Political Wire

Bob McDonnell Waits

January 3, 2015 at 6:49 pm EST By Taegan Goddard 13 Comments

Washington Post: “In the strange four months of enforced limbo that have separated McDonnell’s shocking guilty verdict from his much-anticipated sentencing Tuesday, the former Republican governor has in some ways presided over an extended wake for his own once-promising political and personal future.”

“It has been an emotional time for McDonnell, who potentially faces a sentence of a decade or more in prison. Friends and associates say the 60-year-old former governor has struggled to process how 12 Virginians could believe that he is a criminal, selling his office in exchange for $177,000 in loans and luxury gifts and vacations from a dietary supplement company executive. Friends say he has been downright depressed on some days, but more upbeat on others, smiling nostalgically when talking about his time in office, a time when he was popular enough that it was thought he might be planning a presidential campaign this year.”

Interesting detail: “But he has remained estranged from his wife, Maureen, who was convicted along with him, and has been blamed by many close to McDonnell for creating the scandal. After 38 years of marriage, the two left the courthouse separately after the September verdict and did not speak that night.”

Huckabee Teases Announcement Tonight

January 3, 2015 at 6:17 pm EST By Taegan Goddard 17 Comments

“Four years ago, Mike Huckabee used his Fox News show to announce that he had decided not to run for president,” CNN reports.

Now he’s teasing a “very important announcement” for later tonight.

TV Newser says Huckabee will be ending his television show as he explores a presidential bid.

Edward Brooke is Dead

January 3, 2015 at 6:15 pm EST By Taegan Goddard 7 Comments

Edward W. Brooke (R), the first African-American elected to the Senate since Reconstruction, died at the age of 95, Bloomberg reports.

Brooke was elected to the Senate in 1966 and served until 1979.

Shortly after Barack Obama was elected president, Brooke told the AP he was “thankful to God” that he lived to see the election of the first black president.

Obama Will Hit the Road as New Congress Begins

January 3, 2015 at 1:05 pm EST By Taegan Goddard 10 Comments

“President Obama is heading back to Washington on Saturday after a two-week holiday visit to Hawaii, but he won’t stick around for long,” the Los Angeles Times reports.

“Eager to stay on the offensive as new Republican majorities are seated in Congress, the president plans to take a more bullish economic message on the road next week in something of an early test drive of his State of the Union message. During stops in Michigan, Arizona and Tennessee, Obama plans to draw a connection between actions his administration took early in his presidency and increasingly positive economic trends in sectors such as manufacturing and housing.”

The Path Back to Senate Control for Democrats

January 3, 2015 at 1:00 pm EST By Taegan Goddard 17 Comments

“Democrats are looking to reclaim their Senate majority in two years, but after losing nine Senate seats in 2014, their path back to that majority won’t be easy,” National Journal reports.

“Democrats will be benefiting from a favorable landscape, with Republicans defending 24 seats (many of them in blue territory) while Democrats will be defending only 10. To leverage that advantage into control of the Senate, however, Democrats need to net at least four seats (five, if Republicans win the presidency). That requires sweeping out blue-state freshman Republicans in states such as Illinois, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin while also defeating a couple of brand-name senators, such as Rob Portman or Marco Rubio, in perennial swing states.”

GOP Congress Will Focus on Cutting Budget

January 3, 2015 at 1:00 pm EST By Taegan Goddard 21 Comments

“In the first Republican-dominated Congress to confront President Barack Obama, GOP leaders will focus on bolstering the economy and cutting the budget — and oh yes, avoiding self-inflicted calamities that make voters wonder if the party can govern competently,” the AP reports.

“When the new Congress raises the curtain Tuesday, Republicans will run both the House and Senate for the first time in eight years. GOP leaders want to showcase their legislative priorities, mixing accomplishments with showdowns with Obama but shunning government shutdowns and other chaotic standoffs.”

What If Mario Cuomo Had Run?

January 3, 2015 at 12:00 pm EST By Taegan Goddard 13 Comments

Jonathan Alter: “Even then, most of us doubted he would show up and actually sign the papers allowing him to enter the 1992 New Hampshire primary. The New York Times had reported earlier that fall that Governor Mario Cuomo had spent only 36 nights out of more than 1,300 as governor in a bed other than his own at the Executive Mansion in Albany. The man just didn’t get out enough to be president.”

“But for liberal Democrats, the questions remain: Would he have won the presidency in 1992, and if he had, would the country have experienced a restoration of the New Deal and the Great Society and the liberal governing values he articulated so well?”

Democratic Senators Got More Votes Than Republicans

January 3, 2015 at 11:58 am EST By Taegan Goddard 40 Comments

The new U.S. Senate sworn in next week will have 54 Republicans and 46 Democrats.

Vox: “But here’s a crazy fact: those 46 Democrats got more votes than the 54 Republicans across the 2010, 2012, and 2014 elections. According to Nathan Nicholson, a researcher at the voting reform advocacy group FairVote, ‘the 46 Democratic caucus members in the 114th Congress received a total of 67.8 million votes in winning their seats, while the 54 Republican caucus members received 47.1 million votes.'”

The Real Problem With Our Presidents

January 3, 2015 at 10:48 am EST By Taegan Goddard 14 Comments

James Fallows: “National office in the modern United States—the presidency, or a serious candidacy for it—requires a broader range of skills than any real human being has ever possessed… To succeed fully in national leadership a person would in principle need to be as shrewd a manipulator as Lyndon Johnson, as confidently patient a commander as Dwight Eisenhower, as quickly intelligent as John F. Kennedy; as publicly sunny as Ronald Reagan; as fundamentally sane as Gerald Ford — you get the idea.”

Has GOP Disrupted Democrats’ Demographic Edge?

January 3, 2015 at 10:45 am EST By Taegan Goddard 82 Comments

Politico: “The 2014 Republican landslide has both parties poring over the data, hoping to glean insights about the current state of the electorate before the 2016 elections. But it might take until the next presidential cycle to answer the most pressing question: Is Republicans’ 2014 success the result of significant changes in how voters view the two parties, or is the structural difference between the electorates in presidential and midterm years so great that Democrats still maintain a strong demographic advantage going into 2016?”

United States Nears Nuclear Deal with Iran

January 3, 2015 at 10:43 am EST By Taegan Goddard 7 Comments

“Iran and the United States have tentatively agreed on a formula that Washington hopes will reduce Tehran’s ability to make nuclear arms by committing it to ship to Russia much of the material needed for such weapons,” the AP reports.

“In another sign of progress, the two diplomats told The Associated Press that negotiators at the December round of nuclear talks drew up for the first time a catalog outlining areas of potential accord and differing approaches to remaining disputes. The diplomats said differences still dominate ahead of the next round of Iran-six power talks on Jan. 15 in Geneva. But they suggested that even agreement to create a to-do list would have been difficult previously because of wide gaps between the sides.”

Carson Will Decide on White House Bid by May

January 3, 2015 at 9:31 am EST By Taegan Goddard 33 Comments

Ben Carson told Newsmax that he’ll decided in the Spring on whether he’ll run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016.

Said Carson: “I will announce before May the 1st. I would just say that I am listening extremely carefully. I don’t want to do something that the American people do not want me to do.”

GOP Legislatures Plan Push of New Laws

January 3, 2015 at 9:23 am EST By Taegan Goddard 5 Comments

“Legislators in the 24 states where Republicans now hold total control plan to push a series of aggressive policy initiatives in the coming year aimed at limiting the power of the federal government and rekindling the culture wars,” the Washington Post reports.

“The unprecedented breadth of the Republican majority — the party now controls 31 governorships and 68 of 98 partisan legislative chambers — all but guarantees a new tide of conservative laws. Republicans plan to launch a fresh assault on the Common Core education standards, press abortion regulations, cut personal and corporate income taxes and take up dozens of measures challenging the power of labor unions and the Environmental Protection Agency.”

Political Dysfunction Is Now Top Ranking Issue

January 3, 2015 at 9:16 am EST By Taegan Goddard 9 Comments

A new Gallup survey finds that concerns over the functioning of government tops the list of America’s concerns, beating out the economy.

2014 was also the first year since 2007 that the economy was not the top ranking issue.

Walker Confronts Rift at Home as He Mulls 2016 Bid

January 3, 2015 at 9:07 am EST By Taegan Goddard 4 Comments

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) “has rolled over his Democratic opponents in Wisconsin, shutting down their allies in labor unions, turning back attempts to recall him and handily winning re-election in November,” the AP reports.

“But as he prepares for the possibility of taking his winning record into a campaign for president, Walker is running into trouble from an unexpected source: his own overwhelmingly Republican Legislature. Walker, who’s trying to polish an image of a governor who gets things done efficiently, is confronting lawmakers who want to flex their increased political power by wading into difficult issues, such as right-to-work legislation, to score major conservative victories.”

Palin Photos Show Son Stepping on Dog

January 3, 2015 at 9:05 am EST By Taegan Goddard 10 Comments

“Facebook photos posted by Sarah Palin showing her son Trig using the family dog as a step stool unleashed online fury on Friday reminiscent of the public reaction to the disclosure that Mitt Romney had once driven with his dog strapped on the car’s roof,” Reuters reports.

The Most Influential Senator in 2015?

January 3, 2015 at 9:01 am EST By Taegan Goddard 3 Comments

George Will: “Standing at the intersection of three foreign policy crises and a perennial constitutional tension, Bob Corker (R-TN), incoming chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, may be the senator who matters most in 2015.”

GOP Predictions Gone Wrong

January 3, 2015 at 9:00 am EST By Taegan Goddard 5 Comments

Think Progress looks at four things that were supposed to happen by 2015 if Barack Obama was re-elected president.

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