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Rush Limbaugh dismissed the new RNC autopsy report that encouraged the party to modernize and argued instead that the party is not conservative enough, the Huffington Post reports.
Said Limbaugh: “The Republicans are just getting totally bamboozled right now. And they are entirely lacking in confidence. Which is what happens to every political party after an election in which they think they got shellacked.”
Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) “is endorsing a pathway to citizenship for the nation’s 11 million illegal immigrants, a significant move for a favorite of tea party Republicans who are sometimes hostile to such an approach,” the AP reports.
In a speech to be delivered later this morning, the potential 2016 presidential candidate will say, “If you wish to live and work in America, then we will find a place for you.”
Rep. Scott DesJarlais (R-TN) “has been in political trouble since news reports revealed he pressured a former patient of his to get an abortion after they had an affair, details that emerged during divorce proceedings. Later, after he won reelection, reports showed he and his wife had agreed to have two abortions before their divorce,” National Journal reports.
“But unlike some other scandal-wracked politicians like Anthony Weiner, Eric Massa, or Eliot Spitzer, DesJarlais hasn’t become an outcast at all. Republican leaders haven’t punished him. He still holds positions on the Agriculture and, yes, the Oversight and Government Reform committees. Even more glaring: He’s getting fundraising assistance on Tuesday from six influential colleagues, including three committee chairmen (GOP Reps. Darrell Issa of California, John Kline of Minnesota, and Frank Lucas of Oklahoma) and two potential Senate candidates (Kline and Rep. Tom Price of Georgia).”
A new HuffPost/YouGov poll finds that just 12% of Americans said that they or someone they know was wounded in the Iraq war and only 6% said they know someone who was killed in the Iraq War.
While 52% of Americans said they at least know someone who served in combat in Iraq, 44% reported no personal connection at all to those who did the fighting and dying there.
“References were made to people who were too old and moss-covered and that we need now and fresh individuals and ideas and thoughts, and I agree with … every bit of those recommendations and comments.”
— Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), quoted by Huffington Post, responding to Sen. Rand Paul’s (R-KY) criticism of the Republican party.
“Senate Republicans have a thorny dilemma regarding President Barack Obama’s nomination of Thomas Perez as Labor secretary, especially now that the GOP apparatus has begun to redouble its efforts to reach out to minorities,” Roll Call reports.
“If Republicans block Perez, they risk undercutting the Republican National Committee’s brand-new diversity push and getting mired in fights over voting rights and immigration. But if they allow his nomination to go through, they risk blowback from their base.”
After winning her re-election race by a single point, Roll Call reports Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) “now shuns the national spotlight for Saturday morning coffees in St. Cloud.”
“Fourteen months after dropping out of the White House race, Bachmann is attempting to recast her national profile into a local one. After a humbling year, the former state senator appears to be fortifying the roots that helped launch her quick ascent into the national consciousness and ultimately made her a contender for the GOP’s presidential nomination.”
“A dozen car bombs and suicide blasts tore into Shi’ite districts in Baghdad and south of the Iraqi capital on Tuesday, killing more than 50 people on the 10th anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion that ousted Saddam Hussein,” Reuters reports.
Washington Post: “Haunted by the ghosts of its brutal past, Iraq is teetering between
progress and chaos, a country threatened by local and regional conflicts
that could drag it back into the sustained bloodshed its citizens know
so well.”
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“We’ve got a socialist in office right now — how’s that working for us?”
— Republican National Committeeman Henry Barbour (R), quoted by The Hill, while talking about the Republican Party’s need to improve its brand.
Comedian Stephen Colbert is dropping his right-wing pundit act to help his sister’s congressional campaign in South Carolina, telling CNN he’s happy to make an exception for her.
Said Colbert: “She’s my sister, and I’m willing to, you know, break the jewel of my own creation to try to do something for her. I’m not worried what it would do to me or my show to try to help her as myself, not as my character, and to help her as myself.”
British and U.S. intelligence agencies “were informed by top sources months before the invasion that Iraq had no active WMD programme, and that the information was not passed to subsequent inquiries,” according to the Guardian.
“I won, and he didn’t. We didn’t have to go through the hype and hoopla of press conferences. We just went out and did the heavy work of rebuilding the party coming off of massive losses in 2006 and 2008. So Reince is just being silly. And I understand that.”
— Former RNC Chairman Michael Steele, quoted by the Washington Post, in an “increasingly ugly war of words” with current RNC Chairman Reince Priebus.
A new ABC News/Washington Post poll finds support for gay marriage is now 58%, a new high, “marking a dramatic change in public attitudes on the subject across the past decade.”
“That number has grown sharply… from a low of 32 percent in a 2004 survey of registered voters, advancing to a narrow majority for the first time only two years ago, and now up again to a significant majority for the first time.”
Police in the Dominican Republic say they have determined that three women who said they had sex with Sen. Robert Menendez (R-NJ) for money were in fact paid to make false claims by an attorney in the Caribbean country, the AP reports.
A new Latino Decisions poll finds that 32% of Latinos would more likely to vote Republican if the GOP backs a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants. If they do not, 39% said they would be less likely to back Republican candidates.
However, 48% said they’re unlikely to change their view of the Republican Party either way.
Tucked in near the end of the 97-page autopsy “are less than four pages that amount to a political bombshell: the five-member panel urges halving the number of presidential primary debates in 2016 from 2012, creating a regional primary cluster after the traditional early states and holding primaries rather than caucuses or conventions,” Politico reports.
“Each of those steps would benefit a deep-pocketed candidate in the mold of Mitt Romney. That is, someone who doesn’t need the benefit of televised debates to get attention because he or she can afford TV ads; has the cash to air commercials and do other forms of voter contact in multiple big states at one time; and has more appeal with a broader swath of voters than the sort of ideologically-driven activists who typically attend caucuses and conventions.”
Roll Call: Three takeaways from the GOP’s autopsy report.
USA Today:
“Thirty-two members of Congress dispensed more than $2 million in
campaign funds to pay relatives’ salaries during the 2012 election
cycle.”
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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