CD 8 Special Election Today – VOTE!
June 12, 2012
Posted by AzBlueMeanie: The CD 8 Special Election is today. Polls will be open from 6 a.m. until 7 p.m. • If you're uncertain where to vote, you can find your polling place at www.recorder.pima.gov/public/voter_info.aspx The list of polling places in Pima County is here. The list of polling places in Santa Cruz County is … Read more
Priorities USA Action ad: Meet Donnie Box
June 11, 2012
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
When Willard "Mittens" Romney promises to be the pro-layoffs president, you should take him at his word. He has a long history of laying off people while at Bain Capital of which he is very proud. "I like to be able to fire people."
Priorities USA Action, the pro-Obama super PAC, has launched this new ad, Meet Donnie Box:
The ad features Donnie Box, who lost his job of 32 years at Kansas City's GST Steel after Romney's firm took it over. "Romney and Bain Capital shut this place down," Box says in the commercial, standing outside a shuttered factory where he used to work. "They shut down entire livelihoods. They promised us healthcare package, they promised us maintain our retirement program, and those were the first two things to disappear. This was a booming place. And Mitt Romney and Bain Capital turned it into a junkyard. Just making money and leaving."
This new spot is part of a $7 million ad buy, and it will air in Colorado, Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Virginia.
Video below the fold.
Willard ‘Mittens’ Romney promises to be the pro-layoffs president
June 11, 2012
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
Greg Sargemt writes at The Morning Plum: Mitt Romney, The 'Pro-Layoffs' Candidate:
[President] Obama’s “doing fine” quote is getting more media attention than Romney’s quote about cops and firefighters is. But in a sense, Romney’s quote has at least as much actual policy relevance as Obama’s does. Arguably more. After all, Obama has proposed a plan to address the crisis, which suggests he doesn’t really think the economy is doing fine. By contrast, Romney’s quote is a policy statement — he really is proposing to respond to the crisis by cutting government further.
Obama is pushing a plan to send $35 billion to the states for the hiring of first responders and teachers to speed the recovery. Romney has been claiming that he wants to cut thousands and thousands of government jobs in order to … put Americans back to work again. That isn’t an actual plan to do anything about the crisis, in the sense that it’s exactly what Romney would be proposing if the economy were doing great.
[T]he Romney campaign is hoping voters make their decision based on frustration and disillusionment with the pace of the recovery — feelings the Romney camp is trying to exacerbate with the “doing fine” quote — without looking too closely at the true nature of the alternative Romney is offering. The Obama campaign is seizing on Romney’s quote about cops and firefighters to drive home the true nature of the Romney alternative.
Result: The argument over the true relationship between government, public sector jobs and the economic crisis is now front and center. And as it happens, Obama is actually right about the relationship between government job loss and the continuing crisis, and Romney is wrong about it. Surely that’s at least as important as the optics of Obama's admittedly serious gaffe.
Steve Benen picks up this argument as well. Obama camp focuses on Romney's pro-layoffs plan:
As a rule, gaffes tend to capture the political world's attention, but in this case, we have something more significant than a soundbite — we have a policy position. Indeed, the Republican nominee for president seriously believes we can "help the American people" by laying off, not just public-sector workers in general, but specifically cops, firefighters, and teachers — and his background as a one-term governor makes clear he means it.
* * *
I realize the out-of-context "private sector is doing fine" line is the official new plaything, but Romney's position is substantive and important, and apparently even controversial among conservative Republicans. The differences between Obama and Romney on this have the potential to drive the presidential campaign: does it help or hurt America when hundreds of thousands of school teachers and first responders lose their jobs?
For the first time in generations, the two major-party presidential candidates answer that question differently.
Public Policy Polling (PPP): Ron Barber favored over Jesse Kelly
June 11, 2012
Posted by AzBlueMeanie: I always warn people that there is only one poll that counts, and that is election day. Turn in your mail-in ballot if you have not already done so — DO NOT mail it today – or get yourself to your polling location to vote on Tuesday. Public Policy Polling, one of the most … Read more
Voter Suppression 101 tactics in CD8 Special Election
June 10, 2012
By Craig McDermott, cross-posted from Random Musings It looks as if the Kelly campaign's guiding philosophy is "if at first you don't succeed, cheat." One of the oldest gambits in electoral politics is to try to suppress the turnout of the opposition's base by telling them to show up to vote on a day … Read more
Mitt Romney Enjoyed Impersonating a Police Officer When Young
June 10, 2012
by Michael Bryan OK. This is disturbingly weird. National Memo reports that Mitt Romney used to enjoy impersonating a police officer, with a full uniform provided by his daddy the Governor, to pull folks over and prank people. [hat tip to Donna at Democratic Diva] See the video segment from MSNBC's Lawrence O’Donnell, which Donna refers … Read more
GOTV!
June 10, 2012
Posted by AzBlueMeanie: The weekend is almost over but get out the vote (GOTV) efforts are ongoing. Announcement from the Pima County Democratic Party: Former Arizona congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords holds hands with Arizona democratic congressional candidate Ron Barber at a campaign rally on Saturday – CNN. SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT! Special Visit Planned Today 6:00pm Tucson’s Get … Read more
Stand Your Ground in Arizona
June 10, 2012
By Michael Bryan If you aren't living under a rock, you are familiar with the killing of Treyvon Martin by George Zimmerman, and the controversy over Zimmerman's arrest and prosecution for the killing due to Florida's "Stand Your Ground" law. You may not be aware that the geniuses of the Arizona legislature also created a … Read more
