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Jennifer Rubin has advice for the VP pick.
There is good reason for Mitt Romney to wait until close to the convention to pick his running mate, and not simply to keep the TV ratings from plummeting. Campaigns take on a life of their own, exposing weaknesses and creating opportunities. What Romney might have looked for in a VP earlier in the race (e.g. reassurance for the base) doesn’t look so important now. Other considerations have moved up (e.g., a worldwide economic slowdown).
There are a couple of months to go, but here are eight considerations for Romney in making his VP pick:
1. Can articulate a free-market message. Romney is making a convincing case that the president is in over his head, at a loss to understand what ails the economy and how to fix it. The more help Romney can get in this department and the more vigorously a VP can spell out the flaws in the Obama economic policy, the better. …
Michael Barone thinks he knows why Romney will out fund raise the president.
There has been a lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth as, in the spring, it appeared that forces supporting Mitt Romney would be able to raise about as much money as those supporting Barack Obama. There’s even more now that it seems likely that the pro-Romney side will raise and spend more money than the pro-Obama side.
Four years ago, the Obama forces heavily outspent those supporting John McCain. The Obama campaign had enough money to target — and carry — heretofore Republican states like North Carolina and Indiana.
That experience made the Democrats spoiled. The prospect that the other side would have as much money as they do struck them as a cosmic injustice. The prospect that it would have more — heaven forfend!
They like to blame this situation on the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision, which allows corporations and unions to spend money on political speech. They did so even after their defeat in the June 5 Wisconsin recall election, in which Citizens United had no effect because fundraising was governed by state campaign finance laws.
What’s really interesting is that, if current projections are right, this will be the third election in a row in which the party holding the White House will be outspent by the opposition. …
Barone also posted on the need for Romney to get support from the Reagan democrats.
What’s up with the white working class vote? For years the horny-handed blue collar worker was the star of the New Deal Democratic coalition. It was for him, and his wife and family, that Democrats taxed the rich, invented Social Security and supported militant labor unions.
Well, that was then and this is now. White working class voters — or white non-college voters, the exit poll group most closely approximating them — are now a mainstay of the Republican coalition.
Ronald Brownstein, a clear-sighted and diligent analyst of demographic voting data, provided some useful perspective in his most recent National Journal column. His bottom line is that in order to win this year, Mitt Romney must capture two-thirds of white non-college voters — about the same percentage that voted for Ronald Reagan in his 1984 landslide re-election.
The reason Romney must do so well is that white non-college voters are a smaller part of the electorate now than they were then. In 1984 they comprised 61 percent of all voters. In 2008 they comprised 39 percent. …
Despite all the good news for Romney, Toby Harden sees problems in the way he answered the immigration move.
… The problem with Romney’s non-response on the immigration question is that it looks just as political as Obama’s announcement of a new executive policy five months before an election in which Hispanic votes in Florida, Nevada, Arizona and New Mexico could decide whether he’s re-elected.
While the election is will turn principally on the economy and be much more about Obama than Romney, the presumptive Republican nominee can’t duck difficult questions or talk about only what he wants to talk about. And Hispanics in those swing states matter, as do the views of swing voters (likely to be moderate on immigration) across the country.
Democrats are right to be panicking and, as Al Hunt suggests here, the Obama campaign might well be in need of an intervention. But Obama used the power of his office on Friday to knock Romney off balance. And Romney’s failure to respond coherently shows that he can be unsteady on his feet – something that should concern Republicans.
Telegraph, UK has background for one of Churchill’s most famous speeches.
The address he made to the British nation as it stood alone against the Nazi war machine is one of the most celebrated speeches in history.
Full of passion and Shakespearesque language, his appeal for fortitude and courage was credited with re-galvanising the country in its darkest hour.
But a new examination of his papers shows how he agonised over every famous phrase – even adding one at the last minute – and how his private secretary was secretly unimpressed by his efforts.
The “finest hour” speech was made on June 18, 1940, during one of the lowest and most uncertain moments of the Second World War.
The Battle of France was lost, the Battle of Britain was about to begin and the country stood alone against the might of a German offensive that had swept much of Europe before it.
The speech he delivered, first to parliament and then over the radio to the nation, was to become one of the most celebrated of the war – and his career. …
Daily Mail, UK reports we have escaped our solar system.
With absolutely no attempt at hyperbole at all, it is fair to say that this is one of – if not the – biggest achievement of the human race.
For, as we speak, an object conceived in the human mind, and built by our tools, and launched from our planet, is sailing out of the further depths of our solar system – and will be the first object made by man to sail out into interstellar space.
The Voyager 1, built by Nasa and launched in 1977 has spent the last 35 years steadily increasing its distance from Earth, and is now 17,970,000,000km – or 11,100,000,000miles – away, travelling at 10km a second.
Indications over the last week implies that Voyager 1 is now leaving the heliosphere – the last vestige of this solar system. …