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| Obama plans back-to-back rallies to kick off campaign – US politics live | Obama plans back-to-back rallies to kick off campaign – US politics live |
| (40 minutes later) | |
| 11.06am: How long did House Republicans wait after Barack Obama's inauguration before putting in place a plan to make sure he would never be reelected? Oh, about as long as it takes to get out of that damn crowd on the Capitol bleachers and into a restaurant. | |
| That's according to Robert Draper's new book, "Do Not Ask What Good We Do: Inside the U.S. House of Representatives." On the night of Obama's inauguration, top GOP lawmakers and strategists held a private dinner at which they agreed to vote no on everything the president might try to do. | |
| Sam Stein of the Huffington Post has an excerpt this morning: | |
| The dinner lasted nearly four hours. They parted company almost giddily. The Republicans had agreed on a way forward: | |
| Go after Geithner. (And indeed Kyl did, the next day: 'Would you answer my question rather than dancing around it—please?') | |
| Show united and unyielding opposition to the president's economic policies. (Eight days later, Minority Whip Cantor would hold the House Republicans to a unanimous No against Obama's economic stimulus plan.) | |
| Begin attacking vulnerable Democrats on the airwaves. (The first National Republican Congressional Committee attack ads would run in less than two months.) | |
| Win the spear point of the House in 2010. Jab Obama relentlessly in 2011. Win the White House and the Senate in 2012. | |
| The Obama camp is wounded but not shocked. | |
| This is sad, appalling but not terribly surprising. A GOP plan to obstruct from day one. huff.to/K6hEHx | |
| — David Axelrod (@davidaxelrod) April 26, 2012 | |
| 10.56am: And we'll have more on that Biden speech for you just as soon as the AV club gets it together. | |
| Same question. Anyone? RT @alanagoodman: Is Biden's speech running late? Or is the campaign's live feed just not working? | |
| — Ryan Lizza (@RyanLizza) April 26, 2012 | |
| 10.50am: Vice President Joe Biden is speaking this morning at NYU to "contrast the Administration's record with the empty rhetoric of Governor Mitt Romney, who continues to distort and mischaracterize the President's accomplishments on foreign policy and national security without offering policy alternatives of his own," as a White House statement puts it. | |
| Excerpts of the speech have been released beforehand. Biden will flog one line we've been hearing for months but are likely to hear a lot more of: | |
| "If you are looking for a bumper sticker to sum up how President Obama has handled what we inherited, it's pretty simple: Osama bin Laden is dead and General Motors is alive." | |
| 10.43am: Rep. Paul Ryan is at Georgetown talking about his plan to bring sanity back to the budgeting process. | |
| On April 3 Mitt Romney won the primary in Wisconsin, Ryan's home state, 44-37. Ryan helped Romney campaign there. Later this month Ryan was asked the veep question: is he interested? | |
| "It's his decision months from now, not mine," Ryan said. "So why spend my time thinking about it?…If this bridge ever comes that I should cross it, then I'll think about it then. It's not the time to think about it." | |
| The Obama campaign might like to see more of the two onstage together. The re-election team has spent weeks trying to tie Mitt Romney to the Ryan budget, which fails to raise taxes on the wealthy while eviscerating entitlements and other popular subsidy programs. | |
| 10.37am: Next question for Ryan is taken from the Obama ad this morning: What about cuts to the Pell problem? | |
| Ryan said his budget keeps the Pell grant award at $5,500 – and people are calling it a cut only because his budget doesn't expand the grant as usual. Then Ryan pivots to a criticism of rising tuitions. That's the problem, he says; not the lack of government subsidy. | |
| "Let's look at why tuition is growing at such a fast pace." | |
| 10.31am: Rep. Paul Ryan has just finished his prepared remarks at Georgetown University and is preparing to submit to a Q&A. Watch the action here. | |
| Ryan's speech, "America's Enduring Promise," is the Georgetown University Public Policy Institute's 2012 Whittington Lecture. | |
| Ryan said budget reform is needed to salvage the country's long-term viability. | |
| "This will not be our destiny," Ryan said. "Americans won't stand for a shrunken vision of our future. We will get back on a path to prosperity. We will get this right." | |
| The first question is about the moral calculus of the Paul Ryan budget. Does it leave out the poor and others who would see benefits disappear under the banner of budget austerity? | |
| "You can't lift people out of poverty if you don't have a growing economy," Ryan says. "...Hardly Draconian, I would argue." | |
| 10.07am: Not to be outdone in the ad wars, the Obama campaign is going after Mitt Romney on student loans. | 10.07am: Not to be outdone in the ad wars, the Obama campaign is going after Mitt Romney on student loans. |
| "Romney's budget plan cuts Pell grants and locks in higher student loan rates," the new ad says. It's part of team Obama's Mitt Romney v Reality series. Ads in the series use the same blue background and logo and draw heavily on footage from the primary campaign. The tone of the ads is straightforward, point-counterpoint – not quite professorial, but appealing to voters' logic as opposed to the emotion or fear centers in the voter brain. | "Romney's budget plan cuts Pell grants and locks in higher student loan rates," the new ad says. It's part of team Obama's Mitt Romney v Reality series. Ads in the series use the same blue background and logo and draw heavily on footage from the primary campaign. The tone of the ads is straightforward, point-counterpoint – not quite professorial, but appealing to voters' logic as opposed to the emotion or fear centers in the voter brain. |
| 9.37am: Karl Rove's Super Pac, American Crossroads, has released an entertaining ad called Cool. As anti-Obama videos go, this one is way more fun than that Santorum fright-wig nightmare Obamaville thing. | 9.37am: Karl Rove's Super Pac, American Crossroads, has released an entertaining ad called Cool. As anti-Obama videos go, this one is way more fun than that Santorum fright-wig nightmare Obamaville thing. |
| Cool strings together clips of the president being cool: wearing 3-D glasses, drinking a beer, singing Al Green, dancing with Ellen DeGeneres (cool!). The tag line is, "After four years of a celebrity president, is your life any better?" | Cool strings together clips of the president being cool: wearing 3-D glasses, drinking a beer, singing Al Green, dancing with Ellen DeGeneres (cool!). The tag line is, "After four years of a celebrity president, is your life any better?" |
What do you think? | What do you think? |
| 9.15am: Good morning and welcome to our Thursday live blog coverage of American politics. Tom McCarthy here in New York wearing the blogger helmet (it's soundproof but you can sort of see out of it) this morning, and here's a summary of where things stand. | 9.15am: Good morning and welcome to our Thursday live blog coverage of American politics. Tom McCarthy here in New York wearing the blogger helmet (it's soundproof but you can sort of see out of it) this morning, and here's a summary of where things stand. |
| • 'Obama to kick off campaign in – where else – Ohio.' That's the world-weary headline the Cincinnati Enquirer has attached to its coverage of the Obama campaign announcement last night that the juggernaut will roll out with campaign rallies May 5 in Columbus and Richmond, Va. | • 'Obama to kick off campaign in – where else – Ohio.' That's the world-weary headline the Cincinnati Enquirer has attached to its coverage of the Obama campaign announcement last night that the juggernaut will roll out with campaign rallies May 5 in Columbus and Richmond, Va. |
| • Vice-president Joe Biden speaks this morning at NYU on foreign policy. He will argue that the Obama administration has done a good job. We'll be watching, 10.30am ET. Should provide an interesting contrast with Sen. Marco Rubio's Brookings speech yesterday, which, by the way, the New Yorker's Ryan Lizza thought was "notable for its civility and relative policy heft." | • Vice-president Joe Biden speaks this morning at NYU on foreign policy. He will argue that the Obama administration has done a good job. We'll be watching, 10.30am ET. Should provide an interesting contrast with Sen. Marco Rubio's Brookings speech yesterday, which, by the way, the New Yorker's Ryan Lizza thought was "notable for its civility and relative policy heft." |
| • There's a new poll out from a major news organization showing Barack Obama with a favorability rating among Americans (+2) that is five points better than rival Mitt Romney's (-3). But it's a Fox poll, so they're probably just trying to make the president look bad. | • There's a new poll out from a major news organization showing Barack Obama with a favorability rating among Americans (+2) that is five points better than rival Mitt Romney's (-3). But it's a Fox poll, so they're probably just trying to make the president look bad. |