Just out for the iPad: History of American Presidential Elections: From George Washington to Barack Obama.
The book includes over 500 photos and 20 videos and takes full advantage of the iPad’s capabilities. A more conventional paperback version is also available.
Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R) insists the state’s voter rolls “must be scrubbed carefully to remove any non-U.S. citizens, but his administration is keeping secret a list of more than 180,000 voters whose citizenship may be in question,” the Tampa Bay Times reports.
“Scott’s elections agency is refusing numerous requests from voter advocacy groups and news outlets to release the list, months after the state released an initial list targeting 2,625 potential noncitizens. Many people on the first list turned out to be citizens.”
Gallup’s Economic Confidence Index slid again last week and is now at the lowest point since late January.
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A new Public Policy Polling survey in Ohio shows President Obama continues to lead Mitt Romney, 47% to 44%, but it’s his weakest showing since last fall.
Key finding: “The big decline for Obama over the last couple months has been with white voters. He and Romney were basically tied with them earlier this year, but now Romney has opened up a 49-42 advantage with them. It’s actually white Democrats with whom Obama’s seen the biggest decline recently. In early May he had an 89-6 lead with them, but that’s now declined to 78-16.”
A new We Ask America poll in Colorado shows President Obama with a small lead over Mitt Romney in the presidential race, 47% to 43%.
A new We Ask America poll in Virginia finds Mitt Romney leading President Obama in the key battleground state, 48% to 43%.
Sarah Palin “is resurrecting the idea that President Obama’s health care law includes what she calls death panels,” USA Today reports.
Wrote Palin on Facebook: “Though I was called a liar for calling it like it is, many of these accusers finally saw that Obamacare did in fact create a panel of faceless bureaucrats who have the power to make life and death decisions about health care funding.”
First Read: “If there is a constant criticism about Mitt Romney and his campaign from both the left and right, it’s that they’re not nimble — especially when it comes to dealing with issues they’d prefer to ignore. And yesterday was a perfect example of this. Even though the U.S. Supreme Court ruling on Arizona’s immigration law shouldn’t have been a surprise and even though Romney was holding a fundraiser in Arizona (of all places!!!), it took the candidate and campaign hours to finally tell the public what they thought of the decision. First came a press release that didn’t signal if Romney agreed with the decision (and which parts). Then came a seven-minute press scrum in which a Romney press secretary refused to comment on the merits of the SCOTUS decision. And finally came Romney’s remarks at the Arizona fundraiser in which he appeared to disagree with the thrust of the ruling.”
Said Romney: “I would have preferred to see the Supreme Court give more latitude to the states not less.”
“We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: Much of a president’s job is crisis management, and the only way to succeed is being nimble. That Team Romney seems to struggle with this aspect of the job is a potential warning sign for a challenger against an incumbent president.”
Rielle Hunter told ABC News that she and John Edwards “ended their controversial relationship last week, just days after her new book debuted and she went public about how they met, hid their affair and had a baby girl together.”
Said Hunter: “We are a family, but as of the end of last week John Edwards and I are no longer a couple. Not at all.”
She added that she still loves Edwards.
A Key Research/Brigham Young University poll in Utah finds that 77% of Mormons believe Mitt Romney’s nomination as the Republican presidential candidate is a good thing for the LDS church while just 2% told pollsters it was a negative.
Despite their excitement, 68% said that Romney’s nomination will bring bad and good publicity for the LDS church and 68% do not trust the media to cover the church fairly.
“Well, I’ll say this: Romney looks like a president.”
— Former Sen. Bob Dole, in an interview with GQ, on his previously tepid endorsement of Mitt Romney.
Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY), “a once-towering figure in New York politics whose reputation was diminished when he was censured in Washington, is again fighting to keep his seat as a group of Democrats prepare to challenge him in a primary on Tuesday,” Reuters reports.
Nonetheless, “most political watchers still see him being re-elected.”
National Journal: “Rangel has strengths of his own, though. Interestingly, despite the redistricted seat’s new majority-Hispanic status, it also has over 24,500 more African-American residents than the old version of the district. And Rangel’s four-decade career in Congress has engendered abiding loyalty among many blacks and a large swath of Democratic voters in the area. Even though Rangel only won 51 percent in the 2010 primary, he actually won more primary votes (over 26,000) than all but one House candidate in the entire state. That suggests a robust turnout operation at the heart of Rangel’s experienced campaign, and indeed, Rangel significantly overperformed in the 15 precincts with the heaviest turnout in 2010, according to a Hotline analysis.”
A new AP/GfK poll finds that just a third of Americans back President Obama’s health care law on which the Supreme Court is about to pass judgment, but more than three quarters want Congress and the president to begin work on a new bill if the court strikes down the 2-year-old law.
The Wall Street Journal says four states — Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota and Pennsylvania — could transform the presidential race if Mitt Romney can win them.
“These are four reliably blue states where Mitt Romney’s campaign thinks it has a chance to pull off an upset. A Republican win in any one of these four would significantly change the calculus of what it takes to win in the electoral college, which is where a presidential race actually is decided.”
“President Barack Obama carried each comfortably four years ago, and they have been colored Democratic blue in every presidential race in the last generation. Minnesota last went Republican in 1972, Wisconsin in 1984 and Michigan and Pennsylvania in 1988, so they represent varying degrees of a long shot for the GOP.”
Democrats are “considering canceling their political convention’s kick-off event at the Charlotte Motor Speedway, as party planners grapple with a roughly $27 million fundraising deficit,” Bloomberg reports.
Earlier this year, Democrats announced they were shortening their convention from four days to three, “to make room for a day to organize and celebrate the Carolinas, Virginia and the South and kick off the convention at Charlotte Motor Speedway on Labor Day,” Sept. 3.
President Obama “tried to tweak Bostonians tonight as he thanked the Red Sox for trading Kevin Youkilis to his hometown Chicago White Sox, but instead he triggered a chorus of boos from fans still a bit raw over the deal,” the Boston Globe reports.
Said Obama: “Finally, Boston I just want to say — thank-you for Youkilis.”
As boos swelled up, Obama chuckled adding, “I’m just saying, he had to change the color of his socks… I didn’t anticipate boos out of here.”
Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr.’s (D-IL) office announced in a news release that the congressman has been on a medical leave of absence since June 10 and is being treated for exhaustion, the AP reports.
Asked why Jackson’s office waited two weeks to tell his constituents about his absence, a spokesman told the Chicago Tribune that the lack of disclosure was a “family request.”
In the mail: The Gospel According to the Fix: An Insider’s Guide to a Less than Holy World of Politics by Chris Cillizza.
This should be a fun read.
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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