Columnist.
ATLANTA -- Kasim Reed is a Democrat. He supports President Obama. He's no candidate for converting to the GOP. But whether one is a Republican or Democrat, they should be following the career of this young and vibrant man who is teaching the rest of America how to handle a crisis. Like mayors in many other cities, Mayor Reed of Atlanta was confronted with hundreds of protestors who took to the city's most prominent downtown park and made it their home, to live, eat and protest against all types of groups and for all kinds of causes.
This is too juicy not to share. It's a little gossipy and involved, but it stars three presidential candidates, so it's topical stuff. It all goes back to 1990. Johnny Isakson, now a U.S. senator from Georgia, was then running for governor of the Peach State. I was running for lieutenant governor at age 29. Credit (or blame) Newt Gingrich for my candidacy. He'd been my friend and mentor since my college days. He encouraged me to run as a Republican in what was then an overwhelmingly Democratic state. He thought a young Republican candidate would help recruit young Georgians to the GOP.
America is undergoing a revolution. Two revolutions, to be exact. One is made up of hardworking families who believe that what matters -- or should matter -- are their good efforts, minimal government intrusion in their lives, and a fair but free enterprise system that incentivizes small businesses and doesn't countermand that incentive by imposing a burdensome tax liability. The other revolution is made up of people who believe that both government and those who are successful in life owe them something; that the United States should be a nation of equitable distribution, and not one of free enterprise. Sadly, the polling tells me that these two nations within one are meeting in the middle. They don't share beliefs, but they are sharing similar frustrations.
Make no mistake about it. Both Herman Cain and Newt Gingrich know exactly what they are doing. They are, collectively -- with Cain's significant increase in the polls and Gingrich's slow but steady rise -- working to ensure that a conservative agenda, even a somewhat rebellious agenda, is in place regardless of who is the nominee of the GOP. Cain is a brilliant businessman. Trust me; I know him well. What he lacks in knowledge of government he more than makes up for in business acumen. He could easily damage most of his fellow GOP contenders with one simple question: "Tell me, what is a profit and loss statement and a balance sheet?" Save Mitt Romney, most would muddle their way through an answer.
If anyone ever believed that the more conservative Bill Clinton really thought the more liberal Barack Obama was prepared to be president in 2008, let them wonder no longer. Clinton might seem to be in a tight spot, given that his wife works for Obama. But in an interview conducted by Newsmax's CEO, Christopher Ruddy, the former president made it clear that now is neither the time to be increasing taxes nor to be imposing more regulations on businesses and consumers.
Let's get this straight once and for all: The vast -- and I mean vast -- majority of those who identify themselves as Republican voters, or as independents who likely will vote in Republican primaries in 2012, has no problems with the tenets and beliefs of the tea party movement. It's a laugh-out-loud moment when national political pundits continue to have weighty discussions about a "battle between the GOP establishment and the tea party." Make no mistake: Such discussion is designed to create that very division. Because it doesn't exist right now.
Finally the candy-pants White House press corps has come to its senses. Or at least a few members of that pro-Obama, softball-tossing group of so-called journalists have. Chief among them, and from traditional media, is ABC's Jake Tapper. I was amazed in early August when Tapper challenged the boyish-looking and smug presidential press secretary Jay Carney (who, ironically, is married to one of Tapper's fellow correspondents at ABC). Tapper up and asked what if any plans the president had to create jobs in America. It was part of a rare, unique barrage of questions toward Carney, and he was unable to handle it.
This time of year is traditionally about the start of school, the start of football and the end of summer. Labor Day is emblematic of the season, and with Labor Day comes the annual "Jerry Lewis Telethon" to raise money for muscular dystrophy research and treatment. I need to confess at the outset that Jerry Lewis' comedy has brought me not much more than an occasional wry smile. I'll leave the belly laughs to the French, who are said to adore his slapstick antics.
I've always considered former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush to be an astute political observer. But when I hear him suggest the need to include "revenue" as part of the proposal by the ridiculous "Super Committee" of Congress to cut another $1.2 trillion of federal spending, I see white flags and images of Swiss cheese holes coming into view. Then I read that Republicans in Congress, while fighting "every possible tax increase," want to hand President Obama the election by opposing his effort to continue the cut in the payroll deduction tax that is now in place. Now that hunk of cheese is beginning to smell like the Republican establishment's rotten "go along, get along" politics.
It seems like everything is going wrong for President Obama. Polling shows that white voters and independents who bolstered his effort in 2008 have soured on his presidency. Meanwhile members of the Congressional Black Caucus are complaining that he hasn't done enough to address the high unemployment rate for African Americans. And then there's this idiotic bus tour. Who in the administration came up with the brilliant plan of putting the president on what looks like the Darth Vader of buses and sticking him out in territories that are red hot with tea party fever?
Wall Street analyst Meredith Whitney has ventured into an area she should have avoided -- political analysis. The results were not pretty. Deprived of the hike in revenue they so desired from the recent debt-ceiling legislation, the nation's left-of-center political wing now is intent on getting their hands on more taxes from "the rich." Expect them to increasingly use class warfare rhetoric and degradation of the tea party as a means to reach their goal.
So many want to put the entire blame on President Barack Obama for the reckless spending and huge debt that America suffers from. But it took an entire village of idiots to get us here. Americans recognize this. A nationwide poll conducted by InsiderAdvantage for NewsMax found that a whopping 73 percent of the country disapproved of the "overall job performance of the U.S. House, Senate, and the president in their collective efforts to raise the national debt ceiling."
About a year before he made his first run for the presidency, I had a chance to sit down and talk extensively with former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. I found him more personable than much of the media had portrayed him. He was as sharp as a pinprick on the issues, but maybe a little too polished to win over many "regular" Americans. I wasn't persuaded that he was the bedrock conservative he professed to be. And I sure didn't judge him to be on the fast track to the White House. That was in 2008. Nowadays, I watch Romney on the campaign trail. I listen to his responses in public debates. I chat up some of his closest political supporters and friends. And I become increasingly convinced that if the Republicans really want to get Barack Obama out of office, they might have to rally around the man who has the most going for him in 2012. That's Mitt Romney.
It's true that the constitutional framers intended the Senate to be "the saucer that cools the tea" of the House of Representatives. But we live in strange times. We've witnessed a president put forth a nearly $1 trillion "stimulus package" that didn't work. We've seen a coalition of Republicans and Democrats make another pass at righting the world's economic ship by passing a TARP plan that ultimately benefited only banks and automakers. Given those giant missteps, it's sheer lunacy for federal lawmakers -- certainly for Republican ones -- to try again to save the economy by doing anything less than face up to the fact that Congress must spend less money, rather than looking for new sources of revenue.
The Republicans surged to majority status in the U.S. House of Representatives in November 2010 thanks in large part to the support of many independent voters who shifted their allegiance to the GOP. But the party's candidates risk losing that support, and also losing the voter intensity and enthusiasm they would otherwise likely enjoy in November 2012, if congressional Republicans sign on to any legislative scheme that raises the federal debt ceiling. It's just that simple.
I know, and I get it. In my mind -- and this is just my opinion -- Casey Anthony had some involvement in the death of her child Caylee. And in the weeks following the tragedy, Casey displayed behavior that was both bizarre and callous beyond measure. Most of the nation is furious with a Florida jury's verdict of not guilty on the charges involving the death of Caylee Anthony. Having defended a capital murder case, one in which a 17-year-old was facing the possibility of a death sentence, I have a sadly informed perspective when it comes to locally or nationally prominent death penalty trials.
Here's a news flash for every Republican candidate who wants to replace Barack Obama in the 2012 election cycle -- it's Florida, stupid. Candidates can spend all the time they want in Iowa. They can visit every household and sip a cup at every coffee shop, and it likely will get them what it got Mike Huckabee in Iowa four years ago -- an unimportant victory. The same goes for New Hampshire. That state is the size of a postage stamp in electoral politics. (It's also quite lovely, and I'd rather live there than in most states. But politics is politics.)
Like the man who stood in the middle of the road, Newt Gingrich has been brutally beaten up by political and media traffic going both ways. But he has vowed not to get out of the race for the Republican presidential nomination. The fact is, knowing how quickly Newt can be prone to hit the "I'm-out-of-here" button, I'm shocked that he has stuck to his guns through as much seemingly disastrous news as he has endured already in the race. Not only was his first "announcement" for president a complete fiasco, but his second "official" announcement gave him a boost, only to be followed soon by having most of his campaign staff walk away from his campaign.
The recent CNN debate among the current candidates for the Republican nomination for president illustrated once more that political debates have become more about the moderators and reporters, and also about endless social media and technical gimmicks, than about the candidates themselves. Before I criticize, let me offer a defense of the moderator of the CNN debate, John King. He suffered some pretty bad press reviews for his repeated tries at interrupting the candidates in order to keep them within the 30 seconds in which they each were allowed to speak. King was a victim of the way the debate was set up. He was merely trying to keep a really bad format on track.
