Campaign Web Wars 2.0 - Republicans Strike Back

Raw Story

Tired of playing catch-up to the Obama Internet juggernaut, Republicans have rolled out a one-stop online shop for conservative activism which they hope will help them capture the White House.

The Social Victory Center, which launched this week and allows Republicans to do everything from distribute campaign materials to ring up undecided voters in battleground states like Ohio, has been craftily embedded in the most comprehensive social media landscape of them all: Facebook.

Call it the Republican National Committee’s newest weapon in campaign web wars 2.0, the virtual battlefield of the 2012 election. But is Democratic President Barack Obama’s huge advantage in Facebook, Twitter, digital advertising and online fundraising already unassailable?

President Obama's Campaign Kickoff

In back-to-back campaign rallies at Ohio State University and Virginia Commonwealth University on Saturday, President Barack Obama was introduced in Columbus and again in Richmond by first lady Michelle Obama. Thousands cheered and waved signs that read "Forward" as President Obama moved to speak to the assembled crowd.

President Obama in Columbus, Ohio on Saturday

During his remarks the president called Mitt Romney a willing and eager "rubber stamp" for conservative Republicans in Congress and an agenda to cut taxes for the rich, reduce spending on education and Medicare and enhance power that big banks and insurers hold over consumers.

Romney "doesn't seem to understand that maximizing profits by whatever means necessary, whether it's through layoffs or outsourcing or tax avoidance, union busting, might not always be good for the average American or for the American economy," the president said.

Romney and his "friends in Congress think the same bad ideas will lead to a different result or they're just hoping you won't remember what happened the last time you tried it their way. Obama said his rival was merely doing the bidding of the conservative power brokers and has little understanding of the struggles of average Americans. "Why else would he want to cut his own taxes while raising them for 18 million Americans," said Pres. Obama of the Republican presumptive presidential nominee.

"When people ask you what this election is about, you tell them it is still about hope. You tell them it is still about change," he said. It was a rebuttal to Romney's campaign, which has lately taken to mocking Obama's 2008 campaign mantra as "hype and blame."

"The economy is still facing headwinds and it will take sustained persistent efforts, yours and mine, for America to fully recover," the president said. He noted that jobs are being created and urged his audience not to give in to what he predicted would be negative campaign commercials designed to "exploit frustrations."

"Over and over again they'll tell you that America is down and out and they'll tell you who to blame and ask if you're better off than the worst crisis in our lifetime," he said. "The real question ... is not just about how we're doing today but how we'll be doing tomorrow."

WTF, GOP?

Mother Jones

Hey, GOP? A bit of simple math: Women are 51 percent of the population and 54 percent of voters.

The gender gap between Republicans and Democrats, in presidential elections, has historically ranged from 4 to 11 percent; in Pennsylvania, a key swing state, it was 8 percent in 2008.

Fifty-five percent of Americans think abortion should be legal in all or most cases. Sixty-three percent support requiring health plans to include no-cost birth control; 67 percent of independent women do. And a staggering 77 percent of Americans think a petty argument over contraception has no place in the national debate.

"Republicans being against sex is not good," one GOP strategist told Maureen Dowd. "Sex is popular."

This sanctimony is not playing as part of the genuine, profound disagreement between (and, guess what, among) liberals and conservatives about whether and when abortion should be legal.

It's playing as needlessly humiliating women with invasive procedures, as denying people the choice of when and whether to have kids, and, frankly, as straight-up slut-shaming puritanism (recall Rick Santorum admonishing married couples that it's not okay to have sex unless it's "procreative").

Let's have GOP strategist Alex Castellanos bring it home: "Republicans being against sex is not good," he told Maureen Dowd. "Sex is popular."

Not content to enrage people who like sex? Well, party of Lincoln, you've also bullied Latinos, a giant, socially conservative, upwardly mobile, and demographically growing bloc that many analysts see as key to securing the White House—and that as recently as 2004 swung 42 percent for George W. Bush. That was before GOP lawmakers spearheaded some 160 punitive anti-immigration bills in the last two years. Before Mitt Romney—whose own forebears fled to Mexico to avoid anti-polygamy laws—bent over backward to embrace such "self-deportation" measures. Before Rick Santorum demanded that Puerto Ricans switch to English. These days no more than 14 percent of likely Latino voters can see themselves casting a ballot for any of the GOP candidates. Hasta la vista, Nevada!

No one expected you to make nice with gays and their families. Ditto African Americans, Muslims, teachers, climate scientists. But cops? Firefighters? Every other middle-class independent who's watching his kid's school fire the lunch ladies? Seriously?

Read the full story @ Mother Jones

"Sen. Cornyn and Texas’ Congressional Delegation Has Met The Enemy, And It Is Planned Parenthood" @ Texas Observer by Eileen Smith