Salon.com > RNC

Clint Eastwood’s new Romney ad

Wed, 24 Oct 2012 18:10:00 +0000

Although actor Clint Eastwood's political involvement will forever be epitomized by his speech to a chair representing President Obama, Karl Rove's super PAC has called upon the Hollywood veteran to narrate a commercial that supports candidate Mitt Romney. (Of course, it's much harder to veer off track in a taped, scripted commercial.) The commercial will air in the swing states of Ohio, Iowa, Colorado, Florida, New Hampshire, Nevada and Virginia.

Hot new Obama scandal has already been debunked — in 2008

Thu, 11 Oct 2012 16:50:00 +0000

Have you heard about the hot new Obama scandal? According to Fox News, the Daily Caller, the Washington Examiner, the Free Beacon, Town Hall, et al., the Obama campaign is soliciting donations from foreigners via its website in direct violation of U.S. election law. Donald Trump took this charge to its logical, birthery conclusion, tweeting a link to a story about the scandal along with the brilliant quip: "Foreign candidate getting foreign donations."

NYPD tactics at 2004 RNC ruled illegal

Tue, 02 Oct 2012 16:25:00 +0000

A federal judge ruled Monday that the arrest of hundreds of protesters at the 2004 Republican National Convention in New York were improper and unconstitutional. NYPD crowd control tactics were also ruled illegal.

In one incident ruled improper, over 200 antiwar and anti-capitalist demonstrators were kettled by police in lower Manhattan and mass arrested. The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday's ruling relating to the police response:

City attorneys argued that officers had "group probable cause" to make the arrests, meaning the crowd was acting as one. On Monday, U.S. District Court Judge Richard Sullivan in Manhattan rejected the city's theory and ruled the arrests on Fulton Street illegal.

"Based on the undisputed facts, and particularly the video of the Fulton Street march and arrests, the court finds that there was not even arguable probable cause to make those arrests," the judge ruled.

Conservative operative’s sketchy past

Mon, 01 Oct 2012 21:07:00 +0000

The Republican Party is scrambling to cut ties from Strategic Allied Consulting, a consulting firm headed up by an infamous voter registration consultant Nathan Sproul. But, as Brad Friedman from Brad Blog has been reporting, Sproul and his firms have been consistently hired as consultants to Republicans despite their legal -- and ethical -- troubles. Here's a brief history:

June 2004: Lincoln Strategies, a group headed by Nathan Sproul, attempted to siphon votes away from John Kerry by pushing to get Ralph Nader on the ballot, while also under the employ of the national Republican Party.

October 2004: In Nevada and Oregon, former employees of the group Voters Outreach of America allege that they saw the company's staff members shredding registration forms from Democrats. VOA, another Sproul-run group, was paid $500,000 by the Republican National Committee for voter outreach. In Nevada, one former employee said in a lawsuit that he was told to ask prospective voters, "Who would you vote for in the next election?" and then to only register those who said they would vote for Bush. The employee added that he believes his pay was also docked because he registered members of both parties. In Minnesota in the same year, VOA was accused of firing employees who brought back Democratic voter registration forms. Other employees in West Virginia and Pennsylvania made similar allegations.

GOP’s ACORN moment

Fri, 28 Sep 2012 17:20:00 +0000

There are still plenty of conservatives who think ACORN stole the 2008 election for Obama and will do it again this year. ACORN was everywhere four years ago. Even John McCain, late in his campaign and desperate to land a blow on Obama, ran an ad tying his challenger to the community-organizing group before saying in the final debate that ACORN "is now on the verge of maybe perpetrating one of the greatest frauds in voter history in this country, maybe destroying the fabric of democracy.” How did ACORN steal the election? A number of the group’s paid canvassers had been caught submitting false voter registration forms in a handful of states, using the names of dead people or false addresses, in order to avoid working.

Four years later, ACORN is dead, and a Republican firm contracted by the Republican National Committee has adopted its shady tactics. But, so far at least, there’s been hardly a peep from the same conservatives who seized on ACORN about one of their own engaging in almost identical fraudulent tactics.

Polling insights from …Twitter?

Fri, 14 Sep 2012 21:00:00 +0000

During the conventions, headlines like "Michelle Obama's speech tweeted nearly twice as much as Romney's," "Romney drops over 100K on Twitter," and "Kal Penn makes #sexyface go viral" were as much of a story as many of the speakers. Now a digital agency based out of Washington, D.C., thinks Twitter could serve as a real-time gauge of public opinion.

The organization, Engage, compared Twitter data (via Topsy) against polling data from Gallup, Rasmussen and Reuters-Ipsos from the DNC and RNC to determine if real-time tweets at all correlated with polls. The study isn't perfect -- for example, Engage assumed that the daily polls fluctuate based solely on the performance of the speakers, and that words like “awesome" and “wow" in tweets signal interest in speakers -- but for the most part, the study showed that tweets matched up with the polls:

Must-see morning clip

Mon, 10 Sep 2012 13:53:00 +0000

The Daily Show wrapped up the DNC coverage by analyzing (mocking) Fox News's reporting at the DNC. One segment featured a montage of clips of Fox News attacking the DNC for not talking about God--to which Stewart retorts, "Fox is truly doing God's work--well, God's busy work. The kind of he doesn't need done, cause he's God."

Watch the rest of the clip here:

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Must-see morning clip

Tue, 04 Sep 2012 14:41:00 +0000

It's been almost a week since Paul Ryan made the speech that inspired a thousand fact-checks. (The speech was so riddled with factual errors that some writers even gave up on fact-checking entirely). Then, Paul Ryan lied about his marathon time and forever cemented his campaign identity as a liar, a liar with his pants on fire.

On this morning's Today show, Matt Lauer gave Ryan a chance to explain himself. Lauer asked, "Would you concede that while many of the things you said were effective, some were not completely accurate?"

For a moment, America believed that Ryan might admit the truth. But that moment lasted for one tenth of a picosecond, and Ryan responded, "No, not in the least actually."

Watch the full clip:

Must-see morning clip

Fri, 31 Aug 2012 14:36:00 +0000

Last night, "The Daily Show" mocked Romney and Ryan for not acknowledging how much they've benefited from public infrastructure and private enterprise. It could be an amazing documentary: "Mitt Romney: A Human Being Who Built That."

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Must-see morning clip

Thu, 30 Aug 2012 13:35:00 +0000

The GOP has taken firm anti-abortion stance: "No abortions, no exceptions." But Mitt Romney believes exceptions should be made "in the case of rape and incest and when the life of the mother is at stake."

How do Republicans who support the GOP's hardline stance reconcile Romney's right to choose?

One man told Bee, "We live in a free society, we live in America. It is up to any human being to choose what is best for themselves."

Watch the full clip:

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Clint Eastwood steals the RNC

Thu, 30 Aug 2012 05:23:00 +0000

When it leaked earlier today that Clint Eastwood would be the “surprise” guest at the Republican National Convention, it seemed predictable that a bunch of white people in patriotic hats would shortly be chanting “Make my day” on national television. This cacophonous “Make my day” did, in fact, come to pass, but only after the 82-year-old Eastwood babbled, went blue and inadvertently insulted Mitt Romney, the guy he was allegedly there to support, all while speaking to an empty chair occupied by an imaginary Obama. Look, it is not every night that a national political convention transforms itself into a surrealist farce after being hijacked by a madcap octogenarian, but tonight it happened, and we have Clint Eastwood to thank for that. Once an entertainer, always an entertainer, right?

Big story you missed

Wed, 29 Aug 2012 23:07:00 +0000

TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — They seem to be on every street corner. Police officers riding bicycles, horses and golf carts that look like baby Humvees. Metal barricades surround all of Tampa's government buildings. State police, FBI, the Secret Service — some in riot gear — throng the city's streets surrounding the Republican National Convention.

Some, from visitors to downtown business owners, wonder if the convention security is all a little too much.

"I think it's overwhelming," said Ellen Brown, the owner of a bookstore in downtown Tampa. "It seems oppressive to me."

"It's overdone," said Tom Neal, a guest of the Texas GOP delegation. "Once you go this far, you're only a step away from becoming a police state."

During a normal August, downtown Tampa is a bit sleepy. Workers shuffle from air-conditioned offices into the steamy outdoors, past palm trees that sag under the oppressive humidity and through the city's lush green parks.

But with the convention in town, the city looks somewhat like it's under siege. Helicopters fly almost constantly overhead and packs of police cruise by on bicycles. Fast boats whiz by the region's three bridges, looking for unseen threats. Tall chain-link fences shield the pretty parks along the Hillsborough River from view. The main library is closed.

The theatrics of Ann Romney

Wed, 29 Aug 2012 12:57:00 +0000

The Republican National Convention is a strange piece of theater, a grand production meant to rally the base and simultaneously entice the undecided, to entertain all those frenzied delegates experimenting with silly hats in an enormous, ungainly arena and those watching from home, in close-up. The RNC made plain just how difficult pleasing these two groups can be during Chris Christie’s speech, as it let the background behind him hazily, lazily swirl about like some vertigo-inducing screen saver, just to ply the in-house crowd with something to look at, other than Chris Christie and his magenta tie. But when it came to playing to both crowds, Ann Romney made it look easy, catering to the room as well as the camera like a charismatic pro. She may never be first lady, but if she wants a career as a talk show host, she’s sure got her cadences down.