Tag: Obama

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Politics

Panic! At The Obama Campaign? Really?

Did you know that the Democrats are panicking? It’s true. I know it because I read it in the media. Obama’s campaign is panicking. FOX News says that Obama’s panicking. Even Jim Messina, Obama’s campaign manager (and I’m pretty sure the other half of Loggins and Messina) worries about Democrats panicking.

Why the panic? Jobs numbers, dumb comments about the private economy being fine and a general sense that Obama just isn’t on his game obviously have the progressive left in a panic about the president’s chances in November. A closer look at what’s actually happening with the campaign shows that there is no need for panic, and, indeed, there is reason for optimism.

The conventional wisdom, until last week that is, was that Obama’s ads attacking Romney’s record at Bain Capital were doing more damage to Obama than to Mitt. Surprise! That’s not the case. In fact, the attacks have had their intended effect. More people have a negative view of private equity firms according to the latest polls. Imagine that; negative ads that produce negative responses towards your opponent. Perhaps the Republicans should try that.

The real wonder is that Democrats would entertain the idea that a negative ad aimed at Romney highlighting his past actions would somehow be off limits (do you hear me Bill?). This is the point in the campaign where you’d better define your opponent or they will define themselves. It’s exactly what the Romney campaign is trying to do on the economy and it’s what Obama needs to continue to do until the conventions.

The blabbering media narrative from last week also focused on the effects the dismal job numbers and Scott Walker’s win in Wisconsin would have on the president. What’s the reality? The latest polls show Obama holding on to his lead, though it is reduced from a month ago. Obama’s approval ratings? Gallup has him +4 and Rasmussen at -4, which are pretty much where Obama was a couple of days after the economic reports were released. Conclusion? The president is in decent shape. Even the folks at Intrade have Obama with a more than 52% chance of reelection. That is hardly a reason to panic.

The latest state polls also provide good news for Obama. He’s +6 in Pennsylvania, and a poll on Wednesday showing Romney ahead in North Carolina by 2 was really good news for the president because it also showed him inexplicably with only 78% of the African-American vote. Really? Anybody who believes that Mitt Romney is going to rack up 20+% of the African-American vote in November is either dreaming or on bath salts.

Ultimately, this race will be about the economy and jobs, and right now Obama has a jobs plan and Mitt doesn’t. Obama has a pragmatic foreign policy record and Mitt just wants to throw bombs at the world. Energy prices are down, marriage equality is up, and even Obama’s gaffe might help him in the long run.

I’m not panicking. This was always going to be a close race for a variety of reasons, and for all of the problems the president is currently having this month (with the health care ruling still to come), Obama is in good shape entering the summer. Romney has yet to tell us what he’d do as president and most polls say the public sides with Obama when it comes to balancing cuts with revenue and long-term investment in America.

Still, we all have those nervous moments. If you feel a panic attack coming on, let me soothe you at: www.facebook.com/WhereDemocracyLives and on Twitter @rigrundfest 

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Religion

Right Winged Pastor Hangs Effigy Of President Obama on Church Lawn

The Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, Fla., has hanged an effigy of President Barack Obama from a gallows on its front lawn, a move DWOC pastor Terry Jones said was in response to Obama’s recent endorsement of same-sex marriage, as well as his stance on abortion and what Jones called his “appeasing of radical Islam.”

According to the Broward-Palm Beach New Times, the U.S. Secret Service is currently investigating Jones in response to the display.

“The Secret Service is aware of this incident and will conduct appropriate follow-up,” Secret Service spokesman Brian Leary told the paper’s “The Pulp” blog.

The effigy is suspended from a makeshift gallows with a noose of yellow rope, has a doll in its right hand and a rainbow-colored gay pride flag in its left.

[Huffington Post]

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Mitt Romney Politics

Mitt Romney Is A Liar – Here’s Even More Proof

A couple weeks ago, Mitt Romney quoted Noam Scheiber’s book about the Obama administration’s economic rescue, The Escape Artists, in a highly misleading way. Yesterday he did it again, only this time Romney altered his description so that whatever shred of truth that once existed in his telling is gone, and nothing remains but a pack of lies. Here’s Romney’s incredibly false account:

A book that was written in a way that’s apparently pro-President Obama, was written by a guy named Noam Scheiber and in this book he says that there was a discussion about the fact that Obamacare would slow down the economic recovery in this country and they knew that before they passed it.  But they concluded that we would all forget how long the recovery took once it had happened, so they decided to go ahead.  The idea that they knowingly slowed down our recovery in order to put in place Obamacare, which they wanted and they considered historic but the American people did not want or consider historic, is something which I think deserves a lot of explaining …

The lies. Let us tote them up.

First, and most importantly, at no point did anybody in the Obama administration ever believe that passing the Affordable Care Act would “slow down the recovery.” Nothing close to that is ever described. Romney presents the book as revealing that Obama believed health-care reform, through its “big gummint” regulations, would harm the recovery, but cackling that he wanted to pass it out of some belief that Americans wouldn’t notice mass economic suffering. This bears no relationship to anything the book says.

In the book, Noam Scheiber asked Larry Summers if he believed that the decision to pass health-care reform cost Obama the chance to pass a second stimulus, and thus came at the cost of a faster recovery. Summers answered that he did not think the health-care law prevented a second stimulus, but that even if that were the case, he would have supported it anyway.

Not only is it false for Romney to say Obama “knowingly slowed down our recovery,” it’s not even true that Obama knowingly passed up a chance to accelerate the recovery. The notion that anybody in the administration believed that the health-care law would actually slow down the recovery is complete fiction. It does not appear in the book anywhere and it’s pretty obviously untrue.

[The New York Mag]

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Mitt Romney Politics

The Money Game – Romney Raising More Cash Than President Obama

Mitt Romney and the Republican National Committee raised a combined $76.8 million last month, outpacing President Obama and his Democratic allies.

The presumptive GOP presidential nominee and the RNC said they have $107 million cash on hand.

Earlier today, Obama’s campaign announced it raised $60 million jointly with the Democratic National Committee. They did not report how much they have in the bank.

[USA Today]

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Politics veterans weekly address

President’s Weekly Address: Getting Unemployed Veterans Back To Work

The President:

Today I’m at one of Honeywell’s manufacturing facilities in Golden Valley, Minnesota, where I just announced a step that will make it easier for companies to hire returning service members who have the skills our country needs right now.  It’s another part of our effort to make sure that no American who fights for this country abroad has to fight for a job when they come home.  That’s why businesses like Honeywell are answering our challenge to hire 100,000 post-9/11 veterans and their spouses by the end of next year.  That’s why I’ve directed the government to hire over 200,000 veterans so far – because our economy needs their tremendous talent, and because millions of Americans are still looking for a job.

Right now, this country is still fighting our way back from the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.  The economy is growing again, but it’s not growing fast enough.  Our businesses have created almost 4.3 million new jobs over the last twenty-seven months, but as we learned in this week’s jobs report, we’re not creating them fast enough.  And just like last year at this time, our economy faces some serious headwinds.  Gas prices are starting to come down again, but when they spiked over the last few months, it hit people’s wallets pretty hard.  The crisis in Europe’s economy has cast a shadow on our own.  And all of this makes it even more challenging to fully recover and lay the foundation for an economy that’s built to last.

Categories
Politics

NBC/Marist Poll Gets It Right

On the heels of last week’s NBC News/Marist polls that underpolled Republicans and made it look as though the president was ahead when he really wasn’t, today’s NBC polls got it pretty much right. That’s good news for Obama in Nevada, Colorado, and Iowa.

In Nevada, Obama leads Romney by 48%-46%. The real voter breakdown is D=42 R=37 I=21. NBC’s poll was D=40 R=38 I=21. There was a slight underpolling of Democrats, but that’s only better news for Obama.

In Colorado, Obama leads Romney 46%-45%. The actual voter breakdown is D=33 R=35 I=32. NBC’s poll was D=31 R=35 I=34. Almost exactly correct. Nice job NBC!

In Iowa, Obama and Romney are tied at 44%. The real voter breakdown is D=34 R=31 I=35. NBC’s poll was D=34 R=35 I=31. There was a slight overpolling of Republicans, but otherwise the results seem solid.

There has been a great deal of talk about the polling in the presidential election, but 5+ months out, much of the results are not predictive of what will probably happen in November. Yes, Obama is stuck nationally at around 47%, but his approval numbers are close to 50% and he’s leading in most of the states that he needs to win to be reelected. Romney is polling close to the president in the states above and is ahead in Ohio according to a Rasmussen poll out on Thursday.

My sense is that the unemployment numbers for May, out on Friday, will do a great deal to shape the race before the summer. Remember that the June numbers will be released during the July 4 holiday week and July’s numbers come out in August when the Olympics will steal the show and, well, it’ll be August.

June could also be a make or break month for other reasons, including the Wisconsin recall race, and two Supreme Court decisions on health care and immigration. Right now Obama is still the favorite, but that could change quickly depending on these external events.

Please join the conversation at  www.facebook.com/WhereDemocracyLives and on Twitter @rigrundfest 

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Ohio Politics

“I don’t know whose record [Romney] twisted the most, mine or his.” – Barack Obama

President Obama offered an earthy rural metaphor to blast Mitt Romney last night in Iowa, saying the Republican candidate offered voters “a cowpie of distortion” in a recent speech.

“I don’t know whose record he twisted the most,” Obama said. “Mine or his.”

Speaking to supporters at the state fairgrounds in Des Moines, Obama said that during Romney’s last visit to Iowa he exaggerated the administration’s spending and failed to give it credit for budget cuts.

The president also said Romney’s background as a millionaire private equity manager doesn’t prepare him for the presidency.

“The challenge we’ve faced for over a decade is that harder work hasn’t led to higher incomes,” Obama said. “Bigger profits haven’t led to better jobs. And you can’t solve that problem if you can’t even see that it’s a problem.”

[USA Today]

Categories
Politics

President Obama’s New Ad – ‘Go.’ We’re Moving in the Right Direction

It’s Monday, and the Obama re-election campaign has released another ad with a simple message – we are not there yet, but we are heading in the right direction.

The ad begins looking at the state of the economy before the President took into office. It also mentions that compared to where things were and where they are now with over 4 million jobs created, a rebounding auto industry, ending the war in Iraq and capturing Osama Bin Laden, the nation is coming back.

The ad will run in the battleground states of Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Nevada, New Hampshire, Iowa, North Carolina, Florida and Colorado.

Categories
Politics

New Slogan For The Obama Re-Election Campaign – Forward! Video

The Obama re-election campaign has decided on a new slogan for the 2012 Presidential election. It is one simple word… Forward. The campaign has also put out a 7 minute video emphasizing some of the challenges the country faced when President Obama took office, as well as some of the policies the administration implemented to correct the mess left by the Bush administration.

Some of the policies highlighted in the video are: The stimulus, the auto bailout, the health care law,  ending combat operations in Iraq and winding down the war in Afghanistan, and the capture and killing of Osama bin Laden.

If President Obama and his Republican challenger Mitt Romney are at opposite ends of the political spectrum, one can safely assume that Mitt Romney’s slogan would be… Backwards… and one would be correct to make that assumption.

Categories
Politics taxes

No Problem Here – President Reveals His 2011 Taxes

CNN is reporting that “the Obama family, in tax returns released Friday by the White House, reported an adjusted gross income of $789,674 for 2011, down from$1,728,096 in the previous year. The family income topped $5.5 million in 2009.

The president earns a salary of $400,000 for his day job. His total earnings are much higher because his books — “Dreams From My Father,” and “The Audacity of Hope” continue to attract buyers.

The Obamas reported paying $162,074 in federal taxes. They donated $172,130, or 22% of their income, to 39 different charities.”

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Politics Racism trayvon martin

Right Winged-Nut Accuses Trayvon of “Stalking a Neighborhood on a Rainy Night.”

Republicans have managed to take a national tragedy and turn it into a something political. It began with the Glenn Beck show – saying things about Trayvon I refuse to list here in this forum – then the politics of the tragedy made its way on Fox News, when Geraldo Rivera blamed Trayvon for Trayvon’s murder.

Now, regular right-winged nuts on Twitter are jumping into the fray. They have scavenged the internet looking for anything they could come up with to paint a negative portrait of the victim in this heinous crime. Below is a tweet by John M. Patello, who mentioned messages against “the liberal media” in some of his tweets, and sent out this picture he claimed is of Trayvon Martin. Off to the right of the picture are the words;

… have you seen these pics? Probably not. They’re not selling any t-shirts with THESE pics from Trayvons Facebook on them. Now imagine Trayvon, dressed in a “hoodie” (a disguise), stalking a neighborhood on a rainy night.

Categories
George Bush Politics

Fox News Admits – Presidents Cannot Influence Gas Prices

What happened? There was a time when the situation was the same but the message was very different, when gas prices edged above $4.00 a gallon and Americans felt like they were being robbed at the pump. A “news” network called Fox News came to the rescue, armed with facts and a burning desire to tell us all that the president had no control over gas prices. That was 2007/2008.

Today, if you only listen to Fox News, you will be under the impression that the increases in the price of oil are nothing more than the handy work of President Obama and you may actually think that the profits deposited into Obama’s personal bank account.

But a quick travel back in time to 2007/2008 reveals these same Fox News pundits, as they go out of their way to make sure Americans know the president cannot bring down the price of gas.

So what changed? The president, that’s what. In 2007 a Republican president by the name of George Bush was in power and now, a Democrat name Barack Obama is in the White House.

So to conclude, Republican presidents have absolutely zero control over gas prices, but Democratic presidents does. Words of wisdom, according to Fox News.

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