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election

Rick Perry Group Readies For Iowa Straw Poll

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RealClearPolitics

Rick Perry may not be ready to announce a presidential run just yet, but an advocacy group designed to bolster his increasingly likely candidacy isn’t waiting for him to make a decision: It is already laying the groundwork for him in the nation’s first voting state of Iowa.

Americans for Rick Perry — a 527 group that is prohibited from having direct contact with the Texas governor — is set to open its headquarters in West Des Moines this week under a lease that will run through the Aug. 13 Ames Straw Poll.

The Iowa branch of the pro-Perry group is composed of a few volunteers and seven paid staffers, most of whom played key roles in former House Speaker Newt Gingrich’s Iowa operation before resigning as a group last month amid differences with the candidate over the direction of his struggling campaign.

Perry has not indicated whether he would appear himself in Ames for next month’s straw poll — an important test of early support for candidates who choose to participate — but the operatives running the Iowa branch of Americans for Rick Perry intend to spend the next four weeks preparing to have a significant presence at the first major spectacle of the 2012 campaign.

“Our goal is to share information both before and during the event about Governor Perry’s record and to continue to generate enthusiasm if he runs for president,” explained the group’s executive director in the state, Craig Schoenfeld.

Six candidates purchased tent space for the Ames Straw Poll, which serves as a fundraiser for the Republican Party of Iowa.

Quinnipiac National Poll Finds Obama Tops Republican Challengers

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Minnesota U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann, a relative newcomer in the race for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination, is surging and now trails former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney 25 – 14 percent, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today. Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has 12 percent, followed by Texas Gov. Rick Perry with 10 percent. No other contender is over 6 percent.

This compares to a June 8 survey by the independent Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pe-ack) University, showing Romney with 25 percent, Palin with 15 percent and Bachmann with 6 percent, sixth in a field of 10 candidates in the survey.

President Barack Obama tops all leading GOP White House hopefuls, hitting the all- important 50-percent mark against every candidate but Romney: 

 
•47 – 41 percent over Romney, unchanged from June 8;
•50 – 38 percent over Bachmann, who was not matched against Obama June 8;
•53 – 34 percent over Sarah Palin, compared to 53 – 36 percent June 8;
•50 – 37 percent over Perry, who was not matched against Obama June 8.

Visit HERE for entire poll

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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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Conservatives in Canada Take Majority

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TORONTO (AP) — Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper won his coveted majority government in elections that changed Canada’s political landscape, with the opposition Liberals and Quebec separatists suffering a shattering defeat.

Harper, who took office in 2006, has won two elections but until Monday’s vote had never held a majority of Parliament’s 308 seats, forcing him to rely on the opposition to pass legislation.

While Harper’s hold on Parliament has been tenuous during his five-year tenure, he has managed to nudge an instinctively center-left country to the right. He has gradually lowered sales and corporate taxes, avoided climate change legislation, promoted Arctic sovereignty, upped military spending and extended Canada’s military mission in Afghanistan.

Elections Canada reported results on its website, giving the Conservatives 167 seats, which will give Harper four years of uninterrupted government.

“We are grateful, deeply honored, in fact humbled by the decisive endorsement of so many Canadians,” Harper told elated supporters at the Telus Convention Centre in Calgary, Alberta.

MORE HERE