Tag: 2016

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Rick Perry To Announce Run For President June 4th

According to the Dallas Morning News, former Gov. Rick “Bang Bang” Perry plans to announce his official candidacy for the 2016 GOP nod for president in Dallas on June 4th.

For months Perry has said that he would announce his decision in May or June.

But his constant travel to the early contest states of Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Florida has left little doubt of his intentions.

Unlike four years ago, when he rushed into the contest after seeing he could raise quick money and was leading in polls, Perry enters this contest as an underdog. He is polling in single digits, but again unlike his last run, he has spent more than a year in preparation.

In the last presidential cycle, Perry was a fresh face on the national political stage. But several gaffes quickly ended his brief candidacy.

This time around he will have to not only overcome the memory of those gaffes, but try to carve out a niche to make his similar sounding policies be heard. Perry touts his experience as a governor, but with Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin and former Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida, Perry can’t claim that territory for his own.

Also, while he will surely stress his economic record of job creation in Texas (mostly in low paying entry level jobs), the economy in Texas has taken a bit of a downturn as oil prices have dropped in recent months.

Perry is currently polling in single digits.

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Jeb Bush: I’m Running For President; I Mean, If I Run…

Jeb Bush announced he’s running for president, forgetting he hasn’t made a formal announcement:

“I’m running for president in 2016, and the focus is gonna be about how we—if I run—how do you create high, sustained economic growth, where more people have a chance at earned success? And I will apply my record and the ideas that are relevant going forward to all of this. Of course I have differences with every president, previous president.”

Earlier this week, Jeb had to clarify that he didn’t understand the question when he said he would have gone to war in Iraq, as his brother George W. did, knowing what we know now.

Does it bother anyone that Jeb seems a bit absent-minded about all this?

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Fox News Asks Ben Carson: Do You Really Believe All Those Things You Say?

During a lightning round Sunday morning, Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace asked neurosurgeon  Ben Carson if he really believed all the things he said. The presidential hopeful said yes, he did.

Wallace pressed Carson on his comparison of the U.S. to Nazi Germany and his characterization of the Affordable Care Act as the worst thing in America since slavery. Carson defended the former by saying most of Germany did not agree with Hitler’s programs but said little.

“But people oppose Barack Obama all the time!” Wallace objected.

“There are a lot of people in our society who are afraid to say what they really mean because they may get an IRS audit, people will call them names, their jobs may be interfered with,” Carson said.

Most interestingly, Wallace asked Carson about a statement this week in which he intimated that a president could ignore a Supreme Court ruling. “Dred Scott is a perfect example,” Carson said. “The Supreme Court came up with this and Abraham Lincoln (R-The North) did not agree with it. Now, admittedly it caused a lot of conflict and eventually led to a Civil War, but we’re in a better place because of it.”

Wallace asked whether Carson was disagreeing with Marbury v Madison, which established the principle of judicial review. “This is an area that we need to discuss,” Carson said.

from Mediaite)

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Consider This Electoral Map The Starting Point

From the University of Virginia’s Center For Politics comes what they say is the most likely starting point for a 2016 electoral map. And those guys are the experts. A lot of thought went into this.

Looks pretty accurate to me.

You can head over to 270towin.com and play with the interactive map to see how different states affect the outcome of an election. Just pick your states and watch how the electoral votes add up. You can play with it for hours just seeing how the possible maps might fall in which camp.

(h/t JMG)

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Jeb Bush And Marco Rubio Top Latest GOP Presidential Poll

Jeb Bush and Sen. Marco Rubio top the latest Wall Street Journal/NBC poll for 2-16 Republican presidential nomination.

Asked which Republican hopeful would be their first choice to win the party’s primary, 23 percent of GOP primary voters chose Bush. An additional 14 percent picked him as a second choice.

Eighteen percent of GOP primary voters said that they favored Rubio most, while another 23 percent selected the Florida senator as their second choice for the Republican nod.

It’s worth noting that Rubio is a longtime friend and protege of Bush. With numbers like these, it’s easy to see Rubio in the veep spot and becoming a strong national ticket, especially when it comes to the Latino vote.

The snag comes in the fact that the Constitution would not allow Florida (where both men hail from) to “elect” both to prez and veep.

Electoral College voters, called electors, could not cast both of their votes for two people from their home state. In plainspeak, an Electoral College member from Maryland couldn’t cast his two votes for candidates from Maryland. Electors from any other state could still vote for two Maryland representatives, just not the electors from Maryland.

That being said, it does set up Rubio as a very strong veep pick for any of the other contenders who would look to beef up Latino voters.

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Right-Wing Conservative Ben Carson Announces Run For GOP 2016 Nomination

Huffington Post has the details:

Celebrated neurosurgeon Ben Carson has officially announced his intention to run for president.

“I’m willing to be part of the equation and therefore, I’m announcing my candidacy for president of the United States of America,” Carson told Ohio’s WKRC.

A darling of the conservative movement, Carson enters a crowded Republican field vying for a position ahead of what is expected to be a very competitive primary. He maintains a large following with grass-roots conservatives, which is likely to put him on a collision course with other potential rivals who are popular on the right, such as Sen. Ted Cruz (Texas) and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee.

You’ll recall In April, Carson had a disastrous Chris Cuomo interview in which he claimed that it’s possible to prove that homosexuality is a choice because some people are gay when they leave prison:

“Because a lot of people who go into prison go into prison straight — and when they come out, they’re gay. So, did something happen while they were in there? Ask yourself that question.”

He’s also compared being gay to bestiality and pedophiles: “Marriage is between a man and a woman. It’s a well-established pillar of society and no group, be they gays, be they NAMBLA, be they people who believe in bestiality—it doesn’t matter what they are, they don’t get to change the definition.”

In America the Beautiful: Resdiscovering What Made This Nation Great, a 2012 book written with Candy Carlson, he said marriage equality could bring about the end of the United States:

“[I]f we can redefine marriage as between two men or two women or any other way based on social pressures as opposed to between a man and a woman, we will continue to redefine it in any way that we wish, which is a slippery slope with a disastrous ending, as witnessed in the dramatic fall of the Roman Empire.”

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Carly Fiorina Announces Run For 2016 GOP Presidential Nomination

“I understand how the economy actually works,” former CEO of Hewlett-Packard Carly Fiorina told ABC’s Good Morning America in announcing her bid for the GOP presidential nomination in 2016. “I understand the world, who’s in it, how the world works.”

Fiorina has never held public office. At this point, she is the only woman in the Republican field seeking the 2016 nomination.

Fiorina touts her business experience will make her most effective in addressing economic problems that she blames on President Obama.

The Democratic National Committee quickly lined up the facts of her failed leadership while at Hewlett-Packard (where she was ousted) after her announcement.

“While she is attempting to run on her business record, it consists of mass layoffs, tumbling stock prices, and a failed merger. If this is how Fiorina ran her business, just imagine what she would do to the country,” the DNC said in a statement.

Fiorina lost her only previous race for public office, a 2010 bid to unseat Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif.

By the way, it appears that her forward-thinking business experience didn’t prep her to sign up the carlyfiorina.org domain. So, one guy decided to snap it up to show you how she did during her tenure at Hewlett-Packard. Check it out.

(source)