“A number of Democrats expressed interest in seeking the Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate to replace Sen. John Walsh, who ended his campaign Thursday,” the Billings Gazette reports.
“And a number of prominent Democrats ruled themselves out, including Gov. Steve Bullock, former Gov. Brian Schweitzer, state Superintendent of Public Instruction Denise Juneau and state Auditor Monica Lindeen.”
Sen. John Walsh (D-MT) said he is “pulling out of the Senate race because his campaign was distracted by the controversy over allegations that he plagiarized a U.S. Army War College research paper,” the Billings Gazette reports.
“The Montana Democratic Party now will choose a replacement… The party has to select a new Senate candidate at a nominating convention by Aug. 20. About 175 delegates, including statewide and federal elected officials, county party committee leaders and the party executive board members, will pick the nominee.”
National Journal reports Walsh’s wife Janet was “openly sobbing” as she thanked members of the campaign.
Maine Gov. Paul LePage (R) told the Bangor Daily News that he doesn’t believe the polls that show him in a tight re-election race.
Said LePage (in the third person): “The governor does not agree… The governor says that he’s either going to be blown out by a landslide or he’s going to win by a landslide… The Maine people are either going to throw me out or take me in wholeheartedly, but I don’t think this is going to be close.”
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Out this fall: The End of Greatness: Why America Can’t Have (and Doesn’t Want) Another Great President by Aaron David Miller.
Neil Newhouse: “Two years ago, the same polls that now show the GOP with a marginal advantage on this measure, showed much of the same thing – that GOP voters were significantly more excited about voting in the November Presidential election.”
“And, what happened? The enthusiasm gap was taken to the woodshed by the Obama team’s GOTV efforts. In a nutshell, the Democrats turned out voters who were unenthusiastic, unexcited and not ‘energized’ to vote, rendering the enthusiasm gap meaningless.”
Florida lawmakers “returned to work Thursday under court-order to redraw their gerrymandered ‘mockery’ of a congressional map in order to avert a chaotic delay in this fall’s elections,” the Orlando Sentinel reports.
“And without delay, they released a plan that tweaks the contours of seven U.S. House districts spread throughout Central Florida.”
“Why did Dr. Brantly have to go to Africa? The very first ‘risk factor’ listed by the Mayo Clinic for Ebola — an incurable disease with a 90 percent fatality rate — is: ‘Travel to Africa.’ Can’t anyone serve Christ in America anymore?”
— Conservative pundit Ann Coulter, quoted by The Hill, blaming Dr. Kent Brantly for contracting the Ebola virus while working in Liberia because he wanted to be seen as “heroic.”
Rep. Stephen Fincher (R-TN) declared his love of “shagging” on Twitter before deleting the message, The Hill reports.
“The Tuesday tweet was captured by the Sunlight Foundation’s Politiwoops site. The nonpartisan nonprofit tracks and archives posts that are deleted by lawmakers.”
San Francisco Board of Supervisors candidate George Davis “stripped buck naked in Times Square to campaign for the right to be nude in public,” the AP reports.
“Davis spoke out against a 2013 San Francisco public nudity ban introduced by his opponent, Scott Wiener. He says nudity is a form of expression. After Davis’ speech he conducted interviews stark naked.”
Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback (R) offered a theory to KSHB-TV when asked why significant numbers of Republican primary voters cast ballots against incumbents on Tuesday.
Brownback won, but his little-known primary opponent Jennifer Winn (R) received 37% of the vote.
Said Brownback: “I think a big part of it is Barack Obama. That a lot of people are so irritated at what the president is doing, they just, they want somebody to throw a brick.”
Politico: “All other states — except Hawaii, which votes this Saturday — hold their primaries on a Tuesday. Tennessee even holds its presidential primaries on Super Tuesday. Yet, when it comes time to elect or nominate state or federal candidates, the Volunteer State waits until Thursday.”
“The rule is tucked away in the state’s first constitution, which was drafted in 1796 and meant to govern elections “forever after.” Since then, it’s survived the drafting and amending of two new constitutions, Tennessee’s secession from the Union and efforts by the federal government to standardize when and where Americans vote.”
A new CBS News poll finds 54% of Americans disapprove of the House Republican plan to sue President Obama, while just 37% say they approve of the plans.
The Fix: “Despite Obama’s unpopularity, the public as a whole does not think he should be sued. Moreover, Republicans may have handed Democrats a way to fire up a sleepy base that so far has looked like it is not planning to turn out in big numbers in November. That could become a serious problem for the GOP.”
A new SurveyUSA poll in Oregon finds Sen. Jeff Merkley (D) is crushing challenger Monica Wehby (R) in the U.S. Senate race, 52% to 33%.
In the race for governor, Gov. John Kitzhaber (D) leads challenger Dennis Richardson, 48% to 36%.
“The most corrupting force in politics, we are repeatedly told, is big money — super PACs, corporate lobbyists, rapacious oligarchs. And there’s plenty of evidence to support the claim,” Matt Bai reports.
“But let’s be clear: It wasn’t big money that drove Republican House members, before they left town last week, to approve the first-ever Congressional lawsuit against a sitting president, when they should have gotten serious about a pressing border crisis. And it wasn’t big money that had gleeful Democrats doing backflips in the streets at calls from the conservative fringe to impeach Barack Obama.”
“What’s really fueling the hyperbole and dysfunction in Washington now isn’t one privileged special interest or another, but rather the mouse clicks of ordinary, angry Americans whose $25 contributions add up to a mountain of influence. And in this way, at least, American politics has finally caught up to where the rest of society is going.”
A new MRG poll in Michigan finds Gov. Rick Snyder (R) just ahead of challenger Mark Schauer (D) in the race for governor, 45% to 44%.
In the U.S. Senate race, Gary Peters (D) leads Terry Lynn Land (R), 47% to 40%.
“The party can’t become the opposite of what it is. If you tell people from Alabama, Mississippi or Georgia, ‘You know what, guys, we’ve been wrong, and we’re gonna be the pro-gay-marriage party,’ they’re either gonna stay home or — I mean, many of these people joined the Republican Party because of these social issues. So I don’t think we can completely flip.”
— Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), quoted by the New York Times.
Kyle Kondik: “To be clear, the overall House atmosphere favors Republicans. The president’s party almost always loses seats in a midterm: an average of 33 seats per election in the 38 midterms held since the start of the Civil War. Of course, those elections often come after the president’s party was elected with acclaim two years prior to the midterm, inflating the president’s party’s numbers in the House to artificial heights, but President Obama and his Democrats are already at a rather low ebb in the House, where they hold just 201 seats… President Obama’s approval rating is 43%, two points lower than where he was on Election Day 2010. The national House generic ballot is roughly tied, although these polls generally have a built-in Democratic slant, so Republicans probably have a tiny edge in all actuality (though considerably smaller than 2010 at this time).”
“But the GOP is limited in the sense that the House playing field is small: The most recent Crystal Ball House ratings list just 37 seats in the most competitive categories, Toss-up or Leans Democratic/Republican. Of those seats, 21 are currently held by Democrats and 16 by Republicans.”
New York Times: “Libertarians, who long have relished their role as acerbic sideline critics of American political theater, now find themselves and their movement thrust into the middle of it. For decades their ideas have had serious backing financially (most prominently by the Koch brothers, one of whom, David H., ran as vice president on the 1980 Libertarian Party ticket), intellectually (by way of policy shops like the Cato Institute and C.E.I.) and in the media (through platforms like Reason and, as of last year, ‘The Independents’). But today, for perhaps the first time, the libertarian movement appears to have genuine political momentum on its side.”
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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