Newly Confident Romney Moves to the Political Center in Risky Move that May Alienate Conservatives

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Mitt Romney has taken a more centrist stance on the campaign trail recently, a move that coincides with the GOP nominee giving speeches that are more personal in nature and showing a new-found confidence to voters.

Confusion over Romney’s stance on abortion, which the candidate clarified during a stop at an Ohio restaurant — joined recent moves on immigration, financial reform, tax policies and healthcare toward the center, a more natural habitat for the former Massachusetts governor.

The move to the middle has had a twofold effect for Romney: first, it puts President Obama on his heels by thwarting planned attack lines designed to make Romney’s policies look unreasonable and far-right, and second, it gives the Republican nominee more leash than he had during the GOP primary, where questioning conservative dogma could have proven fatal to Romney’s campaign.

And it’s a message that has appeal to independent and swing voters who could decide the election.

But it also has its dangers, leaving Romney open to charges of flip-flopping. Democrats have already begun previewing attack lines that could show up in Romney’s next debate with Obama.

The GOP nominee, however, appears much more comfortable in this role.

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New Photo’s From Obama’s College Years Include Photo of Ring that WND Alleges Reads “There is no God but Allah”

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The New Yorker blog features new photos that verify my take on what our 44th president acted and looked like as a sophomore at Occidental College. Readers will note the real Obama, the young revolutionary extremist with a soft spot for Islam, that I got to know as a participant in Occidental’s radical student politics.

Most shockingly, the photos show Obama wearing a band on his left ring finger that WND alleges reads “there is no God but Allah.”

The photo I find to be most historically significant is the one that shows details from the anti-apartheid rally of February 18, 1981, the rally that debuted Obama’s famous first skit in Obama’s Dreams from My Father. In contrast to Obama’s story, the banner above the event proclaims the somewhat more complex cause of “Affirmative Action & Divestiture NOW.” The photo features many of the real life figures who would become composite characters in Obama’s autobiography. These include my white ex-girlfriend, Caroline Boss, the radical student leader who improbably lent her grandmother’s name – and much of her scintillating personality – to the big-boned, black “Regina” character.

For the record, I view these photos from the perspective of an accident victim looking at a long ago car wreck.

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Obama Wrong Again: the Private Sector is Suffering; Government Employment Fares Far Better

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President Barack Obama famously blamed the bad economy on a struggling public sector, but a new Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) report shows that the issuance of pink slips has slowed among government workers while jumping across much of private industry.

In August, nearly 1.8 million private sector employees were laid off—up nearly 300,000 from July and nearly 100,000 from August 2011. Those layoffs came just two months after Obama proclaimed that “the private sector is doing fine” and attributed struggling job creation to government layoffs.

“The private sector is doing fine. Where we’re seeing weaknesses in our economy have to do with state and local government,” he said in June. “If Republicans want to be helpful, if they really want to move forward and put people back to work, what they should be thinking about is how do we help state and local governments and how do we help the construction industry?”

The latest BLS numbers tell a different story. Federal employees saw decreased job loss over the year, while layoffs at the state and local level grew by about 2 percent—less than half the 4.4 percent layoff increase experienced by the private sector.

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Unbelievable: Obama Was Guest at VP Debate Moderator’s Wedding, Appointed Husband to Head FCC

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President Barack Obama was a guest at the 1991 wedding of ABC senior foreign correspondent and vice presidential debate moderator Martha Raddatz, The Daily Caller has learned. Obama and groom Julius Genachowski, whom Obama would later tap to head the Federal Communications Commission, were Harvard Law School classmates at the time and members of the Harvard Law Review.

After TheDC made preliminary inquiries Monday to confirm Obama’s attendance at the wedding, ABC leaked a pre-emptive statement to liberal-leaning news outlets including Politico and The Daily Beast Tuesday, revealing what may have been internal network pressure felt just days before Raddatz was scheduled to moderate the one and only vice-presidential debate Thursday night.

Both Politico and The Daily Beast jumped to ABC and Raddatz’s defense. The Huffington Post, another liberal news outlet, joined them shortly thereafter, while calling “unusual” ABC’s attempt to kill the story before it gained wide circulation.

Genachowski — called “Jay” at the time of his wedding, sources told TheDC — and Raddatz would go on to have a son together before their divorce in 1997. They have both since remarried to other people.

A source who attended the 1991 wedding told TheDC that Obama was also a guest there, and remembered that a man by the name of “Barry Obama” was among the guests dancing at the reception.

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Explicit Sex Ed Class Horrifies Texas Parents

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Hundreds of Houston-area parents are outraged over a new sex education program that teaches 12-year-old children about oral, anal and vaginal sex – and uses graphic curriculum to instruct students on how to use condoms.

“We don’t need the school district showing the kids how to put on condoms,” said parent Christine Kalmbach. “This is very alarming.”

Kalmbach’s son is a seventh grader in the Cy-Fair Independent School District, a suburb of Houston. She was one of many parents who attended a school board meeting this week to voice her concerns about the graphic sex classes.

The new curriculum is called, “It’s Your Game, Keep It Real,” – a program that includes real-life scenarios about condoms. School officials did not return calls for comment – but they told parents that the program was selected because it has a proven record.

District officails told television station KTRK that the curriculum was approved by a subcommittee made up of a group of parents — and the school board unanimously approved it during summer break — when many parents and students were on vacation.

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Media Bias Revealed in Astonishing Romney Photo

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It was a news photo that, as Gawker quipped, was “ripe for captioning.”

A pic of Mitt Romney bending over, while a seemingly astonished schoolgirl stands behind him, mouth agape.

The photograph, posted Monday by The Associated Press for all to see, has since surged across the Internet. The candidate riding a wave of confidence from last week’s debate performance was suddenly made, pardon, the butt of jokes.

So was it a cheap shot? Tim Graham, media analysis director at the Media Research Center, said absolutely.

“It’s unbelievable,” he wrote. “It honestly looks like a little girl is gaping at Romney from behind.”

A closer look appears to show the girl looking at something else to the right of Romney.

Read more from this story HERE.

Video: Polling Group Now Considers Florida, North Carolina and Virginia Safe for Romney, Leaving States

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In an amazing turn of events, Suffolk Polling is no longer polling Florida, North Carolina, or Virginia because they are now considered safe states for Romney.

This was confirmed during a Bill O’Reilly interview with the director of the Suffolk University Political Research Center yeseterday:

This is yet another revelation this week that the polls are turning against Obama.

In another story this week, both Michigan and Pennsylvania were moved from Obama safe states to being in swing.

Videos: Obama’s Big Bird Ad Under Attack by Sesame Street Owners, Romney

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Yesterday, the Obama campaign released an ad starring Big Bird in an attempt to suggest that Romney believes that PBS subsidies are one of our nation’s most critical problems:

The Romney campaign quickly responded. At a speech yesterday, Romney stated that, “You have to scratch your head when the president spends the last week talking about saving Big Bird.” He continued, “I actually think we need to have a president who talks about saving the American people and saving good jobs and saving our future”:

Fox News later reported that the owners of Sesame Street did not see the Obama ad as a laughing matter. in fact, the owners demanded that the ad be taken down:

Sesame Workshop is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization and we do not endorse candidates or participate in political campaigns. We have approved no campaign ads and, as is our general practice, have requested that the ad be taken down.

Michigan, Pennsylvania Move from Obama-Safe States to Swing States

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In some of the first state level polls conducted since last Wednesday’s presidential debate, Michigan and Pennsylvania have moved from lean-Obama states to swing states. The Romney campaign had previously pulled their advertising from those states to concentrate on other states.

A Susquehanna Polling and Research poll of 725 likely Pennsylvania voters conducted Oct. 4-6 shows Obama’s lead down to only two percentage points (47 to 45 percent), which is within the plus or minus 3.7 percentage point margin of error. Four percent of those polled said they were undecided. When they were asked who they were leaning toward, they favored Romney three to one. Factoring this in, Obama’s lead is only one percentage point.

In Michigan, two new polls also show a tight race. A poll of 1,122 respondents conducted Oct. 5 by Foster McCollum White & Associates showed a 3 percentage point advantage for Obama (49 to 46 percent with a 2.93 percent margin of error. The poll did not screen for registered or likely voters.) An Oct. 5-7 poll of 600 likely Michigan voters conducted by EPIC-MRA had similar results. Obama leads by only three percentage points (48 to 45 percent), with a plus or minus four percentage point margin of error.

While Obama still shows a lead in those states and shows an advantage in the electoral college vote, the results could be important if subsequent polls show similar results. It would mean that the Obama campaign might have to spend resources which would otherwise be spent elsewhere to hold on to those states. Also, it would provide Romney a greater range of possibilities to achieve the 270 electoral college votes needed to clinch the presidency.

Early in the race the Romney campaign appeared to want to compete for Michigan and Pennsylvania. Romney campaigned and ran television ads in both states. Romney was raised in Michigan and his father, George Romney, served as governor there. After continued poor showings in the polls, though, his campaign appeared to give up on those states. The newest polls, therefore, could shift the Romney campaign strategy.

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Recession Wiping Out Black Middle Class

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For months, the presidential candidates have been trying to court the middle class, extending offers of tax cuts, lower gas prices and better schools. The message: America does well when the middle class does well. The corollary: We feel your pain.

But much less attention has been given to the black middle class, which since the recession and slow recovery has suffered massive decreases in wealth and high rates of home foreclosures. Blacks overall are experiencing a 13.4 percent unemployment rate, according to figures released Friday, much higher than the national rate of 7.8 percent.

The Pew Charitable Trusts’ Economic Mobility Project recently released a report projecting that 68 percent of African-Americans reared in the middle of the wealth ladder will not do as well as the previous generation.

In August, the National Urban League’s State of Black America 2012 report found that nearly all the economic gains that the black middle class made during the last 30 years have been wiped out by the economic downturn.

“This is a very dire situation,” said Valerie Rawlston Wilson, an economist with the National Urban League Policy Institute. “Even for blacks who have college degrees, we’ve seen a doubling of their unemployment (rate) between 2007 and 2010.”

Read more from this story HERE.