A new Survey USA poll in Los Angeles finds Eric Garcetti leading Wendy Greuel in the race for mayor by five points, 49% to 44%.
Coburn Wants Tornado Disaster Aid to Be Offset
Roll Call: “The tornado damage near Oklahoma City is still being assessed and the death toll is expected to rise, but already Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) says he will insist that any federal disaster aid be paid for with cuts elsewhere.”
Obama Approval Steady in Face of Controversies
A new Washington Post-ABC News poll finds President Obama’s approval rating has remained steady at 51% to 44%, “in the face of fresh disclosures about the IRS, the Benghazi attack and the Justice Department’s secret collection of telephone records of Associated Press journalists as part of a leak investigation.”
Key findings: “A bare majority of Americans say they believe that Obama is focused on issues that are important to them personally; just 33% think so of congressional Republicans. Brighter assessments of the economy may be one reason that the president has been able to weather controversies. For the first time since the 100-day mark of Obama’s first term, most say they are optimistic about the direction of the economy. More than half, 56%, say the economy is on the mend, the most to say so in polls since 2009.”
Nate Silver says there’s evidence the economic recovery is helping Obama’s approval rating.
How Not to Handle a Scandal
“When confronted with its worst scandal in decades, the IRS broke virtually every public relations rule on the books,” Politico reports.
“The agency could have first informed Congress that it was improperly targeting conservative groups for additional scrutiny when they applied for tax-exempt status. It could have issued a comprehensive press release. It could have even leaked to a friendly media outlet to get out in front of the story.”
“The IRS did none of those things. Instead, it took the highly unusual step of planting a question in the audience at an obscure law conference to get the word out about the controversial program.”
Extra Bonus Quote of the Day
“This is an administration embroiled in a scandal that they created. It’s a cover-up. I’m not saying impeachment is the end
game, but it’s a possibility, especially if they keep doing little to
help us learn more.”
— Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT), quoted by the Huffington Post.
Clintons Will Stay Out of NYC Mayoral Race
Bill and Hillary Clinton “are making clear they are staying out of the New York City Democratic mayoral primary, just as the race is about to be roiled by the candidacy of their close aide Huma Abedin’s husband, Anthony Weiner,” Politico reports.
Senior Officials Knew of IRS Problem Weeks Earlier
“White House officials were first notified on April 16 about an investigation into Internal Revenue Service scrutiny of conservative groups and discussed its potential findings with the Treasury Department but never told President Obama,” the New York Times reports.
“The details provided by the White House on Monday went beyond its previous account, and may provide additional fodder for critics pressing to understand what and when the president and his team knew about the I.R.S. misconduct.”
Politico: “Monday’s revelation amounts to the fifth iteration of the Obama administration’s account of events, after initially saying that the White House had first learned of the controversy from the press.”
Howard Fineman says Whitre House aides “either have forgetten or are unable to implement the basic lesson of scandal control in Washington: Get the full story out — all of it — as fast as you can before your critics accuse you of a cover-up or worse.”
Cameron Faces Declining Confidence
British Prime Minister David Cameron “moved to repair relations with a bruised Conservative party by emailing a ‘personal note’ to all members in which he said he would never work with anyone who ‘sneered’ at activists,” the Guardian reports.
“Amid anger in the party at the allegations that a senior member of his inner circle had referred to activists as ‘mad swivel-eyed loons’, the prime minister said the party was held together by ‘a deep and lasting friendship.'”
Said one senior figure: “This is worse than John Major… With Cameron it feels like this could be terminal – and will be so before the election.”
NRA Builds War Chest for Midterm Elections
The National Rifle Association of America Political Victory Fund reported it raised $1,290,539 during April, spent only $27,318, and had $6,730,272 cash on hand as of April 30, Political Moneyline reports.
House GOP Faces Test on Late Term Abortion Ban
“House Republican leadership will soon have to decide how hard to push a controversial ban on late-term abortions sought by the party’s base in the wake of Pennsylvania abortion provider Kermit Gosnell’s three murder convictions,” Roll Call reports.
“So far, GOP leaders have only made strongly worded statements regarding Gosnell, and it’s not yet clear whether GOP leaders will bring a national ban on late-term abortions, authored by conservative Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ) to the floor.”
Bonus Quote of the Day
“No one expects you to take a vow of poverty. But I will say it betrays a poverty of ambition if all you think about is what goods you can buy instead of what good you can do.”
— President Obama, quoted by the Washington Post giving a Morehouse College commencement address.
Candidate Caught Defacing Campaign Signs
Harrisburg mayoral candidate Lewis Butts “has been charged with criminal mischief and criminal conspiracy… for defacing the campaign signs of candidate Eric Papenfuse with black spray paint, changing Papenfuse’s name to ‘Papenpuss,'” the Harrisburg Patriot News reports.
“The impact on the outcome of the election is negligible, as Butts was polling somewhere between zero and 2 percent.”
Letter to a Young Scandalmonger
John Dickerson cautions anyone wanting to hurt the Obama administration to not use refer to Watergate.
“The problem is that the label has become shopworn. The constant application to lesser scandals such as Iran Contra, the Clinton-Lewinsky imbroglio, or the Scooter Libby leak case has scrubbed the analogy down to near meaninglessness. It now signifies overcompensation, telegraphing a weakness in your case. It suggests you are conjuring the ghosts of Watergate because you have so little in the present to frighten men, women, and children. We see how this overcompensation fails in other realms: the guilty child who protests his innocence too volubly, the aging Lothario who uses too much hair dye, or the purchaser of the vehicle known as the Hummer. The weakening of the Watergate analogy has led some to madness as they search for ever-harder stuff. Sen. Dick Durbin and Rep. Keith Ellison, for example, compared President George W. Bush and his administration to the Nazis and Hitler.”
Tougher Run for Cuccinelli
The Washington Post reports on how Virginia’s hard line conservative slate of candidates picked over the weekend is complicating gubernatorial nominee Ken Cuccinelli’s (R) efforts to tack to the middle in his campaign against Terry McAuliffe (D).
Said one GOP strategist: “We’re in a deep shit. The only good news is that the Democrats have Terry McAuliffe. It’s the only thing keeping us glued to a chance of victory.”
Names Can Be Tough to Pronounce
New Jersey gubernatorial candidate Barbara Buono (D) has a clever ad to help raise her name recognition in a race where Gov. Chris Christie (R) is way ahead.
Quote of the Day
“We should not only fire the head of the IRS, which has occurred, but we’ve got to go down the line and find every single person who had anything to do with this and make sure that they are removed from the IRS and the word goes out that this is unacceptable.”
— Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO), quoted by National Review.
Nominee Wanted to Force Women to Report Miscarriages
A bill introduced in 2009 by Virginia State Sen. Mark Obenshain (R) — picked over the weekend as the GOP’s nominee for Attorney General — required that if a woman in Virginia had a miscarriage without a doctor present, they had to report it within 24 hours to the police or risk going to jail for a full year, Think Progress reports.
How the IRS Seeded the Cloud of Scandal Three Years Ago
Washington Post: “The story of the IRS’s policy of targeting right-leaning groups, which played out over several years in Cincinnati, Washington, and dozens of other cities and towns, was one of a bureaucracy caught in a morass of uncertainty and outside pressure. The actions also confirmed the suspicions of many conservatives after they had complained for years of harassment by the tax agency.”
