US Presidential Primaries


Cain listens to a question from a reporter during a news conference in Manchester, New Hampshire
 

The infamous interview in which Cain was asked for his opinion on Obama's policy towards Libya
 

Cain leaves the Manchester Union Leader newspaper after meeting the editorial board in Manchester, New Hampshire
 

A hug from a supporter at a book signing in The Villages, Florida. He was promoting his book This Is Herman Cain.
 

Cain addresses supporters at his campaign headquarters in Manchester, New Hampshire
 

A calendar with a photograph of Ronald Reagan on the wall of Cain's campaign headquarters
 

Cain conducts a town hall meeting in the Swim and Racquet Club at Laurel Creek, New Jersey
 

Cain announces that he is suspending his campaign, while his wife Gloria looks on. The announcement came during the scheduled opening of a local campaign headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia
 
Rick Santorum, who was campaigning in Iowa last week, said that he would support a pre-emptive strike by Israel against an Iranian nuclear program.
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[h=1]Romney: Obama has hindered peace in the Middle East 'immeasurably'[/h] Speaking at the Republican Jewish Coalition Forum, Mitt Romney blasted the president's 'weak' handling of Israel





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Mitt Romney speaks during the Republican Jewish Coalition 2012 Presidential Candidates Forum. Photograph: Alex Wong/Getty Images

Mitt Romney, a leading Republican presidential contender, has called for regime change in Iran and said that the US should make clear to Tehran that it is "developing military options".
Romney made the call during a scathing attack on Barack Obama at a Republican Jewish Coalition forum of presidential candidates in which he accused the president of weak support for Israel, of appeasing America's enemies and of setting back peace in the Middle East with his fractious relationship with the Israeli leadership.
Before a hawkish, pro-Israel audience, Romney and another contender, Rick Santorum, dwelt at length on the threat posed by Iran's nuclear programme and what they characterised as Obama's weak response.
Romney called for "crippling sanctions" against Tehran and for Iran's diplomats and businessmen to be treated as pariahs.
"Ultimately regime change is necessary. We should make it very clear we are developing and have developed military options," he said.
Santorum said that on his first day in office as president he would ensure that the US and Israel are safe from Iran. But he didn't say how.
Romney launched a broad attack on Obama's foreign policy.
"Abroad, he's weakening America," he said. "He seems to be more generous to our enemies than he is to our friends. That is the natural tendency of someone who is unsure of their own strength, or of America's rightful place as the leader of the world."
But Romney repeatedly returned to the president's dealings with Israel. He accused Obama of "not finding time" to visit the Jewish state, drawing some boos and hisses from the audience. Romney promised to make a trip to Jerusalem his first foreign visit as president.
The Republican contender accused Obama of "insulting" the Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, and of "emboldening Palestinian hardliners".
Obama and Netanyahu have clashed repeatedly over Israel's continued expansion of Jewish settlements in the occupied territories, including plans for an entire new settlement and thousands of homes in others which are regarded by the Palestinians as evidence that the present Israeli government is not serious about a negotiated peace.
Romney, however, blamed Obama for the sour relations.
"President Obama has immeasurably set back the prospect of peace in the Middle East," he said.
A third speaker on Wednesday morning, Jon Huntsman, made only a cursory reference to Israel – saying this is the time for the world to understand that America stands with the Jewish state – and instead lamented at length the decline of US manufacturing.
Newt Gingrich, Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann are to speak on Wednesday afternoon.
The meeting is an opportunity for the Republicans to once again question Obama's commitment to Israel, which has become a drum beat in recent months, particularly after the president stated the obvious in saying a two-state solution will be based on 1967 borders with land swaps.
But it is also a chance for leading Republican contenders to try and repair the damage done by a question about foreign aid at a candidates debate last month in which Perry said he wanted to scrap existing foreign aid commitments and then have each country justify assistance, including Israel. He was backed by Gingrich and Romney.
The candidates swiftly said after the debate that they expected aid to Israel to continue, but it still brought a torrent of criticism.
Romney also spoke at length about the economy, repeating earlier attacks on the president's strategy. But he did admit that Obama may not be easy to remove as an incumbent: "He will resort to anything. As you know, class warfare and demagoguery are powerful political weapons."

Huntsman was more melancholy. He offered several warnings about the contraction of US manufacturing industry and echoed a renowned speech on American malaise by President Jimmy Carter.

Huntsman said: "We are in a deep funk as people. We are dispirited. We are dejected".




 
[h=1]Obama speech declares 'make-or-break moment for the middle class'[/h] Barack Obama portrays himself as champion of middle class in Kansas address harking back 100 years to Theodore Roosevelt





Barack Obama's Kansas speech targets 'fend for yourself' stance of Republicans and corporations. Link to this video Barack Obama blasted his Republican foes and Wall Street as he portrayed himself as a champion of the middle class and laid out in the starkest terms yet the populist themes of his 2012 re-election bid.
In a speech meant to echo a historic address given by the former US president Theodore Roosevelt in the same Kansas town more than 100 years ago, Obama railed against "gaping" economic inequality and pressed the case for policies he insisted would help ordinary Americans get through hard times.
He seized the opportunity to step up pressure on congressional Republicans to extend payroll tax cuts that independent economists say are vital to economic recovery, and vowed new legislation to punish Wall Street fraud.
But Obama's broader message was a sweeping call for the working class to get a "fair shot" and a "fair share" as he pushed for wealthier Americans to pay higher taxes and demanded that big corporate interests play by the rules.
"This is the defining issue of our time. This is a make-or-break moment for the middle class," Obama told a cheering crowd in a high school gymnasium in Osawatomie, Kansas.
"At stake is whether this will be a country where working people can earn enough to raise a family, build a modest savings, own a home and secure their retirement."
With the election due in 11 months, Obama's speech was part of a strategy to cast the Republicans as the party beholden to the rich and blame them for obstructing his efforts to boost the fragile economy and slash high unemployment - issues considered crucial to his re-election chances.
"Their philosophy is simple: we are better off when everyone is left to fend for themselves and play by their own rules. Well, I'm here to say they are wrong," he said.
Republicans said it was another attempt to distract from what they see as Obama's failed economic record. The Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell, accused the president and his fellow Democrats of resorting to "cheap political theatre".
The Republican presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich, in an interview on CNBC, said Obama's policies made him the "finest food stamp president in American history" because more people would end up getting government aid than new jobs.
Obama's attempt to lay out the ideological foundations of his re-election campaign marked a shift from recent speeches that have concentrated on small-scale executive actions or campaign-style harangues against Republicans to stop stalling his $447bn jobs plan.
This time Obama sought to channel Roosevelt, a Republican who provoked deep anger within his party with his landmark "new nationalism" speech in 1910 that hailed the government's role in promoting social justice and warned against abuses by rich business interests. Roosevelt lost the 1912 presidential election running as a third-party candidate.
Obama sharpened his tone against Wall Street, reflecting what aides see as a message that increasingly resonates with working-class voters whose taxes have gone to business bailouts while their own incomes have flatlined. He was also seeking to revitalise his liberal base amid fears that an "enthusiasm gap" could cut into Democratic turnout and cost him a second term.
Obama sounded themes of economic inequality and corporate greed that have driven the Occupy Wall Street protest movement, which was spawned in New York and has spread to other major cities and countries.
"President Obama is attempting to energise Democrats for the campaign, define himself as something more than a passive president and take populism back from the Tea Party," said Julian Zelizer, a Princeton University political historian.
The risk for Obama is that tougher rhetoric against big business could turn off some of the centrist voters he needs to win re-election. After his Democrats suffered major losses in the November 2010 congressional elections, he launched an outreach to the business community to try to mend fences.
Obama used his speech to accuse Republicans of suffering from "collective amnesia" about the recent financial crisis, and he strongly defended his Wall Street regulatory overhaul that many Republicans opposed and want to roll back.
He said he would call for legislation to toughen penalties against Wall Street companies that break anti-fraud rules.

"Too often we've seen Wall Street firms violating major anti-fraud laws because the penalties are too weak and there's no price for being a repeat offender. No more," Obama said.
He again prodded Republican lawmakers to extend the expiring payroll tax cut beyond this year.

Many Republican lawmakers are sceptical that it will spur job creation, but party leaders, fearing a possible backlash from voters in 2012, have expressed a willingness to find a way to prevent the tax cut from lapsing. They remain at odds with Democrats on how to fund it.




 
[h=1]Gay rights must be criterion for US aid allocations, instructs Obama[/h] Memo targets countries' abuse of sexual minorities, but leading Republicans reject linking cash with equality drive





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Gay rights records will be a future criterion in US foreign aid allocations. Photograph: Adek Berry/AFP/Getty Images

President Barack Obama has instructed officials to consider how countries treat their gay and lesbian populations when making decisions about allocating foreign aid.
In the first US government strategy to deal with human rights abuses against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) citizens abroad, a presidential memorandum issued on Tuesday instructs agencies to use foreign aid to promote such rights.
Gay and lesbian lobby groups have reported an increase in human rights abuses across Africa and parts of the Middle East.
Obama is among international leaders who have condemned a bill proposed in Uganda that would make some homosexual acts a crime punishable by death. The Ugandan parliament recently reopened debate on the bill, which had been abandoned after an international outcry.
In a speech in Geneva to mark international human rights day, secretary of state Hillary Clinton backed the presidential directive. "I am not saying that gay people can't or don't commit crimes," she said. "They can and they do. Just like straight people. And when they do, they should be held accountable. But it should never be a crime to be gay."
Clinton has called for greater protection of sexual minorities and the safety of those seeking asylum. In June, she welcomed a UN resolution on equal rights for all, regardless of sexual orientation.
Clinton compared the struggle for gay equality to difficult passages toward women's rights and racial equality, and said a country's cultural or religious traditions are no excuse for discrimination. "Gay rights are human rights, and human rights are gay rights," she said.
Among US measures, the state department will lead a group to direct agencies to provide a "swift and meaningful" response to serious incidents that threaten the human rights of LGBT people abroad, Obama said. Agencies are directed to combat the criminalisation of LGBT status or conduct abroad, protect vulnerable LGBT refugees and asylum seekers, and engage international organisations in the fight against such discrimination. Agencies are instructed to report on progress within 180 days.
Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney argued gay rights should not be a test for US engagement abroad. "I will be looking at foreign aid, whether it meets our national security interests and, number two, whether these nations are friends of ours and are willing to be friendly with us in ways when it matters the most," he said on Fox News.
The Texas governor, Rick Perry, went further. "Promoting special rights for gays in foreign countries is not in America's interests and not worth a dime of taxpayers' money," a Perry campaign statement said.
It was unclear whether those countries that target and discriminate against gay and lesbians would have their funding cut.
The latest state department report cites countries including US allies such as Saudi Arabia as having human rights issues over treatment of homosexuals.
The UN Human Rights Council passed the resolution on equal rights for all by a narrow margin, despite strong objections from African and Muslim countries.
While the US, the EU and Brazil backed the effort, the move drew strong criticism from Russia, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, and Pakistan, among others.

In October this year, USAID made an announcement that it "strongly encourages" businesses contracted with USAID to go beyond mandatory non-discrimination protections, to prohibit job bias for LGBT employees and other workers.
Among the top 10 countries granted economic and military assistance from the US, according to USAID, are Afghanistan, Iraq, Israel, Egypt Pakistan, Sudan, West Bank/Gaza, Ethiopia, Kenya and Columbia.





 
[h=1]Massachusetts to allow access to Romney paper records[/h] Surge in requests comes after reports that Romney spent nearly $100,000 in state funds to replace computers





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Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney. Massachusetts will allow some public access to hundreds of previously off-limits boxes of official records generated by his office. REUTERS/Brian Snyder

Massachusetts will allow some public access to hundreds of previously off-limits boxes of official records generated by Mitt Romney's office when he was governor from 2003 to 2007, a state official said on Tuesday.
Romney has asserted that a 1997 decision by the Massachusetts state supreme court means that while paper records of his administration are property of the state, they are exempt from public disclosure.
But the state had allowed access to some of the estimated 600 boxes of paper records from Romney's governorship held by the state archives.
The surge in requests to review the records comes after reports that Romney spent nearly $100,000 in state funds to replace computers in his office at the end of his term as part of an unprecedented effort to keep his records secret.
The move during the final weeks of Romney's administration was legal but unusual for a departing governor, Massachusetts officials say.
The effort to purge electronic records was made a few months before Romney launched an unsuccessful campaign for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008. He is again competing for the party's nomination, this time to challenge Barack Obama for the presidency in 2012.
The requests to see the paper records and continuing questions about the public disclosure law prompted Massachusetts state officials last month to briefly impose a moratorium on access to the records.
But later they relented and allowed access to about 20% of records that previously had been opened for public inspection.
On Tuesday, Brian McNiff, a spokesman for Massachusetts Secretary of State William Galvin, the elected official in charge of the state archives, said that officials are still reviewing the law as it relates to Romney's records, but have decided that they will now allow journalists and the public to request access to any boxes of records that had not previously been released.
However, nonpolitical archivists will review and redact the records before any are made public, McNiff said.
At a campaign appearance on Tuesday in Paradise Valley, Arizona, Romney said his office had sent the state archives "all that was required under the law."

Republican and Democratic opponents of Romney say the scrubbing of e-mails and the claim that his paper records are not subject to public disclosure hinder efforts to assess his performance as a politician and elected official.

Five weeks before the first contests in Iowa, Romney has seen his position as frontrunner among Republican presidential candidates whittled away in the polls as rival Newt Gingrich, the former speaker of the House of Representatives, has gained ground.




 
[h=1]Mitt Romney's staff spent nearly $100,000 to hide records[/h] Romney spent state funds to replace computers in his office at the end of his term as governor of Massachusetts in 2007





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Mitt Romney spent state funds to replace computers in his office at the end of his term as governor of Massachusetts in 2007. Photograph: Steve Pope/AP

Mitt Romney spent nearly $100,000 in state funds to replace computers in his office at the end of his term as governor of Massachusetts in 2007 as part of an unprecedented effort to keep his records secret, Reuters has learned.
The move during the final weeks of Romney's administration was legal but unusual for a departing governor, according to Massachusetts officials.
The effort to purge the records was made a few months before Romney launched an unsuccessful campaign for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008. He is again competing for the party's nomination, this time to challenge Barack Obama for the presidency in 2012.
Five weeks before the first contests in Iowa, Romney has seen his position as frontrunner among Republican presidential candidates whittled away in the polls as rival Newt Gingrich, the former speaker of the House of Representatives, has gained ground.
When Romney left the governorship of Massachusetts, 11 of his aides bought the hard drives of their state-issued computers to keep for themselves. Also before he left office, the governor's staff had emails and other electronic communications by Romney's administration wiped from state servers, state officials say.
Those actions erased much of the internal documentation of Romney's four-year tenure as governor, which ended in January 2007. Precisely what information was erased is unclear.
Republican and Democratic opponents of Romney say the scrubbing of emails – and a claim by Romney that paper records of his governorship are not subject to public disclosure – hinder efforts to assess his performance as a politician and elected official.
As Massachusetts governor Romney worked with a Democrat-led state house to close a budget shortfall and signed a healthcare overhaul that required nearly all state residents to buy insurance or face penalties.
The Massachusetts healthcare law became a model for Barack Obama's nationwide healthcare programme, enacted into law in 2010. As a presidential candidate, however, Romney has criticised Obama's plan as an overreach by the federal government.
Massachusetts officials say they have no basis to believe Romney's staff violated any state laws or policies in removing his administration's records.
They acknowledge, however, that state law on maintaining and disclosing official records is vague and has not been updated to deal with issues related to digital records and other modern technology.
Romney's spokesmen emphasise that he followed the law and precedent in deleting the emails, installing new computers in the governor's office and buying up hard drives.
However, Theresa Dolan, former director of administration for the governor's office, told Reuters that Romney's efforts to control or wipe out records from his governorship were unprecedented.
Dolan said that in her 23 years as an aide to successive governors "no one had ever inquired about or expressed the desire" to purchase their computer hard drives before Romney's tenure.
The cleanup of records by Romney's staff before his term ended included spending $205,000 for a three-year lease on new computers for the governor's office, according to official documents and state officials.
In signing the lease Romney aides broke an earlier three-year lease that provided the same number of computers for about half the cost: $108,000.
Lease documents obtained by Reuters under the state's freedom of information law indicate that the broken lease still had 18 months to run.
As a result of the change in leases the cost to the state for computers in the governor's office was an additional $97,000.
Andrea Saul, a spokeswoman for Romney's presidential campaign, referred questions on the computer leasing deal and records removal to state officials.
Last week Saul claimed that Deval Patrick, the present Massachusetts governor and a Democrat, was encouraging reports about Romney's records to cast the former governor as secretive. Patrick's office has not responded to that allegation.
The removal of digital records by Romney's staff, first reported by the Boston Globe, has sparked a wave of requests for state officials to release paper records from Romney's governorship that remain in the state archives.
Massachusetts officials are reviewing state law to determine whether the public should have access to those records.
The issue is clouded by a 1997 state court ruling that could be interpreted to mean that records of the Massachusetts governor are not subject to disclosure. Romney has asserted that his records are exempt from disclosure.

State officials and a longtime Romney adviser have acknowledged that before leaving office Romney asked state archives officials for permission to destroy certain paper records. It is unclear whether his office notified anyone from the state before destroying electronic records.

Officials have said the details of Romney's request to remove paper records, such as what specific documents he wanted to destroy, could be made public only in response to a request under the state's freedom of information law. Reuters has filed such a request.




 
Rick Perry: more than a prayer of carrying the GOP nomination The Texas Governor can not only count on the Christian right's backing, but is a more effective retail politician than Mitt Romney reddit this Comments (121) megan Megan Carpentier guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 10 August 2011 19.35 BST Article history Rick Perry Governor Rick Perry speaks at the close of the Response, a call to prayer for a nation in crisis, Saturday 6 August 2011, in Houston, Texas. He is expected to announce his bid for the Republican presidential nomination for 2012. Photograph: David J Phillip/AP Texas's Republican governor, Rick Perry, has an unenviable reputation – if you're the sort of person who pays attention to long-time governors who haven't been competing for the attention of the Washington press corps for years. He's widely seen as kind of stupid, possibly vindictive, "unencumbered by conscience", overly religious, ultraconservative and even, given his start as a Democrat, a flip-flopper. But in the 2012 race, he could well be a game-changer. The GOP field has, by any estimation, spiralled completely out of control. Whoever leads the polling at any given minute is largely a function of how much attention – even negative attention – they're getting in the mainstream press: from Donald Trump to Herman Cain to Representative Michele Bachmann, there's hardly a major contender (other than former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty) who hasn't had their moment atop the polls in the last several months. And yet, few of those who make it to the top, other than former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, has much, if any of the mainstream appeal that will be required to unseat the incumbent president, low approval ratings or not. Perry's reputation, though hardly pristine, could help winnow the field. His prayer event last weekend gives him credentials on the religious right to rival Bachmann; his brief flirtation with secession puts him squarely in competition for neo-libertarian votes with Representative Ron Paul; his love of tax cuts and business-friendly environments rivals Cain's; and his full head of hair gives Romney a run for his money. He hates same-sex marriage, loves the death penalty, talks down a centralised federal government (even as, apparently, he wants to lead it) and is not one to shy away from criticising the current administration or its signature achievement, the healthcare reform bill. Unlike Romney, the wealthy scion of a political family, Perry has a compelling (and more understandable) personal history: unlike New Gingrich, he's still married to his high-school sweetheart and, like former President Bill Clinton, he battled his way out of poverty to the governor's mansion. While he began his political life as a conservative Democrat, he's been a Republican since 1989 and owes his political fortunes, in part, to former George W Bush adviser Karl Rove and to Bush himself, under whom he served as lieutenant governor. He's made no major flip-flops on social issues like abortion, unlike Mitt Romney, and doesn't have a track record of serving in the House and taking advantage of the ability to use that position to steer tax dollars to the state. And though he recently came under fire when his love of decentralised government butted up against his opposition to same-sex marriage, that does, actually, happen to be the position taken by none other than former Vice President Dick Cheney. While much of the press has been courting a case of whiplash by running from one popular candidate to the other, attempting to paint them as too fringe to win in a general election, Perry (like former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin) has largely kept his head down and his potentially off-putting policy prescriptions to himself, and let his fellow socially conservative compatriots battle it out among themselves. That, it seems, is about to change – and the person most scared should be Romney. Romney, about whom the most "fringe" thing is his membership in the Mormon church, is widely seen – including by the Obama administration – as the candidate most likely to be still standing after the bruising primary season, and to whom disaffected independents might be most likely to flock. He's a Republican from a liberal state who passed an almost uncontroversial universal healthcare bill; he's got a politician's looks, attractive (and seemingly normal) children and only one marriage under his belt; and his most long-time conservative credentials are on the economic side. But he faces significant obstacles on his own side. Social conservatives view warily his reconsidered position on abortion rights; his religious preferences give, among others, evangelicals pause; Tea Partiers aren't keen on his universal healthcare legislation; and he ran a state still referred to by conservatives as "Taxachusetts". Perry has none of that baggage, and all his own hair. He's likely to unite the social and religious conservatives who view the chances of some of the current darlings with a modicum of suspicion; he will pull economic conservative votes from Romney; and he knows how to use his Texas drawl to make at least a few independents wonder if he isn't just a regular guy like them. And, as two consecutive Clinton and two consecutive Bush administrations showed, American voters love electing "regular guys" – even if that which makes them seem "regular" is little more than a carefully-scripted simulacrum.
 
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