Rep. Steve King (R-IA) said he didn’t think South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley (R) was a “principled conservative” but thought she’d be an acceptable figurehead for the Republican party, TPM reports.
Said King: “I think she’s beautiful so I’d be happy if she’s the face of the party.”
“He’s living in a fantasy land. I think this man is living in a fantasy land.”
— Donald Trump, quoted by Politico, on President Obama’s State of the Union address.
A new Economist/YouGov national survey finds Donald Trump leading the GOP presidential field 2ith 36%, followed by Ted Cruz at 20%, Marco Rubio at 11% and Ben Carson at 6%.
In a three-way race, it’s Trump at 45%, Cruz at 30%, and Rubio at 21%.
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New York Times: “Mr. Trump, who Iowa polls show is neck-and-neck with Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, may well win the caucuses, now less than three weeks away. But if he does, it will probably be in spite of his organizing team, which after months of scattershot efforts led by a paid staff of more than a dozen people, still seems amateurish and halting, committing basic organizing errors.”
“Some volunteers in charge of turning out supporters to caucus on Feb. 1 are given lists of all registered Republicans in their precincts to contact, ignoring the large number of independents and Democrats who appear to be leaning toward Mr. Trump. Moreover, the volunteers urge people to caucus regardless of whom they support, which risks turning out voters for Mr. Trump’s rivals.”
“Wall Street is confronting a presidential election unlike any it has seen: One in which the banking industry is denounced by candidates on the left and the right,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“The banker-bashing is prompting uncertainty and disagreement in the industry about how, or whether, to respond… The bashfest has put banks in a quandary: Do they defend themselves or sit it out?”
Laurence Tribe: “There’s more than meets the eye in the ongoing dustup over whether Ted Cruz is eligible to serve as president, which under the Constitution comes down to whether he’s a ‘natural born citizen’ despite his 1970 Canadian birth. Senator Cruz contends his eligibility is ‘settled’ by naturalization laws Congress enacted long ago. But those laws didn’t address, much less resolve, the matter of presidential eligibility, and no Supreme Court decision in the past two centuries has ever done so. In truth, the constitutional definition of a “natural born citizen” is completely unsettled, as the most careful scholarship on the question has concluded. Needless to say, Cruz would never take Donald Trump’s advice to ask a court whether the Cruz definition is correct, because that would in effect confess doubt where Cruz claims there is certainty.”
“People are entitled to their own opinions about what the definition ought to be. But the kind of judge Cruz says he admires and would appoint to the Supreme Court is an ‘originalist,’ one who claims to be bound by the narrowly historical meaning of the Constitution’s terms at the time of their adoption. To his kind of judge, Cruz ironically wouldn’t be eligible, because the legal principles that prevailed in the 1780s and ’90s required that someone actually be born on US soil to be a “natural born” citizen. Even having two US parents wouldn’t suffice. And having just an American mother, as Cruz did, would have been insufficient at a time that made patrilineal descent decisive.”
First Read: “Forget the polls. When Chelsea Clinton – in her first true campaign event of this presidential season — is attacking Bernie Sanders on health care, you know the Clinton campaign thinks they’re in a closer race than they might have ever imagined. (Chelsea campaigned plenty in ’08, but we don’t ever remember her throwing these kinds of jabs at Barack Obama or John Edwards.)”
“Mr. Trump has definitely contributed to what I think is just irresponsible talk.”
— Gov. Nikki Haley (R), in an interview on the Today Show.
Rick Klein: “As surely as it’s President Obama’s Democratic Party until it won’t be, it’s Paul Ryan’s Republican party until it can’t be any longer. The new House speaker made that clear in Obama’s last State of the Union and Ryan’s first as speaker, new poker (and beardless) face and all.”
“Ryan’s choice of South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley to deliver the GOP response was borne out by a strong national-debut speech that, notably, took on Donald Trump-style rhetoric (‘angriest voices’) as strongly as it did Obama-style policy. And Ryan took a stand of his own by applauding the president’s call to reject ‘any politics that targets people because of race or religion’ – another clear Trump reference.”
“Coming from Ryan, this is more than the establishment trying to rid itself of Trump. It’s a vision of a future of the GOP, in a House chamber with a different vibe than it had just a few months ago.”
“After months of refusing to criticize Donald Trump in any meaningful way, Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz significantly escalated the battle against the New York billionaire,” CBS News reports.
“The shift in strategy came in the wake of Trump’s continued birther attacks on Cruz’s eligibility for the presidency and his insinuations that the Texan is influenced by wealthy oil lobbyists.”
“The Texas Senator hit Trump on multiple fronts on the radio and on the campaign trail in New Hampshire. At an evening town hall event in New Hampshire where he previewed a hypothetical Cruz administration State of the Union, Cruz repeatedly mocked Trump.”
Politico reports that establishment Republicans worry that Jeb Bush’s presidential campaign is now “little more than an ego trip.”
“With the former Florida governor now sitting stagnant in the middle of the pack and his super PAC ratcheting up its attacks on Marco Rubio, a growing number of Republican centrists are coming to view Bush’s campaign as a distraction — one that could hurt their ability to keep the nomination away from Donald Trump and Ted Cruz.”
“I will say it is more than a little strange to see Donald relying on as authoritative a liberal, left-wing, judicial activist Harvard law professor who is a huge Hillary supporter. It starts to make you think, ‘Gosh, why are some of Hillary’s strongest supporters backing Donald Trump?'”
— Sen. Ted Cruz, quoted by the Texas Tribune, on Trump citing Harvard law professor Laurence Tribe while questioning his eligibility to run for president.
“Ted Cruz has reached top-rank popularity among Republicans and Chris Christie’s favorability rating is most improved in the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll, while Donald Trump, Ben Carson and Jeb Bush all have stumbled in the battle for GOP hearts and minds.”
“On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton continues to far surpass Bernie Sanders in favorability among party regulars, and she’s vastly more popular within the Democratic Party than are any of the Republican candidates within the GOP base.”
Hillary Clinton dismissed the notion from Bernie Sanders that her campaign is in “serious trouble,” Politico reports.
Said Clinton: “They always tighten up as people begin to make up their minds, as they look at the candidates. Totally predictable. I feel really, really good about the campaign organization that I have.”
“A leading Republican pollster privately told Speaker Paul Ryan and his leadership team Sen. Ted Cruz would be the biggest drag on House Republicans should he win his party’s nomination,” Politico reports.
“Republicans have their biggest House majority in 80 years and have a virtual lock on the chamber. But Democrats are expected to pick up some seats in November; they typically perform better in higher-turnout presidential elections. The GOP nominee could mean the difference between losing a handful of seats and perhaps many more.”
New York Times: “Some in the old guard have started signaling to their reluctant right-of-center brethren that it is time to face the possibility that the hard-line Mr. Cruz could be their standard-bearer.”
In a new ad, Hillary Clinton made clear she’s not running away from President Obama after his State of the Union address.
South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley (R) accused President Obama of falling “far short of his soaring words” while also cautioning her own party not to fall for its own populist rhetoric, the Wall Street Journal reports.
“Those twin themes dominated Mrs. Haley’s rebuttal to Mr. Obama’s final State of the Union address, with the Republican governor faulting the president for ‘the squeeze of an economy too weak to raise income levels’ and warning her own party against following the anti-immigration rhetoric that has propelled Donald Trump to the lead in GOP presidential election polls.”
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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