“I just picked up the newspaper today and they’ve made a huge change. Every day there seems to be – no, it’s not regular order.”
— Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), quoted by Axios, on the Republican tax bill.
“I just picked up the newspaper today and they’ve made a huge change. Every day there seems to be – no, it’s not regular order.”
— Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), quoted by Axios, on the Republican tax bill.
“Republican governors and their donors — still reeling from GOP losses last week in New Jersey and Virginia — are trying to distance themselves from their party’s problems and plot a 2018 strategy to protect their state-level dominance,” Bloomberg reports.
“Thirty-six states will hold gubernatorial elections in 2018, with 26 of those now controlled by Republicans. In those races, which often have trickle-down effects on legislative and local elections, Republican candidates will have to decide just how closely to embrace Trump and distance themselves from an unpopular Washington.”
Politico: “Special counsel Robert Mueller’s team is preparing to interview the woman who’s seen it all: Hope Hicks. She’s been part of Donald Trump’s inner circle for years, first at Trump Tower and then as an omnipresent gatekeeper and fixer who could get emails or other communications directly to the boss during the 2016 campaign. As a senior White House adviser and now as communications director, she’s been in the room for moments critical to Mueller’s probe, which has grown to include the president’s response to the Russia investigation itself.”
“Mueller’s decision to request an interview with Hicks – who hasn’t been named in any criminal wrongdoing – also indicates he’s reached a critical point in the overall investigation, according to former prosecutors and veterans of past White House investigations. Typically, conversations with such senior level aides are saved for near the end of a probe.”
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“As Congress rushes to pass the biggest tax reform legislation in three decades, high-powered business and conservative groups are holding fire on provisions they don’t like in order to avoid derailing the vote,” Politico reports.
“The kumbaya attitude emanates in large part from a sense of desperation among Republicans who believe the party needs to show voters and donors a concrete victory ahead of the 2018 midterms or risk losing control of one or both chambers of Congress, say strategists and conservative activists.”
Said one GOP lobbyist: “It is kind of unreal. People know this is a freight train coming, and they are doing everything they can to get their stuff on it rather than stand in front of it.”
Politico: “With less than four weeks until the special election and no sign that the party’s besieged nominee will exit the race, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and his top advisers are discussing the legal feasibility of asking appointed Sen. Luther Strange to resign from his seat in order to trigger a new special election.”
”McConnell aides express caution, saying they’re uncertain whether such a move, one of several options being discussed, is even possible. Yet the talks underscore the despair among top Republicans over relinquishing a seat in deep-red Alabama, further diminishing their slim Senate majority.”
Rick Hasen: The latest GOP ploy likely violates the 17th Amendment
“Senate Republicans turned to President Trump on Wednesday in hopes he would join their urgent attempt to force GOP nominee Roy Moore out of the Senate race in Alabama following allegations of sexual misconduct — but Trump did not oblige,” the Washington Post reports.
“Instead, back in Washington after a 12-day Asia trip, Trump was silent on Moore, who has been accused by two women of initiating unwanted sexual encounters when Moore was in his 30s and they were 14 and 16. Moore has denied the allegations.”
”In Alabama, Moore showed no signs he was preparing to bow out.”
Two addition women told the Washington Post of unwanted sexual advances made by Alabama U.S. Senate candidate Roy Moore (R) when they were teenagers and he was in his thirties.
“In all, The Post spoke to a dozen people who worked at the mall or hung out there as teenagers during the late ’70s and early ’80s and recall Moore as a frequent presence — a well-dressed man walking around alone, leaning on counters, spending enough time in the stores, especially on weekend nights, that some of the young women who worked there said they became uncomfortable.”
The Guardian runs an excerpt from Collusion: Secret Meetings, Dirty Money, and How Russia Helped Donald Trump Win by Luke Harding.
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) may not be the only GOP senator to pull support from his party’s tax bill, the New York Times reports.
“Senators Susan Collins of Maine, Bob Corker of Tennessee and John McCain of Arizona have voiced their own concerns and refused to say whether they would ultimately vote for the tax bill.”
“With the House expected to pass its tax legislation, the fate of the overhaul fell into the hands of Republican senators, who grappled with the dangerous political prospects of passing a bill that critics said could undermine the health care system and favored companies over the middle class.”
Washington Post: GOP tax plan in trouble in Senate.
“Republican strategists are warning that some of the party’s veteran House incumbents aren’t adequately preparing for the 2018 election, putting the GOP majority at risk by their failure to recognize the dangerous conditions facing them,” Politico reports.
“Nearly three dozen Republicans were outraised by their Democratic challengers in the most recent fundraising quarter. Others, the strategists say, are failing to maintain high profiles in their districts or modernize their campaigns by using data analytics in what is shaping up as a stormy election cycle.”
For members: An Unmistakable Midterm Wave Is Forming
Jonathan Swan: “There is ‘zero chance’ Steve Bannon will back down from his support of Roy Moore, according to one source close to Bannon. A second source says Bannon believes Moore’s denials which is why he’s sticking with him.”
“Bannon has been out of the country and silent on the Moore situation as it spun out of control and other Republicans called for him to drop out of the race. Bannon’s response, to triple-down on his support, will intensify his war with Republicans. As the source close to Bannon put it, Mitch McConnell should quit the Senate before Moore.”
Kelly Harrison Thorp told the Birmingham News that when she was 17 years old and working as a hostess at the Red Lobster restaurant, Alabama U.S. Senate candidate Roy Moore (R) asked her if she’d go out with him sometime.
“I just kind of said, ‘Do you know how old I am?'” she recalled.
“And he said, ‘Yeah. I go out with girls your age all the time.'”
Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) is urging the DNC to end its tradition of using superdelegates, Politico reports.
Said Kaine: “I have long believed there should be no superdelegates. These positions are given undue influence in the popular nominating contest and make the process less democratic.”
“The plea from Kaine — himself a former DNC chairman, Hillary Clinton’s 2016 running mate, and a superdelegate — puts him on the side of many backers of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, Clinton’s primary opponent in last year’s race for the White House.”
One of President Trump’s judicial nominees, Don Willett, said he was just kidding when he compared gay people’s constitutional right to marriage with a right to marry bacon, the Huffington Post reports.
“Willett, nominated for a lifetime seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit, told the Senate Judiciary Committee he wasn’t mocking same-sex marriage when he tweeted in April 2015 that he ‘could support recognizing a constitutional right to marry bacon’ ― a day after the Supreme Court heard arguments in the landmark marriage equality case.”
A new NRSC poll finds Roy Moore (R) is trailing Doug Jones (D) by 12 points in the Alabama special Senate election.
In the aftermath five women accusing Moore of pursuing them as teenagers, Jones now leads the race 51% to 39%… In early October, a committee poll had him leading by 16 points, and a survey early this month had him up by 9 points.
Also interesting: “Several sources who reviewed the poll results said it also tested how Attorney General Jeff Sessions would fare as a write-in candidate, and the results were not favorable.”
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) told the Wall Street Journal that the Republican tax plan benefits corporations more than any other kind of business, and for that reason he is opposed to the bill.
Said Johnson: “If they can pass it without me, let them. I’m not going to vote for this tax package.”
Axios: “Unless they get Democrats on board, Republicans can only afford to lose two GOP votes. This is one.”
“Christopher Steele, the former British intelligence officer who compiled an explosive dossier of allegations of collusion between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin, believes it to 70% to 90% accurate, according to a new book on the covert Russian intervention in the 2016 US election,” the Guardian reports.
“The book, Collusion: How Russia Helped Donald Trump Win, by Guardian journalist Luke Harding, quotes Steele as telling friends that he believes his reports – based on sources cultivated over three decades of intelligence work – will be vindicated as the US special counsel investigation digs deeper into contacts between Trump, his associates and Moscow.”
Said Steele: “I’ve been dealing with this country for thirty years. Why would I invent this stuff?”
A new Quinnipiac poll finds that voters disapprove of the Republican tax plan by a 52% to 25% margin.
Republican voters approve 60% to 15%, with 26% undecided. All other party, gender, education, age and racial groups disapprove.
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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