“He was basically a Democrat before he was a Republican. He was, you know, somebody we all knew in New York, and he was supportive of Democrats and supportive of a lot of causes I care about and people I knew cared about… Now he seems to have taken another road.”
— Hillary Clinton, quoted by ABC News, explaining her relationship with Donald Trump.
“Republicans are trying to inject religion into New Hampshire, making a new push to mobilize churchgoing voters in one of the least religious states in the country,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“If it works, the move could provide a boost in the state’s Feb. 9 GOP primary to Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, who has been courting pastors and evangelical Christians in Iowa and Southern states, while creating a disadvantage for front-runner Donald Trump, who doesn’t do as well among these groups.”
A new NBC News/Survey Monkey poll finds Donald Trump leading the GOP presidential race with 38%, followed by Ted Cruz at 20%, Marco Rubio at 11% and Ben Carson at 9%. No other candidate gets more than 3%.
On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton leads Bernie Sanders, 52% to 37%.
“As his eldest son faced the prospect of resigning as Delaware’s attorney general amid health concerns, Vice President Joe Biden received an offer that floored him: financial support from his boss, President Obama,” CNN reports.
“Obama, Biden remembered, pushed back vehemently on the thought of Biden and his wife selling their home in Wilmington, Delaware.”
Recalled Biden: “He got up and he said, ‘Don’t sell that house. Promise me you won’t sell the house. He said, “I’ll give you the money. Whatever you need, I’ll give you the money.'”
“Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders don’t differ much on core Democratic issues, but with the Iowa caucuses three weeks away both are intensifying their attacks to a level not yet seen during a pillow-fight 2015,” Politico reports.
“Clinton and Sanders, locked in a too-close-to-call contest, crisscrossed a hard-frozen state telling supporters how very much they respected and liked each other— all the while hammering away on differences that seem minuscule compared with the bitter arguments that have riven the GOP field.”
The New York Times reports that Iowa Democrats “are displaying far less passion” for Clinton than for Sanders “three weeks before the presidential caucuses, creating anxiety inside the Clinton campaign as she scrambles to energize supporters and to court wavering voters.”
Boston Globe: “Like Mitt Romney, Chris Christie is a blue-state governor in a Republican presidential primary. In choosing to adjust to meet the expectations of a more conservative audience, at a time when polls say voters crave authenticity, he has opened himself to attacks [that] he lacks core convictions. … Christie once supported national education standards, he’s now against them. After backing a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, now he’s opposed.”
The New York Times notes Christie has overhauled “his policies to match a rhetorical swerve toward the pro-gun right.”
Washington Post: “At least eight independent political groups are jockeying to support Cruz now that he has risen in the polls as perhaps the strongest challenger to frontrunner Donald Trump. The dynamic has confused wealthy donors and brought disarray to the otherwise orderly political operation that surrounds the freshman senator from Texas.”
“The swelling number of pro-Cruz super PACs illustrates a challenge posed by the hands-on approach rich donors are taking in the 2016 elections. After seeing little return on the massive sums they gave in 2012, major conservative givers are now deeply immersed in the tactics of the groups they are financing — and in some cases, running their own political operations.”
Sen. Rand Paul’s sputtering presidential campaign has lost a top foreign policy staffer as Elise Jordan left to take a job with NBC News, Politico reports.
“The departure comes amid widespread consternation in Paul world that his presidential bid may be nearing an end.”
Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) “will not appear at either of Thursday’s Fox Business-hosted debates in South Carolina, after the network’s polling analysis denied him a spot on its prime time stage,” the Washington Post reports.
Said Paul: “I think they’ve made a mistake. I’m not willing to accept a designation as a minor campaign. We’ve raised $25 million. We’ve gotten on the ballot on every state. It’s kind of ridiculous to arbitrarily rate the campaigns based on national polling.”
Jeb Bush’s super PAC is spending $3 million on this ad to attack Sen. Marco Rubio on supporting amnesty.
First Read: “Our take: You know an attack is desperate when they will attack an opponent for having the same stance “
Hillary Clinton “proposed a 4 percent surtax on the highest-earning Americans, as she seeks to boost taxes for the wealthiest Americans,” Politico reports.
“The proposal, which she announced in Iowa, would raise an estimated $150 billion over a decade, a Clinton aide said, and comes after the Democratic front-runner said that she would build on the so-called Buffett Rule that seeks to ensure that the middle class doesn’t pay a higher tax rate than top earners.”
“The Republican debate stage will be noticeably smaller when the candidates gather in Charleston, S.C., on Thursday night for their first debate of the year,” the New York Times reports.
Fox Business Network, the host of the debate, “announced the qualifiers for the main stage, and Sen. Rand Paul and Carly Fiorina — who have both been slipping in recent polls — did not make the cut.”
Politico: “Paul and Fiorina are set to join Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum in the undercard — if Paul decides to participate.”
“You just can’t get the $5 million to 10 million without whoring yourself out and I’m not going to do that.”
— Brothel owner Dennis Hof (L), quoted by the Reno Gazette Journal, on his decision not to run for U.S. Senate.
“Two more campaign staffers are leaving Dr. Ben Carson’s presidential campaign. Michael Zarlenga, the campaign’s general counsel, and Renee Burchard, it’s operations director, recently notified Carson they are departing the struggling campaign,” Bloomberg reports.
“She is facing a criminal trial, the Senate might yank her out of office, her poll numbers are sinking, rivals in her own party are lining up for her job, and the husband who bankrolled her last campaign is no longer in the picture,” the Philadelphia Inquirer reports.
“Despite all that, Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane (D) intends to seek a second term.”
A new Rock the Vote/USA Today poll of 18- to 35-year-olds finds that they prefer Sen. Bernie Sanders to Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primary, 46% to 35%.
At 74 years old, Sanders is the oldest candidate running for president.
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.