Weekend open thread

By Jason Wright, Editor

Filed Under Race for White House 2012 on May 18 

Romney’s out with his first ad of the general election. What’s your take?

Governor Christie and Mayor Booker team up in a web video that has tongues wagging.

Obama’s deputy campaign manager, Stephanie Cutter, has a new video calling out Karl Rove and Crossroads for spending “$25 million from secret donors to tear down the president.” (“Secret donors,” sounds scary.)

What else is on your political brain this weekend?

Ron Paul out

By Jason Wright, Editor

Filed Under Race for White House 2012 on May 14 

Yet another ABR who pledged to fight all the way to Tampa has called it quits. Ron Paul has said he’d done campaigning.

Obama backs gay marriage

By Jason Wright, Editor

Filed Under Race for White House 2012 on May 9 

ABC NEWS: President Obama Affirms His Support for Same Sex Marriage

This might not be a popular position on PD, but I’m going to praise the president for this one. Bear with me a minute…

I don’t support gay marriage and I think the president’s position is wrong. However, he’s making a courageous stand with huge political risks. It would have been much easier and politically expedient to dance around this another six months and then come out guns blazing on the issue if he won reelection. This is exactly what many of us thought he was up to.

You might not agree with the president, but this took some political pancakes. He’ll obviously endear himself to the base and win back some wanderers, but he’ll lose many independents.

Make no mistake, I don’t support the position, but I do support politicians taking tough stands on principle, even if I disagree with the specific issue.

If he supports higher taxes, he should say so. And he has.

If he supports abortion rights, he should say so. And he has.

If he supports gay marriage, he should say so. And now he finally has.

It’s elastic!

By Steve Feinstein

Filed Under Race for White House 2012 on May 3 

President Obama’s reelection campaign is apparently going to center on the theme of fairness. Many political observers point out that this is nothing more than divisive class warfare, the politics of envy, the demonization of the successful. Certainly, it is a 180-degree turn away from his 2008 campaign stance as a uniter, the “post-racial President,” and his now-hollow first-run claims that, “We’re not the red states of America or the blue states of America…we’re the United States of America!”
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2012 Veep Madness – Round 2

By Scott A. Robinson, Editor

Filed Under Race for White House 2012 on May 2 

Five upsets headlined Round 1. What do you expect in Round 2 voting? Can the lowest remaining seed, 6-Rand Paul, pull off the stunner and defeat 2-Marco Rubio? Will 3-Chris Christie crush 2-Nikki Haley after admitting he would entertain the thought be being Mitt Romney’s running mate? Are we headed for an all boring semi-final match up of 1-Tim Pawlenty versus 3-Mike Huckabee? Your voting will decide. The polls are now open after the jump. As before, you can vote once every 24 hours. Voting will close on May 8 at 11:59 pm EST.
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The road we’ve traveled – MS3000 translation

By Jon Cordeiro

Filed Under Race for White House 2012 on Apr 27 

For those of you Sci-Fi Channel fans, you’ll enjoy this running commentary on The One’s propaganda film.

Barack Obama, The Road We Really Traveled

Have a fantastic weekend.

2012 PD Veep Madness

By Scott A. Robinson, Editor

Filed Under Race for White House 2012, VP Tournament on Apr 24 

Today we launch the 2012 PoliticalDerby.com Vice Presidential Candidate Championship. Voting for each round will take place over a one week period. You will be able to vote once per day. This 32 candidate single elimination tournament features four regions: Governor, Former Candidate, Senator, and Game Changer. The candidates were selected and seeded through an exhaustive and arduous process by the tournament committee made up of the PoliticalDerby.com Editors. Now, if you’re ready to start your office pool, you can download the entire bracket here

Feel free to discuss any of the match-ups, candidates left out, seedings you disagree with, or general complains about the committee in the comments. Voting is now open below the jump and will remain open until May 1 at 11:59 pm EST. Read more

Electoral college fun and weekend open thread

By David Kaiser, Editor

Filed Under Open Thread, Race for White House 2012 on Apr 20 

The 2012 election rides on basically the same group of states that have helped to decided the last several presidential elections. These battle-ground states are where you will see the candidates spend the majority of their time and money this fall, and fall into four categories.

The “rust-belt” states are a group of aging giants, who has felt the effects of the economic troubles worse than most, mainly due to the fact they weren’t doing so hot before the epic meltdown of 2007. Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Iowa are five that will play a major role in deciding who resides at 1600 Pennsylvania next year. Barack Obama won all of these states, peeling Iowa and Ohio away from the Republicans.
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The politics of envy

By Jon Cordeiro

Filed Under Domestic Policy, Race for White House 2012 on Apr 16 

Watch your wallet, Dear Reader, Congress is back in session. Sometime today, Dusty Harry Reid and his merry band of senate democrats will take up a burning fiscal issue vital to the economic stability of the United States. No, they’re not going to hammer out the final details of the federal budget for fiscal year 2013. Never mind the fact this country has been operating without an official budget for over three years now. How dare you insinuate that Dusty Harry and Company are unwilling to do the fundamental job for which they were sent to Washington, DC. Haven’t you heard about the “new tone”?

Shame on you. Dusty Harry is going to resume senate consideration of the “Paying a Fair Share Act of 2012”. Commonly known as the Buffet Rule, it would require Americans who make more than $1 million to pay at least 30% of that income (regardless of how it is earned) to Uncle Sam. I’ll spare you the legislative details and just give you the bottom line answer to the question “is this rule the solution to the $1.6 trillion hole in the current federal operating budget?
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The optics of the narrative

By Steve Feinstein

Filed Under Race for White House 2012 on Apr 14 

There are some new words that are in vogue in the political lexicon these days: optics and narrative.

Optics refers to how something comes across, how it looks to people, the impression that it leaves.

Narrative is the overriding message one takes away from an occurrence or a politician’s approach to a situation or problem.

There are three politicians who figure prominently in the 2012 campaign whose optics and narratives are major factors.
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Tebow for VP

By Stephen Fountain, Editor

Filed Under Race for White House 2012, Romney News on Apr 12 

Forever the avid political prognosticator, The University of Virginia’s Larry Sabato is out with his crap shoot selections as Mitt Romney’s VP. What do you think? Is anyone missing from this list? Is anyone worth putting your money on?

Check out Sabato’s full crystal ball here.

Santorum suspends

By Stephen Fountain, Editor

Filed Under Race for White House 2012 on Apr 10 

Rick Santorum is suspending his campaign. From The New York Times: “Rick Santorum is suspending his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination on Tuesday, according two of his advisers, bowing to the inevitability of Mitt Romney’s nomination and ending his improbable, come-from-behind quest to become the party’s conservative standard-bearer in the fall.”

And their evil money dog bone:

But ultimately, Mr. Santorum’s campaign struggled under a nearly-constant barrage of negative ads paid for by Mr. Romney and the “super PAC” supporting him, Restore our Future, which has spent millions in an effort to ensure that Mr. Romney captures the nomination in his second attempt.

And so, the ABR (anybody but Romney) crowd is finally turned away disappointed and the political couch potatoes must turn their attention to Romney’s VP selection. Is there a VP out there that can turn tea leaves gold?

Weekend open thread

By David Kaiser, Editor

Filed Under Race for White House 2012 on Apr 6 

Mitt Romney and Barack Obama spent yesterday jabbing back and forth at each other, with Romney on the stump in Pennsylvania and Obama calling for Romney to release more of his tax returns. Gee, I wonder where he got that idea from?

Reports have South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley on Romney’s short list as VP, which is somewhat counter to conventional wisdom that Romney would go with a “safe” pick.

Rick Santorum met with a group of conservative leaders in Virginia in what was described as “a late attempt to rally the right and block Mitt Romney’s nomination from becoming inevitable.”

Lecturer–in-Chief

By Jon Cordeiro

Filed Under Healthcare, Obama News, Race for White House 2012 on Apr 2 

For someone who claims to be a constitutional legal scholar, The One seems to have slept through – or most likely ignored all together – the class on the concept of co-equal branches of government. It’s also nebulous as to whether or not he was in class the day separation of powers was taught as well.

Today The One took to the rose garden podium and boldly declared that the Supreme Court should avoid the appearance of judicial activism and vote to uphold the government takeover of all things health related. Declared The One:

We are confident that this will be upheld because it should be upheld. The reason is because in accordance with precedent out there, it’s constitutional.


To quote the old country song, “wishin’ don’t make it so.” Perhaps The One was too busy hobnobbing with the Russians whilst the Supremes were debating whether or not there was constitutional precedence to uphold the 2,700+ page monstrosity. Never mind the fact at least one Supreme declared that being forced to read such a bill would violate the Eighth Amendment. The best anyone could do trying to find precedent for forcing a citizen to buy a product or service was a Revolutionary War statute requiring conscripts to show up with a musket and ammunition.
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Rubio endorses Romney

By Jason Wright, Editor

Filed Under Race for White House 2012 on Mar 28 

Drudge is reporting that Rubio is officially endorsing Romney. Good for Mitt, but I’ll say what I said about Jeb Bush. Why wait until the nomination is essentially decided?

Romney has now picked up endorsements from moderates, conservatives and tea party leaders. Will this sway any holdout ABRbots?

Obama campaign marketing ‘BFD’

By Scott A. Robinson, Editor

Filed Under Race for White House 2012 on Mar 24 

Clever marketing, undignified vulgarity from the most visible man in America, or something else entirely?

This shirt is being sold by the Barack Obama campaign in obvious reference to Joe Biden’s open microphone gaffe.


 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

The Santorum snap

By Stephen Fountain, Editor

Filed Under Media Clips and Issues, Race for White House 2012 on Mar 23 

Rick Santorum has come out with an endorsement of Barack Obama, if the other choice is Mitt Romney. Is this the beginning of the end? Are the campaign pressures getting to Rick or is he right?

Supreme care

By Steve Feinstein

Filed Under Race for White House 2012 on Mar 21 

Check out this video.

The hottest ticket in town these days is for the June title game at Supreme Stadium. That’s when the constitutionality of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (aka “Obamacare”) is taken up by the nation’s highest court. Word has it that seats in the Court’s gallery are going fast.

To most people, Obamacare has been a puzzle on many levels for the entirety of its existence. It has been vaguely described as “Universal health Care,” with the implication that the US Government is henceforth going to provide “free” healthcare to everyone, for their entire lives.
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Romney wins Illinois, what does it mean?

By Jason Wright, Editor

Filed Under Race for White House 2012 on Mar 20 

The race has already been called for Romney with just 3% in. They’re currently running Romney 54%, Santorum 28%, Paul 10% and Newt 7%. Hard to imagine Romney maintaining that margin all night, but it’s still likely to be a healthy double digit win. What does it mean?

Dead-end approach for GOP

By Steve Feinstein

Filed Under Race for White House 2012 on Mar 16 

Interesting video presentation by Dinesh D’Souza, the well-known author and academic. He goes into detail in his new movie/documentary that we know very little about Obama as an individual, his personal background, his actual schooling history, his relationships, etc.

May be factual, may not be.

One thing is certain: No amount of personal doubt and “dirt” thrown on Obama will have even the slightest negative effect on Obama in this election. If anything, attacks and questions about his personal background will redound strongly to the president’s favor. Very strongly.
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