“My grand-daddy used to say you don’t learn much from the second kick of a mule.”
— Former Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour (R), quoted by Bloomberg, on Mitt Romney running for president again.
“My grand-daddy used to say you don’t learn much from the second kick of a mule.”
— Former Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour (R), quoted by Bloomberg, on Mitt Romney running for president again.
“The largest gathering of potential Republican presidential candidates so far will descend on Iowa on Saturday to test their messages at a forum shaping up as the informal starting gun for the 2016 campaign,” the New York Times reports.
“The event, which is being hosted by Representative Steve King, Republican of Iowa, offers Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, the most prominent establishment figure on the schedule, a chance to test his appeal among grass-roots conservatives.”
Politico: “Democrats are looking to turn a weekend event in Iowa being hosted by immigration lightning rod Steve King into a spectacle that sets the GOP further back with Latinos ahead of the 2016 campaign.”
“Jeb Bush is crisscrossing the country on a 60-event fundraising blitz aimed at raising enough money to give other Republicans second thoughts about entering the race,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“The fundraising effort, which Mr. Bush’s team has dubbed a ‘shock and awe’ campaign, could be particularly meaningful for Mitt Romney, who is competing with Mr. Bush for support from the same small circle of longtime Republican donors.”
Bloomberg: “Bush tore through Washington this week, impressing the lobbyists and potential donors he met for the first time and leaning on old family friends to help raise huge sums of money as he considers a run for the White House.”
You are reading the free version of Political Wire.
“An emboldened group of moderate House Republicans put their leaders on notice this week that they intend to steer a more pragmatic course on social issues — including abortion, same-sex marriage and immigration — as the party tries to position itself for the 2016 presidential election,” the Washington Post reports.
“The latest showdown also exposed a GOP leadership struggling to maintain control of a still-fractious party, despite its expanded majority in the House and its newly achieved majority in the Senate. A similar revolt by moderates erupted last week on a spending bill tied to immigration policy.”
Politico: “Republicans keep talking about rape, and the political consequences keep coming.”
As Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R) “faced mounting questions about the ouster of the top state law enforcement chief and allegations of improper political meddling, two influential fellow Republicans called for an inquiry on Thursday into the potentially damaging accusations,” the New York Times reports.
Former Florida Department of Law Enforcement Commissioner Gerald Bailey told the Tampa Bay Times “he was pressured by Scott’s office or his campaign to doctor details of a criminal investigation, use state cars to ferry campaign workers, help write Scott’s campaign platform on law enforcement and intervene in a federal investigation of a possible Scott appointee.”
The Center for Public Integrity “in recent days attempted to contact roughly 90 top Romney fundraisers from his most recent presidential run, including every federal lobbyist who helped him raise $30,000 or more.”
“The vast majority willing to speak on the record say they haven’t decided whom to support in 2016. Almost all of these fundraisers said they’re wrestling with conflicting loyalties to Romney, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and other potential Republican hopefuls such as Sens. Marco Rubio and Lindsey Graham and Govs. Mike Pence, Scott Walker and Chris Christie.”
“Week one, we had a Speaker election that didn’t go as well as a lot of us would have liked. Week two, we spent a lot of time talking about deporting children, a conversation a lot of us didn’t want to have. Week three, we’re debating reportable rape and incest — again, not an issue a lot of us wanted to have a conversation about. I just can’t wait for week four.”
— Rep. Charlie Dent (R-PA), quoted by TPM, on the priorities of House Republicans.
Here’s a good one that arrived in the mail today: Presidents in Crisis: Tough Decisions Inside the White House from Truman to Obama by Michael Bohn.
Billionaire environmentalist Tom Steyer (D) announced that he will “not be a candidate to succeed U.S. Senate Barbara Boxer and instead will continue his focus on helping Democrats and working to reverse the effects of global climate change,” the Sacramento Bee reports.
U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said that New York Speaker Sheldon Silver’s (D) arrest is likely the first of many, Business Insider reports.
Said Bharara: “These charges in our view go to the very core of what ails Albany: lack of transparency, lack of accountability, and lack of principle — joined with overabundance of greed, cronyism, and self-dealing. But we will keep at it. As our unfinished fight against public corruption continues, you should stay tuned.”
He added: “You can expect more cases to come, because there is a lot more corruption that has not yet been brought to light.”
President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry will not meet with Israeli’s Benjamin Netanyahu during the prime minister’s upcoming visit to Washington, Reuters reports.
The White House and State Department both cited “a need to avoid the appearance of trying to influence Israeli elections later in March.”
“His power unbending, his whims often unexplained, Sheldon Silver’s two decades as speaker of the State Assembly made him a seemingly irreplaceable presence at the nucleus of New York’s political world, a steady advocate for liberal causes and a master of negotiation in Albany’s often closed and entrenched way of governance,” the New York Times reports.
“But Mr. Silver’s arrest on Thursday on federal corruption charges has thrown that arrangement — whereby the governor and leaders of each chamber of the Legislature decide the most crucial policies of the state — into question. It is a potentially seismic shift in power whose reverberations may be felt from the speaker’s home district on the Lower East Side to the grounds of the State Capitol.”
“Until now, what the United States attorney called ‘the show-me-the-money culture’ of Albany has taken comfort in knowing that its leader and most powerful figure was unassailable — untouched despite years of investigations, suspicions and rumors of impropriety. The events have shaken that sense of security, and opened the question of whether Mr. Silver, the quintessential capital insider, could relay his own colleagues’ sotto voce misdeeds to federal prosecutors in exchange for leniency.”
“These next two years are going to be the most interesting time in our lives.”
— President Obama, quoted by the New York Times, in a staff meeting the morning after the 2014 midterm elections.
“Outlining his possible rationale for a third presidential bid, Mitt Romney said Wednesday night that political leaders in both parties are failing to address the nation’s most pressing problems — climate change, poverty and education reform, among them — as he acknowledged lessons learned from his failed 2012 presidential campaign,” the AP reports.
“While hitting familiar Republican points criticizing the size of the federal debt, Romney at times sounded like a Democrat, calling for President Obama and other leaders in Washington to act on common liberal priorities such as climate change, poverty and education… His evolving platform comes as he works to reshape his image after consecutive presidential defeats.”
Alan Abramowitz: “The fate of the incumbent party’s candidate is strongly influenced by the popularity of the outgoing president. In fact, the incumbent president’s approval rating explains over half of the variance in the vote share of his party’s nominee. All three candidates seeking to succeed presidents with approval ratings below 50% were defeated, and the two seeking to succeed presidents with approval ratings below 40% were decisively defeated. In contrast, two of the three candidates seeking to succeed presidents with approval ratings above 50% won the popular vote, although one of those candidates, Al Gore in 2000, ended up losing the electoral vote.”
“When I watch John Edwards from time to time get up and talk about two Americas. I’m tempted to—well, offer an expletive like, ‘Baloney!'”
— Mitt Romney, quoted by CBS News in 2008, before his new found concern about income inequality in America.
“The powerful speaker of the New York State Assembly, Sheldon Silver, was arrested on federal corruption charges on Thursday, sending shock waves through the political establishment and upending the new legislative session,” the New York Times reports.
Silver, a Democrat from the Lower East Side of Manhattan who has served as speaker for more than two decades, surrendered to F.B.I. agents and told reporters, “I hope I’ll be vindicated.”
Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) told Yahoo News that he thinks Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), “who showed up at a well-attended reception to celebrate Hatch’s chairmanship of the Senate Finance Committee and said a few words in his honor, would like to form a friendship with him ‘like Kennedy had.'”
Said Hatch: “We’ve become friends. I think she would like to have a relationship with me like Kennedy had. I like her. I think she’s a very bright woman. She’s certainly playing the media in a beautiful way.”
Hatch added that he’d like to see Warren become “the new Kennedy.”
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.
Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.
Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.
Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.
Goddard is the owner of Goddard Media LLC.
“There are a lot of blogs and news sites claiming to understand politics, but only a few actually do. Political Wire is one of them.”
— Chuck Todd, host of “Meet the Press”
“Concise. Relevant. To the point. Political Wire is the first site I check when I’m looking for the latest political nugget. That pretty much says it all.”
— Stuart Rothenberg, editor of the Rothenberg Political Report
“Political Wire is one of only four or five sites that I check every day and sometimes several times a day, for the latest political news and developments.”
— Charlie Cook, editor of the Cook Political Report
“The big news, delicious tidbits, pearls of wisdom — nicely packaged, constantly updated… What political junkie could ask for more?”
— Larry Sabato, Center for Politics, University of Virginia
“Political Wire is a great, great site.”
— Joe Scarborough, host of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe”
“Taegan Goddard has a knack for digging out political gems that too often get passed over by the mainstream press, and for delivering the latest electoral developments in a sharp, no frills style that makes his Political Wire an addictive blog habit you don’t want to kick.”
— Arianna Huffington, founder of The Huffington Post
“Political Wire is one of the absolute must-read sites in the blogosphere.”
— Glenn Reynolds, founder of Instapundit
“I rely on Taegan Goddard’s Political Wire for straight, fair political news, he gets right to the point. It’s an eagerly anticipated part of my news reading.”
— Craig Newmark, founder of Craigslist.