Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner (R) “started off the new year swinging, offering vague criticism of Mayor Rahm Emanuel over his handling of police-involved shootings and vowing to sign legislation that would allow voters to recall Chicago mayors in the unlikely event the measure reaches his desk,” the Chicago Tribune reports.
Rauner said his longtime friend and former business associate “inherited a mess” but has done little in the way to overhaul how the city operates.
Jeb Bush actually owned the copyright to his presidential campaign moniker Jeb! — until he let the trademark application lapse in November, so Stephen Colbert tries out different punctuation marks.
“Four weeks before Iowa voters start whittling down the sprawling and fractious Republican presidential field, the nomination fight is taking on a decidedly dark tenor, with candidates warning of a country left weakened by an administration that would prefer to apologize for America rather than keep it safe,” the New York Times reports.
“This despairing tone was on display Monday as Republicans crisscrossed the country on the first full day of campaigning in the new year, and began airing commercials that had a singular and sometimes fearsome focus on national security.”
Ted Cruz dismissed attacks against his record and his personal style, suggesting that his political rivals are “panicking” as the Iowa caucuses approach, NBC News reports.
Said Cruz: “Listen, politicians behave a certain way when they are panicking. And they engage in attacks, they engage in personal attacks, that’s human nature. I understand that. I am not going to get drawn into that muck.”
“Mr. No Drama Obama, well, that will not be the nickname of the Christie White House Administration, I can guarantee you. There’ll be some drama, because I believe you have an absolute right to know what I’m thinking and what I’m feeling, I work for you.”
— Gov. Chris Christie, quoted by ABC News.
New York Times: “Mr. Trump, the front-runner in many polls for the Republican presidential nomination, had promised to spend at least $2 million a week on advertising; he has already reserved $1,996,165 in ads through Jan. 12, according to Elizabeth Wilner, a senior vice president at Kantar Media/CMAG, which tracks TV advertising.
“Several media buyers, some with rival campaigns and some independent contractors, called the television airtime substantial. Mr. Trump is not at saturation levels in many of the markets, but his level of ad buys are competitive with the other candidates.”
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“I think we may have been visited already. We don’t know for sure.”
— Hillary Clinton, quoted by the Conway Daily Sun, on whether extraterrestrial life could exist.
“Donald Trump’s new TV ad is not quite what it seems. Footage that is implied to be from the U.S. border with Mexico is actually from more than 5,000 miles away, in Morocco,” the New York Times reports.
PolitiFact gave the footage a “pants on fire” rating.
Norm Ornstein: “The willful suspension of disbelief by so many political professionals and analysts had multiple roots. One part was a deep belief that history rules—since rogue and inexperienced candidates had always faltered before, it followed that it would happen again. Another was that nothing has changed in a meaningful way in American politics—there has not been real polarization, only natural “sorting,” and the establishment will rule, as it always does. A third was that there are certain characteristics expected of a president—prudence, civility, expertise—that would eventually cause Trump and the other outsiders like Carson, Cruz, and Fiorina to fall by the wayside.”
“Those roots remain resilient in the punditocracy and political community. They were and are wrong. Both Trump and a broader phenomenon—call it Trumpism—are stronger and deeper than most veteran political analysts realized or were willing to acknowledge.”
Asked by ABC News whether his sexual history was “fair game” in the campaign, Bill Clinton said “the Republicans have to decide who they want to nominate. I’m trying to tell the Democrats and the country why I think Hillary would be the best president.”
He added: “I think there’s always attempts to take the election away from the people.”
Josh Kraushaar: “All told, many party operatives fear that a Christie victory—or strong second-place finish in New Hampshire—would be a worst-case scenario for the GOP, sidelining the establishment’s best hope in Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, and potentially splitting the center-right wing of the party indefinitely.”
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Rick Klein: “It’s Big Dog season, and who better (who else, really?) to welcome Bill Clinton to the campaign trail than Donald Trump? The challenge for Clinton will be to be helpful without being harmful – and that means being approximately as non-controversial, even boring, as he’s capable of being in the run-up to Iowa and New Hampshire.”
“Enter Trump into this equation, with his mocking Tweets and outright threats to make the former president’s sexual indiscretions into fair campaign game. Barack Obama’s rise got under Clinton’s skin in ways that weren’t helpful back in 2007-2008. This time it’s Trump who is most likely to get Clinton off message; unlike Obama, he’s actually trying to do just that. Clinton may be more disciplined than he was eight years ago. But rope lines near Bill Clinton will be the most interesting place in politics for the next few weeks.”
House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) called President Obama’s plan to take executive action on gun control a “dangerous level of executive overreach.”
Said Ryan: “While we don’t yet know the details of the plan, the president is at minimum subverting the legislative branch, and potentially overturning its will. His proposals to restrict gun rights were debated by the United States Senate, and they were rejected.”
Just published: Why the Right Went Wrong: Conservatism From Goldwater to the Tea Party and Beyond by E.J. Dionne Jr.
“Its core contention is that American conservatism and the Republican Party took a wrong turn when they adopted Barry Goldwater’s worldview during and after the 1964 campaign. The radicalism of today’s conservatism is not the product of the Tea Party, Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne writes. The Tea Partiers are the true heirs to Goldwater ideology. The purity movement did more than drive moderates out of the Republican Party—it beat back alternative definitions of conservatism.”
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.