Ted and Pat Oparowski tell the story of Mitt Romney and their late son, David. The super PAC does what Romney has rarely done himself. According to Crossroads GPS, the ad will run in Ohio and Wisconsin for one week in a buy worth $4.2m, and will be expanded to additional states in the coming days.
Source: youtube.com
He actually hasn't said this before.
Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney speaks at a campaign rally with Republican vice-presidential nominee Paul Ryan in Henderson, Nevada October 23, 2012.
Image by Brian Snyder / Reuters
HENDERSON, Nev. — Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney sought Tuesday to deepen the sense of momentum that his campaign is seeking to project since polls tightened earlier this month.
"These debates have supercharged our campaign," Romney declared at his first rally since the final debate with President Barack Obama Monday night. "There’'s no question about it, we’re seeing more and more enthusiasm, more and more support."
Romney assailed Obama for failing to offer an affirmative vision for the next four years — a charge the president's campaign has been sensitive to, releasing a 20-page booklet on his agenda for the next four years just this morning. "Well you know," Romney said, "[Obama's] been reduced to try to defend characters on Sesame Street and word games of various kinds, and then misfired attacks after one and another."
"The truth is, attacks on me are not an agenda," Romney said, repeating one of his strongest lines from the foreign policy debate. "The President — we’ve gone through four debates now — we’ve gone through four debates: the vice presidential debate and my debates, and we haven’t heard an agenda from the president."
Exuding confidence is a time-honored and necessary part of running for president, but Romney had in fact avoided making the — until October risible — claim that he was on track to victory. He finally arrived at that posture Tuesday afternoon at an outdoor rally before thousands of enthusiastic fans outside Las Vegas.
"That’s why his campaign is taking on water, and our campaign is full speed ahead," he added, recognizing his surge in statewide and national polling to a neck-and-neck position with Obama.
“His campaign is slipping, and ours is gaining so much steam," he later added triumphantly in his freshly-polished stump speech, describing his campaign for the first time "as a movement across the country."
Source: youtube.com
Coincidence, surely.
Source: instagram.com
On Tuesday afternoon, the campaign to approve the marriage equality referendum in Washington state announced a $500,000 gift from Bill and Melinda Gates — who previously gave $100,000 to the campaign.
"Bill and Melinda Gates made a second contribution to the Referendum 74 campaign because they support marriage equality and believe the law is good for Washington state," said a family spokesperson, according to the Washington United for Marriage organization pushing for the referendum's approval.
Soon thereafter, National Public Radio's Andy Carvin tweeted about this coincidence:
This is what it was really like.
Source: youtube.com
A source lets BuzzFeed in on a campaign mystery: It's a spray tan. “It's not like Mitt Romney can go chill out on a beach right now; he needs a quick fix.”
Romney speaks a the Univision Candidates' Forum moderated in Miami on September 19.
Image by Joe Raedle / Getty Images
It has been one of the running mysteries of the 2012 campaign trail: How Mitt Romney maintains the ruddy, glowing, and occasionally changing skin tone that helps him project an image of 65-year-old vigor.
A knowledgeable source tells BuzzFeed the answer is in a bit of cosmetic technology used commonly by celebrities: spray tanning. The Republican nominee has made a habit of spray tanning before major speeches, debates, interviews, and other events that have a chance of getting wide TV coverage, the source said. He pays for the process out of pocket — sparing his campaign the expense, and the task of masking it on public campaign finance reports — and steers clear of public salons where he could be recognized. Instead, he gets misted down in the comfort of his own home or hotel suite.
The Romney campaign flatly denied that the candidate spray tans: "Not true," spokeswoman Andrea Saul said in response to an inquiry.
Romney's ever-changing complexion has been a point of public curiosity throughout the campaign, especially after his appearance at a Univision forum in September. There, his unusually dark skin tone prompted conspiracy-minded Tweeters to speculate that he had purposefully applied brown makeup in order to "look more Latino." At the time, one of the network's anchors debunked the rumor to BuzzFeed, and the makeup artist even came forward to defend Romney.
"When he walked in, I remember thinking, 'Wow this is tanner than I thought he was,' but I think he's just been outside a lot lately for his campaign," Lazz Rodriguez told Univision afterward. "It was definitely a real tan."
But Romney's darker-than-usual complexion at the forum was actually the product of an exceptionally fresh spray tan, the source said. And while the web has been rife with speculation about the candidate's coloring, no one has found it more obvious than people in the tanning industry.
"Oh, for sure he had a spray tan," Jimmy Coco, a celebrity tanner from Los Angeles, told BuzzFeed while looking at pictures of the candidate. "I just see the sort of red hue that you get from some of the spray tanning places... The ears are white. That is a giveaway. If you look at Obama, he's all one tone. A lot of times, what they do when they're giving a spray tan, they'll put a cap on and their cap will cover the ears."
Mobile tanning professionals said the service generally costs between $200 and $500, depending on how far they have to travel for house calls. (It's unclear how much Romney spends, since he is always traveling.)
Methodologies vary, but Jennifer Lee, owner of Born to Glow in Beverly Hills, said the most high-tech services equip their mobile tanners with pop-up tents and portable misters, which they bring to the clients' homes, offices, or hotel rooms.
"I pop up the tent, detemine how dark the client wants to go, and then I mix the formula and match it with their skin tone," Lee said. "I have an eye for that."
Anna Stankiewicz, owner of the New York-based spray tan company Suvara, specializes in house calls, and said she has been hired by several New York City politicians over the years — including City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, who she said was "cool about it."
Robin Levine, a City Council spokeswoman, denied that Quinn had ever been a client of Stankiewicz's. "Speaker Quinn has never been spray tanned," said Levine in a statement to BuzzFeed. But Stankiewicz reiterated that she had indeed spray tanned the Speaker about three years ago at Rita Hazan Salon in New York City.
Political clients usually only get sprayed "from the waist up" because legs stay hidden inside suit pants, while forearms are often revealed when men roll up their shirt sleeves, Stankiewicz said. She added that confidentiality agreements are common among high-profile clients.
Like most of the industry experts who spoke to BuzzFeed, Stankiewicz suspected Romney spray tanned long before she was approached for an interview, and noted that it's fairly common practice in politics. After all, she said, "It's not like Mitt Romney can go chill out on a beach right now; he needs a quick fix."
Some of the spray tanning professionals also sniffed a bit at the job done on Romney.
"The color he's choosing is totally not believable," Stankiewicz said. "It's a dead giveaway... They're clearly using way too dark a forumla for his skin tone, It's just like, 'Oh my God, he got sprayed. It's just so obvious."
Tamar Vezirian, owner of New York-based mobile airbrush tanning service Gotham Glow, said she's received e-mails from clients and friends who saw the candidate on TV and said, 'Oh, did you see Mitt Romney's spray tan? Why didn't he call you?"
"His hands were really dark, and the neck was white," Vezirian said after watching Monday night's debate. "It was very uneven, and it didn't look natural at all. You can always tell by looking at the hands and the neck. On camera, it shows up a lot more too."
She added, "I was looking at Mitt Romney the whole time and just thinking, with all that money you’d think he’d get the best spray tanner in the country."
Update: This story has been updated with comments from an aide to City Council Speaker Christine Quinn and further comment from the spray tan specialist who said she worked with Quinn.
Review these as many times as you need to before Election Day. They're just so damn catchy. Bonus: VP debate at the bottom.
Source: youtube.com
Source: youtube.com
Source: youtube.com
Source: youtube.com
Who's spending $880 Million on television for the presidential election.
Data from a media tracking organization, provided by a Republican source, shows the large spending advantage Romney and his allies have held this election cycle.
With more cash on hand, Romney and his allies are expected to expand the gap significantly in the campaign's final days.
A $5,000 contribution to the conservative's bid in June. Since his remarks about rape Tuesday night, Republicans — and the Romney-Ryan campaign — have backed away from the Senate candidate.
Image by Michael Conroy / AP
FEC filings reveal that Paul Ryan's Prosperity PAC made a payment of $5,000 on June 26 to Richard Mourdock, the Indiana Senate candidate under fire for comments Tuesday night that pregnancy from rape is "something God intended."
In response to a question in the Indiana debate about abortion in cases of rape and incest, Mourdock said in full: ‘‘I struggled with it myself for a long time, but I came to realize that life is that gift from God. And, I think, even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is something that God intended to happen."
Since Tuesday night, Republicans affiliated with Mourdock have distanced themselves from the candidate's remark.
U.S. Rep. Mike Pence, the Republican candidate in Indiana's race for governor, said in a statement Wednesday morning, "I strongly disagree with the statement made by Richard Mourdock during last night's Senate debate. I urge him to apologize."
In a statement to the Associated Press Wednesday morning, Romney campaign spokeswoman Andrea Saul said Romney "disagrees with Richard Mourdock's comments, and they do not reflect his views."
The leadership PAC, still affiliated with the Vice Presidential nominee, has given contributions of similar amounts to Republican Senate campaigns this cycle such as North Dakota's Rick Berg and Nevada's Dean Heller.
Via: images.nictusa.com
Update: This post originally referred to Prosperity PAC as a SuperPAC. The committee is a Leadership PAC.
“We disagree on the policy regarding exceptions for rape and incest.”
ABOARD THE ROMNEY CAMPAIGN PLANE — Aides to Mitt Romney indicated Wednesday that the Republican presidential nominee is sticking by his endorsement of embattled U.S. Senate candidate Richard Mourdock.
"Gov. Romney disagrees with Richard Mourdock, and Mr. Mourdock’s comments do not reflect Gov. Romney’s views," said press secretary Andrea Saul. "We disagree on the policy regarding exceptions for rape and incest but still support him."
Mourdock is one of the few candidates Romney has personally endorsed this cycle, and the Republican nominee released an ad for the Indiana candidate just days ago, before Mourdock's controversial comments on rape and abortion.
In a debate Tuesday night, Mourdock said he is opposed to abortion in the case of rape, because "that it is something that God intended to happen.”
He even gives a timeline for his demands, like any decent movie villain.
Trump has been teasing this "major announcement" on Twitter to much speculation. Turns out the bombshell was more of a bribe. Trump will give $5 million to the charity of Obama's choice if the President releases his college and passport records by Oct. 31 at 5 p.m. Trump did not specify which time zone, however. (We're holding out for Major Announcement Pt. 2.)
When asked about the video, Obama senior advisor David Plouffe said, "Direct those questions to Boston, because Donald Trump is Mitt Romney’s biggest supporter, so he owns everything he says.”
Here, Trump's full statement:
Source: facebook.com
Maureen Stemberg is going after the Republican in court in Boston today.
Maureen Stemberg, the ex-wife of Staples founder Tom Stemberg whose lawyer, Gloria Allred, is battling to unseal Mitt Romney's testimony divorce proceedings in Boston Wednesday, is an active Huffington Post commenter, where she has been intensely hostile to Mitt Romney — and to his religion.
Conservative activist Kyle Raccio sends some screenshots over:
Source: pbs.twimg.com
It's either Stemberg or someone doing their best to impersonate Stemberg. In some comments, she refers to Romney's Mormon religion, referring to it as "crazy" or "very scary":
Worlds are colliding.
The President hit Mitt Romney for flip-flopping today on the campaign trail in Iowa saying you can look at videotape of his past positions and not see flip-flops. The President, however, has engaged in his own of political gymnastics as well.
Source: youtube.com
Source: youtube.com
Source: youtube.com
In an interview with Philadelphia Style magazine , MSNBC's Chris Matthews ponders what might a been.
It's a long campaign.
Source: youtube.com
The phrase landed Andrew Cuomo in hot water in 2008 when he used it to reference Obama.
“I don't blame that baby for crying. She just realized what it means if Romney gets elected.”
Tennessee Republican who pressured mistress to have an abortion finds himself under increased scrutiny just weeks before election.
Image by Erik Schelzig / AP
Washington, D.C. — Tennessee Democrats have asked a state court to unseal Rep. Scott DesJarlais’ divorce records in the wake of revelations that the doctor had an affair with a patient and subsequently pressured her to have an abortion.
On Wednesday Democrats asked a Marion County Chancery Court to unseal the divorce records, and in a blog post, the party’s legal counsel Gerard Stranch argued that “DesJarlais wasn’t honest with us the first time he ran for office, and there’s no other way to know what else he’s hiding.”
Democrats also allege that a number of key documents relating to the divorce — including his ex-wife’s pre-trial brief as well as transcripts and exhibits — were removed from the court.
DesJarlais’ campaign fired back Wednesday afternoon, accusing Democrats of orchestrating a smear campaign against the freshman lawmaker.
“Our conservative support is growing and solidifying as Tennessee voters react to this recycled smear campaign,” DesJarlais spokesman Brandon Lewis said in an email.
“While the Democrats go digging through the dumpster, Congressman DesJarlais is fighting for lower taxes, job creation, and a repeal of Obamacare — the things Tennessee voters actually care about,” Lewis added.
DeJarlais, a conservative, pro-life Republican from a rural and extremely conservative district, seemed on track for re-election this year only a few months ago. But his campaign was rocked earlier this month when he acknowledged having an affair with a patient, which ultimately led to a pregnancy that he pushed her to abort.
Since then, state and national Democrats have jumped on the race, pouring significant funding into it as some voters have soured on his behavior.
DeJarlais is one of a number of Republican candidates across the country who have found themselves tripped up in the tricky issue of abortion. For instance, Senate candidates Rep. Todd Akin in Missouri and Richard Mourdock in Indiana have both come under fire for comments about rape and abortion
Democrat Howard Berman's campaign releases new robocalls of colleagues calling Rep. Brad Sherman an “embarrassment.” Just when you thought Berman-Sherman couldn't get uglier.
Image by Pablo Martinez Monsivais, File / AP
Washington, D.C. — The intraparty fight between California Democrats Brad Sherman and Howard Berman took another ugly turn Wednesday when two of Sherman’s colleagues cut robocall soundtracks accusing him of being an embarrassment and pleading with voters not to send him to Washington.
The bipartisan calls, one by Democrat Henry Waxman and the other by Republican Elton Gallegly, are the latest episode in an increasingly bitter Democrat on Democrat election that has featured personal attacks, a fight over who is more supportive of Israel and even a physical altercation earlier this month.
In his call, Gallegly says that "in my 13 terms in the United States House of Representatives, I’ve never made a recorded campaign call like this before.”
Pointing to Sherman’s altercation with Berman — in which he grabbed his colleague during a candidate forum — Gallegly argues “This is no way to behave … Please, do not send Brad Sherman back to Congress. His behavior is unacceptable.”
Waxman, meanwhile, labels Sherman’s campaign an “embarrassment” in his robocall and argues that “Sherman's aggressiveness is one of the reasons that almost all of his colleagues, including Senators Feinstein and Boxer, are supporting Howard Berman.”
“Please do not send Brad Sherman back to Congress. His behavior is unacceptable,” Waxman pleads with voters.
