Year: 2013

Southerners Still View Obama as ‘Exotic’

Buck Banks

I’m not naming any names, but one senator got up from a Southern state and said, ‘Well, you’ve got to understand that to my people down here, Obama seems like’ — he thought for a second and he said — ‘like he’s exotic.’

— Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA), quoted by the Des Moines Register, describing how one senator suggested his constituents still couldn’t identify with President Obama.

Citizens Untied: NBC, CNN Getting Millions in Free Publicity for Their Hillary Bios from an Unlikely Source – RNC Chair Reince Priebus

Jon Ponder

Just 32 months after the Republican majority on the Supreme Court struck down campaign laws could that had prevented Citizens United, an anti-Clinton lobbying group, from airing a 2002 propaganda hit piece against then-Sen. Hillary Clinton — and just nine months after a campaign in which the Citizen United ruling helped the Republican National Committee and others raise millions of dollars for Mitt Romney’s failed presidential bid — the RNC has executed a dramatic 180-degree reversal on its position against censoring Hillary Clinton film bios.

To put it another way, Republicans were against censoring Hillary biopics before they were for censoring them.

[…]

On the Cover of Rolling Stone – Tsarnaev Issue Doubled RS Average for Single-Copy Sales

Jon Ponder

13,332

Number of copies of Rolling Stone with accused Boston bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev on the cover that have sold since July 19, which is more than double the magazine’s 52-week average for single-sales of 6,541 copies per issue. While some outlets banned the issue, it was available at 1,420 stores nationwide.

Gingrich: There are Limits to U.S. Ability to ‘Export Democracy’

Buck Banks

I am a neoconservative. But at some point, even if you are a neoconservative, you need to take deep breath to ask if our strategies in Middle East have succeeded. It may be that our capacity to export democracy is a lot more limited than we thought.

— Newt Gingrich, telling the Washington Times that the United States’ ability to “export democracy” needs to be reevaluated and that “alternative strategies” should be considered.

Insular Republicans Set to Harm GOP’s National Ambitions

Buck Banks

They are totally insulated from public opinion on this because of redistricting. Republicans are gonna continue to hold the House. But then we’ll head into the 2016 presidential election where the electorate is likely to be 2 percent less white than it was in 2012 and 4 percent less white than it was in 2008. This is a simple math equation.

— GOP strategist Steve Schmidt, in an interview with the New York Times, on the harm House Republicans will do to the GOP’s national ambitions by not supporting immigration reform.

Bevin Talks Tough on McConnell

Buck Banks

I don’t intend to run to the right of Mitch McConnell. I don’t intend to run to the left of Mitch McConnell. I intend to run straight over the top of Mitch McConnell and right into the U.S. Senate.

— Kentucky U.S. Senate candidate Matt Bevin (R), quoted by the Louisville Courier Journal, delivering “what may have been the sharpest attack of the day” at Fancy Farm.