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The Republican Party released a document yesterday entitled “Pledge to America,” reminiscent of Newt Gingrich’s 1994 Contract for America. While a draft of the document was floating around for a few days online, House Minority leader John Boehner publicly unveiled the final version at a lumber company in Sterling, Virginia. The pre-election pledge was, according to the Christian Science Monitor, “laced with Tea Party slogans.” It describes the Obama administration as “an arrogant and out-of-touch government of self-appointed elites,” pledges to make permanent the Bush-era tax cuts, “repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act,” “roll back government spending to pre-stimulus, pre-bailout levels,” and try Guantanamo detainees outside the US in military courts. Some news outlets are reporting that one of the authors, Brian Wild, was a heavily paid lobbyist for AIG, the now-defunct insurance company whose fall signaled the Great Recession. Additionally, Wild has earned millions lobbying on behalf of Comcast, Exxon-Mobil, Pfizer Pharmaceutical, and the petroleum giant, Andarko. Not all Republicans are happy about the “Pledge to America.” RedState.com blogger and self-described Republican voter Erick Erickson called it “the most ridiculous thing to come out of Washington Since George McClellan.” Some Liberals and Democrats see the Pledge as a good thing – enabling the Democrats a set of formalized positions to rail against.

GUEST: Sam Stein, Political Reporter for the Huffington Post

Read Sam Stein’s article here: http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/09/23-0

Read the Pledge to America here: http://blogs.chicagotribune.com/news_columnists_ezorn/2010/09/gops-pledge-to-america-draft.html