Monday Morning Must-Reads

Daily Presidential Update

Swing State Polls from the Last Three Days:

Monday, Oct. 22:
Ohio (CBS News/Quinnipiac) – Obama 50, Romney 45

Sunday, Oct. 21:
Florida (PPP) – Romney 48, Obama 47
Missouri (PPP) – Romney 52, Obama 46

Saturday, Oct. 20:
Ohio (PPP) – Obama 49, Romney 48
Ohio (Gravis) – Romney 47, Obama 47
Florida (SurveyUSA) – Obama 47, Romney 46

Alabama Politics

NEW YORK TIMES: In South, Republicans Find That Dominance Does Not Ensure Solidarity

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — The featured speaker before the Kiwanis Club of Birmingham was Judge Roy S. Moore, well known for having lost his job as the chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court after setting up a two-and-a-half-ton granite monument of the Ten Commandments in the courthouse rotunda.

Calling the United States Constitution a “restriction on the fallen nature of man” and quoting Thomas Jefferson, George Washington and Gen. Douglas MacArthur, among others, Judge Moore was making his case as the Republican nominee, once again, for the state’s highest judicial office.

It was not exactly a plea for harmony and unity. There is a great moral divide in the country, he said, a division “not just between Democrats and Republicans, but between Republicans and Republicans.”

There are plenty of Republicans in the state who may take issue with the particulars of Judge Moore’s overall message, but on that last part they would agree.

Many in the Alabama business and legal establishment, a community that is overwhelmingly and faithfully Republican, are privately despondent over the prospect of a Moore victory and its effect on the state’s image. Some are the same people who spent the last year quietly lobbying the governor and state lawmakers to tone down Alabama’s strict immigration enforcement law, with limited success.

Like many other urban and suburban Republicans across the Deep South, they consider economic growth, not social issues, the priority. That motivated their longtime efforts to help create a Republican-controlled South.

“You’ve got to be careful what you wish for,” said Tom Ingram, a Republican political consultant in Tennessee.

As the South is settling in once again to an era of one-party dominance, many Republicans are learning that governing is not quite the same as campaigning, and that total control does not always equal total agreement.

EXAMINER: Top Ten Most Dangerous Cities in America (Including Birmingham, AL) Each Led by a Democrat

Detroit for the fourth year in a row, is ranked as the “most dangerous city” in America according to Forbes online.

The statistics indicate that Detroit suffered about 2,137 acts of violent crime per 100,000 residents. However, when we rank the extraordinary crime levels for each of these ‘dangerous’ cities, we noticed a startling trend in our quick research, and we weren’t the only ones who noticed it, apparently.

You see, each of these cities has one commonality being that each is also led by a Democrat Mayor, and these days you know what Democrat actually means….

“Liberal.”

Indeed, if insanity is defined as doing the same things over and over again while expecting different results, then these residents of the most dangerous cities must simply adore the crime waves they’re enduring.

Ranking all of the rest by least dangerous to most dangerous:

10th- Buffalo, N.Y. (Democrat Mayor )
9th- Cleveland (Democrat Mayor )
8th- Stockton, Calif. (Democrat Mayor)
7th- Baltimore (Democrat Mayor)
6th- Atlanta (Democrat Mayor)

[Birmingham excerpt via Forbes]
5. Birmingham, Ala. (Democrat Mayor)
Population: 213,258
Violent crime rate: 1,483 per 100,000 residents
Birmingham’s persistently high crime rate can be attributed to the drug trade and its high poverty rate — 26% versus 17% for the state as a whole, according to the U.S. Census Dept. One bright spot: The crime rate is down 40% from its highs in the mid-1990s.

4th- Memphis, Tenn (Democrat mayor)
3rd- Oakland, Calif (Democrat Mayor)
2nd- St. Louis. (Democrat mayor)

HUFFINGTON POST: Agenda 21: Robert Bentley, Alabama Governor, Refuses To Explain Ban Of UN Sustainability Program

Alabama Governor Robert Bentley Yellowhammer Politics — Gov. Robert Bentley

The Republican governor of Alabama declined to say why he signed a bill banning the United Nations Agenda 21 sustainability program in his state.

“I am not going to answer that,” Gov. Robert Bentley (R) said when The Huffington Post asked about the decision at this weekend’s National Governors Association conference in Williamsburg, Va.

Bentley signed the legislation last month, making Alabama the first state in the country to ban the environmental treaty, which does not carry the force of law in the United States. Before answering the question, a Bentley aide told the governor that he didn’t have to answer questions about Agenda 21.

Bentley signed the legislation, which has become a top issue for Republicans around the country, in early June and has not addressed the reasons behind his decision. The law prohibits state, county and local governments in Alabama from adopting policies and programs that originated as part of Agenda 21, including laws regarding property rights. The law says that private property cannot be taken by governments without a due process being used, a common fear expressed by Agenda 21 opponents.

The issue of legislative pay has been a feast for opportunists of all stripes. It’s hard to tell sometimes which is worse, the people who brazenly benefit from boosting their own pay or those who gleefully bludgeon elected officials for taking so much as a penny.

In terms of impact on the state budget, the amount paid to state representatives and senators is inconsequential. In terms of how public officials sometimes view privilege, it can be emblematic. The amount of time it can consume on the

legislative calendar when it’s up for consideration can be disproportionate.

Amendment 8 on the Nov. 6 ballot, if passed by the voters, would take the issue out of the Legislature’s hands. As with everything else about legislative pay, that will be a relief to some lawmakers and a frustration to others.

The amendment would tie legislative pay to the state’s median household income, about $41,000 right now. Legislators would also get to file for reimbursement of expenses.

That’s a considerable improvement — from the taxpayers’ point of view — over legislators’ monthly expense allowance of more than $4,100 a month and the $10 per day they are paid while the Legislature is in session. With other small items tacked on, legislators wind up getting about $52,000 a year on average.

National & International Politics

BUZZFEED: Richard Nixon’s 1972 Condolence Call To Joe Biden

In 1972, President Nixon called future Vice-President Biden to offer his condolences on the death of Biden’s wife and young child in a tragic car accident.

NEW YORK TIMES: Romney as a Manager: Unhurried and Socratic

BOSTON — As governor of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney could not resist burrowing into the bureaucratic weeds: He once took the statewide math and reading test for 10th graders, then startled his education commissioner by calling to say, “I like No. 14” and rattling off the answer.

As head of the private equity firm Bain Capital, he was so uncomfortable cutting loose struggling employees that a legend grew: executives sent in to his office to be fired emerged thinking they had been promoted.

And as a candidate for president this year, he resisted pressure from advisers to select a running mate before leaving on a high-profile trip overseas, insisting that he makes better decisions with time and reflection.

Mr. Romney’s bid for the White House largely hinges on his own narrowly drawn image of himself as a chief executive: the data-splicing, cost-cutting turnaround expert. But dozens of interviews with those who have worked for him over the past 30 years — in the Mormon Church, business, the Olympics and state government — offer a far more textured portrait of the management style that he might bring to the presidency.

A serial chief executive, the Republican presidential nominee is steeped in management theory and eschews gut instincts. He is not so much a micromanager as a microprocessor, wading deeply into the raw data usually left to junior aides.

The Obama re-election campaign has accepted at least one foreign donation in violation of the law — and does nothing to check on the provenance of millions of dollars in other contributions, a watchdog group alleges.

Chris Walker, a British citizen who lives outside London, told The Post he was able to make two $5 donations to President Obama’s campaign this month through its Web site while a similar attempt to give Mitt Romney cash was rejected. It is illegal to knowingly solicit or accept money from foreign citizens.

Walker said he used his actual street address in England but entered Arkansas as his state with the Schenectady, NY, ZIP code of 12345.

“When I did Romney’s, the payment got rejected on the grounds that the address on the card did not match the address that I entered,” he said. “Romney’s Web site wanted the code from the back of card. Barack Obama’s didn’t.”

In September, Obama’s campaign took in more than $2 million from donors who provided no ZIP code or incomplete ZIP codes, according to data posted on the Federal Election Commission Web site.

The Obama campaign said the FEC data was the result of “a minor technical error.”

“All the ZIP codes and numbers are real and can be verified,” spokesman Michael Czin said.

The Obama campaign’s apparent lack of safeguards makes it possible to violate the law, says a report released by the Government Accountability Institute, a Florida-based watchdog group.

The report found that one Obama site — Obama.com — gets almost half of its traffic from foreign computer addresses. The site directs users to an Obama donation page.

“We are not suggesting that just foreign traffic by itself is a problem,” said Peter Schweizer, president of the GAI. “But for a campaign that is very sophisticated in its fund-raising capabilities, they do not make one effort to try to even see or ask somebody to check a box that says they are a US citizen.”