Although Mitt Romney has yet to win a majority in a Republican primary, he won big in Florida. After he and the pro-Romney super PACs flooded the airwaves with millions of dollars' worth of ads in a state where nearly half the homeowners are underwater, he talked about whom he wants to represent. "We will hear from the Democrat Party the plight of the poor, and there's no question, it's not good being poor," he told CNN's Soledad O'Brien. "You could choose where to focus, you could focus on the rich, that's not my focus. You could focus on the very poor, that's not my focus. My focus is on middle-income Americans." Of the very rich, Romney assures us, "They're doing just fine." With an estimated personal wealth of $250 million, Romney should know.
Mitt Romney
U.S. politicians and archaic politics in a modern world
One has to wonder about the people who run the world, and those who hope to run it. Not many of them seem too interested in running it for the benefit of most of the people on it or for future generations. If they were, things would not be in such a mess today. The more I watch the performance of world leaders and those striving to be a leader, like the current crop of Republican presidential hopefuls south of the border, the more it is obvious that we are in a 21st-century society being governed by 18th and 19th-century thinking. That, of course, is assuming that there is much thinking going on at all.
2.jpg "David Climenhaga, author of the Alberta Diary blog, is a journalist, author, journalism teacher, poet and trade union communicator who has worked in senior writing and editing positions with the Toronto Globe and Mail and the Calgary Herald. His 1995 book, A Poke in the Public Eye, explores the relationships among Canadian journalists, public relations people and politicians. He left journalism after the strike at the Calgary Herald in 1999 and 2000 to work as Communications Director of the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees, which with more than 73,000 members is Alberta’s largest union and Canada’s 10th largest. Alberta Diary focuses on Alberta politics and social issues. Contact: albertadiary @ gmail.com")
Ex-MLA Shiraz Shariff gives Redford favourite Ken Hughes the bum's rush in Alberta nomination battle
| January 23, 2012Republican caucuses are first example of new electoral corporate spending in U.S.
The Republican caucuses in Iowa, with their cliffhanger ending, confirmed two key political points and left a third virtually ignored. First, the Republicans are not enthusiastic about any of their candidates. Second, we have entered a new era in political campaigning in the United States post-Citizens United, the U.S. Supreme Court decision that unleashed a torrent of unreported corporate money into our electoral process. And third, because President Barack Obama is running in this primary season unchallenged, scant attention has been paid to the growing discontent among the very people who put him in office in 2008. As a result, the 2012 presidential election promises to be long, contentious, extremely expensive and perhaps more negative than any in history.
The Obama presidency: Expansion of Bush era or new 'push era'
Back when Barack Obama was still just a U.S. senator running for president, he told a group of donors in a New Jersey suburb, "Make me do it." He was borrowing from President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who used the same phrase (according to Harry Belafonte, who heard the story directly from Eleanor Roosevelt) when responding to legendary union organizer A. Philip Randolph's demand for civil rights for African-Americans.
While President Obama has made concession after concession to both the corporate-funded tea party and his Wall Street donors, now that he is again in campaign mode, his progressive critics are being warned not to attack him, as that might aid and abet the Republican bid for the White House.
Richard III, 9/11 and the relentless drive for political power
Last Sunday in Stratford I saw Seana McKenna play Shakespeare's Richard III in a stunning version of that amazing play. It was also deeply relevant to us politically. Much of that has to do with casting an actress as a king.
