Pawlenty announced campaign chairs in 29 of the 99 counties in Iowa.
Pawlenty getting outside help for Ames poll?
Craig Robinson at The Iowa Republican reported earlier today that four Pawlenty consultants in Iowa are working for outside interest groups: three of them – Chuck Larson Jr., Karen Slifka and Ed Failor Jr. – for the America Petroleum Institute’s Iowa Energy Forum and a fourth – Nicole Schlinger – for Strong America Now, a debt reduction effort.
The overlap between the Pawlenty campaign and the outside groups is even evident in one of the former Minnesota governor’s campaign ads. Pawlenty’s ad “The Only Candidate” shows two girls wearing blue Iowa Energy Forum shirts. Both the Iowa Energy Forum and Strong America Now are offering free tickets and transportation to the Aug. 13 straw poll, something that could potentially provide a big boost to Pawlenty: if the campaign can tell supporters to hitch a ride to Ames with one of the outside groups, then they can focus their efforts elsewhere.
Pawlenty still trashing the debt ceiling deal:
“They didn’t fix the problem,” Pawlenty told about 60 Republicans crammed into Buddy Brew, a high-end coffee shop in voter-rich Tampa. “They just popped a fiscal aspirin and pretended the problem’s going to go away.” Pawlenty said the debt will increase by $7 trillion over the next decade under the terms of the deal.
He also rallied the audience with the misleading claim that “most of the cuts they proposed are going to come from defense.”
Pawlenty wants Perry to get into the race:
He also revealed that his campaign is operating under the assumption that Texas Gov. Rick Perry – who could siphon support and donors away from Pawlenty – is planning to join the Republican race.
“I assume, in fact I am counting on, the fact that he is going to get in the race,” he said. “For a while that will be all the buzz, as it is with all of these new entrants or individual entrants into the race. But all of us bring different strengths and weaknesses into the race.”
Republican leaders in Florida are lining up behind Pawlenty.
A Rassmussen survey has Romney barely ahead of Rick Perry.
Pretty much the field of candidates will speak at CPAC FL on September 23.
“What we needed to focus on from the very beginning…(was) balancing the budget through a balanced budget amendment to the constitution,” Santorum said this morning in Indianola, “very popular in America.”
[...]
Santorum is especially critical of presidential candidates Ron Paul, Michele Bachmann and Thaddeus McCotter, three members of congress who are running for president. “I didn’t see their input at all in this whole process,” Santorum said during an interview with Radio Iowa. “So how can you say you want to be the leaders of the country if you can’t even lead the congress?”
[...]
“We got some spending cuts, a few, and the future spending cuts may be out of defense which I am very much against and there may be tax increases in the future. That does not make me feel very comfortable that we got a deal that was the best deal,” Santorum said. “Why didn’t we get a good deal? Number one: because we didn’t have leadership; we didn’t have a clear message and we didn’t define the terms to the American public from the very beginning.”
A Quinnipiac University poll has Obama statistically tied with Romney and Santorum in Pennsylvania:
Romney holds a 44-42 percent lead over Obama, reversing a seven-point edge for the president in June. Santorum now trails Obama, 45 percent to 43 percent; in June, he trailed by 11 points.
Santorum’s mini-surge comes from his base in western Pennsylvania. He posts a 24-point lead in the southwest portion of the state, and he also leads by double-digits in the central and northwest sections of the state, nearly overcoming Obama’s leads in the eastern half of the Keystone State, including Philadelphia and its suburbs.
Republicans prefer Romney over Santorum, however, 21 percent to 14 percent.
Obama also leads Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., 47 percent and 39 percent, and he also leads Texas Gov. Rick Perry, 45 percent to 39 percent.
Apparently, the bad blood dates back to 2002, when Perry was irked by what he claims were attempts to block Boy Scouts from volunteering at the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City.
At the time, Romney, who was chairman of the Salt Lake City Olympics committee, said the Scouts were ineligible for some volunteer roles because they were under 18. But Perry cast the decision as political in his 2008 book about the Boy Scouts, “On My Honor,” suggesting Romney had blacklisted the Scouts because the organization had banned a gay Scoutmaster.
[...]
According to Embry, the two later clashed again, when Romney, as chairman of the Republican Governors Association, hired a consultant who had worked for one of Perry’s primary rivals.
In 2008, Perry snubbed Romney and endorsed Rudy Giuliani in the 2008 GOP presidential primary…. But a Perry spokesman tried to downplay the rift between the two, telling Embry his boss has “nothing but respect” for Romney.
Romney will have an advisory team of 63 lawyers, co-chaired by Robert Bork:
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney on Tuesday announced a team of 63 lawyers, co-chaired by conservative legal scholar Robert Bork, that will advise his campaign on constitutional and judicial matters, law enforcement and homeland security, and regulatory issues.
In addition to Bork, a conservative icon whose nomination by President Ronald Reagan to the Supreme Court failed in the Senate, Romney’s Justice Advisory Committee will be chaired by Harvard Law School professor Mary Ann Glendon, who served as U.S. ambassador to the Vatican in President George W. Bush’s administration, and Richard Wiley, a former chairman of the Federal Communications Commission.
Rand Paul took a swipe at Romney in a New Hampshire mailer supporting his Dad:
Ron Paul’s campaign is going directly at Mitt Romney with a letter to New Hampshire voters from his son, Rand Paul.
The freshman Kentucky senator does not name the Republican frontrunner, but his extended riff about supporting an anti-establishment, authentic candidate like his father has a clear target.
Supporting more of the status quo’s defenders — whether they are Democrats or Republicans — will surely deepen our debt crisis and permanently cripple our economy…It also isn’t time to elect people who wake up every day wondering what they believe. And it surely isn’t time to elect someone who passed the blueprint for ObamaCare while Governor of Massachusetts.”
Full letter here.
Tweet