Tag: politico

Politico: excusing in 2012 their lack of foresight about 2010?

I need to push back on this cover-their-rear statement by Politico on the ‘surprise’ flipping of the House of Representatives in 2010.

[House Speaker John] Boehner doesn’t play political prognosticator often. But when he does, those close to him say, there’s usually a calculated reason. In April 2010 — almost two years ago exactly — the then-House minority leader said in a radio interview that an astounding 100 seats were in play in that year’s midterm elections, a figure he said was broader than “anything we’ve seen around here during my 20 years” in the House.

Few from either party believed Boehner at the time, but his assessment proved accurate. Republicans put about 100 Democratic-held seats in play, ultimately winning 63 of them to seize the majority.

(Bolding mine) Actually, people who read RedState (or MoeLane) were prepared for that scenario. People who read Sean Trende at RCP were prepared for that scenario. People who read Hot Air and AoSHQ were at least prepared for the possibility.  In fact, people who were following the election using right-leaning sites and news sourcess were by and large prepared for what happened. But the people were relying on the Daily Beast or the Left-blogosphere or, well, Politico for their political content? …Yeah, those folks ended up being kind of surprised in November. Usually unpleasantly. Continue reading Politico: excusing in 2012 their lack of foresight about 2010?

Politico notices how bad Obamacare’s been.

Again.

(H/T: Instapundit) So, Politico publishes this story called “Four hard truths of health care reform“ – which is Politico’s way of saying ‘Obamacare has been an unmitigated disaster, but we’re going to try to spin it as well as we can anyway’ – and there’s two reasons why the tone of said story is amazing in its effrontery.  The first reason is the way that it presents the aforementioned ‘hard truths’ as if they had just only now been revealed unto the populace, instead of being pretty much known all along.  Don’t believe me?  Take a look: below is each ‘hard truth’ Politico documents. Continue reading Politico notices how bad Obamacare’s been.

Gov. Perry invites Politico to either give the source…

…that Politico used to back up its repeating of anonymous internal sniping from Perry’s campaign; or else to kindly shut up:

Partial transcript at the link. One of the nice things about being a Perry supporter is that his contempt for the DC establishment – which Politico most assuredly is a member of at this point – is never particularly in doubt. I’m also reasonably sure that at this moment Perry is making his staffers understand that anonymous talking out of turn to hostile media sources is a perk for other campaigns, not his. After 2008, that’s a selling point right there.

Moe Lane (crosspost)

Time for Herman Cain to take a three-day weekend.

This is not ‘jumping’ the shark.  This is using a parasail to hover above the shark, all the while throwing chum at it.

Background: Cain’s Chief of Staff Mark Block went on the air today to admit, yeah, it really couldn’t have been former Cain staffer Curt Anderson who leaked the original Cain sexual harassment story to Politico, given that Anderson’s denied it in Politico – and is now giving permission to every reporter that Anderson’s ever talked to about Cain ever to reveal the details of those conversations.  For those unfamiliar with the way Washington, DC works: that’s either suicide or supreme self-confidence… and the fact that Anderson is still upright and walking around kind of suggests that it wasn’t suicide.  So, that issue’s over at least, right?  Nope!  Herman Cain went on the air after Block did and indicated that he still suspects Anderson.  Because, you know, Perry Perry Perry Perry Perry.

And, oh yeah: they’re going to think about suing Politico.  Because they weren’t grinding metal on this story enough already. Continue reading Time for Herman Cain to take a three-day weekend.

This was not a good phone interview for Team Cain.

Via @ewerickson… actually, it’s going around and around and around, but I have to H/T somebody.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gclK_CYyspE&feature=player_embedded#!

Anyway, for those without video, it’s a phone interview where Geraldo Freaking Rivera scores points off of Herman Cain spokesman JD Gordon over yesterday’s allegations of past sexual harassment charges made against the candidate.  Gordon was unprepared, and (at best) uninformed about the facts about the case; he should not have taken that call, frankly.  Particularly since I’m hearing that the Cain campaign had ten days to prepare. Continue reading This was not a good phone interview for Team Cain.

Obama to farmer: ‘Call the USDA.’

Ye gods and little fishes.

So, Wednesday – while campaigning in Illinois, although I understand that we’re supposed to pretend that Obama isn’t actually campaigning, for some bizarre reason – the President of the United States faced with a technical question (the effects of new EPA’s soil and dust regulations on Illinois farmers) by a technical expert (an Illinois farmer).  Despite the fact that the technical question is in fact supposedly within Barack Obama’s level of expertise, the President decided instead to make slight fun of the probably-not-voting-for-him-anyway technical expert by chiding him about believing rumors and suggesting that the technical expert call the Department of Agriculture.

Well.  There was a Politico reporter who actually decided to see what would happen if s/he did precisely that.  So s/he did.  As near as I can tell, the original inquiry about “information related to the effects of noise and dust pollution rules on Illinois farmers” turned into a two day affair involving at least ten phone calls, seven separate, discrete offices (almost all of which also included internal phone tag), and at least twelve individuals.  And as for the final answer?  This is what they sent (yes, sent, via safely distancing email):

“Secretary Vilsack continues to work closely with members of the Cabinet to help them engage with the agricultural community to ensure that we are separating fact from fiction on regulations because the administration is committed to providing greater certainty for farmers and ranchers. Because the question that was posed did not fall within USDA jurisdiction, it does not provide a fair representation of USDA’s robust efforts to get the right information to our producers throughout the country.”

Shorter USDA: “I dunno. Call the President.” Continue reading Obama to farmer: ‘Call the USDA.’

Politico: Conservatives are pro-cancer!

Either that, or Politico hires some pretty sloppy writers.  Personally, I’m voting for the latter.

The background: Politico decided to write an article that attempts to answer the eternal question, For just how long will George Soros keep throwing money down the rathole which is the Activist Left*? It’s an interesting question in its own right – the article suggests that Soros is getting pretty darn tired of piling up his money in the policy equivalent of an empty field, then setting the pile on fire – but there was one throwaway line in the piece that made me roll my eyes at what fools these mortals be:

And — like Koch brothers’ philanthropy — the recipients of Soros’s largesse do not all fit into neat liberal-conservative constructs.

Soros’s Open Society Foundations, for instance, have contributed $431,000 since 1996 to the Cato Institute to fund its drug reform, civil liberties and anti-corruption programs. And the Kochs have contributed tens of millions to the arts and cancer research.

OK. Stop right there. Continue reading Politico: Conservatives are pro-cancer!

So. It’s war, then?

Politico volleys; the New York Times counter-volleys; and then there was this guy with a trident…

What? Trust me, the actual dispute is inside-baseball even by my standards, and I read this stuff for fun. You don’t really need to know, or even really care. The point is that the NYT and Politico have found themselves in a position where they may actually decide to break out the family atomics…

#rsrh The surprisingly DOOMish Politico/GWU poll.

Like all good poison pills, this poll from Politico/GWU looks like good news to the Democrats on the surface.  Admittedly, ‘good news’ is a slippery concept – it shows +5 GOP on the generic ballot – but that’s better than the Democrats have been managing lately and is at least no worse than the last one.  But, as always, it’s the stuff below the lede that’s the killer.  Consider:

  • Never mind Obama’s 46/51 (underwater) favorable/unfavorable numbers; the real interesting numbers here are Pelosi’s (36/56) and Boehner’s (18/15).  It’s like the Democrats’ attempts to demonize Boehner have completely failed, while the Republicans’ attempts to link the Speaker to individual Democratic races has been remarkably successful.  Actually, it’s not ‘like’ that at all; that’s pretty much what happened.
  • Speaking of favorable numbers: according to this poll, it works out like this: Republicans 50(!)/41, Tea Party 41/38… and the Democrats underwater at 42/50. Continue reading #rsrh The surprisingly DOOMish Politico/GWU poll.

#rsrh The Politico is sue-happy again.

They are going after the guy who owns The College Politico again – this time, they’ve added an allegation that he’s ‘squatted’ the domain for nefarious extortionist purposes. I wonder, though, if Politico’s realized that now the Media Research Center is peripherally involved in the whole thing, thanks to The College Politico getting hired by NewsBusters.  They might have reconsidered, if they did; a large part of Politico’s business model depends on the Right more or less tolerating the website’s antics in exchange for what is honestly some very good real-time election results coverage.  A knock-down, drag-out fight with MRC over a domain name might change that…