Coming soon: The Rise of the President’s Permanent Campaign by Brendan J. Doherty.
Daily Beast: “The book covers in nitty-gritty detail the particulars of how presidents raise money, how the White House has been used as a political organ (both officially and unofficially), and how the marriage of policy and politics in the Oval Office affects our democracy.”
The Week has four theories.
“An ill-timed leak to ABC News that Marco Rubio isn’t being vetted for the vice presidency has prompted head-scratching among the Florida Senator’s allies, coming as it does on the day his autobiography is released,” BuzzFeed reports.
Said Republican consultant Ana Navarro: “You better believe if he wasn’t already being vetted he’s going to get a call this week.”
John Avlon: “So why not include him on a short list? Perhaps the answer lies in Stuart Stevens, the Romney campaign’s epically interesting chief strategist. Stevens is a Mississippi maverick — a sometime author, libertine and extreme athlete. Most relevant to this instance, he also served as strategist for former Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, who Rubio trounced in a hotly contested 2010 election. Bad blood between warring camps doesn’t just fade away overnight, and in some cases it grows more malignant with time.”
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A new Public Policy Polling survey in Colorado finds President Obama leading Mitt Romney by seven points in the presidential race, 49% to 42%.
“When you look at all of our Colorado polling this cycle here’s the big picture: Obama’s a definite favorite to win the state again this year, but it will probably be by a more moderate margin than in 2008.”
A new United Technologies/National Journal Poll shows that only 26% of the public wants to see all of the Bush tax breaks extended for at least another year. And only 18% want the tax breaks across all income levels made permanent, the position taken by Mitt Romney.
The New York Times notes that Dreams from My Father has long been the foundation of Barack Obama’s political biography, but now a new book by David Maraniss “claims to document the many ways — some very small, a few large — in which Mr. Obama’s youthfully constructed narrative appears to be contradicted by the people and events in his life.”
In particular, Barack Obama: The Story “suggests that the real story of Mr. Obama’s life was less dramatic — and more routine — than the president made it out to be in the memoir.”
Said Maraniss: “I don’t think it’s a venal reason. I think it says more about a
writer’s pressures to try to tell a story than anything about his larger
character.”
Jack Bohrer: “Newark Mayor Cory Booker’s star has been rising for what seems like an eternity. His fame rests largely upon a number of almost absurdly heroic acts, which have varied from harrowing to Hollywood-esque: saving a resident from a burning building, cradling a twelve-year-old dying from gunshot wounds, hunger-striking for better police protection in the projects, sleeping in a trailer for five months to halt open-air drug markets. Along with Booker’s media-friendly persona, these superhero moves have ensured a steady stream of adulation.”
“His first spate of national press came in the spring of 2000 — the same year that another attractive young political figure flew from Chicago to Los Angeles for the Democratic National Convention, had his credit card declined at the rental car station, and went home without even getting inside the arena. Yet this summer, Barack Obama will attend the second convention in his honor and compete for another term as arguably the most legislatively successful Democratic president in a half-century — while Booker is little further along than where he started.
“…Booker and Obama made their names by rejecting the business-as-usual
politics of Newark and Washington, respectively. But Booker is still
defined more by his promise than by his accomplishments.”
First Read: “So where is the TV ad war taking place in the presidential race? Eight of the 10 hottest advertising markets (in terms of advertising points from June 18-24) are in the three battleground states of Virginia, Ohio, and Colorado. In fact, three of this week’s top four markets are in Virginia, including No.1 Richmond (which was No.2 last week). Three Ohio markets make our list (Cincy, Cleveland, Columbus), compared with just one from last week. Also, for the first time on our weekly list, we have two Colorado markets (Colorado Springs and Denver). This shouldn’t be surprising after our NBC-Marist poll showed a tight race in the state and especially after that Peter Hart focus group there. And finally, there’s just one North Carolina market (Charlotte) after four Tar Heel State markets were on our list last week (Charlotte, Raleigh-Durham, Greensboro, and Asheville).”
“Bottom line: This week, it’s all about Virginia, Ohio, and Colorado. By the way, for those scoring at home, a Virginia market has been No.1 in the most saturated category for two of the last three weeks.”
Michigan state Rep. Lisa Brown (D) — who was banned from speaking on the House floor for saying “vagina” — led a reading of the play, The Vagina Monologues, at the Michigan state Capitol last night, the Detroit Free Press reports.
Eve Ensler, who wrote the play, agreed to fly in from California to oversee the performance: “I’m over dudes who can’t even say ‘vagina.’ I’m over the Michigan state Legislature… censoring and rebuking and removing Lisa Brown. My vagina’s got decorum.”
Roger Simon: “Bypassing the sucking, hopeless, sinkhole that is the U.S. Congress, Obama announced a new immigration policy, one that invokes an old, and therefore legal, power: He is taking ‘deferred action’ on whether to proceed against hundreds of thousands of people who came to this country illegally.”
“It is not permanent. He, or any other president, can revoke it. And therein lies part of the brilliance…”
“The choice for Hispanic voters is now simple: Vote for Obama and you are guaranteed a humane immigration policy for your children, relatives, friends, neighbors and fellow Hispanics for the next four years. Vote for Romney and you get the uncertainty of which ‘setting’ he chooses to take.”
Republican sources tell ABC News that Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) “is not being vetted by Mitt Romney’s vice presidential search team. He has not been asked to complete any questionnaires or been asked to turn over any financial documents typically required of potential vice presidential candidates.”
“Although it is possible that Rubio may yet be asked to go through the vetting process, it has been nearly two months since Romney named his long-time aide Beth Myers to run his vice presidential search. The fact that Rubio has not been asked to turn over any documents by now is a strong indication that he is not on Romney’s short list of potential running mates.”
A new Bloomberg poll finds 64% of Americans agree with President Obama’s decision to end the deportations of some illegal immigrants brought to the U.S. as children, while 30% say they disagreed.
Independents backed the decision by better than a two-to-one margin.
“The results underscore the challenge facing Mitt Romney and Republicans as they try to woo Hispanic voters, who are the nation’s largest ethnic minority and made up 9 percent of the 2008 electorate.”
Many assume Angus King (I) would caucus with Democrats if elected to the U.S. Senate because he also supports President Obama for re-election, but the former Maine governor tells USA Today he hasn’t made a decision.
Said King: “I don’t know why they’re making that assumption. It’s all going to depend on what the situation is when I get there, and that will depend to some extent on what the numbers are… I might be able to make a pretty good arrangement that will allow me to maintain a significant amount of independence in exchange for one vote, perhaps, to organize the Senate. In other words, if all I have to do is vote once to organize the Senate and establish the majority leader and then I’m a free agent, that might be the way to do it.”
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg told at least two people at a charity event that he believed Mitt Romney would probably be better at running the country than President Obama, the New York Times reports.
“But Mr. Bloomberg said he could not support Mr. Romney because he disagreed with him on so many social issues, these two people said. The mayor mentioned two such issues: abortion rights and gun control. As a result, Mr. Bloomberg said, he intended to remain neutral.”
Mark Blumenthal: “The misses were typically small — usually within a single percentage point, although sometimes slightly bigger — but they made a consistent impact on the non-white composition of Gallup’s samples. Instead of achieving the target of 12.1 percent black set by the March 2011 CPS, the average across the seven surveys was 11.3 percent black. Instead of hitting the CPS target of 13.7 percent Hispanic, the seven surveys averaged just 12.4 percent Hispanic.”
But he notes the “real story here is less about Gallup than about the new reality
of public opinion polling. Sophisticated random samples, live interviews
and rigorous calling procedures alone can no longer guarantee accurate
results. Today’s rapidly declining response rates require more weighting
than ever before to correct demographic skews, a phenomenon that places
growing stress on previously reliable weighting procedures.”
A new Elway Research poll in Washington finds Rob McKenna (R) leading Jay Inslee (D) by just two points, 42% to 40%.
A similar poll in February showed McKenna with a nine point lead.
Said pollster Stuart Elway: “Washington state tilts Democratic. As Inslee becomes better known as the Democratic candidate, his support will naturally rise.”
President Obama has tapped Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) to play Mitt Romney in mock debate rehearsals, the Washington Post reports.
“Kerry will help Obama prepare for among the most consequential events of his reelection campaign — the three fall debates against Romney. As the senior senator from Massachusetts, Kerry has studied Romney’s career and campaign style for nearly two decades and has first-hand knowledge of his record as governor.”
The Boston Globe says Kerry “will be expected to not only provide Romney’s expected answers to debate questions, but foreshadow his attacks, mimic his speaking style, and model his posture so Obama feels comfortable against him during their three meetings this fall.”
“Even before it became clear that Mitt Romney would be the GOP presidential nominee, many wondered whether his most outspoken surrogate, Gov. Chris Christie, was angling for an invitation to run for vice president,” the Newark Star Ledger reports.
“But there’s another high-profile role that could exploit the Garden State governor’s talents and catapult him in the minds of Republican voters already surveying the 2016 field: keynote speaker at the GOP Convention in Tampa.”
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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