Taegan D. Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites.
Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.
Goddard is also co-author of You
Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political
management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from
both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public
policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country,
including the Washington Post, USA Today, Boston Globe, San Francisco
Chronicle, Chicago Tribune, Philadelphia Inquirer and Christian Science
Monitor.
Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.
PRAISE FOR POLITICAL WIRE
"There are a lot of blogs and news sites claiming to understand
politics, but only a few actually do. Political Wire is one of them."
-- Chuck Todd, NBC News political director
"Concise. Relevant. To the point. Political Wire is the first site I check when I’m looking for the latest political nugget. That pretty much says it all."
-- Stuart Rothenberg, editor of the Rothenberg Political Report
"Political Wire is one of only four or five sites that I check every
day and sometimes several times a day, for the latest political news
and developments.”
-- Charlie Cook, editor of the Cook Political Report
"The big news, delicious tidbits, pearls of wisdom -- nicely packaged, constantly updated... What political junkie could ask for more?"
-- Larry Sabato, Center for Politics, University of Virginia
"If I were on the proverbial
desert island and had only one web site to access, Political Wire would
be it."
-- Dotty Lynch, CBS News political consultant
"Taegan Goddard has a knack for digging out political gems that too
often get passed over by the mainstream press, and for delivering the
latest electoral developments in a sharp, no frills style that makes
his Political Wire an addictive blog habit you don't want to kick."
-- Arianna Huffington, founder of The Huffington Post
"Political Wire is one of the absolute must-read sites in the blogosphere."
-- Glenn Reynolds, founder of Instapundit
"I love Political Wire. It is a one stop shopping site for all the political information I need. It makes me sound brilliant so naturally I like it!"
-- Dick Morris, political consultant
"I rely on Taegan Goddard's Political Wire for straight, fair political news, he gets right to the point. It's an eagerly anticipated part of my news reading."
-- Craig Newmark, founder of Craigslist.
Maybe I’ve been wrong all along. Maybe it really is time for a third party.
Though Mr. Kirk and other Republicans thundered against pork-barrel spending and lawmakers’ practice of designating money for special projects through earmarks, they have not shied from using a less-well-known process called lettermarking to try to direct money to projects in their home districts…
Lettermarking, which takes place outside the Congressional appropriations process, is one of the many ways that legislators who support a ban on earmarks try to direct money back home.
In phonemarking, a lawmaker calls an agency to request financing for a project. More indirectly, members of Congress make use of what are known as soft earmarks, which involve making suggestions about where money should be directed, instead of explicitly instructing agencies to finance a project. Members also push for increases in financing of certain accounts in a federal agency’s budget and then forcefully request that the agency spend the money on the members’ pet project…
[A] New York Times review of letters and e-mail to government agencies from members of Congress shows that the practice is widespread despite the fact that both President George W. Bush and President Obama have issued executive orders instructing agencies not to finance projects based on communications from Congress.
According to the Times, there’s basically no way to track these requests short of using FOIA to demand correspondence between Congress and various agencies. Another fun fact: Both Obama and Bush issued executive orders instructing agencies not to fund projects based on requests from individual congressmen — and yet, oddly enough, the Times claims the practice is “widespread.” Why do you suppose that is? Why might an agency head, whose budget depends on congressional appropriations, feel compelled to comply with “requests” from individual representatives for a few million dollars of pork here and there?
What’s most depressing about this, I think, isn’t the betrayal of transparency or even the hypocrisy of being loudly anti-earmark yet quietly pro-lettermark, it’s that it’s yet another example of government trying to do an end-around recently imposed limits on its own power. In this case, that limit was self-imposed by the GOP’s pledge to end earmarks; in the case of last night’s post about countermeasures to executive regulations, that limit was imposed on the White House by voters who chose divided government in November. And yet the GOP presses ahead with lettermarks and Obama presses ahead with pursuing his agenda by ignoring Congress to whatever extent he can. Nothing illegal about either, but they’re proof that not even a giant midterm landslide is enough of a signal to convince some pols to change their ways. Some “representation.”
Incidentally, since we’ve been arguing lately about whether the House of Representatives should be expanded, take a minute to read this smart Jay Cost post about how a bigger House could also mean more pork. The more districts we have, the smaller and more parochial they’ll get, which could be a huge benefit to incumbents who are willing and able to deliver lucrative earmarks back home.
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Great <b>news</b>: Careerist RINO certified as winner of Alaska Senate <b>...</b>
Great news: Careerist RINO certified as winner of Alaska Senate race.
Keith Olbermann: 'Fox <b>News</b> Is 100% Bullshit'
Keith Olbermann is anything but hesitant when it comes to a battle with Fox News, and the MSNBC anchor took to Twitter Wednesday to share his views on the TV network he probably wouldn't even call a rival. "Fox News is 100% bullshit," ...
Larry Kramer: This Is Why Fox <b>News</b> Continues To Roll
People are getting lazy about forming their own opinions.
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