“Elephants are among my favorites, partly because I’m Republican and partly because I’m big. Elephants make me feel like I’m the right size.”
— Newt Gingrich, quoted by ABC News, in an interview at the National Zoo. He added, “They’re very smart animals.”
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said he’s waiting for Mitt Romney “to announce a position on whether he supports deporting young illegal immigrants who came to the United States as children,” Roll Call reports.
Said McConnell: “He is the leader of our party from now until November.”
Romney has repeatedly avoided taking a position on the issue.
Backers of former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman (D) want President Obama “to grant a pardon that would prevent the ex-Democratic officeholder from returning to prison for his 2006 bribery conviction,” the AP reports.
“Indicted in 2005 and tried the next year, Siegelman was convicted of selling a seat on a hospital regulatory board to former HealthSouth CEO Richard Scrushy in exchange for $500,000 in donations… Sentenced to more than seven years in prison, Siegelman served about nine months, mostly in a Louisiana federal prison, before being released in 2008 on an appeal bond.”
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Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) was asked whether he plans to bring the Dream Act to a vote in an effort to get Republican senators on record on the immigration issue.
His response: “I don’t want to answer that question. That’s a clown question, bro.”
Reid, of course, was repackaging a comment made last week by Washington Nationals outfielder Bryce Harper that quickly went viral.
“I get a kick out of some of the speculation that goes on. I’m not going to comment on the process of course, but I can tell you this: only Beth Myers and I know who is being vetted.”
— Mitt Romney, quoted by NBC News, on his search for a vice presidential running mate.
A Project New America/Public Policy Polling survey in Arizona finds Mitt Romney just ahead of President Obama in the presidential race, 49% to 46%.
The Week: “It appears the disgraced two-time presidential candidate still has a little farther to fall before he reaches rock bottom — and Hunter is helping him get there.”
Just out: Swing States 2012: The American Presidential Election, a solitaire board game simulating the U.S. presidential election.
Mitt Romney has declined to call on his supporters to stop heckling President Obama’s campaign, the AP reports.
Romney said that he doesn’t believe in “unilateral disarmament,” but said it would “be a nice thing” if both sides would stop yelling at each other during campaign events. However, he noted that American politics has a “long history of heckling and free speech.”
The Montana Republican Party “is ending its call to make homosexuality acts illegal, but reinforcing its opposition to gay marriage,” the Bozeman Daily Chronicle reports.
“The GOP had held the position seeking to criminalize homosexuality since a 1997 Montana Supreme Court case striking down similar state laws. The party had been criticized in recent years for continuing its request to criminalize homosexuality.”
Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels (R) will become the next president of Purdue University, WISH-TV reports.
Daniels’ office had no comment.
WSLS-TV: “When Tim Morris got his mail last week he found a pretty big surprise, a document asking his dog Mozart to register to vote. Not only is Mozart a dog but he’s been dead for two years.”
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.”
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.”
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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