The White House confirmed Wednesday morning that President Obama will announce a recess appointment for Richard Cordray to run the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau at a speech in Ohio later today. Cordray was a well-liked Ohio Attorney General until last year, after he was toppled by the GOP midterm wave in 2010. Cordray’s an accidental…
Category: Election 2012
Team Obama Sketches Out Path To 270
In a video to supporters Thursday, Obama 2012 campaign manager Jim Messina made public the many paths to 270 electoral votes he sketched out for reporters last month. The major highlights: Messina says the campaign is working with more than 40 pathways to victory next year, including strategies that run through Florida and the Midwest…
The GOP’s health-care problem
On Saturday, David Fahrenthold wrote that “more than a year after Republicans first pledged to ‘repeal and replace’ President Obama’s new health-care law, the GOP is still struggling to answer a basic question. Replace it . . . with what?”This shouldn’t be such a problem. Health care is a big issue. It’s been around a long time….
93-Year-Old Tennessee Woman Who Cleaned State Capitol For 30 Years Denied Voter ID
A 93-year-old Tennessee woman who cleaned the state Capitol for 30 years, including the governor’s office, says she won’t be able to vote for the first time in decades after being told this week that her old state ID failed to meet new voter ID regulations. Thelma Mitchell was even accused of being an undocumented…
New Poll Suggests Latino Voters See ‘Hostile’ GOP
The survey of 500 Latino registered voters found that Hispanics continue to lean toward President Obama and other Democratic candidates, and that they feel alienated by Republicans because of their general support for tougher immigration enforcement instead of a path to legal status. Forty-six percent of Latino voters said Republicans “don’t care too much” about…
Romney Confronted By Gay Vietnam Vet On Same-Sex Marriage Stance
Politicians and journalists always run a risk when they judge a voter strictly on on appearances. There was a reminder of that Monday when Mitt Romney was forced to defend his opposition to gay marriage during a restaurant encounter with a grizzled Vietnam veteran who happened to be gay. As it turned out the vet,…
The Arizona Immigration Bill Seems To Have Created A New Swing State
The rumors are true, Rep. Chad Campbell, the Democratic leader of the Arizona state House, told TPM Wednesday: the state best known for Sheriff Joe Arpaio and the toughest immigration law in the land really is a swing state in 2012. And Democrats have SB 1070 to thank for it. “I’d hesitate to say it…
Taking Attendance With Elizabeth Warren
Is consumer advocate and Harvard professor Elizabeth Warren the biggest rock star candidate in the 2012 Senate races? Judging by the turnout at her campaign events, the answer so far, is yes. Warren has been slammed by Republicans as the hand-picked candidate of the national Democrats and a carpetbagger from Oklahoma. But a glance at…
VIDEO: Debunking The Right-Wing Meme That The Obama Administration Is Anti-Business
From GOP presidential contender Mitt Romney and Tea Party Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) to Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reilly, a general consensus has emerged that the Obama administration is “anti-business.” Yet any actual evidence of an effect from this putative bias has failed to materialize. ThinkProgress has compiled a video report. Watch it: via VIDEO:…
Week in Review | Video Summary | Nov. 2011 Week 1 | TRP
A year out from the presidential election of 2012, here is a sampling of the video stories in the news the past week. We’ve got PBS on the generational impacts on the election, Chris Matthews on the election and his new book, some polling data and a few words from our President, corporate tax rates,…
As Obama Vents, His Poll Numbers Get A Bump
That rise coincides with the presidents monthlong nationwide campaign pressing Congress to pass his stalled jobs bill. His latest stop in that effort was in Washington on Wednesday, and it came on the eve of a vote in which Senate Republicans are expected to block a key part of his jobs bill. As…
South Carolina Voter ID Law: Yep, Pretty Discriminating
Under South Carolina’s new law, passed in August, prospective voters must present either a valid driver’s license or ID card, military ID, or passport. Absent of any of those, people may still cast absentee or provisional ballots. But, under the state’s new law, these ballot-casters must eventually produce a valid ID. And though…
GOP Contenders Hold ‘Raucous’ Debate In Vegas
The reviews are in about last night’s CNN Republican presidential debate in Las Vegas and the consensus seems to be that it was a slugfest in Sin City: — “The near-weekly ritual of Republican presidential debates took a raucous turn Tuesday night as the unsettled field of candidates ganged up on one another…
GOP Voters In Arizona Grade The Candidates’ Debate : NPR
Eight Republican voters — six of them undecided — gathered at NPR’s request to watch the televised GOP presidential debate Tuesday night. NPR’s Ted Robbins watched with them in Saddlebrooke, Ariz., a retirement community northwest of Tucson, and asked them to share their thoughts. I thought I might be imposing on Dick and Peg Alford…
How Democrats can use Occupy protests to their advantage
Republicans initially overreacted, as if Karl Marx had risen from the grave. Mitt Romney was so flustered that he almost mussed his hair. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, surveying the small protest encampments in New York and other cities, called them “growing mobs” that threatened public order. Within a week, however, Cantor was backing away…
Billionaire Investor Warren Buffett Would Pay No Income Tax Under Cain’s 999 Plan
Republicans have met the Buffett rule with universal derision, calling it “class warfare.” “If it’s not class warfare, it’s highway robbery,” said 2012 GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain. “Pick my pockets, because that’s what he’s doing!” As it turns out, Cain’s much-touted 999 tax plan would basically do the opposite of the Buffett…
Blacks reject Cain for good reason
Cain evinces no recognition of the Founding Fathers’ role in erecting a cruel pigmentocracy that continues to poison virtually every aspect of American political, social and cultural life. This is not an abstruse or academic matter. The president nominates federal judges. An important theory of constitutional interpretation vying for ascendancy is originalism: the…
President Obama: “There doesn’t seem to be much listening going on in Washington these days.”
Railing against Republicans, President Barack Obama on Monday pushed for a jobs package that Congress is splintering into pieces, with Senate Democrats planning to start with a plan to help states hire teachers, police and firefighters. In campaign mode on the road, Obama accused Republicans senators of saying no to helping Americans. via…
Republican field for 2012 is pathetic
Thus far the Republican field of 2012 is a Democratic dream come true. This crop of candidates is not just weak, it is a joke. Now you are saying, “There goes that crazy Cajun again calling the opposition a joke.” I can hear the men in wool sport coats with suede elbow patches…
GOP Presidential Contender Herman Cain Takes Lead In Second Poll
“Fueled by Tea Party supporters, conservatives and high-interest GOP primary voters, former Godfather’s Pizza CEO Herman Cain now leads the race for the Republican presidential nomination, according to the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll,” NBC News deputy political director Mark Murry reports. He says that: “Cain checks in as the first choice of 27…