- Gingrich sold access and influence even if he didn’t lobby under the letter of the law.
- He says he never took money to adopt a position, and didn’t need the income.
- The most important primary question at this point: Will conservatives forgive Gingrich his trespasses?
- Romney transfers his “career politician” line on Perry to Newt.
- Robert Draper profiles the new Romney.
- Marc Ambinder nails down his immigration views.
- Herman Cain delivers a final piece de resistance foreign policy address.
- The GOP is now almost as unpopular as Democrats in Tea Party districts.
- Republicans will back the payroll tax cut extension, but the payfor still needs to be negotiated.
- Major central banks make coordinated effort on Europe.
- Revelations about Hank Paulson’s outside line are troubling.
- What Hillary Clinton can expect in Burma.
- And when in doubt, Perry makes up numbers that sound right: “Those of you that will be 21 by November the 12th, I ask for your support and your vote.”
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The Phony War: Obama and Romney Are Debating Character, Not Policy
More than five months from Election Day, the back-and-forth about Mitt Romney’s record at Bain already feels played out. Unfortunately, there’s good reason to expect the campaign continues in this vein indefinitely. Neither Barack Obama nor Mitt Romney are terribly interested in dwelling on policy platforms. Romney’s plan to slash spending and keep taxes low on the wealthy isn’t especially popular, at least not at any level of detail beyond a blithe promise to shrink the deficit. Meanwhile, Obama’s signature first-term achievements, like health care, the stimulus and Wall Street reform, are all unpopular or tricky to sell. (The Dodd-Frank bill is the most popular of these, but hyping it means offending wealthy donors.) So what we’re getting instead is a superficial duel about character–and, worse, one that’s based on the largely false premise that the better man can better “manage” the economy back to health.
