“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.”
Young Conservatives Push Targeted Tax Breaks
“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.”
Bush Leads In Swing State Primaries
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.”
The Rise of Trolling in Politics
“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.”
Christie Bombs His Foreign Policy Test
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.”
Grayson Mulls Senate Bid in Florida
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.”
Tillis Says Workers Don’t Need to Wash Their Hands
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.”
Ted Cruz Smoked Pot
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 Block Vote on Homeland Security Bill
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.”
Republicans Plan Contentious Hearing for Defense Chief
“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.”
Pennsylvania Attorney General Won’t Resign Over Charges
New York Times: “The question before Pennsylvanians is this: Is Kathleen G. Kane, the first woman to be elected as the state’s attorney general, the victim of angry men who targeted her after she exposed their pornography habits?”
“Or are Ms. Kane’s problems — she stands accused by a grand jury of a bevy of crimes — the self-imposed travails of a political comet who rose from obscurity to eminence, only to be undone by her own temperament and inexperience?”
Dead Prosecutor Planned to Arrest Argentine President
“Alberto Nisman, the prosecutor whose mysterious death has gripped Argentina, had drafted a warrant for the arrest of President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, accusing her of trying to shield Iranian officials from responsibility in the 1994 bombing of a Jewish center here, the lead investigator into his death said on Tuesday,” the New York Times reports.
“The 26-page document, which was found in the garbage at Mr. Nisman’s apartment, also requested the arrest of Héctor Timerman, Argentina’s foreign minister.”
Republicans Have a Science Problem
New York Times: “The vaccination controversy is a twist on an old problem for the Republican Party: how to approach matters that have largely been settled among scientists but are not widely accepted by conservatives.”
“It is a dance Republican candidates often do when they hedge their answers about whether evolution should be taught in schools. It is what makes the fight over global warming such a liability for their party, and what led last year to a widely criticized response to the Ebola scare.”
No Clear Path for Christie or Rubio
Nate Cohn: “We’ll probably get a sense for whether Mr. Rubio and Mr. Christie are stronger than they now appear — or whether Mr. Bush is weaker — over the next couple of weeks. We might learn that Mr. Bush is not faring quite as well in the invisible primary as it seems — that Mr. Romney’s weakness, more than Mr. Bush’s strength, was responsible for the lack of interest in Mr. Romney’s candidacy. Donors and activists might show more interest in Mr. Rubio or Mr. Christie than Mr. Romney.”
“For now, though, based in part on what happened to Mr. Romney and on my subjective read of the reporting on Mr. Bush’s early strength among the G.O.P. elite, there probably isn’t enough room for Mr. Christie or Mr. Rubio to build the candidacies they had hoped for.”
The GOP’s Obamacare Dilemma
“The Supreme Court could be months away from blowing a huge hole in Obamacare — and Republicans on Capitol Hill are at odds over how they’ll respond if their side wins,” Politico reports.
“If they simply ‘fix’ Obamacare, they‘ll anger their right wing that wants the party to focus solely on repealing the law. If they do nothing, they invite blame for making health care unaffordable for millions of Americans — including some of their own constituents.”
Wonk Wire: Obamacare will cost $600 million less than previously expected
Messina Picks the Top Tier GOP Candidates
Obama 2012 campaign manager Jim Messina says that Chris Christie, Jeb Bush and John Kasich are the presidential candidates to watch on the Republican side, The Hill reports.
Said Messina: “I think Chris Christie could potentially be a very strong general election candidate, obviously Jeb Bush is the flavor of the week. I think the country suffered during the first two Bush administrations, I can’t imagine them wanting a third, but I know everyone’s looking at him. I think John Kasich, the governor of Ohio, would be an interesting candidate. So those are the three that I think make sense.”
Big Money Donors Didn’t Like Paul’s Jeans
“Some of the most influential players in big-money conservative politics gathered late last month to discuss government’s role in society, but their focus kept shifting to a less weighty topic: Rand Paul’s outfit,” Politico reports.
Paul “appeared at the annual winter meeting of the Koch donor network wearing a boxy blue blazer, faded jeans and cowboy boots.”
Said one attendee: “This is an older crowd and much more establishment crowd. They are used to a Romney. They are used to a Jeb Bush. Jeans might work for a younger audience, but these are old bulls who put on a tie every day to go to the office.”
Florida Lawmaker Says Texas Is Crazy
Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-FL) “did the one thing folks from the Lone Star State do not abide. He messed with Texas,” Roll Call reports.
“During a House Rules Committee hearing Monday on a bill to repeal the Affordable Care Act, the Florida Democrat grew heated in an argument with Rep. Michael Burgess (R-TX) over states that did not create their own insurance exchanges, which is the subject of a pending Supreme Court case.”
Said Hasting: “Had governors worked with the administration, we might not be in this position. I don’t know about in your state, which I think is a crazy state to begin with – and I mean that just as I said it.”
