President to sell Obamacare, will point to Romneycare

WASHINGTON — Fueled by the Supreme Court decision upholding Obama­Care — on the basis that the penalty for not buying health insurance is a legal tax — Mitt Romney’s allies are launching a tax attack against the president.

They quickly found that proverbial silver lining in the cloud after the Thursday Supreme Court ruling handed President Barack Obama a big victory for his signature Affordable Care Act.

“President Obama breaks another promise,” is the tag line of an ad to start running Saturday on national cable television from the pro-Romney American Crossroads SuperPAC. The spot uses video from a 2008 campaign event where Barack Obama pledges not to raise taxes on people making less than $250,000.

In a conference call with reporters Friday organized by the Republican National Committee. Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal slammed Obama for breaking his tax pledge.

“I was very disappointed in the ruling, but I do congratulate the Supreme Court on one thing: They were a lot more honest about ObamaCare than President Obama has been. They have rightly called it what it is — a tax,” Jindal said.

Obama deputy campaign manager Stephanie Cutter said in rebuttal, “Already, Mitt Romney and Republicans are out with outright falsehoods about ObamaCare — their favorite distortion being that this is somehow a broad tax on the middle class.

“In reality, this is all about personal responsibility — and the ‘tax’ they are trying to scare everyone about is actually a penalty for the 1 percent of people who can afford insurance but still choose not to buy it, leaving the rest of us to pay for their health care when they head to the emergency room,” she said.

† What’s new: Jindal is one of many GOP voices jumping on the Supreme Court ruling, authored by Chief Justice John Roberts, that said the individual mandate to buy health insurance — or pay a tax (a k a penalty to Obama, et al) is legal. Though Republicans were disappointed with the decision, they realized they had two new fronts from which to attack Obama: He broke his basic tax pledge and he misled the public in selling his health-care plan by denying the penalty was a tax.

† Obama’s new chore: Yes, the penalty for not buying health insurance starting in 2014 is a tax. Yes, the Obama team has explaining to do about how Obama, who taught constitutional law, could have been so certain in stating the penalty was not a tax — only to have his law saved because his government lawyer sold the tax defense to Roberts.

† But is it a tax increase? The answer depends on what part of a person’s tax picture you are considering. Under Obama, for example, everyone who gets a paycheck has been paying less Social Security payroll taxes in 2011 and 2012. If you make $106,800 a year, you are keeping $2,136 more of your own money. And if you have health insurance — or will be able to obtain it or afford it because of ObamaCare — you won’t be paying any penalty (a k a tax).

† Freeloaders resurface as an issue: Obama and his allies have been noting for years — and were repeating at week’s end — that people who don’t have health insurance — and can afford it — are freeloaders and cost shifters. People pay more taxes and higher insurance premiums to health providers to cover the costs for treating people who choose not to be personally responsible and by choice do not get health insurance. Is pressuring people to buy health insurance really a tax increase? Or is it a move toward tax equality?

† Mitt’s Massachusetts plan: Watch for even more praise from the Obama team for Romney’s individual mandate in the Massachusetts health-care plan, which he signed as governor. “ObamaCare, modeled on Romneycare,” was a headline on an Obama campaign memo sent out on Friday. You will hear more of this: The Romney health plan includes a penalty for people who declined to purchase health insurance.

Read the original story at the Chicago Sun-Times

For Obama, there’s little time to celebrate court’s ruling

President Barack Obama boards Marine One upon arrival at Andrews Air Force Base, Md., on Friday, June 29, 2012. Photo/AP

WASHINGTON — The day after the Supreme Court dealt him a major victory, President Barack Obama moved on to fighting other fires — literally — traveling to Colorado to check on a blaze that has destroyed hundreds of homes.

The moment captured a truth about Obama’s tenure: From the day he took office in the midst of an economic crisis, he has rarely had the luxury of a victory lap.

Instead, in a stubbornly lackluster economy, the most that administration officials generally can claim is credit for disasters that don’t happen, achievements typically followed by questions about when that sad state of affairs will improve.

Back when the health law passed in 2010, White House officials toasted the victory with champagne on the Truman balcony. By contrast, since Thursday’s decision upholding the law, the mood has been decidedly heads down.

One staff member, in an account typical of others, said he had allowed himself a sigh of relief before turning to other business — including the vote in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress.

“We don’t really get a chance to celebrate,” said the senior administration official, who spoke anonymously because he was not authorized to discuss the subject publicly. “We have to keep moving on the battle plan.”

That plan doesn’t call for much talk about health care between now and November, further dampening any urge to celebrate.

White House and campaign aides have pretty much conceded that the law will remain unpopular with large swaths of voters, at least for now. A Gallup poll earlier this year, for example, found that only about one-quarter of Americans felt that the law, once fully in place, would make their family’s health care better, while about a third felt it would make no difference. Almost four in 10, including most Republicans, felt it would make things worse.

Administration officials hope that when the health law is fully up and running in 2014 — assuming it survives the election — Americans will warm to its guarantees of coverage and its subsidies to help people buy insurance. They predict, sometimes through gritted teeth, that if they prevail, the law will start becoming popular somewhere around the middle of the decade.

For now, though, while they plan to push back against Republican attacks, Obama’s team doesn’t expect to win a lot of votes by talking about health care — at least not in English. Spanish may be another story. Among Latino voters, health care has been a top priority, and the Obama campaign has advertised the benefits of the law extensively in Spanish.

Two sets of figures help explain why: Among all Americans, 16 percent lack health coverage, and therefore stand to benefit directly from the new law. But among Latinos, roughly one-third do. And Latino voters, by 48 percent to 20 percent, believe the health law was a good idea, an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll showed this week.

At the moment, however, it is Republican leaders who seem thrilled to talk about health care, even though they were the losers on Thursday. For them, the issue provides an opportunity to intertwine two favorite attacks against the White House — the health care law and new taxes — into one argument, even if doing so leads away from their more straightforward focus on jobs and the economy.

Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Senate’s Republican leader, said Friday that the court “blew the president’s cover” on taxes by labeling as a tax the law’s requirement that uninsured individuals obtain coverage. The decision “turns the president’s campaign rhetoric on its head,” McConnell said.

“They’re going to say it’s time to move on and not want to talk about it because it’s so unpopular. But guess what, we’re going to talk about it,” said Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell, a Republican.

Obama, meantime, spent a good part of the day talking not about health care, but wildfires. Accompanied by Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., he flew over charred mountaintops before landing in Colorado Springs, where he visited a badly burned-over area, praised firefighters and offered disaster assistance in a state that happens to be a key electoral battleground.

In the Mountain Shadows neighborhood, Obama saw homes burned to their foundations, with water still spewing from exposed pipes and cars in the driveways melted down to their frames.

“When natural disasters like this hit, America comes together,” he said. “We’ve got to make sure that we have each other’s backs.”

Read the complete story at the Boston Herald

Politics plays role in some Democrats’ support of Holder contempt vote

Alex Wong/Getty Images - U.S. House Democratic members, including, from left, Rep. Terri Sewell (D-Ala.), Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), Rep. Andre Carson (D-Ind.), House Minority Leader Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Rep. George Meeks (D-N.Y.), Rep. Bobby Rush (D-Ill.), and Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.), participate in a walkout in protest of a vote on holding Attorney General Eric H. Holder in contempt of Congress

When the House voted Thursday to hold Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. in contempt of Congress, more than 100 Democrats walked out, denouncing the vote as a political sham.

But they left behind a group of 17 Democrats who face some of the toughest reelection contests in the nation, and that group joined Republicans in rebuking Holder. That solid bloc of Democratic support for the contempt motion against an attorney general appointed by a Democratic president was a testament to the GOP’s ability to make Holder radioactive in some key swing districts and to the enduring political influence of the National Rifle Association in Washington.

Despite the vote,the Justice Department told House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio)on Friday that Holder’s decision to withhold some information from an ongoing congressional probe into Operation “Fast and Furious” didn’t constitute a crime and would not be prosecuted.

Republicans expect the vote to energize some of their most loyal supporters. But for the Democrats who voted with them, it was a chance to demonstrate independence from the party leadership and to keep the NRA attack ads at bay.

“They can use this as a stark reminder that they did not follow their party leader out the door,” said analyst Stuart Rothenberg of the nonpartisan Rothenberg Political Report. “These Democrats are trying to carve out records to let them prove their independence.”

But also, the NRA announced last week that it would include the lawmakers on its closely watched legislative score card. This week, the group turned over the homepage on its Web site to a graphic calling for NRA members to pressure lawmakers to vote for contempt.

“In my district, I hear a lot about Fast and Furious. It’s in the public discourse,” said Rep. Jason Altmire (D-Pa.), who represents a conservative district and supported contempt.

His own vote, he said, was motivated by a desire to see Holder release documents requested by Congress. But he said the NRA has successfully raised the visibility of the gun-running operation.

Republicans pursued contempt charges against Holder after the Obama administration withheld documents demanded by lawmakers as part of an investigation into Fast and Furious, a flawed federal program run by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives from 2009 to 2011.

Several Democrats who backed the resolution said they voted with Republicans because they believed Holder was thumbing his nose at the House’s oversight responsibility. “I feel Congress has a constitutional responsibility to exercise effective oversight regardless of which administration,” said Rep. Nick J. Rahall II (W.Va.), who stood quietly in a dark corner of the House floor Thursday as most of his Democratic colleagues walked out. “If there is nothing incriminating in those documents, I see no reason why they should not have been turned over.”

Rep. Leonard L. Boswell (Iowa), facing one of the toughest reelection contests this year, agreed that Holder should hand over the documents: “Just give it to them. Back the truck up and unload it.”

Read the complete story at the Washington Post

Romney vs. The Post on outsourcing

Before we talk about The Post news article that prompted Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign to demand a retraction and brought campaign officials to the newsroom this week for a tête-à-tête with senior editors, let’s talk about Bain Capital, the venture capital and asset-management firm that Romney started and built into a money-making machine.

Bain Capital didn’t and doesn’t make anything; it invests. It spots trends, looks at promising companies tapping into those trends, and then stakes its capital on improving a company, using Bain’s sector and financial experts to, say, help a company get over a capital shortage or help it expand.

One of the sectors that Bain invested in during the go-go 1990s, and not in a small way, was newly emerging companies that specialized in helping U.S. technology manufacturers outsource domestically, and move offshore, jobs that were not central to these manufacturers’ missions.

Microsoft is a good example. It wanted to focus on software development and not to be distracted by peripheral but necessary jobs such as assembling, packaging and testing its products, and setting up call centers to answer customer questions. At first, Microsoft outsourced these jobs to U.S. companies who put these back-office functions in rural, lower-wage areas of the United States. Later these outsourcing companies moved most of these jobs overseas.

The companies that Bain identified and invested in, while Romney was at the helm, and that were the subject of the disputed June 22 Post article, were these U.S. companies helping the Microsofts of the world to outsource and offshore.

These companies were small in the late 1990s, but they’re giants today. Stream Global Services, ModusLink, and StatsChipPac — present-day descendants of three companies that Bain heavily invested in during Romney’s era — are now among the biggest outsourcing companies in the world, with call centers, factories and facilities, mostly in Asia, but also across the globe, that support U.S. high-tech companies.

The mission of these companies was to help big U.S. companies outsource and offshore.

Does that mean that Mitt Romney shipped jobs overseas? Not exactly. Did Bain Capital precipitate the movement of U.S. jobs overseas? No, global forces far larger than any chief executive or U.S. president did that. But did Bain facilitate and feed the offshoring trend? I think there’s a good case for that.

The Post’s story does not say that Mitt Romney shipped jobs overseas, although it tiptoes right up to it. It says in its first sentence that, “Bain Capital invested in a series of firms that specialized in relocating jobs done by American workers to new facilities in low-wage countries like China and India.” And these companies were, as the story says, “pioneers in the practice of shipping work from the United States to overseas call centers and factories making computer components.”

It’s the “relocating jobs done by American workers” and the “shipping work from the United States” that gets tricky, and that Romney officials dispute.

The Romney campaign makes two points: First, no U.S. jobs were offshored by these companies during Romney’s tenure at Bain, which ended in 1999. And second, what happened with those companies after Romney left is irrelevant.

On the former point, the campaign makes a pretty good argument. They present a lot of data that show the outsourcing in the late 1990s in the companies was occurring on U.S. soil with U.S. workers, and that the foreign call centers and foreign factories set up by these companies were serving foreign customers — a call center in Japan using Japanese speakers to service Japanese buyers of U.S. software, for example.

Post reporter Tom Hamburger relied on these companies’ Security and Exchange Commission filings from the late 1990s — reports in which the companies outlined what they were doing and what they planned. And what did these outsourcing companies plan for the years ahead? More offshoring.

So Romney may not have done anything personally to ship U.S. jobs overseas before he left Bain in 1999, and the offshoring trend did accelerate after he left.

But Bain knowingly and far-sightedly made strategic investments, with Romney at the helm, in these pioneering outsourcing firms in the late 1990s, which grew into some of the largest outsourcing and offshoring companies in the world. And Romney and Bain shared in their profits while he was chief executive and after he left. Whether that’s good or bad depends on your politics.

Read the original story at the Washington Post

Romney’s critiques of Europe raise some questions

He has accused President Obama of ‘taking us down a path towards Europe’ with his economic tactics. But critics say Romney’s plans to shrink government could bring about comparable problems.

People in Madrid enter an unemployment registry office. Europe’s economic crisis has become a popular motif on the U.S. presidential campaign trail. (Alberto Di Lolli, Associated Press / June 30, 2012)

BRUNSWICK, Ohio — It is Republican tradition to portrayEurope as a socialist haven where high taxes and extravagant public spending on healthcare and retirement benefits show the folly of Democrats‘ big-government agenda.

But few have used the tactic as aggressively as Mitt Romney. For years, Republican crowds have applauded his scathing critique of Europe. As Europe’s fiscal turmoil has posed a growing threat to the global economy, Romney has made it one of his main lines of attack against President Obama.

“He’s taking us down a path towards Europe,” Romney told supporters at a Father’s Day breakfast in this Cleveland suburb. “He wants us to see a bigger and bigger government, with a healthcare system run by the government. He wants to see people paying more and more in taxes.”

The road to Europe, Romney said, leads to chronic high unemployment, low wage growth and massive debts that can trigger fiscal calamity.

But Romney’s presentation ignores aspects of the European crisis that critics see as an illustration of how his own plans to shrink government could threaten the sputtering U.S. recovery. In Greece, Spain, Ireland and other Eurozone nations, unemployment has soared amid steep government cutbacks under austerity measures championed by Germany.

In Britain, critics of Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron blame the country’s recent slide back into recession on his austerity agenda of scaling back government.

Obama has rejected austerity, calling instead for new federal spending on short-term stimulus measures, such as road construction and state aid to stop layoffs of teachers and other public workers, followed by long-term budget cuts to reduce the deficit once the economy recovers.

Facing diplomatic constraints, the president has avoided comparing European austerity to Romney’s economic plans.

Former President Clinton, however, has been blunt about drawing political lessons from Europe — saying that Romney’s vision of smaller government would kill jobs, both private and public.

“Who would have ever thought that the Republicans would embrace the austerity and jobless policies of what they used to derisively call old Europe?” Clinton told Obama campaign donors at a fundraising dinner with the president June 4 in New York City.

“I never thought I’d live to breathe and see, here they are, saying, ‘Let’s do the Eurozone’s economic policy. They got 11% unemployment. We can get up there if we work at it.’”

The U.S. unemployment rate, which peaked at 10% in October 2009, dropped to 8.1% in April, then bumped back up to 8.2% last month.

Romney’s digs at Europe are not just economic; they are also cultural. A December 2006 blueprint for his first presidential campaign, disclosed by the Boston Globe, featured Romney attacks on “European-style socialism” — aimed especially at France, even though Jacques Chirac, the French president at the time, was a conservative.

Foreseeing a race against Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton, the PowerPoint blueprint included Romney saying the European Union wanted to “drag America down to Europe’s standards,” adding: “That’s where Hillary and Dems would take us. Hillary = France.”

Romney has used attacks along those lines ever since. Having lived in France as a Mormon missionary for 2 1/2 years in the 1960s, Europe is delicate turf for Romney. As head of the organizing committee for the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, he spoke French for two minutes in a video to welcome volunteers. “Bonjour, je m’appelle Mitt Romney,” he began.

In March, Romney mocked Europeans at a rally in Wisconsin. He accused Obama of blocking oil, coal and natural gas projects, saying, “That’s of course so that you can have the applause of the Europeans for all of the wind and solar that you’re using.”

Other Republicans have tried to keep the debate over austerity from muddying the party’s political narrative on Europe.

In a recent speech at the Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, House Budget Committee ChairmanPaul D. Ryan of Wisconsin said Democrats were overspending with borrowed money, just as he said European nations had.

Ryan’s calls for deep tax and spending cuts, which Romney has embraced, are premised on a need for immediate steps to reduce debt — just as European austerity policies are. Yet Ryan distanced himself from the word “austerity” as he laid out his fiscal plans.

“We must avoid European-style austerity — harsh benefit cuts for current retirees and large tax increases that slow the economy to a crawl,” Ryan said, noting that tax increases, too, are part of Europe’s controversial debt reduction plans. “But too many in Washington are repeating Europe’s mistakes instead of learning from them.”

Like Ryan, Romney argues that tax cuts — and smaller government — will spur business investments that create jobs. When questioned on whether austerity might worsen unemployment, Romney has conceded that slashing government spending too fast would slow the economy.

But his emphasis remains on what he describes as the excessive spending and borrowing at the root of Europe’s crisis.

“You know how many people are unemployed in Spain?” Romney asked the crowd in Ohio. “Twenty-five percent of the population. That’s where European-style policies lead. I don’t want to transform America into Europe.”

Read the original story at LA Times

Democrats walk out to protest House contempt vote against Holder

House Democratic members make remarks during a news conference after a walkout in protest of a vote to hold Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr. in contempt of Congress. (Alex Wong / Getty Images / June28, 2012)

WASHINGTON — As the Republican-led House voted to hold Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr. in contempt on Thursday,Democrats led by the Congressional Black Caucus walked out in protest.

Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco), the minority leader, joined the walkout, moving down the steps of the Capitol arm in arm with Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), the legendary civil rights leader. In all, 108 Democrats did not vote.

“This is not about oversight, this is about overkill,” Rep.James E. Clyburn (D-S.C.) said. “There is something evil about using the processes of the House to further political aims.”

Pelosi said that “what is happening on the floor of the House is a misuse of power” and a distraction from her preferred focus of “jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs.”

“The Republicans have decided to go after this attorney general, and after him, who’s next?” she asked.

The House voted Thursday to hold Holder in contempt for his refusal to turn over documents related to Fast and Furious, the botched gun-walking operation along the southwestern border.

The vote was the first time a sitting Cabinet secretary had been held in contempt by the House.

Addressing reporters outside, Democratic leaders took turns attacking the Republican-led effort as a political stunt. They walked out as a show of force to oppose the GOP strategy, they said.

And at one point in his remarks, Democratic Whip Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) led his colleagues in an impromptu chant of “shame on you,” directed toward Republicans.

Calling the walkout a “magnificent nonviolent protest” against the Republican tactics, Lewis thanked his colleagues. He then called for a moment of silence.

Read the original story at LA Times

Mitt Romney’s Empty Obamacare-Repeal Rhetoric

The presumptive Republican nominee was quick to promise a repeal of the health-care act if elected president, but he proposed no alternative—throwing out only the usual Medi-scare, deficit-bomb, and ‘government takeover’ bromides.

Mitt Romney strode out to respond to the Supreme Court ruling behind a podium that read “Repeal and Replace.” His response focused on the first verb and ignored the second.

Right off the top, Romney delivered one of the tightest lines of his campaign: “What the court did not do on its last day in session, I will do on my first day if elected president of the United States. And that is, I will act to repeal Obamacare.”

It went downhill from there. Careful to repeat the word “Obamacare” some 18 times throughout his brief remarks, Romney was careless with the facts in his rebuttal. 

Maybe it is the inherent awkwardness of the fact that Romney’s major governmental accomplishment is an individual mandate-driven health-care plan, but his response was fear- rather than fact-based. This is consistent with the “attack and distract” strategy he has deployed when it comes to policy during his general-election campaign.

At least three claims Romney made in his speech deserve particular scrutiny:

First, Medi-scare: “Obamacare cuts Medicare—cuts Medicare by approximately $500 billion.” Medi-scare is a classic fear-mongering technique usually deployed by Democrats against Republicans, most vividly by the television ad depicting Paul Ryan pushing grandma off a cliff. The Affordable Care Act does try to rein in Medicare costs by slowing the rate of growth and ending the Medicare Advantage program, but that should be consistent with Republican values of increasing efficiency and reducing waste, fraud, and abuse. Moreover, the Ryan plan, which Romney endorses, would cut at least that amount but redirect the savings to reducing the deficit. Playing the Medi-scare card is low and discredited, but hearing it from a Republican nominee is more than a bit surreal.

Charles Dharapak / AP Photo

If you’re actually interested in governing as well as in winning, the impulse to scream “repeal” has to be followed by a plan to “replace.”

Second, the deficit-bomb card: “Obamacare adds trillions to our deficits and to our national debt.” Deficit and debt make up one of the Obama administration’s greatest weaknesses among independents. It is ultimately a form of generational theft. But the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office scored the ACA and determined that it actually would reduce the deficit by more than $100 billion in the next 10 years. I agree that government estimates almost always lowball the eventual costs, especially in the realm of entitlements, but the CBO scoring can’t just be ignored in favor of a partisan narrative. And of course, one of the arguments for health-care reform in general is that it will reduce costs in the long run with our aging population and improve American industry competitiveness.

Third, “Obamacare puts the federal government between you and your doctor.” This is always the emotional kicker, directly connected to the oft-repeated talking point that the ACA is a “government takeover of health care.” That would be scary indeed, but keep in mind the liberal critique of the Obama health-care reform is that it is too insurance-industry-friendly. After all, there was never even a public option, let alone the single-payer fantasy. The current system is far from perfect and far from free market. I happen to believe that third-party-payer problem is a big part of what drives up costs. But the Big Brother dystopian fantasy captured by this instant classic in the paranoid style typed by Ben Shapiro—“This is the greatest destruction of individual liberty since Dred Scott. This is the end of America as we know it. No exaggeration.”—is just that. A paranoid exaggeration.

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Other specters offered up by Romney include the estimate that an unspecified 20 million Americans will lose health insurance under the ACA and that the law represents a $500 million tax increase. (Keep in mind that the penalty/tax would only be paid by people who refuse to buy health insurance and therefore continue to freeload off the rest of us when they go to the emergency room for urgent care.)

Of course, this law will not solve all the problems in American medicine, and it almost certainly will create some new ones. But aspects of the bill—like coverage of children up to age 26 and stopping insurance companies from denying people insurance due to preexisting conditions—are justly popular and improvements over the status quo.

Republicans beyond Romney were also quick to hoist the “repeal” banner—calling a vote in the House on July 9. They believe this ruling could be a political benefit in terms of getting out the vote in November. The Romney campaign claimed that they raised more than a million dollars online in the hours after the decision. This could be the boost the Romney camp needs for the Tea Party to overlook the ironic inconsistency of the GOP nominee on this core issue. Republicans may very well get a base boost from this decision, reflected in both dollars and votes.

But if you’re actually interested in governing as well as in winning, the impulse to scream “repeal” has to be followed by a plan to “replace.” There are plenty of good Republican policy proposals on how to reduce costs and increase individual choice in health care, but Mitt Romney still needs to decide which specific policy plan he would enact. Unclaimed ideas range from medical-malpractice reform to expanding health savings accounts to allowing insurance purchases across state lines to generic-drug importation. There might even be some degree of bipartisan support for a few these reforms. Then again, the individual mandate once had bipartisan support as well.

Bottom line: simply making up stats for the sake of soundbites is beneath a serious nominee. There is an obligation to propose as well as oppose if you are running for president.

Read the original story at the Daily Beast

Romney making mistake on immigration

Mitt Romney (Google Image Search)

Washington, in common with Rome or Qom, periodically defers to the judgments of the impressively robed — the ex cathedra portion of the political season. The constitutional implications of the Supreme Court’s health care ruling will be debated until Election Day and dissected beyond it. But it is the court’s immigration decision — and Mitt Romney’s positioning on the issue — that throws the brightest light on the current presidential race. And the glare is not kind to the challenger.

Some have faulted Romney for a muddled response to the ruling — a tactical criticism that is largely unfair. It’s difficult to be clear about an ambiguous decision. (The constitutionality of Arizona’s “papers, please” law seems to depend on the politeness with which police deliver the “please” part.)

Romney aides also note that their candidate is uncomfortable with the whole enterprise of a president, or prospective president, cheering or jeering the actions of the Supreme Court in the manner of a pennant race. An admirable reticence.

Romney’s whole post-primary approach to immigration — recently summarized in his speech to the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials — has been careful and reasonable. He faults President Obama for election-year urgency on immigration policy after 3½ years of passivity. He highlights the scandal of double-digit Hispanic unemployment. He calls for easier family unification for permanent residents, green cards for those earning advanced degrees and a path to legal status in exchange for military service.

Considered individually, these messages and policies make sense. Taken together, they’re a strategic failure.

Romney is being careful and reasonable on immigration in the midst of a five-alarm political fire. Latino support for Republicans has been dropping since conservatives blocked President George W. Bush’s attempt at comprehensive immigration reform.

Romney accelerated the descent by pledging to veto the DREAM Act as president. His polling among Hispanics now bumps along at about 25 percent — a level that seems inconsistent with winning Colorado, Nevada, or perhaps even Florida.

It’s an uphill political task merely to match John McCain’s level of Latino enthusiasm. Attaining even this modest goal will require an outreach strategy bolder than “Keep Calm and Carry On.”

On immigration, President Obama’s boldness of late has been Napoleonic. The French emperor is hardly a model for a democratic statesman, given the coup of 18 Brumaire and all that. But he knew how to throw his strength at an opponent’s weak point at a decisive moment — which Obama did with his mini-DREAM Act. It was a questionable use of executive power.

But after weeks of political stumbles, Obama proved capable of an audacious stroke. And it’s not likely to be his last. A campaign proud of its micro-targeting has plenty of demographic groups left to motivate.

The contrast is instructive. The Obama campaign is often tactically weak — an exercise in endless speeches, overmatched spokesmen, blame-shifting and expectations-lowering. But the president is capable of ambitious repositioning.

The Romney campaign, in contrast, is focused and tactically competent. Romney is a strikingly better general election candidate than he was in the primaries. He was always implausible claiming to be the most conservative person in a room filled with tea party activists. He’s comfortable pressing the argument against Obama’s failed economic stewardship — admittedly an easier case to make.

But it should concern Republicans that the Romney campaign has shown little appetite for strategic boldness — the ability to shift an argument, exploit a weakness or appeal to an unexpected audience. Immigration is the most urgent example, but there are others.

What innovative policy has Romney announced to reassure suburban women? Or to drive home his appeal to Catholic voters, whom Obama seems intent on alienating? Or to convince working-class voters that he’s committed, not just to economic freedom, but to upward mobility?

This absence of strategic ambition may reflect a strategy — that the election should only be a referendum on the Obama economy. If so, it’s a serious mistake.

Very few coast to the presidency based on the failures of others. A challenger who doesn’t shape his own image will have it shaped for him. A candidate who doesn’t compete on his opponent’s home turf will often be struggling on his own.

In a stalled economy, in a period of public discontent, in a dead heat less than five months out, Romney is primed for a victory in November.

But it won’t come by default.

Read original story at Appleton Post Crescent

Did Republicans lose the health care battle but win the health care war?

Thursday was a banner day for President Obama and congressional Democrats as the Supreme Court validated the signature accomplishment of his first term in office.

But, even as Democrats celebrated, Republicans insisted that their rivals — and members of the media — couldn’t see the forest through the trees.

Jonathan Collegio, communications director for American Crossroads, a leading conservative outside group, called the ruling a “millstone” around the neck of any Democrat running for federal office this fall.

“The Supreme Court’s decision forces Obamacare to be litigated in the 2012 elections, and in virtually every case where Obamacare has been litigated by voters in an election, the law and its supporters lose,” added Collegio.

“This ruling is the kiss of death for the Democrat majority in the U.S . Senate as health care just became a tax increase on the middle class in one of the worst economies Americans have ever faced,” added longtime Republican strategist Chris LaCivita.

Rhetoric aside, there were other signs of blowback to the ruling within Republican ranks on Thursday — most notably the fact that former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney raised $2 million in the hours after the decision was announced.

And, Democrats running in swing — and Republican-leaning — states were very careful not to tout the ruling too loudly either.

“Today’s ruling doesn’t mean this responsible, constitutional law can’t be improved,” said Montana Sen.Jon Tester, who faces a serious challenge in his bid for a second term in November. Former state Attorney General Heidi Heitkamp, who is seeking an open seat in North Dakota, was similarly restrained on the ruling, saying: “Today’s decision is a chance to finally put two years of political posturing and gridlock on pause, and do what’s right for North Dakota.”

There’s little question that the law — at least in data over the last two years — has consistently been viewed more unfavorably than favorably.

Here’s that political reality in chart form:

“I think this is such a disaster for Democrats,” said National Republican Senatorial Committee executive director Rob Jesmer. “We can credibly say there is only one way to get rid of health care and that is legislatively.”

Not so fast, insist Democratic strategists who argue that Thursday’s ruling handed their party’s candidates a foolproof political response to Republican attacks.

“It’s the strongest possible validation for incumbents — a tremendous amount of political cover,” said Jim Jordan, a longtime operative and former executive director at the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. “Republicans in conservative states can debate with [Chief Justice] John Roberts all they want.”

While our initial readout in the aftermath of the Court’s decision was that this was a good thing for President Obama and, hence, a bad thing for Republicans, it’s a more intriguing question to debate whether downballot Democrats could pay the price for the Administration’s victory on the health care issue.

It’s also possible that what the political impact looks like today isn’t what it will look like in November. Remember back in October 2002 it was widely assumed that the “safe” political vote for Democrats with national ambitions was in support of the use of force resolution against Iraq. Six years later, it can be argued that that single vote cost Hillary Clinton the Democratic nomination for president. (Without that vote, does Barack Obama have a logical foothold to reconsider his past denials of interest in running for president?)

Things aren’t always what they first appear to be in politics. And sometimes they are exactly as they seem to be. That uncertainty is what makes it interesting.

Read original story at Washington Post

New Romney ad uses Hillary Clinton to say ‘Shame on you’

A new ad from former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney uses a clip of Hillary Clinton to say “Shame on you, Barack Obama.”

The ad starts with quotes from the Post’s Factchecker deeming a recent anti-Romney ad misleading, unfair and untrue. That ad attacked Romney as an outsourcer. It came out before the recent Washington Post article on Romney’s record at Bain Capital, relying instead on the then-governor’s veto of a bill that would have barred Massachusetts from contracting with companies that outsourced.

“But that’s Barack Obama,” the narrator says. “He also attacked Hillary Clinton with vicious lies.”

The ad then cuts to a video clip from 2008, when Clinton attacked her then-rival Obama for mailers claiming she called the North American Free Trade Agreement a “boon” for the economy. (Clinton never actually used that word). “Shame on you, Barack Obama,” Clinton says in the footage.

The Romney campaign has tried to drive a wedge between Obama and the Clintons before, trying to peel off voters who have fond feelings towards the last Democratic president. Given that Hillary Clinton is now Obama’s Secretary of State, it seems likely that someone in her circle will respond.

Read original story at Washington Post