Same-Sex Challenge to Romney: A New Twist in US Presidential Race

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President Obama’s decision to endorse same-sex marriages (and not just civil unions) gave the American presidential race a new twist, presenting a serious challenge to Mr Obama’s likeliest adversary… the GOP’s “presumptive candidate” Mitt Romney. Mikhail Delyagin, the head of the Moscow-based Institute for the Problems of Globalisation (IPROG), commented, “I think everything will depend on the reaction of Romney and the GOP at large to this move, which looks like a provocation from Obama’s side. Obama knows that the majority of people wouldn’t approve of a same-sex marriage for their children, but at the same time, he knows that radical homophobia can scare quite normal people. So, his bet is that the attacks against this move of his from the side of Mr Romney will be so monstrous, that they’d ultimately scare centrist voters away from Romney and the GOP”.

This is indeed a risky bet, since a lot of analysts believe that centrist voters, quite on the contrary, could now tilt away from Obama. In the opinion of these experts, keeping the status quo would be a better solution for Obama, since liberal people wouldn’t vote for Romney anyway, and Obama’s already won moderate supporters of new lifestyles by his decision to end the ban on open gays in the military. So, everything depends on Romney’s reaction now… will he be subtle enough to find a non-aggressive, non-divisive use for the chink in Obama’s armour that the president deliberately left open for him? Romney’s handling of this election’s foreign policy agenda, more important from a Russian point of view, doesn’t speak in favour of the former Massachusetts governor. It appears that Romney’s penchant for aggressive non-apologetic rhetoric may indeed do him a disservice… and not for the first time.

Certainly, his statement to CNN’s Wolf Blitzer about Russia as America’s “number one geopolitical foe” in March didn’t help Mr Romney’s record for subtlety. Many observers, including some in Russia, dismissed Mr Romney’s statement as election posturing, advising the Russian public not to take it seriously. Indeed, the phrase about Russia’s “fighting every cause for the world’s worst actors” doesn’t stand up to any kind of criticism, even if a critic sticks to the official American ideology. Even a New York Times editorial had to concede that Russia’s aid to the American-led coalition in Afghanistan and Russia’s abstention during a vote on an anti-Ghaddafi UN resolution don’t fit Mr Romney’s theory. However, was it really just electoral posturing?

If indeed it was, then why did Romney refuse to retract any of the outlandish accusations against Russia and Obama that he made in his interview to CNN? Why instead did he prefer to write a whole article for Foreign Policy magazine, where he complained about president Medvedev’s “attacks” against him (as if the president of a country declared the “number one geopolitical foe” of the world’s biggest nuclear power should find nothing but praise for the author of such a declaration)? Why then did Romney continue the same rhetoric about “pliant” Obama trying to “ingratiate” himself with the Kremlin? Why weren’t any of Romney’s foreign policy advisers, mostly Bush-era neocons, fired? There were lots of opportunities to limit the damage, but Romney never used any of them. No Apology: The Case for American Greatness… that seems to be not just a name for Mr Romney’s paperback, but his ideology in a nutshell.

For a wider world, the choice of America’s geopolitical friends and foes is certainly a more important issue than the intricacies of differences between same-sex marriages and same-sex unions. Nevertheless, there are situations when such seemingly abstract issues can decide the world’s destiny. Sergei Rogov, the head of the RAN Institute of the USA and Canada, warned, “If indeed Romney and his people come to power, the foreign policy team of George Bush Jr would look like children in comparison”. Everyone knows what Bush’s team managed to “achieve” in a relatively short period. Nicole Bacharan, a French author of a book on American elections, noted that in this situation, paradoxically, Romney’s duplicity may serve the world, saying in a recent comment for the Paris-based Le Figaro, “When elected the governor of the state of Massachusetts, Romney introduced a health insurance system on the state level, which ran against the Republican rhetoric and which became a model for Obama’s health care reform in 2011… something that Romney now denies”. Bacharan wrote that there’s always been a wide gap between Romney’s statements and his actual policies. I hope that, indeed, Romney didn’t mean what he said when he spoke about Russia’s “hostility” or the need to support Israel’s possible strike against Iran. However, the world’s security is probably too serious a matter to be made dependent on one person’s duplicity.

10 May 2012

Dmitri Babich

Voice of Russia World Service

http://english.ruvr.ru/2012_05_10/74323977/

Editor’s Note:

Let’s keep it simple. Most of the opposition to President Obama comes from two sources:

• Ignorant Evangelical Nativist racists (mostly in the American South, Texas, and Southwest)
• Libertarian anti-government fanatics intent on shredding the social safety net and reducing taxes on the richest Americans

NOTHING that Mr Obama says on ANYTHING will ever change their minds. The bubbas hate him because he’s black. The greedsters hate him for standing in their way… they truly enjoy smashing their boot-heels into the faces of helpless people… “The race goes to the swiftest” and “Nothing should impede the market”, dontcha know! Reflect on this… these two groups call themselves “Christian”… it goes a long way to explain the antipathy of normal average Americans to “Born Agains”, doesn’t it?

BMD

28 March 2012. A Russian Take on the Hubristical Flapdoodle Spouted by Mitt Romney and the Republican Party of 2012

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Aleksei Pushkov, the chairman of the RF Gosduma International Affairs Committee, said in a statement that yesterday’s statement by Mitt Romney that Russia’s the main geopolitical enemy of the USA reflected the view of American circles that want their country to continue fighting to impose an absolute global hegemony. He pointed up that despite the American political defeat in Iraq and their impending defeat in Afghanistan, US Republicans have learnt no lessons, and they refuse to realise that the US isn’t omnipotent.

The frontrunner for the GOP presidential nomination made his statements on a live interview with Wolf Blitzer broadcast on CNN on Monday; he said, “Russia, this is, without question, our number one geopolitical foe. They… they fight every cause for the world’s worst actors. Russia continues to support Syria, supports Iran, it fought against the crippling sanctions we wanted to have the world put in place against Iran. Russia isn’t a friendly character on the world stage, and for this president to be looking for greater flexibility where he doesn’t have to answer to the American people in his relations with Russia is very, very, troubling, very alarming. This is a president who’s telling us one thing and is doing something else”. Mitt Romney then went further, describing the nation as America’s number one foe. After Wolf Blitzer challenged his statement, Mr Romney went on to say, “The greatest threat the US faces is a nuclear Iran… but who is it who always stands up for the world’s worst actors? It’s always Russia, typically with China alongside”.

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Recent developments in the Republican presidential race show that the contenders are eager to exploit the most aggressive line in foreign policy. Front-runner Mitt Romney set the pace by saying in an interview with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer on Monday, “Russia, this is, without question, our number one geopolitical foe”. When asked by Mr Blitzer whether he considered Russia a bigger foe than Iran or China or North Korea, Romney reiterated his statement by saying that Russia is “a geopolitical opponent” that “fights every cause for the world’s worst actors. Of course, the greatest threat that the world faces is a nuclear Iran, and nuclear North Korea is already troubling enough, but when these terrible actors pursue their course in the world and we go to the United Nations looking for ways to stop them, when Assad, for instance, is murdering its own people, we go to the United Nations… and it’s always Russia, typically with China alongside” who “always stand up for the world’s worst actors”.

One may argue that siding with terrible régimes is commonplace practise for the USA itself. One may recall their support for Bahrain, which launched a massive crackdown on Shiites last year in a manner typical of all Middle Eastern dictatorships; or, their siding with Saakashvili in Georgia, who launched an open attack on South Ossetia in 2008 and committed massive acts of genocide. However, citing such instances would be futile… the policy of siding with “our bad guys” and distinguishing between them and other “bad guys” is as old as politics itself. What the interview points to is probably a completely different problem. In fact, such anti-Russian statements by Romney are rather common. Some time ago, he called the new US–Russian START Treaty Obama’s “worst foreign policy mistake”. He’s also shown signs of discontent over what he’s calling Vladi­mir Putin’s dreams of “rebuilding the Russian empire”. Definitely, such statements may resonate with the sentiments of certain (possibly, rather wide) factions in American society. Moreover, that may help Romney mobilise a certain number of voters.

Now, imagine that… however unlikely it may seem at present… Mitt Romney wins on 6 November. What’s next? Whether he likes it or not, Russia will remain an important global player that one can’t treat in the same way as Iran or Syria or North Korea. What’s more, over the coming years… at least for the duration of Mitt Romney’s first presidential term… Putin will head Russia. Would his present stance help him much in building pragmatic relations with the Russian leadership? Or else, would he have to alter his stance and do exactly what he’s accusing President Obama of doing now… that is, “telling us one thing and doing something else, and planning on doing something else”.

In fact, foreign policy’s seldom an issue in a presidential race. However, the current momentum in the campaign makes two things obvious. Firstly, Republican contenders, including the front-runner, feel that their position’s growing weaker and weaker, so they resort to whatever tools that they can lay their hands on. Furthermore, the more bizarre the tools are, the better it is for the campaign. Nevertheless, on the other hand, resorting to such tools may backfire if there’s an ultimate victory. Therefore, it seems highly unlikely that Romney believes that he’ll win in November. Probably, he undertook this line of reasoning with the sole purpose of publicity. This seems to be the only plausible explanation for calling Russia what it isn’t.

Actually, Romney isn’t alone in following such a line. The “number two” in the race, Rick Santorum, also recently resorted to odd methods in his ad campaign. One of his recent ads actually links Barack Obama with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, thus producing an impression that there’s no difference between the two. Well, maybe, again, this might appeal to some factions of the American public. However, must a US presidential candidate appeal to freaks by behaving like a freak himself?

Boris Volkhonsky

Senior Research Fellow, Russian Institute for Strategic Studies

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President Dmitri Medvedev commented on a statement made by US Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, who described Russia as “America’s Number One geopolitical enemy”, by advising all US presidential candidates to be reasonable and to be aware that times have changed, saying, “Russia’s interested in further dialogue with the US, no matter who wins the presidential elections there”. Medvedev described Obama as a “comfortable partner to work with, who’s able to analyse and accept arguments”.

At a briefing on Tuesday, Aleksandr Lukashevich, an official spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MID), said that electoral considerations drove Romney’s speech about Russia; therefore, Russia would evaluate the Russian-US partnership not by speeches, but by actions. He emphasised, “We’re going to evaluate the USA’s sincerity and commitment to our announced and developing partnership not by speeches, but by real actions”. Romney, ex-governor of Massachusetts, and, most likely, the Republican opponent of Obama at the 6 November election, in an interview on CNN, said that the geopolitical enemy of US today is Russia, not Iran, or China. He explained that Moscow “always stands up for the world’s worst actors”. Lukashevich noted that it’s hard for him to comment on an obviously emotional statement of a candidate in an election race, saying, “It’s understandable that those kinds of statements could’ve been made in certain circumstances, due to the dynamics of the political race that’s going on right now in the USA because of the upcoming presidential election”. The White House distanced itself from the words of the Republican candidate, it called his words about Russia, “not prudent”. White House spokesman Jay Carney noted that the talk about Russia as the main enemy of the United States doesn’t match the achievements in recent years between the two countries.

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On Tuesday, Mitt Romney hit back at president Medvedev and said that US President Barack Obama was trying to “ingratiate himself with the Kremlin” after Medvedev suggested that the Republican presidential front-runner was living in a bygone era and that all the candidates should “use their heads”. In an opinion piece on the website of the magazine Foreign Policy, Romney wrote, “The Russians clearly prefer to do business with the current incumbent of the White House”. The article represented an escalation of Romney’s attacks on Obama after a recording caught Obama’s private remark to President Dmitri Medvedev. Obama told Medvedev that he needed “space” to deal with missile defence because he’d have more “flexibility” after the November elections.

Romney drew criticism from Medvedev and House Speaker John Boehner, the country’s top-ranking Republican, after he said on Monday in a CNN interview that Russia is America’s “Number One geopolitical enemy”. Mr Medvedev said Mr Romney’s comments on CNN “smacked of Hollywood”. He advised the White House hopefuls, including Mr Romney, to “rely on reason, to use their heads”, adding, “That’s not harmful for a presidential candidate. It’s 2012, not the mid-1970s, and whatever party he belongs to, he must take existing realities into account”.

******

Aleksei Pushkov, Chairman of the RF Gosduma International Relations Committee stated that Russia opposes the European missile defence project in its current form and continues to insist on legal guarantees that NATO isn’t directing it against Russia, irrespective of the outcome of presidential elections in the USA. As became clear after the meeting of Presidents Dmitri Medvedev and Barack Obama in Seoul, missile defence consultations will continue over the next six months at the specialist level. Both sides believe that even though the talks have deadlocked, there’s always a way out.

Pushkov commented on this, saying, “As the USA’s going through an election year, there’s little chance that we can do something about missile defence. Therefore, the only way to keep it on the agenda is to refer it to the technical experts. Diplomatic manoeuvring requires treating even an unsolvable problem as solvable. At present, the issue has no solution, but, in fact, the two presidents agreed to seek a way out of the crisis in the future. In the meantime, technical experts will look into the options to secure a higher level of trust in the future”.

The missile defence dispute hinges on trust, or rather, mistrust. The West sees Iran as the number one foe. Moscow thinks differently. However, the main difference that divides the two sides on missile defence is that Moscow sees the planned missile defence shield as a form of protection by Europe and the US against a threat from Russia. Candidates could very well use relations with Russia could to serve election campaign interests in the USA. Republican candidate Mitt Romney said that Russia, not Iran or North Korea, poses the main geopolitical threat to the USA. Romney benefits from presenting Obama’s foreign policy vis-à-vis Russia as false.

The Republicans represent a sizable number of Americans, according to Pushkov, and he said, “Romney’s statements, even though related to the election race, reflect the mood of right-wing Republicans. Romney advocates certain ideas, and these ideas have a particular niche in US politics. Senator McCain called for shelling Libya, then Syria, and is currently urging a change of government in Russia. When he ran for president against Obama four years ago, McCain adhered to the same points of view as Romney”.

At present, Obama has the support of more than 50 percent of Americans. Whoever wins the 6 November presidential election in the USA would have to continue the missile defence dialogue with Russia. Moreover, Russia will stick to its oft-repeated position, and it’s sticking to it now.

Olga Denisova

27/28 March 2012

Voice of Russia World Service

http://english.ruvr.ru/2012_03_27/69711567/

http://english.ruvr.ru/2012_03_27/69750435/

http://english.ruvr.ru/2012_03_27/69764192/

http://english.ruvr.ru/2012_03_28/69830899/

http://english.ruvr.ru/2012_03_28/69843094/

A Note for Orthodox Christians:

Orthodox people should be aware that Jonas Paffhausen’s attempting to throw the support of the Church behind the extreme rightwing of the Republican Party. Paffhausen supports the Russophobic maunderings of the Extreme Right, and he speaks in their venues (American Enterprise Institute, for instance). His konvertsy fans echo his extremist POV fanatically and without diminution. In short, they don’t reflect the Mind of the Church, and that’s that.

The Church stands for Social Justice and Cooperation, and His Holiness’ statements and actions reflect that. Paffhausen and his pals stand for the noxious programme of the oligarch backers of the GOP… Greed, Profits, and Perpetual Warfare… and the Ordinary People be damned. I seem to notice a difference…

BMD

Gingrich and Romney: The Florida Battle

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The remaining four contenders for the 2012 Republican Presidential nomination faced off for the last time before Floridians go to the polls on Tuesday. Despite it being the 19th such debate, it was a key event for former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney in what has become a two-man race. Gingrich and Romney came out of the door swinging and the debate largely became a battle between the two frontrunners. The first question in the CNN-hosted debate came from an audience member who asked about illegal immigration, which has become a theme in the race this week. It’s fitting given the size of Florida’s immigrant community, but also because of recent attacks by the Gingrich campaign calling Mitt Romney “anti-immigrant”. In the exchange that followed, Romney said, “I’m not anti-immigrant. My father was born in Mexico. My wife’s father was born in Wales. They came to this country. The idea that I’m anti-immigrant is repulsive”.

If Romney wanted an apology, he didn’t get one and Gingrich only escalated the attack, saying, “You tell me what language you’d use to describe someone who thinks that deporting a grandmother or grandfather from their family… just tell me what language you would use”. However, earlier in the day, US Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) voiced objections to Gingrich’s campaign ad and they pulled it off the air. He told CBS This Morning that the tactic wasn’t good for the Republican Party, saying, “Whoever wins this nomination is going to have to come back to Florida in the fall and win again. I want to make sure that we don’t have candidates saying things that we’re going to have to come back and defend”.

Romney kept up his attack on Gingrich for working for Freddie Mac, the government supported mortgage giant, work for which Gingrich received around 1.5 million dollars (45.26 million Roubles. 1.135 million Euros. 953,000 UK Pounds) for services. Gingrich, however, used information recently revealed that Mitt Romney had invested in Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae to the tune of a half million dollars (15.1 million Roubles. 380,000 Euros. 320,000 UK Pounds), saying, “We discovered to our shock that Governor Romney made a million dollars (30.17 million Roubles. 760,000 Euros. 635,000 UK Pounds) of selling some of that and [he] has shares in Goldman Sachs which is today foreclosing on Floridians”. Romney responded that he didn’t know where many of his investments went because they were handled by a blind trust. Whilst Romney may have been risking further alienating himself from the voters, as he has been known to do, he seemed more confident in his response and said he was not going to apologise for his success, saying, “There are bonds that the investor has held through mutual funds, but, Mr Speaker, have you checked your own investments? You also have investments in mutual funds that also have investments in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac”.

Before long, former US Senator Rick Santorum and Congressman Ron Paul stepped in, making an effort to stop the two opponents from bickering about their own wealth. Santorum suggested that one’s own success should be off limits, saying, “Governor Romney went out and worked hard. Leave that alone and talk about the issues”. Ron Paul proposed a simple solution, saying, “The question is, ‘What are we going to do about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac?’ [They] should have been auctioned off”.

If this was the most contentious of the debates so far, that’s because Florida could be “do or die” for the candidates in this unique primary race in which all the rules have been thrown out and the swing state may have even more say in who the Republican nominee will be. Additionally, the two candidates are in a statistical dead-heat, with Newt Gingrich losing some steam after his South Carolina victory gave him a Florida bump. The negativity in Florida is palpable and not just in the debate. In the airwaves attack ads dominate. In addition to the ad calling Romney anti-immigrant, a Romney ad took on Gingrich for a comment in which he referred to the “language of the ghetto”. When Gingrich brought it up in the debate, however, Romney initially denied the ad, saying it probably wasn’t from his own campaign. However, a quick fact check at the debate showed that it was, undermining Romney’s statement and leading to headlines.

Tim Pawlenty, the former governor of Minnesota who dropped out of the race a few months ago, told VOR that was the wrong story, saying, “I think the focus should be on did Newt say that or imply that. Third-party groups have looked at it and said that’s what he said”. Whilst Pawlenty endorsed Mitt Romney, former Congressman Bill McCollum who ran for Florida governor in the Republican primary, endorsed Newt Gingrich. After the debate, he told VOR that he thought Newt Gingrich handled the debate well, saying, “I thought he answered the questions just fine. The anti-immigration thing, Romney rehearsed… but Newt’s immigration policy is sound”. However, there were some lighter moments in the debate. When Wolf Blitzer noted that Ron Paul would be the oldest president if elected and asked if he would show his medical records, Ron Paul responded that he would challenge anyone on the stage to a 25-mile bike ride, adding, in jest, “There are laws about age discrimination, so you better be careful”.

27 January 2012

Carmen Russell-Sluchansky

Voice of Russia World Service

http://english.ruvr.ru/2012/01/27/64734338.html

13 September 2011. Audience at Tea Party Debate Cheers Leaving Uninsured to Die

If you’re uninsured and on the brink of death, that’s apparently a laughing matter to some audience members at last night’s tea party Republican presidential debate. US Representative Ron Paul (R-TX), a doctor, was asked a hypothetical question by CNN host Wolf Blitzer about how society should respond if a healthy 30-year-old man who decided against buying health insurance suddenly goes into a coma and requires intensive care for six months. Paul… a fierce limited-government advocate… said it shouldn’t be the government’s responsibility. “That’s what freedom is all about, taking your own risks”, Paul said and was drowned out by audience applause as he added, “this whole idea that you have to prepare to take care of everybody …” “Are you saying that society should just let him die?” Blitzer pressed Paul. That’s when the audience got involved. Several loud cheers of “Yeah!” followed by laughter could be heard in the Expo Hall at the Florida State Fairgrounds in response to Blitzer’s question. Paul disagreed with the audience on that front. “No”, he responded, noting he practiced medicine before Medicaid when churches took care of medical costs… a comment that drew wide audience applause. “We never turned anybody away from the hospital”. Paul voiced support for legalising alternative health care and argued that the reason medical costs have skyrocketed is that individuals have stopped taking personal responsibility for their health care. Although Paul spoke to the larger issues of health care and government-backed health insurance… both pivotal in the 2012 election… the audience’s reaction has overshadowed the substance of the exchange between the candidates.

The day after the event, Texas Governor Rick Perry offered his own criticism of the audience response. “I was a bit taken aback by that myself”, Perry told NBC News and the Miami Herald of the audience reaction after appearing at a breakfast fundraiser in Tampa Tuesday morning. “We’re the party of life. We ought to be coming up with ways to save lives”. The campaigns for Mitt Romney and Michele Bachmann did not immediately respond to The Ticket’s request for comment. Conservative Andrew Sullivan writing for The Daily Beast’s The Dish Tuesday noted that the United States obligates society to save someone in an emergency room. “America, moreover, has a law on the books that makes it a crime not to treat and try to save a human being who walks into an emergency room. So, we have already made that collective decision and if the GOP wants to revisit it, they can”, Sullivan wrote. Sullivan also decried the audience reaction, writing, “Maybe a tragedy like the death of a feckless twenty-something is inevitable if we are to restrain healthcare costs, but it’s still a tragedy. It isn’t something a decent person cheers”.

13 September 2011

Rachel Rose Hartman

The Ticket

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/audience-tea-party-debate-cheers-leaving-uninsured-die-163216817.html

NB to Orthodox people:

Orthodox Christians should reflect that JP, Potapov, Webster, Whiteford, Swezey, Dreher, Mattingly, Reardon, the Coneheads, and most of the konvertsy agree with the laughers… NONE DARE CALL IT NIHILISM! They support the most base, vile, and godless rightwing extremism going, and they want to contaminate the Church with it… you know what to do!

BMD