Comedian Stephen Colbert’s “satirical super PAC raised some serious cash,” Politico reports.
“Between July 1 and Dec. 31, Americans for a Better Tomorrow, Tomorrow collected more than $825,400, ending the year with nearly $674,000 cash on hand, according to disclosures filed over night with the Federal Election Commission.”
“What a pathetic situation to be running for the President of the United States with nothing positive to say. All you got to do is try to tear your opponent down to where they get smaller than you are, that’s the Romney model.”
— Newt Gingrich, quoted by NBC News, criticizing GOP rival Mitt Romney.
A new Pew Research poll finds Republicans remain unimpressed with their party’s presidential field. In fact, more Republicans and Republican-leaning independents say the GOP field is only fair or poor (52%) than did so in early January (44%).
By comparison, just 46% of Republican voters have positive opinions of the GOP field. At about this point four years ago, 68% of Republican and GOP-leaning voters rated the field as excellent or good.
For the first time in about two-and-a-half years, a national Rasmussen survey finds Democrats leading Republicans in the generic congressional ballot, 41% to 40%.
Out this week: Nixon’s Darkest Secrets by Don Fulsom.
“Richard Nixon left the White House in 1974 as our most disgraced president, but the American people never knew the full extent of his demons, deceptions, paranoia, prejudices, hatreds, and chicanery.”
From the political dictionary: “brokered convention”
Rick Klein predicts that the bad blood between Gingrich and Romney could have long-term consequences for the Republican party.
“Gingrich is accusing Romney not just of liberal and moderate viewpoints, but of a craven dishonesty in his attacks — the kind of dishonesty that will make it seem strained at best when and if Gingrich throws his support behind Romney for the general election. He’s using the attacks to fuel an argument that Romney simply can’t beat President Obama in November. Sarah Palin, speaking to the tea party activists and other base conservatives, is emerging as Gingrich’s chief ally in arguing for the campaign to continue. Her voice was reinforced by that of former candidate Herman Cain, whose endorsement of Gingrich Saturday puts an exclamation point on the split between the party’s establishment and anti-establishment wings.”
Walter Shapiro says Newt Gingrich may indeed be the second coming of Ronald Reagan. But it is not Reagan the governor nor Reagan the transformative president. Rather its the stubborn Reagan who bedeviled Jerry Ford all the way to the 1976 Kansas City Convention.
“None of this guarantees that political history will repeat itself as either tragedy or farce. But again and again, the largely youthful campaign press corps has sold Gingrich short. Maybe Florida is indeed the end of the line for Gingrich’s frail hopes to be the GOP nominee. But all it takes for Gingrich to prove that he is not yesterday’s man is a GOP primary electorate that remembers yesterday — and the day before.”
“Vote for Newt. Annoy a liberal. Vote Newt. Keep this vetting process going, keep the debate going.”
— Sarah Palin, quoted by National Review.
Coming this spring: The Republican Brain: The Science of Why They Deny Science — and Reality by Chris Mooney.
Newt Gingrich’s campaign has launched TalesofMitt.com, full of recent flip-flops by the Republican presidential frontrunner Mitt Romney.
It is certain that Democratic political operatives have already been
documenting many of these moments, but they have to be happy to have
Republicans lay the groundwork and soften the target with slick ads
using the material.
Dan Amira notes Mitt Romney has spent much of the presidential campaign butchering one of the great political phrases of all time: “Politics ain’t bean bag.”
“As far as we can tell, Romney has not accurately recited the aphorism a single time during this entire campaign. Nitpicking? Sure. Romney is usually only off by one letter. Still, ‘politics ain’t bean bag’ has been repeated for over 115 years now. It’s four words long. It shouldn’t be too difficult to master.”
As Super PACs raise larger and larger sums of money to put towards operations supporting specific candidates, Politico
reports that these organizations are evolving to become more like
shadow campaigns, “including phone banking, field organizing, direct
mail, polling, state-of-the-race memos and even surrogate operations.”
“The
ambitious expansion is another example of a shift in political
power away from the major parties and their candidates to deep-pocketed
outsiders. But it’s left campaign operatives and even candidates
grumbling about whether the super PACs are actually helping their
favored candidates… With advertising, campaigns and outside groups
can figure out what one another are doing by consulting spending reports
with details of buys that each is required to disclose in close to real
time. With on-the-ground organizing, it’s tougher to determine quickly
who’s doing what, while staying within the bounds of the rules.”
Josh Putnam looks at the filing deadlines and notes that after Tuesday it will be mathematically too late for someone to enter the Republican presidential race and still be able to win the 1144 delegates needed for the nomination.
Of course, it’s still possible someone could run to deny one of the existing candidates the magic number.
A USA Today/Gallup poll in the dozen most competitive states finds President Obama and Mitt Romney essentially tied while Newt Gingrich trails the president by a whopping 14 points.
The survey focuses on the nation’s most competitive battlegrounds: Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin.
The 2005 Chrysler that Barack Obama leased from 2005 to 2007 is for sale on eBay for $1 million.
First Read: “Perhaps the most important number in the NBC-Marist poll was what happens when Santorum is removed from the race. Santorum’s vote splits off evenly if he’s removed, and Romney has an even WIDER lead over Gingrich, 49% to 33%. So, Gingrich can’t make the argument that if conservatives weren’t divided he would win. The numbers just don’t bear that out. What’s really interesting — Santorum probably could argue that if GINGRICH weren’t in the race, he’d have a better chance against Romney. Santorum’s image is as good as it’s been since the campaign began.”
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.