Democrats have a presence at the GOP festivities in Tampa, the New York Times reports, “a 30-person pop-up shop in a storefront one block beyond the security perimeter of the Tampa Bay Times Forum, where the Republican National Convention is being held, and dedicated to pushing back against the hurricane-strength messaging of the Republicans.”
Said Obama adviser Stephanie Cutter: “There are now 70 days left until the election, and we’re not going to cede any one of them.”
A federal court blocked Texas from enforcing “a strict new voter identification law, ruling that the state had failed to prove that the mandate would not disproportionately suppress turnout among eligible voters who are members of minority groups,” the New York Times reports.
Rick Hasen: “Texas is likely to appeal this case to the Supreme Court, and I would expect to see an application for an emergency injunction allowing Texas to use its voter id law during the upcoming election. If this happens, this will be a major question for the Roberts Court, and it would have to be decided in short order. Given the closeness to the election, it is not clear to me that even if the Supreme Court disagrees on some of the analysis with the district court that it would grant such emergency relief.”
The Tea Party — which energized and even seemed to overtake the Republican Party in 2010 — has been virtually invisible at this Republican National Convention, BuzzFeed reports.
“Not a single one of the 38 speakers during the convention’s key prime time hours has even mentioned the phrase, according to an examination of their transcripts — a sign both of Romney’s own distance from the movement and that polls have suggested that voters view the movement negatively.”
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That was quick: Crossroads Generation is out with a new ad featuring the imagery of the faded Obama poster mentioned in Paul Ryan’s GOP convention speech last night.
BuzzFeed compiles clips of the worst jokes from speakers at the Republican National Convention.
Romney adviser Russ Schriefer wasn’t very revealing to Politico when asked about tonight’s convention speaker that has not yet been announced: “If there was a mystery speaker, then it wouldn’t be a mystery anymore.”
Update: Multiple media organizations report the mystery speaker will be actor Clint Eastwood.
A new Public Policy Polling survey in Missouri finds Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) leading embattled challenger Todd Akin (R) by just one point, 45% to 44%.
Key findings: 53% of voters say that they accept Akin’s apology for his comments last week to 40% who do not.
Meanwhile, a Wenzel Strategies survey done for the Family Research Council finds Akin leading 45% to 42%.
Really great vintage-style political postcards: Democrats, Republicans and Combo Set.
Jonathan Cohn: “Paul Ryan’s speech on Wednesday night played well with GOP loyalists in Tampa, with television viewers across the country, and may eventually resonate with the swing voters who will decide the election. But what Ryan actually said last night is objectionable because he was so brazenly willing to twist the truth. At least five times, Ryan misrepresented the facts. And while none of the statements were new, the context was. It’s one thing to hear them on a thirty-second television spot or even in a stump speech before a small crowd. It’s something else entirely to hear them in a prime time address, as a vice presidential nominee accepting his party’s nomination and speaking to the entire country.”
Ezra Klein: “Ryan’s claims weren’t even arguably true. You simply can’t say the president hasn’t released a deficit reduction plan. The plan is right here. You simply can’t say the president broke his promise to keep your GM plant open. The decision to close the plant was made before he entered office — and, by the way, the guy at the top of your ticket opposed the auto bailout. You simply can’t argue that the Affordable Care Act was a government takeover of the health-care system. My doctor still works for Kaiser Permanente, a private company that the government does not own. You simply can’t say that Obama, who was willing to follow historical precedent and sign a clean debt ceiling increase, caused the S&P downgrade, when S&P clearly said it was due to congressional gridlock and even wrote that it was partly due to the GOP’s dogmatic position on taxes.”
First Read: “We want to make a final point about Ryan’s acceptance speech, and it’s the same one we made yesterday: Don’t get carried away by a strong VP speech; it typically doesn’t have a long shelf life. Think Ferraro in ’84, Bentsen in ’88, Kemp in ’96, Lieberman in ’00, and Edwards in ’04. The exception, of course, is Sarah Palin in ’08. But she isn’t the rule.”
“The demographics race we’re losing badly. We’re not generating enough angry white guys to stay in business for the long term.”
— Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), quoted by the Washington Post, on the Republican party’s challenge.
First Read: “If tonight’s speech is to be successful, Romney has to meet four objectives. One, he has to better introduce himself to the American public; it remains striking that after running for president for much of the past five years, voters still don’t have more than a two-dimensional understanding of the soon-to-be nominee. Two, he needs to convince the public that, while he looks the part, he’s the man Americans are comfortable seeing on their TVs for the next four years. Three, he has to try to close the empathy gap; our most recent NBC/WSJ poll found President Obama holding a 22-point advantage on who cares more about average people. And four, he needs to put some meat on the policy bone to make the case how his plans could actually work better than Obama’s — and how they are different from the past Republican administration. If four hours are going to decide this presidential election, the first hour comes tonight.”
Former Florida governor Jeb Bush said he would open his speech to the Republican National Convention tonight “with a defense of his brother George because President Obama keeps running him down,” Politico reports.
Said Bush: “I just feel compelled to do this because almost every day I hear the current incumbent feeling compelled to push down the past to make himself look better. When I was growing up, we were spanked when that happened.”
Joe Klein: “The Democrats have a serious problem. It is a problem that stems from the party’s greatest strength: its long-term support for inclusion and equal rights for all, its support of racial integration and equal rights for women and homosexuals and its humane stand on immigration reform. Those heroic positions, which I celebrate, cost the Democrats more than a few elections in the past…. If the Democratic Party truly wants to be a party of inclusion, it must reach out to those who are currently excluded from its identity politics. It needs to disband its caucuses. It needs to say, We are proud of our racial and ethnic backgrounds, our different religions, our lifestyle differences. But the things that unite us are more important than the things that divide us. We have only one caucus– the American caucus.”
“College graduates should not have to live out their 20s in their childhood bedrooms, staring up at fading Obama posters and wondering when they can move out and get going with life.”
— Rep. Paul Ryan, during his convention speech last night.
Mitt Romney helped secure a federal bailout to keep Bain & Company from collapsing, according to government documents obtained by Rolling Stone.
“Even worse, the federal bailout ultimately engineered by Romney screwed the FDIC – the bank insurance system backed by taxpayers – out of at least $10 million. And in an added insult, Romney rewarded top executives at Bain with hefty bonuses at the very moment that he was demanding his handout from the feds.”
Charlie Cook: “For whatever reason, his campaign is just now getting around to attempting to establish a personal connection between Romney and the public. That connection cannot be made in a debate; the format doesn’t lend itself to it. Romney desperately needs to leave Tampa having created that relationship.”
“Focus groups show that people perceive Romney as aloof and wonder whether he would even speak to them. His friends say that this is ridiculous, that he’s a terrific guy. But the doubts persist. Tonight is the night Romney needs to fix that.”
A new Gravis survey in Ohio shows President Obama edging Mitt Romney, 45% to 44%.
Nate Silver: “A one-point lead isn’t much, and Mr. Obama has gotten some better numbers than that in Ohio. So why does this qualify as good news for him? Because this firm has had Republican-leaning results in the other states that it has polled, putting Mr. Romney up by 2 points in Florida, 1 point in Colorado and 17 points in Missouri, making it several points more Republican-leaning than the consensus of surveys in those states. Once the model adjusts for the firm’s “house effect,” it treats Mr. Obama’s nominal 1-point lead as being the equivalent of a 4- or 5-point lead instead. Thus, Mr. Obama’s chances of winning Ohio rose somewhat based on the survey.”
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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