The Stafford Voice

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2012

Wall Street Favoring Romney

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Bloomberg

A year after President Barack Obama signed into law the most extensive financial regulations since the Great Depression, Wall Street so far is putting its political money elsewhere.

Employees of Goldman Sachs Group gave Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney $238,250 in the last three months, more than workers at any other company, according to a computer-assisted analysis of Federal Election Commission data. Obama took in $10,113.

Four years ago, employees of New York-based Goldman gave $994,795 to Obama and $234,275 to Romney, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a Washington-based research group. For both candidates, it was more than any other company’s employees.

In addition, Romney took in $2.1 million from donors reporting a New York state address, where the financial industry is headquartered, FEC data shows. Obama raised $1.3 million during the same period. For the 2008 election, Obama raised $50.5 million in the state; Romney raised $2.8 million, according to the center.

Romney and Obama were among the candidates offering the first looks at their presidential fundraising. Their FEC reports cover donations through June 30.

Romney’s $10 Million Phone Bank Fundraiser

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Mitt Romney phone bank fundraiserThe Atlantic | Mitt Romney raised $10.25 million Monday during a phone bank fundraiser held in Las Vegas. It’s widely acknowledge to be an impressive one day total. But how much is it in the larger context of presidential politics?

In 2008, the combined total for all the candidates for the presidency was more than $1 billion for the first time in history. Barack Obama alone raised $730 million, while John McCain raised roughly $333 million. Ralph Nader raised $4 million for the contest, and Libertarian Party candidate Bob Barr raised $1 million. During the GOP primaries four years ago, Romney raised roughly $110 million in his failed bid for the nomination (if you could the $44 million that came from his personal fortune as having been “raised”). That same year, Ron Paul wowed observers by raising $6 million in a 24 hour period.     MORE

Trump Takes Self Out of 2012 Election

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CNN | In his own words:

“After considerable deliberation and reflection, I have decided not to pursue the office of the Presidency. This decision does not come easily or without regret; especially when my potential candidacy continues to be validated by ranking at the top of the Republican contenders in polls across the country. I maintain the strong conviction that if I were to run, I would be able to win the primary and ultimately, the general election. I have spent the past several months unofficially campaigning and recognize that running for public office cannot be done half heartedly. Ultimately, however, business is my greatest passion and I am not ready to leave the private sector.”     MORE

The Problem With GOP Frontrunners: There’s No Lincoln

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RCP (Washington Post) | Republicans are unhappy with their field of presidential candidates and yearn for someone who will come along to save them. But here’s what the GOP doesn’t want to confront: its problem lies not in its candidates, but in itself.

The candidates appear much smaller than they are because the party’s primary voters and core interest groups insist upon cutting them down to size. To win a Republican nomination, a candidate has to move right, recant absolutely any past position that violates the current consevative catechism, and never dare to speak the truth that solving our deficit problem will require new revenues — aka, taxes.

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Huckabee Says No to 2012 Run

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CNN | Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee announced Saturday that he will not seek the GOP nomination for president in 2012.

Huckabee ended speculation that he would run for president during his weekly Fox News Channel show saying, “All the factors say go, but my heart says no. And that’s the decision that I have made.”

Indications had been mounting recently that the 2008 presidential candidate would not pursue a repeat bid for the Republican nomination for president. He switched his residency to Florida, where he and his wife have built a home, he co-founded a company with the mission of teaching history lessons to children, and key 2008 aides moved to other campaign teams, including those of former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty and Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann.

Huckabee also failed to form a presidential exploratory committee, a critical first step in building a presidential campaign.

And with a successful television show, book deals and lucrative paid appearances, another presidential bid may be less desirable for the television and radio host – even though he’s topped recent major national polls as the favored 2012 GOP candidate.     MORE

Romney Posts 5-Step Plan for Heath Care

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With Mitt Romney in the running for president in 2012, he is certain to face critics when it comes to the health care issue. Which would probably be why his first major action as candidate, and president, is to take an early stance against ObamaCare. To separate himself from the laundry list of 2012 GOP hopefulls, Romney has issued a 5-step plan.

USA Today | Health care is more than just one-sixth of the American economy. It is a source of well-being for individuals and families. We are blessed with much that is good in American health care. But we have taken a turn for the worse with ObamaCare, with its high taxes and vastly expanded federal control over our lives. I believe the better course is to empower the states to determine their own health care futures.

First, the good news: Health care in the United States has made remarkable advances in our lifetimes. Dramatic improvements in medical technology have expanded both the length and quality of life. And the U.S. health care system continues to provide consumers with many choices.

But our health care system has several well-known problems: high and rising costs, significant numbers of Americans without insurance, and glaring gaps in quality and efficiency.

We can fix these problems. Unfortunately, with the passage of ObamaCare last year, the president and the Congress took a wrong turn. ObamaCare will lead to more spending, greater federal involvement in health care and negative effects on U.S. economic activity. The president definitely forgot the admonition to “do no harm.” 

My plan is to harness the power of markets to drive positive change in health insurance and health care. And we can do so with state flexibility (unlike ObamaCare’s top-down federal approach), no new taxes (as opposed to hundreds of billions of dollars of new taxes under ObamaCare), and better consumer choice (as opposed to bureaucratic, government choice under ObamaCare). This change of direction offers our best hope of preserving both innovation and value.

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Donald Trump Drops F-Bomb While Rand Paul Questions Trump’s Conservative Leanings

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Meanwhile, Rand Paul has this to ask of The Donald:

WSJ | Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky pointing out this week that Donald Trump was a registered Democrat until 2009: 

“I’ve come to New Hampshire today because I’m very concerned. I want to see the original long-form certificate of Donald Trump’s Republican registration.”

Ron Paul Announces 2012 Presidential Exploratory Committee

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Ron Paul announces exploratory committee | Reuters PhotoThrowing his name into the 2012 potential runners, Ron Paul announced in Iowa his formation of an exploratory committee. The difference between Paul and the long list of those seeking the GOP nomination is that Paul aligns with the majority of Americans on almost all issues. Namely on the economy and the ever expanding federal government. And, while he has said that he would like to end the fed, his most sought after slogan could come to reality if he were to be elected: Audit the Fed.

The LATimes | With an eye toward tapping “tea party” votes, Ron Paul said Tuesday he was forming a presidential exploratory committee for a second try at the Republican nomination.

The Texas congressman built a passionate following in 2008, raising more than $35 million but failing to win any caucuses or primaries. At a news conference in Des Moines, Iowa, he said the country has changed, with “literally millions of more people now concerned about things I talked about four years ago,” including excessive government spending.

His announcement came one day after Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour announced he wouldn’t run. It leaves Paul as the most prominent critic of U.S. military involvement in Afghanistan in the Republican field.

Paul, 75, was the Libertarian Party nominee for president in 1988. He faces competition for votes from Gary Johnson, a former two-term New Mexico governor who recently entered the Republican contest on a libertarian platform. He’ll also be competing with other conservative candidates for tea party support.

The father of tea party favorite and Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, the elder Paul promised a final decision soon about a 2012 run, probably before June. He said he entered the exploratory phase in order to qualify for the first debate of the campaign, scheduled for May 5 in South Carolina.

Paul said he was filing papers with the Federal Election Commission but none had been received late Tuesday.

Donald Trump the Chump or Real Contender

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So many people are getting worked up into tizzies about the possibility of Donald Trump running for president. But there are also an equal amount calling him Trump the Chump.

Aside from the fact that he is pressing all the issues that get people worked up over, like Obama’s birth certificate, what is really behind Trump? After all, he was for Obama before he was against him. A typical Washington flip-flopper!

ABC interview:

Stephanopoulos: I’ll get to my next question.  Today, the head of the Club for Growth a major group inside the Republican Party has said you’re just another liberal.  Focusing–

Trump: A liberal?

Stephanopoulos: Liberal.

Trump: Me?  A liberal?  What is the Club for Growth and who are they supporting?  Because I understood– I had heard about this just a little while ago.  I had heard that they have a favored candidate, whoever that may be.

Stephanopoulos: Who do you think that is?

Trump: I don’t know.  I have no idea.  But when somebody calls me a liberal, that is something I don’t think I’ve ever been called before.

Stephanopoulos: But in your book, The America We Deserve, you wrote, “I’m a conservative on most issues, but a liberal on this one.”  You were talking about health care.

Trump: I want people to be taken care of.  But not with Obamacare.  Obamacare is a total disaster.  Also, we’re in a much different time.  We used to think, 12-14 years ago, we used to think we had a wealthy nation, we could take care of people.  The fact is, we’re in a much different time now.  The world has changed a lot.

Stephanopoulos: So, you no longer support universal health care?

Trump: I support health care for people.  I want people well taken care of.  But I also want health care that we can afford as a country.  I have people and friends closing down their businesses because of Obamacare.  I mean, they’re literally closing down their businesses.  They cannot afford to stay in business.  And that can’t happen.  Because that’s more jobs, more unemployment, and more people going over to China.

Stephanopoulos: In– in your book, at that time, you said, you– we needed to find an equivalent of the single payer plan that is affordable, well-administered, and provides freedom of choice. Still for single payer?

(OVERTALK)

Trump: How many years ago was that, George?  Tell me.

Stephanopoulos: It was in 2000.

Trump: Okay.  It’s a long time ago.  It’s 11 or 12 years ago.  And frankly, a lot of people agreed with it.  A lot of conservative Republicans agreed with it, at that time.  We have a different country today.  We can’t afford things that we could have afforded or that we thought we could afford many years ago.

Stephanopoulos: But what is your plan now?

Trump: My plan now is to number one get rid of Obamacare.

But what about his money?

CNN Opinion article:

But the truth is, no one is sure what Trump is worth. Forbes magazine puts his current net worth at somewhere around $2.7 billion; a 2005 report from Deutsche Bank put the number at $788 million.

Nor does there seem to be much consistency to his assertion that he’s “very conservative” politically. In his pseudo-run for the presidency in 2000, he endorsed universal health care and a 14.25% one-time tax on estates over $10 million to bolster Social Security and Medicare — two positions that any progressive liberal would support.

But if Obama would release a ‘true’ birth certificate, we would know just what Donald is worth.

USAToday article:

Donald Trump says he’ll disclose his finances if he runs for president, but won’t release his income tax returns unless President Obama releases his birth certificate.

Trump made his comments in a wide-ranging interview with ABC’s Good Morning America. He has vowed to say by June whether he’ll seek the Republican presidential nomination in 2012.

The real estate executive told host George Stephanopoulos that he’s “done a great job” with his company and vowed to “do a full disclosure of finances.”

But when asked if he’d release his tax returns — as Obama did yesterday and as presidential candidates have done in the past — Trump balked and brought up the issue of Obama’s birth certificate.”We’ll look at that,” Trump said. “… I’d love to give my tax returns. I may tie my tax returns into Obama’s birth certificate.”

And if you are still unsure about whether the Donald is Trump the Chump or the savior to the GOP, know this: