Romney Appeals to Fiscal Conservatives
date: February 9, 2007
SOURCE:ABC News
Romney Appeals to GOP Fiscal Conservatives With Budget Restraint Comments
Presidential candidate Mitt Romney on Wednesday made a direct appeal to Republican fiscal conservatives, arguing that the president should veto any spending bill that exceeds its targets.
Speaking to the Detroit Economic Club, the former Massachusetts governor addressed an issue that has riled the GOP base, who contend that the party's loss of power last November was based, in part, on excessive spending.
"When our party has been in charge, we didn't distinguish ourselves on spending restraint," Romney said. "That's got to change and it would in my administration."
The one-term governor suggested giving Congress a spending target and insisting that it is met. "If Congress does not meet the spending targets, then its appropriations bills should be vetoed. I regularly exercised my veto power while governor," he said.
Romney served one term as governor. He also suggested that Congress give the president the power of the line-item veto, an oft-repeated proposal that is has little chance in Congress.
The Republican also called for making President Bush's tax cuts, set to expire in 2010, permanent. He said individuals should be able to save $5,000 a year without paying taxes on interest, dividends or capital gains.
Romney returns to Michigan on Tuesday to announce that he will formally seek the presidency.
His father, George, served as governor of the state in the 1960s, but other relatives haven't had much elective success in Michigan.
Mitt Romney's brother, Scott, didn't get the GOP nomination to run for Michigan attorney general in 1998, despite the backing of then-Gov. John Engler.
Ronna Romney, Scott's former wife, sought the GOP U.S. Senate nomination in 1994 but was defeated by Spencer Abraham. Romney, a former radio talk show host, won the GOP U.S. Senate nomination in 1996 but lost to Democratic incumbent Carl Levin.
UNITED NATIONS (AP) Bill Richardson, a former ambassador and a current U.S. governor and presidential candidate, returned to the United Nations Wednesday to meet the new U.N. secretary-general and call for increased international pressure on Sudan's president to end the conflict in Darfur.
After a half-hour meeting with Ban Ki-moon, Richardson told reporters it was good to be back and said with a smile, "I am a governor with a foreign policy." When none of the reporters laughed, he said, "that's supposed to be funny."
Richardson said he briefed Ban who just returned from an Africa trip that included talks with Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir on his visit to Sudan in January where he also met the Sudanese leader. Richardson said he got the Sudanese government and three rebel groups to agree to a 30-day ceasefire though one reneged the following day.
Richardson said he told Ban he strongly backed the secretary-general's appointment of a special envoy to try to get all rebel groups to return to talks and sign a peace deal as well as the creation of a "hybrid" African Union-United Nations force to help end the four-year conflict in Darfur.
"The first message is, I believe the United Nations and the special envoy is the most important entity in bringing peace to Darfur and easing a massive humanitarian crisis," said New Mexico's Democratic governor.
A 7,000-strong African Union force is currently on the ground in Darfur, but Richardson said, "I believe it's critically important that the international community continue its pressure to make it a U.N. force."
CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) First, the Iowa caucus. Then New Hampshire and Wyoming?
That's what the Wyoming Republican Central Committee has in mind for 2008. GOP officials want to hold their county conventions used to select half of the state's delegates to the Republican National Convention on the same day as the New Hampshire primary.
To Tom Sansonetti, the former state party chairman who proposed the idea, it's a natural.
"It gives candidates an alternative to New Hampshire. And it's from the Rocky Mountain West, which is more important in the eventual Electoral College vote come November than New England," Sansonetti said Tuesday. "Why not give the candidates an optional lily pad on which to land?"
Under GOP rules, any state that holds its delegate selection before Feb. 5, 2008, runs the risk of losing delegates to the national convention.
In New Hampshire, Deputy Secretary of State Dan Scanlan said it's too early to comment on other states' jockeying for position.
"New Hampshire takes great pride in its traditional first-in-the-nation primary. There have been many attempts in the past by other states to encroach upon that position in the primary calendar," Scanlan said.
"I think we'll just wait and see."
What they'll see from Wyoming is an unusual system not a primary, not quite a caucus used to select half of the state's delegates. Twelve of Wyoming's 23 counties will select delegates; the remaining counties will select alternates.
Those 12 delegates will make up roughly half of the Wyoming delegation, with the other half selected at the GOP state convention, which usually is held in May.
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) Moving California's presidential primary from June to February would force candidates to appeal to a population that more closely resembles the rest of the country, rather than focusing on the traditional early contests in Iowa and New Hampshire, a state senator said Wednesday.
The bill seeking to switch California's primary to Feb. 5 cleared the Senate Elections Committee on a 3-0 vote.
California's traditional June primary has left the state virtually irrelevant in the presidential nominating process, although candidates regularly visit to raise money.
Moving the primary would change the dynamic of presidential politics, said state Sen. Ron Calderon, the bill's author. A similar bill is pending in the Assembly.
"New Hampshire and Iowa, while they are really wonderful states, they don't reflect the diversification of this country," Calderon said after the hearing. "California has a diversified population. They're the bellwether for the rest of the country."
Other states also are considering or already have moved their presidential primaries to Feb. 5, creating a new Super Tuesday, said Jennie Bowser, a policy analyst with the National Conference of State Legislatures.
Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, Oklahoma and Utah have picked that date, while Florida, Illinois and New Jersey are among those considering it. West Virginia's Republican convention also is scheduled for the first Tuesday in February.
The Feb. 5 primaries still would trail the New Hampshire and South Carolina primaries and caucuses in Iowa and Nevada.
"It really changes things dramatically for the presidential candidates," said Bob Stern, president of the Center for Governmental Studies in Los Angeles. "The election will probably be over on Feb. 5. That's when everybody will know who the nominees are. In a sense, it's turning into a national primary date."