WaPo:
Democrats say they are happy to see Republicans race to the right, since they believe it will put the eventual GOP nominee out of step with the general electorate. Some Republicans are nervous about that possibility.
“You have to be careful when you are doing this — that you don’t so embrace your base that it becomes impossible to move and have some flexibility or nuances in your position moving forward,” Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.) said.
Brent Budowsky:
A brief word about the dark side of the Internet and social media. The Friday New York Times reported how there are some — a small minority of Twitter users with small minds — who have taken their racism to Twitter to make bigoted attacks against the nation's first black president. I will not dignify their garbage by repeating their racist insults, but I will say this: Twitter should require, at the least, that those who abuse their free speech rights with racism and political hate should have their real names used when they write these rants of racism. Let their husbands, wives, boyfriends, girlfriends, mothers, fathers, bosses and colleagues at work know exactly who they are and exactly what poisonous thoughts they think.
More politics and policy below the fold.
Paul Waldman:
Their frustration is starting to bubble to the surface. New York Times reporter Jason Horowitz, following Clinton in Iowa, wrote a story today about how her campaign is keeping reporters at arm’s length, then tweeted a link to the story with the description: “Queen Hillary and the Everyday Americans of the Round Table distribute alms to the clamoring press.”
But if Clinton is overly concerned about their feelings, it’s hard to tell. Instead, she’s acting as though she isn’t afraid of the press at all.
We’re in the midst of the second media revolution Bill and Hillary Clinton have lived through, both of which changed how politicians relate to reporters. In the first one, which occurred in the 1990s, the media universe expanded and became more partisan, as conservative talk radio became a major force and cable news emerged to cover politics around the clock (Fox News was founded in 1996, in time for the Lewinsky scandal). The incumbent news organizations found themselves pressured by the right, bullied into covering stories they might have paid little attention to and forced to accelerate their news-gathering. Talk radio and cable were perfect for taking allegations against the president — legitimate or otherwise — and forcing them onto the agenda of the “old media” outlets, where they gained legitimacy and shaped the events of the day.
But despite all the scandal fodder his administration (and his private life, and his past) provided, Bill Clinton managed to not only survive but leave office with approval ratings in the 60s.
A very interesting Chris Christie vs Rand Paul from Christie's
home paper:
[Christie's] trying to recover his role as the mainstream GOP standard-bearer with speeches like the Monday one. That's where that line about American exceptionalism comes in. I've seen it mouthed by mainstream Republicans presidential contenders more times than I can recall.
Pretty strange, when you consider that it was coined by an American Communist.
The term first cropped up in correspondence between Marxist Jay Lovestone and Soviet dictator Josef Stalin in 1929.
Lovestone later became a Democrat and helped craft a philosophy of big government called "neo-liberalism." Eventually that migrated to the Republican Party under the label of "neo-conservatism." But the core principle remained: It was up to the United States to micromanage the rest of the world at the American taxpayers' expense.
That's what Christie proposed the other day - and the expense would be great. He made it clear he wants to spend hundreds of billions more on the U.S. military.
That might make sense if Christie could figure out just who it is he wants to fight. But he wants to fight just about everyone.
He wants to stop the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria where "the sinister black flag of ISIS looms larger every day," in his words.
Fair enough. In that case he must be supporting the efforts of the Iranians, whose Shia militias provide the only effective ground forces fighting the Sunnis of ISIS.
Nope. Christie's against the "the Iranian menace" as well.
Not content to fight both the Sunnis and the Shia, he also wants to topple Syria's secular dictator, Bashar Assad.
I've heard that spiel dozens of times from the other candidates as well. Only Paul seems to understand that it was the secular dictators who were keeping both the Shia and the Sunni extremists under control.
Harry Enten:
If you were running the numbers today, you would include a Fox News poll started on May 9, an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll started on April 26, a Fox News poll started on April 19, a Quinnipiac University poll started on April 16 and a CNN poll started on April 16.
And you know where that gets us? Perry is ninth at 2.4 percent, and there is a tie for the 10th spot between Kasich and Santorum at 2 percent. In other words, there could be 11 candidates debating instead of 10. (Fox has said the debate could include more than 10 participants in the case of a tie.) Bobby Jindal and Lindsey Graham come close at 1.2 percent. Fiorina ends up dead last at 1 percent.
But there’s another wrinkle: It’s possible Fox News will only allow for one poll from each pollster in order to ensure that none floods the zone. In that case, the April Fox News poll is out and a Monmouth University poll started on March 30 is in. In this average, Perry is still ninth, but Santorum squeaks past Kasich. I can hear the Kasich camp screaming right now.
New Orleans City Business:
New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu responded to Gov. Bobby Jindal’s controversial religious objections executive order by issuing an order of his own.
It forbids those employed or who do business with the city from discriminating against people for numerous reasons, including sexual orientation or gender identification.
Landrieu says New Orleans is an “accepting and inviting” city.