A Super PAC backing Newt Gingrich imagines a general election debate between Mitt Romney and President Obama in a new animated ad.
South Carolina Race Tightens
A new CNN/Time poll in South Carolina shows Mitt Romney slipping and Newt Gingrich gaining.
Romney leads with 33%, followed by Gingrich at 23%, Rick Santorum at 16%, Ron Paul at 13% and Rick Perry at 6%.
Said pollster Keating Holland: “Gingrich appears to be the only candidate with momentum as the race in South Carolina enters the final few days. Support for Romney and Santorum appears to be slipping, and Paul and Perry seem flat. Gingrich, however, has gained ground and cut Romney’s lead in half since early January.”
Obama Campaign Begins TV Ads
President Obama’s campaign has begun buying advertising time in a
handful of key battleground states — in Michigan, Virginia, Ohio and North Carolina — making his first purchase of
television time so far this election, the New York Times reports.
“So far the purchase appears quite limited, according to someone who monitors political advertising. The ads were placed for one day only, Thursday. And the number of states where they will run could expand.”
Kansas Lawmaker Attempts to Secretly Record Meeting
Kansas state Rep. Terri Lois Gregory (R) attempted to covertly record a private conversation with state Sen. Vicki Schmidt (R) about controversial health reforms sought by Gov. Sam Brownback (R), the Topeka Capital Journal reports.
During the meeting, Schmidt noticed a small flashing light in Gregory’s satchel. It wasn’t a telephone.
Said Schmidt: “I asked her, ‘Are you recording me?’ She said, ‘Yes.’ ”
“A bipartisan contingent of legislators said Gregory violated an unwritten code of conduct among lawmakers that frowns on clandestine recording of colleagues in closed-door meetings.”
What Was Professor Gingrich Like?
Wall Street Journal: “A clutch of little-known records from what is now the University of West Georgia in Carrollton suggests the ambition and intellectual grandeur of Newt 2012 aren’t a long way from the 1970s vintage. In addition to seeking the college presidency, Mr. Gingrich was often absent as he pursued political goals. He embarked on an effort to moonlight as a paid consultant. And, it turns out, he spent little time teaching history.”
Hinchey Will Not Run Again
Rep. Maurice Hinchey (D-NY) will not seek re-election, the Poughkeepsie Journal reports.
The 73-year-old congressman underwent a second round of surgery for colon cancer earlier this month.
Obama Considering Summers for World Bank
President Obama is considering nominating Lawrence Summers, his former National Economic Council director, to lead the World Bank when Robert Zoellick’s term expires later this year, Bloomberg reports.
“A nomination of Summers would bring scrutiny of his previous stints in government, both as former President Bill Clinton’s Treasury Secretary and Obama’s NEC director, as well as his tenure as the president of Harvard University.”
Felix Salmon thinks it’s a bad idea: “The only way to be an effective World Bank president is to be an effective diplomat… Summers himself is the first to admit that he’s no diplomat: he prides
himself on speaking the truth as he sees it. Which is fine if you’re
making millions of dollars advising DE Shaw on their investments. But
it’s not going to help you run the World Bank — or run anything larger
than the Treasury Department, really. Even Harvard was too much for him
to run; giving him the World Bank job would be a disaster.”
Gingrich Warns of “Dirty” Romney Campaign
After a national poll found Newt Gingrich surging again in the GOP presidential race, Newt Gingrich warned supporters it’s going to get ugly, National Review reports.
Said Gingrich: “I fully expect the Romney campaign to be unendingly dirty and dishonest for the next four days because they’re desperate. They thought they could buy this. They’re discovering they can’t buy this.”
He added: “I think they have internal polls that show them losing.”
Romney Leads in Iowa Poll, Santorum Surging
A new Des Moines Register Iowa Poll shows Mitt Romney leading at 24%, followed by Ron Paul at 22%, Rick Santorum at 15%, Newt Gingrich at 12%, Rick Perry at 11%, Michele Bachmann at 7%.
“But the four-day results don’t reflect just how quickly momentum is shifting in a race that has remained highly fluid for months. If the final two days of polling are considered separately, Santorum rises to second place, with 21%, pushing Paul to third, at 18%. Romney remains the same, at 24%.”
Like Father, Like Son?
A reader flags this passage from Theodore H. White’s The Making of the President 1968, which was published in 1969, on Gov. George Romney, Mitt’s father:
“Above all, he looked like a President. Handsome, silver-haired, robust, masculine, smiling or stern, he seemed cast for the part by Hollywood’s Central Casting. Correspondents who liked him called him ‘Mr. Straight Arrow;’ those whose flesh crawled at his pieties called him ‘Mr. Square,’ or worse… He would make a forthright statement one day, then, like a man making up his mind in public, contradict it or modify it on another.”
Perry Bets on His Ground Game
Rick Perry has signed up 1,500 precinct leaders in Iowa, a source inside the campaign tells CNN. There are a total 1,774 Republican caucus precincts around the state, about 900 of which are combined.
Only Mitt Romney and Ron Paul have put in similar efforts to build a ground operation for the caucuses on Tuesday.
The Perry campaign also has 470 out-of-state volunteers descending on Iowa this weekend.
Gingrich Would Consider Palin for Veep
Newt Gingrich said he “would consider asking Sarah Palin to serve as his number two or in his Cabinet if he became president,” CBS News reports.
Said Gingrich: “She is certainly one of the people you would look at. I am a great admirer of hers and she was a remarkable reform governor of Alaska, she’s somebody who I think brings a great deal to the possibility of helping in government and that would be one of the possibilities.”
The Downfall of Moderation
Coming next week: Rule and Ruin: The Downfall of Moderation and the Destruction of the Republican Party by Geoffrey Kabaservice.
The Biggest Poll of the Campaign Season
The Des Moines Register Iowa Poll is out at 8 pm ET.
Four years ago, as recounted by Obama campaign manager David Plouffe in The Audacity to Win: “Back at the office, our press staff kept refreshing the Register website. The Register poll never, ever leaks — which is very rare with polls — nor does the paper’s staff send it out to the campaigns a few minutes before they post it on their site. Everyone gets the results at the same time. I was told later that throughout the evening hundreds of thousands of people across the country were frantically hitting refresh on their browsers to update the Des Moines Register website.”
Meanwhile, Yahoo News interviews Ann Selzer, the woman behind the poll, and notes “the outsize attention paid to the paper’s poll findings is in direct
proportion to the accuracy it has had in foreshadowing the actual caucus
results in elections past.”
Cuccinelli Will Run for Virginia Governor
Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli (R) “will reveal his plans next week to run for governor in 2013,” the Washington Post reports.
Cuccinelli had said he “was considering running for reelection or against Sen. Mark R. Warner (D) in 2014. But in recent weeks, speculation had turned to a run for governor, possibly setting up a primary race against Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling (R).”
GOP Sheriff Busted for Trading Drugs for Sex
“Patrick Sullivan was the kind of lawman Coloradoans loved: a straight-shooting Republican sheriff who once crashed a Jeep through a fence to rescue two deputies from a gunman and pleaded with legislators to keep assault weapons off the street lest any more citizens get shot,” the New York Times reports.
Yesterday afternoon, though, police arrested Sullivan “on charges that he had been trying to exchange methamphetamines for sex with a man. He was booked that night at a local county jail that proudly bears his name.”
Gingrich Holds Clear Lead Nationally
A new Economist/YouGov poll finds Newt Gingrich leading the GOP presidential race nationally with 25%, followed by Mitt Romney at 17%, Herman Cain at 15%, Ron Paul at 9%, Michele Bachmann at 5%, Jon Huntsman at 5%, Rick Perry at 5% and Rick Santorum at 3%.
The End of Retail Politics?
New York Times: “In what is shaping up as a profound change in American politics, the living room stops and the cafe visits where candidates offer handshakes and make appeals for support are creeping toward extinction. The onetime fixtures of the campaign trail are giving way to the Fox News studio and televised debates. It has been five decades since television began to transform presidential races, but never before have the effects of cable television been so apparent in the early stages of a campaign.”
