Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell (R) said that surprise redistricting effort from the members of his party in the state Senate was something he only learned about right before it happened, the Fredericksburg Star reports.
Said McDonnell: “I certainly don’t think that’s a good way to do business.”
“He said he has not yet spoken to House leadership about the redistricting issue. The Senate redistricting plan must go to the House next.”
First Read: “Maybe the most striking (and memorable) lines of Obama’s inaugural speech were his remarks on gay rights. ‘All of us are created equal’ is the star that guides us still — just as it guided our forebears through Seneca Falls, and Selma, and Stonewall,’ he said. He later added, ‘Our journey is not complete until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law.’ It’s important to remember that Obama was someone who opposed gay marriage in presidential run in ’08, and who later said he was evolving on the subject. Obama’s shift is a reflection of how quickly the politics of gay marriage have changed in this country. (The train was leaving the station, and Obama jumped on board.) And so is the fact that there has been little to no backlash to those remarks — at least so far.”
The Cloakroom: 5 unmistakable shots at Republicans in President Obama’s inaugural address.
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Rapper Lupe Fiasco was escorted off the stage at an inaugural party last night after spending 30 minutes on an anti-war song, Politico reports.
Now This News shows Fiasco dropping lines critical of President Obama before the lights went off and security escorted him off the stage.
The New York Times has a good graphic identifying the notables sitting on the stage with President Obama yesterday.
The New York Times reports President Obama will get the first test of his second term when former Sen. Chuck Hagel’s (R-NE) confirmation hearing to be the next secretary of defense gets underway this week.
Hagel “has begun the uphill task of winning over hostile Republicans… Privately, administration officials figure that Mr. Hagel could get as
many as 60 votes, a threshold that would allow him to overcome a
filibuster. Even with a few votes shy of 60, Congressional aides said,
it is not clear Republicans will try to block his confirmation.”
“I surprised myself by turning to him and saying, ‘Thank you. Thanks for the chance, the chance to continue to serve.'”
— Vice President Joe Biden, quoted by the Washington Post, recounting what he said to President Obama as they left the inaugural platform.
Dan Balz: “President Obama has never lacked for confidence, but rarely has that attribute been on display as clearly as on Monday in an inaugural address that underscored the distance he has traveled after four contentious years in office. This was not the politician who campaigned in 2008 on themes of transcending the divisive politics of the past, though there were ritual calls for the country and its political leaders to seize this moment together. Instead, it was a president who has accepted the reality of those divisions and is determined to prevail on his terms.”
Ezra Klein: “In 2009, Barack Obama came to change Washington. Today’s speech showed how much Washington has changed him.”
A new Smart Politics report finds that nearly 40% of U.S. Representatives serve in districts outside of their birth state.
Key findings: 62.4% of lawmakers currently serving in the House represent districts in their birth state — 270 of 433 non-vacant seats — with 37.6% born elsewhere.
Despite the increased opportunities of mobility of the population over the decades, it is actually the younger lawmakers serving in the 113th Congress who are most likely to represent a district in the state of their birth at 69.8% for those born in the 1970s and 1980s. That number falls to 64.6% for those born in the 1960s, 61.4% for the 1950s, 59.6% for the 1940s, and 54.2% for the 1920s and 1930s.
A new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll finds that a majority of Americans – for the first time – believe abortion should be legal in all or most cases.
“According to the poll, 54 percent of adults say that abortion should be legal either always or most of the time, while a combined 44 percent said it should be illegal – either with or without exceptions.”
“In addition, a whopping 70 percent of Americans oppose the Roe v. Wade decision being overturned, including 57 percent who feel strongly about this.”
Republicans in the Virginia Senate today “pushed through a surprise rewrite of the 2011 redistricting plan that erases a Democratic seat in western Virginia,” the Richmond Times-Dispatch reports.
The revised plan cleared the Senate on a party-line vote of 20-19 as Sen. Henry Marsh (D), a 79-year old civil rights veteran, was attending President Obama’s inauguration ceremony.
Democrats “were shocked by the move, vowing to oppose the new plan in court.”
“It was a fine speech, but I didn’t hear any conciliatory remarks. I didn’t see any specific reference like, ‘I reach out my hand to the other side of the aisle.'”
— Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), quoted by the New York Times, on President Obama’s second inaugural address.
Mitt Romney spent Inauguration Day at his home in La Jolla, CA, and had “no big plans,” NBC News reports.
Asked if Romney was likely to watch the inaugural ceremonies today, an aide said, “Doubtful.”
Dan Amira notes it’s the first time since 1997 that a presidential runner-up didn’t attend his opponent’s inauguration ceremony.
Bloomberg reports President Obama and his family arrived at St. John’s at 8:35 am ET and the service ended at 9:39.
Obama personally sent this tweet at 9:25:
I’m honored and grateful that we have a chance to finish what we started. Our work begins today. Let’s go. -bo
— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) January 21, 2013
Andrew Sullivan: “If you have long believed, as I have, that this man could easily become the liberal Reagan by the end of his second term… then this speech will not have surprised you.”
James Fallows: “I was expecting an anodyne tone-poem about healing national wounds,
surmounting partisanship, and so on. As has often been the case, Obama
confounded expectations — mine, at least. Four years ago, when people
were expecting a barn-burner, the newly inaugurated president Obama gave
a deliberately downbeat, sober-toned presentation about the long
challenges ahead. Now — well, it’s almost as if he has won re-election
and knows he will never have to run again and hears the clock ticking on
his last chance to say what he cares about. If anyone were wondering
whether Obama wanted to lower expectations for his second term … no,
he apparently does not.”
Ezra Klein: “In his first term, Obama changed policy. In his second, he wants to change minds.”
Chris Cillizza: “This was a speech that could only be given by someone who knew that he would never have to run for re-election again… This was Obama unbound. Distill Obama’s speech to a single sentence and that sentence is: ‘I’m the president, deal with it.'”
Ta-Nehisi Coates: “There was a time when merely stating the ideas Obama put forth would have gotten you killed.”
E.J. Dionne: “Some will no doubt think (and write) that Obama should have sought more
lofty and non-partisan ground. The problem with this critique is that it
asks Obama to speak as if the last four years had not happened.”
Greg Sargent: “Today, Obama all but declared ideological victory.”
Matthew Continetti: “It is of course possible that the inauguration of a reelected president is his moment of maximum triumph. It is of course possible that Obama’s second term may turn out like George W. Bush’s, when the lyricism and passion of the second inaugural collided with the realities of strategic miscalculations and unexpected events. I have my doubts. What I do not doubt is that the generation of conservatives and Republicans who return one day to power will be forced to reckon with the consequences of the Obama revolution, just as a generation of defeated liberals were forced to confront and in some cases accept the revolution of Ronald Reagan.”
Here is the full text of President Obama’s second inaugural address on Jan. 21, 2013, as prepared for delivery:
Vice President Biden, Mr. Chief Justice, Members of the United States Congress, distinguished guests, and fellow citizens:
Each time we gather to inaugurate a president, we bear witness to the
enduring strength of our Constitution. We affirm the promise of our
democracy. We recall that what binds this nation together is not the
colors of our skin or the tenets of our faith or the origins of our
names. What makes us exceptional – what makes us American – is our
allegiance to an idea, articulated in a declaration made more than two
centuries ago:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created
equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable
rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of
Happiness.”
In the middle of the inaugural festivities, Republican officials confirm the House will vote Wednesday “on an increase in the nation’s debt limit, a move designed to prevent a first-ever government default,” the AP reports.
“The vote marks a change in strategy for House Republicans who run the chamber and who remain adamant about reducing government spending but decided not to use the debt limit to trigger a confrontation with President Barack Obama.”
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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