By Elaine Donnelly
Extending sexual misconduct to combat units
Fierce tea party loyalists and traditional conservatives continue to squawk about Karl Rove and "establishment Republicans," convinced that the faction will compromise GOP chances in upcoming elections. Outspoken tea partyers say their grass-roots sensibility is the key to supporting and electing viable candidates.
President Obama and Mitt Romney raised about $1 billion each and relied on outside groups that spent another billion on the presidential race, mounting a stimulus for political consultants and broadcasters everywhere and obliterating a decades-old system that provided taxpayer funds to candidates in exchange for keeping spending low.
Despite the vast ideological landscapes and political freedoms that set the United States apart from much of world, the 2012 presidential election has been, like so many American elections of the past 150 years, ultimately a two-party contest.
He still doesn't get much attention from the mainstream media, but Libertarian presidential candidate Gary E. Johnson could be the key to who wins the White House on Tuesday — especially if he takes votes away from Barack Obama or Mitt Romney in Ohio or Colorado.
"Waste your vote on me," begs Gary E. Johnson to curious or disenchanted voters everywhere. The Libertarian Party candidate is calling on fierce local fans to amplify his message with grass-roots fervor, a campaign strategy of former presidential hopeful Rep. Ron Paul.
Win or lose, President Obama will spend election night in his hometown of Chicago and will speak at a smaller venue than the large park where he held his victory speech four years ago, a source told Agence France-Presse on Wednesday.
Powered by his widely-acclaimed debate performance last week, Mitt Romney has closed a 9 percentage-point gap and is once again tied with President Obama in the latest The Washington Times/Zogby Poll conducted by Zogby Analytics, released Monday.
Constitution Party presidential candidate Virgil H. Goode Jr. will be on the November ballot in his home state of Virginia, but Republican fears that the former congressman could play spoiler for Mitt Romney should be lessened by recent polls showing Mr. Goode in the low single digits.
Libertarian Gary E. Johnson, who is on the presidential ballot in more than 40 states, successfully got onto Virginia's last week as well despite a challenge from the state Republican Party.
Some Republicans fret he could siphon crucial votes away from Mitt Romney, but Libertarian presidential hopeful Gary E. Johnson is still charging down the campaign trail as a third-party candidate and raising enough money — more than $400,000 this week — to produce a slick new campaign video that paints him as a down-to-earth hero.
With Mitt Romney now the official Republican presidential nominee, Libertarian Party nominee Gary E. Johnson is trying to win over liberty lovers who backed Rep. Ron Paul during the GOP's primary process, raising questions of whether either man could play the spoiler for Mr. Romney in a general election.
One way to measure Rep. Ron Paul's ascendance as a political player is to compare the cold shoulder he got from rival Republican presidential candidate John McCain in 2008 with the cozier embrace he has received from 2012 presumptive nominee Mitt Romney.
Hey, Gary E. Johnson's still standing, still touring: the Libertarian presidential hopeful, in fact, is quite cheerful these days, having drawn 5 percent of the national vote in multiple polls. The phenomenon has prompted Mr. Johnson to insist he be included in presidential debates with President Obama and Mitt Romney, which begin Oct 3.
Ron Paul's campaign conceded Tuesday he won't win enough delegates to be Republicans' presidential nominee, but says he will continue to try to win supporters to influence the GOP's platform and rules at the August convention.
Rep. Ron Paul said Monday he will not compete in Republican primaries in any of the states that have not yet voted — essentially ending the 2012 primary season and leaving the path open for Mitt Romney to win the GOP presidential nomination.
"President Obama is again reacting by trying to make government bigger and freedom smaller. Issuing a raft of executive orders, attempting to legislate around the Second Amendment, and proposing new and more intrusive ways to track us in our daily lives will not make us -- or our kids -- safer. It will only make us less free," Mr. Johnson says.
"I polled at 6 percent in Ohio, but with all the talk about Ohio, do you hear my name six times every 46 times you hear Obama's name? Absolutely not," said Mr. Johnson, a former two-term Republican governor of New Mexico. "Man, it's a real phenomenon that the deck is stacked against the third party."
ELECTION 2012: Third-party candidacies: Rarely successful, often influential →
