Gingrich: Obama the food stamp president

Gingrich criticized Obama for the growth in food stamps, calling him "the best food stamp president in American history." He later said that "the fact is that more people have been put on food stamps by Barack Obama than any  president in American history." POLITIFACT.ORG has rated that Half True because the number was headed upward before Obama became president. 


Obviously, the rise in food stamps is a direct consequence of the serious recession that began in December 2007 -- more than a year before Obama took office. It’s hard to determine how much blame Obama deserves compared to his predecessor, President George W. Bush, but the experts we spoke to, conservative and liberal, agree that Obama inherited a serious economic situation.

Obama Leads in South Carolina and Florida

UPDATE- 01-21-12 10AM EST.

PPP is out with its final numbers going into tomorrow's South Carolina primary. It's 37% Gingrich, 28% Romney, 16% Santorum, 14% Paul. That's polling of 1540 voters over the last three days. In the calls they made tonight, Newt was up 40% to 26% over Romney. One night, especially a Friday night, is not much to go on. But it's in line with the trend since Monday which has shown Gingrich rocketing into the lead.

Anything can happen. Polls can be wrong. But polls seldom give us such clear guidance on what to expect.

Read More →

UPDATE -01-19-12 10:00 AM EST.

Since Santorum officially won Iowa, and with a Gingrich victory increasingly likely in South Carolina, what is the Romney camp to do with a 1 in 3 record in these early primaries? And if this is the beginning of the march toward a brokered convention, how long till we start to see either Romney or Gingrich flirt heavily with the Ron Paul faction of their party? Finally, what about the evangelical base that has thrown its support behind Santorum? Can establishment Republicans get them to swallow a Gingrich candidacy?

Read more: http://www.care2.com/causes/morning-mix-newts-surge-and-romneys-fizzle.html#ixzz1jzzdk3zP

PPP: Gingrich Jumps To Six Point Lead In SC

New numbers from Public Policy Polling (D) show former House Speaker Newt Gingrich with a six point lead in a survey conducted over the last two days, after an impressive debate performance on Monday night. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney is second with 29 percent after leading the state for the last ten days, and has fallen to second in our TPM Poll Average.

PPP will continue polling on Friday, which will provide some insight on how South Carolina GOP voters saw the final debate in the state on Thursday night.

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 There were hints and drabs of information yesterday suggesting that Gingrich was making a big move in South Carolina. And now three new polls this morning confirm it................................

 InsiderAdvantage snap poll conducted Wednesday showed Gingrich actually leading by three over Romney, 32 – 29, so the numbers are definitely tightening as the candidates cross the finish line.Our TPM Poll Average now shows Romney’s lead a little over one percent after starting the week with a more than ten point advantage.

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New polls of South Carolina and Florida hint that the GOP’s chances of taking the White House are evaporating as Barack Obama leads both Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich in each state.

The biggest surprise is in the new NBC/Marist poll of South Carolina, where Obama’s approval rating is a not too upside down for a reliable red state 44%/48%. The big shock is that President Obama has small leads over both Newt Gingrich (46%-42%), and Mitt Romney (45%-42%). Both of Obama’s narrow leads are outside the poll’s 2.1% margin of error. A new Winthrop poll has also found that President Obama is more popular than Republican South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley. The Winthrop Poll gives Obama nearly identical to NBC 44.8% approval rating, and only 34.6% approve of Gov. Haley.

Gingrich is absolutely destroying Romney in South Carolina among likely primary voters 42%-23%. Newt Gingrich leads Mitt Romney 51%-20% among tea partiers. Romney’s biggest problem in the state is that Republicans are more interested in a candidate who shares their values (29%), and is close to them on the issues (26%) than one that can beat Obama (20%). By a margin of 61%-53% Republicans found Gingrich more acceptable than Romney, and 44% of Republicans believed that Romney was acceptable with reservations or not acceptable at all. Only 26% of likely primary voters considered Romney a conservative.

In Florida, Obama has seen his approval rating jump five points since October. It is within the margin of error, but more voters now approve of Obama than disapprove (46%-45%). Obama now leads Romney by seven points, (48%-41%), and Gingrich by 12 points in the Sunshine State, (51%-39%). Newt Gingrich is blowing out Romney in Florida for the same reasons that he is trouncing him in South Carolina. Florida Republicans said that it was more important to them that a candidate shared their values (26%) and is close to them on the issues (28%) than can beat Obama (23%).

Gingrich also holds a commanding lead over Romney among tea partiers, (57%-22%). Among likely GOP primary voters, 58% found Mitt Romney to be an acceptable candidate, but 28% felt that he was acceptable with reservations 10% felt that he was not acceptable at all. Sixty five percent of likely GOP primary voters found Newt Gingrich acceptable. Only 20% felt that he was acceptable with reservations and 11% believed that he was not acceptable.

Within the Republican Party what is happening is a repeat of the 2010 election. GOP primary voters in South Carolina and Florida are more concerned with shared values and positions than they are with electability. Mitt Romney’s entire campaign is built around the theme of being able to defeat Obama, but Republican voters would rather lose with someone who they feel shares their values than potentially win with Mitt Romney. The difference between Gingrich and Romney is that Newt knows how to woo the base. In two separate presidential campaigns, Romney has not been able to ease doubts about his conservative cred. It is a pretty safe bet that those doubts are never going to go away.

Obama’s popularity is improving even in places like South Carolina because of his focus on creating jobs and the economy. While the Republican nomination has turned into an ideological spitting contest over who can cut the most taxes and be the most extreme conservative, Obama has been talking about the economy and creating jobs every single day for months now.

The jobs message is powerful, and Republicans have turned the issue over to Obama by promising to create jobs by following the same failed policies of George W. Bush. In a bad economy, a platform of tax cuts for the rich and more trickle down is not what voters want to hear. They want the government to do something, and Obama is the only candidate who has offered any real solutions.

It would be a miracle if Obama won South Carolina, but the combination of bad candidates and even worse message has made President Obama the favorite as we head into 2012. As long as Obama keeps hammering the jobs message and the economy keeps improving his polling and approval ratings will go up, and Republicans will see their dream of making Barack Obama a one term president shattered.

Winning Our Future, the super-PAC supporting Newt Gingrich, has now posted its 28-minute video attacking Mitt Romney’s business and jobs record, “King of Bain.”

Pro-Newt Super-PAC Officially Launches Video Feature Attacking Romney And Bain

Winning Our Future, the super-PAC supporting Newt Gingrich, has now posted its 28-minute video attacking Mitt Romney’s business and jobs record, “King of Bain.”

To watch the video, click here.

The Bain Of Mitt Romney's Existence

Of all the bizarre aspects of the Republican presidential race—and they have been gloriously plentiful—nothing has been odder than the kid-glove treatment accorded the likeliest nominee. While every other pretender, from Donald Trump to Rick Santorum, has had his record and rhetoric parsed and pilloried, Mitt Romney has sailed through months (heck, years) of campaigning and oodles of debates without so much as a nick or scratch. Until now. Sunday’s New Hampshire debate featured memorable smackdowns by Jon Huntsman and Newt Gingrich. But far more ominous for the former Massachusetts governor is the sudden dam-burst of criticism of the central rationale for his campaign: Romney’s job-creating business experience at Bain Capital, which the candidate argues makes him uniquely qualified to be America’s recession-era CEO. Among the revelations,The Wall Street Journal reported today on the high rate of bankruptcies and closures among the companies Bain invested in during Romney’s tenure. Ezra Klein dug into Romney’s job-creation claim at Saturday night’s debate—more than 100,000 net jobs—and found it “untrue.”

And while Romney maintains a wide lead in New Hampshire polls and a smaller edge in South Carolina, his opponents are—very belatedly—howling about Bain’s takeover tactics. The attacks will soon ramp up when the Gingrich campaign airs “When Mitt Romney Came to Town,” a 27-minute ad, in South Carolina; the trailer calls Romney a “corporate raider.” While Romney’s previous placid march to the nomination might not be halted, we’re surely—finally—glimpsing a preview of what a general-election campaign will produce.






source 

CORPORATIONS ARE JOB CREMATORS

CORPORATIONS AREN'T JOB CREATORS

After largely ignoring Mitt Romney during Saturday's debate in New Hampshire, the Republican candidates have started attacking the frontrunner where it hurts most: his economic résumé. A new 28-minute television advertisement focusing on Romney's time at Bain Capital has the most potential to hurt the candidate given that the former governor touts his experience there as indicative of his ability to fix the U.S. economy. Newt Gingrich-supporting Super PAC "Winning Our Future" produced the film. The advertisement strikes back at Romney's $3.7 million-worth of negative, anti-Gingrich advertising in Iowa, which effectively ruined the former speaker's end-of-the-year momentum.

A report today from The Wall Street Journal lends even more ammunition to Gingrich's last-minute attacks on Romney's credentials: 22 percent of the companies Bain invested in while Romney was in charge filed for bankruptcy less than eight years later, and eight percent more lost all the money Bain invested. Of the ten companies reaping the most profit for Bain, four ended up in bankruptcy court. The attacks may be too late to stop Mitt Romney from winning the nomination, but they will severely weaken him in a general-election race.
 

TWO Expresses Revulsion Over Extremist Anti-Gay Positions Expressed By GOP Candidates at Debate

 Truth Wins Out expressed its revulsion over the unrestrained anti-gay bigotry expressed by Republican candidates in tonight's ABC News debate. The contenders bent over backwards to slap loving gay couples in their faces and hid behind phony religious liberty arguments to mask their anti-gay animus, says TWO.

"We are completely disgusted by virtually the entire GOP field which panders to prejudice and bows to anti-gay bigotry," said Truth Wins Out's Executive Director Wayne Besen. "The unabashed extremism witnessed in this debate is a disgrace and an embarrassment to both the Republican Party and to this nation."

The most outrageous view expressed this evening came from former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum who said that he would support a constitutional amendment prohibiting same-sex couples from marrying, as well as breaking up gay couples who are already legally married. "If the Constitution says marriage is between a man and a woman, then marriage is between a man and a woman," Santorum said. "Those who are not men and women and are married would not be married."

"I think the radical idea of destroying families and invalidating their marriages is so preposterous that it will cost Rick Santorum any chance of ever becoming President of the United States," said TWO's Besen, who married his partner of five years, Jamie Brundage, last month in Burlington, Vermont. "Santorum is just too extreme and the cruel position he took on this issue will lead to the unraveling of his campaign."

Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum defended their anti-gay positions by falsely claiming that marriage equality conflicted with religious liberty. Perry actually claimed that allowing LGBT couples to marry is a "a war against religion."

"The red meat may work to some degree in the primaries," said TWO's Besen, "But homophobia will haunt the eventual nominee in the general election."

The most laughable moment of the evening came when Newt Gingrich expressed his opposition to marriage equality and invoked "the sacrament of marriage." He did so with a straight face as his third wife, Callista, sat in the audience and applauded.    

CLASS WARFARE, ROMNEY-STYLE

Nothing gets Mitt Romney more animated on the campaign trail than inveighing against President Obama’s penchant for wealth-redistribution. The president wants to “substitute envy for ambition and poison the American spirit by pitting one American against another and engaging in class warfare,” as Romney put it earlier this week in Des Moines. But as the non-partisan Tax Policy Center reported yesterday, the former Massachusetts governor is waging his own brand of class warfare. Romney’s plan would save a middle-income American about $1,400 a year—and lighten a 1 percenter's tax load by $171,000. It would also add $600 billion to the deficit in 2015. (Among those benefiting from Romneynomics would, of course, be Romney; his net worth is estimated at $250 million, making him one of the 3,140 richest people in America—part of the 0.001 percent.) The Economist calls Romney’s plan “very progressive, by 15th-century standards.” But if you ask a lot of conservatives, Romney’s plans are the next worst thing to Obama’s. Ex-Reagan official Peter Ferrara writes in Forbes that with Romney proposing tax cuts for middle-income Americans, he’s engaging in “Obama neo-socialist class rhetoric.” In The Wall Street Journal, columnist Kimberley Strassel takes Romney to task today for merely saying that he opposes “tax cuts for the rich.” No matter his actual proposal to cut rich people’s, she says, Romney is “playing the class game.” 


Oh Yea

 “What about three men? Reason says that if you think it’s OK for two, then you have to differentiate with me as to why it’s not OK for three.”

—Rick Santorum, answering questions in New Hampshire about his opposition to same-sex marriage

Romney Promises Everyone a Job, a Pony and a Narwhal!

Mitt Romney has promised if he’s elected president: all college graduates will have a job and Iran won’t get a nuke. Michelle Bachmann promised $2 a gallon gas if she were elected. Politicians are making outlandish claims. What’s next? Ponies and narwhals for everyone?

Iowa Caucus By The Numbers

The most important number on Tuesday night in Iowa wasn't eight—the miniscule margin by which Mitt Romney edged out Rick Santorum for first place. It was 3,255—the negligible estimated increase in turnout over the 2008 GOP caucuses. Given the sizable number of independents—23 percent of the total—who showed up to (mostly) vote for third-place finisher Ron Paul, it looks like fewer Iowa Republicans actually voted this year.

To say the least, this complicates one of the most popular story lines about 2012—that Republicans are simply wild to unseat President Barack Obama and that the Democrats are facing a serious “enthusiasm gap” against their fired-up foes. (In fact, a Gallup poll in December already began to puncture this myth.)

In 2008, the Democratic caucuses in Iowa attracted 239,000 voters, almost twice the number as in 2004—a portent of the rising tide that would lift Obama to the White House ten months later. Of course, the Democrats had three candidates that year (Obama, Hillary Clinton, and John Edwards) who attracted fervent support. What this year’s caucuses showed, more than anything else, was that while Republicans might dearly love the idea of toppling the president, they remain lukewarm about their potential champions. And that might be the real enthusiasm gap that matters in 2012.
 

Oh Yea!

“Many of the Christian faith have said, well, that’s okay, contraception is okay. It’s not okay. It’s a license to do things in a sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be.”

—Rick Santorum, October 2011

Richard Cordray to Lead America’s Consumer Watchdog

The President used his Constitutional authority today to recess-appoint former Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray as head of the Consumer Financial Product Bureau – America’s first-ever consumer watchdog created by the President’s Wall Street reform.   ·        

This is the latest in a series of “We Can’t Wait” executive actions the President has taken to move the country forward in the face of Congressional inaction and to strengthen the economy.   ·        

As America’s consumer watchdog, Richard Cordray will have one job – looking out for the best interests of consumers. His job will be to protect families from the abuses of the financial industry, and make sure you’ve got all the information you need to make important financial decisions.     ·        

Right away, he’ll start working to make sure millions of Americans are treated fairly by mortgage brokers, payday lenders and debt collectors.    ·        

Just this week, the CFPB is launching a simple phone number – 1 (855) 411-CFPB – you can call to make sure you’re getting a fair deal on your mortgage, and hold banks and brokers accountable if you’re not.    ·        

If you’re a veteran, the Bureau will help make sure you aren’t taken advantage of when you come home from serving our country. If you’re a senior, they’ll keep you from losing your home or your retirement because someone saw you as an easy target.   ·        

The President is taking this executive action because Republicans have refused to confirm Richard Cordray, who the President nominated last summer. By refusing to confirm Richard Cordray, Congressional Republicans stopped the consumer watchdog bureau from doing its job. Until a director is in place, the consumer watchdog cannot stand up to payday lenders, debt collectors, credit-reporting agencies and private student lenders.  ·        

Despite having strong bipartisan support across the country and a record of protecting consumers from dishonest lending practices and recovering billions of dollars in things like pension funds on behalf of retirees, Republicans in the Senate won’t give him an up or down vote. It’s not because they don’t support Cordray – it’s because they don’t believe America needs a consumer watchdog at all.  ·        

The President disagrees. He believes that everyone should play by the same rules so that hard work pays off and responsibility – not recklessness – is rewarded. Today’s announcement means the end to the era of two rulebooks: one for big banks on Wall Street and another for businesses on Main Street.  ·        

Wall Street’s recklessness affected nearly every American – those of us with credit cards, student loans, mortgages and home-equity lines, as well as those of us saving for emergencies, a down payment, college and retirement. For too long, there was no place where families or small business could turn when fine print changed the terms of their loans, or when they were hit with hidden charges, new fees, or penalties on their credit cards or debit cards.   ·        

The American people work hard and are fighting to reclaim the security they lost in the financial collapse. They simply demand that Wall Street and the big financial institutions follow the rules, live up to their agreements, and are held accountable. That’s what Richard Cordray will do every day as America’s consumer watchdog.