Washington News

Commerce Secretary Under Investigation In Felony Hit And Run The AP reports this morning that the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department and the San Gabriel, California Police Department "are investigating two traffic collisions allegedly caused by" Commerce Secretary John Bryson "that left him injured." One of the crashes "was under investigation as a felony hit and run. ... Bryson was treated at a hospital for non life-threatening injuries following the crashes around 5 p.m. PDT Saturday, the agencies said in a joint statement." He was driving alone in San Gabriel "when he allegedly struck the rear end of a vehicle occupied by three males that had been stopped for a passing train." He "spoke with the occupants and then hit their car again as he departed," the police agencies said. Bryson "was found alone and unconscious in his car and treated at the scene before being taken to a hospital."
The Pasadena (CA) Star-News reports San Gabriel Police Lt. Ariel Duran said, "He was just really confused. He said something to the effect of, 'I guess we'd better pull over and exchange information.'" However, Bryson "placed the car into reverse, striking the Buick again, and drove off, Duran said."
On its "L.A. Now" blog, the Los Angeles Times says "authorities said drugs or alcohol do not appear to have played a role in the crash" and that Bryson "was cooperative. He was cited for felony hit and run but was not booked into jail because he had been admitted to the hospital."

Obama's "Doing Fine" Assessment Of The Private Sector Continues To Spark Debate President Obama's contention that the "private sector is doing fine," a remark he made Friday but restated shortly afterwards, continues to generate a great deal of media coverage. The comment is repeatedly described as an unforced error that capped off a week of bad news for the Administration.
NBC Nightly News reported last night, "The White House finds itself in damage control mode after what a lot of pundits are calling one of the worst weeks for the Administration, politically speaking, in three and a half years." And Rick Klein, in a post for ABC News , said the "horrific week" for the President "may be remembered as a time period that shook the pillars of the Obama reelection effort."
Chris Cillizza, in a "The Fix" piece for the Washington Post , wrote, "The problem for Obama is that his remark plays directly into the story that Republicans are trying to tell about him -- that he is a big-government liberal who thinks the answer to all problems is expanding the federal bureaucracy and who lacks even a basic understanding of how the private sector works."
According to McClatchy , Obama's "comment Friday that the 'private sector is doing fine' continued to dominate television political debates Sunday, with surrogates trying to minimize the impact of his remarks and opponents seeking to take maximum advantage, despite Obama's retraction of the comment." McClatchy reports that David Axelrod, on CNN's State Of The Union, "without directly saying whether he agreed that the private sector was in good shape," said, "it's certainly doing better than the public sector."
On Fox News Sunday, NPR's Mara Liasson said, "This gaffe -- and it was a real gaffe, and a hurtful gaffe -- came at a bad time. We've got the loss in Wisconsin; Mitt Romney raising more money than the Obama campaign did; you have the terrible job numbers last week; you have all of these surrogates who can't seem to keep on their talking points, including, now, the President. So I think that is a real problem, and this is going to be repeated again and again in ads."
According to NBC Nightly News, "Political analysts say with less than five months until Election Day, the President can't afford many more weeks like this past one, filled with negative headlines." Stuart Rothenberg: "This is about as bad a week as a sitting president who is seeking re-election can have."
The Hill reported that on CNN, Axelrod "punched back at Republicans who have seized on the president's remarks that 'the private sector is doing fine,' arguing that the GOP was trying to distract from the president's jobs plan. 'They're more eager to have a debate over an out-of-context clause in his remarks than the substance of what he said,' Axelrod said on CNN's 'State of the Union.'"
Brad Knickerbocker, in the Christian Science Monitor , wrote, "The past week was particularly bad for President Obama -- a 'terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad week,' as the headline over...Cillizza's 'The Fix' blog at the Washington Post ."
On ABC's This Week, Mike Huckabee commented, "Obama's statement was just crystal clear, 'the private sector is fine.' I can see that on a loop in a commercial, 'the private sector is fine,' 'the private sector is fine,' and then showing pictures of closed factories and people standing in unemployment lines. If the economy is still this bad in October, you'll hear that statement over and over."
The AP reports that the Romney campaign "has released a Web video hammering President Obama for his assertion Friday that 'the economy is doing fine,'" which "shows eight people talking about their experiences: staff cuts, job loss, personal bankruptcy, a two-year job hunt, no health care and a slashed pension, and other concerns. The ad closes, 'No, Mr. President, we are not doing fine.'" Bloomberg (6/11, Lerer, 922K) notes that "the 54-second video replays a clip of Obama's remarks four times before closing with, 'No, Mr. President, we are not doing fine.'"

McCain Demands Special Counsel To Probe Intel Leaks NBC Nightly News reported, "Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle [are] turning up the heat, demanding to know who leaked classified information" about the successful breakup of an al Qaeda bomb plot, the Stuxnet virus and drone strike procedures. NBC said Attorney General Holder has "appointed two US attorneys to investigate," but Sen. John McCain nevertheless "continued to accuse the Administration of leaking the secrets for political gain." McCain: "It's obvious on its face that this information came from individuals who are in the Administration," and "the President is certainly responsible." NBC noted that the President "firmly denied those allegations," and "his top campaign adviser continued to shoot down accusations of White House involvement."
Reuters quotes McCain as saying, "Our intelligence people say this is the worst breach they've ever seen. It's very clear that this information had to come from this administration. It couldn't have come from anywhere else. This needs a special counsel -- someone who is highly independent of the Justice Department."
Axelrod, on ABC's This Week, said, "The authors of all of this work have said that the White House was not the source of this information. I can't say that there weren't leaks; there were obviously leaks, but they weren't from the White House."
The AP reports, "Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein and Republican Rep. Mike Rogers suggested on CBS' Face The Nation that they're willing to see how prosecutors conduct their investigation before considering whether a department-appointed special counsel should take over." According to the AP, Rogers "says he'll be watching for signs of undue political influence," while Feinstein "says she believes Obama's assertion that the White House wasn't involved in the disclosures." Rogers, also on CBS' Face The Nation, added. "It was because of the parade of leaks that I think Sen. Feinstein and I both stood up and said, something has got to be done about this. ... It shouldn't be a partisan thing. This should really be about catching the folks who are leaking some very damaging national security information."
According to the Washington Post , "The situation presents combustible election-year elements," but Rogers and Feinstein "presented an understated and bipartisan response to what has become increasingly hot rhetoric regarding the leaks."

Campaign News

Obama Allies Launching Spanish-Language TV Ads Bloomberg News reports, "Organized labor and a super-PAC supporting President Barack Obama's re-election have teamed up for a $4 million ad campaign that targets swing-state Hispanic voters and aims to portray Mitt Romney as callous toward the working class." The spots will "air in Colorado, Florida and Nevada, three swing states with significant Hispanic voting populations, starting this week and running through the summer."
Politico reports the ads "are aimed at Romney's broader economic views," showing "some of his most infamous gaffes – 'I'm also unemployed,' e.g.' – to say he's out of touch with working people. 'When you really are out of work, you are worried, and you don't want to laugh or make fun of anybody,' one Latino voter says (in Spanish) in one of the spots. Reacting to Romney's 'I like being able to fire people' comment, another voter says: 'I'd never support someone with that type of thinking.'"
The AP reports that Obama, who polls have shown holds a big lead over Romney among Hispanics, "is reinforcing his advantage with a sizable Spanish language TV and radio ad campaign in some of states expected to be among the most contested in the general election." Obama's "campaign has spent $1.7 million since mid-April on Spanish language ads in Florida, Nevada and Colorado." The Romney camp, meanwhile, "has spent just $33,000 on Spanish language ads in television markets in North Carolina and Ohio."
Obama's Immigration Policies Have Disappointed Some Hispanics The New York Times reports that as he seeks reelection, Obama's "immigration policies have produced few gains among Latinos, whose votes could be crucial for him in November." Noting that Obama vowed "to move in his first year to overhaul the immigration system and to give legal status to illegal immigrants," the Times says that with his reelection race shaping up to be a close contest, "pressure is building for" the President "to do something more for Latinos." The Times says several moves made by the Obama Administration have rankled Hispanics, noting, for example, "The Department of Homeland Security has aggressively expanded a fingerprinting program, which vastly increases the chances for an illegal immigrant to be detained, even for minor offenses like traffic violations."

National Polls Show Tight Presidential Race The Rasmussen Reports daily tracking poll of 1,500 likely voters taken June 7-9 shows Mitt Romney leading President Obama 46%-45%.
The Gallup daily tracking poll of about 3,050 registered voters taken June 3-9 shows Romney leading Obama 46%-45%.
A Fox News poll of 907 registered voters taken June 3-5 by Anderson Robbins Research (D) and Shaw & Company Research (R) shows Obama and Romney tied at 43%. Among the 37% who say they are "extremely interested" in the elections, Romney leads 50%-42%.
A Monmouth University poll of 1,395 registered voters taken June 4-6 shows Obama leading Romney 46%-42%. However, among those "most likely to vote," Obama leads only 47%-46%.

Giffords Special Coming Down To The Wire ABC World News reported former Rep. Gabby Giffords (D) "is now working to get out the vote. Giffords and her husband Mark Kelly appearing rally in Tucson for Democrat Ron Barber, her former staffer now running to complete her term" in Tuesday's AZ8 special election. He is "running against Republican Jesse Kelly who has tried to take attention on the race off of Giffords and put it onto President Obama."
The CBS Evening News noted that Barber "was shot twice in last year's attacks in Tucson that killed six and left Giffords critically wounded," but "despite his close ties with the popular Democrat, Barber is locked in a race considered too close to call." CBS added that Kelly "says the race is a referendum, not on the beloved Giffords but on" Obama. Kelly: "We will choose to give Obama a boost in his job killing agenda, or we will choose to stop him and run him out of this state." NBC Nightly News also briefly noted Giffords' appearance on behalf of Barber.
Politico reported that Democrats "are looking...to break a nasty streak of bad headlines for the party," but, according to Politico, there are "a host of perfectly good reasons on paper Republicans have high hopes here, among them a 26,000-person GOP voter registration edge and more than $1 million of outside money pouring in on behalf of a candidate who almost defeated Giffords in 2010."
The AP reports, "Reflecting the closeness of the Arizona contest, Democrats made a last-minute appeal for money that referred to Kelly as a 'radical Tea Party Republican' and said Barber would fight to continue Giffords' legacy in Congress." The AP also notes that "after Tuesday's election, the candidates will immediately regroup to run in the November election for a full term that will begin with next year's Congress."