The LA Times reports:

Artur Davis, one of President Obama’s earliest supporters and a former co-chairman for his presidential campaign, announced Tuesday that he was leaving the Democratic party for good.

[snip]

Davis, who represented Alabama’s seventh congressional district from 2003 to 2011, was notably the first member of Congress outside of Illinois to endorse then-Sen. Obama’s 2008 presidential bid. And it was Davis who seconded the official nomination of Obama at the 2008 Democratic National Convention.

You can read his announcement for yourself, but I’ll highlight a few passages:

While I’ve gone to great lengths to keep this website a forum for ideas, and not a personal forum, I should say something about the various stories regarding my political future in Virginia, the state that has been my primary home since late December 2010. The short of it is this: I don’t know and am nowhere near deciding.  If I were to run, it would be as a Republican.

Okay, Artur, why the change of heart and mind?

As I told a reporter last week, this is not Bill Clinton’s Democratic Party (and he knows that even if he can’t say it).  If you have read this blog, and taken the time to look for a theme in the thousands of words (or free opposition research) contained in it, you see the imperfect musings of a voter who describes growth as a deeper problem than exaggerated inequality; who wants to radically reform the way we educate our children; who despises identity politics and the practice of speaking for groups and not one national interest; who knows that our current course on entitlements will eventually break our solvency and cause us to break promises to our most vulnerable—that is, if we don’t start the hard work of fixing it.

Read the whole thing, really. Admittedly, if he throws his hat in the ring again as a Republican, he’d be considered a moderate Republican, but that’s far better than an Obamacrat.

If you look closely at the favorable-unfavorable breakdown (page 3 of the PDF), you see that not only is Romney’s popularity increasing among Republicans and Independents, but he’s also picking up more Democrats. Obama, on the other hand, is losing favorability among both Democrats and Independents when compared with the 4/15 poll, while his favorable rating with Republicans remains unchanged.

Since ABC also included ideological groups, it’s worth looking at those, and again, the numbers are looking bad for Obama. While he’s getting 2% higher favorability ratings from self-described liberals than he got in the 4/15 poll, his favorability rating from self-described moderates has dropped 5 points, and his unfavorable rating from those same moderates has gone up 6 points. Not to toot my own horn (too much), but this confirms what I’ve been saying for a while now: Obama’s lurch to the left to excite hard-core lefties is turning off the more centrist Democrats, who appear to be going to Romney. Obama’s probably going to want those voters in November, and there’s a good chance they won’t be there for him.

Of course, since we don’t have demographic info for their poll sample, we can’t be 100% certain of these results, but given that leftymedia polls tend to oversample Democrats, and generally strongly leftist Democrats at that, it’s entirely possible that Obama’s problems are bigger than they appear.

US President Barack Obama’s description of a Nazi German Holocaust site as a “Polish death camp” shocked Poland, whose leaders insist the record be set straight 67 years after World War II.

Yes, one of the worst death camps — Auschwitz — was in Poland, but it was run by Nazi Germany, who had taken over Poland… calling it a “Polish death camp” obscures that it’s the Nazis that were responsible and makes it look like the Poles were.

I honestly don’t blame the Poles for being upset about it. And it’s hardly the first Obama gaffe, especially about geography, where his gaffes range from saying Hawaii is part of Asia to mistaking what town he’s in.

Now, imagine that the President who talked about a “Polish death camp” was a Republican named Bush. Do you think the leftymedia would miss that opportunity to point it out at the drop of any given hat?

While we are moving farther and farther away from Dr. King’s dream, it’s not in the way most leftists would have you believe.

Instead of the Caucasian people being the favored race now, we’re seeing examples of people choosing to adopt a different race in order to get ahead. We saw that in the still-ongoing saga of Elizabeth Warren claiming to be Native American, as well as Barack Obama allowing — or perhaps encouraging — his publisher to falsely (Hawaii has officially informed Arizona that Obama was born in Honolulu) promote him as Kenyan-born. We also see this pattern in everything from college admissions to hiring police officers, where a failing grade can suddenly become a passing grade if you’re part of a preferred race. The Commerce Department is even considering adding Arab-Americans to their list of preferred races.

Is this truly the world that Dr. King dreamed about? A world where his four children would be judged based primarily on race? To believe that is to turn the clear meaning of Dr. King’s quote on its head. Dr. King is obviously talking about a world where race or color makes no difference, where the best person for a given position is given that position, whether it’s a position in a college or a position on the police force, without any consideration of the person’s race.

When race is one of, and sometimes even the primary, factor considered in so many areas of American life, it’s no wonder that people like Warren and  Obama were claiming to be what they’re probably not in order to get ahead. Could I have gotten more promotions, higher wages, or even better jobs by claiming, as Warren did, Native American heritage? I could probably do so with at least as much, and perhaps more justification than she had, since both sides of my family are from Iowa, where tribes such as the Oneota, Dakota, and Sioux, among others, were living before the white man came. I’ve never done so, because I want for myself what Dr. King wanted for his children — to be judged on the content of my character (not to mention that I’ve never researched my family history far enough back to either prove or disprove any Native American heritage I may have).

It’s the Democrats and their fellow leftists who are promoting this emphasis and focus on race, and in so doing they’re fracturing America along racial lines. If you look at their rhetoric, it’s almost always an us-against-them mentality. La Raza — whose very name means “The Race,” which is a pretty hard sign to miss — recently called for blacks and Hispanics to team up and “attack common enemies,” with the obvious connotation. Lest you think this is a fringe group, Obama, just this past January, appointed a former La Raza leader to the top position on his Domestic Policy Council. That, neighbors, is the action of a divider, not a uniter.

America does not need a Second Civil War between the races, and that seems to be the way things are heading right now. In 2008, we had black men standing outside a Philadelphia polling place trying to intimidate certain voters into not voting. What’s in store for 2012? We’ve already had one shooting outside a Texas polling place, which admittedly may or may not be racially motivated, but let’s be honest, in America these days, it’s certainly within the realm of possibilities.

If we want an America that is united, regardless of race, we need to quit electing politicians who are dedicated to splitting the country apart across racial lines for their own political benefit. We need politicians who will reject calls from advocacy groups for a single race to implement policies that will benefit them alone. We need politicians who won’t join single-race groups like the Congressional Black Caucus, even if they qualify. We need, to paraphrase Dr. King, to judge our candidates not based on the color of their skin — or what nice things they say they will do for this racial group or that racial group — but on the content of their character.

Cleaver said they would not tell pastors which candidate to support. They will let them know who to regard as the good guys, though (hint: not Republicans). “We’re going to talk about some of the draconian laws that have cropped up around the country as a result of the 17 percent increase in African American votes,” Cleaver said, describing voter ID laws as a form of Jim Crow-style “poll tax” on seniors and black voters.

The reason he is so vehemently opposed to voter ID laws is very simple: if each voter was allowed to cast one, and only one ballot per election, Democrats would be losing elections in droves. The only way they can survive is by having one person cast two, or three, or even more ballots, being bused from one polling place to another, in the process the Chicago (Democratic) Machine uses called “voting the graveyard.”

Think I’m wrong? There’s an easy way for the Democrats to prove me wrong. State, categorically and emphatically, that the right to vote is too valuable to let fraud have a foothold, and therefore they strongly support voter ID measures to ensure that the principle of “one person, one vote” is adhered to. Every time they talk about voting rights and don’t support this common-sense way to combat vote fraud proves the above.

Rasmussen says (this part of the article is behind the paywall, sorry):

Two-out-of-three Democrats (64%) are excited about the choice between the president and Romney. However, most Republicans (53%) and voters not affiliated with either major party (59%) will be voting for the lesser of two evils. This highlights the unhappiness that many conservative voters have expressed about Romney.

Scott Rasmussen, president of Rasmussen Reports, notes that this creates an interesting dynamic. “Democrats are more excited about their candidate but Republicans are more excited about the election. Despite misgivings about Romney, the GOP still has the edge on intensity.”

The thing that has me worried here is that the lack of enthusiasm for Romney, personally, means that conservatives will sit home rather than voting for him. On the other hand, the lack of excitement about the election itself may have the same effect on Obama’s voting block.

This could be a low-turnout election, and with neither side really that enthused, the outcome is still very much in the air.

Bloomberg:

In 2011, the best-paid Wall Street chief executive officer was Jamie Dimon at JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) He got $23 million in total compensation. John Stumpf of Wells Fargo & Co. (WFC) got $17.9 million, while Lloyd Blankfein at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) had to settle for $16.2 million. Although Vikram Pandit at Citigroup Inc. (C) received $14.9 million, 55 percent of Citigroup’s shareholders voted for a nonbinding resolution that would have denied him that pay. James Gorman at Morgan Stanley (MS) took home $10.5 million, a pay cut of 25 percent from the previous year. Brian Moynihan at Bank of America Corp. got $8.1 million.

Remember that figure of $23 million. Now, let’s look at corporate executives in media companies:

For instance, Les Moonves, the CEO of CBS Corp. (CBS), was paid $69.9 million in 2011. David Zaslav of Discovery Communications Inc. (DISCA) received $52.4 million, while Philippe Dauman at Viacom Inc. (VIA) was paid $43 million. Walt Disney Co. (DIS)’s Robert Iger got $31 million. Jeff Bewkes, at Time Warner Inc. (TWX), was paid $26 million in 2011.

Even the top executives at Comcast Corp. (CMCSA), Brian Roberts and Steve Burke, received compensation of $27 million and $24 million, respectively, despite their pay being cut 13 percent and 32 percent, respectively, from the previous year. (It’s worth noting that Comcast patriarch Ralph Roberts, now 92 years old and still a regular in the executive offices at the company, once again took $1 in compensation for 2011.)

So where’s Occupy Hollywood calling for an end to these high salaries? Has Obama demonized them as he has private equity firms?

Of course not, these are the people that Obama wants to donate to him, so he’s backing off. And they are. According to OpenSecrets.org, So far in this election cycle the “TV/Movies/Music” sector has given $2,092,908 to Obama, and only $372,570 to Romney. However, Obama’s demonization of Wall Street seems to be souring them on his campaign; from the “Securities and Investment” sector, Romney’s received $8,111,740 so far, Obama only $2,738,779. That’s a far cry from 2008, when Obama received $16,040,935 from that sector and McCain only got $9,384,254.

Seems Obama’s written off Wall Street this election cycle, starting with his embrace of the Occupy movement and continuing to his Bain attacks. That appears to be costing him in donations, so if he loses, that might be one of the proximate causes.

Personally, I think McCain handled it well. He clearly didn’t want to engage in a political debate at this event, so he holds his peace until the heckler is removed. However, the crowd was obviously waiting for him to say something, so he did, and made it short and sweet.

First off, the good parts. Ron (I’ll be referring to him as Ron throughout not out of disrespect, but to avoid confusion with President Reagan) is very good at bringing forward things that might not have been covered by other books — I’m not sure because I haven’t read every book by or about Reagan — and at describing his own journey to discovering these things about his father. He shares a lot of stories that he heard around the dinner table and really helps understand how Reagan developed during his years before entering politics, even going back to the O’Regans of Ireland for a little of the family history. Several of the stories are very touching, sharing things like his recollections of when his father was shot.

However, the book disappoints because Ron can’t quite seem to let go of his political differences of opinion with Reagan, or with Republicans in general. Even though in the introduction he says, point blank:

This is not a political biography — that’s a job best left for others. I argued plenty with my father while he was alive; I have no intention of picking a fight with him now that he’s gone and can’t defend himself.

That seems to be what he does at several points in the book, including this passage:

His cherished tax cuts were passed — only to be scaled back when it became apparent that trickle-down economics was, indeed, as his vice president had put it earlier, “voodoo.”

That’s not the statement of a man who has no intention of picking a fight with a parent who’s passed on. He also denigrates the entire Republican party in the epilogue as being infected by “rage mongering.” Given that the book was copyrighted in 2011, he was probably writing it in 2010 and could easily have been referring to the rise of the Tea Parties in the 2010 midterm elections.

Ron Reagan’s political differences with his father are well known in political circles, and I believe that had Ron gone with his original intention of not writing a political biography, and not picking fights with his late father, the book would have been much better. It would have been impossible to write a book about Reagan without at least glancing in the direction of politics, but in my opinion, it could have been handled much more gracefully.

All in all, I’d give it a C. The parts where Ron concentrates on family history and stories about the Reagan household that we might not have heard are well worth reading; if you’re a conservative who can handle the author rehashing old disagreements with his father in the pages of the book, it’s worth picking up.

Politics returns tomorrow; today is a day to remember those that have died to keep us free.