Has Mitt Romney Been Exaggerating His Campaign Finances?
Posted: September 20, 2012 Filed under: 2012 presidential campaign, Barack Obama, Mitt Romney, U.S. Politics | Tags: campaign advertising, campaign finances, fund-raising, media buys 33 Comments
I mentioned this in the morning post, but I may not have emphasized it enough. On Tuesday, there was a report that the Romney campaign is $11 million in debt. The campaign had borrowed $20 million before the Convention to tide them over until they could begin spending funds from the general election coffers. The campaign is choosing to hold onto the cash for now and try to pay it back with new fund-raising.
There have been many reports over the summer that Romney was taking in huge amounts of money, but last night The New York Times posted an article explaining why Romney has been spending more time fund-raising than on the stump in swing states and why his campaign hasn’t been running that many ads in the media. The fact is, that Romney’s campaign Isn’t really rolling in as much money as he’s been leading us to believe.
Despite what appears to be a plump bank account and an in-house production studio that cranks out multiple commercials a day, Mr. Romney’s campaign has been tightfisted with its advertising budget, leaving him at a disadvantage in several crucial states as President Obama blankets them with ads.
One major reason appears to be that Mr. Romney’s campaign finances have been significantly less robust than recent headlines would suggest. Much of the more than $300 million the campaign reported raising this summer is earmarked for the Republican National Committee, state Republican organizations and Congressional races, limiting the money Mr. Romney’s own campaign has to spend.
For each the past three months, the Romney campaign has been claiming contributions of more than $100,000, but it turns out not all of that money went into the campaign account.
Yet at the same time Romney aides worked hard to project the image of a fund-raising machine far outpacing the president’s.
Romney aides released informal dollar figures that lumped several pools of money — some available for his use, others not — into a single figure, providing a perception greater than reality: $106 million in June and $101 million in July, far more than Mr. Obama and the Democrats.
Yet those figures obscured the fact that most of the money Mr. Romney was raising was reserved for those other political entities like the Republican National Committee.
Only $22 million of the huge RNC windfall can be spent in combination with Romney’s presidential campaign. On the other hand, President Obama has more cash on hand.
A closer look at Mr. Romney’s own filings revealed that Mr. Obama, while trailing in overall party fund-raising, was pulling far more money than Mr. Romney into his campaign account, the most useful and flexible dollars a candidate has to spend, in part because of strong collection from small donors who could give again and again without hitting federal limits.
One reason for this is that this year Obama is getting most of his contributions from smaller donors, while Romney has fewer and wealthier donors, many of whom may have already maxed out. They can give unlimited amounts to superpacs, but with all the problems Romney has been having over the past three weeks, you have to wonder if the big guys will want to keep throwing away millions on a losing cause.
To show how the effect the lack of funds is having on Romney’s campaign, the Times compared his and Obama spending on ads in a number of states:
According to a review of spending figures provided by a group that tracks political advertising, from Sept. 10 through Sept. 24, Mr. Romney and his allies reserved $3.7 million in advertising time in Ohio. That compared with $5.2 million for Mr. Obama and his allies.
In Colorado, Mr. Romney is being outspent $2.2 million to $1.5 million during that same period. In New Hampshire, Mr. Obama is spending $1.2 million, compared with $380,000 to benefit Mr. Romney. The vast majority of that is coming not from the Romney campaign but from American Crossroads, the conservative super PAC.
The Times also notes that the Obama campaign has reserved $40 million worth of ad time through November 6, while the Romney campaign has been purchasing ad time day to day–a week ahead at most.
Now I admit that I’m a mathphobe, and I haven’t seen this discussed much around the blogosphere today, so maybe I’m totally nuts. But to me it looks like Romney is worried about money.
The campaigns have to report their spending for the past quarter tonight, and Romney released his report a short time ago. From Politico:
Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign spent more than $66 million in August, ending the month with $50 million in the bank, new federal disclosure reports show….
The campaign took in nearly $67 million in August, doubling the $33 million the campaign in July.
That total doesn’t include a $20 million secured loan the campaign took out in August….The Romney campaign’s August figures do not include money raised by the Republican National Committee, which operates a joint fundraising operation with the Romney campaign.
Right now Romney has $50 million in his campaign account. It looks to me like he’s going to be dependent on outside groups to fund his advertising. I also heard today that Karl Rove’s Crossroads superpac is not going to have a stunning report–their donations were down in August.
No wonder Romney has been going to so many fund-raisers instead of campaigning. It doesn’t seem smart to me. Doesn’t he have other people who could collect donations for him? Maybe not. And who knows how much longer the big money guys will stick with him? Will he have to start writing his own checks for the campaign?
As I said, I’m terrible at math. Let me know if you think I’m right or wrong about this.
Thursday Reads: The Campaign That Can’t Shoot Straight
Posted: September 13, 2012 Filed under: 2012 presidential campaign, Barack Obama, Egypt, Foreign Affairs, Libya, Mitt Romney, morning reads, U.S. Politics | Tags: bullying, Chris Stevens, emotional immaturity, personality development, temperament 55 Comments
(Cartoon from the Hartford Courant)
Good Morning!!
After watching Mitt Romney’s undignified behavior in horror yesterday morning, and thinking about it for much of the day, I finally came to the conclusion that Romney is a spoiled teenager in an adult man’s body.
This man has been cosseted and catered to throughout his life. Everything has been handed to him on a silver platter–early on because of his father’s money, power, and influence and later because he was a wealthy and powerful CEO who could shout orders and expect instant obedience.
It has been evident to me for a long time that Romney is still the same bully who rounded up a group of classmates to hold down a younger student whose clothing and hair had drawn Romney’s disapproval and cut his long hair off. His wife and children have frequently talked about how he still loves to play “practical jokes” and “pranks” on family and friends. I honestly don’t think Romney has matured emotionally since those high school days.
As far as we know, Romney has never faced a serious life problem except for a car accident he got into in France while he was on his Mormon mission there. Yes, his wife Ann has had serious health problems, but I’m not sure Mitt has enough empathy for that to affect him personally.
In my opinion one of the most important ways people grow emotionally is by going through serious problems. But even after that accident, Romney didn’t have to do much. His father sent people over to handle the situation and bring Mitt back home. Although a woman was killed in the accident, and Romney was driving, he apparently never even contacted the woman’s family to offer condolences. So the main challenge Romney faced was simply to recover physically. When his wife Ann was sick, Mitt had all the money in the world to make sure she had the finest health care.
Romney’s behavior on Tuesday night and Wednesday morning suggests to me that he has an even more serious problem than his obvious emotional immaturity. He seems unable to inhibit his impulses and delay gratification, at least in the context of the presidential campaign. We saw this play out over the past two days in his gleeful reaction to the tragic events in Libya, treating them as an opportunity to launch political attacks on the Obama administration.
On Tuesday night Romney’s staff e-mailed a statement to news organizations, but told them to embargo it until after midnight, presumably to avoid a negative attack on 9/11. But a short time later, the campaign removed the embargo and told the media to release it. The statement was issued around 11PM, before Romney knew what had actually happened. Did Romney himself make these decisions on his own because he just couldn’t wait to get his nasty message out? Here’s the gist of the first statement.
“I’m outraged by the attacks on American diplomatic missions in Libya and Egypt and by the death of an American consulate worker in Benghazi,” Romney said in the statement. “It’s disgraceful that the Obama Administration’s first response was not to condemn attacks on our diplomatic missions, but to sympathize with those who waged the attacks.”
This attack was based on a statement issued by the American Embassy in Cairo in an attempt to prevent protests that happened a few hours later. Here is the statement.
The Embassy of the United States in Cairo condemns the continuing efforts by misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims – as we condemn efforts to offend believers of all religions. Today, the 11th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States, Americans are honoring our patriots and those who serve our nation as the fitting response to the enemies of democracy. Respect for religious beliefs is a cornerstone of American democracy. We firmly reject the actions by those who abuse the universal right of free speech to hurt the religious beliefs of others.
According to Politico, the State Department tried to dissuade embassy officials from releasing the statement, but they went ahead and did it, probably hoping to stave off an attack like the one that happened later in Libya.
Again on Wednesday morning Romney quickly arranged a press conference in order to get his message out before President Obama spoke. By this time, Romney knew that the the American ambassador to Libya, Chris Stevens had been murdered, along with three other embassy employees. But instead of changing course, he continued the same attack on President Obama that he had begun the night before, claiming that somehow the statement from the Cairo embassy demonstrated that Obama was “apologizing for American values.”
You can read the full transcript of the press conference here. The gist of Romney’s attack:
America will not tolerate attacks against our citizens and against our embassies. We’ll defend also our constitutional rights of speech and assembly and religion.
We have confidence in our cause in America. We respect our Constitution. We stand for the principles our Constitution protects. We encourage other nations to understand and respect the principles of our Constitution, because we recognize that these principles are the ultimate source of freedom for individuals around the world.
I also believe the administration was wrong to stand by a statement sympathizing with those who had breached our embassy in Egypt, instead of condemning their actions. It’s never too early for the United States government to condemn attacks on Americans and to defend our values.
The White House distanced itself last night from the statement, saying it wasn’t cleared by Washington. That reflects the mixed signals they’re sending to the world.
The attacks in Libya and Egypt underscore that the world remains a dangerous place and that American leadership is still sorely needed. In the face of this violence, American cannot shrink from the responsibility to lead. American leadership is necessary to ensure that events in the region don’t spin out of control. We cannot hesitate to use our influence in the region to support those who share our values and our interests.
What did Romney think he would gain from these false and undignified attacks during a time of national crisis? Why couldn’t he wait a few days for events to play out and then attack if it made sense? I think it is because Romney just doesn’t have and adult ability to control his impulses. We’ve seen this again and again, particularly on his disastrous trip to Europe. He simply says whatever comes into his head, with seemingly no ability to adjust his words to what is appropriate to a situation–or even to stick to basic facts.
Michael Cohen of the New York Daily News asks rhetorically:
Within hours of finding out that a U.S. ambassador was killed in the line of duty, Romney is engaging in a rather naked and blatant political attack against the President. It’s the type of criticism you might expect from a pundit or a back-bencher in Congress, not from a man who aspires to be President of the United States. It makes Romney look small and inclined to put politics ahead of the national interest. It is the equivalent of John McCain’s suspension of his 2008 campaign during the financial crisis and should be treated as such.
But aside from the politics of this, what does it say about a candidate who would issue a statement based on incomplete information and then double down on it even after it’s been disproven? What does it say about a candidate who actually accuses the President of openly siding with those who would harm U.S. diplomats? What does it say about a candidate who would, in a moment of grief over the death of U.S. personnel serving overseas, take the opportunity to cravenly engage in a dishonest political attack?
What it says to me is that this is a man who simply is not up to the awesome responsibilities of being President of the United States.
I’ve thought that for a long time. Now the mainstream media is beginning to understand how disastrous it would be if Romney managed to win the election and become president. A president needs to be able to stop and think before talking or taking action. Romney is apparently incapable of that level of self-control. as a child and young man, he had all his needs met by others. As an adult, he has been accustomed to issuing orders and having them followed immediately by “the help.”
Quite simply, Romney is temperamentally unsuited to the presidency. As a nominee of a major party Romney will soon receive intelligence briefings. Can he be trusted with such confidential information? Remember when he was in Great Britain and he revealed that he had had a secret briefing with MI6?
Fortunately, it looks like Romney has destroyed his credibility with the media, and he isn’t likely to recover it. He’s falling behind Obama in the polls, and unless something very dramatic happens to turn things around, it sure looks like he’s toast. But I won’t feel safe from this blundering doofus until the returns come in and he’s forced to concede the election the night of November 6.
This is a fast-moving story, so I’m sure there will be stories breaking rapidly today. But here are a few links to get you started this morning.
CNN: Romney’s political pretzel over Libya. That’s a bit of a timeline of the events of this Romney attacks and events in Egypt and Libya.
A very detailed timeline from TPM: A Timeline Of The Attacks In Libya And Egypt — And The Responses
Politico: Mitt Romney digs in on Obama ‘apology’
Washington Post: FACT CHECK: Mitt Romney rhetoric on Egypt, Libya out of step with timeline of events
The New Republic: Former Romney Adviser on Libya: “They Stepped in It”
Bloomberg Businessweek: Anti-Islam Filmmaker Who Provoked Attacks Used Pseudonym
At TPM Josh Marshall discusses some odd switches in the NYT coverage of the Romney/Libya story.
[E]arlier this evening the Times ran a story entitled “Behind Romney’s Decision to Attack Obama on Libya.” The byline was David Sanger and Ashley Parker. The big news out of the story was that Romney himself had been the driver of last night’s decision making. That and a lot of other color and interesting news. As I write, it’s still that piece and lede that’s on the front page. But now it’s been replaced (same url) by an almost unrecognizable piece entitled “A Challenger’s Criticism Is Furiously Returned”, bylined by Peter Baker and Ashley Parker….
The thrust of the piece is dramatically different and, unless I’m missing something, leaves out this critical quote from a Romney senior advisor explaining their rationale. “We’ve had this consistent critique and narrative on Obama’s foreign policy, and we felt this was a situation that met our critique, that Obama really has been pretty weak in a number of ways on foreign policy, especially if you look at his dealings with the Arab Spring and its aftermath.” [….]
What happened to the other story? Pieces get rewritten all the time, especially with a breaking news story. But this would seem to require some explanation.
Here’s a satirical piece from the LA Times: Mitt Romney should triple-down on Libya: Rally with Rev. Jones!
Mitt Romney’s campaign to make the world safe for anti-Muslim hate speech breaks new ground for a presidential nominee.
But why won’t the former governor of Massachusetts take his brand of audacious truth-telling to its logical conclusion?
President Obama, or at least his State Department, is “apologizing” for the video that makes the prophet Muhammad out to be a cretinous, bed-hopping party fool — so says Romney. So why wouldn’t Romney (who has twice affirmed his critique of the administration) triple-down — with a more explicit endorsement of the talented artists who put together the 14-minute “Innocence of the Muslims.”
I’m recommending, of course, a joint rally featuring Christian Pastor Terry Jones and his proxy, former Massachusetts Gov. Romney.
This one from ABC’s The Note is scary: Who’s Advising Mitt Romney on Foreign Policy? Here’s a list from Romney’s website. Some of the names are very familiar. Eight of them were members of the Project for a New American Century, the group that pushed for Bush to attack Iraq.
Cofer Black
Christopher Burnham
Michael Chertoff
Eliot Cohen
Norm Coleman
John Danilovich
Paula J. Dobriansky
Eric Edelman
Michael Hayden
Kerry Healey
Kim Holmes
Robert Joseph
Robert Kagan
John Lehman
Andrew Natsios
Meghan O’Sullivan
Walid Phares
Pierre Prosper
Mitchell Reiss
Daniel Senor
Jim Talent
Vin Weber
Richard Williamson
Dov Zakheim
I’ll wrap this up for now, and check for breaking news in the morning. So…what are you reading and blogging about today?
Tuesday Reads: Ooh That Smell!
Posted: September 11, 2012 Filed under: 2012 presidential campaign, Barack Obama, Mitt Romney, morning reads, U.S. Economy, U.S. Military, U.S. Politics | Tags: death stench, Mark Halperin, Paul Ryan, Tenther Movement, the Constitution 79 Comments
Good Morning!!
Can you smell the “death stench?” coming from the Romney campaign? Mark Halperin is beginning to. Yesterday he wrote about The Troubles: all the bad news piling up for Mitt Romney following the conventions–like the fact that the Obama camp raised more cash than Romney in August, multiple polls suggest that Obama is getting a bounce from his convention and Romney didn’t. Halperin says all this bad news is leading to a “congealing” media narrative that Romney’s campaign is dying. And all that was written before the latest CNN poll showed Obama at 52% with a lead of 6 points.
Until Romney breaks this cycle, he is in danger of living out the Haley Barbour dictum: in politics, bad gets worse. Super PACs might start shifting their money from the presidential race to save the House majority and look to pick up Senate seats. Romney’s own fundraising will take a hit. Stories about Romney pulling up stakes in Michigan and other ostensible battlegrounds will add to the death stench. And there will be an avalanche of suggestions and second-guessing from pundits and Republican operatives and politicians about Romney’s tactics, strategy and staff.
How tragic! The “death stench.” Oooh That Smell!
Ooh that smell
Can’t you smell that smell?
Ooh that smell
The smell of death surrounds you, yeah
Priorities USA has released a new ad to kick Romney while he’s down.
Everyone is still talking about Romney’s wacky interview with “Disco Dave” on Meet The Press and how he pretended to be in favor of parts of Obamacare on national TV and then quickly flip-flopped in such a way that low information voters might not find out about. From TPM:
“Mitt Romney literally went on ‘Meet The Press’ and misled the American people,” Brad Woodhouse, communications director for the DNC, said on a conference call with reporters Monday. “He acted as if he supports something that he clearly does not.”
Romney said Sunday that he intends to keep parts of ‘Obamacare,’ and cited the law’s rule forbidding discrimination against people with pre-existing conditions as an example.
“I’m not getting rid of all of health care reform,” Romney said. “Of course there are a number of things that I like in health care reform that I’m going to put in place. One is to make sure that those with pre-existing conditions can get coverage.”
….
The Romney campaign later clarified that his position on pre-existing conditions had not changed, and that he only supports coverage for people with pre-existing conditions if they have had “continuous coverage,” according to a statement released to National Review. “[Romney’s] own plan will deal with pre-existing conditions but not in the same way that Obamacare does,” a Romney campaign aide told TPM after Romney’s interview.
Ezra Klein wrote a post about the Obamacare kefluffle called “when begin vague backfires.”
Romney has been playing a little trick. Here’s what he told David Gregory:
There are a number of things that I like in health-care reform that I’m going to put in place. One is to make sure that those with preexisting conditions can get coverage.
To most of the world, that sounded like Romney was saying he was going to keep Obamacare’s protections for people with preexisting conditions. And enough reporters know Obamacare well enough to know that you can’t keep those protections without keeping quite a bit of the law. That’s why people thought Romney’s position had changed.
But to folks who’ve been following Romney’s game of three-card monte on this issue, it was clear he was just being strategically vague in describing his position: Romney has long said he would protect people with continuous coverage from being discriminated against due to preexisting conditions. But this is something that the law mostly does now, and that would leave 89 million Americans out in the cold.
Romney’s play here was obvious enough: By being a little fuzzy about what, exactly, he was proposing, he could sound like he had a way to protect people with preexisting conditions while still saying he wants to repeal Obamacare. He’d get the best of both worlds. But the problem with trying to strategically confuse people is that you actually confuse them, and that’s what happened here. Rather than coming away thinking Romney had a secret plan to protect people with preexisting conditions, they went away thinking Romney had a secret plan to protect Obamacare.
Disco Dave tried half-heartedly to get Romney to provide just one specific loophole that he would close in order to pay for the massive tax cuts he’s proposing. But Romney was determined not to reveal whether he wants to get rid of the mortgage deduction, the charitable contributions deduction or something else. We know he’s not going get rid of all those loopholes that make it possible for him to pay less than 15% of his income in taxes. I’m sure of that.
Fortunately, TV Pundits are beginning to confront Romney and his running mate Paul Ryan with their attempts to con less-informed voters. Here are two examples.
MSNBC’s Chris Jansing asking Romney adviser Tara Wall for specifics on which tax loopholes Romney would close and getting word salad.
JANSING: What are the loopholes you would close? Will you tell the American people how you’re going to to this better place that you say they have?
WALL: Well, again, the campaign has laid out a number of specifics relative to the principles that will guide the policies of a Romney-Ryan ticket. […] Again, the specification include policies that are pro-growth in nature, that reduce the deficit, that reduce the burden on taxpayers and small businesses, small businesses number one have been hit hard by a number of regulations that have stifled growth and job creation. And so number one, those are some of the things you have to start with.
JANSING: Well, with all due respect, a pro-growth policy is not specific.WALL: The other part of that is energy independence. That’s an approach to energy independence that will create millions of jobs. There is a target of 12 million jobs by the Romney-Ryan target. Relative to those loopholes that you mention, I agree that Congressman Ryan pointed out taht have to be put out in a public debate. But I think, again, we have to look at the overall principles that are going to drive the policies and not ram through policy as we saw with Obamacare.
WTF?! Is that the kind of thing Romney is going to say in the debates?
Here’s Norah O’Donnell of all people confronting Paul Ryan on his vote for the sequester that he’s blaming on President Obama.
Amazing! Too bad Disco Dave can’t do that.
Yesterday Jonathan Chait reported another Romney conspiracy theory: the media is conspiring with pollsters to help Obama win.
These comments from a “top Romney adviser” to National Review…are pure derangement:
PPP has these polls that just put chum in the water for the media. Sometimes I think there’s a conscious effort between the media and Chicago to get Republicans depressed. And I hope our friends realize that all these media analysts out there are Democrats WHO WANT US TO LOSE. And the more Washington DC controls our economy, the more important inside-the-beltway publications are and the more money they make. The 202 area code is dominated by people who will make more money if Obama is reelected, so it’s not just an ideological thumb they’re putting on the scale for him, it’s a business interest.
If this is the Romney campaign’s genuine theory of the race — that political reporters are deliberately trying to mislead America into believing Obama is winning in order to fatten their profits — the Romney campaign is in a lot of trouble.
Again, WTF?! That “death stench” is getting stronger.
Think Progress caught something else odd in Romney’s interview on MTP. I noticed it when I listened to the interview but I thought it was just more Romney strangeness. Romney told Disco Dave, “I’m as conservative as the Constitution.”
Now what the hell does that mean? TP says it’s a dog whistle to “Tenthers.” From Wikipedia:
The Tenther movement is a political ideology and a social movement in the United States that espouses that many actions of the United States government are unconstitutional. Adherents invoke the concept that the states share sovereignty with the federal government and with the people by citing the Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution as the basis for their legal and ideological beliefs:
“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people”
Adherents believe that political authority enumerated in the United States Constitution as belonging to the Federal Government must be read very narrowly to exclude much of what the national government already does. They argue for the recognition of limited sovereignty of the States. Opponents use the term in order to draw parallels between adherents and 19th century states’ rights secessionists, as well as the movement to resist Federal Civil Rights legislation.
This is the Ayn Randish version of the “Constitution” that Paul Ryan believes in.
Last September, GOP vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan spoke at the Hillsdale College’s Kirby Center, a Washington, D.C. arm of the conservative institution that was founded under the leadership of Supreme Court spouse Virginia Thomas. The speech was delivered in commemoration of Constitution Day, and it provides a fairly substantial window into how he understands America’s most important document. Unfortunately, the speech also raises very real doubts about whether Mr. Ryan can distinguish the founders’ vision from his own. Ryan’s speech does not simply defend his laissez faire vision for the country, it suggests that this austere vision is mandated by the Constitution itself:
We can strengthen our defense of liberty if we remember to keep in mind those who are struggling to make ends meet. What makes our Constitution such an extraordinary document is that, in making the United States the freest civilization in history, the Founders guaranteed that it would become the most prosperous as well. The American system of limited government, low taxes, sound money, and the rule of law has done more to help the poor than any other economic system ever designed.
That is scary. Make sure you click on the link and read the whole thing. Good thing that “death stench” is surrounding Ryan too.
I guess this has been kind of a strange post, but I’m in a strange mood today. I hope it makes at least some sense. I realize I didn’t mention that today is the anniversary of 9/11, but JJ will have something about it later on.
So… what are you reading and blogging about today?
DNC Live Blog: Day 3
Posted: September 6, 2012 Filed under: 2012 presidential campaign, Barack Obama, Live Blog, Mitt Romney, Reproductive Rights, The DNC, the GOP, U.S. Economy, U.S. Politics, War on Women, Women's Healthcare | Tags: American Crossroads superpac, Charlie Crist, Democratic National Convention 2012, Dodd-Frank bill, Eva Longoria, hotel workers, housing crisis, Joe Biden, Michigan, Nate Silver, North Carolina, Paul Ryan, right to work states, Sandra Fluke, union workers, Wall Street 46 Comments
Here we go . . . This is the last night of the 2012 Democratic National Convention. We can only hope the speeches will be as thrilling as the ones we heard last night.
Tonight Vice President Joe Biden and President Barack Obama will accept their nominations to run for reelection. In addition, there will be a who slew of celebrity appearances, including Natalie Portman, Scarlett Johansson, The Foo Fighters, Eva Longoria, Mary J. Blige, James Taylor, Earth Wind & Fire, Marc Anthony, and Kerry Washington. Former Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords will lead the pledge of allegiance.
At 8:00, former Florida Governor Charlie Crist will speak. At 10:00, we’ll hear from Eva Longoria, Joe Biden, and President Obama. The rest of the night’s schedule has not been released.
Just a few headlines to get you going:
Amanda Marcotte: Sandra Fluke’s Speech Made Republicans Crazy. Which Is Just What the Democrats Want.
For a short period yesterday evening, a moment of panicked confusion broke out among those of us obsessively watching and tweeting the Democratic National Convention, when Sandra Fluke did not go on stage as scheduled. It turns out that we needn’t have worried; convention organizers made an apparently last minute decision to move Fluke’s speech to later in the night, giving her a prime-time audience. It’s a move that indicates Democrats have finally stopped freaking out at the first sign of reactionary histrionics, and instead have embraced the strategy of taking the fight to conservatives.
After decades of playing along with conservatives who dress up their hostility to female sexuality as nothing more than an interest in “life,” Democrats have finally realized that baiting the anti-choice right into showing its misogynist, sex-phobic side may just be a winning strategy.
Marcotte posts some of the rageful Republican tweets at the link.
HuffPo: Unions Hope Democratic National Convention Draws Attention To Plight Of North Carolina Workers
North Carolina passed right-to-work legislation in 1947, barring contracts that require all workers at unionized companies to pay union dues. North Carolina is now the least-unionized state in the country, with about 3 percent of workers belonging to one, according to the Labor Department. The state also bans collective bargaining for public-sector workers. Feeling snubbed, some activists skipped the convention in favor of what was billed as a “shadow convention” for organized labor in Philadelphia.
“This entire saga, from the beginning to today – the site selection, the state selection — the way it’s been handled is just nothing more than confirmation to me that the standing of organized labor in the eyes of the Democratic Party is lower than it’s ever been in my time,” said Chris Townsend, political director of the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America union, who has been in the labor movement for more than three decades.
CNN Money: Is Wall Street Being Bamboozled by Romney?
FORTUNE — Wall Street is taking quite a pounding at the Democratic National Convention this week as speakers, like Massachusetts Senate hopeful Elizabeth Warren, fire populist missives so inflammatory it would cause even the most liberal banker to cringe. While the speeches are meant to fire up the Democratic base, they are also likely to induce some financiers to double their contributions to Republicans, namely, Presidential hopeful Mitt Romney.
But is that a safe bet? Much of Wall Street’s concerns derive from the passage of the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill, even though some of the most controversial aspects of the bill seem permanently lost in regulatory limbo. Going forward, there remain questions as to what, if anything, a Romney Presidency could truly deliver in the next four years that would be so different from a second term Obama presidency. Given that uncertainty, Wall Street could possibly be better off sticking with the devil they already know.
New York Observer: We Can All Breathe a Sigh of Relief: Mitt Romney Has a Plan to End the Housing Crisis
Is Mitt Romney really the man to solve the housing crisis? Well, consider this: Mr. Romney may not have ever struggled “to put food on the table” as folksy politicians are so fond of saying, but he has four houses. Four. So he knows a thing or two about home ownership. And, unlike some homeowners who took out mortgages and couldn’t pay them back, Mr. Romney is wealthy enough not to have to take out mortgages (although there’s a possibility that he did—the man does have the common touch, at times).
In any event, the Republican candidate has revealed his four-point plan while taking a few swings at Obama, like: “the dream of home ownership is out of reach for many Americans as a result of President Obama’s failed policies and stalled economy.”
Because Americans were doing so well with home ownership before Mr. Obama took the helm. Ha! Good one! As though the “stalled economy” and, well, the “economic crisis” weren’t a result of the fact that many Americans were actually really horrible when it came to assessing risk and making responsible choices about home ownership.
The consensus is that it’s not much of a “plan.”
ABC News: Paul Ryan Anticipates and Counters Obama’s Convention Speech Tonight
COLORADO SPRINGS–Just hours before the president takes the stage at the Democratic National Convention, Paul Ryan attempted to counter Obama’s speech by reminding voters in this battleground state of then candidate Obama’s promises in his 2008 speech in Denver.
“Right here in Colorado, four years ago with the Styrofoam Greek columns, the big stadium, the president gave this long speech with lots of big promises,” Ryan said. “He said … that Democrats have a very different measure of what constitutes progress. By those very measurements, his leadership has fallen woefully short.”
Yawn. . . Lots more of Lyin’ Ryan’s psychic predictions at the link. Frankly, after the spanking he got from Bill Clinton last night, the little twerp would do better to just STFU; but I’m hoping he continues making a fool of himself. I guess he doesn’t know that he has lost all credibility with everyone but obsessive Fox watchers.
Detroit News: Conservatives Pull Ads from Michigan
Mitt Romney’s conservative allies are bypassing Michigan with their advertising while stepping up efforts in other battleground states — suggesting campaign strategists don’t believe his road to the White House leads through his native state.
The pro-Romney groups American Crossroads and Americans for Prosperity are pouring nearly $13 million into advertising in key states, indicating they remain eager to lend considerable financial muscle to Romney in states viewed as truly competitive.
There are no presidential campaign ads of any kind airing in Pennsylvania and Michigan, according to information provided by media trackers to the Associated Press.
Nate Silver: The Simple Case for Why Obama Is the Favorite
…our forecast has moved toward President Obama over the past several days. It now gives him about a three-in-four chance of winning the Electoral College on Nov. 6.
I’ll explain a little bit more about how the model comes to that conclusion in a moment, but the intuition behind it is pretty simple:
1. Polls usually overrate the standing of the candidate who just held his convention.
2. Mitt Romney just held his convention. But he seems to have gotten a below-average bounce out of it. The national polls that have come out since the Republican National Convention have shown an almost exact tie in the race.
3. If the polls overrate Mr. Romney, and they show only a tie for him now, then he will eventually lose.
The first point is the simplest of all, but perhaps the most important. There is a lot of focus on the bounce that a candidate gets after his convention — that is, how the polls conducted just after the convention compare with the ones taken immediately beforehand.
Silver predicted the 2008 election results almost perfectly.
I’m looking forward to reading your comments tonight, so bring it!
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