DES MOINES -- The GOP presidential debate Thursday night did little to change former Alaska governor Sarah Palin's view there is still room in the Republican field for "a common sense conservative" to enter the race, Palin said here Friday.
"There is still plenty of room in that field for common sense conservatives who have executive experience," she said. "Watching the debate not just last night but watching this whole process over the last year it certainly shows me that yeah, there is plenty of room for more people."
While saying nothing about her presidential ambitions, Palin said she was glad that Texas Gov. Rick Perry was entering the race and said he "adds another choice for Americans to consider heading into 2012."
"I appreciate that he's willing to jump into this arena and be part of this," she said.
Perry is expected to announce he will run for president on Saturday in South Carolina. He will travel to Iowa on Sunday.
Palin also addressed the recent treatment of Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., in the press and in the debate last night.
Asked about the Newsweek cover that showed a wild-eyed Bachmann staring into space with the headline "Queen of Rage," Palin said she was also featured wearing running shorts in a cover on the magazine.
"I think the headline is really worse than the picture," she said.
Palin was also asked what she thought of the question Bachmann was asked during the debate about whether she would "submit" to her husband if she was elected president.
"Anything in a debate is fair game. I've been asked the goofiest questions and the strangest questions too in my years in public office," Palin said. "She articulated what she feels in her heart and to her submission means respect, she explained it.
Palin supporters, especially hard-right social Conservatives, are worried that Perry may take potential votes away from Palin, who ran unsuccessfully for Vice President in 2008.
Dianne Bystrom, director of the Center for Women and Politics at Iowa State University, told reporters: “I don’t see where there’s a lot of room for [Palin] to run,” adding that she is attractive to the same voters who would likely support Michele Bachmann, Perry and Tim Pawlenty.
“I think Rick Perry, as the governor of a large state, could discourage her from getting in,” Bystrom said.
Palin had already taken some subtle digs at Perry, suggesting she was a more effective governor than him.
“You have different functions in the state of Texas and the state of Alaska in terms of governing powers from the governor’s office,” she said,
“So it’s tough to compare what the executive duties are. We have a very strong governor’s office… but, he’s a great guy and I look forward to seeing him in those debates.
Democratic National Committee turned Mitt Romney’s words against himself in Des Moines Saturday, with an ad targeting the former Massachusetts governor’s stance on deficit reduction.
Pouncing on the 2012 presidential candidate’s comment that “corporations are people,” the DNC ad groups Romney with the tea party movement when it comes to methods of battling the deficit.
“Mitt Romney stands with the tea party,” an announcer states. “Up to 35 percent cut from social security, but not one more dime from corporations.”
The 30-second spot opens to Romney’s comments at the Iowa State Fair soap box, where hecklers, one of whom was a Democrat, chastised the candidate for defending corporations.
Mentioning that one method of generating revenue by raising taxes on people was “not the way,” Romney is interrupted with a public shout of “Corporations!”
“Corporations are people, my friend,” he retorts. “Of course they are. Everything corporations earn ultimately goes to people.
Romney told a heckler that "corporations are people, my friend," during a heated exchange Thursday at the Des Moines Register soapbox. Less than two days later, the DNC used footage of those words in an ad running on broadcast and cable stations in Des Moines.
Democrats are attempting not to be left out of the political conversation during the Ames straw poll this weekend. Republicans estimate at least 15,000 state GOP activists will descend on the Iowa State University campus Saturday to vote for one of the nine candidates on the ballot.
Romney said he's not making a serious effort to compete in the straw poll this year. But Democrats believe otherwise and have focused on criticizing the presumed national frontrunner more than any other GOP contender.
One of President Barack Obama's former top aides, Bill Burton, contacted reporters Saturday morning with an email attacking "Romney's artificially low expectations in Ames." Burton, speaking on behalf of Priorities USA Action, an independent expenditure committee, noted that Romney won the same poll by a 14-point margin in 2007.
"Romney has enlisted a string of high-profile Iowa endorsers, leads public polling in Iowa and is sitting on $13 million in campaign cash, not counting his vast personal fortune," Burton wrote. "The Romney spin that they aren't competing or even concerned about the results in Iowa doesn't stand up to the facts.
ATLANTA - A federal appeals panel's ruling striking down the centerpiece of President Barack Obama's health care overhaul moves the question of whether Americans can be required to buy health insurance a step closer to the U.S. Supreme Court.
In the Atlanta ruling, Chief Judge Joel Dubina and Circuit Judge Frank Hull found in a 207-page opinion that lawmakers cannot require people to "enter into contracts with private insurance companies for the purchase of an expensive product from the time they are born until the time they die."
In a lengthy dissent, Circuit Judge Stanley Marcus accused the majority of ignoring the "undeniable fact that Congress' commerce power has grown exponentially over the past two centuries." He wrote that Congress generally has the constitutional authority to create rules regulating large areas of the national economy.
Dubina was tapped by former President George H.W. Bush, a Republican, while Hull and Marcus were picks of former Democratic President Bill Clinton.
The White House argued the legislative branch was using a "quintessential" power - its constitutional ability to regulate interstate commerce, including the health care industry - when it passed the overhaul law.
Stock trading on Wall Street, the Appeals Court for the 11th Circuit Court announced that the individual mandate in Obamacare is unconstitutional. Obamacare’s individual mandate required individuals to purchase health care insurance or face a penalty. Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), an official candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, cheered the news on Obamacare.
On Friday, the stock market ended a wild week of trading with gains. The Dow Jones Industrial Average finished up 125 points or 1.1 percent and the NASDAQ closed up 15 points or .61 percent. The S&P also finished the week up, gaining 6 points or .53 percent. The stock market experienced extreme highs and lows throughout the week.
On Monday, the stock market responded to Standard & Poor’s decision to downgrade the US’s credit rating from AAA to AA+. The DJIA lost 635 points on Monday and the S&P and NASDAQ didn’t fare well either. According to The New York Times, the stock market sunk to levels not seen since the worst of the recession.
According to The Daily Nonpareil, Bachmann connected Monday’s stock market plunge to the debt ceiling increase during a campaign stop in Council Bluffs, Iowa. “The markets said, ‘We don’t think it’s a good idea,’” Bachmann said. The Minnesota Congresswoman also added that “you can’t fool the markets.”
Standard & Poor’s singled out the debt ceiling talks as one of the primary reasons that the company decided to lower the US’s triple A credit rating. “More than two years after the beginning of the recent crisis, US policymakers have still not agreed on how to reverse recent fiscal deterioration or address longer-term fiscal pressures,” S&P’s credit analyst Nikola Swann said.
On Friday, Bachmann named Obamacare as another factor that contributed to Standard & Poor’s decision to downgrade the US’s credit rating. “Removing the individual mandate from Obamacare deprives it of the revenue necessary to pay for the bill. Implementing the remaining provisions without the mandate would dramatically increase our budget deficit and do further harm to our economy and further imperil The United States credit rating,” Bachmann said.
At the conclusion of her statement on Obamacare and the Appeals Court ruling, Bachmann slammed President Obama for pushing Obamacare. “It is time for the President to admit now what the courts have affirmed, that the law is unconstitutional, and withdraw it so we can put our country back on the path to economic prosperity,” Bachmann argued.
As the stock market’s volatility underscored the need for a solution to the country’s debt crisis, Congressional leaders scrambled throughout the week to put together a debt committee. The debt committee is part of the debt ceiling plan and has the responsibility of identifying ways to cut an additional $1.5 trillion from the federal budget.
