The former fiancee of San Diego Mayor Bob Filner (D) “says she ended her relationship with him because he became increasingly abusive toward her and began sending sexually explicit text messages to other women in her presence,” KPBS reports.
Bronwyn Ingram said she witnessed what she called a “severe deterioration in Bob’s ability to engage with anyone in a civil manner, myself included.”
A new Quinnipiac poll in New York City shows Anthony Weiner (D) leading the Democratic race for mayor with 25%, followed by Christine Quinn (D) at 22%, William Thompson (D) at 11%, Bill de Blasio (D) at 10% and John Liu (D) at 7%.
In the race for Comptroller, former Gov. Eliot Spitzer (D) leads Scott Stringer (D), 48% to 33%.
Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan (D) announced she would skip a race for governor next year and run for re-election instead, Capitol Fax reports.
Madigan’s announcement is a big boost for Bill Daley (D) who already announced a primary challenge to Gov. Pat Quinn (D).
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“I think that the president, even by executive order, could again wave his magic wand before 2014, and he’d say ‘Now, all new legal Americans are going to have voting rights.'”
— Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN), in an interview with World Net Daily, explaining how House Republicans would risk losing their majority if they passed an immigration bill that contained a pathway to citizenship.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) “plans to use some procedural trickery Monday night — and it could get some senators arrested,” National Journal reports.
“In an effort to get all senators to the Senate chamber at 5:30 p.m., the Nevada Democrat is going to employ a rarely used procedure called a live quorum. Reid wants all the senators back to the Capitol to discuss potential rule changes to the filibuster… If it doesn’t work, however, that’s where things get dicey. The Senate can then direct the sergeant at arms to compel — or even arrest–senators to bring them to the floor.”
Sources tell CNN that Reid and Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) “engaged in quiet negotiations over the weekend and got close to averting
the so-called nuclear option over a dispute surrounding President
Obama’s nominees, but they failed to seal the deal.”
Dan Balz asked Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s (R) “lousy introduction to the national stage” during the 2012 presidential campagin would affect his chances if he were to run again.
Said Perry: “You mean in the way Bill Clinton’s introduction was bad?,” referring to Clinton’s infamous nomination speech for Michael Dukakis at the 1988 Democratic National Convention.
When it was noted that Clinton’s moment was just one speech, Perry added: “If one performance or a series of performances pretty much blackballs you, then it does. But I don’t think that’s what this country’s all about.”
Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) said he and Republicans are trying to strike a deal with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) to avoid his threat of triggering the “nuclear option” and would either allow up-or-down votes on seven contentious nominees or at least find “replacements” for those nominees, Politico reports.
A new Public Policy Polling survey finds Gov. Bob McDonnell’s (R) job approval at just 36% with 41% disapproving. His net approval rating has dropped 12 points in the last month, and for the first time since taking office he’s under water.
Key finding: “McDonnell’s ethics issues seem to be driving this downturn in his popularity. Only 31% of voters in the state consider him to be an ethical politician, compared to 45% who do not.”
Just updated: The Death and Taxes Poster 2014 — the single most open and accessible record of government spending ever created.
Also worth checking out:
Coming later this year: The Gamble: Choice and Chance in the 2012 Presidential Election by John Sides and Lynn Vavrek.
I just received an advance copy and it looks fantastic.
New York points out there’s a compelling Establishment reason for Speaker John Boehner to pass an immigration-reform bill: “It has become a Washington truism that the party must expand its appeal to Latino and minority voters if it wants to remain viable in the future.”
“The trouble is that there is one group that emphatically doesn’t want immigration reform, at least in its current Senate iteration: a key, very conservative cohort of the House Republicans, which Boehner just happens to lead. Which means his speakership, of late, has become a case study in minefield walking, forcing him to balance one survival instinct against another. If he doesn’t make an attempt at a serious bill, he’ll have almost nothing to show for his leadership, suffering yet another humiliating defeat in a two-plus-year string of humiliating defeats. But if he tries to forge a deal with the Democrats and let the bill come to the floor (where it will need Democratic support to pass), he’ll face a revolt from his own rather large backbench–and he already survived one this winter, when twelve Republicans tried to oust him in a coup.”
“And so, faced with choosing between passing historic legislation and saving his own hide, John Boehner has spent most of this summer punting.”
Nate Silver: “A race-by-race analysis of the Senate, in fact, suggests that Republicans might now be close to even-money to win control of the chamber after next year’s elections. Our best guess, after assigning probabilities of the likelihood of a G.O.P. pickup in each state, is that Republicans will end up with somewhere between 50 and 51 Senate seats after 2014, putting them right on the threshold of a majority.”
Speaker John Boehner “wants to pass a series of small bills dealing with immigration reform piece by piece, but it’s not clear whether 218 votes, the required number for passage, will be there for any of them,” National Review reports.
“Top Democrats are already signaling they’ll oppose the various bills being prepared by the GOP leadership, and conservative Republicans, especially, are wary. Many Republicans will prefer to simply vote against any bill, even if they agree with elements of the legislation, just to prevent Boehner from going to conference with the Senate. Such a conference, many conservatives fear, could lead to a consensus bill that includes amnesty.”
Greg Sargent: “This is why the critical question remains: Is there anything that can get a majority of House Republicans to support a path to citizenship under any circumstances?”
Sen. Marco Rubio “is losing altitude with some conservatives because he’s the Republican face of immigration reform that includes a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. Yet he’ll have a lot of company in the 2016 field if he runs for the GOP presidential nomination,” Jill Lawrence reports.
“In fact almost every Republican weighing a 2016 race – from Jeb Bush and Chris Christie to Paul Ryan and Bobby Jindal – favors some path to citizenship like the one in the comprehensive reform bill passed by the Senate, or is open to a variation of it.”
So when does Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT) give us his farm?
Texas state Sen. Wendy Davis (D), who made national headliners by leading a filibuster against abortion legislation, raised almost $1 million in the final two weeks of June, the Texas Tribune reports.
“Davis, who is mulling a run for Texas governor in a state that hasn’t elected a Democrat to statewide office since 1994, said in an interview … that if she jumps into the governor’s race, her ability to raise enough money to run a competitive statewide race will be ‘a key question.'”
A new Brookings Institution analysis finds the last House of Representatives was the most conservative in more than 60 years.
The Washington Post notes Virginia First Lady Maureen McDonnell’s “retreat from the spotlight has coincided with her emergence at the center of a growing investigation into gifts to her and her family from a wealthy businessman named Jonnie R. Williams Sr.”
“Some of Maureen McDonnell’s closest friends are surprised by the reports, saying she is as sweet as her public image. But some people she has worked with at the governor’s mansion and in state government paint a different portrait: one of someone unable to make the leap into the Richmond fishbowl… Those people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid offending the governor and first lady, said Maureen McDonnell can be demanding and preoccupied with appearances — hers and that of the mansion.”
One interesting tidbit: “She has reduced maids and a state trooper to tears.”
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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