Ann Romney Totally Looks Like Bride of Chucky

Ann Romney look a like.

Others Explain Mitt Romney Binders Full Of Women

Obama defines Romnesia

Poll: 47% video hurts Romney with independents

Poll: 47% video hurts Romney with independents

WASHINGTON -- The secretly recorded video of Mitt Romney dissecting the American electorate at a high-priced fund-raiser bolsters him among Republicans but makes almost a third of independents less likely to vote for him, a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll finds.

The survey, taken Tuesday, finds just over half of independents say the video won't make a difference in their vote. Those who say it will have an effect by 2-1, 29%-15%, say it makes them less likely rather than more likely to support the GOP presidential nominee.

Predictably, two-thirds of Democrats say the video makes them less likely to support Romney -- very few Democrats are on his side in any case -- while 44% of Republicans say it makes them more likely to back him.

The Obama campaign unveiled an Internet video with people reacting -- negatively -- to the comments. Michigan Democrats held a conference call with reporters with state party Chairman Mark Brewer saying, "It's hard, if not impossible, to be president of the United States if you write off half" the people.

The Romney campaign countered with a statement that if elected, Romney will "permanently lower individual tax rates by 20% across the board."

For some, the comments were still difficult to take.

Daniel Pier, 54, of Warren caught the comments on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" on Tuesday. He had been undecided and was leaning toward Romney. Now, he's moved toward Obama. Pier is on Social Security disability for a bad heart.

"I'm hearing him (Romney) talk about entitlements. ... We're depending on the government. I couldn't live unless we collected that," he said. "Every valve in my heart is bad.

"I thought he was a good guy, but every time he opens his mouth it's like he's pushing me further and further away."

Romney's comments have a basis in fact: The Tax Policy Center in Washington, D.C. -- a joint venture of the Urban Institute and Brookings Institution -- reported that 46.4% of earners did not pay federal income tax in 2011. (As has been widely reported, however, more than half of those who don't pay federal income taxes still pay federal payroll taxes, which include those for Social Security and Medicare.)

But linking those non-filers to specific voters is treacherous.

As the Free Press reported last year, the number and percentage of non-filers in higher-income brackets has increased in recent decades because of certain tax breaks, but low-income individuals and families and retirees account for most of the non-filers. And though Obama does better than Romney with low-income voters, a Gallup poll released Tuesday said Romney still gets about a third of the vote among those with household incomes less than $24,000 a year.

He also enjoys an advantage over Obama with older voters.

Vincent Hutchings, a political science professor at the University of Michigan, said Romney's words are true, up to a point: A large portion of voters will back Obama and not Romney because of Obama's politics. But, he said, some voters are going to react negatively to Romney characterizing "those people as being motivated by something other than virtuous incentives," that they are "aligned with Obama because they're on the government dole."

"It looks bad. He knows it looks bad," Hutchings said. "It's one thing to say a lot of people are committed to my opponent. It's another thing to say those people are a bunch of leeches."

Most recent polls have shown Obama with a slim lead. In Michigan, a Free Press/WXYZ-TV poll a week ago showed Obama ahead of Romney by 10 percentage points.

Republican consultant John Truscott in Lansing said he thinks the story is being spun "in a way that's unfortunate," believing that it should be used to spotlight a government on a fiscally unsustainable path.

Some did take it in that spirit. In Hesperia, northwest of Grand Rapids, 67-year-old Bill Myers said Romney's remarks moved him off the fence and now he's more supportive of the Republican.

"Somebody's standing up and saying the truth," Myers said. "I don't like the way he said it, but I think it's the truth that 40% of Americans want something for nothing. We live in an entitlement society."

He acknowledged that if someone wanted to tinker with his Medicare, he wouldn't be happy about it. But the conversation must be had, he said.

"We're going to need to take a tough stand," he said. "Somebody's going to have to give up something. If it's me, so be it."

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BEST UNDER 5 MINUTE 911 VIDEO EVER.

Schuette: 'Criminal acts were committed' by McCotter aides forging election petition

Four staffers of former U.S. Rep. Thad McCotter, R-Livonia were charged today in connection with the false nominating petitions that led to McCotter's departure from Congress.

Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette described the four as "not simply Keystone Kops running amok ... criminal acts were committed."

He said the petition forgeries and cut-and-paste jobs on the petitions "would make an elementary art teacher cringe."

Schuette said the McCotter staffers also likely did the same thing in the 2008 elections, using 2006 petition signatures.

• Don Yowchuang 33, of Farmington Hills, the deputy district director, was charged with 10 counts of election law forgery, a five-year felony; one count of conspiracy to commit a legal act in an illegal manner, a 5-year felony, and six counts of falsely signing a nominating petition, all misdemeanors.

• Paul Seewald, 47, of Livonia, the district director, was charged with one count of conspiracy to commit a legal act in an illegal manner, nine counts of falsely signing a nominating petition.

• Mary Melissa Turnbull, 58, of Howell, district representative, was charged with one count of conspiracy to commit a legal act in an illegal manner and one count of falsely signing a nominating petition.

• Lorianne O'Brady, former scheduler, 52, of Livonia was charged with five counts of falsely signing a nominating petition.

"Let me tell you this, we find any other evidence, we'll review it in the same painstaking ... thorough fashion," Schuette said at a late-morning news conference.

Schuette blasted McCotter for being "asleep at the switch," and providing no guidance to his staffers.

"They acted above the law as if it didn't apply to them," Schuette said.

But there is no specific evidence that McCotter was involved in the petition fraud, so the former congressman, who resigned in July, was not charged.

"Their motive is immaterial," Schuette said. "They set a standard of conduct that is disgraceful."

McCotter this afternoon released a statement saying, "I thank the Attorney General and his office for their earnest, thorough work on this investigation, which I requested, and their subsequent report."

“For my family and I, this closure commences our embrace of the enduring blessings of private life,” McCotter said, adding that he would not make himself available to answer any questions from the media at this point.

According to the investigator's report obtained by the Free Press, the four were a “dysfunctional congressional staff that had completely lost its moral compass” and were “indifferent to the requirements of the law.”

All four worked in McCotter’s Livonia office. They are Yowchuang, district deputy director, Seewald, the district director, O’Brady, a scheduler, and Turnbull, a district representative. The investigation revealed that they forged petitions, cut and pasted signatures from other petitions, and had individuals falsely signed as petition circulators.

Most of the illegal acts occurred at McCotter’s district office the day before the deadline for turning in petitions. They needed at least 1,000 valid signatures and turned in more than 1,800. All but a few hundred were found invalid by the Secretary of State’s office.

Yowchuang was the most deeply involved of the four staffers and was linked in the report to 17 separate counts of wrongdoing.

The investigators interviewed 75 people and seized 725 documents for their probe involving 136 nominating petitions.

An unprecedented bungle for incumbent congressman

McCotter – briefly presidential candidate in a long shot, hard-to-explain bid a year ago -- was considered a shoo-in to win his sixth two-year term in the 11th Congressional District this year, especially since it was redrawn as more friendly territory for a Republican candidate.

But then, in May, news broke that McCotter’s campaign had submitted false and fraudulent petition signatures to the Secretary of State’s Office in support of his re-election. Officials said the vast majority of the 1,830 signatures delivered were duplicated, some with the dates changed.

An investigation was launched by the Attorney General’s Office, with McCotter pledging his cooperation.

It was a campaign mistake that might be committed by an untested candidate, but no one in Washington or Lansing could remember it happening to an incumbent congressman, so routine is the collection of petition signatures.

McCotter’s name was left off the ballot, and, as local Republican leaders fumed, in June he dropped the idea of even running a write-in campaign in the Republican primary.

At first resolving to leave Congress at the end of term, McCotter last month abruptly announced his resignation from office, saying he and his family had suffered a “nightmarish month and a half.”

It forced the governor to call a special primary on Sept. 5 that is expected to cost $650,000 and two elections in November – one to fill out what by then will be no more than several weeks remaining in McCotter’s unfinished term.

McCotter often cut a strange figure on Capitol Hill. Lanky, sardonic and sometimes standoffish in comparison to more gregarious, backslapping politicians, he spoke in a deep voice and played guitar in rock bands. Once a rising star in the party who chaired the House Republican Policy Committee, he was at ease quoting conservative economic thinkers and Led Zeppelin or the Rolling Stones alike.

Michigan Attorney General Findings Of Congressman McCotter Nomination Petition Investigation Report, Augus...