Wednesday, January 11, 2012
Romney on top as caucus season kicks off
From The Hindu
As the season of caucuses and primaries for selecting the
Republican presidential nominee kicks into fourth gear next Tuesday in Iowa,
Mitt Romney, former Governor of Massachusetts, has garnered a firm but narrow
lead over his rivals in an eclectic, and according to some, weak field of
contenders.
Though President Barack Obama still enjoys a comfortable lead over
Mr. Romney, with a Gallup poll in December placing the former's approval rating
at 47 per cent, Mr. Romney's 27 per cent still sees him breaking away from his
principal challenger of recent weeks, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.
Fuelled by his sometimes high-octane oratory at the Republican
presidential debates, Mr. Gingrich's campaign to win his party's nomination took
its first beating over the summer when most of his campaign staff abruptly quit
their jobs.
More recently, despite a strong poll surge in November, Mr.
Gingrich was said to have been wrong-footed by a shortage of campaign funds and
an inability to respond to a series of negative ads that the Romney and Ron Paul
teams ran against him.
As per the most recent Gallup poll, which came out earlier this
week, Mr. Gingrich was slipping fast and had dropped to 23 per cent, with the
libertarian candidate Congressman Paul at a distant 11 per cent, Texas Governor
Rick Perry at 8 per cent, Tea Party-backed Congresswoman Michele Bachmann at 5
per cent, and former U.S. Senator from of Pennsylvania Rick Santorum at 4 per
cent.
Mr. Romney has consistently maintained a top, if not the lead,
position among the candidates throughout the season of debates in 2011. While
his Mormon religion and record of implementing Obama-like policies in healthcare
are contentious with the hard core of conservatives in the Republican Party, he
is seen as possibly the most credible candidate to challenge Mr. Obama.
The caucuses which begin in Iowa next week will continue into
March, across U.S., and then the primaries will extend until the end of June.
Labels: Barack Obama, Mitt Romney, presidential elections, Unites States politics
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
Republican field wide open
From The Hindu
Tea Party darling Michele Bachmann, the winner of Saturday's pre-caucus straw poll in Iowa, is a supporter of the Dominionism sect, “which says Christians should rule the world”. Another frontrunner that joined the race over the weekend, Texas Governor Rick Perry, immediately launched an attack on Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, calling him “treasonous” for wanting to print more money during the recession. And establishment-favourite Mitt Romney, a multimillionaire and former head of private equity firm Bain Capital, earlier joked with unemployed people that he too was currently unemployed.
These are some of the credentials of the leading candidates in the still-wide-open field for the nomination of the Republican presidential candidate in 2012.
While the actual caucuses, through which the nomination would be finalised, are not set to occur until early next year, the pre-caucus straw polls such as the one in Iowa are designed to build momentum for the debate and whittle down the range of candidates in the contest.
While Ms. Bachmann, a Republican Party outsider who is considered further to the right than current front runner Mr. Romney, struggled to answer queries about her remark that she was “submissive to her husband,” she outshone former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty, who later announced that he would retire from the race.
A surprise result was second-place victory of party stalwart Ron Paul, a libertarian who has won approval of his party's mainstream for his “neo-isolationist foreign policy” yet has also been labelled a closet Democrat by some.
Others in the race, including Herman Cain, former CEO of Godfather Pizza Company, and Rick Santorum, former Senator from Pennsylvania, failed to generate any buzz and face declining prospects as 2011 rolls on.
While the candidates engaged in a debate that was at times fiercely critical, all of them were united in their condemnation of President Barack Obama, attacking all his policies from healthcare reforms described as “Obamacare” to Mr. Obama's purportedly failed plans to create more jobs in the ailing U.S. economy.
The President meanwhile launched some of his own 2012 campaign activities this week, travelling to Iowa, Minnesota and Illinois on a three-day economic bus tour in the Midwest that aimed to discuss “ways to grow the economy, strengthen the middle class and accelerate hiring in communities and towns across the nation and hear directly from Americans including small business owners, local families, private sector leaders, rural organizations, and government officials.”
Tea Party darling Michele Bachmann, the winner of Saturday's pre-caucus straw poll in Iowa, is a supporter of the Dominionism sect, “which says Christians should rule the world”. Another frontrunner that joined the race over the weekend, Texas Governor Rick Perry, immediately launched an attack on Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, calling him “treasonous” for wanting to print more money during the recession. And establishment-favourite Mitt Romney, a multimillionaire and former head of private equity firm Bain Capital, earlier joked with unemployed people that he too was currently unemployed.
These are some of the credentials of the leading candidates in the still-wide-open field for the nomination of the Republican presidential candidate in 2012.
While the actual caucuses, through which the nomination would be finalised, are not set to occur until early next year, the pre-caucus straw polls such as the one in Iowa are designed to build momentum for the debate and whittle down the range of candidates in the contest.
While Ms. Bachmann, a Republican Party outsider who is considered further to the right than current front runner Mr. Romney, struggled to answer queries about her remark that she was “submissive to her husband,” she outshone former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty, who later announced that he would retire from the race.
Surprise second place
A surprise result was second-place victory of party stalwart Ron Paul, a libertarian who has won approval of his party's mainstream for his “neo-isolationist foreign policy” yet has also been labelled a closet Democrat by some.
Others in the race, including Herman Cain, former CEO of Godfather Pizza Company, and Rick Santorum, former Senator from Pennsylvania, failed to generate any buzz and face declining prospects as 2011 rolls on.
While the candidates engaged in a debate that was at times fiercely critical, all of them were united in their condemnation of President Barack Obama, attacking all his policies from healthcare reforms described as “Obamacare” to Mr. Obama's purportedly failed plans to create more jobs in the ailing U.S. economy.
The President meanwhile launched some of his own 2012 campaign activities this week, travelling to Iowa, Minnesota and Illinois on a three-day economic bus tour in the Midwest that aimed to discuss “ways to grow the economy, strengthen the middle class and accelerate hiring in communities and towns across the nation and hear directly from Americans including small business owners, local families, private sector leaders, rural organizations, and government officials.”
Labels: Barack Obama, Herman Caine, John Huntsman, Michele Bachmann, Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, Rick Perry, Rick Santorum, Ron Paul, Tim Pawlenty, U.S. politics
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