The New York Times reports that Rep. Michele Bachmann, Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich have all quit the GOP presidential race but have “resisted the urgings of their peers to get on board the Mitt Romney Express. Their hesitance is raising concerns among the power brokers in Washington, who wonder what game they are playing. And the pressure is increasing.”
Rubio Fined for Campaign Violations
The FEC has fined Sen. Marco Rubio’s (R-FL) campaign $8,000 for “receiving prohibited, excessive, and other impermissible” donations during the 2010 Senate race, the Tampa Bay Times reports.
Did Woodward Embellish Deep Throat?
New York magazine excerpts a forthcoming biography of Ben Bradlee, Yours in Truth by Jeff Himmelman, which suggests the legendary Washington Post editor was skeptical about certain aspects of Bob Woodward’s claims about Watergate informant “Deep Throat.”
According to material from Bradlee’s own archive, he expressed “fear in my soul” that Woodward had embellished key details of his reporting.
However, Woodward tells Politico that Himmelman “failed to include” a much more recent interview he did with Bradlee that was more supportive of Woodward.”
Quote of the Day
“The American people do not want to vote for a loser.”
— House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), in a CNN interview, suggesting that Mitt Romney’s success in business makes him an attractive candidate.
Aide Says Auto Bailout was Romney’s Idea
Romney adviser Eric Fehrnstrom said that President Obama’s decision to bailout Chrysler and General Motors was actually Romney’s idea, The Hill reports.
Said Fehrnstrom: “His position on the bailout was exactly what President Obama followed. I know it infuriates them to hear that. The only economic success that President Obama has had is because he followed Mitt Romney’s advice.”
The claim appears to be a shift from Mitt Romney’s November 2008 op-ed in the New York Times, headlined, “Let Detroit go bankrupt.”
Romney’s Narrow Path to the White House
Chris Cillizza: “A detailed analysis of Romney’s various paths to the 270 electoral votes he would need to claim the presidency suggests he has a ceiling of somewhere right around 290 electoral votes. While Romney’s team would absolutely take a 290-electoral-vote victory, that means he has only 20 electoral votes to play with — a paper-thin margin for error.”
“Under the 2012 map, Romney would win 292 electoral votes if he replicated the Bush 2004 victory. But New Mexico seems like a very tough place to win — not to mention the fact that he would again need to carry Ohio, Florida, Colorado and Nevada as well as North Carolina and Virginia.”
Obama Hails Economic Success
Last week, the Obama re-election campaign trumpeted the fact that Osama bin Laden is dead. This week, they release a new video pointing out that “General Motors is alive.”
Aide’s Wife to Testify in Edwards Trial
Cheri Young, the wife of former political aide Andrew Young, will resume testifying in John Edwards’ trial “and might add new wrinkles to a story that veers between tragedy and farce with each disclosure,’ the Raleigh News and Observer reports.
The questions: “Why did she agree to help her husband hide Edwards’ affair by depositing huge checks under her maiden name? How could she agree to let her husband falsely claim paternity for the child Edwards fathered with Hunter? What was she thinking by taking her three children along as she, her husband and Hunter hop-scotched across the country trying to escape National Enquirer reporters?”
Thankfully, There’s Another One Coming
George Will raves about Robert Caro’s Passage to Power, the fourth book in his epic series on Lyndon Johnson, which is finally out this week.
“Samuel Johnson said of Milton’s Paradise Lost that no one ever wished it longer. Not so Caro’s great work, which already fills 3,388 pages. When his fifth volume, treating the Great Society and Vietnam, arrives, readers’ gratitude will be exceeded only by their regret that there will not be a sixth.”
The Non-Stop Campaign
Coming this summer: The Rise of the President’s Permanent Campaign by Brendan J. Doherty.
Toby Harnden gets an early look: “Barack Obama has already held more re-election fundraising events than every elected president since Richard Nixon combined… Obama is also the only president in the past 35 years to visit every electoral battleground state in his first year of office.”
Obama Embraces Clinton in Re-Election Bid
President Obama’s re-election campaign “has put Bill Clinton on notice that he will be used as a top surrogate, further evidence of how far the two camps have come since the bitter days of the 2008 Democratic primary between Obama and Hillary Clinton, now his secretary of state, the AP reports.
Tonight, the current and former president “planned to make the first of three joint appearances at fundraisers for Obama’s campaign.”
Bonus Quote of the Day
Quote of the Day
“The president is getting…some bad advice. Somebody needed to help him out, so I thought I would.
— House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), in an interview on CNN, explaining his “amped-up rhetoric” toward President Obama in recent days.
Obama Jokes
President Obama was very funny at the White House Correspondents Associates dinner last night.
On Mitt Romney: “He and I actually have a lot in common. We both have degrees from Harvard. I have one. He has two. What a snob.”
On Hillary Clinton: “Four years ago I was locked in a brutal primary battle with Hillary Clinton. Four years later she won’t stop drunk-texting me from Cartagena.”
The president ended his speech saying, “I have to get the Secret Service home in time for their new curfew.”
First Review of Robert Caro’s New Book
Steve Kraske: “Maybe I’m showing my age. Maybe I’m showing the effects of too many years covering politicians. But these days, I’m deep into the fourth volume of an ongoing series of books on the 36th president, a man who died back in 1973. The really scary thing: I’m relishing every minute of it.”
“Robert Caro’s new book on LBJ — The Passage of Power — shares a trait with the first three. It is simply a stunning achievement. Enduringly fascinating, probing and popping with surprising insights, the book is a breeze of a read… Magisterial. Foundational. Groundbreaking. Pick your adjective for Caro’s Lyndon Johnson. For now, I’ll go with another one: simply amazing.”
The book is officially out on Tuesday.
Republicans are the Problem
Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein: “We have been studying Washington politics and Congress for more than 40 years, and never have we seen them this dysfunctional. In our past writings, we have criticized both parties when we believed it was warranted. Today, however, we have no choice but to acknowledge that the core of the problem lies with the Republican Party.”
“The GOP has become an insurgent outlier in American politics. It is ideologically extreme; scornful of compromise; unmoved by conventional understanding of facts, evidence and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition.”
“When one party moves this far from the mainstream, it makes it nearly impossible for the political system to deal constructively with the country’s challenges.”
Cuomo Says He’s Made History, Again and Again
In just 16 months in office, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) has claimed to do something “historic” more than 80 times, the New York Times reports.
“His frequent citation of his place in history, according to rhetoricians, provides a frame for how he hopes the public in New York and across the country will view him — as someone who turned a dysfunctional state capital from a place of corruption to competence.”
Manhunt
Out next week: Manhunt: The Ten-Year Search for Bin Laden — from 9/11 to Abbottabad by Peter L. Bergen.
