“Our Democratic friends, for the most part, have been in the tank over Benghazi. Some guy said this about me yesterday on the left: The only reason I cared about this was because I have six tea party opponents. Well, if that’s true, I’m the biggest scumbag in America.”
— Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), in a radio interview with Mike Gallagher.
Morning Line: “And how about this scenario — in Louisiana, the winning candidate needs 50 percent in the November general election to win. If that doesn’t happen, the top two go to a runoff in December. Imagine — what if the GOP picks up five seats, and we’re all waiting on Louisiana in December for Senate control of the new Congress, which would start a month later. The entire country’s focus would suddenly and sharply turn to the Bayou State. Talk about big money and ground game. The entire country’s political infrastructure would be trained there.”
Don’t miss our deep dive into Bayou state politics on the Political Wire podcast.
Morning Line: “Potential runoffs in three states — North Carolina, Georgia, and Iowa — with primaries coming up in the next month and a half could complicate Republican hopes at winning control of the Senate.”
“As we noted yesterday, Republicans are hoping Thom Tillis in North Carolina can get above the 40 percent threshold to avoid a runoff two months later that would not allow him to immediately focus on vulnerable Democratic incumbent Sen. Kay Hagan. But in Georgia, a two-month-later runoff is likely with its 50 percent threshold and crowded primary, giving Democrat Michelle Nunn a chance to continue to tack to build her image in one of only two targets for the party this cycle. And in Iowa, if no one gets 35 percent, which is possible in the multi-candidate field — not only would the general election start be pushed back (only by 11 days), but the eventual nominee would be picked at the state party convention, where the most conservative candidate usually emerges.”
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Wonk Wire notes a stronger than expected jobs report in which the unemployment rate fell to 6.3%.
Reactions to the jobs report suggest it’s a weird one.
A new Morning Call/Muhlenberg College survey in Pennsylvania finds Tom Wolf (D) leading the Democratic primary for governor with 38%, followed by Allyson Schwartz (D) at 13% and Rob McCord (D) at 11%.
Add in undecided voters who are leaning toward one candidate, and Wolf comes away with 42%, Schwartz 16% and McCord 14%.
Elizabeth Wilner of Kantar Media’s Campaign Media Analysis Group joins us on the Political Wire podcast for a fascinating look at the flood of political ads already hitting the airwaves ahead of the midterm elections.
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Former President George W. Bush said he wants his brother Jeb to run for president in 2016, Reuters reports.
Said the former president: “I hope Jeb runs. I think he would be a great president. I have no clue what’s going on in his mind and we will talk when he’s ready. I noticed he’s moving around the country quite a bit.”
Amy Walter: “While many among the GOP moneyed establishment are openly pining for a Jeb Bush candidacy, it’s clear that the GOP base isn’t quite as enthusiastic.”
Wonk Wire: Number of Americans who renounced their citizenship skyrockets
New York Times: “Jeb Bush’s increasingly serious and public examination of a run for president has shaken the ranks of establishment Republican donors and fund-raisers who had planned to back Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey in 2016, forcing many of them to rethink their allegiance to the embattled governor.”
“In private conversations that are now seeping into public view, some of them are signaling to Mr. Christie’s camp that, should Mr. Bush enter the race, their first loyalty would be to him, not to Mr. Christie, according to interviews with more than two dozen of them.”
Nate Cohn says Democrats will spend millions “to target Democratic-leaning voters over the next six months. And you would think that if anything could fix a turnout problem, it would be the vestiges of President Obama’s vaunted ground operation.”
“But not even the most sophisticated and well-funded turnout effort can fix this problem. Strong turnout operations can help Democrats at the margins. The Democratic turnout problem, however, is not marginal.”
“I find politics in this country completely nauseating.”
— John Oliver, in an interview with the Daily Beast.
A new InsiderAdvantage poll in Georgia finds Daivd Perdue (R) leading the Republican Senate primary race with 22%, followed by Karen Handel (R) at 21%, Jack Kingston (R) at 17%, Paul Broun (R) at 14% and Phil Gingrey (R) at 12%.
Variety: “Journalist Patrick Gavin has covered the White House Correspondents Assn. dinner for nearly a decade, but he’s leaving Politico to put D.C.’s celebrity-driven gala under the microscope of a two-hour feature length documentary. His project, Nerd Prom: Washington’s Wildest Week, will focus on why dozens of celebrities would trek to D.C. at the same time every year to celebrate the White House press corps.”
“I see Hillary Clinton as an old-world model, in the sense that she’s a pro-surveillance-state, pro-war Democrat… I could see that if you had a Republican that’s a little more reluctant for war, more protective of privacy, that you could have a complete transformation, where people completely switch places.”
— Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), quoted by Fortune.
Belleville, NJ mayoral candidate Marie Strumolo Burke (D) was caught on tape allegedly spewing a racist rant in which she said she didn’t want her village to become a “fucking nigger town,” the New York Daily News reports.
The Newark Star Ledger reports a Michigan forensics lab has confirmed with “85 percent” certainty that the voice heard on a phone message is that of Burke.
Oregon U.S. Senate candidate Monica Wehby (R) has turned down what would have been the only live televised debate of the primary race between her and state Rep. Jason Conger (R), the Oregonian reports.
First Read: “It’s hard to ignore that we’re living in a much more cynical age right now, when the country is disgusted with American politics and its institutions. Just check out these other numbers from our most recent NBC/WSJ poll: Just 19% say they have a lot of confidence in the national news media; 16% say the same about the federal government; and only 13% say that about the financial industry. This is a country that still feels burned by the Iraq war, the 2008 financial collapse, and the bitter partisan atmosphere in Washington.”
“Given these opinions, we have a feeling the eventual 2016 winner isn’t going to campaign on a message of ‘hope’ or ‘change’ as the current occupant of the White House did in ’08. Instead, the eventual winner is going to be the one who best deals with this more cynical environment and becomes credible in a time where most of the public doesn’t put too much stock into what any leader claims.”
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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