Federal Judge in Ohio Restores Early Voting

August 31, 2012, 10:01 pm

By RAY RIVERA

A federal judge in Ohio on Friday ordered the state to give all voters the right to cast their ballots in person on the final three days before Election Day.

The ruling was a victory for state Democrats and President Obama's campaign in a swing state and was the latest salvo in the contentious battle over the state's early voting laws before the Nov. 6 election.

The state Democratic Party and the Obama campaign had sued the state over the constitutionality of a law that ended early in-person voting on the Friday evening before the election to all but voters serving in the military or living overseas.

The judge, Peter C. Economus of Federal District Court in Columbus, issued a preliminary injuncti on against the law, saying that in making an exception for some, the law unconstitutionally valued some voters over others.

Judge Economus also cited statistical studies presented by Democrats showing that low-income and minority voters would be disproportionately affected by the elimination of the voting days.

In his ruling, the judge roundly rejected the state's arguments that restoring the final three days would make it difficult for county election boards to prepare for Election Day and would make it difficult for military voters to cast their ballots early.

The Ohio attorney general, Mike DeWine, above, announced that he would appeal the decision.

“With all due respect to the judge, we disagree with his ruling today,” Mr. DeWine said. “We have always allowed distinction for military voters, and to say this violates equal protection is wrong.”

Ohio opened early balloting to all voters - one of 32 states to do so - after the 2004 elec tion debacle that left thousands of state residents stranded in long lines unable to cast their ballots before the polls closed.

Democrats estimated in their lawsuit that 93,000 people voted early in the final three days of the 2008 election. At least one study Democrats presented in their lawsuit showed that early voters tended to favor Democrats.

The Republican-controlled legislature eliminated the final three days in a flurry of legislation in the last year. Then last month, the secretary of state, a Republican, eliminated all weekend voting during the five-week early voting period, which begins Oct. 2.

After Friday's decision, the American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio called on the state to restore all weekends during the early voting period.

Why College Money Is the Best Baby Gift

By RON LIEBER

This week's Your Money column about the ins and outs of giving money as a gift to someone's 529 college savings account wasn't meant to be an etiquette lesson. But I do think giving money is totally defensible, even if it means pushing the parents to open a 529 or other savings account to use the gift.

Sure, toys are nice and clothes are useful until babies outgrow them in a few months. But many parents can afford the basics. All but a few families could use a head start on saving up the six-figure sum that will probably be necessary to send the child to college one day.

Have you given college money to a newborn? How did it go over with the parents?

Way Cleared for November Vote

By MANNY FERNANDEZ

A federal three-judge panel in San Antonio ruled on Friday that the November elections in Texas would proceed, ending uncertainty about whether a Washington court's earlier ruling would delay the elections.

Earlier, the court in Washington struck down electoral redistricting maps passed by the Republican-dominated State Legislature, finding that they discriminated against minorities.

One of the minority groups that sued Texas over the maps asked the judges to redraw part of the Congressional district map and to set a new election schedule.

But on Friday, the San Antonio judges determined that the interim redistricting maps that they created would be used. A lawyer for the group, the League of United Latin American Citizens, had argued that the interim Congressional maps were discriminatory because they were based in part on the state's original maps.

The judges appeared reluctant to disrupt the elections, and they heard testimony from an elections administrator in Bexar County, where San Antonio is located, who said that any change to the electoral maps two months before Election Day would pose logistical problems and jeopardize her ability to meet the Sept. 22 deadline for mailing ballots to overseas military voters.

Scott Brown and Karl Rove Break Bread

By KATHARINE Q. SEELYE

Senator Scott P. Brown had hoped his limited time at the Republican National Convention might spare him from appearing too enmeshed in events that might not play so well with independent voters back home in Massachusetts.

But no sooner had Mr. Brown arrived in Tampa, Fla., on Thursday than he was spotted by a Boston Globe reporter having a tête-à-tête at a restaurant with Karl Rove, the former political strategist to President George W. Bush.

Mr. Rove is also co-founder of American Crossroads, the “super PAC” that expects to spend at least $300 million on behalf of Republican candidates this year. Mr. Rove had made a presentation earlier in the day to wealthy conservative donors at a forum described in detail by Business Week. At that presentation, Mr. Rove showed ads “aimed at such Senate battleground states as Massachusetts,” to prompt the donors to open their wallets.

Mr. Brown faces an intense campaign against Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat who has pulled in more money than he has, though he has more cash on hand.

After the Business Week scoop was published Friday, the Warren campaign raised the specter that Mr. Rove's super PAC was planning on invading Massachusetts with expensive negative advertising. The campaign wrote an open letter to Mr. Rove and the Brown campaign urging Mr. Rove to stay away and to respect the “people's pledge” in Massachusetts, in which the Brown and Warren campaigns have agreed to penalties if outside agitators come in on their behalf.

The letter, from Mindy Myers, Ms. Warren's campaign manager, said that the differences between the candidates were “best debated between the candidates and not via heavy ad spending from outside groups.”

But just in case that letter does not work, the Warren camp has taken the extra step of using the threat of a Rove invasion to raise more money.

< p>“Donate $5 right now to help Elizabeth fight back against Karl Rove and his Republican friends,” says the fund-raising appeal.

Follow Katharine Q. Seelye on Twitter at @kseelye.

Obama Honors Anniversary of Iraq Pullout

By JACKIE CALMES

EL PASO, Texas - President Obama came to Fort Bliss on the border with Mexico on Friday to meet privately with service members and their families and to highlight the second anniversary of the end of combat operations in Iraq.

As it happened, Mr. Obama met with the veterans of both the Iraq and the Afghanistan wars, and some soldiers about to be deployed to Afghanistan, the day after Mitt Romney failed to mention either war in his nomination-acceptance address at the Republican National Convention. The omission drew criticism from Democrats and Republicans.

Mr. Obama did not mention his rival in his speech to about 5,000 troops, but, plainly referring to Republicans including Mr. Romney, he did say that the soldiers should ignore political talk of major cuts ahead in military spending.

“The United States will always maintain its military superiority,” he said.

The troops mainly listened quietly, but one of their bursts of applause and Army whoops came when Mr. Obama said, “After a nation of war, the nation we need to be rebuilding is the United States of America,” tapping the skills of its military veterans.

“If you fought for America,” he said, “you shouldn't have to fight for a job in America.”

Before his speech to the First Armored Division, Mr. Obama met privately with 13 people, including two wounded warriors, spouses of service members and Gen. Lloyd Austin, the last commanding general of American forces in Iraq.

According to the White House, the president went to hear “about their experiences, views and concerns on issues relating to the health of the force,” in particular mental health. Before leaving Washington, Mr. Obama signed an executive order redirecting some money for veterans to improve services for mental health and suicide prevention. His press secretary, Jay Carney, said the initiatives bui ld on previous steps “to treat the unseen wounds of war.”

The president highlighted the need to help veterans in his remarks Friday.

“Part of ending these wars responsibly is caring for those who fought in them,” Mr. Obama said. “We may be turning a page on a decade of war, but America's responsibilities to you have only just begun.”

Mr. Obama's visit to the base, his third in two years, inadvertently made for an awkward contrast with Mr. Romney after the Republican's convention speech the night before.

“What War?” was the headline on a scathing commentary Friday by the conservative editor William Kristol of The Weekly Standard. He wrote, “Has it ever happened that we've been at war and a presidential nominee has ignored, in this kind of major and formal speech, the war and our warriors?”

Mr. Carney said only that he was “surprised” by Mr. Romney's failure to mention Afghanistan, but he said that he was speaking only for himself.

One Woman\'s Data Trail Diary

By SCOTT SHANE

As part of The Agenda, The Times's look at major issues facing the next administration, we have been examining the trade-offs, more than a decade after the Sept. 11 attacks, between security and privacy and civil liberties. Some readers have written in about the electronic data trail that all of us leave as we go about our lives, using the Internet and carrying smartphones.

Heidi Boghosian, a New Yorker and author of a book on surveillance scheduled for publication next year, “Spying on Democracy: A Short History of Government/Corporate Collusion in the Technology Age,” agreed to try to document her own data trail on one recent day. Her account, below, is nothing extraordinary â€" and that's the point. It is impossible to live in urban, wired America without leaving clues about ourselves, our movements and our views everywhere. And it is all but impossible to be certain who is looking at the resulting data or video and how much of it is accessible to federal, state or local government.

Ms. Boghosian is executive director of the National Lawyers Guild, a group of self-described radical lawyers and law students founded in 1937, and between her day job and her book research, she thinks far more than most people about surveillance and privacy. But the exercise of documenting her day was nonetheless informative, she said.

“Definitely, for me, going through the process reinforced my sense of the role corporations play in our daily lives,” she said. “And I don't think most people realize the extent to which corporations cooperate in turning over personal information to the government.”

Here is the record she made:

A Day of Surveillance:

(1) 8:30 a.m.: Closed Circuit Television (CCTV) in hallway permits private landlord to monitor departure of tenant from apartment building at 173 Avenue A, New York, N.Y. A sign is poste d alerting tenants that their actions are being monitored.

(2) City-owned video surveillance camera, mounted atop a streetlight pole, records pedestrian and vehicular traffic on corner of Avenue A and 11th Street.

(3) 9:45 a.m.: Internet Protocol-based, closed-circuit television CCTV/video surveillance camera at Chase Bank A.T.M. on Second Avenue and 10th Street records clear image of person withdrawing money. I.P. video surveillance footage probably transmitted to a central monitoring room and digitally stored (allowing for advanced search techniques), or viewed over the Internet. Intelligent I.P. cameras with video analytics such as motion sensors, facial recognition and behavioral recognition are used to identify abnormal activity in and around banking locations.

(4) 10 a.m.: Customer Loyalty Card at East Village coffee shop Café Pick Me Up, Avenue A and 9th Street, likely allow the business to track and predict customer spending habits.

(5) 10:30 a.m.: iPhone (with G.P.S. tracking) in owner's back pocket allows phone owner's movement and location to be tracked (by government, if cellphone provider gives access) through day and evening, even if phone is turned off, as phone owner walks to Astor Place subway stop.

(6) 10:45 a.m.: Passed by “smart sign” (digital billboard with cameras that gauges demographics of passers-by) that delivers ads tailored to the demographics of the passer-by.

(7) 10:45 a.m.: CCTV in NY subway system monitor boarding #6 subway line to work.

(8) 11:11 a.m.: CCTV in elevator records ride to ninth-floor office in office building. Building security guard has four cameras behind front desk showing elevator, stairways and hallways.

(9) 11:20 a.m.: Facebook software tracks user activities on sites on Internet after logging in and reading a few comments. “Tag Suggestions” feature employs facial recognition technology and suggests name tags after uploading photos.

< p>(10) 11:30 a.m.: Cookies on Internet monitor all Internet searches throughout day on range of subjects; ads appear on screen related to items purchased on line (athletic shoes, face cream).

(11) 1 p.m.: Credit card at Macy's Department store, used for quick purchase, has embedded RFID (Radio Frequency ID) chip, tracking consumer spending habits and providing that information to big business.

(12) 1:15 p.m.: Shoes in Macy's new shoe store all have RFID chips (unique identifier linked to database) in them.

(13) 1:30 p.m. Downloaded iTunes onto iPhone. Online music providers may share personal information with third parties.

(14) 2 p.m.: Video cameras and motion detectors in local supermarket track physical movements of customers (allegedly to aim for improved customer service) as customer drops in to pick up some fruit for lunch.

(15) 2:30 p.m.: Social security number and driver's license information, required by Fulton Street Verizon cellular s tore winds up in Verizon's digital database, as customer switches from AT&T. Allegedly needed Social Security number to conduct credit check even though customer has had a landline account with Verizon for many years.

(16) 3:30 p.m.: I.P. address may have been included on a bar code on a digital coupon while registering for at hotelcoupons.com to get a discount hotel deal.

(17) 4 p.m.: Continuous, systematic desktop monitoring surveillance of personal use of business computer to access site to order shoes could have been conducted had employer installed software to monitor my real time actions, purportedly to avoid discrimination and sexual harassment lawsuits that may result from inappropriate e-mails sent within company.

(18) 6 p.m.: Dropped by anti-fracking protest on West 14th Street. Unmarked police van with tinted windows probably had NYPD Technical Assistance Response Unit (TARU) personnel recording protest activities, especially because several Occu py protesters were present. TARU provides investigative technical equipment and tactical support to all N.Y.P.D. bureaus and also provides assistance to other city, state and federal agencies. The unit employs several forms of computer forensics.

(19) 7:30 p.m.: CCTV cameras inside East Village restaurant while meeting friend for dinner after the protest.

(20) 9:30 p.m.: Surveillance cameras on several buildings passed on way home is captured on tape.

(21) 10 p.m.: Final check of Gmail, and a few Google searches, allow Google to collect even more data on consumer habits and personal interests.

Ways to Make Life Joyful

By BUCKS EDITORS

Paul Sullivan writes in his Wealth Matters column this week about a pursuit mainly for the wealthy - yachting.

While the market for yachts weakened significantly in the wake of the financial crisis, prices seem to have bottomed out and demand is rising again, Mr. Sullivan writes. Still, maintaining a yacht and paying for fuel remain expensive - a fact acknowledged by two owners Mr. Sullivan spoke to.

But both offered similar reasons for owning a yacht - the joy it adds to their lives.

While most of us could only dream of such an indulgence, there are many other ways to make life joyful, and they cost far less. We'll name a few - a day trip to the ocean, a week away from the office, a roller coaster ride, a meal meant to linger over. But we'd like to hear your suggestions.

Massachusetts Senator Supported by Both Sides of Abortion Debate

By KATHARINE Q. SEELYE

Senator Scott Brown, Republican of Massachusetts, has achieved a rare distinction. In a highly partisan environment, he has received support from the opposing sides in one of the nation's most enduring and polarizing debates - over abortion.

He was endorsed on Wednesday by the Republican Majority for Choice; before that, he received the backing of Massachusetts Citizens for Life.

For Mr. Brown, the support from the opposing camps is a badge of honor and a sign of his ability to reach across traditional political boundaries to the independent voters he needs.

To his critics, it is a mark of his ability to blur his Republican identity and be all things to all people.

Mr. Brown, who is locked in a tight race against Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat who strongly supports abortion rights, describes himself as “pro-choice.” He objected to the Republican Party platform's hard line against abortion. Asked by a reporter recently whether he would pledge to “never vote in the Senate to curb women's reproductive rights,” Mr. Brown replied: “I'll promise that.”

But some of his past votes would not pass that test. Perhaps most notably, he co-sponsored the Blunt Amendment, which would have allowed employers to refuse to pay for certain health benefits, including contraception, if they opposed them on religious grounds. He opposes taxpayer financing for abortions (though he recently supported allowing such financing for women in the military who are raped). He opposes the procedure that critics call partial-birth abortion and supports strong laws regarding parental consent.

The upshot of this dance is that Mr. Brown appears to be both for abortion rights and against them, a straddling that prompted one Twitter user to write that his positioning seemed “like being a little bit pregnant.”

Speaking to reporters on Thursday at the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Fla., Mr. Brown did little to clarify things.

Asked if he could prove his “pro-choice credentials,” he said: “I don't need to prove anything. I let my record speak for myself. I feel very comfortable getting support from everybody.”

Mr. Brown promotes himself as an independent, often pointing out that he has voted with his party only 54 percent of the time. Not being “pure” on the issue of abortion - from the perspective of either side - helps underscore that profile.

The National Right to Life Committee gives Mr. Brown a positive score of 80 percent, saying he has voted with its position on four of five votes that the group considers important.

At the same time, Naral Pro-Choice America has given him a score of only 50 percent on votes it considers important - unusually low for someone who considers himself “pro-choice.” In fact, some groups that favor abortion rights do not consider him one o f their own.

“One right vote in the midst of scores of wrong votes does not make you pro-choice,” said Stephanie Schriock, president of Emily's List, which supports Democratic women who back abortion rights and has endorsed Ms. Warren.

But those who have endorsed Mr. Brown are less hung up on the concept of ideological purity and take a more practical approach. If Mr. Brown is re-elected, they say, he could help bring a Republican majority to the Senate, which is more important in the long run than how Mr. Brown may vote on individual bills.

Anne Fox, president of Massachusetts Citizens for Life, said that her group was backing Mr. Brown because he represented the better of two alternatives.

“In an ideal world, we would have someone who is 100 percent pro-life,” she said. “But we live in the real world.”

She said she understood that Mr. Brown was “pro-choice” because “he wants abortion to be available,” but her group is recom mending that its members vote for him anyway because it sees him as “less extreme” than Ms. Warren. (The group is not officially “endorsing” him because it endorses only those who are “pro-life.”)

Kellie Ferguson, executive director of the Republican Majority for Choice, which endorsed Mr. Brown on Wednesday, said her group was also not focused on ideological purity.

“A litmus test is not practical,” she said. “The Republican Party platform is so extreme that even the presidential nominee doesn't meet its litmus test.”

The Republican Majority had not planned to get involved in the Massachusetts race because abortion did not appear to be a factor in it, Ms. Ferguson said.

But it was moved to do so, she said, when Ms. Warren began trying to link Mr. Brown with Todd Akin, the Missouri Senate candidate who put forth the bizarre claim this month that a woman who had been the victim of “legitimate” rape could not get pregnant, obvia ting the need for abortions. Mr. Brown was the first Republican to call for Mr. Akin to drop out of the Senate race, but Ms. Warren tried to tar him with the Akin brush.

“We thought it was unfair to use this national strategy of tying every Republican to the most absurd and inexcusable statement instead of looking at the record,” Ms. Ferguson said. “We felt there was a distortion, and this was an opportunity to set that record straight.”

Mr. Brown's campaign appears content to live with the dichotomy of having support from the two opposing camps, even if it muddies the waters - or perhaps because it muddies the waters.

The Warren campaign hopes to portray him as an unreliable vote for women.

“Scott Brown may say the right things some of the time, but women in Massachusetts need someone who will stand up for them all the time,” said Alethea Harney, a spokeswoman for Ms. Warren. “On issue after issue, Scott Brown hasn't been there - votin g against equal pay for equal work and supporting a bill that would allow employers to limit access to birth control. Women just can't count on him.”

Isabella Moschen contributed reporting from Tampa, Fla.

Follow Katharine Q. Seelye on Twitter at @kseelye.

Obama to Visit Gulf Coast on Monday

August 31, 2012, 12:54 pm

By MICHAEL D. SHEAR and JEREMY W. PETERS

LAKELAND, Fla. - The two contenders for the White House announced Friday morning that they would both visit the Gulf Coast to tour the damage from Hurricane Isaac and meet with officials about the recovery efforts.

Mitt Romney, fresh from the conclusion of his nominating convention in Tampa, will arrive first. His campaign said the Republican nominee would skip a planned rally in Virginia on Friday afternoon to tour the bayou region south of New Orleans.

The White House said a few hours later that President Obama would visit the region on Monday to meet with local officials in the area and view the damage left by the powerful storm.

Both men moved quickly a fter the slow-moving storm flooded many of the low-lying areas along the Louisiana and Mississippi coastlines this week, knocking out power to hundreds of thousands of people.

The storm struck on the seventh anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, raising the political stakes for both men as they seek to avoid the impression of indifference that President George W. Bush initially left after the much larger storm five years ago.

This year's storm has already exerted political as well as meteorological impact. Its initial track suggested that it might hit Tampa, where as many as 50,000 people were about to gather for the Republican National Convention. Organizers canceled the first day of the convention.

Its shift west spared Tampa but raised the specter of another damaging blow to New Orleans, a city still recovering from Hurricane Katrina. Mr. Romney's organizers kept a wary eye on the storm throughout the convention, telling reporte rs that they were ready to make other schedule changes at a moment's notice.

Now, with the storm headed inland, Mr. Romney's campaign spared no time, announcing its intentions before Mr. Obama did.

The Romney campaign announced the schedule change on Friday morning, as the candidate was en route to this city along Florida's heavily populated and politically significant I-4 corridor, a belt of interstate that stretches from Daytona Beach to Tampa, where the Republicans wrapped up their convention on Thursday night.

The trip, to the bayou region south of New Orleans, will have a decidedly presidential feel. Mr. Romney plans to meet with Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, a Republican, and stop by an emergency command center.

Aides to Mr. Obama have not provided any other details about the president's schedule in the region on Monday.

The trip to New Orleans forced the president to cancel a campaign trip to Cleveland on Monday. He had been scheduled t o deliver remarks at the 11th Congressional District Community Caucus Labor Day Festival.

Follow Michael D. Shear on Twitter at @shearm.

One More Rally Before Ryan and Romney Leave Florida

August 31, 2012, 12:22 pm

By TRIP GABRIEL

LAKELAND, Fla. - With his-and-his jets in the background now wrapped with campaign slogans and logos, Mitt Romney and Representative Paul D. Ryan waved goodbye to Florida on Friday morning, repeating favorite lines from their convention speeches while seeking to mobilize the 2,000 supporters who turned out to help carry this largest, most crucial of battleground states.

“The convention was a wonderful and magnificent opportunity for us to share our message,'' Mr. Romney said. “Now we're going to need you to get out there and get your friends to vote.''

He added, “You've proved it before, Florida can be a very close election.''

Originally planning to campaign here and in Virginia with Mr. Ryan on Friday, Mr. Romney announced that he would detour to Louisiana to inspect storm damage.

“Last night you got to know me a little more,'' he said, standing atop a stage and speaking to the enthusiastic crowd in a hangar. “I was embarrassed from time to time with the nice things said.''

Speaking first, Mr. Ryan seemed to slip into the traditional vice-presidential role of the ticket's more barbed aggressor, aiming attacks at President Obama with more edge than the smiles he flashed at the convention.

He repeated one of his most effective zingers, that college graduates in their 20s shouldn't have to return home jobless to their childhood bedrooms and look up at fading Obama posters.

“President Obama made a whole bunch of promises when he ran for president,” he said. “Now we see a laundry list of broken promises.”

“The record of contrast couldn't be more stark,'' he said, comparing Mr. Romney's fo ur years as Massachusetts governor with Mr. Obama's “failed leadership.'' He mentioned the decline in the state unemployment rate under Mr. Romney, without including that the state ranked 47th in job creation over Mr. Romney's four years in office. He assailed the downgrade of the United States credit rating under Mr. Obama “for the first time in our history,'' but did not mention that the downgrade was partly because of Congressional gridlock over raising the debt ceiling driven by House Republicans' demands for spending cuts.

The visit to Lakeland, midway between Tampa and Orlando, was no coincidence. It is hotly contested ground in the presidential race because of an explosively growing population of retirees, working-class residents and Hispanics. The housing crisis devastated the region, with the 2010 census showing that 15 percent of Lakeland households were vacant.

Adam Putnam, the state agriculture commissioner and a chairman of Mr. Romney's state cam paign, called Lakeland “the fulcrum of the I-4 corridor'' in introducing the nominees. “The eyes of the world and the hopes of Americans are on us in central Florida, and we will deliver,'' he said.

The future of Medicare, of course, will be a major issue, and Democrats are hitting the Romney-Ryan ticket hard for proposals that will “end Medicare as we know it.” Polls show a strong majority of seniors oppose the idea of transforming Medicare into an optional voucherlike plan, as Mr. Ryan proposes.

But Paul Senet, the national Republican committeeman from Florida, who sat in the stands at the rally, said he thought Mr. Romney and Mr. Ryan were winning the messaging war on Medicare.

“We've got too much good communication going with seniors,'' he said. “They are enlightened and informed. There's respect for somebody finally being honest with them and admitting we've got to get this fixed.''

One More Rally Before Ryan and Romney Leave Florida

August 31, 2012, 12:22 pm

By TRIP GABRIEL

LAKELAND, Fla. - With his-and-his jets in the background now wrapped with campaign slogans and logos, Mitt Romney and Representative Paul D. Ryan waved goodbye to Florida on Friday morning, repeating favorite lines from their convention speeches while seeking to mobilize the 2,000 supporters who turned out to help carry this largest, most crucial of battleground states.

“The convention was a wonderful and magnificent opportunity for us to share our message,'' Mr. Romney said. “Now we're going to need you to get out there and get your friends to vote.''

He added, “You've proved it before, Florida can be a very close election.''

Originally planning to campaign here and in Virginia with Mr. Ryan on Friday, Mr. Romney announced that he would detour to Louisiana to inspect storm damage.

“Last night you got to know me a little more,'' he said, standing atop a stage and speaking to the enthusiastic crowd in a hangar. “I was embarrassed from time to time with the nice things said.''

Speaking first, Mr. Ryan seemed to slip into the traditional vice-presidential role of the ticket's more barbed aggressor, aiming attacks at President Obama with more edge than the smiles he flashed at the convention.

He repeated one of his most effective zingers, that college graduates in their 20s shouldn't have to return home jobless to their childhood bedrooms and look up at fading Obama posters.

“President Obama made a whole bunch of promises when he ran for president,” he said. “Now we see a laundry list of broken promises.”

“The record of contrast couldn't be more stark,'' he said, comparing Mr. Romney's fo ur years as Massachusetts governor with Mr. Obama's “failed leadership.'' He mentioned the decline in the state unemployment rate under Mr. Romney, without including that the state ranked 47th in job creation over Mr. Romney's four years in office. He assailed the downgrade of the United States credit rating under Mr. Obama “for the first time in our history,'' but did not mention that the downgrade was partly because of Congressional gridlock over raising the debt ceiling driven by House Republicans' demands for spending cuts.

The visit to Lakeland, midway between Tampa and Orlando, was no coincidence. It is hotly contested ground in the presidential race because of an explosively growing population of retirees, working-class residents and Hispanics. The housing crisis devastated the region, with the 2010 census showing that 15 percent of Lakeland households were vacant.

Adam Putnam, the state agriculture commissioner and a chairman of Mr. Romney's state cam paign, called Lakeland “the fulcrum of the I-4 corridor'' in introducing the nominees. “The eyes of the world and the hopes of Americans are on us in central Florida, and we will deliver,'' he said.

The future of Medicare, of course, will be a major issue, and Democrats are hitting the Romney-Ryan ticket hard for proposals that will “end Medicare as we know it.” Polls show a strong majority of seniors oppose the idea of transforming Medicare into an optional voucherlike plan, as Mr. Ryan proposes.

But Paul Senet, the national Republican committeeman from Florida, who sat in the stands at the rally, said he thought Mr. Romney and Mr. Ryan were winning the messaging war on Medicare.

“We've got too much good communication going with seniors,'' he said. “They are enlightened and informed. There's respect for somebody finally being honest with them and admitting we've got to get this fixed.''

D\'Oh! Eastwood\'s Convention Speech Spawns Fake \'Simpsons\' Meme

August 31, 2012, 11:34 am

By DAVE ITZKOFF

In the words of that great animated philosopher Homer J. Simpson: “When are people going to learn? Democracy doesn't work.” Sometimes the same can be said for social media.

In the wake of Clint Eastwood's unusual exchange with an empty chair representing President Obama at the Republican National Convention on Thursday night, the collective creativity of the Internet has generated countless illustrations and other widely circulated memes making light of the speech. (Including at least one rejoinder that came from the President's own Twitter account.)

But another humorous image, made to look like it came from an episode of “The Simpsons,” overstates the predictive power of that satirical Fox c artoon series.

This particular meme, which has spread rapidly on social networks like Twitter and Facebook, shows the cantankerous character Grampa Simpson in a newspaper clipping, shaking his fist in a photograph beneath the headline “Old Man Yells at Chair.” The image is often accompanied by captions reading: “The Simpsons' Knew It Was Coming.”

Though rival animators have previously expressed their awed frustration at the ability of “Simpsons” writers to beat them to every possible joke and plotline, in this case, “The Simpsons” didn't do it.

That image of Grampa Simpson, created by a thus-far anonymous denizen of the Web, is an alteration of a gag that appeared in a 2002 “Simpsons” episode called “The Old Man and the Key”: lacking a photograph for a driver's license, Grampa displays an old newspaper article whose headline reads: “Old Man Yells At Cloud.”

The original “cloud” joke has been referenced around the Intern et for years, often invoked in arguments where one or both sides appear to be growing especially heated over nothing particularly important.

On Friday, “Simpsons” executive producer Al Jean reluctantly acknowledged that he and his colleagues did not have quite enough foresight to anticipate Mr. Eastwood's speech.

“We didn't predict this but we GUARANTEE the world will end December 21,” Mr. Jean wrote in an e-mail. “Save money by not booking any holiday plans!”

Romney\'s Performance Provided a Smooth Ending for G.O.P. Convention

By ADAM NAGOURNEY

TAMPA , Fla. - Just after 10:30 p.m. on Thursday, about 10 minutes behind schedule, Mitt Romney strode down on the red-carpeted floor of the Tampa Bay Times Forum, shaking hands on both sides of the aisle.

It was as if he were already the president and about to deliver his first State of the Union speech. As Mr. Romney ambled his way toward the platform, workers moved a lectern to the front of the stage â€" closer to the audience that for so long has seemed so distant for Mr. Romney.

For nearly 40 minutes, Mr. Romney spoke - confident and at ease, alone on the huge stage erected for this moment - and accepted the Republican nomination for president. It was a polished moment of stagecraft, a smooth ending to a convention that had begun in the unsteady shadow of a looming tropical storm and a primary campaign that been stormy throughout.

For Mr. Romney, this was the performance of someone who may not be a natural at politics, but had clearly spent time practicing for this appearance before the biggest audience of his life. He spoke quickly, but there were no flubbed lines. He was at ease as he joked with the crowd, careful not to step on his own applause lines.

There were moments it was easy to imagine Mr. Romney, the competitive perfectionist, practicing in front of a mirror or before a room filled with aides. Yet for all the criticism of him as wooden or forced, he did not seem too practiced, as he breezed between gauzy stories about his life and tough, though not piercing, attacks on Mr. Obama.

“President Obama promised to begin to slow the rise of the oceans and heal the planet,” Mr. Romney said, pausing - almost a moment too long - as the audience rose in mocking laughter. “My promise is to help you and your family.”

Mr. Romney's broadly thematic speech was largely devoid of specific proposals. Still, as was the case with the acceptance speech of his ru nning mate, Paul D. Ryan, it contained some questionable statements, among them his oft-repeated (and oft-debunked) claim that Mr. Obama had gone on “an apology tour” for America.

And he spoke almost matter-of-factly of using this speech to do what many Republicans - and for that matter, Sunday morning television commentators - had told him he needed to do. “You need to know more about me and where I will lead the country,” he said, before starting with the “I was born” section of his remarks.

If the normally punctual Mr. Romney was irritated by the late start of his speech, it was not apparent. And how could he be? The delay came because of Clint Eastwood, the actor and director, who was the surprise guest at the convention, at the candidate's request, to introduce Mr. Romney.

Mr. Eastwood walked on stage to a burst of flashbulbs and Hollywood-like applause. “Save a little for Mitt,” he said.

Mr. Eastwood also arrived without any visi ble script - the only words on the teleprompter were stage directions (“Whip team - hand out the flags”). And it showed. As the cameras clicked, he launched into lanky, meandering remarks, included a mock, and at times off-color, interview with an imaginary Mr. Obama sitting in an empty chair on the stage.

A red light flashed furiously under the teleprompter. If Mr. Eastwood, who is 82, saw it, he paid it no mind. Given his line of work, it seems unlikely he was unfamiliar with its meaning.

Before Mr. Eastwood, a lineup of Mr. Romney's friends, fellow church elders, associates from his business life and people who worked for him when he was governor of Massachusetts paid tribute to his compassion and charity. A biographical videotape included intimate accounts of the life of Mr. Romney and his family - complete with pictures of his babies and marriage and a discussion of Ann Romney's struggle with multiple sclerosis. The video was powerful, yet it was shown b efore prime time, to make way for Mr. Eastwood and Marco Rubio, the Florida senator who introduced Mr. Romney.

That put the pressure on Mr. Romney to use his speech to sketch in for this larger audience the details of his personal life that have been so absent during this campaign.

The crowd seemed heartened by Mr. Romney's stories of his life. “That's the type of leadership I look for,” said Andrew Kotyuk, a delegate from California. “It's somebody who is humble, and willing to give a helping hand, and doesn't brag about giving a helping hand.”

But it offered its loudest cheers when Mr. Romney pledged to eliminate Obamacare and when he asserted that the “the centerpiece of the president's entire re-election campaign is attacking success.”

Overall, the reception for Mr. Romney may not have been quite as ecstatic as the response that greeted Mr. Ryan the night before. Still, the response in the room was warm and enthusiasm, the applause of a crowd of people who were eager for their speaker to succeed and had concluded, with almost palpable relief, that he had.

Ashley Parker contributed reporting.

Romney to Visit Hurricane Zone in Louisiana

By JEREMY W. PETERS

LAKELAND, Fla. - Fresh off his acceptance of the Republican nomination for president, Mitt Romney will make a last-minute trip to Louisiana on Friday to tour areas damaged by Hurricane Isaac.

The trip, to the bayou region south of New Orleans, will have a decidedly presidential feel. Mr. Romney plans to meet with Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, a Republican, and stop by an emergency command center.

The Romney campaign announced the schedule change on Friday morning, as the candidate was en route to this city along Florida's heavily populated and politically significant I-4 corridor, a belt of interstate that stretches from Daytona Beach to Tampa, where the Republicans wrapped up their convention on Thursday night.

Mr. Romney is set to deliver remarks here to a crowd of several hundred people, who gathered early Friday morning to see the candidate in his first campaign rally since his acceptance speech.

Friday Reading: To Brief the Teacher, or Hold Your Tongue?

By ANN CARRNS

A variety of consumer-focused articles appears daily in The New York Times and on our blogs. Each weekday morning, we gather them together here so you can quickly scan the news that could hit you in your wallet.