Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R) “is preparing to defend his Florida governorship with the most expensive reelection campaign in state history, drawing up plans for a battleship-sized political operation aimed at overcoming the Republican’s deep personal unpopularity,” Politico reports.
“The anticipated price tag, according to sources familiar with Scott’s plans: $100 million.”
“After years in which the Republicans’ answer to almost every question was to reduce spending and lower taxes, some of the party’s most influential voices are beginning to suggest that it is time to take a broader — and softer — focus,” the Washington Post reports.
“The latest to join that movement is House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA), who in a speech on Tuesday called for Republicans to ‘focus our attention really on what lies beyond the fiscal debates’ and to create ‘conditions for health, happiness and prosperity.'”
A new Gallup poll finds “at least two-thirds of Americans favor each of five specific measures designed to address immigration issues — ranging from 68% who would vote for increased government spending on security measures and enforcement at U.S. borders, to 85% who would vote for a requirement that employers verify the immigration status of all new hires. More than seven in 10 would vote for a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants now living in this country.”
Meanwhile, a new ABC News-Washington Post poll finds public approval of President Obama’s handling of immigration has jumped
to a career high “buttressed
by majority support for a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants
and, much more broadly, endorsement of stricter border control.”
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“I say to all the late night guys, all of them have their shots with me, as long as they’re funny I don’t mind… If you’re going to be thin skinned about that stuff in this job then you’re not going to last long.”
— New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R), in an interview on Extra, about fat jokes.
Sen. Robert Menendez’s (D-NJ) “decision last month to use his personal funds to reimburse a prominent political contributor $58,500 for two flights to the Dominican Republic came at a major cost,” National Journal reports.
“The repayment amounts to between 32 percent and 87 percent of the assets Menendez reported holding in bank accounts and stock, according to his latest financial disclosure form, which was filed last year.”
The Cloakroom: All the big Republican names have declined to run in the special election to fill John Kerry’s vacated Senate seat.
Britain’s House of Commons voted to legalize gay marriage by 400 to 175, the Guardian reports.
“Such a large majority probably increases the chances of the bill being able to get through the House of Lords this year, without the government having to rely on the Parliament Act to push it through in 2014.”
“More than half of the Tory MPs who voted chose to oppose gay marriage. Initial figures suggest that 139 Tories voted against, and only 132 voted for. Technically this is not a rebellion, because it was a free vote. But it is a severe embarrassment to David Cameron.”
When Chris Huhne wanted to resign his seat in the British Parliament, he had to instead be appointed to “a paid office of the Crown” which automatically disqualified him from holding a seat in the House of Commons.
The reason: “A resolution passed by the House of Commons on 2 March 1624 prohibits MPs directly from resigning their seats. Death, disqualification and expulsion are the only means by which a Member’s seat may be vacated during the lifetime of a Parliament.”
The Chancellor of the Exchequer appointed Huhne to be Steward and Bailiff of the Three Hundreds of Chiltern.
The Congressional Budget Office is projecting an $845 billion budget deficit in fiscal year, the first time it has forecast a budget gap below $1 trillion under President Obama, The Hill reports.
“I would have kicked his ass.”
— Christine Quinn (D), quoted by Capital New York, on if she had run for mayor in New York City against Rudy Giuliani (R) in 1992.
A new Public Policy Polling survey in Iowa shows what other polls have found: Rep. Steve King (R) is the overwhelming favorite of Iowa Republicans to be their U.S. Senate candidate next year.
But King also trails every Democratic candidate tested against him by at least 7 points. The leading Democrat, Rep. Bruce Braley (D), leads King by double-digits, 49% to 38%.
In fact, the Democratic candidate leads in 14 of the 16 possible match ups tested, with the only exceptions being small leads for Rep. Tom Latham (R) over Chet Culver (D) and Dave Loebsack (D).
President Obama called for a short-term fix to avert across-the-board spending cuts, Roll Call reports.
To give negotiators time to pass a broader deficit and budget package, the president is asking for “a smaller package of spending cuts and tax reforms to avoid the economically harmful consequences of the sequester for a few months. … While we need to deal with our deficits over the long term, we shouldn’t have workers being laid off, kids kicked off Head Start, and food safety inspections cut while Congress completes the process.”
Jon Favreau is ending a seven-year stint as Barack Obama’s chief speechwriter, the Los Angeles Times reports.
Favreau is considering “trying his hand at another form of drama — as a screenwriter, perhaps in Los Angeles. The departure subtracts a vivid personality from the president’s operation, defined since the beginning by Obama’s spoken words and the team that wrote them.”
Former Massachusetts Lt. Gov. Kerry Healey (R) told the Boston Herald that she won’t run for Secretary of State John Kerry’s old seat in the special election scheduled for June 25.
Washington Post: “Healey joins a growing list of Republicans in turning down the race, including former senator Scott Brown, former congressional candidate Richard Tisei, former governor Bill Weld and Romney’s oldest son, Tagg Romney.”
A new Wenzel Strategies poll finds Rep. Steve King (R-IA) is the early favorite in a Republican primary for U.S. Senate in Iowa.
King beats Rep. Tom Latham (R-IA) by 8 points in a hypothetical match up among likely primary voters, 43% to 35%.
First Read: “Exactly one week away from President Obama’s State of the Union address, the White House has spent the early days of the second term flooding the zone with its legislative agenda… What’s going on here: The Obama White House wants to overload Washington’s political circuits in an effort to see what it can get through Congress — without letting Congress define what issues get addressed. After all, Republicans want to solely talk about the budget before the March budget showdown…. Yet by flooding the zone, Team Obama — with the bully pulpit and the State of the Union at its disposal — wants to widen the political dialogue beyond that one issue.”
“This ‘flooding the zone’ concept is how the Obama White House operated in the first six months of the first term, and it’s where he got most of his legislative achievements. When the White House got bogged down on ONE issue (health care, debt ceiling, etc), officials determined they lost some of their political capital.”
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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