“A Potential Third-Party Run?”: Ron Paul’s Long Game
Ron Paul has coyly batted away questions about a potential third-party run, prompting frequent speculation that he might launch an independent bid. But Paul is almost certainly just trying to increase his leverage. He has been a loyal ally to Mitt Romney, his influential chief ad-maker is married to a Romney consultant, and, as Amy Gardner reports, Paul and Romney have developed a close friendship:
Despite deep differences on a range of issues, Romney and Paul became friends in 2008, the last time both ran for president. So did their wives, Ann Romney and Carol Paul. The former Massachusetts governor compliments the Texas congressman during debates, praising Paul’s religious faith during the last one, in Jacksonville, Fla. Immediately afterward, as is often the case, the Pauls and the Romneys gravitated toward one another to say hello.
Not to mention the fact that a Confederacy-loving, pro–John Birch Society, 1964 Civil Rights Act and Martin Luther King Day–hating paleolibertarian who feels ideologically comfortable with white supremacists (all for entirely non-racial reasons, of course!) is not going to want to help reelect Barack Obama, which a third-party candidacy would all but guarantee.
Paul’s game is to trade his supporters for a seat at the Republican table. Gardner has some good reporting about his efforts to cultivate serious long-term sway within the GOP. His followers are burrowing within party organizations across the country.
This will create an interesting tension within the existing party coalition. There’s little direct disagreement within the Republican coalition about policy — neoconservatives dominate foreign affairs, supply-siders control economic policy, and religious conservatives hold sway over the judiciary and other social policy. The disputes arise in settling priorities. Economic conservatives have increasingly come to dominate the party, and the growing influence of Paul raises the possibility that the party will come to be defined almost entirely in economic terms. That is the explicit goal of figures like powerful senator Jim DeMint, who welcomes Paul’s influence:
The debate in the Republican Party needs to be between libertarians and conservatives, that’s what our party needs to be about. There’s no longer room for moderates and liberals because we don’t have any money to spend, so I don’t want to be debating with anyone who wants to grow government.”
Meanwhile, you have figures like Bill Kristol, who cares mostly about foreign policy, some about social issues, and is pretty much willing to go along with any economic policy that advances those other goals. Kristol sees his allies being relegated to second-class status, and he does not like it one bit:
“A lot of people when they criticize Ron Paul have to preface their criticism by saying, ‘you know, he’s good guy, he brings a lot to the debate,’” Bill Kristol said on C-SPAN. “I actually don’t buy that. I do not think he’s a particular good guy . . . I think it would be better for the Republican party, if he left the Republican party.”
That’s not going to happen, at least not during this election cycle. The question will arise if Romney wins, and Paul has to decide where and how to exert his newfound influence. Romney might offer some nice words about Paul’s goldbuggery now, but there’s no way he would ever give even a smidgen of influence to a crank economic theory if he’s in office and has political skin in the game. He’s also taken a staunchly nationalistic, hawkish line on foreign policy. Would Paul have a fuss over these things, or be content to just push harder for tax and spending cuts?
By: Jonathan Chait, Daily Intel, February 2, 2012
Angry At Komen? You Should Be Furious At Mitt Romney And The GOP
My email inbox has been flooded over the last three days with messages of outrage over Susan G. Komen for the Cure’s surprise metamorphosis into a purveyor of right-wing culture wars – a change that the organization is now frantically trying to undo. Americans have been shaken by the news of a formerly respected and loved organization with a trusted brand turning on many of the low-income women who it had previously taken pride in serving.
I too am angry at Komen’s decision to put right-wing ideology ahead of its purported public health mission. But our deeper anger should be directed at someone else: the Republicans in Congress and GOP leaders who consistently make the same choices involving many times more money, and many times more women’s lives. The shock of the revelation of Komen’s new policies only highlighted how numb many of us have become to the larger, unrelenting attacks on women’s health by right-wing elected officials.
The grants to Planned Parenthood that Komen would have severed totaled $680,000 over the last year – a total that the organization thankfully made up in two days from contributions that have poured in in response to the Komen betrayal. Let’s put that in perspective. Last year, the House GOP voted to zero out the entire $317,000,000 Title X family planning budget – including about $75 million that would have gone to Planned Parenthood’s preventative care and treatment programs for low-income women.
Deciding that this plan wasn’t disastrous enough, the House also passed an amendment to eliminate all federal funding to Planned Parenthood, an estimated total of $363 million, much of which goes to care for the Medicaid patients who make up almost half of Planned Parenthood’s clientele. The amount that Komen would have cut from Planned Parenthood’s women’s healthcare was significant– but the amount that House Republicans were prepared to cut was 500 times larger.
The right wing understands this. Anti-choice groups have rejoiced over the Komen decision, seeing it as a stepping stone to what has always been their ultimate goal: eliminating women’s reproductive rights and destroying Planned Parenthood along the way.
Those who value comprehensive women’s health care need to make the same connection. What Komen did was wrong. What the Republican Party tries to do every chance it gets is hundreds of times worse.
I doubt that Mitt Romney will dare to take a stand on the Komen controversy. But it doesn’t matter. We know where he is on this issue — and not just because we know how he feels about poor people. Last year, Romney supported the amendment that would have eliminated 500 times as much money from Planned Parenthood’s health care services, cutting off a million and half of its most needy patients. So did Newt Gingrich. So did every other major GOP presidential candidate. So did all but seven House Republicans.
The Komen decision was shocking to so many because, in part, we expect more integrity from a nonpartisan women’s health organization than we do from our politicians.
But the stakes from our politicians are bigger. Planned Parenthood provides critical services to millions of American women each year. In 2010, it provided nearly 750,000 breast exams and 770,000 Pap tests to women seeking critical cancer screening. It provided more than four million tests and treatments for STIs. It provided affordable contraception to low-income women, preventing an estimated 584,00 unintended pregnancies. Planned Parenthood estimates that one in five American women has received care from the organization in her lifetime.
Without Komen’s funding, Planned Parenthood would have rallied. Without federal funding, nearly half of its 3 million patients – including many from disadvantaged neighborhoods and rural areas – would lose their care.
Yes, we should be angry at Komen for the Cure. But, like the Right, we need to recognize that this is ultimately a symbolic fight in a much bigger battle.
Today, Komen gave in to the overwhelming response it received from Americans who value women’s health over partisan politics. Our elected officials should face just as much pressure. Take the email you sent to Komen and copy Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, John Boehner and Mitch McConnell. They need to hear the same message, and face the same backlash, five hundred times over.
By: Michael B. Keegan, President-People for the American Way, Published in The Huffington Post, February 3, 2012
Political, “Dumb And Deadly”: A Black Mark On The Pink Ribbon
Hard as I try, I can only conjure up two words to describe the decision on the part of Susan G. Komen For The Cure to pull its support of Planned Parenthood.
Dumb and…Deadly.
For years, Komen and Planned Parenthood have worked together to improve the opportunities for women to discover and get treatment for one of the most insidious of diseases—women’s breast cancer. And they’ve made a great pair. Together, these organizations have done an enormous amount of good when it comes to bringing the illness to the public’s attention and providing the services that have, undoubtedly, saved a great many lives.
Today, this partnership has been torn apart and, contrary to what one might have anticipated just twenty-four hours ago, it is not Planned Parenthood who finds itself struggling to make up the lost funding. The organization has benefitted from a massive inpouring of contributions since the news broke.
Rather, a review of the Susan G.Komen Facebook page makes it all too clear that their own organization is likely in line for a very bad year on the fundraising front given the large number of people who are deeply offended and distressed by the decision and have sworn to cut off their contributions to the group.
While it is tempting to say that the ‘good guy’ in this sad tale has emerged victorious, nothing could be further from the truth.
You see, the big loser in this story will be future breast cancer victims who may not get the diagnostic services or treatment required to save their lives as a result of what is sure to be a drop in funding for the Komen effort.
That is a true tragedy and one that certainly never had to be.
Despite the severe backlash being heaped on Komen For The Cure by one-time supporters, the organization continues to argue that there was nothing political about its decision. But nobody is buying this because it’s simply too hard to swallow.
Komen is sticking to the story that they had no choice but to pull the funding once Republican Congressman Cliff Sterns, a long-time opponent of Planned Parenthood, began a Congressional investigation to determine if Planned Parenthood has violated the rules that prohibit them from spending taxpayer money on abortion services. The Komen group argues that their governing principles do not permit them to contribute money to any entity under Congressional investigation.
But stupid is as stupid does. And, as noted, Komen For The Cure has behaved with shocking stupidity.
If Komen believes that Planned Parenthood provides a valuable service to the women Komen seeks to help and believed that PP did so before the investigation commenced last fall, why in the world would they permit such a congressional investigation—and one that has no time limit and could drag on until Democrats return to power and take over the investigating committee—to interfere with something as important as helping women with breast cancer? At no time has Komen suggested that Planned Parenthood was failing to use the money provided by Komen for the intended purpose. Had this been their position, their decision would have made a great deal more sense.
Are Komen’s rules of operating more important than the very purpose of their existence? If they believed that Planned Parenthood played an important role in helping women with breast cancer before, why would they do anything to interfere with that work, let alone use an investigation into whether or not PP is misusing taxpayer money for abortions – not breast cancer services—as a reason to withdraw their aid?
What if Rep. Sterns’ investigation does turn up some instances of Planned Parenthood breaking the rules? Does this mean that the work they do in support of women with breast cancer no longer ‘counts’? Are women who are in danger of losing their lives suddenly not deserving of help because some others may have received an abortion with some taxpayer money?
Anyway you look at it, this is an illogical and remarkably (here’s that word again) stupid decision.
I understand that there are many people who vehemently oppose abortion and that this would lead them to have a big problem with Planned Parenthood for providing the same.
But these people claim that they are ‘right to lifers’, devout in their desire to protect life. This, once again, causes us to wonder why these folks would take so strong a position when it comes to the lives of the unborn yet are unwilling to take such a position on behalf of a woman who has walked on the planet for a few years already. I simply don’t understand why right to life organizations everywhere are not imploring Susan Komen For The Cure to reinstate the funding to Planned Parenthood so that lives of affected women can be saved – just as they want to save the lives of the unborn.
While Rep. Sterns has taken the time to deny any involvement with Komen’s decision, and I take him at his word, why has he not acknowledged that, while he may be seriously opposed to abortion services, he can still support the work of Planned Parenthood—and Komen’s contribution to that work—when it comes to helping women facing a deadly disease? It is, after all, saving lives that Congressman Sterns proclaims himself to be all about.
Shame on the Susan G. Komen For The Cure for forgetting their mission and the reason so many people have financially supported their efforts and walked so many miles in support. Shame on Congressman Sterns along with any other opponent of Planned Parenthood’s involvement in abortion who cannot see the sheer hypocrisy of hating PP for taking lives while remaining unwilling to stand up for the services of PP that save lives.
I can’t think of a better example of how far afield we have gone when a charity devoted to fighting cancer allows politics to become its guiding force.
By: Rick Ungar, Contributing Writer, Forbes, February 1, 2012
“Do You Like Me Now?”: Money Changed Everything For Mitt Romney In Florida Primary
It was money that won the primary for Mitt, but it didn’t make voters like him—and it won’t make the GOP rank and file show up to the polls in November.
Romney and the super PAC supporting him spent more than $15 million on television ads. Team Gingrich spent about $3 million. Both ran almost entirely negative campaigns. One tally estimated that 93 percent of all the ads were negative. The other 7 percent were wasted.
Victory is always sweet, but this one could leave Romney feeling a little sour. Gingrich called Romney’s strategy “carpet-bombing.” Fair enough. But what then do we call Gingrich’s strategy? Kamikaze? Gingrich strapped on his helmet, slugged down some sake, jumped in his Zero, and dive-bombed into the SS Romney. He didn’t sink Romney’s aircraft carrier, but he did some serious damage. Romney is likely to list even farther to starboard, as he is forced to pander even more to the far right.
Gingrich and his allies called Romney “despicable,” “breathlessly dishonest,” and, worst of all, “liberal.” It was not enough to win, or even to make it close, but it was enough to damage Romney in November, should he emerge as the GOP standard bearer. One in four GOP voters in Florida expressed dissatisfaction with the field; a full 53 percent of Gingrich voters said they would not be happy with a Romney-led ticket. To be sure, they’re not going to jump ship and vote for Obama. But they could stay home. They could refuse to give money or make calls or turn out their friends and neighbors. If Romney is the nominee, a lot of Republicans are going to sit on their hands.
As Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama battled across 50 states and seven districts and territories in 2008 there was some bitterness, to be sure. But it was mostly confined to the upper echelons of Hillaryland and Barackistan. At the grassroots you heard time and again, “I’m for Barack, but I’m not against Hillary.” Florida Republicans voted against Newt Gingrich; they did not vote for Mitt Romney.
Money begets money. Romney not only has the greatest personal fortune in the GOP field, he has the most well-funded campaign. And perhaps even more important, the super PAC supporting him dwarfs those of his competitors. An analysis by the Wesleyan Media Project shows outside spending on Campaign 2012 is up 1,600 percent over 2008. Romney’s allies have mastered this new tactic. (Full disclosure: I advise the pro-Obama super PAC, Priorities USA Action.)
The campaign will now stagger through the February doldrums. Romney is very likely to win the Nevada caucuses, which he dominated in 2008. He will almost certainly continue to carpet-bomb Gingrich over the airwaves. But there’s a difference between persuading voters to hate Newt Gingrich—which, frankly, is pretty easy—and getting them to love Mitt Romney, which appears to be well-nigh impossible.
ByL Paul Begala, The Daily Beast, January 31, 2012
“A Monster Of GOP Creation”: Now Newt May Get Even Nastier
Thirty-four years ago, Newt Gingrich summed it up. In a speech to College Republicans—shortly before he would win his first election to Congress—the future speaker had a piece of fundamental advice for the young and impressionable GOPers: “I think one of the great problems we have in the Republican party is that we don’t encourage you to be nasty. We encourage you to be neat, obedient, and loyal, and faithful and all those Boy Scout words.”
Nasty—that was a critical component of Gingrich’s formula for political success. And through the 1980s and 1990s, as Gingrich wielded his nastiness to overturn the Democratic order in Congress and seize the people’s House for the GOP, he was hailed by Republicans. Now, following his 47 to 32 percent loss to Mitt Romney in the Florida presidential primary and Gingrich’s promise—make that, threat—to pursue this nasty nomination contest all the way to the convention in sweltering Tampa in August, the Republican Party has a monster-of-its-own-creation in its china shop. (Imagine a Tasmanian devil in Tiffany & Co.) Despite Romney’s 15-point comeback victory, it seems that the GOP will still be burdened and discombobulated by the Wrath of Gingrich. During his concession speech Tuesday night—which was light on the concession—Gingrich vowed to contest every primary and caucus, as his supporters held up signs that said, “46 STATES TO GO.”
It’s not uncommon for political losers to hang on longer than they should. (See Rick Perry.) So Gingrich’s vow to ignore the play-nice-and-get-out pleas of the Republican establishment and battle all the way to the summer is not surprising. But if he is serious about vengeance, he will have to cling on for longer than a week or two. February’s primaries—Nevada and Maine (February 4); Colorado, Minnesota, and Missouri (February 7); and Arizona and Michigan (February 28)—hold few opportunities for the goblin of Georgia. These states are Romney-friendly and not well-suited for Gingrich’s fire-breathing and not-so-coded rants against food stamps and Saul Alinsky. If he wants Romney’s blood, he will have to stay in the hunt until at least Super Tuesday, where he can try to work his dark magic on his home state of Georgia, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Idaho. Alabama and Mississippi come a week later.
This means another five or six weeks at least of Gingrich’s not-so-creative destruction, with him hurling his patented nastiness at Romney—and Romney both firing back and, more important, trying to keep up with Gingrich’s extreme anti-Obamaism.
The latter may be more of the problem for Romney than Gingrich’s direct slams on him. Candidates often pound at party comrades during hard-fought nomination contests, and the winner, even though dinged, usually ends up able to compete effectively in the general. (Barack Obama survived Hillary Clinton’s barbs.) But Gingrich is dragging Romney to the right in terms of, yes, nastiness. (During his victory speech in Tampa, Romney declared that Obama represents “the worst of what Europe has become”—of course, without explaining what that meant.)
The GOP primary electorate is in a foul mood. Many of these voters seem to want a candidate who feels their hatred for the president. (See Rick Santorum’s exchange with that lady who maintained Obama is a Muslim.) This whole primary campaign has been a game of revolving Obama-loathers. While Romney has tried to come across as not a hater—he’s disappointed in Obama; he doesn’t despise him—one by one, fire-breathing Obama-bashers who represent the dark and angry mood of their party’s base have risen to be the non-Romney of the GOP race, only to fall down due to their own limitations. And Gingrich is the last of these. (Ron Paul is essentially operating in an alternative universe; Rick Santorum is running on the fumes of Iowa.)
With his mean-spirited and extreme rhetoric, the former House speaker does embody the soul of his party at this point. Though Gingrich is burdened with a ton of baggage that obviously undermines his chances to win a general election—and many Republican voters do care about that—Romney still has to ensure that Gingrich does not run away with the hearts of GOP voters. Consequently, he has to keep the meanness/Obama-hatred gap that exists between him and the former Freddie Mac historian/consultant/strategic adviser from becoming too wide. Yet doing so makes Romney less acceptable to those fickle independent voters who yearn for candidates who can solve problems in Washington without partisan fighting. If Romney has to engage in such Newt-neutralization for weeks, if not months, he will further define himself in a manner likely to alienate independents and middle-of-the-road voters.
There’s an old-saying: Don’t get into a fight with a skunk; you’ll only come out smelling. Romney cannot remain in combat with Gingrich—even if he continues to win delegates—without being tainted by the stench of this skirmish.
Gingrich’s nastiness—now aimed at Romney—is an accurate reflection of the Republican Party. In recent years, Gingrich-style extremism has become its norm. Sarah Palin (who has been egging on Gingrich) claimed during the 2008 race that Obama had been “palling around” with terrorists. When the Democrats were poised to pass a health care reform bill in the House, GOP leaders of that body sponsored a Tea Party rally, where demonstrators chanted “Nazis, Nazis” in reference to the Dems. Donald Trump made GOP voters swoon with his birther talk. Gingrich himself claimed that Obama could only be understood as a fellow who holds a Kenyan, anti-colonialist view of the West. Death panels, a government takeover of the health care system, socialism—it’s been nasty for years in GOPland. Romney’s challenge is to win over these people, without fully endorsing the malice. (Thus, Obama=Europe.)
Now on the receiving end of vicious blasts, Gingrich has taken to whining that he’s the victim of lies and extreme attacks. After all his years of practicing gangster politics, he hardly warrants sympathy. (And many of Romney’s assaults on him have been accurate.) But he also has been trying mightily in recent days to depict himself as the personification of the conservative movement, arguing that an attack on him (by Romney, the Republican establishment, or the media) is an attack on the tea party. (This is a right-wing version of identity politics.) And he’s been saying that the conservative movement simply won’t stand for a “Massachusetts moderate”—or a “liberal” who supports abortion rights and gun control, as he dubbed Romney this week—as the Republican Party nominee.
It’s his last play—to try to ignite a civil war within the GOP. At the moment, with the smell of his Florida defeat still in the air, he seems rather serious about this endeavor. With his own record of flip-flops and his less-than-inspiring personal history, he’s certainly not the perfect leader for such a crusade. But if the dissatisfaction on the right is deep enough, perhaps he can be a sufficient vehicle.
Notwithstanding the loss in Florida—and with only 5 percent of the GOP delegates selected—Gingrich is still positioned to inconvenience, if not undermine, Romney. And he has choices. Will he try to rally conservative foot soldiers and lead a Pickett’s Charge against the front-runner, hoping to do better than Lt. General James Longstreet? Or will he go the way of a suicide bomber and become the doomsday device of the GOP?
With his Florida success, Romney is back on that path to the nomination. But Gingrich is a problem for the front-runner and the entire GOP establishment—and that’s because he’s following the scorched-earth playbook that he long ago developed for the party and that the party has embraced for years.
By: Davis Corn, Washington Bureau Chief, Mother Jones, January 31, 2012
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