Florida House Speaker Will Weatherford (R) doesn’t agree with Republican efforts around the country to change the way electoral votes are allocated, the Miami Herald reports.
Said Weatherford: “To me, that’s like saying in a football game, ‘We should have only three quarters, because we were winning after three quarters and the beat us in the fourth. I don’t think we need to change the rules of the game, I think we need to get better.”
President Obama is bringing his campaign pollster, David Simas, into White House, BuzzFeed reports, “part of a broader migration of political staff into government as he gears up to sell his second term agenda to the American people.”
“The move comes amid a White House reshuffle where a host of aides who have worked in the administration for years have decided to leave and others have moved up.”
Other moves: “Deputy National Security Advisor Denis McDonough will be announced Friday as the new White House Chief of Staff to replace Jack Lew, who Obama nominated to be the next Treasury Secretary. Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer is being promoted to replace departing Senior Adviser David Plouffe. His deputy, Jennifer Palmieri, will be the new Communications Director. Rob Nabors, Obama’s Director of Legislative Affairs, will become Deputy White House Chief of Staff for Policy — a position to expand his influence on domestic policy.”
“We’ve got to stop being the stupid party. It’s time for a new
Republican Party that talks like adults. We had a number of
Republicans damage the brand this year with offensive and bizarre
comments. I’m here to say we’ve had enough of that.”
— Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R), quoted by the Washington Post.
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Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) “will announce this morning that he’s dropping plans to run for a third term in 2014, a decision certain to set off an avalanche of Republican candidates who will seek to replace him,” the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports.
“At least two GOP House members from Georgia, Paul Broun of Athens and
Tom Price of Roswell, have been contemplating primary challenges to
Chambliss, who has been criticized for participating in a bipartisan
effort to broker a deal to address a $16 trillion federal deficit.”
The eyeglasses worn by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in recent days appear to be for treating double-vision, the New York Daily News reports.
“As she testified about the Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. Consulate in Libya, the secretary of state appeared to have tiny vertical lines etched onto the left lens of her new brown specs… Experts told the Daily News that Clinton likely has a Fresnel prism placed on her glasses. The adhesive panel is used to treat double vision.”
A Clinton spokesman confirmed to Daily Intelligencer that Clinton will “be wearing these glasses instead of her contacts for a period of time because of lingering issues stemming from her concussion.”
Former RNC Chairman Haley Barbour (R) said that “stupid” and “offensive” comments made by one candidate can have a negative affect on others in the same political party, Politico reports.
Said Barbour: “The comments they made were stupid comments, offensive comments and in today’s world when a candidate in one state says something, the negative effect of that can spill over to other candidates.”
Former Mitt Romney strategist Stuart Stevens sent a letter to the Washington Post asking them to reconsider a “Four-Pinocchio” ruling for Romney’s ad on Chrysler and China, after Chrysler announced that it would begin building Jeep models in China.
Write Stevens: “I would hope that you would take another look at this and stress test it for accuracy away from the heat of a campaign. I’ve been doing campaigns and writing about campaigns for some time and I believe that the ad and Romney’s statement were completely accurate, unusually so by any standards.”
The verdict: “We reaffirm our earlier ruling of Four Pinocchios.”
“Romney is becoming more of an admired figure and no one gets any
applause for punching him. However, there is no Romney faction or Romney wing of the GOP
that is keeping the flame alive. No one tailors their policies because
it was what Romney supported in the 2012 campaign.”
— GOP strategist Ed Rogers, quoted by the Washington Post.
Former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick (D) will spend the weekend in prison as a penalty for 14 parole violations, the Detroit Free Press reports.
President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will sit down for a joint interview to air on 60 Minutes this weekend.
Politico: “This is not only the first joint interview for Obama and Clinton, but it is also the first sit-down television interview that Obama has given with anyone other than first lady Michelle Obama.”
Charlie Cook: “Liberals enthused by President Obama’s soaring inauguration rhetoric and conservatives fearful of an impending socialist takeover should all take a deep breath. Much of what liberals passionately want and conservatives deeply fear is unlikely to ever make it to a vote on the House or Senate floors.”
“For the past two decades, one of the least understood but most important unwritten job requirements for congressional leaders has been to protect their members from difficult and potentially politically costly votes, either in committee or on the floor. Some of the most pressing policy issues of the day are never voted on or are so diluted that one would be hard-pressed to use voting records to nail down how any member feels about anything of real consequence.”
“Republicans in Virginia and a handful of other battleground states are pushing for far-reaching changes to the electoral college in an attempt to counter recent success by Democrats,” the Washington Post reports.
“In the vast majority of states, the presidential candidate who wins receives all of that state’s electoral votes. The proposed changes would instead apportion electoral votes by congressional district, a setup far more favorable to Republicans. Under such a system in Virginia, for instance, President Obama would have claimed four of the state’s 13 electoral votes in the 2012 election, rather than all of them.”
“No state is moving quicker than Virginia, where state senators are likely to vote on the plan as soon as next week. If successful, Virginia would become the third state to adopt the congressional district system, after Nebraska and Maine.”
Nate Cohn: “But the GOP’s effort in Virginia, if it’s passed, is more cynical than
effective: Virginia is not one of the states where Republicans can
pursue this kind of electoral policy and reap big gains.”
“Provisions in the ‘No Budget, No Pay’ debt ceiling bill that is headed to the Senate floor would impound senators’ salaries if the upper chamber doesn’t approve a budget by April 15,” The Hill reports.
“For most of the upper chamber, the loss of the $174,000 annual salary would be no hardship. Many senators are millionaires many times over, having earned substantial fortunes outside of politics. But for a small group of senators whose net worth is measured in thousands instead of millions, the passage of ‘No Budget, No Pay’ would put their very livelihoods at risk.”
Remember the analysis that found that long lines cost nearly 50,000 votes in Central Florida? Well, the Orlando Sentinel reports that if you extend that to the whole state, it’s more than 201,000.
“Analyzing data compiled by the Orlando Sentinel, Ohio State University professor Theodore Allen estimated last week that at least 201,000 voters likely gave up in frustration on Nov. 6, based on research Allen has been doing on voter behavior. His preliminary conclusion was based on the Sentinel’s analysis of voter patterns and precinct-closing times in Florida’s 25 largest counties, home to 86 percent of the state’s 11.9 million registered voters.”
Bill and Hillary Clinton are house hunting in the Hamptons, the New York Post reports.
“The former president, 66, and wanna-be future president, 65, are looking for an oceanfront property where they can unwind and prepare for their next phase of life.”
Gallup: “During his fourth year in office, an average of 86% of Democrats and 10% of Republicans approved of the job Barack Obama did as president. That 76-percentage-point gap ties George W. Bush’s fourth year as the most polarized years in Gallup records.”
Suzi Parker: “Remember how Hillary Rodham Clinton’s critics said she faked her December stomach illness, which included a concussion and a subsequent blood clot, because she was scared to face scrutiny from Congress? As the kids say, whatevs. Hillary conquered Capitol Hill on Wednesday. She looked anything but frightened … Naturally, the right-wing media went into overdrive about Hillary not caring about four dead Americans, including U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens, because she said, ‘What difference, at this point, does it make?’ Of course, they must have missed her earlier testimony when her voice cracked with emotion as she described meeting the caskets at Andrews Air Force Base, President Obama by her side.”
“For Hillary, the testimony was a triumphant capstone on her term as the chief U.S. diplomat. If Hillary had not dealt with the Benghazi affair before she left office, she could have been viewed as a failure and a weakling. Instead, she came blazing onto Capitol Hill in true Hillary style, concluding the Libya drama on her terms and exiting the Washington stage to regroup for her next adventure — a new book, global speeches or a presidential run.”
The Week: Will Clinton’s testimony come back to haunt her?
“I’m not personally, at this stage, ready to get rid of the 60-vote threshold. With the history of the Senate, we have to understand the Senate isn’t and shouldn’t be like the House.”
— Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV), in an interview with Ezra Klein, on why he essentially killed filibuster reform in the U.S. Senate.
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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