“The death of James Brady — President Ronald Reagan’s press secretary who was wounded in the attempt on Reagan’s life in March 1981 — was a homicide, a medical examiner ruled Friday,” NBC Washington reports.
“Brady died as a result of the grievous injuries he suffered 33 years ago, the Office of the Medical Examiner for the Northern District of Virginia said. That means gunman John Hinckley Jr. could be charged with Brady’s murder.”
New York Times: “With American diplomats and business people in Erbil suddenly at risk, at the American Consulate and elsewhere, Mr. Obama began a series of intensive deliberations that resulted, only a day later, in his authorizing airstrikes on the militants, as well as humanitarian airdrops of food and water to the besieged Iraqis.”
“Looming over that discussion, and the decision to return the United States to a war Mr. Obama had built his political career disparaging, was the specter of an earlier tragedy: the September 2012 attack on the diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, which killed four Americans, including Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens, and has become a potent symbol of weakness for critics of the president.”
Harry Enten: “I don’t know who is going to win Saturday’s special Democratic Senate primary between Sen. Brian Schatz and Rep. Colleen Hanabusa — and it’s not just because there’s a lot going on in Hawaii right now (an earthquake rattled Hawaii on Thursday, and two tropical storms are on course to hit or come near Hawaii in the next five days). Instead, the polling picture in the Aloha State is a mess.”
A New York Times reporter met Shahbaz, a scammer who used fake bank alerts to make victims panic. When confronted, he just laughed—no guilt, no remorse.
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Washington Post: “The crisis has empowered conservatives, whose more restrictionist views on the crisis and the broader issue of dealing with the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the country have taken precedence in the party. House Republicans are pushing for more deportations, and several of the party’s prospective 2016 White House contenders are moving to align themselves with the GOP’s pro-enforcement wing.”
“But the strategy runs counter to the party’s announcement — after losing the presidential race two years ago — that its future depends largely on broadening its appeal to minority groups and that its viability as a national force in 2016 and beyond depends on making inroads with Latinos, one of the fastest-growing voting blocs.”
Greg Sargent: “This strengthening has also been fed by the apparent belief of GOP leaders that keeping the base in a lather is strategically crucial for the coming midterm elections. That may prove right. But it’s also locking Republicans into a far-right position heading into the next national election.”
Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad (R) “has spent the past year leading an effort to seize control of his state party, hoping to send a message that the kickoff presidential caucuses will be welcoming to all 2016 GOP hopefuls,” the AP reports.
“But as conservative prospects flood the state for a major annual gathering of evangelical Christians this weekend, it’s not clear whether the party makeover will make Iowa more attractive to a mainstream GOP contender. Evangelicals, tea partiers and libertarians remain strong in Iowa, which has been difficult terrain for more moderate Republicans in recent presidential cycles.”
“A file titled ‘War Room’ that spells out Gov. Scott Walker’s priorities while he was Milwaukee County executive, including groups he wanted to track, was part of thousands of documents released Friday that were originally collected as part of a now-closed investigation into Walker’s aides,” the AP reports.
“I don’t think Bill and Hillary Clinton could possibly be that politically naïve. New York is a solidly blue state that never votes Republican. Pennsylvania is a swing state whose margins are closer and closer. Where would you go?”
— Former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell (D), quoted by the New York Times, on reports the Clintons want the Democratic convention in Brooklyn rather than Philadelphia.
“New Jersey Governor Chris Christie’s chances to be the 2012 Republican vice-presidential nominee were hampered by a U.S. regulation that could have an even bigger impact on the next race for the White House,” Bloomberg reports.
“The three-year-old rule from the Securities and Exchange Commission effectively bars governors and other state officials from raising money from Wall Street for state or federal elections. Having Christie on the ticket would have complicated Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign, which took in more money from securities and investment firms than any other industry.”
“Now, with governors including Christie, Scott Walker of Wisconsin and Bobby Jindal of Louisiana contemplating a White House run in 2016, two state Republican committees have filed a lawsuit to overturn the regulation.”
NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll: “By 63% to 35%, Republicans believe that the United States is a country where anyone can succeed, regardless of background. Democrats, by a 69% to 29% margin, disagree saying the widening income gap undermines that idea. Independents side with Democrats, 62% to 34%.”
First Read: “The man who won the presidency in 2008 because he opposed the Iraq war and then ended it now finds himself facing this dilemma: Once you’re back in, how do you get out? That very dilemma, according our reporting, was precisely why President Obama until yesterday hadn’t committed U.S. force against the militant Sunni group ISIS, even as many in the intel community and on his own national security staff were urging him to act sooner. The fear: You get in even incrementally, and it’s hard to get out. Because how do you STOP helping if the initial help doesn’t work? But Obama’s main calculus changed yesterday when he announced the authorization of force — because ISIS is on the march against the Kurds in Erbil. And if you lose the Kurds, you lose Iraq.”
The New York Times reports the United States began airstrikes in Iraq.
A new CNN poll finds that 51% of Americans believe the Watergate scandal that led to President Richard Nixon’s resignation was a serious matter, while 46% think it’s the typical politics in which both political parties engage.
Clearly more people need to read Washington Journal by Elizabeth Drew, a fantastic book.
Amy Walter: “While economists use data points to make assessments of the economy’s health (unemployment rate, GDP growth, etc.), voters are more likely to use their perceptions of the president to determine if things are getting better or not. Those perceptions are driven as much by partisanship as anything else. The more Washington engages in partisan fire-fights on issues ranging from Obamacare to immigration, the more hardened those partisan perceptions become, which is why even an improving economy isn’t lifting Obama’s approval ratings.”
“The Indian Trail councilman who wrote his resignation letter in Klingon wants to beam up to Capitol Hill. David Waddell is running as a write-in candidate for U.S. Senate,” the Charlotte Observer reports.
Said Waddell: “Having campaign signs in Klingon is probably a bad idea. But maybe I’ll make up one or two and put one in the mayor’s yard.”
James Carville: “Democrats, myself included, tend to respect and value expertise, and find that people who have established a record of accuracy and developed a model that’s proven to be beneficial over time should be people accorded great deference when they opine on a topic that they have demonstrated past mastery over.”
“You don’t hear complaints about skewered polls, global cooling, tax cuts paying for themselves, people riding dinosaurs and other silly crap like that from Democrats. So that is why it’s disturbing news that David Wasserman, from The Cook Political Report, who is a smart person’s idea of what a smart person sounds like, recently changed his House rating’s model toward favoring Republicans. 538.com’s Nate Silver’s recent commentary that Republicans have a 60 percent chance of a Senate takeover is similarly disconcerting. The reasons are plentiful and valid; the obvious ones are that we’re in the sixth year of the presidential term, there’s a tepid presidential approval rating, we’re seeing high wrong-track numbers, and we’re facing an unfavorable map. In the past these numbers have proven to have a great deal of validity.”
Yahoo News reports that while Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) “presents himself as a defender of Kentucky coal mining, a member of his own family who serves as a key campaign surrogate is taking a role in funding one of the most aggressive anti-coal campaigns in the country.”
“McConnell’s wife, former Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao, sits on the board of directors of Bloomberg Philanthropies, which has plunged $50 million into the Sierra Club’s ‘Beyond Coal’ initiative, an advocacy effort with the expressed goal of killing the coal industry.”
Stu Rothenberg highlights President Obama’s approval rate in the latest WSJ/NBC News poll is 40%, with 54% disapproving of his performance.
“Since Bush’s late July 2006 job ratings stood at 39% approve/56% disapprove, the new Obama numbers bear an even more uncomfortably close resemblance to Bush’s.”
The latest Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll “shows an angry electorate that blames Washington for much of its pain. And with their blood boiling and Election Day only three months away, voters look ready to do… maybe not too much.”
“For all the displeasure with the country’s general direction – more than 70% say the country is on the wrong track, only 40% approve of the job President Barack Obama is doing and only 14% approve of Congress – there is less interest in this November’s voting than there was at this time in 2010. And that’s true across Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives and all age groups.”
Brendan Nyhan wonders why President Obama would risk taking executive action on immigration before the midterm elections.
“Of course, Mr. Obama faces short-term pressures to address the surge in migrant children being detained at the border, but news media reports suggest that the policy changes under consideration would be far broader, potentially providing legal status to many of the nation’s undocumented immigrants. Such a broad executive action could provoke a backlash in the midterm elections that might be avoided with a move just a few months later.”
“It’s easy to overstate the effects of policy on electoral outcomes, but there is a recent worst-case example: the passage of the Affordable Care Act. Research that I conducted with a group of political scientists found that the Republican landslide in 2010 was strengthened by health care reform.”
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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— Arianna Huffington, founder of The Huffington Post
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— Glenn Reynolds, founder of Instapundit
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