A new ad centers on Mitt Romney and his role in the failure of a 103-year-old steel mill in Kansas City, Missouri. GST Steel declared bankruptcy, leaving hundreds of workers without jobs, their full pensions, or health insurance. The piece is an effort to highlight Romney’s work at the equity firm Bain Capital and to paint him as disconnected from working-class Americans.
In an interview with ABC yesterday, President Obama went on record explaining the evolution of his personal views on same-sex marriage. The President gave, for the first time, clear support for same-sex marriage, “Personally, it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same sex couples should be able to get married”.
The statement is sure to hurt the President in states like North Carolina, where the electorate recently passed a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage by a 61% vote. The decision may also dog Obama in a slew of other closely contested states like Florida, Colorado and Nevada. Still, the President left to grey area on where he stands on the issue.
The position is in sharp contrast to Mitt Romney, who is on the record as interpreting marriage as restricted to a relationship between one man and one woman.In fact, Romney stood by as his new spokesman, Richard Grenell was let go from the campaign. If Romney hoped to placate the right, he may be disappointed. AS conservative personality Bryan Fischer responded,
“… if Mitt Romney can be pushed around, intimidated, coerced, co-opted by a conservative radio talk show host in Middle America, then how is he going to stand up to the Chinese? How is he going to stand up to Putin? How is he going to stand up to North Korea if he can be pushed around by a yokel like me?”
President Obama kicked off his 2012 re-election campaign with twin events at Ohio State University and Virginia Commonwealth University. The President delivered speeches that served to draw contrasts between himself and his expected competitor, Mitt Romney. Obama questioned the trickle-down economics of the Republican party and reminded the crowd that, “Corporations aren’t people. People are people!”.
The President also reviewed some of his major accomplishments, including supporting the auto industry, winding down the war in Afghanistan and killing Osama bin Laden. A major theme was drawing contrasts in how the two would approach taxes, education, health.
“My opponent won’t tell us how he’d pay for his new, $5 trillion tax cut — a tax cut that gives an average of $250,000 to every millionaire in this country.”
“I refuse to pay for another millionaire’s tax cut by eliminating medical research projects into things like cancer and Alzheimer’s disease. I refuse to pay for another tax cut by kicking children off of Head Start programs; or asking students to pay more for college; or eliminating health insurance for millions of poor and elderly and disabled Americans on Medicaid.”
The crowd at both locations consisted largely of students from college and high school. These type of students were at the core of his 2008 election victory.
Fallon slow jams with the "Preezy of the United Steezy"
President Obama has been trading shots with Mitt Romney over student loan program issues. So, last night he took to the air with a guest spot on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. Obama underscored the need to invest in education to train the next generation of American workers in a global economy.
Former Senator Rick Santorum recently made some controversial comments about President Obama on the campaign trail:
“President Obama has said he wants everybody in America to go to college. What a snob,” Santorum said Saturday. “There are good, decent men and women who go out and work hard every day, and put their skills to test, who aren’t taught by some liberal college professor (who) tries to indoctrinate them. I understand why he wants you to go to college. He wants to remake you in his image. I want to create jobs so people can remake their children into their image, not his.”
President Obama, in turn, responded to the criticism during his speech to the National Governors Association:
“When I speak about higher education, we’re not just talking about a four-year degree,” Mr. Obama said. “We’re talking about somebody going to a community college and getting trained for that manufacturing job that now is requiring somebody walking through the door handling a million-dollar piece of equipment.”
President Obama delivers a message to Congress to extend the payroll tax cut. The proposed legislation also avaiods a 27 percent cut in payments for doctors from Medicare.
Most importantly, President Obama’s proposed budget allows for the expiration of the Bush-era tax cuts for people in higher tax brackets while eliminating corporate tax loopholes.
Thousands of protesters took to the streets of Seattle to protest issues such as America’s continued involvement war and the fundamental corruption at the root of some of the current economic mess. Police ordered the large number of tents to be removed earlier this week, but protests continued into the weekend. Labor leaders threw their support behind the Occupy Seattle movement with a clear union presence in the crowd. The protest have caught the attention president Obama who commented on the crowd’s frustration:
“It expresses the frustrations that the American people feel that we had the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression, huge collateral damage all throughout the country, all across Main Street,” the president said. “And yet you’re still seeing some of the same folks who acted irresponsibly trying to fight efforts to crack down on abusive practices that got us into this problem in the first place.”
Photo from MSNBC
Speculation is abound that the Federal Reserve will initiate a third round of quantitative easing. Although Wall Street was buoyed on this speculation, the longer-term impact of QE3 remains unclear (see: “QE3 may do more harm than good”). Can any significant stimulus be achieved against the backdrop of major budget cuts? Whether Ben Bernanke will even announce plans for further stimulus is unknown, but the decision is most likely dependent on whether the Fed thinks that inflation has peaked. The situation is unfortunately reminiscent of Japan’s unsuccessful policy of quantitative easing in the 1990′s and 2000′s.
Former Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty will end his campaign for the White House according to ABC News. Pawlenty came in a disappointing third in the Iowa strawpoll over the weekend behind both Ron Paul and winner Michele Bachmann. Voters continued to have issues with Pawlenty’s reserved demeanor opting instead for a bolder candidate that they believe will engage Obama.
Tim Pawlenty
Iowa poll results:
Bachmann: 28.55% (4,823 votes)
Ron Paul: 27.65% (4,671 votes)
Pawlenty: 13.57% (2,293 votes)
Santorum: 9.81% (1,657 votes)
Herman Cain: 8.62% (1,456 votes)
Rick Perry WRITE-IN: 3.62% (718 votes)
Romney: 3.36% (567 votes)
Gingrich: 2.28% (385 votes)
Huntsman: 0.41%: (69 votes)
Thad McCotter: 0.21% (35 votes)
Michele Bachmann
On Monday, Obama will conduct a bus tour through Minnesota, Iowa and Illinois. The listening tour will focus on jobs and the economy. Obama’s presence is part of a strategy to counter the constant attacks from GOP candidates campaigning in the Iowa strawpoll. With voters embittered by a stalling economy, Obama must send a strong message that he can lead the country to more prosperous times.
Barack Obama