George W. Bush is coming back to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
He and wife, Laura, will be honored by President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama at a ceremony marking the hanging of their official portraits on May 31, a senior administration official tells POLITICO.
It will be No. 43′s first public visit to the White House in more than two years, although his father and brother visited earlier this year and met privately with Obama.
Bush has generally shunned the spotlight since leaving office, but earlier this week endorsedMitt Romney in this year’s presidential race.
It could be an interesting meeting considering that endorsement and Obama’s consistent mantra that Bush is to blame for the economy, among other things, and that a vote for Romney is a vote for a return to failed Bush policies. (Politico/Slack)
President Barack Obama is using the recent trading failures at JP Morgan Chase to push for quick implementation of strict regulations under the Wall Street reform act.
In his weekly address to the nation broadcast Saturday, he took aim at GOP members of Congress, whom he said are hindering the process.
“For the past two years, too many Republicans in Congress and an army of financial industry lobbyists have actually been waging an all-out battle to delay, defund, and dismantle Wall Street reform,” Obama said. (Politico/Slack)
Democratic consultant Christian Ulvert shared with us part of a poll of likely Lee County voters conducted this week by Tom Eldon for an unnamed Ulvert client. The results of the 300-sample poll look ominous for Republican U.S. Senate frontrunner Connie Mack IV.
Mack’s favorability ratings are upside down, with 41 percent having a favorable view of Mack and 44 percent an unfavorable View. And Bill Nelson? Forty-two percent had a favorable view of the Democratic incumbent and 31 percent an unfavorable view.
U.S. Rep. Mack, R-Fort Myers, is beating Nelson by just four percentage points in his home county, a Republican stronghold. By contrast, Mitt Romney is beating Barack Obama in Lee County by 12 percentage points. Four years ago, Obama lost Lee County by 10 points. (TBT/Smith)
Her name is Elizabeth Keadle — better known as Liz — a well-heeled Democratic donor from Southern California in her 50s with a background in science and a devotion to environmental causes.
The relationship is solid enough that she accompanied Gore, 64, and an eclectic group of experts and VIPs (Richard Branson, singer Jason Mraz, actor Tommy Lee Jones) on a trip to Antarctica in January to raise awareness of climate change.
Gore’s office declined to comment on the relationship, as did Keadle. (Politico/McDevitt)
With Dade Behring, Mitt Romney and his investors took over a healthy company and loaded it with debt. Rather than sell the company, they then had Dade take out even more loans to buy out their shares, driving the company into bankruptcy. Nearly 3,000 workers lost their jobs, while Romney and his partners made more than $250 million in profit.
JOBS LOSTAt least 2,937
DEBT AT TIME OF BANKRUPTCY$1.5 billion
BAIN PROFITS> $250 million
** It was just a great place to work, with great people. Everybody really enjoyed it there—and then Bain Capital came in.—Charlie DeAngelis, mechanical engineer who lost his job after eight years with Dade Behring.BOSTON GLOBE, 11/19/09
** They were just trying to milk as much out of us as they could.—William T. Mowrey, former Dade employee whose salary and pension were cut.** My experience at Dade during those Bain Capital years was that it was strictly an investment, not to create jobs. … No one came from Bain and said, ‘How can we hire more people?’ It was, ‘How do we turn our investment around and make a lot of money?’—Michael Rumbin, vice president of technology management at Dade during Romney’s tenureLOS ANGELES TIMES, 12/4/11 -1999- -Dade takes on $420 million in new debt to pay Romney and the other owners. Romney and his investors take home $242 million from the payout, a 700% return on their initial investment. Mitt Romney and his partners made more than $250 million from the Dade Behring deal.They played by their own set of rules, and profited from the same debt that drove Dade into bankruptcy.
This is the experience that Mitt Romney now cites as his qualification to be president, and the economic philosophy he would bring to the entire country.
With so many top national Republicans having homes in Florida, why not Mitt Romney, too? Yesterday, in Jacksonville he suggested he and his wife considered a home there. From the LA Times:
During the course of the presidential campaign, Mitt Romney has proudly claimed his roots as native Michigander, a Bostonian (who is unfailingly loyal to the Red Sox), a summer resident of New Hampshire and, of course, a part-time Californian when he escapes to his beachfront home in La Jolla.
But he surprised some members of his audience Thursday at a brewery in Jacksonville when he mentioned that they had considered putting a new coastal destination on that list: the mighty swing state of Florida. “You know my wife – I wish she were here today. … She has said someday, who knows, we might move to Florida. You never know. Someday, way down the road.” … Read more. (TBT/Leary)
“Sex and the City” star Sarah Jessica Parker is hosting President Obama, first lady Michelle Obama and a few lucky raffle winners at a fundraiser in New York next month.
Parker will be hosting the event at her home on Friday, June 14, according to a campaign email signed by Parker.
“As a woman, a mother, and an entrepreneur, I need to believe our country can be a place where everyone has a fair shot at success,” Parker wrote in the email. “This November’s election will determine whether we get to keep moving forward, or if we’re forced to go back to policies that ask people like my middle-class family in Ohio to carry the burden — while people like me, who don’t need tax breaks, get extra help.”
For a contribution of any amount — although the ask is $3 – supporters are entered for a chance to be there. According to the fine print, winners also get tickets to a performance byMariah Carey, although it’s unclear if Carey will be entertaining at Parker’s house.
The Obama campaign broke fundraising records with a similar raffle for dinner with the president at George Clooney’s house earlier this month, raising more than $6 million from the raffle. With entrance fees for guests, the total haul was more than $15 million.
Parker has been a longtime Obama supporter, phone-banking for him in 2008.
“I hope you’ll help me welcome President Obama and the First Lady to New York,” she wrote in the email. “It should be fabulous.” (Politico/Slack)
Florida’s jobs market in April left economic soothsayers with a mixed message.
The unemployment rate fell to 8.7 percent, the lowest since January 2009, but a separate statewide survey showed Florida lost 2,700 jobs month over month.
The unemployment rate, down from 9 percent in March, represents 804,000 jobless Floridians out of a labor force of 9.26 million, the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity reported Friday.
The improvement narrows the gap with the U.S. unemployment rate, which stood at 8.1 percent in April.
A new poll from Fox News has President Obama leading Mitt Romney by 7 percentage points.
The poll – which put Obama ahead 46 percent to 39 — paints a rosier picture for Obama than several others this week, including surveys from Rasmussen and the Washington Times that showed Romney leading by a single percentage point and one from Gallup that had the candidates in a dead heat.
The Real Clear Politics polling average has Obama ahead by 2.5 points.
The Fox News Poll — jointly overseen by one Democratic- and one Republican-leaning firm — surveyed 913 registered voters earlier this week. The poll had a 3 percentage point margin of error.
Respondents in the poll said they would prefer Romney as their investment advisor by a 47-to-34 margin. But when asked which candidate they would hire as a life coach, respondents backed Obama 47 percent to 33. (Politico/Reis)
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** They were just trying to milk as much out of us as they could.—
