Sen. Judd Gregg (R-NH) “is stepping down as the head of Wall Street’s biggest lobbying group,” Bloomberg reports.
“Gregg, 66, was named chief executive officer of the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association in May. He retired from the Senate in 2011. A New Hampshire Republican, he also served two terms as the state’s governor. The people briefed asked not to be identified because Gregg’s plans haven’t been announced.”
Speaker John Boehner “for the second day in a row used a news conference to air grievances against the conservative outside groups who have sought to strong-arm House Republicans into moving further to the right,” Roll Call reports.
Said Boehner: “Frankly, I think they are misleading their followers. I think they’re pushing our members in places where they don’t want to be, and frankly I just think they’ve lost all credibility.”
He also blamed these groups for forcing Republicans to shut down the government in an ill-fated effort to defund Obamacare.
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) called New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) this week “to complain about a Cuomo appointee’s handling of a growing controversy over traffic pattern changes on the George Washington Bridge,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“Democratic lawmakers in New Jersey have accused Christie appointees of ordering the lane closures to punish Fort Lee’s mayor, Democrat Mark Sokolich, for not endorsing the governor’s re-election campaign. Mr. Christie’s campaign has denied that, and his Port Authority team has said the lanes were closed to study traffic patterns on the bridge.”
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Roll Call: “After eleven months as Senators, all twelve Senate freshmen in the 113th Congress now have a registered personal political action committee (PAC) to raise funds and pay for some political activity from an account separate from their campaigns.”
CNN reports that Pete Rouse is actually leaving his post at White House.
Said a senior official: “He’s said many times that he is leaving. This time, people seem to believe him.”
“Rouse has been one of President Obama’s closest and longest serving aides, in the key advisory role of Counselor to the President. When Obama entered the U.S. Senate in January 2005, Rouse served as his Chief of Staff. When Obama was elected President in 2008, Rouse followed him to the White House, serving as key member of Obama’s his inner circle.”
The New York Times notes Rouse “is the quirky insider who built the Obama organization, hired nearly
everyone from the White House chief of staff on down, plotted strategy
and regularly said he was about to leave.”
Vice President Joe Biden told TMZ that he and President Obama do not exchange Christmas gifts.
Said Biden: “We exchange birthday gifts, we don’t exchange Christmas gifts.”
He quickly added, “He gave me a great birthday gift!”
Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg – having just done extensive polling in 86 competitive House districts — is advising Democrats they should go on offense over the Affordable Care Act, Greg Sargent reports.
The key finding: “Even though voters in the battlegrounds have extreme doubts about the law, they still prefer implementing it to the GOP stance of repeal. And after a month of crushingly awful press for Obamacare, opinions on this matter in the battlegrounds have barely budged since October.”
Wonk Wire: An Obamacare deadline that could be hard to meet.
“It’s too bad the election isn’t today.”
— Ann Romney, quoted by USA Today.
Rep. Paul Ryan “stepped to a podium Tuesday night for a defining moment in his legislative career,” USA Today reports.
“For the better part of the past decade, he has carved out a niche as a leader in the Republican Party based in part on the ideological purity of his budget blueprints, but this week he played a co-starring role in cutting a budget deal with liberal Democratic Sen. Patty Murray of Washington.”
New York Times: “With
a modest, bipartisan blueprint on taxes and spending, Mr. Ryan is
taking a risk he has previously shied away from, putting what party
leaders see as a crucial need — ending the debilitating budget wars in
Washington that have crippled the Republican brand — over his own
self-interests with the conservative activists that dominate the early
Republican presidential primaries. For the first time, the conservative
wunderkind and former vice-presidential nominee is taking withering fire
from movement conservatives who see the deal as a betrayal by a former
ally. Potential rivals for the Republican presidential nomination in
2016 immediately went on the attack, blasting the deal and challenging
Mr. Ryan’s status as the thinking man’s conservative.”
Politico:
“The conservative Republican Study Committee, the bastion of right-wing
strategy on Capitol Hill, has fired its longtime executive director
Paul Teller, accusing him of leaking conversations with lawmakers.”
CBS News Poll:
“Forty-nine percent advocate stricter gun laws, while 36 percent think
gun laws should be kept as they are, and 12 percent think they should be
made less strict.”
“House Republicans appeared Wednesday to be rallying around an $85 billion deal to avert another government shutdown, brushing off complaints from their right wing that the effort would trade immediate spending cuts for less-certain long-term savings,” the Washington Post reports.
“After conducting a series of closed-door briefings and polling members during a late-afternoon vote, GOP leadership aides confidently predicted that the deal struck between House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) and Senate Budget Committee Chairman Patty Murray (D-WA) would sail through the House when it comes to a vote Thursday.”
Wall Street Journal: “Many Democratic leaders were noncommittal, because they were
disappointed the deal didn’t include a renewal of expanded unemployment
benefits due to expire Dec. 28. Still, even those inclined to oppose it
predicted the budget deal would pass.”
Jonathan Chait: “So the deal will probably pass. But conservative opposition signals
that deal-making of any kind is painful enough that Republicans
shouldn’t dare try it again.”
At least five current and former Georgia ethics officials have been subpoenaed by a federal grand jury, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports.
“Senate Republicans scrubbing the Ryan-Murray budget deal have come across a little-noticed provision that will limit the GOP’s ability to block tax increases in future years,” National Review reports.
“The bill includes language from the Senate Democrats’ budget to void a budget ‘point of order’ against replacing the sequester cuts with tax increases. The process is quite complicated, but in practice it grants Harry Reid the authority to send tax increases to the House with a bare majority, rather than the 60 vote threshold that would be required under the point of order.”
Former Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA) “has toyed with running for the Granite State’s Senate seat. But only in the last two weeks have many GOP leaders there begun taking Brown seriously. Whereas before they saw a fallen political star desperate for attention, they now see a possible first-tier contender genuinely contemplating a campaign,” National Journal reports.
Dylan Byers: “But here’s the thing: It doesn’t matter what the New Hampshire GOP says, or even what Brown himself says. The surest indicator of Brown’s political ambitions is what Roger Ailes, the Fox News chief and the man who writes Brown’s paycheck, decides to do with his contract.”
“Republicans are so nervous about Staten Island Rep. Michael Grimm’s re-election chances that they’ve quietly reached out to former GOP Congressman Vito Fossella — who quit five years ago after confessing to having a secret second family — to make a comeback for his old seat,” the New York Post reports.
“Grimm is currently the subject of an ongoing Justice Department probe that centers on whether his campaign solicited illegal donations from foreigners during his 2010 campaign.”
Meanwhile, Politicker reports Grimm bashed the report and other “baseless rumors.”
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) will vote against the deal brokered by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) and Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA), the Daily Caller reports.
“While the budget proposal is expected to pass the Democratic-controlled Senate, McConnell joins a growing list of Republican senators — including Marco Rubio of Florida, Tom Coburn of Oklahoma and Rand Paul of Kentucky — who oppose the deal.”
Ezra Klein: “Somewhere in this chain of colossal, consequential screwups, there are surely a few people who deserve to be fired. The White House tends to dismiss such criticism. Indeed, Obama aides pride themselves on rising above it, viewing it as politically motivated or, when proffered by administration allies, derived from a crude desire for retribution. There might, at times, be truth to that. But firing and replacing underperforming staff is also a key element of effective management.”
“Of late, President Obama has shown a worrying preference for ad hoc, patchwork solutions. The White House recognizes that its health-care law hasn’t been well executed. That’s why it has been throwing new staff at the problem. But the new arrangements are temporary.”
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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