A new poll has Obama and Romney tied while attention swings back to foreign policy amid dog distractions - live coverage
Today's coverage of American politics and the 2012 presidential election comes to a fitting and logical conclusion:
Until tomorrow, of course.
Catching up on Mitt Romney's speech in Charlotte today. It included this line: "Even if you like Barack Obama, we can't afford Barack Obama."
Now there's an interesting angle.
The Los Angeles Times has more:
Romney also mocked the backdrop of Obama's acceptance speech at the Democratic convention in Denver in 2008, where he spoke in front of a neoclassical temple facade complete with dour Doric columns and 10 pilasters.
Oh man.
Yesterday's CNN/ORC opinion poll contained another nugget that CNN has just released – a quick poll on public support for Mitt Romney's potential vice presidential candidates found that Condoleezza Rice has a lot of backers out there.
According to the CNN poll:
Condoleezza Rice 26%
Rick Santorum 21%
Chris Christie 14%
Marco Rubio 14%
Paul Ryan 8%
Bobby Jindal 5%
Bob McDonnell 1%
Rob Portman, the GOP flavour of the month, was also polled but didn't break the 1% mark. Then again, Rice has described herself as "mildly pro-choice," so that could effectively veto her as a prospect.
Digging deeper, Tea Party supporters like Rubio and Christie, with Rice and Santorum dropping into a tie for third place.
Last week, Republican congressman Paul Ryan was telling interviewers that his fiscal views – such as those in the latest GOP cost-cutting federal budget proposals – were informed by Catholic social teaching.
That appears not to have gone down well with the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, which has sent a series of letters to the administration and Congress opposing cuts that hurt the poorest.
Here's an extract from one of the letters [pdf], written to the House of Representatives by Bishops Stephen Blaire of Stockton, California, and Richard Pates of Des Moines, Iowa:
A just framework for future budgets cannot rely on disproportionate cuts in essential services to poor persons; it requires shared sacrifice by all, including raising adequate revenues, eliminating unnecessary military and other spending, and addressing the long-term costs of health insurance and retirement programs fairly.
The New Republic's Jonathan Cohn notes:
The rebuke from the Bishops is welcome, if a bit overdue. Ryan has cited Catholic values as a justification for his proposals, saying that reducing government is consistent with Church teachings about self-reliance, local control, and allowing civil society to flourish. Those statements prompted an outcry from many Catholic leaders, who noted the Church's longstanding defense of social welfare policies, but not from the Bishops, who have reserved most of their public criticism for policies on abortion and (lately) contraception.
Bill Clinton pays tribute to school music lessons as the foundations for his political success:
If I had not been in a school music program, I would never have been elected president," Clinton said as he delivered the keynote address at the Arkansas Arts Summit. "Because it taught me discipline and order. It made me listen better. And once I got into jazz, I realized you had to make some things up along the way, but while you were making them up, you had to stay in the right key and still play in tune.
I think we can assume that Bill Clinton's, ah, lifestyle would have worked even better in the world of jazz.
Mitt Romney, meanwhile, is giving a slightly early "prebuttal" to Barack Obama's national convention speech taking place in Charlotte, North Carolina, in a little over four month's time.
Mitt was to give his speech outdoors, in sight of the stadium where Obama is giving his speech in August – really, who thought this was a good idea? – but it has been raining in the Tar Heel state and so it's all moving indoors.
Actually this sounds more like a post-buttal rather than a pre-buttal. A boring one at that.
Barack Obama in Ohio just now:
I wasnt born with a silver spoon in my mouth. Michelle wasn't. But somebody gave us a chance.
PS: Mitt Romney is really rich.
Obama isn't mentioning Romney by name but he comes close, after a sharp phrase about how "I'm always confused when we keep having the same argument with folks who don't seem to remember how America was built":
Instead of moderating their views even slightly, you now have Republicans in Washington, the ones running for president, proposing budgets that shower the wealthiest Americans with even more tax cuts. Folks like me don't need them. We're looking for them.
And when you give somebody like me a tax cut, there's only two of paying for it. Either it adds to our deficit, meaning it's not paid for, or you end up – which is what they proposed – gutting investments in education and medical research and clean energy and job training programs like this one.
Obama is going the the theme of economic opportunity here, and enlisting Abraham Lincoln to his cause:
I've never believed the government can or should try to solve every problem we've got. I believe that the free market is the greatest force for economic progress in human history. I agree that everybody has personal responsibility for their own lives. Everybody's got to work hard, nothing is ever handed to us.
But I also agree with our first Republican president, a guy named Abraham Lincoln, who said that, through government, we should be able to do together what we can't do as well on our own. There's some thing we don't do well on our own.
That's why we've got a strong military to keep us safe. That's why we have fire departments, because we never know when we might have a fire in our house.
Oh, and "Medicare and Social Security and unemployment insurance," Obama notes.
Both Mitt Romney and Barack Obama are speaking in swing states today: Obama in Ohio and Romney in North Carolina.
Obama is speaking at a job training programme at a community college in Elyria, in Lorain County, Ohio. His theme, unsurprisingly, is economic opportunity:
Should we settle for an economy where a few people do really well and then a growing number are struggling to get by?
Or do we build an economy where people like Duane and Andrea and David and Bronson, they've got a chance to get ahead, where there are ladders of opportunity, where everybody gets a fair shot and everybody does their fair share and everybody is playing by the same set of rules?
The name of the Mitt Romney-supporting Super Pac – Restore Our Future – raises the ire of BuzzFeed Politics's Ben Smith because, well, it's a stupid focus-grouped kind of name:
It's an actual contradiction, an inscrutable zen koan for this election cycle. It is, concedes a top Romney supporter, "a head-scratcher."
The Democratic consultant Paul Begala, who heads Obama's counterpart group Priorities USA, goes one step further.
"It drives me fucking crazy," Begala said. "It just doesn't make any sense. It's like saying, 'I'm out in the garage restoring my 2020 Ford car.'
Meanwhile, man of the people Mitt Romney finds that his dressage horse Rafalca will compete in the dressage World Cup finals in Holland. Between that and jetting off to the Olympics, Mitt Romney is certainly keeping it real.
Sadly, the Romneys aren't travelling to the dressage event itself, but they will be there in spirit: according to ABC News, it was "Mitt Romney who selected the music that would accompany the horse and rider's performance – selections from the soundtracks to Rainman and The Mission."
Rainman? OK.
Yesterday was Tax Day here in America, and the American Future Fund Super Pac made hay with this web-ad:
Expect plenty more of these in the next 201 days.
So Barack Obama may have eaten dog as a child but at lunch yesterday Ann Romney ate a horse.
(That gag via the usual suspect.)
A brief yet accurate summary of the 2012 election campaign so far, from the Huffington Post's Elise Foley:
In other news: 202 days to go until the presidential election.
It's 100 days until the Summer Olympics start – and lucky, lucky London, Mitt Romney says he's going to visit.
In a radio interview in Columbus, Ohio, this morning, Romney said: "I certainly plan on going over to London and being there for the first day or two of the events."
Bit late to get tickets but I'm sure Mitt will figure something out.
Mitch Daniels, the Republican governor of Indiana, is the latest to do the dance of the seven veils on the matter of being Mitt Romney's vice presidential candidate.
Daniels appeared on Fox News this morning and issued the now standard non-denial-denial, via The Hill's Christian Heinze:
Fox News: Governor, would you be the number two if asked?
Mitch Daniels: It won't happen, so we won't take the audience's time with it, but I'll be glad to be a number 22 or wherever I can fit in in terms of supporting a winning campaign.
MSNBC reports on a focus group of a dozen Republican and GOP-leaning voters in Tampa, Florida, and found that while most were happy to vote for Mitt Romney, they also had familiar complaints:
What was striking were the reservations these folks, even the most conservative ones, had about Romney. Their biggest concerns were that he's changed his positions and that he hasn't been consistent on the issues. Asked to give advice to Romney, Julie – a 56-year-old paralegal from Tampa – responded: "Make a stand whether people like it or not".
There's Romney's dilemma: he needs to reassure conservatives, and so that means being inconsistent with his past, moderate, positions. But he also needs to convince voters that he's not selling his soul for a few votes.
CNN's Peter Hamby has a good wrap-up of how Romney's advisors are positioning themselves on just that subject:
But the campaign is still figuring out how to package Romney, a successful but dispassionate figure who faces questions about his core beliefs, against Obama, who continues to be well liked on a personal level in polls despite his flat job approval numbers.
The fuss over how the respective candidates have treated dogs during their life is a sign of desperation by their campaigns, observes the NRO's Jim Geraghty:
Okay, fine. If this election is going to be about what each candidate has done to a dog, let's let it be about what each candidate has done to a dog.
What I suspect is that this partially reflects the political professional class looking at the low-information voter and wondering what, if anything, will stick. Surely, even those who know almost nothing about politics and don't care will at least pay attention to a story about a dog, right?
Maybe. Or maybe not.
Despite the Obama administration's spotty record on the environment – and one that has disappointed some supporters – there was some good news in an unprecedented joint endorsement from leading environmental groups:
Leaders of the Sierra Club, the League of Conservation Voters, Clean Water Action and Environment America announced they'll be backing Obama's re-election bid, a sign that fractures between the president and green groups have healed since the contentious debate last fall over the $7-bn pipeline from Canada.
"For the first time, our organizations are jointly endorsing a candidate for the presidency," Sierra Club director Michael Brune said in a conference call.
Presidential campaigns are all fun and games – and then the Los Angeles Times reminds everyone that there are far bigger issues at stake:
The photos have emerged at a particularly sensitive moment for US-Afghan relations. In January, a video appeared on the Internet showing four US Marines urinating on Afghan corpses. In February, the inadvertent burning of copies of the Koran at a US base triggered riots that left 30 dead and led to the deaths of six Americans. In March, a US Army sergeant went on a nighttime shooting rampage in two Afghan villages, killing 17.
The Los Angeles Times revelations come on the same day that the New York Times takes a critical look at Romney's stated positions on the US role in Afghanistan, and the impression that they are vague and contradictory:
Mr Romney has said repeatedly that he wants to bring troops home as soon as possible, but with the significant caveat that such a drawdown takes place when "our generals think it's OK" or "as soon as that mission is complete."
He has also struck tones more hawkish than some advisers, as he did when he bucked a consensus among many in both parties about the need for a negotiated peace. "We should not negotiate with the Taliban. We should defeat the Taliban," he said in January, describing one subject on which he differs from the administration, which supports talks.
Yet Mr Romney has also embraced a timeline for a near-total withdrawal by the midpoint of the next presidential term, just as Mr Obama has.
Although the latest NYT/CBS poll will be happy news for the Romney campaign as a starting point for the presidential contest proper, the details show there is still resistance from Republican voters.
Despite the Republican primaries effectively ending over a week ago, it may still take time for the hold-outs to learn to love Romney, with this poll finding that just 54% of Republican primary voters now say they would like to see Romney nominated.
The New York Times analysis continues:
But the poll continues to show a lack of strong enthusiasm among many Republican voters for Mr Romney's candidacy. One in three say they would enthusiastically support him in November. That's hardly a resounding endorsement from the party faithful. Perhaps reflecting the prolonged nature of the Republican nominating contest, more Republican primary voters, 4 in 10, say they will support him but with reservations, while another 18% say they will support him only because he is the Republican nominee, and 8% say they will not support him. Evangelical Christians are far more likely than others to say they have reservations about him.
Come back in a month and we'll see by how much that's changed.
The presidential silly season is well underway as controversy continues to dog both campaigns – over dogs – and another poll finds both Mitt Romney and Barack Obama in a tight race.
Both candidates spent yesterday burnishing their populist credentials, Romney hosting a small picnic to discuss tax issues while Barack Obama used the glitz of the White House in an event honouring the 2011 Nascar Sprint Cup series champion Tony Stewart.
But more serious differences on foreign policy – including the US's role in Iran and Afghanistan – are managing to break through, while Mitt Romney still appears to have work to do to win over Republicans reluctant to embrace his candidacy.
Here's a summary of the latest news from Ryan Devereaux:
• Although the presidential election is more than 200 days away, Barack Obama and Mitt Romney are starting their campaigns locked in a dead heat. A new poll from the New York Times and CBS News out this morning shows both men supported by 46% of registered voters, with Romney having gained support since the end of the Republican primary season.
• Which of the presidential contenders has a better record with dogs has become a surprisingly hot topic. Up until yesterday, Romney was seriously lagging in this field because he strapped the family dog, in a crate on the roof of a car while on a road trip. The dog scandal escalated to a new level yesterday when Romney adviser Eric Fehrnstrom retweeted a picture of the president with his dog, Bo and adding: "In hindsight, a chilling photo," referencing a recent reminder that as a child living in Indonesia, President Obama had eaten dog meat. Obama campaign spokesman Ben LaBolt tweeted in response: ""What's the next attack @EricFehrn and the RNC will surface on a 6-10 year old?"
• Mitt Romney's campaign has intensified its calls for a more aggressive approach to dealing with Iran. Romney has criticized the president for failing to share in his enthusiasm for confronting Iran, despite the risks of a costly and bloody regional conflict. A recent ABC News poll found that American's trust President Obama on foreign policy over Romney by 53% to 36%.
• The Obama campaign has unveiled its latest efforts to appeal to Latino voters. This morning the president's campaign launched four Spanish-language television and radio ads aimed at Colorado, Nevada and Florida, each state home to large Latino populations, who are likely one of the key voting blocs in the 2012 race.