CNN Florida debate: Winners and losers

Best GOP debate lines, from grandmas to lunar colonies (1:36) 

Discussions of lunar colonies and grandmas were among the must-see moments at the Republican debate in Florida on Thursday night. (Jan. 26) (Courtesy of CNN)

Posted by Aaron Blake and Rachel Weiner at 06:00 AM ET, 01/27/2012

 

Jacksonville, Fla., and CNN put on one of the best debates of the GOP presidential race on Thursday night — a debate that is sure to have an effect on Tuesday’s all-important Florida primary.
The Fix was live-chatting all night, but we also thought we’d pass along our thoughts on the debate, in the form — naturally — of winners and losers.

WINNERS

* Mitt Romney: The obvious one, yes. It wasn’t all good for the former Massachusetts governor, but given how lackluster Newt Gingrich’s performance was, it’s hard not to call this anything but a win for Romney, who wins whenever Gingrich fails.
In fact, Romney slipped up a few times. He again said rather tone-deafly that he would “fire” somebody who told him a moon colony was a good idea in tough economic times, he incorrectly stated that one of his ads wasn’t his ad, and he suggested to Rick Santorum that President Obama’s health care bill wasn’t something to get angry about (we think many Republicans are pretty openly angry about it).
And in none of these three cases did Romney’s opponents — and particularly Gingrich — make him pay for it.
Truth be told, there were openings for Gingrich; he just didn’t take advantage of them.

* Moderators: Gingrich tried to return to his days of ragging on debate moderators, but it went poorly.
At one point, CNN’s Wolf Blitzer asked Gingrich whether he was happy with Romney’s disclosure of some of his tax returns, and Gingrich recoiled at the question.
“This is a nonsense question,” he said.
That would have been fine, except that Gingrich himself has pushed the issue for the past week-plus. And Romney called him on it.
Gingrich argues: “I’m perfectly happy to say that in an interview on some TV show, but this is a national debate, where you have a chance to get the four of us to talk about a whole range of issues.”
Romney’s on-key response: “Wouldn’t it be nice if people didn’t make accusations somewhere else that they weren’t willing to defend here?
Blitzer: 1. Gingrich: 0.

* Santorum: The former Pennsylvania senator isn’t being given much of a chance given his poor showing so far in Florida, but he had a good night Thursday.
Santorum landed the most effective blows of the night on Romney, targeting him on the health care bill he signed as governor of Massachusetts, and had quality answers when asked about immigration, religion, and his wife.
Will it rocket Santorum back to frontrunner status? No. But will it help him reclaim some lost momentum? Yes.

* The elderly: Romney made sure to clarify that his “self-deportation” policy didn’t target grandmothers, and Rep. Ron Paul, at 76 years old, challenged each of his opponents to a 25-mile bike ride to prove his physical health.
Power to the seniors, indeed.

LOSERS

* Gingrich: For the second straight debate, Gingrich was just plain off his game.
Blitzer goaded Gingrich twice early on to engage Romney on immigration, and Gingrich declined both times. When Blitzer finally got the former House speaker to reiterate his claim that Romney was anti-immigrant, Romney pounced on it and offered an impassioned and broad defense of his ties to the Hispanic community.
It set the tone for a debate in which Gingrich looked less prepared and never really recovered.

* Applause bans: One thing we can all agree on — applause makes for a more interesting debate. Thursday’s debate was just much better than Monday’s for this simple reason.
While the room might be a little biased towards one candidate or another, it has generally been a pretty good gage of when the candidates have made good points that please the base and when they have fallen short.
In fact, the audience seems to have taken to expressing disapproval as well, which makes things even more interesting.
New rule for all future debates: No applause bans.

* Callista Gingrich: We suspect Newt may have had some explaining to do after the debate, given that he passed on a chance to say why his wife, Callista, would be the best First Lady.
“I would rather just to talk about why I like Callista, and why I’d like her to be First Lady, but she’s not necessarily in any way better,” Gingrich said.
We know he was trying to be gracious, but really!? The guy who has spent the last year arguing that he’s the best candidate won’t say that his wife would be the best First Lady?
Not good.

Blind trust fact-check: The National Journal looks into Romney’s claim that his Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac investments are in a blind trust and finds it lacking.
The $250,001 and $500,000 Romney owned in a mutual fund that invested in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac debt notes — what Gingrich pressed him on — were not in a blind trust.
Moreover, Romney was a frequent critic of blind trusts in his 1994 campaign against Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.).
“The blind trust is an age-old ruse. You give a blind trust rules,” he told the Boston Globe at the time.
Gingrich apparently wasn’t armed with that quote Thursday.

Obama pushes back on Gingrich: In an interview with ABC News’ Diane Sawyer aired Thursday, Obama took an aggressive new campaign tone.
Asked “how much” he wanted a second term, Obama responded, “Badly, because I think the country needs it.”
Obama also pushed back on Gingrich’s oft-repeated “food stamp president line,” saying, “I don’t put people on food stamps. People become eligible for food stamps. Second of all, the initial expansion of food-stamp eligibility happened under my Republican predecessor, not under me. No. 3, when you have a disastrous economic crash that results in eight million people losing their jobs, more people are going to need more support from government.”

Fixbits:

Gingrich finally gets some support from his former House colleagues: namely, convicted former congressman Randy “Duke” Cunningham (R-Calif.).
A Gingrich spokesman gets into it with a Romney-supporting member of Congress.
Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (D-Fla.), despite backing Romney, doesn’t like Romney’s term “self-deportation.”
The American Enterprise Institute likens the results of Romney’s health care bill to Obama’s.
Republican businessman Bill Maloney is officially in for another run against West Virginia Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin (D).

Ron Paul signed off on racist newsletters in the 1990s, associates say

View Photo Gallery — Ron Paul: Rep. Ron Paul (R-Tex.), who has built a loyal following among libertarians, is running for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination.

 

Ron Paul signed off on racist newsletters in the 1990s, associates say

View Photo Gallery — Ron Paul: Rep. Ron Paul (R-Tex.), who has built a loyal following among libertarians, is running for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination.

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By Jerry Markon and Alice Crites, Friday, January 27, 8:29 AM

Ron Paul, well known as a physician, congressman and libertarian, has also been a businessman who pursued a marketing strategy that included publishing provocative, racially charged newsletters to make money and spread his ideas, according to three people with direct knowledge of Paul’s businesses.
The Republican presidential candidate has denied writing inflammatory passages in the pamphlets from the 1990s and said recently that he did not read them at the time or for years afterward. Numerous colleagues said he does not hold racist views.

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Presidential candidate Ron Paul challenged fellow debaters to a 25-mile bike ride after moderator Wolf Blitzer asked about his age and health. (Jan. 26)

Associates: Paul pursued strategy of publishing controversial newsletters

By Jerry Markon and Alice Crites, Friday, January 27, 8:29 AM

Ron Paul, well known as a physician, congressman and libertarian, has also been a businessman who pursued a marketing strategy that included publishing provocative, racially charged newsletters to make money and spread his ideas, according to three people with direct knowledge of Paul’s businesses.
The Republican presidential candidate has denied writing inflammatory passages in the pamphlets from the 1990s and said recently that he did not read them at the time or for years afterward. Numerous colleagues said he does not hold racist views.
But people close to Paul’s operations said he was deeply involved in the company that produced the newsletters, Ron Paul & Associates, and closely monitored its operations, signing off on articles and speaking to staff members virtually every day.
“It was his newsletter, and it was under his name, so he always got to see the final product. . . . He would proof it,’’ said Renae Hathway, a former secretary in Paul’s company and a supporter of the Texas congressman.
The newsletters point to a rarely seen and somewhat opaque side of Paul, who has surprised the political community by becoming an important factor in the Republican race. The candidate, who has presented himself as a kindly doctor and political truth-teller, declined in a recent debate to release his tax returns, joking that he would be “embarrassed” about his income compared with that of his richer GOP rivals.
Yet a review of his enterprises reveals a sharp-eyed businessman who for nearly two decades oversaw the company and a nonprofit foundation, intertwining them with his political career. The newsletters, which were launched in the mid-1980s and bore such names as the Ron Paul Survival Report, were produced by a company Paul dissolved in 2001.
The company shared offices with his campaigns and foundation at various points, according to those familiar with the operation. Public records show Paul’s wife and daughter were officers of the newsletter company and foundation; his daughter also served as his campaign treasurer.
Jesse Benton, a presidential campaign spokesman, said that the accounts of Paul’s involvement were untrue and that Paul was practicing medicine full time when “the offensive material appeared under his name.” Paul “abhors it, rejects it and has taken responsibility for it as he should have better policed the work being done under his masthead,” Benton said. He did not comment on Paul’s business strategy.
Mark Elam, a longtime Paul associate whose company printed the newsletters, said Paul “was a busy man” at the time. “He was in demand as a speaker; he was traveling around the country,’’ Elam said in an interview coordinated by Paul’s campaign. “I just do not believe he was either writing or regularly editing this stuff.’’
In the past, Paul has taken responsibility for the passages because they were published under his name. But last month, he told CNN that he was unaware at the time of the controversial passages. “I’ve never read that stuff. I’ve never read — I came — was probably aware of it 10 years after it was written.’’ Paul said.
A person involved in Paul’s businesses, who spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid criticizing a former employer, said Paul and his associates decided in the late 1980s to try to increase sales by making the newsletters more provocative. They discussed adding controversial material, including racial statements, to help the business, the person said.
“It was playing on a growing racial tension, economic tension, fear of government,’’ said the person, who supports Paul’s economic policies but is not backing him for president. “I’m not saying Ron believed this stuff. It was good copy. Ron Paul is a shrewd businessman.’’
The articles included racial, anti-Semitic and anti-gay content. They claimed, for example, that the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. “seduced underage girls and boys’’; they ridiculed black activists by suggesting that New York be named “Zooville” or “Lazyopolis”; and they said the 1992 Los Angeles riots ended “when it came time for the blacks to pick up their welfare checks.’’ The June 1990 edition of the Ron Paul Political Report included the statement: “Homosexuals, not to speak of the rest of society, were far better off when social pressure forced them to hide their activities.”
It is unclear precisely how much money Paul made from his newsletters, but during the years he was publishing them, he reduced his debts and substantially increased his net worth, according to his congressional and presidential disclosure reports. In 1984, he reported debt of up to $765,000, most of which was gone by 1995, when he reported a net worth of up to $3.3 million. Last year, he reported a net worth up to $5.2 million.
The newsletters bore his name in large print and featured articles on topics ranging from investment advice to political commentary. Frequently written in first person, they contained personalized notes, such as holiday greetings from Paul and his wife, Carol.
The Washington Post obtained dozens of copies of the newsletters from the Wisconsin Historical Society. Texas news outlets wrote about them in 1996, and the New Republic published extensive excerpts in 2008. The issue resurfaced late last year, when Paul’s presidential campaign picked up momentum. The extent of Paul’s involvement and his business strategy had not been known.
Paul’s publishing operation began through a nonprofit organization he created in 1976, the Foundation for Rational Economics and Education, which advocates for limited government and a free market. The group, founded the year Paul entered Congress, published Ron Paul’s Freedom Report, mostly a collection of his congressional speeches and commentaries.
In 1984, just before losing a Senate bid and leaving Congress, Paul formed Ron Paul & Associates. He soon began publishing the Ron Paul Investment Letter, initially offering mostly economic and monetary information. Texas tax records listed Paul as president of the business, his wife as secretary, his daughter, Lori Paul Pyeatt, as treasurer, and a longtime Paul associate, Lew Rockwell, as vice president.
Ed Crane, the longtime president of the libertarian Cato Institute, said he met Paul for lunch during this period, and the two men discussed direct-mail solicitations, which Paul was sending out to interest people in his newsletters. They agreed that “people who have extreme views” are more likely than others to respond.
Crane said Paul reported getting his best response when he used a mailing list from the now-defunct newspaper Spotlight, which was widely considered anti-Semitic and racist.
Benton, Paul’s spokesman, said that Crane’s account “sounds odd” and that Paul did not recall the conversation.
At the time, Paul’s investment letter was languishing. According to the person involved with his businesses, Paul and others hit upon a solution: to “morph” the content to capi­tal­ize on a growing fear among some on the political right about the nation’s changing demographics and threats to economic liberty.
The investment letter became the Ron Paul Survival Report — a name designed to intrigue readers, the company secretary said. It cost subscribers about $100 a year. The tone of that and other Paul publications changed, becoming increasingly controversial. In 1992, for example, the Ron Paul Political Report defended chess champion Bobby Fischer, who became known as an anti-Semitic Holocaust denier, for his stance on “Jewish questions.’’
Paul has said he wrote portions of the economic sections. The people familiar with his business said there was no indication that he wrote the controversial material.
Rockwell was the main writer of the racial passages, according to two people with direct knowledge of the business and a third close to Paul’s presidential campaign. Rockwell, founder of a libertarian think tank in Alabama, did not respond to phone calls and e-mails requesting comment. In 2008, he denied in an interview with the New Republic that he was Paul’s ghostwriter.
Paul “had to walk a very fine line,’’ said Eric Dondero Rittberg, a former longtime Paul aide who says Paul allowed the controversial material in his newsletter as a way to make money. Dondero Rittberg said he witnessed Paul proofing, editing and signing off on his newsletters in the mid-1990s.
“The real big money came from some of that racially tinged stuff, but he also had to keep his libertarian supporters, and they weren’t at all comfortable with that,’’ he said.
Dondero Rittberg is no longer a Paul supporter, and officials with Paul’s presidential campaign have said he was fired. Dondero Rittberg disputed that, saying he resigned in 2003 because he opposed Paul’s views on Iraq.
The July 15, 1994, issue of Survival Report exemplified how the newsletters merged material about race with a pitch for business. It contained a passage criticizing the rate of black-on-white crime when “blacks are only 12 percent of the population.’’ That was accompanied by two pages of ads from Ron Paul Precious Metals & Rare Coins, a business Paul used to sell gold and silver coins.
“The explosion you hear may not be the Fourth of July fireworks but the price of silver shooting up,’’ said one of the ads.
Hathway, the former Ron Paul & Associates secretary, said: “We had tons of subscribers, from all over the world. . . . I never had one complaint’’ about the content.
Hathway described Paul as a “hands-on boss” who would come in to the company’s Houston office, about 50 miles from his home, about once a week. And he would call frequently. “He’d ask, ‘How are you doing? Do you need any more money in the account?’ ” she said.
The company also had an office in Clute, Tex., near Paul’s home, which it shared with Paul’s foundation and his campaigns at various points, according to Hathway and Dondero Rittberg.
In 1996, as Paul ran for Congress again, his business success turned into a potential political liability when his newsletters surfaced in the Texas media. Paul was quoted in the Dallas Morning News that year as defending a newsletter line from 1992 that said 95 percent of black men in the District are “semi-criminal or entirely criminal” and that black teenagers can be “unbelievably fleet of foot.”
“If you try to catch someone that has stolen a purse from you, there is no chance to catch them,” the newspaper quoted Paul as saying.
Paul won reelection, then dissolved Ron Paul & Associates in 2001. His nonprofit foundation is still in operation.

Staff researcher Lucy Shackelford contributed to this report.

Uploaded by whitehouse on Jan 25, 2012

The White House honors Catholic education leaders as Champions of Change. January 25, 2012.

Champions of Change: Catholic Education

On Wednesday, January 25th, the White House honored nine leaders in Catholic education from across the country as Champions of Change for their service to their communities and our nation. These extraordinary individuals have made a significant impact on the students, families, and educators through Catholic schools and universities throughout America. Their innovative ideas and dedication to students and to the wider community, demonstrate the strong commitment to ensuring that every child has an opportunity for greatness.

Bertha Castaneda

The child of a hard-working single mother who immigrated to the United States from El Salvador, Bertha Castaneda is a senior at Archbishop Carroll High School in Washington, D.C. She maintains a 4...

Rev. Charles L. Currie, S.J.

Fr. Charles Currie has spent his entire professional life in higher education, as faculty member, administrator, president, and most recently, as president of the Association of Jesuit Colleges...

Rev. John P. Foley, S.J.

After serving the Jesuit missions in Peru for 34 years, working primarily in education, Father Foley returned to Chicago in 1995 to collaborate in establishing Cristo Rey Jesuit High School. A...

Sister Jennie Jones, SFF

Sr. Jennie Jones has been a Sister of the Holy Family for 42 years. She has served as a school principal for 27 years at various Catholic schools. Most recently, Sr. Jones had the opportunity to...

Paul Krebbs

Paul Krebbs has been the President of All Hallows High School for the past nine years. The president serves as the CEO of the school and works closely with the principal and the Board of Directors...

Annette “Mickey” Lentz

Annette “Mickey” Lentz has served the archdiocese as a teacher, principal, and administrator in the Office of Catholic Education for 50 years. Since 2009, she has served the Archdiocese of...

Sister Rosa Maria Ruiz, C.F.M.M.

Sr. Rosa Maria Ruiz, C.F.M.M., has served Catholic education for over 50 years. She has been Superintendent of Catholic Schools for the Diocese of Tucson in Arizona since June 1997. As...

Yvonne Schwab

Yvonne Schwab has been the principal at St. James the Less Catholic School for the last eight years. Prior to that, she served as the school’s Physical Education Teacher. At the point she moved...

Joseph Womac

As the Executive Director of the Fulcrum Foundation for the past eight years, Joe Womac has worked tirelessly on behalf of at risk students and Catholic schools in jeopardy of closing. Under his...

CHAMPIONS BLOG POSTS

• January 25, 2012 at 1:30 PM EST

  Promoting Comtemporary Jesuit Education Locally, Internationally and Globally

  Friar Charles Currie, exudes leadership and encourages education. Serving as the president of the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities (AJCU), Currie influences the hearts and minds of students and faculty from 28 collges across the country.
• January 25, 2012 at 1:30 PM EST

  The Cristo Rey Network: Graduating Scholars and Granting Dreams

  Father Foley, as president of the Cristo Rey Network, empowers inner-city Catholic, college preparatory students to grasp their potential -- their future.
• January 25, 2012 at 1:30 PM EST

  Making Catholic School: A 'Second Home for Students'

  A 2011 National Distinguished Principal Award Winner, Yvonne Schwab has served as the principal at St. James the Less Catholic School for the last eight years.
• January 25, 2012 at 1:30 PM EST

  Overcoming Economic Defecits to Provide Educational Opportunities

  Paul Krebbs effects change in the lives of Catholic high school students at All Hallows High School, in New York, by raising funds to provide them second-to-none education.

READ ALL RELATED BLOG POSTS

Fr. William P. Leahy, S.J.

William P. Leahy, S.J. is the 25th President of Boston College, a post he has held since 1996. He entered the Wisconsin Province of the Society of Jesus in 1967. Father Leahy earned a bachelor’s...

House GOP ready to move on Boehner’s plan to link drilling and infrastructure

By Ben Geman - 01/27/12 11:52 AM ET

A House panel will likely approve bills next week that form the drilling portion of Speaker John Boehner’s (R-Ohio) plan to fund infrastructure projects with cash raised through expanded oil-and-gas development.

The bills will provide Republicans a hook for continuing political attacks against White House energy policies, but are highly unlikely to advance in the Senate or win Obama administration support.

The House GOP plan would open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) to drilling — a nonstarter for the White House and most Democrats — and require a vastly greater expansion of offshore oil-and-gas leasing than the administration supports.

The House Natural Resources Committee will meet Wednesday to mark up three bills. They would open ANWR; require oil-and-gas leasing off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts and remove restrictions in the eastern Gulf of Mexico; and require commercial leasing for oil shale projects in Western states.

“Expanding access to America’s abundant offshore and onshore energy resources will create millions of new American jobs, lower energy prices and generate new revenue to help pay for infrastructure improvements. When new energy resources are developed, we’ll need updated infrastructure to bring it to market. This creates a link that will allow for both American energy jobs and American infrastructure jobs to be created simultaneously,” said House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Doc Hastings (R-Wash.) in a statement.

President Obama in recent days has parried election-season GOP attacks against his oil-and-gas record by touting plans for lease sales in the western and central Gulf of Mexico, and vowing support for expanded onshore natural-gas production and incentives for natural-gas-powered vehicles.

But Republicans allege White House policy leaves far too many areas off-limits to drilling rigs.