“Remember all politics is local. Talk about local issues, talk about your identification with the district, don’t get tied to the Obama administration.”
— Former Rep. Martin Frost (D-TX), quoted by ABC News, giving advice to Democrats running in 2014.
Hillary Clinton “is rushing to finish a memoir of her time as secretary of state, something friends see as an urgent mission to frame a key part of her legacy as she readies for a possible presidential campaign,” the Washington Post reports.
“But her Republican critics are racing to define Clinton’s record first — preparing a massive opposition-research effort designed to challenge her recounting of events and undermine the book’s credibility.”
“The war over Clinton’s tenure as the nation’s top diplomat will play out in coming months as a proxy skirmish for a potential 2016 campaign. For Clinton, the political imperative is clear: to lay claim to key accomplishments in foreign policy and short-circuit persistent attacks on her judgment from the right.”
A new Siena poll in New York finds Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) remains popular, with two-thirds saying they viewed him favorably and a solid majority — 57% — said they were ready to re-elect him.
“Mr. Cuomo also had a much better reputation among voters than two of his possible Republican opponents. The poll found that Rob Astorino, the Westchester County executive, is largely unknown by state voters and would be handily defeated in a head-to-head matchup with Mr. Cuomo. And Donald Trump, the real estate developer and reality television star, is very well known — but largely disliked; the poll found 57% had an unfavorable impression of him. Mr. Cuomo would best Mr. Trump with 70% of the vote, the poll said.”
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“In Chris Christie’s first successful campaign for public office, he sat down next to his wife and baby, looked into a camera and told voters something that wasn’t true,” the Washington Post reports.
“That 1994 race was New Jersey’s introduction to the brash and confident Christie, whose hardball tactics have repeatedly surprised people — even in a state that thinks it invented hardball. But in Morris County back then, people thought Christie had learned the downside of playing so rough: That ad helped get him into his first elected office but then helped get him out of it. He was sued for defamation, required to apologize and then defeated at the polls after just one term.”
Hoboken, NJ Mayor Dawn Zimmer “said she met with federal prosecutors today, a day after she alleged members of Gov. Chris Christie’s administration threatened to withhold Hurricane Sandy aid from her city if she did not approve a real estate project,” the Newark Star Ledger reports.
“Zimmer said she met for hours this afternoon with staff from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Newark, providing a copy of her daily journal and other documents. Zimmer, who leveled the bombshell allegation on Saturday, said the meeting was requested by prosecutors.”
Rep. James Lankford (R-OK) “has decided to run for the seat being vacated by Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) and may announce his intentions as early as Monday,” the Oklahoman reports.
“I have no desire to be one of those presidents who are just on the list
– you see their pictures lined up on the wall. I really want to be a
president who makes a difference.”
— President Obama, in an interview with The New Yorker.
“As George W. Bush’s public image improves, more former Bush officials are running for office — and are starting to tout their connections to the former president rather than running from them,” The Hill reports.
“Bush veterans privately admit the president, who left office in 2009 with an approval rating that dipped as low as 25 percent, was an albatross for many years in both primaries and the general election. The Wall Street bailout and other expensive Bush-era programs infuriated the Tea Party base, while Hurricane Katrina and the Iraq War tarnished him with independents. But five years later, they say things have changed and that he’s no longer toxic. The former president’s personal approval ratings reached positive territory last year for the first time since early in his second term.”
Dallas Morning News: “Wendy Davis has made her personal story of struggle and success a centerpiece of her campaign to become the first Democrat elected governor of Texas in almost a quarter-century. While her state Senate filibuster last year captured national attention, it is her biography — a divorced teenage mother living in a trailer who earned her way to Harvard and political achievement — that her team is using to attract voters and boost fundraising.”
“The basic elements of the narrative are true, but the full story of Davis’ life is more complicated, as often happens when public figures aim to define themselves. In the shorthand version that has developed, some facts have been blurred.”
David Remnick has a must-read profile of President Obama:
“When Obama leaves the White House, on January 20, 2017, he will write a memoir. ‘Now, that’s a slam dunk,’ the former Obama adviser David Axelrod told me. Andrew Wylie, a leading literary agent, said he thought that publishers would pay between seventeen and twenty million dollars for the book–the most ever for a work of nonfiction–and around twelve million for Michelle Obama’s memoirs. (The First Lady has already started work on hers.)…”
“Yet no post-Presidential project–even one as worthy as Ulysses S. Grant’s memoirs or Jimmy Carter’s efforts to eradicate the Guinea worm in Africa–can overshadow what can be accomplished in the White House with the stroke of a pen or a phone call. And, after a miserable year, Obama’s Presidency is on the clock. Hard as it has been to pass legislation since the Republicans took the House, in 2010, the coming year is a marker, the final interval before the fight for succession becomes politically all-consuming.”
William Flanigan digs through the data: Political Behavior of the American Electorate.
“It was supposed to be Gov. Chris Christie’s comeback tour: A weekend trip to Florida, where he would show the world he could still drum up top-dollar checks for Republican candidates across the country even as his administration faces a swirl of scandals, subpoenas and allegations of abuse of power,” the Newark Star Ledger reports.
“But instead of highlighting his fundraising chops, Christie, in his new role as the chairman of the Republican Governors Association, spent the day besieged by new claims of political retribution — and shuttling quietly around the Sunshine State as far as possible from the public eye.”
Wall Street Journal: “The attention devoted to what would otherwise have been a routine fundraising swing for Mr. Christie, the new head of the Republican Governors Association, testified to the pressure he is under as he navigates the biggest scandal of his political career. The Florida trip also represented a test of how party donors now view one of the GOP’s top potential contenders for the 2016 U.S. presidential nomination.”
The Washington Examiner reviews the new documentary “Mitt” and concludes from a behind-the-scenes look that Mitt Romney never really thought he would win the 2012 presidential race.
“A candidate who did not believe he could beat the president in debate, who always felt second-best to his father, who believed the country was moving away from him, and who didn’t even feel at home in his own party. The Romney campaign faced many uphill battles in the 2012 campaign. ‘Mitt’ shows us that some of the most intense were in the candidate’s mind.”
The Newark Star Ledger reports that New Jersey Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno (R), Gov. Chris Christie’s (R) “often silent partner, is being accused of being his heavy-handed enforcer, delivering an ominous message to Hoboken Mayor Dawn Zimmer: help fast-track a redevelopment project in the tiny waterfront community or lose Hurricane Sandy recovery funding for her city.”
“Reached today on her cellphone — the number she freely shares at public gatherings with community and business leaders — Guadagno declined to discuss Zimmer’s statements.”
“Oh, no, no, no. No, no, no, no, no. No, no, no. People are always gracious and say, ‘Oh, you should run again.’ I’m not running again.”
— Mitt Romney, in an interview with the New York Times.
Dan Balz: “A recent conversation with a veteran of GOP presidential campaigns raised this question: Which, if any, of the recent battleground states are likely to become more Republican by 2016? The consensus: very few.”
“That reality highlights one problem Republicans face as they seek to regain the White House after six years under President Obama. Lots of factors affect elections: the quality of the candidates, the state of the economy, the effectiveness of the campaigns. But in a country whose demographics continue to change, Republicans will begin this campaign with one significant disadvantage.”
The New York Times notes Gov. Chris Christie (R) was supposed to basking in his landslide re-election victory with a European tour to bolster his foreign policy credentials and emerge as the modern face of the Republican Party.
“Now, the foreign trip is in limbo as Mr. Christie tries to rebuild credibility at home. His biggest political assets, his personality and spontaneity, have been all but absent as he evades reporters’ questions and holds few public appearances. And Republicans around the country, including those who saw him as their party’s most compelling candidate for president in 2016, are calling in with advice, sobering in its candor.”
“Party leaders are urging the governor to let go of a trademark Christie trait: his fierce loyalty to old friends and high school classmates who have risen with him in state government. It is time, they counsel, for him to recruit a more nationally savvy political team that can take him beyond Trenton to Washington.”
“Ricocheting across the state in recent days, Gov. Jerry Brown laid out a case for his reelection in a tour that had all the hallmarks of a campaign rollout,” the Los Angeles Times reports.
“He hit media markets home to the bulk of California’s population, highlighted the state’s improved finances and took hours of questions from reporters. He continued to be coy about his reelection intentions, saying politics did not interest him — a man who has spent 29 years of his life as an elected official and ran for president three times.”
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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