Douglas Brinkley’s Rolling Stone interview with Vice President Joe Biden is a must-read but, if you don’t have the time, The Week has seven highlights.
Extra Bonus Quote of the Day
“My heart breaks for Minnesota.”
— Miinesota State Rep. Peggy Scott (R), quoted by the Minneapolis Star Tribune, on the Minnesota House approving same-sex marriage legislation.
Fed Plans End of Stimulus
Federal Reserve officials “have mapped out a strategy for winding down an unprecedented $85 billion-a-month bond-buying program meant to spur the economy–an effort to preserve flexibility and manage highly unpredictable market expectations,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“Officials say they plan to reduce the amount of bonds they buy in careful and potentially halting steps, varying their purchases as their confidence about the job market and inflation evolves. The timing on when to start is still being debated.”
Bonus Quote of the Day
— An IRS statement after disclosure that disclosure that the agency was targeting conservative groups for exams.
Walsh Considered for Next Illinois GOP Chairman
The Chicago Sun Times reports that controversial former Rep. Joe Walsh (R-IL) is on the short list to replace former Illinois GOP chairman Pat Brady.
“The Republican State Central Committee held an hour-long conference call last night and came back with these names as finalists. The list may grow before Friday’s deadline, with a handful of people who were nominated but could not be confirmed as interested. In all, 30 people were nominated and the nominations included other women — but numerous nominees said they were not interested.”
Quote of the Day
“I’m a damn good Republican and a good conservative Republican who
believes in things that I believe in. But that does not mean that I
would ever put party before my state or party before my country.”
— New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R), in a forthcoming interview on NBC News.
Price Will Not Run for Senate in Georgia
Rep. Tom Price (R-GA) said that he will not run for Georgia’s open Senate seat, Roll Call reports.
“Price would have been the fourth Republican congressman to launch a Senate bid. By declining, he leaves the door open for former Georgia Secretary of State Karen Handel to potentially join the current crop of GOP candidates: Reps. Paul Broun, Phil Gingrey and Jack Kingston.”
A source tells National Review that Handel is “more than likely” to enter the race.
IRS Admits to Targeting Conservative Groups
A top Internal Revenue Service admitted the agency “inappropriately flagged conservative political groups for additional reviews during the 2012 election to see if they were violating their tax-exempt status,” the AP reports.
Organizations were singled out because they included the words “tea party” or “patriot” in their applications for tax-exempt status.
Another Look at Florida 2000
Just out: Inside Bush v. Gore by Charley Wells.
Where is John Boehner?
“After two years of being front and center in the GOP’s fight with President Obama, House Speaker John Boehner seems to be missing in action from messaging and legislative battles, worried Republicans told BuzzFeed this week.”
“True, Boehner still does one or more on-air press events a week, and aides said he’s actively preparing for the fiscal fights looming on the horizon. But with no presidential nominee to be the party’s public face and set its agenda, that role has fallen to the Ohio Republican. And his members worry he’s not doing enough.”
Defining Outrage Down
Marc Ambinder notes that conservatives are outraged that no one is outraged over the Obama administration’s response to the Benghazi consulate attack last year.
“If everything is an outrage, then nothing is an outrage. When the rapper Common visited the White House, it was an ‘outrage’ to Sean Hannity. When union workers were called in for Sandy repair in New York, that was also ‘outrageous.’ Heck, Hannity found it awful and outrageous that Obama’s daughters would dare take a spring break during the sequester. I’m literally going down the Google search results for ‘Hannity’ and ‘outrage.’ Replace Hannity with the talk radio host of your choosing.”
“It’s the flip side to Bennett’s argument: If you judge motivations always, you will not really be able to truly apply the force of judgment to genuine moral deviations. Your shame supply will dwindle. ”
Demographic Trends are Very Unfriendly to Republicans
Pew Research looks at the new Census Bureau report on the ethnic breakdown of voters and “if you’re a Republican thinking of running for president one day, you may be a bit concerned.”
“First, whites were 74% of voters last year at a time when they were just 63% of the population. This racial turnout gap is driven by the fact that a disproportionate share of non-whites are either too young to vote, not eligible to vote (because they’re not citizens), or just don’t vote. All of these factors could change over time.”
“Second, if we look at the 2060 projections, we can see that there’s a lot more diversity yet to come. The Census Bureau makes its projections based on an analysis of fertility rates, mortality rates and immigration trends. They’re not set in stone. Things change. But they give a sense of the general direction of things. And many of these future demographics are already a reality–for example, about half of newborns in 2010 were non-white.”
Moms in Ad Defending Ayotte are GOP Activists
A heavily-funded national conservative group, American Future Fund, “is coming to the aid of New Hampshire Sen. Kelly Ayotte, the first-term Republican taking heavy criticism for her opposition to the Manchin-Toomey gun control bill,” Politico reports.
The group launched a new ad today.
ThinkProgress: “But the American Future Fund appeared unable to find voters who agree with Ayotte’s position, as a cursory search of individuals in the advertisement reveals that the supposedly typical New Hampshirites are actually long-time Republican party activists and officials. Polls show that 91 percent of New Hampshire adults support expanded screenings.”
Dead Heat for Los Angeles Mayor
A new Pat Brown Institute of Public Affairs poll shows Wendy Greuel and Eric Garcetti in a virtual dead heat in the campaign to be the next mayor of Los Angeles.
Greuel edges Garcetti, 46% to 45%, among likely voters with 9% undecided just 12 days before the May 21 election.
The GOP’s Last Chance to Stop Obamacare
President Obama “turns his attention back Friday to one of his
signature issues, health care. A White House event this afternoon ties
implementation of the massive 2010 health care law to Mother’s Day on
Sunday. Obama will discuss the benefits of the law for women, and also
ask mothers to encourage young people to sign up when insurance
exchanges go on line in October,” USA Today reports.
First Read: “The name
of the game for them is convincing younger HEALTHIER uninsured Americans
to enroll. Why? Because without younger healthier Americans, the
numbers don’t work. As for the GOP, this is their last shot at stopping
this law, and they know it. Once it’s in place and Americans are
enrolled, they’ll have a harder and harder time trying to unwind it.
Time is not on their side.”
Paul Heads to Iowa
Politico: “When Rand Paul touches down in Iowa
Friday, it will be almost exactly three years to the day after his
landslide 2010 Senate primary victory – an unlikely and decisive triumph
over the Republican establishment that instantly transformed Paul into a
national political phenomenon. Now, as Paul weighs a 2016 presidential
bid, a different kind of challenge confronts him: Can the plain-spoken
former Bowling Green ophthalmologist build a campaign to back up his
popular appeal? For all Paul’s success as a media brand and a mobilizer
of the conservative grassroots, the Kentucky senator has done relatively
little since 2010 to assemble a political machine around his own
personality. For now, the Rand Paul project is a high-wire act that
works largely without a net.”
Meanwhile, Paul tells Bloomberg that he’s “working to help his party find ways to become competitive in
states along the nation’s coasts where it has largely fallen out of
favor.”
Gang of Eight Sticks Together
After the first day of the Senate Judiciary Committee marking up the Gang of Eight’s bipartisan immigration legislation, NBC News notes the legislation was largely kept intact.
“As expected, Democrats on the 18-member Senate Judiciary Committee were joined by two Republican members of the bipartisan Gang of Eight in opposing the most stringent border security amendments offered by opponents of the bill, ranging from a massive influx of boots on the ground at the nation’s southern border to delays to the program that would make undocumented immigrants eligible for a probationary legal status.”
“But the panel also adopted a total of 21 amendments, including eight proposed by Republicans. Those included measures to beef up oversight of the legislation’s implementation, offer greater flexibility to the Department of Homeland Security to allocate funds for technology and infrastructure, and include private landowners in a task force consulting on border security.”
Virginia is More Important Than South Carolina
Charlie Cook: “Mark Sanford’s victory Tuesday in South Carolina’s 1st Congressional District tells us only one thing about the 2014 midterm elections–that Democrats still need to capture 17 seats to win back the House majority they lost in 2010. Nothing more, nothing less.”
“Arguably, this fall’s Virginia gubernatorial race will be a better test. Historically a conservative and Republican state, Virginia–along, to a lesser extent, with its southern neighbor, North Carolina–has become more like the Mid-Atlantic states to its north in recent years. Other Southern states, such as Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Tennessee, largely retain their Dixie voting patterns. Each of those states has a bedrock Democratic vote made up chiefly of minority voters, along with indigenous white Democratic voters. But North Carolina and, even more so, Virginia have seen an influx of non-Southerners, who vote more like the country as a whole than like the Old South.”
