RNC Chair announces big changes after election 'autopsy'
RNC Chairman calls for June convention, fewer debatesWashington, D.C.--Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus outlined major changes recommended for the party after an "unprecedented" review of the 2012 election. Those suggestions include moving the national convention to June or July to help "compress" the primary cycle - a change the Washington Post explains. Politico looked at some of the other ways the RNC could help shorten the primary season, even though state parties are technically in charge of setting primary dates.
The "autopsy" showed a shortened primary season could help candidates, because in 2012, as Priebus explained, the long season made Romney "a sitting duck for two months over the summer." Read the Boston Globe to find out how that hurt Romney and the party. The Wall Street Journal also looked at that, explaining the peculiarities of campaign finance laws barred Romney from using a lot of money until after the convention, putting him at a disadvantage while the Democrats could keep spending. Holding the convention earlier would give the party's nominee in 2016 earlier access to that general election money.
Priebus bluntly summed up the party's messaging strategy, saying "we've done a really lousy job of branding and marketing who we are." Slate picked up on that argument.
The New York Daily News looked at Priebus's announcement that the party would spend $10 million sending party workers into minority communities coast-to-coast to "make the case for our party and our candidates" all year long. The Daily News said this effort comes because the party is "desperate to combat the GOP's reputation as a party of old white men." They looked at the plan in-depth, as did Huffington Post.
Schieffer turned to top Republican and one-half of the GOP's failed presidential ticket, House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, to discuss the budget proposal he put out last week.
Ryan defended the proposal, calling the plan "a vision document" for the Republican Party. He said it was visionary despite criticisms that it's a rehashing of a lot of what he and Mitt Romney campaigned on during their 2012 presidential run. Read more about those criticisms from Politico.
CBS News: Ryan: U.S. Doesn't have a debt crisis yet
Ryan told Bob Schieffer the "purpose of having a reasonable, balanced budget like we're proposing" is to prevent a debt crisis. Which, he admitted, "we do not have... right now." Real Clear Politics headlined their story with the rest of that statement, pointing out that Ryan did say "we see it coming, we know it's irrefutably happening." Mediaite picked up that statement, too.
CBS News: North Korean nuclear threat more pressing than Iran's?
Schieffer turned to foreign policy because, as he said Sunday, "all the news this week was not just in Rome and back here where Congress debated what to do about the deficit." North Korea also made some news, declaring the 1953 armistice which ended the Korean War invalid. The New York Times' David Sanger, Council on Foreign Relations' Richard Haass, American Enterprise Institute's Danielle Pletka and Reuters' David Rohde looked at that statement, the nuclear threat North Korea presents, Iran's status and more. Read about their appearance in the Christian Science Monitor.