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Why Hillary Needs Obama

May 14, 2015 at 5:01 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard 43 Comments

Amy Walter: “Every presidential election is a response to the current president, even when the current president isn’t seeking re-election. If people don’t like the guy in the White House, it’s almost impossible for a member of his party to be elected to succeed him. Even when voters are happy with their incumbent president, it’s not always a guarantee of success for the party’s nominee. Voters are often looking for a change in style as much as substance (see: Bush v. Gore, 2000). This is why we should spend as much time checking in on President Obama’s job approval ratings as we do the polling data of the potential presidential candidates.”

“The magic number for Obama – and ultimately Hillary’s chances – is somewhere around 47 percent. If Obama’s job approval rating is above that, a Democrat has a decent to a good chance of winning in 2016. Below that number, especially if Obama is in the 45 percent range or below, it will be hard for a Democrat to gain entry to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.”

Missouri Speaker Resigns After Sexting Intern

May 14, 2015 at 3:50 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard 19 Comments

Missouri House Speaker John Diehl (R) “is resigning from both his leadership position and his legislative seat after acknowledging that he sent sexually charged text messages to a Capitol intern,” the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports.

The Kansas City Star, which broke the story, said Diehl’s “survival, or ouster, as speaker was more practically a matter for the overwhelming Republican majority. Those lawmakers met in a party caucus late Wednesday, a meeting that ended with neither a vote of confidence nor a consensus that the 49-year-old should go. That dynamic seemed to shift overnight and through Thursday morning, culminating with Diehl’s resignation on Thursday afternoon.”

Jeb Bush Finally Says He Would Not Have Invaded Iraq

May 14, 2015 at 3:15 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard 78 Comments

“After a week of painfully struggling to talk about the war in Iraq started by his brother,” Jeb Bush (R) said definitively “that he would not have invaded that country based on the intelligence failures that now are known,” the Washington Post reports.

Said Bush: “Knowing what we now know, I would not have engaged. I would not have gone into Iraq.”

“Bush said the lives of U.S. armed forces were not lost in vain -– ‘their sacrifice was worth honoring, not depreciating’ — but that given the intelligence failures that have since been established, he would not have led the country into war in Iraq.”

National Journal: Bush’s four different answers to the same Iraq question

Trending on Wonk Wire

May 14, 2015 at 3:13 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard 3 Comments

Here are some popular stories on Wonk Wire:

Feingold Seeks Unusual Return to Senate

May 14, 2015 at 3:11 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard 5 Comments

Smart Politics finds that Russ Feingold’s (D) official entrance into the 2016 U.S. Senate race puts him on an unusual pathway back to the nation’s upper legislative chamber.

“Over the last half-century only two U.S. Senators have returned to the chamber after losing their seat at the ballot box – Ohio Democrat Howard Metzenbaum in 1976 and Washington Republican Slade Gorton in 1988. No other Senator accomplished this feat since 1956.”

However, from “the beginning of direct elections in 1913 until the mid-1950s, such political comebacks were much more common with 14 defeated ex-U.S. Senators winning back a seat in the chamber including one who accomplished the feat twice: Kentucky Republican John Cooper in 1952 and 1956 (after losses in 1948 and 1954 respectively).”

Bonus Quote of the Day

May 14, 2015 at 10:30 am EDT By Taegan Goddard 104 Comments

“Now these fathers leave the home and not just father children with that particular women, they father a child with another women, and another and another. We have created predators, sexual predators.”

— Rick Santorum, quoted by BuzzFeed.

Rubio Snags Another Billionaire Backer

May 14, 2015 at 9:43 am EDT By Taegan Goddard 25 Comments

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) has billionaire Oracle founder Larry Ellison backing his presidential bid, according to Politico.

“Ellison, who has a net worth of nearly $54 billion, hosted a fundraiser benefiting the National Republican Senatorial Committee last year that featured another presidential hopeful, Sen. Rand Paul, who has been courting major Silicon Valley donors.”

Feingold Seeks Return to Senate

May 14, 2015 at 9:36 am EDT By Taegan Goddard 51 Comments

Former Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) announced that he will run to reclaim the U.S. Senate seat he lost five years ago to Ron Johnson (R), “fulfilling the hopes of Democrats who have been pushing for the liberal to return to the political arena,” the AP reports.

In the video announcement filmed inside his home near Madison, Feingold said his “desire to serve is stronger than ever” and that he wants to fight to “bring back to the U.S. Senate strong independence, bipartisanship and honesty.”

Stephanopoulos Gave $50K to Clinton Foundation

May 14, 2015 at 9:35 am EDT By Taegan Goddard 27 Comments

ABC News chief anchor George Stephanopoulos has given $50,000 to the Clinton Foundation in recent years, charitable contributions that he did not publicly disclose while reporting on the Clintons or their non-profit organization, Politico reports.

Quote of the Day

May 14, 2015 at 9:01 am EDT By Taegan Goddard 30 Comments

“That’s part of the process. You can’t script your way to the presidency — put yourself in a protective bubble and never interact with people, only talk to people who totally agree with you. It’s not going to work.”

— Jeb Bush, quoted by the New York Times, on Hillary Clinton avoiding reporters.

‘Clinton Cash’ Author Corrects Multiple Errors in Book

May 14, 2015 at 8:57 am EDT By Taegan Goddard 11 Comments

Politico: “In trying to defuse the potential damage of the buzzy book Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich, Hillary Clinton’s campaign and its allies seized on factual errors identified in author Peter Schweizer’s reporting.”

“Now, at least for Kindle eBook readers, those passages with errors have been deleted or edited in an updated version of the book.”

The Day Reagan Was Shot

May 14, 2015 at 8:39 am EDT By Taegan Goddard 4 Comments

The Dallas Morning News has a must-read piece on what Vice President George H.W. Bush was doing the day Ronald Reagan was shot.

“Now 90, Bush consented to an email interview for this story. His comments, along with hours of tapes from inside the White House Situation Room, never seen photographs taken aboard Air Force Two and interviews with participants in the crisis shed new light on the day Reagan became the fifth sitting president to be shot and the only one who lived.”

Rendell Rips Republican ‘SOBs’

May 14, 2015 at 8:36 am EDT By Taegan Goddard 30 Comments

Former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell (D) slammed House Republicans who voted to cut funding for Amtrak a few hours after a deadly train accident in Philadelphia, TPM reports.

Said Rendell: “Here, less than 12 hours after seven people died, these SOBs, and that’s all I can call them, these SOBs didn’t even have the decency to table the vote.”

Wonk Wire: A solution to the nation’s crumbling rail system: More Republican passengers?

Missouri House Speaker Caught Sexting with Intern

May 14, 2015 at 8:20 am EDT By Taegan Goddard 21 Comments

Text messages obtained by the Kansas City Star “reveal a sexually charged relationship between House Speaker John Diehl and a college freshman in a Missouri Capitol internship program that shut down abruptly last month.”

“The conversations unveil a flirty rapport and suggest an intimacy between arguably the state’s most influential lawmaker and a young woman taking some pleasure in a secret association.”

“Diehl initially declined to comment. But about six hours after the story was posted online Wednesday morning, he issued a statement admitting the relationship.”

Bolton to Make Decision on Presidential Bid

May 14, 2015 at 8:10 am EDT By Taegan Goddard 38 Comments

Former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton will announce his White House intentions on his Facebook page today and will then talk to reporters on a media conference call, NH1 News reports.

Pataki Will Announce on May 28

May 14, 2015 at 8:02 am EDT By Taegan Goddard 10 Comments

Former New York Gov. George Pataki (R) said he will announce his decision about a presidential bid on May 28.

Kirk Already Running Ads

May 14, 2015 at 8:00 am EDT By Taegan Goddard 6 Comments

Sen. Mark Kirk (R-IL) is already running cable advertisements for his re-election campaign, according to Capitol Fax.

Bush May Skip Iowa Caucuses

May 14, 2015 at 7:37 am EDT By Taegan Goddard 39 Comments

BuzzFeed: “Jeb Bush’s decision to forego this summer’s Iowa Straw Poll has roiled many conservatives in the state, but that snub might only be the beginning: According to three sources with knowledge of Bush’s campaign strategy, the likely Republican presidential candidate does not plan to seriously contest the first-in-the-nation caucuses — and may ultimately skip the state altogether.”