Who’s afraid of Mitt and T-Paw…
It turns out that Mitt Romney and Tim Pawlenty are the scariest pair of presidential prospects in the GOP field today, judging from a new Democratic ad and remarks by some Democratic Party hierophants.
Priorities USA Action, a political group founded by two former aides to President Barack Obama, targets Romney as a flip-flopper in a South Carolina TV ad that wields Republican Paul Ryan’s Medicare reforms like a political cudgel.
The 30-second black-and-white spot begins with Newt Gingrich’s “Meet the Press” remarks opposing what he called radical right-wing social engineering on Medicare. The ad then recounts Republican South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley’s defense of Ryan before turning finally to Romney: “Mitt Romney says he’s ‘on the same page’ as Paul Ryan … but with Mitt Romney, you have to wonder: which page is he on today?”
The New York Times says the ad will run this weekend while Romney visits South Carolina.
Pundits view the ad as evidence that Democrats have locked on Romney as the GOP frontrunner, at least for now.
Ed Rendell, a leading Democrat who served as Pennsylvania governor and DNC chairman, put it this way on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe”: “What really is instructive here is that this group’s trying to knock out Mitt Romney in the primaries. We don’t want to face Mitt Romney. A Romney-Pawlenty ticket is the most credible general election ticket.”
A monster twosome, perhaps. But that doesn’t mean top Republicans aren’t still baying at the doorsteps of Mitch Daniels and Chris Christie in hopes that one or both will take the plunge.
Stewart, Colbert rally gets ‘puzzling’ endorsement
First came celebrity endorsements from Oprah and Arianna. Now Jon Stewart’s Washington “Rally to Restore Sanity” has a more puzzling promoter.
Here’s a clue: German summer pants for little William? (10 letters)
Stumped? The answer is ”Will Shortz“. He’s editor of the New York Times crossword puzzle, which today devotes no fewer than eight clues to the Daily Show host, his fellow satirist Stephen Colbert of the Colbert Report and the joint rally they’re planning for Saturday on the National Mall.
For anyone flummoxed by the clues to 54 and 65 Across, Colbert’s version of the event is called the “March to Keep Fear Alive.”
The Stewart-Colbert gathering is a reaction to Fox News commentator Glenn Beck‘s “Restoring Honor” rally, which was held at the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on this year’s anniversary of Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech. Stewart is also a big fan of Shortz and appeared in the 2006 documentary Wordplay, which focused on the Times crossword puzzle editor and the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament. Do Stewart and Colbert need the fiery presence of thousands of crossword puzzle enthusiasts? Now that’s a question. But the idea may be too inside the box for rally organizers.
“It’s great. But how does this help? That’s not something for us to answer because this is not something we solicited or planned on,” said Steve Albani, spokesman for Comedy Central, the cable TV channel that airs Stewart and Colbert. Folks at the Times were not immediately available for comment. (If they intend to respond via their puzzle, they may miss our deadline.) Meanwhile, Stewart and Colbert are expected to draw about 150,000 people to the National Mall. That’s a Wall Street Journal estimate based on the number of portable toilets ordered by Comedy Central. No _____. (4 letters).
Click here for more political coverage from Reuters.
Obama’s security tweaks unlikely to quiet political opponents
President Barack Obama will tighten airline security today in a bid to thwart any future attack like last month’s plot to bomb a Detroit-bound airliner. But will that silence his political opponents? Not likely. With congressional elections looming in November, the stakes may be too high.
Take Republican Rep. Pete Hoekstra, for example. He’s running for governor of Michigan and criticizing Obama’s handling of the bomb plot in hopes of making Democrats, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, look soft on security.
“If you agree that we need a governor who will stand up the Obama/Pelosi efforts to weaken our security, please make a most generous contribution of $25, $50, $100 or even $250 to my campaign,” he said in a widely quoted letter to prospective supporters. The letter caused an uproar among critics who accused Hoekstra of playing politics with national security. But the security issue seems destined to become a leading theme for Republicans in this year’s election battle for control of Congress, which they hope to turn into a referendum on Obama’s policies.
Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele says national security is among the top issues on which his party needs to engage voters.
“There are a lot of questions out there,” he told NBC’s Today show. “The inconsistency in the Obama administration’s approach to foreign policy, particularly with respect to terrorism, is a concern.”
“At some point, this administration has to take responsibility for what it’s doing, take responsibility for its decisions,” Steele added.
Republicans lost control of Congress in 2006 and the White House in 2008. But they now hope to stage a comeback by playing up perceptions, fed by opinion polls, that Obama’s policies are increasingly unpopular with the American public.
It’s interesting that in the eight years the republicans controlled the government, there was a failure to listen to intel which cost more than three thousand lives on Sep 11 2001.
Fast forward to the present day and you’ll find those same republicans griping about how the Obama administration isn’t doing enough in the area of security. The bomber was caught be a vigilant citizenry which is the only real defense in these cases.
Obama is working to correct the problems that allowed this man to slip by security. That’s a whole lot more than the Bush administration did after Sep 11.
No one died in this incident. Compare that to the results foolish wars waged by the past administration. And Obama doesn’t need to wire tap citizens to get the job done either. Solving real problems is what our leaders were elected for. But instead they only create them.
They want to take credit for everything that doesn’t break down right away. And they want to blame everyone when things go wrong. But NEVER do they actively seek to solve problems. They just want to pretend they do.
The First Draft: Will Giuliani try for the U.S. Senate?
He probably won’t run for New York governor but might for the U.S. Senate … or will he? That’s the speculation swirling around Rudy Giuliani, the Republican former New York City mayor who walked tall after the Sept. 11 attacks and ran for U.S. president in 2008. A spokeswoman says the 65-year-old former federal prosecutor has made no decisions. But the New York Daily News, the New York Times and the New York Post all report that Giuliani has decided not to run for New York governor in 2010. Analysts think he could defeat Democratic incumbent Governor David Paterson without much fuss. But overcoming a possible challenge from New York’s Democratic attorney general, Andrew Cuomo, could be have been difficult. Cuomo has not announced his candidacy. The Daily News reports that Giuliani is strongly considering a Senate run against Democratic Senator Kirsten Gillibrand to fill out the remaining two years of Hillary Clinton’s term. Clinton, who lost in last year’s Democratic presidential nomination to Barack Obama, is now U.S. secretary of state.
The Daily News cites poll numbers showing Giuliani losing to Cuomo 53 percent to 43 percent in a race for governor, but beating Gillibrand 54 percent to 40 percent for the Senate.
But the Senate speculation may not last long.
The New York Post quotes people close to Giuliani as saying a run for the Senate is unlikely.
And even the Daily News seems to be hedging its bets with a story saying Giuliani doesn’t need to run for the Senate because he already has plenty of money and influence and a private life that’s working out just fine. Giuliani ran for the Senate in a 2000 campaign that pitted him against Clinton. But events and declining poll numbers were against him and he withdrew after a quick succession of revelations: he had prostate cancer, he had a girlfriend, and he was separating from his second wife. Giuliani has since beaten cancer, divorced his second wife, Donna Hanover, and married his former girlfriend, Judith Nathan.
Photo Credit: Reuters/Brian Snyder (Giuliani)
Guiliano is a clown, but he has some leadership ability. Right now there is a vacuum in leadership at the White House and it’s name is Obama. When you turn the switch to foreign affairs–it sucks, when you turn the switch to domestic affairs–it blows
Genealogist unearths first lady’s family tree back to 1850
A genealogist working with The New York Times has traced Michelle Obama’s family tree back five generations to a 6-year-old slave girl named Melvinia who was valued at $475.
The White House said first lady Michelle Obama had not known many of the details of her family history and enjoyed reading it. She had declined to comment on the story for The New York Times because of the personal nature of the subject.
“I don’t believe she knew or had known all of this, but enjoyed reading about her family history,” White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said.
The slave girl Melvinia initially appears in the documentary record in 1850, the property of South Carolina landowner David Patterson, who owned 21 slaves.
After Patterson died in 1852, Melvinia was sent to a smaller 200-acre farm in Georgia, the home of Patterson’s daughter and son-in-law, Christianne and Henry Shields. She was one of only three slaves on the farm near Atlanta.
Sometime when she was a teenager, possibly as young as 15, Melvinia became pregnant by a white male. The father is unknown, possibly Henry Shields, then in his 40s, or one of his four sons, aged 19 to 24.
Melvinia gave birth around 1859 to a boy, Dolphus. She and the father of her first-born son are Michelle Obama’s great-great-great-grandparents, genealogist Megan Smolenyak says.
The resources available online without cost these days is amazing! I’ve researched my father back to 1850 and my mother back to the 1500s. There are many places to start your search, but I’ve found that putting a grandparents name in quotes on Google is sometimes the best way to find where someone else has already done the research for you and they are willing to share.
That was awkward…
When President Barack Obama landed in Albany, New York, on Monday, the leader of his welcoming party was a man whose name has been linked with his in some news reports lately — New York Governor David Paterson. Or perhaps he should be referred to as “Governor-for-now.”
According to recent news reports, the Obama administration is so worried that his fellow Democrat Paterson’s unpopularity will drag down New York’s Democratic members of Congress and the Democrat-controlled state legislature in the November 2010 election that the president asked him to withdraw from the race. According to The New York Times, Obama’s request that Paterson step aside was put forward by his political advisers, but approved by the president. Paterson said Sunday he was still running for office.
Paterson was standing at the bottom of the stairs to greet Obama when Air Force One reached Albany. The jet engines were so loud that no one could hear their exchange, but they shook hands and had a brief exchange that looked cordial. “Obama did a kind of half-embrace with his back to the press corps, and said something to Paterson, who listened for a moment and then said something back,” a White House press pool report said.
Paterson sat in the front row during Obama’s speech at a local community college. The president shook hands with him again on entering, and put his left hand on Paterson’s shoulder briefly. At the beginning of his speech, Obama said, “A wonderful man, the governor of the great state of New York, David Paterson, is in the house.”
The reports about Obama’s recommendation had raised some charges that Obama, the first black U.S. president, was guilty of racism against Paterson, currently one of only two black governors of U.S. states. Michael Steele, the first African-American to become chairman of the Republican National Committee, raised the issue Sunday on CBS’ “Face the Nation” television program.
“I found that to be stunning, that the White House would send word to one of only two black governors in the country not to run for re-election,” he said. He said it struck him as strange that Obama did not raise the same question about New Jersey Governor John Corzine, who is white and also trailing in opinion polls.
“It will be very interesting to see what the response from black leadership around the country will be about the president calling the governor to step down or not run for election,” Steele said.
Wanda,are you saying that any black person who is in the republican party is a fool! IF so Wanda you are a racist.
from MacroScope:
Sssh. Don’t say stimulus
William Safire, the language maven whose musings on how we use words have graced The New York Times and other newspapers for decades, has discovered something about the current crisis. Not for the first time, politicians are scrambling to avoid using common words that might get too close to the truth.
This time the target is the economy, specifically what needs to be done about it. In a column, Safire notes that some Democrats, notably the incoming White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, are steering away from using the world "stimulus" when referring to efforts to, er, stimulate the economy. "Recovery" is being used instead. As in, recovery plan.
Who could argue with that? Republicans, apparently. According to Safire, they are favouring "spending", presumably as in spend, spend, tax, tax etc.
Let's think up some more. How about the "defibrillation" plan?
Media gets a lashing at McCain event
SCRANTON, Pa. – The news media got a brisk scolding from a supporter of Sen. John McCain at the Republican presidential nominee’s town hall meeting on Tuesday.
A woman in the audience thanked the Arizona senator for choosing Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska as his running mate and accused the media of putting more effort into investigating Palin than the Democratic presidential candidate, Sen. Barack Obama.
“We want the media to start doing their jobs and stop picking on little children because of their age and their pregnancies,” she said, in reference to Palin’s unwed, pregnant 17-year-old daughter Bristol. “Shame on you. Shame on you.”
McCain waited until the applause died down and replied: “That is a great question.”
“Gov. Palin, she can take it,” he said. “She’s a reformer, and she will bring change, and she will bring reform, and that’s what Americans want very badly today.”
Separately, McCain’s senior advisor Steve Schmidt expressed outrage in a conference call with reporters over coverage of the campaign by The New York Times.
The Times on Monday ran a story saying McCain’s campaign manager worked for several years to help defend mortgage companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac against stricter regulations. The story comes at a time when McCain is criticizing the mortgage giants for avoiding increased regulation.
To be fair the “media” did not get Bristol knocked up. The “little children” did that on their own. What happened to out of wedlock pregnancy as the target of shame. Shame on who?
Is it just me or does this whole Palin saga sound like the first ten minutes of the show “City Confidential”? I keep expecting the next segment to have the body discovered.
Glad to see serious (though flawed) GOPers running. The more Palin, Trump and Newt just muddy the waters.