South Carolina House Panel to Hear Ethics Complaints Against Governor

Thursday, she faces a State House ethics hearing over whether she blurred the lines between her work as a legislator and her work as a hospital fund-raiser and a business development consultant with an engineering firm.

From the Republican governor’s perspective, the hearing is just more of the same: attacks by Democrats and the Republican Party old guard who resent her Tea Party-style efforts to change government and the fact that she is a woman and a minority in a state that has had relatively few of either in positions of power.

For those who pushed for the hearing — most notably John Rainey, one of the most powerful Republican fund-raisers in South Carolina — it is a step in a long-fought battle to prove that the governor has been less than transparent and improperly mixed her governing duties and her business enterprises.

For many voters in South Carolina, however, the hearing is not much more than another twist in the state’s bare-knuckled brand of politics based on personal grudges and its history of conflict between governors and legislators.

“Unfortunately, it is being perceived as politics as usual,” said Robert W. Oldendick, a professor at the University of South Carolina who is director of the Institute for Public Service and Policy Research. “Unless there’s a smoking gun that hasn’t been revealed, a week from now we’ll say there was a little damage done to the governor.”

The Republican-heavy House Ethics Committee will not call Ms. Haley to testify during the two days it examines the issues, but her lawyer will present her case.

On the committee’s witness list are business executives and lobbyists for companies including the Lexington Medical Center and BlueCross BlueShield of South Carolina, as well as governmental affairs experts.

They are expected to describe Ms. Haley’s role in two business deals when she was a state representative from Lexington County from 2005 until she became governor.

South Carolina lawmakers serve part-time, and most hold other jobs. One of Ms. Haley’s was to raise money for the medical center’s foundation, at a salary of $110,000 a year. The hospital wanted to open a new heart center and needed governmental approval as part of the process.

Ms. Haley maintains that her legislative efforts to support the heart center were because the hospital, which was in her district, was part of her constituency. Her other efforts to raise money for the foundation did not fall under lobbying rules, her lawyer, Butch Bowers, said.

The other issue centers on part-time consulting Ms. Haley did for Wilbur Smith Associates, an engineering firm in Columbia that paid her a total of $42,000 to help develop business. The firm had worked on a project to create a state farmers’ market.

Ms. Haley would not discuss the hearing directly, but Mr. Bowers and members of her staff have characterized it as a political witch hunt led by a man angry that Ms. Haley did not try to curry his favor to win the governorship.

In her recent memoir, Ms. Haley describes seeking Mr. Rainey’s support when she was planning her campaign. He asked to see her tax records to make sure, she said he told her, that she did not have any connections to terrorists in her background — a comment he said in later interviews that he did not recall, but dismissed as most likely a joke.

Ms. Haley, who is of Indian descent, went on to win without the support of Mr. Rainey, long an important figure in helping to bankroll political candidates in South Carolina.

“This a complaint brought by an old Republican crank who called her a terrorist and the chairman of the Democratic State Party, so it’s pretty clear,” said Tim Pearson, her chief of staff.

That Democratic chairman is Richard A. Harpootlian. He said Ms. Haley was using that explanation to present herself as the victim of political scoundrels who do not want things to change.

The political alliance might seem unlikely, but Mr. Harpootlian said he and Mr. Rainey were united in trying to hold accountable a governor they see as secretive and ethically compromised.

“Both of us have a sense that justice, no matter what the political affiliation, should prevail,” he said. “What’s clear is this governor has avoided answering the questions and has deflected every allegation as politics.”

The men filed a lawsuit last year over the same assertions. In March, a Circuit Court judge dismissed it, saying the court was not the proper venue to examine legislative ethical issues.

If the committee decides the governor did violate ethics, it could issue a reprimand or refer the case to the attorney general for criminal investigation. Most likely, Mr. Oldendick said, the hearing will only underscore what is becoming obvious to many in the state.

“For as good of a job as she did campaigning and getting elected,” he said, “her inability to relate to members of her own party in the General Assembly has been frankly surprising.”

Robbie Brown contributed reporting.

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Presidential Race Pits Government Against Business

An Obama campaign video shows the president’s national political director, Katherine Archuleta, tearfully crediting Mr. Obama with having saved her daughter’s life. She portrays the president as a hero of government whose health care law assures her daughter, a cancer survivor, insurance coverage forever.

A video by a political committee backing Mr. Romney follows a nearly identical tack: evocative music and a tearful description of Mr. Romney as “the man who helped save my daughter.” But the testimonial, from a former partner at Bain Capital, depicts Mr. Romney as a hero of business who once shut down his firm to aid search efforts until the partner’s missing teenager was found.

Those competing stories are rooted in more than the biographies of the Democratic incumbent, a former professor and community organizer, and his Republican challenger, a onetime financial industry titan. They also reflect the divergent ideologies and core constituencies of the two parties.

Mr. Obama champions government as a linchpin of future economic growth and the average American’s protector from the excesses and failures of the free market.

Mr. Romney condemns government as a menace whose excesses and failures imperil the free market’s ability to enhance individual opportunity and make the nation prosperous.

Each has more negative than positive material to work with. Their back-and-forth is a clash between institutions reduced to equal levels of public disdain after years of economic weakness, Wall Street’s collapse and bailout, high unemployment levels and shifting election outcomes.

A Pew Research Center poll found in February that only 22 percent of Americans rated the federal government as having a positive effect on American life — precisely the same proportion who rated banks and other financial institutions positively.

“It’s clearly a standoff,” said Pew’s pollster, Andrew Kohut, though one involving coalitions of different shapes.

Blacks and Hispanics were twice as likely as whites to rate government positively, for example, and nearly four times as likely as white evangelicals. Mr. Obama’s argument draws stronger support from single women, Mr. Romney’s from white men and married women.

The contours of the partisan debate have grown familiar since Ronald Reagan called government the problem, not the solution, and the 2000 election established how closely it divides the nation.

But each side sees an opening for a breakthrough in November.

For the Romney team, it is the juxtaposition of a Democratic incumbent struggling with hard times against a Republican candidate uniquely suited to extend the arc of conservative ascendancy that began with Reagan’s antigovernment campaign in 1980.

“We haven’t had a candidate that’s been as successful from a business standpoint as Romney has been,” said Carl Forti, a strategist for the pro-Romney “super PAC” that produced the advertisement featuring his business partner. As hostile as swing voters may be toward Wall Street and big corporations, he added, “they absolutely know government’s worse.”

For Mr. Obama’s advisers, the opening lies in their ability to tie Mr. Romney to the market’s generation-long failure to deliver rising living standards to average Americans. “The country tried everything Romney says, and it brought the economy to the brink of collapse,” said Mr. Obama’s pollster, Joel Benenson. “The American people know our country has a big role to play in investing in education, in R&D to produce new industries and in infrastructure.”

That explains the Obama campaign’s recent attack on Mr. Romney’s record at Bain Capital. An Obama campaign video with sorrowful former steelworkers cast Mr. Romney as a corporate “vampire” who with his partners bought a Missouri manufacturer, siphoned away profits for themselves and bankrupted it. Mr. Obama’s defense this week of his campaign’s Bain attacks underscored the ideological clash. The president asserted that pursuit of private-sector profits was insufficient preparation for service as chief executive of government, who is obliged to consider the interests of all constituents, including workers.

The Romney campaign answered that tale of villainy with one of heroism. Its ad highlighted a different company that “Mitt Romney’s private-sector leadership team” helped start, creating 6,000 jobs.

“If that’s not the American dream, I don’t know what is,” a grateful worker concluded.

The route to the American dream sketched by Mr. Obama involves critical assistance from the government. In an interactive Obama campaign graphic, the fictional character “Julia” benefits from programs like Head Start, small-business subsidies and the new health care law. The campaign recently spent $1 million on a targeted mailing to women in swing states trumpeting benefits they would lose if Mr. Romney won a repeal of the health law.

Mr. Romney dismissed the “Julia” device as an illustration of the centrality of government to Mr. Obama’s vision. He said at a rally this year, “If you’re looking for free stuff you don’t have to pay for, vote for the other guy.”

Mr. Obama promotes the two-year-old financial regulation law as protection against the depredations of Wall Street, with all the more urgency after JPMorgan Chase’s recent multibillion-dollar trading loss. Mr. Romney insists that the law inhibits private-sector-led growth and supports its repeal.

He takes the same view of the government’s involvement in bailing out auto companies, saying it rewarded unions friendly to Democrats at the taxpayers’ expense; his campaign’s new Web video features nonunion workers complaining that Washington had not helped them. Mr. Obama says the government bailout saved the industry.

Both sides supplement philosophical arguments with practical ones. Mr. Romney casts the administration’s interventions as simply ineffective; Mr. Obama’s campaign says Mr. Romney failed to deliver on jobs and government-slimming promises as governor of Massachusetts.

Yet they consistently offer voters a fundamental contrast of outlook.

Mr. Obama wants government to enhance opportunity and temper inequality through investments in education, research, infrastructure and new energy technologies — paid for with help from higher taxes on the wealthy. Mr. Romney, speaking in Des Moines last week, articulated the opposite view.

“The private sector is by far the most efficient and cost-effective” at generating economic growth, Mr. Romney said. “As President Obama and old-school liberals absorb more and more of our economy into government, they make what we do more expensive, less efficient and less useful.”

“They make America less competitive,” he concluded. “You do not owe Washington a bigger share of your paycheck.”

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Chefs lead fight against Calif. ban on foie gras delicacy

Erika Ramos, 26, feeds the ducks at Hudson Valley Foie Gras farm in Ferndale, N.Y. In a feeding process called gavage, corn is force-fed to the ducks which helps expand their livers for foie gras.

By Jennifer S. Altman, for USA TODAY

SAN FRANCISCO – Diners are lining up to get their last bit of foie gras at Santa Monica's Mélisse restaurant, where chef Josiah Citrin is offering a "Foie for All" five-course tasting menu.

By Jennifer S. Altman, for USA TODAY

Ducks drink water at Hudson Valley Foie Gras farm in Ferndale, N.Y., one of the nation's few foie gras producers.

By Jennifer S. Altman, for USA TODAY

Ducks drink water at Hudson Valley Foie Gras farm in Ferndale, N.Y., one of the nation's few foie gras producers.

"We're super busy," maitre d' Matthew Greenberg says. "About 30% of our guests are ordering foie gras."

Other California restaurants are also seeing a rise in orders of the gourmet duck liver, a delicacy that will become illegal to sell in the state on July 1.

Critics object to how the ducks and geese are raised: Three-month-old birds are force-fed by inserting a tube in their throat and pouring in grain. Over the two- or three-week feeding period before slaughter, the birds' livers enlarge from 3 ounces to about a pound and a quarter. More than a dozen countries ban the practice.

California chefs haven't given up hope that they can keep dishes such as Mélisse's "foie gras flan with blood orange gelée" on the menu. More than 100 have submitted a petition urging the Legislature to lift the ban.

The group, which calls itself the Coalition for Humane and Ethical Farming Standards (CHEFS), is proposing new rules that would require farmers to raise geese and ducks in a cage-free environment, minimize stress and use feeding methods that do not harm the birds' esophagus or beak.

The chefs need a two-thirds vote in both the state Assembly and Senate to overturn the ban.

Animal rights activists say there's no humane way to force-feed ducks and geese.

"Shoving a pipe down a duck's throat three times a day to force him to eat far more than he would eat on his own is just inhumane," says Paul Shapiro, who leads the farm animal protection division at the Humane Society of the United States. The ducks "have difficulty even walking by the end of the process," he says.

It's just part of life and death on the farm, chefs say — and worth it. Foie gras is rich and luscious, tender when served hot, and when cold, "it's like eating really delicious salted, duck-flavored butter," says Daniel Scherotter, executive chef at Palio d'Asti here.

By Jennifer S. Altman, for USA TODAY

About 8,000 ducks a week are grown for foie gras in the United States and Canada.

Hunters have always known that geese and ducks gorging themselves on grain before flying south for the winter developed fat livers — in French, foie gras.

Farmers as far back as Greek and Roman times began to deliberately overfeed geese, which eventually developed into a method of force-feeding geese and ducks called gavage. Ducks, the farmers note, have a strong, insensitive esophagus that allows them to swallow fish whole.

Hudson Valley Foie Gras in Ferndale, N.Y., is one of the USA's few foie gras producers. "We let hundreds of people on our farm to see the process," operations manager Marcus Henley says. The company has posted YouTube videos in the belief that if the public sees the actual process, people will understand that it's not damaging to the birds.

Foie foes are naive, Scherotter says. "It attracts the kind of loony-left animal rights activists who are urban and suburban white people who are unaware of how food is produced, so when they actually see it they're grossed out by it. Rural people don't have these issues."

John Burton, who introduced the original legislation in 2004 when he was Senate president pro tempore, told the San Francisco Chronicle, "I'd like to sit all 100 (chefs) down and have duck and goose fat — better yet, dry oatmeal — shoved down their throats over and over and over again."

Chef Mark Pastore, owner of Incanto restaurant in San Francisco, condemned what he called Burton's "use of violent rhetoric" in an opinion piece in the Chronicle on May 10 and asked for a public apology.

Burton, now chairman of the state Democratic Party, says the chefs had seven years to work out a plan. "There was a deal cut" to give California's only producer, Sonoma Foie Gras, time to "either figure out how to do this right or figure out how to make money doing other stuff," he says. "Nobody heard a peep out of anybody" until now.

"The effect of the ban is the closing of a successful family business," Guillermo Gonzalez, owner of Sonoma Foie Gras, said via e-mail. "Our farm is being forced to close its doors at the end of June, and the most unfortunate fact is that science has not been given a chance to play a role in this debate."

By Jennifer S. Altman, for USA TODAY

Marcus Henley, Hudson Valley Foie Gras farm's operations manager, holds one of the baby ducks.

Foie gras is "an integral part of gourmet cooking," and the ban could lead to a black market, says Nathan Ballard, a spokesman for the chefs' group. "If you have smugglers and bootleggers who are willing to risk criminal prosecution to sell foie gras in California," he says, no one will be able to watch over how the ducks are raised because it will be happening in secret.

He says that when Chicago passed a foie gras ban in 2006, "chefs started selling $25 croutons and giving away the foie gras for free." The Chicago ban was overturned in 2008.

Banning foie gras "knocks California down a peg as a culinary destination," Ballard says. That, he suggests, could lead to fine diners bypassing the Golden State for the restaurants of Las Vegas.

Burton isn't convinced. "Right," he says sarcastically. "California has wineries, Disneyland, but … 'They don't have foie gras — let's go to South Dakota instead.' "

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‘Super PAC’ Backs Adriano Espaillat in House Race Against Charles Rangel

The group, called the Campaign for Primary Accountability, has received most of its financing from a few businessmen with histories of donating to Republican causes, but it describes itself as nonpartisan and says its mission is to defeat longtime Congressional incumbents on the right and the left.

The group’s spokesman, Curtis Ellis, said its aim was to counterbalance the advantages enjoyed by incumbents, which, he said, made them less answerable to their constituents.

“We call ourselves ‘the equalizer,’ ” Mr. Ellis said.

The group got involved in Mr. Rangel’s race because it believed that he was vulnerable and that Mr. Espaillat was “a real challenger,” Mr. Ellis said.

“If you look at the support that Mr. Espaillat has been able to attract — that, combined with our own survey research — is what tells us that there is an opening here,” he said.

Mr. Ellis did not specify how much the group planned to spend in the race, but he said it generally spent “in the six-figure range” in House races. He said the money would most likely be spent on direct mail, online advertising, voter outreach and targeted ethnic media buys.

“Congressman Rangel, for all he has done, has become the model of what happens when incumbents get too comfortable with the special interests that operate in Washington,” Mr. Ellis said.

The PAC’s decision to assist Mr. Espaillat was first reported by the State of Politics blog.

A spokeswoman for Mr. Rangel’s campaign, Ronnie Sykes, said in a statement: “You can learn a lot about an elected official by who their enemies are. These conservatives know that the congressman is one of the most effective legislators in Congress and is a progressive champion.”

Mr. Espaillat is the most prominent of several Democratic candidates hoping to defeat Mr. Rangel in a primary on June 26. Mr. Rangel, 81, has long been one of the most powerful black politicians in the country, but several factors — including an ethics scandal, a redrawn district that is now majority Latino and back problems that hospitalized him this year — have made the race appear competitive.

Mr. Rangel returned to Washington on Monday for the first time in several months. He sat in the front row of the House as fellow Democrats greeted him with hugs and handshakes, and colleagues held a reception in his honor on Monday evening.

Earlier in the day, President Obama’s spokesman, Jay Carney, appeared to hesitate when asked if the president was going to support Mr. Rangel’s re-election.

“I’ll have to get back to you on that,” Mr. Carney said.

In a radio interview on Tuesday, Mr. Espaillat was asked by Fredric U. Dicker, the state editor of The New York Post, about the changing demographics in the district and whether his campaign would emphasize ethnic themes.

“It’s really a response to the needs of the constituents across the district — not just the Latinos, but, you know, African-Americans, you know, Asians, whites,” Mr. Espaillat responded, adding that everyone “really wants a change.”

“When Charlie Rangel got elected back in 1970, the year before, man walked on the moon,” Mr. Espaillat, 57, said. “The Mets won a championship, the first championship; Joe Namath was throwing touchdown passes for the Jets; and Nixon was president. So that was a long time ago, and that district has really evolved into a new district, a very diverse district.”

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Senate Votes to Renew Violence Against Women Act

But a political fight still looms when the House takes up a version of the legislation next month that is shorn of the hot-button issues added in the Senate.

The final vote, 68 to 31, including 15 Republicans, belied the partisan maneuvering that preceded Senate action on the bill, which extended landmark legislation first passed in 1994 to give courts and law enforcement new tools to combat domestic violence.

The latest version — the third reauthorization since 2000 — followed tradition and was drafted by a Democrat, Senator Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont, and a Republican, Senator Michael D. Crapo of Idaho. But it ran into a wall of Republican opposition in the Senate Judiciary Committee, and cleared the committee in February without a Republican vote.

Amid partisan brawls over abortion and contraception, some Democrats saw the Violence Against Women Act as the next battle in what they framed as a Republican “war on women.” But Senate Republicans did not rise to the bait. Republican senators like John Cornyn of Texas made clear their concerns, but even before amendments to address those concerns were voted on, many of the same senators who had expressed reservations signaled that they would vote for the bill, regardless of whether it was changed. No Republicans spoke out against it before the final tally.

“I intend to vote for the underlying bill even with its flaws,” Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas announced even as she pressed for changes, including one that would limit advertising on Backpage.com, a Web site that has an “adult services” section.

If there are to be fireworks, they will have to come when the Senate version comes up against the House’s. House Republican women this week announced that they would introduce a version of the violence act when they return from next week’s recess, with a final House vote expected by mid-May.

The House bill is likely to be stripped of three provisions that have incensed some conservatives. One would subject non-Indian suspects of domestic violence to prosecution before tribal courts for crimes allegedly committed on reservations. Another would expand the number of temporary visas for illegal immigrant victims of domestic violence. The last would expand Violence Against Women Act protections to gay, bisexual or transgender victims of domestic abuse.

“We’re not going to be looking at the controversial issues,” said Representative Sandy Adams of Florida, who is the main sponsor of the impending House bill. 

Republicans say the American Indian courts provision could deny due process in some cases and could be ruled unconstitutional. They suggested Democrats were stealthily expanding “amnesty” to some illegal immigrants while pursuing pro-homosexual social policy under the guise of domestic violence legislation.

Stripping out those provisions, Mr. Leahy responded, “would result in abandoning some of the most vulnerable victims ... battered immigrants, Native women and victims in same-sex relationships.”

Mostly, however, Republican leaders accused Democrats of adding those provisions to the reauthorization expressly to pick a fight for political advantage. But it is unclear how potent those concerns will be. Only 36 senators voted Thursday for the version shorn of those measures.

For some conservative groups, however, even the core of the nearly 20-year-old law was unacceptable. The Concerned Women for America and Independent Women’s Forum had said the law had devolved into a “slush fund” for feminist causes that harms men unfairly and encourages the dissolution of marriages.

But from the beginning, many Republicans were declining to take up that cause. The legislation had five Republican co-sponsors, including Mr. Crapo, at its introduction. The two Republican senators facing the toughest re-election races, Dean Heller of Nevada and Scott P. Brown of Massachusetts, quickly signed on.

Democratic protests aside, the bill’s passage was secured well before the final vote was called when eight Republicans signed on as co-sponsors. The final vote was supported not only by moderate Republicans like Susan Collins and Olympia J. Snowe of Maine, but also by Republican stalwarts like John McCain of Arizona and unflinching conservatives like David Vitter of Louisiana.

Jennifer Steinhauer contributed reporting.

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Running for Congress Against Octogenarians Like Johnson and Hall

Bob Deuell, a conservative family-practice doctor from Greenville, had his heart set on serving in Congress. When his congressman, Ralph Hall, got wind of it, he invited Dr. Deuell to shadow him in Washington for a few days in 1998. He gave a potential opponent or successor an opportunity to see what an average week would be like should he win the seat.

“He wore me out,” Dr. Deuell said. Dr. Deuell gave up on his Congressional aspirations, running instead for the Texas Senate and winning a spot there in 2002.

Mr. Hall, a Rockwall Republican who will celebrate his 89th birthday between now and the May 29 primary, is still in Congress. He’s been there since 1981.

Comparatively speaking, United States Representative Sam Johnson, Republican of Plano, is just a pup. He’s 81, a Vietnam War veteran and a former prisoner of war in what became known as the Hanoi Hilton. When he was in the Texas House, lobbyists joked that you might persuade him to vote for a bill but that he was immune to political threats. Mr. Johnson, elected to Congress in 1990, has competition in this year’s primary, as does Mr. Hall. And like the people running against Mr. Hall, his opponents are running positive campaigns that do not attack the incumbent.

They are walking a fine line. They want to be in place, should the positions open up, without looking like political vultures.

“I don’t know their motivation,” Dr. Deuell said of the candidates who have opposed Mr. Hall over the last decade. “What I’ve seen is people say they’re only going to run if Ralph’s not running. Then it’s ‘I’m only going to run to get my name out there.’ Then they get running and start believing their own bull, and the next thing you know, they’re calling Ralph a liberal.”

Dr. Deuell said most of those candidates not only lost their races but also spoiled their chances of succeeding the incumbent. “They made people mad,” he said.

Lou Gigliotti and Steve Clark are back this year. They were among the five challengers to Mr. Hall in the Republican primary two years ago. He whipped them, getting 57.4 percent of the vote to Mr. Clark’s 29.7 percent and Mr. Gigliotti’s 1.5 percent.

Everyone seems to be tiptoeing (it’s early), but the age issue is right at the surface.

Mr. Gigliotti, a Wylie resident who owns an auto parts company and races cars, went right to the age thing in an e-mail exchange about the contest earlier this year. “As you know, Ralph Hall is 89 years old and will turn 91 in office if he is re-elected,” he wrote. “I have been in Texas for almost 30 years running a successful business and running a national championship race team. The Choice is Clear. Vote for the ‘Past’ or vote for the ‘Future.’ ”

Mr. Johnson has two opponents this year. In his last five races, he has run unopposed in the primary only once. In the others, he never got less than 84 percent of the vote, whether he had one opponent or two. Mr. Hall, who switched to the Republican Party after the 2002 election (he was unopposed as a Democrat), has won handily, too. He’s at it again, defying anyone who might wonder if he’s too old for the job.

It’s a biennial parlor game in North Texas politics. Will they run again? What’s the best strategy if you want the seat but don’t want to poach, don’t want to offend a popular incumbent?

So far, nobody has figured it out. The winner of the Republican primary in Mr. Johnson’s Third Congressional District will face a Libertarian, Chris Claytor, in November. In Mr. Hall’s Fourth Congressional District next door, the winner will face VaLinda Hathcox, a Democrat, and Thomas Griffing, a Libertarian, in the general election.

Both districts were drawn to favor Republicans in November. And if past elections are any guide, the two incumbents have the advantage in the primaries. Some younger voters have never seen a ballot without one of those names on it. Older voters have been pulling the lever for these guys for years.

They don’t seem to mind the gray hair.

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Attack against Romney on auto bailout moves beyond Michigan - CBS News

Democrats continue to hammer Mitt Romney for once penning an op-ed entitled, "Let Detroit Go Bankrupt," but now the attacks are moving beyond Michigan to Ohio, another state with a large number of voters with jobs tied to the auto industry or the unions.

Public sector union AFSCME (American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees) is running an ad in Ohio slamming the Republican for his opposition to the auto bailout. "Romney would have turned his back on us in the depths of the recession," a narrator says in the ad, "but he supported giving the banks billions in bailouts? That's Mitt's world."

Republicans vote in Ohio on "Super Tuesday" on March 6, and a new poll there shows Rick Santorum with a seven-point lead over Romney.

President Obama's re-election team is already running an ad in Michigan that references Romney's op-ed while touting the president's support for the bailout. And the Democratic National Committee published a web ad today on the same theme.

The DNC ad plays a snippet from an interview with Romney on CBS last year, when in reference to his 2008 op-ed, he said, "That's exactly what I said. The headline you read which said, 'Let Detroit Go Bankrupt' points out that those companies needed to go through bankruptcy."

In that same interview, however, Romney explained that letting a company go bankrupt wouldn't mean liquidating the company, "but allowing them to go to the bankruptcy court to reorganize and come out stronger. That's what happened."

He added, "And the federal government put in, I think, $17 billion into those companies before they finally recognized, 'Yeah, they need to go bankrupt, go through that process, so that they're able to get rid of excess costs.'"

Romney did not mention that there was no private capital available at the time that allowed the managed bankruptcy to take place and the government's intervention was a pre-requisite to the managed bankruptcy.

General Motors and Chrysler were restructured as part of the $85 billion auto bailout, which started under President George W. Bush's leadership and was extended after Mr. Obama took office. Some analysts have claimed more than 1 million jobs were saved by the bailout.

Polls show voters in Michigan approve of the bailout. In a recent NBC/ Marist poll from Michigan, 63 percent of registered voters said the bailout was a good idea.

Nationally, 56 percent of Americans said the federal loans given to GM and Chrysler were good for the economy, according to a Pew survey from this month -- that's up from 37 percent in October 2009.

Romney's op-ed makes him a prime target for Democrats, but the bailout is a sticky subject for the other GOP candidates as well.

Santorum has tried to cast himself as an economic populist who can appeal to working class, social conservatives -- a segment of voters once referred to as "Reagan Democrats" who could help the GOP nominee in states like Ohio, Pennsylvania or Indiana. However, he also opposed the auto bailout. Santorum has tried to claim that he's at least more consistent on bailouts than Romney, since he also opposed the Wall Street bailout (unlike Romney).

"Mitt Romney supported his friends on Wall Street and then turned his back on the people of Detroit," Santorum said Sunday on the ABC's "This Week." "Now, I say turned his back because he supports the concept of bailouts. I don't. And that's the difference between the two approaches."

Rep. Ron Paul, a staunch libertarian, unsurprisingly opposed the auto bailouts. However, in a speech in Detroit on Monday, Paul said that U.S. capital "might have been spent building cars in this country rather than bombs overseas."

With reporting from CBS News/ National Journal reporter Lindsey Boerma

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Second ethics complaint to be filed against Wasserman Schultz over DNC ad (Daily Caller)

The Republican National Lawyers Association (RNLA) will submit a new ethics complaint against Democratic National Committee Chair Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida, The Daily Caller has learned.

The complaint, which will be filed on Thursday with the Office of Congressional Ethics, takes issue with DNC ads that appear to violate House rules.

Thursday’s complaint will be the second the RNLA has leveled at Wasserman Schultz. Earlier this week the group sent a letter to the OCE about a 30-second ad touting President Barack Obama’s jobs plan. The video featured footage from Obama’s Sept. 8 speech to a joint session of Congress.

House ethics rules prohibit members of Congress from using footage of official House proceedings for political purposes.

The letter that will be sent Thursday doubles down on the original complaint, targeting newly-released Spanish-language ads in Tampa, Denver, Miami and Las Vegas. The ads proclaim in Spanish: “In the face of Republicans, the President can’t do it alone. Read the plan. Stand together for more jobs.”

The RNLA letter calls for an immediate investigation by OCE and the House Ethics Committee. (RELATED: Second ethics complaint to be filed against Wasserman Schultz for DNC ad)

“The Obama Administration, the DNC and the Democrat leadership in the House believe in rules only as they apply to others,” RNLA Chairman David Norcross said in a statement.

“At a time when the president and the House Minority Leader repeatedly plead for bi-partisanship they spare no effort to be confrontational wherever and whenever possible,” Norcross said. “They certainly don’t let House rules stand in their way.”

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Republican legal group files ethics complaint against Debbie Wasserman Schultz (Daily Caller)

Democratic Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida is the subject of a new ethics complaint filed in the Office of Congressional Ethics. The Republican National Lawyers Association (RNLA) filed the complaint in response to a video the Democratic National Committee (DNC), which Wasserman Schultz chairs, released last week.

As The Daily Caller previously reported, the DNC ad promoting President Barack Obama’s American Jobs Act appeared to violate House ethics rules that prevent footage of floor proceedings from being used for political purposes. The 30-second ad, however, featured only footage of the president’s recent speech to a joint session of Congress — not speeches of members of Congress themselves.

Normally, that wouldn’t be a problem for the DNC. But since Wasserman Schultz is a member of Congress, some say the House ethics rules now apply to the DNC.

“This carefully orchestrated political campaign is consistent with a disturbing pattern of President Obama’s misuse of official resources for political purposes,” read the RNLA’s complaint. “Now it appears he has not only misused the resources of his own office, but he has engaged Representative Wasserman Schultz in the misuse of coverage of House proceedings, in direct violation of her ethical duties as a Member of Congress.”

The rule in question is House Rule 5, clause 2(c)(1), which says, “Broadcast coverage and recordings of House floor proceedings may not be used for any political purpose.”

Additionally, House Rule 11, clause 4(b) says that “radio and television tapes and film of any coverage of House committee proceedings may not be use, or made available for use, as partisan political campaign material to promote or oppose the candidacy of any person for public office.” (RELATED: Does a new DNC ad violate House ethics rules?

According to the Office of Congressional Ethics website, once a complaint is filed, two board members may conduct a preliminary review – a process that takes 30 days – to determine if all information available provides a reasonable basis that a violation occurred.

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Democrats continue fight against voter ID laws (Daily Caller)

Democrats are battling a growing number of states that are preparing to implement tougher voter identification laws.

Stopping voter ID laws is crucial to Democrats who argue college students, the elderly and minorities will be prevented from voting under the new laws.

“It’s no surprise that these voter suppression efforts are being pushed by Republicans in key swing states,” said Democratic Governor Association spokeswoman Lis Smith.

Republicans pushing to pass such legislation counter that tougher laws will prevent voter fraud and keep ineligible voters from the polling booths.

Now, opponents of the laws don’t just have Republicans to worry about.

Rhode Island’s independent Gov. Lincoln Chafee is the latest to join the voter identification law spree—he signed a tougher bill into law Tuesday after it was passed by the state’s Democratic-controlled house and senate. The governor told The Providence Journal the new law would increase “accuracy and integrity” shortly after signing the bill.

Nearly 20 other states are considering more stringent voter photo identification laws, which has many Democrats crying out in retaliation.

More than 15 Democratic senators have signed a letter calling on Attorney General Eric Holder to investigate the legality of states’ “highly restrictive photo identification requirements,” which they allege violate the 1965 Voting Rights Act and, ultimately, civil rights.

Holder’s office would not confirm or deny if it is complying with the request from the senators.

“The Justice Department is monitoring, as it routinely does, this type of legislative activity in the states,” Holder’s office told The Daily Caller.

The letter comes weeks after the Democratic Governors Association embarked on a $50,000 fundraising effort to combat voter ID laws.

The Supreme Court has previously upheld voter photo ID laws. The high court ruled in favor of allowing Indiana to enforce photo identification legislation at voting booths in April 2008. High profile Republicans such as current House Speaker John Boehner praised the decision while civil rights groups like the League of Women Voters and many Democrats denounced it.

The fundraising, which ended June 30, surpassed the $50,000 mark, Smith said.

So far, the DGA has specifically targeted Florida and Wisconsin, where Republican governors recently signed voter ID bills into law.

But the DGA isn’t stopping there.

“It’s definitely a big priority of ours,” Smith said. “I think you’ll see we’re going to be involved in additional states in coming weeks and months, Pennsylvania’s one, Ohio’s another.”

Smith said the issue, which the DGA believes is “aimed directly at Democratic voters,” is a priority because it will stop thousands of eligible voters from coming to the polls in 2012.

Before 2011, nine states already required photo IDs at polls. Seven states have inked new voter ID laws this year.

“If this legislation is successful, it will prevent seniors, students, low income folks, women who’ve gotten their names change because they were married, from being able to cast their vote in the 2012 elections,” Smith said.

Not to be outdone, the Democratic National Committee has started its own push back to stop voter ID legislation from becoming law.

The DNC has focused its energy on the exposing the cost of implementing “unnecessary” new voter ID laws. The DNC estimates the cost of the laws could range between $276 million and $828 million for states, attributing the millions to educating voters.

“The concern is the really isn’t a problem,” said DNC spokesperson Alec Gerlach. “It’s more of a solution in search of a problem. Voter impersonation is not a problem”

Gerlach said the stringent voter ID laws make it difficult for minorities and the elderly to vote.

“I think that minority voters and elderly voters are harder to reach as far education is concerned, if you change the law you have to make the effort to educate,” Gerlach said.

No matter how many attack ads Democrats run against the voter ID laws, Republican-controlled legislatures are undeterred. Ohio’s GOP legislature is expected to vote on a series of voter identification reforms during special session in coming weeks.

“The Ohio Republican Party favors an identification provision that is strict and consistent to ensure integrity in our election process,” Ohio GOP Chairman Mike DeWine said to The Daily Caller in a statement. “Identification requirements should comply with the requirements for registration and remain consistent across all 21 days of voting.”

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Democrats launch massive ad campaign against Republican Medicare position (Daily Caller)

The Democrats’ “super” PAC launched a six-figure ad campaign Monday, just months after accepting sizable donations from wealthy liberals including that scorn of the right, George Soros.

The House Majority PAC’s radio ads will cover familiar ground for Democrats: attacking Republican congressmen for their votes in favor of Paul Ryan’s controversial budget plan that would significantly overhaul Medicare. The ads will also focus on Republicans’ personal spending and tax cuts for corporations.

The ads will target two Republicans in Arkansas, as well as Rep. Steve King in Iowa, New Hampshire’s Charlie Bass, and House members in Nevada, Illinois and Minnesota. The 30-second spot against Colorado’s Scott Tipton offers a glimpse of continued nationwide attacks on vulnerable GOP lawmakers, as Democrats hope to win back the House majority they lost in 2010.

Listen:

This is the second round of attacks from the super PAC, which recently received some hefty backing from Soros and others during last month’s special election in New York. The billionaire liberal philanthropist gave the group $75,000, which contributed to the $800,000 the House Majority PAC raised in the two months before Democrat Kathy Hochul won the seat, according to Politico. Formed after the recent Citizens United Supreme Court decision, super PACs allow for the raising of unlimited funds.

Extensive as the liberal PAC’s financial prowess is, it pales in comparison to Karl Rove’s conservative American Crossroads, which launched its $5 million dollar campaign today. The conservative ads focus on Obama’s biggest Achilles’ heel: his stay-the-course policies amidst a still-floundering economy.Read more stories from The Daily Caller

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American Crossroads launches ‘Debbie Downer’ ad against DNC chairwoman (Daily Caller)

The conservative group set up by former George W. Bush adviser Karl Rove is having some fun with a Democratic National Committee chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz.

American Crossroads unveiled a video today, “Debbie Downer.” It’s a well cut send-up of SNL’s “Debbie Downer” skit series staring Rachel Dratch. Complete with a finger-dancing jingle, the satirical video is relentless in its takedown of the DNC chairwoman. As one stanza goes:

She’s got all the grace of a punch in the face // she’s a double-down Debbie Downer

With judo-like skill, the video can’t stop laughing at Wasserman-Shultz’s comments about Republicans, which only highlights the video’s message to a comical degree:

Republicans hate all women, you know // They’ve got a plan to bring back Jim Crow // They’re gonna throw us out in the snow //oh, Debbie! Debbie Downer

“With all of her over-the-top negative remarks, new DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz has become a gift that keeps giving to Republicans,” said Jonathan Collegio, American Crossroads’ communications director.

(Before calling GOP ‘anti-women,’ Wasserman Schultz politicized Ten Commandments)

So it would seem the group has found a way to turn her frown upside down.

Watch below:

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American Crossroads launches ‘Debbie Downer’ ad against DNC chairwoman (Daily Caller)

The conservative group set up by former George W. Bush adviser Karl Rove is having some fun with a Democratic National Committee chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz.

American Crossroads unveiled a video today, “Debbie Downer.” It’s a well cut send-up of SNL’s “Debbie Downer” skit series staring Rachel Dratch. Complete with a finger-dancing jingle, the satirical video is relentless in its takedown of the DNC chairwoman. As one stanza goes:

She’s got all the grace of a punch in the face // she’s a double-down Debbie Downer

With judo-like skill, the video can’t stop laughing at Wasserman-Shultz’s comments about Republicans, which only highlights the video’s message to a comical degree:

Republicans hate all women, you know // They’ve got a plan to bring back Jim Crow // They’re gonna throw us out in the snow //oh, Debbie! Debbie Downer

“With all of her over-the-top negative remarks, new DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz has become a gift that keeps giving to Republicans,” said Jonathan Collegio, American Crossroads’ communications director.

(Before calling GOP ‘anti-women,’ Wasserman Schultz politicized Ten Commandments)

So it would seem the group has found a way to turn her frown upside down.

Watch below:

Email Jeff Winkler and follow him on Twitter

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View the original article here