Nancy Mace (R), the first woman to graduate from The Citadel, and South Carolina state Sen. Lee Bright (R), one of the Legislature’s more outspoken libertarians, say they will announce soon that they will run against Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) in next year’s Republican primary, the Columbia State reports.
The two challengers would join businessman Richard Cash (R) “who lost a 2010 Republican congressional runoff, in trying to block Graham from winning a fourth six-year term in the Senate.”
The U.S. economy added 162,000 jobs last month while the unemployment rate fell to 7.4%, the lowest since December 2008, the Wall Street Journal reports.
Ezra Klein: “If labor-force participation had held at its pre-recession peak, unemployment would be around 9.7 percent today.”
Boston Globe: “On any given day in the elegant corridors of the United States Capitol, some of the most powerful people in the world continue a tradition as old as the marble floors: Senators stop and take questions from the news media… It is one of the quainter rituals in an era when the people in power are increasingly removed from the people they most affect, often talking through staff members in written statements or during heavily choreographed events. Most senators typically stop on their way to and from floor votes and committee hearings, and partake in the unthinkable: They answer the questions they are asked.”
But not Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) who will “either huddle close to a Senate colleague, breezing past several reporters as if they don’t exist, or use a variety of other methods to avoid hallway questions. There’s the tricky cellphone to her ear maneuver, the more athletic dash for the elevator, the outright sprint to catch a departing tram.”
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Charles Krauthammer: “Never make a threat on which you are not prepared to deliver. Every fiscal showdown has redounded against the Republicans. The first, in 1995, effectively marked the end of the Gingrich revolution. The latest, last December, led to a last-minute Republican cave that humiliated the GOP and did nothing to stop the tax hike it so strongly opposed.”
“How many times must we learn the lesson? You can’t govern from one house of Congress. You need to win back the Senate and then the presidency. Shutting down the government is the worst possible way to get there. Indeed, it’s Obama’s fondest hope for a Democratic recovery.”
A new Mellman Group (D) poll in Kentucky finds Alison Lundergan Grimes (D) edging Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) in a U.S. Senate race, 44% to 42%.
It’s the second poll this week giving Grimes a slight edge over the Senate GOP leader.
The Cook Political Report moves the race to “toss up.”
After Texas racked up $1.6 million in expenses for holding two special sessions of the legislature, state Rep. Giovanni Capriglione (R) said state Sen. Wendy Davis (D) — who led an epic filibuster against abortion restrictions — should foot the bill, the Fort Worth Star Telegram reports.
Said Capriglione: “I am upset at the cost. I think we need to remember why we are having this extra special session. One state senator, in an effort to capture national attention, forced this special session.”
He added: “I firmly believe that Sen. Wendy Davis should reimburse the taxpayers for the entire cost of the second special session. I am sure that she has raised enough money at her Washington, D.C., fundraiser to cover the cost.”
“Senate Republicans are standing firm by their threat to block every one of President Obama’s nominees to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, insisting on eliminating all three vacant seats on the country’s second most powerful court,” TPM reports.
“If they follow through, it could spark yet another nuclear showdown over filibuster rules.”
“Moments before Huma Abedin stood amid a phalanx of television cameras last week and announced to a national audience that she was standing by her embattled husband, Anthony D. Weiner, she made a quick phone call to a trusted colleague,” the New York Times reports.
Philippe Reines “said his primary interest was in supporting his close friend Ms. Abedin” but his “behind-the-scenes presence illustrates the overlapping roles played by Clinton advisers as they seek to help Ms. Abedin navigate the circuslike atmosphere surrounding the campaign, and at the same time protect the Clinton brand from any spillover damage.”
“It underscores the extent to which top aides in the extended Clinton family, whatever titles they take on inside and outside government, remain steadfast in their desire to protect the interests of their benefactors, Bill and Hillary Clinton.”
The path to recalling beleaguered San Diego Mayor Bob Filner (D) “became much clearer Thursday as more business leaders called on him to forego that process and resign amid a sexual harassment scandal that has made national headlines,” the San Diego Union Tribune reports.
“One of the obstacles in the way of the nascent recall movements had been the murkiness of the city law that dictates the rules for how to oust an elected official. The City Attorney’s Office issued an opinion that the law allows simultaneous attempts to recall an official until one of them qualifies for the ballot.”
Sources tell CNN dozens of people working for the CIA were on the ground the nigh of the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya “and that the agency is going to great lengths to make sure whatever it was doing, remains a secret.”
“The CIA is involved in what one source calls an unprecedented attempt to keep the spy agency’s Benghazi secrets from ever leaking out.”
A new Quinnipiac poll finds President Obama gets a divided job approval rating as 46% approve and 48% disapprove.
But this is much better than the negative 19% to 73% job approval for congressional Republicans and the negative 31% to 61% score for congressional Democrats.
American voters also trust President Obama more than Congressional Republicans on the economy, 45% to 39%.
A new Pew Research survey sheds some light on the fighting between Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) over civil liberties: Paul is seen favorably by 55% of Republican voters, compared to 47% who have a positive view of Christie,
Virginia lieutenant governor nominee E.W. Jackson (R) said the Democratic Party is “anti-God” and that Christians should leave it, Salon reports.
Said Jackson: “Oh, Oh, oh I do believe it. I said it because I believe that the Democrat party has become an anti-God party, I think it’s an anti-life party, I think it’s an anti-family party. And these are all things I think Christians hold to very dearly.”
Newark Mayor Cory Booker (D) “ruled out a presidential run or serving on the ticket of another candidate in the next national campaign,” Politico reports.
“The question arose after a Booker appearance in Iowa this month was scuttled over timing because of the special election primary, which is on Aug. 13.”
Andrew Sullivan: “Perhaps the most frustrating aspect of the current GOP’s refusal to do anything but propose to slash spending is that “propose” is all they really want to do. They cannot actually stomach the actual cuts their abstract ideology demands. And so what happened yesterday, when the House leadership suddenly yanked a bill slashing transportation and housing spending, is of a piece with the growing incoherence on the right.”
Jonathan Chait: “Yesterday, the House of Representatives pulled a bill from the floor for lack of votes — the sort of scrambling chaos that occurs routinely in the chamber where John Boehner presides like a trembling child monarch. But this defeat was different. The bill concerned the funding of housing and transportation programs, though its failure represented more than just a programmatic setback, or even a setback for the Republican economic strategy writ large, but the potential ruin of its entire posture toward Obama. Since taking control of the House two and a half years ago, Republicans have fomented a series of crises that seemed to have no end in sight, explicitly refusing to negotiate with Obama and implicitly denying his legitimacy as president. The crumbling of that wall is far from certain, but yesterday a wide crack opened up.”
Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball argues that if Sen. John McCain had won the presidential election in 2008, Democrats “would probably still control the House, and they’d certainly still control the Senate.”
“That’s because the president’s party almost invariably pays a price for holding the White House, a price that can be measured in the loss of House representatives, senators, governors and state legislators.”
Of the 12 presidents who served after World War II, most “left office with their parties having smaller House and Senate caucuses than when they arrived, and also fewer governors and state legislative chambers — often dramatically fewer.”
Eliot Spitzer refused to respond to rumors — pushed by his arch-nemesis Roger Stone, among others — that he is engaging in an extramarital affair, Politicker reports.
Said Spitzer: “I’m so tired of the personal attacks and I’ve answered all those questions. The public cares about what I did in government and that’s what I’m going to be talking about. And that’s what the public is going to vote based on… We’ve said everything we can say about that. These are attacks that are coming from out of left field… I’ve said everything we can say about this.”
“We need to prepare for the inevitable collapse that is going to
happen: You know it’s going to happen. That’s right, I am a politician
and I am standing up here and saying that.”
— Washington state Rep. Matt Shea (R), quoted by the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, on the coming economic collapse.
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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