The undercover former presidential candidate was spotted shopping at Costco in La Jolla by TMZ. He's pulling a Biden !
Former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney arrives at the White House in Washington, Thursday, Nov. 29, 2012, for his luncheon with President Barack Obama.
Image by Pablo Martinez Monsivais / AP
Images removed at the request of Double Vision Media.
The message: “We do care about people, not just the wealthy,” says an aide. It's all about the children!
Image by Jim Young / Reuters
WASHINGTON — Key Republican leaders have begun to turn their focus to education policy as their best bet at broadening the appeal of their battered party to women and minority voters.
Leading Republicans — including Sen. Marco Rubio, Rep. Paul Ryan, and House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy, a key Ryan ally — have argued in recent days that an intense focus on high standards and parental choice could restore the reputation for "compassionate conservatism" that faded after George W. Bush was elected on the slogan in 2000.
"Our children are our country's most valuable resource — and yet our current system of education is failing them," McCarthy told BuzzFeed. "We must create a structure and an environment that gives every student an opportunity to succeed and achieve their greatest potential."
Ryan and Rubio — already quietly jostling to be their party's standard-bearer — are expected to make their own cases on the issue when they speak at the Jack Kemp Foundation dinner in Washington on Tuesday, outlining their visions for the party going forward based on a focus on education and addressing poverty.
The push to raise national education standards was at the core of the promise of Bush's election, but education and associated anti-poverty efforts have essentially disappeared from the Republican lexicon in the wake of No Child Left Behind, which turned into a political liability for the Republican Party. President Barack Obama also muddied the distinctions by adopting as modified version of Bush's policy as his own "Race to the Top," and keeping his distance from the teachers' unions who are a traditional Democratic constituency. But Republican leaders say they now see an opportunity to turn "education reform" — a loose package that focuses on testing, parental choice, online learning, and hostility to union power — into a message that they believe can appeal to the mothers of small children and people of color.
Since election night, Rubio began pressing a plan to bring what he calls “upward mobility” issues to the forefront, with an emphasis on education and skills development to help poor and minority communities succeed.
“The conservative movement should have particular appeal to people in minority and immigrant communities who are trying to make it, and Republicans need to work harder than ever to communicate our beliefs to them,” he wrote in a much-talked-about Facebook posting. Rubio will also outline his plans in a breakfast conversation with Politico's Mike Allen on Wednesday.
Ryan began the process even before the campaign was over. In early October, his campaign bus rolled up to Cornerstone Schools in Detroit, where he watched children perform a mock constitutional convention — appearing to wipe his eyes afterward, according to the pool reporter inside. Ryan made that visit a major part of his stump speech, railing against teachers unions and calling for school choice.
Meanwhile, on Capitol Hill, education talks are also underway, with Republicans quietly plotting out a course for their party to take up the issue over the next two years.
According to operatives familiar with the strategy, McCarthy, Ryan, and others believe education allows the party to take several steps at once toward fixing their electoral woes.
“It’s a rallying point and its something positive,” one House leadership aide said, adding that focusing on education is “an opportunity for us to regain control from a messaging standpoint as the party that cares about people. Because we do care about people, not just the wealthy.”
The notion that Republican education policy is a sure winner is not an obvious sell. While many minority parents, for instance, regularly tell pollsters that they favor choice, schools and other public institutions are major employers in African-American communities, and Republicans have rarely turned attacks on unions into black votes. There is also a basic tension inside the Republican Party between those who favor a stricter set of national standards and tests and those who reject any federal intervention in local autonomy; and there is a spectrum inside the party on how far officials would go in terms of privatizing public education through a system of vouchers.
And the education-based path forward is just one of several schools of thought within Republican circles: Indeed, it can at times feel as if every “influential operative” or “senior lawmaker” is leading his own band of true believers.
On Sunday, Dan Senor, a Romney-Ryan campaign advisor, gave a preview of the likely 2016 candidates’ remarks to ABC’s This Week, saying, “It's all about the war on poverty.”
Other Republicans — most notably Speaker John Boehner and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who will lead the GOP over the next two years at least — see no reason for the party to shift direction at all. McConnell seems increasingly convinced that the GOP’s woes in November have little to do with policy or messaging, and are simply a matter of finding better candidates. And the House Speaker has declared the party’s principles “fundamentally sound” and he seems content to relitigate the battles of Obama’s first term, ranging from a repeat of the debt ceiling debacle to Obamacare.
But education appears to be moving to the fore among the large set of Republicans convinced of the need for change.
At the Harvard Institute of Politics Campaign Managers Conference on Thursday, Republican operatives bemoaned the lack of outreach to minorities in private conversations with BuzzFeed.
“Education — it’s an easy issue because half the Democratic Party agrees with us," said one Republican operative. "We should be leading on the issues that matter to poor and minority communities, not ignoring them."
And the school choice movement — which shares its deep-pocketed Wall Street backing, at least in part, with some Republican officials — has begun to develop a message and an infrastructure that either party could turn to its advantage.
“The numbers don't lie,” said Matt David, Jon Huntsman’s campaign manager now advising StudentsFirst, the group founded by former DC schools chancellor Michelle Rhee. “This election proved we need a message that appeals to minorities. Republicans have an opportunity to make inroads there on education reform. It doesn't require a shift in our position; it requires making it our priority.”
“Our education system is failing our kids to the point where top Democratic leaders are stepping up and challenging the system, like Mayors Villaraigosa, Booker, and Kevin Johnson," he added. "Republicans need to step up quickly before we lose the issue.”
Even former Romney aides are urging the party to reconsider its positions after the election, encouraging an emphasis on schools and a softening on immigration.
"We need to be the party of compassionate conservatives again, not self-deportation," said one former aide to the Republican nominee. Former Romney campaign manager Matt Rhoades said last week that he regretted his candidate's turn to the right on immigration during the Republican primary.
But even if education-minded reformers have their way, they aren't promising a significant, or even perceptible, shift in voting patterns in the next elections. They acknowledge that Republican Party’s woes with minority and female voters have been decades in the making, and distrust runs deep, particularly amongst black and Latino voters.
“There is no solution in the short-term,” McCarthy acknowledged last week.
Brendan Steinhauser leaving for a job in Texas.
Source: comedycentral.mtvnimages.com
The conservative group FreedomWorks has lost Dick Armey, its vice president for policy Max Pappas, and also one of its most visible faces: Brendan Steinhauser, the director of federal and state campaigns.
Steinhauser told BuzzFeed he is taking a job in Austin, Texas as communications director for a group that he won't announce yet. Asked if he would grant BuzzFeed his exit interview, Steinhauser demurred, saying "Haha" in a text message.
The news broke on Monday that Dick Armey, FreedomWorks' chairman and the former House Majority Leader, had left the group. He told Mother Jones that "The top management team of FreedomWorks was taking a direction I thought was unproductive, and I thought it was time to move on with my life."
Max Pappas, the group's vice president for public policy and government affairs, also left the group. Pappas didn't return a request for comment.
The Associated Press reported Tuesday that as part of a contract drawn up around Armey's decision to leave in September, Armey is being paid $8 million in installments of $400,000 each.
FreedomWorks' techniques of recruiting and training Tea Party activists bore little fruit this year, as most of the high-profile campaigns they were involved with — like Connie Mack in Florida and Richard Mourdock in Indiana — failed. (A major exception: the election of Ted Cruz in Texas.) Steinhauser played a large role in FreedomWorks' campaign efforts, traveling the country to school activists at FreePAC conferences.
“The Republican Party has now surrendered its principles and is in full retreat,” says the conservative activist. The solution? Fund the Tea Party.
Image by Alex Wong / Getty Images
WASHINGTON — Conservative activist and fundraiser Brent Bozell is drawing a line in the sand for congressional Republicans, warning that any who vote for House Speaker John Boehner's latest fiscal cliff plan will suffer the wrath of Bozell and his army of millionaires.
Boehner's plan is unlikely to actually come to the floor in it's current form, but Bozell's harsh criticism and warning indicate how deeply the bad blood between many grassroots conservatives and GOP leadership runs.
“Should America assume that Rep. John Boehner et. al. have been misleading the country for more than two years now? It would appear so," he wrote in a statement shared first with BuzzFeed, and posted to his grassroots website ForAmerica. "It would be impossible to count the times and ways Boehner, Cantor, McCarthy and so many others have told America that tax hikes would kill jobs and cripple the economy. Lo and behold, that’s just what they’ve proposed, $800 billion of them."
Last month, Bozell warned he would aggressively push conservative donors to avoid any Republicans who vote for a tax increase.
In an interview with BuzzFeed, Bozell said he makes no distinction between raising tax rates and eliminating deductions to increase federal revenue.
"Closing loopholes is always a malarky adventure," he said. "If the loopholes are open, then why didn't they close them before?"
"This is the opening bid," he added of the Republicans' proposal. "It's only going to get worse from here! It's just insanity."
Bozell's statement asserts that "the Republican Party has now surrendered its principles and is in full retreat," and he told BuzzFeed their proposal crossed the line for him.
"All the party organs should be cut off," he said. "The only people who should be funded are those conservatives who don't break their word, and the primary opponents of the ones who do."
He also said he has spoken with a number of conservative mega-donors since the Republicans announced their plan to raise revenue, and he described them as up in arms.
"I just got off the phone with a multi-million dollar donor to Republican causes and his answer to me was, 'I don't think I can support them anymore.' I got an e-mail from another billionaire who said, 'I think my money should go to the Tea Party.'"
Of course, Bozell, who is also the founder of the conservative Media Research Center, is unlikely to single-handedly lead a mass grassroots rebellion. But his hard line against any revenue increases at all — let alone tax rate hikes for the wealthy — illustrates how hard it will be for Boehner to sell Republicans on a grand bargain.
As Bozell put it, "There are only two things these people seem to pay attention to: Money and primary challenges."
Bozell's full statement:
“Should America assume that Rep. John Boehner et. al. have been misleading the country for more than two years now? It would appear so. It would be impossible to count the times and ways Boehner, Cantor, McCarthy and so many others have told America that tax hikes would kill jobs and cripple the economy. Lo and behold, that’s just what they’ve proposed, $800 billion of them. They aren’t taxes, no siree. They are ‘revenue,’ and ‘loopholes’ that are closed (which also begs the question: if these are loopholes, why were they open?). The Obama administration now demands double that amount, and why not? The Republican Party has now surrendered its principles, and is in full retreat, the Democrats taste blood, and they’re going for it all. I would too.
“Sen. Jim DeMint as usual is sounding the clarion call against this fiscal insanity. Others — the ones who believe in honoring their solemn commitments to their constituents — will join him in slamming this job destruction agenda. They are, unfortunately, firmly in the minority. It is no coincidence that right before releasing this disastrous proposal, the Speaker of the House orchestrated a purge of conservatives from key positions of power in the Republican Conference. The Republican Party is no longer the party of limited government, with limited spending and limited taxes. It is now officially exactly right behind the Democrats — on everything. It is time for conservatives to start looking for a new home. There’s precious little left for us here.”
Obama weighs in: “A lot's been said about our personal relationship, and here's what I know…you've become a great friend.”
Via: youtube.com
Set to the soundtrack of Bruno Mars's "Just the Way You Are," this Hillary Clinton tribute aired last Friday at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy, and convinced the New Yorker's David Remnick that "Hillary is running" in 2016.
The video featured glowing words from some of the biggest names in global politics, including a concluding word of thanks from President Obama in a direct-to-camera message to the Secretary herself:
Tony Blair, former British Prime Minister: "What makes Hillary Hillary is strength, toughness — very strong streak of principle. What makes all of that kind of bearable for the rest of us is when you get to know her really incredible humor and humanity. And that's what makes people not just like her but love her... I just have an instinct that the best is yet to come."
Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel Prime Minister: "I've just had the opportunity to work with her to achieve a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas. Hillary Clinton is a strong and determined leader...She knows how to get the job done."
Sen. John McCain: "In every place she goes, she reaches out to people, she has a smile, she's friendly — and yet beneath that friendship is a person of very firm convictions."
Salam Fayyad, Prime Minister, Palestinian National Authority: "You know when Hillary's in the room. She is highly personable. She's real."
Madeleine Albright, former Secretary of State: "She has a laugh that is completely infectious."
President Obama: "Through it all, I've relied on the shining qualities that have defined your life. Your conviction, your optimism, your belief that America can and must be a force for good in the world... I'll say it again — you've been one of the best secretaries of state in American history. And finally, Hillary, a lot's been said about our relationship, and here's what I know: you haven't just been one of my closest partners — you've become a great friend. I'm so grateful for your grace, you humor, your friendship."
“We do not go to meetings with proposals and leak them to the press,” Carney says.
Image by Jacquelyn Martin / AP
WASHINGTON — White House Press Secretary Jay Carney criticized Republicans for trying to leverage the press to pressure the Obama administration, boasting about the administrations secrecy.
"We do not schedule meetings through the press, and we do not negotiate through the press," Carney said, in response to a question including a background comment from a Republican aide says there are currently no meetings scheduled on the fiscal cliff talks.
"We do not give the press our proposals before we give them to Republicans," Carney added, clearly suggesting that Republicans do. "We do not go to meetings with proposals and leak them to the press."
The White House has been cagey about Obama's actions to avert the fiscal cliff, deciding against notifying reporters about the president's calls to congressional leaders and the meetings of top aides with lawmakers. Obama and Carney have also dodged questions about whether the president is committed to raising tax rates on the wealthy to the rates under President Bill Clinton, or rather just that they be higher than the rate under the Bush tax cuts.
Flip-flopping Republican group hits Harry Reid for flip-flopping. All in a day's work on the Hill.
Via: scribd.com
“We addressed that and there was no threat of default at the time,” White House Press Secretary Jay Carney says of Obama's 2006 vote against raising the federal borrowing limit.
Source: youtube.com
“The expression 'time is fleeting' has never been more apropos than it is today,” Crowley says. Democrats sign a discharge petition to try to bring middle-class tax cuts to the floor.
Image by Alex Wong / Getty Images
WASHINGTON — With fiscal cliff negotiations creeping onward behind closed doors, House Democrats continued to publicly urge a vote Tuesday to extend tax cuts on income up to $250,000.
"The expression 'time is fleeting' has never been more apropos than it is today," Rep. Joseph Crowley, the newly elected vice chair of the House Democratic caucus, told reporters.
Democrats have contended since before Election Day that House Republicans should vote immediately to extend the cuts for 98 percent of taxpayers — "something we can all agree on," many Democratic lawmakers have repeated.
But Republican lawmakers, many of whom have pledged not to vote to raise taxes under any circumstances, have demanded that the cuts be extended for all tax brackets — and have blocked a vote in the meantime.
"No Republican who signs this is violating any pledge they took not to raise taxes," Rep. Tim Walz, a Minnesota Democrat who took the lead on the petition, said Tuesday, alluding to Grover Norquist's infamous anti-tax pledge. Walz added, "I think there's — I know there's Republicans over there who will take a look at this."
One Republican, Rep. Tom Cole of Oklahoma, said recently that he would support extending tax cuts in stages — and his name has been dropped regularly by Democrats ever since.
House Speaker John Boehner distanced himself from Cole's remark, and the question of how to net new revenue has persisted a major sticking point in the ongoing fiscal cliff negotiations.
But Democrats remain hopeful that Republicans, in due time, will cede their hard line.
"This is a difficult time for Republicans," said Rep. John Larson, the outgoing chair of the House Democratic caucus, "and we want to provide them with every opportunity we can to save face."
The top three posts at the Democratic Governors Association are set. The group is meeting in Los Angeles for their annual conference to make Vermont's Shumlin chairman, as O'Malley steps a rung down to focus on 2016.
Image by Jim Young / Reuters
Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper, a voice of the Democratic center who could be a presidential contender in 2016, will take a post in the party's hierarchy, as vice chairman of the Democratic Governors Association, a source at the group's conference in Los Angeles told BuzzFeed.
As the DGA votes Tuesday evening on new leadership, the top three committee positions — chair, vice chair, and finance chair — are expected to be unchallenged and almost certainly locked in place, the source said.
Gov. Peter Shumlin of Vermont is expected be the DGA's next chair; Gov. John Hickenlooper of Colorado, its next vice chair; and Gov. Martin O'Malley — who served in the top leadership position for the last two years — will continue on the committee as finance chair.
"No decisions yet on the other chairs," said the source, referring to the more minor DGA committee positions — labor chair, CEO roundtable chair, and NGA chair. But Maggie Hassan, the newly elected governor of New Hampshire — and the only female Democratic governor — is expected to take on some roll.
The shuffle in leadership gestures toward the rising stock of Shumlin and of Hickenlooper — the moderate western Democrat — as O'Malley steps back to lay the groundwork for a possible run for the presidency in 2016.
DGA spokesperson Kate Hansen would not confirm the chair positions, but did say that "the expectation has been that O'Malley would step down," she said. "He's been chair for two years and he's just been an excellent leader, a strong fundraiser, and a prominent surrogate for the president."
The governors will vote on the top three positions in a meeting at 3 p.m. PST, and the results will be announced by the DGA shortly thereafter. Hansen said the other three slots could be decided at Tuesday's meeting or at a later date.
“The elephant in this room that needs to be spoken about is the impact of climate change,” says Edwards.
Image by Seth Wenig, File / AP
WASHINGTON — The Washington conversation about Hurricane Sandy and its aftermath has shifted quickly from concern about climate change to a fight over federal cash.
One week after New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg lobbied Congress for disaster relief funding to supplement Sandy recovery efforts, the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee considered the state of the recovery on Capitol Hill Tuesday, and the central question was the place and expense of the federal role in disaster recovery.
"Hurricane Sandy should be a major wake-up call," said Rep. Jerrold Nadler of New York. "When disaster strikes, our densely populated urban areas and economic centers must be able to recover quickly."
But the overarching problem at issue — that of climate change and the superstorms that scientists say will become more common as a result — was scarcely mentioned.
"The elephant in this room that needs to be spoken about is the impact of climate change," said Rep. Donna Edwards in her opening statement, which was an exception to that rule. She added, "I think we have to rethink and rebuild our infrastructure in those terms."
The committee focused instead on the question of how to support states and cities financially in the wake of the superstorm.
When Bloomberg visited Capitol Hill last week, he lobbied lawmakers for $15 billion in non-FEMA money for New York City alone. The state of New York is requesting an additional $42 billion.
On Tuesday, appearing before the House committee, FEMA chief Craig Fugate said $1.93 billion has so far been committed from FEMA's disaster relief fund for Sandy recovery efforts, out of $7.1 billion available funds. The remaining money, FEMA has said, will likely run out by spring.
With New York and New Jersey in particular, Fugate said, "We're using estimates, we're not waiting for final numbers" to send money for recovery efforts.
"We have been pushing to get cash back into the communities faster," he added.
It's something like this.
Source: youtube.com
Ed Schultz, Rachel Maddow, Al Sharpton, and Lawrence O'Donnell all spotted entering the West Wing.
WASHINGTON — MSNBC's prime time line-up was spotted entering the West Wing Tuesday afternoon for what host Ed Schultz tweeted was a meeting with President Barack Obama.
White House Principal Deputy Press Secretary Josh Earnest released the following statement on the meeting:
“This afternoon at the White House, the President met with influential progressives to talk about the importance of preventing a tax increase on middle class families, strengthening our economy and adopting a balanced approach to deficit reduction.”
Warren steers clear of Washington's topic du jour . Instead, she sticks to talking about her consumer protection agency.
Image by Bizuayehu Tesfaye / AP
WASHINGTON — On cable news, one can hardly go two minutes without hearing the phrase "fiscal cliff" uttered.
But Sen-elect Elizabeth Warren, a darling of the left wing who has rarely steered clear of hot-button topics, went 20 minutes without once mentioning the looming austerity crisis.
In a speech to the Midwest Academy on Tuesday night, Warren instead stuck to the economic issue she knows best: The consumer protection agency she helped to create.
She lauded the accomplishment in her remarks, which she delivered to a receptive audience of roughly 100 people.
"Whatever it is that happens going forward, when somebody says to you, 'You can't get anything done in Washington, I don't know why you try, it's not possible, you can't get things done,' I want you just to stop and look back at them and say, 'consumer agency,'" Warren said.
Since she arrived on Capitol Hill, Warren has been notably shy toward discussing anything controversial — or speaking to the press at all.
When she walked with Sen.-elect Tammy Baldwin past a group of reporters last month, Warren implored Baldwin to "pretend you're talking to me."
As Rep. JoAnn Emerson announces her retirement, the jockeying for her safely Republican seat begins. Missouri's lieutenant governor emerges as a frontrunner.
Image by Kelly McCall, File / AP
WASHINGTON — Rep. JoAnn Emerson's unexpected announcement Monday that she will retire from Congress has set off a highly choreographed dance amongst Republican contenders in the state vying to replace the moderate early next year.
Emerson, who announced she was bolting Capitol Hill for the well-heeled confines of K Street, was first elected to Congress in 1996 after her husband, Rep. Bill Emerson, died while in office.
Now, Lloyd Smith, the executive director of the Missouri Republican Party, and Missouri Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder have emerged as frontrunners to take her seat in a safely Republican district.
In this shuffle to replace a relatively moderate Republican congresswoman, Kinder's potential candidacy is of particular intrigue.
For one, he would leave a vacancy in the lieutenant governor's office that would throw into flux one of only two statewide offices held by a Republican.
And Kinder himself is an infamous, divisive figure within the state party: He is as widely respected for his loyalty to conservative causes and the party line as he is dismissed for his magnetic attraction to bad press.
He drew headlines last year when he stayed at luxury hotels and charged the rooms, $52,000-worth, to the state. (Although not illegal, Kinder later offered to pay the money back in full, out-of-pocket.)
He raised eyebrows among conservative Republicans when photos surfaced of Kinder, who is not married, hanging out with a former Penthouse Pet.
And he might be the most accidentally renowned voice in Missouri's political Twittersphere: After drawing bipartisan, slack-jawed criticism for tweeting about "lefty Jew hatred," tramp stamps, and Hooters, his staff revoked his Twitter privileges.
Still, as a dependable voice within the conservative wing of his party — Rush Limbaugh has been Kinder's friend since both were children growing up in southeast Missouri — he was considered a favorite to challenge Gov. Jay Nixon this year before Kinder opted instead to seek a third term as lieutenant governor.
But if Kinder has a slight edge to succeed Emerson, the slot's heir is still not yet entirely apparent.
The decision will hinge on the wishes and whims of a Republican committee, the members of which will choose within the next few weeks whom to support for the party's nomination. The special election will then be held later in 2013.
Also in the mix among Republicans: Sarah Steelman, who lost in the Republican Senate primary race to Todd Akin; and a handful of state lawmakers, including former state Sen. Jason Crowell and state Reps. Todd Richardson and Jason Smith.
But most political operatives speculate that Kinder and Lloyd Smith will have first right of refusal among Republicans for the plum congressional seat.
As one former state lawmaker put it in an email, "Smith and Kinder get in a room and decide, I think."
"This is literally almost like two brothers having to choose who gets a congressional seat," a Republican operative added.
Both men have close ties to Emerson and her family.
Kinder worked for Bill Emerson on Capitol Hill and ran his first two campaigns; Smith, for his part, worked as JoAnn Emerson's chief of staff until 2009 and with Bill Emerson before that, accruing nearly three decades of service with the Emerson clan in general.
On Monday, Kinder released a brief statement to address whether he would run, and said he would give it "careful thought and consideration."
"While it would be an honor to serve, this is a committee decision, and over the coming weeks I will be communicating directly to the members to gauge support for my potential candidacy," Kinder said in a statement. "It is important to let the committee process take its course, and only after talking to committee members will I make a decision on whether to seek the nomination."
Potential 2016 candidates make a move.
Image by Phelan M. Ebenhack / AP
WASHINGTON — In their most substantive remarks since the presidential election, former Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan and Republican Sen. Marco Rubio called on the Republican Party to expand its focus to the nation's least fortunate, delivering an implicit, but sharp, rebuke to Mitt Romney's "47 percent" line.
"Both parties tend to divide Americans into 'our voters' and 'their voters,'" Ryan said at the Jack Kemp Foundation Leadership Awards Dinner in Washington Tuesday night, joining the chorus of Republicans moving away from the GOP nominee.
"Let’s be clear: Republicans must steer far clear of that trap," he continued, a line greeted with a loud round of applause from the audience minutes after saying he was "proud" of Romney. "We must speak to the aspirations and anxieties of every American. I believe we can turn the engines of upward mobility back on, so that no one is left out from the promise of America. But it’s going to require a bold departure from the approach that government has taken for the last five decades."
"Jack hated the idea that any part of America could be written off," Ryan said, trying to prove that he is much more than a budgetary wonk.
Similarly Rubio, the honoree at the dinner who, like Ryan, is a likely candidate for the presidency in 2016, took a veiled shot at Mitt Romney's claim that he lost because of "gifts" Obama gave to minority group.
"Some say that our problem is that the American people have changed," Rubio said. "That too many people want things from government. But I am still convinced that the overwhelming majority of our people just want what my parents had — a chance."
“Every country has rich people, but only a few places have achieved a vibrant and stable middle class,” Rubio added, calling it a “fundamental promise of America” to have the opportunity to make it to the middle class.
Kemp, a longtime leader of the Republican Party's conservative wing, was long an advocate for the poor, arguing that conservatives must find a way to take care of the least fortunate, with a particular focus on inner city areas.
Their addresses were a must-see event in the nation's capital, drawing dozens of reporters for a preview of a potential 2012 primary match-up, but also a window into the evolving Republican Party.
Both lawmakers laid out expansive visions for a party that doesn't just embrace the "risk-takers," in Ryan's words — the upper middle class and higher income Americans championed by Romney.
"When our neighbors are struggling, we look out for one another," he said. "We do that best through our families and communities – and our party must stand for making them stronger. We have a compassionate vision based on ideas that work – but sometimes we don’t do a good job of laying out that vision. We need to do a better job on that."
Rubio laid out the policy challenges facing the less fortunate — sluggish job creation, rising costs living, a "skills shortage" that is making it harder for people to find work, and the "breakdown" in the American family — laying out his policy agenda for the next two years in Congress.
"They aren’t looking for a handout," Rubio said, of lower income Americans. "They just want a job that provides for their families."
"In the kitchens of our hotels; In the landscaping crews that work in our neighborhoods; In the late night janitorial shifts that clean our offices: There you will find the dreams America was built on," he added. "There you will find the promise of tomorrow."
The senator-elect returns to professor mode in a speech.
Image by Gretchen Ertl / Reuters
WASHINGTON — Sen.-elect Elizabeth Warren took a victory lap on Tuesday night after her commanding victory in Massachusetts' U.S. Senate race, laying out her advice for running a progressive campaign to an adoring crowd of liberal activists.
"I was up against a popular incumbent who had $10 million in the bank and a nifty pickup truck," Warren told a supportive crowd of roughly 100 people at the annual Midwest Academy Awards, who greeted her with a standing ovation. "That's a pretty formidable combination."
How did she win? Warren, who has a background in academia, slipped back into professor mode to explain the lessons she learned during her "hard-fought" campaign.
"You don't have to run it on personal attacks, because people out there are smart and they get it."
Image by Shannon Stapleton / Reuters
"We have to talk about how working families are getting slammed, how Washington is rigged to work for the big guys, how we can't be a country of, 'I've got mine, the rest of you are on your own.' The way we build the future is, we build that future by investing in that future, investing in education, investing in roads and bridges, investing in research, creating a future for ourselves, creating a future for our children, creating a future for our grandchildren. We build that together and we have to be willing to talk about that future, how it is a vision of practical economics but it is also a vision of values. It's a question of what kind of a people we are and what kind of a country we are going to build, and we are out there to talk about that vision."
Image by Stephan Savoia / AP
32-year-old libertarian Republican Congressman Justin Amash took to Facebook late Tuesday evening to slam House Republican leadership for removing him from the Budget Committee. The freshman Congressman said his removal took place without even a call, text, or email and he learned news of it through the media.
Via: facebook.com
Paul will segue into a paid speaking gig directly following his exit from Congress.
Rep. Ron Paul, not yet out of Congress, has lined up his next gig: he'll hit the paid speaking circuit, a common path for more conventional ex-politicians.
Paul will be represented by the Greater Talent Network Speakers Bureau, which represents a number of political figures and celebrities, such as Tiki Barber, Harold Ford, Jr., George Pataki, and Candace Bushnell. According to the website, he is available beginning January 7th, 2013, right at the end of his term. The website copy reads:
At the podium, Dr. Paul delivers a candid look at the dysfunctional American political system. Using anecdotes from his 23 years in Congress, he highlights the need for a limited government and more personal liberties. Dr. Paul captures audiences’ attention by relating the occurrence of current national issues such as debt, privacy and freedom to the government’s neglect to follow the constitution. Despite the less than ideal condition of the country, Dr. Paul is an optimist. His unwavering passion leaves audiences motivated to speak out, wake up and let politicians know what they want.
Paul said last month that he would continue to appear on college campuses, where he's known for drawing huge crowds, after his retirement from Congress.
