“An unprecedented council meeting descended temporarily into chaos on Monday, when Mayor Rob Ford and Councillor Doug Ford got into a screaming match with spectators,” the Toronto Star reports.
A remarkable video shows Ford knocking over Councillor Pam McConnell but catching her before she fell.
Just released for the iPhone: The Day That Launched The Kennedy Half Century.
It’s a companion app for Larry Sabato’s The Kennedy Half Century.
Coming next year: Big Money: Big Egos, Bigger Stakes, and the Biggest New Game in Politics by Kenneth P. Vogel.
“A Supreme Court decision, combined with regulatory gridlock and legal tricks, have fundamentally changed the role of money in politics in recent years, upending traditional bases of political power. Campaign decisions once made by party officials are now in the hands of super-rich benefactors and the consultants competing for their attention–and for increasingly lucrative commissions and fees. It’s as if, instead of a football coach on the sidelines calling the plays, every player and his agent decided what was best.”
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Dick Cheney and his wife Lynne said that they are “pained’ by the public dispute over gay marriage between their daughters but that Liz Cheney’s “many kindnesses shouldn’t be used to distort her position” on the issue, NBC News reports.
Said Cheney: “This is an issue we have dealt with privately for many years, and we are pained to see it become public. Since it has, one thing should be clear. Liz has always believed in the traditional definition of marriage. She has also always treated her sister and her sister’s family with love and respect, exactly as she should have done.”
The latest Allstate/National Journal Heartland Monitor Poll finds the bottom has fallen out for everyone in the nation’s political leadership.
“Just 38% of those polled said they approved of Obama’s job performance, with 55% disapproving. That’s the lowest approval, and highest disapproval, the Heartland Monitor poll has recorded for Obama in the 19 times it has measured his standing since April 2009.”
“Americans are even more dubious about Congress. Just 9% of those polled (down from 21% last November) approved of its performance. Fully 84% disapproved. Almost nine-in-10 of those who disapproved of Obama’s performance also gave Congress a thumbs-down; 56% of those who disapproved of Congress also flunked Obama.”
National Journal: “Republicans are giddy about their chances to retake the Senate on the back of a disaster known as Obamacare. There’s just one problem: The GOP doesn’t have the right candidates to make it happen.”
“Sure, in the high-profile races of 2014, Republicans have recruited competitive contenders to take on red-state Democrats. But in the second-tier contests, the ones that could suddenly become competitive if the national mood turns increasingly toxic for Democrats, the GOP’s cast of hopefuls ranges from the unknown to the unelectable.”
“Before Secretary of State John Kerry’s recent trip to Cairo, National Security Adviser Susan Rice told him to make strong statements in public and private about the trial of deposed President Mohamed Morsi. On his own, Kerry decided to disregard the White House’s instructions,” Josh Rogin reports.
“The tension between the national security adviser and the secretary of state spilled over into public view in the past week, when Rice laid out her critical appraisal of the Egyptian government, which contradicted Kerry’s assessment that Egypt was ‘on the path to democracy.’ The now public rift has been simmering behind the scenes for months and illustrates the strikingly divergent Egypt policies the White House and the State Department are pursuing.”
Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s (D-MA) former national finance chair, Paul Egerman, “has told several inquiring donors this month that, despite runaway speculation and a burning desire from the party’s left wing, the freshman senator will not run for president in 2016,” Ruby Cramer reports.
Said Egerman: “It’s not going to happen.”
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) told the Burlington Free Press he would consider a presidential bid in 2016 if the race is without a strong liberal voice.
Said Sanders: “That is honestly not me. Anyone who really, really wants to be president is slightly crazy because this is an unbelievably difficult job given the crises that this country faces today.”
He added: “Under normal times, it’s fine, you have a moderate Democrat running, a moderate Republican running. These are not normal times. The United States right now is in the middle of a severe crisis and you have to call it what it is.”
First Read: “Health care isn’t today’s most intriguing political story of the day (that honor goes to the spat inside the Cheney family), but it remains the most important political story — given all the stakes for President Obama and congressional Democrats up in 2014. When the going gets tough in politics, the first human instinct is to flee. And that’s particularly true for the always-antsy Democrats (just see 1994 and 2010). But the problem when politicians start jumping ship from their party and president, they only make things worse.”
“Strikingly for Democrats, Friday’s House vote on the Upton bill could have been much worse. While 39 Democrats broke ranks and supported the GOP bill, that was a far smaller number than the White House had been bracing for. More than anything else, that party unity — as fragile as it might be — bought the White House additional time to get to that self-imposed Nov. 30 deadline to fix the website. But as we’ve said a million times these last few weeks, it all comes down to that website. In fact, going forward, there’s little point in covering the bits and pieces regarding the health-care law until Nov. 30. Everything right now comes down to meeting that deadline. Fail to meet that deadline and the survival-of-the-fittest instinct that every politician feels when they run for office will kick in, even if it’s bad national politics.”
Wonk Wire: Website fixes make good progress
Former Rep. Travis Childers (D-MS) “says he is considering entering the Mississippi Senate race next year — particularly if longtime Sen. Thad Cochran (R-MS) opts not to seek another term,” the Washington Post reports.
“Conservative and tea party groups have lined up behind GOP candidate and state Sen. Chris McDaniel, who got into the race in advance of Cochran’s announcement. The prospect of a hard-fought GOP primary has Democrats hoping to capitalize in a tough state.”
Toronto Mayor Rob Ford told Fox News that wants to be prime minister, despite admitting that he has smoked crack cocaine.
Said Ford: “Yes, one day I do want to run for prime minister.”
However, Ford reiterated that he had made mistakes and was getting professional help: “I’m training every day. I’m in the gym for two hours every day. I’m seeking professional help. I’m not an alcoholic. I’m not a drug addict.”
He said that he isn’t getting help for substance abuse problems because he is not an addict. Instead, he said his weight was “a huge issue.”
“The biggest Republican-leaning money machines are spending dramatically less to help the party ahead of the 2014 congressional elections, a year after big-dollar conservative groups poured millions into unsuccessful campaigns against President Obama and Democratic candidates, and the GOP failed to retake the White House or the Senate,” the AP reports.
“Groups such as American Crossroads and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce no longer are willing to risk major investments on hard-line conservatives who embarrassed GOP leaders last fall and rattled the confidence of party donors. Many remain concerned after last month’s government shutdown highlighted Republican divisions… Outside spending on television ads designed to benefit Republican Senate candidates is down almost 60% compared with two years ago.”
National Journal: “More than anything, politics is about self-preservation, and the last two weeks provided numerous examples of how public opinion has turned so hard against the law that even its most ardent supporters are running for the hills. It’s not just red-state Democrats, like Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu, distancing themselves from the law. It’s blue-state senators like Oregon’s Jeff Merkley and New Hampshire’s Jeanne Shaheen — and top blue-state recruits like Michigan’s Gary Peters and Iowa’s Bruce Braley, who voted for GOP legislation Friday that the White House said would ‘gut’ the law. Nearly every House Democrat in a competitive district joined with Republicans to threaten the law. Without a quick fix, those ranks will grow.”
Wonk Wire: Will Obamacare make Obama a lame duck?
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s (R) campaign and more than two dozen conservative groups
were recently subpoenaed by a special prosecutor, the Wall Street Journal editorial page reports.
“Copies of two subpoenas we’ve seen demand ‘all memoranda, email . . .
correspondence, and communications’ both internally and between the
subpoena target and some 29 conservative groups… In other words, tell us who your donors are.”
“What amazes me is that she says she’s running to be a new generation of leader. I’m not sure how sticking to the positions of the last 20 or 30 years is the best way to do that.”
— Mary Cheney, quoted by the New York Times, further criticizing her sister, Liz Cheney, for not supporting same sex marriage in her U.S. Senate campaign.
Bill Clinton told a Chinese audience that hopes there will be a woman in the White House in his lifetime, AFP reports.
Said Clinton: “I hope we have a woman president in my lifetime, and I think it would be a good thing for the world as well as for America.”
However, he tempered his remarks regarding his wife, Hillary Clinton: “But I do not know if she’s going to run, and there is no such thing as a sure thing in politics… If that’s what she wants to do, I will support her. But if she decides for whatever reason she doesn’t, I will support that.”
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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