A2 Politics

2012-02-01T02:52:00.001-08:00

PRIMARIES - Excellent article with vocabulary section at bottom of the page

2012-02-01T00:43:00.000-08:00

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-16827237

Presidential Powers

2012-01-31T03:03:00.000-08:00

http://constitutionus.com/#n3
http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=3000069207
state of the union 2012
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VbV-1L5JMA4&feature=relmfu

USEFUL VIDEOS OF NH PRIMARY

2012-01-06T04:09:00.001-08:00

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/new-hampshire-primary-small-state-big-stage/2012/01/05/gIQAHgFpcP_video.html

IOWA - ROMNEY WINS BY 8 VOTES - SANTORUM CALLS ROMNEY BORING

2012-01-05T04:51:00.001-08:00

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jan/04/rick-santorum-profile

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/politics/primary-tracker/Iowa/?customview=0,-1,total,3

IOWA - Gingrich concedes Iowa, but not race

2012-01-03T05:04:00.001-08:00

By Amy Gardner, Tuesday, January 3, 2:07 AM
INDEPENDENCE, Iowa — Full of confidence and bombast, Newt Gingrich last week began an eight-day bus tour across Iowa, figuring that the picnic basket of “positive” ideas he has served crowds for months would be enough to stem his downward slide.
But that was before polls showed him dropping into fourth place and his message seeming to fall flat. It was before his opponents were done pummeling him with millions in attack ads. Then there were the tears when he talked about his mother and, finally, a vicious flu that left his eyes watery, his speech sluggish and his campaign fighting the perception that the candidate was limping to a disappointing Iowa finish.
Gingrich conceded as much at a farm exhibit here Monday morning when he told reporters, “I don’t think I’m going to win.” It was a bitter acknowledgment for a man who just a month ago boldly predicted that he would be the Republican nominee, with an assurance that left little room for doubt. Gingrich hasn’t given up on that just yet; he has made clear that he’s prepping for a serious counterattack against Mitt Romney, whose supporters’ ads have badly damaged the former House speaker’s chances.
But after surging to the top of the field weeks ago, the Gingrich of the past several days has come to understand that he was wrong about a few things, namely that there is only one story to Newt Gingrich. In fact, the other story took hold, too, leaving him open to attack and struggling to reposition himself.
Since he rolled into Iowa last week, the lurching has continued. In a basement community room at Mabe’s Pizza in Decorah, the crowd overflowed up the stairs into the main dining room, where families gathered for dinner could hear the approving cheers and applause through the floor.
The appeal? Gingrich’s brimming confidence and fluency on the issues. He is a conservative in the mold of Ronald Reagan and Barry Goldwater. He led the charge against Bill Clinton in the 1990s for lower taxes, smaller government and welfare reform. As one woman put it at a question-and-answer session in Ottumwa: “Your ideas are spectacular. Your brain is just inspiring.”
The story was similar at the Chocolate Season in Algona, where fans spilled out onto the chilly sidewalk. And Gingrich attracted more than 70,000 callers to a series of telephone town halls since Christmas. His spokesman, R.C. Hammond, became so well versed that he began cuing up three cellphones with different carriers so Gingrich could stay connected even when the call got dropped.
But at the Dubuque Golf and Country Club and the Heartland Acres Agribition Center in Walford, crowds listened politely but exhibited little enthusiasm. When asked if they’d seen any of the ads attacking Gingrich, the near-universal answer: “Of course!”
And although all the crowds applauded when Gingrich condemned the negative ads, it was clear that the refrain — that Gingrich is a Washington insider; that he was paid $1.6 million by federally backed mortgage giant Freddie Mac; that he was sanctioned for ethics violations when he was speaker — had taken a toll.
Retiree Ralph Davey, 60, who is undecided and came to hear Gingrich speak in Mason City, said: “I like Newt. He was way down in the polls. He bounced back and showed some resilience. And I like his conservative values.” Yet Davey still has reservations, he said, because of Gingrich’s baggage.
With Gingrich, the point had sunk in by week’s end. “I wouldn’t vote for the guy they’re describing!” he began quipping. He also began figuring out how to fight back. On his bus between stops in Mason City and Algona, Gingrich recorded a phone message to go to 100,000 homes denying a charge that he is not a strong supporter of gun rights.
And his barbs toward Romney have grown sharper by the day. “Somebody who will lie to you to get to be president will lie to you when they are president,” he said Sunday.
He is also trying to change the narrative. “Whatever I do tomorrow night will be a victory, because I’m still standing,” he told reporters. He is looking beyond Iowa, he said, to New Hampshire, South Carolina and Florida.
Gingrich has also altered his directive to stay positive. “No more” was his message on Monday, along with a preview of what’s to come — a brutal comparison of his conservative record with Romney’s history as a “Massachusetts moderate” who refused to sign the Contract With America and supported abortion rights.
“This is the first few minutes of the Super Bowl,” Gingrich said. “I think it’s been a good three minutes for us. I think we’ve begun to lay out the themes that will work. I think we’ve seen Romney do his most intense negatives, and we now have had time to think through how to respond.”
Whether that response will work is a question that will have to wait until after Iowa.

Primaries and 2012 election - key stories

2012-01-03T02:48:00.000-08:00

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/gop-candidates-iowa-voters-voice-2012-resolutions/2012/01/01/gIQAKtvJUP_video.html

URGENT - PARTIES AND ELECTIONS - GOP AND TAX CUT -

2011-12-23T04:41:00.000-08:00

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/23/us/politics/senate-republican-leader-suggests-a-payroll-tax-deal.html?_r=1&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha2

2011-12-15T07:04:00.000-08:00

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/post/assessing-president-obamas-five-paths-to-re-election/2011/12/13/gIQADIN1sO_blog.html

2011-12-15T06:49:00.000-08:00

THIRD PARTY CANDIDATE? RON PAUL

2011-12-15T06:21:00.001-08:00

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/ron-paul-the-alternative-candidate-is-a-force-to-be-reckoned-with/2011/12/01/gIQAKDYouO_story.html?wpisrc=nl_cuzheads

ROMNEY - TAX VOTE IN SENATE - SUSAN COLLINS VOTING WITH DEMOCRATS 2/12/11 New York Times

2011-12-02T01:44:00.000-08:00

This weeks top stories - Gerrymandering, Gingrich, Super PAC's

2011-12-01T05:09:00.000-08:00

#### ELECTION - ROMNEY NO BASE IN IOWA ####

2011-11-21T07:55:00.000-08:00

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/romney-faces-resistance-from-evangelical-leaders-in-iowa/2011/11/13/gIQAyKhyYN_story.html?wpisrc=nl_cuzheads

ELECTION - #### OBAMA BASE STORY###

2011-11-21T04:36:00.000-08:00

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/president-obamas-base-of-support-remains-solid-heading-into-2012/2011/11/20/gIQAj7K5fN_story.html?wpisrc=nl_cuzheads

Very important story about Obama's continuing support amongst his base

2008 Democrat Primary Video - well done Amy for finding this

2011-11-17T09:45:00.001-08:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vyzWrEyA_XQ

Todays WASHINGTON POST

2011-11-17T04:25:00.000-08:00

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/gop-supercommittee-members-tax-plan-gives-party-an-identity-crisis/2011/11/16/gIQAjdpdSN_story.html?wpisrc=nl_cuzheads

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/newt-gingrich-on-the-rise-says-hopefully-im-going-to-be-more-disciplined/2011/11/16/gIQAeSVkSN_story.html?wpisrc=nl_cuzheads

ELECTIONS - SENATE -GOP INTERNAL RIVALRY

2011-11-17T01:08:00.001-08:00

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/17/us/politics/feuding-hurts-republicans-hopes-to-win-senate.html?_r=1&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha24

PRIMARIES - IOWA GRAPHIC

2011-11-16T04:40:00.001-08:00

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/rick-perry-herman-cain-try-to-do-campaign-damage-control/2011/11/15/gIQAH0jZPN_story.html?wpisrc=nl_cuzheads

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/politics/primary-tracker/

PRIMARY GOP - Cain - smear Campaign? Romney in NH, Perry in IOWA

2011-11-04T03:52:00.001-07:00

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/will-herman-cain-survive-the-scandal/2011/11/03/gIQAhYDyjM_story.html?wpisrc=nl_cuzheads

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/romney-lays-out-fiscal-policy-in-nh-while-perry-and-others-campaign-across-iowa/2011/11/03/gIQA7Vw2jM_story.html?wpisrc=nl_cuzheads

Ethnicity and Voting/Party Identification - Full Report with state by state breakdown

2011-11-04T03:48:00.001-07:00

http://web.gc.cuny.edu/lastudies/latinodataprojectreports/Latinos%20and%20the%202008%20Presidential%20Elections%20A%20Visual%20Data%20Base.pdf

ELECTIONS - Data on Party identification amongst ethnic groups

2011-11-04T03:40:00.000-07:00

California Proposition 8

2011-11-04T03:28:00.000-07:00

http://dss.ucsd.edu/~mabrajan/page2/prq_2010.pdf
this paper gives statistics on the voting pattern for Proposition 8 and is useful both for the voter identification research you are currently doing and the Direct democracy section of the course which we will look at later in the term.

try to fit this in with your current graphic of voting behaviour and party identification

how can you explain the way Latino and Black voters voted in this election?

2011-11-04T03:23:00.000-07:00

PARTIES IN CONGRESS - MODERATE IS A DIRTY WORD

2011-11-01T06:46:00.001-07:00

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/capitol-hill-power-player-fred-upton-switches-ideological-gears-as-his-clout-grows/2011/10/12/gIQA7jabaM_story.

RECENT NEWS - ELECTIONS - SWING STATES -IOWA POLL - CAIN

2011-10-31T05:43:00.000-07:00

Election 2011: Ohio ballot measure, Va. state Senate races among those to watch

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/election-2011-ohio-ballot-measure-va-state-senate-races-among-those-to-watch/2011/10/30/gIQA3U25WM_story.html?wpisrc=nl_cuzheads

Cain camp denies harassment allegations
The presidential campaign of Republican Herman Cain is pushing back against allegations that he engaged in inappropriate behavior with at least two women when he was head of the National Restaurant Association.

New Iowa poll: Elimination threatens several not-Romneys
The Des Moines Register is out with a new poll of likely caucus-goers. Herman Cain (23 percent) and Mitt Romney (22 percent) are in a statistical dead heat. Far back is Rep. Ron Paul (R-Tex.) at 12 percent. Then come Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) at 8 percent, Newt Gingrich and Texas Gov. Rick Perry at 7 percent and Rick Santorum at 5 percent.

FUNDRAISING

2011-10-20T04:49:00.000-07:00

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/obama-has-more-cash-from-financial-sector-than-gop-hopefuls-combined-data-show/2011/10/18/gIQAX4rAyL_story.html?wpisrc=nl_cuzheads

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/politics/campaign-finance/

FUNDRAISING

2011-10-18T06:53:00.000-07:00

Candidates for House, Senate and president had to file third-quarter fundraising reports by midnight Saturday.

The reports are currently being combed all over Washington for signs of strength and weakness, as parties and pundits try to discern who is assembling legitimate and well-funded campaigns, and who are the pretenders.

WINNERS

* President Obama: The $43 million the president raised for his campaign committee is nearly as much as all of his potential GOP opponents combined. The president continues to rake in huge bucks, and his dominance is even more obvious when compared to the so-so performances of his GOP opponents, none of which even racked up half the president’s haul.

* Ron Paul: As the second-tier of the GOP presidential race continues to struggle to raise and bank money (see below), Paul continues to prosper. The Texas congressman had his best fundraising quarter as a presidential candidate, raising $8 million, and he used that money to blanket the early states with some very strong advertising.

GOP PRIMARY- Being front runner Cain now faces pressure

2011-10-18T05:24:00.001-07:00

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/herman-cain-tests-how-far-a-campaign-can-go-with-few-traditional-strengths/2011/10/14/gIQABGlfmL_story_1.html

VERY IMPORTANT ARTICLE ABOUT CAMPAIGN MANAGEMENT

In a year when Republican voters are willing to give candidates a chance regardless of money, experience or campaign muscle, Cain more than anyone is testing how far a presidential campaign can go with very little of any of those things. He has rocketed to the top of polls with a gift for oratory, a brimming confidence on the debate stage and a conservative orthodoxy that has stirred the passions of a growing slice of the Republican base. But his tiny organization is barely keeping up with the onslaught that has come since he was anointed a top-tier candidate.

“Message is more important than money,” Cain boomed to reporters gathered at the New Hampshire state capitol last week. “Mr. Perry and Mr. Romney spent a lot of money trying to influence the outcome of that straw poll. We rented a bus and drove around the state delivering a message of common-sense solutions. And it worked. And you’re going to see that same bus right here in New Hampshire.”

BUT - GOP JUST CATCHING ON WITH FACEBOOK

“If Facebook could be used to topple the Egyptian government, then perhaps Herman Cain can use it to win Iowa,” said Phil Musser, a Republican strategist who most recently worked for the short-lived presidential bid of former Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty. “Thus far, the traditional approach to running for president in 2012 has paid few dividends, and the old must-dos have proven to be less important milestones than expected.”

AND EVEN ON THIS CAIN ISN'T AMONGST THE FRONT RUNNERS

There’s also little evidence that Cain is turning to nontraditional organizational tools to keep his momentum going. He has more than 270,000 followers on Facebook and about 119,000 on Twitter, but these numbers are in the ballpark, and in some cases lower, than those of his leading rivals. In other words, if Cain has the potential to foment a social-networking revolution as an alternative to traditional organizing, it hasn’t started yet.

ON STATE ORGANISATION HE DOESN'T SEEM TO HAVE ANY

Similarly, in Iowa, where caucuses will kick off the election season Jan. 3, there is little evidence that Cain is making connections with the pastors or single-issue activists on such topics as abortion, home schooling and the fair-tax movement who help candidates build support.

on-the-ground network

Such organizations are crucial to getting the word out to voters — and drawing them to polls or caucuses when voting is underway. In New Hampshire, Killion said, votes are won and lost in individual conversations. He gave the example of a Rotary Club member who tells his friends over breakfast about the candidate he likes; if the voter hasn’t met the candidate, or at least someone from the campaign, that conversation is less likely to take place.

“Organization does matter,” Killion said. “Organization captures openings, opportunities, and harnesses momentum into action, which helps you build and follow up and create an operation on the ground with people who are your activists and evangelists and your inspiration for others to get involved. It means a lot in New Hampshire.”

Such connections are even more crucial in the caucuses, when one passionate supporter can be responsible for bringing a dozen or more voters out on a cold, wintry night.

THOUGH HE IS TRYING TO GET ORGANISED

Cain is trying to do something about this. He boosted his field staff this month to 35 spanning more than a half-dozen early states. He concedes that even more will be necessary to compete in Iowa and New Hampshire, where the first two nominating contests will take place in less than three months. He is focused on building his name recognition, a particular weakness for the former Godfather’s Pizza executive, who was known by less than 20 percent of the electorate just a few months ago.

2011-10-18T02:51:00.000-07:00

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Party_(United_States)_presidential_primaries,_2008

Hillary Clinton "Making change is not about what you believe; it's not about a speech you make. It's about working hard. I'm not just running on a promise for change. I'm running on 35 years of change. What we need is somebody who can deliver change. We don't need to be raising false hopes."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZ_z9Tpdl9A

3AM attack ad by Hillary

Announcements - running for President

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HaIa34Qi32c&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAdhMLaEWLM&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GxPrW6h0X1U&feature=related

former president Bill Clinton, stayed in South Carolina and engaged in a series of exchanges with Obama.^[49] CBS News reported, "By injecting himself into the Democratic primary campaign with a series of inflammatory and negative statements, Bill Clinton may have helped his wife's presidential hopes in the long term but at the cost of his reputation with a group of voters African Americans that have long been one of his strongest bases of political support."^[50] Obama won by a more than two-to-one margin over Clinton, gaining 55% of the vote to her 27% and Edwards's 18%.^[51] The day of the primary, Bill Clinton compared Obama's expected win to Jesse Jackson's victory in the 1988 South Carolina primary. His comments were widely criticized as an apparent attempt to dismiss the primary results and marginalize Obama by implying that he was "the black candidate."

PRIMARIES - READ THESE ARTICLES IN THE WASHINGTON POST

2011-10-13T04:49:00.000-07:00

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/44/post/obama-campaign-hits-romney-as-flip-flopper/2011/10/12/gIQALMmZfL_blog.html?wpisrc=nl_cuzheads

PRIMARIES - Recent updates

2011-10-10T05:31:00.000-07:00

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/a-key-bloc-of-gop-voters-agrees-only-on-disliking-mitt-romney/2011/10/08/gIQAr1tWYL_story.html?wpisrc=nl_cuzheads

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/herman-cain-is-republican-flavor-of-month-who-will-be-next/2011/10/09/gIQAVl9MYL_story.html?wpisrc=nl_cuzheads

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/gop-candidates-economic-pitches-avoid-specific-solutions/2011/10/06/gIQAycegYL_story.html?wpisrc=nl_cuzheads

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/in-iowa-perry-dogged-by-immigration-questions/2011/10/08/gIQALclCWL_story.html?wpisrc=nl_cuzheads

CAMPAIGN - OBAMA WELL RECIEVED, PERRY ON THE BACK FOOT

2011-09-28T04:02:00.000-07:00

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/rick-perry-moves-to-reassure-republicans-after-uneasy-debate-performances/2011/09/27/gIQAUTKE3K_story.html?wpis

Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s campaign is moving aggressively to reassure key Republican leaders, donors and activists of his strength as a candidate, after a series of uneven performances this month.

For David Plouffe, a top Obama adviser, a new strategy and old doubts

http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/for-a-top-obama-adviser-a-new-strategy-and-old-doubts/2011/09/19/gIQA3Fjx2K_story.html?wprss=

PRIMARIES ROLE PLAY

2011-09-26T09:38:00.000-07:00

http://political-economy.com/us-presidential-election-2012/

ELECTIONS - OBAMA STRATEGY 2012

2011-09-26T07:58:00.001-07:00

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/obama-2012-campaigns-operation-vote-focuses-on-ethnic-minorities-core-liberals/2011/09/23/gIQAlY7JuK_story.html?wpisrc=nl_cuzheads

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-09-25/obama-targets-hollywood-wallets-in-three-day-west-coast-fundraising-swing.html

INVISIBLE PRIMARY - Cain beats Perry easily in Florida Straw Poll, PERRY - speaks of style

2011-09-26T07:56:00.000-07:00

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/cain-wins-florida-straw-poll-finishing-far-ahead-of-perry/2011/09/24/gIQAXtPIuK_story.html?wpisrc=nl_cuzheads

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/gov-rick-perry-at-the-gop-debate/2011/09/23/gIQA5zwMpK_video.html

No other candidate on that stage has the record that I have,” Perry said. “Yep, there may be slicker candidates and there may be smoother debaters, but I know what I believe in. And I’m gonna stand on that belief every day. I will guide this country with a deep, deep rudder.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/rick-perry-says-he-offers-bold-bright-colors-not-pastels/2011/09/24/gIQADYBrtK_story.html?wpisrc=nl_cuzheads

ELECTIONS - INVISIBLE PRIMARY

2011-09-20T05:19:00.000-07:00

Ed Rollins, former campaign manager to Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), told MSNBC today that Bachmann doesn't have the “ability or the resources” to compete beyond Iowa “at this point in time.” Rollins quit Bachmann’s campaign last month, citing health reasons. He remains an informal adviser to the candidate; he also has a longstanding reputation for speaking his mind.

DG - INTERESTING in view of what we have just spoken about in the lesson, campaign finance can determine whether it is worth a candidate running. Bachmann has gained name recognition, is now known in many states, has had a decent poll response in some Republican meetings and may be best qutitting now and preparing a better funded campaign for 2016 primary elections.

ELECTIONS - Romney and Perry quote

2011-09-20T03:06:00.001-07:00

“In every single possible way, they come from different worlds,” said Republican strategist Alex Castellanos, who advised Romney in his 2008 race but is unaffiliated in the 2012 race. “You can see the playbook pretty clearly here: It’s populist against patrician, it’s rural Texas steel against unflappable Romney coolness, conservative versus center-right establishment, Texas strength versus Romney’s imperturbability, Perry’s simplicity versus Romney’s flexibility.”

PARTIES - Paul Ryan (R - Wis.)

2011-09-20T03:00:00.000-07:00

He said that “2012 is going to offer a clearer contrast than I think we’ve ever seen before,” adding: “If you see the direction that the Republican Party is now going in, you have a party that offers a fundamentally different vision of where America should be, and what we should be aspiring to, and what our core values are.”

Elections - GOP Invisible Primary and Hispanic Vote

2011-09-20T02:33:00.000-07:00

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/front-runners-mitt-romney-rick-perry-define-two-wings-of-republican-party/2011/09/10/gIQAk5R1cK_story.html?wpis

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/with-hispanic-support-for-obama-waning-could-latino-vote-be-up-for-grabs-in-2012/2011/09/18/gIQAG9KUdK_story.html?wpisrc=nl_cuzheads

Campaign Finance

2011-09-15T07:01:00.001-07:00

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/bernie-madoff-of-campaign-finance-charged-with-stealing-from-democrats-2354923.html

1 in 6 US citizens living below poverty line

2011-09-15T06:57:00.001-07:00

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/almost-1-in-6-americans-living-below-poverty-line-2354789.html

Brilliant site - elections

2011-09-15T04:57:00.000-07:00

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/politics/2010-race-maps/house/

Primaries and Caucuses dates 2011-12, 2008 results

2011-09-13T05:32:00.000-07:00

http://www.boston.com/news/politics/2008/primaries/

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-HKwMhmnCaOo/TlpXq4d-PHI/AAAAAAAADuY/DrZ7Fq7PE9k/s1600/2012.47.gif

Monday, December 5, 2011: Iowa caucuses*

Tuesday, December 13: New Hampshire*

Saturday, December 17: Nevada caucuses*, South Carolina*

---------------------------------

*The above are not official, but the latest possible dates if Florida chooses the earliest date it is allowed by state law.

---------------------------------

Monday, February 6, 2012: Iowa caucuses

Tuesday, February 7: Minnesota Republican caucuses, Missouri, New Jersey

Tuesday, February 14: New Hampshire

Saturday, February 18: Nevada caucuses

Tuesday, February 21: Wisconsin

Tuesday, February 28: Arizona, Michigan, South Carolina Democratic primary

Tuesday, March 6 (Super Tuesday): Colorado caucuses, Idaho Republican caucuses, Massachusetts, Minnesota Democratic caucuses, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, Virginia, Wyoming Republican caucuses (through March 10)

Saturday, March 10: Kansas Republican caucuses

Sunday, March 11: Maine Democratic caucuses

Tuesday, March 13: Alabama, Hawaii Republican caucuses, Mississippi, Utah Democratic caucuses

Tuesday, March 20: Illinois

Saturday, March 24: Louisiana

Tuesday, April 3: Maryland, Washington DC

Saturday, April 7: Hawaii Democratic caucuses, Wyoming Democratic caucuses

Saturday, April 14: Idaho Democratic caucuses, Kansas Democratic caucuses, Nebraska Democratic caucuses

Sunday, April 15: Alaska Democratic caucuses, Washington Democratic caucuses

Tuesday, April 24: Connecticut, Delaware, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island

Saturday, May 5: Michigan Democratic caucuses

Tuesday, May 8: Indiana, North Carolina, Ohio, West Virginia

Tuesday, May 15: Nebraska, Oregon

Tuesday, May 22: Arkansas, Kentucky

Tuesday, June 5: California, Montana, New Mexico, North Dakota Democratic caucuses South Dakota

Tuesday, June 26: Utah

GOP RACE - As Perry Rises, G.O.P. Elite Look Toward Romney

2011-09-13T03:22:00.000-07:00

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/13/us/politics/13rep ubs.html?_r=1&nl=todayshe adlines&emc=tha2

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/time-pawlenty-endorses-mitt-romney-for-gop-nomination/2011/09/12/gIQA11eiMK_story.html?wpisrc=nl_cuzheads

ECONOMY - long term neglect of infrastructure - lights out

2011-09-09T01:24:00.001-07:00

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-14849095

Perhaps reflective of the lack of investment in infrastructure over the past few decades, that Obama has mentioned in his speech, a power worker in Arizona accidentally cut power to parts of California, Arizona and Mexico causing a blackout.

ECONOMY - Obama Jobs Bill

2011-09-09T01:19:00.001-07:00

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-14841746

Obama has unveiled the American Jobs Act to stimulate (he hopes) the economy but it is for Congress to work out the details. The President does not have the power in the legislature that the UK PM does in Parliament, especially, as is the case currently, when the oppoisition party are in control of one or both houses of Congress.

Obama - Disapproval ratings

2011-09-06T04:02:00.000-07:00

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/obama-ratings-sink-to-new-lows-as-hope-fades/2011/09/05/gIQAIytZ5J_story.html?wpisrc=nl_cuzheads

approval ratings can affect a President's decision making abilities - if he has low ratings it is often seen as a sign he has to change policy direction. This can be a problem since policies often take a long period to be implemented or filter down to the public. The Healthcare legislation introduced between 2009 and 2010 was so complex the full programme will not be imple,mented until well into 2013, even 2014.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/04/congressional-job-approval-ratings_n_918780.html

Congress almost always has low approval ratings as a collective percentage despite individual congresswomen and men having a high rating from their constituents.

Republican (GOP) front runners September 2011

2011-09-02T06:36:00.000-07:00

Romney (left), Bachmann, Perry

Michelle Bachmann and Husband - Comments

http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=clyqDHznTPU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8spCOEePSo

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/the-uptake/michele-bachmann-not-all_b_137463.html

Republican Candidates June 2011

2011-09-02T06:17:00.000-07:00

Illegal immigration is flash point for Republican White House hopefuls

2011-09-02T06:02:00.000-07:00

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/illegal-immigration-is-flash-point-for-republican-white-house-hopefuls/2011/09/01/gIQAUb0LvJ_story.html?wpisrc=

OBAMA and the Black Vote

2011-08-26T06:30:00.001-07:00

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/obama-faces-uncomfortable-questions-from-black-community-lawmakers/2011/08/25/gIQAxV6meJ_story_1.html

POLITICS AND RELIGION - DOMINIONISM????

2011-08-23T06:49:00.001-07:00

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/a-holy-war-on-the-tea-party/2011/08/22/gIQAYRcOXJ_story.html

PRESIDENTIAL PRIMARIES - GOP = REPUBLICANS

2011-08-23T06:28:00.001-07:00

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-gop-is-fed-up-with-its-choices/2011/08/22/gIQAvx1NXJ_story.html

CRITICISM OF PERRY FROM HIS OWN SIDE

PRESIDENTIAL PRIMARIES - GOP RICK PERRY - Republican Candidate

2011-08-23T06:14:00.000-07:00

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/rick-perrys-claim-that-obama-has-killed-more-jobs-than-any-other-president/2011/08/20/gIQAfRuOSJ

2011-07-06T02:28:00.001-07:00

adding an image

2011-07-06T02:19:00.000-07:00

Updating - your text goes here

PRESIDENT - PERSUASION - Obama uses combative new tone to retake reins on economic, foreign policy issues

2011-07-01T00:08:00.000-07:00

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/obama-likely-to-focus-on-economy-at-press-conference/2011/06/29/AGfTAhqH_story.html?wprss=

Brilliant site as a starter to US Politics

2011-06-23T04:02:00.001-07:00

http://www.congressforkids.net/index.htm

Constitution in Practice - Neustadt and system chart

2011-06-23T03:14:00.000-07:00

http://www.cybersisman.com/civicshonors/unit2/neustadt.pdf

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/hi/americas/04/us_election/govt_system/html/cabinet.stm

GOP CONTENDERS - Huntsman tests GOP waters with a different kind of lure

2011-06-13T02:23:00.001-07:00

By Philip Rucker, Published: June 11

NEWMARKET, N.H. — Jon Huntsman stood in a young couple’s living room here giving his spiel about a 21st-century America. He began by reciting in Mandarin an ancient Chinese aphorism about harmony in the family. He spoke so softly he had to hold a microphone to be heard. And by the time he finished a half-hour later, he hadn’t attacked President Obama. He hadn’t even mentioned him.

This is not your typical Republican presidential candidate. Not this year, not in the age of the tea party and bumper-sticker slogans and birth certificates.

Huntsman, the former Utah governor and China envoy, is testing whether Americans want a different kind of politician — someone who doesn’t yell but is a global thinker who can solve the country’s difficult problems. And he thinks he’s that someone.

“I think we’ll be defined by our style, which is natural, it’s truth-telling, it’s authentic, it’s who we are,” Huntsman said in an interview Saturday during a visit to New Hampshire, referring as he often does to himself as “we.” “Most people get caught up in the drama and . . . they miss the most important part for the voting public, and that’s just to give us a sense of what you believe and where you’re going to take this state and this country.”

On the stump, Huntsman says the nation is in “a deep funk — we’re depressed, we’re dispirited, we’re dejected. There’s no road map, there’s no game plan, there’s no one saying, ‘Get on the train, we’re moving.’ ”

But a key question for Huntsman is where exactly is his train moving.

No natural base

Huntsman has no natural base constituency. He’s moderate on social issues, conservative on fiscal issues, and, to some Republicans, he’s a downright traitor for having served as Obama’s ambassador to China and writing what critics call “love letters” to the president.

“I don’t think anyone can identify the existence of Jon Huntsman in this campaign,” said Michael Dennehy, a New Hampshire GOP strategist who is unaligned. “What is his niche? What is his strength and appeal to certain segments of voters?”

In the 2012 sweepstakes, Huntsman is the mystery man. He stepped off a plane from Beijing six weeks ago and into the control of a cadre of Republicans, most of whom had been assembling a Huntsman campaign without ever having met Huntsman. At first, Huntsman was said by one adviser to have been “shocked and somewhat reluctant.” Now, after visits to 12 states and “probably a thousand conversations,” Huntsman says he is ready.

“We’re basically approaching the finish line,” Huntsman said in the interview. “We’ve checked all of those boxes, and we’ll probably sit down one more time as a family this week and we’ll be off and running from there.”

Getting his wife, Mary Kaye, and their seven children on board won’t be hard. Three of the Huntsman daughters hopscotched New Hampshire this weekend with their parents, testing out Harley-Davidsons and chitchatting with strangers about their braces and choice of lipstick.

Huntsman is planning an announcement within 10 days, and aides said he would soon after deliver foreign and economic policy speeches. Last week he secured financial commitments from big names in Republican donor circles, including former ambassador David F. Girard-diCarlo.

The 2012 race appears as wide open as any in decades, with polls showing former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, the nominal front-runner, with 20 to 30 percent support nationwide among Republicans.

Skipping Iowa

Huntsman does not plan to compete in the Iowa caucuses, but he is instead staking his bid on a trio of states that come soon after. “There is a lot of blue sky for Jon Huntsman in New Hampshire, South Carolina, Florida,” said John Weaver, Huntsman’s chief strategist.

But Huntsman is still searching for his campaign legs. He has yet to distill his candidacy into a sound-bite pitch. His campaign remains a work in progress, with his senior staff scattered in California, Washington and Florida, where Huntsman would base his campaign. (Huntsman is now living in Washington’s tony Kalorama neighborhood, although he is planning a regional headquarters in Utah.)

And he’s not quite ready for prime time. He opted out of Monday’s debate in New Hampshire, the first major event of the Republican race.

But Huntsman’s advisers can already see how he’ll eventually fit in.

“When the Miss America pageant of electoral politics happens, which is the debates . . . and it’s a really cheesy set and red, white and blue everywhere . . . and there are these uncomfortable guys getting ready to eviscerate one another, there’s one guy who will stand there as radically different,” said Fred Davis, Huntsman’s media strategist. “He isn’t going to eviscerate anyone. He doesn’t have a fake, loud, podium-pounding hatred for anybody. He’s going to stand out because he’s an incredible breath of fresh air.

“That will either work or it won’t,” Davis said, “and I think it’ll work.”

In New Hampshire, Huntsman stuck with low-key crowds of 40 or 50. His advisers wonder whether he can win over 1,000 people from behind a lectern — and millions more on television — just as easily as he does in living rooms. That evolution, they say, could be the difference between winning and losing.

On the campaign trail, Huntsman often dwells on how America is viewed from abroad. “From 10,000 miles away, folks, let me just tell you that we lack humanity, we lack civility, we lack basic respect for which this country should be known,” Huntsman told one crowd.

He also sells himself as a listener and consensus seeker: “The most under-utilized part of the human anatomy for most politicians is the ear.”

GOP strategist Mark McKinnon, who is unaligned, said that Huntsman “speaks a language of inclusion, tolerance and diplomacy. Huntsman is unconventional and the un-cola of the GOP bunch. No one has ever done it quite like he is doing it, but that’s always how winners win.”

Why Newt Gingrich’s campaign crashed

2011-06-13T02:04:00.000-07:00

By Karen Tumulty, Dan Balz and Chris Cillizza, Published: June 11

On one side was an unconventional presidential candidate. He was enthralled with making documentaries to sell his ideas and captivated by the notion that wooing Chinese Americans could be a key to winning Iowa.

On the other side was a team of political operatives shocked by the flamboyance of the candidate’s stumbles, his resistance to their advice and the dire state of his campaign finances. While he was away on a lavish vacation that they had warned him not to take, they drafted a memo raising the possibility of a graceful exit from the race.

In retrospect, the crash was pretty much what many expected would happen if Newt Gingrich ever decided to run for president.

But the entire 29-day saga — from the moment he announced his candidacy until Thursday’s mass resignation of virtually his entire campaign hierarchy — played out more quickly and more spectacularly than his allies had feared.

As the political world is writing him off, the former House speaker continues to insist that he will carry on, that he will even reinvent the whole art and science of campaigning for national office.

“There is a fundamental strategic difference between the traditional consulting community and the kind of campaign I want to run,” Gingrich told reporters camped out Friday at his suburban Virginia house. “We’ll find out over the next year who’s right.”

Added Joseph DiSantis, one of his newly installed campaign spokesmen: “Going forward, we’re going to build a strategy around Newt, rather than fit Newt into a strategy.”

Gingrich is scheduled to try to jump-start his campaign with a speech Sunday evening before the Republican Jewish Coalition in Los Angeles. The next day, he will participate in a candidate debate in New Hampshire.

Many of his top advisers had never worked with Gingrich before. They learned quickly, the hard way, something well-known to those who knew him back in his days on Capitol Hill: He is a fountain of big ideas but sometimes has trouble sorting the good ones from the bad ones and often falls short on the follow-through.

One longtime friend and ally, speaking candidly in return for anonymity, said: “Newt has not grasped that a presidential campaign is different from running around the country giving
speeches.”

The problem for his team wasn’t that it didn’t have a game plan. They had one they thought suited Gingrich’s gift of inspiring and mobilizing conservative voters.

Early in the year, sources who were involved in the operation said, Gingrich and his team had agreed to build a robust ground game in the early states and augment it with “new and different” approaches through social media and the Internet.

It would be expensive, but one thing they assumed they wouldn’t have to worry about was money. Gingrich had demonstrated he could raise money for the web of enterprises he has built since leaving Congress more than a dozen years ago.

That turned out to be one of their biggest miscalculations. The campaign had to be financed under rules that did not apply to his other organizations, and Gingrich had no finance team in place. Nor does he like to work the phones for money himself.

The campaign’s first goal was doing well in the August Iowa straw poll. But his advisers found they lacked even the $25,000 fee to enter it, or the $30,000 it would take to buy the list of previous caucusgoers.

Meanwhile, the campaign was hemorrhaging what money it had. Chartered aircraft alone cost as much as $500,000, said a source affiliated with the campaign who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter. The source added that Gingrich insisted upon private planes because he wanted to make it home at night and couldn’t do that easily if he relied on commercial flight schedules. A Gingrich spokesman declined to comment on his spending habits.

It also became increasingly clear that Gingrich had little regard for the more pedestrian aspects of campaigning. As has been the case throughout his career, he was drawn to new ways of doing things. He was intrigued, for instance, when a Chinese American man approached him after an energy event and claimed that his ethnic community in Iowa was an untapped reservoir of 10,000 potential supporters. (The Census Bureau estimates Iowa’s Asian population at 1.7 percent of the state’s total population.)

Similarly, Gingrich and his wife, Callista, viewed their documentaries and books — a new one on American exceptionalism is due out next week — as ways of promoting big ideas that don’t fit easily into 30-second campaign commercials; his advisers saw them as distractions.

Some in the campaign privately blamed Callista, saying her husband was too deferential to her wishes.

Asked about that Friday, Gingrich retorted: “We make decisions as a couple. I think most couples would find that refreshing, not a problem.”

It was ironic that he should find himself fending off criticism of that sort. Until now, the thrice-married Gingrich has been trying to shake an image of being callous to the women he wed.

His campaign stumbled coming out of the gate, beset by a series of gaffes — including criticizing as “right-wing social engineering” the Medicare plan put forth by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and supported by nearly every House Republican.

There were also revelations that Gingrich had run up six-figure bills on a revolving charge account at Tiffany — not exactly creating the image of a fiscal conservative.

But what crystallized the dysfunction of the campaign for many of his top advisers was Gingrich’s insistence on taking a two-week vacation with his wife that included an expensive cruise in the Greek islands.

While Gingrich was gone, longtime aide Sam Dawson wrote a memo outlining three courses of action: withdrawing from the race, in a way that would maintain his reputation and earning power; maintaining the current course, which his strategists did not believe was feasible; slimming down the campaign to a live-off-the-land operation sustained by news coverage and the hope that Gingrich would distinguish himself at the debates.

Their disagreements came to a head in a meeting Thursday at Gingrich’s K Street offices that included the Gingriches, campaign manager Rob Johnson and Dawson.

At that session, which was brief, Dawson and Johnson told Gingrich that he deserved to have the campaign that he wanted.

But they also informed him that they — and much of the staff — would not be part of it.

Scheme of Work Site

2011-06-02T04:43:00.000-07:00

http://www.peterjepson.com/law/politics/US3.html

2012 - BATTLEGROUND STATES

2011-05-31T04:09:00.001-07:00

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/republicans-brace-for-tough-2012-fight-against-obama-in-unlikely-place--nc/2011/05/20/AGi7lzEH_story.html?wpisr

CANDIDATES - HERMAN CAIN

2011-05-31T04:01:00.001-07:00

http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/just-who-is-herman-cain-and-what-does-his-presidential-run-mean-for-the-gop/2011/05/29/AGaVAyEH_story.html?wpisrc=nl_cuzheads

PARTIES - VERY USEFUL ON TYPOLOGY

2011-05-31T03:46:00.000-07:00

http://people-press.org/2011/05/04/section-1-the-political-typology-2/

http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2011/05/ny-26_0&fsrc=nwl

PRIMARIES AND CAUCUSES

2011-05-31T03:28:00.000-07:00

Iowa Republicans worry about their relevance in the 2012 presidential election

By Karen Tumulty and Philip Rucker, Published: May 29

ANKENY, Iowa — Politically speaking, this state is in something of an existential crisis.

For the past nine presidential elections, Iowa has reveled in the attention it gets with its position at the front of the presidential nominating contest. This time around, the question is not just who will win the Iowa caucuses but also whether it will matter.

When the rest of the country is focusing on the economy, will Republicans in other states take their lead from the outcome of an eccentric process that has been dominated by social conservatives? And as the GOP looks to defeat an African American president who mobilized record numbers of young and minority voters four years ago, how relevant are the preferences of 200,000 or so caucusgoers in a rural state that is overwhelmingly white and significantly older than average?

Some of the leading presidential contenders, who have invested little in the state so far, appear to be hoping that the answer is not all that much — increasing the anxiety that Iowa Republicans feel about their place in the political firmament.

Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad (R) has been practically begging the candidates to engage.

“This is a state where you can effectively launch a campaign, and it’s not too late,” he said this month after the 2008 Iowa winner, former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, announced he was not running in 2012. “I just want to make it clear that we’re wide open for all the candidates.”

But of the candidates taken most seriously by the Republican establishment, only Tim Pawlenty appears to be making much of an effort in Iowa at this point. And he has a leg up by virtue of being the former governor of neighboring Minnesota.

Iowa Republicans were looking for affirmation Friday, when Mitt Romney, widely regarded as the front-runner for the nomination, made his first visit of the presidential cycle. By this point four years ago, Romney had been to the state well over a dozen times and was already running television ads.

Romney, who will be making Thursday’s official announcement of his campaign in New Hampshire, is leery of making that kind of Iowa commitment again.

The former Massachusetts governor hasn’t even committed to a late-summer straw poll that is often seen as a crucial part of the process.

“As to the tactics of a campaign and where you devote your financial resources and your time resources, that’s something we’ll figure out as we go along,” he said.

Romney spent $10 million and won the straw poll in August 2007 — and ended up losing Iowa to Huckabee. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who pretty much ignored the state and came in fourth, went on to trounce Huckabee and Romney in the primaries and win the nomination.

The uncomfortable fact for Iowa Republicans is that their cherished caucuses have rarely been much of a launching pad. Since the party held its first one to pick a president in 1976, there have been only two instances in which a winner who was not an incumbent has gone on to take the GOP nomination. And only one of those, George W. Bush in 2000, won the White House.

Does being first matter?

State GOP Chairman Matthew N. Strawn disputes the notion that Iowa Republicans are out of touch with the issues driving the political dialogue in other parts of the country. He suggests that a candidate with a strong economic message will find an eager audience here.

Most grating to Iowa Republicans have been the snide comments from their fellow early state, New Hampshire, which has a more conventional primary election.

In a recent column for the New Hampshire Union Leader that was reprinted in the Des Moines Register, former New Hampshire GOP chairman Fergus Cullen wrote that important issues don’t get debated in Iowa, because “three quarters of the audience wears tinfoil hats.”

“Iowa Republicans didn’t set out to marginalize themselves, but it’s happened — to New Hampshire’s benefit,” Cullen added. “With several major candidates likely to bypass Iowa, and the odds rising that Iowa’s skewed caucus electorate could support candidates with limited general election appeal, the likelihood of New Hampshire being called upon to make a correction” increases.

For all the quirkiness of a contest that requires voters to venture into a frigid night and then spend hours arguing with their neighbors, it does have its virtues. The fact that running in Iowa requires every candidate to campaign from living room to living room means that little-known and underfunded hopefuls have a shot at getting their names into the mix.

And Iowa can also be a proving ground, as it was four years ago for Sen. Barack Obama’s premise that he could bring new voters into the process. Obama won because those younger than 30 participated in the Democratic caucuses at the same rate as those older than 65 — something that had never happened before — and his victory in Iowa foreshadowed the remainder of his march to the White House.

GOP officials say that some of that potential for overturning the conventional wisdom exists on their side this time, if a candidate has the right message. Republican turnout in last year’s gubernatorial primary was almost 230,000, nearly double the number who participated in the presidential caucuses two years before. The winner was former governor Branstad, the establishment pick and the more moderate choice.

Romney’s quandary

Some Romney supporters in Iowa say they would understand if he turns elsewhere.

John Strong, 69, a retired Army veteran and Republican activist from West Des Moines, gave the former Massachusetts governor an Iowa license plate that read “ROMNEY.” But Strong said Romney would be “wise by not prioritizing Iowa so much, because of the far-right influence here.”

“I think he’s got a good chance of beating Obama,” he added, “but the problem here is to win in Iowa you’ve got to go too far to the right, and it will hurt him in the national election.”

The overall direction of Republican politics in Iowa has swung rightward on social issues, even since the last presidential election. Conservatives were galvanized in part by a 2009 Iowa Supreme Court ruling that legalized gay marriage. They defeated three justices last year in retention elections.

One factor, however, could work in favor of Romney or some other GOP establishment figure this time. Where Huckabee had the religious conservative vote almost entirely to himself in 2008, there is likely to be stiff competition that will divide that constituency in 2012.

Pawlenty is an evangelical Christian, and former Alaska governor Sarah Palin could have strong appeal with religious voters as well if she decides to run. Also hoping to light a fire with grass-roots conservatives is former House speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.), who drew healthy crowds in Iowa even as his campaign stumbled out of the gate this month.

FLORIDA - REPUBLICAN INVISIBLE PRIMARIES

2011-05-26T00:03:00.000-07:00

For Romney, Pawlenty and Huntsman, Florida’s 2012 primary is wide open

By Philip Rucker, Published: May 25

CORAL GABLES, Fla. — All the signs indicate that the early presidential battleground of Florida is Mitt Romney territory.

The former Massachusetts governor finished a strong second here in the 2008 Republican presidential primary. He would almost certainly have the money to compete on Florida’s costly television airwaves. And in a big state where the nation’s economic ills are magnified — more people are out of work, more homes are under foreclosure — a candidate running as a turnaround specialist could resonate.

Yet by all accounts, the race to win Florida, probably the first big state on the 2012 primary calendar, is wide open.

So it was that Tim Pawlenty touched down here after announcing his candidacy Monday in Iowa. In a 24-hour sweep through the Sunshine State, he raised money, expanded his Rolodex and won over some prominent GOP operatives who backed Romney or others in 2008 but are looking for a fresh face this time.

“This is a place that’s open to people from other places,” Pawlenty, a former Minnesota governor, said in a brief interview Tuesday in the Coral Gables office of Ann Herberger, a top Romney fundraiser in 2008 and a longtime adviser to former Florida governor Jeb Bush who is now guiding Pawlenty through Florida’s vast Republican orbit.

“This is a dynamic, open place, and I think it’s going to be favorable to me,” Pawlenty added. The Florida campaign, he said, “is not only an opportunity. It’s a necessity.”

Earlier, he told a bank of local news cameras: “Florida is one of the big horses we’ve got to ride.”

It’s a horse all the candidates have to ride — at least those who hope to become the Republican nominee. Florida, after all, is where John McCain sealed the nomination three years ago.

The 2012 GOP primary calendar remains fluid, but Florida expects to be fifth, holding a primary sometime in March after voting is finished in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada.

“Florida is the first state whose primary will really mirror the nation,” said Sally Bradshaw, a longtime GOP operative here who signed up to work for Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour but has not backed another candidate since Barbour bowed out.

“There’s so much diversity here, you have to win Florida to be the nominee,” Bradshaw added. “The electorate here is largely undecided. Voters in Florida are not focused. We’re not Iowa, we’re not New Hampshire or even South Carolina. People here have not begun to pay attention.”

Unlike in the other early states, no candidate has particularly strong roots or an imposing network of support here. The Florida Republican Party will host a straw poll in September that could give a shot in the arm to a candidate who mobilizes grass-roots supporters.

This is an opportunity for all the major candidates, but perhaps most for Pawlenty and Jon Huntsman Jr., a former Utah governor and former ambassador to China who has not officially declared a bid. Both underdogs are jockeying to establish themselves as the leading challenger to Romney, who, though also an unofficial candidate at this point, is the presumptive front-runner.

Huntsman would locate his national campaign headquarters in Orlando, an unusual move that signals he would compete vigorously in Florida.

“We believe it’s wide open here, and we believe that Governor Huntsman will have a message that will be attractive to Florida Republican voters,” said Susan Wiles, who managed Rick Scott’s winning campaign for governor in 2010 and is now working for Huntsman.

For Romney, Florida is critical. He is expected to also compete hard in other states, such as New Hampshire, where he owns a home and has been a regular presence since the last campaign. But it is difficult to imagine Romney or anyone else winning the nomination without winning Florida.

At Romney’s Boston headquarters, strategists see the state as significant enough that they have scouted for a firm to help oversee a Florida campaign.

“Florida is without question a must-win state — absolutely,” said Ned Siegel, Romney’s Florida co-chairman and a former ambassador to the Bahamas under President George W. Bush.

Romney was raising money Tuesday at the Jacksonville Jaguars’ football stadium, and he is planning to return to the state June 14-16. His team here thinks his message of fixing the economy is particularly resonant in Florida, where the unemployment rate is 10.4 percent, above the national average.

“We’ve hit bottom, and all we’re doing is bumping on the bottom, and we need someone who understands how to create economic engines,” Siegel said.

Still, Pawlenty’s and Huntsman’s advisers believe that Florida could be theirs for the taking. Perhaps the biggest catch is the endorsement of Jeb Bush, and confidants said he intends to remain neutral. But that didn’t stop Pawlenty’s team from highlighting some Twitter love from Bush after Pawlenty’s Iowa announcement speech: “I admire truth telling and t-paw sure did it to open his campaign,” the former Florida governor tweeted.

Herberger and former Bush adviser Justin Sayfie are helping recruit fellow Bush insiders, as well as other big Florida names, to Pawlenty’s team. Prominent donors Fred Pezeshkan and Bill Schoen are with Pawlenty, as is Martin Garcia, a lawyer who hosted the candidate at his Tampa home Monday night for a fundraiser.

“Florida is up for grabs,” said Phil Handy, who chaired McCain’s campaign here and is co-chairman of Pawlenty’s state effort. “This will be the great testing ground.”

DEMOCRAT WIINS IN REPUBLICAN DISTRICT (SIINCE 1960) MEDICARE MAIN ISSUE IN VOTER SWITCH

2011-05-25T23:40:00.000-07:00

Democrat Hochul wins N.Y. special House election

By Aaron Blake and Paul Kane, Published: May 25

Erie County Clerk Kathy Hochul won a House special election in western New York on Tuesday night, a Democratic triumph in a conservative district that many regarded a referendum on House Republicans’ efforts to reform Medicare.

With 90 percent of precincts reporting, Hochul had 48 percent of the vote. State Assemblywoman Jane Corwin (R) had 42 percent, with independent candidate Jack Davis running a distant third with 9 percent.

Democrats contended that the race in New York’s 26th Congressional District — which the GOP had held since the 1960s — became competitive through their efforts tying Corwin to the House Republican budget plan that included a provision to turn Medicare into a voucher program.

That plan, spearheaded by Budget Chairman Paul Ryan (Wis.), has already been the subject of plenty of debate in Washington, where Republicans seek deep cuts and debt-reduction measures; the Medicare plan figures prominently in that effort.

But polls show that overhauling Medicare is unpopular with the public, and even while the overall budget plan has wide GOP support in the House, Senate Republicans are still discussing what to do with it as a vote looms this week. Other Republicans, including presidential candidate Newt Gingrich, have at times declined to embrace the proposal.

Corwin’s struggles in what has long been a GOP district may provide a chilling effect for Republicans who were already hesitant to embrace the entitlement reform.

Democrats ran ads about the issue early and often, seeking to overcome a significant registration disadvantage in the Buffalo-area district. In the end, that strategy appeared to have worked.

“Today, the Republican plan to end Medicare cost Republicans $3.4 million and a seat in Congress,” said Rep. Steve Israel (N.Y.), the chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. “And this is only the first seat.”

Even before voters went to the polls Tuesday, Republicans played down the significance of the race and particularly its relevance to the debate about Medicare’s future.

“I know this town loves to take signals from individual races. I think the best signal you can take is the 63 seats that we picked up in November,” House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (Va.) told reporters Monday.

Cantor and other Republicans cited the presence of Davis TEA PARTY CANDIDATE in the race. Though he previously ran for the seat as a Democrat, he ran this time on a ballot line labeled “Tea Party.” His share of the vote, Republicans contended, came at Corwin’s expense.

As for the national debate, Senate Democrats think that centrist voters in most states reject the Ryan plan to overhaul Medicare. The proposal would gave future beneficiaries vouchers with which to buy insurance on private markets.

Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) has scheduled a vote for later this week on the Ryan budget. At least four Republicans — (RAND AND THE RINO'S) Sens. Scott Brown (Mass.), Susan Collins (Maine), Rand Paul (Ky.) and Olympia J. Snowe (Maine) — have announced opposition to the bill, with all but the conservative Paul viewing the Medicare proposal as too punitive.

Reid and Democrats hope that Republicans who support the Ryan plan, which passed the House on April 15 on a party-line vote, will hurt themselves in general elections next year and in 2014. Republicans who oppose the Ryan plan may face political fallout in their primaries, Democratic aides said, pointing to the recent troubles experienced by Gingrich.

Republicans countered that they believe that voters will reward their “bold leadership” on the issue of swelling federal debt and stagnant job growth.

Republicans have had a rough go of it in recent special elections, even losing a few competitive races in the run-up to their big gains in 2010. They acknowledge that the environment isn’t as friendly now as it was in the November elections, but they say Tuesday’s election is hardly the beginning of a Democratic resurgence in 2012.

“If special elections were an early-warning system, they sure failed to alert the Democrats of the political tsunami that flooded their ranks in 2010,” Rep. Pete Sessions (Tex.), the chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, said in a statement.

The House seat became vacant after Rep. Christopher Lee (R-N.Y.) resigned following revelations that he had posted shirtless pictures of himself online.

JUDICIARY - EIGTH AMENDMENT - OVERCROWDING IN PRISONS IS CRUEL AND UNUSUAL PUNISHMENT

2011-05-24T01:16:00.000-07:00

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/24/us/24scotus.html?_r=1&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha2

2011-05-16T03:21:00.001-07:00

Political Divide over big government

2011-05-16T03:06:00.000-07:00

http://www.holisticpolitics.org/

SCHIP Videos

2011-05-15T23:30:00.001-07:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_LutWBunb4&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rGnENTv-9A&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A00_d3UuJpM&;feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZhFhAuzFOUY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3PwLYEp17Ow&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-X9GG0Qg_Q&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ql1vW0OK4YE&feature=related

SHUTDOWN - DISCUSSIONS IN THE WHITE HOUSE

2011-04-08T05:37:00.001-07:00

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/reid-says-budget-talks-stymied-by-gop-policy-provisions/2011/04/07/AFw3fruC_story.html?hpid=z1

SHUTDOWN??

2011-04-08T05:34:00.000-07:00

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/politics/looming-government-shutdown/

CONGRESS- HOW BUSINESS IS DONE!

2011-04-08T03:27:00.001-07:00

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/as_shutdown_looms_negoiators/2011/04/07/AFbnbhxC_story.html?wpisrc=nl_cuzheads

COMMITTEE ON THE BUDGET - GOP 2012: overhauls on entitlements and taxes, $6.2 trillion in cuts over decade

2011-04-05T05:42:00.000-07:00

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/gop_2012_overhauls_on_entitlements_and_taxes_4t_in_cuts_over_decade/2011/04/04/AFXRhsdC_story.html?wpisrc=nl_cu

CONGRESS - BUDGET DISCUSSIONS

2011-04-01T09:35:00.000-07:00

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/house_republican_freshmen_resist_potential_budget_compromise_as_leaders_negotiate/2011/03/31/AF75t2AC_story.html?wpisrc=nl_cuzheads

STATES AND EXECUTIVE - IDEAS FROM ELSEWHERE

2011-04-01T09:33:00.000-07:00

Another brand of Bush school reform: Jeb’s

By Nick Anderson, Thursday, March 31, 8:08 PM

The president who turned No Child Left Behind from slogan into statute is gone from Washington, and the influence of his signature education law is fading. But another brand of Bush school reform is on the rise.

The salesman is not the 43rd president, George W. Bush, but the 43rd governor of Florida, his brother Jeb.

At the core of the Jeb Bush agenda are ideas drawn from his Florida playbook: Give every public school a grade from A to F. Offer students vouchers to help pay for private school. Don’t let them move into fourth grade unless they know how to read.

Through two foundations he leads in Florida and his vast political connections, Jeb Bush is advancing such policies in states where Republicans have sought his advice on improving schools. His stature in the party and widening role in state-level legislation make him one of the foremost GOP voices on education.

“He is the standard-bearer,” said Michael J. Petrilli of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a conservative-leaning education think tank. “Those governors who are going to have religion on education reform are looking to him to be their mentor.”

With Bush’s support, several states are embracing letter grades for schools. This week, New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez (R) and Utah Gov. Gary R. Herbert (R) signed bills to launch A-to-F school rating systems in their states, following similar actions in Indiana, Arizona and Louisiana. A voucher bill is moving through the Indiana legislature. Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin (R), who met with Bush this week, and Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval (R) are promoting education agendas that echo what Bush calls the “Florida formula.”

Some Democrats are finding common ground with Bush on schools, even though their party scorns his family name.

President Obama joined Bush on March 4 at a Miami high school that the ex-governor had suggested as a turnaround success story. John Hickenlooper invited Bush to his Denver home in December — shortly before the Democrat was sworn in as Colorado governor — to talk about reading programs and mentoring youths. Former West Virginia governor Bob Wise (D) teamed up with Bush last year on a national initiative to expand digital learning.

Seeking a bridge

For Obama, who opposes vouchers but encourages teacher performance pay and charter schools, Bush represents a bridge to conservative Republicans who say the federal government meddles too much in schools. Bush is angling to empower states, but he accepts that Washington has a role in formulating education policy — and that Obama’s views are not too far from his own. On that subject, Bush wants a political truce.

“On education issues, the president’s heart is in the right place,” Bush said in a recent interview in Washington. “He cares about students. My attitude is, on the things where there isn’t a fundamental disagreement, it seems to me we ought to pause, celebrate that and find ways to build on it.”

Activism in education could pay off for Bush, 58, if he seeks to succeed his father and brother in the White House. But Bush waves off questions about presidential ambition, veering into wonkish talk about the importance of longitudinal student data.

He said his mission is “to advocate intense, broad-based reform to accelerate student learning. I don’t think you can do it unless you tear down the walls of resistance and change laws. Systemic change requires policy change. That’s our niche.”

Bush critics weigh in

Many Democrats and labor leaders denounce the Bush agenda. They say that vouchers drain funding from public education and that grades of D and F stigmatize schools that need help. Critics also say other policies he espouses — including merit pay — are unfair to teachers and rely too much on standardized tests.

Florida’s academic gains, critics say, could have been much larger if Bush had sought more collaboration.

“He doesn’t believe in bringing people along with him,” said Andy Ford, president of the Florida Education Association, the state teachers union. “He just forces his will on everybody.”

Ford said many teachers were irate that Obama shared a platform in Miami with a former governor who fought the union almost nonstop for eight years. “The White House is on the wrong track by associating with Jeb Bush,” he said.

Bush said it is “foolhardy” to suggest that teachers unions are “somehow going to be in the vanguard of efforts to raise student achievement.”

When he became governor in 1999, Bush launched a top-to-bottom overhaul of Florida education. It presaged in some respects the testing and accountability regimen of the 2002 No Child Left Behind law.

Florida schools were given letter grades based on academic progress and achievement — a measure Bush said would provide parents a clearer picture of school performance. The state ended what Bush called “social promotion” of third-graders and provided vouchers so those in repeatedly failing public schools could go to private schools — a program later struck down in court.

In one of his biggest defeats, Bush opposed limiting class sizes, which state voters approved in a referendum in 2002.

Bush left office in 2007, and his legacy is much debated. Federal test scores show that Florida’s fourth-graders, especially Hispanic students, made big strides in reading from 1998 to 2009. Eighth-graders posted more modest gains. Participation in Advanced Placement testing has boomed. But the graduation rate (as tracked by Education Week) and 12th-grade reading scores are below the national averages, and major racial and ethnic achievement gaps persist.

In the past few years, Bush has become a guru for state school chiefs, governors, legislative committee chairmen and others — mostly Republicans — in a position to influence education rules and laws.

His Foundation for Florida’s Future pushes Bush priorities within that state, including legislation to expand merit pay and phase out tenure, which Gov. Rick Scott (R) recently signed. Bush’s Foundation for Excellence in Education promotes his agenda elsewhere. He draws no salary from the two entities. Among the financial backers of his national effort are foundations led by Bill and Melinda Gates, Eli and Edythe Broad, and the Walton family.

Bush often voices solidarity with GOP governors known for battling teachers unions, such as Wisconsin’s Scott Walker, New Jersey’s Chris Christie and Ohio’s John Kasich. A March 15 tweet from @JebBush: “Ohio is focused on improving student achievement! Great to see @JohnKasich’s ed plan has digital learning, accountability, choices & more.”

Bush has helped several state school leaders, including Virginia Secretary of Education Gerard Robinson, form a coalition for “bold reform” known as “Chiefs for Change.” He has also organized education summits that draw hundreds of policymakers from across the country. Last fall, U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan shared the stage with Bush in a Q-and-A session at a conference in Washington.

“Arne and Jeb are really the most influential people at the national level right now pushing college and career readiness for our kids and improvement for our schools,” said Paul G. Pastorek, Louisiana’s superintendent of education and a Republican. “Jeb is working with statehouses and state leaders to directly impact the agenda. He is above all others on the issue among Republicans.”

Iron Triangles

2011-03-31T04:31:00.000-07:00

Observers of the modern American government often point to an iron triangle that best demonstrates who really does the work of government. The iron triangle, sometimes called a subgovernment, consists of interest groups, members of congressional subcommittees, and agency bureaucrats.

Who really governs the United States? Many political analysts believe policy is set by the participants in the "Iron Triangle" rather than elected officials.

According to the theory, agencies and departments usually keep close contacts with interest group lobbyists who want to influence their actions. Interest groups may provide valuable statistics to government agencies, and they are motivated to have their point of view heard. Both lobbyists and bureaucrats value contact with congressional subcommittees that shape the laws that govern their interests. Working together, these three groups set most government policies.

An example of such an iron triangle would be the American Association for Retired People (AARP), the House Subcommittee on Aging, and the Social Security Administration all working together to set government policy on Social Security.

Advisers, bookkeepers, secretaries. So, it is not only the famous people — the President, the Chief of Staff, the Speaker of the House, or the Senate Majority Leader — who make the real decisions in government. Often, the real players in government are the agency bureaucrats — the people behind the scenes.

IRON TRIANGLES OR POLICY NETWORKS

Sometimes they help form iron triangles, which are mutually supportive relationships among interest groups, government agencies, and legislative committees with jurisdiction over a specific policy area. The competition among interest groups more often leads to policy networks, in which influence is associated with a complex and sometimes countervailing interaction in a common policy area among lobbyists, elected officials, staff personnel, bureaucrats, journalists, and private-sector experts. Not infrequently there is a pattern of revolving doors, by which members of a policy network switch jobs among federal agencies, legislative staff, and private industry interest groups in a practice which raises conflict-of-interest issues.

http://cwx.prenhall.com/bookbind/pubbooks/dye4/chapter9/deluxe.html

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=R5T1rEmAdvIC&printsec=frontcover&dq=IRON+TRIANGLE&hl=en&ei=XGiUTYaYLJKFhQfMpq3_CA&sa=X&oi=book_re

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=WC1RFGPDhQUC&pg=PA210&dq=examples+of+iron+triangles&hl=en&ei=HmqUTdoaxraEB77n4OgI&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&res

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=u9a5Ml382WwC&pg=PA61&dq=examples+of+iron+triangles&hl=en&ei=HmqUTdoaxraEB77n4OgI&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resn

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=3uuAtazupnAC&pg=PA355&dq=EXAMPLES+OF+IRON+TRIANGLES&hl=en&ei=p22UTeDXEZS0hAfxg_H-CA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&r

CONGRESS AND PRESSURE GROUPS - IRON TRIANGLES

2011-03-31T04:30:00.001-07:00

In campaign against health-care law, Republicans take on AARP

By Dan Eggen, Wednesday, March 30, 6:34 PM

House Republicans, who are continuing their efforts to chip away at President Obama’s health-care law, have now set their sights on a powerful group that strongly supported the legislation: the AARP seniors lobby.

Two GOP members of the House Ways and Means Committee released a report Wednesday alleging that the nation’s largest seniors group stands to gain financially from the Affordable Care Act, because the law could result in greater demand for supplemental Medicare policies that carry the AARP stamp of approval.

In addition, the Ways and Means health and oversight subcommittees have scheduled a joint hearing Friday to grill AARP officials about the organization’s financial ventures.

“This hearing is about getting to the bottom of how AARP’s financial interests affect their self-stated mission of enhancing seniors’ quality of life,” said Rep. Wally Herger (R-Calif.), who chairs the panel’s health subcommittee. “It is important to better understand how AARP’s insurance business overlaps with its advocacy efforts and whether such overlap is appropriate.”

AARP President Lee Hammond said Wednesday that the organization “fully rejects” the Republican allegations.

“AARP has long maintained that we would gladly forgo revenue in exchange for lifetime health and financial security for all older Americans,” Hammond said. “We have been conducting ourselves in pursuit of that mission for more than 50 years, with the same focus on affecting both public policy officials and the private marketplace to achieve our social welfare goals.”

The hearing and the study mark the latest developments in a sustained Republican attack on the seniors lobby for its support of Obama’s health-care law, which AARP says will lower costs and increase the quality of care for older Americans. Republicans say the group is working against its members’ interests because of planned cuts in the growth rate of Medicare spending, primarily for subsidized Medicare Advantage plans.

AARP, previously known as the American Association of Retired Persons, began in the 1950s as a group of retired schoolteachers that sought affordable insurance coverage. It has regularly come under fire over the years for collecting royalties and other fees from the sale of insurance policies and other products. “It’s a new round of the same old questions,” Hammond said in a conference call with reporters Wednesday.

The previous wave of criticism came in 2003, when Democrats attacked the group after it endorsed President George W. Bush’s expansion of Medicare prescription drug benefits. Many Republican lawmakers hailed AARP at the time.

AARP ranks with the National Rifle Association and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce among Washington’s largest and most durable lobbying groups, claiming about 37 million members and spending more than $22 million on lobbying in 2010. The group reported $1.4 billion in revenue in 2009, nearly half of which came from royalties and other fees from the sale of insurance policies, credit cards, travel packages and other products that carry the AARP name, tax records show.

The report released Wednesday by Herger and Rep. Dave Reichert (R-Wash.) alleges that AARP could make more than $1 billion over the next 10 years from the sale of supplemental Medicare, or “Medigap,” policies under the health-care law. The report also says Medigap policies are more profitable for the seniors lobby because of the type of royalty deals worked out with the insurance carrier, UnitedHealthcare.

The lawmakers, who first began leveling criticism at AARP during the 2009 health-care debate, also said they have asked the IRS to examine the group’s tax-exempt status.

AARP “operates as a massive for-profit enterprise” that “conflicts with its legal requirements” as a nonprofit group to promote the social welfare of its members, according to the GOP report. “AARP activities and business arrangements continue to raise concerns about which interests are being served at AARP — those of its 40 million members or the AARP business portfolio.”

AARP says it has no idea what the impact of the health-care law might be on the branded policies it offers, and it noted that most insurance companies were strongly opposed to the law. Officials said brand royalties allow AARP to keep its $16 membership fee low, a strategy followed by many nonprofit groups to provide buying power for members.

“AARP is no more an insurance company than we are an online travel company or an online photography site, all of which contribute royalties to fund AARP’s mission,” Hammond said.

Presidency - Imperial

2011-03-31T04:23:00.000-07:00

In Libya, CIA is gathering intelligence on rebels

By Karen DeYoung and Greg Miller, Wednesday, March 30, 9:32 PM

The Obama administration has sent teams of CIA operatives into Libya in a rush to gather intelligence on the identities and capabilities of rebel forces opposed to Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi, according to U.S. officials.

The information has become more crucial as the administration and its coalition partners move closer to providing direct military aid or guidance to the disorganized and beleaguered rebel army.

Although the administration has pledged that no U.S. ground troops will be deployed to Libya, officials said Wednesday that President Obama has issued a secret finding that would authorize the CIA to carry out a clandestine effort to provide arms and other support to Libyan opposition groups.

The officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, insisted that no decision has been made.

In the face of a new onslaught by government troops, rebel forces fled eastward Wednesday from cities and towns they had captured just days ago. But Gaddafi suffered a political defeat with the defection to Britain of his foreign minister, Musa Kusa, the most senior official to break ranks since the coalition bombing campaign began nearly two weeks ago.

House and Senate lawmakers briefed in a closed-door session by top administration officials, including Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, said they received a picture of mixed progress on the ground in Libya.

The headlong rebel retreat through the oil hubs of Ras Lanuf and Brega, en route to the strategic city of Ajdabiya, demonstrated the limits of their fighting ability against the superior firepower and military organization of Gaddafi loyalists. It also underscored how dependent the anti-Gaddafi forces have become on airstrikes and missile attacks by the Western-led coalition.

“Our volunteer forces in the front have only got light weapons and are facing a very large military might,” said a rebel spokesman, Col. Ahmad Bani. The largely untrained and poorly organized force lacks anti-tank and other heavy weapons.

Bani called on NATO forces to intervene more forcefully, although a U.S. military official said coalition airstrikes, including attacks by U.S. AC-130 gunships, had continued apace in combat areas along the Libyan coast, with 32 U.S. and 23 coalition airstrikes in the 12-hour period through midday in Libya.

Administration officials said U.S. participation in the strikes would subside rapidly once NATO formally takes overall command this week of all aspects of the operation.

Officials said they saw Libyan government gains during the day as temporary and part of the “fluid” back and forth of the ground combat. But they did not dispute the likelihood that the rebels will need more equipment and training to prevail, increasing the pressure to find out more about the opposition.

Several lawmakers briefed by Clinton, Gates and Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said they were told that the United States is still trying to put together a full picture of the Libyan rebellion but believes that it does not contain large numbers of radical Islamic militants.

“Nobody had detected any significant presence, although they knew there were some people,” said Rep. Gary L. Ackerman (D-N.Y.). But “nobody’s vouching for resumes” at the moment, Ackerman said.

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers (R-Mich.), said he heard nothing in the briefing that turned him in favor of arming the rebels. Calling it a “horrible idea,” Rogers said: “We know what they’re against. We don’t really know what they’re for.”

A senior administration official said that “we know well” some of the more prominent members of the Transitional National Council, the group that has been the public face of the rebellion and that includes lawyers, intellectuals and former members of the Gaddafi government.

But “in terms of participants on the ground, that’s a deeper dive, obviously,” said the official, one of several interviewed who were not authorized to publicly discuss the administration’s efforts. “You have the leadership and the formal structure, and then the ground truth in various parts of the country where you have strong opposition” to Gaddafi, but little is known about who is leading those efforts.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague said Wednesday that his government has made no decision about arming the rebels and that “we want to know about any links with al-Qaeda.” But, he said, “given what we have seen” of the opposition political leaders, “I think it would be right to put the emphasis on the positive side.”

The CIA’s efforts represent a belated attempt to acquire basic information about rebel forces that had barely surfaced on the radar of U.S. spy agencies before the uprisings in North Africa.

Among the CIA’s tasks is to assess whether rebel leaders could be reliable partners if the administration opts to begin funneling in money or arms.

Obama took a key step in that direction by issuing a secret authorization known as a presidential “finding,” designed to pave the way for the flow of money or weapons. News of the finding, signed several weeks ago, was first reported Wednesday by Reuters.

Under law, the CIA requires special permission from the president to carry out activities designed to influence foreign events. A finding establishes a framework of legal authorities for specific covert activities, and in some cases for future actions that can be taken only after specific permission is given.

Such operations are fraught with risks. The CIA’s history is replete with efforts that backfired against U.S. interests in unexpected ways. In perhaps the most fateful example, the CIA’s backing of Islamic fighters in Afghanistan succeeded in driving out the Soviets in the 1980s, but it also presaged the emergence of militant groups, including al-Qaeda, that the United States is now struggling to contain.

Giving the CIA an expanded role in Libya would enable the administration to bridge the gap between the restrictions on coalition airstrikes and Obama’s stated goal of bringing Gaddafi’s four-decade rule to an end.

The CIA’s Special Activities Division includes paramilitary operatives who could help guide rebel operations as well as allied airstrikes.

Even amid an escalating campaign of coalition airstrikes, opposition forces have repeatedly mounted ill-advised assaults on Gaddafi positions and have been forced to retreat from territory they had gained.

If CIA paramilitary operatives were linked up with rebel leaders, “we’d be providing the intelligence on the location of the bad guys and saying, ‘Don’t you realize they’re just down the road here, and you’re going to get whacked if you go too far?’ ” said a U.S. official with access to intelligence on the fighting in Libya. “These guys don’t seem to be following any common-sense military advice.”

White House press secretary Jay Carney refused to comment on “intelligence matters” and reiterated Obama’s public statements that while no decision has been made about arming the rebels, “we’re not ruling it out or ruling it in.”

Officials emphasized that the U.S. military will have no role on the ground in assisting the rebels. “There is no planning for putting any U.S. boots on the ground” for any purpose, a U.S. military official said. “We have no mandate, no authority, no planning going on to that effect. . . . Nobody’s told us to be prepared to do that.”

EXECUTIVE - IMPERILLED EVEN IN FOREIGN POLICY?

2011-03-31T03:32:00.000-07:00

THE MILITARY, THE AFGHANISTAN WITHDRAWAL AND OBAMA PETRAEUS STAYUS?

Within Obama’s war cabinet, a looming battle over pace of Afghanistan drawdown

By Rajiv Chandrasekaran, Wednesday, March 30, 9:51 PM

Military leaders and President Obama’s civilian advisers are girding for battle over the size and pace of the planned pullout of U.S. troops from Afghanistan this summer, with the military seeking to limit a reduction in combat forces and the White House pressing for a withdrawal substantial enough to placate a war-weary electorate.

Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top allied commander in Afghanistan, has not presented a recommendation on the withdrawal to his superiors at the Pentagon, but some senior officers and military planning documents have described the July pullout as small to insignificant, prompting deep concern within the White House.

At a meeting of his war cabinet this month, Obama expressed displeasure with such characterizations of the withdrawal, according to three senior officials with direct knowledge of the session. “The president made it clear that he wants a meaningful drawdown to start in July,” said one of the officials, who, like the others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to share internal discussions.

The divergent views about the withdrawal illustrate the unresolved tensions between Obama’s military and civilian advisers over the decision to send more troops to Afghanistan in a last-ditch attempt to salvage a failing war. Although military officials contend that the surge has enabled U.S. forces to blunt the Taliban in key areas over the past several months, White House officials remain skeptical that those gains will survive without the presence of American troops and without U.S. financial aid.

Complicating the debate is growing concern in Washington about the war’s cost, which is estimated to reach $120 billion this year, and polls that show increasing disenchantment, even among Republicans, with a mission that has turned into a complicated nation-building endeavor.

As both sides prepare for what they expect to be a vigorous debate, they are seeking ways to achieve their favored outcome by limiting what the other can do. For the military, that means crafting a narrow set of choices, because there is general agreement that reduction numbers need to originate in the field, not be imposed by the White House. But the National Security Council may attempt to impose its own limitations by setting a date by which all the surge forces must be brought home, the officials said.

Although Obama approved a 30,000-troop increase sought by the military in 2009, he made clear that the surge forces would begin returning home by July 2011. But the pace of that reduction has been in dispute since the president’s surge announcement, with Defense Department officials describing the initial reductions as minor and some of Obama’s other advisers, including Vice President Biden, saying the pullout would be as rapid as the deployment of the surge troops.

Petraeus has said that he will give the president a range of withdrawal options, one of which he will recommend.

Two senior military officials said one set of options being developed by staff officers in Kabul involves three choices: the removal of almost no forces; the withdrawal of a few thousand support personnel, including headquarters staff, engineers and logisticians; and the pullout of a brigade’s worth of troops — about 5,000 personnel— by culling a battalion of Marines in Helmand province that was added after the surge, a contingent of soldiers training Afghan security forces and an Army infantry battalion in either the country’s east or far west.

The officers said Petraeus had not approved the list. They said they expected that a version of the support-personnel withdrawal, perhaps with some combat forces added to the mix, would be the most likely recommendation.

“Our hope is that we’ll be able to get away with no combat troops getting pulled out this summer,” one of the officers said. “But we recognize that may not be possible.”

The Pentagon is hoping to increase its flexibility by dispatching in April an equivalent-size unit to replace a 750-strong Marine battalion that arrived in Helmand in January for a three-month deployment, the officers said. Although those battalions are not part of the 30,000-troop surge, commanders may seek to count their departure as part of the July drawdown.

When he submits the options, Petraeus will outline the risks associated with each, the officers said. The pullout of even one brigade — an option that may be viewed by some civilian advisers as too modest — entails significant costs from the military’s point of view because it could result in the removal of much-needed forces from insecure areas and fewer personnel to train Afghan soldiers.

Military officials contend that recent successes in pushing the Taliban out of parts of Kandahar and Helmand provinces in the south show that the U.S. counterinsurgency strategy is working. They argue that U.S. troops should be kept in place until the Afghan government and its security forces can assume control of those areas.

“We have to make sure we’re focused on an outcome that’s stable and enduring,” said Kimberly Kagan, a part-time adviser to Petraeus and president of the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank that supports the surge.

If troops can be freed up in the still-volatile south and southwestern parts of the country, military commanders want those units to be moved to the east, where insurgent violence is escalating. Although the east, which abuts Pakistan’s lawless tribal regions, is no longer deemed the “main effort,” military officials have grown increasingly concerned about the deteriorating security situation there.

But arguments to keep surge forces in Afghanistan for longer than two years contradict promises made by military commanders to Obama during the 2009 White House debate over the troop increase. At the time, commanders insisted that after 18 to 24 months of counterinsurgency operations, they would be able to transfer control of areas to Afghan forces. That timeline led Obama to impose the July 2011 date, which is exactly two years from the arrival of the first wave of additional forces he deployed after assuming the presidency.

“You don’t hear much about 18 to 24 months from the military anymore,” one senior administration official said.

Under one approach being seriously considered by the National Security Council, the White House would seek to impose a date by which all 30,000 surge troops would need to be removed but that would give Petraeus and his successor the flexibility to determine the pace of the withdrawal, two of the civilian officials said.

That would be similar to the approach Obama used to reduce U.S. forces in Iraq, where he declared that the military would have to cut troop levels to 50,000 by August 2010 but left it to Gen. Ray Odierno, then the top commander in Iraq, to set the glide slope of withdrawal.

The Afghanistan date is still under discussion — the final decision would be made by Obama — but one option would be to set it in the fall of 2012, which would be two years from the arrival of the last wave of surge forces. That milestone could appeal to commanders, who could hold on to most of the surge forces through next year’s summer fighting season, but it could provoke opposition from voters and lawmakers who favor a faster drawdown.

In a Washington Post-ABC News poll released in mid-March, nearly two-thirds of Americans surveyed said the war in Afghanistan is no longer worth fighting.

“There are political consequences to having 90,000 troops in Afghanistan through the end of 2012,” the senior administration official said.

For the president’s civilian advisers, a key element of the pullout discussion will be whether U.S. troops are required in as many parts of Afghanistan, and to be as significant a presence, as they are today. Some of the advisers contend that the counterinsurgency mission being conducted is far broader than what was envisaged by Obama when he authorized the surge.

An opening shot in that debate could play out over the next few weeks as the White House considers a request from Petraeus to expand the size of the Afghan army and police force from a total of 305,000 to 378,000.

Military officials contend that the Afghan government needs a larger security service to help stave off the Taliban and assume responsibility from coalition forces. But National Security Council officials have suggested that Afghanistan might not really require such a large army and police force, and that perhaps new village-defense squads could make up some of the difference. The officials also question whether there would be enough U.S. and NATO forces to mentor such a large Afghan force.

The most significant issue is the price tag. Increasing the Afghan security forces to 378,000 could cost as much as $8 billion a year. Much of that would have to be paid for by the United States.

“That’s a huge bill,” the senior official said. “In this fiscal environment, think of what we could do at home with $8 billion.”

CONGRESS - PASSAGE OF A BILL GAME

2011-03-29T01:27:00.000-07:00

http://www.trumanlibrary.org/whistlestop/teacher_lessons/3branches/27.htm

2011-03-28T05:02:00.000-07:00

http://www.parliament.uk/documents/lords-library/hllsalisburydoctrine.pdf

2011-03-28T04:44:00.001-07:00

http://www.house.gov/

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

2011-03-28T04:38:00.000-07:00

http://cha.house.gov/

CONGRESS- COMMITTEES - STAFFING COSTS

2011-03-28T04:33:00.000-07:00

http://cha.house.gov/images/stories/committee_reports/11_01_appropriations.pdf

AQA SITE FOR EXAMS

2011-03-28T03:04:00.001-07:00

http://store.aqa.org.uk/qual/gce/pdf/AQA-2150-W-SP.PDF

2011-03-28T03:02:00.001-07:00

http://www.congressforkids.net/

FEDERAL - Florida's budget

2011-03-28T02:45:00.001-07:00

Austerity parade

Is Rick Scott cutting too deep?

Mar 17th 2011 TALLAHASSEE from the print edition

ON MARCH 8th, at a rally in Orlando protesting the austere budget proposed by Rick Scott, Florida’s governor, Alan Grayson, a former congressman, accused Mr Scott of wanting to turn Florida into Somalia—a place without a functioning government. At a rally in support of Mr Scott two days later a jazz band in front of the state capitol building in Tallahassee sung a boppy little number with a chorus of “Goo-goo, ga-ga, those Democrats cry like babies.” So the propaganda war was probably a draw.

The real war will be harder fought. Florida faces a $3.6 billion shortfall in the coming fiscal year. That represents about 15% of the total 2011 state budget. Mr Scott, elected last autumn with strong tea-party support, has sharpened his axe. His budget cuts around $3.5 billion in government spending in the next fiscal year, as well as 8,930 state jobs and another 4,106 in the year after that. State employees will have to put 5% of their salaries into their retirement accounts (they currently pay nothing), and new state employees will have to take up 401(k)s (defined-contribution plans) instead of getting the defined-benefit pensions that have been a traditional perk in the public sector.

Mr Scott also proposes cutting Florida’s property- and corporate-income tax rates—the latter from 5.5% to 3% next year—and then trimming it by 0.5% in each subsequent year, so that it will reach zero in seven years, by which time he aims to have created 700,000 new jobs in Florida. In his “state-of-the-state” address on March 8th, he said his budget “will give Florida a competitive edge in attracting jobs”.

It may do that, though it also would cut education spending by $3 billion in a state that already ranks near the bottom in spending per head on education and has a high-school graduation rate well below the national average. It would lay off thousands of state workers, when Florida already has the fewest state employees per head of any state and an unemployment rate that, as of January, was 2.9 points above the national average. And it provides roughly $2 billion in tax cuts in a state that already levies no personal income tax, relies heavily on sales taxes and faces the waning of federal stimulus dollars.

It comes as no surprise that Democrats detest Mr Scott’s budget. The more interesting question is how far he can count on Republican support. The president of Florida’s Senate and the speaker of its House—both Republicans—are lukewarm about the proposed tax cuts, and his relations with his own party have often been rocky. In the primary he spent more than $30m of his own money to defeat Bill McCollum, the state’s attorney-general and the Republican establishment favourite. In February Mr Scott came under fire from the (Republican) Senate budget chairman for selling two state aeroplanes and spending the proceeds without legislative approval. Earlier this month, a Republican senator sued him and many others rebuked him for rejecting $2.4 billion in federal funding for a high-speed railway line between Tampa and Orlando (the case was dismissed). Mr Scott, formerly the head of a company that ran hospitals, campaigned on the promise that he would run Florida like a business. But businessmen rarely have to contend with legislatures.

Polls this week -----

2011-03-28T02:41:00.001-07:00

http://media.economist.com/images/pdf/Toplines20110323.pdf

CONGRESS- Tea 'Party'???

2011-03-28T02:37:00.000-07:00

http://www.congress.org/news/2011/03/24/tea_party_divided_on_foreign_policy

Congress and Declaration of War

2011-03-28T02:33:00.000-07:00

http://www.congress.org/news/2011/03/25/congress_qa_declaration_of_war

PATRIOT Act Fears Are Stifling Free Speech, ACLU Says in Challenge to Law

2011-03-22T02:31:00.000-07:00

November 3, 2003

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: media@aclu.org

NEW YORK - Fear of the PATRIOT Act has caused a dramatic decline in memberships and donations at mosques and forced a church-sponsored group that aids refugees to change its record-keeping practices, the American Civil Liberties Union said in legal papers filed today in Detroit.

This First Amendment "chill" is reminiscent of an earlier era when the government attempted to shut down dissent by investigating groups like the NAACP and the Japanese American Citizens League, the ACLU said. "Notably, those groups and other civil rights, immigrant and free speech advocates today filed briefs supporting the ACLU's challenge to the law.

"Sadly, our government has an ugly history of using its investigative powers to squelch dissent," said ACLU Associate Legal Director Ann Beeson."We saw it during the Japanese internments of World War II, the Red Scare of the 1950's and the civil rights movement of the 1960's, and now we see it in the post-9/11 investigations and detention of Arabs and Muslims."

"Our clients have every reason to believe that in 21st Century America they will be subjected to new abuses of power under the PATRIOT Act -- and what's worse, under this radical law they may never learn that the government has violated their rights," she added.

In a brief filed before a federal court in Detroit, the ACLU opposed the government's motion to dismiss its challenge to Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act, a law that vastly expands the power of FBI agents to secretly obtain records and personal belongings of innocent people in the United States, including citizens and permanent residents.

The case was filed in Detroit on July 30 on behalf of six nonprofit organizations that provide a wide range of religious, medical, social and educational services to communities around the country. The lawsuit names Attorney General John Ashcroft and FBI Director Robert Mueller as defendants."A hearing in the case is scheduled for December 3 before Judge Denise Page Hood of the U.S. District Court in Detroit.

Coalitions representing more than two dozen civil rights, immigrant and First Amendment advocacy organizations today filed three separate "friend-of-the-court" briefs saying that the law also violates their members' First Amendment rights to free speech and free association as well as their right to privacy under the Fourth Amendment."

The NAACP, whose members include people of Arab, Muslim and South Asian backgrounds, noted in its brief that during the 1960's, its members "feared they would lose their jobs and be attacked physically if their membership in the organization was disclosed." A government requirement that the organization disclose the names of its members "caused membership in Louisiana to drop from 12,000 to 1,700.""

The threat of similar government actions today has had a similar effect on the Arab and Muslim community and organizations that serve them, the ACLU said in legal papers - all the more so because those actions take place in secret.

The Muslim Community Association of Ann Arbor (MCA), the lead plaintiff in the ACLU lawsuit, said in an affidavit that "attendance at prayer services, educational forums and social events has substantially dropped" and donations to the group are almost half of what they were before 2001. The group also said that some members have curtailed their political speech, and one member asked that all records pertaining to himself and his family be deleted from MCA's database.

Mary Lieberman, executive director of Bridge Refuge and Sponsorship Services, a church-affiliated organization in Tennessee, has directed her staff to change the way they keep records in order to minimize the chance that personal information will be disclosed to government investigators on fishing expeditions for information about clients from Iraq and Iran."

Other groups that signed the "friend-of-the-court" briefs filed today include American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression, American Friends Service Committee, Japanese American Citizens League and Episcopal Migration Ministries. For a complete list of the ACLU's clients and the groups that filed "friend-of-the-court" briefs.

The case is Muslim Community Association of Ann Arbor et al. v. John Ashcroft, Civil Action No. 03-72913, filed in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, Southern Division. In addition to Beeson, attorneys in the case are Jameel Jaffer of the national ACLU and Michael J. Steinberg, Noel Saleh and Kary Moss of the ACLU of Michigan.

Plamegate: Worse than Watergate

2011-03-22T02:29:00.000-07:00

It's getting hard to keep track of all the lies we've been told. Here's a quick cheat sheet:

We now know that Cheney lied to the American people about his involvement in the effort to smear Joe Wilson.

Three months after reportedly receiving a briefing about Wilson's trip to Niger from George "Slam Dunk" Tenet, and then telling Scooter Libby that Plame may have helped arrange her husband's trip, the Vice President went on national TV and told Tim Russert he didn't have a clue about the situation: "I don't know Joe Wilson... I don't know who sent Joe Wilson... I have no idea who hired him and it never came up."

We now know that Karl Rove lied about his involvement, too.

Back in September 2003, when Rove was asked if he had "any knowledge" about the Plame leak, he answered with an unambiguous "No."

Since then, we've learned that Rove was actually up to his Turd Blossom in Plamegate, discussing Plame and her role at the CIA with Matt Cooper and Bob Novak, and taking part in what a source familiar with his four visits to the grand jury characterized as "an aggressive campaign to discredit Wilson through the leaking and disseminating of derogatory information regarding him and his wife."

We now know that Scooter Libby also lied about his involvement.

Libby told Pat Fitzgerald that he first learned Plame's identity from Tim Russert. But his own notes show that it was actually his boss, Dick Cheney, who first clued him in about Plame. (Russert, of course, has said he learned of Plame's identity by reading Novak's column, but that's a conundrum for another blog!).

And we now know that Rove and Libby also lied to Scott McClellan, who then -- knowingly or not -- lied to reporters about the two men's involvement.

When pressed today about the fact that in October 2003 he had "categorically" assured reporters that Rove and Libby "were not involved" in the Plame leak, McClellan made it clear that he was just passing on "the assurances that I had received on that." In other words, I only lied to you because they lied to me.

Potential Bonus Presidential Lie: In June 2004, when asked whether he stood by his promise to fire anyone found to have leaked Plame's identity, President Bush (taking a cue from Rove) answered with an unambiguous "Yes." But the New York Daily News reports that Bush knew that Rove was involved in the leak two years ago. So why, a year later, was he still acting like he had no idea who'd been involved?

Let's put aside the legal arguments for a moment and just focus on this glut of lying. Clearly, these guys knew that what they were up to should be kept in the shadows. Hence Rove's desire to have his conversation with Cooper be kept on "double super secret background," his self-assessment that he'd "already said too much" to Cooper, and Libby's request that Judy Miller identify him as a "former Hill staffer" instead of the usual "senior administration official."

Cheney, Rove, and Libby obviously felt that their actions had to be covered up.

But what they were covering up was much more than the outing of Valerie Plame. They were covering up the way the White House had used lies and deception to lead us into a war that was reckless and unnecessary -- what Lt. Gen. William Odom, National Security Agency director under Reagan, has called "the greatest strategic disaster in United States history."

The reason why Cheney, Rove, and Libby were so aggressive in attacking anyone who questioned their rationale for war is because, by the summer of 2003, it was becoming embarrassingly clear how wrong they had been about Iraq -- wrong about WMD, wrong about flowers thrown at our feet, wrong about the cost of the war. Had their incompetence not been so grotesquely manifest, there would have been no need for the attack on Wilson -- and the resulting coverup -- that has now landed them all in such legal hot water.

If Rove and Libby are indeed indicted (adding Cheney to our Merry Fitz-mas gift list would just be getting greedy), I believe it will shake up our government in a way we haven't seen since Watergate.

To borrow a phrase from that era, let me make myself perfectly clear: I'm not saying that Plamegate is the same as Watergate. I'm saying it's worse. Much, much worse. No one died as a result of Watergate, but 2,000 American soldiers have now been killed and thousands more wounded to rid the world of an imminent threat that wasn't.

Could there be anything bigger?

After getting a fumbling cipher like George W. Bush elected president, the powers-behind-the-throne must have believed they were untouchable and could get away with anything -- including lying about WMD, outing a CIA agent, and, perhaps, lying to a special prosecutor.

Like Nixon, their mindset was "if you try to get in our way we'll destroy you." (See how quickly those keep-us-safe national security guys were willing to jeopardize an intelligence asset in the name of covering their asses.) And their hubris caused them to over-reach.

Like my old Greek pal Icarus, they flew too close to the sun... and now it looks like they, and their multitude of lies, are about to come crashing down.

Patriot Act and Plame Affair

2011-03-21T11:18:00.000-07:00

http://video.answers.com/the-patriot-act-in-the-us-297290926

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/plamegate-worse-than-wate_b_9522.html
http://www.answers.com/topic/patriot-act

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/valerie-plame-wilson

Patriot Act - Line Item Veto - Recess Appointments

2011-03-08T00:08:00.000-08:00

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USA_PATRIOT_Act

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dismissal_of_U.S._attorneys_controversy

http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL33310.pdf

http://articles.cnn.com/2005-10-27/politics/miers.nominations_1_harriet-miers-withdrawal-letter-white-house?_s=PM:POLITICS

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/03/06/politics/main1372906.shtml

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8758621/ns/politics/

http://www.senate.gov/reference/resources/pdf/RS21308.pdf

War Powers Act 1973

2011-03-01T00:59:00.000-08:00

Congressional Research Service
http://www.fas.org/man/crs/RL32267.html

Opinion article - but some good discussion
http://www.monad.com/sdg/Journal/warpowers.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Powers_Resolution

2011-02-21T23:51:00.000-08:00

(1) Outline the changing balance of power between the executive and legislative branches of government since the 1960s. (30 marks)

Since 1960, the growth of the President has been evident, and has resulted in the period being known as the ‘imperial presidency.’ The term became popular in the 60’s, to describe the modern, recent Presidency of the United States, when many people thought the President had exceeded their constitutional power. This was due to the expansion of the President’s office, and the large influence of informal powers. Informal powers, which are powers the President has, which are not in the constitution, play a huge role for a President.

However, the legislature still have a huge role, and still do play the main role in the power of politics, as they put forward bills, make bills, vote on proposition and issues, speak to ambassadors, question the President, and even discuss war.

Between 1960 and the current day, the balance of power between the executive and the legislature has changed many times, because of many issues, away from the founding fathers intent. The president has taken the initiative and congress has merely tried to supervise; the president has become proactive and congress has become reactive. Even congress’s much vaunted power of the purse has proved ineffective in checking the power of the president to wage war.

‘’Under President Nixon (1969 to 1974), it was thought that the presidency had become overly authoritative at the expense of the other branches of government. Both domestically and internationally, Nixon appeared to expand the power of the office and subvert the American system of separation of powers.

It was thought by many that the presidential office had become all-powerful, that it had become imperial. This was especially the case in foreign affairs, where the Constitution offered little in the way of guidance about who should be in charge of the policy agenda. However, in the 1970s the problems of Watergate and Vietnam seemed to curtail the power of the presidency and quelled perceptions of an imperial office.’’ (Robert Busby – 2002)

The above opinion of Robert Busby shows an example of the change of powers, and how imperial presidency occurs, and then disappears. Nixon was the first President, who was said to have exceded his constitutional power, by using the media (he transformed the President swimming pool into a press room), and more informal powers. The Veto became more common, as Presidents tried to keep in front of the legislature section, and kept being the ‘main man’.

However, it is not only since 1960 the argument for the President to be imperial has happened. As far back as President Lincoln, there has been disputes about who has the most power; the executive or the legislature, as the Political Historian Arthur Schlesinger explained :

Click to view quote

Arthur Schlesinger, Imperial Presidency: 2004

Lincoln went onto say when he finally appeared in Congress to talk about his actions, he initiated the actions, because he felt it was public necessaty and that Congress would accept the decision anyway. However, as he did this without the Senate and the House of Representives approval, this, in my opinion shows an imperial President, and one who had the balance of power over the legislature.

It could be said that during popular Presidencies, and through-out ‘good times’, it is the executive branch who hold the balance of power, but during poor President terms, or even, it could be argued during a split ticket Presidency, the legislature hold the power. This is because the legislature holds all the power, with the President only having the right to veto. A good example of this, would be in 1994, when Newt Gingrich’s Republican party took control of congress, and made many new laws, and even though President Clinton didn’t like many of them, had to accept a lot of them, to make it look like he was not a ‘sitting duck’ President. He did this by amending some of the new laws, and making compromises, such as ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.’