Posts tagged politics

Mitt Romney declining to disclose names of campaign bundlers

Romney is not required by law to disclose the identities of his fundraisers with the exception of those who work as federal lobbyists. Releasing the names of bundlers, however, has been standard in presidential campaigns for more than a decade.

Republican George W. Bush established the pattern in the 2000 election, revealing the names of fundraisers who collected at least $100,000. He repeated the practice in 2004. Arizona Sen. John McCain, the Republican nominee four years ago, had disclosed his fundraisers by this point in the 2008 campaign, releasing a list of 106 bundlers on April 18 of that year. …

President Obama has released his fundraiser list every three months during this campaign. …

Romney campaign officials did not respond to several interview requests this week. Last year, campaign spokeswoman Andrea Saul told USA TODAY that Romney discloses “the information about our donors as required by law.”

This is the last position in government I will hold.
House Speaker John Boehner, explaining why he’ll let the country default on its debt before he raises the debt ceiling without reducing spending in an equal amount — and also no revenue increases, obviously.
think-progress: Mitt Romney would increase military spending by $2.1 trillion with no plan to pay for it.  I’ll just keep this handy for the next Romney supporter who says they’re for smaller government.

think-progress:

Mitt Romney would increase military spending by $2.1 trillion with no plan to pay for it. 

I’ll just keep this handy for the next Romney supporter who says they’re for smaller government.

thinkprogress.org

shortformblog:

Here’s the video of President Obama confirming his support for same-sex marriage.

rawstory.com

Adam Nathaniel Yauch died Friday. If you’re age 16-66 — maybe 106 — you know him as MCA, one-third of the Beastie Boys. He was 47. Way too young. But gone.

Now, half-white Barack Obama (exactly my age) didn’t say a word, even though he was talking to college kids that day, but make no mistake, MCA was no Jay-Z or Kanye West. This guy was the real deal, groundbreaker, up from his bootstraps, Brooklyn boy made good. Funny the “coolest president ever” doesn’t say a word about the passing of MCA. Weird and kinda sad, actually.

A columnist in the Washington Times hits the elusive trinity of racism, awkwardness, and pseudointellectualism. A small part of me admires him; few racists profess to know a damn thing about hip-hop music.
All he does is make scary noises about the deficit, with mood music, with organ music in the background about how ominous it is, and then propose a plan that would in fact increase the deficit.
Paul Krugman on Rep. Paul Ryan’s budget plan. (via think-progress)

tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com

FiveThirtyEight: Is Obama More Popular Than He Should Be? (Spoiler: Yeah.) [P]essimism never eroded Mr. Obama’s approval as much as it arguably should have. There are several ways to show this. One way is to predict Mr. Obama’s approval based on the economy and other fundamental factors, and then see whether his actual approval matches, exceeds, or falls short of the prediction. To do so, we use 60 years of quarterly data on presidential approval, which contain polls from 1948 to 2008, and construct a statistical model of approval … Mr. Obama’s higher-than-expected approval rating is surprising for two reasons. For one, since 2009 the economy has been in not a garden-variety recession, but a deep and prolonged slump. The economic measures in our model capture some of its characteristics — like unemployment — but not all, like the rise in long-term employment. Second, Mr. Obama’s race may also depress his approval rating. Studies of the 2008 election have found that Americans’ views of blacks were strongly associated with their views of Mr. Obama, and racial prejudice may have cost Mr. Obama about three points of vote share. Our model does not take account of race either, which is inevitable when there has been only one nonwhite president.

FiveThirtyEight: Is Obama More Popular Than He Should Be? (Spoiler: Yeah.)

[P]essimism never eroded Mr. Obama’s approval as much as it arguably should have. There are several ways to show this. One way is to predict Mr. Obama’s approval based on the economy and other fundamental factors, and then see whether his actual approval matches, exceeds, or falls short of the prediction. To do so, we use 60 years of quarterly data on presidential approval, which contain polls from 1948 to 2008, and construct a statistical model of approval …

Mr. Obama’s higher-than-expected approval rating is surprising for two reasons. For one, since 2009 the economy has been in not a garden-variety recession, but a deep and prolonged slump. The economic measures in our model capture some of its characteristics — like unemployment — but not all, like the rise in long-term employment. Second, Mr. Obama’s race may also depress his approval rating. Studies of the 2008 election have found that Americans’ views of blacks were strongly associated with their views of Mr. Obama, and racial prejudice may have cost Mr. Obama about three points of vote share. Our model does not take account of race either, which is inevitable when there has been only one nonwhite president.

socialistexan:

“Today, I am suspending the campaign, but suspending the campaign does not mean suspending citizenship.”

— Newt Gingrich, ending his campaign.

Well, now that he mentions it, suspending Newt Gingrich’s citizenship because he has to suspend his presidential bid sound just great to me. Add that to my progressive wish list.

socialistexan

We understand the values of mainstream journalists, including the effort to report both sides of a story. But a balanced treatment of an unbalanced phenomenon distorts reality. If the political dynamics of Washington are unlikely to change anytime soon, at least we should change the way that reality is portrayed to the public.
Thomas E. Mann and Norman J. Ornstein: Let’s just say it: The Republicans are the problem.
I’m not a pollster. I don’t know if the American people want to hear about policy. Perhaps they prefer gauzy generalities. Perhaps they’re more interested in what candidates think of America than what they want to do for America. But if this is what the general election is going to be like, then it’s not going to be a clash of visions. It’s going to be a clash of adjectives.
Ezra Klein: Vote for Romney. He loves America.