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“We’ve talked a lot about this. We have spent a lot of time trying to figure out both what to pursue but also these issues of making sure you’re bringing the same sort of energy and same sort of focus as the first term. If you stay in that zone, I think you avoid a lot of those potential dangers.”
— White House adviser David Plouffe, quoted by the New York Times, on avoiding second term pitfalls.
“President Obama will be quietly sworn into office for a second term just before noon on Sunday in a brief White House ceremony, a day before Monday’s far showier public inaugural events, adhering to a long tradition of doing so out of the public eye when Jan. 20 falls on a Sunday,” the New York Times reports.
“The oath is to be administered by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. in the Blue Room, an elegant, gilded space with a sweeping view of the South Lawn. The bare-bones ceremony, typically lasting no more than three minutes, will satisfy the constitutional requirement that the president’s swearing-in take place by noon on the Jan. 20 after an election.”
Washington Post: “The day began with a morning swearing-in ceremony for Vice President Joe Biden, committing him to four more years as the nation’s second in command. Biden then joined the president at Arlington National Cemetery for a wreath-laying ceremony on a crisp, sun-splashed January day.”
Associated Press: “Presidential terms are measured by sweeping laws and stirring events, but legacies are about enduring ideas. The one Barack Obama has in mind will drive most everything he tries to do in the next four years: assuring that America is a place where anyone can make it.”
“This is the playbook of a Democrat who thinks the basic compact between a nation and its people has been broken, who sees government as more of an aggressive force for good than a bureaucratic menace to society.”
A terrifying video shows a Bulgarian politician surviving an assassination attempt early today when a man stormed the stage and held a gun to his head as he was giving a speech. The gun misfires and the suspect was tackled the ground by bystanders before he could get off another shot.
The Daily Mail has pictures from the scene.
“They are used to defend our property and our families and our faith and our freedom, and they are absolutely essential to living the way God intended for us to live.”
— California Rep. Tim Donnelly (R), talking about guns on The Bottom Line.
“House Republicans appeared to be coming to grips with a stark realization as they returned to Washington from a three-day retreat here — they have a majority in name only,” The Hill reports.
“The party begins the 113th Congress with reduced numbers and confronting a popular president and an increased Democratic majority in the Senate. Preparing for a cascade of fiscal battles and a presidential push on guns and immigration, the House GOP is adopting a minority posture, hoping to achieve modest goals incrementally while serving as a check on Obama’s ambitious second-term agenda.”
Bolivian lawmaker Domingo Alcibia Rivera “was caught on camera allegedly raping a colleague on the Parliament floor on December 20th after an alcohol-fueled holiday luncheon. But until the video was leaked this week, the story was hushed up,” Jezebel reports.
“The video shows several people placing an unconscious woman in a chair as Rivera approaches. Everyone leaves but Rivera remains and, once the lights are out, he appears to rape her. He is interrupted when the lights go back on and people re-enter the room. They then proceed to prop the woman back up in her chair.”
Gallup will no longer be conducting polls for USA Today, the Washington Post reports.
“It’s not clear at this point which side broke off the arrangement or what the reason was” but USA Today says it “is in the final stages of negotiating an arrangement with another polling organization.”
Stephen Colbert’s sister is going to run for Congress, BuzzFeed reports.
Elizabeth Colbert-Busch will run in the special election for appointed Sen. Tim Scott’s (R-SC) old House seat.
She will file officially on Tuesday, the Washington Post notes.
A federal grand jury charged former New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin (D) with 21 counts of corruption, bribery, conspiracy, money laundering, wire fraud and filing false tax returns, the New Orleans Times-Picayune reports.
Nagin’s long-expected indictment arrived more than two and a half years after he left City Hall and relocated to Dallas.
“Backing down from their hard-line stance, House Republicans said Friday that they would agree to lift the federal government’s statutory borrowing limit for three months, with a requirement that both chambers of Congress pass a budget in that time to clear the way for negotiations on long-term deficit reduction,” the New York Times reports.
But the Washington Post notes the strategy “faces an uncertain future with Democrats, who fear that dragging out the debt ceiling fight into the spring would inject new and harmful uncertainty into the economy.”
Mark Halperin: “Right now, the most important dynamic in the fiscal cliff fight is the advantages the Democrats have: the President is more popular than congressional Republicans; Democrats are more united than Republicans on strategy and tactics; and the President is about to have unmatchable platforms with the inauguration and State of the Union.”
Rep. John Fleming (R-LA) admitted to TPM that the “Hastert Rule” — which says Republicans will only bring legislation to the floor which is supported by a majority of the majority — may be inoperable in the House when it comes to crucial legislation like raising the debt ceiling.
Said Fleming: “I think the Republicans would have a real problem giving the president a clean debt ceiling, even… short term. Maybe some would do it, but I think to get a majority of the majority vote, I think it’s impossible.”
He added: “I think that the majority of the majority Hastert rule comes out of a time when we had a Republican president. When you have a Democrat president that’s a very hard thing to achieve sometimes — and not necessarily important.”
“If you had told me a year and a half ago that the White House would be devoting time writing on how Lord Vader could fix our economic woes, I would have just laughed loudly at you.”
— A White House staffer, quoted by Mother Jones, reacting to the online petitions received by the White House.
Massachusetts Lt. Gov. Timothy Murray (D) told the Worcester Telegram & Gazette that he will not run for governor in 2014, “citing the demands of campaigning, serving in elected office and his desire to spend more time with his wife and two young daughters.”
“Murray’s decision is expected to create a wide-pen field for the Democratic nomination for governor next year.”
Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) told the Houston Chronicle that Congress will not allow an impasse over raising the debt ceiling to result in the federal government defaulting on its spending obligations.
Said Cornyn: “We will raise the debt ceiling. We’re not going to default on our debt… I will tell you unequivocally, we’re not going to default.”
“Cornyn’s fellow Republicans, particularly in the House, have been trying to use the issue of the debt ceiling to force President Obama to agree to spending cuts.”
The Week: Why Republicans will raise the debt ceiling.
First Read has more on last night’s news that Obama for America is reorganizing as a tax exempt advocacy group called Organizing for Action.
“Organizing for Action will be set up as a 501c4 group, but we are told the group will have full disclosure of its donors (either monthly or quarterly); setting it up a 501c4 (as opposed to a Super PAC) makes it easier to legally coordinate with the White House. But the Obama folks are conceding a big point here: They can’t do the things they want to do (like the organizing, etc.) inside the Democratic Party. If this version of OFA is successful, we’re also told then don’t be surprised if this becomes Obama’s personal vehicle post-presidency, a la Bill Clinton’s Clinton Global Initiative.”
But as I note in The Cloakroom, if he’s not careful, the unprecedented move could end up derailing his agenda as much as advancing it.
Rep. Tom Cole (R-OK), on of only two Native American members of Congress, said that the Washington Redskins should change its team name because it is racially offensive to the minority group, Roll Call reports.
Said Cole: “Come on. This is the 21st century. This is the capital of political correctness on the planet. It is very, very, very offensive. This isn’t like warriors or chiefs. It’s not a term of respect, and it’s needlessly offensive to a large part of our population. They just don’t happen to live around Washington, D.C.”
George Packer: “I hope Obama surprises us. I hope he throws out the kind of boilerplate that made last year’s convention speech one of the weaker ones in Charlotte. I hope that Obama the writer finds some vivid prose for the occasion; that Obama the thinker treats us like his intellectual equals, as he did in Philadelphia and Oslo; and that Obama the man allows himself the risk of deep feeling, as he did in Tucson and Newtown. Most of all, I hope Obama the politician is willing to say things that some people might not want to hear.”
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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