• Veteran journalist Dan Rather calls in at 9:30am ET / 6:30am PT to talk about his new book, “Rather Outspoken: My Life In The News”

• Rep. Jackie Speier (D-CA) calls in at 10:30am ET / 7:30am PT to talk about the GOP’s War on Women and her efforts to help veterans

• Mitt Romney on Tuesday won GOP presidential primaries in Oregon and Nebraska, putting the former Massachusetts governor ever closer toward officially clinching the Republican presidential nomination.

• In a decidedly underwhelming fashion, Former President George W. Bush voiced his support for Mitt Romney‘s presidential campaign for the first time yesterday.

• Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney took aim Tuesday at President Obama’s $787 billion economic stimulus package, blaming it for a soaring federal debt that he likened to a prairie fire.

• Court records show George Zimmerman had a pair of black eyes, a nose fracture and two cuts to the back of his head after the fatal shooting of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin.

• Ian Millhiser, Policy Analyst for The Center for American Progress Action Fund, calls in at 11:30am ET / 8:30am PT to talk about Romney’s lack of an immigration plan

• According to a new CBS News / NY Times poll, 46 percent of registered voters say they would vote for Romney, while 43 percent say they would opt for Mr. Obama. Romney’s slight advantage remains within the poll’s margin of error, which is plus or minus four percentage points.

• JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon owned up to stock analysts and went on TV to accept blame for a $2 billion trading mistake. Today he faces shareholders, who are considerably less wealthy since the blunder was disclosed.

• Speaking to Barnard University’s graduating class yesterday, President Obama challenged the young women to persevere in the fight for equality through leadership, touting a pro-woman message and emphasizing his hopes that today’s young women “will help lead the way” for change in America.

• Ron Paul said on Monday he will no longer be actively campaigning in the GOP presidential primaries but won’t formally suspend his campaign. Instead, the libertarian candidate’s organization will continue to accumulate delegates to send to the Republican National Convention.

By Stephanie Miller / Host of "Talking Liberally"

I had the strangest dream last night. I was on a school campus. It felt like a middle school or a prep school. I knew it wasn’t the Catholic school I attended when I was growing up because there were no girls anywhere to be seen. It was all boys. Yuck! 
Across the courtyard, I saw a group of these boys talking among themselves and looking at me. Their leader, a stringy bean-pole with a helmet-head of hair that seemed wired into place, started leading his buddies toward me. They were all pointing and laughing as they started running toward me.

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By Stephanie Miller / Host of "Talking Liberally"
When I was in high school and college in the late '70s and early '80s, there were certain things we all understood to be true. Now, 30 years later, there's been a bit of a shift.
I've been thinking a lot about the changes:

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President Obama never fooled me. I have always assumed that his personal views on gay marriage were consistent with his message of support yesterday. Yet the timing of President Obama’s historic announcement is a bit odd to say the least. By making this statement the day after North Carolina voters decisively passed a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, the President publicly refuted the position of a critical swing state that he hopes to win this November.

Like the rest of the state, North Carolina’s contingent of Bush-Obama counties voted in favor of Amendment One, but by a much smaller margin.  While 61% of North Carolina voters supported the gay marriage ban, 52.7% of North Carolinians in Bush-Obama counties voted for Amendment One.  Not only did Obama argue against the will of North Carolinians, but also, to some extent, against those counties that he turned blue in 2008.  However, there were wide discrepancies between the counties.  While Wilson County voted in favor of the amendment with 70.3% support, Wake County rejected it, with only 43.2% of voters in favor.

All told, of the nine Bush-Obama Counties in North Carolina, five voted in favor of Amendment with a larger margin than the state as a whole.  One voted in favor with a smaller margin than the state, and three voted against the constitutional prohibition on gay marriage.  Both the richest (Wake) and the poorest (Watauga) of North Carolina’s Bush-Obama counties opposed Amendment One.  Both of these counties, as well as fellow Amendment One dissenter Buncombe, are major education centers, and all of them home to large public universities.  Wake includes North Carolina State University and small private, liberal arts colleges such as Meredith and Saint Augustine. Buncombe, which includes Asheville, has a UNC campus, and Watauga is home is Appalachian State University.

From this information, one might think that opposition to Amendment One in all of these counties were bolstered by their younger populations, but of the three, only Watauga can really be considered a “college town” in that students make up a heavily disproportionate percentage of the population.  On the other hand, these counties have larger percentages of residents with BAs than other North Carolina Bush-Obama counties.  These wide discrepancies demonstrate the fallacy of viewing Bush-Obama America as a monolithic bloc. These counties, which have all voted so similarly in the last three Presidential races, still contain all the diversity of the United States, which is reflected in their votes on Amendment One.

North Carolina Total:  1,303,893 (61.0%) in favor, 832,283 against
North Carolina B-O Counties Total:  231,222 (52.7%) in favor, 207,403 against
Buncombe:  33,702 (48.5%) in favor, 35,768 against
Caswell:  3,388 (69.4%) in favor, 1,493 against
Forsyth:  41,772 (52.6%) in favor, 37650 against
Hyde:  909 in favor (64.1%), 509 against
Jackson:  5,706 (61.7%) in favor, 3,544 against
Pitt:  18,748 (61.5%) in favor, 11,717 against
Wake:  105,900 (43.2%) in favor, 139,020 against
Watauga:  7,464 (49.2%) in favor, 7,713 against
Wilson:  13,633 (70.3%) in favor, 5,757 against

Given results like these, Obama’s increased focus on cultural issues may mean that he will alienate some of his previous supporters in less educated counties that he won in 2008.  The question is whether or not these losses will be offset by increased support from college-educated voters in swing states like North Carolina.

http://bushobamaamerica.com

• Ian Millhiser, Policy Analyst for the Center for American Progress Action Fund, calls in at 10am ET / 7am PT to talk about Mitt Romney’s lack of an immigration plan

• Rep. Joe Courtney (D-CT) calls in at 10:30am ET / 7:30am PT to talk about the GOP blocking the student loan debate

• Comedian and author Judy Tenuta joins us in the Los Angeles Bureau at 11am ET / 8am PT to hang out and talk about her new book, “Tenuta: Full Frontal Tenudity”

• Three days after Vice President Joe Biden said he is “absolutely comfortable” with two men or two women getting married, President Obama told ABC News in a hastily arranged interview that “same sex couples should be able to get married.”

• Presumptive GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney on Wednesday said he unequivocally opposes “marriage between people of the same gender,” drawing a contrast to President Obama’s “evolving” position on the issue.

• Federal authorities and the Justice Department said Wednesday that they plan to sue Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio and his office over allegations of civil rights violations, including the racial profiling of Latinos.

By Stephanie Miller / Host of "Talking Liberally"
I intended to be funny today about what happened yesterday in Indiana. Something about never changing Dicks in the middle of a primary. I also wanted to write about the Republican filibuster against student loans because it seemed like such an obviously suicidal impulse on the part of octogenarian Republican senators.
But none of that matters now. Today is not a day for humor; it's a day for joy.

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The article also cites our blog:

Hillsborough’s makeup had been changing. David Dent, an associate journalism professor at New York University, has launched a website dedicated to counties like Hillsborough that voted for Bush in 2000 and 2004 but went for Obama in 2008. Nationwide, 272 counties fit the BushObamaAmerica.com profile. Although some similarities with nationwide averages on race and income can be drawn when all of the counties’ populations are grouped together, the makeup of the individual counties varies widely. Some are home to growing minority populations; others are overwhelmingly white.

“Hillsborough is clearly one of the BushObama counties where a tilt in diversity helped produce the win, and the question is whether those ingredients are still ripe enough, given the current economic climate,” Dent said.

How closely divided is Hillsborough? Of the 1.95 million votes cast in presidential elections since 1992, Republican nominees won only about 14,000 more than Democratic nominees. Another nugget dug up by [Steve] Schale, the Democratic strategist: The outcome in the Tampa Bay market has run within 2 percentage points of the statewide result in every presidential election since 1992.

the article presents a fascinating look at what its author suggests may be the most important county in the 2012 presidential election. The importance of winning there has not been lost on the Republicans, who plan to hold their national convention in Tampa, Hillsborough’s central city. As Florida’s only Bush-Obama County, Hillsborough is doubtless an important place to watch as the race moves forward.

http://bushobamaamerica.com

Bush-Obama America exhibits all the characteristics of America, but with a populace smaller than France.  In almost every economic and demographic regard, it is a microcosm of a larger society.  It is not a separate country, but a reflection of the larger whole.

There are a few differences.  Its Hispanic population is larger than would be expected.  In that way, it reflects America of the future.  On the other hand, the percentage of those engaged in manufacturing and industry is also greater.  In that, it reflects America of the past.  Incomes have not kept pace with growth in America, while its population has surged ahead at a much faster rate.  Like its greater whole, Bush-Obama America is a country on the edge.  It skirts the line between conservative and liberal, left and right, religious and secular.

The most compelling reflection is that of America in all her diversity.  Racially, economically, religiously, ideologically.  We chose these 273 counties for their one common characteristic:  their voting pattern in the last three presidential races.  But that commonality conceals a wide range of differences.

In some places, red counties have been turned blue through migration, both domestic and international.  California’s Inland large cities in Texas, and the burgeoning population clusters of North Carolina and Virginia come to mind.  The people who live in these places are not the same as those who lived there ten years ago.  They have been colonized by northern liberals, as well as immigrants from other countries who have injected a new political spirit into once solidly conservative counties.  These newcomers are already changing their adopted homes.

Other counties, especially those in the Deep South, are racially divided.  High turnout amongst African Americans eager to see the first black president turned blue places that have not elected a Democrat since the 1950s.  Jefferson County, Alabama, home to Birmingham, is the capital of this breed of Bush-Obama counties.  In places like this, it is not so much that their people have changed their minds, but who actually makes it to the ballot box.  They illustrate the paramount importance of voter turnout.

Like their Deep South cousins, college towns around the country raised their voices in 2008, as young people rushed out to make history with Barack Obama.  In places like Oktibbeha, MS, and Centre, PA, conservative districts were overwhelmed by excited new voters.  Whether they come out again in 2012 to renew their faith in Obama, we shall see.

Finally, there are those counties that simply wanted a change in 2008.  These are the dozens of counties in the Midwest that have long been manufacturing hubs and have seen their way of life and their livelihoods unravelling.  Faced with the relentless march of technology and globalization, they felt powerless and turned to the fresh-faced newcomer to make good on his promises of hope and change.  We will know in November whether they feel they got the change they believed in.

If Bush-Obama America is just simply a reflection of the broader country, why study these counties?  They are condensed, an America in concentrate, shrunk down to a manageable size.  Ours is a nation churning, its populace moving from city to city, state to state, with newcomers enriching its culture, language and gene pool.  It is also a land riven by race and religion.  It is a place where old ways and habits die hard.  To tell the story of these Bush-Obama Counties is to tell the story of America.

http://bushobamaamerica.com

By Stephanie Miller / Host of "Talking Liberally"

Richard Grenell, Mitt Romney's newly named spokesman on foreign policy and national security just resigned because of what he euphemistically (and hysterically) described as "the hyper-partisan discussion of personal issues that sometimes comes from a presidential campaign."
Hyper-partisan? Well that's true, except that the partisanship didn't come from Democrats. It was Romney's "friends" at the National Review and the Daily Caller who called for Grenell's head. And so he had to quit because the campaign had literally stopped letting him speak. It turns out there's not much value in having a mime as your media spokesman.

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• Eric Boehlert, Senior Fellow at Media Matters for America, calls in at 10am ET / 7am PT to co-host Right Wing World

• Vice President Joe Biden went where President Barack Obama hasn’t yet gone: In support of same-sex marriage, saying he’s “absolutely comfortable” with it. A spokesperson for the vice president quickly walked that back and said his position is “evolving on the issue”

• President Obama dropped the gloves against Mitt Romney on a trip that took him to two swing states on Saturday, leveling his most direct criticism to date of the presumptive GOP nominee while making the case for a second term.

• Although Mitt Romney is considered the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul won a majority of delegates at two state conventions in Nevada and Maine this weekend.

• Socialist François Hollande defeated conservative incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy on Sunday to become France’s next president, heralding a change in how Europe tackles its debt crisis and how France flexes its military and diplomatic muscle around the world.

By Stephanie Miller / Host of "Talking Liberally"
It's hard to be funny when people don't have the ability to laugh at themselves. It's like doing stand-up comedy at an undertakers convention: "Hey, did you hear the one about the embalmer who accidentally pumped a Republican full of fertilizer? The guy is still full of shit, but now there's a corsage growing out of his lapel."
Not a chuckle.

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• Joshua Hersh, foreign policy reporter for The Huffington Post, calls in from Afghanistan at 10:30am ET / 7:30am PT to talk about President Obama’s surprise trip there

• Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) joins us in the Los Angeles Bureau at 11:30am ET / 8:30am PT to talk about the 2012 Election and other news of the day

• With millions of dollars in campaign debt and just two Republican primary victories under his belt, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich finally called it quits Wednesday, suspending his campaign for the presidency so he could go back to being an “active citizen.”

• Former GOP presidential candidate Michele Bachmann (R-MN) plans to endorse the party’s presumptive nominee Mitt Romney at a campaign event in Portsmouth, Va., today, Romney campaign officials say.

• Embattled Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker is locked in a dead heat with Democratic Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett ahead of the state’s June 5 recall election, according to a new poll from Marquette University Law School.

• Former USC and NFL star Junior Seau was found shot to death at his home Wednesday morning in what police said appeared to be a suicide. He was 43.

By Stephanie Miller / Host of "Talking Liberally"

Richard Grenell, Mitt Romney's newly named spokesman on foreign policy and national security just resigned because of what he euphemistically (and hysterically) described as "the hyper-partisan discussion of personal issues that sometimes comes from a presidential campaign."
Hyper-partisan? Well that's true, except that the partisanship didn't come from Democrats. It was Romney's "friends" at the National Review and the Daily Caller who called for Grenell's head. And so he had to quit because the campaign had literally stopped letting him speak. It turns out there's not much value in having a mime as your media spokesman.

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By Stephanie Miller / Host of "Talking Liberally"

Dear Mr. President: 
I've got a real problem with you.  Sure you're smart, strong, handsome, a brilliant orator and you can even sing like Al Green (although I'll match you note for note any day on "Leavin' on a Jet Plane"). But who the hell gave you permission to be funny? I'm talking to you, Mr. Leader-of-the-Free World! Give a comic a break! I'm fine with the occasional funny line in a speech, but when you turn into the Sexy-Liberal-in-Chief like you did on Saturday at the White House Correspondents Dinner, that's my turf you're treading on...and you don't want to mess with Mama.

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