Live coverage as Mitt Romney campaigns in Nevada and Barack Obama makes his case in Virginia.
Latest
00.00 (19.00) We’re going to leave it there for the night, please check our US Election page for the latest.
23.00 (18.00) The Democrats are gleefully touting this video of Paul Ryan getting booed at the AARP convention in New Orleans. In fairness to him, it sounds like some in the crowd booed when he talked about repealing Obamacare but others cheered.
22.55 (17.55) Harry Reid has put out a blustering statement following Romney’s tax details release. But for all his angry words, he doesn’t repeat his accusation that Romney went a decade without paying tax. Don’t expect an apology any time soon but he appears to be backing away:
The information released today reveals that Mitt Romney manipulated one of the only two years of tax returns he’s seen fit to show the American people – and then only to ‘conform’ with his public statements. That raises the question: what else in those returns has Romney manipulated? We already know Romney has money in tax havens in Switzerland, Bermuda and the Cayman Islands. What we don’t know is why he refuses to be straight with the American people about the choices he’s made in his financial life. When will the American people see the returns he filed before he was running for president?
22.20 (17.20) Ann Romney’s plane has been forced to make an emergency landing in Colorado after filling up with smoke. No one was hurt and Ann spoke to Mitt immediately after landing.
21.10 (16.10) The good doctor’s letter is causing a stir with the Friday afternoon Twitter crowd.
20.30 (15.30) The Romney campaign has also released a letter from his doctor, Randall Gaz of Massachusetts General Hospital, saying he is satisfied Romney is in good health and capable of being president. Full text of the letter below but here are some of the highlights:
-“He totally abstains from drinking alcoholic beverages, and does not use any tobacco products or illicit drugs.”
-He is allergic to penicillin and takes a daily low dosage of aspirin.
-He has a heart rate in the 40s, a low rate attributed to his intensive exercising habits.
-“He appears younger than his age… He is a vigorous man who takes excellent care of his personal health… There are no physical impairments that should interfere with his rigorous and demanding political career as the next President of the United States.”
20.20 (15.20) John McCain has put out a statement saying it’s “time to get back to discussing the issues that voters care about” and that Romney has now given voters “an incredibly detailed look at his finances”. That’s not strictly true: while he may have released more 1,200 pages of tax returns it’s still only a fraction of the detail offered by previous candidates.
The decision to put out the PWC summary of the last 20 years, without the returns themselves, is an odd one. Romney is backing down from his previous insistence that he would release only two years and yet has done it in a succificiently opaque way that people are pushed back to the original question: what is he hiding?
19.20 (14.20) Romney is about to release his long-awaited tax 2011 tax returns, funny how these things always happen on Friday afternoons. These are the headline figures, according to the campaign:
-The Romneys earned $13.7 million, mainly through investments, and paid an effective tax rate of 14.1 per cent, slightly higher than in 2010.
-They donated $4 million or nearly a third of their income to charity. According to the campaign, they actually limited their charitable donations rebate because it would have pushed their tax rate down even further.
But what’s really interesting is an accompanying letter from PriceWaterhouseCoopers, the accounting firm, which effectively vouching for Romney’s tax returns over the 20 years between 1990 and 2009. Romney refuses to release the returns themselves but says PWC has looked at them and can confirm the following:
-Contrary to Harry Reid’s claims, Romney did pay both state and federal income taxes in each year.
-The average rate of federal tax was 20.2 per cent and the lowest it ever reached was 13.7 per cent.
It looks like we can reach two conclusions from this:
1) Harry Reid’s claims about Romney going a decade without paying tax appear to be baseless, as many suspected.
2) There is nothing particularly alarming about Romney’s tax rates – which seems to indicate that there may be something else, maybe in his investments or assets, that he doesn’t want people to see.
18.20 (13.20) Obama has just finished speaking to the AARP, America’s pensioner lobby and one of the most powerful interest groups in the country. He used his time (appearing via satellite from Virginia) to lay into Romney’s plans for the elderly.
I don’t consider this approach bold or particularly courageous, I just think it’s a bad idea. No American should ever spend their golden years at the mercy of insurance companies. They should retire with the care and the dignity that they have earned.
Paul Ryan attended the conference in New Orleans in person as part of an effort to reassure seniors that contrary to Democrat attack ads he doesn’t really want to destroy Medicare. He struck a conciliatory note, blaming both parties for the problem.
You’re right to worry that years of empty promises by both political parties are threatening the security of your golden years. And you’re right to demand honest answers from those asking for your vote. Mitt Romney and I share your concerns. And we respect you enough to level with you. We respect all the people of this country enough to talk about the clear choices we face on Medicare, Social Security, the economy, and the kind of country our children will inherit.
17.35 (12.25) Elizabeth Warren, the Harvard-professor darling of the Left, and Scott Brown, the moderate Republican, met last night for their first debate as they battle for control of Ted Kennedy’s former Massachusetts Senate seat.
There’s no love lost between the two and Brown immediately brought up the controversy surrounding Warren’s Native American heritage (though in fairness, the moderator left the door wide open for him). The professor was listed at Harvard as being a Native American member of staff even though she has only a sliver of Cherokee heritage.
16.42 (11.42) Pakistani television is reporting that 19 people have been killed in a wave of protests across the country against The Innocence of Muslims, the Californian-made film mocking the Prophet. Most of the dead are believed to have been killed by police as they opened fire on protesters.
16.25 (11.25) Obama has lost a crucial swing voter.
16.20 (11.20) Mitt Romney came under fresh criticism for his stuttering campaign from his own side today. Peggy Noonan, a former Reagan speechwriter turned Wall Street Journal, columnist called the Romney campaign a “rolling calamity”. Quoting a memo by a political consultant, she wrote:
“The pendulum has swung toward Obama.” Mitt Romney has “a damaged political persona.” He is running behind in key states like Ohio and Virginia and, to a lesser extent, Florida. The president is reversing the decline that began with his “You didn’t build that” comment. For three weeks he’s been on a roll. The wind’s at his back.
A audibly frustrated Ann Romney went on the radio to push back against the sniping from the Right:
Stop it. This is hard. You want to try it? Get in the ring. This is hard and, you know, it’s an important thing that we’re doing right now and it’s an important election and it is time for all Americans to realise how significant this election is and how lucky we are to have someone with Mitt’s qualifications and experience and know-how to be able to have the opportunity to run this country.
16.05 (11.05) Appearing on Univision yesterday, Obama said that he had learned in his first term that “you can’t change Washington from the inside”. He intended the comment as a demonstration of people power – that big change only comes when the American people put pressure on Washington – but it was widely interpreted as an admission that he had failed in his mission of hope and change.
16.00 (11.00) Good morning and welcome to our live coverage as Mitt Romney campaigns in Nevada and Barack Obama makes his case in Virginia.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/us-election/9558624/US-Election-2012-Sep-21-as-it-happened.html
