“The party of Lincoln has become the party of Trump.”
— Hillary Clinton, quoted by the New York Times, on the Republican party.
“The party of Lincoln has become the party of Trump.”
— Hillary Clinton, quoted by the New York Times, on the Republican party.
“Taking his outsider message into the heart of the Democratic establishment,” Sen. Bernie Sanders “challenged hundreds of the party’s leaders on Friday to embrace his candidacy, warning that the huge crowds of supporters he has drawn may not vote for Democratic candidates in 2016 unless he is at the top of the ticket,” the New York Times reports.
Said Sanders: “My friends, the Republican Party did not win the midterm election in November: We lost that election. We lost because voter turnout was abysmally, embarrassingly low, and millions of working people, young people and people of color gave up on politics as usual and they stayed home. That’s a fact.”
National Journal: “As Joe Biden edges closer to a presidential run, there’s no shortage of theories as to what he’s up to. Former secretary of State Hillary Clinton has built a commanding lead in the national polls, giving Biden little apparent space to gain traction. Perhaps he’s counting on the early-primary state of South Carolina to provide a critical boost. He might be banking on appearing as a stronger general-election candidate than any of his potential rivals in the primary race. Maybe after spending the past 42 years of his life running for elective office, he just can’t stop.”
“But there’s one intriguing theory that has so far garnered little attention: What if Biden knows something about Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton that the rest of us don’t?”
Fox News reports an FBI “A-team” is leading the “extremely serious” investigation into Clinton’s email server and the focus includes a provision of the law pertaining to “gathering, transmitting or losing defense information.”
You are reading the free version of Political Wire.
“As Hillary Clinton’s campaign seeks to project dominance in a field that could soon include Vice President Joe Biden, her top advisers are touting a decisive edge on a little-discussed metric: superdelegate commitments,” according to Bloomberg.
“At the Democratic National Committee meeting… senior Clinton campaign officials are claiming that she has already secured one-fifth of the pledges needed to win the Democratic presidential nomination. They come from current and former elected officials, committee officeholders, and other party dignitaries.”
“Hillary Clinton’s support among Democrats has dropped to its lowest point since Reuters/Ipsos began polling on her chances of winning the party’s nomination for the 2016 election almost three years ago.”
Sarah Palin announced on Facebook that she will be interviewing Donald Trump at 10 p.m. ET tonight on the One America News Network.
Boston Globe: “His former classmates said he seemed to them a student who spoke up a lot but rarely shined in class, who barely participated in campus activities, shunned fraternity parties, and spent most of his weekends and spare time pursuing his dream: using his advantages as the son of a prominent New York real estate developer to get an early start on the business career that would make him very, very rich.”
“Unlike many of the privileged students around him, who expected to leverage their pedigrees to enrich themselves the old-fashioned way — that is, quietly — Trump had an in-your-face attitude about his quest for money from his first day on campus, said his former classmates.”
New York Times: “Not long ago, the United States was considered the tortoise of the world economy, at least in comparison to emerging powers like China and Brazil. Lately, however, slow but steady seems to be winning the race. The American economy continues to chug along, while the onetime hares in Asia, South America and elsewhere are flagging.”
“The latest evidence of this shift came on Thursday, as the Commerce Department revised sharply upward its estimate of economic growth in the second quarter to a healthy annual pace of 3.7 percent, from an initial estimate of 2.3 percent. At the same time, the Labor Department, in reporting another drop in weekly unemployment claims, provided further evidence that the job market was on the mend.”
This is pretty great: The 2016 Campaign Television Tracker records how many times each presidential candidate was mentioned on each of the major television networks.
“Look, nobody knows the tax code better than I do. OK. I know it better. I’m the king of the tax code.”
— Donald Trump, in an interview on MSNBC.
Jimmy Kimmel imagines what Trump’s first commercial might look like.
Here’s what’s trending on Wonk Wire today:
Dana Millbank: “Jeb Bush established his inheritance of the family trait earlier this year, with his kick-off foreign policy speech. He confused Iraq for Iran, said Islamic State had 200,000 fighters instead of 20,000, and referred to the Islamic State leader as ‘the guy that’s the supreme leader, whatever his new title is, head of the caliphate.’ He said immigration should be ‘a catalytic converter for sustained economic growth.'”
“But Jeb Bush’s slips tend to be different from those of his kin. His are more Freudian, involving accidental truths.”
“There is no war on women – there may be a war on what’s inside of women, but there is no war on women in this country.”
— Ben Carson, quoted by The Hill.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) is stalking Donald Trump — “if not geographically (the Alabama trips were coincidence) then ideologically and rhetorically, making sure the two stay in lockstep on issues of the day so that voters who are energized by Trump’s message but looking for a more polished messenger discover a natural transition to Cruz,” National Journal reports.
“We need some unpredictability, we really do.”
— Donald Trump, quoted by the Wall Street Journal, on the advantages of running an unorthodox campaign.
Donald Trump explained his attacks toward Jeb Bush, saying that he had taken for granted that the former governor of Florida was going to be his chief rival, Politico reports.
Said Trump: “Well I don’t want to be nasty, and I don’t want to say that. But I will tell you that if you look at the polls, he isn’t really second anymore. He’s fourth and fifth in a lot of the polls. And I have, you know, I’ve always assumed that he was going to be a primary competitor, and I guess that’s why I’m hitting him harder than others.”
Rick Klein: “It’s a version of speed dating, except one party is already sort of engaged. And it wouldn’t take Ashley Madison to find another just-maybe willing prospect outside the room. The Democratic National Committee is converging in Minneapolis just in time to take some private frustrations over Hillary Clinton’s candidacy public. But as Clinton herself and her announced rivals zip through the room, making condensed versions of their pitches, all eyes of course remain on Vice President Joe Biden and a team that’s actively drumming up interest in that third Biden run.”
“The challenge for them is to be clear about the circumstances: disappointment and even anger at Camp Clinton is not necessarily the same as a groundswell for the vice president. Biden insiders think they’ve gotten President Obama’s go-ahead this week, yet that’s not an endorsement. It’s also not a replacement for the grassroots eruption Biden would have to position himself to tap into if a late-starting candidacy will go anywhere. Clinton may well be vulnerable, and those in the room in Minneapolis may want her to face a more substantial challenge. That’s not the same, though, as wanting to break up with Clinton in favor of Biden.”
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.