Essential Reads

Sep 04, 2012

Republicans try to counter Democrats' convention
By Sam Youngman, Reuters
Republicans prepared a counterpunch to the Democratic National Convention this week by introducing their new line of attack with a not-so-new question: "Are you better off than you were four years ago?"
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Obama makes detour to visit hurricane site
By Jackie Calmes, The New York Times
President Obama took a short detour from campaigning on Monday to inspect the damage wrought by Hurricane Isaac last week and the government response, a stop that took on outsized political overtones in this campaign season.
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Aug 31, 2012

Democrats outline convention schedule
By Helene Cooper, The New York Times
Just when it seemed as if there could not possibly be any more red, white and blue speeches ringing across the airways from the convention floor, the Democrats are unveiling their counterpunch to the Republican show that has been under way all week in Tampa.
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Obama team sharpens attacks on rivals’ character
By Jackie Calmes, The New York Times
As the Obama campaign heads into its convention next week, Democrats see openings both to fill in unpopular details of Mitt Romney’s agenda left unsaid by Republicans in Tampa this week and to raise new questions about Mr. Romney’s character after widespread criticism of misstatements by him and his running mate, Paul D. Ryan.
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The risks of Romneynomics
By Jim Tankersley, National Journal
It’s not 1981 in America. Three decades after the Reagan Revolution, the country’s economic problems have evolved. Economic data show this clearly — and so do polling data.
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Dispatches From the Republican National Convention
By John Dickerson, Slate Magazine
For those who didn’t think that Mitt Romney has had to overcome obstacles: Clint Eastwood. The actor’s 12-minute turn onstage at the Republican Convention was rambling and distracting. He spoke to an empty chair in which he pretended the president sat. A few times he pretended the president had suggested he and Romney have intercourse with themselves. Obama spokesperson Ben Labolt suggested that, as counter-programming, the Democrats next week would have Salvador Dali. President Obama got in on the fun by tweeting a picture of himself sitting in the Roosevelt Room chair. (This seat’s taken.) The convention that had seemed snakebit at the start, with Hurricane Isaac and tropical storm Todd Akin, appeared to be ending on the same cursed note.
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Romney vows to deliver country from economic travails
By Jeff Zeleny, The New York Times
Mitt Romney accepted the Republican presidential nomination on Thursday by making a direct appeal to Americans who were captivated by President Obama’s hopeful promises of change, pledging that he could deliver what the president did not and move the country from its worst economic downturn since the Great Depression.
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Romney draws battle lines in GOP acceptance speech
By Dan Balz, The Washington Post
Mitt Romney claimed the Republican presidential nomination here Thursday night with a promise to restore the nation’s economic strength and a critique of President Obama’s record, which he said has turned hope and change into failure and disappointment for the nation’s families.
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Aug 30, 2012

In Virginia, Obama sounds call for young voters
By Alexis Simendinger, Real Clear Politics
As President Obama wrapped up a two-day cross-country campaign jaunt targeted at college students, he offered a mild swipe at the GOP convention in Tampa -- and he voiced one request.
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The 'mad woman' behind the welfare attack ad
By Beth Reinhard, National Journal
Campaign ad-makers, particularly those who dabble in the dark arts, can appear in the imaginations of their political opponents as Lex Luthor or Darth Vader.
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Party takes risk on seniors plan
By Janet Hook and Peter Nicholas, The Wall Street Journal
Rep. Paul Ryan signaled Wednesday that rather than running from Democratic attacks on Republican plans to overhaul Medicare, his party will carry the attack to President Barack Obama.
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Dispatches From the Republican National Convention
By John Dickerson, Slate Magazine
Paul Ryan is supposed to be a wonk, but we've never really seen this side of him since he's become a vice presidential candidate. So far he has been an articulate Republican Party spokesperson for all of Barack Obama's failings. He hit his rhetorical height Wednesday night at the Republican convention when he unbuckled a long and stinging critique of the Obama administration and the Democratic Party. It was powerful, well received, and passionately delivered. The speech didn't require policy expertise, particularly. Indeed, an expert might feel compelled to avoid the series of inconsistencies and contradictions that were woven through Ryan's jeremiad.
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Paul Ryan promises GOP ‘won’t duck the tough issues’
By Karen Tumulty, The Washington Post
Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin accepted the GOP nomination for vice president on Wednesday with a declaration that President Obama, who was elected four years ago on a promise of hope and change, has failed and his opportunity has been squandered.
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Aug 29, 2012

Obama courts the votes of a less-engaged youth
By Jackie Calmes, The New York Times
Annie Hartnett was not old enough to vote in 2008 when she volunteered for the Obama campaign at the University of Iowa, where an older sister was a student. Now 21 and a leader of the Iowa State University Democrats, she said she was as excited as she was four years ago to be working for President Obama — yet she struggled to describe something that is missing.
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GOP leaders are not sold on Ryan's trumpeted Medicare plan
By Susan Davis, USA Today
The Republican Party has rallied around Paul Ryan's proposal to overhaul the Medicare system in its proposed budget, on the campaign trail and in the party's 2012 platform approved Tuesday, but top House and Senate leaders will not commit to enacting the proposal if the GOP takes control of Congress and the White House next year.
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Race-baiting hooks 2012 campaign
By John Harris and Maggie Haberman, Politico
During three-plus years of Barack Obama’s presidency, neither he nor most top Republicans felt much desire to talk about race. Now, the three-plus days of the Republican National Convention in Tampa are being roiled by angry people in both parties eager to talk about race — and how the other side is trying exploit prejudice for political advantage.
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For Mitt Romney, the election hinges on the middle class
By Doyle McManus, The Los Angeles Times
The conventional wisdom is that this week's Republican National Convention needs to make Mitt Romney more "likable" — to replace his image as a frosty billionaire with the warmer (and, friends say, more accurate) picture of a family man, devout Mormon and private do-gooder.
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Romney clinches GOP nomination at convention; Ann Romney, Chris Christie speak
By Karen Tumulty and David A. Fahrenthold, The Washington Post
The Republican Party on Tuesday formally bestowed its presidential nomination on former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, launching its convention here with two goals: to make the GOP contender more appealing and to sharpen the case against giving President Obama a second term.
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Nomination Secure, Romney Pitch starts
By Jeff Zeleny, The New York Times
Mitt Romney, a former governor of Massachusetts who has aspired to reach the White House since his father first sought the office four decades ago, was nominated by the Republican Party here on Tuesday as its choice to become the 45th president of the United States.
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Aug 28, 2012

Mitt Romney RNC: GOP still frets about candidate's image
By John Harris and Alexander Burns, Politico
Mitt Romney signaled in weekend interviews that he is brushing off advice that he attempt a public image makeover this week to make himself more likable and more connected to voters at the human level.
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