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Latest Polls Show Obama Leading in Key States as Pivotal Debate Looms
Tweet Share on Facebook September 28, 2012 CommentWith five days left before a pivotal first debate between President Barack Obama and GOP challenger Mitt Romney, a series of new polls shows the White House incumbent with the lead in key states that could decide the election.
The polls late Thursday come as the rival campaigns have launched yet another salvo of television advertisements aimed at appealing to middle class voters, especially undecideds who will determine who wins.
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Obama Extends Lead in Key States, Poll Shows
Tweet Share on Facebook September 26, 2012 CommentRepublican presidential candidate Mitt Romney needs to ramp up efforts to reassure voters he's the best candidate to handle the still-sputtering economy and build his appeal with women voters in order to succeed, according to a new poll released Wednesday.
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Obama Condemns Deadly Mideast Violence, Offers Defense of Free Speech
Tweet Share on Facebook September 25, 2012 CommentWhile President Barack Obama condemned the recent deadly attacks in Libya that killed four U.S. State Department employees and largely blamed an obscure YouTube video for the violence, he reminded the new governments of the Arab Spring that freedom of speech is the foundation of a prosperous democratic society.
"In every culture, those who love freedom for themselves must ask how much they are willing to tolerate freedom for others," Obama told delegates at the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday.
"That is what we saw play out the last two weeks, as a crude and disgusting video sparked outrage throughout the Muslim world."
Most Americans found the anti-Islam video offensive, he said, but that's no excuse for the kind of violence that rocked American embassies in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya and Pakistan.
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Republicans Tout Voter Outreach Efforts
Tweet Share on Facebook September 24, 2012 CommentAbout six weeks from Election Day, Republicans are touting their ground game, claiming to be far ahead of voter outreach efforts than they were four years ago.
Republican National Committee officials said they have made contact with about 26 million voters across the country and, perhaps more crucially, identified more than two million swing voters, according to a memo distributed to reporters.
"They have not made up their minds on how to vote in this race and they remain highly persuadable," said Rick Wiley, political director for the RNC. "We continue to identify more swing voters, but now we are also able to do something of great significance – go back and deliver an advocacy message to those we have already located, tailored for specific issues and demographics."
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Paul Ryan Tells AARP Members Inflation is Their Enemy
Tweet Share on Facebook September 21, 2012 CommentRepublican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan told members of the senior-citizen lobby AARP Friday in New Orleans that the Federal Reserve’s accommodative policy is “a short-term fix that comes at a long-term cost” to seniors.
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Romney Releases Latest Tax Returns, Reveal High Charitable Giving
Tweet Share on Facebook September 21, 2012 CommentMitt Romney is set to release his 2011 federal tax return this afternoon, as he pledged to do earlier in his presidential campaign. The timing comes at the end of a tough week for the Republican nominee, after remarks he made at a private campaign event in May disparaged what he called the "47 percent of voters" who would support President Barack Obama no matter what were made public.
Romney's tax returns have been a point of contention throughout the presidential race, with the wealthy businessman presenting his 2010 returns and an estimate of his 2011 filing only after taking heat from GOP opponents in the primary.
Throughout his political career, Romney has had to cope with the "rich guy" image that has been attached because of his business success and the fact that his father was a governor and auto industry CEO. And his comments that he didn't need to care about the 47 percent of Obama voters—who he equated with the about 47 percent of Americans that don't pay federal income tax—merely reinforced the narrative built by Democrats that he doesn't care about the middle class.
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Obama Admits Failure to Make 'Change,' Romney Takes Advantage
Tweet Share on Facebook September 21, 2012 CommentAs a presidential candidate, Barack Obama promised to bring hope and change to Washington. Running for re-election, he says change can only come from outside.
"I've learned some lessons over the last four years and the most important lesson I've learned is that you can't change Washington from the inside," Obama said Thursday during an appearance at a presidential forum event hosted by Univision. "You can only change it from the outside. That's how I got elected. And that's how the big accomplishments like health care got done."
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Obama Campaign on Offense, Avoids Tough Mideast Questions
Tweet Share on Facebook September 20, 2012 CommentWhile the campaign for Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney has spent the week careening from one political fire to the next, the campaign for President Barack Obama has been on the offensive.
The week started with Obama's team launching a Web video mocking Romney for making an "extreme makeover" when it comes to wooing Latino voters. During his primary campaign, Romney said illegal immigrants should "self-deport" and vowed to veto the DREAM act, legislation that would create a path to citizenship through higher education achievement or military service for children brought to the United States through no fault of their own.
But in addressing Hispanic voters now, who he is losing by a 2 to 1 margin to Obama, Romney says he is committed to bipartisan immigration reform.
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Romney Can Look to the Past to Get Through Campaign Rough Patch
Tweet Share on Facebook September 19, 2012 CommentNow that the dark clouds have begun forming over GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney's campaign just 48 days ahead of the election, political experts say there are historically proven keys to making a comeback from all the campaigns they've been through that he should be taking note of.
Political obituaries have been premature before--they struck Bill Clinton during his primary, as well as his wife in hers. Same with John McCain in 2008 and Rick Santorum this primary cycle. George H.W. Bush was written off both during his primary and the general election in 1988 before successfully winning the White House.
"The [Romney] campaign is a little bit like a car that hasn't been able to stay between the white lines. They've veered off into the ditch a little bit," says Ford O'Connell, a Republican political strategist who worked on the McCain-Palin campaign in 2008. "But there is still time."
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Mitt Romney Unplugged: Frank Fundraising Remarks Stir Up Campaign
Tweet Share on Facebook September 18, 2012 CommentRepublican presidential nominee Mitt Romney's remarks at a $50,000-a-plate fundraiser on May 17, soon after he clinched the GOP nod, have come back to haunt him about seven weeks before Election Day.
During the secretly taped event, first reported by Mother Jones magazine, Romney dismisses the "47 percent" of Americans who do not pay income taxes—a figure that is roughly accurate, but includes seniors on fixed incomes and military service members serving in conflicts—as government freeloaders who will never take responsibility for themselves and never vote for him.
"There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what," Romney said, in the dimly lit video. "All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you name it. That's an entitlement. And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what. …These are people who pay no income tax."
He added, "My job is not to worry about those people. I'll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives."
