ABC News
reports that Rick Santorum’s visit to Puerto Rico ahead of its
Republican presidential primary on Sunday has not been the smoothest of
campaign trips.
“Rather than boost his standing, the trip has ignited a
firestorm with Santorum’s comment that English would have to be ‘the
main language’ in order for Puerto Rico to become a U.S.
state… Santorum’s comments left one of his supporters, Oreste Ramos,
so upset that the former Puerto Rican senator rescinded his
endorsement.”
White House Chief Information Officer Brook Colangelo revealed in a talk with Computerworld that, upon taking office, “Over 82% of the White House’s technology had reached end of life. Desktops, for instance, still had floppy disk drives, including the one Colangelo delivered to Rahm Emanuel.”
“On taking his new position on inauguration day, he and his staff put in 80 hour weeks, ‘if not more.’ And in his first 40 days on the job, the White House email system was down 23% of the time.”
Rep. Gary Ackerman (D-NY) announced that he will not seek another term in Congress this year, the New York Daily News reports.
“On the eve of the Federal Circuit Court’s approval of Congressional
district lines that were seen to be extraordinarily favorable to
Ackerman, and with the primary-free backing of the Democratic Party
virtually assured, Ackerman has informed his family, staff, friends and
party leaders that he will not seek a 16th term of office.”
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Federal prosecutors granted John Edwards’ former mistress Rielle Hunter immunity from criminal charges for anything she says on the witness stand during the former presidential candidate’s upcoming trial, WRAL reports.
Jury selection is to begin April 12, and prosecutors say it’s possible Hunter will be asked to testify.
“One of my opponents recently said that it would take an act of God for me to win this primary. I agree with him.”
— Rick Santorum, quoted by ABC News.
Oregon Republicans were forced to cancel the planned GOP presidential debate in Portland next week after Mitt Romney said he would not attend, the Oregonian reports.
Walter Shapiro: “How unfortunate. Republican voters need to hear more from the candidates than stump speeches and dueling calculations of delegate arithmetic. Newt Gingrich has had this one right from the beginning — more debates are always better. Now that the Republicans have been given (and not cursed with) the gift of time in choosing a presidential nominee, it would be folly if the debates — and the serious policy discussions — ended just as the race entered the home stretch.”
Coming soon: The Rules of Influence: Winning When You’re in the Minority by William D. Crano.
Newt Gingrich explained to Laura Ingraham why his staying in the presidential race will ultimately help deny Mitt Romney the Republican nomination.
Said Gingrich: “I think one of the reasons that Mitt Romney’s been much less effective since Santorum emerged is that he’s had to split his attacks. It’s very hard for him to attack both of us. There’s real danger, from his perspective, that attacking one of us just drives votes to the other, and he still doesn’t get the votes.”
“If we’d fix our courts and our tort reform issues, we’d stand a lot better chance of getting a cracker than we would be in passing this huge bill that we just pull our pants down to get a cracker, when everybody should be getting the same tax breaks.”
— West Virginia gubernatorial candidate Bill Maloney (R), quoted by the Charleston Gazette, alleging that Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin (D) gave up too much in tax incentives to bring a cracker plant to the state.
Sen. Richard Lugar (R-IN) and his wife were found to be ineligible to vote in their former home precinct, the Indianapolis Star reports.
However, “there may be an easy fix — the Lugars could submit new voter registrations that are based on a physical address in the county with which they currently have a connection. That could be a family member’s home or, possibly, the Lugar family farm. There is no house on that farm but it might satisfy the requirement.”
Lugar’s residency has been an issue in his re-election race.
Former Minnesota Senate staffer Michael Brodkorb “claims he was fired because of an affair with former Senate Majority Leader Amy Koch and intends to prove other employees who had trysts with legislators were allowed to continue working,” the Minneapolis Star Tribune reports.
Said his lawyer: “He intends to depose all of the female legislative staff employees who participated in intimate relationships, as well as the legislators who were party to those intimate relationships.”
Former Missouri state Sen. Jeff Smith (D), who spent a year in federal prison as a result of campaign-finance violations, offers advice in the Chicago Tribune for ousted Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D) who enters prison today.
A few examples:
“Embrace your background, but don’t try to be a politician. The prison guards and administration will probably resent your presence, as it will mean added scrutiny on prison operations. Your charm will not work on them, so don’t try it. Instead, be as deferential as possible and try to blend in.”
“Don’t snitch, under any circumstances. The only people in prison who have it harder than child molesters are snitches. You need to learn how to see things (weapons, illegal drugs, people making hooch, pornography, etc) without seeing them; that is, learn to look away before anyone has seen you see the contraband.”
“Don’t eat the Snickers. You’ll go through orientation. You will be shown a mandatory sexual assault prevention video featuring a guy warning you not to eat the Snickers bar that may be waiting for you on your bed in your cell. (The actor ate the one left under his pillow, unwittingly signaling the predator who left it for him that he was ready and willing.) All the guys watching the video will laugh. But take the video’s message to heart: Don’t accept sweets from anyone.”
BuzzFeed: “Mitt Romney and his SuperPac have dumped nearly $3.5 million combined into Illinois television advertisements before next week’s primary, outspending Rick Santorum by a nearly 8:1 margin, according to data from a Republican media-buying source.”
Andrew Sullivan: “Most Americans, and the vast majority of Republicans, don’t realize that taxes have decreased under Obama.”
Jonathan Karl explains why: “Gingrich firmly believes that staying in the race is the best way to prevent Mitt Romney from clinching the nomination before the convention in August. And he actually may have a point.”
Said Gingrich: “We’re actually helping because between us — Santorum and I — are stopping Romney.”
“Gingrich knows that it is virtually impossible for him, or Santorum for that matter, to beat Romney on delegates, but he makes the case — and it is not far-fetched — that unless Romney starts winning delegates at a faster pace he won’t clinch nomination by end the end of the primaries.”
In fact, ABC News notes Santorum’s best chance may be Gingrich’s remaining in the race.
In an interesting Fox News interview — which ABC News described as “candid and even feisty” — Mitt Romney once again struggled to assert himself as the frontrunner in the GOP presidential race and again had trouble defending his health care law in Massachusetts.
First Read: “In fact, Romney looked uncomfortable during the entire interview. And we’ve learned a couple of new things about Romney that we might not have known four years ago: 1) it’s pretty easy to get under his skin; and 2) he’s not very nimble when it comes to turning lemons into lemonade.”
Vice President Joe Biden gave a major campaign speech today in Ohio and it had a big focus on the auto bailout and other efforts by President Obama to rescue the American economy when he took office.
Said Biden: “The president didn’t flinch. This man has a spine of steel,” he’s expected to say. “He knew rescuing the industry wasn’t popular. He knew he was taking a chance. But he believed. He said, we are not going to give up on a million jobs, and the iconic industry America invented. Not without a fight. We all want a president with the courage of his convictions. Well, folks, we have one. He made the tough call. And the verdict is in: President Obama was right and his critics were dead wrong.”
First Read: “Do take note of the somewhat low-key rollout of this speech; it appears this may be more about message testing (and practicing) for the vice president, whose role on this campaign is likely to be similar to the role of previous veeps: serve as both a validator and the chief ‘contraster.'”
Jon Stewart‘s take on the cable news coverage of the GOP primaries this week is priceless.
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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