How To Oust a Congressman - Pt. 2
Taylor
Published: Thursday 22 November 2012
Accomplishing this goal will require a combination of branding, social media savvy, and the voice of the people.

 

In the previous post of this series, I mentioned how a small group of committed activists with limited funding managed to end New Hampshire tea party Congressman Frank Guinta’s tenure using creative direct action.

In this post, I’ll discuss how to control the political conversation and media narrative of your congressional district, putting your representatives on defense over their record. Accomplishing this goal will require a combination of branding, social media savvy, and the voice of the people.

A: BRANDING

The primary goal of narrative control, in this case, is to turn your Congressman’s name into a toxic brand that nobody wants to associate with.

By Election Day, you want this brand to be so powerful that people will associate it with a losing effort. Because nobody wants to root for the losing team. Establishing a negative brand around your ...

How to Oust a Congressman: Step One
Satra Kit
Published: Friday 16 November 2012
“We’re not talking about digging up dirt in anyone’s personal lives, interviewing mistresses on TV or spending millions on attack ads.”

 

He was up in the polls against his prospective opponent, Carol Shea-Porter, whom he easily defeated in the GOP wave of 2010. He had a clear edge in fundraising and the support of his district’s media. But by November 6, Guinta’s constituents couldn’t wait to vote him out of office. He ended up losing to Shea-Porter by 4 points after beating her in 2010 by 12 points — a 16-point swing in just two years.

And here is the story of how that effective, negative, campaign-changing attention to unseat an extreme rightist came about:

Between April and November of 2012 in Manchester, a small ragtag group of Occupy activists teamed up with CREDO SuperPAC’s small ragtag organization, with its bare-bones funding and staff, and for seven months used a combination of direct action, narrative control and tried-and-true political organizing techniques to build a movement that turned a once-popular congressman’s name into a toxic brand even his supporters were reluctant to embrace.

In this three-part series, I will explain how we did this and lay out a plan so that others can do this in their local community, to their own congresspeople, in 2014. This model also can work for incumbent state legislators inside their own districts, and even against well-established corporate-funded Democrats in primary races.

It’s important to remember that this is not and should not ...

Outside Spending Makes Big Difference in State Level Races
Taylor
Published: Thursday 8 November 2012
Citizens United decision impact goes beyond D.C.

The explosion of outside spending unleashed at the federal level by the 2010Citizens United Supreme Court ruling also rocked state races.

Contests for the top executive and judicial spots, in states whose bans on corporate outside spending were invalidated by the ruling, were newly shaped by unlimited cash from out-of-state corporate and union treasuries.

The D.C.-based governors’ associations led the way, nearly keeping pace with candidate spending in several close races. Governors’ races in Montana, Washington and New Hampshire were neck-and-neck as voters were besieged by ads financed by outside spending groups through Election Day.

Montana governor's race

Republican Rick Hill held a 

Race, Romney, and the GOP’s Entitlement Problem
Satra Kit
Published: Wednesday 3 October 2012
“There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for President Obama no matter what.”

The subject of so-called “entitlements” is sure to come up at tonight’s first presidential debate and so perhaps it makes sense to disabuse candidate Romney of his transfer payment fallacies and fantasies before he begins to speak. 

By now we’ve all seen the footage.  First publicized by Mother Jones in September, the infamous seven-minute clip depicts Mitt Romney openly excoriating the “47 percent” of parasitic “Americans dependent of government” at a $50,000-a-plate fundraiser in Boca Raton, Florida. (As an aside, the inflation-adjusted median household income for an American family is currently $50,054.)

I give you, Mitt, in his own words…

“There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for [P]resident [Obama] no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe that government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you name it.”

Although Romney’s claim that “47 percent” of freeloading Americans don’t pay income tax is easy enough to disclaim, his remarks represent a more insidious worldview that many conservatives unwittingly embrace. Romney’s anomic “entitlement society” theory begs the question: Exactly who  do republicans think benefit most from programs like unemployment insurance, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), food stamps (SNAP), and Medicaid?

Well, remember ...

Occupy Your Victories
Satra Kit
Published: Monday 17 September 2012
“Occupy didn’t seem remarkable on September 17, 2011, and not a lot of people were looking at it when it was mostly young people heading for Manhattan’s Zuccotti Park.”

 

Occupy is now a year old.  A year is an almost ridiculous measure of time for much of what matters: at one year old, Georgia O’Keeffe was not a great painter, and Bessie Smith wasn’t much of a singer. One year into the Civil Rights Movement, the Montgomery Bus Boycott was still in progress, catalyzed by the unknown secretary of the local NAACP chapter and a preacher from Atlanta -- by, that is, Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, Jr. Occupy, our bouncing baby, was born with such struggle and joy a year ago, and here we are, 12 long months later.

Occupy didn’t seem remarkable on September 17, 2011, and not a lot of people were looking at it when it was mostly young people heading for Manhattan’s Zuccotti Park. But its most remarkable aspect turned out to be its staying power: it didn’t declare victory or defeat and go home. It decided it was home and settled in for two catalytic months.

Tents and general assemblies and the acts, tools, and ideas of Occupy exploded across the nation and the western world from Alaska to New Zealand, and some parts of the eastern world -- Occupy Hong Kong was going strong until last week. For a while, it was easy to see that this baby was something big, but then most, though not all, of the urban encampments were busted, and the movement became something subtler. But don’t let them tell you it went away.

The most startling question anyone asked me last year was, “What is Occupy’s 10-year plan?”

Who takes the long view? Americans have a tendency to think of activism like a slot machine, and if it doesn’t come up three jailed bankers or three clear ...

Issa Wants to Know if Dems Are Raising Dollars for Super PACs
Taylor
Published: Thursday 19 July 2012
“House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., is investigating the frequency with which Cabinet Secretaries appear at super PAC events and whether government funds have been used for travel to and from these events.”

 

Five months after the Center for Public Integrity reported that four of President Barack Obama’s Cabinet members were willing to raise money for Democratic super PACs, the top Republican investigator in the House is asking for details.

House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., is “investigating the frequency with which Cabinet Secretaries appear at super PAC events and whether government funds have been used for travel to and from these events,” according to a July 12 letter obtained byPolitico.

In February, Obama reluctantly embraced super PACs and gave the go-ahead on a plan to allow senior campaign aides and top White House officials to fundraise for the nascent political advertising machines, which are legally allowed to collect unlimited contributions from individuals, corporations and unions.

Issa made a request for travel documents by Cabinet members, despite the fact that to date, none are known to have appeared at any such events.

READ FULL POST 2 COMMENTS

Not a Dream: Romney’s Top 5 Comments on Immigration During the Republican Primary
Amanda Rae
Published: Saturday 16 June 2012
Confronted with the president’s landmark announcement, Mitt Romney attempted to whitewash his draconian immigration views during a campaign stop in New Hampshire today. Romney told reporters that he “agrees with Marco Rubio,” who has proposed a DREAM Act alternative.

Earlier this afternoon, President Obama announced a new “deferred action” immigration policy that would protect students in the U.S. who are already in deportation proceedings or those who qualify for the DREAM Act and have yet to come forward to the Department of Homeland Security from being deported.

Confronted with the president’s landmark announcement, Mitt Romney attempted to whitewash his draconian immigration views during a campaign stop in New Hampshire today. Romney told reporters that he “agrees with Marco Rubio,” who has proposed a DREAM Act alternative.

This newfound belief is a far cry from his views during the primary campaign. Here are Romney’s top 5 comments on immigration during the Republican primary:

READ FULL POST 3 COMMENTS
Most State Sales Tax in May Came in Below Expectations
Satra Kit
Published: Wednesday 13 June 2012
ALEC’s Latest Actions
Brian Walker
Published: Monday 30 January 2012
“Some of the states with the highest marks for reform with rank in the bottom half on their performance, such as Missouri, California and Arizona.”

The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a conservative organization that has been leading recent coordinated attempts to move state laws rightward, has some busy minions in the New Hampshire state legislature. In the past week they introduced seven pieces of ALEC’s model legislation.

These include bills that are plainly counter-productive, such as the “Eliminating Support Services for Newborn Children” Act. According to Granite Progress “This legislation would eliminate support services for newborn children whose parents are utilizing TANF (Temporary Assistance to Needy Families).” How that will break the cycle of the poverty or give the disadvantaged children of poor people a more fair shot at becoming productive citizens is unclear.

Some of the other proposals are just doctrinaire right wing ideology, such as ...

Mitt Romney’s Gingrich Nightmare
Anna Gilliam
Published: Thursday 26 January 2012
“Here’s a committed devotee of tooth-and-claw capitalism — replete with 8-year-olds working as janitors — campaigning with a pro-worker film of which Ken Loach would be proud, paid for by a rabidly anti-union billionaire who thinks Israel should bomb Iran and drive the Palestinians into the sea.”

Poor Romney. He's back in the Newt nightmare. Here comes the portly Georgian, brushing aside the guards outside Romney's hotel suite, kicking open the bedroom door, seizing Romney by the throat ... Aaaargh! And then Romney is awake, realizing that this is a cold-sweat nightmare that will last ... maybe until they close in Florida on Jan. 31; maybe until Super Tuesday on March 6, when nine states hold their primaries.

We left Romney amidst the flush of victory in New Hampshire, with polls in South Carolina showing him a solid 10 points ahead of Gingrich, who made a poor showing in New Hampshire on top of a fourth place finish in Iowa below the Catholic zealot Rick Santorum and Ron Paul. Santorum's a faded force now. (The fact that he and his wife boast of having taken their dead baby home from the hospital and placed it between their two living children, telling them that "Gabriel's an angel now" may have sat ill with some voters.)

Gingrich burned for revenge for his rough treatment in New Hampshire by Romney's campaign commercials. But how, on a tight timeline, to acquaint South Carolina Republicans with Romney's infamies?

He needed money, lots of it, double-quick.

In the old days there were certain pettifogging constraints on how much a billionaire could lavish on his favored candidate. But then came the "Citizens United" decision by the U.S. Supreme Court (split 5-4), issued in January 2010, ruling that the First Amendment, protecting free speech, prohibits the government from placing limits on independent spending for political purposes by corporations and unions. As Ralph Nader correctly pointed out at the time, "With this decision, corporations can now directly pour vast amounts of corporate money, through independent expenditures, into the electoral swamp already flooded with corporate campaign PAC contribution dollars."

Enter 78-year-old Sheldon Adelson, the world's ...

After ‘Citizens United’: The Attack of the Super PACs
Brian Walker
Published: Sunday 22 January 2012
“The total number of TV ads for House, Senate and gubernatorial candidates in 2010 was 2,870,000.”

We have seen the future of electoral politics flashing across the screens of local TV stations from Iowa to New Hampshire to South Carolina. Despite all the excitement about Facebook and Twitter, the critical election battles of 2012 and for some time to come will be fought in the commercial breaks on local network affiliates. This year, according to a fresh report to investors from Needham and Company’s industry analysts, television stations will reap as much as $5 billion—up from $2.8 billion in 2008—from a money-and-media election complex that plays a definitional role in our political discourse. As Obama campaign adviser David Axelrod says, the cacophony of broadcast commercials remains “the nuclear weapon” of American politics.

We’ve known for some time that the pattern, extent and impact of political advertising would be transformed and supercharged by the Supreme Court’s January 2010 Citizens United ruling. But the changes, even at this early stage of the 2012 campaign, have proven to be more dramatic and unsettling than all but the most fretful analysts had imagined.

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Huntsman, Another Immoderate Republican, Drops Out
Amanda Rae
Published: Tuesday 17 January 2012
“It was no surprise that Huntsman dropped out before South Carolina voted.”

As soon as news broke Sunday night that Jon Huntsman would be dropping out of the Republican presidential race on Monday, the mainstream media narrative took hold: Huntsman was a candidate for 2009, when Republicans were willing to reconsider their approach, rather than 2012. As Reid Wilson wrote in National Journal, “After winning control of the House in 2010, a Republican electorate bullish on its own chances for 2012 was not interested in a message of moderation and pragmatism. Instead, that sort of refocus typically finds better resonance in a party that has just suffered major defeats and needs to recalibrate its image, rather than a party that sees itself on the rise.” Ben Smith wrote in Buzzfeed, “Jon Huntsman had his moment. It was, unfortunately for his presidential bid, the late winter of 2009.”

The only problems with this narrative are that Huntsman isn’t really a moderate and Republicans were never willing to move to the center. From its inception, Huntsman’s campaign seemed to be built more around the notion that he would hold an appeal that was above ideology. He speaks Mandarin, rides motorcycles and was in a high school rock band! Some campaign consultants 

Bitter Primary Reveals the Real Romney
Brian Walker
Published: Sunday 15 January 2012
“The issue of Bain Capital and Romney’s role there has exposed a degree of arrogance, as he tries to portray his company’s ruthless, single-minded and often destructive quest for super-profits as a noble effort to support American employment.”

For Mitt Romney, Tuesday night's triumph in the New Hampshire primary offered a tempting opportunity to gloat. Such unattractive conduct is no longer surprising from the Republican front-runner, who is enduring the gradual disclosure of his personality.

The hot Romney video of the moment displays him telling the Nashua, N.H., Chamber of Commerce: "I like being able to fire people who provide services to me," and went viral not because of its specific context, which wasn't particularly damning, but because the public perceives the remark as a distillation of elite heartlessness. Every decent person who has had to fire someone knows that doing so — under almost any circumstances — is unpleasant, difficult and frequently wrenching. To boast that you "like to fire people" after observing years of economic pain among the jobless suggests a deep defect that, to most Americans, may disqualify Romney from the presidency.

Of course, that quote could have been a peculiar gaffe or a meaningless slip, but it wasn't. There is no shortage of evidence, emanating mostly from his own mouth, that privilege, arrogance and entitlement are major features of Romney's character.

Sometimes the telltale comment has the additional frisson of weirdness, like his offer to bet "$10,000" that Rick Perry couldn't ...

The Youthful Magic of Ron Paul
Brian Walker
Published: Friday 13 January 2012
“The young are flocking to Ron Paul because he wants to slice military spending, bring our troops home, stop government from spying on American citizens, and legalize pot.”

South Carolina Republican Senator Jim DeMint, the darling of the Tea Party wing nuts of the GOP, is urging Republican candidates to listen to Ron Paul. “One of the things that’s hurt the so-called conservative alternative is saying negative things about Ron Paul,” DeMint told conservative radio host Laura Ingraham. “I’d like to see a Republican Party that embraces a lot of the libertarian ideas.”

Why the sudden enthusiasm of Republican leaders for Ron Paul? Credit his surprisingly strong showing in New Hampshire, where 47 percent of primary voters between the ages of 18 and 29 voted for him.

READ FULL POST 29 COMMENTS

Jon Huntsman, Chameleon on the Stump
Amanda Rae
Published: Thursday 12 January 2012
“Conservative voters listening to Huntsman can seize on his support for the Paul Ryan budget plan; his opposition to ‘Obamacare’ and the Dodd-Frank financial reform legislation; his denunciation of bailouts; his demand for congressional term limits.”

This is not, in all likelihood, Jon Huntsman’s break-out moment. Even if the former Utah governor manages to exceed expectations — which would amount to coming in second to Mitt Romney in Tuesday’s New Hampshire primary — his path ahead is unclear. Huntsman has invested months and months of slogging from house party to diner to town hall meeting in this state, but he has little in the way of infrastructure to propel him in South Carolina and beyond.

Still, Huntsman is worth paying attention to for two reasons. First is his newly assertive edginess toward the front-runner. Huntsman and Romney clearly can’t stand each other — and it’s increasingly, deliciously showing.

READ FULL POST 1 COMMENTS

Our Guide to the Best Coverage on Jon Huntsman and His Record
Brian Walker
Published: Monday 9 January 2012
The Daily Beast noted that Obama’s appointment of Huntsman to the China ambassadorship may have been a strategic move to eliminate a 2012 threat.

Jon Huntsman's divergence on some core Republican issues, both social and economic, has given him the label of "moderate" from some and " READ FULL POST 3 COMMENTS

Santorum, Huntsman and the Future of Conservatism
Brian Walker
Published: Monday 9 January 2012
“Santorum’s surge was easy to see coming. He was the last staunch conservative standing, unscathed by foolish mistakes or by Mitt Romney’s highly efficient and unaccountable manufacturing operation whose product is attack ads.”

I love watching Republicans engage in class warfare. They condemn it as a sin when Democrats come within 100 miles of even mentioning the sharp and growing class inequalities in the United States. But when conservatives play the class card, they see it as a high ethical calling involving the defense of good and moral folk against the depredations of a liberal elite.

Rick Santorum gave by far the best speech Tuesday night after his boffo performance in the Iowa caucuses. Among the Republicans, he along with Jon Huntsman— and, yes, Ron Paul READ FULL POST 8 COMMENTS

Romney Returns to False Attack: ‘Obama Made the Economy Worse’
Anna Gilliam
Published: Monday 9 January 2012
“In New Hampshire this week, Romney has repeatedly returned to the old talking point.”

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (R) launched his presidential campaign in May on the premise that he was a better alternative to President Obama on the economy, and in the ensuing months his attack on Obama was precise: Obama, Romney said, “made the recession worse.”

When multiple outlets, ThinkProgress included, pointed out that Romney’s claim was false, he walked it back. In July, NBC’s Sue Kroll asked Romney, “How can you continue to say things are worse when they really aren’t worse?” Romney responded: “I didn’t say that things are worse. What I said is that the economy hasn’t turned around.”

In New Hampshire this week, however, Romney has repeatedly returned to the old talking point, saying during both debates here that Obama made the economy worse and repeating it again at an event in Rochester this morning.

The attacks, despite their frequency, are still false by virtually any measure. The stock market is nearly 6,000 points higher than it was the day it bottomed out in March 2009. Though job loss continued early in the Obama administration after he inherited the worst of the recession, the private sector has seen job gains for 22 consecutive months. And across the economy, there are indicators — from GDP growth to retail sales — that the economic recovery is continuing.

In the spin room after Saturday night’s ABC News debate, top Romney adviser Eric Fehrnstrom stood by the talking point, telling ThinkProgress that the fact that the unemployment rate was above eight percent and that millions of workers remain unemployed ...

Mark Provost of Occupy New Hampshire on Exchange With Mitt Romney Over Corporate Personhood
Amanda Rae
Published: Saturday 7 January 2012
Occupy New Hampshire activist Mark Provost‘s question to Romney came as Occupy New Hampshire is preparing for a series of events leading up to the state’s Republican primary to highlight the disproportionate impact corporations and wealthy donors have on the political process.

Occupy New Hampshire activist Mark Provost made national headlines Wednesday when he attended a town-hall meeting hosted by Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney and asked about his past comment that "corporations are people." Provost’s question to Romney came as Occupy New Hampshire is preparing for a series of events leading up to the state’s Republican primary to highlight the disproportionate impact corporations and wealthy donors have on the political process. We play an excerpt of the town-hall exchange and get Provost’s response to Romney reply. "I think his response really, again, is this denial that there’s this class in the country and that there are some people within the corporation, specifically the workers, that are taking it on the chin so that the United States’ executive management can make massive bonuses, and serve their shareholders rather well, too, because the profits largely go to capital gains and dividends."

Rush Transcript:

JUAN GONZALEZ: Protesters aligned with Occupy New Hampshire are planning a series of events leading up to Tuesday’s Republican primary. On Wednesday, one member of the group made national headlines when he questioned Mitt Romney about his past remark that "corporations are people." Before we play ...

Gingrich, Santorum Accused of Racially Insensitive Remarks
Brian Walker
Published: Saturday 7 January 2012
In a video clip on CBS News’ website, Santorum appears to say: “I don’t want to make black people’s lives better by giving them somebody else’s money. I want to give them the opportunity to go out and earn the money and provide for themselves and their families.”

Republican presidential candidates Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum are fending off accusations that they made racially tinged remarks about African-Americans and public assistance.

Gingrich accused the news media Friday of taking a comment he made earlier in the week at a New Hampshire town hall meeting out of context. He said there that if he were invited to address the NAACP annual convention, he was prepared to tell the civil rights organization why "the African-American community should demand paychecks, and not be satisfied with food stamps."

 

"Now there's no neighborhood I know of in America where if you went around and asked people, 'Would you rather your children had food stamps or paychecks?' you wouldn't end up with a majority saying they'd rather have a paycheck," Gingrich said, according to a transcript written from a video of the event. "And so, I'm prepared, if the NAACP invites me, I'll go to their convention and talk about why the African-American community should demand paychecks, and not be satisfied with food stamps."

Some African-American leaders and civil rights group considered Gingrich's words racially insensitive. They've noted that Gingrich often refers to President Barack Obama as the "food ...

Santorum Secret: A Jobs & Manufacturing Focus Wins Votes
Brian Walker
Published: Friday 6 January 2012
“Santorum recognized early on that not just first-caucus state of Iowa but the first-primary state of New Hampshire were ripe for his manufacturing message.”

Rick Santorum surged from (way) behind to secure a top-position finish in the Iowa caucuses for a lot of reasons: his ability to unite evangelical voters who through most of the campaign had divided their support among multiple candidates; a long-term strategy that saw him visit every Iowa county and personally interact with tens of thousands of likely caucus-goers; his status as a largely unexamined and unbattered “last man standing” alternative to Mitt Romney.

But there was something else that Santorum had going for him.

To a far greater extent than Romney, the venture capitalist who made his money dismantling American factories and offshoring jobs, and to a significantly greater extent than the wonkish Newt Gingrich and the ideologically rigid Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann, Santorum appealed to blue-collar workers and to Iowans who would like to be blue-collar workers. And he’ll do more of that in New Hampshire.

Eschewing predictable “let-the-market-decide” rhetoric about free markets and free trade, 

As GOP Race’s Pace Quickens, Romney’s on Top - and the Target
Elizabeth
Published: Thursday 5 January 2012
How the Iowa results impact New Hampshire and the rest of the campaign started shaking out on several fronts, including sharp attacks on Romney and developments that could help consolidate conservative voters against him, or keep them divided as they were in Iowa.

The Republican presidential campaign shifted to New Hampshire on Wednesday with one key question hanging over it: Can Mitt Romney deliver the landslide win his polls and organization suggest is within reach, or will he fall to sharp new attacks and the state's history of turning on the winner of Iowa's caucuses?

The former governor of neighboring Massachusetts rolled into Manchester on Wednesday, looking for a big win next Tuesday in his New England backyard to make him the first non-incumbent Republican ever to win both Iowa and New Hampshire, which could propel him toward the presidential nomination.

"My goodness what a squeaker," he joked about his ever-so-narrow win in Iowa over former Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, an eight-vote margin out of about 60,000 cast for the two men.

"Do you think we can have more than an eight-vote margin here in New Hampshire?" he added. "I'm gonna try."

Polls suggest he's in good shape here, holding a huge lead over his nearest competitors. A new Suffolk University poll of New Hampshire released Wednesday showed him with 43 percent, Rep. Ron Paul of Texas with 14 percent, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich with 9 percent, former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman with 7 percent and Santorum with 6 percent. It was conducted Monday and Tuesday, before the Iowa results were known.

 

But in one sign that opinion could shift, Romney received only a tepid response at his rally in Manchester.

 

How the Iowa results impact New Hampshire and the rest of the campaign started shaking out on several fronts, including sharp attacks on Romney and developments that could help consolidate conservative voters against him, or keep them divided as they were in Iowa.

Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota dropped out of the race after a dismal sixth-place Iowa finish. She did not endorse another candidate.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry dropped back ...

10 Questions for Mitt Romney
Anna Gilliam
Published: Wednesday 4 January 2012
“Before Romney takes the GOP mantle, here are 10 questions he should answer about his often nonsensical and contradictory policy proposals.”

Mitt Romney won the Iowa caucuses Tuesday night. Technically he tied for victory with Rick Santorum. But Romney is the one who comes out of Iowa in the lead for the nomination. He entered with a massive lead over Santorum in fundraising, organization and polling numbers in New Hampshire, which votes next. The most recent poll in New Hampshire, released Monday, shows Romney in first with 41 percent and Santorum in fifth with 3 percent. While Santorum held over 300 town halls in Iowa Romney largely avoided the state, skipping out of the state as recently as Friday to campaign in New Hampshire. Romney roughly equaled his last performance in Iowa without investing nearly as much campaign resources into it.

By devoting far more time to New Hampshire than Iowa, Romney managed the expectations game perfectly. It was also assumed in this cycle that Iowa would go to a socially conservative anti-Romney. After going through every other option Iowans settled on Santorum. The real test will come in South Carolina, which much more reliably picks the Republican nominee than Iowa. If Romney can build his momentum to win there after picking up New Hampshire, he is poised to turn the nomination battle into a swift coronation.

But before Romney takes the GOP mantle, here are 10 questions he should answer about his often nonsensical and contradictory policy proposals.

• In a Friday op-ed in The State, you declared your intention to “Rebuild our military with more ships, a modern air force, more troops and better care for our veterans.” Why exactly do you think we need more naval ships? What attack has there been on US soil or the US military that would have been prevented by more naval ships? Given that more ships and more troops will cost more money, and we already

‘Super PACs’ Spend $13 Million on Early Primaries, Romney Top Beneficiary
Anna Gilliam
Published: Tuesday 3 January 2012
“Voters in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Florida, all of whose contests will be held this month, won’t know who is paying for much of the advertising they see until after their votes are cast.”

New outside spending groups, dubbed super PACs, that can accept unlimited donations from corporations and wealthy individuals, spent $12.9 million in Iowa and other early GOP battleground states through New Year’s Day, according to an analysis of federal data.

The top beneficiary was former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. A total of $4.6 million was spent to help the nominal front-runner, the vast majority for ads torpedoing former House Speaker Newt Gingrich. Second was Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who benefited from $3.7 million in outside spending.

According to a Center for Public Integrity analysis of Federal Election Commission data,12 outside super PACs spent money, mostly on advertising, with the intention of electing or defeating a GOP presidential candidate. Ten have not yet reported their donors. The two that have did so last summer.

The upshot is that voters in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Florida, all of whose contests will be held this month, won’t know who is paying for much of the advertising they see until after their votes are cast.

The next reports on donors aren’t due until January 31, the day of the Florida primary.

Federal court decisions in 2010 made it possible for individuals, corporations and labor unions to give unlimited contributions to political organizations (super PACs) and certain types of nonprofits, which can then spend the money to elect or defeat candidates. The groups are prohibited from coordinating their activities with candidates.

The top super PAC spender was "Restore Our Future" — the ambiguously named group set up to help Romney. The group spent $4.1 million, all of it in opposition to Gingrich, who enjoyed a brief lead in Iowa polls last month before the shellacking.

Restore Our Future has moved on from Iowa and spent $622,000 in Florida, a likely harbinger of more to come in that high stakes contest. Almost $100,000 has been spent by ...

Campaign Shows Power of Super PACs
Anna Gilliam
Published: Monday 2 January 2012
“If present trends continue, the 2012 election will reverse more than a century of efforts to curb the influence of big money on politics.”

Political committees unfettered by donation limits are dominating the last weeks of the presidential nominating contests in Iowa and New Hampshire, funding aggressive attack campaigns that are swamping the efforts of the candidates themselves.

 

In Ohio, $3 million in ads funded by secret donors have already been aired against the state's incumbent Democratic senator, Sherrod Brown - a year before the election.

 

In California, three of the committees financed by unlimited donations have formed in recent weeks to back Congressman Howard L. Berman, who has been forced by redistricting into a primary battle against fellow Democratic incumbent Brad Sherman.


The early activity at all levels heralds a transformation across the country in the first presidential cycle since a 2010 Supreme Court decision lifted the limits on individual and corporate donations to independent political organizations, known as super PACs.

Super PACs are now outspending the GOP presidential candidates on ads in what could be a $6 billion or $7-billion election year for federal races, rendering obsolete the old system under which donations were strictly limited to candidates and party committees.

"This is a radical change," said Trevor Potter, the Republican election lawyer who advised Arizona Sen. John McCain in his 2008 presidential bid.

If present trends continue, the 2012 election will reverse more than a century of efforts to curb the influence of big money on politics.

 

During his second term, President Theodore Roosevelt spoke with alarm about the ability of corporate and financial elite - "malefactors of great wealth" - to steer government decisions. In 1907, he signed legislation banning corporate contributions to federal candidates.

 

In future decades - including during Richard Nixon's presidency - Congress expanded campaign regulation, requiring ...

The Handful of White People Who Choose Your Presidential Candidates
Brian Walker
Published: Monday 2 January 2012
“Ultimately the entities that have to put a stop to this madness are the national Democratic and Republican parties.”

On a two-day trip to New Hampshire last week I attended three campaign events with a total of roughly 600 people. I tried to find an African-American in the audience at all three events, but I couldn’t. To be fair, I did spot two Latinos and five or six Asian-Americans. The U.S., according to the 2010 census is 72.4 percent white. The first two states vote in the presidential primaries, Iowa and New Hampshire, are 91.3 percent white and 93.9 percent white, respectively. 

The Iowa caucuses, which will be dramatically covered by the news media on Tuesday, are especially pernicious. In a caucus instead of a primary the Iowans who get to participate are even smaller in number and less diverse than the state’s already unrepresentative electorate.

Worse still, the Iowa caucuses aren’t subject to the same spending disclosure deadlines as primaries. An obscure 1979  READ FULL POST 24 COMMENTS

Iowa’s $200-Per-Vote Caucuses Reward Negatives, Nastiness, Narrow Thinking
Brian Walker
Published: Monday 2 January 2012
“I don’t begrudge Iowa a place at the start of the calendar. In fact, I prefer that Midwesterners start things.”

The Republicans who would be president, the super PACs and the surrogates had already spent more than $12 million on television ads—almost half of them negative—before the final weekend leading up to Tuesday’s Iowa caucuses.

That doesn’t count the thousands of radio ads, mailings, lighted billboards in Des Moines and costs for staff.

Add it all up and there is a good chance that, when all is said and done Tuesday night, the candidates will have spent $200 a vote to influence the roughly 110,000 Iowans who are expected to participate in the GOP caucuses.

And the really unsettling thing is that the caucuses are just for show.

While the results may so damage some candidates that their runs for the presidency will be finished, they will not actually produce any delegates to the Republican National Convention.

That’s because, as ...

GOP’s Iowa Race Tightens, Poll Finds, as Contenders Urge Support
Brian Walker
Published: Sunday 1 January 2012
Romney began his day in New Hampshire, which holds the nation’s first presidential primary Jan. 10.

Mitt Romney has a slim lead in the latest Des Moines Register Iowa poll, released Saturday evening, but Ron Paul is close and Rick Santorum is surging.

The results came as Republican presidential candidates spent the last day of 2011 Saturday making their closing arguments to curious, often uncertain voters as the race remained fluid.

In the Iowa poll, taken Tuesday through Friday, Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, led with 24 percent of likely caucus-goers. Next was Paul, a Texas congressman, at 22 percent followed by Santorum, the former Pennsylvania senator, at 15 percent.

Trailing were former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, 12 percent; Texas Gov. Rick Perry, 11 percent, and Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann, 7 percent.

But results Thursday and Friday only told a different story. While Romney still had 24 percent, Santorum was up to 21 percent, while Paul sank to 18 percent.

The poll capped a frenetic day of campaigning.

Gingrich blasted the Obama ...

New Hampshire Looks like Romney’s Granite Fortress
Brian Walker
Published: Sunday 1 January 2012
“The key to wrapping up a nomination quickly has always been an Iowa-New Hampshire one-two punch, and the Granite State, which votes Jan. 10, seems to be a Romney fortress.”

No matter what happens in Iowa, Mitt Romney has a safety net in New Hampshire.

And that could rank as the year’s most perilous sentence. Why shouldn’t Romney be surprised in the state that temporarily derailed Barack Obama’s supposedly rapid march toward nomination four years ago? Hillary Clinton humbled many a pundit here in 2008, reason enough to challenge the rapidly jelling conventional wisdom about the Republican presidential campaign.

In just a few weeks, Romney has been transformed from an embattled and weak front-runner into the real thing. He has a chance of winning the Iowa caucuses on Tuesday as his dazed opponents scratch at each other trying to emerge as the leading non-Romney.

Libertarian Ron Paul, who will never be nominated, now looks to be Romney’s main competition in Iowa. Paul is doing a fine job as Romney’s blocking back, preventing anyone else from emerging early enough to give Romney a stiff race.

The key to wrapping up a nomination quickly has always been an Iowa-New Hampshire one-two punch, and the Granite State, which votes Jan. 10, seems to be a Romney fortress. Romney’s headquarters here on ...

GOP Hopefuls Return to Iowa for Frantic Final Week
Brian Walker
Published: Wednesday 28 December 2011
Romney poked fun at Gingrich for failing to qualify for the primary ballot in Virginia and for likening the setback to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

With Christmas out of the way, the battle for the Republican presidential nomination resumed with gusto Tuesday, a still-wide-open race meaning a frantic dash in the final week before Iowa kicks off the voting Jan. 3.

Candidates poured back into Iowa, with Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry, Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich all launching statewide bus tours, joining Rick Santorum, who'd returned Monday. Ron Paul is scheduled to arrive Wednesday. The candidates, all Christians, had suspended campaigning over the Christmas weekend.

Ads also retuned to Iowa TV channels, restarting an air war that's cost an estimated $10 million, much of it spent on attacking onetime front-runner Gingrich as a flip-flopper who once backed liberal causes and a Washington insider who cashed in after leaving public office.

As they raced toward the voting, former Massachusetts Gov. Romney signaled confidence that he'll eventually win the nomination even if he doesn't win Iowa. Gingrich awoke to another challenge, with a report that he'd praised Romney's Massachusetts health care law, which is deeply unpopular with conservatives.

Before arriving in Iowa on Tuesday evening, Romney swung through his stronghold of New Hampshire, which holds its primary a week after ...

Gingrich and Huntsman ‘Debate’ in New Hampshire
Brian Walker
Published: Wednesday 14 December 2011
“Unfortunately, the ‘debate’ this afternoon was not a debate in any sense and thus not a good model for the genre.”

It was billed as a Lincoln-Douglas debate between Newt Gingrich and Jon Huntsman. It turned out to be a knockoff of the NewsHour, a calm and quiet discussion of foreign policy.

Still, their encounter at St. Anselm College here did send several messages: That both men know quite a lot about foreign affairs; that they could sound far more reasonable than several of their challengers (one thinks of Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry and former candidate Herman Cain); and that they are happy to join forces against Mitt Romney, even if they never said a word about him during their formal discussion.

At his news conference afterward, however, Huntsman couldn’t resist mentioning the man who wasn’t there. “I’d like to challenge Gov. Romney to a sit down like this,” he said.

It should be said that Newt Gingrich deserves some credit for letting the debate — or whatever it was — go forward. Huntsman, way down in the polls, had everything to gain from the debate. Gingrich, who is now the front-runner in the polls, had at least something to lose.

The Consistently Inconsistent Mitt Romney
Moderator
Published: Sunday 13 November 2011
“Perhaps, given the weakness of the opposing candidates, Romney can still skate by.”

Mitt Romney, blessed with a series of self-destructing opponents, still needs to come up with a better way to address his history of flip-flops. His current argument boils down to asking voters, “Who are you going to believe, me or your lying ears?” This is not going to fly.

Romney made the jaw-dropping claim to a New Hampshire editorial board that his problem wasn’t flip-flopping — it was being insufficiently robotic. “I’ve been as consistent as human beings can be,” the former Massachusetts governor insisted. “I cannot state every single issue in exactly the same words every single time, and so there are some folks who, obviously, for various political and campaign purposes will try and find some change and draw great attention to something which looks like a change which in fact is entirely consistent.”

Pressed during the CNBC debate Wednesday night, Romney repeated his consistency argument — this time topped off with an ode to his long-lasting marriage and an attack on President Obama.

“I think people understand that I’m a man of steadiness and constancy,” he said. “I don’t think you are going to find somebody who has more of those attributes than I do. I have been married to the same woman . . .for 42 years. I have ...

More Controversy Between Bachmann and N.H. Campaign Staffers
Moderator
Published: Tuesday 25 October 2011
The staffers said in the statement they were treated as “second-class citizens” by the Bachmann campaign and “constantly left out of the loop.”

Rep. Michele Bachmann’s former New Hampshire staffers issued a statement on Monday that accused her top campaign aides of being “rude, unprofessional, dishonest, and at times cruel.”

In the wake of last week’s news that the entire New Hampshire staff had quit en masse, former New Hampshire campaign manager Jeff Chidester confirmed in an email to the Star Tribune Monday that the statement was sent on behalf of five staffers, including himself and several field directors. The statement notes that the staffers harbored no ill will toward Bachmann, but said she was “sequestered behind a wall of pretense, guarded by political operatives consumed by their own egos.”

Monday’s statement capped what has become a multi-day distraction for the Bachmann campaign, which is struggling to break its downward spiral and regain some momentum in Iowa.

Bachmann’s national campaign on Monday said the statement should be ignored because it was issued by someone never formally employed by the campaign, Karen Testerman, who ran for governor in New Hampshire last year.

“The unauthorized news release was sent by a person who doesn’t even work for the campaign and has never had authority to speak on behalf of the campaign,” Bachmann campaign manager Keith Nahigian said in a statement. “We are not responding to comments made by a person who was not even a staff member in New Hampshire. Our focus is on Iowa.”

Testerman said she was asked by the national campaign as recently as last Thursday to get ready to file papers with the Secretary of State for Bachmann to appear on the New Hampshire ballot. Chidester confirmed that Testerman had been asked to file the papers.

Testerman also said she served as an unpaid adviser to the campaign and sent the statement on behalf of the five who resigned. She said she was on the campaign when Bachmann visited New Hampshire earlier this month ...

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