“I’m a competitive person, so I’m not gonna say it won’t bother me if I’m not selected. Of course it bothers you a little bit, because if you’re a competitive person like I am and you’re used to winning like I am, again, you don’t like coming in second. Ever.”
— Gov. Chris Christie, quoted by Politico, on Donald Trump’s running mate search.
Donald Trump’s campaign has signaled strongly to Republicans in Washington that he will pick Gov. Mike Pence as his running mate, “though Republicans caution the party’s mercurial presidential candidate may still backtrack on his apparent choice,” the New York Times reports.
“A low-key man largely defined in public life by his Christian faith, Mr. Pence, 57, is seen as a cautious choice of running mate — a political partner who is unlikely to embarrass Mr. Trump, and who may help him shore up support among conservative voters still wary of his candidacy.”
Recent Morning Consult polling shows Pence generates little enthusiasm among voters.
For members: Why Pence Is Trump’s Best Choice for Veep
Time: “The Republican National Convention rules committee abruptly recessed for more than four hours Thursday morning…”
“Facing dozens of amendments, Rules Committee Chair Enid Mickelsen claimed there was a problem with the committee’s printers preventing the consideration of the committee’s business all morning. But the true reason for the delay, according to GOP officials, was a secret meeting convened by Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus, with Utah Sen. Mike Lee, Colorado delegate Kendal Unruh, and other influential delegates opposed to Trump to try to drop extraneous amendments avoid drama in the televised meeting room.”
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Newt Gingrich told the AP that he expects to hear from Donald Trump about his vice presidential decision as early as 1 p.m. ET this afternoon.
In a statement to the Washington Post, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said: “On reflection, my recent remarks in response to press inquiries were ill-advised and I regret making them. Judges should avoid commenting on a candidate for public office. In the future I will be more circumspect.”
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) and Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) “will be the potential 2020 presidential contenders jockeying most openly and aggressively at the Republican National Convention next week in Cleveland, as both Republicans have lined up visits with the influential early-state delegations of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina,” Politico reports.
“Those three states have kicked off the GOP nominating process for decades and are expected to do so again in 2020. Walker and Cotton are the only national politicians currently scheduled to speak with all three delegations, according to officials familiar with the delegation schedules in the three states.”
Former Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) told a conservative radio host that Donald Trump “gets and understands religious liberty,” the Huffington Post reports.
Bachmann shared an anecdote: “He even said, ‘I don’t understand, when I was growing up, everybody said Merry Christmas. Even my Jews would say Merry Christmas.’ New York City, there are a lot of Jews, and they would even say Merry Christmas. Why can’t we even say Merry Christmas anymore?’”
Bachmann added that Trump had “1950s sensibilities” and “1950s common sense,” and warned that Hillary Clinton would bring “certain destruction” and “catastrophic decline” and a “godless United States that will walk into certain catastrophe.”
Out just after the election: Our Revolution: A Future To Believe In by Sen. Bernie Sanders.
The AP reports that the book “will be an inside account of this extraordinary campaign, and will also provide a blueprint for future political action. Its message: The fight has just begun.”
First Read: “It increasingly appears as if the VP race is coming down between Gingrich and Pence — a conventional Republican pick (Pence) vs. a disrupter (Gingrich); someone with a political future (Pence) vs. someone with nothing left to lose (Gingrich).”
Rick Klein: “Does Trump go Trump, or the opposite of Trump? If Newt Gingrich’s play-by-play of the veepstakes is accurate, and Donald Trump flew across the country Wednesday juggling ‘Gingrich, Pence, Pence, Gingrich’ in his head, the two paths could not be more clear. In Gingrich, Trump gets a version of himself with insider experience: Another thrice-married, dynamic 70-something with a proven history of tangling with the Clintons. ‘Do you really want a two-pirate ticket?’ Gingrich asked Wednesday night on Fox. (Yes, he really said this.) Pence isn’t talking openly about what he represents, thought that’s part of his appeal. He represents quiet stability, strong conservative values, and a voting and governing record – in other words, what Trump isn’t. In choosing a partner, Trump either doubles down or hedges his bet.”
First Read: “Yesterday brought us a whopping 10 battleground state polls… The good news for Donald Trump? He’s narrowed the gap: Ohio is tied; Florida is no longer trending in Hillary Clinton’s direction; and this all makes it much harder for rebellious GOP delegates to dump Trump at the convention. But here’s the bad news for him: These polls — which mostly show Clinton either ahead or tied in these battlegrounds — were all taken during or after Clinton’s roughest week of the general election, with FBI Director James Comey’s rebuke over her emails. So you could view these battleground numbers as a floor for Clinton, while Trump is still unable to break 40% in many of these states. (Indeed, look at the high undecided numbers; voters moved away from Clinton, but they didn’t move toward Trump.) And what should ring alarm bells for the GOP is the polling in Colorado and Virginia, where Clinton is up in high single digits/double digits.”
“On the other hand, these polls also come as Team Clinton has been outspending Team Trump over the battleground airwaves by a 40-to-1 margin. So it’s possible that Trump could improve his numbers if/when he starts airing TV ads. But here’s the bottom line: The email story alone isn’t going to win the presidential race for Trump. He’s got to deliver on his VP pick and convention to overtake Clinton.”
CNN: “Marking the unpredictability of the state of affairs, Trump was still making calls to people in recent days.”
“Trump even reached out again to Condoleezza Rice, the secretary of state under former President George W. Bush, after a donor encouraged him to make the call over the weekend. Rice, though, doesn’t want the job, according to a separate source familiar with the process.”
Three new Quinnipiac polls show good news for Republicans trying to hang on to control of the U.S. Senate:
“Look, in many ways Donald Trump is like a pirate. He’s outside the normal system, he gets things done, he’s bold, he’s actually like a figure out of a movie. In a lot of ways, my entire career has been a little bit like a pirate.”
— Newt Gingrich, quoted by Politico.
Daily Beast: “The biggest chunk of the debt, nearly $1 million, is owed for Gingrich’s use of private jets to fly from event to event through charter travel company Moby Dick Airways. The campaign also owes more than $400,000 for Gingrich’s personal security to the Patriot Group, and $128,000 to the Winston Group… Several other well-known names are also among Gingrich’s creditors, including former Rep. J.C. Watts and Herman Cain for ‘strategic consulting’ and travel, as well as Kellyanne Conway’s The Polling Company, which conducted polls for the Gingrich campaign and is owed more than $20,000.”
Bloomberg notes that a partial list of speakers at the Republican convention includes Newt Gingrich and Gov. Chris Christie but does not currently include Gov. Mike Pence.
A new New York Times/CBS News poll shows Hillary Clinton’s lead over Donald Trump has evaporated and the election is now tied, 40% to 40%.
Key findings: 67 percent of voters say Clinton is not honest and trustworthy.
“Mr. Trump is also distrusted by a large number of voters — 62 percent — but that number has stayed constant despite increased scrutiny on his business record and falsehoods in his public statements and Twitter messages. But Mrs. Clinton’s shifting and inaccurate explanations of her email practices at the State Department appear to have resonated more deeply with the electorate.”
A new AP-GfK poll finds that 81% of Americans say they would feel afraid following the election of one of the two polarizing politicians: Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump.
That includes a quarter who say it doesn’t matter who wins: they’re scared of both.
A new ad from Hillary Clinton uses Donald Trump’s own words to show that he’s not a very good role model.
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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