Monthly Archives: September 2012
‘Tired Cries of Bias Don’t Help Romney’
David Carr NYT column: ‘In the last few days, conservatives have become agitated about Mitt Romney’s drop-off in the polls. So did they think the stumble was because of the ill-fated “47 percent” slip of the lip, or the hasty effort to gain a political edge after the death of an American ambassador in Libya, or more problematically, a campaign that can’t seem to stop pratfalling no matter what the news? No, in their view, the mysterious drop can only be explained by the fact that the mainstream media have their collective liberal thumb on the scale, in terms of coverage and, more oddly, polling.’
‘Romney or Obama? Political scientists make their predictions’
‘The Supreme Court, absent from the election debate”
Bob Barnes writes for Wapo.
“Two Big Cases Ready for Major Appellate Rulings”
Ned Foley: “In the next week or two, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit will decide two Ohio election cases with both practical and jurisprudential importance. One concerns the rollback of early voting during the last three days before Election Day (November 6 this year). The other involves the invalidation of a ballot cast by a valid voter in the correct polling location, but to whom the poll worker erroneously gives the incorrect ballot for the voter’s specific precinct.”
“‘The Voting Wars’ review: Timely examination of our botched balloting”
Glenn Altschuler has written this review of The Voting Wars for The Oregonian.
‘Election 2012: Early balloting joins strict ID laws among Indiana’s top voting issues”
“Potential voter registration fraud in Florida: GOP’s own ‘ACORN’ scandal?”
CS Monitor: “It’s far from clear whether the registrations would have led to voter fraud, or if they were simply attempts by employees to show that they’d done their jobs. That point may be underscored by the amateurish nature of the fraud.”
“Habitual candidate forces GOP foes into campaigning”
Cincinnati Enquirer: “Republicans are frustrated by her because an opponent means the GOP has to spend money on that race.”
“Citizenship box on ballot goes to Michigan court next week”
Quote of the Day
“It will be interesting to see if the justices worry half as much about the emerging restrictions on voting as they worried about restrictions on political spending.”
Pam Karlan, quoted in Adam Liptak’s preview of the Supreme Court term for the New York Times.
Read the Court Opinion Rejecting Challenge to Obama Admin. Rule Barring Lobbyists from Serving on Certain Boards
“After Waters Inquiry, House Panel Recommends New Ethics Rules”
I missed this NYT piece earlier this week. It begins: “Saying that public trust is at stake, a special House ethics panel on Tuesday called for new rules to prevent lawmakers and their staffs from violating conflict of interest standards and proposed other new measures designed to keep partisan squabbles from undermining future investigations of such wrongdoing. The broad set of recommendations, coming only a few months before the House will adopt a new set of rules for the next Congress, were released as the ethics committee finally completed a three-year investigation of Representative Maxine Waters, Democrat of California, an inquiry that itself got caught up in controversy because of such partisan disputes and ambiguous ethics rules.”
“Lawsuit highlights difficulty of third-party involvement in debates”
LA Times: “The participants if this year’s presidential debates are set – Republican nominee Mitt Romney will face off against President Obama in a matchup that’s been obvious for months. But there are still other presidential candidates, and one in particular is keen on elbowing his way into the debates. Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson earlier this month filed a lawsuit against the Commission on Presidential Debates, claiming that the organization’s practices violate antitrust laws and alleging collusion between the commission and the country’s two dominant political parties.”