Political Heat

National poll shows VP pick didn't improve GOP's presidential prospects A new poll shows that Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney's pick for his running mate isn't helping to improve his chances overall . Generally, candidates can expect a nation-wide "bump" in polling following their vice presidential picks. In 2008, for instance, Barack Obama saw a jump in the number of voters who would be more likely to vote for him due to his pick of Joe Biden for vice president. 24 percent of Americans were more likely to vote for Obama due to the pick, as opposed to 16 percent who were less likely. Other picks had similar outcomes : Sarah Palin in 2008 (34 percent more likely vs. 25 percent less likely) John Edwards in 2004 (28 percent vs. 7 percent) Joe Lieberman in 2000 (20 percent vs. 7 percent) Dick Cheney in 2000 (16 percent more likely vs. 14 percent less likely) But polling for Mitt Romney following his pick of Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) shows that voters are...

Ryan's views on rape and abortion similar to Todd Akin's During any presidential election year, it's inevitable that people attempt to link candidates to others who share their philosophical views. For instance, many have tried doing so with Barack Obama and Saul Alinsky, the famed author of "Rules for Radicals." Yet, the association between Obama and Alinsky is a hard one to make -- Alinsky died when Obama was still just a child . And it's not as if Alinsky was a "radical" himself -- his book is more a lesson for radical youth to start acting within the system rather than against it if they want to create more change in the world. So when associations between political candidates are made, they have to be taken with a grain of salt. They aren't necessarily strong ones to make, and in some cases are distortions of the truth or flat-out lies. But the connections between vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan (R-WI) and Rep. Todd Akin (R-MO) are stro...

Governor places blame of minimal job creation, losses squarely on businesses' fears of electoral outcomes Gov. Scott Walker has a problem accepting responsibility. His administration, during the first two years of its run, has had a difficult time drumming up job creation in the state of Wisconsin (perhaps because tax breaks don't create jobs on their own ). Walker has tried to place the blame elsewhere. In 2011, he blamed the debt ceiling for stalling jobs, despite placing the blame on that event within the wrong month . He's blamed President Obama's health care package even though the vast majority of it hasn't been implemented. He's blamed protesters at the state Capitol for job losses, too, though jobs continued to drop after they left. Just before June, he even blamed the recall election that had forced him to campaign for the job he had held for 18 months prior. And now, he's repeating that same old line -- blaming another uncertain electoral outcome...

The VP candidate may contribute to woes as Romney would pay 0.82% in taxes under Ryan's plan The choice of Wisconsin's own Paul Ryan for vice president within Mitt Romney's campaign is indeed a momentous occasion. It's not often, after all, that a politician from Wisconsin gets chosen for such an honor. Still, the selection -- like all vice presidential candidates -- is a political one. Ryan helps Romney with his conservative bona fides , strengthening his base even if the Tea Party doesn't see Romney as right as they'd want him to be. Romney's tax problems persist More importantly, the Ryan selection distracts from the weeks of Romney avoiding the issue of his tax returns -- or rather, the lack thereof . While the Obama campaign has released 12 years of tax returns, a precedent followed by previous presidential candidates (and started by Mitt's father George in 1968), Romney has only released a single year of returns, from 2010. Those returns show that ...

An attempt to put into perspective what liberalism truly is I made this image, and while I intend to expand on this subject in a post later on, I thought it gave good insight into what exactly a liberal stands for (click to enlarge): So many times, we often here statements of derision on what liberalism really entails. I felt it was important to point out that, under the conditions of what TRUE liberalism is, most people find these principles appealing.

Ignorant, violent acts of intolerance need to be rejected by everyone claiming to be "American." A senseless act of violence occurred yesterday in Oak Creek, Wisconsin. A shooting at a Sikh temple (called a gurdwara) left six members killed and several others injured. The shooter (who was also killed), Wade Michael Page , was discharged by the Army in 1998 under less than honorable conditions. Page has also been characterized as a white supremacist . It's unclear what his motivations were at this time, but the crime is being investigated as a possible act of domestic terrorism. Since September 11, 2001, several hundred members of the Sikh faith have been unduly attacked. In fact, one of the first hate crimes perpetrated after the terrorist event was an attack against a Sikh, Balbir Singh Sodhi, who was also killed by an ex-military extremist. Sikhs are often mistakenly associated with the Muslim faith -- but they are their own religion, the fifth largest in the world, th...

Agreeing with the company president's comments isn't the same as "defending freedoms" The recent controversy regarding Chick-fil-A, a fast-food restaurant whose president, Dan Cathy, recently made remarks regarding his views on same-sex marriage, is intriguing to say the least. It invites a multitude of views on the subject, and creates a debate that frankly needs to be hashed out in the open. Cathy's words , which started the controversy to begin with, were the following: I think we are inviting God's judgment on our nation when we shake our fist at Him and say, 'We know better than you as to what constitutes a marriage,' and I pray God's mercy on our generation that has such a prideful, arrogant attitude to think that we have the audacity to try to redefine what marriage is about. Since the interview in which he made that statement, members of the LGBT community (and their straight allies) have launched a nationwide boycott against the company. E...

Is the party's disregard for grammar indicative of overall attitude towards governance? Bill Lueders took an interesting look at the two major state political parties' platforms in the Isthmus today, revealing stark contrasts between the two in what he called documents that "appear to not just reflect different worldviews" but rather "come from different worlds." Upon inspection of the documents, one line from the Wisconsin Republican Party's platform caught my eye, for reasons of grammatical importance rather than policy: We believe the United States should grant citizenship only to those who want to embrace and defund American values and culture. Emphasis added. I highly doubt that Republicans wish to "defund" American values and culture, though we do know that Republicans want to "defund" the budget to the point where they can "drown it in a bathtub." The word they probably intended to place here was "defend."...