Dear Daughter

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Is Mitt Romney “Evil?”

Mother Jones, an extreme left wing website that solicits tax deductible contributions to sustain itself, posted a series of videos of Mitt Romney speaking at a fundraiser in the Florida home of private equity manager Marc Leder this past May.

In the first video, Romney speaks candidly about the challenge he faces in the general election.  He notes that Obama starts out with a significant advantage…the 47% of Americans who don’t pay taxes and , he says, think health care, food and housing should be provided to them as a government funded entitlement.  Romney notes that his challenge is to win over the 5% of Independent voters who like Obama personally but are disappointed with his performance.

Is this “evil”?

Steven Goldstein, the CEO of another non-profit that solicits tax deductible contributions, the same sex marriage advocates Garden State Equality thinks so. I’d link you to Garden State Equality’s website, but Google says the site is dangerous to your computer.  Really.  On his facebook page Goldstein characterises Romney as evil.  He says Romney’s remarks are “one of the most hateful speeches in U.S. Presidential candidate history.”

Read the rest of this entry »

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Quinnipiac: In New Jersey, Obama leads Romney by 7%, Mendendez leads Kyrillos by 10%

Barack Obama leads Mitt Romney for President, 51%-44%, and Bob Mendendez leads Joe Kyrillos for U.S. Senate, 50%-40% among likely New Jersey voters, according to a Quinnipiac poll released this morning.

Quinnipiac says that this is their first likely voter survey and it can’t be compared to eariler polls of registered voters. The university surveyed 1471 likely voters between August 27 and September 2. They did not disclose the partisan breakdown of those responding to the survey which they say has a margin of errror of +/-2.6%.

The methodology of the Quinnipiac poll differs from that of the internal poll released yesterday by the Kyrillos campaign in that Quinnipiac randomly calls phone numbers, land lines and cells, and the respondants self identify as voters or likely voters by the way they answer the questions.   The Kyrillos pollster called a data base of known voters.  Kyrillos’s poll showed him trailing Menendez by 4% with 65 days to go before the election.

“Our poll shows we are within 4 points of Bob Menendez and gaining and the Quinnipiac University poll shows positive movement as well,” said Kyrillos Campaign Manager Chapin Fay.  “That’s because Joe Kyrillos has a plan to create jobs and opportunity for New Jersey families, while Bob Menendez is proposing more of the same- more debt, more spending and more job killing regulations.”

Menendez 2010 Communications Director Paul Brubaker still hasn’t called me back from yesterday when I asked him to comment on the Kyrillos poll.

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National #EmptyChairDay Highlights

The joke’s on President Obama as Americans have responded to his This Seat’s Taken tweet with an enormous show of support for Clint Eastwood’s appearance at the Republican National Covention on twitter and facebook.

Go to #EmptyChairDay to see the fun on twitter.

On facebook, Rosa Leonetti of Smart Girl Politics has created a Empty Chair Profile Picture event asking people to change their profile avatar to an empty chair picture for the duration of the Democratic National Convention.

So far the left stream media, which was all over the GOP and mocking Eastwood on Friday after the Republican convention, is largely ignoring the grassroots social media outburst.

Here are some highlights:

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The next president of the United States

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Mitt Romney Introduction

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America Meets Mitt Romney Tonight

You don’t know who Mitt Romney is.  Tonight you can find out.   If you have not been watching the Republican National Convention, you want to tonight.

The RNC has been sending the prepared remarks of all the speakers to MMM.  They are embargoed until delivery so I can’t publish them yet, but I can tell you that tonight’s speakers are special.  They’ve seen a side a Mitt Romney you want to know.

The rap on Romney is that he is stiff.  A heartless executive. That he is awkward and reserved in revealing himself. That he doesn’t connect with people.

I’m a political junkie.  I don’t recall any politician revealing themselves the way Mitt Romney will be revealed tonight, through the voices of people he’s connected with.

You will hear from people that Romney was a ministier to while pastor of his church.  You’ll hear from his assistant pastor.  You’ll hear from his career “wing-man.”  You’ll hear from the founder of Staples.  You’ll hear from an employee of a company that Mitt Romney turned around.  You’ll hear from the woman who recruited Romney to run for governor of Massachusetts.  You’ll meet the liberal Democrat who was his Secretary of Workforce Development.

Watch tonight.

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Switchers

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Kyrillos jumps into the Rape and Abortion fray

Missouri Congressman Todd Akin, a GOP candidate for U.S. Senate, set off a national uproar and likely ended his poltical career with his comments comments about rape and abortion over the weekend when he said pregancy from “legitimate rape” was rare and that women’s body have a natural way of “shutting that whole thing down,” during an interview on a St. Louis Fox afflilate wherein he was asked about his views on abortion in the case of rape.

“From what I understand from doctors, that’s really rare,” said Akin said of pregnancy caused by rape. “If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down. But let’s assume maybe that didn’t work or something. I think there should be some punishment, but the punishment ought to be on the rapist.”
 

Akin issued an apology of sorts on facebook later in the day on Sunday and told Mike Huckabee on the radio that he should have said “forcible rape.”

President Barack Obama called Akin’s comments offensive during his press conference this afternoon.

GOP Presidential hopeful Mitt Romney distanced himself from Akin, calling the congressman’s remarks “insulting, inexcusable and frankly wrong,” according to the Washington Post.

Governor Chris Christie called Akin’s comments “asinine” and “ridiculous” during his press conference in Asbury Park this afternoon, according to Poltickernj.

In a press release, New Jersey GOP Senate nominee Joe Kyrillos took his criticism of Akin one step further than his fellow Republicans by addressing the congressman’s views on abortion :

“Like many I am outraged by Representative Todd Akin’s remarks regarding pregnancy and ‘legitimate rape’ – they have no place in our public discourse. But beyond my concern for our national public discourse, I am saddened and disappointed as a husband and a father to a 10 year old daughter. Not only are Representative Akin’s comments about a horrific act of violence wrong and inappropriate, he and I disagree on the issue of abortion, generally.”
(emphasis added)

Neither Kyrillos nor his campaign have responded to requests for a clarification on what he means by his “general” disagreement with Akin over abortion. 

U.S. Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell is suggestting that Akin withdrawl his Senate candidacy by the 5pm Tuesday deadline, according to the LA Times. 

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Christie will deliver keynote address at GOP convention

Booker still on the Dems back bench

Governor Chris Christie will deliver the keynote address at the Republican National Convention.  The story, first reported by Save Jersey last week, was released to the national media this morning.

Christie told USA Today:

“I’ll try to tell some very direct and hard truths to people in the country  about the trouble that we’re in and the fact that fixing those problems is not  going to be easy for any of them,” Christie told USA Today in an interview  announcing his speech. He said he will describe his experiences in New Jersey as  evidence that “the American people are ready to confront those problems head-on  and endure some sacrifice.”

New Jersey’s other political rock star, Newark Mayor Cory Booker is still in Obama’s doghouse.  Despite the president’s personal assurance to Booker that his “Meet the Press” commentary calling Obama’s anti-Romney ads “nauseating” was “small potatoes,” the mayor will not have a headlining role at the Democratic National Convention.

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