GOPer Faces Jeers At Town Hall, Todd Ricketts Withdraws And The 100 Most Influential People

April 20, 2017 11:34 a.m.

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April 20, 2017

The Gist: Rep. Raul Labrador (R-ID), a member of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, on Wednesday night faced a rowdy crowd in Meridian, Idaho, where he was pummeled with questions about health care and President Donald Trump.

Senate Judiciary Chair: ‘I Would Expect’ A Supreme Court Vacancy This Summer

The Gist: The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee said Tuesday that he expected a new vacancy to open on the Supreme Court within months.

Todd Ricketts Withdraws As Deputy Commerce Nominee

The Gist: Todd Rickets, whose family owns the Chicago Cubs, has withdrawn from his nomination to be the deputy secretary of the Commerce Department.

From The Reporter’s Notebook

Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) on Wednesday said that he won’t seek another term in 2018 because he “hopes to find the right balance” and is sick of sleeping in his office, TPM’s Esme Cribb reported. “I really, really like the work in Congress, I really do, but I love my family more. People may try to make it more than that, but it’s really that simple,” Chaffetz said on MSNBC. “I just turned 50. I’m sleeping on a cot in my office.”

Agree or Disagree?

Josh Marshall: “Cruz has the conservativeness of the state heavily in his favor. But he’s personally unpopular enough that he’s definitely vulnerable if he gets the right challenger and it ends up being a bad year for Republicans. Perhaps another way to put this is that Ted Cruz looks more than unpopular enough to lose reelection. But unless he’s knocked out in the primary, which doesn’t seem likely, he’d have to be knocked out by a Democrat. And partisan identification is likely to be enough to save him.”

Say What?!

“I don’t know. Coming from liberals who urge women to claim victimization, ‘Fight like a girl’ just doesn’t sound the same as when legit fighters for equality say it, mean it, live it, and will never give it up.”

– Former GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin took aim at Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), accusing her of appropriating what she says is her catchphrase, “fight like a girl.”

BUZZING: Today in the Hive

From a TPM Prime member: “We are in the politics-as-pure-marketing age. The Republicans set us on this course long ago, realizing that if you can sell cr@ppy products through marketing, you can sell cr@ppy politics the same way, and have been doing it now for 40 years (even the first Reagan election was notable for its use of savvy marketing — carefully designing every photo-op). The Democrats have to hit the marketing hard and relentlessly, not wait for election season. The p*ss poor marketing the Democrats have been doing is and has been pathetic. Every now and again a gifted spokes-politician — Bill Clinton and Barack Obama — provide a temporary fix, but the stunning lack of marketing skill and effort explodes into plain view when a non-gifted marketeer is the candidate: Dukakis, Gore, Kerry, Clinton II. (And even Obama failed calamitously in marketing once he got into office. His whole first two years were a disaster from that perspective).”

Related: Marshall: My Take on Tonight’s Result in GA-6

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What We’re Reading

The 100 Most Influential People (Time)

The Heart of Whiteness: Ijeoma Oluo Interviews Rachel Dolezal, the White Woman Who Identifies as Black (The Stranger)

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