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Trump Says He’s a Better Campaigner Than Clinton

December 5, 2015 at 6:29 pm EST By Taegan Goddard 73 Comments

Donald Trump “wrapped up a whirlwind week of campaigning — one that included six rallies in five states, a forum, a book signing, media interviews and lots of tweeting — he accused Hillary Clinton of not being able to keep up with him,” the Washington Post reports.

“Trump has repeatedly said this week that Clinton will attend a campaign event or do a heavily negotiated media interview, then disappear for several days — he says to sleep, something that he only does for a few hours each night.”

Said Trump: “You don’t see her for four or five days, then four or five days later, she awakens, puts on her pantsuit, goes out and does a, you know, does a press conference. She throws on the ‘ol pantsuit.”

Quote of the Day

December 5, 2015 at 3:17 pm EST By Taegan Goddard 72 Comments

“We can’t make an African-American white.”

— Michigan State Senator Marty Knollenberg (R), quoted by WXYZ, on the educational disparities between different demographic groups.

University Wants Students to Carry Weapons

December 5, 2015 at 2:48 pm EST By Taegan Goddard 63 Comments

Liberty University President Jerry Falwell Jr. urged students to carry concealed weapons on campus in the wake of  the San Bernardino massacre, the News and Advance reports.

Said Falwell: “It just blows my mind when I see that the President of the United States says that the answer to circumstances like that is more gun control… I’ve always thought if more good people had concealed carry permits, then we could end those Muslims before they walked in.”

He added: “Let’s teach them a lesson if they ever show up here.”


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Primaries Will Offer Clues to Identity of the GOP

December 5, 2015 at 2:30 pm EST By Taegan Goddard 18 Comments

Dan Balz: “Early next year, when Republican voters begin to select their 2016 presidential nominee, they will not just be choosing one individual from among a large field of candidates. They will also be choosing among competing theories about what the party needs to do to win the White House.”

“One choice pits what Donald Trump represents — the appeal of a strong personality — against what House Speaker Paul D. Ryan spoke about last week: the power of a conservative agenda. The other choice highlights strikingly different models for winning primaries and general elections, embodied in the campaigns of Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas and Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida.”

A Detailed Look at How Trump Talks

December 5, 2015 at 1:19 pm EST By Taegan Goddard 14 Comments

The New York Times analyzed “every public utterance” by Donald Trump “over the past week from rallies, speeches, interviews and news conferences.”

“The most striking hallmark was Mr. Trump’s constant repetition of divisive phrases, harsh words and violent imagery that American presidents rarely use, based on a quantitative comparison of his remarks and the news conferences of recent presidents, Democratic and Republican… And Mr. Trump uses rhetoric to erode people’s trust in facts, numbers, nuance, government and the news media.”

Key takeaway: “A significant difference between Mr. Trump and 20th-century American demagogues is that many of them, especially McCarthy and Wallace, were charmless public speakers. Mr. Trump, by contrast, is an energetic and charismatic speaker who can be entertaining and ingratiating with his audiences. There is a looseness to his language that sounds almost like water-cooler talk or neighborly banter, regardless of what it is about.”

‘We’ll Kill the Terrorists’

December 5, 2015 at 12:47 pm EST By Taegan Goddard 54 Comments

New York Times: “Mr. Cruz’s 30-second ad will debut during the Big 10 Conference’s football championship game Saturday night, which features the undefeated University of Iowa Hawkeyes and promises to be one of the most heavily watched live television events in the state in the weeks before the Feb. 1 caucuses.”

Can Marco Rubio Even Win a Primary?

December 5, 2015 at 11:54 am EST By Taegan Goddard 5 Comments

This piece is only available to Political Wire members.

Marco Rubio has become the establishment’s choice in the Republican presidential primary, but as Ed Kilgore notes, “At some point, you have to start winning caucuses and primaries to win the nomination. And it’s hard to identify right now where Rubio is supposed to claim his first victory.”

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GOP Insiders See Cruz Winning Iowa

December 5, 2015 at 9:39 am EST By Taegan Goddard 37 Comments

Politico: “For the first time since we began tracking this question last spring, a majority of Iowa GOP insiders say Cruz, the conservative Texas senator, would be the top vote-getter if the state’s caucuses were held today.”

Trump Opens a Third Lane

December 5, 2015 at 9:30 am EST By Taegan Goddard 29 Comments

Wall Street Journal: “Past nominating contests have often boiled down to two-person races in which an establishment-backed front-runner beats a socially conservative candidate who appeals to working-class voters—a role Rick Santorum filled in 2012, as did Mike Huckabee in 2008 and Pat Buchanan in 1996.”

“Now, Mr. Trump appears to be opening a new, third lane in the GOP, drawing on a large share of voters who don’t have a college degree and don’t identify strongly with the party’s touchstone social issues, such as opposition to abortion rights and gay marriage.”

“That raises the prospect that the 2016 contest could narrow to a three-person race featuring the leading choice of social conservatives, the top pick of the party’s establishment wing of centrists and business-friendly Republicans—and Mr. Trump.”

GOP Rivals Unite Against Obama on Islamic State

December 5, 2015 at 9:17 am EST By Taegan Goddard 55 Comments

“The Republican candidates for president angrily demanded on Friday that the United States face up to a new world war, one that has breached its borders, threatened the safety of Americans and brought the menace of Islamic terrorism deep into the homeland,” the New York Times reports.

“With striking unanimity, they accused President Obama and his fellow Democrats of shrinking from a long-overdue assault on the Islamic State and its frighteningly effective tools of global recruitment.”

GOP Candidates Show Off Gun Pride

December 5, 2015 at 9:15 am EST By Taegan Goddard 33 Comments

Washington Post: “There was a time when politicians professed their enthusiasm for gun rights by donning camouflage and hunting pheasants. Now, Republican presidential hopefuls campaign in active shooting ranges. They invite the media to watch them fire assault rifles or demolish the tax code with an AR-15. Or, as Cruz did in August, they wrap strips of raw bacon around the barrel of a machine gun to cook them with the heat of gunfire.”

“Republican politics have hardened from gun rights to gun pride, as candidates embrace and show off the more militaristic features of weaponry.”

Why Trump’s Lead May Be Deceiving

December 5, 2015 at 9:01 am EST By Taegan Goddard 22 Comments

Steven Shepard: “Donald Trump has reached a new high in the polls, sending fresh shivers through the Republican establishment’s spine, but those familiar with the nitty-gritty details of the surveys say they harbor plenty of small cracks and flaws that should give rivals hope that the real-estate tycoon isn’t yet running away with the nomination.”

Wall Street Journal: “Political outsiders have led in early polling. But if the past two presidential election cycles are any indication, those who are frontrunners before voting begins aren’t necessarily poised to win the nomination.”

For members: Are the polls exaggerating Trump’s lead?

Cruz Seeks to Push Carson Out

December 5, 2015 at 9:00 am EST By Taegan Goddard 7 Comments

“Ted Cruz returns to Iowa this weekend aiming to capitalize on Ben Carson’s precipitous decline and to establish himself as the anti-Washington candidate most qualified to be commander-in-chief,” Politico reports.

“Both Cruz and Carson will court voters at the last big cattle-call scheduled in Iowa before the Feb. 1 caucuses – an event hosted by the conservative group FreedomWorks. And while the event was meant to focus on economics, the emergence of security and foreign policy is climbing to the top of the agenda, giving Cruz the edge his supporters think he needs to elbow Carson out.”

NYT Leads with Editorial on Gun Control

December 5, 2015 at 8:55 am EST By Taegan Goddard 23 Comments

The New York Times ran an editorial on its front page for the first time since 1920 urging lawmakers to tighten gun control regulations.

“It is a moral outrage and a national disgrace that civilians can legally purchase weapons designed specifically to kill people with brutal speed and efficiency. These are weapons of war, barely modified and deliberately marketed as tools of macho vigilantism and even insurrection. America’s elected leaders offer prayers for gun victims and then, callously and without fear of consequence, reject the most basic restrictions on weapons of mass killing, as they did on Thursday.”

Bush Team May Launch Negative Ad Blitz

December 4, 2015 at 3:49 pm EST By Taegan Goddard 63 Comments

Politico: “According to another source close to Right to Rise, Murphy has been floating another tactical shift to potential supporters, suggesting that he might spend the bulk of the $75 million to carpet bomb Rubio, Cruz, Carson, Christie—everyone but Trump. The thinking: making the race into a binary choice between Bush and Trump might be the only way a majority of primary voters go with Bush.”

Uncomfortable Moments with Ted Cruz

December 4, 2015 at 3:06 pm EST By Taegan Goddard 79 Comments

Gawker: “Thanks to the (few) rules governing campaign Super PACs, candidates aren’t technically allowed to coordinate with them. Which means candidates can’t technically feed them hours and hours of raw video footage for future campaign ads. Candidates can however, casually leave them on a neglected YouTube account for Super PACs to find. And thank god they can, because Ted Cruz did.”

Bonus Quote of the Day

December 4, 2015 at 1:30 pm EST By Taegan Goddard 155 Comments

“I don’t hear anybody talking about bomb control. They put bombs and left bombs behind on the scene of attack, intending to kill even more people than they did with guns.”

— Sen. Marco Rubio, in an interview with Fox News.

Do TV Ads Still Work?

December 4, 2015 at 1:30 pm EST By Taegan Goddard 26 Comments

GOP political strategist Mark McKinnon to NPR: “There’s just very little return on media dollars anymore in politics, because people just don’t believe political advertising. They’re just demanding authenticity and something that they think is real, and they know that advertising is not real. So, you might as well just burn that money.”

Earlier for members: Have political television ads finally lost their effectiveness?

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About Political Wire

goddard-bw-snapshotTaegan 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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