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The Dallas Morning News traveled with Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) for a speech to a group of conservative bloggers.
Said Perry: “There are many other states that embrace those conservative values, the approach we’ve taken over the years. I’m in one today — Florida.”
“We’re in Louisiana,” someone shouted.
Rep. Ted Yoho (R-FL) told constituents at a town hall event that a provision in Obamacare imposing a 10% tax on tanning bed use was a “racist tax” that discriminates “because of the color of my skin,” Roll Call reports.
“Yes, I think Steve King, the more he speaks, the more he helps us get a bill passed.”
— Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), in an interview with the Huffington Post. on the prospects for immigration reform.
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The Atlantic Wire: “There are a few hallmarks to life after a political sex scandal. Tell-all interviews are standard, though most news organizations won’t pay you to speak with them. The real money is in the tell-all memoir, where eager book companies will throw cash for confessions and the dirtiest, intimate secrets. Or, if you’re Sydney Leathers, you masturbate on camera for those infamous sex tape connoisseurs at Vivid Entertainment.”
I joined Thomas Roberts, Keli Goff and Dafna Linzer on MSNBC to discuss the looming budget showdown on Capitol Hill.
Texas state Sen. Wendy Davis (D), “who skyrocketed to national fame after mounting a lengthy filibuster earlier this summer, on Monday said she won’t wait much longer to decide whether to enter the Texas gubernatorial race,” Politico reports.
Said Davis: “I’m still trying to decide, but I do think people are ready for a change from the partisan, very fractured leadership we have in Texas.”
Newt Gingrich told the Washington Times that the United States’ ability to “export democracy” needs to be reevaluated and that “alternative strategies” should be considered.
Said Gingrich: “I am a neoconservative. But at some point, even if you are a neoconservative, you need to take deep breath to ask if our strategies in Middle East have succeeded. It may be that our capacity to export democracy is a lot more limited than we thought.”
Better RNC debate plan. Held in hermetically sealed Fox studio. Avoid exposing swing voters to Crazy S*#t My Nominee Says.
— David Plouffe (@davidplouffe) August 5, 2013
RNC chair Reince Priebus threatened to “ban 2016 presidential debate partnerships with CNN and NBC if the networks produce shows on Hillary Rodham Clinton ‘ahead of her likely candidacy for president’ because they will amount to free ‘political ads,'” the Lynn Sweet reports.
“NBC announced a Hillary Clinton miniseries is in the works; CNN is working on a documentary. The networks are rolling out the projects as speculation about whether the former Secretary of State will run in 2016 is soaring.”
GOP pollster Whit Ayres tells Greg Sargent that “much of the conventional wisdom is wrong: Republican voters do support immigration reform — including a path to citizenship — albeit with the proper conditions attached. Indeed they want to see something done.”
Said Ayres: “Our research has shown that roughly one third of Republican primary voters will never support a path to citizenship no matter what the conditions. But two thirds will support a path to citizenship as long as the conditions are strict and rigorous.”
USA Today: “The dead can’t vote, but they can give money to politicians. Thirty-two people listed on federal campaign records as “deceased” have contributed more than $586,000 to congressional and presidential candidates and political parties since Jan. 1, 2009.”
Jeff Zeleny: “August often has a way of surprising and shaking Washington with an
external event out of anyone’s control. This is a month where the
capital is scheduled to rest a bit, but the terror threats in the air
are a sober reminder that’s really not possible. Congress is away and
President Obama is scheduled to start his vacation by the end of the
week in Martha’s Vineyard. The White House is taking an all-is-normal
posture, with the president even dropping by Jay Leno. But quiet
conversations with members of Congress and aides in both parties, as
well as inside the administration, suggest these latest threats are
specific enough to be taken very seriously.”
First Read: “There isn’t a government official who’s seen some form of this intelligence who isn’t spooked by it.”
“I don’t intend to run to the right of Mitch McConnell. I don’t intend to run to the left of Mitch McConnell. I intend to run straight over the top of Mitch McConnell and right into the U.S. Senate.”
— Kentucky U.S. Senate candidate Matt Bevin (R), quoted by the Louisville Courier Journal, delivering “what may have been the sharpest attack of the day” at Fancy Farm.
“Beleaguered” San Diego Mayor Bob Filner (D) “is scheduled to begin two weeks of intensive therapy Monday at an undisclosed clinic to address his inappropriate sexual behavior toward women and while he’s gone the city will continue to pick up trash, the libraries will open on time and the scandal enveloping San Diego won’t be going away,” the San Diego Union Tribune reports.
“Filner won’t be ceding any authority during his self-imposed therapy sessions and plans to be briefed each morning and night on civic affairs and give direction to city staff.”
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) said he was “almost certain” Congress would look at background checks again in 2014, the Reno Gazette Journal reports.
Said spokeswoman Kristen Orthman: “I think sometime next year we’ll revisit that issue, I’m almost certain of it.”
A new AFSCME poll in Arkansas finds Sen. Mark Pryor (D) leading Rep. Tom Cotton (R) in his re-election race by eight points, 43% to 35%.
Meanwhile, Smart Politics finds that no incumbent U.S. Senator has lost a general election race coming off a victory in which he did not face a major party opponent. Pryor only faced a Green Party candidate in 2008.
A secretive U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration unit “is funneling information from intelligence intercepts, wiretaps, informants and a massive database of telephone records to authorities across the nation to help them launch criminal investigations of Americans,” Reuters reports.
“Although these cases rarely involve national security issues, documents reviewed by Reuters show that law enforcement agents have been directed to conceal how such investigations truly begin – not only from defense lawyers but also sometimes from prosecutors and judges.”
“They are totally insulated from public opinion on this because of redistricting. Republicans are gonna continue to hold the House. But then we’ll head into the 2016 presidential election where the electorate is likely to be 2 percent less white than it was in 2012 and 4 percent less white than it was in 2008. This is a simple math equation.”
— GOP strategist Steve Schmidt, in an interview with the New York Times, on the harm House Republicans will do to the GOP’s national ambitions by not supporting immigration reform.
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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