While U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geither may be a rusty cog in President Obama’s administrative machine, there are times when even these cogs are helpful in making sure that the mechanism is able to function at full capacity.

Geither’s advice to President Obama regarding future financial reform efforts is one such example. Even though the President’s previous financial reform efforts have met with resistance and skepticism from those in business community, the Treasury Secretary, in a Wall Street Journal editorial, encourages the president to keep moving forward, and to veto any legislation that would limit their financial reform efforts.

The editorial also notes the progress made by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau as well as the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation in easing the financial process for individuals. In particular, he praises the CFPB for its efforts to “simplify disclosure of mortgage and credit-card loans so that consumers can shop for the best terms and be protected from abusive and predatory practices.”

The words contained in this editorial should help in giving the President a morale boost in his continued financial reform efforts. This boost should prove invaluable as debt negotiations progress and the President continues to face challenges from Republicans who have no interest in financial reform…of any kind.

 

Telecom executive Donald H. Gips raised a big bundle of cash to help finance his friend Barack Obama’s run for the presidency.

Gips, a vice president of Colorado-based Level 3 Communications, delivered more than $500,000 in contributions for the Obama war chest, while two other company executives collected at least $150,000 more.

After the election, Gips was put in charge of hiring in the Obama White House, helping to place loyalists and fundraisers in many key positions. Then, in mid-2009, Obama named him ambassador to South Africa. Meanwhile, Level 3 Communications, in which Gips retained stock, received millions of dollars of government stimulus contracts for broadband projects in six states — though Gips said he had been “completely unaware” that the company had received the contracts.

More than two years after Obama took office vowing to banish “special interests” from his administration, nearly 200 of his biggest donors have landed plum government jobs and advisory posts, won federal contracts worth millions of dollars for their business interests or attended numerous elite White House meetings and social events, an investigation by iWatch News has found.

These “bundlers” raised at least $50,000 — and sometimes more than $500,000 — in campaign donations for Obama’s campaign. Many of those in the “Class of 2008” are now being asked to bundle contributions for Obama’s reelection, an effort that could cost $1 billion.

As a candidate, Obama spoke passionately about diminishing the clout of moneyed interests. Kicking off his presidential run on Feb. 10, 2007, he blasted “the cynics, the lobbyists, the special interests,” who had “turned our government into a game only they can afford to play.”

“We’re here today to take it back,” he said.

But just like other presidential aspirants, Obama relied heavily on megadonors to propel his campaign across the finish line, and many fundraisers have shared in the spoils of victory.

The White House insisted its appointees are eminently qualified. “In filling these posts, the administration looks for the most qualified candidates who represent Americans from all walks of life,” White House spokesman Eric Schultz said. “Being a donor does not get you a job in this administration, nor does it preclude you from getting one.”

The iWatch News investigation found:

• Overall, 184 of 556, or about one-third of Obama bundlers or their spouses joined the administration in some role. But the percentages are much higher for the big-dollar bundlers. Nearly 80 percent of those who collected more than $500,000 for Obama took “key administration posts,” as defined by the White House. More than half the 24 ambassador nominees who were bundlers raised $500,000.

• The big bundlers had broad access to the White House for meetings with top administration officials and glitzy social events. In all, campaign bundlers and their family members account for more than 3,000 White House meetings and visits. Half of them raised $200,000 or more.

• Some Obama bundlers have ties to companies that stand to gain financially from the president’s policy agenda, particularly in clean energy and telecommunications, and some already have done so. Level 3 Communications, for instance, snared $13.8 million in stimulus money.

The Obama administration has tightened restrictions on hiring lobbyists, but the deference shown major donors contradicts its claims to have changed business as usual in Washington.

“Any president who says he’s going to change this is either hopelessly naive or polishing the reality to promise something other than can be delivered,” said Paul Light, a New York University professor and an expert on presidential transitions. “At best, it’s naive and a little bit of a shell game.”

 

Bundling is controversial because it permits campaigns to skirt individual contribution limits of $2,500 in federal elections. Bundlers pool donations from fundraising networks and, as a result, “play an enormous role in determining the success of political campaigns,” according to government watchdog Public Citizen.

When the new administration set up shop in the White House on Jan. 20, 2009, the money raisers soon followed. Visitor logs show about 800 bundler visits during the formative early months of the administration, and overall, the top-tier bundlers tended to visit far more often than those at the bottom rung.

Some are longtime friends of the first family, such as Chicagoans Cindy Moelis and her husband, Robert Rivkin, who as a couple bundled at least $200,000. Obama appointed Moelis to direct the Presidential Commission on White House Fellows. Her husband was appointed general counsel of the Department of Transportation and special adviser to Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. Rivkin, who worked as a lawyer with a Chicago risk management and insurance firm, had once served as general counsel to the Chicago Transit Authority.

Moelis told iWatch News that she and her husband were “highly qualified” for their jobs and that they “took pay cuts and made considerable sacrifice” to enter public service. “We truly believe in it,” she said.

Harvey S. Wineberg, a certified public accountant from Chicago who raised at least $100,000 and is Obama’s personal accountant, said his fundraising had “nothing to do” with his appointment to the President’s Advisory Council on Financial Capability in December 2010. Wineberg said he called a White House staffer, whom he declined to name, to ask about serving. “I thought I’d be good,” he said. He has since resigned.

The bundlers often went to the White House to see David C. Jacobson, then a special assistant for presidential personnel. Jacobson, a Chicago lawyer and himself an Obama bundler, served as the 2008 campaign’s deputy finance director. Jacobson, who departed in September 2009 to become ambassador to Canada, scheduled about 90 meetings with bundlers, according to an iWatch News analysis of visitor logs. Two-thirds of them had each raised at least $200,000.

Gips, who served as White House director of presidential personnel before taking the post in South Africa, saw more than a dozen bundlers. Other inner-circle White House officials, such as presidential adviser Valerie Jarrett, also a bundler, met with more than 50 bundlers, mostly the heavy hitters.

Obama met with at least two dozen bundlers either privately or with another person, according to the visitor logs.

Ambassadorships have been the traditional payoff for big bundlers. But it’s not just the posts in foreign capitals that are attractive. Light, the NYU expert on presidential transitions, said that in recent years many have sought jobs with deep reach into the federal bureaucracy — and found a receptive ear in the White House.

“When they get a résumé from a bundler, that is a real signal of seriousness,” Light said. “It’s also a thinly veiled quid pro quo,” and it “goes without saying they will get considered.”

Public Citizen found in 2008 that President George W. Bush had appointed about 200 bundlers to administration posts over his eight years in office. That is roughly the same number Obama has appointed in a little more than two years, the iWatch News analysis showed.

Some bundlers said in interviews that they called the White House to ask for a position, while others said they were called and asked to serve.

 

Ted Hosp, an Alabama lawyer who delivered more than $200,000 for Obama, said he had no expectation of a job when he signed on to the campaign finance committee. But he did ask to be considered and said he met with then-White House Counsel Gregory Craig, also a bundler, to discuss a position at the Justice Department. “I was interested in exploring [a job],” said Hosp, who did not get a job in the administration. “I would have been interested in helping him [Obama] if the right opportunity arose.”

The cluster of appointments among top bundlers suggests that the size of the donation may have been a factor at least in getting a foot in the door. Less than one in five at the $50,000 level got an administration position. Half of $200,000 bundlers were picked for some post; 80 percent of the $500,000 bundlers were appointed.

Michael Caplin, a Virginia consultant who assists nonprofit businesses, raised $200,000 for Obama and was appointed to the Commission on Presidential Scholars, a board that selects and honors promising high school students. He said he was contacted by a White House staffer asking him if he wanted to serve, though he saw plenty of other big donors angling for jobs and positions.

“Clearly, if someone raised a million dollars for your campaign, you tend to get a phone call returned,” Caplin said. But he also believes that many big donors who took positions were well qualified. “If that person is truly excellent but also raised money for your campaign, should that disallow you to serve?’”

The appointment of George Washington University law professor Spencer Overton illustrates how the administration has rewarded many top fundraisers.

Overton wrote in 2003 that the influence big donors wield in elections means that an “overwhelming majority of citizens are effectively excluded from an important stage of the political process.” Yet Overton bundled at least $500,000 for Obama. He was named to the Obama transition team and in February 2009 was appointed principal deputy attorney general in the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Policy. Overton visited the White House more than 80 times from January 2009 through the end of 2010 for events ranging from small meetings with high-level staffers to social and entertainment events, sometimes with his wife, records show. Overton resigned the $180,000-a-year job in July 2010. He declined to comment for this story.

Overton is one of seven campaign bundlers who took jobs at Justice, including Attorney General Eric Holder, who was a $50,000 bundler. Holder had been deputy attorney general in the administration of President Bill Clinton.

At the Department of Energy, four bundlers who together raised a minimum of $1.6 million have held staff jobs or advisory posts. Steven J. Spinner, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur and venture capital adviser, took over responsibility at the department for parceling out more than $100 billion worth of stimulus grants and other energy-related loans. Spinner also has been a frequent White House guest, listed more than 40 times.

In March 2009, Obama appointed $500,000 bundler and law school pal Julius Genachowski to chair the Federal Communications Commission, an independent agency. Two other bundlers at the FCC are chief of staff Edward Lazarus, a litigator and former federal prosecutor, and William T. Lake, a lawyer specializing in communications and e-commerce issues who serves as chief of the media bureau.

Genachowski had previously served as chief counsel to the FCC chairman in the 1990s, but his close ties to Obama have raised eyebrows. He has turned up so often at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. that in March, congressional Republicans demanded an accounting of whom he has met with and what was discussed.

White House logs list Genachowski and his wife, Rachel Goslins, for more than 100 visits from early 2009 through March of this year. Goslins, a filmmaker, was appointed executive director of the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities.

 

Some of the biggest fundraisers end up serving in foreign capitals. Obama made a nod to this long-standing practice in a pre-Inauguration news conference, saying, “It would be disingenuous for me to suggest that there are not going to be some excellent public servants but who haven’t come through the ranks of the civil service.”

About a third of Obama’s ambassadors have been political appointees as opposed to career foreign service officers — about the same as other recent presidents. Obama, however, has nominated 24 bundlers to ambassadorships to date. Of those, 14 each raised at least $500,000. Six others raised $200,000 or more. Jacobson, now ambassador to Canada, is the only one listed at the $50,000 minimum, and he played a pivotal finance role in the campaign.

The Obama record has disappointed the American Foreign Service Association, which believes these appointments should mostly go to career diplomats. The organization cites the 1980 Foreign Service Act, which states that political contributions “should not be a factor” in picking ambassadors, a rule presidents of both parties have all but ignored.

Passing over career diplomats in favor of megadonors amounts to “selling ambassadorships,” said Susan Johnson, president of the American Foreign Service Association.

Thomas Pickering, who served as ambassador to Russia and several other countries during a diplomatic career spanning four decades, said turning to bundlers adds a “new dimension” to what he termed “buying offices” through aggressive fundraising. “An individual can multiply their chances by going out and soliciting a lot of contributions other than just their own,” said Pickering, who chairs the American Academy of Diplomacy.

But White House officials dispute that characterization, saying several top ambassadorships went to people who were neither Obama bundlers nor career diplomats but were uniquely qualified for the posts, such as National Security Council official Dan Shapiro (Israel), former Rep. and 9/11 Commission member Tim Roemer (India) and former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman (China), a Republican who had earlier served as ambassador to Singapore and is now considering challenging Obama for the presidency.

Yet few stories illustrate more vividly how friendship, fundraising, business and politics can intertwine at the White House than that of Gips, Obama’s choice for ambassador to South Africa.

In the 1990s, he wrote a report that later formed a blueprint for AmeriCorps. In 1998, Gips left government, where he had supervised wireless spectrum issues for the FCC and served as Vice President Al Gore’s chief domestic policy adviser. He joined Level 3, a budding telecom company that has received more than $100 million in federal contracts in the past decade.

There, at a 2004 fundraiser, he met Obama, who was then running for the Senate in Illinois. The two grew close: Obama asked Gips to help edit his campaign book, “The Audacity of Hope.”

Gips collected more than $500,000 for Obama. James Crowe, chairman of the Level 3 board, was an Obama bundler, too, raising at least $100,000. The firm’s vice chairman, Charles Miller III, bundled more than $50,000.

At the White House, Gips was a powerful force to decide who got coveted jobs. Obama appointed Crowe in October 2010 to chair the presidential advisory committee on telecommunications and wireless issues.

 

And Level 3 was awarded some $13.8 million in federal stimulus contracts, to extend broadband connections in rural areas of states where it had networks.

In a statement, Gips said he was not involved in Crowe’s appointment, which occurred after Gips left the White House. As for the recovery money, Gips said, “I was completely unaware of stimulus contracts awarded to Level 3 and have not spoken to the firm about them.”

The iWatch News investigation confirmed that at least 18 other bundlers have ties to businesses poised to profit from the president’s political agenda through stimulus money, government contracts or other spending to promote clean energy technology or green development.

Oklahoma billionaire investor George Kaiser is one. A longtime Democratic donor, he is a big financial backer of a company that in March of 2009 won a $535 million loan guarantee from DoE for a solar plant in Silicon Valley. He had multiple visits to the White House in the months before the company was awarded the contract. Kaiser did not respond to interview requests from iWatch News.

Steven Westly, a green energy entrepreneur who raised at least $500,000 for Obama, has seen four companies in his venture firm’s portfolio receive more than $500 million in loans, grants or stimulus money from the Energy Department under the Obama administration, iWatch News reported in March.

Some bundlers limit their role in the administration to serving on commissions to support their pet causes and hobnobbing with celebrities. Obama has appointed 22 bundlers to the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities or to the board of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

Others have served on advisory groups that make recommendations to the president on critical matters ranging from the economic stimulus to policies to spur job growth.

Hyatt hotels heiress Penny Pritzker, Wall Street titan Robert Wolf and financier Mark Gallogly, for instance, all served on the President’s Economic Recovery Advisory Commission.

In late February, when he set up a new commission on job creation, Obama again turned to Pritzker, Wolf and Gallogly.

Pritzker, one of America’s richest women and a key fundraiser and adviser in the early days of the Obama campaign, has logged more than 50 visits to the White House, individually or with family members. Obama also appointed Pritzker to the Kennedy Center board and her husband, Chicago ophthalmologist Bryan Traubert, to the President’s Commission on White House Fellowships.

Pritzker told CNBC in May 2009: “I have no trouble having a spirited dialogue with the president, and that’s something that we do on a regular basis.”

When the reporter asked, “Do you get anywhere?” Pritzker replied, “Absolutely. The president is extremely open to hearing what people on his economic board have to say. And I think it’s absolutely informing some of his decisions.”

Fred Schulte, John Aloysius Farrell and Jeremy Borden are reporters for iWatch News.org, a website of the Center for Public Integrity, a Washington-based nonprofit focused on investigative journalism.

The Boston Herald has accused the White House of denying its reporter full access to President Obama’s local fundraiser Wednesday evening, claiming the Obama administration cited concerns about an op-ed the paper ran more than two months ago by Republican Mitt Romney. 

Romney, a former Massachusetts governor and possible GOP challenger in the 2012 presidential race, tore into Obama over the economy in his March 8 op-ed, which the Herald played on the front page at the time under the headline, “Why He’s Failing.” 

The White House didn’t forget. 

According to emails published Wednesday in the Herald, when the newspaper tried to sign up for pool reporter duty ahead of Obama’s visit to Boston, a White House spokesman questioned whether the newspaper could cover the president fairly. 

“I tend to consider the degree to which papers have demonstrated to covering the White House regularly and fairly in determining local pool reporters,” spokesman Matt Lehrich told the Herald in response to its request, according to the newspaper. “My point about the op-ed was not that you ran it, but that it was the full front page, which excluded any coverage of the visit of a sitting U.S. President to Boston. I think that raises a fair question about whether the paper is unbiased in its coverage of the President’s visits.” 

However, the White House said Wednesday that the reason the Herald wasn’t picked was because the Boston Globe had already signed up as part of the travel “pool,” which lets one local reporter cover the news for all local media outlets so as to limit the number of people in the room.

“In this particular instance, the Boston Globe had arranged with the White House Correspondents Association, independent of the White House press office, to be part of the traveling press pool. As such, there was no need for an additional local pooler,” said White House spokesman Josh Earnest. “As we have in the past — including the multiple occasions on which the Herald has supplied local pool reporters — we will continue to consider the Herald for local pool duty for future visits.”

A White House aide also noted that while the White House thinks staff at the Boston Herald are routinely unfair to the president, the Herald has served as the travel pool for presidential visits in the past, including to Martha’s Vineyard.

With the White House offering varying explanations, media analysts said they were unclear exactly why the Herald request was denied and questioned the logic in bringing up the months-old Romney column. 

Dan Kennedy, a Northeastern University journalism professor and media critic, noted that the White House has the “right” to pick and choose who goes in the pool, and that the Herald is not entitled to be in the pool every time. 

However, Kennedy said the Herald should get its crack at pool coverage occasionally and the White House should not factor in political considerations when making those decisions. 

“You would like to think that they’re going to do it in an apolitical way, without regard for who they think their friends are and who they think their enemies are,” he said. “The thing that the White House did that I thought was the most stupid was to put in writing why they weren’t in the pool.” 

Kennedy also questioned why the Herald chose to run the Romney op-ed on the front page back in March, but noted that Romney has gotten grilled on the Herald’s tabloid front plenty of times. 

“Everybody gets their turn … on the front page of the Herald,” Kennedy said. 

Tim Graham, a media analyst with the conservative Media Research Center, also said that while the White House has the right to decide pool coverage, citing political considerations makes them look “small.” 

“They’re looking to manage the press down to the smallest detail,” Graham said. “If you’re not willing to suggest that Obama is some combination of Lincoln and JFK, you’re not allowed in.” 

In this case, the Herald was trying to assign one of its reporters to cover parts of Obama’s Democratic National Committee fundraiser in Boston Wednesday evening that aren’t open to the rest of the media. The Herald claimed it had been “bypassed” for pool duty the last two times Obama visited the area. 

In a written statement, Herald Editor Joe Sciacca said: “We will always fight for fair access to presidential visits and other important events and we will not be intimidated by attempts to affect our news decisions.” 

This isn’t the first time the Obama White House has had run-ins with pool reporters. The White House chided The San Francisco Chronicle last month after its reporter videotaped and posted a mini-protest at an Obama fundraiser, apparently in violation of the pool rules. 

Another reporter for The Orlando Sentinel was kept in a storage closet during a Florida fundraiser attended by Vice President Biden in March. Biden’s office afterward apologized, calling the decision to hold the reporter a “mistake.”

A musician with ties to President Obama’s former controversial pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, will take center stage Wednesday night when Obama hosts a poetry ceremony at the White House featuring rapper and actor Common.

Common, a socially-conscious lyricist whose real name is Lonnie Rashid Lynn, Jr., has defended the retired pastor, and also has unleashed lyrical attacks on former President George W. Bush that have been criticized by conservatives.

Common is not known as a gangsta rapper, but some of his songs and poems feature violent imagery. In one poem, he called for the metaphorical burning of President George W. Bush — a “burning Bush.”

The White House did not return calls seeking comment for this story.

Obama most likely met Common at Trinity United Church of Christ, a church that Obama attended for 20 years and Common grew up attending. Wright retired as pastor there in 2008, the same year that Obama ended his relationship with Wright after videos of his explosive sermons became a campaign issue.

In the sermons, Wright accused the U.S. government of racism and in the days after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, he said “America’s chickens are coming home to roost” after it dropped atomic bombs on Japan and “supported state terrorism against Palestinians and black South Africans.”

Obama initially defended Wright but later cut ties with him when Wright continued to make inflammatory comments.

But Common defended Wright.

“He never really was against white people or another race,” Common told Electronic Urban Report in 2008. “It was more against an establishment that was oppressing people. I think we all can see that this country has problems and a lot of it starts in the political system.”

Common said during the 2008 presidential race that Wright’s sermons were filled with love, not hate.

“What I picked up from the pews…was messages of love,” he said. “Anything that was going on against that love he would acknowledge and expose. He’s been a preacher that’s helped raise one of the greatest political figures in the world, and hopefully, the next president. He’s also raised one of the greatest rappers in the world.”

In a 2007 poem entitled “A Letter to the Law,” Common railed against the U.S. invasion of Iraq invasion while urban areas were being neglected.

“Seeing a fiend being hung/With that happening, why they messing with Saddam?

“Burn a Bush cos’ for peace he no push no button/Killing over oil and grease/no weapons of destruction.”

WASHINGTON — President Obama is making his first trip as president to the U.S.-Mexico border, using the setting to sharpen his call for a remake of the nation’s immigration laws and try to cast the GOP as the obstacle standing in its way.

The president’s speech in El Paso, Texas, on Tuesday, and his visit to a border crossing there, are the latest high-profile immigration events by Obama, who has also hosted meetings at the White House recently with Latino lawmakers, movie stars and others.

It all comes despite an unfavorable climate on Capitol Hill, where Republicans who control the House have shown no interest in legislation that offers a pathway to citizenship for the nation’s 11 million illegal immigrants.

That’s led to criticism that Obama’s efforts are little more than politics in pursuit of the ever-growing Hispanic electorate ahead of the 2012 election. White House officials dispute that. They acknowledge the difficulties in getting a bill but say it’s likelier to happen if the president creates public support for immigration legislation, leading to pressure on Republican lawmakers.

“We already know from the first two years, the last Congress, that there was political opposition to comprehensive immigration reform, including from some places where there used to be political support,” said presidential spokesman Jay Carney. “We are endeavoring to change that dynamic by rallying public support, by raising public awareness about the need for comprehensive immigration reform.”

At the same time, the strategy allows Obama to highlight that Republicans are standing in the way of an immigration bill — shifting responsibility away from himself at a time when many Latino activists say he never made good on his campaign promise of prioritizing immigration legislation early on.

Obama’s spotty immigration record in the eyes of Latino voters makes it all the more politically imperative for him to shore up their support with his re-election campaign approaching.

“What’s different from 2008 is that there are more Hispanics and more millennials in the electorate overall. Latinos are even a bigger share than they were in 2008,” said Simon Rosenberg, a former Clinton White House strategist who follows immigration policy as head of the left-of-center NDN think tank. “Millennials” is a term for people born after 1980.

More Latinos than ever voted in the 2010 midterm elections, according to the Pew Hispanic Center, accounting for almost 7 percent of those voting. Still, turnout among Hispanic voters is far lower than among other groups, giving Obama a reason to want to try to motivate them. He’s picked hostile political territory to make his pitch, visiting a state he lost by more than 10 percentage points in 2008. But the trip does have one overtly political upside: Obama plans a side trip to the relatively liberal bastion of Austin to raise money for the Democratic National Committee at two fundraisers Tuesday night.

At the same time, Obama is pitching his immigration argument to the larger public, and he’s refining it in a way that goes to Americans’ pocketbook concerns. White House officials say Obama will emphasize the economic value of reforming immigration laws, noting that immigrants account for a substantial share of business start-ups and patent applications, among other things — activities that create jobs for everyone.

It’s a different approach than talking about immigration as a security issue or a moral one, and also provides a counter to the Republican argument that illegal immigrants drain U.S. resources.

The president will also argue that his administration has made great strides on border security. Administration officials boast of increasing the number of agents on the border, seizing more contraband and nearing completion of a border fence, and say they plan to extend the deployment of National Guard troops Obama sent to the border. To Republicans who say that immigration overhaul legislation shouldn’t happen until the border is secure, the White House now says it’s as secure as it’s ever been and the conversation on legislation needs to happen.

Republicans aren’t buying it.

“It seems President Obama has once again put on his campaigner-in-chief hat. The president’s push to legalize millions of illegal immigrants is purely political,” said Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. “And even though administration officials like to pretend the border is secure, the reality is that it isn’t.”

Brendan Buck, spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said that House Republicans had no plans to take up immigration legislation and argued that if Obama were serious about immigration reform he would have reached out to Boehner on the issue, which Buck said he hasn’t.

The White House says Obama will push Tuesday for legislation and release a blueprint on his approach to reform, but without setting out any timeline. Indeed, getting immigration reform done any time soon is not realistic. Obama wasn’t even able to get legislation through Congress last year that would have provided a route to legal status for college students and others who were brought to the country as children. The so-called DREAM Act passed the House, then controlled by Democrats, but was blocked by Senate Republicans.

The Senate is now even more heavily Republican, and Republicans control the House. That means immigration reform can’t happen unless they cooperate.

But for Obama, if the public’s aware of that, it’s a political win — even if Republicans don’t budge.

By: Jeanne Cummings April 29, 2011 05:52 AM EDT

Democrats with ties to the Obama White House on Friday are launching a two-pronged fundraising effort aimed at countering deep-pocketed GOP groups in 2012 — and adopting some of the same policies on unlimited, secret donations that President Barack Obama himself has long opposed, the organizers tell POLITICO. The two groups, Priorities USA and Priorities USA Action, aim to raise $100 million to defend Obama’s re-election from an expected onslaught of attack ads from similar Republican outside money organizations activated in the 2010 midterms, organizers say. The Priorities companion committees will have one that discloses donors — and one that doesn’t, a practice Obama hammered during last year’s election cycle as undermining the democratic process. The Priorities group also is jettisoning an Obama rule aimed at limiting the influence of special interests by welcoming unlimited contributions from lobbyists, labor unions, corporations, and political action committees – sources that are still banned from giving to the president’s re-election campaign, organizers said. “While we agree that fundamental campaign finance reforms are needed, Karl Rove and the Koch brothers cannot live by one set of rules as our values and our candidates are overrun with their hundreds of millions of dollars,” said Bill Burton, a former White House spokesman and co-founder of the organization. “We will follow the rules as the Supreme Court has laid them out, but the days of a double standard are over,” he added. Some Democrats bristled at what they saw as a sort of unilateral disarmament by Obama in 2008, when the candidate made clear that he didn’t want outside money groups working on his behalf and set sharp limits on who could – and couldn’t – give to his campaign. Obama still managed to raise three-quarters of a billion dollars, smashing past fundraising records. But Obama’s top strategist David Axelrod sent a powerful signal late last year that Obama had changed his view — telling POLITICO that the White House would welcome Democratic outside money efforts in 2012, to fend off what Axelrod predicted could be up to $500 million in spending by GOP groups such as Crossroads GPS. Crossroads GPS, a group founded under the guidance of GOP strategists Rove and Ed Gillespie, accepts unlimited contributions from donors whose identities can be kept secret. And in case there’s any doubt that Obama’s campaign welcomes the new Priorities effort, its leadership team includes Burton, a former deputy White House press secretary; Sean Sweeney, who was a senior adviser to former White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, and former Clinton political strategist Paul Begala. Geoff Garin, who was a senior adviser to Hillary Clinton’s 2008 campaign, is also among the group’s top strategists and will be its lead polling expert. Among the group’s first supporters are Ellen Malcolm, the wealthy founder of the pro-abortion rights group Emily’s List; Harold Ickes, a former Clinton adviser; Jon Youngdahl, a Service Employees International Union political strategist. They also include Jay Dunn, a long-time party fundraiser; Greg Speed, a long-time progressive advocate and media consultant, and Rob McKay, a major Democratic donor who is head of the McKay Family Foundation. The influential SEIU, one of the nation’s largest labor unions, also is among the first donors to the joint effort. Hollywood producer Jeffrey Katzenberg donated to the effort and has agreed to help raise money for the committees. Former Obama Florida fundraiser and Commerce Department official Teddy Johnston is also going to work to generate contributions.   Priorities USA will be registered under the tax code as a social welfare group, which means it does not have to disclose its donors, according to a memo outlining the effort. Crossroads GPS is registered under the same tax code. Priorities USA will run independent issue ads advocating “economic policies that generate jobs here in America through innovation, education and investment in the infrastructure vital to our future success,” the memo states. “It will oppose right-wing attempts to harm the American middle class in order to bestow special treatment on special interests,” it added. Priorities USA Action will become a so-called Super PAC, an organization that will accept unlimited donations and disclose its contributors to the Federal Election Commission. It will run ads, send direct mail and do other work to support Democratic candidates or, more likely, attack Republicans. “This is an effort to level the playing field,” said Sweeney. “Americans deserve an honest debate about job creation, the economy, national security and education. That debate will never happen if only right-wing extremists are engaged on the battlefield.”  To According to Burton, the organizers debated abandoning the president’s rule against donations from lobbyists and political action committees and accepting secret donations. They ultimately concluded that “the Supreme Court changed the rules and made this a completely different environment” and “we won’t be boxed in by a double standard.” The court ruling he refers to is a January 2010 decision in Citizens United vs. the Federal Election Commission that cleared the way for corporations and labor unions to tap their treasuries and make unlimited donations to some political groups. They are still are banned from giving to party committees and candidates. In response to that ruling, Rove and Gillespie helped form American Crossroads, which did disclose donors, and Crossroads GPS, which didn’t. During last year’s midterms, they raised a combined $70 million, of which the donors of about $43 million are still secret. The vast majority of that money was spent attacking Democratic candidates for the House and Senate. Corporate players also stepped up their presence, most notably Charles and David Koch, owners of a giant energy firm, who contributed to candidates and committees alike. The Kochs are hoping to generate about $88 million to influence the 2012 campaign, an attendee at a Koch summit told POLITICO. Crossroads has announced it hopes to raise $120 million to spend in the 2012 presidential campaign. Burton said Priorities hopes to collect about $100 million. “We don’t think we’ll be able to match them dollar for dollar,” he said. Creation of an outside group dedicated to the presidential campaign has been in the works for months and represents the final piece of a new infrastructure of progressive organizations that will take on Republican and business-backed groups at all levels. In recent months, Democratic groups that had been hastily formed in the 11th hour of the 2010 campaign to try to protect some House and Senate candidates have been reorganized and merged to create two entities. Majority PAC will focus on Senate races. Donors to it will be disclosed, but contributors to a companion arm – Patriot Majority – will be kept secret.   The committee is being headed by two former aides to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), Rebecca Lambe and Susan McCue. The leadership also includes two former heads of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, J.B. Poersch and Jim Jordan. Craig Varoga, who heads Patriot Majority PAC, which ran ads on Reid’s behalf last year, and fundraiser Monica Dixon are also involved. House Majority PAC, which is being run by Ali Lapp, a former campaign director at the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee during Emanuel’s tenure, will assist vulnerable House members. The committee began airing its first ads last week, which criticize Republicans who voted for a conservative budget that overhauls Medicare. Beyond the organizations focused on the presidential campaign, Senate and House races, other progressive groups are planning to play more active or new roles in 2012. Emily’s List, which helps elect female Democrats who support abortion rights, will take on a niche role by providing independent ads to support the six women Senate incumbents up for re-election. And American Bridge, a group founded by David Brock, who heads Media Matters, will have two subsidiaries: An organization financed with anonymous donors that will do opposition research on Republican candidates that will be shared with the other groups and an arm that will run independent ads and that will disclose its donors. “I think progressives saw what the Republicans did and we not only want to replicate it but do it better,” said Chris Harris, spokesman for American Bridge. As the Republican groups did in the last election, the Democratic organizations will share and coordinate their activity with each other to avoid duplication and maximize the impact of their resources. None of these groups can legally strategize or communicate with official party committees and candidates. However, Republicans easily overcame those barriers in 2010 by publicly announcing their ad buys and campaign messages so the independent operators could see where there were gaps and craft commercials that dovetailed with candidate themes. The Democrats could have an advantage in coordinating their efforts because their network of groups is smaller, tightly knit and clearly focused – a byproduct of their study of the GOP effort. American Crossroads last year tried to coordinate the efforts of a hodgepodge of conservative outlets, some new and some old. The coalition ranged from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to the Susan B. Anthony List, an anti-abortion rights group. Combined, the groups spent about $190 million, mostly on attack ads and mailings. The late-to-the-game Democratic groups spent about $94 million. “We’re eager to meet Karl Rove and the Koch brothers in the public arena,” said Begala. “As long as they’re spending millions telling lies in their effort to destroy the middle class, we will answer them by telling the truth.”

Ohio‘s governor says President Barack Obama should focus on tackling the nation’s debt and balancing the budget before he weighs in on collective bargaining restrictions in states.

Gov. John Kasich‘s (KAY’-siks) remarks to reporters Wednesday come a day after Obama told Cleveland‘s WKYC-TV that he strongly disapproves of new laws restricting public employee unions in Ohio and Wisconsin. He said states should not use the financial crisis as an excuse to erode bargaining rights.

Ohio’s new law affects 350,000 public workers. They can negotiate wages and certain work conditions but not health care, sick time or pension benefits. Wisconsin’s law covers 175,000 workers, exempting police and firefighters.

Kasich, a Republican, says when Democrat Obama balances his budget, “then maybe he can have an opinion on what’s going on in Ohio.”

At his press conference on Wednesday, President Obama scolded the media for focusing on his birth certificate instead of more important issues.

He started the conference by calling out NBC’s Chuck Todd directly.

“I can’t get the networks to break in on all kinds of other discussions,” he said. “I was just back there listening to Chuck—he was saying, it’s amazing that he’s not going to be talking about national security. I would not have the networks breaking in if I was talking about that, Chuck, and you know it.”

He then said that part of the reason that he wanted to release the birth certificate was because he was seeing coverage of the issue dominate the media, rather than discussion of the federal budget or other issues.

“I am speaking for the vast majority of the American people as well as for the press,” he said. “We do not have time for this kind of silliness. We have better stuff to do. I have got better stuff to do. We have got big problems to solve.”

By: Robin Bravender April 17, 2011 07:40 PM EDT

President Barack Obama is planning to ignore language in the 2011 spending package that would ban several top White House advisory posts. House Republicans tacked on language to the contentious spending bill to cut the salaries for four so-called czars — policy advisers appointed to assist the president on health care, climate change, autos and manufacturing, and urban affairs. But in a signing statement issued Friday, Obama said he’s not obligated to comply. “The president also has the prerogative to obtain advice that will assist him in carrying out his constitutional responsibilities, and do so not only from executive branch officials and employees outside the White House, but also from advisers within it,” the statement said. “Legislative efforts that significantly impede the president’s ability to exercise his supervisory and coordinating authorities or to obtain the views of the appropriate senior advisers violate the separation of powers by undermining the president’s ability to exercise his constitutional responsibilities and take care that the laws be faithfully executed. Therefore, the executive branch will construe section 2262 not to abrogate these presidential prerogatives.” The anti-czar language in the spending bill marked a victory for Republicans and conservative pundits, who accused the administration of giving unelected bureaucrats too much power within the White House. But the language didn’t appear to have any immediate impact on Obama’s staff. Energy and climate adviser Carol Browner resigned earlier this year; health czar Nancy-Ann DeParle was promoted to deputy White House chief of staff; Obama’s urban affairs adviser, Adolfo Carrión, left the White House to become a regional director for the Department of Housing and Urban Development; and the White House said auto and manufacturing adviser Ron Bloom wouldn’t be affected by the language. “Over the last several months, the White House has undergone a reorganization that involved the consolidation of several offices and positions,” a White House official told POLITICO last week. “Included in that larger reorganization, earlier this year the Domestic Policy Council assumed responsibility for health care, as well as energy and climate change policy coordination and development in the White House. The agreements reflect those changes.” House Republicans attached an amendment to a spending bill that passed the chamber in February to block funding for nine White House policy advisers. Louisiana Rep. Steve Scalise, the author of that amendment, warned at the time against what he called “a very disturbing proliferation of czars” under Obama. This article first appeared on POLITICO Pro at 7:34 p.m. on April 17, 2011.

By Rachel Quigley
Last updated at 10:57 AM on 14th April 2011

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Days after its main sponsor met with Donald Trump, Arizona’s ‘birther bill’ has passed the state Senate.

The bill requires presidential candidates to prove they are U.S. citizens before they can be included on Arizona’s ballot and receive any votes from the state.

Candidates who don’t have a long form of their birth certificate are also given the option to show two alternative documents, including a baptismal or circumcision certificate, a hospital birth record or a post-partum medical record.

The bill approved would make Arizona the first state to pass such legislation. Democrats say it exceeds the state’s authority.

It now goes to the House for a final vote.

The bill was approved only by Republicans at 20-9.

Senate President Russell Pearce told reporters: ‘This is an obligation the state has. Verification is not only legitimate, it’s appropriate.’

The proposal is prompted by Donald trump’s on-going crusade to prove that President Obama was not actually born in Hawaii but in Kenya.

In an interview with CNN he pointed out that there are no photos of President Obama from when he was younger, only in his teenage years.

He also claims that no one remembers him from school.

He said: ‘If you go back to my first grade, my kindergarten, people remember me. Nobody from those early years remembers him.

‘If you’re going to be president of the United States, it says very profoundly you have to be born in this country.’

Trump met with Arizona Republican representative Carl Seel, who sponsored the bill, late last week to discuss the birther movement and the possibility of introducing it to Arizona.

Sarah Palin has now jumped on the Trump bandwagon, despite saying in February that the ‘birther’ issue was a distraction from more important issues.

Perhaps fuelled by Trump’s recent rise in the polls, she came out over the weekend to defend his attempts saying: ‘I appreciate that the Donald wants to spend his resources on something that so interests him and so many Americans, you know more power to him.

‘Obviously there is something that the president doesn’t want people to see, that he sees going to great lengths to make sure it isn’t shown. And I think that’s perplexing for a lot of people.’

Though the president released a certificate to prove that he was definitely born in Hawaii, Trump has set out to uncover what he believes he is the truth, citing missing information such as the hospital Obama was born in or the physician in attendance.

Dr Chiyome Fukino, the former director of Hawaii’s Department of Health, said in a recent interview with NBC: ‘It’s kind of ludicrous at this point.’

He claims to have reviewed Barack Obama’s birth certificate more than once and said that ‘birthers’ and other doubters will never be satisfied.

Congress and the Department of Justice appear to be headed for a showdown this week over documents detailing Operation Fast and Furious, the botched gunrunning sting set up by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives that funneled more than 1,700 smuggled weapons from Arizona to Mexico.

The Justice Department has until Wednesday to deliver to congressional investigators a stack of records and emails naming the individuals responsible for the gun trafficking operation that may have killed dozens, if not hundreds of Mexicans, and is becoming a growing embarrassment for the Obama administration.

Under Project Gunrunner and the Phoenix off-shoot, dubbed Fast and Furious, the ATF encouraged gun store owners to sell to straw buyers — consumers who they suspected of working on behalf of Mexican drug cartels. 

Project Gunrunner purposely allowed the straw buyers to illegally buy and export guns only to see where they surfaced in Mexico. Using this investigative technique, the ATF hoped to take down the entire gun trafficking organization. Instead, records show it allowed more than 1,700 guns, including hundreds of AK-47s and high-powered, armor-piercing .50-caliber rifles to be trafficked to Mexico

Buying guns for non-personal use is illegal. Yet gun store owners were assured by ATF agents the buyers were under investigation and the guns were being intercepted before crossing into Mexico. 

Instead, whistleblowers say the guns were allowed “to walk.” 

President Obama, speaking for the first time about the growing scandal, conceded last week Fast and Furious may have been “a serious mistake,” but he claimed, “I did not authorize it; Eric Holder, the attorney general, did not authorize it. He’s been very clear that our policy is to catch gunrunners and put them into jail.” 

But an investigation by Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, could show otherwise. 

The ATF operates under Justice Department, and two assistant U.S. attorneys in Phoenix authorized virtually every wiretap, affidavit and investigation conducted in Operation Fast and Furious. 

Some, like Issa, wonder how Holder could not have known about an investigation that size. 

“One of the questions we always ask is who is lying,” Issa told Fox News. ”We lose our credibility if we don’t come clean and make the changes necessary to save lives on both sides of the border.” 

If the Justice Department and ATF refuse to deliver the records Issa requested, as it already has done with similar requests by Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, Issa can subpoena the records. 

“We will subpoena if we have to, we’ll hold hearings if we have to, we’ll call in officials if we have to. But at the end of the day, the two Americans likely to have died as a result of this action pale in comparison to the countless numbers of Mexicans who have been killed,” said Issa. 

He is referring to Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry and Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agent Jamie Zapata. The guns used to kill both men have been linked to Project Gunrunner. 

Humberto Trevino, a senior Mexican lawmaker, says at least 150 people have been shot with ATF-monitored guns. 

Two of the gun stores involved were Carter’s Country in Houston and J&G Gun Sales in Prescott, Ariz. 

“Let me tell you something about Carter’s Country. They have been co-operating with ATF from the get-go,” says Carter’s County attorney Dick Deguerin. 

“They were told to go through with what they considered to be questionable sales. They were told to go through with sales of three or more assault rifles at the same time or five or more 9-mm guns at the same time or a young Hispanic male paying in cash. It’s all profiling, but they went through with it.” 

Both gun stores felt burned by the ATF — first by leaked records to The Washington Post that showed the two stores responsible for dozens of guns found at Mexican crime scenes, and now by Operation Fast and Furious. 

“You assumed they had your back,” added J&G President Brad Desaye. “Absolutely, we felt like partners with ATF in a lot of ways.” 

Assistant Attorney General Ronald Weich said in a Feb. 4 letter the operation’s purpose was “to dismantle the entire trafficking organization, not merely to arrest straw purchasers.” 

“The allegation — that ATF ‘sanctioned’ or otherwise knowingly allowed the sale of assault weapons to a straw purchaser who then transported them into Mexico — is false,” he wrote.

Holder also says his department policy is not to “let guns walk.”

Donald Trump is not backing down from his demand that President Barack Obama produce his birth certificate and stepped up his criticism by questioning why he has not released other personal records, including college transcripts and legislative papers.

The billionaire real estate tycoon and star of “The Apprentice” created a stir on Wednesday when he said on “The View” that Obama must release his birth certificate.

Now Trump has reiterated his call in an exclusive interview with Newsmax.TV, with this simple message for Obama: Why don’t you produce your birth certificate and put to rest all speculation that you were born outside the United States?

He says Obama’s birth certificate controversy is a “strange situation” — there are conflicting reports as to what Honolulu hospital he was born at, and the governor of Hawaii claims he somehow remembers Obama being born 50 years ago.

Trump, who says he will soon announce if he will run for president in 2012, also says Libya is a “total mess,” with Iran possibly behind the rebels and waiting to take over the country, and charges that the United States is going to “hell in a hand basket.”

“It’s a very simple situation,” Trump says in regard to the birth certificate issue. “I’d just like to see his birth certificate.

“I’m hearing all sorts of stories that his own family can’t agree which hospital he was born in and lots of other things, and I’m trying to find out where is the birth certificate. I have a birth certificate. Where is his birth certificate?

“If you’re born in this country, to the best of my knowledge people have a birth certificate.”

Obama asserts that he was born in Honolulu, but former Pennsylvania Deputy Attorney General Philip Berg has claimed that Obama’s paternal grandmother says she was in the delivery room when he was born in Kenya.

There are even differing reports about which Honolulu hospital he may have been born at. During his 2008 presidential campaign numerous reports indicated Obama was born at the Queen’s Medical Center. Later, Obama’s half sister said he was born at the Katiolani Medical Center.

After questions were raised about his birth, Obama’s campaign released a Certification of Live Birth. The form is a summary document and does not include the newborn’s location of birth. The long-form Birth Certificate includes such data, but Obama has declined to release it.

Hawaii Gov. Neil Abercrombie first ordered the state attorney general and health department director to release more information about Obama’s birth there, then abandoned that pursuit.

“It is an amazing situation,” Trump says of the governor’s actions.
“And later the governor said, but I remember when he was born. I said, what? You actually remember when somebody was born? It sounded very unusual that a Democratic governor would remember when somebody was born 50 years ago.

“I assume that Obama was born in the United States. I assume he was probably born in Hawaii. But I have to get rid of the word ‘assume.’ If somebody wants to run for president you have to be born in this country.

And when the family argues about which hospital it was because they’re not sure, as has been reported, and you don’t have a birth certificate, it’s sort of a strange situation.”

Trump adds: “I don’t want there to be a question. I think it would be wonderful news for everybody, including me, if the birth certificate is found. But at this moment there is no birth certificate.

“Some people say it exists, and if it exists, even worse, why isn’t he showing it? So I would like to see a birth certificate, and when the governor and everybody else say they think it exists, why don’t they produce it?”

Asked if Obama has fulfilled his campaign pledge to have the most transparent administration, Trump responds: “Certainly he hasn’t in terms of his birth, and I guess a lot of college records and other records haven’t been produced, and that’s a little unusual. Why wouldn’t you produce your records?

“There are client lists that haven’t been produced and lobbying lists that haven’t been produced, so there are a lot of things that haven’t been produced for somebody who is supposed to be so transparent.

“There’s certainly not a lot of transparency.”

Asked about the Obama administration’s handling of the rebellion in Libya, Trump tells Newsmax: “For one thing, if you’re going to save lives on a humanitarian basis you should have started sooner, because many of those lives are gone.

“For another thing, you really have to find out who you’re fighting for. Who are the rebels? You have some people who say that Iran is controlling the rebels, that Iran is the happiest of all nations because they think as soon as we leave they’re going to go in with the rebels and take over Libya.

“I hear more and more reports that the rebels aren’t the sweetest people on earth either. It looks to me like it’s a total mess.”

Polls show Trump among the leaders in the GOP field for the 2012 presidential nomination. Asked if he has decided whether or not to run, Trump says: “I will be announcing one way or another somewhere prior to June.

“I hate what’s happening to this country. It’s never been at a point like this, ever. We’re not respected. We’re scoffed at. We’re laughed at by other places. People from China and other places cannot believe they’re getting away with what they’re getting away with. We’re rebuilding China. We’re rebuilding other countries, and our country is going to hell in a hand basket.

“One thing I can say, if I ran and if I won, that would stop, and everybody knows it. I think that’s why I do well in the polls.”

http://www.newsmax.com/Headline/donald-trump-birther-obama/2011/03/24/id/390681?s=al&promo_code=BF00-1

Filed under: Polls, Poll Watch, White House

Number 40 is No. 1. Just in time for Presidents Day, Ronald Reagan tops a list of the nation's greatest chief executives, ahead of Abraham Lincoln, according to a new survey out Friday.

The Gallup Poll puts Reagan, with 19 percent, in the top spot for the third time. Reagan also occupied the position in 2001 and 2005 -- and he has been in the top three eight times since Gallup started asking the "greatest president" question 12 years ago.

Lincoln garnered 14 percent, followed very closely by Bill Clinton, with 13 percent.

John F. Kennedy, who was on top in 2000 and tied with Lincoln in 2003, came in fourth this year.

The country's first president, George Washington, is fifth on the list.

Gallup said respondents are more likely to mention recent office-holders because "the average American constantly hears about and from presidents in office during their lifetime, and comparatively little about historical presidents long dead."

Four of the five most recent presidents are in the top ten this year: Obama (No. 7), George W. Bush (No. 10), Clinton, and Reagan.

Not surprisingly, the results break along partisan lines, with Democrats and Republicans each most likely to choose a greatest president within their own party.

Independents name Lincoln and then Reagan as top choices.

Read the complete Gallup results here.

 

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1.  Health Care Reform is Signed into Law
Democrats spent a big part of 2009 attempting to pass a comprehensive health care reform. On March 22, 2010, they finally rallied together and the reform was passed with a narrow margin. It was signed by the President four days later. Called the ObamaCare, it is undoubtedly the most significant health care reform in decades.

2.  Sarah Palin Mania
The former Vice-President candidate has become the most visible Republican in the country. Since 2009, Sarah Palin has refined her ability to generate media attention and popularity and has become a considerable political clout. She made headlines both in a positive and negative light, and comes only second to Obama for being the most followed American politician today.

3.  Afghanistan
In 2010, America lost the lives of 497 soldiers in the war in Afghanistan. However, the story failed to gather the appropriate public attention. This news is definitely important, but it seems the significance is lost to an American public that’s already too tired of the conflict and the continuing loss it brings.

4.  The Bush Tax Cuts
Amidst criticisms from the progressives, President Obama reached a compromise with Republicans to extend tax cuts for the wealthy for an additional two years. In return Obama received a 13 month extension of unemployment benefits and a number of provisions.

5.  SB1070 Controversy
After the Arizona Legislature passed the controversial illegal immigration enforcement bill SB1070 in April, the Obama administration sued the state before the new law could be enacted, contending that the legislation encroached upon the federal government’s jurisdiction to control the state’s pesky illegal immigration problem.

6.  The Continued Decline of the U.S. Economy’s
“Jobless recovery” became a popular term around mid of 2010, but the so-called economic recovery didn’t feel like a recovery at all. The federal government may infuse a lot of cash to the economy, but it hasn’t done anything to convince Americans that the recession was over. A weak housing sector and continued high unemployment rate is more than enough evidence to the contrary.

7.  The High Unemployment Rate
One of the biggest controversies of the year was the continued efforts by Democrats to make unemployment benefits last, which has forced Republicans to concede extending the federal benefits plan incrementally throughout the year. In exchange for 99 weeks more of unemployment benefits, Republicans get to extend the Bush Tax Cuts across the board.

8.  Republicans Take Back the House
Republicans gained the majority in the House of Representatives. Their win in the 2010 midterm election will grant the GOP increasing power with which to barricade President Obama over the next two years.

9.  The Tea Party Movement’s Influence Grows
Delaware Republican Christine O’Donnell’s win in the state’s Senate primary election caused everyone to consider the Tea Party Movement as a considerable and growing force in American politics. As the Tea Party continues to gain power in 2011, most conservatives believe the mainstream GOP will be forced to embrace it. If not, party leaders may very well see a shakeup of revolutionary proportions.

10.  Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill
The Gulf oil spill was easily the top story of 2010. Dominating the news for well over four months, it easily caused great political and economic repercussions to the whole country. The tragedy caused President Obama to face claims of inadequate response and has similarly damaged Republicans who made a number of verbal gaffes during the crisis.

Filed under: Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, Taxes, Polls, Sarah Palin, Poll Watch, Barack Obama, 2012 Elections

President Barack Obama has lost support among Democrats and liberals, resulting in this lowest job approval rating yet in polls conducted by the Marist Institute for McClatchy News. One consequence of the ratings drop: Republican Mitt Romney beats him in a hypothetical 2012 match-up. (Story; Poll data)

Fifty percent disapprove of Obama's performance, in the poll conducted Dec. 2-8, while 42 percent approve, with 8 percent undecided. In November, 48 percent disapproved of Obama's performance while 45 percent approved.

The poll was conducted during a week in which Obama announced a freeze on federal workers' pay and also struck a deal with Republicans to extend the Bush-era tax cuts to all Americans regardless of income, an agreement that drew protests from Democratic congressional leaders and spurred anger among liberals.

Among Democrats, Obama's job approval rating fell to 74 percent, from 83 percent a month ago, and dropped among liberals to 69 percent, from 78 percent.

The poll also included these match-ups between Obama and potential Republican challengers:

- Romney leads Obama by 46 percent to 44 percent, with 10 percent undecided. The margin of error is 3.5 points.

- Obama leads Sarah Palin by 52 percent to 40 percent, with 9 percent undecided.

- Obama leads Huckabee by 47 percent to 43 percent, with 6 percent undecided.

Romney leads Obama among independents by 47 percent to 39 percent, with 14 percent undecided, while Obama easily beats Palin among the same voters, by 52 percent to 35 percent, with 12 percent undecided. Palin gets 78 percent support from fellow Republicans, compared with 87 percent for Romney and 86 percent for Huckabee. Obama and Huckabee run about even among independents.

In one unrelated poll result, 59 percent of those surveyed said that those who publish secret or confidential U.S. documents, as WikiLeaks has done, should be prosecuted while 31 percent consider such disclosures to be protected under the First Amendment guarantee of a free press. Ten percent were undecided.

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Filed under: Polls, Sarah Palin, 2012 President, Poll Watch, Tea Party, White House, Barack Obama

With the midterm elections in the rearview mirror, speculation about the 2012 presidential race is already heating up, and a new poll out Thursday finds Barack Obama trailing two members of a hypothetical GOP field but leading the one with the highest profile, Sarah Palin.

The CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey found no clear front-runner among possible GOP candidates.

Pollsters asked Republican respondents which candidate they would support for the GOP nomination. Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who ran for the White House in 2008, came out in front, with 21 percent backing. Another '08 candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, was one point behind with 20 percent. Conservative superstar Sarah Palin, the ex-governor of Alaska and a vice presidential candidate in '08, got 14 percent support, CNN said.

Also named as possible contenders were former House Speaker Newt Gingrich of Georgia, Rep. Ron Paul of Texas, Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, Rep. Mike Pence of Indiana and former Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania.

In hypothetical 2012 matchups, Huckabee leads Obama, 52-44 percent; Romney holds a 50-45 advantage; Obama would edge Gingrich, 49-47; and the president leads Palin by 52-44 margin.

"Looking ahead to 2012, it may be too early to count Barack Obama out, particularly if Sarah Palin is his opponent," said CNN Polling Director Keating Holland.

Nearly three-quarters of Democrats said they want to see the party renominate Obama in 2012.

Read the complete survey results here.

 

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