Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) is standing by his statement that most vaccinations should be “voluntary,” telling CNBC that a parent’s choice not to vaccinate a child is “an issue of freedom,” NBC News reports.
Said Paul: “I have heard of many tragic cases of walking, talking normal children who wound up with profound mental disorders after vaccines.”
A new Mason-Dixon poll in Florida finds an overwhelming number of Floridians would prefer that Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) run for re-election rather than for president. Just 15% of registered voters think he should make a White House bid while 57% think he should run for re-election to the U.S. Senate.
In contrast, 42% of voters think Jeb Bush should run for president.
Michael Tomasky: “I finally sat myself down and watched that Scott Walker speech from last week that everyone is raving about. If this was the standout speech, I sure made the right decision in not subjecting myself to the rest of them. It was little more than a series of red-meat appetizers and entrees: Wisconsin defunded Planned Parenthood, said no to Obamacare, passed some kind of law against ‘frivolous’ lawsuits, and moved to crack down on voter ‘fraud’—all of that besides, of course, his big move, busting the public-employee unions. There wasn’t a single concrete idea about addressing any of the major problems the country faces.”
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“As some Iowa Democratic activists voice frustration with the ‘arrogance’ of Hillary Clinton, liberal rival Martin O’Malley intends to seize on her absence from Iowa and the presidential race,” the Des Moines Register reports.
“There’s just a tiny seed of support here for O’Malley right now… But O’Malley, who has pitched himself as a results-driven progressive, wants to see if he can build on support for a White House bid during two upcoming trips here – one in March and one in April.”
In a speech over the weekend, Sen. Mitch McConnell “acknowledged that he faced challenges from both the left and right in running the Senate, noting that Senator Ted Cruz of Texas had said he was willing to throw himself in front of a train to repeal the new health care law,” the New York Times reports.
Said McConnell: “That idea has some merit to it.”
Alabama state Sen. Del Marsh (R) said he’s worried the legalization of same-sex marriage could become a financial burden, TPM reports.
Said Marsh: “You gotta look at the financial aspect of it. Let’s face it. If gay marriage is approved, I assume that those types of unions, those people would be entitled to Social Security benefits, insurance. Where does it end? I wonder if the federal government is looking at the actual cost to the government when they look at an issue like this.”
The New York Times notes that “buried in the budget are kernels of proposals that could take root with a Republican Congress. Both parties are eager to release the military from constraints imposed by automatic spending cuts, known as sequestration, approved in 2011. Both understand that the highway trust fund will once again reach empty in June, making its replenishment — and the revitalization of the nation’s crumbling infrastructure — priorities for the coming year.”
“Those two issues alone could force the White House and the Republican leadership to the negotiating table, with Mr. Obama’s new budget the starting point for negotiations in the coming months.”
President Obama’s budget message shuns the word “spending,” McClatchy reports.
“He refers to proposed new spending most often as ‘investing,’ as in investing in children or teachers or national defense. He also prefers to say his budget ‘provides’ things, such as child care. In his budget message to Congress, he uses some form of the word ‘invest’ 18 times. He uses some form of the word ‘provide’ 7 times. He uses a variation of the word ‘spend’ just three times, and none to describe his proposals.”
“A budget fact sheet sent out by the White House has a similar trend: 52 references to investing, 28 to providing, and just 6 to spending.”
Former Sen. Mark Begich’s (D-AK) “next move is no longer a secret — he will not be running for the Mayor of Anchorage in this year’s election,” KTVA reports.
Said Begich: “I think I could offer a lot to the city as mayor. But, at the same time, those offices can come and go.”
Peter Beinart: “Walker’s rise is a reminder that among Republican primary voters, and especially Iowa-caucus goers, the market for ideological or even stylistic innovation, may be smaller than the media assumes. Because the most striking thing about Scott Walker’s speech at the Freedom Summit, and his emerging campaign message more generally, is how retro it is. Walker concedes nothing to the conventional wisdom about what the GOP must do to compete in a more culturally tolerant, ethnically diverse and economically insecure America. And the GOP faithful love it.”
“While every Republican presidential hopeful wants to be seen as Reaganesque, other leading contenders clearly hope to improve on the Gipper’s relationship with people of color. Walker, by contrast, isn’t updating the 1980s script at all.”
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) “is moving full throttle towards a White House bid, hitting the road hard to raise money and elevate his profile. While allies and advisors say he hasn’t made a final decision, most now privately expect he’ll take the plunge,” The Hill reports.
“It’s a gamble for the 43 year-old Rubio, who has to choose between running for another Senate term next year and undertaking a White House bid. Staying in the Senate is the surer bet, though reelection isn’t guaranteed in swing-state Florida.”
“What I would also remind everybody and mentioned to our House friends at our joint retreat: How would you like to have to get 261 votes on almost everything you do? I hope that some day we will have a supermajority in the Senate, but for 100 years we haven’t, and there are some obvious limitations.”
— Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), quoted by Politico, telling House GOP colleagues there are limits to what the Senate can do.
Former New York Gov. George Pataki (R) told Fox News he’s actively exploring a 2016 Republican bid for president with a trip to New Hampshire this week and the opening of a new political action committee.
“If you want to understand the conservative appeal of the former director of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital, messages like this, which go out by the thousand on conservative email lists, are the place to start. No prospective candidate’s name and likeness, including the Democratic field-clearer Hillary Clinton, has been as successful in attracting small donations over the last year than that of Carson,” Time reports.
“In addition to his own political action committee, Carson has lent his name and signature to other online efforts, including Newt Gingrich’s American Legacy PAC, where he is the face of a $5.9 million campaign called ‘Save our Healthcare,’ which raises money in the name of fighting President Obama’s health insurance reforms. A separate independent effort, the National Draft Ben Carson for President Committee, raised more than $12 million in the 2014 cycle through email and direct mail with appeals featuring Carson’s name. That effort, which Carson plays no direct role in supporting, collected more during the reporting period than Ready For Hillary, the SuperPAC run by Hillary Clinton’s former aides to prepare the ground for her campaign.”
“Carson’s online fundraising efforts are so prolific that his own political operation is sometimes not aware of them.”
First Read: “There are two 2016 GOP races going on right now: One, the establishment contest, where Jeb and Christie are wooing deep-pocketed donors, especially now that Romney is out of the race. And two, the conservative grassroots contest, where the candidates will be jockeying to prove themselves as the most in tune with today’s Republican Party.”
“The establishment-vs.-conservative divide is what makes Walker worth watching over the next year, because he has the ability to straddle both worlds. Given that Walker has battled with Wisconsin Democrats — and won — few conservatives are going to question his conservative bona fides. And given that he’s won his state of Wisconsin three times in the past four years (2010 election, 2012 recall, 2014 re-election), he could appeal to some establishment Republicans who are looking for a non-Bush winner.”
Failed California gubernatorial candidate Neel Kashkari (R) “ignored the advice of advisors who urged him to stop dipping into his waning personal fortune to finance a campaign they knew he could not win,” the Los Angeles Times reports.
Said Kashkari strategist Aaron McLear: “We thought it was crazy, but that’s Neel.”
Amid an outbreak of measles that has spread across 14 states, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) said that parents “need to have some measure of choice” about vaccinating their children against the virus, breaking with President Obama and much of the medical profession, the New York Times reports.
Said Christie: “It’s more important what you think as a parent than what you think as a public official. I also understand that parents need to have some measure of choice in things as well. So that’s the balance that the government has to decide.”
[speech_bubble type=”std” subtype=”a” icon=”pwdome.jpg” name=””]So Christie thinks it’s acceptable to imprison a nurse possibly infected with Ebola but vaccinations of children aren’t important? [/speech_bubble]
Sen. John McCain said he hadn’t seen Sarah Palin’s widely-panned speech last month, but told CNN that it wasn’t a disqualifier if she wanted to run for president.
Said McCain: “If she did not give a good speech, she’s not the first politician that didn’t give a good speech from time to time, including me.”
He added Palin could still be an asset for the GOP in 2016, and said he’ll “absolutely” have her campaign with him as he seeks re-election in Arizona.
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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