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Stories tagged with “Election 2012”

Election

Former Republican Congresswoman Blasts Modern GOP, Laments Party’s Approach To Women’s Issues

By Josh Israel on May 25, 2012 at 5:38 pm

Former Rep. Connie Morella (R-MD)

Former Rep. Connie Morella (R-MD)

Over her eight terms as a Congresswoman from Maryland’s Eight District, Connie Morella earned a reputation one of the strongest voices for women’s rights and reproductive choice in the Republican Party. A bipartisan-minded moderate, she worked with members of both parties to shepherd the 2000 re-authorization of the Violence Against Women Act through the House with a 415 to 3 majority. Like former Sen. John Danforth (R-MO), she hardly recognizes her party today.

In an interview with ThinkProgress, Morella expressed disappointment with the anti-women voting record of the 24-member Republican Women’s Policy Committee and the lack of bipartisan House support for the Senate version of the Violence Against Women Act.

Among her observations:

On the GOP’s move to the right:
I think the [Republican] Party has moved more towards the right and it has become more solidified in terms of not offering opportunities for other voices to be heard. Look at [Indiana Republican Senate Nominee Richard] Mourdock’s statement when he proclaimed victory: I’m not going to give into them, they’re going to come over to me. The word compromise is not even in the lexicon, let alone an understanding of what it means.

On moderates in Congress:
I went to Harvard in 2008. My program’s theme was “An Endangered Species: A Moderate in the House of Representatives.” If I were to go back now, I think I’d have to say “An Extinct Species,” not endangered, extinct.

On the GOP-only Women’s Policy Committee:
I’ve always said that when you look at Congress, you had more bipartisanship with Congressional Caucus for Women’s Issues. The number of issues has gotten smaller… I was the prime sponsor in 2000 of the Violence Against Women Act, when it was reauthorized… On the floor, there was hardly a vote against it. And now, I don’t know why these women have been cornered, so to speak. Maybe they are motivated by the fact that this is an election year — and in a presidential election particularly, they want to act to counter the concept of the War on Women. That’s why they’re coming up with their own caucus, I suppose. I’ve always felt [the women's caucus] needed to be bipartisan… I think it’s a defensive attempt on the part of this caucus, because they’re concerned.

On a backlash for the GOP’s votes on women’s issues:
Women are a majority of the voting bloc. If they sense that some of the equities they worked so hard for are being taken away, you’ll see a backlash.

While she thinks the economy will be the biggest issue in the 2012 elections, she warns that if House Republicans insist on a Violence Against Women Act that says “except certain women,” it could hurt the party in November.

Morella says she’s disappointed with where the Republican Party has gone. “If I were there, I’d be one of the minorities voting against the party. There’s no big tent, not even a small tent. It collapsed.”

Climate Progress

Will Mitt Romney Tap American Petroleum Institute’s President For His Chief Of Staff?

By Climate Guest Blogger on May 25, 2012 at 3:03 pm

API President Jack Gerard

by Lee Fang, via the Republic Report

When oil companies need help in Washington, they call Jack Gerard. But in January of next year, assuming he wins the presidency, Mitt Romney may be dialing Gerard for political support. According to media reports in his native Idaho, Gerard is on the shortlist to become Romney’s White House chief of staff.

Gerard is the president of the American Petroleum Institute, the largest oil lobbying associations in the country. Using a budget that is rumored to be in the hundreds of millions (funded by all of the major oil companies, including Chevron, ExxonMobil, etc.), Gerard finances pro-oil propaganda on network television, academic studies to promote his policy positions, front groups to hold rallies in pivotal swing states, and of course a large teams of lobbyists from D.C. to over a dozen state capitals across the country. For his work, he’s one of the highest paid lobbyists in the Beltway, making $6.4 million in 2010 alone.

Rumors are again circulating that Gerard, a prominent Mormon and close ally to the Romney campaign, may be selected to take the top slot in a Romney administration. And there’s other evidence that Gerard has already ingratiated himself with the Romney campaign:

– Senator Jim Risch (R-ID) told the Idaho Statesman that he thinks Gerard may be selected as Romney’s chief of staff. “Gerard is a heckuva player in Washington, D.C.,” Risch told the newspaper. “He’s well thought of, well connected, has incredible street cred. He’s certainly got the qualifications to do any of that.”

– Former Senator Jim McClure (R-ID), Gerard’s former boss when he worked on Capitol Hill, predicted that Gerard would be Romney’s chief of staff had he won in 2008.

– Breaking a tradition of trade association nonpartisanship, Gerard endorsed Romney during the Republican primaries this year, and indicated the he is close to the Romney family.

– Jack Gerard’s son, who shares the same name, is now a spokesman for the Romney campaign.

The Romney campaign, like most political campaigns, has remained largely silent about its future staffing plans.

Lee Fang is a reporter with the Republic Report. This piece was originally published at the Republic Report and was reprinted with permission.

Security

Kerry: Romney Is ‘Naive’ For Calling Russia American’s Top Adversary

By Ben Armbruster on May 25, 2012 at 2:45 pm

Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) told Bloomberg News’s Al Hunt in an interview to be aired this weekend that presumptive GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney is “breathtakingly off target and naive” for calling Russia the nation’s “number one geopolitical foe.” The Hill reports:

“I think that candidate Romney has been breathtakingly off target, and naive and in fact wrong in his judgment about Russia when he said Russia is our number one foe. I cannot think of any statement that frankly is more inappropriately threatening and simply wrong by any calculus than that,” Kerry told Bloomberg.

Kerry revealed that Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told him during a recent meeting that Russian leaders also think that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad must go. “We have much bigger problems on this planet in the Middle East, with the evolution of Egypt, with the challenge of Syria, terrorism, al-Qaeda in Yemen, and so forth,” Kerry said.

Bush administration Secretary of State Colin Powell similarly criticized Romney this week for his Russia comments. The former four-star U.S. Army general said Romney “really needs to not just accept these cataclysmic sort of pronouncements.” Powell added, “Let’s be mature people and look at the reality of the situation and not find ways to see if we can hyperbolize the situation.”

Economy

Romney Admits Budget Cuts Would Throw Economy Into ‘Recession Or Depression’

By Pat Garofalo on May 25, 2012 at 11:25 am

During an interview with Time Magazine’s Mark Halperin, 2012 presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney admitted that drastic spending cuts will hurt the economy, creating a “recession or depression“:

HALPERIN: You have a plan, as you said, over a number of years, to reduce spending dramatically. Why not in the first year, if you’re elected — why not in 2013, go all the way and propose the kind of budget with spending restraints, that you’d like to see after four years in office? Why not do it more quickly?

ROMNEY: Well because, if you take a trillion dollars for instance, out of the first year of the federal budget, that would shrink GDP over 5%. That is by definition throwing us into recession or depression. So I’m not going to do that, of course. What you do is you make adjustments on a basis that show, in the first year, actions that over time get you to a balanced budget.

This, of course, is the point that progressives have been making in response to the House Republican budget, which Romney supports. According to estimates from the Economic Policy Institute, the cuts in the House GOP budget — authored by Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) — would cost the economy 4.1 million jobs over the next two years due to the $400 billion in spending cuts for which it calls. As Esquire’s Charles Pierce, who flagged this particular exchange in the interview, wrote, “didn’t Romney, in saying that, pretty much blow up the entire rationale for over 30 years of Republican economics right there? Cutting government spending will throw us into a recession or depression?”

Europe is already struggling under the weight of austerity, with its economy contracting at the fastest pace in three years. Romney seems to understand the effect that cutting the budget indiscriminately in the short-term will have, yet he’s backing a budget that fails to acknowledge it.

Security

Huntsman Calls Romney’s China Talk ‘Typical’ Campaign Rhetoric

By Ben Armbruster on May 25, 2012 at 10:15 am

Former Utah governor and GOP presidential candidate Jon Huntsman again criticized Mitt Romney’s harsh rhetoric toward China last night on CNN, calling it “typical” during a campaign.

Romney released an ad yesterday saying that he would get tough on China “on day one” of his presidency should he be elected. “President Romney stands up to China on trade and demands they play by the rules,” the ad says.

During an interview last night with CNN’s Erin Burnett, Huntsman — who has endorsed Romney for president — criticized the former Massachusetts governor and suggested he would pull back if elected:

HUNTSMAN: I think — this is a — this is a typical trajectory where during a campaign season you’re going to talk about China in ways that you’re hearing today. We’ve seen that election cycles gone by. They you get in office and I think Mitt Romney has the prospects of doing that which his most important for the U.S.-China relationship. Strengthening our own domestic economy and giving life and confidence to our creative class so we can get back on our feet.

If you want a strong U.S.-China relationship it starts right here at home and it starts with a stronger economy.

Watch the clip:

Huntsman was less diplomatic in his criticism of Romney on China last February, referring to his China policy as “wrongheaded.”

But Huntsman isn’t the only Romney-backer to differ with the presumptive GOP presidential nominee on China. Earlier this month, right-wing foreign policy don Bill Kristol called Romney’s attacks on the Obama administration’s handling of an escalating situation with a Chinese dissident “foolish.”

Even Romney’s own foreign policy advisers have praised President Obama on China. “I think he has a good policy in Asia, particularly in dealing with China,” neoconservative Brookings scholar Robert Kagan said, adding, “I think he’s strengthened our position in Asia with our allies.”

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