20 DAYS UNTIL IOWA
50 HOURS UNTIL A GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN
TOP STORY: Brinkmanship by both parties on Capitol Hill has set the federal government up for a potential shutdown effective Saturday morning after the Senate today rejected a House passed payroll tax bill, which also includes a provision speeding implementation of the controversial Keystone XL Pipeline.
This evening, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid went to the White House to meet with President Obama and then return to the Capitol to sit down with Republican leaders John Boehner and Mitch McConnell. This is at least the third time this year that the government has come within two days of a potential shutdown and, both times, a shutdown was avoided.
Conventional wisdom on the Hill remains that Congress will pass some sort of a continuing resolution before midnight on Friday, however, with only 50 hours remaining, nothing is certain.
TONIGHT’S DEVELOPMENT: Numerous reports say that Democrats are prepared to drop their proposal for a millionaire surtax to pay for extension of the payroll tax, a sign that with the impending holiday recess, the parties may be moving closer to a deal.
The Washington Post reports tonight:
“Taken together, the developments signaled the end game for a year of divided government — with a tea party-flavored majority in the House and Obama’s allies in the Senate — that has veered from near-catastrophe to last-minute compromise repeatedly since last January.
The rhetoric was biting at times.
“We have fiddled all year long, all year,” McConnell complained in a less-than-harmonious exchange on the Senate floor with Reid. He accused Democrats of “routinely setting up votes designed to divide us … to give the president a talking point out on the campaign trail.”
Reid shot back that McConnell had long ago declared Obama’s defeat to be his top priority. And he warned that unless Republicans show a willingness to bend, the country faces a government shutdown “that will be just as unpopular” as the two that occurred when Newt Gingrich was House speaker more than a decade ago.
It was a reminder — as if McConnell and current Speaker John Boehner of Ohio needed one — of the political debacle that ensued for Republicans when Gingrich was outmaneuvered in a showdown with former President Bill Clinton.”
GOVERNMENT PREPARES FOR POTENTIAL SHUTDOWN- The Washington Post’s Ed O’Keefe-
“Cabinet secretaries and agency heads planned to send an e-mail message to workers by close of business Wednesday informing them that a shutdown could occur, according to multiple administration officials familiar with the plans.
A shutdown would not apply to a wide swath of agencies and departments that already have full-year funding in place thanks to a partial spending bill that passed in November, including the departments of Agriculture, Commerce, House and Urban Development, Justice, State, and Transportation, NASA, and other smaller agencies covered by separate appropriations measures.
In a statement, Office of Management and Budget spokesman Kenneth Baer said Wednesday that “There is no reason for the government to shut down.”Congress could act quickly to pass a short- or long-term spending measure, Baer said, as they have seven times already this year.”
PRESIDENT OBAMA made his first trip as President to FORT BRAGG NORTH CAROLINA today, speaking to soldiers who have deployed to Iraq
WALL STREET TODAY- from CNBC- “Worries over European debt again plagued Wall Street, sending stocks down at the close for a third straight day in a selloff that also hit commodities and energy stocks hard.
The Standard & Poor’s 500 and Dow industrials lost about 1 percent each, with energy down nearly 3 percent. All 10 S&P 500 sectors were negative with materials and industrials also getting hammered. Financials and health care were closest to positive territory.”
- DOW down 131
- NASDAQ down 40
- S&P 500 down 14
CAMPAIGN 2012:
QUOTE OF THE DAY- Romney interview with the New York Times-
“Zany is not what we need in a president.”
“Zany is great in a campaign. It’s great on talk radio. It’s great in print, it makes for fun reading. But in terms of a president, we need a leader, and a leader needs to be someone who can bring Americans together.”
In IOWA tonight, former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee did not give any clues as to which candidate he might be leaning towards endorsing, or even if he will endorse before the Caucus on January 3rd. Huckabee hosted the screening of a conservative film- “The Gift of Life”- in Des Moines attended by four presidential candidates- Santorum, Perry, Bachmann & Gingrich- tonight.
ROMNEY ATTACKS GINGRICH- in interview with CBS News-
“[I was] frankly, very surprised that he would attack conservatism, he would attack free enterprise, he would attack capitalism. This is a party that believes in free enterprise.”
Q: Is he in the wrong party?
“Well, it depends on the day. I just think hes been unreliable in his support of conservative principles.”
ALSO
“Newt Gingrich has wealth from having worked in government. He’s a wealthy man, a very wealthy man. If you have a half a million dollar purchase from Tiffany’s, you’re not a middle-class American.”
TOMORROW NIGHT is the 13th Republican Presidential Candidates Debate of the 2012 primary- sponsored by FOX News and the Republican Party of Iowa- in Sioux City, Iowa.
THE EVENING REPORT will publish a special POST-DEBATE edition tomorrow night.
LEADING POLITICO TONIGHT- “Is Newt taking Iowa seriously enough?”- by Jonathan Martin-
“Gingrich’s return from the political grave has been premised on disregarding the practice of politics as usual, and he now seems to be betting that he can bypass the traditional, retail-focused path to victory in Iowa and still win. Asked if he was endangering his Iowa prospects, Gingrich acknowledged he was taking intense fire but said he’d ramp up his effort before January 3rd.
“I think Iowa’s going to be a challenge because you have everybody firing away simultaneously in a relatively small market,” the former speaker told reporters following his lecture here at the University of Iowa. “And so I think it’s going to require two weeks of my going around, telling the truth, letting people look at the negative ad, look at the truth and decide if they really want to give their vote to somebody who’s not telling the truth.”
Gingrich promised to do more retail events – he teased a post-Christmas bus tour – and said he’d do more ads.
But he also offered a mix of nonchalance and high-road confidence in explaining that he didn’t have enough money to match his rivals’ ad campaign and, in any event, wasn’t inclined to engage in traditional back-and-forth on the airwaves.”
REUTERS/IPSOS POLL HAS GINGRICH UP BY 10
- GINGRICH 28
- ROMNEY 18
- PAUL 12
- PERRY 12
- BACHMANN 10
- HUNTSMAN 5
- SANTORUM 4
GALLUP TRACKING HAS GINGRICH UP BY 8
- GINGRICH 31
- ROMNEY 23
- PAUL 9
- BACHMANN 6
- SANTORUM 4
- HUNTSMAN 2
GENERAL ELECTION MASHUPS
OBAMA V. ROMNEY (USA TODAY) OBAMA: 47%, ROMNEY 46%
OBAMA V. GINGRICH (USA TODAY): OBAMA: 50% ROMNEY 44%
OBAMA V. ROMNEY (NBC/WSJ): OBAMA 47% ROMNEY 45%
OBAMA V GINGRICH (NBC/WSJ): OBAMA 51% GINGRICH 40%
OBAMA V ROMNEY (REUTERS) OBAMA 48% ROMNEY 40%
OBAMA V GINGRICH (REUTERS) OBAMA 51% GINGRICH 38%
FINALLY...
BRIAN WILLIAMS INTERVIEWS MARCEL THE SHELL. If you haven’t yet seen the video from Monday Night’s ROCK CENTER, America #1 evening newsman traveled to Brooklyn to interview the Mama and Papa of this Internet sensation
“Marcel has plenty of spunk, which he brought to his interview with Williams. When asked if having just one eye has affected him in any way, Marcel returned, “Has having one nose affected you in any way, Brian?”
The conversation made Williams chortle. He even hinted that he and his colleagues could learn a thing or two from Marcel. “A lot of network primetime shows would kill for 14 million plus viewers,” Williams said. “When the second installment hit the web, it had more viewers by its first night than a lot of popular cable news shows and it’s already up to three million.”
“Rock Center” debuted in November with 4.1 million total viewers.”
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