his understanding of the importance of our country, and its foundations based on biblical and faith principles. I was thrilled.”
To reach Dave Helling, call 816-234-4656 or send email to dhelling@kcstar.com.
Copyright 2012 The Kansas City Star
http://www.kansascity.com/2012/02/03/3409064/santorum-tells-missouri-voters.html [with comments]
===
Santorum pushes discredited stroke claim
By PHILIP ELLIOTT
The Associated Press
Posted on Fri, Feb. 03, 2012 10:50 PM
COLUMBIA, Mo. | Republican presidential hopeful Rick Santorum on Friday backed prominent conservative James Dobson's claim that President Barack Obama's administration would block medical treatment for stroke patients over age 70. Professional medical groups have called such statements bogus.
During a forum inside a church, Dobson cited an anonymous caller to a conservative radio show who said “for patients over 70 years of age, that advanced neurosurgical care was not generally indicated.” The caller claimed that patients would be offered “comfort care” unless a panel of bureaucrats approved more significant treatment.
“That's called `death panels.’ Sarah Palin was right. That means death to that person,” said Dobson, founder of the conservative group Focus on the Family.
Palin, the GOP's vice presidential nominee in 2008, coined the term “death panel” in response to the administration's health care law, although her argument was roundly criticized as inaccurate.
Santorum seemed to go along with Dobson, arguing that government-run health care would result in limits on care. He brought Obama's health and human services secretary, Kathleen Sebelius, into the argument.
“When you become a cost, then the government starts to allocate resources,” Santorum said. “Well, who should we be allocating these resources to? We shouldn't be allocating it to 70-year-old of people who have strokes, according to Kathleen Sebelius.”
The regulation does not exist, medical professionals said.
The American Association of Neurological Surgeons and the Congress of Neurological Surgeons said in a joint statement they were “unaware of any federal government document directing that advanced neurosurgery for patients over 70 years of age will not be indicated and only supportive care treatment will be provided.”
The groups also said the suggestions run counter to their responsibility as health care professionals.
“Neurosurgeons are committed to providing timely, compassionate, and state of the art treatment for all patients – regardless of age – who have neurosurgical conditions,” the groups said, asking radio host Mark Levin to remove the November radio clip from his website.
The Health and Human Services Department also rejected the allegation.
“These claims are absolutely false and the American Association of Neurological Surgeons and the Congress of Neurological Surgeons have both gone on the record to denounce these false rumors as well,” spokeswoman Erin Shields said in a statement.
Dobson, who has endorsed Santorum's candidacy and has joined him at campaign-style appearances, seemed unaware of the disputed statement.
“Secretary Sebelius in the Obama administration, within the Obamacare plan, decreed a few weeks ago that as of January first of next year, if you are over 60 years of age – I beg your pardon – if you're over 70 years of age and you have a cranial bleed – blood is running into your brain, which is a horrible condition, it destroys the brain tissue, if you survive it, you will never the same again – they decreed that you will not be granted treatment,” Dobson said.
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press
http://www.kansascity.com/2012/02/03/3409079/santorum-pushes-discredited-stroke.html [with comments]
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GOP piety vs. policy, incongruous on poor, sick
The Rachel Maddow Show [video -- must-watch]
February 2, 2012
E.J. Dionne, columnist for the Washington Post and senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, talks with Rachel Maddow about the lip service Republicans pay to religious devotion and their actual policies toward the poor and the sick.
© 2012 msnbc.com
http://video.msnbc.msn.com/the-rachel-maddow-show/46246300
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At Prayer Breakfast, Obama Ties Economic Message to Christian Values
President Obama attended the annual event with his wife, Michelle, and Republican and Democratic lawmakers, including Senator Jeff Sessions, Republican of Alabama.
Luke Sharrett for The New York Times
By MARK LANDLER
February 2, 2012, 11:09 am
President Obama, speaking Thursday at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, sought to link his recent message of economic justice for the middle class to Christian values.
Referring to his call for the wealthy, including himself, to pay more taxes [ http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/25/us/politics/state-of-the-union-2012.html ], Mr. Obama said, “For me as a Christian, it also coincides with Jesus’s teaching that ‘for unto to whom much is given, much shall be required.’ ”
Referring to his calls for the middle class to have a “fair shot [ http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/26/us/politics/obama-weaves-well-versed-theme-into-case-for-re-election.html ]” at economic opportunity, the president said, “Part of that belief comes from my faith in the idea that I am my brother’s keeper, and I am my sister’s keeper.”
And Mr. Obama said Wall Street needed play by the same rules as Main Street because “far too many neighbors in our country have been hurt and treated unfairly over the last few years, and I believe in God’s command to ‘love thy neighbor as thyself.’ ”
As in previous addresses at this annual Washington event [ http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/03/president-prays-for-peace-in-the-mideast/ ], Mr. Obama spoke about his own faith, recalling an upbringing that was not particularly religious, a subsequent religious awakening and a visit to the North Carolina home of the Rev. Billy Graham, where Mr. Obama said he was moved to find himself praying for the aging evangelical leader.
But this speech, coming on the cusp of his re-election bid, inevitably carried a more political tone than previous ones. Mr. Obama acknowledged disagreements over how best to get the country back on track, but lamented the toxic nature of the political discourse.
“Sometimes we talk about respect, but we don’t act with respect towards each other during the course of these debates,” he said to the audience, a mixture of Republicans and Democrats as well as religious leaders.
The president embraced the criticism of a previous speaker, Eric Metaxas, a writer who delivered a funny, but trenchant, assault on those who he said espouse “phony religiosity” while failing to care for the poor or respecting those with whom they disagree, on issues like abortion.
Mr. Obama pointedly echoed Mr. Metaxas, saying, “We can all benefit from turning to our creator, listening to him, avoiding phony religiosity and listening to him.” Later, he added: “Our goal should not be to declare our policies as biblical. It is God who is infallible, not us.”
Mr. Metaxas, who has written biographies of the German pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the British abolitionist William Wilberforce, also asked the audience to join Mr. Obama in singing “Amazing Grace,” noting that the president had shown his musical chops by recently crooning an Al Green song [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-hDt2E8MoE ].
The president emphasized that his themes of economic equity and a fair shot for the middle class would reinvigorate the American economy. But he said they were also product of his faith, noting, “We’re required to have a living, breathing, active faith in our own lives.” He also said those policies could find roots in other religions, like Islam and Judaism.
Mr. Obama, who has attended every National Prayer Breakfast since he became president, was accompanied by his wife, Michelle, as well as Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. Several members of his cabinet, including Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, also attended the event, which marked its 60th year.
© 2012 The New York Times Company
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/02/at-prayer-breakfast-obama-ties-economic-message-to-christian-values/ [with comments]
===
President Obama Speaks at the 2012 National Prayer Breakfast
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from earlier this string, http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=71561891 and preceding and following
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U.S. Republican presidential candidate and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney mingles with the crowd after speaking at a campaign stop in Eagan, Minnesota, February 1, 2012.
REUTERS/Craig Lassig
By David Rohde [ http://blogs.reuters.com/david-rohde ]
February 2, 2012
Mitt Romney’s declaration [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tqSrpynRTlk ] that he wasn’t concerned about “the very poor” was lampooned by Republicans and Democrats alike this week. But his next statement in a CNN interview is the one that could determine the fate of his candidacy.
“I’m concerned about the very heart of America,” Romney said, adding later: “My focus is on middle-income Americans.”
With astonishing speed, the 2012 presidential election is becoming a referendum on how best to help the American middle class. So far, Romney’s solutions are likely to be far more pleasing to the Republican base than the general electorate.
Reduce corporate taxes by 25 percent. Increase oil and gas drilling. Repeal Obamacare and Dodd-Frank. Cut non-security discretionary spending by 5 percent. Weaken unions. And reduce the federal workforce by 10 percent.
Where, Democrats contend, is the benefit to the middle class?
The conservative answer reflects the yawning ideological gap that will become more apparent in the months ahead. While Obama and Democrats call for the federal government — and society as a whole — to ensure that individuals have the opportunity to increase their social mobility, Romney and Republicans concentrate on broad economic growth.
“Republicans are focused much more on having a rising tide that lifts all boats, even if it lifts more yachts than dinghies,” said Scott Winship, a fellow at the Brookings Institution. “It’s very striking when compared to Obama’s very individual focus on human capital and a federal role in increasing it.”
As he has done in his approach to foreign policy [ http://blogs.reuters.com/david-rohde/2012/01/20/the-world-according-to-romney/ ], Romney is trying to channel his inner Reagan in economic policy [ http://mittromney.com/sites/default/files/shared/BelieveInAmerica-PlanForJobsAndEconomicGrowth-Full.pdf ]. While Democrats contend that George W. Bush’s use of supply-side, unregulated, trickle-down economics caused the Great Recession, Reagan’s economic doctrine is alive and well on the right.
“Most of our problems now relate to this asset bubble that formed; it wasn’t so much what Bush did or didn’t do,” Winship argued. “The ’80s in retrospect were not a bad period economically. I think it’s hard to argue that trickle-down will end up hurting the poor or reducing middle-class opportunities.”
Winship and some conservative economists also go a step further. In a series of recent posts [ http://www.nationalreview.com/agenda/288306/guest-post-scott-winship-obama-administrations-questionable-mobility-claims-reihan-sal ], they question a central liberal narrative: that middle-class wages have stagnated since Reagan’s presidency. Terry Fitzgerald, an economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, has argued [ http://www.minneapolisfed.org/pubs/region/08-09/income.pdf ] that the rapid postwar growth of the American middle class has slowed over the last 30 years, but the middle class has still increased in size.
“From 1947 to 1975, was very fast growth,” Fitzgerald told me. “It was slower since then, but it hasn’t been stagnation.”
Fitzgerald argued that economic studies showing little increase in the median income of American households are skewed by social changes, not only economic ones. Beginning in the late 1970s, high divorce rates reduced the percentage of American households made up of married couples from 63 percent in 1976 to 50 percent in 2006. Single-parent families earn far less than two-parent families, Fitzgerald argues, and drive down the median income.
Richard Burkhauser, a Cornell University economist, contends that the value of benefits families receive from the government and employers are also not included in studies showing meager increases. When the value of these benefits is included, he argues, the stagnation of middle-class incomes disappears.
Liberal economists scoff at such findings. They say a comprehensive study [ http://cbo.gov/ftpdocs/124xx/doc12485/10-25-HouseholdIncome.pdf ] by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office included such factors and still found tepid middle-class wage growth since 1979. Jared Bernstein, a former chief economic adviser to Vice-President Joseph R. Biden Jr., said supply-side economics failed in the 1980s and the 2000s and would fail again.
“Not only did it fail to reach the vast majority of American families, it actually contributed to the worst recession since the Great Depression,” Bernstein told me. “I can say with complete confidence that the supply-side, deregulate, trickle-down model is a failed model.”
“When I look at all the Republican candidates,” he added, “this is still at the heart of their thinking.”
Meanwhile, Romney, who is trying to unseat an incumbent, embraces a suffering-middle-class narrative. Doing otherwise would be political suicide. The bogey-man, he argues, is government intervention. Top-down economic growth will ease Middle America’s woes, not government programs.
Obama, on the other hand, regularly unveils new federal initiatives that he says will reduce the cost of college, make it easier for homeowners to refinance, and return manufacturing jobs to the United States. The philosophical difference could not be more profound — or more reminiscent of the 1980s.
One or two of Romney’s ideas are close to those of Obama. Unlike every other Republican candidate, the former Massachusetts governor supports instituting automatic increases in the federal minimum wage to keep pace with inflation. And he talks about the central role that increasing American exports and retraining workers could have in reviving the middle class in a globalized economy. But the similarities end there.
Romney argues that the federal government should get out of the job-training business, for example, and devolve all such efforts to the states. Asked for a specific step that would aid the middle class, Andrea Saul, a campaign spokesperson, cited a Romney proposal to eliminate all interest, dividend and capital-gains taxes for people earning less than $200,000. She argued that the philosophy of Barack Obama, not Ronald Reagan, was gutting America’s middle class.
“President Obama’s big government policies have been disastrous for the middle class,” Saul said in an email Thursday. “Mitt Romney is focused on helping those middle-income Americans who have been hurt worst by the Obama economy.”
In the months ahead, we’ll see if Middle America buys it.
David Rohde is a Reuters columnist and former reporter for the New York Times. He is a two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the author, with Kristen Mulvihill, of "A Rope and a Prayer: A Kidnapping from Two Sides."
Copyright 2012 Reuters
http://blogs.reuters.com/david-rohde/2012/02/03/mitt-and-the-middle-class/ [with comments] [also at http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/02/the-middle-class-and-mitt/252510/ (with comments)]
===
Romney, the Rich and the Rest
By CHARLES M. BLOW
Published: February 3, 2012
No one should be surprised that the Tin Man has a tin ear.
After all, Mitt Romney is the same multimillionaire who joked that he was “unemployed [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EiHYcwdBlu0 ]” while he was “earning” more in one day than most Americans earn in a year and paying a lower rate on those earnings than most Americans do.
This is the same man who bragged last month that he liked to fire people [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBfWB64iHAs ] at a time when nearly 13 million people are out of work and who accepted the endorsement this week of Donald Trump, who has made “You’re Fired!” his television catchphrase.
This is the same man who in November claimed that federal employees are making “a lot more money than we are.” What?! We? What we? Please direct me to the federal employees with the $20 million paychecks. In fact, The Washington Post pointed out [ http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/post/federal-employees-make-average-26-percent-less-than-private-workers-labor-agency-reports/2011/11/04/gIQAse5emM_blog.html ] in November that federal employees on average “are underpaid by 26.3 percent when compared with similar nonfederal jobs, a ‘pay gap’ that increased by about 2 percentage points over the last year while federal salary rates were frozen.”
And who could forget his remark that “corporations are people [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2h8ujX6T0A ].” Classic.
But this week when Romney said that he wasn’t concerned about the very poor [ http://money.cnn.com/2012/02/01/news/economy/romney_poor/index.htm ] in this country, he jumped in the pickle barrel and went over the waterfall.
First, his statement:
“I’m not concerned about the very poor. We have a safety net there. If it needs repair, I’ll fix it. I’m not concerned about the very rich. They’re doing just fine. I’m concerned about the very heart of America — the 90-95 percent of Americans who right now are struggling.”
Romney went on to say that his campaign was focused on “middle-income Americans” and that “we have a very ample safety net” for the poor.
He later tried to clarify [ http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2012/02/01/romney-says-poor-comment-needs-context/ ], saying that his comments needed context. Then he said that the comments were a “misstatement” and that he had “misspoke.” Yeah, right.
Where to begin?
First, a report from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities [ http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=3658 ] last month pointed out that Romney’s budget proposals would take a chainsaw to that safety net. The report points out that cuts proposed by Romney would be even more draconian than a plan from Representative Paul Ryan: “Governor Romney’s budget proposals would require far deeper cuts in nondefense programs than the House-passed budget resolution authored by Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan: $94 billion to $219 billion deeper in 2016 and $303 billion to $819 billion deeper in 2021.”
What does this mean for specific programs? Let’s take the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, since “food stamps” have been such a talking point in the Republican debates. The report says the Romney plan “would throw 10 million low-income people off the benefit rolls, cut benefits by thousands of dollars a year, or some combination of the two. These cuts would primarily affect very-low-income families with children, seniors and people with disabilities.”
Does that sound like a man trying to “fix” our social safety nets? Absolutely not. Romney is so far up the beanstalk that he can no longer see the ground.
Then let’s take the fact that a report last month by the Tax Policy Center [ http://politicalcorrection.org/blog/201201050012 ] found that his tax plan would increase after-tax income for millionaires by 14.5 percent while increasing the after-tax income of those making less than $20,000 by less than 1 percent and of those making between $30,000 and $40,000 by less than 3 percent.
For a man who’s not worried about the rich, he sure seems to want them to rake in more cash.
This has nothing to do with context. This has everything to do with a caviar candidate’s inability to relate to a chicken-soup citizenry.
Then there is the “ample safety net” nonsense. No one who has ever been on the low end of the income spectrum believes this, not even Republicans. According to a Pew Research Center survey [ http://www.people-press.org/2012/02/02/lower-income-republicans-say-government-does-too-little-for-poor-people/ ] conducted in October, even most Republicans and Republican-leaning independents who make less than $30,000 a year, which accounts for about a quarter of all Republicans, say that the government doesn’t do enough to help the poor. Only a man who has never felt the sting of poverty or seen its ravages would say such a thing.
But perhaps the most pernicious part of his statement was the underestimating of the rich and poor and the elasticized expansion of the term “middle income” or middle class. Romney suggests that 95 percent of Americans are in this group. Not true.
According to the Census Bureau [ http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty/about/overview/index.html ], the official poverty rate in 2010 was 15.1 percent.
And that’s the income poor. It doesn’t even count the “asset poor.” A report issued this week by the Corporation for Enterprise Development [ http://assetsandopportunity.org/scorecard/about/main_findings/ ] found that 27 percent of U.S. households live in “asset poverty.” According to the report, “These families do not have the savings or other assets to cover basic expenses (equivalent to what could be purchased with a poverty level income) for three months if a layoff or other emergency leads to loss of income.”
On the other hand, the definition of “rich” is more nebulous. However, according to a December Gallup report, Americans set the rich threshold at $150,000 in annual income. And according to the U.S. Census Bureau 8.4 percent of households had an income of $150,000 or more in 2010.
So at the very least, nearly a fourth of all Americans are either poor or rich.
That would leave about three-fourths somewhere in the middle, but not all middle class. Tricking the poor to believe they’re in it, and allowing the wealthy to hide in it, is one of the great modern political deceptions and how we’ve arrived at our current predicament.
According to a New York Times/CBS News poll conducted last month, nearly a fifth of families making less than $15,000 said that they were middle class and nearly two-fifths of those making more than $100,000 said that they were middle class.
Romney is not only cold and clumsy, he’s disastrously out of touch, and when talking about real people, out of sorts. If only he had a heart, and if only that heart was connected to his brain.
© 2012 The New York Times Company
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/04/opinion/blow-romney-the-rich-and-the-rest.html [with comments]
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Paul Defends Romney On 'Poor' Comment
February 4, 2012
http://www.wdsu.com/r/30376772/detail.html [with comments]
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Coulter to Romney: ‘You owe me’
By Jeff Poor - The Daily Caller
Published: 6:39 PM 02/02/2012 | Updated: 2:56 PM 02/04/2012
Nearly a year ago at the annual CPAC conference in Washington, D.C., conservative commentator Ann Coulter said, “If you don’t run Chris Christie, [Gov. Mitt] Romney will be the nominee, and we’ll lose.” But something changed over the summer, and now Coulter is touting the former Massachusetts governor.
In her column on Wednesday, Coulter, the author of “Demonic: How the Liberal Mob Is Endangering America [ http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0307353486 ],” even praised [ http://dailycaller.com/2012/02/02/2012/02/01/three-cheers-for-romneycare/ ] so-called RomneyCare, which resulted in attacks [ http://www.therightscoop.com/mark-levins-rebuttal-of-ann-coulters-three-cheers-for-romneycare-article/ ] from [ http://campaign2012.washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/beltway-confidential/coulters-shameful-defense-romneycare/354411 ] various voices on the right.
But on Sean Hannity’s radio show on Thursday, she offered an explanation why she has been so outspoken in promoting Romney’s candidacy, which she said had a lot to do with getting the right candidate to defeat President Barack Obama.
“I think this election is very important,” Coulter said. “I think it’s going to be very hard for Republicans to win it. It’s hard to take out a sitting president. Republicans have taken out a sitting president twice in the last hundred years. Once was in 1920, once was in 1980. And I’ve gone back and looked at how Ronald Reagan did it in 1980. And one of the things that’s very striking coming from his advisers, his pollster is that they were going to present him as Mr. Charm School, Mr. Calm and Gentlemanly. And he was a man of peace.”
She explained tactics Reagan’s inner circle used to defeat then-incumbent President Jimmy Carter, who she said was a much easier target than Obama.
“A week before the election he took out a half hour ad with testimonials as such as Henry Kissinger,” she said. “He said things like, ‘peace is not a partisan issue.’ In the debates, he was coached and coached and coached. He used to be calm and gentlemanly. And by the way, I don’t think Jimmy Carter was as much of a charmer as Barack Obama is. Poll after poll after poll has shown that the American people do not like Barack Obama policies, but they like his family. He’s excruciatingly charming. He has a lovely family. It is not a personal hatred toward him, I mean except for some who do transfer politics to the personal.”
And she added that it isn’t that Romney is moderate in his ideology, but moderate in his temperament.
“As I wrote in last week’s column, I think Romney is the most conservative on the issues, on the positions — for example, on illegal immigration, and yet he is moderate in his temperament,” she said. “So I think he is by far and away the most — strongest candidate of the four we have right now.”
Later in her appearance, Hannity asked Coulter who she thought Romney should surround himself with as president. She said that she “better have his ear” and recalled an encounter with Romney.
“Did I tell you I met him at a fundraiser?” Coulter said. “I went up to him. I was about to leave. But I said — I just wanted to go up to him and tell him, ‘You owe me and you better be as right-wing a president as I’m telling everybody you’re going to be.’”
Coulter said she also plugged Christie to be his running mate, but said the former Massachusetts governor said “oh don’t worry” or something to that effect.
Copyright © 2012 The Daily Caller
http://dailycaller.com/2012/02/02/coulter-to-romney-you-owe-me-video/ [with comments]
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Romney Emphasizes Patriotism – A Lot
Mitt Romney’s latest string of campaign stops has been heavy on patriotism.
(credit: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
February 3, 2012 5:35 PM
EAGAN, Minn. (AP) — Mitt Romney talks about his love for America almost every day. Twice now, the Republican presidential front-runner has even broken into song.
“Oh beautiful, for spacious skies, for amber waves of grain,” Romney crooned Wednesday, standing on stage in a warehouse here as the crowd sang along. He did the same earlier in the week at a Florida retirement community.
Those performances were a campaign-trail crescendo of sorts for Romney. He has spent months traveling — from Iowa to New Hampshire to South Carolina to Florida — proclaiming “I love America” and declaring his appreciation for what he often calls “the national hymns of our nation.” Among them: “The Star-Spangled Banner” and “America the Beautiful,” which he calls his favorite partly because his mother used to sing it.
While all politicians emphasize patriotism, Romney arguably takes it to a whole new level. He sprinkles this adoration-of-the-nation theme throughout his typical campaign speech that he delivers at least once a day. The pitch is short on policy. Instead, it’s almost entirely an ode to patriotism. He has built his entire campaign around the theme. His logo, his bus and the paperback version of his latest book are all tagged “Believe in America.”
It’s intended to help him appeal to voters who believe America is in decline — but who remain optimistic about their own futures in a country that’s always emphasized hard work as a way to get ahead. And by design or not, Romney’s pronouncements also are rife with suggestions that his opponents, particularly President Barack Obama, don’t share his appreciation of country.
“I will never apologize for America,” Romney says often — suggesting that Obama has done just that, even though the president hasn’t.
Romney also emphasizes what he calls his belief that America is exceptional — implying that his Democratic rival has a different view even though Obama has said that he sees the country as exceptional, too. All that plays to a belief in conservative circles that Obama has traveled the country making excuses for America’s involvement in foreign countries.
“We have a president who I don’t think understands the nature of America, the power of opportunity and freedom,” Romney told a crowd in Derry, N.H., last month. “I want to bring these things back to America so we have a brighter future for our kids.”
During an appearance in North Liberty, Iowa, Romney said: “The president said he wants to fundamentally transform America. . I kind of like America. I’m not looking for it to be fundamentally transformed into something else. I don’t want it to become like Europe.” It’s a comment he’s repeatedly made.
It’s no secret why he’s chosen this pitch.
Over the last decade, polls have regularly found that roughly half of all Americans — and in most cases way more than that — think the nation is going in the wrong direction. The exceptions occurred during George W. Bush’s first term and during the first few months of Obama’s presidency.
In November, 54 percent of Americans said in an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll that the country’s recent rough patch is the start of a longer-term global decline where the U.S. is no longer the leading country in the world. Some 40 percent suggested it was temporary.
Despite the pessimism about America’s standing in the world, people have grown more optimistic than they have been in recent years that America itself is growing stronger. Only 37 percent said things would get better over the next five years when surveyed by NBC/Wall Street Journal in August 2010. That number jumped to 53 percent in January, coinciding with growth in the economy.
In some cases, Romney gets corny and he repeatedly combines the lines with a story about how his parents drove him across the country in the family Rambler to see America’s national parks.
“I love the founding documents,” the candidate says frequently before crowds as he quotes from the Declaration of Independence. “I love the Constitution!” is another Romney favorite. That includes, by the way, everything that’s been added to it. “I love all the amendments!” he said in September. “I love the Second Amendment. I love the 10th Amendment.”
The construction of some of Romney’s remarks rankle Democrats, who have continuously defended Obama from ongoing accusations that he is “other” or un-American.
“You can make an accusation about what you believe somebody wants to do, but that’s very different than saying that someone doesn’t understand the nature of their country,” said Kiki McLean, a longtime Democratic strategist who has worked on several presidential campaigns. “So then the question comes: Are you insinuating something?”
Democrats have always been vulnerable to questions of their patriotism given their frequent anti-war stances and criticism of the status quo. But the spotlight has been even brighter on the first black president and one who has a foreign-sounding name.
Obama has faced repeated questions about his citizenship and right to be president, as well as his religion. His wife, first lady Michelle Obama, set off a conservative firestorm during the 2008 primary campaign when she said, “For the first time in my adult lifetime, I am really proud of my country.”
Romney aides say his words are simply a reflection of the candidate’s beliefs and aren’t disparaging of Democrats. And the former Massachusetts governor occasionally acknowledges that Democrats also care about the country.
“Good Democrats love America, too,” Romney said at a chilly outdoor rally in West Des Moines the day of the Iowa caucuses. And in August, Romney mentioned Obama and told NBC News, “I know he loves America.”
Even so, Romney has sought to use patriotic themes to appeal to Americans’ inherent belief in their country as he blames Obama for allowing the country to decline.
“These last three years,” Romney says often, “they are a detour, not our destiny.”
© Copyright 2012 The Associated Press
http://washington.cbslocal.com/2012/02/03/romney-emphasizes-patriotism-a-lot/ [no comments yet]
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Santorum Warns Of Doomsday Under Obama
Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum speaks at a town hall meeting at the Tea Party and Republicans Uniting Nevada Conservatives (TRUNC) office on Jan. 31, 2012 in Las Vegas, Nev.
(credit: Ethan Miller/Getty Images)
February 3, 2012 5:54 AM
LAKEWOOD, Colo. (AP) — Rick Santorum’s campaign slogan could very well be one word: doomsday.
To hear him tell it, the United States will collapse under the weight of its health care system and basic freedoms will be history. Iran will annihilate Israel and then South Carolina if Iran isn’t blocked from building a nuclear weapon. And divorce will yield higher taxes for all Americans.
Unless, of course, Republicans pick Santorum as the party’s presidential nominee and he goes on to defeat President Barack Obama.
“Go back and read what the sirens did once you arrived on that island,” Santorum warned students at Colorado Christian University this week, invoking mythology. “They devour you. They destroy you. They consume you.”
“Ladies and gentleman we cannot listen to the siren song,” he added. “We cannot listen to President Obama and we can’t listen to those in our party who want to be just a little bit less than what the Democrats and the left is doing to our country.”
It was standard fare for the former Pennsylvania senator. He doesn’t mince words in campaign speeches in which he describes how — in his view — the country is heading down the wrong path and the government is growing too big. Gloom and doom usually pepper his remarks. And he often argues that America will falter if he fails to win the nomination.
“You have honor to live up to, to hand off to the next generation as least as great a country as given to you. And you all know that is in jeopardy,” he told a crowd in Colorado Springs.
The dire warnings contrast directly with the sunny optimism his top rivals often exude.
GOP front-runner Mitt Romney talks about how much he loves America. And Newt Gingrich lectures on the nation’s unique place in the world and its potential to free the world.
They are following legions of other politicians who have used optimism to court voters with visions of the country’s greatness.
Ronald Reagan ousted Jimmy Carter in 1980 by asking whether Americans wanted a chance for a better tomorrow. Four years later, Reagan won with his rhetoric about America as a “shining city on a hill,” a notion borrowed from a 17th-century Puritan. Bill Clinton captured the presidency by appealing to voters’ middle-class struggles and urging them “don’t stop thinking about tomorrow.”
George W. Bush captured the White House in 2000 with the promise to restore dignity to the office after the scandal-ridden Clinton years. And Obama won his first term in the White House on a message of hope and change, appealing to voters’ desire to turn the page after eight years of Bush.
At times, Santorum seems to be doing the exact opposite, currying favor with voters by appealing to their frustrations with Washington as he looks to regain his own political footing after three consecutive losses in the GOP nomination race.
“Every once in a while Rick may get passionate and come across as angry, but Americans can appreciate that, because a lot of people out there are angry at where we are right now and they’re looking for a fighter who understands their struggle,” Santorum spokesman Hogan Gidley said.
The former senator pitches himself as the only politician standing between a wholesale meltdown of American values and a political tsunami for his GOP.
On the health care overhaul, Santorum warns: “Be careful what you do … because once the government creates a right, it can tell you how to exercise that right.”
On Obama’s regulations, he says: ‘Under Obamacare, you are going to have to provide insurance coverage, free coverage, for things that are absolutely against the teaching of the Catholic Church: free sterilization, free abortions. … This is just the tip of the iceberg of what we can expect.”
On Iranian policy, he warns that Tehran first would destroy Israel and then turn its sights on the United States. “They cannot have a nuclear weapon, because you, in Greenville, will not be safe,” he said in South Carolina.
And on declining marriage rates, he adds: “Taxes go up and the economy struggles. We know that marriage and the two-parent family is the unit upon which this country was founded.”
Santorum also constantly warns that neither Romney nor Gingrich would be an effective challenger to Obama and says he’s sounding the alarm against a political disaster.
“Barack Obama, in a debate or in this election, is going to destroy Mitt Romney on the issue of health care,” Santorum told a crowd in Woodland Park.
As for Gingrich, he says this of the former House speaker: “Way too erratic.”
© Copyright 2012 The Associated Press
http://washington.cbslocal.com/2012/02/03/santorum-warns-of-doomsday-under-obama/ [with comments]
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Santorum looks for votes in Missouri
GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum shook hands with James Dobson on Friday at Grace Bible Church in Columbia, Mo.
Courtesy of Peter Yankowsky
“This is a time for doing your duty,” the GOP candidate tells a John Knox Village audience.
By DAVE HELLING
The Kansas City Star
Posted on Fri, Feb. 03, 2012 11:23 PM
On Friday, Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum urged more than 750 people in Lee’s Summit to breathe life into Missouri’s quiet primary — and his own campaign — by casting ballots in next Tuesday’s statewide vote.
“This is a time for doing your duty,” he told the audience at John Knox Village. “This is not a rally speech. This is not a rally time.”
The former senator from Pennsylvania touched on a series of subjects in his roughly 55-minute address, including health care reform, President Barack Obama’s performance, and the nation’s reliance on faith and God to meet its challenges.
And he criticized his main Republican opponents: former governor Mitt Romney and former House speaker Newt Gingrich.
“I promise you, no moon colonies,” Santorum said, referring to a Gingrich pledge.
He also said he was “appalled” at Romney’s statement that he was not concerned with the very poor because “we have a safety net there.” The GOP front-runner later said he misspoke.
“We need a candidate who cares about 100 percent of Americans,” Santorum told the crowd.
After his speech, Santorum told reporters that a Missouri victory could give him an important boost. Santorum won the Iowa caucuses but hasn’t won any primary state so far.
“This is a pretty important state,” he said. “Let’s see how we do.”
But Santorum’s daylong Missouri swing may highlight the strange nature of the state’s presidential primary: Even if he wins Tuesday, Santorum won’t get any convention delegates here.
Indeed, the “beauty contest” nature of the vote has kept Romney and GOP candidate Ron Paul out of Missouri in the days leading to Feb. 7, and Gingrich isn’t even on the ballot.
The tangled primary has caused serious hand-wringing in Missouri, whose taxpayers will shell out $7 million or more for a mainly symbolic election.
But a growing chorus of political scientists, opinion writers and politicians maintain that Missouri is just one damaged gear in a broken presidential selection process. The nation’s entire primary system, they contend, confuses voters and candidates alike — threatening the perceived legitimacy of the outcome.
“Our system is haphazard, based on patches accumulated over 222 years,” said political scientist Larry Sabato of the University of Virginia. “We are left with the two parties trying, somehow, to make a Rube Goldberg-like system work.”
For example:
• The rules for Nevada’s caucuses today differ from county to county. Caucus sites will open at different times. The results are binding on delegates.
• Republicans in Minnesota and Colorado will caucus next Tuesday — and their votes will be non-binding.
• Gingrich has filed a complaint over how delegates will be allocated after Florida’s primary.
• Only Paul and Romney are on the Virginia ballot. Santorum learned Friday he isn’t on the Indiana ballot — and promised a challenge.
• Missouri’s Republican primary is open to Democrats. Florida’s primary was not.
• Iowa’s votes were miscounted on caucus night, initially depriving Santorum of his victory.
Democrats aren’t immune from the primary confusion. In Missouri, Tuesday’s results are binding on convention delegates. And in 2008, the role of hazy “superdelegates” tied up the party for months.
“It’s a crazy system,” said Richard Berg-Andersson, founder of TheGreenPapers.com, which catalogs primary rules and outcomes for every state.
Santorum told reporters in Lee’s Summit that he is particularly worried about different requirements for candidates to get on the ballot.
“It would be better if the states had a little bit more uniformity on their ballot access,” he said.
But efforts to standardize primary and caucus rules within political parties have fizzled, experts said. It’s almost impossible to get states to agree on when to hold primaries, let alone agree on how votes should be counted or delegates selected.
Four years ago, University of Virginia political science professor James Ceaser wrote that the primary process resembled that of a banana republic.
“It’s a strange process when the rules are being made up at the time the process is taking place,” he said Friday.
But he and others said damage from a convoluted primary usually disappears after a party picks its nominee. Even in 2008 — when Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton battled for months — the push for major reforms dwindled after the general election.
“I wouldn’t want to say the solution is to have one set of rules for everybody,” Ceaser said.
On Friday, Santorum said he would follow Missouri’s rules, which include a party caucus in March.
And he appealed to the audience to vote for more than just a change in federal programs or economic policy.
“This is an election about freedom,” he said. “America isn’t about jobs.”
Shari Steen of Peculiar, Mo., said she was impressed.
“I was delighted to hear about his stand on economics, his understanding of the importance of our country, and its foundations based on biblical and faith principles. I was thrilled.”
To reach Dave Helling, call 816-234-4656 or send email to dhelling@kcstar.com.
Copyright 2012 The Kansas City Star
http://www.kansascity.com/2012/02/03/3409064/santorum-tells-missouri-voters.html [with comments]
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Santorum pushes discredited stroke claim
By PHILIP ELLIOTT
The Associated Press
Posted on Fri, Feb. 03, 2012 10:50 PM
COLUMBIA, Mo. | Republican presidential hopeful Rick Santorum on Friday backed prominent conservative James Dobson's claim that President Barack Obama's administration would block medical treatment for stroke patients over age 70. Professional medical groups have called such statements bogus.
During a forum inside a church, Dobson cited an anonymous caller to a conservative radio show who said “for patients over 70 years of age, that advanced neurosurgical care was not generally indicated.” The caller claimed that patients would be offered “comfort care” unless a panel of bureaucrats approved more significant treatment.
“That's called `death panels.’ Sarah Palin was right. That means death to that person,” said Dobson, founder of the conservative group Focus on the Family.
Palin, the GOP's vice presidential nominee in 2008, coined the term “death panel” in response to the administration's health care law, although her argument was roundly criticized as inaccurate.
Santorum seemed to go along with Dobson, arguing that government-run health care would result in limits on care. He brought Obama's health and human services secretary, Kathleen Sebelius, into the argument.
“When you become a cost, then the government starts to allocate resources,” Santorum said. “Well, who should we be allocating these resources to? We shouldn't be allocating it to 70-year-old of people who have strokes, according to Kathleen Sebelius.”
The regulation does not exist, medical professionals said.
The American Association of Neurological Surgeons and the Congress of Neurological Surgeons said in a joint statement they were “unaware of any federal government document directing that advanced neurosurgery for patients over 70 years of age will not be indicated and only supportive care treatment will be provided.”
The groups also said the suggestions run counter to their responsibility as health care professionals.
“Neurosurgeons are committed to providing timely, compassionate, and state of the art treatment for all patients – regardless of age – who have neurosurgical conditions,” the groups said, asking radio host Mark Levin to remove the November radio clip from his website.
The Health and Human Services Department also rejected the allegation.
“These claims are absolutely false and the American Association of Neurological Surgeons and the Congress of Neurological Surgeons have both gone on the record to denounce these false rumors as well,” spokeswoman Erin Shields said in a statement.
Dobson, who has endorsed Santorum's candidacy and has joined him at campaign-style appearances, seemed unaware of the disputed statement.
“Secretary Sebelius in the Obama administration, within the Obamacare plan, decreed a few weeks ago that as of January first of next year, if you are over 60 years of age – I beg your pardon – if you're over 70 years of age and you have a cranial bleed – blood is running into your brain, which is a horrible condition, it destroys the brain tissue, if you survive it, you will never the same again – they decreed that you will not be granted treatment,” Dobson said.
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press
http://www.kansascity.com/2012/02/03/3409079/santorum-pushes-discredited-stroke.html [with comments]
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GOP piety vs. policy, incongruous on poor, sick
The Rachel Maddow Show [video -- must-watch]
February 2, 2012
E.J. Dionne, columnist for the Washington Post and senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, talks with Rachel Maddow about the lip service Republicans pay to religious devotion and their actual policies toward the poor and the sick.
© 2012 msnbc.com
http://video.msnbc.msn.com/the-rachel-maddow-show/46246300
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At Prayer Breakfast, Obama Ties Economic Message to Christian Values
President Obama attended the annual event with his wife, Michelle, and Republican and Democratic lawmakers, including Senator Jeff Sessions, Republican of Alabama.
Luke Sharrett for The New York Times
By MARK LANDLER
February 2, 2012, 11:09 am
President Obama, speaking Thursday at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, sought to link his recent message of economic justice for the middle class to Christian values.
Referring to his call for the wealthy, including himself, to pay more taxes [ http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/25/us/politics/state-of-the-union-2012.html ], Mr. Obama said, “For me as a Christian, it also coincides with Jesus’s teaching that ‘for unto to whom much is given, much shall be required.’ ”
Referring to his calls for the middle class to have a “fair shot [ http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/26/us/politics/obama-weaves-well-versed-theme-into-case-for-re-election.html ]” at economic opportunity, the president said, “Part of that belief comes from my faith in the idea that I am my brother’s keeper, and I am my sister’s keeper.”
And Mr. Obama said Wall Street needed play by the same rules as Main Street because “far too many neighbors in our country have been hurt and treated unfairly over the last few years, and I believe in God’s command to ‘love thy neighbor as thyself.’ ”
As in previous addresses at this annual Washington event [ http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/03/president-prays-for-peace-in-the-mideast/ ], Mr. Obama spoke about his own faith, recalling an upbringing that was not particularly religious, a subsequent religious awakening and a visit to the North Carolina home of the Rev. Billy Graham, where Mr. Obama said he was moved to find himself praying for the aging evangelical leader.
But this speech, coming on the cusp of his re-election bid, inevitably carried a more political tone than previous ones. Mr. Obama acknowledged disagreements over how best to get the country back on track, but lamented the toxic nature of the political discourse.
“Sometimes we talk about respect, but we don’t act with respect towards each other during the course of these debates,” he said to the audience, a mixture of Republicans and Democrats as well as religious leaders.
The president embraced the criticism of a previous speaker, Eric Metaxas, a writer who delivered a funny, but trenchant, assault on those who he said espouse “phony religiosity” while failing to care for the poor or respecting those with whom they disagree, on issues like abortion.
Mr. Obama pointedly echoed Mr. Metaxas, saying, “We can all benefit from turning to our creator, listening to him, avoiding phony religiosity and listening to him.” Later, he added: “Our goal should not be to declare our policies as biblical. It is God who is infallible, not us.”
Mr. Metaxas, who has written biographies of the German pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the British abolitionist William Wilberforce, also asked the audience to join Mr. Obama in singing “Amazing Grace,” noting that the president had shown his musical chops by recently crooning an Al Green song [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-hDt2E8MoE ].
The president emphasized that his themes of economic equity and a fair shot for the middle class would reinvigorate the American economy. But he said they were also product of his faith, noting, “We’re required to have a living, breathing, active faith in our own lives.” He also said those policies could find roots in other religions, like Islam and Judaism.
Mr. Obama, who has attended every National Prayer Breakfast since he became president, was accompanied by his wife, Michelle, as well as Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. Several members of his cabinet, including Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, also attended the event, which marked its 60th year.
© 2012 The New York Times Company
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/02/at-prayer-breakfast-obama-ties-economic-message-to-christian-values/ [with comments]
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President Obama Speaks at the 2012 National Prayer Breakfast
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wc_pnmZc78E
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