Mitt Romney is a man on the move these days. He’s written a new book and he wants to tell America all about it. 
It’s called “No Apology-The Case for American Greatness” and he’s taking it to 49 cities. He is currently dodging the question of whether he will run again for the Republican presidential nomination, saying he will make up his mind at the end of the year, after helping Republican candidates in the November congressional elections.
But after listening to him at the National Press Club on Friday, it’s hard to see how the Republican Romney doesn’t run in 2012.
He’s reviewed President Barack Obama’s first year in office and has found it wanting. Obama, he said, has apologized for American actions around the world, placating the “blame America crowd,” and is pushing a liberal agenda that will lead to higher taxes and more deficit spending.
“I’m afraid that if we don’t change course, we could become America’s worst generation,” he said in regards to the deficits.
Romney also gave us a little info on his reading list — Jared Diamond’s “Guns, Germs and Steel” and “Wealth and Poverty of Nations” by David Landes.
Congressman Eric Massa (you would be forgiven for asking who?) posted on his web site one of the more “interesting” public resignation letters seen from a government official in some time.
The first-term Democrat from upstate New York starts by talking about a CAT scan that may or may not show scar tissue. In the next breath of his “open letter,” Massa mentions an ethics complaint in which a male staff member had felt “uncomfortable” due to statements made by the congressman.
Massa readily agrees that the ethics issue is “my fault and mine alone” because after 24 years in the Navy he did use language in his home and inner office that “might make a Chief Petty Officer feel uncomfortable.” (Defies the imagination because we have it on good authority that there is no language that would make most Navy Chief Petty Officers uncomfortable).
Then he blames the “toxic atmosphere” in Washington and the fate that befalls those who stand apart from political parties (he did vote against his fellow Democrats on healthcare reform).
“My difficulties are of my own making. Period,” Massa writes. “God knows that I am a deeply flawed and imperfect person.”
And then comes the apparently salty car rides.
“During long car rides, in the early hours of the evening, late at night and always in private, I know that my own language failed to meet the standards that I set for all around me and myself,” he said.
Given the recent bout of other New York Democrats with issues — Governor David Paterson and House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel — and the overriding factor of this being an election year, Democratic Party officials probably wish that Massa had just simply used the usual standby “leaving for family reasons” and left it at that.
An attack ad this week daubing Arizona Senator John McCain with blue face-paint like a cobalt-toned creature from the sci-fi blockbuster film ”Avatar” triggered a row in the desert state’s increasingly heated Republican primary race.
Fiery conservative challenger J.D. Hayworth launched the ad this week attacking McCain as a fake conservative, with a tag line that reads “John McCain, nominee for Best Conservative Actor.”
The ad, showing a slightly uneasy looking McCain tinted blue, channels the 3-D epic “Avatar” about the battle for survival of a turquoise-hued alien species, which is up for a Best Picture Oscar at this weekend’s Academy Awards. In the political spectrum, blue represents the Democratic Party.
Last month, combative talk show host and former congressman Hayworth launched a challenge to McCain, appealing to the party’s right-wing base in Arizona, a state McCain has represented in the Senate since 1986.
Hayworth is assailing McCain’s long record of working with Democrats who control an increasingly partisan Congress, in what analysts have predicted will be a bitter, hard-fought campaign that lays bare ideological fault lines at the heart of the Republican Party.
McCain’s campaign on Thursday asked Hayworth to take down or apologize for the “insulting online ad,” although Hayworth subsequently posted a second version that only added more blue tint to McCain’s face, further stoking the row.
“The Hayworth campaign obviously understands that the ad is offensive since they’ve already changed it,” Brian Rogers, McCain’s campaign communications director, said in a statement.
“Unfortunately this proves yet again that Mr. Hayworth isn’t focused on solving the big challenges Arizona faces, but instead seems consumed by petty and insulting attacks against Senator McCain,” he added.
To shore up his vulnerable right flank in the race, McCain has lined up prominent conservatives to campaign for him. On Friday, Scott Brown, the recently elected senator from Massachusetts, was due to campaign with him at Grand Canyon University in Phoenix.
The annual Academy Awards are being held in Los Angeles on Sunday. The edgy Arizona Republican primary runs through August 24.
Barack Obama appears to be winning the popularity contest over healthcare reform that’s been playing out in public since his White House summit on Feb. 25.
A new Gallup poll suggests that 49 percent of Americans have confidence in Obama to make the right recommendations.
That’s not a majority. But it’s way higher than the 32 percent who think Republicans in Congress would do the right thing.
The findings appear to contradict Republican claims that the public favors their decentralized, piecemeal approach over Obama’s comprehensive reform plan.
The president also outstrips a 37 percent public confidence rating for congressional Democrats, according to the survey of 992 adults conducted March 2-3. The data have a 4 percentage point margin of error.
That lead over Democrats could be important for the White House as Obama makes his last-ditch effort to prod reluctant party members into going along with his plan to overhaul the $2.5 trillion U.S. healthcare system. Democratic leaders are trying to muster enough party support to bypass Republicans.
Public sentiment still presents a challenge for the president, however.
Gallup says public confidence on healthcare reform runs highest for doctors (77 percent), hospitals (64 percent), and academics who study healthcare policy (61 percent).
That puts Obama fourth, Democrats fifth and Republicans sixth, with pharmaceutical companies (30 percent) and insurance companies (26 percent) bringing up the rear.
Photo Credits: Reuters/Yuri Gripas (Obama); Reuters/Jason Reed (Senators John McCain and Lamar Alexander); Reuters/Hyungwon Kang (Doctor and Young Patient)
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(Reporting by Zorianna Kit)
What a difference a year makes! Last year, former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin was catching flak for her shopping habits during her 2008 campaign. This year, she’s strolling around Hollywood’s Oscar gift suites with family members having items given to her — leopard print sandals to match her leopard print jacket, for instance.
The morning after her appearance on “The Tonight Show”, and amid reports she was in Hollywood talking to TV executives about a possible TV show (see below and here on the blog), the former Alaska Governor turned up at the Silver Spoon gifting suite in West Hollywood with daughter Willow, grandson Trip and an entourage of about seven people, according to the suite’s organizers.
The gifting suites, in case you don’t know, are set up by merchants to promote their products during Hollywood’s Oscar week when the town is filled with A-list celebrities. The idea is to have your product photographed or in some way associated with a celebrity and, as a result, people will want to buy it. And who better to help sell a product than politician-turned-celebrity Palin?
So, what did Palin get? Well, right from the start she wrote a check for $1,750 to the American Red Cross, which was collecting donations at the suite for Haitian relief. “That was the first thing she did before even checking in and saying ‘hello,’” said The Silver Spoon’s Lorena Bendinskas. She said suite organizers had invited Palin because she had been a big supporter of the Red Cross. Notably, Palin and her entourage came and left before the suite opened officially on Wednesday morning.
Then, Palin and family got down to the business of shopping — Oscar style. They went to each vendor and were “gifted” items including hats and sunglasses by Perry Ellis, Jenna Leigh Lingerie, Stone candles, Wembe soaps, skincare products from Bloom.com and eyelash condition from Lash food. Stopping at fashion line C&C 
California, she picked out a tanktop for daughter Willow. At Bandals Footwear, she found those leopard sandals to match her jacket, and she seemed especially excited about Danish-designed Aiaiai headphones for traveling and exercise.
Meanwhile, on its Hollywood Insider blog late Wednesday night, Entertainment Weekly magazine reported that Palin and reality TV producer Mark Burnett have been making the rounds of Hollywood production houses and TV networks pitching a TV docudrama about Alaska. Several reports described it as a Planet Earth-type look at the state from Palin’s point-of-view. You can read about it here.
Which makes us wonder, what’s next? If not a presidential run, maybe an Oscar?
It may be a gamble, but at least one tell says that President Barack Obama and Democratic leaders in Congress may win the big bet they have made to push healthcare reform legislation over the finish line, despite public doubts and Republican opposition.
Just look at the healthcare provider stocks. Health insurer shares were lower on Thursday in afternoon trading after the White House announced Obama would meet with several House Democrats in an apparent bid to lock in votes.
“It looks like he’s really getting involved at the very micro level, and I think that probably shows the administration is really going to put everything on the line for this initiative,” Morningstar analyst Matthew Coffina told Reuters correspondent Lewis Krauskopf in New York. ”They’re kind of going for broke at this point.”
“The prospects of healthcare reform are up. Stocks are down,” said Tim Nelson, a healthcare analyst with First American Funds. “These stocks go up and down with the prospects of healthcare reform.”
With the help of some well publicized health insurance premium increases, Democrats have decided that they will be better off in the November congressional elections having passed the sweeping healthcare overhaul than letting it die. Many rang the death knell for the reform effort after Democrats lost their supermajority of 60 votes in the Senate when a Republican won a special election in liberal Massachusetts.
With an anti-Washington mood sweeping the country, both political parties are maneuvering to keep their base supporters energized. Letting healthcare reform die after so many decades of fighting for it, no doubt would have been too big of a letdown for Democrats who saw a light at the end of the tunnel this time around.
Democrats are planning to use a budget process called “reconciliation” to push the legislation to final passage. It is a two step process under which the House would pass the Senate bill. Then changes in the Senate bill sought by the House would be passed using the reconciliation process which allows a simple majority vote in the Senate rather than the 60 needed to clear Republican procedural hurdles.
Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell has vowed to make the November election a referendum on healthcare, citing polling data that shows the public is wary of the sweeping changes to the $2.5 trillion U.S. healthcare system that Democrats are proposing. Democrats believe that they can sell their bill to the public once it passes. In a few short months we will know who wins that debate.
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Photo Credit: Reuters/Kevin Lamarque (President Barack Obama speaks about healthcare reform as medical professionals look on)
Sarah Palin may be about to add another high-profile credential to her resume by taking TV viewers moose hunting in Alaska.
She can already boast about being a mayor, a governor, a vice presidential nominee, a bestselling author — she’s also writing a new book about American virtues and strengths — a TV political pundit and a Big Name campaigner for candidates in the 2010 congressional elections.
Now she wants to be a reality show TV star, too.
One of the most visible Republican figures on the White House wannabe stage, Palin is teaming up with TV producer Mark Burnett to shop a proposal for a reality show based on her family and their life in picturesque Alaska to at least three major broadcast networks.
But while Palin is an experienced hunter, the Republican Party has just shot itself in the foot with a political marketing idea of a different kind altogether.
The RNC has been pursuing an aggressive fundraising strategy that uses rude caricatures of President Barack Obama and other top Democrats and plays on donors’ fears to line its coffers.
“What can you sell when you do not have the White House, the House, or the Senate?” asks a confidential party fundraising presentation obtained by Politico. The answer: “Save the country from trending toward Socialism!”
Politico says the presentation was delivered to top donors and fundraisers at a Feb. 18 retreat in Boca Grande, Florida.
One page in the presentation, labeled “The Evil Empire,” depicts Obama as the Joker from Batman, Nancy Pelosi as Cruella de Vil and Harry Reid as Scooby Doo. 
Scooby Doo? Ruh Rho.
Oh and for those wealthy “ego-driven” donors, there’d be access to Republican power brokers and plenty of tchotchkes.
Click here for more political coverage from Reuters
Photo Credits: Reuters/Stringer (Palin and husband Todd in Wasilla; Reuters/Molly Riley (RNC Chairman Michael Steele); Reuters/Mike Theiler (Protestor with image of Obama as a socialist Joker)
President Barack Obama spoke. Republicans talked back.
No sign that anyone shifted positions after the president’s remarks today in the East Room at the White House with lots of white hospital coats in the audience.
In fact, it appears that the two sides — Obama and the Republicans — hardened their resolve, setting the stage for a political tug-of-war that’s only going to turn more fierce as the November elections near.
Obama wants it, Republicans oppose it. But it’s the congressional Democrats left trying to push through Congress an issue that has created discord within their own ranks. Democrats in the Senate differ from their colleagues in the House on what the legislation should look like — and not all Democrats support it.
Democrat leaders are preparing to try and push the legislation through with a process called reconciliation that would require a simple majority, involve an umpire, and leave Republicans steaming.
Obama said as much in his speech without actually using the R word: “And now it deserves the same kind of up or down vote that was cast on welfare reform, that was cast on the Children’s Health Insurance Program, that was used for COBRA health coverage for the unemployed, and, by the way, for both Bush tax cuts — all of which had to pass Congress with nothing more than a simple majority.” 
Republicans responded by using the election scare tactic aimed at Democrats worrying about losing seats in November — “Every election in America this fall will be a referendum on this issue,” Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said.
Obama’s road trips next week to Philadelphia and St. Louis are aimed at creating momentum after asking Congress to schedule a vote in the next few weeks.
“From now until then, I will do everything in my power to make the case for reform,” he said.
Will Obama’s determination be enough to succeed where others have failed and get healthcare reform enacted?
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Photo credit: Reuters/Larry Downing (Obama speaks about healthcare reform), Reuters/Jonathan Ernst (McConnell talking about healthcare in December)
America’s conservative Tea Party movement may be on the boil, but the left is brewing up its own version in The Coffee Party USA.
The movement has launched itself on the social networking site Facebook where it has acquired more than 50,000 fans over the past month. You can see some news reports and commentary about it here and here and here.
Under the battle cry “The Coffee Party USA: Wake Up and Stand Up” it is asking people to host a Coffee Party event on their March 13 “kick-off.”
“What’s your favorite spot for a cup of coffee or Sunday brunch? Enter it here along with what time on March 13th you plan to meet, and you are a Coffee Party coordinator! We are volunteers, working to restore our capacity as Americans to engage a civil and respectful conversation about public policy. As with any disagreement, the first step is sitting down to talk,” it says.
Like the Tea Party — a conservative movement opposed to big government and President Barack Obama’s agenda which takes its name from an 18th century American revolt against British colonial rule — the Coffee Party claims to be “100 percent grassroots.”
“No lobbyists here. No pundits. And no hyper-partisan strategists calling the shots in this movement. We are a spontaneous and collective expression of our desire to forge a culture of civic engagement that is solution-oriented, not blame-oriented,” it says.
And like the Tea Partiers it evokes America’s 18th century founders, with a feminist twist: “Our Founding Fathers and Mothers gave us an enduring gift — Democracy — and we must use it to meet the challenges that we face as a nation.”
“We are an alternative to the Tea Party,” says Coffee Party movement founder Annabel Park — identified as a “concerned citizen” — in her YouTube pitch, coffee in hand, which you can see here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lO_5HvnFE v0&feature=player_embedded
Conservative critics will no doubt find some red meat here: what could be more elitist and out of touch than the coffeehouse, latte and Starbucks crowd?
The Coffee Party also has some catching up to do. The Tea Party movement is diffuse but it has morphed from a protest movement marked last year by angry rallies and heated townhall meetings into a political machine that plans to make an impact in state primaries this year with an eye to the November congressional elections and ultimately the 2012 White House race. Essentially, it is working to get out the vote for (mostly Republican) candidates who subscribe to its view of limited government and low taxes and deficits.
Do you think the Coffee Party can mount a credible alternative from the liberal left?
Senator Jim Bunning has put his foot down. And his own Republican teammates are trying hard not to call a foul.
The former professional baseball player who is retiring from his Kentucky seat this year has basically decided this is where he draws the line. 
If we were to mix sports metaphors, Bunning has become a football lineman – a one-man blocking machine of legislation to renew jobless benefits, highway construction and other programs that expired on Sunday night. His reasoning is that until there is a definite way to pay for the bill, he does not want to add to the debt.
His play has left Democrats hardly able to contain their glee at this unexpected political windfall — they are portraying it as the perfect example of Republicans as “the party of no” even when it comes to extending unemployment benefits in a time of economic need.
Republicans, fearful of a backlash from recession-weary voters, have been left shaking their heads and unable to forcefully express their annoyance with one of their own in this congressional election year.
Television news showed Bunning gruffly dismissing reporter questions or ignoring them. One television producer reportedly received a more symbolic gesture from the senator and an ABC television correspondent was yelled at for trying to follow the senator into a senators-only elevator.
Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, who is the other senator from Kentucky, promised that the standoff would be resolved soon.
Jon Stewart of The Daily Show could not resist entering the game last night with some digs in a segment titled “Senate After Dark.”
For more Reuters political news, click here
Photo credit: Reuters/Ray Stubblebine (Bunning throws ceremonial first pitch in 2008)
