There is little chance Mr. Obama will stop giving big speeches. There is an expectation that any president should lay out his proposals and ideas to the nation.

As the two men campaigned near each other, White House aides were not above their own digs at Mr. Perry, including his threat in 2009 that Texas might leave the United States.

A trio of well-known conservatives have organized a so-called “super PAC” to aid Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann’s bid for the Republican presidential nomination, according to sources familiar with the move.
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Under Federal Election Commission rules, super PACs can raise unlimited donations but have to report the identity of their contributors and detail their expenditures.
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It’s also an affirmation that Bachmann, Romney and Perry comprise the top tier of the Republican presidential field and are ramping up for a costly battle for the nomination over the next six months.

Perry, Romney offer contrasting approaches to job creation in GOP race

Re: Gov. Rick Perry (Texas, R), Presidential Candidate

Perry’s stump speech includes a line that, as president, he will try to make Washington “as inconsequential in your lives as possible.”

The harshest criticism of Perry's remarks seemed to be coming from former officials of the George W. Bush administration. Bernanke was nominated as Fed chairman by former President Bush, a self-identified conservative whose political team has had friction with Perry. Bernanke was renominated by President Obama.

Straw Poll, 2011

Six candidates, hundreds of reporters and thousands of activists will descend on a patch of asphalt in Ames, Iowa today for the first major moment of the 2012 presidential race.

“It’s not a lack of plans or policies that is the problem here,” Mr. Obama said Monday in his first public comments on the economy since Standard & Poor’s downgraded the country’s credit rating last Friday. “It’s a lack of political will in Washington. It’s the insistence on drawing lines in the sand, a refusal to put what’s best for the country ahead of self-interest or party or ideology. And that’s what we need to change.”

In Houston on Monday, the House minority leader, Nancy Pelosi, of California, vowed, according to television reports, to fight to protect Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security from Republican spending cuts. Mrs. Pelosi spoke of additions to the entitlement programs that were signed by President Lyndon Johnson, adding: “With the stroke of a law that they hope to pass, there are those who would repeal, would eliminate, those securities.”

Of the 60 members of the House Tea Party caucus, 32 voted in favor of the final debt deal and 28 voted against it.

A majority of Republicans who agree with the tea party movement give House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) positive reviews for his role in debt negotiations

Obama signs debt bill into law, averting default

Aug. 2 (last day of deadline)

“Seen in isolation . . . this is not a good bill,” said Sen. Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.). Yet, he added, “despite its many flaws, this legislation must pass.” He complained that by failing to increase revenue by ending tax cuts and loopholes for the wealthy while slashing domestic spending, “this legislation incorporates some policies that are profoundly unfair to middle-income Americans.”

Boehner Plan (House)

As passed, the legislation authorizes $900 billion in additional borrowing while reducing the deficit by $917 billion over 10 years. The president could request a second increase in the debt ceiling of up to $1.6 trillion upon passage of the balanced-budget amendment and a separate $1.8 trillion deficit reduction package, to be written by a new “joint committee of Congress.” The initial version of Boehner’s bill required only a vote on a balanced-budget amendment in the House and Senate, not actual passage.

President Obama named former Ohio attorney general Richard Cordray on Monday afternoon as his pick to lead the nation’s powerful new consumer watchdog agency and pledged to fight efforts to undermine financial reform.-- Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
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But confirming Cordray is an uphill battle for the administration. Forty-four Republican senators have pledged to block any candidate for the job unless Obama agrees to structural changes to the agency.
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Obama’s move has also disappointed many liberals, who had backed controversial Harvard law professor Elizabeth Warren for the post.