Outlier?

Two polls last week showed the race almost within in the margin of error, so the well-regarded Suffolk poll is — at least for the moment — an outlier.  On the other hand, it seems to fit a little better with what we know of the Massachusetts electorate and the candidates: Democratic U.S. Senate candidate [...]

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WSJ: Plan has "high bar" on border security.

Looks like it’s Let’s Make a Deal time this month, except perhaps for budgets, at least for the moment. At the same time the Senate has cut a deal on gun control by, er, making the status quo slightly more muscular, the Gang of Eight has reached a deal in principle on immigration.  It will [...]

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No filibuster?

“Expanded” in this case is … a term of art, as you’ll see shortly.  As Harry Reid tries to find the votes to have a vote on his gun-control package in the Senate this week or next, two key players say they are close to an agreement on the central piece of the bill. Joe [...]

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Get off his damn lawn.

John McCain joked on Face the Nation yesterday that the US Senate’s reputation as the world’s greatest deliberative body was “the greatest exaggeration in history,” but his claim of the Senate’s purpose may run a close second.  In his joint appearance with Chuck Schumer yesterday, McCain told Bob Schieffer that he didn’t understand why some Republicans [...]

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Splits.

Many people expected to see a Tea Party challenge to Mitch McConnell in next year’s Kentucky primary, and it could still happen.  However, that challenge will not include any support from the Tea Party’s 2010 candidate for US Senate, Rand Paul.  Late yesterday, Paul threw his support behind the highest-ranking member of the GOP establishment [...]

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“I just don’t think I would fit.”

And thus does the Ben Carson for Senate boomlet deflate, at least a little. Last night, Larry Kudlow asked the latest of ascending star of the conservative movement whether his impending retirement from medicine means that he’ll be available to make a run for office under the GOP banner.  Carson makes it clear that he’s [...]

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Mr. Smith Goes To Washington II -- The Revenge.

A few weeks ago, Rand Paul revived the talking filibuster in a scene reminiscent of the Frank Capra classic Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. He highlighted the Obama administration’s odd reluctance to state that it wouldn’t assassinate Americans on American soil with CIA-controlled drones for a full day, helped by fellow Senate Republicans such as [...]

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No further comment?

Yesterday marked six months from the date that four Americans were killed in a terrorist attack on our consulate in Benghazi, including Ambassador Chris Stevens, the first American ambassador murdered in the line of duty in 33 years.  While the Obama administration begrudgingly cooperated with Congressional panels looking into the attack and the White House [...]

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Enemies at both gates

Lindsey Graham has been busy ticking off quite a few of the conservative faithful lately, whether it’s attacking Rand Paul or dining with the President. Thus, it’s no surprise if there are rumblings about a primary challenge for his seat next year. But it may come as a surprise to some observers if the challenge [...]

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"Go get some bleach. Go get ammonia."

Project Veritas is back on the gun-control beat with a brand new video out today.  With gun-control advocates insisting that Americans don’t really need firearms for personal protection because we have police forces to act as instant-response armed guards, PV went undercover to talk with actual police officers about the reality of police response.  Unlike [...]

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One word, but it's not "filibuster."

Michael Warren at the Weekly Standard provides this nice catch of some serious ignorance on the part of a major candidate for Iowa’s open Senate seat.  Apparently, Bruce Braley doesn’t know much about the job he’s seeking in attempting to fill the seat Tom Harkin’s retirement leaves open in the 2014 election.  When asked by [...]

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Irked.

One reason that Senate alums get easy rides in confirmation hearings is the presumption that as members of the club, they represent a close tie to a presidential administration and their activities.  It supposedly eases the communication gap between the White House and Capitol Hill, as the appointee will have personal contact with the men [...]

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One and done.

Senator Mike Johanns will hit the exits after a single term in the upper chamber, his office announced yesterday.  The Nebraska Republican will bow out of a re-election bid despite having done well by all accounts in a first term.  Johanns reportedly has grown too frustrated with gridlock to fight for another six years: Despite [...]

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Hmmm.

The Des Moines Register drops a rather significant surprise on Iowa Democrats looking forward to 2014.  Former Governor Tom Vilsack will not seek the Democratic nomination for the US Senate seat held by retiring incumbent Tom Harkin: Tom Vilsack has ruled out running U.S. Senate in 2014, clearing the way for the early Democratic frontrunner, U.S. [...]

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McCain on board, too?

Can Republicans delay the confirmation of Chuck Hagel — at least long enough to force the White House to provide more information on Barack Obama’s actions on the night of the Benghazi attack, along with more transparency on Hagel’s speeches over the last few years?  Senator Roy Blunt (R-MO) says yes, and that eventually the [...]

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"No confirmation without information."

Lindsey Graham threatened to block the confirmations of both Chuck Hagel and John Brennan yesterday on Face the Nation, after last week’s hearings on the Benghazi attack forced unanswered questions to the surface — and the White House provided no answers.  Graham told Bob Schieffer that he would place a hold on both candidates and [...]

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"Delightfully radical."

Is the Ashley Judd for Senate juggernaut really under way?  It seems so; even the Washington Post is handicapping her divorce as a potential signal that she wants to challenge Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell: This week’s announcement that Ashley Judd and husband Dario Franchitti called it quits after 11 years of marriage had one surprising effect: Proof, claimed [...]

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Clever.

Harry Reid finds himself stuck between his gun-rights voters and the NRA on one side of the current gun-control debate, and the White House and Dianne Feinstein on the other.  How can he proceed without angering either?  The Wall Street Journal reports that Reid will schedule a gun-control bill that focuses on background checks and [...]

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Weld says no thanks.

With Scott Brown backing out of the special election to the Senate in Massachusetts, some wondered whether former Governor and erstwhile presidential candidate Mitt Romney might take a shot at filling the rest of John Kerry’s term in office.  Instead, the Boston Herald reports that the task might go to the next generation of Romneys: [...]

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“I’m not going to give you a ‘yes’ or ‘no.’ I’ll defer that to the judgment of history."

Presidents will nominate Senators to Cabinet positions in part to get an easy ride to confirmation, and soft treatment during confirmation hearings.  If that’s what Barack Obama and Chuck Hagel expected, they got a rude awakening, almost literally, when John McCain took his turn at the hearing this morning.  McCain ripped Hagel for opposing the [...]

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Unserious.

This morning, the Senate Armed Services Committee will take up the nomination of Chuck Hagel for Secretary of Defense, replacing the retiring Leon Panetta.  Panetta got the job after his surprisingly effective tenure running the CIA, taking his political connections and extensive experience in executive leadership in bureaucracies into one of the largest such bureaucracies [...]

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Sweet spot?

Dianne Feinstein’s assault-weapons ban may be DOA on Capitol Hill, but that doesn’t mean that Congress is dormant on the issue of guns.  A bipartisan group in the Senate have quietly begun working with both gun-rights and gun-control activists on the issue of background checks, and may soon have a competing proposal to Feinstein’s bill [...]

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Don't try this at home.

Alternate headline: Math isn’t hard after all.  The Washington Post’s Aaron Blake offers multiple reasons why Dianne Feinstein’s assault-weapons ban won’t be going anywhere in the Senate, and the first reason isn’t even the fact that Democrats can’t get anywhere near the 60 votes to bring the bill to a vote.  The first clue is [...]

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Oportunities redux.

We now have the third Senate retirement of this term, and it’s a doozy.  Tom Harkin, one of the most liberal members in the upper chamber, won’t seek a sixth term of the Senate in 2014: U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin will not seek re-election in 2014, the Iowa Democrat said Saturday. The 73-year-old Harkin told [...]

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Opening.

Republicans will have to defend at least one Senate seat without its incumbent in 2014.  Saxby Chambliss informed his staff that he will not seek re-election in 2014, leaving an open seat in deep-red Georgia to fill: Republican Sen. Saxby Chambliss will announce Friday that he will retire from the U.S. Senate and not seek [...]

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