“For the president to deny any knowledge of what was brewing and to claim to know nothing about the Benghazi cover-up or anything about anything White House-related lately, he’s either a liar or a hugely incompetent CEO. You decide.”
–Sarah Palin, writing for Breitbart.
The New York Times reports that Anthony Weiner, “once a rising star of New York politics whose career cratered over revelations of his sexually explicit life online, announced an improbable bid on Wednesday for the job he has long coveted: mayor.”
“After a rocky re-emergence into public life over the past few weeks, marked by circuslike scenes of tabloid photographers chasing him onto the subway, Mr. Weiner opted to declare his candidacy from the safe remove of a video.”
A new Quinnipiac poll finds Christine Quinn leading the pack for the Democratic nomination with 25%, followed by Weiner at 15% with Bill de Blasio and William Thompson in a horse race for third place at 10% each.
Pat O’Brien, the former host of Access Hollywood and a longtime sportscaster told Adam Carolla that he has an interest in entering politics, the Sioux Falls Argus Leader reports.
“Of course, O’Brien brings with him his share of baggage. He’s had a high-profile battle with alcoholism that climaxed with ‘sexually graphic’ voicemails placed while drunk — a gift from heaven for an opposition researcher.”
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Los Angeles Times: “Wendy Greuel called Eric Garcetti early Wednesday morning to concede the mayoral election, a Greuel campaign source told the Times, ending a two-year campaign to determine Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s successor and the new political leader of Los Angeles.”
Garcetti beat Greuel 54% to 46%. He will take office on July 1.
Rep. Peter King (R-NY) is “ready for another intraparty fight over whether emergency disaster aid should be offset, after a tornado ravaged parts of Oklahoma,” Roll Call reports.
Said King: “I think they should get every penny they need. I’ve been through this. We can do the political games later on, the important thing is to get them the aid as quickly as they need it and not to make a political issue out of it.”
A new Harvard study contacted over 7,000 election administrators in 28 states and found they provided different information about voter ID requirements to voters of different ethnicities.
Dylan Matthews: “The finding holds up when you drop certain regions, when you drop small towns, and when you control for whether officials are elected or appointed. What’s more, they find that there are actually statistically significant differences in the quality of response from officials, depending on what kind of name is used.”
A new Hamilton College poll finds that heading into the 2012 election, “both Democrats and Republicans expressed concerns about the fairness of the election. Only 15% of Republicans and 19% of Democrats were very confident that the election would be decided fairly.”
“After the election, fears about voter fraud abated among Democrats but skyrocketed among Republicans, with 58% of Republicans not confident at all about the fairness of the election.”
Associated Press: “His latest legislative achievements put him in the vanguard of his party’s liberal base. He’s been a top fundraiser for President Barack Obama. And he’s ramping up his travel to help fellow Democrats around the country.”
“Little-known outside his home state, Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley has methodically checked the necessary boxes toward earning the reputation of good Democratic soldier as he considers whether to run for president in 2016 – a White House bid that would face long odds.”
In the wake of the devastating tornado in Oklahoma, Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) “rejected comparisons between federal aid for this disaster and the Hurricane Sandy relief package he voted against,” the Washington Post reports.
Inhofe said that was a “totally different” situation arguing that the Sandy aid was filled with pork.
Said Inhofe: “Everyone was getting in and exploiting the tragedy taking place. That won’t happen in Oklahoma.”
Wonk Wire: Will Tornado relief need to be deficit neutral?
New York Times: “As proponents of a new immigration overhaul cast about for a Republican ally to help give their bill an extra boost, they have focused on a 79-year-old lawmaker with new hipster glasses (from Costco), black Nike sneakers (for his bad arches) and, perhaps most important, a deep and complicated relationship with immigration policy: Senator Orrin G. Hatch of Utah.”
“We’re going to win when we look like America. We need to be white, we need to be brown, we need to be black, we need to with tattoos, without tattoos, with pony tails, without pony tails, with beards, without.”
— Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), quoted by the Louisville Courier-Journal.
Stuart Rothenberg: “Some Republicans are so excited at the thought of multiple controversies dogging the White House over the next few months (or longer) that they are already foaming at the mouth…. But Republicans ought to remember that they have seen this movie before, and the ending was not what they hoped for or expected.”
Charlie Cook: “These days, the country is even more polarized, and the conservative echo chamber is louder than ever before. Many conservatives made it all the way to Election Day last November unaware that their White House nominee was falling short. How could Mitt Romney possibly lose when everyone they knew was voting for him? Except that he did lose, and it wasn’t even a very close race.”
“Top conservative leaders, along with tea party activists from across the nation, have crafted a letter of opposition to the Senate’s bipartisan immigration overhaul,” the Los Angeles Times reports.
“The open letter to the Senate, which will be released Tuesday, marks the first large-scale attempt to halt the bill as it gains momentum with a key Senate committee vote expected this week.”
A new SurveyUSA/KOB Eyewitness News poll in New Mexico finds Gov. Susana Martinez (R) with a 66% approval rating. She fairs well with both men, 62% approval, and women, 70% approval.
Ken Cuccinelli (R) “is dropping his assertion that the Office of the Attorney General is exempt from state public records laws, indicating in a statement Monday that he had asked staff attorneys to stop including the claim in their responses to requests for records from his office,” the Washington Post reports.
Jon Stewart asks, “Can anyone do their job in that town?”
Arkansas Gov. Mike Beebe (D) said State Treasurer Martha Shoffner (D) “ought to resign after she allegedly took cash from a broker who managed state funds,” KTBS-TV reports.
But Shoffner said she doesn’t intend to resign.
“Federal prosecutors say Shoffner accepted $12,000 a year from a broker who would sometimes deliver cash in a pie box — with a pie. The broker is cooperating with investigators.”
South Dakota’s U.S. Senate race “is turning into a tense feud between two longtime Democratic power brokers: Harry Reid and Tom Daschle, Politico reports.
“Reid and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee wanted to recruit former Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (D-SD) as their candidate to replace Johnson in 2014. As he spent weeks attempting to clear the field for Herseth Sandlin, Reid met privately with Johnson and his wife to ask them to persuade their son Brendan not to run for the seat, sources say. Or at the very least, let Herseth Sandlin make her decision on whether to get into the race before deciding whether Brendan Johnson should jump in.”
“But against Reid’s will, Daschle — Reid’s predecessor as Democratic leader and a South Dakota native — was privately encouraging a longtime former aide and personal friend, Rick Weiland, to mount a bid of his own. Daschle’s endorsement of Weiland helped persuade Herseth Sandlin to pass on the Senate race, according to Democratic sources close to the issue. Reid and top Senate Democrats were stunned and outraged by Daschle’s move.”
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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