Alaska Gov. Sean Parnell (R) announced plans to seek re-election next year, saying he believes he can be more effective in that role than in pursuing a U.S. Senate bid, the Anchorage Daily News reports.
UNC-Chapel Hill Offers MPA Program in Online Format
The online Master of Public
Administration (MPA) program at the top-ranked School of Government at
the University for North Carolina at Chapel Hill aims to shape leaders
in public service, a field that is expected to grow in visibility and
importance over the next decade and beyond. The MPA@UNC
program is designed with working professionals in mind, offering the
accessibility and flexibility of online education with the best of UNC’s
on-campus experience, including a virtual classroom setting, to
effectively teach tomorrow’s public service leaders.
“There is a critical need for leadership in government and public
service throughout our country,” said Todd Nicolet, associate dean for
operations and director of MPA@UNC. “With an online format, we are able
to reach students regardless of their geographic location–creating an
even more diverse student body. As part of MPA@UNC, students gain a
unique opportunity to interact with classmates in different parts of the
country, offering new perspectives in addition to classroom learning,
which they bring back to benefit the organizations and communities in
which they work.”
To request more information, visit http://requestinfo.onlinempa.unc.edu. (Sponsored Post)
King Passes on Senate Run
Rep. Steve King (R-IA) announced that he would not run for U.S. Senate from Iowa in 2014.
“This week, I made a simple device to put toothpaste back in the tube. But a device to put the Leftist genie back in the bottle is not so simple. The best tool we have now is the majority in the U.S. House which functions mostly to keep the Leftist genie in the bottle. I cannot, in good conscience, turn my back on the destiny decisions of Congress today in order to direct all my efforts to a Senate race for next year, while hoping to gain the leverage to put the genie back in the bottle in 2015.”
Markey Holds Single Digit Lead
An Emerson College Polling Institute survey in Massachusetts finds Rep. Ed Markey (D) with a six-point lead over Gabriel Gomez (R) in the special election race for U.S. Senate, 42% to 36%.
Franken Gets Wealthy Challenger
Mike McFadden (R), a wealthy Minneapolis finance executive appears poised to enter the race against first-term Sen. Al Franken (D-MN), Politico reports.
“McFadden did not respond to multiple requests for comment, but made it clear last month that he is interested in the Senate race. He told Minnesota Public Radio in early April that he was ‘in the process of talking with my family, friends, colleagues and party leaders’ about a bid against Franken.”
Watch Rick Perry Shoot a Semi-Automatic Assult Rifle
The Week has the video.
Clinton and Christie to Headline Event
Hillary Clinton and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie will be the featured attractions at next month’s Clinton Global Initiative in Chicago, Politico reports.
“The focus of the gathering… is on speeding up the United States’ economic recovery and the nation’s long-term outlook… But the short-term political outlook will be equally interesting, given that Clinton and Christie top most 2016 polls in their respective parties.”
Extra Bonus Quote of the Day
“The speaker is the captain of a mutinous ship.”
— Rep. Bill Keating (D-MA), quoted by the Martha’s Vineyard Times, on the divided House Republican caucus.
Slow Economy May Save Republicans
Kevin Drum: “As near as I can tell, the strategy the GOP’s brain trust came up with after the November election was twofold. First, try to expand its coalition by reining in its tea party excesses and tamping down a bit on its anti-gay, pro-gun, anti-immigrant wing. Second, if that didn’t work–and it was always a long shot–keep the economy in lousy shape so that at least Democrats couldn’t take advantage of their paralysis.”
“So far, it seems to be working. Strategy A, as expected, is on life support. But Strategy B is coming to the rescue. By ending the payroll tax holiday in January and seeing their sequester handiwork take effect in March, Republicans have kept the economy barely dog paddling along.”
Dead Heat in South Carolina Special Election
A new Red Racing Horses/PMI (R) poll in South Carolina’s 1st congressional district finds Mark Sanford (R) and Elizabdeth Colbert Busch (D) tied at 46% among likely voters with another 7% undecided.
The State notes Red Racing Horses says it is a “collaborative community of politics and
election enthusiasts run by six unnamed volunteers and that polls are
paid with reader donations.”
Cuomo’s Sister Backs Campaign for Female President
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) “may have his eye on the White House, but it looks his sister may be gunning for the opposite team,” the New York Observer reports.
“Mr. Cuomo’s sister, film producer Maria Cuomo-Cole, took to Twitter Friday morning to publicly support an EMILY’s List campaign to put a woman in the White House-a campaign that isn’t shy about it’s support for former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, widely considered Mr. Cuomo’s biggest barrier to the Democratic nomination.”
It’s a Race in Massachusetts
A new Public Policy Polling survey in Massachusetts finds the U.S. Senate special election is a surprisingly close race, with Rep. Ed Markey (D) leading Gabriel Gomez (R) by just four points, 44% to 40%.
Key findings: “Gomez is starting out as a pretty popular candidate, with 41% of voters rating him favorably to 27% with an unfavorable opinion. Beyond having good numbers with Republicans he’s at 42/24 with independents, and actually seen narrowly positively even by Democrats at 33/32. Voters meanwhile are more divided on Markey, with 44% holding a positive view of him to 41% with a negative one. He’s at 31/50 with independents.”
Bonus Quote of the Day
“The people that I’ve talked to seem to be doing well. In fact, when I got out in restaurants here in town, people come up to me. They want to see more sequestration, not less.”
— Rep. Billy Long (R-MO), quoted by KOLR-TV.
Democrats Don’t Have Youth Vote Locked Up
Charlie Cook: “President Obama carried the 18-to-29-year-old voting bloc by 34 points in 2008 and by 23 points last year. But a new national survey of millennial voters conducted by Harvard’s Institute of Politics suggests this emerging generation might not be as locked into the Democratic camp as conventional wisdom suggests, and that young voters exhibit some of the same stark partisan divides as older Americans.”
Also important: “The poll shows that young voters’ trust in their leaders and political institutions is low and dropping.”
Lawmakers Keep Law that Allows Teaching Creationsim
“A Louisiana law that allows public school science teachers to use supplemental materials in their classrooms will remain on the books, despite criticism that it’s a back-door way to teach creationism,” the AP reports.
Winning Hispanic Vote Isn’t Enough for Republicans
Byron York notes that Mitt Romney would have had to win an astonishing 73% of the Hispanic vote to prevail in the 2012 presidential election which “suggests that Romney, and Republicans, had bigger problems than Hispanic voters.”
“The most serious of those problems was that Romney was not able to connect with white voters who were so turned off by the campaign that they abandoned the GOP and in many cases stayed away from the polls altogether. Recent reports suggest as many as 5 million white voters simply stayed home on Election Day. If they had voted at the same rate they did in 2004, even with the demographic changes since then, Romney would have won.”
Unemployment Rate Falls to 7.5%
The U.S. economy added 165,000 jobs last month, more than the 148,000 gain expected by economists, the Wall Street Journal reports.
The unemployment rate fell to 7.5%, the lowest rate unemployment rate since December 2008.
Why Obama Isn’t LBJ
Jon Favreau: “Much has been written over the last few weeks about the limits of presidential power. Some smart observers have pointed out that these limits are not new; that historically they have had less to do with the personalities of our leaders than the structure of our democracy. The founders, reluctant to entrust any executive with the kind of authority that was so abused by the king they revolted against, created a separation of powers between co-equal branches of government.”
“But how boring is that? The more exciting story to tell is how Lyndon Johnson charmed and strong-armed his way to massive legislative victories. Much less interesting is the fact that most of those victories occurred while his party held record majorities in Congress. By the end of his second term, following the loss of 47 House seats and three Senate seats, one aide joked that Johnson couldn’t even get a Mother’s Day resolution passed.”
