“The National Republican Congressional Committee wants to make sure there are no Todd Akin-style gaffes next year, so it’s meeting with top aides of sitting Republicans to teach them what to say — or not to say — on the trail, especially when their boss is running against a woman,” Politico reports.
“Speaker John Boehner is serious, too. His own top aides met recently with Republican staff to discuss how lawmakers should talk to female constituents.”
“The contours of a mini-deal to avert another government shutdown emerged Wednesday, a rare glimmer of bipartisanship in a Congress noted for division and dysfunction,” the Los Angeles Times reports.
“The pending two-year deal levies no new taxes and fends off some Pentagon budget cuts — which Republicans demanded — but preserves spending for social programs favored by Democrats, like Head Start for preschoolers, according to those familiar with the private talks who requested anonymity to speak candidly.”
“If approved, the pact would eliminate the need for about half of the $91 billion in so-called sequester cuts, which are set to take effect Jan. 15, arbitrarily slashing budgets for defense and social programs. Lawmakers on both sides are eager to avoid such cuts, which economists warn could harm the economy.”
Roll Call
warns: “Budget negotiators are nearing a deal that could ease the way
for leaders to avert another government shutdown before the 2014
elections, but only if rank and file — particularly in the House — buy
into the agreement.”
Steve Kornacki has a fascinating look back at the 1992 Democratic presidential primary in New York, which was a dramatic and chaotic do-or-die test for Bill Clinton after he lost the Connecticut primary unexpectedly to Jerry Brown.
“When the Connecticut result came in, the basic nature of the Democratic
race changed on the spot, transforming the next major contest on the
calendar into a make-or-break test for Bill Clinton. If he could win it,
his inevitability would be restored. But lose again, to Jerry Brown,
and all hell would break loose.”
“And here was the worst part for Clinton. Of all the venues for that that next major test, that do-or-die battle, it would be playing out in a state where they practiced a notoriously cutthroat brand of politics; a state where his southern accent marked him as a suspicious outsider, a used car salesman; where the media delighted in chewing up supposed front-runners; where an unusually powerful tabloid press would giddily plaster his personal baggage on its covers; where one major liberal columnist was already calling him “Slick Willie” while another simply branded him “a fraud”; where one of the biggest-name Democratic politicians was openly arguing that his “character problems” made him “unacceptable to the vast majority of Democrats”; a state whose Democratic governor had nearly launched a presidential campaign of his own, and who was now being touted as the white knight who could rescue the party if Clinton stumbled just once more – a governor, by the way, whom Clinton had personally insulted in secretly recorded conversations that had come to light months earlier.”
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The Fix: “So why is Obama’s approval on the issues lower than his overall approval rating? We’ve got two theories.”
“One is that, despite his fall from grace, the president retains some of the likability that once kept his favorable rating — a personal feeling towards the president — above his approval rating — an evaluation of his job performance.”
“Another is that Obama’s leadership ability has taken a hit. Polls have shown a significant decrease in the number of Americans who view Obama as a strong leader — a decrease that suggests even some supporters don’t have faith that Obama can execute on issues like immigration.”
“More than two dozen of the nation’s biggest corporations, including the five major oil companies, are planning their future growth on the expectation that the government will force them to pay a price for carbon pollution as a way to control global warming,” the New York Times reports.
” The development is a striking departure from conservative orthodoxy and a reflection of growing divisions between the Republican Party and its business supporters.”
Toronto Mayor Rob Ford’s “habit of doing drugs with gang members led to him being targeted in an apparent extortion plot related to the crack cocaine video and possibly a series of photographs of him in compromising situations, newly released police documents say,” according to the Toronto Star.
“At one point earlier this year, Ford offered $5,000 and a car to a gang member in exchange for the embarrassing video, an offer that was rejected. The same gang member planned to ask for $150,000 from Ford in return for the video of him smoking crack cocaine and making homophobic and racially charged remarks.”
“Whether Ford paid and obtained the original video is not known. A copy was recently recovered by police on a laptop hardrive.”
The New York Times picks the 10 best books of the year which includes one political book: Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House by Peter Baker.
FBI officials executed a search warrant at former state Sen. Kent Sorenson’s (R) home two weeks ago and confiscated computers and other materials connected to presidential campaign politics, the Des Moines Register reports.
“Earlier this year, a report from a state special investigator suggested that two presidential campaigns – those of Michele Bachmann and Ron Paul – may have violated federal election laws by skirting rules to funnel money to Sorenson for campaign work.”
John Sides: “Prognostications about the upcoming midterm election are coming fast and furious. The bullishness about the Democrats’ prospects, so frequently expressed (and exaggerated) during the government shutdown, is gone. Current forecasts typically range from ‘a midterm headache for Democrats’ to ‘a midterm nightmare’ for Democrats and possibly even another Republican wave. But at this moment, what’s most likely is something less dramatic, at least as far as the House of Representatives is concerned. An early version of this blog’s forecasting model suggests that there will be only a small shift in House seats in 2014 — one more likely to advantage Republicans than Democrats, but one that will fall far short of a wave.”
For another perspective on 2014, listen to our recent conversation with Larry Sabato:
Subscribe via iTunes or RSS to get episodes automatically downloaded.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) said that she will not make a presidential bid in 2016, the Boston Herald reports.
Said Warren: “I’m not running for president and I plan to serve out my term,”
Sean Trende: “Probably the most jarring election story of 2013 was the successful recall of two Democratic state senators in Colorado. Both represented districts that had voted for President Obama by wide margins: In the recall, Angela Morse ran 15 points behind the president, while John Morse (pictured) ran 12 points behind him.”
“These were extreme cases: low-turnout recall elections where the pro-recall forces were unusually energized by the gun issue. But they highlight what is probably the most troubling indicator for Democrats right now as we inch toward the midterm-election season: The drop-off in Democratic performance in elections this year — Democrats have been running three to five points behind Obama’s 2012 showing with surprising consistency.”
“I don’t think it’s inevitable but I think if you have to hit Iran, you don’t put boots on the ground, you do it with tactical nuclear devices and you set them back a decade or two or three.”
— Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA), quoted by Think Progress.
David Catanese writes that no matter what he claims publicly, Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) “is certainly running for the White House again. He’s far from an announced candidate yet, of course. That’s a decision that won’t become official before 2015.”
“Yet everything about him–his busy travel schedule, his repackaged and refocused stump speech, his new hip eyewear, even the size of his entourage–have the markings of a candidate in waiting, of a contender eager for redemption.”
Hollywood Reporter: “At the end of the conversation — which touched on a myriad of topics, from piracy to Iran — Obama revealed what’s at the top of his bucket list post-White House: ‘At least I know what I want to do when I retire… host ESPN SportsCenter’s Top 10 list,’ Obama quipped as he turned to Disney’s Robert Iger, whose empire includes ESPN.”
Jonathan Chait: “This last weekend, I finally saw 12 Years a Slave. It was the most powerful movie I’ve ever seen in my life, an event so gripping and terrifying that, when I went to bed ten hours later — it was a morning matinee — I lay awake for five hours turning it over in my mind before I could fall asleep. I understand it not merely as the greatest film about slavery ever made, as it has been widely hailed, but a film more broadly about race. Its sublimated themes, as I understand them, identify the core social and political fissures that define the American racial divide to this day. To identify 12 Years a Slave as merely a story about slavery is to miss what makes race the furious and often pathological subtext of American politics in the Obama era.”
House of Cards series will return for its second season on Feb. 14, Mashable reports.
If you missed them, all 13 previous episodes are available instantly for binge-watching.
You can also watch the original U.K. version which is significantly better.
A new Harvard Institute of Politics survey of voters aged 18 to 29 years old finds 52% would vote to recall President Obama.
Wonk Wire: Young Americans least familiar with Obamacare.
Sources close to former Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA) tell the Washington Examiner that the odds of him running for U.S. Senate in neighboring Massachusetts “have risen to 50-50.”
Said one: “He’s certainly leaving the option open, whereas he’s closed the door on other races. The only door he’s leaving open is New Hampshire Senate.”
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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