Jason LaVeris/FilmMagic(WASHINGTON) — Ben Affleck has been an increasingly popular presence in the political realm as of late. Earlier this week, he testified on Capitol Hill about security in the Democratic Republic of Congo and recently his name has come up as a possible contender in the impending Massachusetts special election to fill the seat to be vacated by John Kerry’s appointment as secretary of state. Affleck, 40, grew up in Cambridge, Mass.
But it turns out running for political office might be a stretch too far for the actor and activist.
In an interview with GQ, Affleck had some pretty harsh words for the American political system, including “toxic,” “poisonous” and “inappropriate” (laced with expletives before them).
“I have gotten myself involved with politics, actually fairly in a pretty deep way, only to find that it really just took the wind out of my sails,” he said. “You know, it was much more interesting from the outside than from the inside.”
It’s worth noting that Affleck appears to dance around the question: “Have you ever had serious considerations” about running for office?
“I have never had a serious conversation. Not really,” he said. “I could tell you but then I can’t say what it is.”
For those hoping for a Ben Affleck vs. Scott Brown showdown this summer, don’t abandon all hope yet.
Joe Raedle/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) — The name for Project ORCA, the Romney campaign’s much-vaunted, digital voter turnout and poll monitoring system, started out as something of a joke.
ORCA was meant to be a tongue-in-cheek rejoinder to an advanced data-gathering effort put together by the Obama campaign called Project Narwhal. The Romney team’s conceit: An orca is a natural predator of the narwhal, a tusked-whale that lives in the Arctic.
In an interview with ABC News on Friday, the Romney campaign’s digital director Zac Moffatt responded to critical online commentaries.
“Was it flawless? No,” Moffatt said. “Without a doubt, ORCA had its challenges.”
He acknowledged that technical issues began early and continued sporadically throughout the day. The system crashed entirely for about 90-minutes in the late morning on Tuesday — a problem the campaign attributed to an overload of the data servers in the TD Garden in Boston, the site of the campaign’s Election Day “war room.”
“So much data was coming in, the system thought it was under attack,” a campaign official said.
After going dark for an hour-and-a-half, ORCA re-booted and the campaign says it did deliver information to the legions of war room volunteers, headed by Romney campaign political director Rich Beeson. By the end of the night, according to the Romney campaign:
–91 percent of all counties that they decided to track reported data into the system
–14.3 million voters were identified and counted as having voting
–5,397 incidents of ballot box issues (none of them major) were identified that allowed the campaign’s legal team to respond in real time
“You can’t have a system that’s not working and still get those numbers,” Moffatt said. Still he said he understood the frustrations of those who had problems using it who expected a presidential campaign to “fire on all cylinders all the time.”
The system had been tested before Election Day — but not extensively. And the campaign did not know how it would interact with the TD Garden’s data infrastructure until Tuesday morning.
However, Moffatt added that had ORCA functioned flawlessly, it still would not have turned Mitt Romney’s loss into a win: “None of us feel this was election determinative,” Moffatt said.
Win McNamee/Getty Images(CHICAGO) — The morning after he won re-election, an emotional President Barack Obama credited his youthful staff of several hundred with running a campaign that will “go on in the annals of history.”
“What you guys have accomplished will go on in the annals of history and they will read about it and they’ll marvel about it,” Obama told his team Wednesday morning inside the Chicago campaign headquarters, tears streaming down his face.
“The most important thing you need to know is that your journey’s just beginning. You’re just starting. And whatever good we do over the next four years will pale in comparison to whatever you guys end up accomplishing in the years and years to come,” he said.
The moment, captured by the Obama campaign’s cameras and posted online, offers a rare glimpse at the president unplugged and emotional. During the first four years of his presidency, Obama has never been seen publicly crying.
He first came to Chicago, he told the campaign staff, “knowing that somehow I wanted to make sure that my life attached itself to helping kids get a great education or helping people living in poverty to get decent jobs and be able to work and have dignity. And to make sure that people didn’t have to go to the emergency room to get health care.”
“The work that I did in those communities changed me much more than I changed those communities because it taught me the hopes and aspirations and the grit and resilience of ordinary people,” he said, as senior strategist David Axelrod and campaign manager Jim Messina looked on. “And it taught me the fact that under the surface differences, we all have common hopes and we all have common dreams. And it taught me something about how I handle disappointment and what it meant to work hard on a common endeavor, and I grew up.”
“So when I come here and I look at all of you, what comes to mind is, it’s not that you guys remind me of myself, it’s the fact that you are so much better than I was in so many ways. You’re smarter, you’re so better organized, you’re more effective,” he said.
Obama said he expected many of those who helped to re-elect him will assume new roles in progressive politics, calling that prospect a “source of my strength and inspiration.”
Senior campaign officials said Thursday that the Obama campaign infrastructure — the field offices and network of hundreds of thousands of volunteers — would undergo a period of transition in the coming weeks to determine how to remain sustainable and influential.
“We have remarkable staff, and the campaign that Jim [Messina] put together, you know, is the best in history,” said senior Obama adviser David Plouffe. “But the reason those people got involved was because they believed in Barack Obama. It was the relationship between them and our candidate.”
Win McNamee/Getty Images(CHICAGO) — The morning after he won re-election, an emotional President Barack Obama credited his youthful staff of several hundred with running a campaign that will “go on in the annals of history.”
“What you guys have accomplished will go on in the annals of history and they will read about it and they’ll marvel about it,” Obama told his team Wednesday morning inside the Chicago campaign headquarters, tears streaming down his face.
“The most important thing you need to know is that your journey’s just beginning. You’re just starting. And whatever good we do over the next four years will pale in comparison to whatever you guys end up accomplishing in the years and years to come,” he said.
The moment, captured by the Obama campaign’s cameras and posted online, offers a rare glimpse at the president unplugged and emotional. During the first four years of his presidency, Obama has never been seen publicly crying.
He first came to Chicago, he told the campaign staff, “knowing that somehow I wanted to make sure that my life attached itself to helping kids get a great education or helping people living in poverty to get decent jobs and be able to work and have dignity. And to make sure that people didn’t have to go to the emergency room to get health care.”
“The work that I did in those communities changed me much more than I changed those communities because it taught me the hopes and aspirations and the grit and resilience of ordinary people,” he said, as senior strategist David Axelrod and campaign manager Jim Messina looked on. “And it taught me the fact that under the surface differences, we all have common hopes and we all have common dreams. And it taught me something about how I handle disappointment and what it meant to work hard on a common endeavor, and I grew up.”
“So when I come here and I look at all of you, what comes to mind is, it’s not that you guys remind me of myself, it’s the fact that you are so much better than I was in so many ways. You’re smarter, you’re so better organized, you’re more effective,” he said.
Obama said he expected many of those who helped to re-elect him will assume new roles in progressive politics, calling that prospect a “source of my strength and inspiration.”
Senior campaign officials said Thursday that the Obama campaign infrastructure — the field offices and network of hundreds of thousands of volunteers — would undergo a period of transition in the coming weeks to determine how to remain sustainable and influential.
“We have remarkable staff, and the campaign that Jim [Messina] put together, you know, is the best in history,” said senior Obama adviser David Plouffe. “But the reason those people got involved was because they believed in Barack Obama. It was the relationship between them and our candidate.”
PAUL J. RICHARDS/AFP/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) — Attorneys for the Justice Department and Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr. are in talks about a possible deal regarding allegations of campaign finance violations, according to sources familiar with the investigation. Negotiations have been under way for some time.
It is unclear whether the talks will result in a plea agreement, but sources say the talks could come to some conclusion soon.
Part of the investigation’s focus is on whether Jackson improperly used campaign funds for personal purchases, including furnishings for his Washington, D.C., home. The investigation is being run by the FBI’s Washington Field Office.
Representative Jackson’s office said he is currently receiving treatment at the Mayo Clinic — his second prolonged stay there since being diagnosed with bi-polar disorder. He is refraining from any official duties until he is given a clean bill of health by his doctors.
The Chicago congressman coasted to victory in Tuesday’s election, keeping a seat he first won in a special election in 1995. Jackson won re-election despite having virtually no presence on the campaign trail. A robo-call to constituents describing his recent health troubles and thanking supporters for their “patience, your prayers … during this difficult time” appears to be the only evidence of Jackson’s campaigning at all.
He has been absent from his congressional duties since this past summer. He last voted in the chamber on June 8 and has missed every one of the 225 votes since.
Jackson first came under a cloud of controversy in December 2008 when his name surfaced in the investigation of then Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s scheme to peddle the Senate seat of president-elect Barack Obama. A House ethics probe into Jackson’s activities was triggered but halted at the request of the Justice Department, which was conducting its own investigation.
Jason LaVeris/FilmMagic(WASHINGTON) — Ben Affleck has been an increasingly popular presence in the political realm as of late. Earlier this week, he testified on Capitol Hill about security in the Democratic Republic of Congo and recently his name has come up as a possible contender in the impending Massachusetts special election to fill the seat to be vacated by John Kerry’s appointment as secretary of state. Affleck, 40, grew up in Cambridge, Mass.
