“Republican candidates, many of whom are gasping for air in a historically crowded field, are charging toward Wednesday’s midnight fundraising deadline that will offer hard evidence about whether they can mount a serious bid for the White House,” CNN reports.
“And with some Republicans — like Scott Walker, who ran out of cash and dropped out — saying the field needs to be narrowed quickly, a poor fundraising quarter may be just the thing that pushes candidates out the door.”
Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) “had a blunt message for his presidential rival and fellow Republican senator Ted Cruz (R-TX): You’re a hack,” Politico reports.
Said Paul: “Ted has chosen to make this really personal and chosen to call people dishonest in leadership and call them names which really goes against the decorum and also against the rules of the Senate, and as a consequence he can’t get anything done legislatively.”
He added: “I approach things a little different, I am still just as hardcore in saying what we are doing is wrong, I just chose not to call people liars on the Senate floor and it’s just a matter of different perspectives on how best to get to the end result.”
First Read: “You can tell who is interested in remaining in the Senate after this presidential contest — and who isn’t.”
As President Obama and top congressional leaders “prepare to launch negotiations on a two-year budget deal, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is maneuvering to cut key Democrats out of the talks,” Politico reports.
“The ambitious budget goal, outlined by McConnell on Tuesday, could help ease the threat of repeated government shutdowns until after the 2016 elections. But drama is already unfolding behind the scenes with McConnell’s private suggestion that the discussions be limited to just him, President Obama and Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), according to Democratic sources — a proposal that the president and outgoing speaker have rejected.”
Wall Street Journal: “The talks are fresh and unlikely to be wrapped up before Mr. Boehner leaves office on Oct. 30. It is unclear whether his successor, likely Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), would be interested in participating in them.”
You're reading the free version of Political Wire
Upgrade to a paid membership to unlock full access. The process is quick and easy. You can even use Apple Pay.
New York Times: “In an election cycle that is already on track to break spending records, and with few limits on contributions to ‘super PACs’ and other outside groups, big donors have never been more important. No longer satisfied with sitting on the sidelines and writing big checks, many of them are eager to play larger roles in the campaigns.”
“They expect their views to be heard quickly and their concerns taken seriously, sometimes creating headaches and potential awkwardness for the campaigns and super PACs, which must tend to the contributors and their seemingly endless suggestions and questions.”
Indiana state Rep. Jud McMillin (R) “has resigned unexpectedly from the Indiana House — where he is in the second-highest elected leadership position — after sources say at least one sexually explicit video was discovered on his phone,” the Indiana Business Journal reports.
“Sources close to the Republican caucus said someone obtained McMillin’s phone and discovered at least one video that showed the lawmaker involved in sexual contact. The sources did not detail who else was involved.”
“A sudden swell of enthusiasm Tuesday for Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC) to make a late-entry bid into the race for House majority leader faded almost as quickly as it began,” the Washington Post reports.
“Gowdy’s roller-coaster ride is a testament to the restiveness among the chamber’s younger generation of conservatives, who want more than assurances from above about their influence in the wake of House Speaker John Boehner’s (R-OH) resignation announcement. They want a high-profile seat at the leadership table — and to inject some swagger into a party that for months has been meekly navigating through infighting and chaos.”
“One of the three super PACs supporting Rand Paul’s presidential campaign has stopped raising money, dealing a damaging blow to an already cash-starved campaign,” Politico reports.
Here are the latest job listings at Political Job Hunt:
Post your job for $99 for 30 days. Use coupon code “congress” to get 20% off!
“It’s just something I think we ought to look at as a party. I don’t think there should ever be any sacred cows as to the primary process or the order.”
— RNC Chairman Reince Priebus, quoted by National Journal, on Iowa and New Hampshire’s early spots in the presidential primary calendar.
“A long-simmering campaign among conservative activists to draft Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC) into a House leadership post has suddenly re-emerged in the scramble following House Speaker John Boehner’s resignation,” the Washington Post reports.
“A movement to pull Gowdy into the race for majority leader began to rapidly pick up momentum Tuesday morning… Rep. Mick Mulvaney (R-S.C.) said the interest in Gowdy is rising because the current candidates for majority leader — House Budget Chairman Tom Price (R-GA) and current GOP Whip Steve Scalise (R-LA) — are fighting a hotly contested battle and some members may like to see another voice enter who could emerge as a consensus pick.”
Politico: “House GOP leadership races are conducted by secret ballot, so there’s an extra level of intrigue that goes along with these races. Scalise and Price have locked up support, but there’s nothing stopping a lawmaker from reversing themselves and abandoning their commitment when it comes times to vote.”
Forbes: “Trump’s valuation this year holds extra importance, of course, due to his audacious second act: his highly unlikely–but no longer inconceivable–path to the presidency. Trump has filed statements claiming he’s worth at least $10 billion or, as he put in a press release, TEN BILLION DOLLARS (capitalization his). After interviewing more than 80 sources and devoting unprecedented resources to valuing a single fortune, we’re going with a figure less than half that — $4.5 billion, albeit still the highest figure we’ve ever had for him.”
Stan Collender: “The Boehner resignation makes it hard to develop a realistic scenario that results in a government shutdown when the fiscal year begins this Thursday. If everything goes as expected, after the Senate adopts a clean CR early this week and sends it across the Capitol, Boehner will bring it up for a vote and the House will pass it easily, thanks to substantial support from Democrats. As a result, the government shutdown that looked so likely a week ago will be averted.”
“But it will be a very different story when this soon-to-be-passed CR expires in December. All the factors that make a shutdown this week so improbable will make it far more likely to happen near the end of the year.”
Charlie Cook says that it “seems like, in very different ways, both parties are at risk of self-destructing. Republicans seem hell-bent on committing self-immolation on both the presidential and congressional levels. Democrats, who pretty much settled on a presidential nominee early on, now find their front-runner hopelessly mired in (depending on your perspective) a scandal or a controversy, one that is unlikely to be resolved anytime soon and has raised legitimate questions about how electable she’d be.”
“For Hillary Clinton, even the best-case scenario looks pretty grim: This mess over her State Department emails drags on for months, with a drip, drip, drip of revelations that will keep her and her campaign off-balance, off-message, and constantly reacting to events; then that it peters out early next year, with no charges filed, but her image and standing in opinion polls in awful shape, with no positive energy left in her campaign.”
A new Florida Chamber Political Institute poll finds Donald Trump leading the GOP presidential race in Florida with 25%, followed by Sen. Marco Rubio at 14% and Jeb Bush at 13%.
Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley’s (R) office said the governor and First Lady Dianne Bentley had reached an agreement ending their 50-year marriage, the Montgomery Advertiser reports.
“Details of the settlement were not immediately available. Bentley said he had asked for the records of the divorce case to be unsealed, though it remained off-limits as of Monday afternoon.”
“Santorum recalls campaign when dog peed on him”
— Cincinnati Enquirer, September 29, 2015.
Donald Trump told NBC News that he’s not worried about some recent polls showing his lead in the GOP presidential race narrowing.
Said Trump: “This is going to be an ebb and flow. How can I continue to lead by such wide margins? It’s an ebb and flow, but I’m leading every single poll and most of them by a substantial number.”
He added: “If I think for some reason it’s not going to work, then I go back to my businesses.”
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.
“There are a lot of blogs and news sites claiming to understand politics, but only a few actually do. Political Wire is one of them.”
— Chuck Todd, host of “Meet the Press”
“Concise. Relevant. To the point. Political Wire is the first site I check when I’m looking for the latest political nugget. That pretty much says it all.”
— Stuart Rothenberg, editor of the Rothenberg Political Report
“Political Wire is one of only four or five sites that I check every day and sometimes several times a day, for the latest political news and developments.”
— Charlie Cook, editor of the Cook Political Report
“The big news, delicious tidbits, pearls of wisdom — nicely packaged, constantly updated… What political junkie could ask for more?”
— Larry Sabato, Center for Politics, University of Virginia
“Political Wire is a great, great site.”
— Joe Scarborough, host of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe”
“Taegan Goddard has a knack for digging out political gems that too often get passed over by the mainstream press, and for delivering the latest electoral developments in a sharp, no frills style that makes his Political Wire an addictive blog habit you don’t want to kick.”
— Arianna Huffington, founder of The Huffington Post
“Political Wire is one of the absolute must-read sites in the blogosphere.”
— Glenn Reynolds, founder of Instapundit
“I rely on Taegan Goddard’s Political Wire for straight, fair political news, he gets right to the point. It’s an eagerly anticipated part of my news reading.”
— Craig Newmark, founder of Craigslist.