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2016 Republican Primary Tag

Posted by Mike LaChance on July 31, 2015 14 Comments
Former Virginia governor Jim Gilmore has entered the race for the 2016 Republican nomination. Now before you throw yourself off the nearest building, hear me out. This guy has serious credentials. Gilmore was chairman of the National Commission on Homeland Security for five years, he's an Army Intelligence veteran and he was the governor of Virginia on 9/11. In some ways, Gilmore is more qualified than many of the candidates who are already running. Last night on Special Report, Gilmore had an opportunity to make the case for his candidacy.

Posted by New Neo on July 30, 2015 90 Comments
As a huge fan of the very articulate and forceful Carly Fiorina, I've been wondering why she continues to score very low in the polls for the Republican nomination. Here's my attempt at an answer. I believe Carly Fiorina scores low not only because she lacks name recognition, but because she has never held elective public office and she lost the one race she entered. Even though she did well (considering it was in bluer-than-blue California,) she still lost. Also, although she can explain her firing from Hewlett-Packard in a way that doesn't reflect poorly on her (see this and this), the firing still doesn't sound to the casual listener like a success story. But far more importantly, Donald Trump—-who naturally gains more publicity from his statements and his candidacy because he is flamboyant and somewhat outrageous---has taken the spot Fiorina would otherwise occupy, that of “business-oriented political outsider who has never held public office.” He is far, far more well-known than Fiorina via his long self-promoting stint in the public eye, and is therefore a magnet for the many protest voters on the right. Supporting Trump is a twofer for anyone who's angry at the establishment: he is not a member of the GOP establishment, and he really gets the goat of those who are.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 30, 2015 19 Comments
While the ire of the media has been focused mostly on Donald Trump for the past few news cycles, Scott Walker is still getting some scorn. This column by Dana Milbank at The Washington Post could all but be a campaign poster for walker, with a few wording changes:

Why Scott Walker is so dangerous [to liberals]

Why Scott Walker is so dangerous:
“First off,” Scott Walker proclaimed, “we took on the unions, and we won. We won!” Taking on the unions is usually first off for Walker, the Wisconsin governor and Republican presidential candidate. It is the very rationale for his candidacy. And on Thursday, he took a detour from the campaign trail to appear here before the annual meeting of the conservative American Legislative Exchange Council, a group of state legislators dedicated in large part to defeating unions.... Walker then went on to celebrate his triumphs over the demonstrators who objected to his dismantling of Wisconsin’s public-sector unions, portraying the pro-union forces as violent thugs....

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on July 28, 2015 34 Comments
Following the release of the second Planned Parenthood undercover video last week, Presidential hopeful Carly Fiorina joined Jake Tapper on The Lead. Tapper asked Fiorina to define her position on Governor Walker’s recent bill that prohibits abortions after twenty weeks and makes no exclusions for instances of rape and incest. Rather than taking the let's connect Fiorina to what the left believes is an extremist pro-life position bait, Fiorina directed attention to a bill bouncing around the Senate floor, “let’s talk about the legislation that’s sitting on the Senate floor right now which does allow for those exceptions,” she responded.

Posted by Jay Caruso on July 27, 2015 14 Comments
Not long after the news broke that Hillary Clinton was using a private email server during her time as the Secretary of State and not a government email address, she held a press conference to assure people that nothing had been sent with classified information. According to the Inspector General, Clinton's claims are not to have been true:
The inspector general for the intelligence community has informed members of Congress that some material Hillary Clinton emailed from her private server contained classified information, but it was not identified that way. Because it was not identified, it is unclear whether Clinton realized she was potentially compromising classified information. The IG reviewed a "limited sampling" of her emails and among those 40 reviewed found that "four contained classified [intelligence community] information," wrote the IG Charles McCullough in a letter to Congress. McCullough noted that "none of the emails we reviewed had classification or dissemination markings" but that some "should have been handled as classified, appropriately marked, and transmitted via a secure network." The four emails in question "were classified when they were sent and are classified now," spokeswoman Andrea Williams told CNN.
4 out of 40 is 10%. Which means of the 30,000 emails Hillary sent, there is a chance at last 3,000 of them contained classified information. Hillary is relying on the defense that what she sent at the time was not classified and that it was not classified until later:

Posted by Mike LaChance on July 26, 2015 41 Comments
When it comes to the 2016 Republican nomination, one man is currently sucking all the media oxygen out of the room. Erick Erickson of RedState blames Donald Trump's rise on a failure of leadership in the Republican Party. Matthew Continetti of the Washington Free Beacon has a similar take. When it comes to assessing Trump's politics however, one of the right's happiest and most dearly missed warriors once told us everything we need to know. Matt Vespa of Townhall takes us on a trip down memory lane:
Flashback: When Andrew Breitbart Said Trump Is Definitely Not A Conservative In 2011, Juan Williams was filling in for Bill O’Reilly and there was an area where liberal talk show host Leslie Marshall and the late Andrew Breitbart found agreement: a Trump candidacy isn’t a good thing for America. Moreover, the late conservative blogger said the business magnate is certainly not a conservative:
“…Of course, he’s not a conservative. He was for Nancy Pelosi, before he was against Nancy Pelosi…celebrity is everything in this country if these guys don’t learn how to play the media the way Barack Obama played the media last election cycle and the way that Donald Trump is playing the election cycle–we’re going to probably get a celebrity candidate.

Posted by Jay Caruso on July 24, 2015 21 Comments
Code Pink is a radical left wing organization, known for interrupting speeches, addresses and crashing gatherings by being loud, waving around signs and sometimes dressing up as female body parts. This week, Ted Cruz was speaking at a Stop Iran rally in Washington DC. After being introduced, the Senator was almost immediately interrupted by Code Pink protesters. Rather than having them removed from the area, Senator Cruz actually invited the Code Pink spokesperson over and engaged in a back and forth debate with here. The video is below and goes for about 24 minutes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=500&v=1QCbpafD3Pw

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on July 23, 2015 35 Comments
My what a difference a few years makes. Coinciding with his speech Wednesday, Governor Perry's campaign released a video highlighting their "biggest supporter."

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on July 22, 2015 34 Comments
Carly Fiorina is proud to be pro-life. She's also not willing to let Hillary Clinton's extreme stance on abortion go unnoticed. Flanked by pro-life leaders Tuesday, Carly Fiorina's campaign released a short video in response to the second and arguably worst, undercover Planned Parenthood video. The second investigative video showed yet another ranking Planned Parenthood official nonchalantly discussing the sale of aborted baby parts. "These pro-life leaders are standing with me today to decry the moral depravity that we have seen now from Planned Parenthood. It doesn't matter whether you think you're pro-choice or pro-life, every woman, every man has to look at these videos and think, what has gone wrong in our nation?" said Fiorina. "The hypocrisy of telling women over and over again that their unborn children are not life and yet talking calmly about how to preserve the organs of that life to save another life. The cruelty of denying women over and over again ultrasounds, so that they can see the life they carry within them and yet using that same technology to ensure the organs are preserved so that they can be presumable sold to save others."

Posted by Amy Miller on July 22, 2015 78 Comments
Yesterday, Donald Trump shocked the conscience of the planet when he revealed Senator Lindsey Graham's personal cell phone number during an open press conference. Over the past few days, feuding between the two presidential hopefuls has boiled over, fueled by the outrage that ensued after Trump made a disparaging comment about Senator John McCain's military service. It has been a field day for the media, and for activists on both sides of the issue: Graham called Trump a jackass! Trump called Graham an idiot! AND RELEASED HIS CELL PHONE NUMBER! It may have been a jerk move, but it resonated---nobody likes a bully, and many conservatives have been waiting for the moment when someone would take Graham to task over his attitude toward the base. Graham took the punch like a champ... ...but took things one step further, and turned Trump's prank on its head. Welcome to Christmas for political junkies. Watch:

Posted by Amy Miller on July 21, 2015 10 Comments
Rand Paul released a new ad today, and it's truly a must-see---especially if you're a fan of chainsaws, woodchippers, large bonfires, the national anthem, or tax reform. Who am I kidding? Americans are fans of all those things! Let's get right to it: At about the 37 second mark, the video turns interactive, asking viewers which method they believe Paul should use to lay waste to a paper copy of the tax code:

Posted by Amy Miller on July 21, 2015 17 Comments
Ohio Governor John Kasich just started a long game of catch-up. Today during a speech to a packed house at the (THE) Ohio State University, the former congressman and two-term governor became the 16th person to throw his name into the running for the Republican nomination for president. You can watch the announcement here, via the New York Times (jump the video back to about 10 minutes in): https://youtu.be/Se5L8ww8r2g?t=10m35s
“I have decided to run for president of the United States,” he told a crowd at Ohio State University, his alma mater. “I have the skills, and I have the experience. I have the experience and the testing — the testing that prepares you for the most important job in the world.”

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 20, 2015 56 Comments
During the summer of 2013, we began to see immigration amnesty activists use the Why do you want to deport my daddy? tactic against Republicans. The tactic involves sending children to confront candidates -- with the video rolling. It all was a set up, in the hope the candidate would do something stupid or mean. Most famously, Speaker John Boehner was confronted by well-coached children while eating at his usual breakfast spot: A similar confrontation just happened to Scott Walker, and it was all a set up by a "social justice" activist group seeking to stop deportations. The Washington Post reports, Scott Walker tells undocumented worker that immigrants must follow the law:

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on July 19, 2015 28 Comments
The Republican presidential debate situation is a mess. With far too much talent, and about ten too many contenders, the early presidential debate process continue its devolution into chaos. The first official debate was scheduled to take place August 6. Or at least it was until C-SPAN decided to throw their party first. Unlike Fox New's debate stage which would only hold the top 10 GOP candidates according to national polling, C-SPAN invited all 17 contenders to their "Voters First Forum" to be held August 3. The Hill reports:
Publishers at the New Hampshire Union Leader, The Post and Courier of South Carolina, and Iowa's The Gazette say the forum was prompted in part by Fox's controversial decision to cap the number of candidates in its Aug. 6 debate at 10. “Fox says only the ‘top’ 10 candidates, as judged solely by national polling, will be allowed on its stage,” the publishers said in a joint statement. “That may be understandable later, but the first votes are half a year away and there are a lot more than 10 viable candidates.”

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on July 19, 2015 14 Comments
The Family Leadership Summit in Iowa on Saturday was a veritable who's who of 2016 GOP presidential candidates including Dr. Ben Carson, Senator Ted Cruz, Lindsey Graham, Governor Mike Huckabee, Governor Bobby Jindal, Senator Marco Rubio, Governor Rick Perry, Senator Rick Santorum, Donald Trump, and Governor Scott Walker. I like the one-on-one sit down interview format, and I think Frank Luntz does a great job both interacting with the audience and asking key questions.  According to Luntz, the candidates were "unable to rely on a Teleprompter or note cards" and as such "the presidential hopefuls display their impromptu speaking skills."  Not only did Luntz ask questions of the candidates, but the audience did, as well. Donald Trump's comments about John McCain have taken center stage, but there were many great moments throughout the day.  You can catch all ten full interviews of the attending presidential candidates here.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 18, 2015 126 Comments
When it came to Donald Trump's comments on violence from illegal immigrants, I argued that it was possible to differentiate between the man (Trump) and the issue. Whether or not you liked the man, he raised a legitimate issue. Trump in an interview today made a comment about John McCain that is reverberating around the internet:
“He’s a war hero ’cause he was captured. I like people that weren’t captured.”
https://youtu.be/qJ7JlUc82nA?t=1m40s Now there is no daylight between the man and the issue. It's ludicrous to argue that McCain is not worthy of hero status for his service just because he was captured. It's not like he was Bowe Bergdahl and deserted. McCain was shot down, and famously endured torture in North Vietnamese prison. He also refused release when the North Vietnamese learned he was the son of an Admiral, and sought to score political points. There were plenty of people just waiting to find an issue to go after Trump. Illegal immigrant violence wasn't the issue. This may be it. Is this the end, or at least the beginning of the end of Trump's rise? Will this be remembered as the moment the rise of Trump's campaign began to slow and the Republican Party began to heal? https://twitter.com/EWErickson/status/622446366657265664

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 17, 2015 29 Comments
Ryan Grim (Washington bureau chief for The Huffington Post) and Danny Shea (Editorial Director, The Huffington Post), have announced that because Donald Trump in their eyes is a sideshow, any news about Trump will be banished from the "Politics" section of HuffPo News to the Entertainment section, A Note About Our Coverage Of Donald Trump's 'Campaign':
After watching and listening to Donald Trump since he announced his candidacy for president, we have decided we won't report on Trump's campaign as part of The Huffington Post's political coverage. Instead, we will cover his campaign as part of our Entertainment section. Our reason is simple: Trump's campaign is a sideshow. We won't take the bait. If you are interested in what The Donald has to say, you'll find it next to our stories on the Kardashians and The Bachelorette.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/a-note-about-our-coverage-of-donald-trumps-campaign_55a8fc9ce4b0896514d0fd66 This was a political decision by the higher-ups at HuffPo to tell the electorate how to view a candidate not as part of the editorial process, but as part of the news process. Because HuffPo News has become a powerful force in news coverage, this will have a ripple effect beyond HuffPo readership. Here's how HuffPo it pitching the story on its homepage:
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