With just 5 days to go until the Florida primary, the four remaining Republican presidential candidates face off in yet another debate tonight.
The action starts at 8 p.m. ET on CNN.
Ron Fournier: “Tonight’s is the last debate until Feb. 22, nearly a month from now,
which leaves Gingrich with one less tool in his toolbox to counter
Romney’s financial and organizational advantages. That is, unless he
wins Florida … which brings us back to the extraordinary importance of
tonight’s debate.”
Coming soon: A new companion site to Political Wire.
Some investments listed in Mitt Romney’s 2010 tax returns — including a now-closed Swiss bank account and funds located in overseas tax havens — were not explicitly disclosed in the personal financial statement he filed last August, the Los Angeles Times reports.
“The Romney campaign described the discrepancies as ‘trivial’ but acknowledged Thursday afternoon that they are undergoing an internal review of how the investments were reported and will make “some minor technical amendments” to Romney’s financial disclosure that will not alter the overall picture of his finances.”
MSNBC notes that while Romney’s tax returns “have produced no revelations about any improper dealings on Romneys’ part, they have continued to raise questions about how and why some of his multiple overseas investments were made in the first place, and why there were not more fully reported on Romney’s financial disclosure forms.”
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“The dramatic movement of 1995 is an outgrowth of a much earlier crusade that goes back half a century. Barry Goldwater handed the torch to Ronnie, and in turn Ronnie turned that torch over to Newt and the Republican members of Congress to keep that dream alive.”
— Nancy Reagan, in a 1995 video, saying her husband Ronald Reagan gave leadership of the conservative movement to Newt Gingrich.
National Review has the brutal statement from former Sen. Bob Dole (R-KS):
“I have not been critical
of Newt Gingrich but it is now time to take a stand before it is too
late. If Gingrich is the nominee it will have an adverse impact on
Republican candidates running for county, state, and federal offices.
Hardly anyone who served with Newt in Congress has endorsed him and that
fact speaks for itself. He was a one-man-band who rarely took advice.
It was his way or the highway.”
He adds: “In my run for the presidency in 1996 the Democrats greeted me with a number of negative TV ads and in every one of them Newt was in the ad. He was very unpopular and I am not only certain that this did not help me, but that it also cost House seats that year. Newt would show up at the campaign headquarters with an empty bucket in his hand — that was a symbol of some sort for him — and I never did know what he was doing or why he was doing it, and I’m not certain he knew either.”
The latest NBC News-Wall Street Journal poll shows most Americans agree on one thing: 56% of registered voters say they would vote out every member of Congress if there were a place on the ballot to do so.
Support is consistent across the ideological spectrum — with 55% of liberals, 55% of moderates, and 58% of conservatives all feeling the same way.
Said pollster Bill McInturff: “We found the one area in which all people in the country agree.”
Despite recent Florida polls which show Mitt Romney opening up a lead over Newt Gingrich in that state’s upcoming Republican primary, the latest Gallup tracking poll shows Romney continuing his fall.
Gingrich now leads Romney nationally by six points, 31% to 25%, with Rick Santorum and Ron Paul both at 13%.
Rep. Barney Frank’s (D-MA) office has confirmed to NECN that the retiring 71-year-old lawmaker is marrying his longtime partner, Jim Ready, in a Massachusetts ceremony. A date has not been set.
If Frank were to get married before he leaves office in January, he would be the first congressman in a same sex marriage.
Just published: Money Well Spent?: The Truth Behind the Trillion-Dollar Stimulus, the Biggest Economic Recovery Plan in History by Michael Grabell.
The author concludes the stimulus package did some good and saved as many as 3 million jobs but the political legacy of the bill may be its most lasting effect.
Rick Stengel: “Campaigning, by its very nature, places a premium on an extroverted persona. Candidates are meant to clap people on the back, bound onstage and then deliver a passionate stump speech. No one wants to see a shy candidate on the podium who looks as if he’d rather be in a room by himself. But campaigning is not governing, a task for which a more introverted style might have advantages. Research suggests that extroverted leaders are more likely to make quick and sometimes rash decisions, while introverted leaders tend to gather more evidence and are slower to judgment.”
A security video of Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) at a Nashville International Airport security checkpoint doesn’t show him being “irate,” as officials asserted in an incident reports when he refused a pat down.
Tennessean: “An incident report describes the police response as encountering ‘a passenger being irate.’ But videos released by the Metro Airport Authority late Wednesday show Paul entering the security line at 7:57 a.m. and then alternately sitting and standing in a glass cubicle while being watched by authorities. Paul appears to make a few phone calls as well. Paul is shown being escorted by an airport official at 9:04 a.m. Paul rebooked his flight and later went through security without incident.”
Reuters reports that while Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) might check a lot of
boxes for the Republican Vice President nomination — “telegenic,
Hispanic and a fiscal conservative who has been embraced by the Tea
Party” — his financial troubles could be problematic in the vetting
process.
“In 2008, despite earning a declared $400,000 — including
his $300,000 salary from the Miami law firm Broad and Cassel — Rubio
failed to pay down the principal on his home for several months,
according to Florida campaign finance disclosures. During the same
period he did not make payments on a $100,000-plus student loan from his
days at the University of Miami, the disclosures said… Rubio’s
handling of his personal finances contrasts sharply with the image of
him on his Senate website, which highlights Rubio’s efforts to prevent
Washington from ‘piling up debt.'”
Getting into a public argument with President Obama apparently does wonders for book sales: Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer’s book, Scorpions for Breakfast, is now at #177 on Amazon’s bestseller list.
A new Dallas Morning News poll finds Gov. Rick Perry’s dismal showing in the Republican presidential race has plunged his approval among Texans to its lowest level in a decade.
Most striking: Perry’s 40% job approval rating in his home state is lower than President Obama’s 43%, despite the GOP’s domination in Texas.
The poll also showed that most Texans — 53% — do not want to see Perry seek another term as governor. Even some of his strongest supporters — 41% of Republicans and 35% of those who voted for him two years ago — don’t want him to run again.
A new Rasmussen survey in Florida shows Mitt Romney now leading Newt Gingrich by eight points, 39% to 31%, with Rick Santorum at 12% and Ron Paul at 9%.
Four days ago, just after the South Carolina Primary, Gingrich led Romney 41% to 32%.
Meanwhile, a new Monmouth University poll shows Romney with a 7 point lead over Gingrich among likely Republican voters, 39% to 32%, with Santorum at 11% and Paul at 8%.
A new InsiderAdvantage survey shows Romney with an eight point lead over Gingrich, 40% to 32%, followed by Paul at 9% and Santorum at 8%.
“The fact of the matter is, I think people would have been happy to have a referendum on civil rights rather than fighting and dying in the streets in the South.”
— New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R), quoted by the Philadelphia inquirer, arguing that gay marriage should be decided by voters in a ballot referendum.
Nate Silver: “The FiveThirtyEight forecast model still projects Mr. Gingrich as the slight favorite in Florida, giving him a 2-point lead and a 60 percent chance of victory. However, this lead is diminished considerably from two days ago, when the model saw a potential double-digit win for Mr. Gingrich as polls released immediately after the South Carolina primary had him surging in Florida.”
“In fact, I suspect the model is being too conservative and that there is enough evidence — when you look carefully at the day-to-day results — to conclude that Mr. Romney has re-emerged as the slight favorite in Florida instead.”
First Read: “Five days until the voters go to the polls in the Sunshine State, the
GOP presidential contest is very volatile. It’s a pure coin flip… The bottom line is no one knows what’s going to happen, raising the stakes for tonight’s debate, the 19th of this cycle and the last one before this primary.”
“I don’t know what the Republican establishment is. I haven’t learned the secret handshake, and I don’t know where to go for a membership card.”
— Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R), quoted by Time.
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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