US Presidential Primaries

[h=1]Campaign Sends Romney to the Rescue. Ann Romney.[/h] [h=6]By MICHAEL BARBARO[/h] [h=6]Published: December 12, 2011 [/h]




DES MOINES - Ann Romney switches off shrill TV coverage of the presidential race "all the time." She is exasperated by the hyperpartisanship of the moment. As for the debates? "Listen," she said in a rare interview here, "I don't even want to go to the debates."

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[h=6]Paul Sancya/Associated Press[/h] Ann Romney has taken on a more visible role in the race.



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[h=6]Eric Thayer for The New York Times[/h] Ann Romney at a campaign event in Des Moines last week. She speaks of "the other side of Mitt that you never hear about."


But with her husband's bid for the Republican presidential nomination suddenly endangered by Newt Gingrich, Mrs. Romney is being deployed with a growing sense of urgency to do what her husband has been unwilling or unable to do this election season: offer voters a compelling, three-dimensional portrait of Mitt Romney.
As the Romney campaign has tried to regain ground, Mrs. Romney, 62, has appeared, over the last week, at four events in Iowa, New Hampshire and Washington, offering what she calls "the other side of Mitt that you never hear about."
In the process, she is drawing attention to a potentially powerful asset in a race against the twice-divorced Mr. Gingrich, especially in conservative states like Iowa: the Romneys' unblemished marriage of 42 years.
In a suburban living room here a few days ago, amid platters of chicken salad tarts and red velvet cupcakes, Mrs. Romney brought a group of local women to tears describing how her husband has stood by her throughout her battle with multiple sclerosis, which once left her debilitatingly depressed and fatigued for months at a time.
"He is there, he is steadfast, you can count on him," Mrs. Romney told the women. "He won't abandon you in the hardest times."
The message was not lost on the voters in the room.
"It says a lot about his character," said Connie Schmett, who attended the event. "If he is not going to abandon his wife, he is not going to abandon his country."
Mrs. Romney insists that she is not comparing her husband's personal life with that of Mr. Gingrich, who is now married to his third wife, Callista.
"I have fond feelings for both Newt and Callista," Mrs. Romney said. "And I am not going to make any judgment or any - I am never going to make any statement about that, on a personal level."
Yet she conceded that her steady - and by all accounts, adoring - marriage could influence voters "if that matters to them," adding: "We are just who we are. We present who we are."
Advisers to Mr. Romney, a former Massachusetts governor, say privately that they believe that one of Mr. Gingrich's biggest vulnerabilities is his marital history. He has acknowledged having had extramarital affairs, including with Callista, a chapter in his life that several Romney supporters said had colored their view of him.
"That's the problem with Newt a little bit for me - infidelity," said Ellen Thibodeau, 44, who showed up at a rally for Mr. Romney in Hudson, N.H., on Sunday. "My husband and I take our commitment to each other very seriously."
Mrs. Romney's newly higher profile, those close to her said, is the natural extension of the private role she has long played as her husband's inseparable partner and essential touchstone. (Aides tell tales of Mr. Romney walking into a crowded room and seeming unsettled until he can locate his wife. "Where's Ann?" he asks.)
Mrs. Romney, the daughter of a self-made businessman from Wales, began dating Mr. Romney during high school in Michigan, converted to Mormonism and married him at age 20.
His need to have her present has even trumped her dislike for the presidential debates. During commercial breaks at one in Des Moines on Saturday, Mr. Romney stepped down from the stage and walked into the audience to speak with his wife.
While she insists that she is not involved in day-to-day operations of the campaign, she acknowledges heavily influencing Mr. Romney's biggest political decisions - especially to run for president this year.
Mr. Romney, she said, "was the one who was reluctant, much more reluctant, this time."
"He was just thinking with his head," she recalled. "This is what is involved, this is the process. This could happen, that could happen."

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Ashley Parker contributed reporting from Hudson, N.H.





[h=6]A version of this article appeared in print on December 13, 2011, on page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: The Campaign Sends Romney To the Rescue. Ann Romney..
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[h=6]Op-Ed Columnist[/h] [h=1]Depression and Democracy[/h] [h=6]By PAUL KRUGMAN[/h] [h=6]Published: December 11, 2011 [/h]




It's time to start calling the current situation what it is: a depression. True, it's not a full replay of the Great Depression, but that's cold comfort. Unemployment in both America and Europe remains disastrously high. Leaders and institutions are increasingly discredited. And democratic values are under siege.

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[h=6]Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times[/h] Paul Krugman

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On that last point, I am not being alarmist. On the political as on the economic front it's important not to fall into the "not as bad as" trap. High unemployment isn't O.K. just because it hasn't hit 1933 levels; ominous political trends shouldn't be dismissed just because there's no Hitler in sight.
Let's talk, in particular, about what's happening in Europe - not because all is well with America, but because the gravity of European political developments isn't widely understood.
First of all, the crisis of the euro is killing the European dream. The shared currency, which was supposed to bind nations together, has instead created an atmosphere of bitter acrimony.
Specifically, demands for ever-harsher austerity, with no offsetting effort to foster growth, have done double damage. They have failed as economic policy, worsening unemployment without restoring confidence; a Europe-wide recession now looks likely even if the immediate threat of financial crisis is contained. And they have created immense anger, with many Europeans furious at what is perceived, fairly or unfairly (or actually a bit of both), as a heavy-handed exercise of German power.
Nobody familiar with Europe's history can look at this resurgence of hostility without feeling a shiver. Yet there may be worse things happening.
Right-wing populists are on the rise from Austria, where the Freedom Party (whose leader used to have neo-Nazi connections) runs neck-and-neck in the polls with established parties, to Finland, where the anti-immigrant True Finns party had a strong electoral showing last April. And these are rich countries whose economies have held up fairly well. Matters look even more ominous in the poorer nations of Central and Eastern Europe.
Last month the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development documented a sharp drop in public support for democracy in the "new E.U." countries, the nations that joined the European Union after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Not surprisingly, the loss of faith in democracy has been greatest in the countries that suffered the deepest economic slumps.
And in at least one nation, Hungary, democratic institutions are being undermined as we speak.
One of Hungary's major parties, Jobbik, is a nightmare out of the 1930s: it's anti-Roma (Gypsy), it's anti-Semitic, and it even had a paramilitary arm. But the immediate threat comes from Fidesz, the governing center-right party.
Fidesz won an overwhelming Parliamentary majority last year, at least partly for economic reasons; Hungary isn't on the euro, but it suffered severely because of large-scale borrowing in foreign currencies and also, to be frank, thanks to mismanagement and corruption on the part of the then-governing left-liberal parties. Now Fidesz, which rammed through a new Constitution last spring on a party-line vote, seems bent on establishing a permanent hold on power.
The details are complex. Kim Lane Scheppele, who is the director of Princeton's Law and Public Affairs program - and has been following the Hungarian situation closely - tells me that Fidesz is relying on overlapping measures to suppress opposition. A proposed election law creates gerrymandered districts designed to make it almost impossible for other parties to form a government; judicial independence has been compromised, and the courts packed with party loyalists; state-run media have been converted into party organs, and there's a crackdown on independent media; and a proposed constitutional addendum would effectively criminalize the leading leftist party.
Taken together, all this amounts to the re-establishment of authoritarian rule, under a paper-thin veneer of democracy, in the heart of Europe. And it's a sample of what may happen much more widely if this depression continues.
It's not clear what can be done about Hungary's authoritarian slide. The U.S. State Department, to its credit, has been very much on the case, but this is essentially a European matter. The European Union missed the chance to head off the power grab at the start - in part because the new Constitution was rammed through while Hungary held the Union's rotating presidency. It will be much harder to reverse the slide now. Yet Europe's leaders had better try, or risk losing everything they stand for.

And they also need to rethink their failing economic policies. If they don't, there will be more backsliding on democracy - and the breakup of the euro may be the least of their worries.





[h=6]A version of this op-ed appeared in print on December 12, 2011, on page A23 of the New York edition with the headline: Depression And Democracy.[/h]





 



[h=1]Obama promised to listen to scientists – so why restrict the morning-after pill?[/h] Obama promised to 'return science to its rightful place'. So why is he breaking that promise with restrictions on emergency contraception?




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President Obama with his daughters. Photograph: Carolyn Kaster/ASSOCIATED PRESS

The Republican party's self-serving and dangerous disregard of science has been a rash on the American government for some time, one that blistered into a seeping sore under George W Bush's administration. Bush politicised science the way he politicised religion, two acts that have no place in an enlightened and democratic society. Needless to say, these two acts frequently overlapped, with the Bush administration repeatedly ignoring the advice of scientists about the prevention of sexually transmitted diseases and teenage pregnancies – promoting unrealistic chastity programmes instead – as much as he did about climate change.
In the early days of his presidency, President Obama repeatedly cited this massive failing of the previous administration as a point of difference, promising to "return science to its rightful place" in his inaugural speech. Last week, he broke that promise, badly.
Scientists have been grumbling about the current administration for some time. Last year the LA Times interviewed scientists who claimed that politics often took precedence over science, citing cases such as the decision to fight the gulf oil spill with toxic chemical dispersants despite scientists' concerns.
Last week the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) informed the administration that, after careful study, Plan B, the morning after pill, was safe and should, at last, be made available to teenagers without prescription. Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary of health and human resources, rejected this. The New Yorker's Michael Specter wrote that this was "the first time anyone can remember that a health secretary publicly opposed the recommendation of the FDA commissioner."
Obama backed Sebelius, citing concerns about a "10- or 11-year-old" being able to pick it up "alongside bubble gum". He added, "As the father of two daughters, I think it is important for us to make sure that we apply some common sense to various rules when it comes to over-the-counter medicine."
Speaking as a daughter myself, I'd rather not be used as an excuse to make it harder for teenage girls to prevent unwanted pregnancies. Taking – for the briefest of seconds – the deranged suggestion that easier access to Plan B will lead to rampant nymphomania among American children, according to the most recent data, of the 758,000 pregnancies in girls who are teenage or younger that happen on average annually in America, 212 involve 12-year-olds or younger. That is, of course, 212 too many but Obama is diverting attention from the real problem by focusing on the 0.0002% here.
Also, I don't know which teenagers the Obama administration has been hanging out with but I have yet to meet one who is about to have sex only to pause and think, "Wait! Will this be harder to sort out tomorrow? Yes! I shall pull up my knickers, then!" The idea that making Plan B harder to get will stop young people from having sex is bitingly reminiscent of the Republican right's theory that teaching sexual education in schools will cause teenagers who would otherwise remain chaste to have sex. Presumably these people also believe that if you don't teach children table manners they won't eat. The government might not like the idea of teenagers having sex, but making it more difficult for them to deal with the fallout is dangerously delusional.
Finally, to bring his daughters into the equation insinuates moral and intellectual superiority by dint of being a parent; it also personalises and, by extension, politicises a scientific issue in a downright Bush-ian manner.
Speaking of whom, this is not the first time greater availability of Plan B has been rejected. It happened under Bush, too, in 2004, when the FDA rejected the recommendations of its advisory board. Susan Wood quit the FDA in protest at the time. On Sunday, she appeared on the MSNBC news channel: "I just can't believe I'm talking about this again," she said, sadly. Few can.
Sisters are doing it to themselves News that most people can't tell the difference between quotes from British men's magazines and interviews with convicted rapists is obviously disgusting if not really surprising. These magazines generally read like something edited by a combination of Benny Hill and Travis Bickle, proffering tips such as "You do not want to be caught red-handed ... go and smash her on a park bench."
There has been much discussion about the depiction and presence of women in public life of late, including my colleague Kira Cochrane's excellent piece last week about the underrepresentation of women in the media.
Another issue to consider is the way some prominent women in the media talk about other women. As Cochrane noted, the Daily Mail "came the closest of any newspaper to having parity" between male and female journalists. Yet it's hard to see that as a good thing when these women write articles such as "Too sexy, too laidback, too independent … Why some women just aren't wife material." The female columnists on that paper could teach men's magazines a thing or two about misogyny. The flutter last week about Nigella Lawson's toffee-covered magazine cover photo reminded me of another Daily Mail article in which Lawson and Kirstie Allsopp were excoriated by a female journalist who surmised that women who model themselves on them "have high-earning husbands only too glad their wives are lactating treacle so they can have affairs or get drunk".

Lawson herself is not above such barbs, having once said, "I do think that women who spend their lives on a diet probably have a miserable sex life". All of which proves you don't need to turn to men's magazines to see women judged by their body shape and sex lives, and for spurious connections to be made between the two.





 



[h=1]How Fox News is helping Barack Obama's re-election bid[/h] Because Fox has put off the best Republican candidates, Barack Obama will be much less vulnerable at the election




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A Republican supporter sports a Newt Gingrich badge. 'In the days before he broke from the pack, Gingrich topped the Fox News airtime chart.' Photograph: Michael Nagle/Getty Images

Whoever wrote the political rulebook needs to start rewriting it. It used to be an iron maxim that voters' most vital organ was neither their head nor their heart, but their wallet. If they were suffering economically, they'd throw the incumbents out. Yet in Britain a coalition presiding over barely-there growth, rising unemployment and forecasts of gloom stretching to the horizon is holding steady in the opinion polls, while in the US Barack Obama is mired in horrible numbers – except for the ones showing him beating all-comers in the election now less than 11 months away. Even though the US economy is slumped in the doldrums, some of the country's shrewdest commentators make a serious case that Obama could be heading for a landslide victory in 2012.
How to explain such a turnaround? In the United States, at least, there is one compellingly simple, two-word answer: Fox News.
By any normal standards, Obama should be extremely vulnerable. Not only is the economy in bad shape, he has proved to be a much more hesitant, less commanding White House presence than his supporters longed for. And yet, most surveys put him comfortably ahead of his would-be rivals. That's not a positive judgment on the president – whose approval rating stands at a meagre 44% – but an indictment of the dire quality of a Republican field almost comically packed with the scandal-plagued, gaffe-prone and downright flaky. And the finger of blame for this state of affairs points squarely at the studios of Fox News.
It's not just usual-suspect lefties and professional Murdoch-haters who say it, mischievously exaggerating the cable TV network's influence. Dick Morris, veteran political operative and Fox regular, noted the phenomenon himself the other day while sitting on the Fox sofa. "This is a phenomenon of this year's election," he said. "You don't win Iowa in Iowa. You win it on this couch. You win it on Fox News." In other words, it is Fox – with the largest cable news audience, representing a huge chunk of the Republican base – that is, in effect, picking the party's nominee to face Obama next November.
This doesn't work crudely – not that crudely, anyway. Roger Ailes, the Fox boss, does not deliver a newspaper-style endorsement of a single, anointed candidate. Rather, some are put in the sunlight, and others left to moulder in the shade. The Media Matters organisation keeps tabs on what it calls the Fox Primary, measuring by the minute who gets the most airtime. It has charted a striking correlation, with an increase in a candidate's Fox appearances regularly followed by a surge in the opinion polls. Herman Cain and Rick Perry both benefited from that Fox effect, with Newt Gingrich, the former House Speaker, the latest: in the days before he broke from the pack, Gingrich topped the Fox airtime chart. Meanwhile, Mitt Romney cannot seem to break through a 20-to-25% ceiling in the polls – hardly surprising considering, as the league table shows, he has never been a Fox favourite.
But it works in a subtler way than the mere degree of exposure. Fox, serving up constant outrage and fury, favours bluster over policy coherence. Its ideal contributor is a motormouth not a wonk, someone who makes good TV rather than good policy. Little wonder it fell for Cain and is swooning now for Gingrich – one of whom has never held elected office while the other messed up when he did, but who can talk and talk – while it has little interest in Romney and even less in Jon Huntsman, even though both have impressive records as state governors. The self-described conservative journalist Andrew Sullivan says that the dominant public figures on the right are no longer serving politicians, but "provocative, polarising media stars" who serve up enough controversy and conflict to keep the ratings high. "In that atmosphere, you need talk-show hosts as president, not governors or legislators."
Fox News and what Sullivan calls the wider "Media Industrial Complex" have not only determined the style of the viable Republican presidential candidate, but the content too. If one is to flourish rather than wither in the Fox spotlight, there are several articles of faith to which one must subscribe – from refusing to believe in human-made climate change, and insisting that Christians are an embattled minority in the US, persecuted by a liberal, secular, bi-coastal elite, to believing that government regulation is always wrong, and that any attempt to tax the wealthiest people is immoral. Those who deviate are rapidly branded foreign, socialist or otherwise un-American.
Some wonder if it was fear of this ultra-conservative catechism that pushed a series of Republican heavyweights to sit out 2012. "The talent pool got constricted," says David Frum, the former George W Bush speechwriter who has been boldest in speaking out against the Foxification of his party. Fox sets a series of litmus tests that not every Republican can or wants to pass.
This affects those who run as well as those who step aside, setting the parameters within which a Republican candidate must operate. What troubles Frum is that it pushes Republicans to adopt positions that will make them far less appealing to the national electorate in November, with Romney's forced march rightward typical. Even if Romney somehow wins the nomination, he won't be "the pragmatic, problem-solving Mitt Romney" of yore, says Frum, but a new Foxified version. It was this process that led the former speechwriter to declare last year: "Republicans originally thought that Fox worked for us – and now we're discovering we work for Fox."
So far, so bad for the Republicans. Why should anyone else care? Because the Fox insistence on unbending ideological correctness turns every compromise – a necessary staple of governance – into an act of treachery. The Republican refusal, cheered on by a Fox News chorus, to raise the US debt ceiling this summer, thereby prompting the downgrading of America's credit rating, is only the most vivid example. The larger pattern is one of stubborn, forced gridlock, paralysing the republic even now, at a moment of global economic crisis.
The problem is compounded by a wilful blindness towards the facts. Ari Rabin-Havt of Media Matters says Fox has created a "post-truth politics", which is happy to ignore and distort basic empirical evidence. To take one example, Fox pundits constantly repeat that "53% of Americans pay all the tax". In fact, 53% pay all the federal income tax – but many, many more pay so-called payroll taxes. It's hard for a nation to make the right policy decisions if the public is misled on the basic facts. And misled they certainly are. A series of surveys has proven that Fox viewers are woefully ignorant of current affairs, the latest study revealing that it is actually better to consume no news than to watch Fox: you end up better informed.
The extremism, anger, paranoia and sense of victimhood that Fox incubates are all unhealthy for the United States. But it's inflicting particular damage on the Republican party, which could well lose a winnable election because of its supine relationship to a TV network. It turns out it is not liberals who should fear the Fox – it's conservatives.




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[h=1]GOP Fox News Iowa debate – live[/h] Follow the latest with Richard Adams as the Republican candidates gather for the final TV debate of the year, this week in Iowa with Fox News



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Fox News Republican presidential debate in Sioux City, Iowa. Photograph: Scott Olson/Getty Images

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Republican candidate Michele Bachmann at the Fox News debate in Iowa. Photograph: Eric Gay/AP 10.50pm: Michele Bachmann is accusing Newt Gingrich of being soft on abortion. "I had a 98.5% right to life voting record," says Gingrich.
Now Michele Bachmann is hitting back, saying that she's sick of being accused of having her facts wrong.
10.45pm: Romney's shifting positions on gay rights are being aired, with Romney faced once again with his 1994 statement that he would do more for gay rights than Ted Kennedy – Ted Kennedy! – if elected. Oh no, says Romney, I'm all for equality. Except for gays who want to get married.
10.42pm: "Governor Romney you have changed your mind on..." says moderator Chris Wallace. Oh dear, we could be here for a while. Abortion, gay rights and guns, in fact.
10.41pm: Jon Huntsman says that Hispanics will vote Republican because of the party's pro-growth policies, and never mind all the borderline racism and scapegoating.
10.40pm: Mitt Romney wants an ID card for non-resident aliens. Yes that will work. Just like using Social Security numbers. And passports. What's that you say? It hasn't worked? Well Mitt's new super cards will work.
Now Mitt Romney is actually sucking up to Newt Gingrich, who returns the favour. It's nice that they are friends again, after a week of accusing each other of being corrupt or zany.
10.36pm: Onto "border issues and immigration", and Rick Perry is asked if he is "politicising the issue". He is typically firm, saying Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas could use the porous Mexican border to launch attacks into America. By saying which, Perry doesn't politicise the issue at all, of course.
10.26pm: Our correspondent Suzanne Goldenberg is at the debate venue in Sioux City, Iowa, and she sends this analysis of the debate so far:
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As the second half gets under way, there is no sign yet that the second-tier candidates – Perry, Huntsman, Bachman and Santorum – have done anything to prevent them from heading off into oblivion 19 days from now.
Not that they are giving up. Both Bachman and Perry have an exhausting weekend campaign schedule, with Bachman visiting more than a dozen Iowa towns a day.
Bachman broke through by being the first to attack Newt Gingrich for taking $1.6m from the mortgage companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, but her other responses have just been a reiteration of clichés.
Perry has spent a little bit too much time staring slack-jawed into the camera to dispel the impression that he does not have the intellect to be president. But he did get applause for his idea for a part-time Congress, working just 140 days every two years,
Santorum reminded Iowans how much time he has spent in the state – without gaining traction – and then dug himself into a hole with a confused and rambling answer on Iran, somehow simultaneously invoking al-Qaida and the nuclear doctrines of the Cold War.
Huntsman meanwhile seems to have misjudged his audience with his line about America getting screwed. That just about sums up his chances in the Iowa caucuses.
​
10.24pm: All of candidates are having fun beating up on Obama here, but this isn't going to wash in a presidential debate with Obama standing right there and able to speak.
10.19pm: Ron Paul is full-on mode, accusing Michele Bachmann of being a scare-mongerer. This is brilliant. He schools her, saying that if she thinks the world is dangerous place then how about when he was drafted in 1961, with the cold war going. Bachmann looks panicked and is reduced to babbling something about "standing alongside the American people". Whatever that means in this context. Probably nothing.
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Ana Marie Cox
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I want us all to mark this moment when crazy met nuts and crazy won. #iowadebate

16 Dec 11

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10.13pm: "With all respect to Ron Paul, I don't think I have ever heard such a dangerous argument for America's security that that from Ron Paul," says Michele Bachmann. With all due respect Ron Paul you are an insane lunatic.
Bonus points to Bachmann for raising the spectre of a "global Caliphate".
10.12pm: By trying to build a nuclear bomb, Iran is trying to provoke a war! But don't worry, Rick Santorum's onto them, and that's why we should bomb them.
Don't examine that argument's logic too closely. In fact don't examine it all. Yes, we are into the "Bash Obama's foreign policy" phase of the debate.
10.07pm: We're onto Iran and the nuclear weapons. The question in essence: why, Ron Paul, will you not bomb these dangerous fanatics? "It's war propaganda going on," says Ron Paul. "The greatest danger is that we'll have a president who will over-react."
For bonus points he also called Iraq "that useless war".
Moderator Bret Baier says Ron Paul would be running to the left of Barack Obama on this matter. "What did we do on Libya? We talked them out of their nuclear weapon and then we killed him," says Paul. Hmm.
Paul appears to be running for President of Iran. Which is a novel tactic in a Republican presidential campaign.
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Republican presidential candidate Jon Huntsman speaks as Michele Bachmann listens during the Republican debate in Iowa. Photograph: Jim Young/Reuters 10.03pm: Another ad break. This debate is a big disappointment so far. Why has everyone been so quiet (other than Michele Bachmann and Ron Paul)? Come on Mitt Romney, up your game.
9.59pm: Now it's name your favourite Supreme Court justice. Hey, everyone loves Antonin Scalia. Ron says "From my point of view, they are all good and they are all bad." Eh?
9.56pm: Wow, Newt Gingrich is giving a history lesson here. Literally – arguing about what Thomas Jefferson did in 1803. He seems to want to remake the federal judiciary, in a way that is not at all scary and dangerous.
 
[h=1]Barack Obama declares Iraq war a success[/h] President told an audience of soldiers at Fort Bragg that the final pullout after nearly nine years of conflict is an 'historic' moment





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Barack Obama speaks as he visits troops at Fort Bragg to mark the end of the Iraq war. Photograph: Kevin Lamarque/Reuters

Barack Obama marked an end to a war he once described as "dumb" by declaring the conflict in Iraq a success and saying the last US troops will leave in the coming days with their "heads held high".
The president told an audience of soldiers at Fort Bragg that the final pullout from Iraq after nearly nine years of war is an "historic" moment and that the country they leave behind is "an extraordinary achievement".
"Dozens of bases with American names that housed thousands of American troops have been closed down or turned over to the Iraqis. Thousands of tons of equipment have been packed up and shipped out. Tomorrow, the colours of United States Forces Iraq, the colours you fought under, will be formally cased in a ceremony in Baghdad," he said. "One of the most extraordinary chapters in the history of the American military will come to an end. Iraq's future will be in the hands of its people. America's war in Iraq will be over."
The president said the last US troops will leave in the coming days, travelling south across the desert by much the same route that American, British and coalition forces attacked Iraq in 2003.
Obama hinted at the military and diplomatic quagmire he inherited from a Bush administration that had promised Americans a quick and easy war that would see Iraqis scattering flowers at the feet of US soldiers. Instead, the American invasion unleashed a conflict - part civil war, part anti-occupation - that dragged on for years.
But the president, who came to power promising to end the war, said that for all the suffering, the result was success.
"We knew this day would come. We've known it for some time. But still there is something profound about the end of a war that has lasted so long," said Obama. "It's harder to end a war than begin one. Everything that American troops have done in Iraq - all the fighting, all the dying, the bleeding and the building and the training and the partnering, all of it has landed to this moment of success."
Obama's studiously avoided declaring victory or the hubris of his predecessor, George Bush, who paraded under a banner proclaiming "Mission Accomplished" just as the worst of the killing in Iraq was about to begin. But the president said that the US has left Iraq better than it found it.
"Iraq's not a perfect place. It has many challenges ahead. But we're leaving behind a sovereign, stable and self reliant Iraq with a representative government that was elected by its people. We're building a new partnership between our nations and we are ending a war not with a final battle but with a final march toward home. This is an extraordinary achievement," he said.
That interpretation is strongly disputed by critics of the way who say the conflict has destabilised the region, strengthened Iran and exposed US military shortcomings which may encourage future conflict. It is also claimed by critics that the war has strengthened hostility to the US and fueled not deterred terrorism.
The overwhelming US public support for the invasion in 2003, in part driven by the Bush administration's misleading attempts to link Iraq to the 9/11 al-Qaeda attacks as well as its flawed claims about weapons of mass destruction, faded as the costs in American lives and dollars rose.
The president acknowledged part of the huge human cost of the war.
"We know too well the heavy cost of this war. More than 1.5m Americans have served in Iraq. Over 30,000 Americans have been wounded and those are only the wounds that show. Nearly 4,500 Americans made the ultimate sacrifice," he said. "We also know that these numbers don't tell the full story of the Iraq war. Not even close."
Obama made no mention of Iraqi deaths. The cost in Iraqi lives is heavily disputed but is generally believed to run in to the hundreds of thousands.
Neither did the president talk about the financial cost of the war that earlier this week he said ran above $1 trillion - an expense that has contributed significantly to America's economic decline.
Obama did touch on his own opposition to the invasion of Iraq in noting that while the war may have divided the country, support for the troops was solid as was their commitment.

"Our efforts in Iraq have taken many twists and turns. It was a source of great controversy at home with patriots on both sides of the debate. But there was one constant: your patriotism. Your commitment to fulfil your mission. Your abiding commitment to one another. That was constant. That did not change. That did not waver," he said to loud cheers.





 

[h=1] [/h]

[h=1]GOP Fox News Iowa debate – live[/h] Follow the latest with Richard Adams as the Republican candidates gather for the final TV debate of the year, this week in Iowa with Fox News



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Fox-News-Republican-presi-006.jpg
Fox News Republican presidential debate in Sioux City, Iowa. Photograph: Scott Olson/Getty Images

Republican-candidate-Mich-007.jpg
Republican candidate Michele Bachmann at the Fox News debate in Iowa. Photograph: Eric Gay/AP 10.50pm: Michele Bachmann is accusing Newt Gingrich of being soft on abortion. "I had a 98.5% right to life voting record," says Gingrich.
Now Michele Bachmann is hitting back, saying that she's sick of being accused of having her facts wrong.
10.45pm: Romney's shifting positions on gay rights are being aired, with Romney faced once again with his 1994 statement that he would do more for gay rights than Ted Kennedy – Ted Kennedy! – if elected. Oh no, says Romney, I'm all for equality. Except for gays who want to get married.
10.42pm: "Governor Romney you have changed your mind on..." says moderator Chris Wallace. Oh dear, we could be here for a while. Abortion, gay rights and guns, in fact.
10.41pm: Jon Huntsman says that Hispanics will vote Republican because of the party's pro-growth policies, and never mind all the borderline racism and scapegoating.
10.40pm: Mitt Romney wants an ID card for non-resident aliens. Yes that will work. Just like using Social Security numbers. And passports. What's that you say? It hasn't worked? Well Mitt's new super cards will work.
Now Mitt Romney is actually sucking up to Newt Gingrich, who returns the favour. It's nice that they are friends again, after a week of accusing each other of being corrupt or zany.
10.36pm: Onto "border issues and immigration", and Rick Perry is asked if he is "politicising the issue". He is typically firm, saying Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas could use the porous Mexican border to launch attacks into America. By saying which, Perry doesn't politicise the issue at all, of course.
10.26pm: Our correspondent Suzanne Goldenberg is at the debate venue in Sioux City, Iowa, and she sends this analysis of the debate so far:
suzanne_goldenberg_60x60.jpg
As the second half gets under way, there is no sign yet that the second-tier candidates – Perry, Huntsman, Bachman and Santorum – have done anything to prevent them from heading off into oblivion 19 days from now.
Not that they are giving up. Both Bachman and Perry have an exhausting weekend campaign schedule, with Bachman visiting more than a dozen Iowa towns a day.
Bachman broke through by being the first to attack Newt Gingrich for taking $1.6m from the mortgage companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, but her other responses have just been a reiteration of clichés.
Perry has spent a little bit too much time staring slack-jawed into the camera to dispel the impression that he does not have the intellect to be president. But he did get applause for his idea for a part-time Congress, working just 140 days every two years,
Santorum reminded Iowans how much time he has spent in the state – without gaining traction – and then dug himself into a hole with a confused and rambling answer on Iran, somehow simultaneously invoking al-Qaida and the nuclear doctrines of the Cold War.
Huntsman meanwhile seems to have misjudged his audience with his line about America getting screwed. That just about sums up his chances in the Iowa caucuses.
​
10.24pm: All of candidates are having fun beating up on Obama here, but this isn't going to wash in a presidential debate with Obama standing right there and able to speak.
10.19pm: Ron Paul is full-on mode, accusing Michele Bachmann of being a scare-mongerer. This is brilliant. He schools her, saying that if she thinks the world is dangerous place then how about when he was drafted in 1961, with the cold war going. Bachmann looks panicked and is reduced to babbling something about "standing alongside the American people". Whatever that means in this context. Probably nothing.
tumblr_lubgglxDWo1r5gmoeo1_500_normal.jpg
Ana Marie Cox
  • ✔
@anamariecox
I want us all to mark this moment when crazy met nuts and crazy won. #iowadebate

16 Dec 11

​

10.13pm: "With all respect to Ron Paul, I don't think I have ever heard such a dangerous argument for America's security that that from Ron Paul," says Michele Bachmann. With all due respect Ron Paul you are an insane lunatic.
Bonus points to Bachmann for raising the spectre of a "global Caliphate".
10.12pm: By trying to build a nuclear bomb, Iran is trying to provoke a war! But don't worry, Rick Santorum's onto them, and that's why we should bomb them.
Don't examine that argument's logic too closely. In fact don't examine it all. Yes, we are into the "Bash Obama's foreign policy" phase of the debate.
10.07pm: We're onto Iran and the nuclear weapons. The question in essence: why, Ron Paul, will you not bomb these dangerous fanatics? "It's war propaganda going on," says Ron Paul. "The greatest danger is that we'll have a president who will over-react."
For bonus points he also called Iraq "that useless war".
Moderator Bret Baier says Ron Paul would be running to the left of Barack Obama on this matter. "What did we do on Libya? We talked them out of their nuclear weapon and then we killed him," says Paul. Hmm.
Paul appears to be running for President of Iran. Which is a novel tactic in a Republican presidential campaign.
Republican-presidential-c-007.jpg
Republican presidential candidate Jon Huntsman speaks as Michele Bachmann listens during the Republican debate in Iowa. Photograph: Jim Young/Reuters 10.03pm: Another ad break. This debate is a big disappointment so far. Why has everyone been so quiet (other than Michele Bachmann and Ron Paul)? Come on Mitt Romney, up your game.
9.59pm: Now it's name your favourite Supreme Court justice. Hey, everyone loves Antonin Scalia. Ron says "From my point of view, they are all good and they are all bad." Eh?
9.56pm: Wow, Newt Gingrich is giving a history lesson here. Literally – arguing about what Thomas Jefferson did in 1803. He seems to want to remake the federal judiciary, in a way that is not at all scary and dangerous.
tumblr_lubgglxDWo1r5gmoeo1_500_normal.jpg
Ana Marie Cox
  • ✔
@anamariecox
Newt: "As a history historian with a specialization in history about the past, in history, when I speak as historian, it's history."

16 Dec 11

​

Ron Paul is very unhappy with Gingrich's idea that Congress could subpoena judges to explain their judicial decisions.
So, what is it about Newt Gingrich that is conservative?
9.49pm: Asked which sector would create future jobs in America, the brilliant businessman Mitt Romney says that the "free market will decide". Anyway he thinks that "high technology" will create lots of jobs. What is this, 1989?
Republican-presidential-c-007.jpg
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney at the Fox News debate in Iowa Photograph: Scott Olson/Getty Images 9.48pm: So was Newt Gingrich a paid lobbyist, which Gingrich so strenuously denies? Yes, according to Timothy Carney of the Washington Examiner:
So we know he was paid consultant for drug makers. That's the first criterion for being a drug lobbyist.

Here's the second criterion: While some consultants simply provide strategy or advice, Gingrich directly contacted lawmakers in an effort to win their votes.
​
9.46pm: The foolish fools at Fox News dare to ask a question of Ron Paul's earmarks, i.e. claims claims for federal funds on behalf of his state. This is a man who refuses to vote for the Congressional Medal of Honor on the grounds that taxpayers' funds should be used to make the damned medal.
9.42pm: Meanwhile, Gingrich once again was trapped trying to explain his bilious attack on the Paul Ryan Medicare reforms – Gingrich branded them "right-wing social engineering" – and once again claims he said something he didn't.
And people think this guy could beat Obama in a debate?
9.40pm: Bachmann claimed during her Newt-attack just now that Politifact had backed up everything she had said about Gingrich during the last debate.
But what's this? A response from Politifact, denying the claim.
PolitiFact @politifact
For the record, we did not say that everything Michele Bachamnn said at last week's debate was true.

16 Dec 11

​

9.36pm: Michele Bachmann is also not convinced by Newt's attempt to compare Freddie Mac to other "government sponsored entities" such as credit unions. And she's right.
We can't have someone as our nominee someone who stands for Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, they need to be shut down.
​
Gingrich is claiming that what Bachmann said "is factually untrue." But he than claims things that Bachmann didn't accuse him of. Newt's screwing himself here, he can't win this one by defending something a lot of Republicans don't like.

Bachmann 1, Gingrich 0.
Gingrich's is still babbling away but he's digging a hole.
This is the danger of Newt Gingrich: give him enough rope and he will tie it around his own neck.
Republican-presidential-c-007.jpg
Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich at the Fox News debate in Iowa. Photograph: Jim Young/Reuters 9.35pm: Asked about taking bucketloads of cash from mortgage facilitator Freddie Mac, Gingrich somehow claims that he was "a private citizen" when he did so, and that doesn't count. Also, he then goes into a weird self-defence, claiming that he loves people buying houses. So he was just trying to help. By banking cheques for $1.6m.
And yet, not so long ago, Newt Gingrich wanted to shut down Fannie and Freddie. But now it turns out they are just brilliant.
Ron Paul isn't having it, saying that Newt has a different understanding of private sector, although he spoils the effect by somehow blabbing about fascism and Austrian economists.
9.31pm: Mitt Romney is asked about the charge levelled by Gingrich on Monday that he had "driven companies to bankruptcy" . Romney has obviously calculated that he can't attack Gingrich head on, and instead turned the answer onto Obama, for some reason, including a fantasy dialogue in which he, Mitt, foils Obama.
That suggests there won't be much in the way of fireworks tonight. I guess that it didn't work last time so he's playing safe.
9.30pm: MSNBC's Alex Wagner jokes on Twitter about Jon Huntsman's attempt to gain attention.
Alex Wagner @alexwagner
Huntsman subtext: "It is my turn to drive this clown car."

16 Dec 11

​

Well, it is his turn.
9.28pm: Bret Baier promised before the ad break there will be "a topic that has never been raised in any of the debates so far!" Oh whatever can it be? A round of "shag, marry, kill"? OK, to warm up: we could marry Jon Huntsman, shag Ron Paul. Kill the rest.
9.24pm: Someone tell Jon Huntsman that no-one cares about his sensible, popular record as governor of Utah.
9.22pm: If you had Saul Alinsky radical in tonight's debate drinking game, then chug, because Newt just dropped that.
If you don't know who Saul Alinsky is, join the 99% of the American population who are with you.
Roger Simon @politicoroger
I met Saul Alinsky. I interviewed Saul Alinsky. And Saul Alinsky would not have considered Obama a radical. #iowadebate

16 Dec 11

​

This is the "bash Obama" phase of the debate, in which all the candidates agree that Obama is an ineffectual, do-nothing novice president who is destroying the country.
9.18pm: Jon Huntsman gives a sensible, articulate reply thgat indicates he would make an excellent candidate. Naturally, everyone ignores him.
9.16pm: Asked why he is so rubbish, Rick Perry claims that like star quarterback Tim Tebow – actually not a very good quarterback but he somehow still wins games – he can be better than he looks. "I hope I am the Tim Tebow of the Iowa caucuses," says Perry. Perry will be lucky to be the Forrest Gump of the Iowa caucuses.
Fox-News-Republican-presi-006.jpg
Fox News Republican presidential debate in Sioux City, Iowa. Photograph: Scott Olson/Getty Images 9.15pm: They ask Michele Bachmann the same question about beating Obama. As if that's going to happen. "Fifty-five years old and I spent 50 years as a real person and five years going toe-to-toe with Barack Obama," says Bachmann, in a statement that is just weird.
9.12pm: Finally a question for Mitt Romney – why do Republicans think Newt Gingrich would beat Obama and not you? Naturally, rather than bashing Newt, Mitt gives some long-winded response that ends with how he turned down investing in Jet Blue. Huh? "Now one of favourite airlines," says Mitt, in case that lost him 0.3% of a vote.
9.10pm: Now it's Rick Santorum: how come every other candidate has at least had a spot at the top of the polls, and you haven't? "We present a clear contrast," says Rick. The contrast being: no-one is voting for you.
9.08pm: Ron Paul gets the second question, showing how far up the greasy poll he has climbed. It's a long one about being able to beat Obama. "Fortunately for the Republican party, pretty much anyone on this stage could beat Obama," says Ron, to cheers. Ah, check some opinion polls Ron.
9.07pm: Pressed again, Gingrich reels off the economic record of the Clinton administration, claiming it as his own and claiming: "That's pretty conservative."
Now he's claiming that he taught "one and two star generals the art of war". Is there no end to this man's talents? No, and that's the problem.
9.05pm: First question: Newt Gingrich, are you not a flip-flopping old has been? Naturally, The Grinch wishes everyone a happy Christmas, and then whisks into an answer comparing himself to Ronald Reagan, who was awesome, so therefore: no.
9.03pm: Here we go: Bret Baier is introducing the pack. Much briefer than unusual.
Oh dear, they are using the "Google Gchat alert" noise to signal that time is up. That makes me twitch like Pavlov's dog. Assuming Pavlov's dog is on Gmail.
9.02pm: Before we start, did we all notice Ron Paul smacking down Newt Gingrich big time on Fox News for being a Chicken Hawk? Here it is:
He's probably as aggressive with the military as anybody. He supports all the wars in the Middle East a thousand times more than I would. But you know in the nineteen-sixties when I was drafted in the military, he got several deferments. He chose not to go. Now he'll send our kids to war.
​
Ron Paul is running hard to win the Iowa caucuses. And this is playing hardball, old school style. And Ron Paul is nothing if not old school.
9.00pm: Interesting: one of the moderators of tonight's debate is Bret Baier. He's the one who made Mitt Romney cry that time.
8.59pm: In case you missed this from today's news-hose: here is my preview of tonight's debate.
Tonight's GOP presidential debate is the most important two hours of the year in US politics. Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney and the other Republican rivals gather in Sioux City, Iowa, like the survivors of a first world war battle huddling in a trench.
One by one, the Republican candidates have gone over the top. Some barely made it out of their foxhole. But others have all made their brief bid for victory, only to be taken down by a deadly barrage from friends and enemies alike.
​
8.53pm: Fox News has a neat idea on its debate website: an "answer or dodge" game where viewers can rate how each candidate responds to the moderator's questions.
Fox-News-website-game-004.jpg
Fox News website game. Photograph: guardian.co.uk Unfortunately Fox seem to have turned it on already. Ron Paul's near-obsessive devoteees are out in force already and he's off the scale in the green "answer" zone. Newt Gingrich is well into the red on "dodge", however.
8.37pm: In a way, tonight's debate a time for sadness. This will be the last time the whole gang is here on stage. Over the past 12, er, 13 or however many debates, we've come to love and sometimes hate this bunch of crazy kids.
Soon nature will take its course and the field will be winnowed down as the strong devour the weak. This is probably the last time anyone will take Rick Santorum or Michele Bachmann seriously on a national political debate stage.
Feel free to leave your memories of the 2011 debateathon below.
8.30pm: Welcome to the GOP presidential debate, brought to you by Fox News and the good people of Sioux City, Iowa – the final slugfest between, well, a pack of slugs.
The Iowa caucuses is on 3 January and between then and now this is it: the last chance to impress voters nationwide.
The last debate – back in the mists of last Saturday – grabbed nearly 8m viewers and since this one is on Fox, the house cable channel of the Republican party, the chances are the ratings will be even higher.
The stakes are high. For Mitt Romney, long-time front-runner, he risks being eclipsed by the debating skills and verbal gall of Newt Gingrich, who has surged in the polls in recent weekss.
But Gingrich's surge also appears to have been curbed as every senior Republican during the years 1990-2000 has queued up to sneer at Gingrich's disastrous term as Speaker of the House.
The National Journal, as staunchly Republican a publication as they come, launched its own considerable broadside against Gingrich, lashing him like an 18th century press-ganged sailor:
Gingrich's colleagues were, however, right to bring his tenure to an end. His character flaws-his impulsiveness, his grandiosity, his weakness for half-baked (and not especially conservative) ideas-made him a poor Speaker of the House. Again and again he combined incendiary rhetoric with irresolute action, bringing Republicans all the political costs of a hardline position without actually taking one. Again and again he put his own interests above those of the causes he championed in public.
​
Chances of that editorial being quoted tonight: vermillion.
 



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[h=1]Richard Adams's blog + Republican presidential nomination 2012[/h]


  • Friday 16 December 2011

  • [h=3]GOP Fox News Iowa debate – live[/h]
    Fox News Republican presidential debate in Sioux City, Iowa. Photograph: Scott Olson/Getty Images

    Follow the latest with Richard Adams as the Republican candidates gather for the final TV debate of the year, this week in Iowa with Fox News
    Continue reading... 81 comments


    Posted by Richard Adams
    03.55 GMT
  • Thursday 15 December 2011

  • [h=3]GOP debate: expect more grenades tossed Newt Gingrich's way[/h]
    Newt Gingrich: needs to play against type and show some restraint and statesmanship. Photograph: Jeff Haynes/Reuters

    Richard Adams: The debate in Iowa is the last chance before voting starts for the candidates to make a noise – and Newt Gingrich will have to dodge the inevitable flak
    Continue reading... 23 comments


    Posted by Richard Adams
    21.11 GMT
  • Tuesday 13 December 2011

  • [h=3]Gingrich-Huntsman debate: no news, just snooze[/h]
    Gingrich takes part in a town hall meeting Photograph: Mary Ann Chastain/REUTERS

    If the famous Lincoln-Douglas debates had been as insipid and smug as yesterday's self-styled copy – a debate between Newt Gingrich and Jon Huntsman – slavery would probably still be legal in America.
    In reality the long-winded discussion in New Hampshire between the two 2012 Republican presidential hopefuls was more like a warm bath than a hot-tempered dialogue.
    In 1858 Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas clashed over slavery, equality and what Lincoln called "the eternal struggle" over right and wrong – "The two principles that have stood face to face from the beginning of time," in Lincoln's words.
    By 2011, Gingrich and Huntsman politely mused alongside each other's thoughts, largely agreeing and when they didn't agree they merely agreed not to disagree. How agreeable.
    Continue reading...
    22 comments


    Posted by Richard Adams
    03.30 GMT
  • Monday 12 December 2011

  • [h=3]US politics live blog: Obama meets Iraqi PM; GOP rivals trade blows[/h]
    President Obama offers a handshake to Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Malaki in the Oval Office. Photograph: Chip Somodevilla/Getty

    President Obama met Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki in the White House as GOP rivals fought in New Hampshire
    Continue reading... 33 comments


    Posted by Richard Adams
    22.33 GMT
  • Sunday 11 December 2011

  • [h=3]GOP presidential debate in Iowa: as it happened[/h]
    Mitt Romney laughs as Newt Gingrich speaks at the Republican debate in Iowa. Photograph: Kevork Djansezian/Getty

    Mitt Romney suffered a $10,000 gaffe while Newt Gingrich brushed off a series of attacks during the GOP debate in Iowa
    Continue reading... 177 comments


    Posted by Richard Adams
    01.00 GMT
  • Saturday 10 December 2011

  • [h=3]Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich set for showdown in crucial GOP debate[/h]
    Mitt Romney (right) takes on Newt Gingrich in the GOP presidential debate in Des Moines, Iowa. Photograph: Joe Skipper/Reuters/Nicholas Kamm/AFP

    After seeing his rivals for the GOP presidential nomination self-destruct one by one, tonight's debate in Iowa offers Mitt Romney his best opportunity to arrest Newt Gingrich's sudden surge in popularity.
    As poll after poll in recent days has shown that Gingrich has replaced Romney as undisputed frontrunner for the Republican nomination, Romney's campaign has been forced onto the offensive – a policy that Romney will have to continue in tonight's debate in Des Moines.
    Romney previewed the tactics he is likely to use against the former Speaker of the House on Friday, poking fun at a series of Gingrich's more fanciful ideas, including a permanent moon base and paying children from improverished families to clean school bathrooms.
    Meanwhile, prominent Romney supporters lashed out at Gingrich in harsher terms, calling him unstable and untrustworthy, and a brutal new ad attacking Gingrich as a flipflopper who would lose in the general election to Obama has been released by a political action committee that backs Romney through a site called newtfacts.com.
    Gingrich was quick to reply in kind on Friday with a stinging claim that Romney's 1994 Senate bid saw him campaign "to the left of Ted Kennedy," thus tying Romney to the Massachusetts liberal icon.
    Continue reading...
    20 comments


    Posted by Richard Adams
    10.00 GMT
  • Wednesday 7 December 2011

  • [h=3]US politics live blog: GOP candidates at Republican Jewish Coalition[/h]
    GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney speaking at the Republican Jewish Coalition forum in Washington DC. Photograph: Alex Wong/Getty Images

    Newt Gingrich and the other GOP presidential candidates appeared at the Republican Jewish Coalition forum
    Continue reading... 64 comments


    Posted by Richard Adams
    22.14 GMT
  • Tuesday 6 December 2011

  • [h=3]US politics live: Gingrich v Romney battle for the GOP nomination[/h]
    It's takes two: Newt Gingrich versus Mitt Romney. Photograph: Joe Skipper/Reuters/Nicholas Kamm/AFP

    Mitt Romney's status as the GOP's frontrunner has gone as polls boost Newt Gingrich, and more of today's political news
    Continue reading... 61 comments


    Posted by Richard Adams
    22.13 GMT
  • Monday 5 December 2011

  • [h=3]US politics live: Herman Cain denies endorsement rumours[/h]
    Newt Gingrich and Donald Trump after meeting today in New York City. Photograph: Spencer Platt/Getty Images

    Herman Cain was rumoured to endorse a candidate for the GOP nomination, among the day's US politics news
    Continue reading... 37 comments


    Posted by Richard Adams
    21.55 GMT
  • Saturday 3 December 2011

  • [h=3]Herman Cain: Up like a rocket, down like a stick[/h]
    Herman Cain: gone and soon forgotten after ending his campaign for the Republican nomination. Photograph: Jonathan Ernst/Reuters

    Herman Cain's ill-fated 'cainwreck' of a GOP presidential campaign was a sign of Republican weakness in 2012
    Continue reading...

 
[h=1]As Gingrich's Star Rises, So Do His Party's Concerns[/h]
REPUBS1-articleLarge.jpg
Chris Usher/CBS News
While crediting him for the 1994 revolution, some Republicans worry about Newt Gingrich, pictured Sunday, atop the ticket.

[h=6]By JACKIE CALMES[/h] [h=6]Published: December 18, 2011 [/h]




WASHINGTON - From the House that Newt Gingrich once ran through the Washington establishment to state capitals across the nation, some Republicans are going public with their concerns that Mr. Gingrich would be a weak general election candidate and a drag on the party's fortunes if he won the presidential nomination.

[h=3]Related[/h]


[h=3]Election 2012 iPhone App[/h] A one-stop destination for the latest political news - from The Times and other top sources. Plus opinion, polls, campaign data and video.



REPUBS2-articleInline.jpg

[h=6]Philip Scott Andrews/The New York Times[/h] "I've had any number of members of Congress come over to me and thank me for what I'm saying," said Representative Peter T. King, a New York Republican and a vocal critic of Mr. Gingrich. "They say, ‘This guy is going to kill us if he gets the nomination.' "


"Since we don't know how he got here, I don't know how he can be stopped," said Ed Rogers, a longtime Washington lobbyist and party strategist who worked for the first President George Bush.
Mr. Rogers, who has not endorsed anyone, is like many in the party who esteem Mr. Gingrich for his achievement in leading Republicans to the control of Congress in 1994, after 40 years in the House minority, but who recoil from the prospect of him at the top of the ticket given the controversy, scandal and electoral defeats that defined his four years as speaker.
Late Saturday, former Senator Bob Dole, the 1996 Republican nominee, endorsed Mitt Romney, whose campaign is now anticipating a long and hard-fought nominating battle against Mr. Gingrich. Last week, Mr. Romney won the endorsement of Gov. Nikki R. Haley of South Carolinawhich holds the first Southern primary, on Jan. 21.
Mr. Gingrich's team has dismissed the criticism as coming from Romney supporters, and has pointed to grass-roots support for his candidacy. For all the anxiety about him, from establishment Republicans to Tea Party conservatives, he has surged in polls nationwide and in the early voting states. Many voters say they have been persuaded by his combative, confident and learned performances in 13 Republican debates that Mr. Gingrich could best take on President Obama.
Yet some Republicans on Capitol Hill say that Mr. Gingrich would not only lose to Mr. Obama, but that he could take other Republican candidates down, too, in a year when high unemployment has driven hopes within the party of capturing the White House and the Senate while holding control of the House.
Representative Peter T. King, a New York Republican who served in the House when Mr. Gingrich was speaker, has been an outspoken critic. "I've had any number of members of Congress come over to me and thank me for what I'm saying," he said. "They say, ‘This guy is going to kill us if he gets the nomination.' "
Mr. Gingrich was "a disaster" as speaker and most likely would be as a nominee, Mr. King said, given his "compulsion to exaggerate," erratically changing ideas, intellectual arrogance and the grandiosity of his self-comparisons to the likes of Winston Churchill and others.
Representative Charles Bass, a New Hampshire Republican who was elected in the Gingrich-led wave of 1994, agreed. He recently endorsed Mr. Romney.
"I don't see Speaker Gingrich having appeal with the independent vote, which is the largest vote in my state and it's obviously my base along with the Republican vote," Mr. Bass said - suggesting his own vulnerability if Mr. Gingrich heads the ticket.
"There's nothing about Speaker Gingrich that looks any more disciplined than he was in the 1990s," said Terry Nelson, formerly a top campaign strategist for President George W. Bush and Senator John McCain who is neutral after having worked for Tim Pawlenty, the former Minnesota governor who quit the race in August.
Mr. Nelson recalled that Mr. Bush built his 2000 campaign on the promise to be "a different kind of Republican" - different, among other things, from the Gingrich-led Republicans in Congress. And for all Mr. Gingrich's controversies back then, "the whole period since his speakership has yet to be explored," Mr. Nelson said.
Already Mr. Gingrich has had to defend his lucrative consulting work for Freddie Mac, the housing finance giant, and his previous positions on global warming and for an individual health insurance mandate.
As thoroughly as Mr. Gingrich was covered as speaker, such vetting "would increase 100-fold" were he the nominee, Mr. Nelson said. "So you have to wonder - since he's so voluble about his thoughts - would that be an effective way to run for president? I think not."
Stuart Rothenberg, an independent analyst of Congressional races, said that Mr. Gingrich could hurt other Republicans running next year. "There are some Republican insiders I talk to who think it would be a full-fledged blowout," he said.
Some of the anxiety also reflects Mr. Gingrich's failure so far to build a campaign organization.
"The fact that he has no infrastructure scares me to death," said a party chairman in a battleground state, who asked not to be named given his need to remain neutral.
"Our job is to work hand in hand with the nominee and his people to turn out every persuadable, likely Republican voter that we can," the party chairman said, recalling how the weak and late-starting McCain organization in 2008 handicapped Republicans against the Obama campaign.
"How do we make sure this train wreck doesn't happen?" he added. "That's the conversation among the politicos."
Greatly stoking the concerns of Mr. Gingrich's Republican critics is that there is little time to alter the political dynamic before the critical first nominating contests because the Christmas and New Year's holidays will limit campaigning. "The holiday calendar is his friend," said Mr. Rogers, the party strategist. "As the holidays are about to distract everybody, there isn't a G.O.P. star chamber of the elite few that really run the show behind the scenes. I wish there were."

Some Tea Party conservatives have even begun talking of a brokered Republican convention in August to push for a candidate they feel is more conservative.

"What is amazing is how many people feel this way," said Adam Brandon, a spokesman for FreedomWorks, a group affiliated with the Tea Party movement. "If you had a concerted effort, someone could force a brokered convention. The hard part is finding the right person."
 
[h=1]As Gingrich’s Star Rises, So Do His Party’s Concerns[/h]
REPUBS1-articleLarge.jpg
Chris Usher/CBS News
While crediting him for the 1994 revolution, some Republicans worry about Newt Gingrich, pictured Sunday, atop the ticket.

[h=6]By JACKIE CALMES[/h] [h=6]Published: December 18, 2011 [/h]




WASHINGTON — From the House that Newt Gingrich once ran through the Washington establishment to state capitals across the nation, some Republicans are going public with their concerns that Mr. Gingrich would be a weak general election candidate and a drag on the party’s fortunes if he won the presidential nomination.

[h=3]Related[/h]


[h=3]Election 2012 iPhone App[/h] A one-stop destination for the latest political news — from The Times and other top sources. Plus opinion, polls, campaign data and video.



REPUBS2-articleInline.jpg

[h=6]Philip Scott Andrews/The New York Times[/h] “I’ve had any number of members of Congress come over to me and thank me for what I’m saying,” said Representative Peter T. King, a New York Republican and a vocal critic of Mr. Gingrich. “They say, ‘This guy is going to kill us if he gets the nomination.’ ”


“Since we don’t know how he got here, I don’t know how he can be stopped,” said Ed Rogers, a longtime Washington lobbyist and party strategist who worked for the first President George Bush.
Mr. Rogers, who has not endorsed anyone, is like many in the party who esteem Mr. Gingrich for his achievement in leading Republicans to the control of Congress in 1994, after 40 years in the House minority, but who recoil from the prospect of him at the top of the ticket given the controversy, scandal and electoral defeats that defined his four years as speaker.
Late Saturday, former Senator Bob Dole, the 1996 Republican nominee, endorsed Mitt Romney, whose campaign is now anticipating a long and hard-fought nominating battle against Mr. Gingrich. Last week, Mr. Romney won the endorsement of Gov. Nikki R. Haley of South Carolinawhich holds the first Southern primary, on Jan. 21.
Mr. Gingrich’s team has dismissed the criticism as coming from Romney supporters, and has pointed to grass-roots support for his candidacy. For all the anxiety about him, from establishment Republicans to Tea Party conservatives, he has surged in polls nationwide and in the early voting states. Many voters say they have been persuaded by his combative, confident and learned performances in 13 Republican debates that Mr. Gingrich could best take on President Obama.
Yet some Republicans on Capitol Hill say that Mr. Gingrich would not only lose to Mr. Obama, but that he could take other Republican candidates down, too, in a year when high unemployment has driven hopes within the party of capturing the White House and the Senate while holding control of the House.
Representative Peter T. King, a New York Republican who served in the House when Mr. Gingrich was speaker, has been an outspoken critic. “I’ve had any number of members of Congress come over to me and thank me for what I’m saying,” he said. “They say, ‘This guy is going to kill us if he gets the nomination.’ ”
Mr. Gingrich was “a disaster” as speaker and most likely would be as a nominee, Mr. King said, given his “compulsion to exaggerate,” erratically changing ideas, intellectual arrogance and the grandiosity of his self-comparisons to the likes of Winston Churchill and others.
Representative Charles Bass, a New Hampshire Republican who was elected in the Gingrich-led wave of 1994, agreed. He recently endorsed Mr. Romney.
“I don’t see Speaker Gingrich having appeal with the independent vote, which is the largest vote in my state and it’s obviously my base along with the Republican vote,” Mr. Bass said — suggesting his own vulnerability if Mr. Gingrich heads the ticket.
“There’s nothing about Speaker Gingrich that looks any more disciplined than he was in the 1990s,” said Terry Nelson, formerly a top campaign strategist for President George W. Bush and Senator John McCain who is neutral after having worked for Tim Pawlenty, the former Minnesota governor who quit the race in August.
Mr. Nelson recalled that Mr. Bush built his 2000 campaign on the promise to be “a different kind of Republican” — different, among other things, from the Gingrich-led Republicans in Congress. And for all Mr. Gingrich’s controversies back then, “the whole period since his speakership has yet to be explored,” Mr. Nelson said.
Already Mr. Gingrich has had to defend his lucrative consulting work for Freddie Mac, the housing finance giant, and his previous positions on global warming and for an individual health insurance mandate.
As thoroughly as Mr. Gingrich was covered as speaker, such vetting “would increase 100-fold” were he the nominee, Mr. Nelson said. “So you have to wonder — since he’s so voluble about his thoughts — would that be an effective way to run for president? I think not.”
Stuart Rothenberg, an independent analyst of Congressional races, said that Mr. Gingrich could hurt other Republicans running next year. “There are some Republican insiders I talk to who think it would be a full-fledged blowout,” he said.
Some of the anxiety also reflects Mr. Gingrich’s failure so far to build a campaign organization.
“The fact that he has no infrastructure scares me to death,” said a party chairman in a battleground state, who asked not to be named given his need to remain neutral.
“Our job is to work hand in hand with the nominee and his people to turn out every persuadable, likely Republican voter that we can,” the party chairman said, recalling how the weak and late-starting McCain organization in 2008 handicapped Republicans against the Obama campaign.
“How do we make sure this train wreck doesn’t happen?” he added. “That’s the conversation among the politicos.”
Greatly stoking the concerns of Mr. Gingrich’s Republican critics is that there is little time to alter the political dynamic before the critical first nominating contests because the Christmas and New Year’s holidays will limit campaigning. “The holiday calendar is his friend,” said Mr. Rogers, the party strategist. “As the holidays are about to distract everybody, there isn’t a G.O.P. star chamber of the elite few that really run the show behind the scenes. I wish there were.”

Some Tea Party conservatives have even begun talking of a brokered Republican convention in August to push for a candidate they feel is more conservative.

“What is amazing is how many people feel this way,” said Adam Brandon, a spokesman for FreedomWorks, a group affiliated with the Tea Party movement. “If you had a concerted effort, someone could force a brokered convention. The hard part is finding the right person.”
 
[h=1]Obama's stimulus failure[/h] The president could have rescued the economy by pushing for more stimulus. Not doing so was an error of epic proportions





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Obama should have immediately begun pushing for more stimulus the day after the first one passed. Photograph: Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP

The economy badly needs stimulus. The collapse of the housing bubble caused us to lose more than $1.2tn in annual demand. Residential construction collapsed when the bubble burst, falling by more than 4 percentage points of GDP, which translates into approximately $600bn a year in lost annual demand.
The collapse of the bubble also led to the destruction of close to $8tn of bubble-generated housing equity. The wealth effect of this equity on consumption generated close to $500bn in annual consumption demand. This also was lost when the bubble burst.
In addition, the collapse of a bubble in non-residential real estate cost another $100bn or so in annual demand. Finally, the lost tax revenue from the collapse of the housing market and the resulting fallout have forced cuts of close to $150bn a year on state and local governments.
In total, the economy has lost close to $1.3tn in annual demand as a result of the collapse of the housing bubble. This explains the economy's weak growth and high unemployment. There is no simple way to replace this demand.
We can gather together a coven of market-worshipping Republicans and sacrifice all the workers and retirees we want, it still will not replace the demand gap. We can love the private sector as much as we want and it still will not make firms go out and invest and hire when they don't see demand for their products.
That might be a painful truth for government-haters to take, but it is reality. Businesses don't invest when they don't think it is profitable and it won't be profitable as long as they don't see the demand.
This means that we need the government to generate demand to boost the economy. That was the point of President Obama's stimulus. Of course it was nowhere near large enough, as his advisors told him at the time.
The package produced around $300bn a year in stimulus in 2009 and 2010. This was nowhere near large enough to offset the drop in demand from the housing crash, but it did create 2-3 million jobs.
If President Obama had been doing his job, he would have immediately begun pushing for more stimulus the day after the first one passed. He should have been straightforward with the American people and said that the stimulus approved by Congress was an important first step, but that the severity of the downturn was so great we would likely need more.
Instead of being honest with America, he started talking about the "green shoots of recovery" and said he was going to focus on the budget deficit. This was an error of unbelievable proportions. By raising the budget deficit front and centre, he backed himself into a corner from which it is almost impossible to now escape.
It was essential that Obama keep leading the charge on stimulus, explaining to the country the cause of the economy's weakness was a lack of demand. This story is counterintuitive, so it requires the voice of the president, along with many others, to constantly explain the logic to the country. People had to understand that we are poor because the country as a whole is spending too little to keep the workforce fully employed, not because the government is spending too much.
This is the context in which we are arguing over extending the reduction in the social security payroll tax for another two years. As stimulus, this is not an especially good measure. On a per-dollar basis, tax cuts will be much less effective, especially with people carrying so much debt, than direct spending. Furthermore, many of these tax dollars will go to better-off tax payers who are less willing to spend than moderate income families. The Making Work Pay tax credit was much better targeted.
Finally, there is zero reason that this tax cut should be tied to social security in any way. As it stands, the trust fund is held harmless because the lost tax revenue is reimbursed from general revenue. But why even raise this as a potential issue for social security; why not just give everyone a tax cut equal to 2 percent of their wages up to $110,000? The only reason to tie the tax cut to social security is if the intention is to raise issues about the social security tax at some future point.
The response of the Obama people to this complaint is that this is the only tax cut that the Republican Congress will approve and that we badly need the stimulus. The second claim is definitely true and the first one may well be also. But if that is the case, it only speaks to the incredible failure of this administration to define the agenda and speak honestly about the economy. It's not surprising that they don't have the political support for more effective stimulus when they abandoned the effort to make the case almost two years ago.





 
[h=1]Obama Gets a Lift From Tax Battle With Republicans[/h]
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Stephen Crowley/The New York Times
From left, Representative Eric Cantor and Speaker of the House John A. Boehner met with Republicans at the Capitol on Wednesday.

[h=6]By JACKIE CALMES[/h] [h=6]Published: December 21, 2011[/h]




WASHINGTON - After a long stretch of high unemployment, legislative turmoil and, in turn, slipping public approval, President Obama seemed to regain his political footing this week with the help of House Republicans, whose handling of a standoff over payroll taxes had even leading conservatives accusing them of bungling the politically charged issue.



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[h=6]Philip Scott Andrews/The New York Times[/h] President Obama did holiday shopping in Alexandria, Va.


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At stake were continued payroll tax cuts for 160 million workers and aid for several million long-term unemployed Americans that expire Dec. 31. The holiday brinkmanship over the issue recalled the December budget showdown 16 years ago between another first-term Democratic president, Bill Clinton, and a new Republican Congressional majority - a fight that capped their year of confrontation over the nation's fiscal priorities by reviving Mr. Clinton politically as he began his re-election race.
But the impasse was not without risks for Mr. Obama. Democrats fretted that Mr. Obama's vow to stay in Washington through Christmas and New Year's to get a deal would backfire should he join his family in Hawaii before a resolution. Also, though House Republicans were bearing the brunt of criticism for the latest show of Washington dysfunction, Mr. Obama could be hurt if the tax break and jobless aid are not extended and the fragile economy sours, as nonpartisan economic forecasters have warned it will without the continued stimulus measures.
And while even other Republicans were predicting that the House Republicans would have to blink, or risk further political damage, the ugliness of the fight reminded Americans yet again of the seeming futility of Mr. Obama's 2008 campaign promise to make Washington work as the year of his re-election race is upon him.
By Wednesday most lawmakers had scattered for the holidays. Yet party leaders remained behind, standing their ground and trying to shift blame to the other side. A 10-minute phone conversation between Mr. Obama and Speaker John A. Boehner was apparently fruitless, according to aides to both, and afterward each side described the call on its own terms.
Mr. Obama called Mr. Boehner shortly after noon and urged him to have the House reconsider and approve the compromise two-month extension of the payroll tax cut and unemployment assistance that Senate Democrats and Republicans overwhelmingly approved over the weekend with Mr. Obama's support. House Republicans rejected that compromise on Tuesday and demanded negotiations toward a full-year measure to keep most workers' Social Security payroll tax at 4.2 percent, down from 6.2 percent.
According to a White House account, Mr. Obama told Mr. Boehner the bipartisan Senate bill "is the only option to ensure that middle-class families aren't hit with a tax hike in 10 days and gives both sides the time needed to work out a full-year solution."
But Mr. Boehner reiterated that House Republicans want a full-year extension like they approved earlier this month, though their measure did not have the president's or the Senate's support, largely because of unrelated provisions that House Republicans attached and because it would cut unemployment aid from current levels.
The speaker told Mr. Obama that the House Republican majority "was elected to change the way Washington does business and that we should not waste the next 10 days simply because it is an inconvenient time of year," a Boehner aide recounted. According to the aide, who declined to be identified discussing the private call, Mr. Boehner told Mr. Obama, "Let's get this done today."
Because the Senate compromise had offered a bipartisan way out of the knot until the parties could negotiate a long-term fix in January - the Senate passed the temporary measure by a vote of 89 to 10, with 39 Republicans in support - House Republicans by their rejection of it drew fire not only from Democrats but from Senate Republicans and conservative pundits.
They awoke to an editorial in The Wall Street Journal, a beacon of conservative thought, headlined "The G.O.P.'s Payroll Tax Fiasco" and blaming House Republicans for not only squandering their party's advantage on tax issues but also potentially helping to re-elect Mr. Obama. The theme was echoed among conservatives in the blogosphere.
With Republicans criticizing each other, Mr. Obama stayed out of the public eye except for a brief Christmas shopping foray.
Mr. Boehner, who last week had tried unsuccessfully to get his party to compromise, held a news conference with the Republicans he had appointed as negotiators to a nonexistent legislative conference committee. They faced 10 empty chairs meant to represent the missing Democrats. "We're here," he said. "We're ready to work."
But as even some conservatives were pointing out, the House Republicans' attempts to seize the political high ground by advocating for a full-year payroll tax cut are undercut by their shifting stands in the months leading up to the showdown.
Mr. Obama first proposed in September, as part of his larger jobs creation package, to extend for another year the two-percentage-point payroll tax cut that he and Congressional Republicans had agreed to last December. A year ago Republicans had agreed to the cut and continued unemployment compensation in 2011 only after Mr. Obama agreed to support an extension of the Bush-era tax cuts on high incomes, which were due to expire after 2010, for two years through 2012.

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Jennifer Steinhauer contributed reporting.
 
[h=1]For Democrats in Hawaii, Unease in an Oasis[/h]
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Eric Risberg/Associated Press
A security tent at Kailua Bay, near where President Obama is expected to join his family. Even with the Honolulu-born Mr. Obama in the White House, Democrats in Hawaii are struggling.

[h=6]By ADAM NAGOURNEY[/h] [h=6]Published: December 21, 2011[/h]




HONOLULU - Hawaii should be a happy outpost for the Democratic Party. It has a Democratic governor. Democrats overwhelmingly control the Legislature. It has Barack Obama in the White House and all the prestige that brings, most recently an Asia-Pacific economic summit meeting with the president as its host, packing this city's streets, restaurants and hotels with international leaders.

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[h=6]Cindy Ellen Russell/Honolulu Star-Advertiser, via Associated Press[/h] Linda Lingle, a Republican, is running for a Senate seat.


Yet these are hardly happy days for Hawaii Democrats. The governor, Neil Abercrombie, is ending his first year under a storm of criticism; he referred to himself the other evening as "the most unpopular governor in America." Mr. Obama's struggles in Washington have cast a bit of a pall here.
And the Republican Party suddenly has a shot of picking up a United States Senate seat that has been in Democratic hands for more than 30 years, with the announcement by Linda Lingle, a Republican former governor, that she will seek the seat held by Senator Daniel K. Akaka, the retiring Democrat. A Republican victory here would be a serious embarrassment to Mr. Obama (though that could be the least of his problems on election night) and would make it that much more likely that Republicans take back the Senate.
"Hawaiians want change, and if the Democrats don't offer change, Hawaiians are going to vote for the Republican who offers change," Ed Case, a former member of Congress who is seeking the Democratic nomination, said the other day while campaigning here in a sea of leather and roaring motorcycles at the beginning of a Toys for Tots biker parade. "And Lingle is going to spend $7 million trying to be the change candidate."
This remains a fiercely Democratic state, and Ms. Lingle, as she acknowledged in an interview, will have to overcome the considerable obstacle of having Mr. Obama, who was born in Honolulu, at the top of the ticket. And for all the problems facing Democrats and the governor, who has struggled with budgetary and personnel issues, there are signs that things might be looking up here: tourism appears to be on the upswing, and Mr. Abercrombie said he had gotten through a difficult first year and begun to turn the state around.
"We're not going to send somebody to the United States Senate whose sole purpose is to undermine the president of the United States, particularly if the majority in the Senate is so slim," Mr. Abercrombie said in an interview. "I think it will be a tough race because the money will come in on the Republican side. And of course, being Democrats, we have a primary contest. At the end of the contest, we'll go as we always have gone here in Hawaii."
Still, the Republicans have in Ms. Lingle what party officials on both sides say may be the one Republican who could be elected senator from Hawaii. She is well known and is an experienced campaigner with access to huge sums of money. The Democrats are now split by an ideologically caustic primary battle between Mr. Case, who presents himself as a moderate in a party that has swung too far to the left, and Representative Mazie K. Hirono. Mr. Abercrombie's continued political troubles have worsened the atmosphere for Democrats.
"This is the first time since 1977 when we can potentially have a Republican senator," said David Chang, the state Republican chairman.
Even during these difficult times, Mr. Obama - who hopes to come here for the holidays, his second visit to the state in a month - is viewed as a full-fledged political asset by both Democratic candidates. Notably, Ms. Lingle, in an interview, took pains not to criticize Mr. Obama and made a point of saying she did not think the race should be viewed as a referendum by Hawaii voters on his performance.
Democrats said they would be sure to use videotape of Ms. Lingle campaigning against Mr. Obama in the 2008 presidential election; while Democrats said Mr. Obama's presence here would be welcome by either Democratic candidate, the distance makes it likely that his presence in the campaign will be confined to advertisements, should that prove necessary.
"Obama is a native son: people are going to embrace him," said Richard Pratt, a professor of political science at the University of Hawaii.
Guy Cecil, the executive director of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, said Mr. Obama, who carried Hawaii with 72 percent of the vote in 2008, "will be a huge factor in this race."

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[h=1]US jobless claims lowest since 2008 – but economic growth revised down[/h] Latest government figures suggest that the US jobs market is improving, but growth in third quarter slower than first thought




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Barack Obama has urged Congress to solve the stand-off over the payroll tax cut. Photograph: Carolyn Kaster/AP

The number of Americans making new claims for unemployment benefits has fallen to its lowest levels since April 2008, providing more evidence that the US job market is improving.
But the good news comes as the government announced the US economy grew at a more sluggish rate during the third quarter than first thought.
The jobs figures were released as president Barack Obama faces off with Republican opponents over an extension of a payroll tax that Obama says will cost Americans $40 a paycheck and that economists say threatens to cut $120bn of disposable income in 2012.
Initial jobless claims decreased by 4,000 to a seasonally-adjusted 364,000 in the week ending 17 December, the Department of Labor said on Thursday.
The latest jobs figures come amid mixed signs of recovery in the US economy. Gross domestic product (GDP), the broadest measure of all the goods and services produced in an economy, grew at an inflation-adjusted annual rate of 1.8% in the July-to-September period. The figure was revised down from an earlier estimate of 2%.
While the number is lower, it is still the strongest performance of the year.
The downward revision was made after consumer spending was found to be weaker than first thought, rising 1.7% in the third quarter compared to a previous estimate of a 2.3% increase.
But despite the sluggish recovery, corporate profits have remained strong and the jobless numbers are falling. The latest decline in jobless claims is the third in a row, and brings new unemployment claims to their lowest levels since the week ending April 19, 2008.
Earlier this month the unemployment rate in the US fell below 9% for the first time in two years. The Federal Reserve is forecasting unemployment rates between 8.5% and 8.7% in 2012, with modest economic growth.
Ken Goldstein, economist at the Conference Board, said the numbers were encouraging, especially after positive news on the housing market earlier this week.
Housing starts – a measure of new home-building – rose 9.3% in November to their highest level in over a year, the Department of Commerce said on Tuesday.
"The figures from the housing market and the labour market indicate that we are a little bit stronger than we expected," said Goldstein. Goldstein dismissed the threat to payroll tax as "Kabuki theatre."
"It will get resolved," he said. "Unless the Republicans want to gift-wrap Obama a campaign where he can say the Republicans want to cut taxes for the rich and increase them for the middle class."
 
[h=1]House agrees payroll tax deal as Republicans cave in to Obama[/h] John Boehner set to sign two-month extension on payroll tax cuts after pressure from president and Senate minority leader




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House speaker John Boehner is set to sign an offer from Obama to accelerate negotiations. Photograph: Evan Vucci/AP

Congressional Republicans have capitulated in the showdown over the payroll tax, handing Barack Obama an important victory going into election year.
John Boehner, the House Speaker, announced a full-scale retreat on Thursday evening after days of criticism from fellow Republicans, including Karl Rove and senator John McCain, who said his actions were hurting the party.
The decisive moment came when the Republican leader in the Senate, Mitch McConnell, withdrew his support for Boehner and sided with the White House, calling on Republicans in the House to support a bill to extend tax breaks.
As a result of McConnell's intervention, support for Boehner crumbled. As a face-saving exercise, Boehner claimed to have secured a concession – but it is no more than a minor procedural point.
About 160m Americans will now receive their tax breaks, worth an average of $20 a week, as usual in January and February.
It was the latest in a series of battles between the White House and Republicans in Congress this year that saw threats to close down the federal government. In all of the earlier ones, Obama came off second best, but not this time.
The victory for the White House will cheer a Democratic base which has watched with frustration as Obama caved in time and again to Republican pressure.
The bill is now expected to be passed by the House on Friday morning and signed into law by Obama before heading off on holiday. The president had delayed joining his family in Hawaii until the issue was resolved.
In a statement from the White House, Obama said: "This is good news, just in time for the holidays. This is the right thing to do to strengthen our families, grow our economy, and create new jobs. This is real money that will make a real difference in people's lives."
The bill was passed by the Senate on Saturday, with the backing of both Republicans and Democrats. The two-month extension is a compromise that allows them to negotiate after the holidays on a year-long deal.
Boehner, having initially agreed to back the bill, retreated on Sunday, faced with opposition by House members allied to the Tea Party movement. They demanded, in return for support for a one-year extension of the tax cuts, a series of concessions on spending cuts and on a controversial pipeline.
On Tuesday, House Republicans effectively voted to block the bill. The Wall Street Journal, normally a solid supporter of the Republicans, in a withering editorial, accused Boehner of helping Obama win re-election in November 2012.
As part of a face-saving exercise on Thursday evening Boehner claimed that, as a result of his actins, he had managed to secure from the Democratic leader in the Senate, Harry Reid, a promise to name members for a joint House-Senate conference to negotiate the year-long tax concessions.
"Senator Reid and I have reached an agreement that will ensure taxes do not increase for working families on January 1," Boehner said. Reid said he would have agreed to this anyway.
Boehner is unpopular with some of the rank-and-file members of Congress, particularly those leaning towards the Tea Party, and the tax debacle could bring closer a challenge to his leadership.
The tax breaks were introduced by Obama last year to help stimulate the US economy. If the bill was not passed by 31 December, American taxpayers face cuts in their pay of an average of $40 every two weeks and 1.3m people stand to lose unemployment benefit.
Earlier in the day, Obama, at a White House event organised to step up pressure on Boehner earlier on Thursday, described the standoff as "ridiculous", and paraded some of the 30,000 Americans who have written to the White House detailing the impact the tax rises would have on their lives. For some, the $40 is significant, meaning the loss of heating for almost half a week. For others, the impact is small but meaningful, from parents unable to take their children out for a pizza, to a man driving 200 miles a week to keep his father-in-law company in a nursing home.
McConnell's statement presented an even bigger setback for the House speaker. McConnell said working Americans "shouldn't face the uncertainty of a New Year's Day tax hike", and urged the House to pass the bill to avoid "any disruption in the payroll tax holiday".
The standoff with the House Republicans was an early Christmas gift for Obama. Democratic strategists decided months ago Obama would fight the next election portraying the Republicans as obstructionist. He took up this theme on Thursday, saying he would sign the tax bill immediately on receiving it from Congress, and the only thing stopping it was what he called a "faction" inside the Republican party.
"What's happening right now is exactly why people just get so frustrated with Washington. This is it: this is exactly why people get so frustrated," Obama said.
"This isn't a typical Democratic-versus-Republican issue. This is an issue where an overwhelming number of people in both parties agree. How can we not get that done? I mean, has this place become so dysfunctional that even when people agree to things we can't do it? It doesn't make any sense not to reach a deal."
 
[h=1]McConnell breaks ranks with GOP as Obama calls for end to tax impasse[/h] Republican leader in the Senate urges House to pass bill extending tax break as president rails at 'dysfunctional' Congress




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President Obama said the only thing stopping the passage of the tax bill was a 'faction' inside the Republican party. Photograph: Carolyn Kaster/AP

Republican disunity over the congressional tax showdown was exposed on Thursday when, in an extraordinary move, the party's leader in the Senate publicly broke ranks with his House colleagues.
After days of silence, Mitch McConnell lined up with Barack Obama and the Democrats to call for the safe passage of the payroll tax bill, instead of rallying behind his beleaguered colleague in the House, speaker John Boehner.
The rupture in the Republican party increases Obama's chances of securing a rare victory over the House Republicans, who have repeatedly humiliated him this year.
Boehner is blocking passage of a bill that would extend tax breaks to 160 million Americans, a measure introduced by Obama last year to help stimulate the US economy. If the bill is not passed by 31 December, American taxpayers face cuts in their pay of an average of $40 every two weeks. About 1.3 million people stand to lose unemployment benefit.
Obama, at a White House event organised to step up pressure on Boehner, described the standoff as "ridiculous", and paraded some of the 30,000 Americans who have written to the White House detailing the impact the tax rises would have on their lives. For some, the $40 is significant, meaning the loss of heating for almost half a week. For others, the impact is small but meaningful, from parents unable to take their children out for a pizza, to a man driving 200 miles a week to keep his father-in-law company in a nursing home.
Intent on wringing as much emotion as possible from the moment and portraying the Republicans as the party of the wealthy, Obama said: "It may be that there are some folks in the House who refuse to vote for this compromise because they don't think that $40 is a lot of money. But anyone who knows what it's like to stretch a budget knows that at the end of the week, or the end of the month, $40 can make all the difference in the world."
Boehner is increasingly isolated on the issue, criticised by Republicans from senator John McCain to party strategist Karl Rove, and one of the media's bastions of conservatism, the Wall Street Journal. They have all called on Boehner to back off, claiming he is hurting the Republican party and its chances of winning the White House next November.
But McConnell's statement presented an even bigger setback for the House speaker.
McConnell said working Americans "shouldn't face the uncertainty of a New Year's Day tax hike", and urged the House to pass the bill to avoid "any disruption in the payroll tax holiday".
The Senate on Saturday voted overwhelmingly for a deal – backed by McConnell and the Democratic leader in the Senate, Harry Reid – to extend tax cuts for two months to allow further negotiations on extending them through to the end of next year. Obama welcomed the deal.
But on Monday, House Republicans, in an unexpected about-turn, blocked it. Boehner, having reportedly reached a behind-the-scenes agreement last week with McConnell to support the bill, went into reverse, under pressure from House members close to the Tea Party movement.
The standoff with the House Republicans is turning into an early Christmas gift for Obama. Throughout this year, Boehner and his colleagues have left the president looking weak, and forced him to back down in a series of showdowns over issues including America's debt ceiling.
Grassroots Democrats repeatedly cite this supposed weakness as one of the reasons for their disappoinment with Obama. But if he can end the year with a political victory over Republicans in the House, it could help his chances of re-election next year.
Democratic strategists decided months ago Obama will fight the next election portraying the Republicans as obstructionist. He took up this theme on Thursday, saying he would sign the tax bill immediately on receiving it from Congress, and the only thing stopping it was what he called a "faction" inside the Republican party.
"What's happening right now is exactly why people just get so frustrated with Washington. This is it: this is exactly why people get so frustrated," Obama said.
"This isn't a typical Democratic-versus-Republican issue. This is an issue where an overwhelming number of people in both parties agree. How can we not get that done? I mean, has this place become so dysfunctional that even when people agree to things we can't do it? It doesn't make any sense not to reach a deal.
The president has delayed his holiday to Hawaii because of the standoff. His family left without him.
Boehner phoned Obama at the White House on Thursday morning, asking him to send an economics team to Congress to discuss the issue. Obama refused.
 
jmushi1 said:
Hakuna wa kumzuia Obama asirudi whte house, thats a fact.
Click to expand...

....Republicans wameanza kuweweseka na huku opinion polls zinaonyesha kwamba 'Bama anaanza kupanda taratibu na kukaribia 50%....siku chache tu zilizopita alikuwa ameshuka hadi kufikia 36% katika baadhi ya opinion polls, lakini bado ana kazi kubwa siku za usoni maana mashambulizi ya Republicans hayatakuwa ya kawaida.
 
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