Former Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour (R) had a simple explanation for why Republicans didn’t do better in U.S. Senate races, Ben Smith reports.
And it wasn’t about the party being too conservative.
Said Barbour: “We had some shitty candidates. We pissed away two seats.”
“There’s plenty of time to think about 2016. We’ve got to get this economy working. If three years from now the economy is not working, it’s not going to be worth doing much. This is all about making Barack an incredibly successful second-term president. That’s my focus.”
— Vice President Joe Biden, quoted by the Wilmington News Journal, on whether he’ll run for president in 2016.
After his victory speech, President Obama tried to call both House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) “but was told they were asleep,” the New York Times reports.
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Newly-reelected Rep. Steve King (R-IA) says it’s too early to talk about the next election, but isn’t closing the door on challenging Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA) in 2014, the Cedar Rapids Gazette reports.
Said King: “I know that’s something that is on the horizon, but I think there are some decisions that need to be made before I could comment on that.”
In a priceless moment on his television show, Pat Robertson asks his female co-host if she likes pornography.
Former Ron Paul aide Eric Dondero says the only recourse to President Obama’s re-election is “outright revolt” and is launching a “personal boycott” of Democrats.
He writes: “All family and friends, even close family and friends, who I know to be Democrats are hereby dead to me. I vow never to speak to them again for the rest of my life, or have any communications with them. They are in short, the enemies of liberty. They deserve nothing less than hatred and utter contempt.”
“I strongly urge all other libertarians to do the same. Are you
married to someone who voted for Obama, have a girlfriend who voted ‘O’.
Divorce them. Break up with them without haste. Vow not to attend
family functions, Thanksgiving dinner or Christmas for example, if there
will be any family members in attendance who are Democrats.”
Linda McMahon (R), who spent nearly $100 million of her own money on two failed U.S. Senate bids from Connecticut, tells Businessweek when she learned she had lost.
Said McMahon: “I was sitting by myself, actually. I had just taken a moment to go upstairs and get my thoughts together on what I was still hoping would be a victory speech. I was just sitting there, going over my speech clearly you have a concession speech as well, but you’re hoping that’s not the one you use. I wasn’t paying that much attention to the TV. This was about 40 minutes after the polls closed. Then I looked up and saw a checkmark next to Chris Murphy’s name on ABC. I barely caught it out of the corner of my eye. I just thought, ‘Wow.’ I was stunned for a moment. I sat there for a few minutes on my own, reflecting on what the race had been.”
The New York Times reports that just a few hours after conceding to President Obama, Mitt Romney told his staff members that they had just witnessed his last political campaign. But he vowed, “I will not fall off the map.”
Some “predict he will write a book, convinced that the daily diary he kept on the campaign trail would make for a compelling read.”
Others “speculate that he will return to the corridors of finance” or that he’ll “take on a major role in the Mormon Church, picking up where he left off two decades ago.”
Karl Rove tried to shift blame for his failed spending spree to defeat President Obama, claiming Obama won reelection by “suppressing the vote,” the New York Daily News reports.
Rove insisted that Obama won because he “succeeded in suppressing the vote” with negative ads “that turned off” voters, keeping them from the polls.
Rick Hasen: “It is worth pointing out… that Rove’s groups ran more negative ads than the Obama campaign, and so would be just as guilty of this kind of ‘suppression.'”
ABC News: “There is an unwritten tradition in Washington that cabinet secretaries all submit pro forma letters of resignation at the end of a first term for a re-elected president, but apparently it doesn’t really work that way. The last two-term president was George W. Bush and according to an official in the West Wing at the time, such letters were requested, but some secretaries had to be prodded to comply.”
Bloomberg claims that Susan Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, is emerging as the favored candidate to succeed Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. However, many think Obama’s first move will be choosing a successor to Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner.
He also may need to find successors to Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk.
Pew Research finds that Mitt Romney won 78% of the Mormon vote in the 2102 presidential election.
In 2004, George W. Bush was backed by 80% of Mormons.
Actress Ashley Judd, said to be mulling a campaign against Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), refused to rule out a run against him in 2014 in a one-sentence statement to Louisville Courier-Journal.
If she decides to run, Judd, who lives in Tennessee, would have to establish residency in Kentucky.
George P. Bush — the son of former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R) — filed what is called an “appointment of a campaign treasurer” with the Texas Ethics Commission, a form that is required before running for any statewide office, the New Republic reports.
Over the summer, we noted Bush was “reviewing potential opportunities” and last month Fox News reported “observers” suggested he might seek to be Texas State Attorney General or Texas Land Commissioner.
Republican efforts to undo President Obama’s health care reform law appear to have come to an end, as House Speaker John Boehner described it as the “law of the land,” NBC News reports.
Said Boehner: “Well, I think the election changes that. It’s pretty clear that the president was reelected, Obamacare is the law of the land.”
However, he added: “There certainly may be parts of it that we believe — need to be changed. We may do that. No decisions at this point.”
The Week: “The Tea Party had a terrible night on Tuesday. But that doesn’t necessarily mean the party is over.”
The Wall Street Journal notes that Cuban-born voters living in Florida voted for Mitt Romney, 55% to 45%.
However, American-born Cubans voted overwhelmingly for President Obama, 60% to 40%.
President Obama — in a rare authentic campaign moment — gets emotional addressing staffers at his Chicago headquarters.
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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