Minnesota U.S. Senate candidate Mike McFadden (R) released a new ad with a strange ending where a player on the candidate’s youth football team actually hits him in the gut — or perhaps lower.
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Palin Talks Political Talk
Sarah Palin told the Hollywood Reporter that she might be interested in hosting a political talk show.
Said Pailin: “But the politics would have to be interspersed with a whole lot of fun and real life and inspiration showcasing American work ethic, because those topics are all pretty much the antithesis of today’s politics, which I find incorrigibly disastrous! It’d be so much fun to shake it up taking on issues that make audiences objectively consider all sides, and I’d do it with my own real-life groundedness, candor and commonsense that I’m known for. Media needs that today, versus the condescension that oozes from TV and radio… You know, someone willing to go rogue.”
Scott’s Use of Police Officers in Political Ad Violated Law
At least a half-dozen on-duty law officers in uniform took part in a re-election event for Gov. Rick Scott (R) despite Florida laws saying public employees must avoid political activity during working hours, the Tampa Tribune reports.
McDaniel Lawyer Features Cochran on his Website
Jackson Clarion Ledger: “Talk about stubbing your toe out of the gate… Attorney Mitch Tyner is representing Chris McDaniel (R) in the run-up to a likely challenge to the Republican primary runoff for U.S. Senate from Mississippi. So, it probably would have been a good idea for the former Republican gubernatorial candidate to have taken down that picture of him and Thad Cochran (R) from his website. The photo isn’t hidden away on some inside page; it’s front-and-center on the homepage.”
Most Still Identify with the Major Parties
A new Associated Press-Gfk poll finds that a majority of people in the United States identify with either the Democratic or Republican parties.
Key findings: 60% of people said they identify with one of the two major political parties. That number rose to 80%, when those who lean toward either party are included.
Bonus Quote of the Day
“It appears that the Republicans in the Senate have intentionally left on the emergency break.”
— Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), quoted by The Hill, adding that Republicans are trying to “run out the clock” before the November elections in order to make Democrats look bad.
Americans Still Blame Bush for Iraq
A new Quinnipiac poll finds that 58% of Americans believe President Obama’s decision to withdraw troops from Iraq in 2011 was the right thing to do.
In contrast, 61% said that George W. Bush’s decision to invade in 2003 was the wrong thing to do and 51% of voters blame Bush for the current problems in Iraq.
Boehner Won’t Back Down on Obama Lawsuit
House Speaker John Boehner writes for CNN that he’s not backing down from his lawsuit against President Obama.
“In the end, the Constitution makes it clear that the president’s job is to faithfully execute the laws. And, in my view, the president has not faithfully executed the laws when it comes to a range of issues, including his health care law, energy regulations, foreign policy and education.”
First Read: “Yet once again, Boehner has failed to outline a specific example of Obama breaking the law or violating the Constitution… Given the political energy this lawsuit has given the White House and even Democrats on the fundraising front, we wouldn’t be shocked if this gambit ends up dying an early political death.”
Fired Iowa GOP Staffer Changed Passwords
Des Moines Register: “Apparently one of the Republican party leaders who lost his job changed the passwords to the Iowa GOP’s Twitter account, Facebook page and website on his way out the door, leaving the new leaders a bit hamstrung.”
“The last post on the party’s Facebook page is dated June 13. The last tweet from @IowaGOP account was on June 4, but it has since been deleted, leaving older tweets in place. And www.IowaGOP.org still says the chairman replaced last weekend is in charge.”
What Does Elizabeth Warren Want?
Bloomberg: “Warren-watching is becoming a sport in the nation’s capital, where the Massachusetts senator’s fundraising abilities combined with recent campaigning for colleagues are considered signposts of growing ambition. Though she has resisted calls by some fellow Democrats to challenge Hillary Clinton — who is mulling a presidential race — in the party’s 2016 primaries, Warren’s legislative record doesn’t suggest she’s settling in the Senate for the long term.”
No Defining Issue for the Midterms
First Read: “Now less than four months until Election Day 2014, everyone is so sure about what is going to happen in November. Republicans are either going to have a good night (picking up four to six Senate seats), or a great night (picking up more than six, including in blue and purple states). And yet, given this apparent certainty in the Acela Corridor about how the elections are going to play out, here is something to ponder: We still don’t know what the fall campaign is going to be about.”
“Is it health care? (Premium increases could be news in fall; then again, health care hasn’t received much national attention in the last two or three months). Will it be about the economy? (Maybe, maybe not — see below for more on its limited midterm impact in the past.) What about immigration? (Possibly, but we haven’t seen Democratic or GOP campaigns eager to run on this subject, especially Democrats in the red states) Foreign policy? (Remember Ukraine or Bowe Bergdahl? Or the debacle that is America’s Syria policy?) Will the midterms be about President Obama and Democrats suffering from a thousand different cuts? (Perhaps.) Or will it simply be about the red-leaning map and the fact that key parts of the Democratic base just don’t turn out in midterm elections? (Could be.)”
“Bottom line: Election Day is a little more than 100 days away, and it’s hard to come up with a defining issue, even as so many folks are so sure about the outcome.”
Coakley Solidly Ahead in Massachusetts
A new Boston Globe poll in Massachusetts finds Martha Coakley (D) leading the Democratic gubernatorial primary with 52%, followed by Steve Grossman (D) at 19%.
In a general election match up, Coakley leads Charlie Baker (R) 40% to 31%.
Inside Obama’s Secret Schedule
President Obama’s private schedule is “so closely held that Obama aides, like their counterparts under George W. Bush, are expected to dispose of it at day’s end in ‘burn bags’ … The public schedule is what the White House wants people to know about the president’s day. The private schedule is what he actually does with one of his most scarce resources,” Yahoo News reports.
“Every night, around Obama’s 6:30 p.m. target time for dinner with his family, senior aides get a fairly complete schedule for the next day… Before 7 a.m… top staff get a thick collated sheaf of 8½-by-11-inch sheets of paper with a colored top sheet emblazoned with the presidential seal and the name of the staff member to whom it is destined… Throughout the day, top staff today can consult a shared electronic document, made with scheduling software, that reflects any last-minute changes.”
Lessons from Scaife vs. Clinton
John Avlon: “When Hillary Clinton spoke of ‘the vast right wing conspiracy’ targeting her family in the 1990s, in large part she was referring to the cottage industry of Clinton haters briefly bankrolled by Richard Mellon Scaife.”
“But something surprising and heartening happened in recent years that puts that hyper-partisan hunting season in perspective: Scaife and the Clintons found an unexpected mutual respect. It’s a cautionary tale about the dangers of demonizing those we disagree with in the Obama era. Because caricatures break down when you see over-heated political passions with a sense of perspective.”
Republicans Conflicted on Foreign Policy
“The crisis in Iraq and broader unrest in the Middle East have exposed a growing rift among Republicans on foreign policy, as skeptics of military intervention have more openly challenged the party’s hawkish posture in the post-Sept. 11 era,” the Los Angeles Times reports.
“Unfolding events in the region could help shape the fight for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016 just as it did for Democrats in 2008, when Barack Obama capitalized on liberals’ distaste for the war in Iraq as he wrested the nomination from front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton.”
No Big Idea Yet for Clinton
“Here’s one thing you won’t find in Hillary Clinton’s book: a clear reason to run for president again,” Politico reports.
“The Hard Choices book tour has had all the trappings of a warm-up for 2016, and even though Clinton insists she hasn’t decided yet, she keeps dropping hints that she has ideas for the future of the country… But if Clinton has a big idea for 2016, the book — all 596 pages of it — is not the place to look for it. Policy experts in the Clinton orbit say that’s not the right way to read the former first lady’s latest tome — it’s mostly a foreign policy memoir, and any hints of other themes, like the advancement of women and climate change, are there to wrap up the issues she has already worked on throughout her career.”
Who’s Bombing Iraq?
“Warplanes carried out multiple bombing raids in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul on Sunday, a day after the leader of a powerful al-Qaeda-inspired militant group appeared online in a video from the city’s main mosque,” the Washington Post reports.
“Residents of the city, reached by phone, said airstrikes shook the city at least three times Sunday, starting at dawn. It remains unclear what force carried out the airstrikes. The U.S. Defense Department said that it had no knowledge of the airstrikes and that U.S. forces were not involved. An Iraqi government official in Baghdad said he had no information about any airstrikes near Mosul.”
Libertarian Could Swing North Carolina Senate Race
Sean Haugh’s Libertarian U.S. Senate campaign “barely exists anywhere but on YouTube. But it is doing surprisingly well in a high-stakes Senate contest in which candidates and outside groups have already spent more than $15 million,” the Washington Post reports.
“Four polls lately put his support somewhere between 8 and 11 percent — not enough to suggest a realistic possibility of winning, but conceivably enough to affect the outcome of the race. The same surveys show the margin between incumbent Democrat Kay Hagan and her GOP challenger, state House Speaker Thom Tillis, at six points or less.”
