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“This is a tragic, terrible mistake. We’ve got to lay the blame where it is… This was no compromise. What the president did was capitulate.”
— Rep. David Scott (D-GA), quoted by USA Today, protesting President Obama’s nominees to federal courts in Georgia.
Jonathan Martin: “As mainstream and Tea Party Republicans wrestle for control of their party, it might be wise over the holidays for each faction to crack open a pair of recent books that recount previous episodes of internecine political combat.”
“In his memoir The New Democrats and the Return to Power, Al From, the founder of the centrist Democratic Leadership Council, recalls dragging his party away from the left amid a string of presidential losses during the 1980s. And the historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, in The Bully Pulpit, describes the friendship and eventual rivalry between Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft that cost the Republicans the White House in 1912 and led to a split in the party that lasted decades.”
Huffington Post: “Whatever value there is in judging a politician’s standings in late December, it’s limited. In today’s hyper-kinetic Washington politics, conventional wisdom changes — and quickly. And yet, in talking with operatives, Capitol Hill aides, Washington observers, and others, one impression is more permanent than any other: President Barack Obama had a really bad, tough-to-spin 2013.”
Associated Press: “As President Obama winds down the first year of his second term, he is facing the lowest approval ratings of his career and his signature policy achievement has been riddled in controversy. Can he turn his second term around?”
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New Public Policy Polling surveys in 4 key swing Congressional districts (CA-31, CO-6, IL-13 and MI-1), as well as Speaker John Boehner’s home district, “find overwhelming bipartisan opposition to cutting off extended unemployment benefits at the end of this year. Voters say they would be inclined to punish their already vulnerable representatives at the polls next year if they vote to cut off benefits.”
Key finding: “Anywhere from 63-68% of voters in the five districts support continuing unemployment benefits with only 28-34% OK with cutting them…This is a rare issue in this polarized political climate where we find agreement across party lines.”
“Something like this happens, and all of a sudden the old barriers that were there, the old differences, those things that keep us apart just disappear. Those defined positions, they don’t change. But your attitude changes. And I can’t help but think when I’m confronting someone on something on which we disagree, that I know how they responded to my loss.”
— Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK), in a NBC News interview, saying that “at least as many, maybe more” Democrats contacted him about the loss of his son in a plane crash last month.
A new CNN/ORC poll finds support for the country’s new health care law has dropped to a record low.
Key finding: “Only 35% of those questioned in the poll say they support the health care law, a 5-point drop in less than a month. 62% say they oppose the law, up four points from November.”
Said pollster Keating Holland: “Opposition to Obamacare rose six points among women, from 54% in November to 60% now, while opinion of the new law remained virtually unchanged among men.”
Lis Smith, spokeswoman for New York City Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio “is shacking up with her married former boss — Eliot Spitzer,” the New York Post reports.
Sen. David Vitter (R-LA) said that it’s “very obvious” that Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) will run for president in 2016, Politico reports.
He added that Jindal (R) “is indeed already laying the groundwork in pursuit of the 2016 GOP nomination, but wouldn’t say whether he will support his home-state governor in what is certain to be a brutal Republican primary season.”
Said Vitter: “I like Bobby, I respect his leadership, I agree with all of his political values. But I haven’t thought about what I would do or wouldn’t do personally. I do think he’ll run. I think he’s been running. And I think he’ll be a meaningful and significant candidate.”
President Obama and Congress “will be plunged into another battle over the debt ceiling when they return to Washington from the holiday break,” The Hill reports.
“Due to October’s government shutdown, Congress needs to act on an increase in the $16.7 trillion borrowing limit far sooner than expected. Rather than the summer deadline that was once predicted, the Treasury will now only be able to stave off a default until early March, at the very latest. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew says he sees no ‘reasonable scenario’ in which he could buy more time.”
President Obama’s decision to tap Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT) as ambassador to China “is a political boon for Democrats trying to protect their vulnerable majority, but especially for Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA),” Roll Call reports.
“In the game of gavel dominoes that would be set off by Baucus vacating his chairmanship of the Finance Committee, Landrieu would likely ascend to the top of the Energy Committee, which could serve as a valuable tool in her tough 2014 re-election bid.”
Canadian Press: “Few could have predicted that Canada’s moment in the global spotlight this year would be courtesy of a crack-smoking, ‘drunken-stupor’ mayor who used graphic sexual language on live television. Rob Ford was a one-man news cycle, as he met each wave of allegations with wild counter-allegations, mixed with a few gaffes and a sprinkling of apologies.”
“Let’s not get crazy about this diversity idea.”
— New York City Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio (D), quoted by Politicker, laughing off the idea of appointing Republicans to his administration.
The Hill: “An expanding investigation into lane closures of the nation’s busiest bridge has given Democrats an opportunity to damage New Jersey Republican Gov. Chris Christie’s presidential prospects. It’s their first real chance, they say, to ask the question: Is Christie who he says he is?”
Politifact rates Christie’s claims about the controversy as “pants on fire.”
Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) said that President Obama’s “failure to craft relationships with senators has made passing legislation more difficult,” the Washington Post reports.
Said Manchin: “It makes it more difficult. It’s hard to say no to a friend. When you build that relationship and that friendship, you’re looking for ways to try to work things out and find a compromise. That friendship means an awful lot. When you don’t build those personal relationships, it’s pretty easy for a person to say, ‘Well, let me think about it.'”
Washington Post: “The two major parties here don’t agree on many things. One of them is that it is only a matter of time before Georgia goes from being a Republican stronghold to a state that is up for grabs. In next year’s elections, Democrats will be looking to speed that process along with a couple of candidates who bring fresh faces and familiar names.”
“They are Senate contender Michelle Nunn, an executive who is also the daughter of former senator Sam Nunn, and gubernatorial hopeful Jason Carter, a third-term state senator who is a grandson of former president Jimmy Carter.”
Bill Clinton “may be a globe-trotting citizen of the world, but these days he is focusing on his home state, and for good reason: The election ballot for next year looks like a Clinton political family tree, full of the former president’s protégés and ex-staff members and family friends,” the New York Times reports.
“Senator Mark Pryor, who was 11 when he first met Mr. Clinton and whose father has been a close ally of the president’s for four decades, is fighting for re-election. James Lee Witt, whom Mr. Clinton met in a Little League dugout in 1974 and eventually named director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, is running for Congress. And Patrick Henry Hays, a protégé and one of a band of locals who stumped on Mr. Clinton’s behalf in 1992, calling themselves Arkansas Travelers, is also seeking a House seat.”
“For years, liberals have fretted about the power of ultrawealthy people determined to use their billions to advance their political views. Charles and David Koch, in particular, have ranked high in the demonology of the American left,” the Los Angeles Times reports.
But in Tom Steyer, “liberals have a billionaire on their side. Like the Kochs, he is building a vast political network and seizing opportunities provided by loose campaign finance rules to insert himself into elections nationwide. In direct contrast to them, he has made opposition to fossil fuels and the campaign against global warming the center of his activism.”
The New York Times reports that recent decisions by Vladimir Putin show his “singular ability not only to wield executive power but also to bend the legislative and judicial branches of government to his will, and to exert heavy control over the Russian news media.”
“As he prepares to begin his 15th year as Russia’s paramount political leader, Mr. Putin’s sweeping authority gives him far more leverage than his counterparts in the West to influence the course of events and, at times, to set the agenda in world affairs.”
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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