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Sen. John Thune (R-SD) told some elementary school students that he does not plan to seek the presidency, Roll Call reports.
Said Thune: “Do I plan on running for president? I don’t. I enjoy the job I have. And being the president is a very, very hard job.”
Former President Jimmy Carter, whose grandson James helped uncover the infamous “47% video” during last year’s presidential campaign, told Piers Morgan that President Obama thanked James Carter “profusely” when the two met last week.
Said Carter: “When James went to meet President Obama, President Obama ran across the room, embraced him and thanked him profusely for his time.”
The Los Angeles Times reports 16 GOP lawmakers “are being targeted by a pro-Obama advocacy group in a new online ad campaign urging them to back a more robust background check system for gun sales.”
“The online ad buy, which cost close to six figures, is the first such campaign by Organizing for Action, the month-old advocacy group formed by top advisors to President Obama to build momentum for his legislative agenda.”
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Texas politicians Joaquin and Julián Castro “tell their family story and discuss career ambitions in the March issue of Vogue,” the Dallas Morning News reports.
“The article, titled ‘Pair of Aces,’ echoes the twins’ frequent labeling as ‘Democratic rising stars’ — Joaquin is a freshman congressman representing San Antonio, while Julián has been mayor of the city since 2009.”
Mississippi House Speaker Philip Gunn (R) sent letters to 14 gun manufacturing companies inviting them to come to more gun-friendly Mississippi, the Jackson Clarion-Ledger reports.
Said Gunn: “We need more businesses to establish home base in Mississippi. We can provide these companies with an educated workforce, a superior quality of life, an evolving education system for their children, and the peace of mind that comes with knowing we support their industry.”
Jon Huntsman writes in The American Conservative that he favors same-sex marriage rights and encouraged other Republicans to join him:
“Today we have an opportunity to do more: conservatives should start to lead again and push their states to join the nine others that allow all their citizens to marry. I’ve been married for 29 years. My marriage has been the greatest joy of my life. There is nothing conservative about denying other Americans the ability to forge that same relationship with the person they love.”
Lexington watched all 13 episodes of the new House of Cards and says it is “at heart a palace intrigue, unfolding within the Beltway bubble. Politicians are raised up by decisions taken in the White House or the high-ceilinged rooms of congressional leaders. They are cast down by plots and ill-judged broadcast interviews. Whenever actual voters threaten trouble, they are soothed by the elite with improbable ease…”
“In the real world, federal funding is a fast-dwindling resource, and populist pandering a bigger drag on problem-solving than any individual villainy. Richard III is altogether the wrong model for a modern political tragedy: better to try Shakespeare’s Coriolanus and the Roman mob. For it is not the dagger in the back that haunts today’s ruling classes, but the pitchfork in the front, brandished by voters. By skirting that truth, House of Cards, for all its dramatic tension and clever dialogue, amounts to a kind of Washingtonian escapism.”
Several readers tell me the original U.K. House of Cards Trilogy is better.
“I missed the meeting among Republicans where it was decided this would become an angry cause célèbre that should be pursued at all costs and with no holds barred.”
— Republican strategist Ed Rogers, in an interview with NPR, on the GOP’s obsession with the Benghazi embassy attack.
Stu Rothenberg: “Congressional Republicans figured that after the fiscal cliff, they’d have the advantage talking about the sequester and, down the road, the continued funding of the government.”
“Clearly, they were wrong.”
The Cloakroom: The sequester isn’t really about spending cuts at all.
James Carville told Morning Joe that Democrats have a big advantage in the debate over the coming automatic budget cuts because of the word used to describe them.
Said Carville: “The sequester has an advantage, and this is kind of cruel to Republicans, but it’s true. The sequester, not many people know what it is, but it sounds stupid and cruel. Therefore people think it’s a Republican thing.”
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) told the Reno Gazette Journal that he will seek re-election in 2016.
Said Reid: “Sure, why not?”
The Fix: “The Republican political establishment sees immigration reform as a political necessity. Much of the party’s base sees it as the end of the rule of law. And therein lies the problem for a party trying to pick itself up off the mat following an across-the-board defeat in 2012.”
“It’s not clear how Republicans can bridge the growing divide between how the establishment views immigration (a political problem that needs to be solved yesterday) and how some significant portion of the base views it (a foundational principle about not rewarding rule-breakers).”
“The Constitution must be amended. The Dred Scott decision had to be repealed, we have to repeal Citizens United.”
— Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA), quoted by BuzzFeed, comparing the decision upholding slavery to the campaign finance ruling.
An Ohio woman says that she was fired for voting for President Obama, the Dayton Daily News reports.
Patricia Kunkle’s lawsuit claims the Bobbie Gentile, president of Q-Mark Inc., “threatened employees with termination last year if President Obama was re-elected and that Obama supporters would be the first to be terminated if he were re-elected. Kunkle’s suit said her voting preferences came up in conversation the day after the election and that she was fired Nov. 9 for what the suit claims Gentile said was in the ‘best interest of the company.'”
The Cloakroom: It’s actually the Republicans who are overreaching.
Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) gave a $600,000 check to the U.S. Treasury, “taking the money he said he didn’t need from his office’s budget to make a tiny dent in the nation’s massive federal debt,” CNN reports.
Said Paul: “We watch every purchase. We watch what computers we buy, what paper we buy, the ink cartridges. We treat the money like it’s our money, or your money, and we look at every expenditure.”
Michael Tackett: “For more than a decade, Republicans have looked to Karl Rove for the solution. Now, a growing number see him as the problem.”
Maggie Haberman: “After his electoral wipeout in November — and motivated by years of
resentment that’s spilling over — Rove’s credibility within his own
party is at an all-time low.”
Byron York: “Could the GOP message on the sequester be any more self-defeating?
Boehner could argue that the sequester cuts are necessary as a first —
and somewhat modest — step toward controlling the deficits that threaten
the economy. Instead, he describes them as a threat to national
security and jobs that he nevertheless supports. It’s not an argument
that is likely to persuade millions of Americans.”
Marc Ambinder: Five reasons why Republicans might risk the sequester.
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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