Visual source: Newseum
Voters in President Obama's home state go to the polls today. Polls point to a win by Romney, but a victory today won't do much to shore up the weaknesses in Romney's campaign strategy. Mark Z. Barabak and Paul West at The Los Angeles Times examine Mitt Romney's most recent condundrum:
Mitt Romney entered the presidential contest as Mr. Fix-It, saying his business know-how was precisely what could rescue the struggling economy from its deep and devastating slump.
It is the way Romney distinguishes himself from the other Republicans running and a contrast he constantly makes with the president. The election offers a choice, Romney says, between an "economic heavyweight" and lightweights Rick Santorum and President Obama.
But after months of steady job growth, improved consumer confidence and big gains on Wall Street, the economy seems in less dire need of fixing, and Romney has been forced to alter his message or risk seeming out of touch.
"I believe the economy's coming back," Romney said at a breakfast stop Monday in Springfield, where the former Massachusetts governor campaigned ahead of Tuesday's Illinois primary
Newt Gingrich's hypocrisy is well-documented, and The Hill's
Justin Sink adds one more log to the fire by delving into Gingrich's past statements regarding stalled presidential nominees:
Newt Gingrich is refusing to swallow his own medicine.
The former Speaker of the House (R-Ga.) rejects calls from Republicans to drop out of the presidential race, but he has a long history of telling other GOP White House hopefuls to do so.
Gingrich had often argued the exact case his doubters are citing against him now: that a prolonged intraparty squabble is self-serving and threatens to hurt Republicans in the general election.
Zachary Rosenfeld in
The Huffington Post:
With the GOP nomination contest limping toward its inevitable conclusion, voters (particularly those who consider themselves Independents) will need to start asking themselves an important question: Do they prefer their president to be a delegate or a trustee?
The "delegate vs. trustee" problem is one almost as old as democracy itself. If you are an elected representative, you are expected to faithfully represent the interests and opinions of the voters who put you into office. But you are also expected to represent the best interests of your entire constituency -- including the minority -- and to exercise independent judgment when addressing complex matters of statecraft.
The war on women is churning along with full force across the nation, with Idaho being the latest battleground. The Editorial Board of the
Idaho Spokesman explains:
The Idaho Senate passed a bill on Monday that would force women to undergo an ultrasound examination before having an abortion. This intrusive, coercive bill is so extreme that some senators who voted for a constitutionally dubious anti-abortion bill last year rejected this one. [...]
Hammond offered this sensible summation of the issue: “There seems to be a presumption that a woman considering abortion is uninformed and needs government guidance. … But I would submit that rather than government guidance, their guidance should come from their physician and their family and their clergy.”[...]
Put simply, if there is no medical reason for an ultrasound, one should not be mandated. The state already provides detailed information to women who are considering abortions. To force them to undergo an unwanted test just to add photos is offensive.
More from the
Idaho Statesman:
Lawmakers never held a meaningful debate over creating a state health insurance exchange — a competitive marketplace that would help the 19.2 percent of Idahoans who do not have insurance. The health exchange, which was supposed to be the defining issue of the session, never materialized.
What has instead materialized is an emotional, partisan and distracting debate over ultrasounds. Idaho lawmakers are pandering to the most vocally anti-abortion cohort of their constituency, while neglecting larger public health matters.
Not to mention larger matters of public policy.
Economic development and job creation has been a secondary matter...
Speaking of larger matters of public policy,
USA Today debunks the lie that looks like it will never die:
Since the 2008 elections, a growing number of governors and state legislatures have mounted an aggressive effort to stamp out voting fraud, not with entirely pure motives. [...] You'd think there was a raging epidemic of fraud around the country to justify all this diligent effort, but if there is, it's awfully hard to detect. As evidence of the need for Texas' tough new photo ID law, Attorney General Greg Abbott noted that the state had prosecuted 50 cases of vote fraud over the past decade — an average of five cases a year. Not exactly a crime wave.
In fact, what's really going on is a fight for partisan advantage. Republicans, overwhelmingly the authors of these new restrictions, benefit by holding down turnout of those least likely to register: poorer, older and minority citizens who tend to vote Democratic. Democrats, of course, want the opposite.
The New York Times looks at the JOBS Act and argues it's just part of the same old beltway game:
JOBS, named in Orwellian fashion, is not about jobs. It is about undoing investor safeguards in federal law, including parts of the Sarbanes-Oxley law and other landmark protections, so that companies can raise money without having to follow rules on disclosure, accounting, auditing and other regulatory mainstays.
Its proponents — stock exchanges, venture capital groups, biotech start-ups, investment banks — say that the easier it is for companies to raise money, the more they will grow and hire workers. Its opponents — the current and former chairmen of the Securities and Exchange Commission, the association of state securities regulators, AARP, the Consumer Federation of America, the A.F.L.-C.I.O. labor federation and unions, several big pension funds and many prominent securities experts — have presented ample evidence to show that deregulation raises the cost of capital by harming investors and impairing markets, making it harder for legitimate companies to thrive.