August 06, 2010
"The U.S. economy shed more jobs than expected in July while the unemployment rate held steady at 9.5%, a further sign the economic recovery may be losing momentum," the
Wall Street Journal reports.
"Nonfarm payrolls fell by 131,000 last month as the rise in private-sector employment was not enough to make up for the government jobs lost, the U.S. Labor Department said Friday. Only 71,000 private-sector jobs were added last month while 143,000 temporary workers on the 2010 census were let go."
A new
Polling Company poll in Indiana finds former Sen. Dan Coats (R-IN) leading Rep. Brad Ellsworth (D) in the U.S. Senate race, 50% to 35%.
President Obama, "moving into campaign mode ahead of the midterm elections, has added new, sharper language to his stump speech -- twice this week invoking the name of his predecessor,"
CNN reports.
"Obama frequently criticizes Republican policies on the economy -- that is certainly nothing new. But the latest wrinkle in Obama's rhetoric is that until now, he has avoided referring to former President Bush by name. That changed this week. Thursday marked the second time in a week that Obama has mentioned Bush."
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) gave Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) a piece of his mind, "believing that the former comedian had mocked McConnell's floor speech opposing the confirmation of Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court," the
Washington Post reports.
"In the final moments of debate, Franken was the presiding officer over the chamber -- just as he was when Justice Sonia Sotomayor was confirmed almost a year ago to the day. During McConnell's roughly 10-minute speech, according to observers, Franken was shifting in his seat and, McConnell believed, gasping and mocking his speech."
Franken later apologized to McConnell, saying the leader "is entitled to give his speech with the presiding officer just listening respectfully."
Walter Shapiro visits Oregon's fifth congressional district where freshman Rep. Kurt Schrader (D-OR) is up for re-election and concludes "glib media predictions about the outcome of the November elections seem so out-of-whack with reality. Political junkies may be riveted by the gyrating poll numbers, but ordinary voters have not yet tuned in."
"Fourteen weeks before Election Day, it is easy to envision the contours of the coming battle -- the slogans, the ad wars, the high-decibel charges -- in Oregon's 5th District. But what remains shrouded in the coastal mist is how real voters (not focus groups, not people pushing telephone buttons in response to a robo-poll) will respond to negative politics as usual in a time of torment."
President Obama lost a second member of his economy team as economist Christina Romer decided to return to teaching on the eve of an employment report likely to highlight the administration's struggle to spur job gains,
Bloomberg reports.
Sources inside the White House tell
The Hotline that Romer had been "frustrated" in the job and that tensions over the stalling economic recovery had created tension among staff members.
August 05, 2010
Politico notes that political campaigns "are using savvier and quicker technology -- and sometimes even multiple operatives -- to record their rivals' every move."
"Trackers have become the essential campaign tool, exploding in number in part because of the dwindling press corps. News outlets of all sizes have fewer and fewer bodies to send to cover events, meaning campaigns need to gather their own footage of what the opposition is saying and doing on the campaign trail."
"But trackers are also now considered as indispensable as pollsters for campaigns ranging from presidential contests all the way down to city council races. Their value reaches well beyond the research and intel they provide -- they also record footage that might one day turn out to be a viral video, the modern campaign equivalent of a silver bullet."
Bill Haslam (R) "withstood relentless attacks from his rivals to claim Tennessee's Republican gubernatorial nomination," the Tennessean reports.
Haslam will face Mike McWherter (D), son of former Gov. Ned McWherter (D), in the general election.
Just a week after a
Quinnipiac poll showed outsiders Rick Scott (R) and Jeff Greene (D) with double-digit leads in their respective primaries for governor and U.S. Senate, a
Mason-Dixon poll today suggests both races are tighter.
Scott leads Bill McCollum by a 37% to 31% marginin the Republican primary for governor.
In the Democratic Senate primary, Rep. Kendrick Meek (D) leads Greene by a 33% to 29% margin.
A new
Braun Research poll in Kentucky shows Rand Paul (R) with a double-digit lead over Jack Conway (D) in the U.S. Senate race, 41% to 31%.
Paul had a three point lead in a similar survey two weeks ago.
Recent polls show Tom Tancredo's entry in Colorado's race for governor has made John Hickenlooper (D) the overwhelming favorite by splitting the Republican vote.
Today, Hickenlooper sought to drive the GOP wedge open even further by picking a Hispanic running mate, the
Denver Post reports. Tancredo, of course, is one of the nation's most outspoken anti-immigration activists.
Chris Cillizza notes that recent court decisions on
California's Proposition 8 and the
Arizona immigration law have "begun to stoke ideological tensions across the country," raising the prospect that the midterms could become increasingly about marriage equality and illegal immigration.
However, Cillizza concludes that ultimately, "shifting the focus to social issues risks taking the focus off the Republicans' bread and butter... Republican strategists say the issues will be invaluable for fundraising and use in isolated cases, but that their overall strategy will remain the same: economy, jobs and spending.
The Senate today confirmed Elena Kagan to the U.S. Supreme Court, making her the fourth woman ever to serve as a justice,
ABC News reports.
The vote was 63 to 37.
"Kagan's ascension to the bench is expected to preserve the court's ideological balance following liberal Justice John Paul Stevens' retirement. It also marks the first time three female justices will sit on the high court at the same time."
Larry Sabato notes that the 2010 elections "has produced one of the highest percentages of Democratic-versus-Republican House line-ups in modern history. Fully 405 of House races out of 435 have both a Democrat and a Republican running for the seat -- the gold standard of basic two-party choice in democracy. Democrats have nominated 410 candidates for the House and Republicans have an even larger number, 430. For the GOP this is the most congressional districts they have ever contested."
"Deficits are just future taxes. You're just talking about taxes today vs. taxes tomorrow."
-- Former Bush economic adviser Glenn Hubbard, quoted by
Bloomberg Business Week, on the letting the Bush tax cuts expire.
A
We Ask America poll in Missouri shows Roy Blunt (R) leading Robin Carnahan (D) in the U.S. Senate race, 47% to 43%.
A new
CNN/Opinion Research poll finds 11% of Americans saying President Obama was definitely not born in the United States and another 16% saying the president was probably not born in the country.
Influential GOP officials called on the RNC to open "an investigation into the leaking of internal documents and sensitive information to the media -- a major source of distraction for the party in this critical election year,"
CNN reports.
"In one of their first orders of business at the opening of the RNC's Summer Meeting taking place here in Kansas City, Republican state party chairs approved a resolution urging the RNC executive committee to launch an investigation into the leaks."
The House of Representatives be "will be called back into session next week to take up a $26 billion bill designed in part to help avoid teacher layoffs,"
CNN reports.
Said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi: "As millions of children prepare to go back to school -- many in just a few days -- the House will act quickly to approve this legislation once the Senate votes. I am calling members of the House back to Washington at the beginning of the week to pass this bill and send it to President Obama without further delay."
The House began its summer break last week and was not expected to return until mid-September.
A new
Quinnipiac poll in Connecticut finds Ned Lamont (D) leading Dan Malloy (D) for the Democratic nomination for governor, 45% to 40%.
In the Republican race, Tom Foley (R) leads Lt. Gov. Mike Fedele (R), 41% to 26%.
The primary is next week.
August 04, 2010
C-SPAN has confirmed that at least 61 Senators intend to vote for
cloture, moving forward the nomination of Solicitor General Elena Kagan to be an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court.
Of these, only Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE) says he then intends to oppose Ms. Kagan in the final confirmation vote, which only requires 50 Senators to approve the nomination.
Governing takes a very useful look at the balance of power in state legislative races.
A federal judge decided today "that gays and lesbians have a constitutional right to marry, striking down Proposition 8, the voter approved ballot measure that banned same-sex unions," the
Los Angeles Times reports.
Judge Vaughn Walker said Proposition 8, "passed by voters in November 2008, violated the federal constitutional rights of gays and lesbians to marry the partners of their choice."
The ruling is expected to be appealed ultimately to the U.S. Supreme Court to decide if gays have a constitutional right to marry in America.
"Where the hell do they get these names?"
-- Katie Couric, caught in
leaked footage from August 2008 as she rehearses a story on Sarah Palin, referencing the names of Palin's children.
A
McLaughlin & Associates (R) poll in Florida claims the U.S. Senate race is a dead heat.
Gov. Charlie Crist (I) leads Marco Rubio (R), 38% to 36%, with Rep. Kendrick Meek (D) at 16% if he is the Democratic challenger.
With Jeff Greene (D) as the Democratic candidate, Crist and Rubio both get 37% of the vote, and Greene is at 16%.
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