Presidential Politics

Re "U.S. can't link Libya attack to Al Qaeda," Oct. 20 I'm more than disappointed that we have another intelligence failure to deal with. Our national interests have been ill served by an armed attack that no one saw coming. The loss of a good man, Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens, will hurt our efforts in Libya. Worst of all, we have the Republicans playing "gotcha" politics, jumping the shark on every rumor to call President Obama a liar. They've even convinced Mitt Romney, who I believe to be a somewhat honest man, to join in. Will the Republicans pay the price for being so badly wrong?

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Richard Ben Cramer, whose narrative nonfiction spanned presidential politics and the game of baseball, has died. He was 62. Cramer died Monday at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore of complications from lung cancer, said his agent, Philippa Brophy. He won the 1979 Pulitzer Prize for international reporting from the Middle East while working as a foreign correspondent for the Philadelphia Inquirer. Cramer's other notable work included a bestselling biography of New York Yankees great Joe DiMaggio, an influential magazine profile of another baseball star, Ted Williams, and a critically acclaimed, behind-the-scenes account of the 1988 U.S. presidential race, "What It Takes: The Way to the White House.

Two hundred years before the contested election of 2000, another contested election pitted a sitting vice president against a president running for a second term, for the only time in U.S. history. I'm talking, of course, about Thomas Jefferson and John Adams. One of the ironies of that election, though, is that when it was finally resolved in the House of Representatives, the decision was between Jefferson and Aaron Burr. That's because, in the early days of the republic, presidential voting involved double balloting, in which members of the electoral college selected two candidates; as a result, Jefferson and Burr, who was running to be vice president, ended up with the same number of electoral votes.

If the last week has taught us anything, it's the power, and limitations, of political narrative. First, there was Hurricane Sandy, which brought climate change back into the presidential race - and led to an essential photo op: President Obama clasping the arm of Chris Christie, New Jersey's Republican governor. Then there was the Romney campaign's attempt to “expand the map” by staging rallies in Pennsylvania, a state in which most polls put Obama comfortably ahead. Over the weekend, surrogates for both candidates sparred over whether Obama might be slipping or Romney's shift was a desperate act of political sleight-of-hand.

Why can't the campaign for the presidency get beyond the level of Harts and Flowers? JOHN E. NUGENT, El Cajon

If you've been following the Republican presidential primaries, you've undoubtedly taken in that Rick Perry grew up in the tiny Texas town of Paint Creek. Perry's rural upbringing is a staple of his rhetoric; he often describes his hardscrabble beginnings, how his family didn't have indoor plumbing until he was 5, and how he absorbed the values embraced by the good folks of Paint Creek. The biography page on his website is titled "From a Place Called Paint Creek. " Journalists pick up the theme too: The New York Times, CBS News and Bloomberg News have run stories profiling the town.

Poor George. He'll never learn. He thinks that suddenly (and oh so conveniently) springing forth with a child-care proposal will woo us into forgetting his condescending positions on issues that are paramount to women. He thinks we'll forget that he doesn't support a woman's right to control her own body, and therefore her own destiny. He thinks we'll forget that he doesn't support absolute equal rights for women under the law. Wrong, George. We won't forget. BARBARA MARTINEZ North Orange County NOW Santa Ana

Never has presidential political advertising been so clean, so informative, so devoid of personal attacks. Never has it brought so many voters into the political process, making the country more democratic than ever. And we can thank TV for this. So says Kathleen Hall Jamieson, dean of the Annenberg School for Communications at the University of Pennsylvania and author of "Everything You Think You Know About Politics . . . And Why You're Wrong."

In an effort to provide comprehensive coverage of the 1988 presidential campaign, the Public Broadcasting Service is planning a six-week prime-time series this fall. "There's a general sense within public television that the horse-race aspect of the election is well-covered by the commercial networks, but that viewers also need to know more about the presidency and the issues," said Stephen Atlas, executive producer for public affairs at WGBH-TV in Boston.

It would have seemed inconceivable even a week ago that President Obama and  New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie would find common cause. But there they were Wednesday afternoon, thrown together by Hurricane Sandy, touring the storm-beaten Garden State and looking like the sort of nonpartisan leaders Americans want in a crisis. Doubtless determined to avoid political gestures, political questions and political inferences throughout their joint appearance, the pair of new buddies stood to gain just that - maximum political advantage.

Re "U.S. can't link Libya attack to Al Qaeda," Oct. 20 I'm more than disappointed that we have another intelligence failure to deal with. Our national interests have been ill served by an armed attack that no one saw coming. The loss of a good man, Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens, will hurt our efforts in Libya. Worst of all, we have the Republicans playing "gotcha" politics, jumping the shark on every rumor to call President Obama a liar. They've even convinced Mitt Romney, who I believe to be a somewhat honest man, to join in. Will the Republicans pay the price for being so badly wrong?

Two hundred years before the contested election of 2000, another contested election pitted a sitting vice president against a president running for a second term, for the only time in U.S. history. I'm talking, of course, about Thomas Jefferson and John Adams. One of the ironies of that election, though, is that when it was finally resolved in the House of Representatives, the decision was between Jefferson and Aaron Burr. That's because, in the early days of the republic, presidential voting involved double balloting, in which members of the electoral college selected two candidates; as a result, Jefferson and Burr, who was running to be vice president, ended up with the same number of electoral votes.

What would Norman Mailer have made of Clint Eastwood ? I've been thinking about that these last few days, as we shift from one national nominating convention to another, as Tampa yields to Charlotte and the great miniseries of presidential politics continues its inexorable passage toward Election Day. Mailer , after all, is the big daddy of participatory political reporting, spiritual godfather of Hunter Thompson, Timothy Crouse and Matt...

CINCINNATI, Ohio - In this battleground state that has seen wedge issues enter into presidential politics in the past, this election year lacks such a sideshow. In 2004, many believed a ballot measure outlawing gay marriage played an important role in helping President George W. Bush win Ohio, a bellwether state in most presidential elections. No Republican has won the White House without winning Ohio. In a squeaker, Bush beat Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry with a 2.1 percentage point margin of victory, or 118,775 votes out of nearly 5.6 million cast.

Surely you've heard the story about Mitt Romney's dog. If you haven't, just wait. The more desperate the GOP primary campaign gets, the more likely you are to hear it again. In 1983, a 36-year-old Romney and his wife and five young boys piled into the family station wagon for a 12-hour drive from Boston to Lake Huron in Canada. As was the custom, Seamus, their Irish setter, rode in a crate strapped to the top of the car. Somewhere along the way, the dog began to experience, shall we say, digestive trouble that made its presence known via, uh, streaks on the back windshield.

New Hampshire Secretary of State Bill Gardner said Tuesday he will hold off making a final decision on the state's presidential primary until next week. Gardner's office had been working toward announcing the date as soon as today, but ultimately changed course and decided to wait until after the close of the two-week period when candidates can qualify for the state ballot. Through Monday, 17 candidates -- 15 Republicans and two Democrats -- had done so by submitting a one-page declaration of candidacy and a $1,000 filing fee. Gardner, empowered by state law to call what traditionally has been the nation's first primary at the time of his choosing, is widely expected to set the contest for Jan. 10. The path became clear for New Hampshire when Nevada Republicans voted on Saturday to change the date of their nominating caucuses from Jan. 14 to Feb. 4. Gardner had said that unless Nevada moved, he would have been forced to call his state's vote as early as Dec. 6. Gardner, who's held his post for 35 years, has worked every four years to make sure his state retains its first-in-the-nation status.

If you've been following the Republican presidential primaries, you've undoubtedly taken in that Rick Perry grew up in the tiny Texas town of Paint Creek. Perry's rural upbringing is a staple of his rhetoric; he often describes his hardscrabble beginnings, how his family didn't have indoor plumbing until he was 5, and how he absorbed the values embraced by the good folks of Paint Creek. The biography page on his website is titled "From a Place Called Paint Creek. " Journalists pick up the theme too: The New York Times, CBS News and Bloomberg News have run stories profiling the town.