“I’m going to try something different this year. I’m going to try to stay out of this one.”
— Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT), in an interview on Fox News Sunday, saying he won’t endorse a presidential candidate.
Re-Evaluating Ike
The New York Times reviews Eisenhower in War and Peace noting author Jean Edward Smith makes the “startling claim” that apart from Franklin D. Roosevelt, Dwight D. Eisenhower was “the most successful president of the 20th century.”
Smith carefully traces Eisenhower’s “preparation for the presidency, and that’s what this biography is really about. (Only a quarter of the book is devoted to the White House years and beyond.) From it, Eisenhower’s own views on success in leadership emerge reasonably clearly. To reduce them to the length of a tweet — an exercise my students recommend, and which Ike might well have approved — they amount to achieving one’s ends without corrupting them.”
“Ends, Eisenhower knew, are potentially infinite. Means can never be. Therefore the task of leaders — whether in the presidency or anywhere else — is to reconcile that contradiction: to deploy means in such a way as to avoid doing too little, which risks defeat, but also too much, which risks exhaustion. Failure can come either way.”
GOP Insiders Think Romney Will Pick Portman
An informal BuzzFeed survey of more than half of the Republican State Chairmen and national committee people at the GOP meetings in Arizona this weekend finds that two-thirds said they believe Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH) is the most-likely and best-qualified running-mate for Mitt Romney.
Said one: “He’s from Ohio, and we need to win Ohio, it’s that simple.”
Romney to Merge Staff with RNC
Mitt Romney’s top aides “plan to move quickly after the primaries on Tuesday to integrate the campaign’s growing staff with the Republican National Committee, in an effort to avoid logistical stumbles that have hampered past nominees,” the New York Times reports.
“Romney has been careful not to push the committee into a formal support role while two of his rivals — Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul — continue campaigning for the nomination. But aides to Mr. Romney expect that dynamic to change after Tuesday, when he is expected to win all five of the primaries, including those in New York and Pennsylvania.”
Walker Says He Won’t Be Recalled
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) predicted he won’t be recalled from office in June, the Chicago Tribune reports.
Said Walker: “I think when we win, it will not only reaffirm what we did. It will send a powerful message to every politician…in our state and even in our city governments who are trying to take on the tough issues and do the right thing. It will send a powerful, powerful message that you can stick your neck out, you can make the tough choices and there will be voters helping you along the way.”
New Voter Laws May Hurt Obama
Here’s a potential problem for President Obama’s re-election bid: “New state laws designed to fight voter fraud could reduce the number of Americans signing up to vote in this year’s presidential election by hundreds of thousands,” Reuters reports.
“Voting laws passed by Republican-led legislatures in a dozen states during the past year have sharply restricted voter-registration drives that typically target young, low-income, African-American and Hispanic voters — groups that have backed the Democratic president by wide margins.”
Charles Colson Dies
Charles Colson, “who served time in prison for his role in the
Watergate scandal and later became an influential evangelical Christian,”
has died at age 80, NPR reports.
“Colson went from being one of the
nation’s most despised men to a hero of conservative Christians.”
Hatch Will Face Primary
Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) “came up just short of the support needed to claim his party’s nomination for the seventh time, forcing him into a primary election with state Sen. Dan Liljenquist in June,” the Salt Lake Tribune reports.
“After two rounds of balloting, Hatch had the support of 59.1 percent, a handful of votes short of the 60 percent threshold to claim the nomination outright. He’ll face his first primary election since his 1976 victory.”
Obama Leads in Ohio
A new Rasmussen poll in Ohio shows President Obama leading Mitt Romney by four points in the all important swing state, 46% to 42%.
Goode Wins Constitution Party Nomination
Former Rep. Virgil Goode (R-VA) was picked as the Constitution Party’s nominee for president, according to Ballot Access News.
He is the first Constitution Party presidential nominee to have held important elected office.
Romney Makes Delegates Sign Loyalty Pledge
At a party meeting in Arizona, RNC members and state GOP chairmen were welcomed into a private reception with Mitt Romney “only after signing a form pledging to support Romney as a delegate to the national convention in Tampa,” CNN reports.
“All three members of Iowa’s conservative RNC delegation… attempted to enter the reception but were rebuffed after refusing to sign the delegate pledge. The dispute became heated in the hallway outside, with the Iowans demanding to know why they had to sign a form to get their picture taken with the former Massachusetts governor.”
Said one: “The don’t trust us. I have said I will support the nominee when we have a nominee, no ifs, ands or buts.”
Bush Would Consider Being on Ticket with Romney
Jeb Bush told NewsMax that he would consider being Mitt Romney’s running mate.
Said Bush: “Well I’d consider it, but I doubt I’ll get a call, and I don’t know if it’s the right thing for me to do. I didn’t run for president for a similar kind of reason, so I’m all in to try to help him get elected.”
National Mood Improves
A new CNN/Opinion Research survey finds 43% of Americans
say things are going well in the country, up a whopping 19 points from August. That said, 57% say things are still
going badly.
“No” Doesn’t Always Mean “No” in Politics
Matthew Jaffe has a tip for prospective GOP vice presidential nominees: Start by saying you don’t want the job.
Four years ago, when speculation swirled over who Barack Obama would pick as his running mate, Joe Biden told them, “I’m not the guy.” Of course, just days later Biden was unveiled as Obama’s pick.
In 2000, Dick Cheney said, “I have no absolutely no desire to go back to government.” But at the same time, Cheney was leading George W. Bush’s search for a running mate, a search that settled on Cheney himself.
Obama Leads in Ohio
A new Rasmussen poll in Ohio shows President Obama leading Mitt Romney by four points in the all important swing state, 46% to 42%.
