Maine Gov. Paul LePage (R) said that “he’s sorry if anyone was offended by his crude sexual remark a day earlier about a Democratic leader in the state Senate,” the Kennebec Journal reports.
“The Republican governor, in impromptu comments to reporters outside his office, also said he is considering abandoning his re-election bid in 2014 and running instead for Congress.”
David Hawkings: “A four-day weekend for the House is affording GOP leaders extra time to go over the long list of lessons they were retaught by the farm bill’s catatonic collapse. Perhaps the most obvious and the most important among them: If you’ve got the votes, then vote. If you don’t, bide your time. But be sure you can count well enough to know the difference.”
“Forgetting this one lesson next time, on the immigration bill, will almost surely prove fatal to the most sweeping domestic policy overhaul of this decade. It will very likely lead to the dismissal of all three men at the helm of the majority caucus. And it could well poison the Republican Party for years in the eyes of the nation’s fastest-expanding demographic group.”
“Ben Quayle, who lost re-election to Congress last year, is joining a law firm with Republican ties and doesn’t plan to run again in 2014,” the Arizona Republic reports.
“Quayle, the son of former Vice President Dan Quayle, could have taken up a midterm battle against freshman U.S. Rep. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) in her metro Phoenix district. But he said he is focusing on work instead, while still staying involved in policy matters on the side. Several other Republicans have already started campaigning for Sinema’s seat.”
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A new Rasmussen Reports survey finds Sen. Marco Rubio’s favorabilty in free fall among Republican voters.
While the poll found Rubio with a 58% favorability rating, it’s down 10 points from May and down 15 points from February.
A new Urban Institute study finds the net worth of today’s 30-somethings — adjusted for inflation — is down 21% from what 30-somethings enjoyed in 1983, CBS News reports.
A new Pew/USA Today poll
finds substantial support for immigration reform — 71% think undocumented
immigrants should be allowed to stay in the U.S but by a 49% to 43% margin people are split on when they should
be allowed to apply – while border security improvements are being made or when they are actually implemented.
Wonk Wire: Why more border security won’t work.
“I’m confident I’m going to win. But as a famous general once said in World War II, I shall return.”
— Gabriel Gomez (R), quoted by The Hill, hinting at another bid if he loses tomorrow’s special election in Massachusetts.
National Journal: “Advocates of immigration reform, who once hoped to have a bill on President Obama’s desk before Congress leaves for their annual August recess, should be nervously checking the calendar. If the House and Senate adjourn before a bill is finished, members will begin feeling pressure, especially from conservative critics who think the bill amounts to little more than amnesty.”
“Immigration reform backers need only recall four years ago, when the August recess gave rise to scenes of angry protests at town hall meetings across the country, protests that effectively ended any hope Democrats had of winning Republican support for comprehensive health care reform.”
Even though not a single poll has shown Gabriel Gomez (R) ahead in the Massachusetts special U.S. Senate election, his aides — many of whom worked for Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign — “are still predicting a shocker, saying low-turnout special elections are notoriously unpredictable,” Politico reports.
“West Virginia was last in the nation in voter turnout in November, the only state where less than half of eligible voters voted,” the Charleston Gazette reports.
“Young West Virginians in particular lagged behind. Less than 23 percent of 18- to 24-year olds voted in West Virginia, the worst voting record of any age group in any state in the country.”
“Immigration reform has gotten a new burst of life as a growing number of Senate Republicans have embraced the 1,000-page-plus legislation, setting up President Obama for a big victory this week,” The Hill reports.
“The sudden surge in Republican support has been a pleasant surprise for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), who urged the bill’s authors to focus on winning 60 votes — the minimum for passing it. Instead, Sens. Charles Schumer (D-NY) and John McCain (R-AZ), the leaders of the Gang of Eight, are marching toward 70 votes, a target intended to put maximum pressure on the House to act.”
National Journal suggests the bill will die anyway when it hits the House.
“Two-time-almost-but-not-quite presidential candidate Donald Trump will make his very first trip to Iowa in August to speak to religious conservative activists sizing up a lineup of possible 2016 candidates,” the Des Moines Register reports.
“Trump accepted an invitation to the Family Leader’s second-annual leadership summit, an event the organizer says he hopes will help Iowa conservatives coalesce early on in the next presidential nominating cycle.”
Jill Lawrence: “He was a middle-class, suburban Washington kid who chose to build a political career in one of the grittiest, most troubled cities in America, with all the challenges and risks that entailed. He spent eight years on the Baltimore City Council and seven as mayor before moving to Annapolis to begin two terms as governor in January 2007. O’Malley has been closely identified with statistics-based governing in both of his executive positions: CitiStat to improve management and services in Baltimore; StateStat to do the same across Maryland; even BayStat to revive the Chesapeake Bay. Fusing passion with dispassion, he has deployed numbers to fight crime and pollution, to win approval for gambling casinos and gun restrictions, to pass tuition breaks for illegal immigrant students, and even to repeal the death penalty.”
“At the same time, over the past few years, he has steadily ascended in national politics–as a key supporter of Hillary Rodham Clinton and later Barack Obama in 2008, as chairman of the Democratic Governors Association in 2011 and 2012, and as a prominent media spokesman for Obama and Democrats during the 2012 presidential campaign. He continues in a DGA leadership role as finance chairman, an ideal job for someone who might need to raise a lot of money for a presidential campaign in a year or two.”
A new Minnesota Poll finds Sen. Al Franken (D) with a 55% approval rate, a double-digit increase from the 44% who thought so in September.
Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) predicted “there could be massive demonstrations in Washington if House Republicans try to block a bill to grant legal status to millions of immigrants,” The Hill reports.
Said Schumer: “This has the potential of becoming the next major civil rights movement. I could envision in the late summer or early fall if Boehner tries to bottle the bill up or put something in without a path to citizenship — if there’s no path to citizenship, there’s not a bill — but if he tries to bottle it up or do things like that, I could see a million people on the Mall in Washington.”
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said that Republicans “will forfeit a chance to win Hispanics to their party if Congress can’t agree on a measure to overhaul U.S. immigration laws,” Bloomberg reports.
Said Graham: “If it fails and we are blamed for its failure, our party is in trouble with Hispanics. The Hispanic community is very close to our values but we’ve driven them away over this issue.”
“What’s infuriating here is… Putin of Russia aiding and abetting Snowden’s escape. The bottom line is very simple. Allies are supposed to treat each other in decent ways, and Putin always seems almost eager to put a finger in the eye of the United States.”
— Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY), quoted by CNN, on reports that NSA leaker Edward Snowden traveled to Moscow.
Hong Kong announced that it had allowed the departure from its territory of Edward Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor “who has acknowledged disclosing classified documents about United States government surveillance of Internet and telephone communications around the world,” the New York Times reports.
“Mr. Snowden’s final destination was unclear, but there were signs that
it might be beyond Moscow. The Russian foreign ministry said that Mr.
Snowden appeared to be making a connection in Moscow to another
destination, but did not say where.”
The Guardian has the latest updates.
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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