Senate campaigns stoop to pat the dogs
Related: Brown Throws Warren Spitball
Brown says he will not drink until Nov. election
I'm feeling like I need one.
"Obama, Romney dogged by pet issues" April 21, 2012|Jocelyn Noveck, Associated Press
NEW YORK - The political Mommy Wars seem to have given way this week, at least temporarily, to the Doggy Wars, with an effort by supporters of both Mitt Romney and President Obama to gain points with the Doggy Vote. That’s dog owners, not the dogs themselves - at least for now.
But let’s talk about those dog owners. We asked a bunch of them across the country what they thought. And many - though not all - were annoyed by the whole affair, calling it a silly and pointless distraction....
I will say this: anyone that would treat his dog the way Romney did is a sadistic creep.
Related:
"We were terrible to animals," recalled Mr. Throckmorton, laughing. "We'd put firecrackers in the frogs and throw them and blow them up." When he was not blowing up frogs, young George -- always restless and something of a natural leader -- would lead neighborhood children on daredevil expeditions around town."
The lies that led to mass-murder and torture just a coincidence?
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And you know what dogs leave behind on the paper, right?
Watch your step.
"‘Likability’ scores are hurdle for Romney"
WASHINGTON - Mitt Romney is a self-styled numbers guy. But the likely GOP nominee for president faces a set of numbers any management genius would find daunting: ballooning poll figures suggesting voters don’t much like him....
Such numbers have become a reliable predictor of election-night victories in every race since at least 1980, when Ronald Reagan made Jimmy Carter a one-term president.
Romney’s overall unfavorable/favorable rating makes him, at this point, the least popular major party nominee since at least 1984, according to a recent Washington Post/ABC News poll....
And Mondale was destroyed.
“Favorability’’ and “likability’’ ratings can be used to measure qualities that go beyond job performance, into personality....
The image of Romney as a conniving politician unable to relate to ordinary people has seeped into popular culture. “Saturday Night Live’’ earlier this month opened its show with a sketch showing Romney trying to win over different groups by pandering to their interests. (In front of the Role Playing Game Association, Romney was shown with a cape and a sword declaring, “I can’t remember a time when ‘Dungeons and Dragons’ wasn’t an important part of my life.’’)
They destroyed Sarah Palin.
Much of the damage has been the result of awkward Romney statements that allowed foes to cast him as a rich capitalist who likes to fire people, doesn’t care for the poor, and knows about NASCAR only because some friends own the teams. In Wisconsin, he recounted a “humorous’’ story that involved his father shutting a Michigan factory and moving jobs to Wisconsin.
Yeah, ha-ha-ha!
Romney’s supporters say that likability will not be a driving factor in the election - and they are likely to cast Obama, much as McCain did, as someone who may be likable the way many celebrities are but ineffective as the leader of the free world.
“Obama is personally extremely likable, he’s extremely telegenic - he’s the kind of guy you’d probably want to go have a beer with,’’ said Mark Zaccaria, chairman of the Rhode Island Republican Party. “There are plenty of likable people. I mean, I’ve got blood relatives who I love. I would never let them near the Oval Office.’’
I don't drink, and keep your f***ing family out of it(????)!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
But most presidential campaigns over the past several decades have been won by the candidate deemed most likable....
Yeah, POLICIES regarding WARS and the ECONOMY? That's not what AmeriKan elections are all about. It's DO YOU LIKE THE STAGED and SCRIPTED IMAGERY shoveled forth by the shit Amurkn media?
The Romney campaign increasingly is using what many consider his best political asset, Ann Romney, as a way to soften his image.
Oooooh, cat fight!
Romney’s personal aide, Garrett Jackson, has also been blogging about his experiences traveling with Romney (“the gov’’ likes pancakes)....
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Who specialized in leveraged buyouts that destroyed jobs and made him rich.
Oh, he can just etch-a-sketch that away, right?
"Mitt Romney floats curb on some tax deductions; But his estimates, analysts say, won’t fill budget gap" by Callum Borchers | Globe Correspondent, April 16, 2012
Mitt Romney, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, floated proposed tax cuts to a group of high-dollar donors at a private, backyard event in Palm Beach, Fla. The Wall Street Journal and NBC News first reported Romney’s remarks, which reporters overheard from a public sidewalk....
Romney in February announced his intent to slash every American’s tax rate by a fifth without adding to the federal deficit. He had not detailed how he would make up the lost revenue, and his campaign offered no further information when contacted for this story....
Romney’s plan “makes a lot of sense in regard to theory and historically,’’ said Wayne D. Angell, a former Federal Reserve System’s Board of Governors member and the founder of Angell Economics in Arlington, Va. “We’ve had periods in the past when we’ve lowered tax rates and broadened the base, and it does tend to promote economic growth.’’
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"Mitt Romney offering perks in his bid for major donors" April 21, 2012|By Matt Viser
WASHINGTON - Mitt Romney is aggressively trying to coax high-dollar donors from the sidelines, offering incentives of special access and recognition to his top fund-raisers, as he plays catch-up to President Obama in the race for money.
Those who contribute $50,000 and join the ranks of “founders’’ will earn a retreat with Romney this summer in California. Romney’s campaign is also crafting several tiers - $100,000, $250,000, and $500,000 - of donors who bundle money from their friends. This layered system tracks one established by George W. Bush in his 2000 and 2004 campaigns to rank his top contributors with such names as “pioneers’’ and “rangers.’’
The efforts are part of a new, intense phase of Romney’s campaign, one in which he has the rare role of financial underdog....
Under federal law, Romney has to disclose the names of his bundlers only if they are registered lobbyists. Romney so far has 22 lobbyists who, combined, have raised $2.9 million as bundlers.
Those lobbyists have represented a wide range of interests, including such financial and insurance behemoths as Liberty Mutual, Merrill Lynch, and Citigroup; major technology firms such as Microsoft and Verizon; and other companies such as Coca-Cola, Boeing, and Ford....
Oh, I'm liking him more already.
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"Senator Joe Manchin among undecideds on presidential vote" April 21, 2012
WASHINGTON - Senator Joe Manchin said he is unsure whether he will vote for his party’s leader, President Obama, or the likely Republican nominee Mitt Romney.
I know who I'm not voting for.
In a statement Friday, the West Virginia Democrat said he had “some real differences’’ with both leaders, finding fault with Obama’s energy and economic policies while questioning whether Romney could understand the challenges facing ordinary people.
“I strongly believe that every American should always be rooting for our president to do well, no matter which political party that he or she might belong to,’’ Manchin said. “With that being said, many West Virginians believe the last 3 1/2 years haven’t been good for us, but we’re hopeful that they can get better.’’
Manchin, one of the more moderate Senate Democrats, has broken with his party on several issues as he seeks reelection this year. His state has backed the Republican candidate in the last three presidential elections, and Obama did not fare well in 2008. Obama lost to GOP nominee John McCain, 56-43 percent, and was overwhelmed by Hillary Rodham Clinton in the Democratic primary, losing 67-26 percent.
Manchin, the former governor who won the Senate seat in 2010, remains popular in West Virginia and is not considered vulnerable in his rematch against Republican John Raese.
In an interview with National Journal published Friday, Manchin said he will “look at the options’’ in casting his presidential vote. Elaborating in Friday’s statement, he criticized Romney, saying “there are many West Virginians who believe that he’s out of touch, especially because of his plan to end Medicare as we know it and privatize Social Security.’’
He added that like many West Virginians, he has concerns “about the Obama administration when it comes to energy - coal in particular - and the need to get our financial house in order.’’
The administration has angered some in West Virginia with its increased scrutiny of the destructive practice of mountaintop coal mining, which is concentrated in Appalachia.
Jeb Bush says Rubio is ‘probably the best’ VP pick
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. - Jeb Bush said he would consider running as vice president with Mitt Romney, but doubts he will be asked.
Bush, a former governor of Florida, told the conservative website Newsmax that Senator Marco Rubio of Florida is “probably the best’’ choice to share the ticket with Romney, the presumptive GOP presidential nominee. Bush said he hopes the freshman senator is offered the No. 2 slot and accepts it.
Rubio has said repeatedly that he isn’t interested in leaving the Senate.
President takes rates pitch to colleges in swing states
Pivoting to his latest election-year theme, President Obama will go before college crowds in three swing states to warn of financial doom for millions of students if Congress does not halt a looming rise in student-loan interest rates. His clear political mission: rallying young voters whose support he needs again.
Yeah, FOUR YEARS LATER HE FINDS YOU AGAIN!
Obama’s trip next week will take him to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the University of Colorado at Boulder, and the University of Iowa. All three provide him potentially giant audiences in states he carried in 2008 and ones that are key to his reelection prospects against presumptive opponent Mitt Romney.
The issue at hand: Interest rates are set to double on July 1, from 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent, on a popular federal loan for low- and middle-income undergraduates. Congress voted in 2007 to drop the rate in half over four years. Now the looming expiration is an election-year issue.
Obama to mark Holocaust during speech at museum
WASHINGTON - President Obama will mark the annual commemoration of the Holocaust during a speech Monday at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington.
The White House says Obama will discuss his administration’s strategy to prevent and respond to mass atrocities and address the United States’ “never again’’ pledge to not stand by in the face of genocide.
No, we commit it now.
Obama will be introduced by Nobel Peace Prize laureate and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel.
I'm so sick of our presidents bowing before that tribe of war-criminal land-stealers.
Ex-DeLay aide sentenced in last act of Abramoff probe
Hey, Jack, what was Mohammed Atta doing on your casino ship a month BEFORE 9-11?
WASHINGTON - A former aide to onetime congressional power broker Tom DeLay was sentenced Friday to five months in a halfway house in the final act of the probe of the Jack Abramoff influence-peddling scandal.
Tony Rudy, a former deputy chief of staff to DeLay, pleaded guilty six years ago to conspiring with Abramoff, a Republican super-lobbyist, and others to accept a stream of gifts when Rudy was a congressional staffer and to offering gifts to public officials when Rudy became a lobbyist - all in exchange for legislative favors. His cooperation with prosecutors has led to 18 convictions.
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"Sheldon Adelson, a Las Vegas billionaire whose family had bolstered Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich’s campaign, has donated $5 million to a super political action committee for House Republicans, according to campaign documents....
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"Crossroads Grassroots Policy Strategies, a nonprofit affiliated with Republican adviser Karl Rove, got more than one-third of its revenue in the last seven months of 2011 from a single, unidentified donor, according to documents filed with the IRS....
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"The president’s inaction on the issue, which he used to distinguish himself during his Senate career and on the presidential campaign trail, may depress enthusiasm among the Democratic Party’s activists....
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Such as?
WASHINGTON - Obama said Saturday in his weekly radio and Internet address: “We cannot let America become a country where a shrinking number of people do really well while a growing number of people struggle to get by.’’
It already is, asshole!
WTF, and why didn't the FILIBUSTER PROOF MAJORITY FIX THAT?
So they could USE IT AS A CAMPAIGN ISSUE? Or because it SERVED BANKS?
Obama argued that at a time of high joblessness, the rate of unemployment for Americans with a college degree is about half the national average. “It’s never been more important,’’ he said.
What a LIE!
Related: Sunday Globe Special: Student Loan Legacy
The courting of young voters includes an appearance on NBC’s “Late Night With Jimmy Fallon’’ show....
Except the young don't vote. Just ask Ron Paul.
While Obama addressed education as his newest election-year theme, Republicans stuck to their criticism of Obama’s energy policies....
PFFFFT!
See: No Energy For Campaign
Can you blame me?
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