A new Bloomberg Politics/Des Moines Register Iowa Poll finds that 39% of Republicans likely to participate in Iowa’s presidential caucuses say they are inclined to view Islam as an inherently violent religion that inspires brutality by its followers.
“Twice as many Democrats—along with a majority of Republicans—say they view the world’s second largest religion as inherently peaceful.”
Dozens of House Democrats are privately threatening to skip the March 3 address of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “in what’s become the lowest point of a relationship between the Israeli prime minister and President Obama that’s never been good,” Politico reports.
“Democrats have had to balance publicly supporting Israel with backing Obama, who’s trying to close a deal with Iran to curb its nuclear programs over vehement opposition from Netanyahu, who has expressed concerns that the U.S. president is being naive. Negotiations are facing a deadline at the end of March for a political framework.”
A new Monmouth University poll in New Jersey finds Gov. Chris Christie’s (R) job ratings “have continued their post-Labor Day decline… Nearly two-thirds of Christie’s constituents say that he is more concerned about his own political future than he is about the state, with increasing skepticism of the stated purpose for his recent foreign trips.”
“When New Jerseyans are asked who would make a better president – Chris Christie or Hillary Clinton, Clinton gets the nod from 58%, with 32% choosing the Garden State governor.”
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Brad Phillips flags a recent interview with Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) and says that “every male presidential candidate — particularly the Republican nominee who will almost certainly be male and will almost certainly face Hillary Clinton — should watch it to avoid making the same mistake.”
“President Obama was shocked and irritated by Mitt Romney’s concession call in the 2012 presidential election — and claimed Romney insinuated that Obama won only by getting out the black vote, according to a new book by presidential campaign strategist David Axelrod,” the New York Daily News reports.
Obama was “unsmiling during the call, and slightly irritated when it was over,” Axelrod writes.
“They’re not legislators, they’re just assholes.”
— Senior GOP aide, quoted by Roll Call, about the new House Freedom Caucus.
“It is unfair to say Republicans have achieved nothing in their dozens of attempts since 2010 to repeal Obamacare,” Dana Millbank writes.
“In Tuesday’s repeal effort by House Republicans — their first of this Congress and their 56th overall — it became clear that they had succeeded at one thing: They had bored even themselves into a slumber. For much of the debate Tuesday afternoon, no more than a dozen seats were occupied on the pro-repeal side of the House. More than once, the GOP had nobody available to speak.”
“Senate Republicans are unlikely to land their most formidable recruit to take down Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), The Hill reports.
“With Gov. Brian Sandoval (R) delaying any decision until summer, his indecision is costing Republicans precious time in their quest to oust the party’s biggest target in 2016. The popular governor is at the top of wish lists for Nevada and Washington Republicans, but he has suggested he won’t run. Still, Sandoval is unlikely to make a final announcement until after the state’s legislative session concludes.”
“Scott Walker is moving to seize on Mitt Romney’s withdrawal from the presidential race and show he can compete with Jeb Bush as a top-tier candidate. Sources tell Politico that the Wisconsin governor is aggressively courting Romney donors, planning a March fundraising foray into Bush’s home turf of Florida and has just hired a top Washington fundraiser.”
“A group of young conservatives, dubbed ‘reformicons,’ are making inroads among Republican presidential candidates by arguing the party’s traditional reliance on broad-based tax cuts, GOP orthodoxy for a generation, isn’t enough to cure middle-class woes,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“Instead, they are calling for crafting subsidies, tax credits and other public-policy tools based on conservative philosophies and tastes to help the unemployed and other struggling middle-income households.”
A new Quinnipiac poll finds Jeb Bush “is emerging as the Republican front-runner in an early look at possible presidential primaries in the critical swing states of Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania, but even with Mitt Romney out of the race, Bush’s only clear dominance is in his native Florida.”
“As politicians become increasingly comfortable with social media, they’ve also begun dabbling in its darker impulses, employing tweets and Facebook posts as bait in a partisan war of words. Yes, trolling—the act of gleefully using the Internet to intentionally provoke or anger someone—is fast becoming a substitute for political discourse in America,” Bloomberg reports.
“On the bright side, trolling can show off a politician’s sense of humor, or at least the humor of an aide authorized to use the politician’s sign-on.. The winking sarcasm of tweets or gifs does offer momentary relief from politics’ often dreary, C-SPAN-esque excitement. But it’s also hard to deny that when elected officials stoop to snide point-scoring, something feels amiss. It’s as if they are admitting that cynicism has won the day.”
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) “began an overseas trip Sunday exclaiming how much he loved being back in London, one of his favorite cities to visit. The Republican ended it Tuesday by refusing to answer questions lobbed at him all day by reporters,” the Washington Post reports.
“Journeying to England for three days to polish his foreign policy résumé ahead of the 2016 presidential campaign, the likely candidate ended up having little to say about foreign policy.”
Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL) told The Hill he’s thinking of running for the U.S. Senate in 2016.
Said Grayson: “We have some very substantial advantages. I have over 100,000 individual contributors, no one else on the House Democratic side has anything like that. We have raised as much as $5 million in an individual cycle for a House seat, again there’s nobody [who has done that].”
“Grayson indicated that the only thing that might keep him from running is if Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz (D-FL), the chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee, enters the fray.”
Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) said that restaurants should be allowed to opt out of regulations requiring restaurant employees to wash their hands, the Washington Post reports.
Said Tillis: “I don’t have any problem with Starbucks if they choose to opt out of this policy as long as they post a sign that says we don’t require our employees to wash their hands after leaving the restroom. The market will take care of that. It’s one example.”
Gawker: “What if Starbucks doesn’t want to post the signs Tillis wants? There should be some kind of … rule, maybe? Guideline? Suggestion? Definitely not an evil regulation! requiring them to disclose their level of dedication to hygiene.”
Sen. Ted Cruz’s (R-TX) office admitted to the Daily Mail that the senator used marijuana as a teenager.
Said a spokesman: “Teenagers are often known for their lack of judgment, and Sen. Cruz was no exception. When he was a teenager, he foolishly experimented with marijuana. It was a mistake, and he’s never tried it since.”
Senate Democrats “blocked Republicans from taking up a bill that would fund the Department of Homeland Security but roll back the President Obama’s recent executive actions on immigration, setting up a showdown over the agency — and the administration’s immigration policies — before money for the department runs out at the end of the month,” the New York Times reports.
“Republicans now find themselves scrambling to fund the agency before it runs out of money on Feb. 27, while also placating their most conservative members, who believe the president has overstepped his constitutional authority and that the homeland security bill is their best leverage to fight back.”
Roll Call: “The Democratic filibuster prevents McConnell from moving to the bill, forcing him and his House counterparts to come up with a Plan B to fund the Department of Homeland Security after Feb. 27. The Kentucky Republican, however, has been quiet about his next moves.”
“Ash Carter will be in the witness hot seat at his confirmation hearing Wednesday, but it’s President Barack Obama who will really be on trial,” Politico reports.
“Republicans who now control the Senate Armed Services Committee plan to make Carter’s confirmation hearing to become defense secretary all about the commander in chief, using the daylong grilling as a forum to excoriate the president’s foreign policy and national security strategy.”
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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