National Journal says Sen. Al Franken’s (D-MN) “uncontroversial first term” raises doubts “about whether Republicans can even recruit a first-tier candidate against the former Saturday Night Live funnyman.”
Said former Sen. Norm Coleman (R-MN), who lost to Franken in 2008: “He’s been pretty much invisible. In that sense he hasn’t created a lot of enemies. I don’t know if that’s his strategy, but it’s a pretty good strategy if it is.”
The Cloakroom: Sometimes it’s alright just to tell them to “shut up.”
Mother Jones reports that a month after President Obama won reelection, “top brass from three dozen of the most powerful groups in liberal politics met at the headquarters of the National Education Association, a few blocks north of the White House.”
“At the end of the day, many of the attendees closed with a pledge of money and staff resources to build a national, coordinated campaign around three goals: getting big money out of politics, expanding the voting rolls while fighting voter ID laws, and rewriting Senate rules to curb the use of the filibuster to block legislation. The groups in attendance pledged a total of millions of dollars and dozens of organizers to form a united front on these issues–potentially, a coalition of a kind rarely seen in liberal politics, where squabbling is common and a stay-in-your-lane attitude often prevails.”
Steve Kornacki: “Barney Frank is breaking the rule of politics that says if you want a major appointment, you should never, ever talk about it publicly.”
“After all, there are a few reasons why it’s customary for appointment-seekers to keep quiet. One has to do with image-protection. How will you look if publicly campaign for a position only to be snubbed for it? If you never admit to being interested, at least you can always claim you never really wanted the job. This is apparently of no great concern to Frank, though.”
“The other obvious reason for staying quiet is strategic: Most people making decisions on appointments probably don’t appreciate a public pressure campaign. This is the risk to what Frank is doing. Because he has a national reputation, he’s created a real stir with his lobbying.”
“Actually, I don’t know what the hell the larger message is, come to think of it.”
— Former Sen. Bob Kerrey (D-NE), quoted by Politico, on the significance of Chuck Hagel’s nomination to be secretary of defense.
New York Times: “About 43 percent of Mr. Obama’s appointees have been women, about the same proportion as in the Clinton administration, but up from the roughly one-third appointed by George W. Bush… But Mr. Obama’s recent nominations raised concern that women were being underrepresented at the highest level of government and would be passed over for top positions.”
USA Today: Obama sticks to friends for top posts.
Out in April: This Town by Mark Leibovich.
The book is described as “a blistering, penetrating, controversial — and often hysterical — look at Washington’s incestuous ‘media industrial complex.'”
Megan McArdle: “I think–and I assume the White House does as well–that there’s a substantial risk that this sort of nominally-legal-but-obviously-tendentious reading of the law would trigger a selloff in US bonds. Minting a $1 trillion coin neatly end-runs GOP obstructionists, but only by proving that the president himself has little respect for the institutional restraints on his office. So while the pundit in me is eager to see how this would play out, the US citizen in me is afraid of the effect that this would have on my country. I assume that our president shares these sort of concerns.”
Felix Salmon: “It would effectively mark the demise of the three-branch system of government, by allowing the executive branch to simply steamroller the rights and privileges of the legislative branch. Yes, the legislature is behaving like a bunch of utter morons if they think that driving the US government into default is a good idea. But it’s their right to behave like a bunch of utter morons.”
“Since 2004, Rhode Island’s population has dropped by more than 24,000 people, an exodus unprecedented in the state’s history,” the Providence Journal reports.
The New York Times notes it’s likely the state will lose a congressional seat in the next redistricting in 2020.
A new Gallup survey finds “an average of 47% of Americans identified as Democrats or said they were independents who leaned Democratic in 2012, compared with 42% who identified as or leaned Republican. That re-establishes a Democratic edge in party affiliation after the two parties were essentially tied in 2010 and 2011.”
A new Quinnipiac poll in Virginia finds a close race for governor with Terry McAuliffe (D) just edging Ken Cuccinelli (R), 40% to 39%.
With Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling running as an independent, the race stays tight with McAuliffe and Cuccinelli tied at 34% and Bolling at 13%.
A PPP poll yesterday found McAuliffe with a solid lead.
“Throughout the 2012 presidential campaign, President Barack Obama and his Democratic allies in Congress confidently predicted that the re-election of the president would break the partisan ‘fever’ they claimed had enveloped Washington and the Republican Party,” NBC News reports.
“But the weeks since the election have found Republicans as dogged as ever in their resistance to Obama, whose initiatives – including gun control, immigration reform and efforts to boost renewable energy – still face an uncertain path forward, particularly in an unruly House of Representatives still controlled by a Republican majority. And Republicans are signaling a willingness to go to great lengths to bend coming battles in their favor.”
Politico: “After four-plus years of embittered partisan combat, he views his GOP
bargaining partners with more than a little contempt, and he momentarily
vanquished enemies who just can’t say ‘yes’ to him.”
“Unfortunately when the Republican party needs to be a big tent party it seems to me we are doing everything we can to become a pup tent party.”
— Virginia Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling (R), quoted by WTVR-TV.
A new Public Policy Polling survey in Virginia finds Terry McAuliffe (D) leading Ken Cuccinelli (R) in the gubernatorial race, 46% to 41%.
If Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling is thrown into the mix as an independent he gets 15%, with McAuliffe’s lead expanding over Cuccinelli to 40% to 32%.
Out next week: King: A Filmed Record… From Montgomery to Memphis.
A new Fairleigh Dickinson poll in New Jersey finds Gov. Chris Christie (R) absolutely crushing three potential Democratic challengers.
Christie leads Steven Sweeney (R), 65% to 19%, beats Dick Codey (D), 59% to 26%, and tops Barbara Buono (D), 64% to 21%.
“His jobs package is a hurricane. I guess he prayed a lot and got lucky that a storm came.”
— New Jersey Senate president Stephen Sweeney (D), quoted by the Newark Star Ledger, on Gov. Chris Christie (R) and Hurricane Sandy before saying, “I shouldn’t say that. I apologize for saying that.”
A new Public Policy Polling survey finds that Congress only has a 9% favorability rating with 85% of voters viewing it unfavorably.
Key finding: That’s less popular than cockroaches, traffic jams, root canals and even Nickelback.
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.
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