US Jobless Rate Falls to 8.3 Percent, a 3-Year Low
New York Times//Motoko Rich
And in a separate measure, the unemployment rate fell to 8.3 percent, giving a cause for optimism as the economy shapes up as the central issue in the presidential election. Measured by both the unemployment rate and the number of jobless — which fell …

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The State of the Union in 2012
New York Times // Editorial 
A year ago, after the last State of the Union address, we applauded President Obama for challenging the Republicans’ blame-government, slash-and-burn rhetoric. He explained why Washington must do more to help put millions of struggling people back to work and why any credible plan to wrestle down the deficit must include the wealthy paying a fairer share of taxes.

‘US determined to prevent nuclear-armed Iran’
Jerusalem Post 
The United States is determined to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon and will take “no options off the table” to achieve that goal, US President Barack Obama warned in his State of the Union address on Tuesday. Obama said a peaceful resolution of the Iran nuclear dispute is still possible if Iran changes course and meets international obligations.  In a speech largely devoted to the US economy, the US President voiced his commitment to Israel’s security.

Obama urges tougher laws on financial fraud
New York Times // Edward Wyatt
WASHINGTON — President Obamacalled on Congress Tuesday to toughen laws against securities fraud and to strengthen the ability of the Securities and Exchange Commissionto punish Wall Street firms that repeatedly violate antifraud statutes.   In his State of the Union address, Mr. Obama also said he would ask the attorney general to establish a special financial crimes unit to prosecute cases of large-scale financial fraud.

Obama administration unveils new plan for national forests
Los Angeles Times 
New guidelines to manage some 193 million acres of national forest lands will focus on protecting watersheds and wildlife and will require a tougher scientific standard in balancing the competing demands of industry and conservation groups, the Obama administration announced on Thursday. The guidelines, known as a forest planning rule, were unveiled during a telephone news conference by Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and Forest Service Chief Tom Tidwell. The planning rule will replace the old framework, which has been the center of legal battles for years.

Boehner: Policies President Obama is running on ‘almost un-American’
CNN // Candy Crowley and Dana Bash
House Speaker John Boehner Tuesday forcefully denounced the Democrats’ campaign theme that they are for the middle class and Republicans are for the wealthy – saying the policies the president is running on are “almost un-American.”"This is a president who said I’m not going to be a divider, I’m going to be a uniter, and running on the policies of division and envy is – to me it’s almost un-American,” said Boehner.
Gingrich Leading as Fight Intensifies
Wall Street Journal // Neil King, Jr. 
Newt Gingrich is outpacing Mitt Romney among Republican voters nationwide, but he also is showing evidence of the vulnerabilities that could hurt the former House speaker in a general election, according to the latest Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll. With the two rivals fighting it out in Florida after Mr. Gingrich’s big South Carolina victory last week, the poll found Republicans nationwide favoring Mr. Gingrich 37% to 28% over Mr. Romney. GOP voters gave the former House speaker high marks for knowledge and experience, while they continued to harbor doubts about Mr. Romney’s positions on the issues and his feel for average Americans.

Gingrich is Obama’s best surrogate
Washington Post // Dana Milbank
The most important figure in Tuesday night’s State of the Union addresswasn’t on the House floor. In fact, he hasn’t taken a seat in front of the chamber in 13 years. But as he campaigned for the Republican presidential nomination in Florida, former House speaker Newt Gingrich was doing more to boost President Obama’s reelection prospects than anything Obama himself could do. While Obama was using the speechto portray the Republicans as plutocrats, Gingrich was doing all he could to prove the caricature true.

Republican debate in Florida: GOP makes Obama look good
Politico // Roger Simon
The Republican field debated for the 19th time Thursday night and, once again, the media promised us it was going to be a “make or break” event. Don’t believe the media.  The media say the debates have been the most critical factor in the nominating race so far because the media have been forced to watch them all. And take notes. And write stories.

Greed is good? The GOP seems to be okay with that.
Washington Post // Eugene Robinson
If you heard a loud “gulp” Tuesday night after President Obama’s State of the Union address, it probably came from Republican political strategists as they realized their party’s odds of capturing the White House this fall are getting longer. Obama may be no Ronald Reagan, but he’s no Jimmy Carter, either. The obligatory list of accomplishments and initiatives was embellished with bits and pieces of what will likely be Obama’s standard campaign speech. At the heart of his argument for a second term is his assertion that the American dream of upward mobility has been hijacked — that the rich and the powerful have rigged our economic and political systems to favor their interests over those of the average citizen.

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How Obama’s Long Game Will Outsmart His Critics
Daily Beast // Andrew Sullivan
You hear it everywhere. Democrats are disappointed in the president. Independents have soured even more. Republicans have worked themselves up into an apocalyptic fervor. And, yes, this is not exactly unusual.  A president in the last year of his first term will always get attacked mercilessly by his partisan opponents, and also, often, by the feistier members of his base.

Taxes at the Top

New York Times ByPAUL KRUGMAN

Call me peculiar, but I’m actually enjoying the spectacle of Mitt Romney doing the Dance of the Seven Veils — partly out of voyeurism, of course, but also because it’s about time that we had this discussion.

The Wealth Issue

New York Times By DAVID BROOKS

Mitt Romney is a rich man, but is Mitt Romney’s character formed by his wealth? Is Romney a spoiled, cosseted character? Has he been corrupted by ease and luxury? The notion is preposterous. All his life, Romney has been a worker and a grinder. He earned two degrees at Harvard simultaneously (in law and business). He built a business. He’s persevered year after year, amid defeat after defeat, to build a political career.

The following is from “The Week,” a weekly journal that is neither liberal nor conservative. They quoted several respected foreign newspapers regarding US GOP politics: (Hat tip: Bonnie Porta)

THE GERMAN PRESS
The Republican presidential contest in America is a “freak show,” said Marc Pitzke in the German Der Spiegel. The candidates vie with one another to spew the most outrageous hard-right positions, denying evolution while endorsing torture and joking about electrocuting illegal immigrants. How did a major party in the world’’s sole superpower become a “club of liars, debtors, betrayers, adulterers, exaggerators, hypocrites, and ignoramuses?” These know-nothings are enabled by a U.S. press that has been “neutered by the demands of political correctness” so that it can’’t say what’s obvious: These people are daft! Instead, it “proclaims one clown after the next to be the new front-runner.” The current favorite, Newt Gingrich, is actually considered an intellectual merely because he can create sentences with multiple clauses. Scarcely a one has even the most basic grasp of foreign policy. One said Africa is a country, another that the Taliban rule in Libya . Collectively, “they expose a political, economic, geographic, and historical ignorance that makes George W. Bush look like a scholar.”

THE FRENCH PRESS
That’’s the scariest part, said Lorraine Millot in the Paris Liberation. The only GOP candidate who knows a thing about diplomacy, Jon Huntsman, is dead last in most polls. The others “careen to extreme positions that include starting new wars and abandoning old allies.” And that’’s when they even have a position. Herman Cain, now thankfully out of the race, was the front-runner even though he couldn’’t find a single coherent word to say about President Obama’’s policy on  Libya . He even boasted of knowing little about foreign countries. And yet it was his adultery, not his astounding ignorance that brought him down.

THE BRITISH PRESS
There’’s a simple explanation for this bizarre phenomenon, said Max Hastings in the London Daily Mail. In the “lunatic, gun-toting badlands of America’’s Hicksville, Tea Party country,” it’’s considered suspiciously elitist to show any interest in modern science or the world beyond America ’’s borders. “Say what you like about British politics, no MP of any party would dare to offer themselves as town dogcatcher while knowing as little about the world as the Republican presidential candidates.” We take public service seriously. Yet we in Britain , and everyone in the rest of the world, will suffer if “one of the lunatics” vying for the nomination makes it to the White House. “The American political system has seldom, if ever, looked so inadequate.”
Don’t worry, said Matthew Norman in the London Independent. The fact that Gingrich is the latest threat to Mitt Romney’’s inevitability just “confirms how inevitable” Romney’’s nomination is. The thrice-married, ethically challenged Gingrich is unlikable in the extreme. Which means the nominee will be Romney, “the slimiest, phoniest opportunist to run for president since…well, ever.” So sit back and enjoy this circus passing for a presidential election. It can’’t possibly end in a GOP victory. Can it?

Obama Campaign Teams in Early States Dwarf Republican Operations

Bloomberg // Kate Andersen Brower
The biggest presidential primary campaign team in New Hampshire is tucked on a Manchester side street inside a four-story brick building and it belongs to the best-financed candidate seeking nomination: President Barack Obama. The office is one of seven in the state and his re-election campaign has about 20 paid employees. Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney and former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum, the two front-runners in the Republican presidential primary after they emerged first and second in the Iowa caucuses, each have one office. Romney has nine paid staffers in the state and Santorum has eight.

Obama announces new, leaner military approach
The Washington Post // Craig Whitlock and Greg Jaffe
The U.S. military will steadily shrink the Army and Marine Corps, reduce forces in Europe and probably make further cuts to the nation’s nuclear arsenal, the Obama administration said Thursday in a preview of how it intends to reshape the armed forces after a decade of war. The downsizing of the Pentagon, prompted by the country’s dire fiscal problems, means that the military will depend more on coalitions with allies and avoid the large-scale counterinsurgency and nation-building operations that have marked the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Donors, Secrecy and That Loophole
The New York Times // Editorial
The Federal Election Commission ended another abysmal year with its three Republican commissioners blocking an attempt to unmask the secret donors flooding the 2012 hustings with unlimited special-interest money. The three Democratic commissioners favored closing an F.E.C. loophole from 2007 that requires disclosure only if a donor’s stated “purpose” is to electioneer — as if any would-be secret donor would admit that. It has been particularly exploited in the wake of the Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling, which allows corporations, unions and other heavy hitters to spend unlimited amounts.

Report says global climate deal hinges on Obama reelection
The Hill // Ben Geman
Prospects for striking a binding global climate deal by 2015 are probably toast if President Obama loses in November.  That’s among the conclusions in a wide-ranging new climate and green energy outlook from banking giant HSBC’s research branch.

Positive Signs for Jobs Market
The Wall Street Journal // Eric Morath and Luca Di Leo
Fewer people sought new unemployment benefits in the U.S. last week, further signaling that the labor market began to stabilize as 2011 drew to a close.  Separately, the private sector added a white-hot 325,000 jobs in December, according to Automatic Data Processing’s monthly hiring report.

Globe v. Herald

Caucuses give lift to Obama’s campaign
Boston Globe // Bobby Calvan
Democrats in Iowa delivered President Obama a resounding vote of confidence yesterday, gathering for caucuses that provided an opportunity for Democrats to test their ability to mobilize the party faithful. Overshadowed by caucuses being held by Republicans, Democrats assembled across the state in groups big and small, hoping to rally the troops for Obama as he sows support among Iowa’s 2.1 million voters, including 780,000 independents.

Voters make Obama the real loser in Iowa
Boston Herald // Joe Battenfeld
Mitt Romney’s strong showing in the heartland last night is not only a boost for his campaign, but bad news for the man he’s trying to replace: President Obama. Romney may not emerge from the Children of the Corn caucus as the winner, but Iowa was no field of dreams for Obama, either. Obama’s biggest nightmare was a clear victory for the former Massachusetts governor, who early results showed was in a tight, three-way battle with Ron Paul and Rick Santorum.

GOP

Romney goes to heck
Politico // Roger Simon
For Mitt Romney, it was the event from hell. Or from heck, since Mitt Romney does not use words like hell. Or any of the other bad words that any other candidate might have used after this event on the day following his narrow victory in the Iowa caucuses. Let’s start with the mic check, that part of an event when a staffer comes out, pings his finger against the microphone and says, “Testing. Testing. One, two, three.”

Romney and Santorum demonstrate hugely different bases of support
The Washington Post // Aaron Blake
Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum wound up in a virtual tie in the Iowa caucuses on Tuesday. And they did it from extremely different bases of support. While Santorum relied on very conservative voters, born-again Christians, and social and moral conservatives, Romney relied on voters who were most concerned about the economy, who just want to beat President Obama, and those who don’t identify as born-agains. And the difference, in almost every case, was stark.

Here’s What Romney’s Unreleased Tax Returns Almost Certainly Hide
Talking Points Memo // Brian Beutler
Mitt Romney still says he’s unlikely to publicly release his tax information, even if he clinches the Republican presidential nomination, and Democrats have a pretty good idea why. Romney is a privileged poster child for the “Buffett Rule” — President Obama’s principle that the tax code should make it impossible for a person of great wealth to pay a lower share of their income in taxes as than ordinary people. The DNC knows it, policy wonks know it, Romney certainly knows it. But the reasons why are technical and illustrate just how different Romney is from the vast majority of Americans who will cast votes for him — in either the GOP primary or the general election.

Mitt Romney is stumped on differences between Rick Santorum and him
Boston Globe // Shira Schoenberg
Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, after winning the Iowa caucuses last night with just eight votes more than former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum, showed today how unexpected an opponent Santorum is.  Asked on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” for two issues where Romney and Santorum differ, Romney couldn’t name one. “We really haven’t had much opportunity to get to know Rick Santorum on the issues,” Romney said. “Over the past several months, our efforts been focused on comparing and contrasting with Speaker [Newt] Gingrich, with Rick Perry, with Herman Cain. These are the guys who have led in the polls.”

Kamikaze Newt: Trying to Win, or Out for Revenge?
ABC News // Rick Klein
The much-awaited first Newt Gingrich attack ad on Mitt Romney is out, blasting Romney as “timid” when it comes to creating jobs.  But here’s the thing about that ad: It’s timid. It quotes a Wall Street Journal editorial, but uses none of the most damaging details and footage from Romney’s past, parts of Romney’s past he himself has, remarkably, managed not to have to face directly from his rivals this election cycle.

FBI considered a sting aimed at Newt Gingrich in 1997
Washington Post//James V. Grimaldi
It is a curious case in the annals of the FBI: The bureau considered a sting operation against then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich after sifting through allegations from a notorious arms dealer that a $10 million bribe might get Congress to lift the Iraqi arms embargo.

A Formal End
The New York Times // Editorial
It is a relief that the American role in the misguided Iraq war is finally over. It came to an official close on Thursday with an appropriately subdued ceremony in Baghdad. We mourn the nearly 4,500 American troops and tens of thousands of Iraqis who lost their lives. After so much pain and sacrifice, Iraqis now have the responsibility for making their own better future. The fighting is not over, and success is still a long shot. The United States has a major role to play: encouraging, supporting and goading Iraq’s leaders to make the long-delayed political compromises that are their only hope for building a stable democracy.

Lawmakers Agree on Spending Bill, Avoiding Shutdown
The New York Times // Jennifer Steinhauer and Robert Pear
Retreating from their harsh partisan sniping, and perhaps fearing public rebuke, Congressional leaders said Thursday that they had agreed on a large-scale spending measure to keep the government running for the next nine months. But an accord on extending a payroll tax holiday set to expire at the end of the month remained elusive, with Democrats weighing a possible short-term extension, setting the stage for another fight with Republicans over how to pay for it.

Voter Pessimism May Blunt Obama’s Picture
Bloomberg // Mike Dorning
It may become a bit easier to find a job just as President Barack Obama campaigns to keep his own. A series of economic reports points to stronger employment growth as the election year opens, potentially easing a central source of voter discontent with the incumbent president.  “We may see a creeping improvement but there’s still going to be a huge percentage of Americans who are going to say the economy’s getting worse rather than better,” Jacobe said. Democratic strategists say any sustained improvement in hiring would bolster the president’s re-election chances.

Suit Filed Against Florida’s Restrictions On Voter Registration
Talking Points Memo // Ryan Reilly
Lawyers representing the League of Women Voters of Florida, Rock the Vote and the Florida Public Interest Research Group Education Fund just filed suit against the state of Florida over an onerous law that they say keeps them from running voter registration drives. The groups contend that the restrictions violate the Constitution and the National Voter Registration Act.

Gingrich Push on Health Care Appears at Odds With G.O.P.
The New York Times // Jim Rutenberg and Mike McIntire
Shortly before the passage of President Obama’s stimulus bill in 2009, Newt Gingrich’s political committee put out a video of Mr. Gingrich denouncing it as a “big politician, big bureaucracy, pork-laden bill.” “It should be stopped,” he said. But at the same time, Mr. Gingrich was cheering a $19 billion part of the package that promoted the use of electronic health records, something that benefited clients of his consulting business.

Republican presidential debate: Fact check
The Associated Press // Calvin Woodward
Newt Gingrich overlooked a couple of years of red ink when he asserted Thursday night that he balanced the budget for four years as House speaker. And in claiming sole credit for the achievement, he glossed over the fact that budgets are not a one-man show: There was a Democratic president in town, too. In the last debate before the leadoff Iowa Republican presidential caucuses, Gingrich persisted in repeating a claim he has made often in the campaign, sometimes more accurately than others. Here and there, other candidates, too, reprised misstatements or partial truths from the string of debates and from the stump.

Obama seeks campaign cash at Washington fundraiser
The  Associated Press
President Barack Obama is greeting donors at a Washington political mixer as his re-election campaign heads for a final round of fundraising before year’s end.  Obama was being joined at the event Wednesday by Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick.  Democratic Party officials said about 40 people are attending the late afternoon fundraiser at the St. Regis Hotel, just blocks from the White House.

SCOTUS in ’12 election is ‘enormous issue’
Politico // Josh Gerstein
The Supreme Court, which has faded as a major campaign issue in recent years, could make a resurgence in 2012: The justices just keep adding to the hot-button political issues they plan to tackle before the election. The court agreed Monday to decide how much authority states have to crack down on illegal immigration. The justices’ decision to review the constitutionality of Arizona’s S.B. 1070 comes days after they agreed to consider redistricting plans for the state of Texas that could change the balance of power in Congress.

Will `Elitist’ Argument No Longer Work Against Obama?
National Journal // Alex Roarty
Republicans eager to take down President Obama as an arugula-eating, out-of-touch elitist –- as they tried in 2008 –- might have their heads hung low while watching their party’s presidential primary. The GOP contenders, especially its top two hopefuls, haven’t exactly shown much in common with the little guy.  Romney’s and Gingrich’s displays of wealth –- embodying experiences that are alien to most people –- aren’t necessarily representative of the rest of the Republican field, but both are the heavy favorites to win the party’s nomination. And their victory would neuter attacks that Obama’s life and values are out of step with average Americans.
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THIS WEEKS POLITICAL ADS
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Priorities USA  – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3YYP3pqrGcQ&feature=youtu.be

Newt Gingrich – http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=brdrjLavTzU

Rick Perry – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0PAJNntoRgA

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News Articles
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In race for campaign funds from billionaires, Romney outpaces Obama
Washington Post // T.W. Farnam
The Republican presidential primary contest isn’t over, but in the race to line up the richest donors, it’s Mitt Romney vs. President Obama. Romney has drawn the most support from billionaires, with at least 42 donating to his campaign. Obama is not far behind, with at least 30 billionaire supporters. Rick Perry and Jon Huntsman Jr. follow with 20 and 12, respectively, according to donor rolls and the current Forbes magazine list of 412 American billionaires. Very wealthy donors are likely to play a greater role in this election cycle in the wake of recent court decisions that have loosened rules for campaign contributions.

Fight for Senate Hinges on Six White House Battlegrounds
Roll Call // Stuart Rothenberg
With 11 months to go until the 2012 elections, the fight for control of the Senate already seems to boil down to a dozen states. If, as many believe, we have entered a new era of parliamentary-type voting, when ticket-splitting becomes increasingly rare and the top of the ticket defines downballot choices for most voters, six of those 12 contests start to take on a more partisan tinge. President Barack Obama is likely to carry Hawaii and Massachusetts comfortably, giving a leg up for his party’s Senate nominees in each state.

President Obama’s road to reelection runs through Pennsylvania
The Los Angeles Times //  Peter Nicholas
In his first run for president, Barack Obama won every state he was expected to win and carried a few more he didn’t need to get comfortably over the top. This time, amid a sluggish economic recovery and high unemployment, the race is shaping up to be much closer — so close that Obama’s showing in one state might foretell his chances across the electoral map. That would be Pennsylvania. Strategists say a loss in Pennsylvania would all but doom the president’s reelection hopes.

The Perception Dilemma
National Journal // Reid Wilson
President Obama is embarking on the campaign trail alongside his best friend and his worst enemy: good economic news. Positive reports like the administration received last week from the Bureau of Labor Statistics hint at an economy that is turning the corner. But the pace of that recovery is painfully slow, and perceptions of a course correction have been slow to take hold among the very voters Obama needs to win reelection. In the next 11 months, the White House will aim to convince voters that the administration’s policies are working.

Romney Attacks Obama For Being A Socialist Without Calling Him A Socialist
Talking Points Memo // Evan Santoro
Mitt Romney has promised not to call President Obama a socialist on the campaign trail. But in a speech in Washington Wednesday, Romney got about as close to suggesting the current president wants to bring pure socialism to America as one can without actually saying the word. “He seeks to replace our merit-based society with an entitlement society,” Romney told an audience at the Republican Jewish Coalition’s candidate forum.

GOP
Gay half-sister of Republican Gingrich backs Obama
Reuters // Alex Alper
The gay half-sister of Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich slammed his position on gay rights on Wednesday and said she will support President Barack Obama, a Democrat, in the 2012 election. Candace Gingrich-Jones, a gay rights activist, told MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow that she and her older half-brother, the former speaker of the House of Representatives, were “mutually respectful” but disagree on gay rights. “He is definitely on the wrong side of history when it comes to those issues,” Gingrich-Jones said.

Mitt Versus Newt Won’t Be Like Hillary Versus Barack
The Atlantic // Elspeth Reeve
The 2012 Republican primary probably won’t be much like the 2008 Democratic primary, but Mitt Romney’s campaign is organizing just in case the nomination fight against Newt Gingrich lasts all the way into the spring. The New York Times’ Trip Gabriel and Jeff Zeleny report that if neither Romney or Gingrich have decisive victories in the early voting states, “Gingrich could be faced with the ultimate challenge to his campaign: the need to survive a war of attrition of the sort for which he is unprepared at the moment.” Romney is organized in Alabama, Indiana, Delaware, and lots of other later-voting states, while Gingrich’s campaign didn’t file the paperwork in time to get on the Missouri caucus ballot.

The Gingrich Tragedy
The New York Times // David Brooks
Of all the major Republicans, the one who comes closest to my worldview is Newt Gingrich. Despite his erratically shifting views and odd phases, he continually returns to this core political refrain: He talks about using government in energetic but limited ways to increase growth, dynamism and social mobility. As he said in 2007, “It’s not a point of view libertarians would embrace, but I am more in the Alexander Hamilton-Teddy Roosevelt tradition of conservatism.”

First Lady Takes on the Role of Staff Energizer
The New York Times // Jodi Kantor 
Her central message revolves around something the president has often told advisers lately: that he craves an opportunity to be measured not just by his record, but on how he stacks up against a Republican candidate. In her speeches at fund-raisers, Mrs. Obama broadcasts that point: “In just over a year now, we are going to make a decision between two very different visions for this country — very different,” she said at a fund-raiser on her Chicago trip

2 Elements of Jobs Bill Pass House Unanimously
The New York Times // Jennifer Steinhauer
The House on Wednesday approved a measure that would repeal a tax-withholding requirement on government contractors and provide tax incentives for companies that hire veterans, sending President Obama the first, relatively modest components of his jobs bill for his signature. “Veterans of every working-age generation are finding themselves unemployed or seriously underemployed due to the economic downturn,” Representative Jeff Miller, Republican of Florida  and chairman of the Veterans’ Affairs Committee.

Obama Says GOP Candidates Are Wrong, Waterboarding is ‘Torture’
ABC News // Mary Bruce and Jon Garcia
President Obama said today that Republican presidential candidates are “wrong” to defend the practice of waterboarding, which he said is torture. “Waterboarding is torture. It’s contrary to America’s traditions, it’s contrary to our ideals, it’s not who we are, it’s not how we operate,” Obama told reporters at a press conference of the interrogation technique. Republican Presidential candidates Michele Bachmann and Herman Cain said in a debate Saturday night that they would support the renewed use of waterboarding.

Parties: N.C. key in 2012
News and Observer // Rob Christensen and John Frank
Don’t tell Lindsey Rietkerk that the presidential election is a year away as she works the crowd outside Kenan Stadium, bundled in a jacket with an Obama sticker and holding a clipboard with voter registration forms. “Are you registered? Everybody registered? How about you, are you registered? It takes a minute of your time.”

Health Reform and the Supreme Court
The New York Times // Editorial
The Supreme Court’s decision to review the constitutionality of health care reform means it will be issuing a ruling in the middle of the 2012 presidential campaign. This can be a highly politicized court, and, for the public good and its own credibility, it must resist that impulse. If the court follows its own precedents, as it should, this case should not be a close call: The reform law and a provision requiring most people to obtain health insurance or pay a penalty are clearly constitutional.

GOP

Poll: Romney, Cain Tied for Lead; Uptick for Obama
National Journal //  Steven Shepard
Mitt Romney and Herman Cain are neck-and-neck among Republican voters in a new Pew Research Center poll released on Thursday, while President Obama’s approval rating among all adults has edged up, with Americans now split evenly on his job performance. Romney’s continued inability to break away from the rest of the GOP pack is a sign of his continued weakness among more conservative voters. The poll shows that they prefer Cain and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich to the former Massachusetts governor.

How Romney Could Win
The New York Times // Bill Keller
O.K., Romney is not Obama, but who the heck is he? He may have been, as he stressed last week, an unwavering Mormon all his life, but on the issues he’s been born-again, again and again. His reincarnations on social issues, the environment, taxes and health care, combined with an oleaginous affect, present Romney with a serious authenticity problem.

U.S. to Delay Decision on Pipeline Until After Election

The New York Times // John Broder and Dan Frosch 
The Obama administration is preparing to delay a decision on the contested Keystone XL pipeline while it studies an alternate route, effectively pushing any action past the 2012 election, officials and lobbyists who have been briefed on the matter said on Thursday. An announcement is expected as early as Thursday afternoon. The proposed project by a Canadian pipeline company had put President Obama in a political vise, squeezed between demands for secure energy sources and the jobs the project will bring.

Daily Beast // Michael Tomasky
Barack Obama is winning the Rust Belt back. The overwhelming repeal in Ohio of Governor John Kasich’s anti-labor bill from last year shows that the GOP has gone way, way too far—too far for Democrats, obviously, but also for independents. It shows the potential for something else, too: the populist message can stick. “Class warfare” can work. It can take hold even with the people who allegedly despise our Kenyan leader the most: the white working class.

Why Barack Obama Has a Good Chance of Winning a Second Term
Larry Sabato’s Blog // Alan I. Abramowitz
According to the Time-for-Change forecasting model, which has correctly predicted the winner of the popular vote in every presidential election since 1988, Barack Obama has a good chance of winning a second term in the White House next November. The main reason for this is that the Democratic Party has only held the White House since 2008. That makes Obama a first-term incumbent, and first-term incumbents rarely lose.

Poll Finds Voters Deeply Torn
The Wall Street Journal // Jonathan Weisman
A new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll has found an electorate that is convinced the country’s economic structures favor an affluent elite and is still deeply torn as to whether President Barack Obama or any of his leading Republican rivals can pull the nation out of decline. The survey has some good news for both Mr. Obama and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who is solidifying his support among Republicans who don’t identify with the tea-party movement.

Univision News poll: Obama holds advantage with Latino voters, leaving GOP with uphill battle
Univision // Matthew Jaffe and Jordan Fabian
Despite loud complaints from Latinos about high unemployment and unfulfilled campaign promises on immigration, President Obama is well situated to repeat his strong performance with Latino voters in 2012. Obama holds leads over the top three Republican presidential candidates in a new poll conducted by Latino Decisions for Univision News, with the president enjoying far wider advantages among Latino voters, an area of strength that could ultimately prove crucial come next year’s election.

Obama campaign seizes on Ohio labor victory to pummel Mitt Romney
The Washington Post // Greg Sargent
One thing that’s getting a bit lost in the noise: Mitt Romney, after some hemming and hawing, firmly came out for the anti-union law that went down to resounding defeat last night in Ohio. How much of a role will that play in the battle for Ohio, should Romney become the GOP nominee? The Obama campaign is now seizing on Romney’s embrace of Governor John Kasich’s law rolling back bargaining rights, and Ohioans’ strong rejecting of it yesterday, to underscore an emerging theme: Republicans don’t care about the “economic security of the middle class.” We’ll be hearing a lot of that phrase.

Affordable Health Care Act benefits NH families
The Citizen // Editorial
There is no question that the Affordable Care Act — often referred to contemptuously as “Obamacare” — has its flaws. The legislation should be reviewed and many of the provisions should be tweaked or eliminated. However, calls for its wholesale abandonment are unjustified and would hurt New Hampshire families, as a report issued last Thursday by Families USA confirms.

While N.H. eyes are on GOP candidates, Obama and Democrats work quietly
Boston Globe // Shira Schoenberg 
While all eyes in New Hampshire are on the Republican presidential primary, the Democratic campaign apparatus of President Obama is quietly gearing up for the general election. Last weekend, Obama’s grassroots organization Organizing for America had staff and volunteers fan out across 20 cities and towns in the state, knocking on thousands of doors. With Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick in attendance, the campaign opened its first regional office, in Portsmouth, to complement its Concord headquarters.

Kaiser Health News on the Romney Preliminary Medicare Reform Proposal
National Review Online // Reihan Salam
Austin Frakt makes an important observation: Kaiser Health News, a source that many people rely on to understand health policy debates, has seriously misrepresented Mitt Romney’s Medicare reform proposal: Romney has promised that beneficiaries who like the current fee-for-service Medicare plan can opt for that instead of purchasing private insurance. But by giving beneficiaries a fixed amount of money to buy that government coverage, it is clear that Romney’s plan would move Medicare from a “defined benefit” program that pays a share of all medical bills a senior incurs.
‘Oops’ and a Long, Sad Pause at Debate When Perry Can’t Get to Three
The New York Times // Jeff Zeleny and Ashley Parker
Gov. Rick Perry of Texas arrived at the Republican presidential debate here on Wednesday night on a mission to get his candidacy back on track. The first hour passed without incident. The second hour did not. He emphatically declared that he planned to eliminate three government agencies in Washington. But as he began to explain, he could think of only two. “Commerce, Education,” Mr. Perry said before pausing for an uncomfortable moment as he looked from side to side, counting on his fingers and flipping through his notes.

Black Voters’ Support for Obama Is Steady and Strong

The New York Times // Helene Cooper 
Abdul Malik seems the prototype of a disenchanted Barack Obama voter. Mr. Malik, 48, lost his job as a grading and landscape worker a year and a half ago, another victim of the housing bust. Since then, he has been searching for something, anything, to help make ends meet. Yet, Mr. Malik, who is black, says he has every intention of again voting for President Obama next year. So does Bobby Hart, 46, a former construction worker here.

Obama Job Approval Showing Modest Improvement, Now 43%
Gallup // Jeffrey M. Jones
President Barack Obama’s job approval rating has shown modest improvement in the past week. His latest rating, based on Oct. 24-26 Gallup Daily tracking, is 43%, and his approval has been at or above 42% in each of the last seven days. In the prior two weeks, his averages were generally at or below 40%.

Obama team hails new growth data
USA Today // David Jackson
The White House is trumpeting new Commerce Department numbers showing that the economy grew 2.5% over the last three months, but warning that higher growth is needed to restore jobs. “While the continued expansion is encouraging, faster growth clearly is needed to replace the jobs lost in the recent downturn and to reduce long-term unemployment,” says Katharine Abraham, a member of the president’s Council of Economic Advisors, writing on the White House website.

Obama has dinner with 4 campaign donors
The Associated Press // Darlene Superville
Two retirees, a U.S. Postal Service worker and a business owner from politically important Midwestern and Southwestern states, all donors to President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign, got a rare opportunity Thursday to bend his ear over dinner. Obama said afterward that he’s president because of people like them. “This dinner is important because I’m only president thanks to the work of millions of Americans like the four I just met,” he tweeted.

Exclusive: Bill Daley, unplugged
Politico // Roger Simon
It is a sunny day at the White House with bright light streaming through the gauzy curtains that cover the patio doors and many windows of Bill Daley’s corner office in the West Wing. And so I try to find some underlying gloom.Daley, the White House chief of staff, will twice in the course of our hourlong interview refer to the first three years of Barack Obama’s administration as “ungodly” and once as “brutal.”So do you think, I ask, that President Obama would be satisfied saying, “We did a good job, we did good stuff,” and if he’s a one-term president, “That’s the verdict of history”?

Obama Attacks Perry on Flat Tax
The New York Times // Michael D. Shear 
Rick Perry’s decision to embrace a flat tax as a central part of his economic plan, as several other Republican candidates have, is providing an opportunity for President Obama’s campaign. The president’s advisers are eager to characterize the advocates of a flat tax as shills for the wealthy in the United States — part of Mr. Obama’s overall message that the Republican Party is out of step with the interests of the middle class. That’s just what his campaign argued in a new memorandum issued Tuesday morning by Mr. Obama’s policy director, James Kvaal.

Obama tells supporters it’s going to be a tough fight
The Los Angeles Times // Peter Nicholas
President Obama opened an aggressive Western fundraising swing Monday, closing out the day in Los Angeles with an appeal to supporters to prepare for a grueling reelection effort. At an intimate fundraising dinner in Hancock Park, Obama spoke softly to a few dozen supporters who had paid $35,800 each to greet him. “I’ve said this before — this election will not be as sexy as the first one,” the president said. “Back then it was still fresh and new. I didn’t have any gray hair. Everybody loved the ‘Hope’ posters and all that.”

Obama Promotes Mortgage Plan While Pressuring Congress
Bloomberg // Kate Andersen Brower
President Barack Obama said he will take executive action to move ahead with his economic proposals while keeping up pressure on Congress to act on his broader package of tax cuts and spending.In Nevada, the state with the highest foreclosure rate, Obama yesterday promoted an initiative by the Federal Housing Finance Agency to let qualified homeowners refinance mortgages regardless of how much their houses have dropped in value.With the president on a three-day trip to Nevada, California and Colorado, the administration also plans to outline measures to help veterans find jobs and help students manage education loans.

Michelle Obama in campaign mode
Politico // Matt Negrin
Michelle Obama kicked into campaign mode today as she told voters in Detroit that her husband has accomplished lots since being elected president. The pool reports that Obama mentioned the new health care law, the killing of Osama bin Laden, and the most recent development, ending the war in Iraq.

For Obama, new focus on the piecemeal
The Associated Press // Jim Kuhnhenn and Erica Werner
The president who ran for office promising sweeping change now finds himself calling for baby steps. Blocked by congressional Republicans yet determined to show action as he seeks re-election, President Barack Obama has scaled back his ambitions from major initiatives like universal health care, to smaller-bore programs he can do on his own or that are uncontroversial enough for Republicans to go along. Think patent reform, reducing health regulations, or helping with student loans.

Obama to offer student loan relief
The Associated Press // Kim Hefling
The White House says President Barack Obama plans to offer millions of student loan borrowers the ability to lower their payments and consolidate their loans. Obama on Wednesday will use his executive authority to accelerate a measure passed by Congress that reduces the repayment cap on student loans from 15 percent of discretionary income to 10 percent. The White House wants it to go into effect in 2012, instead of 2014. About 1.6 million borrowers could be affected.

Obama Plan Would Cut Student-Loan Interest Rates
The Wall Street Journal // Laura Meckler
President Barack Obama will announce a plan to allow people holding two kinds of student loans to reduce their interest rates by consolidating their debts into one government loan, officials inside and outside the administration said Tuesday. Mr. Obama is to announce the move in Denver on Wednesday, part of a White House push to emphasize actions his administration can take to boost the economy without congressional approval. Education Secretary Arne Duncan and White House Domestic Policy Council Director Melody Barnes were scheduled to discuss the proposal later Tuesday.

Obama Speeds Up Aid for College Students: How Will It Help You?
ABC News // Huma Khan
President Obama will pitch a plan today to help ease the burden of loans on college students, as a new report shows that higher education is becoming more expensive for many young Americans. Starting next year, borrowers’ student loan payments will be capped at 10 percent of their discretionary income, and they could be eligible for forgiveness on the balance of their debt in 20 years. Under the current plan, loan payments are limited to 15 percent of a borrower’s discretionary income, and their balance is forgiven after 25 years.

Obama team moves to rekindle 2008′s magic with young voters
USA Today // Susan Page
President Obama’s re-election campaign launches an initiative this week aimed at rekindling the connection with younger voters that helped fuel his 2008 campaign. The outreach effort, called “Greater Together,” will tap Facebook, Twitter and other social media sites and target students on college campuses in key states, such as the University of Wisconsin, Ohio State University and Penn State.

Why Dems are winning money war
Politico // Alex Isenstadt and David Catanese
According to the laws of political gravity, this shouldn’t be happening. President Barack Obama’s approval ratings are in the dumps, and so is the economy. Wall Street’s cash cows are angry at the Democratic Party and its sudden embrace of populist rhetoric. Almost no one thinks Democrats have a shot at winning back the House next year and Republicans have an excellent chance of winning control of the Senate. Yet even with the prospect of an entirely GOP-controlled federal government in 2013, Democrats are outraising their GOP counterparts in month after month.

Jobs plan, fundraising on Obama’s agenda in Las Vegas visit
Las Vegas Review-Journal // Antonio Planas
President Barack Obama will drop by Las Vegas today during a three-state visit to the West to pick up some campaign money and tout his revised jobs bill. Obama, who needs financial support to get re-elected and is trying to squeeze some kind of job incentives out of a challenging Congress, will participate in a fundraiser at the Bellagio and visit a neighborhood on the far eastern side of Las Vegas, which has one of the highest unemployment rates in the nation. But even those who agree with the president might be inconvenienced by his visit during the middle of a business day, and at least one business is already complaining that it is going to hurt his business.

DNC Ad goes after Romney in Arizona
New York Times // Jim Rutenberg
The Democratic National Committee will on Tuesday begin its biggest sustained advertising campaign against a Republican presidential candidate so far this year, with a spot attacking Mitt Romney in the state of Arizona, traditionally Republican territory that President Obama’s advisers hope to bring into their victory column next year.

The Hill // Sam Youngman $70M more for Obama cash stash

Obama’s campaign noted the total was higher than the $55 million it had anticipated and came after the president was forced to cancel some fundraisers to work on debt-ceiling negotiations with congressional Republicans.  “We did more with less this quarter. We canceled a series of events over the summer as congressional negotiations were ongoing, and our supporters stepped up in their stead,” one campaign official said.  Republicans countered that the figures are no surprise. They said they always knew they would be running against a president with a huge campaign war chest who would also enjoy the advantages of incumbency.

Obama Re-Election Campaign Ahead of 2007-08 Fundraising Totals
Bloomberg // John McCormick and Jonathan Salant
President Barack Obama announced raising $42.8 million for his re-election from July through September, the fourth-largest fundraising quarter ever in a non- election year. Combined with $27.3 million for the Democratic National Committee, the Obama campaign operation took in $70 million in the last three months.

Enviros Make Keystone XL a Litmus Test for Obama’s Re-Election: Will it Work?
Reuters // Elizabeth McGowan 
To hard-core environmentalists, the Obama administration’s upcoming decision on the fiercely debated Keystone XL oil sands pipeline is black and white. Say no to the Canada-to-Gulf Coast pipeline, they insist, or they won’t support Obama’s re-election bid. But judging the president’s performance through such a narrow prism could backfire and make these pipeline hardliners politically irrelevant, analysts say, especially when the economy is tanking.

Super PAC cash trickle down?
Politico // Robin Bravender and Anna Palmer
House leaders have jumped onto the super PAC bandwagon, but that doesn’t mean members of Congress are counting on a windfall. The Congressional Leadership Fund, supported by House Republican leaders, launched Thursday. It’s the latest in a crop of new Congress-focused spending committees supported by party leaders that can raise unlimited cash and spend on political advertising in an individual race, though it may not coordinate directly with a candidate.

Obama campaign hits Romney as flip-flopper
The Washington Post // David Nakamura
President Obama’s re-election campaign launched an opening attack on Republican presidential frontrunner Mitt Romney on Wednesday, painting the former Massachusetts governor as a flip-flopper whose economic plans would harm the middle class. The criticism from senior campaign strategist David Axelrod was a tacit acknowledgment from the Obama camp that Romney is separating himself from the rest of the Republican field and represented an attempt to begin shaping a public counter-narrative about him.

Tea Party Express Launches New Ad Funded by 501(c)(4) That Hits Obama
Roll Call // Janie Lorber
The Tea Party Express is not about to miss the chance to tap donors who want to put unlimited sums of money behind conservative candidates so long as they can do it secretly. The group, which played a key role in fueling GOP primary upsets in the Delaware and Alaska Senate races in 2010, has set up a political nonprofit on top of its two existing political action committees.

NBC/WSJ poll: Despite defeat, Obama’s jobs bill is popular
NBC // Mark Murray
Even though the United States Senate on Tuesday blocked President Obama’s jobs bill, the legislation’s specifics — as well as the idea of taxing the wealthy to pay for it — are popular with the American public, according to a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll. When asked simply if Congress should pass the legislation or not, 30 percent of respondents answer yes, while 22 percent say no; 44 percent have no opinion.

FACT CHECK: Regulations not a huge jobs killer
The Associated Press // Calvin Woodward and Chris Rugaber
Is regulation strangling the American entrepreneur? Several Republican presidential candidates say so. The numbers don’t. The anti-regulatory fervor was in evidence Tuesday night in the latest GOP debate, but rhetorical flourishes, on that and other issues, masked far more complex realities.

Manufacturers See Less U.S. Recession Risk
Bloomberg // Anna-Louise Jackson and Anthony Feld
The U.S. manufacturing industry rebounded in September from its lowest level since December 2009, helping to defy concerns about a double-dip recession. The Credit Managers’ Manufacturing Index rose last month to 53.3 from 52.1 in August, as its gauge of sales jumped to the highest since April, according to the National Association of Credit Management’s monthly survey of 600 executives.

Messina: GOP suffocating economy
Politico // Glenn Thrush
In a major rhetorical escalation, President Barack Obama’s 2012 campaign manager is accusing Senate Republicans of trying to keep unemployment high to benefit the GOP’s political fortunes. Jim Messina, in an email blast to Obama supporters, urged Democrats to flood Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s phone line ahead of tonight’s procedural vote on the president’s $447 billion jobs bill.

Why Obama’s Re-Election Chances Depend on Europe
TIME // Jay Newton-Small
Forget Mitt Romney or Rick Perry. Forget Occupy Wall Street, a government shutdown, a credit rating downgrade or even the Tea Party.  The biggest threat to President Obama’s re-election is Europe. Quite simply, Europe controls the fate of the global economy. As Obama himself said at his press conference last week: “The biggest headwind the American economy is facing right now is uncertainty about Europe, because it’s affecting global markets.”

DNC Chair uses debate moment to pounce on GOP

CNN // Shannon Travis
The woman working to ensure President Obama’s re-election entered the political equivalent of the lion’s den – and pounced on a debate moment to blast the Republican presidential candidates late Monday. Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz stood in the “spin room” at the Florida State Fair Grounds in Tampa following the Republican Tea Party Debate broadcast by CNN and countered the Republican candidates’ slams of President Obama with some aimed back at them.

With Doubts, Voters Prefer Obama Jobs Plan
National Journal // Ron Brownstein
Despite deepening doubts about President Obama’s economic agenda, Americans generally prefer the proposals he offered last week for reviving the economy to the competing ideas advanced by congressional Republicans and the GOP’s 2012 presidential field, a United Technologies/National Journal Congressional Connection Poll has found. The poll suggests Americans remain unconvinced that either party’s agenda can significantly dent the nation’s longest period of sustained unemployment since the Depression. The share of Americans who said that Obama’s policies have compounded economic difficulties was nearly double the portion who said he has improved conditions.

DNC campaigns for Obama jobs plan
Politico // Tim Mak
The Democratic National Committee is launching a new ad campaign Monday to build public pressure on Congress to back President Barack Obama’s job plan. The television spots feature clips from Obama’s jobs speech to a joint session of Congress last Thursday evening. “The next election is fourteen months away. And the people who sent us here, the people who hired us to work for them – they don’t have the luxury of waiting fourteen months… Members of Congress, it is time for us to meet our responsibilities,” Obama says in the clip

Why the Perry-Romney Slugfest Plays Right Into Obama’s Hands
The New Republic // Ed Kilgore
But if all these implications of the Romney-Perry clash are reasonably clear, there is a more subtle but possibly even more significant additional consequence of Republicans arguing over whether to demolish or merely slash Social Security and Medicare: It will materially aid Barack Obama’s high-stakes effort to make the 2012 presidential election a choice between two very different visions of American government, rather than a referendum on his administration and its handling of the economy.

Poll: Don’t blame Barack Obama
Politico // MJ Lee
Despite his record-low approval ratings, not all unhappy Americans blame President Barack Obama for the problems in Washington. According to a new Bloomberg National Poll released Thursday, 45 percent of those surveyed said they blame Republicans on Capitol Hill for the problems inside the Beltway, while 39 percent said they believe the fault is with Obama or Democrats in Congress. More than a third of those surveyed said they “wish” Obama and the GOP in Congress would compromise — 28 percent said they are “frustrated” by the fighting in Washington, while more than a quarter said they are “angry and want to throw them all out.”

GOP Ties House Wins to President’s Woes
Wall Street Journal // Naftali Bendavid
Decisive Republican wins Tuesday in two House races have Democrats increasingly worried they will face problems in the 2012 elections if the economy and President Barack Obama’s job approval rating don’t improve significantly. Off-cycle elections often have their own dynamics that say little about national trends. But strategists from both parties tied Mr. Obama’s shaky poll numbers to Tuesday’s victory by Republican Bob Turner in a traditionally Democratic New York City district, and to a 22-point win by GOP candidate Mark Amodei in Nevada.

Obama campaign targets Georgia, possibly Savannah, as key battleground
Savannah Morning News // Larry Peterson
President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign is targeting Georgia for extra effort next year, state Democratic chairman Mike Berlon said. Back this week from meetings with Obama operatives in Chicago, Berlon said the Peach State has moved up a notch on their priority list. “There will be a lot of national attention focused in Georgia, starting in January,” he told local Democrats this week. The upgrade comes after Republicans swept every statewide office in 2010, and experts question whether Georgia is fertile ground for Obama.

Obama’s chance to bounce back
The Washington Post // Aaron Blake 
It hasn’t been a good month for President Obama, but beneath it all, the American people are still ready to hear him out when it comes to his jobs plan. And in fact, at first glance, they seem to like it. Two new polls show more Americans like the president’s jobs plan than dislike it. A CNN/Opinion Research poll shows 43 percent favor Obama’s jobs plan, while 35 percent oppose it. And Gallup shows an even wider gap, with 45 percent in favor and 32 percent opposed. With less than majority support, it’s hardly a resounding affirmation of the president’s policies, and much has yet to play out. But the numbers do show that the American people haven’t written off the president’s economic ideas, even as the economy has tanked.

Insurers fought Obama’s health overhaul, but now they aid coalition to sign up uninsured
The Associated Press
Betting that President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul withstands lawsuits and a Republican repeal drive, an unusual alliance of industry, health care and consumer groups Wednesday launched a campaign to lay the groundwork for signing up uninsured Americans. Called Enroll America, the group started its work a day after the Census Bureau reported that nearly 50 million people had no health insurance in 2010, the highest number since the statistic was first collected more than two decades ago.

Obama imitates Truman’s re-election campaign
The Daily Caller // Neil Munro
President Barack Obama took the next step on his road to a 1948-style run for re-election by declaring he is being stymied by a do-nothing Congress. “This Congress, they are accustomed to doing nothing, and they’re comfortable with doing nothing, and they keep on doing nothing,” he told roughly 30 supporters at the first of two D.C. fundraisers held on Thursday evening. That depiction of a do-nothing Congress, which is set to become a feature of his stump speech, echoes President Harry Truman’s come-from-behind 1948 race for the presidency, in which he railed at a Republican-led “do-nothing Congress.”

Don’t Sweat the Jewish Vote
Daily Beast // Eric Alterman
Here we go yet again. Democrats lost a heavily Jewish seat in Brooklyn and Queens that they’ve held for almost a century, and just as they have done now for over 30 years, neoconservatives are predicting an exodus of Jews away from the Democrats into the Republican party. Most enthusiastic on this point is former Bush administration official Dan Senior. Writing in The Wall Street Journal, he insists that “New York’s special congressional election on Tuesday was the first electoral outcome directly affected by President Obama’s Israel policy,” and he blames this on the fact that the president has “a record of bad policies and anti-Israel rhetoric.” Actually, not true.