Presidential Campaign

That corporations have a free speech right to spend millions on political TV advertising because of the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision is common knowledge. 

Less discussed is how the decision elevated corporations’ political rights over their employees’. Numerous corporations have evidently concluded that it is now perfectly legal to impose management’s political views on the workforce, stamping on the rights of working voters to engage in free and frank political discussion without fear of retribution.

I read with much consternation David Brooks and the DesMoines Register's endorsements of Romney days ago. Their endorsements boil down to a simple, profoundly misguided point: vote for Romney because he would secure a debt deal with Congress.

While it is clear that President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney disagree on the defense budget, there is an opportunity for whomever is elected to overcome partisan issues and do something for the health and well-being of military women: provide them the same access to healthcare their civilian counterparts have by allowing access to abortion care in cases of rape or incest.

In America, we take care of each other, we support one another, and we look out for our neighbors. When times get tough, we lend a helping hand, we lift up those around us, and we stand by those in need. In America, the dreamers, the disabled and the disadvantaged are not left to defend themselves, alone in their struggles. We have their back. But this is not Mitt Romney's plan for America's future, far from it. In Romney's America, you are alone, in a world of privatized profiteers, to fend for yourself. No lift, no support, and no helping hand.

Between the broadcast ads, stump speeches, and debates, American voters have been inundated with the differences between policies that President Obama and Gov. Mitt Romney would each prescribe for the nation if elected president. If there is one point that both candidates actually agree on, it’s that the 2012 election is a choice of two starkly different visions for our future. Once final ballots are cast and returns counted, elected leaders, too, will have a choice. They can either focus on the deficit as the number one problem to solve, or get to work on issues voters really care about: rebuilding a vibrant middle class, building on our nation’s job creation, and ensuring our policies reflect the core American value that we are all in this together.

This election, more than ever before, is comprised of many voices: Many communities, many ethnicities, and many languages, all coming together to form a more-perfect union. As a democracy, America’s electoral system depends on myriad voices being heard; it must be a priority to connect with those different voices in as many ways as possible.

In the 113th Congress, California’s newly-redistricted 17th Congressional District will be the first majority-minority district in the continental United States, with 51.55 percent of the total population made up of Asian-Americans, Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders, and  17.46 percent made up of Latinos.

Ezra Klein is right. In a recent Washington Post column, the left-leaning policy wonk laid plain that the future of ObamaCare is at stake in next week’s elections. If President Obama wins and Democrats hold the Senate, the Affordable Care Act will survive. If Mitt Romney wins and Republicans take the Senate, the law is dead. It is the starkest of differences.
 
How likely is each scenario? At this moment Democrats have the advantage. According to Real Clear Politics, the president is running slightly ahead in six out of ten battleground states. He could actually lose seven of these, but still be reelected if he hangs onto Ohio, Wisconsin, and Iowa.

On Tuesday, November 6, the exit polls will finally explain what voters in the 2012 presidential election were actually thinking, their underlying motivations and intentions stripped bare for all to see. After all, pollsters simply ask people who just voted how they voted; the voters answer the question and you now have a precise record of their vote. Right?

In a recent speech about poverty at Cleveland State University, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) struck a moderate tone while doubling down on policies that will take us back to an era when our most vulnerable neighbors were on their own.

Mitt Romney’s proposal to boost defense spending until it reaches “a floor of four percent of GDP [gross domestic product],” as he proclaims at his official website, is an insult to history.