The 2012 Republican National Convention has unveiled its redesigned official website, www.GOPConvention2012.com. The enhanced website provides a robust platform for expanded interactive and multimedia capabilities, including video and live-streaming broadcasts of convention proceedings. It fully integrates convention social media channels.

“We are planning an innovative, dynamic and informative convention,” said convention Chief Executive Officer William Harris. “One of our most vital assets in accomplishing this mission is our redesigned convention website and other digital assets such as Facebook, Google+ and Twitter.

“GOPConvention2012.com and our social media channels will provide a vibrant platform from which we communicate our nominee’s messages,” Harris said. “Our goal is to tear down the convention walls and make the 2012 Republican National Convention open and accessible to anyone, anywhere.”

The site offers key features being deployed today and at critical junctures as convention planning continues, including the ability to login via social network platforms for a customized viewing experience and deep integration of Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and other social networks.

GOPConvention2012.com will also include live chats and historic photographs and videos of past Republican conventions. Other features will be added to the convention website in the coming weeks.

“The redesigned website will provide an interactive experience to our web visitors while helping us build a community and make history,” said Director of Communications James Davis.

The redesign effort was led by Alexandria, Va.-based Campaign Solutions, which created and maintained the 2008 and 2004 Republican Conventions’ websites and digital strategies. The company has been recognized for its work, including Pollie Awards for web design from the bi-partisan American Association of Political Consultants.

Campaign Solutions’ online strategy and website design efforts were also honored with the “Best of Show” award for the 2008 Republican National Convention website (Minneapolis-Saint Paul) and the “Best Website” award for the 2004 Republican National Convention website (New York).

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After entrepreneur Donald Trump pulled out of moderating a GOP debate, a “giant ego-shaped hole” was left in the Republican primaries, according to The Colbert Report’s Stephen Colbert in a televised December 14 statement — and Nat Geo WILD is springing into action like a lion on a wildebeest.

Nat Geo WILD and ‘Dog Whisperer’ Cesar Millan have agreed to host the next “Serious, Classy Republican” debate with Colbert as the moderator — and officially invite the candidates to participate! The network has started recruiting pint-sized animal-loving participants from around the country to attend the debate, per Colbert’s goal of getting kids involved.

Said David Lyle, chief executive officer of the National Geographic Channels US, “If Colbert wants animals in the buff, we’ll get them. If he wants kids in the audience, we’ll start before bedtime. Bring on the candidates for the greatest battle in the history of the universe. It will be red in tooth and claw.”

Cesar Millan, a ‘People’s Choice Award’ winner for Favorite Animal Show, said, “PAC(k) leaders unite! The candidates need someone to moderate with “Tsssst!” power. This is going to be WILD.”

In officially challenging the candidates to participate, Cesar Millan plans to head to the Iowa Caucus on January 3 — before his new season of ‘Dog Whisperer’ premieres Saturday, January 7 — to see problem-candidate behaviors he can start rehabbing. “Pooches are easy, people are hard, and political candidates … that’s a whole different animal,” he said.

Other Nat Geo WILD talent on board includes Casey Anderson, host of ‘America the Wild,’ who is working with his 800-pound grizzly-bear best-friend, Brutus, to provide questions from the animal kingdom (and has offered Brutus to provide security at the debate!) and reptile expert Brady Barr from ‘Dangerous Encounters’ — who has had his fair share of tussles with crocs, snakes and other reptiles — and is ready to get out his bite meter and see how the candidates score.

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This January, the Republican Party will choose their nominee for the Presidential candidacy of the United States for the 2012 elections. The battle is getting stiffer, deeper, and more fierce within the GOP for front place in the primaries.

The battle to bypass the on-field verbal attacks among candidates with their so-called campaign related flip-flops, finger pointing and mind-wavering comments along with loads of unhealthy criticism has been going on between the Republican candidates as they struggle to reach the height of US politics.

These are the brave individuals who are ready to step in and potentially navigate the country through the rough tides that the Republican Party has been experiencing. One candidate who has entered the foray is former speaker of the house, Newton Leroy Gingrich, who announced his candidacy for Republican Presidential nomination for 2012 in May of this year.

Michele Bachmann, another Republican Presidential candidate who is a three-term Minnesota Congresswomen, is the current chair of the congress Tea Party caucus.

Ron Paul, US Representative from the State of Texas and a former medical doctor, is also a candidate for the Republican Presidential elections. Mitt Romney, former Governor of Massachusetts, is a serious contender and a clear favorite for the 2012 Republican Presidential nomination.

Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich and their fellow contenders for the presidential nomination will be facing state-by-state battles that will eventually decide their fate and mark an end to the intra-party race. As the Iowa Caucus approaches, Republican Presidential nomination hopefuls are getting desperate to out-smart each other.

Linda Upmeyer, Mr. Gingrich’s Caucus co-chair women, denounced the Romney campaign for buying 3 million dollars’ worth of ad buys in Iowa intended for negative ads against the Georgia Republican. She further said that it is Romney’s desperation and panic and she believed that it is not going to be comfortable for those who want to move forward.

Recently at the latest Presidential debate hosted in Des Moines, Iowa, Newt Gingrich received character-based aggression from his Republican opponents. Bachmann and Paul criticized Mr. Gingrich as “hypocrite” who profited from his contacts. Mr Gingrich shot back at Mr. Romney and said “the only reason you didn’t become a career politician is because you lost to Teddy Kennedy in 1994”.

Gingrich rose to the top of the polls largely because of how he performed in the other debates this year. However, a few days ago Gingrich’s criticism of Paul Ryan’s plan as “right-wing social engineering” and then his denial of his own attack, is typical of Washington politics, and has led his competitors to question some of his platforms.

Politics has been the center-stage for this type of verbal war and an instrument to prove self-worth from a very long time. Perhaps what matters the most, keeping aside all of the “va-va voom”, is the articulation of promises made during the campaigns.

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Occupy Wall Street, which has been going strong for well over a month, is beginning to be a new topic of discussion among the GOP presidential hopefuls. During the GOP debate in Las Vegas, the candidates were asked: “How do you explain the Occupy Wall Street movement happening across the country and how does it relate to your movement?”

Herman Cain has voiced his opinions previously about Occupy Wall Street in an interview with the Wall Street Journal. “Don’t blame Wall Street, don’t blame the big banks, if you don’t have a job and you’re not rich, blame yourself,” he said at the time.

Herman Cain clarified his earlier comments by making it clear that he thought the protesters are directing their anger at the wrong place. He believes that protesters shouldn’t be at Wall Street targeting the banks, but in front of the White House instead. Cain has also spoken out about how he thinks the protests have been a way to distract the public from Obama’s failed policies in hopes to get re-elected.

Congressman Ron Paul differed in his reaction to the movement. “I think Mr. Cain has blamed the victims,” he said. Paul has voiced his empathy for the middle class and blames the banks and the Federal Reserve for the current economic crisis. He also stated, “If you had to give money out, you should have given it to people who were losing their mortgages, not to the banks.”

In the previous debate held at Dartmouth, Newt Gingrich talked about the protesters on Wall Street. He stated, “I think the people who are protesting on Wall Street break into two groups. One is left-wing agitators who would be happy to show up next week on any other topic, and the other is sincere middle-class people who, frankly, are very close to the Tea Party people and actually care.”

He went on to say that the solution to the protests was to fire Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke and that the protestors should be directing their anger toward the federal government.

Rick Perry discussed his stance on the regulations in Wall Street, and what he thought about the protesters in an interview with CNBC’s John Harwood. He states, “I hope what they will see is that America’s a fabulous country and it gives them the opportunity to go say your peace, go protest on the street.”

At an appearance in Florida, Mitt Romney talked of the protest by stating, “I think it’s dangerous, this class warfare.” With the protest showing no signs of slowing down any time soon, it seems as if Occupy Wall Street is beginning to be a legitimate topic that the Republican GOP candidates will have to face in the future.

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At a speech at the Citadel Military College in South Carolina on October 7, Mitt Romney outlined some of his goals for American foreign policy if he wins the presidential election in 2012. He made two large promises: first, he pledged to reverse cuts in defense spending, and second, he vowed to deploy missiles and ships.

He also assured the audience that he would rebuild the US economy, reverse President Obama’s “massive defense cuts,” and increase the number of soldiers in the military by 100,000. However, Obama has only slowed down the rate of increase in the defense budget, not cut spending. In the current fiscal year, Obama requested $533 billion for defense.

When Obama took office, the budge was $513 billion. In April, he asked the Pentagon to find where it would be feasible to cut spending by $400 billion in the next 12 years. Romney also wants to increase shipbuilding from nine ships per year to 15 ships per year. However, shipbuilding has been decreasing steadily since the 1980s because wars were concentrated on land.

Building military ships has not been a priority of the Pentagon for the last 10 years. The Navy said it needs a minimum of 313 ships. It currently has 284 ships, which is up from the 278 ships it had in 2007. The 24 Navy Aegis ships are equipped with missile defense technologies. Missile defense was another of Romney’s concerns.

Romney said he would like to intensify military presence against the Iranian regime “by ordering the regular presence of aircraft carrier task forces, one in eastern Mediterranean and one in Persian Gulf.” The US currently has full-time military presence in the Persian Gulf, but none in the eastern Mediterranean.

At the Republican candidate debate on October 11, Romney received some hard questions from fellow candidates about his healthcare initiatives and his decision to support the Wall Street bailout of 2008-2009.

Rick Perry asked about the Massachusetts healthcare plan that requires uninsured residents of the states to obtain healthcare. The plan served as a template for Obama’s healthcare plan. Romney claimed that the plan does not raise taxes or cut Medicare; however, he claimed that the Obama plan does.

The next Republican party debates will be on October 18 in Las Vegas. Michele Bachmann, Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich, Ron Paul, Rick Perry, Mitt Romney, and Rick Santorum will be attending the debate sponsored by CNN and the Western Republican Leadership Conference.
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Those who have been watching the presidential debates or followed the 2012 presidential election know that there was one additional member on stage in last weeks’ debate in Orlando. Gary Johnson, the former governor of New Mexico, made his first appearance at the presidential debate chiming in with his occasional policies, but has so far not made any drastic changes to the presidential race.

Being his first debate, the candidate did not have as much experience as the others, but he seemed confident and will hopefully get more face time during the next few debates to really increase his following. Johnson was perhaps the least in-focus candidate throughout the night with a lot of the attention still being directed to frontrunners Rick Perry and Mitt Romney.

“I got four minutes tonight,” he added, “I tried to make the most of it. I’m not complaining. That’s four more minutes than I had a week ago.” Although only appearing for a total of four minutes in the debate, he got some main points across and managed to include the most note-worthy line of the night.

“My next door neighbor’s two dogs have created more shovel ready jobs than this administration.” Despite just getting laughs, this line also made Johnson stand out and was highly talked about days following the debate. Johnson is known to have similar stances as Ron Paul including his libertarian views and being anti-government.

He even answered that he would choose Ron Paul as his Vice President if he was elected into office as president after a hypothetical question during the debate. Some think that his entrance in the race might hurt Ron Paul or divide the support down the middle because of their similar views.

One position that he made clear in the debate is that he would promise to propose a balanced 2013 federal budget on his first day in office. When Johnson left office in New Mexico, his state had a balanced budget, along with only four other states across the country. His other positions include legalizing marijuana and supporting “don’t ask, don’t tell.”

He also supports withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan and other countries that are not related to American defense such as Libya. He is also known for his frequent vetoing on legislation, and he said in the debate, “I promise to veto legislation where expenditures exceed revenue.

And if anybody doubts my willingness to veto bills, I think I vetoed more bills than any governor in the history of the United States. I think I vetoed more bills than all the other governors in the country combined.” Johnson will have to do some catching up in the race, and still only has support in the single digits, but he may have the track record and comic relief to gain the support he needs.
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Fox News and Google teamed up to add an interesting twist in the GOP debate that took place in Orlando, Florida. The debate included some interactive aspects which made it nothing like any previous debate. Google allowed the opportunity for citizens throughout the country to participate in the debate first-handedly and ask questions to the nine GOP presidential candidates via YouTube videos.

A total of 18,000 questions were sent in as text messages as well, according to the Official Google Blog. Some questions that many wanted answers to but which were excluded from previous debates were topics such as the education system, Palestine and Israel, and the “don’t ask don’t tell” policy. These questions were aimed at challenging the candidates and getting them out of their comfort zone.

A former teacher from Georgia sent in a video that addressed the problem with the education system and all the candidates had the opportunity to expand on their views on this issue. Another question came from a gay soldier serving in Iraq who asked Rick Santorum if he would reinstate the ban on openly gay service members during his presidency.

A different video asked, “If you were forced to eliminate one department from the federal government which one would you eliminate and why?” Other questions were simply added in hopes to spice up the competition and add humor to the debate.

Maybe one of the most surprising questions of the night came from a citizen in a YouTube video who asked each candidate whom they would pick as their vice president if they were elected in 2012 for president.

Other features introduced by Google were elements such as showing the most searched trends, which were the platform for discussion within the debate. The most researched words were then presented in a “word cloud” that included words such as illegal, Israel, and economy.

During breaks between the debates, Google also had a feature that illustrated what people were searching for most while using the Internet. It demonstrated that coupons were being heavily searched for, most likely because many people are trying to save money wherever they can. Foreclosures were another highly searched topic and was searched much more than home loans.

This new interactive feature introduced in the Orlando debate allowed for people across the nation to present personal questions and also challenged the candidates to think on the spot. Overall, Google allowed for an out-of-the-ordinary debate, one of my personal favorites thus far.
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President Barack Obama launched a three-day bus tour, speaking in town hall meetings through Minnesota, Iowa and Illinois, but he emphasized that he is not campaigning yet. Obama, however, spent his speeches focusing on jobs and the economy while criticizing the GOP field of potential nominees.

The President criticized the Republicans for their uniform opposition to any deficit-cutting compromise involving new taxes. “That’s just not common sense,” Obama told the crowd at a town hall-style meeting in Cannon Falls, Minn. “You need to take a balanced approach,” he insisted.

Obama spoke about last week’s GOP presidential debate where all eight of the candidates said they would refuse to support a deal with tax increases, even if tax revenues were outweighed 10-to-1 by spending cuts. Obama didn’t mention any of the candidates by name, and prefaced the remark by saying, “I know it’s not election season yet.”

At another town hall meeting, Obama was questioned about his health care reform and used the opportunity to take a shot at Mitt Romney.”You’ve got a governor who’s running for president right now who instituted the exact same thing in Massachusetts,” Obama said, referring the requirement for nearly everyone to carry health insurance. “This used to be a Republican idea,” Obama said. “It’s like suddenly they got amnesia.”

Obama also criticized the anti-government message that the Republican Party embraces. “When you go to the National Parks and those folks in the hats, that’s government,” Obama said. “As frustrated as you are about politics don’t buy into this notion that somehow government is what’s holding us back,” he said.

Obama began his speech at the town hall meetings by criticizing Congress, accusing lawmakers of putting politics ahead of the country and calling on voters to tell them to cut it out. “You’ve got to send a message to Washington that it’s time for the games to stop, it’s time to put country first,” Obama said.

“I want everyone to understand here, I’m not here just to enjoy the nice weather; I’m here to enlist you in a fight,” he said. “We are fighting for the future of our country. And that is a fight that we are gonna win. That is a promise that I make, with your help.”

Not everyone was pleased with Obama’s town hall meetings. Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus and a few dozen protesters showed up in Cannon Falls. “We won’t stand idly by while he uses our hard-earned tax dollars to spin his failure to put America back to work,” Priebus said.

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The Republican presidential debate on Thursday involved lively exchanges moderated by Fox News’ Chris Wallace. The most contentious debates were between Rep. Michele Bachmann from Minnesota and Minnesota former governor Tim Pawlenty.

Pawlenty has criticized Bachmann for weeks stating that Bachmann lacks executive experience that he has. During the debate, Pawlenty stated that the congresswoman has “done wonderful things in her life, absolutely wonderful things, but it’s an indisputable fact that in Congress her record of accomplishments and results is nonexistent. That’s not going to be good enough.”

Bachmann, not one to shy away from confrontation, blasted Pawlenty’s record as governor. “Governor, when you were governor in Minnesota, you implemented cap and trade in our state, and you praised the unconstitutional individual mandate, and you called for requiring all people in our state to purchase health insurance,” she said.

The two continued to debate and Bachmann praised her own record of fighting Democratic proposals, such as health care. But Pawlenty pointed out that she did not stop the health care bill, increases in spending or the 2008 bailout of Wall Street banks. “She said she’s got a titanium spine. It’s not your spine we’re worried about, it’s your record of results,” Pawlenty said. “If that’s your view of effective results and leadership, then please stop because you’re killing us.”

Minutes later, the two lawmakers argued again over a cigarette tax that both appeared to agree with. Bachmann, who voted for the tax, stated she only voted for it because it was tied to an anti-abortion measure. Pawlenty called her arguments “illogical.” Most observers and pundits declared Bachmann the winner in the debate. Kent Sorensen, a Republican state legislator who is supporting Bachmann, certainly felt that way.”She exposed [Pawlenty] for the phony that he is,” Sorensen said. “He came out with the first punch and she came back with a roundhouse.”

Mitt Romney appeared to skate through the debate unscathed, mainly because other participants were too busy arguing with one another. It was Jon Huntsman first debate but he did little to stand out. An interesting portion of the debate came as Ron Paul, the congressman from Texas, and Rick Santorum, the former senator from Pennsylvania, discussed Iran. Paul said he did not have a problem with Iran trying to obtain nuclear weapons.”Why wouldn’t it be natural that they might want a weapon … Why should we write people off?” he asked. “What’s so terribly bad about this?”

“Iran is not Iceland, Ron. Iran is a country that has been at war with us since 1979,” Santorum replied. Paul stated that the U.S. has intervened in Iran since the CIA was involved in the 1953 coup of Iran’s democratically elected prime minister.”We just plain don’t mind our own business … that’s the problem,” Paul said.

Paul became more agitated as he pointed out the “trillions of dollars” being spent on foreign wars to a crowd of cheering supporters.

NewtGingrich, the former House Speaker from Georgia, complained that the questions about his staff shake-up earlier in the year were “Mickey Mouse games.” “I took seriously [fellow host] Bret [Baier]‘s injunction to put aside the talking points. I wish you would put aside the gotcha questions,” he said. Gingrich then went on to compare himself twice to Ronald Reagan, who had staff departures during his run for the White House in 1980.

Wallace didn’t take it lightly. “If you think questions about your record are Mickey Mouse, I’m sorry,” he said, with disdain. “I think those are questions people want to hear answers to.”

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