Coal-mining millionaire Tom Smith (R), a newcomer to politics who spent $4 million of his own money on TV advertising, easily won the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania, the Philadelphia Inquirer reports.
His candidacy “was scorned by the Republican establishment,” including Gov. Tom Corbett (R).
Smith will face Sen. Bob Casey (D-PA) in the fall election.
Rep. Tim Holden (D-PA), who was elected to Congress in 1992 and was one of its conservative Blue Dog Democrats, lost his re-election bid in the Democratic primary to Matt Cartwright (D), the Philadelphia Inquirer reports.
Rep. Mark Critz (D-PA) “used his deep home base support and the heft of organized labor to win his fratricidal bout” with Rep. Jason Altmire (D-PA), “picking up an underdog victory in an increasingly conservative district,” the Pittsburgh Post- Gazette reports.
You're reading the free version of Political Wire
Upgrade to a paid membership to unlock full access. The process is quick and easy. You can even use Apple Pay.
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) teaches a political science class at Florida International University in Miami “on Mondays and Fridays, when the Senate is typically off (a workload that provides its own instruction on how Washington operates),” the Tampa Bay Times reports.
“Rubio does not dish Senate gossip or inveigh against President Barack Obama, as he often does in his other job. His lectures are in every sense academic, students say, only drawn from real-time experience.”
A video shows Rubio teaching a class “on why political compromise is so elusive.”
Jose Rodriguez, who oversaw the CIA’s once-secret interrogation program, says in a new book that he ordered the destruction of videos showing waterboarding because he “was tired of waiting for Washington’s bureaucracy to make a decision that protected American lives,” the AP reports.
He describes sending the order in November 2005 as “just getting rid of some ugly visuals.”
Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R) “made it clear” that he will seek reelection in 2014, the Miami Herald reports.
Said Scott: “I’m running for re-election. I like this job!”
Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) told Bloomberg TV that the Obama government is “proving to be” the “most corrupt in history.”
Said Issa: “We are busy in Washington with a corrupt government, with a government that I said perhaps because of the money, the amount of TARP and stimulus funds, was going to be the most corrupt government history and it is proving to be just exactly that. This money going though the hands of political leaders is corrupting the process, whether it is Solyndra, GSA, or a number of other scandals.”
Ezra Klein points out that if President Obama wins re-election, he will likely “still be negotiating with Republican leaders in Congress. But the same can’t be said for Mitt Romney.”
“If Romney wins the election, it’s almost a sure bet that Republicans win control of both the House and the Senate. And that matters. Right now, the GOP’s agenda is the Ryan budget, and that’s entirely fiscal: It’s a premium support plan for Medicare, and tax cuts, and deep cuts to Medicaid, food stamps and other domestic programs. All that can be passed through budget reconciliation — which is to say, all that can be made immune to the filibuster.”
“So if Romney wins and the Republicans take control, they could accomplish quite a lot on party-line votes, even if their majorities are slim, and Democrats are opposed. Indeed, Romney could end up being a fairly transformational president for conservatives so long as he’s paired with a Republican Congress.”
Mitt Romney’s big speech tonight as primary results come in is billed as his “pivot” to the general election campaign.
A quick search by BuzzFeed finds this is his 97th pivot since voting in Iowa began in January.
A new Pew Research study finds negative coverage of President Obama outweighed his positive coverage in each of the last 15 weeks — the only presidential candidate where that was true.
“While a sitting president may have access to the ‘bully pulpit,’ that does not mean he has control of the media narrative, particularly during the other party’s primary season.”
A recent Gallup poll found that 27% of Democrats would not vote for a Mormon under any circumstances, versus 18% of Republicans.
Peter Beinhart: “One reason Democrats may be more anti-Mormon than Republicans is that Democrats, on average, are more secular. Devout Protestants, Catholics, and Jews may be more tolerant of Mormonism because they understand from firsthand experience the comfort and strength that religious commitment brings. Many secular Democrats, by contrast, may start with the assumption that religious orthodoxy produces irrationality and intolerance… Democrats may exhibit greater suspicion of Mormonism, in other words, because they exhibit greater suspicion of all organized religion. It’s just that anti-Mormonism is still socially acceptable enough to confess to a pollster.”
The Gallup daily tracking poll, which kicked off eight days ago with Mitt Romney leading by two points, now has President Obama in front by 7 points, 49% to 42%.
Meanwhile, a new DailyKos/SEIU poll shows Obama leading Romney 49% to 44%.
Walter Shapiro writes about his “political-journalistic courtship” of John Edwards “that now makes me cringe.”
“With Edwards on trial in North Carolina on charges of violating federal campaign-finance laws — after the disgrace of being caught with a mistress and denying being the father of her baby — I wish I had befriended a comparatively more honorable political figure like Eliot Spitzer or Mark Sanford… In hindsight, I feel like the jaded city slicker, bristling with self-confidence that he can never be fooled, who ends up hoodwinked by the smiling rural Southern confidence man.”
“I’m not sure what that is because I’m not serving right now.”
— Missouri U.S. Senate candidate Sarah Steelman (R), quoted by the Springfield News-Leader, when asked for her position on reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act.
Despite ripping his own party over the weekend, Jon Huntsman told CNBC that he’s still firmly behind Mitt Romney for president.
Said Huntsman: “Absolutely, I am. Listen, the economic message is going to carry the day in November, and I think that message will resonate — or not — through the critically important states in the Midwest… These are gonna be the states that will tell the story in November. I think it’s about recovery, it’s about rebuilding our manufacturing muscle in this country, and the prospects for job creation. I think he’s best positioned by virtue of his own background training to be able to provide that leadership.”
That said, Jeff Greenfield is convinced Huntsman will leave the Republican party.
Jon Karl reviews Do Not Ask What Good We Do by Robert Draper.
“Mr. Draper embedded himself in the House in 2011, getting to know the key players — newcomers and old-timers alike. In his group portrait, he doesn’t make any sweeping judgments about who is to blame for the failure of this Congress to address the country’s long-term problems. But his refreshingly balanced account captures the drama of one of Congress’s most combative and maddeningly frustrating years in memory.”
John Heilemann profiles U.N. ambassador Susan Rice and wonders if she might take the top foreign policy post in an Obama second term.
“Whatever ultimately transpires with Iran and Syria, Rice’s U.N. tenure is already seen in the administration — and particularly by the guy behind the big desk in the Oval Office — as having been a success.. along with [national security adviser Tom] Donilon and John Kerry, she is considered the likeliest successor to Clinton should Obama win reelection.”
Ezra Klein worked with three political scientists to create a model to forecast the 2012 presidential. You predict how the economy will do, and where President Obama’s approval rating will be in 2012, and the model spits out the winner.
The inputs “may seem a bit thin. But it calls 12 of the past 16 elections right. The average error in its prediction of the two-party vote share is less than three percentage points.”
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.
“There are a lot of blogs and news sites claiming to understand politics, but only a few actually do. Political Wire is one of them.”
— Chuck Todd, host of “Meet the Press”
“Concise. Relevant. To the point. Political Wire is the first site I check when I’m looking for the latest political nugget. That pretty much says it all.”
— Stuart Rothenberg, editor of the Rothenberg Political Report
“Political Wire is one of only four or five sites that I check every day and sometimes several times a day, for the latest political news and developments.”
— Charlie Cook, editor of the Cook Political Report
“The big news, delicious tidbits, pearls of wisdom — nicely packaged, constantly updated… What political junkie could ask for more?”
— Larry Sabato, Center for Politics, University of Virginia
“Political Wire is a great, great site.”
— Joe Scarborough, host of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe”
“Taegan Goddard has a knack for digging out political gems that too often get passed over by the mainstream press, and for delivering the latest electoral developments in a sharp, no frills style that makes his Political Wire an addictive blog habit you don’t want to kick.”
— Arianna Huffington, founder of The Huffington Post
“Political Wire is one of the absolute must-read sites in the blogosphere.”
— Glenn Reynolds, founder of Instapundit
“I rely on Taegan Goddard’s Political Wire for straight, fair political news, he gets right to the point. It’s an eagerly anticipated part of my news reading.”
— Craig Newmark, founder of Craigslist.