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from Front Row Washington:
McCain, Biden coming together for Sedona, Arizona forum
These days Washington is not known for bipartisanship, but every now and then a breakthrough is made.
So it is noteworthy that Vice President Joe Biden, a Democrat, and Senator John McCain, a Republican, are appearing together at a forum in Sedona, Arizona on Friday.
The occasion is an annual event staged by the McCain Institute for International Leadership at Arizona State University in McCain’s home state.
Both Biden and McCain have long experience in foreign policy and national security matters. Biden is a former chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and McCain has long served on the Senate Armed Services Committee.
from Tales from the Trail:
2012 Election? In hot summer, it’s leaving Americans cold
A long spell of brutally hot weather is not the only thing making Americans cranky this summer.
With four months still to go before the presidential election on Nov. 6, Americans seem to be experiencing the 2012 campaign more like studying for a big math test than watching an exciting neck-and-neck horse race, according to a new survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press. More Republicans in particular are bored with the campaign.
from Tales from the Trail:
Will Election 2012 be another Florida 2000?
The 2008 U.S. presidential election was the first in 12 years in which large numbers of Americans did not believe the result was unfairly influenced by the machinations of politically biased state election officials. But it was also the first in a dozen years that was not close, as Democrat Barack Obama cruised to a blowout victory over Republican John McCain.
With 2012 shaping up to be another tight contest, experts say controversy is likely this year, especially given that 33 of the 50 state election authorities are led by partisan politicians, who are free to work for candidates' campaigns.
from Tales from the Trail:
Newt’s home field advantage was among the weakest
Newt Gingrich faces some do-or-die primary contests in Dixie, his supposed home turf, over the next few days. Alabama and Mississippi hold their respective Republican primaries on Tuesday with Gingrich, the former U.S. House Speaker, and former Senator Rick Santorum expected to compete for, and potentially split, the conservative/evangelical vote.
Gingrich, though, didn’t do that well on his actual home turf – Georgia – during the Super Tuesday contests. Sure, the former history and geography professor at the University of West Georgia and 20-year representative of the state’s 6th Congressional district won 47.2 percent of the Republican vote in the Peachtree State. But according to political scientist Eric Ostermeier, that was one of the worst home-state primary performances by a Republican in decades.
from Tales from the Trail:
Maybe it’s better not to get that big endorsement
One staple of the U.S. political scene is the quest for endorsements, and Republican front-runner Mitt Romney seems to be leading in the race for support from the GOP establishment.
He picked up the support of Arizona Senator John McCain, who was the 2008 Republican presidential nominee, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley and Tim Pawlenty, the former governor of Minnesota, who also was a member of the U.S. presidential field until August.
from Bethany McLean:
Faith-based economic theory
The Republican candidates for president have some major differences in their policies and their personal lives. But they have one striking thing in common—they all say the federal government is responsible for the financial crisis. Even Newt Gingrich (pilloried for having been a Freddie Mac lobbyist) says: “The fix was put in by the federal government.”
The notion that the federal government, via the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) and by pushing housing finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to meet affordable housing goals, was responsible for the financial crisis has become Republican orthodoxy. This contention got a boost from a recent lawsuit the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed against six former executives at Fannie and Freddie, including two former CEOs. “Today’s announcement by the SEC proves what I have been saying all along—Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac played a leading role in the 2008 financial collapse that wreaked havoc on the U.S. economy,” said Congressman Scott Garrett, the New Jersey Republican who is chairman of the financial services subcommittee on capital markets and government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs).
from Jack Shafer:
What good are endorsements?
Except for providing political journalists with millable grist, what good are endorsements? Obviously, a presidential candidate can't win his party's nomination on the power of endorsements alone. If that were the case, as Vanity Fair's Todd S. Purdum pointed out last month, Al Gore's anointment of Howard Dean in 2004 would have worked magic.
Yet candidates continue to whore for endorsements, and other politicians continue to give them for mysterious reasons. Take, for example, John McCain’s endorsement of Mitt Romney yesterday at a New Hampshire campaign stop. McCain doesn't bother to mask his low regard for Romney, as the New York Times reports today in a piece about the event:
from Tales from the Trail:
Romney quizzed by Occupy protesters at N.H. town hall meeting
Republican presidential frontrunner Mitt Romney got off to an awkward start back in New Hampshire on Wednesday when the first question he took at a town hall meeting was from an Occupy protester.
Fresh off his narrow win in Iowa, Romney was making his first campaign appearance ahead of the New Hampshire primary on Jan. 10 when the questioner - who said he was from both the Occupy New Hampshire and Occupy Boston protest groups against economic inequality - raised his hand and asked a question about corporate greed.
from Political Theater:
Romney distorts Obama quote in new television ad
Democrats are calling Mitt Romney "dishonest"and "a serial deceiver" after the release of a new Romney campaign ad that quotes Obama out of context. The ad, which attacks Obama's record on the economy, splices together comments Obama made in New Hampshire in 2008, including this one: "If we keep talking about the economy, we’re going to lose."
The only problem is that Obama was actually quoting someone else -- an aide to John McCain. Obama's full quote was: “Senator McCain’s campaign actually said, and I quote, ‘If we keep talking about the economy, we’re going to lose.’"
from Tales from the Trail:
Romney targeted over plans for growth — of his house
Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney, who has criticized President Barack Obama for taking a nine-day vacation at a time of high unemployment, filed for permits to almost quadruple the size of his oceanfront home in La Jolla, California.
The former Massachusetts governor and his wife bought the house three years ago for $12 million. They want to knock down the one-story, 3,009-square-foot home overlooking the Pacific Ocean and replace it with an 11,062-square foot place in its stead, according to the San Diego Union Tribune.
