Stu Rothenberg: “Congressional Republicans figured that after the fiscal cliff, they’d have the advantage talking about the sequester and, down the road, the continued funding of the government.”
“Clearly, they were wrong.”
The Cloakroom: The sequester isn’t really about spending cuts at all.
James Carville told Morning Joe that Democrats have a big advantage in the debate over the coming automatic budget cuts because of the word used to describe them.
Said Carville: “The sequester has an advantage, and this is kind of cruel to Republicans, but it’s true. The sequester, not many people know what it is, but it sounds stupid and cruel. Therefore people think it’s a Republican thing.”
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) told the Reno Gazette Journal that he will seek re-election in 2016.
Said Reid: “Sure, why not?”
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The Fix: “The Republican political establishment sees immigration reform as a political necessity. Much of the party’s base sees it as the end of the rule of law. And therein lies the problem for a party trying to pick itself up off the mat following an across-the-board defeat in 2012.”
“It’s not clear how Republicans can bridge the growing divide between how the establishment views immigration (a political problem that needs to be solved yesterday) and how some significant portion of the base views it (a foundational principle about not rewarding rule-breakers).”
“The Constitution must be amended. The Dred Scott decision had to be repealed, we have to repeal Citizens United.”
— Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA), quoted by BuzzFeed, comparing the decision upholding slavery to the campaign finance ruling.
An Ohio woman says that she was fired for voting for President Obama, the Dayton Daily News reports.
Patricia Kunkle’s lawsuit claims the Bobbie Gentile, president of Q-Mark Inc., “threatened employees with termination last year if President Obama was re-elected and that Obama supporters would be the first to be terminated if he were re-elected. Kunkle’s suit said her voting preferences came up in conversation the day after the election and that she was fired Nov. 9 for what the suit claims Gentile said was in the ‘best interest of the company.'”
The Cloakroom: It’s actually the Republicans who are overreaching.
Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) gave a $600,000 check to the U.S. Treasury, “taking the money he said he didn’t need from his office’s budget to make a tiny dent in the nation’s massive federal debt,” CNN reports.
Said Paul: “We watch every purchase. We watch what computers we buy, what paper we buy, the ink cartridges. We treat the money like it’s our money, or your money, and we look at every expenditure.”
Michael Tackett: “For more than a decade, Republicans have looked to Karl Rove for the solution. Now, a growing number see him as the problem.”
Maggie Haberman: “After his electoral wipeout in November — and motivated by years of
resentment that’s spilling over — Rove’s credibility within his own
party is at an all-time low.”
Byron York: “Could the GOP message on the sequester be any more self-defeating?
Boehner could argue that the sequester cuts are necessary as a first —
and somewhat modest — step toward controlling the deficits that threaten
the economy. Instead, he describes them as a threat to national
security and jobs that he nevertheless supports. It’s not an argument
that is likely to persuade millions of Americans.”
Marc Ambinder: Five reasons why Republicans might risk the sequester.
The White House “is quietly considering urging the Supreme Court to overturn California’s ban on gay marriage, a step that would mark a political victory for advocates of same-sex unions and a deepening commitment by President Obama to rights for gay couples,” the AP reports.
In the three weeks since John Kerry succeeded Hillary Clinton as secretary of state, “he’s already sent unmistakable signals of his independence with a more assertive, proactive and risk-taking stewardship of America’s foreign policy — with a more sustained focus on the Middle East and Europe than his predecessor,” Politico reports.
Kerry “views the job as the apex of his up-and-down 40-year political career and aspires to a more central policymaking role in the Obama administration than Clinton, who practiced what one official called ‘odometer diplomacy’ — a focus on globetrotting to bolster America’s relationships abroad coupled with attempts to cope with an array of pop-up crises.”
“Tell everybody back home, I’m sorry I let them down, OK?”
— Former Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-IL), to Lynn Sweet after pleading guilty to misuse of campaign funds.
“After million-selling books on the assassinations of Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy, Fox News host Bill O’Reilly is turning to the most famous killing of all,” the AP reports.
“O’Reilly’s Killing Jesus: A History will be published on Sept. 24.”
A new USA Today/Pew Research poll finds President Obama “starts his second term with a clear upper hand over GOP leaders on issues from guns to immigration that are likely to dominate the year. On the legislation rated most urgent — cutting the budget deficit — even a majority of Republican voters endorse Obama’s approach of seeking tax hikes as well as spending cuts.”
“The survey underscores the quandary for the GOP as it debates the party’s message in the wake of disappointing losses last November for the White House and in the Senate.”
Key finding: “Now just 22% of Americans, nearly a record low, consider themselves Republicans.”
These results mirror a Bloomberg poll released last night.
A new Quinnipiac poll in New Jersey finds voters disapprove of the job Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ) is doing by 41% to 36%, a
15-point drop in less than a month, and by 44% to 28% say that he is not honest and trustworthy.
Hillary Clinton will charge $200,000 for a two-hour speech when she hits the speaking circuit in a few months, the Washington Times reports.
Ramesh Ponnuru: “Today’s Republicans are very good at tending the fire of Ronald Reagan’s memory but not nearly as good at learning from his successes. They slavishly adhere to the economic program that Reagan developed to meet the challenges of the late 1970s and early 1980s, ignoring the fact that he largely overcame those challenges, and now we have new ones. It’s because Republicans have not moved on from that time that Senators Marco Rubio and Rand Paul, in their responses to the State of the Union address last week, offered so few new ideas.”
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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