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Obama takes aim as US presidential election gets underway - live Obama fires first shots as presidential election gets under way
(40 minutes later)
5.15pm: So if today was the first day of the 2012 presidential elections proper, who knows what tomorrow will bring? 10am: Today marks the first day of the US presidential election proper, after Rick Santorum's withdrawal cleared the way for Mitt Romney to be the unchallenged Republican nominee. And the Obama campaign wasted no time in challenging Romney's credentials.
Days until 6 November: 208. That seems like an awfully long time. Here's a summary of the latest news by Ryan Devereaux:
5.05pm: You know who could use some of that money raised by John McCain and Sarah Palin? Businesses owed money by the Newt Gingrich campaign, who are waiting to be paid: • The battle for the presidency has now been joined following Rick Santorum's withdrawal from the GOP nomination. The former Pennsylvania senator made the announcement yesterday afternoon ensuring that Mitt Romney will be the Republican challenger to Barack Obama in 2012. Speaking in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania yesterday, surrounded by his wife and children, Santorum said: "We made a decision over the weekend that while this presidential race for us is over, for me, and we will suspend our campaign today, we are not done fighting." In his 12-minute speech Santorum made no mention of Mitt Romney – although he did find time to mention his signature sweater vest.
In interviews with HuffPost, many vendors listed in Gingrich's Federal Election Commission debt disclosures said they're still waiting to be paid, weeks or months after finishing work. Several said they've been given the runaround by campaign officials as they've tried to collect. Gingrich has vowed to slog on with his debt-ridden campaign, despite having won a mere 136 delegates, leaving some vendors to wonder when they can expect their checks. • Romney, still on the campaign trail, expressed satisfaction with Santorum's decision. "This has been a good day for me," Romney told a crowd Wilmington, Delaware. The former Massachusetts governor was quick to concentrate on President Obama. While campaigning in Pennsylvania, Romney characterised the president as a fan of European-style state socialism rather than American free enterprise.
Gingrich campaign spokesman RC Hammond told HuffPost that Newt 2012 is doing its best to pay people. "Vendors have been contacted and we are paying bills as swiftly as we are able," Hammond said. • Obama's team quickly responded to Romney and the new political landscape. Today the Obama campaign posted a video highlighting Romney's past record, including his vow to overturn Roe versus Wade, his assertion that he'd prefer to see Detroit go bankrupt rather than back a government bailout, his claim that "corporations are people, my friend," and the fact that he described himself as "severely conservative Republican governor".
According to Newt Gingrich's most recent statements, his campaign owes $4.5m. And yet he's still running. Although just yesterday it was reported that the Gingrich campaign bounced a $500 cheque in Utah. • Wealthy hedge fund manager and Santorum backer Foster Friess has declared he will now support Romney's bid for president. Friess had donated $1.7m to Santorum's campaign. "I'm obviously going to be of help in whatever way I can," Friess told Politico Tuesday. "I've got some plans as to how I might be able to be of help," he added.
5pm: Speaking of perfectly legal uses of political contributions – Sarah Palin has her own action going on, reports Politico: • Speaking late on Tuesday, Santorum said the campaign had been harder on his family than it had been on him. "I can't say it was an emotional moment for me. I know it was a little tougher for the family, it always is tougher for the family," he said. "It's different being on the sidelines, seeing the people, the person that you love being hit. It hurts more."
Sarah Palin's political action committee raised $388,000 in the first three months of the year, but it spent $418,000 and didn't give a dime to any candidates – which is the purported purpose of the Pac. 10.14am: Mitt Romney might be ready to move on and pivot towards the general election, for obvious reasons the Obama campaign isn't so keen.
Instead, Sarah Pac spent $255,000 on fundraising and a small team of political consultants that Palin has continued to support even as she receded from the political spotlight during the heat of the GOP presidential primary. It also appears to have spent $19,000 on a video rebutting the HBO film Game Change. Here the Obama "truth team" has compiled a web video collecting together all of Mitt Romney's "greatest hits" from the Republican primaries, closing with the ominous tag: "Mitt Romney: a severely conservative nominee. Remember that."
Really, $19,000 on a video rebutting an HBO movie? Not to mention $255,000 spent to raise more money. 10.25am: President Obama is taking to the podium again right now, making another pitch for the "Buffett rule," calling for Congress to vote for higher taxes on those earning more than $1m a year.
4.47pm: Guess what – John McCain had nearly $9m left in his presidential account after the 2008 elections and has just given the whole lot to charity. A charity named the McCain Institute Foundation, according to the Washington Times: "You've heard that my friend Warren Buffett pays a lower tax rate than his secretary," Obama says, speaking from the White House. "This is not an issue of redistributing wealth":
The dormant 2008 presidential apparatus of Senator John McCain liquidated nearly $9m in donations by giving the money to a charity bearing the Arizona senator's name this year, filings showed Tuesday. I just point out that the Buffett rule is something that will get us moving in the right direction, it will help us close our deficits.... If we are going to keep giving people like me and some people in this room tax breaks that we can't afford, then one of two things are going to happen. Either you're going to have to borrow more money or you're going to ask for greater sacrificing from the middle class.
But the money, collected from Republican donors years ago to support the party's nominee for the nation's highest office when he ran alongside former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, could have been given to the Republican National Committee to support this year's nominee, according to experts. 10.35am: Still talking about the Buffett rule: "It's time for Congress to stand up for the middle class" and pass the bill, Obama says, before noting that one of his predecessors in the White House made a similar pitch for higher taxes on the wealthy.
It's all perfectly legal. Anyway, that's $9m the Republican party can't use this year. Oh now, who was it? Jimmy Carter, right? No, says Obama, it was that "wild-eyed socialist" Ronald Reagan, with a hint of triumph.
4.21pm: Oh dear: now who you follow on Twitter somehow means something, according to this fruitcakery: "If it would help folks in Congress, we could call it the Reagan rule rather than the Buffett rule," he says, looking serious. No one laughs.
An Obama campaign staffer who accused Mitt Romney of not appealing to women is following several notorious misogynists and beaters of women on Twitter. 10.51am: The Atlantic's peerless Molly Ball gives her appraisal of the 2012 Republican primary campaign – and the best explanation of where the Republican party's centers of power sit:
Lis Smith, team Obama's director of rapid response, has been tweeting derisive messages at Romney press secretary Andrea Saul, accusing the candidate of not appealing to woman voters. Smith also charged that Romney does not fully back the Lilly Ledbetter fair pay act, and accused Saul of fabricating job loss numbers pertaining to women. The assumption going into the 2012 campaign was that this Republican primary would revolve around the fresh, feisty spirit of the Tea Party, whose zeal and devotion to conservative ideological purity did so much to shape the 2010 midterm elections. But the Tea Party never found a focus in the presidential race. Michele Bachmann managed to channel its energy for a while, as did Herman Cain and Newt Gingrich; Rick Perry never caught on the way he was supposed to. Meanwhile, it was by appealing to an older, more established right-wing base – the Christian right – that Santorum ultimately succeeded in throwing Romney off his game.
Smith, however, appears to have no problem with a coterie of noted male misogynists who regularly belittle women and, in some cases, physically abuse them. 11.03am: Just checking the transcript from today's Buffett rule remarks by President Obama – and yes he did call Ronald Reagan a "wild-eyed socialist, tax-hiking, class warrior".
On Twitter, Smith follows the disgraced boxer and convicted rapist Mike Tyson, as well as the woman-beating singer Chris Brown. She also seems to be a fan of the coke-sniffing, prostitute pugilist, Charlie Sheen. Here's the relevant section:
I don't think we should create the precedent where people are judged by who they follow on Twitter bit.ly/HvJAU9 I'm not the first president to call for this idea that everybody's got to do their fair share. Some years ago one of my predecessors traveled across the country pushing for the same concept. He gave a speech where he talked about a letter he had received from a wealthy executive who paid lower tax rates than his secretary and wanted to come to Washington and tell Congress why that was wrong.
I follow Mitt Romney on Twitter so therefore... and so on. So this president gave another speech where he said it was "crazy" – that's a quote – "that certain tax loopholes make it possible for multi-millionaires to pay nothing while a bus driver was paying 10% of his salary."
4pm: The New York Times's Catherine Rampell has some excellent analysis of the jobless totals under Obama – and why the Romney campaign's emphasis on female unemployment is a distorted picture: That wild-eyed socialist, tax-hiking, class warrior was Ronald Reagan.
Men are disproportionately employed in industries sensitive to early swings in the business cycle, like manufacturing and construction. These industries took especially big hits this time around, given the housing bust and the troubles of automakers. He thought that in America the wealthiest should pay their fair share and he said so.
In fact, of the overall job losses from December 2007 to January 2009, nearly half were in these two male-dominated industries. (These industries are still not doing particularly well, either.) I know that position might disqualify him from the Republican primaries these days but what Ronald Reagan was calling for then is the same thing that we're calling for now: a return to basic fairness and responsibility, everybody doing their part.
Women are disproportionately employed in government, typically as teachers or administrators of some kind. And if it'll help convince folks in Congress to make the right choice, we could call it the Reagan rule instead of the Buffett rule.
Government payrolls are generally not hit immediately when recession strikes, but several years afterward, when state and local governments are dealing with lower tax revenues from the suffering private sector. There's therefore a lag between private-sector and public-sector layoffs. 11.19am: If you've never heard of Allan West – well you haven't missed much. He's basically the Michele Bachmann of the Republican party in Florida, assuming Michele Bachmann was an African-American former US army officer.
Anyway, like Bachmann, West from time to time delights everyone with the contents of his imagination, as the Palm Beach Post reports:
The conservative tea party icon also got in shots at Democrats and President Obama, who spoke Tuesday at Florida Atlantic University. West said Obama was "scared" to have a discussion with him. He later said "he's heard" up to 80 US House Democrats are Communist Party members, but wouldn't name names.
Communist party members? That's like a time warp and we're back in the 1950s – and to remind us here's a photograph of another Republican leader denouncing Communists in Congress.
11.38am: Good news everybody. According to Paul Burka at Texas Monthly, Rick Perry is saying he'll run for re-election as Texas governor in 2014. Thus setting the scene for Perry's inevitable triumph in the 2016 presidential elections. Or possibly not.
12.16pm: Daily Kos gets its hands on video of Republican congressman Allan West's absurd claim about Democrats in Congress being members of the Communist party.
Here's the text:
Questioner: What percentage of the American legislature do you think are card-carrying Marxists or international socialists?
West: That's a good question. I believe there's about 78 to 81 members of the Democratic Party that are members of the Communist Party.
So it's "78 to 81"? That's very specific. I'm sure West has some proof to back this up and he's not just spouting random numbers and making stuff up.
12.33pm: Questions remain about Mitt Romey's ability to win over the conservative faithful of the Republican party, and the New York Times rounds up some sceptics, including Richard Viguerie, the arch-conservatrive who supported Santorum in the primaries:
After having destroyed every conservative that came on the scene, you can't say 'You have to line up behind me.' No, no, no. Conservatives are not going to jump until they hear where Governor Romney wants to take everybody.
The point is not that conservatives won't vote for Romney – of course they will, although there may be some drop-off at the margins. The real point as Viguerie notes is that conservative enthusiasm – in campaigning and fundraising – is on hold until they hear more from Romney.
John McCain solved that problem by nominating Sarah Palin. But that had some downsides, as it turned out.
12.50pm: So Condoleezza Rice is troubled by the way immigrants have been vilified in recent years, in comments at Duke University yesterday:
Traveling the globe as secretary of state, Rice found people always viewed the US as the land of free markets and free people, a place where anyone could become a part of the country.
The country needs to return to that mindset, she said.
"That immigrant culture that has renewed us … has been at the core of our strength," she said. "I don't know when immigrants became the enemy."
One of the biggest regrets of her time in the Bush administration was failure to pass comprehensive immigration reform in 2007, she said.
And there's this: "She also felt there were missteps in the country's mission in Iraq, she said." Yes, missteps. That's an understatement.
1.15pm: Faced with a severe deficit in support among women voters, the Romney campaign has been pushing the line that the "real war on women" is the Obama administration's failure on the jobs market.
This morning, Mitt Romney stuck to his gynocentric talking points:
Romney on Fox News said "women in particular have suffered under this presidency." His campaign has been pushing the statistic that 92% of the jobs lost under Obama were women. The statistic accounts for jobs lost since January 2009.
Gosh, 92% eh? As always with statistics, 92% of apples are in fact oranges, as the fact-checkers at PolitiFact inconveniently pointed out when they closely examined the Romney campaign claims:
There is a small amount of truth to the claim, but it ignores critical facts that would give a different impression. We rate it Mostly False.
1.34pm: Sadly, feminist jobs champion Mitt Romney got a little stuck this morning when asked if his campaign backed legislation supporting equal-pay for women:
During a conference call held earlier in the morning, a Romney aide was unable to answer a straightforward question about the former governor's position on the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009, which Obama signed into law amid heavy Republican opposition.
"We'll get back to you on that," the aide replied, when asked about the law by the Huffington Post.
They did get back, eventually, and confirmed that Romney does support the act. Unlike the 39 Republican senators who voted against it in 2009.
Wow, Romney spox says he won't get rid of Lilly Ledbetter act. bit.ly/HKFRFr Terrible legislation.
Some conservatives weren't impressed at this first obvious instance of Etch-A-Sketchism on the part of the Romney campaign.
1.50pm: Right on time arrives this from GQ: "Mitt Romney Is The New Al Gore".
2.10pm: Sit back and enjoy this compendium of joyless Rick Santorum attacks on Mitt Romney from the recently deceased Republican primary collected by the AP:
• "Pick any other Republican in the country. [Romney] is the worst Republican in the country to put up against Barack Obama." – 25 March 2012, Wisconsin
• "Conservatives will not trust [Romney], will not rally around him." – Conference call with reporters, 5 March 2012
• "Are you going to vote for someone that says one thing one day, anything else the next day that's necessary to win? Or are you going to vote for someone you trust?" — 25 February 2012, Michigan
• "Any time someone challenges Governor Romney, Governor Romney goes out and instead of talking about what he's for ... he just simply goes out and attacks and tries to destroy." – 6 February 2012, Minnesota
• "He's got a lot of money, but he doesn't have the convictions, the authenticity nor the record that is necessary to win this election." – 17 January 2012, South Carolina
What was that about Rick Santorum as a Romney vice presidential pick again? Or for that matter, Santorum's claim yesterday "we weren't out there trashing anybody."
2.15pm: The internet was invented for this: Mitt Romney pointing at things by my Guardian colleague Jonathan Haynes. Including the photo at the head of this column.
2.48pm: A sharp piece of work by the Obama campaign: an online calculator that compares your income tax with that of Mitt Romney, before and after application of the "Buffett rule" imposes higher taxes on millionaires.
3.28pm: Mitt Romney might be a famously profitable businessman but his campaign can't do the math, in what might be a lowlight of a presidential campaign that is barely a day old.3.28pm: Mitt Romney might be a famously profitable businessman but his campaign can't do the math, in what might be a lowlight of a presidential campaign that is barely a day old.
Today's controversy has been over the Romney campaign's repeated use of a questionable statistic: that 92% of the jobs lost during the Obama administration belonged to women.Today's controversy has been over the Romney campaign's repeated use of a questionable statistic: that 92% of the jobs lost during the Obama administration belonged to women.
As mentioned below, the fact-checkers at PolitiFact rated that claim as "mostly false," while conceding that it had a grain of truth to it. In particular, PolitiFact correctly said that Romney's including of January 2009 job losses under Obama's presidency is silly (since Obama didn't actually take office until 20 January).As mentioned below, the fact-checkers at PolitiFact rated that claim as "mostly false," while conceding that it had a grain of truth to it. In particular, PolitiFact correctly said that Romney's including of January 2009 job losses under Obama's presidency is silly (since Obama didn't actually take office until 20 January).
Now the Romney campaign wants PolitiFact to retract the claim – although its argument is flawed.Now the Romney campaign wants PolitiFact to retract the claim – although its argument is flawed.
The Romney campaign's letter of complaint reads in part:The Romney campaign's letter of complaint reads in part:
In your piece, you reject the use of the January 2009 through March 2012 timeframe as representative of the Obama administration's tenure, writing "Obama cannot be held entirely accountable for the employment picture on the day he took office, just as he could not be given credit if times had been booming." But one month earlier, on March 2, you reviewed a statement by Newt Gingrich that 16 million jobs were created during the Reagan years. Using exactly the same analysis provided by the campaign here, you wrote, "The US Bureau of Labor Statistics keeps the most widely used data on employment, which can be accessed on its website on a month-by-month basis. In January 1981, the month Reagan took office, there were slightly more than 91 million Americans employed. By January 1989, the total was 107.1 million Americans. That's an increase of 16.1 million employed Americans." On this basis, you rated the Speaker's statement as "True."In your piece, you reject the use of the January 2009 through March 2012 timeframe as representative of the Obama administration's tenure, writing "Obama cannot be held entirely accountable for the employment picture on the day he took office, just as he could not be given credit if times had been booming." But one month earlier, on March 2, you reviewed a statement by Newt Gingrich that 16 million jobs were created during the Reagan years. Using exactly the same analysis provided by the campaign here, you wrote, "The US Bureau of Labor Statistics keeps the most widely used data on employment, which can be accessed on its website on a month-by-month basis. In January 1981, the month Reagan took office, there were slightly more than 91 million Americans employed. By January 1989, the total was 107.1 million Americans. That's an increase of 16.1 million employed Americans." On this basis, you rated the Speaker's statement as "True."
If a statement that begins assessing President Reagan's record as of the month he took office is rated as "True," how can the use of the same metric count against the veracity of Ms Saul's statement here?If a statement that begins assessing President Reagan's record as of the month he took office is rated as "True," how can the use of the same metric count against the veracity of Ms Saul's statement here?
Hold on there, Romney campaign. According to your own account, PolitiFact clearly started the Reagan comparison for jobs creations after January 1981. You say so yourself: 91 million jobs in January 1981 is the starting point. That is: jobs created up to the end of January 1981 were not counted by PolitiFact as jobs created under the Reagan administration.Hold on there, Romney campaign. According to your own account, PolitiFact clearly started the Reagan comparison for jobs creations after January 1981. You say so yourself: 91 million jobs in January 1981 is the starting point. That is: jobs created up to the end of January 1981 were not counted by PolitiFact as jobs created under the Reagan administration.
In other words, PolitiFact's time calculation was consistent between the two cases of Reagan and Obama. It excluded January 1981 job figures from Reagan's total, and thinks the Romney campaign should exclude January 2009 job figures from Obama's total. Case dismissed.In other words, PolitiFact's time calculation was consistent between the two cases of Reagan and Obama. It excluded January 1981 job figures from Reagan's total, and thinks the Romney campaign should exclude January 2009 job figures from Obama's total. Case dismissed.
Mitt: how much are you paying these guys?Mitt: how much are you paying these guys?
2.48pm: A sharp piece of work by the Obama campaign: an online calculator that compares your income tax with that of Mitt Romney, before and after application of the "Buffett rule" imposes higher taxes on millionaires. 4pm: The New York Times's Catherine Rampell has some excellent analysis of the jobless totals under Obama – and why the Romney campaign's emphasis on female unemployment is a distorted picture:
2.15pm: The internet was invented for this: Mitt Romney pointing at things by my Guardian colleague Jonathan Haynes. Including the photo at the head of this column. Men are disproportionately employed in industries sensitive to early swings in the business cycle, like manufacturing and construction. These industries took especially big hits this time around, given the housing bust and the troubles of automakers.
2.10pm: Sit back and enjoy this compendium of joyless Rick Santorum attacks on Mitt Romney from the recently deceased Republican primary collected by the AP: In fact, of the overall job losses from December 2007 to January 2009, nearly half were in these two male-dominated industries. (These industries are still not doing particularly well, either.)
• "Pick any other Republican in the country. [Romney] is the worst Republican in the country to put up against Barack Obama." – 25 March 2012, Wisconsin Women are disproportionately employed in government, typically as teachers or administrators of some kind.
• "Conservatives will not trust [Romney], will not rally around him." – Conference call with reporters, 5 March 2012 Government payrolls are generally not hit immediately when recession strikes, but several years afterward, when state and local governments are dealing with lower tax revenues from the suffering private sector. There's therefore a lag between private-sector and public-sector layoffs.
• "Are you going to vote for someone that says one thing one day, anything else the next day that's necessary to win? Or are you going to vote for someone you trust?" — 25 February 2012, Michigan 4.21pm: Oh dear: now who you follow on Twitter somehow means something, according to this fruitcakery:
• "Any time someone challenges Governor Romney, Governor Romney goes out and instead of talking about what he's for ... he just simply goes out and attacks and tries to destroy." – 6 February 2012, Minnesota An Obama campaign staffer who accused Mitt Romney of not appealing to women is following several notorious misogynists and beaters of women on Twitter.
• "He's got a lot of money, but he doesn't have the convictions, the authenticity nor the record that is necessary to win this election." – 17 January 2012, South Carolina Lis Smith, team Obama's director of rapid response, has been tweeting derisive messages at Romney press secretary Andrea Saul, accusing the candidate of not appealing to woman voters. Smith also charged that Romney does not fully back the Lilly Ledbetter fair pay act, and accused Saul of fabricating job loss numbers pertaining to women.
What was that about Rick Santorum as a Romney vice presidential pick again? Or for that matter, Santorum's claim yesterday "we weren't out there trashing anybody." Smith, however, appears to have no problem with a coterie of noted male misogynists who regularly belittle women and, in some cases, physically abuse them.
1.50pm: Right on time arrives this from GQ: "Mitt Romney Is The New Al Gore". On Twitter, Smith follows the disgraced boxer and convicted rapist Mike Tyson, as well as the woman-beating singer Chris Brown. She also seems to be a fan of the coke-sniffing, prostitute pugilist, Charlie Sheen.
1.34pm: Sadly, feminist jobs champion Mitt Romney got a little stuck this morning when asked if his campaign backed legislation supporting equal-pay for women: I don't think we should create the precedent where people are judged by who they follow on Twitter bit.ly/HvJAU9
During a conference call held earlier in the morning, a Romney aide was unable to answer a straightforward question about the former governor's position on the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009, which Obama signed into law amid heavy Republican opposition. I follow Mitt Romney on Twitter so therefore... and so on.
"We'll get back to you on that," the aide replied, when asked about the law by the Huffington Post. 4.47pm: Guess what – John McCain had nearly $9m left in his presidential account after the 2008 elections and has just given the whole lot to charity. A charity named the McCain Institute Foundation, according to the Washington Times:
They did get back, eventually, and confirmed that Romney does support the act. Unlike the 39 Republican senators who voted against it in 2009. The dormant 2008 presidential apparatus of Senator John McCain liquidated nearly $9m in donations by giving the money to a charity bearing the Arizona senator's name this year, filings showed Tuesday.
Wow, Romney spox says he won't get rid of Lilly Ledbetter act. bit.ly/HKFRFr Terrible legislation. But the money, collected from Republican donors years ago to support the party's nominee for the nation's highest office when he ran alongside former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, could have been given to the Republican National Committee to support this year's nominee, according to experts.
Some conservatives weren't impressed at this first obvious instance of Etch-A-Sketchism on the part of the Romney campaign. It's all perfectly legal. Anyway, that's $9m the Republican party can't use this year.
1.15pm: Faced with a severe deficit in support among women voters, the Romney campaign has been pushing the line that the "real war on women" is the Obama administration's failure on the jobs market. 5pm: Speaking of perfectly legal uses of political contributions – Sarah Palin has her own action going on, reports Politico:
This morning, Mitt Romney stuck to his gynocentric talking points: Sarah Palin's political action committee raised $388,000 in the first three months of the year, but it spent $418,000 and didn't give a dime to any candidates – which is the purported purpose of the Pac.
Romney on Fox News said "women in particular have suffered under this presidency." His campaign has been pushing the statistic that 92% of the jobs lost under Obama were women. The statistic accounts for jobs lost since January 2009. Instead, Sarah Pac spent $255,000 on fundraising and a small team of political consultants that Palin has continued to support even as she receded from the political spotlight during the heat of the GOP presidential primary. It also appears to have spent $19,000 on a video rebutting the HBO film Game Change.
Gosh, 92% eh? As always with statistics, 92% of apples are in fact oranges, as the fact-checkers at PolitiFact inconveniently pointed out when they closely examined the Romney campaign claims: Really, $19,000 on a video rebutting an HBO movie? Not to mention $255,000 spent to raise more money.
There is a small amount of truth to the claim, but it ignores critical facts that would give a different impression. We rate it Mostly False. 5.05pm: You know who could use some of that money raised by John McCain and Sarah Palin? Businesses owed money by the Newt Gingrich campaign, who are waiting to be paid:
12.50pm: So Condoleezza Rice is troubled by the way immigrants have been vilified in recent years, in comments at Duke University yesterday: In interviews with HuffPost, many vendors listed in Gingrich's Federal Election Commission debt disclosures said they're still waiting to be paid, weeks or months after finishing work. Several said they've been given the runaround by campaign officials as they've tried to collect. Gingrich has vowed to slog on with his debt-ridden campaign, despite having won a mere 136 delegates, leaving some vendors to wonder when they can expect their checks.
Traveling the globe as secretary of state, Rice found people always viewed the US as the land of free markets and free people, a place where anyone could become a part of the country. Gingrich campaign spokesman RC Hammond told HuffPost that Newt 2012 is doing its best to pay people. "Vendors have been contacted and we are paying bills as swiftly as we are able," Hammond said.
The country needs to return to that mindset, she said. According to Newt Gingrich's most recent statements, his campaign owes $4.5m. And yet he's still running. Although just yesterday it was reported that the Gingrich campaign bounced a $500 cheque in Utah.
"That immigrant culture that has renewed us … has been at the core of our strength," she said. "I don't know when immigrants became the enemy." 5.15pm: So if today was the first day of the 2012 presidential elections proper, who knows what tomorrow will bring?
One of the biggest regrets of her time in the Bush administration was failure to pass comprehensive immigration reform in 2007, she said. Days until 6 November: 208. That seems like an awfully long time.
And there's this: "She also felt there were missteps in the country's mission in Iraq, she said." Yes, missteps. That's an understatement.
12.33pm: Questions remain about Mitt Romey's ability to win over the conservative faithful of the Republican party, and the New York Times rounds up some sceptics, including Richard Viguerie, the arch-conservatrive who supported Santorum in the primaries:
After having destroyed every conservative that came on the scene, you can't say 'You have to line up behind me.' No, no, no. Conservatives are not going to jump until they hear where Governor Romney wants to take everybody.
The point is not that conservatives won't vote for Romney – of course they will, although there may be some drop-off at the margins. The real point as Viguerie notes is that conservative enthusiasm – in campaigning and fundraising – is on hold until they hear more from Romney.
John McCain solved that problem by nominating Sarah Palin. But that had some downsides, as it turned out.
12.16pm: Daily Kos gets its hands on video of Republican congressman Allan West's absurd claim about Democrats in Congress being members of the Communist party.
Here's the text:
Questioner: What percentage of the American legislature do you think are card-carrying Marxists or international socialists?
West: That's a good question. I believe there's about 78 to 81 members of the Democratic Party that are members of the Communist Party.
So it's "78 to 81"? That's very specific. I'm sure West has some proof to back this up and he's not just spouting random numbers and making stuff up.
11.38am: Good news everybody. According to Paul Burka at Texas Monthly, Rick Perry is saying he'll run for re-election as Texas governor in 2014. Thus setting the scene for Perry's inevitable triumph in the 2016 presidential elections. Or possibly not.
11.19am: If you've never heard of Allan West – well you haven't missed much. He's basically the Michele Bachmann of the Republican party in Florida, assuming Michele Bachmann was an African-American former US army officer.
Anyway, like Bachmann, West from time to time delights everyone with the contents of his imagination, as the Palm Beach Post reports:
The conservative tea party icon also got in shots at Democrats and President Obama, who spoke Tuesday at Florida Atlantic University. West said Obama was "scared" to have a discussion with him. He later said "he's heard" up to 80 US House Democrats are Communist Party members, but wouldn't name names.
Communist party members? That's like a time warp and we're back in the 1950s – and to remind us here's a photograph of another Republican leader denouncing Communists in Congress.
11.03am: Just checking the transcript from today's Buffett rule remarks by President Obama – and yes he did call Ronald Reagan a "wild-eyed socialist, tax-hiking, class warrior".
Here's the relevant section:
I'm not the first president to call for this idea that everybody's got to do their fair share. Some years ago one of my predecessors traveled across the country pushing for the same concept. He gave a speech where he talked about a letter he had received from a wealthy executive who paid lower tax rates than his secretary and wanted to come to Washington and tell Congress why that was wrong.
So this president gave another speech where he said it was "crazy" – that's a quote – "that certain tax loopholes make it possible for multi-millionaires to pay nothing while a bus driver was paying 10% of his salary."
That wild-eyed socialist, tax-hiking, class warrior was Ronald Reagan.
He thought that in America the wealthiest should pay their fair share and he said so.
I know that position might disqualify him from the Republican primaries these days but what Ronald Reagan was calling for then is the same thing that we're calling for now: a return to basic fairness and responsibility, everybody doing their part.
And if it'll help convince folks in Congress to make the right choice, we could call it the Reagan rule instead of the Buffett rule.
10.51am: The Atlantic's peerless Molly Ball gives her appraisal of the 2012 Republican primary campaign – and the best explanation of where the Republican party's centers of power sit:
The assumption going into the 2012 campaign was that this Republican primary would revolve around the fresh, feisty spirit of the Tea Party, whose zeal and devotion to conservative ideological purity did so much to shape the 2010 midterm elections. But the Tea Party never found a focus in the presidential race. Michele Bachmann managed to channel its energy for a while, as did Herman Cain and Newt Gingrich; Rick Perry never caught on the way he was supposed to. Meanwhile, it was by appealing to an older, more established right-wing base – the Christian right – that Santorum ultimately succeeded in throwing Romney off his game.
10.35am: Still talking about the Buffett rule: "It's time for Congress to stand up for the middle class" and pass the bill, Obama says, before noting that one of his predecessors in the White House made a similar pitch for higher taxes on the wealthy.
Oh now, who was it? Jimmy Carter, right? No, says Obama, it was that "wild-eyed socialist" Ronald Reagan, with a hint of triumph.
"If it would help folks in Congress, we could call it the Reagan rule rather than the Buffett rule," he says, looking serious. No one laughs.
10.25am: President Obama is taking to the podium again right now, making another pitch for the "Buffett rule," calling for Congress to vote for higher taxes on those earning more than $1m a year.
"You've heard that my friend Warren Buffett pays a lower tax rate than his secretary," Obama says, speaking from the White House. "This is not an issue of redistributing wealth":
I just point out that the Buffett rule is something that will get us moving in the right direction, it will help us close our deficits.... If we are going to keep giving people like me and some people in this room tax breaks that we can't afford, then one of two things are going to happen. Either you're going to have to borrow more money or you're going to ask for greater sacrificing from the middle class.
10.14am: Mitt Romney might be ready to move on and pivot towards the general election, for obvious reasons the Obama campaign isn't so keen.
Here the Obama "truth team" has compiled a web video collecting together all of Mitt Romney's "greatest hits" from the Republican primaries, closing with the ominous tag: "Mitt Romney: a severely conservative nominee. Remember that."
10am: Today marks the first day of the US presidential election proper, after Rick Santorum's withdrawal cleared the way for Mitt Romney to be the unchallenged Republican nominee. And the Obama campaign wasted no time in challenging Romney's credentials.
Here's a summary of the latest news by Ryan Devereaux:
• The battle for the presidency has now been joined following Rick Santorum's withdrawal from the GOP nomination. The former Pennsylvania senator made the announcement yesterday afternoon ensuring that Mitt Romney will be the Republican challenger to Barack Obama in 2012. Speaking in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania yesterday, surrounded by his wife and children, Santorum said: "We made a decision over the weekend that while this presidential race for us is over, for me, and we will suspend our campaign today, we are not done fighting." In his 12-minute speech Santorum made no mention of Mitt Romney – although he did find time to mention his signature sweater vest.
• Romney, still on the campaign trail, expressed satisfaction with Santorum's decision. "This has been a good day for me," Romney told a crowd Wilmington, Delaware. The former Massachusetts governor was quick to concentrate on President Obama. While campaigning in Pennsylvania, Romney characterised the president as a fan of European-style state socialism rather than American free enterprise.
• Obama's team quickly responded to Romney and the new political landscape. Today the Obama campaign posted a video highlighting Romney's past record, including his vow to overturn Roe versus Wade, his assertion that he'd prefer to see Detroit go bankrupt rather than back a government bailout, his claim that "corporations are people, my friend," and the fact that he described himself as "severely conservative Republican governor".
• Wealthy hedge fund manager and Santorum backer Foster Friess has declared he will now support Romney's bid for president. Friess had donated $1.7m to Santorum's campaign. "I'm obviously going to be of help in whatever way I can," Friess told Politico Tuesday. "I've got some plans as to how I might be able to be of help," he added.
• Speaking late on Tuesday, Santorum said the campaign had been harder on his family than it had been on him. "I can't say it was an emotional moment for me. I know it was a little tougher for the family, it always is tougher for the family," he said. "It's different being on the sidelines, seeing the people, the person that you love being hit. It hurts more."