San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom pulled out of the California governor's race Friday in the face of blistering poll and fundraising numbers against Jerry Brown, now the last major Dem standing (and one who hasn't even officially announced his candidacy) to replace term-limited Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2010 elections.
Newsom said in a statement:
"It is with great regret I announce today that I am withdrawing from
the race for governor of California. With a young family and
responsibilities at city hall, I have found it impossible to commit the
time required to complete this effort the way it needs to — and should
be — done.
This is not an easy decision. But it is one made with the best
intentions for my wife, my daughter, the residents of the city and
county of San Francisco, and California Democrats.
...I will continue to fight for change and the causes and issues for which
I care deeply — universal health care, a cleaner environment, and a
green economy for our families, better education for our children, and,
of course, equal rights under the law for all citizens."
Is Newsom really done? There's speculation that he may have stepped aside to set himself up for a lieutenant governor spot on a ticket alongside Brown. But his announcement definitely opens the door even wider for current attorney general and former Gov. Brown to waltz back into the governor's mansion -- or roller stake, as Californians like to remember the Linda Rondstat-dating governor of the late 1970s. Brown outraised Newsom nearly 7-to-1 in the first half of the year, and a Field Poll earlier this month showed Brown 20 points ahead of Newsom with Democrats (a quarter still undecided).
That poll also showed Brown, also a former mayor of Oakland, with a 31-point lead in Southern California, which seems to be out in the cold, so to speak, when it comes to the Democratic nomination. Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa brushed off the long-held notion that he would run for governor in a north-south showdown in June, but Newsom's withdrawal brings up new questions of whether Villaraigosa will throw his hat back into the ring. Sure, Newsom and Villaraigosa both have their Achilles' heels -- namely, respective sex scandals -- but Villaraigosa's performance in this year's mayoral race brings concerns of its own. Villaraigosa upset sitting mayor James Hahn in 2005 to become L.A.'s first Latino mayor, but this March Villaraigosa won re-election with just 55 percent of the vote in a field of unknowns -- like Walter Moore, the ultimate L.A. grass-roots candidate, who got 2.7 percent of the vote in 2005 but got 26 percent against Villaraigosa in 2009.
Even on the GOP side, though, it's still a SoCal shutout: former eBay chief executive Meg Whitman, former congressman Tom Campbell and state Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner all hail from the Silicon Valley.
Hedge funds will face a more aggressive approach from the federal government in months and years to come, Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chairwoman Mary Schapiro said Friday, adding that she'd like the agency to expand to meet those needs.
"I think it's necessary to regulate hedge funds," Schapiro said during an interview on the Fox Business Network. "I think they are too big of a part of the marketplace for the SEC and the federal government to not have a handle on the impact they're having on the markets, the strategies they're employing -- it's time for that to happen."
Schapiro said she wanted the funds, which have traditionally been only lightly regulated relative to other parts of the financial services sector, to have to register with the SEC, face more stringent reporting requirements, and be more transparent with their records and business practices with the SEC.
"We need information, so that to the extent they could be engaged in manipulative activity or insider trading," Schapiro said.
The SEC chairwoman also pressed her case for more funding for the financial oversight agency, which she said would have to "expand very significantly" in coming years.
"The agency is not as big as it needs to be, and we don't have all of the tools we'd like to have," she explained. "We could be multiple times larger than we are. So over the next few years, I would like to see the agency expand very significantly."
Conservative talk show host Sean Hannity isn't ruling out a more formal life in politics, according to some remarks he made on his television show Thursday night.
Appearing on a discussion panel, Hannity made reference to a report on the conservative website WorldNetDaily that he may run for president.
The bombastic anchor didn't address those rumors directly, but left the door open to elected office.
"I would run for office at some point in my life," he said. "Yes, I would."
"I've never made a decision in my life without -- whatever destiny God has you've got to fulfill it," Hannity said. "I'm not sure that's my destiny."
Interestingly, Hannity appeared on the panel alongside former Notre Dame coach Lou Holtz, who'd mulled running for Congress as a Republican against Rep. Suzanne Kosmas (D-Fla.) for a short amount of time before ruling out a challenge.
Watch a video of Hannity's remarks, flagged by the liberal group Media Matters for America, below:
President Obama should fire Attorney General Eric Holder for appointing a special prosecutor to investigate potential CIA abuses of terrorist detainees, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) wrote Friday.
"In the latest skirmish in the Democratic Party's war on the CIA, Attorney General Eric Holder has failed to uphold this fundamental public trust. And for that, there should be consequences," Gingrich wrote. "If Holder and his senior team won't do the right thing and resign their positions, Obama should do the right thing and fire them."
Holder had attracted Republican ire earlier this week for appointing a special prosecutor to investigate abuses that had taken place during the Bush administration.
The White House had emphasized that although the president believes that CIA officials shouldn't face prosecution for following the advice of the prior administration's lawyers, Holder would be able to decide on the special prosecutor independently.
"In the latest skirmish in the Democratic Party's war on the CIA, Attorney General Eric Holder has failed to uphold this fundamental public trust," Gingrich said. "And for that, there should be consequences."
Tort reform must be among the options lawmakers will consider in crafting final healthcare reform legislation, a key centrist Democrat said Thursday night.
Rep. Mike Ross (D-Ark.), the health caucus chairman in the centrist Blue Dog Democrat coalition, said that reform of medical liability lawsuits should be on the table.
"I think tort reform has to be on the table here," Ross told constituents during a tele-town hall last night. "I don't believe there's any sacred cows here, I think we've got to look at everything that's contributing to healthcare costs growing at twice the rate of inflation, and address it."
Tort reform has long been a priority of Republicans in Congress, though one conservative lawmaker suggested that offering up tort reform is unlikely to win votes for the bill.
Ross has been under criticism in more liberal quarters of the Democratic Party for being too friendly to Republican arguments and having stalled the passage of the healthcare package in the House before the August congressional recess.
Ross rejected the notion that he should show complete party loyalty.
"If you want someone to just go up there and vote 100 percent of the time with the Democrat or Republican Party, it'd be pretty easy to find someone to do that," he said. "President Obama and Speaker Pelosi didn't send me to Congress, you did."
The Senate FInance Committee should be able to craft a bipartisan healthcare bill, as long as they're not "overruled" or "undercut" by President Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said Thursday.
Grassley told Iowa reporters during a regular press call that he believes Senate Democrats could probably pass a bill using budget reconciliation rules requiring only a simple majority vote, but that bipartisanship could succeed if given time.
Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) will be able to eventually reach a bipartisan agreement on a healthcare bill "if he doesn't get overruled by the leader or the president," argued Grassley, the ranking member of that committee.
"Sen. Baucus has always been talking about 70 or 80 votes," Grassley later added. "We're still going down that direction, but we could be undercut by anybody."
Both Baucus and Grassley have worked throughout August with the so-called "group of six" centrist senators on healthcare reform, though Baucus -- backed up by Senate Democratic leaders -- has imposed a September 15th deadline by which a bipartisan bill must be reached.
After then, Democrats have left the door open to using the budget reconciliation process to pass a preliminary healthcare bill, which may be a version including a public (or "government-run") option as written by the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) committee.
Grassley said he believed Democrats could be able to pass a bill in that circumstance, but not any one he or any other Republican would support.
"I think the Democrats could pass one under a process called reconciliation," he said. "If they do that, one would pass for sure without any Republican support whatsoever, and I couldn't vote for it."
Massachusetts lawmakers are beginning to rally behind a plan that would allow for a special appointment to fill the late Sen. Ted Kennedy's (D) seat, giving Democrats in Washington the votes they need to advance their agenda.
State law requires a special election to fill a vacancy, to be held between 145 and 160 days of a vacancy occurring. The law was changed in 2004, when Sen. John Kerry (D) sought the White House and Republican Gov. Mitt Romney (R) held the power to appoint a replacement.
Were a special election to occur, virtually all of the state's ten Democratic members of Congress have been mentioned as potential candidates, along with several widely-known officials who have held office in the state.
But with healthcare legislation and the rest of an ambitious Democratic agenda hanging in the balance, support is growing for a quick legislative fix, which would give Gov. Deval Patrick (D) the power to appoint a temporary replacement.
It is an idea Kennedy himself urged on his home state legislators. In a letter last week, Kennedy told Patrick and leaders in both chambers on Beacon Hill he supported changing the law.
Democratic leaders expressed willingness to push forward with such a proposal, but it would take time to work its way through the state legislative process, which could delay any possible appointment significantly and perhaps make the effort moot.
Patrick told a local radio station Wednesday that he would support such a change, and state Senate President Therese Murray has reportedly warmed to the idea after giving it a cold reception.
Patrick said he would urge the State Legislature to adopt the change.
Republican National Committee (RNC) Chairman Michael Steele wrote the AARP on Friday, challenging the nation's largest group of retirees to endorse the principles of the RNC's "Seniors' Health Care Bill of Rights" released earlier this week.
AARP Executive Vice President John Rother said earlier this week the bill didn't contain concerns raised by the GOP's document, which would aim to "prohibit efforts to ration healthcare based on age" and "prevent government from interfering with end-of-life care decisions," among other things.
"AARP agrees with Chairman Michael Steele's goals for reforming our health care system, and we are pleased nothing in the bills that have been proposed would bring about the scenarios the RNC is concerned about," Rother wrote.
"I'm sure we would both agree that any attempt to reform our health care system should first do no harm, particularly to senior citizens," Steele responded Friday "That is why I was heartened to see that you agreed with the premise of the RNC's Seniors' Health Care Bill Of Rights, but I was disappointed by your claim that '...nothing in the [Democrats'] bills would bring about the type of scenarios the RNC is concerned about.'"
Steele defended the five planks of the RNC bill of rights, and pointed to the hit the AARP has taken as a result of its position on the healthcare reform bills before Congress.
"News reports indicated the AARP lost more than 60,000 members last month alone because your organization did not take a strong stand against the Democrats' government-run health care experiment and the consequences it would have on seniors," Steele wrote. "Given the facts I have detailed above, I invite AARP to endorse the RNC's recently released 'Seniors' Health Care Bill of Rights,' which I have attached to this letter, and join us in urging President Obama and the Democrat-led Congressional leadership to slow down and get health care reform right."
Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney leads an early field of potential Republican challengers to President Obama in 2012, a new poll found, though Obama maintains an early lead over all would-be GOP opponents.
The Massachusetts conservative leads a potential field including former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (R), former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R), former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.), and Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R), according to the poll.
22 percent of Republicans prefer Huckabee, 18 percent like Palin, 15 percent want Gingrich, and four percent support Jindal, according to the poll.
Still, President Obama maintains a comfortable lead over all the Republicans tested in the poll.
Of all Republican candidates, Romney fares the best with independent voters -- claiming a two point edge over the president -- while Palin fares the worst, with Obama enjoying a 15 point margin above Palin.
The poll, conducted by live telephone interviews between August 14-18, has a 3.1 percent margin of error.
Republicans are "desperate" in their opposition to healthcare reform proposals before Congress, Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) asserted late Thursday evening.
Waters, pointing to remarks by Rep. Lynn Jenkins (R-Kan.) that this GOP is looking for a "great white hope," said Republicans would "reveal who they are" over time.
"We are trying to keep the focus on comprehensive universal health care reform," Waters said during an appearance on MSNBC. "And they're going all over the place. They're desperate. They don't have leadership. They don't really know what to do."
"I think we're going to continue to see a lot of crazy things happening, like all of the outrage that is being demonstrated at these town hall meetings, like the kind of statements that Congresswoman Jenkins made," Waters added.
Jenkins had apologized for her remark, saying any racial connotations associated with the comments were unintentional.
Waters seemed to suggest that more Republicans would make racially tinged statements in the future, thereby "revealing" their true beliefs.
"They will define themselves. They can't help it," she said. "And I think what we should do is sit back and watch them, so that the American people can see what we're really up against."
"And I think the president would like it that way," Waters added. "He would not like to engage them in the discussion about their racist remarks. That's not the way he handles things."
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