The Economist: “Arguing whether Mr Obama has a mandate is like debating whether somebody has mojo, or whether basketball star LeBron James is ‘in the zone’ on a given night: there’s a discussion to be had, but no way to come to a definite conclusion.”
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Florida Screws Up Voting Again
Rick Hasen: “Think of all the problems in Florida: the on, again off again in-person absentee balloting in Miami Dade, put in place by local election officials against the wishes of the mayor to get around the cutbacks on early voting by the governor and legislature; the multiple ballot snafus in Palm Beach County; long lines in cites throughout the state; major problems in handling some absentee ballots; election officials in one county telling people that they could vote through the end of the day Wednesday.”
“Let’s declare Florida an election disaster area and bring in the feds.”
Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power
Out next week: Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power by Jon Meacham.
New York Times: “Meacham is one of several journalists turned historians who belong to what might be called the Flawed Giant School… Books in this mode usually present their subjects as figures of heroic grandeur despite all-too-human shortcomings — and so, again, speak directly to the current moment, with its diminished faith in government and in the nation’s elected leaders. Few are better suited to this uplifting task than Meacham.”
Karl Rove Under Fire
Politico: “The face of the historic $1-billion plan to unseat President Obama and turn the Senate Republican, Karl Rove now finds himself the leading scapegoat for its failure. And he’s scrambling to protect his status as a top GOP money man by convincing disappointed donors to his Crossroads groups that he did the best he could with their $300 million.”
“During a secret Thursday afternoon conference call with his benefactors, Rove laid out the analytics behind his assertions to donors that a massive late-game advertising push would expand the electoral map into Pennsylvania and deliver the White House and the Senate.”
National Memo: Karl Rove gets philosophical.
“My Wife’s Lover”
With David Petraeus stepping down as CIA Director over an extramarital affair, a reader points out a letter to The Ethicist that ran over the summer:
“My wife is having an affair with a government executive. His role is to manage a project whose progress is seen worldwide as a demonstration of American leadership. (This might seem hyperbolic, but it is not an exaggeration.) I have met with him on several occasions, and he has been gracious. (I doubt if he is aware of my knowledge.) I have watched the affair intensify over the last year, and I have also benefited from his generosity. He is engaged in work that I am passionate about and is absolutely the right person for the job. I strongly feel that exposing the affair will create a major distraction that would adversely impact the success of an important effort. My issue: Should I acknowledge this affair and finally force closure? Should I suffer in silence for the next year or two for a project I feel must succeed? Should I be ‘true to my heart’ and walk away from the entire miserable situation and put the episode behind me? NAME WITHHELD “
Meanwhile, the Washington Post reports a FBI investigation “uncovered e-mails describing an affair between Petraeus and Paula Broadwell, a former military officer and co-author of a glowing biography of Petraeus.”
Quote of the Day
“What’s been interesting to watch is that our data has been remarkably
consistent really from last spring forward, and our battleground polls
really didn’t fluctuate much. There were times when it would dip to
where we had a 2-point lead in the battleground states. There’s one poll
over the course that we had a 1-point lead. By and large, we’ve been 3
and 4 points ahead in the battleground polls.”
— David Axelrod, in an interview with Mike Allen, giving a postmortem on the 2012 presidential campaign.
Ryan Lost His Hometown Badly
Even though Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) won re-election at the same time he was on the national ticket, the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel notes he was crushed in his hometown of Janesville, WI by challenger Rob Zerban (D), 55% to 44%. Ryan had never lost Janesville in a re-election campaign before.
In addition, the Obama-Biden ticket defeated Romney-Ryan ticket in Janesville by a whopping 25 points, 62% to 37%.
“The drop-off from the Ryan congressional vote to the Romney-Ryan presidential vote was much larger in Janesville (7.2 points) than it was in the rest of the congressional district (3 points). Put another way, there were more Ryan ticket-splitters in Janesville than other places: people who voted for Ryan for Congress but against Ryan for vice president.”
Fox News: What’s next for Paul Ryan?
Roy Moore Wins His Old Job Back
Roy Moore (R), forever known as Alabama’s Ten Commandments judge, “has been re-elected chief justice in a triumphant political resurrection after being ousted from that office nearly a decade ago,” the Biloxi Sun-Herald reports.
Said Moore to his supporters: “Go home with the knowledge that we are going to stand for the acknowledgment of God.”
A Lot More Than Yard Signs
Michael Scherer talks to Michael Smerconish about the microtargeting and backroom number crunching that won the 2012 election.
Romney Voter Targeting System a Total Bust
Mitt Romney’s campaign boasted for weeks about their voter-targeting sytem called ORCA, “named for the killer whale, that cost substantial resources to build over months,” Politico reports.
“Instead, Romney campaign officials were mostly flying without instruments on election day. Numerous Republicans in and around the Romney campaign called the ORCA platform a total bust, stranding thousands of volunteers without a way of reporting data back to headquarters and leaving Romney central command without a clear view of developments on the ground.”
Coolidge
Coming soon: Coolidge by Amity Shlaes, complete with a book blurb from Rep. Paul Ryan.
Petraeus Resigns Over Extramarital Affair
CIA Director David Petraeus resigned abruptly, citing an extramarital affair he had, NBC News reports.
From a Petraeus statement: “Yesterday afternoon, I went to the White House and asked the President to be allowed, for personal reasons, to resign from my position as D/CIA. After being married for over 37 years, I showed extremely poor judgment by engaging in an extramarital affair. Such behavior is unacceptable, both as a husband and as the leader of an organization such as ours.”
Wonk Wire has more details, including the identity of the woman.
Josh Marshall: “Like most people I find this news pretty flabbergasting. I will say
there’s some important context: extra-marital affairs in CIA, however
common they may be, are always a big, big deal since they invite
potential blackmail. So whatever else is going on here it’s
significantly different than an ordinary politician having an affair.”
Obama’s Pursuit of Greatness
David Maraniss: “Second terms often bring a new set of frustrations for a president,
following the laws of diminishing returns and lame-duckiness. But
history also shows that a second term is required to create, or to
ratify, presidential greatness — and in that sense, Obama is not
ambivalent about his ambitions. Since he first thought about being
president, a notion that came to him relatively late compared with most
politicians, he has wanted to be a great one. When he stepped onto the
stage Tuesday night, he realized that he has that chance.”
Warren Could Land on Banking Committee
“The chances are good, but not guaranteed, that Elizabeth Warren will secure a highly coveted seat on the Senate Banking Committee, a move that would dramatically elevate her campaign against Wall Street excess,” Reuters reports.
Warren “is a logical fit
for the committee, even though it is rare for a freshman senator
to get such a plum assignment.”
CNBC: “If Warren is kept off Banking the official rationale will be that she lacked the seniority to land a seat on committee… But don’t be fooled by formalism. The seniority rule is informal and could, of course, be waved to seat Warren on banking. It’s really up to Reid as Senate Majority leader to make committee assignments. If he wants Warren on the committee, she gets the seat. If she doesn’t want her on the committee, she won’t. This is a matter of discretion.”
Wonk Wire: The anti-banker joins the Senate.
Energy Company CEO Blames Layoffs on Obama
The CEO of Murray Energy, an Ohio-based coal company, said the reelection of President Obama “was no cause for celebration. It was a time for prayer – and layoffs,” the Washington Post reports.
Robert Murray read a prayer to a group of company staff members on the day after the election, lamenting the direction of the country and asking: “Lord, please forgive me and anyone with me in Murray Energy Corp. for the decisions that we are now forced to make to preserve the very existence of any of the enterprises that you have helped us build.”
He then announced layoffs of 156 people at two subsidiaries.
This is the same company that forced its employees to attend a Mitt Romney rally last summer and lose pay as a result.
Get a Political Job!
Did the election season convince you to make politics your profession? Start here.
Obama Ends Tradition of Post-Election Press Conferences
President Obama delivered a statement today, his first to the White House press corps since winning reelection, on the budget issues facing Congress in the lame duck session.
The president did not take questions, as BuzzFeed notes, the first time a reelected president has done so since before Ronald Reagan’s reelection in 1984.
The GOP’s State of Denial
Lexington: “Todd Akin did not implode as a Senate candidate because of his stern opposition to abortion even in cases of rape or incest: many Republicans in Congress share those views. His downfall came because in trying to deny that his principles involved a trade-off with compassion for rape victims he came up with the unscientific myth that the bodies of women subjected to rape can shut down a pregnancy.”
“It was a telling moment of denial, much like the comforting myth that there is no such thing as climate change or, if there is, that humans are not involved. Ensconced in a parallel world of conservative news sources and conservative arguments, all manner of comforting alternative visions of reality surfaced during the 2012 election. Many, like Mr Akin’s outburst, involved avoiding having to think about unwelcome things (often basic science or economics). It became a nostrum among rank-and-file Republicans that mainstream opinion polls are biased and should be ignored, for instance, and that voter fraud is rampant and explains much of the Democrats’ inner-city support. Both conspiracies sounded a lot like ways of wishing the other side away.”
