Has this Presidential Election Become about Race?

The New York Times covered in detail the Romney camp plans to use Welfare and Medicare against Obama even though on Welfare their ads and comments have been declared completely false and on Medicare half false.  What kind of a campaign uses outright lies which have already been proven as lies to attack another candidate?  A campaign that is losing big is the only answer to take this risk.

The Washington Post fact checker is used by both parties for fact checking  ads.  Earlier in the summer the Washington Post fact check went after an Obama ad giving the ad four Pinocchios.  From what I can tell, they are non-partisan and only looking for the facts:

The Washington Post’s fact checker, Glenn Kessler, gave the welfare ads his lowest rating, four Pinocchios. The Tampa Bay Times’s Politifact was equally harsh, describing the ads as “a drastic distortion” warranting a “pants on fire” rating. The welfare commercial, according to Politifact, “inflames old resentments about able-bodied adults sitting around collecting public assistance.” 

Politifact described the Medicare ad as “half true”:

Romney’s claim gives the impression that the law takes money that was already allocated to Medicare and funds the new health care law with it. In fact, the law uses a number of measures to try to reduce the rapid growth of future Medicare spending. Those savings are then used to offset costs created by the law — especially coverage for the uninsured — so that the overall law doesn’t add to the deficit. We rate his statement Half True.

Politifact also rated a claim Romney made later on the stump — that “there’s only one president that I know of in history that robbed Medicare, $716 billion to pay for a new risky program of his own that we call Obamacare” — as “mostly false.”

Even though Romney has been hit with using false facts, his campaign intends to continue on this road of lies and deceit.  Is Romney also going to keep inferring that Obama is not a real American with a real birth certificate like he has been doing?  I find that line of attack offensive along with a lot of other people.  The Romney ticket is quickly driving people from the Republican Party who are not part of the hard right culture into supporting Gary Johnson, the former two-time Republican Governor of New Mexico, running as a Libertarian, or actually supporting President Obama for re-election.

There is a real problem in the Republican Party and this Convention is not going to heal the split when seven of the speakers are birthers who have made comments against Obama about his birth certificate and not acting American which includes Romney.  From the GOP Platform, the Rules, the Credentials, and seating of delegates, the evidence has piled up that this GOP Convention is going hard right which is going to drive even more Republicans to either stay home or vote for other candidates.

This may be the year that the split in the GOP is permanent and a new party arises from the ashes.  Too many Republicans with common sense don't like the direction of the party with the attacks on minorities and immigrants that we are witnessing.  Jeb Bush has warned them numerous times alienating minorities especially Hispanics but the GOP Platform is using the AZ Immigration Policy which means this Platform Group led by Gov McDonnell (R-VA) is not listening to the more reasoned voices of the Republican Party.

Since the Ron Paul supporters have been placed in the nosebleed section, and a lot of their delegates who won fair and square have not been credentialed from the caucus states, I would expect a lot of them will be going to Gary Johnson to support him after the Convention.  That is a chunk of people deserting the ticket.  Note that Ron Paul did not endorse Romney at his rally with 10,000 supporters.  Many of his supporters are mad at his son, Sen Rand Paul, for endorsing Romney earlier this summer and are not sure they would back him if he ran for President.  The chances for a split in the Republican Party between the hard right and the rest of us is growing with all the splinters to the Party.

Many Republicans in the last four years have essentially been told to sit down and shut up or leave as the Party has moved hard right.  The door might have to be widened after this election.

This article from the New York Times details what is happening with the Romney campaign and the Republican Party.  When I first posted sometime ago from former Florida Governor Jeb Bush about his worry on today's Republicans not reaching out to minorities especially Hispanics, that article drew a lot of negative emails telling me to leave the Party.  Before this election is said and done there is a good chance they will get their way.  The way minorities unless they are part of the Hard Right are treated today is an embarrassment to long time Republicans who have worked to make the GOP the home of the big tent going back to the years of pushing for the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Act legislation.  Maybe my problem is that I come from the North having grown up in Ohio.

Now some in the GOP have called for abolishing those acts starting with the Texas Convention who voted for an overturn the Voting Rights Act.  Then you had an amendment submitted in the House to use no federal money to enforce the Voting Rights Act in the states which turned out badly for Republicans:

Lewis (D-GA), who marched with Martin Luther King Jr., took to the floor to denounce Broun's amendment. 

"It is hard and difficult and almost unbelievable that any member, but especially a member from the state of Georgia, would come and offer such an amendment," Lewis said, recounting the history of struggles over voters' rights. "It's shameful that you would come here tonight and say to the Department of Justice that you must not use one penny, one cent, one dime, one dollar to carry out the mandate of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act." 

“People died for the right to vote -- friends of mine, colleagues of mine,” Lewis said. "I speak out against this amendment."

Broun (R-GA), chastised, gave in. "I apologize to my dear friend from Georgia if he's gotten angry with this amendment. It was never my intent to do so, and I'm going to ask unanimous consent to withdraw the amendment," he said.

What was Broun thinking?  I find the whole debate about race in 2012 to be incomprehensible.  It is like returning to the 1950's, but then we had a President Dwight D. Eisenhower who supported Civil Rights and integration of colleges and schools which at that time Southern Democrats were very opposed to his policies on Civil Rights for minorities along with Voting Rights.  Is this part of the problem in the Republican Party today that some of those southern Democrat bigots, KKK, and their families became Republican?

All I know is that this not the Republican Party that I grew up in and supported all these years.  I don't recognize the hate I see daily out of the GOP ticket and this group of hard right against a black President especially since it is clear he is not some hard left President.  His biggest mistake IMHO was listening to then House Speaker Nancy Pelosi instead of the more reasoned Majority Leader of the Senate Harry Reid.

Obama in the past few years has reached out more to the more reasoned voices of the Republican Party as he did on the budget deal and has been trying on the farm, jobs, and infrastructure bills which are being blocked by the Hard Right in the House and Senate.  No one wants to go against them and face a challenge in their upcoming elections.  How about some Republicans in Congress grow a backbone and actually do what is best for all Americans not just the hard right?

This article takes a look at how race is driving this election and how white the Republican Party has become with their march to the Hard Right.  One thing the author missed is how this Hard Right shift by the GOP has disenfranchised women voters in the Republican Party.

Vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan says that he personally believes that rape is just another “method of conception” and not an excuse to allow abortion.   Why would common sense Republican women, support a ticket with a Vice Presidential candidate that calls rape a "method of conception?"  The answer is  we will NEVER support Romney/Ryan.  In fact, we  will work to defeat such ideology aimed at women that is repulsive.  This comes on top of the attacks on minorities, veterans, teachers, fire, police, and white collar Federal Civil Service by this Republican ticket and the hard right that the GOP has become today.  So who is going to vote for the Republican ticket besides the hard right and the gun clinging white males who support the anti-illegal immigration laws -- tougher the better even when it affects children?  

This article confirms what a lot of us have been hearing about the Romney/Ryan campaign that they are going to get dirtier and nastier against Obama to get more white voters to go to the polls.  Two hours ago it came out that the Romney camp is aiming to get 61% of the white vote now and will be pushing the whiteness of the ticket.  Despicable and repulsive is all I can think of to describe this current thinking out of Romney/Ryan.    Looks like the real Romney is emerging as his Mormon Church he grew up in did not allow minorities to become full members.  This article from the NY Times is correct:

August 27, 2012, 12:43 am
Making the Election About Race
By THOMAS B. EDSALL 

The Republican ticket is flooding the airwaves with commercials that develop two themes designed to turn the presidential contest into a racially freighted resource competition pitting middle class white voters against the minority poor. 

Ads that accuse President Obama of gutting the work requirements enacted in the 1996 welfare reform legislation present the first theme. Ads alleging that Obama has taken $716 billion from Medicare — a program serving an overwhelmingly white constituency — in order to provide health coverage to the heavily black and Hispanic poor deliver the second. The ads are meant to work together, to mutually reinforce each other’s claims. 

(snip) 

The Romney campaign’s shift of focus toward welfare and Medicare suggests that his strategists are worried that just disparaging Obama’s ability to deal with the struggling economy won’t be adequate to produce victory on November 6. 

The importance to the Romney-Ryan ticket of two overlapping constituencies — whites without college degrees and white Medicare recipients — cannot be overestimated. Romney, continuing the Republican approach of 2010, is banking on a huge turnout among key white segments of the electorate in order to counter Obama’s strengths with minority voters as well as with young and unmarried female voters of all races. 

There is extensive poll data showing the depth of Republican dependence on white voters.
On August 23, Pew Research released its latest findings on partisan identification, and the gains that the Republican Party has made among older and non-college whites since 2004 are remarkable. 

Just eight years ago, Pew reports, whites 65 and over were evenly split in their allegiance, 46 percent Democratic, 46 percent Republican. In the most recent findings, these voters are now solidly in the Republican camp, 54-38, an eight point Republican gain. Elderly women were 9 points more Democratic than Republican in 2004, 50-41, the opposite of where they are now, 51-42 Republican. Older men, who were 51-41 Republican in 2004, are now 59-33 Republican. 

Similarly, white voters without college degrees, of all ages, have gone from 51-40 Republican in 2004, to 54-37 in 2012, according to Pew. 

Most importantly, the Pew surveys show that 89% of voters who identify themselves as Republican are white. Faced with few if any possibilities of making gains among blacks and Hispanics — whose support for Obama has remained strong — the Romney campaign has no other choice if the goal is to win but to adopt a strategy to drive up white turnout. 

The Romney campaign is willing to disregard criticism concerning accuracy and veracity in favor of “blowing the dog whistle of racism” – resorting to a campaign appealing to racial symbols, images and issues in its bid to break the frustratingly persistent Obama lead in the polls, which has lasted for the past 10 months. 

The result is a campaign run at two levels. On the trail, Paul Ryan argues that “we’re going to make this about ideas. We’re going to make this about a positive vision for the future.” On television and the Internet, however, the Romney campaign is clearly determined “to make this about” race, in the tradition of the notorious 1988 Republican Willie Horton ad, which described the rape of a white woman by a convicted African-American murderer released on furlough from a Massachusetts prison during the gubernatorial administration of Michael Dukakis and Jesse Helms’s equally infamous “White Hands” commercial, which depicted a white job applicant who “needed that job” but was rejected because “they had to give it to a minority.” 

The longer campaigns go on, the nastier they get. Once unthinkable methods become conventional. 

“You can tell they” — the welfare ads— “are landing punches,” Steven Law, president of the Republican super PAC American Crossroads, told the Wall Street Journal. Law’s focus group and polling research suggest that the theme is not necessarily going to work. “The economy is so lousy for middle-income Americans that the same people who chafe at the rise of welfare dependency under Obama don’t automatically default to a ‘get-a-job’ attitude — because they know there are no jobs.” 

As the head of a tax-exempt 501(c)4 independent expenditure committee, Law cannot coordinate campaign strategy directly with the Romney campaign. Nonetheless, he is sending a warning. The welfare theme, Law said, “needs to be done sensitively. Right now it may be more of an economic issue than a values issue: In other words, more people on welfare is another disturbing symptom of Obama’s broken-down economy, rather than an indictment of those who are on welfare or the culture as a whole.” 

Will the Romney campaign heed Law’s advice to keep it subtle? The principle media consultant for the pro-Romney super PAC Restore Our Future, which will be running many of the anti-Obama ads over the next ten weeks, is Larry McCarthy, who produced the original Willie Horton ad. 

Thomas B. Edsall, a professor of journalism at Columbia University, is the author of the book “The Age of Austerity: How Scarcity Will Remake American Politics,” which was published earlier this year.   

Excerpt:  Read more at the NY Times

Why would anyone be surprised at what a person from Karl Rove's Crossroads would have to say about this line of attack knowing it is based on lies?  Rove, himself, is not Mr. Honesty.  The fact that Fox News treats him like a non-partisan when he comes on the air to discuss the election, should also tell you all you need to know about Fox News.  Karl Rove is a partisan hack who used George W. Bush to get to where he is at so he can take out people he doesn't like , e.g. Rick Perry in the primary, with all the millions that have been donated to his two organizations one of them where donors are kept secret.  

Republicans are using Super PACs and non-disclosure donor non-profits to spread the lies so I ask you "Why would anyone vote for the ticket of Romney/Ryan if you believe in honesty and ethics in elections?"  Will the hard right shift this election of the Republican Party be the final nail in the coffin?  The jury is still out.

Most Conservative Platform in Modern Times to be Voted on Monday by the Whole Convention

Wish I could say that it won't be rubber stamped as it is so far out of the mainstream of America, but the delegates at the Convention are mostly from the hard right this time so its passage will be a slam dunk.  Any hope of seeing this defeated is slim to none IMHO!  Once it is passed on Monday night, I will be able to say that the Republican Party just left me because I think this Platform in an insult to women, minorities, and anyone who can think for themselves.

Looks like the RNC Chairman Priebus just told Romney it is time to suck it up because this GOP Platform is not his platform but that of the Republican Party.  Never heard that before but there is a lot I have never heard before since the Koch Brothers installed Priebus as the RNC Chair.  The Chair might as well of said  the Platform is for the Vice Presidential candidate, Paul Ryan, the darling of the hard right.

Doubt if Romney expected this to happen when he made the decision to go hard right to get their votes.  Now he has to live with their hard right platform.  Must admit that this was the first time I have ever seen a GOP Chairman tell a candidate it is not their platform but the Republican Party Platform.  Presidential candidates always have a lot of input.  Doesn't look like this was the case in 2012.

Priebus:  GOP Platform not the Platform of Mitt Romney  

The official platform language poised for approval at next week's Republican National Convention doesn't fully represent the party's presumptive presidential nominee, Mitt Romney, RNC Chairman Reince Priebus said Tuesday. 

Excerpt:  Read More at the First Read

Now the next question is who is going to govern the Country if they win (not happening)?  Romney or Ryan?   Would Romney be the ceremonial President while Ryan does all the policy?  Sure looks like that is the direction it is going.  This GOP Platform is so out of touch with mainstream Americans that it would be laughable if they were not serious.  The hard right has gone off the cliff with this Platform.  Every last Republican running for Congress in the House or Senate should be asked if they support this Platform.

One Senate Candidate, Scott Brown of MA, is definitely not supporting the Abortion Plank as he rebuked that hard right plank last night.  I didn't think a lot of Republican candidates would run on that Plank but then I didn't think that 227 Republicans would co-sponsor a Personhood bill in the House either.  We definitely need to re-elect Scott Brown as we we need at least a few Republican voices of common sense and reason  in the Senate.

The G.O.P. Platform

By ANDREW ROSENTHALAugust 21, 2012, 1:07 pm 

Every four years the two parties draft new platforms ahead of their presidential nominating conventions. These don’t necessarily indicate immediate legislative priorities, but they do indicate general direction. Since the 1980s, the Republican platform has been a test of how far the mainstream of the party is willing to move toward the right-wing fringe. Judging from the draft circulating this week, the answer is, pretty much all the way over. 

The draft is more aggressive than any I have seen in its opposition to women’s reproductive rights and gay rights. It calls for a constitutional amendment outlawing all abortions and one denying gay men and lesbians the right to marry. 

(snip) 

On abortion, CNN reported, the draft puts the party squarely in the ranks of the most extreme positions taken by anti-abortion activists. It calls not just for a “human life amendment to the Constitution” but also for legislation “to make clear that the Fourteenth Amendment’s protections apply to unborn children.” That would effectively erase any right women have to make their own decisions about their reproductive lives and health – and, depending on how lawmakers phrase the proposed amendment, could threaten even birth control.  

Excerpt:  Read More at The New York Times

This hard right portion of the GOP Platform also threatens in vitro fertilization procedures when three of Romney's sons had children through this procedure.  This almost makes you think you are the one going crazy but you cannot make this up.  This is how far out of the mainstream this Republican Party is today where the hard right sponsored by the Koch Brothers have taken over the Party.

Now the GOP has the distinction of having the 'Most Conservative Platform in Modern History' which is out of touch with mainstream America who outnumbers the hard right by a lot.  Reading this when I cared what happened to the Republican Party would have made my blood boil.  In this case, I can truly say that the brand of conservatism I have seen in my adopted state of Oklahoma, Kansas, Texas and other states has now gone nationwide which is not a good thing for most Americans.  Find this narrow minded thinking archaic, out of touch, disgusting, and an insult to the women of America that this group of hard right think they have the right to tell the rest of us how to live and how to think.

Minorities didn't far too well either in the GOP Platform but then Cong Akin thinks the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts should be repealed.  Since so many hard right conservatives came to Akin's defense, how many of them agree with Akin on these acts?  From what we are seeing in PA, OH, and FL, I would say there are plenty more like Akin in the Republicans Party.  With the uproar over Akin on Rape and Abortions, that little detail was missed that he was against those Acts believing they belong in the states not handled by the Federal Government.  This attitude left me speechless.

This is a quick synopsis of what the GOP Platform contains:

GOP Approves ‘Most Conservative Platform In Modern History’

By Aviva Shen on Aug 22, 2012 at 9:23 am 

A week from the 2012 Republican National Convention, Republican committee members spent Tuesday articulating and affirming the principles they stand for in a draft of the official party platform. Led by Gov. Bob McDonnell (R-VA) and featuring other Tea Party stars like Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach and Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), the committee approved a draft of the platform McDonnell said “will reflect the heart and soul of the Republican Party” and one committee member called “the most conservative platform in modern history.” 

Here are some highlights:

• NO ABORTION IN CASES OF RAPE OR INCEST. The proposal for a “human life amendment” passed without a hitch — and without any exceptions for rape or incest. The committee didn’t stop there; they also adopted language that would ban drugs that end pregnancy after conception, which could potentially include Plan B, the “morning after pill.”

• SALUTE TO MANDATORY ULTRASOUNDS. The GOP officially praises states’ “informed consent” laws that force women to undergo unnecessary procedures, require waiting periods and endure other measures meant to discourage them from getting an abortion. One such law receiving a “salute” was crafted by committee head McDonnell, who passed a notorious mandatory ultrasound requirement after he signed an unsuccessful bill to require an even more invasive transvaginal probe ultrasound during an abortion consultation.

• NO LEGAL RECOGNITION OF SAME-SEX COUPLES. The committee embraced extreme anti-gay language, even rejecting a proposal to endorse civil unions for gay couples after vehement objections from Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council and Romney adviser Jim Bopp, who called it a “counterfeit marriage.” The rejection of civil unions, along with the refusal to include a line affirming the legal equality of same-sex couples prompted the organization GOProud to declare, “Those who have engaged in this public platform fight have provided distraction from important issues and damaged Mitt Romney’s campaign.”

• REPLICATE ARIZONA-STYLE IMMIGRATION LAWS. Kris Kobach, who wrote the now mostly invalidated immigration laws in Arizona and Alabama, pushed for language calling for a border fence, a national E-Verify system to make it harder for undocumented workers to find employment, the end of in-state tuition for illegal immigrants and an end to sanctuary cities. The committee overwhelmingly approved the proposals, as well as a line chastising the Department of Justice to halt the lawsuits against draconian immigration laws in Arizona, Alabama, South Carolina and Utah: “State efforts to reduce illegal immigration must be encouraged, not attacked.”

• AUDIT THE FED. The pet project of Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) to audit the Federal Reserve has now been embraced as an official Republican goal. For the first time, the platform calls for an annual audit of the Federal Reserve.

• NO WOMEN IN COMBAT. The platform condemns “social experimentation” in the military, which covers everything from the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” to allowing officers to wear their uniforms in gay pride events to letting women serve on the front lines.

• NO STATEHOOD, MORE GUNS FOR WASHINGTON DC. FRC’s Perkins, who recently blamed President Obama and the Southern Poverty Law Center for the shooting at FRC’s Washington headquarters, requested and received a section specifically urging the DC Council to expand gun rights. The same section also opposes DC statehood, which would allow the District to govern itself and put an end to Congressional attempts to impose abortion bans on DC.

• NO NEW TAXES, EXCEPT FOR WAR. The platform calls for a Constitutional amendment requiring a super-majority to approve any tax increase, “with exceptions for only war and national emergencies.” It would also deliberately hobble future Congresses through a cap limiting all government spending to historical average percentage of GDP — “so that future Congresses cannot balance the budget by raising taxes.”

Today's Republican Party does not speak for me with this Platform and what I have been hearing in recent years.  The hate that comes out of the conservative pundits and hard right Republicans is not something I want to be associated with.  The lies told about this President don't stop and even when you can can prove they are lies so many of the far right won't believe you.  With this Platform, I can truthfully saw that the Republican Party has left me and my beliefs which go back to when I was growing up and watching my hero President Eisenhower start the integration of educational institutions.  I was so proud of the Republican Party for helping pass the Civil Rights Act.  Now I am embarrassed to be a member of the same party with the people who wrote this Platform.