With the way the GOP presidential race is going, he just might win.
Cabinet Secretary Backs Gay Marriage
Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan told Metro Weekly that he ”absolutely” supports the legalization of same sex marriage in New York.
Said Donovan: ”It made me proud to be a New Yorker — not enough to get me to move back. We’ve got more work to do in the Obama administration in a second term.”
Asked if that included marriage equality, Donovan confirmed it did, saying, “Like marriage equality.”
Is the Gingrich Bubble Already Popping?
Joe Klein says news of Newt Gingrich’s ties to Freddie Mac threatens to halt his recent recent rise in the polls.
“You must understand: to Republican stalwarts, a relationship with Freddie Mac is the moral equivalent of satanism. Gingrich was a paid helper — and, believe me, he didn’t get paid $1.6 million to lecture the organization on the failures of government intervention in the market — in a ‘socialist’ effort to make home-buying easier for people who ordinarily wouldn’t be able to afford houses, an effort that famously went off the rails when the government began supporting sub-prime and other highly questionable mortgages.”
“In other words, Gingrich was supporting — the best guess was that Gingrich was hired to win some Republican support for Freddie — the very sort of program that he routinely excoriates. This sort of hypocrisy is astounding but, sadly, not unknown to Newt. After all, this was the guy who led the Republican Impeachment of Bill Clinton while having an extra-marital affair of his own.”
Quote of the Day
“Hang him from the highest tree. I’ll bring the rope.”
— Sarah Palin, quoted by USA Today, on former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky, who has been accused of sexually assaulting children.
Gingrich’s Hiatus Would Make Presidential History
Smart Politics finds that if Newt Gingrich were to win the presidency in 2012, his 13+ year hiatus from political office at the time of his inauguration would be the largest among all presidents who previously held political office.
Republican Gaffes Pile Up
Michael Shear notes that despite a steady stream of “gaffes, misstatements, puzzled looks and long, awkward pauses” the Republican presidential candidates “have turned the cringe-inducing moments to their advantage, asserting that they demonstrate an authenticity different from the slick professionalism of politicians in Washington.”
“But the embarrassing moments are piling up, and some veteran Republicans are beginning to wonder whether the cumulative effect weakens the party brand, especially in foreign policy and national security, where Republicans have typically dominated Democrats.”
Notes former Reagan chief of staff Ken Duberstein: “It is an Animal House. It’s a food fight. Honestly, the Republican debates have become a reality show. People have to be perceived as being capable of governing this country, of being the leader of the free world.”
White House Braces for Supercommittee Failure
Obama administration officials “are quietly bracing for supercommittee failure, with advisers privately saying they are pessimistic that the 12-member Congressional panel will find a way to cut $1.2 trillion from the deficit as required,” the Washington Post reports.
“Perhaps mindful of the long odds of success, Obama has largely left the negotiations alone, after issuing his blueprint in September for more than $3 trillion in savings… At the same time, several Democrats said, any greater involvement by Obama at this stage could have a toxic effect as Democrats and Republicans try to find middle ground. If the president were more deeply engaged, it could force Republicans into a reactionary role.”
A new CNN/Opinion Research survey shows 78% of Americans think it is “somewhat or very unlikely” the committee will develop a plan to significantly reduce the federal budget deficit by the November 23 deadline.
Romney Holds Big Lead in New Hampshire
A new Bloomberg poll in New Hampshire shows Mitt Romney way ahead of his GOP presidential rivals with 40%, followed by Ron Paul at 17% and Newt Gingrich at 10%. All the other candidates are below 10%.
Said pollster Ann Selzer: “You just don’t have any volatility in these numbers. He’s liked and widely liked.”
Gingrich’s Character
John Dickerson:
“No candidate spans the rheostat more than Gingrich, who can go from
sweet to sour in seconds. As the Gingrich candidacy gains traction in
the polls, the key questions are going to be about temperament,
discipline, and character. Those are important with any candidate — but
with Gingrich they are especially so… But now Gingrich will face the
pressures of being a front-runner, which means reliving that period
during the 1990s when his disapproval rating was in the high 70s. He
will face a lot of questions about his temperament and discipline, most
of which he’ll undoubtedly think are stupid. Whether he says so will
tell us something about his temperament this time around.”
Republicans Prepare to Accept New Tax Revenues
With exactly one week remaining until the supercommittee on deficit
reduction is due to present its recommendations, House Republican
leaders have begun preparing their full conference for a deal that
includes new tax revenues, according to The Hill.
“The
GOP co-chairman of the deficit supercommittee, Rep. Jeb Hensarling
(R-Texas), briefed the House Republican Conference on the details of
multiple offers that GOP members of the panel have made to their
Democratic counterparts… Some conservatives have said they are
concerned with the GOP’s offer, especially considering the pledge most
of them signed to oppose any net tax increase… Hensarling made no
direct reference to Grover Norquist, the author of the anti-tax pledge,
but he brought up pledges in general, and said that ‘his pledge is to
the people of his district.'”
However, Politico notes rank-and-file Republicans are suspicious and “there seems to be a growing civil war on the right over the idea of tax revenues.”
Gingrich Paid Much More by Freddie Mac
New Poll Shows Gingrich More Electable
A new McClatchy-Marist poll finds Newt Gingrich is the strongest Republican presidential candidate when matched head to head against President Obama.
Obama leads Gingrich by just two points, 47% to 45%. Mitt Romney is next closest, trailing Obama by 4 points, 49% to 44%. Ron Paul is the third best bet for the Republicans right now, 8 points back from Obama, 49% to 41%.
No other Republican is within single digits of the president.
Majority Say Walker Should Be Recalled
A new Wisconsin Public Radio/St. Norbert College poll in Wisconsin finds 58% think Gov. Scott Walker (R) should be recalled from office.
That compares to just 47% who said in April that he should be recalled.
Key findings: “The growth in support for a recall came, surprisingly, from Republicans. In the spring, only 7% of Republicans supported recalling Walker but that grew to 24% in the fall. Support among Democrats held mainly steady at 88% in the spring and 92% in the fall.”
Boehner Never Visited Giffords
Rep. Gabrielle Giffords’s (D-AZ) husband scolded House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) “for failing to visit his wounded wife while she was recovering from injuries sustained in a shooting in his and Giffords’ new book,” according to The Hill.
Boehner was in Houston for a basketball game while Giffords was in rehabilitation in the same city.
Writes Mark Kelly: “Considering that she was a member of Congress and he was the highest-ranking member, we thought he’d ask to visit Gabby or at least give a call to see how she was doing. Our only contact with him had been a simple get-well card he’d sent a few days after Gabby was injured.”
Flashback of the Day
A Political Wire reader sends a wonderful video clip from Newt Gingrich’s 2006 interview on Da Ali G Show.
In Defense of Campaigns
Ronald Klain takes issue with “data wonks” and their forecasting models and argues that election outcomes are not just the product of underlying fundamentals.
“First, the models’ seemingly objective factors are loaded
with ambiguity and interpretation that inject political
handicapping… Second, the models cheat by capturing the performance of
the campaigns and the candidates via backdoor measures… Third, and perhaps most important, the U.S. doesn’t hold
presidential elections often enough in a given time frame to
provide sufficient data to model the drivers of an election
result.”
Factors “such as the state of the economy
and the ideology of the Republican candidate will certainly
affect the president’s chances of re-election. But in the end,
how the campaign unfolds — the messages the candidates offer,
the campaigns they run, their performance on the stump, their
get-out-the-vote efforts and their debate appearances — will
make the difference. Candidates and their campaigns will dictate
the outcome, not calculators.”
Gingrich Scrutinized
Newt Gingrich said during a GOP presidential debate last week that he earned $300,000 to advise Freddie Mac as a “historian” and warned that the mortgage company’s business model was “insane.”
However, former Freddie Mac officials tell Bloomberg that Gingrich “was asked to build bridge to Capitol Hill Republicans.” They say he never advised management that the company’s business model was at risk and that the housing market was a “bubble,” as he claimed during the debate.
Mark Halperin: “If the press decides to pursue the angles, there could be six Newt enterprise/investigative pieces a day. If the Romney campaign decides it wants to take Gingrich down, there could be eight.”
Half-Naked Man Surprises Clinton
A man wearing nothing but a loin cloth and carrying a torch ran behind Secretary of State Hillary Clinton during a photo op in Hawaii.
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