Bain Capital-Controlled Companies’ Employees To Speak At Democratic Convention

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — A top Obama campaign official told The Huffington Post on Monday that the upcoming Democratic convention will feature multiple employees from companies managed by Mitt Romney’s former private equity firm, Bain Capital.

The speakers are slated to discuss the business practices of the private equity world, likely in order to call into the question the conduct of Romney’s former firm while he was CEO. Employees at companies controlled or managed by Bain during Romney’s tenure have already had star turns in the campaign, both in Obama campaign conference calls and in television ads run by the campaign and its allied super PAC, Priorities USA Action.

An earlier report suggested that officials with Bain Capital itself would be speaking at the Democratic convention, raising the specter of former Romney business partners criticizing his private sector record in primetime speaking slots. But the campaign official said that the collars on the stage would be blue, not white.

 

Michael Clarke Duncan dead at 54: ‘The Green Mile’ actor dies nearly two months after suffering heart attack

LOS ANGELES — Michael Clarke Duncan, the hulking, prolific character actor whose dozens of films included an Oscar-nominated performance as a death row inmate in “The Green Mile” and such other box office hits as “Armageddon,” ”Planet of the Apes” and “Kung Fu Panda,” is dead at age 54.

Clarke died Monday morning at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, where he was being treated for a heart attack, said his fiancée, Reverend Omarosa Manigault, in a statement released by publicist Joy Fehily.

The muscular, 6-foot-4 Duncan, a former bodyguard who turned to acting in his 30s, “suffered a myocardial infarction on July 13 and never fully recovered,” the statement said. “Manigault is grateful for all of your prayers and asks for privacy at this time. Celebrations of his life, both private and public, will be announced at a later date.”

In the spring of 2012, Clarke had appeared in a video for PETA, the animal rights organization, in which he spoke of how much better he felt since becoming a vegetarian three years earlier.

David Livingston/Getty Images

Michael Clarke Duncan and Omarosa Manigault-Stallworth at the premiere of ‘Act of Valor’ on Feb. 13.

“I cleared out my refrigerator, about $5,000 worth of meat,” he said. “I’m a lot healthier than I was when I was eating meat.”

Duncan had a handful of minor roles before “The Green Mile” brought him an Academy Award nomination for best supporting actor. The 1999 film, based on the Stephen King novel of the same name, starred Tom Hanks as a corrections officer at a penitentiary in the 1930s. Duncan played John Coffey, a convicted murderer with a surprisingly gentle demeanor and extraordinary healing powers.

Duncan’s performance caught on with critics and moviegoers and he quickly became a favorite in Hollywood, appearing in several films a year. He owed some of his good fortune to Bruce Willis, who recommended Duncan for “The Green Mile” after the two appeared together in “Armageddon.” Clarke would work with Willis again in “Breakfast of Champions,” ”The Whole Nine Yards” and “Sin City.”

Warner Brothers/courtesy Everett Collection

Tom Hanks (l.) co-starred alongside Michael Clarke Duncan in 1999’s ‘The Green Mile.’

His industrial-sized build was suited for everything from superhero films (“Daredevil”) to comedy (“Talledega Nights,” ”School for Scoundrels”). His gravelly baritone alone was good enough for several animated movies, including, “Kung Fu Panda,” ”Delgo” and “Brother Bear.” Among Clarke’s television credits: “The Apprentice,” ”The Finder,” ”Two and a Half Men” and “The Suite Life of Zack and Cody.”

Born in Chicago in 1957, Duncan was raised by a single mother whose resistance to his playing football led to his deciding he wanted to become an actor. But when his mother became ill, he dropped out of college, Alcorn State University, and worked as a ditch digger and bouncer to support her. By his mid-20s, he was in Los Angeles, where he looked for acting parts and became a bodyguard for Will Smith, Jamie Foxx and other stars. The murder of rapper Notorious B.I.G., for whom Duncan had been hired to protect before switching assignments, led him to quit his job and pursue acting full-time.

Early film and television credits, when he was usually cast as a bodyguard or bouncer, included “Bulworth,” ”A Night at the Roxbury” and “The Players Club.”

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/michael-clarke-duncan-dead-54-green-mile-actor-dies-months-suffering-heart-attack-article-1.1150806#ixzz25RpMGupn

 

Obama Reports 3.1M Donors, Tops ’08

President Obama has amassed a donor base of 3.1 million Americans in his bid for a second term, surpassing his total from four years ago, Obama campaign officials announced today.

An infographic circulated by the campaign on Twitter shows Obama drawing significant support from small-dollar and repeat donors.

Two million supporters have given $25 or less in aggregate, the campaign reports. More than 1.4 million have given more than once this election cycle.

Underscoring the president’s support among women, the campaign said three women donated for every two men.

In 2008, Obama reported 3 million unique campaign donors.

President Obama has said the involvement of millions of grassroots supporters differentiates his campaign from that of GOP rival Mitt Romney.

Through June, the Obama campaign raised 39 percent of its total funds from donors who gave $200 or less in aggregate, according to the an analysis of Federal Election Commission data by the nonpartisan Campaign Finance Institute. Romney raised 15 percent of his funds from the same class of small-dollar donors.

 

 

What Bounce? GOP Convention Had ‘Minimal Impact’ ‘Lowest Ever’ Effect On Voter Intentions

WASHINGTON — Polling tracking the impact of the Republican convention has been sparse, but on Monday the Gallup Poll weighed in with a new survey showing the Republican primary had only a “minimal impact” on the fortunes of Republican nominee Mitt Romney.

In interviews conducted over the three days since the close of the Republican convention, Gallup found roughly the same number of Americans saying the convention made them more likely to support Republican nominee Mitt Romney (40 percent) as saying it made them less likely to support him (38 percent).

This self-reported measure should not be interpreted literally since, as Gallup points out, Republicans overwhelmingly said they were more likely to vote for Romney and Democrats largely said they would vote against him, as the partisans on both sides were already supporting their party’s nominee. When compared to results from similar surveys conducted following conventions back to 1984, however, these questions provide what Gallup described as a “rough approximation of the conventions’ relative impact,” since they have asked the same questions following each convention.

By that measure, the 2012 Republican convention had the lowest-ever self-reported net impact on voter intentions ever (+2, the difference between the more and less likely percentages), just slightly lower than the Republican conventions of 2004 (+3) and 2008 (+5).

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