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Reader Poll Tag

Yesterday, Trump turned the beltway on end when he abruptly fired FBI Director Comey. In Comey's absence, Andrew McCabe is acting as the interim director. But we want to hear from you. Who do you think should replace Comey as FBI Director?

Earlier today, Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly announced she'd be parting ways with the cable news network and heading over to NBC News. Kelly's departure will leave a gaping hole in Fox's prime-time lineup. We’re just speculating here but we’ve picked potential replacements from the Fox News stable of the well-known faces, including news types and ideologues, and one total outsider, Jake Tapper. So, dear reader, we want to hear from you. Who do you think should replace Megyn Kelly?

We did this last year, Best A.F. Branco Cartoon of 2015 (Reader Poll), and the vote was a precise tie. So we had a runoff was extremely close, with just an 11 vote difference, Runoff Election: Best A.F. Branco Cartoon 2015 (Reader Poll). And the winner was a cartoon that is so timely it would be timely right now ... Assume the Position. As before, the choice to get down to just 10 favorites was tough. My initial cut was 22 from a very impressive year of cartoons.

The FBI letter to Congress stating that it is reopening the investigation into her handling of classified information set off the expected reaction, documented in our prior post, Mother of all October Surprises – FBI reopening Hillary email case. Ed Morrissey suggested on Twitter that this might be another case Lucy (James Comey) pulling the football away from Charlie Brown (Hillary opponents) once again at the last minute. Hillary and Team Hillary are on the attack, demanding that Comey release everything he has on Hillary:

We've been watching this story grow legs -- the speculation that a Democratic Party cabal met behind closed doors to discuss replacing Hillary on the presidential ticket after her unfortunately public health episode Sunday. I imagine this was nothing more than a whisper campaign that morphed into an actual story. And you know, it couldn't have happened to a nicer gal. But now that replacing Hillary is actually being discussed seriously, we're only doing what's proper -- voting on who we think would (not should) replace Hillary, if it were to come to that.

It's election year which means progressive celebrities are making promises they have zero intention of keeping. Namely promises to leave the country if the Republican presidential candidate, Donald Trump, wins the November election. We've compiled a list of celebrities and public officials who've declared plans to peace out of the U.S. of A. if Trump beats Hillary.

What a long, strange trip this year's presidential election has become. The media (mainstream, liberal and conservative #NeverTrump) have swarmed all over Trump in the past two weeks. Some Republicans who did not previously oppose Trump also are breaking ranks and coming out against him. The media, by and large, has moved on from scrutiny of Hillary. For Trump supporters, it's confirmation of bias against him and the need to tear down the establishment in its broadest sense. For Trump opponents, it's confirmation of the reasons for their opposition. Certainly, "anything can happen." But as of now, the polls mostly look beyond horrible for Trump and have taken a nose dive. In a normal election year, it would not be worth the pixels to run a general election poll, because close to 100% of the readers would be voting for the Republican. But this is not a normal year. So, this will be our first 2016 General Election Reader Poll.

So much speculation lately. From Loretta Lynch's impromptu, it-just-happened, guess-who-I-bumped-into private sit down with Bill Clinton, her saying she's staying out of it but maybe not, to Hillary's interview with the FBI, to supposed leaks by "sources" in both directions. The QUESTION IS NOT whether you want the FBI to recommend Hillary be prosecuted. The QUESTION IS whether you think the FBI will recommend Hillary be prosecuted.

Get it? The Reader Poll question is not what you want to happen, but what you think will happen.

It's Yes or No. A time for choosing. No "undecided" allowed. Make a choice, the FBI has to.

The dispute between Donald Trump and Fox News has escalated rapidly today. It went from Trump was thinking about refusing to appear, to Trump likely not appearing, to the campaign saying Trump "definitely" would not appear. Megyn Kelly, the focus of Trump's ire, just announced on her show that Trump is out based on conversations Carl Cameron had with the Trump campaign. The Trump campaign apparently has released a statement to that effect. Trump Statement Fox News Debate (added) Fox News issued the following statement:

Here are my 10 favorites. It wasn't easy to slim down the list even to these ten. You choose which was the best. (Poll at bottom, open until Midnight Pacific Time, Monday night, January 4) (in chronological order)

Front Lines

Cartoonist Killed

Last week,  Quinnipiac reported poll results for Iowa that showed Ted Cruz surging to 23%, only 2 points behind Donald Trump. The Wall Street Journal reported:
A new Quinnipiac University poll of likely Republican caucus goers showed Mr. Cruz with 23%, behind only New York real estate developer Donald Trump, with 25%. That is more than double Mr. Cruz’s showing of 10% in the university’s October poll. Mr. Trump gained five points from October.
Today, Rich Lowry, editor of the National Review, tweeted the following: https://twitter.com/RichLowry/status/673236631231533056 More Twitter responses:

I think we saw this movie before. It's called Scott Walker. A near total collapse in polling support in a short period of time with no obvious explanation. This time it's happening to Carly Fiorina. She gained a lot of attention after the Fox News undercard debate, making it into the CNN primetime debate. Fiorina was the near unanimous choice for winner of the debate, and she had a surge in the polls into the teens. Her confrontation with Trump was a winner for her. That support is gone now: Carly Fiorina's time near the top of the Republican polls may have come to an end, as another national CNN/ORC poll out Tuesday suggests. Just 4 percent of Republican or Republican-leaning voters said they would cast their votes for her in a primary election, down from 15 percent in September. The CNN poll is similar to other polling, as this Real Clear Politics table of all recent polls shows: