Thursday, December 29, 2011

Gingrich's Campaign in Terms of Money

Gingrich Campaign Says It Has Raised Almost $9 Million
Trip Gabriel
December 28, 2011

   Recently, Newt Gingrich has increased his popularity among donors. His campaign announced on Wednesday that in the three month they raised close to nine million dollars, a huge change from the six figures they acquired in the summer. But this increase of funds is incomparable to those of his opponents, such as Mitt Romney and Ron Paul. Gingrich's campaign is spending most of the funds on a eight day bus tour, four person staff from New York and $500,000 will go towards television ads. Despite how Gingrich does in Iowa, a poll shows that he is in a statistical tie with Ron Paul and Rick Santorum behind Mitt Romney. Gingrich's future shows serious money problems and will have to put in a lot for television ads in late January to run in South Carolina and Florida. Gingrich's spokesman, R.C. Hammond says, “We will have a positive balance of cash on hand — hence I’m still getting paid,” along with, “any good campaign three days before the Iowa caucuses won’t have a lot of cash on hand." Hammond goes on to compare Gingrich's fundraising to John McCain's at the same point in 2007. He says they were at similar points and McCain won the nomination regardless. So if some say that Gingrich won't succeed due to his campaign's budget, think again, he still has some hope, just look at what happened in 2007 with McCain.

The Perry's opposing views on Abortion

Rick Perry's abortion view at odds with wife?
December 29, 2011
Deborah Charles

Candidate Rick Perry recently switched sides on abortion. A few weeks ago, Perry was asked how he felt about abortion. He replied that he felt it was morally wrong except in the case of rape and incest. In a recent town hall meeting in Iowa, a pastor asked Perry the same question and this time Perry said it was unacceptable in all situations. Did he do this to please religious conservatives Iowa? The author of the post seems to think so. With a week til the Iowa caucus, Perry is seeking religious conservative voters. His new stance goes against that of his wife, Anita. Anita has been a long time supporter and fundraiser of a pro-choice group in Texas known as TAASA. Since her induction, Anita has tripled the donations received by TAASA. A TAASA spokesperson says that Anita still works diligently for the group and doesn't get involved with issues involving policy. Perry's spokesman, Ray Sullivan, says that both Rick and Anita have always opposed abortion.


Ron Paul's Young Army

Marching Orders for Paul’s Volunteers: Do Shave, Don’t Tweet
Richard Oppel Jr
December 28, 2011

Numerous young volunteers have gone to Iowa in support of Ron Paul's campaign. Ron Paul's goal is to use these young people to influence those who will be participating in the Iowan caucus
To vote for him. These volunteers are coming from all over the nation, at their own expense varying from the ages of 18 to mid twenties to endorse Paul's libertarian and antiwar views. These volunteers are under strict rules while they are in Iowa. Their job is "to look, dress, shave, sound and behave in a way that will not jeopardize Mr. Paul’s chances." Students were also told before hand to cover up tattoos and that they should be freshly shaven or have their beards be neatly trimmed. And only wear business casual clothes. These young college students have vowed not to interact with journalists, not to post anything on social media sites and "no liquor, no drugs and...no 'fraternizing in the dorms'."  They are staying in a rented YMCA camp an hour outside of Des Moines  and have been practicing get out the vote techniques and speeches that will sway voters toward Ron Paul. Many of these young students support Ron due to his civil libertarian views like ending federal bans on marijuana and other drugs, along with his desire to end foreign wars and his small-government credo. One supporter commented on Ron Paul's consistency, “you can take a speech of his from the ’80s and it’s still applicable today." Also Ron Paul's persistence to bring down the nation debt. Many of the students are staying in Iowa acting upon the quote "What Would Ron Paul Do?" while promoting Paul.

Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Letters of Ron Paul's Past

New Focus on Incendiary Words in Paul’s Newsletters
Jim Rutenberg and Richard A. Oppel Jr.

 December 19, 2011


There has been old articles, written by Ron Paul, that have been recently surfacing the public. Ron Paul is denying these articles containing racism, anti-gay remarks, and anti-Israel which were included in his political newsletter column. In these articles Ron Paul wrote things such as "Order was only restored in L.A. when it came time for the blacks to pick up their welfare checks," about the Los Angeles riots in 1992. Another said that people with AIDs should be banned from eating in restaurants because the disease could be spread by saliva. He also bashes Ronald Reagan's choice of making the day honoring MLK a federal holiday by calling it "Hate Whitey Day."

In an interview with CNN, Ron Paul claims he had no idea who wrote the insulting articles and takes responsibility for NOT paying close attention to the media. Ron's reason to his failure to pay close attention to the media was due to him being busy with a medical practice and going around to world delivering speeches. While running for the House in 1996,  Democrats brought portion's of Ron Paul's articles, that called Barbara Jordan, an African-American Texas congresswoman, a “half-educated victimologist,” to the media's attention. Then commented on crime in Washington, D.C., “I think we can safely assume that 95 percent of black males in that city are semi-criminal or entirely criminal.” Ron Paul says that his statements were taken out of context as an excuse.  His newsletter with 7,000 to 8,000 subscribers was listed by a neo-Nazi group called Heritage Front,  as recommended reading, under the Internet heading “Racialists and Freedom Fighters.” Which Paul claims to have no clue about. During Ron Paul's appearance on "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno", he tries to joke by saying things like, Michelle Bauchmann hates Muslims and that Rick Santorum speaks about "gay people and Muslims". In an interview with Texas Monthly in 2001, Paul  regrets his actions and for denying of the articles. “They were never my words, but I had some moral responsibility for them,” he said. He continued to say that it did not come directly from him. There is a chance that these old articles will hurt Ron Paul's campaign but one supporter claims that it does not worry him.

Friday, December 16, 2011

Republican party picking up the tab for SC primaries?

Tax Payers of SC Outraged
Jim Davenport
December 15, 2011

In Columbia, South Carolina, the state republicans are angered that their tax money is possibly be spent for the Primary being held this year. As Republican Gov. Nikki Haley quickly responded, "the primary's cost shouldn't fall on taxpayers". The Jan. 21 contest is expected to be costing at least $1.2 million. The GOP dominated legislature is only authorizing $680,000 to be used by the state election commission. With that being said, the Republican Party would pick up the rest of the tab. Haley had vetoed plans to spend the taxpayer money on the Primary, but the Legislature's decision was to override the veto.

Thursday, December 15, 2011

Tea Party's stance in Election 2012

Election 2012: Can the tea party survive?
December 14, 2011
Stephanie Grimes


    For the 2012 election, polls show that the tea party does not have as much support as they did in 2010. Polls and surveys show that their popularity is diminishing among the public and within the 60 tea party districts. Forty eight percent of those in the tea party district do not have a strong favor for the party versus the forty one percent that do. In March 2011, there was a percentage of fifty five in the opinion of the tea party. This decline is odd because in 2010, the Republicans achieved six seats in the Senate and control of House of Reps due to the Tea party. Although the Republicans gained majority in Congress, they were not up to par in the realm of satisfying the Americans. Only 13% of Americans approve of Congress. The public's disappointment with the Republicans, is causing the Tea Party to fight in effort to distance themselves with the Republicans. One occasion that puts a negative light on the Tea Party is when the House was voting on raising the debt ceiling. Over 25% of Republicans split from their party and voted no. Among these voters was tea partyer Michele Bachmann, who is the presidential candidate for the tea party, but only received 7% support on the most recent poll. It was the uncompromising results that has led 67% of Americans to believe that the economy is getting worse along with 64% believing that the ethics of Congress is low. Overall, the Tea Party has a uphill battle which they are currently, slowly losing.








Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Romney going downhill

Michael Tomasky: After Saturday Night’s Debate, Is It The End of Mitt?
Michael Tomasky
December 12, 2011

 According to Michael Tomasky, Romney's popularity is slowly coming to an end. It is described that Romney's candidacy is not doing too well, the only thing he is doing well is point out all the other candidate's flaws. Romney's first attacks were towards Rick Perry. Romney used the immigration issue on Perry, which was the $100,000 being used for tuition of children with illegal parents.  The dirt that Romney can dig up on Gingrich is that he is a flip flopper and has committed adultery more than once. But even this will not be effective because the voters, the christian ones, believe it is alright to have a sinful past as long as you confess your sins. Tomasky's opinion of Romney is rather negative due to his techniques of campaigning and attacking others, which just poses him as an undesirable candidate.

Thursday, December 8, 2011

Republican's Newest Plan for Payroll Tax

Republicans Unveil Plan for Payroll Tax

Mitt Romney's Strategy to Win Primaries

Article: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/27/mitt-romney-2012-gop-primary-calendar_n_1114117.html?view=screen
Date of article: November 27, 2011
From the Huffington Post

   The article summarizes the key states that Mitt Romney must win majority in, or at least top three, to get ahead in the Republican primary election. The main states that Romney should aim for would be Florida, Iowa, South Carolina, and New Hampshire, since they are to have the earliest caucuses and primary elections. If Mitt Romney successfully obtains a spot in the top three for those states, he will have a greater chance of winning the republican primaries in the other states. If Romney delivers effective speeches to sway the voting polls his way, it is predicted that he will knock most of the other competition by January. The article gives elaborate strategy ideas and gives insight on how effective the early election primaries are for other states. If a candidate has victory in the earlier caucuses and elections, other states may vote in a similar fashion.