NPR's Schiller & Schiller: Many Political Missteps on the Road to Resigning
In retrospect it seems inevitable. Take a hostile political environment, a red-hot spotlight and relatively inexperienced leadership, mix well, and you get tumult at NPR. Political naivete and tin ears are the threads running through the saga of Vivian Schiller, forced out as NPR's CEO on Wednesday, and Ron Schiller, no relation, who quit as NPR's top fundraiser on Tuesday. Vivian Schiller is widely credited for dramatic improvements in NPR's web presence and mobile applications, and she is a strong defender of NPR's journalism. But there's no ignoring the multiple embarrassments that are ...
In Iowa, 'Social Issues' Emphasis Could Limit GOP Presidential Field -- and Focus
DES MOINES, Iowa – For Republicans with White House dreams, Iowa is the Rubik's cube of primary states. Should they tack right to win over the state's influential bloc of social conservatives? Should they be true to themselves, even if that could backfire? Should they throw up their hands and launch instead in New Hampshire or South Carolina? And if they do that, will Iowa be lost to them in a general election? Several White House prospects are grappling right now with those questions as the Iowa calendar fills up with events designed as platforms for values issues. Many will ...
Gingrich, Santorum, Pawlenty: Presidential Campaign Season Kicks Off in Iowa
WAUKEE, Iowa -- Who needs declared candidates? The race for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination unofficially launched at a church here Monday night when 2,000 fired-up conservatives got their first side-by-side look at five White House prospects. The potential contenders ranged from former House speaker Newt Gingrich, once behind only the vice president in the line of the succession for the presidency, to Herman Cain, an Atlanta entrepreneur and radio host who has never held office. Gov. Terry Branstad was onstage, as was conservative Christian strategist Ralph Reed. The roster ...
Obama, Kenya and Natalie Portman: Is Huckabee Letting 2012 Slip Away?
TV and radio host Mike Huckabee is embracing his true inner talker. You can't buy the kind of attention he has attracted in the past week, and just when he's pushing sales of a new book. Huckabee is also trying to stay on the public radar screen as a potential late entry into the 2012 presidential race -- and why not? The former Arkansas governor leads in polls of the nascent Republican field, both nationally and in the key states of Iowa and South Carolina. But there's a price. The further Huckabee goes down the road he's on, the less seriously he's taken as a presidential ...
Haley Barbour's Washington Week: Jabs at Obama, Romney in 2012 Preview
Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour says he won't decide on a presidential run until next month, but that didn't stop him from road-testing a 2012 campaign message all over Washington this week. As Newt Gingrich dithered over whether to announce that he might start to raise money to possibly explore a White House bid and Mike Huckabee made strange references to President Barack Obama's "Kenyan" childhood, Barbour was putting down markers on energy, jobs, health care and foreign policy. The former chairman of the Republican National Committee and the Republican Governors Association has had access ...
Can Seven Reports Be Wrong About the Risks of Spending Cuts? GOP Says Yes
Could two independent economic reports, a liberal think tank and four bipartisan reports on debt reduction be wrong? They all conclude that slashing federal spending this year could cause job losses and threaten the economic recovery. The latest report, from Mark Zandi of Moody's Analytics, says 700,000 jobs could be lost by the end of 2012 if Republicans succeed in their quest to cut $60 billion from domestic programs this year. Cuts and tax increases are necessary to address the nation's long-term fiscal problems, Zandi said, but "cutting too deeply before the economy is in full expansion ...
GOP White House Hopefuls Need to Get Real About Libya, Egypt and Obama
Try this thought experiment. It's Tuesday, Feb. 22, 2011, and President Sarah Palin is delivering a speech on Libyan dictator Moammer Gadhafi's murderous response to dissidents protesting his government. It's time, she says, to "speak out for the long-suffering Libyan people" and "the victims of Gadhafi's terror." She says she's talking to NATO allies about a no-fly zone "so Libyan air forces cannot continue slaughtering the Libyan people." Libya, she adds, is "a brutal enemy of America." A day later, Libyan forces board a ferry trapped in the Tripoli harbor because of rough seas, and capture ...
Moderates Are Not Independents, and Other Clues to Moves by Obama, GOP
If you want to understand why President Barack Obama and opposition Republicans are acting the way they are, a new study provides some clues. Bottom line: Democrats need huge numbers of moderates to win national elections, while Republicans can rely a lot more on their conservative base. Moderates are "the true presidential kingmakers," political scientists William Galston and Elaine Kamarck write in their study for the centrist Democratic think tank, Third Way. Since 1980, the pair say, no Democrat has been elected president without winning at least 60 percent of the moderate vote, ...
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker Has a Choice: Union Buster or Real Leader?
Quick, which new Republican governor said earnestly in a campaign ad last year, "Real leadership means bringing people together to solve problems"? That would be Wisconsin's Scott Walker, whose plan to sharply curtail bargaining and political rights for unions has set off daily mass protests in Madison, an exodus of Democratic state lawmakers to Illinois, and broad questions about the future of organized labor. Give Walker credit for taking a cue from President Barack Obama and not letting a crisis go to waste. Confronted with the Great Recession, Obama used that crisis to pursue some of his ...
Chris Christie Tea Leaves: No to 2012 but Losing Weight, Mulling National Fundraising
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie says he's not going to get into the 2012 presidential race. He says it a lot, including very emphatically last week at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington. But for those looking for clues that he might not really mean it, here are two new ones: He's losing weight and might set up a national fundraising committee. Christie told the Associated Press that he's been trying to eat better and he has been working out three times a week with a trainer. "Slowly but surely I'm taking the weight off," he said. He said his four children, ages 7 to 17, are the ...
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