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The Los Angeles Times reports that just six enrollments occurred on the opening day for Healthcare.gov, the troubled Obamacare website.
“Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, obtained the tally from meeting notes compiled by officials inside the ‘war room’ at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, which was overseeing the rollout of the insurance marketplace.”
“As he crisscrosses New Jersey in a final campaign push, Republican Gov. Chris Christie has made clear to donors, top supporters and the national GOP that he wants to do more than just notch a big re-election win next Tuesday,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“He sees his campaign–and particularly his aggressive outreach to nontraditional GOP voters–as a national model for his party.”
“Racking up big margins among women and even winning outright among Hispanics, as polls suggest he may, would position him well in a 2016 Republican presidential field as the party continues to struggle elsewhere to widen its appeal.”
“Already under fierce attack from Republicans over the new health care law, President Obama now faces broad and mounting Democratic concerns that the troubled start of the insurance program will cut into the political benefit the party received from the government shutdown and cost Democratic candidates in next year’s midterm elections,” the New York Times reports.
“The anxious include not only senators and House members facing hotly contested races but those whose seats are considered safe, as well as lawmakers in states with Republican governors who have done nothing to promote the health care law and in states with Democratic governors who have created state-run websites and made every effort to sign up the uninsured.”
Out next week: Double Down: Game Change 2012 by Mark Halperin and John Heilemann.
The New York Times reports the book confirms President Obama looked seriously at replacing Joe Biden with Hillary Clinton as his running mate.
We interviewed Charlie Cook of the Cook Political Report for the latest episode in our new podcast.
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Roll Call: “Just minutes after the swearing-in of the newest senator, New Jersey Democrat Cory Booker, the Senate dove headfirst back into a standoff over executive and judicial branch nominations.”
“Democrats failed to overcome, 56-42, a filibuster against the choice of Rep. Melvin Watt (D-NC) to become the top housing finance regulator, with Republicans also looking to block Patricia Ann Millett’s nomination to fill one of three vacant seats on the District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals.”
Harry Enten: “This year, we may have a new election night record for earliest announcement of the winners in an off-year following a presidential election… Christie is up by nearly 30 points in New Jersey, De Blasio is ahead by over 40 points in New York City and McAuliffe is leading by about 8 points in Virginia.”
“I went back over the past 40 years of election results to get an idea of how rare the snoozefest of 2013 is for the after-presidential-off-year election troika… Only 1977, 1985, and 2013 were near or above double digits in their closest race.”
“What separates 1985 and 2013 from 1977 is the fact that two of the races were or are going to be landslides. Even though none of the 1977 races were nail biters, they were all modestly competitive. None had margins of greater than 14pt. 1985 had – and 2013 looks to ultimately have – two races in which the winning candidate won by more than 25pt.”
A new Public Policy Polling survey in Minnesota finds Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) with a 51% approval rating and leading each of his possible Republican opponents by anywhere from 10 to 13 points.
Franken tops Chris Dahlberg (R), 49% to 39%, beats Mike McFadden (R), 49% to 38%, is ahead of Jim Abeler (R),m 50% to 39%, and leads Monti Moreno (R), 49% to 36%.
A new Hampton University poll in Virginia shows Terry McAuliffe (D) leading Ken Cuccinelli (R) in the race for governor by six points, 42% to 36%, with Robert Sarvis (L) at 12%.
While each Virginia poll may fluctuate, it’s been months since Cuccinelli led in one of them.
First Read: “For his entire presidency, he had been able to float above much of the dissatisfaction with Washington, as well as the unhappiness with the state of the economy. (Perhaps the public kept holding out hope that the candidate many fell in love with in 2008 would eventually change Washington.) But that’s no longer the case. The NBC/WSJ pollsters argue that no single reason explains Obama’s lower poll standing. Rather, they attribute it to the accumulation of setbacks since the summer — allegations of spying by the National Security Agency, the debate over Syria’s chemical weapons, the government shutdown and now intense scrutiny over the problems associated with the health-care law’s federal website and its overall implementation. At some point, a boat can’t keep accumulating water — or it starts to sink. And that’s what is happening with Obama right now.”
Norm Ornstein:
“It is becoming increasingly obvious that the Supreme Court decision in
Shelby County v. Holder, which eviscerated the Voting Rights Act, is
leading to a new era of voter suppression that parallels the pre-1960s
era–this time affecting not just African-Americans but also
Hispanic-Americans, women, and students, among others.”
“Confronted with missteps in his own administration, President
Obama has frequently pleaded ignorance — suggesting he could not be at
fault about things he did not know,” AP reports .
“It’s an argument with clear benefits but also inherent risks
for the White House. Used too often, the tactic emboldens critics who
claim the president is incompetent, detached and not fully in control.”
Michael O’Brien:
“Obama’s seemingly hands-off management style is
raising fresh questions and concerns that could upend his second-term
legacy. Claims by the administration and other Democrats that Obama
didn’t know about sensitive matters in his own administration — such as
problems with the health care website and revelations of National
Security Agency surveillance on foreign leaders — have many in
Washington scratching their heads.”
Politico: “Extending an olive branch to GOP senators, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz is privately making it clear he won’t engage in the Senate Conservatives Fund’s hardball tactics to defeat his colleagues in their primary races. At a closed-door lunch meeting of Senate Republicans Wednesday, the freshman conservative told his colleagues that he would not intervene in their 2014 primary fights or fundraise for the controversial outside group. Cruz added that the SCF’s decision to try to defeat sitting GOP senators in their primaries was its alone.”
Why the turnaround? Kyle Klondik notes that “in presidential nomination
contests, the elites — elected officials and party leaders — are
historically more important than the grassroots.”
Rafael Cruz, the father of Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), is on video speaking on behalf of his son during his Senate campaign last year, calling President Obama an “outright Marxist” who “seeks to destroy all concept of God,” and urging the crowd to send Obama “back to Kenya.”
Coming early next year: HRC: State Secrets and the Rebirth of Hillary Clinton by Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes.
Politico has the first nugget: “President Barack Obama asked Hillary Clinton several times to stay on as his secretary of state during a Nov. 2012 ride aboard Air Force One, but she told him it was time for her to move on, a new book reveals.”
Stuart Stevens: “When you repeat something of substance you know not to be true, you’re lying. And that’s the simple reality: one of ‘the most memorable’ promises of the Obama presidency was simply a lie.”
“Why did he do it? The obvious answer is probably the correct one: he didn’t tell the truth because he feared the consequences of telling the truth. If people knew they might lose their coverage, it would have made the Affordable Care Act more difficult to pass. And like a lot of falsehoods, once you start, it’s hard to stop.”
“What Obama did was far more deliberate than Nixon’s obfuscation on Vietnam. Nixon at least never claimed to have a ‘secret plan,’ though to the degree that he was seen as having a plan, he no doubt benefited. But Obama simply repeated a direct and clear lie in direct and clear terms over and over.”
“If I didn`t care so much about our country, I would hope he will get the Republican nomination for president, because that would be the end of the Republican Party.”
— Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV), quoted by The Hill, on Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX).
New York Times: “Here and nationally, the Democratic Party is enjoying something of a boomlet in newly declared candidacies for the House. Since Oct. 1, five candidates have lined up to contest Republican-held seats, with at least four more in the wings, Democratic officials say. Almost all say they are driven to run — ostensibly, at least — by disgust over the shutdown, first espoused by Senator Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican, and embraced by Tea Party Republicans in the House and, eventually, most others as well.”
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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