Scott Conroy: “While every eventual GOP nominee in the last five non-incumbent presidential cycles began the race as a favorite, the same cannot be said of their VP picks, all of whom were initially regarded inside the Beltway echo chamber either as blips on the political radar or not on the screen at all.”
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Quote of the Day
“He’s the most dangerous president we have ever had on national security.”
— Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN), in an interview with the Daily Beast, claiming President Obama has “revealed the methodologies we use” and has been “purging the FBI files of anything that could be considered anti-Islamic.”
Republicanpalooza
New York Times: “The Romney campaign, whose fund-raising prowess has defied assumptions about President Obama’s financial advantages, offered wealthy donors and bundlers an extraordinary level of access to the candidate, his staff members, advisers and family this weekend at a three-day retreat that even seasoned political contributors said dwarfed previous presidential powwows.”
“Mr. Romney’s political operation seemed to all but shut down and relocate to the mountains of Utah. At least 15 senior campaign figures flew in for what blue-blazered guests from Texas, North Carolina and New York dubbed Republicanpalooza, delivering briefings on the effectiveness of Mr. Romney’s and Mr. Obama’s commercials and spinning them through the latest polling data, which they said showed the race as a dead heat.”
“In a simultaneous demonstration of the party’s fund-raising might, the industrialist billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch held a conference for conservative megadonors at a resort outside San Diego… The Koch conference touched off an unexpected — and for the Romney campaign, somewhat unwelcome — competition for top-flight moneyed supporters.”
An Obamacare Hint
The Daily Beast says Supreme Court justices might have tipped off in a decision last week how they will rule on President Obama’s health care plan.
White House Braces for Health Care Decision
President Obama and the White House “have put on brave faces,” the New York Times reports, insisting that their health care law “and the mandate at its center will be upheld when the court rules this month. In private conversations, they predict that the bulk of the law will survive even if the mandate requiring Americans to buy health insurance does not.”
“But even if the White House is a fortress of message discipline, it cannot disguise the potential heartbreak for Mr. Obama, who managed to achieve a decades-old Democratic dream despite long odds and at steep cost.”
“In grappling with what the court may do, Mr. Obama and his advisers now appear to be far past the denial stage (when they dismissed constitutional challenges) but nowhere near acceptance (they still believe the law will be upheld.) Instead, they have quietly entered a surprising new state that might be called Learning to Live Without Universal Coverage.”
For more on what the White House might do, see the latest on Wonk Wire.
Republican Lawmaker Accused of Campaign Violations
CNN has confirmed there are “no fewer than four congressional and federal investigations” into Rep. Vern Buchanan (R-FL) “business practices, his campaign finances and his alleged attempt to try to stop a witness from talking.”
“Now that witness is stepping forward in an exclusive interview with CNN. Buchanan’s former business partner says the congressman schemed to launder money from his car dealerships into his campaign coffers, and then tried to get others to cover it up.”
Romney Hit Again on Bain Capital
The Super PAC supporting President Obama’s re-election has a devastating new ad attacking Mitt Romney over his record at Bain Capital.
Romney Was Always a Winner
The New York Times takes another deep look at Bain Capital.
“The private equity firm, co-founded and run by Mitt Romney, held a majority stake in more than 40 United States-based companies from its inception in 1984 to early 1999, when Mr. Romney left Bain to lead the Salt Lake City Olympics. Of those companies, at least seven eventually filed for bankruptcy while Bain remained involved, or shortly afterward, according to a review by The New York Times. In some instances, hundreds of employees lost their jobs. In most of those cases, however, records and interviews suggest that Bain and its executives still found a way to make money…”
“Bain structured deals so that it was difficult for the firm and its executives to ever really lose, even if practically everyone else involved with the company that Bain owned did, including its employees, creditors and even, at times, investors in Bain’s funds.”
Agent Garbo
Coming in a few days: Agent Garbo: The Brilliant, Eccentric Secret Agent Who Tricked Hitler and Saved D-Day by Stephan Talty.
Ryan Being Vetted as Possible Running Mate
Robert Costa reports that Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) “has submitted paperwork to the Romney campaign. Sources confirm that he is being vetted for the vice-presidential nomination.”
Most Don’t Know Obama’s Religion
A new Gallup poll finds that just 34% of Americans know that President Obama is Christian, while 11% say he’s Muslim and 44% don’t know.
Meanwhile, Americans are more likely to know Mitt Romney’s religion, with most Americans correctly saying Romney is a Mormon and a smaller 33% saying they don’t know.
Election Supervisor Becoming a Popular Job in Florida
The Sarasota Herald-Tribune notes that the job running elections is in hot demand.
“For years, county elections supervisor jobs were viewed as mundane administrative posts with so little public policy work that most politicians did not even consider running for them. Now, along Florida’s west coast, seasoned political players are looking to parlay their years of experience in partisan battles into an advantage in becoming elections overseers.”
Bonus Quote of the Day
“We don’t need an outsourcing pioneer in the Oval Office.”
— President Obama, quoted by Politico, saying Mitt Romney led the wave of outsourcing American jobs while running Bain Capital.
Getting Married?
President Obama’s re-election campaign opened an event registry to to allow your guests to give a campaign donation instead of a gift.
A Utah Democrat Comes Out of the Closet
Utah congressional candidate Ryan Combe (D) uses humor in an attempt to convince some voters to pick him in Tuesday’s 1st congressional district Democratic primary.
Very well done.
The Voter Suppression Project
Jonathan Alter: “Across the country, the Republicans’ carefully orchestrated plan to make voting harder — let’s call it the Voter Suppression Project — may keep just enough young people and minorities from the polls that Republicans will soon be in charge of all three branches of the federal government.”
“Yes, both sides try to change voting laws to favor their team. The 1993 ‘motor voter‘ law that made voting more convenient by extending registration to the Department of Motor Vehicles helped mostly Democrats. That was at least in the long American tradition of expanding the franchise.”
“The Republican effort to restrict voting isn’t just anti- Democrat, it’s anti-democratic. No fair-minded person believes the tall tales of voters pretending they were someone else… This isn’t about stopping vote-stealing and other corruption, for which there are already plenty of laws on the books. It’s about rigging the system to keep power.”
10 Women to Watch in Politics
The Daily Beast has the list.
The Policy-Free Campaign
John Avlon: “Mitt Romney has learned from experience that policy specifics can cause political headaches.” His recent speech on immigration “was a microcosm of a strategy we’re seeing over and over in this campaign: attack your opponent but avoid saying what you’d specifically do differently to solve the problem.”
Meanwhile, President Obama “has so far failed to lay out a compelling argument about how a second term would be different and better than his first one.”
“For voters, the key question is what the next president will actually do in office. That’s why policy matters, especially for challengers. The addiction to negative attacks offers heat but no light. After all, pointing out a problem is very different from having a plan to solve it.”
