Washington Post: “Rarely have State of the Union addresses moved public opinion, and rarely have they led to the kind of broad legislative accomplishments that presidents propose. For all the ritual and attention surrounding these speeches, the State of the Union is, well, sort of lame.”
Roll Call has 10 things to watch for in tonight’s speech.
North Korea confirmed “that it had conducted its third, long-threatened nuclear test… posing a new challenge for the Obama administration in its effort to keep the country from becoming a full-fledged nuclear power,” the New York Times reports.
“The test drew a crescendo of international condemnation Tuesday, with President Obama calling it a ‘highly provocative act’ that demands ‘swift and credible action by the international community’ against North Korea. Russia, Britain, South Korea and the United Nations similarly quickly condemned the blast.”
Marc Ambinder notes five things to watch for after the North Korean test.
“Senate Democrats are pushing to quickly confirm Jacob Lew as Treasury secretary, but at a hearing Wednesday, Republicans plan to grill him about his tenure in the financial world,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“Lew has less experience in business and finance than in government budgeting–a fact that Republicans could highlight. And his business experience–primarily working at Citigroup Inc. from 2006 until 2009–will draw attention because the bank needed a taxpayer-funded bailout to survive the financial crisis.”
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“Some Senate Republicans are prepared to filibuster Chuck Hagel’s nomination to become the next secretary of defense, a rare maneuver to block a Cabinet-level nominee that demonstrates the lingering hostility from GOP senators toward a man who used to serve with them,” Politico reports.
“But the filibuster threat — reiterated Monday by Sen. Jim Inhofe, the top Republican on the Armed Services Committee — would make Hagel just the third Cabinet nominee in history to require 60 votes to overcome a filibuster on the Senate floor. The other two nominees were President Ronald Reagan’s 1987 choice to head his Commerce Department, C. William Verity, and President George W. Bush’s 2006 choice of Dirk Kempthorne to be secretary of the interior.”
The Washington Post reports on the lawmaker who will spend up to seven hours staking out seats near to the aisle to be seen shaking President Obama’s hand as he enters the House chamber.
“They’ve been around for at least 46 years. For the people on the aisle, the State of the Union is a rare night when a low-ranking legislator can score both a TV appearance and a personal audience with the president. Just try to ignore the elbows thrown by your colleagues. And be brief.”
“The squatters on the House aisle are now a familiar part of the State
of the Union ritual — a signal that the night has evolved from from a
speech into a show, and then from the president’s show to more of an
ensemble piece.”
After insisting he wasn’t a “deadbeat dad” throughout his failed campaign for re-election, former Rep. Joe Walsh (R-IL) filed court papers seeking to end his obligation to pay $2,134 per month in child support, the Chicago Sun Times reports.
“But once again, Walsh insists he’s no deadbeat. Both he and his attorney say that since he is no longer employed as a congressman, they want to ‘modify’ the previous agreement so that he pays 20 percent of his current salary.”
Ben Smith: “President Obama’s enemies often accuse him, in the starkest political terms, of crudely acting to shift resources toward his political base: green-energy donors, single women, Latinos, African-Americans.”
“But the next 12 months are likely to reveal the opposite. Imminent elements of Obama’s grandest policy move, the health-care overhaul known as ObamaCare, are calculated to screw his most passionate supporters and to transfer wealth to his worst enemies.”
But Ezra Klein disagrees: “Universal health-care systems in general, and Obamacare in particular, move money from the rich to the poor.”
Coming soon: The Forgotten Presidents: Their Untold Constitutional Legacy by Michael J. Gerhardt
The Cloakroom: 3 reasons Marco Rubio isn’t going to be the GOP nominee in 2016.
Roll Call released it’s annual list Capitol Hill’s leading staffers — “the people behind the scenes who wield the power and drive their party’s message.”
“Frustrated by the months of non-stop budget fights, Senate Republicans are set to mount a fiscal counteroffensive this week with the reintroduction of a balanced-budget amendment,” National Review reports.
“According to a Senate GOP aide, the legislation would cap federal spending at 18 percent of GDP. It would also require a supermajority for tax hikes and debt-limit increases.”
Greg Sargent: “Requiring a supermajority on the debt ceiling is the direct opposite of fiscal responsibility: Since the debt ceiling only constitutes authorizing borrowing to pay bills already incurred by Congress, it could set spending by regular majority rule (as it currently does), while requiring a supermajority to borrow the money necessary to pay the bills it racks up. It would make default — and widespread economic havoc — more likely.”
Just published: The Art of Betrayal: The Secret History of MI6 by Gordon Corera.
Roll Call: “The Senate panel overseeing Pentagon nominations plans to hold a vote Tuesday on the contentious nomination of Chuck Hagel to become Defense secretary, and while the panel may vote along party lines to recommend confirmation to the full Senate, some GOP lawmakers are expected to hold it up.”
Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) “has veered sharply away from the reform and pro-business policies he followed during his first two years in office and is ‘adrift’ on a course of murky proposals, frequent indecision, and political obsessions focused on re-election next year and the presidency in 2016,” insiders tell Fred Dicker.
“The insiders, some of whom have known Cuomo for decades, said the governor has become so obsessed with maintaining what until recently were record-high job-approval ratings that he has refused, for fear of alienating politically potent liberal voting blocs, to make tough decisions to cut costs for fiscally troubled local governments, reduce regulations to attract businesses, and approve hydrofracking for natural gas.”
Nate Silver suggests Karl Rove’s latest effort to fund “electable” candidates in Republican primaries may actually fail.
“An analysis of Republican Senate primaries in 2010 and 2012 suggests that money is usually the least pressing problem for the incumbents and other establishment-backed candidates whom Mr. Rove’s group might be inclined to support. Instead, some insurgent candidates won their races despite having been at more than a 10-to-1 fund-raising disadvantage heading into the primary.”
“Does that mean there is literally no benefit to having more money in a Republican primary? Not exactly… there is a modest but positive correlation between the share of the funds that went to the establishment candidate and that candidate’s margin of victory or defeat. However, the relationship is much weaker than it is in general elections for the Senate, when fund-raising totals have about twice as much power to predict the margin between the Democratic and Republican candidates.”
Fox News: Rove under fire from the right.
Although Pope Benedict XVI’s resignation is the first in 600 years, the election of the next Pope remains generally the same, Dylan Matthews reports.
“But, as with normal papal successions, it will prompt the vote of the College of Cardinals, a group of up to 120 church leaders (current estimates put the number around 118) below the age limit of 80 who convene to elect new popes. Exactly how that process works, however, changes frequently, and indeed has changed since the election that elevated Benedict in 2005.”
However, research into papal elections is a sensitive subject because, the next Pope’s selection is “attributed to the will of God, a force not amenable to any empirical test that is in our power to conduct.”
The Week has eight possible contenders for the job.
Saturday Night Live planned a skit making fun of the Senate Republicans’ grilling of defense secretary nominee Chuck Hagel but it was cut from the show at the last minute.
It was released later online.
Former Florida GOP chairman Jim Greer pleaded guilty “to charges of money laundering and theft, avoiding trial in a case that could have potentially embarrassed former Gov. Charlie Crist and much of the state’s Republican elite,” the Tampa Bay Times reports.
“As part of the deal, Greer faces a maximum of 42.6 months in prison. Sentencing is scheduled March 27.”
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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