The Fix: house
New poll shows Obama holds slim lead over Romney in Wisconsin
A new poll shows a close presidential race in Wisconsin, Harry Reid isn’t satisfied by Mitt Romney’s tax talk, and Paul Ryan is headed to Florida this weekend.
Make sure to sign up to receive “Afternoon Fix” every day in your e-mail inbox by 5(ish) p.m.!
EARLIER ON THE FIX:
Artur Davis: ‘I know what Joe Biden was doing yesterday’
Artur Davis weigh on Biden’s “chains” comment, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) will talk about Medicare in Ohio, and Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.) concedes.
Make sure to sign up to receive “Afternoon Fix” every day in your e-mail inbox by 5(ish) p.m.!
EARLIER ON THE FIX:
How Tommy Thompson’s win in Wisconsin changes the Senate majority fight
Ann Romney: Releasing more taxes would mean more attacks
Ann Romney says she and her husband, presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, have “nothing” they are hiding in their financial record, but won’t be releasing more tax returns publicly because it will only prompt more attacks.
“We have been very transparent to what’s legally required of us,” Ann Romney told NBC’s “Rock Center” in an interview scheduled to air Thursday evening. “There’s going to be no more tax releases given.”
Rep. Mica defeats Rep. Adams in Florida; Rep. Stearns on verge of defeat
Rep. John Mica defeated Rep. Sandy Adams in a member-versus member primary in Florida on Tuesday, while another of the state’s Republicans, Rep. Cliff Stearns, appeared to have lost in a shocker.
Mica, the chairman of the House transportation committee and a 19-year incumbent, beat the freshman Adams after tea party groups declined to take an active role on her behalf.
Obama makes Seamus the dog joke about Romney
Americans For Prosperity launches a new ad against President Obama, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) attacks the president on energy and the Senate ad war in Missouri is in full swing.
Make sure to sign up to receive “Afternoon Fix” every day in your e-mail inbox by 5(ish) p.m.!
EARLIER ON THE FIX:
Primary day: Five things you need to know in Connecticut, Florida, Minnesota and Wisconsin
Voters head to the polls in four states today, with Connecticut, Florida, Minnesota and Wisconsin holding congressional primaries.
Connecticut House Speaker and Democratic congressional candidate Chris Donovan is favored to win his primary today despite the arrests of two top aides. (AP Photo/Jessica Hill, File)As usual, The Fix has zeroed in on five things to watch as the results roll in tonight:
1. The most expensive congressional primary in the country
That would be Connecticut’s 5th district, where seven candidates have raised at least $600,000 and five have raised more than $1 million. A total of nearly $10 million has already been raised just to decide each party’s nominee.
The most interesting subplot is on the Democratic side, where state House Speaker Chris Donovan remains the favorite despite the fact that his campaign manager and top fundraiser have both been arrested and charged with corruption. Organized labor and progressive groups remain firmly behind Donovan, who has not been implicated in the wrongdoing and has won the state party’s endorsement as well.
Paul Ryan makes solo debut in Iowa
Mitt Romney talks Medicare in Florida, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) makes his solo debut in Iowa, and Bill Clinton enters the fray in Connecticut's 5th District.
Make sure to sign up to receive “Afternoon Fix” every day in your e-mail inbox by 5(ish) p.m.!
Jesse Jackson Jr. undergoing treatment for bipolar disorder
Illinois Democratic Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. is undergoing treatment for bipolar II depression, according to a statement issued this afternoon from the Mayo Clinic.
“Bipolar II disorder is a treatable condition that affects parts of the brain controlling emotion, thought and drive and is most likely caused by a complex set of genetic and environmental factors,” the clinic wrote.
Can Paul Ryan deliver Wisconsin for Romney?
Mitt Romney took the historically rare step Saturday of selecting a running mate from one of the most competitive states in the presidential race.
But it's unclear that the pick will -- or was even designed to -- help Romney secure the vote in Wisconsin.
Paul Ryan’s budget: Democrats’ ace in the hole?
Conservatives will be thrilled with the selection of their favored pick, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), as Mitt Romney’s running mate, but Democratic campaign operatives may be just as excited.
Democrats have gotten significant mileage out of attacking the budget Ryan has proposed as chairman of the House Budget Committee, particularly the portion of it that would turn Medicare into a voucher program.
Can Congress compromise? Watch a Fix Google Plus Hangout with Reps. Baird, Djou
Rep. Steven LaTourette (R-Ohio) became the latest moderate member of Congress to cite the hyper-partisan climate on Capitol Hill as he announced his retirement last week.
Why is it that way, and will it change? Former members of Congress Brian Baird (D-Wash.) and Charles Djou (R-Hawaii), who is running to reclaim the seat he lost in 2010, joined the Fix’s Aaron Blake and Sean Sullivan for a Google Plus Hangout on Thursday.
House Democrats not riding a 2012 wave, but GOP tide could roll back
Democrats aren’t on the doorstep of re-taking the House majority in November, but they do stand a good chance of winning in about two dozen of the most blue-leaning seats held by Republicans, according to a new Democratic poll.
The Democracy Corps poll, by pollster Stan Greenberg and strategist James Carville, tested 54 targeted GOP-held districts. The poll shows Democrats aren’t as well-positioned as they were prior to the wave elections of 2006 or 2008 — or as Republicans were in 2010 — but there is a smaller sub-set of districts where Democrats are in a good spot to compete.
The poll shows Democrats lead on a hybrid generic ballot by an average of 50 percent to 44 percent in 27 GOP-held districts identified by the pollsters as “Tier 1” targets. Among the next 27 districts (“Tier 2”) Democrats trail by nine points, 50 percent to 41 percent.
Primary day: Five things watch for in Missouri, Michigan and Washington
Voters head to the polls in four states today, with Kansas, Michigan, Missouri and Washington state all holding their primaries.
On the ballot: Missouri Republicans could nominate a less-than-desirable Senate candidate, we’ll get a preview of the open Washington governor’s race thanks to that state’s blanket primary and in Detroit we could see a white congressman win a majority-black district today for just the second time.
Here are five things to watch for:
1. The Akin effect
Will Democrats get their man in Missouri’s Republican primary?
Rep. Todd Akin (R-Mo.) announces his candidacy for the Senate in Creve Coeur, Mo.(AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)
White House refuses to back Reid’s tax attack
Jay Carney won’t join Reid’s tax attack against Romney, Mica cries foul over an Adams ad, and first lady Michelle Obama will sit down with Jay Leno.
Make sure to sign up to get “Afternoon Fix” in your e-mail inbox every day by 5 (ish) p.m!
Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. ‘debilitated by depression,’ wife says
Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr.’s wife has shed some light on the Illinois Democrat’s sudden disappearance and ongoing health problems.
The congressman is “completely debilitated by depression,” Sandi Jackson told the Chicago Sun-Times. She said her husband collapsed from exhaustion on June 10 in Washington and was taken by his father and brother to George Washington University Hospital. He has been in a “news blackout” since.
Rep. Steve LaTourette (R-Ohio) retiring
Rep. Steve LaTourette (R-Ohio) is retiring after nine terms in office, Republican sources confirm.
The Columbus Dispatch reports that the veteran lawmaker is not running for re-election because of a dispute with party leadership over committee assignments. His sudden decision means Republicans will have to scramble to find a replacement; the state’s primaries were in March. LaTourette was on the transportation committee for 14 years, but now is on the powerful appropriations panel.
How Michele Bachmann finally jumped the shark
Rep. Michele Bachmann is no stranger to controversy or — as we found during the GOP presidential primary — stretching the truth.
In fact, the fact-checking Web site Politifact has rated 31 of Bachmann’s public statements to be either “false” or even worse — “pants on fire” — one of the worst records of any politician. And The Washington Post’s great Fact-Checker blog gave her four Pinocchios on six different occasions during the GOP presidential primary.
Rep. Michele Bachmann in June. (Mark Wilson/Getty Images)
Today, though, for arguably the first time in her congressional career, the Minnesota GOP congresswoman is finding herself publicly on the outs with some in her own party. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), among others, have publicly criticized Bachmann for her suggestion that State Department officials, including longtime Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin, might be part of a Muslim Brotherhood conspiracy to infiltrate the U.S. government. (Though notably, Newt Gingrich defended her this morning.)
So what gives? Why did Bachmann, whose history of bending the truth and saying controversial things has already been well-documented, finally go too far for her colleagues?
How President Obama changed the gun debate
The Fix wrote Friday that gun control policy was unlikely to change in the wake of the Aurora, Colorado movie theater shooting.
A majority of Americans now oppose more strict restrictions on guns, and tragic — and high profile — shootings have done little impact on those numbers.
What has impacted the numbers in the gun control debate? Interestingly enough, President Obama’s election in 2008.
In both Washington Post and Pew polling, opposition to gun control ticked up significantly after President Obama’s election. Support for gun control has been steadily eroding for years, but these jumps were larger than the changes that occured before and after the election.
When politics stops — and how it never really does
In a speech today addressing the tragic shootings in Aurora, Colorado, President Obama said that “there are going to be other days for politics...This, I think, is a day for prayer and reflection.”
US President returns early to the White House in Washington,DC on July 20, 2012 after cancelling a campaign stop in Florida. Obama and his rival Mitt Romney suspended their campaigning out of respect for the victims of a shocking shooting at a Colorado movie theater that left 12 people dead and over 50 injured. AFP PHOTO/Nicholas KAMMHe’s right. Both Obama and former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney canceled planned campaign rallies, pulled negative ads and generally refrained from doing anything that appeared even remotely political.
But, to assume that politics ever truly stops in this country — even in moments of national tragedy and mourning like this one — is a mistake. Politics and political campaigns don’t happen in a vacuum. Every external event — from the joyous to the tragic — is a piece of the broader political puzzle.
Richard Hudson wins GOP nod to face Kissell
Former congressional aide Richard Hudson won the Republican primary runoff to face Rep. Larry Kissell (D-N.C.) on Tuesday, overcoming a conservative outsider candidate who was backed by the Club for Growth.
With 80 percent of precincts reporting, Hudson led dentist Scott Keadle 64 percent to 36 percent. The AP has called the race for Hudson.
North Carolina runoff highlights GOP efforts to beat back outsider candidates
Tonight’s runoff in North Carolina’s 8th district features arguably the most contentious insider-versus-outsider House fight of the campaign to date. And the race says a lot about how the Republican party establishment has evolved in its effort to beat back tea party challenges.
Two years ago, dentist Scott Keadle would have been a favorite to beat former congressional aide Richard Hudson in tonight’s runoff for the right to face Rep. Larry Kissell (D-N.C.). Keadle, after all, has the Club for Growth behind him, and Hudson is easily tied to an unpopular Washington.
Today, the tea party enthusiasm that swept people like Keadle into office (and past establishment favorites like Hudson in the primaries) has dissipated considerably.
Everyone hates Congress. It wasn’t always this way.
In the latest numbers from Gallup, just sixteen percent of Americans approved of how Congress is doing its job. The reaction of the political world? Ho-hum. After all, everyone knows that the public hates Congress — and always has.
Except that they haven’t.
In fact, as recently as 2005, Congressional approval regularly hovered around 40 percent — not exactly high enough to win any popularity contests but nowhere near the used car salesman/reporter level where it currently resides.
The Terminal Ten: The most vulnerable House seats in the country
Some House seats are going to change hands in this November’s election; there is no doubt about this fact.
A volatile electoral environment has conspired with the once-in-a-decade redistricting process to create upwards of a dozen seats that are now expected to change parties. These seats were either so close in 2010 that they are expected to flip back in a more neutral environment, or were changed so significantly in redistricting that they now favor the other side.
Below, we look at the 10 most vulnerable seats in the country, with No. 1 being the most vulnerable and No. 10 the least. Don’t be surprised if all of these switch parties this November.
Beyond these seats is when the real battle for control of the House begins. (While these split 50/50 between parties, the next crop of vulnerable seats includes more Republicans seats.)
To the line!
10. Rep. John Barrow (D-Ga.): With Barrow’s district getting about 15 points more Republican — perhaps the biggest shift in the country that made the district one that would have gone 59 percent for Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) in 2008 — one might wonder why this doesn’t rank higher on our list. In short, it’s because Barrow is a survivor. Like Reps. Jim Matheson (D-Utah), Dan Boren (D-Okla.) and Mike McIntyre (D-N.C.), Barrow has shown he can survive in conservative territory in spite of the ‘D’ next to his name. The reason Barrow is on this list and the others aren’t is that his district just got so much tougher.
Jesse Jackson Jr.’s untenable no-comment strategy
Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-Ill.) is going to have to answer questions about his unexplained absence from Congress. He just may not know it yet.
In this Oct. 16, 2011 file photo, Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr., D-Ill., is seen during the dedication of the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial in Washington. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak, File)
Jackson’s mysterious hiatus from the House (which his spokesman last week attributed to undefined “physical and emotional ailments”) is raising plenty of eyebrows these days, and both Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) have now urged him to explain himself.
Jackson’s best course is to do just that as quickly as possible, tell the whole truth, and hope that it’s good enough to save what was once a bright political future — or at the very least, his congressional career.
Here’s why.
Eric Holder calls photo ID laws ‘poll taxes’
Eric Holder fires up the NAACP crowd, Ben Quayle ups the ante, Mitt Romney turns outsourcing around on Obama, and Crossroads GPS drops $2.5 million.
Make sure to sign up to get “Afternoon Fix ” in your e-mail inbox every day by 5 (ish) p.m!
President Obama: A man of many slogans
Did you know that President Obama’s official reelection campaign slogan is “Forward”?
President Obama delivers remarks in Parma, Ohio. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty)
You can be forgiven if you didn’t. After all, Obama’s campaign and the White House have offered a series of slogans over the course of the last two year as the incumbent has tried to sell his policies and position himself politcally for his reelection race this fall.
But the man who was so defined by two slogans in his 2008 campaign — “Hope” and “Change We Can Believe In” — has yet to really strike slogan gold this time around.
President Obama’s massive swing state spending edge
President Obama has spent more than $91 million on television ads in eight swing states as of July 6, a massive sum that dwarfs the $23 million former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney has disbursed on campaign commercials in those same places. Only heavy spending by Republican super PACs is keeping Romney within financial shouting distance of the incumbent on television at this point.
The data, which was provided to the Fix by a Republican media buyer, paints a fascinating picture of Obama’s overwhelming ad advantage in each of the states — Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Nevada, Ohio, New Hampshire, North Carolina and Virginia — where both campaigns are spending.
The spending disparity between the campaigns is particularly pronounced in three of the swingiest states: Florida, Ohio and Virginia.
In Florida, Obama has spent $17 million on TV ads as compared to $2 million for Romney. In Ohio, it’s $22 million for Obama to $6.5 million for Romney; and in Virginia, Obama has spent $11 million on TV ads to less than $3 million for Romney.
Charlie Rangel wins (again)
New York state Sen. Adriano Espaillat (D) conceded to Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-N.Y.) for the second time on Monday, bringing an end to a two-week-old drama over Rangel’s primary win.
A final count of the votes over the weekend showed Rangel leading Espaillat by 990 votes — more than 2 percent of votes cast in the Democratic primary and well outside the margin for a recount.
Congressman Charles Rangel arrives to supporters at his campaign headquarters after polls have closed in his race for the Democratic primary challenge in New York's 15th congressional district on June 26, 2012 in New York City. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
Texas case puts voter ID laws to test
Voter ID laws face a high-profile test this week as the U.S. District Court in Washington, DC hears arguments about Texas’ controversial new regulations.
The case pits Texas against Attorney General Eric Holder, who has earned the ire of Republicans across the country for challenging new
Attorney General Eric Holder speaks during a news conference in New Orleans, on June 28.
(Bill Haber - AP)
voting restrictions. Republicans say the Justice Department should be more concerned about fraud; the DOJ counters that these laws suppress minority turnout.
Thaddeus McCotter unexpectedly resigns from Congress
Michigan Republican Rep. Thaddeus McCotter resigned from Congress on Friday, a surprise decision that caps among the most madcap two-month periods in modern politics.
The Michigan Republican and 2012 presidential candidate announced his decision in a lengthy and characteristically verbose statement citing his desire to shift his focus to his family now that his congressional career is over. (He also quoted Bob Dylan’s “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue”.)
“After nearly 26 years in elected office, this past nightmarish month and a half have, for the first time, severed the necessary harmony between the needs of my constituency and of my family,” McCotter said on his Facebook page. “As this harmony is required to serve, its absence requires I leave.”
Former Republican presidential candidate Rep. Thaddeus McCotter (R-Mich.) speaks during a news conference on Capitol Hill on September 12, 2011 in Washington, DC. (Mark Wilson/Getty Images)
President Obama’s troubling trend line on jobs
The news from the Bureau of Labor Statistics this morning that the economy added just 80,000 jobs in June and the unemployment rate stayed stuck at 8.2 percent suggests that any hope that President Obama will be able to run for reelection bolstered by an improving financial picture is rapidly disappearing.
The June jobs report and President Obama’s summer swoon(s)
The three summers of President Obama’s first term in office have been decidedly unkind to him on the economic front, a trend that puts even more importance on this morning’s June jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
MAUMEE, OH - JULY 05: U.S. President Barack Obama arrives to speak at a campaign event at the Wolcott House Museum Complex July 5, 2012 in Maumee, Ohio. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)In each of the past three summers, the unemployment rate has bumped upwards while the job creation numbers have either leveled off or dipped downward. That trend — plus the fact that we are 123 days before the election — makes the BLS’s 8:30 announcement of the utmost political importance.
Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. dealing with severe ‘physical and emotional ailments’
Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr.’s office says the Democratic Chicago congressman is struggling with “physical and emotional ailments” worse than previously known.
In this Oct. 16, 2011 file photo, Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr. is seen during the dedication of the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial in Washington.
(Charles Dharapak - Associated Press)
Jackson, 47, has been treated for what his office last week called ”exhaustion.” Now, his office says, things have deteriorated, though a statement declined to say specifically what was ailing Jackson, the son of the civil rights figure and former presidential candidate of the same name.
“Recently, we have been made aware that he has grappled with certain physical and emotional ailments privately for a long period of time,” the statement reads. “At present, he is undergoing further evaluation and treatment at an in-patient medical facility. According to the preliminary diagnosis from his doctors, Congressman Jackson will need to receive extended in-patient treatment as well as continuing medical treatment thereafter. We ask that you keep Congressman Jackson and his family in your thoughts and prayers during this difficult period.”
Does Mitt Romney have a staff problem?
Talk of a shakeup in Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign is running rampant, with the expectation within the Republican political class that the former Massachusetts governor will add seasoned hands rather than part ways with any of his current senior staffers.
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney finishes speaking about the Supreme Court ruling on health care in Washington, Thursday, June 28, 2012. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)
At the heart of the critique of the Romney campaign, which began with a tweet from News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch and has continued with a stinging Wall Street Journal op-ed and harsh words for the campaign from the Weekly Standard’s Bill Kristol today, is the idea that the presidential candidate’s staff may not be up to the task of running the sort of race it will take to beat President Obama.
“The campaign needs to show the GOP elite world and the media a lot of competence going forward or this shake-up talk will only get louder and continue,” predicted one Republican adviser watching from the sidelines.
Rangel opponent files for re-vote in increasingly tight primary
What at one point looked like a big primary night victory for Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-N.Y.) has gradually become a close race — enough so that Rangel’s opponent is now filing for a possible do-over election.
State Sen. Adriano Espaillat this week filed with the state Supreme Court seeking either a recount or a highly unusual redo of his June 26 primary with Rangel. Espaillat has lodged accusations of voter suppression and has pointed to faulty administration and vote-counting by New York City elections officials.
Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., salutes surviving members of the Montford Point Marines, during a Congressional Gold Medal ceremony at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, Wednesday, June 27, 2012. (Pablo Martinez Monsivais — Associated Press)
Americans split on Supreme Court decision
Public opinion on last week’s Supreme Court ruling on the sweeping federal health care reform law is as sharply divided along partisan and ideological lines as are views of the law itself, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll. 
Supporters of President Barack Obama's health care law celebrate outside the Supreme Court in Washington, Thursday, June 28, 2012, after the court's ruling was announced. AP Photo/David Goldman)
(David Goldman - AP)
Most Americans agree on one thing related to the court’s upholding the law – that they feel “strongly” about the outcome - but the consensus ends there.
Republicans’ repeal push: Is it the right move?
In the immediate aftermath of the Supreme Court upholding President Obama’s health care law, Republicans had a simple, one word pushback: “repeal.”
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Ky., center, accompanied by Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, left, and Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., speaks to reporters outside the Senate, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, June 26, 2012, following a political strategy session with other GOP Senate leaders. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
“I will act to repeal Obamacare,” said former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney on Friday.
“We will not flinch from our resolve to make sure this law is repealed in its entirety,” House Speaker John Boehner said Sunday on CBS’ “Face the Nation”.
“If I’m the leader of the majority next year, I commit to the American people that the repeal of Obamacare will be job one,” said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) on “Fox News Sunday”.
The singularity of message reflects a Republican belief that people don’t like the health care law — no matter what the Supreme Court said or did — and want it changed all costs.
Handicappers say Democrats have little chance of taking back House
For months, Democrats have been arguing that they have a good chance of winning control of the House. But recent takes from political handicappers throw some cold water on those hopes. 
Nancy Pelosi is unlikely to win her gavel back, experts say.
(Melina Mara - THE WASHINGTON POST)
How John Roberts became the story
In a 2010 Pew poll less than three in ten Americans knew that John Roberts was the Chief Justice of the United States. But, his pivotal role in Thursday’s Supreme Court decision to uphold President Obama’s health care law might well turn Roberts into a more household name.
According to Google data, searches for Roberts soared between 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. eastern time Thursday, far outdistancing other terms like “individual mandate” and “SCOTUS”.
Here’s a chart from the good people at Google detailing the top five rising search terms over that critical three hours on Thursday.
On ‘Fast and Furious’ vote, Congress affirms all the bad things people already think of them.
The House vote to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt for his withholding of documents related to Operation “Fast and Furious” brought brisk — and heated — rhetoric from the two parties.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) called the vote an “abuse of power”. House Speaker John Boehner (Ohio) said that “no Justice Department is above the law and no Justice Department is above the Constitution, which each of us has sworn an oath to uphold.”
And yet, for all of that amped-up oratory from top leaders in their respective parties, the likely effect of today’s vote — to the extent there is one — is to convince people that all the bad things they think about Congress are, well, true.
Natoma Canfield, the cancer survivor Obama cited
In his remarks on the Supreme Court’s ruling in favor of his health-care reform law, President Obama devoted a sizable portion of his remarks to a little-known Ohio woman: Natoma Canfield.
“There’s a framed letter that hangs in my office right now. It was sent to me during the health-care debate by a woman named Natoma Canfield,” Obama said. “I carried Natoma’s story with me every day of the fight to pass this law.”
Canfield told Obama that after she was diagnosed with cancer, her insurance rates kept going up until she lost her coverage.
“It was amazing, just amazing,” the 52-year-old Medina, Ohio, resident told The Fix. She watched Obama’s announcement on mute, from a restaurant, with the words crawling across the screen. I couldn’t believe the president of the United States had my letter framed on his wall.”
Democratic candidates still tread lightly on Obamacare, despite Supreme Court’s decision
The Supreme Court gave President Obama’s health-care law its constitutional seal of approval Thursday.
When it comes to their political seal of approval, Democratic House and Senate candidates weren’t so kind.
Despite the law being upheld, Democrats with tough races ahead of them continue to tread lightly around a law that remains broadly unpopular nationwide — including among key independent voters.
Poll: Obama, Romney lack clear plans for nation
Majorities of Americans say neither President Obama nor Mitt Romney has a clear plan to fix the nation’s problems, according to a Gallup poll released Wednesday, a signal that neither candidate has made a successful case to be president in 2013.
FILE - In 2012 file photos President Barack Obama, left, Talks to reporters in Washington on June 8 and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney speaks during a campaign stop in Cincinnati, Ohio, on June 14 (AP Photo/Scott Applewhite, left, and Evan Vucci, file)Fifty-nine percent of the public says Obama, who has been in office more than three years, lacks a clear plan to fix the country’s problems. Slightly fewer, 53 percent, say the same of Romney.
And, the problems for both candidates go deeper than that. Even as both outline their vision on the campaign trail, many Americans will be leery of trusting them: Six in 10 say Obama and Romney each change their positions on issues for political reasons.
Oklahoma Rep. John Sullivan loses primary
Rep. John Sullivan (R-Okla.) became the latest incumbent to lose a primary on Tuesday, falling to tea party-backed Jim Bridenstine.
Sullivan survived a 2010 primary after taking time away from Congress, citing his “addiction to alcohol.” On Tuesday, he lost narrowly amidst a spirited — if under-funded — challenge from Bridenstine, a Navy pilot who raised less than $300,000 for the race.
With 94 percent of precincts reporting, Bridenstine led Sullivan 54 percent to 46 percent. AP has called the race for Bridenstine.
Tea party candidate Jim Bridenstine speaks during a news conference in Tulsa, Okla. Bridenstine defeated Rep. John Sullivan (R-Okla.) in a primary Tuesday. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki)
New York primary results: Rangel survives
Updated at 11:53 p.m.
Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) has won the Democratic nomination in his Harlem-based district, paving the way for a 22nd term in Congress as he turned aside a crowded primary field Tuesday.
With 84 percent of precincts reporting, Rangel led state Sen. Adriano Espaillat 45 percent to 40 percent. The AP has called the race for Rangel.
In his victory, Rangel overcomes both health problems that had some speculating he was on his deathbed and a district that took in plenty of Latino territory in redistricting. It’s the second-straight election in which he has withstood a competitive primary.
Also in New York City, New York state Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries easily turned aside primary opponent and controversial New York City Councilman Charles Barron on Tuesday and is a shoo-in to replace retiring Rep. Ed Towns (D-N.Y.) in November.
Primary results: Nikki Haley-backed candidate beats Haley foe in South Carolina
Updated at 11:23 p.m.
Horry County Councilman Tom Rice, who got the late backing of Gov. Nikki Haley (R) in the GOP primary runoff in South Carolina’s new 7th district, defeated former lieutenant governor Andre Bauer for the GOP nomination Tuesday.
Rice’s victory comes just days after Haley got involved in the race. Bauer ran in the same GOP governor primary that Haley won in 2010, and it’s clear that bad blood remains between the two.
Rice led Bauer 56 percent to 44 percent with 95 percent of precincts reporting.
Can Michele Bachmann be beat?
A new Democratic poll suggests Rep. Michele Bachmann could face a serious fight for reelection this fall, a finding sure to re-start the debate over whether the controversial Minnesota Republican can truly be beaten or whether she is simply the Democrats’ white whale.
In polling conducted by Anna Greenberg of Greenberg Quinlan Rosen Research Bachmann leads Minneapolis hotel magnate Jim Graves (D) 48 percent to 43 percent. A third (34 percent) of voters in the district rate her performance as “poor,” although 39 percent call it “excellent” or good.”
President Obama booed over Red Sox joke
President Obama (re)learned a political lesson as old as time on Monday night: Don’t mess with the Boston Red Sox in Massachusetts. Like, ever.
The president was reportedly booed at a fundraiser in Boston after making reference to a trade this week between his hometown Chicago White Sox and the BoSox.
“Finally Boston, I just want to say: Thank you for Youkilis,” Obama said, referring to longtime Red Sox third baseman Kevin Youkilis, who was traded to the White Sox on Sunday.
It didn’t go over well with the crowd. Reporters in the room said Obama was booed, as did the White House transcript and Obama himself.
“I didn’t think I’d get any boos out of here,” Obama said. ”I should not have brought up baseball. I understand. My mistake. My mistake. You gotta know your crowd.”
Democrats: No trouble raising money for convention
Democrats say there’s no truth to a Bloomberg report that the party is struggling to raise funds for its Charlotte, N.C., convention.
In a story on planners’ decision not to hold a kick-off event at the Charlotte Motor Speedway, Hans Nichols wrote:
The move comes as party planners are grappling with a fundraising deficit of roughly $27 million, according to two people familiar with the matter who requested anonymity to discuss internal party politics. With a party ban on direct contributions from corporations, the host committee has raised less than $10 million, well short of its $36.6 million goal, said one of the people.
Democrats denied that there was any fundraising problem, or that money had anything to do with the decision to move the free kick-off event from the Speedway to Uptown.
A crisis of economic confidence?
New weekly tracking numbers from Gallup show that economic confidence in the country is at its lowest ebb since late January, a bad sign for President Obama as he seeks to convince the public that the financial health of the country is getting slowly but surely better.
The latest Gallup Economic Confidence Index, which combines how people feel about the current economic conditions in the country and what the future holds for the economy, stands at -26.
Primary day: Five things to watch for
Voters in Colorado, New York, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Utah head to the polls today for primaries and primary runoffs.
Though no major Senate contests are on the ballot in these states, there are still plenty of interesting subplots. Here are five that are worth watching.
1. More incumbents going down?
Tuesday’s primaries could see yet more incumbents falling in newly drawn districts. The most likely victims would appear to be Reps. Charlie Rangel (D-N.Y.), Nydia Velazquez (D-N.Y.), Doug Lamborn (R-Colo.) and John Sullivan (R-Okla.).
Rangel is, of course, the big one. After 42 years in Congress, the former Ways and Means Committee chairman is in perhaps his toughest race yet against a field that includes state Sen. Adriano Espaillat, who would be Congress’s first Dominican-American member. (For more, see Paul Kane’s great piece today.)
Representative Charles B. Rangel in Washington, D.C., on June 20. (Marvin Joseph, The Washington Post)
Could President Obama run against the Supreme Court?
Let’s say that later this morning (or on Thursday), the Supreme Court rules that the Affordable Care Act is unconstitutional, thereby invalidating — whether in part or in total — the signature legislative accomplishment of President Obama’s first term.
The initial reactions are predictable. Republicans would be triumphant, Democrats depressed. And, as we have written before, it’s not entirely clear that anything — up to and including the Supreme Court’s decision — can drastically alter public opinion regarding Obama’s health care law.
Report: Paul Ryan being vetted for veep
Paul Ryan reportedly being vetted, Bob McDonnell issues an ultimatum, most Americans don’t know President Obama is a Christian, and Trent Franks tussles with the Club for Growth.
Make sure to sign up to get “Afternoon Fix ” in your e-mail inbox every day by 5 (ish) p.m!
John Bryson, Commerce Secretary, explained
In light of Commerce Secretary John Bryson’s decision to resign his office today, we are re-posting our explainer on who he is and what the Commerce Department does. The post, which first ran on June 12, is below.
ORIGINAL POST
Commerce Secretary John Bryson has taken a medical leave of absence after getting involved in three traffic accidents Saturday during what officials say was a seizure. His deputy, Rebecca Blank, will take over as acting secretary.
Bryson’s accident(s) has drastically raised the profile of the Commerce Department, which has long been one of the more minor members of a President’s Cabinet.
So, what does the Commerce Secretary do?
Is President Obama baiting House Republicans?
In the past six days, President Obama has sent a very clear message to Republicans in Congress. And that message goes like this: Bring it on.
His decision to stop actively deporting young illegal immigrants, which was announced last Friday, and his action Wednesday to invoke executive privilege over documents tied to the “Fast and Furious” program both amount to a finger in the eye of House GOPers.
Anti-incumbent super PAC’s funds dry up
A super PAC that made a big splash by helping take down a few House incumbents this primary season has scaled back its involvement in recent weeks thanks to a cash shortfall.
Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-N.Y.) speaks about the New York Police Department's stop and frisk policy earlier this month. (AP Photo/Haraz N. Ghanbari)After spending $2.7 million on a plethora of primaries over the last four months, the Campaign for Primary Accountability has failed to replenish those funds and had just $227,000 cash on hand at the end of May.
And with still nearly half of congressional primaries to come — including some inviting targets in Tuesday’s primaries — it doesn’t appear the super PAC will be able to take advantage of some solid opportunities to unseat other incumbents in the weeks ahead.
The political fight on health care is over. Republicans won.
While official Washington waits with bated breath for the Supreme Court to announce its decision on the constitutionality of President Obama’s health care law, a new study from the Pew Research Center makes it abundantly clear that the political fight over health care is already over. And Republicans won.
House Republicans add 2012 election ad time in eight media markets
The National Republican Congressional Committee has expanded on its initial set of ad reservations, with an additional $5.7 million in ad space in eight media markets spanning seven competitive districts.
The buys mean the committee has now reserved a total of $23.9 million in ad space in 24 media markets and 31 districts.
The reservations aren’t yet as extensive as ones made by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which has reserved twice as much — $46.1 million — in ad time in media markets covering 60 districts.
Why Republicans can’t write off Hispanics
Much has been made in the last 96 hours of President Obama’s decision to stop deporting young illegal immigrants and its impact on the 2012 election.
And while the short-term political impact of how the announcement could impact Obama’s strength among Hispanic voters is significant, it pales in comparison to the long-term political effect if Hispanics become a solidly Democratic voting bloc in the way that African-Americans have.
Since 1992, Republicans have lost ground with with black and Asian-American voters while largely holding steady(ish) with Hispanics. The only gains they have made are with white voters; 40 percent of whites voted for George H.W. Bush in 1992, while 55 percent of white voters chose John McCain in 2008.
Here’s the full vote breakout — courtesy of our partners @postpolls — of the vote by race from 1992 to 2008.
A silver lining in May jobs report for President Obama
President Obama continues to struggle to recover politically from a disastrous May jobs report that showed that just 69,000 jobs were created in the month while the national unemployment rate ticked up to 8.2 percent.
Obama and his campaign team have spent much of the two and a half weeks since the release of the jobs report fighting back against chatter — much of it from within their own party — that the president badly needs a course correction when it comes to his economic messaging.
Why President Obama’s golf habit doesn’t matter
President Obama achieved a milestone (of sorts) on Sunday: He played his 100th round of golf since being sworn in three and a half years ago.
President Barack Obama swings to hit the ball out of a sand trap while playing golf at the Vineyard Golf Club, in Edgartown, Mass., on the island of Martha's Vineyard, Friday, Aug. 19, 2011. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)
CBS News’ Mark Knoller, the (un)official keeper of the White House records, commemorated the moment with — what else — a tweet:
As he plays his 100th round of golf as president, its clear Pres Obama loves the game and is also frustrated by it.
— Mark Knoller (@markknoller) June 17, 2012
Is success possible for a president?
Being president ain’t what it used to be.
U.S. President Barack Obama waves to photographers from inside his vehicle after arriving to Los Cabos international airport to attend the G-20 Summit in Baja California Sur, Mexico, Sunday, June 17, 2012. (AP Photo/Andres Leighton)Over the last decade, the splintering of the media has combined with the rise of social networking (and microblogging), a sustained pessimism in the electorate and record levels of partisanship to make success a virtually unachievable goal for any president.
As we wrote in our Monday Fix newspaper column:
“The last week in politics is illustrative of the massive communications challenges a president faces. The week began for President Obama with news from the West Coast that his Commerce secretary, John Bryson, had been involved in a series of car accidents reportedly due to a medical condition.
President Obama made a political decision on immigration. So what?
In the immediate aftermath of President Obama’s decision to stop deporting young illegal immigrants on Friday, Republicans stayed silent as they sought to calculate the right response — one that would walk the fine line between alienating their political base and sending (another) negative signal to the Hispanic community they badly need to court.
Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney eventually released a statement and then followed up on it during an appearance on CBS’s “Face the Nation” — his first non-Fox News Channel Sunday show interview during the campaign to date.
Here’s what Romney told “Face” host Bob Schieffer:
“ I think the timing is pretty clear, if [Obama] really wanted to make a solution that dealt with these kids or with illegal immigration in America, than this is something he would have taken up in his first three and a half years, not in his last few months.”
Schieffer followed up by asking Romney if that meant that the president’s motivations were solely political. “Well, that’s certainly a big part of the equation,” responded Romney.
Romney’s right. And it doesn’t matter a bit.
Steve King threatens to sue over Obama immigration order
Already, at least one Republican has fallen right into President Obama’s hands.
Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) announced Friday that he plans to sue the president for issuing an executive order blocking deportations of some young immigrants.
“I expect to bring a lawsuit against the president of the United States to suspend his executive order,” King told the Des Moines Register. He made similar comments to Mike Huckabee in a radio interview, noting that he successfully sued then-Gov. Tom Vilsack in 1999 over an executive order that barred discrimination against gay, lesbian and transgender government employees.
Republicans struggle to respond to Obama’s immigration decision
Updated at 4:21 p.m.
Just hours after word leaked out that the Obama administration would stop deporting young illegal immigrants who were brought to the United States by their parents, the issue is already causing headaches for the Republican Party.
The party, which has previously split over its own president’s efforts on illegal immigration reform, is similarly stuck when it comes to Obama’s decision.
And at a time when party unity is paramount, the move is exposing fissures.
This photo provided by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Wednesday, March 28, 2012, in New Jersey, shows agents taking a person into custody during operation Cross Check III. (AP Photo/U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement)
President Obama: Pot-stirrer
Whatever you want to say about President Obama, you have to give him some credit for one thing: He’s not afraid to stir the pot in the runup to the 2012 election.
President Obama speaks at a campaign event at Cuyahoga Community College in Cleveland, Ohio, on Thursday. (Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)First it was his administration’s decision to force religious institutions to provide birth control to their employees; then it was the president coming out (so to speak) in support of gay marriage; and now it’s the administration’s announcement that it will cease deporting young illegal immigrants who were brought to this country by their parents.
To the skeptic, all three decisions will seem politically motivated. But as with the first two, it’s not exactly clear just who the illegal immigration decision will wind up benefitting.
About the only thing that’s clear is that a can of worms has been opened.
Barack Obama as the Colorado Rockies
President Obama’s problems heading into the November election are less rooted in the ongoing economic struggles in the country than in a widespread sense of unmet expectations among those who backed him in 2008, according to a recent focus group conducted by Democratic pollster Peter Hart in Colorado.
Colorado Rockies center fielder Carlos Gonzalez is unable to catch a double by New York Yankees batter Mark Teixeira in the third inning of their MLB interleague baseball game at Yankee Stadium in New York, June 25, 2011. REUTERS/Ray Stubblebine Writes Hart in a memo describing the focus group results that was sent to reporters Thursday night:
“People are disappointed in economic conditions and the amount of debt the President has racked up, but he hasn’t lost these voters because of these problems. They sense that this is all a show. There is no roadmap, no program, and no conviction of where the President wants to lead the country. Participants say that Obama reminds them of their hometown baseball team, the Colorado Rockies (lots of promise but not a pennant).”
Jamie Dimon, Democrat?
In a Capitol Hill hearing Wednesday, Democrats pushed JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon on the bank’s $2 billion trading loss while Republicans courted his opinion on financial regulation.
Jamie Dimon, chief executive officer of JPMorgan Chase & Co., arrives to a Senate Banking Committee hearing in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Wednesday, June 13, 2012. Photographer: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg But the differing treatment Dimon received from the two parties this week is not reflected in Dimon’s own political preferences. Most of his donations, in fact, go to Democrats.
From 1989 to 2009, the banker and his wife gave over half a million dollars to Democrats, according to a Center for Responsive Politics analysis. That’s 12 times what they gave to Republicans during that same time frame.
What is Obama’s best economic message?
Americans express tepid support for President Obama’s economic agenda and little confidence that he has the right priorities when it comes to spurring economic renewal, setting up the challenge as he seeks to re-frame the debate.
So, what should Obama’s economic message be — both in his speech in Ohio today and going forward in the campaign?
House GOP previews fall ad strategy
The National Republican Congressional Committee has reserved $18 million worth of ad space in 17 media markets spanning 25 competitive districts — one of the first windows into which districts the committee plans to pursue and defend this fall as they seek to retain control of the House.
The ad reservations are split about evenly between districts where the committee can play offense and where they must defend vulnerable GOP incumbents, reflecting the NRCC’s desire to go after Democratic seats even as it strives to keep its majority.
The markets involved are generally ones where there will be plenty of ad traffic in the presidential or other races, which puts a premium on reserving space early.
Below is a chart breaking down the NRCC reservations. (Note: The buys are made by media market rather than by congressional district, and in some cases, the money could wind up being spent on one of two or more districts.)
President Obama’s mythical black voter problem — in three charts
A new North Carolina poll conducted by the automated pollster (and Democratic affiliated) Public Policy Polling has set the political world on its head — suggested that not only has former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney made up significant ground on President Obama in the swing state but that the incumbent is losing roughly one in every five black voters in the Tarheel State.
Here’s the problem: There’s no evidence — outside of this single PPP poll — that Obama is suffering any significant erosion among African American voters.
The story of Obama’s continued — and sustained — strength in the black community can be told in three charts, all of which examine Washington Post-ABC News polling conducted over the first three-plus years of Obama’s presidency. (HUGE thanks to the Post polling team for building out these charts; do yourself a favor and follow them on Twitter @postpolls.)
Obama’s ‘08 economic advantage disappears
Roughly four in 10 voters assess the economic proposals offered by President Obama and Mitt Romney favorably in a new Washington Post-ABC News poll, a sharp contrast to the wide lead the incumbent enjoyed over John McCain on the issue in the 2008 presidential race.
In the latest Post-ABC poll, 43 percent of voters express favorable opinions about Obama’s economic agenda, while 40 percent say the same of Romney.
Compare that relative parity on economic plans to the 20-point edge Obama held over McCain in a 2008 election eve poll, and you begin to grasp the challenge before Obama when it comes to winning the economic argument this fall.
Former Giffords aide Ron Barber wins special election for her seat
Democrat Ron Barber, a former aide to Gabrielle Giffords who was injured in the shooting that nearly took the ex-Arizona congresswoman’s life, won the special election to replace her on Tuesday.
With 66 percent of precincts reporting, Barber led Republican Jesse Kelly 53 percent to 45 percent. The AP has called the race for Barber.
The contest was the last congressional special election before November’s general election, leaving both sides to mine the results for clues about what might work in November and who might have momentum on their side.
From left, former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, Ron Barber and Mark Kelly, Giffords' husband, enter the polling place at St. Cyril's Catholic Church in Tucson, Ariz. Tuesday morning. (AP Photo/The Arizona Republic, Tom Tingle)
(Tom Tingle - AP)
How many fundraisers is too many for President Obama?
President Obama will attend six fundraisers today in Maryland and Pennsylvania, a series of cash collection events that bring his total number of fundraisers held for his reelection bid up to 160, according to figures maintained by CBS News’ Mark Knoller.
That, again according to Knoller, is more than double the 79 events that President George W. Bush had held at this same time in the 2004 presidential race.
(Sidebar: Knoller is a national treasure. If you don’t follow him on Twitter, you should rectify that problem immediately.)
President Barack Obama waves before speaking at the Fox Theater in Redwood City, Calif., Wednesday, May 23, 2012. The president spoke at various fund-raising events in Colorado and California Wednesday. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)Republicans have seized on Obama’s rapid fundraising pace as evidence that he is far more dedicated to raising money and winning reelection than to performing the actual job for which he was elected in 2008.
Why Europe won’t save Obama
President Obama’s goal at last Friday’s press conference, according to those who know him best, was simple: Explain to a confused American public why the struggles in Europe are having ripple effects across the global economy — up to and including the United States.
“One concern is Europe, which faces a threat of renewed recession as countries deal with a financial crisis,” said Obama at the start of his prepared remarks. “Obviously this matters to us because Europe is our largest economic trading partner. If there’s less demand for our products in places like Paris or Madrid it could mean less businesses — or less business for manufacturers in places like Pittsburgh or Milwaukee.”
Special election and primary day: 5 things to watch
It’s primary day — again!
Voters in Maine, Nevada, North Dakota, South Carolina and Virginia are heading to the primary polls as we speak, while Arizona voters will pick a replacement for former congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords (D) and Arkansas voters will vote in a runoff.
With so many races on the ballot, here are five things to keep an eye on...
1. Arizona special election: What’s the margin?
Republicans are quietly expressing pessimism about the Giffords race, where GOP nominee Jesse Kelly has had some troubles trying to win a Republican-leaning district. But even if he loses, the margin matters.
Democrats up big in Giffords special election, automated poll shows
Democrats hold a double-digit lead in Tuesday’s special election to replace former congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.), according 
Ron Barber (center) is favored in a new poll of the Arizona special election. (Jonathan Gibby/Getty Images)to a new poll from Democratic-leaning automated pollster Public Policy Polling.
The poll, the first of the race to be released publicly, shows former Giffords aide Ron Barber (D) leading Iraq veteran Jesse Kelly (R) 53 percent to 41 percent.
The survey appears to indicate a significantly different picture than either of the two parties involved have seen in their recent polling.
The Gabby Giffords special election, and the limits of the sympathy vote
Voters will head to the polls Tuesday in southeastern Arizona to fill former congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords’s (D-Ariz.) seat just more than 17 months after she survived an assassination attempt.
Gabrielle Giffords, right, hasn’t been much of an issue in the special election for her old seat. Her former district director, Ron Barber, left, is the Democratic nominee in that race. (Matt York/Reuters)But while the outpouring of sympathy from that event dominated the news, it’s not expected to play a major role in Tuesday’s results.
Giffords’s Republican-leaning district looks to be neck and neck down the stretch, with neither side ready to predict victory. And both Democrats and Republicans agree that the shooting – in which Democratic nominee and former Giffords aide Ron Barber was also injured – has little to do with the ballots voters are casting.
“There is a group of people extremely dedicated to Gabby who will do anything for her,” said one Arizona Democratic strategist, granted anonymity to discuss a sensitive topic. “But I haven’t seen much evidence that the persuadable universe of folks Barber needs to win are going to be swayed by the shooting.”
Another Democratic strategist put it more bluntly: “Sympathy doesn’t win elections.”
Coming soon to a TV near you: Your congressman shooting something
Who knew that when West Virginia Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin ran an ad in 2010 that featured him shooting a hole in the congressional cap and trade bill he would spark a trend of shooting firearms in political TV commercials?
In Oklahoma, congressional candidate Rob Wallace (D) recently released an ad featuring video of him shooting a map of the state of Texas pegged to the back of a water jug. The ad, of course, was about a water dispute between the two states.
And this week, Arizona congressional candidate Ron Gould (R) is up with his own ad in which he shoots President Obama’s health care bill as if it were a clay pigeon. (Really.) Gould adds the extra-satisfying — if you oppose Obamacare — image of the bill exploding in mid-air.
President Obama tries to change the subject
President Obama’s decision to make remarks — and take questions from reporters — Friday morning on the economy was a seemingly obvious attempt to pivot away from his worst week, politically speaking, in months.
It almost certainly won’t work, however, because Obama offered little new in terms of policy and adopted a largely presidential — rather than a political — approach to the questions reporters posed to him.
President Obama to make 10:15 a.m. statement on economy
At the end of a truly terrible week, President Obama is trying to seize some control over the news with a 10:15 a.m. statement on the economy.
Obama is expected to push Congress to pass his jobs plan, saying it would put construction workers, teachers and police and firefighters back to work.
The plan, which would be paid for with increased taxes on the rich, has long been stalled in Congress. Obama will also discuss the debt crisis in Europe and how it affects the economy at home.
Barney Frank: Wisconsin recall was ‘big mistake’
Barney Frank weighs in, environmental groups are going on the air in New Mexico, House Democrats are reserving more time and the Green Party has a candidate.
Make sure to sign up to get “Afternoon Fix ” in your e-mail inbox every day by 5 (ish) p.m!
Wisconsin recall: Winners and losers
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s (R) decisive victory against Democrats seeking to recall him on Tuesday amounts to a major moment in national politics due to the massive amounts of national money and attention the race garnered.
Any time there are such high stakes in an election, there are people who win big and people who lose big. And we at the Fix love nothing more than sifting through the results to go beyond the obvious “bests” and “worsts” of the night to find a few winners and losers you might not have thought of.
California primary results: GOP catches a ‘top-two’ break
House Republicans got a big break under California’s new primary system Tuesday, after Democrats failed to get a candidate into the general election for Rep. Gary Miller’s (R-Calif.) swing district.
Miller himself still faces a tough race against GOP state Sen. Bob Dutton, but the quirks of the new “top-two” system mean Democrats now have no chance at the district, which had been rated as a toss-up by some handicappers.
Rep. Bill Pascrell defeats Rep. Steve Rothman
Updated at 12:14 a.m.
Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-N.J.) defeated Rep. Steve Rothman (D-N.J.) in their primary Tuesday, scoring a big victory in a new district after the two incumbents’ districts were combined under the state’s new redistricting map.
With 98 percent of precincts reporting, Pascrell led Rothman 60 percent to 40 percent.
Pascrell had the endorsement of former president Bill Clinton, while Rothman got the late backing of President Obama. It is one of several races this cycle pitting a supporter of Hillary Clinton against an Obama supporter, but the first in which Obama himself has gotten involved.
California’s new political reality, explained
It’s a brave new world for Californians headed to vote in the state’s primary today.
Among the changes: There are no party primaries, they can send two members of the same political party on to the general election and many people will be voting in revamped congressional districts crafted by a panel of fellow citizens.
Former governor Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) was the architect of all of these changes, which he proudly previewed in a Facebook post Monday.
Austrian born actor and former Governor of California Arnold Schwarzenegger conducts a local music band upon his arrival in Guessing in the province of Burgenland, Austria, on Sunday, Jan. 22, 2012. (AP Photo/Ronald Zak)
“California will make history tomorrow,” Schwarzenegger wrote. “We will see our open primary system and new citizen-drawn districts in action for the first time. There is nothing else like it and I know we are starting yet another national trend.”
But just how does it work? And how different is it?
Ed Rendell, Obama antagonist
In the past few weeks, Ed Rendell has emerged as the leading Democratic antagonist to President Obama.
Consider just a few of the apostasies voiced by the former Pennsylvania governor in that time:
* Rendell called Obama’s attacks on Mitt Romney’s time at Bain Capital “disappointing”, adding: “I think Bain is fair game, because Romney has made it fair game. But I think how you examine it, the tone, what you say, is important as well.”
Wisconsin recall and primary day: Five things to watch
Wisconsin is just one of six states holding elections Tuesday, as voters in California, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico and South Dakota also head to the polls.
Nothing in those other states will approach the importance of what’s happening with the recall of Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) — or even come close, really — but there are some interesting subplots to keep an eye on.
Below, we explore five of them.
McCotter opts against write-in campaign
Rep. Thaddeus McCotter (R-Mich.) announced Saturday that he will retire from Congress rather than run in the upcoming GOP primary as a write-in candidate.
McCotter failed to qualify for the ballot after nearly all of his petition signatures failed to pass muster, and the matter is being investigated by the state attorney general’s office. The congressman has blamed the situation on staff who lied to him.
Obama’s foreign policy image: from dove to tough guy
Former president George W. Bush said during the unveiling of his official portrait Thursday at the White House that President Obama can now look at his picture in times of peril and ask, “What would George do?”
It was a joke.
But when it comes to foreign policy, the image of Obama is starting to look a little like the 43rd president. Namely: a tough guy.
President Obama is joined by former president George W. Bush in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington in this January 16, 2010 file photo. (REUTERS/Larry Downing/Files)
Solyndra, explained
Solyndra is back in the news, with former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney making a surprise appearance Thursday at the California headquarters of the failed energy company. Republicans have repeatedly argued that the Obama Administration’s investment in Solyndra is part of a failed energy policy and, worse, shady dealings by the White House.
Republican U.S. presidential candidate and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney speaks at the former Solyndra headquarters and factory in Fremont, California, May 31, 2012. REUTERS/Beck Diefenbach
So, what exactly happened with Solyndra?
Why the first Friday of the month matters so much
Every day in a presidential campaign matters, because there just aren’t that many of them left. (It’s 158 days until the election — but who’s counting?) But some days matter more.
Political strategists — and economic policy wonks — have the first Friday of every month between now and November circled in red pen on their calendars (if those things still exist), because it’s the day that the Bureau of Labor Statistics releases the previous month’s jobs report.
Today is one of those days. And the May jobs report, which will be released at around 8:30 a.m. eastern time, is the start of a critical three-month period leading up to the national party conventions that will set the economic terms of the fall campaign.
“So Joe Biden says to Karl Rove...”: A Fix caption contest
One image from today’s unveiling of the official portrait of former President George W. Bush at the White House really caught our eye. It was of Vice President Joe Biden leaning back in his seat to say something to Republican political svengali Karl Rove.
Here’s the photo as captured by Washington Post White House reporter David Nakamura:
While we probably won’t ever know what was said between the two men, we political junkies can imagine. In the comments section below, offer your best caption for the photo above. (Let’s keep it PG-13 if at all possible.)
We’ll sort through them at the end of the day and pick a winner. If that’s you, we’ll ship you an official Fix t-shirt. Yes, an official one.
Caption away!
Why the GOP’s House majority isn’t safe
Two Democratic polls out in recent weeks show Republican incumbents in the most competitive congressional districts are in a weaker position than their Democratic colleagues.
Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.) speaks at the Mae Volen Senior Center in Boca Raton, Fla., in this file image from August 12, 2011. West is one of many freshman Republicans in tough districts — a fact that could make 2012 tough on the GOP. (Reuters/Doug Murray/Files)
A Democracy Corps poll released last month showed Republican incumbents in 56 targeted districts with significantly weaker political brands than Democratic incumbents in 23 of their most vulnerable districts.
The GOP incumbents had an average approval rating of 41 percent and disapproval of 33 percent – including a nearly even 37/36 split in the 28 most vulnerable Republican districts.
Democratic incumbents, meanwhile, had the approval of 50 percent of their constituents, versus 26 percent who disapproved.
Another Democratic poll of battleground House districts obtained by The Fix on Wednesday, from Democratic pollster Garin Hart Yang, backs up that data. In 58 districts targeted by either party, Democratic incumbents led in their districts by an average of 52 percent to 33 percent, while GOP incumbents led 45 percent to 39 percent for their seats.
This data comes with a few caveats.
Incumbent primary losses begin to mount, may approach record
We may see a record number of congressional incumbents lose their primaries this year. If we do, it’s likely to have more to do with redistricting than a wave of so-called “anti-incumbent” sentiment.
The highest number of incumbents who have lost their primaries over the past 50 years is the 20 who fell in a post-redistricting cycle in 1992. That included 19 House members and one senator.
Rep. Silvestre Reyes (D-Tex.) was chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence until 2011. He lost his primary Tuesday. (Kevin Clark/The Washington Post)
With Rep. Silvestre Reyes’s (D-Tex.) loss Tuesday, we are now guaranteed to see 15 incumbents lose primaries in this post-redistricting cycle. Four have lost to non-incumbent challengers, and 11 more face or have faced primary matchups with other incumbents, assuring that one incumbent will fall.
Rep. Silvestre Reyes (D-Texas) defeated by Beto O’Rourke
Rep. Silvestre Reyes (D-Texas) was ousted in Tuesday’s primary to former El Paso City Council member Robert “Beto” O’Rourke.
The former chairman of the House Intelligence Committee was the sixth House incumbent defeated this cycle — and the third to fall to a non-incumbent.
O’Rourke won by about 3,000 votes, taking 50.5 percent — just enough to avoid a runoff with Reyes.
Artur Davis switches from Democratic to Republican party
It’s official: Former Democratic Alabama House member and gubernatorial candidate Artur Davis is becoming a Republican and laying the groundwork for a potential political future in Virginia.
“If I were to run, it would be as a Republican,” he wrote on his Web site. “And I am in the process of changing my voter registration from Alabama to Virginia, a development which likely does represent a closing of one chapter and perhaps the opening of another.”
Thad McCotter’s problems mount
The Michigan attorney general’s office is preparing to look into potential election fraud within Michigan Republican Rep. Thaddeus McCotter’s campaign after large numbers of the signatures turned in by the campaign were ruled invalid.
“We will review information provided by the Secretary of State and determine whether additional action is warranted,” said a Joy Yearout, a spokeswoman for Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette.
McCotter, who briefly waged a long shot bid for the GOP presidential nomination last year, has failed to qualify for the ballot and announced Tuesday that he will wage a write-in campaign in the primary.
Republican presidential candidate Rep. Thaddeus McCotter (R-Mich.) speaks during a news conference on Capitol Hill on September 12, 2011, in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images)
The art of the political stonewall
Politicians generally don’t like to answer questions directly. And that goes double when they are talking about something uncomfortable.
The result, more and more, is an on-camera stonewall that would make General Jackson proud.
Case in point: Elizabeth Warren, the Democratic Massachusetts Senate candidate who has faced weeks of questions about whether she claimed to be a Native American to get preferential treatment, has met the repeated questions with a good, old-fashioned, political stonewall.
“I told you: I have answered these questions; I am going to talk about what is happening to America’s families,” Warren says in a video posted this week, repeatedly returning to the theme of the economy as a reporter peppers her with questions on what she claimed and when.
Oklahoma lawmaker promises to get in ‘a president’s face’
How much do Republicans dislike President Obama? A whole lot. And here’s another sign.
Two recent ads from Oklahoma Rep. John Sullivan (R) promise that the lawmaker will “get in your face if you’re wrong — even a president’s face.” Here’s “Care”:
President Obama vs ‘Uncommitted’: The Kentucky primary explained
President Obama’s inability to break 60 percent of the vote against “uncommitted” in Tuesday’s Kentucky Democratic primary drew national headlines and set off a debate about the role race and culture played in the strong vote against the incumbent.
Now, thanks to the Louisville Courier Journal, we have a visual representation of how the “Obama vs uncommitted” primary played out. (Make sure to read Joseph Gerth’s whole piece breaking down the where and why of the primary vote.)
Why running against the Supreme Court just might work for Obama
Some time between now and July 4, the Supreme Court will hand down two rulings — one on the constitutionality of President Obama’s health care law, the other on Arizona’s immigration law — that could have genuine impact on the battle for the White House this fall.
The tea-leave reading of how the Court will rule — and, to be clear, this is guesswork at best — seems to suggest that they may well strike down the health care law and uphold Arizona’s measure, a dual decision that would widely be seen as a victory for conservatives and a defeat for President Obama.
Can Democrats run from Obama? Should they?
Two Democrats in the past two days have shunned President Obama.
Asked during a debate Wednesday night whether he would vote for President Obama, Arizona House candidate Ron Barber (D) demurred.
“My vote is my vote,” he told Republican Jesse Kelly, who he faces in a special election for the seat vacated by Gabrielle Giffords. “And I will not be talking about other elections. I’m focused on beating you on June 12.”
Is the Bain attack working?
President Obama’s campaign is in the midst of an extended attack on Mitt Romney’s time spent at Bain Capital, an effort to define the former Massachusetts governor as out of touch with average Americans.
Ads have been run, conference calls have been held, press releases (and then some more press releases) have been sent — an all-out effort that speaks to how important it is for the Obama campaign to win this fight over who Mitt Romney really is.
Gay marriage? Bullying? Voters don’t care.
The political world has been consumed in recent weeks by President Obama’s decision to come out in support of same-sex marriage and by a Washington Post story detailing allegations of high school bullying by former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney .
And what sort of reaction have these two major stories elicited from the voting public? In a word: “Eh”.
Arizona Secretary of State Ken Bennett satisfied Obama was born in United States
President Obama will be on the ballot in Arizona after all.
Arizona Secretary of State Ken Bennett (R), who earlier this month requested more information from Hawaii on President Obama’s birth certificate, has gotten the confirmation he needed. 
U.S. President Barack Obama's birth certificate that was released by the White House in Washington April 27, 2011. (REUTERS/The White House/Handout)
“Late yesterday, our office received the 'verification in-lieu of certified copy' from officials within the Hawaii Department of Health that we requested in March,” Bennett said in a statement released Wednesday afternoon. “They have officially confirmed that the information in the copy of the Certificate of Live Birth for the President matches the original record in their files.”
Kentucky, Arkansas primaries: Is it racism?
That President Obama lost roughly 40 percent of the vote in Democratic primaries in Arkansas, Kentucky and West Virginia over the last two weeks has drawn massive national headlines.
Those headlines have drawn a collective eyeroll from Democrats — and many others who closely follow national politics — who ascribe the underperformance by the incumbent to a very simple thing: racism.
How Cory Booker won
Newark Mayor Cory Booker clearly misspoke on NBC’s “Meet the Press” Sunday when he lumped attacks on former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney’s record at Bain Capital into the same category as attacks on President Obama’s connection to Rev. Jeremiah Wright.
Newark Mayor Cory Booker's right hand is bandaged as he stands in his driveway between a boarded-up 433 Hawthorne Avenue and next his home, left, in Newark, N.J., Friday, April 13, 2012 as he talks about rescuing a neighbor Thursday from fire at the home. (AP Photo/Mel Evans)Booker has spent the last three days kind-of, sort-of walking those comments back, insisting that he never meant to conflate Bain and Wright while holding firm on his condemnation of the negative campaigning in both parties. (Booker called the tone of the campaign “nauseating”.)
Conventional wisdom dictates that Booker’s gaffe hurts him politically. Conventional wisdom could well be wrong.
“While he may take grief in the short run, it will only serve to benefit him in the long run,” argued one senior Democratic party operative granted anonymity to speak candidly about such a politically sensitive topic.
Artur Davis reportedly considering Republican House bid in Virginia
Former Rep. Artur Davis (D-Ala.) might run for Congress in 2014 — possibly as a Republican.
BuzzFeed reports that the conservative Democrat is looking at challenging Rep. Gerry Connolly (D) in 2014.
The Fix reached out to Davis via email and the man who sought the 2010 Democratic nomination for governor in the Yellow Hammer State was very careful to leave the door open to another bid — possibly from the other side of the partisan aisle.
Why the 2012 election will be the closest since Bush vs Gore
The 2012 presidential election is going to be close. Very close. Incredibly close. Like Al-Gore-vs-George-W.-Bush close.
A review of the last year’s worth of national polling conducted by the Washington Post and ABC News makes clear that not only is the electorate almost equally divided between President Obama and former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney but people are also equally split on which of the two men is better equipped to handle the economy, which, of course, is the only issue that matters to a majority of voters.
Three questions in the Arkansas and Kentucky primaries
Republicans and Democrats will pick their nominees for a pair of open seats in Arkansas and Kentucky on Tuesday, while Democrats choose their candidate against targeted freshman Rep. Rick Crawford (R-Ark.).
The trio of House primaries highlight what is otherwise a pretty sleepy primary day in which President Obama’s performance in the Arkansas primary will likely be the most intriguing storyline
For those watching the battle for the House — political nerds unite! -- below are the three key questions that will be answered as tonight’s results roll in.
David Axelrod scolds Cory Booker on Bain Capital
President Obama’s chief political strategist hammered comments made by Newark Mayor Cory Booker regarding former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney’s work at Bain Capital as “wrong”, the latest attempt by the White House to get out from under the burgeoning controversy.
“In this particular instance he was just wrong,” Axelrod told NBC’s Andrea Mitchell — speaking about Booker’s defense of private equity firms. “There are specific instances here that speak to an economic theory that isn’t the right economic theory for the country.”
Cory Booker commits the classic Washington gaffe
In Washington, there’s an old cliche: A gaffe is when a politician is accidentally honest.
That’s what happened to Newark (N.J.) Mayor Cory Booker during an appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday. Booker, who is widely regarded as a fast riser in Democratic politics, veered badly off message when he defended Bain Capital — the longtime employer of former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney — and described the negative tone of the campaign as “nauseating”.
How Mitt Romney might outraise Barack Obama
Political observers have spent the last four years marveling at President Obama’s fundraising might. But now even Democrats are admitting that former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney — and his allied party and outside groups — may very well outspend the current occupant of the White House between now and the Nov. 6 election.
Dennis Kucinich will not run in Washington
Come January, Rep. Dennis Kucinich’s career in Congress will end.
Ever since losing a member-vs-member primary against Rep. Marcy Kaptur, the Ohio Democrat has been considering a bid in Washington state. Today, he announced that he would step down instead.
Obama’s April fundraising haul: $43.6 million
President Obama and the Democrats raised $43.6 million in April as the campaign against former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney ramps up.
That’s a drop from March when Obama and various Democratic committees together raised $53 million, even though the campaign had 169,500 new donors last month. Obama dwarfed Romney in fundraising in March, when the Republican candidate took in only $12.6 million. Romney has yet to release his April numbers.
The average contribution from Obama’ 437,323 April donors was $50.23, and 98 percent of those donations $250 or less.
GOP freshmen = weak tea
Surprise, surprise: The Republican freshman class isn’t as tea party-friendly as you might think.
We’ve written before on this blog about how the tea party label has been misappropriated to cover all kinds of Republicans who won in 2010. While many latched onto the label or simply let others define them as such, the label wasn’t a great fit for many of them.
Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.) may not be the tea partier you think he is. (Doug Murray/Reuters)
Suddenly, establishment Republicans who embraced conservative causes and opposed President Obama’s health-care legislation became known as tea partiers. John Boehner even called himself one.
Alas, most of them are not tea partiers. And supporters of the tea party movement are starting to take notice.
Case in point: the conservative Club for Growth issued a scorecard of the GOP freshmen class today and concluded that many of them haven’t lived up to their tea party billing.
Obama: ‘I’m going to win’
Updated at 11:40 a.m.
President Obama said in an interview airing Tuesday that he will win reelection this year.
“I’m going to win,” he said in an interview with ABC’s “The View,” which was taped Monday.
Obama acknowledged continued difficulties with the economy present a challenge for his campaign, but also said that the election should be a choice between candidates. He said he hopes American voters will make a decision between his and Mitt Romney’s visions for the country.
“Don’t compare me to the almighty; compare me to the alternative,” Obama said, quoting Vice President Joe Biden.
Top Obama adviser backs Rep. Steve Rothman over Rep. Bill Pascrell
A top Obama campaign adviser is taking sides in a member-versus-member primary in New Jersey, with senior adviser David Axelrod set to campaign for Rep. Steve Rothman (D-N.J.), according to a national Democratic aide.
Rothman faces Rep. Bill Pascrell in a North Jersey district that was merged by redistricting. Details of Axelrod’s visit weren’t immediately known.
The 10 House districts that might surprise you
For the past five election cycles, the battleground districts in the battle for the House have stayed very consistent — more or less.
One party wins control of the House by winning certain competitive seats, and the other party wins it back by regaining, in large part, those same seats.
Starting this year, though, the deck is shuffled. Redistricting and the wave of retirements that often goes with it puts some previously safe seats into play and moves some swing seats into the safe column.
But just which seats are newly relevant?
Charles Rangel more vulnerable than ever
Last Friday, reporters asked Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) if President Obama was supporting his reelection campaign.
“That’s a good question,” said the 81-year-old congressman, who was distributing fliers featuring a photo of himself with the president. “I would welcome asking whether or not the president opposes my reelection. Especially for the primary. I wish you would.”
Earlier this week, a reporter asked White House Press Secretary Jay Carney the same question. The spokesman responded, “I’ll have to get back to you on that.”
Rangel is in more danger than ever.
(Melina Mara - THE WASHINGTON POST)
Obama suggested before the 2010 election that Rangel, facing an ethics investigation, should end his career “with dignity.” Rangel ran and won easily.
A gay marriage advocate with ears in the White House
President Obama’s decision to support gay marriage came after years of pressure from some of his most ardent supporters.
One of them is Chad Griffin, the 38-year-old incoming president of Human Rights Campaign, an adovcacy group for gay rights. Griffin is an example of the behind-the-scenes power players who have been prodding the White House on this issue for some time. The California-based political consultant said he has made several appeals to the president in person to come out in support of gay marriage. And as one of the top bundlers for Obama’s campaign, he has been exerting financial pressure as well.
His ties to the White House go deeper than that, however. Griffin’s former business partner, Kristina Schake, is now Michelle Obama’s communications director. His college roommate is White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer. And Griffin and his partner Jerome Fallon were seated at the head table with Obama at the recent state dinner for British Prime Minister David Cameron.
Chad Griffin is a long-time advocate for gay marriage.
(Jeff Chiu - AP)
After Vice President Joe Biden said on “Meet the Press” on Sunday that he was “absolutely comfortable” with gay marriage, it was Griffin who dismissed White House attempts to walk the comment back.
Joe Biden, gay marriage and 2016
Opinion varies about why Vice President Joe Biden seemed to endorsed gay marriage during an appearance last Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press”.
Was this Biden being Biden, a politician with a penchant for speaking off the cuff doing just that? Was it an authorized trial balloon directed by the White House to test reaction to President Obama coming out in favor of gay marriage? Or, most deliciously, was this Biden acting alone — but not by accident — in an attempt to bolster his 2016 prospects?
Obama: Biden ‘a little bit over his skis’ on gay marriage comments
President Obama said in an interview aired Thursday morning that he had planned to come out in favor of gay marriage this year even before Vice President Joe Biden broached the issue on national TV last weekend weekend.
Obama suggested that Biden’s comments hastened his own announcement, but said that it was going to happen in the next few months anyway.
“I had already made a decision that we were going to take this position before the election and before the convention,” Obama said. “He probably got a little bit over his skis, but out of generosity of spirit.”
Why President Obama’s same-sex marriage decision matters less than you think
President Obama’s decision to reverse course and announce his support for same-sex marriage created a media feeding frenzy Wednesday as the press tried to wrap its collective arms around the various aspects of the story.
Judging from all the coverage, it’s easy to assume that the Obama decision on gay marriage could well serve as a pivot point in his reelection bid.
President Obama’s calculated gamble on gay marriage
President Obama’s decision to express support for gay marriage in an interview with ABC’s Robin Roberts is a decision that comes with real political risk.
In truth, Obama’s hand was forced on the issue by comments made by Vice President Joe Biden on NBC’s “Meet the Press”in which he seemed to express support for gay marriage.
(Watch the video: Obama supports gay marriage )
While Biden’s office and the White House insisted there was no space between Biden’s remarks and Obama’s stated position in support of civil unions but not gay marriage, it reeked of bad spin — and everyone (including the White House) sensed it.
Given that tenuous situation and the fact that it was something close to an accepted fact in political circles that Obama, on a personal level, favored allowing gays to marry, it was clear that the President had to say something — and sooner rather than later.
Why felon Keith Judd did so well against Obama in West Virginia
Keith Judd, who is serving a 17 1/2-year prison sentence for extortion at the Federal Correctional Institution in Texarkana, Texas, took 41 percent of the vote in West Virginia’s Democratic primary Tuesday night — 72,000 votes to Obama’s 106,000. He would qualify for convention delegates, if anyone had signed up to be a Judd delegate. (No one did.)
How did Judd get so many votes?
It’s likely not his past careers as a superhero and religious leader. Or his passionate FEC report ramblings. Simply put, West Virginia does not like Obama.
Biden: World thought U.S. was “the problem” on Iran
Joe Biden spars with Mitt Romney campaign on Iran, Eric Cantor distance shimself from Lugar race, Mark Kirk updates us on his recovery and there are scattered reports of bad ballots in North Carolina.
Make sure to sign up to get “Afternoon Fix” in your e-mail inbox every day by 5 (ish) p.m!
Indiana, North Carolina and West Virginia primaries: What to watch for
Indiana Republican Sen. Richard Lugar’s likely demise and the gubernatorial recall primary in Wisconsin aren’t the only two races worth watching tonight. There are also some key House, Senate and governor primaries in Indiana, North Carolina and West Virginia.
Two of those states — Indiana and North Carolina — represent relatively rare opportunities for the House Republicans to play some offense this year.
In addition, North Carolina Democrats will pick their gubernatorial nominee in the marquee governor’s race of 2012 (after Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s recall election, that is), and West Virginia will hold its governor, Senate and congressional primaries.
There are lots of moving parts; that’s where we come in. Here’s a cheat sheet of what you need to know, state by state and race by race. Impress your friends! Vanquish your enemies!
Obama team struggles on gay marriage questions
The White House struggles on gay marriage, Jeb Bush has endorsed Tommy Thompson, Romney town hall goes off-message and Hillary Clinton expects to see a woman in the White House.
Make sure to sign up to get “Afternoon Fix” in your e-mail inbox every day by 5 (ish) p.m!
President Obama’s independent problem is nothing new.
The big news out of the Politico Battleground poll released Monday morning is that former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney leads President Obama among independent voters by double digits. (the actual number is 48 percent to 38 percent.)
But, Obama’s troubles with independents are really nothing new. In fact, in polling conducted by the Washington Post-ABC News, Obama’s job approval rating among independents has been over 50 percent just one time in the last two years — and that was in the immediate aftermath of the death of Osama bin Laden last spring.
Why is President Obama still “evolving” on gay marriage?
On Sunday, Vice President Joe Biden seemed to signal a shift from the Obama Administration in its long-running (and somewhat tortured) approach to gay marriage.
“I am absolutely comfortable with the fact that men marrying men, women marrying women and heterosexual – men and women marrying – are entitled to the same exact rights, all the civil rights, all the civil liberties,” Biden said on “Meet the Press”. “And quite frankly, I don’t see much of a distinction beyond that.”
Obama makes case in major swing state ad ‘Go,’ launches $25 million ad buy
President Obama’s campaign is out with a minute-long ad, “Go,” touting the administration’s record and reminding voters how bad things were in 2008.
The Obama campaign is planning to spend $25 million on ads this month, senior adviser David Axelrod told reporters Monday.
The ad starts with grim footage of the economic meltdown — “all before this president took the oath.”
Over shots of tea party protesters, the narrator says, “Some thought our best days were behind us, but not him. He believed in us.”
Parsing President Obama’s 2012 campaign kickoff speech
President Obama made it official (again) on Saturday: He is running for re-election. No surprises there. Nor is it surprising that Obama chose Virginia and Ohio — two of the swingiest states in the country — to stage his first two 2012 campaign rallies.
President Barack Obama speaks during his campaign rally at the Siegel Center in Richmond, Va., Saturday, May 5, 2012. (AP Photo/Richmond Times-Dispatch, Eva Russo)What was interesting — or at least worthy of note — was what Obama said in his speeches to the crowds in Richmond and Columbus. This was a speech that was very carefully crafted and one that will almost certainly serve as the blueprint for how Obama will seek to frame the general election against former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney.
This being politics, Obama said less than he meant. But, that’s where we come in. Below are a few of Obama’s best or, at least, most quotable lines and our — slightly longer — translation of the message he was trying to send.
April jobs report: Obama’s time grows short on the economy
The disappointing April jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics this morning not only complicates the Obama Administration’s argument that the President’s policies on the economy are beginning to work but also brings them dangerously close to the point at which even a substantial recovery might not be fully noticed by voters.
For Virginians, Barack Obama fits just right (for now)
President Obama’s current lead over Mitt Romney in a new Washington Post poll in Virginia is due in large part to a belief that the incumbent’s ideology is a better fit for the state than that of the former Massachusetts governor.
A majority of Virginians — 52 percent — say that “Barack Obama’s views on most issues are just about right” as compared to 37 percent who say the same of Romney’s views. Among electorally critical independents, 52 percent say Obama’s views were about right as opposed to just 34 percent who say the same of Romney. Just look at this chart.
‘The life of Julia’ and the new frontiers of presidential politics
On Thursday morning, President Obama’s campaign launched a new interactive infographic — “The life of Julia.”
Her’s how it works:You follow a cartoon woman named Julia from age 3 to age 67. At each step along the way, you learn how she was helped by policies pushed by Obama and how she would be hurt by differing policy prescriptions favored by former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney.
The 2012 election -- in 4 maps.
Anyone who pays even passing attention to politics knows that the November presidential election will be a referendum on the nation’s economy.
And, anyone who pays even passing attention to Fix — we assume that’s virtually everyone in the country, right? — knows that for the average voter the health of the economy is largely determined by the unemployment rate both nationally and in their particular state.
Given the primacy of the unemployment rate in peoples’ perception of the state of the economy — and, consequently, on their votes — we are forever in search of data to illustrate which way the trend line on the economy is headed.
That’s where Patchwork Nation — an amazing mapping and demographic project run by Fix friend Dante Chinni — comes in. We asked Dante to produce a few maps charting the unemployment rate over time both nationally and in the Rust Belt (Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin).
Why President Obama shouldn’t run any more positive ads
President Obama’s reelection campaign is out with a new ad in Ohio, Iowa and Virginia today that bashes former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney for shipping jobs overseas and for — you guessed it! — having a Swiss bank account.
The new ad is the third of the Obama reelection effort. He began his advertising campaign in January with a commercial touting the Administration’s successes on energy and ethics while slamming Americans for Prosperity. His second hit Romney for supporting “big oil”.
Why Osama bin Laden is fair game for President Obama
The one-year anniversary of the killing of Osama bin Laden has occasioned a fierce political debate about the appropriateness of President Obama’s reelection campaign touting the death for their partisan benefit.
It shouldn’t. Here’s why.
No matter what President Obama’s reelection campaign says, this election is almost certain to revolve around a simple question for most undecided voters: Did the president make enough right decisions in his first four years in office to deserve as a second term?
Republicans’ electoral map problem — in one chart
In our Monday Fix column, we argued that former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney faces a very narrow path to the 270 electoral votes he needs to claim the presidency in November.
What we were most struck by while writing the piece was the fact that it’s been more than two decades since the Republican presidential nominee broke 300 electoral votes. During that same time, Democratic presidential nominees — Bill Clinton in 1992 and 1996 and President Obama in 2008 — have won more than 350 electoral votes.
It’s also a remarkable turnaround from the three successive elections in 1980, 1984 and 1988 in which Republican presidential nominees received more than 400(!) electoral votes.
Here’s a chart we put together detailing the electoral map up and downs for each side in the past three decades:
Nothing in the chart above suggests that Romney can’t win this fall. Rather, it highlights the fact that Romney’s margin for error is both small and smaller than that of President Obama.
Is polarization really all Republicans fault?
In a piece for the Post’s Sunday Outlook section, Thomas Mann and Norm Ornstein write that the rise in political polarization in Congress is not the effect of both parties moving to their ideological extremes but rather of Republicans moving far further to the right than Democrats have moved to the left.
President Obama’s White House Correspondents Dinner speech: Controversial or a classic of the genre?
President Obama’s speech at the White House Correspondents Dinner on Saturday night was chockful of laughter-provoking — and occasionally eyebrow raising — material.
He joked about Secretary of State Hillary Clinton sending him drunken texts from Cartajena. He poked fun at former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney’s wealth. He even kidded about stories that as a child in Indonesia he had eaten dog. (You can watch the full speech here.)
Obama unveils new campaign slogan: ‘Forward’
President Obama’s campaign is out with a Web video that defends his first term on all fronts while unveiling a new slogan: “Forward.”
President Obama and Bill Clinton: BFF?
On Sunday night, President Obama did something that was unimaginable at this time four years ago. He attended a fundraiser featuring former President Bill Clinton held at the Virginia home of longtime Clintonite Terry McAuliffe.
At this time in 2008, the Obamas and the Clintons were barely on speaking terms, engaged in daily rhetorical sniping as they battled for the Democratic presidential nomination.
White House Correspondents Dinner: The night in 61,000 tweets
Some people spend the White House Correspondents Dinner chatting with their friends. Others spend it gawking at celebrities. The Fix spends it tweeting.
Apparently we’re not the only ones. According to the good folks at Twitter, almost 61,000 tweets with the hashtags #whcd or #nerdprom were sent between 6 pm and 11 pm eastern. (Roughly half of those were sent from the Fix.)
The peak of Twitter activity? When comedian Jimmy Kimmel poked fun at the weight of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie — right around 10:22 pm. There were 765 tweets per minute at that moment.
Here’s a full chart detailing the Twitter activity from the Nerd Prom. The other major peaks were Kimmel’s opening monologue (701 tweets per minute) and President Obama’s riff on the Republican field (686 tweets per minute.)
White House Correspondents Dinner: President Obama’s speech
The 2012 edition of the White House Correspondents Dinner — aka nerd prom — is in the books.
If you missed President Obama’s speech to the assembled masses — what, you had better things to do than watch cable TV on a Saturday night? — it’s below (and worth watching).
And, if you want a real-time look at nerd prom from The Fix’s iPhone, make sure to check out our live-tweeting of last night’s festivities here.
WHCD 2012: Where Washington and Hollywood meet
Live tweeting the White House Correspondents Dinner!
The Fix is headed to tonight’s White House Correspondent Dinner armed with a tuxedo (tuxedo t-shirt, that is) and an iPhone.
Our goal? To bring the proceedings, which include speeches by President Obama and comedian Jimmy Kimmel, to Fixistas who couldn’t make it to the dinner. (Presumably all Fix readers were invited....)
Below is a Twitter stream of a handful of Washington Post reporters — including yours truly — who will be at the dinner tonight. (You can also just follow The Fix on Twitter and Instagram — cillizzac — if you want updates from us only!)
The dinner gets started at 7:30 pm eastern time. But the gawking at celebrities will start — for us at least — around 6 pm. See you online tonight!
President Obama is cool. Mitt Romney isn’t. (Part 2)
Earlier this week, we wrote a piece making the case that President Obama is cool, that Mitt Romney isn’t and that that reality could actually work in favor of the Republican nominee this fall.
American Crossroads, the leading conservative outside group in this election, seemed to agree with that sentiment — releasing a web video on the subject of Obama’s coolness less than 24 hours after we published our item.
What Joe Biden can do for Barack Obama
Joe Biden is the Rodney Dangerfield of modern American politics.
Republicans mock his tendency toward verbal excess while many Democrats pine for him to be replaced as the vice presidential nominee in 2012 by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. (For the billionth time: That ain’t happening.)
But, to assume Biden is simply a bit player as President Obama ramps up his 2012 re-election bid is to drastically underestimate the role he is, can and almost certainly will play in helping to shape the race.
Why is illegal immigration still an issue?
The “Republican DREAM Act” proposed Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) is a challenge to President Obama on immigration policy, but also a challenge to his own party, which has shied away from immigration reform in favor of border security.
There’s good reason for that. Even as illegal immigration has declined, public concern about the issue and desire for increased border security has stayed high.
Boehner: Obama should pay for swing state trip
House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) argued this morning that Obama should reimburse taxpayers for his recent trip to college campuses in North Carolina and Ohio to push for a student loan rate freeze.
“This week the president traveled across the country on the taxpayers’ dime at a cost of $179,000 an hour, insisting that Congress fix a problem that we were already working on,” Boehner said in his weekly news conference. “[H]is campaign ought to be reimbursing the Treasury for the cost of this trip.”
Boehner’s comments are part of a Republican strategy to highlight Obama’s swing state travel.
Bill Clinton: The best surrogate in the country
Bill Clinton is the best surrogate in the country.
When it comes to primaries, especially, the man just wins.
On Tuesday in Pennsylvania, Clinton’s endorsement helped guide Rep. Mark Critz and attorney general candidate Kathleen Kane both to come-from-behind victories in their respective primaries.
Former President Bill Clinton, center, speaks with Brett Egan, left, and his mother Charlotte Egan at an Arts summit at the Clinton Presidential Library in Little Rock, Ark., on April 17. (Danny Johnston/AP)
Earlier this month, his endorsement carried businessman John Delaney to an unlikely victory in a congressional primary over a Maryland state legislative leader who had the backing of Gov. Martin O’Malley and House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.). And it wasn’t close.
Think back two years, and Clinton had a major impact in two big-time Democratic Senate primaries, helping Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.) win renomination and nearly helping Andrew Romanoff upset Sen. Michael Bennet — against the wishes of the White House, we might add.
In almost every case, Clinton’s candidate exceeded expectations significantly, which heavily suggests that the president can still move votes.
Why the Blue Dogs’ decline was inevitable
It’s been a very tough cycle for Blue Dog Democrats, but Tuesday took the cake.
The caucus, which is filled with moderate and conservative Democrats, lost an up-and-coming member, Rep. Jason Altmire, in a primary with another incumbent in a merged district in Western Pennsylvania while one of the group’s founding members, Rep. Tim Holden, fell to a liberal primary challenger in the eastern part of the state.
Rep. Tim Holden (D-Pa.) on Tuesday became the latest Blue Dog Democrat to lose his seat in Congress. And he’s got plenty of company. (Dave Mckeown, AP)
The cumulative effect: For a caucus that featured 54 members last Congress and saw that number sliced to 26 after the 2010 election, the number could be halved again if things go really poorly this November.
Barack Obama is cool. Mitt Romney is not. What does it mean for 2012?
Here’s a fundamental fact of the 2012 presidential race: President Obama is cool. Mitt Romney isn’t.
Obama slow jams the news with Jimmy Fallon. He makes three pointers. He sings Al Green in tune.
Romney praises the height of trees. He sings “Who let the dogs out”. He fakes that a New Hampshire waitress grabbed his behind.
Mark Critz defeats Jason Altmire, Matt Cartwright beats Tim Holden
Two conservative Democrats lost their seats in Pennsylvania tonight thanks to the state’s new congressional map.
Rep. Mark Critz beat Rep. Jason Altmire in a highly competitive member-vs-member Democratic primary for the 12th district, while Rep. Tim Holden (D) was defeated in a primary by lawyer Matt Cartwright in Pennsylvania’s new 17th district.
Is President Obama getting a free pass from the media? Not really.
One of the most common refrains you hear as a reporter is that the reason a particular politician is doing well is because the media is giving him/her a pass.
That’s especially true when it comes to President Obama who, many conservatives believe, gets glowing coverage from the media — particularly when compared to how political reporters have covered the men and women running to be the Republican nominee. (Heck, the New York Times ombusdman urged the Old Gray Lady to take an “aggressive look” at President Obama on Sunday.)
Tuesday’s primaries: What to watch for
It’s primary day (again!).
And just because Rick Santorum dropped out of the GOP presidential race doesn’t mean there aren’t plenty of interesting subplots.
Below, we take a look at what you should watch for as results roll in from presidential primaries in Connecticut, Delaware, New York, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island, along with the regular state primary in the Keystone State.
And be sure to stay tuned to The Fix for all the big results Tuesday night.
Does Gingrich drop out?
Maybe the biggest subplot in the presidential race Tuesday night: Keep an eye on the vote in Delaware, the state Newt Gingrich has focused heavily on in the runup to Tuesday’s contests. He suggested to NBC News on Monday that a poor result there might lead him to drop out.
Gingrich arrives at a campaign stop in Buffalo, N.Y., on April 20. (David Duprey — Associated Press)
“I think we need to take a deep look at what we are doing,” Gingrich said. “We will be in North Carolina tomorrow night, and we will look and see what the results are.”
John Boehner says ‘one-in-three’ chance GOP loses House
Speaker John Boehner is officially worried about losing the House majority this fall.
The Ohio Republican said in an interview with Fox News Channel that will run on Tuesday that there is a “one-in-three” chance that Democrats will win the House in November — a headline that will surely catch people’s attention.
“I would say that there is a two-in-three chance that we win control of the House again, but there’s a one-in-three chance that we could lose,” Boehner said in the interview. “We’ve got a big challenge, and we’ve got work to do.”
Boehner’s words will make plenty of news — in no small part because of how candid he was.
But his remark was far from a slip. Rather, it seems pretty apparent it was a purposeful attempt to remind his party (and its donors) of the stakes this November.
How much Hispanics matter in 2012 — in one chart
Republicans have a Hispanic problem.
Unless they can find ways to begin convincing the nation’s fastest growing population — Hispanics accounted for half of all the growth of the U.S. population over the last decade — that the GOP is a potential political home for them, they won’t remain a credible national party in 2016, 2020 and beyond.
House Democrats plot 2012 playing field
The map on which the battle for the House will be fought this fall came into better focus this week with the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee announcing that it is reserving $32 million worth of ad time in media markets spanning nearly three dozen competitive districts.
While reserving ad time doesn’t lock the committee into actually buying time, it does provide a good window into the Democrats’ early strategy for trying to take back the House — particularly as it related to which districts they see as crucial and/or close.
Democrats need to gain 25 seats in order to regain the majority, so if they’ve got a shot at it, this is likely just a precursor to a much larger ad buy that spans many more districts. And, most of the current ad reservations are focused on media markets that will likely be important to the presidential race. In markets where it’s unlikely the presidential campaigns will buy time, it’s much easier (and cheaper) to buy ad space later this year.
Don’t want to comb through the entirety of the Democratic ad buy? No problem. We did it for you. What you need to know is below.
Bill Clinton’s endorsements: loyalty or payback?
Call it loyalty or call it payback: The 2008 Democratic presidential primary lives on in Bill Clinton’s 2012 endorsements.
Former President Bill Clinton speaks at a 100th anniversary program for Arkansas Children's Hospital in Little Rock, Ark., Monday, March 5, 2012. (AP Photo/Danny Johnston)
Clinton has now endorsed in at least six Democratic primaries this year, according to our count. In all six of them, the candidate he’s backing supported or was tied to his wife, Hillary Clinton, in the Democratic primary four years ago, and their opponents supported President Obama in that race.
Allies of Clinton note that he makes no apologies about being loyal to those who have been loyal to him and his family. And, they add, he is the only member of the Clinton family free to dabble in politics — his wife is Secretary of State while his daughter works for NBC — which keeps him very busy in the endorsement game.
Drawing any conclusions beyond that — particularly regarding any sort of payback — is absolutely misguided, they argue.
Still, it’s an interesting trend. A quick rundown of where Clinton has chosen to play in the primary season is below.
Ted Nugent looking forward to Secret Service meeting
Ted Nugent is meeting with the Secret Service, Obama is taking a jab at Romney, Gingrich is staying in out of obligation and Santorum is considering an endorsement.
Make sure to sign up to get “Afternoon Fix” in your e-mail inbox every day by 5 (ish) p.m!
The GSA and Secret Service scandals: A political problem for President Obama?
It’s been a rough few weeks for the federal government.
First, the lavish spending of the General Services Administration on a wild Las Vegas retreat came to light. Then came the Secret Service scandal where a number of agents advancing the President’s trip to Colombia were caught with prostitutes.
The question that’s largely been left out of the coverage of the twin scandals — in which new details seem to emerge daily if not hourly — is whether they carry any political danger for the man at the head of the federal government: President Obama.
Ron Barber goes up with first ad in Giffords special election
Arizona Democratic special election candidate Ron Barber is up with his first ad of the race , a bio spot in which he talks about working with the disabled and running a business.
“I’m Ron Barber and I’ve seen a lot it my life,” Barber says while driving in a car in the ad, which was produced by Ralston Lapp Media. “I’ve seen what we need to do: Rebuild our middle class.”
Barber, who was unopposed for his party’s nomination on Tuesday, makes no mention of his ties to former congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in the ad, besides flashing some text on the screen pointing out that he served as her district director.
Barber was injured in the January 2011 shooting spree that left six people dead and Giffords wounded by a gun shot to the head.
Mitt Romney is the momentum candidate. But why?
It’s official: Mitt Romney is the momentum candidate in the presidential race.
The Gallup daily tracking polling has shown him up three and five points on President Obama over the last two days. A CBS/New York Times survey released this morning showed the race tied at 46 percent. And a Pew Research Center poll pegged Obama’s lead over Romney at four points, down from a 12-point bulge last month.
Obama campaign releases first Spanish-language ads
President Obama’s campaign has released a series of Spanish-language ads aimed at Latino voters.
The ads will air in Colorado, Nevada and Florida, three key swing states with growing Latino populations.
Each ad features a Latino campaign organizer touting the president’s education policies, in particular improvements to the early-education program Head Start and increased funding for Pell Grants, which help poor students attend college.
The incredibly shrinking swing vote
Billions of dollars — literally — will be spent between now and Nov. 6 in hopes of reelecting or defeating President Obama.
Those billions will be directed at a tiny sliver of truly undecided voters, according to new polling data from the Pew Research Center.
Less than one in four registered voters described themselves as swing voters in the Pew poll, well below the 33 percent who said the same in a June 2008 Pew survey and consistent with the 21 percent who said they were truly undecided in June 2004 — the last time an incumbent president sought reelection.
Jesse Kelly wins GOP nod for Giffords special election
Iraq veteran Jesse Kelly won the Republican nomination in the special election for former congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords’s (D-Ariz.) seat on Tuesday and will face former Giffords aide Ron Barber (D) in the June 12 race.
Kelly, who fell to Giffords by about 4,000 votes in 2010, turned aside a field of opponents that included state Sen. Frank Antenori, broadcaster Dave Sitton and former Air Force pilot Martha McSally.
A permanent gender gap problem for Republicans?
New poll data from the Pew Research Center suggests that not only does President Obama enjoy a clear edge over former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney among women but that younger women favor the incumbent overwhelmingly, a data point that suggests a potential long term problem for the GOP.
Obama leads Romney among all women by a 53 percent to 40 percent margin, which, interestingly, is down from the 20 point edge that he enjoyed in a March Pew poll.
How the GOP could steal Gabby Giffords’s seat
Is Gabrielle Giffords’s (D-Ariz.) former aide the odds-on favorite to claim her seat in the upcoming special election? Probably.
Is it a slam dunk? Hardly.
Voting begins in the special election today, with Republicans picking a nominee to face former Giffords aide Ron Barber (D) in the June 12 special election. And for a while now, the assumption has been that Barber would probably win the race — thanks in no small part to his close ties to Giffords. (For more on Barber, see former Fixer Felicia Sonmez’s profile from last week.)
Ron Barber, left, a former top aide to former congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, right, is favored to win a special election for her seat. But he’s running in a Republican-leaning district. (AP)
But if the past several years have shown us anything, it’s that special elections are rarely predictable, often surprising and usually a big deal.
Arizona’s 8th district could be the latest to fit that mold.
Why the presidential race is going to be closer than you think
The dominant narrative since the beginning of 2012 has been that President Obama has regained his footing after a rocky 2011 and is trending upward. Ask 10 political types who will win in November, and eight of them (or so) will say Obama.
But, like all conventional wisdom, it’s only true until it changes. And, on Monday, a new poll came out that provided at least a hint that the CW might be in for a shift.
First quarter fundraising: Winners and losers
While many Americans are busy filing their taxes this week, many politicians were filing their first quarter financial reports last weekend.
Which means The Fix has spent a good portion of the day combing through all the House and Senate candidates’ quarterly financial reports.
We won’t bore you with all the details, but we will give you some highlights. So, without further ado, we bring you our first quarter fundraising winners and losers...
WINNERS
A yard sign calling for voters to "retire" Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) in New Palestine, Ind. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy)
* Elizabeth Warren: The Massachusetts Democrat has become a mainstay on this list. Look at it this way: Her opponent, Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.), raised more money than any other incumbent last quarter, with $3.4 million, and she raised twice as much as him, with $6.9 million. She has also closed the cash-on-hand gap in a hurry; she trails $15 million to $11 million now.
* Richard Mourdock: With $875,000 raised, Mourdock outdid both his incumbent GOP primary opponent, Sen. Richard Lugar ($820,000), and his potential general election opponent, Rep. Joe Donnelly (D), who pulled in just $312,000 for the quarter.
Congressional retirements reach highest point since 1996
Congressional retirements continue to mount, and now more incumbents are calling it quits than at any point in the last 16 years.
Rep. Dan Boren (D-Okla.) is one of 25 House incumbents retiring this year. And unlike most of his fellow retirees, his exit puts a previously safe seat in play. (Linda Davidson/Washington Post)
New York Democratic Rep. Edolphus Towns’ retirement announcement today makes him the 25th House retirement of this cycle. Add in the 10 Senate retirements, and you’ve got the most combined retirements since 1996, when Democratic lawmakers retired in droves after the Republican Revolution of 1994 (and many Republicans joined them).
Add in another 15 House members running for other/higher office, and the next Congress is already promising to include plenty of turnover — with 50 out of 535 members (nearly 10 percent) already leaving their seats.
President Obama’s March fundraising haul: $53 million
President Obama raised $53 million last month for his reelection, a substantial increase from the month before.
In February, Obama raised $45 million from 348,000 donors. This month he upped his total by $8 million, and increased his donor pool to 567,000.
Campaign manager Jim Messina announced the total — raised in conjunction with the Democratic National Committee and two joint committees, the Obama Victory Fund and the Swing State Victory Fund — in a Web video that focused on small donors.
“People are building this organization five and 10 bucks at a time to take on Mitt Romney,” Messina said.
President Obama’s (very) cautious economic optimism
Two of President Obama’s key surrogates took to the weekend political chat circuit to spread the message that the administration’s economic policies were working — kind of, sort of.
Senior strategist David Axelrod in an interview with “Fox News Sunday” said that “The choice in this election is between economy that produces a growing middle class and that gives people a chance to get ahead and their kids a chance to get ahead, and an economy that continues down the road we are on, where a fewer and fewer number of people do very well, and everybody else is running faster and faster just to keep pace.”
Rep. Edolphus Towns, a New York Democrat, won’t seek reelection
Fifteen-term Rep. Edolphus Towns (D-N.Y.) has decided not to seek reelection this year, according to two aides familiar with his plans.
Towns, who represents a heavily Democratic and majority-black Brooklyn-based district and is a former chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform committee, will turn 78 this year and would have been 80 by the time his next term ended. In addition, he faced a potentially difficult primary with state Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries and New York City Councilman Charles Barron.
Kennedy scion off to very fast fundraising start
Joe Kennedy III, the latest member of the famous Kennedy family to seek federal office, raised an impressive $1.3 million in the first quarter of this year in support of his Massachusetts congressional campaign.
Kennedy, the 31-year-old son of former congressman Joe Kennedy II (D-Mass.) and grandson of Robert F. Kennedy, is the early favorite to succeed retiring Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.).
Obama’s taxes all about Mitt Romney
President Obama releases his taxes every year. But this time they came with a big side of politics.
The president’s campaign hopes to paint former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney as an out-of-touch millionaire with no concern for the middle-class. And the tax releases are one of the first big salvos in that fight. 
President Barack Obama speaks at the White House Forum on Women and the Economy, Friday, April 6, 2012, in the South Court Auditorium of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on the White House complex in Washington.
(Carolyn Kaster - AP)
Obama’s returns don’t exactly depict an everyman: together with Michelle Obama, he reported making $789,674 in the past year. About half of that came from book sales. Their effective tax rate, 20.5 percent, is lower than that of many Americans with lower incomes (for example, Vice President Joe Biden).
If President Obama were a car, what kind of car would he be?
“If President Obama was a car, what kind of car would he be and why?”
That’s the question Resurgent Republic, a Republican-led polling conglomerate, asked a group of independents in Colorado and Virginia who had voted for the president in 2008.
The answers are incredibly illuminating, providing a window into how a critical swing bloc of the electorate thinks about the current occupant of the White House.
How YouTube and Twitter are hurting Mitt Romney
It’s a strategy as old as American politics: You run toward the party base — on the left or right — in the primary and then move to the ideological middle once you become your party’s standard-bearer.
But, the explosion of video-sharing sites like YouTube and microblogging technology like Twitter badly complicate this age-old formula.
The single scariest number for President Obama in the Washington Post-ABC poll
There’s one number in the latest Washington Post-ABC News poll that should send a chill up the collective spine of President Obama and his reelection team. That number? 76.
Seventy six percent of respondents said that the economy is “still in recession” while just 21 percent said the recession is over, according to the Post-ABC poll. While 85 percent of Republicans feel the economy is still in recession so do 68 percent of Democrats and 77 percent of independents.
Republican Rep. Allen West says many congressional Democrats are Communists
Updated at 5:27 p.m.
Consider this Reason No. 41 that Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.) won’t be the GOP’s vice presidential nominee:
At an event late Tuesday — shortly after The Fix wrote about how West is too much of a bomb-thrower to be the GOP’s vice presidential nominee — the freshman congressman suggested that as many as 81 Democrats in Congress are not only secret Communists, but actual members of the Communist Party.
Mitt Romney 2012 = John Kerry 2004?
Political reporters — all of whom are history nerds at heart — spend countless hours trying to figure out which past election the current elections most reminds them of.
It’s part parlor game — you usually win when you compare the current election to the most obscure election of the past possible (this reminds me of the 1876 election between Samuel Tilden and Rutherford B. Hayes) — and part useful political analysis. While no two elections are ever exactly the same, there are elections whose dynamics clearly resemble one another and where studying what happened can help you understand what will happen.
Crossroads GPS attacks Obama in six swing states
A Republican-affiliated outside group is making a major ad buy to attack President Obama in six swing states.
In an ad called “Too Much,” Crossroads GPS attacks the administration over high gas prices. There’s $1.7 million behind the ad, which is airing in Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Nevada, Ohio, and Virginia.
Buffett Rule no silver bullet
Clearly, Democrats think the “Buffett Rule” is very good politics.
President Obama is pitching it in Boca Raton, Fla., today — his 20th speech on the subject since the State of the Union, according to CBS. Yesterday, his campaign held a conference call about it. Vice President Biden will talk about it Thursday in New Hampshire. Senate Democrats have pledged to push it all year long.
But a new survey from a centrist Democratic group suggests that the proposal, which would ensure that taxpayers who make over $1 million pay at least a 30 percent rate on all their income, might not be campaign magic.
Paul Ryan: Obama’s attacks just ‘verbal tantrums’
In a “Today” show appearance Tuesday morning, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) said he hadn’t seriously considered being tapped as Mitt Romney’s running-mate.
But the House budget chairman has already settled comfortably into a traditional VP role: attack dog.
Barack Obama’s empathy edge
Presidential elections are rarely won and lost on policy. Voters instead tend to choose the person they most want to be president based on who they like. And that feeling is heavily influenced by which of the candidates they believe best understands their hopes and dreams.
Call it the empathy factor. And it matters. A lot.
Mitt Romney is the Republican nominee. Now what?
One fight for former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney is over. He will be the Republican presidential nominee this fall.
But, now a bigger challenge awaits. A slew of recent polling shows him running well behind President Obama and with some of the highest unfavorable ratings of any presidential nominee at this time in the race.
The STOCK Act: Refuge of the most vulnerable congressmen in America
President Obama signed the so-called STOCK Act on Wednesday surrounded by a veritable who’s who of endangered incumbents.
President Obama signs the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act with Vice President Joe Biden and Republican and Democratic members of Congress at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on Wednesday. (Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg)
There was Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.), of course, who has the unenviable task of winning reelection as a Republican in Massachusetts. (Brown has been front-and-center on the bill from day one.)
Then there was Rep. Robert Dold (R-Ill.), whose already-perilous district became even more difficult for him to hold thanks to a redistricting plan crafted by Illinois Democrats this year. He’s arguably one of the five most vulnerable House members in the country.
Rep. Tim Johnson won’t seek reelection
Updated at 9:09 p.m.
Rep. Tim Johnson (R-Ill.) will not seek reelection this year, according to senior Republican aides.
Johnson has decided against pressing forward with a general election campaign despite winning his party’s nomination for another term last month. Because the primary is completed, county GOP chairman in the district will be tasked with picking a replacement.
Johnson’s district underwent major changes under a redistricting plan crafted by Illinois Democrats. His new swing district included many new constituents for Johnson, who is known for personally calling each resident as he seeks reelection.
What Obama meant by ‘social Darwinism’
In his speech to the American Society of Newspaper Editors Tuesday, President Obama called the budget proposed by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) “thinly veiled social Darwinism.”
What does that mean?
Obama takes on Romney over “Big Oil” in new ad
President Obama is taking on former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney by name in a new campaign ad, the first time he has done so in the 2012 race and the latest sign that the general election has now begun in earnest.
The new ad, which begins airing tonight in Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Nevada, Ohio and Virginia, seeks to link Romney to major oil companies.
Mitt Romney’s women problem
The protracted GOP presidential primary process has badly damaged former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney as he begins to turn his attention to the fall general election fight against President Obama, according to a new poll conducted in 12 swing states by Gallup and USA Today .
In the 12 states — Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin — included in the Gallup/USA Today survey, Obama leads Romney 51 percent to 42 percent.
The next Jean Schmidt? The top 10 House incumbents who could lose their primaries
Even in the most anti-incumbent primary season of the past few decades, less than 5 percent of members of Congress lost their primaries.
Such is the case under a political system that weighs things heavily in favor of incumbents.
Rep. Jean Schmidt is sworn in in January 2011. (Susan Walsh/AP)
But relatively speaking, this looks like one of the most anti-incumbent years in decades. There are several factors in the coming election that will lead to an increase in the number of members sent home early — and it’s quite possible we could see more incumbents lose than at any point in the last 40 years.
More good news on unemployment front for President Obama
The Bureau of Labor Statistics released detailed information about the unemployment rate in the states earlier today, and the news is quite good for President Obama.
Of the 15 states expected to be seriously contested by the two parties this fall, nine have an unemployment rate below the 8.3 percent national rate for the month of February. (For a full list of the swing states and their unemployment rates, scroll to the bottom of this post.)
Why Obama gets less blame than Bush for high gas prices
President Obama’s call to end subsidies for oil companies is likely doomed in Congress, and nearly two-thirds of Americans say they disapprove of the way he’s handling high gas prices.
Yet there’s one bright spot for the White House. Voters are far less likely to blame Obama for skyrocketing fuel costs than they were President Bush six years ago.
Paul Ryan endorses Mitt Romney
Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) on Friday endorsed former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney as the 2012 Republican presidential nominee.
The House budget chairman announced his endorsement on Fox News’ “Fox and Friends,” saying that while the contentious GOP primary process has “been constructive up until now,” it could soon become “counterproductive.”
Resolved: Supercommittees and debt commissions don’t work
The Bowles-Simpson debt reduction commission’s proposed budget went down in flames in the House on Wednesday night, failing by an overwhelming vote of 382 to 38.
And in doing so, it became just the latest bipartisan creation of Congress to crash and burn when it comes time to implement its proposals.
Think about the congressional “supercommittee,” which after the debt ceiling deal of last August was charged with crafting an additional $1.2 trillion in savings. Its effort ended in partisan gridlock, with no votes or even recommendations sent to the whole Congress.
Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson, co-chairmen of the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, and Alice Rivlin and Pete Domenici, co-chairmen of the Bipartisan Policy Center's Debt Reduction Task Force. (REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst)
Further back, there was the Grace Commission in the 1980s, crafted for much the same reason as Bowles-Simpson and the congressional supercommittee. It went nowhere.
So why doesn’t this kind of thing work? In an era in which Congress raves about bipartisanship, the two commissions designed to craft a bipartisan agreement on fiscal matters have yet to produce any kind of consensus or results.
In the end, they’re failing for the very same reason regular legislation doesn’t pass: members just aren’t ready to stomach voting for them.
Latest Tweets
More persistent ridiculous rumor: Biden swapped for Hillary or Obama not born in US?
Paul Ryan said stimulus letters were treated as constituent service, "should have been handled differently." http://t.co/7vJZgYXO
PM Fix: New poll shows Obama holds slim lead over Romney in Wisconsin http://t.co/8GbEHtWM
Post Most: Politics
Campaign 2012