Politico: “The Paul Ryan budget was a political disaster last year for Republicans. This year the GOP had a much more methodical, careful rollout. The party polled on Medicare in 50 battleground districts. It vetted the plan with a dozen conservative groups. It reached out to rank-and-file lawmakers and asked them what they needed to support the sweeping conservative spending plan. Ryan briefed the Republican presidential candidates and won a quick public endorsement of the plan from Mitt Romney. And perhaps most important, the GOP learned how to use the right poll-tested words.”
McMahon Leads Shays in Connecticut
A new Quinnipiac poll in Connecticut finds Linda McMahon (R) leading former Rep. Christopher Shays (R) in a Republican U.S. Senate primary, 51% to 42%.
However, Shays was stronger against the possible Democratic candidates, Rep. Christopher Murphy (D) and Susan Bysiewicz (D). Murphy leads the Democratic primary race, 37% to 25%.
Did Castro Know of JFK Assassination Plans?
Castro’s Secrets by retired CIA analyst Brian Latell claims Cuban dictator Fidel Castro knew of plans to assassinate John F. Kennedy, the Miami Herald reports.
Lee Harvey Oswald apparently warned Cuban intelligence officers in advance of his
plans to kill the president when he officials at the Cuban embassy in
Mexico City refused to give him a visa to travel to the island. He
promised to shoot Kennedy to prove his revolutionary credentials.
City Manager Lays Himself Off
Dan O’Leary, the city manager for Keller, Texas, “decided that someone from the top management ranks at City Hall had to go. So the person he laid off was himself,” the Fort Worth Star Telegram reports.
Biden in 2016?
Vice President Joe Biden “has quietly assembled an A-team of advisers who would, without doubt, be considered the nucleus of a presidential campaign — if only he wouldn’t be 73 in 2016,” Politico reports.
“Biden’s age would snuff the last embers of a presidential ambition that led him to a pair of crushing defeats in 1988 and 2008, or so many in Barack Obama’s camp thought when they first tapped him. But the old fire crackles yet. And Biden, spurred in part by those rumors about being replaced on the ticket by Hillary Clinton (who turns 69 in ’16), is campaigning with a young man’s tenacity in 2012 — with an eye toward keeping all of his options open.”
Why is Romney So Unpopular?
“Since 1976, no serious contender, Democrat or Republican, has watched his favorable ratings fall as low as Romney’s have in recent months,” Andrew Romano: points out.
“Or watched his unfavorable ratings climb as high. Or watched his overall numbers stay underwater — that is, more unfavorable than favorable — for so long. At this rate, Romney is shaping up to be the most unpopular presidential nominee on record.”
Jonathan Chait: “The main reason, I suspect, is that the Republican Party is extremely unpopular. The Bush years deeply discredited the GOP, and while Republicans were able to make gains in 2010 by default, as the out party during an economic crisis, they did nothing to rehabilitate their image. Indeed, they have embraced even more unpopular positions than the ones that George W. Bush advocated.”
How Gingrich Could Still Make It to the Convention
While party rules
may prevent Newt Gingrich from being presented for the Republican
presidential nomination at the Republican National Convention in Tampa, ABC News notes that this isn’t as meaningful as some have made it out to be.
“If
Gingrich fails to meet the five-state threshold, he won’t be eligible
for the nomination when the convention begins. No delegate will be able
to nominate him for the nomination, technically, on the convention
floor. This rule doesn’t nix Gingrich’s chances, even if he fails to win
five states. Effectively, anyone can win the GOP’s nomination in Tampa,
without having won or even campaigned in a single state… An RNC
official acknowledged that on later rounds of voting, it would be
possible for a motion to be made to nominate a candidate who did not
qualify on previous rounds. Essentially, the
nomination-for-the-nomination process begins anew. At that point, a new
candidate could demonstrate plurality support from five states and
qualify.”
Florida GOP Looks to Boost Scott
The Hotline
notes that the Florida Republican party has made a “very substantial”
television ad buy touting Florida Gov. Rick Scott’s (R) record as he
seeks to recover from dismal approval numbers.
A bit early: “When was
the last time a state party tried to boost a governor’s image with a TV
ad more than two years before he faces reelection?… Some Republicans
are concerned Scott could drag down the presidential ticket in the swing
state.”
House Republicans Split Over Primary Battles
The Hill
reports on a rift that has developed among House Republicans between
House leadership and the rank-and-file over primary battles that feature
two Republican incumbents.
Said an anonymous House Republican, “Some members are angry… If leaders get involved…I think they risk a revolt.”
Santorum Gave Paid Speeches During Campaign
Last fall, polling in the single digits for the GOP presidential nomination, Rick Santorum was giving paid speeches, NBC News reports.
He made $18,200 in two speeches, according to an amendment to his personal financial disclosure released today.
Romney Embraces Bush Economic Policy
At a campaign event in Maryland, Mitt Romney credited President George W. Bush with keeping the country from a great depression in 2008, BuzzFeed reports.
Said Romney: “I keep hearing the president say he’s responsible for keeping the country out of a Great Depression. No, no, no, that was President George W. Bush and Hank Paulson.”
Blagojevich’s Hair Secret
Imprisoned former Illinois Rod Blagojevich’s “famously thick, dark hair is dyed and will turn gray within months as he serves his 14-year sentence in a Colorado prison, where dyes are strictly banned,” his longtime barber told the Associated Press.
DNC Puts Out Etch-A-Sketch Video
It only took the DNC a few hours to put the Etch-A-Sketch comments from a Mitt Romney advisor into a new web ad.
Meanwhile, BuzzFeed notes Rick Santorum’s campaign tweeted a photo of Santorum playing with an Etch-A-Sketch saying he was studying Romney’s policy positions.
What Romney’s Dog Says About Romney
Walter Shapiro looks at the story of Mitt Romney’s dog Seamus “heroically riding for 12 hours in a dog carrier atop the family’s station wagon during a 1983 vacation to Canada” and says it has less to do with his treatment of animals than it does his treatment of people.
“What gives the Seamus story legs (four) is the inadvertent glimpse it offers of Romney’s rigidity. For all the natural parental annoyance with the constant are-we-there-yet demands and the bodily needs of five boys on the trek to Canada, it is a rare father who would so zealously limit bathroom and food stops. Remember: The Romneys were not exactly desperate refugees racing to get across the Canadian border before they were stopped by the authorities. They were an affluent American family on vacation, but with all the spontaneous joy of an automotive assembly line. Seamus was collateral damage. What matters is the suck-it-up discipline that Mitt Romney tried to impose on his family.”
“People are not cyborgs — they have human needs, including a propensity for rest stops and, in politics, healthy egos. But an awareness of these personal factors does not seem to be part of the Romney repertoire.”
The GOP Race is Over
Nate Silver: “At the betting market Intrade, Mr. Santorum is now given just a 1.5 percent chance of winning the nomination — lower than the combined total for a series of dark-horse figures like Jeb Bush, Sarah Palin and Chris Christie, who together have about a 3 percent chance. The race will continue on until Mr. Romney clinches or everyone else quits, but the only real question is whether Mr. Romney could somehow beat himself.”
Why We Have So Many Negative Political Ads
Paul Begala: “The biggest reason negative ads are so ubiquitous in politics, but much less common in commercial advertising, is this: elections present a mutually exclusive choice. It is legal to buy a can of Coke and a can of Pepsi on the same day, but you can’t vote for Obama and Romney in the same election. That mutual exclusivity pushes campaigns to frame the choice more sharply. Imagine if we had Cola Day once every four years — and you were stuck with your choice for those four years. Coke would say Pepsi makes you fat; Pepsi would counterattack that Coke makes you impotent. And they’d go downhill from there.”
“So the next time a public moralist starts lamenting the role of negative advertising in our political system, just explain that it’s an outgrowth of the stakes involved. As the old saying has it, politics ain’t beanbag — and a political campaign isn’t selling soft drinks. The outcome matters — and influencing it is worth every negative word or image a candidate and his team can muster.”
Why Gingrich May Not Make it to the Convention
NBC News highlights a RNC rule stipulating that candidates seeking the nomination must have won a plurality of votes in at least five states to have their name presented for the GOP nomination.
Said RNC Chairman Reince Preibus: “It’s an important rule. So when these candidates are adding up their delegates or when people out there have a particular issue that they would like to move at the convention, they had better make sure they at least have a plurality of five states to make these things happen.”
Newt Gingrich has only won two primaries so far — South Carolina and Georgia.
Bonus Quote of the Day
“Well, I think you hit a reset button for the fall campaign. Everything changes. It’s almost like an Etch A Sketch. You can kind of shake it up and restart all over again.”
— Romney adviser Eric Fehrnstrom, in a CNN interview, on whether Romney has moved “so far to the right it would hurt him with moderate voters in the general election.”
