ReGina Newkirk (top L), a non-profit executive from Nashville, Tennessee, Robert Newkirk, Sr. (bottom L), a professor at Tennessee State University from Nashville, Cathleen Loringer (C), a former social worker from Wauwatosa, Wisconsin, and her guest John Loringer, an attorney from Wauwatosa, Wisconsin, and Judy Glassman (R), a retired school administrator from Cambridge, Massachusetts
President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama have dinner with winners of a Democratic campaign contest at the Boundary Road restaurant in Washington, DC, March 8
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Friday:
10:40: PBO departs the White House en route Joint Base Andrews
11:35: Arrives Richmond, Virginia
12:15: Tours Rolls-Royce Crosspointe
12:30: Delivers remarks at Rolls-Royce Crosspointe
2:40: Departs Richmond, Virginia en route Houston, Texas
3:40: Arrives Houston
4:50: Delivers remarks at a campaign event
6:50: Delivers remarks at a campaign event
8:10: Departs Houston
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President Barack Obama meets with Chief of Staff Jack Lew, Gene Sperling, Director of the National Economic Council, and Alan Krueger, Council of Economic Advisers Chair, in the Oval Office, March 8, 2012. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)
…. with Safak Pavey, the first disabled woman elected to the Turkish Parliament
Read about the 2012 Women of Courage here and here
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InsideHigherEd: … Roughly two-thirds of public and private college presidents say they plan to vote for President Obama in November, and only 1 in 10 believe the Republican candidates for the presidency have laid out a helpful vision for higher education.
…. 65.1 percent said that they planned to vote for the president this fall. Among sectors, support was stronger in public higher education (75 percent at public doctoral and master’s institutions, 85 percent at public baccalaureate institutions and 66 percent at community colleges). The lowest level of support was in for-profit higher education, where only 29 percent of presidents said they plan to vote for Obama this fall.
…. Only 10 percent of all college presidents believed that the Republican candidates have offered a higher education vision, but that figure is inflated by a high proportion of yes answers from for-profit higher education (44 percent). The figures are much lower for the rest of higher education – 4 percent among public doctoral institutions, 3 percent among public master’s institutions, and not a single private doctoral university president agreeing.
Steve Benen: The general trend on initial unemployment claims over the last few months has been largely encouraging, though there have been occasional setbacks. Today’s report appears to be one of them.
Though still low by recent standards, filings went up over the last week, a little more than expected: “Jobless claims in the U.S. rose to the highest level in five weeks, climbing by 8,000 to a seasonally adjusted 362,000…”
….. when these jobless claims fall below the 400,000 threshold, it’s considered evidence of an improving jobs landscape. When the number drops below 370,000, it suggests jobs are actually being created rather quickly. Though today’s report is disappointing, we’ve now been below 370,000 for five consecutive weeks, and six of the last eight weeks.
Charles Pierce: I have tried to avoid the mighty efforts of the heirs of Andrew Breitbart to make his name more of a synonym for “jackass” in death than it was when he was alive. So, instead, let’s just play a little Harvard bingo, shall we?
Barack Obama once went to the Harvard Law School. Derrick Bell once taught at the Harvard Law School.
…. In 1992, Derrick Bell thought that “none” was an insufficient number of minority faculty members at the HLS. He decided to make a little noise about it. At a rally, Barack Obama introduced him and, after doing so, hugged him….
…. This, of course, proves that Barack Obama is a lifelong coddler of, and sympathizer with, black radical revolutionaries.
Res ipse loquitur! QED! Scoreboard, bitches!
I expect a job offer from Big Something in the morning.
President Obama meets President John Evans Atta Mills of Ghana in the Oval Office, March 8
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TPM: President Obama enjoys massive leads in Maine, according to a new survey from Public Policy Polling (D) …. Obama leads both former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum by the same margin in the Pine Tree State, 58 – 35. Maine has voted for a Democrat for president in the last five elections, but that doesn’t mean Dems dominate the state – Republicans currently hold the governorship, both houses of the state legislature and the two US Senate seats (Snowe and Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME)).
ThinkProgress: Questions about women and womens’ health have dominated the political debate over the past weeks, and at least one female Republican lawmaker is unhappy with her party’s record. New York Assemblyman Teresa Sayward (R), who is retiring after serving a decade in Albany, told the New York political program Capital Tonight that she does not support any of her party’s presidential candidates, because of their stances on women.
She also took an apparent shot at Republicans’ opposition to President Obama’s birth control mandate, saying, “It’s disheartening for me to see our party move away from what it was always about and that is to stay out of people’s lives, let them live their lives, don’t impose their religion on anybody else.”
Asked which Republican candidate she supports, Sayward replied: “I do not have a favorite in the presidential race, if I had to vote today, I’d vote for Obama.”
First lady Michelle Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton participate in a ceremony honoring women around the world who advocate for women’s rights and empowerment.
Robert Shrum: ….. unrequited love has transformed Romney’s progress toward the Tampa convention into a rough and rutted road, steadily weakening him for the contest with President Obama, and almost certainly strengthening Democratic chances not just in 2012, but in 2016.
….. Romney is a recurringly hard sell in a political party that has morphed, as one GOP strategist privately puts it, into a sectarian religious party….. The long contest, the constant pandering, and his own tendency to sound like a political incarnation of Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous have taken their toll on Romney as a general election candidate … As the economy improves, Romney’s rationale wanes: Why do we need an out-of-touch, unlikeable, asset-stripping ex-CEO to secure a recovery that’s already underway?
TampaBay.com: Vice President Joe Biden slipped into the bay area for a fundraiser Wednesday, where he cheered for the spirited Republican presidential primary to continue for as long as possible. “God love them, as my mother would say. I hope they have another 20 debates,” Biden told more than 200 people gathered at the Renaissance Vinoy Resort in downtown St. Petersburg.
“…. I have never seen a time in my lifetime when Republicans haven’t tried to hide the ball, to use a sports metaphor – when they said they were ‘compassionate conservatives. We care about health care. We must preserve Medicare,’ etc. They’re not hiding the ball any more at all, guys. God bless them, they’re saying exactly what they believe. This is going to be the starkest choice the American public is going to make in a long, long time.”
….. It may be one of the few times where a candidate walked into a fundraiser wearing one tie and left wearing another. In the $1,000 photo line, one man admired Biden’s red tie. The VP returned the compliment about the man’s purple tie and suggested they trade. They did.
….. Democrats have long complained they can’t distill their campaign theme to a simple bumper sticker phrase. Biden offered one for 2012: “Osama Bin Laden is dead, and General Motors is alive.”
The Obama Diary 
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