New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) “defended his starring role in publicly funded tourism ads that Democrats say gives him an unfair advantage in the race for governor,” the Newark Star Ledger reports.
Said Christie: “I don’t see any advantage due or undue to me. I’m doing my job and if I was unwilling to appear in those ads in my view that would be me putting politics and concern for criticism ahead of doing my job the right way and I’m not going to do that.”
“For me personally, it has been a good week.”
— White House press secretary Jay Carney, quoted by the New York Times, on being in the hot seat over the controversies swirling around the administration.
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Gawker is trying to raise $200,000 to buy the video of Toronto Mayor Rob Ford smoking crack cocaine so they can publish it online.
The Federal Election Commission has fined former Sen. John Ensign (R-NV) and his parents $54,000 for improper severance payments to Cindy Hampton, a former campaign aide who had an extramarital affair with the Nevada Republican, Politico reports.
“Doug Hampton, Cindy Hampton’s husband, was deputy chief of staff in Ensign’s Senate office at that time, as well as being the senator’s best friend. The resulting scandal, which exploded into public view in June 2009, led to a lengthy Senate Ethics Committee investigation and criminal probe by the Justice Department, and destroyed Ensign’s once-promising political career. Ensign resigned from the Senate in May 2011.”
A new Wenzel Strategies (R) poll in Virginia finds Ken Cuccinelli (R) leading Terry McAuliffe (D) by eight points, 44% to 36%.
A Quinnipiac poll released earlier this week gave McAuliffe a five point lead.
A new super PAC, Rand PAC 2016, registered at the Federal Election Commission as an independent-expenditure-only committee, Roll Call reports.
The super PAC website provides no names of sponsors or officers though it’s presumably set up to support Sen. Rand Paul and his possible presidential aspirations.
New York Assemblyman Vito Lopez (D), who was facing possible expulsion from the Legislature for allegedly sexually harassing women employees, said that he would resign and instead run for election to the New York City Council, the New York Times reports.
Newark Mayor Cory Booker (D) made a total of $1.3 million from 96 paid speeches from 2008 to April of 2013, BuzzFeed reports.
“Booker paid roughly $467,000 in taxes on the speeches during the five year period… he gave nearly $620,000 — or just under 75 percent of the earnings after taxes — to charities and non-profits. That leaves an income of about $232,000 from the speeches over the last five years.”
“Booker has come under fire for traveling outside the city of Newark to deliver speeches and make public appearances. But earlier this year, he told The New York Times his travels help promote the city and his speaking fees go to charity.”
“If we present ourselves to the American people as intelligent, we’re going to be in a great place as far as showing that this administration is not transparent, is obsessed with power and hates dissent. But you don’t call for impeachment until you have evidence.”
— RNC Chairman Reince Priebus, quoted by Politico.
Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was interviewed on Marketplace about his new book, Rumsfeld’s Rules:
Marketplace: “I do wonder whether you read Robert McNamara’s memoirs when it came out”
Rumsfeld: “I have not”
Marketplace: “That book was widely seen as an apology for his role in Vietnam. I looked in this book pretty hard for any rule you might have about apologizing and I couldn’t find one”
Rumsfeld: “And? What is your question?”
Marketplace: “Did you ever think about apologizing?”
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-MT) predicted to Bloomberg that there will be much more to the IRS scandal than we currently know.
Said Baucus: “I have a hunch that a lot more is going to come out, frankly. It’s broader than the current focus.”
Peggy Noonan: “We are in the midst of the worst Washington scandal since Watergate.”
“I find the comparison — that whoever is making the analysis is challenged in their understanding of history.”
— Former Nixon White House Counsel John Dean, quoted by the Boston Globe, on comparing the current Obama scandals to Watergate.
Former Georgia Secretary of State Karen Handel (R) announced her campaign for U.S. Senate, Roll Call reports.
“Handel is the fourth Republican to enter the race for the seat of retiring GOP Sen. Saxby Chambliss. Notably, she is also the first woman and first candidate who is not a member of Congress. GOP Reps. Paul Broun, Phil Gingrey and Jack Kingston are running. David Perdue, the cousin of former Gov. Sonny Perdue, announced an exploratory committee this week.”
Australian Minister of Education Peter Collier “says he has learned a valuable lesson in social networking after he ‘liked’ a Facebook photo without realizing that it showed a teenage prankster exposing himself,” the Guardian reports.
Collier apologized and said he “had no idea that the teenager, who was otherwise fully clothed and posing alongside an older man, was playing a prank commonly known as ‘sneaky nuts.'”
The lawyer for South Carolina State Rep. Ted Vick (D) said a rock in the lawmaker’s shoe explains why his client “was walking funny, catching the attention of an officer who eventually arrested him for DUI, his second such charge in less than a year,” the AP reports.
The Toronto Star says two of its reporters have also viewed the video Gawker says shows Toronto Mayor Rob Ford smoking crack cocaine.
“It appears to show Ford in a room, sitting in a chair, wearing a white shirt, top buttons open, inhaling from what appears to be a glass crack pipe. Ford is incoherent, trading jibes with an off-camera speaker who goads the clearly impaired mayor by raising topics including Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau and the Don Bosco high school football team Ford coaches.”
Said Ford at one point in the video: “I’m fucking right-wing. Everyone expects me to be right-wing. I’m just supposed to be this great.”
New York Times: “The most pressing question for Congressional Republicans is no longer how to finesse changes to immigration law or gun control, but how far they can push their cases against President Obama without inciting a backlash of the sort that has left them staggering in the past.”
“Working against those methodical plans, however, are the personal passions of the rank and file.”
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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