Former Sen. Jim Webb (D-VA) said he won’t run for the White House as an independent candidate, the Dallas Morning News reports.
Said Webb: “I have reluctantly concluded that in my case…we are not able to put together the kind of funding that would help us to get on the ballots in all the states. I’m going to stay involved in the discussion and see where that goes.”
Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball: “It is fair to wonder about Clinton’s ability to put the party back together if she does become the nominee. Getting youth turnout is always tricky for Democrats, and Clinton is getting absolutely annihilated with young voters: She lost the youngest group of voters (17-29 in Iowa and 18-29 in New Hampshire) 84%-14% and 83%-16%, respectively. Now, we know that Barack Obama put the party back together fairly easily in 2008, and that if Clinton is the nominee she will be able to use her Republican opponent as a motivational tool. But these are staggeringly lousy numbers for Clinton nonetheless.”
A new Higher Education Research Institute survey of college freshmen finds that 34% of first-year students view themselves as “liberal” or “far left” — the highest since 1973, when 36% responded that way.
In contrast, just 22% identify as “conservative” or “far right.”
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“The Pennsylvania House voted overwhelmingly to begin impeachment proceedings against Attorney General Kathleen Kane (D), who survived a separate attempt by Senate Republicans to oust her using an arcane constitutional procedure not invoked here since 1891,” the New York Times reports.
“The back-to-back votes were the latest turn in an intriguing drama involving Ms. Kane, who has publicized lewd and bigoted emails sent by some of the most powerful figures in Pennsylvania — only to find herself facing perjury charges, with her law license suspended by the State Supreme Court.”
Jon Ralston: “There is no reliable polling in Nevada — at least not yet. But the conventional wisdom had been that Clinton had a huge advantage here, especially because Team Sanders did not arrive until October. Not anymore.”
“I don’t smell a rat. I smell something much more pungent from the Clinton campaign: fear.”
Nate Cohn notes that “with the actual results in and counted from two states, it is clear that Mr. Sanders is faring much better among less educated and working-class white voters than Barack Obama did in 2008, or than other idealistic liberal candidates like Howard Dean and Bill Bradley did.”
“The pattern holds no matter how you look at the data. The exit polls show Mr. Sanders doing best among less affluent voters — and it’s not just because young voters, with whom he’s very popular, make less money. The actual returns also show that Mr. Sanders fared well in many of the places where Mr. Obama was weakest, like far western Iowa and southeastern New Hampshire.”
Wall Street Journal: “After seeing Mr. Trump’s efforts to be more positive play well in the final days before New Hampshire voting, the campaign manager decided on Wednesday to pull a negative ad running in South Carolina against Mr. Cruz. With only 10 days until the primary there, the Trump campaign will begin airing on Thursday positive commercials, including one used in New Hampshire in which people with different ethnicities and backgrounds said they were voting for Mr. Trump.”
Rick Klein: “Yes, Hillary Clinton has a big, enormous, ridiculous lead among superdelegates. No, this is not necessarily the best time for her campaign to be bragging about that fact. According to ABC’s delegate count, Clinton currently leads Bernie Sanders 394-44 among delegates, despite her blowout loss in New Hampshire and only the narrowest of wins in Iowa. Clinton campaign aides are touting that lead, at least implicitly, in arguing to supporters and donors that the delegate math is overwhelmingly in her favor.”
“That, though, makes a few dangerous assumptions. First, it presumes that if superdelegates matter, they would openly deny the nomination to someone who won more delegates via actual voting. (Remember 2008, anyone?) Second, and more urgently, it presumes that Sanders supporters won’t wake up to this possibility and use it as motivation. A line about how the establishment is trying to subvert the judgment of the people could slip rather easily into a Sanders stump speech.”
First Read: “According to our back-of-envelope math, that means that Sanders must win 54% of the remaining delegates to get to the magic number of 2,382 delegates to clinch the Democratic nomination, while Clinton needs to win just 46%. That is a HUGE advantage, especially when you consider that the 2008 Democratic delegate race between Barack Obama and Clinton was essentially a 52%-48% affair. Now there’s one caveat to all of this: If Sanders does win a majority of the bound delegates, there will be ENORMOUS pressure on the supers to back him.”
Ezra Klein: “It is undeniably enjoyable to watch Trump. He’s red-faced, discursive, funny, angry, strange, unpredictable, and real. He speaks without filter and tweets with reckless abandon. The Donald Trump phenomenon is a riotous union of candidate ego and voter id. America’s most skilled political entertainer is putting on the greatest show we’ve ever seen. It’s so fun to watch that it’s easy to lose sight of how terrifying it really is.”
“Trump is the most dangerous major candidate for president in memory. He pairs terrible ideas with an alarming temperament; he’s a racist, a sexist, and a demagogue, but he’s also a narcissist, a bully, and a dilettante. He lies so constantly and so fluently that it’s hard to know if he even realizes he’s lying. He delights in schoolyard taunts and luxuriates in backlash.”
Rush Limbaugh said that Sen. Ted Cruz is the only real choice for conservatives in the GOP presidential race.
Said Limbaugh: “If conservatism is your bag, if conservatism is the dominating factor in how you vote, there is no other choice for you in this campaign than Ted Cruz, because you are exactly right: This is the closest in our lifetimes we have ever been to Ronald Reagan.”
“My heart and head are in different places right now, but we’ll see.”
— Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC), quoted by USA Today, on whether he’ll endorse Sen. Bernie Sanders or Hillary Clinton.
Dana Millbank: “Only in the bizarre world of politics would Bush’s fourth-place finish in New Hampshire be considered good news: His millions of dollars got him only 31,160 votes, or 11 percent of the total. But considering that Bush was ready for embalming before Tuesday night, the notion that Jeb is not dead is noteworthy. At the very least, he lives to be awkward another day.”
“This turnabout may say less about Bush than about the tragic state of the Republican mainstream as it tries to find an alternative to Trump and Ted Cruz. Chris Christie and Carly Fiorina are out of the race. Marco Rubio’s debate debacle left him with a Rick Perry problem of looking like a lightweight. John Kasich scored well in New Hampshire but will have trouble convincing Republicans elsewhere that he’s conservative enough. That leaves – could it be? – Jeb.”
“I like money. I’m very greedy. I’m a greedy person. I shouldn’t tell you that, I’m a greedy – I’ve always been greedy. I love money, right? But, you know what? I want to be greedy for our country. I want to be greedy. I want to be so greedy for our country.”
— Donald Trump, quoted by The Hill.
Ben Carson told CNN that his backers aren’t going to let him quit the presidential race.
Said Carson: “I’m getting a lot of pressure to make sure I stay in the race. They’re reminding me that I’m here because I responded to their imploring me to get involved. And I respect that and I’m not just going to walk away from the millions of people who are supporting me.”
The Charleston Post and Courier introduced a digital tool that asks readers to help keep tabs on the coming wave of dirty tricks.
Politico: “This is a state famous for telephone pollsters implying John McCain had an illegitimate child, and the bogus Mitt Romney Christmas card with controversial quotes from the Book of Mormon. Fliers dropped on South Carolina doorsteps have told people the wrong date to vote; this is where political rivals have bantered openly with racial slurs and innuendo about sexual trysts.”
Jeb Bush said that Donald Trump would be a worse president than Barack Obama, Poliitco reports.
Said Bush: “We will be worse off than we are now. And we are pretty bad off right now.”
“The best hope of the Republican establishment just a week ago, Marco Rubio suddenly faces a path to his party’s presidential nomination that could require a brokered national convention,” the AP reports.
“That’s according to Rubio’s campaign manager, Terry Sullivan, who told The Associated Press that this week’s disappointing performance in New Hampshire will extend the Republican nomination fight for another three months, if not longer. It’s a worst-case scenario for Rubio and many Republican officials alike who hoped to avoid a prolonged and painful nomination fight in 2016.”
Said Sullivan: “We very easily could be looking at May — or the convention. I would be surprised if it’s not May or the convention.”
Bloomberg: “Republican elites are 0-for-2 in presidential nominating contests this year, a rare and panic-inducing outcome for the party’s leadership. Yet their preferred candidates continue to fight each other, and have begun the march to the next battlefield in South Carolina without a plan to stop Donald Trump.”
“Not only did the billionaire’s 20-point blowout in the New Hampshire primary fail to cull the field enough to present a clear mainstream alternative, the three remaining establishment candidates—U.S. Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, Ohio Governor John Kasich and Jeb Bush, the former Florida governor—spent Wednesday going after one another, as they have throughout the nomination fight.”
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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