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Politics : American Presidential Politics and foreign affairs -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Farmboy who wrote (57353)	10/19/2012 10:43:44 AM
From: Peter Dierks	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 71588

The future of this nation hinges on which party Latinos end up supporting. If they become a wholly owned subsidiary of the democrat party then Republicans will struggle to win enough elections to make any difference. If Latinos align with Republicans democrats will struggle to remain relevant. Cuban Latinos are almost monolithically Republican. Mexican Latinos seems to align more with democrats. On the basis of religion one would expect both Latinos and African Americans to align with Republicans. For that matter one would expect African Americans to align with Republicans for multiple reasons including the voting rights act and others going back to Abe Lincoln. Seniors still vote more for democrats than Republicans even though their best interests are much more closely aligned with Republicans.

To: Farmboy who wrote (57353)	10/20/2012 12:40:20 AM
From: greatplains_guy	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 71588

Obama Campaign Looks Increasingly Worried Obama emphasis on “Binders” best sign yet for Romney Philip Klein October 18, 2012 \| 6:50 pm Thursday brought a lot of good news for Mitt Romney’s campaign. National polls continue to move in his direction, with poll results starting to take into account the first day of polling after Tuesday night’s debate (though obviously we’ll need several more days of polling to see how the event affected the race). In Ohio, which could determine the outcome of the election, CNN reports that Republicans are significantly improving in early voting from four years ago, a key to winning the state. And the Romney campaign is so confident of victory in North Carolina (which Obama won last time) that it’s starting to pull staff out of the state. But the best sign for Romney may have actually been the the Obama campaign’s decision to make the main takeaway Tuesday’s debate Romney’s comment that he received “binders full of women” when he was trying to hire females to top positions as governor of Massachusetts. In the past two days, liberals have seized on the remarks and Obama has made the comment a part of his stump speech. “I don’t know if you were listening last night, but, see, we don’t have to order up some binders to find qualified, talented, driven young women to learn and teach and thrive and start businesses,” he said in Athens, Ohio on Wednesday. In Manchester, New Hampshire earlier today he said, “See, we don’t have to order up some binders to find qualified, talented, driven young women who can learn and excel in these fields right now.” The fact that Obama is making an issue of this suggests to me that his campaign is increasingly worried about signs that Romney is closing the gender gap, which would mean lights out for his reelection given Romney’s advantages among male voters. It’s hard to see what argument Obama is advancing here, however. The attack isn’t even that Romney didn’t hire enough women as governor. It’s that he had to consult a binder prepared by a women’s group to find more female candidates when he wanted to hire more women. Is the suggestion that if he cared about women more he would have just hired his friends and associates rather than draw from a wider applicant pool? In 2008, Obama was praised by his admirers for campaigning above the fray, for avoiding the temptation to score cheap points in the daily news cycle and instead focus on the big picture. When he all but sewed up the Democratic nomination after winning the North Carolina primary in May 2008, he said his win showed, “it’s possible to overcome the politics of division and distraction; that it’s possible to overcome the same old negative attacks that are always about scoring points and never about solving our problems.” Yet as the campaign enters its final serious stages, Obama is increasingly focusing on small things, like Romney’s mention of “Big Bird” and now this. This is typically the type of thing that you witness with losing campaigns — see, for instance, the hopes on the right in 2008 that Obama’s “spread the wealth around” comments to “Joe the Plumber” would show Americans the true Obama and thus provide a boost to John McCain. To be sure, polls in many states still suggest Romney has to make up ground in the final weeks to score an electoral victory over Obama and perhaps as more data come in post-debate, the momentum will shift back in Obama’s direction. But if Obama is going to lose this election, this is sort of what you’d expect the final stages of his campaign to look like. washingtonexaminer.com

To: Farmboy who wrote (57353)	10/26/2012 9:09:58 AM
From: Peter Dierks	1 Recommendation Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 71588

Obama's Second-Term Plan Is Nothing But A Stage Prop Fri, Oct 26 2012 00:00:00 E A14_ISSUES Election 2012: Anyone wondering why President Obama waited to reveal his second-term agenda should read his "plan." It's nothing but a stage prop full of recycled policies, failed ideas and stuff he ignored in his first term. Even crediting Obama with putting forth a new plan is being too generous. All he really did was scrape together the handful of proposals he'd put up on his campaign website and add some nice photos and pretty graphics. But since he's waving around his 20-page, seven-point (two more than Romney's!) plan at every campaign stop and acting like it's a credible strategy to create jobs, we feel it deserves a careful reading. Here's what we found. • No credible tax reform plans. Obama says he'll create a million manufacturing jobs in four years, first by reforming the corporate tax code. We're all for cutting the corporate tax rate and simplifying the code, but Obama had the chance to make this happen in his first term, after his own Economic Recovery Advisory Board urged such reforms back in August 2010. Instead, he waited until February 2012 to put out a sketchy tax reform "framework." And even that ignored many of the board's recommendations. Obama also says he'll eliminate "tax deductions for companies shipping jobs overseas and use the savings to create new a tax credit for companies that bring jobs home." This is precisely what Sen. John Kerry proposed when he ran for president in 2004. In fact, Kerry's economic adviser, Gene Sperling — who now heads Obama's National Economic Council — used the same language back then, saying Kerry was committed to "eliminating tax incentives to move jobs overseas and using those funds to create incentives for new jobs and investment in the United States." The problem is that whenever anyone looks into this, they come to the same conclusion: There's nothing there. A FactCheck.org report on Kerry's plan in 2004 said off-shoring was "a minor problem that Kerry's plan wouldn't do much to fix." This year the same group pointed out that "there is no specific tax break for the sole purpose of relocating a U.S. job to another country." • Nothing for small businesses. Obama proposes cutting taxes on small business who hire new workers or increase wages. But this idea has already been tried and repeatedly found wanting. A 2010 Congressional Research Service report concluded that these kinds of tax breaks haven't been "as effective in increasing employment as desired." Obama also says he will expand the small business health insurance tax break included in ObamaCare. The problem is, this temporary credit has already been a massive failure, attracting just 170,000 small firms where Obama had predicted up to 4 million. • Bogus deficit cuts. Obama says he has a "balanced" plan to cut the projected 10-year deficit by $4 trillion, using $2.50 in spending cuts for every $1 in tax hikes. But Obama's own budget, released in February 2012, proves his plan would do nothing of the sort. That document shows Obama would shave just $2 trillion off the projected $8.7 trillion in deficits, and would do so almost entirely through tax hikes, with $20 in new revenue for every $1 in spending cuts. • More failed energy policies. Obama's new energy plan is little changed from his old one — more "clean energy," more investment in "high-tech" batteries, more money spent on wind and solar, onerous fuel economy rules for cars, and a mandate that a certain percentage of electric power come from renewable energy. But those policies resulted in tens of billions of tax dollars wasted on failed companies and higher energy prices. The only thing new in Obama's energy proposals is that he's now hiding his massively expensive commitment to cut greenhouse gas emissions. • Phony education reforms. Four years ago, Obama promised to make college tuition more affordable and community college "completely free." But even with all the federal grant money and tax breaks Obama's piled on, net college costs climbed 14% in the past four years, and community college costs are basically unchanged. Now Obama says he'll cut college tuition growth rates in half, but hasn't offered any realistic way to do so. Obama's other big idea is to hire 100,000 math and science teachers. But when Democrats tried to get this done last year, they couldn't even get a bill to the floor of either the House or Senate. • ObamaCare, seriously? The fact that Obama felt the need to include ObamaCare in his seven-point plan for the future shows just how bereft he is of new ideas. • No entitlement reforms. And, finally, Obama's Medicare and Social Security reform ideas can be summed up in three words: Just say no. Obama promises only to block Rep. Paul Ryan's Medicare reform idea and fight against any plan that would let today's young workers invest Social Security taxes in private investment accounts. But he has no plans of his own to save either program from bankruptcy. Obama might think that brandishing a shiny document and talking vaguely about "Moving America Forward" and "The New Economic Patriotism" will be enough to keep voters in his camp, just as "Hope and Change" did four years ago. We suspect there are a lot of voters out there who don't want to be fooled again. news.investors.com