Michigan Senate Candidate Calls Lilly Ledbetter Pay Equity Law A ‘Nuisance’: ‘It Shouldn’t Be The Law’
By Alex Seitz-Wald on Apr 13, 2012
At a campaign event yesterday, former GOP congressman and current Senate candidate Pete Hoekstra said the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009 should not be law because it interferes with job creation. The law has been in the news lately after presumed GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney hedged on his support for it earlier this week. But Hoekstra, who is running against Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI), was clear.

When an attendee asked Hoekstra if he would “work to repeal” the law — which empowers women to hold employers accountable for pay discrimination — Hoekstra replied, “It shouldn’t be the law“

http://thinkprogress.org/special/2012/0 ... ?mobile=nc

Romney Campaign Enlists GOP Women Who Opposed Equal Pay Bills To Attack Obama
By Josh Israel on Apr 11, 2012
As part of its bizarre strategy of blaming President Obama for the GOP’s “war on women,” the Romney campaign released statements today from two Republican Congresswomen, Reps. Mary Bono Mack (R-CA) and Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA). The statements correctly note that women have been hit particularly hard by job losses in recent years, but misleadingly lay the blame for those losses on Obama, just as Romney himself has been doing recently.

“Mitt Romney supports pay equity for women and, as president, will do what President Obama has not — implement pro-growth economic policies that will allow women and all Americans to finally get back to work,” wrote McMorris Rodgers. “Women in the Obama economy are facing hardships of historical proportions,” added Bono Mack. “Simply put, women cannot afford four more years of Barack Obama.”

But their concern for pay equity and women in the workplace must be a recent development. Both congresswomen voted against the landmark Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009 — which empowers women to seek restitution for pay discrimination — and both voted against the proposed Paycheck Fairness Act, which would have made it easier for women to fight pay inequality.

This morning, the Romney campaign refused to say during a conference call whether Romney supports the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, the first law that President Obama signed. The campaign later scrambled to assert that Romney “supports pay equity” and “is not looking to change current law.”
http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/0 ... ay-equity/

But the CNN/ORC International poll of 910 registered voters conducted April 13 to 15 tells a different story. It finds Obama leading by nine points (52 to 43 percent), a margin nearly identical to the eight-point Obama lead (51 to 43 percent) found in last week's ABC News/Washington Post poll.

A Ipsos/Reuters telephone poll, also released on Monday and conducted April 12 to 15, gives Obama a four-point advantage (47 to 43 percent).

CNN Poll: Gender gap and likeability keep Obama over Romney

Posted by
CNN Political Editor Paul Steinhauser

(CNN) - President Barack Obama holds a nine-point lead over Republican challenger Mitt Romney thanks in part to the perception that the president is more likeable and more in touch with the problems facing women and middle class Americans, according to a new national poll.

A CNN/ORC International poll released Monday also indicates a large gender gap that benefits Obama, but the public is divided on which candidate can best jump-start the economy.

Yet another new survey shows that Republican supporters know more about politics and political history than Democrats.

On eight of 13 questions about politics, Republicans outscored Democrats by an average of 18 percentage points, according to a new Pew survey “Partisan Differences in Knowledge.”

The Pew survey adds to a wave of surveys and studies showing that GOP-sympathizers are better informed, more intellectually consistent, more open-minded, more empathetic and more receptive to criticism than their fellow Americans who support the Democratic Party.

“Republicans fare substantially better than Democrats on several questions in the survey, as is typically the case in surveys about political knowledge,” said the study, which noted that Democrats outscored Republicans on five questions by an average of 4.6 percent.

The widest partisan gap in the survey came in at 30 points when only 46 percent of Democrats — but 76 percent of Republicans — correctly described the GOP as “the party generally more supportive of reducing the size of federal government.”

The widest difference that favored Democrats was only 8 percent, when 59 percent of Republicans and 67 percent of Democrats recognized the liberal party as “more support of reducing the defense budget.”

The Indiana Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that White is ineligible to work as an attorney because he was convicted of six felonies back in February.

Sen. Richard Lugar’s 36-year Senate career is now history.

The Associated Press called the race for Mourdock about 7:45 p.m.

Lugar was defeated in today’s Republican primary election by Treasurer Richard Mourdock, ending his bid for a seventh term in the U.S. Senate.

Mourdock will face Democrat U.S. Rep. Joe Donnelly and Libertarian Andy Horning in the November election.

Lugar is an Indiana icon who has influenced everything from the political makeup of Indianapolis to global nuclear proliferation. As mayor of Indianapolis, he led the effort to create Unigov, combining city and county government. And as the GOP leader in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee he’s played a lead role in combatting the spread of nuclear weapons from the former Soviet Union.

But while voters may have appreciated those things, in the end he was seen as a figure from the past who didn’t have a place in the Republican Party’s future.

Voters cited his age, 80; his Virginia address where he’d lived since 1977; his votes for President Obama’s Supreme Court nominees and his support for keeping earmarks in the hands of the legislative branch rather than surrender that power to the White House. And party insiders noted that Lugar had been a distant figure, not bothering to come to party events in Indiana until this year, when it was too late to kindle the relationships that could help him win.

Mourdock, over and over, pounded home the message that it was time for a change. And a drive through Indiana’s countryside would find as many, if not more, “Retire Lugar” yard signs than signs calling for him to be re-elected.

Dick Lugar — is history, and the Tea Party lives.[
Sen. Richard Lugar’s 36-year Senate career is now history.

Sen. Richard Lugar, who lost his primary fight in Indiana Tuesday, doesn’t need any reminders of the tea party movement’s ongoing appeal. But for those who do, another one surfaced recently in the tax return of the tea party movement’s biggest umbrella organization.

The Woodstock, Ga.-based Tea Party Patriots reported raising $12.2 million for the year ended May 31, 2011. That vaults them into the ranks of some of the most successful conservative activist groups, including FreedomWorks, the Club for Growth and Americans for Tax Reform.

Nonprofit organizations’ annual tax returns are lagging indicators, of course, and the political-fundraising landscape has been evolving rapidly. But the Tea Party Patriots’ success underscores the continuing — perhaps even growing — power of the tea party.

Much attention has been focused this election season on super PACs and nonprofits — some with ties to the tea-party movement — that are raising large sums, often from wealthy donors, and pouring it into campaign-themed advertising.