December 03, 2012
The Institute of Politics at the Harvard Kennedy School just released
audio files from last week's conference featuring campaign mangers, strategists and pollsters from the Obama and Romney presidential campaigns.
I found the discussions of Democratic strategy before the conventions and of the general election campaign the most interesting.
These are highly recommended and well worth the time.
See more...
Rep. Jo Ann Emerson (R-MO) announced she will resign from Congress to become president and CEO of the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, a not-for-profit organization that represents rural electric cooperatives and public power districts, the
Southeast Missourian reports.
Emerson was just re-elected in November for a ninth term to the U.S. House of Representatives in Missouri's 8th congressional district.
The
Rothenberg Political Report has some early speculation on who might replace Emerson, while noting "it's a very Republican seat."
President Obama is "putting in place the building blocks for a climate treaty requiring the first fossil fuel emissions cuts from both the U.S. and China,"
Businessweek reports.
"State Department envoy Todd Stern is in Doha this week working to clear the path for an international agreement by 2015. While Obama failed to deliver on his promise to start a cap-and-trade program in his first term, he's working on policies that may help cut greenhouse gases 17 percent by 2020 in the U.S., historically the world's biggest polluter."
Republicans "are seriously considering a Doomsday Plan if fiscal cliff talks collapse entirely,"
ABC News reports.
"It's quite simple: House Republicans would allow a vote on extending the Bush middle class tax cuts (the bill passed in August by the Senate) and offer the President nothing more: no extension of the debt ceiling, nothing on unemployment, nothing on closing loopholes. Congress would recess for the holidays and the president would face a big battle early in the year over the debt ceiling."
Two senior Republican elected officials say this doomsday plan "is becoming the most likely scenario" with one variation being that House Republicans "would allow a vote on extending only the middle class tax cuts and Republicans, to express disapproval at the failure to extend all tax cuts, would vote "present" on the bill, allowing it to pass entirely on Democratic votes."
House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi (D) threatened to bring about a House vote on a bill that would extend the Bush-era tax cuts for families making $250,000, but would allow the tax breaks to expire for those above the threshold,
CNN reports.
"Under a 'discharge petition,' a bill can be brought to the floor without going through a committee or without approval of House leadership. The bill would need an absolute majority -- 218 votes -- to pass."
First Read: "What is striking, however, is that Democrats and Republicans now find themselves in COMPLETELY OPPOSITE places than they were in 2011. A year ago, Republicans were the ones - after their victory in the midterms - who had the political winds at their back and felt like they had the mandate. Now it's the Democrats. In 2011, Republicans were the ones with more detailed plans about spending cuts (think the Ryan plan). Now it's the White House with a more detailed plan. And back then, Republicans had the leverage with the debt ceiling. But now Democrats are the ones with the leverage, because of the expiration of the Bush tax cuts."
Meanwhile,
Greg Sargent notes, "If we do nothing, Democrats will get their way. All the tax cuts will expire, and Dems can come back and push a new tax cut just for the middle class -- a circumstance that will only increase the Dems' leverage further."
Despite numerous claims in 2010 that Republican gubernatorial gains in battleground states would impede President Obama's ability to win these states in 2012,
Smart Politics confirms its projections from two years ago finding there remains no correlation between a presidential nominee winning a state and the party of that state's sitting governor:
The White House and congressional Republicans "remained at loggerheads--in both public and private--over how to design a deficit-reduction package, with just a few weeks remaining before the nation hits the fiscal cliff," the
Wall Street Journal reports.
The
New York Times notes that President Obama, "scarred by failed negotiations in his first term and emboldened by a clear if close election to a second, has emerged as a different kind of negotiator in the past week or two, sticking to the liberal line and frustrating Republicans on the other side of the bargaining table."
"Disciplined and unyielding, he argues for raising taxes on the wealthy while offering nothing new to rein in spending and overhaul entitlement programs beyond what was on the table last year. Until Republicans offer their own new plan, Mr. Obama will not alter his. In effect, he is trying to leverage what he claims as an election mandate to force Republicans to take ownership of the difficult choices ahead."
Paul Brandus: A grand canyon separates Obama and the GOP on the fiscal cliff.
Politico: "A week after Election Day, three Republican governors mentioned as 2016 presidential candidates -- Bobby Jindal, John Kasich and Bob McDonnell -- each stopped by the Venetian Resort Hotel Casino to meet privately with its owner Sheldon Adelson, a man who could single-handedly underwrite their White House ambitions."
"Planning a presidential campaign used to mean having coffee with county party chairs in their Iowa or New Hampshire living rooms. The courting of Adelson, a full four years out from 2016, demonstrates how super PAC sugar daddies have become the new must-have feature for White House wannabes."
Meanwhile, Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley (D) "is meeting with big donors in Los Angeles this week and has a fundraiser scheduled for next Monday in the Washington suburbs. Vice President Joe Biden, Republican Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) and Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) have been meeting with big donors, leaving the impression that they're ready to run."
Former Rep. J.C. Watts (R-OK) says he is being "encouraged" by supporters to run for chairman of the Republican National Committee, "a move he says could broaden the party's appeal to minorities,"
Politico reports.
December 02, 2012
David Remnick attended a weekend conference in Washington, D.C. where Secretary of State Hillary Clinton took part and he concluded she's definitely running for president in 2016.
"All kinds of circumstances could intervene between now and 2016 to derail her--politics, health, family matters, a renewed Clinton fatigue--but Hillary's numbers are enormous, her ambition equal to her capacities, and she was in high political gear."
Sources close to former Rep. Tom Perriello (D-VA) tell
TPM that he's thinking about running for governor next year --
"but so far the preliminary discussions have remained just that."
If Perriello does run, he'll face former DNC Chairman Terry McAuliffe (D) for the Democratic nomination.
"For most Americans, interest in the results of the 2012 presidential campaign ended somewhere around the first election night projections for President Obama and the brief, stunned concession speech delivered by a gobsmacked Mitt Romney," the
Los Angeles Times reports.
"But for a small group of obsessives, the political equivalent of those who devour box scores for breakfast, a fascinating and welcome service has come from David Wasserman, a youthful and whip-smart campaign analyst with the
Cook Political Report, who has become a one-man clearinghouse for
presidential tabulations across the country."
BuzzFeed gets around the off-the-record rules of last week's debriefing of the presidential campaign staffers at Harvard by quoting participant reactions in the hallways.
I'll have much more on the proceedings once the embargo lifts, but the characterization of one Republican who "walked out shaking his head" rings very true: "We weren't even running in the same race. They were just amazing."
The
New York Times notes that "most Americans in 2010 paid far less in total taxes -- federal, state and local -- than they would have paid" in 1980, when President Reagan first pushed for a wave of tax cuts.
And even when you take the Reagan tax cuts into consideration, "tax rates at most income levels were lower in 2010 than at any point during the 1980s."
"Mitt Romney's shadow looms over a Republican Party in disarray," the
AP reports.
"The face of the GOP for much of the last year, the failed presidential candidate has been a virtual ghost since his defeat Nov. 6. He has quietly weathered the fallout of the campaign from the seclusion of his Southern California home... His loss and immediate withdrawal from politics, while welcomed by most, has created a leadership vacuum within his party. It's left the GOP rudderless, lacking an overarching agenda and mired in infighting, with competing visions for the way ahead, during what may be the most important policy debate in a generation."
President Obama and Bill Clinton are playing golf this afternoon,
CBS News reports, "revisiting the pastime that forged their political relationship."
The
New York Times looks at White House chief of staff Jack Lew, the frontrunner to be President Obama's next Treasury Secretary.
"If Mr. Lew gets the Treasury job, the business world will not be unhappy. He is not a creature of Wall Street, but before joining the Obama administration, he spent three years in high-level (and high-paying) jobs at Citigroup, where he oversaw a unit that lost money but also profited from betting against the subprime mortgage market. Mr. Lew was chief operating officer; in testimony before Congress, he has said he did not make investment decisions."
"For Mr. Obama, the choice is whether he needs Mr. Lew more in overseeing the Treasury Department or in running the White House."
Washington Post: "Adults in Washington state will be
able to smoke marijuana legally when it is officially decriminalized
Thursday, even though the Justice Department has offered no guidance on
the conflict with federal drug laws."
"Marijuana, however, is still illegal under federal law. State officials say the Justice Department is creating confusion by remaining silent about what steps it may take in Washington and Colorado, which passed initiatives in November legalizing the manufacturing, distribution and possession of up to an ounce of marijuana."
"And always remember, Abraham Lincoln only served one term in Congress, too."
-- Defeated Rep. Allen West (R-FL), in an interview with
NPR.
"Right now I would say we're nowhere. Period. We're nowhere."
-- House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), quoted by
CNN, on the status of the fiscal cliff negotiations.
The
Sacramento Bee looks at how Rep. Joe Baca (D-CA), a pro-gun lawmaker, was ousted after New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg spent $3.3 million on television and mail attacks against him -- three times the sum Baca and challenger Negrete McLeod (D) raised between them.
"By homing in on a loyal National Rifle Association politician, Bloomberg altered a long-standing element of American politics. Time was, a politician like Baca could cast pro-gun votes, receive NRA support and not worry about an attack from any moneyed interest that promoted gun control. No such group existed, at least not on the order of the NRA."
Said Bloomberg aide Howard Wolfson: "It sends a message: you can lose your seat by voting against prudent gun legislation. Hopefully, members will think twice before taking these votes. They can't just vote the NRA's way and assume they won't hear about it."
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner drew a line in the sand over taxes in defense of the Obama administration's controversial proposal to avoid the fiscal cliff,
CNN reports.
Said Geithner: "There's not going to be an agreement without rates going up. If they are going to force higher rates on virtually all Americans because they're unwilling to let tax rates go up on 2 percent of Americans, then, I mean that's the choice they're going to have to make."
The Pentagon will send hundreds of additional spies overseas as part of an ambitious plan to assemble an espionage network that rivals the CIA in size, the
Washington Post reports.
"The project is aimed at transforming the Defense Intelligence Agency, which has been dominated for the past decade by the demands of two wars, into a spy service focused on emerging threats and more closely aligned with the CIA and elite military commando units."
December 01, 2012
Just published:
Walkin' Lawton by John Dos Passos Coggin.
The biography of Lawton Chiles, one of the most influential politicians to come from Florida.
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