2016 Election Tag

Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) had some strong words for fellow senator Rand Paul (R-KY) over his libertarian take on the end of the Cuban trade embargo. So strong, in fact, that Paul decided to take the fight to the internet. During his Thursday night appearance on "The Kelly File," Rubio had this to say about Paul and his anti-embargo cohorts:

"Like many people that have been opining, he has no idea what he's talking about," Rubio said Thursday night on Fox News's "The Kelly File." Earlier on Thursday, Paul had voiced support for Obama's surprise move on Wednesday to open an embassy in Cuba as well as ease economic and travel restrictions. "The 50-year embargo just hasn't worked," Paul said. "If the goal is regime change, it sure doesn't seem to be working, and probably it punishes the people more than the regime because the regime can blame the embargo for hardship." ... "Look, Venezuela's economy looks like Cuba's economy now," Rubio said. "You can't even buy toilet paper in Caracas. And there's no embargo on Venezuela. What Venezuela has in common with Cuba, is they both have adopted radical socialist governmental policies. "And I would expect that people would understand that if they just took a moment to analyze that, they would realize that the embargo is not what's hurting the Cuban people," Rubio added. "It's the lack of freedom and the lack of competent leaders."

Not to be outdone by a fellow prospective presidential contender, Paul took to Facebook for what many are now calling an ill-advised rant: The trolling continued on Twitter:

Jeb Bush broke the right wing internet this morning when he tweeted this:

I am excited to announce I will actively explore the possibility of running for President of the United States: https://t.co/luY4lCF2cA.

— Jeb Bush (@JebBush) December 16, 2014

He also took to Facebook to detail his reasoning and offer an explanation of what actions he's taking as of right now:

Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah! Like many of you, our family was blessed with the opportunity to gather together over the recent Thanksgiving holiday. Columba and I are so proud of the wonderful adults our children have become, and we loved spending time with our three precious grandchildren. We shared good food and watched a whole lot of football. We also talked about the future of our nation. As a result of these conversations and thoughtful consideration of the kind of strong leadership I think America needs, I have decided to actively explore the possibility of running for President of the United States. In January, I also plan to establish a Leadership PAC that will help me facilitate conversations with citizens across America to discuss the most critical challenges facing our exceptional nation. The PAC’s purpose will be to support leaders, ideas and policies that will expand opportunity and prosperity for all Americans. In the coming months, I hope to visit with many of you and have a conversation about restoring the promise of America. Best wishes to you and your families for a happy holiday season. I’ll be in touch soon. Onward, Jeb Bush

The past few days may have been chock full of more strategy-derailing posturing and political theatre than we wanted or deserved, but hidden between the folds of intra-party fighting was a nugget of relevancy that we should dust off when we resume debates over who deserves to serve as our next post-cycle whipping boy Presidential candidate. Senator Marco Rubio (F-FL) took to the Senate floor for a palate cleanser on foreign policy, and it was impressive. The video below is 43 minutes long, but hit play and let it serve as background sound for your Sunday afternoon internet binge:

The reality of campaign politics is that there is no standard for rhetoric. You punch low, you punch high, and you start punching before you have specific people you're tasked with punching. Some progressives, however, are jockeying for early bids to lead Hillary Clinton's 2016 Presidential campaign, and are using fellow Democrats' low blows against Republicans---and each other---to improve their chances. ABC News has received copies of e-mails from the "Mook Mafia," a list serv run by 34 year old Democrat operative Robby Mook, who many believe could be slated to lead Hillary's campaign team. via ABC News:

Copies of a cache of the emails obtained by ABC News, and revealed publicly for the first time, show Mook and Marshall demonstrating an aggressive tone in rallying their friends behind political causes, in exchanges that are often self-mocking and sometimes border on being profane. They include rallying cries to, in Mook’s words, “smite Republicans mafia-style,” and, to quote Marshall, “punish those voters.” Mook sometimes calls himself “Deacon” in the emails, while Marshall, now a senior White House aide, refers to himself as “Reverend” in many of the exchanges. ... The private emails were provided to ABC News by a Democrat on the listserv who has worked alongside Mook and Marshall on previous campaigns. The person who provided the emails is, like the vast majority of those on the listserv, supportive of Hillary Clinton, but does not support the idea of Mook or Marshall holding leadership roles in a second presidential bid. They were provided on the condition of anonymity. That the emails are emerging publicly reflects the ferocious intra-battle to populate the top positions of an expected Clinton campaign.

When my friends and I first signed up for Facebook back in 2003, I don't think any of us had any idea how the platform would grow and monetize itself over the next decade. What was once the anti-MySpace is now arguably one of the most powerful tools political campaigns and marketing firms have on hand to help push their brands. Political advertising on Facebook ebbs and flows with the cycle, but Facebook has developed and implemented a new way to read user data that will help their team make Facebook ads even more (creepily) specific. "Sentiment analysis"---or, reading a user's feelings on a particular subject based on what they write---is desperately tricky to get right, but if Facebook can do it, everyone from marketing and political consultants to media outlets will be able to gauge reactions on hot button issues simply by looking at a "sentiment analysis." Experts predict that this type of digital strategy could end up outpacing TV and radio as the primary platforms for regional analysis. From Buzzfeed:

Facebook is on the cusp — and I suspect 2016 will be the year this becomes clear — of replacing television advertising as the place where American elections are fought and won. The vast new network of some 185 million Americans opens the possibility, for instance, of a congressional candidate gaining traction without the expense of television, and of an inexpensive new viral populism. The way people share will shape the outcome of the presidential election. Even during the 2014 midterms, which most Americans ignored, Facebook says it saw 43 million unique individuals engage in the political conversation. Now a rawly powerful video may reach far more voters in a few hours than a multimillion-dollar ad buy; and it will reach them from trusted sources — their friends — not via suspect, one-way channels.

Is this new big data push a substitute for traditional polling, though? Experts say no: