Image 01 Image 03
Sign In or RegisterLogout

2016 Election Tag

Posted by Bruce Carroll on June 14, 2014 37 Comments
The latest frontrunner talk among the Republican insiders and DC media types is none other than Mitt Romney. But are Americans ready for a third run for President by the 2012 GOP loser to Barack Obama? With the economy in virtual stagnation for six years, Russia annexing Ukranian territory and Islamic terrorists on the doorstep of Baghdad -- Mitt Romney (circa 2012) suddenly seems like a wise soothsayer:
“I’m saying in terms of a geopolitical opponent, the nation that lines up with the world’s worst actors, of course the greatest threat that the world faces is a nuclear Iran, and nuclear North Korea is already troubling enough, but when these terrible actors pursue their course in the world and we go to the United Nations looking for ways to stop them, when [Syrian President] Assad, for instance, is murdering his own people, we go to the United Nations and who is it that always stands up for the world’s worst actors? It is always Russia, typically with China alongside, and so in terms of a geopolitical foe, a nation that’s on the Security Council, that has the heft of the Security Council, and is of course a massive security power — Russia is the geopolitical foe.” - Mitt Romney, October 2012

Posted by William A. Jacobson on June 05, 2014 7 Comments
Who among us is surprised by this report by Alana Goodman at The Washington Free Beacon about Team Billary trying to impress upon the NY Times the importance of LEAVE HILLARY ALONE! Hillary to New York Times: Back Off:
Some of Hillary Clinton’s closest aides blasted the New York Times for what they said was unfair coverage of the former first lady during a recent secret meeting with the paper’s Washington bureau, the Washington Free Beacon has learned. Sources said the meeting included Clinton advisers Philippe Reines and Huma Abedin, as well as Times Washington bureau chief Carolyn Ryan and national political reporter Amy Chozick, who has been on the Clinton beat for the paper. During the closed-door gathering, Clinton aides reportedly griped about the paper’s coverage of the potential 2016 candidate, arguing that Clinton has left public office and not be subjected to harsh scrutiny, according to a source familiar with the discussions.
Even CNN mocked control freak Billary (via IJR Review):

Posted by William A. Jacobson on May 17, 2014 12 Comments
I've seen this coming for a couple of years. Julian Castro, the Mayor of San Antonio, reportedly is being nominated for a Cabinet post to give him the credentials to be Hillary's Veep pick. San Antonio Mayor Julián Castro Is Said to Be HUD Pick in Cabinet Reshuffling:
President Obama is preparing to nominate Mayor Julián Castro of San Antonio as his new secretary of housing and urban development, elevating one of his party’s Hispanic rising stars as part of a cabinet shuffle that has possible implications for the 2016 presidential race, Democrats informed about the plans said on Saturday. Mr. Castro, who has often been mentioned as a potential vice-presidential candidate for the Democrats, would take the place of Shaun Donovan, who would become director of the Office of Management and Budget.... Mr. Castro, 39, won national attention in 2012 as the keynote speaker at the Democratic National Convention, and he and his twin brother, Representative Joaquin Castro, Democrat of Texas, have become popular speakers on the party’s fund-raising circuit. Mr. Obama and the Democrats have predicated their future electoral hopes on appealing to the country’s growing Hispanic population as House Republicans have blocked their efforts to overhaul the immigration system.
Scott Conrad also saw this coming, writing in August 2013, Vice President Julian Castro?:

Posted by Mike LaChance on May 17, 2014 7 Comments
A better question might be should Dr. Ben Carson run for president? It's no secret that Dr. Carson enjoys tremendous support from American conservatives. When he spoke at CPAC in March of this year, the audience was sprinkled with signs which read "Run Ben, Run" but that doesn't necessarily form the basis of a campaign. Then again, maybe it does. Fred Barnes of the Weekly Standard recently reported...
Ben Carson Moves Toward Presidential Run Ben Carson is warming to the idea of running for president. Since the famous brain surgeon retired last year from Johns Hopkins Hospital, he’s been speaking around the country to enthusiastic audiences. And they’ve affected his thinking about seeking national office. “Over the years, there have been many attempts to get me to throw my hat in the political arena,” Carson writes in his new book, One Nation: What We Can All Do to Save America’s Future. “I have been offered support from around the country and tremendous financial resources if I decide to run for national office. But I have not felt the call to run.”
Ramesh Ponnuru offered a counterpoint at Bloomberg News...

Posted by Mike LaChance on May 11, 2014 7 Comments

There's been much speculation over whether or not Elizabeth Warren will run for president. Some folks have also suggested that Joe Biden may run for president. Here's a new question: What if they ran together? CNN's Peter Hamby reports...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on April 18, 2014 58 Comments
Chelsea Clinton has announced she's pregnant. Congratulations. Best wishes for mother and child. It would be perfectly natural for Hillary to show off the grandbaby, particularly if, as expected, she runs for President. I can envision the family, including grandbaby, on stage at the Democratic National Convention in 2016 as Hillary accepts the nomination -- maybe with Don't Stop Thinking About Tomorrow playing in the background Hillary more than anyone needs humanizing, in what already is a multi-year rebranding project. And Hillary isn't waiting for the arrival to publicly express her joy: https://twitter.com/HillaryClinton/statuses/456903198834700288 Will Hillary be treated like Sarah Palin was back in 2008, when Palin appeared with her own child Trig, and was accused of using him as a prop? From the Legal Insurrection archives:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on March 12, 2014 49 Comments
Yeah, me too. Donald Trump. But I don't think that's what the Ban Bossy campaign is about. The #BanBossy movement pretends to protect little girls from the humiliation of being called "bossy," and thereby will empower a generation of strong, powerful female leaders (so long as you don't call them bossy, because that would crush them). The movement is backed by "Lean In" Sheryl Sandberg and The Girl Scouts, for whom every girl is a potential victim. (Put aside all the objective evidence that girls are outperforming boys in almost every measure.) A slew of major corporations and celebrities have lined up behind the banning of bossy. ) There nothing wrong, and much good, at encouraging young girls to lead. But this campaign has a strong victimization narrative. This teaches young girls that they are victims and need the emotional protections that little boys don't. At best that is a mixed message. And why now? Why have the word police suddenly descended on us to shape our speech? Can't boys and men be bossy too? Has there been some epidemic of bossy such that now is the time to act. A follower on Twitter made the connection to prepping the battlefield for Hillary:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on January 27, 2014 18 Comments
Much like insurance, Hillary Clinton isn't bought, she's sold. And it's always been a hard sale. She has name recognition, and is the default candidate for a significant percentage of the electorate, but there's always been something missing. It's why Obama could appear out of nowhere to take her down, and it's why Elizabeth Warren could do the same thing if only she would run. That's why there is the Ready for Hillary shadow campaign apparatus -- we must want Hillary. The selling of Hillary by the Ready for Hillary PAC is playing out in the earliest stages of the Iowa caucuses, as Ruby Cramer at Buzzfeed reports, Clinton Supporters Want Iowa To Want Her:
After the meetings, the exhausted team declared the day a success. Attendees had been excited; had pinned “Iowans Ready for Hillary” buttons to their lapels; had smiled wide watching video clips from Clinton speeches; had even, at one point, broke into spontaneous applause and cheering at her mention. “If we build it, she will come,” said one of the meeting’s organizers, Bonnie Campbell, a former Iowa attorney general and Clinton administration appointee.... Another frustration emerged during meetings. In spending time and resources on a candidate who isn’t even in the race yet, some said, Ready for Hillary stages a “total inversion” of the traditional primary, as state Rep. Jo Oldson put it. Iowa, Oldson said, likes its candidates to beg voters — not the other way around. “This is just a different twist on how Iowans view getting into presidential campaigns,” she said. “It’s Iowa asking her to run, rather than the candidate asking Iowa to elect her.”
All this We Want You To Want Hillary stuff could backfire, as Michael Warren at The Weekly Standard points out, Hillary Supporters in Iowa: She Can't Be Seen As 'Ordained':

Posted by William A. Jacobson on January 08, 2014 29 Comments
Expect former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates to quickly be turned from hero of the Democratic Party for being a Republican willing to work for Barack Obama, into just more trailer trash because of his tell-all book about that service which reinforces an accurate meme about Hillary Clinton: She has no core, and will say anything to win. From Chris Cillizza at WaPo, How Bob Gates’s memoir could haunt Hillary in 2016:
In a new memoir of his time as secretary of defense in the Obama administration, Gates writes: “Hillary told the president that her opposition to the [2007] surge in Iraq had been political because she was facing him in the Iowa primary. . . . The president conceded vaguely that opposition to the Iraq surge had been political. To hear the two of them making these admissions, and in front of me, was as surprising as it was dismaying.” Oomph. Just to jog your memory, Clinton announced that she opposed the Iraq surge being pushed by President George W. Bush in the days leading up to the announcement of her presidential bid. She instead proposed a freeze in troop levels in the country and advocated for a troop increase in Afghanistan.... At one level, Gates's allegation is not at all surprising. Politicians factor in politics when making decisions? Gasp! .... But, remember this is Hillary Clinton we are talking about. And, the criticism that has always haunted her is that everything she does is infused with politics -- that there is no core set of beliefs within her but rather just political calculation massed upon political calculation. Remember that she began slipping in the 2008 Democratic primary when her opponents seized on an overly political answer on giving drivers' licenses to illegal immigrants during a debate in late 2007.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on December 29, 2013 29 Comments
The NY Times published a lengthy account of the Benghazi attack that is being hyped as exonerating the Obama administration (and of course, presidential candidate Hillary Clinton), but in fact the report does nothing of the sort. The main thrust of the spin is that it was the video after all, a claim long since abandoned by almost everyone. There never was a doubt that the video inspired a generalize hostility, but that is a far cry from saying that the actual attackers who executed by contemporaneous internal administration accounts were motivated by the video. The reporting does not support that the video was what motivated the "several dozen" armed attackers, even if it created a general atmosphere of hostility. https://twitter.com/LegInsurrection/status/417120838060490754 https://twitter.com/LegInsurrection/status/417116566065389568 The NYT also plays a linguistic slight of hand, distinguishing between international al-Qaeda (NYT says no connection) and local al-Qaeda wannabees to try to prove that this was not an "al-Qaeda" attack. But local, independently operation al-Qaeda groups have been the motus operandi for years. That there was no phone call from Pakistan to the local group in Benghazi does not mean that this was not a planned Islamic extremist attack and instead some spontaneous reaction to a video:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on September 08, 2013 39 Comments

You better at least get ready. There's a buzz being fed. Warren gave a speech to the AFL-CIO today, and the "draft Warren" talk is starting. https://twitter.com/greenhousenyt/status/376851270759243776 https://twitter.com/mikeconrad1/status/376851928593870848 https://twitter.com/Organize20/status/376852557068386304 There is no bigger or better demagogue in American politics. No one is as keyed into the politics of...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on August 15, 2013 52 Comments

Larry Sabato came out with his rankings of presidential contenders today. I was going to write about the downgrade of Marco Rubio, but that's old news. More interesting is the rankings of Democrats. There is no "First Tier" other than Hillary. The drop from Hillary to Joe...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on August 12, 2013 13 Comments

for President in 2016. He's our best, and maybe only, hope.  At a minimum he will generate numerous quotables regarding his likely opponent, Hillary.  If by some miracle he's the nominee, it will be a big f-ing deal when it comes to our chances of winning the White...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on August 08, 2013 44 Comments

That seems to be how this thing is going to develop. Private citizen Hillary is just going about her private business, helping establish the pantsuit as cultural icon and just chilling. The rebranding thing is really hard work. All the while, hapless fall-guy John Kerry travels the...

Accessibility by WAH