2 days ago Poll: Santorum remains on top in Michigan

 

 

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CNN's Ashley Killough

(CNN) - A new poll indicates Rick Santorum is holding onto the top spot in Michigan, the native state of his chief rival Mitt Romney.

Thirty-seven percent of likely Republican primary voters said they would back Santorum, while 32% preferred Romney, according to a new American Research Group survey.

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While the five-point margin falls within the sampling error, it represents the same margin between the two candidates as a similar poll taken earlier than week. On Monday, Santorum held a 33% to 27% advantage over Romney.
Michigan, which holds its primary on February 28, has long been considered home turf for Romney, whose father once governed the Wolverine State. The candidate also carried the state in a much-needed victory in the 2008 Republican primary.
In the last few days, Michigan airwaves have been prime battleground for the campaigns and super PACs, with a major cash flow pouring into ad buys.
Texas Rep. Ron Paul came in third place with 15% support, according to the new survey. Meanwhile, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich came in fourth with 10%, down 11 percentage points since Monday's results. Five percent were undecided.
Also notable, among likely Republican primary voters who will definitely vote in the primary, Santorum held an even wider advantage over Romney, 38% to 30%. And among self-identified independents and Democrats, Santorum led with 40% to Romney's 27%.
Michigan has an open primary in which any registered voter can participate.
The American Research Group conducted the survey between February 15 and February 16, interviewing 600 likely Republican primary voters by phone, with a sampling error of plus or minus four percentage points.

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Romney: Santorum not fiscal conservative

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CNN Political Producer Rachel Streitfeld

Boise, Idaho (CNN) - Mitt Romney unleashed his harshest public attacks to date on his surging rival, Rick Santorum, during a rally in Boise Friday.

The former Massachusetts governor told an audience of more than one thousand people that Santorum was not a fiscal conservative, and accused him of contributing to the rising federal deficit during his time in the Senate.

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"I know that Sen. Santorum is getting his moment in the spotlight now, which is a good thing. I hope people take a very close look at his record," Romney said. "He voted to raise the debt ceiling five different times without compensating cuts. And he's a big proponent of earmarks."
Romney added: "If you want a fiscal conservative you can't vote for Rick Santorum, 'cause he's not."
The GOP candidate has not directly criticized Santorum in campaign events in over a week.
However, Romney's campaign and an outside group supporting him have applied increasing pressure on the former senator, who is riding on a wave of momentum after a trio of wins in early voting states Feb. 7.
Earlier on Friday in Ohio, the state's attorney general Mike DeWine announced he was withdrawing his support for Romney in favor Santorum.
Reporters questioned Romney about the news after his Boise event.
As staffers urged the governor to move along, Romney smiled at reporters and walked away.

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2012: The year of 'birth control moms'?

(Reported by www.politico.com )

Just a few weeks ago, the notion would have seemed far-fetched. The country is deeply divided on abortion, but not on contraception; the vast majority of American women have used it, and access hasn’t been a front-burner political issue since the Supreme Court decided Griswold v. Connecticut in 1965.
But then Rick Santorum said states ought to have the right to outlaw the sale of contraception.
And Susan G. Komen for the Cure yanked its funding for Planned Parenthood.
And the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops teed off on President Barack Obama’s contraception policy.
And House Republicans invited a panel of five men — and no women — to debate the issue.
And a prominent Santorum supporter pined for the days when “the gals” put aspirin “between their knees” to ward off pregnancy.
Democratic strategist Celinda Lake says it’s enough to “really irritate” independent suburban moms and “re-engage” young, single women who haven’t tuned into the campaign so far.
And, she says, the stakes are high: Women backed Barack Obama in big numbers in 2008 but then swung right in 2010. If the president is to win reelection in 2012, he’ll need to win women back — and Lake and other Democrats see the GOP push on contraception as a gift that will make that easier.
“I feel like the world is spinning backwards,” said former Rep. Patricia Schroeder, who has often related the troubles she has as a young married law student getting her birth control prescriptions filled in the early 1960s. “If you had told me when I was in law school that this would be a debate in 2012, I would have thought you were nuts … And everyone I talk to thinks so, too.”
Jennifer Lawless, director of the Women and Politics Institute at American University, also sees the chance of a huge female backlash if the Republicans overreach.
“If women feel they are being targeted again, that women’s health is on the line — that’s not an argument you want to make in an election year,” she said.
Not so, says Republican pollster Kellyanne Conway, who’s advising Newt Gingrich. Voters understand that Republicans aren’t trying to come between women and the pill. They are fighting for constitutionally protected religious freedoms.
“This doesn’t inhibit any woman’s ability to access contraception,” Conway said. “The question is should we pay for it, and should conscientious objectors be forced to compromise their beliefs.”
And, she argued, Obama blundered by talking reproduction while American women want to hear about recovery. Voters see it as a distraction from jobs, jobs, jobs.
“Overreach and distraction can really sink his presidency,” Conway said. “Voters demand a course correction from either party when they see overreach — and in his case, course correction means losing reelection.”
How it plays out between now and November may depend on how long the debate lasts — and whether the contraception-access or religious-freedom frame prevails.
The conservatives on the other side say the fight is not about birth control or women’s health. It’s about morality and religious liberty under the Constitution. And that’s a basic American value that resonates with voters, they say.
“That’s about as fundamentally American as any principle I’m aware of,” Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) told reporters this week. Blunt is sponsoring legislation that would allow any employer to refuse to cover any health benefit on moral grounds — not just birth control or abortion, and not just employers like a school or hospital that have a formal religious affiliation.


Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0212/73043.html#ixzz1moGL2gLL

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Rick Santorum: Will women vote for him?

(Reported by www.politico.com  )
Democrats have an unexpected new foil in their effort to label the GOP as hostile to women: Rick Santorum.
After hammering away for a year at the message that Republicans are indifferent to women’s health and economic well-being, President Barack Obama’s party has been handed a nearly perfect political punching bag in the former Pennsylvania senator, whose down-the-line cultural conservatism is a major selling point in the 2012 primaries.

Gender issues have taken center stage in recent days as Santorum has made incendiary comments suggesting women not be allowed to serve in combat roles in the military (he later said he was concerned men would want to protect them). Santorum has also stood by his opposition to contraception, reiterating his position that it shouldn’t be covered by the national health-care law because it is “inexpensive.” While the ex-senator doesn’t favor outlawing birth control, he is personally opposed to it.

In another major hit this week, Santorum’s most prominent financial backer, Wyoming financier Foster Friess, joked on television that back in the day, women — he called them “gals” — would practice contraception by holding aspirin “between their knees.”
The timing of these flare-ups is politically dangerous for Santorum, as Republicans on Capitol Hill this week held an all-male hearing on birth control and the controversy is just starting to fade over the Obama administration’s health-care ruling on contraception and religious groups.
These issues may work in the ex-senator’s favor in the Republican presidential primary. But to longtime Democratic women operatives, Santorum’s rise in the presidential race represents the return of an old rival — a 1990s-era culture warrior whose political comeback is as shocking as it is inadvertently useful for the Democratic cause.
“He constantly says things that are offensive to women,” said Kim Gandy, former president of the National Organization for Women. “Regardless of whether Republican women like some of his policies, I think they’re going to be so turned off by his judgmental stand on the independence and essential rights of women that they won’t be able to vote for him.”
“The idea that a man who opposes something as widespread as the use of birth control would even be taken seriously as a candidate, would be shocking to me,” Gandy said. “He makes Romney look like a liberal by comparison — but only by comparison. At least Mitt Romney hasn’t said women shouldn’t use birth control.”
Already one of his party’s most ardent abortion rights foes, Santorum, in his 2005 book “It Takes a Family,” advocated an old-school role for women in the home and accused “radical feminists” of undermining families by telling women “professional accomplishments are the key to happiness.” Santorum says his wife authored that section.
Thus far in the presidential race, Santorum hasn’t anchored his campaign message in gender-related issues — or really, in social issues more generally. He has emphasized his cultural traditionalism as a way of drawing contrasts with Romney, but the main thrust of the Republican’s sales pitch is his adherence to small-government conservatism and his pledge to revive the manufacturing sector of the economy.


Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0212/73050.html#ixzz1moF5VKEA

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Clinton to World Bank? Or Summers?

By David Jackson, USA TODAY

Expect to hear a lot of Hillary-Rodham-Clinton-to-World-Bank rumors in the coming days.
The speculation revived right after World Bank President Robert Zoellick announced today he would not seek another term in June.
Early talk is also centering on former Treasury secretary and Obama economic adviser Larry Summers.
"I don't have any information for you regarding possible successors," White House spokesman Jay Carney said.
The U.S. is the largest shareholder in the World Bank, and President Obama's preference will probably get the job.
Asked specifically about Clinton and Summers, Carney said: "There's been a lot of speculation in the press about this and other jobs, and I'm not going to confirm any of them."
Such is the nature of Washington.
Clinton has indicated she does not want to serve as secretary of State in a second Obama term, and it is not known whether she would be interested in another post.
Zoellick, nominated by President George W. Bush, said in a statement, "I'm honored to have led such a world-class institution with so many talented and exceptional people."

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Polls Show Rick Santorum And Mitt Romney Tied: When Will Republicans Decide?

WASHINGTON -- Five new national polls released on Monday or Tuesday all confirm that former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum has gained significant support in the wake of his victories in last week's caucuses and primaries and now runs roughly even with former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney among Republicans nationwide.
The latest national surveys add up to a consistent snapshot of the Republican race. When asked who they prefer as a nominee, Republicans divide almost evenly between Santorum and Romney, with Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) running far behind.
Three of the new surveys, from CNN/ORC International, CBS News/New York Times, the and Pew Research Center, all show Santorum ahead of Romney by margins of 2 to 3 percentage points. The latest Gallup Daily tracking poll shows Romney leading by 2 points and a new Fairleigh Dickinson University survey shows both candidates running even.

Random sampling error accounts for much of the minor variation between the surveys. Since the nomination is decided by a series of statewide primaries and caucuses rather than a national primary, the critical finding is not the precise level of support for each candidate but that the Republican race has taken yet another dramatic turn.
As illustrated by the HuffPost Pollster chart below, based on all national polls on the Republican nomination, Santorum's support has nearly doubled in the last two weeks (to 31.4 percent) putting him into a near tie with Romney (31.1 percent) followed by Gingrich (14.5 percent) and Paul (12.1 percent).

The question everyone is asking is whether the current snapshot will persist or whether Santorum, like a series of conservative "not-Romney" alternatives before him, will soon fade. The polling volatility is likely to continue, since the latest results confirm that Republicans have not yet come to a consensus on their preferred nominee.
In recent Republican and Democratic contests, January proved to be the decisive month in which opinion shifted in a way that either crowned the presumptive nominee -- as with Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) in 2008 and Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) in 2004 -- or shifted to an alignment that remained mostly intact through the remaining primaries (as with President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in 2008).
Not this time. Instead, as explained in a Gallup analysis published on Monday, Republicans have responded to five of the first six primary or caucus nights by "jumping on the winner's bandwagon" and producing an immediate gain in the national polls. As shown in the table below, Romney, Gingrich and Santorum have all experienced increases in support on the Gallup Daily tracking ranging from 6 to 14 percentage points after victories.

The fact that many of these shifts quickly faded suggests that national polls on the Republican race will continue to show the volatility they have demonstrated all along. The conservative Republicans that have been shifting from candidate to candidate remain skeptical of Romney's conservative bonafides, and surveys continue to produce evidence of great voter uncertainty. On the new CBS/New York Times poll, for example, 60 percent of Republican primary voters nationwide say they could still change their minds about which candidate to support.
So at very least, the national polls are likely to shift again based on the outcome of the next set of primaries in Michigan and Arizona on Feb. 28.
No, January was not the month that national polling became more stable, as it did in nomination contests waged over the last decade. Instead, the better model for this year may be the Democratic contest of 1988. In that year, the eventual nominee, Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis (D), finished third in Iowa and then won in New Hampshire, but his victory got lost in coverage of the Republican race and the battle among the other Democratic candidates.
Polls in late 1987 and early 1988 showed no dominant front-runner, and support for Dukakis mostly varied between 10 to 15 percent of Democrats nationwide. His support increased after the New Hampshire primary to 25 percent on a CBS/New York Times survey, putting him roughly 10 percentage points higher than the other Democratic candidates.

But Dukakis failed to win a decisive victory in the Super Tuesday primaries on March 8, 1988. The results that day were something of a wash, with Dukakis, the Rev. Jesse Jackson and Tennessee Sen. Al Gore all winning multiple states. The field narrowed, but another CBS/New York Times poll conducted two weeks later gave Dukakis only a nine-point lead (34 to 25 percent) over Jackson.
It was not until the contest narrowed to just two candidates in April that national polling shifted decisively in Dukakis' favor. A final CBS/New York Times News survey in May found Dukakis with a 68 to 20 percent lead over Jackson.
Although the national polls currently show a close race, Romney's campaign is well organized and flush with cash and thus able to compete for delegates in every state. For now, Santorum's campaign must focus more narrowly on the upcoming primaries. Moreover, the majority of Republicans continue to believe that Romney will win. On the CNN/ORC International poll, for example, more than two thirds of Republicans (68 percent) now say they expect Romney to win the Republican nomination, up from 41 percent in December.
And if Romney does win? Two thirds of Republicans on the CNN poll say they would be either "enthusiastic" (21 percent) or "pleased" (44 percent), while only 11 percent say they would be "upset" -- 25 percent say they would be "displeased but not upset." Taken together, these results tell us that while the polling volatility may continue, most Republicans remain open to a Romney nomination.

CORRECTION: This article has been updated to remove references to a new Rasmussen Reports poll from Michigan inadvertently included among the new national surveys.

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Romney avoids mention of bailout at Detroit event

Posted by

CNN Political Producer Rachel Streitfeld

Farmington Hills, Michigan (CNN) - Hours after Detroit automaker General Motors reported the largest annual profit in its history, GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney said he was "delighted" the industry was profitable.

"I love American cars, and long may they rule the world, let me tell you. I want them to do well," Romney said at a chamber of commerce meeting in Farmington Hills, Michigan, later adding of the industry: "I'm delighted it's profitable."

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But as his opponents have repeatedly pointed out, Romney opposed a federal bailout largely credited with pulling the struggling industry out of collapse.
In his speech to a friendly audience of more than 400 people, Romney did not mention his opposition to the bailout. Instead, he repeated an assertion that he had recommended the path taken months later by the Obama administration.
"I love the auto industry. I want to see it thrive and grow," Romney told the audience. "I'm glad it went through a managed bankruptcy process, which I recommended from the very beginning to shed unnecessary costs and get its footing again."
Romney has said he would have solicited private financing to inject capital into Detroit auto manufacturers.
In an unspoken reminder of the uneasy politics of his stance - a highly-charged position in Michigan ahead of the state's February 28 primary - on Thursday Romney accepted the endorsement of state Gov. Rick Snyder, who has said the bailout was effective in helping turn around GM and Chrysler.
Neither man made mention of their difference in opinion.
"We have the right man here to help lead our country, but there's a special bonus. He was born and raised a Michigander," Snyder said of Romney. "He understands our state. He's one of us."

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