David Wasserman: “In truth, when an election result hits ’10 on the political Richter scale’ of shock value, there usually isn’t just one reason for the outcome, but lots of them acting in concert. While surveying the wreckage, Cantor adviser John Murray acknowledged his boss’s loss amounted to ‘death by a thousand cuts.’ None of these reasons alone would be sufficient to cause an upset, and some of them aren’t neatly quantifiable. But there are plenty of ways to dissect what happened in Virginia’s 7th district, as well as some lessons we political forecasters would be wise to keep in mind in the future.”
Conversation with Doug Schoen
Democratic pollster Doug Schoen joined us for a discussion about the intense criticism President Obama now faces from both sides of the aisle. Is this criticism legitimate? Should Democrats be more constructive and supportive of their chief?
Listen here:
Subscribe via iTunes or RSS to get episodes automatically downloaded.
Thanks to Slingbox and Brain HQ for sponsoring this episode. Use those links for special listener discounts!
McDaniel Leads Heading Into Next Week’s Runoff
A new Chism Strategies poll in Mississippi finds Chris McDaniel (R) leading Sen. Thad Cochran (R) in the GOP Senate runoff by six points, 50% to 44%.
On Wonk Wire
Not Over for Walker
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) defended himself against revelations that prosecutors believe he was involved in a “criminal scheme” to bypass campaign finance laws by insisting, “This is a case that’s been resolved.”
But as the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel explains, this isn’t true: “For the moment, it has been halted by a federal judge. It could be revived, however, depending on the rulings from courts in that case and others.”
Fewer Blame Poverty on the Poor
A new NBC/WSJ poll notes that when asked what is the bigger cause of poverty today, 46% cited “circumstances beyond people’s control,” versus 44% who said it was due to “people not doing enough.”
First Read: “That’s a big change when the poll last asked this question in 1995, when 60% said it was due to people not doing enough, and when 30% said it was because of circumstances beyond people’s control.”
What Happened to the IRS Emails?
The Economist: “If your taxes are being audited and you tell the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) that you just so happen to have lost the records relating to the period in question, you cannot expect much sympathy. The taxman has heard it all before, and ‘the dog ate my accounts’ gets you nowhere. Odd, then, that the IRS is offering more or less exactly that excuse to Congress.”
“As some Republicans waste time on yet another pointless probe into Benghazi, others have their teeth in a real scandal.”
Walsh Kicked Off His Own Radio Show
Former Rep. Joe Walsh (R-IL) was booted off his own radio program for using racial slurs on-air, the Huffington Post reports.
“Walsh, who has hosted ‘The Joe Walsh Show’ on a conservative Chicago radio station since early 2013, took to Twitter to complain about being cut off by the station’s management. Walsh, by his own account, used several epithets during a discussion on the Redskins’ controversial name, including the n-word.”
Rape Victim Says Clinton Knew Attacker Was Guilty
“Hillary Clinton is known as a champion of women and girls, but one woman who says she was raped as a 12-year-old in Arkansas doesn’t think Hillary deserves that honor. This woman says Hillary smeared her and used dishonest tactics to successfully get her attacker off with a light sentence — even though, she claims, Clinton knew he was guilty,” the Daily Beast reports.
“The victim in the 1975 sexual abuse case that became Clinton’s first criminal defense assignment as a 27-year-old lawyer has only spoken to the media once since her attack, a contested, short interaction with a reporter in 2008, during Clinton’s last presidential campaign run. Now 52, she wants to speak out after hearing Clinton talk about her case on newly discovered audio recordings from the 1980s, unearthed by the Washington Free Beacon and made public this week.”
How Steve Scalise Rose to Leadership
“Steve Scalise is known for giving his friends a little bit extra. In Louisiana, it’s called lagniappe,” Politico reports.
“Anytime anyone did a favor for the Louisiana Republican — whether they made a call for him, or spoke up on behalf of a bill he favored — they would find themselves on the receiving end of lagniappe (LAN-yap), or a small unexpected gift. Sometimes it was a praline — Scalise has a basket of them sitting, wrapped in plastic, on a coffee table next to the couch in his office in the Rayburn House Office Building. Other times it was a personalized note, T-shirt or flowers. On Wednesday night, the lawmakers who helped put him in a position to become the next House majority whip got an engraved red baseball bat.”
National Journal: Scalise’s route to the win showed his skill as a whip.
Hensarling Will Run for Leadership After Elections
“House conservatives fretted their failure to recruit Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-TX) into this week’s Republican leadership race, but their misery might not last very long,” National Journal reports.
“Hensarling, the popular Texan who passed on the chance to challenge Rep. Kevin McCarthy in Thursday’s special election, appears poised to run for one of the top two leadership positions – either speaker or majority leader – in November, according to multiple sources close to the congressman.”
Said one GOP source: “He sounds like he’s ready to run in the fall.”
Quote of the Day
“She was the woman who was standing under the streetlight with her dress pulled all the way up over her knees, and now she says, ‘I’m a nun,’ when it comes to this spying!”
— Former Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer (D), in an interview with National Journal, saying Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) is too close to the CIA to be objective.
Cochran Seeks Black Voters in Runoff
Sen. Thad Cochran (R-MS) is asking black voters to rescue him in his GOP Senate runoff with Chris McDaniel (R), the New York Times reports.
“It is a remarkable political science experiment, and it also may be the only path to victory left to Mr. Cochran. But after being narrowly edged out by Mr. McDaniel, 41, in the Republican primary earlier this month, Mr. Cochran, 76, needs to expand the number of voters who will show up for the runoff, which is open to any Mississippi resident who did not vote in the Democratic primary. The winner on Tuesday will face former Representative Travis Childers, a conservative Democrat, in November.”
Republicans Blame Obama for Immigration Crisis
“Republicans are challenging the president’s characterization of the surge in young immigrants from Central America across the southern border as an unforeseen crisis, accusing his administration of contributing to the influx and demanding that he deploy National Guard troops and other resources to secure the border,” the Los Angeles Times reports.
A new Gallup poll finds Americans’ approval of President Obama’s handling of immigration has dropped to 31%, with 65% disapproving.
Conversation with Philip Howard
Philip K. Howard, author of The Rule of Nobody and The Death of Common Sense, joins us for a great discussion about contradictory and often unnecessary laws which seem designed specifically to block responsibility and accountability.
Listen here:
Subscribe to the podcast via iTunes or RSS to get episodes automatically downloaded.
Special thanks to Stamps.com and Brain HQ for sponsoring this episode. Use those links for great listener discounts!
Does Obama Matter Anymore?
Charlie Cook: “There was a point when voters hit the mute button and stopped listening to George H.W. Bush and then to his son George W. Bush. We now seem to have reached that point with Obama. Voters have thrown up their hands and lost hope that things will get any better.”
Republicans Pick McCarthy as Majority Leader
“Republican members of the House elected Kevin McCarthy to be the next majority leader, sending a message of stability to their party in a time of unexpected unrest,” Roll Call reports.
National Journal: “Shortly after McCarthy’s victory, Republicans elected Rep. Steve Scalise to replace him as whip. Scalise was the front-runner throughout the three-man race between him, Rep. Peter Roskam, and Rep. Marlin Stutzman; the only question was whether Scalise could win an outright majority on the first ballot and avoid an unpredictable head-to-head contest with either Roskam or Stutzman.”
Federal Prosecutor Closing In on Christie
Four of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s (R) appointees to the Port Authority “all face near-certain indictment and are being pressed to hand up Christie,” according to Esquire.
“The clearest, quickest road to Christie, both sources agree, runs through David Samson, a former Attorney General of New Jersey who’s 74 years old and reportedly suffers from Parkinson’s disease. So: Will Samson flip?”
Said one source: “They’ve got him cold. He got sloppy, arrogant, and greedy. Samson will want a deal. This way, he’d get one or two years. He’d have a future on the other side. He won’t want to die in jail.”
