Cross Country

From Dawn Laguens (Executive Vice President, Planned Parenthood Action Fund) at THE HUFFINGTON POST:

Mitt Romney: It is time to withdraw your endorsement of Richard Mourdock.

We can’t go a week in this campaign without another out-of-touch politician showing his true colors on women’s health issues. First, Missouri Senate candidate Todd Akin said, “If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.” Last week, Representative Joe Walsh said that abortion is unnecessary because the life of a mother is never at risk. Just yesterday, Indiana Senate candidate Richard Mourdock said pregnancy as a result of rape is “something that God intended to happen.”

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El Pandering

From POLITICO:

Newt Gingrich has come a long way since criticizing Latinos a few years ago for continuing to speak “the language of living in a ghetto.” He’s taking Spanish lessons, reaching out to Hispanic community leaders, and supports “finding a way for residency” for some illegal immigrants.

But mounting a successful presidential bid means winning over GOP primary activists — many of whom favor a hard-line immigration crackdown — and that means Gingrich’s moderate positions could spell big trouble for him in the early-voting states, strategists say.

…snip…

He recently attended a Texas conference on strengthening Latino and Jewish dialogue, and regularly publishes op-eds in Spanish.

Pander much?

Bloodsuckers

From The Miami Herald:

Call 2011 the year of the Republican governor.

Newly elected officials such as New Jersey’s Chris Christie, Florida’s Rick Scott and Wisconsin’s Scott Walker are exerting power in dramatic ways and jumping over each other for a share of the national spotlight.

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A Cheesy Move in Wisconsin

From The Washington Post:

The Wisconsin State Assembly approved a bill Thursday that would slash union rights for public workers. The vote comes a day after the state Senate used a legislative maneuver to pass the bill without the 14 Democratic senators who fled the state in an effort to block it.

The bill, proposed by Republican Gov. Scott Walker, is considered the most devastating blow to labor unions in many years and in the last three weeks has drawn thousands of union supporters to the state Capitol in protest. The measure passed the Assembly, 53 to 42.

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The Bland of Pawlenty

From politicalticker at CNN:

Phoenix (CNN) – With no Mitt Romney, Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich or other potential presidential candidates in attendance, Tim Pawlenty did not have to elbow much for speaking and face time with conservative activists gathered at the American Policy Summit in Phoenix on Saturday.

Amid the thin lineup of potential candidates at the Tea Party Patriots’ three-day event, the friendly crowd was served red meat from the former Minnesota Republican governor – who emerged on stage to a splashy video presentation.

“I’m here today to say, ‘Thank you.’ Thank you for standing up to the ruling class. Thank you for standing up to the liberal power brokers, guardians of the status quo and the royal triangle of greed: big government, big unions and big bailed-out businesses.”

Thank you, because I can’t blow each one of you individually.
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Anti-Labor Pains

From POLITICAL HOTSHEET at CBS NEWS:

As the conflict in Wisconsin shifts from a battle over budget deficits into an ideological debate, some high-profile Republicans — potential presidential contenders — are lining up behind Republican Gov. Scott Walker.

…snip…

Former Minnesota governor and possible presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty released a video today that uses dramatic music and quick cuts of protest footage to show support for Walker. At the end of the minute-long video, Pawlenty is shown on a news program saying, “It’s really important that America stand with Walker, stand with Wisconsin.”

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Scott Walker, Koch Addict

From The Washington Post:

You’ve probably heard politicians fret that state governments – or, worse, the federal government – will default on their debts. House Speaker John A. Boehner called the prospect of a federal default “a financial disaster not only for our country but for the worldwide economy.”

And why will it be so bad for the economy? Because the powerful actors who make up the entity we loosely refer to as “the market” – that means everyone from banks to hedge funds to China – will go nuts.

…snip…

So America’s various governmental entities are looking for ways to avoid defaulting on their debt – or at least defaulting on their debt to the powerful. That addendum is important, because one of the strategies that’s emerging is to default on debt to the less powerful, the people who don’t have the power to wreck our economy.

This is a crucial fact about the economy: Power matters. It’s worth more, in many cases, than money. And that’s what’s really at issue in Wisconsin.

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CPAniC

From TALKING POINTS MEMO:

Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, the last of the possible Republican presidential candidates to address CPAC on Friday, strode to the podium at tonight’s Ronald Reagan Banquet and turned back the clock to the 1980s: the thing we have to fear, he said, is the growing Red Threat.

“In our nation, in our time, the friends of freedom have an assignment, as great as those of the 1860s, or the 1940s, or the long twilight of the Cold War,” he said. “As in those days, the American project is menaced by a survival-level threat.”

“I refer, of course, to the debts our nation has amassed for itself over decades of indulgence,” he added. “It is the new Red Menace, this time consisting of ink.”

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