“I feel like I’m gonna start pounding the meat.”
— Gov. Chris Christie, in an interview on Morning Joe.
“I feel like I’m gonna start pounding the meat.”
— Gov. Chris Christie, in an interview on Morning Joe.
A new Reuters/Ipsos poll shows Michael Bloomberg wouldn’t be much of a factor in a potential three-way presidential race.
In a hypothetical match up, Hillary Clinton would get 37%, followed by Donald Trump at 31% and Bloomberg at 9%.
Another match up shows Clinton at 38%, followed by Ted Cruz at 25% and Bloomberg at 10%.
Matthew Continetti: “What I find interesting is that none of the candidates on the debate stage have figured out how to respond to the issues driving Trump’s ascent. Trump focuses on four things: immigration, trade, political correctness, and a corrupt and inept system. These subjects cross partisan lines and are responsible for the unusual nature of the Trump coalition. But because Trump’s views on immigration and trade and political correctness and campaign finance are so askance from the Republican mainstream, the other candidates barely touch him.”
“Either Donald Trump is for real or he’s not. If his voters show up, he will be the Republican nominee for president in 2016. If they don’t, then Cruz, Rubio, even Bush have a shot at taking his place.”
Rick Klein: “It turns out that a world without Donald Trump is filled with Donald Trump anyway. To many in the Republican Party, Thursday night’s debate was a dream scenario — seven candidates, and not a reality TV show billionaire in sight. No huge walls were hypothetically built, and no religious groups were banned from entry into the United States. Yet Trump was still everywhere.”
You are reading the free version of Political Wire.
Ron Fournier: “Will ducking the debate hurt Trump’s standing with parochial Iowa voters or embolden his iconoclastic brand? I trust Trump on this one: He said, ‘Who the hell knows?'”
“What I do know: Thursday night was a nightmare for the GOP—another step toward what appears to be a deep and enduring split between the party’s establishment and its angry insurgents, a rude and unruly political circus that reaffirms for independent voters their worst impressions of the Grand Old Party.”
Despite talk of momentum on their side, Sen. Marco Rubio’s campaign is shutting down talk of anything but a third place finish in Iowa, Politico reports.
Said senior adviser Todd Harris: “Second is not in the cards. It’s never been our goal. Our goal is to finish a strong third and exceed expectations. But there’s no question in my mind that Cruz will likely win here and Trump will be a strong second.”
Political insiders tell Politico that Sen. Ted Cruz “had the worst night of the seven GOP presidential candidates on stage Thursday.”
“More than 4-in-10 GOP insiders – given the choice of the seven GOP candidates on the stage, plus Trump – rated Cruz as the loser of Thursday night’s debate, citing his defensive posture on his past immigration stances and opposition to ethanol subsidies.”
Des Moines Register: “Without the dominant national front-runner in the room, the target was the candidate who inherited center stage for the night: Ted Cruz. But the Texas U.S. senator largely forfeited this golden opportunity.”
“A wide range of senior Republicans told Politico that if Trump wins Iowa, he’ll more than likely be the nominee. One factor they repeatedly pointed to: An Iowa victory over Cruz would validate opinion polls showing him in command of the race. The Trump phenomenon would officially become a reality.”
Said a top official of a rival GOP campaign: “If Donald Trump wins Iowa, I think he has won—period. Ted Cruz is supposed to win Iowa. If Trump wins, he’ll be on a trajectory to come out of the SEC primaries [March 1] with close to triple the delegates of anyone else.”
“Donald Trump kept his word and skipped the seventh GOP presidential debate of the campaign Thursday night to stage a production that was equal parts campaign rally, telethon and televised revue,” the Washington Post reports.
Reuters: “Trump’s gamble that he could leave the battlefield to his rivals for one night appeared to pay off, with just days to go before Iowa holds the first nominating contest of the 2016 election season. No one appeared to emerge as a central challenger to him during the two-hour face-off in Des Moines.”
Politico: “Trump’s gambit split the political press corps between his own much-hyped event and the debate they would otherwise be covering across town, where seven of his rivals shared the spotlight instead. It also guaranteed that Trump’s name would once again dominate the headlines on the eve of the Iowa caucuses.”
Daily Beast: “Though he was rarely mentioned, Donald Trump’s absence was felt all night—but mostly because of the lack of put downs, which were replaced by a wide-ranging policy discussion from foreign policy to abortion to who loves Jesus more.”
The seventh GOP presidential debate was an odd combination of vicious attacks and boring, rehearsed stump speeches.
Donald Trump came out unscathed. If he got a chance to watch, he must have been very amused seeing his rivals kill each other. After showing video montages of his rivals flip-flopping on issues like immigration, one can only imagine the montage Fox News had planned for Trump. He was a big winner by not being there.
Of those debating, Jeb Bush had the best night. He showed himself to be the most thoughtful person on stage. He appears to have actually discussed these issues before and was especially effective challenging Rubio on immigration. Without Trump on stage, it was as if Bush could finally relax and be himself.
Rand Paul was also very effective. He stands by his positions — such as surveillance and immigration — no matter how unpopular. He also had the crowd stacked with supporters which helped.
Ted Cruz came out early trying to mock Trump but it flopped badly and he never mentioned the GOP frontrunner again. He spent the rest of the debate being attacked by everyone. It’s almost as if Trump is right when he says, “No one likes Ted.” It was not his strongest night.
As for Marco Rubio, he just speaks too quickly. He’s not polished, as some claim, he’s programmed to avoid answering questions. He talks like a robot. His best moment was when he unloaded on Cruz over immigration but he’s had much better debates.
Chris Christie made sure everyone knows he’s a governor and that Cruz and Rubio are not. He took every chance he could to attack Hillary Clinton but he made little effort to distinguish himself as a better choice than his rivals.
John Kasich must have been thinking about New Hampshire because he didn’t really show up tonight.
Ben Carson never really shows up. I’d be surprised if his total speaking time was much more than five minutes.
Finally, no matter what Trump says, Megyn Kelly is actually a pretty good moderator. She was tough in her questions and didn’t let anyone push her around.
Nate Silver: “If anything’s happening, it seems to be confined to Iowa. Rubio has lost a few points, not gained them, in New Hampshire. And his national polls have been flat.”
“There’s also a conspicuous sign that Rubio doesn’t have momentum. Despite being the sort of candidate who should have appeal to ‘party elites,’ Rubio hasn’t received any endorsements from current governors or members of Congress since Sen. Jim Inhofe endorsed him on Jan. 9.”
New York Times: “The Florida senator and his advisers have concluded that a head-to-head battle with Mr. Trump over the next several weeks would be much more advantageous than one with Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, whose success would greatly complicate Mr. Rubio’s hopes of consolidating his support inside the Republican Party.”
“A victory by Mr. Trump would send panicked Republicans toward Mr. Rubio, his campaign reasons, especially donors who have been reluctant to get behind Mr. Rubio because their allegiances are with other candidates.”
“Once you’ve gotten that ruling from the federal judge and you’re the last man standing in this presidential contest next to Donald Trump, we’ll be happy to have a debate with you one-on-one, anywhere you want, because that’s the way the system works. But, as it stands right now, we don’t even know if Ted Cruz is legally eligible to run for president of the United States.”
— Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, quoted by BuzzFeed.
Sen. Ted Cruz, “who has been harshly criticizing Donald Trump all week on the campaign trail and in television commercials here, is now broadening his attacks to include Senator Marco Rubio, an unmistakable acknowledgment that Mr. Rubio is gaining support in the closing days before the Monday caucuses,” the New York Times reports.
“Mr. Cruz incorporated a critique of Mr. Rubio into his closing stump speech at a rally in West Des Moines on Wednesday night, arguing that his colleague had effectively given up the fight against same-sex marriage… Just as striking, Mr. Cruz’s campaign quietly began running an ad in Iowa Thursday targeting Mr. Rubio over his support of ‘amnesty’ for undocumented immigrants.”
“I will be president of the United States.”
— Former Gov. Jim Gilmore, in an interview on MSNBC.
A new Public Policy Polling survey in Iowa finds Donald Trump leading the GOP presidential race with 31%, followed by Ted Cruz at 23%, Marco Rubio at 14% and Ben Carson at 9%.
Key finding: “Cruz has seen a large drop in his favorability rating over the last few weeks, from 69/18 down to just 56/35. Trump’s continued focus on the ‘Canadian birther’ issue may really be a big part of what’s helping him at Cruz’s expense.”
A new Luntz Global poll finds that in a hypothetical three-way presidential race, Donald Trump leads with 37%, followed by Hillary Clinton at 33% and Michael Bloomberg at 29%.
With Ted Cruz as the GOP nominee, Clinton leads with 37%, followed by Cruz at 35% and Bloomberg at 28%.
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.