Ben Carson’s national finance chairman resigned amid questions about his use of campaign funds and criticism from Carson allies and donors.
“Since he joined, some campaign insiders told Politico, Dean Parker’s operation has piled up unnecessary expenses and paid hefty consulting fees to an inexperienced staff. Parker recently began earning a $20,000 monthly salary, which veteran campaign operatives say is unusual for what is typically an unpaid, honorary role.”
Washington Post: “Republican presidential candidates will gather for their sixth set of debates tonight, with the race having split into two bitter mini-battles. One is between Iowa front-runners Donald Trump and Sen. Ted Cruz, whose old truce unravelled into insult-trading this week. The other is between everybody else.”
First Read: “There are a few simmering conflicts to watch out for… Well, more than a few. Actually, the entire primary looks like the brawl from Anchorman right about now.”
New York Times: “In the five previous debates, Mr. Trump has been flanked by a wide array of rivals on either side. At times, he seemed content to disappear while others onstage addressed the intricacies of policy — the sort of matters that Mr. Trump has sometimes appeared to bluff his way through. But in South Carolina, just seven candidates will participate in the main event. That means more microphone time for Mr. Trump, but less opportunity to hide.”
Politico: “A cluster of contenders in a fierce competition to command the mainstream GOP lane are almost certain to collide, campaign aides and strategists say. Most of the heat is expected to be directed at Marco Rubio, who, with time running out until the first votes are cast, is anxious to position himself as the establishment front-runner.”
Rick Klein: “If Hillary Clinton truly isn’t nervous about Bernie Sanders closing fast, she might want to tell her campaign manager before he sends another exclamation-point fundraising appeal hyping concerns about the polls. Then she could think about telling her daughter, who is now responsible for one of the most brazen attacks of the Democratic race this year… You don’t have to go back into the archives to find Clinton’s previous support for single payer – or his attacks on Barack Obama for attacking her on health care, in 2008 – to recognize that this is at best a highly misleading claim to make about the independent socialist senator.”
“It may actually miss the mark more by more, though, on the politics: the Democrats’ liberal base isn’t likely to buy Sanders as insufficiently committed to universal health care. If anything, there’s lingering frustration that Obamacare didn’t go far enough, and that lawmakers like Clinton are responsible for those concessions.”
Mike Huckabee says if he’s not the Republican nominee, he will likely support front-runner Donald Trump before other candidates in the race, BuzzFeed reports.
Said Huckabee: “I admire him, I think frankly there’s a more readiness on my part if I don’t make it I’d support him before a lot of people. Because at least with him there’s an authenticity. And you know, he may say some bold things, but he deep down knows that if were the president he’d have to surround himself with people who fill in blanks for him and I respect that.”
It might be too late for Jeb Bush, but he’s still got enough money to make ads against his rivals.
Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel “has said he didn’t understand the gravity of Laquan McDonald’s shooting death at the hands of a Chicago police officer until just before the city settled with the teen’s family last spring, and that he wasn’t aware other officers may have falsified reports about the shooting until just after the video was released to the public,” the Chicago Tribune reports.
“But interviews, official city calendars and emails show in both cases the mayor’s closest aides and City Hall attorneys knew much earlier than that.”
Josh Green points to the crosstabs from the new Des Moines Register/Bloomberg poll in Iowa:
Although Donald Trump pledged to spend $2 million a week on ads this month — “and perhaps substantially more than that” — NBC News reports that Trump’s buys for the coming week are only around $332,000 in the state of Iowa and $360,000 in New Hampshire.
Donald Trump told Bloomberg that he’s building a movement bigger than that of former President Ronald Reagan.
Said Trump: “I think that the closest thing I can think of is Reagan, but I don’t think it’s the intensity that we have. Now, Reagan had a little bit of this, but I don’t think to the same extent—but he also won.”
He added: “It’s not just like, ‘Gee. It’s a little political rally and people are showing up to have fun.’ These people are committed.”
Washington Post: “Chris Christie depicts Marco Rubio as a truant schoolboy. Jeb Bush’s top ally portrays him as a weather vane. Ted Cruz and his supporters characterize him as a nervous sellout who bowed to Democratic demands for “amnesty.” In commercials, interviews and face-to-face meetings with voters, Rubio’s 2016 rivals and their backers are waging increasingly personal attacks, using different words to say much the same thing: that the freshman senator from Florida is weak and unreliable.”
Longtime Republcian strategist Scott Reed tells the New York Times he has an increasing appreciation for Donald Trump’s political ability. He says Trump “is the most on-message candidate of this cycle, by a factor of 10” and says his skills at political jujitsu “are remarkable.”
Reed “considers Mr. Trump’s resilience in recent weeks a positive sign. Under increasing pressure from Mr. Cruz, Mr. Trump seized the headlines again by simultaneously questioning the Canada-born senator’s eligibility for the presidency and hitting Hillary Clinton over her husband’s personal scandals.”
“For the first time, he now believes Mr. Trump can win the Republican nomination.”
A new Des Moines Register/Bloomberg poll in Iowa finds Hillary Clinton leading Bernie Sanders by just two points, 42% to 40%.
Key finding: “The tightening race is not because of a surge in support for Sanders, the poll indicates. His support has risen just 1 percentage point in the past month. But Clinton has seen her support slide from 48 percent to 42 percent. The big shift has been in the number of likely Democratic caucusgoers who say they are undecided or who plan to stand up for ‘uncommitted.’ Fourteen percent now say that, up from 8 percent a month ago.”
Sam Wang: “Pundits have assured us that the support for Donald Trump is so limited that he can’t possibly get the GOP presidential nomination. Last week in The New York Times, Ross Douthat argued that Trump has a ceiling around 30 percent of Republican voters and consequently will be defeated. To put this numerical claim to the test, I have created a detailed state-by-state simulation of the nomination rules. My conclusion may surprise you: Trump’s current level of support may be enough to deliver him the nomination on the first ballot at the Republican National Convention in July.”
Sen. Ted Cruz described to Politico how he “overhauled his debate strategy after the early faceoffs to insert himself far more aggressively and strategically in the most recent Republican debates.”
Said Cruz: “We made a conscious decision to assert myself more aggressively into the conversation, because if every question was going to begin with Candidate A will you please insult Candidate B, I didn’t want to be involved in that. But I also didn’t want to stand there silently for two hours, while others were throwing rocks at each other.”
“U.S. prosecutors secretly identified accomplices in the George Washington Bridge scandal to a judge and asked that the names remain permanently confidential,” Bloomberg reports.
“The names of the co-conspirators in the politically motivated lane closings at the bridge in September 2013 have been a mystery since May 1, when prosecutors announced the indictment of two former Christie allies and a third pleaded guilty.”
Hillary Clinton tells the Boston Globe that she keeps in occasional touch with Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA).
“The most recent phone chat centered on a topic Warren holds dear: pressuring Wall Street bankers. Warren thanked Clinton for writing an op-ed arguing that Democrats needed to fight off Republican efforts to water down regulations on the financial services industry, Clinton recalled. And Clinton wished Warren a Happy 2016 — a subtle reminder that it’s an election year, and Warren’s endorsement would be a boon to Clinton’s 2016 presidential candidacy.”
Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball: “It’s too early to start handicapping November with any great degree of confidence, but we’ll say this much: As polarized as our country was prior to this campaign, it has become even more polarized during it, and promises to be fully polarized by the fall. Practically, that means any GOP or Democratic nominee probably has a solid base of 45% or so. Barry Goldwater and George McGovern’s 38% mark is exceedingly unlikely for any major-party candidate today — barring the introduction of significant independents or third-party nominees.”
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.