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Story by Maria Herrera / Sun Sentinel and Miranda Grossman / CBS12 News
DELRAY BEACH, Fla. -- Voters in Delray Beach wanted change. And they got it.
Residents chose newcomer Cary Glickstein as Mayor and Shelley Petrolia, who has run for office in the past, as their next commissioner for Seat 1.
MORE: Click here for more election results
In what was a very close, neck-and-neck race that often turned negative with accusations from both camps hurled at each other, Glickstein came out ahead of incumbent acting mayor Tom Carney with 52 percent of the votes for the post of mayor.
It was all cheers from family and friends at the Glickstein household after learning their father edged out Carney.
"I think the election tonight was about the neighborhoods and communities and that's what we're going to bring to Delray," said Glickstein.
Carney, 59, was first elected to the City Commission in 2011 and had been acting mayor since January, when Woodie McDuffie resigned after an unsuccessful run for the county Supervisor of Elections post.
"You're opponent says he can run Delray more efficiently. What do you say to that?" CBS12's Josh Repp asked Tom Carney.
"I disagree. I think Delray is run pretty efficiently as we speak," said Carney.
"Listen, he's an incumbent...how many incumbents say we need change? But believe me we do," Chris Davey, Glickstein supporter.
Glickstein, a 44-year-old home builder and an attorney, ran a campaign promising to return Delray back to its glory days. He said granting no-bid contracts for services that could cost less, approving projects that are not within the character of the city's "village-by-the-sea" feel and raiding city reserves to balance the budget were not within the character of the Delray Beach.
"The Waste Management was a bellwether event in a town of this size, when you have a $65 million contract that you just don't bid. It doesn't pass the smell test for a lot of people," said Glickstein. "We've got a unique town, the challenge is to keep it that way."
In the three-way race for Seat 1, Petrolia defeated opponents Kurt Lehmann, a Realtor and Code Enforcement Board member, and Alexander Christopher, a neighborhood association president, by a large margin, with nearly 56 percent of the votes.
Petrolia said she didn't consider herself a politician. Instead she described herself as a concerned resident wanting to change the way the city does business. She said she wants to tackle budget issues and is looking forward to saving the city money by examining and putting out to bid every contract that comes before the commission.
Petrolia could not be reached for comment despite several calls to her cell phone and home.
Delray voters also approved several measures and changes to the city's charter. Most significant was approving a change to the length of a commissioner's term from two years to three years. Before the change, elected officials served three, two-year terms. Now they will serve two, three-year terms.
Voters also approved a measure that allows a commissioner who gets elected mayor to serve longer. The charter amendment provides that the time a person spent as a commissioner will not count toward the six-year term limit for mayor. Now an elected official can potentially serve for 12 years.
Among the other changes approved: Corrections to grammatical errors in the city's charter; removing language that prohibits a reduction in the city manager's salary based on performance; changing voting rules for all commission meetings by removing the current requirement that all votes must be made in the affirmative; and an economic development proposal that gives elected officials the power to grant tax exemptions to companies relocating to the city and creating a certain number of jobs.
Story by Attiyya Anthony / Sun Sentinel
Posted by Miranda Grossman / CBS12 News
BOYNTON BEACH, Fla. -- Boynton Beach voters chose a political veteran, an insurance salesman and a Realtor to represent them on the commission dais.
In one of the largest elections to date, voters chose from 14 candidates who were running for four seats and voted on four charter questions. The District IV commissioner has yet to be decided — it goes to a run-off on March 22.
Jerry Taylor, 77, won the mayor's race with nearly 49 percent of the vote, David Merker won the District I race with almost 59 percent of the vote and Mike Fitzpatrick, 59, won the District III race with 43 percent of vote.
Cory Kravit, 34, led the District IV race with 33 percent of the vote. Kravit and Joe Casello will go into a runoff on March 26.
At the next commission meeting, interim mayor Woodrow Hay will move back into his District II commission seat.
"We're absolutely thrilled with the results and are excited to see which guy ends up on top at the run-off," Kravit said.
The political makeup of Boynton has been a mess for some years, but the new commission hopes that they can help the city bounce back.
During the campaign, all of the candidates vowed to move Boynton forward and acknowledged the past mistakes of commissioners.
"The Marlene Ross situation was embarrassing, and it's in the past, we're looking forward," Taylor said in his campaign.
According to the four mayoral candidates, the race was about development and transparency.
Taylor has served Boynton as mayor on two separate occasions, from 1995-1999 and from 2003-2010. This time around he wants to create jobs, open up more mom and pop stores and build a new police headquarters and City Hall, possibly at the Old Boynton High School location.
Fitzpatrick, the new District III commissioner, resigned as firefighter lieutenant to run for the seat. With his new position, Fitzpatrick wants to focus on using green space and building a train transfer station downtown.
Candidates for the District I seat said the race was about bringing back representation to a under represented district, since Bill Orlove resigned in July.
Merker's plan to is to restore respect for the commission by bringing experts and people together to find reasonable solutions to issues, like the proposed five-story Ocean Drive hotel next to the Leisureville senior citizen community.
District IV was a special election to fill a seat after former commissioner Marlene Ross resigned amid alleged ethics violations. The District IV seat will be up again for election next year.
Also on the ballot, were four charter questions. Residents voted in favor of increasing the time between district mappings; allowing a commissioner to finish a term in their district if a district mapping pushed them out; requiring a commissioner to have a 50 percent plus one majority vote to get elected and cleaning up the language of the charter.
Posted by Miranda Grossman / CBS12 News
PALM BEACH COUNTY, Fla. -- It's voting day for a few South Florida cities. The mayoral race is heating up in Delray Beach,
where controversy has been the center of attention under the current
administration.
The question for voters in Delray is whether to stay with Tom Carney or choose Cary Glickstein.
About 100 people showed up at the Delray Beach Public Library to cast their vote.
Both candidates have been working with volunteers to get their message out until the last moment.
Both men have experience with the city of Delray.
Carney has been around in Delray city government for two years. Glickstein is the former chairman of the Planning and Zoning Board.
Other items on the ballot include changes to the city's charter. They will also consider extending term limits for the mayor and commissioners in certain situations, and there is an option for voters to increase city commissioners salary, while at the same time reducing the city manager's salary.
By Miranda Grossman / CBS12 News
There are some new faces on Capitol Hill on Thursday as the 113th Congress was sworn in. Two of the freshman, Lois Frankel and Patrick Murhpy, are from our area.
Voters are hoping for better results after the last Congress passed a record low number of bills. But former Congressman Mark Foley said they are inheriting bug problems.
"I think Congress is going to mired in conflict and controversy for the next 24 months," Foley said.
In the coming months legislators will debate spending cuts, the debt limit and gun control. The 113th Congress starts work after one of the least productive terms in history. The last group passed just 152 bills, the fewest in 65 years. That left Congress with an approval rating of just 10-percent last year.
"Having been there for 11 plus years, I'm proud of our government most of the time. But these are the moments when I do not miss being up in D.C. because it's a cesspool," Foley said.
WEST PALM BEACH - Two days later, Florida still has not been called for either President Obama or Mitt Romney of course it does not matter, but it would be nice to know which candidate won our 29 electoral college votes.
The hold-up appears to be Miami-Dade County which is one of the last counties still adding up a substantial number of votes.
President Obama still holds a small lead over Romney but Florida is neither blue nor red quite yet.
Posted by Scott T. Smith / CBS12 News
WEST
PALM BEACH, Fla. -- Elections workers are going through absentee
ballots and later votes will come in initially by remote from the
precincts.
Some problems at the polling locations today.
At
precinct 32-02 in Boynton Beach. The first page of the ballot had the
wrong precinct number on it. That's the page with all the candidates on
it. Initially voters were told to come back later for page 1. Eventually
voters used machines generally used by people with disabilities.
At precinct 51-22 in Delray Beach voters had to wait until after 9 a.m. for the ballots to arrive.
The Supervisor of Elections say there were a couple cases of ballots going to the wrong location.
The most common issue at the polls -- broken scanners.
At
Church of the Palms in the city of Delray Beach one of the places.
Voters allowed to vote the ballots placed into an emergency box.. to be
run through machines and counted later. But voter lose the check of
having the machine spit out the ballot if there was mistake.
Susan
Bucher/Supervisor of Elections: It's a presidential election. We have a
large volume. We have 446 locations. We're going to have some bumps in
the road. There's going to be some technological problems. And we're
working on them as quickly as possible. Please be patient with us, we're
working as hard as we know how.
Janice Constant/Voter: In a very
close election like this, I think it's very serious, and it's
disappointing. We have a right to vote. And I'm proud to vote, but this
is not the way we plan our elections.
The scanners were fixed or replaced and the ballot issues also addressed at the precincts.
At a precinct nearby in Palm Beach Gardens the first page of the ballot was completely missing.
So elections workers ran them the ballots as fast as they could.
Bucher reminds us absentee ballots must be turned in by 7 p.m. at her main office at Gun Club Road and Military Trail.
At the polling locations, if you're in line at 7 p.m. when polls close, you will be allowed to vote.
POSTED BY: Karl Man/CBS 12 News
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla -- Here is a full recap of the CBS 12 Election Special which aired Monday evening. The special program previews all that is going into the highly anticipated election day on Tuesday.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg on Thursday backed President Barack Obama over Republican Mitt Romney, saying the incumbent Democrat will bring leadership that is critically needed to fight climate change after the East Coast devastation wrought by Hurricane Sandy.
The endorsement from the politically independent and popular third-term mayor was a major boost for Obama, who is spending the campaign's final days trying to win over independent voters whose voices will be critical in determining who wins Tuesday's election.
Both candidates had eagerly sought the nod from Bloomberg, who didn't endorse a presidential candidate in 2008.
As New York continued to pick up the pieces after the superstorm devastated parts of the city this week, Bloomberg said Sandy had made the stakes of the election even clearer. He said the climate is changing and that Obama has taken major steps in the right direction.
"We need leadership from the White House, and over the past four years, President Barack Obama has taken major steps to reduce our carbon consumption," Bloomberg wrote in an online opinion piece, citing higher fuel-efficiency standards for vehicles and stricter controls on mercury emissions.
A billionaire businessman and former Republican, Bloomberg praised Romney as a good man who would bring valuable business experience to the White House. But he said Romney had reversed course on a number of important issues, including immigration, health care and abortion.
"If the 1994 or 2003 version of Mitt Romney were running for president, I may well have voted for him because, like so many other independents, I have found the past four years to be, in a word, disappointing," Bloomberg wrote.
Obama issued a statement welcoming the endorsement and pledging to continue to stand with New York in its time of need.
"While we may not agree on every issue, Mayor Bloomberg and I agree on the most important issues of our time - that the key to a strong economy is investing in the skills and education of our people, that immigration reform is essential to an open and dynamic democracy, and that climate change is a threat to our children's future, and we owe it to them to do something about it," Obama said.
Bloomberg endorsed Republican President George W. Bush's re-election in 2004.
By Chuck Weber/CBS 12 PALM BEACH-- Some local voters have received official-looking letters questioning their citizenship and eligibility to vote. But the letters are bogus, and now under the scrutiny of state investigators. Palm Beach Town councilman Bill Diamond showed us the letter he got Saturday morning. The letter was addressed to him and supposedly from Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections Susan Bucher. The letter said Diamond had 15 days to fill out an enclosed form, and bring it and proof of citizenship to the elections office. "You'll be subject to imprisonment, fine, if you try to vote," recounted Diamond. "I flipped. I absolutely flipped. It was like a panic attack almost." Diamond is not only a town councilman, but also active in Republican Party politics. Diamond reported the incident to the elections office. He says Supervisor Bucher called him, confirming the letter is bogus and indicating the matter is under investigation. Diamond says fellow town council member David Rosow and his housekeeper and her family also received the letters. All of them are also Republicans. "There's no question in my mind," said Diamond. "This is a real effort to suppress the Republican vote." The Secretary of State's office tells CBS 12 it's aware of people in 23 counties receiving similar letters. The matter has been referred to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. If you get one of the letters or become aware of any other suspicious election-related activity, contact your Supervisor of Elections, or call the state voter fraud hotline at 1-877-868-3737.
POSTED BY: Karl Man/CBS 12 News
PALM BEACH COUNTY, Fla - If you haven't received one yet don't worry it is coming soon and if you did get it you're probably having a hard time reading it.
We're talking about sample ballots, they are arriving across Palm Beach County.
While the big races are pretty straightforward some voters say the rest of the ballot is a downright difficult read.
Tuesday night we took calls in the CBS 12 newsroom about what some are calling a confusing and long ballot.
Picking the president seems pretty simple, its right at the top but the rest can be tough to figure out. We took a sample ballot to the streets of West Palm Beach to see what local voters had to say.
CBS 12's Peter Schaller filed this live report to see how people reacted to the confusing ballot.
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) -- Indiana Republican Senate candidate Richard Mourdock said Wednesday that he is standing by his statement that when a woman becomes pregnant during a rape "that's something God intended." He says some people have twisted the meaning of his comment.
Mourdock said in a news conference that he abhors any sexual violence and regrets it if his comment during a debate Tuesday night left another impression. He said he firmly believes all life is precious and that he abhors violence of any kind.
"I spoke from my heart. And speaking from my heart, speaking from the deepest level of my faith, I would not apologize. I would be less than faithful if I said anything other than life is precious, I believe it's a gift from god," Mourdock said
Presidential candidate Mitt Romney and other Republicans have distanced themselves from Mourdock's stance, though Romney said he still supports Mourdock's campaign.
Mourdock, who has been locked in one of the country's most expensive and closely watched Senate races, was asked during the final minutes of a debate Tuesday night whether abortion should be allowed in cases of rape or incest.
"I struggled with it myself for a long time, but I came to realize that life is that gift from God. And, I think, even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is something that God intended to happen," Mourdock said.
Mourdock maintained at the news conference that he was misunderstood.
"I think that God can see beauty in every life," Mourdock said. "Certainly, I did not intend to suggest that God wants rape, that God pushes people to rape, that God wants to support or condone evil in any way."
Mourdock became the second GOP Senate candidate to find himself on the defensive over comments about rape and pregnancy. Missouri Senate candidate Rep. Todd Akin said in August that women's bodies have ways of preventing pregnancy in cases of what he called "legitimate rape." Since his comment, Akin has repeatedly apologized but has refused to leave his race despite calls to do so by leaders of his own party, including GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney.
New Hampshire Republican Sen. Kelly Ayotte canceled her plan to campaign Wednesday with Mourdock. Ayotte's spokesman, Jeff Grappone, said that the senator disagrees with Mourdock's comments, which do not represent her views.
More than two dozen Indiana Republicans met for the Mourdock fundraiser Ayotte was supposed to headline Wednesday afternoon. Speaking inside the fundraiser hosted by the Indianapolis Women's Republican Club, state party chairman Eric Holcomb declined comment on Mourdock's refusal to apologize.
"I think he covered it," Holcomb said. Asked if Ayotte's cancellation would hurt Mourdock's fundraising, Holcomb said "I think we're full steam ahead."
Mourdock also was scheduled to appear at a Republican fundraiser Wednesday night in the wealthy Indianapolis suburb of Carmel.
Other Republicans were split on their reaction to Mourdock Wednesday morning.
Indiana gubernatorial candidate Mike Pence, who has been a leading social conservative in Congress, said Mourdock should apologize for the comment. Spokeswomen for the two Republican women running for Congress in Indiana, Jackie Walorski and Susan Brooks, said they also disagreed with Mourdock's comments.
But the National Republican Senatorial Committee, which has invested heavily in Mourdock and Indiana, said the candidate's words were being twisted.
"Richard and I, along with millions of Americans - including even Joe Donnelly - believe that life is a gift from God. To try and construe his words as anything other than a restatement of that belief is irresponsible and ridiculous," NRSC Chairman and Texas Sen. John Cornyn said in a statement.
It was not immediately clear what effect Mourdock's comments might have during the final two weeks in the increasingly tight race against Democratic Rep. Joe Donnelly. But they could prove problematic. Romney distanced himself from Mourdock on Tuesday - a day after a television ad featuring the former Massachusetts governor supporting the GOP Senate candidate began airing in Indiana.
"Gov. Romney disagrees with Richard Mourdock, and Mr. Mourdock's comments do not reflect Gov. Romney's views. We disagree on the policy regarding exceptions for rape and incest but still support him," Romney spokeswoman Andrea Saul told The Associated Press Wednesday. Romney aides said his ad supporting Mourdock would not be pulled from Indiana's airwaves.
National Democrats quickly picked up on Mourdock's statement and used it as an opportunity to paint him as an extreme candidate, calling him a tea party "zealot." DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz described Mourdock's comments as "outrageous and demeaning to women" and called on Romney to take his pro-Mourdock ad off the air.
Mourdock has consistently opposed abortion, with the exception of cases where the mother's life is in danger. His stark anti-abortion stance earned him the endorsement of Indiana Right to Life in the Republican primary and the general election.
In response, Donnelly said after the debate in southern Indiana that he doesn't believe "my God, or any God, would intend that to happen."
Mourdock, who ran unsuccessfully for Congress three times before becoming state treasurer, became one of the tea party's biggest winners of the 2012 primary season when he knocked off veteran Indiana Sen. Richard Lugar in a brutal campaign. Initially, national Republicans stayed out of the Indiana race because the race had appeared to be a likely win for the GOP.
But as the race grew tighter in recent months, Mourdock changed his tune and started trying to woo moderate voters. At the same time, top Republicans began stumping for Mourdock around the state in a push to break open the high-stakes Senate race. Republicans need to gain three seats, or four if President Barack Obama wins re-election, and seats that were predicted to remain or turn Republican have grown uncertain.
Donnelly, a moderate Democrat who opposes abortion except in cases of rape, incest or where the life of the mother is in danger, has spent much of his campaign highlighting Mourdock's tea party ties and trying to accuse him of being too extreme even for conservative Indiana.
LIMA, Peru (AP) - U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is taking responsibility for security at the U.S. consulate in Libya where an attack by extremists last month killed the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans.
Pushing back against Republican criticism of the Obama administration for its handling of the situation, Clinton said Monday in Lima, Peru, that security at all of America's diplomatic missions abroad is her job, not that of the White House.
In television interviews, Clinton said she is responsible for State Department security and "for the more than 60,000 people around the world." She told Fox News that "the decisions about security are made by security professionals." She also made similar comments to CNN about taking responsibility.
(Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)
WEST PALM BEACH - In just 3 weeks you can vote for actress Roseanne Barr for United States president.
Barr is one of 12 presidential candidates on the Florida ballot.
In addition to President Obama and Mitt Romney, Florida voters will have the chance to pick candidates from the Socialist Party, the Libertarian Party and even America's Party.
Florida has the second-most crowded presidential ballot. Colorado is the first, offering 17 different presidential options.
Posted by Karl Man / CBS12 News
PALM BEACH COUNTY, Fla. -- It's the most-watch congressional race in the nation.
Polls are split on who is in lead...republican Allen West or democrat Patrick Murphy.
A republican-backed poll shows West up by eleven points and a democratic poll shows Murphy up by nine.
Congressman West has developed a reputation as the face of the Tea Party in Congress, often spotted on Fox News Channel and not ashamed of harsh comments towards democrats..
But that reputation, many political experts say has him trailing with moderates in his new-found Palm Beach-Treasure Coast district.
We asked you to sound off on Facebook on what you want to know from the candidates.
CBS 12's Jana Eschbach filed this exclusive Vote 2012 report with Congressman Allen West.
Posted by Karl Man/CBS 12 News
It's the most-watched Congressional race in the state and possibly across the nation.
Democratic candidate Patrick Murphy and Congressman Allen West have become very familiar with one another over the past couple of months.
Several polls have them neck and neck in the race, but viewers want answers on the arrest for drunk and disorderly arrest that Murphy received when was 19.
Viewers are also wondering why this campaign against West has gotten so nasty.
CBS 12's Jana Eschbach sat down with Patrick Murphy as he answers your questions from Facebook.
In addition, Jana will sit down with Congressman Allen West on Friday and ask him questions that you want answered.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- A first-term Tea Party congressman is airing his opponent's mug shot from a drunken arrest in a blistering new campaign ad.
Rep. Allen West, a South Florida Republican, is knocking Democrat Patrick Murphy for a college arrest outside a nightclub in 2003, when Murphy was 19.
The ad imitates a spy movie and says on the night Murphy was arrested, West was preparing for deployment to war.
Murphy's campaign points out that West was reprimanded for his conduct in Iraq in interrogating an Iraqi police officer. West was forced to retire after the incident.
Known for his fiery political attacks, West is a top target for congressional Democrats. He's running in a competitive, redrawn district, and the race went to attack ads from the start..
House Majority PAC, a Democratic group, released their own ad Friday. It's a greatest-hits reel of West's statements, including one in which he said about 80 House Democrats are Communists.
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) -- A court-imposed deadline neared Monday for a judge to decide whether Pennsylvania's tough new law requiring voters to show photo identification can remain intact, a ruling that could swing election momentum with Republican candidates trailing in polls on the state's top-of-the-ticket races.
The law, opposed furiously by Democrats, has nevertheless been a valuable Democratic Party tool to motivate volunteers and campaign contributions as other critics, including the NAACP, AARP and the League of Women Voters, hold voter education drives and protest rallies.
Commonwealth Court Judge Robert Simpson is under a state Supreme Court order to rule no later than Tuesday, just five weeks before voters decide whether to re-elect President Barack Obama, a Democrat, or replace him with Mitt Romney, a Republican.
The high court told Simpson that he should stop the law from taking effect in this year's election if he finds the state has not met the law's promise of providing easy access to a photo ID or if he believes it will prevent any registered voter from casting a ballot.
Simpson heard two days of testimony last week and said he was considering invalidating a narrow portion of the law for the Nov. 6 election. An appeal to the state Supreme Court is possible.
The law is a signature accomplishment of Republicans in control of Pennsylvania state government who say they fear election fraud. But it is an emotional target for Democrats who call it a Jim Crow-style scheme to make it harder for their party's traditional voters, including young adults and minorities, who might not carry the right kind of ID or know about the law.
It was already a political lightning rod when a top state Republican lawmaker boasted to a GOP dinner in June that the ID requirement "is going to allow Gov. Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania."
The injunction Simpson was considering revolves around the portion of the law that allows a voter without valid photo ID at the polls to cast a provisional ballot. It would effectively excuse those voters from having to get a valid photo ID and show it to county election officials within six days after the election to ensure their ballot will count. Instead, they might be required to submit a signed declaration to the county.
Such a ruling would deliver a victory for the state's elected Republican leadership and the government's stumbling efforts to make free photo IDs available to any registered voter who needs one. Lawyers for the state government and Gov. Tom Corbett said in a Friday court brief that such an injunction would be acceptable to them.
Lawyers for the plaintiffs - including the Homeless Advocacy Project, the League of Women Voters of Pennsylvania and the Pennsylvania chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People - protested Simpson's idea. They told him in a Friday court filing that there is still no assurance that the provisional ballots will be counted, and a flood of provisional ballots could overwhelm county election offices.
Besides, they said, such a narrow injunction ignores the Supreme Court's directions.
Last week, Simpson heard testimony about the state's ongoing efforts to remove bureaucratic barriers for people to get a valid photo ID. He also heard about long lines and ill-informed clerks at driver's license centers and identification requirements that made it harder for some registered voters to get a state-issued photo ID.
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) - Florida is renewing its effort to screen and remove potentially ineligible voters from the rolls.
State election officials on Wednesday sent to county election officials a new list of 198 people suspected of being non-U.S. citizens. This list includes people whose names were checked against a federal immigration database.
Earlier this year, the state had produced a list of more than 2,600 registered voters that were potentially ineligible, but most county election offices did not remove voters on that list after legal questions and questions about the accuracy of the list arose.
Some of those on the latest list include voters who have already admitted that they are not citizens.
It is not clear if the voters on this list will be removed prior to this year's crucial presidential election.
(Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)
MIAMI -- Both President Barack Obama and his rival Mitt Romney will return to the Sunshine State this week. They will both participate in a taped forum hosted by Univision at the University of Miami on Thursday.
Following the event Mitt Romney will head to Palm Beach County where he has two private fundraisers planned.
PALM BEACH COUNTY -- In November voters will decide if gambling should come to Palm Beach County.
Supporters say allowing slot machines in Palm Beach County would mean more jobs and also more money for schools.
Under state law, 35% of the revenues from slot machines would go into a public education trust fund.
Broward and Miami-Dade already have slots and some say it's time for Palm Beach County to get in the game.
Mike Jones, supports the idea. "It would make Palm Beach County competitive with surrounding counties because tourists and residents right now are forced to go down to Broward and Dade and those counties keep all those revenues.”
A psychiatrist, who has treated hundreds of people in south Florida with gambling addictions, says he believes slot machines would have a negative impact because he has seen many families destroyed by gambling.
If voters approve slot machines, only existing pare-mutuel facilities could have them and the only such place in Palm Beach County is the Palm Beach Kennel Club near Palm Beach International Airport.
Tuesday morning, a group supporting slot machines will kick off its campaign to get voters to approve the measure in November.
BOCA RATON, Fla. -- In a Youtube video just released Romney can be heard going off on Obama supporters. He apparently made the comments last May at a fundraising event in Boca Raton.
Romney says, "there are 47% who are with him, who are dependent on government, who believe that they are victims, who believe government has the responsibility to care for them."
In a statement, the Romney campaign makes no apologies saying "as the governor has made clear all year, he is concerned about the growing number of people who are dependent on the federal government."
MIAMI -- Presidential politics are coming back to south Florida. President Barack Obama and Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney will be in Miami next week.
They will participate at a taped forum hosted by Univision at the University of Miami.
Romney will be there on Wednesday, the president on Thursday. The forums are only open to the UM community.
The event will feature questions asked in Spanish and answered by the candidates with responses translated.
Nationwide Hispanics make up 8.7% of all voters, many of them in the swing states of Florida, Nevada, Colorado, Arizona and New Mexico.
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) - Florida's attempt to screen voter rolls for non-U.S. citizens is yielding a smaller number than state officials had anticipated.
The Florida Department of State announced Wednesday that it used a federal immigration database to verify 207 voters are not citizens. Earlier this year, state officials under Republican Gov. Rock Scott had said they suspected more than 2,600 voters were ineligible and had asked election supervisors to purge those on the list.
State officials, however, said the screening process was still a success because it yielded some ineligible voters.
Florida's announcement came the same day that it reached an agreement with voting groups that had challenged the purge.
Under the agreement, the state will contact the remaining 2,400 voters who'd come under scrutiny and tell them they're still eligible to vote.
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) - The hulking pizzeria owner whose presidential bear hug has thrust him into fame says he's ready to hit the campaign trail if he's asked.
Forty-six-year-old Scott Van Duzer was back behind the counter of his restaurant in Fort Pierce on Wednesday after a whirlwind New York media tour.
Photos and videos of him lifting the president off the ground have drawn attention around the world.
He says he'd likely agree if he was asked to join President Barack Obama on the trail in his bid for reelection.
MIAMI (AP) - Former President Bill Clinton is starting a two-day Florida campaign trip for President Barack Obama with a speech at Florida International University.
The Obama campaign says the appearance Tuesday at the Miami university will focus on economic issues. Clinton is set to make another appearance on Wednesday in Orlando.
Florida is one of a handful of swing states considered key to deciding the election between Obama and Republican nominee Mitt Romney. Obama himself spent two days over the weekend campaigning in Florida. Florida has 29 electoral votes and Obama carried the state in 2008 over John McCain.
Democrats say turnout is one of the keys to winning the Nov. 6 election. South Florida's three heavily-populated counties of Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach include many reliable Democratic strongholds.
RENO, Nev. (AP) - Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney says Sept. 11 is a time to renew the resolve of protecting Americans against "evil" attacks.
Romney spoke in Reno, Nev., to a gathering of the National Guard on a day when both presidential campaigns halted, however briefly, their overt politics in deference to one of the most harrowing and unifying days in U.S. history.
Romney said the events of that day are seared in the memory of Americans. He said the families of those killed on Sept. 11, 2001, are remembered and held up in prayer.
Back in Washington, President Barack Obama marked the day by participating in solemn ceremonies at the White House and the Pentagon.
FT. PIERCE, Fla. -- Scott Van Duzer, the owner of ‘Big Apple Pizza’ in Ft. Pierce is telling CBS12 about that moment that is now getting him attention from around the country.
Van Duzer says he wasn't even planning to be in his pizzeria on Sunday when the President made an unexpected visit.
He was out golfing when he got a call from his manager.
“He goes the president is going to be here in 18 minutes and I said the president of what? He said the president of the United States and I said you gotta be kidding me?”
So Van Duzer rushed to the restaurant and that's when it happened.
“I gotta get one of these (picks up President). Man!”
It's probably the first time ever someone has picked up a president of the United States in a bear hug but Van duzer says he just got caught up in the moment.
“It was like a friend I hadn't seen. Got carried away.”
The bear hug picture made the front page of newspapers around the country and is posted on the president's Facebook and Instagram account.
It's also bringing attention to a little pizza joint and the Van Duzer Foundation which is constantly holding fundraisers and blood drives for people who need it.
“It was one of those moments. Unbelievable day.”
A moment that will go down in history between a president and a pizza shop owner.
MIAMI -- Former President Bill Clinton will be in Miami speaking at FIU on Tuesday.
He will also be in Orlando on Wednesday.
CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) - President Barack Obama's daughters are making a rare campaign appearance with their dad at the Democratic convention.
Sasha and Malia Obama sat with their mother, Michelle Obama, near the stage as the president addressed the convention and accepted his party's nomination for a second term. His daughters joined him on the stage after his speech, smiling and waving to the crowd as confetti fell.
Obama says he's proud of his daughters and grateful they could see him speak. But he says he still expects them to go to school on Friday
CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) - As his Republican rivals campaign on the view that Americans are worse off than they were four years ago, President Barack Obama is conceding that there's been only halting progress toward fixing the nation's economic troubles.
And as he asked for a second term, Obama acknowledged what he called "my own failings."
When it comes to fixing the economy, Obama said "it will take more than a few years for us to solve challenges that have built up over the decades."
But, in an appeal to independent voters who might be considering a vote for Romney, Obama added that "not every problem can be remedied with another government program."
Obama drew cheers from delegates when he retraced his steps to halt the economic slide -- including the auto industry bailout that Mitt Romney opposed. He ridiculed his opponent's economic policies, saying that Romney believes any economic problem can be solved with a tax cut.
Obama told delegates, "Our path is harder -- but it leads to a better place."
WEST PALM BEACH -- The chair of Palm Beach County's Republican Party was invited to the CBS 12 newsroom to watch President Barack Obama's speech and react to it.
CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) - President Barack Obama has accepted his party's nomination for a second term, saying voters face the clearest choice at any time in a generation.
Obama says at the Democratic National Convention on Thursday night that America has been tested by the cost of war, a troubled economy and crippling political gridlock.
He calls the election a choice between two different paths for America and two fundamentally different visions of the future.
(Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)
WEST PALM BEACH -- The chair of Palm Beach County's Republican Party was invited to the CBS 12 newsroom to watch President Barack Obama's speech and react to it.
RIVIERA BEACH -- Following his speech at the Democratic National Convention, President Barack Obama will kick-off a two-day bus tour right here in Florida. One of his stops will be at the Palm Beach County convention center on Sunday.
The Riviera Beach campaign office was one of five locations where free tickets were distributed on Thursday. The line was out the door with people want to get their hands on them..
It was first-come, first-serve and only one ticket was handed out per person.
The head of the Palm Beach County Democratic Party had some interesting comments behind the scenes at the convention.
Mark Alan Siegel, PBC Democratic Party, Chair: "The worst possible allies to the Jewish state are the fundamentalist Christians who want Jews to die and convert so they can bring on the second coming of their lord."
Siegel made the remarks during an interview with "Patriot TV".
We reached out to Siegel several times last night and this morning but have yet to hear back from him.
But there is a lot of local buzz about his remarks.
WEST PALM BEACH – Tickets to see President Barack Obama in West Palm Beach on Sunday will soon be available. The president will be speaking at the Palm Beach County Convention Center on Sunday at 2:30pm.
The event is free and open to the public but you will need tickets. They are available on a first come first serve basis and you can pick them up beginning at 6 o’clock p.m. on Thursday.
The locations are listed below:
Organizing for America – West Palm Beach
3008 S. Dixie Hwy.
West Palm Beach, FL 33405
Organizing for America – Riviera Beach
3520 Broadway
Riviera Beach, FL 33404
Organizing for America – Boynton Beach
3200 S. Congress Ave.
Boynton Beach, FL 33426
Organizing for America – Wellington
12785 W. Forest Hill Blvd., Suite 8C
Wellington, FL 33414
Organizing for America – Boca Raton
6020 N. Federal Hwy.
Boca Raton, FL 33487
CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- The Democratic Party's platform makes no reference to God, drawing criticism from Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan.
Ryan tells Fox News' "Fox & Friends" the change is not in keeping with the country's founding documents and principles and suggests the Obama administration is behind the decision. The Republican platform mentions God 12 times.
The 2008 Democratic Party platform made a single reference to God, referring to the "God-given potential" of working people.
The new platform does contain a plank on faith, saying it "has always been a central part of the American story." The platform says the nation was founded on the principle of religious freedom and the ability of people to worship as they please. It also praises the work of faith-based organizations.
CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) - First lady Michelle Obama says her husband has never forgotten how he started and knows what it's like for struggling families.
The first lady' speech Tuesday night at the Democratic National Convention is focusing more on biography than on policy differences that President Barack Obama has with Republican nominee Mitt Romney.
With the economy recovering so slowly, Mrs. Obama is seeking to make the case that actions her husband took as president reflect his desire to help others live the American dream. She cites payroll tax cuts and efforts to prop up the auto industry as examples of his looking out for working families.
Mrs. Obama says that, at the end of the day, her most important title is mom in chief.
CHARLOTTE -- All eyes are on Charlotte, NC with the Democratic National Convention set to kick off Tuesday.
The Bank of America stadium is undergoing a major transformation ahead of president Obama's acceptance speech on Thursday.
WEST PALM BEACH -- The $16 trillion milestone happens to come on the first day of the Democratic National Convention. It's a good time to look at how we got here and how we can dig ourselves out.
The national debt clock continues to tick away towards a mind boggling 16 trillion dollars.
Tim Gilbert is a political science professor at Northwood University. He says democrats and republicans like to blame each other for the debt. It ties into the larger picture of the economy which is the main focus of the upcoming presidential election.
Gilbert says, "in voters minds who they really see has better plan short term/long term in terms of stopping the bleeding."
For some perspective, we dug through data from the Department of Treasury for some key facts. President Clinton added about $1.5 trillion to the deficit. In eight years. George W. Bush grew the debt an additional $4.9 trillion in his two terms. In just 3 1/2 years, President Obama has added more than $5 trillion in debt to bring the number to $16 trillion.
John Browne is a financial expert. He says we reached $16 trillion in debt because of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, the financial crisis and the president's stimulus. He downplays the role of the Bush tax cuts, but says the debt is unsustainable.
"Would you lend money to a person earning $30k and owed $200k, what's your chance of getting repaid?"
So how do we get there? Republicans are against raising taxes, while Democrats say reducing spending would also hurt. The Congressional Budget Office says raising taxes or cutting spending, or both, might damage the economy but putting off cuts - means things could get worse in the long run.
TAMPA -- Thousands of police officers are on high alert in downtown Tampa as the rallies swell in size with every passing hour. The last night of the Republican National Convention (RNC) is marked with hundreds of protestors roaming the streets just blocks away from the convention center.
This is the most on guard the police have been all week. They’re literally guessing minute by minute where the protestors will go next.
The anti-RNC march came together in Gaslight Park in the center of downtown Tampa around 8 o’clock Thursday night. And with every street they crossed their numbers grew.
Finding a unified message in this crowd is difficult. It was a mash up of Occupy Wall Street, Occupy Tampa, Obama supporters and Union Workers. There are a few individuals in particular that really concern police and even other protestors.
Anarchists using something called “Black Bloc”. They explain it saying, “black block is simply a tactic. I think that people have a very negative connotation.”
Police agree saying the ‘black block’ isn’t really a group but it’s more of a movement.
These ‘black block’ protestors dressed completely in black will make their way into marches police say only to instigate angrier rhetoric and rioting.
Occupy Tampa protestor Lauren Digioia was concerned about the potential for violence and their real message getting lost in it all. “We are not here to be violent. We have always been a non violent movement and we will continue that. We want to get as close to the convention as we can.”
Another protestors says, “It’s a beautiful night for a revolution. A non-violent peaceful revolution.” When asked how important is that to be non-violent? The protestor responded, “It’s the most incredibly number one thing in my book.”
Throughout the night the police will remain on standby to keeping the city safe.
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla -- Chairman of the Palm Beach County Democratic National Convention stopped by the CBS12 newsroom to watch and then respond to Governor Mitt Romney's speech at the Republican National Convention.
Mark Siegel says the speech offered no answers to what Romney will do to solve the current economic crisis.
TAMPA, Fla. (AP) - Accepting his party's nomination to be president, Republican Mitt Romney says he wants to restore the nation's promise by creating jobs for millions of unemployed Americans
He says Americans were hoping for great change when President Barack Obama came into office, but those hopes have given way to disappointment and division.
Romney says he has a goal of creating 12 million jobs and would do so by taking full advantage of the country's energy resources and by giving citizens skills they need for the jobs of today and of the future. He is also promising to cut the deficit and rein in the cost of health care.
(Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)
TAMPA -- Thursday, people also got to hear from former Florida governor Jeb Bush.
His message: Own up to your mess.
The brother of president Obama's predecessor says the economy may have been in trouble when Obama took office, but he's done nothing to fix it.
He says, “So, Mr. President, Mr. President it is time to stop blaming your predecessor for your failed economic policies you were dealt a tough hand, you were dealt a tough hand but your policies have not worked.”
The rest of Bush's 15 minute speech was focused on the need to reform education, an issue he has devoted himself to since retiring as governor in 2007.
TAMPA - Early Thursday CBS12 had to move our satellite truck blocks away from the location we've had all week because of a suspicious bag that sparked a bomb squad response.
CBS12 reporter Peter Shaller says that's just an example of how on edge secret service teams are there in and effort to make sure the RNC ends with no major security breaches. No official attendance estimates yet from RNC organizers but 50 thousand people were expected to visit downtown Tampa this week.
The RNC assembled a state-wide security force of thousands of officers. The potential bomb turned out to be a bag underneath the parking garage stairs and someone thought it looked suspicious so they called the bomb squad in to investigate.
About an hour later the media got the all clear. Linda Lepak a delegate from Oklahoma says anytime there's been a possible threat at the RNC she's been impressed by the virtually instant police response.
Tonight protestors are planning the biggest rally yet while the republican candidate for president Mitt Romney is on stage.
TAMPA -- Earlier Jeb Bush appeared on CBS "this morning". Bush talked about what Mitt Romney has to do to win over voters during his speech tonight when he accepts the republican presidential nomination.
Bush also spoke about what Romney has to do to win Florida. He says there's nothing special because Floridians come from everywhere.
Jeb's brother and former president George W Bush is not at the convention but he was part of a video that aired Wednesday night.
WEST PALM BEACH -- Congressional candidate Patrick Murphy was in the CBS12 studios Thursday morning to respond to the RNC and Paul Ryan's speech last night.
He thought the V-P candidate gave no real solutions or a vision and disagreed with Ryan when he said Obama was raiding Medicare of 716 billion dollars.
Murphy is running in the district 22 congressional race against Allen West. To see his interview in it's entirety head to CBS12.com/rawnews
TAMPA, Fla. (AP) - Accepting his party's nomination to be president, Republican Mitt Romney says he wants to restore the nation's promise by creating jobs for millions of unemployed Americans
He says Americans were hoping for great change when President Barack Obama came into office, but those hopes have given way to disappointment and division.
Romney says he has a goal of creating 12 million jobs and would do so by taking full advantage of the country's energy resources and by giving citizens skills they need for the jobs of today and of the future. He is also promising to cut the deficit and rein in the cost of health care.
(Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)
TAMPA, Fla. (AP) - Four years after he became the Republican presidential nominee, Sen. John McCain has returned to the Republican National Convention to enumerate what he says have been the foreign policy shortcomings of the Obama administration.
On his 76th birthday, the Arizona senator focused on a subject that has received limited attention during the convention. He said the GOP's newly anointed nominee, Mitt Romney, knows that success at home depends on leadership in the world.
McCain says in the past four years the United States has drifted away from its tradition of global leadership. He criticizes President Barack Obama for committing to a date for withdrawing from Afghanistan, strained relations with Israel, not doing enough to stop impending cuts in the defense budget and not adequately supporting dissent in Iran and Syria.
TAMPA, Fla. (AP) - Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice says electing Mitt Romney will help the U.S. raise its standing in the world by working to improve the domestic economy.
Rice didn't mention President Barack Obama by name but said America's position as the most successful political and economic experiment in history is in danger today.
Rice recalled her own history of growing up in segregation. She said a little girl who couldn't buy a hamburger at a segregated lunch counter in Birmingham, Ala., grew up to be secretary of state.
She said the nation's education system needs major improvements, including allowing school choice, which she called "the civil rights issue of our day."
Rice said education is a means to prevent what she called an attitude of "entitlement and grievance."
TAMPA (AP) -- Paul Ryan has accepted his party's vice-presidential nomination and immediately gone on the offensive against President Barack Obama.
Speaking at the Republican National Convention, the Wisconsin congressman blamed the president for high unemployment and dispirited Americans.
Ryan charged that the nation has been "getting the runaround" for four years and that Mitt Romney is the man the nation needs for a turnaround. Ryan said he and Romney "will not duck the tough issues."
A generation younger than Romney, he emphasized their differences as well as their commitment to tackle the economy. He offered praise of Romney and a brief introduction to his story growing up in Wisconsin. But the thrust of his pitch is that Obama has failed and it is time to replace him with Romney.
TAMPA -- It's not just Democrats marching against the Republican National Convention here in Tampa it’s Republicans too. GOP leaders say when it comes to uniting the party, there's a lot riding on Mitt Romney's speech Thursday night.
Former RNC Chairman Michael Steele says, “It's a complex new world and it’s going to be here to stay so the first party to master it will be the winner in November.”
Still, it’s another night of protesting in downtown Tampa and many in this crowd support president Obama. But it’s not this crowd concerning GOP insiders. “Its defiant marches like this. The tough part for them is that we're just not going to cross over.”
Ron Paul supporters at the RNC feel left out and that's unsettling for the establishment.
Al Cardenas, Chairman of the American Conservative Union, acknowledges the difficult challenge the GOP faces this election year in achieving unity. He says, “don't worry about what the pundits say, don't worry about being liked by everybody. I want to see that guy, who is honest with us and gives a sense of his vision.”
He goes on to say, “this is almost like the allied forces in World War Two. You've got the establishment of the party, the Tea Party, and the New Media. You've got the independent expenditure groups and fortunately a guy like Mitt Romney who is used to complex difficult challenges to handle is the right man to lead us all together to a same path to victory.”
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) - Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney is telling veterans that he will make jobs a top priority.
Romney addressed the American Legion on Wednesday. He says President Barack Obama's biggest failure is that he's not delivered on the jobs that he has promised to returning veterans.
Romney is pledging that as president that he will get America to work again.
Romney, who is considering whether to visit the Gulf Coast after Isaac, opened his remarks noting that seven years ago the country was bracing for Hurricane Katrina. He says the country must do all it can to help people on the Gulf Coast.
TAMPA -- Republicans who have nominated Mitt Romney as their candidate for president, have heard from his wife Ann, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and other Republican governors. Christie said Romney will convince voters that tough choices are needed. Mrs. Romney said her husband is the "man American needs." There was an eruption of cheers when Romney came on stage and shared a hug and kiss with his wife.
TAMPA, Fla -- New Jersey governor Chris Christie was the key note speaker at the Republican National Convention Tuesday night. But it was Ann Romney who stole the show addressing the RNC taking about her marriage and family.
She said, “I want to talk to you about the deep and abiding love I have for a man I met at a dance many years ago. And the profound love I have, and I know we share, for this country.”
Mrs. Romney began her speech asking everyone to keep the people of Louisiana in mind as Hurricane Isaac made landfall.
TAMPA -- The Republican National Convention in Tampa has already
been delayed and restacked but if Tropical
Storm Isaac slams into a major gulf coast city in a powerful way there could be
more changes.
Republicans here in Tampa
spent months planning their biggest political party before the general election
but there’s missing delegates and governors from gulf coast states watching
Isaac closely. Monday’s events were
scaled back but by night fall we’re told things will resume as
scheduled.
Downtown Tampa
is ready for the RNC but so far business owners like Dan Bavaro say they’ve
seen more security than visitors. “Not too many crowds in the past couple days
I’ve seen a lot of police and military roaming helicopters etc.”
Sources tell us the decision to continue the convention is made day by day and
even hour by hour. Republicans are concerned with appearing insensitive to the
storm approaching the gulf coast.
Isaac brought wind and rain to Tampa..
but certainly not the worst case scenario organizers were prepared for.
Meanwhile protestors in downtown Tampa
blame the bad weather on
an underwhelming turnout. Most were
hoping this could have been one of the largest during the convention with more
than 5 thousand protestors were expected.
Inside the convention on Monday Republicans
convened for a few minutes. Above the crowd they flipped on a national debt
clock a reminder during the entire convention just how much debt the country is
in.
So what’s next? GOP leaders tell us they’ll continue to monitor Isaac and
change the tone and maybe even the schedule of this convention if it’s
appropriate.
WASHINGTON -- As the income gap between rich and poor widens, a majority of Americans say the growing divide is bad for the country and believe that wealthy people are paying too little in taxes, according to a new survey.
The poll released Monday by the Pew Research Center points to a particular challenge for Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, whose party's policies are viewed by a wide majority as favoring the rich over the middle class and poor.
The poll found that many Americans believe rich people to be intelligent and hardworking but also greedy and less honest than the average American. Nearly six in 10, or 58 percent, say the rich don't pay enough in taxes, while 26 percent believe the rich pay their fair share and 8 percent say they pay too much.
Even among those who describe themselves as "upper class" or "upper middle class," more than half - or 52 percent - said upper-income Americans don't pay enough in taxes; only 10 percent said they paid too much. This upper tier was more likely to say they are more financially secure now than 10 years ago - 62 percent, compared to 44 percent for those who identified themselves as middle class and 29 percent for the lower class. They are less likely to report problems in paying rent or mortgage, losing a job, paying for medical care or other bills and cutting back on household expenses.
The findings come at the start of this week's Republican National Convention and as both Romney and President Barack Obama seek to appeal to a broad swath of financially struggling voters who identify as middle class. Romney supports an extension of Bush-era tax cuts for everyone including the wealthiest 2 percent, and says his policies will benefit the middle class by boosting the economy and creating jobs.
"The fact that Romney may be viewed as wealthy doesn't necessarily pose problems for his candidacy," said Kim Parker, associate director of Pew Social & Demographic Trends, noting that people see the wealthy as having both positive and negative attributes. "The challenge for Romney lies more in the fact that large majorities say if he is elected president, his policies would likely benefit the wealthy."
The results reinforce a tide of recent economic data showing a widening economic divide. America's middle class has been shrinking in the stagnant economy and poverty is now approaching 1960s highs, while wealth concentrates at the top. A separate Pew survey earlier this year found that tensions between the rich and poor were increasing and at their most intense level in nearly a quarter-century.
In fact, well-off people do shoulder a big share of the tax burden. Though households earning over $1 million annually comprise just 0.3 percent of all taxpayers, they pay 20 percent of all federal taxes the government is projected to collect this year, according to the Tax Policy Center, a nonpartisan group that studies tax policy. The figures included income, payroll and estate taxes. In contrast, households earning $50,000 to $75,000 a year accounted for 12 percent of taxpayers and contributed 9 percent of federal taxes, the center's data showed. Some 46 percent of households pay no federal income tax at all, although they do pay payroll, excise and other taxes.
The American income tax system has long been designed to be progressive, meaning higher earners are expected to pay a greater share of their income than those making less.
In this year's tax battle in Washington, Obama wants to let the current top rate of 35 percent for high earners rise to 39.6 percent next year. Congressional Republicans would reduce the top rate to 25 percent, while Romney would reduce it to 28 percent. Romney and GOP lawmakers have said they would eliminate some deductions to pay for the rate reductions, but have not specified which ones.
According to Pew's latest findings, about 63 percent of Americans say the GOP favors the rich over the middle class and poor, and 71 percent say Romney's election would be good for wealthy people. A smaller share, 20 percent, says the same about the Democratic Party. More Americans - 60 percent - say if Obama is re-elected his policies will benefit the poor, while half say they'll help the middle class and 37 percent say they'll boost the wealthy.
"The Great Recession was not an equal opportunity disemployer," said Sheldon Danziger, a public policy professor at the University of Michigan who describes the gap between rich and poor as the widest in decades. "College graduates, whites and middle-aged workers had fewer and shorter layoffs than high school graduates, blacks, Hispanics and younger workers. And, only a small percentage of the rich work in the hardest-hit industries, like construction and manufacturing."
About 65 percent of Americans say the gap between rich and poor has gotten wider in the past decade, while 20 percent believe it has stayed the same and 7 percent say the gap has gotten smaller. Separately, 57 percent say a widening income gap is a bad thing for society; just 3 percent say it is a good thing.
Asked to estimate how much a family of four would need to earn to be considered wealthy in their area, the median amount given by survey respondents was $150,000. For middle class, the median amount was $70,000.
Many Americans see rich people as more likely to be intelligent (43 percent) and hardworking (42 percent) than average Americans. But the rich are also seen as more likely to be greedy (55 percent). Thirty-four percent of those surveyed say the rich are less likely to be honest than the average person; just 12 percent say the rich are more likely to be honest.
The Pew survey involved telephone interviews with 2,508 adults conducted from July 16 to 26. It has a margin of error of 2.8 percentage points.
WASHINGTON -- A veteran Wall Street executive who performed an independent review that exonerated the Obama administration's program of loans to energy companies contributed $52,500 to re-elect President Barack Obama in the months since completing his work, according to an Associated Press review of campaign records. The executive defended the integrity of his conclusions and said he decided to donate to Obama after his work was finished.
The campaign contributions to Obama started just weeks after Herbert M. Allison Jr., in congressional testimony in March, minimized concerns that the Energy Department was at high risk in more than $23 billion in federal loans awarded to green energy firms. Two weeks later, Allison began giving to the Obama campaign. His contributions to Obama and the Democratic National Committee totaled $52,500 by last month. Allison previously was the former head of the government's mass purchase of toxic Wall Street assets.
Allison did not make any Obama donations during his four-month review of Energy Department loans, and he has a long history of working with and giving money to both political parties. However, Republican Party officials and congressional critics of the energy loans said Allison's donations to Obama raise doubts about his objectivity and highlight his decision not to assess multimillion-dollar loans to two companies that later went into bankruptcy - the troubled Solyndra solar panel company and Beacon Power, an energy storage firm.
Allison's report, completed in February and touted by the White House, acknowledged that the Energy Department could lose as much as $3 billion in loans, but it concluded that was far less than the $10 billion set aside by Congress for high-risk companies. The review did not assess the two bankrupt firms because those loans were no longer current. Allison told Congress that "DOE has negotiated protections in the loan agreements that enable it to cut off further funding and to demand more credit protection if projects do not meet targets." He also urged the Energy Department to toughen its oversight.
Allison defended the integrity of his review in an interview with The Associated Press. He said that he did not make the decision to back a presidential candidate until after he had finished his work and that his selection was approved by Energy Department lawyers before he began his review last October to "ensure there was no hint of bias or conflict of interest."
"I was on the record with the White House that this had to be completely independent review and they agreed," he said Wednesday in a telephone interview from his home in Westport, Conn. "It didn't hew to anybody's political suasion, I think, and it had to be fully factual or it wouldn't be credible."
Allison said he made his decision to support Obama after he saw "his administration in action and decided that I believe broadly in the things he's trying to accomplish."
Allison gave $2,500 to the Obama campaign on March 29, two weeks after he testified to the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee about his review. In May, he gave $15,000 to the Obama Victory Fund, a joint fundraising committee that supports both the president's re-election campaign and the Democratic National Committee. Allison gave the same amount to the fund again in June and then $20,000 more in July.
Allison has donated money to both parties, but his gifts in the past have tended to be much smaller than his current contributions, typically no more than $1,000 or $2,000, according to Federal Election Commission records. Allison explained his larger donations to the Obama campaign by saying "there's a hell of a lot more money in politics today than in years past and I decided I could go this route."
Allison has given to GOP figures such as Rep. Peter King of New York and Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, and to Democrats such as Rep. Carolyn Maloney of New York and former Nebraska Sen. Bob Kerrey. Allison's presidential preferences have been mostly Republicans - Sen. John McCain of Arizona and former Sen. Bob Dole of Kansas. He also gave $2,300 to Obama in 2008, a year before Obama appointed Allison as an assistant treasury secretary.
The White House and the Obama campaign defended Allison, saying his donations did not taint his work as independent reviewer of the loans program. They pointed to his repeated hiring over the past two decades by Republican presidential administrations and GOP campaigns as justification that Allison had the independence to oversee troubled government programs.
"Mr. Allison was selected to do this study because of his relevant expertise and he is a public servant widely respected by Democrats and Republicans alike," said Eric Schultz, a White House spokesman. Schultz added that Allison's "analysis of the DOE loan portfolio was thorough and reliable as evident by additional independent reports affirming his findings." The Obama campaign said, "Having completed an independent assignment does not cost him his right to continue participating in the political progress on behalf of many candidates, as he has in the past."
A former Merrill Lynch executive, Allison worked for several Republican administrations and earned a reputation for tackling troubled federal programs. During McCain's failed 2000 presidential run, he served as national finance chairman and was rumored to be McCain's choice to become treasury secretary if he had won.
Allison was named by President George W. Bush to head Fannie Mae after the quasi-government home lending agency was placed in conservatorship in 2008 following the Wall Street collapse. A year later, Obama named Allison as an assistant treasury secretary to oversee the Troubled Asset Relief Program that Bush had created to stabilize Wall Street banks and investment houses reeling with toxic debt.
During his work at the Treasury Department, Allison was among top officials who crossed swords with TARP Inspector General Neil Barofsky, who accused the department of failing to properly track government bailout money given to banks and investment houses. Barofsky declined to comment about his dealings with Allison.
Allison left the Treasury Department in 2010 but returned last year to head up the review of energy loans. The White House agreed to the review in the wake of mounting Republican criticism after Solyndra, a California firm, went belly up. The bankruptcy cost U.S. taxpayers $528 million in lost loans.
Rep. Cliff Stearns, R-Fla., who chairs the House Energy Committee's oversight subcommittee, said Allison's donations to the Obama campaign back up GOP warnings this year that the White House review was suspect. Stearns said Allison's "financial support for the Obama campaign undermines (his) credibility and shows once again that the president did not want a careful, independent review of his risky green jobs scheme."
Allison's role as a large Obama donor "raises serious questions about an administration that puts campaign cash before taxpayer money," said Joe Pounder, a spokesman for the Republican National Committee.
Allison declined to say whether he will keep donating to Obama. "Next time around," he said, "I might support a Republican."
HOPKINS, Minn. -- Creating a potential headache for his campaign, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney said big businesses in the U.S. were "doing fine" in part because they get advantages from offshore tax havens.
His comments echoed similar assertions about the state of big business by President Barack Obama which Romney has criticized. They're also a reminder that the GOP candidate has kept some of his personal fortune in low tax foreign accounts.
"Big business is doing fine in many places," Romney said during a campaign fundraiser Thursday. "They get the loans they need, they can deal with all the regulation. They know how to find ways to get through the tax code, save money by putting various things in the places where there are low tax havens around the world for their businesses."
Romney's assertions resembled Obama's declaration earlier this summer that the "private sector is doing fine." Romney and other Republicans pounced on the president's comments and cast them as an indication that he was out of touch with the nation's economic struggles.
Romney didn't mention Thursday that he has kept some of his personal money in offshore tax havens, including accounts in Switzerland and the Cayman Islands.
The presumptive GOP nominee was to join up with his running mate, Paul Ryan, on Friday for a rally in Michigan. The duo also planned to appear together Saturday in Ohio.
Romney was campaigning and fundraising as his party readied for him to officially become its nominee for president. Republican delegates to the Republican convention will begin the roll call vote to officially nominate Romney on Monday, which could allow him to accept the GOP nomination earlier in the week than has occurred at previous conventions.
Republican officials said the formal presidential nomination process would begin earlier in part because of concerns about supporters of Ron Paul, one of a number of Republicans who challenged Romney during the primary, could seek to disrupt the roll call. Officials were also discussing the impact of Tropical Storm Isaac on the convention.
Ahead of the four-day GOP gathering in Tampa, Fla., Romney has sought to refocus his campaign on the economy after a week dominated by comments Missouri Republican Senate candidate Todd Akin made about rape. Akin said in an interview that victims of "legitimate rape" can biologically avoid pregnancy, prompting Romney and other top Republicans to call on him to leave his race. Akin rejected those calls.
Romney made no mention of Akin or hot-button social issues Thursday. He rolled out an energy policy that his campaign says would create more than three million jobs and centered his fundraising remarks on the economy.
Romney's campaign sought to mitigate any potential distractions from his comments on big business and tax havens. Spokeswoman Andrea Saul said Romney "has long said we need to simplify the tax code, close loopholes and create a more level playing field for American businesses."
In his remarks, Romney drew a distinction between big business and small businesses. He said that, if elected, he would seek to make it easier for small businesses to succeed.
The extent of Romney's offshore investments is unclear because the presumptive GOP presidential nominee has only released his 2010 personal tax returns.
Romney's campaign says he plans to release his 2011 returns later this year when the documents are ready. Romney has said he paid at least 13 percent of his income in taxes over the past 10 years.
Obama and his surrogates say Romney has a responsibility to give the public a fuller picture of his finances. They often cite the dozen years of tax returns Romney's father, George Romney, released during his presidential campaign as a standard for candidates.
Many Republicans have also called on Romney to be more forthcoming about his personal wealth and income.
Meantime, Romney wrote an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal touting "what I learned at Bain Capital."
"The lessons I learned over my 15 years at Bain Capital were valuable in helping me turn around the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City," he said in the article published Friday. "They also helped me as governor of Massachusetts to turn a budget deficit into a surplus and reduce our unemployment to 4.7 percent. The lessons from that time would help me as president to fix our economy, create jobs and get things done in Washington."
As Romney pushed toward his party's convention, Democrats unveiled more plans for their convention, which follows the GOP events.
Democratic Party officials announced a new slate of speakers, including two prominent businessmen: CarMax co-founder and former CEO Austin Ligon and Costco co-founder and former CEO Jim Sinegal.
Newark Mayor Cory Booker will also speak at the convention, a sign that tensions have eased between him and the Obama campaign after he criticized the president's attacks on Romney's private sector background.
TAMPA, Fla. -- Republicans meeting in Tampa, Fla., are adopting a party platform calling for a constitutional amendment outlawing abortion without specific exceptions for rape or incest, a position at odds with GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney.
The Republican National Committee's platform committee approved the plank, the same as it adopted in 2008, as GOP officials, including leading social conservatives, called on congressman Todd Akin to quit his Senate bid in Missouri after saying that a woman's body is able to prevent pregnancy in what he called "a legitimate rape."
A member of the platform committee confirms to The Associated Press that the plank has been adopted, but the official requested not to be identified because the committee is still meeting.
Romney opposes abortion but supports exceptions in cases of rape.
ST. LOUIS -- Rep. Todd Akin vowed to fight on in his embattled Senate campaign, but a significant deadline loomed Tuesday that was bound to intensify pressure on the Missouri congressman to abandon the race over his comments that women's bodies can prevent pregnancies in cases of "legitimate rape."
Akin has been frantically trying to salvage his once-promising bid against incumbent Democrat Claire McCaskill in a race long targeted by the GOP as crucial to regaining control of the Senate. But ominous signs were mounting against the six-term legislator from suburban St. Louis, most notably the apparent loss of millions of dollars in campaign advertising money.
Early Tuesday Akin posted a video online in which he apologized but made no mention of the race. He went on two conservative radio shows Monday, pledging to keep the campaign alive, even as some from within his own party urged him to step aside.
The decision has some urgency. Missouri election law allows candidates to withdraw 11 weeks before Election Day. That means the deadline to exit the Nov. 6 election is 5 p.m. Tuesday. Otherwise, a court order would be needed to remove a name from the ballot.
"I was told the decision has to be made by 5 tomorrow, but I was calling you and letting you know that I'm announcing today that we're in," Akin told radio host Sean Hannity.
In a radio interview with former Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, Akin repeatedly apologized for the remarks but also vowed to stay in the race.
"The good people of Missouri nominated me, and I'm not a quitter," Akin said.
The uproar began Sunday, when St. Louis television station KTVI aired an interview in which Akin was asked if he would support abortions for women who have been raped.
"It seems to me, first of all, from what I understand from doctors, that's really rare. If it's a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down," Akin said.
Later Sunday, Akin released a statement saying that he "misspoke" during the interview.
In the interviews with Huckabee and Hannity, Akin acknowledged that rape can lead to conception.
"Rape is never legitimate. It's an evil act. It's committed by violent predators," Akin said. "I used the wrong words the wrong way."
But the damage had been done. The comments drew a sharp rebuke from fellow Republicans, including presumptive presidential nominee Mitt Romney and his vice presidential choice, Rep. Paul Ryan, of Wisconsin.
The Senate's top Republican, Mitch McConnell, said Akin's comments might "prevent him from effectively representing" the Republican Party. He called on Akin to "take time with his family" to consider whether he should continue in the Senate race.
Two other Republican senators, Scott Brown of Massachusetts and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, urged Akin to resign.
Akin also apparently lost a key source of funding. Sen. John Cornyn, head of the National Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee, told Akin that $5 million in advertising set aside for Missouri will be spent elsewhere and that Akin will get no other help from the committee, according to a committee official who spoke on condition of anonymity because the conversation was private.
Cornyn told Akin that he was endangering the GOP's hopes of getting a Senate majority by staying in the race, the official said.
At least one political interest group that has pounded McCaskill with attack ads, the Karl Rove-backed American Crossroads, also pulled its ads from Missouri.
The apology video Akin posted on YouTube early Tuesday, in which he describes himself as a compassionate father of two daughters, was an apparent attempt to claw back some of that funding.
"Fact is, rape can lead to pregnancy. The truth is rape has many victims. The mistake I made was in the words I said, not in the heart I hold. I ask for your forgiveness," he said in the video.
President Barack Obama said Monday that Akin's comments underscore why politicians - most of whom are men - should not make health decisions on behalf of women.
"Rape is rape," Obama said. And the idea of distinguishing among types of rape "doesn't make sense to the American people and certainly doesn't make sense to me."
It was just two weeks ago that Akin was at the top of the political world in Missouri after winning a hotly contested three-way battle with millionaire businessman John Brunner and former state Treasurer Sarah Steelman for the right to challenge McCaskill in the November election. Missouri has grown increasingly conservative in recent years, and McCaskill is seen as vulnerable.
She was not among those calling for her opponent to get out of the race.
"What's startling to me is that (Republican) Party bigwigs are coming down on him and saying that he needs to kick sand in the face of all the primary voters," McCaskill said at a campaign event Monday in suburban St. Louis. "I want Missourians to make a choice in this election based on policy, not backroom politics."
One anti-abortion group expressed support for Akin, while another called on him to step aside.
Missouri Right to Life, which opposes a woman's right to get an abortion even in cases of rape and incest, said Akin's "consistent defense of innocent unborn human life clearly contrasts with the anti-life position of Senator Claire McCaskill."
But the Christian Defense Coalition called on him to withdraw. The coalition's leader, the Rev. Patrick J. Mahoney, called Akin's comments "offensive, repugnant and troubling."
Names are being floated about a possible replacement for Akin. A favorite is Tom Schweich, the state auditor who was courted to run for Senate earlier this year but declined.
Other names mentioned include former Sen. Jim Talent, who lost to McCaskill in 2008; former Gov. Matt Blunt, the son of Missouri's other senator, Roy Blunt; two members of Missouri's House delegation, Blaine Luetkemeyer and Jo Ann Emerson; and Akin's two unsuccessful primary opponents, Brunner and Steelman.
Talent, who lost his seat to McCaskill in 2006, said Monday he had been asked to run but replied: "I'm not running for the Senate."
"I'm totally ruling it out," Talent said in Tampa, Fla.
University of Missouri-St. Louis political scientist Dave Robertson said any candidate who might replace Akin would face significant challenges so close to the election.
"You're going to be on the defensive and starting from behind with a very short time to go," Robertson said.
Missouri has faced awkward situations in Senate elections before. In 2000, Democratic candidate Mel Carnahan died in a plane crash three weeks before the November election. His name remained on the ballot and he defeated Republican incumbent John Ashcroft.
Carnahan's widow, Jean, served for two years before losing in a special election to Talent.
If Akin were to leave, state law gives the Republican state committee two weeks to name a replacement. The new candidate must file within 28 days of Akin's exit.
The American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists said a woman who is raped "has no control over ovulation, fertilization or implantation of a fertilized egg (i.e., pregnancy). To suggest otherwise contradicts basic biological truths."
Between 10,000 and 15,000 abortions nationwide occur each year among women whose pregnancies resulted from rape or incest. An unknown number of babies are born to rape victims, the group said.
Research on the prevalence of rape and rape-related pregnancies is spotty. One estimate published in 1996 said about 5 percent of rapes result in pregnancy, or about 32,000 pregnancies among adult women each year.
Still, the idea about rape and pregnancy has been raised in anti-abortion circles for at least three decades.
Leon Holmes, onetime head of Arkansas Right to Life, wrote in a 1980 letter to a newspaper that concern for rape victims "is a red herring because conceptions from rape occur with the same frequency as snow in Miami." Holmes went on to become a federal judge.
Abortion foes in the Pennsylvania and North Carolina legislatures have made similar statements. And in Arkansas in 1998, Republican Senate candidate Fay Boozman came under fire for saying pregnancies from rape were uncommon. He apologized and later acknowledged that his unsuccessful campaign never recovered from the criticism. He died in 2005.
MANCHESTER, N.H. -- Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan blasted President Barack Obama's Medicare plan before New Hampshire voters Monday, even though a central element of that plan once was embraced by Ryan, the GOP vice presidential candidate.
"Medicare should not be a piggy bank for Obamacare," Ryan told about 3,000 people at an outdoor rally where he joined Romney for the first time in a week.
The two men criticized Obama's plan to reduce Medicare's projected growth by $716 billion over 10 years. Obama says the savings would come from reduced payments to -- and greater efficiency by -- health care providers.
Romney and Ryan denounced the plan as a cut to necessary Medicare benefits, even though Ryan also backed the $716 billion reduction before joining the GOP ticket.
Romney says his proposal to offer a private alternative to Medicare would not affect anyone over age 55. Some 14 percent of New Hampshire residents are over the age of 65, and this state, which holds the nation's first presidential primary, is known for its voters' sharp questioning of candidates during such town hall-style events.
A crowd of about 3,000 - many waving Romney-Ryan signs and American flags - greeted the Republican duo for the outdoor event on the quad at St. Anselm College. Romney said the event was his 100th town hall since beginning his run for the White House more than a year ago.
Obama spent Saturday in New Hampshire, casting doubts on what the GOP ticket would do for older voters.
"You would think they would avoid talking about Medicare, given the fact that both of them have proposed to voucherize the Medicare system," he said Saturday in Windham. "But I guess they figure the best defense is to try to go on offense.
"So, New Hampshire, here is what you need to know: Since I have been in office, I have strengthened Medicare."
Obama's top aides spent Sunday repeating the claim in television interviews that the GOP would gut Medicare, while Romney's aides spent their day trying to convince voters of the opposite.
Ryan's proposal in Congress worries some seniors. His Medicare plan would encourage future retirees to consider private coverage that the government would help pay for through a voucher-like system, while keeping the traditional program as an option. A main concern that has been raised about that approach is that the government payment for health insurance won't keep pace with health care inflation, shifting an ever-growing share of costs to people on fixed incomes.
A deficit hawk and the House Republicans' chief budget writer, Ryan has stood out in Washington for laying out tough spending choices that many lawmakers in both parties avoid.
So it was almost inevitable that his selection as Romney's running mate would vault Medicare to the top of the campaign debate, even though any talk about changing the popular but costly program is typically avoided by presidential candidates.
Obama's campaign on Monday released a series of new radio advertisements that target aspects of Ryan's budget. Among the ads are spots in Florida that focus on Ryan's Medicare proposals and ads in North Carolina that accuse Ryan of wanting to cut funding for veterans' care.
Romney's campaign, meanwhile, is renewing its criticism of Obama's changes to welfare, launching a new television advertisement accusing the president of "gutting welfare reform." The ad says Romney would "put work back in welfare." The Romney campaign did not say which states the ad would run in, but said Romney will press the welfare issue during Monday's town hall in New Hampshire.
Romney has accused Obama of lifting a provision that required people receiving welfare to work. Obama's campaign says Romney's assertions are false.
ST. LOUIS (AP) -- Missouri Rep. Todd Akin apologized Monday for his televised comments that women's bodies are able to prevent pregnancies if they are victims of "a legitimate rape," but he refused to heed calls to abandon his bid for the Senate.
Appearing on former presidential candidate Mike Huckabee's radio show, Akin said rape is "never legitimate."
"It's an evil act. It's committed by violent predators," Akin said. "I used the wrong words the wrong way."
Calls for Akin's exit from the race grew Monday, with at least two Republican senators - Scott Brown of Massachusetts and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin - saying he should resign the party's nomination.
But Akin, who has served six terms, pledged to continue the race against Democratic incumbent Sen. Claire McCaskill.
"The good people of Missouri nominated me, and I'm not a quitter," he said. "And my belief is we're going to take this thing forward and by the grace of God, we're going to win this race."
During the primary campaign, Akin ran TV ads in which Huckabee praised him as "a courageous conservative" and "a Bible-based Christian" who "supports traditional marriage" and "defends the unborn."
Asked in an interview Sunday on KTVI-TV if he would support abortions for women who have been raped, Akin said: "It seems to me, first of all, from what I understand from doctors, that's really rare. If it's a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down."
Later Sunday, Akin released a statement saying that he "misspoke" during the interview, though the statement did not say specifically which points were in error.
"In reviewing my off-the-cuff remarks, it's clear that I misspoke in this interview, and it does not reflect the deep empathy I hold for the thousands of women who are raped and abused every year," Akin's statement said.
Akin also said he believes "deeply in the protection of all life" and does "not believe that harming another innocent victim is the right course of action."
Brown, considered to be one of the most vulnerable Senate Republicans in the November election, said Akin's comments were "outrageous, inappropriate and wrong,"
"There is no place in our public discourse for this type of offensive thinking," said Brown, who is locked in a tight race with Elizabeth Warren.
Brown said Akin should apologize and resign the Senate nomination.
Johnson, a Wisconsin Republican, said in a tweet that Akin "should step aside today for the good of the nation."
Moments after Akin's apology, President Barack Obama said Akin's comments underscore why politicians - most of whom are men- should not make health decisions on behalf of women.
"Rape is rape" Obama said. And said the idea of distinguishing among types of rape "doesn't make sense to the American people and certainly doesn't make sense to me."
Akin's comments also brought a swift rebuke from the campaign of presumptive GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney and his running mate, Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin.
Romney and Ryan "disagree with Mr. Akin's statement, and a Romney-Ryan administration would not oppose abortion in instances of rape," Romney spokeswoman Amanda Henneberg said.
Romney went further in an interview with National Review Online, calling Akin's comments "insulting, inexcusable and frankly wrong."
"Like millions of other Americans, we found them to be offensive," Romney said.
In an emailed statement Sunday, McCaskill said it was "beyond comprehension that someone can be so ignorant about the emotional and physical trauma brought on by rape."
This month, the 65-year-old congressman won the state's Republican Senate primary by a comfortable margin. During the primary campaign, Akin enhanced his standing with TV ads in which former Arkansas governor and presidential candidate Mike Huckabee praised him as "a courageous conservative" and "a Bible-based Christian" who "supports traditional marriage" and "defends the unborn."
Ushering Akin from the race is complicated by the fact that he has never been a candidate beholden to the party establishment. Since being elected to Congress in 2000, Akin has relied on a grassroots network of supporters. His Senate campaign is being run by his son.
Behind the scenes, Republican officials were looking for intermediaries trusted by Akin to try to coax him from the race.
Missouri election law allows candidates to withdraw 11 weeks before Election Day. That means the deadline to exit the Nov. 6 election would be 5 p.m. Tuesday. Otherwise, a court order would be needed to remove a candidate's name from the ballot.
If Akin were to leave, state law holds that the Republican state committee has two weeks to name a replacement. The candidate would be required to file within 28 days of Akin's exit.
Akin, a former state lawmaker who was first elected to the House in 2000, has a long-established base among evangelical Christians and was endorsed in the primary by more than 100 pastors.
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. -- The Democratic primary for District 22 was another closely watched Congressional primary.
Former West Palm Beach Mayor Lois Frankel won against Broward County Commissioner Kristin Jacobs with 98 percent of the precincts reporting 61 to 39.
Frankel held her victory party at the Embassy Suites hotel on Belvedere Road. The Broward County commissioner calling Frankel about 9 p.m. to concede the election. The former West Palm Beach mayor thanked her numerous supporters and her mother who stood by her side on the podium during her victory speech.
With 61 percent of district 22 in Palm Beach county, Frankel was the frontrunner, and many thought the election would be close. Frankel spent 14 years in the state legislature before becoming the mayor of West Palm Beach in 2003.
Frankel says voters now have two countries to choose between. She will now face Adam Hasner in November, a Republican candidate who embraces the Ryan budget which Frankel says ends Medicare as we know it. Although Frankel won by a huge margin, she's now focusing on the next 84 days.
"It wasnt about the margin its about getting people back on track getting people back to work making sure we protect medicare and ..finish it out," Frankel said.
Tonight Kristin Jacobs released a statement not only conceding the election but also urging voters to support Frankel in the November election. So far Frankel's campaign has raised more than two and a quarter million dollars.
The Congressional candidate says its gonna be a tough exciting race and voters are going to have very clear choice.
STUART, Fla. -- Congressman Allen West defeated Martin County Sheriff Robert Crowder in the Republican primary for District 18. While it is all quiet now, the mood earlier was of celebration, but knowing there is still work to do in November.
Allen West won in a dominating fashion tonight against Martin County Sheriff Robert Crowder getting 74-percent of the vote.
West is now looking ahead to Patrick Murphy. There is already bad blood, after a Murphy super-pac ran by his father, put out an ad that West called racist. It showed West with a gold tooth and punching two white women. West expects the campaign to get nasty.
"Many people saw it as racist. I don't have a gold tooth, I've been married 23 years, beautiful wife and 2 daughters, it was kind of offensive. But that's okay, when your desperate you can't talk about the issues that's what you try to do," West said.
So far West is winning the fundraising battle with Murphy. West has about $10 million in the bank versus $2.5 million for Murphy.
Afterwards West told CBS 12 he will celebrate by sleeping a robust 4 or 5 hours and skip his morning run to give his body a break. That will likely be his last break until the general election in November.
Democrat Patrick Murphy also winning his respective primary for Congress in district 18. That means he will face Allen West in the general election and he wasted no time going after him.
"This is the guy who said that 80 members of Congress are communists. Talk about taking this country backwards. He is the one who said 'if support Obama you are a threat to the gene pool.' Oh yeah, I forgot this one, 'social security is modern day slavery,'" said Patrick Murphy, (D) District 18.
Murphy went on to say the name calling needs to stop and that he looks forward to the race against West.
RIVIERA BEACH, Fla. -- It was a smooth process today for the primary election. Particularly in Palm Beach County which has had it's problems in the past. And that may be the reason the supervisor of elections is keeping her job.
A night of few surprises and no glitches to report at the tabulation center. Good news for elections supervisor Susan Bucher who also won her own race for another term tonight. Its important to point out that all of the results coming out of here tonight are considered unofficial until the state elections supervisor certifies them.
Workers here at the Palm Beach County tabulation center began counting absentee and early ballots around 5 p.m. then at 7 p.m. the results from the precincts started coming in. Because of big victories winning candidates in many of the high profile races knew early on that they were going to do well tonight. But that's not the case with the Democratic primary for state Senate between Mac Bernard and Jeff Clemens. At last check, with about 23,000 votes cast, just about 300 votes separate the candidates.
"If the race is a half a percent or less there will be a recount. If the race is a quarter of a percent or less there is what is called a hand recount," said Bucher.
So what's next with this race? Bucher says a recount is a real possibility. When it comes to voting in Palm Beach County there have been problems in the past. But the headline here tonight is that the supervisor of elections is reporting a clean election.
MIAMI (AP) - Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson will face Republican Rep. Connie Mack IV after both easily won their primary elections on Tuesday.
Nelson had almost 80 percent of the vote with 35 percent of the vote counted, while Mack had almost 60 percent of the vote in the GOP race.
Mack will try to win back the seat once held by Mack's father, Connie Mack III. Nelson won the seat in 2000 after the elder Mack retired. Both Nelson and the younger Mack have already been preparing for a head-to-head matchup after facing weak primary opposition.
Mack, buoyed by the famous name he also shares with his great-grandfather, the Hall of Fame baseball manager, was immediately the favorite to win the nomination when he entered the race in November. Three other candidates dropped out ahead of the election, leaving former Rep. Dave Weldon as the best-known candidate to challenge him. But Weldon entered the race just three months before the primary, leaving him little time to build a campaign in a state with more than 4 million registered Republicans.
Nelson has already hit Mack with a negative ad that points out trouble Mack got into in his 20s with a bar fight, an arrest and road rage incidents. It's an attack used repeatedly by former Sen. George LeMiuex before he dropped out of the primary.
Months before Mack got in the race, he was attacking Nelson with web videos and through political emails, calling him a "lockstep liberal" who supports President Barack Obama's major policies, including the health care overhaul. Mack has also criticized Nelson for trying to make the campaign about "what I did as a kid" and the work he did for a company that did promotions for Hooters restaurants instead of talking about the economy and the federal deficit.
Mack, who is married to California Rep. Mary Bono Mack, was celebrating the victory with his family in Coral Gables, while Nelson was at his Orlando campaign headquarters.
PALM BEACH COUNTY, Fla. -- Voters are heading to the polls across our area to cast their ballot in several big races, including two big Congressional races.
PALM BEACH COUNTY, Fla. -- Voters are heading to the polls across our area to cast their ballot in several big races, including two big Congressional races.
MIAMI, Fla.. -- Romney is now in west Miami for his final stop in Florida today where he is scheduled to speak at 5:15.
He started his day off in north Florida where he spoke to a large crowd in St. Augustine. During his speech he said that President Obama failed to deliver jobs, with 23 million Americans out of work. He also took the time to get the crowd excited about the November election.
"Thank you so much Florida. I am counting on you to help me win in November. Thank you so much," Romney said.
Romney's stop in the Sunshine State comes after his much anticipated announcement of his running mate, Paul Ryan over the weekend.
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) - Federal authorities say they will be monitoring elections in five Florida counties.
The U.S. Department of Justice announced on Monday that its employees will visit polling places in Collier, Hendry, Lee, Osceola and Polk counties during Tuesday's primary election.
Department observers will check to make sure county election workers are following federal election laws.
The agency stated that those five counties are required to provide language assistance in Spanish.
Collier and Lee recently carried out a purge of potential non-U.S. citizens from its voting rolls even though other counties raised questions about the accuracy of a list put together by state officials.
The U.S. Department of Justice recently sent subpoenas to nine counties seeking information about how counties handled the state push to identify and remove potentially ineligible voters.
VERO BEACH, Fla. -- Martin County has a tight race for sheriff split with three candidates. Indian River County's sheriff race is a close call with the current sheriff up for re-election, and another former sheriff's lieutenant trying to take over the office.
Indian River County Sheriff Deryl Loar is up for re-election and covering all the bases.
"We knew it was going to be a tough race. This whole campaign has focused on our record and our record is outstanding. There's 22 precincts in Indian River County and we'll have the precincts covered," said Sheriff Loar.
With crime down 6.1 percent and the budget cut by $5 million, Loar wants four more years.
"I think with 13,000 votes already cast, this is a very important race in Indian River County. I run on my character and run on my record and we think we are going to be fine," said Sheriff Loar.
Sheriff Loar's contender is candidate Bill McMullen.
"I'm very proud of our ground support," said McMullen. "This campaign is unlike any other campaign we've experienced in this county. We've got a tremendous number of deputies and civilian employees that work for the sheriff's office that are supporting my campaign for sheriff."
Dozens of deputies serving under Sheriff Loar are campaigning for McMullen.
"I encourage any employee to support any candidate that they like. We run a professional agency. A very, very objective agency," said Sheriff Loar.
McMullen says its about better, smarter law enforcement.
"I want to protect the public. Currently we've got huge gaps in services after 2 a.m., which has lead to a drastic increase in crime," McMullen said.
So who will come out ahead?
"I think we'd all like to have a crystal ball, but we don't have one," said McMullen.
Both sides say they plan to be out working the polls all the way until Tuesday at 7 p.m. No one is making any predictions in this race, except that it's going to be very close.
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. -- A new survey by AARP paints a stark picture for baby boomers when it comes to the economy. 7 in 10 people in Florida older than 50-years-old say they plan to rely more heavily on Medicare and Social Security as a result of the economic downturn - a higher proportion than those nationwide.
According to the survey, more than half of baby boomers believe they will never be able to retire. They also want answers from the presidential candidates on how they plan to fix the country's economic problems.
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. -- Like many other people, Florida retirees are concerned about the economy.
A new survey from AARP says:
STUART, Fla. -- We are just days away from the Florida Primary and many people are not waiting to vote.
The crowd can be seen from blocks away. Signs are posted on cars and in hand. Candidates Like David Dees running for Martin County Sheriff campaign behind the lines at the supervisor of elections office in Stuart. Many candidates here to make one final pitch.
"We're very excited about the turnout we've had for early voting. Starting Saturday there were over 500 people turned out," said David Dees, (R) Martin County Sheriff Candidate.
It's the final countdown to Primary Election Day. Early voting is underway and the turnout is defying the odds up and down the Treasure Coast.
"It happened in the 08 general election, but now that we only have 8 days of early voting it really has created a sense of urgency to get out there and cast your vote early," said Vicki Davis, Supervisor of Elections Martin Co.
A steady line of people stream in and out in Stuart. It's the same story to the north in Fort Pierce at the early voting poll in Fort Pierce next to the supervisor of elections office off Virginia Avenue.
"I have always voted. But I think this year in particular its so extremly important. So many things are on the line," said voter Peggy Monahan.
Voters say the ease of early voting is the draw this year. Show your license and cast your vote. St. Lucie county saw 13,000 participate in early voting and absentee ballot this year. Three times the average amount.
"It's so easy when I live on this road I can just jump in and go do it. I don't have to wait in long, long lines in my normal precinct," Monahan said.
But it's the key races that bring voters in. In St. Lucie, state representative district 84 is a tight race. In Martin County, county commission and superintendent races are heated. While the race for Congress and candidates Allen West and Robert Crowder is drawing passionate voters on both sides, with one major focus.
"Economy, economy, economy," said Monahan.
PALM BEACH COUNTY, Fla. -- If you think the ads in the presidential campaign are becoming more negative, you are right. Both presidential candidates and their supporters are bombarding the airwaves with plenty of mudslinging, especially with two new ads this week. Negative campaigning is defined as using the media to frame a candidate in a negative way so people will not vote for them. The negative ads are getting worse, especially in Florida, but how effective are they? Ben Becker reports.
STUART, Fla. -- The Treasure Coast is turning a darker shade of red this election season, red for Republican. The campaign donation numbers are in and the Treasure Coast donated 80 percent of all money to Republican candidates.
You can post a sign in your yard or paint the truck red and decorate it with Republicans. But when it comes time to show your support, cash is king.
"Money is the indication of where people's support is in this area," said Susan Auld, Martin Republican Executive Chairperson.
Republican Executive Chairperson Susan Auld says many donate their time, but to beat the Obama campaign....
"I know that it takes money. I gave $50. Its not a lot of money, but it what I can afford," Auld said.
Numbers just in show close to 80-percent of all presidential campaign contributions are going to the Republicans. With Martin and Indian River Counties donating the most to Mitt Romney, close to $100,000.
"Jupiter Island is the most affluent area and Vero Beach as well, and those areas of the Treasure Coast certainly contribute too. They want to see change--they can give money," said Auld.
While St. Lucie County is staying Democrat with donations, coming in at a low $6,400 for President Obama's re-election campaign. Across the Treasure Coast, Obama only netted $27,000 in donations. Auld says St. Lucie County is garnering more and more Republicans.
"Look at all the people who have lost their homes. Look at those who lost their jobs. When you start putting that into a personal issue, you think am I going to vote for more of this?" said Auld.
So if you lean blue or red...cash, the green kind, is king in 2012, and predicting the outcome of most races this decade. This year many people are donating early, they say that's because of the many high profile races on the Treasure Coast.
PALM BEACH COUNTY, Fla. -- The Florida primary is just eight days away and early voting is already underway. Some of the notable races include Sheriff, Property Appraiser, Tax Collector, Clerk of Courts, and Supervisor of Elections.
Another race to watch is to see who will run against against Republican Adam Hasner in the new Palm Beach-Broward District 22. The hotly contested primary race pits former West Palm Beach Mayor Lois Frankel against Broward County Commissioner Kristin Jacobs. CBS 12's Lynn Gordon spoke with both candidates today about what they'd like to accomplish.
BOCA RATON, Fla. -- One local candidate for Congress is getting a big endorsement. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi in town to help boost Lois Frankel's campaign for Congress.
A week before the August 14th Democratic primary, former West Palm Beach Mayor Lois Frankel is getting support from one of the most
powerful women in Congress. House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi was in Boca Raton Monday not only to help Frankel get elected to Congress but also to talk to seniors about something very important to them.
It's not often Nancy Pelosi campaigns on behalf of a candidate, but the House minority leader says she believes in District 22 Congressional candidate Frankel and says it's an important seat for the Democrats.
"We are in a drive for 25, we believe we can win those 25 seats and take back the majority," said Pelosi.
Pelosi and Frankel holding a joint news conference to discuss a number of issues, but earlier about 100 seniors gathered at the Veranda Club, an assisted living facility in Boca Raton for a town hall meeting about Medicare.
"This is a guarantee. We cannot turn it into a gamble for seniors," said Pelosi.
Pelosi spoke about the importance of protecting Medicare for seniors. She criticized the Ryan plan which turns Medicare into a voucher.
"Important to know Republicans will sever the Medicare guarantee and toss the seniors into a private market with vouchers and to survival of the fittest and make them pay more," said Pelosi.
But Republican Congressional Candidate Adam Hasner who could be facing Frankel if she wins the democratic primary next week, says the Democrats are using scare tactics on seniors when it comes to Medicare.
"No one is talking about eliminating medicare, the medicare trustees have told us that trust fund is going to be insolvent in a decade," said Hasner.
Pelosi also says Florida is key to winning back Democratic control of the house. Frankel faces former Broward commissioner Kristin Jacobs in the primary next Tuesday.
Pelosi also came to the defense of Sen. Harry Reid this morning over his comments about Mitt Romney's taxes. Reid outraged some Republicans with his remarks last week that he'd been told the GOP presidential candidate didn't pay taxes for 10 years.
BOCA RATON, Fla. -- House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi is coming to Sen. Harry Reid's defense in his comments on Mitt Romney's taxes.
Reid has outraged some Republicans by saying he's been told Romney didn't pay taxes for 10 years. Reid didn't identify his source, and Pelosi said she couldn't vouch for the anonymous tipster, but that she believed the Senate majority leader.
Pelosi says, "I believe if Sen. Reid said that, then somebody did tell him" and that it's "up to Gov. Romney to release his returns."
Pelosi spoke with reporters after an appearance at a Boca Raton retirement community Monday with congressional candidate Lois Frankel. The former House speaker's remarks focused largely on protecting Medicare for seniors.
WASHINGTON -- A Republican congressman who's retiring in frustration over political gridlock says he hopes the institution doesn't have to hit "rock bottom" before people learn to work together.
Ohio's Steven LaTourette tells MSNBC it's more difficult for a reasonable person to get re-elected to Congress because "the red districts are turning redder and the blue districts are turning bluer."
The red-versus-blue theory came to prominence when political analysts began breaking down the electoral map in terms of blue states as Democratic-leaning and red states as Republican. LaTourette says Friday that voters haven't demanded enough. He says when Congress failed to make a deal on budget cuts, quote, "I didn't get one phone call. I didn't get one email."
He says people should have been saying, `What's wrong with these chuckleheads.' "
PALM BEACH COUNTY, Fla. -- Early voting for the Florida primary begins Saturday and continues through the following Saturday.
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. -- President Barack Obama returning to Florida and finishing up a trip that included West Palm Beach two weeks ago. He campaigned in Orlando Thursday. The president's visit comes just a day before the July jobs report is set to be released.
The president's visit comes on the heels of a new poll showing he's leading Republican Mitt Romney among likely voters in Florida.
The president still has a lot of work to do in the sunshine state. Florida is among states hardest hit by the housing bust and has an unemployment rate of 8.6 percent, slightly above the national average. Today, Obama focused on a new non-partisan study that hammered Romney's tax proposal as being too harsh on lower and middle income workers.
"We do not need more tax cuts who have done well we need more cuts for working Americans, for famlies trying to keep children healthy, send them to college keep roofs over the heads," President Obama said.
President Obama also released a new television ad today in Florida. It claims Romney's tax plan would raise taxes on middle-class families with children by more than $2,000, while allowing millionaires to pay less.
Obama's visit to Orlando is a make-up for an appearance he postponed after the tragic shootings in Colorado. He will likely have more visits as the presidential election is less than 100 days away.
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- Former Florida Gov. Charlie Crist is opening his wallet and pledging his support to U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson.
Crist said Wednesday that he will attend an upcoming fundraiser for the Democratic incumbent that will be held at the home of trial lawyer John Morgan. Former President Bill Clinton will also be at the fundraiser.
Crist, who left office in early 2011, currently works at Morgan's law firm.
Crist was a Republican when he was elected governor, but he switched to no party affiliation during his bruising 2010 campaign for U.S. Senate. He lost to Marco Rubio, who has become a rising star nationally for the Republicans.
Crist said he is supporting Nelson over likely-GOP nominee Connie Mack because Nelson is a friend and a good voice for Florida.
BOCA RATON, Fla. -- A new Rasmussen tracking poll shows Mitt Romney has a five percent lead on President Obama. Both sides can still use any advantage they can get and Romney is getting help from former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani who was in our area today. CBS 12's Ben Becker sat down with Giuliani.
LONDON -- On a trip already marked by misstep, Mitt Romney has an Olympic history that could prove problematic: His stewardship of the 2002 Winter Games in Salt Lake City was not without controversy.
Romney and his wife, Ann, are set to attend the opening ceremony at the Summer Games on Friday, an event that punctuates the first leg of a three-nation tour that will take him to Israel and Poland. It's the first international swing for the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, who has crafted an itinerary designed to showcase his diplomatic skills and political strengths.
The Olympic appearance carries special significance for Romney. His political career was born out of his leading role at the Salt Lake City Games, which were plagued by scandal before he was tapped to take over.
"I can't resist the pull of the beginning of the Olympics here," Romney told reporters Thursday. "My experience as an Olympic organizer is that there are always a few very small things that end up not going quite right in the first day or so - these get ironed out and then when the games themselves begin and the athletes take over, all the mistakes of the organizing committee - and I made a few - all of those are overwhelmed by the many things that the athletes carry out and by the spirit of the games."
Romney's comments were aimed at downplaying his earlier suggestion that British officials might not be prepared to pull off a successful Olympics. In an interview with NBC News, he called London's problems with games preparation "disconcerting," and the remark sparked sharp responses from Britain's top officials.
Prime Minister David Cameron said Romney and other doubters would "see beyond doubt that Britain can deliver." London Mayor Boris Johnson told tens of thousands gathered in Hyde Park: "There's a guy called Mitt Romney who wants to know if we are ready. Are we ready? Yes, we are!"
Amid the uproar, Romney met privately with Cameron, afterward concluding, "I expect the games to be highly successful."
On Friday, the former Massachusetts governor said "it looks to me like London is ready," although he observed in an NBC interview that "it is hard to put on the Games in a major metropolitan area."
Asked about the stir his earlier remarks caused, he replied, "I'm absolutely convinced that the people here are ready for the Games, and in just a few moments, all the things the politicians say will be swept away" by excitement over the competition.
The negative attention distracted from Romney's push to highlight the U.S.-British bond and bolster his foreign policy credentials as he auditions for the world's most powerful elected office. The Olympic focus also brought fresh attention to his actions in Utah a decade ago.
"The country is in need of a turnaround. The Olympics was a turnaround," Romney told CNN in an interview broadcast as London slept early Friday morning. "The attacks that come by people who are trying to knock down my business career, or my Olympic experience, or our success, those attacks are not going to be successful."
Such attacks have been plentiful in recent months. Democrats and even some Republicans have criticized Romney for taking credit for the 2002 games' success while relying on federal funding to help cover costs as the Salt Lake Olympics sought to recover from financial mismanagement and corruption.
"One of the things he talks about most is how he heroically showed up on the scene and bailed out and resolved the problems of the Salt Lake City Olympic Games," Rick Santorum, now a Romney supporter, said in February when he opposed Romney for the GOP nomination. "He heroically bailed out the Salt Lake City Olympic Games by heroically going to Congress and asking them for tens of millions of dollars to bail out the Salt Lake Games - in an earmark."
Romney took over the games in 1999 after its leaders were accused of sending money to members of the International Olympic Committee to help Salt Lake City win the games.
By Romney's account, the government spent about $600 million helping the Salt Lake Olympic Committee. An additional $1.1 billion was planned for projects like roads and bridges, infrastructure improvement projects that the government probably would have paid for eventually, though the timing of the games may have sped up the construction.
Romney has made himself the very public face of the effort, claiming that he personally cut millions from the budget, wooed major companies and won sponsorships himself and pulled the whole endeavor back from the brink of failure. His record in Salt Lake was the cornerstone of his run for governor in Massachusetts, a campaign he announced in March 2002, just weeks after the games concluded.
Romney, who promises to slash federal spending if elected president, rarely acknowledges the federal support for the 2002 games on the campaign trail. His aides say much of it was for increased security costs after the 2001 terrorist attacks, which occurred about five months earlier.
But Romney doesn't mention the commitments the government had already made to cover costs associated with the games - or elaborate on his role in persuading congressional appropriators and critics to give the games more money.
In the 2004 book he wrote about the games, "Turnaround," Romney outlined how he revamped the Salt Lake Olympic Committee's lobbying operations in Washington. He directed plans to hire experienced transportation lobbyists and wooed congressional leaders.
In one instance, Romney highlights how he made arrangements for different states to send experienced bus drivers to Utah. He helped arrange to pay them union wages, he wrote in the book - and he persuaded the federal government to pick up the tab.
One of the lessons he learned: "If you work at it long enough, there is always another way to get the help you need in Washington," he wrote.
In London, first lady Michelle Obama is also scheduled to appear at Friday's opening ceremony, in addition to other events. She and Romney are expected to avoid the same venues.
Romney said he would attend at least one event in addition to the opening ceremony. The family has a horse competing in an equestrian event known as dressage. But Romney told Britain's Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg that he would prefer to watch swimming.
Why?
"That's just what's been arranged. It fits in the schedule," Romney said. "Swimming is always fun, and Americans typically do well in swimming."
STUART, Fla. -- Thousands of voters going to the mailbox to find their sample ballots this week, finding out they cant vote for their candidate of choice. A record number of voters are switching parties in Martin County.
As the sample ballots go out, people are looking at the columns finding they can't vote for the races they want. But it's too late to change.
Maria Lorenzo is here a little too late.
Maria Lorenzo/Changing Parties: Yes, I didn't do it early enough. I am upset about it, and I just wanted to make sure my vote will bring out the right election for everybody.
She's a Democrat switching to Republican, and she's not alone.
Vicki Davis/Martin Co. Supervisor of Elections: In the office we experienced over 2,000 changes in the last several months. People changing their party in order to participate in the upcoming primary.
Martin County Supervisor of Elections Vicki Davis says her office sent out sample ballots this week. And voters responded in a big way.
Vicki Davis/Martin Co. Supervisor of Elections: It always throws people off when they realize they are not of that registered party and they wanted to cast a vote in a particular race like the sheriff's race.
The sheriff's race and Treasure Coast congressional race with Republican candidates Allen West and Martin County Sheriff Bob Crowder, both running on the Republican ticket, has voters changing parties so they can have a vote.
The deadline to switch parties was last week, and Florida is a closed primary state. Meaning if you are a registered Democrat, in the primary you can only vote for Democrat races.
Maria Lorenzo/Changing Parties: There are some good Democrats and some bad Democrats, same thing with the Republicans. I feel locked in. The system locks you in.
When it comes to the general election, to change your party affiliation you have to do it by October 9th.
On the last day voters could switch party affiliation, 240 voters in Martin County changed from democrat to Republican. Most citing they wanted their vote counted for the congressional race. Primary day is August 14th.
BOCA RATON, Fla. -- The Mitt Romney campaign is taking off the gloves today and attacking President Obama. The campaign is coordinating with small business owners across the country that were put off by the president's recent comments.
Now Romney's camp is holding events, even in our area, targeting one specific thing the president has said. The events are giving small business owners the chance to respond to President Obama's claim that, "if you've got a business you didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen."
Kevin Ressler/Small business owner: He made light of what it is to run a business.
Kevin Ressler runs a marble business in Boca Raton. He voted for President Obama in 2008. But not anymore. He says this comment from the president about small businesses was an insult.
President Obama: If you've got a business, you didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen.
Kevin Ressler/Small business owner: I bought into his 'I'm going to to do things for the country, I'm going to change the country.'
Now Ressler wants change again. He attended one of Romney's 24 events being held today across 12 battleground states, including Florida. All trying to take advantage of the comments by the president.
Tim Gilbert/Political Science Professor: It's a great opening for Romney.
Tim Gilbert is a political science professor for Northwood University. He says the president's remark about government's role in spurring economic development is gold for Romney.
Tim Gilbert/Political Science Professor: That's a perfect soundbite for Romney, gets the focus back on business, rebutt the Bain Capital negative advertising campaigns that Obama has been promoting recently.
President Obama: Those ads taking my words about small business out of context, they're flat out wrong.
Obama has fired back at Romney in a television ad airing in seven swing states.
Mark Siegel is the chairman of the Democratic Party of Palm Beach County. He says Obama's words have been twisted.
Mark Siegel/PBC Democratic Party Chairman: Public infrastructure is the backbone of our economy. Without these there will be no businesses, no jobs, because there will be no commerce.
Kevin Ressler/Small business owner: No one took anything out of context, the words are what were spoken and it's not right.
The challenge for the Romney campaign is to keep up its aggressive message with Romney overseas this week.
WASHINGTON -- Mitt Romney says Barack Obama doesn't think entrepreneurs built their businesses. The problem is that's not what the president said.
The brouhaha over Obama's comments on small-business success shows no sign of fading and the president pushed back hard with new ads scheduled to run in Virginia, North Carolina, Florida, Ohio, Iowa and Nevada in which the president directly counters Romney's claims. Romney and his allies continue to hammer Obama for comments taken wildly out of context, pummeling the president as a government-obsessed figure who thinks Washington gets the credit for the success of small businesses.
That was not Obama's point when he spoke in Virginia on July 13 about the government's supportive role in providing a stable environment in which businesses can thrive. Nor was it Romney's point when he used similar phrasing in 2002 about Olympic athletes who benefited from supportive parents and coaches.
But in a campaign that makes facts secondary to a good attack, the context doesn't seem to matter.
"Those ads taking my words about small business out of context? They're flat out wrong," Obama says, looking into the camera and addressing voters in the 30-second ad. "Of course Americans build their own businesses."
That is a tidier version of what Obama offered in Virginia.
"Look, if you've been successful, you didn't get there on your own. You didn't get there on your own," Obama said then. "I'm always struck by people who think, `Well, it must be because I was just so smart.' There are a lot of smart people out there. `It must be because I worked harder than everybody else.' Let me tell you something: There are a whole bunch of hardworking people out there. If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help."
Obama cited teachers and mentors who helped "create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges."
Then, Obama teed up the line that left Republicans giddy. "If you've got a business, you didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen. The Internet didn't get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet," Obama said, returning to his thesis.
"The point is, is that when we succeed, we succeed because of our individual initiative, but also because we do things together."
Romney and his allies pounced on the "you didn't build that" portion and ignored the rest.
"Well, just read the whole speech. I found the speech even more disconcerting than just that particular line. The context is worse than the quote," Romney told CNBC on Monday.
"I cannot believe the president of the United States could say that I have not made this," one small-business owner says in a web video released Tuesday by American Crossroads, an independent group supporting Romney's campaign.
"When President Obama said in Roanoke that `if you've got a business you didn't build that, somebody else made that happen,' I was personally extremely insulted," office supplier Melissa Ball of Richmond, Va., said on a Republican Party conference call with reporters.
Recognizing the potency of this theme, the Obama campaign began pushing back harder.
Speaking to about 1,000 donors in Portland, Ore., on Tuesday, Obama accused Romney of "twisting my words around to suggest that I don't value small business."
"Those are the games that are played in campaigns," he added. "Although I have to say, when people omit entire sentences from a speech and they start splicing and dicing, they may have tipped a little bit over their skis. They may have gone over the edge here."
The Obama campaign also released Web videos Monday and Tuesday rebutting Romney's assertions.
In one, the campaign accused the presumptive GOP nominee of having "deliberately altered the meaning of the president's words." A second video out Tuesday featured deputy campaign manager Stephanie Cutter, who said Romney was "not telling the truth about what the president said."
Taken as a whole, Obama's remarks aren't that different from Romney's comments in 2002 to Olympic athletes.
"You Olympians, however, know you didn't get here solely on your own power," Romney said after congratulating the athletes. "For most of you, loving parents, sisters or brothers, encouraged your hopes, coaches guided, communities built venues in order to organize competitions. All Olympians stand on the shoulders of those who lifted them."
Romney's team didn't seem to mind the risk. The backdrop for his campaign stop Monday in California: a blue banner that said, "We Did Build It!"
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. -- He's the outspoken, unapologetic and headline-grabbing Congressman. Allen West never backs down from a fight. As a result he's made plenty of enemies. He's been forced to move because of redistricting, and now he's running for Congress in District 18.
Rep. Allen West/(R) Dist. 22: The other side doesn't like me lets be very honest.
Congressman Allen West says he has thick skin. He's certainly not afraid of a fight. Frequently getting national headlines for his squabbles with Democrats. We caught up with him eating breakfast before heading back to Washington.
Rep. Allen West/(R) Dist. 22: You don't have to be a Democrat just because you are a black American. You can have different perspectives, insights and stand on principal.
CBS 12: You think this is about race?
Rep. Allen West/(R) Dist. 22: No, I think it is about fear, and what I stand for, and what I represent is threatening to some other people.
Congressman West is giving up his current Congressional District 22. Redistricting made it more liberal. Now campaigning in District 18 which covers parts of the Treasure Coast and northern Palm Beach County. He's raised $10 million dollars. Making this the most expensive Congressional race in the nation. He says 97 percent of that money is from private donors and not special interest groups.
Rep. Allen West/(R) Dist. 22: That says I'm not up there looking like a Nascar race driver with patches all over my suit. I'm truly up there speaking for the American people.
West says Washington is broken partially because of special interests. He also believes in term limits. Eight years in the house. 12 in the Senate, and no more than 12 years combined. A standard he has set for himself.
Rep. Allen West/(R) Dist. 22: There are people up there in the House of Representatives that have been there as along as I've been alive and I'm 51-years-old. That's not what the founding fathers meant for us to have.
Wherever he goes West is polarizing. Getting heckled in Delray Beach one minute and the next....
"I love you. You are great."
This love-hate relationship stretches well into the beltway. His fighting with Democratic National Committee Chair and South Florida Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Shultz is infamous, and he's unapologetic for it.
Rep. Allen West/(R) Dist. 22: Liberals like to push you around, poke you in the chest. All of a sudden you stand up to them, they cry some status, 'you hurt my feelings you offended me.' well that's life.
With his deep war chest and well known name, he's the odds-on-favorite to win a second term. If he does, he promises more of the same. Standing up for what he believes in without pulling punches. No matter who it might offend.
MANALAPAN, Fla. -- - Vice President Joe Biden was in our area this morning talking to a crowd of several hundred law enforcement officers belonging to the National Association of Police Organizations. The topic of his speech though changed drastically after Friday's shooting in Colorado.
Just three days after the deadly shootings at a Colorado movie theater, Vice President Joe Biden addressed hundreds of law enforcement officers at the Ritz Carlton. The group here knows tragedy all too well.
Vice President Joe Biden: You have seen the price of violence more than any other group of Americans.
Biden's 20 minute speech was solemn and a drastic shift from what he had initially planned to talk about on topics of police policy. That, Biden said, seemed inappropriate in light of the massacre in Aurora.
Vice President Joe Biden: There's nothing but the feeling of a black hole...you feel like you're getting sucked in to it.
He spoke of the terror those in that movie theater experienced. But he also talked about the stories of humanity. Those who helped each other in the midst of it all.
Vice President Joe Biden: Those are the people who define who we are as a nation...they are the hymns of our hope because they remind us of the goodness, the decency, the bravery.
He says because of them and those in this audience.
Vice President Joe Biden: There's a hell of a lot more good out there than evil.
There's a reason for confident hope that the country will get through this difficult time.
Vice President Joe Biden: I pray and I think all Americans pray that God will bless you and protect you, as you perform sacred duties to your community and country.
MANALAPAN -- Vice President Joe Biden is in South Florida today. He spoke at the Ritz Carlton in Manalapan and discussed the tragedy of the movie theater massacre in Colorado.
CBS12's Lauren Hills joins us from Manalapan with the latest on Vote 2012.
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. -- With just more than 100 days until the presidential election, each day of campaigning is important for President Obama and Mitt Romney. The shooting rampage in Colorado lowered the tenor for a day, but may have raised a new campaign issue, gun control.
President Obama: Reminds us how we are all united as one American family.
The president speaking in Fort Myers, saying this is not a day of business as usual in the presidential campaign. Meantime, Mitt Romney expressed the same sentiments as well
Mitt Romney: I stand here not as a person running for office but as a father and husband, grandfather and American.
Kevin Wagner is a political science professor at Florida Atlantic University. He says don't expect a meaningful and lasting gun control debate in an election year, especially from Democrats.
Kevin Wagner: The president was looking to some action he would have done it with the shooting of the Arizona congresswoman.
That would be Congresswoman Gabby Giffords, who was shot in January 2011. The president has done little to curb gun ownership. The Brady campaign to prevent gun violence has given Obama an "f" rating which would indicate he's not a so-called gun grabber.
Kevin Wagner: The president is vulnerable on a lot of issues, doesn't want to make another issue on which people can campaign against him on.
A Pew survey conducted in April showed 49 percent of people believe the right to own guns was important while 45 percent said it's important to control gun ownership.
Kevin Wagner: I doubt either will do anything political.The possibility of damage of doing that much greater than making a political point.
Both the President and Mitt Romney's campaigns said today they are pulling "attack ads" in Colorado in light of the shootings. There's no indication how long that will last.
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. -- We are 110 days from the presidential election. As the polls show, President Obama is in a dead heat with Mitt Romney. The election may turn on the economy and whose vision Floridians believe in.
Mark Siegal: The alternative is to go back to policies that got us in the ditch in the first place.
Mark Siegel is the chairman of the Democratic Party of Palm Beach County. Florida's economy has shown signs of improvement since the president was elected. But unemployment is above the national average at 8.6 percent, and the housing market is still recovering. Siegel says the president is turning things around.
Mark Siegel: Bus driver puts you in a ditch, tow truck tries to pull you out..which one do you go with, you stick with the guy in the tow truck.
During the president's trip, he will repeat his call on Congress to act now before the Bush tax cuts expire at the end of the year. Republicans want to extend the cuts for everyone, Democrats don't for those making $250,000 or more per year.
Mark Siegel: The complete refusal of Republican Congress to move anything along is taking too long.
Tom Duncan: I'm glad he's coming to Palm Beach County.
Tom Duncan is the president of Northwood University and a political science analyst. Floridians have cast more than 30 million votes during the past five presidential elections and only 50,000 votes have separated the two parties in those campaigns
Tom Duncan: I hope he listens. He's going to talk to seniors that's a very legit group in Florida.
If Obama can win Florida's 29 electoral votes, it would be difficult for Romney to mount enough support elsewhere to capture the White House. Siegel says the battle for Florida will come down to undecided voters and what message they choose to believe in.
Mark Siegel: The voters in the middle are subject to 100 millions of dollars of pants on fire lies..trying to wash that away with a flood of small truths.
WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama is trying to keep the pressure on Republican rival Mitt Romney, opening two days of campaigning in Florida in search of military veterans, seniors and unaligned voters in the state's crucial midsection. Romney's wife said no more of her husband's tax information would be made public.
Obama was appearing Thursday in Jacksonville and West Palm Beach as his campaign urges Romney to release more years of his tax returns and keeps a sharp focus on the former Massachusetts governor's tenure as the head of a private equity firm.
CBS12.com will stream the president's speech at Century Village live at 6:20 p.m.
"We've given all that people need to know and understand about our financial situation and about how we live our life," Ann Romney told ABC News in an interview broadcast Thursday.
Romney had planned a quiet day of private meetings Thursday at his campaign headquarters in Boston, but abruptly changed his plans and scheduled a campaign stop nearby to coincide with Obama's first event in Florida. After several days of aggressive anti-Obama rhetoric, the Republican's campaign was showing no signs of letting up.
Florida is the largest and most coveted of the nation's Election Day toss-up states, a place where Romney could severely damage Obama's chances of winning re-election. Republicans are holding their national convention in Tampa in August in hopes of giving themselves an edge in the state.
Yet, if Obama can lock down Florida's 29 electoral votes, it would be difficult for Romney to mount enough support elsewhere to capture the White House.
Polls have shown Obama and Romney in a dead heat in the state, which has struggled with an unemployment rate of 8.6 percent, above the national average, and a still-recovering housing market. Florida provided the deciding margin in George W. Bush's victory in 2000 and the state has been closely contested ever since. Obama carried it in 2008.
Obama aides noted that since 1992, Floridians have cast more than 32.5 million votes during the past five presidential elections and only 57,000 votes have separated the two parties in those campaigns. "Florida's always a close state and we don't expect that to change between now and November," said Obama campaign spokesman Ben LaBolt.
Both sides are jockeying for an advantage.
Obama has repeatedly criticized Romney's private equity firm, Bain Capital, arguing that it promoted the outsourcing of jobs to countries like China and India. And Democrats want Romney to make public past tax returns, noting that the one year for which he has released returns showed investments and offshore accounts in Switzerland and the Cayman Islands.
Several Republicans have joined in the call for more transparency, including several GOP senators and Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who challenged Romney for the GOP nomination earlier this year.
In an interview aired Thursday on WTOL-TV in Toledo, Ohio, Romney said one reason not to release more of his returns was that "the Democratic party and the opposition has all these people that comb through and try and find anything they can to distract from the issues people care about, oftentimes in a dishonest way."
In recent days, Romney has pointed to Obama's record on the economy and noted that the Democrat hasn't met with his jobs council in more than six months. Romney was in Massachusetts Thursday, before an event Friday in Bow, N.H.
Romney's team sees an opportunity to seize on what they say is another Obama misstep on jobs. At the White House briefing Wednesday, press secretary Jay Carney said there was "no specific reason" why Obama and the jobs council haven't met for six months "except that the president's obviously got a lot on his plate."
Romney, under attack for days over his record running Bain Capital and over his tax returns, went on the offensive this week and lashed out at Obama for saying: "If you've got a business, you didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen." At a town hall in Ohio on Wednesday, Romney asked audience members who had built or were running a business to stand. "Take that, Mr. President," he said as the crowd cheered.
The Republican candidate was expected to highlight that comment again Thursday.
The president was beginning his campaign day in Jacksonville, home to a large swath of veterans and military members connected to Naval Air Station Jacksonville. Before military audiences, Obama has talked about his efforts to bring home U.S. combat troops from Iraq, end the conflict in Afghanistan and press Congress to promote job opportunities for veterans.
Obama is expected to make a pitch to seniors in West Palm Beach, where he'll visit Century Village, a condominium complex home to thousands of retirees, long a bastion of reliable Democratic voters. Obama and Democrats have warned that Romney would seek to implement a budget plan authored by Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., that includes an overhaul of Medicare that would change it into a voucher-like program for those who retire in 10 years.
"Under the Romney-Ryan budget, Florida seniors would be left on their own," said Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., the chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee.
Obama was holding events on Friday in Fort Myers, along Florida's southwest coast, and in Orlando, the heart of the state's Interstate 4 corridor, which is home to many independent voters.
After his event in the Boston area, Romney was expected to attend a private fundraiser in the Boston area and campaign in New Hampshire on Friday. He was spending the weekend at his lakeside vacation home in New Hampshire.
While his vacation home is usually reserved for family and relaxation, Romney often holds campaign strategy sessions there with senior staff and family members.
Despite the light schedule, speculation about Romney's selection of a vice presidential candidate looms large. Romney said Wednesday that he has yet to make his choice. Aides say a decision could come this week.
WASHINGTON -- Republican Sen. John McCain on Wednesday strongly defended a longtime aide to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton against unsubstantiated allegations that her family has ties to Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, repudiating charges leveled by another Republican, Rep. Michele Bachmann, a Treasure Coast congressman and two other House Republicans.
In a speech on the Senate floor, McCain praised the work and patriotism of Huma Abedin, a State Department employee who has been a constant presence at Clinton's side. Without mentioning Bachmann by name, McCain assailed the attacks on Abedin, a Muslim, as an example of ignorance and fear that defames the spirit of the nation.
"Huma represents what is best about America: the daughter of immigrants, who has risen to the highest levels of our government on the basis of her substantial personal merit and her abiding commitment to the American ideals that she embodies so fully." McCain said. "I am proud to know Huma, and to call her my friend."
Bachmann, a member of the House Intelligence Committee, made the allegations in a June letter to the State Department as well as in a letter Wednesday to fellow Minnesota lawmaker Rep. Keith Ellison, a Democrat.
Bachman requested an investigation in the letter, which was also signed by Trent Franks (R-Ariz.), Louie Gohmert (R-Texas), Thomas Rooney (R-Fla.) and Lynn Westmoreland, (R-Ga.).
Bachmann claimed Abedin's late father, mother and brother are connected to Muslim Brotherhood operatives and/or organizations. She cited foreign media reports and an outside study and added that Abedin's position "affords her routine access to the secretary and policy-making."
In her letter to Ellison, Bachmann wrote, "Given what we know from the international media about Ms. Abedin's documented family connections with the extremist Muslim Brotherhood," how was she not disqualified for a U.S. security clearance.
McCain pointed out that Abedin's father died two decades ago and that the congresswoman failed to provide "one instance of an action, decision or a public position that Huma has taken while at the State Department that would lend credence to the charge that she is promoting anti-American activities within our government."
Clinton recently traveled to Egypt and urged President Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood and Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi of the military to work together. The two are in a power struggle.
At the State Department, Clinton spokesman Philippe Reines called the accusations "nothing but vicious and disgusting lies, and anyone who traffics in them should be ashamed of themselves. I would hope that hearing the remarkable statement from someone of Senator McCain's stature gives her (Bachmann) pause in doing so any further."
In his letter to Bachmann, Ellison said the congresswoman, who was a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, provided no information to substantiate her claims about Abedin. Ellison also is a Muslim.
McCain, who described himself as someone who understands the pain "when a person's character, reputation and patriotism are attacked," criticized Bachmann's actions.
"When anyone, not least a member of Congress, launches specious and degrading attacks against fellow Americans on the basis of nothing more than fear of who they are and ignorance of what they stand for, it defames the spirit of our nation, and we all grow poorer because of it," he said.
In a statement, Bachmann said the letters were being distorted and her intent was "to outline the serious national security concerns I had and ask for answers to questions regarding the Muslim Brotherhood and other radical group's access to top Obama administration officials."
Abedin worked for Clinton when Clinton served as a U.S. senator representing New York and sought the Democratic presidential nomination in 2008. Abedin is married to former Rep. Anthony Weiner of New York.
PALM BEACH, Fla. -- The president is going to be in our area tomorrow, but tonight conservatives are jumping on comments he made about small business owners.
Mitt Romney says the comments about small businesses are "insulting to every entrepreneur, every innovator in America." The president's comment gives the appearance he believes business owners couldn't be successful without government help. It's leaving a bad taste in the mouth of one restaurant owner.
Andreas Kotsifos/Owner, Palm Beach Steakhouse: I think it was an unfortunate comment.
Andreas Kotsifos has owned the Palm Beach Steak House on Palm Beach for five years. He says the president should have a better understanding of the role of small businesses.
Andreas Kotsifos/Owner, Palm Beach Steakhouse: It's the small businesses that are the core of this country.
President Obama: If you've got a business, you didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen.
The president argues the core is the public system like teachers, the internet, and roads and bridges that help business thrive..not the other way around, by virtue of the tax dollars businesses pay.
Andreas Kotsifos/Owner, Palm Beach Steakhouse: Business is really slow.
Kotsifos says business is so bad, he's closing down for a month and isn't sure about the future beyond that. He once employed 15 to 20 people, now it's just four of five.
Andreas Kotsifos/Owner, Palm Beach Steakhouse: I had to let a lot of people go.
Kotsifos came to the United States from Greece 22 years ago. He sees parallels between the euro crisis and what's happening in the U.S.
Andreas Kotsifos/Owner, Palm Beach Steakhouse: It is still (the land of opportunity) but certain things have to change, hope to change soon, the way we going right now, it's not very good not very optimistic.
EST PALM BEACH, Fla. -- The House of Representatives began debating a bill today requiring the Obama administration to provide details of what programs would be cut under spending reductions due to go into effect at the start of 2013.
The reductions include billions of dollars in defense cuts, that could cost Florida thousands of job. The ten-year, across-the-board cut is due to go into effect on January 2. It's a process called "sequestration"...but it's causing consternation for the defense industry.
Tom Duncan/Political Science Analyst: The defense industry has cut back on it's spending.
Tom Duncan is the president of Northwood University and a political science analyst. He says Congress couldn't agree on how to trim the federal deficit, so one trillion dollars in automatic cuts, over the course of ten-years, are due to go into effect in January. This includes $500 biliion in defense spending or $50 billion per year.
Tom Duncan/Political Science Analyst: They are saying we are not going to hire people until we see what happens with the sequester.
Rep. Allen West: You can't do cosmetic surgery with a chainsaw.
Republican Florida Congressman Allen West, is an army veteran who sits on the powerful Armed Services Committee. Various business and defense industry estimates say defense spending cuts could cost Florida somewhere between 40,000 and 80,000 jobs.
Rep. Allen West: We do have a lot of military and defense industry in Florida.
However, according to the Political Economy Research Institute, defense spending creates fewer jobs compared to other forms of government spending, like healthcare and education.
Helen Krajclvic/Son Served in Navy: In this world we need a strong defense.
Helen Krajclvic's son served in Navy in the first Gulf war. She says a strong military is a must but not at any price.
Helen Krajclvic: They can live on a budget like anyone else.
Tom Duncan/Political Science Analyst: Government spends other peoples money. If we spend other people's money were not as careful about it.
Pratt and Whitney, a major defense contractor in Palm Beach County, plans to host a rally on August 8. The event will raise awareness about the cuts.
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. -- The race for president is heating up in our backyard. President Obama is focusing his campaigning right here in South Florida Thursday. In just one day the president lands in West Palm Beach.
A lot of excitement here at Century Village. Thursday hundreds of seniors will be inside the main clubhouse waiting for President Obama to arrive. The president is due to arrive here at Century Village around 6:20 to address hundreds of seniors.
This will be President Obama's first visit to the retirement community. A mostly democratic senior community with a large Jewish population.
West Palm Beach Mayor Jeri Muoio and State Representative Mark Pafford were on hand today to speak to the media along with some Century Village residents who are also working on the Obama campaign.
The president is expected to talk about Medicare, Social Security and other issues important to seniors. But he's also expected to focus on the economy as well, something seniors say they're very concerned about.
Valerie Tipton/Obama Supporter: The economy is a very important issue for me as a senior. The economy that Obama understands we have to rebuild the infrastructure, he understands that we have to rebuild the education system, provide job training for the jobs that are coming in the future.
Rep. Mark Pafford/(D) West Palm Beach: Right now in Century Village and throuhgout Florida we have seniors who are struggling values of homes crashed but many people rely on Social Security and Medicare.
The president can also expect to see some protestors out here tomorrow. According to Sid Dinerstein, chair of the Republican party of Palm Beach, the Romney campaign is planning to hold a rally out here to show their disapproval with President Obama.
Dinerstein told us he believes the president is simply using this visit to Century Village, so that his campaign doesn't have to foot the bill for his visit to Manalapan.
Meanwhile, the president's rival is hard at work, attacking Obama over some recent comments.
Mitt Romney: How many people here would the people who began a business or are leading a business in this room please stand up. Wow. Thank you. Thank you. Don't sit down. Stand up. Keep standing up. Keep standing up.
This is Mitt Romney speaking during a campaign event today in Ohio. The Obama campaign says Romney misrepresented the president's words during this speech.
PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. -- Friday marks the first day of operations for President Obama's re-election office in Port St Lucie. A handful of staff will mobilize hundreds, even thousands, of volunteers to get out the vote.
The office space is a few tables and lots of literature about the work the president has done for us in Florida, like giving every working family in Florida a tax cut equaling $3,400 or adding 5,100 manufacturing jobs to to the state.
Nearly all of the literature focuses on the economy here, nothing about his landmark Affordable Healthcare Act. A mantra on the wall reads '29 gets us closer to 270'...the number of electoral college votes needed to retake the presidency.
Right now the staff are focused on recruiting volunteers and getting Pro-Obama folks out into neighborhoods to make sure they are registered, and ready to vote.
Steven Aptheker/ Campaign Volunteer: We're a swing county in a swing state, probably the most important state in the union as far as I'm concerned. We are, what do we say? Fired up and ready to go.
St Lucie County has 169, 570 registered voters.
Mitt Romney could be closing in on naming a presidential running mate. Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has reportedly emerged as a front-runner for Romney's vice presidential nomination. Could this be a game changer in the presidential election?
Rice's name has surfaced, just as the Romney campaign confirmed a choice will be made before the convention in August. Is Rice a real candidate or is this a trial balloon?
Sid Dinerstein/PBC Republican Party: She has more foreign policy exerience than the whole Obama administration.
Sid Dinerstein, the chairmen of the Republican party of Palm Beach County, he says Rice's foreign policy credentials make her an attractive candidate although she has some baggage from the Bush administration.
Sid Dinerstein/PBC Republican Party: If you got Condi on the ticket, you may have to discuss a lot of the Bush foreign policy.
That includes Iraq and Afghanistan. Rice has been mentioned a possible vice presidential choice since she delivered a highly regarded speech at a Romney donor event in June. However soon after in an interview with CBS News, Rice downplayed speculation that she would be chosen as Romney's running mate.
Condoleezza Rice/Former secretary of state: I didn't run for student council president. I don't see myself in any way in elective office.
Kevin Wagner/Political Science Professor, FAU: She's very capable of being vice president.
Wagner says Rice's stance on abortion could trip her up with the right wing of the Republican party.
Kevin Wagner/Political Science Professor, FAU: She says shes mildly pro-choice. In the Republican world that's a pretty big x.
Sid Dinerstein/PBC Republican Party: I'm not standing here waving a big flag I want Condi..I want Marco more.
That would be Florida Senator Marco Rubio who is scheduled to speak in Boston tonight at a Romney fundraiser. It could also be an audition.
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney not getting a welcoming reaction from members of the NAACP. Romney made a rare appearance at the event hoping to sell his job policies which he says would be better for African Americans which poses a larger question. The question is, has President Obama delivered on the promises he made to African-Americans in 2008. One local leader says yes and no.
C. Shahid Freeman/Former State Officer, NAACP: I think the time frame has not been long enough for him to achieve what he wants to achieve.
Freeman is a former state officer with the NAACP. Now he's an official with the Democratic party.
C. Shahid Freeman/Former State Officer, NAACP: The president has made a few promises he's been unable to keep. One of the main reasons why he hasn't been able to deliver is because he hasn't had the right kind of support from Congress.
Republicans run Congress today. Freeman says Romey's appearance at the NAACP annual meeting in Houston shows he is willing to reach out to diverse audiences.
C. Shahid Freeman/Former State Officer, NAACP: I don't think he's pandering. I think he's being bold enough, brave enough..if becomes president, he's their president too.
But it's a tough sell. 95 percent of blacks backed President Obama in 2008, as was apparent during Romney's speech, when he was booed.
Mitt Romney: If you want a president who will make things better in the African-American community you are looking at him. Take a look.
Romney focused his speech on Obama's greatest weakness, the economy. The 14.4 percent unemployment rate among blacks is much higher than the 8.2 percent national average.
The economic downturn could dampen black turnout and that could make the difference in states like Florida.
C. Shahid Freeman/Former State Officer, NAACP: Many Republicans that didn't vote last time, they will definitely be voting this time.
President Obama will not speak to the NAACP this year. Instead, Vice President Joe Biden will address the annual convention tomorrow. Obama does plan to address the Urban League later this month.
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. -- Congressional Republicans have voted 33 times to repeal, defund or dismantle President Obama's healthcare law. But is it a waste of time and taxpayer dollars with a Democratic-controlled Senate?
It's not just the unachievable repeal of healthcare reform. Republican and Democratic lawmakers are expected to pass very few bills in the next few weeks. All this non-action is a form of "prevent defense," ahead of the November elections. It comes with a price for taxpayers.
Tim Gilbert/Political Science Professor: The two billion they spend is well earned if they don't do anything.
Tim Gilbert is a political science professor at Northwood University. Taxpayers spend more than $2 billion a year to run both the House and Senate. According to the Congressional Research Service, running the house costs about $24 million a week. It costs $17 million a week to run the Senate. Yet little will be done for the next four weeks.
Tim Gilbert/Political Science Professor: Everything at this time has to do with re-election. House of Representatives, everyone up for re-election. So it's really a critical thing.
Gilbert says lawmakers on Capital Hill are pushing off disputes over taxes, spending, borrowing, immigration and farm policy until after the election. Instead, Congress has mired itself in a faux legislative session. But the money paying for it, is real.
Bob Michals/Voter: I think if they were a business, they would be bankrupt, not getting the bang for the buck we deserve.
Bob Michals is a voter and is frustrated by what he sees in Washington.
Bob Michals/Voter: You know sometimes I think they forget they work for us, somewhere along the way the system broke down.
How broke are things right now? Even a bill to authorize defense spending, which traditionally has bipartisan backing, is unlikely to come up in the Senate for a vote before election day. Democrats feel it could help Mitt Romney score political points against President Obama, if there are defense cuts.
Tim Gilbert/Political Science Professor: Nobody is in agreement. Election time, no matter how you slice it, go back to your constituents, not a good deal.
One item that will be discussed in the coming weeks is whether to extend the Bush-era tax cuts. But it's likely that decision, like many, will come after election day.
HOUSTON -- Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney drew jeers from black voters Wednesday as he criticized President Barack Obama and pledged to repeal the Democrats' health care overhaul.
Romney told the annual meeting of the NAACP that backing him over the Democratic incumbent, who won their overwhelming support in 2008, is in the best interest of their families. He acknowledged his Republican Party doesn't have a perfect record on race relations, but pledged during a sometimes rocky speech that, if elected, he would work with black leaders to put the country back to work.
"I am going to eliminate every non-essential, expensive program that I can find - and that includes Obamacare," Romney said, drawing his first boos of the day.
Romney stood motionless with a reserved expression for 15 seconds before noting a survey from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce as support for his position. His rebuttal was greeted with silence.
Indeed, Romney at times found himself adjusting his prepared remarks - with its typically business-oriented language - for his audience and sounded like an instructor explaining policy. Once he noted the slow growth of the GDP, the Gross Domestic Product, only to quickly adjust by adding "the economy."
Romney received polite applause at several points during the speech. But he was interrupted again when he flatly accused Obama of failing to spark a more robust economic recovery.
"I know the president has said he will do those things. But he has not. He cannot. He will not. And his last four years in the White House prove it definitively," Romney said as the crowd's murmurs turned to louder groans.
Finally, he stopped amid loud jeers.
"If you want a president who will make things better in the African-American community, you are looking at him. You take a look," Romney shot back.
Romney, running against the nation's first black president, isn't going to win the African American vote. But he made a pitch with a major speech that also was aimed at showing independent and swing voters that he's willing to reach out to diverse audiences - and demonstrating that his campaign and the Republican Party he leads are inclusive.
Looking to cut into Obama's support among African Americans, Romney called education the "civil rights issue of our era" and vowed to put blacks back to work. Citing June labor reports, he noted that the 14.4 percent unemployment rate among blacks is much higher than the 8.2 percent national average. Blacks tend to be unemployed longer and black families have a lower median income, Romney said.
All told, it's a difficult sell - 95 percent of blacks backed Obama in 2008. But Romney's speech aside, Republicans and Democrats say he's making a statement just by showing up and speaking to the nation's oldest and largest civil rights group.
"The first thing you need to do is show up, so I ultimately think he's doing the right thing," said Rep. Tim Scott, R-S.C., one of two black Republicans in Congress. "What he's saying to everyone is that he's (running to become) America's president and not just those folks he thinks he can get votes from right now. I think that's a very important statement."
"You've got to get credit for showing up - for being willing to go - no question," said Karen Finney, a Democratic consultant who worked in the Clinton White House. "It's more about your actions than it is about what you say."
Obama spoke to the group during the 2008 campaign, as did his Republican opponent, Sen. John McCain. Obama doesn't plan to speak this year. Instead, Vice President Joe Biden will address the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People on Thursday. Obama is scheduled to address the National Urban League later this month.
Romney rarely speaks to predominantly black audiences at political events. One exception was a May visit to a charter school in Philadelphia, where he cast fixing the education system as a way to help blacks and other minorities.
In framing education as a civil rights issue, Romney is following in George W. Bush's footsteps. At a sweeping address to the NAACP in 2000, Bush, then the Republican presidential nominee, said the education system should "leave no child behind" and labeled the "soft bigotry of low expectations" as part of the problem facing black students.
Romney has a personal history with civil rights issues. His father, George, spoke out against segregation in the 1960s and, as governor of Michigan, toured the state's inner cities as race riots wracked Detroit and other urban areas across the country. He went on to lead the Department of Housing and Urban Development, where he pushed for housing reforms to help blacks.
In recent months, Obama has approached race from an intensely personal perspective. After the shooting of unarmed black teen Trayvon Martin in a Florida neighborhood - an act many blacks saw as racially motivated - Obama spoke directly to Martin's parents from the Rose Garden. "If I had a son, he'd look like Trayvon," Obama said.
Diminished enthusiasm for the president following the economic downturn could dampen black turnout, and that could make the difference in Southern states Obama won in 2008, particularly North Carolina and Virginia.
MIAMI LAKES, Fla. -- First lady Michelle Obama told supporters she is fired up and urged them to "get it done in Florida," during a sweep through the state Tuesday.
Obama reminded volunteers a few thousand votes could make the difference in an extremely close election in the fall. The latest polls show her husband, President Barak Obama, with a narrow lead over Republican challenger Mitt Romney. And Florida is considered one of the top battleground states with 29 electoral college votes up for grabs.
Obama's trip marked her first official public campaign jaunt through Florida this year. She has come previously to promote her work as first lady and to attend private fundraisers.
Obama was in full campaign mode as she highlighted her husband's efforts to create more jobs before a packed audience at the Barbara Goleman Senior High School gym in the western Miami suburb of Miami Lakes. She also touted the president's signature health care law, which she emphasized has increased affordable, preventative care for many, as well eased access to contraception for women and enabled more than 6 million young adults to remain on their parents' health insurance.
Obama urged everyone in attendance to register to vote and make sure their neighbors registered as well.
"Multiply yourselves," she said.
"Let me ask you one more question?" the first lady said as she finished her speech. "Are you all in? 'Cause I'm in. I'm so way in, and I am so fired up."
Obama received a roaring affirmative from the more than 1,000 grassroots supporters.
Clara Gabriel, 49, a Broward County school teacher, was among those who signed up to volunteer with the campaign after the first lady's speech.
Gabriel, a native of Haiti, voted for Obama in 2008, but like several others in attendance Tuesday, she did not get involved with the campaign during the last election.
"It's very different this time," she said. "I don't want him to lose. There is much more he needs to do, and I feel I have to do my part now."
The first lady was headed to Orlando later Tuesday, where she was scheduled to address a crowd in a 1,800-seat theater at the University of Central Florida Arena.
--AP
STUART, Fla. -- More controversy in the race for Congress on the Treasure Coast. The leading Republican contender Allen West is refusing to have a debate with latecomer to the race, Martin County Sheriff Bob Crowder.
Martin County Sheriff Robert Crowder: In order to solve any kind of problem people have got to sit down and have a discussion.
Republican candidate, Martin County Sheriff Robert Crowder wants to discuss issues with challenger Representative Allen West. Several appearances and eight town hall meetings on the Treasure Coast down, Congressman Allen West won't agree to a debate. In fact, he wouldn't even shake his hand at a recent public event.
Martin County Sheriff Robert Crowder: When I was leaving he had won the day, and I went to shake his hands and congratulate him and he rejected the handshake. He kinda pulled his hands back and looked away. Because he and I may disagree on a few issues, he says I'm not a Republican.
CBS 12: He called you a Democrat.
Martin County Sheriff Robert Crowder: Yes.
CBS 12: Are you offended by that?
Martin County Sheriff Robert Crowder: No, I'm not because Democrats are still still Americans. When it all boils down, we're not indeliably tied to a particular philosophy, this is the United States of America, we're all supposed to be together in the outcome of this thing.
West's campaign manager says: "We know Bob Crowder is running an entirely negative, mean-spirited campaign against Allen West....and based on Crowder's recent statement that he may vote for President Obama in November, maybe he should be seeking the Democrat nomination.
Congressman West will continue to offer real solutions and looks forward substantive debates with a Democrat candidate after the Republican primary."
No debating here as the two cant seem to shake hands.
Martin County Sheriff Robert Crowder: He looked away and just said no thank you. Wasn't gonna shake my hand. That's a shame because I was just starting to like the guy.
West, a Republican party favorite out-fundraised Crowder 6 to 1. Crowder says in response money doesn't equal good ideas.
DELRAY BEACH, Fla. -- Only CBS12 cameras were there as Congressman Allen West is heckled at the July 4th festivities in Delray Beach.
We were just preparing to do an interview with West Wednesday afternoon when a young man gave him the middle finger and then started shouting at him.
You can't see the heckler on the video, as he's off-camera, but he was a young man who clearly did not like Congressman Allen West and he let him know it.
Heckler: You oughta be ashamed of yourself (*bleep*).
Allen West: Oh wow -- that's very nice language.
Delray city leaders and a staff member quickly came to the congressman's defense, shooing the guy away. West was in Delray for the 4th festivities Wednesday. At the city's flag-raising ceremony -- West read the entire Declaration of Independence out loud and he implored every American to do the same.
Congressman West is no stranger to controversy. Just this week he told a crowd in Port St. Lucie that President Obama wants Americans to be his slave.
Allen West: He does not want you to have self-esteem, to get up every morning and work. He wants you to be his slave and be economically dependent on him.
Congressman West's spokesman released this statement today: "Yesterday's incident in Delray Beach, which had many children participating in a day of celebration, was highly inappropriate. While people may disagree on political matters, the use of foul language is unbecoming in political dialog. Congressman West had no knowledge of who the gentleman was, and simply, rude behavior cannot be legislated. However, as a society we should demand better of ourselves."
DELRAY BEACH, Fla. -- Only CBS12 cameras were there as Congressman Allen West is heckled at the July 4th festivities in Delray Beach.
We were just preparing to do an interview with West Wednesday afternoon when a young man gave him the middle finger and then started shouting at him.
You can't see the heckler on the video, as he's off-camera, but he was a young man who clearly did not like Congressman Allen West and he let him know it.
Heckler: You oughta be ashamed of yourself (*bleep*).
Allen West: Oh wow -- that's very nice language.
Delray city leaders and a staff member quickly came to the congressman's defense, shooing the guy away. West was in Delray for the 4th festivities Wednesday. At the city's flag-raising ceremony -- West read the entire Declaration of Independence out loud and he implored every American to do the same.
Congressman West is no stranger to controversy. Just this week he told a crowd in Port St. Lucie that President Obama wants Americans to be his slave.
Allen West: He does not want you to have self-esteem, to get up every morning and work. He wants you to be his slave and be economically dependent on him.
Congressman West's spokesman released this statement today: "Yesterday's incident in Delray Beach, which had many children participating in a day of celebration, was highly inappropriate. While people may disagree on political matters, the use of foul language is unbecoming in political dialog. Congressman West had no knowledge of who the gentleman was, and simply, rude behavior cannot be legislated. However, as a society we should demand better of ourselves."
PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. -- Physicians remain split on the Affordable Healthcare Act, while Republican Treasure Coast Congressional candidate Allen West says he'll do whatever it takes to have the reform tossed out.
Allen West gathered with doctors at the Florida Orthopaedic Specialists in Port St. Lucie for a doctor-to-candidate discussion about the healthcare law and what changes should be made to what West says is a bad law.
West says not only are physicians penalized by the new Affordable Care Act, but as small business owners, they are forced into paying new taxes the public may not aware of.
One of the only positive provisions of the law, according to local surgeons, is the mandatory coverage for patients with pre-exisiting conditions. But it seems all physicians dislike the lack of funding for this law.
Dr. Mark Powers/ Orthopaedic Surgeon: If you play golf we need a mulligan, we need a do-over. This was not bi-partisian. Not one single Republican voted for it. It does not represent what the country wants in any way shape or form.
Rep. Allen West/Congressional Candidate: The first they'll tell you is catastrophic litigation reform, and opening up the accessibility to complete across state lines for insurance coverage and make sure they are the ones selecting insurance coverage and not a bureaucrat doing it.
West kicked off his campaign yesterday with controversial remarks towards President Obama saying, "Obama does not want you to have the self-esteem of getting up and earning and having that title of American. He'd rather you be his slave."
West says he does not apologize for that statement as he believes we've become a state dependent on government hand-outs.
Republican opponent Bob Crowder says he's offended by some of the things West says and does. The two go to the ballot box on August. 14 for the primary election.
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. -- The President's health care law upheld by the Supreme Court. While the Justices' ruling ends uncertainty over whether the law is constitutional, more questions remain, including whether opponents can make good on their vow to repeal the legislation altogether.
Since the President and Congress started discussing a health law, doctors, hospitals, and insurance companies all started planning, making changes and planning for more changes. Now even with the Supreme Court ruling, companies know a repeal could change everything again.
Mark Perlberg: Carriers, businesses have already begun the process of preparing.
Preparing for the new health care law. Mark Perlberg is president and CEO of Oasis Outsourcing in West Palm Beach. Oasis is in the business of administering health care benefits for companies.
For Oasis, the health care law is an opportunity for more business. They've been gearing up for the President's health law, a process that will accelerate now with the Supreme Court decision.
Mark Perlberg: Because the legal uncertainty is gone. But there's still a lot to be determined as to precisely how the law will work.
Perlberg says many rules still have to be written and aspects of the health law must be funded and Republicans are vowing to repeal the law altogether if they take control of Washington.
Glen Torcivia: Will the act ever be repealed? I find it highly unlikely.
Constitutional law expert Glen Torcivia worked as an attorney for local cities and the Palm Beach County Health Care District. Provisions of the law are already implemented and more are being added all the time.
Glen Torcivia: Every day that goes by, this act, and the benefits it provides, are going to become more and more embedded in our culture.
But Perlberg says opponents of the President's health care law don't have to simply repeal to thwart implementation.
Mark Perlberg: The regulations, the funding, in order to bring the law to life, these are all chapters that are yet to be written. And I think the folks who are against it are likely to marshal their resources in those directions right now.
Perlberg says the new health law will add a degree of difficulty for both individuals and businesses. He says his company is ready to step up to help companies comply.
While the legal battle over health care ended at the Supreme Court, the political battle has been re-energized. Mitt Romney has raised more than $4 million online since the ruling came down. So what does the Supreme Court health care ruling mean for the upcoming election? Is it swaying undecided voters?
CBS 12 hit Clematis Street in downtown West Palm Beach to get opinions.
CBS 12: Have you made up your mind who you're going to vote for, for President?
Debra Tomarin/Undecided: No, I have not. No, I have not.
Meagen Springer/Undecided: No, I'm undecided, as of right now.
It was actually tough finding voters still undecided between President Obama and Mitt Romney. We asked the couple who haven't if the Supreme Court's decision upholding the President's health care law would sway their vote.
Debra Tomarin/Undecided: I really don't understand a lot of it. I won't base my opinion on that.
Meagen Springer/Undecided: For me personally, there's a lot of other things that should be on the agenda-- like jobs, employment, that kind of thing. So I'm more concerned with that.
So will the Health Care ruling make a difference in the election?
Jean Luc/Voter: Overall, the overall election-- I don't think it will be a swing factor.
Mike/Voter: I think it's going to have a huge impact on the outcome of the election.
Some see the Court decision giving a boost to the President.
Maria/West Palm Beach: I think it's going to help him if everybody understands what it's about.
Others see the health law decision as a gift for Romney and Republicans.
Robert/Voter: The people that are opposed to it are pretty passionate about it.
Passions indeed on both sides of the health care law.
Keith Rajaniemi/West Palm Beach: I think it's a great thing. I had my brother pass away because he had melanoma, and didn't have insurance, and didn't go to the doctor.
Robert Hutchinson/West Palm Beach: I don't support it. It's a free country. I shouldn't be forced to buy insurance if I don't want to.
But the election is still four months away.
Meagen Springer/Undecided: Because there's still a lot of things that can happen between now and election day. So I'm going to kind of sit back and watch and see what unfolds.
Plenty of time to decide.
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. -- It's official. The Supreme Court in a landmark decision has upheld the president's affordable health care plan. The plan would require that individuals must purchase health care. Some are hailing this as a great step forward, others are blasting the court ruling.
Whether you've got health insurance or not, if you need to see a doctor the Urgent Care Walk-In clinic on Palm Beach Lakes Boulevard will treat you. One of the administrators at this clinic says he feels the Supreme Court ruling upholding Obamacare is good thing.
Carlos Menendez had an injury to his finger, so he came to an urgent care clinic in West Palm Beach. Experts say walk-in clinics are often less expensive and the wait to be seen is shorter than at a hospital emergency room.
Carlos feels fortunate that he has health insurance through his wife's job. He's glad the Supreme Court has upheld Obamacare.
Carlos Menendez: It'll be great if they can make health care affordable. Because if I didn't have it there's no way possible that I would've been able today to be here.
He hopes the court ruling will drive down the cost of health insurance.
Carlos Menendez: I think its extremely high, I think they need to somehow regulate it and make it more affordable for people cause its terrible.
MD Now Urgent Care Centers has a number of locations in Palm Beach County and sees about 200,000 patients a year.
Robert Hage/MD Now Urgent Care Centers: I think it's a great ruling to be honest with you. The only thing that worries me is where are we going to get the funds for this?
He says about 15-percent of the people who come in to the MD Now clinics in Palm Beach County to see a doctor have no health insurance. If the government requires that everyone should have it, he says that will mean the government will have to chip in some money to make it happen.
Robert Hage/MD Now Urgent Care Centers: The idea of having insurance across the board, across all American citizens is a great idea. It's going definitely to help the economy, its going to help people get medical care, it's going to help us as well.
The medical training director at MD Now says since everyone will be required to have health insurance, the result could be that more people will come in seeking treatment and their patient count could go up.
The news of the ruling came as a surprise to Republican leaders in the state. After the clemency hearing today, Governor Scott told reporters that the decision is bad for taxpayers and for patients.
Gov. Scott: This is going to be devastating to our economy. But probably more importantly its going to be devastating to patients. We are not going to be able to afford this.
Florida was the lead state in the challenge against ObamaCare. The controversial health care reform law has been a divisive topic throughout the U.S. Drawing plenty of critics and supporters. Democratic congressman Ted Deutch is one of the supporters and says tens of millions of uninsured Americans will now get the health care access they need.
Ted Deutch: It's going to give people the opportunity to start a business, change jobs without worrying about losing healthcare and it will stop discrimination against people with pre-existing conditions, people won't be dropped when they get sick.
He also says it will give Americans more healthcare options.
Ted Deutch: Will help ensure when it comes to relationships between a family and doctor. That's a decision that will be made between them without the insurance company interfering.
But Republican Congressman Allen West disagrees with the supreme court's decision.
Allen West: I think their decision reflects their belief that Congress has an ultimate, infinite taxing authority that goes against the promise of individual sovereignty upon which this country was established.
He says the law sets a significant precedent and is an overreach of the taxing authority of Congress.
Allen West: What more can the federal government mandate or demand the American citizens purchase through the private sector or else they can be fined for it under taxing authority?
The Congressional Budget Office released numbers earlier this year saying the healthcare law will cost more than $1.7 trillion over a decade.
Republican Florida Senator Marco Rubio issued a statement Thursday responding to the ruling: "While the court has said the law is constitutional, it remains a bad idea for the economy and I hope that in the fall we will have a majority here that will not just repeal this law, but replace it with real solutions that will insure more people and cost a lot less money."
WASHINGTON -- The House has approved a precedent-setting resolution to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in criminal contempt of Congress. It was the first time a sitting Cabinet member has been held in contempt.
A number of Democrats boycotted Thursday's vote.
Republicans pushed through the resolution because Holder did not turn over documents related to a botched gun-tracking operation known as Fast and Furious.
The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee wants Justice Department records from a 10-month period after February 2011. That month, the department initially denied guns were allowed to be purchased in Arizona and be taken to Mexico. In early December that year, the department acknowledged the assertion was wrong.
A separate vote will be held to hold the attorney general in civil contempt.
FORT PIERCE, Fla. -- Nearly one in four Floridians are uninsured or under-insured. Under the upheld healthcare law, all will be required to buy insurance or pay a penalty to the IRS.
A landmark ruling for patients on the Treasure Coast but many say they are split on this decision.
Wendy Smith/Against Insurance Mandate: I am out of work and I am on disability and very limited income that barely pays my mortgage. So it would be quite impossible to pay for insurance.
Wendy's only access to healthcare is at the HANDS free clinic in St. Lucie County. Today's ruling mandating she buy insurance.
Wendy Smith/Against Insurance Mandate: Very, very, very, very frightening.
Insurance she says, is only one piece of the puzzle, and even discounted she can't afford it.
Wendy Smith/Against Insurance Mandate: I love my President. I think he's a wonderful man. I am concerned about this ruling because it is directly affecting me now.
Uninsured clinic patient Christine Johnson says the healthcare reform is only a start.
Christine Johnson/Uninsured HANDS Patient: We should have free medical coverage for the people. Especially people of low income status who cannot afford it.
Right now Wendy says even if she buys insurance, how will she and others afford medications and treatments not covered by insurance?
Wendy Smith/Against Insurance Mandate: When you are working you can be really critical about saying no, no, no, no to this. Now when I need this..its like this..my eyes and intelligence have been opened to another area.
That's why they are glad for now the free clinic for the uninsured keeps its doors open. New discounted insurance plans according to the healthcare law may be available to patients as soon as next month.
Patients do favor some more popular parts of the 1,000 page law already in effect. The law allows for parents to keep children on their insurance until age 26 and in 2014, insurance companies can no longer turn away those with pre-existing conditions.
WASHINGTON -- Marking a pivotal point in the presidential campaign, the Supreme Court's decision to uphold President Barack Obama's sweeping federal health care law handed the Democratic incumbent crucial election-year vindication for his signature legislative accomplishment.
Republican rival Mitt Romney, an ardent opponent of the law, prepared to use the decision for his own political gain and planned to cast himself as the next best hope for the millions of Americans who favor the law's repeal.
The decision put an end to what had been one of the biggest unknowns in the presidential race. Four months from Election Day, both Obama and Romney will seek to use the high court ruling to bolster their vision for the country, as well as raise money for their campaigns.
Both were expected to comment on the decision later Thursday from Washington, with Obama scheduled to speak at the White House around midday.
The high court announced Thursday, in a 5-4 decision, that it was upholding the requirement at the heart of the health care law: that most individuals must buy health insurance or pay a penalty.
The decision means the historic overhaul will continue to go into effect over the next several years, affecting the way people receive and pay for personal medical care. The ruling also handed Obama a campaign-season victory in rejecting arguments that Congress went too far in requiring most Americans to have health insurance.
The Obama and Romney campaigns have been quietly preparing for months how they would respond to the ruling.
While the White House publically expressed confidence that the overhaul would be upheld, Obama aides feared the political ramifications for the president if the law were to be overturned.
In anticipation of the law being upheld, Romney aides cautioned against excessive celebration, fearing that could alienate voters who could lose health care benefits as a result of the decision.
Romney, who as Massachusetts governor signed a health care law on which the Obama's federal law was modeled, previewed his likely response to the decision during a campaign event earlier this week.
If the court upholds the law, Romney told supporters at a northern Virginia electronics manufacturer Wednesday, it's still bad policy. "And that'll mean if I'm elected president we're going to repeal it and replace it," he said.
The court's ruling will have a far-reaching impact on the nation's health care system. About 30 million of the 50 million uninsured Americans would get coverage in 2014 when a big expansion begins.
Polling suggests that most Americans oppose the law, but an overwhelming majority want Congress and the president to find a new remedy if it's struck down.
The court's announcement was expected to be followed almost immediately by a barrage of advertisements and fundraising appeals from Democrats and Republicans all trying to cast the decision in the most advantageous light for their candidates.
Obama's campaign began trying to raise money off the ruling even before it was announced. In a Thursday morning fundraising email with the subject line "Today's Decision," Obama campaign manager Jim Messina told supporters "no matter what, today is an important day to have Barack Obama's back."
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee also issued a fundraising appeal for a "health care rapid response fund," telling supporters by email Wednesday that, however the court rules, "Democrats are in for a tough fight."
Outside groups also are ready to unleash a flood of advertising, including a 16-state, $7 million ad buy from the conservative political action group Americans for Prosperity.
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) - A lawyer for Florida's local election officials is telling them they can resume a state-directed effort to identify and remove ineligible voters.
Ron Labasky said a judge's ruling on Wednesday clears the way for counties to remove voters from the rolls if there is sufficient evidence that the voter is not a U.S. citizen.
U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle rejected an argument from federal authorities to block the voter purge because it is too close to the Aug. 14 election.
Many counties had previously suspended efforts to identify voters because of conflicting legal opinions.
Vicki Davis, the Martin County elections supervisor and association president, said many counties may not go forward because they lack enough proof on whether voters are ineligible.
Fundraising will be vital for President Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney in the Presidential election. The Obama campaign has a new fundraising ploy to raise cash, but its raising eyebrows. CBS12's Ben Becker explains.
MIAMI, Fla. -- Earlier this year both President Obama and Mitt Romney made multiple visits to Palm Beach County and South Florida.
In past elections Palm Beach is one of the most generous zip codes in the county when it comes to campaign contributions.
Tuesday, President Obama will collect more than one million dollars at fundraisers in Miami. But for the first time, the President is getting out-raised by his Republican counterpart.
CBS 12's Ben Becker has the latest dollar amounts.
WASHINGTON -- The 2012 election is shaping up as a big one in Congress for Hispanics.
There are currently 29 Hispanic members of the House - including a delegate and a resident commissioner. That number is virtually guaranteed to increase by three or four because of once-a-decade redistricting that's created new Hispanic majority districts in California and Texas. On top that, Hispanics could win additional seats in New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada and Florida.
Hispanics are the fastest-growing group in the United States, increasing in population by more than 15 million from 2000 to 2010.
LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. -- Orlando at the center of the political universe the past couple days. The reason? A meeting of the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials, or NALEO.
President Barack Obama appeared there today a week after the announcement certain illegal immigrants will not be deported. Yesterday at NALEO, Republican Mitt Romney questioned the move.
Also today Gov. Rick Scott denied reports the Romney campaign asked him to tone down the state's positive economic news because it didn't fit the narrative Florida has suffered under President Obama.
The Romney campaign also denied the report.
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) - Campaign officials say former U.S. Sen. George LeMieux is dropping out of this year's U.S. Senate race in Florida.
In a statement released Wednesday, Republican LeMieux says the party had thrown its support behind U.S. Rep. Connie Mack IV who enjoys widespread recognition. LeMieux said he could only match that with substantial advertising or the opportunity to debate on statewide television.
LeMieux was seeking the Republican nomination to challenge Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson.
LeMieux was appointed to the Senate by then-Gov. Charlie Crist in 2009 to complete the term after Mel Martinez resigned. Crist ran for the seat in 2010 without party affiliation and lost to current Sen. Marco Rubio.
Mack is the front runner for the GOP nomination. Others running include U.S. Rep. Dave Weldon and retired Army Col. Mike McCalister.
TV personality Joy Behar is no stranger to controversy. Behar, a host on The View, is a former stand-up comic. But what she is saying about Mitt Romney on a liberal website called Mediaite is no laughing matter.
Mediaite: He was making fun of the president for wanting to hire more policemen and firemen.
Behar: Oh, less government? That is an idiotic statement. Can I just say that?
Mediaite: Yes.
Behar: I mean, I'd like to see his house burn, one of his millions of houses burning down. Who's he going to call, the mormon fire patrol?
No doubt this was a joke, saying she wants Mitt Romney's house to burn down but can political comedy cross the line? Or are there no lines when it comes to public figures?
Gary Goodman/Comedian: I don't want anyone in the audience to be offended. That's just my way of performing.
Gary Goodman is a comedian based in Boca Raton.
Gary Goodman/Comedian: I never go into the territory of religion, or politics, woman jokes, I keep it real clean.
But there is no shortage of comedians that don't, especially when it comes to politics. Some also show their political leanings at the same time, whether it's Stephen Colbert, John Stewart, Bill Mahr, or Behar.
Kristin Stehouwer/Political Analyst: There is a very serious side to political humor.
Kristin Stehouwer is a political analyst and interim president for Northwood University.
Kristin Stehouwer/Political Analyst: We see often these days a blurring between humor, and comediac performances and actual news...because it influences voter perception.
Gary Goodman/Comedian: There is a saying in show business, can't please everybody, I'm sure the majority of people are laughing and saying of course she didn't mean that.
It seems doubtful Behar will suffer any consequences. But this could have an unintended consequence.
Kristin Stehouwer/Political Analyst: With a situation when one side feels attacked, they may rally even more around their cause and draw more supporters.
PALM BEACH COUNTY, Fla. --The battle continues between the state of Florida and the federal government. The Department of Justice filed a lawsuit yesterday that seeks to stop Florida from purging voters from registration rolls.
Meantime, on Monday, Florida sued the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to gain access to a federal database to help its efforts to purge ineligible voters.
The general election is only five months out and it appears the table is being set for a bruising legal fight. The winner could claim Florida and possibly the presidency.
Kristin Stehouwer/Political Analyst: First and foremost, this is an issue about who gets to vote.
Kristin Stehouwer is a political analyst and the interim president of Northwood University.
Kristin Stehouwer/Political Analyst: If the purge is done are those records accurate about citizenship.
The issue at hand is the so-called "voter purge" controversy, or as some are calling it, the "election integrity" movement. Tuesday's federal lawsuit comes after the Department of Justice began questioning the legality of the state's so-called voter purge program, which would remove names from Florida's voter rolls months before the 2012 presidential election.
Gov. Rick Scott: We want all U.S. citizens to vote. It's we don't want non-U.S. citizens to vote.
While Gov. Scott has been pushing for the purge, the government is pushing back.
Eric Holder/Attorney General: We have done all that we can in trying to reason with people in Florida through the provision of these letters. We are now prepared to go to court.
Florida is considered a key battleground state in the race between President Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney. According to the latest Quinnipiac University Poll, Romney holds a 47-to-41 percent lead over President Obama.
Kristin Stehouwer/Political Analyst: So even though 50 or 100 votes are being talked about now, it could make a difference in the presidential election.
Earlier this year, the state sent a list of about 2,600 names of potentially illegal voters to local supervisors of elections, but officials across Florida, including Palm Beach County's Susan Bucher, have put the purge on hold as they wait for more reliable information.
Susan Bucher: Once we realized it was old data and the other supervisors were getting false positives on the list, then we are working with the division of elections to get more updated information.
Kristin Stehouwer/Political Analyst: This probably will be tied up well till the presidential election takes place. So it probably won't have impact on actual vote.
While the voter purge issue may not be resolved before the the election, the debate could lay the ground work for legal challenges after the election, just like in 2000.
PHOTO: House Majority Leader Eric Cantor of Va., accompanied by fellow GOP leaders House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio, Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., Cantor, and House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif.
WASHINGTON -- Republicans are calling it "Taxmageddon," the big tax increase awaiting nearly every American family at the end of the year, when a long list of tax cuts are scheduled to expire unless Congress acts.
It would be, GOP leaders in Congress say again and again, "the largest tax increase in American history."
Except it wouldn't be, not when you take into account population growth, rising wages, and most importantly, the size of the U.S. economy. When those factors are taken into account, the largest tax increases were those imposed to help pay for World War II - back when the U.S. raised additional revenue to pay for wars instead of simply borrowing.
Nevertheless, it is an exaggeration that has proved too tempting for top Republican leaders in Congress:
- "Any sudden tax hike would hurt our economy, so this fall - before the election - the House of Representatives will vote to stop the largest tax increase in American history," House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said in a May 15 speech in Washington.
- "Millions are unemployed and millions more are underemployed and the country is facing the largest tax hike in history at the end of the year," Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said Thursday in a speech on the Senate floor.
- "This would be, without any exaggeration, the largest tax increase in American history," said a May 17 letter from 41 Republican senators to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney gives the claim a different twist, applying it to President Barack Obama's budget proposal for next year. That's an even bigger exaggeration.
THE FACTS: A huge collection of tax cuts are scheduled to expire at the end of the year, affecting families at every income level and businesses of many stripes. Many of the tax cuts were first enacted under former President George W. Bush and extended under Obama.
If Congress does nothing, income tax rates would go up, estate taxes and investment taxes would increase and the alternative minimum tax would hit millions of middle-income people. A temporary payroll tax cut that has been of benefit to nearly every wage earner in 2011 and 2012 would expire, costing the average family an additional $1,000 a year.
In addition, dozens of other tax breaks for businesses and individuals that are routinely renewed each year already expired at the end of 2011. Congress was expected to renew many of them by January, so taxpayers could still claim them on their 2012 tax returns.
If Congress fails to act, businesses would lose a popular tax credit for research and development as well as generous tax breaks for investing in new plants and equipment. Individuals would lose federal tax breaks for paying local sales taxes, buying energy efficient appliances and using mass transit.
In all, federal taxes would increase by about $423 billion next year, according to figures from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office and the Joint Committee on Taxation, the official scorekeepers for Congress.
Combined with federal spending cuts scheduled to take effect next year, the combination of tax increases and spending cuts would probably send the U.S. economy back into recession, according to a recent CBO study.
Still, the tax increases would pale in comparison to those imposed to help finance World War II.
Before the 1940s, the individual income tax applied to only a small percentage of the population. By the end of war, the income tax was levied on most working people, with a top tax rate of 94 percent on income above $200,000.
By comparison, the current top rate is 35 percent, on taxable income above $388,350. If Congress does nothing, the top rate would return to 39.6 percent next year - the same rate that was in place for most of the 1990s.
In dollars, next year's tax hikes would be the biggest. But the size of the economy is 80 times bigger than it was in the 1940s, which is why economists usually measure taxes and government spending as a share of the U.S. economy.
The 1942 tax increase represented more than 5 percent of the U.S. economy, as measured by the gross domestic product, or GDP. The 1941 tax increase was 2.2 percent of GDP, according to a Treasury Department paper published in 2006.
Next year's looming tax increase, by comparison, would represent 2.6 percent of GDP - a huge tax hike but not the biggest.
Measured another way, the 1942 tax hike increased federal revenue by a whopping 71 percent, according to the Treasury Department paper. The 1941 tax hike increased federal revenue by 32 percent.
By comparison, next year's potential tax hike would increase federal revenues by 16 percent, according to CBO.
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ROMNEY: "President Obama has failed to even pass a budget. In February, he put forward a proposal that included the largest tax increase in history, and still left our national debt spiraling out of control, and the House rejected it unanimously," Romney said in an April 4 speech to newspaper executives and editors.
ROMNEY AGAIN: "Rapidly rising federal spending and debt threatens our economic future, and the president has responded by proposing the largest tax increase in history," Romney said in a Feb. 22 release.
THE FACTS: Obama's budget proposal would represent one of the largest tax increases since World War II, if you count letting the payroll tax cut expire as a tax increase. But again, it wouldn't be the largest ever. Obama's 2013 budget proposal mixes tax cuts designed to improve the economy with long-term tax increases aimed at reducing the federal budget deficit.
Obama has proposed extending Bush-era tax cuts for families making less than $250,000 and ending them for families that make more. He would end tax breaks for oil and gas companies but make permanent the research and development tax credit.
In 2013, Obama's budget proposal would increase tax revenue by $195 billion over current policy - if you include the tax increase from letting the payroll tax cut expire. The tax increase would represent 1.2 percent of GDP. Or, measured a different way, it would increase tax revenue by 7 percent.
That would rank as the fourth-largest tax increase since World War II, behind tax hikes enacted in 1950, 1951 and 1968, according to the Treasury Department paper.
Further dousing Romney's claim, House Republicans have passed a budget for next year - which Romney has embraced - that would raise just $7 billion less in taxes than Obama's budget in 2013. That's the equivalent of a rounding error, when you're talking about revenues of $2.7 trillion.
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Online:
Treasury paper on major tax bills since 1940: http://tinyurl.com/65r8f84
MARTIN COUNTY, Fla. -- Candidates are spending big money to get the vote in August as an all-Republican ticket means decision 2012 comes early.
An all Republican ticket. The first time an incumbent is not running in Martin County in 20 years. Two front-runners emerge, State Representative and former Martin County Sheriff's Captain William Snyder.
William Snyder/Sheriff Candidate: I think what they'll see in me is somebody who actually has real life experience, not only in law enforcement, 20 years, 13 in Metro Dade, somebody who has broader experience because I have been a lawmaker. I think my experience in the sheriff's office helped me in the Florida House, I think my experience in the Florida House will help me in the sheriff's office.
Snyder hopes to use technology to make up for gaps in the budget.
William Snyder/Sheriff Candidate: Whoever is elected sheriff has to maintain that reputation, but they have to do it with diminishing reserves and diminishing income.
Candidate David Dees plans on micro-accountability as an approach to saving taxpayers dollars and cents by hand-approving all purchases over $100, a process he implemented while running the Florida Department of Transportation law enforcement agency.
David Dees/Sheriff Candidate: I was able to save hundreds of thousands of dollars each year by this type of hands on review.
Dees' war chest is not as high as Snyder's. But he says its not all about fundraising.
David Dees/Sheriff Candidate: This is the ultimate opportunity to give back to the community, and I want to take that level of experience and dedication I have and continue to give back to Martin county. You have to be a CEO, you have to be a business manager, you have to be a law enforcement officer.
Both square-off against a third Republican candidate, John Pietrewski, in August.
PALM BEACH COUNTY, Fla. -- Today's deadline has come and gone for political candidates who wanted to run in this years primary or election.
Two races of note in Palm Beach County are getting attention, but for two very different reasons.
Those two races are for sheriff and the clerk of circuit courts. Both incumbents are facing challengers that are big underdogs, but the challengers plan to go down with out putting up a fight.
We were there at the supervisor of elections office as former Baltimore County Police Major Joe Talley filed his paperwork to run against Sheriff Ric Bradshaw. Talley, one of three people facing Bradshaw also held a rally, saying the culture of the sheriff's office needs to change.
Joe Talley/PBC Sheriff Candidate: Want to give that power back to the people. Leading this agency with honor and respect and stop the bullying.
Talley feels the sheriff has bullied his way to a budget of nearly $500 million, about twice the size for the rest of Palm Beach County.
Joe Talley: PBC Sheriff Candidate: There is a lot of wasted resources, and we are going to see where that waste is and abuse of tax payer dollars.
Lisa Epstein/Clerk of Circuit Court Candidate: The clerk is a very complex job.
Meanwhile, Lisa Epstein has filed to run for the clerk of circuit court against Sharon Bock. Epstein, known as a "foreclosure fighter," believes more needs to be done to protect home owners from banks.
Lisa Epstein/Clerk of Circuit Court Candidate: Our public land records have been defiled and unauthenticated with massive fraud by the banking industry.
However Palm Beach County Democratic party leader Mark Alan Siegel tried to dissuade Epstein from running,
Mark Alan Siegel: It's very frustrating when people are providing their supporters with spectacle and entertainment.
An Epstein representative says she called Bock as a courtesy to let her know she was running, and the two appeared to have a very animated conversation.
Lisa Epstein/Clerk of Circuit Court Candidate: This will be a different kind of campaign that this county has ever seen.
The primary is August 14, while the general election is november 6th.
PALM BEACH COUNTY, Fla. -- The state of Florida could soon be entering a legal fight with the Department of Justice and it may impact who wins Florida in the presidential election.
Governor Scott wants to purge voter rolls of any non-citizens -- but the Justice Department says the move is illegal. But the state isn't backing down.
The DOJ says Florida's effort to purge voters may be illegal. Meantime, most supervisors of elections across the state are not participating in the purge right now and that includes Palm Beach County.
Susan Bucher/PBC supervisor of elections: Right now we are kind of on hold.
Susan Bucher says her office is taking a wait-and-see approach because some of the information they have received hasn't been accurate.
Susan Bucher/PBC supervisor of elections: Once we realized it was old data and the other supervisors had false positives on the list, then we are working with the division of elections to get more updated information.
Governor Rick Scott says he wants to clear voter rolls of non-citizens. But critics call it part of a long-running Republican effort to deter minorities and the poor, who tend to vote Democratic.
Andre Varona/CEO Hispanic Chamber of Commerce: You have to wonder the motivation behind that.
Andre Varona is the president of the Palm Beach County Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. Bucher has identified 115 registered voters as possibly being ineligible. Reportedly, a majority are Hispanic.
Andre Varona/CEO Hispanic Chamber of Commerce: I think some people are concerned how much Hispanic, Latino voters will have an influence in the upcoming election local state and national.
Florida Secretary of State Ken Dentzer wrote this in a letter to the Justice Department. "Permitting ineligible, non-citizen voters to cast ballots undermines that mission and erodes the justified faith the electorate has in the fairness and reliability of the electoral process."
Bucher says there is better ways to accomplish that goal.
Susan Bucher/PBC supervisor of elections: We would like to work with them more closely in the future so we can do this in an off election year so they can understand what are needs are for updated credible information because they missed the mark this time.
In a related development, last week a judge struck down a new voter registration law in Florida. It would have required groups conducting registration drives to turn in forms within 48 hours of collecting them. The judge called it "too harsh and impractical."
Who will be Mitt Romney's choice to be his vice president in the race against Barack Obama? It's the possibility that Marco Rubio may be on the ticket that has some Democrats throwing punches already.
Rubio is a first term, conservative, Hispanic senator from Miami. We asked one of our reporters and two from our sister stations around the country to listen to voters in Florida, beginning with CBS 12's Chuck Weber.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Gov. Scott Walker's definitive victory in Wisconsin's recall election is already reverberating in other state capitals. It exposed the shrunken political muscle of the unions that tried to oust him, underscoring their vulnerability to attacks from the right and inability to retaliate.
Republicans in some nearby states where anti-union measures failed this year say they now plan to use Walker's victory to mount renewed efforts in 2013.
Instead of ejecting the Republican who slashed state and local government workers' job benefits and bargaining rights, the union-instigated recall has made Walker a heroic model for conservatives five months before the November election.
"I think it's bad news for the labor movement," said John Russo, a labor studies professor at Youngstown State University. "It gives the impression they are not as strong as they once were, which they are not."
Labor leaders maintain that the fight was worth it, that the massive protests against Walker and bitter divisions it created will make other governors and legislators think twice before making similar forays against unions.
But Walker's victory is encouraging Republicans in other states to push ahead with their own efforts to curtail unions' power and chop away at the benefits gained for their members over the years.
GOP lawmakers in states such as Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri and New Hampshire are likely to push harder for right-to-work legislation or other measures that restrict automatic union dues collection.
No labor fight had so captivated Americans since President Ronald Reagan fired 11,000 air traffic controllers for illegally striking in 1981, a move that encouraged businesses to take tougher stands against unions and helped precipitate a steep decline in union membership.
"I consider it bigger than the air traffic controllers," said Gary Chaison, a professor of industrial relations at Clark University in Worcester, Mass. "I think it's going to embolden employers in bargaining and discourage workers from joining unions. I think it's hitting unions on all fronts."
Republicans in some states near Wisconsin are paying attention.
"Not only is there the momentum in favor of the kinds of reforms that Governor Walker advocated for and got passed, but there becomes a competitive issue," said Minnesota state Sen. Dave Thompson, a Republican who's sponsoring an amendment to his state's Constitution to make Minnesota a right-to-work state.
"It becomes harder for places like Minnesota to compete economically with states that make positive reforms that benefit the business climate and make life easier on taxpayers," Thompson said.
In Missouri, state Sen. Dan Brown is hoping the Wisconsin recall results will encourage the legislature's large, yet reluctant GOP majorities to move forward next year with bills limiting some union powers. Brown wants to pare back mandatory wages on public works projects and halt the perpetual deduction of union dues from public employee paychecks by requiring annual written authorization.
After Republicans swept to power in dozens of state legislatures in 2010, unions have spent millions battling anti-labor measures across the country. They were already smarting this year after Indiana became the first state in a decade to pass right-to-work legislation and Michigan banned automatic deduction of union dues from teacher paychecks.
Their loss in Wisconsin far overshadowed the unions' biggest political win in the past year, when Ohio voters last November struck down in a referendum a law pushed by Republican Gov. John Kasich curbing collective bargaining rights for public workers.
AFL-CIO political director Mike Podhorzer said unions should get more credit for the Ohio win and for collecting nearly 1 million signatures to initiate the Wisconsin recall. Walker and his supporters spent $47 million - compared with Democrats' $19 million - to counter a strong union ground game that pushed voter turnout to levels usually seen during presidential contests.
"This is not an experience many politicians want to go through," Podhorzer said.
Still, the turnout effort fell short of producing the unions' hoped-for results. Exit polls showed voters from union households breaking 63 percent to 37 percent for Democratic Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett. That's virtually the same as in the 2010 governor's race, even though union households represented a bigger greater share of the electorate this time.
Walker had convinced his Republican-dominated legislature that limiting collective bargaining rights and making union members pay more for their health coverage and pensions was necessary to plug a $3.6 billion state budget shortfall. Labor leaders claimed he also wanted to cripple unions by banning automatic dues deduction for public employees.
Since the new Wisconsin law took effect, the state's second largest union, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, has lost nearly half of its members in the state, according to internal documents obtained by The Associated Press. The documents show that between March 2011 and February 2012, Wisconsin membership in AFSCME dropped from 63,577 to 34,942.
As national union membership has dwindled to just 11.8 percent of the workforce, the one growth area in recent years has been among teachers, firefighters and other government employees. Public sector workers now represent more than half of all union members.
Some governors may be reluctant to create the kind of stark divisions seen in Wisconsin, said Nelson Lichtenstein, director of the Center for the Study of Work, Labor and Democracy at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
"Are these governors going to campaign on more attacks on public sector unions?" Lichtenstein said. "I don't think they are. It's clear they got a lot of pushback, it's divisive. It's difficult to be a governor with complete polarization."
Russo, the labor professor at Youngstown State, said the lesson of Wisconsin may be to take on unions in smaller steps rather than through sweeping measures as in Ohio and Wisconsin.
Michigan Rep. Mike Shirkey, a Republican who backed a new law prohibiting schools from deducting union dues from employees' paychecks, said the Walker victory provides "additional spine-stiffening" for lawmakers looking at challenging union leaders.
"It basically puts some wind in our sail to continue down the road that we've already been on to advance free-market principles across the economy of Michigan, including in the behavior and performance of union leadership," Shirkey said.
Unions in Michigan are already trying to gather enough signatures to put a measure on the ballot this November that would amend the state constitution to prohibit the right-to-work laws they fear Republicans will pass.
In New Hampshire, Republicans were unable to override Democratic Gov. John Lynch's veto of a right-to-work measure last year. But Lynch is not running for re-election this year, and a victory by conservatives could revive that effort.
In New Mexico, Walker's victory could embolden Republican Gov. Susana Martinez's effort to limit that state's collective bargaining law. Through legal action, she has won control of a board that oversees public worker contract disputes.
And in Iowa, Gov. Terry Branstad, two seats shy of a GOP lock on the legislature, said he would propose requiring state workers, some who pay nothing toward their health insurance, to shoulder 20 percent of their premiums.
"Every state's situation's a little different ... but we kind of follow what each other is doing, and I've been inspired," Branstad said.
MADISON, Wis. -- After a brief but bruising campaign that followed a more than yearlong fight over union rights and Wisconsin's cash-strapped budget, voters in the narrowly divided state began casting ballots Tuesday on whether to recall Gov. Scott Walker.
The first-term Republican was back on the ballot just a year and a half after his election. Enraged Democrats and labor activists gathered more than 900,000 signatures in support of the recall after they failed to stop Walker and his GOP allies in the state Legislature from stripping most public employees of their union right to collectively bargain.
Walker faces a rematch with Democratic Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, whom he beat in 2010 by 5 percentage points, as he tries to become the first U.S. governor to successfully fend off a recall.
At an elementary school in the Milwaukee suburb of Wauwatosa where he cast his ballot not long after polls opened at 7 a.m., Walker said voting day almost came as a relief.
"I think most people are just happy to have the election over," he said. "I think most voters of the state want to have all the attack ads off. They want to have their TVs back. They want to have their lives back."
Barrett meanwhile applauded the voters for turning out in force - and for being prepared to wait a while to cast their ballots.
"Obviously the lines are very, very long which we take as a very encouraging sign. People are engaged in this," he said. "We've noted over the last 96 hours is around the state the energy has just been building and building and building."
Turnout is key. Polls indicate there are few undecided voters; if the tally is close, swing counties in the west of the state could decide the result. And Democrats are hoping to rally the same level of support that saw the state Capitol overrun with Walker opponents last year.
State elections officials predict that 60 percent to 65 percent of eligible voters will turn out. Government Accountability Board statistics show that 49.7 percent turned out for the 2010 Walker-Barrett race. The board said early turnout was heavy and without problems Tuesday.
William Van Wagner, a 21-year-old student in Madison, waited in a line of about 30 people to cast his ballot for Walker not long after the polls opened.
"It's pretty clear that his policies have worked for us," Van Wagner said.
John Ipsen, 63, a mechanical engineer from Madison, said he opposed everything that Walker has done and that the rare recall - never before used against a Wisconsin governor - was clearly necessary.
"It's obviously not done very often so there's a good reason for it," Ipsen said after casting his vote for Barrett, whom he also supported in 2010.
The recall effort against Walker began bubbling last year, shortly after the former Milwaukee County executive successfully pushed through his union rights proposal, which also requires most state workers to pay more for their health insurance and pension benefits.
Walker said that's what was needed to balance the state's budget. But Democrats and labor leaders saw it as a political tactic designed to gut the power of his political opposition. They rallied by the tens of thousands at the state Capitol in protest, but could not stop Republicans who control the state Legislature from approving Walker's plans.
It didn't take long for opponents to call for a recall.
The recall petition drive couldn't officially start until November - months after Walker's triumph at the Legislature - because Wisconsin law requires that someone must be in office for at least a year before facing a recall. Organizers hit the streets a week before Thanksgiving and spent two months gathering more than 900,000 signatures - about 360,000 more than were needed to trigger the election. Barrett was chosen as Walker's opponent in a primary last month.
Now, Walker stands in unique company: He is only the third governor in U.S. history to face a recall vote. The other two lost, most recently California Gov. Gray Davis in 2003.
Not all public workers oppose Walker's moves.
"I believe what he's been doing is the right thing," said Greg Reiman, 55, who works for the Milwaukee County Department on Aging. "I'm paying the additional pension and health, and I'm fine with that."
But 72-year-old William Dixon, a self-employed woodworker from Whitefish Bay who voted for Barrett, said he was disgusted by the governor's collective bargaining policies.
"I don't think he's been truthful," Dixon said. Asking workers to pay more for benefits is one thing, "but I do think they have a right to bargain for wages," he said.
Walker, the 44-year-old son of a minister, has remained unflappable throughout the campaign just as he was during the massive protests that raged at the Statehouse for weeks as lawmakers debated his proposal. Along the way, he's become a star among Republicans and the most successful fundraiser in Wisconsin politics, collecting at least $31 million from around the country since taking office. That obliterated his fundraising record of $11 million from 2010.
Much of the money for the race has come from out of state. About $63 million has been spent on the race so far, including $16 million from conservative groups such as the Republican Governors Association, Americans for Prosperity and the National Rifle Association. The majority of Walker's donations are from people outside Wisconsin.
Democratic groups - including those funded by unions, the Democratic Governors Association and the Democratic National Committee - have poured in about $14 million, based on a tally from the government watchdog group the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign. Barrett's $4.2 million in donations, meanwhile, were mostly from inside Wisconsin.
Walker wasn't the only politician up for recall. His lieutenant governor, Rebecca Kleefisch, and three Republican state senators also faced votes, and a fourth state Senate seat will be determined after the Republican incumbent resigned rather than face the recall.
Tuesday's vote will also have implications for labor unions and the presidential election in November. Labor unions have a lot at stake because they pushed so hard to force a recall. But when it comes to the presidential race, exactly what those implications are is unclear.
Republicans are hopeful a Walker win would pave the way for Mitt Romney to win Wisconsin, making him the first GOP candidate to carry the state since Ronald Reagan in 1984. If Walker loses, most agree President Barack Obama will have an edge. Either way, the state is likely to remain in play.
TAMPA, Fla. -- Ron Paul supporters are upset that Republican National Convention organizers aren't letting them throw a festival honoring the Texas congressman and presidential candidate the weekend before the gathering.
Spokesman Bryan Siemon said his group is organizing a three-day "PaulFest" at the Florida State Fairgrounds that would include music, comedians and speakers. But the Republicans control Tampa's public venues during the convention and haven't given PaulFest approval to use the fairgrounds.
Paul's libertarian beliefs have drawn him avid followers and some delegates. Supporters of presumed nominee Mitt Romney fear Paul supporters will protest during the convention, detracting from Romney's message and party unity.
Siemon said Tuesday that he is "disappointed" with convention organizers.
Convention organizers told the Tampa Tribune they are trying to match various groups with available venues.
GREENSBORO, N.C. -- Part-time Palm Beacher Donald Trump continues to question President Obama's birthplace.
During an appearance at the North Carolina Republican Party Convention Friday, Trump asked about Obama's college transcripts.
TRUMP: "Because I asked to see his college records... Because I'd like to see them. I'd love... (applause). There's one line called place of birth. I'd like to see what he said. You know, it'd be very interesting. I don't care what his marks were. I don't care if he had good marks. I just want to see place of birth. Three colleges. Place of birth. I'd love to see, you know. Perhaps it's going to say Hawaii. Perhaps it's going to say Kenya. Perhaps it's going to say some... I'd like to see... Place of birth.
Trump is a strong supporter of Mitt Romney in his bid for the White House.
Romney has been under pressure from Democrats to condemn Trump for his questioning of Obama's place of birth.
NEW YORK (AP) - Planned Parenthood is launching a TV ad campaign in three battleground states suggesting that women's rights would suffer if Republican Mitt Romney is elected president. The political arm of the women's health care organization has endorsed Democratic President Barack Obama for re-election.
The group announced Wednesday, a day after Romney claimed the GOP presidential nomination, that it would spend $1.4 million to air its ad in Florida, Iowa and Virginia, as well as Washington, D.C.
The ad quotes Romney saying he would "get rid" of Planned Parenthood. When he made the comment earlier this year, aides said he was talking about eliminating federal funding for the organization.
The spot also includes a clip of Romney saying the Supreme Court should overturn its Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion.
LAS VEGAS -- Mitt Romney has won the Republican presidential nomination after years of fighting, though his triumph was partially overshadowed by the celebrity businessman who helped him along the way.
As primary voters in Texas on Tuesday pushed him past the 1,144-delegate threshold he needed to win the nod, Romney was raising money in Las Vegas with Donald Trump, the real estate mogul who has stoked doubts about whether President Barack Obama was born in America.
It's the start of a weeklong push to raise millions of dollars during a West Coast swing as Romney looks to bring in as much cash as possible ahead of a ramped-up campaign schedule later this summer.
"Mr. Trump, thank you for letting us come to this beautiful hotel and being with so many friends. Thank you for twisting the arms that it takes to bring a fundraiser together," Romney told the approximately 200 people who paid thousands to attend the event at the Trump International Hotel. "I appreciate your help."
The Trump event and surrounding controversy overshadowed the Texas primary win that officially handed Romney the nomination, a triumph of endurance for a candidate who came up short four years ago and had to fight hard this year as voters flirted with a carousel of GOP rivals. According to the Associated Press count, Romney surpassed the 1,144 delegates needed to win the nomination by winning 105 delegates in the Texas primary, pushing his total to 1,191 delegates.
The former Massachusetts governor reached the nomination milestone with a steady message of concern about the U.S. economy, a campaign organization that dwarfed those of his GOP foes and a fundraising operation second only to that of Obama, his Democratic general election opponent. He outlasted a half-dozen Republican opponents to clinch the nomination later in the calendar than any recent GOP nominee.
Romney must now fire up conservatives who still doubt him while persuading swing voters that he can do a better job fixing the nation's struggling economy than Obama. In Obama, he faces a well-funded candidate with a proven campaign team in an election that will be heavily influenced by the economy.
Romney will continue his push to raise money with fundraisers this week in wealthy California enclaves like Hillsborough, near San Francisco, and Beverly Hills. He has at least one major fundraising event every day for the rest of the week, as well as a series of smaller events.
But the focus Tuesday was on Trump, who once led polls of GOP primary voters. He endorsed the former Massachusetts governor just before the February Nevada caucuses, offering his support at a morning endorsement event in ballroom in the hotel that bears his name. In the same room Tuesday night for the fundraiser, Trump introduced Romney. He steered clear of the "birther" issue as he spoke to donors, though just hours earlier he had repeated his doubts about the authenticity of the birth certificate that shows Obama was born in Hawaii.
"A lot of people do not think it was an authentic certificate," Trump told CNN of Obama's birth certificate. When CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer told Trump he was "beginning to sound a little ridiculous," Trump responded, "I think you sound ridiculous."
Such allegations about Obama's birthplace have been repeatedly proven false. The state of Hawaii recently re-affirmed that he was born there.
Trump's comments, repeated in several media interviews Tuesday, overshadowed Romney's attempts to focus on failed stimulus projects and federal money given to companies like Solyndra, the green energy company that received millions from the government only to go bankrupt.
Romney hasn't condemned Trump's assertions. On Monday night, he told reporters aboard his campaign plane that Trump is entitled to his opinion. Even as Trump-related criticism from Democrats and Republicans intensified in recent days, Romney showed no sign of distancing himself from the polarizing figure.
"I don't agree with all the people who support me. And my guess is they don't all agree with everything I believe in," Romney said. "But I need to get 50.1 percent or more."
Trump remains popular among the conservative base and boasts ties to deep-pocketed donors. He has recorded automated phone calls for Romney, hosted a fundraiser with Romney's wife, Ann, in New York, and pressed the candidate's case as a television surrogate.
The Obama campaign released a video Tuesday criticizing what it considers Romney's unwillingness to stand up to Trump and the more extreme elements in his party.
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, once a rival for the GOP nomination and now a Romney supporter, suggested that the Trump issue will not derail Romney's campaign.
"Gov. Romney's not distracted. The Republican Party's not distracted," said Gingrich, who attended the Trump fundraiser. "We believe that this is an American-born job-killing president. Other people may believe that he was born somewhere else and still kills jobs."
Gingrich was one in a series of rivals who challenged Romney during the prolonged primary fight.
CRAIG, Colo. -- Mitt Romney is poised to clinch the Republican presidential nomination after Tuesday's Texas GOP primary, a largely uncontested election that will formalize the former Massachusetts governor's status as President Barack Obama's general election challenger.
While Romney's nomination has been virtually assured for a month, the day marks the culmination of several years of work, dating back to his unsuccessful 2008 effort, and perhaps far earlier.
"It'll be a big day tomorrow," Romney told reporters aboard his campaign plane Monday evening. "I'm looking forward to the good news."
But Romney's focus Tuesday will be hundreds of miles north of Texas, where he's scheduled to court voters and donors in Colorado and Nevada during a two-state swing punctuated by a Las Vegas fundraiser with conservative businessman Donald Trump.
The evening event, set for the Trump International Hotel, comes amidst fresh criticism from Republicans and Democrats over Trump's continued questioning of Obama's citizenship. Romney hasn't condemned Trump's false claims, offering a fresh example of the presidential contender's reluctance to confront his party's more extreme elements. There have been other examples in recent weeks that underscore Romney's delicate push to win over skeptical conservatives while appealing to moderates and independents who generally deliver general election victories.
Asked Monday to weigh in on Trump's support for the so-called birther movement, Romney declined to condemn Trump's latest suggestion that Obama was born in Kenya.
"I don't agree with all the people who support me. And my guess is they don't all agree with everything I believe in," Romney told reporters before flying from California to Colorado Monday evening. "But I need to get 50.1 percent or more. And I'm appreciative to have the help of a lot of good people."
Polling suggests that the election between Romney and Obama will be very close, ultimately decided by several swing states, Colorado and Nevada among them. Romney will begin campaigning Tuesday in the northern Colorado town of Craig before flying to Las Vegas for an afternoon rally before the Trump fundraiser.
The Texas primary offers 152 delegates; Romney is just 58 delegates shy of the 1,144 needed to become the nominee. His Republican rivals Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich already have endorsed Romney, while Texas Rep. Ron Paul has stopped actively campaigning. Gingrich is expected to attend the Trump fundraiser.
Under similar circumstances last week, Romney swept all the delegates in GOP primaries in Kentucky and Arkansas and picked up more endorsements from party leaders.
But Romney's meeting with Trump may generate as much interest, or more, than his tightened grasp on the Republican nomination.
"I do not understand the cost benefit here," conservative commentator George Will said over the weekend. "The cost of appearing with this bloviating ignoramus is obvious, it seems to me."
"Donald Trump is redundant evidence that if your net worth is high enough, your IQ can be very low and you can still intrude into American politics," Will continued. "Again, I don't understand the benefit. What is Romney seeking?"
Trump revived the false claims about Obama's birthplace late last week, citing a discredited story about a literary agency that mistakenly listed that Obama was born in Kenya.
While Romney briefly addressed the issue Monday, his senior aide Eric Fehrnstrom also declined to condemn Trump's remarks in a recent interview.
"I can't speak for Donald Trump ... but I can tell you that Mitt Romney accepts that President Obama was born in the United States," Fehrnstrom said. "He doesn't view the place of his birth as an issue in this campaign."
Romney has been criticized on several occasions for failing to speak out against extreme rhetoric from his party. The reluctance stands in contrast to the 2008 GOP presidential nominee and current Romney supporter, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who once corrected a supporter who called Obama a Muslim.
And on Tuesday, Obama's re-election campaign surfaced a new television commercial directly accusing Romney of failing to stand up to "the voices of extremism" in his party.
The ad takes the former Massachusetts governor to task for failing to speak out against real estate mogul Donald Trump, a supporter who has consistently charged that Obama is not a U.S. citizen. It opens by showing 2008 nominee John McCain brushing aside a woman who raised the citizenship issue at a town hall-style meeting, and the commercial asks the viewer, "Why won't Mitt Romney do the same?"
Campaigning in Cleveland earlier in the month, Romney did not initially respond to a supporter who suggested that Obama should be tried for treason. He said after the rally that he didn't agree.
He was also slow to condemn conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh, who said a college student defending Obama's contraception policy was "a slut." At the time, Romney initially declined to weigh in on the issue before saying "it's not the language" he would have used.
And he was initially silent on violent rhetoric from classic rocker Ted Nugent before a spokeswoman said Romney "believes everyone needs to be civil."
In this photo taken May 24, 2012, Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla. has a conversation just off the Senate floor on Capitol Hill in Washington. Rubio is planning a swing-state summer bus tour that will also roll through South Carolina, the early presidential primary battleground. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
WASHINGTON -- Republican Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida is planning a swing-state summer bus tour that will also roll through South Carolina, the early presidential primary battleground.
It's officially aimed at selling books, not winning votes, but the freshman senator and possible vice presidential pick is set to make multiple stops not just in his home state of Florida but also in North Carolina and Virginia, critical presidential battlegrounds this fall. On the way, he'll make several appearances in South Carolina, where Republicans hold their first-in-the-South presidential primary.
Rubio has been informally auditioning for the traditional vice presidential role as attack dog, recently telling South Carolina Republicans that Americans hadn't seen such a "divisive figure in modern American history" as Democratic President Barack Obama.
The bus tour, set for the week of the Fourth of July holiday, is aimed at promoting his autobiography, "An American Son," to be released in June. The tentative schedule, provided by aides to The Associated Press, calls for Rubio to start the tour in Miami, where he lives, and end in the northern Virginia suburbs outside of Washington, where he works.
The book's cover features Rubio's current title - "U.S. Senator from Florida" - but the schedule highlights his national ambitions.
His bus will start in West Palm Beach, Fla., and stop in most of Florida's largest cities. After a stop in Atlanta, it's on to South Carolina, where he'll be in Columbia, the state capital, and Greenville, in the conservative northern part of the state.
Then he'll head to North Carolina, a state Obama won in 2008 but that will likely be closely contested in 2012. He's planning stops in four cities there before taking the bus straight through Virginia's critical swing region, stopping in Norfolk, Richmond and northern Virginia.
Rubio has been steadily raising his national profile, and is also discussed as a potential presidential contender in 2016 if Romney loses this year. He raced to finish his autobiography so it would come out the same day as "The Rise of Marco Rubio," a competing biography written by a Washington Post reporter. Author Manuel Roig-Franzia has already revealed details about Rubio's past, including his childhood stint in the Mormon Church.
WASHINGTON -- The Obama administration is sidestepping an election-year confrontation with the hotel industry and other pool owners to give them more time to comply with access rules for the disabled.
The rules have been in the works since the early 1990s, but the Justice Department created an uproar among hotels, waterparks, health clubs and the like earlier this year when it said it will require many such facilities to install fixed, permanent lifts to comply with the Americans With Disabilities Act.
After initially setting a March 15 deadline - and telling the industry it wouldn't budge - the department has granted two extensions. After first saying it might grant a reprieve until September, Justice announced last week that pool owners won't have to comply with the new requirements until early next year, a move that gets the controversy safely past the election.
At issue is whether hotels and other facilities will have to install fixed, permanent lifts to assist disabled people getting in and out of their pools, a move that requires hiring a contractor and tearing up the pool deck at a cost of as much as $6,000.
Many pool owners were hoping to comply with the rules by purchasing less costly portable lifts that could be wheeled out to poolside as needed. Hotel owners who already have lifts say few of their customers ever ask for them.
Advocates for the disabled are frustrated by the delay, saying it means another summer swim season without lifts at most pools. They accused the hotel industry of creating an 11th hour tempest to undo rules that have been in the making since the Clinton administration.
"It's a little disingenuous to say that came out of nowhere," said Heather Ansley, a lawyer with United Spinal Association.
But they're pleased that Justice isn't caving to demands that everybody be allowed to get by with portable lifts.
"They've been trying to duck it for 10 years, and the agency keeps putting it off, putting it off," said Rep. Jerold Nadler, D-N.Y. "Enough already."
Disabled people complain that in cities where lifts are already required, portable lifts are often stowed away and that not all employees know how to operate them. And they say that the hotel and motel industry has a long record of trying to evade access rules for the disabled, sometimes waiting to be sued before complying.
The issue gets even trickier. There's a longstanding exemption in the law which says existing facilities can avoid an ADA requirement if they determine compliance is not "readily achievable." That's pretty ambiguous, but as defined in the law it basically means you're eligible for the exemption if you determine that it's too difficult or expensive. Figuring out whether one qualifies for the exemption can be difficult.
The rules always had been going to require that newly constructed pools be required to have built-in lifts. But in January, Justice issued technical guidance that for the first time required fixed pool lifts at existing pools, said Minh Vu, a Washington lawyer representing the hotel industry. That took many pool owners by surprise, upending their plans.
The guidance created a new set of potential problems and concerns. Among them was that children might climb on the lifts - which would be built at the shallow end of the pool - and potentially hurt themselves by falling or diving off.
The January directive put hotel owners in a real bind. Over the horizon they saw themselves being hit with government penalties and private lawsuits for failing to comply with the rules. Some hotels announced they would have to close their pools. Community and municipal pools risked being out of compliance as well.
The uproar quickly made its way to Capitol Hill. Several members of Congress prepared legislation to roll back the fixed lift requirement. At the same time, hotels flooded the Justice Department with complaints about being unable to meet the deadline.
A week ago, Justice announced that pool owners now have until Jan. 31, 2013, to comply with the rules.
"We got such an overwhelming response indicating the widespread misunderstanding of the law and indicating that the pool lift manufacturers are having trouble meeting the demand, so we wanted to make sure people had enough time," Eve Hill, a senior attorney in the Justice Department's civil rights division, said.
On Thursday, Justice said pool owners who bought a portable lift before the original March 15 deadline two months ago would be considered in compliance as long as the lift is in place whenever the pool is open.
The department also hopes to clear up confusion among hotel operators about whether their circumstances qualify them to get by with a somewhat less expensive portable lift or win exemption from the requirement altogether.
Hotel industry lobbyists, meanwhile, succeeded in getting the House to block the Justice Department from implementing the new regulation requiring permanent pool lifts as part of a spending bill for next year. The idea could get a Senate vote next month.
When Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney decried President Barack Obama as beholden to the nation's teachers' unions and unable to stand up for reform, he glossed over four years of a relationship that has been anything but cozy.
Obama has promoted initiatives that encourage districts to tie teacher evaluations to student performance and to expand the number of charter schools - actions the teacher unions have long been against, and which Romney himself promoted Wednesday in a speech in Washington outlining his education platform.
He also painted a bleak picture of a country where millions of kids are getting a "third-world education" and whose international standing has fallen far behind, an assertion frequently used by politicians and debated by academics, though the most recent tests show that U.S. student scores haven't changed significantly and remain about average.
Here are some of Romney's statements on education, and how they line up with the facts:
ROMNEY: "President Obama has been unable to stand up to union bosses - and unwilling to stand up for kids."
THE FACTS: Several of the core tenets of the Obama administration's signature education initiative, the Race to the Top competition, are policies first heralded by Republicans and are in opposition to the steadfast positions of teacher unions on topics like school choice and merit pay for teachers.
In order to qualify for a slice of the $4 billion allotted for the first two rounds of the grant competition, more than a dozen states changed laws to link teacher evaluations to how well students perform on tests. The Department of Education also rewarded states that had lifted caps on the number of charter schools and created performance pay plans to award teachers whose students have made the most progress.
When a board of trustees in Central Falls, R.I., voted to fire all the teachers at one of the state's worst-performing schools in early 2010, Obama said the dismissals were an example of why accountability is needed at the nation's most troubled schools, causing a furor among union advocates.
At its annual meeting last year, the National Education Association, the country's largest teachers union, sent a message to Obama that it was "appalled" with Education Secretary Arne Duncan's practice of focusing heavily on charter schools, supporting decisions to fire all staff and using high-stakes standardized test scores for teacher evaluations, along with 10 other policies mentioned.
"Obama has taken on teachers unions unlike any previous Democratic president," said Tom Loveless of the Brookings Institution. "Because of that his support among union members, although it is still there, is rather tepid."
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ROMNEY: "The two major teachers unions take in $600 million each year. That's more revenue than both of the political parties combined. In 2008, the National Education Association spent more money on campaigns than any other organization in the country."
THE FACTS: Romney is correct that the NEA and the American Federation of Teachers pull in a lot of cash. The NEA took in more than $399 million in 2011, according to its annual report filed with the U.S. Department of Labor. A similar report from the AFT shows it took in more than $211 million last year.
But neither was at the top of the political spending list four years ago. In 2008, the NEA doled out $29 million to federal, state and local political efforts, federal data show. That ranked them a distant third in political spending by labor unions that year. The Service Employees International Union was first, with $67 million, and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees was second with $63 million.
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ROMNEY: "More than 150 years ago, our nation pioneered public education. We've now fallen way behind."
THE FACTS: Romney backed this assertion with figures from the most recent Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) results, which tests 15-year-olds around the world in math, reading and science. The United States ranked 14th in reading, 17th in science and 25th in math out of 34 developed countries. Those figures have been frequently cited by the Obama administration as well.
The test has only been administered since 2000, and shows U.S. students consistently hovering right around the average, at about the same achievement levels in math and reading as countries like Sweden, the United Kingdom and France. Overall, the U.S. scores are about the same as they were a decade ago, while some countries have improved.
"A better way for him to state it is to say American achievement is mediocre," Loveless said. "It's been mediocre for 50 years."
Romney also asserted that millions of students are getting a "third-world education." Looking again at the PISA test, students in schools where more than 75 percent of children were eligible for free and reduced-price lunch - a key indicator of poverty - scored an average of 446 points in reading. That's at about the same level as Chile and Serbia. Meanwhile, those in the wealthiest U.S. schools score nearly as high as the top performer, the Shanghai region of China.
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ROMNEY: Students participating in the Washington, D.C., Opportunity Scholarship program made gains and "after three months, students could already read at levels 19 months ahead of their public-school peers."
THE FACTS: Romney's description of the success of the school voucher program, which helps low-income children in the nation's capital attend private elementary, middle and high schools, doesn't match up with Department of Education evaluations.
A congressionally mandated review of the program released in 2009 found that after three years - not three months - only some students saw those gains. About one-fourth of children who used the scholarship read 19 months ahead of their peers after three years. In general, however, students' gains were more modest. After three years in the program, students read at about four months ahead of their public-school peers.
A 2010 evaluation of the program found that on average, after four years, reading and math test scores of opportunity scholarship students were statistically similar to those not offered scholarships.
The program did, however, significantly improve students' chances of graduating from high school.
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney isn't shying away from his businessman past.
He says his history in the private sector grooms him to become a better president.
Jim Acosta shows how Romney's reacting to criticism of his time at Bain Capital.
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. -- President Obama and Mitt Romney are looking to get the support from female voters if they're going to win this November.
A recent CBS News/New York Times poll shows Mitt Romney leading President Obama when it comes to women.
With just about six months left before voters go to the polls to decide between President Barack Obama or Mitt Romney, the battle for the female vote is intensifying.
Kevin Wagner: Since women vote at a higher rate than men, the gender gap is important, especially where women voters go.
That's why Florida Atlantic University Political Science Professor Kevin Wagner says a recent CBS News/New York Times Poll appears to be good news for Mitt Romney.
The former Massachusetts governor now leads the president when it comes to women voters, 46 percent to President Obama's 44 percent, which is within the poll's margin of error.
In April, the president had an edge among women voters, with 49 percent support to Romney's 43 percent. But Wagner says this is just one poll among many.
Wagner: To take this poll and say Romney has reversed the opinion of the gender gap that has existed for decades, even if you're Republican is overly hopeful.
We decided to take our own informal survey. We came to Palm Beach Gardens to ask women what they think about the latest poll.
Ibis Ballester, Obama supporter: Right now I think Obama has more interest in what we think than Romney. At this point I don't see him being very pro-women, pro-choice, pro-anything.
Niki Fuller, Romney supporter: I do support Mitt Romney over Obama. I think a lot of women are ready for a change. There's a lot of conversations about social issues.
While one poll isn't enough to truly determine who most women support, Wagner says it will be interesting to keep an eye on the polls in the coming months.
Wagner: Now if you see two, three, or four polls where you see this trend with women, then that's something to talk about.
Lynn University going to become center stage in the presidential race when the school holds the last debate this fall.
The university recently received $150,000 from Palm Beach County to assist in paying for marketing efforts to help promote the school and the area. Officials say they're doing everything they can to use the debate as an opportunity to get more tourists here. They anticipate a significant turnaround on their investment.
Verdina Baker, PBC Deputy Administrator: We'll have approximately 3,000 rooms just for the Presidential Commission and everyone associated and at least 1,000 news people from around the worl.
Lynn University is also raising about $4 million to help with other expenses. The debate, which is the final one, will take place at the end of October.
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. -- It's a $25 million ad focused on you. President Obama's newest television ad is geared towards Florida and other swing states. It's Focus is that the economy is "coming back" from a meltdown that Obama inherited. CBS 12's Lynn Gordon hit the streets to see how Floridians feel about the new Ad.
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. -- Six months until the presidential election and Florida is shaping up to be one of the closest races in the nation. A new Quinnipiac Poll shows it's too close to call between President Obama and Mitt Romney in Florida.
CBS 12 sat down exclusively with former White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer. He's very familiar with just how close Florida elections can be.
"Florida is crucial Florida is the hear of it all for both parties," said Fleischer.
Ari Fleischer knows that from personal experience. In 2000 his boss, George Bush won Florida after recounts, protests and lawsuits. But will we see a repeat 12 years later?
"Everything I know says to me, Florida will be on the razor's edge. I hope it won't be as close as 200. But you just that sense."
A new Quinnipiac poll shows Mitt Romney at 44-percent. While President Obama stands 43-percent. Making it a virtual tie in Florida. This could be a troubling trend for the president since he was up by seven-points in March.
"The president's biggest problem is the economy. The lack of jobs, the blue-collar workers who lost their jobs and have given up hope of getting one again and declines in the houses values is the worse since the great depression."
The same Quinnipiac Poll found that 40 percent in the state would like to see Senator Marco Rubio to be Mitt Romney's vice presidential nominee. Ari Fleischer says Rubio could be a good choice, but will do little to affect the outcome nationally.
"You might be tempted to pick from a swing state like Florida, but people vote for president really don't vote for the vice president."
The former White House Press Secretary says Florida is a must-win for both parties. Without it, he says Republicans don't have a chance of re-taking the presidency.
"If Republican's don't win Florida, they really can't win the nation."
The other state that is just as close as Florida right now is Ohio. Ari says both are likely to be too close to call all the way until election day.
They've been around for as long as politicians have been campaigning, but the days of attack ads could be limited.
Once the election season heats up again this summer an endless stream of political attack ads will invade your TV. But the FCC is just days away from a rule that would let you know who's behind the messages and how much they cost.
It could mean more transparency and less mudslinging. If you go to a television station and ask, stations will give you a list of which groups are spending what. However, the new FCC rule says station must file the information online. The idea is posting this information will make it easier to access.
Watchdog groups say the rule will shine a light on the influential role of Super PACs. These groups round up millions of dollars from anonymous donors to attack candidates or promote causes. Supporters of President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney have already launched TV ads in Florida. Northwood Political Science Professor Tim Gilbert says the rule isn't perfect.
"I think it has mixed blessings. It will help in some ways because it is more transparent as to who is supporting a particular ad. But I also think at the same time there are some major loopholes," Gilbert.
The loopholes include: Cable and satellite providers are not covered and Spanish-language stations are exempted for two years. Broadcasters are against the rule because they would have to make their ad rates available to competitors.
Super PACs spent roughly $19 million in Florida before the Republican presidential primary in January, far more than in any other state.
Dropping out is hard to do. It's been especially hard for Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul.
Mitt Romney is claiming victory after his Tuesday sweep of five more GOP primaries. Few disagree.
He has an insurmountable lead. He's expected to clinch the nomination next month. RNC Chairman Reince Priebus on Wednesday anointed him "our party's presumptive nominee."
After remaining in the race against all odds, Gingrich will formally end his campaign next Tuesday and likely endorse Romney, advisers to the former House speaker told The Associated Press on Wednesday.
Earlier, Gingrich acknowledged Romney would win but quizzically suggested he'd keep campaigning as a "citizen."
Paul, a congressman from Texas, says he'll stay until all delegates are counted, suggesting it isn't over until it's over.
Former Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., who exited two weeks ago, said Wednesday the former Massachusetts governor "is going to be the nominee" and that he would "support the nominee." That wasn't quite a formal endorsement, but the closest he's come.
Santorum said he'll sit down with Romney representatives soon.
All the other former GOP rivals have endorsed Romney.
It's never easy for presidential candidates to throw in the towel. They've invested so much time and energy into the pursuit.
That was certainly true last time,when Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton remained in the Democratic primary long after she had any hope of winning.
Obama mathematically clinched the nomination on June 3, 2008, and Clinton endorsed him five days later. But their first joint appearance was not until June 27 at a carefully choreographed rally in Unity, NH.
Only one loser has publicly voiced what many failed presidential contenders have probably thought. After finishing second to Jimmy Carter in seven 1976 primaries, Rep. Morris K. Udall of Arizona famously declared, "The people have spoken, the bastards."
ASTON, Pa. -- Mitt Romney declined Monday declined to endorse an immigration proposal from potential running mate Marco Rubio. Romney said he's considering the freshman Florida senator's plan to help some young people stay in the country legally, although without the opportunity to become citizens, if they attend college or serve in the military.
The presumptive Republican presidential nominee also said he supports a temporary extension of lower student loan interest rates. Democratic President Barack Obama has been pushing Congress for that extension and planned a three-state swing this week to warn students of the potential financial catastrophe they will face if Congress fails to act.
"I think young voters in this country have to vote for me if they're really thinking of what's in the best interest of the country and what's in their personal best interest," Romney said as he stood next to Rubio and answered reporters' questions for the first time since effectively securing the GOP presidential nomination.
Romney refused to say if the Cuban-American senator is on his list of potential vice presidents.
Rubio said he was no longer discussing the vice presidential search process.
Romney tacked to the right on immigration during the GOP primaries. In recent days, he's been highlighting Hispanic concerns while leaving out much of the rhetoric he embraced earlier this year.
The former Massachusetts governor was not ready Monday to embrace Rubio's emerging proposal.
"It has many features to commend it. But it's something that we're studying," Romney said. Rubio has said his goal is to craft a Republican compromise on the so-called DREAM Act that Romney could support. That bill, which has languished on Capitol Hill, would provide a path to citizenship for some young illegal immigrants who attend college or serve in the military.
Romney's answers illustrated the careful line he has to walk as he transitions out of a brutal Republican primary and into the general election, where he'll have to tussle with Obama for support among the Hispanic, women and young voters who propelled the Democrat to victory in 2008.
Obama, meanwhile, has to hang on to those constituencies, too. His Tuesday-Wednesday tour through North Carolina, Colorado and Iowa is intended to rally the young supporters he needs again in November.
-- AP
PHOTO: An
elderly woman sits as police officers stand guard in Cartagena,
Colombia, Thursday, April 12, 2012. Leaders of the western hemisphere
will attend the 6th Summit of the Americas in Cartagena on April 14 and
April 15. (AP Photo/Dolores Ochoa)
TAMPA, Fla. -- President Barack Obama says his outreach to Latin America will increase exports for small businesses and companies in the United States.
Obama toured the Tampa Bay port Friday and talked to port workers on his way to Cartagena, Colombia. The president will be attending the Summit of the Americas with the leaders of more than 30 South American countries this weekend.
Obama is outlining an initiative that helps small businesses, including those owned by Latinos, get financing and connect with foreign buyers interested in their products. Officials say about 40 percent of the goods exported through the Tampa Bay port is shipped to the Americas.
The president has set a goal of doubling U.S. exports by 2014.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP's earlier story is below.
As high-level international conferences go, President Barack Obama's trip to the Summit of the Americas in Colombia is a nod to Woody Allen's maxim that 80 percent of success is just showing up. It's a principle that has value not only in Latin America, but also here at home.
Outside Central and South America, no population will be paying as close attention to Obama's three-day visit to the city of Cartagena as Hispanics in the United States. With more than 50 million U.S. Latinos - 21 million of them eligible voters, Obama has an important audience that is especially vital in an election year.
Obama also is kicking off the trip with a stop Friday in Tampa Bay, Fla., drawing attention to the benefits of trade with Latin America in a crucial swing state in the general election. The brief detour underscores the administration's attempts to cast the trip on domestic terms and to improve the president's tenuous stance with the U.S. business community.
"Florida, I think, is both an economic and people-to-people hub in terms of connecting the United States and Latin America," White House deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes said, previewing the president's trip.
The White House pointed to the area's history of trade with Latin America, saying more than 40 percent of total exports from the Port of Tampa are destined for countries in Latin America.
Such outreach to the U.S.'s southern neighborhood is not unique to Obama. Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush before him also "understood that the right Latin American policies and relations could match the right domestic relations toward Latinos and immigrants," said Nelson Cunningham, who served in the Clinton White House as a special adviser on Western Hemisphere affairs.
Still, some of the thorniest issues Obama could confront in Cartagena - U.S. immigration policy and U.S. policy toward Cuba - present a political conundrum for Obama at home even as Latin American leaders express frustration with lack of movement by his administration on either front.
"The U.S. position on these troublesome issues - immigration, drug policy, and Cuba - has set Washington against the consensus view of the hemisphere's other 34 governments," concluded the Inter-American Dialogue, a U.S.-based center for policy analysis, in a report prepared in advance of the summit.
What's more, Obama will arrive in Colombia with larger and more immediate foreign policy entanglements facing him, including North Korea's failed launch of a long-range rocket Thursday, a budding though fragile truce in Syria, and international talks in Turkey over Iran's nuclear program. Indeed, Obama had a similar experience last year, traveling to Brazil, Chile and El Salvador, a trip overshadowed by U.S. bombing of Libya as part of an international military campaign to remove Moammar Gadhafi.
That said, Obama is on his fourth trip to the region, with a fifth upcoming in June, when he is scheduled to attend a Group of 20 session in Mexico. What's more, the past two weeks in Washington featured a joint meeting with Mexican President Felipe Calderon and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and a separate meeting this week with Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff.
In that sense, Obama's role as host and as visitor to the region's leaders can pay dividends.
"As our Latino population continues to grow, there is going to be a higher premium put by those voters on efforts to make sure that relations with the U.S. and the rest of Latin America are strong." said Simon Rosenberg, president of NDN, a think tank that studies U.S. Latino voters and relations with Latin America.
Polls show that a vast majority of Latino voters support Obama, who carried 67 percent of the Latino vote over Republican John McCain in 2008. But Obama's deportation policies and lack of progress on changing immigration laws have softened his support, and Obama aides are determined to re-energize that voting bloc in time for the November election.
In toss-up states such as Florida, Colorado and Nevada, the Latino vote could be essential.
"If you look at where Latino voters exist now in the United States, they are in great numbers in a lot of the states that are going to be bellwethers," said Cunningham, now managing partner of McLarty Associates, an international advisory firm.
He noted that Democrats in 2008 made great efforts to mobilize Hispanic votes in states such as Ohio and Pennsylvania.
"I would think that that would be very much a part of the administration's policy this time around," he said.
Rosenberg pointed out that there are 50,000 Colombian immigrants in Florida alone, a bloc with a vested interest in Obama's trip that could help decide an election in a close contest.
The White House said members of the Latin American and Caribbean diaspora sent $61 billion home last year, representing a major source of income in many nations. In seven countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, remittances account for more than 10 percent of the gross domestic product, the White House said.
If Hispanics are paying attention to Obama's trip, so are many in the business community who have been pressing the administration to expand trade. They will be keeping a close watch on whether Obama will announce that Colombia has met the labor rights conditions that were required under a free trade agreement approved by Congress and signed by Obama last year.
Obama is under pressure from U.S. labor leaders to put off that announcement. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which has sent a delegation to Cartagena to participate in a regional CEOs summit on Saturday, is pushing Obama to implement the trade deal.
White House officials this week sidestepped questions about what the president might do, but they did note that he will be accompanied by U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk and Labor Secretary Hilda Solis, a sign that the issue will not be far from his mind.
-- AP
ST. LOUIS -- Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney will tell National Rifle Association members that President Barack Obama is not protecting gun owners' rights, even though the administration has said little about firearms and has deeply disappointed gun-control advocates.
In remarks prepared for the association's annual convention Friday, Romney says "we need a president who will enforce current laws, not create new ones that only serve to burden lawful gun owners. President Obama has not; I will."
The excerpted remarks, released by Romney's campaign, offer no details about Obama's record on firearms.
Romney's speech comes as the former Massachusetts governor is trying to woo conservative groups in a bid to consolidate his base before the fall campaign. His relationship with gun owner groups is an uneasy one. Running for the Senate in 1994, Romney said: "I don't line up with the NRA." He later became a lifetime NRA member.
Obama has placed little emphasis on gun issues, to the dismay of groups such as the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence. In its most recent assessment, in 2010, the group flunked on Obama on all seven issues it deemed important and expressed disbelief at his performance.
Campaigning in 2008, Obama said: "I believe in the Second Amendment. I believe in people's lawful right to bear arms. I will not take your shotgun away. I will not take your rifle away. I won't take your handgun away. ... There are some common-sense gun safety laws that I believe in. But I am not going to take your guns away."
In his prepared remarks, Romney hints that Obama wants to erode gun rights, without saying so explicitly and without offering details.
"This administration's attack on freedom extends even to rights explicitly guaranteed by our Constitution," Romney says. "The right to bear arms is so plainly stated, so unambiguous, that liberals have a hard time challenging it directly. Instead, they've been employing every imaginable ploy to restrict it."
The NRA gathering in St. Louis comes at a moment of heightened national concern about gun use because of the explosive Florida case in which a volunteer neighborhood watchman fatally shot an unarmed teenager. The NRA strongly backed Florida's "stand your ground" law, which is at the heart of the unfolding legal matter.
It won't be the first time Romney has had to walk a careful line between appealing to conservatives, who form his party's base, and trying not to alarm independents, who will be crucial in the fall campaign.
The NRA is so vital to Republican politicians that Rick Santorum, who suspended his presidential candidacy on Tuesday, is keeping his appointment to speak just after Romney. Others scheduled to speak at the "leadership forum" are GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich, Texas Gov. Rick Perry and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va.
When Romney ran successfully for Massachusetts governor in 2002, the NRA gave his Democratic opponent a higher rating on gun-rights issues but made no endorsement.
Massachusetts quadrupled its gun-licensing fee while Romney was governor. He signed a law that made permanent a ban on assault-type weapons, although it was coupled with measures backed by gun-rights groups, such as the creation of an appeals board for people seeking to restore their gun licenses.
As he was considering his first presidential run in 2006, Romney signed up for a lifetime NRA membership. He calls himself a strong supporter of gun ownership rights.
Romney drew snickers in 2008 by claiming he sometimes hunts "small varmints." He showed more humility and humor last month in Alabama, where he said he hoped to go hunting with a friend who "can actually show me which end of the rifle to point."
Although the Trayvon Martin case in Florida might stir new debate, gun issues have sharply faded in recent presidential elections. Obama rarely broaches the topic. GOP candidate forums often elicit no questions on the subject.
The NRA speech is Romney's only scheduled public appearance until Monday. The focus on gun rights will mark a sharp turn from the heavy emphasis on female voters and women's issues in the past several days.
The NRA's website urges families attending the convention to "spend the day exploring the products from every major firearm company in the country, book the hunt of a lifetime in our exclusive outfitter section and view priceless collections of firearms in our gun collector area."
Romney planned to spend Sunday raising money in Naples and West Palm Beach, Fla.
-- AP
TALLAHASSEE -- Gov. Rick Scott is throwing his support behind Mitt Romney.
Scott initially refused to endorse any of the GOP candidates, but after Rick Santorum's announcement of suspending his campaign Monday, Scott decided to back the candidate with the most delegates.
The governor said he commends Santorum on his hard-fought campaign, but Romney will be the party's nominee and he stands behind him.
WASHINGTON -- Republican presidential contenders Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul are vowing to stay in the race even though Rick Santorum is not.
Santorum's departure Tuesday has pushed former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney closer to the nomination. But Gingrich and Paul say there is still time left for voters to pick a more suitable alternative to face President Barack Obama in November.
Paul's campaign says he is "the last - and real - conservative alternative" to Romney.
Gingrich took to Twitter to call Santorum's departure "the last stand for conservatives" and to urge supporters to donate to his campaign. He also separately described Romney as "far and away the most likely" GOP nominee.
Money is an issue for Gingrich. Utah officials say his campaign's $500 check to get on the ballot for Utah's primary has bounced. His campaign says a new check will be issued.
Romney has 661 delegates while Santorum had 285. Gingrich has 136 delegates and has Ron Paul has just 51 delegates.
PHOTO: FILE - In this March 6, 2012, file photo Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., the high profile 80-year-old ranking Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, waits with others for the arrival of the prime minister of Israel on Capitol Hill in Washington. The Senate's most senior Republican, serving in his sixth term, is the target of tea partyers trying to toss out veterans of the GOP establishment in the next election. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
INDIANAPOLIS -- Sen. Richard Lugar sounded wistful in his gratitude when he thanked supporters packed in the skybox of the Indiana Pacers' home court, as though he could see the approaching end of a political career that has spanned nearly half a century.
"I thank all of you, the 50 or 60 of you who are co-sponsors of the rally. We appreciate very much your willingness to put your own names on the line and be helpful in bringing together this assembly," said the 80-year-old Indiana Republican who was first elected to the Senate in 1976.
That characteristically understated demeanor has endeared Lugar to generations of Hoosier voters. It belies the fierce battle in Republican circles over whether to retire him now or give him six more years in Washington.
Lugar and Utah's Orrin Hatch, 78 and sent to Capitol Hill in the same year as Lugar, are tea partyers' top Senate Republican targets for defeat this year, portrayed as old bulls out of touch with today's conservatives. They are the GOP's two most senior members in the Senate.
Both have come out swinging, a lesson learned when Hatch's fellow Utah senator, Robert Bennett, had his re-election bid derailed two years ago by the fledgling tea party movement in the state GOP's nominating convention.
Hatch has shored up his support, furiously courting delegates to this year's convention on April 21. He has emphasized his seniority and covered his flank with more conservative stances and votes.
Lugar also started early, hiring a full-time campaign manager in the fall of 2010. He built an extensive network of campaign volunteers and by the first of this year had amassed a 10-1 cash advantage over his tea party challenger, state Treasurer Richard Mourdock.
Lugar, however, has had to play a frantic defense heading into the May 8 primary after tea partyers, joined by Democrats, turned the incumbent's residency outside the state into a dominant campaign issue.
He fumbled questions about the address on his driver's license: an Indianapolis home he sold in 1977. He had to switch his voter ID to his farm in Indianapolis after the local election board ruled last month that he couldn't vote using the 1977 address. Lugar, who owns a home in Virginia, also repaid the U.S. Treasury $14,700 last month that his Senate office paid for his hotel stays in Indiana.
"That's a self-inflicted wound. It just doesn't look good symbolically," said Margaret Ferguson, who heads the political science department at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis. "Things that have been brushed aside now carry some momentum that they would not have in the past."
Conservatives have rallied around Mourdock, a geologist and quiet campaigner who three years ago challenged the Chrysler bankruptcy terms in the U.S. Supreme Court. The Club For Growth, National Rifle Association, Citizens United, Hoosiers for Conservative Senate and FreedomWorks, a tea party umbrella group, have endorsed him.
The Club for Growth purchased more than $250,000 in airtime over the past two weeks for anti-Lugar ads after spending $160,000 against him last year. FreedomWorks has spent $100,000 in Indiana.
"Lugar is still in control of this race, but it's tight, much tighter than it was six months ago," said Andy Klingenstein, one of a trio of former aides who formed the Indiana Values super political action committee to battle on Lugar's behalf.
Lugar's power in Indiana Republican circles is legend, multiplied by generations of aides and operatives who cut their teeth with him in the 1960s when he was mayor of Indianapolis. He's been insulated from serious challenges within his own party and even Democrats have considered him invincible, choosing in 2006 not to field a challenger.
But a strong anti-incumbent mood and pressure from the right to define who really is a conservative have forced the well-funded Lugar to turn to super PACs like Klingenstein's, which is airing ads attacking Murdock.
Monica Boyer, one of the leaders of Hoosiers for Conservative Senate, said she, like most other Indiana tea partyers, had always voted for Lugar because "he had an `R' in front of his name."
The tipping point, she said, was when Lugar voted to confirm President Barack Obama's Supreme Court nominees, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan. That was a "hard wake-up call," she said, that spurred tea partyers to dig deeper into Lugar's voting record. There, she said, they discovered votes for an assault weapons ban and other moderate stances that have led critics to say Lugar is Obama's "favorite Republican."
"We learned how to use the roll call system. That's probably his worst nightmare right now," Boyer said.
The tightening of the GOP race has left Democrats giddy. Pushing their own candidate, U.S. Rep. Joe Donnelly, they look at what once was considered a safe Senate seat for Republicans as now in play in the general election.
Hatch, who needs 60 percent of the state GOP convention delegates to win on the first ballot, appears to be faring better in Utah. Supporters have spent more than a year emphasizing the importance of his seniority as the top Republican on the tax-writing Senate Finance Committee and his influence on federal land issues and the next round of military base closings.
"I'm in a position that benefits Utah in a fantastic way," Hatch said. "This going to be my last term. I'm committed to that. But it's going to be the best six years you've seen."
That argument has played well with state GOP convention delegates, some of whom said during recent caucus meetings they feared having two first-term senators from the state. It also was underscored in an endorsement by leading Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney, who is extremely popular among Utah Republicans.Dan Liljenquist, a former state senator who seems to be Hatch's strongest challenger, has tried minimize the seniority issue by highlighting the increased debt and spending on benefit programs during Hatch's tenure.
"Is seniority so important that we feel forced to make the same decisions for the same people that got us into this mess? For me, leadership trumps seniority every time. There is a time for new leadership, and that time is now," Liljenquist said.
FreedomWorks director Russ Walker said his group will continue to work for Hatch's "retirement" after spending nearly $650,000 leading up to the March caucus meetings.
But he acknowledged it isn't as easy to paint differences between Hatch and his opponents as it was in 2010, when Bennett was being hammered for supporting the Troubled Assets Relief Program and had co-sponsored a bipartisan health care overhaul.
"It's a little more challenging this cycle because everybody is saying the same things," Walker said. "We have to define the differences."
For Lugar, those differences may boil down to whether Indiana voters think he's conservative enough.
Polling shows Mourdock closing as money flows into the race from both sides. Klingenstein's pro-Lugar group plans to spend upward of $1 million on the race, and Walker said FreedomWorks plans to expand its opposition to Lugar. Another pro-Lugar super PAC, Hoosiers for Economic Growth, is raising $1.75 million in its effort.
Gov. Mitch Daniels, a Lugar protege who has headlined fundraisers for him in Indiana and Washington, said it's been so long since Lugar has had a competitive race that many voters don't have much of an image of him. That has hurt Lugar's efforts to defuse questions about his residency and roots in the state, according to Daniels.
"He was in nothing but tough races, until he wasn't," Daniels said. "There's probably a couple of generations of voters that don't have all the information that people did back then."
-- AP
WASHINGTON -- In an election-year pitch to middle-class voters, President Barack Obama is denouncing a House Republican budget plan as a "Trojan horse," warning that it represents "an attempt to impose a radical vision on our country" that would hurt the pocketbooks of working families.
Obama, in a speech to newspaper executives, is sharply criticizing a $3.5 trillion budget proposal pushed by Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., which passed on a near-party-line vote last week and has been embraced by GOP presidential hopefuls. The plan has faced fierce resistance from Democrats, who say it would gut Medicare, slash taxes for the wealthy and lead to deep cuts to crucial programs such as aid to college students and highway and rail projects.
"It's a Trojan horse. Disguised as deficit reduction plan, it's really an attempt to impose a radical vision on our country," Obama said in excerpts of his speech released Tuesday. "It's nothing but thinly veiled social Darwinism."
Obama's message comes as Republican Mitt Romney looked to solidify his grip on his party's presidential nomination in primary contests in Wisconsin, Maryland and Washington, D.C. The White House has appeared increasingly focused on Romney, with Obama's campaign criticizing the former Massachusetts governor by name in an energy ad as the president's team seeks to frame the election as a referendum on the economic security of middle-class voters.
White House advisers billed the speech - to be delivered during The Associated Press luncheon of editors and publishers - as an important marker for the president as he seeks re-election. Senior administration officials said the address would build upon themes the president delivered in Kansas last fall, in which he called the nation's economic challenges a "make-or-break moment" for the middle class, and in his State of the Union address, in which he laid out his election-year agenda.
Ryan's proposal aims to slash the deficit and the size of government while offering sharply lower tax rates in return for eliminating many popular tax breaks. GOP front-runner Mitt Romney and his Republican rivals have said they would support Ryan's budget plan, which has little chance of passing the Democratic-controlled Senate but lays out the GOP's fiscal priorities.
Obama was making the case that whoever wins the White House will face an economy still recovering from the "worst economic calamity since the Great Depression" and many Americans will still be looking for jobs and lacking financial security. By next year, "a debt that has grown over the last decade, primarily as a result of two wars, two massive tax cuts and an unprecedented financial crisis, will have to be paid down," Obama says in the prepared remarks.
He argues that Ryan's budget plan would stall the economic recovery. "By gutting the very things we need to grow an economy that's built to last - education and training, research and development - it's a prescription for decline," he says.
On taxes, Obama is also expected to call for economic fairness encapsulated by the so-called "Buffett Rule," arguing that the wealthy shouldn't pay a smaller share of their income in federal taxes than middle-class taxpayers. Many wealthy taxpayers earn investment income, which is taxed at 15 percent, and Obama has proposed that people earning at least $1 million annually - whether in salary or investments - should pay at least 30 percent of their income in taxes.
Obama planned to note that "broad-based prosperity has never trickled-down from the success of a wealthy few. It has always come from the success of a strong and growing middle class."
Republicans have said the new tax would push investors into sending money overseas where it would be taxed less. Separately, Congress' Joint Committee on Taxation has estimated that if enacted, legislation reflecting Obama's proposal would collect $47 billion through 2022 - a small amount compared with the $7 trillion in federal budget deficits projected during that period.
The focus on tax reform has brought attention to the effective tax rate of Romney, a millionaire who is paying 15.4 percent in federal taxes for 2011 on income mostly derived from investments. The top nominal rate for taxpayers with high incomes derived from wages, not including investments, is 35 percent.
In advance of Obama's speech, political adviser David Axelrod charged that Romney is "just in a time warp," saying the former Massachusetts governor "seems to look at the world through the rear-view mirror." He said Romney subscribes to a Cold War-era belief that Russia is America's greatest foe in the world and would return the country to outmoded economic policies that led to the near economic meltdown in the fall of 2008.
"I think he must watch Madmen and think it's the evening news," Axelrod said in an appearance on "CBS This Morning." He said that Romney "wants to go back to the same policies that got us into this disaster."
Obama was speaking at a luncheon of 900 editors and publishers following The Associated Press' annual meeting. William Dean Singleton, outgoing chairman of the AP Board of Directors and chairman of MediaNews Group Inc., will pose questions to Obama following the president's remarks.
-- The Associated Press
GREEN BAY, Wis. -- Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney was questioned about his Mormon faith while campaigning for Tuesday's Wisconsin primary.
A Ron Paul supporter, 28-year-old Bret Hatch, asked Romney whether he agreed with a passage from the Book of Mormon that describes a cursing of people with a "skin of blackness." Romney's staff took away the microphone before the Green Bay man could read the passage.
"I'm sorry, we're just not going to have a discussion about religion in my view, but if you have a question I'll be happy to answer your question," Romney said Monday.
Hatch then asked whether Romney thought it was a sin for interracial couples to have children.
"No. Next question," Romney responded curtly.
Hatch was citing verses from Mormon scriptures which he argued called it sinful for blacks and whites to have children.
Such allegations are often made by critics who accuse The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints of racism and consider Mormon teachings heretical. The church barred men of African descent from the Latter-day Saint priesthood until 1978. Some Mormons may have heard verses from scripture cited in their communities as an explanation of why blacks were not allowed to become priests.
However, church leaders have said the origins of the prohibition are unknown. The church recently issued a statement from its offices in Utah denouncing racism and warning against what it called speculation about how the ban came to be.
"For a time in the church there was a restriction on the priesthood for male members of African descent," the church said. "It is not known precisely why, how, or when this restriction began in the church but what is clear is that it ended decades ago."
Romney often talks about the decade he spent as a volunteer Mormon pastor in the Boston area before becoming governor of Massachusetts.
Not long after Hatch's question, Romney reflected upon that experience.
"This gentleman wanted to talk about the doctrines of my religion. I'll talk about the practices of my faith," Romney said, noting that his service as a pastor helped him connect with people on "a very personal basis."
"Most Americans, by the way, are carrying a burden of some kind. We don't see it. We see someone on the street, they smile and say hello, but behind them they're carrying kind of a bag of rocks," Romney said. "I want to help people. I want to lighten that burden."
-- The Associated Press
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