After gay marriage shift, high profile Romney backer switches to Obama
An openly gay, big-dollar donor to Mitt Romney’s campaign is asking for his money back after Vice President Joe Biden – followed by President Barack Obama – embraced gay marriage, the New York consultant told Reuters on Monday.
“When I heard Biden say he was comfortable with men marrying men I almost fell off my chair,” said Bill White, 42, a registered independent who has supported politicians across the political spectrum, including both President Bushes and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and who maxed out during the Republican primary for Romney, the former Massachusetts Governor.
“These guys are on the right side of history,” said White, who was married to Joseph Bryan Eure in October 2011, a wedding that was officiated by David Boies, a lawyer who defended gay marriage equality in California, and attended by — disclaimer — Thomson Reuters senior executives. Soul singer Aretha Franklin performed at the wedding, the first legal gay marriage ceremony at the Four Seasons hotel, the New York Daily News reported.
White initially backed Romney because the wealthy former private equity executive’s worry over America’s fiscal woes and his plans to rein in spending matched his own, White said.
“I was going to vote for Romney because I think he will be a guy who will have more fiscal control,” said White, who planned to donate more to Romney and had pushed his friends to cut checks to Romney, who has not yet refunded his money. White said he has not yet given to Obama this cycle, either.
The change came after the White House’s shift and Romney took to the stage of evangelical bastion Liberty University and said during a commencement speech that “marriage is a relationship between one man and one woman.” White said seeing Romney make that speech made him worry over a possible constitutional amendment defining marriage.
Public support for same-sex marriage is evolving: half of Americans believe same-sex couples should have the same right to wed as heterosexuals do, slightly down from a year ago but marking the second year that a majority of Americans have supported same-sex marriage. Six states, plus the District of Columbia, have extended marriage rights to gay couples. Twenty-eight states ban such marriages.
Washington Extra – God awful
As welcomes go, this might be one of the most colorful (and perplexing) in recent memory. One week before he is to help host Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden took a double jab at China’s economic growth prospects and its one-child policy.
“Because of that God-awful one-child policy they have, what happens now is in the next 20 years they’re going to have such an inverse proportion of the number of people working to the number of people retired that there is no way they can sustain that growth,” Biden said.
The apparently unscripted remarks came during a speech about college affordability in Florida. He was trying to make the case that the United States remains the world’s largest economy and is “better positioned than any other country in the world to lead the 21st century.”
Biden is famous for speaking off the cuff, a penchant that has landed him in hot water a few times. But could it be that he was asked to be tough on China – at a time that U.S. voters are looking to President Obama to stand up to the Asian giant?
It’s hard to know, but Biden did make clear he had a role…sort of. “I’ve been sort of given part of the China portfolio here,” he said. We’ll see how that’s going when Xi rolls into Washington. Xi, by the way, is no mere vice president in a supporting role. He is expected to become China’s president next year.
Here are our top stories from Washington…
Biden, Romney spar over economic policy
By Eric Johnson
CHICAGO — Vice President Joe Biden, in his first public criticism of a 2012 Republican presidential candidate, criticized Mitt Romney’s economic policies in an opinion piece in Iowa’s biggest newspaper on Friday.
“Romney appears satisfied to settle for an economy in which fewer people succeed, while the majority of Americans are left to tread water or fall behind,” Biden wrote in the Des Moines Register, which last week endorsed Romney for the Republican nomination.
In the piece, Biden laid out his working-class background — which the Obama campaign will tout in rust-belt swing states in 2012 — and said he and Obama were champions of equal opportunity for all, not an entitlement society, as Romney alleged.
“The president and I firmly believe…that if you work hard and play by the rules, no opportunity should be out of reach,” he wrote. “That is a fundamentally different vision than what the other side has proposed.”
The jabs jibe with the Obama campaign’s focus on the former venture capitalist they see as Obama’s most likely challenger. They also provide a taste of what’s to come in a hotly contested general election.
when joey the clown speak, his alzaimer and parkinson going in 100% coordination, anyway monkey see, monkey does1
Biden welcomes Navy ship home for the holidays
MAYPORT, Fla. – Vice President Joe Biden made an unscheduled stop during a visit to Florida on Thursday to greet 350 sailors from the USS Gettysburg as they came home after seven months at sea.
A brass band played and happy families waved flags and held up signs as a grinning Biden helped them welcome home loved ones just in time for the holidays. Seven of the sailors who had babies born while they were at sea were allowed to get off the ship first.
Sophia Perfida, 11 months, waits to see her father.
One sailor dressed up as Santa Claus in honor of the ship’s arrival, drawing thrilled shouts from some of the children waiting for their mothers and fathers.
“This is the greatest thing in the world,” said Captain Robert Hein, commander of the guided-missile cruiser Gettysburg, which had been to Afghanistan, off the Horn of Africa and the Mediterranean during its deployment.
“This is Christmas, New Year’s, the Fourth of July and your birthday all wrapped up in one.”
Washington Extra – In abeyance
Some say impasse, some say abeyance.
But whatever they call it, debt negotiations between Vice President Joe Biden and lawmakers hit a brick wall.
After two days of meetings this week, Republicans decided it wasn’t worth going to the third session today and walked away.
House Majority Leader Eric Cantor took the harsher line, saying the talks were at an “impasse.” Dictionary definition: a situation from which there is no escape or a deadlock.
The White House took a gentler line describing the talks as in “abeyance.” Dictionary definition: temporary inactivity or a suspension.
So now they kick it upstairs. President Barack Obama, House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid will take over, according to Reid.
That’s two Democrats and one Republican at the table. Does one golf game (Obama and Boehner last Saturday) a compromise make?
Washington Extra – Not enough
The word is not enough. That was the message from the United States to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad who pledged reforms in a speech at Damascus University.
“What’s important now is action, not words,” State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland told reporters.
White House spokesman Jay Carney concurred: “President Assad needs to either lead that transition or get out of the way … I’m not saying the words are meaningless, but he needs to act on them … But first, he needs to stop the violence.”
The White House also announced Vice President Joe Biden and lawmakers will meet three days this week — Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday — to see if they can move any closer to an agreement on the budget deficit and debt limit.
We’re guessing a week is not enough to lock up a deal. But will the talks be more meaningful than just three days of the meander? (OK so we stretched for a rhyme with condor for movie buffs).
Here are our top stories from Washington…
Washington Extra – Tee party
President Barack Obama and House Speaker John Boehner get to flex their golfing skills tomorrow and we’re guessing there’s plenty of pre-game strategizing going on.
Is Obama telling Vice President Joe Biden, arguably the best golfer of the four, to hold back on the hole-in-ones? They do after all want Boehner amenable to their views on the debt limit stand-off.
Is Ohio Governor John Kasich giving Boehner advice on how to keep the Veep off-guard so they can ruin his handicap and have bragging rights on the Republican versus Democrat scoreboard?
And will the political foursome keep up with appearances and wear that loud clothing golfers seem to like so much, and which can make a bystander cringe?
But is golf really about winning or how you play the game? In this case it will be a success if no one ends up teed off…
Here are our top stories from Washington…
Obama and spokesman have equal “vision” on deficit reduction
President Barack Obama and his spokesman obviously see eye-to-eye.
But it was a bit surprising to what degree. White House spokesman Jay Carney during his daily press briefing yesterday used the word “vision” 15 times. Guess how many times President Barack Obama said “vision” during his speech today? 15.
(Is that Twilight Zone music we hear in the background or perhaps Synchronicity?)
Vice President Joe Biden looked like he may have needed some loud music during Obama’s speech. Intense speculation about whether he nodded off or was simply listening intently with his eyes closed.
The moment was captured on video posted by ABCNews.com, so you can judge for yourself.
Photo credit: Reuters/Kevin Lamarque (Obama delivering speech on deficit reduction)
Washington Extra – Podium pieces
We learned a thing or two from briefings around town.
– White House spokesman Jay Carney has a sister, and today is her birthday. He announced it from the podium. “I spoke with her this morning, and we are very close.”
– State Department spokesman Mark Toner is interested in the Georgetown basketball game. “Anybody got the latest score on Georgetown?” he asked, to break up some of the back-and-forth with reporters on questions about Libya.
– Republicans have noticed that Vice President Joe Biden hasn’t been around. House Republican Whip Kevin McCarthy complained that Biden is supposed to be lead negotiator in government funding talks and no one will say who is filling in for him. “The vice president is out of the country. We’ll have to prepare for another two weeks but that’s not where we want to go.”
Apparently no fill-in needed when a telephone call will do. Biden spoke with House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell from Moscow. The vice president “will continue to stay in close contact with congressional leaders on the budget negotiations throughout the week,” an aide said, according to the pool report from his trip.
For a look at what the public thinks about spending cuts, see Donna Smith’s story on the Reuters/Ipsos poll finding that a majority of Americans prefer cutting defense spending to reduce the federal deficit rather than taking money from public retirement and health programs.
Here are our top stories from Washington…
Valentine’s Day with the GOP
What better way to celebrate Valentine’s Day than by sending your special someone a pink e-card, covered in hearts, with a message from the president: “Hope you like this Valentine’s card, your grandchildren are paying for it.”
In the GOP version of My Funny Valentine and a way to raise some sweet cash, the Republican National Committee is poking some fun at the White House and its Democratic cohorts with GOPvalentine.com, and more than 30,000 of the snarky messages had been sent as of Friday morning.
The site boasts 18 card options, including “This card entitles you to one free hug full-body pat-down” with a photo of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, and “Don’t censure this Valentine” with a photo of Rep. Charles Rangel, who was censured by the House of Representatives for ethics violations.
The media isn’t safe either. A card featuring Keith Olbermann, whose contract with MSNBC was terminated following a suspension for donating to Democratic candidates, reads “MSNBC just wants to be friends this Valentine’s Day.”
The one for incoming White House spokesman Jay Carney, a former Washington bureau chief for Time who left to become Vice President Joe Biden’s communications director, takes an even more pointed swing:
Remember Jimmy McMillan, 2010 New York gubernatorial candidate from the Rent is Too Damn High Party?
Gee, why can’t they be more creative in describing the debt they ran up? Oh, yeah, this is the debt they ran up.
Don’t let the door hit ya in the butt on the way out…oh wait, you might like that.