(Pataki was once the governor of New York, remember? And he has been making infrequent, teensy president noises that very few people seem to notice.)
My bet? Pataki is going to try to steal the New Hampshire primary: First, ignore all the silly inside games and get on television pronto with a good message. Move up quietly in the polls — with Mitt Romney sitting at a third of the vote, Palin unelectable and Tim Pawlenty drifting near the margin of error, Pataki could televise his way into second or third place in Granite State polls by midsummer. Then let the national media discover the Pataki surge and get bonkers about it. With that national attention, reboot the once massive Pataki money machine in New York State and start attracting more national money and support. Light the right match, and if it combusts correctly, stand back and watch the fire grow.
My thoughts? Well, I think that this has the potential to kill at the comedy club if Murphy tightens the joke a bit and really gets the delivery down.
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Steve Benen provides some useful context to consider the economic climate in which President Barack Obama is seeking re-election, which we promise to thoughtfully chew over for a little while before returning to our typical sense of panic over the fact that the economic climate is even worse for all the people who are currently not running for president. [Political Animal @ Washington Monthly]
Mark Halperin has some very stupid things to say about politics. [War Room @ Salon]
Donald Trump's new plane is way more presidential than his old plane, but sorry, we are still not going to fall for your fake campaign. [Taegan Goddard's Political Wire]
Pollster Stan Greenberg: “Paradoxically, Democrats must forget the past and the financial crisis. That is counter-intuitive and painful because conservative policies were so destructive and Democrats did right and brave things. Voters understand this more than you appreciate, but that is at least three years ago now, and voters think a focus on that misses the country’s urgent current reality. They want to serious plans, not triumphalism about jobs reports.” I had no idea that "jobs reports" existed that one could get "triumphalist" about, actually. [Politico]
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