Monday, March 26, 2012
Romney staves off a fierce challenge
From The Hindu
Mitt Romney, former Governor of Massachusetts, consolidated his position as the frontrunner in the Republican presidential nominee race as he swept up important victories in primary contests in his home State of Michigan and in Arizona on Tuesday.
Staving off a fierce challenge in both States from the former U.S. Senator from Pennsylvania, Rick Santorum, Mr. Romney garnered slightly over 41 per cent of the vote in Michigan and 47.3 per cent of the vote in Arizona. Mr. Santorum won nearly 38 per cent and 26.6 per cent respectively, garnering second place in both States.
Possibly indicating the White House's expectation that Mr. Romney may ultimately win the nomination, President Barack Obama, during a speech to the United Auto Workers labour union, referenced a 2008 op-ed by Mr. Romney titled “Let Detroit go Bankrupt”. “Think about what that choice would have meant for this country,” said Mr. Obama, adding, “All of you, the men and women who built [General Motors, Chrysler and Ford] with your own hands, would have been hung out to dry.”
A jubilant Mr. Romney said in Detroit, “Great victory in Arizona. Thank you, Michigan. What a win. This is a big night. A week ago the pundits and the pollsters were ready to count us out.”
Mr. Santorum similarly underscored the surge in popularity he has enjoyed over the last few rounds, saying, “A month ago they didn't know who we are... They do now.”
Mr. Romney's sweep of Arizona will net him all 29 delegates moving him a step closer to the 1,144 total that he needs to secure the nomination. In Michigan the 30 delegates will be distributed on a proportional basis.
Both candidates and others still in the race — including libertarian Ron Paul and the former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Newt Gingrich — will now be focussed on “Super Tuesday” on March 6 when a total of 10 States will head to the polls and the candidates will be competing for 400 delegates.
Labels: 2012 U.S. Presidential Election, Arizona, GOP race, Michigan, Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, Republican primaries, Rick Santorum, Ron Paul
Saturday, December 17, 2011
Gingrich draws flak for remarks on Palestinians
From The Hindu
Newt Gingrich is treading that fine line between being on fire and
being in the line of fire. The former Speaker of the House, who is famous for
causing a federal government shutdown owing to a personal rivalry with
then-President Bill Clinton, has been the poll leader for several weeks now.
Yet last weekend he might have stepped into a maelstrom of
controversy on the foreign policy front. Speaking to a Jewish channel earlier,
he labelled the Palestinian bid for statehood as efforts of an “invented
Palestinian people, who are in fact Arabs, and were historically part of the
Arab community”.
While Saturday's Republican presidential debate in Ames, Iowa,
might have served as an opportunity to rescind this remark, the thrice-married
Mr. Gingrich instead chose to stick to his guns, retorting, “These people
[Palestinians] are terrorists, they teach terrorism in their schools. They have
textbooks that say, if there are 13 Jews and nine Jews are killed, how many Jews
are left? We pay for those textbooks through our aid money.”
“It's fundamentally time for somebody to have the guts to stand up
and say, enough lying about the Middle East [West Asia],” he went on to say. He
also quoted Palestine's Ambassador to India who reportedly said there was no
difference between the Palestinian Fatah and Hamas parties, and “We both agree
that Israel has no right to exist.”
Unsurprisingly his remarks provoked a strong reaction from West
Asia, with the Arab League in particular “condemning” his statement calling it
“racist and a cheap stunt to get votes”. Media reports also quoted Mohammed
Sobeih, an Arab League official, describing Mr. Gingrich's comments as
“irresponsible and dangerous”.
Media comments from the Gulf suggested took umbrage at Mr.
Gingrich's frequent invocation of what some called a “slanted” history of West
Asia. In Saturday's debate Mr. Gingrich said, “Remember there was no Palestine
as a state. It was part of the Ottoman Empire... They had a chance to go many
places. And for a variety of political reasons, we have sustained this war
against Israel now since the 1940s, and I think it's tragic.”
Responding to this comment Gulf News said on its opinion
pages, “If the Palestinian people are indeed ‘invented', then Gingrich should
also accept the argument that the American people are, arguably, also
‘invented'.”
The newspaper went on to describe any such attempt by Mr. Gingrich
to achieve political gains with such a statement as a “foolish idea,” adding
that gaining the votes of the American Jewish community did not allow any
candidate or politician to deny outright the rights of any given people.
Labels: Isarel-Palestine conflict, Newt Gingrich
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
Subscribe to Comments [Atom]
