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2012 US Presidential Election

Bill Clinton has addressed the DNC:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-19497567

While Hillary Clinton, who as current Secretary of State has to stay above electoral campaigning, is on a tour of Asia:

Where's Hillary? Not in Charlotte
By Frida Ghitis, Special to CNN
updated 8:50 AM EDT, Wed September 5, 2012

STORY HIGHLIGHTS
  • Hillary Clinton, the most popular Democrat in the U.S., is in Asia tour during convention
  • It's customary for a current secretary of state to stay above politics, avoid election season
  • Frida Ghitis: Being removed puts her above it all, positioned for a 2016 run for president
  • Ghitis: Hillary insists she will not run, but Democrats are hoping fervently she will

Editor's note: Frida Ghitis is a world affairs columnist for The Miami Herald and World Politics Review. A former CNN producer/correspondent, she is the author of "The End of Revolution: A Changing World in the Age of Live Television." Follow her on Twitter: @FridaGColumns

(CNN) -- Where's Hillary? Where did she go?

Don't bother looking for her this week on the podium of the Democratic National Convention. Don't try to catch a glimpse of her in the backrooms where the powerful gather or on the convention floor where delegates wave signs proclaiming their love for Obama or Clinton (the other Clinton; the husband).

No, while Democrats try to stoke the troops with passion for their party and excitement for Barack Obama's re-election, the most popular member of the Democratic Party, possibly the most popular major politician in America, will stay far away from the national spotlight, about 10,000 miles away.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is occupied with other matters, serious matters of state. No time for cheering or voter-rousing. She's keeping her distance from politics, and that might work out just fine in a few years. As Democrats started streaming to North Carolina, she jetted off to the middle of nowhere. Or, more precisely, to the Cook Islands in the Pacific. Look it up. It's far away.

By now, Hillary -- as everyone calls her unofficially (and we're speaking unofficially) -- has moved on in her busy Asian itinerary. As you read this, she may be in China, or in Timor-Leste, or perhaps Brunei. The official explanation is that she had important business and as a sitting secretary of state, she is supposed to stay above politics, above the partisan fray. Indeed, former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said it is customary for the current secretary to avoid the political season, as she did in 2008.

Hillary, however, is not just any secretary of state. She is the woman who almost beat the current president for the nomination. She's the one millions hope will lead the ticket in 2016.

She is the one Democrat on everyone's mind this week even if she made it a point to move her operations to the other side of the world. Journalists will find it difficult to ask her opinion about the convention or ask the real question, the one people have not stopped asking in four years: Will she run for president in 2016?

The standard answer is that she has no interest in running again and looks forward to private life after Obama's first term. But few people believe she has made that decision. The reluctance to take her at her word stems partly from the stunning phenomenon of worldwide popularity that Hillary Clinton has become.

For every one of the past 10 years, Americans have ranked her the Most Admired Woman, ahead even of Oprah when she had her show. Hillary is probably among the most popular women in the history of the United States, having won the title 16 times, more than any other woman.

She consistently scores the highest approval ratings of any top member of the Obama administration, and she has developed an extraordinary level of personal rapport with the masses, with the millions who have never met her but have seen her evolve over the decades.

People feel an emotional connection after having witnessed the visible pain she endured during her husband's public cheating scandals. They watched her raise her chin, battle adversity and come out ahead. Everyone knows it has not been easy.

Liberated from campaigning, she has relaxed. She has become more spontaneous and genuine, leaving behind some of the calculated deliberateness of the politician. Hillary's most private moments seem to fill her admirers with vicarious joy. When images surface of her dancing or drinking a beer during a break from work in Colombia, they immediately go viral. As if people felt glad that she's happy.

The Internet parody "Texts from Hillary" became all the rage, as it purported to show the ubercompetent SecState whipping the world into line. In one image, President Obama, stretched out on a couch, sends a text, "Hey Hil. Whatchu doing?" Hillary, looking stylish in shades, with giant briefing books before her, texts back: "Running the world."

It's a joke, but it's funny because it reflects an image that has taken hold. Hillary seems to work harder than anyone. She has traveled to more countries -- 108 so far -- than any of her predecessors. She's always at it. And it always seems important. The mere mortals, the regular politicians, are out campaigning, telling half-truths and slinging mud. Hillary's busy, working to keep the world running.

As secretary of state, she is in a perfect position to work on issues that are much less controversial than domestic dilemmas. She doesn't need to talk about tax increases, health care reform or the deficit. She doesn't have to spar with the Republicans and look petty or nasty in the process.

It makes her look superior to the others. It puts her in great shape for 2016, when she will be 69, not too old to run for president.

Hillary first electrified activists back in 1995, when she declared in her famous Beijing speech "it is no longer acceptable to discuss women's rights as separate from human rights." And she has never let up on her efforts on behalf of women. But men, too, even the most rugged (even Republicans) have come to respect her.

Back in 2010, when a Rolling Stone reporter quoted senior military men in Afghanistan disparaging the Obama administration, he revealed that, "Only Hillary Clinton receives good reviews."

And she has not stopped getting great reviews. Staying out of the political mud-pit, she is the subject of popularity polls, breathless speculation and gushing profiles, like a recent cover story -- complete with photo spread -- in Conde Nast Traveler. In addition to the glamor and the competence, the writer revealed "one very intimate detail that most people still don't know about Hillary Clinton." The secret? "She does not sweat. Literally. She does not even glow. No matter how high the heat, not a drop nor a drip nor a bead ..."

The polls show voters want Hillary to run again. In Iowa, a look at presidential preferences showed Hillary beating Vice President Biden 60 to 18. No one else reached 5%. In New York, voters want Hillary to run even more than they want their very popular governor to do so.

So, while the Democrats shout themselves hoarse in Charlotte, Hillary will be far away, busy with affairs of state. But don't be so sure her absence means she's not interested in politics.

Like everyone in Charlotte, she too is probably pondering what Hillary will do in 2016. She may be absent, out of sight. But staying away only makes the Democrats' heart grow fonder.

Source.
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Wow. Frida Ghitis is so ignorant.
Putin is at the Pacific Islands Forum, and militarily the Pacific Islands are kind of useful when it comes to the US having bases and testing nukes and all, and there are wars, coups and other arms marketing opportunities all through the area, including 9/11 inspired Jemaah Islamiyah.
On the non-military side, the USA's banker, China, will also be there.

I know Americans are famed for their insularity, that what happens elsewhere in the world (eg. Japan, Burma, Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Phillipines, to name a very few Pacific Rim nations whose history and whose present are not a little shaped by US intervention) is irrelevant to the American voter (It's-the-economy-that-is-the-US-economy-stupid), and that the average American might not be able to find the Cook Islands on a map (even if you told them it is east of Guam and south of Hawaii), but this person is a 'world affairs columnist' and a former CNN correspondant.

I seem to recall that in 2008, Democrats (and US voters generally) decided that they didn't want Hilary to run, and in 2010 according to CNN
"Gallup is out with an interesting poll looking at that very hypothetical match up. 37 percent of Democrats say they would back Clinton - while 52 percent say they would support President Obama."
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Nowadays, Obama's Gallup approval rating is about 47%, about equal to his disapproval rating, and all these polls are taken from the same population pool that gave George W. Bush approval ratings of up to 90% in his first term (most popular president ever) , and voted for him in a clear majority in 2004.
In May, Hilary had a 66% approval rating, only 1% less than her highest ever (When Bill was impeached for the Lewinsky thing). I suspect her popularity might have declined since then, as it did when she actually ran against Obama. She is not running against Obama in 2012. She said she wouldn't and if she wanted to, she couldn't because the convention is on now, and the Democrats (including herself and her husband) are endorsing Obama. Maybe Hilary will run in 2016, but that is not a good reason for Frida to pump out arrant nonsense as news today.

Maybe Joe Biden is quaking in his boots, but I don't think so. After all, a quarter of the people polled to assess Paul Ryan's popularity responded with 'Who?'

None of this offers any hope to Mit Romney - his approval remains 46%, 1% less than Obama (and all of these polls have a three percent margin of error for the trend.)
 
Mitt Romney rocked by secret video
AFP
September 18, 2012
11:15PM

MITT Romney's been rocked after he was secretly filmed saying that nearly half of Americans back President Barack Obama because they are government-dependent "victims" who pay no taxes.

Mr Obama's team quickly seized on the film of Mr Romney addressing rich donors, released by the liberal Mother Jones magazine, as proof the multi-millionaire candidate had written off half the nation and was not fit to be president.

In a hastily-arranged press conference in Los Angeles, Mr Romney insisted that his goal as president would be to "help all Americans," but he did not shy away from the remarks, saying only that they were "not elegantly stated."

The video was the latest blow to the Romney campaign as it fights off reports that its team is in disarray and struggles to close a small but consistent gap with Mr Obama in national polls and battleground states.

In excerpts from the video, which emerged 50 days before the November 6 election, Mr Romney says in a private fundraiser that 47 per cent of Americans are essentially freeloaders who will vote for the president "no matter what."

"There are 47 per cent 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," he says.

"These are people who pay no income tax ... so our message of low taxes doesn't connect," he says.

"My job is is not to worry about those people. I'll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives."

Mother Jones streamed the images on its website and blurred everyone except Mr Romney. The magazine later said the event was a May 17 fundraiser at the home of private equity manager Marc Leder in Boca Raton, Florida.

The leaked footage provided the latest in a long line of comments by Mr Romney that have complicated his attempts to shed the image framed by Mr Obama's campaign of a rich businessman out of touch with the middle class.

Mr Obama's campaign manager Jim Messina pounced.

"It's shocking that a candidate for president of the United States would go behind closed doors and declare to a group of wealthy donors that half the American people view themselves as 'victims,' entitled to handouts, and are unwilling to take 'personal responsibility' for their lives," he said.

"It's hard to serve as president for all Americans when you've disdainfully written off half the nation."

In California, a nervous-looking Mr Romney said of the video: "it's not elegantly stated, let me put it that way."

But "I am talking about the political process of drawing people into my campaign," Mr Romney stressed.

"The president has his group, I have my group. I want to keep my team strong and motivated and I want to get those people in the middle," Mr Romney added.

"That's something which fundraising people who are parting with their monies are very interested in knowing - can you win or not? - and that's what this was addressing."

Mr Romney then headed to a fundraiser in Orange County that raised more than $US4 million ($3.8 million), his campaign said.

Mr Romney earlier dismissed reports, fanned by a story on the Politico website, of campaign infighting.

"I've got a terrific campaign," he said in an interview with Spanish language network Telemundo.

"My senior campaign people work extraordinarily well together. I work well with them. Our campaign is doing well."

Mr Obama meanwhile was on the road in the key swing state of Ohio, mocking Mr Romney's anti-China rhetoric and then jabbing Beijing himself by announcing a new trade case targeting the Asian giant's auto industry subsidies.

The president professed to "walk the walk" in making China play by global trade rules while implying that Mr Romney preferred to "talk the talk."

Mr Obama again accused his rival of being a pioneer during his business career of advising US corporations to outsource jobs to low-wage economies abroad.

Mr Romney dismissed Mr Obama's action on China as "too little, too late" but spent the day tending to his own political wounds.

He also tried to narrow his deficit to Mr Obama among Latinos, telling the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce in Los Angeles that Hispanics had been "particularly hard-hit" in the Obama-era economy.

However, in another clip released by Mother Jones he was caught saying that it would have been more helpful to his political prospects had his Mexico-born father been Mexican.

"I say that jokingly, but it would be helpful to be Latino," he said.

In a Latino Decisions tracking poll after the Democratic convention two weeks ago, Mr Obama led Mr Romney among Hispanic voters 66-29 per cent.

Mr Obama leads most recent polls in battlegrounds by small but clear margins. His convention "polling" bounce seems to be ebbing, however, with Mr Obama up by three points in Gallup's latest daily tracking survey.
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From here.
 
Lol, those wacky Republicans. Way to shoot yourself in the foot Mr Romney.
 
pecan said:
From here.
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"There are 47 per cent 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," he says.

"These are people who pay no income tax ... so our message of low taxes doesn't connect," he says.

"My job is is not to worry about those people. I'll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives."
Click to expand...

Oz has basically the same problem.

I wonder how many folk in these forums are part of it ...

regarDS
 
How does that 47% get out of paying things like sales tax? Oh wait.. they don't. So the entire comment is nonsense. It's impossibly to not pay tax. You have a country with a huge amount of poverty and poor people. They simply don't earn enough to pay some taxes. They still pay tax though.
 
Aren't there questions surrounding Romney and his tax contributions? Obama for years was hounded for his birth certificate, why aren't they doing the same for Romney?
 
Bogangirl said:
Aren't there questions surrounding Romney and his tax contributions? Obama for years was hounded for his birth certificate, why aren't they doing the same for Romney?
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Yeah but the people hounding Obama were irrational idiots which nothing, including his birth certificate would satisfy. The Romney stuff is more because it'll make Romney look bad and show how the Rich have access to all sorts of ways of avoiding paying tax.

Everyone knows he has or has used off shore accounts and all sorts of methods for avoiding paying tax. He even lobbied to keep certain tax loopholes open. I personally have a lot of issues with Obama, however Romney completely represents the worst of the modern capitalist society. That kind of Ayn Rand, "i've got mine jack" mentality. The government in modern democracy is meant to represent the people. It developed to take power away from the super rich, war lords, regional large property owners ect. The current push in the western world, in the USA and even here with Gina. Is to move away from that. Really have a two tiered society again of the super rich and the workers.
 
up_all_night said:
How does that 47% get out of paying things like sales tax? Oh wait.. they don't. So the entire comment is nonsense ...
Click to expand...

Oh look, yet another man made of straw being paraded about by our UAN.

"These are people who pay no income tax ... so our message of low taxes doesn't connect," he says.
Click to expand...

regarDS
 
"Who believe they are entitled to health care"
Oh, America!

Sales taxes are state taxes in the US, so they don't count. (although it is not unconstitutional to impose a federal sales tax, and they do have federal excise taxes)
Thanks to sales taxes, bottom 20% pay a higher proportion of their income in tax than the top 1%, and everyone has to get really good at calculating 6.5% of the milk, 3.8% of the bread etc in their heads, because it is the pre-tax price that is listed on the shelf. Such a pain for the visitor, as the rate changes from state to state.
 
Republicans are all about the states powers because then dumb hick states are free to do dumb shit.

Got to love Rick Santorum saying smart people will never be on their side. BAHAHAHAHAHA

[video=youtube;0n5oa55EsmI]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0n5oa55EsmI[/video]
 
Polls: GOP Senate takeover might be tougher
By Paul Steinhauser, CNN Political Editor
updated 8:19 AM EDT, Fri September 21, 2012

STORY HIGHLIGHTS
  • Fresh polling suggests Democrats in some crucial contests are on the rise
  • Democrats defending most of the 33 Senate seats up for grabs in November
  • Republicans confident but say it's way too early to make predictions
  • President Barack Obama may be helping Democratic candidates in some Senate contests
Washington (CNN) -- It gets second billing to the race for the White House, but the battle for control of the Senate is just as important and fresh polling suggests Democrats in some crucial contests are on the rise.

A Republican tidal wave in the 2010 midterms gave the GOP control of the House of Representatives. They also reduced their deficit in the Senate and set their sights on retaking that chamber this year.

Democrats currently control the Senate, 53-47 -- down from 59-41 before the midterms -- but they're defending 23 (21 Democrats and two independents who caucus with the party) of the 33 seats up for grabs in November.

While the GOP still has a very good chance of winning control, which they lost in the 2006 midterms, their path to victory might be getting a bit more difficult.

"Democrats are cautiously optimistic. We inherited a difficult map but Republican missteps and strong Democratic campaigns have made a major difference," Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Communications Director Matt Canter told CNN. "There is still a long way to go but right now the tide is certainly moving in our favor.

Republicans remain confident but agree that it's way too early to be making predictions.

"The Senate Democrats' reckless and failed leadership on the economy has put them on defense in races across the country and Republicans are positioned to hold them accountable on Election Day," Brian Walsh, Canter's counterpart at the National Republican Senatorial Committee, said. "But seven weeks is an eternity in politics and no one in either party should be taking anything for granted."

Let's start with Massachusetts, one of the most expensive and closely watched Senate contests this cycle. Polls over the past year suggested that the marquee matchup between incumbent Republican Sen. Scott Brown and Democratic candidate Elizabeth Warren was a dead heat. That changed earlier this week with Warren's numbers rising in two new surveys of likely voters in the Bay State.

Warren held a 48%-44% margin over Brown in a Suffolk University/7News poll and a 50%-44% advantage in a Western New England University survey. Both margins are within the polls' sampling errors.

Warren's well received speech earlier this month at the Democratic convention may have contributed to her rise in the surveys. But another new poll, by UMass Lowell/Boston Herald, gives Brown a 49%-45% edge.

Before launching her campaign for the Senate last year, Warren was best known as a top adviser to President Barack Obama, a role in which she was integral to the formation of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which was created as part of the 2010 financial reform law.

Brown was a state lawmaker who scored an upset victory in a January 2010 special election to fill the final 2 1/2 years of the term of the late Democratic Sen. Ted Kennedy.

Brown and Warren faced off Thursday in the first of four debates leading up to the election.

There was also a debate on Thursday in another high-profile and expensive Senate race in Virginia.

It's a similar story as Massachusetts, with polls over the past year showing a tie between the Democrat, former Gov. Tim Kaine (who most recently served as chairman of the Democratic National Committee) and former Gov. George Allen, who's trying to win back the Senate seat he lost in the 2006 election to Democrat Jim Webb, who decided against running for re-election.

But a pair of polls out this week from The Washington Post and from Quinnipiac University/CBS News/New York Times indicate Kaine with leads of seven and eight points. A new Fox News poll has it closer, with Kaine holding a four-point edge.

Two Democratic incumbents facing what were thought to be tough re-elections are seeing good news in the latest polling. Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio holds a seven-point lead over Ohio state Treasurer Josh Mandell, the GOP candidate, in two surveys over the past two weeks.

And Sen. Bill Nelson of Florida holds 14-point leads over Rep. Connie Mack Jr. in two surveys released over the same span. The polling indicates that both Brown and Nelson so far are holding their own against of flood of attack ads put up by pro-Republican independent groups.

In Wisconsin, where four-term Democratic Sen. Herb Kohl is retiring, a new poll suggests that Rep. Tammy Baldwin, who's trying to keep the seat in party hands, is up nine points over former Republican Gov. Tommy Thompson, who served in President George W. Bush's Cabinet. But another survey indicates the race tied at 47% each.

And some new polling suggests that Democratic Sen. Debbie Stabenow of Michigan is building a lead as she faces off against former Rep. Pete Hoekstra, the Republican candidate.

Meanwhile Democratic chances in Senate contests in Indiana and North Dakota also seem to be on the rise, while Republican chances of grabbing back a seat in traditionally blue Connecticut seem much better now than just a few weeks ago.

The race for the White House influences down-ballot races, and President Barack Obama may be helping Democratic candidates in Senate contests in some battleground states.

Thompson blamed his numbers, in part, on GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney's rocky campaign.

"The presidential thing is bound to have an impact on every election," Thompson told Madison television station WKOW. "You know, whether you're a Democrat or Republican, if your standard-bearer for the presidency is not doing well, it's going to reflect on the down-ballot."

But while the face-off between Obama and Romney greatly impacts the other contests, the candidates will determine them.

"Candidates and campaigns matter," says Jessica Taylor, senior analyst and reporter for the non-partisan Rothenberg Political Report. "Several candidates are still going to need to run significantly ahead of their party's presidential nominee in more hostile states, and while that playing field may level out closer to Election Day, candidates such as Joe Donnelly (Democrat in Indiana), Heidi Heitkamp (Democrat in North Dakota) and Linda McMahon (Republican in Connecticut) have been running strong campaigns and appear to be benefiting from weaknesses by their opponents."

With 6 1/2 weeks to go, Democrats may be breathing a little bit easier.
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http://us.cnn.com/2012/09/21/politics/senate-control-polls/index.html

Todd Akin's still running too:

http://www.news.com.au/world/republ...fter-rape-remark/story-fndir2ev-1226479892336
 
 
[youtubevid]feussyQdBtE[/youtubevid]

Surely the only way obamination can survive the next two debates is either to have a surgical implant to feed him an autocue internally ... or the outbreak of the next stage of WW3 in order to avoid having to turn up !

regarDS
 
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