What’s new Today

Story #1tells how money is beginning to flow into Romney. #2 has Joe Klein arguing that this election will not be about Obama’s record—he’s wrong. #3 demonstrates the hostility of the left to current energy companies. I don’t remember anyone ever talking of crucifixion before. #4 shows how the Democrats can’t seem to help themselves when it comes to the politics of name calling. #5 matches #4 positing that the Democrats have nothing but fear to try to persuade the American public to re-elect them. #6 is a Pew survey showing us what the American people feel about their government. It’s not good news for incumbents.

Today’s thoughts

The economies of many European nations are contracting, sending them back into a recession they just came out of last year. Greece, Portugal, and Spain are now all officially in a recession, and France, the Netherlands, and England aren't far behind/.

Who do you think is more trust worthy to actually have the other party’s back? Obama with Israel or the MSM with Obama?

Apparently the left’s definition of something being Constitutional is “I like that bill” and Unconstitutional is “I don’t like the bill.”

1. Fundraisers coming out of the woodwork for Romney

Mitt Romney's fundraising has skyrocketed since he became the de facto nominee, a top Romney fundraiser told The Hill Wednesday evening.

"People are coming out of the woodwork," said the fundraiser, who requested not to be named. "A number of my friends who didn't want to get involved in the primary are now coming off the sidelines for the general election."

The Romney supporter told The Hill that two recent fundraisers in Florida had netted more than $3 million combined, and said the moment Romney and the Republican National Committee entered into a joint fundraising operation a number of top GOP donors who had been resistant to giving decided to make major donations.

"This all started when we signed the contract with the RNC — that's when the general election really began for us," the fundraiser said. "There's a lot of enthusiasm out there — I can in a week's time raise $1 million for an event."

Romney's schedule is very heavy on fundraising appearances the next month, and if he continues to bring in $1 million or more at most stops he could quickly close the gap with obama in campaign money. Romney finished March with a bit more than $10 million in the bank after having to spend heavily in the primary, while Obama had $104 million cash on hand….

http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/223793-top-romney-fundraiser-donors-coming-out-of-the-woodwork

Obama will not have the huge money advantage he had in 2008. Add to this deficit his record and you have a embattled President who will struggle to be competitive in the fall.

2. 2012 Election WILL be about Obama’s Record

On April 13, at Swampland, a blog at what’s left of Time Magazine, Joe took Bill Galston at the New Republic to task for daring to write that Barack Obama’s successful reelection will be difficult “if the people don’t approve of his record.”

That’s about as non-controversial as it gets — but not for good ol’ Joe, who called Galston’s assertion “political science mythology.” Klein proceeded to offer three elections (2008, 1988, and 1976) which supposedly showed that a president’s record in office doesn’t matter. Readers can and should be forgiven for wondering why he chose those three campaigns, given that none of them involved incumbents seeking reelection.

In the interest of bringing Klein up to speed, let me remind him of three of the four most obvious relatively recent instances when the incumbent president’s record was of the utmost importance (the fourth is Bill Clinton’s defeat of Bush 41 in 1992, which was built on Clinton’s lie about “the worst economy in the past 50 years,” Bush’s breaking of his “no new taxes pledge,” and, most critically, the quixotic candidacy of Ross Perot)….

http://pjmedia.com/blog/the-election-should-be-all-about-barack-obamas-record/

Klein apparently is a true believer who is willing to suspend disbelief in an attempt to convince others that what he believes is true.

3. Obama’s EPA: Crucify them

Al Armendariz, a regional administrator for the Environmental Protection Agency, explained in 2010 that he understands the EPA policy to be to "crucify" a few oil and gas companies to get the rest of the industry to comply with the laws.

"I was in a meeting once and I gave an analogy to my staff about my philosophy of enforcement," Armendariz said during a meeting in 2010. "It's kind of like how the Romans used to conquer little villages in the Mediterranean: they’d go into little Turkish towns somewhere, they’d find the first five guys they’d run into, and they’d crucify them and then, you know, that town was really easy to manage over the next few years."

Armendariz said that by finding companies that are "not compliant with the law and you make examples of them," the EPA could maximize its enforcement capability with limited resources. He added that "fines can get very high very quickly, and that's what these companies respond to."…

http://campaign2012.washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/beltway-confidential/epa-official-crucify-oil-companies/502421

We already had testimony that the EPA’s economic analysis doesn’t include looking at the cost of jobs when they issue a regulation. This is just one reason why Obama must be defeated.

4. Oklahoma DNC Chair says McVeigh would be in the tea party

The chairman of the Oklahoma Democratic Party is refusing to back down from comments he made that likened convicted Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh to tea party activists…

…“I certainly stand by my remarks, because it's widely known that McVeigh was anti-government. I think that he was a right-winger, and I think the current tea party people, while I'm not saying that they're proposing violence, they're anti-government,” Collins said Tuesday. “They dislike the government. I don't know if you'd call them a government hater, but I certainly see them in a similar vein. Maybe they're an offshoot or offspring or next generation.”

http://newsok.com/oklahoma-democratic-chairman-says-timothy-mcveigh-would-be-member-of-tea-party-were-he-alive-today/article/3669753#ixzz1t8pFsQM2

What stupidity. I could say the vegans are left wing and Hitler was a vegan. Therefore leftists are like Hitler or at least PETA members are. It makes as much sense.

5. Democrats Have Nothing to Offer but Fear Itself

Asked why the Senate hasn't produced a budget in three years, the head of the Democratic Party instead stoked fear about the "Romney-Ryan budget that ends Medicare as we know it." FDR, call your office.

'The Romney/Ryan budget is painful for Americans," head Debbie Wasserman Schultz said on that same Fox News program.

Her comments are tame compared with what other Democrats have said, including President Obama, who called Rep. Paul Ryan's budget "thinly veiled social Darwinism" that would "impose a radical vision on our country" and that is "antithetical to our entire history."

So what do Democrats have to offer instead? Nothing….

…The country faces monumental problems — a national debt crisis, an entitlement crisis, an energy crisis, to say nothing of the lingering economic crisis.

But on issue after issue, Democrats have absolutely nothing constructive to offer — no entitlement-reform ideas, no budget-reform proposals, no debt-reduction plans, no credible energy policies.

Or at least they refuse to come clean about how they'd address them.

Instead, they reflexively attack the Republicans who are actually proposing fixes, calling them terrorists and hostage-takers who are waging war on women, want to throw seniors off the cliff and savage the poor.

Today's Democrats, in short, have just one public policy proposal — scare voters into re-electing them…

http://news.investors.com/article/609190/201204251909/democrats-fear-mongering-election-strategy.htm

The Democrats have gone from “we have nothing to fear but fear itself” to “be afraid, be very afraid.” It’s the negativity that will make them at first sound alarmist, then tiresome and finally irrelevant.

6. How Americans feel about their Government

A decade ago, Americans felt similarly about their local, state and federal governments. No longer.

Today, just one in three has a favorable view of the federal government — the lowest level in 15 years, according to a Pew survey. The majority of Americans remain satisfied with their local and state governments — 61 percent and 52 percent, respectively — but only 33 percent feel likewise about the federal government.

In 2002, nearly double that figure, 64 percent, viewed the federal government favorably, and Americans held their local and state governments in similar esteem, at 67 percent and 62 percent, respectively.

There’s the expected partisan gap: A majority of Democrats, 51 percent, view the Obama-led government favorably, compared to 27 percent of independents and 20 percent of Republicans. During the Bush presidency, a majority of Republicans viewed the federal government favorably, while support for it faded among Democrats….

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0412/75666.html#ixzz1tBSiaj2C

What should be very worrisome to Obama are the independents views. In 2008 the Republicans lost the independents and lost the election.