Senior political columnist @politico. Best email for audio files, documents, tips and provocative ideas: https://t.co/VmkJz2G3tS or DM for text/signal
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Nov 6 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
The blame game began shortly after dawn this am
And while Trump's victory may have a thousand fathers, Harris's defeat won't be an orphan
There's lots of blame to go around
My column:
politico.com/news/magazine/…
First, it was the height of irresponsibility for Biden to insist on running for reelection in his 82nd year. It was also an abdication of leadership by his advisers and elected Democrats to never even question his determination to seek a second term until he forced their hand with a catastrophic debate performance.
You know what ad would have replaced the trans surgery spot, had Biden not quit? An endless loop of his unintelligible answers at that debate.
Aug 19 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
NEW: One party brings back David Plouffe, the other brings back Corey Lewandowski
As Chicago -- site of so many drama-filled conventions gets underway -- Dems have mostly snuffed out their drama.
I wrote on how Dems have become what Repubs used to be
politico.com/news/magazine/…
Democrats are a healthier, better organized, more hierarchical and even ruthless party. Unified against Trump more than they are dedicated to any ideological project, they’ve adopted what’s effectively an Al Davis platform: Just win, baby.
President Biden is finally going to give in? Get in line behind Harris — now.
The vice president is discarding her now-inconvenient left-wing proposals from her 2020 primary bid and airing tough-on-the-border ads? Nod.
She’s inviting a cast of Obama-era Democratic consultants onto the campaign she inherited from Biden? Salute.
Aug 7 • 7 tweets • 3 min read
NEW: On the vindication of VP’s comfort food pick, the first signs that she’s running in a general election + the shades-of-2008 moment last night that triggered Repubs
Oh, and one victory lap: I told Walz in Dec either he or Beshear would be Kamala’s running mate (he didn’t push back!)
My column from Phila >>
t.co/HDTpyIUwRW
The “only in America” line that triggered the “U-S-A” chant has some Dems wanting more
Including Wes Moore
He thinks Harris should drape her nominating convention later this month, literally and metaphorically, with the stars and stripes.
“This needs to be framed as a celebration of America,” Moore said of the Chicago conclave, urging Harris and Walz “to be unapologetic in speaking about their love of country.
Jul 31 • 8 tweets • 3 min read
I had lunch in SF w WILLIE BROWN early last month
Then 6/27 happened
And we lived thru the World Willie Made
On the VP, GAVIN, PELOSI, MAXINE, TRUMP, KIMBERLY and more
This has, literally folks, been the Biden plan for a year.
They “believe that Trump or any other Republican nominee will be reluctant to work with the Commission on Presidential Debates, lessening the chances, and risk, of a head-to-head debate.”
Even if she doesn’t caucus w Rs, Mitt said he wants Sinema back, is open to stump for her in Ariz
Consider: In the vote that counts for McConnell, leader, he’s more likely to be backed by Sinema than Lake
Nov 14, 2022 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
News: In a conversation the day after the midterms, BIDEN urged PELOSI to keep serving w him. “I hope you stick,” he told her.
My new column on the president, his “Catholic sister,” and the twilight days of their political careers (or not!)
politico.com/news/2022/11/1…
The attack on Paul Pelosi has left the speaker & president shaken, deepening their alarm about the country. And for Pelosi, who had been weighing the personal & the political, the attack effectively merged those two considerations, bringing her concerns home in the worst fashion
Nov 11, 2022 • 6 tweets • 3 min read
🚨🚨
Rick Scott was poised to ride the red wave to launch a long shot challenge against Mitch McConnell, had even recorded video to take on Trump’s bete noire
Then the wave didn’t crash, and there may be no majority >
But winning wasn’t the point. Scott wanted a foil.
But the aborted coup now may just mark the final rupture between Scott and McConnell, who go back to when Scott was a donor and hospital exec in Louisville in the 90s.
Pence tells me he’s open to running v Trump in ‘24 - will go “where we’re called” - and heads goes to Ga today to join ranks against Trump’s vengeance tour
Trump spox says Pence is “desperate to chase his lost relevance” nytimes.com/2022/05/23/us/…
Pence has been targeting Trump over what many Repubs believe are the former prez’s worse impulses:
🥊1/6 (speeches hitting Trump by name)
🥊Charlottesville (Pence went to Heyer memorial)
🥊The ‘22 vengeance tour (today in Ga)
Feb 24, 2022 • 8 tweets • 3 min read
Hearing that @JimInhofe - the 87-year-old Oklahoma senator first elected in 1994 - may resign in the next few days. Would trigger an intense campaign among Repubs in a red state where Senate seats don’t come along too often.
Here’s who to watch:
@LtGovPinnell, former RNC member and eager to move @TWShannon, former state house speaker. ran and lost to Lankford for the other Senate seat in 2014
Every member of the House delegation except the fella who could be House Approps chair before long
Feb 13, 2022 • 8 tweets • 4 min read
Bush 43 pitched Ducey + Sununu
Mitch telling recruits Trump has lost juice, his lieutenants sharing polling to prove
Mitt + Collins deputized to woo Hogan
Ducey’s RGA on air for Kemp
Old guard is hoping to win in ‘22 *and* expose Trump as paper tiger
nytimes.com/2022/02/13/us/…
For all the effort to lure non-Trumpy Rs into races, the reveal from ‘22 will be determined by whether DJT can get his candidates nominated
If he takes Ls, starting in Ga, there will be blood in the water.
And as @BillHaslam notes, “Trump has got a lot of chips on the board”
Oct 21, 2021 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
News: Jeff Miller, a lobbyist + close @GOPLeader friend, is warning GOP consultants - you can’t work for Liz *and* Kevin
1 firm has dropped Cheney
“You’re either w Kevin & the conference or the person who is undermining them”
On the ultimatum👇
nytimes.com/2021/10/21/us/…
McCarthy thinks Cheney is undercutting House GOP effort to win majority, wants to isolate her. @CLFSuperPAC not helping her, but will aid other impeachers.
Cheney thinks McCarty so thirsty for speakership he’ll stop at nothing and is on a “morally bankrupt” path.
May 12, 2021 • 6 tweets • 3 min read
New: House Rs didn’t just depose @Liz_Cheney - they handed her a megaphone to remind voters of how beholden the party still is to Trump.
And she’s already using it
On Cheney’s new role, the long shadow of Trumpism & a different sort of endless war
And as interesting, at least to me, @Liz_Cheney is clearly playing for history: she brought family friend and legendary photog @kennerly w her today to record her transition from House leader to leader of the anti-Trump Republicans
Apr 9, 2021 • 5 tweets • 4 min read
Look at its tactics, impulses and issue focus
This is the party Trump has remade.
w @npfandos on what the kerfuffle w the biz community illustrates bout the big pic >
Gaga is blocking the Thune-Stabenow shot, not cool
folks working the cameras more interested in celebs than the people about to make laws, thought this was supposed to be a new era #morehoeven
Jan 12, 2021 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
NEW: McConnell believes Trump committed impeachable offenses, believes the attack on Capitol gives Rs a chance to purge the president
and...
McCarthy has asked colleagues if he should urge Trump to resign, is open to a censure
nyti.ms/35m81rv
“Trump is a political David Koresh: He sees the end coming and wants to burn it all down and take as many with him as possible” - @kycatswin
