IMPALIN’ — Stop Sarah Palin for President in 2012

In May, Romney defended the Mass. health care reform plan and its individual mandate   Anderson Robbins Research (D) & Shaw & Company Research (R) for Fox News (6/26-28/11, Republican primary voters, 6/5-7/11 in parens): Mitt Romney (R) : 18 (23) Rick Perry (R) : 13 (–) Michele Bachmann (R) : 11 (4) Rudy Giuliani (R) : 10 (13) Sarah Palin (R) : 8 (12) Ron Paul (R) : 7 (5) Herman Cain (R) : 5 (4) Tim Pawlenty (R) : 3 (5) Newt Gingrich (R) : 3 (7) Jon Huntsman (R) : 3 (2) (MoE: ±5.5%) National primary preference polls are sort of meaningless in that there isn’t an actual national primary, but Romney’s failure to break away from the pack is notable, especially considering the turbulence in the field. Romney’s down by 5 points from earlier in the month. Overall, the Romney trendlines suggest that at least thus far, there’s been a ceiling to Mitt Romney’s support. Even though he’s the most well-known candidate, he just can’t build a significant lead. Check out his numbers from polls conducted by the same firm for Fox: June 26-28, 2011: 18 June 5-7, 2011: 23 April 25-27, 2011: 19 April 3-5, 2011: 14 July 21-22, 2009: 22 May 12-13, 2009: 18 On paper, Romney’s definitely the front-runner, but he hasn’t gotten a boost from the withdrawal of either Trump or Huckabee from the field. This is the first time that Fox has polled Perry’s name and he’s opening strong. Bachmann also does well, up from 4% in the previous poll.

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Fox News poll: Romney can’t break away from pack, Perry opens strong

This just might be the dumbest, pettiest attack from a Palin yet—which is really saying something.   “I think [Michele Bachmann] dresses a lot like my mom,” Bristol tells me. “But a lot, a lot of women have done that the last few years. I do think it’s odd, you know, seeing people with red blazers with their hair up with glasses.” Bristol added a giggle before continuing her thought about Bachmann, a Congresswoman from Minnessota. “I don’t know if she’s wearing glasses but you want to be hummmm, do you think that people don’t notice you’re dressing like my mom?” Uh, Bristol? I know you and your mom have trademarked your names for “educational” purposes, but I don’t think your mom invented that whole wearing red thing. In fact, I’m sure there are at least a few women who embraced red jackets first. Like Secretary of State Madeleine Albright: REUTERS/Philippe Wojazer And First Lady/Senator/Secretary of State/long-time wearer of red/troops-supporter Hillary Clinton: REUTERS/POOL And the once and future Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, seated with Assistant to the President/Future Senator of Massachusetts Elizabeth Warren: REUTERS/Hyungwon Kang And of course this woman, who was already “copying” the Palin look on Super Tuesday in 2008: REUTERS/Jason Reed Nice try, Bristol. But, true to Palin family tradition, this latest word salad is just another FAIL.

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Bristol Palin: Michele Bachmann’s just copying my mom

Caprock Escarpment of the Llano Estacado (south of Ralls, Texas) Public Policy Polling (6/25-27, Texas voters, 1/14-16 in parens): Barack Obama : 47 (45) Rick Perry : 45 (45) Undecided : 8 (11) Barack Obama : 46 (46) Sarah Palin : 44 (47) Undecided : 10 (7) Barack Obama : 42 (42) Mitt Romney : 50 (49) Undecided : 9 (9) Barack Obama : 43 Herman Cain : 43 Undecided : 14 Barack Obama : 43 Tim Pawlenty : 44 Undecided : 13 Barack Obama : 44 Michele Bachmann : 47 Undecided : 9 Barack Obama : 40 Ron Paul : 45 Undecided : 15 (MoE: ±3.5%) Based on PPP’s prior poll, it’s no surprise to see Rick Perry languishing in his home state. And his job approvals are a pretty lousy 43-52, little better than Obama’s 42-55 rating. But Tom Jensen offers an important word of caution : Before Democrats get too excited about the prospect of winning Texas this needs to be noted — the vast majority of undecideds in all of these match-ups disapprove of the job Obama is doing. For instance in the match-up with Perry, 88% of undecideds disapprove of Obama’s job performance to only 8% who approve. If you allocate the undecided voters based on their assessment of Obama that shifts the numbers 7 points and puts Perry ahead by 5. The undecideds break down similarly in most of the head to heads between Obama and the various respective GOP candidates, something that would seem to reflect a lot of voters disliking the President but having their doubts about the GOP field of candidates as well. When push comes to shove those folks are not likely to be in the President’s corner. Still, this isn’t where the GOP field wants to be in an obviously must-win state like Texas, especially against an incumbent Democrat with very mediocre approvals. If Texas is interesting next November, then it’s likely that a whole lot of other states won’t be.

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TX-Pres: Obama leads Perry in Texas

Marist / McClatchy 6/15-23/11; 1,003 adults, 3% margin of error Mode: Live telephone interviews Read More… More on Pollster

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US-2012 Primary: 19% Romney, 13% Giuliani, 13% Perry, 11% Palin (Marist 6/15-23)

Michele Bachmann may be a joke of a candidate, but her candidacy is no joke   Whether or not she’s a serious person might be up for debate, but as a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, Michele Bachmann is as serious as serious gets, according to three new polls that show her national popularity among Republicans on the rise and that she’s actually leading in two states. For starters, Gallup is out with a new national poll showing Bachmann tied with Herman Cain at 24 in their Positive Intensity Score index, a measurement of the popularity among Republicans of candidates vying for the GOP nomination. Bachmann has a big edge over Cain, however: she’s better known. The Positive Intensity Score only reflects opinions of people who know about the candidate, and the more Republicans get to know about Bachmann, the stronger her intensity score has gotten. Her score is as high as it has been at any point in the campaign and she is now known by more people than at any point in the campaign. Other candidates, like Mitt Romney, Sarah Palin, and even Herman Cain, have tended to get less popular as they become better known by voters outside of their core base—but not Bachmann. Here’s a chart from Gallup with all the candidates: Bachmann’s strength on the Positive Intensity Score revealed itself in the recent Des Moines Register poll showing her tied for the lead in Iowa with Mitt Romney, and two new polls from PPP show that poll wasn’t a fluke. The PPP surveys show that with Palin out of the race, Bachmann leads the 2012 field in both Montana and Oregon. She takes 29% in Oregon to Romney’s 28% and in Montana she takes 25% to Romney’s 22%. Every other candidate trails both Bachmann and Romney by double digits. The poll also showed that if Palin runs, it could benefit Romney. He maintains his second place spot in Montana, but in Oregon, he moves into first with Palin taking a chunk of support from Bachmann. But the Oregon numbers reveal once again that there may be a Mitt Romney ceiling : Romney’s support is 28% whether or not she runs, suggesting he’s got virtually no ability to win support from conservative Republicans who would back Palin.

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New polling shows Bachmann surge

I watch a lot of news, and one thing that strikes me is how rarely the pundits attempt to factor in the unexpected. And yet we know from the past that what we fail to see coming invariably determines what ends up happening after. A few examples of huge game-changers of the recent past that no one predicted: Sarah Palin, the crash of 2008, birtherism, the rise of the Tea Party, the BP Oil Spill, the Arab Spring, the Japanese tsunami, the implosions of Tiger Woods, John Ensign, and Anthony Weiner… As a corrective to our tendency toward tunnel vision, I’d like to posit the likelihood that some variation of the following will occur over the next 18 months or so: 1. The debt ceiling is not initially raised. As the market crashes, the Republicans panic, and rapidly re-vote to raise it. A furious Wall Street shifts campaign money to the Democrats, who suddenly don’t mind Citizens United. Read More… More on India

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Mark Olmsted: The Future Is Almost Here: Predicting the Unpredictable

It’s hard to blame Mitt Romney for frowning (Larry Downing/Reuters)   The good news for Mitt Romney is that he is tied for the lead in Iowa with Michele Bachmann. The bad news is that he seems to have already locked up just about all the support he’s going to get. In the Des Moines Register ’s new poll of Iowa’s GOP caucus goers, just 10% say Romney is their second choice, compared with 18% for Bachmann and 12% for both Tim Pawlenty and Ron Paul. Romney also is more well known than his rivals; 90% know enough about him to form an opinion, compared to 77% for Bachmann and 71% for Pawlenty. So not only do his rivals already have more second-choice support than does he, but they also have more room to grow. Equally troubling for Romney: 44% of likely caucus goers say having supported an individual mandate is a “deal-killer” for them and another 25% say they’d have to consider it. The second-choice numbers in this poll reflect a pattern. Last week, PPP released a poll showing most Palin supporters would vote for Herman Cain or Michele Bachmann if she doesn’t run. Romney picked up just 12% of those voters. In order to win the nomination, candidates must be able to win over supporters from former rivals who have either dropped out or become irrelevant. So far, Mitt Romney hasn’t shown an ability to that. It appears there may be a ceiling to his support—the Mitt Romney ceiling. And if there is, he’s in a real trouble.

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Is there a Mitt Romney ceiling?

It’s hard to blame Mitt Romney for frowning (Larry Downing/Reuters)   The good news for Mitt Romney is that he is tied for the lead in Iowa with Michele Bachmann. The bad news is that he seems to have already locked up just about all the support he’s going to get. In the Des Moines Register ’s new poll of Iowa’s GOP caucus goers, just 10% say Romney is their second choice, compared with 18% for Bachmann and 12% for both Tim Pawlenty and Ron Paul. Romney also is more well known than his rivals; 90% know enough about him to form an opinion, compared to 77% for Bachmann and 71% for Pawlenty. So not only do his rivals already have more second-choice support than does he, but they also have more room to grow. Equally troubling for Romney: 44% of likely caucus goers say having supported an individual mandate is a “deal-killer” for them and another 25% say they’d have to consider it. The second-choice numbers in this poll reflect a pattern. Last week, PPP released a poll showing most Palin supporters would vote for Herman Cain or Michele Bachmann if she doesn’t run. Romney picked up just 12% of those voters. In order to win the nomination, candidates must be able to win over supporters from former rivals who have either dropped out or become irrelevant. So far, Mitt Romney hasn’t shown an ability to that. It appears there may be a ceiling to his support—the Mitt Romney ceiling. And if there is, he’s in a real trouble.

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Is there a Mitt Romney ceiling?

Michele Bachmann says something crazy. (Larry Downing / Reuters) Michele Bachmann will be the GOP nominee. Yeah, yeah—this could be wishful thinking. Bachmann would gift Obama a second term and would lead to another Democratic wave election in the House. And yeah, this assumes that Mike Huckabee or Sarah Palin don’t get into the race. But this is the age of Christine O’Donnell and Ken Buck. Republican primary voters don’t give a damn about electability, but about casting a vote for the purest candidate. Currently, there are three real candidates in the race—Bachmann, Tim Pawlenty, and Mitt Romney. Newt Gingrich is history, Rick Santorum is yesterday’s news, Ron Paul is a niche product, John Hunstman has six supporters, and Herman Cain exists only to allow Republicans to say, “Some of my best friends are black!” Of the three credible candidates, Bachmann easily wins the purity test. Romney has been on the other side of pretty much every issue of current importance to Republicans, while Pawlenty supported the individual mandate. They’re toast. But it’s not just policy substance. The early GOP nomination calendar clearly favors Bachmann. We start off with the Iowa caucus on January 3. Now caucuses are tailor made for the most socially conservative candidates, as it is those activists who dominate these low-voter turnout affairs. In 2008, a banner year for caucus turnout, just 114,000 Republicans turned out. Currently, there are about 610K  (PDF) registered Republicans in Iowa, out of 2.1 million registered voters in the state. In other words, a minority of a minority make the calls. And living in next-door Minnesota, Bachmann is about as local as you can get with that crowd of crazies. Iowa is hers. Wyoming goes next on January 5, though the RNC has stripped it of half its delegates for moving ahead of New Hampshire, and will likely be ignored. So New Hampshire is next on January 8. The Granite State will be Mittens territory. He’s from next-door Massachusetts, and the state’s GOP voters are less obsessed with the social issues that will dominate Iowa. In fact, if I’m the rest of the field, I concede New Hampshire to Romney and move on to … Michigan ? Again, the state has tried to leapfrog the traditional early states, slotted itself into January 15, and again, it is being stripped of delegates. It was ignored in 2008 until Clinton won it by default, and she tried to pretend the victory was significant. The same might happen in 2012, but it won’t matter. The parties are still (unfortunately) beholden to the unjustified monopoly of those traditional early states. So we go to… South Carolina and Nevada . Both of these hold contests on January 19. The Nevada effort is caucuses, and Bachmann should do well in those. South Carolina is a primary, and they are also losing half their delegates for pushing its primary ahead of where the RNC wanted it (after February 5). But it’s a traditional early state, and bound to be contested by all parties. South Carolina, where social issues dominate, just elected Nikki Haley as governor, a Michele Bachmann clone. In 2008, McCain won the primary with 33 percent of the vote, while Huckabee notched a close second with 30 percent. Conservative voters today are far less tolerant of what they consider to be mushy Republicans than they were three years ago. The state is primed for a Bachmann-style candidate. After South Carolina we have Florida , which is being penalized for moving itself up to January 29, and I have no idea how that state will play, or if it will even matter. Then on Super Tuesday, February 5, 21 states including California, New York, Illinois, and Georgia will dump hundreds of delegates into the race, possibly ending the race. Will Bachmann have the juice to compete in this wide a field? Watch her early fundraising numbers. She’s likely to raise more than the rest of the field. I bet she laps it. So with Bachmann we have perhaps the best-funded candidate, with an early map that favors her brand of culture-war conservatism, and genuine street credibility with the teabagger types that will enable her to quickly build a national grassroots network. So yeah, this runs counter to conventional wisdom, and I recognize that I’m out on one hell of limb, but I’m not seeing a path to the nomination for any of the other declared Republicans.

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Why Michele Bachmann will be the GOP nominee

Michele Bachmann says something crazy. (Larry Downing / Reuters) Michele Bachmann will be the GOP nominee. Yeah, yeah—this could be wishful thinking. Bachmann would gift Obama a second term and would lead to another Democratic wave election in the House. And yeah, this assumes that Mike Huckabee or Sarah Palin don’t get into the race. But this is the age of Christine O’Donnell and Ken Buck. Republican primary voters don’t give a damn about electability, but about casting a vote for the purest candidate. Currently, there are three real candidates in the race—Bachmann, Tim Pawlenty, and Mitt Romney. Newt Gingrich is history, Rick Santorum is yesterday’s news, Ron Paul is a niche product, John Hunstman has six supporters, and Herman Cain exists only to allow Republicans to say, “Some of my best friends are black!” Of the three credible candidates, Bachmann easily wins the purity test. Romney has been on the other side of pretty much every issue of current importance to Republicans, while Pawlenty supported the individual mandate. They’re toast. But it’s not just policy substance. The early GOP nomination calendar clearly favors Bachmann. We start off with the Iowa caucus on January 3. Now caucuses are tailor made for the most socially conservative candidates, as it is those activists who dominate these low-voter turnout affairs. In 2008, a banner year for caucus turnout, just 114,000 Republicans turned out. Currently, there are about 610K  (PDF) registered Republicans in Iowa, out of 2.1 million registered voters in the state. In other words, a minority of a minority make the calls. And living in next-door Minnesota, Bachmann is about as local as you can get with that crowd of crazies. Iowa is hers. Wyoming goes next on January 5, though the RNC has stripped it of half its delegates for moving ahead of New Hampshire, and will likely be ignored. So New Hampshire is next on January 8. The Granite State will be Mittens territory. He’s from next-door Massachusetts, and the state’s GOP voters are less obsessed with the social issues that will dominate Iowa. In fact, if I’m the rest of the field, I concede New Hampshire to Romney and move on to … Michigan ? Again, the state has tried to leapfrog the traditional early states, slotted itself into January 15, and again, it is being stripped of delegates. It was ignored in 2008 until Clinton won it by default, and she tried to pretend the victory was significant. The same might happen in 2012, but it won’t matter. The parties are still (unfortunately) beholden to the unjustified monopoly of those traditional early states. So we go to… South Carolina and Nevada . Both of these hold contests on January 19. The Nevada effort is caucuses, and Bachmann should do well in those. South Carolina is a primary, and they are also losing half their delegates for pushing its primary ahead of where the RNC wanted it (after February 5). But it’s a traditional early state, and bound to be contested by all parties. South Carolina, where social issues dominate, just elected Nikki Haley as governor, a Michele Bachmann clone. In 2008, McCain won the primary with 33 percent of the vote, while Huckabee notched a close second with 30 percent. Conservative voters today are far less tolerant of what they consider to be mushy Republicans than they were three years ago. The state is primed for a Bachmann-style candidate. After South Carolina we have Florida , which is being penalized for moving itself up to January 29, and I have no idea how that state will play, or if it will even matter. Then on Super Tuesday, February 5, 21 states including California, New York, Illinois, and Georgia will dump hundreds of delegates into the race, possibly ending the race. Will Bachmann have the juice to compete in this wide a field? Watch her early fundraising numbers. She’s likely to raise more than the rest of the field. I bet she laps it. So with Bachmann we have perhaps the best-funded candidate, with an early map that favors her brand of culture-war conservatism, and genuine street credibility with the teabagger types that will enable her to quickly build a national grassroots network. So yeah, this runs counter to conventional wisdom, and I recognize that I’m out on one hell of limb, but I’m not seeing a path to the nomination for any of the other declared Republicans.

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Why Michele Bachmann will be the GOP nominee

Bristol Palin had an underdeveloped lower jaw with a resultant malocclusion and overbite that could not be treated with braces. Read More… More on Plastic Surgery

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Michael Yaremchuk, M.D.: Bristol Palin’s Jawline Surgery: Reconstructive or Cosmetic?

A new film that documents Sarah Palin’s political career will debut in Iowa on Tuesday, and the star herself says she’ll be in attendance. Former vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin announced that she’ll be in the audience at the 111-year-old Pella Opera House in Pella, Iowa on Tuesday for the premier of “The Undefeated,” set to for a national release in select theaters July 15. “We are very excited to visit historic Pella and its opera house and look forward to seeing the finished film for the first time with fellow Americans from the heartland,” Palin said in the statement . Read More… More on Sarah Palin 2012

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‘The Undefeated’: Sarah Palin To Attend Palin Movie Premiere In Iowa

“Performance artist” has become a common slur against celebrities who thrive on tastelessness. There’s no way these people could be for real, the argument goes, so it must all be an elaborate ruse. But whether it’s from James Franco, who openly admits this act, or Joaquin Phoenix, who kept it going long enough to make a documentary about it, performance art is becoming a viable career option for established entertainers. It’s not just that these celebrities’ personas have infiltrated their lives. That’s gone on for decades, from The Beatles and Bob Dylan, who liked to manipulate and mock their interviewers, to Samuel L. Jackson, who became typecast for his enthusiastic use of profanity. But recently, with the likes of Snooki, Soulja Boy and, lest we forget, Sarah Palin, tabloid performance art has thrived. With the entertainment media’s hyper-short attention span, famous people who can continually make a spectacle of themselves can also usually make headlines. In the slideshow below, we present ten celebrities who have been accused of performance art, with varying degrees of truth behind the allegations. Read More… More on Joaquin Phoenix

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10 Celebrities Branded "Performance Artists" (PHOTOS)

Chart based on PPP poll of Florida Republicans released June 23, 2011   PPP has a new poll in Florida showing Mitt Romney leading the field. Romney clocks in at 27%, ahead of Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann who tied in second place with 17% apiece. But while Romney should be pleased to be in the lead, the poll shows that he may have trouble expanding it. PPP asked voters who they would support if Palin were to bow out. Romney maintained the lead, but picked up just 2 points. Michele Bachmann (who finished in second with 22%) and Herman Cain picked up a combined nine points. As you can see in the chart in this post, Bachmann and Cain each picked up twice as many Palin supporters as Romney. Between the two of them, they take more than the other five candidates PPP polled combined, winning about 56% of her support. (Huntsman didn’t get any bump, so he’s not on the chart.) This isn’t good news for Mitt Romney, especially given that he’s the most well-known of the candidates to Republican voters. Just 14% had no opinion about him compared with 20% for Bachmann and 32% for Cain. Nonetheless, Palin voters avoid Mitt Romney like the plague and flocked to the other candidates. Romney’s inability to win over Palin voters is yet another sign that the GOP primary is nowhere near as settled as conventional wisdom suggests. Republicans haven’t even really started criticizing him in a major way, but already we see signs that as candidates drop out, their supporters won’t flip to Romney’s camp in significant numbers. That’s something Romney’s going to need to figure out, otherwise when this primary is over, we’ll all be talking about the Romney ceiling and his inability to build on his early lead.

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In Florida, most Palin supporters would back Bachmann or Cain

Aw. This is so cute: the Republican women of the House had themselves a little consciousness-raising session :   For the House Republican women speaking Tuesday night, telling their own stories on national television was a chance to raise their profiles apart from Palin and Bachmann. “I think it’s important that people see that there is a broad spectrum of Republican women serving in Congress,” said Washington Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, the highest-ranking GOP woman in the House as vice chairwoman of the Republican conference. The main impetus for the Tuesday night speech-fest, they said, was Wasserman Schultz’s charge that the GOP agenda was “anti-women.” “There’s been some misconception about who are the Republican women,” said Florida Rep. Sandy Adams, who as a single mother put herself and her daughter through college and went on to serve 17 years as a deputy sheriff in the Orange County. “There have been some comments made about us,” Adams added. “We are responding. We are not attacking women; we are women.” Since Republican women are fairly new to this whole feminist thing, only recently having traded in “feminazi” for “mama grizzly” and Phyllis Schlafly for Susan B. Anthony, it’s understandable that they’d be confused about how this pro-woman thing works.   Like, for example, that contrary to Rep. Sandy Adams’ apparent belief, a vagina is not, ipso facto , a feminist credential. Or that the Republican Party’s agenda of tax cuts for the rich and screw everyone else doesn’t actually benefit women: “The Republican agenda is indeed pro-woman,” said freshmen Rep. Kristi Noem, R-S.D. “It is pro-woman because it is pro-small business, pro-entrepreneur, pro-family and pro-economic growth.” Or that redefining rape , defunding health care , and even fighting against tax incentives for breastfeeding is pro-woman. Or that remaining silent when a woman is physically assaulted at a Republican rally is pro-woman. Or insisting that feminist organizations are only allowed to call out sexism when it’s leveraged against someone who shares their political ideology is pro-woman.   Of course, these newly minted feminists of the Republican Party want us to know that Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann don’t speak for them, so maybe it’s unfair to hold them accountable for the insanity spewed by the dueling queen bees of the conservative fauxminist movement. On the other hand, these women haven’t exactly taken any stands against their party’s blatantly anti-woman agenda, or against the lipsticked figureheads of their “We can be feminists too!” movement. They haven’t signed on to any of the proposed legislation that would actually help women, like H.R.894 , the Maternal Health Accountability Act of 2011. Not a single Republican woman has signed on to H.R.1519 , the Paycheck Fairness Act. And as for their all-too-eager endorsement of denying health care to women, well, sorry, girls, but that’s not very pro-woman either. The Democratic Party doesn’t exactly have a flawless pro-woman record either, of course. But, unlike the Republican Party, sending women back to the 18th century isn’t part of its official agenda. Every pro-woman piece of legislation, even if it doesn’t pass, is introduced and co-sponsored by Democrats. Just about every anti-woman piece of legislation, on the other hand, comes from Republicans. So, Republican women, if you’re serious about showing how pro-woman you really are, here’s a suggestion: switch parties.

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House Republican women insist they’re ‘pro-woman’ too

Susan Stoesz The right wing assault on Planned Parenthood is starting to take its toll. Congressional cuts in Title X family planning have forced the organization to cut six of its 24 clinics in Minnesota. The clinics are small and located relatively near large metropolitan areas, but closing them puts up one more obstacle in the path of low-income women seeking family planning services. Announcing the closures, the organization’s president and CEO, Sarah Stoesz, said the budget cuts “were driven by ideological attacks on women’s health, not by a desire to fix the economy.” Ms. Stoesz … told us the clinics that are set to be shuttered are mostly smaller clinics in smaller communities. “But that’s where some of the more poor and isolated women are,” she said. “So the people who have the least end up paying the most. It’s very sad and frustrating.” In Indiana, Planned Parenthood is closing five clinics in the central part of the state because of the federal cuts. In a statement, the organization said the funding cut will also affect clinics that aren’t closeing. It was decided that “many of our sites must now become fully self-sustaining, or independent, because of the restrictions placed on the funding.”

 Kansas legislators essentially disqualified Planned Parenthood from receiving Title X funds, which provide half the budget for the organization’s three clinics in the state. Those cuts take effect July 1, although Peter Brownlie, the president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of Kansas & Mid-Missouri, says a lawsuit is still being considered. The organization plans to keep its clinics open by pushing donors harder. If that fails, “then we’ll be forced to change the way we charge for services — to increase cost of care for poor women in Kansas,” Brownlie said. Funding isn’t the only problem. The state is now in the process of implementing new clinic regulations that opponents say were specifically designed to make it difficult for abortion providers to keep their licenses. The latest version of the regulations were issued June 17, the same day as the clinics were required to apply for new licenses. Utah and Virginia have also passed new abortion clinic regulation laws. Said Brownlie: It’s sort of absurd that Republican leadership in Kansas and that Governor Brownback, who say — and I believe them– that they’re opposed to abortion for any reason, at any time, are taking action that will make it more difficult for people to avoid unplanned pregnancies which result in abortion. We’ve repeatedly called on the governor and the legislature to help prevent unintended pregnancies and the math is pretty simple and pretty clear. Half of all pregnancies in this country are unintended. Forty percent of those result in abortion. Yet what this state is doing is reducing access to family planning in pursuit of their political agenda. North Carolina Gov. Bev Perdue vetoed the bill defunding Planned Parenthood in North Carolina, but the legislature overrode her. The cuts will affect the organization’s teen pregnancy and parenting programs in a state where the teen pregnancy rate is well above the national average. While the campaign against Planned Parenthood has been targeted because it provides abortions, the defunding and unnecessary regulations amount to, as Stoesz says, “purely and simply an attack on women and their rights to reproductive health care. And it is an outrage that women should be potentially forced into unintended pregnancies due to lack of birth control.” One more battle in the war on women.

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Defunded Planned Parenthood clinics in several states closing or treading water

Tennessee: An Obama state? One poll says “yes” Election junkies, to say nothing of Team Obama, are trying to figure out how the President gets to 270 electoral votes next year. Probably next to nobody has figured Tennessee’s 11 electoral votes into that calculus, given the double-digit drubbing John McCain laid on him in 2008. But if this poll from the Volunteer State is to be believed, perhaps that might be an oversight: Vanderbilt University for The Tennesseean . (6/3-6/8, Tennessee Voters, No trendlines) Barack Obama (D) 37 Mitt Romney (R) 35 Barack Obama (D) 37 Tim Pawlenty (R) 28 Barack Obama (D) 38 Michele Bachmann (R) 27 Barack Obama (D) 38 Newt Gingrich (R) 26 Barack Obama (D) 43 Sarah Palin (R) 29 This poll will probably be viewed with some skepticism, and a cynical eye might be justified here. I’d love to see some duplicate work here before I buy stock in Vandy’s work here. After all, 2008 was hardly a splendid year for Democrats in Tennessee, a state President Obama lost by 15 points. 2010, meanwhile, was pretty much an unmitigated disaster as well, with the Democrats losing three House seats, and getting obliterated in a one-sided gubernatorial election. Therefore, a poll showing a Democratic lead on the presidential election, a state that has not gone to the blue team since 1996, is a little hard to fathom. As with pretty much every other GOP-run entity this year, the Republicans have been engaged in some pretty amazing levels of overreach. So, this could be the same kind of buyers’ remorse we have seen across the country. But reversing a double-digit defeat into a narrow lead? If it seems too good to be true, well…you know how that goes. There are some legitimate causes for skepticism. For one thing, the “none of the above” vote here is almost absurdly high, with anywhere between 27-36% of the voters not picking a candidate. For an early poll in a House race, that would be totally believable. For a presidential race, that seems a bit excessive. Also, it would seem that, given Tennessee’s reddish tint and President Obama’s middling national approval numbers, a 44/50 approval split for President Obama might be a few points too optimistic. Having said that, however, it is worth noting that when our friends at PPP polled here in February, they found very similar numbers (42/52). They did, however, find Obama doing about 10 points worse than Vandy did in this particular survey. This diary is brought to you by Daily Kos Elections, an official Daily Kos sub-site. Please read our Mission Statement . Our focus is on electoral politics rather than policy. Welcome aboard!

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TN-Pres: Obama leads in Volunteer State, according to Vandy poll

Sarah Palin will soon have her name trademarked, according to U.S. News & World Report . An Alaska lawyer submitted applications to the United States Patent and Trademark Office last year to trademark the former governor’s name, along with that of her daughter Bristol Palin. For Sarah Palin’s application, there are two classes of commercial service for which her name would be a registered trademark. One is for “information about political elections” and “providing a website featuring information about political issues.” The second is for “educational and entertainment services … providing motivational speaking services in the field of politics, culture, business and values.” Read More… More on Bristol Palin

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Sarah Palin Trademark Status To Be Achieved By Former Alaska Governor

Some interesting numbers : A straw poll conducted by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research showed that 80 percent either approve or strongly approve of the president more than a year before voters head to the polls to decide whether he deserves a second term. The results broke down to 27 percent strongly approving of Obama and 53 percent approving “somewhat.” Thirteen percent said they “somewhat disapprove,” and 7 percent strongly disapprove of the president. The poll of 519 people was conducted via iPad in the Minneapolis Convention Center on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Two-thirds of the respondents said they want Obama to focus on job growth. “Protecting health care” was the distant runner-up, with 9 percent of respondents saying that should be Obama’s top priority. Thirty-two percent of activists said they would most like Obama to have former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R) as his rival next fall, with Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) a close second with 27 percent and Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) a distant third place with 12 percent. Attendees said they would least like Obama to face former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, but the majority of respondents believe Republicans would indeed pick Romney to be the GOP nominee. So what do you say? Which GOP candidate would you most like to oppose in 2012?

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Netroots Nation straw poll shows attendees support Obama, want to face Palin

To receive the Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest via email each weekday, sign up here . Senate : • MO-Sen : So first she was against it, then she was an incomprehensible ‘maybe,’ and now she’s for it. That’s the series of ideological gymnastics that Sarah Steelman’s been through in the last half a week, concerning the flaming anvil of death that is the Ryan Plan. On Friday at a town hall event, she said that, yes, she would have voted for it, or at least that she “would love to be able to vote for” it. • MT-Sen : I don’t think Denny Rehberg ever gets thought of as a potential self-funder, even though he’s one of the House’s wealthier members. And now he’s looking a little less wealthy (and a little less self-fundy, if that ever becomes necessary): his net worth, according to the latest round of disclosures, dropped to the $1.8-$3.6 million range from the pervoius year’s $11-$52 million. That’s apparently after a reappraisal of his land holdings, partly because of fire damage to some development property (the root of his not-so-good-optics lawsuit against the Billings Fire Department). • VA-Sen : George Allen seems keenly aware of the same problem as Sarah Steelman, even though he seems to have a clearer path out of his primary: embrace the Ryan plan and stay in the hard-right’s good graces to win the primary, or pivot away from it in order to have a shot in the general election (but have a rougher primary). As seen in his latest interview, he’s also taking the same gibberish-strewn path as Steelman… his stance has been an unlikely-to-satisfy-anyone refusal to say ‘yes’ or ‘no.’ We’ll have to see how long he can keep that up. Gubernatorial : • NC-Gov : PPP’s latest look at the Republican electorate in the Tar Heel State finds that Pat McCrory, the presumptive GOP nominee to go against Dem incumbent Bev Perdue, could actually face a lot of trouble in a primary if someone credible stepped up to face him from the right. As much as they like the former Charlotte mayor (his favorables are 56/9), they’re still casting about for a more conservative alternative: 44% would like a more conservative candidate, while 34% would still vote for McCrory given the choice. • NH-Gov : He was the gubernatorial nominee back in 1996 (losing badly in the general), vanished after that, used the tea party movement to catapult himself back out of obscurity and almost won the GOP Senate primary last year, and now the mellifluously-named Ovide Lamontagne is about to come full circle. He’s calling around trying to nail down establishment support for a Gov. run next year (although he may still have to face a primary with John Stephen, the 2010 nominee). House : • AZ-08, AZ-07 : Hard-right Republican state Sen. Frank Antenori takes to Facebook to say that, in response to encouragement, he’s considering running for Congress. He doesn’t say what district he’s considering, though his state Senate seat, centered on retirement mecca Green Valley outside of Tucson, places him in the 8th (Republican-leaning, but currently held by Gabby Giffords). • CA-Carson-Compton-Gardena, CA-Long Beach Port : Democratic Rep. Laura Richardson looks like she’s going to face a primary no matter where she runs. Her house is drawn into the proposed district of “Long Beach Port” along with Rep. Linda Sanchez, but much of her turf winds up in “Carson-Compton-Gardena,” and there’s no incumbent there, making it a better bet for her to run in. However, Assembly member Isadore Hall has confirmed a run in this seat. Meanwhile, over in “Long Beach Port,” Dem state Senator Alan Lowenthal says he’s going to run, regardless of where Richardson and/or Sanchez run. With California’s stringent term limits, we may see many more legislators looking to take advance of the redistricting shake-up to get a promotion. • CA-Riverside-Moreno Valley : And over in the Inland Empire, long-time Republican Riverside County Supervisor John Tavaglione says he’s going to run for the newly created “Riverside-Moreno Valley” seat. This is a Dem-leaning and Latino-majority seat carved out of the core of Ken Calvert’s old CA-44 (Calvert will assumedly run further to the south now), although Tavaglione may hope to eke out a win here between his moderate reputation and that the district will probably have very low turnout. • IL-08 : If you were worried about a return engagement from Melissa Bean, the conservaDem former holder of the 8th who surprisingly got bounced by Joe Walsh by a few hundred votes in 2010, don’t worry: she just threw her backing behind Raja Krishnamoorthi, who seems to have quickly locked down establishment support en route to the nomination in the newly-configured and much-more-Dem-friendly 8th. • IL-13 : A fairly big Democratic name is scoping out the 13th, a downstate district that was designed to be swingy and potentially a Dem pickup (although that’s complicated by IL-15 Republican Rep. Timothy Johnson’s decision to run here, rather than in a primary against John Shimkus). Unfortunately, the name is not exactly, um, golden… ex-State Rep. Jay Hoffman is best remembered as a key Rod Blagojevich ally during that era. (He wasn’t implicated in any wrongdoing, for what that’s worth.) • FL-25 : Garcia to run in the 25th! However, it’s a totally different Democratic Garcia than we’re used to (not Joe, who ran in 2008 and 2010): it’s state Rep. Luis Garcia, who has a pretty solid resume. Before joining the state House, he was a city commissioner and the city’s first Hispanic fire chief. It remains to be seen whether he faces off against scandal-tarred GOP frosh David Rivera, or if Rivera gets taken out in a primary. • MI-11 : Well, after all that trouble, GOP state Rep. Marty Knollenberg sounds like he isn’t running for Congress (he was one of the key members of the redistricting committee, as a part of a seeming master plan to redraw a seat for himself and avenge his father’s defeat in 2008 in MI-09 by Gary Peters). Knollenberg’s Republican-friendly suburb of Troy wound up not in the new 9th, but in Thad McCotter’s 11th. He seems to be leaving himself an option, though, saying “No, [he is] not going to run against a Republican incumbent.” So, he could run, if McCotter doesn’t run again, in order to pursue a quixotic presidential bid or just to spend more time with his ego. Michigander Dana Houle weighs in with further thoughts on the possibility of McCotter vacating his seat, and on the new map in general. Meanwhile, Peters and the guy he was drawn together with, veteran Dem Sandy Levin, aren’t attacking each other yet (despite a likely primary faceoff); in fact, they put out a joint statement decrying the GOP-drawn map. DCCC head Steve Israel has apparently been encouraging Peters to leave the 9th and move over to the 11th (where McCotter hasn’t faced serious opposition before), although this swingy area gets a few points redder under the new map. (Peters and Levin aren’t baselessly crying foul about the aggressive gerrymandering of Oakland County; Greg Giroux points out that 14 of 16 municipalities in the county that went 59% or more for Obama wound up packed in the new 9th or 14th, while 21 of 23 municipalities that went for McCain were packed into the 8th or 11th.) • MT-AL : Missoula city councilor Dave Strohmaier announced that he’s running for the open seat left behind by Denny Rehberg. Strohmaier (from one of the state’s few islands of blue) will face state Rep. Franke Wilmer, and probably others, in the Democratic primary. • NV-02 : While it looks like we know who the major players will be (former state Sen. Mark Amodei just got the Republican back-room nomination, while state Treasurer Kate Marshall seems to have the Democratic establishment support), the when and how of the Nevada special election is still up in the air. SoS Ross Miller is now saying that he might use an entirely vote-by-mail election. (The courts will have to decide whether the parties get to pick, or if it goes back to a everyone-all-at-once ‘ballot royale’ format as Miller originally planned.) • NY-09 : Add two more names to the speculation pile, concerning who might get picked to replace Anthony Weiner (and when I say ‘picked,’ I mean it, as the choice is basically up to Queens Co. Dem party chair Joe Crowley). One conventional choice is Democratic Assemblyman Rory Lancman. A less conventional pick being suggested is Huma Abedin : state department official, Hillary Clinton right-hand-woman, and… um… wife to Anthony Weiner (entitled to a sort of ‘widow’s succession,’ to the extent that Weiner’s career is dead)? • VA-? : One-term VA-05 Rep. and netroots fave Tom Perriello says that he has “no plans” to mount a campaign for anything in 2012. (No mention of 2013, when a certain state AG slot becomes open…) • VA-11 : Gerry Connolly is probably gearing up for a third matchup with Keith Fimian, but an ex-Army colonel, Chris Perkins, is also in the GOP race, and, suggesting he’s at least one notch above Some Dude, claims the backing of a few current GOP Reps. Perkins, who seems to be positioning himself to Fimian’s left (more in terms of tone than actually policy, though) has his foot in the door for at least one news cycle for saying that the Ryan plan is good stuff, but just that Ryan “needs to do a better job selling it.” Grab bag : • IN-SoS : Mommmm!! Those Democrats are being mean to me! No, I’m not exaggerating… embattled Republican Secretary of State Charlie White, on the verge of losing his job after a few months in office because of his own voter fraud problems, is literally getting a lifeline from his mother. She’s suing the special prosecutors who targeted White, seeking $750K! (Not sure what exactly her standing here is…) • Dark money : The FEC is very politely going after Karl Rove-linked Super PAC American Crossroads, nicely asking them to please disclose the names of their donors. Since this seems unlikely to be honored, we’ll have to see if they move on to the second level: a sternly-worded letter. Redistricting : • South Carolina : The state House signed off on the proposed GOP congressional plan, which creates a sixth Republican seat instead of a theoretically-possible VRA seat. The plan heads back to the Senate, also GOP-controlled. The Dems’ only recourse here is a lawsuit, which is already in the works, they say, and/or intervention from the Obama DOJ. (The article also, while not providing maps, describes changes to the state legislative maps, with a number of districts shifting from the state’s middle to the fast-growing coastal lowlands, either around Myrtle Beach or the exurbs of Charleston.) • West Virginia : We haven’t thought much about West Virginia, although it’s worth watching, seeing as how the Dems control the trifecta here and they could mess somewhat with freshman GOPer David McKinley’s 1st district. They’ll be handling redistricting in a summer special session, which is set to begin August 1. Proposals should be made available in late July. This diary is brought to you by Daily Kos Elections, an official Daily Kos sub-site. Please read our Mission Statement . Our focus is on electoral politics rather than policy. Welcome aboard!

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Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest: 6/20

St. Pete Times Forum, home of the 2012 GOP convention It’s question no. 1 for election junkies: Who is going to be the Republican nominee in 2012? The answer, if you attended Daily Kos editor Arjun Jaikumar’s panel on the topic at Netroots Nation earlier today, is Mitt Romney — probably. All the panelists, including Slate writer Dave Weigel, former DNC hands Matt Ortega and Kombiz Lavasany, and Dkos editor Jake McIntyre, agreed that Romney is by far the most imposing candidate the likeliest to score the GOP nod. But why? Jake has long stuck to his “establishment candidate” theory, which served him well in 2008 when he consistently predicted John McCain would be the nominee even during his darkest days. This thesis doesn’t necessarily favor the candidate who is the most acceptable to the GOP establishment (though it usually is), but rather the person with the longest record of service and, often, a prior run under their belt. In 2008, that was most clearly McCain, while now, that role falls to Romney, as none of the other major contenders have run before. Romney has other advantages as well. The most obvious is money — he’s crushing the rest of the field in fundraising and will likely continue to do so. But Weigel, who spends a lot of time listening to what actual Republican voters have to say, made another important observation. Romney has been laser-focused on jobs and the economy, and that helps to mask his various sins and apostasies, ranging from Romneycare to gay rights. Weigel says that Republicans he talks to are beginning to make excuses for themselves so that they can get behind the more electable Romney, rather than vote with their hearts for someone else… Like, say, Michele Bachmann, who was universally agreed-upon as the most likely person to derail a Romney candidacy. The biggest wildcard is the rise of the Tea Party movement, which threatens to disrupt the old “establishment candidate” order. As Jake said, if you had said a year ago that Bachmann would be a serious contender for the Republican crown, he’d have called you crazy. But then we saw candidates like Christine O’Donnell soar to popularity with Republicans in her home state, which really has to make us rethink our normal calculus. Can Bachmann do it? It would take a much more disciplined campaign than she’s ever run in the past, but she got off to a good start by not drooling into the lectern at the first debate last week (benefitting from the proverbial soft bigotry of low, low expectations). And of course she’ll be able to raise scads of money thanks to her national fundraising base. I also think she has greater appeal to evangelicals than anyone in the race, with Mike Huckabee out. But will she pull it off? The panelists agreed it would be a tough row to hoe. As for other possibilities, well, no candidates really got much credit from the speakers. Tim Pawlenty was seen as too afraid to attack Romney after wimping out at the debate. Jon Huntsman is undoubtedly a Beltway media creation. Everyone hates Newt Gingrich, and Sarah Palin has nothing resembling discipline. (Plus isn’t she on vacation?) The biggest remaining name is probably Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who has been flirting with a run in recent weeks. Kombiz said he gets a Fred Thompson-esque vibe from Perry and thinks his heart might not really be in it. Matt wondered if the nation is really far enough away from Bush to be ready to elect another Texas governor, particularly one who hasn’t governed his state well. But as Jake said, if Perry got in, he’d at least shake things up. So that’s the betting line, folks. The safe money is on Romney, but the real gamblers might want to lay out some coin on Bachmann. But these sorts of things always come with a huge caveat, as the panelists themselves will all tell you. Not only are the primaries half a year away, but we don’t even know exactly when they’ll happen, or what order they’ll take place in. Like they say about baseball, it’s why they play the games. A lot can happen between now and the GOP convention in August of 2012, and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if everything we know now gets turned topsy-turvy by then.

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NN11: Who is the GOP’s great hope for 2012?

On the eve of Devo’s summer tour, featuring a free AOL-sponsored show at Toronto’s NXNE festival on June 18 at Yonge-Dundas Square, Spinner caught up with frontman Mark Mothersbaugh and singer-bassist Gerald Casale for a rare interview about the respect they’ve gained from their peers and the battles they’ve fought against their record label, their own followers, and humanity in general. Oh, and also “stupid” Sarah Palin. Read More… More on Sarah Palin

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Devo Whips It On Sarah Palin Before Toronto’s NXNE Festival Show

On the eve of Devo’s summer tour, featuring a free AOL-sponsored show at Toronto’s NXNE festival on June 18 at Yonge-Dundas Square, Spinner caught up with frontman Mark Mothersbaugh and singer-bassist Gerald Casale for a rare interview about the respect they’ve gained from their peers and the battles they’ve fought against their record label, their own followers, and humanity in general. Oh, and also “stupid” Sarah Palin. Read More… More on Sarah Palin

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Devo Whips It On Sarah Palin Before Toronto’s NXNE Festival Show

Here’s today’s schedule of live broadcasts from Netroots Nation 2011—just click on a panel title to go straight to its live feed: The Attack on America’s Middle Class, and the Plan to Fight Back Saturday, June 18, 2011 at 9:00 AM CDT • General Session Hall A Sen. Al Franken, Lee Saunders, Mary Bell, Mary Kay Henry, Joseph Hansen, Bob Kuttner, Ari Melber Green Organizing in Red States: The Fight Against Big Oil’s Next Pipeline Saturday, June 18, 2011 at 10:30 AM CDT • L100 AB Kate Sheppard, Marty Cobenais, David Daniel, Jane Fleming Kleeb, Nick Berning The Corporate Court: Your Rights vs. Corporate Interests Saturday, June 18, 2011 at 10:30 AM CDT • L100 H Nan Aron, Dahlia Lithwick, Eva Paterson, Carl Pope, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse Sustaining Engagement in the Off Years: How Electeds use Community Organizing and Social Media to Engage their Constituents Saturday, June 18, 2011 at 10:30 AM CDT • M100 FG Dan Cramer, Congressman Keith Ellison, Congressman Tim Walz, Denise Cardinal The American Dream Movement (note: link will not be live until 12:00PM CDT) Saturday, June 18, 2011 at 12:00 PM CDT • General Session Hall A Van Jones Taking Back Your State: How to Respond to Restrictive State Immigration Legislation Saturday, June 18, 2011 at 1:30 PM CDT • L100 AB Seth Hoy, A. Elena Lacayo, Suman Raghunathan, Jill V. Garvey Challenging Mainstream Media Narratives on Right-wing Extremism Saturday, June 18, 2011 at 1:30 PM CDT • L100 H Amanda Marcotte, David Neiwert, Sarah Posner, Adele Stan, Jesse Taylor, David Holthouse The Plan to Advance Marriage Equality, Inside and Outside of the 112th Congress Saturday, June 18, 2011 at 1:30 PM CDT • M100 FG Joe Sudbay, Congressman Jerry Nadler, Pam Spaulding, Rick Jacobs, Camilla Taylor The State of Daily Kos in the DK4 Era Saturday, June 18, 2011 at 3:00 PM CDT • L100 AB Markos Moulitsas, Victoria Campbell, Claude Hayward, Elaine Lindelef, Will Rockafellow Do it Again: Getting 2008 First-time Voters Out in 2012 Saturday, June 18, 2011 at 3:00 PM CDT • L100 H Debbie Hines, Jeneba Ghatt, Judy Lubin, Kristal High, Rep. Donna Edwards 40 Under 40: Political Rising Stars Saturday, June 18, 2011 at 3:00 PM CDT • M100 FG Representative Ellie Hill, Assemblyman Elliot Anderson, Senator Shannon Augare, Senator Kyrsten Sinema, Representative Jefferson Smith Closing Keynote—Freedom from Fear: First-Person Voices from the Movement Moment Saturday, June 18, 2011 at 5:00 PM CDT • General Session Hall A Rep. Keith Ellison

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Netroots Nation 2011 Live

Here’s today’s schedule of live broadcasts from Netroots Nation 2011—just click on a panel title to go straight to its live feed: The Attack on America’s Middle Class, and the Plan to Fight Back Saturday, June 18, 2011 at 9:00 AM CDT • General Session Hall A Sen. Al Franken, Lee Saunders, Mary Bell, Mary Kay Henry, Joseph Hansen, Bob Kuttner, Ari Melber Green Organizing in Red States: The Fight Against Big Oil’s Next Pipeline Saturday, June 18, 2011 at 10:30 AM CDT • L100 AB Kate Sheppard, Marty Cobenais, David Daniel, Jane Fleming Kleeb, Nick Berning The Corporate Court: Your Rights vs. Corporate Interests Saturday, June 18, 2011 at 10:30 AM CDT • L100 H Nan Aron, Dahlia Lithwick, Eva Paterson, Carl Pope, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse Sustaining Engagement in the Off Years: How Electeds use Community Organizing and Social Media to Engage their Constituents Saturday, June 18, 2011 at 10:30 AM CDT • M100 FG Dan Cramer, Congressman Keith Ellison, Congressman Tim Walz, Denise Cardinal The American Dream Movement (note: link will not be live until 12:00PM CDT) Saturday, June 18, 2011 at 12:00 PM CDT • General Session Hall A Van Jones Taking Back Your State: How to Respond to Restrictive State Immigration Legislation Saturday, June 18, 2011 at 1:30 PM CDT • L100 AB Seth Hoy, A. Elena Lacayo, Suman Raghunathan, Jill V. Garvey Challenging Mainstream Media Narratives on Right-wing Extremism Saturday, June 18, 2011 at 1:30 PM CDT • L100 H Amanda Marcotte, David Neiwert, Sarah Posner, Adele Stan, Jesse Taylor, David Holthouse The Plan to Advance Marriage Equality, Inside and Outside of the 112th Congress Saturday, June 18, 2011 at 1:30 PM CDT • M100 FG Joe Sudbay, Congressman Jerry Nadler, Pam Spaulding, Rick Jacobs, Camilla Taylor The State of Daily Kos in the DK4 Era Saturday, June 18, 2011 at 3:00 PM CDT • L100 AB Markos Moulitsas, Victoria Campbell, Claude Hayward, Elaine Lindelef, Will Rockafellow Do it Again: Getting 2008 First-time Voters Out in 2012 Saturday, June 18, 2011 at 3:00 PM CDT • L100 H Debbie Hines, Jeneba Ghatt, Judy Lubin, Kristal High, Rep. Donna Edwards 40 Under 40: Political Rising Stars Saturday, June 18, 2011 at 3:00 PM CDT • M100 FG Representative Ellie Hill, Assemblyman Elliot Anderson, Senator Shannon Augare, Senator Kyrsten Sinema, Representative Jefferson Smith Closing Keynote—Freedom from Fear: First-Person Voices from the Movement Moment Saturday, June 18, 2011 at 5:00 PM CDT • General Session Hall A Rep. Keith Ellison

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Netroots Nation 2011 Live

We kill an estimated 23 to 76 million sharks each year, almost entirely for the sake of shark fin soup, which has recently boomed in popularity. Right now the California State Senate is considering a bill, AB 376, that would end the fin trade there. Read More…

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Sarah Chasis: In Defense of the Demon Fish

To receive the Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest via email each weekday, sign up here . Senate : • MA-Sen : If there was ever any hope that Scott Brown could get teabagged to death, Tom Jensen says to forget it. Only 25% of MA Republicans say they’d support a more conservative challenger in a primary, and 70% says he’s ideologically “about right.” On the Dem side, Newton Mayor Setti Warren just scored the endorsement of eight fellow mayors from some decent-sized cities, including Worcester, the state’s second largest. Meanwhile, the other Warren — Elizabeth — met with Chuck Schumer for dinner in DC earlier this week. A Schumer aide refused to say what the two discussed. • MO-Sen : Interesting: Republican ex-Treasurer Sarah Steelman came out in opposition to the Ryan plan, a move aimed at putting some distance between her and Rep. Todd Akin, who not only voted in favor of it, but even appeared on stage with Paul Ryan when he announced his budget, as PoliticMO reminds us. Considering how totemic the Ryan plan is among movement conservatives, I would think that Steelman risks further damaging her image with a base that already suspects her of serious apostasies. (At one point, she was pretty friendly with organized labor.) More to the point, I just don’t see how acting semi-sane in a GOP primary can possible help. • UT-Sen : Dick Armey’s FreedomWorks says they’re launching a program to oust GOP Sen. Orrin Hatch from office, but there’s no word on how much they plan to spend. FreedomWorks likes to act as though they were a major player in taking down Hatch’s former colleague, Sen. Bob Bennett, last year, but their PAC spent piddly amounts (see here and here — look for “Mike Lee”). Meanwhile, everyone’s favorite hope to take on Hatch, Rep. Jason Chaffetz, continues to play footsie , calling himself a “definite maybe” on conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt’s show. Gubernatorial : • IN-Gov : Mike Pence has raised $388k since announcing his candidacy in early May. However, thanks to the lack of individual contribution limits, Pence has been free to rack up the large donations… including $100k (or 26%) from just one donor ! House : • FL-26 : Karen Diebel, whose political second act has been rumored for months, has made it official: she is running for Congress again. This time, the loser of the GOP primary in FL-24 in 2010 is heading to one of the new districts in the Sunshine State, which is going to be based in Central Florida. • IN-06 : Democrats added another candidate to the open-seat 6th district being abandoned by GOP gubernatorial candidate Mike Pence. Lane Siekman is an attorney and Chamber of Commerce guy who rises just an inch or two above “Some Dude” status. Siekman’s entry to the race has been mulled for about a month now. Siekman joins college professor Jim Crone for the Dems, with a host of Republicans already vying to replace Pence. • NV-02 : Democrats in DC are laying down their marker in the 2011 contest in Nevada’s reddest congressional district. State Treasurer Kate Marshall was hosted in DC this week by two of the party’s heaviest hitters: Senate Majority Leader (and Nevada colleague) Harry Reid and the DCCC. While Marshall doesn’t have the Democratic field entirely to herself, she is considered a considerably stronger candidate than University of Nevada regent Nancy Price. • OH-02 : Mean Jean Schmidt is getting primaried. But before you slap your forehead at the thought of Schmidt getting primaried from the right, it appears that the challenge from 2009 Cincinnati mayoral candidate Brad Wenstrup is more about attitude than ideology. Wenstrup, who took a surprisingly high 46% for the GOP in that 2009 mayoral race, is quoted as saying his “skill set and leadership potential” are better fits for the district than those of Schmidt. Translation: I have all of her political views, but I’m less filling when it comes to the batshit crazy stuff. • WA-?? : Darcy Burner is returning to her home state after a brief stint in DC, and is coy about a potential bid for Congress upon her return to the state. Burner, of course, gave Dave Reichert tough races in both 2006 and 2008, losing by six points or less in both races. Burner is currently in Minnesota, where she is participating in the Netroots Nation Conference. Other Races : • AZ-St. Sen. : Recall signatures have almost been approved against Arizona Senate President Russell Pearce (R-Mesa), perhaps best known as author of SB1070, Arizona’s immigration law. After signatures are approved, Governor Jan Brewer would have 15 days to call for an election, which would either be scheduled for November 2011 or March 2012. The GOP currently has a 21-9 majority in the Senate, but knocking off the Senate President would be an accomplishment nonetheless. • WI Recall : The Wisconsin GAB approved the recalls against Dem senators Dave Hansen of Green Bay, Bob Wirch of Pleasant Prairie, and Jim Holperin of Conover, but the Democratic Party of Wisconsin sued in Dane County Court to get them tossed. The DPW raised similar issues as it had before the GAB itself, alleging irregularities in the petition circulation process. Grab Bag : • Census : We’ve been playing around plenty with the PL94-171 summary files (and it’s what states have been using for redistricting purposes), but the Census Bureau will be releasing Summary File 1 for Alabama and Hawaii. New information will include age, household relationships, and additional racial breakdowns.

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Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest: 6/17

There would be many chances for unique moments in the White House if Sarah Palin were president. How about Sarah on horseback, ringing bells like Paul Revere did, shouting, “The Democrats are coming!” Read More… More on Tea Party

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Deepak Chopra: Sarah Palin, My President

Even though the average price for a gallon of regular unleaded gas in California fluctuates around $4, some experts argue that $4 a gallon is much less than the real cost. Read More… More on Gas & Oil

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Sarah Terry-Cobo: US Gas Is Artificially Cheap: What We Don’t Pay For at the Pump

White House Photo, Chuck Kennedy In more confirmation of the unusual nature of Obama’s support the new NBC/WSJ poll finds that the public is restive about the economy, but Mr. Obama’s generally buoyant political standing reflects his continued personal appeal and the historic nature of the first African-American presidency. His high standing among black and Hispanic voters shatters four decades of data that until now has closely correlated approval of the president with views about whether the country is on the right track, Mr. McInturff said. Among all poll respondents, 45% said they would probably vote to re-elect Mr. Obama, while 40% said they would choose a Republican. Against specific GOP contenders, the president’s lead widened. Mr. Obama leads Mr. Romney 49% to 43%; he topped Mr. Pawlenty 50% to 37%. It’s for the above observation that we keep reminding folks that what “everyone knows” may not necessarily be so. Now, one has to be very careful about saying “this year it’ll be different”. The truth is, year after year, whatever the topic,  it’s usually not. But this is a unique kind of situation, where the previous administration is still blamed more than this one. Concerted Republican attacks on Mr. Obama have so far failed to fundamentally change public opinion about him. The president still leads GOP White House contenders including Mr. Romney, and 62% said the nation’s economic malaise is one the president inherited, not one he caused. “There’s nothing to suggest the public’s really turned on him,” Mr. Hart said. The poll does note that amongst some subsets Romney’s message resonates. Suberban voters, and white voters, in particular prefer Romney. As for being the front runner, Of those who said they were likely to vote in the Republican primaries next year, 30% said they back Mr. Romney, up from 21% last month, when former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and businessman Donald Trump were still possible contenders. Interestingly, the GOP voters are not so enamored of their choices. But with about eight months until the first GOP nominating contests, less than half of Republican primary voters — 45 percent — say they are satisfied with their current crop of presidential candidates, according to a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll. That’s substantially lower than the 73 percent of Republicans who were satisfied in the summer of 2007 (when the GOP candidates included John McCain, Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee), as well as the 68 percent who were satisfied in early 1996 (when Bob Dole won the GOP nomination). Here’s how they see it in Texas : NBC News and the Wall Street Journal released a new poll on Wednesday, and it put Gov. Rick Perry at fourth place among Republican primary voters when asked their choice for the GOP nominee. It went like this: Romney, 30 percent; Palin, 14 percent; Cain, 12 percent; Perry, 8 percent. Polls have little use at this point other than to test name ID. But it is interesting that Perry, who has not said whether he’s running, finished higher than announced candidates Pawlenty, Gingrich and Bachmann, among others. Yeah, Pawlenty and Huntsman are just catching fire. Burning up the polls. Scorching the opposition. [Hey, bring in that magnifying glass so I can find their poll numbers.] So, we’re a long ways away, the country is unhappy aboiut the economy and Obama has plenty of work to do. But correlating the results with any specific number, such as unemployment, or wrong track, is proving to be more difficult than normal with this President. We can speculate why: historic President, unlikeable GOP candidates, blame on Bush… oh, and gas prices dropping doesn’t hurt. Are there storm clouds ahead? You betcha. Still, for now, the numbers are what they are. Full poll results (.pdf) here .

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NBC/WSJ poll: Romney leads GOP but public sticks with Obama

The state of Pennsylvania President Barack Obama has endured his share of ups and downs in the Keystone State, leading to some well-founded concerns about the prospect of his losing a state that has gone Democratic for President in each of the past five elections. Quinnipiac, however, shows the President recovering nicely from earlier struggles in Keystoneville, and well positioned at the moment to beat all Republican comers. Quinnipiac University (6/7-12, registered Pennsylvania voters, MoE 2.7%): Barack Obama (D-inc) : 47 Mitt Romney (R) : 40 Barack Obama (D-inc) : 49 Rick Santorum (R) : 38 No one besides Romney and Santorum was tested against the President, but since Romney’s been the strongest Republican in head-to-head polls almost across the board, this should give a decent idea of the state of play in Pennsylvania, as far as Quinnipiac sees it. Quinnipiac also polled the primary: Romney leads the Republican primary pack with 21 percent, followed by Santorum with 16 percent, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin with 11 percent and no other candidate above 8 percent, the independent Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pe-ack) University poll finds. Another 17 percent of Republicans are undecided. Big trouble for Little Ricky—he can’t even win his own state in the primary. Truly, he’s 2012’s forgotten man so far. Usually with state polling so far we’ve seen President Obama with middling numbers, and the Republicans with lousy numbers, and middling beats lousy. That’s still the case here, but Obama’s numbers in PA are actually on the upswing. He gets a 48/48 approval number, as well as a 48/46 raw reelect. Not stellar, but better than the genuinely crapulent 42/53 level he was at at the end of April. Quinnipiac was kind enough to provide Daily Kos Elections with the sample they used for this poll; it is 37% Democratic, 30% Republican, and 27% independents, a fairly similar model to the 2008 CNN exit poll, which was 44% Democratic, 37% Republican, 18% Independent. All in all, a pretty good poll for the President, especially considering that Pennsylvania was (and is) considered at risk for Democrats this cycle. UPDATE : In case you were wondering about the state’s Democratic senior senator, Bob Casey Jr., he’s in even better shape, at 47/26 approval (including 37/38 among Republicans), and leading his most dangerous foe, Generic Republican, by a 47-32 margin. Republican Pat Toomey sports similar 45/28 approvals. This diary is brought to you by Daily Kos Elections, an official Daily Kos sub-site. Please read our Mission Statement . Our focus is on electoral politics rather than policy. Welcome aboard!

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PA-Pres: Quinnipiac has solid leads for Obama

WASHINGTON — An innovative study released on Monday by a Facebook advertising firm suggests that Republican candidates can best attract online clicks with ads aimed at President Barack Obama generally rather than about the economy or other specific issues. It also confirms that Sarah Palin continues to be a bigger magnet for online pageviews than the other announced- and potential-Republican presidential hopefuls. Conventional polls attempt to sample members of some larger population and measure their political attitudes by asking questions. SocialCode , the Washington Post subsidiary that conducted the study, did something very different. They placed Facebook advertisements in Iowa and New Hampshire featuring Republican candidates and messages, then measured how often users clicked Facebook’s “like” button to endorse and share what they saw. Read More… More on Republicans

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Facebook Study Finds Republicans Click On Palin, Anti-Obama Messages

BOULDER, Colo. — Police in Colorado say a woman with an outstanding warrant for her arrest was found because she threw her pita sandwich at Boulder cab driver. The Daily Camera reports that 28-year-old Sarah Renee Lane was arrested Sunday after she got angry with a cabbie who told her she couldn’t bring food into the car. Police records say yogurt sauce spattered on the driver’s beard and face, and made a mess in the vehicle. Read More… More on Denver News

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Sarah Renee Lane Arrested After Pitching Pita At Boulder Cabbie

…Sarah Palin, for still being the most “dynamic” potential 2012er out there, and Barack Obama, for knowing that short of a Palin or Perry candidacy, he’s going to be facing off against one of the unelectable clowns who took the stage last night. Sarah Palin photo credit: Brendan McDermid/Reuters. Pres. Obama: White House.  

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And the winners of the second Republican primary debate are…

Well, the good news is that it’s almost over. 6:56 PM PT : Ah, now’s their chance to bash Sarah Palin while she’s still not in the race. Yet. 6:58 PM PT : Final question. Whew. 6:59 PM PT (Mark Sumner): It was really something to hear Bachmann give a rousing answer on how we should stay out of countries that haven’t attacked us, where we don’t understand the opposition, and where we don’t have a plan for what happens when we go in. Oh, wait, now Iraq is a shining example. Nevermind. 7:03 PM PT : And it’s finally over. So, what did you learn tonight?

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Second Republican presidential debate thread no. 5

Every time anonymous aides pile on the wife of a candidate (It’s almost always the wife, after all when was the last time we read an unflattering profile of Todd Palin?) there’s an underlying message there: she needs to be put in her place. Read More… More on Gingrich 2012

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Keli Goff: When in Doubt Blame the Broad (At Least That’s What Campaigns Do)

We’re about halfway through and it’s become readily apparent that, for all their spitfire and crazy, the Republican candidates have all caught a bad case of Pawlentyitis. The lackluster answers, the soft-boiled talking points…maybe if CNN used their nifty hologram machine to beam questioners in this debate would get a lot more interesting. 6:21 PM PT : Gay marriage question: Cain, Bachmann say it’s up to the states. Santorum, Pawlenty, Romney and Gingrich support a constitutional amendment. Paul wants to get the government out of marriage. Bachmann backtracks and says she supports a constitutional amendment but does not advocate going into states to overturn their laws. Head. Spinning. 6:23 PM PT : Romney thinks DADT should have been kept in place “until conflict was over.” Um, ok. In that case, does he think believe in the “war on terror” and if so, when does he think it will end? Does he think DADT would ever be repealed? 6:27 PM PT : Bachmann’s stance on abortion looks to be no exceptions, even in cases of rape or incest. Sure to please some of the base. Culture questions are waking the crowd up a bit. 6:29 PM PT : The “screen at the top” idea makes candidates look like they’re answering God on policy questions as they look up. They raise their eyes to the heavens, and answer. 6:31 PM PT : The question is simple: if a 5 yr old illegal immigrant goes to a public hospital, should they receive care? How about a “this or that” version, CNN, to make it easier for the candidates to answer? “Do you let the child die or do you treat the child regardless of immigration status”? 6:33 PM PT : Gingrich doesn’t know how to give 30-second answers. That’s what happens when you don’t have a staff to prep you (or when you think you’re too smart to need any prep). 6:36 PM PT : The crowd applauds for Newt on his immigration answer. Who knew immigration was such a pressing issue in…New Hampshire. 6:38 PM PT : Can you think of your own “this or that” questions for the candidates? Add them in the comments below. 6:43 PM PT : On to foreign policy…20 minutes left…stay awake, folks. First question is on death of OBL and Afghanistan and bringing the troops home. Romney says “as soon as we possible can” consistent with recommendations, and adds a touch of anti-interventionism to boot. 6:46 PM PT : An hour and 45 minutes in and Pawlenty brings us our  first 9/11 reference. He gets a cookie. And any of you who had 1:45 in the pool win. 6:49 PM PT : Gingrich cites Bachmann’s claim of soft intelligence on Libya as he takes another Professor Gingrich break. John King is setting a quick pace for the debate and every time Gingrich speaks, it’s as if he’s slamming the breaks and itching for more time to expound and analyze. I thought being a TV pundit was supposed to make you good at sound bites. 6:53 PM PT : You have to think that Palin, Perry and other “possible contenders” are seeing this debate and thinking they should be on stage to liven things up. In fact, the candidates are so underwhelming, I bet Trump is even double-re-thinking his decision to drop out of the race.

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Second Republican presidential debate thread no. 4

It’s not enough to that we have “Multiple Choice” Mitt, Michele “I’m Smarter than Sarah” Bachmann, Herman “Three Page Bill” Cain, Newt “Where’s My Staff” Gingrich, Ron “The Tea Party’s Still Alive!” Paul, Tim “Is This Thing On” Pawlenty, and Rick “Please Don’t Google Me” Santorum all on one stage for the second Republican presidential debate. No, not content with the sheer spectacle of so much win on a single platform, CNN has decided to up the ante with the most tech-integrated debate ever : Manchester, N.H. — By nature, I’m a debate skeptic. They’re hard to differentiate, and the last one is usually forgotten as soon as the next one rolls around. But having just taken a tour of tonight’s CNN debate layout-and-tech-wizardry, I am willing to suspend my disbelief. That’s because CNN’s format has so many tech and social-media bells and whistles that it seems more like a video game than a staid political debate, and therefore more likely to trip up the candidates–or, as I suppose CNN would say, “elicit interesting responses.” Which is very much by design. “YouTube seems so four years ago, doesn’t it?” David Bohrman, CNN’s senior vice president and “chief innovation officer,” said airily. You can watch the debate at CNN.com for all the YouTube worthy moments. We’ll be liveblogging every delicious minute of it here, and don’t forget to chime in with your own thoughts in the comments below. 5:03 PM PT : Candidates are doing their introductions. Quick, the candidate with the most kids wins! 5:04 PM PT : Ron Paul says he delivered 4,000 babies. We’re three minutes in, and he’s already won the “who has/has delivered more children” question. 5:08 PM PT : First question is about a plan to create jobs. Metaphors galore. Cain wants permanent tax cuts, something about putting fuel in trains. Santorum claims administration has “oppressive” policy and that the economy needs to be “unshackled.” Meanwhile, a fancy word from Pawlenty: Obama is a “declinist.” 5:11 PM PT : Romney claims Obama made the recession “worse” and “longer.” Gingrich gets pitched a question about increasing taxes on wealthy. Gingrich, who does not appear to be wearing any Tiffany cufflinks in the debate, pivots heavily to repealing regulations. 5:12 PM PT : Bachmann announces that she has officially filed. Phew! Glad to hear that, otherwise it would have been a bit awkward to have her up there… 5:15 PM PT : Healthcare question up next about “defunding Obamacare.” Bachmann sets a new record! She “announced” moments ago (wait, if it’s not on Twitter, does it not count?) and already made her first “promise” — to repeal health care reform. 5:17 PM PT : Romney’s answer on healthcare: I’ll repeal the law that’s based on the law I championed as Governor. Romney says he will grant a waiver to all 50 states from Obamacare. Will he grant a waiver to Mass. from Romneycare? 5:19 PM PT : Shorter John King: Mr. Pawlenty, do you have the guts to use the term “Obamneycare” to Mr. Romney’s face? Pawlenty demurs. 5:23 PM PT : Both Santorum and Bachmann are trying their hardest to appear as “moderate” Republicans to satisfy moderate voter, basically disclaiming every moment of their political careers. 5:25 PM PT : Herman Cain delivers an absolutely zero calorie answer. Are we sure he’s not a professional politician? 5:28 PM PT : For all the crazy on stage, this debate is still, like most debate, remarkably boring. Head on over to the new thread as we continue to follow the non-answers and bumbling.

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Second Republican presidential debate

A Fox focus group said Herman Cain won the first presidential debate   Seven Republicans will gather tonight at eight o’clock eastern time in Manchester, New Hampshire for the second GOP presidential primary debate of the 2012 election. Six of them are announced candidates: Mitt Romney, Tim Pawlenty, Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich, Ron Paul, and Rick Santorum. Michele Bachmann hasn’t yet formally announced, but everybody in the world thinks she’ll run, and she makes it seven. Probably the biggest question will be whether any of the seven candidates will deliver a strong enough performance to knock the wind out of the sails of Texas Governor Rick Perry, who appears to be moving closer towards a presidential bid after several of his staffers quit Newt Gingrich’s troubled campaign last week. CNN, which is sponsoring the debate, polled GOP primary voters about their current preferences. For the seven who will attend tonight’s debate: Romney: 24% Cain: 10% Gingrich: 10% Paul: 7% Bachmann: 4% Pawlenty: 3% Santorum: 1% While those poll numbers look great for Mitt Romney, they tell only part of the story. The poll asked about some other names as well, and if you look at the full results—not just the results of those debating tonight—the numbers look like this: Romney: 24% Palin: 20% Giuliani: 12% Cain: 10% Gingrich: 10% Paul: 7% Bachmann: 4% Pawlenty: 3% Santorum: 1% I don’t think Ron Paul or Newt Gingrich are participating in the debate with any serious hope of winning the nomination. Gingrich says he’s running to talk about ideas, but actually that’s what Paul is doing; Gingrich is running to make sure his Sheldon Adelson gravy train doesn’t run dry. The rest of tonight’s debaters will be focused on prying support away from the 32% of Republicans who say they’d vote for Palin or Giuliani. The six candidates not named Romney will also be going after his supporters. And Rick Perry will be watching it all, hoping everybody fails. The stakes are particularly high for Tim Pawlenty. Despite running since about 2007 or so, he can’t break out from the bottom of the pack. If he doesn’t start doing so tonight, it’s not clear that he ever will. His best case scenario would be to start making inroads with Romney supporters and stopping any of the other candidates from catching fire with the Palin/Giuliani crowd; failing that, it’s hard to see where he goes. Rick Santorum and Michele Bachmann are looking to enjoy the performance that Herman Cain had in the first GOP debate, which Republican voters felt he won. Cain obviously wants to repeat his performance. All of them want to capture the Sarah Palin mojo. In a way, Romney may actually want one of them to break from the pack. If that happens, whomever breaks away will become his chief rival, denying oxygen to Tim Pawlenty. The scenario Romney really doesn’t want to see is for Pawlenty to have a breakout performance while the others slowly begin to fade away. Romney has a reasonably good shot at beating Bachmann or Cain or Santorum heads up, but if Pawlenty or Perry become his chief rival, he’s going to be in a world of hurt. Join us for tonight’s debate, live at 8:00pm ET.

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Handicapping the second Republican presidential debate

Tonight, Mitt Romney makes his first debate appearance of the 2012 GOP primary season, and yesterday on Fox News Sunday, Tim Pawlenty made it clear he plans to go on the attack over Romney’s health care reform plan. WALLACE: What do you make of Romney’s argument that there’s a fundamental difference between an individual mandate at the federal level, that everyone must get health insurance, and individual mandate at the state level? Do you see a difference in principle between — on that point between Obamacare and Romneycare? PAWLENTY: Well, you don’t have to take my word for it. You can take President Obama’s word for it. President Obama said that he designed Obamacare after Romneycare and basically made it Obamneycare. And so, we now have the same features — essentially the same features. The president’s own words is that he patterned in large measure Obamacare after what happened in Massachusetts. And what I don’t understand is they both continue to defend it. At least by the fairly low standards of 2012ers, Obamneycare is fairly clever line. I suspect Pawlenty will get at least some mileage out of it assuming he is able to deliver it in the debate. From a Democratic perspective, the thing I like most about the politics  of this is that with this issue on the table, Republicans need to do one of two things: they will either do the consistent thing and reject Romney, who is running best against President Obama in polls right now, or they will reveal their hypocrisy and fundamentally compromise the credibility of their attack on health care reform by supporting Romney despite his health care record. Neither scenario is good news for Republicans. Wallace also asked Pawlenty about his previous characterization of the individual mandate as a worthy goal and something that Pawlenty was open to considering. Pawlenty said that he had been taken out of context and had rejected the mandate. I haven’t looked back at the full context of his original speech yet, but that’s the response you can expect Pawlenty to make if Romney accuses him of hypocrisy tonight. Join us at 8PM ET as we live blog tonight’s GOP presidential debate.

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Pawlenty previews debate attack: ‘ObamneyCare’

Via Right Wing Watch : [Conservative historian David] Barton continues to lash out at “deconstructionism” in the education system for distorting the truth about the Founding Fathers, arguing that the Founding Fathers did not support slavery or engage in the practice themselves. While Founding Fathers like George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and Patrick Henry were all slaveholders, Barton has created his own theory of the cause of the American Revolution: the Founding Fathers’ desire to reject the British Empire’s endorsement of slavery. “ That’s why we said we want to separate from Britain, so we can end slavery ,” Barton said. The Original Tea Partiers For the record, this is nonsensical. I have no doubt that Barton has devoted long hours towards “proving” that the entire record of the American Revolution is wrong, and that in fact we went to war with Britain in order to free the slaves. I have no doubt that he has shreds of some letter from some historical figure that, when you cross out every third word, confesses to the whole scheme. And yet I feel assured that we can retain our confidence in the wider body of historical knowledge on the subject, and in the wider documentation available of the time, and in the Constitution itself, which did not end slavery, but codified it, right there in ink, still visible even today to those brave souls willing to trek to the National Archives to see it. Barton is, of course, not quite a historian in the conventional sense. He is a more akin to a historical propagandist; his goal is to use whatever historical trivia he can muster to make distinctly modern ideological points. Towards this end, he is willing to “reinterpret” history, obfuscate it, and nitpick smaller events or ancillary historical factors into archetypical importance. Is it fair to say that some of the Founding Fathers harbored antipathy towards slavery? So stipulated. Did we “want to separate from Britain so we can end slavery”? Well, no. That was pretty damn far down the list, all told, and even the most cursory skimming of the timelines shows that Britain’s attitudes towards abolition progressed faster than much of America’s. Which is the opposite of what David Barton said, right? If this sounds familiar, it is. David Barton is to history what a conservative preacher is to the Bible, and what a conservative legal mind is to the Constitution, what conservative think-tanks are to policy and science, and what conservative critics of the arts are to, well, art. Intellectualism, science, and knowledge itself is only valuable to the extent to which it can shore up the ideological beliefs of the speaker or the listener. Facts that might subvert those assertions are simply dismissed. This is not something specific to conservatism, mind you, but the extent to which the modern conservative movement has embraced the practice is a bit shocking even to a true cynic like myself. Really? , it makes you want to ask. Really, you would rather believe all these profoundly strange things than have to adjust your own worldview to accommodate anything more complicated? T he most obvious example of this is perhaps the “debate” over climate change. The science is clear enough; we know what greenhouse gases do, we know to what extent they exist in the atmosphere and to what extent human activity has increased them. Among scientists, the arguments are almost entirely over the nuances of what will happen next. You would not know this from listening to conservative pundits – and this should be a startling thing. The laws of physics, chemistry and biology do not change based on political affiliation. Gravity will not upend itself if some annoyed senator declares he does not believe in it. If Rush Limbaugh argues that fire is cold, he will still get burned if he sticks his head into one. But among movement conservatives, the science is irrelevant. You can rattle off the reasons: some study funded by a conservative think tank or corporate polluter claims “skepticism” in opposition to the far greater number of established scientific studies published everywhere else; some set of emails or an outlier set of data is supposed to show worldwide, multidisciplinary “fraud” being concocted by scientists in a secret bid for power; a conspiracy is cited even by the most powerful and influential conservatives in which climate change is itself entirely a hoax, perpetrated by liberals or socialists or communists that seek to use it to establish iron-fisted regulations meant to choke off free enterprise, or private wealth, or private freedoms. It is apparently easy for them to believe in this vast, worldwide conspiracy against conservatism. By the same token, it seems impossible to get them to recognize that a polluter funding a distinctly contrarian “study” that shows pollution is not harmful is not much different from a tobacco company funding a “study” that says the jury is still out on whether their own product causes cancer. The nitpicks of minor groups are elevated to canonical status, because they best support movement beliefs: the much broader and deeper body of evidence is set aside, because it does not. A nother example: Sarah Palin’s pronouncement that Paul Revere rode through town ringing bells and firing warning shots. No. No, he did not. And in the grand scheme of American life, nobody would give a damn whether or not a politician misspoke over such a thing, other than as a moment for a minor chuckle. Editing the Wikipedia entry for Revere to better match her own version, though? Suddenly, a few sentences by a single politician requires us to revisit history? The technical conversation between Wikipedians as to whether or not to allow the edits to support Palin’s version struck me as especially illuminating. Note that all but the first is from the same author, highlights are my own: “In the article on Paul Revere, someone has added false information in an effort to support Sarah Palin’s FALSE claims about Paul Revere. ‘Accounts differ regarding the method of alerting the colonists; the generally accepted position is that the warnings were verbal in nature, although one disputed account suggested that Revere rang bells during his ride. [8][9]‘ This must be removed as it is a LIE designed to mislead. dj Dajames (talk) 14:46, 5 June 2011 (UTC) A lie? If you follow Wikipedia’s rules, we must maintain a WP:NEUTRAL position, representing the mainstream position as well as disputed versions. I think the addition represents this fairly — the mainstream position is that Revere’s warnings were verbal, but there are differing accounts that the warnings were done with bells — with two sources: WDHD television plus a live interview, with a highly influential US politician relating these facts. –Tomwsulcer (talk) 14:50, 5 June 2011 (UTC) I kindly remind people that it’s not our job here at Wikipedia to decide what’s true, but to report what reliable sources say, such as the LA Times, WDHD TV in Boston, numerous others. And they quoted an American politician saying that bells were used. –Tomwsulcer (talk) 15:09, 5 June 2011 (UTC) Sarah Palin is a former governor of Alaska as well as a presidential candidate of one of the two national parties in the United States. Her account of Paul Revere’s famous ride has achieved national attention from most mainstream media — LA Times, CNN, you name it. There are numerous reliable sources quoted her exact words on this subject. This article has HUGE attention (55K readers in one day) as a result. Clearly, there should be some mention given its obvious importance. And I remind people, kindly, that it’s not up to us contributors to determine who is and isn’t a ‘poorly informed view’ and to try to determine truth. Rather, Wikipedia is about verifiability.–Tomwsulcer (talk) 15:37, 5 June 2011 (UTC)” The insistence here is that while the vast majority of scholars agree on one thing, a single conservative source with no particular expertise or background in the subject matter says differently, and so therefore fairness dictates that the controversy must be taught. A “highly influential US politician” related “these facts” that Paul Revere rang bells: this should be considered of equal weight to the entire rest of historical knowledge about Revere and the ride, and be included in the historical narrative from this point forward. Other common defenses of Palin that have emerged: other people rang bells, therefore Paul Revere did; other people may have fired warning shots, therefore Paul Revere did. Logical fallacies both, but no matter: an ancillary supporting “fact” is attributed to – supercedes, even – the more established facts, a new narrative is declared, and a new version of history itself must now be created in order to more easily defend a single political figure from a single, trivial gaffe. And none of it makes the slightest bit of real ideological difference: whether Paul Revere rang bells and fired shots is not an ideological opinion by any stretch, and alters modern life not a damn bit, and will make absolutely no difference in the next bits of legislation being bickered about in Congress. It is solely insisted upon for the sake of defending a mere gaffe, because the speaker was of the correct ideological bent to be defended. W e could go on and on; entire books have been written with examples of conservative warfare against environmentalism, against institutions of higher learning, against public broadcasting, against other insufficiently conservative faiths, against the arts, and so forth. A supposed liberal bias is innate in, apparently, nearly everything. The broader hypothesis I wish to make here, however, is this: modern “movement” conservatives are against these things not because of any innate hostility towards them required by conservatism, but are against them solely because they are not sufficiently ideological endeavors. To repeat myself: a hallmark of the modern conservative movement, including punditry, elected officials, and the base itself, is that science and knowledge is only valuable to the extent to which it can shore up conservative beliefs . A historian is a “proper” historian if their history produces a perceivable conservative message. A work of art is “good” if it embraces a conservative position, and is “bad” if it is seen to promote a liberal one (often resulting in calls to remove the offending artwork – say, a historical mural depicting workers, etc.) A climate study is considered credible if it produces a conservative result, and is considered a conspiracy if it produces a perceived “liberal” one – which is to say, a result that a conservative listener does not like. The credentials of said scientists do not come into play, nor does the relevant process of peer review, nor does the relative scope of one study versus another: all of those things can be dismissed outright. This may all seem nothing more than a circuitous method to hurl a few insults towards modern conservatism; while I do enjoy that (quite a bit, these days), my intention is not quite that. Rather, I want to present this hypothesis as just that – a hypothesis – for revisiting in future controversies. A great number of people have highlighted the Republican war on Science, but it is not a war on science: that is far too narrow. It is a dismissal of the very notion that objective fact can be determined . Politicians already use this to great effect. If an outside group says that Paul Ryan’s plan to replace Medicare with vouchers will result in seniors struggling to find care, that outside group is dismissed. If Tim Pawlenty proposes a tax system that will objectively cost the nation ten trillion dollars, all that is necessary is that Pawlenty reject the notion. The Congressional Budget Office is cited as infallible one moment, and a tool of liberalism the next. A single speaker will declare that an action is clearly constitutional if done by one party, and declare it clearly unconstitutional the next year, when the other party does it. The science of any number of things is “unclear”. Osama bin Laden was found via our policies of torture. Which was not torture. All of these are political statements, but what is perhaps unusual is the extent to which every objective reality of the world, both past and present, is apparently similarly malleable according to ideological needs of the moment. It is more than just insincerity or cynicism, and more than just lying: as the conservative would-be Wikipedia editor showed, it seems an outright inability to separate established fact from partisan fiction, and an inner demand to treat them both equally. Truthiness , Stephen Colbert dubbed it. Something is true if it feels true, and is false if it feels false, and that is the only evidence that is truly needed. You are entitled to your own opinions, but you are not entitled to your own facts , the saying roughly goes. But there are fewer and fewer “facts” around, of late, and I fear for the ones we have left.

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The conservative war on facts

JUNEAU, Alaska — There are no bombshells, no “gotcha” moments. The emails of Sarah Palin – more than 24,000 pages of them released Friday by the state of Alaska from her first two years as governor – paint a picture of an image-conscious, driven leader, closely involved with the day-to-day duties of running the state and riding herd on the signature issues of her administration. Read More… More on Politics

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Palin Emails Show Engaged Leader Who Sought VP Nod

As someone who visits Sudan frequently, here’s some advice for Sarah Palin as she plans her visit. Southerners are a heroic people who survived decades of the worst kind of human violence you can imagine. For years they wielded crude weapons like AK-47s against tanks and MIG jets and yet they won their independence.They are a remarkable group and deserve this moment in the sun. It is their time; don’t make it about you. Don’t be another one of those politicians who did what was trendy and then never returned. Promise the people of Sudan that you’re with them, come what may. Read More… More on Darfur

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Glen Pearson: Some Advice For Sarah Palin on Sudan

JUNEAU, Alaska — Much of the country was taken by surprise when Sarah Palin became the Republican vice presidential candidate in August 2008, but newly released emails make it clear that the little-known Alaska governor was angling for the slot months before Sen. John McCain asked her to join him on the GOP ticket. Earlier that summer, Palin and her staff began pushing to find a larger audience for the governor, wedging her into national conversations and nudging the McCain campaign to notice her. Read More… More on John McCain

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Sarah Palin Emails: Documents Offer Glimpse Into Tenure Of Former Alaska Governor

Thank you for your heart, your backbone and your good sense. You may wonder why a Floridian is so interested in the Governor of Alaska. It’s because I hope that you are our next Vice-president. Talk about change that we can believe in! So began an email from Stan Raley of Florida, sent on August 27, 2008, at 6:36 p.m. In just a few hours, Raley’s wish would be granted, and Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska would be the running mate of Senator John McCain. Palin’s email activity over the next 48 hours — culled from thousands of emails released into the wild today — tell part of the story of those crazy days of the 2008 campaign season, where an obscure political figure from the second most distant state from Washington, D.C., would be selected for the biggest job of her life. Read More… More on Sarah Palin

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Sarah Palin’s Email Cache And Her First 48 Hours From Obscurity

NEW YORK — Long before the glory days of the Republican convention, the exultant crowds greeting them in venues across the country, the sniping and backtalk in the heat of the campaign and the post-defeat blame game, Sarah Palin and John McCain were engaged in a subtle courtship dance, much of which is revealed in the email document dump released today by the state of Alaska. Months before Senator McCain picked her as his running mate, then-Governor Palin was privately expressing interest in the post. In an email sent on June 4, 2008, her aide Ivy Frye noted that McCain was being pushed to choose Palin for the VP slot. “The second and third articles I’ve seen on vp buzz just today,” wrote Frye. “Pretty cool.” Read More… More on Sarah Palin

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Sarah Palin and John McCain’s Courtship Detailed In Emails

WASHINGTON — Sarah Palin appeared to sour on the so-called “Bridge to Nowhere” in 2007, writing in private emails to her staff that she might support returning funds for the bridge to the federal government for other infrastructure projects. As the bridge, planned to connect the 50-resident Gravina Island with another island, began to draw fire from critics who called it pork-barrel spending, Palin appears to have had something of a change of heart on the issue, according to a trove of emails from her time as Alaska governor released on Friday . Palin officially abandoned the plan for the bridge in Sept. 2007, a move touted during her campaign as John McCain’s running mate the following year. Palin was widely criticized for claiming to have killed the “Bridge to Nowhere” because funds to the project had already gone dry. Read More… More on Sarah Palin

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Sarah Palin Privately Soured On ‘Bridge To Nowhere’

Public Policy Polling (PDF) (7/2-5, South Carolina voters, 1/28-30 (PDF) in parens): Barack Obama : 46 (44) Newt Gingrich : 44 (43) Undecided : 11 (12) Barack Obama : 48 (47) Sarah Palin : 43 (41) Undecided : 9 (12) Barack Obama : 41 (42) Mitt Romney : 50 (49) Undecided : 9 (9) Barack Obama : 44 (45) Jim DeMint : 47 (47) Undecided : 9 (8) Barack Obama : 42 Tim Pawlenty : 42 Undecided : 16 Barack Obama : 43 Herman Cain : 40 Undecided : 17 (MoE: ±3.6%) While South Carolina is not quite on anyone’s swing state list (Obama lost to McCain by 9), the president continues to poll surprisingly well here in spite of his weak 43-53 job approval rating. The problem for the Republicans is that no one really likes any of their candidates, either. As Tom points out : Much has been written about the weakness of the Republican candidate field and Obama’s competitiveness in South Carolina is very emblematic of that: voters don’t like him but in many cases they like the GOP alternatives even less. Romney is the most popular of the contenders likely to run in the state but even he has slightly net negative favorability numbers with 40% of voters expressing a positive opinion of him to 42% with a negative one. Cain’s favorability spread is -9 (26/35), Pawlenty’s is -17 (22/39), Palin’s is -19 (37/56), and Gingrich’s is -27 (26/53). Of course, Obama’s not likely to win South Carolina — unless somehow Palin or Gingrich gets nominated. (Good luck with that!) A less sucky Republican is going to be pretty decently positioned simply because there are more undecided Republican voters than Democratic voters. But the fact that we’re even having this conversation is not a good sign for the GOP.

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SC-Pres: Obama continues to lead all but Romney

Today is the big day everyone! Thousands and thousands of emails from former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin have been released into the wild , and every single news organization will be trying to aerially hunt the news that might be contained within them. Perhaps Sarah Palin has something to worry about, but I have to imagine that this evening, as she relaxes her way into another weekend, she will think on this and laugh. Mainly at us. Like many other organizations that cover politics, we at The Huffington Post have made our arrangements to obtain the emails, have handed out assignments to reporters and are hopeful that a crowdsource army will help to pick up the slack. What are we expecting to find? Who knows? Maybe a lot of Comic Sans. Maybe some penetrating new story about Palin’s Alaska reign. Maybe it will be a hot pile of nothing! Yeah, that’s right: One possible outcome of this exercise is that it will be a complete bust. Don’t get me wrong. There’s always some nominal value in paging through the communiques of a public figure, and Palin — whose been as public a figure as any — is a good candidate for this attention. But it’s really not hard to think that the joke might somehow be on us. After all, so what if we find something damning about a former public official whose not likely to be anything more than an itinerant rich person for the rest of her life? Perhaps we will uncover some heretofore unknown brilliance that propels her to the top of the 2012 food chain and restores her in the eyes of the public? Are you ready for that, America? Read More… More on Sarah Palin

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Sarah Palin Shall Have Her Revenge On The Mainstream Media (VIDEO)

Romney 2008 believed straw polls were essential. Romney 2012 disagrees.   Mitt Romney probably hoped to bury his decision to skip straw polls in Iowa, Florida, and Michigan by announcing it yesterday in the midst of Newt Gingrich’s campaign implosion, but Tim Pawlenty isn’t letting him off the hook. Yesterday, Pawlenty’s campaign issued this statement from the chairman of his Iowa steering committee: I joined Governor Pawlenty’s campaign because I knew he could put his record before voters everywhere. The Ames straw poll is a great gathering of conservatives, and Governor Pawlenty’s solid record will be well received there. I look forward to joining thousands of Iowans in casting my vote for Governor Pawlenty in Ames this summer and in the caucuses this winter. The statement doesn’t mention Romney by name, but coming after Romney’s announcement, it was clearly aimed at knocking Romney’s decision to skip the straw poll, a decision made less than two weeks after a Romney campaign swing through Iowa. That campaign swing must not have gone well, because Romney 2008 said skipping the Ames straw poll wasn’t an option: If you can’t compete in Iowa in August …. how are you going to compete in November? It’s funny how quickly things change when you realize that even though you may lead the polls now, by the time the election comes around, you’re going to get spanked .

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Pawlenty campaign knocks Romney for skipping Iowa straw poll

JUNEAU, Alaska — The state of Alaska on Friday will release thousands of Sarah Palin’s emails from her first two years as governor, a disclosure that has taken on national prominence as she flirts with a run for the presidency. The emails were first requested during the 2008 White House race by citizens and news organizations, including The Associated Press, as they vetted a vice presidential nominee whose political experience included less than one term as governor of Alaska and a term as mayor of the small town of Wasilla. The nearly three-year delay has been attributed largely to the sheer volume of the release and the flood of requests. Read More… More on Sarah Palin

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Sarah Palin Emails: Text Of Messages To Be Released By State Of Alaska

Lack of services for the mentally ill is becoming an issue for the upcoming election in Ontario. Many are not impressed with what this government has accomplished in its two terms. The Liberals took power on Oct. 23, 2003 and inherited a report on mental illness reform called The Time is Now . The ten regional reports plus a consolidated report had been commissioned by the Conservative government and was presented in December, 2002. Co-chair of the committee was former federal cabinet minister, Michael Wilson, who described the Ontario system as being based on 30 years of neglect . The incoming Liberals assured all that they would study the reports and take action. They did not. In fact, on April 8, 2009, Ms. Sarah Cannon, the executive director of Parents For Children’s Mental Health (PCMH) commented to the Select Committee on Mental Health and Addictions in her submission that it had been nine years since that report and “we would like to see action and a plan”. Read More…

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Marvin Ross: Mental Illness in Canada: Forty Years of Neglect

Sarah Palin’s political action committee is using a trademarked name for her current bus tour, opening her up to major liabilities that could potentially cause her to lose her bus. Read More… More on Sarah Palin

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Alex Brant-Zawadzki: Is Palin’s Bus Tour Guilty of Trademark Infringement?

Hear about the ABC/WaPo poll that has Romney out in front with registered voters (but well within the 3.5 margin of error) by 3? Sure you have. The media has been beating it to death for 24 hours now. But have you seen this from Quinnipiac (registered voters, MoE 2.2)? In trial heats against President Obama, Romney trails 47 - 41 percent, while Huntsman, Pawlenty and Palin trail by 48 - 34 percent, 48 - 36 percent and 53 - 36 percent respectively. No? He leads with indies 45-38. Okay, then, how about this one from Reuters/Ipsos (adults and registered voters, MoE 3)? Obama leads all potential Republican challengers by double-digit margins, the poll showed. He is ahead of his closest Republican rival, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, by 13 percentage points — 51 percent to 38 percent… In the Reuters/Ipsos poll, the other Republican contenders fared even worse than Romney’s 13-point gap in a match-up with Obama. Palin trailed Obama by 23 points and former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty was behind by 19 points. Do any of these polls prove anything? Sure, but not who is going to win; it’s way too early (like, a year early) for that. It does help cement, however, that Romney should be considered the front-runner. We know that media focuses in on these outlier polls more than the “same old narrative” polls, but we also know it’s the outlier poll that’s most likely to be wrong. And we know that ABC and the WaPo (like most media) will act like there’s no other poll in existence but theirs. Obama is not trailing Romney, in fact he has a decent lead in most polls. But Romney is competitive, and at this stage leads his actual rivals even as the polls force him to share the stage with someone who isn’t running (Sarah Palin, whom Reuters/Ipsos had up over Romney 22 to 20, and whom sucked all the oxygen out of Romney’s “I’m running” announcement.) Pawlenty remains an also ran and you need a microscope to find Huntsman’s numbers:   In the Quinnipiac poll, Herman Cain, a businessman, continues to draw attention in third place with 9%, while former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Rep. Ron Paul of Texas, are tied at 8%. Rep Michele Bachmann gets 6% and former Minn. Gov. Tim Pawlenty is at 5%. As Nate Silver more delicately puts it: Polls suggest, however, that Mr. Huntsman is likely to be an unacceptable choice for many Republican voters. Hey, Huntsman is a Very Serious candidate! Still, before he or Romney gets to November 2012, they’ll have to deal with this : The fact that less than half of voters have a favorable view of the [Morman] religion is likely to be a political issue that Gov. Mitt Romney, and should his campaign catch on, Gov. Jon Huntsman, will have to deal with as they pursue the White House,” said Peter A. Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute. So what does this prove? Only this: no matter how often we see the media barking up the wrong polling tree, expect them to do it again.

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Obama trails Romney … oh, wait!

Public Policy Polling (5/27-30, Minnesota voters, 12/4-5/2010 in parens): Barack Obama (D-inc) : 54 (51) Newt Gingrich (R) : 36 (38) Barack Obama (D-inc) : 56 (54) Sarah Palin (R) : 36 (36) Barack Obama (D-inc) : 51 (47) Mitt Romney (R) : 36 (42) Barack Obama (D-inc) : 51 (51) Tim Pawlenty (R) : 43 (43) Barack Obama (D-inc) : 56 Michele Bachmann (R) : 35 Barack Obama (D-inc) : 51 Herman Cain (R) : 30 Barack Obama (D-inc) : 46 Mitt Romney (R) : 32 Jesse Ventura (I) : 16 (MoE: ±2.9%) More, from PPP: Obama earns his highest level of Democratic support, 96%, against Palin, and takes 93- 95% against the others, showing similar levels of intraparty support as Amy Klobuchar did in an earlier release.  Because the president poaches 7-10% of Republicans’ votes and because a lot of the GOP remains undecided, the challengers maintain only 67-89% of their own base.  To top it off, there are just as many independents in the electorate as Republicans. Obama has gained ground on every Republican tested in both polls, save for home state “hero” Tim Pawlenty, who can’t even bring Obama under 50%. (The other pol with a home field advantage, Michele Bachmann, is at a lulzy 21-point deficit against Obama and an equally laughable 33-59 favorability rating.) As Tom Jensen says, polls like these are further confirmation that Minnesota is losing its status as a swing state — at least for the time being. Obama is looking very, very good here.

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MN-Pres: Obama gains on (almost) all comers in new PPP poll

Dumber (official U.S. House photo) and dumberer (photo: David Shankbone)   Run out of popcorn yet? Sarah Palin’s chief of staff blasted Michele Bachmann strategist Ed Rollins today after Rollins criticized the former Alaska governor and suggested to POLITICO that his candidate would benefit by comparison to her “Beltway political strategist Ed Rollins has a long, long track record of taking high profile jobs and promptly sticking his foot in his mouth,” said Sarah PAC chief of staff Michael Glassner in an emailed statement. “To no one’s surprise he has done it again, while also fueling a contrived narrative about the presidential race by the mainstream media. One would expect that his woodshed moment is coming and that a retraction will be issued soon.” Glassner is ticked off because Rollins said that Bachmann is every bit as good-looking as Sarah Palin, but with more brainpower and seriousness. In response to Palinland’s demands, Rollins is semi-apologizing , saying his comment was a “misstep” but also telling Palin-land to “let it go”: Michele Bachmann adviser Ed Rollins’ response to the sharp criticisms from Sarah Palin’s world just now was to “let it go.” But he didn’t go quietly, telling me, “I haven’t lived in Washington D.C. in 15 years, and I’ve been taken to the woodshed by the big boys.” As for Michele Bachmann’s intelligence? Well, she’s paying somebody to say she’s smarter than Sarah Palin…and then letting him walk it back. Sort of.

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Palin plays victim card, demands retraction from Bachmann campaign

At least Ed Rollins can tell them apart, unlike MSNBC   As long as you hate President Obama and don’t think that there is an ounce of value in Keynesian economics, then there’s plenty of room for you to prosper in today’s Republican Party. But according to a new story by Ben Smith and Maggie Haberman, Michele Bachmann and Sarah Palin apparently don’t agree : Rep. Michele Bachmann’s prospective 2012 campaign appears increasingly set on a collision course with former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. The coming confrontation is being driven by a belief in Bachmann’s camp that the same grassroots, conservative primary voters and caucus-goers may have to choose between the two women—and that they will choose Bachmann if she presents herself as a more seasoned, reliable, and serious conservative than her high-profile rival. The apparent effort to draw distinctions broke into the open Tuesday when her new top strategist, Ed Rollins, dismissed Palin as “not serious” in a radio interview. And how does Rollins distinguish Bachmann from Palin? “People are going to say, ‘I gotta make a choice and go with the intelligent woman who’s every bit as attractive.’” Wow, with brilliant messaging like that, it’s a shock that Republicans still haven’t figured out why Barack Obama won the female vote by 13% in 2008.

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Top aide makes case for Bachmann: She’s as hot as Palin, but not as dumb

Once again, Herman Cain was in Iowa Monday, brimming with confidence as he pitched his presidential candidacy to voters. “This is where the vetting process really starts,” he told the crowd at a forum hosted by Iowa conservative kingmaker Bob Vander Plaats. “It’s been great.” Iowans have had plenty of chances to vet Cain, whose trip to the Hawkeye State was his 19th in the past year. And while better-known candidates are scuffling in Iowa or planning to skip it altogether, Cain’s courtship of the crucial caucus state’s conservatives is going smoothly. “At the moment, I think he’s one of the front-runners,” says Iowa Tea Party leader Ryan Rhodes. In March, Cain won a presidential straw poll in Des Moines, lapping a field that featured populist firebrands like Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann. Read More… More on Elections 2012

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Herman Cain Sees Steady Rise In Support Ahead Of 2012

Over here, a congressman’s squirm-inducing online sex life. Over here, a former governor’s jaw-dropping ignorance of basic American history. Read More…

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Rick Horowitz: Weiner, Palin: Ready. Aim. Aim…

WASHINGTON — Hillary Rodham Clinton’s political career has taken so many turns it has now spawned two comic books. The former first lady and U.S. senator, onetime presidential hopeful and current secretary of state is the subject of a comic book hitting stores Wednesday, the latest in a series of celebrity biographies by Bluewater Productions Inc. Those previously profiled include entertainment stars like Lady Gaga and Justin Bieber, and fellow politicians from President Barack Obama and Sarah Palin to Clinton herself two years ago. Read More… More on Hillary Clinton

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Hillary Clinton Comic Book Hitting Stores

Michele Bachmann and Sarah Palin enjoy happier times   Ed Rollins, Michele Bachmann’s new chief strategist , picks a fight with Sarah Palin, slamming her as unserious while casting his new client as a true workhorse: Michelle Bachmann’s new top consultant, Ed Rollins, began his tenure with scathing criticism of potential Bachmann rival Sarah Palin. “Sarah has not been serious over the last couple of years,” Rollins told Brian Kilmeade on his radio show, Kilmeade and friends. “She got the Vice Presidential thing handed to her, she didn’t go to work in the sense of trying to gain more substance, she gave up her governorship.” He suggested that the contrast would favor Bachmann. “Michele Bachmann and others [have] worked hard, she has been a leader of the Tea Party which is a very important element here, she has been an attorney, she has done important things with family values.” You know you’re scraping the bottom of the barrel when you’re forced to compare yourself to Sarah Palin to prove that your candidate is serious.

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Michele Bachmann’s chief strategist attacks Sarah Palin as unserious

To receive the Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest via email each weekday, sign up here . Senate : • AZ-Sen : Not that I ever thought this would happen, but Sarah Palin says she won’t run for Senate in Arizona. • MA-Sen : Dave Catanese flags a column by former Deval Patrick chief of staff Doug Rubin, who says exactly what I’ve been saying for weeks: Memo to Democratic Party officials in D.C.: Put up or shut up. … The speculation from D.C. hurts the existing field, which is already filled with strong, talented candidates. It keeps donors who are loyal to the party on the sidelines, and forces some very important grass-roots organizers to hold off from making a commitment to a candidate. It also creates media stories about the supposed weakness of the field, which is a disservice to those candidates who have chosen to run. … If Democratic Party officials in D.C. have a preferred candidate, let us know who it is and get him or her up here to start doing the hard work it will take to win. Talk right now is not only cheap, it’s hurting our chances of winning this Senate seat in 2012. Democratic Party leaders in D.C. need to go all in, or get out of the way. • WI-Sen, WI-Gov : At this weekend’s annual state Democratic convention in Milwaukee, attendees participated in straw polls to express their preferences about the party’s Senate and gubernatorial nominees. Russ Feingold won both polls, garnering 271 votes for the nod in this cycle’s open-seat Senate race (to 187 for Rep. Tammy Baldwin), while scoring 254 votes (vs. 99 for Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett) for a hypothetical gubernatorial nomination. House : • CA-36 : Democrat Janice Hahn is out with her first ad of the runoff, attacking Republican Craig Huey for being anti-choice and supporting the Ryan plan, including an extended comparison to Sarah Palin. No word on the size of the buy, though the Hahn campaign swears it’s “competitive.” You can watch the ad at the link. • GA-05 : Days after Fulton County Superior Court Judge Michael Johnson resigned from the bench, he announced he would challenge veteran congressman and civil rights hero John Lewis in the Democratic primary. Johnson, like Lewis, is black (the 5th is plurality African-American), so this race may hinge more on age and tenure. Lewis is 71 and has served since 1987; going by his bio , Johnson appears to be in his early 40s. • IL-03 : Though Democrat John Atkinson hasn’t made up his mind about where he’ll run, he talks about campaigning in Rep. Dan Lipinski’s 3rd district in a recent Facebook post, even though Atkinson’s house was drawn into the new 11th (where Dem ex-Rep. Bill Foster has already announced). (Hat-tip: ndrwmls10 ) • IL-17 : That was fast! State Sen. Dave Koehler announced he’d seek the Democratic nomination in the re-drawn 17th, just a day after saying he was still thinking about it. Koehler may well face some competition in the primary, given the appealing partisan nature of the new district lines — it went 60-38 for Obama . • NH-02 : Good news: Comcast refused to pull an ad by the PCCC and DFA that hammers GOP Rep. Charlie Bass for his support of the Ryan plan ( mentioned here ). No word yet on whether local station WMUR will continue to air the ad, but I actually think this is a bigger deal than Greg Sargent (at the link) is making it out to be. It’s often pretty easy to get TV stations to stop airing third-party ads — unlike ads from campaigns, they aren’t obligated to air them, so it’s easier to nuke them and eliminate any worry about a defamation suit. In any event, I think this sets a good precedent because Dems will surely want to keep hitting this theme. Meanwhile, the two liberal groups also released polling showing Bass with a crummy 29% approval rating, and with voters opposing Medicare cuts and approving of raising taxes on the wealthy by big margins. No word on any possible head-to-heads versus Annie Kuster, though. Other Races : • PA-AG : Former prosecutor Dan McCaffery (who ran for Philly DA in 2009) is entering the race for state AG. He joins ex-Rep. Patrick Murphy and former Lackawanna County prosecutor Kathleen Kane in the Democratic primary. McCaffery may be something of a Philadelphia machine candidate: he said he has the “support” of Rep. Bob Brady, and I’m told he also backed by the IBEW. In addition, his brother is a Supreme Court justice. • WI Recall : The Wisconsin GOP’s ham-fisted attempts to ratfuck the Democratic recall primaries are starting to look worse and worse, as letters explicitly pushing the strategy were just made public. Virtually identical letters were sent by Republican chairmen on behalf of Randy Hopper and Luther Olsen, promoting the “protest” candidacies of two nobodies who’ve given small donations to various GOPers over the years. Hopper denied any involvement, but the guy who wrote the Hopper letter fingered the Republican Party of Wisconsin as coordinating the effort. Speaking of the RPW, its chief defended the scheme , though as the Journal-Sentinel points out, they squealed in protest when Democrats tried something similar in a state Assembly race last year. I’ve also been a bit mystified as to the merits of this strategy to begin with (even if it could be pulled off gracefully), but the RPW claims they support dragging things out in order to give their senators more time to respond to Democratic challenges. Does that really add up? Also, I don’t think it’s wise to call the recalls “outrageous” when you’re trying to do the same thing to the other side. Grab Bag : • Governors : Craig Gilbert of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel compiled an interesting chart of partisan approval ratings for all of the governors in states where PPP has polled this year (that’s 28 in total). Gilbert looked at each governor’s approvals among Dems and Republicans and sorted them by how far apart they are. The widest gap was none other than Wisconsin’s own Scott Walker, who scores 87% among the GOP but just 9% among Democrats. The next-widest spread belonged to MN Gov. Mark Dayton, whose numbers of course were flipped, giving him a 74% “partisan approval gap.” At the other end of the list were two more Democrats: WV Acting Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin and MO Gov. Jay Nixon, neither of whom I’m surprised to see there. Redistricting Roundup : • Minnesota : Predicting what courts will do with redistricting is always a very difficult game, but MN Progressive Project’s TonyAngelo does a careful job examining the last time a map was drawn from the bench — which conveniently happened back in 2001. His conclusion is that judges are likely to create a plan very similar to the current one, relying on the principles which guided them a decade ago, and he also tries his hand at drawing some possible Twin Cities districts. • Oregon : Both Democrats and Republicans say they are close to an agreement on a redistricting plan for the state’s legislative districts, but it sounds like they are much further apart on the congressional map and may not reach a deal at all. However, the legislative session doesn’t end until June 30, so there’s still a bunch of time for a deal to be worked out. (You may recall that while Democrats control the governor’s mansion and the state Senate, the House is split exactly down the middle at 30-30, giving the GOP a seat at the negotiating table.) • Virginia : Legislators will convene for a one-day special session on Thursday to start negotiations on congressional redistricting, but it’s little more than a formality that will spur the creation of a conference committee. According to the Richmond Times-Dispatch, the real work won’t happen until July. This diary is brought to you by Daily Kos Elections, an official Daily Kos sub-site. Please read our Mission Statement . Our focus is on electoral politics rather than policy. Welcome aboard!

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Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest: 6/7

Sarah Palin’s much-ridiculed story of Paul Revere isn’t entirely wrong, but it’s badly twisted. How does Palin’s version compare with, say, Paul Revere’s? Not very well. Read More… More on Sarah Palin

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The Center for Public Integrity: FACT WATCH: Sarah Palin’s Twist on Paul Revere

The problem with this potential Palin strategy for the GOP is this — once Palin has sucked all the air out of the political back rooms and dispatched her opponents, what will the Republicans do for a real candidate when she drops out? Read More… More on Sarah Palin

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Joanne Bamberger: Sarah Palin and Her Political Tornado

At a press conerence just now, Anthony Weiner has accepted responsibility for sending the infamous tweet that has dominated news for the past week. He’s also apologized for having misled his supporters and the media by claiming his account had been hacked. Weiner says he’s had online relationships with a half-dozen or so women over the years, but that he hasn’t met them in person. Weiner says he won’t resign over his personal mistakes, embarrassing though they may be. You can watch the press conference live here . Update: The fucking media wants Weiner to apologize to Andrew Breitbart, which Weiner delivers. And the fucking media wants to know where his wife is. What assholes. Update: To be clear, his apology to Andrew Breitbart was part of a general apology to everyone in the media who he misled. Now the media wants to know whether he had what he would call “phone sex.” At this point, given that what Weiner did was a personal failure, these questions seem way over the line. Update: Without condoning Weiner’s personal behavior, the amount of media attention this story has received is even more outsized than the photo that started this circus. I’d love to one day hear a politician get questioned this aggressively about a matter of actual substantive importance. Update: BTW, this whole affair makes me see Paul Ryan’s plan to repeal Medicare in a whole new light. Or not. Update: Let’s hope Sarah Palin keeps things in perspective as she plots how to reclaim the media spotlight.

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Weiner accepts responsibility for sending Tweet; Apologizes, won’t resign

You know Sarah Palin has a real problem when her own employer can’t even tell her apart from Tina Fey: Just wait until you see Tina Fey’s impression of Paul Revere…

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Whoops! Fox mixes up Sarah Palin and Tina Fey!

Ron Paul is bashing RomneyCare to raise money   Ron Paul and Rudy Giuliani might not agree on much when it comes to foreign policy, but when it comes to attacking Mitt Romney’s support for an individual health insurance mandate, they couldn’t agree more. As Dave Weigel reports , Ron Paul is using his opposition to RomneyCare as the theme for his most recent moneybomb fundraising campaign. Meanwhile, Rudy Giuliani went up to New Hampshire where he attacked Romney for his health care plan despite not (yet?) being an announced candidate: On a visit to the crucial primary state of New Hampshire, the former New York mayor took dead aim at Mitt Romney for his Massachusetts health care law, calling on him to apologize to America for inspiring President Obama’s own reforms. “[Romney] can’t talk his way out of this,” Giuliani told the New Hampshire Union Leader. “A mandate is a mandate is a mandate is a mandate is mandate. Let’s get real.” According to Giuliani, Romney has “taken away people’s freedom” with his requirement that Massachusetts residents purchase health insurance, and his failure to admit it was a mistake is damaging to the party. “[It] hurts us in being able to overthrow ‘Obamacare.’ In a general election, that would be a very big issue,” he said. Like Sarah Palin, who also has blasted Romney’s health reform plan, neither Paul nor Giuliani appear to have a record of supporting the individual mandate, though I wouldn’t rule out somebody digging something up on Giuliani. In addition to Romney, John Huntsman, Tim Pawlenty, and Newt Gingrich have all either supported or expressed willingness to support an individual mandate.

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Ron Paul, Rudy Giuliani take swipes at Mitt Romney over individual mandate

So what’s going on over there at Fox News? Can’t you tell the difference between Sarah Palin and Tina Fey? Is this supposed to be a joke? Read More… More on Sarah Palin

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Fox News Shows Tina Fey In On-Screen Graphic For Sarah Palin

Around the same time Representative Weiner was dealing with the fallout of an apparent Twitter hack, Republican Ohio House Speaker William G. Batchelder also had a Twitter problem : an “unknown intruder” hacked into his official account. The hacker didn’t post lewd photos of the 68-year-old politician, but the offender did engage in some pro-Democratic tweeting. Batchelder’s response? “Well, I won’t do any more of this … Twittering? We’ll avoid that at all cost. I didn’t know I had such a device.” For many politicians, Twitter represents a Rumsfeldian “known unknown,” an expansive tundra of technology that simply exists and is filled with strange language, bizarre communication concepts, and millions of fans of some child named Justin Bieber. Nonetheless, campaigns have embraced the medium with varying degrees of success. Other Really Important People (TM) like journalists, communications staff and campaign advisors have also been tweeting up a storm since Twitter came online. It’s been fascinating to observe how Twitter has affected traditional communication strategy over the years. As campaigns have adapted to the medium, there have been epic fails as well as laudable successes.   Drawing from those examples, here are 10 Twitter tips for politicians and the other Really Important People who surround them. Enjoy. Campaign staffers often have personal Twitter accounts that they update throughout the day in addition to the official Twitter accounts they maintain. It’s a great way to get messaging out there that may not be the right tone for an official campaign account. Programs like TweetDeck and HootSuite allow users to add multiple Twitter accounts to a single interface to help seamlessly alternate posting between unofficial and official accounts. Sounds like a time-saver, right? That is, until your staffer tweets something like this to an official account: “Ryan found two more 4 bottle packs of Dogfish Head’s Midas Touch beer…. when we drink we do it right #gettngslizzerd.” That rogue tweet was posted to the American Red Cross Twitter account. The organization quickly deleted the tweet and responded with humor. It was a great example of how to respond to rogue tweets , but it also underscored how risky it is mingling accounts in a single Twitter client. Rogue tweets are far more common than most people realize. They get deleted almost instantaneously (in the millisecond after a digital staffer has a heart attack but before the heavy feeling of doom sets in). Still, tweets are streamed and retweeted the second they’re posted, so even the quickest hand can’t undo the damage. Some misplaced personal tweets can cause major PR damage. Why risk it? For example, the beltway got a giggle when President Obama (his account, that is) retweeted a promotion from a D.C. food truck . Recently, a Secret Service staffer accidently tweeted about how boring it was monitoring Fox News. A “ridiculously offensive” message was posted to Vodafone’s account, and Chrysler’s Twitter feed accidentally attacked all of Detroit for, of all things, driving skills. One way to lessen the chance of such tweet crossover is to separate the personal and professional accounts in different programs. Banish one to TweetDeck and another to HootSuite and it’s likely never the twain shall meet. Another smart option is to update official accounts through Twitter’s website rather than an error-prone desktop client. Speaking of keeping things separated, I’m a big fan of bifurcating campaign Twitter accounts for currently elected officials. Having a “personal” official account and a more general “campaign” account keeps things neat and minimizes risks. The candidate account can establish personality while the campaign can tweet away more aggressively on volunteer recruitment and donations. It also avoids mishaps like the one now Senator Kirk suffered. He endured a nasty news cycle when his allegedly “personal” twitter account (@MarkKirk) tweeted while he was on military duty. Separate Twitter accounts also prevent the embarrassing story of, say, a “candidate” asking for donations while they are at a hearing or on the floor in Congress. As the old saying goes, you’re known by the company you keep. Politicians have a threshold decision to make when joining Twitter: do they follow everyone back who follows them or are they more selective? For politicians who actually update their Twitter accounts themselves, following only a select few or no one at all is the best answer. For example, Senator McCaskill caused a stir by disclosing that her policy is not to follow anyone at all , but her reasoning about keeping her account “authentic” is sound. The decision to either go “all in” with blanket follows or be more selective is a crucial one as the decision to go the latter route opens up any campaign to scrutiny. When an elected official chooses to follow a handful of people, it begs the question o f “why them?” Representative Weiner is on the defensive for once following a porn star and a young girl who received the lewd tweet (he only follows some 200 people). The route with the least liability? Stick with reciprocal follows for campaign accounts, or stay within the safe perimeter of other electeds and the D.C. cocktail circuit if you want a benign, low number of people to follow. Tone doesn’t translate well into 140 characters. Snark sometimes doesn’t pop off the monitor (unless you’re following our very own @KagroX , who has one of the snarkiest Twitter feeds around). Some politicians, like Representative Weiner or Cook County Commissioner John Fritchey have a reputation for their quick wit, so snarky tweets are expected on their accounts and are taken in stride. Yes, even tweets like this one from Mr. Fritchey on Election Day: For most politicians who spend their days tweeting bland campaign updates, however, a jolt of misunderstood snark can cause a media firestorm. Such was the case with Shashi Tharoor, a member of India’s Parliament who joked about flying “cattle class” with the “holy cows” on a flight. He apologized for the tweet. If you’re in public office and not known as a jokester, it’s probably best to tag a snarky tweet (j/k, #justkidding, #snark, etc.) to avoid misunderstandings. Once upon a time, we elected public officials based on a fairytale notion that we were selecting someone who represented us — even a better version of us. Someone smarter. Someone with tons of commonsense. Someone who can solve big problems. Thanks to Wonkette for eternally memorializing the fact that sometimes Grassley doesn’t sound smarter than a 5th grader. Expressing complex political ideas in 140 characters is a problem. Some solve it more eloquently than others. Take @BarackObama , for example. His tweets are elegant, compact versions of his press releases or public appearances. They’re fun size talking point treats: mini 140-calorie versions of his heavier stuff but still filled with tasty substance. On the other side of the aisle, we have celebrities like Sarah Palin or politicians like Senator Chuck Grassley. Chuck Grassley is a prolific tweeter. He whittles his ideas down to the required 140 characters, but sometimes, he tries to jam too many ideas into that tiny space ands ends up sounding like an texting teenager (he’s gotten much better over the last several months). And then there’s celebrity Sarah Palin . Enough said . In politics as in Hollywood, a lot of things are fake. Or quasi-real. Constituent or donor thank you letters are signed by staff that has perfected a politician’s signature and seemingly “personal” email accounts are actually managed by staff (really, Oprah, you have the patience to manage oprah@oprah.com ?). Heck, even bills are signed by AutoPen . It’s not surprising then that the same faux authenticity has seeped into online communications as well. Some electeds are brave enough and savvy enough to manage their own Twitter accounts. Most have the accounts managed by staff. That’s all well and good, but if you’re going to fake the “personal” account, do it well. Give followers a real picture, a snapshot of authenticity. That means avoiding referring to “yourself” in the third person ( I’m looking at you, Mitt Romney ). A lot of campaigns avoid the weirdness of self-referential tweets by making it clear when it’s staff writing in the third person versus the candidate (see @SenatorReid or @RussFeingold for examples). Still, third person use on Twitter has echoes of the archaic Facebook “is” status (”Georgia is…”). People follow politicians, pundits and others because they are genuinely interested in what that person has to say. Don’t ruin the suspension of disbelief by jarring followers with awkward third-person references. Keep language as colloquial as possible and try to capture a candidate’s personality — even if you are just “pretending” to be a Senator or Congressman for your job. “RT does not equal endorsement.” It’s a standard disclaimer in many Twitter bios, especially those of journalists and bloggers. Yet even the best of disclaimers can’t protect a politician from a bad news cycle because of an ill-advised retweet. Earlier this year, Sarah Palin retweeted an anti-DADT tweet , prompting questions about whether she really agreed with the substance of the original tweet. Journalists and bloggers can get away with retweeting controversial tweets without attaching the presumption that they agree with the substance. For politicians, it’s a much trickier terrain that demands much caution. The Google alert is already a standard weapon in any decent press shop arsenal, but too many campaigns ignore Twitter monitoring at their own peril. Real-time social media monitoring is a crucial part of any modern communications and rapid response strategy. It can give you a heads up on upcoming scandals and give you time to prep. It can also instantaneously flag a hacking so you can minimize the damage. In short, it can mean the difference between a PR hiccup and a PR massacre . Whether an elected is in the middle of a campaign or not, safe seat or top-tier race, they should monitor their name on Twitter with all the gusto of a skilled opposition researcher. Because you can bet the other side sure is doing the exact same thing. From the look of many political Twitter accounts, you’d think TomTom secretly installed a GPS tracking device in campaign BlackBerrys and iPhones. “Just left the Summer Festival in [enter name of swing county], met so many inspiring people.” “On my way to a business roundtable in [enter name of remote town to show you're 'on the trail'].’ “At the annual fundraiser for [enter name of universally laudable organization], so many people working for such a great cause.” Strategically broadcasting an appearance at community events is a key part of a digital communications strategy. But it can’t be the core part of it. The most successful political Twitter accounts contain an attention-keeping blend of location-based tweets as well as more substantive tweets on policy or politics. For fantastic examples of how to use location based tweets in moderation, check out the leadership accounts on both sides of the aisle. The takeaway? Twitter isn’t Foursquare. It’s Twitter. Appreciate the difference. Think of Twitter like a newborn baby. You give the swaddled little bundle of joy to its grandma to hold and it’s all good. You hand your precious infant to your five-year-old niece to hold “just for a minute” and your heart pounds until you get her back “safe” in your arms. Experience matters. Twitter is a delicate, vulnerable mode of communication. Aside from actual campaign events, it is the most public-facing of campaign interaction. Every tweet, every hashtag, everything is exposed and open to scrutiny. Electeds need to baby their Twitter accounts. Be overprotective . Give access only to those who have the discretion and skill set to minimize risks and liabilities. “Social media gurus” and “brand evangelists” are a dime a dozen. Just because an intern knows how to use Facebook and Twitter doesn’t mean they should be given the keys to an online press shop. There’s no lack of brilliant digital minds out there. I had the honor of working with some of the nation’s best during the 2010 cycle, and 2012 is sure to bring a renewed focus on staffing up digital talent. A well-experienced digital strategist can use Twitter to raise money, persuade voters and influence media narratives. They’re well worth the investment. Let’s call it the Weiner Rule . Whatever the truth is in that saga, the fact remains that direct messages on Twitter are dangerous and should be avoided by electeds at all costs. With mass campaign accounts that follow all supporters, it’s ok to DM a pro forma campaign welcome. But if a politician controls his or her own account, using Twitter’s direct message feature unnecessarily exposes them (no Weiner pun intended) to possible drama. It’s not just that direct messages on Twitter used to be easily publishable or that they may be accessible by third-party apps . It’s not just that most Twitter clients make it pretty easy to screw up and accidentally send a direct message to the entire world. It’s that the ramifications of a misdirected direct message can be painfully embarrassing: one little slip up can change your reputation (and your campaign) forever. Think the lewd photo sent on Weiner’s account was bad? In March, a Dutch politician mistakenly sent a very explicit erotic tweet to his followers ( link , if you dare). He laughed it off, and his 200 or so followers didn’t seem to mind. But most direct messaging mistakes aren’t so easy on a politician’s reputation. There is no constituent or voter outreach and no journalist banter worth the risk. So politicians, please , use email. Use instant messaging. Use snail mail. Use carrier pigeons. Anything is better than putting yourself directly in the line of fire with Twitter direct messages. Do you have your own best practices for Twitter or other social media? Share them in the comment section below.

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The Ultimate Twitter Guide for Politicians & Other Really Important People

WASHINGTON (AP/The Huffington Post) — Sarah Palin says she didn’t mess up her history on Paul Revere. The potential 2012 presidential candidate was in Boston on Thursday as part of her bus tour when she was asked about the Revolutionary War hero. Palin said Revere “warned the British that they weren’t gonna be takin’ away our arms.” Read More… More on Sarah Palin

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Sarah Palin On Paul Revere Ride: I Didn’t Get History Wrong (VIDEO)

Pew/WaPo word cloud Amidst the painful news on the economy, and at the start of the summer, the analysts and the pundits (some paid to be partisan, some volunteers like myself, and a handful more objective) are grappling with how to consider and describe the Republican field. As we discussed last week (see Baloney on rye, served with weak tea ), the default position is that the poor economy  and a “bold” Ryan plan make for a competitive election, and Governors are a historically solid choice for a nominee. The political scientists will tell you polls at this early stage are, if not meaningless, at least hardly predictive and won’t be until next summer. They’ll also tell you that what really matters is the “invisible primary” of money, endorsements and well known operatives. All of that is true (well, except for Ryan’s Curse— The Village Dictionary , which is both ill-conceived and exceedingly unpopular .) Still, what sells papers and attracts eyeballs is a horse race. And it serves the media ill to simply tell the truth and say that the Republican primary voters have skewed so far right that some of their stronger (in terms of being more competitive in a general election) candidates such as Haley Barbour (already out) and John Huntsman (in, with no chance at all of winning) are not making the cut. Those guys are or were running. There’s an even longer list from Ryan to Jeb Bush to Chris Christie who aren’t running. And then there’s the clown division, including the (not running) Trump and Palin, and the (still running) Santorum, Bachmann and Cain. This is the group that Republican primary voters want to pick a nominee from, but in the end, won’t. In fact, the clear winner from a money perspective is Romney, making him the presumptive front runner, no matter how weak. And in fact, as Mark Mellman argues, the race at this point looks to be between Romney (wuho will likely win) and Pawlenty (who will win the not-Romney primary, but trails right now in both IA and NH. A loss in IA for Pawlenty might well close him down, and Bachmann may turn out to be the spoiler (and if you believe the polls now, Cain may also spoil things for Pawlenty.) Of course, there are plenty of road bumps for Romney from his religion to his support of state mandates for health care. But still, he leads in the important primary states and in moneys raised. If he starts getting endorsements from party leaders, his stock will go even higher (his chance of getting the nomination leads Pawlenty’s on Intrade 29-19 .) Pew poll And where does that leave the field?   Pew Republican Candidates Stir Little Enthusiasm The emerging Republican presidential field draws tepid ratings. Just a quarter of voters (25%) have an excellent or good impression of the possible GOP candidates, and a separate survey conducted jointly with The Washington Post finds that negative descriptions of the field far outnumber positive ones. Asked for a single word to describe the GOP field, the top response is “unimpressed.”… At this early stage of the 2012 presidential election Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney stand-out as the most widely recognized candidates by Republican and Republican-leaning independent voters. But while highly visible, many say there is “no chance” they will vote for Palin or Gingrich; somewhat fewer have ruled out voting for Mitt Romney. To give you a sense of why Barbour got out, and what kind of problems keep Huntsman from being a player, check this response to him and the others at Ralph Reed’s Faith and Freedom Coalition : All these lines got applause. Still, a sense of unease sometimes hung over the event. Organizers acknowledged that some religious conservatives are not happy with the heavy emphasis on economic matters these days. The audience members sat silently when Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour urged them to embrace the eventual nominee despite the certainty that they will disagree with him or her on some issues. “Purity is the enemy of victory,” said Barbour, who has decided against his own presidential bid. “Hey,” I can hear you say, “you’re a partisan Democrat.” Yes I am.   National Journal’s Insider Poll How about the GOP insiders ? GOP Insiders Say It’s Romney, but… Republican operatives continue to believe that former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney  is the candidate most likely to capture the party’s 2012 presidential nomination, but at the same time many either lack enthusiasm for his candidacy or doubt he can win the general election according the results of the this week’s National Journal Political Insiders Poll… But many GOP Insiders believe Romney is simply the best candidate in an unimpressive field who benefits from the tendency of Republican primary voters and caucus-goers to nominate the runner-up from the previous nominating contest. “We seem unable to get beyond putting the frontrunner at the head of the ticket, even if it takes forever to establish that status and even if the candidate is as weak as this one,” moaned one GOP Insider. “We have a terrible habit of blindly promoting the previous also-ran,” echoed another. “The nomination is clearly Romney’s to lose, but he’s in danger of becoming less energizing than John McCain was for the base of the party,” said one GOP Insider, worried about Romney’s support for health care reform in Massachusetts, anathema to many conservatives. “He should be toast, but it’s a weak field,” said another. One GOP Insider offered a withering compliment that Romney was “looking a lot like John Kerry. He got nominated.” So, maybe they just aren’t known yet. But here’s an idea of what happens where they are : Poll: Obama Would Defeat Pawlenty and Bachmann in Minnesota A Survey/USA poll released earlier this week shows that former Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty, who announced his candidacy nearly two weeks ago, and U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann, the Tea Party darling who is expected to declare her candidacy later this month in Iowa, would both fail to carry their home state against President Obama in 2012. The poll, which was conducted on May 24 — the day after Pawlenty officially tossed his hat in the ring — gave Obama a 48-to-43 percent margin over the former governor. It’s true for MN, it’s true for NJ where Obama beats GOP action hero Chris Christie, and that’s hardly a confidence builder for Republicans (see the National Journal insider comments.). Given the above, expect to see more of this : Not since the fight for the 1936 Republican nomination has either party fielded as weak a field of presidential candidates as the Republicans present today. Not since the Democratic upheaval of 1968 has a major party seemed so confused about its future and divided about its vision. Check out that last part, and see the Faith and Freedom Coalition bit above. Is it family values or is it economics. And whither family values if the public supports gay marriage ? Support for Legal Gay Relations Hits New High Sixty-four percent believe they should be legal Americans are now as accepting of gays and lesbians as at any point in the last three decades, if not in U.S. history. This greater acceptance extends to their views of the morality of gay and lesbian relations, of their legality, and of whether marriage should legally be granted to same-sex couples. If the trends continue and political leaders are responsive to public opinion on the issue, one would expect more states and the federal government to expand the legal rights of gays and lesbians, including the right to legally marry. That’s why the GOP seems so confused about its future and divided about its vision. Without gay bashing, and with a rising Latino electorate , what have they got? They’ve got Mitt Romney, and Tim Pawlenty if he falters. And that, when all is said and done, is the main reason the field is so weak. Slice it and dice it any way you want, neither Romney nor Pawlenty is going to fire up the evangelicals with their candidacy or satisfy the tea party by ripping out Obama’s beating, living heart on TV and selling it for a profit on eBay. Anything short of that is going to be a dis-satisfier. And as for everyone else who isn’t a rabid conservative, Romney and Pawlenty are a long way away from convincing folks that their touchas can fill the chair in the Oval Office better than Obama’s, or that you want to see them there every day for four years. That’s not going to happen on the strength of their personality. So when will the GOP have their “come to Jesus” moment and say, you know, we could have had a quality candidate like Huntsman? Likely not for a long time. And you know, while there’s plenty of reasons, a great share of the congratulations for that belongs to the tea party. As Jonathan Chait puts it: So, accuse democrats of letting Medicare go bankrupt, promise that you just want to save it, and then try to persuade voters that preserving the Bush tax cuts that have been in place for a decade will stimulate growth. Wow, why haven’t Republicans thought of this plan before? That’s why we call it Ryan’s Curse.

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Who thinks there’s a weak Republican field? Republicans do

With the smell of emissions thick in the morning air, the Palins and their media hangers-on loaded up the family vehicle and hit the open road to warn the British that they won’t be taking away our forks and knives . Due to security concerns, the details of their trip remain a closely-guarded secret ; however, one could reasonably conclude that they won’t be heading to the White House . It’s a long way down the holiday road.

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Sunday Talk: Wally World or bust!

HuffPost’s Alex Wagner appeared Friday on MSNBC ’s ‘Hardball with Chris Matthews’ to discuss Michele Bachmann and Sarah Palin. Examining the likelihood of either Bachmann or Palin running for president in 2012, Wagner said: “I would put my money more on Bachmann at this point than Palin in all honesty. And if you’re looking for the Rosie the Riveter for the conservative set, it is Michele Bachmann. Here is someone who has been married for 33 years, she has 28 children, 23 of whom are foster children, but she has a huge brood. She’s an Evangelical Christian, you know, and she’s taken cues from the Palin camp in so far as she’s spouting half-truths and wildly incorrect data.” Read More… More on Michele Bachmann

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HuffPost TV: HuffPost’s Alex Wagner Discusses Michele Bachmann, Sarah Palin On ‘Hardball’ (VIDEO)

“…he who warned, uh, the…the British that they weren’t gonna be takin’ away our arms…uh, by ringin’ those bells and um…makin’ sure as he’s ridin’ his horse through town…to send those warning shots and bells…that, uh, we were gonna be secure and…and we were gonna be free…and we were gonna be armed.” — Sarah Palin , June 2, 2011 Wait, WTF was I just doing? L isten my children and you shall hear Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere, On the eighteenth of April, Nineteen Seventy-five; Hardly a man is now alive Who remembers what pants we wore that year. He said to his friend, “If the British march By land or jetski from the town to-night, Ring a big bell in the belfry tower Or maybe ring two, if you have the power. And with your ale, don’t get too wrecked.” His friend looked puzzled: “In what respect?” Then Paul Revere, he took his gun Because the British were trying to take all his fun And rowed to the opposite shore to see If the British had made it to Applebee’s. For Ron Paul Revere swore there to the hostess That he would protect the salad bar mostest. And then his friend rang some bells— I forget just how many, maybe like ten? When I asked the man later he said “all of them.” And then Paul rode his horse down the freeway Shooting his warning shots and telling people they were gonna be free and stuff And everyone said “hell yeah!” and something that rhymed with that. So the British that day did not take our arms, We like to say because of his alarms. And so we all were gonna be secure And our automatic rifles still purr. In truth though, no thanks to Paul Revere Who paused in this alley, and is still sitting here, For halfway through that historic bit Paul Revere got fed up, and muttered “I quit.”

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The Ride of Paul Revere. Also.

Arianna appeared on Canada AM this morning to talk about the launch of The Huffington Post Canada, now a week old, celebrating the “special attitude” that HuffPost Canada is giving to Canadians. Before getting into the interview, host Seamus O’Regan told Arianna that “you just don’t stop.. you are a machine,” before asking about the Mitt Romney campaign, which Arianna called “well organized but lacking in the fire” that’s seen in Sarah Palin’s run. Read More…

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Arianna on the ’special attitude’ HuffPost brings to Canada (VIDEO)

Sarah Palin has defied all bounds of normal political chutzpah. Despite being lambasted by the media she just keeps going, just like… you guessed it… the Honey Badger. Read More… More on Sarah Palin

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Meredith Bagby: Sarah Palin Is the Honey Badger

Faeth Farmstead — Fort Madison, IA ( Bill Whitaker , CC-BY-SA ) Public Policy Polling (PDF) (5/27-30, Iowa voters, 4/15-17 (PDF) in parens, 1/7-9 (PDF) in brackets): Barack Obama (D) : 49 (45) [47] Mitt Romney (R) : 40 (41) [41] Undecided : 12 (14) [12] Barack Obama (D) : 55 (53) [53] Sarah Palin (R) : 35 (36) [37] Undecided : 9 (11) [10] Barack Obama (D) : 54 (50) [51] Newt Gingrich (R) : 33 (39) [38] Undecided : 13 (11) [11] Barack Obama (D) : 49 Tim Pawlenty (R) : 37 Undecided : 14 Barack Obama (D) : 50 Herman Cain (R) : 32 Undecided : 18 (MoE: ±2.6%) I’ve included the January numbers so that you can get a better sense of the trend here. The January and April polls were pretty similar, but PPP’s newest shows a decided bounce. Obama’s approvals moved from 41-50 to 49-45, but note that the D-R-I composition of the sample barely budged. Some more thoughts from Tom Jensen : Iowa, along with North Carolina, is one of the swing states where it really hurts the GOP not to have Huckabee in the picture. He was easily the strongest potential nominee in the state, faring 2 points better than Romney against Obama when we polled it in January and 4 points better than Romney when we looked at it again in April. Romney now does the best of the Republicans in the state but he trails Obama by 9 points at 49-40, a margin almost identical to Obama’s blowout victory in the state last time around. I don’t know that Huckabee would have been the GOP’s savior nationwide, though, even if he did run reasonably well in Iowa. Tom notes that “the weak Republican field” is the president’s “greatest ally,” but right now, my biggest concern is the economy. As we saw last year, a lousy economy is more than capable of sweeping lousy candidates into office. This diary is brought to you by Daily Kos Elections, an official Daily Kos sub-site. Please read our Mission Statement . Our focus is on electoral politics rather than policy. Welcome aboard!

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IA-Pres: Obama bounces upward in new PPP poll

HuffPost’s Howard Fineman appeared Thursday on MSNBC ’s ‘Hardball with Chris Matthews’ to discuss Mitt Romney’s announcement that he is running for president . Fineman explained that as Romney was making his announcement, most of the media was more concerned with Sarah Palin’s bus tour. “Most of the press corps was spending the time behind the risers trying to figure out where Sarah Palin was going, and what she was saying,” said Fineman. “These announcements now are empty pageants, okay,” explained Fineman. “History has kind of passed this kind of pageantry by. But even by the standards of that, this was a non-event event here today.” Read More… More on Mitt Romney

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HuffPost TV: Howard Fineman Discusses Sarah Palin, Mitt Romney On ‘Hardball’ (VIDEO)

Fox News isn’t the only place that’s tepid about a Mitt Romney run. Here’s the Google News page for Romney, after his announcement today that he was officially running as a candidate for the presidency of these United States: Notice anything? Yeah. All but one of those stories about Mitt Romney on his very special announcement day are accompanied by pictures of… Sarah Palin. Oh, Mitt. I’m not sure if there’s a larger message to be drawn from this, but if there is, it might be that even faceless computer algorithms don’t give a crap about Mitt Romney.

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Mitt Romney can’t catch a break. Also.

If Palin runs against the individual mandate, she’ll have at least four opponents who have flip-flopped on it (Palin photo: Roger H. Goun)   So Sarah Palin isn’t just “coincidentally” heading up to New Hampshire on the same day that Mitt Romney formally declares his candidacy there (the thirteenth step of running for president), she’s also challenging him on his past support for the individual health insurance mandate. Speaking to reporters in Massachusetts before heading up north to the Granite State, Palin said : “In my opinion, any mandate coming from government is not a good thing, so obviously … there will be more the explanation coming from former governor, Romney, on his support for government mandates,” Palin told reporters today. When a reporter followed up that Romney has distinguished his state mandate from the federal one President Obama signed into law in 2010, Palin responded that even state mandates are problematic. “He makes a good argument there that it does. States rights and authority and responsibility allowed in our states makes more sense than a big centralized government telling us what to do,” she said. “However, even on a state level and even a local level, mandates coming from a governing body, it’s tough for a lot of us independent Americans to accept, because we have great faith in the private sectors and our own families … and our own businessmen and women making decisions for ourselves. Not any level of government telling us what to do.” It’s pretty obvious that whether or not she’s running, Palin intended to throw Romney under the bus with her comments. The fact that she wasn’t terribly well prepared for the follow-up question—about state vs. federal mandates—tells us more about her complete lack of interest in studying actual issues and knowing candidates’ positions on them: Romney has actually supported mandates at the federal level and even predicted we’d end up as “a nation that’s taken a mandate approach” to health care reform.

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Sarah Palin knocks Mitt Romney over individual mandate ahead of Romney’s ‘official’ announcement

I know this much about the Bill of Rights… ( Gage Skidmore/Flikr) Rand Paul, libertarianesque freedom-lover, makes me sad … PAUL: I’m not for profiling people on the color of their skin, or on their religion, but I would take into account where they’ve been traveling and perhaps, you might have to indirectly take into account whether or not they’ve been going to radical political speeches by religious leaders. It wouldn’t be that they are Islamic. But if someone is attending speeches from someone who is promoting the violent overthrow of our government, that’s really an offense that we should be going after — they should be deported or put in prison. Like all good freedom-loving conservatives and libertarians, Rand Paul knows that sometimes, you just have to throw people in jail for saying things… well, not for saying things, but for being present while other people say things. This is known as the “unless we don’t like you” subclause of the First Amendment, written in lemon juice and visible only during a full moon. Should you be able to imprison someone for “attending speeches”? Not making a speech, mind you, but attending a speech? That seems rather far afield from the Founder’s original intent, but more to the point, I wonder if Rand Paul would really be comfortable applying his proposed rule of imprisonment-for-listening-to-violent-rhetoric across the board. Say, to the followers of people who advocate ” Second Amendment remedies ” if an election doesn’t go the way they want. Or to people who support politicians who make bold claims that breaking up the United States may be needed , if their particular state doesn’t get to override the federal government. Or to people that use gun-inspired imagery against their political opponents, or hold events in which they shoot live ammo at a representation of their political opponent. Well, not those people directly, but anyone present during such speech. For that matter, what should we do with people who attend speeches by people who merely want to reform the country to do away with the more inconvenient sections of the Bill of Rights? Isn’t that an “overthrow”? I think what Rand Paul clearly means to say here is that he doesn’t want to profile Muslim Americans… he’s just suggesting we investigate their religious leaders and, if he deems their speech unacceptable, imprison their followers for listening to it. But somehow I don’t think we’ll be subjecting Christian ministers to that level of scrutiny. Or militia-affiliated groups like the “Minutemen”. Or Republicans. I credit Rand Paul for this much: he knows profiling would be wrong, which is an improvement over many conservatives. But he still seems to have a weak grasp of our other national values, especially for a supposed protector of our freedoms.

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Rand Paul: Imprison people who attend radical political speeches. Well, Muslims, anyway.

A reporter seemed to get too close to Sarah Palin for her daughter’s liking during a stop in Philadelphia on the former Alaska governor’s bus tour of the eastern United States earlier this week. Piper Palin appeared to physically block a reporter when he welcomed her mother to the City of Brotherly Love and tried to ask her a few questions. The former governor herself did not shy away from engaging with members of the press in a clip of the action from local station My Fox Philly. Read More… More on Elections 2012

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Piper Palin Blocks Reporter From Sarah Palin On Bus Tour (VIDEO)

By Alexei Oreskovic and Sarah McBride PALOS VERDES, Calif./SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Alibaba founder Jack Ma didn’t shed new light on his negotiations with Yahoo Inc and Softbank during an appearance at a conference on Wednesday, but he did offer some unexpected advice for Yahoo. Read More… More on Yahoo!

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Alibaba’s Jack Ma Offers Yahoo Some Advice: Break Up

At Hullabaloo , digby writes Heartless : From the Sins of the Fathers file, here’s Sarah Palin being the hideous heartless horror she’s so proud of being: PALIN: The immigrants of the past, they had to literally and figuratively stand in line and follow rules to become U.S. citizens. I’d like to see that continue. And unfortunately, the DREAM Act kind of usurps that-the system that is a legal system to make sure that immigrants who want to be here legally, working hard, producing and supplying revenue and resources for their families, that they’re able to do that right and legally. Unfortunately, the DREAM Act doesn’t accomplish that. You know what the rules were? Today, over 100 million Americans — one third of the population —can trace their ancestry to the immigrants who first arrived in America at Ellis Island before dispersing to points all over the country. Generally, those immigrants who were approved spent from two to five hours at Ellis Island. Arrivals were asked 29 questions including name, occupation, and the amount of money carried. Those with visible health problems or diseases were sent home or held in the island’s hospital facilities for long periods of time. Had she and the family taken to standard tour they would have known that. They would also know that the DREAM Act refers to human beings who had no choice in the fact and were brought here as babies and children and grew up just like her precious little ones as Americans. They had no more choice in the matter than her children did. What kind of a person can’t at least summon up some compassion for these kids? Honestly, this one really separates the human beings from the asses. • • • • • At Daily Kos on this date in 2006 : That’s just the thing. Republicans will talk a good game about returning money to taxpayers, yadda yadda, but they are hard pressed to make the cuts. Because ultimately, at the end of the day, people like things like parks and swimming pools and libraries. Republicans may consider such things “non-essential”, but most people consider those places community hubs. So Republicans, when in power, cut taxes and starve government, but they rarely have the balls to actually cut popular programs. Because if they did, that would be the end of their political careers. And when their agenda sees the light of day, like it did in Lincoln, Nebraska, Republicans find every excuse to disavow that agenda. • • • • • See High Impact Diaries here . See Top Comments here .

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Open thread for night owls: Palin shows the depths of her soul

Who knew Tim Pawlenty had President Obama on his mind? (Pawlenty photo: Jonathan Ernst/Reuters) Tim Pawlenty will never admit that this is the case, but aside from the obligatory political jabs, it’s obvious he’s trying to sound more like President Obama than Paul Ryan on lowering Medicare costs: In an interview with The Des Moines Register after the speech, Pawlenty said the key difference between his Medicare proposal and that of Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., is that his plan will change the way providers are paid. “It will include something called performance pay. We will begin to move providers from getting paid not just for the volume of procedures they crank out, but whether people are actually getting healthier and getting better,” Pawlenty said. Pawlenty told ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday that he would support Ryan’s House-passed proposal to privatize Medicare if his only choices were choosing the Ryan plan or doing nothing, “like President Obama is doing.” Actually, the claim that President Obama is doing nothing is pure garbage. Here’s Obama making the case for health care reform in July, 2009: We also want to start rewarding doctors for quality, not just the quantity, of care that they provide. Instead of rewarding them for how many procedures they perform or how many tests they order, we’ll bundle payments so providers aren’t paid for every treatment they offer with a chronic — to a patient with a chronic condition like diabetes, but instead are paid for how are they managing that disease overall. And we’ll create incentives for physicians to team up and treat a patient better together, because we know that produces better outcomes. And now that health care reform is passed, the administration is already beginning to put these incentives in place. So when Tim Pawlenty says that instead of voucherizing Medicare (as Ryan would do) we wants to bring costs down by focusing on quality of service rather than quantity of services, his argument is much closer to President Obama’s than it is to Paul Ryan’s. Sure, for political reasons he says he’d sign the Ryan plan into law, and his willingness to accept the Ryan plan will come back to haunt him, but the biggest difference between what Pawlenty says is his preference and what President Obama supported during the health care reform battle is that President Obama has already pushed his plan through Congress, signed it into law, and begun implementing it. As for Tim Pawlenty (who said he was open to a mandate before he became a sworn enemy of President Obama), it’s still a mystery why he’s running for President. But it’s for damn sure that he doesn’t want Paul Ryan hanging around his neck if he gets the nomination.

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Pawlenty trying to sound more like Obama than Ryan on Medicare

No question about it, Jon Huntsman openly supported imposing an individual health insurance mandate: Former Utah Governor Jon Huntsman on Sep. 28, 2007—KUED Utah Key quote: JULIE ROSE (KCPW): One of the recommendations in that proposal is that all Utahns be required to have health insurance of some sort, and those who are not able to afford it would be paid for by the state through one of the state’s health programs. It’s a mandate of health insurance. Are you comfortable with that, with requiring every Utahn to get health insurance? GOV. HUNTSMAN: I’m comfortable with a requirement. You can call it whatever you want, but at some point we’re going to have to get serious about how we deal with this issue and that means there will have to be a multitude of different policies that are available in the marketplace. It means that it will be more incumbent on citizens to look at responsibility, there own responsibility in terms of health, and the choices that are made. It likely will mean that we’ll be in an environment with better prices, more options, more access and availability. There is a mandate today, let us not forget, and it’s called the emergency room. You show up in the emergency room, and you get covered. Who pays the bills? Taxpayers pay the bills. Companies pay the bills. So we’re living in an environment today where there already is a mandate in place. Case closed, not just on the whether Huntsman used to be pro-mandate, but on his campaign as a whole. You can’t run for president as a Republican in 2012 if you’re a mandate supporting former member of the Obama administration. Unless the GOP decides to do an about face and acknowledge health care reform was a good thing, this is more great news for Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry, Sarah Palin, and everyone else on the GOP Ship of Fools who hasn’t flip-flopped on the individual mandate. (In addition to Jon Hunstman, Mitt Romney, Tim Pawlenty, and Newt Gingrich already have changed their positions.)

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Jon Huntsman supported individual health insurance mandate