Toronto Mayor Rob Ford has apologized for the “unforgivable language” he used on Thursday, but is standing firm that the new allegations that he partied with a prostitute and snorted cocaine are “100 per cent lies,” the Toronto Star reports.
Said Ford: “I used unforgivable language, and again, I apologize. These allegations are 100 per cent lies. When you attack my integrity as a father and as a husband, I see red.”
Andrew Sullivan: “Given how volatile our politics is right now – remember the conventional wisdom only six weeks ago? – I wouldn’t jump to conclusions. Except this one: a president can survive a judgment of incompetence in a critical area – like the website clusterfuck. And a president can survive being exposed as a focus-grouped liar on a political promise. But both at once? That could be a fatal combination. And Obama really has no one to blame but himself.”
“This does not mean an indictment of an entire presidency, or even the sign of a failed presidency. In their second terms, Clinton and Reagan were both exposed as liars – in the Lewinsky mess and the more serious Iran-Contra arms-for-hostages scandal. They were deeply wounded by both dramas, but were retroactively deemed successful nonetheless.”
“I’ve never said that in my life to her. I would never do that. I’m
happily married. I’ve got more than enough to eat at home. Thank you
very much.”
— Toronto Mayor Rob Ford, in a statement, on allegations he told a staffer he wanted to “eat her pussy.”
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The White House “will announce a plan for allowing insurance companies to continue offering existing individual insurance policies even if they fall short of the coverage standards set by the 2010 health-care law,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“The move is designed to ease the problem created by the cancellation of hundreds of thousands of policies in recent weeks. It is likely to make it easier for the White House to dissuade Democrats from voting for a House Republican bill due to come to a vote on Friday that the Obama administration believes goes too far in trying to address the cancellation problem.”
A new Fox News poll shows Republicans leading the generic congressional ballot, 43 to 40%. In last month’s poll, Democrats led, 45% to 37%.
“The improvement in the generic Republican candidate’s position comes mostly from increased support among independents. Republicans still trail Democrats in congressional job ratings.”
Charles Stile: “Former Gov. Thomas H. Kean has taken great pride in watching Chris Christie, his onetime 14-year-old campaign volunteer, rise to become what Republicans like Kean are now calling the party’s best hope of reclaiming the White House.”
“But this week, the typical Kean praise for his protégé was gone. In its place was a sharp critique of Christie, tinged with bitterness.”
Buzzfeed:
“A tea party group has launched a campaign to support primary
challenges against all 87 Republicans who voted for the deal in late
October to reopen the government and raise the debt ceiling.”
First Read: “We said this repeatedly during the government shutdown: The political party that’s unified is typically winning, while the party that’s divided is losing. And what happened during the shutdown? The united Democrats — who didn’t budge on major changes to President Obama’s health-care law — won that fight, while Republicans — who were divided on the merits of shutting down the government — ended up as the losers. Now the situation has flipped. After a month of bad news regarding the health-care law (the federal website not working well, the cancellation notices for some who get their insurance in the private marketplace, and the low enrollment figures), it’s Democrats who are divided and Republicans who are united. And the Democratic dam is now broken.”
Wonk Wire: How a political fix will actually undermine Obamacare
“If I win, I might demand a recount.”
— Former Sen. Larry Pressler (R-SD), quoted by Roll Call, on possibly running an unconventional idealistic campaign for his old seat.
A source in a closed-door House GOP conference meeting told National Review that Speaker John Boehner said “targeted strikes” would ultimately undermine President Obama’s health care law.
Said Boehner: “Remember the strategy for stopping Obamacare we laid out to you back in July. It had two components: Aggressive, coordinated oversight, and targeted legislative strikes aimed at shattering the legislative coalition the president has used to force his law on the nation. That plan is being executed as we speak.”
Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) is dating a 36-year-old Los Angeles entertainment lawyer, the New York Post reports.
Booker remarked last summer that his “great dismay” was he has not “settled down with a life partner” but was amused at speculation he might be gay.
Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) said New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) was re-elected because he got federal relief funds after Hurricane Sandy, CBS Philadelphia reports.
Said Paul: “Well, his victory was, in large form, based on that he got a lot of federal money for his state. The problem is…unlimited spending is sort of – you could call it moderate, or even Liberal, to think that there’s an unlimited amount of money, even for good causes.”
He added: “If you’re a conservative Republican, the federal government will be involved in certain things, but when you spend money, particularly when you’re at trillion dollars in the hole, it shouldn’t be just this, ‘gimme, gimme, gimme all my money’ without any considerations or strings. It should be, ‘Yes, this is why it’s necessary, but this is also why I’ll cut spending somewhere else.'”
Politico notes that “as the Obamacare rollout gets worse with each passing day, Speaker John Boehner and his House GOP colleagues are being handed political gold — and they think they’ve figured out a way to avoid screwing it up.”
“The Obamacare playbook, as described by several high-level House GOP aides and lawmakers, includes lots of committee oversight, some targeted legislation and lots of rhetoric. But there will be no more votes to defund or repeal Obamacare — the issue that led to the disastrous 16-day government shutdown — the GOP leadership says. At some point, top Republicans say, there might be a vote to delay the law for a year.”
The Week: The Democratic panic over Obamacare has begun.
“The national Republican Party is considering a number of major changes to its presidential nominating process to avoid a repeat of the debacles of 2012, according to several party officials,” David Freedlander reports.
“Most significantly, the party is considering holding a “Midwestern primary” featuring Great Lakes states such as Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota that would come immediately after the votes in the traditional early primary states. Also being weighed and thought likely to be approved when the Republican National Committee meets in early 2014 is a plan to shorten the primary season considerably by holding the party’s convention in July, almost as soon as the last primary ballots are cast.”
Michael Tomasky: “Yes, Republicans have been in disarray, too, from time to time–the low points of the Iraq War, Katrina, and just last month during the government shutdown. But for a variety of reasons, the 24-7 news cycle era has found Dems in disarray to be a far more potent story line than Republicans in disarray. It’s alliterative, for starters. And it has been, I readily concede, legitimately true at times. Plus, Fox, for many years, drove the agenda that the other cable nets swallowed hook, line, and sinker. MSNBC has been a liberal pushback channel only for five years or so, or less than half the life span of the 24-7 cycle. (Remember when Tucker Carlson was an MSNBC host?) And Republicans have tended to have tougher game faces, march more in lockstep, and not concede those crucial rhetorical inches that Democrats so often feel compelled to grant.”
“Sixteen years ago, president Bill Clinton’s secretary of labor, Robert Reich, summed up the frustrations of adjusting to life in the Cabinet, where even a close personal relationship with the president, dating to their Oxford days, didn’t spare him from being bossed around by arrogant West Wing nobodies,” Politico writes.
“Two presidents later, the Cabinet is a swarm of 23 people that includes 15 secretaries and eight other Cabinet-rank officers. And yet never has the job of Cabinet secretary seemed smaller. The staffers who rule Obama’s West Wing often treat his Cabinet as a nuisance: At the top of the pecking order are the celebrity power players, like former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, to be warily managed; at the bottom, what they see as a bunch of well-intentioned political naifs only a lip-slip away from derailing the president’s agenda.”
Washington Post: “Many second-term presidents run into trust problems, but in important ways the problem Obama now faces is more pressing. Honesty goes to the rationale for his election and to the core of his philosophy that government is something to be trusted, not feared or ridiculed as his political opponents claim.”
Stu Rothenberg says Democrats are right to worry about recent polls showing a sharp drop in President Obama’s approval rating.
“It would be surprising if other national surveys conducted over the next few weeks don’t show the same trend. The media’s reporting on each survey tends to have a cumulative impact, as if each poll is finding something new.”
“Of course, each is simply reporting on the same development, but the repeated drumbeat about the president’s weaker standing adds to the buzz about Obama’s problems. That’s exactly what happened to President George W. Bush after Hurricane Katrina and the economy’s plunge undermined his standing.”
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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