Appearing Monday night on MSNBC's The Rachel Maddow Show, Dan Rather said that Mitt Romney's presidential campaign was having an incredibly hard time focusing on the economy and job growth.
"Here's his basic problem," he explained. "We talked about it before. Does this man know what it is he believes? Is he willing to stick to it and fight for it? Whatever the truth of it is, the perception has been there from the beginning. This guy may not know really what he wants to do. These last few days have fuelled that. If he wins, he has to win on jobs and the economy. He can't seem to keep the focus there and you can't run a campaign with more twists than a pretzel factory."
Earlier in the segment, MSNBC host Rachel Maddow noted that the Romney campaign had corrected statements made by the Republican presidential candidate and his running mate Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) multiple times over the past few days, giving the appearance that the campaign was either trying to appeal to particular niches of voters -- or was in complete disarray.
"I think future historians and politicians and people who cover politics will be looking at this campaign and studying it for a long time to come because the center of gravity has changed with Facebook, Twitter and the immense amount of coverage there is of a campaign," Rather said. "There's a time not long ago, you can say one thing to one group of people and another thing to another group of people and it wouldn't catch up. Those days are gone."
A political strategist is thought to be on the lam after she failed to show up for an interview with prosecutors about a campaign scandal involving Rep. David Rivera (R-FL).
Authorities last week raided Ana Alliegro's apartment and seized her computer and cell phone. She was scheduled to speak to prosecutors on Thursday, but now not even her lawyer knows where she is, according to The Miami Herald.
Prosecutors believe that Alliegro may be involved in shadow campaign, in which Justin Lamar Sternad ran as a Democrat "ringer" in the 26th District primary in order to help defeat fellow Democrat Joe Garcia. Authorities are probing Rivera, the Republican incumbent, to find out if he was behind the scheme as effort to weaken or defeat Garcia before they faced off in the general election.
Campaign sources and finance records indicated that Rivera may have funneled $46,000 in secret money to Sternad's campaign -- often in cash-filled envelopes. Both Rivera and Sternad have denied working together.
"I still have not heard from my client. I have no idea where she is," attorney Mauricio Padilla told the Herald. "I have not talked to Ana since Wednesday."
Alliegro, who describes herself as a "conservative bad girl," has not posted anything to her Twitter account since this cryptic message last Monday: "Somebody hacked ur twitter. This is going out to ur followers. Happens all the x..hope ur well:-)"
No missing persons report had been filed as of Saturday.
Rivera, a friend and former roommate of Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), had faced accusations of domestic violence during his 2010 campaign for Congress. Rivera had also been accused in 2002 of using his car to hit a Liberty Mailing Services truck and force it off the road as it was carrying flyers that read, "Reject Domestic Violence — Reject David Rivera."
Watch this video from NBC Miami, broadcast Sept. 8, 2012.
Republican House Majority Whip Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) said President Barack Obama acted like a "spoiled child" during last year's debt ceiling negotiations between his administration and the Republican-led Congress, as McCarthy stood up for his party's actions in voting for a sequester on the issue.
"The deal was a debt limit where you had a president walk away, where you're dealing in the final hours and the only idea that the Democrats had was this so-called supercommittee," McCarthy told MSNBC's Chuck Todd Monday. "So Republicans went along to make sure the cliff did not fall off. And then what happened in the supercommittee, Republicans offered an idea, Democrats did not."
McCarthy cited the upcoming book by Washington Post associate editor Bob Woodward, which depicts Obama stepping out of a negotiation between Republican and Democratic lawmakers, as proof that Obama "walked away" when the country needed leadership -- but he neglected to mention that he was asked to do so by House Speaker John A. Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid.
When Todd noted that each party has accused the other of abandoning negotiations, McCarthy said he remembered Obama saying "no more" at one point in the negotiation process.
"It was like a spoiled child going 'I'm gonna take my basketball home and leave, I'm not gonna play anymore,'" McCarthy said. "That is not what you need in that situation."
McCarthy's remarks also follow recent attempts by the party's vice-presidential candidate, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) to distance himself from voting for the temporary truce, which included cuts to military spending. Ryan's running mate, Mitt Romney, called the move "a big mistake" in an interview with NBC that ran Sunday.
McCarthy also refused to accept Todd's suggestion that the fight over the debt ceiling, supported without incident by Republicans was brought about by House Republicans.
"Let's be honest: the whole reason we're at a debt ceiling? Because Washington spends too much money," McCarthy said. "The whole reason we're at a debt ceiling is because we've had trillion-dollar deficits, year over year and no budget being passed. The American people are asking [us] to balance this budget."
However, Republicans like Rep. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), who was part of the meeting Woodward described in his book, was among those threatening to hold the debt ceiling hostage unless Democrats made a "credible effort" to work with them.
The public sniping led to criticism from other Republicans, like former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, who called those holding up the issue "our version of al-Qaeda terrorists."
McCarthy's interview with Todd, aired on MSNBC Monday, can be seen below.
Just two days after appearing on stage with Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, televangelist Pat Robertson said something that seems destined to make the candidate lament his decision.
Reacting to a letter from a viewer who said he's lost his self confidence due to his wife insulting him, Robertson said Monday: "Well, you could become a Muslim and you could beat her." He then turned to his female co-host, who seemed to balk at the offhanded remark, and asked: "You don't want to go to Saudi Arabia?"
"I think this man's got to stand up to her," Robertson continued. "He can't let her get away with this stuff. And, uh, you know, I don't know... I don't think we condone wife beating these days, but something's got to be done to make her..."
"Not physically," Robertson's co-host injected. "But I mean, why would she not want to talk through their problems? That's so..."
The televangelist cut her off. "She is just totally, well, she's rebellious," Robertson said. "Chances are she was rebellious with her father and mother, she's a rebellious child and she doesn't want to submit to any authority. And she probably had temper tantrums when she was a kid, you know, the little girl, 'I hate you, I hate you,' and she wants to slap her father. Well, that's the same kinda thing."
"She's transferred the father now," he continued. "I hate to say everything's gotta be some kind of psychological counseling, but that's the problem. She does not understand authority. When she was growing up, nobody made her behave, and now you've got a 13-year-old in a 30-year-old woman's body. Now, what do you do with that? Well, you can't divorce her according to scripture. So I say, move to Saudi Arabia."
In another relationship advice segment from July, Robertson recommended a man "dump" his Muslim girlfriend, calling it "Christ-like" because the Bible prohibits religious inter-marriage. He justified that by saying that Jesus didn't want Christians to be "nice and friendly" all the time.
The comments are likely to put even greater distance between Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney and the Robertson, who sought the Republican Party's nomination to the presidency in 1988. The two appeared together at a Virginia Beach campaign rally on Saturday. The Mormon Romney used the speech to make an appeal for evangelical Christian votes by insisting he won't take "God" out of the Republican Party's platform and sternly vowing to keep the phrase "In God We Trust" on American currency, despite the fact that there has been no proposal to remove it.
The candidate has been under rhetorical fire for supporting cuts to women's health care programs and calling for all abortions and even most oral birth control to be banned across the U.S. Democrats describe the Republican Party's platform as a "war on women" -- a perception which Robertson's latest remarks would only seem to solidify.
Actor-turned-activist Kirk Cameron says that Democrats didn't go far enough by adding "God" to the party's platform, insisting that God should be the entire platform.
After realizing they had left out the words "God" and "Jerusalem," Democrats scrambled to modify their platform at the last minute during their convention last week.
"One of our political parties is wondering right now if the name of God should be in the political platform," Cameron said at a simulcast church service hosted by the Family Research Council's Tony Perkins on Sunday. "According to our forefathers, God IS the platform!"
"When I think of how far our country has drifted, our forefathers would be rolling over in their graves to hear what we are discussing," he added. "The sanctity of life? Really? The definition of a marriage? Really? Religious freedom? Really?"
Cameron found himself in hot water earlier this year after he told CNN's Piers Morgan that homosexuality was “unnatural” and “destructive to so many foundations of civilization.”
Late last week, the anti-LGBT actor blamed CNN for not censoring that portion of the interview.
"If Piers Morgan were truly concerned about the homosexual community, concerned with people being hurt, he could have eliminated that section, like he did many other parts of our conversation," Cameron told Naples News.
Tea party favorite Rep. Allen West (R-FL) is slamming President Barack Obama for using the word "Forward" as his campaign slogan, insisting that it is an "old Soviet Union, Marxist-Socialist theme."
"This is about whether we continue to be a republic governed by the Constitution," West told a Republican Jewish Coalition rally in Boca Raton, Florida on Sunday. "Or will we become a liberal-progressive, bureaucratic, welfare nanny state, which is exactly what the other side wants?"
He continued: "They want to bring out an old Soviet Union, Marxist-Socialist theme for their campaign called 'Forward'. I have to ask you one simple question. Where is the Soviet Union today?"
After the Obama campaign unveiled its campaign slogan in April, conservative outlets like The Washington Times and Breitbart.com warned that the word had a ties to Marxism.
"The Obama campaign apparently didn’t look backwards into history when selecting its new campaign slogan — or maybe they did," Fox Business host Lou Dobbs said at the time. “That’s because ‘Forward’ has a very long history with Marxists and socialists and communists.”
"Forward" is also the motto of Wisconsin, where Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan serves as a congressman.
FBI agents arrested Trenton, New Jersey, mayor Tony Mack Monday morning on corruption charges, as part of an investigation dating back to 2010.
According to the Trenton Times, Mack, along with his brother Ralphiel and campaign contributor Joseph "JoJo" Giorgianni, were involved in a plan to get $119,000 in bribes in connection with the building of a parking garage on city property.
WNBC-TV reported that all three men were taken to the FBI office in Hamilton, New Jersey for processing prior to appearing in federal court.
"This is not a surprise," former campaign aide Jerell Blakley told the station. "A lot of people in Trenton were of the opinion -- not of if, but when."
WPIX-TV reported that charges against the three men will be announced at a news conference at 11:30 a.m. Monday morning.
According to the criminal complaint filed against the trio Monday, authorities used both wire taps and cooperating witnesses to build their case, with Ralphiel Mack serving as an intermediary for money Giorgianni received for the garage project. The complaint said they had already received $54,000 in cash during the investigation, and expected to get $65,000 more; Giorgianni allegedly referred to the payments as "Uncle Remus."
Investigators had raided Mack's home in July and also visited Ralphiel Mack and Giorgianni at home. Giorgianni, who had donated $4,600 to Tony Mack during his mayoral campaign two years ago -- more than twice the individual contribution limit -- was convicted for sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl in the back of his sandwich shop in 1992. At the time, WNBC-TV said, Mack's office in City Hall was also searched.
The Times also reported that Giorgianni has been charged in a separate case involving distribution of prescription drugs from his restaurant, though authorities say no city personnel has been charged in that case.
Update: WNBC posted video Monday morning of Mack being led into custody, which can be seen below.
Saratoga Springs, Utah mayor and current Congressional candidate Mia Love netted a prime speaking slot at the Republican National Convention in Tampa two weeks ago, raising her profile to a national level. But her unscripted appearance on Fox News Sunday indicates that her policy chops are not quite ready for prime time, even under host Chris Wallace's gentle questioning.
First, Wallace asked her about her spending plan, which includes halving nutritional assistance for the poor ($53 billion, according to Wallace), ending all college tuition assistance, including Pell grants and subsidized student loans ($33 billion, according to Wallace), ending federal spending on K-12 education ($53 billion, according to Wallace, and even ending block grants to local police departments. Her response was, initially, to edge away from her own plan by saying, "First of all, that program I put out so that we can start a discussion, I haven't set anything in stone."
But in response to a follow-up questions for Wallace about ending all federal college assistance, she stated, "We're trying to see how much debt we can actually give people and the option I'd like to look at is bringing the cost of tuition down, so that we give more people the opportunity for higher education."
When asked to explain how the federal government could force colleges to lower tuition costs, Love had few practical answers. "Well," she said, "because federal government has just drowned out the private sector, we've got to do everything that we can because the price of tuition has gone up over 500 percent since the eighties. If you think about it now, there are people that can't go to college today because the price of tuition is way to high unless they are completely indebted. And so what we have to do is, we can bring some of these things to the state level, we can start letting the private sector come in and compete, and I think that those will help drive the price of tuition down."
In response to questions from Wallace on the perception that her party is waging a war on women, Love suggested that it's Obama who is the main culprit. "Well, think about this," she told Wallace, "Under President Obama I think women have suffered a little bit more. If you think about, 5.7 woman are out of work, we've gone for 7 percent unemployment to 7.8 percent unemployment." To illustrate her point about unemployment, she followed up with, "I would like federal government to let me keep a little bit of my own money so I can pay for my own contraceptives if I want to."
The contraception mandate, part of the Affordable Care Act now referred to even by Democrats as Obamacare, requires private insurers to offer contraceptive coverage without a co-pay.
Asked to explain her position on the contraceptive mandate more thoroughly, Love struggled to reconcile her ideology of less government interference with a federal ban on abortion. "Well, again, to me it's about choice," she said. "And I want more free choice, more liberties than anything else. And so I think that federal government trying to bring this so-called 'war on women,' I think it's just a way to distract from the fact that they're not talking about their failed policies."
Getting more specific on abortion, Love told Wallace, "Well, the role that government does play is to protect life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. And I think that we should be protecting life. I am a pro-life person."
But then she had difficulty when she tried to get more specific. "I believe that you have more choices before somebody ends up getting pregnant," she said, "And I think it's important that we're able to have the freedom to exercise that choice and it's up to you how you want to do that." Returning to the party's talking points, she added, "But I don't think that we should be getting into the weeds on all of this because I think that these are things that we teach in my own home, these are things that are private, we should just focus on the economy and what's happening with the economy."
Watch the video, which first aired on Fox News on September 9, 2012, below:
President Barack Obama reputedly loves nothing more than a good old campaign trail hug -- but he may have got more than he bargained for Sunday.
Obama was lifted at least a foot in the air in an intense bear hug by hulking pizza shop owner Scott Van Duzer, during a bus tour of Florida.
"Look at that!" the president said once the 250-pound, 6-foot-3 (113-kilogram, 1.90-meter) registered Republican had deposited him back on terra firma.
"Man are you a powerlifter or what?
"Scott, let me tell you, you are like the biggest pizza shop owner I've ever seen," Obama said.
"If I eat your pizza will I look like that?"
Van Duzer, owner of Big Apple Pizza and Pasta, later told reporters he had voted for Obama in 2008 and planned to do so again in November, despite being registered with the president's rival Republican Party.
"I don't vote party line, I vote who I feel comfortable with, and I do feel extremely comfortable with him," Van Duzer said, adding he had been "just overcome with excitement," and hoisted the president aloft.
Obama said he had stopped his black armored bus at the pizza shop as Van Duzer had mobilized a huge community blood donors operation, receiving commendations from the White House and the US surgeon general.
"Here's an example of somebody who is doing well but he's also giving back," he said. "What we know is that the guy's just got a big heart along with big pecs."
Obama spokeswoman Jen Psaki mentioned only on Saturday that Obama, who dives into restaurants and diners along the routes of his bus tours, loves interacting with voters.
"The only thing the president likes more than a bus tour is a hug," she said.
Watch a video of the event below, courtesy of CNN:
Kenji Yoshino, a professor of constitutional law at New York University, suggested on Melissa Harris Perry's MSNBC show Sunday that one intentional long-term consequence of states' efforts to pass voter ID laws may be to eliminate the pre-clearance section of the Voting Rights Act that requires some states and jurisdictions to receive approval from the federal government for any voting law changes because of their history of discrimination against minority groups.
"But the constitutional question is: Does Congress even have the power to enact Section V of the Voting Rights Act?" Yoshino stated. "That could be squarely presented before the court as early as this term," he added.
Yoshino explained, "We're talking about the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and under the Voting Rights Act-- which is still in effect -- under Section V of that act, there certain states have such a negative history of restricting the franchise on the basis of race, that they have to engage in preclearance before they make any change to their election law. Texas and South Carolina [which passed voter ID laws] are two of them."
Other states currently covered by Section V's provisions are Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, Texas and Virginia, as well as parts of California, Florida, Michigan, New Hampshire, New York, North Carolina and South Dakota.
"This is a huge boon for voters in states like Texas and South Carolina or any other covered jurisdiction, because it basically places the onus on the state rather than on the disenfranchised individual, or potentially disenfranchised individual, to make their case," Yoshino said. "So what's been happening in Ohio and Pennsylvania is that the court has been saying, 'Oh, well, we're going to weigh this and basically we're going to look at the potential for voter fraud, and then we're going to look at the burden on potentially disenfranchised voters.' The Voting Rights Act says because of this negative history that this particular state has had, the thumb is heavily on the scale against the state and for the plaintiff," he added.
"But what's happening now," he said, "Is a lot of these states are complaining and saying that the Voting Rights Act itself is unconstitutional."
Judith Browne Dianis, the co-director of the Advancement Project, elaborated. "It's because these states are saying, 'We don't discriminate any longer, that was a long time ago, so this is unconstitutional as applied to us now.' So we're going to see that happening, but we have to understand that the right wing has been setting this up for a long time, to have section five of the voting rights act struck down.
Watch the segment, which first aired on "Melissa Harris Perry" on Sunday, September 9, 2012, below:
White House senior adviser David Plouffe on Sunday chastised Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan for backing away from his earlier support of defense cuts, saying the Wisconsin congressman "was running away from them with the kind of pace he ran in that fictitional marathon."
Although Ryan voted for a deal that would have triggered significant cuts to defense, he has recently criticized the sequestration plan.
During an interview on Sunday, CBS host Chief White House Correspondent Norah O'Donnell asked Ryan why he was "criticizing the president for those same defense cuts you’re voting for and called a victory."
"I have to correct on you this, Norah. I voted for a mechanism that says the sequester will occur if we don’t cut $1.2 trillion in government," Ryan explained.
"Right, a trillion dollars in defense spending, and you voted for it!" O'Donnell pointed out.
"No, Norah," Ryan replied. "I voted for the Budget Control Act."
"That included defense spending!" O'Donnell pressed.
"Norah, you’re mistaken," Ryan insisted.
After hearing that he had refused to even admit he had supported defense cuts, Plouffe drew a comparison to Ryan's recent false claim that he had run a marathon in less than three hours.
"Interesting to hear Congressman Ryan," Plouffe told O'Donnell. "You asked him questions. He voted for the sequester. He voted for the Budget Control Act. He was running away from them with the pace that he ran in the fictitional marathon that you asked him about."
"Getting our fiscal house in order, dealing with the sequester is very simple. We need compromise," he added. "President Obama is the one person in Washington who is very committed to compromise."
Watch this video from CBS's Face the Nation, broadcast Sept. 9, 2012.
New York Times columnist Paul Krugman says that the Republican Party has adopted extreme anti-immigrant positions to appeal to their base, "which is, by and large, elderly white people arguing with empty chairs."
During a Sunday panel segment on ABC News, Krugman pointed out that Clint Eastwood's bizarre conversation with an empty chair at the Republican National Convention last month was illustrative of the party's base.
"Arizona is a third Hispanic," conservative columnist George Will noted. "The Republican Party spent 20 debates in the primary competing to see who could build the longest, thickest, tallest, most lethally-electrified fence. And Hispanics said, 'I detect some hostility here.' And it's going to take a long time to undo that."
Krugman agreed that the GOP's move to the extreme right during the primary had hurt their standing with minority voters.
"The Republican Party is where it is because that's where the base is," Krugman agreed. "You watch that whole primary process, Republican candidates had to appeal to their base, which is, by and large, elderly white people arguing with empty chairs."
Tea party favorite Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) also lamented that the Republican Party had completely given up on winning certain parts of the country.
"So what I keep telling them is, maybe we need some libertarian-type Republicans who might be popular in those areas," he explained. "Maybe a less aggressive, more socially tolerant, but still fiscally conservative policy that that may be more libertarian might do better in California, might do better in Oregon, Washington, New England."
"Our problem in the presidential election is we've given up 150 electoral votes before we get started."
Watch this video from ABC's This Week, broadcast Sept. 9, 2012.
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney admitted on Sunday that there were some good provisions in the health reform law pushed by President Barack Obama.
"I'd say we're going to replace Obamacare and I'm replacing it with my own plan, and you know, even in Massachusetts, where I was governor, our plan there deals with pre-existing conditions and with young people," Romney told NBC’s David Gregory in an interview .
"You'd keep that as part of the federal plan?" Gregory asked.
"I'm not getting rid of all of health care reform," Romney responded. "Of course there are a number of things that I like in health care reform that I'm going to put in place. One is to make sure that those with pre-existing conditions can get coverage.
"Two is to assure that the marketplace allows for individuals to have policies that cover their family up to whatever age they might like. I also want individuals to be able to buy insurance, health insurance on their own as opposed to only being able to get it on a tax advantage basis through their company."
Romney has vowed to act to repeal Obamacare on his first day in office, even though the law highly resembles the health care reform he enacted as the governor of Massachusetts six years ago.
