Political Wire

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Susan Collins Faces Barrage of Attack Ads

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Politico: “The outside group Maine Momentum is dramatically escalating its bombardment of Collins over the last weeks of December, honing in on the second anniversary of the GOP’s tax reform law that Collins (R-Maine) supported in 2017, which Democrats believe is a vulnerability in her likely race against statehouse Speaker Sara Gideon.”

“The group planned to run $60,000 in ads over the next three weeks focusing on the law. But the group behind the buy is tripling its investment over the end of the year: Now instead of $180,000 over a three-week period, the group will now spend $540,000 on the ad, punctuating the edge Democrats currently have on the airwaves in the state.”

White House Tells House to End Impeachment Inquiry

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White House counsel Pat Cipollone slammed the impeachment inquiry as “completely baseless” in a letter to the House Judiciary Committee.

The letter quotes President Trump: “If you are going to impeach me, do it now, fast, so we can have a fair trial in the Senate, and so that our Country can get back to business.”

While the letter doesn’t specifically state the White House won’t participate in next week’s hearings, an administration official confirmed to CNN that’s what the letter means.

More U.K. Voters Say They’ll Vote Tactically

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A new BMG Research poll in the United Kingdom finds that 30% of the public say they will be “voting for the best-positioned candidate/party to keep out another candidate/party that I dislike” for the December 12th election.

That is up markedly from 24% last week and around 22% near the start of the campaign.

In contrast, just 51% say they will vote for “the candidate/party I most prefer, regardless of how likely they are to win,” and 19 percent say they don’t know.


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‘I Don’t Want an Orange Look’

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During a roundtable event on small business, President Trump expressed his dislike of energy efficient light bulbs, CNBC reports.

Said Trump: “It doesn’t make you look as good. Being a vain person, that’s very important to me. It gives you an orange look, I don’t want an orange look.”

Hostilities Between Buttigieg and Warren Break Out

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“Long-simmering tensions between Pete Buttigieg and Elizabeth Warren, the two ascendant Democratic presidential candidates in Iowa, burst into the open this week,” Politico reports.

“Warren and Buttigieg’s campaigns each called the other out in a flurry of back-and-forths on the candidates’ tax returns, past corporate clients, campaign bundlers and opening fundraisers to the news media.”

Amash Is Ready to Impeach Trump

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Rep. Justin Amash (I-MI) told CNN that he’s ready to vote for three articles of impeachment: obstruction of Congress, obstruction of justice and abuse of power.

However, he says he wants to see final language before ultimately deciding.

Senior British Diplomat Quits with Tirade Over Brexit

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“A senior British diplomat in the US has quit with a blast at the UK government over Brexit, saying she could no longer ‘peddle half-truths’ on behalf of political leaders she did not trust,'” CNN reports.

“In a searing resignation letter delivered just over a week before the UK general election, Alexandra Hall Hall, the lead envoy for Brexit in the British Embassy in Washington, said that she had become increasingly dismayed by the demands placed on the British civil service to deliver messages on Brexit which were not ‘fully honest.'”

Final North Carolina Map Boosts House Democrats

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Cook Political Report: “The new map effectively is all but certain to convert a 10-3 Republican delegation into an 8-5 Republican edge – a huge win for House Democrats and a pre-2020 insurance policy for Speaker Pelosi. The biggest losers on the GOP side: Reps. George Holding (NC-02) and Mark Walker (NC-06), whose Raleigh and Greensboro districts become safe Democratic seats.”

Limbaugh Says Impeachment Driven By Hatred

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Conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh told Fox & Friends that impeachment efforts by Democrats are driven by “pure, raw, hatred” of President Trump.

Said Limbaugh: “Democrats are wandering aimlessly and being propelled by one thing… We are watching pure, raw hatred. They hate the man and they hate the people who elected him. They hate him because he beat them.”

Law Professors Call for Trump’s Impeachment

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More than 500 law professors signed a letter calling for President Trump to be impeached, the Washington Post reports.

From the open letter: “There is overwhelming evidence that President Trump betrayed his oath of office by seeking to use presidential power to pressure a foreign government to help him distort an American election, for his personal and political benefit, at the direct expense of national security interests as determined by Congress. His conduct is precisely the type of threat to our democracy that the Founders feared when they included the remedy of impeachment in the Constitution.”

Bloomberg Says Rivals Could Have Made Own Fortunes

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Michael Bloomberg “brushed back critiques about his wealth and bristled at the suggestion that he was using it to buy success in the 2020 presidential race, arguing that other Democrats who have complained about his entry into their party’s primary could have taken it upon themselves to earn their own personal fortunes, as he had done,” the New York Times reports.

Said Bloomberg: “They had a chance to go out and make a lot of money. And how much of their own money do they put into their campaigns?”

He added: “I’m doing exactly the same thing they’re doing, except that I am using my own money. They’re using somebody else’s money and those other people expect something from them. Nobody gives you money if they don’t expect something. And I don’t want to be bought.”

About Political Wire

goddard-bw-snapshotTaegan 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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