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Is This the Beginning of the End for Exit Polls?

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Politico: “The departures of AP and Fox from the 20-year alliance of news organizations that have commissioned and reported national and state exit polls doesn’t necessarily sound the death knell for exit polling. The four remaining networks in the pool — ABC News, CBS News, CNN and NBC News — are locked into the current exit poll regime through the next presidential election.”

“But they will be facing unprecedented competition — from the AP and Fox News, among others — and the future beyond 2020 remains uncertain.”

Inside Trump’s Battle for Self-Preservation

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New York Times: “For other presidents, every day is a test of how to lead a country, not just a faction, balancing competing interests. For Mr. Trump, every day is an hour-by-hour battle for self-preservation. He still relitigates last year’s election, convinced that the investigation by Robert Mueller, the special counsel, into Russia’s interference is a plot to delegitimize him. Color-coded maps highlighting the counties he won were hung on the White House walls.”

“Before taking office, Mr. Trump told top aides to think of each presidential day as an episode in a television show in which he vanquishes rivals. People close to him estimate that Mr. Trump spends at least four hours a day, and sometimes as much as twice that, in front of a television, sometimes with the volume muted, marinating in the no-holds-barred wars of cable news and eager to fire back.”

A Humiliating Debacle for CNN

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Glenn Greenwald: “It’s impossible to convey with words what a spectacularly devastating scoop CNN believed it had, so it’s necessary to watch it for yourself to see the tone of excitement, breathlessness and gravity the network conveyed as they clearly believed they were delivering a near-fatal blow to the Trump/Russia collusion story.”

“There was just one small problem with this story: it was fundamentally false, in the most embarrassing way possible. Hours after CNN broadcast its story – and then hyped it over and over and over – the Washington Post reported that CNN got the key fact of the story wrong.”

Trump Held Secret Talks on Election Meddling

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“The Trump administration has rejected a sweeping Russian proposal seeking a mutual ban on foreign political interference,” BuzzFeed News reports.

“Putin dispatched Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov to Washington for a July 17 meeting with Under Secretary Tom Shannon, the No. 3 official at the State Department. … [T]hree U.S. administration officials, including one inside the meeting, said Ryabkov handed over a document containing a bold proposal: A sweeping noninterference agreement between Moscow and Washington that would prohibit both governments from meddling in the other’s domestic politics.”

Republicans Reconsider Bumping Up Corporate Tax Rate

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“Republicans negotiating a final GOP tax bill are reconsidering proposals to shrink the plan’s corporate tax cut amid ferocious opposition from Senate Republicans as well as outside conservative and business groups,” the Washington Post reports.

“Both separate bills that passed the House and Senate would lower the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 20 percent. But lawmakers negotiating the final bill have considered raising the corporate rate to 22 percent, raising new revenue that they would use to offset other changes they plan to make in the final package.”

Mueller Tracked Manafort’s Microsoft Word Edits

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Associated Press: “Revealing that they know every word Manafort changed in a recently published op-ed, prosecutors for the special counsel argued Friday that the former Trump campaign chairman’s attempt to mount a public relations campaign to defend himself while under house arrest ‘raises serious concerns about his trustworthiness.'”

“Writing in Microsoft Word, Manafort changed several sections of the essay, going line-by-line for over 30 minutes on the night of Nov. 29, court papers show.”

“Each change was tracked in the document, which prosecutors later compared to talking points Manafort drafted last year to respond to news reports about his consulting work in Ukraine. They found they mirrored his edits, and appeared to show he had a ‘public relations campaign’ in mind to help his case.”

Who Will Actually Vote in Alabama?

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A new SurveyMonkey poll finds that “minor differences in the methods used to model or select the likely electorate produce wildly varying estimates in Alabama. Data collected over the past week, with different models applied, show everything between an 8 eight percentage point margin favoring Jones and a 9 percentage point margin favoring Moore.”

“The same survey data also reveal the underlying tensions behind the volatile results: Alabama Democrats are angry and energized, while a significant but critical minority of Republicans are conflicted between a nominee they dislike and a President they support.”

“Jones leads by wide margins when we simply ask voters if they plan to vote… An alternative, which favors Moore, defines likely voters as those with a self-reported history of voting in lower turnout elections.”

Former Fox Anchor Says Trump Tried to Kiss Her

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Juliet Huddy, a former Fox & Friends Weekend anchor, told a radio show that Donald Trump once tried to kiss her on the lips unexpectedly after a business lunch.

“As Trump said goodbye to her in the elevator, in the presence of his security guard, he leaned in and tried to kiss her on the lips.”

Said Huddy: “I was surprised that he went for the lips.”

A few years later, Trump appeared on her syndicated show and off-air, to a studio audience Trump laughed about the pass in the elevator: “I tried hitting on her but she blew me off.”

Tax Bill Could Make ‘Dark Money’ Tax Deductible

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“For the first time in American politics, anonymous ‘dark money’ political donations could become tax-deductible. That’s if a provision currently being debated between House and Senate negotiators makes it into the final tax bill,” CNN reports.

“The issue at hand started with the ‘Johnson Amendment,’ named after then-Sen. Lyndon Johnson’s 1954 measure that prohibits nonprofit groups who maintain tax-exempt status, including churches and charities, from directly participating in politics.”

“But efforts to repeal the Johnson Amendment have resulted in language that would ease political speech rules for all nonprofits. The results, critics say, could effectively let people deduct de-facto political donations and further hide those donations and spending from the public.”

How Trump Works to Undermine Mitt Romney

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Washington Post: “Before Ronna Romney McDaniel took over as Republican National Committee chairwoman earlier this year, President Trump had a request: Would she be willing to stop using her middle name publicly? Though she had used her maiden name for years in Michigan, where her grandfather had been governor, McDaniel dropped ‘Romney’ from most official party communications and has rarely used it since.”

“The moment offers a window on Trump’s complicated and often tense relationship with Mitt Romney.”

“Those tensions were on display again this week, when White House aides scripted a trip to Utah with a single political goal in mind: to convince Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) to run for reelection and thwart Romney from mounting his own bid for the seat, according to a senior White House official involved in the preparations.”

Tweet of the Day

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Rep. Steve King (R-IA) on Twitter:

Diversity is not our strength. Hungarian Prime Minister Victor Orban, “Mixing cultures will not lead to a higher quality of life but a lower one.”

Prominent Judge Accused of Sexual Misconduct

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“A former clerk for Judge Alex Kozinski said the powerful and well-known jurist, who for many years served as chief judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, called her into his office several times and pulled up pornography on his computer, asking if she thought it was photoshopped or if it aroused her sexually,” the Washington Post reports.

FBI Warned Hope Hicks About Russian Emails

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“FBI officials warned one of President Trump’s top advisers, Hope Hicks, earlier this year about repeated attempts by Russian operatives to make contact with her during the presidential transition,” the New York Times reports.

“The Russian outreach efforts show that, even after American intelligence agencies publicly accused Moscow of trying to influence the outcome of last year’s presidential election, Russian operatives were undaunted in their efforts to establish contacts with Mr. Trump’s advisers.”

“There is no evidence that Ms. Hicks did anything improper.”

Franks Resigns Effectively Immediately

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Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ) issued a statement saying he would resign immediately, instead of staying on until January 31, 2018 as he said yesterday.

Politico has the background story: “Franks allegedly made unwanted advances toward female staffers in his office and retaliated against one who rebuffed him.”

“The sources said Franks approached two female staffers about acting as a potential surrogate for him and his wife, who has struggled with fertility issues for years. But the aides were concerned that Franks was asking to have sexual relations with them. It was not clear to the women whether he was asking about impregnating the women through sexual intercourse or in vitro fertilization. Franks opposes abortion rights as well as procedures that discard embryos.”

The AP reports Franks offered one staffer $5 million to act as a surrogate.

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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