2012 Campaign Roundup: No Invitation for Ron Paul
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2012 Campaign Roundup: No Invitation for Ron Paul

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Ron Paul at a recent Republican debate in Florida. (Scott Audette/courtesy Reuters)
Ron Paul at a recent Republican debate in Florida. (Scott Audette/courtesy Reuters)

The Republican Jewish Coalition  (RJC) is hosting a forum for the GOP presidential candidates on December 7. Michele Bachmann, Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich, Jon Huntsman, Rick Perry, Mitt Romney, and Rick Santorum will all be there. Ron Paul, however, will not be. He was not invited. The RJC’s Executive Director Matt Brooks says this is because of Paul’s “misguided and extreme views.” To add injury to insult, Brooks equated inviting Paul to "inviting Barack Obama to speak." Paul’s supporters can’t be happy with the slight, especially when he is polling third or fourth in many surveys of Republican voters.

Newt Gingrich’s campaign announced that Kiron Skinner, director of Carnegie Mellon University’s International Relations and Politics department, is now serving as his national security adviser. We’ll see if the appointment leads Jennifer Rubin to look more fondly on the former speaker. She writes that Gingrich has betrayed conservative principles by placing a premium “on political expediency over national security” with his criticisms of how President George W. Bush handled the Iraq war.

The Des Moines Register’s latest poll has bad news for Herman Cain. At the end of October he had the support of 23 percent of Iowan Republicans. He is now down to 8 percent. Ginger White went public about her thirteen-year relationship with Cain on the second day that the Register was polling, so his fall from grace may be even bigger than the poll captured.

Fox News asked Michele Bachmann whether she supported extending the payroll tax cut. She responded that the United States is borrowing money from China that it “can’t afford to continue to pay back.” That’s a bit of a stretch. Interest rates on U.S. treasuries are at historic lows, which suggests that investors--who after all have a strong incentive to pay attention to America’s solvency--aren’t worried about Washington’s ability to pay its bills.

I noted yesterday that the GOP candidates were likely to take exception to the high grade President Obama gave himself for his handling of relations with Israel. Well, they are. The Romney campaign released a statement saying that “under the Obama Administration, U.S.-Israeli relations have hit a low not seen since the Jimmy Carter years.”

Michael Calderone details some of the divisions within the GOP on foreign policy.

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