Cory Booker Doesn't Like Obama Bain Ad, Realizes Later He's Not Allowed to Think For Himself

On Sunday morning’s Meet the Press, Newark Mayor Cory Booker had some pointed criticism for President Barack Obama’s recent campaign ads attacking Mitt Romney’s record as a “job creator” with Bain Capital. Booker, comparing the Obama ads with Republican ads that were going to air (but now will not) drawing comparisons to Obama’s ties with Rev. Jeremiah Wright, said these kinds of campaign tactics were “nauseating.”
“This kind of stuff is nauseating to me on both sides. It’s nauseating to the American public. Enough is enough,” Booker said during the round-table discussion.

This was apparently ill-advised criticism of the President’s re-election campaign strategy as Sunday night Booker posted a video to YouTube clarifying his remarks and insisting it is “reasonable” for the Obama team to criticize Romney’s Bain Capital rhetoric.

In the video, Mayor Booker tries to clarify that it’s not the content of the ad that he found nauseating, per se, but the denegrating trend of campaign ads. Booker does not find the Obama campaign’s use of Romney’s Bain record as nauseating. In fact, since Romney himself has made his economic policies a forefront of his campaign, he believes the Obama campaign is “reasonable” to use Bain criticism against Romney, and Booker actually “encourages” it. What the Mayor finds “nauseating” is the use of Romney’s Bain Capital record in TV ads because Romney’s record at Bain Capital had so many negative outcomes! In other words: ‘It’s okay to attack Romney’s record for all the negative outcomes he had with Bain Capital, just don’t make a negative campaign ad.’ This makes no sense.

Towards the beginning of Booker’s Sunday night video, he says, “And now [Obama's] focus on other issues going forward to me provide the best hope for our nation moving forward.” [My emphasis added.] It’s funny that Mayor Booker should use the term “forward” since it’s essentially what the Obama campaign is boiling their campaign message down to be. Were there some phone calls made Sunday to Mayor Booker about what he should be saying when he’s on TV?

Since when did it become impossible to think for yourself in politics? Just because you align yourself with a particular political affiliation, this does not mean you have to agree with that party on every single thing!! I commend Cory Booker for taking a stand and saying what he thinks about Obama’s campaign focus so far.

Besides now taking both sides of the “What’s fair game in campaign ads?” debate, Booker did offer some important criticism for Team Obama towards the end of Sunday night’s YouTube video. We need to “focus on the issues that count,” Booker says. He’s right. As I’ve said before, the Obama campaign is far too focused on their past accomplishments and with simply painting Romney as a far-right, ‘back to the days of George Bush’ candidate. The Obama campaign is offering little to their supporters of what we can expect from him over the next 4 years if we vote for him in November. With less than 6 months before the election, it’s high-time Obama’s supporters are told exactly what he plans to do next.

More Proof This Week Obama Is Not A Socialist

A few weeks ago, Rep. Allen West (R-FL), made some incendiary comments to a group of supporters claiming there were "about 78 to 81 members of the Democratic Party that are members of the Communist Party." Those are some pretty specific numbers, prompting many to question exactly who these card-carrying socialists are. He has yet to provide names. Seems the Right missed the "Red Scare" days and wanted to live vicariously through those great times once again. We're going to hear a whole lot until November about how socialist Democrats are, and it all starts with the de facto head of their party, (President) Barack Obama. Actually, we've been hearing President Obama is a socialist since Day-1 in office. Oh wait, he was a socialist back in 2007-8 too when he was running for president. Republicans want so badly to convince voters of this fact. It's been 5 years since Barack Obama burst onto the national scene and conservatives have yet to prove it. And this week, with just a couple stories of the economy, it's shown once again how far the Right's fear-mongering veers from any semblance of truth.

On Thursday, one-time Republican presidential nominee front-runner, and purporter of HPV vaccines causing mental retardation, Michelle Bachmann, endorsed Mitt Romney for the presidential nomination. In her endorsement, Bachmann says that Romney is "the last chance we have to keep America from going ... over a cliff." Bachmann is not one to be great with facts. So, it's not really surprising that she'd forget America went off a cliff towards the end of 2008. Jeez, must be another cliff down here somewhere. But Bachmann is one of the consistent demagogues of the House (along with Rep. West) appealing to people's fears that Democrats and Barack Obama are socialists and leading the country down the path to communism.

The President isn't, never has been, and never will. He's a firm believer of the free market system. In his latest interview with Rolling Stone, Obama says, "The free market is the greatest generator of wealth in history. I'm a firm believer in the free market, and the capacity of Americans to start a business, pursue their dreams and strike it rich." The President has never advocated simply taking money from the wealthy and giving it to the poor. He has, however, been a strong voice against the corruption that has ensnared the country and politicians through the unequal distribution of wealth not seen since prior to The Great Depression. This does not make him a socialist. It shows he is conscious of some of the deep underlying issues plaguing this country. I could go on, but I'll stop, because we have some very clear evidence this week (again) contrary to Republican claims that Obama is a socialist.

On Tuesday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average reached a 4-year high on news that manufacturing in the U.S. had reached a 10-month high. Wall Street and investors have returned to the level from before the Great Recession. If Obama had instilled some socialist policies, wouldn't it be the poor and middle class who had actually recovered first after the recession? Well, they haven't. In fact, we have Friday's jobs report now and the numbers are not good. Only 115,000 jobs were created. The three month average is 170,000, but that's down from 218,000 from the previous three months. Obama can point to the fact that the unemployment rate ticked down to 8.1%, but a heavy caveat hangs on that number since 342,000 people dropped out of the work force. (According to Jared Bernstein, senior fellow at the CBPP, that number is actually fairly consistent; so we shouldn't place too much emphasis on it.) And then there's the data on average hourly earnings for workers: it went up one penny. One stinkin' cent. That's not enough to keep up with inflation, so the poor and middle class are feeling the pinch even worse this month. Socialist? I don't think so.

You might not agree with the President on everything. I don't agree with the President on everything. But let's quit with all this fear-mongering Communist nonsense, please. Let's get to the root of the problem. Let's solve our problems with cooperation, not division.

Inventor of Paul Ryan Medicare Overhaul Says Plan Will Not Work

Paul Ryan's budget plan passed by a highly partisan House vote last month calls for sweeping changes to the Medicare program, reaching so far some analysts say to effectively destroy the program altogether. However, now the inventor of the plan adopted by Ryan's budget says the idea will not work.

Henry Aaron (not to be confused with the baseball great) came up with an idea in 1995, after Hilary Clinton's first attempt to overhaul the health care industry. It was called "premium support." It was simple: let consumers pick their health insurers in the private market, subsidize the premiums, and competition will drive down costs in the free market. It's the same theory in Ryan's plan. But Aaron, now with the Brookings Institute, no longer thinks the plan will work. In his testimony to Congress last week, Aaron says, "The conditions that recommended premium support in the mid-1990s no longer apply."

The relevancy here is important because Mitt Romney has campaigned to overturn the Affordable Care Act on Day-1 in office, yet he hasn't proffered an alternative to covering the tens of millions of Americans who are already uninsured or will be if the law is overturned. (Still waiting for the Supreme Court's ruling on this, so Romney might get off the hook.) Instead of having a new plan to cover the uninsured, Romney has endorsed Paul Ryan's budget (a potential VP pick), which looks to change Medicare substantially and pragmatically. But as Mr. Aaron's testimony points out repeatedly, the ACA will strengthen the Medicare system already in place and addresses its' so-called "insolvency."

"The [Medicare] Part A trust fund is currently in better shape financially than it has been for most of its history. If all provisions of the Affordable Care Act are enforced, its financial gap is small.

"Many are concerned over Medicare's long-term affordability. If provisions of the [ACA] are enforced, the added budget costs of Medicare over the next quarter century are modest and affordable...

"The conditions that recommended premium support in the mid-1990s no longer apply. The current Medicare program already fosters competition between publicly-administered, traditional Medicare and private plans. Current privately-administered plans raise costs."

Paul Ryan did not respond during the hearing, allowing Aaron's fellow Brookings Institute colleague, Alice Rivlin to defend the "premium support" measure.

Gay Romney Spokesman Quits

Two weeks. It took two weeks for the GOP pundits to drive out Richard Grenell, newly appointed national security spokesman for the Romney campaign. Grenell resigned from the campaign on Tuesday amidst a conservative coalition out to destroy his reputation. Grenell is openly gay.

This is despicable. It's descpicable for those urging him to resign. It's despicable for evangelicals everywhere who refuse to stand up to this bullying. It's despicable for conservatives, as Grenell was a former Bush administration official - a clear sign of how far right the party has shifted in so short a time. It's incredibly despicable for the Romney campaign itself for never strongly backing or defending Grenell and merely offering tepid support after his appointment.

Obama Trying Too Hard For 'Cool' Vote?

George Stephanopoulos asks this question on this week’s The Bottom Line video, addressing the political reaction to President Obama’s visit to Late Night with Jimmy Fallon earlier this week. The segment under particular scrutiny is the “slow jam” session President Obama did in response to the vote before Congress preventing student loan interest rates from increasing this summer. The GOP has become particularly defensive about this issue.

I wasn’t going to even watch the video of Obama slow jamming. It just didn’t seem that interesting. Sure, it’s funny, but it’s not like Obama hasn’t done late night shows before. Then I saw something about Fox and Friends host Gretchen Carlson calling his appearance on Fallon, “nutso.” Being Fox and Friends, I didn’t think much of it. The backlash continued. A Missouri GOP House Member was reported to say in apparent response to the video that student loans gave America “stage three cancer of socialism.” Even that was not reason for me to watch. Republicans in the House have said much worse. But now we have George Stephanopoulos, of all people, reducing the issue to, “Campaigning for the ‘Cool’ Vote.” I drew the line. No, George. The President is just trying to do what is right.

The bill has stalled in Congress over a political tug-of-war of how to pay for the student loan stabilization. Keeping interest rates at their current level of 3.4% will cost about $5.9 billion over the next year (this is only for a one-year extension). The Democrats’ bill asks that the $5.9 billion be paid for by boosting the payroll taxes on the owners of some privately held firms. Republicans are in agreement. They do not want the interest rates to go up (though it should be noted the Paul Ryan budget passed by the House accounts for the rates to do just that, ostensibly a ‘yes’ vote for rate increases). However, the Republican proposal looks to offset the costs of the student loans with cuts from health care funds reserved for low and middle income families. Essentially, the Republicans would save money for middle class families by taking money from middle class families.

Stephanopoulos questioning whether the President is simply using this as a wedge device between himself and his presumptive opponent, Mitt Romney, is not totally ludicrous. Much has already been made this week about President Obama’s sliding popularity with young voters. But Obama’s push to keep student loan rates constant is not some pedantic attempt to win the youth vote. The President is doing what should be done. Middle and low income families are the ones struggling right now. The highest income earners are not, and have not struggled for decades. The GOP has blocked any and all attempts to request the wealthy start paying a little more in taxes because they argue during a recession ‘is not the time to raise taxes.’ They argue taxes should remain at their current level (extend the Bush Tax Cuts for the wealthy), even if it adds to the deficit, because now ‘is not the time to raise taxes.’ Why then, for the sake of the economy, is there a fight to take money out of the hands of lower and middle income families? Money that pays off student loan debt will not be spent in the marketplace. We’re already dangerously close to dipping back into a recession. Taking money from the consumers’ hands makes no sense. The President recognizes this, he recognizes the struggles that everyone but the ultra-wealthy are experiencing right now. Even Mitt Romney recognizes the GOP is botching this one. He’s come out in support of the extension, though he too endorsed Paul Ryan’s House budget.

Stephanopoulos’ analysis is, in my view, completely off the mark and devoid of import. His concern is: ‘Who does this help come election time?’ and ‘Is Obama pandering?’ His morning show routine has made him complacent to ask the difficult questions. In a country of disillusioned youth, a generation who view their own government not as ally but foe, we need a President who can identify with this new generation of voters, who can laugh with them, and maybe come out to the ‘playground’ for a game every so often. They don’t need another authority figure in their lives telling them what to do. They need someone who is listening (and will occasionally sing a slow jam).

Biden Hits Romney on Foreign Policy

Earlier today, Vice President Joe Biden gave a speech at New York University, where he set out to distinguish President Obama’s foreign policy from his presumptive republican contender’s, Mitt Romney. Biden views Romney’s proposed foreign policy as dangerous, “totally out of touch,” and has the potential to lead us into yet another mired military operation.

According to excerpts from Biden’s speech at NYU, the Vice President says Romney would once again “isolate America instead of enemies” and “waste hundreds of billions of dollars and risk thousands of American lives on an unnecessary war.” Biden is of course referring to the dismal reputation of America many of our foreign allies held throughout the Bush Administration, and how people and other nations still perceive us from around the world.

The Romney campaign has attempted to define Obama’s foreign policy as naïve and potentially alienating our allies, supposedly in reference to the President’s handling of Iran’s nuclear program – imposed sanctions (which have thus far worked) – and the dangers a nuclear-Iran poses to Israel. Romney, during several presidential debates ardently pushed for military action against Iran to impede their nuclear program, though his rhetoric flies in the face of some of our country’s highest ranking Defense Department officials who note there is no substantive evidence Iran is pursuing a nuclear weapon.

Romney and Republicans in general would like everyone to conveniently forget the past decade of war in Iraq and Afghanistan, both of which have been a major contributor to our national debt. They also hope the public doesn’t remember the fact that President Obama was Commander-in-Chief when Osama bin Laden was killed, and gave the order for the mission. “If you’re looking for a bumper sticker to sum up how President Obama has handled what he inherited,” quipped Biden, “it’s pretty simple: Osama bin Laden is dead and General Motors is alive.”

Rachel Maddow: Romney and Arizona's S.B. 1070

A thorough summation of the Supreme Court's hearing on the Arizona Immigration Law, S.B. 1070.

Elizabeth Warren Supports Iran Military Intervention?

This is disheartening. According to Elizabeth Warren's own website, she looks to be confirming a stance on Iran's nuclear capabilities completely out of sync with conclusions of several senior U.S. defense officials.

According to Warren's website, "Iran is a significant threat to the United States and our allies. Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons, it is an active state sponsor of terrorism, and its leaders have consistently challenged Israel’s right to exist. Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons is unacceptable because a nuclear Iran would be a threat to the United States, our allies, the region, and the world."

However, according to many leading defense dept. officials, and even some high-ranking members of Israel's military, Iran is not in fact pursuing a nuclear weapon. Warren's inclusion of this statement is synonymous with many drumming the beats of war with Iran, pitting her more in line with many prominent Republicans on this issue, including presumptive republican presidential nominee, Mitt Romney.

Warren does not explicitly state military intervention, though. "I support strong sanctions against Iran and believe that the United States must also continue to take a leadership role in pushing other countries to implement strong sanctions as well." It's good to see her pushing the diplomatic route on this, but even parroting the notion of Iran's supposed nuclear capabilities is dangerous, and might even come back to haunt her as this election season rolls on.

Krugman: "How Stupid Does Romney Think We Are?"

Paul Krugman's Op-Ed piece today in the New York Times asks this question in response to the presumptive Republican presidential nominee's appearance last week in front of a closed Ohio factory and Obama's handling of the economy.

From the piece:

"For the Bush era didn’t just end in catastrophe; it started off badly, too. Yes, Mr. Obama’s jobs record has been disappointing — but it has been unambiguously better than Mr. Bush’s over the comparable period of his administration.

This is especially true if you focus on private-sector jobs. Overall employment in the Obama years has been held back by mass layoffs of schoolteachers and other state and local government employees. But private-sector employment has recovered almost all the ground lost in the administration’s early months. That compares favorably with the Bush era: as of March 2004, private employment was still 2.4 million below its level when Mr. Bush took office.

Oh, and where have those mass layoffs of schoolteachers been taking place? Largely in states controlled by the G.O.P.: 70 percent of public job losses have been either in Texas or in states where Republicans recently took control."

You can read the entire article here.

Romney's Etch-A-Sketch Shake Up Begins

Well, it didn't take long for Mitt Romney's Etch-A-Sketch mentality to infect other members of his staff. Take new national security and foreign policy spokesman, Richard Grenell, who joined the Romney campaign Thursday. Grenell removed over 800 tweets from his Twitter account and his personal website has been taken down. Coming under fire for several tweets attacking the media, several prominent Democratic women - including a sexist remark to Rachel Maddow to "put a necklace on" - and even the Gingriches, it seems Grenell was in preemptive damage-control to rid his accounts of anything really incriminating. Hmm, I wonder what he has to hide. Luckily, there's an archive with some of his past writings.

Romney's Campaign Slogan Should Be 'War is Good'

Yahoo! had this piece up this morning sparking a little dialogue in me:

Romney has embraced the Paul Ryan budget, which by many factors will explode the deficit by giving the rich and wealthy more tax breaks and cutting essential services that the poor and middle classes depend on, including Social Security, Medicaid, benefits for veterans, environmental regulations (by cutting the EPA), and many, many more. What Romney however has no intention of cutting is the military budget, pledging to expand the Pentagon's budget, even more than most deficit hawk GOPers would do. I think Mitt Romney should unveil his new campaign slogan, 'War is Good,' because that's the only slogan that seems to fit with his campaign plan.

Even though most Americans oppose broad cuts to the above mentioned items, as well as a quick exit from Afghanistan - Romney has been on record several times saying he would stay in Afghanistan and would use military force to keep Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon - he still maintains these highly contentious points at odds with public opinion. But for the life of me, I can't understand why so many people still say they'll vote for him.

And it also raises and oft repeated line from the Occupy Wall Street protests, and the Occupy movement in general: "Why is it we have money for War, but nothing for Education?" I'd like to ask Mr. Romney that question some time.

Ed Schultz: Republican War on Poor

Much has been made recently of the Republican's "war on women". But there is another "war" being waged by conservatives according to Ed Schultz: a war on the poor.

Normally, I feel Schultz is over-the-top on his MSNBC program, but he really captures a great spirit in this piece, especially in highlighting the ignorance, or maybe it's selective reasoning, on the GOPs part of saying how the poor pay nothing in taxes, deciding only to point to federal taxes instead of looking at the entire tax burden (payroll, Medicare, state and sales taxes) shackled on the poor and middle classes. And, as Shultz points out, this is not unprecedented in the modern GOP party.

"This war is not new. It has been going on for years. But it really stands out this week. In a span of a few days, Republicans chose to protect the rich by voting down the Buffett Rule in the Senate. Now, they are attacking the most vulnerable. ... [Mitt] Romney tried to say he misspoke when he made that ["I'm not concerned about the very poor"] comment in February. But his policies prove, well, he was telling the truth. His economic plans puts money in the back pockets of the wealthiest Americans while raising taxes on people making less than $30,000 a year."

Robert Reich: Mitt Romney's Capital Gains Magic

Here's a new video from Robert Reich, Chancellor's Professor of Public Policy at UC Berkeley, about the magic of "capital gains," the promary source of Mitt Romney's income and how it is that Romney could make $21 million in 2010 alone and pay only 13.9% in taxes. Reich breaks down how our tax law is skewed so badly to allow hedge fund managers, and private equity investors like Romney, to reap so much in reward while never risking a dime of their own money.

You can read more from Robert Reich at his blog.

Rick Santorum Suspends Presidential Campaign

Moments ago, Rick Santorum suspended his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination. Santorum, who came virtually out of nowhere in the Republican field of candidates, showed a remarkable resiliency in maintaining his campaign and giving the presumptive nominee, Mitt Romney, trouble in closing up the nomination early since winning the Iowa Caucus last fall. By dropping out, presumably Santorum will now be able to spend time with his family, and daughter Isabella, who has recently been in the hospital.

Dems Target Romney Tax Loophole

In a companion piece to my earlier post, Democrats are also looking to close a tax loophole that allows hedge fund managers to avoid paying the standard 35% tax rate on their capital gains, a loophole used by presidential candidate Mitt Romney. The loophole would reduce the deficit by $23 billion over the next ten years.

"Under current tax law, certain kinds of financiers, including private equity investors and some managers of hedge funds, are allowed to treat bonuses like long-term investment income, called carried interest, taxable at the maximum 15 percent capital gains rate. Others have to pay up to 35 percent taxes on their labor income. The cost to the U.S. Treasury is more than $1 billion a year."

Continue reading here.

Romney's Swiss Bank Account

On Monday, President Barack Obama's campaign held a conference call discussing their push for higher taxes on millionaires, and the discussion quickly turned to Obama's presumptive opponent in the general election, Mitt Romney, and his Swiss Bank account.

The conference call held between Obama's campaign manager Jim Messina, Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D-Ill), and Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill), revolved around discussion of the 'Buffett Rule,' a law the Senate plans to bring up for a vote on April 15th, tax day. The 'Buffett Rule' seeks to raise revenue in order to reduce the deficit by closing tax loopholes that unproportionately benefit the wealthiest Americans and help to ensure every American is paying their fair share. Income inequality in America is at an all-time high, where the richest 1% of Americans own over 40% of the total wealth of the nation (a figure unseen since right before The Great Depression), continue to slowly siphon wealth from the middle- and lower-classes, while the lower classes are increasingly squeezed by rising food and gas prices as well as budget cuts at the state and federal level.

And Mitt Romney seems to be the ideal poster-child for this widening income gap in America. Besides a majority of Americans supporting increased taxes on the rich, Romney has embraced Paul Ryan's "marvelous" budget presented by the House last week. Romney paid less than 15% in federal taxes over the last two years, despite making millions of dollars. He worked for Bain Capital, a venture capital firm notorious for buying struggling companies, laying off workers and selling the company for enormous profits while leaving them shackled in debt. Now, the Obama campaign wants to focus their attacks on Romney's overseas accounts, asking 'Why do you have a Swiss Bank account?'

I think Warren Buffett's response best captures the essence of the inquiry. Durbin asked the billionaire investor if he had a Swiss Bank account. Buffett simply responded, "No, there are plenty of good banks in the United States."

Robert Reich's 'Fable'

Robert Reich

"Imagine a country in which the very richest people get all the economic gains. They eventually accumulate so much of the nation's total income and wealth that the middle class no longer has the purchasing power to keep the economy going full speed. Most of the middle class's wages keep falling and their major asset -- their home -- keeps shrinking in value."

Continue reading here.

Romney: 'It's Good, but It Could Be Better.'

I've been talking about this for a month now. An improving economy is the absolute worst thing for Mitt Romney. He has thus far staked his entire campaign on how the policies of President Obama have failed to restore American prosperity and Romney alone offers the secret ointment to cure our economic malaise. But as the months have drifted by and Romney's inability to focus on the general election, what, with having so much trouble securing just the republican nomination from Rick Santorum, who's been hard-lining social issues on the campaign trail, Romney has been unable to focus on the true issue of this election, the economy.

But that looks to be over. Romney cruised to victory in Tuesday night's primaries and that will secure half the delegates he needs for the nomination. With the nomination squarely in his sights, his focus is turning back to the President and the economy. Except while Romney's been hunkered down in far-right social conservatism land, the economy has continued to improve. Romney's arguments that the President has failed seems more vacuous day after day. So, what is the Romney campaign's answer? "It could be better."

The pivot is to say it's taking too long to recover from this recession, and that someone else could have done it better. Here's Jonathan Chait lambasting the Wall Street Journal for their noxious examination of the U.S. recovering from recessions. Besides the fact that the Journal's Ed Lazear skips over the '90's recession, because it'd be inconvenient for the Journal to talk about Clinton's tax hikes and their economic boost, he completely disregards the severity of the 2008 crash. Much like the Great Depression, the Great Recession was exceptional, and the culmination of a myriad series of events slowly crumbling the foundation of our economic infrastructure. It took years of damage to erode that foundation, and it will take years of careful repair to fortify it once again.

But here's something interesting: the presumed "could be better" candidate would ostensibly by Sen. John McCain, President Obama's opponent in 2008. McCain's economic plan was similar to the plan Britain's David Cameron employed: economic austerity. And, as Paul Krugman has noted repeatedly now that England--and the other nations that chose strict austerity after the recession--is entering a double-dip recession and unemployment is soaring, as an economy contracts and consumer spending pulls back, the government must make up that spending with economic stimulus in order to avoid further depressing the economy. McCain's policies, like Cameron's, would have prolonged the recession, and these are the same policies that Paul Ryan proposed in the House budget last week, a plan Mitt Romney has wholeheartedly endorsed. So, the rational, contextual view is, no, things could not be better with another candidate.

Romney credits Bush for Economic Recovery?

Wow! Here's a case of the most virulent flip-flop in political history. Okay, it's probably not. But seriously! Mitt Romney has done nothing on the campaign trail but spoken of President Obama's failure to bring the economy out of the recession and that with Romney's business background, he's the best choice this fall to fix the economy. But, whoops! The economy is doing better now (though still a long way from recovery) and most economic projections are pointing to a sustained recovery from here on out. So, what do we get?

Mitt Romney: "I keep hearing the president say he's responsible for keeping the country out of a Great Depression," Romney said at a town hall in Arbutus, Maryland. "No, no, no, that was President George W. Bush and [then-Treasury Secretary] Hank Paulson."

Here's what Jonathan Chait at New York magazine has to say in response: "[T]he Wall Street bailout is actually a huge political liability for Obama because it’s incredibly unpopular and most Americans think Obama, not Bush, signed it. So having Romney run around reminding people that Bush bailed out Wall Street is actually Obama’s prayer answered..." continue reading here.

Not to worry though. This is all part of the Romney campaign's Etch-A-Sketch tactic. They'll just give Romney a little shake tomorrow and it'll be like it never happened!

Primary Preview: Newt and Santorum on Edge

Tuesday’s Alabama and Mississippi primaries are all-important for Republican presidential candidates Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum. Each are staking their campaigns on how well they perform Tuesday night, and bolstering that whoever loses should drop out.

Gingrich has essentially been banking his campaign on his performance in the South since the Florida primary loss to Mitt Romney. Gingrich at the time knew the northern contests in Michigan and Ohio would not play well to his favor and never put much into those primaries. Now Gingrich has a chance to prove his candidacy, and legitimize his reluctance to drop from the race, by showing he’s a strong favorite through the south and that, for instance, if Rick Santorum were to drop out, Gingrich could sway a large portion of Santorum’s voters his way to defeat Romney.

This is ostensibly the same argument Rick Santorum is making. In light of last week’s primary wins in Tennessee, Oklahoma, and North Dakota, and his near victory in Ohio, the Santorum campaign has publicly pressured Gingrich to drop out, arguing voters will coalesce behind him to defeat Romney.

Both candidates have strong cases for the other to concede defeat. Anti-Romney sentiment runs high in the GOP, seeing his wealth as a bulwark to connect with the average voter – and his gaffe-prone campaign cements that image nearly every day. Romney also does not have strong support in the south. Gingrich is from Georgia and can easily wrap up several southeast states in the general election. If voters are given Romney as the candidate, they may be willing to vote for Obama simply based on the improving conditions of the economy. Santorum, in contrast, polls well with southerners on social issues and can pull the evangelical vote his way throughout the south and the beltway. The evangelical voting-block could be essential for republicans this fall if they stand any chance of winning the White House. A poll today of likely GOP voters shows that a large majority of Alabama and Mississippi voters do not believe the President’s continued stated admission of his Christian beliefs and think he is a Muslim. But let’s be honest, Mississippi and Alabama also rank in the bottom 5 in education with some of the lowest high school graduation rates in the country. So, there’s that.

But maybe Romney still has the best argument for both Santorum and Gingrich to drop out. According to weekend polling in Mississippi and Alabama, Romney is virtually in a dead-heat with these other candidates. If he doesn’t win either state outright, he’ll still secure some delegates and inch ever-closer to the magic 1,144 needed for the nomination. And after last week’s big Ohio victory, the Romney campaign began making their case that they should be the nominee. Of course, it’s not about policies or that he really is the better candidate. It’s math! The Romney campaign thinks the others should drop out because they can’t possibly reach 1,144 delegates now, so, just get out! I know nobody wants me to win, but I’ve got a twenty run lead. You should just forfeit now in the bottom of the third. I’ll pay you…

~ Jason Owen with TJ Walker and AmericanLP