Hillary Clinton now leads Donald Trump by 2.2 million votes nationally, according to the Cook Political Report.
David Wasserman forecasts Clinton’s final lead will be roughly 2.5 to 2.7 million votes, or about 2%.
Hillary Clinton now leads Donald Trump by 2.2 million votes nationally, according to the Cook Political Report.
David Wasserman forecasts Clinton’s final lead will be roughly 2.5 to 2.7 million votes, or about 2%.
Politico: “After a period of public silence about the results of the 2016 election, Hillary Clinton’s top campaign lawyer said the campaign will play a role in the Wisconsin recount initiated Friday by Green Party candidate Jill Stein. The Clinton campaign will follow the same approach in Michigan and Pennsylvania if the third-party hopeful pursues recounts in those states.”
“My knowledge of foreign policy is as good, or better, than anybody they’re talking to.”
— Rudy Giuliani, quoted by the Wall Street Journal, making the case for why he should be Secretary of State.
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Mark McKinnon: “Winning campaigns create a narrative architecture that ties it all together into something meaningful and coherent, as I articulated last year in a short New York Times op-documentary… The reality TV star understands the power of narrative. He identified a threat: outside forces trying to change the way we live. And an opportunity: make America great again. He established victims: blue-collar workers who have lost jobs or experienced a declining standard of living. He suggested villains: Mexican immigrants, China, establishment elites. He proposed solutions: build a wall, tear up unfair trade deals. And the hero was revealed, Donald Trump. What was Hillary Clinton’s story?”
The Obama administration said that despite Russian attempts to undermine the presidential election, it has concluded that the results “accurately reflect the will of the American people,” the New York Times reports.
“The statement came as liberal opponents of Donald Trump, some citing fears of vote hacking, are seeking recounts in three states — Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania — where his margin of victory was extremely thin.”
New York Times: “Fidel Castro, the fiery apostle of revolution who brought the Cold War to the Western Hemisphere in 1959 and then defied the United States for nearly half a century as Cuba’s maximum leader, bedeviling 11 American presidents and briefly pushing the world to the brink of nuclear war, died Friday.”
“In declining health for several years, Mr. Castro had orchestrated what he hoped would be the continuation of his Communist revolution, stepping aside in 2006 when he was felled by a serious illness. He provisionally ceded much of his power to his younger brother Raúl, now 85, and two years later formally resigned as president. Raúl Castro, who had fought alongside Fidel Castro from the earliest days of the insurrection and remained minister of defense and his brother’s closest confidant, has ruled Cuba since then, although he has told the Cuban people he intends to resign in 2018.”
The Miami Herald obituary is worth reading.
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Donald Trump’s transition team wants Mitt Romney to publicly apologize for railing against the president-elect during the campaign if he hopes to become the next Secretary of State, Fox News reports.
Lawrence Lessig: “Many think we should abolish the electoral college. I’m not convinced that we should. Properly understood, the electors can serve an important function. What if the people elect a Manchurian candidate? Or a child rapist? What if evidence of massive fraud pervades a close election? It is a useful thing to have a body confirm the results of a democratic election — so long as that body exercises its power reflectively and conservatively. Rarely — if ever — should it veto the people’s choice. And if it does, it needs a very good reason.”
“So, do the electors in 2016 have such a reason?”
Rick Hasen: “This seems to go against rule of law ideas that we all abide by the rules for an election set in advance. Turning the electors into mighty platonic guardians doesn’t seem to be the right way to go.”
“Wisconsin will hold its first-ever presidential recount in the coming weeks and the state could risk losing its ability to have its 10 electoral votes counted if it doesn’t meet key deadlines next month,” the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reports.
“Hitting a Dec. 13 deadline could be particularly tricky if Green Party presidential nominee Jill Stein is able to force the recount to be conducted by hand… A federal ‘safe harbor’ law requires states to complete presidential recounts within 35 days of the election to ensure their electoral votes are counted. This year, that’s Dec. 13.”
LawNewz has the fine print on Jill Stein’s effort to raise as much as $7 million for a recount in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania:
We cannot guarantee a recount will happen in any of these states we are targeting. We can only pledge we will demand recounts in those states.
If we raise more than what’s needed, the surplus will also go toward election integrity efforts and to promote voting system reform.
President Obama called Hillary Clinton to persuade her to concede the White House on election night, according to a forthcoming book on Clinton’s defeat, The Hill reports.
“Obama’s call left a sour taste in the mouths of some Clinton allies who believe she should have waited longer, and there’s now a fight playing out between the Obama and Clinton camps over whether to support an effort to force the Rust Belt states to recount their votes.”
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) “is already reaching out to top Hillary Clinton donors about the 2020 presidential race,” the New York Post reports.
“If she were to run, it could set up an interesting clash of New Yorkers for the Democratic nomination. Gov. Andrew Cuomo has already made it clear he wants to make a run for the White House.”
David Weigel on Jill Stein’s efforts to wage a recount in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania:
“Someone was going to tap into mounting liberal anger that — for the second time this century — a Democrat has lost the presidency while winning the popular vote. But Democrats can’t believe that the someone was Stein. In all three of the contested states, Stein campaigned for votes; in Michigan and Wisconsin, her total was greater than the gap between Clinton and Trump.”
“For Democrats, Stein’s role in the campaign resurrects some of the worst aspects of the campaign. It directs liberal anger toward a hopeless goal.”
“Laura Ingraham doesn’t want to be just another flack. The popular conservative radio talk show host is willing to accept the position of White House press secretary in Donald Trump’s administration, but she wants a bigger title, a role in policymaking and a seat at the decision-making table with the president,” Politico reports.
“It’s not yet clear how Ingraham, a regular on Fox News who boosted Trump’s anti-establishment candidacy throughout the campaign, would mesh with the rival power centers that currently define Trump’s inner circle.”
“President-elect Donald Trump on Friday chose Washington insider Donald McGahn to be his White House counsel, giving him the job of untangling potential conflicts of interest that the New York businessman’s presidency may present,” Reuters reports.
“McGahn, a former chairman of the Federal Election Commission, had been the chief counsel of the Trump campaign and was one of the few members of the Republican establishment to embrace the candidate.”
“The Secret Service is in negotiations with the Trump Organization to take over two vacant floors in the gilded 68-story Fifth Avenue tower,” law enforcement sources told the New York Post.
“The federal agency and the NYPD plan to run a 24/7 command post out of the space that would be housed at least 40 floors below Trump’s $90 million penthouse triplex, where wife Melania and their 10-year-old son Barron will continue to reside at least through the spring, sources said.”
“The lease deal alone could cost more than $3 million a year, based on prevailing rates in the building.”
“On the back of a debunked fear of election tampering in key swing states, Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein has raised nearly $5 million to fund a recount effort,” Politico reports.
“As of early Friday morning, Stein had raised just over $4.7 million dollars to a newly updated goal of $7.0 million, according to a tracker on her campaign website.”
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.
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