Archives for October 2012

The first female fighter pilot in combat is now immersed in a new battle – trying to win a tight Congressional race for the seat formerly held by Gabrielle Giffords.

Martha McSally is a military pioneer.  In addition to becoming the first female fighter pilot to see combat, she was also the first woman to command a fighter squadron.  In addition, she also fought – and won – a battle against the Pentagon after the government initially ordered female service members to wear traditional Muslim dress when off base in Saudi Arabia.  She was most recently serving in the national security industry in Europe when she decided to come home and run for office.

“I care deeply about my country and our freedoms,” said McSally.  “I’m very concerned about the direction we’re going, concerned about what’s going on in Washington, D.C.  I feel like we need leaders with moral courage and experience to sit down and solve the complex problems that are facing our nation right now.  That’s just not happening.  They’re failing.  So I really felt this call to duty to step up and serve.”

McSally faces a tough challenge against incumbent Democratic Rep. Ron Barber.  Barber won a special election earlier this year to complete the term of former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, who resigned to focus on her recovery from horrific gunshot wounds.  Barber is a former Giffords staffer, who is strongly endorsed by his former boss.

McSally is sensitive to the emotions toward Rep. Giffords in the district but says those emotions willnot be a major factor in her race against Rep. Barber.

“This election is about the future, who is the right person to represent the people of southern Arizona,” said McSally. “We elect unique people.  We’re independent thinkers, and we’ve had a tradition.  Whether it’s Mo Udall, Jim Kolbe, Gabby Giffords, of electing people who are successful people who can think on their feet on their own right and represent the independent-minded people of southern Arizona.  I complete that picture.  Ron Barber is a staffer who completed her term.  The choice is very clear.”

McSally is quick to point out that Barber’s background proves he’s not much of a leader.

“He’s been a lifelong bureaucrat,” she says.  “So you have a very clear contrast between a leader and a follower, a pioneer and a bureaucrat, a commander and a staffer.”

She says Barber’s brief stint in Congress is more evidence that he’s not much of a leader and simply does the will of Democratic leaders.

“Eighty-nine percent of the time, he’s just voting the line.  He’s a foot soldier.  He’s a follower, just doing what he’s told” said McSally.

She also accuses Barber of dragging out tired talking points that don’t even apply to this campaign.

“In an editorial board interview, while I’m sitting next to him, he said, ‘The Republican Party is essentially a bunch of white guys with big money.’  And I’m sitting next to him as a middle class woman who’s a retired military officer.  And I’m like, ‘Ron, the talking point doesn’t stick.  This is just not helpful right now.  You’re throwing out the divisive rhetoric that is what’s wrong with Washington, D.C.’  He literally became a politician overnight.”

McSally says many issues prompted her to run, from a weak economy to mounting debt to international challenges.  She would not offer many specifics on her economic positions, refusing to say whether she would oppose future increases in the debt ceiling.  Instead, she says all of these issues require leadership and the determination to “knuckle down” to solve problems.

She did get more specific on immigration reform, which is always a front-burner issues in southern Arizona.  Once again, McSally touts her experience as a major asset compared to Rep. Barber.

“It’s a public safety issue.  It’s a national security issue,” she said.  “I’ve been serving for 26 years in the military all over the world.  I understand these transnational threats and how we need to combat them.  I understand how we need to use a combination of barriers and fences and manpower and sensors and airborne assets in order to actually have intelligence-driven operations to secure our border.  I can provide that oversight to the Department of Homeland Security based on my experience and my leadership, and Ron Barber needs a staffer to prepare him on those issues because he doesn’t have that experience.”

Greg Corombos of Radio America and Jim Geraghty of National Review are encouraged that both the Romney and Obama campaigns are spending more money in states that were thought to be easy Obama victories.  They also wonder if Hurricane Sandy will dent Romney’s momentum and give a boost to Obama as he tries to demonstrate his hands-on leadership.  And they call MSNBC insufferable for slamming Mitt Romney after Romney used events to collect goods for storm victims.

Former Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum believes Mitt Romney has the momentum heading into next week’s elections and he’s also defending embattled GOP Senate hopefuls Richard Mourdock and Todd Akin as they take heat for comments on rape and abortion.

Santorum says there’s no doubt Romney has the momentum in the race for the White House.

“If I was playing poker and I had two hands to choose from, I think I’d take Gov. Romney’s hand right now,” said Santorum.  “Key states that looked to be very squarely in the Obama camp are now very much in play like Pennsylvania, Minnesota for example, Wisconsin, all of those states are very much in play.”

Santorum’s home state of Pennsylvania hasn’t gone for the Republican nominee since 1988, but Santorum sees three factors that work in Romney’s favor.  He says the Obama “war” on energy and manufacturing is deeply unpopular in the state.  Santorum says Romney is also doing better with voters in the Philadelphia suburbs, which is critical to victory.  He also sees far less enthusiasm for Obama inside Philadelphia itself.

Santorum was runner-up to Romney in the Republican primaries and at times the rhetoric between the two was very heated.  However, he says he not only strongly prefers Romney over President Obama but is genuinely excited about the prospect of a Romney presidency.

“We were concerned about the future of our country,” Santorum said about his family’s decision for him to seek the nomination this year.  “We wanted to make sure that Barack Obama was not re-elected president.  We felt we had to go out and do everything we felt we could do for our seven children and for future generations of Americans to make sure that we had a new president.  Now we have an opportunity to have a new president and I’m very excited about that prospect.  Gov. Romney’s going to be light years better than Barack Obama on every front – everything from our national security to the handling of our economy and our fiscal problems to our culture.  I’m excited about it.  I think that a Romney presidency will be a marked improvement and a completely different direction than where President Obama is taking us.”

Santorum prides himself as being a strong conservative in all areas but is probably most closely associated with his culturally conservative views.  He says it’s a big mistake for the Republican establishment to think the party cannot appeal to independents and the base by holding strong convictions on traditional values.

“Let’s just look at Minnesota,” said Santorum.  “Who would’ve thought Minnesota would be anywhere close to being a toss-up state in this election.  You know what happens to be going on in Minnesota that’s making that the case?  There’s a marriage amendment on the ballot.  Go back to 2004 when George Bush won Ohio.  The reason he won Ohio?  There was a marriage amendment on the ballot and it drove out a lot of turnout in areas where, frankly, Republicans need high turnout if they’re going to win elections.”

Santorum says the media and party elites diminish the importance of values issues because they don’t think they’re important but he says regular Americans do place a high priority on those issues.

He offers the same indictment of party officials and the mainstream media in their reaction to recent controversies over rape and abortion in two high-profile Senate campaigns.

Missouri Senate candidate Todd Akin is still struggling to make up ground after suggesting in August that women’s bodies have natural mechanisms to prevent pregnancy in cases of “legitimate rape”.  Last week, Mourdock came under fire after a debate response in which he said children conceived during rape should have the right to life because God intended for that life to be created in that way.

Santorum views those comments very differently.

“Both of them, particularly in Todd Akin’s case, was very inarticulate in the way he addressed it,” said Santorum.  “I’ve watched the Richard Mourdock comment repeatedly.  I think any believer would understand exactly what he meant and what he said…which is that God doesn’t make mistakes.  God intends every human life that comes into being to have the opportunity for life.  I think Todd Akin said a dumb thing.  I think Richard Mourdock said what most believers believe.

“We have a bunch of folks in the media who don’t see the world that way, and are trying to make it into something that it’s not.  That to me was a real indication of how screwed up the media is that they focus three days of coverage on that while we are finding information about the president potentially knowing – it looks like he did know – what was going on in real time in Benghazi.  He and the White House basically ordered our men in that embassy to to fend for themselves and not try to support them.  That somehow is not a story, and someone stating a biblically-held world view as to God’s intention for every life to have the opportunity to be born is somehow big new.”

While Santorum rejects Akin’s statements on rape and pregnancy, he is still among the few high-profile Republicans actively assisting Akin’s Senate bid.  Both the Republican National Committee and the National Republican Senatorial Committee refused to back Akin, even after he decided to stay in the race.

“It’s a double standard.  The moral cultural issues are always the ones that the elites in our party tend to steer away from,” said Santorum, noting that a candidate would never be pressured to resign for saying something strange about tax policy.  “What Todd Akin said was stupid.  He apologized for it, said he certainly misspoke in a way that certainly was offensive.  But candidates, unfortunately, do that all the time.  The question is did we apologize for it (and) did he make clear what his position is and the answer is yes on both fronts.  It’s time to move on and that’s what I’ve done.  Hopefully, the people of Missouri are good and decent people who understand that people make mistakes but know Todd Akin from 16 years in public life and know him to be a good and competent public servant and someone who has the strong ideas across the board on conservative principles will stand behind him, unlike the Republican establishment.”

Santorum is also the author of a new book, “American Patriots,” in which he seeks to promote the American First principles that were the hallmark of his campaign.

“The lack of understanding of who we are as a country is still shockingly low,” he said.  “What I wanted to do was write a book about who we are as Americans and that’s what the overarching theme of the book is.  But then I wanted to illustrate it with stories of ordinary people at the time of the Revolution who did in some cases ordinary things (and) in some cases extraordinary things but all combined to help us win our freedom.”

Santorum hopes the stories will motivate Americans to do ordinary and extraordinary things to protect our freedoms.

Arizona is one of more than a dozen states where razor-close Senate races will determine the majority in the the next Congress.

Six-term Rep. Jeff Flake is the Republican nominee against Democrat Richard Carmona in the contest to replace retiring GOP Sen. Jon Kyl.  Flake says his record on spending, jobs and border security make him the better choice and he adds that Carmona’s dishonesty is on full display in this contest.

When it comes to the economy, Flake says he is the pro-growth candidate while Carmona is nothing more than a rubber stamp for Obamacare and Obama’s proposed tax increases.

“He has pretty much adopted the Obama agenda hook, line and sinker,” said Flake of Carmona.  “He said that he’s OK with raising tax rates.  Regulation that’s coming down, he has no problem it seems with that.  He hasn’t spoken out against any of it.”

Flake is especially critical of Carmona’s support for the Obama health plan, saying it’s the biggest threat to jobs in the country.

“He favored it when it passed.  He favored it during this election.  He said he will not repeal it,” said Flake.  “That is a huge job-killer.  I talk to businessmen and businesswomen all the time.  I talked to one last Friday (with) 44 employees.  He’s going to hire another four but not go beyond that because he can’t hit the 50 threshold (when health penalties kick in for employers).  You’re finding that again and again and again.”

When it comes to spending, Flake says he’ll put his record of fiscal discipline up against anyone.

“We need more than ever somebody who is willing to stand up to whichever party is in power and say we’ve got to stop this overspending,” said Flake.  “And that’s been my record in the House.  I stood up, as it happened, against my own party for a number of years and I was punished for it.  But ultimately we got rid of earmarks and that’s a good thing.  That’s the kind of commitment we need in the Senate.”

Border security is a major issue in Arizona.  Flake’s position on immigration reform has evolved in recent years.  He previously embraced a comprehensive solution that addressed border security at the same time as temporary worker programs.  Flake now says that was the wrong approach.  he says border security must be achieved before dealing with other issues.

“The bottom line is nobody’s going to trust the federal government to move ahead with the other elements, some of which we really need like a temporary worker plan, until we get better border security,” said Flake.

The big squabble in the campaign in the final stretch is over who the two Republican senators in the state want to win this race.  Carmona, a former U.S. Surgeon General, has been airing ads showing Senator Kyl and Senator John McCain giving him glowing reviews.  Flake says this is the height of dishonesty.

“When Dr. Carmona was nominated for Surgeon General, they did what senators from the state of somebody who’s nominated do,” said Flake.  “They testified on his behalf and said good things.  What he’s done is taken that footage, ten-year-old footage, and implies – in fact edits it carefully – so it sounds as if they’re endorsing him for the Senate race.  As you can imagine (Kyl and McCain) are quite upset about that as well they should be.  They have endorsed me for this Senate race.  They have not endorsed Dr. Carmona.”

Flake says a new TV ad featuring McCain and Kyl will soon be airing to set the record straight.

Greg Corombos of Radio America and Charles Cooke of National Review are pleased to see a major poll showing Mitt Romney leading in Ohio for the first time.  They dread the impact Hurricane Sandy will have on the East Coast.  And they slam the media for suggesting it’s wrong for Mitt Romney to campaign while the hurricane impacts the Northeast.

The CEO of a major European bank says swelling the ranks of people dependent upon government may help to win elections but it sets nations on an irreversible decline into socialism.

Lars Christiansen is CEO at Denmark-based Saxo bank, which has a strong presence in many areas of Europe. He says the hallmarks of socialism are evident throughout Europe and increasingly in the U.S..

“European socialism is a system whereby there’s very generous entitlements, lot of social transfer payments (and) a tendency to victimize people so they go on social welfare instead of actually being active in the labor market,” said Christensen.  “The real risk is when too large a component of the total population are on social transfer systems they become self-sustaining and increase simply because a very large part of the voter base will have no interest in promoting free markets and liberty but will have much more direct interest in increasing the size of government and state and of the transfer payments that they benefit from.”

Christensen says he fears the U.S. is determined to go down the same path despite seeing what happens in the end.  He says many U.S. politicians who have a “romanticized view” of the public services people think are free and the ever-growing number of entitlement programs.

Hesays southern Europe is very far down this path, with Greece routinely teetering on the brink of insolvency and the likes of Spain and Italy heading closer to that chaos.  But he says other areas of Europe are on the same road to failure.  They just aren’t as far down that road.

“There’s only about 35 percent of the population that works in the private sector, generating all the necessary wealth for the entire system,” Christensen says of the people in his native Denmark.  ” As you can imagine in a system where 65 percent of the voters basically have an intrinsic interest in receiving more from the government.  That’s not a very healthy place to develop capitalist values and develop economic growth.  It is not something to be envied.  It is not something that is desirable.  It’s important that the U.S. don’t go down that route.”

Denmark is nowhere near the debt crisis unfolding in Greece, but Christensen says that’s due to a massive tax burden which reaches 49 percent of gross domestic product compared to 27 percent in the U.S.  To pay for greater entitlement programs, income taxes are at 60 percent in Denmark, capital gains rates are at 42 percent, a 25 percent sales tax and paying ten dollars per gallon of gasoline.

Christensen believes the upcoming elections will have a profound impact on the long term priorities of our nation, but he sees America with one major advantage that the other nations do not.

“It’s much more part of your nature to value freedom to value creativity to value toe American Dream.  We don’t have much of that in Europe,” he said.

Both the Obama and Romney campaigns are trying to convince voters they are the best choice and the other candidate is a risk people can’t take.  Obama likes to paint Romney as looking out for the wealthy, while Romney says another four years under Obama would look as bad as the past four years.  In response to all this, the Capitol Steps bring back their 2009 favorite “Return to Spenders”.

Greg Corombos of Radio America and Jim Geraghty of National Review cheer signs that Mitt Romney is finishing strong and may well win the popular vote.  They also groan as the Obama campaign tries to claim two percent economic growth is a sign of a great comeback.  And they’re almost speechless as the Obama campaign tries to motivate young female voters by suggesting they lose their voting virginity to Obama.

Republicans are trying to win back the White House and Senate this year but they are also making the case that voters should return them to the majority in the House of Representatives.

Democrats controlled both chambers of Congress and the White House in 2009 and 2010.  Voters did not give them strong reviews, greatly shrinking the Democratic edge in the Senate and handing the GOP a majority in the House with an historic 63-seat gain.

Now the GOP is in the position of arguing for change while asking to stay on as the majority in the House.

“The House voters gave us did its job,” said National Republican Congressional Committee Deputy Chairman Greg Walden, the lone Republican congressman from Oregon.  “We, each of the last two years, has passed a budget that puts America not only on the path to not only balancing the budget but paying off the debt.”

Walden says the House has also been very active in rolling back regulations that are harmful to small businesses and approved alternative spending cuts that would prevent huge reductions in military spending.  All of those bills are awaiting Senate consideration that is unlikely to come if Democrats maintain the majority in the upper chamber.

Walden says Republicans have ushered in responsibility after two years of Democrats spending recklessly and greatly expanding the size and role of government.

“You do your job, you fix the problem, you move forward.  That’s what Speaker Boehner and the leadership in the House has tried to do, and even reached an agreement with the president that the president the next day walked away from” he said, referring to the 2011 debt ceiling negotiations.  “It’s really frustrating on our part.  We went there to govern.  We’re there to govern.  We will govern effectively.  But we’re not just going to write blank checks to bankrupt the country.  I mean that had to stop.”

Redrawn districts from the 2010 U.S. Census mean new boundaries and some states have added seats while others have lost them due to population shifts.

Walden and the NRCC are predicting a GOP gain of 5-7 seats this cycle, which would bring the Republicans close to the huge majority Democrats enjoyed in the previous Congress.

The biggest worries for the NRCC include redrawn districts in left-leaning states like Illinois, where freshmen Reps. Joe Walsh and Robert Dold are facing difficult re-election prospects.  California could also be trouble as districts were radically redrawn and many longtime GOP members decided to retire.  Walden says that change cuts both ways, and incumbent Democrats are now facing tough challenges there as well.

Republicans are hoping additional seats in Texas and Florida will provide pick-up opportunities.  New boundaries in North Carolina also suggest strong Republican gains.

The presidential race is receiving the vast majority of media attention, but Walden is confident his party will win the highest-profile races.  Those contests include Mia Love’s campaign against Democratic Rep. Jim Matheson in Utah and the re-election efforts of Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann and Florida Rep. Allen West.

Greg Corombos of Radio America and Jim Geraghty of National Review aren’t quite sure if they believe polls showing women evenly split between Obama and Romney or that Michigan is tied, but they like the trends in both surveys.  They also sigh as Obama resorts to profanity in a Rolling Stone interview and have plenty of choice words for Rolling Stone itself.  And they discuss another Democrat getting caught offering advice on how to commit voter fraud.