The New York Times notes the Tea Party is turning to more focused issues:
“Grass-roots leaders said this month that after losing any chance of repealing the national health care law, they would press states to ‘nullify’ or ignore it. They also plan to focus on a two-decade-old United Nations resolution that they call a plot against property rights, and on ‘fraud’ by local election boards that, some believe, let the Democrats steal the November vote.”
A guest post from Brad Phillips, author of The Media Training Bible.
After President Obama’s lackluster first presidential debate in October, many reporters noted the dozens of “uhhhs” that plagued his verbal delivery and made him appear ill-prepared.
You may think of that type of “verbal filler” as a minor cosmetic issue. But in the case of Caroline Kennedy, it doomed her political career before it started. In 2009, New York’s governor briefly considered her to fill a vacant Senate seat that opened when Hillary Clinton departed to become U.S. secretary of state. But her interviews were disasters. According to The Wall Street Journal, she said “you know” 168 times during a single 30-minute interview. After being roundly mocked by the local press, Ms. Kennedy removed herself from consideration.
Joshua Spivak: “While the multi-billion dollar presidential campaign sucked up most of the nation’s attention this year, in scores of smaller elections across the country, voters took unprecedented action to force political changes of their own. In 2012, at least 168 elected officials faced recall votes. That appears to be an all-time record.”
“Of course, more recalls were attempted than actually made the ballot. On
at least 508 occasions, citizens took out recall petitions in 2012.
Most of them failed. Recalls against the governors of Michigan, Arizona,
and Louisiana went nowhere, and the attempts to recall the mayors of
Washington, D.C., Denver, Oakland, and Nashville all failed to get on
the ballot. What’s the difference between success and failure? Often,
money.”
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Wall Street Journal: “Officials in the city where President John F. Kennedy was gunned down Nov. 22, 1963, want to observe the 50th anniversary of that day with a celebration of his life. The city plans a ceremony that would include readings from Kennedy speeches by historian David McCullough and military jets flying over Dealey Plaza, where the 35th president was shot.”
“But some who believe the assassination was a conspiracy involving high-ranking U.S. officials say their views shouldn’t be excluded from the commemoration.”
“I look forward to a situation where when the phone rings, I won’t be apprehensive that it’s some problem I have to deal with: some crisis — maybe that somebody else has done something stupid that I have to deal with, or in the worst case, something stupid I’ve done that I have to deal with.”
— Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA), quoted by Politico, on his retirement from Congress.
Rep.-elect Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) “is looking to make the jump to the U.S. Senate before even taking a seat in the House,” the Honolulu Civil Beat reports.
Gabbard, who was just elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in November, announced she wants to fill late Sen. Daniel Inouye’s (D-HI) seat.
Norm Ornstein notes that ff 17 Republicans vote for someone other than John Boehner as speaker, “the House will be thrown into turmoil — no elected speaker, and the prospect of additional ballots and a whole lot of intrigue before the new speaker is chosen and sworn in.”
“What if Boehner doesn’t survive? Go to Article I, Section 2: The Constitution does not say that the speaker of the House has to be a member of the House. In fact, the House can choose anybody a majority wants to fill the post. Every speaker has been a representative from the majority party. But these days, the old pattern clearly is not working.”
“The day after Labor Day, just as campaign season was entering its final frenzy, FreedomWorks, the Washington-based tea party organization, went into free fall,” the Washington Post reports.
“Richard K. Armey, the group’s chairman and a former House majority leader, walked into the group’s Capitol Hill offices with his wife, Susan, and an aide holstering a handgun at his waist. The aim was to seize control of the group and expel Armey’s enemies: The gun-wielding assistant escorted FreedomWorks’ top two employees off the premises, while Armey suspended several others who broke down in sobs at the news.”
“The coup lasted all of six days. By Sept. 10, Armey was gone — with a promise of $8 million — and the five ousted employees were back. The force behind their return was Richard J. Stephenson, a reclusive Illinois millionaire who has exerted increasing control over one of Washington’s most influential conservative grass-roots organizations.”
GOP pollster Frank Luntz says that he doesn’t “think the NRA is listening” to the American public in the wake of the massacre of 20 children at an elementary school in Connecticut, Politico reports.
Said Luntz: “The public wants guns out of the schools, not in the schools. And they are not asking for a security official or someone else. I don’t think the NRA is listening. I don’t think they understand most Americans would protect the Second Amendment rights and yet agree with the idea that not every human being should own a gun, not every gun should be available at anytime, anywhere, for anyone. At gun shows, you should not be able to buy something there without any kind of check whatsoever.”
A new Gallup poll finds Americans are rapidly becoming more pessimistic about reaching a deal to avert the fiscal cliff, with public opinion swinging 15 points in less than a week.
Just 50% of Americans now think it’s likely a deal will be struck, while 48% think it’s unlikely.
The Washington Post reports President Obama will cut short his vacation and return from Hawaii on Wednesday in a last ditch effort to restart budget talks with House Republicans.
Wonk Wire: The grand bargain is dead.
Rep. Ralph Hall (R-TX) earned the distinction of being the oldest lawmaker to ever serve in the House of Representatives, ABC Radio reports.
Hall eclipsed the record previously held by Rep. Charles Manley Stedman, who was also 89 when he died in September 1930.
Enjoy the day and many thanks for reading Political Wire this year!
Congressional leaders and the White House “are taking a holiday break in negotiations over how to avoid year-end spending cuts and tax increases, and may not take up the issue in earnest again until just before New Year’s Eve,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“There have been no talks between party leaders or between the White House and GOP officials since Friday, when President Barack Obama and Congress left town for Christmas, officials close to the negotiations say. That dims the prospect that any backup plan for averting the fiscal cliff could be devised and moved through the Senate when it reconvenes Thursday, as some expected.”
Chicago Tribune: “Though Obama has not commented publicly about his plans for a
library, every president since Herbert Hoover has established an archive
in his home state to house papers from his White House tenure. That
means the race could come down to Chicago — the city Obama most recently
called home — and Honolulu — the city where he was born.”
“If Chicago is selected, the next hurdle would be to determine where
the facility would be built. An Obama library likely would not open
before the end of the decade, but already it is a hot commodity because
of the prestige and economic vitality it would bring to the community.”
Anti-tax activist Grover Norquist charged that President Obama has “not been negotiating” in fiscal cliff talks, Politico reports.
Said Norquist: “One of the challenges, of course, is people see this happening; they realize that the president has not been negotiating at all over the past three months. We learned days and weeks and months afterwards that they had non-meetings where this is going on.”
A guest post from Brad Phillips, author of The Media Training Bible.
Journalists don’t really understand the phrase “off the record”– or, more precisely, they can’t agree on what it means. If you speak to 10 different journalists, you’ll probably hear 10 different definitions.
In fact, one survey of five reporters from separate sections of The Washington Post found that each of the journalists defined “off the record” differently. Some thought it meant they couldn’t ever use information they learned; others thought the information was fair game as long as they didn’t identify their source. One of the reporters even admitted, “I have no idea what ‘off the record’ means.”
If journalists themselves can’t agree on the definition of “off the record,” you shouldn’t rely on the term to forge agreements with reporters. It’s a meaningless expression. Banish it from your lexicon.
After giving it serious consideration, Ted Kennedy Jr. has decided not to run for U.S. Senate in Massachusetts, the Boston Globe reports.
He gave three reasons: “He does not want to uproot his family; he doesn’t feel right about moving from Connecticut to Massachusetts to run; and officials in Connecticut have urged him to stay there and run there eventually.”
The day Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-HI) died, he sent a note to Hawaii Gov. Neil Abercrombie (D) asking him to appoint Rep. Colleen Hanabusa (D-HI) to his seat, Honolulu Civil Beat reports.
Inouye wrote. “I hope you will grant me my last wish.”
“While this immediately shot Hanabusa to the top of the succession list, it also put Abercrombie in a tough spot. How could the governor not grant the dying wish of Hawaii’s most revered statesman? And if he doesn’t, what would be the political consequences?”
Meanwhile, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has urged Abercrombie to decide quickly so Reid has all the votes he can get on any “fiscal cliff” legislation.
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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