Attorney in Texas
Attorney in Texas's JournalFox News poll: Donald Trump still leads GOP field
Source: Tampa Metro Bugle
A new Fox News poll finds Donald Trump leading the GOP presidential field nationally with 25%, followed by Ben Carson at 12%, Ted Cruz at 10%, Jeb Bush at 9%, Mike Huckabee at 6%, Scott Walker at 6%, Carly Fiorina at 5%, John Kasich at 4%, Marco Rubio at 4%, Chris Christie at 3% and Rand Paul at 3%.
Read more: http://tampa.metrobugle.com/2015/08/16/fox-news-poll-donald-trump-still-leads-gop-field/
Trump still killing the Republican field. Non-politician Carson in second. Establishment hand-picked tools Bush and Walker and Rubio down to 4th and 6th and 9th respectively. A good poll.
Politico: (headline translated) "Ted Cruz: professional nutjob / Jebush: not much wingnut love"
Four Republican presidential hopefuls gathered Saturday at a picturesque Northern Nevada ranch and pounded anti-establishment themes, but it was Ted Cruz who gave the most convincing performance at the first annual Basque Fry....“All of us are familiar with campaign conservatives. Candidates who talk a good game on the campaign trail and yet don’t walk the walk,” he said, as a few in the crowd shouted back, “McConnell.” “I’ve heard of him,” Cruz responded, a winking reference to the GOP Senate majority leader whom Cruz recently referred to as a liar...“Before the debate, I was leaning toward Scott Walker,” said Phil Perine, founder of the grassroots group Siena Conservatives and president of the Nevada Republican Men’s Club. “But [Cruz’s] performance put me in his camp.”
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But few of those interviewed seemed to embrace former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush. “I’m concerned he’s not conservative enough,” said Paul Corley, who owns the ranch that hosted the event. “In fact, a little more than concerned.”
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Family history hounds Jeb Bush on campaign trail
Source: Washington Post
When Jeb Bush stepped up onto the fabled soapbox at the Iowa State Fair on Friday, fairgoers pelted him with questions about the legacy of his brother, a former president. And his father, another former president. And one of his foreign policy advisers, Paul D. Wolfowitz, the architect of his brother’s war in Iraq. And about the war itself.
Under a blazing sun, Bush expressed irritation with what he called “the parlor game” of focusing on Wolfowitz and other past Bush administration advisers who have resurfaced for this Bush campaign..... But over several days, it has become evident that his ideas on the subject are remarkably similar to George W. Bush’s ideas and that he firmly believes that Democrats — not his brother — deserve the blame for the unrest in Iraq and neighboring Syria.... According to Bush this week, the removal of Saddam Hussein from power “turned out to be a pretty good deal.” The 2007 troop surge was “an extraordinarily effective” strategy. By the time his brother left office, he said, the “mission was accomplished” in Iraq because security had been restored.
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Most Americans still believe the Iraq war was a mistake and are opposed to new military engagement — making Jeb Bush’s approach to national security risky.
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Jeb Bush would not say for certain whether he would preserve the executive order Obama signed banning enhanced interrogation. Later Thursday, he told reporters that he would not rule out using waterboarding during interrogations of terrorism suspects.
Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/jeb-bush-is-trying-and-failing-to-escape-his-brothers-shadow-on-iraq/2015/08/14/2ad745f8-4282-11e5-8ab4-c73967a143d3_story.html
I hope we agree that Webb is running to the center, Sanders to the left, and Clinton between those 2
I hope we also agree that even the most centrist in the field is considerably more progressive than even the most centrist Republican candidate (I don't see any Lieberman candidates in our field or any Huntsman candidates running in the Republican field with the goal of reviving the flat-lined moderate wing of that dying party).
I am trying to get a grasp on the general perception of where other Democrats would rank the following candidates from most progressive to most moderate:
1. Sanders
2. O'Malley
3. Chafee
4. Clinton
5. Biden
6. Webb
Thank you for your help.
Confident Trump unloads on "stupid" GOP rivals in New Hampshire
Source: CBS
"The Iraq war is a disaster for the Bushes," Trump told reporters in a press conference before his rally. "The last thing we need is another Bush. Trust me. Saddam Hussein instead of him you have ISIS and instead of him you have Iran taking over. So you tell me, was it worth what we paid for?"
Read more: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/election-2016-confident-trump-unloads-on-stupid-gop-rivals-in-new-hampshire/
"Is Donald Trump the Iowa front-runner? Ask Michele Bachmann"
"It reminds me a lot of four years ago, with the flavor of the month. It will be interesting since we don't have the straw poll to winnow people out," McGee said.
In August of 2011, that flavor of the month was Minnesota Rep. Michelle Bachmann. She won the presidential straw poll, considered a major accomplishment by her underdog campaign. She finished sixth in the caucuses five months later and dropped out of the race. The winnowing occurred with former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, who exited the 2012 race after finishing third in the straw poll. Santorum, who finished fourth, would end up winning the caucuses.
Politico: "Insiders: Rick Perry will be first to drop out"
“When you’ve suspended all staff pay, the writing is on the wall. His team suggests he’ll have a memorable debate moment. Unfortunately for Rick Perry, that moment happened in 2011, oops.”
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“Perry’s just not getting the second look from voters he hoped for,” agreed another GOP Granite Stater. “He’s rehabilitated his reputation to some extent by being serious and competent this time, and he needs to consider that success.”
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“I was going to say Rick Perry because of the layoffs of his campaign staff, but his Super PAC will carry him for a while longer,” a New Hampshire Republican said. “That leaves Bobby Jindal as my guess for the first drop out. Jim Gilmore hasn’t even dropped in, so I’m not counting him.”
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Trump mocks Paul, Fiorina and Bush at rally
Source: The Hill
The real estate mogul and reality TV star mocked Sen. Rand Paul’s (R-Ky.) height, warned Carly Fiorina not to publicly challenge him, and jabbed at former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush over an early campaign stumble about whether he would invade Iraq.... Carly was a little nasty to me,” Trump said. “Be careful, Carly. Be careful. But actually, I can’t say anything to her because she’s a woman and I don’t want to be accused of being tough on women.”... “I promised I wouldn’t say that she ran Hewlett Packard into the ground,” Trump said. “I said I would not say it. That her stock value tanked. That she laid off tens of thousands of people and she got viciously fired. I said I would not say it. And that she then went out and ran against Barbara Boxer for senator of California, and it’s a race that should have been won and she lost in a landslide, and I said, I will not say that, ok? So I’m not going to say it.”
Trump was also critical of Bush, who earlier in the cycle stumbled over a question about whether he would have invaded Iraq, as his older brother, former President George W. Bush, did.
“He didn’t know the difference,” Trump said. “He couldn’t answer the question whether Iraq was a good thing or a bad thing. It’s all right to say they made a mistake, then finally after going to his pollster, who he pays a fortune to by the way, after five days he said it’s a bad thing.”... “The other day, I’m watching, and [Bush] said, ‘Well, we got Saddam Hussein out, didn’t we?’ ” Trump said. “I’m not a fan of Saddam Hussein, but he ran the place, and he had no weapons of mass destruction, and now instead of Saddam Hussein, we are far more brutal, we have ISIS and we will have Iran because they are already making deals.”
Read more: http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/251196-trump-mocks-paul-fiorina-and-bush-at-rally
Jon Soltz: "Embarrassing Jeb Bush Flip-Flops on Iraq, Again"
excerpts from a great and insightful editorial:
By his collapsing poll numbers, despite his intense campaigning, we know that Jeb Bush might be one of the worst candidates of all time. But, sometimes, bad politicians make good elected officials. So, the question remains, would Jeb Bush make a good Commander in Chief?
No.
I had planned to write an op-ed critiquing his major foreign policy speech from this week, in which Bush falsely pinned blame for ISIS on President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and gave a terrible vision of what he would do different. ... But, as Jeb Bush is prone to do, he stepped all over his speech just 24 hours later by saying, "I'll tell you, taking out Saddam Hussein turned out to be a pretty good deal." Thus, Jeb erased the entire speech he just delivered.... If he truly thinks that it was a "good deal" for us, then he also must believe that he's lying when he says that he wouldn't have launched the war in Iraq, knowing then what we do now.... With his brother's neoconservative advisors by his side, we can't be shocked that this is his real position. Yet, in the debate and his speech this week, he went through great pains to say he'd avoid the war in Iraq. They say a gaffe is when a politician tells you what they really think. I've never seen a clearer example of that, than in Jeb's latest comment.
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That Jeb considers this -- in any way -- to be a good deal for the United States is the core of why Jeb Bush is not qualified to be the Commander in Chief. Anyone who thinks the war in Iraq was a "pretty good deal" should be nowhere near the command structure of the United States military, ordering our men and women in uniform into harm's way, lest they send our men and women to sacrifice their lives for another neoconservative failure.
The Atlantic: "Donald Trump and the Search for the Republican Soul"
RedState’s editor, Erick Erickson, may be the most powerful conservative in America. ... “The Republican Party created Donald Trump,” Erickson told me, “because they made a lot of promises to their base and never kept them.” Voters are drawn to Trump, he said, because “he’s burning down the Republican Party that never listened to them to begin with.”Profile Information
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