Romney offers donors chance to “Dine with the Donald”
Barack Obama’s re-election campaign has raised millions of dollars by auctioning off dinners with the president, first lady Michelle Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, former President Bill Clinton and Hollywood stars – and Democratic supporters – George Clooney and Sarah Jessica Parker.
Now his rival Mitt Romney is getting into the act with some Republican celebrity love – offering the chance to “Dine with the Donald,” that is, Donald Trump — and Mitt — to anyone who donates $3 or more.
“Jets owner Woody Johnson recently previewed a rival event to the George Clooney one that President Obama’s campaign did, and this appears to be it – a raffle for a dinner with Mitt Romney and Donald Trump,” Politico reported on Thursday.
The fund-raising website features a poster modeled on the old “Uncle Sam wants you” military recruiting image, with a picture of the blond real estate mogul and reality television star, in a blue suit and red tie, pointing at the reader. “I want YOU,” it says in large letters, above smaller letters saying “Dine with the Donald… & Mitt.”
Suggestion donation amounts on the site range up to $2500, with a box that can be ticked saying “Make this a recurring donation.”
Participants are eligible to win airport transportation in the Trump vehicle, a stay at the Trump International Hotel & Tower in New York, a Tour of the boardroom from Trump’s reality television show, “Celebrity Apprentice,” and dinner with Trump and Romney.
Obama campaign launches voter drive around gay marriage
President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign, looking to tap support for the president’s embrace of same-sex marriage, launched a voter drive in key electoral states on Wednesday, saying a Mitt Romney presidency would be the “ultimate deal breaker” for proponents of “marriage equality.”
The campaign’s effort to mobilize lesbian, gay, bi-sexual, and transgender voters and those who back their rights to wed is called “Obama Pride: LGBT Americans For Obama” and will combine on-the-ground operations in Pennsylvania, Colorado, Nevada, and Florida with an enhanced digital footprint.
“The President fights for our equality because he believes we are equal. Mitt Romney would fight against our equality because he believes we do not deserve it,” said Joe Solmonese, an Obama campaign co-chair and president of the Human Rights Campaign, an advocacy group. “We can not afford to go back.”
The campaign is highlighting Romney’s opposition to same-sex-marriage and his support of a federal amendment to the constitution that would define marriage as between one man and one woman. It’ll make its push during parades, phone banks, house parties, and other get-out-the-vote maneuvers.
Romney “has pledged to write discrimination into the Constitution of the United States,” Solmonese said, calling a constitutional amendment defining marriage as between a man and a woman the “ultimate deal breaker” for the LGBT community.
The campaign juxtaposed Romney’s public statements with the president’s legislative record, which includes ending the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy that prevented gays from serving openly in the military and signing into law the Hate Crimes Prevention Act, making it a federal hate crime to assault people based on sexual orientation, gender, and gender identity.
The Democratic incumbent in early May became the first sitting president to embrace same-sex marriage, which analysts say is particularly important to voters under age 35, a voting bloc that helped lead Obama to the White House in 2008. The campaign immediately rallied around the shift, which sparked passionate debates and a money rush on both sides.
Between Republicans and Democrats, it’s always the choice of the lesser of two evils.
Republicans are completely greedy, selfish, self-absorbed, money hungry party who would sell their own mother while Democrats are so fixated on “rights and freedoms” with no boundaries they are just completely immoral who would sleep with their own mother.
Dems use conservatives’ words against Romney in attacks
A political action committee supporting President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign has rounded up soundbites from presidential also-rans for a video it released on Tuesday hitting likely nominee Mitt Romney’s record as a private equity executive, the latest in a stream of attacks on Romney’s time in high finance.
The video comes a day after the Obama campaign stepped up criticism of Romney’s business background and fended off attacks from Republicans and from within its own ranks that its anti-Bain barbs are unnecessarily needling an entire industry.
“If Romney makes business experience the central reason for his campaign, voters have every right to question the many deals where Romney made millions while workers lost their jobs and promised benefits,” said former White House aide Bill Burton, who heads up the pro-Obama super PAC Priorities USA Action.
The roughly two-minute video, “Republicans vs. Romney’s Record,” features some of the most strident conservative voices to have waged failed presidential runs.
Texas Governor Rick Perry is shown calling the brand of capitalism Romney practiced at Bain Capital “vulture capitalism,” in which investors see a struggling company, “swoop in,” and “pick the carcass clean.”
“There is something inherently wrong when getting rich off failure and sticking it to someone else is how you do your business,” said Perry, whose bid for the White House fizzled months ago after a series of missteps and verbal gaffes.
Got to love the right, ATTACK, ATTACK and ATTACK some more, then when the other side starts using the same tactics, it is ‘unfair’ and ‘negative’. What a bunch of cry babies, if you cant take it do not dish it out.
Obama compromised by Wall Street contributions, conservative group alleges
President Obama is too closely tied to Wall Street, claims a new web video that takes the tone of Occupy Wall Street, though it was produced by a conservative group.
The video, released by the American Future Fund, an Iowa-based organization designed to be “a voice for conservative principles” and “free market ideals,” alleges that raising tens of millions of dollars from Wall Street gave Obama reason to let (presumably culpable) Wall Street executives off easy:
“Nearly four years after America’s financial collapse, not a single senior Wall Street executive has been charged with a crime. Not one. Why? Could it be because Obama raised $49 million from Wall Street – more than any candidate in history? He rewarded top Wall Street donors and supporters with senior jobs. His chief of staff made millions from Wall Street — after Wall Street received billions in bailout money.”
The ad names Jon Corzine, the former Democratic senator and New Jersey governor who headed MF Global until it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy last fall, as a particular example. Corzine “lost $1.6 billion in customers’ money but hasn’t been charged” the narrator says.
“Under Obama, Wall Street keeps winning, and Obama keeps taking their cash. Tell Obama to stop protecting his Wall Street donors.”
Watch, via the American Future Fund:
pot meet kettle. Seriously, do they think the voters are stupid? Oh, wait.
http://www.iwatchnews.org/2011/01/05/223 2/hedge-funds-bet-heavily-republicans-en d-election
“A small network of hedge fund executives pumped at least $10 million into Republican campaign committees and allied groups in last year’s elections, helping bankroll GOP victories that changed the balance of power in Washington, according to a review of campaign records and interviews with industry insiders.
The review by the Center for Public Integrity and NBC found that some of the heaviest contributions from industry leaders came late in the campaign or were funneled through obscure “joint fundraising committees” and other independent GOP allies — some of which were set up to maximize campaign fundraising or to avoid disclosing the names of big donors. The Center and NBC analyzed campaign data compiled by CQ Moneyline and the Internal Revenue Service.
Bitterly opposed to economic and regulatory policies backed by President Barack Obama and Democrats — including proposals to increase taxes on some of their profits — top Wall Street hedge fund moguls were unusually energized during last year’s election. They held multiple fundraisers and coordinated strategy to direct what appear to be unprecedented sums into the coffers of GOP and allied political committees.
The net effect has given hedge funds important new allies at a time when they are fending off some regulations mandated by the Dodd-Frank financial reform law and an aggressive Justice Department investigation into insider trading.”
Obama, Romney celebrate tough, compassionate mothers
In two Mother’s Day videos posted to their respective websites, the campaigns working to re-elect President Barack Obama and his likely Republican adversary Mitt Romney packaged the top women in their ranks as strong-willed but compassionate moms who played outsized roles in raising the children of the men vying for the job as leader of the free world come November.
The Romney campaign reprised family videos to highlight the household challenges faced by Ann Romney, who as a tough, doting mother grappled with five rambunctious boys — as well as multiple sclerosis and breast cancer. Ann compassionately disciplined the perceptually quarreling Tagg and Matt, the video notes, and served pancakes to Ben, who needed to be fattened up.
“She is an authentic person,” Tagg says in the video. “You know who she is when you meet her. She doesn’t put on airs. She doesn’t try to be something she’s not. She doesn’t try to measure what she is going to say to gauge how you are going to react. She just says what she thinks.”
Ann Romney, who has taken a more active role helping her husband court women voters on the campaign trail, made her debut on the social networking site Twitter in mid-April by reproaching a Democratic strategist who said Ann had “never worked a day in her life.”
“I made a choice to stay home and raise five boys,” Ann Romney, 62, said in her tweet. “Believe me, it was hard work.”
Mitt is shown only in inter-video montage photos and the nearly four-minute video does not mention the former Massachusetts Governor’s record involving women or mothers, nor does it clarify his position on the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, the equal pay law Obama signed in 2009 as his first official bill. Romney won’t repeal the law, his campaign said, but it stopped short of saying whether Romney would have signed it if he were in Obama’s shoes.
The Romney campaign’s tribute focuses on the private moments of a large family interacting close to home and regales viewers with private, if innocuous, childhood memories.
“Mitt Gets Worse” on gay rights, pro-Obama video alleges
Pro-Obama super PAC American Bridge has released a new web video outlining Mitt Romney’s various, and potentially incendiary, comments on a spectrum of gay-rights issues — marriage, child rearing, bullying — at different moments in his political career. “The more we learn about Mitt Romney’s attitude toward LGBT people, the worse it gets,” the ad declares.
The video — titled “Mitt Gets Worse,” presumably a play on the “It Gets Better” video project for LGBT youth — shows the presidential candidate repeatedly disavowing same-sex marriage, first as governor of Massachusetts (“Marriage in one state affects all of the states and therefore we have to have a federal standard that says marriage in this country is a relationship between one man and one woman,” he tells an audience) and, later, as a presidential candidate (“Calling it marriage creates a whole host of problems…three thousand years of human history shouldn’t be discarded so quickly”).
Romney’s concerns about the impact of same-sex marriage on “the development of children” are also highlighted: “The consequences of gay marriage fall far beyond just the relationship between a man and woman — they also relate to our kids,” he’s shown saying in one clip. “The development of a child in the history of civilization has been enhanced by the opportunity to learn from the gender characteristics of a mother and a father,” he says in another, although he doesn’t specify which “gender characteristics” he means.
The video ends with Romney’s reaction when questioned about a Washington Post report that as a high school student he bullied a classmate thought to be gay, holding him down and cutting his hair. “You know I don’t, I don’t remember that incident,” Romney told Fox with a laugh so peculiar that the ad plays it twice.
Watch, courtesy of American Bridge 21st Century:
Photo credit: Screenshot/American Bridge 21st Century
New Obama ads highlight auto bailout, claim moderate recovery
President Obama’s re-election campaign on Thursday released three television ads — two focusing on the auto bailout and a third noting moderate economic improvements since Obama took office — all part of the campaign’s $25 million May marketing blitz.
The ads were a follow-up to what the campaign’s senior adviser David Axelrod called a “foundational” ad called “Go,” airing across nine battleground states and painting a portrait of an America on the economic mend, safer without Osama bin Laden, and relieved that its troops are finally home from Iraq. A nation whose Democratic incumbent simply needs more time.
“Different communities have different interests, or come at some of these issues in different ways, and we want to make sure that we’re getting to them information that is most germane and most relevant,” Axelrod, a former White House aide, said on a recent call with reporters.
A new, 30-second spot that aired in Ohio features an interview with a young autoworker heading back to work after losing his job. “Obama stuck his neck out for us, the auto industry, he wasn’t going to let it just die. And I am driving in this morning because of that, because of him,” the man, Brian Slagle, says.
A second ad airing in Ohio and elsewhere — titled “Succeed” — shows the Democratic incumbent speaking about the “more than one million jobs” the auto bailout saved.
West Virginia primary ballot included felon, Virginia’s lacked candidates
A convicted felon not only made West Virginia’s Democratic primary ballot, he won 72,544 – or 41 percent - of votes in the contest against Democratic President Barack Obama, and could receive at least one of the state’s delegates to the Democratic National Convention this summer.
The inmate, Keith Judd, is serving a 17-1/2 year sentence at a federal prison in Texas for making threats at the University of New Mexico in 1999.
Judd’s performance was taken as a sign of deep animosity in West Virginia toward Obama, who was handily defeated in the state’s 2008 primary by Hillary Clinton and lost there by 13 percentage points to Republican John McCain in the general election. Joe Manchin, the state’s former governor who is now a Democratic senator, declined to say on Tuesday whether he had voted for Obama.
On Tuesday, Judd beat Obama in nine of West Virginia’s 55 counties. Republican party officials, aides and strategists emailed and tweeted with glee about Judd’s performance, and the Associated Press headlined its story, “Against Obama, even a jailbird gets some votes.”
The inmate’s performance also highlighted the sharp differences across the country in rules for running for office. While Judd, a convicted felon, made his way onto West Virginia’s ballot, leading Republican presidential candidates Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum were unable to satisfy the complicated requirements to get onto the ballot to compete in the Republican primary in neighboring Virginia on March 6.
Mitt Romney, now the presumptive Republican nominee, and Texas Congressman Ron Paul were the only two Republican contenders who made it onto the Virginia primary ballot. The others’ failure was taken as a sign of their campaigns’ disorganization.
Intolerance and hate are alive and well in WV. May God help you!
Pro-Romney Super PAC rekindles “Mommy Wars” in new ad
A pro-Romney Super PAC is out with a new ad resurrecting the frenzy over Hilary Rosen’s accusation last month that Ann Romney had “never worked a day in her life.”
The ad, released by Restore our Future just in time for Mother’s Day, notes that Ann Romney raised five sons and survived breast cancer and multiple sclerosis. “But what does White House insider Hilary Rosen say about Ann Romney?” a narrator asks before playing a clip of Rosen’s remark.
Bill Maher is also featured in the ad, where he’s identified as an Obama donor and shown saying, “Ann Romney has never gotten her ass out of the house.” Maher made the comment during a larger discussion about the meaning of Rosen’s remarks on his show, “Real Time,” on April 13:
“But what she meant to say, I think, was that Ann Romney has never gotten her ass out of the house to work. No one is denying that being a mother is a tough job. I remember I was a handful. Okay, but there is a big difference in being a mother in that tough job, and getting your ass out of the door at 7am when it’s cold, having to deal with the boss, being in a workplace, and even if you’re unhappy you can’t show it for eight hours, that is kind of a different kind of tough thing.”
The ad ends with an image of a Mother’s Day card with photos of Obama, Rosen, and Maher on the inside: “Happy Mother’s Day, from Barack Obama’s team,” the narrator says.
Watch the ad, courtesy of Restore our Future:
Well I guess this shows you how negative Mitt Romney is going to be in the November election. During the primary session, about 99% of his ads have been negative and he is going to take it to a higher level in the forthcoming election.
The animal nature of the 2012 presidential race
Presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney, whom Democrats have raked over the coals for once transporting Seamus, the family dog, in a crate strapped to the roof of the car during a road trip, hit back during a fundraiser at a hotel in downtown Indianapolis on Monday evening, telling the audience that “even the animals are suffering in the Obama economy.”
Democrats have used the tale of Seamus, who lost control of his bowels on the trip to Canada, to portray Romney as an uncaring former private equity executive. But Romney, who makes his corporate acumen the linchpin of his electoral pitch, focused on the story of a couple he met on the trail who owned a struggling veterinary clinic.
The business was down 40 percent and the couple were forced to move to a smaller home and were thinking of selling their business, Romney told the room of roughly 200 supporters, many of whom paid between $2,500 and $50,000 to attend the fundraiser hours before Indiana voters cast ballots in Tuesday’s hotly contested primary.
Romney, who had been warmly introduced by Governor Mitch Daniels, explained that the couple’s business suffered not because of bad customer service but because of the bad economy.
“What happened is, people are cutting back on care for their pets. Vaccines and other things. They’re just not doing it,” Romney said, before deadpanning: “I guess even the animals are suffering in the Obama economy.”
The supporters roared.
Last month, both the Romney and Obama campaigns needled each other over the relationship the candidates had to their respective pets.
@LarryLinn: BRILLIANT.
My question is, is this celebrity dining lottery compulsory for all Romney campaign donors? If so, I’ll be interested to learn what kind of effect this has on campaign donations.
@kafantaris: True, but even self-promoting persons like Trump can be helpful from time to time (when it suits them). There are plenty of people who want to follow in their footsteps…