August 07, 2010
Here's the latest
New York Times political best seller list:
1.
The Obama Diaries, by Laura Ingraham
2.
The Big Short, by Michael Lewis
3.
Empire Of The Summer Moon, by S. C. Gwynne
4.
War, by Sebastian Junger
5.
Spoken From The Heart, by Laura Bush
6.
The Last Stand, by Nathaniel Philbrick
7.
Can America Survive?, by John Hagee
8.
Last Call, by Daniel Okrent
9.
Seven Events That Made America America, by Larry Schweikart
10.
Crisis Economics, by Nouriel Roubini and Stephen Mihm
"All I care about is that I get my money."
-- Florida U.S. Senate candidate Jeff Greene (D), quoted by the
St. Petersburg Times, explaining his practice of signing blank deeds that led to fraud at a California real estate investment.
The
St. Petersburg Times reviewed more than 1,500 e-mails from Florida Lt. Gov. Jeff Kottkamp (R) and found they "paint a picture of a man with little reluctance to use taxpayer and Republican Party resources to make life more comfortable for himself and his family."
A new
Brown University poll indicates that Frank Caprio (D) and Lincoln Chafee (I) are statistically tied in the race for governor, with each drawing support from more than a quarter of the respondents in a recent survey of registered voters.
Caprio holds a slight lead with 28%, followed by Chaffee at 27% and John Robitaille (R) way back at 8%.
Said pollster Marion Orr: "It's a close race. It does appear to be a very, very interesting race and a very important one because it's the future of Rhode Island here."
August 06, 2010
Sources close to Levi Johnston tell
Rob Shuter his agents are already shopping around a "His Side of the Story"-type interview where he is willing to "reveal the latest secret plans of his almost-mother-in-law for the bargain asking price of $20,000."
Said one Sarah Palin insider: "It was bad enough that this kid everyone thinks is stupid has
already caused Sarah and her family great shame, telling everyone her
secrets. Now, she fears he is going to do it all over again. Who knows
what family business sweet Bristol told him when they briefly got back
together."
The RNC "has approved a resolution making dramatic changes to the way the GOP picks a presidential nominee, moving primaries to later dates and requiring states to allocate their delegates on a proportional basis,"
The Hotline reports.
"The proposal will move the earliest nominating contests -- in IA, NH, SC and NV -- back from early Jan. to Feb. It will also require states that hold nominating contests in March to award delegates based on the proportion of votes candidates win, eliminating the prospect of an early winner-take-all state that would effectively end the nominating process."
Meanwhile, the
St. Petersburg Times reports the 2012 Republican National Convention will be held in Tampa.
Sarah Palin's Alaska will premiere November 14 at 9 p.m. on TLC, according to the
New York Daily News.
"The eight-part series, produced by reality king Mark Burnett, will feature the former Alaskan governor, her family, and for at least one episode, Kate Gosselin and her children."
"Nancy Pelosi will be in the back of the bus."
-- RNC Chairman Michael Steele, quoted by
NBC News, in remarks rallying supporters to join him on the "Fire Nancy Pelosi bus tour."
A new
InsiderAdvantage/ WSB-TV poll in Georgia of likely voters in Tuesday's Republican run off for governor shows Nathan Deal (R) and Karen Handel (R) tied at 46% each with 8% of those surveyed still undecided.
The winner will face former Gov. Roy Barnes (D) in the general election.
"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%.
Previous Entries
