The Fix: “Republicans have a major Latino problem, but it didn’t cost them the 2012 election… Mitt Romney would have needed to carry as much as 51 percent of the Hispanic vote in order to win the Electoral College — a number no Republican presidential candidate on record has been able to attain and isn’t really within the realm of possibility these days.”
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Bonus Quote of the Day
“January 1st is not the end of the fight. It’s the beginning of the fight.”
— Grover Norquist, quoted by Politico, apparently resigned to federal taxes going up.
Hagel on Short List for Defense Secretary
Former Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE) has emerged as the leading candidate to become President Obama’s next Secretary of Defense and may be nominated as soon as this month, Bloomberg reports.
“Hagel, who served as an enlisted Army infantryman in Vietnam, has passed the vetting process at the White House Counsel’s office… The former Nebraska senator has told associates that he is awaiting final word from the president.”
Top 10 Media Disasters of the Year
Brad Phillips lists the 10 worst media disasters for 2012 and eight are about politics.
Meanwhile, Stu Rothenberg has the best and worst of the 2012 campaigns.
The Insurgents
Coming soon: The Insurgents: David Petraeus and the Plot to Change the American Way of War by Fred Kaplan.
The inside story of the small group of soldier-scholars, let by Petraeus, who plotted to change the American military from within. Their aim was to build a new Army that could better fight what they saw as the new kind of war in the post-Cold War age; not massive wars on vast battlefields, but ‘small wars’ in cities and villages, against insurgents and terrorists.
Throwing the Bums In
Despite record low approval rates for Congress, Bloomberg finds that 90% of House members and 91% of U.S. Senators who sought re-election in 2012 were successful.
These re-election rates exceeded those of 2010, when 85% of House members and 84% of senators seeking re-election were successful.
Boehner Not Concerned About Losing Gavel
House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) said he’s “not concerned about his job as Speaker as he seeks a deficit deal with President Obama that could face opposition from conservative members of his conference,” The Hill reports.
Said Boehner: “I’m not concerned about my job as Speaker. What I’m concerned about is doing the right thing for our kids and grandkids. And if we don’t fix this spending problem, their future is going to be rather bleak.”
There’s been speculation in recent days that Boehner won’t cut a deal until after he wins re-election as Speaker in early January.
Is It Even Possible for Hillary Clinton to Rest?
Walter Shapiro: “Sure, Clinton may take two months or so off, interspersed with such restful tasks as house-hunting (the Clintons are said to be tempted by the Hamptons), hiring a staff, talking to a lecture agent, contemplating a book and presumably chatting with the most persistent political callers. If she does manage to sneak off on a vacation (Iowa is always lovely in March), rest assured that the paparazzi and the political press will be close behind.”
“Try as she might, Clinton will find it difficult, if not impossible, to avoid being entangled in a web of obligation. Legions of friends (and, unlike the norm in politics, her longstanding friendships appear genuine) will ask her for time-consuming favors that cannot all be rejected. The do-gooder side of her nature will propel her into too many events and trips for worthy causes. And, as a Clinton, she knows all too well how easily political supporters bristle when their egos are not being stroked.”
Christie Says He Didn’t Help Obama Win
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) insisted to ABC News that his praise for President Obama’s handling of the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy didn’t hurt Mitt Romney’s chances in the final days of the campaign.
Said Christie: “First of all, I didn’t help him win. I was doing my job… The fact of the matter is President Obama won the election pretty comfortably. I was doing my job as I saw fit to do it. And I told the truth, like I always do. The president did step up and help tremendously in New Jersey.”
In Defense of Backroom Deals
Todd Purdum: “You hear a lot about openness and transparency — and the disinfecting power of sunlight – -as keys to effective government. But let’s summon at least two cheers for the occasional usefulness of the backroom deal.”
Democrats Have Public Opinion On Their Side
A new Pew Research poll finds that when it comes to the reaching an agreement to avoid the fiscal cliff, 55% say President Obama is making a serious effort to work with Republicans. But just 32% say Republican leaders are making a serious effort to work with Obama on a deficit deal.
Also interesting: Obama’s first post-reelection job approval rating has risen to 55%, up five points since July and 11 points since the start of the year. His job rating is markedly higher than President George W. Bush’s first job measure (48%) after he won reelection in 2004.
In contrast, just 25% approve of the way Republican leaders in Congress are doing
their jobs, while 40% approve of Democratic leaders’ job performance.
Quote of the Day
“As I’ve said many times before, victory and defeat is temporary.
Depending on what happens, and where we go, all of us, we may obviously
meet again.”
— Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA), in a speech the Boston Globe describes as laying the groundwork for his eventual return to the U.S. Senate after being defeated for re-election.
Majority Supports Same-Sex Marriage
First Read: “For the first time ever in the NBC/WSJ poll, a majority of respondents
— 51% — support same-sex marriage. That percentage in support is up
from 30% in 2004, 41% in 2009 and 49% in March 2012, demonstrating how
quickly public opinion on this issue has changed in just eight years.”
Biden Waits on the Sidelines
Vice President Joe Biden “walked the halls of Congress and hosted top-level talks at Blair House during the last fiscal showdown. This time, he’s roaming the aisles of Costco,” Politico notes.
“It’s a stark shift in responsibilities for the vice president, who has been asked to hold off — for now — on leveraging his Capitol Hill connections and to leave the negotiating to his boss.”
“Biden’s new role is a product of President Barack Obama’s decision to streamline fiscal cliff negotiations between himself and House Speaker John Boehner, the two sides’ clear sticking points and Obama’s increased post-election political clout.”
Fiscal Cliff Talks Prove Vexing for Official Washington
Associated Press: “Republicans still aren’t budging on Obama’s demands for higher tax rates on upper bracket earners, despite the president’s convincing election victory and opinion polls showing support for the idea.”
“Democrats in turn are now resisting steps, such as raising the eligibility age for Medicare, that they were willing to consider just a year and a half ago, when Obama’s chief Republican adversary, House Speaker John Boehner, was in a better tactical position.”
Groups Vow to Push Anti-Union Drive in Other States
Conservative groups “that supported Michigan’s new ‘right to work’ law — winning a stunning victory over unions, even in the heart of American labor — vowed to replicate that success elsewhere,” the Washington Post reports.
“National unions, caught flat-footed in the Wolverine State, pledged
to offer fierce opposition wherever the idea crops up next. They
consider the laws a direct attack on their finances and political clout
at a time when labor influence is already greatly diminished.”
Wonk Wire: Do “right-to-work” laws make sense?
How Republicans Engineered a Big Blow to Unions
“From outside Michigan Republican circles, it appeared that the Republican drive to weaken unions came out of the blue – proposed, passed and signed in a mere six days.”
But Reuters reports the transformation had been in the making since March 2011 when two state senators “first seriously considered legislation to ban mandatory collection of union dues as a condition of employment in Michigan… The upstarts were flirting with the once unthinkable, limiting union rights in a state that is the home of the heavily unionized U.S. auto industry and the birthplace of the nation’s richest union, the United Auto Workers. For many Americans, Michigan is the state that defines organized labor.”
“But in a convergence of methodical planning and patient alliance building — the ‘systematic approach’ — the reformers were on a roll, one that establishment Michigan Republicans came to embrace and promised to bankroll. Republicans executed a plan — the timing, the language of the bills, the media strategy, and perhaps most importantly, the behind-the-scenes lobbying of top Republicans” including Gov. Rick Snyder (R).
Film’s Portrayal of Torture Reopens Debate
Zero Dark Thirty, the new movie about the hunt for Osama bin Laden, offers an “unflinching portrayal of the Central Intelligence Agency’s brutal interrogation of Al Qaeda prisoners hews close to the official record” including a “gruesome sampling of methods like the near-drowning of waterboarding,” the New York Times reports.
“What has already divided the critics, journalists and activists who have watched early screenings is a more subtle issue: the suggestion that the calculated infliction of pain and fear, graphically shown in the first 45 minutes of the film, may have produced useful early clues in the quest to find the terrorist leader, who was killed in May 2011.”
