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BREAKING: Ohio Secretary Of State Backs Down, Allows Local Officials To Set Early Voting Hours
By Scott Keyes on Sep 7, 2012 at 2:52 pm
After previously trying to restrict early voting, Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted (R) today reversed course on his decision to block county boards of elections from setting their own early voting hours in the days leading up to the November election.
Last month, Husted and Ohio Republicans led an effort to limit early voting hours in Democratic counties, including those with major cities like Columbus and Cleveland, while expanding early voting in Republican counties. After the ensuing uproar, Husted moved to restrict voting hours across the state, only to have his cuts to early voting restored by a federal court.
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/09/07/814821/jon-husted-backs-down/
‘A staggering shift’ on the politics of foreign policy
By Steve Benen
Fri Sep 7, 2012 12:43 PM EDT.
If you watched the third and final night of the Democratic convention, it was hard to miss the emphasis on foreign policy, national security, military policy, and international affairs. These issues represented more than a fifth of President Obama’s address, and speaker after speaker emphasized Democratic credibility on the subject.
Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), in particular, seemed to be having a terrific time going after Mitt Romney’s foreign policy ignorance, inexperience, and general confusion.
But in the bigger picture, the Democratic message, especially when compared to what Americans heard in Tampa, reinforced what Fred Kaplan called “a staggering shift”: it’s Democrats who’ve become “the dominant foreign-policy party.”
http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2012/09/07/13729999-a-staggering-shift-on-the-politics-of-foreign-policy?lite
GOP hatred of student loans intensifies
By Steve Benen
Fri Sep 7, 2012 11:26 AM EDT.
Rep. Roscoe Bartlett (R) of Maryland was asked this week whether he supports public investments in student loans. His response didn’t go well.
http://youtu.be/VhCvqQOldcg
For those who can’t watch clips online, Bartlett began with a meandering answer, before eventually arguing that he believes it’s unconstitutional for Congress to help students afford college tuition. In fact, the very idea reminded him of Nazis. Seriously.
“Not that it’s not a good idea to give students loans, it certainly is a good idea to give them loans,” the congressman said. “But if you can ignore the Constitution to do something good today, tomorrow you will be ignoring the Constitution to do something bad. You could. There are more people in our, in America today of German ancestry than any other [inaudible]. The Holocaust that occurred in Germany — how in the heck could that happen? And when you start down the wrong road, it can be a very slippery slope.”
…………………………….
The rhetoric used by Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan is far less inflammatory, put their policy agenda is unambiguous: slash Pell Grants, cut college tax credits, and reintroduce the loan-system middleman so that banks are rewarded instead of students. What about young people who can’t afford tuition at the college of their choice? According to the GOP ticket, they should either choose wealthy parents or “shop around” for some other school that charges less, because a Romney/Ryan administration doesn’t intend to help.
http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2012/09/07/13728783-gop-hatred-of-student-loans-intensifies?lite
Posted at 11:59 AM ET, 09/07/2012
Five questions David Gregory should ask Mitt Romney
By Jonathan Bernstein
Mitt Romney is going to be on Meet the Press on Sunday. As I mentioned the other day, what I hope is that he’ll be asked serious policy questions, and not about politics or the campaign. Here are five questions that would be a good start:
1. You’ve pledged tax reform to drop tax rates, protect current tax treatment of investment and certain other income, keep middle class taxes unchanged, and not increase the deficit. Independent analysts say that it just can’t be done, and you have refused to release a detailed plan to show how your math works, so therefore: if the outside experts turn out to be right, which part of this would you give up first? Would you go for somewhat higher rates? Allow middle class taxes to go up? Or allow the deficit to rise? What are your priorities on this?
2. You’ve made it clear you oppose same-sex marriage. Do you believe that the repeal of don’t ask don’t tell has been a success or a failure, and would you re-instate it? Do you support or oppose a law that would make it illegal for private employers to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation?
3. You would repeal Obamacare, which would re-open the donut hole in Medicare drug coverage and therefore raise drug costs for some seniors, and take away free preventative care for those in traditional Medicare. Do you intend to replace those provisions with anything, so seniors are not hit by higher costs? And if so, how would you pay for them?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line
Romney’s Playing Field Narrows
By Jonathan Chait
Mitt Romney’s team announced last night, in the immediate wake of the Democratic convention, that it was unleashing a massive swing-state ad blitz. Since the announcement came well before the lousy jobs report, and even before the mixed reviews for Obama’s speech, it ought to be seen as an attempt to give Republicans a reason for enthusiasm. A closer look suggests more reason for GOP concern.
Romney is targeting eight states: Nevada, Colorado, Iowa, Ohio, Florida, North Carolina, Virginia, and New Hampshire. No Wisconsin, Michigan, or Pennsylvania. This is surely not because Romney is husbanding scarce cash. Campaign aides also told Fox News yesterday that they basically have so much money they have to come up with ways to get it out the door, Brewster’s Millions–style, before election day. (“We have $100 million we’ve just raised. If you look at our burn rate to date and our cash on hand, there’s not much more we can spend on infrastructure. So we’ve got to start spending our general election funds in a big way, because you know what the value of that money is on the day after the election? Zero.”) And it’s probably not because they want outside super-PACs to spend in those states, either — they can’t legally coordinate, and the super-PACs will take their cues from the Romney campaign about where to fight. (The GOP super-PACs have already pulled out of Michigan and Pennsylvania.)
The reason this looks worrisome for Romney is that he’s pursuing an electoral-college strategy that requires him nearly to run the table of competitive states. The states where Romney is not competing (and which aren’t obviously Republican, either) add up to 247 electoral votes. The eight states where Romney is competing add up to a neat 100 electoral votes, of which Romney needs 79 and Obama just 23. If you play with the electoral possibilities, you can see that this would mean Obama could win with Florida alone or Ohio plus a small state or Virginia plus a couple small states, and so on.
http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2012/09/romneys-playing-field-narrows.html
Dish-Heads vs The Pundits
Some reader thoughts on the reaction to Obama’s speech:
I wish that the pundits would watch these speeches with ordinary people. Last night I watched the speech with a gathering of about 50 people, from junior-high age to seniors. Everyone loved the speech. The most important thing for me from his speech was that he was challenging us to be grown ups and offering a vision of a people who are united and proud of the contributions they make to each other. Success is something to be celebrated and shared – not hoarded. We have been treated like children for decades now but especially during the Bush years. We were told that we would be kept safe, didn’t need to sacrifice or join the effort. We should simply go shopping. The current Republican party is pushing a fairy tale agenda of pay as little as possible in taxes, invest nothing in the people and infrastructure, and live happily ever after.
Last night you heard a President tell a nation that they must be tough, work hard, and contribute to something greater than themselves. You heard a President tell us that our founding values and the sacrifices of generations demanded that we be good citizens. You heard a President express his love for his people regardless of party or ideology. As always he has been leading by example and he gave us some insight into the feelings and emotions and some of the actual people who deepen his commitment to and love for our country.
My middle son watched the speech with me and was cheering because he sees in our President a person who is a role model and that gives him hope. He signed up to phone bank. My oldest son texted me to say that the speech was incredible and that he was moved by the way that he brought us back to hope – a mature hope that is grounded in service to others. But the best endorsement of the speech I found on my Facebook newsfeed after. It was a post by a former student of mine who wrote that she has never been interested in politics or voting before but that after watching the speech she couldn’t wait to vote and to do her part as a citizen. I got tears in my eyes when I read that.
And then there is his family. Well they are beautiful – not just physically but in the way they love and enjoy each other. Yes he has family values – the real values that are based in love and respect and self sacrifice. You can tell that he puts his family first. He challenged all of us to view our nation as family and to put it first before our own desires. That this message and example of adult love and responsibility is inspiring to so many of us gives me hope.
http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2012/09/america-isnt-a-fairy-tale.html
The Twitterati have spoken!
The Internet has a lot of feelings about President Obama. So many, in fact, that its citizens set a new record last night: Twitter reports that about 52,756 Tweets per minute were written about Obama’s convention speech just after its conclusion. That’s a record for a political event, Twitter spokesperson Elaine Filadelfo told Politico. Mitt Romney’s convention speech, by contrast, drove 14,289 tweets per minute at its peak.
All in all, users sent over 9.5 million tweets about the DNC, crushing the 4 million tweets written about the RNC. Twitter users wrote 4 million messages about the Democratic convention on Day 3 alone. Thanks a lot, #sexyface!
http://thepoliticalcarnival.net/
Obama’s Message Breaks Through In Swing State Newspapers
An emphasis on the path forward. Lukewarm reception to his speech from pundits doesn’t make the headlines.
http://www.buzzfeed.com/andrewkaczynski/obamas-message-breaks-through-in-swing-state-news
Why Michelle Obama resonates with America
Opinion
by Joy-Ann Reid | September 5, 2012 at 5:23 PM
Michelle Obama’s speech on the opening night of the Democratic convention was a seminal moment in her time as first lady, but it was not the first time the wife of the first black president of the United States proved why she is such an asset to him.
Mrs. Obama is in many respects the idyllic modern first lady — smart and accomplished in her own right (before he became a United States Senator, Michelle made more money than her husband), but with an easy glamor that pops off the small screen. (I’m sure news anchors across America never thought they’d be wearing sleeveless, but thanks to Michelle, it’s a fashion staple for women of all ages.)
For black women in particular, Mrs. Obama is an object of particular pride; someone you never dreamed you’d see living in the White House, but who makes it look so effortless, you wonder why it took so long. Still, her fundamental appeal goes well beyond race. As one approving viewer stated on Twitter after the speech: “I want to go hang out with the Obama’s [sic] at their house and play Scrabble!”
And therein lies Michelle Obama’s secret: that while filling the ceremonial role of first lady, and the confidante of the nation’s commander in chief, she manages to also be the prototypical woman next door. No matter what the age, race or political affect of the listener, hearing Michelle Obama is like listening to a sister, a friend, a coworker, or a fellow mom at the PTA. She just sounds like someone you know.
http://thegrio.com/2012/09/05/why-michelle-obama-resonates-with-black-america/#48908998
DNC vs. RNC: A tale of two 2012 conventions
Opinion
by Joy-Ann Reid | September 7, 2012 at 1:58 PM
Republicans and Democrats have wrapped their presidential nominating conventions, and they couldn’t have been more different.
From the staging to the messaging, and even the entertainment, the Democrats and Republicans put on display two very different visions of America. In fact, the one thing the two confabs had in common was that both were focused squarely on President Barack Obama.
One of the conventions was animated by anti-Obama fervor, and an almost angry rallying cry to turn him out of the White House at all costs. The other was more festive, and the delegates were united around Obama, and his call to keep the country moving forward, even if the pace of change is slower than everyone, including the president and his administration, hoped.
At the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Florida last week, speaker after speaker lambasted the president over the state of the economy and jobs. They excoriated him as unprepared, incapable and clueless when it comes to job creation. They drew roars of approval from the crowd every time they derided the evils of “Obamacare.” There were no specifics as to what Republicans would do differently — pointedly, no mention of vouchers replacing Medicare. And positive statements about their candidate drew only muted applause.
In many ways, Mitt Romney, the Republican nominee, was an afterthought. He was the primary subject of one gauzy video presentation (an actually well crafted piece about his family) and just a handful of speeches — a few by parishioners of his Mormon church, talking about times Romney has helped others, a speech defending Bain Capital, which was at least tangentially about Mitt, and the opening night speech by Romney’s wife Ann, during which she repeatedly lauded “that boy who brought me home from the school dance.”
http://thegrio.com/2012/09/07/dnc-vs-rnc-a-tale-of-two-conventions/
Tavares police officer under investigation for Facebook comment about presidential assassins
http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2012-09-07/news/os-tavares-officer-obama-threat-20120907_1_internal-investigation-tavares-police-officer-road-patrol-officer
A Tavares road patrol officer will be placed under investigation after apparently posting a Facebook comment suggesting that presidential assassins be present when President Barack Obama was giving his acceptance speech for the Democratic nomination for president.
Police Chief Stoney Lubins said the department received an email last night about officer Sarah Coursey’s Facebook comment.
The comment was posted about 10 p.m. about the same time President Obama was giving his live acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention.
********************
A police officer suggesting that presidential assassins be present when President Barack Obama was giving his acceptance speech? She needs to be off that police force ASAP! Lock her a** up.
The American Jobs Act — One Year Later
By Steve Benen
Fri Sep 7, 2012 9:18 AM EDT.
On September 8, 2011 — exactly one year ago tomorrow — President Obama delivered an important speech to a joint session of Congress. In it, the president unveiled a proposal he called the American Jobs Act.
You may recall the economic circumstances at the time, and how similar they are to 2012 — though job growth looked strong in the early months of the year, the summer proved disappointing. Obama sought to shift the national conversation away from austerity and towards job creation, and presented a sensible plan, filled with ideas that have traditionally enjoyed bipartisan support.
Independent analysis projected the American Jobs Act, which was fully paid for, could create as many as 2 million jobs in 2012.
I mention this now because what happened a year ago is incredibly relevant to what’s happening now. This morning’s jobs report was disappointing, and we know exactly how the political world will digest the news — if the job market is underperforming, it’s Obama who’ll get the blame.
http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2012/09/07/13726783-the-american-jobs-act-one-year-later?lite
Five lines that killed at the DNC
By Allison Brennan, CNN
updated 7:47 AM EDT, Fri September 7, 2012
While Night 3 of the Democratic National Convention didn’t disappoint, it did surprise — Vice President Joe Biden didn’t go off-script. Sen. John Kerry brought the house down by turning the tables on Republicans. And who saw former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm’s fiery address coming?
Here are five of the best lines from Night 3:
1. “Have a surplus? Try a tax cut.”
“Deficit too high? Try another.”
Kerry accuses Romney of flip-flopping
Watch Gabby Giffords lead Pledge at DNC
“Feel a cold coming on? Take two tax cuts, roll back some regulations, and call us in the morning!”
— President Barack Obama’s analogy for the Republican economic policies of the last 30 years, that he says don’t work.
Obama: election a choice between ‘fundamentally different visions’
2. “I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America…”
— Former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords as she led the Pledge of Allegiance at the beginning of the last night of the DNC. Giffords was critically injured after she was shot in the head in January 2011 when a gunman opened fire at a constituent meet-and-greet in Tucson, Arizona.
Gabby Giffords makes emotional appearance at DNC
3. “Ask Osama bin Laden if he is better off now than he was four years ago.”
— U.S. Senator and former Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry playing off the question posed at the Republican National Convention last week.
4. “He loves our cars so much, they have their own elevator… In Romney’s world, the cars get the elevator, the workers get the shaft.”
— Jennifer Granholm, the former Gov. of Michigan and television host on Current TV, on Mitt Romney’s Op-Ed in the New York Times, “Let Detroit go Bankrupt.”
5. “President Mitt Romney”—three hypothetical words that mystified and alienated our allies this summer. For Mitt Romney, an overseas trip is what you call it when you trip all over yourself overseas. It wasn’t a goodwill mission—it was a blooper reel.”
— John Kerry on the gaffes that plagued Mitt Romney’s trip to the London Olympics, Poland and Israel.
http://www.cnn.com/2012/09/07/politics/five-lines-that-killed/index.html
The GOP Must Adapt or Die
by BooMan
Fri Sep 7th, 2012 at 10:49:25 AM EST
It’s extremely rare that I agree with Mark Halperin about anything, but I think his take on the conventions in Tampa and Charlotte is totally accurate. The Democrats out-organized and outperformed the Republicans by a very wide margin. Their speakers were so strong that the president gave no better than the fourth best speech in Charlotte. His speech was probably the third best of those delivered last night, after Joe Biden and John Kerry. Bill Clinton and Michelle Obama both gave much better performances than the president. It’s not that his speech was bad, though. It was ten or twenty times better than Mitt Romney’s forgettable performance. The Dems just have a lot more talent than the Republicans. And we didn’t even employ Hillary Clinton, who is traveling abroad and doing her job.
Nate Silver now gives the president a better than 77% chance of being reelected, although that number will come down dramatically if the Democrats don’t show any bounce from the convention in the polls.
I share Markos’s confusion about Mitt Romney’s advertising strategy. By giving up in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin, he appears to be resigned to a strategy than calls for winning every swing state. It’s only early September and Romney has settled on a strategy that cannot conceivably deliver more than 291 Electoral Votes.
I want you to think about that, because it has more significance that just for this election. Romney has outright ceded 247 Electoral Votes to Obama. To give you an idea what this means, if Romney loses Florida, he loses. If he loses Ohio and New Hampshire, it’s a 269-269 tie. If he loses Ohio and Iowa, he loses. If he loses Virginia, Iowa, and New Hampshire, he loses.
Going forward, the Republicans are not going to see an improved map. Virginia, Colorado, Nevada, and North Carolina are all going to continue moving away from them. I don’t think Florida will remain a swing-state much longer. The modern GOP is just barely plausible as a national party that can win the White House right now. And, if they don’t make some major changes in their messaging and even their beliefs, they won’t even have a case to make to donors that they have any chance of winning whatsoever by 2020 at the latest.
http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2012/9/7/104925/2184
Where’d the time go? Obama girls now young women
by Associated Press
Posted on September 7, 2012 at 5:33 AM
NEW YORK (AP) — Who were those willowy young women with Barack and Michelle Obama — and where’d they hide little Sasha and Malia?
Four years is a long time when it’s a half or a third of your life, and so TV viewers who hadn’t seen the Obama girls much since 2008 might have been truly startled at just how much they’d grown when they appeared onstage with their father Thursday night.
After all, Malia Obama, now 14, who started (gasp!) high school this week, was just about as tall as her already tall parents.
Relaxed and composed, in a French blue sleeveless dress, Malia laughed with her father onstage after his remarks, and earlier sat and applauded with her mom and her sister, Sasha, dressed in a black-and-white checked frock. (Now 11, Sasha hardly fits in her parents’ laps anymore, and even resists a cuddle, the couple ruefully told People in an interview last month.)
There was one sign, though, that the girls were still kids: “Yes, you do have to go to school in the morning,” their dad warned them at the beginning of his speech.
What struck one former White House aide was the ease and comfort with which the girls were inhabiting their public roles.
“Their smiles were genuine and huge tonight,” said Anita McBride, a former chief of staff to Laura Bush, as well as an assistant to her husband. “There was no awkwardness. They clearly have adjusted to their life in the public eye.” McBride said she was also stunned by how poised and grownup the girls looked.
http://www.wcnc.com/news/politics/Whered-the-time-go-Obama-girls-now-young-women-168887956.html
Michelle said she had seen BO tested in ways she could not have imagined. Bill said he’d not seen such hatred as that toward BO.
Posted at 08:07 PM ET, 09/06/2012 TheWashingtonPost
Joe Biden: America is not a corporation
By Greg Sargent
I thought Joe Biden’s speech got off to a slow start. During the sections where Biden attested to the character he saw present in Barack Obama’s decision-making from his vantage point inside the White House, he said too little about what, specifically, that decision-making produced for the American people.
However, he did make a good case on behalf of Obama’s character during his discussion of the auto-bailout, and in the process, he took direct aim at Mitt Romney’s whole rational for running for president:
The Obama campaign has obviously been attacking Romney’s Bain tenure for months, focusing on layoffs and offshoring. But one case that hasn’t been spelled out as clearly as it might have been is that running a corporation doesn’t necessarily have all that much in common with running a country. The Romney campaign’s “Mad Men” are apparently reading a huge ad offensive designed to tout his experience and readiness for the presidency, and judging from polls that show Romney either tied with Obama or leading him on the economy, Americans are prepared to accept the premise that his business experience has left him with the skill set necessary to turn around the fortunes of a country. The Obama campaign will need a good rebuttal — one focused on undermining the very premise of Romney’s whole argument, that his corporate experience has prepared him for the presidency.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/post/joe-biden-the-bain-way-is-not-the-american-way/2012/09/06/1f9dbbae-f88e-11e1-8398-0327ab83ab91_blog.html
Posted at 02:59 AM ET, 09/07/2012
Obama’s speech about morality and America’s future
By Greg Sargent
On Tuesday, Michelle Obama talked about who Barack Obama is and where he came from. On Wednesday, Bill Clinton talked about where the country and the economy have been and how we struggled to get to where we are now. As Chuck Schumer put it earlier today, those two performances teed up Barack Obama to devote tonight’s speech to talking about the future.
In a bit of a surprise, Obama’s speech — which had little in the way of soaring rhetoric and stuck to a direct and sometimes pleading tone — spent little time defending his economic record. That task has already been handled ably by Clinton, and Obama wanted the focus to be on a far broader range of issues. The centerpiece of the speech was the idea of “citizenship” and shared responsibility — a gamble that voters will not cast their vote on the current economy alone but on which candidate is offering a more compelling moral vision of America’s true identity and future.
The “choice” refrain was presented through the prism of specific issues. You can choose between more tax breaks for companies that send jobs overseas or rewarding companies that create jobs in America. You can choose between policies that are raising fuel standards to maximize efficiency and are increasing the use of renewable energy, or you can choose a course that “reverses this progress.” You can choose between more investment in education or more crowded classrooms for kids, students dropping out of college, and a shortage of properly skilled workers.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line
September 06, 2012
DemCon III
Oh geez I loved the reference to Roosevelt. There couldn’t be a more fitting comparison. Clinton introduced this theme last night; I think there’s gold in it. Rebuilding from the pit of the Great Depression was no unified picnic, as many Americans seem to otherwise misremember it, but a certain romance has emerged around it which happens to be politically priceless.
These reminders of accomplishments are essential: corrections of the missed “hope and change” mantra from the Romney-Ryan-Palinites. And the corrections start with a refresher course on the horrors of neoconservatism–and a wonderful line: Romney is “new” to foreign policy.
My first criticsm. Obama said no party has a monopoly on wisdom. But when there are only two parties, and one of them is the modern Republican Party, that statement is just patently untrue.
When a president of the United States must remind the electorate of a thing called “citizenship,” well, see above. It’s simply downright bizarre that though many contemporary American historians frame their analyses around the founding concept of “republicanism,” the eponymous political party hasn’t a clue as to its meaning or importance.
Obama’s call to reject “cynicism” is both Rooseveltian and “republican”–a brilliant maneuver that necessarily calls for participation in the process. This is a theme as old as the ancient Greeks, yet it never seems to entirely sink in.
http://pmcarpenter.blogs.com/p_m_carpenters_commentary/2012/09/demcon-iii.html
Let the Bullies Whine
by BooMan
Fri Sep 7th, 2012 at 07:58:47 AM EST
I’d like to second this, from Bob Cesca:
You know who shouldn’t be lecturing the Democrats about civility? The people who gave us swift-boating, the Southern Strategy, the outing of Valerie Plame, Birthers, Reverend Wright videos around the clock, “Obama pals around with domestic terrorists,” the exploitation of 9/11, comparing a triple amputee Vietnam veteran to Saddam Hussein, the booing of a gay soldier, and the party that sported Purple Heart band-aids at the 2004 convention to mock another decorated Vietnam veteran, John Kerry, who was wounded in combat. And no one on the floor of the Democratic convention hurled peanuts at an African American camerawomen, shouting, “This is how we feed the animals.”
What you are seeing this morning is how bullies react when they are confronted.
http://www.boomantribune.com/
With Hope as His Weapon President Obama Completely Destroys Mitt Romney
Barack Obama took the stage and portrayed America’s choice as between a president with a hopeful vision, and a bumbling, blundering tax cutting fool who offers nothing but darkness and despair.[….]
President Obama offered a vision of hope for America’s future, “Because we understand that this democracy is ours. We, the People, recognize that we have responsibilities as well as rights; that our destinies are bound together; that a freedom which only asks what’s in it for me, a freedom without a commitment to others, a freedom without love or charity or duty or patriotism, is unworthy of our founding ideals, and those who died in their defense. As citizens, we understand that America is not about what can be done for us. It’s about what can be done by us, together, through the hard and frustrating but necessary work of self-government. So you see, the election four years ago wasn’t about me. It was about you. My fellow citizens – you were the change.”
Obama reassured the American people that they still hold the power to build a better America, “If you turn away now – if you buy into the cynicism that the change we fought for isn’t possible…well, change will not happen. If you give up on the idea that your voice can make a difference, then other voices will fill the void: lobbyists and special interests; the people with the $10 million checks who are trying to buy this election and those who are making it harder for you to vote; Washington politicians who want to decide who you can marry, or control health care choices that women should make for themselves. Only you can make sure that doesn’t happen. Only you have the power to move us forward.”[….]
http://www.politicususa.com/hope-weapon-president-obama-completely-destroys-mitt-romney.html
North Carolina all tied up
September 2, 2012
Raleigh, N.C.– PPP’s pre-Democratic convention North Carolina poll finds the Presidential race in the state all tied up: Barack Obama and Mitt Romney are each at 48%. (snip)
“North Carolina looks like a sheer toss up heading into the Democratic convention,” said Dean Debnam, President of Public Policy Polling. “If the Democrats have a successful week in Charlotte, Barack Obama will have a very good chance at carrying the state again like he did in 2008.”
http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/pdf/2011/PPP_Release_NC_903.pdf
‘The clearest choice of any time in a generation’
By Steve Benen
Fri Sep 7, 2012 8:00 AM EDT.
When President Obama is set to deliver a major speech for a national audience, he faces the unfortunate hurdle of high expectations. Americans have come to expect every speech to soar with inspirational rhetoric, leaving supporters — and maybe even a few detractors — with goose bumps.
By this standard, I’ve seen many suggest Obama’s convention address fell short last night, because the speech didn’t manage to levitate him, his audience, and the arena. But what I saw was something else — this Obama, compared to the one from four years ago, is a little older, a little grayer, and a little wiser. He’s now less lofty and more grounded, less youthful and more mature.
In Charlotte last night, we didn’t see a candidate; we saw a president.
One of the keys to the speech was establishing the presidential campaign as a race of wildly different visions. For much of the year, the Republicans’ goal was to simply make 2012 a referendum on the incumbent — if you’re not satisfied with the status quo, vote for the challenger, no matter who he is or what he’s offering.
Obama sought to put that to rest once and for all — he used the word “choice” or “choose” literally 20 times — telling the audience the truth: “[W]hen all is said and done, when you pick up that ballot to vote, you will face the clearest choice of any time in a generation. Over the next few years, big decisions will be made in Washington, on jobs, the economy; taxes and deficits; energy, education; war and peace, decisions that will have a huge impact on our lives and our children’s lives for decades to come. And on every issue, the choice you face won’t be just between two candidates or two parties. It will be a choice between two different paths for America.”
http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2012/09/07/13725495-the-clearest-choice-of-any-time-in-a-generation?lite
Tweet of the night: @JoeNBC: Game. Set. Match. Democrats crush Republicans in convention wars. http://bit.ly/OUp9Gj
Bonus tweet of the night: @gov: A new record political moment on Twitter: @barackobama drives 52,757 Tweets per minute. Over 9 million Tweets sent about #DNC2012.http://bit.ly/RHE1ud
President Obama talk Hightlights:
President Obama Let’s Cut In Half the Growth of Tuition Costs Over the Next Ten Years:
http://bit.ly/QgsJyh
President Obama: We Can Control More Of Our Own Energy And Reduce Carbon Pollution:
http://bit.ly/Nfsa5R
President Obama: Reducing our Deficit without wrecking our Middle Class
http://bit.ly/P6fRZJ
President Obama: Climate Change is not a hoax
http://bit.ly/RgV6vU
Highlights from President Barack Obama’s remarks:
President Obama: Our Path is Harder But It Leads to a Better Place:
http://bit.ly/Q8oLDM
President Obama: We Can Create A Million New Manufacturing Jobs In The Next Four Years:
http://bit.ly/OZtqGS
President Obama: We Reinvented A Dying Auto Industry That’s Back On Top Of The World:
http://bit.ly/TpiW9N
The U.S. economy added 96,000 jobs in August, down from 141,000 in July, the Labor Department said today.
The report is well below forecast and another sign of a fragile economic recovery. Economists polled by CNNMoney were expecting 120,000 jobs to be added.
Economists say at least 150,000 jobs must be created each month simply to keep pace with the growing population.
Meanwhile, the unemployment rate fell to 8.1% from 8.3%.
A Tale of Two Conventions
The nation is deeply divided, but the gatherings in Charlotte and Tampa show how starkly dissimilar the Democratic and Republican visions of the American experience are.
—By David Corn | Thu Sep. 6, 2012 3:00 AM PDT
Not too far from the Time Warner Cable Arena in Charlotte, a local art gallery is featuring an exhibit called “Divided State of America,” but it’s not necessary to trek to this space to contemplate the deep divisions within the nation. You need only spend a few nanoseconds at the Democratic presidential convention, after experiencing a week at the Republican gathering in Tampa, to realize you have left one reality for a much different one. And this goes far beyond policy positions and political stances.
a brief guide:
The people. It’s rather obvious: Planet Democrat is inhabited by people of different colors; Planet Republican is monochromatic. This stark contrast has long existed and is not a surprise. (One recent poll showed Mitt Romney with zero—yes, zero—support among African Americans.) Yet shifting from Tampa to Charlotte is not unlike the moment in The Wizard of Oz when black-and-white gives way to the full spectrum. In Tampa, it seemed there were more black and Latino Americans on the stage than among the audience of thousands of white people. The streets of downtown Charlotte—which, for some reason, is called “uptown”—are overflowing with diversity.
read on
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/09/comparing-republican-democratic-conventions-tampa-charlotte
Been on the road for a bit. we stopped for sleep and are ready to take the home stretch.
I’ll post the goods when GET HOME!
On Fri, Sep 7, 2012 at 1:14 AM, 3CHICSPOLITICO
Good Morning, Everyone :)
THANK YOU AMETIA, for all you’ve done this week from Charlotte!!
You’re welcome! We’ve got soooo many great shots from inside the arena last night. When I get home, I will upload & post.