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LAS VEGAS (AP & staff) — Herman Cain has risen fast. Now the question is: Will he fall? As Republican presidential hopefuls were preparing for a debate here Tuesday night, Cain has been facing more and more intense scrutiny as his poll numbers have jumped upward. Now that he’s in the national spotlight, he’s already had to apologize for comments he made over the weekend calling for an electric fence on the Southern border with Mexico. At a campaign stop Monday in Arizona, Cain appeared with Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, an aggressive anti-immigration proponent. “It was a joke,” Cain said emphatically during a news conference. “I apologize if I offended anyone. Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea culpa.” Cain told an audience in Tennessee on Saturday that the fence is “going to be electrified. And there is going to be a sign on the other side that says, ‘It will kill you.’” Immigration already has flared on the campaign trail — and contributed to the sinking of another fast-rising GOP candidate. Texas Gov. Rick Perry has struggled to explain why he signed a law giving in-state tuition breaks to illegal immigrants at Texas universities. When he first entered the race, he was at or near the top of many national polls. He’s fallen back since, and Cain has emerged as the more popular alternative to former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. Also participating in Tuesday’s debate are Romney, Perry, Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann, Texas Rep. Ron Paul, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich. Missing is former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman, who’s boycotting the Nevada caucuses in defense of New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation primary. Nevada has scheduled its contest for Jan. 14, and Republican officials are pressuring Romney and other Republicans to join Huntsman’s boycott if the state refuses to hold the caucuses later in January. Also potentially at issue on Tuesday is the foreclosure crisis. So far, it’s been almost forgotten on the campaign trail, but the candidates will probably have little choice but to address it. Nevada has the nation’s highest unemployment rate, a statistic that’s driving the highest foreclosure rate in the nation. It’s the root of the economic crisis, but it barely has been discussed as issues like immigration and vaccines for children have dominated the GOP primary.
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NEW YORK (AP & staff) — Ann Romney is a smiling presence at her husband’s side. Gloria Cain doesn’t campaign at all. And Anita Perry raised eyebrows with her claim that her husband had been “brutalized” for his faith. The wives — and one husband — of the 2012 presidential contenders are still learning to manage the unforgiving scrutiny that comes with their role. A spouse can be a priceless asset, validating and humanizing the candidate in voters’ eyes. But an absent spouse can raise questions, and a provocative comment from a spouse can wound the candidate or pull him or her off message at a critical juncture. That’s what happened to Texas Gov. Rick Perry after his wife spoke to voters at North Greenville University in South Carolina a day before Perry was to unveil his energy policy. Intense and weepy at times, Anita Perry said her husband had come under withering assault in part because of his evangelical Christian faith. “It’s been a rough month,” she said in remarks recorded by NBC News. “We have been brutalized and beaten up and chewed up in the press. We are being brutalized by our opponents and our own party. So much of that is, I think they look at him — because of his faith.” Rick Perry defended his wife when pressed on whether he agreed with her assertion. But it was unquestionably a distraction for Perry, who had tried to restore his focus on the economy after a month of bad debate performances and slipping poll numbers. “We look at the spouse to give us some clue as to the character of the candidate,” said Myra Gutin, a Rider University communications professor who studies first ladies. “He or she has to be circumspect, to avoid controversy as much as possible. But it’s very hard for spouses to watch their significant other go through a hard time, so they sometimes speak out about it.” Emotional outbursts have bedeviled many candidates’ spouses over the years. Former President Bill Clinton’s finger-wagging bursts of anger drew plenty of attention when he campaigned for Hillary Rodham Clinton in the 2008 Democratic primary campaign against Barack Obama. And Obama’s wife, Michelle, came under withering criticism that year when she told a campaign audience, “for the first time in my adult life I am proud of my country.” The outcry over Michelle Obama’s comment led to [...]
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WASHINGTON (AP & staff) — Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton insists she’s committed to returning to private life after President Barack Obama’s first term and says “I think it’s time for others to step up.” Clinton has said previously that she didn’t plan to remain in government after next year’s election. And in an NBC interview broadcast on the “Today” show Monday, she stresses once more that she won’t run for president again. The secretary declares, “No, no.” Clinton says people will just have to “watch and wait” to see what she does next, but she says that a return to writing and teaching is a high priority. On international diplomacy, Clinton tells the network that “we cannot abdicate leadership around the world because when we do, it comes back to bite us.”
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HENDERSON, Nev. (AP & staff) — Look no further than Nevada — and this swing voting city — to understand why President Barack Obama may not win re-election next fall. The state’s official unemployment has grown to 13.4 percent, well above the national average, in recent months. The state has the highest foreclosure rate and record bankruptcies. And shuttered casinos collect dust along the glittering Las Vegas Strip that’s usually a robust artery of jobs. Labor economists looking the state’s labor force participation rates say the official rate is absolute nonsense designed to make the government look good – they say the actual rate of unemployment in Nevada is well in excess of 20 percent. “Obama’s hope hasn’t done anything,” grouses Larry James, a security guard who moved here from Philadelphia for work a decade ago, back when the state was booming. It’s so bad here that even the president’s fans worry about the country firing him — and Nevadans helping. “I’m afraid for Obama,” frets Linda Overby. The state is filled with people like Overby and her husband, who lost their union painting jobs and began paying their mortgage with unemployment checks in April. They’d like to look for work elsewhere but they are “underwater” — they owe more for their mortgage than what their home is worth. The value has dropped from $330,000 to $88,000 in six years. And her household income has declined from $2,000 to $650 a week. Such statistics, comments and stories shed light on why Nevada is one of the Republican Party’s targets to pick up come November 2012 — and why Democrats are worried. It also explains why Nevada is abuzz in national political activity this week. Leaders of both major political parties are descending on the state to plot strategy and rally activists as they gird for the tough presidential election year ahead in a state that helped elect Bill Clinton twice, George W. Bush twice and then went for Obama by a comfortable 12 percentage point margin in 2008. Democratic luminaries and lawmakers spent much of the weekend organizing their Project New West summit that opened Sunday, a conference dedicated to winning 2012. Republican presidential candidates were in town for a Tuesday night GOP primary debate. Many of them were bookending the debate with retail appearances and speeches at the Western Republican Leadership Conference in the state that’s slated to hold its nominating [...]
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WASHINGTON (AP and Staff) — President Barack Obama is targeting vital North Carolina and Virginia this week, as he kicks off a three-day bus tour that is as much about campaigning for his jobs bill as it is shoring up support in two southern states he wrested from Republican control four years ago. Obama’s 2008 victories in North Carolina and Virginia were due in large part to the states’ changing demographics and his campaign’s ability to boost voter turnout among young people and African-Americans. But nearly three years after his historic election, the president’s approval ratings in both states are sagging, in line with the national trend. A Quinnipiac University poll out earlier this month put Obama’s approval rating in Virginia at 45 percent, with 52 percent disapproving. The same poll showed 83 percent of Virginians were dissatisfied with the direction of the country. In North Carolina, Obama has a 42 percent approval rating, according to an Elon University poll conducted this month. Most national polls put Obama’s approval rating in the mid- to low-forties. The president’s bus tour comes as the battle in Washington over his jobs plan enters a new phase. While Obama had demanded lawmakers pass the $447 billion measure in its entirety, Senate Republicans have blocked those efforts, leaving the president and his Democratic allies to fight for the bill’s proposals piece by piece. Since announcing his plan for putting Americans back to work last month, Obama has been traveling the country trying to build public support for his initiatives. The president’s itinerary has focused heavily on swing states, underscoring the degree to which what happens with his job bill is linked to his re-election prospects. Obama starts his bus tour with a speech in Asheville, N.C., Monday morning and he will speak again later that day at a high school in Millers Creek, N.C. He’ll also speak Tuesday at a community college in Jamestown, N.C., and make stops in the southern Virginia cites of Emporia and Hampton, before wrapping up the bus tour Wednesday at a firehouse in North Chesterfield, Va. While Obama won handily in Virginia in 2008, he barely squeaked out a victory in North Carolina, winning the state by less than a percentage point. John Davis, a longtime political analyst in North Carolina, said Obama won there in part because his campaign identified the state as a potential battleground early and established [...]
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WASHINGTON (AP & staff) — House Majority Leader Eric Cantor says Republicans and the Obama White House are struggling to agree on a plan to ease unemployment because “a lot of folks on the other side want to boil this down to personality.” Cantor was asked on “Fox News Sunday” about accusations the GOP has obstructed Obama’s proposals. He said “the differences we have with this president are policy-based.” Cantor said federally-directed stimulus efforts don’t work. And he said that while Republicans agree with President Barack Obama that “there’s too much income disparity in this country,” they want economic policies that lift all segments of society. Cantor acknowledged that “the people of this country want to see us trying to set aside those differences and actually come together on the things we can agree on.”
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WASHINGTON (AP & staff) — President Barack Obama has shored up support from mid-level donors in some of the most economically distraught areas of the country, even as his Republican challengers have made jobs a central issue heading into next year’s election. An Associated Press analysis of Obama’s fundraising since April found his supporters opened their wallets more often this election cycle in places with the worst unemployment rates. That’s compared with the same period four years ago, just months before the country was thrust into a major recession. The new numbers suggest GOP candidates will have to make a harder sell on the gravity of the nation’s 9.1 percent unemployment rate, an issue that has bedeviled Obama throughout his term. Republicans in Congress have opposed the White House on specifics, especially tax increases, in a jobs bill aimed at pulling the economy out of a nosedive. While Obama reported this week his campaign and the Democratic party raised a combined $70 million for his re-election bid, similar fundraising numbers totals for the GOP field point to growing support for candidates promising to change the country’s direction. Republican contenders raised a total of roughly $52 million, with Texas Gov. Rick Perry and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney taking the lead in drawing support from across the country. Republican candidates have missed few chances in recent weeks to point fingers at Obama and his jobs record. “Right now, America’s in crisis,” said Romney at an Oct. 11 Republican debate devoted exclusively to the economy. “You want to have someone who’s smart, who has experience, who knows how the financial services sector works, who knows how to protect American jobs — and I do. I’ve done it.” Among Obama’s supporters, however, there has been an uptick in donations from both Democratic- and Republican-leaning counties, even as more than one in 10 people are out of work in those places. In the Detroit area, where unemployment has exceeded 14 percent, supporters wrote hundreds of more checks — albeit in smaller amounts when adjusting for inflation — to Obama’s campaign than the same period in 2007. The AP’s review drew upon unemployment figures from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and Census Bureau estimates, excluding donations from interest groups. Although campaign finance reports don’t capture donors who gave less than $200 per election cycle, the donations reflect in part the attitudes among supports who [...]
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WASHINGTON (AP & staff) — Newt Gingrich is calling Republican presidential campaign rival Mitt Romney “a Nelson Rockefeller Republican” who will have a hard time appealing to the GOP’s base. Gingrich also calls himself “a very complicated candidate,” telling CNN’s “State of the Union” he has to get people to embrace his “campaign of substance.” Of Romney, Gingrich calls him “a very likable person” who works hard. But Gingrich says Romney’s challenge is, “People look and they say, ‘Not yet.’ ” He also says he initially saw Texas Gov. Rick Perry as a “natural alternative” to Romney but that Perry has stumbled. Gingrich spoke highly of fellow Georgian Herman Cain, saying he has a good chance to be the nominee “if he can explain a 9 percent sales tax so that people will want it.”
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ALBUQUERQUE, NM (AP & staff) — New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez, Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval and Florida Sen. Marc Rubio are popular, relative political newcomers in presidential battleground states. The rising GOP stars are also Hispanics, something the Republican Party makes no secret of hoping to capitalize on in the upcoming national elections. National Republicans are inviting them on international fact finding trips, courting them for high-profile public appearances and whispering their names as possibilities for vice presidential nominations. “They represent the American Dream,” said Fred Malek, founder of the conservative American Action Network and its spinoff, the Hispanic Leadership Network, whose mission is to bring Hispanics into the party. “They represent what America is all about how to succeed. How to pull yourself up by the bootstraps, reach success and show leadership. They all share that.” But wooing the Hispanic vote takes more than floating candidates with Latino names, as was obvious last month when the Hispanic Leadership Network held a conference here. Martinez, after delivering the keynote dinner speech, was heckled by a group of some 50 young Latinos upset by her aggressive attempts to repeal a law that lets illegal immigrants get state driver’s licenses. “Stop the Hate,” the protesters yelled while a table of conference attendees stood up and began chanting “USA, USA.” The scene underscores the complexities both political parties face as they set their sights on the nation’s biggest and fastest growing but traditionally Democratic-leaning minority group — which is as diverse as Martinez, Sandoval and Rubio and the swing states they represent. Rubio is the son of Cuban exiles, a group that tends to have widely different views on immigration than Mexican-Americans in the Southwest and border-state Hispanics who trace their roots to early Spanish settlers. “It’s just as dangerous to stereotype a Latino or a Latina voter as it is to assume that all white voters think and act the same way,” said Dan Schnur, a former GOP strategist who now teaches at University of Southern California. While having a Hispanic on a Republican ballot will never sway hard core Democrats and many traditionally liberal leaning groups, Schnur says it may cause some voters to give the GOP a second look. And the Republican Party sees an opportunity to lure more moderate and conservative Hispanics with pro-family, pro-jobs, strong work ethic themes that appeal to immigrants. “Here is the new frontier of [...]
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IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP & staff) — Herman Cain has cast himself as the outsider, the pizza magnate with real-world experience who will bring fresh ideas to the nation’s capital. But Cain’s economic ideas, support and organization have close ties to two billionaire brothers who bankroll right-leaning causes through their group Americans for Prosperity. Cain’s campaign manager and a number of aides have worked for Americans for Prosperity, or AFP, the advocacy group founded with support from billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch, which lobbies for lower taxes and less government regulation and spending. Cain credits a businessman who served on an AFP advisory board with helping devise his plan to rewrite the nation’s tax code. And his years of speaking at AFP events have given the businessman and radio host a network of loyal grassroots fans. The little-known businessman’s political activities are getting fresh scrutiny these days since he soared to the top of some national polls. His links to the Koch brothers could undercut his outsider, non-political image among tea party fans who detest politics as usual and candidates connected with the party machine. AFP tapped Cain as the public face of its “Prosperity Expansion Project,” and he traveled the country in 2005 and 2006 speaking to activists who were starting state-based AFP chapters from Wisconsin to Virginia. Through his AFP work he met Mark Block, a longtime Wisconsin Republican operative hired to lead that state’s AFP chapter in 2005 as he rebounded from an earlier campaign scandal that derailed his career. Block and Cain sometimes traveled together as they built up AFP: Cain was the charismatic speaker preaching the ills of big government. Block was the operative helping with nuts and bolts. When President Barack Obama’s election helped spawn the tea party, Cain was positioned to take advantage. He became a draw at growing AFP-backed rallies, impressing activists with a mix of humor and hard-hitting rhetoric against Obama’s stimulus, health care and budget policies. Block is now Cain’s campaign manager. Other aides who had done AFP work were brought on board. Cain’s spokeswoman Ellen Carmichael, who recently left the campaign, was an AFP coordinator in Louisiana. His campaign’s outside law firm is representing AFP in a case challenging Wisconsin campaign finance regulations. At least six other current and former paid employees and consultants for Cain’s campaign have worked for AFP in various capacities. Where Cain is quick [...]
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PERRY, Iowa (AP & staff) — Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann has signed a pledge vowing to push for construction of a fence along the entire border with Mexico by the end of 2013. Bachmann says that illegal immigration costs the U.S. more than $100 million a year and argues securing the border is also a national security issue. Bachmann says she’s long pushed for a border fence and signed a pledge by the group Americans For Securing Our Border. On Saturday, she came to Perry, a town of about 9,800 where the meatpacking industry has left the city about 32 percent Hispanic. Bachmann rejected suggestions that talking about cracking down on illegal immigrants is racists or anti-Hispanic. Van Hipp Jr., head of the Securing the Border group, says Bachmann is the first GOP candidate to sign.
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WASHINGTON (AP & staff) — Mitt Romney’s early success in the Republican presidential race is challenging the tea party’s clout. Will it continue to pull the GOP sharply right? Will it slowly fade? Or merge with mainstream Republican elements in a nod to pragmatism, something it’s hardly known for? On the surface, Romney’s strength seems at odds with the tea party’s fiery success in ousting Republicans seen as compromisers, and in making the House GOP caucus more ideological, even when its leaders plead for flexibility. Romney defends the government’s 2008 bank bailouts, plus the mandated health insurance he initiated as Massachusetts governor. He says he can work with “good Democrats.” Although he later changed, Romney once supported abortion rights, gun control and gay rights. These positions run counter to the beliefs and goals of many tea party activists scattered throughout the country. Yet Romney is faring better in polls, fundraising and debates than are contenders with stronger tea party credentials, including Michele Bachmann, Rick Santorum and Rick Perry. Several Republican strategists, and even some tea party leaders, say they aren’t surprised or alarmed. Their overarching goal is to defeat President Barack Obama next year, they say, and if Romney is best-positioned to do that, they’ll endure his shortcomings. “The perception that tea partyers are ideological purists is wrong,” said Sal Russo, a long-time Republican strategist in California and a leader of the Tea Party Express. “We are a broad-based movement,” he said, “and we are looking to win in 2012.” Danny Diaz, a Washington-based Republican strategist unaligned with any presidential candidates, agrees. “The tea party movement is an anti-Washington movement,” he said. While Perry and Herman Cain might make a more dynamic claim to that mantle, he said, Romney has never lived in Washington, and tea party activists won’t rule him out. “Many of them are pragmatists,” Diaz said. They desperately want to oust Obama, he said, and “they need a candidate that’s electable.” A CBS-New York Times poll found that tea partyers are more satisfied with the GOP presidential field than are Republicans in general. Cain was the top choice among tea party activists, with Romney second. Some campaign veterans see bigger problems ahead for Romney. Polls of Republicans show Romney holding steady at about 25 percent, while Bachmann, Perry and Cain take turns making surges. “That tells me that 75 percent of the primary voters would really rather [...]
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JACKSON, Tenn. (AP & staff) — Herman Cain is firing up the crowd at a tea party rally in this West Tennessee town when the generator powering his sound system shudders to a halt. Cain stands awkwardly for a few moments then suddenly begins to sing. Slowly at first but gaining in speed, he belts out “Impossible Dream” in the rich baritone he’s honed in church choir. “You know, when it’s your rally, you can do what you want to do!” Cain says as he finishes with a raucous laugh. The 500 or so supporters who have jammed the strip mall parking lot to hear the Republican Party’s newest star speak roar their approval. Momentum restored, Cain launches into a pitch for his signature 9-9-9 tax plan, and the crowd is right there with him, chanting 9-9-9 along with the Georgia businessman. The 65-year-old’s improbable campaign for the presidency is all about momentum right now. How does he maintain the wave he’s riding in recent polls that have catapulted him from an also-ran in the GOP race to the elite top tier? There are many reasons his bid could fade as quickly as it rose. He acknowledged Friday that he will trail former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and Texas Gov. Rick Perry significantly in fundraising. Cain has never held elected office and could wilt under the rigors of the campaign trail and the withering scrutiny coming his way. But Cain’s moment is right now, and the former Godfather’s pizza chief executive is marketing himself with practiced skill, banking on his charisma and the notion that the messenger is as important as the message. His everyman image is resonating. “In the field right now, he’s the most like me,” said Jimmy Hoppers, a 60-year-old physician from Jackson, who was hoping to meet Cain so he could hand deliver a $1,000 donation to his campaign. “He’s run a business and paid the bills. He’s authentic.” On Friday night Cain, who is African-American, drew about 2,000 people — some in workshirts and overalls and nearly all white — to a feed barn in rural Waverly, Tenn. This is a socially conservative country and Cain — ever the salesman — knows his audience. He closes by invoking God and singing the hymn “He Looked Beyond My Faults.” “I love him,” gushed truck driver James Bland after Cain spoke. “He doesn’t talk down to you. [...]
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WASHINGTON (AP & staff) — With one year left in the race for the White House, a handful of presidential candidates are planning to file key disclosure reports Saturday that will offer the first major picture into the financial health of all Republican campaigns. The financial reports are expected to show how flush the GOP candidates are with cash — or how nearly broke they are — heading into the final weeks before contests in key primary states. Two of the top Republican contenders, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and Texas Gov. Rick Perry, have brought in more than $30 million combined. Meanwhile, candidates like Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann and businessman Herman Cain are expected to bring in less than that. The new reports will reveal the campaigns’ major donors, where money has been spent since July and if the candidate took out any loans to finance what is likely to become a costly presidential election. Reports on two of the biggest money-raisers so far — Romney and President Barack Obama — reveal millions in contributions from party devotees and small-dollar donors alike. At the same time, reports filed late Friday offered a mixed picture of the campaign field, with Obama raising more than $70 million between his campaign and the Democratic Party. Some candidates are saddled with debt, such as former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman and former candidate Tim Pawlenty, who both owe hundreds of thousands of dollars. Perry, Bachman and Cain have until 11:59 p.m. EDT Saturday to file their first presidential campaign reports with the Federal Election Commission. Cain’s campaign said in a statement released late Friday that it had raised more than $2.8 million during the three months that ended Sept. 30 and had no debt.
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WASHINGTON (AP & staff) — New financial reports out this weekend are expected to show the two top Republican presidential candidates are neck-and-neck in efforts to fill their campaign war chests. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and Texas Gov. Rick Perry both have roughly $15 million in cash on hand, and both candidates raised a combined $30 million this summer. The campaigns, however, lag behind the $70 million raised by President Barack Obama and the Democratic Party. The reports will offer a broad look at the Republican field’s finances. They’re the first official tallies for contenders Perry, businessman Herman Cain and Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann. But the filings won’t capture the tens of millions raised by new, outside groups known as super political action committees, which can raise unlimited amounts of money to influence elections.
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WASHINGTON (AP & staff) — Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, the most prominent Republican in President Barack Obama’s administration, accused GOP House members Friday of putting their hope for the president to fail ahead of working toward solving the nation’s problems. Responding to a question about why it was so difficult to get big infrastructure projects built right now, LaHood told a transportation conference that “some people don’t want Obama to be successful.” “A big percentage of the Republicans that were elected this time came here to do zero, and that’s what they’ve done,” he said. Those lawmakers, he said, have obstructed other people who are trying to get things done. LaHood’s remarks “are ironic considering the speaker had a good conversation with the president yesterday about infrastructure,” Kevin Smith, a spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said Friday. Boehner and the president talked about jobs legislation in a 10-minute phone call Thursday. Boehner told Obama that Republicans are willing to address new transportation and infrastructure spending but “in a fiscally responsible way.” LaHood has strong Republican credentials. He was a GOP congressman from Illinois for 14 years until he retired in 2008. Before that, he was a top aide to House Republican leader Bob Michel of Illinois. During his tenure in Congress, LaHood worked closely with GOP House speakers, particularly Dennis Hastert of Illinois. “Here we are almost 12 months from the election and there are some people in Congress — look there are probably 40 people, 40 Republicans, elected to the House to come here to do nothing,” Lahood said. “That’s why they felt they were elected.” LaHood was apparently referring to tea party-aligned Republicans who are reluctant to compromise on their goal of reducing the size and power of the federal government. “When I was elected in ’94 we had a very reform-minded class, 82 new people, but they came here to do something, to solve problems,” he said. “Almost always in the past when people have run for Congress, they ran for Congress on the opportunity to help solve the problems of America.” LaHood has been meeting with GOP lawmakers, trying to generate support for Obama’s $447 billion jobs package, which Senate Republicans killed in a Tuesday night vote. House Republicans have introduced their own jobs plan, which doesn’t include any of Obama’s proposals. Despite what he calls GOP obstruction, LaHood predicted Congress will pass a [...]
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ORION TOWNSHIP, Mich. (AP & staff) — South Korea’s President Lee Myung-bak (lee myuhng bahk) says he and President Barack Obama are both kept awake at night by one problem: the search for jobs. Lee spoke to local workers after touring a General Motors assembly plant outside of Detroit with Obama, a rare joint appearance out of Washington for a U.S. president and a visiting head of state. Obama warmly introduced Lee as a leader who knows the auto industry well. The two men walked the assembly line together; Lee proudly wore a Detroit Tigers’ baseball cap and kept it on as he spoke. The stop in the heart of a region hit hard by the slumping economy was meant to show how a new trade deal between the countries could give a lift to the auto industry.
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WASHINGTON (AP & staff) — Democrats and Republicans alike are struggling to make sense of the Wall Street protests and figure out how to respond to the growing nationwide movement a month after young people pitched a tent in front of the New York Stock Exchange and began demonstrating against economic inequality. The political establishment’s quandary centers on this question: Do the protests have long-lasting political consequences or are they simply a temporary reflection of voter frustration with the economy? Democrats have been largely supportive of the so-called Occupy Wall Street movement, which has drawn attention to the economic concerns of the country’s middle class, Wall Street greed and high unemployment. The protesters have referred to themselves as the “99 percent,” or the vast majority of Americans who do not fall into the wealthiest 1 percent of the population. The spontaneous protests have taken root in New York’s Zuccotti Park and spread to other U.S. cities, including Boston, Chicago and Los Angeles, at a time when President Barack Obama’s poll numbers have declined and Democrats have privately grown wary that they may be suffering from an enthusiasm gap compared with Republicans. With the focus on the middle class, some Democrats say the protests could amplify the party’s message leading up to the 2012 elections. But others caution that they should not try to co-opt the movement, which includes many protesters who have criticized Obama’s handling of big banks in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis. “The people are raising serious concerns … they have every reason to be angry,” said Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., who recently visited a protest in his home state. “My advice to any elected official is don’t go down there and try to take over, don’t ask for the microphone. Just listen to the people.” Said Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill.: “This is not something you can exploit politically because you cannot control it.” Obama struck a sympathetic tone last week, saying “people are frustrated, and the people are giving voice to a more broad-based frustration about how our financial system works.” But he reiterated that the nation needs a “strong, effective financial sector in order for us to grow.” Other Democrats have spoken in support of the protesters, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Rep. John Larson of Connecticut, the fourth highest-ranking House Democrat. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the House Democrats’ fundraising arm, [...]
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EXETER, N.H. (AP & staff) — Jon Huntsman is boycotting next week’s Republican presidential debate in Nevada. The former Utah governor and other candidates say Nevada has unfairly shifted the date of its presidential caucuses. But Huntsman becomes the first to announce plans to skip next Tuesday’s nationally-televised GOP debate in protest. Huntsman’s Friday decision comes as New Hampshire Republican leaders are calling for a Nevada boycott. Nevada officials recently set their state’s presidential caucuses for Jan. 14 in violation of Republican National Committee rules. That’s pressured New Hampshire to move up its own presidential primary, which is supposed to be the first in the nation. Huntsman’s decision is not a huge surprise. His rival Mitt Romney has strong political support in Nevada. And Huntsman has staked his political future on New Hampshire
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WASHINGTON (AP & staff) — Texas Gov. Rick Perry says he won’t dispute his wife’s assertion he’s been “brutalized and beaten up and chewed up” in the presidential campaign. Perry was asked about remarks that Anita Perry made during a talk she gave Thursday at North Greenville University, where she complained about a “rough month.” Perry said “family members generally take these campaigns harder than anyone else,” saying he’ll “stand by my wife.” After initially soaring to the top of the polls when he got into the race in August, Perry has seen his prospects diminish recently amid controversy over his performance in debates and statements he’s made on policy issues, such as immigration. In comments recorded by NBC, Mrs. Perry said, “We are being brutalized by our opponents and by our own party.”
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WASHINGTON (AP & Staff) — Some foreign policy experts who joined Mitt Romney’s campaign have lobbying and business backgrounds that could shape the advice they give to the Republican presidential candidate. Their interests include lobbying against cuts in U.S. aid to Pakistan and ties to defense companies with government contracts for cybersecurity, Navy shipbuilding and ballistic missile interceptors — all issues that Romney has cited in recent speeches. One adviser works for a German bank that has promoted cap-and-trade programs to reduce pollution, which Romney said he now opposes. Former Minnesota Congressman Vin Weber, named last week as a special adviser to Romney on foreign policy, lobbied this year for the Council on Pakistan Relations, a U.S.-based support group trying to stave off reduced economic aid to Pakistan in the wake of eroding diplomatic relations with the U.S. Weber said he would have no problem distinguishing his campaign role from his job as managing partner of the Clark & Weinstock lobbying firm, which was paid $50,000 so far this year by the Pakistani-American group. The campaign said it would rely on Romney’s judgment in scrutinizing policy advice. Ethics experts said such assurances are inadequate to prevent private interests from influencing critical policy decisions made in the crush of presidential race or later inside the White House. Romney’s aides disclosed the names of his new foreign policy advisers and brief profiles. But the campaign did not offer detailed dossiers on their lobbying and business ties that could be affected by Romney’s stances. “The public deserves to know exactly what the nature of these relationships is,” said Sheila Krumholz, executive director of the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics. Krumholz said campaigns should provide comprehensive disclosure of advisers’ backgrounds even as they tout their expertise. “They need to make it clear where their people are coming from.” Weber was overall policy chairman for Romney’s 2007 presidential run and is expected to play a key policy role again this year. A GOP presidential campaign veteran who has mixed his post-Congress lobbying career with senior positions in the presidential campaigns of John McCain, George W. Bush and Bob Dole, Weber said his past expertise allows him to navigate any potential conflicts. “I’ve been in this position for every (GOP presidential) campaign since 1996 and I’m not aware it ever created a problem,” he said. The Romney campaign said it has no concerns about its foreign [...]
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WASHINGTON (AP & staff) — The top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee is recommending that a special committee searching for ways to slash the deficit consider some of President Barack Obama’s proposed changes to health and retirement benefits for the military. In a letter to the bipartisan panel, Arizona Sen. John McCain signaled he was open to cost-saving steps in military benefits, a move certain to send shock waves through Congress and among powerful groups of retired officers and veterans resistant to change. The Associated Press obtained a copy of the letter. The Pentagon’s health care costs have skyrocketed from $19 billion in 2001 to $53 billion, but lawmakers and various groups argue that members of the military and their families sacrifice far more than the average American, with a career that includes long and dangerous deployments overseas that overshadow civilian work. Health and retirement benefits help attract service members to the all-volunteer force. McCain said he would support establishing an annual enrollment fee for TRICARE for Life, the health care program that has no fee for participation. Obama had proposed an initial annual fee of $200. “This proposal would be the first such change since Congress established this program in 2001, a period during which national health care costs have risen significantly,” the senator wrote. McCain also urged the so-called supercommittee to consider restricting working-age military retirees and their dependents from enrolling in TRICARE Prime, which has the lowest out-of-pocket expenses. The retirees could still enroll in other TRICARE programs. McCain pointed out that the Congressional Budget Office has estimated that such a move would save $111 billion over 10 years. Active-duty personnel still would be enrolled in the program automatically. McCain, who was Obama’s rival for the presidency in 2008, also said he supported Obama’s proposal for a commission to review military retirement benefits that should consider changes to the military compensation system. He said he agreed with Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, who said those currently serving in the military should be “grandfathered” in, so expected benefits aren’t reduced. Veterans groups challenged Obama’s proposals last month and are certain to mobilize to fight any effort by the supercommittee to adopt McCain’s recommendations. “Our nation’s financial situation cannot be solved by breaking faith with those who singlehandedly fight our nation’s wars — be it today or tomorrow,” Richard L. DeNoyer, the head of the 2 million-member Veterans [...]
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WASHINGTON (AP & staff) — Barack Obama once contemplated what it would be like to take his two daughters to the National Mall to see a monument to Martin Luther King Jr. “I know that one of my daughters will ask, perhaps my youngest, will ask, “Daddy, why is this monument here? What did this man do?” Obama, then a senator representing Illinois, said during a 2006 groundbreaking ceremony for the memorial to the civil rights pioneer. Five years have passed since Obama reflected on those questions. The young senator is now president, and the King memorial is complete, having opened to the public in August. And Obama will get his chance to take daughters Malia and Sasha to the monument Sunday for the dedication ceremony, during which the country’s first black president will be a featured speaker. The dedication was originally scheduled for late August but was postponed after Hurricane Irene swept through the Washington region, dumping rain on the nation’s capital and disrupting travel plans for many of those who planned to attend the event. On Sunday, Obama will speak in front of a 30-foot sculpture of King, arms crossed, looking out into the horizon. The civil rights leader appears to emerge from a stone extracted from a mountain. The design was inspired by a line from the famous 1963 “Dream” speech delivered during the March on Washington in 1963: “Out of the mountain of despair, a stone of hope.” Situated between the Lincoln and Jefferson memorials, King’s is the first monument on the National Mall honoring a black leader. Obama was just 6 years old when King was assassinated in Memphis, Tenn. But he has often talked about the influence King’s life, particularly his commitment to public service, has had on him. In a 2009 newspaper editorial written just days before his inauguration, Obama wrote that King “lived his life as a servant to others,” and urged Americans to follow his example and find ways to enrich people’s lives in their communities and across the country. Valerie Jarrett, a White House senior adviser and longtime friend of the president, said she expects the president’s remarks “to come straight from the heart.” King’s “willingness to sacrifice himself for our country, to fight for a dream he believed in, like justice and equality, really gave a foundation for President Obama becoming the president,” Jarrett said. Obama is also looking [...]
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PITTSBURGH (AP & staff) — Republican presidential hopeful Rick Perry is promising to expand energy production on federal lands, curb regulation and create some 1.2 million jobs in the process. “The quickest way to give our economy a shot in the arm is to deploy American ingenuity to tap American energy,” the Texas governor planned to say Friday during the first policy speech of his White House run. “But we can only do that if environmental bureaucrats are told to stand down.” Perry’s speech comes as his campaign tries to move beyond some early bumps and his momentum seems to have slowed. Shaky debate performances took away some of his shine, and as voters got to know details of his record they seemed to sour on yet another GOP contender who was, at one point, an instant front-runner. Perry hoped to steady the course of his campaign in a speech at a Pittsburgh-area steel plant. While echoing the popular-with-Republicans call for increased drilling on federal lands, he also cast voters’ choice in 2012 as a referendum on President Barack Obama. “When it comes to energy, the president would kill domestic jobs through aggressive regulations while I would unleash 1.2 million American jobs through safe-and-aggressive energy exploration at home,” Perry said. “President Obama would keep us more dependent on hostile sources of foreign energy, while my plan would make us more secure by tapping America’s true energy potential.” Perry entered the presidential campaign in August and has spent much of the time since then talking in generalities and discussing his time as governor of Texas, which added jobs amid the recession. He touts his decade leading Texas and credits the state’s low level of regulation for helping it fare better than most. Yet Perry’s rivals have been relentless in calling for specifics. Mitt Romney, who released a 160-page economic policy proposal, has hammered Perry particularly hard. Romney’s aides released a 114-page document titled “Rick Perry’s Plan To Get America Working Again.” Inside, there were 103 blank pages. “Mitt has had six years to be working on a plan,” Perry said earlier this week when asked during a debate when he would offer specifics. “I have been in this for about eight weeks.” Perry’s plan was certain to find fans among many conservatives, whose support he must recapture if his presidential plan is to succeed. In his plan, Perry called for: — [...]
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DES MOINES, Iowa (AP & staff) — Four years ago, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee won Iowa’s Republican presidential caucuses partly by locking up the support of evangelical pastors, the former Baptist minister’s brethren and a potent voting bloc within the state’s influential Christian conservatives. Today, Iowa’s increasingly political pastors are up for grabs, divided on whom to support from a GOP field that features several candidates who call themselves born-again Christians. “More pastors are engaged than four years ago,” said Jeff Mullen, who leads one of the Des Moines area’s largest evangelical churches. “But there are more choices.” And all have come calling. Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann, a political product of her state’s evangelical conservative movement, has met regularly with groups of pastors across Iowa since before she officially entered the race. But they’re also being pursued by businessman Herman Cain, who is an associate pastor at his Atlanta church, and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, whose first stop in Iowa as a presidential prospect was to the Des Moines area’s most politically active church. Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who hosted an evangelical gathering that drew 30,000 to Houston in August before becoming a candidate, met with Iowa church leaders last month and during a recent visit to the heavily Christian northwest corner of Iowa. And former House Speaker Newt Gingrich has appeared at private pastor conferences in Iowa where he won some respect for his admission of personal failings during his two previous marriages. Unlike past campaigns, the lack of an imposing establishment candidate in this race has opened a door for more candidates who appeal to the party’s socially conservative base. Tea party supporters, new factors in the presidential nominating campaign, also largely share the evangelicals’ social values. “While we’ve called it in the past social conservatives or Christian or religious right, it’s gotten much broader than that,” said Greg Mueller, a Republican consultant who was a top adviser to Pat Buchanan’s presidential campaigns. “And I think it’s invited candidates into the race that see there’s a connection there.” It’s possible that such a conservative candidate will rise in coming weeks — and get the pastors to coalesce behind his or her candidacy. But should pastors — and, by extension, evangelical voters — remain divided heading into the January caucuses, it’s possible that Mitt Romney could emerge from the pack by rallying backers who put job and [...]
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