"No-one's ever asked to see my birth certificate," Mr Romney told a crowd of about 5,000 people at an event in a Detroit suburb.
"They know that this is the place that we were born and raised," he said, to laughter from the crowd.
The comments allude to a debunked conspiracy theory that Mr Obama, whose father was from Kenya, was not born in the US and is not eligible to be president.
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Mr Romney is due to be officially appointed next week as the Republican nominee at the party's convention in Tampa, Florida (Romney’s 1-2).
Birther theories vary.
Some argue Obama was born in Kenya, not Hawaii. Others, such as the one outlined in Iowa, focus on the fact that Obama's father was not a U.S. citizen, supposedly rendering his son ineligible for the Oval Office.
The Romney campaign would clearly prefer to focus on the economy and banish birth certificate talk to the “fever swamps” of the Internet, as Buzzfeed's Ben Smith recently labeled the sinister corners of the Web where conspiracy theories thrive.
Instead, birtherism is creeping more and more into the domain of GOP officialdom.
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In North Carolina, the state GOP convention will be headlined next week by Donald Trump, whose 2011 crusade to unearth details about Obama's origins drew global attention and prompted the White House to release the president's long-form birth certificate.
The Romney campaign has since leveraged Trump as a campaign surrogate and fund-raiser (Hamby 1-2).
Voter Disenfranchisement
Between January 2011 and October 2012, governors signed into law twenty-three bills that imposed constraints on voting. Many of these measures mandated the presentation of a state-issued photo identification such as a driver’s license. In June 2012, the Republican majority in the Pennsylvania legislature took up the issue of voter identification cards, a topic of great interest to Republican-controlled legislatures in other states as well. The purported impetus for voter IDs was the prevalence of fraud—of voters presenting themselves at more than one polling station or of assuming someone else’s identity.
Typically, the poll worker at the voting location asks the voter his or her address and then the voter signs a document verifying his or her identity. Although the evidence for fraud in this system is only anecdotal – a study by the New York University Law School’s Brennan Center for Justice calculated the incidence of individual voter fraud to be literally equivalent to the incidence of individual Americans getting struck by lightning—several states raced to address the “problem” before the 2012 presidential election.
The real motivation, however, was to suppress the minority (mainly African American and Hispanic) turnout. Some poor residents do not own a car and, therefore, have no driver’s license, and the process for obtaining a picture ID could be intimidating, inconvenient and/or expensive. The U.S. has no national identification card with a photo. Someone who does not have such a document would need to go to a government office and purchase a photo I.D., thus making it difficult for those (particularly poor) residents to arrange such a visit as well as the cost on a fixed budget. It is estimated that about 25 percent of black voters and 16 percent of Latino voters do not have a government-issued photo ID. The figure among the rest of the population is around 11 percent. Approximately 30 percent of students lack the most common government-issued ID, a driver’s license. And young people, especially those between the ages of 18 and 29 tend to vote Democratic by substantial majorities.
Voter ID laws, if allowed to stand, would have clearly suppressed the minority vote. And that was the point. Mike Turzai, the Republican majority leader of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives divulged the real reason for the legislation: “Voter ID is going to allow Governor Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania.” Since almost all black and Hispanic voters would cast their ballots for President Obama, the statement revealed the motivation behind the move to fix alleged voter fraud.
Republicans also initiated other procedures designed to suppress minority voting. In nine states that passed voter ID laws, the government office to obtain them often kept irregular hours. For example, the Woodville, Mississippi, office opened only on the second Thursday of every month. That was more accommodating than Wisconsin’s Sauk City office, which was open only on the fifth Wednesday of every month. Eight months of the year do not have a fifth Wednesday, meaning the office was open only four days for the entire year.
Texas and Florida went further in their attack on alleged voter fraud. Both states targeted nonprofit organizations that conduct voter registration drives, such as the League of Women Voters and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). The states placed new training requirements and liability burdens on the groups’ volunteers. It was estimated that roughly twice as many blacks and Latinos register through such organizations as whites.
Republicans also favored shorter polling hours, arguing that keeping the polls open too long was too expensive. This made it difficult for voters who worked early in the morning or until the late evening hours to vote. Republicans also mobilized against early voting, especially on Sundays. In 2008, in Hamilton County, Ohio (which includes Cincinnati) 42 percent of early voters were black. As for Sunday voting, conservative commentator Glenn Beck called it “an affront to God.” The real reason behind the Sunday ban movement was that black churches provided transportation to the polls following Sunday services. Ohio and Florida eliminated Sunday voting for the 2012 presidential election. Both were swing states.
Doug Preisse, a Republican official from Columbus, Ohio, explained, “I guess I really actually feel we shouldn’t contort the voting process to accommodate the urban (read African American) voter-turnout machine.” When courts struck down Ohio’s assault on early voting, billboards appeared in black neighborhoods in Cleveland with a picture of a judge’s gavel and the words: “VOTER FRAUD IS A FELONY: UP TO 3½ YEARS & $10,000 FINE.” The billboards’ owner is part of the Bain Capital Group, which Mitt Romney headed in the 1990s.
Federal courts struck down or stayed most of these attempts at voter suppression. The major impact of these measures was to spur minority voting. African Americans were especially incensed at these veiled attempts to deny their right to vote, attempts that were reminiscent of the Jim Crow era when subterfuges such as literacy tests and poll taxes effectively reduced African American voting (Goldfields 5-8).
Smears
Barack Obama may, or may not, deserve reelection. But no man with as much decency as Obama exhibits in both his private and public life deserves the contempt that has been dumped on him by arch-conservative ideologues, talk show ranters and Internet goons.
From Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Donald Trump to all the anonymous creators of the wild fabrications that churn out of websites and go viral in emails, the relentless vilification of Obama has been unprecedented. Sure, every president suffers unfair criticism. Many of our most effective presidents, from Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln to Franklin Roosevelt and Bill Clinton, have been slandered and hounded by critics. But Obama’s detractors have plumbed new and revolting depths of mendacity.
Obama’s birthplace, his paternity, his religion, his academic attainments, his citizenship and his loyalty to the country have all been called into question by people who feel no moral qualms about spreading fabrications and untruths. Any unfair tactic, any lie is justified in order to “take back America” from someone they refuse to accept as a legitimate president, despite the indisputable reality that he was elected by a majority of American voters in a near-landslide of electoral votes.
It is a false equivalence to say the left has been guilty of similar smears during the administrations of Republican presidents. In those past instances, all but a few Democratic elected officials shunned such slanders. The same was true for all but the most rabid liberal commentators. But most of today’s Republican leaders stay silent in the face of the lies and many eagerly repeat them, while leading conservative pundits give the endless falsehoods credence, not an honest critique.
The right wing’s eagerness to engage in deceit has distorted credible conservatism and corrupted political discourse. It has turned the Grand Old Party into a rigid and narrow ideological club that tries to purge any Republican who displays even a hint of moderation or willingness to compromise (Horsey 1).
Today on his radio show, Rush Limbaugh claimed that he got a phone call during a break that revealed Barack Obama had the “lowest grades ever in Harvard, never went to class.” This, of course, is a complete lie.
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It’s quite well known that Obama graduated Magna Cum Laude from Harvard Law School in 1991, a designation based soley upon grades which proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that not only is it impossible for Obama to have had the “lowest grades that any Harvard graduate ever got,” but also that Obama was one of the top students at Harvard Law School.
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Limbaugh’s attacks on Obama are more than just intellectual jealousy and ignorance about higher education. It’s hard not to see racism when a white dropout accuses a black man with academic honors of receiving preferential treatment based on race, despite clear proof of the contrary. … Limbaugh has repeatedly made racist comments about Obama. When Limbaugh declares that Obama got fake grades at Harvard and dismisses him as a beneficiary of affirmative action, he’s not just lying; Limbaugh is also trying to provoke racist feelings among his audience (Wilson “Rush” 1-2).
Six times on his show today, Rush “accidentally” referred to Obama as “Osama.” And Limbaugh reached his lowest point by claiming that Obama only went after Bin Laden for political opportunism. At a moment when America was united by relief at Bin Laden finally being found, Limbaugh turned it into an opportunity for sleazy partisanship to smear his political enemies (Wilson “Limbaugh” 2-3).
Michelle Obama was not spared.
The internet was buzzing Tuesday night with video of First Lady Michelle Obama apparently showing extreme disrespect to the American flag at a ceremony in honor of the victims of the September 11, 2001, terror attacks. As police and firefighters fold the flag to the sound of marching bagpipers, a skeptical looking Mrs. Obama leans to her husband and appears to say, “all this just for a flag.” She then purses her lips and shakes her head slightly as Mr. Obama nods.
Fox's Juan Williams claimed that Michelle Obama's instinct is to “blame America. ”Fox News contributor Juan Williams baselessly attacked Michelle Obama, claiming that “her instinct is to start with this 'blame America' ... stuff.” Williams asserted that Michelle Obama's “instinct” is to “blame America” or be “the victim.”
Fox's [Laura] Ingraham directed GOP To oppose Michelle Obama's efforts To fight childhood obesity.
Andrew Breitbart's website published a cartoon of an overweight Michelle Obama saying “Shut up And pass the bacon!” Taking a cue from Rush Limbaugh's nickname for the first lady -- “Michelle, My Butt” -- one of Andrew Breitbart's websites posted a cartoon of an overweight Michelle Obama eating a plate-full of hamburgers and saying: “Shut up and pass the bacon!”
Limbaugh Told Michelle Obama …:“If you're gonna tell everybody to eat twigs and berries ... you had better look like an Ethiopian” [and] President Obama's limousine “weighs eight tons without Michelle in it” (Krepel and Rosenberg 1-4).
Four days before Barack Obama was sworn into office, a prominent radio talk show host, Rush Limbaugh, told his conservative listeners that a major American publication had asked him to write 400 words on his hopes for the Obama presidency.
“I…don’t need 400 words,” he said, “I need four: I hope he fails” (Debusmann 1).
Works cited:
Debusmann, Bernd, “The Lucrative Business of Obama-Bashing.” Reuters, October 22, 2009. Web. http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2009/10/22/the-lucrative-business-of-obama-bashing/
Goldfields, David, “What We Can Learn about America from the 2012 Presidential Election.” American Studies Journal, 58 (2014). Web. June 9, 2020. http://www.asjournal.org/58-2014/what-we-can-learn-from-the-2012-presidential-election/
Hamby, Peter, “Despite a Frustrated GOP, Anti-Obama 'Birthers' Still Persist.” CNN, May 23, 2012. Web. https://www.cnn.com/2012/05/23/politics/birthers-arizona-iowa/index.html
Horsey, David, “Romney Victory Would Vindicate Right-Wing Smears of Obama.” Los Angeles Times, October 30, 2012. Web. https://www.latimes.com/opinion/topoftheticket/la-na-tt-right-wing-smears-20121029-story.html
Krepel, Terry, and Rosenberg, Leslie, “Michelle Obama Derangement Syndrome: Four Years, 40 Smears.” Media Matters, September 4, 2012. Web. https://www.mediamatters.org/barack-obama/michelle-obama-derangement-syndrome-four-years-40-smears
“Romney's 'Birther' Jibe Upsets Obama Campaign.” BBC News, August 24, 2012. Web. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-19372536
Wilson, John K., “Limbaugh Smears “Osama” 6 Times.” Daily Kos, May 2, 2011. Web. https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2011/5/2/972374/-
Wilson, John K., “Rush Limbaugh’s False Smears about Obama’s Harvard Record.” Academe Blog, August 2, 2012. Web. https://academeblog.org/2012/08/02/rush-limbaughs-false-smears-about-obamas-harvard-record/
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