Some notable quotes from last night’s special primary-politics edition of Kudlow & Company:
Hillary’s Mission Impossible: This [Democratic] nomination — they will take it away from Hillary Clinton when they unwrap her cold, dead fingers from around it. She’s not going away. She’s not stopping.
–– Quentin Hardy, Silicon Valley bureau chief for Forbes
Remember Mac?: All we ever hear about anymore is Hillary and Obama, as though the whole decision is just which one of those two will be the next president. Well, there’s actually a third guy here. And he’s the pro-growth guy, the pro-stock market guy, the pro-investor class guy. He’s the guy who doesn’t want to raise the capital-gains tax; who doesn’t have all these crazy ideas for being the command-and-control commander-in-chief of the economy; who wants to let growth be an organic, successful, internal, upwelling phenomenon that happens from real people, not from the control panel of the Oval Office in Washington. So I actually have a contrary opinion on this: I think that we need to quickly get the Obama/Clinton thing to resolve, so that John McCain can get a little public attention.
– Don Luskin, chief investment officer at Trend Macro
Capital Gains Tax Watch: Sixty-five percent of Americans and half of Democrats are opposed to raising the capital-gains tax. And they make the connection: 52 percent of Americans say that if you raise capital-gains taxes, it’s going to be bad for the economy. With the current economic conditions, and the exit polls we’re seeing today showing this issue becoming more and more important, that is going to be a significant factor.
– Scott Rasmussen, pollster and president of Rasmussen Reports
Focusing on the Dollar: I think you’ll hear a lot [from the candidates] about [the need for a strong dollar] in the fall, not because people are going to connect all the dots to commodity prices, but because it’s symbolic. People do not like the idea that the dollar has fallen so low in value compared to other currencies. It’s a symbol of American weakness. Stay tuned. It will be an issue.
– Bob Shrum, Democratic strategist