Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) told National Journal he does not know if he will vote for President Obama or Mitt Romney for president in November.
Said Manchin: “I’ll look at the options.”
“That stance is at odds with almost every other Democrat who is up for reelection this year or is from a state that Romney is likely to win. And it’s an indication of the unique effort Manchin has made to establish his independence from Obama and other Democrats.”
David Chaney, one of the Secret Service supervisors ousted from the agency this week for their involvement in the Colombia prostitution scandal, “made light of his official protective work on his Facebook page, joking about a picture of himself standing watch behind Sarah Palin,” the Washington Post reports.
Wrote Chaney: “I was really checking her out, if you know what i mean?”
Palin responded on Fox News: “Well check this out, bodyguard — you’re fired. And I hope his wife sends him to the doghouse. As long as he’s not eating the dog, along with his former boss.”
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Mitt Romney has hired Richard Grenell as his national security and foreign policy spokesman, the Washington Post reports.
Interestingly, the story doesn’t mention that Grenell is openly gay.
Andrew Sullivan: “For Romney to have an openly gay spokesman is a real outreach to gay Republicans, a subtle signal to moderates, and the Santorum faction’s reaction will be worth noting.”
Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer (D) told the Daily Beast that Mittt Romney would have a “tall order to position Hispanics to vote for him” even though his father was born in Mexico.
Schweitzer admitted that it is “kinda ironic given that his family came from a polygamy commune in Mexico, but then he’d have to talk about his family coming from a polygamy commune in Mexico, given the gender discrepancy.”
Schweitzer noted that women are “not great fans of polygamy, 86 percent were not great fans of polygamy. I am not alleging by any stretch that Romney is a polygamist and approves of [the] polygamy lifestyle, but his father was born into [a] polygamy commune in Mexico.”
A new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll finds President Obama leads Mitt Romney by six points nationally, 49% to 43%.
The survey also finds that Obama’s “efforts to project himself as a protector of the middle class have strengthened him for the general election, while Mitt Romney has gained traction with his argument that he can improve the economy.”
The president’s approval rating is 49% while 46% disapprove.
This isn’t an easy question: Of the Republican presidential candidates, who ran the worst campaign? Explain your answer in the comments.
The Utah political action committee formed to launch Jon Huntsman’s bid for president made more than $200,000 in payments to a phantom company, BuzzFeed reports.
“The apparent financial irregularity in the pro-Huntsman PAC — which cost his billionaire father and other about $5 million, according to public records — is the latest chapter in the acrimonious collapse of the former Utah Governor’s political operation.”
Mitt Romney used a shuttered drywall plant in Ohio as a backdrop for his message that President Obama has failed to create jobs, the Cleveland Plain Dealer reports.
The only problem: The plant closed four years ago during President George W. Bush’s administration.
A new Public Policy Polling survey finds President Obama leading Mitt Romney nationally, 49% to 46%.
The running mate who helps Romney most — putting him in a 47% to 47% tie with Obama — is Chris Christie. Jeb Bush pulls Romney to within a point at 48% to 47% and Mike
Huckabee and Rick Santorum both get him to within two points at 48% to 46%.
Key takeaway: The
main positive effect of these potential running mates is to help Romney
shore up the Republican vote.
There’s no need to bring a cowbell to the Democratic or Republican conventions anymore: Just bring an iPhone with Cowbell 2012 instead.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy “is in deep trouble and is looking, for now, as if he could be the first one-term French president since 1981,” the New York Times reports.
“He appears to be running neck and neck with his main challenger, the Socialist candidate François Hollande, in the first round of voting on Sunday, when 10 candidates are competing. But all the opinion polls show Mr. Sarkozy losing to Mr. Hollande in a face-off two weeks later.”
House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) was asked about whether there is anti-Semitism in the House GOP caucus — the “darker side,” Cantor called it — and his silence when pressed is deafening.
Rep. Joe Walsh (R-IL) said that he’s settled his child-support dispute with his ex-wife and cleared up “mistakes in private,” the Chicago Sun Times reports.
“The issue was embarrassing for Walsh, who’s campaigned on fiscal responsibility and blasted President Barack Obama on his financial stewardship of the nation.”
“Further, the subject continued, that as a single man running as a political conservative, it was necessary for him to appear at campaign related events with a female escort.”
— A “close-out” memo from the Florida State Attorney’s Office ending it’s investigation into Rep. David Rivera’s (R-FL) campaign finances.
In light of the logistical issues
that marred Iowa’s Republican presidential caucuses this year, the Iowa
Republican Party has “now set itself to the task of figuring out what
happened and how to fix it next time,” reports ABC News.
The
Iowa GOP has “formed an Iowa Caucus Review Committee comprised of 17
party members including county chairs, former state-party officials,
party activists, volunteers and supporters of multiple presidential
campaigns. Next Thursday, the committee will convene its first meeting,
where it will hear the first round of reports from subcommittees on vote
tabulation, public information and volunteer training.”
A new Economist/YouGov poll finds President Obama leading Mitt Romney in the presidential race among registered voters, 49% to 42%.
However, Obama’s approval rating is a dismal 41% to 51%.
Bloomberg Businessweek: “Running for president is exhausting and all-consuming. Putting an end to a presidential campaign can be a nightmare that lasts years. There are employees, consultants, lawyers, and ad makers clamoring to be paid, ad buys to cancel, contracts and legal disputes to settle, office space, computers, phones, and furniture around the country to unload, and a staggering pile of disclosure forms and other paperwork to complete before the Federal Election Commission will certify that a campaign is officially over.”
“In all, 38 past presidential contenders going back 16 years are still candidates, if only in the eyes of the federal government.”
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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