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Amy Walter of the Cook Political Report joins us on the Political Wire podcast to discuss the national political landscape and look at the all-important battle for control of the U.S. Senate.
It’s a great discussion.
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Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne (R) took the stand in his own defense “against allegations that he illegally coordinated with an outside group to attack his opponent in ads during his 2010 campaign for office, repeatedly saying he ‘absolutely’ did not break the law,” the Arizona Republic reports.
“Horne and Kathleen Winn, who ran Business Leaders for Arizona, are accused of illegally coordinating on funding and creating negative ads targeting Democratic challenger Felecia Rotellini.”
“You may want to just wear logos if you’re running for president: ‘sponsored by so-and-so.’ I mean it’s going to get to be like NASCAR where everybody should put logos on your suit.”
— Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), quoted by National Journal, on the impact of super PACs on elections.
You already know the problem: the same story can look completely different depending on where you read it — and some barely show up at all because algorithms decide what you see.
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Jon Stewart looks at President Obama’s recent nominations for ambassadorships.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) “may have scuttled a compromise on immigration reform with just one sound bite,” the San Antonio Express-News reports.
“House Republicans who supported ‘principles’ of immigration reform floated by Speaker John Boehner late last month grumbled Tuesday that the plan was dead on arrival because Cruz blasted it as ‘amnesty,’ spurring a blizzard of negative phone calls to House Republicans.”
Said one GOP lawmaker: “After that it was ‘We’ll get back to you on immigration reform'”
Elizabeth Drew: “During the 1973 Watergate hearings, Howard Baker, the Republican Senate leader and a close ally of the Nixon White House, asked repeatedly, ‘What did the president know and when did he know it?’ This was and continues to be widely seen as the definitive way to establish a political leader’s innocence or guilt of misdeeds within his administration. And so the question is now being echoed in the case of New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, in particular on television–it has even led a national network news broadcast. This is a big break for Christie.”
“Christie himself has helped set up this question–leading reporters on a merry chase to pin down precisely what he knew when about the infamous closing of two of the three traffic lanes leading into the George Washington Bridge from Fort Lee, New Jersey for four days last September… But this isn’t really the issue. The issue is whether the governor can be held accountable for what happened at very high levels in his administration.”
The New Republic: “Has there ever been a political reversal of fortune as rapid and as absolute as the one just experienced by Chris Christie? At warp speed, the governor of New Jersey has gone from the most popular politician in the country to the most embattled; from the Republicans’ brightest hope for 2016 to a man with an FBI target on his back. One minute, he was releasing jokey vanity videos starring Alec Baldwin and assorted celebrity pals; the next, he was being ridiculed by his lifelong idol, Bruce Springsteen. Mere weeks ago, Christie was a straight-talking, corruption-busting everyman. Now, he is a liar, a bully, a buffoon.”
“What is remarkable about this meltdown is that it isn’t the result of some deep secret that has been exposed to the world, revealing a previously unimagined side to the candidate. Many of the scandals and mini-scandals and scandals-within-scandals that the national media is salivating over have been in full view for years.”
The Senate Conservatives Fund, founded by former Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC), has launched the harshest attack yet on its top target, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), the Washington Examiner reports.
Alan Abramowitz: “Democrats would need a very substantial lead on the pre-election generic ballot surveys, something in the vicinity of 12 to 14 points, to have a good chance of gaining the 17 House seats needed to regain control of the chamber. At this point, that appears highly unlikely — no nonpartisan poll in the past year has shown a double-digit Democratic lead on the generic ballot. Moreover, no party holding the White House has gained anywhere near 17 seats in a midterm election in the past century. It seems highly unlikely that 2014 will see such a result.”
“On the other hand, it also appears highly unlikely that Republicans will be able to significantly increase the size of their House majority in November. Right now, the most likely outcome of the House elections would appear to be a near standoff.”
Washington Post: “Despite the turmoil that has hamstrung the House Republican majority for much of the past three years, Democrats acknowledge that their chances of retaking control of the chamber this year are slim to nonexistent. In fact, their most viable plan at this point may be to root for continued unrest in the GOP.”
Rep. Tim Griffin (R-AR), who months ago said he would not seek re-election in Arkansas’ 2nd District, announced he is running for Lt. Governor in Arkansas, Roll Call reports.
A new Tampa Bay Times poll in Florida finds Alex Sink (D) leading David Jolly (R) in the FL-13 special congressional election, 42% to 35%.
Interesting: “The poll also reveals how the Affordable Care Act has become a virtual litmus test for voters. Of those who support Sink, 81 percent also support Obamacare. Of those who support Jolly, 84 percent also oppose Obamacare.”
“Amid a buzz of anticipation, Donald Trump once again flirted with a run for governor on Wednesday night, but stopped short of committing his money, time and oversize personality to stopping the re-election hopes of Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo,” the New York Times reports.
“Instead, Mr. Trump said he would run only if the Republican Party unified behind him — ‘The last thing you need is a primary’ — and asked him to take the nomination.”
Said Trump: “If that were the case I would run. And I believe I would win.”
However, a new Quinnipiac poll shows Cuomo crushing Trump in a match up, 63% to 26%.
“After the shutdown, the filibusters and years of stalled bills, it was the actual passage of legislation this week that revealed the true depth of congressional dysfunction,” the New York Times reports.
“The House vote to raise the debt limit and stifle the budget wars was remarkable not only for its lack of brinkmanship, but for the vote count itself. The 28 members of the Republican majority who voted for the bill — a meager 12 percent — was the lowest percentage for a majority on passage since the House began publishing electronic data on votes in 1991. It has to rank among the lowest ever for a body defined by strict majority rule.”
“Not to be outdone, the Senate on Wednesday flirted with a market crisis as Republicans were initially reluctant to provide a handful of votes to overcome a procedural hurdle before clearing the way for the Senate to send President Obama legislation that takes the debt limit off the table until March 2015.”
HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius “was in frequent contact with President Obama and senior White House aides before the disastrous launch of the federal ObamaCare exchange last year,” The Hill reports.
“While Sebelius has said the president was not aware of HealthCare.gov’s problems, more than 750 pages of documents obtained by The Hill through a Freedom of Information Act request show she made scores of visits to the White House. The documents reveal that Sebelius met with or attended calls and events with Obama at least 18 times between Oct. 27, 2012, and Oct. 6, 2013, including at least seven instances in which the two were scheduled to discuss the new healthcare law, according to the secretary’s draft schedules.”
The Week: “Federal elections are enormous money pits, with campaigns and outside groups spending millions of dollars to influence the outcome. This year will be no exception. In fact, it could obliterate the record for midterm election spending, with looser finance rules, close contests, and a Tea Party insurrection all driving up the total amount of money spent on winning congressional seats.”
The Week notes that when Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) forced a cloture vote on a bill to lift the debt ceiling, he forced two senators facing Tea Party primary challengers — Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) — into a tough vote.
“The snap reaction from many political journalists was that the vote could endanger both lawmakers’ jobs.”
Jonathan Chait: “The decisive case for inaction that Republicans made to Boehner has been that moving an immigration bill would divide the party in advance of the midterm elections. Republicans are anticipating a favorable midterm election, with a shrunken and more demographically favorable electorate, along with a Senate map tilted heavily toward red states. They don’t want to instigate right-wing infighting when they can instead spend every day harping on the multitudinous evils of Obamacare.”
“Yet, once the midterms pass, the presidential primary will quickly command attention. Republicans again will be competing for the loyalty of a heavily white, distinctly anti-immigrant electoral base, and the candidates will again face pressure to lock themselves into positions that will alienate Latino and Asian voters. They could still win anyway if the economy is weak enough, or some other major scandal envelopes the Obama administration. But in an electorate that is both increasingly hardened in its partisan inclinations, and growing steadily more Democratic-leaning in its basic shape, the GOP’s outlook is, if not hopeless, decidedly grim.”
Former New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin (D) was convicted of 20 federal corruption charges for illegal dealings with city vendors, dating back to 2004, the New Orleans Times-Picayune reports.
“Nagin, 57, joins a list of Louisiana elected officials convicted of misdeeds while in office, but he is New Orleans’ first mayor to be convicted of public corruption. Under federal sentencing guidelines, he could face a 20-year prison term, possibly more, lawyers have said.”
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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