Communications

WASHINGTON – Republican National Committee (RNC) Chairman Michael Steele released the following statement today:

“In the three months since Joe Sestak first made his allegation the White House has denied, stonewalled and is now trying to downplay the claims with an unsubstantiated memo. This memo frankly raises more questions: What was Bill Clinton authorized to offer?  Did President Obama sign off on this conversation before it took place?  Now more than ever it is clear that this White House is not capable of policing itself and needs to open itself to an independent investigation.  But perhaps most disturbing is that this is an administration that claims to be the most transparent, accountable and ethical White House in history.  The only thing we know for certain now is that they have failed on all three counts.” – RNC Chairman Michael Steele

Read more about this story: #AskGibbs

By: Michael Short

On Tuesday, the Republican National Committee and Chairman Michael Steele launched an aggressive Twitter campaign called #AskGibbs. It has been highly successful from the outset in raising awareness about the issue of whether or not Congressman Joe Sestak (D-PA) was offered a job by the Obama White House and putting pressure on the Administration to meet their own standard for openness and transparency. According to Hot Air, “#AskGibbs was quite the hot hashtag this morning among conservative tweeters.” And rightly so. In just five hours yesterday, there were over 1,500 uses of the #AskGibbs hashtag alone. The campaign caught the eye of ABC News’ Jake Tapper who picked up on the story yesterday:

Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele is attempting to use social media to force the White House to do what the White House press corps has not been able to so far: explain just what Rep. Joe Sestak, D-Pa., was referring to what he claimed that White House ... more

“In a burst of rule-making, federal agencies have toughened or proposed new standards to protect Americans from tainted eggs, safeguard construction workers from crane accidents, prevent injuries from baby walkers and even protect polar bears from extinction.”

That was the lede from a New York Times look into the growth of red tape under President Obama.  These increases are not unique decisions occurring in a vacuum.  The expansion of the federal regulatory system into the lives of average Americans and small business owners are the product of a worldview that says “We are the federal government and we know better than you do.”

If you needed any further evidence of this prevailing attitude from President Obama and the unelected political appointees he has placed throughout the cavernous federal bureaucracy, look no further than this following headline, “EPA Contest Seeks Videos Promoting Government Regulations.” That’s right, the EPA is trying to enlist ... more

Missed Opportunity

By Doug Heye

Today, President Obama will sign the Daniel Pearl Freedom of the Press Act, which encourages a greater examination of the status of press freedoms in nations beyond the United States.  Certainly this is worthy legislation and an honorable tribute to a respected journalist who lost his life pursuing a passion that’s plays an important role in making ours a free and transparent society. But in signing this legislation before a limited press pool, the President is missing a tremendous opportunity to live up to the high standards he himself set regarding transparency and freedom of the press when entering office.  It has been nearly an entire year’s since the President’s last true press conference.  To wit, from today’s signing ceremony:

In the spirit of journalism freedoms, pooler Chip Reid attempted a question about BP, prefacing it with, “Speaking of press freedoms…” The president was not biting, though. “You are free to ask them,” he said, adding, ... more

Democrats and their allies on the Left and in the media are jumping on Chairman Steele’s statement on Solicitor General Elena Kagan this morning, in which he raised concerns about “her support [in a law review article] for statements suggesting that the Constitution ‘as originally drafted and conceived, was “defective.”’”  

The statements come from a speech by Justice Thurgood Marshall, in which he says:

The government they devised was defective from the start, requiring several amendments, a civil war, and momentous social transformation to attain the system of constitutional government, and its respect for the individual freedoms and human rights, we hold as fundamental today.

Yet while Marshall pointed to constitutional amendments as redressing the wrongs of slavery, Kagan moves beyond that, contending that, “The credit, in other words, belongs to people like Justice Marshall.  As the many thousands who waited on the Supreme Court steps well knew, our modern Constitution is ... more

By Doug Heye

RNC Communications Director

Hotline On Call has a post up this morning that portends looming trouble for the Democrats come November. In analyzing the returns from yesterday’s primaries in Indiana, North Carolina, reporter Reid Wilson concludes “Dem Turnout Falls Off a Cliff.”

Democratic vote totals in yesterday’s competitive primaries fell far short of the totals in previous non-competitive primaries. Only 663,000 Ohio Democrats voted in the primary between Lee Fisher, Ohio’s Lieutenant Governor, and Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner. That’s more than 200,000 votes short of the 2006 Democratic primary totals in Ohio when neither Gov. Ted Strickland nor Sen. Sherrod Brown faced opposition.

In Indiana, Democratic votes in House primaries yesterday were 100,000 votes shy of their 2006 numbers and 153,000 votes short of 2002 numbers. Republican numbers, however, were up 14.6% from 2006.

This trend holds true in the Tar Heel state, as well. Quoting from the story: