A new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll found American voters feeling more positively about the economy and of President Obama’s handling of it. Some 30% believed the country was headed in the right direction, up eight points from a month ago. Some 60% said the country was on the wrong track, down from 69% in December.
For the first time in seven months, more people approve of Obama’s job performance than disapprove, 48% to 46%.
In an interesting ABC News interview, Warren Buffett lashed out at assertions from Republicans that the “Buffett rule” endorsed last night by President Obama — which says that anyone earning more than a million dollars a year should be taxed at at least 30% — is class warfare.
Said Buffett: “If this is a war, my side has the nuclear bomb.”
Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner told Bloomberg TV that President Obama is “not going to ask me to stay on, I’m pretty confident. I’m confident he’ll be president. But I’m also confident he’s going to have the privilege of having another secretary of the Treasury.”
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A new CNN-Time poll in Florida finds Mitt Romney leading with 36%, followed by Newt Gingrich at 34%, Rick Santorum at 11% and Ron Paul at 9%.
Key findings: “Romney leads Gingrich among female and white voters, voters over 50, and those with a college degree… Gingrich holds leads among men, Tea Party voters, self-identified conservatives — among whom he boasts a 10-point advantage — and born-again Christians. His fans also appear to be more committed than Romney’s.”
Buzzfeed: “Because garments are considered so sacred, Mormons tend to recoil when
they hear non-Mormons make casual reference to their
underwear — especially in a political context. But if there ever was a
time when discussion of the subject could be contained to Mormon
circles, now is not it.”
Newt Gingrich insisted that there was nothing similar about his personal failings and those of Bill Clinton — even though both were having extramarital affairs in the late 1990s, CNN reports.
Said Gingrich: “I didn’t do the same thing. I have never lied under oath. I have never committed perjury. I have never been involved in a felony. He was.”
Lois Romano: “You got hand it to the guy. He always tries to find a small patch of moral high ground on which to stand. No matter how tiny.”
The Federal Reserve downgraded its outlook for economic growth this year but is slightly more optimistic about the unemployment rate, the Wall Street Journal reports.
The Fed expects the economy to grow between 2.2% and 2.7% this year. That’s down from November’s forecast of between 2.5% and 2.9%. But it sees unemployment falling as low as 8.2%, an improvement from November’s bottom rate of 8.5%.
A new CBS News poll finds that 91% of Americans who watched President Obama’s State of the Union address approved of the policy proposals he put forth, while just 9% disapproved.
Caveat: “Americans who watched the speech were generally more Democratic than the nation as a whole. Forty-four percent of viewers polled were Democrats and 25% were Republicans. (Historically speaking, that is not an unusual statistic: a president’s supporters are more likely than his opponents to watch State of the Union addresses.)”
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.”
This is fantastic: The New York Times has a video of President Obama’s State of the Union address alongside a rolling transcript and inline fact checks.
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.
When East Haven Mayor Joseph Maturo (R) was asked by WPIX-TV what he would do for the Latino community in the aftermath of four police officers being charged with violating the civil rights of Latino residents he said that he might go home and eat tacos.
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.”
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.”
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.
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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