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White House in Crisis Mode

November 9, 2013 at 9:32 am EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

President Obama’s anger, “described by a White House that has repeatedly sought to show that the president was unaware of the extent of the website’s problems, has lit a fire under the West Wing staff,” the New York Times reports.

“Senior aides are racing to make sure the website is fixed by the end of the month as they confront the political fallout from presidential promises, now broken, that all Americans who liked their existing health care plans could keep them… Inside the White House, there is anxiety that if the health care problems are not righted, they could imperil the rest of Mr. Obama’s presidency, especially as criticism grows that the president misled consumers about the plan.”

Michael Tomasky: “The Obamacare website situation is bad–but it’s not a make-or-break moment for this presidency. It’s just another round of the media’s trumped-up crises.”

Sarah Palin Defends Christmas

November 9, 2013 at 8:53 am EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Dan Amira: “For religious conservatives, howling over the so-called ‘war on Christmas’ has become an annual holiday tradition almost as enjoyable as Christmas itself. On Tuesday, Sarah Palin seeks to capitalize on the phenomenon with the release of her newest book, Good Tidings and Great Joy: Protecting the Heart of Christmas.”

“The book is part tribute to the joys of Christmas, part how-to guide for oppressed Christians looking for ways to fight back against whiny and litigious secularists, and part manifesto on the general superiority of Christianity over atheism. Palin, throughout, appears incapable of fathoming why a business catering to people from all walks of life may prefer to use inclusive holiday-season language in promotional items, or why a non-Christian may not appreciate a government institution expressing a preference for Christianity over other religions.”

Gay Marriage Nears Approval in Hawaii

November 9, 2013 at 8:26 am EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Hawaii’s state House, “turning back furious — if futile — pleas for delay, voted late Friday to grant marriage equality to gay and lesbian couples,” the Honolulu Star Advertiser reports.

“The 30-19 vote sends the bill to the state Senate, which is inclined to agree to the House version Tuesday and transmit the bill to Gov. Neil Abercrombie for his signature.”

New York Times: “Hawaii is poised to be among 16 states to approve gay marriage, along with Illinois and shortly after Minnesota, New Jersey and Rhode Island. But the step in Hawaii has special resonance because the contemporary battle over same-sex marriage was born here two decades ago.”

Virginia Attorney General’s Race Still Undecided

November 9, 2013 at 8:14 am EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

The Virginia attorney general race “remained a nail-biter heading into the weekend, as a rapt band of election officials and observers pored over updates to Election Day numbers,” Politico reports.

“Local authorities have until Nov. 12 to correct, complete and turn in their tallies to the state in the contest between state Sens. Mark Obenshain (R) and Mark Herring (D), which was too close to call on Tuesday as Democrats won the other two statewide offices on the ballot.”

Richmond Times Dispatch: “Uncounted absentee and provisional votes could tip attorney general race”

National Republicans Push Brown to Run in New Hampshire

November 9, 2013 at 8:02 am EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“The signs are mounting. Scott Brown travels almost weekly to New Hampshire. Last month he formed a political action committee there to raise funds; this week he attacked the state’s Democratic senator on his favorite target: national health care,” the Boston Globe reports.

“Now national Republicans are pushing the former Massachusetts senator to declare his candidacy for the US Senate from New Hampshire. And they insist, despite mixed signals from Brown, that he is seriously weighing such a run.”

Enjoying the Podcast?

November 8, 2013 at 8:45 pm EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

If you like the Political Wire podcast, please consider leaving a 5 star review over at iTunes.

Thanks so much for listening!

The Bully Pulpit

November 8, 2013 at 8:31 pm EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

In the mail: The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and the Golden Age of Journalism by Doris Kearns Goodwin.

Landrieu Skips Obama Appearance

November 8, 2013 at 4:46 pm EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA) traveled with President Obama to New Orleans on Air Force One but she didn’t attend his speech about boosting exports, the New Orleans Times Picayune reports.

Landrieu in up for re-election next year.

GOP Looks to Capitalize on Obamacare Woes

November 8, 2013 at 4:35 pm EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Roll Call has obtained an internal GOP playbook “on how to best score political points against Obamacare, the White House and Democrats in general.”

The memo is a manual for House Republicans on how to highlight the recent issues with the health care law and how to best “communicate in your district about the disastrous Obamacare rollout.”

Word Change

November 8, 2013 at 3:52 pm EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Michael Kinsley has a very funny review of Double Down: Game Change 2012 by Mark Halperin and John Heilemann.

“There is actually no vomit in the scene the authors describe as ‘vomitous’ It’s just their way of writing vividly. They’re not snobs. They actually have a weakness for colorful vernacular, with a special fondness for a particular bodily function. And it’s not the usual one. The many references to excrement — people serving it to one another on a bun, people burying one another in it and so on — are . . . are . . . help me, I need a word here. Well, they’re vomitous. This may be the first political book ever with more excrement than sex.”

Bonus Quote of the Day

November 8, 2013 at 1:20 pm EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“The court is currently comprised of four active judges appointed by Republican presidents and four active judges appointed by Democrat presidents. There is no reason to upset the current makeup of the court, particularly when the reason for doing so appears to be ideologically driven.”

— Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA), quoted by the Washington Post, defending a filibuster of any nominees to the court.

Obama’s Second-Term Slide Continues

November 8, 2013 at 1:14 pm EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

A new Pew Research survey finds President Obama’s overall job rating stands at 41%, down 14 points since last December while 53% now disapprove of the way he is handling his job as president.

The latest Gallup tracking poll finds Obama’s approval rate at 43% to 50%.

Obama’s Crucial Six Months

November 8, 2013 at 12:54 pm EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Andrew Sullivan: “In many ways, his entire term as president has been leading up to this winter and spring. This will be when his core advancements in domestic and foreign policy will be tested as never before. This will be when we see whether the Affordable Care Act can gain traction and legitimacy as a reform that is far better than the chaos and inefficiency of the past; and when we see if the West can bring the great nation of Iran back into the fold of the world economy, with clear restrictions on its nuclear program.”

Obama the Loner

November 8, 2013 at 12:46 pm EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Todd Purdum: “When Barack Obama arrived in Washington almost five years ago, the universal assumption was that the young president–who had, after all, won office by exploiting every connective tool of the national social and electoral network–would run his White House in sharp contrast to the bunkered, hunkered-down George W. Bush.”

“Like so much conventional wisdom, that impression has proved dead wrong. In fact, Obama’s resolute solitude–his isolation and alienation from the other players and power centers of Washington, be they rivals or friends–has emerged as the defining trait of his time in office. He may be the biggest presidential paradox since Thomas Jefferson, the slaveholder who wrote the Declaration of Independence: a community organizer who works alone.”

Booker’s First Week in Washington

November 8, 2013 at 12:31 pm EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Ruby Cramer notes how Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) once said he might “hack the Senate.”

“But his first week in the Senate — marked by deference to his colleagues, near-constant admissions that he has much to learn, and an obsessive focus on his home state — looked nothing at all like the jolt to the Beltway he articulated earlier this year, before the death of Sen. Frank Lautenberg. And as Booker works to gain his footing in ‘the world’s greatest deliberative body,’ it remains an open question whether he has the wherewithal to match his reformist rhetoric with action.”

Obama Secretly Loosened Sanctions on Iran

November 8, 2013 at 9:49 am EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Long before a nuclear deal was in reach, the U.S. was quietly lifting some of the financial pressure on Iran, the Daily Beast reports.

“A review of Treasury Department notices reveals that the U.S. government has all but stopped the financial blacklisting of entities and people that help Iran evade international sanctions since the election of its president, Hassan Rouhani, in June.”

Why Obama’s Approval Rating Is Down

November 8, 2013 at 9:36 am EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

National Journal has an excellent chart showing why President Obama’s approval rating has fallen as much as 16 points since mid-December.

60 Minutes Retracts Report

November 8, 2013 at 9:10 am EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

New York Times: “The correspondent for the disputed 60 Minutes’ segment about the attack on the United States Special Mission in Benghazi, Libya, last year apologized on the air Friday morning, saying it was a ‘mistake” to put on a security officer whose credibility has since been undermined by his diverging accounts of his actions that night.”