A new Rutgers-Eagleton poll in New Jersey finds Gov. Chris Christie (R) leading Barbara Buono (D) in the race for governor by 20 points among likely voters, 55% to 35%.
Meanwhile, a new Monmouth University/Asbury Park Press poll shows Christie with a 61% to 24% job approval rating.
Wall Street Journal: “Some
Republicans think they are sure to hold the House in 2014 no matter what
happens because of gerrymandering, but even those levees won’t hold if
there’s a wave of revulsion against the GOP. Marginal seats still matter
for controlling Congress. The kamikazes could end up ensuring the
return of all-Democratic rule.”
Utah Lt. Gov. Greg Bell (R), who has served for more than four years as Gov. Gary Herbert’s closest adviser, announced he will be leaving office, the Salt Lake Tribune reports.
Bell said the recession and pending retirement has created financial strain on his family.
Explained Bell: “With those two pressures, my wife and I have decided it’s time to step down and return to the employment market. The governor and I have worked through this. It is difficult to leave. He’s been incredibly kind to me. … I’m a strong Gary Herbert supporter. I’m really one of his staunchest fans and will continue to be.”
You're reading the free version of Political Wire
Upgrade to a paid membership to unlock full access. The process is quick and easy. You can even use Apple Pay.
“This is a sense of madness. You have people in my party who didn’t come to limit government, but to stop it.”
— Former Sen. Alan Simpson (R-WY), quoted by Politico.
Former Montana Gov. Marc Racicot (R) says he will not run for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT), the Helena Independent Record reports.
Racicot said that he is encouraging Rep. Steve Daines (R-MT) to run for Montana’s first open Senate seat since the 1970s.
President Obama said last weekend that he was “less concerned about style points” than “getting the policy right,” but Jill Lawrence says “it’s a risky business to disregard style.”
“From his Syria gyrations to Monday’s ill-timed economic speech attacking Republicans as a mass shooting was in progress at the nearby Washington Navy Yard, Obama’s apparently willful dismissal of style could do more than just hurt his poll numbers. It could yield midterm election losses and create perhaps insurmountable obstacles to achieving his policy goals.”
Ruth Marcus: “Style, as the president would have it, matters. Adversaries and allies, foreign and domestic, take a measure of the president’s steel. They judge whether he can be trusted, whether he will back down, whether he has what it takes to lead his country and the world. In the past few weeks, I have encountered not a single person outside the White House, Republican or Democrat, who has kind words for Obama’s performance. Scornful may not be too strong a word for the consensus view, though it is scorn leavened, at least among the more thoughtful critics, with appreciation for the no-good-options reality of Syria.”
The Boston Globe looks at Martha Coakley’s (D) bid for Massachusetts governor in which she “embarked on what could fairly be called the Great Handshake Tour of 2013, pumping palm after palm in a frenetic display designed to lay to rest memories of her failed 2010 Senate race when she famously disdained shaking hands outside Fenway Park in the cold.”
“The message is clear: Coakley insists she has learned the lessons from her lackluster Senate race and will showcase a harder-working side of herself.”
The New York Times has a good piece on how liberal Democrats rose up to derail the possible nomination of Larry Summers to be chairman of the Federal Reserve Board.
“For the White House, that would have left two options, Senate aides said, both unpalatable. The first would have been to lean on the Democratic “no” votes, asking members to agree to pass Mr. Summers out of committee even if they intended to vote against him on the Senate floor. But the White House had not laid the groundwork for such a strategy. Some Democratic offices had not heard from White House representatives about the nomination at all.”
“The second option would have been to barter for Republican votes. Aides described that strategy as possible: many Republicans would have been willing to vote for Mr. Summers, they said, for a price. But handing the Republicans leverage in the midst of the debt ceiling and budget debates would have weakened the White House’s hand.”
Wonk Wire: Janet Yellen is now the front-runner for Fed chief.
A Smart Politics analysis finds that a 2014 West Virginia race between Shelley Moore Capito (R) and Natalie Tennant (D) would be the 13th U.S. Senate contest featuring two female major party nominees in U.S. history, and just the third without an incumbent.
When Bill Thompson (D) finally abandoned his quest for New York City mayor yesterday, “in a disappointing coda to a campaign filled with what ifs over everything from demographics to his message, it presented a microcosm of a dutiful but not-quite-compelling career,” the New York Times reports.
“A product of Brooklyn machine politics, Mr. Thompson believed strongly in by-the-book tactics, like gathering institutional endorsements. Yet he never led in a single poll. He never surged or collapsed, unlike some of his rivals. And despite campaigning for 24 hours straight, not once, but twice, in the past six weeks, the mild-mannered Mr. Thompson could never convince voters that he had enough political thunder.”
“West Virginia Secretary of State Natalie Tennant’s anticipated entrance into an open-seat Senate race on Tuesday will bring the recruitment phase of next year’s competitive Senate landscape closer to its conclusion,” Roll Call reports.
“Senate Democrats, who can afford a loss of no more than five seats in the 2014 midterms to retain a majority, are on the brink of filling the remaining few gaps on the party’s roster of candidates. With Tennant in and Lt. Gov. John Walsh potentially running in Montana, the party has just one vulnerable seat left where it is still searching for a candidate: South Dakota.”
“Republicans are playing offense in all but two of the top races next year and therefore had far more recruiting to do, but they have also landed candidates in nearly all of their highly targeted races. While the search is ongoing in some second-tier states, most of the party’s biggest midterm question marks stem from the rampant competitive primaries that will play out next summer.”
Bill Daley (D) “abruptly ended his bid for the Democratic nomination for governor today, telling the Chicago Tribune that a lifetime in politics had not prepared him for the “enormity” of his first run for office and the challenge of leading the state through difficult times.”
Said Daley: “One of the things I always thought in my career that I wanted to do, I thought I would be able to have that opportunity, I hoped, would be to run for office. And even though you’re around it for a long time, you really don’t get a sense of the enormity of it until you get into it.”
However, he added: “There’s no doubt in my mind that Pat Quinn will not be the next governor of Illinois. This governor is not that strong that somebody should fear running against him.”
“When it comes to political fundraising, Congress doesn’t travel very far; 76 percent of all political fundraisers in D.C. take place within three city blocks of the U.S. Capitol, a new study by the Sunlight Foundation shows. Additionally, these fundraisers are concentrated in and around congressional working hours and on days when the House and Senate are in session (more to come on this trend tomorrow).”
Sabato’s Crystal Ball: “West Virginia and national Democrats finally have a candidate in the Mountain State’s open Senate race: Secretary of State Natalie Tennant (D) will reportedly enter the contest Tuesday morning. Her entry, which has been rumored for months, gives Democrats a credible opponent for Rep. Shelley Moore Capito (R, WV-2), the likely Republican nominee. We are changing the rating in this race from Likely Republican to LEANS REPUBLICAN. With a successful statewide elected official now running, Democrats have kept the race on the competitive board, but it would still be a significant surprise if Republicans fumbled away one of their best pickup opportunities in the country.”
“Republicans can’t believe this is happening: Democrat Terry McAuliffe — whose controversial business dealings and past life as a party moneyman make him a walking negative ad — has taken command of the Virginia governor’s race,” Politico reports.
“More than a dozen interviews last week with longtime Republican insiders around the Commonwealth yielded near-unanimous consensus that their candidate, state Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, lost significant ground over the summer and would lose if the election were held today.”
Said one prominent GOP official: “It’s going to be a bath.”
“I cannot remember a time when one faction of one party promises economic chaos when it doesn’t get everything it wants.”
— President Obama, quoted by NBC News, on threats by some Republicans to force a government shutdown over Obamacare.
Out tomorrow: The Message: The Reselling of President Obama by Richard Wolffe.
The Fix: “While President Obama and his top aides were pretty adept at containing leaks from their 2012 campaign, some of the details have begun to emerge now that political reporters are publishing books about the election.”
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.
“There are a lot of blogs and news sites claiming to understand politics, but only a few actually do. Political Wire is one of them.”
— Chuck Todd, host of “Meet the Press”
“Concise. Relevant. To the point. Political Wire is the first site I check when I’m looking for the latest political nugget. That pretty much says it all.”
— Stuart Rothenberg, editor of the Rothenberg Political Report
“Political Wire is one of only four or five sites that I check every day and sometimes several times a day, for the latest political news and developments.”
— Charlie Cook, editor of the Cook Political Report
“The big news, delicious tidbits, pearls of wisdom — nicely packaged, constantly updated… What political junkie could ask for more?”
— Larry Sabato, Center for Politics, University of Virginia
“Political Wire is a great, great site.”
— Joe Scarborough, host of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe”
“Taegan Goddard has a knack for digging out political gems that too often get passed over by the mainstream press, and for delivering the latest electoral developments in a sharp, no frills style that makes his Political Wire an addictive blog habit you don’t want to kick.”
— Arianna Huffington, founder of The Huffington Post
“Political Wire is one of the absolute must-read sites in the blogosphere.”
— Glenn Reynolds, founder of Instapundit
“I rely on Taegan Goddard’s Political Wire for straight, fair political news, he gets right to the point. It’s an eagerly anticipated part of my news reading.”
— Craig Newmark, founder of Craigslist.