Election 2012 - Rhode Island - onPolitix

Electoral College count affirms Obama's win

2013-01-04T18:34:46Z

WASHINGTON (AP) — Congress made the obvious official on Friday. President Barack Obama has been re-elected.

In a joint session, Congress formally certified that Obama and Vice President Joe Biden were the winners in the November election with 332 electoral votes, well more than the 270 required. Republican Mitt Romney and his running mate, Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, won 206 votes.

It's a mostly ceremonial — yet constitutionally necessary — vote that's mostly intriguing to political junkies and policy wonks. The count Friday lacked the suspense of the drawn-out campaign and election but was steeped in tradition.

Biden and about a dozen senators trekked across the Capitol from the Senate to the House chamber, and the vice president joined House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, on the rostrum. Senate pages carried two dark wooden boxes that contained the results of the electoral votes that had been counted in the state capitals last month. Clerks used silver letter openers to unseal the envelopes.

Taking turns, the leaders of the Senate Rules Committee — Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn. — and the top members of the House Administration Committee — Reps. Candice Miller, R-Mich., and Robert Brady, D-Pa. — read the results from each state. Biden, who presided over the session, announced the final results to applause from the scattering of House and Senate members in the chamber.

The 12th Amendment directs the electors chosen by the states to meet and vote for president and vice president. Each state gets its equivalent in the 435-member House and the 100-member Senate. The District of Columbia gets the other three electors. Their certified tally sheets must be counted in Washington.

The low-key session was in sharp contrast to the drama in January 2000, when Vice President Al Gore, the loser in the disputed election, presided over the certification of an electoral count that gave the presidency to his rival, Republican George W. Bush. Gore had beaten Bush in the popular vote but lost the electoral count.

Months after the November election, the final official vote from all 50 states and the District of Columbia showed Obama with 65,899,660 votes, or 51.1 percent, and Romney with 60,932,152 votes, or 47.2 percent. Obama is the first president since Republican Dwight Eisenhower to win back-to-back presidential elections with more than 51 percent of the popular vote.

Chief Justice John Roberts will swear in Obama at noon on Jan. 20 at the White House in a private ceremony, and then administer the oath again on the West Front of the Capitol the next day. The Constitution requires that the inauguration take place on Jan. 20 but because it is a Sunday, the public session and the accompanying parade and festivities will occur on Monday.

Biden has asked Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor to swear him in for a second term. She will be the first Hispanic to administer either a presidential or vice presidential oath.

House re-elects Boehner speaker

2013-01-03T16:32:56Z

WASHINGTON (AP) — The House and Senate ushered in a new Congress Thursday, re-electing embattled Republican John Boehner as speaker and hailing one of their own who returned a year after being felled by a stroke.

The 113th Congress convened at 12 noon EST, the constitutionally mandated time, with pomp, pageantry and politics on both sides of the Capitol.

Boehner, bruised after weeks of trying to cajole his fractious caucus to back a tax and spending cut bill, won a second, two-year term as leader with 220 votes. Despite grumbling in the GOP ranks, nine Republicans voted for someone other than Boehner, one voted present and several abstained.

Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi got 192 votes.

In a chamber packed with members and their children, Pelosi delivered a generous introduction to her rival and handed the gavel to Boehner, who struggled to hold back tears.

Boehner alluded to the continuing fight over government spending that was far from settled by the tax deal with President Barack Obama. Fierce battles loom in the coming weeks over automatic spending cuts and increasing the nation's borrowing authority.

"The American Dream is in peril so long as its namesake is weighed down by this anchor of debt. Break its hold, and we begin to set our economy free. Jobs will come home. Confidence will come back," Boehner said.

Addressing the 80-plus new members, Boehner told them that if they came "to see your name in lights or to pass off political victory as accomplishment, you have come to the wrong place. "

"The door is behind you," he said. "If you have come here humbled by the opportunity to serve; if you have come here to be the determined voice of the people; if you have come here to carry the standard of leadership demanded not just by our constituents but by the times, then you have come to the right place."

Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., the longest serving member, administered the oath to Boehner, who then swore in the members.

In the Senate, Vice President Joe Biden swore in 12 new members elected in November, lawmakers who won another term and South Carolina Republican Tim Scott, a former House member tapped by Gov. Nikki Haley to fill the remaining term of Sen. Jim DeMint, who resigned to head a Washington think tank.

Applause from members and the gallery marked every oath-taking. Looking on was former Vice President Walter Mondale.

Shortly before the session, Sen. Mark Kirk, R-Ill., who had been absent for the past year while recovering from a stroke, slowly walked up the 45 steps to the Senate, with Biden nearby and the Senate leaders at the top of the stairs to greet him.

"A courageous man," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. Members of the Illinois congressional delegation and senators stood on the steps.

As he entered the building, resting on a cane, Biden and Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., helped Kirk take off his coat. The senator said he was glad to be back.

While the dozens of eager freshmen are determined to change Washington, they face the harsh reality of another stretch of divided government. The traditions come against the backdrop of a mean season that closed out an angry election year.

A deal to avert the "fiscal cliff" of big tax increases and spending cuts split the parties in New Year's Day votes, and the House's failure to vote on a Superstorm Sandy aid package before adjournment prompted GOP recriminations against the leadership.

Any hope of comity in a divided Washington was quickly dashed amid talk of the budget.

"So now is the time to get serious about spending," Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said on the floor. "And if the past few weeks have taught us anything, that means the president needs to show up early this time. The American people will not tolerate the kind of last-minute crises that we've seen again and again over the past four years as a result of this president's chronic inactivity and refusal to lead on the pressing issues of the day."

For all the change of the next Congress, the new bosses are the same as the old bosses.

Obama secured a second term in the November elections, and Democrats tightened their grip on the Senate for a 55-45 edge in the new two-year Congress, ensuring that Reid will remain in charge. Republicans maintained their majority in the House but will have a smaller advantage, 233-200. Former Democratic Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr.'s Illinois seat and the one held by Scott are the two vacancies.

On the eve of the vote, Boehner mollified angry Republicans from New York and New Jersey on Wednesday with the promise of a vote Friday on $9 billion of the storm relief package and another vote on the remaining $51 billion on Jan. 15.

The GOP members quickly abandoned their chatter about voting against the speaker. However, three of the four House members who lost their plum committee assignments for bucking the party refused to vote for Boehner.

"It's not about committee assignments. It's not about that. It's about a real concern that for two years we've had a lack of leadership based on conservative principles. It's a vote of no confidence," said Rep. Tim Huelskamp, R-Kan.

Jim Bridenstine, a freshman Republican from Oklahoma, said he voted against Boehner because he believed the party needs new leaders.

"We lost seats in the House. We lost the Senate. We lost the presidency. I just thought it was time for new leadership," Bridenstine said.

The new Congress still faces the ideological disputes that plagued the dysfunctional 112th Congress, one of the least productive in more than 60 years. Tea party members within the Republican ranks insist on fiscal discipline in the face of growing deficits and have pressed for deep cuts in spending as part of a reduced role for the federal government. Democrats envision a government with enough resources to help the less fortunate and press for the wealthiest to pay more in taxes.

"We can only hope for more help," said Manchin, who was re-elected in November. "Any time you have new members arriving you have that expectation of bringing fresh ideas and kind of a vitality that is needed. We hope that they're coming eager to work hard and make some difficult decisions and put the country first and not be bogged down ideologically."

The next two months will be crucial, with tough economic issues looming. Congress put off for just eight weeks automatic spending cuts to defense and domestic programs that were due to begin with the new year. The question of raising the nation's borrowing authority also must be decided. Another round of ugly negotiations between Obama and Congress is not far off.

There are 12 newly elected senators — eight Democrats, three Republicans and one independent, former Maine Gov. Angus King, who will caucus with the Democrats. They will be joined by Scott, the first black Republican in decades.

In a sign of some diversity for the venerable body, the Senate will have three Hispanics — Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey, Republican Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida and one of the new members, Republican Ted Cruz of Texas. There will be 20 women in the 100-member chamber, the highest number yet.

At least one longtime Democrat, Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, will be departing in a few weeks, nominated by Obama to be secretary of state. That opens the door to former Republican Sen. Scott Brown, the only incumbent senator to lose in November's elections, to possibly make a bid to return to Washington.

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Associated Press writer Kevin Freking contributed to this report.

RI Electoral College casts votes

2012-12-17T18:17:27Z

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI) -- Rhode Island has officially has its four electoral votes for President Barack Obama.

The state's members of the Electoral College, Gov. Lincoln, Chafee, and the Rhode Island congressional delegation gathered for a ceremony at the State House on Monday.

The Democratic electors are: state Representative-elect Marvin Abney of Newport; Emily Maranjian of Providence; and L. Susan Weiner and Mark Weiner, both of East Greenwich. Each cast one of the state's electoral votes for President Obama, and Vice President Joe Biden.

The president overwhelmingly won Rhode Island in last month's general election with more than 62% of the vote.

The number of electoral votes a state has is based on population, and is equal to the number of representatives and senators it has in Congress.

On January 6, Vice President Biden, acting as President of the U.S. Senate, will oversee a joint session of Congress during which the Electoral College will be officially tallied.

Electoral College set to affirm Obama re-election

2012-12-17T18:08:07Z

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — Tradition trumped suspense Monday as members of the Electoral College cast the official, final votes in an exhausting 2012 presidential election, a constitutional formality on President Barack Obama's march to a second term.

The rite playing in state capitols involved party luminaries and tireless activists carrying out the will of each state's voters. The popular vote from state-to-state dictates whether Democratic or Republican electors get the honor, but the outcome is not in doubt.

Obama is on course to get 332 votes to Romney's 206, barring defectors.

In New Hampshire, electors supporting Obama signed their four ballots and sealed the envelopes with wax that has been in the secretary of state's office for more than 70 years.

"It's been a long haul for all of us," said state Secretary of State Bill Gardner, alluding to New Hampshire's first-in-the-nation primary that sparked intense campaigning there for more than a year.

In Mississippi, which Republican Mitt Romney carried comfortably, six men chosen earlier as electors met in a small committee room in the state Capitol and cast their votes for Romney. Well aware they were doing so in a lost cause, they opted for humor. The state's Republican governor, Phil Bryant, joked that Billy Mounger, an 86-year-old elector, probably wished to vote for Calvin Coolidge, a renowned small-government conservative president in the 1920s.

"I'd like to have Coolidge back," said Mounger, a wealthy Jackson businessman.

The ballots are on their way to Washington, where Congress will officially count them on Jan. 6.

With the Electoral College in focus, advocates for revamping the current system seized on the chance to argue for a change guaranteeing the national popular vote winner is elected president. The compact among states would award future electoral votes to the national vote leader regardless of how candidates perform in a particular state. The shift has been approved in nine places and is pending in many others, but it won't take effect unless states possessing a majority of electoral votes ratify it.

Minnesota Rep. Pat Garofalo, a Republican, said an increasingly shrinking electoral college map has lavished candidate attention on a select few states while most are mere spectators.

"The rest of the country gets hosed," he said, adding, "The most important principle here is the candidate who gets the most votes should win and every vote should be equal."

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Contributing to this reporter were Associated Press writers Holly Ramer in Concord, N.H.; Emily Wagster Pettus in Jackson, Miss.

Election hits $2B mark amid last-minute donations

2012-12-07T12:16:25Z

WASHINGTON (AP) — Remarkable for its last-minute surge of contributions, the U.S. presidential election witnessed unprecedented sums of cash boosting two men in their quest for the White House. It was a cost that surpassed $2 billion and sometimes came with the cloak of anonymity for billionaire donors.

The election was the first in which "super" political action committees spent hundreds of millions on television ads, especially those supporting GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney. Super PACs, like those helping President Barack Obama, benefited from deep wells of money from wealthy donors and corporations.

A handful of mega donors stood out. The most prominent were Las Vegas casino mogul Sheldon Adelson and his wife, Miriam, who together contributed nearly $100 million — as promised — to help Republican candidates. On the left, celebrities like Jeffrey Katzenberg poured millions of dollars into efforts helping Obama win a second term.

More than $230 million in super PAC money bolstered Romney's candidacy, adding to the massive haul by the Republican Party for the former Massachusetts governor. The pro-Romney super PACs were able to hammer the president in swing states with meticulously designed ads highlighting a woeful economy and what they portrayed as Obama's failed record.

A sizable chunk of that cash flowed in just weeks before Election Day. Because Federal Election Commission rules don't require groups to report until late November the money they've raised since mid-October, many top donors escaped scrutiny until after the Nov. 6 voting. The Adelsons' $33 million gift to two pro-Romney super PACs, as well as $3 million from Larry Ellison, head of software giant Oracle Corp., were not divulged until Thursday.

The pro-Obama Priorities USA Action raked in nearly 20 percent of the money it raised this election during the final weeks of the campaign. Much of that $15 million haul, records show, came from repeat million-dollar donors like Fred Eychaner, the founder of Chicago-based Newsweb Corp., and from the ranks of Renaissance Technologies, whose investors donated $4 million in the campaign's final weeks.

Those pots of money, in turn, enabled super PACs to dole out millions of dollars on pricey television ads in important swing states, including some where razor-thin ballot margins had been forecast for Election Day.

"The super PACs helped Romney run a more competitive race," said R. Donahue Peebles, an Obama fundraiser from New York. "But, in the end, money can take a candidate only so far."

Surpassing the $2 billion record was long expected after an election season dominated by the supercharged competitive pressures that both campaigns faced in mounting massive fundraising blitzes to stoke expensive media ad battles and ground wars. The Obama and Romney campaigns mobilized competing squads of ultra-wealthy fundraisers, sought aid from free-spending allied super PACS and deployed multimillion-dollar media broadsides and armies of organizers.

Romney and the GOP reported raising more than $920 million by election's end, compared with Obama and the Democrats' $960 million. Obama had been largely outspent by Romney and allied groups during the summer, but the president's campaign began to close that gap as Election Day approached.

Campaigns and outside groups brought in more than $1 billion to help each candidate, an Associated Press review of financial records showed. In 2008, Obama shattered records by raising more than $750 million in donations. Romney's campaign, for its part, said it stretched its dollar competing against an incumbent.

"Every dollar we raised was put to use in the effort to elect Mitt Romney," said finance chair Spencer Zwick, citing strong fundraising during the final weeks leading up to Nov. 6. Romney's election effort brought in $85.9 million since mid-October, compared with Obama's $111 million during the same period.

After a series of high-profile federal court rulings, the nation's relaxed campaign-finance system allowed for unlimited contributions from corporations, labor groups and others; television advertisements from nonprofit groups that concealed who paid for them and the proliferation of more than 1,000 super PACs. Those groups can't coordinate with the candidates they support, but groups on both sides of the political aisle were staffed with former campaign advisers who were deft political fundraisers.

But the election was known just as much for its sources of so-called dark money as it was for its hefty price tag.

Nonprofit "social welfare" organizations spent hundreds of millions more on so-called issue ads, and those groups don't have to disclose their donors because they're governed by tax law. Open-government groups have pushed Congress, to no avail, for a law that would require politically active groups to reveal their finances.

As well, federal rules require timely disclosure for super PACs, but determining who's behind big donations isn't always easy. In summer 2011, a fledgling company dissolved shortly after making a $1 million contribution to a super PAC supporting Romney; records showed that the company, established and closed over a four-month period, was formed by a Romney supporter who once worked with him at the private equity firm Bain Capital.

Other super PACs active this election season benefited from opaque, eleventh-hour contributions. FreedomWorks for America, a prominent tea party group, reported more than $5.2 million in donations during the first half of October — about 90 percent of the group's fundraising haul — from an apparent shell company in Knoxville, Tenn., called Specialty Group that advertises no product or service.

The company's owner, William Rose, said in a statement he was under no obligation to reveal where his money — ultimately used to boost high-profile congressional races — came from.

Gen Y: Listen up, GOP

2012-12-06T14:08:38Z

(LIN) — It’s time for the GOP to get to work.

This election was embarrassing for the Republican Party, and the biggest group of people pointing and laughing came from one of the largest voting blocs: Those under age 30.

It’s not that President Barack Obama was funnier, more attractive or just all around more cool than Mitt Romney. What lost it for the Republicans was the overall image of the party.

According to a recent study from the Pew Research Center, young voters continue to identify more with the Democratic Party and express more liberal opinions on social issues.

According to the study, not only were young voters more likely to back Obama, but they were more likely than any of their older counterparts to identify themselves as Democrats (44 percent).

This shouldn’t be too surprising, as younger generations always tend to march to the beat of their own drums.

But the GOP shouldn’t throw its hands in the air and give up on the liberal, free-spirited future of America. Young voters (aged 30 and younger) made up 19 percent of the electorate in the 2012 election, and that number is increasing with each presidential election.

If the GOP wants to reach young voters, it needs a new face and a new approach to social issues.

It needs to stop being the party of old, rich white guys who make jaw-dropping statements about rape and abortion. (Seriously. Can we stop doing that please?)

Instead, meet us on our level.

Maybe not so much like former Sen. Alan K. Simpson, but even that is a start.

Sure, it’s difficult – if not impossible – to change people’s views on gun control, marijuana or abortion. That shouldn’t be part of the game plan. Instead, Republican candidates should treat young voters like adults and start the conversation.

Focus on proven results and how the Republican Party is truly looking after our future. Present new ideas, and instead of being focused on differing opinions of young voters on social issues, find other ways to relate to us.

I’m not sure that the young (ish) faces of Sen. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., and Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., will be enough to change the image of the entire party. Instead, we need to see leaders that are off the beaten path, but are forward-thinking.

“Republican” doesn’t have to continue to be a taboo word for Gen Y.

The time to begin campaigning for 2016 is now.

—

Gen Y is a weekly opinion piece covering issues that matter most to young, influential Americans through their late 30s. Jessica O. Swink, a 20-something, is the digital political producer for LIN Media and contributing editor to onPolitix .

Smokers celebrate as Wash. legalizes marijuana

2012-12-06T12:35:15Z

SEATTLE (AP) — The crowds of happy people lighting joints under Seattle's Space Needle early Thursday morning with nary a police officer in sight bespoke the new reality: Marijuana is legal under Washington state law.

Photos: Pot through the years

Hundreds gathered at Seattle Center for a New Year's Eve-style countdown to 12 a.m., when the legalization measure passed by voters last month took effect. When the clock struck, they cheered and sparked up in unison.

A few dozen people gathered on a sidewalk outside the north Seattle headquarters of the annual Hempfest celebration and did the same, offering joints to reporters and blowing smoke into television news cameras.

"I feel like a kid in a candy store!" shouted Hempfest volunteer Darby Hageman. "It's all becoming real now!"

Washington and Colorado became the first states to vote to decriminalize and regulate the possession of an ounce or less of marijuana by adults over 21. Both measures call for setting up state licensing schemes for pot growers, processors and retail stores. Colorado's law is set to take effect by Jan. 5.

Technically, Washington's new marijuana law still forbids smoking pot in public, which remains punishable by a fine, like drinking in public. But pot fans wanted a party, and Seattle police weren't about to write them any tickets.

In another sweeping change for Washington, Gov. Chris Gregoire on Wednesday signed into law a measure that legalizes same-sex marriage. The state joins several others that allow gay and lesbian couples to wed.

The mood was festive in Seattle as dozens of gay and lesbian couples got in line to pick up marriage licenses at the King County auditor's office early Thursday.

King County and Thurston County announced they would open their auditors' offices shortly after midnight Wednesday to accommodate those who wanted to be among the first to get their licenses.

Kelly Middleton and her partner Amanda Dollente got in line at 4 p.m. Wednesday.

Hours later, as the line grew, volunteers distributed roses and a group of men and women serenaded the waiting line to the tune of "Going to the Chapel."

Because the state has a three-day waiting period, the earliest that weddings can take place is Sunday.

In dealing with marijuana, the Seattle Police Department told its 1,300 officers on Wednesday, just before legalization took hold, that until further notice they shall not issue citations for public marijuana use.

Officers will be advising people not to smoke in public, police spokesman Jonah Spangenthal-Lee wrote on the SPD Blotter. "The police department believes that, under state law, you may responsibly get baked, order some pizzas and enjoy a 'Lord of the Rings' marathon in the privacy of your own home, if you want to."

He offered a catchy new directive referring to the film "The Big Lebowski," popular with many marijuana fans: "The Dude abides, and says 'take it inside!'"

"This is a big day because all our lives we've been living under the iron curtain of prohibition," said Hempfest director Vivian McPeak. "The whole world sees that prohibition just took a body blow."

Washington's new law decriminalizes possession of up to an ounce for those over 21, but for now selling marijuana remains illegal. I-502 gives the state a year to come up with a system of state-licensed growers, processors and retail stores, with the marijuana taxed 25 percent at each stage. Analysts have estimated that a legal pot market could bring Washington hundreds of millions of dollars a year in new tax revenue for schools, health care and basic government functions.

But marijuana remains illegal under federal law. That means federal agents can still arrest people for it, and it's banned from federal properties, including military bases and national parks.

The Justice Department has not said whether it will sue to try to block the regulatory schemes in Washington and Colorado from taking effect.

"The department's responsibility to enforce the Controlled Substances Act remains unchanged," said a statement issued Wednesday by the Seattle U.S. attorney's office. "Neither states nor the executive branch can nullify a statute passed by Congress" — a non-issue, since the measures passed in Washington and Colorado don't "nullify" federal law, which federal agents remain free to enforce.

The legal question is whether the establishment of a regulated marijuana market would "frustrate the purpose" of the federal pot prohibition, and many constitutional law scholars say it very likely would.

That leaves the political question of whether the administration wants to try to block the regulatory system, even though it would remain legal to possess up to an ounce of marijuana.

Alison Holcomb is the drug policy director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Washington and served as the campaign manager for New Approach Washington, which led the legalization drive. She said the voters clearly showed they're done with marijuana prohibition.

"New Approach Washington sponsors and the ACLU look forward to working with state and federal officials and to ensure the law is fully and fairly implemented," she said.

Capitalism and socialism wed as words of the year

2012-12-05T13:19:48Z

NEW YORK (AP) — Thanks to the election, socialism and capitalism are forever wed as Merriam-Webster's most looked-up words of 2012.

Traffic for the unlikely pair on the company's website about doubled this year from the year before as the health care debate heated up and discussion intensified over "American capitalism" versus "European socialism," said the editor at large, Peter Sokolowski.

The choice revealed Wednesday was "kind of a no-brainer," he said. The side-by-side interest among political candidates and around kitchen tables prompted the dictionary folk to settle on two words of the year rather than one for the first time since the accolade began in 2003.

"They're words that sort of encapsulate the zeitgeist. They're words that are in the national conversation," said Sokolowski from company headquarters in Springfield, Mass. "The thing about an election year is it generates a huge amount of very specific interest."

Democracy, globalization, marriage and bigot — all touched by politics — made the Top 10, in no particular order. The latter two were driven in part by the fight for same-sex marriage acceptance.

Last year's word of the year was austerity. Before that, it was pragmatic. Other words in the leading dictionary maker's Top 10 for 2012 were also politically motivated.

Harken back to Oct. 11, when Vice President Joe Biden tangled with Mitt Romney running mate Paul Ryan in a televised debate focused on foreign policy — terror attacks, defense spending and war, to be specific.

"With all due respect, that's a bunch of MALARKEY," declared Biden during a particularly tough row with Ryan. The mention sent look-ups of malarkey soaring on Merriam-webster.com, Sokolowski said, adding: "Clearly a one-week wonder, but what a week!"

Actually, it was more like what a day. Look-ups of malarkey represented the largest spike of a single word on the website by percentage, at 3,000 percent, in a single 24-hour period this year. The company won't release the number of page views per word but said the site gets about 1.2 billion overall each year.

Malarkey, with the alternative spelling of "y'' at the end, is of unknown origin, but Merriam-Webster surmises it's more Irish-American than Irish, tracing it to newspaper references as far back as 1929.

Beyond "nonsense," malarkey can mean "insincere or pretentious talk or writing designed to impress one and usually to distract attention from ulterior motives or actual conditions," noted Sokolowski.

"That's exactly what Joe Biden was saying. Very precise," especially in conversation with another Irish-American, Sokolowski said. "He chose a word that resonated with the public, I think in part because it really resonated with him. It made perfect sense for this man to use this word in this moment."

An interesting election-related phenom, to be sure, but malarkey is no dead Big Bird or "binders full of women" — two Romneyisms from the defeated candidate's televised matchups with Obama that evoked another of Merriam-Webster's Top 10 — meme.

While malarkey's history is shaded, meme's roots are easily traced to evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, a Brit who coined the term for a unit of cultural inheritance, not unlike genes and DNA. The retired professor at the University of Oxford made up the word in 1976 for "The Selfish Gene," a book he published light years before the Internet and social media's capacity to take memes viral.

Sokolowski said traffic for meme more than doubled this year over 2011, with dramatic spikes pegged to political-related subjects that included Romney's Big Bird and binders remarks, social media shares of images pegged to Hillary Clinton texting and Obama's "horses and bayonets" debate rebuke of Romney in an exchange over the size of the Navy.

Dawkins, reached at home in Oxford, was tickled by the dictionary shoutout.

"I'm very pleased that it's one of the 10 words that got picked out," he said. "I'm delighted. I hope it may bring more people to understand something about evolution."

The book in which he used meme for the first time is mostly about the gene as the primary unit of natural selection, or the Darwinian idea that only the strongest survive. In the last chapter, he said, he wanted to describe some sort of cultural replicator.

And he wanted a word that sounded like "gene," so he took a twist on the Greek mimeme, which is the origin of "mime" and "mimesis," a scientific term meaning imitation.

"It's a very clever coinage," lauded the lexicographer Sokolowski.

Other words in Merriam-Webster's Top 10 for 2012:

— Touche, thanks in part to "Survivor" contestant Kat Edorsson misusing the word to mean "tough luck" rather than point well made, before she was voted off the island in May. Look-ups at Merriam-webster.com were up sevenfold this year over 2011.

— Schadenfreude, made up of the German words for "damage" and "joy," meaning taking pleasure in the misery of others, was used broadly in the media after the election. Look-ups increased 75 percent. The word in English dates to 1895.

— Professionalism, up 12 percent this year over last. Sokolowski suspects the bump might have been due to the bad economy and more job seekers, or a knowing "glimpse into what qualities people value."

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Online: http://www.merriam-webster.com/

Wis. governor insists he's not thinking about 2016

2012-11-26T16:27:13Z

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Plenty of Republicans are talking about a possible presidential run by Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, but Walker insists he's not one of them.

Walker told The Associated Press on Monday that he's focused on putting together the next state budget and his job as governor, not a presidential run in 2016.

Walker was elected in 2010 and shot to stardom in the GOP with his fight to eliminate most public workers' union rights. His proposal sparked massive protests at the state Capitol, as well as a June recall election that Walker won handily.

He says after two elections in two years, he's just happy to be working as governor.

Walker also says he hasn't talked to former Republican vice presidential nominee, Paul Ryan, a close friend, about whether he'll run.

INFLUENCE GAME: Tax them, not us, groups say

2012-11-26T08:45:02Z

WASHINGTON (AP) — A big coalition of business groups says there must be give-and-take in the negotiations to avoid the "fiscal cliff" of massive tax increases and spending cuts. But raising tax rates — a White House priority — is out of the question, the group adds.

The homebuilding industry says it won't tolerate even a nick in the mortgage interest deduction. It doesn't matter, industry leaders say, if it's part of a broad, spread-the-pain package designed to tame the soaring debt.

And there's no ambiguity in the views of the top lobbying arm for retirees.

"AARP to Washington: No cuts to Medicare and Social Security in last-minute budget deal" the group's Web site declares. AARP nixes the notion of slowing the cost-of-living formula for Social Security recipients, even if it's part of a big, bipartisan compromise package. And President Barack Obama should drop his idea of raising Medicare's eligibility age, AARP adds.

So much for the notion of shared sacrifice as Congress and the White House face a Dec. 31 deadline to craft a far-reaching deficit-reduction plan. If they fail, the government tips over the so-called fiscal cliff, at least for a time. Nearly everyone's taxes will rise, and federal programs will be whacked. Financial markets might quake, and a new recession could begin, economists say.

In Washington, meanwhile, it's virtually every group for itself, scrambling to protect 100 percent of each tax break and government payout it now enjoys.

America is split down the middle politically, as the last half dozen presidential races have shown. Aside from a few think tanks and civic-minded groups, there's almost no talk of splitting the pain among interest groups, populations and professions in a manner that seems inevitable if lawmakers are to achieve the trillions of dollars in deficit-reduction both parties call for.

The old adage, "Don't tax thee, don't tax me, tax the man behind the tree" was never more in vogue.

Of course, some of the tough talk may be posturing. No one wants to show a willingness to compromise at the start of a long, tough negotiating season.

Still, the adamant positions that major interest groups are taking — and their insistence that sacrifices hit others, not them — underscore the difficulty Obama and congressional leaders face. The tougher a group talks to its members and the public, the harder it is to back down later when a bit of shared pain for everyone emerges as the only path to a deal.

The line-in-the-sand talk begins, of course, with top politicians themselves.

"Raising tax rates is unacceptable," House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said shortly after Obama won re-election. He seemed unfazed by Obama's campaign promise to let the Bush-era tax cuts expire for couples making over $250,000 a year.

Washington insiders think both men might bend, as they did last year when they nearly struck a "grand bargain" combining major spending cuts with tax increases. Boehner's conservative colleagues rebelled before the package took final shape.

Boehner's House caucus seems slightly less restive now. But outside groups are gearing up to fight virtually every idea being floated to reduce spending or raise revenues. To reach a deficit-cutting package big enough to replace the fiscal cliff, lawmakers will have to stare down these groups, which pour millions of dollars into political campaigns and flood congressional offices with constituents' phone calls.

Interest groups, like many politicians, talk warmly of compromise in the abstract. But they dig in when the talk turns to specific ideas that run counter to their philosophies or profitability.

"There has to be give" in the negotiations, said Jade West, who heads the decade-old Tax Relief Coalition, comprised of major business groups. But on the question of raising tax rates on the rich — probably the most-discussed issue on the fiscal cliff table — West said her group is adamantly opposed.

"I don't care what he said," she said of Obama's campaigning on the topic. "The sound bite, 'tax the rich, tax the rich, tax the rich'" ignores the harm such a policy would do, she said.

"Taxing the people who hire is just nuts," West said.

AARP is equally firm in opposing changes to Social Security and Medicare, the mammoth "entitlement" programs that economists say must be reined in soon to avoid disastrously large deficits in future years.

Seventeen months ago, AARP showed more flexibility. Its policy chief said the group would consider modest cuts in Social Security for future retirees, noting that such changes seem all but inevitable at some point. AARP members complained, the official left, and the organization resumed the stance it holds today: no reductions in Social Security or Medicare benefits.

Itemized tax deductions are another area where Democrats and Republicans are looking for possible ways to generate more government revenue. Here, too, powerful lobbying groups are rallying to oppose any changes that would cost their members money.

The home mortgage interest deduction saves borrowers $99 billion a year in taxes, making it easier to buy and sell houses. Should even a small portion of that tax break be eliminated, perhaps for the richest people, to help reduce federal borrowing?

No, says Jerry Howard, chief executive of the National Association of Home Builders. Home owners suffered huge losses in personal wealth during the recent collapse of the housing market and the sector should be spared any further dings, he said.

"While the rest of the nation was in a recession, we were in a depression," he said. "Congress should be embarrassed" to even think of asking homeowners to help pay for a fiscal crisis that lawmakers brought on themselves through years of inaction, he added.

It's the same tune at universities and other institutions that rely on charitable gifts. They want to fully exempt the charitable gift deduction, which costs the government about $51 billion a year, from a role in the fiscal cliff talks.

"We urge you and House leaders not to impose any limits or caps to the charitable deduction," the Charitable Giving Coalition said in a recent letter to Boehner and others.

Like other interest groups, this one says it has special attributes that set it apart.

"The charitable deduction is different than other itemized deductions in that it encourages individuals to give away a portion of their income to those in need," the letter said.

And so it goes, group by group, tax break by tax break, payout by payout. Everyone is special. Everyone is deserving.

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