Essential Reads
Essential Reads is your one-stop source for the top stories of the day as reported by your favorite Washington Week panelists. It's a simple way to save time and stay informed about the news you need to know. Check it out every day!
Sep 20, 2012
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A ray of hope
By John Dickerson, SlateEvery day until the election, Slate will offer up one reason to be optimistic for your candidate.
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Sep 19, 2012
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What's wrong with Romney the candidate
By Gloria Borger, CNNIn watching Mitt Romney's painful -- and self-destructive -- gaffe about the "47 percenters," it at first seemed inexplicable, as if the man was writing off half of the electorate.
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The coming war within the Republican party
By John Dickerson, SlateAfter the presidential campaign ends, think tanks and universities will invite wise partisans to explain why their party lost and how to rebound. Some Republicans are already working on their talking points.
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Romney faces twofold challenge in getting campaign back on track
By Karen Tumulty, The Washington PostAs Mitt Romney struggles to put a cascade of missteps behind him, the Republican presidential nominee faces a twofold challenge: first, to steer the conversation back to the economy, and second, to prevent his recent difficulties from curdling into a perception that the race is becoming unwinnable.
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Democrats wield "the 47 percent" as new weapon
By Alexis Simendinger, Real Clear Politics"The 47 percent" became a political catchphrase Tuesday as Democrats reacted with private glee and public head-shaking to Mitt Romney's secretly videotaped comment that Americans who don't pay income taxes believe they're "entitled" to government help.
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Wisconsin offers window into challenges facing Romney
By Jeff Zeleny and Marjorie Connelly, The New York TimesTo Mitt Romney, the 10 electoral votes in Wisconsin may be more essential than extra, a critical backup plan if a first-tier battleground state falls out of reach. Seven weeks until the election, with Mr. Romney facing new questions about his ability to gain trust among voters experiencing economic hardships, his campaign is increasingly pointing to Wisconsin as a place where a statewide Republican resurgence could rub off on Mr. Romney.
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Sep 18, 2012
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Romney’s ‘47 percent' talk explains his struggles with swing voters
By Jim Tankersley, National JournalOn pure philosophy alone, Mitt Romney’s Mother Jones moment offers two revealing glimpses into why he’s trailing President Obama even in a listless economy. Both revolve around how swing voters view economic policy.
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Mitt Romney’s real test: First presidential debate
By Dan Balz, The Washington PostSeptember swoons are nothing new in presidential politics. Look back at almost any competitive election and you’ll find one of the candidates hitting turbulence — and pointed second-guessing — at this time of the year.
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Mitt Romney not impressed with Barack Obama's China complaint
By Charles Babington and Julie Pace, Associated PressPresident Barack Obama lodged an unfair-trade complaint against China Monday and immediately used it as a wedge against Republican challenger Mitt Romney, whose beleaguered campaign hit another pothole — in the form of private remarks made to donors — just as it was trying to reassure anxious supporters.
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Top Romney strategist Stuart Stevens likely to stay despite criticism
By Nia-Malika Henderson, The Washington PostStuart Stevens, Mitt Romney’s chief campaign strategist, has emerged as the main target of finger-pointing within the presidential candidate’s brain trust amid criticism of the campaign’s direction from many Republicans and a slip in swing-state polls.
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Iranian official says blasts targeted nuclear sites
By David E. Sanger and Rick Gladstone, The New York TimesIran’s most senior atomic energy official revealed on Monday that separate explosions, which he attributed to sabotage, had targeted power supplies to the country’s two main uranium enrichment facilities, including the deep underground site that American and Israeli officials say is the most invulnerable to bombing.
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Sep 17, 2012
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Mideast unrest intensifies debate on U.S. intervention in Syria
By Helene Cooper and Robert F. Worth, The New York TimesIn recent weeks, the growing death toll in Syria pushed that country’s civil war to the top of the Obama administration’s agenda, with some Arab leaders pressing harder for a greater American role in toppling Syria’s leader, Bashar al-Assad.
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Romney vs. Obama on foreign policy
By Doyle McManus, Los Angeles TimesIn a presidential campaign dominated by voters' unhappiness with the economy, it took a tragedy — the killing of a U.S. ambassador by Libyan extremists — to prompt a real debate on foreign policy.
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Post-Arab Spring states: magnets for extremism
By James Kitfield and Sara Sorcher, National JournalWhen the Arab awakening swept through the Middle East last year, with waves of democratic protesters swallowing tyrants in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya, no one could confidently predict what kind of political order would emerge from the ruins. Certainly the stability of the old order of autocracies was shattered, hopefully along with their characteristic corruption and stagnation. In the long term, there is still reason to hope for a democratic transformation similar to the one that eventually emerged in Eastern Europe at the end of the Cold War.
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Obama hold slight edge
By Charles Babington, Associated PressMiddle East violence is shaking up a presidential race that otherwise looks stubbornly stable, and tight. President Barack Obama holds a tiny edge, Republican Mitt Romney is seeking a breakthrough message, and three debates are ahead in the campaign’s final seven weeks.
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Sep 14, 2012
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Amid Mideast turmoil, aides say what a President Romney would do
By David E. Sanger and Ashley Parker, The New York TimesIf Mitt Romney were in the Oval Office during this week of turmoil in the Middle East, his foreign policy advisers said on Thursday, he would have already told Iran that he would not allow it to get close to building a bomb, setting a “red line” in a far different place from President Obama’s.
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Poll: Obama holds narrow edge over Romney
By Jeff Zeleny, The New York TimesPresident Obama holds a narrow three-point advantage over Mitt Romney among Americans most likely to vote in November, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll.
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Obama has clear leads over Romney, new polls show
By John Harwood, CNBCPresident Obama has opened clear leads over Mitt Romney in three critical battlegrounds of the November election, according to new polls by NBC News, The Wall Street Journal, and Marist College.
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Machine-gun Bernanke
By Jim Tankersley, National JournalIt is almost impossible to imagine the Federal Reserve, as currently constituted, acting more aggressively to speed up the economy than it did Thursday afternoon. After months of tinkering with monetary policy on the margins of an ongoing American jobs crisis, amid escalating cries that Ben Bernanke had run out of weapons to fight unemployment, the Fed has unleashed a full and sustained burst of monetary stimulus.
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Romney’s dark worldview
By James Kitfield, National JournalIn the homestretch of the campaign, Mitt Romney has offered enticing clues to anyone trying to decipher his essential worldview and foreign-policy lodestar. In two recent instances, Romney doubled down on positions that place him well to the right of the Obama administration, and firmly in the mold crafted by hawks and neoconservatives in the first term of President George W. Bush.
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