Archive for the ‘2012 elections’ Category

If you thought the Catholic Church and universities affiliated with it would quietly accept the Obama administration’s “compromise” for the contraception mandate, well, think again. From Fox News:

Some of the most influential Catholic institutions in the country filed suit in federal district court Monday against the so-called contraception mandate, in one of the biggest coordinated legal challenges to the rule to date.

Claiming their “fundamental rights hang in the balance,” a total of 43 plaintiffs filed a dozen separate lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of the requirement. Among the organizations filing were the University of Notre Dame, the Archdiocese of New York and The Catholic University of America.

The groups are objecting to the requirement from the federal health care overhaul that employers provide access to contraceptive care. The Obama administration several months back softened its position on the mandate, but some religious organizations complained the …

Continue reading Catholic groups sue to overturn Obama’s contraception mandate »

If you don’t think these statistics will have more of a bearing on this November’s election results than President Obama’s stances on gay marriage, free contraception, etc., then you’re fooling yourself. From a USA Today story:

• “One out of five families owes more on credit cards, medical bills, student loans and other unsecured debt than they have in savings … “
• “[T]he number of families surveyed at the end of 2011 that have no savings at all increased to 23.4 percent, compared with 18.5 percent in 2009.”
• “Among homeowners, 1.7 percent said that they expect to fall behind on their mortgage payments in the near future … slightly less than in 2009, when 1.9 percent expected to run into mortgage problems.”
• “Sixty percent of workers say that the value of their savings and investments is less than $25,000 … retirement confidence is at historically low levels.”
• “[N]early half of families say they have no debt at all from credit cards and other unsecured loans, the same percentage …

Continue reading Economic security still non-existent for many Americans »

A day after President Obama endorsed the concept of same-sex marriage (but, notably, no policies to legalize it), the Washington Post reported that, as a teenager in boarding school, Mitt Romney once forcibly cut the longish hair of a fellow classmate who was “presumed” to be gay. The story has since been found to have a number of problems: Two sisters of the alleged victim (who died several years ago) claim the depiction of him is “factually incorrect,” and one says she had never heard of the incident (which, of course, doesn’t necessarily mean it didn’t happen); one of the Romney classmates quoted about the incident now says he didn’t actually witness it.

As if to confirm that juvenile behavior by juveniles is not a partisan issue, a blogger soon posted an excerpt from Obama’s “Dreams From My Father” in which he describes behaving rudely toward an unpopular female classmate. (The posted excerpts don’t refer to his age at the time, but the reference by Obama to her being in …

Continue reading Poll Position: How much of a candidate’s life is fair game? »

On a day when the political sob stories ought to focus on Dick Lugar, whom Indiana Republicans voted out after 36 years in the U.S. Senate, the bulk of the bad news from yesterday’s primaries instead concerns President Obama:

1. North Carolina is a swing state. Four years ago, Obama won the state by 14,177 votes out of more than 4.2 million cast. Last night, almost 200,000 voters in the state’s Democratic primary voted against him, even though no one else was even on the ballot. A constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, publicly opposed by Obama despite the mixed signals from his administration on the issue, passed easily, 61 percent to 39 percent.

2. Wisconsin is generally not considered a swing state — it’s typically been safe territory for Democrats. But 2010 saw the election of Republicans to a majority of the state’s legislative seats and the governor’s mansion. That GOP governor, Scott Walker, currently faces a recall election fueled by labor unions still steamed …

Continue reading Obama steals Lugar’s bad-news thunder »

The news from last night was not that Mitt Romney easily swept the five states that held primaries; that was assured once Rick Santorum left the race, if not before. Nor was it the prospect, which is being confirmed this morning, that Newt Gingrich would also drop out of the race as a result.

No, the news is that Romney finally gave the speech some of us have been waiting for him to give. (Click here to see a video of the speech, which lasted about 13 minutes, or here to read the prepared remarks; he didn’t stray too far from them.)

The heart of it was the contrast he drew between himself and President Obama. First, what he said about the president:

Government is at the center of his vision. It dispenses the benefits, borrows what it can’t take, consumes a greater and greater share of the economy. You know, with Obamacare fully installed, government would have control of almost half of the economy, and we would have effectively ceased to be a free enterprise society.

This …

Continue reading Romney closes out the primaries by attacking Obama’s unfairness »

A tough slog for Democrats in Georgia may be getting even tougher, thanks to one of their old friends: Cynthia McKinney has filed paperwork to run for Congress in Georgia’s 4th District as a member of the Green Party.

The incumbent, Hank “capsized Guam” Johnson, has made more than his fair share of gaffes since defeating McKinney in 2006 and entering Congress. But compared to her, he’s a statesman of the highest order.

Still, it took a runoff for Johnson to beat her in that year’s primary, and even then she won 41 percent of the vote. This will be a general election, and 41 percent of the Democratic vote would be enough to keep Johnson from winning a majority. The GOP candidate last time out, Liz Carter, won 25 percent against Johnson. Neither she nor any other Republican will win this heavily Democratic district. But the GOP candidate will get enough votes to make it tough for Johnson to beat McKinney — or (shudder) vice-versa — without a runoff. McKinney would need just a …

Continue reading Here we go: Cynthia McKinney is running for Congress again »

OK, I admit it: I saw this on Power Line earlier today and was convinced it was really a hoax. Then I finally got the email from the Democratic National Committee, with a link to the latest innovation in bumper-sticker politics:

"Change that matters"? Clearly, that's another slogan on its way to the scrap heap.

Yes, this is bound to be a campaign full of substance and thoughtfulness. Yessirree.

Well, if all sides are determined to keep this campaign on the low road, I might finally have to surrender and play along. One can only guess the only slogans that were considered and rejected …

“Democrats: Not to be confused with any other parties”

“Democrats: Alphabetically superior”

“Democrats: Hey, look — George W. Bush!”

“Democrats: Fresh out of short, vapid slogans”

“Democrats: Get our full message on Twitter”

And it’s not even silly season yet. (Sigh.)

– By Kyle Wingfield

Find me on Facebook or follow me on

Continue reading The latest from the party of ideas »

Now that I’ve gotten that out of my system … a real debate of policy and principle in what’s left of the GOP presidential primary.

As the Political Insider already noted, Newt Gingrich is chiding Mitt Romney for his reported idea of limiting the tax deduction for second homes, based on income. Gingrich calls this a violation of “the classical American definition of fairness — that every American be treated equally under the law” and uses the occasion to highlight his proposal for an optional flat tax of 15 percent on individual income.

I agree with Gingrich in the broad sense and in the long run, but I think Romney is just fine in the short run.

The mortgage-interest tax deduction is nothing but a federal subsidy for homebuyers. Period. (Full disclosure: My wife and I are among the millions of tax filers who claim the deduction on our tax return each year.) In an ideal world, we would eliminate it and all other deductions, and offset the change by lowering tax rates — so that …

Continue reading On Newt, Romney and the mortgage deduction question »

Good grief. Or, as a certain presidential candidate might say, “For Pete’s sake!”

It seems the long-running inanity about the time — 29 years ago — Mitt Romney transported the family dog in a cage strapped to the top of his car has finally gotten to the Romney campaign. It has responded by dredging up from “Dreams from My Father” a snippet of an anecdote about Barack Obama, as a child, eating dog meat while living in Indonesia.

Seriously. This is what stands to dominate the news cycle today. It’s already being branded “the dog wars.”

Memo to the Romney campaign: Democrats are not bringing up the Seamus-in-a-cage story because they are confident Americans approve of Obama’s presidency. It’s not a roundabout way to steer the conversation back to taxes and spending, deficits and debt, jobs and the economy, high gas prices and low employment — you know, the stuff voters repeatedly say they care about.

It is the opposite of that. So why do y’all keep falling for it?

Mitt Romney is …

Continue reading Romney: Don’t let this election go to the dogs »

I was out of the office on a reporting trip yesterday when the comments about Ann Romney by someone named Hilary Rosen morphed into the ludicrously named “mommy wars.” I call the appellation ludicrous for a couple of reasons — in part because it’s condescending, but chiefly because my reporting trip concerned programs to help soldiers returning from combat who are physically wounded or struggling to reconnect with their families. So, I’m less patient than ever with phrases such as “mommy wars” and the “war on women.”

Rosen has apologized for saying Ann Romney “hasn’t worked a day in her life” and said, as a mother, she can appreciate the work involved in being a stay-at-home mom. I have no reason to doubt her sincerity about that particular point — if only because, it seems obvious to me, the work ethic of stay-at-home moms wasn’t her real point. Her real point remains unretracted, and it is also repugnant.

The key part of Rosen’s original point can be found in the lead-up to …

Continue reading What Hilary Rosen didn’t — and won’t — apologize for »