Romney optimistic about GOP, rejects idea of party's decline

Mitt Romney returned to the stage where he once proclaimed himself "severely conservative" to thank thousands of activists for supporting his unsuccessful White House bid.

In remarks Friday to the Conservative Political Action Conference, the 2012 Republican presidential nominee touted the problem-solving done by GOP governors such as Nikki Haley of South Carolina and expressed his optimism for the future of the conservative movement.

"It's fashionable in some circles to be pessimistic about America, about conservative solutions, about the Republican Party," he said. "I utterly reject pessimism. We may have lost Nov. 7, but we have not lost the country we love, and we have not lost our way."

Romney told the audience, who enthusiastically stood and cheered as he came onstage, that he was "sorry" he would not be their president. "But I will be your co-worker, and I will stand shoulder to shoulder with you," he said.

The event known as CPAC often shines the spotlight on the up-and-comers of the Republican Party and is a critical proving ground for presidential hopefuls.

More than a dozen potential 2016 presidential candidates -- including Sens. Marco Rubio of Florida and Rand Paul of Kentucky, Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin and Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal -- are all on this year's program and represent a new generation of Republican leaders.

The emergence of the GOP's new guard is part of what makes the speech by Romney, who turned 66 years old this week, interesting. The other is that during the former Massachusetts governor's two unsuccessful presidential campaigns, he was viewed warily by conservatives for his changing views on issues such as abortion.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry, whose own presidential bid fizzled last year, got in a jab at his 2012 Republican rival during his CPAC remarks Thursday as he criticized the news media for suggesting the losing GOP presidential campaigns of 2008 and 2012 represented a defeat for conservatism.

"That might be true if Republicans had actually nominated conservative candidates," said Perry, who is considering another White House bid in 2016.

Rubio and Paul both called for a new message from their party during their CPAC speeches -- one that would attract younger and more diverse voters to the GOP fold.

Rubio, who was considered as a possible Romney running mate, even implicitly criticized Romney's dismissal of 47 percent of the electorate when he said the nation doesn't have "too many people who want too much from government."

Copyright 2012 The Arizona Republic|azcentral.com. All rights reserved.For more information about reprints & permissions, visit our FAQ's. To report corrections and clarifications, contact Standards Editor Brent Jones. For publication consideration in the newspaper, send comments to letters@usatoday.com. Include name, phone number, city and state for verification. To view our corrections, go to corrections.usatoday.com.

Posted

View the original article here

Mitt Romney Loses: What it Means for the Republican Party - Forbes

Mitt Romney. (Image credit: AFP/Getty Images via @daylife)

If Nate Silver can put his reputation on calling the race 90% for Obama, why can’t I? In any case, on the small chance Romney has won tomorrow and this is my Dewey Defeats Truman moment, let’s just pretend this headline was a joke and I what I really meant was what Romney’s loss would mean for the Republican party, were it to occur, which it will.

My point here really is to point to an excellent piece of disillusionment from James Poulos. Here he is on the Republican party of today:

Most importantly, I believe Mitt Romney’s willingness to say anything this campaign season is far more illustrative of a problem with today’s Republican Party than it is of a problem with Mitt Romney. Consider that Romney has simply done whatever it takes to get his party’s nomination and maintain its voters’ full support, and that the path he must tread to do so is paradoxically very narrow. His scattershot remarks, his willingness to commit alternately to a policy, to its opposite, and to nothing at all — rather than terrifying indications of a man with no rudder, I see them as frightening proof that Romney would be simply rejected by his party if he delivered a Huntsman-style campaign where what you see is what you get.

I think the admitted etch-a-sketch campaign that Romney has had to run has to do both with what he had to do to win his party’s nomination and support, and the relationship that a campaign that could achieve that has to the median voter in this country. America has a conservative streak, but not a severely conservative streak.

In Pictures: Election Day 2012, Voting Across America

One important factor I think we will observe over the next four years is that the economy is going to gain a lot of jobs no matter who wins. With an Obama win, what many republicans will learn from this is that most of the problem with our jobs market has not been Obama holding it back. This will provide the GOP with an important lesson that Democrats, with their head full of idealism and hope and change, have learned over the past four years: the limited ability of the President to control the economy.

Eight years of the Bush administration gave Democrats a long time to fantasize about what a liberal president could do to this country. A similar, if opposite, fantasy about what a liberal president can do has developed in the minds of republicans in the last four years. It’s time for them to be disillusioned.

View the original article here

Money men: Who are top 5 donors to Romney?

WASHINGTON — WASHINGTON For a casino mogul worth an estimated $25billion, $34.2 million may sound like chump change. Yet that's how much money Sheldon Adelson has donated so far to aid Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney and organizations supporting Romney this election, making him the donor of donors for the GOP.

Other top donors giving millions of dollars to aid Romney's campaign include Texas money moguls and the head of an energy conglomerate.

Political donations can open doors that are closed to most people. Big-dollar donors are often invited to state dinners at the White House and other events with the president.

Based on an examination of more than 2.3 million campaign contributions The Associated Press has ranked the top five financial supporters bankrolling the Republican presidential run:

No. 1

Sheldon Adelson, 79, owner of the Las Vegas Sands casino empire.

Total: $34.2 million

Adelson is the largest declared donor to the Romney campaign and supporting political committees, providing more than $34.2 million this election season. He and his wife, Miriam, have given $10 million to Restore Our Future, a super PAC backing Romney. Adelson also joined relatives to give $24million to committees backing former GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich. And he has made public pledges vowing to give as much as $100million this election more broadly to the GOP. He would benefit from loosened trade restrictions.

No. 2

Harold Simmons, 81, owner of Contran Corp., a Dallas-based conglomerate worth an estimated $9 billion that specializes in metals and chemical production and waste management.

Total: $16 million

Simmons is a longtime backer of GOP and conservative causes. He has donated $16 million to the party's efforts this year, including more than $11million to American Crossroads and $800,000 to Restore Our Future. Simmons also gave $2.2 million to Super PACs backing former GOP presidential candidates Gingrich, Rick Santorum and Rick Perry. He also owns a majority stake in Valhi Inc., a Texas-based waste management company, and could benefit from a proposed Nuclear Regulatory Commission rule change that would allow the company's Texas facility to store spent uranium from nuclear power plants.

No. 3

Bob J. Perry, 80, head of a Houston real estate empire worth an estimated $650 million.

Total: $15.3 million

Perry has given about $15.3million to aid the Romney campaign and allied causes so far this election season. Long active in Texas and national GOP politics, Perry donated nearly $9 million to Restore Our Future and a total of $6.5 million to American Crossroads. Before backing Romney this year, Perry gave $100,000 to the super PAC backing Texas Gov. Rick Perry (no relation).

No. 4

Robert Rowling, 58, head of Dallas-based TRT Holdings.

Total: $4.1 million

Rowling has given at least $4.1 million to Republican Party and candidates this election. Most of his donations, $4 million, went to Rove's American Crossroads, both through personal donations and through his firm. Rowling also has given $100,000 to the pro-Romney Restore Our Future super PAC. Rowling's holdings are worth an estimated $4.8 billion and include Omni Hotels, Gold's Gym and Tana Exploration, his family's oil company.

No. 5

William Koch, 72, an industrialist whose South Florida-based energy and mining conglomerate is worth an estimated $4 billion.

Total: $3 million

Koch has given $3 million to the Restore Our Future, including a $250,000 personal donation and $2.75 million through his corporation, Oxbow Carbon LLC, and a subsidiary, Huron Carbon. Unlike his brothers, who are longtime supporters of Republican and conservative causes, Bill Koch has funded both GOP and Democratic Party candidates in the past. Koch's corporate interests have repeatedly battled against what company officials have decried as government interference. Oxbow spent $570,000 last year on lobbying in Washington, mostly aimed at mining, safety issues and climate change.

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. For more information about reprints & permissions, visit our FAQ's. To report corrections and clarifications, contact Standards Editor Brent Jones. For publication consideration in the newspaper, send comments to letters@usatoday.com. Include name, phone number, city and state for verification. To view our corrections, go to corrections.usatoday.com.

Posted

View the original article here

Romney, Buoyed by Debate, Shows Off His Softer Side

Facing off against President Obama in Denver, Mr. Romney had been the candidate they had longed to see all year: funny (joking about the “romantic” evening he and Mr. Obama were spending on the president’s 20th wedding anniversary), commanding (challenging Mr. Obama on taxes and government spending) and even warm (placing his right hand over his heart at the end of the debate, in an homage to his supporters in the crowd).

On Friday night, at a rally here, his campaign seemed determined not to let that more emotive, three-dimensional Mitt Romney slip away. Before the crowd of several thousand, Mr. Romney shared stories of friends who had died.

Perhaps his most moving anecdote — about David Oparowski, a 14-year-old boy with leukemia to whom Mr. Romney had ministered — first made an appearance at the Republican National Convention in Tampa, when David’s parents talked about how Mr. Romney had tended to their son, a member of his church ward in Belmont, Mass. But Mr. Romney had never before mentioned the experience on the stump.

Mr. Romney recounted how, as he sat in David’s hospital room, the teenager called him “Brother Romney” and asked him about “what’s next.”

“I talked to him about what I believe is next,” said Mr. Romney, recalling that a few days later he got a call from David asking if he would help write his will.

“So I went to David’s bedside and got a piece of legal paper, made it look very official,” he continued. “And then David proceeded to tell me what he wanted to give his friends. Talked about his fishing rod, and who would get that. He talked about his skateboard, who’d get that. And his rifle, that went to his brother.”

He concluded: “I loved that young man.”

Mr. Romney also talked about the recent death of a graduate school friend who had become a quadriplegic, and a sharpshooter killed in Afghanistan.

He repeated two of the stories on Saturday night in Apopka, Fla., north of Orlando, suggesting that the effort to connect emotionally would become part of how he presents himself to voters.

An adviser said that Mr. Romney decided on his own that he wanted to tell those stories onstage. But the move was also couched in a broader campaign strategy to encourage Mr. Romney to reveal a more caring, personal side of himself, a counter to his reputation as a data-driven technocrat.

To that end, on Thursday, Mr. Romney also appeared on Sean Hannity’s Fox News show, where he seemed to repudiate his own comments about “47 percent” of Americans who, he said at a secretly recorded fund-raiser in May, considered themselves “victims” and were dependent on the government.

“I said something that’s just completely wrong,” Mr. Romney said, referring to the comments. “My life has shown that I care about 100 percent.”

The campaign has begun showing a 10-minute biographical video before rallies and speeches. Mr. Romney is shown roughhousing with his sons when they were youngsters, encouraging his wife and following the public service footsteps of his father, George W. Romney, the former governor of Michigan. In one scene, Mr. Romney begins talking about his wife, gushing, “Ahh, she’s gorgeous.” Russ Schriefer, the senior strategist charged with making the film, said he got that footage by showing Mr. Romney a picture of Ann as a teenager and asking him to reflect.

Mrs. Romney, who has privately argued that the campaign should display the empathetic man she loves, has also become a public advocate for her husband’s “extraordinary compassion for others,” as she said Friday night.

Appearing buoyed by his widely acclaimed debate performance, the Romney on display this week was a looser, more relaxed one. The day after the debate, he could be seen joking with aides on his charter plane, and he made two unscheduled stops: one Thursday morning to address the Conservative Political Action Conference in Denver, and another Friday evening, when he and Mrs. Romney stopped at La Teresita, a Cuban restaurant in Tampa, to greet diners.

At his rally here on Friday, Mr. Romney’s first story involved a friend named Billy, a quadriplegic who had come to one of his rallies about three weeks ago and, with the help of his wife, made his way through the crowd.

“I reached down and I put my hand on Billy’s shoulder and I whispered into his ear, and I said, ‘Billy, God bless you, I love you,’ ” Mr. Romney said. “And he whispered right back to me — and I couldn’t quite hear what he said.”

Billy, he said, “died the next day.”

The crowd became hushed, seemingly as moved by listening to the tale as Mr. Romney was by telling it.

Trip Gabriel contributed reporting from Apopka, Fla.

View the original article here

Romney Strives to Stand Apart in Global Policy

In a speech he gave at the Virginia Military Institute, Mr. Romney declared that “hope is not a strategy” for dealing with the rise of Islamist governments in the Middle East or an Iran racing toward the capability to build a nuclear weapon, according to excerpts released by his campaign.

The essence of Mr. Romney’s argument is that he would take the United States back to an earlier era, one that would result, as his young foreign policy director, Alex Wong, told reporters on Sunday, in “the restoration of a strategy that served us well for 70 years.”

But beyond his critique of Mr. Obama as failing to project American strength abroad, Mr. Romney has yet to fill in many of the details of how he would conduct policy toward the rest of the world, or to resolve deep ideological rifts within the Republican Party and his own foreign policy team. It is a disparate and politely fractious team of advisers that includes warring tribes of neoconservatives, traditional strong-defense conservatives and a band of self-described “realists” who believe there are limits to the degree the United States can impose its will.

Each group is vying to shape Mr. Romney’s views, usually through policy papers that many of the advisers wonder if he is reading. Indeed, in a campaign that has been so intensely focused on economic issues, some of these advisers, in interviews over the past two weeks in which most insisted on anonymity, say they have engaged with him so little on issues of national security that they are uncertain what camp he would fall into, and are uncertain themselves about how he would govern.

“Would he take the lead in bombing Iran if the mullahs were getting too close to a bomb, or just back up the Israelis?” one of his senior advisers asked last week. “Would he push for peace with the Palestinians, or just live with the status quo? He’s left himself a lot of wiggle room.”

In his remarks, Mr. Romney addressed the Palestinian issue, saying, “I will recommit America to the goal of a democratic, prosperous Palestinian state living side by side in peace and security with the Jewish state of Israel.” And he faulted Mr. Obama for failing to deliver on that front.

But while the theme Mr. Romney hit the hardest in his speech at V.M.I. — that the Obama era has been one marked by “weakness” and the abandonment of allies — has political appeal, the specific descriptions of what Mr. Romney would do, on issues like drawing red lines for Iran’s nuclear program and threatening to cut off military aid to difficult allies like Pakistan or Egypt if they veer away from American interests, sound at times quite close to Mr. Obama’s approach.

And the speech appeared to glide past positions Mr. Romney himself took more than a year ago, when he voiced opposition to expanding the intervention in Libya to hunt down Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi with what he termed insufficient resources. He called it “mission creep and mission muddle,” though within months Mr. Qaddafi was gone. And last spring, Mr. Romney was caught on tape telling donors he believed there was “just no way” a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict could work.

Mr. Romney’s Monday speech called vaguely for support of Libya’s “efforts to forge a lasting government” and to pursue the “terrorists who attacked our consulate in Benghazi and killed Americans.” And he said he would “recommit America to the goal of a democratic, prosperous Palestinian state living side by side in peace and security” with Israel. But he did not say what resources he would devote to those tasks.

The shifts, a half dozen of Mr. Romney’s advisers said in interviews, partly reflect the fact that the candidate himself has not deeply engaged in these issues for most of the campaign, certainly not with the enthusiasm, and instincts, he has on domestic economic issues. But they also represent continuing divisions.

Some are on the way to resolution. Over the summer, an “inner circle” of foreign policy advisers emerged, with Richard S. Williamson, a former Reagan administration official who briefly returned to government to serve President George W. Bush, playing a leading role. Another central player is Mitchell B. Reiss, the president of Washington College in Maryland and a veteran of Mr. Romney’s 2008 campaign. And Jim Talent, the former Missouri senator, has taken a major role in defense strategy.

Liz Cheney, who served in the State Department during the Bush administration and is the daughter of Mr. Bush’s vice president, has begun to join a weekly conference call that sporadically includes Dan Senor, who served as spokesman for the American occupation government in Iraq. Since the Republican National Convention, Mr. Senor has been assigned to the staff of Mr. Romney’s running mate, Representative Paul D. Ryan, who in recent weeks has made Mr. Obama’s foreign policy a particular target.

View the original article here

Romney Takes Liberties With Claims About a Bipartisan Past

When Mitt Romney accused President Obama in their debate Wednesday night of refusing to work with Republicans, he held up his own record as the Massachusetts governor as an example of what political cooperation can achieve.

As a Republican governor whose legislature was 87 percent Democrats, he said, “I figured out from Day 1 I had to get along, and I had to work across the aisle to get anything done.” The result, he said, was that “we drove our schools to be No. 1 in the nation. We cut taxes 19 times.”

Mr. Romney and the legislature did at times get along, Massachusetts schools were often top-rated, and some taxes did drop during Mr. Romney’s four years as governor, from 2003 through 2006. But a comparison of his claims to the factual record suggests that all three take liberties with the truth.

While the governor and the legislature came together to produce balanced budgets and enact a signature health care reform bill, much of those four years were characterized by conflict and tensions. In the opening months of his tenure, Mr. Romney vetoed a Massachusetts House plan to create new committees and raise staff members’ pay, and the legislators rejected his flagship proposal, a nearly 600-page plan to overhaul the state bureaucracy.

Mr. Romney proved to have a taste for vetoes, killing legislative initiatives in his first two years at more than twice the rate of his more popular Republican predecessor, William F. Weld, The Boston Globe reported in 2004. The lawmakers responded in kind by overriding his vetoes at a rapid pace.

By 2004, the second year of his term, Mr. Romney was provoked enough to mount an unprecedented campaign to unseat Democratic legislators, spending $3 million in Republican party money and hiring a nationally known political strategist, Michael Murphy.

The effort failed spectacularly. Republicans lost seats, leaving them with their smallest legislative delegation since 1867. Democratic legislators were reported at the time to have been deeply angered by the campaign’s tactics.

“They had a deteriorating relationship during the first two years,” Jeffrey Berry, a political science professor and expert on state politics at Tufts University, said in an interview. The campaign “was designed to demonstrate that he could make life difficult for them if he chose to do so. It did not endear him to them.”

Mr. Romney quickly initiated a charm offensive, inviting Democratic leaders to dinners at his home for the first time since taking office two years earlier. But the legislators were soon “infuriated,” Mr. Berry said, when Mr. Romney, testing the presidential waters, began traveling outside the state and casting brickbats at Massachusetts’s traditionally liberal values before crowds of potential supporters.

On education, Mr. Romney was factually correct in stating that Massachusetts students were ranked first in the nation during his tenure. Massachusetts students in grades four and eight took top honors or tied for first in reading and mathematics on the 2003 National Assessment of Educational Progress, a federal Department of Education test often called the nation’s report card.

However, educators largely agree that the state’s rise to first place was a result of a wholesale reform of state schools enacted 10 years earlier under Governor Weld. The reforms, carried out over eight years, doubled state spending on schools and brought standards and accountability to both administrators and students.

“Governor Romney does not get to take the credit for achieving that No. 1 ranking,” said Mike Gilbert, the field director for the nonprofit Massachusetts Association of School Committees, “but it did happen while he was in office.”

Under Mr. Romney, neither the governor nor the legislature enjoyed notable successes in education, although Mr. Romney is credited with battling successfully against efforts to dismantle some of the 1993 reforms.

Mr. Romney and the legislature cut deeply into state grants to local governments in 2003 amid a state budget crisis, forcing many school districts to raise property taxes. In 2006, Mr Romney vetoed a bill passed unanimously by the legislature that established standards for preschool education and set long-term plans to make it universal. He said the programs would cost too much at a time of budget austerity.

Mr. Romney’s claim that he was responsible for 19 separate tax cuts is also technically accurate. But here, too, the complete story paints a very different picture.

Perhaps the most substantial tax reduction occurred in 2005, when Mr. Romney’s administration wrote legislation refunding $250 million in capital gains taxes to 145,000 investors. But the legislation carried out a court ruling finding that the taxes had been illegally withheld in 2002; the court gave the state the option of refunding the taxes or rewriting the law to correct the illegality.

Mr Romney proposed the latter, and the legislature agreed.

Of the remaining 18 tax cuts, many were proposed by the legislature, not Mr. Romney, and others were routine extensions of existing tax reductions that were due to expire. One was a change in the Massachusetts tax code to make it conform to changes in the federal code. Two were one-day sales-tax holidays.

Mr. Romney’s critics note that his administration was also responsible for revenue-raising measures which, under that loose definition, might well be called tax increases. In his first year, Mr. Romney closed business tax loopholes and increased fees on an array of services, from marriage licenses to home purchases.

“Our numbers on revenue are that he raised about $750 million annually — $375 million from fees and $375 million from corporate taxes,” said Michael Widmer, president of the nonpartisan Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation.

In 2004, Mr. Romney signed legislation allowing local officials to collect an additional $100 million in commercial property taxes from businesses.

View the original article here

Ever-shifting Romney to face top foe: Himself

WASHINGTON

Wednesday's presidential debate promises sharp contrasts. One candidate wants to repeal "Obamacare"; one candidate invented it. One opposed the auto-industry bailout; one takes credit for it. One doubts the scientific consensus about climate change; one believes in it. One wants to "voucherize" Medicare; one wants to save it. One dismisses nearly half of Americans as a bunch of moochers; one claims to champion the struggling middle class.

It promises to be an epic clash: Mitt Romney vs. Mitt Romney. Oh, and President Barack Obama will be there, too.

In theory, the first general-election debate is a trailing candidate's best opportunity to hit the reset button. New Jersey Republican Gov. Chris Christie, doing surrogate's duty on the Sunday morning shows, acknowledged that Romney has had a "tough couple of weeks" but promised the debate would change just about everything.

In practice, debates are rarely decisive. Only in a few presidential elections have they demonstrably moved the needle. Perhaps this is one of those years, perhaps not. It seems to me that Romney's prospects Wednesday night will depend heavily on his ability to explain why he has taken so many different positions on so many issues.

He was "effectively pro-choice" before he was staunchly anti-abortion. He supported stricter gun control before he opposed it. He promises to cut everyone's taxes while also reducing the deficit, but won't explain how.

Romney gives the impression of being willing to say anything he believes voters want to hear. That's why the conservative Republican Party base is so vigilant, always on the lookout for signs that Romney is wavering on the hard-line positions he took during the primaries. Softening his views on immigration, for example, might help shrink Obama's overwhelming advantage among Latino voters. But the base won't allow it.

I believe Romney's history of ideological flexibility explains why his "47 percent" remarks were so damaging. It's not that his phrasing was inelegant, as the candidate and his surrogates maintain. It's that Romney was speaking behind closed doors, among like-minded friends, and finally we could glimpse what he really believes. We could see what's at his core -- and it wasn't a pretty sight. Of course, Romney promptly denied that the smug and callous man in that grainy video was the real Romney.

At this point, it's unclear to me that a "real" Romney exists. If one does, however, he'd better show up Wednesday night. If there's one thing we know about presidential debates, it's that voters can often look right through the persona and see the person.

If Romney plans a scripted "zinger" that somehow is designed to turn the whole election around -- a variation on Ronald Reagan's immortal "There you go again" -- viewers are likely to see through the artifice. He's not Reagan.

The same holds true for Obama, of course. But we know who Obama is and what he believes. Some people like him and some don't, but the nation has seen him in action for nearly four years. His job Wednesday night is clear: Defend his record and outline his plans for the next four years.

Romney's task is more difficult. For the umpteenth time, he has to introduce himself to the American people. He has to erase the impressions left by all the Mitt Romneys we met earlier -- the clueless rich guy, the heartless private-equity baron who likes "being able to fire people," the moderate who became a hard-line conservative and then became a little bit moderate again, kind of. And he has to reveal a coherent person, one whom voters can imagine as a leader.

The question is whether such a coherent person exists. In the business world, where Romney had great success, winning means saying whatever you need to close the deal. A presidential campaign, though, is different. At some point, you have to say what you really believe.

Copyright 2012 The Arizona Republic|azcentral.com. All rights reserved.For more information about reprints & permissions, visit our FAQ's. To report corrections and clarifications, contact Standards Editor Brent Jones. For publication consideration in the newspaper, send comments to letters@usatoday.com. Include name, phone number, city and state for verification. To view our corrections, go to corrections.usatoday.com.

Posted

View the original article here

Romney Has Conciliatory Remarks on Obama and Health Overhaul

3:09 p.m. | Updated Mitt Romney said Sunday that he would retain elements of President Obama’s health care overhaul, blamed Republicans as much as Democrats for the “mistake” of agreeing to automatic cuts in military spending to avoid a fiscal crisis and acknowledged that Mr. Obama’s national security strategy has made America in “some ways safer.”

The remarks, made in an interview on the NBC News program “Meet The Press,” seemed to mark the emergence of a less openly partisan, more general-election-oriented Republican nominee, who is intent on appealing to middle-of-the-road voters who have not yet made up their minds. At one point, Mr. Romney said that a speech on Thursday by the country’s last Democratic president, Bill Clinton, had “elevated” the party’s convention in Charlotte, N.C.

When the show’s host, David Gregory, asked Mr. Romney what elements of Mr. Obama’s health care program he would maintain, Mr. Romney said he would still require that insurance companies cover those with pre-existing conditions, just as the president’s law has.

“I’m not getting rid of all of health care reform,” Mr. Romney said, while emphasizing that he planned to replace the president’s plan with his own. “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.”

Mr. Romney, whose standing in several national polls improved slightly after the Republican convention in Tampa, said, “I’m in a better spot than I was before the convention.”

“People got to see Ann and hear our story,” Mr. Romney said, referring to this wife. “And the result of that is I’m better known, for better or for worse.”

With the Federal Reserve contemplating actions to stimulate the economy, Mr. Romney registered his disapproval, saying that he did not think that “easing monetary policy is going to make a significant difference in the job market right now.”

Mr. Romney, who has criticized the president over the rising federal debt, said he would seek to balance the budget in 8 to 10 years, perhaps after his own potential presidency would end. Any attempt to do so in a first term, Mr. Romney said, would have “a dramatic impact on the economy — too dramatic.”

Mr. Romney said he disagreed with a compromise made last year by the White House and Congressional Republicans that called for automatic cuts to military spending as a way to force a deal on deficit reduction.

“I thought it was a mistake on the part of the White House to propose it. I think it was a mistake for Republicans to go along with it,” he said.

The interview provided another forum in which Mr. Romney was questioned about the omission in his convention speech of any mention of the war in Afghanistan. Mr. Romney seemed defensive when Mr. Gregory asked him about criticism from the conservative magazine The Weekly Standard — and from others on both sides of the ideological divide — ­ that he did not speak about the conflict in accepting his party’s nomination at the Republican convention in Tampa, Fla.

“The Weekly Standard took you to task in your convention speech for not mentioning the war in Afghanistan one time,” Mr. Gregory asked. “Was that a mistake, with so much sacrifice in two wars over the period of this last decade?”

Mr. Romney answered, “You know, I find it interesting that people are curious about mentioning words in a speech as opposed to policy,” noting that he had discussed the war in Afghanistan just before the convention, in a speech to the American Legion. “I went to the American Legion,” he said, “and spoke with our veterans there and described my policy as it relates to Afghanistan and other foreign policy and our military.”

When Mr. Gregory noted that his American Legion address did not have the same large audience as the convention speech ­ — “tens of millions of people” — Mr. Romney replied: “You know, what I’ve found is that wherever I go, I am speaking to tens of millions of people. Everything I say is picked up by you and by others, and that’s the way it ought to be.”

In leaving the war out of his convention address, Mr. Romney seemed to have left an opening for President Obama, who said in his own speech: “Tonight, we pay tribute to the Americans who still serve in harm’s way. We are forever in debt to a generation whose sacrifice has made this country safer and more respected. We will never forget you.”

Pressed on his social views, Mr. Romney reiterated that he did not think that taxpayers should have to pay for abortions and that he wanted Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade.

Reminded that he had once called himself a “severe” conservative, Mr. Romney seemed to play down that description. “I am as conservative as the Constitution,” he said.

In an appearance in Melborune, Fla., Sunday, President Obama, picking up where former President Bill Clinton left off, said that the budget proposals offered by Mitt Romney and Paul D. Ryan do not add up.

The president was quick to jump on appearances by his Republican rivals on the Sunday morning talk shows, in which they were asked separately what loopholes they would close to pay for their proposed tax cuts. Neither of the men answered the question.

The relationship between Mr. Obama and Mr. Clinton started off rocky — Mr. Obama, after all, ran against Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination in 2008. But after Mr. Clinton’s ringing endorsement of Mr. Obama in a well-received Democratic convention speech on Thursday, the president mentioned his Democratic predecessor at every stop on a bus tour of Florida over the weekend.

“President Clinton told us the single thing missing from my opponents’ proposal was arithmetic,” Mr. Obama told a rally here, to a burst of applause.

“When my opponents were asked about it today,” Mr. Obama said, “it was like 2 plus 1 equals 5.”

Because of an editing error, an earlier version of this post misstated a subject Mitt Romney addressed during his convention speech. He did not mention conflict in Afghanistan.

View the original article here

Obama Campaign Says It Beat Romney in Fund-Raising for August

12:51 a.m. | Updated The Obama campaign announced early Monday that it had raised $114 million in August, saying it had brought in more than the Romney campaign for the first time since April.

That number was released just after Mitt Romney and the Republican National Committee said that their campaign had raised more than $111.6 million in August, leaving the candidate and his party with about $168.5 million in cash at the beginning of September.

Both campaigns have said they hope to raise more than three-quarters of a billion dollars, amounts that would shatter previous records for presidential spending. Neither campaign is accepting public funds for the general election campaign.

Mr. Obama’s campaign manager, Jim Messina, said in a statement: “The key to fighting back against the special interests writing limitless checks to support Mitt Romney is growing our donor base, and we did substantially in the month of August.”

The Obama campaign said on Twitter that 98 percent of donations in August were for $250 or less. The Republican effort raised about $34.6 million in donations of less than $250, the campaign said, about a third of the total — a better showing with small donors than Mr. Romney has had in the past.

In a statement, Spencer Zwick, Mr. Romney’s finance chairman, and Reince Priebus, the R.N.C. chairman, said: “Americans are not better off than they were four years ago and they are looking for a change of leadership. Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan are offering bold solutions to our country’s problems – that is why we are seeing such tremendous support from donors across the country.”

View the original article here

Column: Obama takes aim at Romney

Cal Thomas is a conservative columnist. Bob Beckel is a liberal Democratic strategist. But as longtime friends, they can often find common ground on issues that lawmakers in Washington cannot.

By H. Darr Beiser,, USA TODAY

Head of the Democratic National Committee: Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida tests the podium Tuesday in Charlotte, in preparation for the first day of the party's convention.

By H. Darr Beiser,, USA TODAY

Head of the Democratic National Committee: Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida tests the podium Tuesday in Charlotte, in preparation for the first day of the party's convention.

Today:Obama takes the stage

Bob: Gallup reports that Mitt Romney had the smallest polling increase from any presidential convention since 1984. Romney's address to the GOP convention in Tampa, according to Gallup, was the least well-received speech since Bob Dole in 1996. Romney wanted this election to be a referendum on Barack Obama, but because Romney failed to close the sale on his own candidacy, he's given Obama an opening to make Romney an issue.

Cal: Nice try at those DNC talking points, Bob. Here in North Carolina, where I am spending the week with your political brethren, the new Elon University/Charlotte Observer Poll shows Romney leading President Obama 47% to 43% in the state. But enough about polls. Last week, we agreed on what Romney needed to say to the GOP convention and those watching on TV. Now, what do you think the president should say in his speech tonight?

Bob: In his acceptance speech, Romney did not harshly attack the president, which I thought was a good strategy. He let others, including Paul Ryan, do his dirty work for him. Speaker after speaker at the Democratic convention has attacked Romney for proposing warmed over policies from "the last century" and his running mate as radical and dangerous. Obama should do something similar, and to the extent he mentions Romney, it should be to compare the president's policies, popular or not, with Romney's lack of a single new idea.

Cal: The "last century" with its economic booms and defeat of communism in Russia and fascism in Germany is looking better all the time. I agree the president has a record. I anticipate the "failure" of the Democratic convention will be that Democrats will offer more of the same failed solutions. The president made some spectacular promises four years ago, few of which he has kept. It's going to be very difficult to defend that record, given the high expectations he generated, especially on unemployment, which he pledged the stimulus would hold to under 8%. Even Maryland Democratic Gov. Martin O'Malley admitted to Bob Schieffer last Sunday on CBS's Face the Nation that America is no better off today than it was four years ago.

Bob: My cardinal rule in politics is to effectively manage expectations. The goal of any campaign should be to keep expectations in the right place so the candidate's strengths can exceed expectations and in the process minimize his weaknesses. If any president has ever suffered from high expectations, it's Barack Obama.

Cal: That was not the Republicans' fault. He almost single-handedly created those expectations with all of that lowering of the oceans business and other messianic talk.

Columns

In addition to its own editorials, USA TODAY publishes a variety of opinions from outside writers. On political and policy matters, we publish opinions from across the political spectrum.

Roughly half of our columns come from our Board of Contributors, a group whose interests range from education to religion to sports to the economy. Their charge is to chronicle American culture by telling the stories, large and small, that collectively make us what we are.

We also publish weekly columns by Al Neuharth, USA TODAY's founder, and DeWayne Wickham, who writes primarily on matters of race but on other subjects as well. That leaves plenty of room for other views from across the nation by well-known and lesser-known names alike.

Bob: I agree. Obama has himself to blame after raising expectations during his extraordinarily effective campaign in 2008. He made promises that were nearly impossible to fulfill, particularly about changing the tone in Washington. He did not expect to be facing a Republican Party that had moved radically to the right and had no interest in working with President Obama.

Cal: Whatever happened to the Democratic Leadership Council, which Bill Clinton headed? These were moderate Democrats who were willing to compromise to move the ball forward. Look at the convention lineup of speakers. There isn't a pro-life, smaller-government, lower-taxes, less-spending, traditional-marriage speaker among the lot. The Democratic Party is now ruled exclusively by the hard left, and yet there are many Democrats who favor some, or all, of these moderate-to-conservative issues. Do you think the president in his speech tonight will have anything to say to these Democrats?

Bob: The DLC was a Clinton-driven organization that left the scene when he did. If you like radical speakers, Tampa was full of them last week. Back to the president's speech. I think Obama must address the expectations issue, and I know some people around him agree. As he told a CBS reporter, he failed "to tell a story to the American people that gives them a sense of unity and purpose and optimism."

Cal: It's a little late for that, don't you think?

Bob: No, I don't. For all his formidable skills as a campaigner and orator, Obama failed to tell the country why he was embarking on new directions in health care and why his stimulus package was necessary. He never sought to downplay the expectations of 2008 when he knew full well that they could not be met. Therefore, I think Obama needs to do a bit of mea culpa in his speech to let the voters know that he knows he hasn't met all their expectations, but that he is making every effort to do so.

Cal: A mea culpa doesn't fit his personality and will seem disingenuous. It would be like Madonna suddenly advocating modest dress. The public is cynical enough about politicians in both parties. The late comedian George Burns is supposed to have said, "Sincerity is everything. If you can fake that, you've got it made." Given the public's growing distrust of government, it is increasingly difficult to "fake sincerity." You've been a strategist. Should he attack Romney, or ignore him?

Bob: As I've mentioned, a little of both. When Obama talks about Romney, he should avoid talking about Bain Capital and Romney's refusal to release more of his tax returns. Those issues have been covered in his advertising and by others. Rather, Obama should point out that Romney is quick to raise all the problems facing America and has yet to offer solutions to solve them.

Cal: That's a fair point. As for Bain, Deroy Murdock wrote last week in the New York Post, "Bain's private-equity executives have enriched dozens of organizations and millions of individuals in the Democratic base — including some who scream most loudly for President Obama's re-election." So lay off Bain, Mr. President, and tell us if we're in for more of the same policies if you are re-elected.

Bob: Speaking of policies, even TheWall Street Journal panned Romney's speech because he offered no new policies beyond cutting taxes, increasing defense and, in a break with his running mate, Romney said he will protect Social Security and Medicare. This adds up to massive deficits and perhaps taxes on the middle class. It's no wonder so many economists laugh at Romney's warmed over trickle-down policies.

Cal: With the national debt climbing past $16 trillion, I'm glad you are suddenly concerned with debt, which is caused by overspending, not under-taxing. More and more voters don't trust either party to do what it says, but I think they'll give Republicans one more chance to rescue us from this financial sinking ship. If they fail, as we have written in a previous column, voters will keep tossing out incumbents until they get leaders who will do the necessary things to repair the economy.

For more information about reprints & permissions, visit our FAQ's. To report corrections and clarifications, contact Standards Editor Brent Jones. For publication consideration in the newspaper, send comments to letters@usatoday.com. Include name, phone number, city and state for verification. To view our corrections, go to corrections.usatoday.com.

View the original article here

Sources: Romney to pick Ryan

NORFOLK, Va. — NORFOLK, Va. Entering a critical point in his election campaign, Mitt Romney is set to announce Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan as his vice-presidential running mate today, according to sources in the Romney camp.

Citing several insiders in the Romney campaign and a senior Republican with knowledge of the decision, the Associated Press and NBC News reported late Friday that the presumptive GOP presidential candidate would unveil Ryan as his running mate during a campaign event in Virginia this morning. Romney's campaign would officially say only that he would announce his pick today.

Romney and Ryan are expected to make their first appearance together in Norfolk, Va., at the start of a four-state bus tour to introduce the newly minted GOP ticket to the nation.

With polls indicating Romney losing ground to President Barack Obama, the move to add Ryan to the GOP ticket is likely to appease conservatives who have been publicly fretting that Romney has lost the summer.

Ryan, 42, a seven-term congressman who chairs the House Budget Committee, is viewed by some in the Republican Party as a bridge between the buttoned-up GOP establishment and the riled-up "tea party" movement that has never warmed to Romney.

In recent days, conservative pundits have been urging Romney to choose Ryan in large part because of his authorship of a House-backed budget plan that seeks to curb overall entitlement spending and changes Medicaid into a voucherlike system to save costs.

On Thursday, Romney fueled the buzz around Ryan, telling NBC that he wants a vice president with "a vision for the country, that adds something to the political discourse about the direction of the country."

Ryan on the ticket could help Romney become more competitive in Wisconsin, a state Obama won four years ago but that could be much tighter this November.

Under pressure to alter the course of his campaign, the announcement of a running mate is the first of several opportunities for Romney to make a move to recapture momentum over the next three weeks. At the end of the month, Republicans will gather in Tampa for a four-day convention that will provide the former Massachusetts governor a chance to reintroduce himself to the country and reset the race on his terms.

Romney's effort gets under way today in Virginia, when he begins a four-day bus tour through four critical swing states in as many days: North Carolina, Virginia, Florida and Ohio. All are battlegrounds where Obama won in 2008. Romney will be accompanied by his wife, Ann, and his new running mate.

By showing the candidate connecting with blue-collar America, the tour is designed to help Romney shed the caricature that the Obama campaign has tried to draw of him as an elitist who looks out only for the wealthiest. Romney plans to tour the USS Wisconsin in Norfolk and to swing by a bakery in Ashland, Va., today. He will stage a rally Sunday at the NASCAR Technical Institute in Mooresville, N.C., near Charlotte.

Aboard his campaign plane Friday, Romney told reporters: "Bus tour, it's great! It's great to be out campaigning. ? Campaigning is the most fun, is the most enjoyable and rewarding." Romney then clapped his hands and returned to his seat at the front of the plane. "Back to my yogurt," he said.

Romney's focus on the middle class will carry into the convention at the end of this month. The national spotlight will shine brighter in Tampa than at any other moment in Romney's campaign, and his supporters are betting that many voters will form their impressions of him then.

"To borrow a phrase, the convention has the potential to be an 'Etch A Sketch moment,'" said Mark McKinnon, a longtime Republican image-maker who advised the presidential campaigns of George W. Bush and Sen. John McCain. "Conventions often wipe the slate clean. A crucial bloc of undecided voters, though there aren't many this year, will just start paying attention when the convention starts."

Romney's advisers are putting finishing touches on plans to reintroduce the candidate to the nation. They have filmed new videos with Romney and his family at his lakefront vacation home in Wolfeboro, N.H., and are devising a prominent role onstage for Ann Romney and their extended family.

"Americans are going to get a real close look at Governor Romney, his wife, Ann, and the entire family," senior adviser Eric Fehrnstrom told reporters Friday. "I think that they're going to be impressed by the fact that this is a family that shares their values. He shares their values of hard work, of patriotism, of sacrificing so that the next generation has it better than the current one."

For Romney, a big moment couldn't come soon enough. Weeks of pummeling by Democratic ads depicting Romney as an out-of-touch plutocrat and possible tax evader appear to have taken a toll.

Three national polls released over the past two days have Obama widening his lead over Romney to as much as 9 points. The surveys of registered voters, all conducted from Aug. 2 to Aug. 8, also have Romney's unfavorable ratings rising. Two of the polls indicate his support among independents is slipping.

A Fox News poll indicated the largest deficit, with Romney trailing by 9 points -- 49 percent to 40 percent -- the widest gap Fox has reported.

A senior Romney adviser played down the new polls at a news briefing Friday morning at Boston headquarters, saying they must be midsummer flukes because there had been no "precipitating event" to move the numbers so much.

The adviser pointed to the latest Gallup polls, which have the two candidates in a dead heat, as well as to Rasmussen, an automated poll that usually leans Republican and has Romney ahead of Obama.

The Romney campaign is predicting a post-convention "bounce," noting in a presentation to reporters that presidential challengers on average jump 11 points in polling after their party conventions.

"People are not paying as much attention to this process as we all think they are," the adviser said. "Let's get to the conventions, Labor Day, the debates -- that's when people will really be paying attention."

Republican strategists unaffiliated with the Romney campaign agreed.

"When people start to pay attention at the convention time, they can put their bullets in their gun and fire away," said David Carney, a veteran strategist who ran Texas Gov. Rick Perry's presidential campaign. "Yes, there's pressure. You never want to be behind. But ultimately, what happened in the summer is much less relevant than what happens in the fall."

The developments of the past few weeks have ratcheted up the pressure for Romney and his campaign to execute their strategy and avoid the kind of missteps and distractions that marred his summer.

Romney is emerging from a rocky foreign trip and criticism that his responses to Obama's onslaught of attack ads were too weak. And he has not quieted questions about his personal finances, because of his refusal to release more than two years of federal income-tax returns.

On Friday, a prominent supporter, Utah businessman Jon Huntsman Sr., joined a chorus of Republicans calling on Romney to disclose more tax filings.

Washington Post and Associated Press contributed to this article.

Copyright 2012 The Arizona Republic|azcentral.com. All rights reserved.For more information about reprints & permissions, visit our FAQ's. To report corrections and clarifications, contact Standards Editor Brent Jones. For publication consideration in the newspaper, send comments to letters@usatoday.com. Include name, phone number, city and state for verification. To view our corrections, go to corrections.usatoday.com.

Posted

View the original article here

Romney campaign is on three-month fundraising winning streak

WASHINGTON – President Obama and his aides have been warning supporters for weeks that they're in danger of losing the money battle.

By Charles Dharapak, AP

Mitt Romney leaves a hardware store in Wolfeboro, N.H., during a day off from the campaign trail on Monday.

By Charles Dharapak, AP

Mitt Romney leaves a hardware store in Wolfeboro, N.H., during a day off from the campaign trail on Monday.

They weren't just crying wolf.

Mitt Romney and the Republican Party said Monday that they picked up $101.3 million in July, the third straight month they have outraised the incumbent's campaign.

Obama and the Democrats raised just over $75 million in July, his campaign announced.

Romney's July advantage was the biggest yet, leading to increasingly urgent fundraising appeals from Obama and the Democrats.

One e-mail to supporters from Obama's campaign chief operating officer, Ann Marie Habershaw, used the subject line, "This is why I keep asking."

"We've been outraised by Mitt Romney and the Republicans for two months running," she said in the Aug. 2 e-mail, one of hundreds collected by ProPublica.org. "Right now, Romney and his allies are clobbering us on the airwaves in nearly every single battleground state — we've got to make sure our message can get through, too."

Romney's national finance chairman, Spencer Zwick, said Romney's financial support shows "this is more than a campaign — it is a cause."

Comparing monthly campaign fundraising:

Source: Romney and Obama campaigns

The release of monthly fundraising figures — which include money raised by the campaigns and the national party committees — has become a ritual for the presidential contenders. Romney's campaign announced his totals in an early-morning e-mail to reporters; the Obama camp followed up via Twitter hours later.

Obama boasted that 98% had given $250 or less (Romney's figure was 94%) and that 26% of his July donors had never contributed before.

Romney and his allies have $185.9 million cash on hand, but Obama did not disclose how much he has left to spend — an important number as the campaign enters the final three months. That number will come when the campaigns make their required federal disclosures on Aug. 20.

"There's not going to be inadequate resources for either candidate," said Sheila Krumholz of the Center for Responsive Politics, a money-in-politics research group. Even so, she said, it's nice to have the freedom that money brings: when and where to run ads, when and where to travel and which field offices to staff with more people.

If Romney does wind up with a money advantage, Krumholz said, "there will be a lot of nervous people on the Obama side."

Obama spokeswoman Jen Psaki said the campaign's not panicking. She said fundraising is on track to produce "the biggest grass-roots campaign in history," one capable of "reaching voters in the key target states."

"We are where we need to be," she said.

On Monday night, Obama was scheduled to headline his 196th and 197th fundraisers since launching his re-election bid in spring 2011. That puts him on pace to triple the 86 fundraisers George W. Bush held in his 2004 campaign.

For more information about reprints & permissions, visit our FAQ's. To report corrections and clarifications, contact Standards Editor Brent Jones. For publication consideration in the newspaper, send comments to letters@usatoday.com. Include name, phone number, city and state for verification. To view our corrections, go to corrections.usatoday.com.

View the original article here

Romney again tops Obama in fundraising

WASHINGTON — WASHINGTON For the third straight month, President Barack Obama and the Democratic Party significantly trailed Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney and the Republican Party in fundraising.

Recent polls

Washington: Obama +17 (SurveyUSA)

Indiana: Romney +16 (Rasmussen)

Romney's campaign on Monday reported a July haul of $101million with the Republican National Committee, compared to the $75million that Obama's campaign said it had brought in with the Democratic National Committee.

Romney also raised more cash than Obama in May and June.

The July fundraising reports came as Obama was set to raise at least $2.5 million at a pair of events in Connecticut.

GOP-aligned super PACs also are raising and spending tens of millions of dollars to defeat Obama on Nov. 6.

Romney was taking another day off the campaign trail while the president worked at the White House.

Romney's campaign announced that he will spend Saturday through Aug. 14 campaigning by bus through a different state each day. The trip opens in Virginia, hits North Carolina and Florida and ends next Tuesday in Ohio.

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. For more information about reprints & permissions, visit our FAQ's. To report corrections and clarifications, contact Standards Editor Brent Jones. For publication consideration in the newspaper, send comments to letters@usatoday.com. Include name, phone number, city and state for verification. To view our corrections, go to corrections.usatoday.com.

Posted

View the original article here

Romney Team Outpaces Obama in Fund-Raising Again

Mr. Romney and the Republican National Committee took in $101.3 million in July, his campaign announced Monday, as Republican donors rallied behind their presumptive nominee with the national convention only a few weeks away. The president’s campaign announced on Twitter on Monday morning that his July fund-raising with the Democratic National Committee topped out at about $75 million — the third month in a row they have brought in less than the Republicans.

Mr. Obama’s team appears to have all but conceded the money race, deluging the president’s grass-roots supporters this summer with fund-raising e-mails and warning supporters of the financial advantage that the Republicans will hold going into the final months of the campaign.

“Make no mistake, we will be outspent,” a senior campaign official said during a conference call with reporters last month.

More detailed information about the July fund-raising, including how much the candidates themselves raised and how they spent their money, has not yet been released by the two candidates. All campaigns are required to report their fund-raising to the Federal Election Commission by Aug. 20.

But the Republican figure keeps Mr. Romney and his party on pace to bring in $800 million for the cycle, the target set by Mr. Romney’s team in April. Roughly a quarter of the Republicans’ haul, $25.7 million, came in donations under $250, as Mr. Romney worked to increase his appeal among small donors.

“Americans are clearly looking for a change in the White House,” Reince Priebus, the chairman of the R.N.C., said in a statement. “While President Obama claims that his economic plan ‘worked,’ the American people know that his policies haven’t worked and he has failed to fix our economy.”

Because Mr. Obama easily outraised Mr. Romney all of last year and early this year, the president does not need to beat Mr. Romney in the months ahead to bring in the roughly $750 million his team has said they wish to raise in this cycle.

But heavy spending on field organizers, technology and advertising — more than $400 million through the end of June — appears to have cost Mr. Obama the impressive cash advantage he once had. And Democratic-leaning “super PACs” have raised far less money than their Republican counterparts, forcing Mr. Obama to spend heavily on attack advertisements against Mr. Romney, even while conservative groups pummel him on the airwaves.

The Republicans have used the cash surge of the last two months to begin trying to match Mr. Obama’s field advantage, opening about 250 offices around the country, recruiting volunteers and hiring more than 600 staff members for the fall campaign. On Saturday, the R.N.C. announced that organizers had made their one millionth voter contact of the election cycle. The committee has also begun running general election advertisements, as Mr. Romney began doing in May.

The campaign, the Republican National Committee and a joint fund established by the Republicans to raise presidential campaign cash ended July with $185.9 million in cash on hand. They did not disclose what part of the money would end up in Mr. Romney’s campaign coffers, which can accept only $5,000 from each donor every election cycle, and how much would go to the R.N.C., which can accept more than 10 times that amount from each donor.

Mr. Obama did not disclose how much money his campaign and the D.N.C. have on hand.

The strong fund-raising puts renewed pressure on Mr. Obama to bring in more cash and suggests certainty that Mr. Romney will remain financially competitive with an incumbent whose fund-raising prowess has long been a hallmark.

Underscoring the campaign’s changed fortunes, Mr. Obama’s campaign is no longer announcing its fund-raising totals in lush videos featuring his senior staff or field workers. Instead, on Monday, not long after Mr. Romney made his announcement, Mr. Obama’s campaign put out its total in a brief message to his Twitter followers, thanking them for their money.

“Every bit helps,” the campaign wrote.

View the original article here

Supplement industry boosts Romney campaign by $4.5M

WASHINGTON – Executives with companies selling everything from energy drinks to weight-loss pills made from African mango-seed extracts are among the ranks of Republican Mitt Romney's top fundraisers, a USA TODAY analysis shows.

By Evan Vucci, AP

Mitt Romney has refused to release a comprehensive list of his top fundraisers.

By Evan Vucci, AP

Mitt Romney has refused to release a comprehensive list of his top fundraisers.

Overall, individuals and companies with ties to the nutritional and dietary supplement industry have poured more than $4.5 million into campaign accounts benefiting Romney's presidential ambitions, federal records show. The spending comes as the industry is at odds with the Food and Drug Administration over proposed rules that would govern the use of new dietary ingredients.

Unlike the pharmaceutical industry, supplement makers long have been exempted from federal review of their products for safety or effectiveness before being marketed. "It is a very loosely regulated industry," said David Schardt, a senior nutritionist with the Center for Science in the Public Interest. The group advocates for food and nutrition safety.

"It is viewed as a Wild West arena, where virtually anything goes," he said.

Romney has refused to release a comprehensive list of his top fundraisers — bucking a practice that goes back to the 2000 presidential election.

By contrast, President Obama has disclosed the names of 532 people who raised at least $50,000 for his re-election.

In recent weeks, USA TODAY compiled a list of roughly 1,200 individuals helping Romney collect campaign cash by reviewing campaign news releases, Federal Election Commission (FEC) records, invitations obtained by the non-partisan Sunlight Foundation and news accounts.

Industry figures aiding Romney include:

•Rex Maughan, the CEO of Forever Living and his wife, Ruth, of Paradise Valley, Ariz., listed as members of Romney's "Arizona finance committee" in a September campaign news release. The Maughans and employees of the company, whose products include aloe vera drinks and gels, have donated more than $102,000 to Romney and his joint fundraising efforts with the Republican Party, FEC records show.

•Miguel Fernandez, chairman of MBF Healthcare Partners, a Florida private-equity firm whose portfolio includes supplement manufacturer Nutriforce Nutrition. Last year, he donated $500,000 to a pro-Romney super PAC, Restore Our Future. Another $500,000 came from MBF Family Investments, which shares an address with his company.

•Executives with Utah-based supplement companies. They include David Lisonbee, CEO of 4Life Research, who gave $500,000 to the super PAC this year; and Steve Lund, co-founder of Nu Skin Enterprises, a Provo, Utah, nutrition and skin-care company. Eli Publishing and F8 LLC, which share a Provo address, donated $1 million each to the super PAC. State records list Lund as Eli Publishing's registered agent.

•Others in the industry have helped host fundraising events for Romney, such as Daryl Allen, a distributor for USANA, which sells vitamins and weight-loss aids. She and her husband, Robert, were listed among the "San Diego chairs" for a September breakfast reception for Romney at diet guru Jenny Craig's Del Mar, Calif., home.

Frank VanderSloot, who heads an Idaho-based supplement and wellness firm and is a Romney fundraiser, said his support for the former Massachusetts governor "has nothing to do with the kind of business we are in. It has to do with the fact that we are in business."

VanderSloot, who sits on the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's board of directors, said Obama "is far off base in his understanding of what creates a healthy economy." VanderSloot has donated more than $1.1 million to Romney and Restore Our Future.

In a statement, Lisonbee of 4Life Research said Romney's track record in business "is encouraging for entrepreneurs." The company's president, Steve Tew, emphasized that the donation was a personal contribution from Lisonbee and reflects neither the company's nor industry's political views.

Nu Skin's Sydnee Fox said Lund's contribution was personal and separate from company business.

Fernandez was unavailable, an aide said. Other executives did not return calls.

Romney spokeswoman Amanda Henneberg provided the campaign's standard response to inquiries about donors: "People who support Mitt Romney do so because they support his pro-growth, pro-jobs agenda for the country."

Several of Romney's backers distribute their products through direct sales instead of retail stores. Direct sellers "tend to be very entrepreneurial," possibly explaining their support for a Republican, said Steve Mister, who heads the industry's Council for Responsible Nutrition.

Indeed, more than two-thirds of the industry's contributions to federal candidates' main campaign accounts have gone to Republicans so far in this election, according to an analysis by the Center for Responsive Politics, which tracks campaign money.

Mister said his group supports both Democrats and Republicans in Congress who understand the industry and has taken no position on the presidential race.

The industry also has long roots in Utah, where Salt Lake City native and herbalist John Christopher established a School of Natural Healing in the 1950s. Today, Utah's supplement industry is a powerful economic force with $7.1 billion in annual revenues, said Loren Israelsen, a Utah resident and executive director of the United Natural Products Alliance.

Romney is an adopted son of the Beehive State, where he ran the Salt Lake Olympics in 2002 and has drawn substantial financial support from the state's fellow Mormons.

Supplement trade groups say they are well regulated. Rules adopted in 2007 now require manufacturers to report serious illnesses linked to their products; the FDA began plant inspections in 2008 to enforce new rules on how supplements are made.

The industry now is pushing the FDA to rescind what it claims are overly broad regulations proposed last year on new supplement ingredients. The proposal seeks to comply with a 1994 law that declared anything already sold as a supplement was considered safe, but said new ingredients introduced after that date would be subject to FDA scrutiny before being marketed.

"We have to have a certain amount of regulation to give consumers the confidence that the products are safe," Mister said. But the new proposal "would have a crippling effect on innovation."

Contributing: Gregory Korte and Christopher Schnaars

For more information about reprints & permissions, visit our FAQ's. To report corrections and clarifications, contact Standards Editor Brent Jones. For publication consideration in the newspaper, send comments to letters@usatoday.com. Include name, phone number, city and state for verification. To view our corrections, go to corrections.usatoday.com.

View the original article here

Romney speech draws jeers

HOUSTON — HOUSTON Mitt Romney declared Wednesday before a skeptical NAACP crowd that he'd do more for African-Americans than Barack Obama, the nation's first black president. He drew jeers when he lambasted the Democrat's policies.

"If you want a president who will make things better in the African-American community, you are looking at him," Romney told the group's annual convention. Pausing as some in the crowd heckled, he added, "You take a look!"

"For real?" yelled someone in the crowd.

The reception occasionally was rocky though generally polite as the Republican presidential candidate sought to woo a Democratic bloc that voted heavily for Obama four years ago and is certain to do so again. Romney was booed when he vowed to repeal Obama's signature health care law, and the crowd interrupted him when he accused Obama of failing to spark a more robust economic recovery.

"I know the president has said he will do those things. But he has not. He cannot. He will not," Romney said as the crowd's murmurs turned to groans.

At other points, Romney earned scattered applause for his promises to create jobs and improve education.

Four months before the election, Romney's appearance at the NAACP convention was a direct, aggressive appeal for support from across the political spectrum in what polls show is a close contest. Romney doesn't expect to win a majority of black voters -- 95percent backed Obama in 2008 -- but he's trying to show independent and swing voters that he's willing to reach out to diverse audiences, while demonstrating that his campaign and the Republican Party he leads are inclusive.

The stakes are high. Romney's chances in battleground states such as North Carolina, Virginia, Ohio and Pennsylvania -- which have huge numbers of blacks who helped Obama win four years ago -- will improve if he can cut into the president's advantage by persuading black voters to support him or if they stay home on Election Day.

Obama spoke to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People during the 2008 campaign, as did his Republican opponent that year, Sen. John McCain. The president has dispatched Vice President Joe Biden to address the group on Thursday.

Within minutes of taking the stage, Romney made note of his opponent's historic election achievement -- and then accused him of not doing enough to help black families on everything from family policy to education to health care.

"If you understood who I truly am in my heart, and if it were possible to fully communicate what I believe is in the real, enduring best interest of African-American families, you would vote for me for president," Romney said to murmuring from the crowd.

Romney added: "I want you to know that if I did not believe that my policies and my leadership would help families of color -- and families of any color -- more than the policies and leadership of President Obama, I would not be running for president."

Romney's criticism of Obama didn't set well with some in the audience.

"Dumb," said Bill Lucy, a member of the NAACP board.

William Braxton, a 59-year-old retiree from Maryland, added: "I thought he had a lot of nerve. That really took me by surprise, his attacking Obama that way."

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. For more information about reprints & permissions, visit our FAQ's. To report corrections and clarifications, contact Standards Editor Brent Jones. For publication consideration in the newspaper, send comments to letters@usatoday.com. Include name, phone number, city and state for verification. To view our corrections, go to corrections.usatoday.com.

Posted

View the original article here

Romney, GOP outraise Obama and Democrats again in June

WASHINGTON – Mitt Romney's announcement Monday that he and the Republican Party had outraised President Obama for the second month in a row and ended June with a whopping $160 million in cash reserves set off new alarms inside Obama's campaign.

By Charles Dharapak, AP

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney speaks in Washington last month.

By Charles Dharapak, AP

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney speaks in Washington last month.

Although Obama and Democrats raised $71 million in June, "we still got beat. Handily," Ann Marie Habershaw, the campaign's chief operating officer, said in an e-mail imploring supporters to give as little as $3. If Obama loses to Romney in November, she wrote, "it will be because we didn't close the gap enough when we had the chance."

Although the Obama campaign did not release its cash-on-hand total Monday, the Romney announcement shows a highly competitive battle for campaign money four months from the November election.

The $106 million raised by Romney and the Republican National Committee in June doesn't count proceeds from Romney's trio of high-profile weekend fundraisers at the homes of energy billionaire David Koch, financier Cliff Sobel and businessman Ronald Perelman on Long Island, N.Y.

Romney finance chairman Spencer Zwick said the GOP's fundraising advantage "is a statement from voters that they want a change of direction in Washington."

Romney's haul is a sign Republican donors are quickly coming to his aid, after he effectively secured the nomination in May, following a protracted primary battle. It also marks a setback for Obama, who broke fundraising records as a candidate in 2008, but has warned recently he could be the first sitting president to be outspent in his re-election. In addition to Romney's growing fundraising strength, an array of GOP-affiliated outside groups have pledged to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to defeat Obama.

By Susan Walsh, AP

President Obama and the Democratic Party raised $71 million in June, far less than Republicans.

Just days ago, Obama campaign manager Jim Messina warned that the growing money gap "could cost us the election."

Obama and Romney each claimed broad financial support.

Obama's camp said more than 706,000 people had donated last month. Romney and the RNC said more than 536,000 donations came in amounts smaller than $250 — accounting for about one-fifth of its June fundraising haul. Romney's campaign said it raised more than $4 million from more than 40,000 donors in the 24 hours after Supreme Court ruled Obama's health care law constitutional last month.

Romney opposes that law and vows to repeal it.

Typically, money raised online comes in smaller increments.

By contrast, the suggested donation at the fundraiser held at the Koch home was $75,000 per couple, according to the non-partisan Sunlight Foundation, which tracks campaign money. The event at the beachfront estate drew protests, some from the Occupy Wall Street movement.

For more information about reprints & permissions, visit our FAQ's. To report corrections and clarifications, contact Standards Editor Brent Jones. For publication consideration in the newspaper, send comments to letters@usatoday.com. Include name, phone number, city and state for verification. To view our corrections, go to corrections.usatoday.com.

View the original article here

Romney Fund-Raising Breakfast in Israel to Bar News Media

JERUSALEM — Mitt Romney’s high-dollar breakfast with donors at the King David Hotel here on Monday morning will be closed to the news media, his campaign decided Saturday, a change from the norm for the presumptive Republican presidential nominee.

A one-stop destination for the latest political news — from The Times and other top sources. Plus opinion, polls, campaign data and video.

The trip to Israel holds opportunity and peril for Mr. Romney, and his campaign aides have spent weeks preparing him for the fine diplomatic line he must walk while abroad. His relationship with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, which dates to their days as young consultants in Boston, is being scrutinized for signs of warmth or cooling, and everything said — and unsaid — will be carefully parsed.

The fund-raiser may be an especially delicate situation for Mr. Romney because of the attendance of Sheldon Adelson, a billionaire casino magnate who has pledged to spend some $100 million this election to help defeat President Obama, as well as elect Republicans. Though Mr. Adelson first supported Newt Gingrich during the early nominating contests because of his strong support for Israel, he has since thrown his support behind Mr. Romney. Mr. Adelson and his wife recently gave $5 million to a pro-Romney “super PAC.”

Mr. Romney seems to be taking pains to keep the fund-raiser under wraps. Typically, a small pool of reporters is allowed into fund-raisers held in public locations, in order to provide a written report on Mr. Romney’s remarks. Though there have been a few occasions when the campaign has tried to limit access — citing an especially small venue or the fact that Mr. Romney was not giving formal remarks — this is the first time that a public fund-raiser has been closed without any explanation.

View the original article here

Parsing a Romney Alternative to Obama’s Health Care Law

With the Supreme Court on Thursday upholding President Obama’s health care law, Mr. Romney faces increased pressure to flesh out alternatives to the law that he and other Republicans despise.

Although Mr. Romney has repeatedly stressed his opposition to a federal mandate to buy insurance — a crucial provision of Mr. Obama’s law, modeled on a mandate Mr. Romney enacted as Massachusetts governor — he has devoted less time to describing his own health policies.

But in speeches in the past year, he has made clear that he favors tax breaks, increased competition and devolving decisions to states to make health care more affordable, proposals that reflect a consensus on health policy that has solidified in the last decade among Republicans.

Mr. Romney’s preferences, like those being proposed by Republicans in Congress, would put more emphasis on controlling health costs and less on reducing the ranks of the uninsured, the primary goal of the Obama plan. Conservatives say the new law does not seriously address rising health costs, a major factor in the high cost of insurance.

One of Mr. Romney’s chief proposals could shake up how the vast majority of Americans get health care — through employers. He would give a tax break to people who buy insurance individually on the open market, so they would enjoy the same advantage as workers who get insurance as a benefit at work, which is not taxed as income.

Aides to Mr. Romney said tax parity would introduce more consumer awareness of the costs of health insurance, and competition among insurers would drive down costs.

A tax incentive to buy insurance “has the potential to be significant,” said Lanhee Chen, Mr. Romney’s policy director. “It can be something that really moves our health care system in a good direction.”

Democrats warn that under such a system fewer employers will choose to offer health insurance, and older and sicker workers will be thrown into the market for individual insurance that they cannot afford.

When Senator John McCain proposed in 2008 to offer a $5,000 tax credit to families for health insurance, independent analysts estimated that the ranks of the uninsured would rise by one million, to 21 million people.

To make insurance affordable for low-income people or the chronically ill, Mr. Romney would encourage states to experiment with high-risk pools, offering subsidies to the poor and insurance-buying exchanges — in essence, harnessing the purchasing power of large groups.

Mr. Obama’s law currently encourages states to establish similar exchanges, a page taken partly from a successful exchange in Massachusetts created by Mr. Romney. But as the presumed Republican presidential nominee, Mr. Romney opposes a federal requirement that all states follow the Massachusetts example. In state legislatures around the country, conservative Republicans have often resisted creation of health insurance exchanges.

Still, one of Mr. Romney’s top advisers, Michael O. Leavitt, the former secretary of health and human services, has advised a half-dozen states about how to set up exchanges.

“An exchange can greatly expand the number of insurance choices available to employees of small businesses,” said W. Brett Graham, a partner in Mr. Leavitt’s health care consulting business.

One of the most ambitious changes Mr. Romney would enact is to transform Medicaid, which insures more than 50 million poor and disabled Americans, into a program of block grants, or lump-sum payments, to states. Grants would be capped to rise at the Consumer Price Index plus 1 percent a year.

The block-grant system that Mr. Romney supports is similar to a proposal in the House Republican budget fashioned by Representative Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin in an effort to slow rapid growth of the program.

Democrats argue that turning Medicaid into a block-grant program with a cap would force states to cut vulnerable people from the rolls or reduce services as health care costs spiral.

“The vast majority of people on Medicaid are children and mothers,” said Neera Tanden, president of the Center for American Progress and a former health care adviser in the Obama administration. “I think it is cruel to drop coverage” for them.

View the original article here

Romney Campaign at Odds With G.O.P. on Health Care ‘Tax’

That message, delivered first by a top aide to Mr. Romney on television and later by the campaign, contradicts top Republican Party officials and leaders in Congress, who have spent the last several days eagerly accusing the president of levying a new tax.

By straying from the party message, Mr. Romney’s campaign offered a fresh example of his difficulty in carrying the conservative mantle on health care — a problem that his Republican rivals predicted during the primaries because he championed universal health coverage while he was the governor of Massachusetts.

Attacks by Mr. Romney on the president’s health care plan inevitably lead to comparisons with the Massachusetts law. And while Mr. Romney has pledged to repeal what conservatives call Obamacare, he had largely avoided calling the mandate a tax on Americans, perhaps because his plan included a similar mandate.

On Monday, Eric Fehrnstrom, Mr. Romney’s senior adviser, said the Massachusetts mandate was a penalty and that Mr. Romney agrees with Democrats that Mr. Obama’s health care mandate is not a tax, either.

“The governor disagreed with the ruling of the court,” Mr. Fehrnstrom said on MSNBC’s “The Daily Rundown.” “He agreed with the dissent written by Justice Scalia, which very clearly stated that the mandate was not a tax.”

Democrats seized on Mr. Fehrnstrom’s comment. David Axelrod, Mr. Obama senior campaign adviser, said in an e-mail that Mr. Romney cannot agree with his fellow Republicans because to do so is “to condemn himself.”

For much of Monday, Republicans sought to minimize the differences between themselves and Mr. Romney by trying to focus on Mr. Obama’s own shifting characterization of the health care mandate. In 2010, Mr. Obama said the mandate should not be called a tax.

“The federal individual mandate in Obamacare is either a constitutional tax or an unconstitutional penalty,” Andrea Saul, a spokeswoman for Mr. Romney, said. “Governor Romney thinks it is an unconstitutional penalty. What is President Obama’s position?”

But by insisting on calling the mandate a penalty, Ms. Saul effectively endorsed the weekend’s Democratic talking points and added to the clash with the Republicans’ line.

Republicans had seized on the Supreme Court’s ruling on Thursday that the mandate, which will compel people to obtain health insurance, is valid as an exercise of the government’s taxing power. Republicans disagreed with the ruling, but saw the tax language as politically damaging to Mr. Obama.

Since becoming the presumptive Republican nominee, Mr. Romney has largely been in sync with other Republicans as they coalesced around his candidacy. But aides to the Republican leaders on Capitol Hill said the lawmakers have no intention of backing away from their tax message against Mr. Obama despite the disagreement.

Don Stewart, an aide to Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, said the issue puts the White House and Democrats “in a box: They either believe the mandate is an unconstitutional ‘penalty,’ or they believe it is a constitutional tax as the court ruled. It’s either unconstitutional, or it is a tax.”

Democrats fought back against that characterization on Sunday. Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, the minority leader, said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that the health care mandate includes a “penalty” for a small number of “free riders” who choose not to buy insurance.

But as Mr. Romney pursues the presidency for a second time, some of his past statements characterizing the mandate match up more closely with the Democrats than they do with the Republicans.

The argument made by Ms. Pelosi on Sunday was the same one that Mr. Romney made in 2006 when he was fighting for his state’s health care plan. He repeated that argument during a debate in the 2008 presidential campaign.

In an opinion article in USA Today in 2009, Mr. Romney again used the term “free riders,” writing that a penalty like that in his health care plan “encourages ‘free riders’ to take responsibility for themselves rather than pass their medical cost on to others.”

Those kinds of statements were the source of numerous attacks by Mr. Romney’s Republican rivals during the primaries.

Tim Pawlenty, the former governor of Minnesota and a leading vice-presidential prospect, last year called Mr. Romney a “co-conspirator” in the passage of national health care, using the phrase “Obamneycare” to mock the health care plans.

Gov. Rick Perry of Texas predicted that health care would be a “major anchor” around Mr. Romney’s neck. Rick Santorum, a former senator from Pennsylvania, called Mr. Romney “the weakest candidate” to prosecute the case against Mr. Obama’s health care plan.

View the original article here