For Campaign News, Viewers Tune to Cable |
The Media Decoder blog offers details on a survey by the Pew Research Center that found cable news is now the most prominent source of campaign news for the American people.
Oregon Democrat Sworn In to House
By ASHLEY SOUTHALLWASHINGTON — Suzanne Bonamici, the Democrat who won a special House election in Oregon last week, was sworn in Tuesday by Speaker John A. Boehner.
Ms. Bonamici, 57, handily beat her Republican opponent, Rob Cornilles, in a special election for Oregon’s First Congressional District, which is strong Democratic territory that stretches from Portland to the Pacific Ocean. The seat was vacated by David Wu, a Democrat who resigned last summer as he faced an ethics investigation based on accusations that he had inappropriate sexual contact with a young woman in 2010.
Ms. Bonamici will serve until the current term ends next January; she faces a Democratic primary in May and the election in November to win a full term.
After her swearing in, Ms. Bonamici said that she wanted to help rebuild the economy and the nation’s confidence.
“There are too many families still struggling to make ends meet, and they want to know that their voices are heard in our deliberations,” she said on the House floor.
“Our economy and the nation’s confidence are both in need of rebuilding,” she continued. “As we work together, let us remember that the unparalleled prosperity and creativity of this great nation over the last century can be traced to this promise: that if you work hard and play by the rules, you can succeed in America.”
Before coming to Congress, Ms. Bonamici served in the Oregon Legislature from 2007 to 2011 and once worked as a consumer protection lawyer at the Federal Trade Commission.
Caucus Video: Three States Vote
By EMILY B. HAGER
As Colorado, Minnesota and Missouri head to the polls in the Republican nominating contest, Rick Santorum tries to position himself as the most electable conservative alternative to Mitt Romney. Jeff Zeleny reports.
Bob Kerrey Won’t Run for Nebraska Senate
By STEVEN YACCINOFormer Senator Bob Kerrey announced on Tuesday that he would not run be returning to Nebraska to run for his old United States Senate seat.
Mr. Kerrey, a Democrat, was considering the comeback bid after a decade out of office and posed the most tangible threat to Republicans in Nebraska trying to win the seat of retiring Senator Ben Nelson and potentially upset Democrats’ majority in the Senate.
After Mr. Nelson announced in December that he would not run for re-election, Mr. Kerrey, a former Nebraska governor and presidential candidate who now lives in New York, expressed interest in the position, but backed away just weeks later. Read more…
Obama Announces Education Initiatives at White House Science Fair
By JACKIE CALMES
Stephen Crowley/The New York TimesPresident Obama watched as Joey Hudy, 14, launched a marshmallow from his “Extreme Marshmallow Cannon” in the White House State Dining Room on Tuesday.President Obama for a second time converted the White House public rooms into a science fair on Tuesday, and announced new federal and private-sector initiatives to encourage “a nation of tinkerers and dreamers” in so-called STEM education in science, technology, engineering and math.
After Mr. Obama had wandered like a judge among the science projects assembled in the Grand Foyer and State, Red and Blue rooms, absorbing explanations from each award-winning student, he said he was reminded of his own experience as a science student and added, “Basically, you guys put me to shame.”
According to a White House summary, in his annual federal budget request next week, Mr. Obama will seek to dedicate $80 million for the Education Department to a $100 million competition – more than $20 million will come from corporations and foundations led by Carnegie Corporation – to support programs to prepare teachers in science, technology, engineering and math, including programs allowing students to simultaneously earn a degree in their subject and a teaching certificate. Read more…
Update on the Search for a Secret Donor
By MICHAEL LUOThere have been plenty of leads but still no eureka moment.
On Friday, the Caucus called upon readers for help identifying secret “super PAC” donors, whose true identities have been hidden because their contributions were made through limited liability companies and other entities that seem to be just shells.
The biggest puzzle has been “Glenbrook LLC,” with an address at 3 Lagoon Drive, Suite 400, Redwood City, Calif., which made a $250,000 contribution to the pro-Romney super-PAC, Restore Our Future, in August. The Redwood City office suite is occupied by Seiler LLP, a certified public accounting firm, which has declined to comment.
From the beginning, the most tantalizing lead has been the sole Glenbrook LLC registered with the California secretary of state, which is connected to a San Francisco wealth management firm that manages money for descendants of the Levi Strauss family. Those descendants include children of Richard and Rhoda Goldman, now deceased.
Donald Seiler, founder of Seiler LLP, the accounting firm in Redwood City, is also a member of the board at the Goldmans’ charitable foundation. But Morton Pactor, who runs the wealth management firm, said he personally wrote the checks for that particular Glenbrook LLC. In three telephone interviews, he repeatedly and emphatically denied any connection. The Goldman family, too, tends to donate to liberal causes, so their involvement seems doubtful.
Many readers have pointed the Caucus to a “Glenbrook Partners LLC” in Menlo Park, Calif., a payment strategy consulting firm, which also happens to have an employee who was a former consultant at Bain & Co. But the connection seems tenuous at best, and Carol Coye Benson, a founding partner of the firm, said in a telephone interview, “It’s not us.”
“If any of us had $200,000 to give to someone, I’d be very interested,” she added.
Several readers have speculated that the donor behind Glenbrook LLC must be connected to the posh Lake Tahoe resort town, Glenbrook, Nev. But without anything more to go on, that notion remains merely an intriguing idea.
Readers have sent in information on Glenbrooks registered in Colorado, Delaware, Maryland and Massachusetts, adding to the Glenbrooks the Caucus had already looked into in Alaska, Kentucky, Nebraska and Washington, among other places. But so far, nothing concrete.
The Caucus will keep digging into other leads and encourages readers to do so as well. Send tips to campfin@nytimes.com.
In Colorado, Recovery Falls Along Party Lines
By KIRK JOHNSONIf economic frustration fuels fervor Tuesday in the Republican presidential caucuses in Colorado — or in the general election — the map might be one place to turn for answers.
The state’s recovery from recession has been spotty and uneven, a pattern seen in many places. But the further wrinkle for both parties in Colorado is that some of the most heavily Republican areas have lagged the most, with stubbornly higher unemployment rates, while some of the most staunchly Democratic places have done better.
The pattern is not without its exceptions, most notably Denver — the state capital, its largest city and home of the biggest pool of Democrats — which has had trouble regenerating the finance and real estate jobs it lost in the bust.
But elsewhere around the state, the pattern is pretty striking.
In Grand Junction, for example, a retiree haven in the state’s western edge that gave Senator John McCain of Arizona more than 63 percent of the presidential vote in 2008, the unemployment rate in December was 9 percent, compared to 7.9 percent statewide. In Boulder, by contrast, the university town near Denver where 72 percent of the vote went to President Obama (helping him carry the state and its 9 electoral votes), the unemployment rate in December was only 5.8 percent, according to state figures.
The biggest place to watch, though, is probably Colorado Springs, the state’s second-largest city and home to the biggest Republican voting block; Focus on the Family, the conservative Christian group, is based there, as is the cultural spinoff effect of nearby Fort Carson, the Army base.
Mr. McCain carried El Paso County, at the metropolitan area’s core, with 58 percent of the vote. December’s unemployment rate there was 9 percent.
A study in December of metropolitan areas in the West by the Brookings Institution said the Springs, as it is known, was showing little sign of a boom.
“Now-stagnant federal spending in industries like defense — bulwarks in the early years of recession” — were proving to be, the report said, “insufficient catalysts for recovery.”
Romney Memo Tries to Lower Expectations for Contests
By ASHLEY PARKER
Josh Haner/The New York TimesKacie Ireland, 17, made signs in preparation for Mitt Romney’s visit to Arapahoe High School in Centennial, Colo., on Monday.Mitt Romney’s campaign, which has been quietly lowering expectations and bracing for at least one loss on Tuesday when voters in Colorado, Minnesota and Missouri head to the polls, made its reservations public Tuesday morning when it released a memo pointing out that no delegates are at stake in the coming primaries and caucuses.
“As our campaign has said from the outset, Mitt Romney is not going to win every contest,” read the memo from Rich Beeson, the campaign’s political director.
Though the Romney campaign had been privately predicting a strong showing by Rick Santorum in Minnesota or Missouri, publicly it had sought to wave away concerns that Mr. Santorum, popular with social conservative voters in Minnesota, was a real threat. However, it canceled a scheduled trip Monday morning to the Minneapolis area, instead spending the entire day in Colorado, and has been hammering Mr. Santorum through surrogates, conference calls and e-mails.
Tuesday’s memo — below — illustrates some of those concerns:
MEMORANDUM
TO: Interested Parties
FROM: Rich Beeson, Political Director
SUBJECT: The Road Ahead – A Reality Check
DATE: February 7, 2012Since launching his campaign for President in June, Read more…
White House May Look to Compromise on Contraception Decision
By MICHAEL D. SHEARThe White House may be open to compromising on a new rule that requires religious schools and hospitals to provide employees with access to free birth control, a senior strategist for President Obama said on Tuesday morning.
David Axelrod, who serves as a top adviser to Mr. Obama’s re-election campaign, said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” program that the president would “look for a way” to address the vocal opposition from Catholic groups who say the rule forces them to violate their religious beliefs against contraception.
“We certainly don’t want to abridge anyone’s religious freedoms, so we’re going to look for a way to move forward that both provides women with the preventative care that they need and respects the prerogatives of religious institutions,” Mr. Axelrod said.
The comments come as last month’s decision has prompted a furor among religious groups while providing Mr. Obama’s Republican opponents with fresh ammunition to claim that the president wants the federal government to control the provision of health care.
Mitt Romney, the president’s likely Republican opponent in the fall, seized on the issue in a campaign appearance in Colorado late Monday evening.
“This same administration said that in churches and the institutions they run, such as schools and let’s say adoption agencies, hospitals, that they have to provide for their employees, free of charge, contraceptives, morning-after pills — in other words abortive pills and the like at no cost,” Mr. Romney said at a rally in Centennial, Colo. “Think what that does to people in faiths without sharing those views. This is a violation of conscience.”
When the Obama administration last month unveiled rules that would require some religious hospitals, colleges and other institutions to provide free coverage for contraception to their employees under the new health care law, it might have seemed to be a political winner.
The idea of birth control being covered by insurance companies is popular across the political spectrum, even among Catholics. The new policy will exempt churches themselves and will have no effect on doctors who object to prescribing contraception. And the decision means the president’s health care law will help make birth control cheaper for millions of women.
“The administration decided — the president agrees with this decision — that we need to provide these services that have enormous health benefits for American women and that the exemption that we carved out is appropriate,” Jay Carney, the White House spokesman, said Monday afternoon.
But Catholic groups, including some friendly to the White House, are loudly objecting. David A. Zubik, the Catholic Bishop of Pittsburgh, told the Catholic News Agency that the rule is a “slap in the face” to Catholics. Read more…
The Early Word: Money Wars
By JADA F. SMITHToday’s Times
- President Obama is signaling to wealthy Democratic donors that he wants them to start contributing to a “super PAC” supporting his re-election, Jeff Zeleny and Jim Rutenberg report. The decision escalates the campaign’s money wars and represents a milestone in Mr. Obama’s evolving stances on political fund-raising.
- The Obama campaign is refunding money donated by two American brothers of a Mexican casino magnate who fled drug and fraud charges in the United States, Mike McIntire reports. The Cardona brothers, who have no prior history of political giving, appeared seemingly out of nowhere in the world of Democratic fund-raising, donating enough to put them in the upper tiers of campaign fund-raisers.
- House and Senate negotiators are deadlocked over how to prevent a deep cut in Medicare payments to doctors who treat millions of Medicare beneficiaries, Robert Pear reports. The issue pits health care providers against one another and could threaten broader legislation on a payroll tax cut.
- Mormon voters interviewed in Nevada and Colorado said that supporting a person of faith was more important than supporting a person of a particular faith, Ashley Parker reports. But with contests Tuesday in Colorado and later this month in Arizona – two states where Mormons make up a notable slice of the Republican vote – Mitt Romney’s religion, which is a potential liability in other states, is sure to prove an advantage.
- Rick Santorum appears poised to do well in Minnesota’s caucuses on Tuesday, Michael D. Shear reports. So on Monday, Mitt Romney’s campaign began unloading criticism on Mr. Santorum, who had largely escaped being the target of Mr. Romney’s formidable campaign machine.
Happenings in Washington
- President Obama will host the second White House Science Fair celebrating the student winners of science, technology, engineering and math competitions from across the country.
Romney Attacks Obama on Birth Control Rule
By ASHLEY PARKERCENTENNIAL, COLORADO — Mitt Romney waded into the debate over the recent Health and Human Services regulations that require some religious groups that provide health care coverage to their employees to cover contraception, offering his most explicit comments yet on the subject in an address to a packed gymnasium here Monday evening. He also used his remarks to address the recent Supreme Court’s ruling that churches and other religious groups are exempt from certain employment discrimination laws and must be free to choose and dismiss their leaders without the interference of government.
“Just this last week, this same administration said that in churches and the institutions they run, such as schools and let’s say adoption agencies, hospitals, that they have to provide for their employees, free of charge, contraceptives, morning-after pills — in other words abortive pills and the like at no cost,” Mr. Romney said. “Think what that does to people in faiths without sharing those views. This is a violation of conscience.”
The Romney campaign has been addressing this topic since late last week, when he wrote an op-ed in the Washington Examiner titled, “President Obama versus religious liberty.” And on Monday morning, the @MittRomney Twitter account sent out a message that criticized “the Obama Administration’s attacks on religious liberty” and urged those who agreed to sign a petition.
If you’ve had enough of the Obama Administration’s attacks on religious liberty, stand with me & sign the petition http://t.co/qJfy8lDH
Mitt Romney
MittRomney
But on Monday night, Mr. Romney specifically singled out both the HHS regulations and the Supreme Court decision for the first time on the stump.
Referring to the Supreme Court case, which recognized a “ministerial exception” to employment discrimination laws, Mr. Romney said he was “distressed” to watch Mr. Obama try to “infringe upon those rights.”
“Do you understand that this administration argued before the Supreme Court that the church should not be able to determine who their ministers are but that government should decide who qualifies as a minister,” Mr. Romney said, as the crowd booed. “And by the way, you know that some of the members of the court are pretty liberal. You know what they decided? They decided 9-0 that President Obama was wrong.”
The Romney campaign said that the new portion of Mr. Romney’s stump speech was simply a reflection of the “issues of the day.” And they batted away the idea that Mr. Romney was suddenly making a more forceful religious and social issue appeal in the face of a rising threat from Rick Santorum, who seems to be gaining traction in some of the states whose primaries are held on Tuesday, like Minnesota.
On Sunday and Monday, however, the Romney campaign began unloading on Mr. Santorum through surrogates, conference calls and e-mails — a tactic campaigns typically deploy only when they’re worried about a surging rival.
“We must have a president who is willing to protect America’s first right: our right to worship God according to the dictates of our Constitution,” Mr. Romney concluded.
Gingrich Says Neither He Nor Santorum Will Leave Race
By DAN FROSCHGOLDEN, Colo. — Newt Gingrich showed no signs of stepping aside from the campaign for the Republican presidential nomination on Monday afternoon in Colorado, where Republican voters will caucus on Tuesday, and vowed that both he and Rick Santorum would remain in the race.
Addressing reporters at the Colorado School of Mines, Mr. Gingrich said he and Mr. Santorum, who also appeared at an event here on Monday, had agreed that neither would leave the race to give the other a better chance against the front-runner, Mitt Romney.
“We’re both busy having a good time,” said Mr. Gingrich. “Rick gets to do whatever he wants to do. We’re friends; we’re not partners.”
A more animated Mr. Santorum, who also addressed reporters after his own remarks, did not elaborate on his conversation with Mr. Gingrich, but said Colorado Republican leaders were “flat-out wrong” if they believed that Mr. Romney stood the best chance of beating President Obama in November.
“Our hope is that conservatives are taking a step back and looking at the race,” Mr. Santorum said.
Hoping to recharge his campaign with a strong showing in Colorado, Mr. Gingrich seemed subdued at the School of Mines, an engineering university tucked away in the foothills near Denver that was holding an election energy summit meeting. And he made little reference to either Mr. Romney or Mr. Santorum in his speech. Read more…
Jack Abramoff Hints at Untold Scandals
By ERIC LICHTBLAUWASHINGTON — Jack Abramoff hinted Monday that he knows of still more skeletons that are buried on Capitol Hill, but he’s not saying where.
The disgraced lobbyist said he wouldn’t want to make anyone else go through the experience that he and his family suffered after he was imprisoned for three and a half years in one of the biggest political corruption scandals in modern times. “I can’t be the agent of causing someone to go to prison,” he said during an appearance at the Washington offices of Public Citizen, a nonprofit government watchdog group.
“Prison was horrible,” he said.
His appearance was part of a months-long barnstorming tour to promote his recently released memoir, “Capitol Punishment,” along with his story of personal redemption and his newfound view of what he now calls a culture of “legalized bribery” in Washington.
A Kinder and Gentler Gingrich?
By RICHARD A. OPPEL JR.
Matthew Staver for The New York TimesNewt Gingrich speaking at a campaign rally in Golden, Colo., on Monday.GOLDEN, Colo. — Could it be a somewhat kinder, gentler Newt?
The former House speaker took it fairly easy on Mitt Romney during his first campaign stop since the Nevada caucuses two days ago, telling an audience at a Marriott west of Denver that his main rival was little different than Barack Obama and that he had little clue about the country’s safety net. But this time he eschewed his typically harsher attacks on the former Massachusetts governor, who just beat Mr. Gingrich by nearly 30 percentage points in the Nevada caucuses.
In fact, his sharpest attack this morning was on President Obama: Mr. Gingrich asserted that the move by Egypt’s military-led government to put 19 Americans on trial “reminds me exactly of Jimmy Carter” and the Iranian hostage crisis.
“We now have the Obama hostage crisis to resemble the Carter hostage crisis,” he said, later adding that the Egyptian government was “the latest product of Obama’s belief in an Arab spring.”
Responding to someone in the crowd of about 200 who shouted that the United States should freeze its $1.3 billion in annual military aid to Egypt, Mr. Gingrich replied, “I’d do a lot more than that.” But he did not say what, precisely, he might do.
Mr. Gingrich also repeated his controversial criticism of Mr. Obama as a “food stamp president,” among Read more…
