Washington Extra – Home alone
When it comes to fixing the housing market in this election year, it’s a battle between the “ineffective” and the “do-nothing.”
President Obama’s relief measures for homeowners facing foreclosure have fallen far short of objectives. Republican candidates, meanwhile, prefer to let the marketplace work its magic. Prices will then hit bottom and begin to recover.
The hands-off approach might not cause too much damage to Republicans in South Carolina. But when the race moves to foreclosure-heavy states such as Florida and Nevada, Republican candidates could find themselves having to explain why they don’t want to help any homeowners.
Obama can’t show much in the way of results, but he can reveal a bit of a heart. And he’ll get another chance to show that in next week’s State of the Union, where he is expected to offer another gesture of support for troubled homeowners.
Here are our top stories from Washington…
Perry stands ground on Turkey
Given an opportunity to revise (back down or retract) his comments he made in Monday’s Republican debate linking Turkey to “Islamic terrorists,” Texas Governor Rick Perry stood his ground on Tuesday.
The Republican presidential candidate made no apology for nearly touching off an international incident with his take on the long-time U.S. ally. Perry defended his view in a CNN interview, hours after Turkey’s response.
Here’s the video:
Rick Perry lags in home state of Texas
Tuesday only got worse for Texas Governor Rick Perry whose comments about Turkey in a debate last night got him lambasted by foreign policy experts, the Turkish press, and the Turkish government in Ankara.
Perry, the longest serving governor in Texas history, polled only third in a survey of his fellow Longhorn Republicans, according to a poll released Tuesday.
Less than a fifth of those polled by the Democratic polling firm, Public Policy Polling said they would choose Perry over his rivals. He lagged frontrunner Mitt Romney as well as former Speaker of the House Gingrich.
Romney polled at 24 percent and Gingrich at 23 percent, compared to Perry’s 18 percent.
Perry’s conservative credentials once endeared him to Republicans looking for a candidate other than Romney, suspected of moderate leanings. He shot to the top in August when he first entered the race but fell back after consistently fumbling debates and interviews.
“Republicans aren’t simply looking at which of these candidates most ideologically is appealing to them. They’re really focused on who has the political skill set that they think will be required to beat Obama,” said Thomas Hollihan, an expert in political campaigns at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School School for Communication and Journalism. “Perry’s performance in the debate suggested that he just wasn’t a very capable candidate. That probably more than anything else drove his support down.”
Perry’s national favorability rating is 7.0 percent, according to RealClearPolitics.com.
Reuters Washington Extra – Behind the numbers
At last night’s debate, Mitt Romney said he’d be happy to release his tax returns in April. But today he disclosed a crucial piece of information as the clamor grew for him to come out with his returns. The frontrunner to clinch the Republican nomination has a tax rate that “is probably closer to 15 percent than anything.”
That’s a low rate, but it is in line with what is paid by wealthy Americans who earn much of their income from capital gains, which are taxed at 15 percent. So, now the number is out and we will see how American voters (and wage earners) react.
Another interesting number from Romney today concerned speaker fees, which he says he collects “from time to time, but not very much.” Campaign financial disclosure forms indicate that Romney was paid more than $374,000 in speaker fees from February 2010 to February 2011. Not very much, if you are Mitt Romney.
The final numbers to discuss today come from our look into the PAC attacks. The pro-Romney Restore our Future is the champ PAC with $8.1 million spent in this campaign so far. Much of that went toward attacking Newt Gingrich. Restore our Future and other PACs have spent $7.8 million to try to sink him. Compare that to the $3.2 million spent by PACs against Romney. Watch those numbers change, or rather run up, this week in the final charge in South Carolina.
Here are our top stories from Washington…
Mitt Romney may not release tax returns until April
Roemer camp pressures networks, pollsters in search of “Roementum”
Former Louisiana governor and Republican presidential hopeful Buddy Roemer is turning up the heat on his opponents: polling companies and national television networks. Roemer, who was in Congress longer than Michele Bachmann and was a governor for as long as Mitt Romney, has yet to be invited to a single Republican debate. That’s because the national television networks determine who gets invited to their debates based on a shifting set of polling criteria, and they have yet to set their criteria low enough to include him.
Roemer, who has staked his entire candidacy on New Hampshire, has two last chances in the New Hampshire debates slated for next Saturday and Sunday, sponsored by ABC and NBC respectively.
“It’s usually the big guys in New York or DC who make the decisions,” says Carlos Sierra, Roemer’s spokesman. “It’s going to be disappointing if we don’t get into the last two debates.”
At the rate things are going, it looks like Roemer could very well be watching the debates on television again. Sierra says both NBC and ABC have set the minimum polling threshold at 5 percent either nationally or in New Hampshire — though it’s unclear which surveys they’ll consider (ABC and NBC News spokespeople didn’t immediately return calls).
Roemer’s campaign claimed “Roementum” when a Public Policy Polling survey released yesterday put him at 3 percent in the state, tied with Rick Perry and Rick Santorum (the margin of error was ±3.4 percent). That came on the heels of a Suffolk University poll giving him 2 percent in the state in mid-December, essentially tied with Santorum and Perry and just behind Michele Bachmann.
One of Roemer’s biggest problems is that he can’t get included in many polls. The recent CNN/Time poll ignored him, and even PPP didn’t include Roemer in its mid-December survey. Roemer has been calling polling agencies to complain; so far only PPP has been receptive to his pleas.
Perry attacks more conservative rivals, ignores Romney
Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s latest ads don’t even bother attacking Republican frontrunner Mitt Romney. With polls showing him in fifth place among Republicans in Iowa and seventh in New Hampshire, Perry’s aim is now to emerge as one of the top two conservative options to Romney.
To get there, he needs to knock off some of the other candidates polling immediately in front of him — which is why his latest TV ad in Iowa attacks Rep. Ron Paul, Rep. Michele Bachmann, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and ex-Sen. Rick Santorum, but doesn’t mention Romney.
“The fox guarding the hen house is like asking a congressman to fix Washington,” the ad’s narrator says. “Bad idea. Their years in Congress left us with debt and bailouts.”
Here’s the video, via RPerry2012/YouTube:
With Santorum seeing a boost in Iowa polls — a CNN/Time magazine poll yesterday found him in third place in Iowa, with 16 percent — Perry is doubling down on the former Pennsylvania congressman. In a new Iowa radio ad, which takes the format of a TV game show, Perry highlights Santorum’s record of supporting earmarked federal monies for his constituents:
“Who personally demanded more than $1 billion of earmarks in his 16 years in Congress?” a narrator asks. “Jay, from Ames?”
“Rick Santorum?” answers the fictitious Jay.
“Right,” the narrator says. “Santorum grabbed for a billion in earmarks, until voters kicked him out of office in a landslide.”
Watch a video version of the radio ad, courtesy of RPerry2012/YouTube:
Mitt Romney, car nut
Perhaps it’s no surprise to know that Mitt Romney is a car nut.
After all, Romney grew up in Michigan, where his father, George, once ran American Motors Corporation before becoming the state’s governor and launching his own failed bid for the White House.
Romney talked about his cars at campaign stops in Lancaster and Randolph, New Hampshire – and even offered to buy a classic car.
At Lowe’s, a gas station/convenience store in Randolph, Romney gassed up his tour bus with $69.90 in diesel fuel. In the store, surrounded by photos of famous visitors to the remote North Country location, he joked with one of the owners about how he would like to buy her classic “Nash Metropolitan” car, a photo of which was pinned to the wall.
She shot back in a flash: “$10,000″ – a reminder of Romney’s recent debate flub in Iowa, where he famously offered to wager that amount with Texas governor Rick Perry. The offer, declined by Perry, prompted accusations that Romney is an out-of-touch rich guy with money to burn.
“That’s way too expensive for my taste,” Romney responded in the gas station.
Mitt Marcos Romney wanted teh car industry to die in 2008 during Bush’s largest bailout in history.Now the car industry is alive and kicking courtesy of President Obama’s…and making profits.Romney can hide his Bain bailout money in Europe,look who is the patriotic idiot in here.Mitt Marcos will always be the candidate loser of all times.
Romney reveals his debate card, says inheritance given away
During Rick Perry’s now infamous “oops” moment at a Republican debate last month, the Texas governor gave a panicked glance at his cue card to see if it held the name of the third agency of government he vowed to eliminate. It did not.
Today Mitt Romney told Reuters’ Steve Holland and Jim Gaines about his own debate card. Romney says he writes “Dad” on his card “just to remember a person who, if he’s able to watch, I’m sure he is.”
Romney said he also tries to remind himself not to focus his attacks in primary debates on his fellow Republicans:
“I put an O up there just to remind myself that the competition is Obama, and that the place I should be thinking about in my responses is President Obama. And my differences with him are more than the differences with people on stage.”
Romney certainly had President Obama on his mind during his interview with Reuters, where he called the president’s decision to pull out of Iraq a “signature failure.”
In a response to a question about how a wealthy candidate might connect with less wealthy voters, Romney emphasized his work with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and said that his own riches, estimated at $190 million or more, were earned rather than inherited from his father, the former CEO of American Motors Corp. and governor of Michigan.
“A life of privilege? What privilege? I gave my 190 million dollar inheritance to the Mormon Church and they’re giving it back to me in the form of campaign contributions and this sweet jet. A perfectly industrious money-laundering operation and I WOULD have earned the money, had I needed to.”
In New Hampshire, fringe candidates get their moment
Bipartisanship flourishes among fringe candidates. Democrat Vermin Supreme and Republican Hugh Cort share a laugh before Monday night’s debate at Saint Anselm College.
New Hampshire voters looking for something different got to size up some other presidential candidates on Monday night. The questions were pointed, the answers often succinct, sensible and serious. But some of the platforms were narrowly focused and, well, a bit wacky.
“I’m here to tell you about thorium, an overlooked energy alternative,” said Robert Greene, a Democrat from Mountain View, California. “If politicians are having any discussion that does not include thorium, they have not had a serious energy discussion.”
It was the “Lesser Known Candidates’ forum” at the New Hampshire Institute of Politics at Saint Anselm College in Manchester. Organizers put out the welcome mat to any candidate, Republican or Democrat, who is on the ballot for the New Hampshire presidential primary but has not appeared at a nationally televised debate.
Obscure candidates are drawn to New Hampshire by its low $1,000 filing fee. The state’s Jan. 10 presidential primary will have some 44 candidates listed.
On Monday, ten Republicans and seven Democrats held separate debates. The candidates were mostly earnest and surprisingly unflappable during lightning rounds of questions that ranged from Second Amendment rights to instability on the Korean peninsula to health care to a comprehensive energy policy to selecting Supreme Court justices.
Bear Betzler of Philadelphia was stumped, though, when asked which of the crop of top-tier Republicans he might pick as his running mate. “I can’t say I’m adequately prepared for that eventuality,” said Betzler, whose biggest concern is the high national debt but who said he is “not that into politics.” Ultimately he said former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney “would be a good second.”
As Iowa finishline nears, Perry compares self to Tebow
In the final debate before the Iowa caucuses, Rick Perry compared himself to Tim Tebow, the most-talked about quarterback in the NFL.
At the debate in Sioux City, the Texas governor said he was hoping to stage a late-game comeback — just like the Denver Broncos quarterback who has thrilled fans (and defied critics) with a string of wins after trailing in the fourth quarter.
“You know, there are a lot of people out there — I understand it. There are a lot of folks that said Tim Tebow wasn’t going to be a very good NFL quarterback.
There are people that stood up and said well, he doesn’t have the right throwing mechanisms, or he doesn’t — you know, he is not playing the game right.
You know, he won two national championships, and that looked pretty good. We’re the national champions in job creation back in Texas. But am i ready for the next level? Let me tell you — I hope I am the Tim Tebow of the Iowa caucuses.”
Perry jumped to the head of the pack when he joined the race for the Republican presidential nomination, but his star quickly dimmed as he faltered in the debates.
After his “oops” moment, Perry conceded that he wasn’t a great debater (“If we’re electing a ‘debater-in-chief,’ don’t elect me,” he said in a Fox News interview). But at Thursday’s debate, Perry was sounding much more confident about his debating skills — even challenging President Barack Obama to bring it on.
Photo Credit: REUTERS/Jim Young (Perry at Sioux City, Iowa debate)
Sorry Mr. Perry, but from what I have seen of Tebow in interviews and the such he has more brains in his little pinky then you have in your whole head.
