Debate mania: Is it ‘the more the merrier’?
Posted in Main Blog (All Posts) on November 15th, 2011 5:35 am by HL
Debate mania: Is it ‘the more the merrier’?
It’s not just debate season — it’s debate year. So far in this primary campaign, some seven weeks before the first vote is cast, there have been 12 Republican debates, stretching back to early May, when Tim Pawlenty was a candidate and Herman Cain was known only as a former pizza-company executive.
And there’s more, so much more, in store: 14 GOP debates are on the schedule through March, and others will be added if two or more candidates remain standing and anyone has anything left to say.
Newt Gingrich vs. debt supercommittee on campaign trail
WEST DES MOINES, Iowa — Newt Gingrich is a major player in the GOP presidential contest again, and he’s using that platform to position himself as the biggest critic of the congressional debt-reduction “supercommittee.”
Gingrich, who placed second nationally in a poll released Monday by CNN and Opinion Research, said at an event here this morning that the supercommittee is “maniacally stupid” and “an invitation to economic catastrophe.”
Elizabeth Warren hit airwaves with first TV ad (video)
Massachusetts Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren (D) is going on the air today in the Massachusetts Senate race with a one-minute biographical ad, an attempt to define the Harvard Law professor and former Obama administration adviser for voters before her opponents can.
It is the first broadcast ad in the race, where Warren will likely face Sen. Scott Brown (R) next November, although conservative super PAC Crossroads GPS went on the air with an ad attacking the Democratic candidate last week.
Negotiators approve spending package
House and Senate negotiators have agreed on the details of a spending package that will keep the federal government running until Dec. 16–and fund five major federal departments through all of fiscal 2012, staffers announced Monday night.
That agreement–made in a “conference committee” with both House and Senate members–is the kind of thing that used to be business as usual on Capitol Hill. These conference committees traditionally have settled differences easily when the two chambers have passed different versions of the same bill, but in a polarized era, agreement is noteworthy.
Mission over, Congress ready to agree on Libya
It finally looks like Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill are ready to agree on something related to the uprising in Libya. All it took was for the revolt to succeed, longtime dictator Moammar Gaddafi to be captured and killed and American involvement to end.
On Tuesday, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee is to consider a resolution, sponsored by Chairman John Kerry (D-Mass.), along with Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.), applauding Libyans for their successful rebellion and U.S. troops for their “bravery.”
