The Obama Downgrade
Posted in Main Blog (All Posts) on July 16th, 2011 4:31 am by HL
Romney Applies 2008 Lessons to 2012
McPike & Cannon, RealClearPolitics
Nearly every day a new press announcement — in all-capital letters — arrives from Mitt Romney's Boston-based campaign headquarters that reveals some milestone in the former Massachusetts governor's second and more serious race for the White House.On Tuesday came the support of three New Hampshire county attorneys: Peter Heed, Scott Murray and Jim Reams. Earlier in the day he unveiled six “additional” members of his Iowa leadership team. Monday's news was that Gordon Smith, a former two-term Oregon senator who lost his 2008 bid for re-election, is backing Romney this…
As WH Talks Falter, Senate Works on Deal
Montgomery & Kane,Wash Post
President Obama prepared Thursday to bring bipartisan talks over the debt to a close, as Senate leaders worked across party lines to craft an alternative strategy to raise the nation's $14.3 trillion debt limit and avert a government default."It's decision time," Obama told congressional leaders after meeting at the White House for a fifth straight day. Obama gave Republicans until early Saturday to tell him whether any of three options for trimming the federal budget would win GOP support.
The Tragedy of Tim Pawlenty
Walter Shapiro, The New Republic
At almost precisely the minute that Michele Bachmann was declaring her presidential candidacy in Iowa at the end of June, I was interviewing Tim Pawlenty in a borrowed conference room in a midtown Manhattan financial firm. For much of our interview, the long-faced, dark-haired-flecked-with-gray, 50-year-old Pawlenty sat tall in his chair, rarely fidgeting, his hand gestures confined to occasionally pointing for emphasis. Though he maintained steady eye contact, many of his answers were campaign boilerplate, and his mind sometimes seemed miles away. But, midway through the interview, desperate…
Obama’s Irresponsible Leadership
Mona Charen, National Review
Count on it: In the coming days and weeks, Republicans will be accused — not just by Democrats, but by the chattering class that includes some self-styled conservatives — of wild irresponsibility regarding the nation's fiscal health. It isn't that Republicans are models of rectitude on the subject — see the Bush deficits. And it's true that some Republicans, like Americans for Tax Reform's Grover Norquist, have fetishized their opposition to taxes to the point where they defend pot-valiantly even tax subsidies such as those for ethanol. It's enough to make you…