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Josh Romney, son of 2012 GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney, told the Deseret News that he won’t challenge Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) in next year’s U.S. Senate race but said he’d like to see another Republican run against the first-term senator.
He also confirmed he’s interested in running for office someday.
Said Romney: “Politics is in my blood, unfortunately. It’s something I’ve seen and I’ve loved. I’m not sure what I’d do, or what capacity I’d run in, but I’m definitely looking to it.”
Bertrand Olotara: “Every day, I serve food to some of the most powerful people on earth – including many of the senators who are running for president: I’m a cook for the federal contractor that runs the US Senate cafeteria. But today, they’ll have to get their meals from someone else’s hands, because I’m on strike. I am walking off my job because I want the presidential hopefuls to know that I live in poverty. Many senators canvas the country giving speeches about creating ‘opportunity’ for workers and helping our kids achieve the ‘American dream’ – most don’t seem to notice or care that workers in their own building are struggling to survive.”
“I’m a single father and I only make $12 an hour; I had to take a second job at a grocery store to make ends meet. But even though I work seven days a week – putting in 70 hours between my two jobs – I can’t manage to pay the rent, buy school supplies for my kids or even put food on the table. I hate to admit it, but I have to use food stamps so that my kids don’t go to bed hungry.”
Former Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) said President Obama is bringing the world to “end times,” TPM reports.
Said Bachmann: “We need to cry out to a Holy God. This is coming faster than anyone can see. Barack Obama is intent, it is his number one goal, to ensure that Iran has a nuclear weapon. Why? Why would you put the nuclear weapon in the hands of madmen who are Islamic radicals?”
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“Arizona’s nearly 1.2 million political independents will be able to continue to influence who Republicans nominate for office, at least for the foreseeable future,” the Verde Independent reports.
“The executive committee of the Arizona Republican Party on Saturday rejected a proposal to try to close future primaries and limit participation to the 1.1 million who are officially members of the Grand Old Party. Party spokesman Tim Sifert said committee members concluded it made no sense to try to challenge a 1998 voter-approved measure which paved the way for independents to vote.”
Charles C.W. Cooke: “There is no doubt that the manner in which Obama has behaved as president has contributed significantly to our present anxieties. Indeed, one can only imagine that students of political language will one day be fascinated by the gaping hole that has opened up between his campaign rhetoric and his governing prose.”
“And yet, for all of the incumbent’s failures, it seems clear that America’s present funk did not begin in earnest on January 20, 2009. Rather, it can be dated back to the attacks of September 11, and to their various consequences. In a similar vein, it should by now be obvious to conservatives that the last American Golden Age obtained not during George W. Bush’s rather disappointing tenure, but in the mid- to late- 1990s, when the Republican party ran both houses of Congress and Democrat Bill Clinton ran the executive branch. If they are to run a successful campaign — and, crucially, if they are to capitalize upon the electorate’s present dissatisfactions — Republicans will need to acknowledge that they are not only running against the Obama administration, but against a broader national melancholia to which they themselves have contributed.”
Wonk Wire: “Will you take away my health insurance?”
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s (R) “newfound skepticism of legal immigration levels is a potential turning point in the still nascent presidential race, potentially dragging the Republican Party further to the right than Mitt Romney’s hardline immigration platform in 2012,” MSNBC reports.
Said Walker: “In terms of legal immigration, how we need to approach that going forward is saying – the next president and the next Congress need to make decisions about a legal immigration system that’s based on, first and foremost, on protecting American workers and American wages. It is a fundamentally lost issue by many in elected positions today – what is this doing for American workers looking for jobs, what is this doing to wages, and we need to have that be at the forefront of our discussion going forward.”
President Obama spends Earth Day in the Florida Everglades, “promoting his climate change policies. After touring Everglades National Park in the afternoon, Obama will speak ‘on the threat that climate change poses to our economy and to the world,’ says the White House schedule. The president will stress his efforts to reduce carbon emissions, while criticizing congressional Republicans for opposing his environmental policies,” USA Today reports.
Wonk Wire: It’s Earth Day: EPA cites victories over pollutants
“One of the candidates running for the late Rep. Alan Nunnelee’s Mississippi seat got some help from beyond the grave last month,” Roll Call reports.
Trent Kelly “received a $4,000 donation from Nunnelee for Congress. Consultants for the late congressman — including one now working for Kelly — told CQ Roll Call the March 27 donation was made at the behest of Nunnelee’s widow, Tori.”
Former White House press secretary Dana Perino excoriated Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) in an interview on her time in the George W. Bush White House, The Hill reports.
Said Perino: “He’s an absolutely poisonous figure in Washington D.C., he’s been a disaster for the country.”
“The criticism came after Hewitt asked Perino to respond to Reid’s condemnation of her former boss.”
Jon Stewart looks at how the 2016 GOP presidential candidates answer the question.
“There’s a rhythm. She’s starting off like Beethoven, with melodies and chords that people understand. But she’s got to end up like Beyoncé.”
— Democratic strategist Donna Brazile, quoted by BuzzFeed, on Hillary Clinton’s campaign launch.
Doug Sosnik: “After picking up nine seats in the 2014 elections, Republicans maintain a decisive 54-seat majority in the Senate. In 2016, they will face a much more difficult map that coincides with a presidential election year. Nineteen months before the 2016 elections, the contours of the race for the presidency are only now starting to take shape. But one thing that is clear at this point is that the outcome of the presidential race will likely determine control of the Senate.”
Key factor: “The 2016 presidential and Senate target states are almost perfectly aligned.”
Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) “is building the case that this Senate is much more productive than the last one,” The Hill reports.
“The Kentucky Republican, who ascended to majority leader after repeatedly ripping the Democratic-led Senate as ‘dysfunctional,’ has to show that the GOP can govern. If he falls short of that goal, Democrats will likely win back Senate control in 2016.”
A new CNN/ORC poll finds President Obama’s approval ratings have reached their highest mark in almost two years.
Key findings: “48% of Americans approve of how Obama is running the country, compared to 47% who disapprove. That’s the highest mark since May 2013, the last time a plurality of Americans backed the president in the poll. A slight majority, 52%, believes the economy is either ‘very good’ or ‘somewhat good.'”
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) “introduced a bill Tuesday night to extend through 2020 a controversial surveillance authority under the Patriot Act,” the Washington Post reports.
The move comes as a bipartisan group of lawmakers in both chambers is preparing legislation to scale back the government’s spying powers under Section 215 of the Patriot Act. It puts McConnell and Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr (R-N.C.), the bill’s co-sponsor, squarely on the side of advocates of the National Security Agency’s continued ability to collect millions of Americans’ phone records each day in the hunt for clues of terrorist activity.”
A new Mason-Dixon poll in Florida finds Rep. Patrick Murphy (D) leads Rep. Alan Grayson (D) in the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate, 23% to 14%, though 63% are still undecided.
In the GOP race, Bill McCollum (R) leads with 20%, followed by Rep. David Jolly (R) at 8%, Vern Buchanan (R) at 7% and Tom Rooney (R) at 5% and 48% undecided.
Hillary Clinton and other top Democrats “began feuding over President Obama’s trade initiative Tuesday as his bid for a major late-term win began tearing at the party’s unity and threatened to expose old divisions ahead of the 2016 presidential election,” the Washington Post reports.
“The tensions broke into public view after Clinton hedged during her first remarks on whether she would support an Obama-backed trade package that is gaining traction in Congress but is opposed by some on the party’s politically potent liberal wing.”
Meanwhile, The Hill reports Obama “challenged the claims of skeptical Democrats that new trade deals would hurt American workers by incentivizing companies to ship jobs overseers.”
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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