How Romney Will Re-Elect Obama

HOME POLITICS NATIONAL NEWS WORLD ECONOMY SPORTS ENTERTAINMENT Joe Conason Carl Hiaasen Connie Schultz E.J. Dionne Gene Lyons Jonathan Alter April 07, 2012 THE BIG STORY, BY JONATHAN ALTER Romney's Gaffes Won't Hurt Him As Badly As His Policies If Barack Obama prevails this November, it will be in large part because of what has come out of Mitt Romney's mouth in the last year. I'm not talking about gaffes, for which he has a Freudian propensity. The bigger problem is what the soon-to-be Republican nominee has said on substance. The news media doesn't focus much on issues, which are duller than the circus but usually more lethal politically. Unlike gaffes, political positions are fair game for Obama to exploit in front of 60 million voters watching the fall debates. READ MORE FEATURED COLUMN: CYNTHIA TUCKER America's Love Affair With Firearms Is National Insanity Other countries have generated a few homicidal lunatics, but murderous frenzies by gun-toting maniacs are a particularly American form of madness. Future historians will look back on the nation's refusal to enact sensible gun regulations with a wry fascination, much as present-day researchers ponder witch-burnings. READ MORE VIDEO OF THE DAY New York AG Eric Schneiderman Warns Against 'Magical Market' Why are Americans so distrusting in government? New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, who made waves when he spearheaded the fight to take on the banks, warns that we've been led to believe in the "magical market" that supposedly guides us to equality and prosperity. "It's like the conservatives are pretending they've found some missing pages of Genesis that the rest of us are missing," he said. READ MORE JOBS With New, Underwhelming Jobs Report, Economic Worries Persist The U.S. job market slowed in March as companies hit the brakes on hiring amid uncertainty about the economy's growth prospects. The unemployment rate dipped to 8.2 percent, but mostly because more Americans stopped looking for work. Yet this bad news doesn't reverse the mildly positive trends of the past few months: The jobless rate has dropped nearly a full percentage point since August and is now at its lowest level since January 2009. READ MORE WAR ON WOMEN Obama: Women Are Not An Interest Group President Barack Obama on Friday showered attention on America's women, while warning that they cannot be reduced to an interest group and "shouldn't be treated that way." "When we talk about these issues that primarily impact women, we've got to realize that they are not just women's issues," he said at a White House forum on women and the economy. "They are family issues. They are growth issues. They are issues about American competitiveness. They are issues that impact all of us." READ MORE MONEY Got A Bailout? The Feds Are Cutting Your Payouts Top executives at three companies bailed out by U.S. taxpayers during the 2008 financial crisis were ordered to take pay cuts by the federal government. The Treasury Department says nearly 70 executives at American International Group Inc., Ally Financial Inc. and General Motors Co. had their annual compensation reduced by 10 percent. The CEOs of each company had their pay frozen at 2011 levels. All three companies have yet to fully repay what they received from the $700 billion Treasury bailout and therefore are subject to controls on executive compensation. READ MORE CARTOON OF THE DAY   (c) 2012 Eastern Harbor Media, LLC. All Rights Reserved. 28 West 27th Street, Suite 502 New York, NY 10001