“There’s been more pressure this week to put sanctions on Indiana than Iran. The reason that those corporations put the pressure on Indiana and Arkansas was because the militant gay community put the pressure on them.”
— Mike Huckabee, in an interview with Michael Smerconish.
An average of polls by the Telegraph shows both the Conservatives and Labor have scored 34% across all of the polls published during the last seven days.
“There are even signs that the Tories may have narrowly pulled ahead. Of the thirteen polls published in the last week, the Conservatives were ahead in six, Labour in only four. The two parties were tied in the remaining three.”
“After a year of partisan warfare that brought Virginia to the brink of a state government shutdown, Gov. Terry McAuliffe has started showing Republicans so much love that he has some Democrats worried,” the Washington Post reports.
“The same governor who blasted Republicans last year for ‘demagoguery, lies, fear and cowardice’ has lately heaped praise on them, celebrating their willingness to find common ground in certain areas even as they blocked some of his top priorities. That dramatic shift in tone is one that legislators and political strategists chalk up to McAuliffe’s ‘growth’ as a governor, his humbling defeat on Medicaid expansion or his desire to shake his lightning-rod image to help his good friend Hillary Rodham Clinton win the swing state.”
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“Three months into what allies once confidently described as a ‘shock and awe’ drive to overcome his rivals and dominate the Republican presidential field, Jeb Bush’s early campaigning looks like the juggernaut that wasn’t,” the New York Times reports.
“He is grappling with the Republican Party’s prickly and demanding ideological blocs, particularly evangelical leaders and pro-Israel hawks. He is struggling to win over grass-roots activists in Iowa and New Hampshire, states he has visited only a handful of times. And Mr. Bush’s undisputed advantage — the millions of dollars streaming rapidly into his political organization — may not be enough to knock out other contenders.”
Sunday Times: “Michael Bloomberg, the former three-term mayor of New York, who was last year given an honorary knighthood by the Queen for his ‘prodigious entrepreneurial and philanthropic endeavors’ in the UK, is now being urged to cross the Atlantic for good and become the mayor of London. Friends of Bloomberg, 73, have revealed that he is ‘considering’ standing in 2016 as a Tory candidate in succession to Boris Johnson.”
“As the proposed agreement over Iran’s nuclear program is debated in coming weeks, President Obama will make his case to a Congress controlled by Republicans who are more fervently pro-Israel than ever, partly a result of ideology, but also a product of a surge in donations and campaign spending on their behalf by a small group of wealthy donors,” the New York Times reports.
The Hill: “In January 2007, Clinton used a message on her website to announce her 2008 run for the White House… But outside of a few webcasts in the following days, that Clinton campaign staged a very slow rollout. She gave no political speeches until March, when she marked the anniversary of the Selma civil rights marches in Alabama.”
“Many strategists expect her to release another video in April, but follow it up with a swing through key primary and general election states. Without the obligations in the Senate that tied her up in 2008, she can build off that momentum and work to define her candidacy from the start.”
Sen. Ted Cruz’s “aggressive pursuit of the evangelical vote began with a deliberate choice of venue for his presidential announcement two weeks ago: Liberty University, which bills itself as the largest Christian university in the world,” Politico reports.
“The Texas Republican senator’s strategic play for Christian conservatives comes into even sharper focus this weekend as he rolls out the first television ad of the 2016 race… It’s an exercise in narrowcasting that telegraphs exactly how Cruz intends to win the GOP nomination against better-funded and better-known rivals.”
Huffington Post: Cruz pushes religious message
Texas Monthly: “More alarming is what this year’s gun debate reveals about the state of politics in Texas, in which general elections are foregone conclusions, the only contests that matter are Republican primaries, and the path to victory lies in running as far right as possible. Under those conditions, a small subset of conservatives can hijack the political debate and many feel entitled to do so. That’s how a once obscure issue like open carry became a top priority for the government of Texas and for the 27 million people it supposedly serves. It could easily happen again, on guns or anything else. And next time, it may not end well.”
New York Times: “In grappling with his current crisis, Mr. Menendez has drawn on a set of tactics that have long made him an imposing power broker. He embodies a certain brand of New Jersey politics, winning renown among Democrats for his skill at forging electoral coalitions, and for the ironhanded methods he has used to advance his allies and maintain order in a politically fractious state.”
“The senator’s pugnacious tone has come as little surprise to local allies, some of whom have heard from him privately as Mr. Menendez worked to shore up support. He and his advisers pressed for statements of solidarity from state Democrats, even before the specific charges against Mr. Menendez were released, in order to demonstrate the senator’s broad backing.”
“Mr. Menendez has rejected suggestions that he announce now, as he fights the criminal case, that he will not run for re-election in 2018.”
Huffington Post: Menendez indictment reads like indictment of Citizens United ruling
“Many U.S. Jewish leaders are unnerved both by the new Iran nuclear agreement and the public falling out between President Barack Obama and his Israeli counterpart, developments that are creating a rift in the durable alliance between Jews and the Democratic Party in the run-up to the 2016 elections,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“Worried that Iran might still develop a nuclear weapon despite the accord announced Thursday, the Jewish leaders say they feel torn between an Obama administration that has pressed hard for a deal and an Israeli government that has repeatedly warned that Iran is a grave threat to the Jewish state and can’t be trusted to abandon its nuclear ambitions.”
President Obama “ventured into Red America on Thursday and Friday to sell his economic agenda to small but polite audiences, and along the way he tried to demonstrate that both he and his ideas could travel anywhere in the country, even to the parts where he is deeply unpopular,” the New York Times reports.
Adam Smith: “Part of what makes Florida such a challenging state politically is its fast-changing and ever-growing nature. Statewide candidates must constantly introduce themselves. Bush, for instance, won his two gubernatorial races by huge margins — nearly 11 percentage points in 1998 and 13 points in 2002 — but Florida is vastly different now.”
“The Florida Democratic Party still has the voter files from those Bush elections and can pinpoint which voters are still around and which aren’t. Only 28 percent of currently active Florida voters participated in either of Bush’s past two elections and only 13 percent of today’s registered voters are Republicans who voted in those 2002 or 1998 gubernatorial races.”
Wonk Wire: New Jersey leads the pack in criminal politicians per voter
Ted Nugent blames President Obama for military veteran suicides, the Huffington Post reports.
Said Nugent: “Here’s your job, Republican Party. Twenty to 25 of those guys kill themselves every day, and they haven’t told you why and they haven’t told anybody else why but they told me why: because the commander-in-chief is the enemy.”
Wonk Wire: Study finds no link between deployment and suicide
Maine Gov. Paul LePage’s town hall-style meeting “ended suddenly Thursday after the former mayor of Biddeford, Joanne Twomey, interrupted the governor and tossed a jar of Vaseline near him,” WGME reports.
Huffington Post: “Video of the encounter shows members of LePage’s security detail blocking Twomey as she tries to approach the stage while arguing with the governor. Then Twomey takes something from her purse and throws it at LePage.”
Deadline Hollywood: “Looks like there will be two presidential elections next year – one in real life with potentially the likes of Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush and another on the streaming service with incumbent Frank Underwood and whoever dares to get in his way. Having launched the third season of House Of Cards on February 27, Netflix said today that the award-winning drama starring Kevin Spacey and Robin Wright will be back for a fourth season in 2016.”
You can watch the first three seasons instantly here.
“When it comes to winning influence with Democratic senators, few can hold a candle to Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY),” The Hill reports.
“That’s why Schumer is set to succeed Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) as Democratic leader, and why Minority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL) is in danger of being on the outside looking in on the next Senate Democratic leadership team. Most of the caucus owes Schumer political chits for various services he has rendered — ranging from fundraising help to arranging extra office space and doling out desirable Capitol hideaways from his old perch as Senate Rules Committee chairman.”
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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