UK: Pandering to the right...pandering to the middle...pandering to the right again....

The Guardian

Romney's abortion comments leave campaign scrambling to unify ticket

Remarks made by candidate that appear to soften stance on abortion highlight discrepancy with running mate's position

Karen McVeigh

In the wake of a Romney interview with the Des Moines Register newspaper in which he said his agenda included no legislation to restrict abortion, his campaign team launched a damage limitation exercise to assure conservative voters that he remained staunchly pro-life.
Within hours of the comments being published on Tuesday, Romney's campaign insisted that he was against abortion, telling the conservative National Review Online that Romney "would, of course, support legislation aimed at providing greater protections for life.

Read it at The Guardian:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/oct/10/romney-abortion-comments-ryan-differences

UK: Does Mitt Romney really have positions? Kind of makes your head spin....

The Telegraph

US election 2012: Mitt Romney's stance on abortion changes - then changes again

Mitt Romney appeared to make another abrupt shift to the political centre-ground on Wednesday, saying that he did not plan to enact laws that would prevent American women from being able to have abortions. 

During an interview in Iowa, a key swing state, the Republican presidential challenger reversed the tough anti-abortion rhetoric he used while campaigning for his party's candidacy earlier this year.

"There's no legislation with regards to abortion that I'm familiar with that would become part of my agenda," Mr Romney told the editors of The Des Moines Register, whose endorsement he is seeking.

His remarks appeared to be the latest in a series of retreats from the Right – on issues such as taxation and entitlements – that have wrong-footed President Barack Obama and his re-election campaign.

Yet Mr Romney's position seemed to change again within hours. Andrea Saul, his spokesman, told a magazine he "would of course support legislation aimed at providing greater protections for life". Later still, she would say only that "Mitt Romney is proudly pro-life, and he will be a pro-life president".

Read it at The Telegraph:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/us-election/9599698/US-election-2012-Mitt-Romneys-stance-on-abortion-changes-then-changes-again.html

Susan Eisenhower's take on Romney's Military Spending Plan

 “God Help This Country…”: Defense Strategy & Romney’s Military Spending Plan

October 9, 2012

tags: 2012 Election, Defense Spending, Leadership

by Susan Eisenhower

 

Mitt Romney won’t release most of his tax returns. Nor will he give voters specifics on how he plans to make his tax cutting plan “revenue neutral.” But when it comes to national defense he has offered voters astonishing specificity. In a policy memo released by the Romney campaign on July 24, the former Massachusetts Governor committed himself—during his first 100 days in office—to “Reverse Obama-era defense spending cuts with the goal of setting a core defense spending floor of 4% of GDP…[and]  put our Navy on the path to increase its shipbuilding rate from nine per year to approximately fifteen per year…[and] maintain a fleet of 11 aircraft carriers.”   Romney spoke on the subject again on Monday at the Virginia Military Institute.

Where is Dwight Eisenhower when we need him?

Read it at Susan Eisenhower's Newletter:
http://susaneisenhower.com/2012/10/09/god-help-this-country-defense-strategy-romneys-military-spending-plan/

UK: America's recovery

PJ:  Other countries affected by the economic collapse inspired by America's banking excesses are faltering, some have even fallen into double-dip recessions.   Aggressive austerity measures by many of these countries may be to blame while the more balanced approach of both stimulus and debt reduction may have saved the world's largest economy from the same fate. 

The Economist

Bad, repeat good

The recovery is weak, but it may be just enough for the president

Bright spots stand out amid the gloom. There are nearly 900,000 more jobs in professional services than when Mr Obama arrived, and over 1m more jobs in health care. Voters in Ohio and Michigan may have noticed that there are 43,000 more Americans making cars than in early 2009. Democrats eagerly claimed credit for this performance at their own political convention, praising the president’s handling of the bankruptcies of Chrysler and General Motors.
Michigan, long a byword for economic distress, is one of 17 states to have seen net job growth since Mr Obama’s swearing-in. Oil-rich states like Texas, Oklahoma and North Dakota are among the others, alongside north-eastern states buoyed up by a resilient “knowledge economy”. Housing-bubble states like California and Florida have done worst during Mr Obama’s tenure, but even there a reversal of fortune may be under way. California (never likely to leave the Democratic column) gained 365,000 new jobs in the year to July, the best performance of any state.

Read it at The Economist:
http://www.economist.com/node/21562971

UK: So long neighbor

The Economist

The decline of an American institution

But one trend in the pattern of American social life is curious: Americans have never been less likely to be friends with their neighbours than before. In 1974, 44% of respondents said that they had spent a social evening with neighbours more than once a month. By 2008, that number had dropped to a tick over 30%. Over the course of the study’s existence, the number has been dropping consistently.
The effect is not quite uniform. The likelihood of socialising with neighbours more than once a month declines with age but levels off among the middle-aged before a brief fillip among the elderly. By way of contrast, there have been steady increases in the number of people who socialise with friends (43%) or relatives (60%) more than once a month. Moreover, it is highly dependent on location. People in rural areas are much more likely to spend time with their neighbours than those in urban areas. Residents of suburbs exhibit the lowest level of neighbourliness.
What should we make of this?

Read it at The Economist:
http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2012/09/socialising-america

UK: Debate prep and forecasts

The Guardian

Romney and Obama curtail debate expectations ahead of first meeting

The two campaigns are feverishly preparing for the first of three debates that could be Romney's last chance to turn it around

By Ewen MacAskill

Each side took part in the usual ritual of talking up their opponent at the weekend in an attempt to dampen expectations. Paul Ryan, the Republican vice-presidential candidate, speaking on Fox News on Sunday, described Obama as "a very gifted speaker". Supporters of Obama claimed Romney had won nearly all of the debates during his gruelling nomination process.
Estimates for the number of viewers in America range from 50 million to 60 million, almost double the number who watched the party conventions. There will be two additional debates, in Long Island and Florida, but it is the first that usually has the most impact.
Obama, with significant poll leads in the swing states, can play defence, just getting through the evening without making a mistake. The onus is on Romney to make an impression.

Read it at The Guardian:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/sep/30/romney-obama-first-presidential-debate

International NYT: A conservative case for Obamacare

International Herald Tribune

Opinion

The Conservative Case for Obamacare

By J. D. KLEINKE

IF Mitt Romney’s pivots on President’s Obama’s health care reform act have accelerated to a blur — from repealing on Day 1, to preserving this or that piece, to punting the decision to the states — it is for an odd reason buried beneath two and a half years of Republican political condemnations: the architecture of the Affordable Care Act is based on conservative, not liberal, ideas about individual responsibility and the power of market forces.

This fundamental ideological paradox, drowned out by partisan shouting since before the plan’s passage in 2010, explains why Obamacare has only lukewarm support from many liberals, who wanted a real, not imagined, “government takeover of health care.” It explains why Republicans have been unable since its passage to come up with anything better. And it explains why the law is nearly identical in design to the legislation Mr. Romney passed in Massachusetts while governor. 

Read it at the IHT:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/30/opinion/sunday/why-obamacare-is-a-conservatives-dream.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all