United Liberty

Since the Supreme Court’s ruling on ObamaCare, Mitt Romney’s campaign has engaged in mixed messaging as they struggle to find out what exactly the believe or, at the very least, what they think Americans want to hear. The editoral board at the Wall Street Journal isn’t pleased and is pushing Team Romney to get its act together:

Appearing on MSNBC, close Romney adviser Eric Fehrnstrom was asked by host Chuck Todd if Mr. Romney “agrees with the president” and “believes that you shouldn’t call the tax penalty a tax, you should call it a penalty or a fee or a fine?”

“That’s correct,” Mr. Fehrnstrom replied, before attempting some hapless spin suggesting that Mr. Obama must be “held accountable” for his own “contradictory” statements on whether it is a penalty or tax. Predictably, the Obama campaign and the media blew past Mr. Fehrnstrom’s point, jumped on the tax-policy concession, and declared the health-care tax debate closed.

For conservative optimists who think Mr. Fehrnstrom misspoke or is merely dense, his tax absolution gift to Mr. Obama was confirmed by campaign spokeswoman Andrea Saul, who tried the same lame jujitsu spin. In any event, Mr. Fehrnstrom is part of the Boston coterie who are closest to Mr. Romney, and he wouldn’t say such a thing without the candidate’s approval.

While none of his rivals have landed a punch on the health care issue — though it seems like Rick Santorum is on the right path, it is certainly something that Mitt Romney will continue deal with during his campaign as he bobs and weaves from his own past statements; as the Wall Street Journal notes:

The exchange began when Rick Santorum scored Mr. Romney for lacking health-care “credibility,” since the 2006 Bay State reform “was the basis for ObamaCare.” If the first claim is for primary voters to decide, no one who knows anything about health policy on the left or right would deny the second: When Democrats wrote the Affordable Care Act in 2009 and 2010, they borrowed liberally from Mr. Romney’s model.

If the plans are not identical in every detail, they share major phenotypes: an individual mandate to buy health insurance or else pay a penalty; large transfer payments to subsidize the middle class; and much more government control over how insurance plans are structured, how medical services are delivered, and how both are priced.

“This is something that was crafted for Massachusetts,” Mr. Romney responded in Las Vegas, repeating his stock answer. “It would be wrong to adopt this as a nation.” The former Governor says Mr. Obama’s plan “must be repealed” and then states can experiment with their own health-care solutions.
[…]
But the larger and more important point is that Mr. Romney continues to defend his Massachusetts plan as a success for precisely the same reasons that President Obama says it should be imposed on all states. In reality, the Massachusetts plan is not a success and its problems are the best refutation of the duo’s arguments.

The reactions on Mitt Romney’s economic proposals are in and they’re mixed for the most part. As noted yesterday, the proposal are most a rehash of what he put out during his last presidential four years ago. The Wall Street Journal isn’t impressed:

Mitt Romney rolled out a major chunk of his economic agenda yesterday, and we’ll say this for it: His ideas are better than President Obama’s. Yet the 160 pages and 59 proposals also strike us as surprisingly timid and tactical considering our economic predicament. They’re a technocrat’s guide more than a reform manifesto.

The Club for Growth, which has been critical of Romney on healthcare and his consistency on economic issues, notes that there are parts of the proposal that sound good, but it’s counterproductive when it comes to China:

“Governor Romney deserves praise for his specific plan to put America on a path to economic prosperity.” said Club for Growth President Chris Chocola. “Eliminating taxes on savings and investment, pushing for a flatter tax system, and cutting the corporate tax are positive steps. Governor Romney has correctly identified that a lower regulatory burden would create a positive climate for economic growth and has laid out pro-growth specifics on how to accomplish this goal. Unlike President Obama, who has given nothing but empty rhetoric promising more of the same failed policies, Governor Romney has offered specific solutions that demonstrate his potential as President. Every top-tier Presidential candidate should issue a comparable blueprint for Americans to review.”

I’m not a fan of Sarah Palin.  She lost me about the time she claimed she was an expert on foreign policy because she could see Russia from Alaska.  Like comedian D.L. Hughley said, “I can see the moon from my house, it doesn’t make me an astronaut.”  I agreed.  However, despite her flirtatious attitude towards possibly running for President, she’s earned a little of my respect.  She earned a little more with her speech Sunday night.

From the Wall Street Journal:

When former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney addressed a tea party crowd in New Hampshire Sunday night, he again doubled-down on his assertion that “corporations are people,” a line he first used at the Iowa State Fair last month in explaining why he wouldn’t raise taxes on big businesses.

“I said ‘corporations are people,’ and the Democrats said, ‘Oh, he’s in big trouble now saying something like that,’” Mr. Romney said. “Well don’t they understand that we work for corporations?” Mr. Romney made his fortune as co-founder of the private equity firm Bain Capital.

It was a marked contrast from the approach Ms. Palin took during her speech in Indianola, Iowa, Saturday. After repeatedly accusing President Barack Obama of steering government to benefit corporate campaign donors, she turned to her party’s presidential candidates: “To be fair, some GOP candidates, they also raise mammoth amounts of cash,” Ms. Palin said. “What, if anything, do their donors expect for their investments?”

As we head into tonight’s debate at the Reagan Library in California, the first since Rick Perry joined the field, we have three polls to go through since so much has come out in the last few days. This is probably too much for one post, but it’s probably best to lay it out all at once instead of three separate posts.

With this also, the only commentary I’ll offer is just to say that the race is now a two-man race between Perry and Romney. That’s not to say that other candidates aren’t deserving of attention or respect, especially since a couple of them will continue to help drive the narrative over the course of the primary. But the numbers don’t lie.

We’ll start with the latest Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll, which is good news for Perry and bad for Romney; who trials by 15 points:

• Rick Perry: 38%
• Mitt Romney: 23%
• Ron Paul: 9%
• Michele Bachmann: 8%
• Newt Gingrich: 5%
• Herman Cain: 5%
• Rick Santorum: 3%
• Jon Huntsman: 2%
• None/Not sure: 7%

And while President Barack Obama is taking heat for the economy, he still leads in pospective head-to-head matchups against both Romney and Rick Perry. Here are those numbers:

Barack Obama v. Rick Perry

• Obama: 47%
• Perry: 42%
• Neither/other: 4%
• Unsure: 5%

Barack Obama v. Mitt Romney

Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann continues to gain on, and in at least one instance surpass, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney in national polling, which is largely useless given that we’re dealing with state caucuses and primaries to determine delegates for presidential candidates. However, these polls do offer us, as I’ve noted before, a sense of where Republican voters are right now.

The latest NBC/Wall Street Journal poll shows Romney still leading, but Bachmann picking up more support since their last poll:

• Mitt Romney: 30%
• Michele Bachmann: 16%
• Rick Perry: 11%
• Ron Paul: 9%
• Newt Gingrich: 8%
• Herman Cain: 5%
• Rick Santorum: 3%
• Jon Huntsman: 2%
• Tim Pawlenty: 2%

Cain has dropped off substantially from the last NBC/WSJ poll; he was at 12% and is now at 5%. They also left Sarah Palin out of this poll, it’s like her support gets divided between Bachmann and Perry.

Public Policy Polling, a Democratic firm, also polled the race recently under two scenarios; with and without the presence of Sarah Palin.

Here is how the race shapes up with Palin:

• Mitt Romney: 20%
• Michele Bachmann: 16%
• Sarah Palin: 12%
• Rick Perry: 11%
• Herman Cain: 10%
• Ron Paul: 9%
• Newt Gingrich: 6%
• Tim Pawlenty: 5%
• Jon Huntsman: 2%
• Other/Undecided: 10%

And without Palin:

It has been conventional wisdom that Rep. Paul Ryan’s budget plan hurts Republicans and gives Democrats an advantage in the 2012 election. However, a new Wall Street Journal/NBC poll suggests otherwise:

A Wall Street Journal/NBC poll asks Americans whether they would be more likely or less likely to vote for a candidate who “supports changing Medicare for those under 55 to a system where people choose their insurance from a list of private health plans and the government pays a fixed amount, sometimes called a voucher, towards that cost.”

The results: 38% are more likely to vote for a candidate who supports Ryan’s Medicare reform, 37% are less likely to vote for that candidate, while 18% say it makes “no difference” in determining their vote, and 7% are not sure.

If that number stands, that’s pretty great news for Republicans.

And one could even quibble with the question wording. It uses the much feared “voucher” word, which Ryan’s reform technically isn’t. And it simply says future beneficiaries could put their voucher toward “private health plans,” potentially leaving the wrong impression that some seniors could be denied coverage in the open marketplace. The private plans would be regulated by the government and required to offer coverage to all beneficiaries.

The United States government is bound and determined to control who says what and how when it comes to political campaigns.  After the controversial Citizens United ruling, despite the fact that there are still plenty of headaches involved in groups trying to influence elections, the Internal Revenue Service has decided to flex its muscle in putting a stop to what some feel is undue influence by some parties.

The IRS has decided to start charging tax to people who donate money to 503(c)(4) organizations.  The gift tax, which has been around for a while, actually charges a tax to the person who donates the money.  This is rather unusual because non-profit donations have often been seen as tax deductible in most cases, or at least tax neutral.  From the Wall Street Journal:

The letters are especially odd since the purpose of the gift tax has traditionally been used in coordination with the estate tax, to prevent people from avoiding the tax by divesting their wealth before they die. Contributions to 501(c)(4)s aren’t a routine death tax avoidance mechanism, and the contributions now under scrutiny are a pittance compared to overall gift tax revenues. So, hmmm, what could be the reason to start asserting the provision now, and only against a handful of high-profile political donors?

RS spokesman Michelle Eldridge said in a statement last week that the letters are the idea of career IRS employees, not the White House, and that they are part of a larger investigation of gift tax compliance. Count us skeptical that a new targeted enforcement plan, likely coordinated between at least two of the highly compartmentalized divisions of the IRS, was just cooked up by some career guys.

Yesterday, Republicans were successful in their attempt to filibuster, by a vote of 53 to 43 (60 votes were needed for cloture), the nomination of Goodwin Liu to the Ninth District Court of Appeals:

Senate Republicans staged the first successful filibuster of a judicial nominee since 2005 on Thursday, dealing a blow to the Obama administration on the long-stalled nomination of Goodwin Liu to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

The final vote was 52-43, eight votes shy of the 60 needed to overcome the filibuster. Only one Republican joined Democrats in supporting Liu, and only one Democrat voted no to opening debate on the 40-year-old University of California, Berkeley professor’s nomination.
[…]
Republicans have maintained that Liu’s liberal views on issues like same-sex marriage and affirmative action put him outside the mainstream, pointing to his writings that additional individual rights can be found in the Constitution.

Liu also drew Republican ire over his criticism of Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito in testimony when the conservative judge was nominated to the court.

“His outrageous attack on Judge Alito convinced me that Goodwin Liu is an ideologue,” South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham said before Thursday’s vote. “His statement showed he has nothing but disdain for those who disagree with him. Goodwin Liu should run for elected office, not serve as a judge.”

The Wall Street Journal noted in an editoral against his confirmation that Liu would have been the “most left-wing judge ever”: