It hit him almost instantly, when he called a press conference in February 1999 to announce that he wouldn’t run for reelection to the Senate the next year. It seemed sensible enough. Lautenberg had been in Washington for 18 years, he’d just turned 75, and his state’s popular Republican governor, Christine Todd Whitman, seemed to be gearing up to challenge him in 2000. Money was a factor too: Lautenberg, who made his fortune as a founder of ADP, had plenty of it but didn’t want to throw it into another expensive campaign. Nor did he want to spend the next 18 months working the phones to scare up cash. So he called it a career and set his sights on an active retirement. When the press conference was over, though, he confessed to a friend that he’d just made a big mistake.

Continue Reading...

The New Jersey political world – and that most certainly includes Chris Christie and his inner circle – was well aware of Frank Lautenberg’s failing health long before he succumbed to viral pneumonia Monday morning at age 89. The senator’s rapid decline had fueled months of quiet and uncomfortably morbid conversations between and among members of both parties, who sought to balance basic good taste with the very practical questions that Lautenberg’s passing would raise.

Lautenberg announced in February that he wouldn’t seek another term in 2014. He had hoped to do this on his own terms, but Cory Booker’s poorly timed decision to throw his own name into the ’14 mix back in December created the impression that Lautenberg was surrendering in the face of a fight. After that February announcement, Lautenberg’s condition seemed to worsen and his prolonged absence from the Senate led members of both parties to conclude that he might resign or die before the end of next year.

Continue Reading...

When a poll a few weeks ago put her ahead of former Gov. Mark Sanford by 9 points in South Carolina’s 1st District special election, Democrats perked up at the prospect of an unlikely victory in the heart of Dixie. But there was reason to be skeptical of that poll, and when the votes were tallied Tuesday night reality asserted itself quickly, with Sanford posting a relatively easy 54-45 percent win.

In hindsight, no one should be surprised. There’s plenty of chatter this morning about supposed turning points in the race, dramatic moments when Sanford snatched the momentum from his Democratic opponent and won over reluctant swing voters. But who knows if Sanford was ever really trailing by that much in the first place. More likely, the SC-1 special election is simply the latest example of white voters in the South – and particularly the Deep South – doing what they almost always do these days: vote Republican.

Continue Reading...

That’s not technically true. We both grew up in the suburbs, and neither of us has lived in Massachusetts for a decade. Nor were we ever full-fledged residents of the city – just college kids at BU (and for a few months after that, unemployed BU grads). But for the first 22 years of our lives – the 22 years that shaped us into who and what we are today – our world revolved around Boston. And many of the people and many of the memories that mean the most to us are still there. The farther our lives have taken us from it, the more it’s come to feel like home.

So as I processed the horrifying images and read the chilling and heartbreaking accounts, there was an added rawness to my grief, an extra intensity to my rage. I knew exactly what my friend meant. I felt like punching something. I wanted to know who did it, and for them to pay. I wanted to be the one who made them pay.

Continue Reading...

At the federal level, much of what Republicans are doing is not working beyond the core constituencies that make up the Party. On the state level, however, it is a different story. Republicans hold governorships in 30 states with 315 electoral votes, the most governors either party has had in 12 years, and four short of the all-time GOP high of 34 governors who served in the 1920s.

Continue Reading...

The instinct to compare the two Paul's is natural. They largely share the same quirky libertarianism, and when Ron stepped out of politics after his third and final presidential campaign last year, it seemed like he was handing off the movement he started to his son. But Ron Paul probably isn't the best point of reference for understanding where Rand Paul fits in today's Republican universe, and the role he could play in the years to come. A more interesting comparison might be found in the career of Robert A. Taft, the leader of a mid-20th Century conservative movement that was anchored by many of the basic tenets of Paul-ism.

Continue Reading...

And how does the top Republican in the House fit into this mix? Well, he doesn't.

Continue Reading...

The event, as it always does, will attract thousands of conservative activists, opinion-shapers and politicians and will receive substantial media coverage. It’s hard to say exactly how well the conference, which serves as an umbrella for a funky area of right-leaning groups and causes, reflects the conservative movement, but the events of the next few days could provide some useful clues about where conservatism is heading in Barack Obama’s second term and the role that some prominent and ambitious Republicans will play in it.

To that end, here are three things to be watching for at CPAC:

Continue Reading...

Continue Reading...

A few months later, it’s worth revisiting that supposedly triumphant moment for Obama, because it’s starting to look a lot different. The problem: The $1.2 trillion sequester, which Obama once assured Americans would never take effect, is now being implemented, threatening to drain life from an economy that’s finally showing signs of a real recovery.

Continue Reading...

Because of her star power and because of the political power of the man she wants to unseat, Judd’s flirtation with the race has drawn considerable national attention, and the coverage will only intensify if she gets in. That has led Dave Weigel, among others, to argue that the political world’s focus on Judd is misplaced – that her party label, liberal views and Hollywood background are all a poor match for an electorate that has become increasingly Republican over the last few decades.

Continue Reading...

Still, for gay marriage backers, there’s a neat and necessary symmetry to Clinton’s latest pronouncement: With the Obama administration lending its support to a push to convince the Supreme Court to overturn DOMA, it’s helpful to have the guy who signed the law in the first place on board too.

Continue Reading...

The obvious answer is that Paul has a genuine and principled objection to Brennan, the architect of the Obama administration’s drones program. Until Brennan’s nomination, there hadn’t exactly been an abundance of news coverage of the drones issue, which figures to recede from the headlines once Brennan’s nomination clears. And even though he did face some pointed questions during his confirmation hearings, Brennan didn’t exactly face the sort of withering examination drone critics were hoping for.  So the filibuster was Paul’s last, best chance to shine a light on an issue that matters to him before the media moves on to something else.

Continue Reading...

This doesn’t mean the sequester won’t have a real impact. The domestic spending cuts will force agencies that provide aid to the poor to turn away families that need it, and the combined effects of slashing $85 billion from Defense and domestic programs over the next seven months will slow an economy that’s still struggling to return to health.

Continue Reading...

The woman said a local lawyer had approached her and a fellow escort and asked them to help frame Menendez and a top donor, Salomon Melgen, according to affidavits obtained by The Washington Post.

That lawyer has in turn identified a second Dominican lawyer who he said gave the woman a script and paid her to read the claims aloud. The first lawyer said he found out only later that the remarks would be videotaped and used against Menendez, the affidavits say.

Continue Reading...

Continue Reading...

That rise-fall-rise-fall cycle neatly reflects the role Gingrich plays in national politics. He has an enduring knack for attracting attention and making himself relevant to the political conversation of the moment, even if most opinion-shapers in his party ultimately aren’t comfortable with him being their public face. So it’s no surprise that even as he nears 70, Gingrich is a vocal participant in the debate over the Republican Party’s direction, one who’s made news recently by taking shots at Stuart Stevens, the architect of Mitt Romney’s ’12 campaign, and Karl Rove.

Continue Reading...

Not for the first time this year, and probably not for the last, the speaker allowed to the floor on Thursday a major piece of legislation that a solid majority of the Republican Conference voted against, that passed mainly on the strength of Democratic votes, and that the Obama White House will now trumpet as a major achievement. The bill at hand was the Violence Against Women Act, which had easily passed the Senate only to meet with fierce resistance from conservatives in the House. In the end, 138 House Republicans went on the record against it, while 87 backed it. Among Democrats, meanwhile, there wasn’t a single “no” vote.

We saw this same dynamic at the start of the year, when the fiscal cliff deal passed with just 85 Republicans voting “yes” – and 151 voting “no.”  And we saw it a few weeks after that, when a $50.5 billion Sandy aid package cleared the chamber with only 49 Republicans supporting it, and 179 opposing it.

Continue Reading...

The official explanation from Al Cardenas, the conference’s chief organizer: “CPAC is like the all-star game for professional athletes; you get invited when you have had an outstanding year.” Christie, apparently thanks to his loud public criticism of House Republicans when they delayed passage of a Sandy relief package, was deemed to have had a sub-par year.

Continue Reading...

It started with a piece by Politico’s Jonathan Martin, who spoke with a number of Democratic governors in Washington last weekend and reported that there’s a “broad recognition” among them that Clinton could clear the field if she enters the race – or at least run as a front-runner like we’ve never before seen. That prompted Ed Kilgore to note that, historically speaking, there really hasn’t been such a thing as clearing the field, and that if nothing else Clinton will face “someone with a resume that commands at least minimal respect” should she run.

Continue Reading...