Search Results for: Republican

A Mormon Reporter On The Romney Bus

Longreads Pick

How the Mitt Romney campaign, its supporters and the media addressed the candidate’s Mormon faith:

“On the night of the South Carolina Republican primary in January, I sat near the front of a dark campaign press bus and listened to reporters talk about Mitt Romney’s underwear.

“Earlier in the day, one of them had happened upon the candidate and his wife doing laundry in the basement of our Columbia, South Carolina, hotel, and a small cluster of colleagues had now gathered to listen to him relate the anecdote, lapping up every mundane detail of this rare interaction with the closed-off couple.
Finally, another reporter interrupted.

“‘Did you see their underwear?’ she asked, grinning mischievously as though she had just said something naughty.”

Source: BuzzFeed
Published: Nov 13, 2012
Length: 15 minutes (3,838 words)

The GOP and Me

Longreads Pick

A Muslim-American’s history with the Republican Party—and how they lost him:

“Newt Gingrich, who also ran for President, introduced an angle that I – and presumably every American of sound mind – had never considered before. Speaking at a Texas church in March, 2011, Gingrich brought up his grandchildren to the audience, and then said, ‘I am convinced that if we do not decisively win the struggle over the nature of America, by the time they’re my age they will be in a secular atheist country, potentially one dominated by radical Islamists and with no understanding of what it once meant to be an American.’

“I’ll admit: I had never considered the threat of secular, atheist, radical Islamists before. But then, that’s why Newt Gingrich was running for president and I wasn’t. He sees things the rest of us don’t. He even has the ability to see things that don’t actually exist.”

Published: Nov 6, 2012
Length: 31 minutes (7,996 words)

Elizabeth Warren has energized Democrats in Massachusetts during her 2012 Senate race against Republican incumbent Scott Brown, but has also faced many difficulties as a first-time candidate. The race remains very close:

Lydon brought up an anecdote he’d heard: Warren, while she served on the bankruptcy panel during Clinton’s presidency, had known the first lady, Hillary Clinton. Clinton had supported Warren’s work and opposed changes to bankruptcy law. But later, when Clinton was in the Senate, she’d turned around and voted for changes Warren opposed. Lydon quoted what Warren had said at the time: ‘If she can’t take the heat, who can?’ Later, Lydon asked Warren if she thought she could withstand the same pressures Hillary had sometimes caved to, or whether she’d just join the old boy’s club of the Senate. ‘Nobody’s fooled about what I stand for,’ she started to answer. He interrupted: ‘No one was fooled by what Hillary stood for.’ He was trying to raise, in a roundabout way, a concern that Warren’s fans had worried about since the race with Brown had begun: Was it possible to enter politics without being compromised? Warren knew what he was getting at. ‘Oh, I think there’s a real question about what people run for,’ she replied. She added that she got into the race to uphold her principles, ‘not because this was a great career move for me.’ The implication was that other politicians, including Clinton, were in it for themselves. It was a pretty harsh dig at a Democrat admired by many in Massachusetts, whether or not Warren meant it to be. Like Obama on occasion, she was trying to sound self-effacing but ended up being self-aggrandizing.

“The Political Education of Elizabeth Warren.” — Monica Potts, The American Prospect

More from the Prospect

The Political Education of Elizabeth Warren

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Elizabeth Warren has energized Democrats in Massachusetts during her 2012 Senate race against Republican incumbent Scott Brown, but has also faced many difficulties as a first-time candidate. The race remains very close:

“Lydon brought up an anecdote he’d heard: Warren, while she served on the bankruptcy panel during Clinton’s presidency, had known the first lady, Hillary Clinton. Clinton had supported Warren’s work and opposed changes to bankruptcy law. But later, when Clinton was in the Senate, she’d turned around and voted for changes Warren opposed. Lydon quoted what Warren had said at the time: ‘If she can’t take the heat, who can?’ Later, Lydon asked Warren if she thought she could withstand the same pressures Hillary had sometimes caved to, or whether she’d just join the old boy’s club of the Senate. ‘Nobody’s fooled about what I stand for,’ she started to answer. He interrupted: ‘No one was fooled by what Hillary stood for.’ He was trying to raise, in a roundabout way, a concern that Warren’s fans had worried about since the race with Brown had begun: Was it possible to enter politics without being compromised? Warren knew what he was getting at. ‘Oh, I think there’s a real question about what people run for,’ she replied. She added that she got into the race to uphold her principles, ‘not because this was a great career move for me.’ The implication was that other politicians, including Clinton, were in it for themselves. It was a pretty harsh dig at a Democrat admired by many in Massachusetts, whether or not Warren meant it to be. Like Obama on occasion, she was trying to sound self-effacing but ended up being self-aggrandizing.”

Published: Sep 4, 2012
Length: 23 minutes (5,911 words)

How the 42-year-old Wisconsin representative (and now Mitt Romney VP pick) took a leading role in the Republican Party’s budget battle with President Obama:

Three days later, the White House started a livelier debate with Ryan. In a press briefing, Peter Orszag, the budget director at the time, dismantled Ryan’s plan, point by point. Ryan’s proposal would turn Medicare ‘into a voucher program, so that individuals are on their own in the health-care market,’ he said. Over time, the program wouldn’t keep pace with rising medical costs, so seniors would have to pay thousands of dollars more a year for health care. The Roadmap would revive Bush’s plan to privatize Social Security and ‘provide large tax benefits to upper-income households … while shifting the burden onto middle- and lower-income households. It is a dramatically different approach in which much more risk is loaded onto individuals.’ Ryan, who had always had a good relationship with Orszag, later described the briefing as the moment when ‘the budget director took that olive branch and hit me in the face with it.’

But the confrontation enhanced Ryan’s credibility among conservatives. He became the face of the opposition, someone who could attack the President’s policies with facts and figures. Indeed, at the retreat, Obama had mischaracterized Ryan’s Medicare plan, and Ryan politely corrected him. The two men sparred again the next month, at a summit at Blair House, over the President’s health-care plan. The details of Ryan’s proposals and his critiques of Obama’s mattered less than the fact that he was taking on the President.

“Fussbudget.” — Ryan Lizza, New Yorker

More Lizza

Fussbudget

Longreads Pick

How the 42-year-old Wisconsin representative (and now Mitt Romney VP pick) took a leading role in the Republican Party’s budget battle with President Obama:

“Three days later, the White House started a livelier debate with Ryan. In a press briefing, Peter Orszag, the budget director at the time, dismantled Ryan’s plan, point by point. Ryan’s proposal would turn Medicare ‘into a voucher program, so that individuals are on their own in the health-care market,’ he said. Over time, the program wouldn’t keep pace with rising medical costs, so seniors would have to pay thousands of dollars more a year for health care. The Roadmap would revive Bush’s plan to privatize Social Security and ‘provide large tax benefits to upper-income households . . . while shifting the burden onto middle- and lower-income households. It is a dramatically different approach in which much more risk is loaded onto individuals.’ Ryan, who had always had a good relationship with Orszag, later described the briefing as the moment when ‘the budget director took that olive branch and hit me in the face with it.’

“But the confrontation enhanced Ryan’s credibility among conservatives. He became the face of the opposition, someone who could attack the President’s policies with facts and figures. Indeed, at the retreat, Obama had mischaracterized Ryan’s Medicare plan, and Ryan politely corrected him. The two men sparred again the next month, at a summit at Blair House, over the President’s health-care plan. The details of Ryan’s proposals and his critiques of Obama’s mattered less than the fact that he was taking on the President.”

Author: Ryan Lizza
Source: The New Yorker
Published: Aug 6, 2012
Length: 26 minutes (6,504 words)

A look behind the scenes of Texas’s decision last year to cut funding for family planning and wage “an all-out war on Planned Parenthood”—and what that may mean for the future of women’s health care:

It was a given that reasonable people could differ over abortion, but most lawmakers believed that funding birth control programs was just good policy; not only did it reduce the number of abortions, but it reduced the burden on the state to care for more children.  

That changed dramatically after 2010, when Republicans won 25 seats in the House, giving them a supermajority of 101 to 49 and total control over the law-making process. (The male-female split is 118 men to 32 women.) As the Eighty-second Legislature began, a freshman class of right-wing legislators arrived in Austin, determined to cut government spending—a.k.a. ‘waste’—and push a deeply conservative social agenda. At the same time, Governor Perry was preparing to launch his presidential bid, burnishing his résumé for a national conservative audience. It wasn’t a good time to be a Democrat, but it wasn’t a great time to be a moderate Republican either. Conservative organizations turned out to be as skilled at social media as your average sixteen-year-old, using Twitter and Facebook to chronicle and broadcast every move of the supposed RINOs. A climate of fear descended on the Capitol. ‘Most people in the House think we should allow poor women to have Pap smears and prenatal care and contraception,’ an aide to a top House Republican told me. ‘But they are worried about primary opponents.’ 

The result, in Texas and beyond, was a full-scale assault on the existing system of women’s health care, with a bull’s-eye on the back of Planned Parenthood, the major provider of both abortions and family planning in Texas and the country. As Representative Wayne Christian told the Texas Tribune, in May 2011, ‘Of course it’s a war on birth control, abortion, everything. That’s what family planning is supposed to be about.’

“Mothers, Sisters, Daughters, Wives.” — Mimi Swartz, Texas Monthly

More from Swartz

Mothers, Sisters, Daughters, Wives

Longreads Pick

A look behind the scenes of Texas’s decision last year to cut funding for family planning and wage “an all-out war on Planned Parenthood”—and what that may mean for the future of women’s health care:

“It was a given that reasonable people could differ over abortion, but most lawmakers believed that funding birth control programs was just good policy; not only did it reduce the number of abortions, but it reduced the burden on the state to care for more children.

“That changed dramatically after 2010, when Republicans won 25 seats in the House, giving them a supermajority of 101 to 49 and total control over the law-making process. (The male-female split is 118 men to 32 women.) As the Eighty-second Legislature began, a freshman class of right-wing legislators arrived in Austin, determined to cut government spending—a.k.a. ‘waste’—and push a deeply conservative social agenda. At the same time, Governor Perry was preparing to launch his presidential bid, burnishing his résumé for a national conservative audience. It wasn’t a good time to be a Democrat, but it wasn’t a great time to be a moderate Republican either. Conservative organizations turned out to be as skilled at social media as your average sixteen-year-old, using Twitter and Facebook to chronicle and broadcast every move of the supposed RINOs. A climate of fear descended on the Capitol. ‘Most people in the House think we should allow poor women to have Pap smears and prenatal care and contraception,’ an aide to a top House Republican told me. ‘But they are worried about primary opponents.’

“The result, in Texas and beyond, was a full-scale assault on the existing system of women’s health care, with a bull’s-eye on the back of Planned Parenthood, the major provider of both abortions and family planning in Texas and the country. As Representative Wayne Christian told the Texas Tribune, in May 2011, ‘Of course it’s a war on birth control, abortion, everything. That’s what family planning is supposed to be about.'”

Source: Texas Monthly
Published: Jul 23, 2012
Length: 34 minutes (8,575 words)

[Not single-page] The departing congressman reflects on what’s wrong with Washington, and how his coming out in the 1980s was first received by his Democrat and Republican colleagues: 

Robert Bauman had written a book in which he outed me. He incorrectly referred to somebody as my boyfriend—he wasn’t; he was a close personal friend—but he referred to me as gay. The press didn’t pick it up, but I thought, I’d better tell Tip. So I went to Tip. We were sitting on the floor, it was a bad day, we were losing the vote on the Contras, and I sat next to him. I said, ‘Tip, I’ve got to tell you something. Bob Bauman is coming out with a book that says I’m gay.’

‘Awww, Bahney, don’t listen to that shit. You know they say these things about people.’ I said, ‘Well, Tip, the point is it’s true.’ He said, ‘Oh, Bahney, I’m so sad.’ That’s when he told me he thought I was going to be the first Jewish speaker. He acted as if it was the end. But he was wonderfully supportive.

“In Conversation: Barney Frank.” — Jason Zengerle, New York magazine

See also: “The One-Man Political Machine.” Scott Turow, New York Times, Feb. 17, 2011

In Conversation: Barney Frank

Longreads Pick

[Not single-page] The departing congressman reflects on what’s wrong with Washington, and how his coming out in the 1980s was first received by his Democrat and Republican colleagues:

“Robert Bauman had written a book in which he outed me. He incorrectly referred to somebody as my boyfriend—he wasn’t; he was a close personal friend—but he referred to me as gay. The press didn’t pick it up, but I thought, I’d better tell Tip. So I went to Tip. We were sitting on the floor, it was a bad day, we were losing the vote on the Contras, and I sat next to him. I said, ‘Tip, I’ve got to tell you something. Bob Bauman is coming out with a book that says I’m gay.’

“‘Awww, Bahney, don’t listen to that shit. You know they say these things about people.’ I said, ‘Well, Tip, the point is it’s true.’ He said, ‘Oh, Bahney, I’m so sad.’ That’s when he told me he thought I was going to be the first Jewish speaker. He acted as if it was the end. But he was wonderfully supportive.”

Published: Apr 16, 2012
Length: 28 minutes (7,189 words)