Fidel Castro lambasted the Republican presidential race as the greatest
competition of “idiocy and ignorance” the world has ever seen, the AP reports.

“Castro’s comments came in a long opinion piece carried by official media
two days after Republican presidential hopefuls at a debate in Florida
presented mostly hard-line stances on what to do about the Communist-run
island, and even speculated as to what would happen to the 85-year-old
revolutionary leader’s soul when he dies. Cuba has become an important issue as the candidates court Florida’s influential Cuban-American community in an effort to win the biggest electoral prize so far in the primary season.”

While Mitt Romney regularly accuses President Obama of wanting to turn the United States into Europe, a new DNC video asks why Romney puts so much of his money there in secret Swiss bank accounts and other overseas tax havens.

[Read more…]

Newt Gingrich told NBC News that he doubts Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) has any dirt on him as she hinted last night.

Said Gingrich: “She lives in a San Francisco environment of very strange fantasies and very strange understandings of reality. I have no idea what’s in Nancy Pelosi’s head. If she knows something, I have a simple challenge: Spit it out.”

[Read more…]

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) told the AP  she will seek a fourth term in the U.S. House following her failed presidential bid.

Mitt Romney told Fox News that he wished he knew what Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) hinted she knows about Newt Gingrich that would derail his presidential bid.

Said Romney: “I wish I knew what that was. I’d tell people what it is right now.”

John King, CNN: “Because of your history with Speaker Gingrich, what goes through your mind when you think of the possibility, which is more real today than it was a week or a month ago, that he would be the Republican nominee and that you could come back here next January or next February with a President Gingrich?”

Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA): “Let me just say this. That will never happen.”

King: “Why?”

Pelosi: “He’s not going to be President of the United States. That’s not going to happen. Let me just make my prediction and stand by it, it isn’t going to happen.”

King: “Why are you so sure?”

Pelosi: “There is something I know. The Republicans, if they choose to nominate him that’s their prerogative. I don’t even think that’s going to happen.”

[Read more…]

A Super PAC aligned with Newt Gingrich just launched a $6 million ad buy in Florida, one day after a $5 million cash infusion by the wife of casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, Miriam Adelson, First Read reports.

“The new ad being put into the rotation is a hard-hitting one focused on Romney’s health-care plan and him saying he’s a ‘progressive.’ The focus on health care is a shift away from Romney’s time at Bain. Romney really hasn’t taken sustained hits on health care, and it’ll be interesting to see what life is like for him a week later. The ad also likely guarantees health care as a topic at tomorrow night’s debate. The most devastating line of the ad might be — ‘the inventor of government-run health care.'”

That said, even with this new ad buy, Romney and his allies are spending more than double what Gingrich and his supporters are.

A new Marquette Law School Poll in Wisconsin shows Gov. Scott Walker (R) holds leads of six to ten points over four potential Democratic opponents in a possible gubernatorial recall election.

The closest match up is with Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett (D), where Walker leads 50% to 44%.

Said pollster Charles Franklin: “The old line ‘you don’t beat somebody with nobody’ is true. Other polls have asked only if Governor Walker should be recalled and have found closer races. But in the end, some specific Democrat will face Governor Walker. This poll is the first of the year to match specific potential Democratic challengers against the governor. The results show a competitive race but one in which Governor Walker starts with an advantage.”

“Well, the banks aren’t bad people. They’re just overwhelmed right now.”

— Mitt Romney, quoted by Fox News, continuing his habit of comparing companies to people.

In case you missed it, the Daily Beast has compiled video clips of the “best moments” from President Obama’s State of the Union speech last night.

Andrew Sullivan: “I was hoping for a vision. I was hoping for real, strategic reform. What we got was one big blizzard of tax deductions, wrapped in a populist cloak. It was treading water. I suspect this will buoy liberal spirits, but anger the right and befuddle the independents. It definitely gives the Republican case against Obama as a big government meddler more credibility. I may be wrong – but the sheer cramped, tedious, mediocre micro-policies he listed were uninspiring to say the least… We voted for Obama; now we find we got another Clinton.”

Mark Halperin: “The speech was clearly poll tested to within an inch of its life, filled with programs and themes of broad appeal running from the left to the center right. Rhetorically reached out to the opposition by invoking national security, the need to get Washington working and a few familiar areas of common ground (entitlement and education reform). But much of the speech focused on policies that divide the parties absolutely. And, judging by the press releases and tweets from the Republican leadership, this State of the Union address will serve to lay down markers for November’s election rather than break the current gridlock.”

Jonathan Chait: “The first two years of the Obama presidency were a frantic rush of policymaking with barely any concern for political messaging, which suffered as a result. Tonight’s State of the Union Address was just the opposite. President Obama knows full well that Republicans in Congress will block everything. In the absence of policy, he is backfilling the political narrative… It was the speech of a man who realizes that he has only one thing left to do, and that is to win reelection.”

Jonathan Cohn: “But after the election, there will be a chance to govern again. Expiration of the Bush tax cuts and the onset of spending cuts from last summer’s budget deal will force decisions on fiscal policy. With this speech, Obama is not merely trying to win reelection, although he is quite obviously trying to do that. He is also laying the groundwork for those negotiations, should he have a chance, as the president-reelect, to drive them.”

Glenn Thrush:
“He didn’t talk like this in 2011. Or in 2010. Or in 2009 — when he was
trying to cultivate the image of a post-partisan pragmatist… But
voters, including liberals, are furious with Washington and demanding a
more populist tone. It’s an atmosphere that gives a distinct advantage
to gritty Newt Gingrich, a millionaire at ease with working-class
voters, over the slicker Romney, a millionaire who isn’t. And the
president’s team has clearly taken notice.”