Joe Trippi: “All these changes in democratic politics will be profound, although not all the consequences will be good. New technologies can manipulate, empower, or do both. There will be plenty of actors in both politics and business who will use the innovations of the Obama 2012 campaign as tools to manipulate people. But for me, right now, it feels as if technology has empowered people and given politics back its soul.”
Archives for December 2012
412 Senators Served with Inouye
Smart Politics finds that Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-HI), who died yesterday, served alongside a total of 412 men and women in the U.S. Senate over his career of nearly 50 years. Among those were 218 Democrats, 189 Republicans, three independents, one Conservative, and one from the Independence Party.
“Included among these 412 Senators were 14 from Minnesota, 13 each from Illinois and Tennessee, 12 from Colorado, Florida, and North Carolina, 11 from California, Georgia, New Hampshire, and Virginia, and 10 each from Missouri, New York, and Ohio.”
Obama Knew How You Would Vote Even Before You Did
Read Write: “What the Obama team did was little short of amazing. It essentially created a cohort-analysis system of data to judge every single voter it wanted to get to the polls. Obama’s team took the usual system of analytics and reduced it to the most granular level: the individual voter.”
“The analytics campaign, led by chief analytics officer Dan Wagner, was able to assign voters individual scores based on if and how they would vote. In doing this, Wagner’s team could accurately predict human behavior.”
Sasha Issenberg: “But underneath all that were scores describing particular voters: a new political currency that predicted the behavior of individual humans. The campaign didn’t just know who you were; it knew exactly how it could turn you into the type of person it wanted you to be.”
Mark Sanford, Jenny Sanford Both Mulling House Race
Former South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford (R) “is mulling a congressional comeback, with sources saying he might join the special election contest for Rep. Tim Scott’s (R-SC) soon-to-be-vacant House seat,” Roll Call reports.
Also considering a bid: Jenny Sanford — his ex-wife — who lives in the 1st District.
Said Jenny Sanford: “I have already had calls from people offering to help should I choose to run, and I will speak with my family about that possibility over the holidays.”
Booker More Likely to Make Senate Bid
Newark Mayor Cory Booker (D) “is leaning against jumping into next year’s race for New Jersey governor and instead is having serious discussions about running for the U.S. Senate in 2014, according to three people familiar with the matter,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
However, Booker “has been talking about the governor’s race with strategists both steeped in New Jersey politics and independent from it, and he could change his mind at the last minute and still run for the state’s powerful executive position next year, the people said.”
Politicker notes Booker is still keeping his online options open.
Dukakis Says Senate Appointment Unlikely
Michael Dukakis declined to completely rule out a temporary appointment to the U.S. Senate, though he called it unlikely because of a teaching obligation, the Boston Globe reports.
Said Dukakis: “It’s highly unlikely in any event. I’m committed to teaching.”
When Dukakis was reminded that his denial of interest was not an absolute no, he said, “That’s what I have to say.”
Inouye Wanted Hanabusa to Replace Him
Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-HI) wrote a letter to Hawaii Gov. Neil Abercrombie (D) urging him to appoint Rep. Colleen Hanabusa (D-HI) as his successor just before he succumbed to respiratory problems at a Bethesda, Md., hospital, the Honolulu Star Advertiser reports.
Bonus Quote of the Day
“I will quote loosely Vice President Biden: ‘This is a…uh…big deal.'”
— Florida Democratic party chairman Rod Smith, quoted by WFSU, casting his electoral vote for President Obama.
Arizona Electors Question Obama Birth Certificate
Arizona’s 11 Republican electors formally cast their ballots for Mitt Romney yesterday — “but not before three of them said questions remain about whether Barack Obama was born in this country,” Arizona Public Radio reports.
Said state GOP Chairman Tom Morrissey: “I’m not satisfied with what I’ve seen. I think for somebody in the president’s position to not have produced a document that looks more legitimate, I have a problem with that.”
How Conservatives Re-Interpreted the 2nd Amendment
Jeffrey Toobin: “Conservatives often embrace ‘originalism,’ the idea that the meaning of the Constitution was fixed when it was ratified, in 1787. They mock the so-called liberal idea of a ‘living’ constitution, whose meaning changes with the values of the country at large. But there is no better example of the living Constitution than the conservative re-casting of the Second Amendment in the last few decades of the twentieth century.”
“The re-interpretation of the Second Amendment was an elaborate and brilliantly executed political operation, inside and outside of government. Ronald Reagan’s election in 1980 brought a gun-rights enthusiast to the White House. At the same time, Orrin Hatch, the Utah Republican, became chairman of an important subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and he commissioned a report that claimed to find ‘clear–and long lost–proof that the second amendment to our Constitution was intended as an individual right of the American citizen to keep and carry arms in a peaceful manner, for protection of himself, his family, and his freedoms.’ The N.R.A. began commissioning academic studies aimed at proving the same conclusion. An outré constitutional theory, rejected even by the establishment of the Republican Party, evolved, through brute political force, into the conservative conventional wisdom.”
Wonk Wire: Has there always been a right to own a gun?
Obama Gets Bounce But No Mandate
A new ABC News/Washington Post poll finds President Obama’s approval rate at 54%, his highest (excepting a brief bin Laden bounce) in nearly two years. And even while weakly rated on the economy, he leads the Republicans in trust to handle it by 18 percentage points, his widest margin since July 2009.
That said, Americans by 56% to 34% say Obama does not have “a mandate to carry out the agenda he presented during the presidential campaign,” but rather should “compromise on things the Republicans strongly oppose.”
NRA Goes Silent
The National Rifle Association — “typically outspoken about its positions even after shooting deaths — has gone all but silent since last week’s rampage at a Newtown, Conn., elementary school that left 26 people dead, including 20 children,” the AP reports.
The Week: Five gun-rights advocates who changed their minds.
Quote of the Day
“It was an extraordinary experience — I mean, one that I wouldn’t trade. And looking back on it… I would do it again.”
— Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R), quoted by NBC Dallas-Fort Worth, on running for president.
Greece Slides Into Depression
“The spread of economic hardship is fraying Greece’s social fabric and straining its political cohesion as the country enters the harshest winter of its three-year-old debt crisis,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“Many families are sliding down the economic ladder that their parents and grandparents climbed, often making them reliant on those same retirees’ shrinking pensions. Already-poor families are slipping off the ladder, into the arms of overburdened charities. In a country of 11 million, only 3.7 million people have jobs, down from 4.6 million four years ago. Economic activity has shrunk by over 20% in that time.”
“The pressure on society is testing the country’s political stability. Crumbling establishment parties cling to office. Radical-left populists wait in the wings, promising to restore state largess. Violent neo-Nazis are boosting their political profiles by exploiting fear of immigrants, crime and social breakdown. Many Greeks worry that the current government coalition could collapse in 2013, leading to renewed political turmoil that could revive the specter of national bankruptcy and exit from the euro.”
Closer to a Fiscal Cliff Deal
President Obama delivered to House Speaker John Boehner a new offer on to resolve the pending fiscal crisis, “a deal that would raise revenues by $1.2 trillion over the next decade but keep in place the Bush-era tax rates for any household with earnings below $400,000,” the New York Times reports.
“The offer is close to a plan proposed by the speaker on Friday, and both sides expressed confidence that they were closing in on a major deficit-reduction plan that could be passed well before January… The two sides are now dickering over price, not philosophical differences, and the numbers are very close.”
Wall Street Journal: “After weeks of public sniping, negotiations have intensified in recent days, with both sides making significant concessions. Obstacles still remain, especially the reaction of lawmakers on both extremes, but the movement suggests negotiators could reach a compromise and pass by the end of the year a deal to avert a series of spending cuts and tax increases set to take effect in January.”
Politico: “The president’s proposal is not a final offer, but the White House views it as something that should get the two sides close to a deal because they have met Republicans more than halfway on spending and halfway on revenues.”
Fox News Producers Told Not to Talk Gun Control
Gabriel Sherman: “According to sources, David Clark, the executive producer in
charge of Fox’s weekend coverage, gave producers instructions not to
talk about gun-control policy on air… The directive created a rift inside the
network… During the weekend, one frustrated producer went around
Clark to lobby Michael Clemente, Fox’s executive vice-president for
news editorial, but Clemente upheld the mandate.”
Quote of the Day
“I am going to do what I think is appropriate and try to impact the dialogue and shame on me if I don’t.”
— New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, quoted by NY1, calling on lawmakers to strengthen gun laws.
What Inouye’s Death Means for the Senate
The Washington Post notes that less than two hours after Sen. Daniel Inouye died, the Senate passed a resolution naming Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) as the new president pro tempore.
Inouye’s death “also marks a significant generational shift in Senate history: Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) will be the only — and likely the final — veteran of World War II serving in the Senate next year.”
“The death of Hawaii’s senior senator also creates a vacancy atop the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee. Here too Leahy is next in line, giving him the right of first refusal to the chairman’s gavel.”
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