Maine GOP chair Charlie Webster defended himself to TPM on charges that he was racist suggesting black people committed voter fraud in rural counties in his state.
Said Webster: “There’s nothing about me that would be discriminatory. I know black people. I play basketball every Sunday with a black guy. He’s a great friend of mine. Nobody would ever accuse me of suggesting anything.”
A new Pew Research survey finds a third of the country followed the election returns last week online. And most of them were actually “second screeners,” who used both the TV and the Internet to keep up.
Documents obtained by the Chattanooga Times Free Press finds that Tennessee physician and Rep. Scott DesJarlais (R-TN) supported his ex-wife’s decision to get two abortions before their marriage.
The Tennessee lawmaker has described himself as “a consistent supporter of pro-life values.”
The couple’s 2001 trial transcript “also confirms DesJarlais had sexual relationships with at least two patients, three coworkers and a drug representative… During one affair with a female patient, DesJarlais prescribed her drugs, gave her an $875 watch and bought her a plane ticket to Las Vegas, records show.”
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Gawker: “Last month, the watchdog group Better Georgia managed to record nearly a full hour of a four-hour closed door meeting of Republican state senators which was convened by Senate Majority Leader Chip Rogers (R) to discuss President Obama’s efforts to brainwash Americans on behalf of the United Nations.”
Part of the session was caught on video before the infiltrators were escorted out.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports that several lawmakers claimed their per diem rate for attending the session.
Jonathan Chait: “There is no such thing as a permanent change in American politics. What we’re talking about here is the landscape for a quarter-century or so — anything beyond that is too distant to project. In the long run, interracial marriage and cultural assimilation will make the descendants of today’s Latino voters identify much more closely with the white mainstream, which will make them more amenable to conservatism. But that long run is pretty far off. For the foreseeable future, the decline of the white population is occurring much more rapidly than the weakening identity of the nonwhite population. The Democrats have a party identity that is well suited to this environment; it is the Republicans who will have to adapt.”
“Mitt Romney had what I scientifically call a butt-ugly primary,.”
— Karl Rove, quoted by the Erie Times-News, offering another excuse for Mitt Romney’s loss in the presidential election.
Maine Republican party chairman Charlie Webster told WSCH-TV that “hundreds” of black voters cast ballots in rural areas of the state.
Said Webster: “In some parts of rural Maine, there were dozens, dozens of black people who came in and voted on Election Day. Everybody has the right to vote, but nobody in town knows anybody that’s black — how did that happen? I don’t know. We’re going to find out.”
Webster elaborated on his charges to the Portland Press-Herald: “I’m not talking about 15 or 20. I’m talking hundreds.”
Good takes a look at the “impressive, community-driven” write-in campaigns for unlikely candidates, “possibly signaling the voting practices in the future.”
“Naysayers will say a write-in vote is simply throwing your vote away (especially since write-in candidates have to be pre-registered with the state to even be considered). But in the case of Hank and Darwin, the write-in votes are not a personal statement but part of a larger, community voice. These ridiculous, but successful, campaigns this election season point to answers of how third-party candidates can stand a chance of success in future elections.”
“For the first time, there was a traffic jam in the Senate women’s bathroom. There were five of us in there, and there are only two stalls.”
— Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), quoted by the Washington Post, noting that the next Senate will have a record 20 women.
John Avlon lacerates Mitt Romney for blaming his election defeat on “gifts” given to special interests by President Obama.
“Addressing the needs and desires of people is not a bribe or a government gift to be exchanged for a vote. It is part of the purpose of representative government as conservative forefather Edmund Burke himself once envisioned: ‘Government is a contrivance of human wisdom to provide for human wants. Men have a right that these wants should be provided for by this wisdom.'”
“Romney’s distance from this perspective about government shows how far the conservative conversation has drifted from original principles. His impulse to rationalize defeat as victory for liberal special-interest bribery shows again that it is probably best for the country that he was not elected president this November.”
Mark Blumenthal: “What made the exit polls especially challenging this year is that Edison Research, the company that conducts the exit polls on behalf of the National Election Pool (NEP) consortium of the five television networks and the Associated Press, is in Somerville, N.J. It was directly in the path of Hurricane Sandy, and nearly knocked out of business by the storm at a critical moment in its preparations.”
“The biennial exit polls are an extraordinary undertaking under normal circumstances … Altogether, Edison reports that more than 3,000 interviewers collected nearly 120,000 interviews of Americans who voted in 2012… This year, Hurricane Sandy helped make that final week far more challenging than usual.”
“We had 20 Republican debates, that was absolutely nuts, it opened us up to gaffes and to material that could be used against us in the general, and we were fighting these debates for a year, and the incumbent president just sat back and laughed.”
— Mitt Romney, quoted by The Note, on the GOP primary season.
President Obama aggressively defended U.N. ambassador Susan Rice, “using his first postelection news conference to pointedly rebut Republican charges that the diplomat misled the American public in the aftermath of the attacks in Libya,” the Boston Globe reports.
Bloomberg notes Obama’s “spirited defense” of Rice “has moved her a step closer to being named to succeed Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.”
First Read: “If you thought that Obama might decide to pass on nominating Susan Rice to be the next Secretary of State, think again. Yesterday’s confrontation might have been the best thing to happen to her chances of being nominated. The president is a pragmatist and is usually someone who likes to avoid confirmation fights for his appointees. But the more the GOP attacks Rice, the more dug in the White House and president might get.”
New York Times:
“If there was still any thought that President Obama and Senator John
McCain might eventually move past their once-bitter White House rivalry
toward a cooperative governing agenda, it was all but dashed on
Wednesday.”
First Read: “When you think about it, Romney’s explanation for Obama’s victory is laughable — the president won because he successfully delivered to his voters. Isn’t that what politicians and presidents are supposed to do? In addition, Romney’s ‘gifts’ rationale doesn’t explain why he lost Iowa, New Hampshire, and Wisconsin, states with older and whiter populations. What’s particularly striking here: Jindal’s criticism. He was the first Republican to step up here, and it’s an easy brave moment if you’re an aspiring 2016er. A softball to hit out of the park. Romney, sounding more bitter than big in those comments, is giving plenty of aspiring Republican leaders to now use this moment to distinguish themselves from Romney. Watch for a bunch of folks on the GOP side to pile on actually.”
Rick Klein: “If Mitt Romney really believes he lost the election because President Obama gave key voting blocs ‘gifts’ — or, if he doesn’t believe it but continues to tell people that he does — he’s doing no favors to the Republican Party, his own role in it, and the healing of divisions after the election.”
The FBI found a substantial amount of classified information improperly secured on the personal computer of disgraced CIA director Gen. David Petraeus’ mistress, the New York Post reports.
“The files were discovered on a machine removed from Paula Broadwell’s Charlotte, NC, home as the feds investigated her sordid affair with the military commander whose biography she co-wrote. Investigators also found documents Broadwell admitted taking from secure government buildings, a source told ABC News, adding the government demanded that they all be returned.”
Tres Sugar: Seven bizarre details from the Petraeus affair.
Time magazine reports Gen. David Petraeus tried to talk his mistress, Paul Broadwell, out of ambitions for political office last summer.
Broadwell had discussed her plans with “at least six new acquaintances at the Aspen conference. That evening, over drinks, she told a small group that she had been arguing with her mentor about the direction of her career. Republican moneymen, she said, had approached her about a Senate run in North Carolina. She was tempted. Petraeus, she said in an irritated tone, rejected the idea out of hand. What was her position, he asked, on abortion? Climate change? Gun control? Gay marriage? Tax cuts? Social Security vouchers? Her answers, he told her, would not fit either party, and she should not sell herself out.”
Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) “forcefully rejected Mitt Romney’s claim that he lost because of President Obama’s ‘gifts‘ to minorities and young voters,” Politico reports.
Said Jindal: “No, I think that’s absolutely wrong. Two points on that: One, we have got to stop dividing the American voters. We need to go after 100 percent of the votes, not 53 percent. We need to go after every single vote.”
“And, secondly, we need to continue to show how our policies help every voter out there achieve the American Dream, which is to be in the middle class, which is to be able to give their children an opportunity to be able to get a great education. … So, I absolutely reject that notion, that description. I think that’s absolutely wrong.”
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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