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| Illinois primary day and Republican budget proposals: live coverage | Illinois primary day and Republican budget proposals: live coverage |
| (40 minutes later) | |
| 10.57am: My colleagues Gary Younge and Matt Seaton are in Illinois covering the candidates' final efforts to rally voters to the cause. Here's a snapshot of a Romney event last night at Bradley University in Peoria: | |
| Mitt Romney, wearing blue jeans and white shirt, sleeves part rolled, looking tan, was introduced by a Republican Congressman as "the kind of CEO we want to hire to run the greatest country on earth" and "the best turnaround artist the country has ever seen". | |
| Where Schock was pithy and punchy, Romney was diffuse and rambling. He quickly gets into a long story where he's telling a crowd of students that you don't need a college education to be an entrepreneur. He did talk about the economic freedom of the next generation, not saddled by debt and taxes. And then a long digression about crony capitalism. | |
| "I love America." Lukewarm applause: even a patriotic bromide that cannot fail to get applause, Romney turns into a limp moment. "I'm going to restore America." Talking to some of these students beforehand, you know that there will be plenty of Ron Paul fans. So he's majoring on jobs and the economy, and no values stuff, but if he talked about constitutional freedoms, he'd have them eating out of his hand. Instead, they're just barely hanging around out of sheer good manners. | |
| Young female student: "You know what would make me happy: free birth control." [Some cheers, more boos.] | |
| Romney's answer: "If you're look for free stuff, vote for the other guy." [Cheers and applause.] | |
| 10.44am: That Republican 2013 budget proposal is now tantalizingly close. Come on – who wants to wonk out on this? | |
| Ryan;s chairman mark is out for those who really want to wonk out on this: 1.usa.gov/GACTF6 | |
| — Ezra Klein (@ezraklein) March 20, 2012 | |
| 10.30am: Oh dang. Mitt Romney + Eminem = "Will the Real Mitt Romney Please Stand Up." Artfully done. Hats off to auteur Hugh Atkin. Hat tip to Molly Ball. | |
| 10.16am: Do you think the USA is ready for a white first lady? Robert DeNiro wants to know. | 10.16am: Do you think the USA is ready for a white first lady? Robert DeNiro wants to know. |
| First lady Michelle Obama is out raising money for her husband's reelection campaign, an effort that found her last night in New York City at a fundraiser hosted by DeNiro at Locanda Verde, one of his restuarants. | |
| Exhorting his audience to support the president, the actor flashed his famous sense of humor, the Huffington Post reports. | |
| "Callista Gingrich. Karen Santorum. Ann Romney. Now do you really think our country is ready for a white First Lady?" DeNiro asked. | |
| The crowd "roared" in response, prompting DeNiro to go back for more: "Too soon, right?" | |
| 9.55am: It's Tuesday again, and if you don't know what that means, we cannot in good conscience recommend that you continue reading. Because you've stumbled onto our live blog coverage of today's presidential primary in Illinois, and in not too long here we're going to be neck deep in polls, talking points, delegate tallies and possibly more cute videos like this one about members of Congress and their dogs. | 9.55am: It's Tuesday again, and if you don't know what that means, we cannot in good conscience recommend that you continue reading. Because you've stumbled onto our live blog coverage of today's presidential primary in Illinois, and in not too long here we're going to be neck deep in polls, talking points, delegate tallies and possibly more cute videos like this one about members of Congress and their dogs. |
| Tom McCarthy here in New York. My colleague Ryan Devereaux has a roundup of where things stand this morning: | Tom McCarthy here in New York. My colleague Ryan Devereaux has a roundup of where things stand this morning: |
| • It's hot in Illinois, where Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum are fighting for 69 delegates. The pollsters are ready to give Romney the wreath. The conservative and evangelical voters in the south who'll vote for Rick Santorum won't outnumber Chicago-area moderates, they're saying. We'll find out tonight. | • It's hot in Illinois, where Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum are fighting for 69 delegates. The pollsters are ready to give Romney the wreath. The conservative and evangelical voters in the south who'll vote for Rick Santorum won't outnumber Chicago-area moderates, they're saying. We'll find out tonight. |
| • The Republican 2013 budget proposal will be announced at 10am ET – just minutes away. [Update: We misremembered the C-SPAN schedule. They will carry the event live at 10:30 am.] Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis) will once again be doing the honors. We'll be following the proceedings closely to see how the GOP will frame its budget strategy in an election year, and to see whether Ryan's proposal gels with what the candidates are saying. | • The Republican 2013 budget proposal will be announced at 10am ET – just minutes away. [Update: We misremembered the C-SPAN schedule. They will carry the event live at 10:30 am.] Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis) will once again be doing the honors. We'll be following the proceedings closely to see how the GOP will frame its budget strategy in an election year, and to see whether Ryan's proposal gels with what the candidates are saying. |
| • Rick Santorum went on Fox News last night to clean up a little mess he made yesterday when, trying to draw a contrast with his opponent, he said "I don't care what the unemployment rate is going to be." The contrast was successfully drawn, but not in a good way. Santorum explained on Fox that what he meant was we should address the underlying causes of job loss instead of focusing on the unemployment number. | • Rick Santorum went on Fox News last night to clean up a little mess he made yesterday when, trying to draw a contrast with his opponent, he said "I don't care what the unemployment rate is going to be." The contrast was successfully drawn, but not in a good way. Santorum explained on Fox that what he meant was we should address the underlying causes of job loss instead of focusing on the unemployment number. |
| • The Santorum campaign has been outspent by Romney's team by a margin of 7-1 in Illinois. The difference was even more dramatic in Chicago, where Romney and his Super Pac outspent pro-Santorum dollars by a ration of 21 to 1, Politico reports. | • The Santorum campaign has been outspent by Romney's team by a margin of 7-1 in Illinois. The difference was even more dramatic in Chicago, where Romney and his Super Pac outspent pro-Santorum dollars by a ration of 21 to 1, Politico reports. |