Louisiana legislators clipped Gov. Bobby Jindal’s wings “by inserting wording into the state budget that would require the governor’s office to pay the out-of-state travel expenses of his security detail,” the Baton Rouge Advocate reports.
“Jindal spent almost 45 percent of 2014 outside Louisiana attending political events. He has kept up the pace so far in 2015 and since forming a presidential exploratory committee early this week, is likely to continue his aggressive travel schedule.”
“Well, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger (as I have rationalized for years).”
— Hillary Clinton, quoted by the Wall Street Journal, in a 2012 email released by the State Department.
“No purpose whatsoever is served by those who are now trying to discredit Josh or his family by sensationalizing the story. Good people make mistakes and do regrettable and even disgusting things.”
— Mike Huckabee, writing on Facebook, on Josh Duggar admitting to molesting children, including his own sisters.
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A new American Research Group survey finds that 74% of registered voters in New Hampshire’s 1st congressional district say Rep. Frank Guinta (R-NH) should resign from Congress following the FEC finding that Guinta broke federal campaign finance laws by accepting illegal campaign contributions from his parents.
Ryan Cooper: “The 2016 election may be the first one in which the political press is totally sidelined. Politicians now have a professional grasp of social media — Barack Obama just got his third Twitter account — and they don’t need media middlemen to communicate with voters.”
“What’s more, no journalist has the kind of celebrity and cultural credibility (as Tim Russert used to have) that once made interviews mandatory for aspiring presidents.”
Josh Duggar “has resigned his role as executive director of the Family Research Council’s lobbying arm amid multiple allegations of child molestation,” The Hill reports.
According to a police report obtained by In Touch magazine, Duggar sexually molested a number of underage girls, including his sisters, when he was a teenager.
“The idea that a national poll has any relationship to the viability of a candidate—ask Rudy Giuliani that. Ask Phil Gramm that. You can go on down the list of folks who were doing real well in national polls and didn’t win a single state and were not a viable candidate.”
— Rick Santorum, quoted by National Journal.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) “is turning up the pressure on senators to make a deal on three important bills, vowing to keep the chamber in session until its work is done,” The Hill reports.
“The Senate is quickly approaching a week-long Memorial Day recess, but it still has to finish work on a ‘fast-track’ trade proposal, expiring provisions of the Patriot Act and highway legislation.”
“Turnout in the world’s first referendum on same sex marriage and on the age of candidates for the presidency is reported to be brisk,” the Irish Times reports.
“Newly declassified documents from the compound in Pakistan where Osama bin Laden was killed in 2011 have revealed the late al-Qaida leader’s remarkable English-language library, including books by Noam Chomsky, Bob Woodward and even 9/11 conspiracy theorist David Ray Griffin,” the Washington Post reports.
“Yet the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which released the files on Wednesday, has not released all the material found in the compound. In fact, there’s a rather notorious stash that the U.S. government apparently doesn’t want you to see: a cache of pornography.”
Presumptive Kentucky GOP gubernatorial nominee Matt Bevin (R) is facing a divided party as he prepares for the fall election, the Lexington Herald Leader reports.
“Bevin has clearly tried to begin winning over some of the Republican establishment… But Bevin, as he has since last November, blamed the media for creating a perception that he didn’t support U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell after losing to him in the primary last year. Although Bevin repeatedly declined to publicly endorse McConnell, he argued that he did work hard for the Republican ticket last fall.”
Cook Political Report: “Democrats – and specifically state Attorney General Jack Conway – were the biggest winners on primary night. Conway faced just token opposition for Democratic nomination for this open seat. The race for the Republicans nomination was far more interesting and ultimately beneficial to Democrats.”
Jeb Bush “put a bit more space between himself and his brother, part of a slow-motion and seemingly reluctant distancing effort as he moves toward a White House bid,” the Washington Post reports.
“After being asked by a questioner at a sports bar here whether there is any ‘space’ between the Bush brothers on issues, Jeb Bush pointed to the scale of government spending during the George W. Bush presidency.”
Said Bush: “I think that in Washington, during my brother’s time, Republicans spent too much money. I think he could have used the veto power — he didn’t have line-item veto power, but he could have brought budget discipline to Washington, D.C.”
Michael Gerson: “In the five weeks since Clinton announced her candidacy, she has had a normal politician’s lifetime quota of scandals. During a brief recent media availability, questions covered foreign donations to the Clinton Foundation, ties to a former aide under investigation, the pace of disclosure of her already purged State Department e-mails and speaking fees that put her… in the 1 percent on a single harvest day in Silicon Valley.”
“Democrats are presented with a political question: Does Clinton really have the political skills to pull this off? Her husband was a master of projecting likability, remorse and good intent. She is plausible as a president but mediocre as a candidate. Her silence is often an improvement on her availability. As new controversies come — and that is close to a political certainty — will her polling hold? I have heard significant Democratic donors wonder about this aloud.”
The Clinton Foundation “released a list of nearly 100 paid speeches given by Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton for which the foundation accepted the fees, shedding light on talks that brought in as much as $26 million for the family philanthropy,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“Nearly a third of the speeches were given at colleges and universities, which could revive criticism of the Clintons for accepting payments—even on their foundation’s behalf—from schools that have been hard-pressed to keep tuition costs down. Schools paid the foundation a total of between $2.8 million and $6.7 million for the Clintons’ speeches.”
Politico: “The release of appearances where fees went directly to the family charity offered no explanation for how the Clintons decided which speeches should go to the foundation and which to the Clintons’ own pockets.”
“For three election cycles, American Crossroads, the brainchild of Karl Rove and other leading Republican strategists, has been among the most powerful forces in national politics, a shadow party that has spent hundreds of millions of dollars on advertising, data and opposition research to help elect candidates,” the New York Times reports.
“But in the early days of the 2016 presidential campaign, Crossroads — among the first outside groups to fully exploit the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision unleashing wealthy donors and corporations — has been buffeted by a rapidly changing political landscape that is testing its pre-eminence, and potentially its survival.”
Gov. Chris Christie (R) “gave an expletive-laced speech at an annual New Jersey media roast Wednesday, taking aim at reporters who had mocked him for the George Washington Bridge scandal, his travels and the state’s finances,” Bloomberg reports.
Said Christie: “We don’t give a shit about this or any of you.”
He told one journalist to “open your eyes” and “clean the shit out of your ears. This is a guy who says he doesn’t know what I’m doing every day. Then just get the fuck away from me then if you don’t know what I’m doing.”
Robert Gates, the former Secretary of Defense and president of the Boy Scouts of America, called for an end to the group’s blanket ban on gay adult leaders, warning Scout executives that “we must deal with the world as it is, not as we might wish it to be,” and that “any other alternative will be the end of us as a national movement,” the New York Times reports.
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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