Feb 10, 2015 7 min read

Wake Up To Politics - February 10, 2015

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Tuesday, February 10, 2015
637 Days Until Election Day 2016Obama meets with the CBC, sits down for digital media interviews; Axelrod publishes memoir; Jeb Bush releases emails; Santorum publishes book; Fiornia in NH; and more: It's Tuesday, February 10, 2015, I'm Gabe Fleisher for Wake Up To Politics, and reporting from WUTP world HQ in my bedroom - Good morning: THIS IS YOUR WAKE UP CALL!!!
To send me questions, comments, tips, new subscribers, and more: email me at wakeuptopolitics@gmail.com. To learn more about WUTP or subscribe, visit the site: wakeuptopolitics.com, or read my tweets and follow me on Twitter: twitter.com/Wakeup2Politics or read stories on Wake Up To Politics by clicking the media logos at the bottom.
White House Watch

The President’s Schedule At 4 PM, President Obama will meet with members of the Congressional Black Caucus in the Cabinet Room on his legislative agenda. A top issue that will be discussed in the meeting is President Obama’s 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership, a trade deal he has had trouble selling to congressional Democrats.
Also today, Obama will sit down for an interview with BuzzFeed News Editor-in-Chief Ben Smith, the first presidential interview for the website. BuzzFeed will be promoting the interview on Facebook, with Smith participating in a Q&A on the social media site for readers to submit questions for Obama.
Afterward, a video of Obama intending to be funny and appeal to young people will be posted on Facebook. CNN compared “The combination [of] a news interview and an entertaining video” to “Obama showing up on ABC's evening newscast with David Muir and ABC's late-night talk show with Jimmy Kimmel on the same day.”
On Monday, Vox, another digital media company, posted an interview with President Obama as well, showing the White House effort to reach out to young Americans, but also the growing legitimacy of these websites as news organizations.
The Vox interview, on domestic policy (Part 1) and foreign policy (Part 2) was annotated on their website.
Former White House Advisor Publishes Memoir David Axelrod’s book, Believer: My Forty Years in Politics, comes out today. Axelrod is a political strategist best known as chief architect of Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign.
In Believer, Axelrod recounts his journey from “a child of the ’60s in New York City…hearing John F. Kennedy stump” to a “young newspaperman in Chicago during the 1970s and ’80s” to political strategist for clients including Hillary Clinton, Deval Patrick, Rahm Emanuel, Rod Blagojevich, and John Edwards. Finally, the centerpiece of the book will be Axelrod’s friendship with Barack Obama, which stretches back over two decades, a “warm partnership that inspired both men even as it propelled each to great heights”. Axelrod helped propel Obama’s career, working on his unlikely (and eventually successful) 2004 Senate campaign, as well as both of Obama’s presidential campaigns, and as a senior advisor to Obama in the White House.
No Washington tell-all book is without controversy, however, even inspiring ones about faith and believing. A debate has sprung out of Axelrod’s claim in the book that Mitt Romney’s concession call on Election Day 2012 insiuiated that Obama won solely because of black communities. In the book, Axelrod said President Obama turned to his advisors after the call, and relayed to them what Romney had said: “‘You really did a great job of getting out the vote in places like Cleveland and Milwaukee,’ in other words, black people. That’s what he thinks this was all about.”
The claim has been refuted by Romney aides; but a number of Obama aides have stood behind Axelrod, saying that is what the president told them Romney said.
Footnote: David Axelord is hosting Mitt Romney in April, when the latter will speak at the University of Chicago Institute of Politics, which Axelrod is director of. Capitol Hill News
House: Status Update The House will vote on four uncontroversial bills today:
One to authorize new NASA programs
One to require the TSA to conform with criminal investigator regulations
One to improve intergovernmental communications during airport security incidents
And one requiring the Secretary of Homeland Security provide Congress with an assessment of the transportation security card program.
Senate: Status Update The Senate, meanwhile, will hold “morning business” for 2½ hours, with the first half being controlled by Democrats, and the second half controlled by Republicans, before recessing for the weekly caucus lunches.
This week, more action is expected on the bill to fund the DHS, after a Republican plan to fund the agency and block President Obama’s immigration executive order was voted down three times.

2016 Central

Jeb Bush Releases Emails in E-Book, Website Jeb Bush unveils a website this morning containing all of his emails from two terms as Florida Governor, “in the spirit of transparency”.
The website, jebemails.com, also includes the first chapter of an e-book Bush plans to publish later this year, based off of his gubernatorial emails with staff and Floridians, which “kept me connected to Floridians and focused on the mission of being their governor,” the likely presidential candidate says.
On the site, you can download the first chapter of the e-book, and search by date through Bush’s emails, from 1999 to 2007. You cannot, however, search by subject, making it difficult for journalists and interested citizens in separating the meaningless emails from important ones on hot-button issues.
Santorum Publishes New Book on Daughter’s Disability Former Sen. and potential presidential candidate Rick Santourum (R-PA), along with his wife Karen and daughter Elizabeth, publishes a new book today, Bella's Gift: How One Little Girl Transformed Our Family and Inspired a Nation, on the strength of their daughter Bella, despite her having a disability known as Trisomy 18.
“The book is an unorthodox volume to put out as Santorum gears up for a second presidential bid,” the Washington Post writes. “It is not a campaign manifesto with 10-point policy proposals or grand visions for his party. And it is somewhat off-message, given Santorum’s declaration that he will pivot from social issues to economic ones for 2016. The book takes him back to old territory — the morality of abortion — which is an option chosen by many facing what their family did.”
2016 Travel Watch: Fiorina in NH Former Hewlett Packard CEO Carly Fiornia, a potential Republican presidential candidate, is in New Hampshire today.
Fiornia will speak at a “Politics & Eggs” event, which have been a staple of the New Hampshire primary since 1996, and hosted nearly every major presidential candidate in the past five cycles (including Matt Santos and Arnold Vinick, when the event made a cameo in NBC’s “The West Wing”).
The ex-CEO is no stranger to the Granite State, having visited five times in the last year already (a number only matched by New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie among potential presidential candidates).

Question of the Day

Yesterday’s Answer The trivia question on Monday was, “which law allows U.S. citizens living overseas to vote in federal elections?”
The answer is the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act.
GREAT JOB…Rick Isserman and Steve Gitnik, who both answered correctly.

Do you have trouble keeping track of names in big books?
Well, here’s a handy guide of the Key Players in Days of Fire:

Team Bush

George W. Bush: President of the United States (2001-2009)
Karl Rove: Senior Advisor to the President and Deputy White House Chief of Staff (2001-2007)
Joshua Bolten: Deputy White House Chief of Staff (2001-2003), Director of the Office of Management and Budget (2003-2006), White House Chief of Staff (2006-2009)
Andy Card: White House Chief of Staff (2001-2006)
Dan Bartlett: White House Communications Director (2002-2005), Counselor to the President (2005-2007)
Ari Fleischer: White House Press Secretary (2001-2003)
Scott McClellan: White House Press Secretary (2003-2006)
Karen Hughes: Counselor to the President (2001-2002), Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs (2005-2007)
Michael Gerson: Senior Policy Advisor to the President and Chief White House Speechwriter (2001-2006)

Team Cheney

Dick Cheney: Vice President of the United States (2001-2009)
Scooter Libby: National Security Advisor and Chief of Staff to the Vice President (2001-2005)
David Addington: Counsel to the Vice President (2001-2005), Chief of Staff to the Vice President (2005-2009)
John Hannah: National Security Advisor to the Vice President (2005-2009)

National Security Principals

Condoleezza Rice: U.S. National Security Advisor (2001-2005), U.S. Secretary of State (2005-2009)
Donald Rumsfeld: U.S. Secretary of Defense (2001-2006)
Robert Gates: U.S. Secretary of Defense (2006-2011)
Colin Powell: U.S. Secretary of State (2001-2005)
Michael Hayden: Director of the National Security Agency (1999-2005), Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (2006-2009)
George Tenet: U.S. Director of Central Intelligence (1996-2004)
Stephen Hadley: U.S. National Security Advisor (2005-2009)
Alberto Gonzales: White House Counsel (2001-2005), U.S. Attorney General (2005-2007)

Economic Team

Paul O’Neil: U.S. Secretary of the Treasury (2001-2002)
Henry Paulson: U.S. Secretary of the Treasury (2006-2009)

Question of the Day

Today’s Question Ronald Reagan, who would have turned 104 today, was the only U.S. President to head a union. Which union was it?
Yesterday’s Answer As two GOP senators introduced a bill to abolish filibusters on Supreme Court nominees, Thursday’s trivia question was, “Who is the only Supreme Court nominee to be filibustered?”
The answer is Abe Fortas, who was Associate Justice when President Lyndon B. Johnson nominated him to be elevated to be Chief Justice.
Despite warnings of a filibuster, President Johnson, a skilled Senate vote-counter, believed Fortas had enough votes. This was a miscalculation on the part of the president, as Fortas was successfully filibustered by the U.S. Senate in October 1968. Johnson then withdrew the nomination.
GOOD JOB…Steve Gitnik, Rick Isserman, and Joe Bookman!!!