Who is Thaddeus McCotter? (ContributorNetwork)

Rep. Thaddeus McCotter (R-Mich.) has announced he is running for the GOP nomination for president in 2012. The relative unknown will make an announcement July 2 in his hometown of Livonia, Mich., to tell the nation he will be running for president. While most Americans will be barbecuing and watching fireworks this Independence Day weekend, McCotter will be trying to get enough gumption and financing to start a nationwide campaign for office.

Who is McCotter, and why haven't we heard much about him until now?

Political Career

McCotter first sought office as a Schoolcraft Community College Trustee around 30 years ago. He served as a Wayne County Commissioner starting in 1992 before moving up to the State Senate in Michigan. McCotter finally was able to run for Congress in 2002, serving residents in suburban Detroit for almost 10 years.

The conservative currently sits on the House Committee on Financial Services . He recently made comments regarding Palestinian statehood. McCotter filed House Resolution 2261, which would delay any payments made to the United Nations until they recognize an independent Palestine in the Middle East. That piece of legislation was made public June 22.

Versus Mainstream Republicans

Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-Ohio) will probably not even bring McCotter's issue up for a vote. His stances are more pro-Israel as he felt Palestine needs to stop funding terrorists. In 2009, Boehner differed with President Barack Obama over how to handle the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and sided with Israel's right to defend themselves.

McCotter has his own stances and frequently bucks with his own party. He's also unabashedly working hard for his home state as he tries to keep manufacturing jobs plentiful for Michigan. Instead of calling it the "War on Terror," McCotter refers to it as the "War for Freedom."

The man is relatively unknown in national politics, probably because he has gone out on his own. He has no novel approaches as he quietly files legislation without much fanfare. Many American politicians have backed away having a Palestinian state, even as President Obama said Palestine should have a free , independent state based upon 1967 borders.

Straw Poll

The Iowa Republican reports other candidates were so surprised by McCotter's introduction to national politics, they didn't know who it was who paid $18,000 for a place on the Iowa Straw Poll. His money got him the second-highest total behind Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas). The event is held in Ames and candidates buy booth space depending upon how much they pay. The Iowa Straw Poll happens Aug. 13, 2011.

The straw poll is far from binding, but it does give Iowa Republicans a chance to gauge candidates early on in the election process. Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), Herman Cain, Rick Santorum and Tim Pawlenty all paid to participate in the Iowa Straw Poll alongside McCotter.

Americans will find out just how serious the man from Michigan is when Iowans get a look at him in mid-August. He's a relative unknown who's already caused a few stirs in the past week in terms of running for president.

William Browning is a research librarian specializing in U.S. politics. Born in St. Louis, Browning is active in local politics and served as a campaign volunteer for President Barack Obama and Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill.

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Romney Campaign Stop Knee-Deep in Allentown Weeds (ContributorNetwork)

ALLENTOWN, Pa. -- Mitt Romney stood knee-deep in weeds beside the locked gates of an abandoned Allentown metal fabricating building. It was the same factory President Obama touted in 2009 as an example of what the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act could accomplish.

Like other manufacturing concerns in the former steel city, the Allentown Metal Works went out of business due to the economic downturn and has remained shut since December 2010. Before that, the huge building was a Mack Truck plant, also a casualty of tough economic times.

Sweden's Volvo Group has owned Mack since 1990 and in 1995 moved its headquarters from Allentown to Greensboro, North Carolina. The Charlotte Observer touted the 493 North Carolina jobs the move would produce for the state.

Like neighboring Ohio, Pennsylvania's best economic years depended on a lively manufacturing base. Now, it's part of the "Rust Belt." The downturn picked up speed in the 1980s as singer Billy Joel wrote a song called "Allentown." The popular refrain struck Lehigh Valley residents with a mix of sadness and nostalgia.

"We're living here in Allentown, and they're closing all the factories down," the song went.

The Lehigh Valley, where Allentown is located, grew at a pace with its burgeoning steel industry. Bethlehem Steel was both symbol and sustenance, providing good paying jobs for thousands of blue collar and professional workers.

During the 80s and 90s, global competition for steel production and legacy costs turned the vast Bethlehem Steel empire into a giant rusting hulk, a monument to America's past. Bethlehem Steel closed its doors for good in November of 1995.

In place of the once vibrant steel industry of the Lehigh Valley, there are guided tours of the towering steel manufacturing facility, and the Sands Casino. The Lehigh Valley is suffering from a downturn that began before President Obama took office, and Romney said that, while Mr. Obama had not made conditions worse, neither had he made them better.

"If he couldn't get the economy turned around in three years, his (administration) will be a one-term proposition," Romney told a throng of news people and curious onlookers.

In Pennsylvania, the dominant majority of voters are registered Democrats so the state figures less as a player in the GOP primary process than it does in the general election, seventeen months from now.

Pennsylvania voted heavily for Obama in 2008, with 111,000 newly registered Democrats in that year, while Republican voter rolls declined by 13,000.

But dissatisfaction with the president's policies has grown in Pennsylvania and the official unemployment rate, though lower than the national average, remains high at 8.3 percent.

Romney charges that President Obama, campaigning on the same day in Philadelphia, is detached from the nation's economic problems. Philadelphia County, where the city is located, struggles along with 10.8 percent unemployment.

"It's (the economy) not turned around, not at 9.1 percent, with 20 million people unemployed," Romney said.

With a sweeping gesture at his surroundings, Romney sailed into attack mode.

"Look around you. This is what he called the symbol of hope. These are weeds not windows of hope. I didn't pick this spot. This is the spot he (Obama) picked as a symbol of the success of the stimulus. My eyes tell me it ain't (sic) working."

Anthony Ventre is a freelance writer who has written for weekly and daily newspapers and several online publications. He is a frequent Yahoo contributor, concentrating in news and financial writing.

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Senate GOP blocks hearing on free trade bills (AP)

WASHINGTON – Senate action on three stalled free trade agreements was cut short Thursday when Republicans refused to participate, objecting to linking the deals to renewal of a program that retrains workers hurt by foreign trade.

A Senate Finance Committee hearing on legislation involving agreements with South Korea, Colombia and Panama was canceled amid recriminations from both parties about playing politics.

There's bipartisan support for action on the pacts, holdovers from President George W. Bush's administration. Economists have said they could generate 250,000 jobs and increase U.S. exports by $13 billion.

But the Obama administration has said it wants the legislation to include renewal of expired sections of the Trade Adjustment Assistance program, which provides financial and job-retraining help to workers hurt by foreign competition. Republicans want to consider that separately.

"The president knew where we stood and he chose to ignore those who disagreed with him," said Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch, the committee's top Republican. He spoke after GOP lawmakers announced they were boycotting the hearing and using a procedural tactic on the Senate floor to block it from occurring.

The committee chairman, Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont, said the move "means the opportunity to pass important job creation legislation is now delayed."

White House spokesman Josh Earnest said the president believes the agreements are "economically vital" and that now is the time for Congress to act.

The trade deals were finalized in the Bush administration but were never taken up by the then-Democratic-controlled Congress.

The Obama administration has renegotiated the treaties to secure greater access for U.S. auto exports in Korea, change laws in Panama that made it a tax haven, and commit Colombia to acting to protect worker rights.

Republicans have pressed the administration to submit the bills to Congress, saying delays were causing billions of dollars in losses for U.S. farmers and manufacturers who are having trouble competing in those markets because of high tariffs.

The bills to put the trade deals in place need approval from the Senate committee and the House Ways and Means Committee, with the White House getting involved to help negotiate a final version that each chamber can pass or reject, but not amend.

The House committee has yet to meet on the issue.

House Speaker John Boehner's spokesman, Michael Steel, said Republicans were pleased that Obama was finally submitting the bills to Congress. But the GOP has maintained its position on the trade assistance program "and that is how we expect to proceed," he said.

Senate Republicans said there was no precedent for linking trade deals to a program they have supported in the past but which they now say is too expensive in an age of mounting deficits.

Committee Democrats disagreed and noted that a trade assistance bill was attached to the North American Free Trade Agreement in the 1990s.

At issue are expansions in the program that were approved as part of the 2009 economic stimulus package. They extended benefits to people working in the service sector and made it easier for displaced workers to buy health insurance. Those sections expired in February and Democrats want them renewed, at least in part.

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US trade official 'dumbfounded' by GOP boycott (AP)

WASHINGTON – The Obama administration's top trade official said Friday he is "dumbfounded" and "shell-shocked" by Senate Republicans who blocked action on three free trade agreements the GOP largely supports.

In an interview with The Associated Press, U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk said he was caught by surprise when GOP senators didn't show up at a hearing Thursday to consider trade pacts with South Korea, Colombia and Panama. Republicans object to Democrats' decision to link the deals to the renewal of a program that retrains workers hurt by foreign trade, and want to consider the program separately.

"I'm dumbfounded," Kirk said. "The Republicans for the most part said, `You get these agreements here, we'll pass them tomorrow, send them up.'"

The GOP boycott came after the White House heralded a bipartisan agreement between Senate Democrats and House Republicans over extending the retraining program, known as Trade Adjustment Assistance, or TAA. But Republicans say that was an agreement about the size and scope of the extension of the training details, not the process for getting it through Congress. Republicans want to send the training program to the floor separately.

A spokeswoman for Sen. Orrin Hatch, the top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, said it shouldn't have come as a surprise to the administration that Republicans had outstanding issues heading into Thursday's planned hearing.

Sen. Hatch "was clear about his serious concerns when the administration took the unprecedented path of including an unrelated spending measure" in a trade agreement, Hatch spokeswoman Antonia Ferrier said Friday.

Meantime, Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York argued Friday that Republicans are purposefully sabotaging the economy to improve their election chances.

"In recent months, on issue after issue, they are opposing things they have supported in the past, almost all of them focused on the economy," Schumer said. "They seem to be tying themselves in a pretzel of contradiction."

The political posturing from both sides of the aisle leaves the fate of the three trade deals uncertain.

The administration and many Republicans have said they want to pass the trade deals by the time Congress breaks for August recess. If the deals don't pass this summer, political considerations could make it difficult for President Barack Obama to reintroduce the pacts in a re-election year. Unions and labor leaders — both are core constituencies for the president — are largely opposed to the free trade agreements.

For now, Obama is touting the deals as job creators that could give a much-needed jolt to an economy saddled with 9.1 percent unemployment.

"Right now, Congress can advance a set of trade agreements that would allow American businesses to sell more of their goods and services to countries in Asia and South America, agreements that would support tens of thousands of American jobs while helping those adversely affected by trade," Obama said Wednesday.

The U.S. signed the trade pacts with South Korea, Panama and Colombia in 2007 under President George W. Bush. But the then-Democratic-led Congress never brought the agreements up for vote, giving the Obama administration time to renegotiate areas it found objectionable.

U.S. trade officials spent months negotiating outstanding issues on the pacts, reaching an agreement in December on the deal with South Korea, the largest and most highly sought-after of the three. The administration says the trade deals combined would support more than 70,000 jobs and boost U.S. exports by about $13 billion.

Republicans have pressed the administration for months to submit the bills to Congress, saying delays were causing billions of dollars in losses for U.S. farmers and manufacturers having trouble competing in those markets because of high tariffs.

The bills to put the trade deals in place need approval from the Senate committee and the House Ways and Means Committee, with the White House getting involved to help negotiate a final version that each chamber can pass or reject, but not amend.

The House committee has yet to meet on the issue, and the Senate Finance Committee has not announced when it will make another attempt to consider the agreements.

Kirk said he's still optimistic lawmakers will come to an agreement this summer.

"I hope the imperative of doing something good for this country will override the appeal of scoring political points short-term," he said.

___

Associated Press writer Jim Abrams contributed to this report.

___

Julie Pace can be reached at http://twitter.com/jpaceDC.

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Will Obama Crush GOP Rivals in the 2012 Money Race? (The Atlantic Wire)

Today the 2012 candidates will be releasing the totals of how much money they raised in the second quarter of this year, and the numbers will clarify how each one is faring in the race. Jon Huntsman released his fundraising total Thursday--$4.1 million after only nine days as an official candidate. But about half of it came from his own bank account, The Salt Lake Tribune's Thomas Burr reports. Meanwhile, President Obama is expected to far outpace the Republicans competing to replace him. He attended two fundraisers Thursday night in a last-minute push to blow then-President Bush's record for an off-year election, set in 2003 with $50.1 million. Obama's campaign was aiming for $60 million; early Friday morning it boasted on Twitter that it received donations from 493,697 people.

After Mitt Romney raised $10.5 million in a single day in May, some expected him to come close to the fundraising record set by George W. Bush in 1999, when he raised $36.2 million. But Romney's team has been working to lower expectations. Reuters' Kim Dixon reports that Romney raised between $15 million and $20 million--less than he raised in the first quarter of 2007, even though he's widely viewed as the frontrunner.

Related: A Guide to Properly Insulting the 2012 GOP Candidates

Tim Pawlenty raised less than $5 million, The New York Times' Nicholas Confessore reports, with some of that money slated for use in the general election, so Pawlenty can't use it in the primaries. Pawlenty's campaign has been struggling, and a poor fundraising total won't help.  The Washington Post's Aaron Blake and Chris Cillizza, who call this day "Christmas in July for political nerds," note that in 2007, second-tier Democrats raised more than Pawlenty reportedly has--Bil Richardson pulled in $6 million, for example, and Chris Dodd raised $4 million. "But the more important question," Blake and Cillizza write, "is whether [Pawlenty's] outraised by Reps. Ron Paul and Michele Bachmann--or even... Huntsman."

Related: First GOP Debate with Recognizable Candidates Will Be on June 13

Politico's Glenn Thrush and Carrie Budoff Brown report that Obama's "hypercompetitive" campaign staff hopes to crush them all. Obama raised $745 million in 2008, and today offers "the first true test of his grassroots prowess and an early indicator of whether any 2008 pixie dust still sticks to a battle-scarred president." Democratic sources tell Politico that Obama will easily meet the $60 million goal, and maybe even surpass it. But if he doesn't, it would be "a seismic, if not quite Greek default-level, event."

Related: Ron Paul Raised $1 Million Overnight

Want to add to this story? Open Wire.

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GOP candidate Pawlenty raises $4.2M (AP)

WASHINGTON – A campaign aide to Tim Pawlenty says the Republican presidential hopeful raised $4.2 million in the fundraising period that ended Thursday.

Pawlenty spokesman Alex Conant says the former Minnesota governor has more money in the bank than the party's 2008 nominee, John McCain, had at this point. Conant did not disclose the sum, but McCain had $1.4 million.

Pawlenty has been raising money for both a primary and a general election campaign. Aides did not break down how much of his fundraising was for a primary and how much is off-limits unless he is the GOP's nominee.

Rival Mitt Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts, was expected to report $15 million to $20 million for his fundraising quarter. Romney is only raising money for his primary.

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Thaddeus McCotter’s presidential slogan: ‘Seize Freedom!’ (Daily Caller)

We don’t know much yet about how Michigan Rep. Thaddeus McCotter will position himself in the already crowded GOP presidential race.

But his campaign website, McCotter2012.com, hints at the branding-to-come of his campaign with the slogan: “Your American Dream is endangered. Seize Freedom.” The site went live Friday. (Rubio finds creative way to answer constituent mail)

McCotter plans to announce a presidential bid Saturday. In an interview with The Daily Caller last week, he said: “If I run, I would be in to win.”

His website lists five core principles of his candidacy, including the notions that:

—Our liberty is from God not the government
—Our sovereignty is in our souls not the soul
—Our security is from strength not surrender
—Out prosperity is from the private sector not the public sector
—Our truths are self-evident not relative

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