Ingles #3

President Criticizes Romney Over Foreign Policy

In a speech before the Veterans of Foreign Wars convention here, during which he never once mentioned Mr. Romney by name, Mr. Obama nonetheless directly took on the latest salvo from the Romney camp — Mr. Romney’s recent assertion that America under Mr. Obama is in decline.

“If anyone tries to tell you our greatness is past, that America is in decline, you tell them this,” Mr. Obama said. “Like the 20th century, the 21st century will be another great American century. We are Americans, blessed with the greatest form of government ever devised by man.”

With Mr. Romney scheduled to speak here on Tuesday and then leave Wednesday on a trip to Britain, Israel and Poland, Mr. Obama used his appearance before the veterans group to paint his rival as a national security neophyte with a dangerous affinity for failed policies of the past. Taking on Mr. Romney’s Afghanistan stance, in which he has criticized Mr. Obama for announcing a timetable for withdrawal and said that he would listen to his military commanders before deciding anything, Mr. Obama said: “When you’re commander in chief, you owe the troops a plan. You owe the country a plan.”

He added: “That includes recognizing not just how to begin wars but how to end them.”

Republican Party in California Is Caught in Cycle of Decline

LOS ANGELES — This would seem a moment of great opportunity for California Republicans. The state has become a national symbol of fiscal turmoil and dysfunction, the Legislature is nearly as unpopular as Congress and Democrats control every branch of government.

But instead, the state party — once a symbol of Republican hope and geographical reach and which gave the nation Ronald Reagan (and Richard M. Nixon) — is caught in a cycle of relentless decline, and appears in danger of shrinking to the rank of a minor party.

“We are at a lower point than we’ve ever been,” said Representative Kevin McCarthy, the No. 3 Republican in the United States House of Representatives. “It’s rebuilding time.”

Registered Republicans now account for just 30 percent of the California electorate, and are on a path that analysts predict could drop them to No. 3 in six years, behind Democrats, who currently make up 43 percent, and independent voters, with 21 percent.