“Minnesota’s governor and lieutenant governor have a silent — and possibly temporary — partnership,” the Minneapolis Star Tribune reports.
Lt. Gov. Yvonne Prettner Solon (D) stated flatly that she and Gov. Mark Dayton (D), “don’t talk very often.” Asked about his second-in-command, Dayton responded with a cool, “I’m not going to comment on our relationship.”
“Rarely has the appointment of a new Fed chairman been accompanied by so much commotion, penetrating even the political dead zone of mid-August,” the Washington Post reports.
“The fight pits allies of Larry Summers, who also was Obama’s top economic adviser during the darkest days of the recession, against those of rival candidate Janet Yellen, the Fed vice chairman who has been an architect of the bank’s effort to reduce unemployment rates.”
“The opposing camps have waged high-profile media campaigns, featuring dueling op-eds in the nation’s top newspapers, interviews defending their candidates and comments on social media. But the battle also has played out behind the scenes.”
Wonk Wire: Can anyone forge a consensus like Bernanke?
Michael Tomasky: “If you’d asked me six months ago whether the Republican Party would manage to find a few ways to sidle back toward the center between now and 2016, I’d have said yes. But today, on the basis of evidence offered so far this year, I’d have to say a big fat no. With every passing month, the party contrives new ways to go crazier. There’s a lot of time between now and 2016, but it’s hard to watch recent events without concluding that the extreme part of the base is gaining more and more internal control.”
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“The television air war is heating up in Boston’s wide-open race for mayor, as candidates jockey to distinguish themselves in the crowded field with just five weeks until the preliminary election,” the Boston Globe reports.
“There is a question about how much television ads will matter in a campaign that has a dozen candidates fighting house by house for supporters. After the preliminary election in September, two candidates will advance to the final election on Nov. 5.”
New York City councilwoman Inez Dickens, who is openly jockeying to be the next speaker of the City Council, “recently revamped her re-election website, embedding a Twitter account called @SpeakerDickens. The only problem is that the account is a parody feed that skewers Ms. Dickens,” Politicker reports.
I discussed the 2016 presidential race with Thomas Roberts, Steve Benen and Sabrina Siddiqui on MSNBC earlier today.
Wonk Wire: Americans got wealthier during Obama’s first term than we previously thought.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), “who recently discovered that he is likely a Canadian, must win security clearance from Canada’s spy agency, fill in a four-page form and then wait up to eight months to sever his ties to America’s northern neighbor,” Reuters reports.
“A person giving up citizenship must be Canadian, prove they are or will become a citizen of another country, not live in Canada and not be a security threat. They must also explain in writing why they don’t want to be a Canadian any more.”
A new Public Policy Polling survey in Louisiana finds Sen. Mary Landrieu (D) leads Rep. Bill Cassidy (R) by ten points, 50% to 40%.
Key finding: “The key for Landrieu is that she still has a fair amount of crossover support from Republicans. 23% of them approve of her and 23% also support her in a hypothetical match up against Cassidy. That’s a lot more support than you see most Democrats managing across party lines these days, particularly in the south.”
Two GOP polls released yesterday found a much closer race.
Barney Frank: “House of Cards, the Netflix series, has no stronger relation to political reality than the ratings given by Standard and Poor’s to packages of subprime mortgages had to economic truth.”
“Having watched several episodes, I agree that it is well acted. My problem is that it might mislead people into thinking that this is the way our political system actually works. It is not.”
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) “will accept
state public matching funds program for his fall re-election bid,” the AP reports.
“Candidates who accept public funds are obligated to participate in two pre-election debates. Those have not been scheduled yet.”
As the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech approaches, an astonishing “chart of the day” on Wonk Wire shows the ratio of black to white unemployment rate has hardly budged.
Longtime Republican political strategist Boyd Marcus is endorsing Terry McAuliffe (D) for Virginia governor and will advise his campaign, the AP reports.
“Marcus was an architect of Republican former Gov. Jim Gilmore’s 1997 successful campaign. He also has advised the campaigns of U.S. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor.”
“You might be surprised to hear this, but I actually like it better this way.”
— Anthony Weiner (D), quoted by BuzzFeed, on the very few reporters still covering his New York City mayoral race.
“One of Maine’s three voting members of the Republican National Committee and six other members of the Maine State Republican Committee have resigned and left the party, lambasting Gov. Paul LePage, U.S. House Speaker John Boehner and other Republicans for abandoning what they said are key principles for libertarians and conservatives,” the Portland Press Herald reports.
Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX) filed his personal financial disclosure report which listed an asset valued at over $1,000,000,000, Political Moneyline reports.
Two days later, McCaul filed an amendment to that report indicating that the amount should be listed as only $1,000,000.
A new Public Policy Polling survey in Ohio shows a toss up race for governor, with Ed FitzGerald (D) holding a slight lead over John Kasich (R), 38% to 35%.
Key findings: “The closeness of the race is more of a reflection on Kasich than FitzGerald. He has a negative approval rating with 42% of voters approving of him to 47% who disapprove. That represents a 10 point net decline from our last Ohio poll in November when he was at 45/40. FitzGerald meanwhile remains unknown to most voters in the state with 62% not having an opinion about him one way or the other- among those who do have one 20% see him positively and 18% in a negative light.”
Charlie Cook:
“It’s difficult to understand why any Republicans on Capitol Hill would
like their odds in any kind of budget showdown this fall that could
result in a government shutdown. Very simply, they would be going into a
game with an incredibly weak hand, and their odds of winning would be
quite small.” More: “While Obama’s numbers are hardly impressive, they
are still much better than those for congressional Democrats, and they
aren’t even in the same time zone as the bleak numbers for Republicans
in Congress. This being the case, who goes into this fight with the
least credibility? The answer is Republicans in Congress… It’s a time
for Republicans to be realistic and for both sides to be adults–and
allow a reasonable deal to be reached.”
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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