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- Clinton's roadshow: Risk vs. reward

- Hill ignores fiscal cliff warnings

- GOP to Akin: We're done with Missouri

- Romney finesses Afghanistan plans

- On CR vote, freshmen give in

- 3 Senate races lurk as sleepers

- GOP infighting as farm bill suffers

- My obsession with 'Made in the USA'

- Cicilline holds on in R.I. primary

- GOP lacks specifics on tax rates

- First delayed deportees OK'd

- Rove disputes claim on Komen

- Normalize trade with Russia

- Too-familiar ring to Chinese devices

- Protect immigrant women

- GOP to Romney: You're so vague

- Ryan buys TV ads for House race

- Obama's campaign against coal

- DOJ drops case against Buchanan

- GOP war on Voting Rights Act

- Christie to join Steve King in Iowa

- The 5 curses of Joe Biden

- Tax extenders withering on vine

- Frank defends 'Uncle Tom' diss

- House GOP slams Chu memo

- Kaiser: Continued modest rate growth

- Report: IG rips DOJ on Fast/Furious

- Panetta: Penalty for SEAL writer

- SEC funds plan divides Dems

- Shipping's sees smooth sailing ahead

- 'Obama Burger' an enduring D.C. hit

- Coburn blocking 9/11 museum funds

- Tierney would squeeze ex-Blackwater

- Brown blasts Mica on 9/11 hearing

- The Kerry-ization of Mitt Romney

- Poll: Spike in economic confidence

- Report: Bush briefed on Al Qaeda

- Fiscal cliff: All talk, no deal-making

Bill Clinton’s roadshow: Risk vs. reward

By: Reid J. Epstein and Glenn Thrush

September 11, 2012 08:45 PM EDT

MIAMI — Bill Clinton isn’t holding back.

And that’s mostly a good thing for Barack Obama.

The former president was all fired up for his first real road test of the 2012 campaign, delivering a feisty recap of his much-praised keynote address at last week’s Democratic convention in Charlotte — yet one that hinted at the inconsistency and lack of discipline that proved such a mixed blessing for his wife in 2008.

Clinton, speaking at Florida International University for 41 minutes with lots of gusto — and no real script in sight — delivered the goods, and a few not-so-goods, offering a detailed defense of Obama’s policies linked to his own successes in the Oval Office.

This is what Obama’s team in Chicago expected, Clinton being Clinton, a walking, talking, finger-wagging risk-vs.-reward calculation in bifocals and out of Chicago’s grasp.

“People ask me from time to time … what are you most proud of,” a hoarse, ruddy Clinton told an audience of 2,300. “And I said, when I served, I’m glad we have more jobs, but the most stunning statistic is that we moved 100 times as many people out of poverty into the middle class than in the previous years. That means the American dream is alive and well.”

He continued: “I believe with all my heart that a society that basically says, ‘You’re on your own,’ is never going to be as successful in a highly competitive and interdependent world as a society that says… we’re all in this together.”

Obama dubbed Clinton his new “Secretary of Explaining Stuff” after Clinton made a methodical case for Obama’s economic policies in prime time last Wednesday night, but the argument lost a bit of punch and coherence on the road.

“No one, not me, not anybody else, no one could have completely healed that and built a whole new economy and brought us back to full employment in just four years. It has never been done in the history of the world,” Clinton said.

“The test is not whether you think everything is hunky-dory. If that were the test the president would vote against himself,” he added, in a line that seemed ripe for an RNC email blast.

While the speech contrasted Republican ideas negatively with Obama’s vision, Clinton didn’t blast Mitt Romney explicitly and mentioned the former Massachusetts governor by name once. That was, in part, a nod to the solemnity of the Sept. 11 anniversary, but it is also part of Clinton’s commitment to transcending what he views as a coarsening of the process that he, like Obama, had once vowed to elevate.

Flawed surrogate that he is, Clinton remains the only game-changer in the 2012, outside the candidates themselves.

He’s the only supporting Democratic player who gets to call his own shots, determine his own schedule and veer on and off script according to his wont. Twelve years after leaving office under a cloud of sexual scandal, he remains among the most popular political figures in the country — and just about the only Obama surrogate who can criticize Romney without drawing return fire. In fact, the former Massachusetts governor has agreed to appear at the next Clinton Global Initiative meeting in October; Obama will also speak to the gathering.

Clinton and Obama seem to be genuinely in sync after years of tension, with Clinton signing on for a slate of campaign and fundraising appearances in Florida, Ohio, Wisconsin, California and New York over the next six weeks. The former president — who delivered a Wednesday night prime-time speech that signaled, at long last, a real fusion between the Clinton and Obama wings of the party — signed off on the schedule only after the convention concluded, according to Democrats familiar with the situation.

“We would love to have him out there as much as his schedule allows,” Obama spokeswoman Jen Psaki said. “His appeal and the pitch he can make for why the president is the right person to lead the country and stand up for the middle class over the next four years has broad appeal.”

The Obama-Clinton man hug at the convention symbolized a deeper symbiosis. For Obama, Clinton represents a bridge to moderate New Democrats and independents, and access to millions of dollars in fundraising cash on the coasts.

To Clinton, Obama’s embrace represents affirmation of his accomplishments in the 1990s — and a chance to erase bitter 2008 memories sparked when an enraged Clinton railed against what he believed was an effort by Obama’s team to paint him as insensitive to the needs of blacks.

Indeed, the former president began his Tuesday evening speech with a plea for audience members to register to vote — vividly illustrated by an anecdote about an African-American friend’s unsuccessful attempt to vote in the South.

Clinton spoke about using federal policy to boost people from poverty to the middle class and fought back against Republican individualism, a more overt defense of government than Obama typically makes.

Clinton’s heavily extemporaneous convention speech was equal parts policy, nostalgia and appeal to the swing voters who supported Obama in 2008 but have been cool to him after three and a half years in office.

The event had only some of the trappings of Obama’s road show — Clinton walked out to Bruce Springsteen — yet only a fraction of the energy. Without a prepared text, Clinton didn’t have pre-built applause lines and didn’t adjust the pitch of his voice as if he were trying to rouse the crowd.

Clinton acknowledged the solemn day, saying the speech was his first political event on the anniversary of the terror attacks. But the former president made clear there will be no rekindling of the post-9/11 national unity until the nation’s politicians are willing to compromise.

“We all long for the unity we felt on 9/11 and for months afterward. And we know that for some extent that level of unity can’t be maintained because we do have honest disagreements and we need to have honest debates,” he said. “But if you believe in honest debate you believe in it because you think nobody’s right all the time. Not because you think it’s my way or the highway. There is a big difference.”

Both Obama and Romney lightened their usual campaign jabs to commemorate the worst terrorist attack in U.S. history, pulling attack ads off of TV and radio. The president attended memorial events in the Washington, D.C. area.

“We remember with heavy hearts the tragic loss of life, and we express thankfulness for the men and women who responded to that tragedy. We honor them, and we honor those who secure our safety even to this day,” Romney told the National Guard Association in Reno, Nevada.

Clinton, sounding as if he was battling a cold, didn’t bring down the house as he did in Charlotte. He drew applause lines after mentioning that more insurance providers asked to join the Medicare Advantage program after Obama’s health care law passed than before.

He flicked to his own mortality, calling himself “exhibit A” of the nation’s fine health care “if you can afford it.”

And he charged that the president’s signature law is unpopular in Florida and elsewhere because Republicans have misrepresented it. Clinton said his tour is designed to solve that problem.

“They got away with running this old dog through the shoe in 2010 and countless thousands of seniors voted because they were given misinformation against people who supported a plan to strengthen Medicare and strengthen Medicare Advantage,” Clinton said. “So I’m talking about it everywhere because the first time they did that it was their fault. If we let it happen again, it is our fault and we should not do it.”

Reid Epstein reported from Miami. Glenn Thrush reported from Arlington, Va.

© 2012 POLITICO LLC

Hill ignores fiscal cliff warnings

By: Jake Sherman and Seung Min Kim

September 11, 2012 11:44 PM EDT

Hello, Washington. It’s the real world calling. A disaster is coming. Can you do something — anything — to stop the bleeding?

Crisis after crisis this year, Washington has responded with a simple shoulder shrug.

Farm bureaus, financial credit rating agencies, Wall Street, the defense industry, chambers of commerce and postal groups have all sounded the alarm bell warning D.C. about all manner of debt, spending and tax crises. They’ve largely failed to spur the action they were seeking.

The latest get-it-together moment came Tuesday, when Moody’s — one agency that has not downgraded the nation’s credit — warned that it could lower the rating unless Washington came together to agree on a budget package in 2013 that significantly cut the nation’s debt. The agency’s caution signal came ahead of the so-called fiscal cliff — a massive package of tax increases and spending cuts set to go into effect after this year unless Congress reaches an agreement to avert it.

Moody’s, one of the three main ratings agencies, also warned that it would most likely keep its “negative” outlook on the nation’s debt — a move that could precede a credit downgrade — if the United States fell off the fiscal cliff.

Here was House Speaker John Boehner’s reaction.

“I’m not confident at all,” Boehner (R-Ohio) said about the prospects of the deal, noting that the House has done one-third of the work that needs to be done to stabilize the debt.

Cast aside the blame because Republicans and Democrats privately agree that Washington has been desensitized to crisis and is ungovernable.

Lawmakers have heard the repeated threats from the outside — but it’s unclear whether they’re actually listening. Top congressional players aren’t engaged in serious talks over resolving the fiscal cliff while Capitol Hill is all but resigned to the fact that no movement on the cliff will occur until after the Nov. 6 election.

“It’s interesting that both the downgrade and the threatened downgrade don’t address our economy, they address our political system,” Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) told POLITICO. “They basically said it’s time for members of the Senate and the House to get it together. … I agree with them. There’s no excuse left at this point.”

But there’s not even agreement on whether an agreement is possible.

Hours after Boehner’s words of pessimism, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) rebutted him.

“I was disappointed when my friend John Boehner said today that he has no confidence on a budget deal,” he told reporters. “I think we have to look at the glass being half full, not half empty all the time. I’m confident that we will reach some kind of an arrangement.”

Some are just incredulous. Count moderate Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) in that bunch.

“I don’t understand it,” Snowe said Tuesday. “I cannot conceive that we could be dismissive in any way of the traumatic effects this potentially could have, creating enormous upheaval both in the financial markets, personally with Americans … as well as the political consternation among the American people about the lack of ability to solve these problems.”

Snowe, however, won’t have to live with the outcome of whatever Congress does — she’s parachuting out of the Senate, retiring in part over frustration with gridlock.

For those left behind in Washington, there’s still a hefty distrust of institutions.

“When I was a young captain, we were heading out to Desert Shield/Desert Storm, Saddam Hussein said this would be the mother of all battles, everyone was concerned the United States military would not be able to fight open-desert warfare,” Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.) said. “I think it was 96 hours before we were done. My history is I don’t sit around listening to all the external influencers. I just try to make things happen.”

But Washington doesn’t exactly appear as if it will charge into fiscal cliff negotiations ready to compromise.

Instead of working vociferously to solve automatic cuts to defense and domestic programs that House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) says are “sending tremors” through his home state, this week has become a shouting match over whose idea it was to institute that so-called trigger.

The finger-pointing came even as top executives from several defense companies — such as Lockheed Martin, EADS North America and BAE Systems — warned in letters released Monday that they’ll distribute tens of thousands of layoff warnings due to uncertainty caused by the budget sequester.

Meanwhile, House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) said he won’t pass a bill to reform the near-bankrupt U.S. Postal Service because he sees “no opportunity for any compromise with the Senate based on the anti-reform bill that they passed.” Issa said he is waiting for presidential leadership. The postmaster general earlier this month, facing billions of dollars in losses, said Congress must act because the agency can’t stay afloat for long.

The farm bill is also a problem. The House still hasn’t passed its update to national agriculture policy. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack has tried to pressure Congress, and this week, that consternation hit the Elected Leadership Committee — the small power circle atop House GOP politics. Rep. Kristi Noem, a South Dakota freshman at the leadership table, made a stink about Congress’s inaction on the bill, according to several sources. As did other farm state lawmakers, including Rep. Rick Berg (R-N.D.). The National Farmers Union plans a rally Wednesday morning on Capitol Hill to urge Congress to pass a farm bill.

“I got a letter [on Monday] signed by approximately 20 of the leading farm organizations in the country. … And they said, ‘Please don’t do anything but the bill that passed the Senate,’” Reid told reporters on Tuesday, referring to the bill the upper chamber passed but the House ignored. “We’re at a stage now where it’s been a total failure — I’m sorry to use this term again — of the leadership in the House just to walk away from this, and that’s what they’re doing. There is no bill that’s come from the House. Nothing.”

House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) would only say it is his “intent” to get the bill done “as soon as possible,” declining to entertain whether that would be during this Congress. Boehner was asked about the farm bill as he exited his press conference Tuesday and did not answer.

Senate Democrats are more than eager to note that their chamber has voted to reauthorize the five-year farm bill and overhaul the financially ailing Postal Service. Both measures passed with more than 60 votes — a notable number in this continuously gridlocked Senate, members say.

“If you pass anything on a bipartisan basis, it has some credibility,” Durbin said. “What [House Republicans] are doing is jamming through one political message after another.”

Boehner and his Republican troops have repeatedly argued that the GOP-led House has already moved to pull back the nation from the fiscal cliff — putting the onus on the Democratic-led Senate and the Obama administration.

“In the House, we’ve been way ahead of those warnings,” Rep. Kevin Brady (R-Texas) said Tuesday. “The reason the House already acted to deal with the fiscal cliff, the automatic spending cuts and the tax issues is because we don’t want to wait until the end of the year. They’re confirming what I think we already have been preaching for quite some time.”

Democrats don’t think much of House-passed plans, dismissing them as red meat for the party’s base. House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said he hadn’t “read Moody’s observations,” but credit rating agencies are afraid that Washington lacks intellectual honesty to deal with big issues.

Rep. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) said he doesn’t think Washington is deaf to outside warnings.

“I think we all should care about what Moody’s says,” Scott said. “Our disposition, or the lack thereof, on the financial cliff is going to cost us. If we were not the reserve currency of the world, what would it look like? Literally, we keep throwing money into the economy, and all that really does is cause the stock market to go up and you have a jobless recovery because more money in the economy only goes to the market because there’s no other place to go.”

© 2012 POLITICO LLC

GOP to Todd Akin: We’re done with Missouri

By: Manu Raju

September 11, 2012 11:23 PM EDT

Texas Sen. John Cornyn doesn’t want to talk about Missouri Senate candidate Todd Akin.

“We’re done,” Cornyn, chairman of the powerful National Republican Senatorial Committee, responded when asked whether the committee would reverse course and spend money to help Akin if he stays in the race.

“As far as I’m concerned, that’s up to the people of Missouri,” he added. “I’ve done everything I know how to do.”

As Akin begins to build a campaign operation focused heavily on turning out conservatives, Republicans in Washington are starting to put their cash elsewhere, resigned to the increasing likelihood that they will be stuck with a candidate they fear has no chance against Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.).

After scrapping a planned $5 million TV ad blitz in Missouri, the NRSC has shifted its focus to states like Maine, where the party committee will unveil Wednesday a $600,000, two-week ad buy to prop up Republican Charlie Summers in a three-way race led by independent Angus King. The high-spending Republican outside group, Crossroads GPS, canceled the last of its planned Missouri ads on Tuesday, scrapping the $2.3 million it wanted to use to attack McCaskill. And Republicans began to focus on once-ignored states that could be crucial to their path to the majority, such as the suddenly competitive race in Connecticut.

On top of that, Republican officials say Akin — a devout Christian conservative — has informed them that his decision to run is being guided by faith and belief in God. That means, they say, there’s little chance he’ll get out.

“It’s all theological for him,” said one Republican House member who knows Akin well but asked not to be named.

Akin and his team reject the notion that he’s a one-note candidate who can only appeal to religious conservatives and the anti-abortion community, pointing to Tuesday’s endorsement from the Missouri Farm Bureau. They say his fiscal conservative positions and views on the economy are well within the Missouri mainstream.

“People all over the state” are encouraging him to remain in the race, Akin told a swarm of reporters Monday.

Akin said he’s heard this time and again from voters: “‘We’ve already voted. The party bosses want to put anyone else in. Don’t you give up; you stay in there and you fight.’”

Indeed, the moves by national figures to get Akin out of the race have infuriated his supporters. Akin won his hard-fought Senate primary, they say, and he has apologized profusely for his comments on rape and pregnancy last month.

Still, there are signs that his campaign is financially stretched. A $225,000 ad buy that was slated to run until last week was stretched out into this week, meaning fewer commercials over a longer time frame. In the meantime, McCaskill has been pounding the airwaves with $500,000 per week in ads, including recent commercials branding herself as a moderate.

Akin’s team recognizes the disparity but is banking on hopes that money will pour in once it’s clear he’s in the race to stay; the deadline to get off the ballot is Sept. 25. They don’t believe the national groups’ threats that they will stay out of a competitive race that could determine the Senate majority. And they plan to launch a new ad campaign in the fall targeting voters put off by McCaskill’s support of much of President Barack Obama’s agenda.

“If we can replace an adequate amount of money and generate a genuine grass-roots campaign, we will beat Claire McCaskill because this is ultimately a referendum on her,” said Rick Tyler, a top adviser to Akin. “However, having said all that, I believe the national money will come back.”

If it doesn’t, Tyler said: “I don’t think the Republican Party will lose the Senate because of Todd Akin. They will lose the Senate majority because they don’t want to defend conservative principles.”

Still, even loyal conservatives who have done battle with Washington Republicans aren’t yet coming to Akin’s rescue. Utah Sen. Mike Lee, a tea party favorite who has worked to promote conservative Senate candidates this cycle, said he has no plans to get behind Akin. Same with Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), the staunch conservative who has long battled with his leadership.

“I have not been involved in that race, so I’m not really going to get involved,” DeMint said.

DeMint declined to say whether he agrees with his party’s decision to abandon Akin. Likewise, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell — who has called on Akin to step aside — refused Tuesday to comment on the congressman’s candidacy.

“He’s still got some time; he’ll have to decide whether he’s going to get the money and the support he needs to make this happen,” said Missouri Sen. Roy Blunt, who has urged Akin to quit.

The 65-year-old, six-term congressman’s uncomfortable position in the party started last month when he was asked about his opposition to abortion in the cases of rape. He responded that when “legitimate rape” occurs, it rarely leads to pregnancies.

Since then, Akin has been on an apology tour, though Republicans from Missouri to Washington believe the comments were a fatal blow to his candidacy.

Akin has until Sept. 25 to obtain a court order to get off the November ballot so the state party can pick a replacement. In reality, he’d have to start the process by next week because military and overseas absentee ballots are sent out on Sept. 22.

But it’s all a moot point, Akin says.

“I’m not getting out; I made that really clear,” Akin told reporters Monday.

Polls since Akin’s rape remarks have put McCaskill up by as much as 10 percentage points, though one Democratic pollster recently showed Akin down by 1 point. Republicans believe that McCaskill and Democrats have tried to avoid making the rape comments a bigger campaign issue in order to keep him in the race until the Sept. 25 deadline. McCaskill’s team denies that.

Asked about the race Tuesday and whether Akin has a shot to win even with GOP groups staying out, McCaskill demurred.

“I’m not going to talk politics on that,” McCaskill told POLITICO. “I’m going to try to get through the 25th and not talk about it.”

Akin made a brief appearance in the Capitol on Monday before heading back to Missouri. He barnstormed conservative parts of the state Tuesday, meeting with college students in Fulton, shaking hands with voters at a cafe in Ozark and attending a rally at Christian County Republican headquarters in Nixa.

Akin’s campaign says it has collected $425,000 in online contributions since mid-August, but aides acknowledge they’ll need much more to remain competitive with the well-financed McCaskill.

Social conservative groups like the Family Research Council and politicians such as Mike Huckabee have come to Akin’s defense, something that could help in a state with swaths of evangelical voters. And he has long-standing ties to the social conservative world, including his former chief of staff, Rob Schwarzwalder, who is a senior vice president at the Family Research Council.

All of this has left some of Akin’s House colleagues nervously watching the fallout.

“I think, quite frankly, that we as a ticket are not going to be helped by him being on the ticket,” said Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-Mo.). “How much it will hurt us down the road will depend on how the campaign plays out between he and Claire. At this point, it appears that there’s a negligible amount of damage so far to the rest of the ticket, but we’ve got a lot of campign to go here — so we’ll see what happens.”

© 2012 POLITICO LLC

Mitt Romney finesses Afghanistan plans

By: Josh Gerstein and Ginger Gibson

September 11, 2012 06:35 PM EDT

RENO, Nev. — Mitt Romney’s public positions on the war in Afghanistan have usually boiled down to this: He won’t do what President Barack Obama has done.

But in a speech Tuesday, he seemed to endorse the broad outlines of Obama’s policy.

(PHOTOS: Sept. 11 remembered)

Romney has been under fire from both ends of the political spectrum for offering vague positions on health care, taxes and foreign policy — and for omitting Afghanistan entirely from his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention.

He had a chance to draw some clear distinctions with Obama on Tuesday during a speech to the National Guard Association. Instead, the GOP presidential nominee soft-pedaled his critique, citing the Sept. 11 anniversary.

“I would normally speak to a gathering like this about the differences between my and my opponent’s plans for military and for our national security. There is a time and place for that, but this day is not that,” Romney said. “It is instead a day to express gratitude to the men and women who have fought — and who are still fighting — to protect us and our country.”

(50 PHOTOS: Ground zero reborn)

In his brief discussion of Afghanistan, Romney appeared to support the general thrust of Obama’s policy to hand over control of security to Afghan forces by 2014, though the former Massachusetts governor added some nuances that reflect criticisms of Obama’s policy in Republican foreign policy circles.

“While the war in Iraq is over, nearly 70,000 American troops will still remain in Afghanistan at the end of the month. Our goal should be to complete a successful transition to Afghan security forces by the end of 2014. We should evaluate conditions on the ground and solicit the best advice of our military commanders,” Romney said.

Many analysts said Romney’s speech echoed the current U.S. policy.

“I believe Romney is clear enough for us to discern that he is very close to Obama on key policy issues for Afghanistan, especially on troop drawdowns, and that he has no particularly fresh ideas on second-order issues (or perhaps he’s accurately surmised the country doesn’t want to hear about it even if he does),” Michael O’Hanlon of the Brookings Institution said in an e-mail.

Gretchen Peters, an author who has written extensively about militant groups in Afghanistan and Pakistan, said the speech “sounds like he supports Obama’s plan, but wants to create wiggle room for himself. It’s a bit wishy washy.” Peters said she’s “left feeling like I don’t really know what Romney plans to do — kind of like what pundits have said about his tax policy.”

(Also on POLITICO: Sept. 11: No pause in 2012 campaign)

Conservative foreign policy experts also called for greater specificity from Romney, even as they praised his speech.

“I thought it a good speech overall, and the Afghanistan discussion was probably sufficient for the occasion,” said Bill Kristol, editor of the “Weekly Standard” and one of the voices on the right most critical of Romney for overlooking Afghanistan at the GOP convention.

“The issue isn’t one good or bad paragraph or one good or bad speech. It’s the overall attitude of the Romney campaign to foreign policy and war policy: Is it a distraction to be dealt with as expeditiously as possible, or is it taken seriously as a core responsibility of the president — and the presidential candidate?” Kristol asked.

Romney allies pointed to subtle differences with Obama in the Tuesday speech, such as referring to the 2014 date as a “goal” rather than a firm deadline. And some analysts thought his talk of a “successful” transition signaled a move toward committing to victory in Afghanistan.

“This was a graceful speech on a day when national unity matters,” said Kori Schake, a Hoover Institution fellow who was a top foreign policy adviser on Sen. John McCain’s presidential campaign in 2008. “The Romney campaign looks to be trying to shift [the] emphasis to, ‘Hey, we’ve got to succeed at this.’”

The American Enterprise Institute’s Danielle Pletka said the differences were nuanced but important. “He doesn’t suggest as the president repeatedly has that our goal is really to exit in 2014, to get out of Afghanistan,” Pletka said. Obama “never talks about what we seek to achieve in Afghanistan. He talks about bringing the troops home and nation building at home.”

But if “victory” and conditions on the ground were the only factors, Romney could have omitted the 2014 date entirely and committed to see the war through no matter what. Instead, he signed on to the 2014 timeframe, while packaging it somewhat differently.

“It looks to me like he’s trying to thread the needle, opening up conditionality without leaving himself open politically to what McCain faced in 2008: claims he was endorsing an endless war that nobody wants to fight,” Schake said.

While Romney has not routinely endorsed the 2014 date when discussing Afghanistan, he has sometimes said it seemed like a reasonable timeline.

At a primary debate in South Carolina last November, Romney criticized Obama for pulling surge troops out too quickly, but the GOP candidate didn’t quibble with Obama’s basic schedule.

”The timetable, by the end of 2014, is the right timetable for us to be completely withdrawn from Afghanistan, other than a small footprint of support forces,” Romney said then. Obama has also endorsed a small U.S. force to train Afghan troops and carry out counterterrorism operations.

Asked in advance of Tuesday’s speech to provide all details available on Romney’s policy position on Afghanistan, his campaign produced a two-bullet point explanation that boiled down to working more diligently with the governments in Afghanistan and Pakistan and conducting a study on what strategy the U.S. should be pursuing in the region.

But calling for a study departs from the more traditional, muscular Republican approach to national security issues. The Bush administration opposed most such proposals during its tenure but relented under pressure in a few instances.

Obama undertook a similar policy review in the fall of 2009. It resulted in him ordering a surge of 32,000 troops.

The second point provided by Romney’s campaign says that he would work with the Afghan and Pakistani governments “to ensure that those nations are fully contributing to the success of our mission.”

Some analysts have suggested Romney is caught between the divergent views of two constituencies whose support he needs to win in November: Republican foreign policy elites who favor keeping a robust U.S. presence in Afghanistan to pursue a resounding victory over the Taliban and Al Qaeda, and tea party faithful who favor sharply cutting government spending and foreign entanglements.

Another complication: Polls show that a vast majority of Americans, including moderate swing voters Romney hopes to pull into his camp, favor winding down the nearly-11-year-long war.

Romney’s first high-profile stumble on Afghanistan came not at the Republican convention, but more than a year ago as the GOP primary fight was just getting underway.

At a debate in New Hampshire in June 2011, Romney annoyed and baffled GOP hawks with an answer that garbled the U.S. justification for the war and seemed to lean toward ending it.

“It’s time for us to bring our troops home as soon as we possibly can — as soon as our generals think it’s OK,” Romney said. “One lesson we’ve learned in Afghanistan is that Americans cannot fight another nation’s war of independence.”

In the months since, Romney has usually tried to turn questions about his position on Afghanistan into attacks on Obama’s leadership. Asked about his policy for Afghanistan at a town hall in Goffstown, N.H. on Aug. 20, Romney didn’t explain his own views but criticized Obama for not giving enough speeches on the progress of the war.

“Other presidents have done this, we haven’t heard this president do this,” Romney said. “He ought to be reporting to their parents and their communities and the people of America.” Romney vowed to give more speeches about Afghanistan if elected.

Most of the time if he mentions Afghanistan specifically, Romney just offers prayers and thoughts for the troops. He often asks who in the crowd is a veteran and thanks those who raise their hands for their service.

“Our troops have been stretched to the breaking point in the conflicts they’ve been enduring, and our hearts go to those that are in far-off places today particularly those in Afghanistan who are in harm’s way. We love them, we respect them, we honor their sacrifice,” Romney said at a rally on Saturday in Virginia Beach.

Pletka said she expects the details of Romney’s Afghanistan policy — and the weaknesses of Obama’s — won’t be on full display until the debates between the two men next month.

“I don’t think one speech is enough to reassure anyone or frankly to alarm anyone” she said. “I’ll be honest. I’m just waiting for the debates. That’s where we’re really going to get a sense of where they differ. It’ll force them to really go mano-a-mano and flesh things out to our satisfaction.”

Ginger Gibson reported from Reno, Nev. Josh Gerstein reported from Arlington, Va.

© 2012 POLITICO LLC

Freshmen give in to business as usual on CR vote

By: Kate Nocera

September 11, 2012 11:44 PM EDT

The House freshmen are growing up.

The days of battling with leadership over spending levels and controversial riders, and threatening a government shutdown seem to be relics of the past as Congress prepares to once again pass a temporary resolution that punts everything into next year.

This isn’t exactly what the rebellious rookies signed up for.

These conservatives, who had pledged to stand firm and change the way Washington does business, seem resigned, if not accepting, of the fact they’ll probably vote “yes” on a spending deal that actually increases spending by $8 billion. It may be the last meaningful vote before they face voters for reelection.

“A lot of this fight was fought last summer,” said Rep. James Lankford (R-Okla.). “I’m still a strong believer there’s a lot more that can be cut and should be cut. But is this as much blood as we can get out of this turnip? Probably.”

Lankford said he is “leaning yes” on the continuing resolution, and insists conservatives in the House did the best job they could in dealing with a Democratic Senate and president.

The “blame the Senate” message was echoed by a number of freshmen. Despite all their pledges to fight against Washington, they’ve come around to at least one Capitol Hill truism: We’ll do it after the election.

“I’m a little more patient, but that doesn’t mean I’m not hardheaded,” said Rep. Jeff Landry (R-La.), who said he’ll decide Thursday on which way he’ll vote. “I just think a lot of people have recognized that until we change the leadership in the Senate or get a different mind-set over there, we can’t move the country forward. So all of us are going home to say our novenas.”

The goal of the CR, which has a slightly higher $1 trillion spending level for the new fiscal year, is to avoid a government shutdown and push bigger budgeting decisions into the next Congress. House conservatives pushed for the six-month deal, and with their fingers crossed, hope Republicans will win the Senate and the White House in November when they would then be able to move their agenda through.

“We don’t like dealing with CRs either, but when you can’t get a budget done in the Senate and you can’t get appropriations bills in the Senate, this is what you’re left with,” said Rep. Bill Johnson (R-Ohio). “It’s the only option to keep the government from shutting down, and we aren’t going to let the government shut down. The House has done its job, it’s the Senate we can’t get cooperation from and it’s unfortunate that we’re in this situation.”

Unfortunate, yes, say Democrats who have long argued that all the can-kicking blame rests squarely on the shoulders of House Republicans, specifically the more conservative members of the conference. Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said on Tuesday that the CR is a “noncontroversial” bill, but only because Republicans came to a “previously agreed upon” spending figure after almost two years’ worth of fighting against compromises on a number of issues.

“They walked away from compromises on the continuing resolution — not all of them — keeping government open twice in 2011. Essentially a lot of them walked away from the debt limit,” Hoyer said.

There are still some freshman Republicans who are grumbling that the spending level is around $8 billion higher than last year. Rep. Tim Huelskamp (R-Kan). said he is still undecided on which way he’ll vote but the increase agreed to by party leaders, which is around 0.6 percent higher, is tough to swallow.

“The fact that they had to do this across-the-board-spending increase in order to get up to the level they agreed to really caught my eye,” Huelskamp said. “And would catch my constituents’ eye if I went home and said, ‘Oh, by the way, we were really serious about cutting spending, but we did an across-the-board-spending increase just to get out of town.’”

But even he conceded this might not be the moment to put up a fight.

“We don’t want a budget issue like this in lame duck, and sometimes you have to be willing to maneuver a little bit to avoid something that most Americans [don’t want],” Huelskamp said. “They don’t like the idea of a lame-duck Congress or a lame-duck president making big decisions. The fewer decisions in November or December, I think is the priority for me.”

That’s not to say there won’t be at least a few holdouts in the party. Rep. Justin Amash (R-Mich.) said he doesn’t plan to support the CR, but said there is a lot of conservative support for the deal and he might be only one of a few who will oppose it.

“I think the two parties need to actually compromise rather than just talk about compromise,” he said. “And when we pass short-term CRs and keep running government at the same levels without either side giving anything, to me that’s not compromise, that’s just kicking the can down the road.”

© 2012 POLITICO LLC

3 Senate races lurk as potential sleepers

By: David Catanese

September 11, 2012 11:23 PM EDT

The big battleground races that will decide control of the Senate are settled and will probably stay that way — Brown-Warren in Massachusetts, Kaine-Allen in Virginia, Mandel-Brown in Ohio, to name a few.

But what makes this cycle so hard to predict is the possibility of a second-tier surprise, an upset in a state that everyone thought was securely in the Republican or Democratic column.

Here’s a look at a trio of races to keep an eye on for that possibility, because of slip-ups or better-than-expected performances by candidates. To be clear, the odds are stacked against an upset in any of the three, but the favored candidates have recently found themselves unexpectedly on their toes.

1. Connecticut

Linda McMahon is coming off a 12-point loss in an open-seat Senate race in the best GOP year in decades — after dropping $50 million of her own money. But all the cash and rebranding in the world can’t scrub away the unflattering images of her time as president of World Wrestling Entertainment.

Yet a string of polling in the Nutmeg State shows her to be fighting third-term Democrat Rep. Chris Murphy to a virtual draw in the race to replace retiring Sen. Joe Lieberman.

Unlike Sen. Richard Blumenthal — McMahon’s 2010 opponent — Murphy lacks a statewide profile. A third of voters in a recent Quinnipiac University survey said they haven’t heard enough about him to register an opinion.

That makes the timing of the recent revelations about the congressman’s 2007 home foreclosure and 2003 delinquent rent payment even more problematic.

“His unknowns are high and she can define him. She polls well in his district so she can steal a lot of votes. She’s running more in the middle than anything and is not publicly taking stands,” said Michael Fontneau, who was field director for Chris Shays’s unsuccessful primary campaign against McMahon. “I think it will be a lot closer than most think.”

Even members of Murphy’s team, which just switched media consultants, are aware they need to begin closing the gaping 5-to-1 spending disparity that McMahon has enjoyed on the airwaves. To help, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee is transferring funds from New Mexico for a targeted ad flight slated to begin Wednesday, according to a source.

“The race is certainly competitive,” acknowledged one Murphy adviser. “A boatload of money ought to buy her something.”

2. Indiana

Republican Richard Mourdock hasn’t morphed into the Sharron Angle-like candidate Democrats were hoping for.

But the state treasurer finds himself limping into the fall homestretch after a barrage of Democratic ads over the summer framed him as an unyielding hyperpartisan.

The onslaught has kept Rep. Joe Donnelly in the game and forced Mourdock into a grittier fight than expected.

“We’re no longer in a position to put this away by Oct. 1 because the Democratic groups pounced and the Republicans didn’t. We had to reload and now the cavalry is coming,” said a GOP operative involved in the campaign.

In fact, it was only last week that pro-Mourdock spending surpassed pro-Donnelly forces on the airwaves, according to a media tracker.

Mourdock has also begun a tactical shift to the center, enlisting Republican Lt. Gov. Becky Skillman to vouch for his ability to work constructively with members of both parties.

That’s quite the reversal from the blustery, take-no-prisoners approach he vowed after his May primary win over Sen. Dick Lugar. Mourdock insisted at the time that “less bipartisanship” was needed on Capitol Hill.

But the recalibration hasn’t been entirely smooth. During a campaign event Monday with Oklahoma Sen. Tom Coburn, Mourdock couldn’t name a Democrat he could work with.

Mourdock’s camp is preparing a harder line of attack against Donnelly once it emerges from the field with fresh polling next week. But the Blue Dog Democrat has shown to be surprisingly resilient against tags that he’s too liberal or too close to the president.

Donnelly’s biggest challenge is outperforming Barack Obama and gubernatorial candidate John Gregg, who are both on pace to lose the Hoosier state by high single digits.

3. Maine

Judging by sheer polling, Maine ranks pretty far down the list of states where Republicans might pull an upset. By all appearances, the race is former Gov. Angus King’s to lose.

But the National Republican Senatorial Committee’s decision to spend a half-million dollars there — a development first reported by Hotline On Call — is the latest indication Republicans see a potential opening in the three-way race.

The once-gargantuan polling lead of King — running as an independent, but who both sides assume would caucus with Democrats — has been shaved enough to stir the interest of outside groups backing Republican Secretary of State Charlie Summers.

Karl Rove is prodding GOP donors to ask retiring Sen. Olympia Snowe for their money back in order to help Summers and a source close to his conservative behemoth, American Crossroads, tells POLITICO “there’s a growing level of interest of getting involved.”

“It’s not certain it will materialize, but it looks better than it did before,” the source added.

But Summers backers have a tricky task. First they need to boost Democrat Cynthia Dill, who’s lagging in single-digit territory, into the mid-teens. Then they need to knock King down to size and prop up Summers.

King’s ad man, Dan Payne, wouldn’t speculate on the efficacy of such a strategy but didn’t doubt Republican wherewithal to try.

“They’ve got so much money sloshing around they could run attack spots in France,” Payne mused.

Another Democratic operative, privately supportive of King, said he is more than happy to see Republicans throw money at a “ridiculous pipe dream.”

© 2012 POLITICO LLC

GOP infighting as farm bill suffers

By: David Rogers

September 11, 2012 06:23 PM EDT

With farmers rallying at the Capitol Wednesday and the Senate showing no appetite for disaster aid substitutes, divisions are surfacing more among House Republicans over their leadership’s decision to block action on a five-year farm bill.

Fresh from the summer recess, farm state lawmakers set off what was described as a spirited discussion at Monday’s meeting the GOP whip team, and the echoes continued at a Tuesday session of the full Republican conference.

Freshman Rep. Rick Berg (R-N.D.), who has been hurt politically at home by the farm bill impasse, helped to trigger the whips’ discussion. But grayer heads—and traditional team players— backed him up including Reps. Tom Cole (R-Okla.) and Randy Neugebauer (R-Tex.), as well as House Agriculture Committee Chairman Frank Lucas (R-Okla.)

“Members had been home. People know the clock’s ticking,” Cole said of the exchanges. “I believe we have a product ready to move,” he told POLITICO. “We have an opportunity to do something that is not partisan. I think we ought to do it.”

“Of the 100 agriculture districts in the House, 73 are in our hands. A majority of our conference would vote for it,” Cole said. “Politically it’s the smart thing to do and institutionally it’s the right thing. It may not be perfect but we ought to have the courage to put it on the floor and let Congress work its will.”

Neugebauer said his fellow conservatives demanding still greater cuts from food stamps were missing the point that the nutrition program will continue without change under the continuing resolution to be voted on Thursday, while the existing farm program will begin to unravel if nothing is done before Sept. 30.

“If you don’t do anything, the food stamps continue regardless of what you do on the farm bill,” Neugebauer said in an interview. “But if you let the farm bill expire on Sept. 30, the farm policy part of it expires, and you don’t get any reforms which were actually passed in a very bipartisan way out of the House Ag Committee.”

Berg, who met Tuesday as well with Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-N.D.), told POLITICO he remains frustrated but hopeful “there is a different momentum in the House from 24 hours ago.” And Cantor? “I certainly think he’s more attuned to it today,” Berg said.

Berg said his frustration was that House Republicans had been committed to an open, often messy debate on other topics but then pulled up short on the farm bill.

“To just say we’re going to stall and not do anything…This is not the way the process has to work here,” Berg said. “Farmers at home do their job. This is the House’s job.”

Lucas is keeping a low profile, and following on private talks with the House leadership at the Republican convention in Tampa, the chairman appears resigned to no action on his bill until after the election. Lucas spoke up in the whip’s discussion Monday but has shown no willingness to do more to challenge Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), who seems intent on running out the clock until after the election and then pushing for a one year extension of the current farm program.

“Every contingency is we’ll run the world on the other side of the election,” Cole said, describing the mindset for some inside his conference. “You can wait later and also lose the elections and do worse.”

The situation has most infuriated Senate Agriculture Committee Chairwoman Debbie Stabenow. And in a conference call with reporters Tuesday, the Michigan Democrat all but ruled out any action on an interim disaster aid package until the House shows some movement on the larger bill.

This could pose a real hardship for livestock producers caught in the devastating drought this summer. But Stabenow dismissed the short-term disaster aid bill passed by the House before the August recess as “wholly inadequate” and said she has seen “no desire by the House leadership to do anything” to broaden the coverage.

“This is just absolutely unacceptable,” Stabenow said of Boehner’s position on the farm bill. “In my time here—and this is my fourth farm bill—I have never seen a situation where a bipartisan bill came out of committee and was not taken up on the floor.”

“It’s very clear that farm country is overwhelmingly saying: just get the job done. The House should take the precious few days they have in session and act.”

“Just as every farmer and rancher has to get in the morning and do the job in front of them and not delay it, this is our job.”

© 2012 POLITICO LLC

My onshore obsession with 'Made in the USA'

By: Jennifer Granholm

September 11, 2012 11:32 PM EDT

I confess that I have an obsession.

I’m obsessed — obsessed — with cracking the code on how to get more manufacturing in the U.S.

As I began this column, I looked at the “made in” label on everything physically within reach. I’m typing on a Dell computer. Made in China. The J. Jill shirt I’m wearing? Made in India. My Timex watch? China. The ShoreTel phone on my desk? China. My Asics tennis shoes? China. It made me sad and frustrated that the products surrounding me right now undoubtedly support scores of jobs abroad. Good for those workers.

But what about us? Or, what about U.S.?

In scanning my work space, I did have one moment of fleeting joy: The Expo dry erase marker in my pencil cup was proudly stamped “Made in USA.” I immediately Googled the company and learned that they’re made by Sanford Corp. in Oak Brook, Ill. Owned by Newell Rubbermaid. A multinational company on the Fortune 500 with about 20,000 employees around the world. Yet these dry erase markers were still made in the U.S. It made me want to order more.

So when President Barack Obama at the Democratic convention last week said “we can create a million new manufacturing jobs in the next four years,” I was on my feet.

And I’m not alone. Admit it: You know you want it. You’re insatiable for it.

You want products stamped “Made in the USA.”

It just feels good to buy products made here. You want the quality. You want the jobs. But our purchasing options have been strangled by the global shift in manufacturing jobs to low-wage countries.

So here are eight policy suggestions to make the march to 1 million manufacturing jobs happen:

• Aggressively incentivize states to create industry clusters that make a good business case for those jobs to locate here;

• Offer low-cost access to capital to get factories built — try zero percent, guaranteed federal loans if you build a factory;

• Incentivize locals to assemble land for manufacturing and supplier parks;

• Reward states that create training sectors to dovetail with specific industry-driven advanced manufacturing skill needs;

• Reward states that streamline permitting for siting a factory;

• Offer a five-year federal tax moratorium for brand-new or reshored factories;

• Incentivize the repatriation of $1.7 trillion in multinational corporations’ offshore holdings by lowering the corporate tax on a one-time basis and put the hundreds of billions in resulting new tax revenues into capitalizing an infrastructure bank;

• Set specific Foreign Direct Investment goals for recruiting international companies to locate their manufacturing operations in America.

It was a great relief this week to find out that we’re not the only ones who want more U.S.-made products. The Washington Post reports on Sept. 9 that middle-class shoppers in Mexico are flocking to U.S. stores and products, and that U.S. exports to Mexico have exploded to $198 billion last year, up from $41 billion in 1993.

And there’s more: For the first half of 2012, U.S. exports set a record of $773.4 billion in goods. Thirty-four states saw new export records in this period, with transportation equipment and agriculture products leading the way. The U.S. is now on a pace to exceed the record $2.1 trillion in exports we saw in 2011.

Why? Because “Made in the USA” has become synonymous with quality and prestige — so much so that U.S. brands are status symbols in other countries.

Indeed, we have evidence that some American companies are starting to onshore their manufacturing. Back in February, the Boston Consulting Group surveyed 106 companies and found that 37 percent planned to bring jobs back. Anecdotal evidence suggests that these companies are reshoring after discovering that they need hands-on quality control; that shorter lead times are essential for changing consumer tastes and managing inventory; that wages are rising in so-called low wage” countries and that transportation costs are too volatile.

They have also discovered that the U.S. worker and American craftmanship are second to none, and quality and consistency are more important for retaining customers than a cheap price tag. Some smart businesses are making the smart business decision to c’mon home.

Now just imagine — imagine — what we could do if we had a national policy to encourage on-shoring on steroids?

The American Jobs Act introduced last year would offer businesses payroll tax incentives for hiring Americans, and covered 100 percent of business expensing for the year. Republicans in Congress have refused to move on this measure. President Obama has also proposed that we end tax incentives for companies that offshore jobs and profits. That’s an important start.

By contrast, GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney’s tax plan continues to reward the offshoring of U.S. jobs. Under Romney’s plan, a U.S. company that chooses to build overseas would be permanently free of U.S. taxes. For those companies that have already moved offshore, the same deal applies.

If we permanently exempt overseas profits like this, companies have even more incentive to take their investment elsewhere. Not only would Romney’s tax plan cost our Treasury more than $130 billion over 10 years for multinational corporate tax cuts, the Center for American Progress estimates, it would cost America approximately 800,000 jobs.

We need some healthier obsession, please — Congress: Can you lose a little more sleep over how to create good-paying advanced manufacturing jobs in the U.S.?

Then the rest of us can sleep a little easier in our bedrooms full of quality, American-made products.

Aaahhhh. “Made in the USA.” Are there any sweeter words?

Jennifer Granholm is the former governor of Michigan, serving from 2003 to 2011. She is now host of “The War Room” on Current TV. She is also a visiting public policy and law professor at the University of California, Berkeley. Follow her on Twitter @JenGranholm.

© 2012 POLITICO LLC

David Cicilline holds on in Rhode Island primary

By: Alex Isenstadt and David Catanese

September 11, 2012 10:07 PM EDT

Embattled Rhode Island Rep. David Cicilline easily held off a primary opponent on Tuesday, paving the way for what is expected to be a challenging general election.

With 79 percent of precincts reporting, Cicilline held a commanding 62 percent to 30 percent lead over Anthony Gemma, a wealthy plumbing executive. Cicilline, a freshman Democrat, will face Republican Brendan Doherty, a retired state police colonel, in November.

The race was the highest profile of the night, which saw two other states, Delaware and New Hampshire, hold primaries. In New Hampshire, which held a gubernatorial primary for the state’s open seat, the party favorites, Republican Ovide Lamontagne and Democrat Maggie Hassan, sailed to easy victories.

The three states brought an official close to the 2012 primary season.

Cicilline has come under fire over his tenure as Providence mayor, the job he held prior to being elected to Congress in 2010. At issue is his management of the city’s finances, and whether he painted too rosy a picture of the fiscal straits that Providence was facing while he was presiding over the city.

This spring, with public polls showing his approval ratings sinking, Cicilline went on an apology tour, saying that he had not been up front about the city’s challenges.

Gemma, who was runner-up to Cicilline in the 2010 primary, poured around $250,000 of his own funds into the race. But he was widely criticized for running an unfocused campaign, spending much of his campaign accusing Cicilline of engaging in widespread voter fraud. Local media accounts called the charges unsubstantiated.

Much of the state’s Democratic establishment rallied around Cicilline. Over the weekend, he campaigned with former Rep. Patrick Kennedy, Cicilline’s predecessor in the seat.

Cicilline has the advantage of running in a deeply Democratic district, which encompasses the eastern portion of the state. But his poll numbers have plummeted, leaving him vulnerable. A February poll conducted by WPRI news found him with just a 22 percent approval rating – perilous territory for an incumbent.

Republicans say they plan to aggressively challenge Cicilline over his mayoral tenure, painting him as a dishonest politician who has lost the public’s trust.

In New Hampshire, Lamontagne, an attorney who ran unsuccessfully for U.S. Senate in 2010, easily disposed of former state lawmaker Kevin Smith to clinch the Republican nomination. He’ll go on to face Hassan, who defeated former state Sen. Jackie Cilley in the Democratic primary.

The general election is expected to be one of the most competitive gubernatorial contests in the country, with both national parties likely to invest resources. The last public poll of the race in August placed Hassan just two percentage points ahead of Lamontagne.

The two are competing to succeed retiring Democratic Gov. John Lynch.

© 2012 POLITICO LLC

Capital gains: GOP lacks specifics on lower tax rates

By: Kelsey Snell

September 11, 2012 11:02 PM EDT

The investor community is closely watching how Congress will deal with big tax hikes on investment income that are set to go into place at the end of the year.

But while most of the focus has been on the partisan split between the two parties over the issue, Republicans have their own internal problems to resolve as GOP members search to define a party position beyond calling for a low rate.

The divide has been further highlighted by Mitt Romney’s decision to tap Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) as his running mate in his quest for the White House.

Ryan joined with tea party members last year in calling for the rates on dividends and capital gains to be completely eliminated for all taxpayers. That positions him to the right of many of his GOP colleagues, including Romney. Many lawmakers support the 15 percent rate for all taxpayers and Romney would keep it in place for individuals earning more than $200,000 each year.

This tension is expected to be on public display later this month if members of the House Ways and Means and Senate Finance committees follow through on a plan to hold a joint hearing on investment income before they leave town to campaign. The hearing has yet to be formally scheduled, and it could be put off until after the election.

The joint hearings are intended to show that Republicans and Democrats can at least get together to examine looming tax choices, but the one on investment income may instead serve to highlight the lack of unity among Republicans in advance of tough negotiations with Democrats later this year.

“[The GOP rate] remains to be seen,” said Sen. Orrin Hatch, the top Republican on the Finance Committee. “It’s like the death tax. I’d like to get rid of it completely but I don’t think the Democrats are going to let us do that. On capital gains, I’d like to keep them as low as we can.”

He said the party isn’t necessarily at odds; it’s just being realistic about what Democrats will agree to in any deal.

For their part, Democrats laid down a marker in July when the Senate voted 51-48 to freeze the 15 percent tax rate for most earners and allow rates to rise for all those earning more than $250,000.

House Republicans dismiss the idea that internal disagreements could prove problematic.

“[We’re] on the same page that we want [the rates] to be lower than they are,” said Ohio Rep. Patrick Tiberi, a top Republican on Ways and Means. “None of us individually gets to make that decision; it has to be collectively.”

Wall Street POLITICO is a weekly column looking at issues that drive business.

© 2012 POLITICO LLC

First delayed deportees OK'd

By: Jennifer Epstein

September 11, 2012 10:24 PM EDT

The Obama administration has begun approving young illegal immigrants’ requests to stay in the country under President Barack Obama’s deferred action program, the Department of Homeland Security said Tuesday.

Three months after Obama announced the program and one month after the department began taking applications, more than 72,000 people have made requests for two years of deferred action — which can be renewed — and a work permit. The department wouldn’t say how many requests have been approved thus far, just that the process of examining the applications has begun.

“This process will help DHS continue to focus immigration enforcement and ensure that resources are not spent pursuing the removal of low priority cases involving productive young people,” department spokesman Peter Boogaard said in a statement confirming the launch of the processing of applications.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and Obama announced the program in June, with the president arguing that it would make immigration policy “more fair, more efficient and more just” by offering reprieves to young adults brought into the country illegally as children.

Ending deportations of young people without criminal histories was a key part of the DREAM Act, legislation that Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and allies have tried to push through Congress for more than a decade. But with Congress yet again stalled on the measure, Obama too action where he could.

“This is not amnesty. This is not immunity. This is not a path to citizenship. It’s not a permanent fix,” the president said at a Rose Garden ceremony in June. “This is a temporary stopgap measure.”

The administration likely got well more than 72,000 requests, since some submissions requesting deferred action include applications from multiple people.

Though the earliest applications were approved within a month of their submission, Homeland Security expects that once the system is fully up and running, it will take four to six months for applications to be processed.

© 2012 POLITICO LLC

Rove disputes book’s claim he urged Komen retreat

By: Kathryn Smith and David Nather

September 11, 2012 11:05 AM EDT

A book by a former official at Susan G. Komen for the Cure alleges that Karl Rove told the charity to reverse its decision to end its cancer screening funding of Planned Parenthood — raising eyebrows among conservatives who wanted Komen to stand firm amid the uproar.

Rove says it ain’t so — but he won’t say what part ain’t so.

The book by Karen Handel, the former Komen vice president who resigned after the charity restored funding to Planned Parenthood, says Komen CEO Nancy Brinker told her that Rove said the organization should back down.

The book, “Planned Bullyhood,” went on sale Tuesday and is already getting attention for its depiction of Rove’s role. Handel describes herself as “stunned” when Brinker told her about Rove’s advice:

“If we blink now, it’s over and no one will know what Komen stands for,” I implored.

Nancy’s reply stunned me. “Karen, I’ve talked to a lot of people. And even Karl says we have to backtrack. There’s just no other way.”

“Karl? Who’s Karl?”

She looked at me strangely as if I should know exactly who she was talking about. She said, “Karl Rove!”

Rove pushed back against the book Tuesday. Through his chief of staff, Sheena Tahilramani, Rove said Handel’s book is “not accurate.” But he wouldn’t say whether that means the whole episode never happened, or just that Handel didn’t describe it exactly the way it happened.

“He has no interest in elaborating,” Tahilramani told POLITICO in a brief phone interview.

The account provoked comments from conservatives who have been skeptical of Rove in the past.

“Ever had concerns about Karl Rove? Add this to the list,” RedState’s Erick Erickson tweeted Tuesday morning.

FreedomWorks’s Dean Clancy simply tweeted, “not surprising” — and “Mr. Rove, call your office.”

Komen is still struggling to rebuild after the firestorm surrounding the Planned Parenthood  decision in February. Elizabeth Thompson left her position as president on Sept. 7, and Komen is currently searching for a new CEO. Once they’ve found one,  Brinker will move from her position to become chairwoman of the Komen Board Executive Committee.

In her account, Handel never quite takes the blame for the funding cutoff. She writes that Komen was under pressure to back away from Planned Parenthood and that she was assigned to look for options — but that the final decision was up to Brinker and Thompson, then Komen’s president.

“Komen had been under fire about Planned Parenthood for years, and the heat was intensifying,” Handel writes. “As we explored our options to transition out of our relationship with Planned Parenthood, various possibilities were identified and evaluated. I was specifically tasked with identifying these possibilities.”

“In the end, however, the decision rested with Liz and Nancy, with the board’s agreement,” she writes.

Handel said she never heard serious objections to the funding change. At a Nov. 28, 2011, board meeting, she wrote, “several board members asked questions. However, not a single one raised concerns about or objected to moving forward with the strategy and supporting criteria as of Jan. 1.”

In a statement, Komen spokeswoman Andrea Rader said Handel’s book “contains the author’s personal recollections and views about the organization and its leadership. We won’t comment on her personal views or her memory of events. We are moving forward and we are completely focused on our mission to end breast cancer and help women worldwide.

“The record is well-known: Nancy Brinker and Susan G. Komen for the Cure have done more for women facing breast cancer than any other individual or organization,” Rader said.

In the book, Handel suggests that Komen officials thought that Planned Parenthood wouldn’t put up a fight over the funding decision — and blames Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards for setting off the media firestorm.

“We believed we were working toward an amicable split — right up to the day Cecile deliberately lit the fire with the media,” Handel writes.

Handel also suggests that Komen was under pressure from outside organizations to steer funds away from Planned Parenthood — including the bishops of the Catholic Conference of Ohio, who issued a statement to “direct Catholic parishes and schools away from fundraising for Komen for the Cure and toward activities and organizations that are fully consistent with Catholic moral teaching.”

“It was a public relations disaster and it was spreading across the country, one diocese to the next, and generating significant media coverage,” Handel writes.

Handel still insists, however, that Komen never actually cut off Planned Parenthood. She sticks to the official line Komen used at the time — that it just changed the eligibility criteria for funds. Under the new rules, she writes, “Planned Parenthood would be ineligible for the time being … but it would not be permanently ineligible.”

“Komen was never ‘cutting off’ the Planned Parenthood grants. That was nothing more than Planned Parenthood propaganda,” she writes.

Early reports on the Rove comments appeared early Tuesday in Lifenews.com and the Daily Caller.

Kyle Cheney contributed to this report.

This article first appeared on POLITICO Pro at 11:01 a.m. on September 11, 2012.

© 2012 POLITICO LLC

Normalize trade with Russia

By: Charlene Barshefsky and Susan C. Schwab

September 11, 2012 09:20 PM EDT

When Congress left for its August recess, it neglected to act on a bill that could help support the U.S. economy and American jobs. Granting permanent normal trade relations to Russia would do just that — and has broad bipartisan support in the House and Senate.

Approving permanent normal trade relations (PNTR), coupled with graduating Russia from the Cold War-era Jackson-Vanik amendment, is necessary if the U.S. is to get all the economic benefits of Russia’s membership in the World Trade Organization. Russia formally joined the WTO on Aug. 22, following 18 years of negotiations — in which we each engaged while serving as U.S. trade representative.

This landmark achievement finally brings the world’s ninth-largest economy into the community of nations that have agreed to abide by international trade rules and procedures. In addition to lowering many tariffs, the Russians have agreed to comply with international standards on intellectual property protection and to abide by the WTO’s rules and dispute-settlement procedures, as well as many other market-opening provisions.

Until Congress approves PNTR, however, and graduates Russia from Jackson-Vanik, the U.S. cannot claim all the benefits of having Russia take on the obligations that come with WTO membership. Meanwhile, the other 150-plus WTO countries, including our biggest competitors, will most likely press their advantage in the Russian market to land contracts and win new opportunities for their exporters — at the expense of U.S. workers, farmers, service providers and manufacturers.

The demand for foreign goods and services in Russia is strong and growing. It has an estimated $400 billion import market and is home to roughly 142 million people, about one-fifth belonging to a rapidly growing middle class.

The U.S. has “underperformed” in the Russian market. Estimated U.S. exports of goods and services to Russia in 2011 reached $11 billion — making it only our 31st-largest goods export market.

There is clear opportunity for improvement — and PNTR is a prerequisite for progress. In fact, with PNTR, it is estimated that U.S. exports could double to $22 billion by 2017, providing U.S. workers, farmers and businesses a significant opportunity to expand their sales to Russia, supporting American jobs and helping to strengthen U.S.-Russia commercial relations.

This delay in both the House and the Senate has been particularly disappointing, given that the bill has received wide bipartisan support. The Senate Finance Committee approved it in July by a unanimous vote. Soon after, a House Ways and Means Committee voice vote was near unanimous.

With September here, and the pre-election congressional recess looming, the clock is running on a timely approval. We can put the most recent delay behind us — along with its negative impact on U.S. exports to the Russian market — but only if these few weeks do not stretch into several months or more.

Such a lengthy gap would create a significant economic disadvantage for the U.S. in the Russian market that could take years to turn around. It wouldn’t affect the Russians. Only U.S. businesses, farmers and workers would get hurt.

Quick approval of PNTR is clearly in the national interest. Congress should make it a priority and get it done in September without further delay.

Ambassadors Charlene Barshefsky and Susan C. Schwab are former U.S. trade representatives. Barshefsky served in the Clinton administration. Schwab served in the George W. Bush administration.

© 2012 POLITICO LLC

Too-familiar ring to Chinese devices

By: Michelle Quinn

September 11, 2012 11:33 PM EDT

SAN FRANCISCO — Apple is expected to unveil its latest iPhone on Wednesday, but the talk on Capitol Hill isn’t about Cupertino — it’s about China.

Lawmakers of both parties have long complained that China’s tech companies aren’t playing by the rules of fair trade.

The latest example is Goophone, a Chinese company that makes a device that looks and feels a lot like the iPhone 5, which Apple is expected to unveil Wednesday.

Some in Washington have seized on Goophone as the quintessential example of what is wrong with international enforcement of American intellectual property rights, the perils of a global supply chain and the barriers U.S. companies face when trying to access the Chinese market.

“China is in a whale of a fight if they think they can steal the iPhone,” Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), an iPhone user, told POLITICO. “This should be a warning to those seeking to manufacture in China to save a buck.”

Congress has held three hearings to address Chinese violations of intellectual property rights in recent months, and a key lawmaker said he would push for the issue to be raised during the U.S.-China Joint Commission on Commerce and Trade meeting later this year between top commerce officials in both countries. Meanwhile, the U.S. Trade Representative has been in discussions with Chinese officials over patent issues like those associated with Goophone, and both parties have agreed to “deepen” the dialogue.

As for sales of the Goophone, there is little Washington can do to prevent them right now short of igniting a trade war. However, lawmakers and regulators are narrowing their focal point to China’s growing use of patents — and insisting that those patents need to be of better “quality.”

China became the world’s top filer for patents last year, surpassing both the United States and Japan as it seeks to become known for not only manufacturing products but also designing them, according to a Thomson Reuters research report.

While Chinese companies are racing to accumulate patents, and the Chinese government seeks to improve its record on intellectual property, international property experts have criticized the quality of many of those patents as “junk.” These patents can be used by so-called patent trolls, who squat on the patents and wait to sue those who allegedly infringe.

“The manipulation of the patent system in China is an issue of growing concern and leading to a much more difficult business environment for American companies trying to do business there,” said Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee’s international property subcommittee. “It is important to increase pressure on the Chinese government to recognize the importance of intellectual property protections,” he said.

A spokesman for the USTR said the agency is “working to address” the issue “by ensuring that issues of patent quality are prominent in ongoing IP-related discussions between the U.S. and Chinese governments.”

But the Obama administration’s focus on working with Chinese regulators has frustrated some GOP congressional leaders.

“When people in China and other countries steal our intellectual property, it not only drains money out of our economy, it destroys jobs and slows the pace of innovation,” said Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.). “This new phenomenon of ‘patent trolls’ is just the latest example of what happens when the U.S. government looks the other way while America’s job creators are robbed of their hard-earned money. When you don’t stop bad behavior, you get more of it.”

Some Democrats say the frustration is misdirected.

“The administration has made it a priority to prevent these unfair Chinese business practices and ensure that they do not impede American innovation and economic growth,” said Rep. Doris Matsui (D-Calif.). “Meanwhile, we must continue to adopt policies that ensure U.S. patents, and our innovators are protected from copyright infringement.“

“We know China will use any means necessary to gain an unfair edge against American innovators and manufacturers, which is why a multipronged trade enforcement effort is required,” Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) said.

U.S. firms bear some responsibility, too. “Because a lot of U.S. companies discount Chinese intellectual property, they haven’t aggressively filed for Chinese patents,” said Colleen Chien, a law professor at Santa Clara University. “This practice has left them vulnerable, beaten in the race to the patent office by local patent speculators.”

Goophone, a little-known electronics firm that has supposedly copied Samsung products, vowed to block the iPhone 5 from the Chinese market with its patents for an iPhone lookalike, the Goophone I5, GizChina, a consumer electronics blog, reports. In a video announcing the product, a spokesperson says that “iPhone patents worldwide raised a big stick and has been the fault of global indignation.”

A representative of Goophone could not be reached.

Apple representatives did not return calls for this article.

With its threats against Apple, Goophone may simply be seeking publicity for its device in the days before Apple unveils its latest smartphone. It has been dubbed the “Frankenstein phone” because despite its apparent iPhone imitation, it uses Google’s Android as its operating system. Or it could be using patents to win a financial windfall before Apple’s iPhone 5 can begin selling in China.

The case has some precedent. Apple recently paid $60 million to Proview, a firm that claimed to own the iPad trademark in China.

Some see the Goophone announcement as commentary on the global patent war over the smartphone and Apple’s aggressiveness when it comes to defending its intellectual property. Last month, a jury in San Jose, Calif., awarded Apple more than $1 billion in its case against Samsung, which plans to appeal while Apple seeks to block Samsung products from the U.S. market.

The actions by Goophone are indicative of the kind of problems arising from a worldwide scramble by technology firms and others to grab international property rights, said Robin Feldman, a law professor at the University of California, Hastings and author of “Rethinking Patent Law.” In China, the avenues for recourse are not the same as those in the U.S., she said.

“In the U.S., this type of behavior would trigger claims of misappropriation of trade secrets,” she said. “China has a trade secret law, but since it doesn’t have a discovery system, it’s much more difficult to bring a trade secrets case.”

Patent trolls are an issue in the U.S. In August, Reps. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) and Chaffetz introduced the SHIELD Act to make those who sue pay litigation costs of a defendant in high technology cases.

“Chinese companies are no less litigious than the American ones,” said Ben Qiu, an attorney at Cooley in Shanghai. “More than 90 percent of IP infringement cases on the courts’ docket in China are between local companies. If patent trolls become a serious headache, the local companies would be hit at least equally hard.”

At hearings on the Hill recently, congressional leaders have quizzed trade officials about what is being done to protect U.S. firms doing business in China when it comes to intellectual property and patents. Goodlatte said his office was monitoring the Goophone issue and would push for patent and trade to be part of the discussion when the U.S.-China Joint Commission on Commerce and Trade meets later this year.

© 2012 POLITICO LLC

Weakening Violence Against Women Act betrays immigrant victims

By: Mark Shurtleff and Doug Gansler

September 11, 2012 09:20 PM EDT

All women who have lived through violence and abuse should have the certainty that the law will protect them — no matter their race, creed, color, religion or immigration status. Unfortunately, Congress is now considering proposals that would erode this certainty — and its failure to act is already causing harm.

We urge congressional leaders to move forward now to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act, without provisions harmful to immigrants.

As long-time law enforcement leaders, we know this act is crucial. Since passage in 1994, it has helped cut domestic violence by more than half. Still, the scourge of domestic violence remains a serious problem: One in four women experiences an act of domestic violence or sexual assault in her lifetime, and three women die every day at the hands of abusive husbands or partners.

Rates of trafficking women — often from one abusive context to another — are also alarmingly high. Roughly 100,000 survivors of human trafficking live in the United States today, according to the State Department, whose estimates suggest as many as 17,500 foreign-born victims are illegally brought in each year.

We need every available tool to fight these serious crimes, so we fully support reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act — but not in a dangerously altered form that would harm vulnerable immigrant women.

We don’t use “dangerously” lightly. When the House sought reauthorization, legislators made changes that dramatically roll back important protections for battered immigrant women and their children — leaving them vulnerable to abuse and, worse, death at the hands of an abuser.

Several House provisions would further endanger immigrant survivors of human trafficking and domestic abuse. These provisions would leave them no legal way to break the cycle of violence in which they are trapped and leave law enforcement no way to bring perpetrators to justice. The changes, for example, would discourage immigrant survivors from calling the police, for fear of immigration issues — so police can’t intervene and save their lives.

For many of these women, immigration status is one more weapon that abusers use to intimidate them. Abusers often threaten, “You can’t call the police. They’ll just deport you.”

Under the existing law, our response is clear: “He’s wrong. You’re safe.” If we certify that a victim was helpful to law enforcement during an investigation, she can seek special legal immigration status — known as a U visa.

But the House bill would make this visa temporary and take away an immigrant survivor’s incentive to come forward. “He’s wrong; you’re safe” would be replaced with the far less reassuring message “You’ll have to wait and see.”

What kind of person does the U visa help? Consider “Stephanie,” an immigrant living in Maryland who lacked work authorization. She had already been sexually harassed by work supervisors when a stranger followed her into a room in the building where she was working and tried to rape her. Stephanie was able to fight him off and immediately reported the incident to police, who found the man nearby and arrested him.

After reporting the terrible crime, Stephanie learned she would be eligible for a U visa for her cooperation with police and the state’s attorney. Her assistance helped get a rapist off the streets. Today, Stephanie has her U visa and is confident and self-supporting.

The House bill would silence thousands of women like Stephanie and derail our efforts to put their attackers behind bars. Worse, it would further endanger some of the very women whom the Violence Against Women Act is meant to help.

In late August, we received a reminder of reauthorization’s urgency. Our immigration authorities announced that they had reached the limit of 10,000 U visas for the current fiscal year, leaving a six-week gap before the new fiscal year brings a fresh allotment. In the meantime, lives are at risk.

The Senate’s bipartisan reauthorization bill would increase that visa limit to 15,000, a significant boost for law enforcement and public safety.

The law enforcement community now has 17 years of experience with the Violence Against Women Act and has used it successfully to combat human trafficking, sexual assault and domestic violence. We have relied on it to protect survivors of all stripes and hold their abusers accountable.

These abusers don’t differentiate by race, creed, color, religion or immigration status. In seeking justice for survivors, neither should we.

The House version of the Violence Against Women Act reauthorization seeks to turn a bipartisan concern for abuse survivors into a partisan wedge. Congress must not let partisanship stand in the way of our work to protect all women, and their families, from harm.

Mark Shurtleff, a Republican, is attorney general of Utah. Doug Gansler, a Democrat, is attorney general of Maryland.

© 2012 POLITICO LLC

GOP to Mitt Romney: You’re so vague

By: Jim VandeHei and Alexander Burns

September 11, 2012 09:25 AM EDT

Leading conservatives are offering blunt advice to Mitt Romney: Quit ducking details, start engaging in a real and specific war of ideas with President Barack Obama — or lose.

Here’s just a sampling of the past 24 hours:

• Rupert Murdoch, the most powerful voice in conservative media with The Wall Street Journal and Fox News under his control, said on Twitter that “Romney must draw clear line: offer specific path to restore American dream…To win, Romney must open big tent to sympathetic families. Stop fearing far right, which has nowhere else to go.”

(Also on POLITICO: The Kerry-ization of Mitt Romney)

• The Wall Street Journal editorial page, playing off Romney’s confusing answer about what if any parts of “Obamacare” he would retain as president: “Mr. Romney’s pre-existing political calculation seems to be that he can win the election without having to explain the economic moment or even his own policies. As this flap shows, such vagueness carries its own political risks.”

• In an open letter to Romney posted on the Weekly Standard, a publication hard-wired into the Paul Ryan operation, Peter Hansen wrote: “The assertion that you are more competent than President Obama strikes many people as merely that — an assertion. It would be supported by your speaking in more detail about a range of financial issues.

“It is still possible to convince voters that you will do a better job with the economy than President Obama has, but telling people you’re better qualified isn’t enough. To some extent, as writers are often told, you need to show it, not tell it.”

• Former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.), told The New York Times: “It is always difficult to run against a sitting president, but he does need to be clearer about what his vision is and what he would do. People are ready to vote against Obama, but Romney has not yet sold the deal. Now is the time to do that.”

(PHOTOS: Mitt Romney through the years)

• Conservative talk radio host Laura Ingraham: “Mitt Romney cannot at this point be convincing himself that he’s winning. I hope they’re not. I hope the Romney campaign actually knows what’s going on with these numbers. And I hope that the strategy that has been in place, which is basically raise a lot of money in the summer, but not hit back, but not offer a clear, substantive, three-point solution to this mess that we’re in — five-point solution — lay it out for the public. I don’t care if he has to go back to the PowerPoints that he used in the road shows when he was at Bain. That’s what he’s really good at.”

• Two prominent GOP strategists who have worked for Romney in the past, Alex Castellanos and Mike Murphy, have thrown up their hands on Twitter with apparent frustration at the trajectory of the Republican’s campaign. When Romney’s team put out a memo Monday urging reporters not to make too much of Obama’s post-convention poling numbers, Castellanos judged it “a bit weak. “romney can still win but few at bats left,” Castellanos tweeted, “still think an Obama 2nd term = disaster. just haven’t heard why Romney would be better. i remain hopeful.”

• Weekly Standard editor William Kristol knocked Romney for running a “pre-Ryan sort of campaign,” comparing the strategy to Michael Dukakis’s competence-not-ideology 1988 theme. “Mike Dukakis lost,” Kristol reminded Romney. “As the examples of Ronald Reagan in 1980 and Bill Clinton in 1992 suggest, successful challengers don’t just jab lightly, parry punches, and circle the ring. They go for at least a few knockdowns. It’s not enough to float like a butterfly. You have to sting like a bee. No sting, no victory.”

• In addition to the broadside from the Journal editorial page, former George W. Bush speechwriter William McGurn penned a separate column lamenting “the silence of the Republican lamb” – that would be Romney – on the war in Afghanistan. Democrats have pilloried Romney for not mentioning Afghanistan in his GOP convention speech, and McGurn shakes his head at the absence of in-depth war policy from Romney’s comments and campaign website. “Maybe that makes political sense, with unemployment stuck above 8% and the economy sputtering,” McGurn writes, calling that a “disservice” to the country on several levels. “It is, first, a disservice to the stronger foreign policy Mr. Romney is alleged to represent. Does he really believe, for example, that the Israelis will be encouraged and the Iranians deterred by expressions of resolve from a political leader so reluctant to bring up a war Americans are actually fighting? Silence is also a disservice to those whom we ask to do our fighting.”

• Former New York Gov. George Pataki, a Republican, said Tuesday on MSNBC: “As strongly as I support Governor Romney, we need to be better and sharpen our message more. We need to say something in simple terms, and one of the things I’ve been saying is take a position that a middle class family in Ohio sitting around the table can say, ‘Yes, Governor Romney’s going to do that and I agree with it.’ He has an excellent economic plan, but it’s 57 pages long, with so many points. We need to distill it down to a thing that’s simple to understand and that connects to people. And I think when it happens, the polls are close and we’re going to see that turn around.”

• In a weekend column, conservative pundit Jonah Goldberg branded the 2012 race as “The Campaign of Wrong Ideas vs. No Ideas.” Guess who the no-ideas candidate was. “After running to the right in the primaries and boldly picking Representative Paul Ryan as his running mate, Romney bizarrely seems to have retreated to an ideological and even intellectual crouch,” Goldberg wrote. “Though he doesn’t say it explicitly, the tone and tenor of Romney’s convention speech suggested that Obama failed because didn’t have the right resume, not because he has the wrong ideas … Listening to the Romney speech, you’d have no idea he picked a principled, fearless, and brilliant conservative lightning rod as a running mate.”

This is not a new concern: Before Romney picked Paul Ryan as his running mate, many of the same conservatives were lamenting the Romney strategy of showing very little leg when it comes to his policy plans, as a way to keep all eyes on Obama. The selection of Ryan, many of these conservatives assumed, meant Romney was prepared to scrap that plan and engage in an authentic, if high-risk, war of ideas. They assumed wrong.

Romney, according to people who have discussed the issue with him, did not pick Ryan because he suddenly changed his mind about the strategic risk of detailing his ideas. Instead, it was personal chemistry first and a belief that Ryan would be instrumental in a governing context second that ultimately sealed the deal. Still, that didn’t keep conservatives from hoping otherwise — and Romney and Ryan from sending mixed signals about their intentions to go all-in on policy debates, especially on restructuring Medicare. Initially, they promised a campaign of bold choices and substance. Since then, the campaign has very much settled into a pre-Ryan mind-set.

Why such reticence to go specific? Top campaign officials have explained it this way: In the modern political and media culture, with every day dominated by one side doing a better job than the other of pouncing on facts or, more often, on plausibly defensible distortions or lies, specificity is merely ammunition for the other guys.

Moreover, the officials believe voters are moved by big ideas — a bad economy or impulse for change. The Romney theory of the case for winning rests on voters turning against Obama because of the economy and then ultimately warming to Romney because they see him as a better-than-even bet to improve it.

In this context, a full-throated engagement on the laurels of injecting private competition into the existing Medicare system or detailing the loopholes to be eliminated to finance broad-based tax reductions for the middle class are a distraction — not a political asset.

It’s not clear the pressure from the leading voices on the right will do anything to change this.

Alexander Burns contributed to this story.

© 2012 POLITICO LLC

Paul Ryan buys TV ads for House race

By: Tarini Parti

September 11, 2012 04:01 PM EDT

Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan will spend $2 million on TV ads asking Wisconsin voters to send him back to the House of Representatives, POLITICO has learned.

Ryan’s congressional campaign manager Kevin Seifert confirmed that House Budget Committee chairman plans to spend $1.5 million on ads on local broadcast stations and cable in Milwaukee. The campaign will spend an additional $500,000 on ads in Madison between Oct. 18 and Nov. 6.

On the Milwaukee NBC affiliate alone, Ryan for Congress has already spent $65,000 on ad buys this month, according to records filed with the Federal Communications Commission. The ads will air from Sept. 12 through Sept. 25 on programs including local news broadcasts, Meet the Press, The Tonight Show, and Sunday Night Football.

The ads will be funded by his congressional campaign committee, which had $5.4 million in its coffers in July, before he was named as Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney’s running mate.

Ryan is facing Rob Zerban, a former Kenosha County official. Zerban had $558,000 in his campaign reserves in July, according to federal reports.

Zerban spokesperson Karthik Ganapathy said the campaign was not surprised to hear about Ryan’s ad buy.

“We knew this was coming for quite a while now,” Ganapathy told POLITICO. “He’s spending $2 million on ads this cycle in the district. That’s more than he has spent in the past. He’s clearly worried about something.”

Ganapthy said Zerban’s campaign has become more optimistic about their chances of defeating the seven-term congressman since he was named Romney’s running mate.

“We’ve seen a lot more media attention and money come in,” he said. “A lot of people are excited about the possibility of beating Paul Ryan.”

Ryan is allowed to appear on the ballot simultaneously as Mitt Romney’s running mate and as a House candidate, but cannot serve in both offices at the same time.Two Democratic VP candidates in recent years have appeared twice on the ballot — Joe Biden running for re-election to the Senate in Delaware in 2008, and Joe Lieberman running for re-election to the Senate in Connecticut in 2000. Both won their Senate races.

Ryan campaign manager Seifert told the Associated Press, which first reported the ad buys, that the first ad will focus on “the importance of electing leaders who are capable of advancing solutions that get America back on track and provide a prosperous future for our children and grandchildren.”

© 2012 POLITICO LLC

Barack Obama’s campaign against coal

By: Rep. Doc Hastings

September 11, 2012 09:20 PM EDT

During President Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign, he declared one of his energy goals was to “bankrupt” the coal industry by making electricity prices “skyrocket.” That policy statement kick-started the president’s continuing war on coal miners, their families and the millions of Americans who rely on affordable coal-fired electricity.

Since his election, the president has tried at every turn to make that goal a reality — ardently supporting a cap-and-trade national energy tax and imposing onerous regulations on coal production. The president and his administration are waging a war on coal.

The nonpartisan U.S. Energy Information Administration has all but confirmed the president’s aggressive war on coal with a report detailing a record number of coal-fired power plants to be closed this year — largely because of burdensome regulations and other compliance costs. Worse, 175 coal-fired power plants are scheduled to be shut down from 2012 to 2016, EIA estimated, requiring 27 gigawatts of electricity — enough to power 27 million homes — to be replaced by more expensive forms of energy.

The shuttering of record numbers of coal-fired power plants threatens thousands of the 555,270 direct and indirect coal-related jobs that help supply America with nearly half of its generated electricity and pay $36 billion in wages.

The House Natural Resources Committee has, over the past 18 months, aggressively investigated the Obama administration’s decision to rewrite a coal production regulation known as the 2008 Stream Buffer Zone Rule. This has been one of the most direct, yet covert, actions by the administration to destroy coal mining jobs and hurt coal production.

The Obama administration discarded a rule that underwent five years of environmental review and public comment; entered into a court agreement with environmental groups to rewrite the rule in an unachievable time frame; spent millions of taxpayer dollars and hired new contractors to do the rewrite; fired the contractors when it leaked that the revision would cost 7,000 jobs; attempted to manipulate data to conceal the true economic impact; and is now hiding its final rule from the public until after the election.

From Day One , the rewrite of this coal rule has been unorthodox. There now appears to be an administration-wide effort to hide from the American people what it is doing and the impact this regulation will most likely have on U.S. energy production, thousands of U.S. jobs and our economy.

The Obama administration has repeatedly refused throughout this investigation to fully comply with official requests and congressional subpoenas for documents that could shed light on the decision to forcefully rewrite a coal production regulation that will very likely have dire economic consequences.

The president’s war on coal knows no boundaries. Rewriting the 2008 Stream Buffer Zone Rule is just one example of the administration’s assaults on coal production and the millions of American jobs it supports. Last year, the Environmental Protection Agency retroactively revoked a permit for a coal mine in West Virginia. This attempt to destroy high-paying jobs at a coal mine, already officially approved, permitted and under way, was ultimately struck down by a federal judge.

The president likes to talk about supporting an all-of-the-above energy plan. But he embraces policies, regulations and mandates that specifically punish U.S. coal, oil and natural gas producers. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, when giving the administration’s definition of a national energy strategy at the Democratic National Convention last week, included many different types of energy. But he specifically excluded coal.

U.S. energy job creators need regulatory certainty and an open market to hire some of the 23 million Americans looking for work on this president’s watch.

Hardworking coal miners around the country shouldn’t have their livelihood vilified by the president — particularly when that livelihood is such an important contributor to the U.S. economy.

Americans deserve a true all-of-the-above energy plan that will help the unemployed get back to work, expand the economy, make the U.S. more energy secure and strengthen our economic competiveness.

Rep. Doc Hastings (R-Wash.) is chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee.

© 2012 POLITICO LLC

DOJ drops case against Rep. Vern Buchanan

By: John Bresnahan

September 11, 2012 06:32 PM EDT

Lawyers for GOP Rep. Vern Buchanan say the Justice Department has ended a criminal probe into the Florida lawmaker, including allegations that he improperly reimbursed former employees for contributions to his campaign committee.

The decision is a major boost for Buchanan, who has been targeted by Democrats and congressional watchdog groups throughout this election cycle.

”The Department of Justice today informed Congressman Vern Buchanan, R-FL, that it has closed its investigation of all allegations against him and will not bring any criminal charges,” said a statement from Buchanan’s reelection campaign. “The chief of the DOJ’s public integrity section, Jack Smith, advised Buchanan’s lawyers today of DOJ’S conclusions and authorized them to make today’s announcement.”

“As we stated from the beginning, any fair-minded inquiry into these allegations would establish that Congressman Buchanan never engaged in wrongdoing,” added Robert Luskin, Buchanan’s attorney.

Buchanan cooperated fully with the criminal probe, first reported in Oct. 2011 by the Bradenton Herald. The New York Times disclosed in February that a federal grand jury was hearing evidence in the case.

Buchanan was never directly interviewed in the case by federal investigators, said sources familiar with the probe.

Buchanan’s former business partner, Sam Kazran, has repeatedly claimed that the third-term lawmaker directed him to repay employees for the donations from 2005-07. Buchanan has vehemently denied Kazran’s assertions.

Kazran, who co-owned a Hyundai auto dealership with Buchanan, has sued Buchanan for allegedly reneging on a business deal, causing $40 million in losses.Buchanan counter sued, claiming his former partner failed to repay a $3 million loan. Both civil cases are still moving forward.

The House Ethics Committee has also looked into this case, but the secretive panel declined to launch a full-scale investigation, although it did not drop the matter entirely either. It remains under review by the Ethics Committee with no timetable for further action.

© 2012 POLITICO LLC

The GOP war on the Voting Rights Act

By: William Yeomans

September 11, 2012 09:20 PM EDT

In 2006, Congress reauthorized Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act with nearly unanimous Republican support. In 2012, Republican officials declared war on minority voting and have challenged the constitutionality of Section 5 — which requires states and localities with egregious histories of voting discrimination to seek federal approval before making any election changes — in multiple court cases. What happened?

Consider: Republican support among African-Americans for presidential nominee Mitt Romney finally hit zero in a recent NBC/Wall Street Journal poll and the GOP’s strength among Latino voters is nearly as anemic. These numbers make minority voters, sadly, irresistible targets for Republican vote suppression efforts. Legal battles over when ballots can be cast and whose votes will be counted, The New York Times reported Monday, could substantially affect the outcome of 2012 elections.

In many states, only the Voting Rights Act is standing in the GOP’s way. Rather than showing respect for the voting rights of minorities and winning their votes with appealing policies, Republicans appear to have instead decided to try to expel them from the electorate and attack the biggest legal obstacle to their expulsion — the Voting Rights Act.

The rights of minority voters, however, are not fair game in partisan battles. Partisanship must not be allowed to trump equal opportunity in voting. Republicans have whipped up a phony frenzy over the extent of voter fraud to justify their assault on minority voters.

Rather than working overtime to stir up fears, they should join in efforts to broaden the franchise to include as many Americans as possible. The true scandal in our electoral process is our shockingly low turnout level. Nearly every other advanced democracy has higher voter participation. Yet we now have one political party working mightily to reduce that turnout through unwarranted restrictions that disproportionately burden minority voters.

The math is simple. The Voting Rights Act increases the number and effectiveness of minority voters. And minority voters now overwhelmingly support Democrats. President Barack Obama’s support among African-Americans has reached 94 percent. Latinos have voted increasingly Democratic since California Gov. Pete Wilson launched the GOP’s war against undocumented immigrants with Proposition 187 in 1994. The Republicans’ current hard-line immigration policies have only advanced this trend. Reduce the minority vote and Republicans improve their chances of winning.

This shameful calculation has been embraced by the party of Lincoln. Republicans in state legislatures have produced a flurry of photo ID laws, discriminatory redistrictings, restrictions on registration, cutbacks on early voting, reinstatement of strict felon disfranchisement rules and erroneous purges of voter lists.

Republicans have now turned their backs on the powerful moral imperative that animated the Voting Rights Act in 1965 and produced overwhelming bipartisan majorities for renewal of Section 5 as recently as 2006. In the interest of winning elections at any cost, Republicans are trying to take back the vote from the most vulnerable in our society.

Since its passage in 1965, the Voting Rights Act’s explicit goal has been to empower minorities by ensuring that they have an equal opportunity to participate in the political process and elect candidates of their choice.

The real partisan implications were less clear when the act passed. In fact, Democrats seemed the likely losers. Southern whites fled the party of their forebears and into the arms of a Republican Party that promised to protect them from the advance of civil rights. President Lyndon B. Johnson famously said, as he signed the bill, that he was delivering the South to the Republican Party for a long time to come.

Section 5 was designed to address the insidious creativity of Jim Crow jurisdictions in devising ways to stay one step ahead of enforcers of the 15th Amendment, the post-Civil War amendment that prohibited racial discrimination in voting. Congress decided that it was necessary for covered jurisdictions — those with the worst histories of discrimination — to pre-clear their voting changes by proving to the attorney general or a three-judge Washington court that they did not have the purpose or effect of discriminating against minority voters.

Events during recent weeks have confirmed why Section 5 remains essential. A three-judge court denied preclearance to Texas’s redistricting of its congressional, state Senate and state House districts — explicitly finding that the Legislature drew congressional and Senate lines with the intent to dilute the strength of minority voters. A separate three-judge court two days later refused to pre-clear Texas’s draconian, and transparently discriminatory, requirement that voters produce a photo ID prescribed by the state. The court found that the photo ID requirement would fall most heavily on poor voters, who are disproportionately minorities.

A three-judge court had previously denied preclearance of Florida’s effort to restrict early voting, including the Sunday before the election. Early and Sunday voters in Florida have been disproportionately minorities. South Carolina’s photo ID requirement is pending before another three-judge court.

Because Section 5 is successfully frustrating Republican efforts in covered states to shape the electorate by slicing off pockets of noncompliant minority voters, it looks as if Republican-led jurisdictions have now set their sights on eliminating Section 5.

Covered jurisdictions have included constitutional challenges to the law in their pre-clearance actions and in separate lawsuits. Though the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals recently reaffirmed Section 5’s constitutionality, that case is likely to be heard by the Supreme Court. And other challenges are in the pipeline.

Ironically, the Republican drive to exclude minority voters could boomerang. The principal basis for the constitutional challenges to Section 5 is that it is no longer necessary. Covered jurisdictions argue that they have reformed and there is now no reason for requiring them to pre-clear election changes with the federal government. You can trust us to treat minority voters equally, they contend.

Yet, as courts have confirmed, these states’ recent efforts demonstrate persistent intent to roll back the clock by diminishing the impact of minority voters. These are the very type of practices that produced Section 5 in 1965. They remain reprehensible in 2012 and they undermine any suggestion that Section 5 has outlived its need.

Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), who as a freedom rider was beaten by white mobs, reminded the delegates last week at the Democratic National Convention that the right of minority citizens to vote was secured through a moral crusade. It succeeded because of the heroism of people like Lewis, who also survived the bloody attack by Alabama state troopers at the Edmund Pettus Bridge.

Lewis expressed incredulity that GOP officials are trying to take away that hard-won vote, describing it as “the most powerful nonviolent tool we have to create a more perfect union.” He hearkened back to the time when people “had to pass a literacy test, pay a poll tax,” and recounted that would-be African-American voters were required “to count the number of bubbles in a bar of soap.”

This victory won by men and women of extraordinary moral vision and physical courage, such as Lewis, must not fall victim to the GOP’s narrow partisan interests.

William Yeomans served as Sen. Ted Kennedy’s chief counsel on the Senate Judiciary Committee and as a Justice Department official. He is a fellow in law and government at American University College of Law.

© 2012 POLITICO LLC

Chris Christie to join Steve King at Iowa fundraiser

By: William Petroski - Des Moines Register

September 11, 2012 10:32 PM EDT

Christie to Join King at Iowa Fundraiser

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie will be the keynote speaker at a fundraising luncheon Sept. 20 in Sioux City, Iowa, on behalf of Republican Rep. Steve King, who is facing a tough challenge for reelection.

King said in a press release Monday that Christie and the governor’s wife are great friends. Christie also appeared on the Iowa congressman’s behalf at a fundraising event last year, and he was a keynote speaker at the recent Republican National Convention in Tampa, Fla.

“We first met when he was set up for a political excoriation before the House Judiciary Committee by then-Chairman John Conyers (D-Mich.). I thought, ‘Here is a principled, direct and very smart man who is unjustly the target of partisan attack,’” King said. “I used every minute to bring out the real truth, and Chris Christie never forgot that day. When he offered to return to Iowa to help my campaign, it was a clear demonstration of the kind of character Gov. Christie has and an example that shows why he has been so successful in New Jersey.”

“Under Gov. Christie’s leadership, New Jersey’s economy is turning around, and he’s balancing the state budget without raising taxes,” King said. “He exemplifies a defender of freedom. I look forward to having Gov. Christie back in Iowa.”

King, a five-term House member, is opposed by Democrat Christie Vilsack in Iowa’s 4th Congressional District, which generally covers northwest Iowa, although it includes Mason City and Ames.

The fundraiser will be the fifth annual Defenders of Freedom fundraising event sponsored by King.

— William Petroski,

Des Moines Register

© 2012 POLITICO LLC

The 5 curses of Joe Biden

By: Kevin Cirilli

September 11, 2012 07:20 PM EDT

Vice President Joe Biden’s latest swear on the campaign trail Tuesday wasn’t the first time he’s been caught cursing. Here are five instances:

1. “He’s going to call you, no bullsh—.” — Sept. 11, 2012, promising Pennsylvania firefighters that an aide would call to invite them to the White House.

2. “Who gives a sh— whether you think or anybody thinks they’re going to stick to a message?” — 2004, when asked by reporters about whether then-Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry’s campaign was able to stay on message.

3. “Give me a f—king break.” — March 13, 2009, in Washington D.C. to a Senate colleague who addressed him as “Mr. Vice President.”

4. “This is a big f—king deal.” — March 23, 2010, to President Barack Obama at the signing ceremony for health care reform.

5. “Say something nice instead of being a smart-ass all the time.” — June 25, 2010, at a Milwaukee custard shop when the store manager told him to lower taxes.

© 2012 POLITICO LLC

Tax extenders withering on the vine

By: Steven Sloan and Kelsey Snell

September 11, 2012 05:14 PM EDT

It was hailed as a rare bipartisan fiscal compromise that could pave the way for heavier lifts like tax reform.

Instead, a $205 billion package of targeted tax breaks for businesses and individuals is falling victim to a familiar foe: Senate inaction.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has not put the so-called extenders package on the chamber’s calendar and is not making any promises to do so.

The package was approved by the Senate Finance Committee in August and Chairman Max Baucus hoped to have it on the floor before Congress headed home for the elections. Baucus and Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch, the panel’s top Republican, cast the August agreement as a small step toward the larger job of overhauling the tax code, which both parties say is a priority next year.

But with the Senate possibly adjourning as soon as next week, time is the biggest hurdle to clearing a bill through the chamber.

Political considerations, however, are also weighing it down with Republicans divided over the bill’s cost.

Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch, the top Republican on the Finance Committee, helped write the bill but says the prospects for passage are dim right now.

“I doubt it would hit the floor,” he told POLITICO. “They couldn’t get it through at this particular time.”

Several Senate Republicans don’t support the bill and five of the 11 GOP members on the Senate Finance Committee voted against the package in August saying they were concerned with the its cost.

Hatch downplayed the idea that moving the bill through the Senate on its own is of any significance and said its crafting was more of a demonstration that the Finance committee is capable of sealing deals.

“It was important for us to show that the Finance committee could do an extenders package but it isn’t a perfect package by any measure and it still has too much spending in it,” Hatch said.

He said it should be voted on alongside a measure to extend all of the Bush-era tax cuts on income, capital gains and dividends that are slated to expire on Dec. 31.

At least one Republican wants to see the package moved quickly.

Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine), a top member of the Finance Committee, said the extenders are “critical” to the economy and must be approved now.

“It’s important to send messages about certainty and predictability in the tax code,” she told POLITICO. “There are many entities that depend on those tax extenders.”

Baucus is still pressing the issue and said he was confident that — at a minimum — the bill will make it onto the calendar. Whether Republicans will allow a vote is less clear, he said.

“That’s the question,” he said. “We’re going to work on it.”

Even if the Senate does act, it may be for naught if House Republicans hold firm to their plan of not addressing the extenders until after the election.

Rep. Patrick Tiberi (R-Ohio), a senior member of the Ways and Means Committee, is overseeing the process in the House and is holding meetings with groups affected by the dozens of breaks in the package but doesn’t anticipate action soon.

“We’re still going through the process and planning on having this done after the election,” he said.

The uncertain fate of the tax extenders is similar to the broader standstill over fiscal policy in Congress. Though the House and Senate are expected to move on a six-month spending measure by the end of next week, there’s no serious effort at the moment to address the so-called fiscal cliff of spending cuts and tax increases slated to take effect in January.

A Senate Democratic aide said leaders remain committed to passing the extenders bill and are holding out hope that it could happen before the next recess. If it doesn’t land on the calendar or the floor, that’s more a reflection of logistical problems than opposition to the deal Baucus and Hatch brokered, the aide said.

A senior Senate GOP aide said Reid hasn’t yet talked to them about the bill but that Republicans would be “happy” to debate it along with the expiring Bush tax cuts.

The extenders conundrum comes at a time when lawmakers from both parties are increasingly discussing the possibility of doing some type of major tax code overhaul in the first half of next year. But the exercise is a small-scale demonstration of how difficult that task will be.

Baucus and Hatch faced a lobbying barrage in July when they initially planned to drop a $12 billion break for wind energy production. The provision became enmeshed in the presidential race — GOP candidate Mitt Romney said it was unnecessary — and it was ultimately reinstated.

For all the controversy about the wind energy break, it pales in comparison to the provisions that could be on the table in a tax overhaul. The United States will lose $464 billion in revenue between 2011 and 2015, for instance, because of the mortgage interest deduction.

The focus on the GOP side is on significantly trimming the size of the extenders package instead of simply continuing all of the provisions virtually by default every few years. Hatch boasted he was able to shrink the package’s scope by 25 percent but some committee Republicans were unimpressed.

Now the pressure is on Tiberi to prove that he can go further. Acutely aware of the lobbying war he could spark by mentioning provisions he’s thinking of cutting, he’s staying quiet.

“I’m not going to talk about that,” he said.

© 2012 POLITICO LLC

Barney Frank defends 'Uncle Tom' diss

By: Kevin Cirilli

September 11, 2012 05:04 PM EDT

Rep. Barney Frank released a scathing statement Tuesday defending his recent comparison of the Log Cabin Republicans to Uncle Tom, saying the LGBT group is “on the wrong side of the election” by pushing Mitt Romney’s “Rick Santorum platform.”

“I am not surprised that members of the Log Cabin Republicans are offended by my comparing them to Uncle Tom,” Frank wrote. “They are no more offended than I am by their campaigning in the name of LGBT rights to elect the candidate and party who diametrically oppose our rights against a president who has forcefully and effectively supported our rights.”

The openly gay Democratic congressman made the comparison at least twice last week, according to the Advocate, including in an address to the Democratic National Convention’s LGBT Caucus. “I am again inclined to think that they’re called the Log Cabin club because their role model is Uncle Tom,” he said Thursday.

In his statement Tuesday, Frank defended — and expanded on — what he admits is “very harsh criticism.”

“[M]y use of “Uncle Tom” was based not simply on this awful fact that they have chosen to be actively on the wrong side of an election that will have an enormous impact on our right to equality,” he said, later adding that the group “may mislead people who do not share their view that tax cuts for the wealthy are more important than LGBT rights into thinking that they are somehow helping the latter by supporting Mitt Romney and his Rick Santorum platform.”

Frank said that it’s “a good thing for Republicans to try to influence other Republicans to be supportive of LGBT rights,” but argued that the Log Cabin Republicans have failed to do so — and yet, “they pretend to be successful … and urge people to join them in rewarding the Republicans when they have in fact continued their anti-LGBT stance.”

“I have been hearing the Log Cabin Republicans proclaim for years that they were improving the view of that party towards our legal equality,” wrote Frank, who is not seeking reelection in 2012. “In fact, over the past 20 years, things have gotten worse, not better.”

In conclusion, he wrote, “Some have complained that in comparing the Log Cabin Republicans to Uncle Tom, I was ignoring the fact that they are nice. I accept the fact that many of them are nice — so was Uncle Tom — but in both cases, they’ve been nice to the wrong people.”

Log Cabin Republicans executive director R. Clarke Cooper denounced Frank’s comments in a statement of his own to POLITICO.

“Congressman Frank, of all people, should understand the importance of perseverance when working within a party to achieve change — after all, it was not so long ago his party was indifferent at best when it came to respecting gay families,” Cooper said. “Leaders committed to LGBT equality know that every victory our community has achieved has required bipartisan advocacy and bipartisan votes, and winning support from Republicans will only be more important in the days ahead.

“Come January, Republicans will maintain a majority in the House and likely secure a majority in the Senate. Without Log Cabin Republicans working with fellow conservatives, LGBT Americans would be left without a credible voice within the GOP,” Cooper wrote. “Barney Frank’s denial of Log Cabin Republicans success, particularly on ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ repeal and the freedom to marry in New York, is sad but unsurprising. It is time for him to pass on the baton to leaders better suited to a world where equality is not a partisan issue.”

© 2012 POLITICO LLC

House Republicans slam Steven Chu memo

By: Darius Dixon

September 11, 2012 10:13 PM EDT

House Republicans repeated their accusations Tuesday that a directive from Energy Secretary Steven Chu could hike electricity prices across several Western states — at a time when the economy is limping and the GOP is making energy costs a prime campaign issue.

“When Americans are already struggling to fill their tanks due to the rising price of gasoline, which has doubled under this administration’s watch, the last thing they need is to pay more every time they flip on the light switch,” Natural Resources Committee Chairman Doc Hastings (R-Wash.) said during a hearing on Chu’s March 16 memo.

In the document, Chu described several broad goals that DOE’s four power marketing administrations should make to upgrade their electric grid to accommodate renewable energy and improve cybersecurity.

But Hastings said the fallout from the memo “could dramatically change and undermine the collaborative and low-cost emissions-free nature of the federal power program.” He said Chu should “pull the plug on this misguided effort.”

Other Republicans on the panel agreed.

“My communities over in Mesa County: 19.5 percent real unemployment. These people are struggling right now,” said Colorado Rep. Scott Tipton. He said the Obama administration is pursuing “policies that are taxation via regulation that are driving up of costs over many consumers, money they can never recoup.”

In June, 166 lawmakers sent a letter to Chu expressing their concern over how the proposed guidelines for the PMAs might affect electricity prices.

But top committee Democrat Ed Markey defended Chu, saying the memo outlines actions that would ultimately cut electricity costs for consumers because they would reduce waste, promote energy efficiency and support renewable energy and demand response.

Ultimately, the Massachusetts Democrat said, the hearing was part of a campaign against renewable energy by the same Republicans still capitalizing on the demise of the solar firm Solyndra. He said the main event is Friday’s scheduled House floor vote on the No More Solyndras Act.

“Today’s hearing is part of the same anti-clean energy, anti-progress agenda that Republicans have been pushing for the last 29 months,” Markey said. “They’ve made this Congress the most do-nothing Congress in history, and now they’re trying to shut down Secretary Chu’s grid modernization effort to make sure this is the most do-nothing Department of Energy in history as well.”

DOE senior adviser Lauren Azar defended Chu’s memo during the hearing, noting that the 1992 and 2005 energy laws created “obligations on grid operations and reliability.”

“Our overall goal is to keep consumers’ bills as low as possible while ensuring our nation has the infrastructure it needs to remain competitive in a global marketplace and accommodating regional choices to meet customers’ demand,” she said.

Azar also emphasized that the work to draw concrete plans from Chu’s guidance memo will be different for each PMA and will involve DOE partnerships with each power administration to determine what plans work best for each area.

DOE’s current joint effort with the Western Area Power Administration will publish a draft set of region-specific recommendations in the Federal Register for comment before passing them to Chu. That team, Azar told reporters after the hearing, hopes to send final recommendations to Chu by the end of the year.

Azar has been leading DOE’s effort with the power marketing administrations, but Hastings has been insisting that Chu make an appearance before his committee.

Azar also said WAPA faces about $2.3 billion in infrastructure costs to make necessary upgrades. But she said because congressional appropriations for improvements have waned, WAPA has taken out “loans” from its customers to maintain sections of the electric grid.

“Let me just note that because appropriations haven’t been sufficient, the federal government has had to go out and get loans from the customers to keep the grid up,” she said.

© 2012 POLITICO LLC

Kaiser reports continued modest rate growth

By: Brett Norman

September 11, 2012 10:13 PM EDT

The average employer-provided health insurance premium notched up in the low single digits last year, continuing a relatively modest growth in the past five years that experts are still struggling to explain.

The 3 percent to 4 percent growth reported in 2012 was less than half of last year’s increase and is more in line with the figures reported in other years since the recession began in 2007, according to the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation’s much-anticipated annual Employer Health Benefits Survey, which was released Tuesday.

The cost of an average individual plan rose 3 percent to $5,615 annually, and the average family plan rose 4 percent to $15,745.

Double-digit premium increases were commonplace until 2004 — the last time one was recorded — and no one knows exactly what has caused the drop, KFF President and CEO Drew Altman wrote in an essay accompanying the report. The growth in high-deductible plans and the strain of the recession on household finances likely are contributing to the trend, he wrote.

“With the economy only slowly recovering and wage stagnation depressing utilization, there is no reason to expect a return to double-digit increases in health insurance premiums anytime soon, if at all,” Altman wrote.

The Health and Human Services Department was quick to suggest one possible factor. The agency released a report this morning that projected the Affordable Care Act’s rate review efforts have saved consumers about $2.1 billion.

The KFF report also found that the number of young adults remaining on their parents’ health insurance plan — one of the most popular provisions of the ACA — grew from 2.1 million in 2011 to 2.9 million in 2012.

Meanwhile, the number of grandfathered plans that are exempt from some regulations in the ACA fell to 48 percent of covered workers, down from 56 percent last year.

© 2012 POLITICO LLC

Report: IG rips DOJ on Fast and Furious

By: Kevin Cirilli

September 11, 2012 01:54 PM EDT

High-ranking government officials failed to “balance the risks” of allowing an estimated 2,000 assault weapons to reach Mexico in an effort stop trafficking into the U.S., according to portions of a leaked inspector general’s report obtained by Fox News.

Fox’s William La Jeunesse writes that the Justice Department’s soon-to-be-released internal report will illustrate a “failure in leadership” and “lack of accountability and oversight up and down the chain of command” at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the Justice Department pertaining to the gun trafficking operation, commonly referred to as Operation Fast and Furious.

“It says many senior executives knew the U.S. was helping traffic guns to Mexico that killed people but did nothing to stop it,” La Jeunesse writes.

ATF managers Bill Newell, Dave Voth and Hope MacAllister receive most of the blame, according to the report. Their attorneys maintained their clients’ innocence to Fox News.

The Fox report doesn’t discuss what the IG’s report says about Attorney General Eric Holderor senior political appointees at the Justice Department.

The full internal investigation led by Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz could be released as soon as this week. A House hearing is scheduled for Sept. 19.

The scandal was ignited after U.S. Border Patrol agent Brian Terry was killed December 2010, and guns from Fast and Furious were found nearby. Under the gun-walking program, the feds allowed weapons bought in the U.S. to flow to Mexico where they hoped to track them to drug cartel leaders.

Correction: An earlier version misspelled the name of ATF manager Dave Voth.

© 2012 POLITICO LLC

Leon Panetta: Penalty for SEAL writer

By: Kevin Robillard

September 11, 2012 09:02 AM EDT

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta suggested Tuesday the former Navy SEAL who wrote a pseudonymous account of the assassination of Osama bin Laden could face some type of “penalty.”

“I think we have to take steps to make clear to him and to the American people that we’re not going to accept this kind of behavior,” Panetta said on CBS’s “This Morning.” “Because if we don’t, then everybody else who pledges to ensure that that doesn’t happen is gonna get the wrong signal, that somehow they can do it without any penalty to be paid.”

The book “No Easy Day” was published under the pseudonym Mark Owen. CBS’s Norah O’Donnell asked Panetta what the difference was between Wood and the filmmakers and journalists who were given accounts of the raid.

“There’s a fundamental difference,” Panetta said. “The people that presented some of the details of the operations were authorized to do that by the president of the United States, who has that authority to do that, and inform the American people as to what happened. In this case, that was not the case. And that’s the difference.”

Panetta also said it was important to send a message to other SEALs that it wasn’t OK to reveal classified information.

“People who are part of that operation, who commit themselves to the promise that they will not reveal the sensitive operations and not publish anything without bringing it through the Pentagon, so that we can ensure that it doesn’t reveal sensitive information, when they fail to do that, we have got to make sure that they stand by the promise they made to this country,” he said.

Also Tuesday, Rep. Pete King (R-N.Y.), chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, said that “to disclose anything about that incident is wrong.”

“It tells the enemy what our tactic will be and procedures are,” King said on CNN’s “Starting Point.” “

“It tells the enemy what our tactics and procedures are,” he added. “And no matter what the Navy SEAL says, that he didn’t put anything sensitive in there, there has to be sensitive material there. Also it started with the White House last year. They should have never said anything other than Osama bin Laden was killed by U.S. forces. Leave it at that. Nobody had to know it was Navy SEALs, nobody had to know there two helicopters, nobody had to know how many men were in the operation, none of that.”

CORRECTION: An earlier version misstated the author’s pseudonym. It is Mark Owen.

Katie Glueck contributed to this story.

© 2012 POLITICO LLC

SEC funds plan wedges Hill Democrats, W.H.

By: Zachary Warmbrodt

September 11, 2012 11:02 PM EDT

In one of the first major financial reform battles since the passage of sweeping Wall Street reforms in 2010, support from Hill Democrats is missing in action.

Federal regulators and the Obama administration have identified the money market mutual fund industry as unfinished business left over from the financial crisis and are warning that it remains a threat to the economy.

But last month an effort by Securities and Exchange Commission Chairwoman Mary Schapiro to crack down on these funds was thwarted in the face of strong industry opposition after she failed to win the support of a Democratic swing vote, Luis Aguilar, at the five-member regulatory commission.

Now, the Financial Stability Oversight Council, the super panel of regulators led by Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, is mulling over what steps it can take to further Schapiro’s plan.

Geithner, Schapiro and other regulators are taking on this task, however, without strong support from congressional Democrats, allies they have been able to count on in past fights with the financial industry.

“We have to do it, but I think there’s a great deal of concern about how to do it without ending money market mutual funds,” Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), a member of the Banking Committee, told POLITICO.

Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), another committee member, said the impact of smaller changes put in place by the SEC after the financial crisis should be studied before larger steps are taken.

“When we get that, there may very well be other reforms that are necessary,” he said in an interview.

Other congressional Democrats have also not come out in strong opposition to proposed reforms, instead counseling caution and raising the specter of unintended consequences from regulation, arguments they have dismissed in previous efforts to crack down on the financial industry.

Concerns about the industry stretch back to 2008, during the height of the financial crisis, when the Treasury Department stepped in to temporarily guarantee cash parked in the funds to prevent a run on them.

To prevent this from recurring, Schapiro is proposing that funds switch to “floating” prices that better reflect losses, build buffers with increased capital and restrict how quickly investors can take back their money.

The question of whether to back the push by Schapiro has put Hill Democrats in an uncomfortable political position, mainly because opposition to the reforms comes not just from the financial industry.

State and municipal governments as well as consumer groups are lobbying against the proposal.

Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), chairman of the Banking subcommittee that oversees securities and investment, told Schapiro in June he had concerns about the effects on municipal governments. In July, nine Senate Democrats sent a letter to the chairman citing similar worries.

“The regulations under review by the SEC would have been harmful to Main Street,” Sen. Mark Begich (D-Alaska) said in a statement to POLITICO. “At a time when cities across the country are struggling to keep cops on the beat, teachers in schools, and the lights on at City Hall, the last thing we should be doing is making it harder to access critical short-term funding.”

The concerns stretch into the House.

Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-Mass.), a Financial Services Committee member and Dodd-Frank supporter who has made a show of chastising Wall Street officials like JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon at congressional hearings, said he has concerns about “serious unintended consequences” for local governments that could result from proposed reforms.

“A lot of the customers of money market funds lobbied pretty effectively on this, and a lot of them are close with Democratic constituencies,” said Brian Gardner, an analyst with investment bank Keefe, Bruyette & Woods. “They’re the pension funds and municipalities who use money market funds as a cash management tool.”

Whether strong backing from congressional Democrats would help regulators pass money market reforms is far from a sure thing, but it’s clear the current lack of support is not helping advance a top regulatory priority for the Obama administration.

“The regulatory process will never be free from politics,” said Jaret Seiberg, a policy analyst at Guggenheim Securities. “So significant congressional support for further regulating money market mutual funds would not only further embolden the regulators to act, but it also would make it more likely that the industry would make major concessions to find a workable compromise.”

Many investors view money market funds as an alternative to savings accounts, but unlike those bank deposits, money market accounts are not backed by the government.

With action at the SEC stalled, the alternative route is for FSOC, a panel of top regulators created by Dodd-Frank, to implement greater oversight, such as subjecting major fund firms to Federal Reserve supervision.

FSOC and its member agencies are “exploring all the options” to put reforms in place, a source familiar with the matter said. The group is scheduled to meet later this month.

Steven Sloan contributed to this report.

© 2012 POLITICO LLC

Shipping industry takes glass-half-full approach

By: Jessica Meyers

September 11, 2012 10:34 PM EDT

NEW YORK — The shipping industry keeps tanking.

Order books sit the emptiest in a decade. Prominent companies are avoiding investor conferences. And with a glut of vessels and scant demand, carriers talk more about scrapping ships than sailing them.

One of the world’s key economic barometers appears sunk — unless you ask the industry. The promise of Chinese development, a natural cargo diversification and the industry’s repetitive nature have fueled surprising optimism.

“It’s bleak in the immediate future,” said Trygve Munthe, president of oil tanker operator DHT Holdings, at a recent global shipping conference here. “But this is good news in disguise. It sets us up for a strong recovery.”

Their logic isn’t just meant to appease investors.

“The shipping industry overall is cyclical,” said Doug Mavrinac, head of maritime equity research at Jefferies & Co. investment bank. Take 2004, he said, when the industry embarked on a four-year ride of financial glory.

Companies used those profits to build more vessels, which got delivered as the recession hit. Now they’re stuck with too many ships and not enough business.

In the complex and unpredictable world that determines shipping drivers, this has a simple upside. As companies discard inactive ships and stop buying more, demand will pick up.

“It’s hard to say things are getting better now,” Mavrinac said, “but when you look at the nuts and bolts of it, fleet growth does get better.”

That’s hard to tell by the current numbers. A prime gauge of shipping prices just inched closer to a near three-decade low.

The industry’s saving grace may lie partly in its ability to diversify. Companies specialize in a vast array of sectors, some of which respond less to a eurozone crisis or Middle East sanctions. Crude oil and dry bulk shipments make up the market powerhouses, but smaller sectors remain viable because they serve niche functions.

Ships that carry container goods, for example, have had more luck in recent years than oil tankers. Altered driving habits coupled with the rise of more fuel-efficient cars have reduced the need for oil shipments to the United States. Container shipping companies have taken a hit from decreased consumption, but shoppers still purchase, only now they’re buying from Target rather than Neiman Marcus.

Newer potential exists in realms such as shipping liquefied gas and container leasing, which has capitalized on the industry’s declining profits and lack of access to capital.

“We’re seeing a bigger piece of the pie,” said David Doorley of SeaCube Container Leasing, one of the world’s largest container lessors. A shift in recent years, leasing companies now own a majority of the containers they rent.

Lawmakers have even carved out a spot. A long-standing law allows only American-flag ships to carry goods between U.S. ports, ensuring a small but enduring market.

Kirby, the country’s largest inland and coastal tank barge operator, has found success hauling petrochemicals. At a time when few are buying, the Houston-based company announced its latest acquisition last week. “The outlook for the U.S. coastal barge market is improving,” said Joe Pyne, Kirby’s chairman and CEO.

But without a more direct focus on the country’s deteriorating roads and bridges, the United States will have much less to do with the industry’s resurgence.

Mavrinac said China is poised to use an upcoming political transition to “stimulate the economy through old, reliable investing in infrastructure.”

Just last week, Chinese officials announced a $158 billion stimulus package for more urban rail, highways, waterways and waste management projects. Shares of Genco Shipping & Trading, a major carrier of iron ore and steel, bumped up 12 percent the next day. Neither American presidential campaign has offered a detailed plan for similar investments.

But no one knows whether these fluctuations symbolize long-term change. Once packed with investors, conferences like the recent one here have thinned. Brokers tell stories of thick address books now chopped in half. American shipyards are all but relegated to memory.

And investors continue to hang back, a cycle in itself.

“This is the question on everyone’s mind,” said Hamish Norton, a maritime investment bank head. “There is still growth in demand for shipping and still ships being scrapped, so it looks like the gap between the supply of ships and the demand for ships is narrowing. But when does that gap go back to zero? Anybody’s guess.”

© 2012 POLITICO LLC

'Obama Burger' an enduring D.C. hit

By: Kevin Cirilli

September 11, 2012 06:43 PM EDT

There’s a reason it’s not called the “Michelle Obama Burger.”

Booeymonger’s popular “Obama Burger,” a weekly special at the Washington, D.C., restaurant since the 2008 election, is made with a quarter-pound of Angus beef and topped with bacon, provolone cheese, caramelized onions, Russian dressing, lettuce and tomato.

“We knew that he liked burgers,” co-owner Ron Vogel told POLITICO.

But Vogel also knows that health-conscious first lady Michelle Obama might not approve of his recipe.

“It’s got bacon and cheese on it, it’s not exactly going to lower cholesterol, but its really tasty,” Vogel said with a laugh. “I don’t know that I’d get her approval on it, but President Obama would probably like it.”

The first lady already has a local burger named after anyway: Good Stuff Eatery’s “Michelle Melt,” a free-range turkey burger on a whole wheat bun.

President Barack Obama’s burger pitstops in D.C. are well documented. In 2009, he ate at a Five Guys Burgers and Fries. In 2010, he stopped by Arlington’s Ray’s Hell Burger. But he has yet to swing by Booeymonger.

“We’d love for him to stop in and try it,” Vogel said. “I wouldn’t report to Michelle what he ate.”

© 2012 POLITICO LLC

Coburn blocking 9/11 museum funds

By: Scott Wong

September 11, 2012 09:07 AM EDT

New York officials struck a deal to restart construction of the 9/11 memorial museum. But on the 11th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, lawmakers on Capitol Hill were still squabbling over whether federal taxpayers should be on the hook to help keep it open.

Since last fall, Sen. Tom Coburn has objected to a Democratic bill that would provide $20 million a year in federal funding to run the National September 11 Memorial & Museum at Ground Zero. The Oklahoma Republican placed a hold on the legislation over concerns the new spending isn’t paid for, and his spokesman said Coburn isn’t backing down now.

(Also on POLITICO: PHOTOS: Sept. 11 remembered)

“We shouldn’t pay for this by borrowing from future generations or foreign governments,” spokesman John Hart said Monday.

Coburn is continuing to discuss possible pay-fors with the bill’s co-sponsors, Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Dan Inouye (D-Hawaii) and Sens. Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand, both New York Democrats. But so far, none of the proposed offsets — including tariffs on foreign-made American flags — has been acceptable to Coburn, Hart said

“This is hallowed ground, and it deserves to be treated like other national monuments,” Schumer said in an emailed statement. “We are hopeful we can work out a solution to ensure that the future of the museum is not mired in politics and we aren’t nickel-and-diming the honoring of the heroes of September 11.”

Gillibrand was equally determined but less political. She was on her way to catch a flight back to New York Monday night to attend today’s ceremony at ground zero honoring those who lost their lives 11 years ago today in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

“I’m just going to work hard to get the funds we need,” she told POLITICO.

A separate funding dispute between New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who heads the 9/11 Memorial Foundation, and Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who helps oversee the Port Authority which owns the World Trade Center site, has stalled construction of the museum for months.

But Bloomberg and Cuomo announced Monday night, on the eve of the anniversary, they had reached an agreement on which parties would pay for construction and oversee the site.

The 100,000-square-foot museum, along with the already opened memorial, would require an estimated $60 million in operating costs each year. The foundation hopes to defray some of those costs with private donations and merchandise sales.

Some of those costs include $12 million a year for private security and up to $5 million a year for the memorial’s two massive water fountains, which sit in the footprints of the former twin towers.

© 2012 POLITICO LLC

Rep. John Tierney would squeeze ex-Blackwater

By: Leigh Munsil

September 11, 2012 06:54 PM EDT

A Massachusetts congressman is pressuring the State and Defense departments to consider suspending and disbarring Academi, the defense contractor formerly known as Blackwater.

Democratic Rep. John Tierney is asking the agencies to reevaluate last month’s $7.5 million settlement by the North Carolina company over alleged weapons export violations, claiming the fine isn’t severe enough and expressing concern over Academi’s continued eligibility for government contracts.

“This has been a repeated problem that’s gone on — this isn’t a one-off situation, and it’s not just Blackwater,” Tierney said in an interview with POLITICO. “We’ve had companies taking millions of dollars from taxpayers, repeatedly making questionable decisions. … If we don’t hold them accountable, then it’s going to keep happening.”

Tierney, the top Democrat on the House Oversight and Government Reform Subcommittee on National Security, Homeland Defense and Foreign Operations, has criticized Academi before, introducing legislation aimed at stopping waste and practices he says put national security at risk.

The accusations covered by the settlement include exporting ammunition and body armor to Iraq and Afghanistan without authorization, shipping encrypted satellite phones to the government of South Sudan through Kenya and possibly exporting armed helicopters without approval.

Academi, formerly called Blackwater and then Xe Services, also reached a $42 million agreement in 2010 with the State Department after similar arms charges.

“If you look at the magnitude of the problem that was there, it doesn’t seem to be much more than a slap on the wrist,” Tierney said. “This was not their first time having this kind of a problem.”

Responding, an Academi spokesman said the incidents Tierney refers to happened under the company’s previous ownership and management, saying the settlements are an example of its forward-looking posture.

“While Academi has been charged to resolve those inherited issues, we have nothing in common, culturally or operationally, with that legacy company,” the spokesman told POLITICO. “Today, Academi is working to become the industry leader in governance, compliance and regulatory matters. It is fair to say – and important to note – that the company that was once known as Blackwater simply does not exist anymore in the company that is now Academi.”

The use of contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan has been controversial — Afghan president Hamid Karzai has repeatedly tried to ban them from operating in his country. Still, contractors will continue to play a significant role in Afghanistan as U.S. troops withdraw, much as they have in Iraq.

“It’s going to be a continuing issue, and a lot of that has to do with how many troops remain and what the security picture is going to look like in the long run, and what the United States vs. national community is going to have as a role,” Tierney said.

On Aug. 7, Tierney introduced a bill that would tighten oversight over military contractors, limiting non-competitive contracts to one year and contracts bid on by multiple organizations to three years.

Called the Oversight and Accountability in Wartime Contracting Act of 2012, Tierney’s legislation would also require justifications for sole-source contracts to be submitted to Congress. The Pentagon, State Department and Agency for International Development would also create positions to monitor contractors more closely.

In a move aimed at groups like Blackwater-turned-Academi, the bill would also require information on contractors’ “parent, subsidiary or successor entities” to be included in reports, to give a sense of their past performance and “integrity.”

“We want to know the history of contractors … and make sure that they can’t get away just by changing a name and moving forward,” Tierney said. “There has to be some consistency, so who were you before you were Academi and who were you before you were Blackwater or Xe?”

© 2012 POLITICO LLC

Corrine Brown blasts John Mica, Amtrak hearing on Sept. 11

By: Kathryn A. Wolfe

September 11, 2012 01:23 PM EDT

A senior House Democrat said Rep. John Mica’s earlier comments that he’s on a “holy jihad” to overhaul Amtrak are “insulting” and that having a hearing on the railroad’s expenses instead of transportation security on the Sept. 11 anniversary was inappropriate.

Rep. Corrine  Brown (D-Fla.), the top Democrat on the House Transportation and Infrastructure panel in charge of rail issues, said the T&I chairman’s “jihad” comments, made last month to POLITICO, were insulting “on this day of remembrance.”

“It’s insulting to me, it’s insulting to Amtrak and its employees, and it’s insulting to Amtrak riders. And I’m sure it’s insulting to Muslims that live in this country, particularly on the anniversary of 9/11,” Brown said Tuesday.

(PHOTOS: Sept. 11 remembered)

Brown made her comments during a hearing looking into Amtrak’s commuter operations and expenses.  She said the hearing should’ve been about “what we can do to secure this nation’s mass transportation system now and in the future.”

“But we’re not holding a hearing on rail security … we are having a hearing, once again, criticizing Amtrak all while members of Congress are gathering on the East front steps of the Capitol. The fact is on this very day 11 years ago Amtrak and its employees worked around the clock to provide one of the only traveling options for many of this country.”

(50 PHOTOS: Ground zero reborn)

Brown then asked Mica to call for a moment of silence, which Mica granted.

“I’m most pleased to grant the lady’s request for a moment of silence in the committee. If we’d observe that, thank you,” Mica said, though he didn’t answer the other critiques.

In a letter to Mica sent Tuesday, Brown also “strongly urges” Mica to retract his “jihad” comments and apologize to Amtrak, its employees and the Muslim community.

Occurring concurrently with the Amtrak hearing, T&I also was holding a hearing examining the implementation of one of the landmark maritime security laws implemented as a direct result of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) picked up on Brown’s theme, saying on Sept. 11, Amtrak “surged capacity to meet expanded demand” and arguing that since the railroad’s ridership keeps growing, “on today of all days we should be examining whether the system is as safe as it can be.”

Rep. John J. Duncan Jr. (R-Tenn.) countered, as did Mica earlier in the hearing, that “there’s nobody on this side that has anything against Amtrak, we’re just concerned about the many, many billions” of dollars in losses Amtrak has incurred.

Brown also took Mica to task for not providing Democrats in advance with a copy of a report presented during the hearing examining Amtrak’s commuter operations. It was the latest in a string of Democratic complaints about being shut out of the famously bipartisan committee’s operations, the most poisonous of which involved drafting of the recent transportation law.

“Here we go again. We never were consulted on this oversight report; we never saw it or heard about it until at this time,” Brown said, noting that when Democrats controlled the committee Republicans were provided with advanced copies.

In response, Mica offered to hold open the record for 30 days instead of the customary 10 in order to give Democrats time to prepare a minority report. But that didn’t satisfy Brown, who pressed Mica about why they didn’t receive the report early in the first place. She then declared that T&I “is not a bipartisan committee anymore.”

“I’m sorry the gentle lady has that feeling and perception, but again, I got the report I believe on Friday … you have it today and you are also welcome to fully participate in the hearing,” Mica said.

Later, after returning from a member-event to commemorate Sept. 11, Mica gaveled the hearing back in and went into an extensive personal remembrance of that day’s events, including discussing congressional staff members who were killed in the attack on the Pentagon.

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This article first appeared on POLITICO Pro at 1:10 p.m. on September 11, 2012.

CORRECTION: Corrine Brown’s name was misspelled in an earlier version of this story.

© 2012 POLITICO LLC

The Kerry-ization of Mitt Romney

By: Mike Allen and Jim VandeHei

September 11, 2012 04:36 AM EDT

Mitt Romney is getting the full John Kerry treatment on national security — and some top Republicans are alarmed by what they see as his ham-handed response to it.

Romney — whose convention speech didn’t include a salute to the troops or a reference to Afghanistan, where about 75,000 Americans are still at war — is getting hit almost daily now by Democratic attacks that he is wobbly and therefore untrustworthy on national security.

It’s the same critique Republicans used to undermine Kerry to devastating effect eight years ago — and the Obama campaign plans to use the run-up to the presidential debates to make a major issue of Romney’s surprising convention stumble.

(Also on POLITICO: PHOTOS: Sept. 11 remembered)

Retired Army Gen. Wesley Clark, an Obama surrogate, said Monday that the GOP nominee’s approach has been “unbecoming of someone who wants to become commander in chief.” Clark was building on a very personal critique of Romney that started with Kerry himself at last week’s Democratic convention and was quickly followed by Vice President Joe Biden and then President Barack Obama.

Romney, who aides say has downplayed national security in speeches and in the campaign to focus on the economy, will seek to repair any damage on Tuesday, the 11th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, when he speaks to a crowd of 4,000 at the annual conference of the National Guard Association in Reno, Nev. What might have been a standard patriotic speech has become a more urgent mission to reset the national security debate for the last nine weeks of the campaign, aides said.

(50 PHOTOS: Ground zero reborn)

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said in an interview that he thinks Romney should use his speech Tuesday to “go on the offensive — to point out that the president never mentions victory in Afghanistan, but talks about withdrawal. That has clearly encouraged the Taliban and extremists. The level of violence is up.”

“Of course, I believe that he should have repeated what he has continually said throughout the campaign: how much we appreciate the men and women who serve,” McCain said. “But there is nothing for him to be defensive about.”

Yet Obama advisers tell POLITICO that they expect to cite the convention-speech omission repeatedly in coming days as evidence that Romney is not ready to be commander in chief and is not being frank about what he would do if elected, including his policy on Afghanistan. The campaign plans to use Romney’s omission as a key talking point in events aimed at military families and veterans in Virginia, North Carolina and other swing states where many voters have relatives or neighbors serving in combat.

The Obama team also is beginning to point out that Romney’s address failed to mention Al Qaeda, a staple of the two earlier post-Sept. 11 Republican presidential campaigns. Several top Republicans said that, besides the short-term damage to his own campaign, Romney’s perceived neglect of national security could hurt the party in the long term if he loses because the issue has been a traditional Republican touchstone.

In essence, many of the same Democrats who accused Republicans of playing politics with war in past elections are playing politics with it this time around.

Romney’s oversight might seem minor, a sin of omission for failing to the mention the troops in a speech that’s meant to be sweeping by design. But several GOP strategists told POLITICO they considered it, in the words of one, “felony stupid,” raising “a leadership issue, a spine issue” for Romney.

Some officials close to the Romney campaign said it’s especially exasperating because of advice Romney received from some advisers, both internally and externally, to visit Afghanistan and talk to commanders during his foreign swing that began at the Olympics. “Obama is the master of details, and he will try to destroy Mitt on this in debates,” one hawkish Republican said.

Chris LaCivita, a Republican consultant who was an adviser to the Swift Boat campaign against Kerry, said: “You’re not just running for president — you’re running for commander in chief. What he needs to do now is show members of the military, their families and voters in general that he is capable of leading the country on issues other than the ones he is most comfortable talking about.”

Romney squandered earlier opportunities to repair the damage in national television interviews, and some influential Republicans fear he is beginning to look like Kerry, circa 2004. Like the Democratic nominee eight years ago, Romney has been caught off guard by — and then bristled at — questions about his strength as a potential commander in chief and his commitment to the troops.

When Romney was pressed on the omission on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday, he began by quarreling with the question rather than making an affirmative statement about the troops or his war plans.

“I find it interesting that people are curious about mentioning words in a speech as opposed to policy,” he told moderator David Gregory. “I have some differences on policy with the president. I happen to think those are more important than what word I mention in each speech.”

The day before the “Meet the Press” taping, Romney gave a similar answer to Bret Baier of Fox News: “I only regret you’re repeating it day in, day out. [Laughter] … When you give a speech, you don’t go through a laundry list. You talk about the things that you think are important and I describe, in my speech, my commitment to a strong military.”

For Romney, according to top Republicans, the danger is that he has dug an even deeper hole for himself in an area that was already an Obama strength and looks oblivious to the concerns of a crucial Republican constituency — military families and veterans. A CNN poll out Monday found 54 percent of likely voters say Obama would better handle foreign policy, compared with 42 percent who favored Romney.

“When you look at the cultural connection to the military in regions of the country where he needs to over-perform, this opens him to charges that he doesn’t get it — that he’s disconnected from a fundamental part of the Republican constituency,” said Steve Schmidt, senior adviser to McCain in 2008 and key player in the 2004 effort to take down Kerry.

“Democrats, for the first time in a generation, have seized the advantage on national-security issues. That is a remarkable political occurrence. At a time when we have troops in harm’s way for the 11th year, the failure to mention them opens him to a very predictable counterattack.”

A Republican official who works closely with the Romney campaign said, “Defense is not an issue you concede to the Democrats, and that seems to be what the Romney campaign is content to do. You lose close elections because of missed opportunities, not major gaffes. They should welcome a debate about national security, but he goes into the debates on the defensive.”

But a Romney adviser defended the candidate’s handling of the issue, saying he deliberately played down national security at the convention. “This is an economy election and if he gets off on foreign policy or war policy, he’s playing on the president’s turf,” the adviser said.

Obama heads into the three debates ahead on the issue — and the final debate, in Florida on Oct. 22, is specifically on foreign policy.

“Mitt Romney’s failure to mention Afghanistan, and then his comments about how his speech included things you think are important — it’s more than an omission,” Clark said on an Obama campaign conference call for reporters. “It reveals a severe lack of understanding about the job as president.”

Throwing back a phrase Romney used to defend his omission, Clark said that troops are “not an item on a laundry list.”

Ben LaBolt, Obama’s national campaign press secretary, added on the call that Romney “hasn’t outlined a coherent foreign policy yet, beyond tough talk and chest-thumping.”

Obama’s campaign has not run ads on the issue, however, and that will be the ultimate indicator of the potency Democrats ascribe to the issue.

Obama has not always held an advantage on national security. Early in his administration, he was on the defensive over his plan to try terrorism suspects in New York City. Now, with the death of Osama bin Laden and the administration’s use of drone strikes to kill terrorists, national security is one of his greatest strengths. Polls and focus groups show that younger voters, in particular, approve of Obama’s wind-down of the war in Iraq, and his plans to do the same in Afghanistan.

However, Obama has his own continuing vulnerabilities on war policy. His plan for leaving Afghanistan remains largely unfulfilled. On Election Day, there will be about 68,000 troops in Afghanistan, roughly double the number there when Obama took office. He markedly escalated the war, including his troop surge, and most of that escalation remains in place.

Nevertheless, frustrated Republicans see the Romney setback on national security as another rock in the backpack of a campaign that already looked heavy, with polls showing Obama taking a tiny lead in the long-tied race, and Romney falling clearly behind in the vital state of Ohio.

“A presidential election is ultimately a character test,” a top GOP strategist said. “This speaks to the credibility and plausibility of being commander in chief, and any candidate for president has to get over that hump. He looks tone deaf. Everyone is in the faux outrage business. But this time, people are actually offended. He offended military families in some crucial states.”

As Democrats learned in almost every campaign since Vietnam, getting painted as soft on defense, or silent on the greatness of U.S. troops, is a terrible place to be politically. Many Democrats think Kerry would have won in 2004 if he hadn’t been Swift-Boated by ads that called into question his service in Vietnam and patriotism. Democrats aren’t going quite as far as Republicans did in that campaign: No one is accusing Romney of lying about his record. Instead, they’re attacking his lack of resolve.

Ironically, it was the Massachusetts senator himself who offered the most biting indictment of Romney on the issue this time around. In what many consider the best speech of his career — and one that displayed humor and timing rarely if ever shown in 2004 — Kerry did to Romney what Republicans did to him: made him sound like a flip-flopping, unpatriotic wimp.

“No nominee for president should ever fail in the midst of a war to pay tribute to our troops overseas in his acceptance speech,” Kerry said, while pounding Romney for inexperience, naïve understanding of global threats and mixed messages on the Afghanistan war.

“It isn’t fair to say Mitt Romney doesn’t have a position on Afghanistan. He has every position. He was against setting a date for withdrawal, then he said it was right, and then he left the impression that maybe it was wrong to leave this soon. … Talk about being for it before he was against it.”

Kerry started a three-person pile-on on foreign policy, with Biden taking it from there and Obama himself capping it off: “My opponent and his running mate are new to foreign policy, but from all that we’ve seen and heard, they want to take us back to an era of blustering and blundering that cost America so dearly.”

Eight years ago, George Bush, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld couldn’t have said it better themselves. And that’s why national security-minded Republicans are concerned.

Josh Gerstein and Reid J. Epstein contributed to this report.

© 2012 POLITICO LLC

Poll: Spike in economic confidence

By: Alex Byers

September 11, 2012 12:29 PM EDT

One measure of Americans’ confidence in the economy saw its largest weekly jump ever last week.

Gallup’s Economic Confidence Index’s weekly average rose 11 percentage points to -18, marking the sharpest increase since the polling organization began daily tracking in 2008. The index’s all-time high point is -16, reached in May of this year.

The index had languished at nearly -30 since mid-July, then jumped after a week that featured both the Democratic National Convention and a weak jobs report. On Friday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported fewer than expected jobs were created in the month of August; interviews that comprised last week’s index were conducted from Monday to Sunday.

The jump could prove troublesome for Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, whose campaign is asking voters to determine whether they are better off than they were four years ago (when the index hovered around -60.) Last week’s result includes a 13-point confidence increase among self-described independents, Gallup reports, while confidence jumped 17 points among Democrats and 1 point among Republicans.

Still, the data indicates Americans have more negative than positive feelings about the economy. And while the index has approached a similar level a few times over the last four years, it has never come close to breaking even.

The results are based on interviews with 3,330 adults and have a margin of error of plus or minus two points.

© 2012 POLITICO LLC

Report: George W. Bush briefed on Al Qaeda

By: Kevin Robillard

September 11, 2012 08:51 AM EDT

Then-President George W. Bush received more frequent and detailed warnings about Al Qaeda’s plans to attack the United States than have previously been disclosed, according to a New York Times op-ed on Tuesday by author Kurt Eichenwald.

While the Bush administration had revealed an Aug. 6, 2001, presidential brief titled “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.,” other earlier briefings also warned of an attack. The first report came in May, and a June report said an attack was “imminent,” Eichenwald wrote.

(Also on POLITICO: PHOTOS: Sept. 11 remembered)

Eichenwald, a former New York Times reporter who’s the author of a new book, “500 Days: Secrets and Lies In the Terror Wars,” writes that neoconservatives in the Bush administration dismissed the warnings because “bin Laden was merely pretending to be planning an attack to distract the administration from Saddam Hussein, whom the neoconservatives saw as a greater threat.” The CIA persisted in its warnings.

Appearing with Eichenwald on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” former New York Gov. George Pataki attacked the author on Tuesday, accusing him of trying to blame Bush for not protecting America from the Sept. 11 attacks.

“Sept. 11, everything changed, and to look 11 years later, and to say: ‘Ah ha! This was happening before Sept. 11 in the summer,’ and to go through and selectively take out quotes and say ‘You should have done that and you should have done that,’ I think it’s incredibly unfair and a disservice to history,” Pataki said on “Morning Joe.”

“What I’m saying is, we cannot say: ‘I’m not going to pay attention to history, cause that part of history is about my party’,” Eichenwald said to Pataki, a Republican, later adding: “It’s 11 years later. Of course we can learn from it.”

Pataki wasn’t actually basing his critique on the book.

“I haven’t read your book, thank God, and I don’t intend to,” Pataki said. “But just looking at the jacket and the quotes on the back, these are selectively taken for the purpose of making the Bush administration look bad.”

Eichenwald said his book was a balanced protrait of the Bush administration and read a passage from the second page of his 640-page book in which a national security aide praises Bush effusively. Pataki didn’t respond.

© 2012 POLITICO LLC

Fiscal cliff: All talk, no deal-making

By: Jake Sherman and Jonathan Allen

September 10, 2012 11:45 PM EDT

President Barack Obama wants to fix the debt problem and stop the nation from falling off a fiscal cliff. So does Mitt Romney. And John Boehner. And Paul Ryan. And Joe Biden, too.

They all said as much at the Republican and Democratic national conventions and accused their opponents of lacking the guts to pick a plan and make it stick.

So it would make sense that while they were talking, their aides and allies were meeting behind the scenes to steer away from that fast-approaching cliff, right?

Wrong.

The truth is that none of the top leaders or their aides are in serious negotiations. This leaves the key players simply pointing fingers and praying that voters clarify Washington’s power structure in November in a way that favors Republican entitlement cuts or Democratic tax hikes. The winners at the ballot box will get to set the terms, the thinking goes. Until then, don’t give an inch.

The only lawmakers negotiating right now belong to the Senate’s Gang of Eight, a salon of solvency hawks with little sway so far. They meet this week at 5 p.m. Tuesday. But their group has been huddling for months with little to show for it, and the real players — Obama, House Speaker Boehner (R-Ohio) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) — aren’t engaged, and neither are the staffers who do the heavy lifting on legislative deals.

Boehner and Reid haven’t had any recent talks about the fiscal cliff. The last time they spoke in person was in June, when they negotiated a deal on the highway bill, according to an aide. The pending budget cuts, known as “sequestration,” weren’t on the agenda, and neither were the expiring tax cuts. Likewise, Obama and Boehner haven’t huddled since May 16, when congressional leadership snacked on Taylor Gourmet sandwiches at the White House.

House Armed Services Committee Chairman Buck McKeon (R-Calif.) has no plans to talk with his Democratic colleagues to prevent budget cuts from hitting the Pentagon. He wants a plan from them before sitting down.

“He’s said we have put a solution on the table, put yours on the table, no vagaries about Republicans [not considering revenue]. If you want it to be all revenue, do it. Put it on the table, let’s get into a conference situation and work it out,” a Republican aide said.

House Republicans note that they are the only ones who have passed a plan to stop the cuts — although Democrats would never go along with it. A Boehner spokesman told POLITICO that Republicans have been “rebuffed at every opportunity” to stop the defense cuts and tax hikes.

Even if something bubbled up from the Gang of Eight in the Senate or from the rank and file in the House, there’s no indication that party leaders would embrace a bipartisan deal.

“We have tried and we have talked to Democrats and I know many members have different [ways of solving the problems],” House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said. “Unfortunately, the president says he won’t deal with this until after the election. That in part puts a little stopgap and makes it a little more difficult. But we have been trying to push the issue, and on the Senate side we’ve seen bipartisan members coming together, talking about it. [Defense Secretary Leon] Panetta has made comments about what this would do. There is a will out there to get something. Always in these situations, you need some leadership, and I think if the White House showed a little leadership, we can get this done very quickly.”

The lack of action on the most pressing fiscal matters of the year can also be seen in the thin congressional calendar. The House is scheduled to vote on an intelligence bill, a short-term government funding bill this week — Ryan will support it, a top Republican said Monday — and then leave town until after the Nov. 6 election. There won’t be an October session, aides in both chambers say.

Even the most optimistic players involved in the circular two-year-old debt talks can only hope that they might put in place yet another process for reaching an agreement.

Such plans could make the deficit worse before making it better. Lawmakers — including folks at the top of the leadership rung — talk about turning off a pending round of automatic budget cuts and extending most or all of the Bush tax rates for individuals — policies that would widen the gap between the money the government takes in and the money it spends.

It gets worse: Washington journalist Bob Woodward published a book this week detailing the decline of last year’s debt talks that reveals even more about the distrust that colored the negotiations among Obama, Senate Democrats and House Republicans.

On top of that partisan distrust, political leaders in both parties are hamstrung by their followers. The rank and file on both sides aren’t willing to give what it would take to make a deal.

In one episode recounted in Woodward’s book, Senate Democrats lit into White House Legislative Affairs Director Rob Nabors for pointing out that raising taxes on millionaires — no matter how much they were taxed — would never close the deficit without adding in cuts to cherished entitlement programs. Similarly, tax hikes are a nonstarter for Republicans.

Stuck in neutral would be an improvement in Washington. And despite all the lip service paid to the debt at the conventions, no one spent much time trying to fix the problem.

Democratic debt commission co-chairman Erskine Bowles held an intimate reception at his North Carolina home during the party’s convention in Charlotte, N.C., but there weren’t any Republican heavyweights at the table. Ryan, the likely linchpin of any deal that House Republicans would sign onto, doesn’t have the political latitude to endorse a deal now that it would probably secure Obama’s reelection.

The senators in the Gang of Eight are working to forge a plan that would create more time and space for a long-term deal, according to sources familiar with their talks.

“The best way to view the group of eight, or the way they’re viewing it, is more like a life raft. They don’t really know when it’s going to have to be deployed, but at some point, this tidal wave of debt is going to catch up with us and the markets are going to react,” said an aide to one of the senators. “It’s hopefully something that, when that time comes, will be ready to be deployed.”

Several sources said the lawmakers are working on legislative language that could be used to set up a process that would force Congress to act to diminish the debt. The last time the two parties came to such a deal, they set up the automatic spending cuts — the sequester — that many lawmakers are now scrambling to undo before they kick in at the start of next year.

© 2012 POLITICO LLC

Congress

- On CR vote, freshmen give in

- Hill ignores fiscal cliff warnings

- GOP to Akin: We're done with Missouri

- SEC funds plan divides Dems

- GOP lacks specifics on tax rates

- House GOP slams Chu memo

- Tierney would squeeze ex-Blackwater

- GOP infighting as farm bill suffers

- Frank defends 'Uncle Tom' diss

- Brown blasts Mica on 9/11 hearing

Freshmen give in to business as usual on CR vote

By: Kate Nocera

September 11, 2012 11:44 PM EDT

The House freshmen are growing up.

The days of battling with leadership over spending levels and controversial riders, and threatening a government shutdown seem to be relics of the past as Congress prepares to once again pass a temporary resolution that punts everything into next year.

This isn’t exactly what the rebellious rookies signed up for.

These conservatives, who had pledged to stand firm and change the way Washington does business, seem resigned, if not accepting, of the fact they’ll probably vote “yes” on a spending deal that actually increases spending by $8 billion. It may be the last meaningful vote before they face voters for reelection.

“A lot of this fight was fought last summer,” said Rep. James Lankford (R-Okla.). “I’m still a strong believer there’s a lot more that can be cut and should be cut. But is this as much blood as we can get out of this turnip? Probably.”

Lankford said he is “leaning yes” on the continuing resolution, and insists conservatives in the House did the best job they could in dealing with a Democratic Senate and president.

The “blame the Senate” message was echoed by a number of freshmen. Despite all their pledges to fight against Washington, they’ve come around to at least one Capitol Hill truism: We’ll do it after the election.

“I’m a little more patient, but that doesn’t mean I’m not hardheaded,” said Rep. Jeff Landry (R-La.), who said he’ll decide Thursday on which way he’ll vote. “I just think a lot of people have recognized that until we change the leadership in the Senate or get a different mind-set over there, we can’t move the country forward. So all of us are going home to say our novenas.”

The goal of the CR, which has a slightly higher $1 trillion spending level for the new fiscal year, is to avoid a government shutdown and push bigger budgeting decisions into the next Congress. House conservatives pushed for the six-month deal, and with their fingers crossed, hope Republicans will win the Senate and the White House in November when they would then be able to move their agenda through.

“We don’t like dealing with CRs either, but when you can’t get a budget done in the Senate and you can’t get appropriations bills in the Senate, this is what you’re left with,” said Rep. Bill Johnson (R-Ohio). “It’s the only option to keep the government from shutting down, and we aren’t going to let the government shut down. The House has done its job, it’s the Senate we can’t get cooperation from and it’s unfortunate that we’re in this situation.”

Unfortunate, yes, say Democrats who have long argued that all the can-kicking blame rests squarely on the shoulders of House Republicans, specifically the more conservative members of the conference. Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said on Tuesday that the CR is a “noncontroversial” bill, but only because Republicans came to a “previously agreed upon” spending figure after almost two years’ worth of fighting against compromises on a number of issues.

“They walked away from compromises on the continuing resolution — not all of them — keeping government open twice in 2011. Essentially a lot of them walked away from the debt limit,” Hoyer said.

There are still some freshman Republicans who are grumbling that the spending level is around $8 billion higher than last year. Rep. Tim Huelskamp (R-Kan). said he is still undecided on which way he’ll vote but the increase agreed to by party leaders, which is around 0.6 percent higher, is tough to swallow.

“The fact that they had to do this across-the-board-spending increase in order to get up to the level they agreed to really caught my eye,” Huelskamp said. “And would catch my constituents’ eye if I went home and said, ‘Oh, by the way, we were really serious about cutting spending, but we did an across-the-board-spending increase just to get out of town.’”

But even he conceded this might not be the moment to put up a fight.

“We don’t want a budget issue like this in lame duck, and sometimes you have to be willing to maneuver a little bit to avoid something that most Americans [don’t want],” Huelskamp said. “They don’t like the idea of a lame-duck Congress or a lame-duck president making big decisions. The fewer decisions in November or December, I think is the priority for me.”

That’s not to say there won’t be at least a few holdouts in the party. Rep. Justin Amash (R-Mich.) said he doesn’t plan to support the CR, but said there is a lot of conservative support for the deal and he might be only one of a few who will oppose it.

“I think the two parties need to actually compromise rather than just talk about compromise,” he said. “And when we pass short-term CRs and keep running government at the same levels without either side giving anything, to me that’s not compromise, that’s just kicking the can down the road.”

© 2012 POLITICO LLC

Hill ignores fiscal cliff warnings

By: Jake Sherman and Seung Min Kim

September 11, 2012 11:44 PM EDT

Hello, Washington. It’s the real world calling. A disaster is coming. Can you do something — anything — to stop the bleeding?

Crisis after crisis this year, Washington has responded with a simple shoulder shrug.

Farm bureaus, financial credit rating agencies, Wall Street, the defense industry, chambers of commerce and postal groups have all sounded the alarm bell warning D.C. about all manner of debt, spending and tax crises. They’ve largely failed to spur the action they were seeking.

The latest get-it-together moment came Tuesday, when Moody’s — one agency that has not downgraded the nation’s credit — warned that it could lower the rating unless Washington came together to agree on a budget package in 2013 that significantly cut the nation’s debt. The agency’s caution signal came ahead of the so-called fiscal cliff — a massive package of tax increases and spending cuts set to go into effect after this year unless Congress reaches an agreement to avert it.

Moody’s, one of the three main ratings agencies, also warned that it would most likely keep its “negative” outlook on the nation’s debt — a move that could precede a credit downgrade — if the United States fell off the fiscal cliff.

Here was House Speaker John Boehner’s reaction.

“I’m not confident at all,” Boehner (R-Ohio) said about the prospects of the deal, noting that the House has done one-third of the work that needs to be done to stabilize the debt.

Cast aside the blame because Republicans and Democrats privately agree that Washington has been desensitized to crisis and is ungovernable.

Lawmakers have heard the repeated threats from the outside — but it’s unclear whether they’re actually listening. Top congressional players aren’t engaged in serious talks over resolving the fiscal cliff while Capitol Hill is all but resigned to the fact that no movement on the cliff will occur until after the Nov. 6 election.

“It’s interesting that both the downgrade and the threatened downgrade don’t address our economy, they address our political system,” Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) told POLITICO. “They basically said it’s time for members of the Senate and the House to get it together. … I agree with them. There’s no excuse left at this point.”

But there’s not even agreement on whether an agreement is possible.

Hours after Boehner’s words of pessimism, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) rebutted him.

“I was disappointed when my friend John Boehner said today that he has no confidence on a budget deal,” he told reporters. “I think we have to look at the glass being half full, not half empty all the time. I’m confident that we will reach some kind of an arrangement.”

Some are just incredulous. Count moderate Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) in that bunch.

“I don’t understand it,” Snowe said Tuesday. “I cannot conceive that we could be dismissive in any way of the traumatic effects this potentially could have, creating enormous upheaval both in the financial markets, personally with Americans … as well as the political consternation among the American people about the lack of ability to solve these problems.”

Snowe, however, won’t have to live with the outcome of whatever Congress does — she’s parachuting out of the Senate, retiring in part over frustration with gridlock.

For those left behind in Washington, there’s still a hefty distrust of institutions.

“When I was a young captain, we were heading out to Desert Shield/Desert Storm, Saddam Hussein said this would be the mother of all battles, everyone was concerned the United States military would not be able to fight open-desert warfare,” Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.) said. “I think it was 96 hours before we were done. My history is I don’t sit around listening to all the external influencers. I just try to make things happen.”

But Washington doesn’t exactly appear as if it will charge into fiscal cliff negotiations ready to compromise.

Instead of working vociferously to solve automatic cuts to defense and domestic programs that House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) says are “sending tremors” through his home state, this week has become a shouting match over whose idea it was to institute that so-called trigger.

The finger-pointing came even as top executives from several defense companies — such as Lockheed Martin, EADS North America and BAE Systems — warned in letters released Monday that they’ll distribute tens of thousands of layoff warnings due to uncertainty caused by the budget sequester.

Meanwhile, House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) said he won’t pass a bill to reform the near-bankrupt U.S. Postal Service because he sees “no opportunity for any compromise with the Senate based on the anti-reform bill that they passed.” Issa said he is waiting for presidential leadership. The postmaster general earlier this month, facing billions of dollars in losses, said Congress must act because the agency can’t stay afloat for long.

The farm bill is also a problem. The House still hasn’t passed its update to national agriculture policy. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack has tried to pressure Congress, and this week, that consternation hit the Elected Leadership Committee — the small power circle atop House GOP politics. Rep. Kristi Noem, a South Dakota freshman at the leadership table, made a stink about Congress’s inaction on the bill, according to several sources. As did other farm state lawmakers, including Rep. Rick Berg (R-N.D.). The National Farmers Union plans a rally Wednesday morning on Capitol Hill to urge Congress to pass a farm bill.

“I got a letter [on Monday] signed by approximately 20 of the leading farm organizations in the country. … And they said, ‘Please don’t do anything but the bill that passed the Senate,’” Reid told reporters on Tuesday, referring to the bill the upper chamber passed but the House ignored. “We’re at a stage now where it’s been a total failure — I’m sorry to use this term again — of the leadership in the House just to walk away from this, and that’s what they’re doing. There is no bill that’s come from the House. Nothing.”

House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) would only say it is his “intent” to get the bill done “as soon as possible,” declining to entertain whether that would be during this Congress. Boehner was asked about the farm bill as he exited his press conference Tuesday and did not answer.

Senate Democrats are more than eager to note that their chamber has voted to reauthorize the five-year farm bill and overhaul the financially ailing Postal Service. Both measures passed with more than 60 votes — a notable number in this continuously gridlocked Senate, members say.

“If you pass anything on a bipartisan basis, it has some credibility,” Durbin said. “What [House Republicans] are doing is jamming through one political message after another.”

Boehner and his Republican troops have repeatedly argued that the GOP-led House has already moved to pull back the nation from the fiscal cliff — putting the onus on the Democratic-led Senate and the Obama administration.

“In the House, we’ve been way ahead of those warnings,” Rep. Kevin Brady (R-Texas) said Tuesday. “The reason the House already acted to deal with the fiscal cliff, the automatic spending cuts and the tax issues is because we don’t want to wait until the end of the year. They’re confirming what I think we already have been preaching for quite some time.”

Democrats don’t think much of House-passed plans, dismissing them as red meat for the party’s base. House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said he hadn’t “read Moody’s observations,” but credit rating agencies are afraid that Washington lacks intellectual honesty to deal with big issues.

Rep. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) said he doesn’t think Washington is deaf to outside warnings.

“I think we all should care about what Moody’s says,” Scott said. “Our disposition, or the lack thereof, on the financial cliff is going to cost us. If we were not the reserve currency of the world, what would it look like? Literally, we keep throwing money into the economy, and all that really does is cause the stock market to go up and you have a jobless recovery because more money in the economy only goes to the market because there’s no other place to go.”

© 2012 POLITICO LLC

GOP to Todd Akin: We’re done with Missouri

By: Manu Raju

September 11, 2012 11:23 PM EDT

Texas Sen. John Cornyn doesn’t want to talk about Missouri Senate candidate Todd Akin.

“We’re done,” Cornyn, chairman of the powerful National Republican Senatorial Committee, responded when asked whether the committee would reverse course and spend money to help Akin if he stays in the race.

“As far as I’m concerned, that’s up to the people of Missouri,” he added. “I’ve done everything I know how to do.”

As Akin begins to build a campaign operation focused heavily on turning out conservatives, Republicans in Washington are starting to put their cash elsewhere, resigned to the increasing likelihood that they will be stuck with a candidate they fear has no chance against Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.).

After scrapping a planned $5 million TV ad blitz in Missouri, the NRSC has shifted its focus to states like Maine, where the party committee will unveil Wednesday a $600,000, two-week ad buy to prop up Republican Charlie Summers in a three-way race led by independent Angus King. The high-spending Republican outside group, Crossroads GPS, canceled the last of its planned Missouri ads on Tuesday, scrapping the $2.3 million it wanted to use to attack McCaskill. And Republicans began to focus on once-ignored states that could be crucial to their path to the majority, such as the suddenly competitive race in Connecticut.

On top of that, Republican officials say Akin — a devout Christian conservative — has informed them that his decision to run is being guided by faith and belief in God. That means, they say, there’s little chance he’ll get out.

“It’s all theological for him,” said one Republican House member who knows Akin well but asked not to be named.

Akin and his team reject the notion that he’s a one-note candidate who can only appeal to religious conservatives and the anti-abortion community, pointing to Tuesday’s endorsement from the Missouri Farm Bureau. They say his fiscal conservative positions and views on the economy are well within the Missouri mainstream.

“People all over the state” are encouraging him to remain in the race, Akin told a swarm of reporters Monday.

Akin said he’s heard this time and again from voters: “‘We’ve already voted. The party bosses want to put anyone else in. Don’t you give up; you stay in there and you fight.’”

Indeed, the moves by national figures to get Akin out of the race have infuriated his supporters. Akin won his hard-fought Senate primary, they say, and he has apologized profusely for his comments on rape and pregnancy last month.

Still, there are signs that his campaign is financially stretched. A $225,000 ad buy that was slated to run until last week was stretched out into this week, meaning fewer commercials over a longer time frame. In the meantime, McCaskill has been pounding the airwaves with $500,000 per week in ads, including recent commercials branding herself as a moderate.

Akin’s team recognizes the disparity but is banking on hopes that money will pour in once it’s clear he’s in the race to stay; the deadline to get off the ballot is Sept. 25. They don’t believe the national groups’ threats that they will stay out of a competitive race that could determine the Senate majority. And they plan to launch a new ad campaign in the fall targeting voters put off by McCaskill’s support of much of President Barack Obama’s agenda.

“If we can replace an adequate amount of money and generate a genuine grass-roots campaign, we will beat Claire McCaskill because this is ultimately a referendum on her,” said Rick Tyler, a top adviser to Akin. “However, having said all that, I believe the national money will come back.”

If it doesn’t, Tyler said: “I don’t think the Republican Party will lose the Senate because of Todd Akin. They will lose the Senate majority because they don’t want to defend conservative principles.”

Still, even loyal conservatives who have done battle with Washington Republicans aren’t yet coming to Akin’s rescue. Utah Sen. Mike Lee, a tea party favorite who has worked to promote conservative Senate candidates this cycle, said he has no plans to get behind Akin. Same with Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), the staunch conservative who has long battled with his leadership.

“I have not been involved in that race, so I’m not really going to get involved,” DeMint said.

DeMint declined to say whether he agrees with his party’s decision to abandon Akin. Likewise, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell — who has called on Akin to step aside — refused Tuesday to comment on the congressman’s candidacy.

“He’s still got some time; he’ll have to decide whether he’s going to get the money and the support he needs to make this happen,” said Missouri Sen. Roy Blunt, who has urged Akin to quit.

The 65-year-old, six-term congressman’s uncomfortable position in the party started last month when he was asked about his opposition to abortion in the cases of rape. He responded that when “legitimate rape” occurs, it rarely leads to pregnancies.

Since then, Akin has been on an apology tour, though Republicans from Missouri to Washington believe the comments were a fatal blow to his candidacy.

Akin has until Sept. 25 to obtain a court order to get off the November ballot so the state party can pick a replacement. In reality, he’d have to start the process by next week because military and overseas absentee ballots are sent out on Sept. 22.

But it’s all a moot point, Akin says.

“I’m not getting out; I made that really clear,” Akin told reporters Monday.

Polls since Akin’s rape remarks have put McCaskill up by as much as 10 percentage points, though one Democratic pollster recently showed Akin down by 1 point. Republicans believe that McCaskill and Democrats have tried to avoid making the rape comments a bigger campaign issue in order to keep him in the race until the Sept. 25 deadline. McCaskill’s team denies that.

Asked about the race Tuesday and whether Akin has a shot to win even with GOP groups staying out, McCaskill demurred.

“I’m not going to talk politics on that,” McCaskill told POLITICO. “I’m going to try to get through the 25th and not talk about it.”

Akin made a brief appearance in the Capitol on Monday before heading back to Missouri. He barnstormed conservative parts of the state Tuesday, meeting with college students in Fulton, shaking hands with voters at a cafe in Ozark and attending a rally at Christian County Republican headquarters in Nixa.

Akin’s campaign says it has collected $425,000 in online contributions since mid-August, but aides acknowledge they’ll need much more to remain competitive with the well-financed McCaskill.

Social conservative groups like the Family Research Council and politicians such as Mike Huckabee have come to Akin’s defense, something that could help in a state with swaths of evangelical voters. And he has long-standing ties to the social conservative world, including his former chief of staff, Rob Schwarzwalder, who is a senior vice president at the Family Research Council.

All of this has left some of Akin’s House colleagues nervously watching the fallout.

“I think, quite frankly, that we as a ticket are not going to be helped by him being on the ticket,” said Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-Mo.). “How much it will hurt us down the road will depend on how the campaign plays out between he and Claire. At this point, it appears that there’s a negligible amount of damage so far to the rest of the ticket, but we’ve got a lot of campign to go here — so we’ll see what happens.”

© 2012 POLITICO LLC

SEC funds plan wedges Hill Democrats, W.H.

By: Zachary Warmbrodt

September 11, 2012 11:02 PM EDT

In one of the first major financial reform battles since the passage of sweeping Wall Street reforms in 2010, support from Hill Democrats is missing in action.

Federal regulators and the Obama administration have identified the money market mutual fund industry as unfinished business left over from the financial crisis and are warning that it remains a threat to the economy.

But last month an effort by Securities and Exchange Commission Chairwoman Mary Schapiro to crack down on these funds was thwarted in the face of strong industry opposition after she failed to win the support of a Democratic swing vote, Luis Aguilar, at the five-member regulatory commission.

Now, the Financial Stability Oversight Council, the super panel of regulators led by Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, is mulling over what steps it can take to further Schapiro’s plan.

Geithner, Schapiro and other regulators are taking on this task, however, without strong support from congressional Democrats, allies they have been able to count on in past fights with the financial industry.

“We have to do it, but I think there’s a great deal of concern about how to do it without ending money market mutual funds,” Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), a member of the Banking Committee, told POLITICO.

Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), another committee member, said the impact of smaller changes put in place by the SEC after the financial crisis should be studied before larger steps are taken.

“When we get that, there may very well be other reforms that are necessary,” he said in an interview.

Other congressional Democrats have also not come out in strong opposition to proposed reforms, instead counseling caution and raising the specter of unintended consequences from regulation, arguments they have dismissed in previous efforts to crack down on the financial industry.

Concerns about the industry stretch back to 2008, during the height of the financial crisis, when the Treasury Department stepped in to temporarily guarantee cash parked in the funds to prevent a run on them.

To prevent this from recurring, Schapiro is proposing that funds switch to “floating” prices that better reflect losses, build buffers with increased capital and restrict how quickly investors can take back their money.

The question of whether to back the push by Schapiro has put Hill Democrats in an uncomfortable political position, mainly because opposition to the reforms comes not just from the financial industry.

State and municipal governments as well as consumer groups are lobbying against the proposal.

Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), chairman of the Banking subcommittee that oversees securities and investment, told Schapiro in June he had concerns about the effects on municipal governments. In July, nine Senate Democrats sent a letter to the chairman citing similar worries.

“The regulations under review by the SEC would have been harmful to Main Street,” Sen. Mark Begich (D-Alaska) said in a statement to POLITICO. “At a time when cities across the country are struggling to keep cops on the beat, teachers in schools, and the lights on at City Hall, the last thing we should be doing is making it harder to access critical short-term funding.”

The concerns stretch into the House.

Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-Mass.), a Financial Services Committee member and Dodd-Frank supporter who has made a show of chastising Wall Street officials like JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon at congressional hearings, said he has concerns about “serious unintended consequences” for local governments that could result from proposed reforms.

“A lot of the customers of money market funds lobbied pretty effectively on this, and a lot of them are close with Democratic constituencies,” said Brian Gardner, an analyst with investment bank Keefe, Bruyette & Woods. “They’re the pension funds and municipalities who use money market funds as a cash management tool.”

Whether strong backing from congressional Democrats would help regulators pass money market reforms is far from a sure thing, but it’s clear the current lack of support is not helping advance a top regulatory priority for the Obama administration.

“The regulatory process will never be free from politics,” said Jaret Seiberg, a policy analyst at Guggenheim Securities. “So significant congressional support for further regulating money market mutual funds would not only further embolden the regulators to act, but it also would make it more likely that the industry would make major concessions to find a workable compromise.”

Many investors view money market funds as an alternative to savings accounts, but unlike those bank deposits, money market accounts are not backed by the government.

With action at the SEC stalled, the alternative route is for FSOC, a panel of top regulators created by Dodd-Frank, to implement greater oversight, such as subjecting major fund firms to Federal Reserve supervision.

FSOC and its member agencies are “exploring all the options” to put reforms in place, a source familiar with the matter said. The group is scheduled to meet later this month.

Steven Sloan contributed to this report.

© 2012 POLITICO LLC

Capital gains: GOP lacks specifics on lower tax rates

By: Kelsey Snell

September 11, 2012 11:02 PM EDT

The investor community is closely watching how Congress will deal with big tax hikes on investment income that are set to go into place at the end of the year.

But while most of the focus has been on the partisan split between the two parties over the issue, Republicans have their own internal problems to resolve as GOP members search to define a party position beyond calling for a low rate.

The divide has been further highlighted by Mitt Romney’s decision to tap Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) as his running mate in his quest for the White House.

Ryan joined with tea party members last year in calling for the rates on dividends and capital gains to be completely eliminated for all taxpayers. That positions him to the right of many of his GOP colleagues, including Romney. Many lawmakers support the 15 percent rate for all taxpayers and Romney would keep it in place for individuals earning more than $200,000 each year.

This tension is expected to be on public display later this month if members of the House Ways and Means and Senate Finance committees follow through on a plan to hold a joint hearing on investment income before they leave town to campaign. The hearing has yet to be formally scheduled, and it could be put off until after the election.

The joint hearings are intended to show that Republicans and Democrats can at least get together to examine looming tax choices, but the one on investment income may instead serve to highlight the lack of unity among Republicans in advance of tough negotiations with Democrats later this year.

“[The GOP rate] remains to be seen,” said Sen. Orrin Hatch, the top Republican on the Finance Committee. “It’s like the death tax. I’d like to get rid of it completely but I don’t think the Democrats are going to let us do that. On capital gains, I’d like to keep them as low as we can.”

He said the party isn’t necessarily at odds; it’s just being realistic about what Democrats will agree to in any deal.

For their part, Democrats laid down a marker in July when the Senate voted 51-48 to freeze the 15 percent tax rate for most earners and allow rates to rise for all those earning more than $250,000.

House Republicans dismiss the idea that internal disagreements could prove problematic.

“[We’re] on the same page that we want [the rates] to be lower than they are,” said Ohio Rep. Patrick Tiberi, a top Republican on Ways and Means. “None of us individually gets to make that decision; it has to be collectively.”

Wall Street POLITICO is a weekly column looking at issues that drive business.

© 2012 POLITICO LLC

House Republicans slam Steven Chu memo

By: Darius Dixon

September 11, 2012 10:13 PM EDT

House Republicans repeated their accusations Tuesday that a directive from Energy Secretary Steven Chu could hike electricity prices across several Western states — at a time when the economy is limping and the GOP is making energy costs a prime campaign issue.

“When Americans are already struggling to fill their tanks due to the rising price of gasoline, which has doubled under this administration’s watch, the last thing they need is to pay more every time they flip on the light switch,” Natural Resources Committee Chairman Doc Hastings (R-Wash.) said during a hearing on Chu’s March 16 memo.

In the document, Chu described several broad goals that DOE’s four power marketing administrations should make to upgrade their electric grid to accommodate renewable energy and improve cybersecurity.

But Hastings said the fallout from the memo “could dramatically change and undermine the collaborative and low-cost emissions-free nature of the federal power program.” He said Chu should “pull the plug on this misguided effort.”

Other Republicans on the panel agreed.

“My communities over in Mesa County: 19.5 percent real unemployment. These people are struggling right now,” said Colorado Rep. Scott Tipton. He said the Obama administration is pursuing “policies that are taxation via regulation that are driving up of costs over many consumers, money they can never recoup.”

In June, 166 lawmakers sent a letter to Chu expressing their concern over how the proposed guidelines for the PMAs might affect electricity prices.

But top committee Democrat Ed Markey defended Chu, saying the memo outlines actions that would ultimately cut electricity costs for consumers because they would reduce waste, promote energy efficiency and support renewable energy and demand response.

Ultimately, the Massachusetts Democrat said, the hearing was part of a campaign against renewable energy by the same Republicans still capitalizing on the demise of the solar firm Solyndra. He said the main event is Friday’s scheduled House floor vote on the No More Solyndras Act.

“Today’s hearing is part of the same anti-clean energy, anti-progress agenda that Republicans have been pushing for the last 29 months,” Markey said. “They’ve made this Congress the most do-nothing Congress in history, and now they’re trying to shut down Secretary Chu’s grid modernization effort to make sure this is the most do-nothing Department of Energy in history as well.”

DOE senior adviser Lauren Azar defended Chu’s memo during the hearing, noting that the 1992 and 2005 energy laws created “obligations on grid operations and reliability.”

“Our overall goal is to keep consumers’ bills as low as possible while ensuring our nation has the infrastructure it needs to remain competitive in a global marketplace and accommodating regional choices to meet customers’ demand,” she said.

Azar also emphasized that the work to draw concrete plans from Chu’s guidance memo will be different for each PMA and will involve DOE partnerships with each power administration to determine what plans work best for each area.

DOE’s current joint effort with the Western Area Power Administration will publish a draft set of region-specific recommendations in the Federal Register for comment before passing them to Chu. That team, Azar told reporters after the hearing, hopes to send final recommendations to Chu by the end of the year.

Azar has been leading DOE’s effort with the power marketing administrations, but Hastings has been insisting that Chu make an appearance before his committee.

Azar also said WAPA faces about $2.3 billion in infrastructure costs to make necessary upgrades. But she said because congressional appropriations for improvements have waned, WAPA has taken out “loans” from its customers to maintain sections of the electric grid.

“Let me just note that because appropriations haven’t been sufficient, the federal government has had to go out and get loans from the customers to keep the grid up,” she said.

© 2012 POLITICO LLC

Rep. John Tierney would squeeze ex-Blackwater

By: Leigh Munsil

September 11, 2012 06:54 PM EDT

A Massachusetts congressman is pressuring the State and Defense departments to consider suspending and disbarring Academi, the defense contractor formerly known as Blackwater.

Democratic Rep. John Tierney is asking the agencies to reevaluate last month’s $7.5 million settlement by the North Carolina company over alleged weapons export violations, claiming the fine isn’t severe enough and expressing concern over Academi’s continued eligibility for government contracts.

“This has been a repeated problem that’s gone on — this isn’t a one-off situation, and it’s not just Blackwater,” Tierney said in an interview with POLITICO. “We’ve had companies taking millions of dollars from taxpayers, repeatedly making questionable decisions. … If we don’t hold them accountable, then it’s going to keep happening.”

Tierney, the top Democrat on the House Oversight and Government Reform Subcommittee on National Security, Homeland Defense and Foreign Operations, has criticized Academi before, introducing legislation aimed at stopping waste and practices he says put national security at risk.

The accusations covered by the settlement include exporting ammunition and body armor to Iraq and Afghanistan without authorization, shipping encrypted satellite phones to the government of South Sudan through Kenya and possibly exporting armed helicopters without approval.

Academi, formerly called Blackwater and then Xe Services, also reached a $42 million agreement in 2010 with the State Department after similar arms charges.

“If you look at the magnitude of the problem that was there, it doesn’t seem to be much more than a slap on the wrist,” Tierney said. “This was not their first time having this kind of a problem.”

Responding, an Academi spokesman said the incidents Tierney refers to happened under the company’s previous ownership and management, saying the settlements are an example of its forward-looking posture.

“While Academi has been charged to resolve those inherited issues, we have nothing in common, culturally or operationally, with that legacy company,” the spokesman told POLITICO. “Today, Academi is working to become the industry leader in governance, compliance and regulatory matters. It is fair to say – and important to note – that the company that was once known as Blackwater simply does not exist anymore in the company that is now Academi.”

The use of contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan has been controversial — Afghan president Hamid Karzai has repeatedly tried to ban them from operating in his country. Still, contractors will continue to play a significant role in Afghanistan as U.S. troops withdraw, much as they have in Iraq.

“It’s going to be a continuing issue, and a lot of that has to do with how many troops remain and what the security picture is going to look like in the long run, and what the United States vs. national community is going to have as a role,” Tierney said.

On Aug. 7, Tierney introduced a bill that would tighten oversight over military contractors, limiting non-competitive contracts to one year and contracts bid on by multiple organizations to three years.

Called the Oversight and Accountability in Wartime Contracting Act of 2012, Tierney’s legislation would also require justifications for sole-source contracts to be submitted to Congress. The Pentagon, State Department and Agency for International Development would also create positions to monitor contractors more closely.

In a move aimed at groups like Blackwater-turned-Academi, the bill would also require information on contractors’ “parent, subsidiary or successor entities” to be included in reports, to give a sense of their past performance and “integrity.”

“We want to know the history of contractors … and make sure that they can’t get away just by changing a name and moving forward,” Tierney said. “There has to be some consistency, so who were you before you were Academi and who were you before you were Blackwater or Xe?”

© 2012 POLITICO LLC

GOP infighting as farm bill suffers

By: David Rogers

September 11, 2012 06:23 PM EDT

With farmers rallying at the Capitol Wednesday and the Senate showing no appetite for disaster aid substitutes, divisions are surfacing more among House Republicans over their leadership’s decision to block action on a five-year farm bill.

Fresh from the summer recess, farm state lawmakers set off what was described as a spirited discussion at Monday’s meeting the GOP whip team, and the echoes continued at a Tuesday session of the full Republican conference.

Freshman Rep. Rick Berg (R-N.D.), who has been hurt politically at home by the farm bill impasse, helped to trigger the whips’ discussion. But grayer heads—and traditional team players— backed him up including Reps. Tom Cole (R-Okla.) and Randy Neugebauer (R-Tex.), as well as House Agriculture Committee Chairman Frank Lucas (R-Okla.)

“Members had been home. People know the clock’s ticking,” Cole said of the exchanges. “I believe we have a product ready to move,” he told POLITICO. “We have an opportunity to do something that is not partisan. I think we ought to do it.”

“Of the 100 agriculture districts in the House, 73 are in our hands. A majority of our conference would vote for it,” Cole said. “Politically it’s the smart thing to do and institutionally it’s the right thing. It may not be perfect but we ought to have the courage to put it on the floor and let Congress work its will.”

Neugebauer said his fellow conservatives demanding still greater cuts from food stamps were missing the point that the nutrition program will continue without change under the continuing resolution to be voted on Thursday, while the existing farm program will begin to unravel if nothing is done before Sept. 30.

“If you don’t do anything, the food stamps continue regardless of what you do on the farm bill,” Neugebauer said in an interview. “But if you let the farm bill expire on Sept. 30, the farm policy part of it expires, and you don’t get any reforms which were actually passed in a very bipartisan way out of the House Ag Committee.”

Berg, who met Tuesday as well with Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-N.D.), told POLITICO he remains frustrated but hopeful “there is a different momentum in the House from 24 hours ago.” And Cantor? “I certainly think he’s more attuned to it today,” Berg said.

Berg said his frustration was that House Republicans had been committed to an open, often messy debate on other topics but then pulled up short on the farm bill.

“To just say we’re going to stall and not do anything…This is not the way the process has to work here,” Berg said. “Farmers at home do their job. This is the House’s job.”

Lucas is keeping a low profile, and following on private talks with the House leadership at the Republican convention in Tampa, the chairman appears resigned to no action on his bill until after the election. Lucas spoke up in the whip’s discussion Monday but has shown no willingness to do more to challenge Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), who seems intent on running out the clock until after the election and then pushing for a one year extension of the current farm program.

“Every contingency is we’ll run the world on the other side of the election,” Cole said, describing the mindset for some inside his conference. “You can wait later and also lose the elections and do worse.”

The situation has most infuriated Senate Agriculture Committee Chairwoman Debbie Stabenow. And in a conference call with reporters Tuesday, the Michigan Democrat all but ruled out any action on an interim disaster aid package until the House shows some movement on the larger bill.

This could pose a real hardship for livestock producers caught in the devastating drought this summer. But Stabenow dismissed the short-term disaster aid bill passed by the House before the August recess as “wholly inadequate” and said she has seen “no desire by the House leadership to do anything” to broaden the coverage.

“This is just absolutely unacceptable,” Stabenow said of Boehner’s position on the farm bill. “In my time here—and this is my fourth farm bill—I have never seen a situation where a bipartisan bill came out of committee and was not taken up on the floor.”

“It’s very clear that farm country is overwhelmingly saying: just get the job done. The House should take the precious few days they have in session and act.”

“Just as every farmer and rancher has to get in the morning and do the job in front of them and not delay it, this is our job.”

© 2012 POLITICO LLC

Barney Frank defends 'Uncle Tom' diss

By: Kevin Cirilli

September 11, 2012 05:04 PM EDT

Rep. Barney Frank released a scathing statement Tuesday defending his recent comparison of the Log Cabin Republicans to Uncle Tom, saying the LGBT group is “on the wrong side of the election” by pushing Mitt Romney’s “Rick Santorum platform.”

“I am not surprised that members of the Log Cabin Republicans are offended by my comparing them to Uncle Tom,” Frank wrote. “They are no more offended than I am by their campaigning in the name of LGBT rights to elect the candidate and party who diametrically oppose our rights against a president who has forcefully and effectively supported our rights.”

The openly gay Democratic congressman made the comparison at least twice last week, according to the Advocate, including in an address to the Democratic National Convention’s LGBT Caucus. “I am again inclined to think that they’re called the Log Cabin club because their role model is Uncle Tom,” he said Thursday.

In his statement Tuesday, Frank defended — and expanded on — what he admits is “very harsh criticism.”

“[M]y use of “Uncle Tom” was based not simply on this awful fact that they have chosen to be actively on the wrong side of an election that will have an enormous impact on our right to equality,” he said, later adding that the group “may mislead people who do not share their view that tax cuts for the wealthy are more important than LGBT rights into thinking that they are somehow helping the latter by supporting Mitt Romney and his Rick Santorum platform.”

Frank said that it’s “a good thing for Republicans to try to influence other Republicans to be supportive of LGBT rights,” but argued that the Log Cabin Republicans have failed to do so — and yet, “they pretend to be successful … and urge people to join them in rewarding the Republicans when they have in fact continued their anti-LGBT stance.”

“I have been hearing the Log Cabin Republicans proclaim for years that they were improving the view of that party towards our legal equality,” wrote Frank, who is not seeking reelection in 2012. “In fact, over the past 20 years, things have gotten worse, not better.”

In conclusion, he wrote, “Some have complained that in comparing the Log Cabin Republicans to Uncle Tom, I was ignoring the fact that they are nice. I accept the fact that many of them are nice — so was Uncle Tom — but in both cases, they’ve been nice to the wrong people.”

Log Cabin Republicans executive director R. Clarke Cooper denounced Frank’s comments in a statement of his own to POLITICO.

“Congressman Frank, of all people, should understand the importance of perseverance when working within a party to achieve change — after all, it was not so long ago his party was indifferent at best when it came to respecting gay families,” Cooper said. “Leaders committed to LGBT equality know that every victory our community has achieved has required bipartisan advocacy and bipartisan votes, and winning support from Republicans will only be more important in the days ahead.

“Come January, Republicans will maintain a majority in the House and likely secure a majority in the Senate. Without Log Cabin Republicans working with fellow conservatives, LGBT Americans would be left without a credible voice within the GOP,” Cooper wrote. “Barney Frank’s denial of Log Cabin Republicans success, particularly on ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ repeal and the freedom to marry in New York, is sad but unsurprising. It is time for him to pass on the baton to leaders better suited to a world where equality is not a partisan issue.”

© 2012 POLITICO LLC

Corrine Brown blasts John Mica, Amtrak hearing on Sept. 11

By: Kathryn A. Wolfe

September 11, 2012 01:23 PM EDT

A senior House Democrat said Rep. John Mica’s earlier comments that he’s on a “holy jihad” to overhaul Amtrak are “insulting” and that having a hearing on the railroad’s expenses instead of transportation security on the Sept. 11 anniversary was inappropriate.

Rep. Corrine  Brown (D-Fla.), the top Democrat on the House Transportation and Infrastructure panel in charge of rail issues, said the T&I chairman’s “jihad” comments, made last month to POLITICO, were insulting “on this day of remembrance.”

“It’s insulting to me, it’s insulting to Amtrak and its employees, and it’s insulting to Amtrak riders. And I’m sure it’s insulting to Muslims that live in this country, particularly on the anniversary of 9/11,” Brown said Tuesday.

(PHOTOS: Sept. 11 remembered)

Brown made her comments during a hearing looking into Amtrak’s commuter operations and expenses.  She said the hearing should’ve been about “what we can do to secure this nation’s mass transportation system now and in the future.”

“But we’re not holding a hearing on rail security … we are having a hearing, once again, criticizing Amtrak all while members of Congress are gathering on the East front steps of the Capitol. The fact is on this very day 11 years ago Amtrak and its employees worked around the clock to provide one of the only traveling options for many of this country.”

(50 PHOTOS: Ground zero reborn)

Brown then asked Mica to call for a moment of silence, which Mica granted.

“I’m most pleased to grant the lady’s request for a moment of silence in the committee. If we’d observe that, thank you,” Mica said, though he didn’t answer the other critiques.

In a letter to Mica sent Tuesday, Brown also “strongly urges” Mica to retract his “jihad” comments and apologize to Amtrak, its employees and the Muslim community.

Occurring concurrently with the Amtrak hearing, T&I also was holding a hearing examining the implementation of one of the landmark maritime security laws implemented as a direct result of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) picked up on Brown’s theme, saying on Sept. 11, Amtrak “surged capacity to meet expanded demand” and arguing that since the railroad’s ridership keeps growing, “on today of all days we should be examining whether the system is as safe as it can be.”

Rep. John J. Duncan Jr. (R-Tenn.) countered, as did Mica earlier in the hearing, that “there’s nobody on this side that has anything against Amtrak, we’re just concerned about the many, many billions” of dollars in losses Amtrak has incurred.

Brown also took Mica to task for not providing Democrats in advance with a copy of a report presented during the hearing examining Amtrak’s commuter operations. It was the latest in a string of Democratic complaints about being shut out of the famously bipartisan committee’s operations, the most poisonous of which involved drafting of the recent transportation law.

“Here we go again. We never were consulted on this oversight report; we never saw it or heard about it until at this time,” Brown said, noting that when Democrats controlled the committee Republicans were provided with advanced copies.

In response, Mica offered to hold open the record for 30 days instead of the customary 10 in order to give Democrats time to prepare a minority report. But that didn’t satisfy Brown, who pressed Mica about why they didn’t receive the report early in the first place. She then declared that T&I “is not a bipartisan committee anymore.”

“I’m sorry the gentle lady has that feeling and perception, but again, I got the report I believe on Friday … you have it today and you are also welcome to fully participate in the hearing,” Mica said.

Later, after returning from a member-event to commemorate Sept. 11, Mica gaveled the hearing back in and went into an extensive personal remembrance of that day’s events, including discussing congressional staff members who were killed in the attack on the Pentagon.

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This article first appeared on POLITICO Pro at 1:10 p.m. on September 11, 2012.

CORRECTION: Corrine Brown’s name was misspelled in an earlier version of this story.

© 2012 POLITICO LLC

Ideas

- My obsession with 'Made in the USA'

- Obama's campaign against coal

- Protect immigrant women

- Normalize trade with Russia

- GOP war on Voting Rights Act

- Making political ads personal

- New America vs. Old America

- Clinton's double count of Medicare

- Time to pass Obama agenda

- Ill-served by Dem fantasies

My onshore obsession with 'Made in the USA'

By: Jennifer Granholm

September 11, 2012 11:32 PM EDT

I confess that I have an obsession.

I’m obsessed — obsessed — with cracking the code on how to get more manufacturing in the U.S.

As I began this column, I looked at the “made in” label on everything physically within reach. I’m typing on a Dell computer. Made in China. The J. Jill shirt I’m wearing? Made in India. My Timex watch? China. The ShoreTel phone on my desk? China. My Asics tennis shoes? China. It made me sad and frustrated that the products surrounding me right now undoubtedly support scores of jobs abroad. Good for those workers.

But what about us? Or, what about U.S.?

In scanning my work space, I did have one moment of fleeting joy: The Expo dry erase marker in my pencil cup was proudly stamped “Made in USA.” I immediately Googled the company and learned that they’re made by Sanford Corp. in Oak Brook, Ill. Owned by Newell Rubbermaid. A multinational company on the Fortune 500 with about 20,000 employees around the world. Yet these dry erase markers were still made in the U.S. It made me want to order more.

So when President Barack Obama at the Democratic convention last week said “we can create a million new manufacturing jobs in the next four years,” I was on my feet.

And I’m not alone. Admit it: You know you want it. You’re insatiable for it.

You want products stamped “Made in the USA.”

It just feels good to buy products made here. You want the quality. You want the jobs. But our purchasing options have been strangled by the global shift in manufacturing jobs to low-wage countries.

So here are eight policy suggestions to make the march to 1 million manufacturing jobs happen:

• Aggressively incentivize states to create industry clusters that make a good business case for those jobs to locate here;

• Offer low-cost access to capital to get factories built — try zero percent, guaranteed federal loans if you build a factory;

• Incentivize locals to assemble land for manufacturing and supplier parks;

• Reward states that create training sectors to dovetail with specific industry-driven advanced manufacturing skill needs;

• Reward states that streamline permitting for siting a factory;

• Offer a five-year federal tax moratorium for brand-new or reshored factories;

• Incentivize the repatriation of $1.7 trillion in multinational corporations’ offshore holdings by lowering the corporate tax on a one-time basis and put the hundreds of billions in resulting new tax revenues into capitalizing an infrastructure bank;

• Set specific Foreign Direct Investment goals for recruiting international companies to locate their manufacturing operations in America.

It was a great relief this week to find out that we’re not the only ones who want more U.S.-made products. The Washington Post reports on Sept. 9 that middle-class shoppers in Mexico are flocking to U.S. stores and products, and that U.S. exports to Mexico have exploded to $198 billion last year, up from $41 billion in 1993.

And there’s more: For the first half of 2012, U.S. exports set a record of $773.4 billion in goods. Thirty-four states saw new export records in this period, with transportation equipment and agriculture products leading the way. The U.S. is now on a pace to exceed the record $2.1 trillion in exports we saw in 2011.

Why? Because “Made in the USA” has become synonymous with quality and prestige — so much so that U.S. brands are status symbols in other countries.

Indeed, we have evidence that some American companies are starting to onshore their manufacturing. Back in February, the Boston Consulting Group surveyed 106 companies and found that 37 percent planned to bring jobs back. Anecdotal evidence suggests that these companies are reshoring after discovering that they need hands-on quality control; that shorter lead times are essential for changing consumer tastes and managing inventory; that wages are rising in so-called low wage” countries and that transportation costs are too volatile.

They have also discovered that the U.S. worker and American craftmanship are second to none, and quality and consistency are more important for retaining customers than a cheap price tag. Some smart businesses are making the smart business decision to c’mon home.

Now just imagine — imagine — what we could do if we had a national policy to encourage on-shoring on steroids?

The American Jobs Act introduced last year would offer businesses payroll tax incentives for hiring Americans, and covered 100 percent of business expensing for the year. Republicans in Congress have refused to move on this measure. President Obama has also proposed that we end tax incentives for companies that offshore jobs and profits. That’s an important start.

By contrast, GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney’s tax plan continues to reward the offshoring of U.S. jobs. Under Romney’s plan, a U.S. company that chooses to build overseas would be permanently free of U.S. taxes. For those companies that have already moved offshore, the same deal applies.

If we permanently exempt overseas profits like this, companies have even more incentive to take their investment elsewhere. Not only would Romney’s tax plan cost our Treasury more than $130 billion over 10 years for multinational corporate tax cuts, the Center for American Progress estimates, it would cost America approximately 800,000 jobs.

We need some healthier obsession, please — Congress: Can you lose a little more sleep over how to create good-paying advanced manufacturing jobs in the U.S.?

Then the rest of us can sleep a little easier in our bedrooms full of quality, American-made products.

Aaahhhh. “Made in the USA.” Are there any sweeter words?

Jennifer Granholm is the former governor of Michigan, serving from 2003 to 2011. She is now host of “The War Room” on Current TV. She is also a visiting public policy and law professor at the University of California, Berkeley. Follow her on Twitter @JenGranholm.

© 2012 POLITICO LLC

Barack Obama’s campaign against coal

By: Rep. Doc Hastings

September 11, 2012 09:20 PM EDT

During President Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign, he declared one of his energy goals was to “bankrupt” the coal industry by making electricity prices “skyrocket.” That policy statement kick-started the president’s continuing war on coal miners, their families and the millions of Americans who rely on affordable coal-fired electricity.

Since his election, the president has tried at every turn to make that goal a reality — ardently supporting a cap-and-trade national energy tax and imposing onerous regulations on coal production. The president and his administration are waging a war on coal.

The nonpartisan U.S. Energy Information Administration has all but confirmed the president’s aggressive war on coal with a report detailing a record number of coal-fired power plants to be closed this year — largely because of burdensome regulations and other compliance costs. Worse, 175 coal-fired power plants are scheduled to be shut down from 2012 to 2016, EIA estimated, requiring 27 gigawatts of electricity — enough to power 27 million homes — to be replaced by more expensive forms of energy.

The shuttering of record numbers of coal-fired power plants threatens thousands of the 555,270 direct and indirect coal-related jobs that help supply America with nearly half of its generated electricity and pay $36 billion in wages.

The House Natural Resources Committee has, over the past 18 months, aggressively investigated the Obama administration’s decision to rewrite a coal production regulation known as the 2008 Stream Buffer Zone Rule. This has been one of the most direct, yet covert, actions by the administration to destroy coal mining jobs and hurt coal production.

The Obama administration discarded a rule that underwent five years of environmental review and public comment; entered into a court agreement with environmental groups to rewrite the rule in an unachievable time frame; spent millions of taxpayer dollars and hired new contractors to do the rewrite; fired the contractors when it leaked that the revision would cost 7,000 jobs; attempted to manipulate data to conceal the true economic impact; and is now hiding its final rule from the public until after the election.

From Day One , the rewrite of this coal rule has been unorthodox. There now appears to be an administration-wide effort to hide from the American people what it is doing and the impact this regulation will most likely have on U.S. energy production, thousands of U.S. jobs and our economy.

The Obama administration has repeatedly refused throughout this investigation to fully comply with official requests and congressional subpoenas for documents that could shed light on the decision to forcefully rewrite a coal production regulation that will very likely have dire economic consequences.

The president’s war on coal knows no boundaries. Rewriting the 2008 Stream Buffer Zone Rule is just one example of the administration’s assaults on coal production and the millions of American jobs it supports. Last year, the Environmental Protection Agency retroactively revoked a permit for a coal mine in West Virginia. This attempt to destroy high-paying jobs at a coal mine, already officially approved, permitted and under way, was ultimately struck down by a federal judge.

The president likes to talk about supporting an all-of-the-above energy plan. But he embraces policies, regulations and mandates that specifically punish U.S. coal, oil and natural gas producers. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, when giving the administration’s definition of a national energy strategy at the Democratic National Convention last week, included many different types of energy. But he specifically excluded coal.

U.S. energy job creators need regulatory certainty and an open market to hire some of the 23 million Americans looking for work on this president’s watch.

Hardworking coal miners around the country shouldn’t have their livelihood vilified by the president — particularly when that livelihood is such an important contributor to the U.S. economy.

Americans deserve a true all-of-the-above energy plan that will help the unemployed get back to work, expand the economy, make the U.S. more energy secure and strengthen our economic competiveness.

Rep. Doc Hastings (R-Wash.) is chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee.

© 2012 POLITICO LLC

Weakening Violence Against Women Act betrays immigrant victims

By: Mark Shurtleff and Doug Gansler

September 11, 2012 09:20 PM EDT

All women who have lived through violence and abuse should have the certainty that the law will protect them — no matter their race, creed, color, religion or immigration status. Unfortunately, Congress is now considering proposals that would erode this certainty — and its failure to act is already causing harm.

We urge congressional leaders to move forward now to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act, without provisions harmful to immigrants.

As long-time law enforcement leaders, we know this act is crucial. Since passage in 1994, it has helped cut domestic violence by more than half. Still, the scourge of domestic violence remains a serious problem: One in four women experiences an act of domestic violence or sexual assault in her lifetime, and three women die every day at the hands of abusive husbands or partners.

Rates of trafficking women — often from one abusive context to another — are also alarmingly high. Roughly 100,000 survivors of human trafficking live in the United States today, according to the State Department, whose estimates suggest as many as 17,500 foreign-born victims are illegally brought in each year.

We need every available tool to fight these serious crimes, so we fully support reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act — but not in a dangerously altered form that would harm vulnerable immigrant women.

We don’t use “dangerously” lightly. When the House sought reauthorization, legislators made changes that dramatically roll back important protections for battered immigrant women and their children — leaving them vulnerable to abuse and, worse, death at the hands of an abuser.

Several House provisions would further endanger immigrant survivors of human trafficking and domestic abuse. These provisions would leave them no legal way to break the cycle of violence in which they are trapped and leave law enforcement no way to bring perpetrators to justice. The changes, for example, would discourage immigrant survivors from calling the police, for fear of immigration issues — so police can’t intervene and save their lives.

For many of these women, immigration status is one more weapon that abusers use to intimidate them. Abusers often threaten, “You can’t call the police. They’ll just deport you.”

Under the existing law, our response is clear: “He’s wrong. You’re safe.” If we certify that a victim was helpful to law enforcement during an investigation, she can seek special legal immigration status — known as a U visa.

But the House bill would make this visa temporary and take away an immigrant survivor’s incentive to come forward. “He’s wrong; you’re safe” would be replaced with the far less reassuring message “You’ll have to wait and see.”

What kind of person does the U visa help? Consider “Stephanie,” an immigrant living in Maryland who lacked work authorization. She had already been sexually harassed by work supervisors when a stranger followed her into a room in the building where she was working and tried to rape her. Stephanie was able to fight him off and immediately reported the incident to police, who found the man nearby and arrested him.

After reporting the terrible crime, Stephanie learned she would be eligible for a U visa for her cooperation with police and the state’s attorney. Her assistance helped get a rapist off the streets. Today, Stephanie has her U visa and is confident and self-supporting.

The House bill would silence thousands of women like Stephanie and derail our efforts to put their attackers behind bars. Worse, it would further endanger some of the very women whom the Violence Against Women Act is meant to help.

In late August, we received a reminder of reauthorization’s urgency. Our immigration authorities announced that they had reached the limit of 10,000 U visas for the current fiscal year, leaving a six-week gap before the new fiscal year brings a fresh allotment. In the meantime, lives are at risk.

The Senate’s bipartisan reauthorization bill would increase that visa limit to 15,000, a significant boost for law enforcement and public safety.

The law enforcement community now has 17 years of experience with the Violence Against Women Act and has used it successfully to combat human trafficking, sexual assault and domestic violence. We have relied on it to protect survivors of all stripes and hold their abusers accountable.

These abusers don’t differentiate by race, creed, color, religion or immigration status. In seeking justice for survivors, neither should we.

The House version of the Violence Against Women Act reauthorization seeks to turn a bipartisan concern for abuse survivors into a partisan wedge. Congress must not let partisanship stand in the way of our work to protect all women, and their families, from harm.

Mark Shurtleff, a Republican, is attorney general of Utah. Doug Gansler, a Democrat, is attorney general of Maryland.

© 2012 POLITICO LLC

Normalize trade with Russia

By: Charlene Barshefsky and Susan C. Schwab

September 11, 2012 09:20 PM EDT

When Congress left for its August recess, it neglected to act on a bill that could help support the U.S. economy and American jobs. Granting permanent normal trade relations to Russia would do just that — and has broad bipartisan support in the House and Senate.

Approving permanent normal trade relations (PNTR), coupled with graduating Russia from the Cold War-era Jackson-Vanik amendment, is necessary if the U.S. is to get all the economic benefits of Russia’s membership in the World Trade Organization. Russia formally joined the WTO on Aug. 22, following 18 years of negotiations — in which we each engaged while serving as U.S. trade representative.

This landmark achievement finally brings the world’s ninth-largest economy into the community of nations that have agreed to abide by international trade rules and procedures. In addition to lowering many tariffs, the Russians have agreed to comply with international standards on intellectual property protection and to abide by the WTO’s rules and dispute-settlement procedures, as well as many other market-opening provisions.

Until Congress approves PNTR, however, and graduates Russia from Jackson-Vanik, the U.S. cannot claim all the benefits of having Russia take on the obligations that come with WTO membership. Meanwhile, the other 150-plus WTO countries, including our biggest competitors, will most likely press their advantage in the Russian market to land contracts and win new opportunities for their exporters — at the expense of U.S. workers, farmers, service providers and manufacturers.

The demand for foreign goods and services in Russia is strong and growing. It has an estimated $400 billion import market and is home to roughly 142 million people, about one-fifth belonging to a rapidly growing middle class.

The U.S. has “underperformed” in the Russian market. Estimated U.S. exports of goods and services to Russia in 2011 reached $11 billion — making it only our 31st-largest goods export market.

There is clear opportunity for improvement — and PNTR is a prerequisite for progress. In fact, with PNTR, it is estimated that U.S. exports could double to $22 billion by 2017, providing U.S. workers, farmers and businesses a significant opportunity to expand their sales to Russia, supporting American jobs and helping to strengthen U.S.-Russia commercial relations.

This delay in both the House and the Senate has been particularly disappointing, given that the bill has received wide bipartisan support. The Senate Finance Committee approved it in July by a unanimous vote. Soon after, a House Ways and Means Committee voice vote was near unanimous.

With September here, and the pre-election congressional recess looming, the clock is running on a timely approval. We can put the most recent delay behind us — along with its negative impact on U.S. exports to the Russian market — but only if these few weeks do not stretch into several months or more.

Such a lengthy gap would create a significant economic disadvantage for the U.S. in the Russian market that could take years to turn around. It wouldn’t affect the Russians. Only U.S. businesses, farmers and workers would get hurt.

Quick approval of PNTR is clearly in the national interest. Congress should make it a priority and get it done in September without further delay.

Ambassadors Charlene Barshefsky and Susan C. Schwab are former U.S. trade representatives. Barshefsky served in the Clinton administration. Schwab served in the George W. Bush administration.

© 2012 POLITICO LLC

The GOP war on the Voting Rights Act

By: William Yeomans

September 11, 2012 09:20 PM EDT

In 2006, Congress reauthorized Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act with nearly unanimous Republican support. In 2012, Republican officials declared war on minority voting and have challenged the constitutionality of Section 5 — which requires states and localities with egregious histories of voting discrimination to seek federal approval before making any election changes — in multiple court cases. What happened?

Consider: Republican support among African-Americans for presidential nominee Mitt Romney finally hit zero in a recent NBC/Wall Street Journal poll and the GOP’s strength among Latino voters is nearly as anemic. These numbers make minority voters, sadly, irresistible targets for Republican vote suppression efforts. Legal battles over when ballots can be cast and whose votes will be counted, The New York Times reported Monday, could substantially affect the outcome of 2012 elections.

In many states, only the Voting Rights Act is standing in the GOP’s way. Rather than showing respect for the voting rights of minorities and winning their votes with appealing policies, Republicans appear to have instead decided to try to expel them from the electorate and attack the biggest legal obstacle to their expulsion — the Voting Rights Act.

The rights of minority voters, however, are not fair game in partisan battles. Partisanship must not be allowed to trump equal opportunity in voting. Republicans have whipped up a phony frenzy over the extent of voter fraud to justify their assault on minority voters.

Rather than working overtime to stir up fears, they should join in efforts to broaden the franchise to include as many Americans as possible. The true scandal in our electoral process is our shockingly low turnout level. Nearly every other advanced democracy has higher voter participation. Yet we now have one political party working mightily to reduce that turnout through unwarranted restrictions that disproportionately burden minority voters.

The math is simple. The Voting Rights Act increases the number and effectiveness of minority voters. And minority voters now overwhelmingly support Democrats. President Barack Obama’s support among African-Americans has reached 94 percent. Latinos have voted increasingly Democratic since California Gov. Pete Wilson launched the GOP’s war against undocumented immigrants with Proposition 187 in 1994. The Republicans’ current hard-line immigration policies have only advanced this trend. Reduce the minority vote and Republicans improve their chances of winning.

This shameful calculation has been embraced by the party of Lincoln. Republicans in state legislatures have produced a flurry of photo ID laws, discriminatory redistrictings, restrictions on registration, cutbacks on early voting, reinstatement of strict felon disfranchisement rules and erroneous purges of voter lists.

Republicans have now turned their backs on the powerful moral imperative that animated the Voting Rights Act in 1965 and produced overwhelming bipartisan majorities for renewal of Section 5 as recently as 2006. In the interest of winning elections at any cost, Republicans are trying to take back the vote from the most vulnerable in our society.

Since its passage in 1965, the Voting Rights Act’s explicit goal has been to empower minorities by ensuring that they have an equal opportunity to participate in the political process and elect candidates of their choice.

The real partisan implications were less clear when the act passed. In fact, Democrats seemed the likely losers. Southern whites fled the party of their forebears and into the arms of a Republican Party that promised to protect them from the advance of civil rights. President Lyndon B. Johnson famously said, as he signed the bill, that he was delivering the South to the Republican Party for a long time to come.

Section 5 was designed to address the insidious creativity of Jim Crow jurisdictions in devising ways to stay one step ahead of enforcers of the 15th Amendment, the post-Civil War amendment that prohibited racial discrimination in voting. Congress decided that it was necessary for covered jurisdictions — those with the worst histories of discrimination — to pre-clear their voting changes by proving to the attorney general or a three-judge Washington court that they did not have the purpose or effect of discriminating against minority voters.

Events during recent weeks have confirmed why Section 5 remains essential. A three-judge court denied preclearance to Texas’s redistricting of its congressional, state Senate and state House districts — explicitly finding that the Legislature drew congressional and Senate lines with the intent to dilute the strength of minority voters. A separate three-judge court two days later refused to pre-clear Texas’s draconian, and transparently discriminatory, requirement that voters produce a photo ID prescribed by the state. The court found that the photo ID requirement would fall most heavily on poor voters, who are disproportionately minorities.

A three-judge court had previously denied preclearance of Florida’s effort to restrict early voting, including the Sunday before the election. Early and Sunday voters in Florida have been disproportionately minorities. South Carolina’s photo ID requirement is pending before another three-judge court.

Because Section 5 is successfully frustrating Republican efforts in covered states to shape the electorate by slicing off pockets of noncompliant minority voters, it looks as if Republican-led jurisdictions have now set their sights on eliminating Section 5.

Covered jurisdictions have included constitutional challenges to the law in their pre-clearance actions and in separate lawsuits. Though the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals recently reaffirmed Section 5’s constitutionality, that case is likely to be heard by the Supreme Court. And other challenges are in the pipeline.

Ironically, the Republican drive to exclude minority voters could boomerang. The principal basis for the constitutional challenges to Section 5 is that it is no longer necessary. Covered jurisdictions argue that they have reformed and there is now no reason for requiring them to pre-clear election changes with the federal government. You can trust us to treat minority voters equally, they contend.

Yet, as courts have confirmed, these states’ recent efforts demonstrate persistent intent to roll back the clock by diminishing the impact of minority voters. These are the very type of practices that produced Section 5 in 1965. They remain reprehensible in 2012 and they undermine any suggestion that Section 5 has outlived its need.

Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), who as a freedom rider was beaten by white mobs, reminded the delegates last week at the Democratic National Convention that the right of minority citizens to vote was secured through a moral crusade. It succeeded because of the heroism of people like Lewis, who also survived the bloody attack by Alabama state troopers at the Edmund Pettus Bridge.

Lewis expressed incredulity that GOP officials are trying to take away that hard-won vote, describing it as “the most powerful nonviolent tool we have to create a more perfect union.” He hearkened back to the time when people “had to pass a literacy test, pay a poll tax,” and recounted that would-be African-American voters were required “to count the number of bubbles in a bar of soap.”

This victory won by men and women of extraordinary moral vision and physical courage, such as Lewis, must not fall victim to the GOP’s narrow partisan interests.

William Yeomans served as Sen. Ted Kennedy’s chief counsel on the Senate Judiciary Committee and as a Justice Department official. He is a fellow in law and government at American University College of Law.

© 2012 POLITICO LLC

Making political ads personal

By: Jon Peha

September 11, 2012 04:40 AM EDT

As the presidential campaigns shift from televised conventions to the general election, a new danger to the electoral process may well emerge in the form of highly targeted online advertising unless the Federal Election Committee makes such advertising visible to all.

Imagine that one of your neighbors keeps seeing campaign ads sharply attacking current environmental regulations, another sees ads passionately arguing for stronger environmental regulations and the campaign ads you see never mention the environment.

Now imagine that all these ads come from the same candidate.

This can’t happen on TV — but it’s business as usual on the Internet. As you browse the Web, many ads that appear on your screen were selected just for you. A merchant may already offer your neighbor a lower price than you see for a new camera, so why not different campaign promises too?

There’s nothing new about politicians trying to be all things to all people. But new technology gives them an unprecedented ability to do so. It’s as if a politician could secretly whisper a personalized message to every voter. We choose our leaders and the direction of the country based on the messages we get from candidates, so we must be able to believe these messages.

With TV or newspaper ads, we all see the same message, and those who disagree can start a healthy debate that benefits us all. Online ads, in contrast, can be narrowly targeted.

Do you browse Huffington Post or FoxNews.com? Did you read articles about same-sex marriage or immigration? Do you care so much about these issues that they appear in your personal email and Google searches? Have you searched online for a job, a new rifle or contraception information? These are hints about your views on extending unemployment insurance, restricting gun sales and requiring health insurance plans to cover birth control. Did you access the Internet from Beverly Hills or Harlem?

Political campaigns can use all of this to understand which issues matter to you and where you stand better than your own family realizes. Campaigns can then quietly tell you what you want to hear.

One problem is that a politician can now nimbly play both sides of an issue, perhaps telling some voters how he dislikes some aspects of the Obama health care plan, and others how he would protect the plan from being overturned.

Another is that narrowly targeted ads with questionable claims may escape a fast rebuttal. During the 2000 South Caroline primary, an independent group, running a push poll, telephoned voters one by one and spread the false rumor that Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) had fathered a black child out of wedlock. Today, they’d use targeted online ads.

Probably the most serious problem is that targeted ads may persuade us each to vote based on a different issue — so there is no shared view of which issues matter. Leaders can make serious change on only a few issues at a time. Candidates usually tell us which issues they consider priorities, and getting elected gives them political capital to act on those issues. But if citizens are influenced by customized ads, we won’t know which issues matter to candidates. More important, they’ll have no popular mandate when it’s time to govern.

Besides, if a targeted ad said one mayoral candidate agrees with you on the issue you care most about, but the candidate doesn’t see that issue as important, perhaps you should vote for her opponent.

“Sunlight,” Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis wrote, “is the best disinfectant.” The Federal Election Commission already oversees paid ads from candidates and political committees to ensure that the public knows who paid for them. The FEC should also require that online ads be placed on publicly available websites. Then, a politician who runs targeted ads that appear to take every side of every conceivable issue can more easily be held accountable.

Meanwhile, President Barack Obama and GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney should lead by example and post all their online campaign ads voluntarily.

Jon Peha, a professor at Carnegie Mellon University, is a former chief technologist of the Federal Communications Commission.

© 2012 POLITICO LLC

New America vs. Old America

By: Bill Schneider

September 10, 2012 09:20 PM EDT

It’s time for the Great Showdown between the Old and New Americas. The Old America met in Tampa. The New America met in Charlotte.

What the country wants to know is: Which America can manage the economy better? The answer is not clear. That’s why this election is so close. The Old America got us into this mess. The New America can’t seem to get us out of it.

The Old America’s rallying cry at the Republican National Convention: “Restore Our Future.” Take us back to the days when America was rich, great and powerful, the undisputed leader of the world. GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney declared, “You might have asked yourself if these last years are really the America we want, the America won for us by the greatest generation.”

The Old America looked overwhelmingly white and middle-aged — or older. The Hollywood celebrity who captured the spirit of the Old America was Clint Eastwood, age 82.

The New America’s rallying cry at the Democratic National Convention: “Forward, Not Back.” President Barack Obama declared, “When Gov. Romney finally had a chance to reveal the secret sauce, he did not offer a single new idea. It was just retreads of the same old policies we’ve been hearing for decades.”

The New America celebrated diversity in age, race, sexual orientation and lifestyles. (The Old America doesn’t have lifestyles. They have lives.) The Hollywood celebrity who captured the spirit of the New America was Scarlett Johansson, age 27.

At the two conventions, we saw the ultimate triumph of the great-values divide that first became visible in California in the 1960s.

Back in 1967, political scientist James Q. Wilson, who grew up in what he called “Reagan country,” wrote an article in Commentary in which he tried to explain “the political culture of Southern California” to Eastern intellectuals. The Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan movements were protest movements, Wilson argued, but they were not expressions of personal unhappiness, frustration or despair. Just the opposite, in fact.

In describing Goldwater and Reagan supporters, Wilson pointed out that “it is not with their lot that they are discontent, it is with the lot of the nation. The very virtues they have and practice are, in their eyes, conspicuously absent from society as a whole.”

The same year, Richard Todd, who went to school in California, wrote an article in Harper’s in which he tried to explain “the Berkeley phenomenon” to puzzled outsiders. Why had that campus become the focal point of student unrest?

Was it true, as many commentators suggested, that Berkeley students were frustrated and dehumanized by the mega-university and that their political protest was an expression of personal anger and discontent?

Todd found little evidence of despair or alienation at Berkeley. What he found instead was “a sense of rightness, the peculiar kind of joy that is the result of self-absorption.” Berkeley students lived by a code of tolerance, openness, free expression, nonviolence and permissiveness.

Both the New America and the Old America draw support from people who feel certain about their own values and resentful that the rest of society does not accept them. Each has captured a political party. As New York Times columnist David Brooks wrote last week, “We have two parties that are really into themselves.”

After nearly 50 years, the two Americas have fought each other to a standoff. Though not in California, where the New America — and the Democratic Party — are ascendant, mostly because of the voting power of the newest Americans — Latinos. That’s why Republicans are worried about how they can survive without increasing their appeal to Latino voters. They are terrified that the U.S. may become California.

Both parties represent upper-middle-class elites, but they are bitterly competitive elites. Romney represents the elite of wealth, or as Republicans prefer to put it, “success.” Romney said in Tampa, “The centerpiece of the president’s entire reelection campaign is attacking success … In America, we celebrate success, we don’t apologize for it.” Obama represents the elite of education. The president told the Democratic delegates, “Education was the gateway of opportunity for me. It was the gateway for Michelle. It was the gateway for most of you.”

Neither candidate has a populist bone in his body. Romney keeps calling attention to his wealth (or hiding it in his unreleased tax returns). Obama seems disdainful of people less enlightened than he is (or as he once described them, people who “cling to guns or religion”).

Democrats had to trot out their old warhorse, former President Bill Clinton, to get populist juices flowing. Clinton is uniquely qualified to make the case that the New America knows how to manage the economy. Voters associate Clinton with good times (in every sense of the term).

But the Democrat on the ballot in 2012 is not Clinton. It’s Obama, and he has failed to deliver on the one thing both parties claim is their top priority — economic growth (“good times”). Republicans believe economic growth is sufficient. Government has to keep the economy growing and then stay out of the way. Democrats believe economic growth is necessary but not sufficient. Government must protect the economically vulnerable, even in a growing economy.

Obama failed to deliver on another promise as well. ”There’s not a liberal America and a conservative America,” he said in 2006.

Oh yes there is. One met in Tampa, the other in Charlotte. And despite Obama’s appeals to post-partisanship, the two Americas show no sign of reconciliation. Instead, it’s a showdown.

Bill Schneider is professor of public and international affairs at George Mason University and a resident scholar at Third Way.

© 2012 POLITICO LLC

Bill Clinton on health care: Double Count of Medicare

By: Douglas Holtz-Eakin

September 10, 2012 09:20 PM EDT

Former President Bill Clinton is reportedly headed to Florida in an attempt to put it solidly on the Democrat side of the ledger. Presumably, one plank of his argument will be to defend President Barack Obama’s handling of Medicare — particularly, doubling down on his now-discredited double counting of Medicare dollars.

Recall that Clinton gave a full-throated endorsement of the Affordable Care Act in his Charlotte speech last week. “So are we all better off because President Obama fought for it and passed it?” Clinton argued, “You bet we are.”

He denounced claims that the ACA was tantamount to “robbing Medicare of $716 billion.” In contrast, he argued that the president was able to “add eight years to the life of the Medicare Trust Fund.” As the late Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan said, “Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.”

Clinton is wrong on his facts here. The ACA does cut $716 billion out of Medicare over the next 10 years, but it spends those funds elsewhere and does nothing to extend the life of Medicare.

Let’s review why:

Suppose that you wanted to hire a physical trainer and you went out and got a new job that covered the additional $200 weekly cost. Your financial health would be sound, and your physical health presumably improved.

Alternatively, suppose instead your strategy was to get the job and put the $200 in a fund dedicated to pay for more health insurance in your golden years. Again, the financial strategy would add up and the health strategy would make sense.

But the one thing that would not work would be to get the new $200 and try to spend it on the new physical trainer and save it for future insurance costs. There is simply no way to spend the same $200 twice. You might deposit the money in the fund and then perhaps build your reserves for future insurance. But if you spend it on the trainer, the gain is illusory.

That is what happens to Medicare under the Affordable Care Act. Yes, for example, there is a new 3.8 percent tax on investment income. And yes, it is deposited in the Medicare Trust Fund to, theoretically, extend its life. But, yes, it is also immediately withdrawn and spent on the new insurance subsidy entitlement and Medicaid expansions.

Any suggestion that Medicare will last longer is an illusion — not a fact. The Congressional Budget Office said as much in a December 2009 memo.

The same logic that applies to new revenues also applies to spending cuts. Yes, you could cut $716 billion out of your current health insurance bill and stick it in your fund for future health insurance (the Medicare Trust Fund). But if you turn around and spend it, it’s gone. Any suggestion of a more solvent future is budgetary fiction.

The ACA raises taxes and spends the revenues. It cuts $716 billion from Medicare and spends it. The nanoseconds those electronic funds spend passing through the Medicare Trust Fund do not change this reality.

There is only one way to simultaneously spend trillions on new insurance subsidies, Medicaid expansions and other outlays and still make good on the future Medicare commitments: Cut an additional $716 billion elsewhere, or raise an additional $716 billion in taxes. The ACA does neither.

There is a long tradition of both parties playing the “granny card” and using scare tactics about Medicare for political purposes. As the nation careens toward a debt-driven financial crisis, and after the Bowles-Simpson commission flatly declared this a “national moment of truth,” one would have hoped that truth would trump politics and discredited arguments would be discontinued.

Sadly, facts appear to be a low priority for the campaign.

Whether cutting $716 billion from Medicare and spending it elsewhere is “robbery” is in the eye of the beholder. But the money is surely gone. No amount of clever Trust Fund accounting can extend the life of Medicare.

That is a truth voters deserve to hear.

Douglas Holtz-Eakin, president of the American Action Forum, served as director of the Congressional Budget Office from 2003 to 2005.

© 2012 POLITICO LLC

Time to pass Obama agenda

By: Rep. Chris Van Hollen

September 9, 2012 09:15 PM EDT

As Congress returns Monday, we confront major challenges that we should tackle immediately. There are three measures we should take now to boost our economy: adopt President Barack Obama’s middle-class tax relief plan, replace the sequester’s meat-ax budget cuts with a more balanced approach proposed by a variety of bipartisan groups; and pass the president’s jobs bill.

Unfortunately, our Republican colleagues continue to think that compromise is a dirty word. As a result, we will most likely complete only the bare minimum of business: keeping the government open by passing a stopgap funding bill, dealing with the expiration of the farm bill and perhaps a few smaller items.

I hope the Republican leadership will prove me wrong.

This campaign season coincides with some of the most important fiscal deadlines — and choices — in recent history. But we can ill afford to sacrifice progress on these matters because of politics and electioneering. That is why we should act now to address these issues essential to strengthening the economy.

First, we should immediately pass the president’s American Jobs Act, which would make key infrastructure investments to modernize our schools, roads, railways, airports, waterways and other key foundations of our economy. When there is 12 percent unemployment in the construction industry, addressing these huge unmet needs is a win-win. The plan also provides tax incentives to hire our veterans and help America’s small businesses grow, while preventing massive teacher layoffs and keeping cops and firefighters on the job.

This jobs initiative can build on the progress we have made and help those who are still struggling to find work. House Republicans continue to block this common-sense initiative, choosing instead to vote more than 35 times to repeal “Obamacare” and its important patient protections.

Next, the House should vote on the president’s plan to provide continuing tax relief for the middle class and U.S. businesses. It already passed the Senate and has been proposed by House Democrats. This proposal would provide a tax cut to 100 percent of American tax filers compared with current law, while ensuring that 98 percent of individual filers and 97 percent of affected businesses receive a full extension of the existing tax cuts that are set to expire on Jan. 1.

The Republican position is that nobody in the United States can have extended tax relief unless our nation’s very wealthiest people — like Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney and businesses like Bain Capital — get a bonus tax cut. That position is unjustifiable now — and it will become indefensible on Jan. 1.

Third, Congress should immediately replace the buzz saw of automatic spending cuts with a more balanced approach — proposed by various bipartisan groups —that achieves equal deficit reduction in a way that does not hurt our economy, our national defense or American families.

The Democrats’ alternative to the sequester would achieve equal savings through a mix of targeted spending cuts and the end of tax breaks for the wealthy and powerful special interests.

The math is simple: If you refuse to ask the wealthy to contribute one more penny to reduce the deficit, you’re going to hit everybody else much harder.

While I hope to reach consensus on a balanced approach, I remain pessimistic because the GOP presidential ticket has pledged that it will never ask the wealthiest to pay more to reduce the deficit. Romney said he would reject a deficit-reduction proposal with a 10:1 ratio of spending cuts to revenue increases. Congressional Republicans continue to care more about protecting special-interest tax breaks than reducing the deficit or protecting any investments, including defense spending and national security.

Making progress on these important issues would require the GOP to demonstrate a willingness to compromise for the common good. Unfortunately, the tea-party-dominated House GOP has run roughshod over those who propose any compromise. They have transformed their party into an ideological faction that has opposed infrastructure investments that would create jobs and close certain tax loopholes — which even President Ronald Reagan was willing to do. These are ideas that, at one point, had Republican support.

Given this uncompromising approach, it is unfortunate, but not surprising, that our Republican colleagues continue to block action on these critical issues. From the very beginning of this presidency, congressional Republicans have opposed whatever Obama put forward. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) revealed their scorched-earth approach when he declared, “The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.”

As Congress faces looming deadlines and a limited window of time to meet them, we must do what’s right for our country and choose leadership over election-year politics.

Rep. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland is the ranking member on the House Budget Committee and sat on the bipartisan Committee on Deficit Reduction.

© 2012 POLITICO LLC

Real Americans ill-served by Democrats' fantasies

By: Sen. Mitch McConnell

September 9, 2012 09:15 PM EDT

Amid all the gauzy tales of personal struggle and parental life advice at last week’s Democratic National Convention, it was easy to forget that politicians are elected first and foremost to address the concerns of their constituents. Not to tell them uplifting stories.

For four years, however, Democrats in Washington have been preoccupied with spinning self-serving political stories aimed at justifying their own reckless experiment in Big Government and then distracting people from its devastating, real-world consequences. In fact, President Barack Obama recently told CBS that the biggest mistake of his presidency was that he didn’t tell a good enough “story to the American people.”

No wonder that, as the federal debt crossed the dizzying $16 trillion mark last week and Americans woke to even more signs of economic failure, Democrats in Charlotte focused on tired slogans and childhood memories.

Don’t expect anything more than that before the election. They have nothing else to offer but feel-good accounts of their own personal success.

In the real world beyond the convention hall, however, millions of Americans young and old continue to struggle with the harsh realities of the Obama economy. Most are deeply concerned about the nation’s future — and their own.

They are understandably disappointed that a president who pledged to unite the country around a program of progress and change has spent so much of his time either avoiding challenges or blaming his predecessor for his own failure to deliver good results.

Now, with just four months to go before devastating tax hikes are set to fall on every American and disproportionate cuts are about to harm our uniformed military and their families, the president and Democrats in Congress are again planning to put their penchant for storytelling ahead of the responsibilities that come with holding public office.

Following the president’s lead, Democrats in Congress refuse to develop the kind of responsible, concrete plan to avert the impending “fiscal cliff” that House Republicans voted on weeks ago. They’d rather crisscross America from now until Election Day, telling voters that these same Republicans are somehow the problem.

It’s fiction. Senate Democrats haven’t passed a federal budget in more than three years — a responsibility not just expected of the majority party but required of it by law.

Moreover, not a single one had the political courage to vote for the president’s own proposed budget. Republicans had to offer it for them, and then not one member of Congress voted to support it.

Democrats have refused to do even the basics. For the first time in more than a half-century, the Democratic-led Senate may not pass a defense authorization bill, while refusing to take up the individual bill that funds our armed forces. Nor is the Senate, under Democratic leadership, expected to pass any other regular appropriations bill this year — actions previously viewed as routine as turning on the lights.

Trying to avoid all responsibility for the problems we face, or the pressing challenges ahead, Democrats have simply sat on their hands, preferring to tell tall tales about what’s happening in Washington rather than doing anything about it. They appear ready to ride out the rest of the year doing virtually nothing about the problems we face as a nation — astronomical debt, a looming tax hike, crippling defense cuts and an anemic recovery that all these things promise to make even worse.

Of all the life lessons recounted in Charlotte last week, one timeless piece of advice I recall from my own childhood seems to have been forgotten: What you do in life matters far more than what you say.

Democrats, from the president on down, would have done well to take this little piece of advice seriously. Maybe then, they’d actually have a record to run on instead of some storybook account of recent history that bears very little resemblance to reality. And won’t do a thing to help average Americans.

Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is the Senate minority leader.

© 2012 POLITICO LLC

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Freshmen give in to business as usual on CR vote

By: Kate Nocera

September 11, 2012 11:44 PM EDT

The House freshmen are growing up.

The days of battling with leadership over spending levels and controversial riders, and threatening a government shutdown seem to be relics of the past as Congress prepares to once again pass a temporary resolution that punts everything into next year.

This isn’t exactly what the rebellious rookies signed up for.

These conservatives, who had pledged to stand firm and change the way Washington does business, seem resigned, if not accepting, of the fact they’ll probably vote “yes” on a spending deal that actually increases spending by $8 billion. It may be the last meaningful vote before they face voters for reelection.

“A lot of this fight was fought last summer,” said Rep. James Lankford (R-Okla.). “I’m still a strong believer there’s a lot more that can be cut and should be cut. But is this as much blood as we can get out of this turnip? Probably.”

Lankford said he is “leaning yes” on the continuing resolution, and insists conservatives in the House did the best job they could in dealing with a Democratic Senate and president.

The “blame the Senate” message was echoed by a number of freshmen. Despite all their pledges to fight against Washington, they’ve come around to at least one Capitol Hill truism: We’ll do it after the election.

“I’m a little more patient, but that doesn’t mean I’m not hardheaded,” said Rep. Jeff Landry (R-La.), who said he’ll decide Thursday on which way he’ll vote. “I just think a lot of people have recognized that until we change the leadership in the Senate or get a different mind-set over there, we can’t move the country forward. So all of us are going home to say our novenas.”

The goal of the CR, which has a slightly higher $1 trillion spending level for the new fiscal year, is to avoid a government shutdown and push bigger budgeting decisions into the next Congress. House conservatives pushed for the six-month deal, and with their fingers crossed, hope Republicans will win the Senate and the White House in November when they would then be able to move their agenda through.

“We don’t like dealing with CRs either, but when you can’t get a budget done in the Senate and you can’t get appropriations bills in the Senate, this is what you’re left with,” said Rep. Bill Johnson (R-Ohio). “It’s the only option to keep the government from shutting down, and we aren’t going to let the government shut down. The House has done its job, it’s the Senate we can’t get cooperation from and it’s unfortunate that we’re in this situation.”

Unfortunate, yes, say Democrats who have long argued that all the can-kicking blame rests squarely on the shoulders of House Republicans, specifically the more conservative members of the conference. Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said on Tuesday that the CR is a “noncontroversial” bill, but only because Republicans came to a “previously agreed upon” spending figure after almost two years’ worth of fighting against compromises on a number of issues.

“They walked away from compromises on the continuing resolution — not all of them — keeping government open twice in 2011. Essentially a lot of them walked away from the debt limit,” Hoyer said.

There are still some freshman Republicans who are grumbling that the spending level is around $8 billion higher than last year. Rep. Tim Huelskamp (R-Kan). said he is still undecided on which way he’ll vote but the increase agreed to by party leaders, which is around 0.6 percent higher, is tough to swallow.

“The fact that they had to do this across-the-board-spending increase in order to get up to the level they agreed to really caught my eye,” Huelskamp said. “And would catch my constituents’ eye if I went home and said, ‘Oh, by the way, we were really serious about cutting spending, but we did an across-the-board-spending increase just to get out of town.’”

But even he conceded this might not be the moment to put up a fight.

“We don’t want a budget issue like this in lame duck, and sometimes you have to be willing to maneuver a little bit to avoid something that most Americans [don’t want],” Huelskamp said. “They don’t like the idea of a lame-duck Congress or a lame-duck president making big decisions. The fewer decisions in November or December, I think is the priority for me.”

That’s not to say there won’t be at least a few holdouts in the party. Rep. Justin Amash (R-Mich.) said he doesn’t plan to support the CR, but said there is a lot of conservative support for the deal and he might be only one of a few who will oppose it.

“I think the two parties need to actually compromise rather than just talk about compromise,” he said. “And when we pass short-term CRs and keep running government at the same levels without either side giving anything, to me that’s not compromise, that’s just kicking the can down the road.”

© 2012 POLITICO LLC

Hill ignores fiscal cliff warnings

By: Jake Sherman and Seung Min Kim

September 11, 2012 11:44 PM EDT

Hello, Washington. It’s the real world calling. A disaster is coming. Can you do something — anything — to stop the bleeding?

Crisis after crisis this year, Washington has responded with a simple shoulder shrug.

Farm bureaus, financial credit rating agencies, Wall Street, the defense industry, chambers of commerce and postal groups have all sounded the alarm bell warning D.C. about all manner of debt, spending and tax crises. They’ve largely failed to spur the action they were seeking.

The latest get-it-together moment came Tuesday, when Moody’s — one agency that has not downgraded the nation’s credit — warned that it could lower the rating unless Washington came together to agree on a budget package in 2013 that significantly cut the nation’s debt. The agency’s caution signal came ahead of the so-called fiscal cliff — a massive package of tax increases and spending cuts set to go into effect after this year unless Congress reaches an agreement to avert it.

Moody’s, one of the three main ratings agencies, also warned that it would most likely keep its “negative” outlook on the nation’s debt — a move that could precede a credit downgrade — if the United States fell off the fiscal cliff.

Here was House Speaker John Boehner’s reaction.

“I’m not confident at all,” Boehner (R-Ohio) said about the prospects of the deal, noting that the House has done one-third of the work that needs to be done to stabilize the debt.

Cast aside the blame because Republicans and Democrats privately agree that Washington has been desensitized to crisis and is ungovernable.

Lawmakers have heard the repeated threats from the outside — but it’s unclear whether they’re actually listening. Top congressional players aren’t engaged in serious talks over resolving the fiscal cliff while Capitol Hill is all but resigned to the fact that no movement on the cliff will occur until after the Nov. 6 election.

“It’s interesting that both the downgrade and the threatened downgrade don’t address our economy, they address our political system,” Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) told POLITICO. “They basically said it’s time for members of the Senate and the House to get it together. … I agree with them. There’s no excuse left at this point.”

But there’s not even agreement on whether an agreement is possible.

Hours after Boehner’s words of pessimism, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) rebutted him.

“I was disappointed when my friend John Boehner said today that he has no confidence on a budget deal,” he told reporters. “I think we have to look at the glass being half full, not half empty all the time. I’m confident that we will reach some kind of an arrangement.”

Some are just incredulous. Count moderate Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) in that bunch.

“I don’t understand it,” Snowe said Tuesday. “I cannot conceive that we could be dismissive in any way of the traumatic effects this potentially could have, creating enormous upheaval both in the financial markets, personally with Americans … as well as the political consternation among the American people about the lack of ability to solve these problems.”

Snowe, however, won’t have to live with the outcome of whatever Congress does — she’s parachuting out of the Senate, retiring in part over frustration with gridlock.

For those left behind in Washington, there’s still a hefty distrust of institutions.

“When I was a young captain, we were heading out to Desert Shield/Desert Storm, Saddam Hussein said this would be the mother of all battles, everyone was concerned the United States military would not be able to fight open-desert warfare,” Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.) said. “I think it was 96 hours before we were done. My history is I don’t sit around listening to all the external influencers. I just try to make things happen.”

But Washington doesn’t exactly appear as if it will charge into fiscal cliff negotiations ready to compromise.

Instead of working vociferously to solve automatic cuts to defense and domestic programs that House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) says are “sending tremors” through his home state, this week has become a shouting match over whose idea it was to institute that so-called trigger.

The finger-pointing came even as top executives from several defense companies — such as Lockheed Martin, EADS North America and BAE Systems — warned in letters released Monday that they’ll distribute tens of thousands of layoff warnings due to uncertainty caused by the budget sequester.

Meanwhile, House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) said he won’t pass a bill to reform the near-bankrupt U.S. Postal Service because he sees “no opportunity for any compromise with the Senate based on the anti-reform bill that they passed.” Issa said he is waiting for presidential leadership. The postmaster general earlier this month, facing billions of dollars in losses, said Congress must act because the agency can’t stay afloat for long.

The farm bill is also a problem. The House still hasn’t passed its update to national agriculture policy. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack has tried to pressure Congress, and this week, that consternation hit the Elected Leadership Committee — the small power circle atop House GOP politics. Rep. Kristi Noem, a South Dakota freshman at the leadership table, made a stink about Congress’s inaction on the bill, according to several sources. As did other farm state lawmakers, including Rep. Rick Berg (R-N.D.). The National Farmers Union plans a rally Wednesday morning on Capitol Hill to urge Congress to pass a farm bill.

“I got a letter [on Monday] signed by approximately 20 of the leading farm organizations in the country. … And they said, ‘Please don’t do anything but the bill that passed the Senate,’” Reid told reporters on Tuesday, referring to the bill the upper chamber passed but the House ignored. “We’re at a stage now where it’s been a total failure — I’m sorry to use this term again — of the leadership in the House just to walk away from this, and that’s what they’re doing. There is no bill that’s come from the House. Nothing.”

House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) would only say it is his “intent” to get the bill done “as soon as possible,” declining to entertain whether that would be during this Congress. Boehner was asked about the farm bill as he exited his press conference Tuesday and did not answer.

Senate Democrats are more than eager to note that their chamber has voted to reauthorize the five-year farm bill and overhaul the financially ailing Postal Service. Both measures passed with more than 60 votes — a notable number in this continuously gridlocked Senate, members say.

“If you pass anything on a bipartisan basis, it has some credibility,” Durbin said. “What [House Republicans] are doing is jamming through one political message after another.”

Boehner and his Republican troops have repeatedly argued that the GOP-led House has already moved to pull back the nation from the fiscal cliff — putting the onus on the Democratic-led Senate and the Obama administration.

“In the House, we’ve been way ahead of those warnings,” Rep. Kevin Brady (R-Texas) said Tuesday. “The reason the House already acted to deal with the fiscal cliff, the automatic spending cuts and the tax issues is because we don’t want to wait until the end of the year. They’re confirming what I think we already have been preaching for quite some time.”

Democrats don’t think much of House-passed plans, dismissing them as red meat for the party’s base. House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said he hadn’t “read Moody’s observations,” but credit rating agencies are afraid that Washington lacks intellectual honesty to deal with big issues.

Rep. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) said he doesn’t think Washington is deaf to outside warnings.

“I think we all should care about what Moody’s says,” Scott said. “Our disposition, or the lack thereof, on the financial cliff is going to cost us. If we were not the reserve currency of the world, what would it look like? Literally, we keep throwing money into the economy, and all that really does is cause the stock market to go up and you have a jobless recovery because more money in the economy only goes to the market because there’s no other place to go.”

© 2012 POLITICO LLC

Too-familiar ring to Chinese devices

By: Michelle Quinn

September 11, 2012 11:33 PM EDT

SAN FRANCISCO — Apple is expected to unveil its latest iPhone on Wednesday, but the talk on Capitol Hill isn’t about Cupertino — it’s about China.

Lawmakers of both parties have long complained that China’s tech companies aren’t playing by the rules of fair trade.

The latest example is Goophone, a Chinese company that makes a device that looks and feels a lot like the iPhone 5, which Apple is expected to unveil Wednesday.

Some in Washington have seized on Goophone as the quintessential example of what is wrong with international enforcement of American intellectual property rights, the perils of a global supply chain and the barriers U.S. companies face when trying to access the Chinese market.

“China is in a whale of a fight if they think they can steal the iPhone,” Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), an iPhone user, told POLITICO. “This should be a warning to those seeking to manufacture in China to save a buck.”

Congress has held three hearings to address Chinese violations of intellectual property rights in recent months, and a key lawmaker said he would push for the issue to be raised during the U.S.-China Joint Commission on Commerce and Trade meeting later this year between top commerce officials in both countries. Meanwhile, the U.S. Trade Representative has been in discussions with Chinese officials over patent issues like those associated with Goophone, and both parties have agreed to “deepen” the dialogue.

As for sales of the Goophone, there is little Washington can do to prevent them right now short of igniting a trade war. However, lawmakers and regulators are narrowing their focal point to China’s growing use of patents — and insisting that those patents need to be of better “quality.”

China became the world’s top filer for patents last year, surpassing both the United States and Japan as it seeks to become known for not only manufacturing products but also designing them, according to a Thomson Reuters research report.

While Chinese companies are racing to accumulate patents, and the Chinese government seeks to improve its record on intellectual property, international property experts have criticized the quality of many of those patents as “junk.” These patents can be used by so-called patent trolls, who squat on the patents and wait to sue those who allegedly infringe.

“The manipulation of the patent system in China is an issue of growing concern and leading to a much more difficult business environment for American companies trying to do business there,” said Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee’s international property subcommittee. “It is important to increase pressure on the Chinese government to recognize the importance of intellectual property protections,” he said.

A spokesman for the USTR said the agency is “working to address” the issue “by ensuring that issues of patent quality are prominent in ongoing IP-related discussions between the U.S. and Chinese governments.”

But the Obama administration’s focus on working with Chinese regulators has frustrated some GOP congressional leaders.

“When people in China and other countries steal our intellectual property, it not only drains money out of our economy, it destroys jobs and slows the pace of innovation,” said Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.). “This new phenomenon of ‘patent trolls’ is just the latest example of what happens when the U.S. government looks the other way while America’s job creators are robbed of their hard-earned money. When you don’t stop bad behavior, you get more of it.”

Some Democrats say the frustration is misdirected.

“The administration has made it a priority to prevent these unfair Chinese business practices and ensure that they do not impede American innovation and economic growth,” said Rep. Doris Matsui (D-Calif.). “Meanwhile, we must continue to adopt policies that ensure U.S. patents, and our innovators are protected from copyright infringement.“

“We know China will use any means necessary to gain an unfair edge against American innovators and manufacturers, which is why a multipronged trade enforcement effort is required,” Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) said.

U.S. firms bear some responsibility, too. “Because a lot of U.S. companies discount Chinese intellectual property, they haven’t aggressively filed for Chinese patents,” said Colleen Chien, a law professor at Santa Clara University. “This practice has left them vulnerable, beaten in the race to the patent office by local patent speculators.”

Goophone, a little-known electronics firm that has supposedly copied Samsung products, vowed to block the iPhone 5 from the Chinese market with its patents for an iPhone lookalike, the Goophone I5, GizChina, a consumer electronics blog, reports. In a video announcing the product, a spokesperson says that “iPhone patents worldwide raised a big stick and has been the fault of global indignation.”

A representative of Goophone could not be reached.

Apple representatives did not return calls for this article.

With its threats against Apple, Goophone may simply be seeking publicity for its device in the days before Apple unveils its latest smartphone. It has been dubbed the “Frankenstein phone” because despite its apparent iPhone imitation, it uses Google’s Android as its operating system. Or it could be using patents to win a financial windfall before Apple’s iPhone 5 can begin selling in China.

The case has some precedent. Apple recently paid $60 million to Proview, a firm that claimed to own the iPad trademark in China.

Some see the Goophone announcement as commentary on the global patent war over the smartphone and Apple’s aggressiveness when it comes to defending its intellectual property. Last month, a jury in San Jose, Calif., awarded Apple more than $1 billion in its case against Samsung, which plans to appeal while Apple seeks to block Samsung products from the U.S. market.

The actions by Goophone are indicative of the kind of problems arising from a worldwide scramble by technology firms and others to grab international property rights, said Robin Feldman, a law professor at the University of California, Hastings and author of “Rethinking Patent Law.” In China, the avenues for recourse are not the same as those in the U.S., she said.

“In the U.S., this type of behavior would trigger claims of misappropriation of trade secrets,” she said. “China has a trade secret law, but since it doesn’t have a discovery system, it’s much more difficult to bring a trade secrets case.”

Patent trolls are an issue in the U.S. In August, Reps. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) and Chaffetz introduced the SHIELD Act to make those who sue pay litigation costs of a defendant in high technology cases.

“Chinese companies are no less litigious than the American ones,” said Ben Qiu, an attorney at Cooley in Shanghai. “More than 90 percent of IP infringement cases on the courts’ docket in China are between local companies. If patent trolls become a serious headache, the local companies would be hit at least equally hard.”

At hearings on the Hill recently, congressional leaders have quizzed trade officials about what is being done to protect U.S. firms doing business in China when it comes to intellectual property and patents. Goodlatte said his office was monitoring the Goophone issue and would push for patent and trade to be part of the discussion when the U.S.-China Joint Commission on Commerce and Trade meets later this year.

© 2012 POLITICO LLC

3 Senate races lurk as potential sleepers

By: David Catanese

September 11, 2012 11:23 PM EDT

The big battleground races that will decide control of the Senate are settled and will probably stay that way — Brown-Warren in Massachusetts, Kaine-Allen in Virginia, Mandel-Brown in Ohio, to name a few.

But what makes this cycle so hard to predict is the possibility of a second-tier surprise, an upset in a state that everyone thought was securely in the Republican or Democratic column.

Here’s a look at a trio of races to keep an eye on for that possibility, because of slip-ups or better-than-expected performances by candidates. To be clear, the odds are stacked against an upset in any of the three, but the favored candidates have recently found themselves unexpectedly on their toes.

1. Connecticut

Linda McMahon is coming off a 12-point loss in an open-seat Senate race in the best GOP year in decades — after dropping $50 million of her own money. But all the cash and rebranding in the world can’t scrub away the unflattering images of her time as president of World Wrestling Entertainment.

Yet a string of polling in the Nutmeg State shows her to be fighting third-term Democrat Rep. Chris Murphy to a virtual draw in the race to replace retiring Sen. Joe Lieberman.

Unlike Sen. Richard Blumenthal — McMahon’s 2010 opponent — Murphy lacks a statewide profile. A third of voters in a recent Quinnipiac University survey said they haven’t heard enough about him to register an opinion.

That makes the timing of the recent revelations about the congressman’s 2007 home foreclosure and 2003 delinquent rent payment even more problematic.

“His unknowns are high and she can define him. She polls well in his district so she can steal a lot of votes. She’s running more in the middle than anything and is not publicly taking stands,” said Michael Fontneau, who was field director for Chris Shays’s unsuccessful primary campaign against McMahon. “I think it will be a lot closer than most think.”

Even members of Murphy’s team, which just switched media consultants, are aware they need to begin closing the gaping 5-to-1 spending disparity that McMahon has enjoyed on the airwaves. To help, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee is transferring funds from New Mexico for a targeted ad flight slated to begin Wednesday, according to a source.

“The race is certainly competitive,” acknowledged one Murphy adviser. “A boatload of money ought to buy her something.”

2. Indiana

Republican Richard Mourdock hasn’t morphed into the Sharron Angle-like candidate Democrats were hoping for.

But the state treasurer finds himself limping into the fall homestretch after a barrage of Democratic ads over the summer framed him as an unyielding hyperpartisan.

The onslaught has kept Rep. Joe Donnelly in the game and forced Mourdock into a grittier fight than expected.

“We’re no longer in a position to put this away by Oct. 1 because the Democratic groups pounced and the Republicans didn’t. We had to reload and now the cavalry is coming,” said a GOP operative involved in the campaign.

In fact, it was only last week that pro-Mourdock spending surpassed pro-Donnelly forces on the airwaves, according to a media tracker.

Mourdock has also begun a tactical shift to the center, enlisting Republican Lt. Gov. Becky Skillman to vouch for his ability to work constructively with members of both parties.

That’s quite the reversal from the blustery, take-no-prisoners approach he vowed after his May primary win over Sen. Dick Lugar. Mourdock insisted at the time that “less bipartisanship” was needed on Capitol Hill.

But the recalibration hasn’t been entirely smooth. During a campaign event Monday with Oklahoma Sen. Tom Coburn, Mourdock couldn’t name a Democrat he could work with.

Mourdock’s camp is preparing a harder line of attack against Donnelly once it emerges from the field with fresh polling next week. But the Blue Dog Democrat has shown to be surprisingly resilient against tags that he’s too liberal or too close to the president.

Donnelly’s biggest challenge is outperforming Barack Obama and gubernatorial candidate John Gregg, who are both on pace to lose the Hoosier state by high single digits.

3. Maine

Judging by sheer polling, Maine ranks pretty far down the list of states where Republicans might pull an upset. By all appearances, the race is former Gov. Angus King’s to lose.

But the National Republican Senatorial Committee’s decision to spend a half-million dollars there — a development first reported by Hotline On Call — is the latest indication Republicans see a potential opening in the three-way race.

The once-gargantuan polling lead of King — running as an independent, but who both sides assume would caucus with Democrats — has been shaved enough to stir the interest of outside groups backing Republican Secretary of State Charlie Summers.

Karl Rove is prodding GOP donors to ask retiring Sen. Olympia Snowe for their money back in order to help Summers and a source close to his conservative behemoth, American Crossroads, tells POLITICO “there’s a growing level of interest of getting involved.”

“It’s not certain it will materialize, but it looks better than it did before,” the source added.

But Summers backers have a tricky task. First they need to boost Democrat Cynthia Dill, who’s lagging in single-digit territory, into the mid-teens. Then they need to knock King down to size and prop up Summers.

King’s ad man, Dan Payne, wouldn’t speculate on the efficacy of such a strategy but didn’t doubt Republican wherewithal to try.

“They’ve got so much money sloshing around they could run attack spots in France,” Payne mused.

Another Democratic operative, privately supportive of King, said he is more than happy to see Republicans throw money at a “ridiculous pipe dream.”

© 2012 POLITICO LLC

GOP to Todd Akin: We’re done with Missouri

By: Manu Raju

September 11, 2012 11:23 PM EDT

Texas Sen. John Cornyn doesn’t want to talk about Missouri Senate candidate Todd Akin.

“We’re done,” Cornyn, chairman of the powerful National Republican Senatorial Committee, responded when asked whether the committee would reverse course and spend money to help Akin if he stays in the race.

“As far as I’m concerned, that’s up to the people of Missouri,” he added. “I’ve done everything I know how to do.”

As Akin begins to build a campaign operation focused heavily on turning out conservatives, Republicans in Washington are starting to put their cash elsewhere, resigned to the increasing likelihood that they will be stuck with a candidate they fear has no chance against Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.).

After scrapping a planned $5 million TV ad blitz in Missouri, the NRSC has shifted its focus to states like Maine, where the party committee will unveil Wednesday a $600,000, two-week ad buy to prop up Republican Charlie Summers in a three-way race led by independent Angus King. The high-spending Republican outside group, Crossroads GPS, canceled the last of its planned Missouri ads on Tuesday, scrapping the $2.3 million it wanted to use to attack McCaskill. And Republicans began to focus on once-ignored states that could be crucial to their path to the majority, such as the suddenly competitive race in Connecticut.

On top of that, Republican officials say Akin — a devout Christian conservative — has informed them that his decision to run is being guided by faith and belief in God. That means, they say, there’s little chance he’ll get out.

“It’s all theological for him,” said one Republican House member who knows Akin well but asked not to be named.

Akin and his team reject the notion that he’s a one-note candidate who can only appeal to religious conservatives and the anti-abortion community, pointing to Tuesday’s endorsement from the Missouri Farm Bureau. They say his fiscal conservative positions and views on the economy are well within the Missouri mainstream.

“People all over the state” are encouraging him to remain in the race, Akin told a swarm of reporters Monday.

Akin said he’s heard this time and again from voters: “‘We’ve already voted. The party bosses want to put anyone else in. Don’t you give up; you stay in there and you fight.’”

Indeed, the moves by national figures to get Akin out of the race have infuriated his supporters. Akin won his hard-fought Senate primary, they say, and he has apologized profusely for his comments on rape and pregnancy last month.

Still, there are signs that his campaign is financially stretched. A $225,000 ad buy that was slated to run until last week was stretched out into this week, meaning fewer commercials over a longer time frame. In the meantime, McCaskill has been pounding the airwaves with $500,000 per week in ads, including recent commercials branding herself as a moderate.

Akin’s team recognizes the disparity but is banking on hopes that money will pour in once it’s clear he’s in the race to stay; the deadline to get off the ballot is Sept. 25. They don’t believe the national groups’ threats that they will stay out of a competitive race that could determine the Senate majority. And they plan to launch a new ad campaign in the fall targeting voters put off by McCaskill’s support of much of President Barack Obama’s agenda.

“If we can replace an adequate amount of money and generate a genuine grass-roots campaign, we will beat Claire McCaskill because this is ultimately a referendum on her,” said Rick Tyler, a top adviser to Akin. “However, having said all that, I believe the national money will come back.”

If it doesn’t, Tyler said: “I don’t think the Republican Party will lose the Senate because of Todd Akin. They will lose the Senate majority because they don’t want to defend conservative principles.”

Still, even loyal conservatives who have done battle with Washington Republicans aren’t yet coming to Akin’s rescue. Utah Sen. Mike Lee, a tea party favorite who has worked to promote conservative Senate candidates this cycle, said he has no plans to get behind Akin. Same with Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), the staunch conservative who has long battled with his leadership.

“I have not been involved in that race, so I’m not really going to get involved,” DeMint said.

DeMint declined to say whether he agrees with his party’s decision to abandon Akin. Likewise, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell — who has called on Akin to step aside — refused Tuesday to comment on the congressman’s candidacy.

“He’s still got some time; he’ll have to decide whether he’s going to get the money and the support he needs to make this happen,” said Missouri Sen. Roy Blunt, who has urged Akin to quit.

The 65-year-old, six-term congressman’s uncomfortable position in the party started last month when he was asked about his opposition to abortion in the cases of rape. He responded that when “legitimate rape” occurs, it rarely leads to pregnancies.

Since then, Akin has been on an apology tour, though Republicans from Missouri to Washington believe the comments were a fatal blow to his candidacy.

Akin has until Sept. 25 to obtain a court order to get off the November ballot so the state party can pick a replacement. In reality, he’d have to start the process by next week because military and overseas absentee ballots are sent out on Sept. 22.

But it’s all a moot point, Akin says.

“I’m not getting out; I made that really clear,” Akin told reporters Monday.

Polls since Akin’s rape remarks have put McCaskill up by as much as 10 percentage points, though one Democratic pollster recently showed Akin down by 1 point. Republicans believe that McCaskill and Democrats have tried to avoid making the rape comments a bigger campaign issue in order to keep him in the race until the Sept. 25 deadline. McCaskill’s team denies that.

Asked about the race Tuesday and whether Akin has a shot to win even with GOP groups staying out, McCaskill demurred.

“I’m not going to talk politics on that,” McCaskill told POLITICO. “I’m going to try to get through the 25th and not talk about it.”

Akin made a brief appearance in the Capitol on Monday before heading back to Missouri. He barnstormed conservative parts of the state Tuesday, meeting with college students in Fulton, shaking hands with voters at a cafe in Ozark and attending a rally at Christian County Republican headquarters in Nixa.

Akin’s campaign says it has collected $425,000 in online contributions since mid-August, but aides acknowledge they’ll need much more to remain competitive with the well-financed McCaskill.

Social conservative groups like the Family Research Council and politicians such as Mike Huckabee have come to Akin’s defense, something that could help in a state with swaths of evangelical voters. And he has long-standing ties to the social conservative world, including his former chief of staff, Rob Schwarzwalder, who is a senior vice president at the Family Research Council.

All of this has left some of Akin’s House colleagues nervously watching the fallout.

“I think, quite frankly, that we as a ticket are not going to be helped by him being on the ticket,” said Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-Mo.). “How much it will hurt us down the road will depend on how the campaign plays out between he and Claire. At this point, it appears that there’s a negligible amount of damage so far to the rest of the ticket, but we’ve got a lot of campign to go here — so we’ll see what happens.”

© 2012 POLITICO LLC

SEC funds plan wedges Hill Democrats, W.H.

By: Zachary Warmbrodt

September 11, 2012 11:02 PM EDT

In one of the first major financial reform battles since the passage of sweeping Wall Street reforms in 2010, support from Hill Democrats is missing in action.

Federal regulators and the Obama administration have identified the money market mutual fund industry as unfinished business left over from the financial crisis and are warning that it remains a threat to the economy.

But last month an effort by Securities and Exchange Commission Chairwoman Mary Schapiro to crack down on these funds was thwarted in the face of strong industry opposition after she failed to win the support of a Democratic swing vote, Luis Aguilar, at the five-member regulatory commission.

Now, the Financial Stability Oversight Council, the super panel of regulators led by Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, is mulling over what steps it can take to further Schapiro’s plan.

Geithner, Schapiro and other regulators are taking on this task, however, without strong support from congressional Democrats, allies they have been able to count on in past fights with the financial industry.

“We have to do it, but I think there’s a great deal of concern about how to do it without ending money market mutual funds,” Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), a member of the Banking Committee, told POLITICO.

Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), another committee member, said the impact of smaller changes put in place by the SEC after the financial crisis should be studied before larger steps are taken.

“When we get that, there may very well be other reforms that are necessary,” he said in an interview.

Other congressional Democrats have also not come out in strong opposition to proposed reforms, instead counseling caution and raising the specter of unintended consequences from regulation, arguments they have dismissed in previous efforts to crack down on the financial industry.

Concerns about the industry stretch back to 2008, during the height of the financial crisis, when the Treasury Department stepped in to temporarily guarantee cash parked in the funds to prevent a run on them.

To prevent this from recurring, Schapiro is proposing that funds switch to “floating” prices that better reflect losses, build buffers with increased capital and restrict how quickly investors can take back their money.

The question of whether to back the push by Schapiro has put Hill Democrats in an uncomfortable political position, mainly because opposition to the reforms comes not just from the financial industry.

State and municipal governments as well as consumer groups are lobbying against the proposal.

Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), chairman of the Banking subcommittee that oversees securities and investment, told Schapiro in June he had concerns about the effects on municipal governments. In July, nine Senate Democrats sent a letter to the chairman citing similar worries.

“The regulations under review by the SEC would have been harmful to Main Street,” Sen. Mark Begich (D-Alaska) said in a statement to POLITICO. “At a time when cities across the country are struggling to keep cops on the beat, teachers in schools, and the lights on at City Hall, the last thing we should be doing is making it harder to access critical short-term funding.”

The concerns stretch into the House.

Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-Mass.), a Financial Services Committee member and Dodd-Frank supporter who has made a show of chastising Wall Street officials like JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon at congressional hearings, said he has concerns about “serious unintended consequences” for local governments that could result from proposed reforms.

“A lot of the customers of money market funds lobbied pretty effectively on this, and a lot of them are close with Democratic constituencies,” said Brian Gardner, an analyst with investment bank Keefe, Bruyette & Woods. “They’re the pension funds and municipalities who use money market funds as a cash management tool.”

Whether strong backing from congressional Democrats would help regulators pass money market reforms is far from a sure thing, but it’s clear the current lack of support is not helping advance a top regulatory priority for the Obama administration.

“The regulatory process will never be free from politics,” said Jaret Seiberg, a policy analyst at Guggenheim Securities. “So significant congressional support for further regulating money market mutual funds would not only further embolden the regulators to act, but it also would make it more likely that the industry would make major concessions to find a workable compromise.”

Many investors view money market funds as an alternative to savings accounts, but unlike those bank deposits, money market accounts are not backed by the government.

With action at the SEC stalled, the alternative route is for FSOC, a panel of top regulators created by Dodd-Frank, to implement greater oversight, such as subjecting major fund firms to Federal Reserve supervision.

FSOC and its member agencies are “exploring all the options” to put reforms in place, a source familiar with the matter said. The group is scheduled to meet later this month.

Steven Sloan contributed to this report.

© 2012 POLITICO LLC

Shipping industry takes glass-half-full approach

By: Jessica Meyers

September 11, 2012 10:34 PM EDT

NEW YORK — The shipping industry keeps tanking.

Order books sit the emptiest in a decade. Prominent companies are avoiding investor conferences. And with a glut of vessels and scant demand, carriers talk more about scrapping ships than sailing them.

One of the world’s key economic barometers appears sunk — unless you ask the industry. The promise of Chinese development, a natural cargo diversification and the industry’s repetitive nature have fueled surprising optimism.

“It’s bleak in the immediate future,” said Trygve Munthe, president of oil tanker operator DHT Holdings, at a recent global shipping conference here. “But this is good news in disguise. It sets us up for a strong recovery.”

Their logic isn’t just meant to appease investors.

“The shipping industry overall is cyclical,” said Doug Mavrinac, head of maritime equity research at Jefferies & Co. investment bank. Take 2004, he said, when the industry embarked on a four-year ride of financial glory.

Companies used those profits to build more vessels, which got delivered as the recession hit. Now they’re stuck with too many ships and not enough business.

In the complex and unpredictable world that determines shipping drivers, this has a simple upside. As companies discard inactive ships and stop buying more, demand will pick up.

“It’s hard to say things are getting better now,” Mavrinac said, “but when you look at the nuts and bolts of it, fleet growth does get better.”

That’s hard to tell by the current numbers. A prime gauge of shipping prices just inched closer to a near three-decade low.

The industry’s saving grace may lie partly in its ability to diversify. Companies specialize in a vast array of sectors, some of which respond less to a eurozone crisis or Middle East sanctions. Crude oil and dry bulk shipments make up the market powerhouses, but smaller sectors remain viable because they serve niche functions.

Ships that carry container goods, for example, have had more luck in recent years than oil tankers. Altered driving habits coupled with the rise of more fuel-efficient cars have reduced the need for oil shipments to the United States. Container shipping companies have taken a hit from decreased consumption, but shoppers still purchase, only now they’re buying from Target rather than Neiman Marcus.

Newer potential exists in realms such as shipping liquefied gas and container leasing, which has capitalized on the industry’s declining profits and lack of access to capital.

“We’re seeing a bigger piece of the pie,” said David Doorley of SeaCube Container Leasing, one of the world’s largest container lessors. A shift in recent years, leasing companies now own a majority of the containers they rent.

Lawmakers have even carved out a spot. A long-standing law allows only American-flag ships to carry goods between U.S. ports, ensuring a small but enduring market.

Kirby, the country’s largest inland and coastal tank barge operator, has found success hauling petrochemicals. At a time when few are buying, the Houston-based company announced its latest acquisition last week. “The outlook for the U.S. coastal barge market is improving,” said Joe Pyne, Kirby’s chairman and CEO.

But without a more direct focus on the country’s deteriorating roads and bridges, the United States will have much less to do with the industry’s resurgence.

Mavrinac said China is poised to use an upcoming political transition to “stimulate the economy through old, reliable investing in infrastructure.”

Just last week, Chinese officials announced a $158 billion stimulus package for more urban rail, highways, waterways and waste management projects. Shares of Genco Shipping & Trading, a major carrier of iron ore and steel, bumped up 12 percent the next day. Neither American presidential campaign has offered a detailed plan for similar investments.

But no one knows whether these fluctuations symbolize long-term change. Once packed with investors, conferences like the recent one here have thinned. Brokers tell stories of thick address books now chopped in half. American shipyards are all but relegated to memory.

And investors continue to hang back, a cycle in itself.

“This is the question on everyone’s mind,” said Hamish Norton, a maritime investment bank head. “There is still growth in demand for shipping and still ships being scrapped, so it looks like the gap between the supply of ships and the demand for ships is narrowing. But when does that gap go back to zero? Anybody’s guess.”

© 2012 POLITICO LLC

Chris Christie to join Steve King at Iowa fundraiser

By: William Petroski - Des Moines Register

September 11, 2012 10:32 PM EDT

Christie to Join King at Iowa Fundraiser

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie will be the keynote speaker at a fundraising luncheon Sept. 20 in Sioux City, Iowa, on behalf of Republican Rep. Steve King, who is facing a tough challenge for reelection.

King said in a press release Monday that Christie and the governor’s wife are great friends. Christie also appeared on the Iowa congressman’s behalf at a fundraising event last year, and he was a keynote speaker at the recent Republican National Convention in Tampa, Fla.

“We first met when he was set up for a political excoriation before the House Judiciary Committee by then-Chairman John Conyers (D-Mich.). I thought, ‘Here is a principled, direct and very smart man who is unjustly the target of partisan attack,’” King said. “I used every minute to bring out the real truth, and Chris Christie never forgot that day. When he offered to return to Iowa to help my campaign, it was a clear demonstration of the kind of character Gov. Christie has and an example that shows why he has been so successful in New Jersey.”

“Under Gov. Christie’s leadership, New Jersey’s economy is turning around, and he’s balancing the state budget without raising taxes,” King said. “He exemplifies a defender of freedom. I look forward to having Gov. Christie back in Iowa.”

King, a five-term House member, is opposed by Democrat Christie Vilsack in Iowa’s 4th Congressional District, which generally covers northwest Iowa, although it includes Mason City and Ames.

The fundraiser will be the fifth annual Defenders of Freedom fundraising event sponsored by King.

— William Petroski,

Des Moines Register

© 2012 POLITICO LLC

First delayed deportees OK'd

By: Jennifer Epstein

September 11, 2012 10:24 PM EDT

The Obama administration has begun approving young illegal immigrants’ requests to stay in the country under President Barack Obama’s deferred action program, the Department of Homeland Security said Tuesday.

Three months after Obama announced the program and one month after the department began taking applications, more than 72,000 people have made requests for two years of deferred action — which can be renewed — and a work permit. The department wouldn’t say how many requests have been approved thus far, just that the process of examining the applications has begun.

“This process will help DHS continue to focus immigration enforcement and ensure that resources are not spent pursuing the removal of low priority cases involving productive young people,” department spokesman Peter Boogaard said in a statement confirming the launch of the processing of applications.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and Obama announced the program in June, with the president arguing that it would make immigration policy “more fair, more efficient and more just” by offering reprieves to young adults brought into the country illegally as children.

Ending deportations of young people without criminal histories was a key part of the DREAM Act, legislation that Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and allies have tried to push through Congress for more than a decade. But with Congress yet again stalled on the measure, Obama too action where he could.

“This is not amnesty. This is not immunity. This is not a path to citizenship. It’s not a permanent fix,” the president said at a Rose Garden ceremony in June. “This is a temporary stopgap measure.”

The administration likely got well more than 72,000 requests, since some submissions requesting deferred action include applications from multiple people.

Though the earliest applications were approved within a month of their submission, Homeland Security expects that once the system is fully up and running, it will take four to six months for applications to be processed.

© 2012 POLITICO LLC

Kaiser reports continued modest rate growth

By: Brett Norman

September 11, 2012 10:13 PM EDT

The average employer-provided health insurance premium notched up in the low single digits last year, continuing a relatively modest growth in the past five years that experts are still struggling to explain.

The 3 percent to 4 percent growth reported in 2012 was less than half of last year’s increase and is more in line with the figures reported in other years since the recession began in 2007, according to the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation’s much-anticipated annual Employer Health Benefits Survey, which was released Tuesday.

The cost of an average individual plan rose 3 percent to $5,615 annually, and the average family plan rose 4 percent to $15,745.

Double-digit premium increases were commonplace until 2004 — the last time one was recorded — and no one knows exactly what has caused the drop, KFF President and CEO Drew Altman wrote in an essay accompanying the report. The growth in high-deductible plans and the strain of the recession on household finances likely are contributing to the trend, he wrote.

“With the economy only slowly recovering and wage stagnation depressing utilization, there is no reason to expect a return to double-digit increases in health insurance premiums anytime soon, if at all,” Altman wrote.

The Health and Human Services Department was quick to suggest one possible factor. The agency released a report this morning that projected the Affordable Care Act’s rate review efforts have saved consumers about $2.1 billion.

The KFF report also found that the number of young adults remaining on their parents’ health insurance plan — one of the most popular provisions of the ACA — grew from 2.1 million in 2011 to 2.9 million in 2012.

Meanwhile, the number of grandfathered plans that are exempt from some regulations in the ACA fell to 48 percent of covered workers, down from 56 percent last year.

© 2012 POLITICO LLC

Roger Simon

- Obama tops Romney

- Has Obama swept Romney away?

President Obama tops Mitt Romney

By: Roger Simon

September 7, 2012 12:34 AM EDT

I wrote a few days ago that if the Democrats could maintain the enthusiasm they showed on the first day of their convention for all three days, Mitt Romney would be in serious trouble.

They did, and he is.

If this is not what the polls currently show, try to remember that polls are not destiny. And you should not let them shape it.

Democratic enthusiasm — real fire-in-the-belly enthusiasm — is a killer for Romney for one big reason: There is no sizable pro-Romney movement in this country. There has been a sizable anti-Obama movement.

There are relatively few Republicans deeply in love with Romney. (I except his family, friends and paid staff.)

There never has been. Romney won his nomination by being the most electable general election candidate in a weak and whacky primary field.

He won, in other words, not by devotion, but by default.

His campaign is fueled by dislike for and disappointment with Barack Obama. That dislike and disappointment is real.

In 1996, the last time a Democratic president ran for reelection, there was a significant anti-Bill Clinton movement in this country. This was before the Monica Lewinsky scandal. But a lot of right-wingers hated Bill Clinton and felt he was guilty of unspeakable crimes like murder and drug-trafficking. That didn’t mean there was a significant pro-Bob Dole movement, however. And Clinton won easily by 8.5 percentage points.

This is not 1996, the economy is bad, the cast of characters has changed and nobody is going to win by 8.5 percentage points. But the dynamic is the same: It is harder to turn out a vote against someone than a vote for someone.

Anger is not a movement. Disappointment is not a cause. And passionate support is an antidote to both.

Except for a very sloppy bobble over their platform, the Democrats staged a masterful convention. It went from Michelle to Bill to Biden and Barack. The emotion built every night and something very unusual was revealed.

There has been a shocking transformation in the American political landscape.

As Jeff Zeleny of The New York Times tweeted Thursday night: “A striking difference between conventions: Military service, patriotism are center stage at Democratic convention and nearly absent at GOP.”

Virtually overnight, the Democrats have become the party of strength and loyalty to country. This is a huge role reversal.

And Mitt Romney gave the Democrats an opening by what he said — or, rather, failed to say — in his acceptance speech in Tampa last week.

As Sen. John Kerry, Democrat from Massachusetts, said in Charlotte, N.C., Thursday night: “No nominee for president should ever fail in the midst of a war to pay tribute to our troops overseas in his acceptance speech. They are on the front lines every day defending America, and they deserve our thanks.”

The Democrats have also elevated the killing of Osama bin Laden to an actual difference between the two candidates.

Joe Biden said: “When [Romney] was asked about bin Laden in 2007, he said, and I quote, ‘It’s not worth moving heaven and earth, and spending billions of dollars, just trying to catch one person.’ He was wrong.”

Biden said that “Barack understood that the search for bin Laden was about a lot more than taking a monstrous leader off the battlefield.” It was about sending a message “to terrorists around the world — if you attack innocent Americans, we will follow you to the ends of the earth!”

Love and toughness, those were the two themes the Democrats ended their convention with.

“This man has courage in his soul, compassion in his heart and steel in his spine,” Biden said of Obama.

And when it came time for Obama to speak, he made clear that toughness meant facing up to a tough road ahead. He even dared a restatement of John F. Kennedy’s famous “ask not” line.

“America is not about what can be done for us, but what can be done by us,” Obama said.

“I won’t pretend the path I’m offering is quick or easy,” he continued. “I never have…. And the truth is, it will take more than a few years for us to solve challenges that have built up over decades.”

Obama, like the other speakers, portrayed the Republicans as doomsayers who were selling short the strength and resolve of the American people.

“Our problems can be solved,” Obama said. “Our challenges can be met. The path we offer may be harder, but it leads to a better place.”

It leads, he hopes, to four more years in the White House.

Roger Simon is POLITICO’s chief political columnist

© 2012 POLITICO LLC

Has President Obama swept MItt Romney away?

By: Roger Simon

September 5, 2012 03:53 PM EDT

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — It is just about the right time for irresponsibly early predictions, so here is mine:

If the Democrats can maintain the enthusiasm for three days that we have seen thus far in their convention, Mitt Romney will have a serious problem in attaining the presidency. He will need at least three things:

1. A superlative performance in all three of his debates with Barack Obama in October.

2. An extraordinary get-out-the-vote effort on Election Day.

3. An effective voter suppression campaign to keep minorities and young people from casting their ballots.

Am I making too much of the spirit generated by the speeches at the Democratic convention? Have I been swept away?

I don’t think so, but if I have been swept away, voters have been, too.

I am not talking about undecided voters. There are no undecided voters. Forget about what the pollsters claim. Think about it: Who could still be truly undecided between the two candidates in this election? And what planet are they registered on?

I am not saying there are no undecided people. There are. But they are not going to vote. They are going to do what they always do: Sit on their behinds on Election Day and then complain for the next four years.

This election is about base voters. Bringing them back to the party if they have drifted away into indifference, getting them fired up, getting them working to bring out the vote and getting them voting.

There have been many stories about how a lot of people who were enthusiastic about the inspirational, almost messianic, campaign of Obama in 2008 have grown disappointed and disaffected today.

I think those stories are true. We have not reached the Promised Land. It took Moses 40 years of wandering just to catch a glimpse of it, and Obama has not brought us there in three and a half.

His biggest problem is not bad economic numbers. I believe bad economic numbers — barring the collapse of Europe or some other calamity before Election Day — have been “baked into the cake.” Voters have already come to grips with the fact that unemployment will not be low by Nov. 6 and are looking for a candidate to trust, not a candidate to produce a magic job-creating wand.

Obama’s biggest problem has been a genuine falloff in enthusiasm for him, his rhetoric and his promises. You get one chance to make a first impression. Has Obama blown that chance?

The Democratic convention says — bellows — no. The level of enthusiasm here has been noticeably higher than the level of enthusiasm at the Republican convention in Tampa. [The messy vote on adding the word “God” and Jerusalem as capital of Israel to the platform was the only botch at the Democratic convention so far.] Ann Romney gave a good speech, but, unfortunately, the one moment that voters will remember from that convention is the Clint Eastwood “ramble” that was as empty as the chair he stood next to.

The speeches at the Democratic convention have been impassioned and stirring and filled with moments that linger.

“The presidency doesn’t change who you are, it reveals who you are,” Michelle Obama said.

Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick made himself into a national figure with his speech, much as Obama did in 2004. “I, for one, will not stand by and let [Obama] be bullied out of office, and neither should you!” Patrick roared. “It’s time for the Democrats to grow a backbone and stand up for what we believe in!”

San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro said in his keynote address: “In the end, the American dream is not a sprint, or even a marathon, but a relay. Our families don’t always cross the finish line in the span of one generation. But each generation passes on to the next the fruits of their labor.”

Bill Clinton said: “I love our country - - and I know we're coming back. For more than 200 years, through every crisis, we've always come out stronger than we went in.  And we will again as long as we do it together….If that's what you believe, if that's what you want, we have to re-elect President Barack Obama.”

But does it matter? We live, after all, in a visual and electronic age, an age in which political speeches appear to be mere relics.

I called one of the greatest speechwriters of modern times, Bob Shrum, who wrote the best speech I ever heard in person, Ted Kennedy’s convention speech of 1980 that ended with the unforgettable: “… the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die.”

“Words have power,” Shrum told me. “These convention speakers want to reach people not just intellectually, but actually move them.”

Shrum quoted some great and simple lines from past convention speakers, including some unexpected ones:

George H.W. Bush, Aug. 18, 1988, in New Orleans: “I am a quiet man — but I hear the quiet people others don’t.”

Al Gore, Aug. 18, 2000, in Los Angeles: “I know my own imperfections. I know that sometimes people say I’m too serious, that I talk too much substance and policy. Maybe I’ve done that tonight. But the presidency is more than a popularity contest. It’s a day-to-day fight for the people.”

“Words can be visual,” Shrum said. “When Michelle Obama said, ‘When you walk through that door of opportunity, you don’t slam it shut behind you,’ you just didn’t hear those words, you could see that image.”

Shrum concluded: “Words are a useful and persuasive engine. Eloquence has power.”

And if Obama ever needed eloquence, not just his own, but those of other speakers, the time is now.

Roger Simon is POLITICO’s chief political columnist.

© 2012 POLITICO LLC

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Table of Contents

Politico

Top Stories

Clinton's roadshow: Risk vs. reward

Hill ignores fiscal cliff warnings

GOP to Akin: We're done with Missouri

Romney finesses Afghanistan plans

On CR vote, freshmen give in

3 Senate races lurk as sleepers

GOP infighting as farm bill suffers

My obsession with 'Made in the USA'

Cicilline holds on in R.I. primary

GOP lacks specifics on tax rates

First delayed deportees OK'd

Rove disputes claim on Komen

Normalize trade with Russia

Too-familiar ring to Chinese devices

Protect immigrant women

GOP to Romney: You're so vague

Ryan buys TV ads for House race

Obama's campaign against coal

DOJ drops case against Buchanan

GOP war on Voting Rights Act

Christie to join Steve King in Iowa

The 5 curses of Joe Biden

Tax extenders withering on vine

Frank defends 'Uncle Tom' diss

House GOP slams Chu memo

Kaiser: Continued modest rate growth

Report: IG rips DOJ on Fast/Furious

Panetta: Penalty for SEAL writer

SEC funds plan divides Dems

Shipping's sees smooth sailing ahead

'Obama Burger' an enduring D.C. hit

Coburn blocking 9/11 museum funds

Tierney would squeeze ex-Blackwater

Brown blasts Mica on 9/11 hearing

The Kerry-ization of Mitt Romney

Poll: Spike in economic confidence

Report: Bush briefed on Al Qaeda

Fiscal cliff: All talk, no deal-making

Congress

On CR vote, freshmen give in

Hill ignores fiscal cliff warnings

GOP to Akin: We're done with Missouri

SEC funds plan divides Dems

GOP lacks specifics on tax rates

House GOP slams Chu memo

Tierney would squeeze ex-Blackwater

GOP infighting as farm bill suffers

Frank defends 'Uncle Tom' diss

Brown blasts Mica on 9/11 hearing

Ideas

My obsession with 'Made in the USA'

Obama's campaign against coal

Protect immigrant women

Normalize trade with Russia

GOP war on Voting Rights Act

Making political ads personal

New America vs. Old America

Clinton's double count of Medicare

Time to pass Obama agenda

Ill-served by Dem fantasies

Politics

On CR vote, freshmen give in

Hill ignores fiscal cliff warnings

Too-familiar ring to Chinese devices

3 Senate races lurk as sleepers

GOP to Akin: We're done with Missouri

SEC funds plan divides Dems

Shipping's sees smooth sailing ahead

Christie to join Steve King in Iowa

First delayed deportees OK'd

Kaiser: Continued modest rate growth

Roger Simon

Obama tops Romney

Has Obama swept Romney away?