Jon Hunstman has “begun dipping his toe back into the political pond–traversing the country at a brisk pace and delivering meaty op-eds and speeches that pointedly address the woes of his party… But when asked if the reception he’s receiving indicates there’s an appetite for another White House run, it’s clear he’s not even sure of the answer,” David Catanese reports.
Said Hunstman: “I don’t know. It’s way premature.”
“We need to let those who will come in the future to represent us [know] that we are serious. The 2nd amendment means nothing unless those in power believe you would have no problem simply walking up and shooting them if they got too far out of line and stopped responding as representatives. It seems that we are unable to muster that belief in any of our representatives on a state or federal level, but we have to have something, something costly, something that they will fear that we will use if they step out of line.”
— From the April newsletter of the Benton County, Arkansas Republican Party.
A new USC Price/Los Angeles Times poll finds Eric Garcetti has opened a commanding 10-point lead in the Los Angeles mayor’s race over rival Wendy Greuel, 50% to 40%.
The poll suggests Greuel’s “dogged fight to win the backing of public employee unions appears to be undercutting her on her home turf in the San Fernando Valley… The survey also found no sign of success for Greuel’s effort to gain an edge among women by highlighting her potential to make history as the city’s first female mayor. Women preferred Garcetti, 50% to 41%.”
Charles and David Koch, the billionaire industrialists and supporters of libertarian causes, “have mostly avoided media investments,” the New York Times reports.
Now, Koch Industries “is exploring a bid to buy the Tribune Company’s eight regional newspapers, including The Los Angeles Times, The Chicago Tribune, The Baltimore Sun, The Orlando Sentinel and The Hartford Courant.”
New York Times: “In a new brick-and-limestone museum, visitors to an interactive theater will be presented with the stark choices that confronted the nation’s 43rd president: invade Iraq or leave Saddam Hussein in power? Deploy federal troops after Hurricane Katrina or rely on local forces? Bail out Wall Street or let the banks fail?”
“The hypothetical exercise, which includes touch screens that let users watch videos of ‘advisers’ before voting on whether they would make the same choices that Mr. Bush did, revisits the most consequential moments of his administration. In the process, the country is being asked to re-evaluate the two-term president who presided over some of the most tumultuous years in the nation’s history.”
A new Western New England University poll in Massachusetts finds that Rep. Edward Markey (D-MA) leads Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-MA) in a Democratic Senate primary, 44% to 34%.
On the GOP side, Gabriel Gomez (R) is slightly ahead of Michael Sullivan (R), 33% to 27%.
Also interesting: “In hypothetical match-ups for the general election, both Democrats fare better than their Republican counterparts, although the numbers indicate Lynch is more likely to defeat any GOP Senate hopefuls.”
What’s not clear is how accurate a poll conducted in the aftermath of the Boston Marathon bombings will prove in the end.
Former President Bill Clinton, stumping for Wendy Greuel in Los Angeles, said the 20.8% voter turnout in the March mayoral primary was “ridiculous,” the Los Angeles Times reports.
Said Clitnon: “We can’t tolerate… the kind of low turnout you all have in these mayors’ races. It’s ridiculous. There are too many people in Los Angeles, of all ages, that have a big stake in the future.”
“This is our fucking city.”
— Boston Red Sox slugger David Ortiz, celebrating the capture of the terrorist suspect accused of setting off bombs at the Boston Marathon.
“The Boston Marathon terrorist attack allegedly hatched by two brothers from Chechnya is threatening to disrupt President Obama’s second-term agenda,” The Hill reports.
“Opponents of immigration reform — the most promising priority of Obama’s second term remaining after the defeat of gun control — are already using the attack to try to slow progress on a bipartisan Senate bill.”
“More broadly, the attack is raising questions about how the administration should deal with 19-year-old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who was captured Friday after an exhaustive manhunt in Boston, and concerns over whether the FBI was too complacent in letting his older brother Tamerlan Tsarnaev out of its sight after interviewing him in 2011.”
“So I’ll have some advice for my friends in Chicago, New York and Los Angeles: Just say no to the Democrats who said no on background checks.”
— Bill Daley (D), writing in the Washington Post, about how Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND) “betrayed me on gun control.”
Three red-state Democratic senators up for re-election next year – Mark Begich (D-AK), Mark Pryor (D-AR) and Max Baucus (D-MT) – voted against the gun background check measure this week, but not Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA).
Stu Rothenberg explains: “Landrieu always depends on a huge turnout in the black community and a near sweep of the black vote to win election, and voting against the president on guns might have poisoned her relationship with that community. And if Mary loses black voters, Mary can’t win… Obviously, Landrieu needs to hit certain percentages of both black and
white votes to win, but if politics starts with base voters, Landrieu
knows which voters she can’t afford to lose during her 2014 re-election
bid.”
A new Quinnipiac poll in New York City finds Christine Quinn (D) leading the Democratic primary pack at 28%, followed by Anthony Weiner at 15%, Bill de Blasio at 11% and Bill Thompson at 10%.
The last thing we may want to do is read Boston suspect Miranda Rights telling him to “remain silent.”
— Lindsey Graham (@GrahamBlog) April 19, 2013
The Boy Scouts of America called to end a long-standing ban on openly gay members, Reuters reports, “but the organization’s board must still vote in May on whether to ratify the resolution.”
“I wonder how many Boston liberals spent the night cowering in their homes wishing they had an AR-15 with a hi-capacity magazine?”
— Arkansas State Rep. Nate Bell (R), on Twitter.
“Details are emerging in the Boston Marathon bombing that suggest the case will not only be remembered as a local tragedy, but also one with broad political and economic implications,” Politico reports.
“Authorities believe the two suspects may have ties to Chechnya, news that could rock the debate on immigration reform unfolding in Congress. A police officer in Cambridge died in a shooting, two days after the Senate voted down a gun-control bill. And law enforcement has the city of Boston on lockdown, just as billions in across-the-board spending cuts are hitting local authorities.”
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA) warned that Congress must take into account the events in Boston this week when working on comprehensive immigration reform to ensure “those who would do us harm do not receive benefits under the immigration laws,” BuzzFeed reports.
All political news this morning is obviously overshadowed by the extensive manhunt for the persons responsible for the bombings earlier this week in Boston.
The Week explains how the suspects were hunted down.
The New York Times and the Guardian are tracking the events as they unfold.
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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