Report: Dems So Broke They May Cancel Pre-DNC Spending-Fest Extravaganza Oh dear, austerity. (Bloomberg) — Democrats are considering canceling their political convention’s kick-off event at the Charlotte Motor Speedway, as party planners grapple with a roughly $27 million fundraising deficit, according to two people familiar with matter. Convention and campaign officials will make a final decision later this week after Steve Kerrigan, the chief executive officer of the Charlotte, North Carolina convention committee, discusses the matter with President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign, based in Chicago, said the two people, who requested anonymity to discuss internal party politics. Mayor Anthony Foxx and Duke Energy Corp. (DUK) CEO Jim Rogers are co-chairmen of the Committee for Charlotte 2012, which said that it was committed to the event. “The Host Committee is not canceling CarolinaFest,” said Suzi Emmerling, a spokeswoman for the host committee. Kristie Greco, a spokeswoman for the Democratic National Convention Committee, which plans the convention while leaving the fundraising to the host committee, declined to comment on whether the DNCC was still dedicated to the NASCAR-themed day. In January, Kerrigan said that Democrats were shortening their convention from four days to three, “to make room for a day to organize and celebrate the Carolinas, Virginia and the South and kick off the convention at Charlotte Motor Speedway on Labor Day,” Sept. 3.
I don't get all the controversy about Lizzy Warren, all you have to do is look at her and it jumps right out at you that she is an Indian.
Republicans in Massachusetts are having way too much fun with Lizzy Warren. They call her Pocahontas and whenever they're asked for a reaction to her speeches they respond with "ug" or "how?"
Friday: Obama takes off from torched Colorado Springs and immediately burns AF1’s dedicated phone line with fundraising plea: “They’re gonna run Congress and the White House” Federal disaster. (The Daily Beast) — “The majority on this call maxed out to my campaign last time. I really need you to do the same this time,” the president said in a highly unusual (and presumably legal) fundraising pitch from Air Force One on his way back to Washington from Colorado Springs, where he’d been assessing the terrible damage caused by uncontained wildfires. A special phone on the government aircraft is dedicated to political calls that are paid for by the campaign. “I’m asking you to meet or exceed what you did in 2008,” the presidential pitchman continued, speaking to donors who were invited to dial in based on their contributions during the last election. “Because we’re going to have to deal with these super PACs in a serious way. And if we don’t, frankly I think the political [scene] is going to be changed permanently. Because the special interests that are financing my opponent’s campaign are just going to consolidate themselves. They’re gonna run Congress and the White House.” The president’s 18-minute pleading — a recording of which was provided to The Daily Beast by an Obama contributor — hardly sounded like a man doing a victory lap after Thursday’s Supreme Court ruling upholding Obamacare, as the Affordable Care Act has come to be known. Or, for that matter, like a candidate who has been beating his Republican opponent in recent polls of key battleground states. Rather, Obama sounded like a dog-tired idealist forced to grapple painfully with hard reality. “In 2008 everything was new and exciting about our campaign,” Obama said. “And now I’m the incumbent president. I’ve got gray hair. People have seen disappointment because folks had a vision of change happening immediately. And it turns out change is hard, especially when you’ve got an obstructionist Republican Congress.” But lest any of his donors believe the president sounded depressed, Obama quickly added: “Nevertheless, we’ve gotten more done in the last three years than most presidents do in eight years . . . I just hope you guys haven’t become disillusioned. I hope all of you still understand what’s at stake and why this is so important . . . I still believe in you guys, and I hope you still believe in me and the possibilities of this campaign.” In his most detailed assessment of the race so far, Obama lamented the cash advantage of Republican nominee-designate Mitt Romney, but offered hope that he could win reelection with a superior ground game and a more popular message. “We don’t have to match these guys dollar for dollar because we’ve got a better grassroots operation and we’ve got a better message,” he said. “The American people — the nice thing is they agree with our message when they hear it. We just can’t be drowned out. . . A few billionaires can’t drown out millions of voices.”
FactCheck.org: Obama’s Anti-Mitt Bain Ads Are Pretty Much Complete Fabrications I’m not a big fan of fact checkers, mostly because they arrogate authority they do not possess, which their names usually imply, leaving me to ask, who fact checks the fact checkers? In this case, however, FactCheck.org appears to have actually checked the facts. Obama’s “Outsourcer” Overreach The president’s campaign fails to back up its claims that Romney “shipped jobs” overseas. Obama accuses Romney in a series of TV ads of being a “corporate raider” who “shipped jobs to China and Mexico,” asking if voters want to elect an “outsourcer in chief.” But some of the claims in the ads are untrue, and others are thinly supported. Bain Capital, the venture capital firm founded by Romney in 1984, is the focus of the Obama campaign’s attacks. There is no question that Bain invested in some companies that helped other companies outsource work and that some of that work went overseas. That was the core business for Modus Media and SMTC Corp. — two outsource companies featured in a June 21 article in the Washington Post that has been the basis of recent Obama TV ads. Bain also invested in U.S.-based companies that sold goods manufactured here and abroad, and some of those companies closed U.S. facilities and eliminated U.S. jobs. But after reviewing numerous corporate filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, contemporary news accounts, company histories and press releases, and the evidence offered by both the Obama and Romney campaigns, we found no evidence to support the claim that Romney — while he was still running Bain Capital — shipped American jobs overseas. One TV ad, called “Come and Go,” claims that Romney “shipped jobs to China and Mexico.” But two examples cited by the Obama campaign occurred after Romney left Bain. There’s no clear evidence that a third company shipped jobs to China under Romney. A second ad called “Revealed” mocks Romney’s tough talk about cracking down on China’s trade practices by saying “all he’s ever done is send them our jobs” and citing the Washington Post article. But the newspaper article contained no examples of U.S. jobs being shipped to China while Romney was working at Bain. The “Come and Go” ad casts Romney as a “corporate raider,” but that term, loaded with negative connotations, is simply inaccurate. Bain didn’t engage in hostile takeovers when Romney was at the helm.
CNN Poll of Battleground States: Romney 51% – Obama 43%… Sweet. Washington (CNN) – Thursday’s landmark Supreme Court decision upholding the country’s health care law appears to have had exactly zero impact on the presidential election so far, and has produced virtually no change in opinions on President Barack Obama or Republican challenger Mitt Romney, according to a new national poll. And while the CNN/ORC International survey released Monday indicates the president with a very slight three point edge over Romney among registered voters nationwide, the presumptive GOP nominee appears to hold an eight point advantage among voters who live in the 15 states considered in play in the race for the White House. [...] About a third of all Americans live in states that are not considered safe Republican or safe Democratic strongholds, including toss-ups states (like Florida and Ohio) as well as states that lean toward one presidential candidate but could ultimately wind up voting for his rival. In those 15 “battleground states,” the poll indicates that Romney currently has a 51%-43% advantage over the president among registered voters, if the election were held today.
Team Mitt: “From our perspective, Obamacare has been and will continue to be a central issue in the campaign” More and more every day it appears that Mitt’s walking into a Reagan-like moment. He better not whiff. Via Byron York: So is the Romney campaign, in fact, declaring a “cease-fire” on Obamacare? No, no, no, says Romney spokesman Ryan Williams. “From our perspective, Obamacare has been and will continue to be a central issue in the campaign,” says Williams. “It presents voters with a bright line that divides the two candidates. Gov. Romney is going to repeal Obamacare and President Obama is going to keep it. There is a clear choice in November.” “It is something that [Romney] has been discussing on the campaign trail for the past year and that he will continue to discuss,” Williams adds. “It is bad law, it is bad policy, and it’s something that Gov. Romney is going to address on his first day in office. His commitment to repealing Obamacare is as strong as it was on the day Congress jammed it down the throat of the American public.” Williams says Romney agrees with the conservative dissent — signed jointly by Justices Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, Clarence Thomas, and Samuel Alito — which declares Obamacare an unconstitutional federal mandate. Williams notes that Romney made a public statement, shortly after the Supreme Court decision was announced, pledging his continued determination to repeal the health care law. In addition, Romney’s “Day One” commercials, which prominently feature the promise to repeal Obamacare, are still playing in several states. The campaign also released a web ad after the Supreme Court decision, promising to keep up the Obamacare fight. It also made regular announcements on the amount of money the campaign raised from supporters who oppose the Supreme Court ruling. And Romney’s campaign website, MittRomney.com, is filled with emphatic promises to repeal Obamacare.
New Obama Ad Uses His Daughters As Campaign Props While Touting His Support For Gay Marriage… Dad of the year. WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama fiercely protect the private lives of their daughters, Sasha and Malia, as they raise the girls in the fishbowl that is the modern White House. Yet, the Obama girls ages 13 and 11 increasingly are making public appearances: starring in remarks by their father, appearing in a campaign video celebrating Father’s Day and now in a campaign ad that’s airing in seven battleground states. The bump in visibility comes as President Obama uses the girls to personalize his image and his thinking on a range of public policy issues, from explaining why he placed a phone call to a college student assailed by radio talker Rush Limbaugh to his decision to support gay marriage. It wouldn’t dawn on them that somehow their friends’ parents would be treated differently,” Obama said of his daughters as he explained his switch to supporting same-sex marriage. “It doesn’t make sense to them and, frankly, that’s the kind of thing that prompts a change in perspective.”
AFL-CIO Chief Richard Trumka Says Dismal June Jobs Numbers Are Mitt Romney’s Fault… Wait, it’s Romney’s fault? Via Politico: AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka is out with a scathing statement attacking Mitt Romney and “his Republican allies in Congress” on the June jobs report. “The cruel reality is Mitt Romney and his Republican allies in Congress are willing to sabotage the recovery in the hope of scoring political points against the President,” said Trumka, whose union endorsed President Obama earlier this year. Trumka acknowledged the slow jobs growth reflected in Friday’s report, which showed unemployment unchanged at 8.2 percent. “For America’s working people, the economy is simply not delivering right now,” he said. “The trend of slow job growth is both frustrating and heartbreaking. The economy added only 80,000 net new jobs last month — not nearly enough to bring unemployment down and fuel a robust recovery.”
Now I see :idea: The reason the economy was tanking was the Democratic Congress during the last 2 years of the Bush Administration. If the congress can torpedo a president, why is Bush the fall guy???
Democrats happy with current employment numbers. The economy is "fine" right? Debbie Wasserman Schultz brags about Obama’s job-creation record: “I’m pretty happy about 28 straight months of job growth in the private sector” <iframe width="640" height="360" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/Mjbp3R2U8Ws?feature=player_embedded" frameborder="0"></iframe>
Amen, brother. I'm starting to worry that we are just starting the beginning of Round Two in the Great recession..
You're not alone krebsie, most credible economists share similar concerns, including fed chief Bernanke who last meeting announced additional monetary policy actions while admonishing policy makers to step up and do something positive. Things have gotten so bad that we are now getting lectured by the socialists running the IMF.
We are at the tipping point. Any month now we could learn that more than 50% of American households are on government subsidy of some sort. Assuming a president with no talent for his job and a Congress who cares only about its own self-perpetuation, once we cross that threshold tye downhill slide will become lightening fast.
Unemployment may not be enough to run on. The economy and jobs numbers are so much worse than in the "It's the economy, stupid" years...yet the number of people on food stamps has doubled...and the administration is still advertising to get more on them. Unemployment keeps getting extended. We are forgiving mortgage debt. I'm not saying we shouldn't do these things...but I'm worried that a whole big bunch of people are going to go to the polls not particularly caring about what a mess our economy is in.
You mean like folks who couldn't care what this country will be like for their kids in the coming years? All they care about is that they lost their job or took a hit on their home sale 4 years ago.