Today’s song was recorded by REM for their fan club. It is a toss off kind of song but I kind of like it. See what you think….
Your special surprise gift today is an REM parody of their song Shiny Happy People. The parody was performed with the Sesame Street muppet and is guaranteed to make you smile.
Now tell me the truth, aren’t you happy that Mitt Romney did not get to kill Big Bird and the rest of his Sesame Street buddies! Just saying that makes me happy!
So happy that I have another Sesame Street video for you. This one features the Goo Goo Dolls performing a parody of their song Slide with Elmo.
OK, Ok…..I know I said no more political posts but I just can’t resist this one.
Come to find out, on Election Night, Mitt Romney’s campaign released his victory/transition website. A little premature don’t you think! What a bunch of pompous assholes!
Looking at this gives me so much pleasure 🙂 Thanks to Taegan Goddard and politicalwire.com for grabbing these screen captures before the site was taken down.
No…..I’m not talking about “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” The Republican Golden rule is more straight forward and to the point “The men with the gold make the rules!”
Mitt Romney and his supporters are the men with the gold and if they get voted into office they will be ones that will make the rules. I say “they” because the rich supporters of Mitt Romney (the 1%) are not donating the outrageous sums of money (come on $20,000,000 from one man alone!) shown below out of the goodness of their hearts. They are doing so they can be the ones (i.e. the 1%) making the rules that that the remainder of us (the 99%) have to abide by. I guarantee you that these rules will help the 1% at the expense of the 99%.
Checkout the following information I extracted from an article on today’s Huffington Post to see what I mean. After that, you have all you need to know about voting.
Full list of Forbes 400 donors to Romney, the RNC and Restore Our Future (a Republican super PAC).
Name
Net Worth
Source
Romney for President
RNC
Restore Our Future
David Koch
$31 B
diversified
$5,000
$4,200
Charles Koch
$31 B
diversified
$30,800
Jim Walton
$26.8 B
Wal-Mart
$5,000
$200,000
Alice Walton
$26.3 B
Wal-Mart
$2,500
$200,000
Sheldon Adelson
$20.5 B
casinos
$5,000
$30,800
$20,000,000
Jacqueline Mars
$17 B
candy
$5,000
$23,500
Steve Ballmer
$15.9 B
Microsoft
$15,000
Carl Icahn
$14.8 B
leveraged buyouts
$2,500
Phil Knight
$13.1 B
Nike
$5,000
$30,800
Donald Bren
$13 B
real estate
$5,000
$30,800
Len Blavatnik
$12.5 B
diversified
$2,500
Ronald Perelman
$12 B
leveraged buyouts
$3,000
Abigail Johnson
$11.8 B
money management
$5,000
$30,800
John Paulson
$11 B
hedge funds
$5,000
$30,800
$1,000,000
Jack Taylor
$11 B
Enterprise Rent-A-Car
$5,000
$10,000
Harold Hamm
$9.7 B
oil & gas
$2,500
$30,800
$985,000
Richard Kinder
$9.4 B
pipelines
$5,000
$6,700
Andrew Beal
$8.4 B
banks, real estate
$200,000
Philip Anschutz
$7.6 B
investments
$30,800
James Goodnight
$7.3 B
software
$5,000
$30,800
Harold Simmons
$7.1 B
investments
$2,500
$1,200,000
Ira Rennert
$6.5 B
investments
$5,000
$20,000
$1,000,000
John Malone
$5.6 B
cable television
$5,000
$30,800
David Tepper
$5.5 B
hedge funds
$5,000
$30,800
$375,000
Jeffrey Hildebrand
$5.5 B
oil
$2,500
$200,000
Jim Kennedy
$5.4 B
media
$5,000
$30,800
Stephen Schwarzman
$5.2 B
private equity
$5,000
$30,800
Dennis Washington
$5.2 B
construction, mining
$5,000
$50,000
Ray Lee Hunt
$5.2 B
oil, real estate
$5,000
$30,800
Richard LeFrak
$5.2 B
real estate
$5,000
$25,000
Richard DeVos
$5.1 B
Amway
$5,000
$30,800
Robert Rowling
$4.9 B
investments
$5,000
$24,200
$100,000
Hank Meijer
$4.9 B
supermarkets
$5,000
$28,300
Charles Johnson
$4.7 B
Money Management
$5,000
$30,800
$50,000
Scott Duncan
$4.7 B
pipelines
$2,250
Rupert Johnson Jr.
$4.6 B
money management
$5,000
$20,000
Thomas Peterffy
$4.6 B
discount brokerage
$5,000
$30,800
Trevor Rees-Jones
$4.5 B
oil & Gas
$5,000
$30,800
$100,000
Stephen Ross
$4.4 B
real estate
$5,000
$20,800
$100,000
Leslie Wexner
$4.4 B
retail
$5,000
$250,000
Bruce Kovner
$4.3 B
hedge funds
$5,000
$23,300
$1,000,000
Leonard Stern
$4.2 B
real estate
$2,500
S. Truett Cathy
$4.2 B
Chick-fil-A
$2,500
Henry Kravis
$4 B
leveraged buyouts
$5,000
$30,800
$200,000
Thomas Frist Jr.
$4 B
health care
$2,500
Barbara Gage
$4 B
hotels, restaurants
$500
William Koch
$4 B
oil, investments
$4,000,000
Sam Zell
$3.8 B
real estate, private equity
$2,500
$9,800
$180,000
Charles Schwab
$3.7 B
discount brokerage
$5,000
$30,800
$125,000
George Roberts
$3.7 B
leveraged buyouts
$5,000
$30,800
Edward Roski Jr.
$3.7 B
real estate
$3,700
$30,800
Leon Black
$3.5 B
private equity
$5,000
$30,800
Tom Love
$3.5 B
retail & gas stations
$5,000
$7,500
Judy Love
$3.5 B
retail & gas stations
$5,000
$7,500
Edward Lampert
$3.2 B
hedge funds
$2,500
Ken Griffin
$3.1 B
hedge funds
$5,000
$30,800
$1,550,000
Donald Trump
$3.1 B
Television, Real Estate
$5,000
$30,800
Whitney MacMillan
$3 B
Cargill Inc.
$3,000
Charles Dolan
$3 B
cable television
$5,000
$20,800
John Catsimatidis
$3 B
oil, real estate, supermarkets
$5,000
$30,800
Terrence Pegula
$3 B
natural gas
$5,000
$30,800
Jerry Speyer
$3 B
real estate
$5,000
$30,800
Archie Emmerson
$3 B
timberland, lumber mills
$5,000
$30,000
Riley Bechtel
$2.9 B
engineering, construction
$5,000
$7,500
Stephen Bechtel Jr.
$2.9 B
engineering, construction
$5,000
$30,000
Diane Hendricks
$2.9 B
roofing
$5,000
$30,800
Doris Fisher
$2.9 B
Gap
$2,500
Warren Stephens
$2.7 B
investment banking
$2,500
$25,500
$500,000
Stanley Druckenmiller
$2.7 B
hedge funds
$5,000
Bernard Marcus
$2.7 B
Home Depot
$5,000
$30,800
$20,000
Helen Johnson-Leipold
$2.7 B
SC Johnson & Sons
$2,500
Michael Ilitch
$2.7 B
pizza
$5,000
$30,800
Marian Ilitch
$2.7 B
pizza
$5,000
$30,800
Jeremy Jacobs Sr.
$2.7 B
sports concessions
$5,000
$30,800
Jerry Jones
$2.7 B
Dallas Cowboys
$2,500
Julian Robertson Jr.
$2.6 B
hedge funds
$5,000
$30,800
$2,250,000
Herbert Kohler Jr.
$2.6 B
plumbing fixtures
$5,000
$30,800
David Sun
$2.6 B
computer hardware
$2,500
Phillip Ruffin
$2.5 B
casinos, real estate
$5,000
$30,800
Anthony Pritzker
$2.5 B
hotels, investments
$5,000
$30,800
Shahid Khan
$2.5 B
auto parts
$5,000
$30,800
Randal Kirk
$2.4 B
pharmaceuticals
$5,000
$25,600
Phillip Frost
$2.4 B
pharmaceuticals
$5,000
$30,800
H. Wayne Huizenga
$2.4 B
investments
$2,500
$30,800
A. Jerrold Perenchio
$2.4 B
television
$5,000
$1,500,000
Igor Olenicoff
$2.4 B
real estate
$1,000
Mary Malone
$2.4 B
Campbell Soup
$1,000
Daniel Och
$2.3 B
hedge funds
$2,500
Wilbur Ross Jr.
$2.3 B
investments
$5,000
$30,800
$100,000
John Fisher
$2.3 B
Gap
$5,000
Stewart Resnick
$2.2 B
agriculture, water
$5,000
$30,800
Leon Cooperman
$2.2 B
hedge funds
$5,000
$30,800
Thomas Pritzker
$2.2 B
hotels, investments
$2,500
Henry Hillman
$2.2 B
investments
$5,000
$30,800
Herbert Simon
$2.2 B
real estate
$5,000
$22,500
William Wrigley Jr.
$2.2 B
chewing gum
$2,500
Anita Zucker
$2.1 B
chemicals
$5,000
$5,000
Walter Scott Jr.
$2.1 B
construction, telecom
$5,000
$30,800
Stanley Hubbard
$2.1 B
DirecTV
$2,500
$30,800
Jim Davis
$2.1 B
New Balance
$5,000
$1,000,000
Herbert Allen Jr.
$2 B
investment banking
$5,000
J. Christopher Reyes
$2 B
food distribution
$2,500
$100,000
Edward Bass
$2 B
oil, investments
$5,000
$30,000
Lee Bass
$2 B
oil, investments
$5,000
Richard Peery
$2 B
real estate
$5,000
$30,800
Andrew Cherng
$2 B
Panda Restaurant Group
$3,750
Peggy Cherng
$2 B
Panda Restaurant Group
$3,750
Daniel D’Aniello
$1.9 B
leveraged buyouts
$2,500
Daniel Gilbert
$1.9 B
Quicken Loans
$5,000
$6,700
Alec Gores
$1.9 B
private equity
$5,000
Michael Jaharis
$1.9 B
pharmaceuticals
$2,500
$30,800
Richard Marriott
$1.9 B
hotels
$5,000
$28,800
$1,000,000
George Argyros
$1.9 B
real estate, investments
$5,000
$30,800
Clayton Mathile
$1.9 B
pet food
$2,500
$30,800
Bennett Dorrance
$1.9 B
Campbell Soup
$5,000
$5,000
B. Wayne Hughes
$1.9 B
self storage
$2,500
Dean White
$1.8 B
billboards, hotels
$5,000
$30,800
Ken Fisher
$1.8 B
money management
$2,500
Robert McNair
$1.8 B
energy, sports
$5,000
$1,000,000
Drayton McLane Jr.
$1.8 B
Wal-Mart, logistics
$250,000
Leandro Rizzuto
$1.8 B
consumer products
$2,500
Frederick Smith
$1.8 B
FedEx
$5,000
Thomas Siebel
$1.8 B
business software
$5,000
$25,800
Jonathan Nelson
$1.7 B
leveraged buyouts
$2,500
Glenn Dubin
$1.7 B
hedge funds
$5,000
$2,500
Meg Whitman
$1.7 B
eBay
$100,000
Joshua Harris
$1.6 B
private equity
$5,000
$30,800
Stewart Rahr
$1.6 B
drug distribution
$1,000
Bill Marriott Jr.
$1.6 B
hotels
$4,100
$30,800
$1,000,000
Kenneth Langone
$1.6 B
investments
$2,500
Norman Braman
$1.6 B
art, car dealerships
$5,000
$25,800
Marc Rowan
$1.5 B
private equity
$2,500
$220,000
Thomas Kaplan
$1.5 B
Investments
$5,000
$30,800
$100,000
James Pritzker
$1.5 B
hotels, investments
$4,900
$30,800
Richard Schulze
$1.5 B
Best Buy
$2,500
$30,800
Bob Parsons
$1.5 B
web hosting
$1,000,000
Craig McCaw
$1.5 B
telecom
$5,000
$5,000
James Dinan
$1.4 B
hedge funds
$2,500
Michael Price
$1.4 B
investments
$5,000
$20,000
Farris Wilks
$1.4 B
natural gas
$5,000
$20,000
Henry Ross Perot Jr.
$1.4 B
computer services, real estate
$3,200
Richard Hayne
$1.4 B
Urban Outfitters
$5,000
$30,800
Scott Cook
$1.4 B
Intuit
$5,000
$30,800
Louis Bacon
$1.3 B
hedge funds
$500,000
Daniel Loeb
$1.3 B
hedge Funds
$2,500
$30,800
Richard Scaife
$1.3 B
investments
$5,000
$30,800
$82,500
Billy Joe McCombs
$1.3 B
real estate, oil, cars
$5,000
$50,000
Mark Stevens
$1.2 B
venture capital
$2,500
$30,800
Henry Swieca
$1.2 B
hedge funds
$5,000
$22,500
Richard Chilton Jr
$1.2 B
hedge funds
$5,000
$30,800
Patrick Ryan
$1.2 B
insurance
$5,000
$30,800
Nelson Peltz
$1.2 B
investments
$5,000
$30,800
$50,000
C. Dean Metropoulos
$1.2 B
investments
$30,800
Christopher Cline
$1.2 B
coal
$5,000
$30,800
T. Boone Pickens
$1.2 B
oil & gas, investments
$5,000
$30,800
Jimmy Haslam
$1.2 B
retail
$5,000
$30,000
Bruce Nordstrom
$1.2 B
Retailing
$5,000
Tom Benson
$1.2 B
New Orleans Saints
$5,000
$30,800
James Clark
$1.2 B
Netscape
$5,000
$3,000
Kenny Troutt
$1.2 B
telecommunications
$5,000
$30,800
Alexander Rovt
$1.15 B
fertilizer, real estate
$500
Paul Singer
$1.1 B
hedge funds
$5,000
$30,800
$1,000,000
George Joseph
$1.1 B
insurance
$2,500
Dan Snyder
$1.1 B
Washington Redskins
$5,000
$30,800
(Sources: Forbes.com and Federal Election Commission.)
If their man [i.e Mitt Romney] wins election next Tuesday, these wealthy contributors are poised to have his ear.
Much of Romney’s platform caters directly to the policies they desire. Further tax cuts for upper incomes, capital gains, interest and dividends; the elimination of taxes on estate transfers; lower corporate tax rates; and the implementation of a territorial tax system all favor the wealthy over the working and middle classes.
“The initial effect would be to give very large tax cuts to wealthy people — and that’s clear — and to corporations which they own,” said Bob McIntyre, president of Citizens for Tax Justice.
The Romney policies would disproportionately aid financial-sector billionaires, who make most of their money through capital gains and carried interest. Fifty-eight members of the Forbes 400 who have supported Romney hail from the financial and investments industries. They have given a total of $12.9 million to help the Republican candidate.
Romney’s policies are also very favorable to the fossil fuel industry, including reduced regulation, cuts in the Environmental Protection Agency’s budget and more areas open to drilling. Oil billionaire Harold Hamm, one of Romney’s top energy advisers and a major donor to both the Romney campaign and Restore Our Future, would profit handsomely from Romney’s energy agenda.
Then there’s casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, the largest donor to Romney’s efforts. Adelson, who has given $20 million to Restore Our Future and $35,800 to Romney and the RNC, has made it clear that he opposes unions, supports lower taxes and Israel’s right-wing government, and wants an investigation into his company’s China business to be quashed.
In this, the last post in this series, I had planned to take Mr. Mourdock’s position to its logical extreme (as distasteful as it is to me) as follows:
If it was God’s will for a woman who was raped to become pregnant (this was the gist of Mr. Mourdock’s original statement) then
It follows that it was God’s will for the woman to be raped then
It follows that the rapist was doing God’s will so it does not seem fair that they should be punished (hey they were only doing God’s will)
I was planning to do this to show the ABSURDITY of the original statement but I have decided it is a waste my time because none of the people that are supporting Mr. Mourdock (the ones that I would be trying to influence) would be able to follow any logical train of thought.
So let’s end it this way. Mitt Romney selected Richard Mourdock as the only Senate Candidate that he made an ad for. When Mr. Mourdock made his outrageous statement, Mitt continued to back him and did not pull his ad. I think about this says more about Mitt Romney than Mr. Mourdock’s statement says about him. Think about this if you are even considering a vote for Mitt.
Postscript:
I am so glad this series of posts is over. Writing about people like Mr. Mourdock makes me so angry that I can barely contain myself. I look forward to celebrating his defeat on Tuesday (along with the defeat of his best buddy Mitt Romney).
The Mitt Romney campaign is in desperation mode. The polls are telling the story and Romney’s response is to once again double down on the lies, misrepresentations, and threats that have ensured that he will never be president. The lies about the auto industry continue to pushed in Ohio ads. He is misrepresenting comments by President Obama where he was telling people not to “boo” Romney but instead to vote. Most heinous of all, he and his rich business owner buddies are being even more direct in threatening employees if they do not vote for Romney. Completely wrong but what else could you expect.
The article below from the Huffington Post contains the latest details about the threats.
WASHINGTON — The Mitt Romney campaign and its business allies are driving home a final message unlike one we’ve seen in past presidential campaigns: Vote Romney, or you’re fired.
The pressure on workers in swing states to toe the GOP line hasn’t been restricted to any particular industry. Corporate apparel makers in Ohio, truck stop attendants in Ohio and Virginia, casino employees in Nevada, construction workers in Florida, gift-card purveyors in Colorado and Florida, car-parts makers in Michigan, software technicians in Florida and Colorado, coal miners in Ohio, dock manufacturers in Wisconsin, frozen-food packers in Michigan, resort staff in Florida, Virginia and Nevada, and people all over the country who work — or used to work — for Koch Industries or another Koch-owned company have all been given notice by their boss that an Obama victory could lead to layoffs or otherwise harm the company and its workers.
Even workers who’d already been laid off by the Kochs were mailed letters urging them to vote Republican or else “suffer the consequences” of Obama policies that would harm the company.
Romney himself urged conservative business leaders this June to “make it very clear to your employees what you believe is in the best interest of your enterprise and therefore their job and their future in the upcoming elections.”
Before the Supreme Court’s 5-4 Citizens United decision, it would have been illegal for a boss to tell an employee that “their job and their future” was on the ballot on Election Day. But the court now considers such electoral pressure an expression of free speech.
“Nothing illegal about you talking to your employees about what you believe is best for the business, because I think that will figure into their election decision, their voting decision,” Romney told the business owners associated with the National Federation of Independent Business, a political organization closely aligned to the Republican Party.
Romney’s push to get businesses to pressure workers on Election Day is relatively new. Marc Wolpow, the former managing director at Bain Capital who worked under Romney, told HuffPost the future politician never pressured underlings to vote a certain way. “He was completely apolitical,” he said. “There was absolutely no pressure.”
Wolpow thought bosses of all political stripes should stay away from campaigning in employee break rooms and penning endorsements for company newsletters. “I don’t think it’s appropriate for business owners to pressure their employees one way or the other, nor by the way do I think it’s appropriate for unions to do it,” he said. (Unions, of course, can’t fire workers.)
In the case of Request Foods’ CEO’s endorsement of Romney, it fit neatly into the Michigan company’s modus operandi. The company promotes itself as “dedicated to placing priority on Christian principles in every aspect of our business,” according to its website. That means quarterly meetings that seem to emphasize GOP politics over business news and chaplains regularly in the office halls, said one former employee.
Romney simply helped reinforce the company’s atmosphere. “Just the culture is so right wing,” the former employee said. “When they have those workplace chaplains … They report directly to the head of [human resources].”
Eric Manthei, the logistics coordinator for Request Foods, told HuffPost recently that the CEO’s endorsement, which appeared in the company newsletter, did not cause any reaction among employees. “I don’t think it was weird at all,” he said. “They are very open and transparent with their thoughts and beliefs. All the employees fall in line. They support our business policies.”
Until recently, the Romney campaign outsourced to its business allies its message to specific workers. That changed Oct. 25 when Romney himself told Jeep workers, in so many words, that they were going to be fired as a result of Obama’s auto bailout. He followed up with ads that continued to imply Jeep would be moving jobs overseas, even after executives at both GM and Chrysler refuted them.
The nearly 3,000 Jeep workers at its two Toledo plants, as well as the suppliers who feed them, woke up to a Toledo Blade story about Romney’s announcement. At least a dozen auto workers were concerned enough to call their local union to ask about the situation, said Bruce Baumhower, president of the UAW local 12, which represents the Jeep workers as well as dozens of their suppliers.
On Friday, Romney warned that a second Obama term could bring about a second recession. “The same path means $20 trillion in debt, crippling unemployment, stagnant take-home pay, depressed home values, and a devastated military,” he said at a speech in West Allis, Wis. “And unless we change course, we may be looking at another recession.”
Baumhower said he’s used to hearing politicians promise that the economy will get better under them and would be worse under their opponent — that, after all, is generally the driving message behind a campaign (along with gay marriage and abortion). But what he saw from Romney was something new.
“I don’t think I’ve ever really seen people running for political office threaten people with their employment,” he told HuffPost. “It might be fair game for somebody to say, I can improve the economy. I can grow the jobs market and you’ll have more opportunities under me than the other guy. I’ve heard that. I don’t think I’ve heard anybody come out like this and say: ‘You’re going to lose your jobs if you don’t vote for me.’ Pretty ridiculous. But he did.”
Baumhower said he reminded the workers that the company was in the middle of a half-billion-dollar investment in expanding production in Ohio, and also that Chrysler had started building cars in China in the ’80s — a plan launched by American Motors, ironically headed at one point by George Romney, Mitt Romney’s father.
“I said: ‘Don’t you remember when the plant’s managers, the engineering staff and different folks would go over [to China] for two months at a time to help them launch those plants?’ And everybody said: ‘Oh yeah,'” Baumhower said, explaining how he eased the workers’ worries. “Our members went from fear to anger and people were telling me that it was pretty pitiful that somebody who wants to be commander-in-chief to be stooping down to that to try to win the election.”
A private equity executive with a track-record of mass layoffs isn’t the most obvious person to entrust with one’s job security. One Bain & Co. employee, who worked there after Romney and spoke on the condition of anonymity, said that company was so predictable in its consulting advice — fire people — that it became an office punchline.
“It was a running joke,” he recalled. “‘Oh, what are we going to do? We’re going to fire people. Of course we are!’ It was a joke. That’s how we felt about it: ‘Okay, let’s have some beers on Friday and forget about it.'”
As it turns out, Mitt Romney isn’t the only friend of Richard “Rape Is God’s Will”. Even though Mitt is his biggest supporter (having not pulled the ad that he made for Richard “Rape Is God’s Will” Mourdock) the whole Republican Party is lining up behind him to save him from himself. As I have pointed out before the “Rape Issue” is a systemic issue across the Republican Party and not isolated to a few isolated kooks like Todd Akins and Richard “Rape Is God’s Will” Mourdock.
To learn more about how the whole Republican Party is lining up to support Richard “Rape Is God’s Will” Mourdock, read the following article from Portico.com.
Stay tuned tomorrow for the final post in this series before the election. in that post we will explore what “Rape Is God’s Will” implies if you think about it a little deeper. Trust me, it is pretty troubling.
GOP spends big to save Richard Mourdock
By: Manu Raju
November 1, 2012 06:25 PM EDT
Republicans are spending big to salvage Richard Mourdock’s candidacy in the aftermath of his comments on rape and pregnancy that have imperiled GOP hopes of taking back the Senate majority.About $4 million is being spent across the airwaves in the final week of the campaign to bolster Mourdock, from the likes of well-known Republican groups like American Crossroads, the National Republican Senatorial Committee and the Club for Growth. And that comes as both sides acknowledge that Mourdock has taken a hit in the polls since his comments. Democrats are now more confident than ever that their candidate, Rep. Joe Donnelly, is poised to pull off one of the biggest upsets of the cycle.
Unlike the Todd Akin situation, the influx of outside money shows how quickly Republicans nationally have rallied behind Mourdock after he roiled the political world by saying God intended for pregnancies to occur from rape. Facing a steep climb to net the four seats needed to win the majority — or three if Mitt Romney wins the White House — Republicans must hold the Indiana seat, which had been occupied by veteran Sen. Richard Lugar since 1977 until Mourdock won the GOP primary earlier this year.
“It’s a coin flip,” one Republican involved in the race acknowledged.
Sensing fresh opportunity, Democrats have hardly been sitting on their wallets. Outside groups — including the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and the Majority PAC — are spending about $3 million in the campaign’s final week to boost Donnelly, a three-term congressman from South Bend. And with Republicans poised to make gains up-and-down the ticket in the state, Indiana Democratic candidates from governor down to the House are trying to tie Mourdock’s growing unpopularity to their opponents in the final push for voters.
“Richard Mourdock shocked and embarrassed Hoosiers,” said Dan Parker, the Indiana Democratic Party chairman. “It’s no wonder he’s become toxic on the campaign trail.”
Democrats circulated a poll Wednesday that showed a 9-point uptick in Mourdock’s unfavorability rating, with 49 percent of Hoosier voters holding a negative view of the state treasurer. It also found Donnelly up 7 points in a three-way race that also includes Libertarian candidate Andrew Horning, a stark reversal in a race long seen as a sure GOP win.
But Brose McVey, a senior official at the Mourdock campaign, dismissed the Donnelly poll, calling it “out of whack” with all the other polls that showed the race was “roughly tied.”
“Yes we’ve got an increase in unfavorable, but we’ve seen improvement in that in recent days,” McVey said. “We’re very, very pleased with the numbers we’re getting lately. We sense a little bit of a nice trend line forming since about Sunday. To be honest with you, we know we’re going to have a favorable turnout.”
Republicans believe Mourdock will ride the coattails of Mitt Romney and GOP Rep. Mike Pence, who is running for governor. And they note that there’s been a sharp decrease in the early vote in the Democratic stronghold of Indianapolis, which may bode well for the embattled GOP candidate.
Still, there’s no dispute that Mourdock’s rocky 10 days has made the race much tighter than Republicans had anticipated in a state President Barack Obama has effectively conceded. Both sides are now eagerly awaiting a non-partisan Howey-DePauw Battleground Poll to be released Friday.
In the interim, Democrats believe Mourdock remains a major drag to Republicans throughout Indiana. The Democratic gubernatorial candidate, John Gregg, and an outside group have released campaign ads likening Mourdock’s hard-edged politics to Pence, the favorite in the governor’s race. And Gregg’s campaign claims it has cut into Pence’s double-digit lead and narrowed it to within 3 points in the aftermath of the Mourdock fallout.
“Now Richard Mourdock says pregnancy from rape is ‘something God intended,” said an ad from a Democratic-allied outside group called Believe in Indiana. “He’s just like Mike Pence.”
It’s little surprise that Democrats are training their fire on Mourdock. Internal Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee polls conducted in late September in Donnelly’s House district found just 32 percent of voters viewed the Republican favorably. Fresher polling even before the rape comments found Mourdock’s unfavorability numbers growing to 40 percent, according to a Democratic campaign operative.
The GOP candidate in that district, Jackie Walorski, has faced an attack ad from the Democratic-aligned House Majority PAC, calling her a “tea party extremist just like Richard Mourdock.”
Republicans dismissed the attacks.
“Jackie Walorski is an independent voice for Hoosiers and anybody that wants to paint a different picture is wasting their time,” said Katie Prill, spokeswoman for the National Republican Congressional Committee.
In a recent interview, Mourdock cited the negative attacks as a prime reason for the Senate race being so tight, calling himself a “punching bag” for Democrats.
But Republicans have punched back at Donnelly, trying to undercut his efforts to sell himself as a bipartisan moderate. Including $500,000 spent by Mourdock, about $4.1 million in ads are reserved from Oct. 30-Nov. 6 to bolster the GOP candidate. Of that total, about $1.5 million is from Crossroads and $1.4 million from the National Republican Senatorial Committee. Groups tied to Sen. Rand Paul and the billionaire Joe Ricketts are also engaged in the race.
“What would a vote for Joe Donnelly really mean?” said a 30-second ad by the Club for Growth. “It would mean a U.S. Senate controlled by liberals.”
This commandment is the core of the Republican strategy for this year’s campaign. There are too many examples to focus on each one so let’s just focus on the most recent one….Republican lies about the auto industry. Sure, you can see why they are using this approach….Mitt Romney’s “let them go bankrupt” approach to saving the auto industry is not a winning position. So all the Republican’s can do is lie. So tell me, are you willing to vote for a presidential candidate that has zero integrity? I can tell you that I am not!
Let’s start with at the beginning, here is Romney’s position, Romney’s prediction of the consequences of the bailout supported by President Obama, and the reality of what has has occurred based on the bailout.
Here is the Romney ad running in Ohio that is full of lies. The first of the lies is that President took made the companies go bankrupt . Of course it was Romney who wanted to do this and it was President Obama that bailed them out. The second lie is that Chrysler was moving Jeep production to China.
The following article captures Chrysler’s response to the second lie.
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Chrysler CEO Calls Romney Jeep Claim ‘Inaccurate’
For a candidate pledged to help businesses large and small succeed, Mitt Romney sure is getting a cool reception from top executives at Chrysler.
Sergio Marchionne, the company’s CEO, felt compelled to send a company-wide email to reassure workers that assertions made by the Republican presidential candidate both in a campaign appearance and in radio and television advertisements are “inaccurate.””I feel obliged to unambiguously restate our position: Jeep production will not be moved from the United States to China,” he wrote, adding that the company was planning on more investment in manufacturing and jobs in the American Midwest, including the crucial presidential swing state of Ohio.
Romney commented while campaigning last week that he had read news reports saying Chrysler would be cutting American jobs in favor of manufacturing Jeeps overseas.
Marchionne said it is true that the company is ramping up overseas manufacturing, but as additional capacity to feed growing demand in Chinese markets, not to replace American jobs.
“Jeep assembly lines will remain in operation in the United States and will constitute the backbone of the brand,” he said. “It is inaccurate to suggest anything different.”
The back-and-forth, held just one week before Election Day, may prove a pivotal moment.
President Barack Obama and Romney are virtually tied in national polling, but Obama has a slight edge in most Ohio surveys, likely buoyed by positive reviews of his oversight of the auto-industry bailout viewed as critical to the region.
The Buckeye State is a near must-win for Romney, as no Republican has been elected to the White House without winning Ohio. Scrutiny of the electoral map reveals even if Romney were to run the table and win other battleground states Florida, Virginia, North Carolina, Colorado, New Hampshire, and Iowa, he still wouldn’t win the 270 votes necessary without taking Ohio.
Obama campaign officials have called Romney’s willingness to mislead a “desperate” attempt to win.
“It reeks of desperation because that’s what it is,” said Jim Messina, Obama’s campaign manager in a media call on Monday.
The Ohio press has extensively covered the back-and-forth, with the Cleveland Plain Dealer editorializing that the ad is “a masterpiece of misdirection.”
The Romney campaign also made news Tuesday when it announced that it was buying television advertising time in Pennsylvania, traditionally a swing state but one that has been largely off the table this cycle due to Obama’s consistent lead in polling there. An average of statewide polling has Obama up by 4.7 percentage points, according to RealClearPolitics.com. The GOP candidate’s campaign is also going to stump in Minnesota, another state thought to be firmly in the Democrat’s corner throughout the campaign.
“With one week to go, and 96 percent of the vote on the table on Election Day in Pennsylvania, this expansion of the electoral map demonstrates that Gov. Romney’s momentum has jumped containment from the usual target states and has spread to deeper blue states that Chicago never anticipated defending,” wrote Rich Beeson, Romney’s political director, in a memo on the campaign website.
He said the campaign is flush with cash and ready to make a super-sized final push.
“As a campaign we will put more resources into the target states in the final week, than previous GOP campaigns have been able to do in the final 10 weeks,” Beeson said. “The Romney campaign has the resources to expand the map in ways that weren’t possible in past cycles (without reducing any effort in any other target state).”
The Obama campaign, however, argues this expansion into states where Romney hasn’t been spending time or resources previously is an acknowledgement they aren’t gaining the necessary traction in Ohio and in other battlegrounds.
“The Romney campaign has found itself with a tremendously narrow and improbable path to 270 electoral votes,” said Messina, in a statement distributed by the Obama campaign. “Now, like Republicans did in 2008, they are throwing money at states where they never built an organization and have been losing for two years. Let’s be very clear, the Romney campaign and its allies decision to go up with advertising in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Minnesota is a decision made out of weakness, not strength.”
Messina said it’s clear that Obama has a “significant” early vote advantage and that Romney’s momentum gained from his debate performance at the beginning of the month has stalled.
“Gov. Romney has not been able to put away a single battleground state,” he said. “In fact, as polls in the past day have showed the candidates tied in North Carolina, Republicans have raced to increase their television advertising there. Voters who haven’t heard from the Romney campaign in two years will see this desperation for what it is.”
Both campaigns suspended official campaigning by Romney and Obama on Monday and Tuesday due to Hurricane Sandy. Romney did hold what the campaign billed as a “storm relief” event with supporters in Ohio, gathering canned goods and other items and Obama made a stop by the American Red Cross headquarters in Washington. Obama will travel to New Jersey on Wednesday where he will survey storm damage with Republican Gov. Chris Christie, while Romney has a full slate of campaign events scheduled in Florida. Christie, a top Romney surrogate who delivered the keynote address at the Republican National Convention this year, has already offered praise for Obama’s leadership on Sandy relief efforts.
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Did the Romney campaign apologize for the ad……no way. They doubled down on their lies. Here is a news report about their second ad with even more flagrant lies.
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Finally, Rachel Maddow, in her own unique way, sets the record straight and call out Romney and the Republicans for what they are…..serial liars.
Here is a greatest hits from Richard Mourdock, and by association, from his biggest supporter Mitt Romney. Mitt still stands behind this man’s campaign for the US Senate…..Is this really what you want as your next President?
John Koster, a Republican congressional candidate in Washington state, said Sunday that “the rape thing” is not a good enough reason for a woman to have an abortion,the Associated Press reported.
Asked at a campaign fundraiser whether he supports abortion rights in some situations, Koster replied that he only supports abortion in cases where a woman’s life is in danger.
“Incest is so rare, I mean, it’s so rare,” he said. “But the rape thing– you know, I know a woman who was raped and kept the child, gave it up for adoption, and she doesn’t regret it.”
He added, “On the rape thing, it’s like, how does putting more violence onto a woman’s body and taking the life of an innocent child that’s a consequence of this crime — how does that make it better? You know what I mean?”
His Democratic opponent, Suzan DelBene, supports abortion rights. Her campaign criticized Koster for trivializing rape.
“Dismissing it as a ‘thing’ is an awfully casual way for him to talk about it, and I think it highlights how little he understands the ramifications and the seriousness of the issue. So that’s very problematic,” DelBene spokesperson Viet Shelton told TPM. “And the way he approaches the issue and the policy conclusions he comes to, it just highlights the serious problem we have when politicians are trying to dictate women’s health care decisions.”
In response to the controversy over his comments, Koster campaign manager Larry Stickney told the AP that Koster clearly takes rape seriously because he has strongly advocated cracking down on sex offenders.
Republican lawmakers and congressional candidates have made headlines several times over the past few months for their comments about rape and abortion. Indiana GOP Senate candidate Richard Mourdock said that pregnancy from rape is “something God intended,” Rep. Todd Akin (R-Mo.) said victims of “legitimate rape” almost never become pregnant, and Rep. Tom Smith (R-Pa.) compared pregnancy as a result of rape to “having a baby out of wedlock.”