10:45: Vice President Joe Biden delivers remarks at a campaign event in Chesterfield, Virginia
(Don’t forget The View today)
1:25: President Obama departs New York City
2:35: Arrives at the White House
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NYT Editorial: Mitt Romney …. told CBS News’s “60 Minutes” that he is tied with President Obama; he has a “very effective campaign; it’s doing a very good job” …. That’s an outright denial of political reality, but Mr. Romney’s willingness to stray from the truth is at the root of what’s really going on….
To some extent, Mr. Romney’s diminishing stature is because of two recent statements that revealed his deficiencies to a newly interested audience. He falsely suggested that the Obama administration was sympathetic to the violent Muslim protests in Libya and Egypt, illustrating his ignorant and opportunistic critique of foreign policy. And he was caught on video belittling nearly half the country for an overreliance on government handouts.
These moments, though, were not fumbles or gaffes. They were entirely consistent with the dismissive attitude Mr. Romney has routinely shown toward non-Americans or the non-rich….
Mr. Romney is free to pursue this shallow, cavalier campaign for six more weeks, but he shouldn’t be surprised if voters increasingly choose not to pay attention.
An Open Letter To Candidate Romney by Sara Zacharias
Dear Mitt Romney:
I saw your video.
I saw you speaking candidly and off the cuff about me. Don’t get me wrong, I know that you didn’t mention me by name or anything, but we both know you were talking about me.
When you were talking about 47% of the population that is never going to vote for you because we are “dependent victims” who lazily live on government programs like food stamps, I can’t help but take personal offense. In fact, once you decided to lump in anybody who is never going to vote for you, you weren’t just talking about me, but many people I love, and about 90% of the people I know.
My children eat because of food stamps, Mr. Romney. Now, sir, I want you to picture a Wyoming cowgirl: a mother, a fighter, a righteous, determined, God-loving woman. A Rocky Mountain Grizzly Bear Mamma that would make Sarah Palin’s makeup-wearing pit bull shudder. Picture me staring you in the eyes as I ask you, “What business have you got talking about me and mine like that?”…..
President Obama departs the White House for Fort Belvoir, Virginia for a round of golf, June 9
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Thanks for all the comments on the last post, I’m working today so won’t have a chance to reply, but will catch up asap. Special thanks to those who argued it out, even when they disagreed; to those who read my own comments as a suggestion that PBO isn’t doing enough ….. oh boy. I think he’s done more than enough, that’s the point.
Hi everyone, we might end up throwing punches at each other over this, but please read BWD’s post.
Some of you might not like it, but think about what it’s saying: this President has achieved extraordinary things, in the face of vicious, relentless opposition – but is his campaign, so far, really doing him and those achievements justice?
Michael Tomasky: ….. the campaign isn’t telling a story. And there is a story to tell, even about the private sector. It’s a slightly more complicated story than the one Mitt Romney is telling, and more complicated means harder, but it doesn’t mean impossible. The story, in a nutshell, is this: we inherited a total disaster, things are getting better, and Romney will bring us back to disaster. The last part is the most important: putting the emphasis back on the challenger.
I’m not sure, to be honest, if Tomasky or BWD acknowledge enough just how hard it is for the campaign to set the narrative or tell that story when the MSM is in the bag for Romney, Politico in particular – which seems to have the most amazing influence on the rest of the media when it comes to creating a narrative – has been utterly poisonous of late, the dishonesty of its ‘reporting’ simply breathtaking. (I could give a few examples from yesterday, but I’ll spare you).
Also, ‘progressive’ media frauds like Cenk Uygur and that Greenwald piece of shit, from his balcony in Rio (part-funded by Koch/CATO), have upped their anti-PBO venom to vitriolic, hysterical levels of late, in their attempts to persuade their brain-dead cheerleaders to work towards his defeat.
But, despite all that, the campaign can, surely, still do a whole lot better – specifically by making more use of its single greatest weapon: President Barack Obama. As BWD said, “when the President goes all in – like he did with marriage equality – he always wins”.
So why not forget about daft ideas like Friday’s press conference, when whatever PBO said was always going to be twisted by the media f**kwits, the same people who spent most of the week chuckling about blowjobs.
Why not bypass these fools and have, for example, PBO address the nation directly from the Oval office, and call out the opposition for what it is: economy-sabotaging traitors.
And why, as BWD said, has his stump speech hardly changed over the last few months? He’s busy running the country, what are his speech writers doing?? To me, he seems bored and uninspired delivering that speech, it’s largely, inexplicably, defensive, when it should be singing from the rooftops about his spectacular achievements. And why aren’t the endless, wonderful benefits of the Affordable Health Care for America Act being promoted in those speeches? They’re hardly mentioned. This is insane.
I know, I know, who the f**k is anyone to question the campaign’s strategy? Well, I am someone who believes PBO to be the greatest and most inspirational world leader of my lifetime, and I’m utterly petrified that he will be beaten in November by execrable right-wing forces, and their allies on the fake ‘progressive’ left, that will reverse every single one of his achievements. And I just believe that his people aren’t doing enough, so far, to positively and aggressively promote those achievements.
I don’t, for a single minute, underestimate how hard it is to get that message out, and I have endless respect for Axelrod and Plouffe, master strategists responsible for an astounding campaign last time. I’ll trust – pray – that they’ll get it right this time too. But don’t they need to get their act together, very soon?
I have two great friends who are gays. They’ve been together for 10 years. Four years ago they adopted a 10 months old baby. The only reason they got him was due to his severe illness. He didn’t have much more time to live and no one else wanted him. For more than two years I’ve seen them being the best parents any kid could hope for. They gave this baby their full, unconditional love, knowing that their time together would be very limited. Tommy died last year. All who knew him are still in deep grief. And these two guys, two of the best parents I’ve ever seen, one of the most in-love couples I’ve ever seen – they can’t get married. This is wrong on every level, on every level.
Mr. President, I understand your struggle. It’s a journey many people had to go through – myself included – and nothing can change the fact that no president comes even close to what you’ve done for gay rights in America and in the world. But, this is the final step and it’s time to take it.
I honestly don’t believe that at this point you’re still against gay marriage. Everything I know about you points to the other direction. And if the calculation is political, that’s not a good one either. Most of the country is already on the right side of this issue and the people who may not vote for you because of this, were not going to vote for you anyway.
Dear Sir, you are the greatest man I’ve seen in my life time. I’m grateful to be able to witness this greatness with my own eyes. But now you’re about to become probably the last Democrat president/presidential candidate to not run on fully supporting gay marriage. No matter how much good you did for gays, you’ll be remembered as being on the wrong side of the last big civil rights issue. Even behind the much older Joe Biden. This can’t happen to you. You are Barack Obama.
I will continue to back you no matter what: I’ll work my heart out to make sure that you’ll stay in the White House – because you are a great president and you’re our only hope against a very dangerous and scary force. But please don’t miss this opportunity to bend that arc of moral universe just a bit more towards justice.
You are the face of hope, change and equality for an entire world.
President Barack Obama talks with Jon Favreau, Director of Speechwriting, in the Oval Office, Jan. 23, 2012. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)
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ABC: Unfavorable views of Mitt Romney have soared, doubts about Newt Gingrich remain widespread and Barack Obama has advanced to his highest personal popularity in more than a year — all in advance of the State of the Union address in which Obama makes his case for a second term.
Fifty-three percent of Americans in the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll express a favorable opinion of Obama overall, up by 5 points from last month to the most since April 2010….. As he’s gained, Romney has stumbled badly, with unfavorable views of the recent Republican front-runner up by 15 points in just two weeks.
…. The sharpest shifts have been among independents. Unfavorable opinions of Romney have soared by 17 points in this group since Jan. 8, to 51 percent; favorable opinions have dropped by 18 points among independents in the same period, to just 23 percent. Gingrich, for his part, has lost 11 points among independents since December, to 22 percent favorability. Obama, by contrast, gets a 51 percent favorable rating from independents.
…. Obama has advanced by 12 points in favorability among moderates, to 66 percent, nearly as high as his rating from liberals, 70 percent positive.
Greg Sargent: I’m not sure the Obama campaign could have scripted this more perfectly. In a remarkable bit of good timing, President Obama is set to deliver a State of the Union speech focused on income inquality and tax unfairness on exactly the same day that Mitt Romney will reveal that he made over $40 million in the last two years — all of it taxed at a lower rate than that paid by middle class taxpayers.
Steve Benen: …. Why did Romney set up $100 million trust funds for his sons without paying any gift taxes? Were his accounts in the Caymans and in Switzerland created to avoid paying taxes? Was the closing of the Swiss account related to this IRS investigation? And given all of the questions surrounding Romney’s Bain-era work, why does the Republican candidate continue to insist he won’t disclose returns from previous years?
White House: On Monday, January 30, the President will join a special Google+ Hangout from the West Wing. He’ll be answering several of the most popular questions that have been submitted through YouTube, and some of the people who submitted questions will even be invited to join the President in the Hangout and take part in the live conversation.
Do you have a question for President Obama? Here’s how you can participate:
Starting today through January 28th, you can visit the White House YouTube channel to submit your questions and vote on your favorites.
Tomorrow, watch the State of the Union live at 9:00 p.m. EST on YouTube.com/whitehouse or on WhiteHouse.gov/sotu
Paul Krugman: How goes the state of the union? Well, the state of the economy remains terrible. Three years after President Obama’s inauguration and two and a half years since the official end of the recession, unemployment remains painfully high.
But there are reasons to think that we’re finally on the (slow) road to better times. And we wouldn’t be on that road if Mr. Obama had given in to Republican demands that he slash spending, or the Federal Reserve had given in to Republican demands that it tighten money.
Why am I letting a bit of optimism break through the clouds? Recent economic data have been a bit better, but we’ve already had several false dawns on that front. More important, there’s evidence that the two great problems at the root of our slump — the housing bust and excessive private debt — are finally easing.
….if this year’s election brings the wrong ideology to power, America’s nascent recovery might well be snuffed out.
INGRAHAM: You’ve also noted that there are signs of improvement on the horizon in the economy. How do you answer the president’s argument that the economy is getting better in a general election campaign if you yourself are saying it’s getting better?
ROMNEY: Well, of course it’s getting better. The economy always gets better after a recession, there is always a recovery. […]
INGRAHAM: Isn’t it a hard argument to make if you’re saying, like, OK, he inherited this recession, he took a bunch of steps to try to turn the economy around, and now, we’re seeing more jobs, but vote against him anyway? Isn’t that a hard argument to make? Is that a stark enough contrast?
ROMNEY: Have you got a better one, Laura? It just happens to be the truth.
John Heilemann (NY Mag): ….. If Gingrich wins Florida, the Republican Establishment is going to have a meltdown that makes Three Mile Island look like a marshmallow roast. Why? Because the Establishment will be staring down the barrel of two utterly unpalatable choices. On the one hand, Gingrich’s national favorable-unfavorable ratings of 26.5 and 58.6 percent, respectively make him not just unelectable against Obama but also mean that he would likely be a ten-ton millstone around the necks of down-ballot Republican candidates across the country. And on the other, Romney will have shown in two successive contests—one in a bellwether Republican state, the other in a key swing state—an inability to beat his deeply unpopular rival. If this scenario unfolds, the sound of GOP grandees whispering calls for a white knight, be it Indiana governor Mitch Daniels (who, conveniently, is delivering the Republican response to Obama’s State of the Union address on Tuesday night) or Wisconsin congressman Paul Ryan or even Jeb Bush, will be deafening.
Fareed Zakaria (CNN): …. President Obama entered the Oval Office with the United States deeply unpopular around the world, with vast commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan, with difficult relations with many countries and a large part of the world feeling that it had been ignored by an America obsessed by the “War on Terror.”
Obama was determined to pare down America’s commitments and its military footprint and to regain goodwill and trust abroad. For the most part, he has done so….
If the war against al Qaeda is the most visible and dramatic success story, the most significant long-term success might be in Asia, where Obama has pivoted …. He did so carefully and skillfully so that Asia countries saw it as a response to their requests rather than an unilateral assertion of American power….
All in all, it’s a pretty strong record. Which is why you actually don’t hear Republicans talking much about foreign policy on the campaign trail.
Greg Sargent: Romney to bombard Gingrich with scorched earth attacks: The big news this morning is that the Romney campaign — stung by Newt Gingrich’s big South Carolina win — is prepared to unleash a white-hot series of assaults on the (again) surging challenger. One of these, apparently, will be a continued demand that Gingrich release the ethics probe that got him bounced from Congress — even though the probe has already been released.
Charles P. Pierce: ….. Romney has a problem: People don’t like him. Not only that, but the more people see him, the more they dislike him …. Newt Gingrich’s unfavorability ratings in this country at large are whopping … But Willard’s unlikability is of a different sort. It is chronic and general….
…. There is something about Willard that doesn’t connect ….. Willard stopped being electable because there stopped being the faintest reason to vote for him. If you wanted stubborn independence, you had Ron Paul. If you wanted sanctimony, fetuses, and paranoia about Iran, Rick Santorum was your boy. If your biggest thrill in life is to hock a loogie at all of your fellow Americans whom you despise, well, Newt Gingrich always has been there for you, and he’s better than you are at it.
…. If he is to be nominated – and I still think he probably will be – Willard Romney will be nominated by a party that would move en masse to the other end of a subway car rather than listen to him talk any more. At the convention, we will be treated by the least spontaneous “spontaneous demonstrations” in the history of the Republic. By the third day, they might have to bribe people just to fill the hall.
Michael Tomasky: Newt won by hatin’ on the black guy and the liberal media. He hated on them expertly. He fired synapses in conservatives’ brains that they barely knew were there ….He won because he expressed and embodied conservative rage better than the others.
….. Exactly why is Gingrich suddenly more electable than Romney? Because, it is said, he has proven that he can debate Barack Obama. You hear conservatives talk, they’re just licking their chops over this. They may well nominate Gingrich not because they really want him to be the president of the United States, but because they want to see him debate Obama…..
….. They want someone who can stand on a stage with Obama and say, “You are our nightmare. You are the destroyer. You are the un-American and the anti-Christ, and I smite you.” For conservatives, it’s personal with Obama. He blinds them with hatred.
So they don’t really want someone who can “beat” Barack Obama, which is the question the exit polls asked. They want someone who can humiliate him in prime-time television, put him in his place, expose him to the world such that all the deluded idiots in this country who still like Obama finally and blazingly acknowledge the truth that has so long been obvious to them…
The Obama Diary 
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