Between Chandeliers, Fund-Raising |
Our colleagues in the Home section look at the step-by-step process that ABC Carpet & Home, an upscale home decorations store in New York City, undertook to set up for a fund-raiser for President Obama.
Posts published in February, 2012
Romney on a Nuclear Iran, and Love
By Ashley Parker
Yana Paskova for The New York TimesMitt Romney held a rare town hall meeting at Capital University in Bexley, Ohio, on Wednesday.BEXLEY, Ohio — After the New Hampshire primary, where question-and-answer sessions with voters and retail politics are an inextricable part of winning the state, Mitt Romney’s campaign began slowly cutting back on the number of town halls he held.
But he held one Wednesday afternoon in Ohio, holding forth on a variety of topics, from foreign policy to health care. The event revealed a more personal side of the candidate when a young girl asked how he would most like to be remembered.
“Well, around my home, I like to be known as having been a very good father,” Mr. Romney said. “If I am lucky enough to become president of the United States, there is a legacy I also would like to leave, and that would be that I helped the American people with good jobs and with a bright and prosperous future. I want people to know that I have passion for America and that I made America stronger and made our future brighter.”
A few other topics Mr. Romney covered during his 31-minute question-and-answer session with Ohio voters, as well his own introductory remarks:
On his top foreign policy priority:
“Yeah, No. 1 objective is keeping Iran from having a nuclear weapon. The greatest threat to America Read more…
Catholic Vote Eludes Santorum in Michigan
By David LeonhardtIt still is not clear whether Rick Santorum’s comments on religion in public life cost him a significant number of Roman Catholic votes in the Michigan and Arizona primaries.
The conventional wisdom seems to be that the comments did hurt him. Even Mr. Santorum understood that he might have made a mistake by saying last weekend that he wanted to “throw up” after reading John F. Kennedy’s 1960 speech on the separation of church and state. On Tuesday, Mr. Santorum said he regretted his choice of words.
In the Michigan primary, Mr. Santorum, who is Catholic, lost the Catholic vote to Mitt Romney, who is Mormon, 44 percent to 37 percent, according to exit polls. Because the two were virtually tied among Protestants, the Catholic vote effectively provided Mr. Romney with his margin of victory.
But the full story is not quite as simple as the basic timeline.
Mr. Santorum’s relative performance among Catholics was not so different in Michigan than it was in other early states, according to exit polls. His 37 percent of the Catholic vote was nearly identical to his 38 percent of the total vote. In Arizona, which also voted Tuesday, Mr. Santorum did better among Catholics (34 percent of the vote) than over all (27 percent).
That combination is similar to his relative performance among Catholics in the other early states with exit or entrance polls. In South Carolina, Florida and Nevada, his share among Catholics and his overall vote share were close enough to be within the polls’ margin of sampling error.
He received 17 percent of the total vote in South Carolina and 15 percent of the Catholic vote. In Florida, he received 13 percent over all and 10 percent of Catholics. In Nevada, he received 10 percent overall and 13 percent of the Catholic vote.
Obviously, his vote total in these states, both among Catholics and all voters, was considerably lower than in Michigan and Arizona, because he was not yet the clear alternative to Mr. Romney. That change makes these comparisons imperfect. But the basic message seems clear: Mr. Santorum has performed similarly among Catholics and non-Catholics, both before and after the hubbub over his remarks about Mr. Kennedy.
So why hasn’t Mr. Santorum performed better among Catholics?
For one thing, his socially conservative message may play better with evangelical Protestants than any other group. For another, Catholics on average are more affluent than Protestants, and more affluent Republican primary voters have favored Mr. Romney over Mr. Santorum, independent of their religion.
A tip of the hat to Blake Hounshell of Foreign Policy, whose Twitter message on this subject caused us to look at the numbers. Ed Kilgore has also posted some thoughts about this subject at Washington Monthly.
The Obama Camp vs. the Koch Brothers
By Jackie Calmes“They’re obsessed,” Jim Messina, President Obama’s campaign manager, recently wrote of the billionaire Koch brothers and their attacks on the president, in a fund-raising letter to supporters. The same might be said of both sides after Mr. Messina on Wednesday lobbed another anti-Koch rocket, this one to a Koch Industries company executive.
Mr. Messina challenged Philip Ellender, Koch’s president for government and public affairs, to see to it that the conservative anti-Obama group Americans for Prosperity discloses its donors — to prove Koch’s contention that it is financed by tens of thousands of grass-roots Americans, not a few oilmen and special interests, as the Obama campaign has suggested. Read more…
Bob Kerrey Jumps Into Senate Race
By Jennifer SteinhauerFormer Senator Bob Kerrey will run for his old seat in Nebraska again.
No, really.
After saying this month that he would stay in New York City rather than take a run at the seat being vacated by Senator Ben Nelson, who is retiring, Mr. Kerrey told Democrats on Capitol Hill this week that he had changed his mind. Then, he said maybe, but not for sure. He sealed the deal on Wednesday in Omaha where he filed his official papers to run, a day before the state’s deadline.
Mr. Kerrey, who recently registered to vote in the state, indicated that he had been lured into the race in the state he has not run in since 1994 out of a sense of duty to his party and state.
“Doing things the conventional way has never been my strong suit,” Mr. Kerrey said in a prepared statement. “I came to realize that my previous decision was the easy one, not the right one. My commitment to serve Nebraska and America, and to be part of the debate about the challenges we face was too strong to dismiss. My family supports this decision 100 percent. I look forward to seeing you in the coming weeks. We have a lot of work to do.” Read more…
Santorum’s Persistent Google Problem
By Noam CohenThere was good news and bad news this week for Rick Santorum, and his “Google problem.”
For many years now, Mr. Santorum has been tagged on the Internet by a crude, made-up definition for “Santorum” — all part of a scheme devised by the writer and editor Dan Savage to protest Mr. Santorum’s comments in 2003 comparing gay sex to “man on dog” sex.
Mr. Savage created a Web site to spread the word about his new definition, and soon enough that site was among the top results whenever a user searched “Santorum” on Google, or the Bing search engine. Until around Monday, that is.
Now, after Google introduced 40 changes to its search algorithm, Mr. Savage’s site has been pushed down in the results. (Danny Sullivan, whose blog Search Engine Land has covered the twists and turns of Mr. Santorum’s online fate, has some very educated speculation about what changes at Google were most relevant.)
That is the good news for Mr. Santorum, who, in the past, has questioned why Google can’t change the results.
The bad news? The new top result is the same Savage definition, appearing on the Web site Urban Dictionary. And at Bing, Mr. Savage’s site is still at the top of the results.
Despite Vote, Santorum Claims Victory in Michigan
By Trip Gabriel
Mark Humphrey/Associated PressRick Santorum poses for a picture with Gary Goldberg after signing an autograph at Temple Baptist church in Powell, Tenn.POWELL, Tenn. — Mitt Romney may have won the vote count in Michigan, but a feisty Rick Santorum claimed victory on Wednesday, pointing to the narrowness of the 32,000-vote margin, a gap of three percentage points, despite Mr. Romney’s home-field advantage and the large sums he and his allies spent.
“This was a huge win for us, let’s play it the way it is,’’ Mr. Santorum said in a rebuke to reporters who framed the results as a setback. “Don’t give Romney all the spin.’’
“We went into his backyard,’’ he said. “He spent a fortune, money he had no intention of spending, and we came out of there with the same number of delegates he does. We are in great shape.’’
The Santorum campaign believes it will walk away from Michigan with 15 delegates to the national convention, the same as Mr. Romney. A senior strategist for Mr. Santorum, John Brabender, said “it is our understanding’’ that each candidate carried seven Congressional Districts, giving them 14 delegates apiece, and the overall vote was so close that each would be awarded one at-large delegate. Those results are not yet official.
Mr. Santorum said he felt better and better as Tuesday night wore on and “we kept seeing, ‘Hey, we won this district and we won that district.’ ’’
By Feb. 7. Mr. Santorum said, 100,000 people had cast early ballots in Michigan, and “we lost those votes by a landslide.’’ But after he won Colorado, Minnesota and Missouri, he said, the tide began to turn for him in Michigan.
Mr. Santorum said he was well positioned for the next round of voting on March 6, Super Tuesday. He has a busy itinerary for the next six days, beginning here in Tennessee and then heading to Washington State and Ohio, with possible excursions to Read more…
Caucus Video: Romney Regains Traction
By Ben Werschkul and Zena Barakat
The Caucus | Romney Regains Traction
February 29, 2012 — The morning after winning the Michigan and Arizona primaries, Mitt Romney turned his attention to Ohio.
By Ben Werschkul and Zena Barakat on Publish Date February 29, 2012.The morning after winning the Michigan and Arizona primaries, Mitt Romney turned his attention to Ohio. Ashley Parker reports.
Santorum Campaign Says It’s a Tie (in Delegate Count) in Michigan
By Katharine Q. SeelyeGRAND RAPIDS, Mich. – Not so fast, says Rick Santorum.
Mitt Romney may have won the popular vote in the Michigan primary on Tuesday, but Mr. Santorum’s campaign says that he has won just as many delegates as Mr. Romney.
As of Wednesday morning, the Santorum campaign said, both candidates had won seven delegates, out of possible 30, which John Brabender, Mr Santorum’s senior strategist, cast as “disaster” for Mr. Romney, considering that Mr. Romney grew up in Michigan and outspent Mr. Santorum on television ads.
On a conference call with reporters, Mr. Brabender first said that the Michigan secretary of state had determined the tie, but upon questioning, he stepped back a bit and said, “I am basing this on anecdotal and empirical data.” He said he would not vouch for the accuracy of it, but added, “It’s highly likely that Michigan will end up being in a tie, based upon the data as we know it right now.”
Mr. Brabender added, “If we can do this well in Mitt Romney’s home state, we clearly think this bodes well for Super Tuesday.”
Regardless of the final results in the Michigan primary, Mr. Romney won the most delegates on Tuesday. He easily took the Arizona primary, and with that victory, collected all of the state’s 29 delegates.
In Ohio, Romney Pivots His Attention to Obama
By Ashley Parker
Yana Paskova for The New York TimesMitt Romney and his wife, Ann, arriving at a rally at American Posts in Toledo, Ohio.TOLEDO, Ohio — When word finally came down that Mitt Romney had won the Arizona and Michigan primaries on Tuesday night, Mr. Romney thanked the crowd and his supporters, acknowledged that it had been a disconcertingly close race, and pivoted quickly to attacking President Obama. On Wednesday morning, the same strategy was on display in Ohio.
Speaking to a modest-sized group of less than 100 people at fence post manufacturing company here, Mr. Romney briefly acknowledged his primary victories before laying into Mr. Obama.
“It was a big night last night for me,” Mr. Romney said. “I was very pleased, very good news — Arizona, and Michigan, right next door. And interestingly the people who said that the economy and jobs were their No. 1 issue, they voted for me overwhelmingly.”
He referred to his rivals fleetingly, and not by name, saying only that while he had private-sector experience, the other men were all “Washington insiders” who would not have as good a chance of beating Mr. Obama in November.
In addition to the president, Mr. Romney reserved some of his harshest criticism for China, a country he has previously taken a hardline stance against, but has not brought up recently.
“How is it China’s been so successful in taking away our jobs? Well, let me tell you how — by cheating,” said Mr. Romney, who called China a “currency manipulator. “When you hold down your currency artificially, it makes your products artificially less expensive, and by virtue of doing that and holding down their prices, they are able to put American businesses out of business, and kill American jobs.”
He said that China had pushed many American fence post manufacturers out of business, but congratulated American Posts, where he was speaking, for being able to hold onto its share of the market.
“They also steal our designs and our patents and our brand names and our know-how,” Mr. Romney continued. “And on that basis they’re able to take jobs. And they hack into our computers — corporate computers and government computers — and steal as well.”
Watching Mr. Romney’s pitch from the back of the room was Samuel Wurzelbacher, who is running for Congress in Ohio’s Ninth District, and is perhaps better known as “Joe the Plumber.” Though he has not endorsed any Republican for president and has no plans to do so, he said he makes a point of seeing as many candidates as possible when they pass through town, and had also seen Rick Santorum speak recently.
“They like to pretend they’re blue collar when they up there,” Mr. Wurzelbacher said, gesturing to the stage Mr. Romney had just vacated. “But that’s not specific to Mitt, that’s specific to all politicians.”
When asked about Mr. Romney’s trouble connecting with voters, including some recent comments that seemed to underscore his wealthy background, Mr. Wurzelbacher said, “I mean, it’s who you hang out with.”
“I go hunting and fishing and like outdoorsmen, so that’s the kind of people I know and can connect with,” he said. “To me, hanging out in a roomful of bankers wouldn’t work for me.”
Dreier Opts Out of Re-Election Bid
By Jennifer SteinhauerAnother senior House member from California, drawn into a new district where he would have faced difficulties being re-elected, is calling it a day.
Representative David Dreier, the Republican chairman of the House Rules committee, announced his resignation on the floor of the House on Wednesday, adding to the increasingly long list of lawmakers from the California delegation who have announced retirements or have been drawn into difficult primaries.
“I take the unusual step of announcing this from the floor of Congress for two reasons,” said Mr. Dreier, who was first elected in 1980. “First, this is where my fellow Californians sent me to represent them. Second, I am a proud institutionalist, and I believe that this institution is as great as it has ever been.”
His retirement was not unexpected. Under the new California Congressional district maps, Mr. Dreier, whose current district contains 20 communities spanning across parts of the San Gabriel Valley in Los Angeles and San Bernardino County, is now drawn into a Democratic-majority district.
Mr. Dreier is the seventh retirement in the current California delegation. Republicans include Jerry Lewis, the dean of the House Republican delegation, Elton Gallegly and Wally Herger, all very senior members, and the Democrats who have announced their retirements include Representatives Lynn Woolsey, Dennis A. Cardoza and Bob Filner.
“This work is far from over, and I intend to spend this year working toward greater bipartisan progress,” Mr. Dreier said.
Alluding to the deep partisanship that is the hallmark of the 112th Congress, he added: “I have always believed that Republicans and Democrats alike serve the American people best when we find ways to build bipartisan consensus. The framers of our Constitution envisioned Congress as a forum for a great clash of ideas. We all have different, sometimes radically different, views of how to build a better and stronger America.”
A Conversation with Noam Scheiber |
David Leonhardt interviews Noam Scheiber, a senior editor of The New Republic, and the author of the just-published book “The Escape Artists,” which argues that the Obama administration “fumbled the recovery.” Their conversation, conducted by e-mail, appears on the Economix blog. Read more » (0)
Caucus Video: Romney’s Wins
By Ben Werschkul
The Caucus | Two Wins for Romney
Jim Rutenberg reports from Michigan on two big wins for Mitt Romney in Michigan and Arizona. He also spoke with former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin about Mr. Romney and Tea Party voters.
By Ben Werschkul and Channon Hodge on Publish Date February 29, 2012.Jim Rutenberg reports from Michigan on Mitt Romney’s two big wins. Also, former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin called to talk about Mr. Romney’s relationship with tea party voters.
The Early Word: Unsettled
By Jada F. SmithToday’s Times
- Mitt Romney won the Arizona primary on Tuesday, but the tight race with Rick Santorum in the Michigan primary offered evidence that the Republican presidential nominating contest is far from settled, Jeff Zeleny reports.
- Citing excessive partisanship and a dispiriting political environment, Senator Olympia J. Snowe, a three-term Republican from Maine, said Tuesday that she would not run for re-election in November, Jennifer Steinhauer reports. The surprise decision delivered a potential blow to Republicans; Ms. Snowe was considered one of their safer incumbents.
- President Obama turned up the oratory on Tuesday in an energetic speech before the United Auto Workers conference, channeling his 2008 campaign persona to remind Michigan that he helped save the auto industry while one of his unnamed competitors was calling for the leading car companies to seek bankruptcy, Helene Cooper writes.
- Jia Hou, the campaign treasurer for Comptroller John C. Liu of New York City, is accused of helping to funnel illegal campaign money to Mr. Liu by using straw, or fake, donors, David W. Chen and Benjamin Weiser report. Ms. Hou’s charges of fraud and obstruction of justice bring the expanding federal investigation into the comptroller’s fundraising practices inside Mr. Liu’s inner circle for the first time.
- Despite divisions in the Republican Party over the wisdom of pressing for a vote at this time, the Senate on Tuesday headed toward a showdown over President Obama’s policy requiring health insurance coverage of contraceptives for women, Robert Pear reports. Senate Republican leaders sought an immediate vote to overturn the president’s policy, but other Republicans said the party had other priorities.
Around the Web
- The National Football League will play a game on a Wednesday for the first time in more than 60 years to avoid a conflict with President Obama’s speech at the Democratic National Convention the next night, The Associated Press reports.
Happening in Washington
- President Obama and Michelle Obama will host a dinner at the White House to honor members of the military who served in Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation New Dawn. The families of the service members will also be attending.
Breaking Down Romney’s Support
By David R. JonesMitt Romney’s big victory in Arizona and his strong showing in Michigan were both largely fueled by the same coalition of voters that have consistently expressed their support for Mr. Romney in exit polls throughout the primary season. In particular, Mr. Romney once again did best among older voters, better educated voters and higher income voters.
In terms of issues, Mr. Romney won in both states by large margins among voters who felt that the economy was the most important issue and among those who felt the budget deficit was the most important issue.
Voters who were looking primarily for a candidate who can beat President Obama also gravitated to Mr. Romney, as did those who said experience was the most important candidate quality.
Mr. Romney, who has had to answer questions about his positions on abortion, also did much better than his opponents among voters who would approve of abortion being legal in most or all cases.
In recent weeks, Mr. Romney has been less of a heavy favorite than he had been before the voting started in January, but he continues to do best among voters who say they made up their minds before January.
Arizona Mormons Provide an Edge
Mr. Romney polled slightly better overall in Arizona than in Michigan, but the exit polls reveal that an important source of his advantage in Arizona may have been the state’s Mormon population. Read more…