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Last week, GOP U.S. Senate candidate Todd Akin once again said that he is staying in the race, despite calls from his own party to drop out following his controversial statements about rape and pregnancy. In the following clip, contributing RP Jason Grill and Republican Annie Pressley debate whether Akin still has any shot at winning in November:  Greetings from hot and humid Tampa Bay, Florida! It’s the final day of the Republican National Convention, with Mitt Romney taking the stage later tonight. If there was ever a time Romney needed to look Americans in the eye and convince them that he understands their problems, it’s now. Here’s today’s menu…Appetizer: The most important word of the week hasn’t been “accountability” or “jobs” or “leadership” — for any convention-goer, it’s “Credential.” There are different badges for the media and for the delegates, distinctions by forum section and suite level access. Two of the biggest tickets are the blue floor passes (if it says “Escort” you can bring two others down with you) and black production passes (backstage access). Tuesday night we ran into one of the good men in the Senate, John Barrasso of Wyoming. Shaking his hand, I couldn’t help but notice his “Maine Delegate” badge. His response: “Hey, you can never have too many credentials at one of these things!” When a US Senator is wearing credentials from states other than his own, you know they come at a premium
Main Course: We’ve been talking to swing voters across the country for months now, but there’s been a clear revelation recently. Americans think Romney is better equipped to solve their problems, but that he doesn’t understand them. And they think Obama better understands their problems, but is entirely unable to solve them. Here are three important takeaways: 1) Many will cast their vote for the lesser of two shortcomings. Obama 2008 voters who are switching won’t be voting for Romney as much as they are voting against Obama. 2) Obama needs to convince voters that he made genuine efforts to solve, or at least temper, the economic crisis that began in 2008. That means cutting down on the blame game — Bush, Congress, Europe, the weather, Bibi Netanyahu — and imploring Americans to give him another chance to finish what he started. 3) Romney’s speech tonight matters. As you’ll read below, I don’t think these conventions will matter as much as the debates, but if there’s any part of this week that could swing this election, it’s Romney’s speech. Paul Ryan gave a great one last night — it was emotional, energized, and honest — but nobody casts their vote in November for the Vice President. So tonight, Romney MUST convince America that he gets it. Corny campaign trail stories won’t do it. He needs to admit to being a little stuffier than other candidates, a little less charismatic, a little less inclined to give that “human touch.” For 5 years now, Romney’s been on the defensive about his wealth, his record, and his personality. Admitting something about the third could be just the right amount of self-deprecation to better ingratiate himself with the general public.
Read the rest of… Wow. What a takedown: Bill Maher’s new rule for Todd Akin [Huffington Post] The Politics of Media
Time Warner continues to look for ways to bring CNN back to life — at least make it respectably competitive with the other cable nets. [NYT] The departing public editor at the New York Times wrote in his final column that the paper’s “progressivism” sometimes “bleeds through” in the paper’s reporting. [Column] NYT Executive Editor Jill Abramson sharply rebutted the charges of liberal bias to POLITICO. [Rebuttal] Barry Diller’s IAC is buying About.com for $300 million. [Forbes] The death of the homepage: Direct links have many news consumers “coming in the side door,” meaning bypassing the homepages of many news Web sites. [Nieman Journalism Lab] Twitter paves its path into the future with corporate media partnerships (NBC) and the breaking down of old ones (Instagram and Tumblr). [Gigaom] April Ryan, of the Roland Martin Podcast, talks with contributing RP Artur Davis, former Democrat and Obama supporter who is now a Republican and is backing Mitt Romney supporter in the 2012 presidential election. Davis details his upcoming address at the Republican National Convention in Tampa, FL as well as his disappointment with the last four years. Plus, Davis discusses if Republicans will address important issues that impact the African-American community. The Politics of Media
While networks plan to keep hours they devote to the GOP and Dem conventions in primetime slim, networks will continue to offer gavel-to-gavel coverage – but online. [WSJ] The selection process for moderators of presidential debates is nearly as secretive as a papal conclave. Here’s a look at the politics behind the choosing of this cycle’s moderators. [NYT] Local TV news and ’60 Minutes’ received the top ratings in a new credibility poll by Pew Research. Fox News and USA Today ranked lowest in believability. [Pew Research] The White House has granted Michael Lewis, author of “Moneyball,” almost exclusive access to the President for the coming days. Lewis will pen an article for the October issue of Vanity Fair. Neither the White House nor the magazine will comment on the topic of the article. [NYT] C-SPAN’s political editor, Steve Scully, previewed the cable channel’s convention coverage plans: Some at NBC’s ‘Tonight Show’ are getting pink slips. Jay Leno himself is taking a pay cut to “save jobs.” [Deadline]
The likely result is that the base of his party would have been thrilled at such a thoroughgoing progressive vision, but that Obama would have hardened his image as a Kerry/Dukakis like cultural liberal with a tin ear for Middle America. The McCain campaign certainly would have had ammunition fresher than the obscure William Ayers to cast Obama as an ideological risk and, perhaps, a path to divert conservative independents and blue collar Hillary Clinton voters from the crevasses in the economy.
Read the rest of… Contributing RP, former Missouri State Representative Jason Grill, and Republican Annie Presley of the Bryan Cave Law Firm take on the Missouri U.S. Senate race between incumbent Democrat Claire McCaskill and GOP challenger Todd Akin:
It says a lot that Romney is still trying to juice up his base rather than reach to the middle. It also spells that his campaign is in trouble that they’re willing to change the narrative they’ve been using. But, and that’s the biggest but in this cycle, there’s all that Citizen United money out there which could just overwhelm conventional wisdom, political reality and electoral logic. |
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