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No Clinton or Bush in 2016?

November 29, 2014 at 9:53 pm EST By Taegan Goddard 63 Comments

Steve Rose: “Charlie Cook, one of the most respected political experts in the country, believes Hillary Clinton has only a 25-30 percent chance of running for president, and in any case he thinks she is either ‘rusty’ or ‘she has lost her fastball.’ He bases that on her disastrous book tour, in which she said some very inappropriate things and also did not sell many books.”

“The author of the nonpartisan Cook Political Report newsletter for almost 30 years also disappointed a local audience when he did not give Jeb Bush much of a chance of gaining the Republican nomination… He expects the next Republican nominee to be either a tea party Senator or a governor from the Midwest. He wouldn’t predict beyond that.”

[speech_bubble type=”std” subtype=”a” icon=”pwdome.jpg” name=””]If you look at Hillary Clinton’s favorable ratings, it’s not unreasonable to think she might be hesitant. [/speech_bubble]

GOP Lawsuit Says Obamacare Never Properly Funded

November 29, 2014 at 8:54 pm EST By Taegan Goddard 12 Comments

“In mounting the latest court challenge to the Affordable Care Act, House Republicans are focusing on a little-noticed provision of the law that offers financial assistance to low- and moderate-income people,” the New York Times reports.

“Under this part of the law, insurance companies must reduce co-payments, deductibles and other out-of-pocket costs for some people in health plans purchased through the new public insurance exchanges… House Republicans say the Obama administration needed, but never received, an appropriation to make these payments to insurance companies.”

Christie Vetoes Pig Crate Ban

November 29, 2014 at 11:31 am EST By Taegan Goddard 73 Comments

“Decrying what he called ‘partisan politicians’ seeking ‘a political cudgel’ with which to beat him, Gov. Chris Christie vetoed legislation banning the use of pig gestation crates in New Jersey,” the Newark Star Ledger reports.

“The bill, which Christie called ‘a solution in search of a problem,’ gained national notoriety not so much for the effect it would have on New Jersey’s actual swine – there are only 9,000 in the state, according to USDA statistics – but on Christie’s political fortunes: Iowa is not only home to the first-in-the-nation political caucuses for the 2016 presidential election, but to 20 million pigs. Nearly one-third of the nation’s hogs are raised in Iowa, where hog farming alone represents $7.5 billion in total economic activity for the state, according to the Iowa Pork Producers Association.”

Early Voting Shows Bad News for Mary Landrieu

November 29, 2014 at 10:42 am EST By Taegan Goddard 13 Comments

Bloomberg: “Landrieu is struggling through the final days of the runoff election, set for Dec. 6. Early balloting trends suggest a spike in interest among white voters and Republicans, while blacks—who nearly universally support the incumbent—are proportionally making up a smaller part of the vote. The first four days of voting in Louisiana show that whites made up about 72 percent of the early electorate. That’s above the 65 percent of whites who voted early before the Nov. 4 election.”

Study Shows Gerrymandering Distorts Election Results

November 29, 2014 at 10:33 am EST By Taegan Goddard 47 Comments

In a new study, Duke University researchers Jonathan Mattingly and Christy Vaughn created a random series of North Carolina congressional district maps using the same vote totals from 2012, but with different borders, North Carolina Public Radio reports.

After re-running the election 100 times with a randomly drawn maps, the simulated election results found Democrats winning an average of 7.6 House seats out of 13. In fact, 95% of the random redistricting simulations found Democrats winning between 6 and 9 House seats. These finds are in stark contrast with the 4 Democrats actually elected in the 2012 elections with the same vote counts.

[speech_bubble type=”std” subtype=”a” icon=”pwdome.jpg” name=””]A fascinating study that shows how gerrymandering subverts the “will of the people.” [/speech_bubble]

Warner Appointed to Senate Democratic Leadership

November 29, 2014 at 10:25 am EST By Taegan Goddard 18 Comments

Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) is joining the Senate Democratic leadership team, even though he voted against keeping Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) as Democratic leader, Roll Call reports.

Warner is seen as a counter-balance to liberal Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), who joined the leadership team after the midterm elections.

[speech_bubble type=”std” subtype=”a” icon=”pwdome.jpg” name=””]That this was announced on the Friday after Thanksgiving suggests no one was too interested in drawing much attention to the move. [/speech_bubble]

Straight-Ticket Voting Rises

November 29, 2014 at 10:20 am EST By Taegan Goddard 6 Comments

Bloomberg: “The 2014 election accelerated a trend of straight-ticket voting, the phenomenon of people voting for the same party for Congress as they did for president. With the ideological distance between Democrats and Republicans growing bigger than ever, the result is a Congress sharply divided along party lines, with a shrinking bloc of centrists more open to compromise.”

Rick Perry Gears Up for 2016

November 29, 2014 at 9:50 am EST By Taegan Goddard 12 Comments

Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) “is inviting hundreds of prominent Republican donors and policy experts to a series of gatherings next month that are intended to rebuild his damaged national brand and lay the foundation for a potential 2016 presidential campaign,” Politico reports.

“The small-group sessions kick off Tuesday and Wednesday in Austin with a pair of lunches and dinners held in the governor’s mansion wedged between policy briefings at the nearby office of Perry senior adviser Jeff Miller. In all, Perry’s team expects he will meet in person with more than 500 major donors and bundlers from around the country in December as well as a slew of operatives, Republican National Committee members and policy experts.”

Is Portman Running for Vice President?

November 28, 2014 at 8:43 pm EST By Taegan Goddard 38 Comments

Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH) is “making all the right moves for a dark-horse presidential run. And even some of his top supporters say he could be a front-runner for the veep spot,” Politico reports.

“The low-key Ohio Republican is fresh off playing a pivotal role in the GOP’s Senate takeover; he’s traveled to early states Iowa and New Hampshire; and party insiders and fundraisers can’t speak highly enough of him. His résumé goes on and on: former House member, George W. Bush’s U.S. trade representative, director of the Office of Management and Budget and now a swing-state Republican senator.”

Emanuel Cashes In Due to Quirky Campaign Rule

November 28, 2014 at 9:36 am EST By Taegan Goddard 8 Comments

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel (D) “has received $400,000 in political donations that he was able to keep only because the state’s campaign contribution limits were eliminated through the actions of an obscure candidate who threatened to run, but didn’t,” the Chicago Tribune reports.

“The contribution limits were lifted for everyone in the Chicago mayoral race last month after frequent local candidate William J. Kelly filed paperwork in October showing he gave his own campaign $100,000. Under state law, once a candidate in a local race contributes $100,000 to his or her own campaign within one year of an election, the state contribution caps no longer apply. But Kelly didn’t file the necessary petition signatures by Monday’s deadline to appear on the ballot. Nonetheless, the lifting of the campaign limits remains in place.”

A New Wave of Anti-Abortion Laws is Coming

November 28, 2014 at 9:22 am EST By Taegan Goddard 71 Comments

“The big Republican gains in the November elections strengthened and enlarged the anti-abortion forces in the House and the Senate. But it’s the GOP victories in the statehouses and governor’s mansions that are priming the ground for another round of legal restrictions on abortion,” Politico reports.

“Thirteen states have passed bans on most abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy — so-called fetal pain bills — and a couple have enacted earlier limits tied to when a fetal heartbeat is first detected, which can be six or seven weeks into a pregnancy. Several of these state laws are being contested in court, and the arguments may eventually end up in the Supreme Court. But that hasn’t deterred more states from eyeing such legislation; in Ohio, a House panel approved a fetal heartbeat bill just a few days ago.”

“Anti-abortion legislation is especially likely to come up in two of the four legislatures that meet every other year: Texas, which passed sweeping clinic regulations in 2013, and North Dakota, which recently saw its medication abortion restrictions upheld by the state Supreme Court… Activists say they’ll push on several fronts, seeking more restrictions in states that have already enacted laws, as well as initiating legislation in states where the GOP has now gained ground.”

French President’s Ex Gets Even

November 28, 2014 at 8:35 am EST By Taegan Goddard 6 Comments

If Frech President François Hollande hoped Valérie Trierweiler “would keep her counsel—and spare his blushes—after the end of their relationship, he was very wrong,” the Daily Beast reports.

“Revenge for Trierweiler, who is 49, has come in the form of a tell-all memoir, Thank You for This Moment, a scorching attack on her former lover that fast became a bestseller in France (the book has reportedly netted her between 1.3 and 1.7 million euros) and is now available in English. We picked through the book, extracting all the juicy and interesting stuff—and passing by the less interesting French political intrigue—for your enjoyment.”

Why Republicans are Stuck on Immigration

November 28, 2014 at 8:29 am EST By Taegan Goddard 39 Comments

Danny Vinik: “Their political dilemma here is pretty obvioius. They can’t endorse a path to citizenship, or even just legal status for undocumented persons, because the conservative base wouldn’t tolerate it. Ideas that attempt to find some middle ground, like Carson’s proposal, don’t fully address the problem. What the base really wants is to deport almost everyone living in the U.S. illegally—something that’s not possible, as a practical matter, and would be political suicide if somehow it did work. Even those Hispanics sympathetic to the Republican Party now would abandon it.”

“Simply put, the GOP cannot pass anything on immigration without incurring significant political repercussions.”

Obama Approval Drops Among Working Class Whites

November 28, 2014 at 8:19 am EST By Taegan Goddard 71 Comments

President Obama’s “job approval rating among white non-college graduates is at 27% so far in 2014, 14 percentage points lower than among white college graduates. This is the largest yearly gap between these two groups since Obama took office,” a new Gallup poll finds.

“These data underscore the magnitude of the Democratic Party’s problem with working-class whites, among whom Obama lost in the 2012 presidential election, and among whom Democratic House candidates lost in the 2014 U.S. House voting by 30 points.”

Rifts Develop in Democratic Party

November 28, 2014 at 7:59 am EST By Taegan Goddard 21 Comments

“Long-muted tensions within the Democratic Party over policy and strategy are beginning to surface publicly, a sign of leaders looking beyond President Obama’s tenure in the aftermath of the party’s midterm election defeat,” the Wall Street Journal reports.

“A prominent example came this week, when Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) gave a rare public rebuke to Mr. Obama over the centerpiece of his presidency: the health-care overhaul of 2010… On the same day, the White House surprised Democratic leaders in the Senate by threatening to veto a tax package negotiated by both parties.”

“The twin developments were among fissures within the party that, at their broadest level, show Democrats at odds over what economic message to present to voters ahead of the 2016 presidential race. Worried that they lacked a compelling position in the midterms, Democrats are split over whether to advance a centrist message or a more populist economic argument that casts everyday families as victims of overly powerful corporations and benighted government policies.”

A Non-Campaign Campaign

November 28, 2014 at 7:30 am EST By Taegan Goddard 14 Comments

“It might have been the neatest political trick of this election season — Gov. Jerry Brown’s ‘non-campaign’ for a historic fourth term that wasn’t really a non-campaign at all, yet managed to hide all the trappings of a traditional political run,” the San Francisco Chronicle reports.

“From Brown’s TV spots for a pair of Mom-and-apple-pie ballot measures to his lone, low-key debate with Republican opponent Neel Kashkari, the plan by a team of veteran San Francisco strategists was to push the governor as ‘the reasonable father figure’ rising above the divisive politics that engulfed the rest of the nation.”

Happy Thanksgiving!

November 27, 2014 at 9:55 am EST By Taegan Goddard 19 Comments

I’ll refrain from linking to the numerous pieces today that give advice on how to win a Thanksgiving dinner political argument with those family members you can’t believe share your same heritage.

Instead, my advice is this: don’t fight. Enjoy America’s best holiday!

[speech_bubble type=”std” subtype=”a” icon=”pwdome.jpg” name=””]And don’t forget the pie! [/speech_bubble]

An Inside Look at Hillary Clinton’s Speaking Career

November 27, 2014 at 9:45 am EST By Taegan Goddard 20 Comments

Using public documents, the Washington Post got “a rare glimpse into the complex and meticulous backstage efforts” to manage Hillary Clinton’s lucrative speaking career.

The special discounted “university rate” for a talk at the University of California at Los Angeles: $300,000.

“It is commonplace for celebrity speakers to request special accommodations — and Clinton was no exception. Her representatives asked for a case of still water, room temperature, to be deposited stage right. They also asked that ‘a carafe of warm/hot water, coffee cup and saucer, pitcher of room temperature water, water glass, and lemon wedges’ be situated both on a table on stage as well as in another room where Clinton would stand for photos with VIPs.”