U.S. Edition
Portsmouth, New Hampshire (CNN) - A group of un-aligned New Hampshire Republican officials plan a Thursday press conference to defend a much-derided speech given by Texas Gov. Rick Perry late last week, CNN has learned.
Two-time Congressional candidate Jennifer Horn of We the People, which has organized a series of forums with presidential candidates including Perry, will speak at the press conference, she told CNN Wednesday. FULL POST
(CNN) - Herman Cain's campaign boasted a second gangbusters fundraising day Tuesday, saying in a release they had raised more than $400,000, enough to beat their single-day fundraising record.
The previous record was set Monday, when the campaign reported taking in $400,000. The campaign did not specify how much higher Tuesday's totals were from Monday's. FULL POST
(CNN) - As questions swirl over whether rival presidential campaigns leaking details of past sexual harassment claims against Herman Cain, one 2012 hopeful is denouncing such tactics as 'repulsive.'
"I'd want to see the evidence, but I would say if it turns out that a Republican presidential candidate deliberately went out and created this kind of a story about a fellow candidate, that they would pretty rapidly become a pariah to the rest of us and they'd fire who did it," Gingrich said Wednesday on CNN's "Erin Burnett OutFront." FULL POST
(CNN) - The sexual harassment controversy surrounding Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain took on an even sharper political tone Wednesday when Cain blamed a consultant with ties to Texas Gov. Rick Perry's campaign for leaking information over the sexual harassment allegations.
Cain told Forbes that in 2003 he told Curt Anderson, who worked on Cain's unsuccessful 2004 U.S. Senate campaign in Georgia, about one case. "Those charges were baseless, but I thought he needed to know about them," Cain told Forbes. "I don't recall anyone else being in the room when I told him."
(CNN) - A botched gun probe that allowed hundreds of weapons to reach Mexico's drug cartels is likely to be a lingering but not fatal controversy for the Obama administration, observers said Wednesday.
Republicans in Congress have been publicly pounding Justice Department officials since June, when whistleblowers from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives testified to a House committee about the ill-fated "Operation Fast and Furious." The operation, launched in 2009, was aimed at cutting off the flow of guns to Mexico's drug cartels through straw buyers, but it allowed about 2,000 weapons to reach the hands of the cartels.
Washington (CNN) - A bipartisan group of 100 House Republicans and Democrats is urging the super committee to "go big," and put aside fights over taxes increases and entitlement cuts and come together on a $4 trillion deal to reduce the nation's deficit.
"To succeed, all options for mandatory and discretionary spending and revenues must be on the table," said a letter sent Wednesday from a diverse cross section of House members. FULL POST
Concord, New Hampshire (CNN) - Long-shot presidential candidate Fred Karger is trying to spur a new taste sensation with a political twist: Grapefruit juice.
The candidate is asking people to join him in boycotting Florida orange juice, and suggests switching to grapefruit instead. FULL POST
(CNN) - At a time when two Republican front-runners in the presidential race are taking heat over changing their political positions, Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann hailed her record as consistent on Wednesday.
"I have a core conviction. I don't deviate. I am consistent," Bachmann said in an interview with WHO Radio in Des Moines, Iowa. "There are no surprises with me." FULL POST
(CNN) – Democrats in charge of electing members of their party to the Senate in 2012 see an opportunity in North Dakota where a Republican is currently favored for the open Senate seat.
Guy Cecil, executive director of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, told CNN the Senate race in the state is "number one" on their list of contests that could become competitive in the next election. FULL POST
(CNN) – The latest twists in the Herman Cain sexual harassment allegations remind me of so many other similar stories we've seen play out in Washington over the years.
No matter how the story begins, you don't know where it will wind up.