Beth Reinhard looks at Ready for Hillary: “With 2013 sales of more than $350,000, the online store is one sign of the group's yearlong maturation from a shoestring gig run by a couple of junior-varsity Clinton staffers to a $4 million operation with the imprimatur of the Obama campaign. Ready for Hillary claims to have an e-mail list that's bigger than Clinton's 2008 campaign database and more donors combined than major presidential super PACS like Crossroads, Restore our Future, Priorities USA, and American Bridge. The idea is to turn all of that over to Clinton, if and when she launches a presidential campaign.” She also notes that 70% of its donors are women.
IOWA: “Two years from now, Republicans will formally kick off the process of nominating a presidential candidate with caucus meetings in church basements, community centers and school classrooms. The candidate they nominate will rise or fall, in part, based on the grass-roots prowess of the Republican Party’s organization here and in other swing states,” Reid Wilson at the Washington Post reports. “But as they gather for biennial caucuses Tuesday evening, many Republicans, including Gov. Terry Branstad, worry that their party, run by supporters of former congressman Ron Paul, the libertarian firebrand, isn’t up to the challenge.”
OKLAHOMA: Rep. Tom Cole turned down running for the Senate, but Rep. James Lankford is in. But conservative groups are already objecting. The Senate Conservative Fund and Club for Growth both said they would not support him. "We won't support Congressman Lankford's bid for the Senate because of his past votes to increase the debt limit, raise taxes, and fund Obamacare," SCF Executive Director Matt Hoskins said in a statement, per National Journal. "We have reviewed his record, and it's clear that conservatives cannot count on him to fight for their principles."
TEXAS:Wayne Slater of the Dallas Morning News reports that “some facts have been blurred” about state Sen. Wendy Davis’ (D) life. “In an extensive interview last week, Davis acknowledged some chronological errors and incomplete details in what she and her aides have said about her life.”
The truth: “Davis was 21, not 19, when she was divorced. She lived only a few months in the family mobile home while separated from her husband before moving into an apartment with her daughter. A single mother working two jobs, she met Jeff Davis, a lawyer 13 years older than her, married him and had a second daughter. He paid for her last two years at Texas Christian University and her time at Harvard Law School, and kept their two daughters while she was in Boston. When they divorced in 2005, he was granted parental custody, and the girls stayed with him. Wendy Davis was directed to pay child support.”
VIRGINIA: Charlie Cook on Ed Gillespie’s run for the Senate: “If Gillespie did not challenge Warner, his odds of his elbowing out more-established conservatives for the gubernatorial race three years from now would be considerably longer. So, for Gillespie, this is a wishbone offense play. Take on Warner now, and who knows? Lightning could strike and he could win. But, if he doesn't, while Gillespie would probably not have right of first refusal for the next gubernatorial or senatorial nominations, he would have a far stronger case to make and base to run from than he otherwise would.”