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As seen on dailycaller.com
Talk radio host Martha Zoller will mount a campaign for a newly created congressional seat in Georgia, she told The Daily Caller in an interview.
“We need people that are not professional politicians,” said Zoller, who hosts a daily syndicated show across Georgia.
Zoller — who has appeared as a pundit on Fox News, CNN and MSNBC — will run for a new congressional district seat recently drawn by the Georgia state legislature.
She lives in Gainesville, located within the district, and is a proud conservative.
“We made a lot of progress in the last election with the 87 new Republicans, but we need reinforcement for those guys,” Zoller told TheDC, “and we need to have more of a conservative base in Congress.”
As for the issues she’ll emphasize in her campaign, Zoller mentioned jobs, the economy and how illegal immigration affects the economy and hurts people getting jobs.
Zoller is close to GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain, another Georgian who left the world of talk radio to run for office. In fact, she’s responsible for getting Cain on the air as a radio host for the first time.
“When Herman lost the primary in 2004, for the United States Senate,” Zoller recalled, “I called him up within a couple of days, and said ‘I’m going to take a few days off. How would you like to fill in for me?’ So he filled in for me a few times.”
After that, Cain had his own show, Zoller said.
Zoller said she considers Cain a friend, but she’s not allowed to endorse candidates under her radio contract. She said Cain sends her flowers every time he makes “a better step or made a step in radio.” He gave up his show to run for president.
As for Zoller, she said she doesn’t plan to give up her radio show immediately.
“The company attorneys have taken a look at FEC laws and their interpretation is that you are not a candidate until you qualify and in Georgia you don’t qualify until May of next year,” she said.
“I fully expect my opponents — and I suspect there will be a few of them — to try to get me off the air,” Zoller said. “Now we may have to change. Not the direction of the show, but I may not talk so directly about the district or that kind of thing.”
She said she’ll see how it plays out.
“Obviously, I’m going to follow the law, whatever the law requires me to do.”
as seen on: CNN.com
As conservative women step into the political area more and more, the debate heats up. Click here to hear three conservative women discuss a recent article featured in Elle Magazine.
To read the original article, click here .
Newsweek/Reuters File
NOW Defends Bachmann Against Newsweek
One of presidential candidate Michele Bachmann’s major political opponents is defending her against what it says is blatant sexism on the part of Newsweek magazine.
Monday, the National Organization for Women (NOW) spoke out against Newsweek’s most recent cover, which features an extreme close-up of Michele Bachmann and the title “The Queen of Rage.”
“It’s sexist,” NOW president Terry O’Neill told TheDC. “Casting her in that expression and then adding ‘The Queen of Rage’ I think [it is]. Gloria Steinem has a very simple test: If this were done to a man or would it ever be done to a man – has it ever been done to a man? Surely this has never been done to a man.”
While some have pointed out that Newsweek has used unflattering photos of men such as Rush Limbaugh and John McCain on its cover, O’Neill says that is not the issue.
“Who has ever called a man ‘The King of Rage?’ Basically what Newsweek magazine – and this is important, what Newsweek magazine, not a blog, Newsweek magazine – what they are saying of a woman who is a serious contender for President of the United States of America…They are basically casting her as a nut job,” O’Neill said. “The ‘Queen of Rage’ is something you apply to wrestlers or somebody who is crazy. They didn’t even do this to Howard Dean when he had his famous scream.” Read more at dailycaller.com.
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Tina Brown Says Her Newsweek Cover Conveys Michele Bachmann’s ‘Intensity’
Newsweek has been catching a lot of flak today for its latest cover, in which Michele Bachmann is shown with an expression you might see on the face of a serial killer who has just spotted a new victim. Newsweek editor Tina Brown disagreed in a tweet today, contending that “Bachmann’s intensity is galvanizing voters in Iowa right now and Newsweek’s cover captures that.” Read more at nymag.com.
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Backlash Over Bachmann Newsweek Cover
Newsweek’s latest issue features a Michele Bachmann cover that’s sure to stir up controversy.
The cover shows Bachmann standing against a stark blue background, looking directly into the camera with a wide-eyed expression. The headline advertising the magazine’s story reads, “THE QUEEN OF RAGE.”
“Rage” is a word that doesn’t appear in Newsweek’s actual profile of Bachmann, though author Lois Romano does criticize what she calls the “radical” nature of the Tea Party that Bachmann champions.
Conservative websites are already crying foul over the cover, with some saying it makes Bachmann look “crazy” and one blogger asking, “Can anyone really say with a straight face that the mainstream media is not totally biased against conservatives?” Read more at huffingtonpost.com.
Read more: http://nation.foxnews.com/michele-bachmann/2011/08/08/backlash-over-bachmann-newsweek-cover#ixzz1UYGG3pP5
By Chris Cillizza
Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann has come under attack of late for migraines (she gets them) and makeup (she spends campaign money on it).
While the stories are clearly aimed at slowing Bachmann’s momentum, it seems equally likely that they will boomerang on her attackers and actually strengthen her current position in the 2012 presidential race.
“That she remains poised in the face of such petty attacks and/or jujitsu’s them into opportunities all while staying on message in a happy warrior posture…speaks volumes to her character and is refreshing in an arena awash in negativity and incivility, whether or not one is with her on policy,” said Republican strategist Mary Matalin.
The attacks leveled against Bachmann to date have two potential positive effects for her candidacy.
First, they make her a more empathetic figure in the eyes of Republican primary voters.
Remember that Bachmann is not a terribly well known commodity nationally yet and the image of a woman struggling with migraines — a condition that afflicts more than 30 million people in the U.S. (including three times as many women as men) — is a decidedly sympathetic one.
That could, of course, change if there is more to the migraine story than we currently know. But, at the moment the facts are that Bachmann gets migraines and she is able to deal with them thanks to prescription medication. That’s a good thing, not a bad one for Bachmann’s presidential hopes.
Second, with the makeup story in particular, Bachmann is able to use it to remind voters that she is the only woman in the race and deride the attacks as, if not downright sexist, the sort of thing that female politicians have to deal with that men simply don’t.
While Mother Jones, the liberal publication that unearthed Bachmann’s spending on a makeup artist, compared it to John Edwards’ $400 haircut during the 2008 campaign , the Atlantic’s Elspeth Reeve had the right of it when she wrote:
“It seems like this is closer to her own Sarah-Palin’s-$150,000-wardrobe moment where a female candidate is deemed unserious because she tries to meet to the demands of high-definition television cameras — in this case, by not letting her pores show.”
The more that Bachmann is perceived as the sympathetic victim of a vicious media and a gender double standard — especially in the eyes of female Republican voters — the more she is strengthened in the fight for the nomination.
Why? In a race where most of the candidates have the same positions on nearly every issue, the winner will likely be the person that voters either most identify with or most admire.
We have written before that Bachmann, at least on paper, has a compelling personal story to tell and attacks on her migraines and makeup only make that narrative more endearing to many GOP primary voters.
Attacking Bachmann on more personal matters like migraines and makeup also distract from a deeper examination of her record in Congress and past controversial public statements that could well raise serious doubts in the minds of voters about her readiness to be president.
(Former Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty, for his part, has started to attack Bachmann on the substance of her record; “These are really serious times, and there hasn’t been somebody who went from the U.S. House of Representatives to the presidency, I think, in over a hundred years, and there’s a reason for that,” Pawlenty said in an interview on CNN. Of course, Pawlenty also waded into the migraine debate.)
It amounts to the mistake many Republican strategists felt that businessman Donald Trump made in his on-again, off-again presidential bid — focusing on a non-issue (Obama’s citizenship) that served as a distraction for him and the other candidates in the race who wanted to keep the focus on the President’s economic record.
Ultimately, talk of Bachmann’s makeup and her migraines amount to a sideshow (unless, as we mentioned above, more comes of her headaches) that will almost certainly help rather than hamstring her chances at the GOP presidential nomination.
Leave it to women to make the debt-ceiling debate funny.
A parody ad from the group Concerned Women for America begins airing today and advertises “Spenditol,” the new miracle drug — made in Washington” and the “answer to all the painful problems Americans face.”
In a pitch-perfect spoof of the standard drug ads seen on TV, “Spenditol” features an attractive, suburban soccer mom suffering from the “chronic pain” of gas prices, potential unemployment and paying the bills. Then she cheerfully announces:
Spenditol is Washington’s answer to all the painful problems Americans face. How to borrow $800 billion dollars for a stimulus that didn’t create jobs or fix the economy? Spenditol.
The minute-long ad is set to run in Florida, Ohio, Nebraska and Montana, and nationally on the Fox News Channel and CNN, according to CWA, which spent $1.4 million on the campaign.
The conservative advocacy group covers a wide range of issues for a female audience; CMA CEO Penny Nance said creating the ad was another chance to do just that.
“This ad is targeted specifically to women because we know that women tend to hold the purse strings of the family,” Nance told The Daily Caller. “We know women are making very difficult choices everyday as they sit at the kitchen table with a pile of bills deciding what gets paid and … there’s a frustration out there as to why can our nation’s leaders not make the same tough choices.”
Sometimes the best way to reach women — and the public at-large — about very serious issues, is with a sense of humor, said Nance.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBoYYc1APr8
We asked several members of the Republican Platform Committee to help us select the “45 Most Admired GOP Women Under 45″. We want to focus on intelligent and successful women who are role models for the next generation.
They were asked to go beyond party registration and to nominate women who have a strong commitment to the principles and goals of the GOP. Some of their choices were surprising and would not have been on our list. Nevertheless, we have included all of them, but we are still open to additional nominees.
The winner will receive a significant contribution to the charity or political campaign of their choice. The GOP gender gap is especially significant among younger women, and we want to highlight women who are not established GOP stars.
Younger Republican women are rarely noticed.
If this group was not limited by age, the top 45 Most Admired Republican Women would probably include Nancy Reagan, Barbara Bush and Laura Bush.
Governors Jan Brewer, Susana Martinez, Sarah Palin, Christine Todd Whitman, Linda Lingle and Jodi Rell.
Senators Kay Bailey Hutchison, Elizabeth Dole, Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins.
Representatives Michele Bachmann, Marsha Blackburn, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Mary Bono, Sue Myrick, Barbara Cubin, Lynn Jenkins, Cathy McMorris Rodgers, Shelley Moore Capito, Kay Granger, Jo Ann Emerson, Jean Schmidt, Virginia Foxx, Judy Biggert, Ginny Brown-Waite, Candice Miller, Marilyn Musgrave, Thelma Drake, Heather Wilson, Deborah Pryce and Katherine Harris.
Cabinet members Condoleezza Rice, Margaret Spellings, Susan Schwab, Elaine Chao, Mary Peters and Carla Hills.
Commentators such as Peggy Noonan and Linda Chavez.
The list on this page is for the rising stars. President George W. Bush signed the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act on November 5, 2003. He was surrounded on the White House stage by a large group of lawmakers and party luminaries. What was missing? Not one woman was present. We have to change that picture.
Is this important? If the gender gap was eliminated, the GOP would be the permanent majority party.
EnlargeCarolyn Kaster/APPresident Obama meets with congressional leadership in the Cabinet Room of the White House on Sunday to discuss the debt.
I didn’t want to bite my nails all weekend waiting for the congressional leaders and the president to agree on a plan to raise the debt ceiling and reduce the federal debt.
So I did the next best thing — watched the Harry Potter marathon. And yes, I am getting ready for the big U.S. premiere this week. And no, I have not seen the new one yet. My hookups don’t run that deep. Trust me, if they did, I would have been there.
But while I was watching the previous films, I was thinking our political wizards could catch a clue from the Potter gang. They could listen to Hermione once in a while, which is to say, they could let some women in the room.
It’s a stereotype that women are more reasonable than men, more moderate than men, nicer than men. I know that’s not true.
Being here in D.C., I’ve met more than my share of narcissistic, blowhard female politicians, and I’ve met many men who listen well and don’t care who gets the credit, as long as the job gets done.
But I will say, first of all, it is amazing to me that during what could be one of the most important decision points in recent U.S. history, there are so few women with a seat at the table.
Sure, House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi was there on Sunday night. But is that really enough? Half the population gets to be represented by one voice?
Can I just tell you? Is it a coincidence that in this financial crisis, as in past ones, women were often the people sounding the alarm before anyone else was?
First there was Sherron Watkins, who tried to blow the whistle on the shady accounting practices at Enron long before regulators and the public caught on. More recently, there was former Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. head Sheila Bair, who raised questions about subprime mortgages when few others did. Or women like June O’Neill, the former director of the Congressional Budget Office.
These women had the right idea. What they lacked was the power and the allies to allow their point of view to prevail.
I would also ask, is it a coincidence that some of the countries with the most serious and intractable budget woes in Europe right now are countries where female participation in government is minimal or degraded? Like Greece, where just over 17 percent of the Parliament are women? Or Italy, where just over 20 percent are, and where the prime minister evidently thinks the most important roles for women in his country involve taking their shirts off in public and cavorting with him in private at parties where the favors are alleged to involve something other than goodie bags?
In the U.S., women are just 17 percent of the members of Congress, holding 89 out of 535 seats.
Although many of the headline-grabbing potential candidates for president have been women in recent years — Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on the Democratic side three years ago and Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann on the Republican side now — Clinton has made it clear she is done with campaigning. And it remains to be seen whether Palin or Bachmann will ever have an impact on governance equal to her impact as a media figure.
This raises the question, just what do women bring to the table when it comes to difficult negotiations? It is tough to say, and many people have tried. Is it that women are socialized to listen more and talk less? Is it that they are more willing to sublimate their own egos for the sake of the greater good?
I don’t know.
I do know that something is wrong when our economic future is at stake, and the only people who get to sit at the table to talk about it are the very people who messed things up to this point.
07/19/11
Ellmers Host Press Conference with Speaker Boehner, Leader Cantor, and House GOP
Leadership to Call on President Obama to Stop Fighting and Come Up with a Plan
WASHINGTON – Congresswoman Renee Ellmers released the following statement from her office in Washington this afternoon:
“Today I joined House Republican leaders to call on President Obama and Senate Democrats to get serious about dealing with our national debt. Since President Obama took office on January 20, 2009, the national debt has increased by $3.7 trillion. Today we are two weeks away from the August 2nd deadline to raise the national debt and pay for expenses we have already incurred. But instead of doing anything to stop this runaway spending spree and come up with a plan, the President has punted and refused to lead.”
“The Cut, Cap and Balance Act, which the House will vote on today, is a constitutional, permanent solution to put an end to the spending-driven debt crisis and save our children and grandchildren from a bankrupt future. We must get our financial house in order and this bill will require Washington to balance its budget, just as families across the country do each and every day.”
This morning, Congresswoman Ellmers joined Speaker Boehner, Leader Cantor, Majority Whip McCarthy, Conference Chairman Hensarling, Conference Vice Chair McMorris Rodgers, Congressman Jim Jordan and Congressman Jason Chaffetz to speak to reporters on the debt negotiations and the Cut, Cap and Balance Act.
As seen on NPR.org
If Women Ruled The World, Would Debt Be Less?
by Michel Martin
I didn’t want to bite my nails all weekend waiting for the congressional leaders and the president to agree on a plan to raise the debt ceiling and reduce the federal debt.
So I did the next best thing — watched the Harry Potter marathon. And yes, I am getting ready for the big U.S. premiere this week. And no, I have not seen the new one yet. My hookups don’t run that deep. Trust me, if they did, I would have been there.
But while I was watching the previous films, I was thinking our political wizards could catch a clue from the Potter gang. They could listen to Hermione once in a while, which is to say, they could let some women in the room.
It’s a stereotype that women are more reasonable than men, more moderate than men, nicer than men. I know that’s not true.
Being here in D.C., I’ve met more than my share of narcissistic, blowhard female politicians, and I’ve met many men who listen well and don’t care who gets the credit, as long as the job gets done.
But I will say, first of all, it is amazing to me that during what could be one of the most important decision points in recent U.S. history, there are so few women with a seat at the table.
Sure, House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi was there on Sunday night. But is that really enough? Half the population gets to be represented by one voice?
Can I just tell you? Is it a coincidence that in this financial crisis, as in past ones, women were often the people sounding the alarm before anyone else was?
First there was Sherron Watkins, who tried to blow the whistle on the shady accounting practices at Enron long before regulators and the public caught on. More recently, there was former Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. head Sheila Bair, who raised questions about subprime mortgages when few others did. Or women like June O’Neill, the former director of the Congressional Budget Office.
These women had the right idea. What they lacked was the power and the allies to allow their point of view to prevail.
I would also ask, is it a coincidence that some of the countries with the most serious and intractable budget woes in Europe right now are countries where female participation in government is minimal or degraded? Like Greece, where just over 17 percent of the Parliament are women? Or Italy, where just over 20 percent are, and where the prime minister evidently thinks the most important roles for women in his country involve taking their shirts off in public and cavorting with him in private at parties where the favors are alleged to involve something other than goodie bags?
In the U.S., women are just 17 percent of the members of Congress, holding 89 out of 535 seats.
Although many of the headline-grabbing potential candidates for president have been women in recent years — Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on the Democratic side three years ago and Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann on the Republican side now — Clinton has made it clear she is done with campaigning. And it remains to be seen whether Palin or Bachmann will ever have an impact on governance equal to her impact as a media figure.
This raises the question, just what do women bring to the table when it comes to difficult negotiations? It is tough to say, and many people have tried. Is it that women are socialized to listen more and talk less? Is it that they are more willing to sublimate their own egos for the sake of the greater good?
I don’t know.
I do know that something is wrong when our economic future is at stake, and the only people who get to sit at the table to talk about it are the very people who messed things up to this point.
By Judson Berger
As the federal government turns a debt ceiling debate into an international credit crisis, perhaps Washington could learn a thing or two from the states.
Roughly two dozen of the 46 states that just ended their fiscal year are on track to record surpluses, a budget analyst with the National Association of State Budget Officers said. The rest of the states are expected to at least balance their books.
Despite the weak economic picture, the state capitals managed to mop up the red ink through a combination of revenue increases and spending cuts — because they have to.
Unlike the federal government, nearly every state has a statutory or constitutional requirement to enact a balanced budget. U.S. House Republicans this week are pushing a proposal on Capitol Hill to hold Washington to the same standard — the plan would require Congress to approve a balanced-budget amendment to the U.S. Constitution as a condition for raising the nation’s $14.3 trillion debt ceiling.
The proposal may be doomed. Democrats are vowing to defeat it in the Senate and the White House says President Obama would veto it should it happen to clear both chambers. That’s not to mention the challenges in getting the measure ratified by the states, which would be required.
But some governors say it’s really not too much to ask that lawmakers in Congress follow the same basic budgeting principles they do.
“If we are leading as governors in our states and we’re getting this done, they should be getting that done, too,” South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley told Fox News. “We started with a deficit. We ended up with a surplus. That is the way you have to function.”
South Carolina was just one state that was able to turn around its fiscal woes. In Indiana, Gov. Mitch Daniels announced last week that the government would be handing out bonuses worth up to $1,000 apiece to state employees after the state ended the year with an extra $1.2 billion. He praised state agencies for showing “discipline” over the years by cutting their budgets, reducing the size of the workforce and putting off pay raises for three years.
Brian Sigritz, director of state fiscal studies at the National Association of State Budget Officers, said some states were aided this past year by higher-than-expected tax revenue.
He said 13 states received revenue higher than anticipated, while 31 were right on target. He said 23 states also made mid-year budget cuts to help balance the books.
In turn, he said, “a number of states will be seeing at least slight surpluses.”
Sigritz estimated, based on prior preliminary projections, that about two-dozen states would see a surplus, though final numbers have not yet been reported.
States were also aided over the last two years by federal stimulus dollars. A National Association of State Budget Officers report noted that the wind-down of those funds will leave states in “tight fiscal conditions” going forward.
But National Conference of State Legislatures reports that every state but Vermont is required to balance their budgets.
There is, however, some wiggle room. A handful of states are allowed to carry over their budget deficit despite balanced-budget requirements. Plus those requirements generally pertain to operating budgets — meaning states can borrow to finance items like infrastructure projects.
“The problem certainly still exists,” said Michael Bird, federal affairs counsel with the National Conference of State Legislatures. He suggested that the kind of measure being proposed on Capitol Hill might be more far-reaching than what most states have in place.
Democratic officials, though, have described the House GOP effort as irresponsible, effectively exploiting the U.S. Constitution to get their budget proposal enacted.
Referring to the proposal’s “cut, cap and balance” nickname, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney described it as “duck, dodge and dismantle.”
“Duck responsibility, dodge obligations, and dismantle … our social safety nets,” he said.
Carney said the provisions outlined in the GOP plan would be so strict as to require deep cuts to entitlement programs. He said Washington would be far better off striking a “compromise” instead of “satisfying some narrow slice of the political spectrum.”
It’s still unclear what such a compromise might look like. Carney predicted the House GOP proposal would tank, but conservatives also are coming out against a separate fallback proposal being crafted in the Senate.
Carney said Monday that congressional leaders are still working on the path forward, in hopes of raising the debt ceiling before the Aug. 2 deadline the administration has set.
“That is a fluid process, and to predict what might get votes and from where is hard to do when we don’t even know exactly what the measure will be,” Carney said.
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/07/18/many-states-end-year-in-surplus-as-washington-debates-new-borrowing-limit/#ixzz1SV3kr0RO
