Maggie Gallagher is quoted twice in this recent Politico article noting the silence of GOP elites on the issue of gay marriage: “I’m personally grateful to Speaker Boehner for being willing to defend the law, but it’s clear GOP elites Continue reading
The latest polls in the conventional swing states show a close race, with neither Mitt Romney nor Barack Obama clearly ahead. Yet they also show a surprising number of formerly solid blue states now within Romney’s reach.
The rust belt is creakily swinging, according to new polls in Wisconsin, Michigan and even Pennsylvania, where a Franklin and Marshall poll released on Halloween has Obama up by just 4 points, within the margin of error, and under 50 percent.
But what surprised me the most are the new polls from Minnesota and Oregon (my home state).
Take Oregon first, which has not voted for a Republican candidate for president since Ronald Reagan’s landslide in 1984.
Two separate polls of likely voters released in late October show Obama at the 47 percent mark — with Romney at either 41 percent or 42 percent. Obama is under 50 percent and Romney is within or almost within the margin of error. And undecided voters break 2-1 for Romney when pushed. Continue reading
Can Social Issues Win?
This was the week when social issues trumped the economy in the news.
Here’s a rough timeline: On Sunday, Joe Biden’s endorsed gay marriage on national TV. On Monday, the media started jumping on Pres. Obama, asking where he was on the issue. On Tuesday, 61 percent of people in a key swing state–the state which hosts the Democratic convention this year–solidly rejected gay marriage.
On Wednesday, Jay Carney got beat up by multiple reporters on where the President stands on marriage. The Washington Post published a story stating that one in six of Pres. Obama’s key “bundlers” (the guys who raise $500,000 or more) is openly gay. By Thursday, the heat from donors and the media was too much and Pres. Obama threw in the towel on the charade that he opposes gay marriage.
Pres. Obama did a high-profile interview on ABC endorsing gay marriage. Continue reading
Just a few days before the polls close on Tuesday, Mitt Romney still has said nothing about the marriage amendment in North Carolina.
Pres. Obama, meanwhile, weighed-in both in North Carolina and Minnesota, urging people to vote “no”:
“While the President does not weigh in on every single ballot measure in every state, the record is clear that the President has long opposed divisive and discriminatory efforts to deny rights and benefits to same-sex couples.”
But Team Romney has apparently decided that it’s best to stay mum on the marriage question.
Team Romney’s opinion is the conventional wisdom among GOP political elites. Social issues are a problem for the party, not the solution.
John Weaver a man who ran John McCain’s losing campaign and followed it up with Jon Huntsman’s ridiculously losing campaign, told the New York Times in a story headlined “Some in GOP Fear Focus on Social Issues” that the social issues fought in the state legislatures are killing the GOP. Continue reading
Gingrich showed himself willing to abandon that too when he attacked Bain.
The guy who abruptly dumped on private equity for political gain is exactly the same guy who traded a Marianne for a Callista.
Newt hasn’t changed.
When it serves his purpose of positioning himself as a transformational world-historical figure, he will discard people, ideas and principles, as necessary.
Do we really want to cross our fingers, and wonder which Newt will show up in the Oval Office each morning? That’s not my idea of the way we–or the country–should spend the next four years. Continue reading