“In an interview with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Gov. Scott Walker sought to stay out of the uproar over former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s comments about President Barack Obama and love of country, saying those two could speak for themselves.
Said Walker: “I’ve never asked the President so I don’t really know what his opinions are on that one way or another.”
Washington Post: Scott Walker’s spineless silence
“Rudy wouldn’t be Rudy if he backed down,” CNN reports.
“But by amplifying his charge that President Barack Obama doesn’t love America, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani appears ready to risk sullying the powerful mythology that grew around his leadership when he steadied and steeled the nation in the terrible, confusing time after 9/11. Since those fleeting days when he was a unifying figure, Giuliani has more often dealt in waspish rhetoric and savage mockery — especially of a president he says has ‘failed.'”
New York Times: “For 20 years, Columba Bush anticipated the day she would have to answer one big question: Would she support her husband, Jeb Bush, if he decided to run for president? Last summer and fall, as she wrestled with whether to say yes, her sense of duty was mixed with dread.”
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Hillary Clinton, “the subject of intense news media attention and public scrutiny for the last three decades, is preparing for another thorough vetting as she plans for a likely presidential campaign. In this case, however, it’s not Republicans trying to thwart her or journalists looking for a juicy scoop, but researchers she herself has hired,” the New York Times reports.
“Mrs. Clinton, who is all but assured to seek the Democratic presidential nomination for a second time, has hired the firm New Partners, an outfit with a history of doing deep research projects, to handle at least some portion of the work, known in the political world as ‘self-opposition research.'”
“In what is becoming an increasingly nasty grudge match, the White House is mulling ways to undercut Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s upcoming trip to Washington and blunt his message that a potential nuclear deal with Iran is bad for Israel and the world,” the AP reports.
“Administration officials have discarded the idea of President Obama himself giving an Iran-related address to rebut the two speeches Netanyahu is to deliver during his early March visit. But other options remain on the table. Among them: a presidential interview with a prominent journalist known for coverage of the rift between Obama and Netanyahu, multiple Sunday show television appearances by senior national security aides and a pointed snub of America’s leading pro-Israel lobby, which is holding its annual meeting while Netanyahu is in Washington.”
“At some point you have to start asking whether Matt Bevin should be medicated. The guy has no grasp on reality whatsoever and his delusions of grandeur are simply breathtaking.”
— GOP strategist Josh Holmes, quoted by the Lexington Herald Leader, on Matt Bevin’s (R) claim he would have won last year’s Senate election “more handily” than Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY).
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Nate Cohn: “I remember that Mrs. Clinton was ‘inevitable,’ and I see why today’s discussions of Mrs. Clinton’s strength sound familiar. But there is no equivalence between Mrs. Clinton’s strength then and now. She was never inevitable eight years ago. If a candidate has ever been inevitable — for the nomination — it is Mrs. Clinton today.”
“No candidate, excluding incumbent presidents, has ever fared so well in the early primary polls as Mrs. Clinton. She holds about 60 percent of the vote of Democratic voters, a tally dwarfing the 40 percent she held this time in the last election cycle.”
President Obama “ridiculed Republicans on Friday, describing them as a party seeking to mimic the Democratic Party’s middle class rhetoric even as Republican officials and candidates pursued policies that enrich the wealthy,” the New York Times reports.
“In a speech at the winter meeting of the Democratic National Committee, Mr. Obama highlighted the economic progress the country has made during his time in office and pushed back against attacks on his record from Republicans who are already gearing up for the 2016 presidential campaign.”
Former Virginia first lady Maureen McDonnell “was sentenced to 12 months and 1 day Friday on federal corruption charges. Judge James R. Spencer also ordered two years supervised probation and allowed her to remain free pending appeal,” the Richmond Times Dispatch reports.
The judge “said he did not want to allow a disparity in the McDonnells’ sentences because there was ‘joint criminal behavior.’ Bob McDonnell had been sentenced to two years last month.”
Washington Post: “In the federal system, inmates with sentences longer than a year can get them reduced 54 days a year for good behavior. If McDonnell had received a sentence of a year or less, she would not have been eligible.”
Jeb Bush plans to name Tim Miller, executive director of America Rising PAC, as his top communications aide, Politico reports.
“Miller is an aggressive, younger operative who can be expected to inject a pugilistic style into Bush’s high command. America Rising – based in Arlington, Va. — is the two-year-old GOP opposition-research group that relentlessly spattered Democratic Senate candidates during the last cycle.”
CNN: “As Clinton eyes another run at the presidency in 2016, some close to her — especially those who are cheering reports she may wait until summer to officially announce a bid — point to Nixon’s successful 1968 presidential bid as a positive sign, particularly how Nixon’s public operation went dark for about six months before entering the race.”
“Despite being the presumed Democratic front-runner since Obama was reelected in 2012, Clinton has been largely absent from the public spotlight since the midterms wrapped in November 2014. And with the exception of the occasional paid speech and non-profit event, she could lay-low through the spring, a months-long hiatus similar to one Nixon took more than fifty years ago before winning the presidency for the first time.”
Coming this summer: The Quiet Man: The Indispensable Presidency of George H.W. Bush by John H. Sununu.
“The Obama administration said it would allow people to sign up for plans on HealthCare.gov through April to avoid tax penalties for going uncovered in 2015,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“The extension, which adds more than two months to the enrollment period for health coverage this year, was announced by Health and Human Services officials on Friday.”
“The source of the extensive, private polling data on the 2016 Republican presidential field was shrouded in secrecy. But its conclusions were widely felt,” the New York Times reports.
“The data jolted Mitt Romney when it was shared with him, encouraging him to weigh running for president a third time, and has since given comfort to former Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida, the all-but-announced candidate for the Republican nomination.”
“Now, the identity of the wealthy Republican donor who commissioned the polling is no longer a mystery: It was, according to people interviewed on the matter, Muneer A. Satter, a former partner at Goldman Sachs and a major Republican donor in Chicago.”
“Republican leaders in the North Dakota House of Representatives said they canceled the opening prayer by a Muslim on Ash Wednesday because some members thought it was more appropriate to have a Christian deliver the invocation,” the Fargo Forum reports.
Bill Kristol: “It’s of course very early in the 2016 cycle. But it’s never too early for some healthy alarm. Are we the only ones who are struck that many of the leading Republican candidates, whether moderate or conservative, seem to be planning stale and tired campaigns? Hillary will herself, it’s safe to predict, run a stale campaign with tired themes. But the polls suggest she would prevail in a conventional matchup of boring campaigns. We’re all free to ignore the fire bell in the night, and hope for the best. But it would be a shame to have to explain in November 2016 how the Republican party decided to sleepwalk to defeat.”
First Read: “After the midterms, we assumed that the party’s focus and energies would be devoted to the Clintons. And to be sure, the RNC and GOP oppo groups have devoted more of their time and resources to the Clintons. But for other Republicans and conservatives — the 2016ers, the grassroots, media outlets — the focus continues to be on Obama.”
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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