GOP IMPLODES ITSELF VIA VINDICTIVE ANTI-TRUMP STRATEGIES (VOTERS LOVE TRUMP)

@GOP

GOP IMPLODES ITSELF VIA VINDICTIVE ANTI-TRUMP STRATEGIES:

VOTERS LOVES TRUMP.

HOW FOOLISH TO BLOW THE PARTY'S 2016 CHANCE FOR VICTORY.

SUCH FOOLISH POLITICAL DESTRUCTION HAS TO BE A PLANNED INSIDE JOB.

**** GOP Finger Pointing Over Trump Rise Finds Many Targets

I got coffee Wednesday in downtown D.C. — still semi-deserted after the weekend blizzard — with a man considered by many to possess one of the more incisive minds in conservative politics and talked about the same thing everyone else is discussing: 

How did Donald Trump happen?

“I’ve given up trying to figure it out from here,” he said.

I’ve written about my conversations with Trump supporters. A team of CNN reporters talked to 150 people in 31 cities to try to figure this out. And while there are common themes, there is no one easy answer. It’s a complex mix of factors.

Similarly, the blame game now taking place inside the GOP over who is responsible for this situation does not resolve easily. With Trump seemingly poised to win the Iowa caucuses next Monday and the New Hampshire primary the week after that, people want a scapegoat.

Much of the finger pointing assumes there is one person or thing to blame. But in fact, there is much responsibility to go around and many theories about the case.

The meme of the moment is that Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, Chris Christie and all the fat cat Republican donors funding super PAC’s have allowed Trump to grow into an actual threat by attacking one another instead of him. 

A series of ads have come out recently targeting Trump over his past support for partial birth abortion, for government-run healthcare and for sending Hillary Clinton to negotiate with the Iranians.They have sparked questions about why there was not a more concentrated, better-financed effort to make these critiques months ago.

This theory forgets that the very first salvos fired against Trump were in this lane, but they were laughed off by other Republicans. In August, Bush, the former governor of Florida and one-time frontrunner, robustly attacked Trump’s conservative credentials, but with little effect.

This was just one small step in the process of the last several months that has convinced many Trump is immune to any criticism. Trump has said so many things people thought would sink his candidacy, and has continued to rise in the polls instead. In fact, Republican operatives who have conducted focus groups in early primary states say that they have been unable to find any kind of issue or test ad that moves the needle with Trump supporters above a 50 percent disapproval mark.

So far, even though a super-PAC supporting Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas has aired $2.5 million worth of ads hitting Trump, the frontrunner’s poll numbers have not suffered. Cruz, in fact, led Trump in Iowa until the two went head to head over the past few weeks, and now Trump has clearly regained the lead there.

So there’s an argument, based on some precedent, that concentrated fire on Trump from Rubio, the U.S. Senator from Florida, Christie, the governor of New Jersey, and Bush would not make much of an impact.

In addition, Rubio, Christie and Bush are spending most of their efforts attacking one another for a reason. There is a legitimate tactical reason for doing so, as they seek to be the one to emerge after the New Hampshire primary on Jan. 9 as the alternative to Trump and/or Cruz.

Despite allowances for strategy, some have singled out Right to Rise, the super-PAC supporting Bush, for spending $20 million on TV ads attacking Rubio, while spending only $5 million going after Trump. Bush backers say Rubio is Bush’s main competition in New Hampshire, but detractors charge it’s more personal than that. Bush, critics say, still resents Rubio, who was Bush’s protege in Florida politics, for not deferring to his elder.

“Clearly Right to Rise has just decided that if Jeb can’t win then they don’t want Marco to win. It’s very personal and it’s very vindictive. It’s not necessarily smart strategy,” said Katie Packer, who helped run Mitt Romney’s campaign for president in 2012 and this month formed a super-PAC that’s attacking Trump, but with very little money behind the ads so far.

Paul Lindsay, a spokesman for Right to Rise, said that “it’s still a jump ball in New Hampshire among the non-Trump candidates in this race.”

“Jeb has arguably faced more scrutiny than any other candidate, and we think it’s important that New Hampshire Republican voters have information about the records of Rubio, [Ohio Gov. John] Kasich, and Christie before they make up their minds,” Lindsay said.

Conservative talk radio, however, is one group that could have damaged Trump’s credibility early in the primary process, but chose not to do so, said Ben Domenech, founder of The Federalist, a right-leaning news and commentary site.

“By not going after Trump early — by instead playing along with him — [Rush] Limbaugh and [Mark] Levin and [Laura] Ingraham helped protect him early on from conservative critiques,” Domenech said. Levin has of late come out strong for Cruz and taken on Trump.

Many Republicans point to the conservative media echo chamber — talk radio, Fox News, and pseudo-news sites like Breitbart and World Net Daily — to explain Trump’s rise.

“I think not a lot matters because voters feel like they have been misled, brainwashed and lied to for so long during the Obama term. We have talk radio and others on the far right to thank for this,” said a veteran Republican operative who worked on the party’s national campaign efforts over the last few years.

The anti-establishment wing of the Republican party, led by groups like The Heritage Foundation and by lawmakers such as Cruz, “went and told people over and over again that most ‘establishment’ Republicans were terrible, not pure and that they couldn’t get anything done, knowing that they were never in charge, they didn’t have the votes or the mechanisms to deliver,” said the GOP operative. “It wasn’t that they didn’t have the backbone.”

Packer added: “Talk radio doesn’t care about winning. They care about ratings. And talk radio doesn’t care about governing, they care about ratings. I’m not convinced they even want a Republican in the White House.”

But Dave Carney, a New Hampshire operative who ran former Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s 2012 presidential campaign, pointed out that establishment Republicans up and down the line ran campaigns in 2010, 2012 and 2014 promising voters that if they gained majorities in the House and Senate — which they got in 2010 and 2014 respectively — they would repeal Obamacare.

They knew perfectly well this was impossible without a Republican president, since it would require a veto-proof majority in the Senate to overturn President Obama’s certain veto of any such legislation.

The GOP operative involved with the party’s national campaigns acknowledged: “The far right opened this up and the establishment, a lot of them, jumped right in.”

Erick Erickson, one of the founders of RedState who has since started his own site called The Resurgent said that was backwards: the establishment had opened this can of worms, he argued.

“Look, Republican leaders fundraised in 2010 telling conservatives that if they got back the Congress, they’d repeal Obamacare,” Erickson said. “They won the House and the GOP said it wasn’t enough, they needed the Senate too.

In 2014, the GOP leadership actively opposed conservatives in primaries while saying if they took back Congress they’d repeal Obamacare and hold the President accountable. 

They got back the Senate and said they needed the White House too. In the process, they handed the President a blank check to raise the debt ceiling, punted fights to judges, and broke most all of their promises while disparaging conservatives.”

Erickson, who vehemently opposes Trump and was one of the 22 conservatives who took part in National Review’s “Against Trump” issue, chuckled at the Beltway area angst.

“That’s so like them to say, nuh-uh, it was you guys who did it,” Erickson said. “[House Speaker] Paul Ryan has used that talking point to me twice in the recent weeks as an explanation for the GOP’s problems. Those talk radio shows and right wing websites have only pointed out the promises the GOP made on the campaign trail and how they were being broken. They just don’t like being exposed.”

In addition, the Republican party’s leadership in Congress and elsewhere was almost nonexistent on the same media channels – in particular Fox and talk radio – that were being filled by the voices of figures like Cruz. Former House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio was, like current Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, not enthusiastic about frequent cable TV appearances.

By contrast, Ryan, the new Speaker, has moved aggressively since taking over from Boehner late last year to aggressively take his message into all corners of the media environment.

And yet for all this back and forth, how much of Trump’s support is actually from Americans who follow this debate and are animated by opposition to Obamacare? Some, no doubt.

But Domenech said that debate over whether the GOP overpromised and underdelivered on Obamacare and other conservative base concerns is secondary to what’s really driving Trump’s rise: a less partisan and less ideological anger among white working class voters over the economic and cultural impact of illegal immigration, of free trade, and at the elites who benefit at the perceived expense of blue collar workers.

“The people who support Trump are not the tri-corner hat people. Those folks are with Cruz,” Domenech said. “The anger was always out there but I think it came from a different and more disengaged group of people. It’s so telling that so many of Trump’s supporters are disengaged non-primary voters — that’s not a description that applies to most talk radio listeners.”

“It’s broader frustration at both parties animated by frustrations over three factors, the same three specific policies that Trump stresses: immigration, foreign policy, and general corruption, cronyism, fat cats getting sweetheart deals,” he said.

As I emailed and talked with others, there seemed to be no end to the theories for Trump’s mind-blowing ascent to a potential nominee for president.

Former Romney campaign adviser and Boehner aide Kevin Madden said he “trace[d] the beginnings back to” then-Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s selection as 2008 Republican presidential nominee John McCain’s running mate in the 2008 election, which Madden said “allowed a brand of national security and economic conservatism [to] fall victim to populism and anti-intellectualism.”

Matt Kibbe, the former head of FreedomWorks, the libertarian-leaning and Tea Party-linked advocacy group, said the GOP had been “continuously disenfranchising Ron Paul voters, Tea Partiers and grassroots conservatives.” In particular, he pointed to “the RNC rules changes that centralized power with party bosses, and the battles at the [2012] convention in Tampa.”

And then there is the celebrity and entertainment factor. That too, is a major element of Trump’s appeal. As media and technology analyst Nicholas Carr wrote this past spring, “Today, with the public looking to smartphones for news and entertainment, we seem to be at the start of the third big technological makeover of modern electioneering. The presidential campaign is becoming just another social-media stream, its swift and shallow current intertwining with all the other streams that flow through people’s devices.”

“As the Trump phenomenon reveals,” Carr wrote, “it’s only a particular kind of personality that works—one that’s big enough to grab the attention of the perpetually distracted but small enough to fit neatly into a thousand tiny media containers.”

Cable news channels also played a role in helping Trump rise, “Because ratings.”

It’s possible the political and media establishment could have done more to prevent Trump’s rise. But as most know, elite influence and power is much diminished. In previous eras, the question of who “allowed” a Trump-like figure to emerge would have been plausible, because the political and media establishments really did have significant influence over the process.

Now, because of the Internet and because of changes to campaign finance law, the media and the political parties are like gatekeepers tending old metal doors that have nearly been torn off the hinges. The gatekeepers are still there, and their broken gates swing back and forth in the wind, making squeaking noises that are audible to some who pass by.

But most people just walk past without paying much mind.

Sources: Yahoo News, CNN, CBS News, Frank Luntz

Obama Must Offer Bold Plan For Economy Or Risk Losing Like Carter; Go Bold Or Go Home!! (Videos)

A plan that offers Obama a fighting chance

At this point in 1980, Jimmy Carter was on the path to oblivion but didn’t know it. Barack Obama may share Carter’s fate if he doesn’t change course soon.

The 1980 presidential race was neck and neck until the end. It finally broke for Ronald Reagan when voters concluded that Carter could not cope with the economy and that Reagan, despite his conspicuous flaws as a candidate, was a viable alternative.

The Obama campaign is in a similar position. It might eke out a victory, but it is at risk of losing control of the economic narrative. Its best hope is to stop nickel-and-diming Mitt Romney and laundry-listing forgettable initiatives and, instead, give independents reason to think that Obama has a clear, viable plan to bolster the economy.

This election will be decided largely by independent voters, most of whom can probably tell you that Mitt Romney’s economic plan is to repeal Obamacare and shrink the government. It may not make much sense, but it’s clear. Ask what Obama’s plan is, and they won’t be certain. They will know, however, that what he has done hasn’t worked. And by the fall, many independents will have made up their minds.

The president’s failure, so far, to show that he understands the scope of the economy’s problems and knows how to fix them does not stem from having nothing to say: investment in education, energy, innovation and infrastructure are reasonable things. But they are also slow-acting, small-bore stuff. Such talk does not include additional economic stimulus, an element that many economists, especially Democratic-leaning ones, consider crucial to prevent a double-dip recession. Nor does it deal realistically with long-term growth in spending.

So Obama should draw a map and send it to Capitol Hill in the form of a bill — a president’s strongest statement that he intends action. A big legislative proposal can frame the issue and paint Obama’s intentions in bold colors.

It should include three elements:


1) Long-term fiscal retrenchment.

The easiest and best way is to adopt the Simpson-Bowles deficit plan. The Simpson-Bowles commission’s recommendations have been established as a credible bipartisan solution. Adopting its plan outright would signal that Obama is not playing partisan games and would redress the (justified) criticism that he has finessed the deficit. Not least, Simpson-Bowles compares favorably on grounds of balance, economic plausibility and public appeal with the budget of Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), which Romney endorsed.


2) Short-term economic stimulus.

Republicans will howl about more spending. Let them. Stimulus measures make sense when unemployment is high and the world is teetering on the edge of a second recession. And provided they are coupled with a credible long-term retrenchment, they are politically and economically defensible. Such measures have a further political advantage: Obama and the Democrats would be running on what they believe is the right answer, instead of running away from it.


3) A two-year debt-limit extension.

Declare that another debt-limit fiasco is unacceptable and demand that the issue be taken off the table. Let Republicans explain why they want to hold a gun to the economy’s head.

Could Obama get something like this enacted before Election Day? Of course not. Could he even get it voted on? Possibly. Would he be justified in putting the package before Congress and demanding action? Absolutely. Doing so would show that he knows the economy is in trouble, that he believes the status quo is unacceptable and that he is determined to act.

One other advantage: Setting forth a boldly enunciated, easily graspable program puts Obama in a stronger position to criticize Romney’s plan as dangerously contractionary. Instead of going for Romney’s capillaries (his years-old record as governor; his even-older record at Bain Capital), Obama could go for the jugular by drawing a contrast that should be at the campaign’s core: The Republicans’ mistimed, precipitous austerity threatens to bring on another recession.

Obama could attempt to squeak through the election with a campaign modeled on, ironically, that of George W. Bush in 2004. Bush sowed just enough doubt about his challenger, and managed to pick off just enough swing voters in key states, to eke out victory. Obama is doing something like that now.

But the economic head winds Obama is fighting are much stronger than those faced by Bush, and his approval ratings are lower. In any case, a narrow victory based on electoral salami-slicing and negative advertising would leave Obama without a clear mandate or agenda for his second term. Ask Bush how that works out.

Time is short, Mr. President. Carterdom beckons.


Sources: CNN, MSNBC, Washington Post, Youtube

Gillespie vs Gibbs: Obama's Economic Policies & Job Creation

Romney adviser: Obama's policies are "hostile to job creators"

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney's senior adviser Ed Gillespie said on "Face the Nation" that President Obama's policies are "hostile to private investment and job creators."

"That's why we have been at eight percent unemployment or higher for the past 39 months," Gillespie said. "That is why there are 23 million Americans today who are either unemployed or underemployed or left the work force entirely, and why millions of people have lost their home and ended up in food stamps and poverty, because this president is hostile to job creators."

President Obama's senior adviser Robert Gibbs had a different take on the president's record, pointing to "25 consecutive months of private sector job growth."

Gibbs added: "We are certainly happy to talk a little bit about Mitt Romney and his record of not creating jobs in virtually every step of his life."

He points to Romney's record as governor of Massachusetts. "We have seen this experiment in Massachusetts... and [he] took that state's job creation numbers to 47th in the country."

However, Gillespie defended Romney's gubernatorial record in the Bay State: "During his time as governor, the unemployment rate dropped from nearly six percent to 4.7 percent; there was net job creation of about 40,000 jobs."

Last July, FactCheck.org looked into these claims and reported that Romney's job creation numbers grew slower than the national average.



Gibbs: Bain is Romney's "thesis" for president, calls attacks fair

On "Face the Nation," President Obama's senior campaign adviser Robert Gibbs defended the campaign's attacks on Bain Capital, the private equity firm Mitt Romney co-founded and led for more than a decade.

"That is what Mitt Romney is running on," Gibbs hold host Bob Schieffer. "This is a criticism and a good criticism, quite honestly, of Mitt Romney's only thesis for being president of the United States . . . and I think the American people and voters deserve to understand what Mitt Romney means when he says he has the keys to being the economic savior."

The Obama campaign makes the argument that Romney's role at the private equity firm, whose main role is to make money for investors, is not equivalent to creating jobs. To drive home the point, the campaign released two ads in the past two weeks hitting Romney's record at Bain, pointing to two companies - Ampad and GST Steel - that laid-off workers after Bain Capital acquired them.

Host Bob Schieffer queried Gibbs about the tenor of the campaign: "Whatever happened to hope and change?" he asked.

"Bob, there is going to be a choice in this election," Gibbs responded, saying that people will have a "visceral reaction" to Romney's Bain record.

Gibbs added that the Obama campaign is "certainly happy to talk a little bit about Mitt Romney and his record of not creating jobs in virtually every step of his life."

Gibbs also used Ronald Reagan's famous campaign query to voters. "That is what this campaign is going to be about . . . 'Who are you going to be better off with over the next four years?'" Gibbs said. "I don't think there is any doubt that when this election is said and done it will be close. But people of this country will reject the sort of speculation-type economic gains that Mitt Romney is quite good at for himself and for his investors, and instead look for an economy that is growing, that is built to last, that continues the job creation that we have seen and not quite frankly return to the failed policies of the past."

Also on the program, Ed Gillespie, senior adviser to Mitt Romney, responded to Gibbs' attacks.

"There is correlation, Bob, between making money and growing a company and job creation. That is what President Obama doesn't understand, because he never has been in the private sector and doesn't really understand how it works. I think that is why his policies are so hostile to job creation," Gillespie said.

Gillespie pointed to Solyndra, a government-backed green-energy company that went bankrupt after receiving a government subsidy.

"That is their view of the world [that] we would be better off with political appointees deciding to put our taxpayer money at risk, and reward campaign donors, as was the case in Solyndra, [rather than to put private capital at risk," Gillespie said.


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Sources: CBS News, Google Maps

Obama's Bain Attack Ads: The Jury Is Still Out On How Effective

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Is the Bain attack working?

President Obama’s campaign is in the midst of an extended attack on Mitt Romney’s time spent at Bain Capital, an effort to define the former Massachusetts governor as out of touch with average Americans.

Ads have been run, conference calls have been held, press releases (and then some more press releases) have been sent — an all-out effort that speaks to how important it is for the Obama campaign to win this fight over who Mitt Romney really is.
But is it working?

There’s no question that events over the past week or so have muddied the Obama team’s efforts to demonize private equity — or at least the sort of private equity that Romney practiced at Bain.

The obvious example of the message muddle is in the comments of Newark Mayor Cory Booker on NBC’s “Meet the Press” last Sunday. “Enough is enough,” said Booker. “Stop attacking private equity. Stop attacking Jeremiah Wright.”

(Booker has since considerably walked back those remarks and said Bain is fair game against Romney.)

The Obama campaign has also had to beat back criticism from the likes of former Administration car czar Steve Rattner and former Pennsylvania governor Ed Rendell on whether criticizing private equity is fair game.

CBS News even penned a piece headlined “Attacks on Romney’s business past not sticking” that argued that the tightening of polls both nationally and in key swing states was evidence that the Bain hit was backfiring.

Our read? It’s simply too early to draw those sorts of conclusions about whether the Bain attack will stick to Romney.

Look at the new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll. In it, a majority of respondents (53 percent) didn’t recognize the name “Bain Capital” or know enough about the company to offer an opinion of it. (Of those who did know enough to offer a thought, nine percent viewed Bain positively while 19 percent saw it in a negative light.)

Those numbers represent an opportunity and a challenge for the Obama team.

The opportunity is that most people don’t know anything about Bain, meaning that if Obama can define it as a company more interested in profits than people than Romney’s ties to it could hurt him.

The challenge is, yes, that most people still have no idea what Bain is, meaning that Obama and his team are going to have to spend tens of millions to try to educate them — even as Romney and his supporters do everything they can to paint a starkly different picture of Bain and what the governor did there.

Knowing whether Obama and his campaign can ultimately sell the Bain attack is tough given the poll data currently available.

In a new Washington Post-ABC News survey 56 percent of people believed that “unfairness in the economic system that favors the wealthy” was a bigger problem in the country as compared to 31 percent who said “overregulation of the free market that interferes with growth and prosperity” was a more major issue.

That finding suggests that a majority of the public is receptive to an attack on Romney as a protecter of the very people who don’t need protecting.

But, there are some within the Democratic party who remain unconvinced that the Bain attack is the silver bullet Obama world seems to regard it as — or that now is the time to launch it.

“I was never a big proponent of this attack to begin with,” said one Democratic operative granted anonymity to speak candidly about the president’s strategy. “Among the issues is one of simple timing...it’s clear the pro-Obama side thinks this is the best attack but it’s late May. What will they do for an encore in June, July, August, September [and] October?”

The next two months will be absolutely critical in answering the question of whether Obama’s campaign can make the Bain attack stick to Romney. If they can, Obama will have a leg up heading into the conventions and the fall campaign. If they can’t, it’s not clear where the next best hit on Romney will come from — and that would be a major problem for Obama and his team.


Sources: CBS News, MSNBC, NBC News, Youtube

Romney's Campaign Adviser "Etch-a-Sketch" Quotes Raises More Money For Mitt; Makes Democrat Strategists Look Desperate!

That Stupid "Etch-a-Sketch" quote is making Democrats look Stupid but its going to raise a Lot of Money for Mitt Romney from his Supporters.

So how is this helping Pres. Obama?

It Also Makes Democrat Strategists Look Desperate!

Do Democrats really think this "Etch-a-Sketch" Political Strategy is going to send more Voters to the polls for Pres. Obama?

See what I mean by "Reaching Down" instead of "Reaching Up"?


Pres. Obama's Re-election Campaign Advisers & Strategists Need To Remain Focused On Substantive Issues like the Economy, Jobs, Racial Profiling, Tax Reform, Entrepreneurship, Tech Start-Up Small Businesses For BLACKS & Latinos, Education, Housing, Energy, PERIOD!!!

Reach Up & Aim High For Obama Supporters, Don't Reach Down!

If Democrat Strategists Aim High For Obama Supporters, The Same Big Money Donors Pres. Obama Attracted In 2008 May Come Back In 2012.

I'm Just Saying.


If Only He Could Shake His Comment Away

There is, perhaps, no more enduring critique of Mitt Romney than the one about him having shaky principles that shift with the political winds.

So it may not have been particularly helpful when one of his top advisers on Wednesday suggested that Mr. Romney’s campaign views the Republican race as an Etch a Sketch toy that can be shaken up and redrawn from scratch.

“Well, I think you hit a reset button for the fall campaign,” Eric Fehrnstrom, a senior adviser to Mr. Romney, said on CNN. “Everything changes. It’s almost like an Etch a Sketch. You can kind of shake it up and restart all over again.”

An Etch a Sketch? The toy where nothing is permanent? Where one picture makes way for another with a few shakes by a 2-year-old?

It took mere minutes for Mr. Romney’s rivals to — gleefully — seize on the potential metaphors.

“We’ve been saying it for months, and Mitt Romney has had a reputation for it for years: he’ll say or do anything to get elected – absolutely anything,” wrote Brad Woodhouse, the communications director for the Democratic National Committee, in an e-mail with the subject line: “An Etch a Sketch? Really??”

Mr. Woodhouse added: “Now his own top adviser has confirmed that Mitt Romney has absolutely no core and will in fact say anything to get elected. In fact – his positions are no more reliable than if they were written on an Etch a Sketch – which is exactly what Eric Fehrnstrom compared them to. Incredible.”

The dumping on Mr. Fehrnstrom was a bipartisan affair.

The subject line on the e-mail from Rick Santorum’s campaign was in all caps: “***SHOCKING VIDEO EMBEDDED*** LIKE AN ETCH A SKETCH … TEAM ROMNEY ADMITS THEIR CANDIDATE WILL CHANGE POSITIONS IN THE GENERAL ELECTION.”

Hogan Gidley, a spokesman for Mr. Santorum, added: “We all knew Mitt Romney didn’t have any core convictions, but we appreciate his staff going on national television to affirm that point for anyone who had any doubts.”

And moments later, Bill Burton, who runs a “super PAC” backing President Obama’s campaign, sent an e-mail titled “Etch a Sketch voters?

“While extraordinarily cynical,” Mr. Burton wrote, “this candid admission of Governor Romney’s general election strategy to mislead the American people does at least have the benefit of truth. There is no doubt Governor Romney is going to try to mask his right-wing, anti-middle class agenda in order to win the election.”

Asked whether he wanted to take the words back, Mr. Fehrnstrom e-mailed what apparently is what he wished had come out of his mouth in the first place.

“As we move from the primary to the general election, the campaign changes,” Mr. Fehrnstrom wrote. “It’s a different race, with different candidates, and the main issue now becomes President Obama’s failure to create jobs and get this economy moving.”

Despite that explanation, Mr. Fehrnstrom’s comment quickly became fodder in the Twitter universe.

Tim Carvell, who identifies himself as a “writer of comedy jokes for the TV box” living in New York, wrote, “Right now, I’m guessing the Romney adviser who compared his candidate to an Etch a Sketch is being turned upside down and shaken vigorously.”


Sources: CNN, NY Times, TPM

Mitt Romney "Etch-a-Sketch" Quotes? Democrats' "Etch-A-Sketch" Attack Makes Obama Supporters Look Stupid!!

Democrats are now attacking Mitt Romney with some Stupid ""Etch-a-Sketch" Quote.

Where is the Political Substance in that Strategy?

See this kind of Foolishness is why we are in trouble!

This is why Mitt Romney is beginning to pick up Independent Voters & Big Money Donors.

Why are Democrats being so Corny & Stupid when attacking Mitt Romney??

"Etch-a-Sketch"? So Embarrassing!

Most Democrats Strategists & Advisers have 2 or more Professional Degrees but yet their Strategies for attacking Mitt Romney are so Childish & Stupid!

STOP talking about Corny, Stupid stuff like "Etch-a-Sketch" Quotes & Focus on Substantive Issues like the Economy, Jobs, Racial Profiling, Tax Reform, Entrepreneurship, Tech Start-Up Small Businesses For BLACKS & Latinos, Education, Housing, Energy, etc.,

NOT Stupid "Etch-a-Sketch" Quotes!


Here's why I disagree agree with Democrat Advisers & Strategists continuing to use Cory, Stupid Political Attacks like "Etch-a-Sketch" quotes to Attack GOP Candidates like Mitt Romney.

After Winning the BLACK Vote decades ago from Republicans, Most (NOT all) Democrat Leaders have consistently used Lower Level Politics to Attract & Keep BLACK Voters in their Coffers.

While GOP Candidates often reach up to attract Supporters, Democrats have reached down.

Reaching Down is an Insult.

Once Democrats were elected into Public Office they often governed their BLACK Constituents the same way they campaigned to attract BLACK Voters.

For Example:

When BLACK Constituents would ask BLACK Politicians & Leaders about doing things within BLACK Communities to close the Digital Divide, BLACK Leaders would ONLY provide just a little funding to Open Low Rate Technology Labs to help BLACK People learn Remedial Computer Skills.

Even though the Majority of BLACK Constituents have Owned PCS & Lap Tops in their homes for Years, this includes Low Income BLACK Constituents, BLACK Leaders thought We were Stupid or Dumb & Needed "Remedial" Help to Close the Digital Divide in BLACK Communities.

WRONG!

What BLACK Communities Needed was Training & Funding for Tech Start-Up Small Businesses to establish Internet Businesses like Facebook, Twitter, Cloud Computing, Web Design, Small Businesses Online, etc., NOT funding for "Remedial" Community Computer Labs!

This is just one example of why I am so against Democrats using Corny, Stupid Political Strategies to reach BLACK & Latino Constituents.

I Don't Need Anyone Talking Down or Reaching Down To Me!

Instead I Need BLACK Leaders Reaching Up & Talking Up To Me.

I Need BLACK Leaders & Politicians Who Have HIGH Expectations For BLACK & Latino Constituents.

Word!



Etch A Sketch comment no child's play


The fiery Republican nominating battle has forged Mitt Romney as the party's "inevitable nominee," a Romney advisor said Wednesday. And when the end is in sight, he continued, other candidates should bow out.

The absence of a GOP challenge could allow Romney to "hit a reset button for the fall campaign," Eric Fehrnstrom said on CNN's "Starting Point."

But it's what he said next that Romney opponents are jumping all over.

"Everything changes. It's like Etch A Sketch," he said. "You can shake it up and we start all over again."

Rival presidential hopeful Rick Santorum seized on the comment at a Wednesday morning campaign event and said it shows Romney is anything but a consistent conservative.

"He will say what he needs to say to win the election before him, and if he has to say something different because it's a different election and a different group of voters, he will say that, too," Santorum, a former senator from Pennsylvania, said in Harvey, La.

"Well, that should be comforting to all of you who are voting in this primary: that whoever you vote for is going to be a completely new candidate," he said. "Remove all trace of any kind of marks and be able to draw a new picture, maybe a picture similar to when he ran for governor of Massachusetts, not as a conservative."

Fehrnstrom, the Romney adviser, made his comments when asked if the continuing challenge from Santorum and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich was driving Romney "so far to the right it would hurt him with moderate voters in the general election."

With Romney's win Tuesday in Illinois, the delegate math is increasingly in his favor. He has 562 delegates and is just shy of half the delegates needed to clinch the GOP nomination. Former Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania stands at 249, former House speaker Newt Gingrich is at 137, and Texas Rep. Ron Paul has 69 delegates – all less than a quarter of the way towards 1,144, the magic number.

The race for delegates has produced, as in prior contests, sharp language between the candidates.

"Emotions run high. Elbows get sharp and get thrown in different directions," he told CNN's "Soledad O'Brien." "Usually when the contest comes to its natural end in a primary, people get behind the inevitable nominee, and in this case it's Mitt Romney."

Fehrnstrom acknowledged that the decision to enter or exit the race "is a very personal one that can only be made by the candidate."

"But I can speak to what happened four years ago when Mitt Romney stepped aside for John McCain," who went on to win the GOP nomination in 2008, Fehrnstrom said. "At the time, John McCain did not have the delegates he needed to clinch the nomination but he was clearly on a path to doing that. The math was very challenging for Mitt Romney."

Fehrnstrom's comments come as a conservative group behind the tea party movement, FreedomWorks, said in a Washington Times newspaper report that it would no longer protest Romney.

Romney's exit helped McCain, who endorsed Romney this cycle, consolidate the party in his favor. Fehrnstrom suggested a similar case could play out this year.

"Now, in Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich, these are both decent, honorable men who have run good campaigns," he said, calling them "good Americans" and "good Republicans."

"And ultimately, I'm confident they'll make a decision that's not only right for their party, but right for them."


Sources: CNN, TPM, Google Maps

"Welfare Queen" Myth Unveiled & Why GOP Leaders Adopted It For 2012 Election

The "Welfare Queen" Myth. (Newt Gingrich's Strategy To Win Southern Voters)


Welfare Queen 2012 Unveiled

As Political Pundits scramble to analyze how the Welfare Queen of 1976 is faring in the 2012 Republican primary speeches, her identity gets pretty slippery. She could be the face of the nation's poor, foisted onto food stamps instead of given jobs -- courtesy of President Barack Obama, if you listen to Newt Gingrich, CNN noted.

Or she could one of the folks Rick Santorum didn't mean to call "black people" when he told Iowans, "I don't want to make black people's lives better by giving them someone else's money."

But an involuntary welfare queen doesn't drive the same emotional punch as one who deliberately takes advantage of American taxpayers.

The Welfare Queen of 1976, you may remember, helped push Ronald Reagan to success at the polls. As CNN described this mythical moocher, "she has 12 Social Security cards, mooches on benefits from four fake dead husbands, and collects food stamps while driving a Cadillac.

She rakes in about $150,000 a year in welfare benefits and, of course, people assume she must be African-American."

While the Welfare Queen described by Ronald Reagan was primarily mythical, with a few composite details borrowed from the stories of much less dramatic Aid to Family with Dependent Children program abusers lending credibility to her identity, there really are welfare queens in American society. And while just as conniving as the Reagan's Welfare Queen, the welfare queens of 2012 have changed their methods.

What does a welfare queen portfolio look like in 2012? Today's welfare queen (using the term in a genderless fashion), instead of multiple social security cards and a string of ex-spouses, dead or alive, trades in influence peddling, consulting contracts, tax breaks, subsidies and a leveraged buyout here and there.

Salon presumably would probably offer up the 2012 crown to Mitt Romney.

It says Romney accumulated the lion's share of his wealth at Bain Capital by redistributing wealth from taxpayers to his investors and partners.

Generous tax breaks, extensive subsidies, leveraged buyouts in which massive debt is written off to avoid taxation- these are the tools of what Salon calls "vulture capitalism," and that's how Romney got to where he is now, with $20.9 million income from investments in 2010, as reported by the Jakarta Globe, along with a net worth that may be as high as $250 million, according to the Washington Post.

But Romney isn't alone in the world of welfare queens. Gingrich amassed his riches by using his influence to generate support for Congressional dishing out of corporate welfare, the Washington Examiner noted.

Gingrich, with a net worth exceeding $6.7 million, reported earnings of $3.1 million last year, much of it from passive investments. He amassed $1.6 to $1.8 million in fetid Freddie Mac consulting fees over eight years, Reuters reported, while Freddie's victims lost their homes.

Santorum likewise fits the welfare queen profile. He cashed in after leaving Congress, becoming a sudden millionaire with lucrative consulting and lobbying contracts. His income went up by more than a factor of six since he left Congress; he reported $1.3 million income in 2010, the Washington Post noted.

His efforts to bring corporate welfare to campaign donors while he was in office apparently paid off when he left office, as described by the New Republic in a piece outlining Santorum's K Street connections.

The Welfare Queen of 1976 reaped peanuts by contrast.

Sources: CNN, Yahoo News, Youtube

Bob Turner's Win NO Referendum On Obama! But Wake Up Call For Dems!

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Republican wins Democratic district in N.Y. race to replace Weiner

Republican Bob Turner on Tuesday won the special election in New York's heavily Democratic ninth congressional district - pulling a huge upset that few would have predicted just months ago.

Turner ran against Democrat David Weprin in a heated, summer-long race that ignited Democratic fears of a quiet election morphing into a referendum on the party and President Barack Obama, ahead of next year's elections.

"We've asked the people of this district to send a message to Washington, and I hope they hear it loud and clear," Turner said at his election party in Queens with a packed room, many of them Orthodox Jews.

"Mr. President, you are on the wrong track."

Turner came in with 54% of the vote while Weprin placed second at 46%, with 100% precincts reporting, according to unofficial results from Valerie Vazquez, communications director for the New York City Board of Elections.

Fittingly, in a race largely centered on U.S. policies toward Israel, Turner stood on a stage with Israeli and American flags behind him.

"We lit one candle today, and there's going to be a bonfire pretty soon," Turner said in his victory speech just after midnight.

The district, which covers parts of Brooklyn and Queens, is one of the strongest Jewish districts in the nation. Former Rep. Anthony Weiner vacated the seat in June amid scandal.

Turner, a former cable TV executive, made his first attempt in politics when he challenged Weiner for the seat in November and finished with a stronger-than-usual second place outcome, winning 40% of the vote.

His team hit a major turning point this summer when former New York City Mayor Ed Koch crossed party lines to endorse the Republican.

Koch, a Democratic Jew, hoped his support would send a message to the White House that Jewish Americans were dissatisfied with Obama's policies on Israel - namely the president's position that a future Mideast peace solution requires Israel to return to its pre-1967 borders, with land swaps.

"I like President Obama ... I helped get him elected," Koch said at Turner's election night party. "But he threw Israel under the bus."

His remarks were met by cheers from the crowd, including one man who shouted, "He's a sellout!"

Koch's nod pivoted the race into a relentless competition over who was a stronger supporter of Israel: Turner, a conservative Republican, or Weprin, an orthodox Jew.

Minutes after the election, the Republican Jewish Coalition released a statement in support of Turner.

"Jewish voters are coming to see that Republicans offer real solutions to our economic crisis, are resolute friends of Israel, and represent a way forward to a better future," said executive director Matt Brooks.

He added that the election has "huge implications for 2012 races in states with large Jewish communities, such as Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania."

Back in Washington and in a sign of uncertainty, both parties downplayed expectations earlier Tuesday.

"This is not a district that Republicans have any right to believe that we can win, but we do have a good candidate," said House Speaker John Boehner.

And despite having a 3-to-1 ratio of Democrats to Republicans and a long history of Democratic elected officials, Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York downplayed the district's strong tilt toward the left.

"President Obama won the district by much less than he won the rest of New York City," Schumer said.

"And so, to make the argument that this is a very liberal district and it's a close race, it's just not what the district has been."

Facing a last minute crunch, national Democratic groups poured in hundreds of thousands of dollars in ad buys within the last week, signaling Democratic concerns the race was heading for a neck-and-neck sprint to the finish line.

The final push came as a new Siena Research Institute poll Friday showed Turner with a 6-percentage point lead over Weprin just days before the election.

In addition to Israel, other issues took the spotlight this summer, notably the two candidates' positions on raising the debt ceiling and political issues surrounding the September 11 attacks.

But all ended well for Turner on Tuesday, winning a campaign that now makes him one of two Republican Congressional members in the New York City delegation, with the other being Rep. Michael Grimm of Staten Island.

And while Turner will soon be staking out a new office on Capitol Hill, he may not be there for long.

Due to population loss, New York has to cut two congressional districts and NY9 has widely been speculated to get the ax in a redistricting process set to finalize in 2013.


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Sources: CNN, MSNBC, Google Maps

GOP's Plan To Sidetrack Obama's Libya Strategy Failed! Obama Was Right!

Obama's Libya Strategy Proves His Critics Wrong


President Obama, when he first announced the United States' intervention in the Libyan revolution, was assailed from all sides for his war plan. Five months ago, both Democrats and Republicans were offering up pointed criticisms for just about every aspect of Obama's decision. Whatever Obama did, there were large numbers of both Republicans and Democrats quite willing to loudly second-guess him. Including Representative Dennis Kucinich (a Democrat), who became the first member of Congress to call for President Obama to be impeached over the Libyan war.

These criticisms were often contradictory (coming from the same people, at times), and were scathing and absolutely relentless: Obama had waited too long, Obama had moved too quickly, Obama should have gotten Congress' approval, Obama shouldn't have gotten the U.N.'s approval, America should just invade in a land war, America should just drop a bomb on Gaddafi and be done with it, the rebels were in reality al Qaeda, why are we intervening in Libya and not elsewhere in the Arab Spring, America can't afford another war, air power alone never wins wars, America will be forced to put "boots on the ground" whether we like it or not, America should be leading the war, Obama is "leading from behind," we're letting the French take control (?!?), Obama is kowtowing to the Arab League, another war in a Muslim country will just serve to inflame the region, what about the War Powers Act, we're going to wind up occupying Libya no matter what happens, the "ragtag" rebels will never win, the best the rebels can hope for will be a stalemate, Libya will end up partitioned with Gaddafi holding on to the west of the country, Gaddafi will unleash international terrorists against us, Obama didn't come home from South America when it began, Obama is "dithering," Obama didn't explain to the American public what was going on, and (an old favorite) America will end up in a quagmire. Back at the beginning of the war, Salon ran an amusing flowchart to track the Republican complaints, which isn't all that far from the reality Obama faced at the time (although the chart is admittedly partisan, because it doesn't address the criticism directed towards the president from his own party).

When Obama first announced his decision to join with N.A.T.O. to intervene in Libya, I wrote an article titled "Obama's Libyan Gamble" which explored what the American military strategy for Libya was going to be. This gamble has now proved successful for the president. At the time, I concluded:

If it works out reasonably well, this could become a model for American involvement in future flareups. If a ruthless tyrant was massacring his own people, then regional military coalitions would be free to call for American action. America, as everyone knows, is very, very good at executing the initial phases of a war. Iraq proved that. But America, also as everyone should have figured out, is also not that good at getting out of such wars. Iraq -- once again -- proves this, too. But if our new model is to limit our major involvement to the opening phases of war, then the responsibility for solving these regional problems would fall to regional organizations with much bigger vested interests in the outcome than the United States.

Of course, this isn't a perfect answer because sometimes regional alliances strong enough to bear this responsibility simply don't exist. Obama's Libyan strategy has yet to play out, and it's impossible at this juncture to see what will happen next. Obama's gamble that America can join in the initial phase of a war and then extricate itself quickly is one of those ideas which sound really good on paper, before reality sinks in when they're actually attempted. Other presidents have had equally cheerful predictions about the length of American military involvement, which later proved to be embarrassingly shortsighted. But, I have to admit, that if the gamble pays off -- if America can prove to the rest of the world that it can lead when asked, but also relinquish control when we're no longer needed -- it could bear fruit in future conflicts of this nature. If it works, people might start speaking of Obama's gamble as the Obama Doctrine.

Looking back, I have to admit that I overstated the case. Barack Obama is anything but "doctrinaire," on pretty much any subject. The Libyan intervention was tailored to a unique situation that may indeed never arise again. The set of circumstances in Libya was (and is) different than in other hotspots in the world right now (such as Syria), making it unlikely that Obama will use the Libyan battle plan again any time soon. So calling it the "Obama Doctrine" was a bit of a stretch, I suppose.

But it cannot be denied that the positive outcome in Libya has validated the way Obama sent America into this conflict. Sure, in the future, the whole Libyan Revolution could become sidetracked in any number of ways -- just because they've taken Tripoli (and even if they soon capture Gaddafi), it doesn't mean that they're going to successfully make the transition to a modern democratic state. There simply are no guarantees of this type in the real world. But that doesn't preclude us from examining the military strategy in its own light, especially when held up against our interventions in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Because the news from Tripoli is so uplifting right now, in other words, it is hard to step back and examine the bigger picture of what America's efforts in Libya may mean for our future involvement in other wars of this nature which may flare up. But it's worth the exercise.

By just about any measure, America's involvement in Libya has been less burdensome to the United States than the last two wars we've fought. For example, six months into Iraq (the same time period that Libya took), 289 American troops had been killed (according to icasualties.org). In addition, 53 coalition troops had died. Six months after N.A.T.O. began air raids on Libya, a total of zero American troops have died, and an additional zero coalition troops have died. Hundreds of American servicemen and servicewomen are still alive today because we did not launch a land invasion of Libya.

It was pointed out just after we began attacking Libya -- with alarm -- that American involvement might cost upwards of one billion dollars. I haven't seen any strict accounting of the war yet, but assuming the estimate was true, it absolutely pales in comparison to the hundreds upon hundreds of billions of dollars (upwards of over a trillion dollars by most estimates) we have so far spent in Iraq and Afghanistan. That is several orders of magnitude of difference, right there.

Our military involvement in Libya was requested by the rebels. This is an important fact which many gloss over. We were not invited in to Afghanistan or Iraq, by any group. Even more important, we never actually "went in" to Libya (at least as the phrase refers to troops on the ground), so we don't have to now "get out" of the country. Ten years on, we still have tens of thousands of soldiers in both Iraq and Afghanistan. The so-called "Pottery Barn" rule ("you broke it, you own it") simply did not apply in Libya, meaning America is not left holding the bag when it comes to the nation-building phase. We can help out, if needed and requested, but the Libyans will be financing their own reconstruction with their abundant petrodollars.

Our international coalition on Libya actually shared the burden with America, as planned. The coalition bore the costs and responsibility for a large part of the mission, instead of mostly being window-dressing for an American army. In fact, this could be the most important comparison of them all, when we look back at the lessons of Libya. Maybe we don't always have to shoulder almost the entire burden of these sorts of wars, in the future. Maybe the "Obama Strategy" will actually become an important military tool for future presidents to use on the international stage, when circumstances allow.

Today, President Obama gave a short address on the Libyan situation. At the end, he spoke directly to the Libyan people themselves:

Your courage and character have been unbreakable in the face of a tyrant. An ocean divides us, but we are joined in the basic human longing for freedom, for justice and for dignity. Your revolution is your own, and your sacrifices have been extraordinary. Now, the Libya that you deserve is within your reach.

The most important takeaway line from this was: "Your revolution is your own." This simply could not be said of what we did in either Afghanistan or Iraq.

The American involvement in Libya was not perfect, but then no war effort can truly claim that distinction. The outcome may not be perfect, either. There are still plenty of valid points of criticism to be made. President Obama's critics will doubtlessly bring up the situation in Syria, Yemen, or Bahrain to make the point that the Obama's Libya strategy is not being used elsewhere, or even that it cannot successfully be used elsewhere. Calling it the "Obama Doctrine" is likely a step too far, I fully admit. It is true that Obama pushed the boundaries of the War Powers Act further than any previous president, but virtually all presidents (of both parties) have pushed these boundaries ever since the Act was passed (and until either Congress or an Oval Office occupant pushes it to the Supreme Court, the constitutionality of the Act itself will have to remain an open question). Obama may have moved too slowly for some at the war's onset, but he also moved too quickly for others. Finally, there are no guarantees that the rebels will form a new Libyan government to America's liking.

Even with all those caveats, however, Obama deserves a victory lap at this point. At the heart of Obama's war plan for Libya was an enormous gamble that could have failed in any number of ways. It didn't. America successfully cleared the skies of Libya, and then "within days, not weeks" we bowed out of the lead role in the fight. The French, the British, and the rest of N.A.T.O. stepped up to the plate and performed admirably well. The American military continued in a support role -- exactly as Obama told us would happen -- and the outcome, at this point in time, has to be judged a clear success.

Plus, Barack Obama is now -- together with the leaders of France, Britain, and the United Nations -- being hailed as liberators of Libya (to use the Bush administration's phrase). All in all, Obama's gamble seems to be paying off exceedingly well. Whether this helps the president or not politically (here at home), the Libyan rebels seem pretty happy with the way the war was fought, and with the way America fought our part of it. And it needs pointing out -- to all of Obama's critics -- that this may be the truest measure of success possible. How long has it been, after all, since America took part in a war where at the end of it throngs of people crowded around a sign thanking us for our efforts?


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Sources: CNN, Huffington Post, MSNBC, Youtube, Google Maps