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Vincent Sheheen (D) announced that he will run again for South Carolina governor in 2014, the Columbia State reports.
He lost a tight race against Nikki Haley (R) in 2010 — 51.4% to 47%. Haley is “widely expected to enter the race after the legislative session ends in June.”
A Public Policy Polling survey in December found Sheheen leading Haley, 46% to 44%.
Just published: The Way of the Knife by Mark Mazzetti.
Washington Post: “Since the 9/11 attacks, a dramatic shift has occurred in the way the United States deploys its military and intelligence forces.”
Political Moneyline: “Over $1.3 million in left funds from the 2008 presidential campaign were given to Sen. John McCain in February and March and none to former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin.”
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Saline County, Kansas Commissioner Jim Gile (R) told the Salina Journal it was a “bad choice of words” when he used the expression “nigger-rigging it” in a heated discussion that was being recorded.
Gile insisted that he meant to say “jury-rigged,” noting “I had it on my brain and this came out. It was a bad choice of words. I’m sorry.”
“North Korea is not a State — it’s a cult.”
— Former North Korean spy Kim Hyun-hee, quoted by the Daily Mail, on how she was taught “that our leader, Kim Il-sung, was a God.”
Greg Sargent notes President Obama has included budget items specifically asked for by Sen. Mitch McConnell and Speaker John Boehner “to show he’s serious” but now it’s not good enough.
“In late December, a Boehner aide told Bloomberg News that the Speaker wanted Chained CPI more than other entitlement cuts, such as raising the Medicare eligibility age, as the two were negotiation over a possible cuts-for-revenues swap to avert the fiscal cliff.”
“And in late November, Mitch McConnell explicitly told the Wall Street Journal that if Obama offered entitlement changes such as Chained CPI and Medicare means testing, Republicans would consider new revenue. He actually said this: ‘those are the kinds of things that would get Republicans interested in new revenue.'”
The bottom line: “There is literally nothing that Obama can offer Republicans — not even things they themselves have asked for — that would induce them to agree to a compromise on new revenues.”
John Avlon says that President Obama’s budget released today “is not like all the others. It is not a positional bargaining document, designed simply to rally the base at the outset of negotiations. One way you can tell is that liberal activists and congressmen are already screaming ‘sellout’ at the White House for offering Social Security reform as part of a balanced plan to reduce the deficit and debt.”
“The Republican response so far has been crickets, and that throat clearing you hear in the distance might just be a recalibration before another reflexive ‘tax and spend liberal’ attack on the president.”
National Journal points out “the most important fiscal development of the week will hinge on the success of Obama’s dinner with 12 Republican senators tonight.”
Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell (R) “has said his daughter and her husband paid for their own wedding. So a $15,000 check from a major campaign donor to pay for the food at the affair was a gift to the bride and groom and not to him and therefore did not have to be publicly disclosed under the law,” the Washington Post reports.
But documents show that McDonnell “signed the catering contract, making him financially responsible for the 2011 event. The governor made handwritten notes to the caterer in the margins. In addition, the governor paid nearly $8,000 in deposits for the catering.”
When the questioning at a press conference turned to Rep. Michele Bachmann’s (R-MN) ethics problems from her 2012 presidential campaign, “aides closed in blocking reporters and photographers and ushered her out of the room,” the Minneapolis Star Tribune reports.
A new Washington Post-ABC News finds 53% of self-identified Democrats view the income tax system favorably while 43% see it unfavorably. That’s a stark contrast to the 66% of Republicans and 62% of independents who have an unfavorable opinion of the tax system.
Saying that he would like, at some point, to “ask people to give me a second chance,” disgraced Rep. Anthony Weiner (D) told the New York Times he is mulling a run for mayor this year because “it’s now or maybe never for me.”
Weiner cautioned that he did not know when he would decide about entering the race, and conceded that “the fact that I don’t know tells me I shouldn’t run. Or I should not run now.”
Weiner and his wife, Huma Abedin, gave an extensive interview to the New York Times Magazine.
Politico: “Were Weiner to run, it would be one of the most remarkable comeback efforts launched in a short time frame, as New York City prepares for the post-Giuliani, post-Bloomberg era with a Democratic mayoral field generally regarded as weak.”
GOP pollster David Winston writes that “traditionalists who believe that Republicans need only ‘return to their principles’ in order to win also misunderstand the challenge the party faces.”
“As important as Republican core principles are, it is the potential outcomes those principles and ideas generate that, in the end, win elections. How effectively Republican candidates translate these ideas into clear policies will determine whether the party succeeds in the future.”
The White House “proposed a budget that sharply trims the U.S. deficit over three years by forcing millionaires to pay more in taxes and enacting spending cuts that replace the sequester reductions that went into place last month,” Reuters reports.
The budget blueprint “ensures that those making $1 million a year or more would have to pay at least 30 percent of their income, after gifts to charity, in taxes.”
Wonk Wire: Pay no attention to Obama’s budget.
Washington Post: “In the 3 1/2 years after false rumors started that the Obama administration was giving free cellphones to poor people — and six months after a racially charged video about it went viral — a once-obscure phone service subsidy is getting renewed scrutiny on Capitol Hill.”
“Lifeline was begun not by President Obama but under Ronald Reagan. It
expanded to include cellphone service during the presidency of another
Republican, George W. Bush.”
New York Times: “With a coordination and an energy that echo a Supreme Court nomination fight, the Obama administration is pushing for the confirmation of a senior Justice Department lawyer to the country’s most prestigious appellate court. If the effort fails, it could lead to a confrontation with the Senate over the long-simmering issue of judicial nominees.”
A new Rutgers-Eagleton Poll in New Jersey finds Gov. Chris Christie is still enjoying a high job approval rating from his New Jersey constituents, but the number has dipped from 74% to 68%.
Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Sen. Patrick Toomey (R-PA) signaled they have “reached a deal in principle on expanding background checks to include more gun sales, in what was widely seen as the major sticking point on the biggest gun control legislation to reach the floor since 1994,” Roll Call reports.
They will hold a news conference at 11 am Wednesday.
The Week looks at the evidence.
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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