The Chief Strategist of Obama's campaign speaks here to the press after a debate. He talks about some of the main points and how Obama reacted.

This clip talks about what companies sponsors the debates and how that effects them.

In this clip it discusses the debates and who should be allowed to participate in them.

Senator Tom Carper talks here about the US Postal service going bankrupt. He mentions how much communication has changed over the years with skype and facebook. This really shows how the social media has effected are country.

 

The website Rock The Vote is discussed and how social media has been able to help connect with a younger audience.

Nit Picking Media

In this clip Cain says the most surprising thing about his experiencing running for president is the way the media has been. He acknowledges the ruthlessness of the media.

Mitt Romney a Flip Flopper?

Mitt Romney has been called a flip flopper on his stance of abortion. However, the pro-President Obama political organization, Priorities USA, led by the former White House press aide, argued in a memo that Romney has been pro life the whole time throughout his service as governor of Massachusetts and now as a candidate. This memo puts away the idea, which many Democrats and critics of the GOP have, that Romney is someone who goes back and forth on his political positions depending on what office he is looking to serve. According to Fox news, the co-founder of Priorities USA, Bill Burton, claimed that Romney was in fact never supportive of abortion rights and he claimed that Romney only pretended to be so. Burton said, "If Romney wins the presidency, he won't have to 'fake it' ever again. He will be free to push a radical anti-choice agenda that bans abortion, appoint Supreme Court justices who will overturn Roe vs. Wade, and fulfill his promise to support legislation that defunds Planned Parenthood." In saying this Burton wanted women to know this was a warning of what would happen with Romney as President, essentially saying Romney would give women no choice.

            Burton was however discarding the idea that Romney is wishy-washy. Romney's current stance on abortion is his long-held stance and that poses a risk for Democrats since that could make him more appealing to social conservatives in key early election states like Iowa and South Carolina. Apparently Burton was also relying on a claim that Romney supported the recent "personhood" amendment in Mississippi. This would have stated that life begins at conception however it was defeated in Tuesday’s election in Mississippi. In speaking about this claim, Burton said Romney’s support of this proposal shows that he’s “finally being honest about his anti-choice agenda.” With that said Romney never publicly came out in support of the Mississippi proposal. In an interview on Fox News’s “Huckabee,” Romney was asked, “"Would you have supported the constitutional amendment that would have established the definition of life at conception?" Romney responded, “Absolutely.” But that comment was made during a discussion about Romney during his time as the Massachusetts governor, not about the Mississippi election.

            Romney spokeswoman, Andrea Saul wrote in an email "The very last thing the Democrats want to do is run against Mitt Romney. That is why they are focused on Mitt Romney and not the economy. The Democrats are continuing their campaign of deception in their strategy to 'kill Romney.' President Obama's campaign is going to be very interesting to watch, but it's not going to work." I think she makes a good point. Romney seems to be the GOP candidate that Democrats like best. For Obama supporters it would be better if he were not running against Romney. But Romney continues to be doing well in the polls. As for his stance on abortion I don’t think it has hurt him. He said, “I think people understand that I’m a man of steadiness and constancy.”

Foreign Policy Debate

It was a nice change to hear the GOP candidates talking about foreign policy in this week’s debate in South Carolina. With the economy in such a bad condition, it seems candidates have been focusing a lot on issues to fix it. But the other night the topics ranged from foreign aid to the Iranian nuclear threat. The feeling among all the candidates that was the same was they’re agreeing that President Obama is too soft with America’s enemies. While discussing Iran, the candidates argued over how to dissuade the regime in Tehran from carrying out they’re plans to develop a nuclear weapon. Newt Gingrich said that if all else fails, "you have to take whatever steps are necessary" to prevent that outcome. He said the approach should include covertly “taking out their scientists” and “breaking up their systems.” Mitt Romney took a different approach in his response to the discussion saying that if Obama were reelected then Iran would get a nuclear weapon but “if you elect Mitt Romney, Iran will not have a nuclear weapon.”

In the issue of foreign aid, Perry said many times, that in his administration foreign aid for all countries would start at “zero dollars.” He said that he did not trust Pakistan. He believes they are sending messages that they don’t deserve foreign aid. Perry said, “It’s time for us as a country to say no to foreign aid to countries that don’t support the United States of America.” I liked Perry’s remarks on this subject. While watching I felt that he had a plan for the country. Gingrich supported Perry’s idea as well saying, “You ought start off with zero and say explain to me why I should give you a penny.” However, both Michelle Bachmann and Rick Santorum believe America should be more careful with Pakistan as they do have nuclear weapons. Santorum said, “Pakistan must be a friend of the United States.”

Perry’s last debate did not go so well as he forgot the name of the agencies he wanted to eliminate. However in this debate Perry joked about his mistake when he compared his proposal to foreign aid at zero dollars to his approach eliminating the agencies. He joked, “We ought to do that with some of those agencies I was trying to think the name of.” I thought this was a clever way to acknowledge his embarrassing moment and in a way redeem him by making fun of it.

Once again when discussing the withdrawal of troops in Afghanistan, all the candidates criticized Obama. Jon Huntsman said he believed it was time for the troops in Afghanistan to come home. But both Perry and Romney said they would side with military commanders on the ground about when to withdraw troops. Romney did say though, that he supports a full withdrawal of the troops by the end of 2012.

Since the debates over the past weeks, Cain is still doing well in the polls, although Gingrich has risen quit a bit in the recent national polls. Meanwhile, Perry has fallen back not surprisingly due to his slip up in the debates. In an interview with Donald Trump, Trump said when asking Perry why he keeps messing up, Perry responded debates are just not his thing. The President of the United States needs to be able to speak eloquently and think fast when under pressure but do these debates really convey a good president?

The Cain Train

To fire back at Herman Cain’s sexual harassment allegation, he is targeting journalists by passing out a code of ethics with guidelines on how to report stories. Cain’s campaign spokesman, J.D. Gordon emailed parts of the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) Code of Ethics. What he sent focused limiting the use of anonymous sources and to evaluate their motives before using the source.  According to reports from Fox News, the code is full of reminders such as not using arrogance in reporting and “treating subjects of stories as reporters would like to be treated and exposing unethical behavior by fellow reporters.” I think reporters should follow some sort of code of ethics but just as I think any person in any field should. The way the code phrases it and the fact that Cain brought it up seems a little childish. The first thing I thought of when reading them was the saying you tell children, do unto others as you would have them do to you.

Even with the allegations towards Cain, he is still hopeful and believes his supporters will continue to support him. On Saturday Cain asked donors to contribute toward his goal of raising $999,000, which goes perfectly with his 9-9-9 plan, by Thursday so he can compete in the Iowa caucus scheduled in January. In his email sent out he wrote, "Every time someone makes a donation to my campaign it shows the media and my opponents that the American people are fed up with the politics of personal destruction and they are demanding real change in Washington." Even with all the momentum Cain’s campaign may still have the allegation are definitely affecting him in the race. According to a Reuters/Ipsos poll, Cain has lost 9 points in his favorability rating with Republicans. Not too long age he was at 66 percent in the poll and now he has dropped to 57 percent. Among all registered voters he dropped 5 percentage points to 32 percent from 37 percent. On the good side for Cain he is still ahead of Obama in terms of favorability rankings. In another survey (Washington Post-ABC News survey) taken after the sexual harassment allegations came out, it showed Cain and Mitt Romney running pretty much even with “seven in ten Republicans saying the reports don’t matter when it comes to picking a candidate.”

Luckily for Cain it seems like most of his opponents think the accusations against Cain are irrelevant for the race, although it does create a big distraction to the important topics. I think the media blew this way out of proportion but I suppose that is what the media does. They dig around till they find something juicy enough to sell and roll with. At least for Cain his name is still in the news. However, on Saturday Cain said he would not answer any more questions about the allegations while he cut off a journalist asking him a question about it and he Cain then said “please send him the journalistic code of ethics.” I’m not so sure this code of ethics will work for Cain but it will be interesting to see in the next week or so if this story dies down or get more heighted.  Cain told reporters “when people get on the Cain train, they don’t get off.” We will have to wait and see if he is right about the Cain train.

Paul says he is NOT and Independent

Things seem good for Ron Paul, as he won the Illinois Republicans presidential candidate straw poll but he says that he is ruling out the idea of an independent bid for the White House. Paul claims that’s not the direction he wants to go in. He told Fox News Sunday, that it made no sense for him to run as an independent and that he has “no intention doing that.” When he was asked why, Paul simply replied, “Because I don’t want to do it. That’s the reason.” I thought that response was very poor. It reminded me of a child saying they don’t want to do something because they don’t want to do it. It was not very informative and I would be curious as to what he would have to say about running as Republican versus an Independent.

Even with Paul being a more liberal Republican than the other candidates he did say that if he is not the nominee that he would definitely support a GOP nominee. However he added, “if they believe on expanding the wars, if they don't believe in looking at the Federal Reserve; if they don't believe in real cuts, if they don't believe in deregulation and better tax system, it would defy everything I believe in." With that said he would be weary to go tell all his supporters that gave him money and trusted in his beliefs to just support anyone.

Paul seems to be a very reasonable guy who really looks at the issues at hand and sticks to his beliefs. He may not be my favorite candidate but he does remain consistent and that is something to be said for a politician. When talking about fellow candidate Herman Cain who has been probed in the media over alleged sexual harassment claims, he said this was not what bothered him. "The allegations against his program, he's liking, you know, the Federal Reserve and his national sales tax -- yes, they are very legitimate and his support for bailouts, those allegations are very legitimate. Those other allegations, these problems that he had -- no, I don't think, I think the media blew this way out of proportion," Paul said. "He believes in the bailouts and the Federal Reserve and all this. I think that's what we should be talking about." I think that this is a very good point and I have to agree with Paul.  It seems more politicians than not have been accused of sexual harassment and although some are rightfully accused and it is a serious issue, it is not an issue of politics.

With Paul sticking to the Republican Party he is determined to advance in the race. In order to get the economy back in the right direction he plans on cutting $1 trillion in the first year of his administration and balance the budget in three years so that spending would be 15.5 percent of the gross domestic product. According to Fox news, this would put government's ratio of GDP at its lowest level since 1951 and many people think this would bring the country back into a recession.  But Paul is confident that this wouldn’t happen and that he can help salvage the country.