After the first GOP debate, Newt Gingrich thinks that Hillary Clinton is vulnerable and that the Republican field makes the Democrats look like “a gerontocracy,” the Washington Post reports.
Said Gingrich:”I’m pretty optimistic. We have a lot of work to do, but we’re moving in the right direction.”
The brother of Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback (R) is accused of terrorizing his neighbors, the Topeka Capital Journal reports.
“Adversaries say he has woven a liquor-infused tapestry of fear colored by intimidation, abuse and lies. The saga features stalking, death threats, trespassing, drive-by gunfire, massive explosions, cattle theft, loan defaults, hit-and-run driving and marital strife… There is trepidation among acquaintances to speak freely, a point accentuated by the number expressing nervousness about reprisal if they were candid. There is genuine fear.”
A defiant Donald Trump “suggested on Sunday that he had been singled out for attacks by the hosts of last week’s widely watched Republican presidential debate and again threatened a third-party White House bid if he was not treated ‘reasonably fairly’ by party leaders,” the New York Times reports.
Wall Street Journal: “Trump struck a defiant tone Sunday, making clear he isn’t about to exit the Republican Party presidential primary nor retreat from remarks about a Fox News debate moderator that have drawn a torrent of criticism. The choice now for his 2016 rivals is whether to take him on and risk an unending series of attacks from the real-estate developer, or try to maneuver around him.”
Politico: “Three weeks after two of his rivals demanded he quit the race for the GOP presidential nomination and three days after a record 24 million viewers tuned in to the GOP debate in Cleveland that many establishment Republicans predicted might be the beginning of the end for him, Trump is still center stage.”
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“Over nearly two decades, Donald J. Trump has given more than a little thought to a third-party presidential candidacy. How serious he is about it for 2016 is about to be tested,” the New York Times reports.
“Mr. Trump, who in early polls has been leading the crowded field of Republican hopefuls, has insisted he doesn’t want to run as an independent. But he says he will if he’s forced to by Republican Party elders who have courted his money and endorsements in the past but now won’t give him the thing he highly values – respect.”
Nate Silver: “Donald Trump is a master at playing off the public’s distrust for the news media, portraying every negative story as a needless distraction from his quest to ‘Make America Great Again.’ You’d think this strategy would become tiresome, but there’s a market for it, especially among Republicans, who are more distrustful of the mainstream media than Democrats.”
“But one exception to this distrust is Fox News, which hosted the first GOP debate in Cleveland last night. According to a March Quinnipiac poll, 80 percent of Republicans say they trust Fox News either ‘a great deal’ or ‘somewhat,’ as compared to 16 percent who say they trust the network ‘not so much’ or ‘not at all.'”
“When I’m attacked, I fight back. When I was attacked viciously by those women, of course, it’s very hard for them to attack me on looks, because I’m so good looking.”
— Donald Trump, in an interview on Meet the Press.
A new NBC News/Survey Monkey poll taken after the first GOP presidential debate finds Donald Trump still leading the field with 23%, followed by Ted Cruz at 13%, Ben Carson at 11%, Carly Fiorina at 8%, Marco Rubio at 8%, Jeb Bush at 7%, and Scott Walker at 7%.
Chuck Todd explained on Meet the Press that it was a “scientific” online survey.
“I suspect that it is going to hurt him, but since none of us seem to understand what the Trump phenomenon really is, it is hard to know.”
— Newt Gingrich, in an interview with the Boston Globe, on Donald Trump’s most recent controversial comments.
Dan Balz: “Tentativeness has marked the candidates’ strategy in dealing with the Trump phenomenon. You could see their hesitation during the debate Thursday. No one really came to Cleveland with the goal of taking on Trump. Not one of the other nine candidates on stage came to Kelly’s defense when Trump went after her for asking him about derogatory comments he has made about women in the past.”
“It’s not in the nature of candidates to defend debate moderators from criticism, so their non-response was perhaps understandable. But as Bush said Saturday, standing silent as the leader in the polls for the GOP nomination attacks someone who is part of the 53 percent majority of the population is hardly a winning strategy.”
“I will be phenomenal to the women.”
— Donald Trump, in an interview with CBS News.
Search traffic on Google for “Donald Trump” reached an all-time high this week.
Byron York: “A parade of Republican presidential candidates marched through — Chris Christie, Rick Perry, Bobby Jindal, Marco Rubio, Carly Fiorina, Mike Huckabee, Ted Cruz, Jeb Bush, Scott Walker — and not one of them bombed. Not one underwhelmed, disappointed, or mailed it in. Instead, the GOP hopefuls were sharp, fired-up, and focused, even as the embarrassments of the latest Trump controversy threatened to overshadow it all.”
“Why were they so good? Here’s a theory: The candidates prepared like crazy for the recent Cleveland debate, honing their arguments, finding the most effective way to express their positions. Most of that material was never used — there was no time, given the constraints of a big-field debate. Plus, they were terrified of making a mistake in front of the huge Fox News audience. So now, with all that preparation, and with more time — and without the crushing pressure and nerves of the debate — they’re letting go with their newly-polished best stuff.”
Washington Post: “Republican leaders who have watched Donald Trump’s summer surge with alarm now believe that his presidential candidacy has been contained and may begin to collapse because of his repeated attacks on a Fox News Channel star and his refusal to pledge his loyalty to the eventual GOP nominee.”
Politico: “Fallout from a crude attack on Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly and the departure of a top political adviser roiled Donald Trump’s campaign Saturday, leading Republicans to question whether the laws of political gravity have finally caught up with the real estate mogul.”
Meanwhile, Trump will appear on the Sunday morning talk shows on ABC, NBC, CBS and CNN. He will not be appearing on FOX.
Matt Taibbi notes “there are plenty of Tea Party-type voters out there who hate the Republican Party establishment almost as much as they hate the Democrats. There are also plenty of right-wing voters who think George Will and Charles Krauthammer are smug media weasels only slightly less disgusting than the Rachel Maddows and Keith Olbermanns of the world. A know-it-all is a know-it-all.”
“Trump’s followers are a gang of pissed-off nativists who are tired of being laughed at, belittled, dismissed, and told who to vote for. So it seems incredible that the Republican establishment thinks it’s going to get rid of Trump by laughing at, belittling and dismissing him, and telling his voters who they should be picking.”
“These hysterical critics are making one of the world’s most irredeemable bullies look persecuted and like a victim, a difficult feat. The desperation to get rid of him may just feed more and more into the right wing base’s crazy victim complex, and in turn get Trump even more support.”
Dave Weigel: “If Trump himself does not survive the Republican primary, Trumpism might.”
Gov. John Kasich “would have boycotted the ‘kids’ table’ debate if he hadn’t made the prime-time top 10 in Thursday’s GOP presidential matchup in Cleveland,” the Columbus Dispatch reports.
Said adviser John Weaver: “If we were not in the (prime-time part of the) debate, we would’ve been in New Hampshire putting points on the board where people are actually going to vote.”
“Do we want to insult 53% of all voters? What Mr. Trump said is wrong. That is not how we win elections.”
— Jeb Bush, quoted by the Wall Street Journal, referring to Donald Trump’s suggestion that Megyn Kelly was menstruating during the GOP debate.
Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) “is discretely laying the groundwork for the fall’s budget negotiations, which promise to be a major headache for the new Senate majority leader,” The Hill reports.
“The Kentucky Republican has three priorities for the year-end talks that will dominate Congress starting next month. He wants to keep the government open, avoid a federal default and avoid alienating his conservative base, which wants big concessions connected to legislation funding the government and raising the debt ceiling.”
“Government funding expires on Sept. 30 and the debt ceiling needs to be raised by year’s end, according to the administration.”
“It’s a false choice. There is always a better option out there.”
— Gov. Scott Walker (R), quoted by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, on the need to protect a woman’s life by ending her pregnancy.
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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