Tag Archives: Mitt Romney

political news

'Officially exploring' means Jeb is in

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Take this to the bank. It’s a lock. Done.

Jeb Bush is running for president of the United States in 2016.

Yes, another Bush is, um, beating the bushes for votes. He wants to become the third member of his immediate family to occupy the White House. George H.W. “Poppy” Bush served from 1989 until 1993; big bro George W. served from 2001 to 2009.

The Bush “brand” is well established, correct?

And what do the first two Bushes have in common? They presided over an economy that tanked.

It Poppy’s case, the economy cost him re-election in 1992. As for W, the “Great Recession” caused untold grief for millions of Americans who watched their retirement investments vanish into thin air.

OK, were either recessions the direct result of the men’s presidencies? As I’ve noted before, presidents don’t deserve all the blame when things go wrong any more than they deserve all the credit for when things go right.

But these events happened on their respective watches.

And that is the “brand” that Jeb will have to overcome.

Voters’ memories are long, you know?

But Jeb Bush has a record of his own as a former Florida governor. It’s a decent one at that. The state ran well under his governorship. And I do like his moderate stand on immigration reform, which is natural, given that he’s married to a Mexican woman.

He shouldn’t take too seriously the notion that a Republican moderate is doomed to lose the next election. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, said as much. But hey, the Cruz Missile is considering a presidential run as well and no one with an ounce of sanity ever is going to suggest Cruz is a moderate on anything.

Bush is yet another old shoe set to run for president. The Democrats have their own in Hillary Rodham Clinton.

My own GOP preference remains Mitt Romney, who’s now sounding as though he, too, will start “actively exploring” a campaign of his own.

This will be fun to watch, yes?

 

political news

It's getting even messier on Capitol Hill

Winston Churchill had it exactly right when he sought to describe a democratic form of government.

He lamented its messiness and inefficiency when he said: “Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.”

I wish he was here today to see what’s transpiring on Capitol Hill. Republicans are fighting among themselves in a TEA party vs. establishment conflict. Now the Democrats have begun cannibalizing each other in a progressive vs. centrist fight.

At the center of it all is a $1.1 trillion spending bill that extremists in either party don’t like, for differing reasons, obviously.

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/12/elizabeth-warren-budget-cromnibus-2016-elections-113561.html?hp=t4_r

Just as Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas has become the face of the TEA party insurgency within the Republican Party, Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts has assumed the Democratic mantle of gadfly in chief.

They both have at least one thing in common. They’re freshmen legislators. Neither of them has much Capitol Hill seasoning under the belts. Cruz is more of a loudmouth. Warren doesn’t bellow her dislike of Democratic comprises, but she’s becoming a tiger in the Senate.

Warren has become the liberals’ latest best hope for a possible challenge to prohibitive Democratic presidential favorite Hillary Rodham Clinton. They see Warren as a spokeswoman for the common man and woman who distrusts the power brokers who are lining up behind Clinton’s still-unannounced presidential candidacy.

Cruz, meanwhile, has become the darling of the conservative movement within his own party. Will he challenge, say, Jeb Bush or Mitt Romney for the GOP nomination?

Let’s think about this for a moment: Cruz and Warren both catch fire enough to snatch their parties’ nomination from the favorites. Clinton lost in 2008 to a young senator with zero name ID nationally. Barack Obama went on to win the presidency in a near-landslide and then score a decisive re-election victory four years later. Will history repeat itself? I doubt it — for now.

As for Cruz, the GOP establishment will fight him tooth and nail if he keeps roiling the waters, demanding government shutdowns and insisting on outcomes that won’t occur.

Our form of representative democracy, Sir Winston, is about to get a whole lot messier.

 

political news

Run, Mitt, run!

The word is leaking out in dribs and drabs.

Mitt Romney is thinking about running for president one more time in 2016.

I think that’s pretty cool.

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/12/mitt-romney-2016-run-113518.html?hp=t1_r

Mitt’s most recent run for the presidency came up short, of course. Ann Romney, the GOP nominee’s much better half, was said to have dismissed the notion of yet another presidential campaign. Now, however, Politico reports that insiders think Mitt’s giving serious thought to one more run for the White House.

(FYI: I want to refer to the former Massachusetts governor by his first name because everyone in America has done that with Hillary Rodham Clinton. If Democrats can claim a first-name-only potential candidate, then Republicans deserve one, too.)

Why do I want Mitt to run again? Well, it’s not that I think he’s the best Republican considering a run. Nor is it that I intend to vote for him in 2016 were he to be nominated.

It’s because I think he’s a lot smarter than he demonstrated during his 2012 effort, starting with that awkward primary campaign and his performance in some of those talent show/debates with the likes of Herman Cain and Michelle Bachmann.

Who can forget when he offered lay down a $10,000 bet with Texas Gov. Rick Perry? Who in the world would blurt out a 10 grand wager offer? Most of us out here in Flyover Country would settle for a steak dinner or six-pack of beer. Not Mitt, the man with bulging money bags.

Or how about the time he said the $300,000 he earned one year in speaking fees amounted to just a little bit of money? When you’re worth zillions, then I suppose that is just walking-around money.

I’m a firm believer in redemption. Everyone deserves a chance to correct the record, or perhaps even rewrite the record.

That includes politicians.

Mitt thinks the potential GOP field is weak. He wants his party to win back the White House. He thinks he’s the man to restore his party’s standing. According to Politico: “He has assessed various people’s strengths and weaknesses dispassionately, wearing what one ally called his ‘consultant cap’ to measure the field. He has said, among other things, that Jeb Bush, the former Florida governor, would run into problems because of his business dealings, his work with the investment banks Lehman Brothers and Barclays, and his private equity investments.”

I don’t know about that. All I do know is that I want Mitt to run. All he has to do now is persuade Mrs. Romney that the time has arrived once more.

Mitt was a sometimes-entertaining candidate in 2012. I’m ready for his return to the arena.

Do it, Mitt!

 

national news, political news, State news

No 'oops' for Perry next time around

Texas Gov. Rick Perry is soon to be a “former” governor — and a likely current candidate for the president of the United States.

He vows there will be no repeat of the infamous “oops” moment in late 2011 when he couldn’t name all three of the federal agencies he said he would cut from the federal government.

In an interview with CNBC’s John Harwood, Perry said he’ll be better prepared if he decides to run again for the White House.

He’s also got that felony indictment alleging abuse of power to get worked out one way or the other.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/rick-perry-oops-wont-be-my-obituary/ar-BBgD52T

The most interesting element in the story attached to this blog post is how Harwood sizes up the potential 2016 GOP field with the 2012 cast of characters. The next Republican field is likely to include some serious politicians with serious ideas about how to solve serious problems.

That clearly wasn’t the case in 2012. The GOP field included a cabal of clowns: Herman “9-9-9” Cain? Michelle “Democrats are Communists” Bachmann? Rick “Say ‘No’ to Contraception” Santorum? Newt “I Impeached an Unfaithful President While I was Cheating On My Wife” Gingrich?

The next field, which might include Mitt Romney, the 2012 GOP nominee, is much more credible than the previous field of candidates.

Perry will have to do battle with a much more serious band of GOP brothers (and maybe) sisters.

Oh, but he says he’ll be ready.

We’ll see about that.

 

national news, political news

Oh, for that 'new car smell'

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Sometimes a simple throwaway line has this way of sticking to the wall.

President Obama just might have uttered it recently in an interview. He said the next president may need to bring a “new car smell” to American voters.

Former Clinton pollster: Hillary lacks ‘new car smell’

And that brings up the question: Does Hillary Rodham Clinton — the presumptive frontrunner for the Democratic Party nomination in 2016 — have that “new car smell”?

A former Clinton pollster, Doug Schoen, doesn’t think so.

According to The Hill: “‘The president said [last week] that the next president needs … a new car smell, and it’s pretty hard for me to say … that she [Hillary] has a new car smell,’ Schoen told radio host John Catsimatidis in an interview to air Sunday on New York’s 970 AM.”

Yes, she’s been in the public eye for a long time, dating back to 1992 when Bill Clinton told Americans if you elect him as president, “you get two.” She became a highly visible first lady, then became an equally high-visible senator from New York and then became an even more highly visible secretary of state in the Obama administration.

New car smell?

Hardly.

For that matter, Mitt Romney seems a bit musty himself if you consider that he’s run twice for president, been a high-profile governor in Massachusetts and also helped rescue the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, Utah.

A Quinnipiac Poll shows Romney leading Clinton narrowly in a head-to-head matchup. But, hey, the election is two years off.

I’d bet real money that “new car smell” just might become something of a jingle once the next campaign gets going.

 

national news, political news

Don't shut down the government

Mitt Romney is quite capable of making sense.

Take his view on a threat to shut down the federal government to get back at President Obama for enacting an executive order to help fix a broken U.S. immigration system.

The crux of Romney’s view on that idea? Don’t do it, Republicans.

Will someone on Capitol Hill listen to the GOP’s 2012 presidential nominee?

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/224320-romney-more-productive-ways-to-fight-obama-than-shutdown

The tea party crackpots are threatening to shut ‘er down by withholding money to fund the government past its Dec. 11 deadline. They’re going to get angry if — and likely when — the president signs an executive order that delays deportation of about 5 million illegal immigrants.

I agree with them that the president need not pick this fight. But he’s likely to do it.

The Republicans’ response really shouldn’t include shutting down the government. In case they have forgotten, a lot of Americans rely on the federal government. Many thousands of them draw their paychecks from the government, for example.

Romney was asked on “Face the Nation” this morning about a possible shutdown. “Well, I think there’s got to be more productive ways for us to be able to impress on the president the need to work for a permanent solution, as opposed to a temporary stop-gap solution,” Romney replied.

Shutting down the government punishes people who have been turned into political pawns.

Is that what Republicans really and truly want to do?

Listen to Mitt, OK?

national news

No regrets over Obama votes

The question came to me from a social media acquaintance.

He asked: “… just for the record are you sorry you voted for this incompetent community organizer?”

My answer to him: No.

I now shall elaborate.

The “incompetent community organizer,” of course, is Barack Obama, 44th president of the United States, who’s finding himself engaged in yet another struggle of wills with the folks in Congress who would oppose virtually anything he proposed at any level.

I’ve voted in every presidential election since 1972 and have never regretted a single vote I’ve cast for the candidate of my choice — win or lose.

Why should I regret my votes for Barack Obama in 2008 and again in 2012?

For starters, the 2008 campaign amid the worst economic crisis to hit the United States since the Great Depression. It occurred on George W. Bush’s watch and Sen. Obama pledged to take swift action to stop the free fall in our job rolls, our retirement account, the stock market, the housing market, the banking industry and the automobile industry. I trusted him then to do all of the above.

You know what? He delivered. The economic stimulus package, which the GOP opposed, contributed to improving the economic condition at many levels.

I did not hear Republican U.S. Sen. John McCain, the GOP presidential nominee, offer a solid solution to what was ailing our economy. And when he stopped campaigning to return to Washington when the stock market all but imploded, well, that told me — and apparently millions of other Americans — that Sen. McCain didn’t have a clue what to do.

Four years later, the economy had improved significantly, but Republicans kept insisting it was in the tank. The numbers told a different story.

Let’s not forget: Millions of Americans now have health insurance who didn’t have it before.

Yes, the country faced foreign policy crises on Obama’s watch. But as the 2012 campaign developed and the GOP nominated Mitt Romney to run against the president, it became clear — at least to me — that the Republicans didn’t have any clear answers on how to deal with those crises short of going back to war.

I had grown tired of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. The Iraq War is over. The Afghanistan War is about to end. Yes, the Islamic State has risen in Iraq and Syria. However, is it the president’s fault entirely that we’re fighting another bloodthirsty terrorist organization? Hardly. We all knew the “Global War on Terror” well could be a war without end.

So, I voted once again for Barack Obama.

He’s now facing yet another challenge from the “loyal opposition,” which frankly doesn’t appear to be all that loyal.

History is going to judge the community organizer a lot more kindly than his critics are doing so today.

Therefore, I stand by my support of Barack Obama.

 

International news, military news, national news

Are we really a second-rate power?

You hear it frequently these days from right-wing talking heads, politicians and a few “expert observers” that the United States is in danger of becoming a second-rate military power.

They express grave concern that the commander in chief, Barack Obama, seeks to “deliberately” reduce America’s standing in the world because of some trumped-up “anti-American bias” they’ve attached to the man.

I heard U.S. Rep. Mac Thornberry express those concerns recently, although he did so with a good measure of class and decorum. He isn’t pounding on the same drum that many lunatics on the right are beating.

Thornberry — who’s set to become chairman of the House Armed Services Committee next year — did suggest that China is growing its defense budge at a far greater rate than the United States and is concerned that the communist dictatorship may be about to surpass us as the pre-eminent military power on Earth.

He’s not alone in saying these things.

I dug into my World Almanac and Book of Facts and found a few interesting numbers. They relate to defense spending.

In 2012, China spent just a shade less than $90 billion on its defense establishment; Russia — which 2012 GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney said is our “No. 1 geopolitical adversary” — spent $52 billion. That’s around $142 billion spent between these two fearsome foes.

The U.S. defense budget for 2012? $739 billion.

Are the Russians and Chinese getting so much more bang for the buck — pardon the pun — that we should worry that either of them is going to surpass us in military strength? I hardly think that’s the case.

I totally get, however, that in this new world of vaguely defined enemies and an international war against terror, that it is next to meaningless to measure military strength vis a vis our “traditional” foes.

Let’s cool our jets just a bit, though, when suggesting that the United States of America is no longer capable of defending itself against any foe.

We’re still pouring lots of money into our national defense and we’re still getting a damn good return on that investment.

 

national news, political news

Can poll numbers change Mitt's wife's mind?

Let it be understood that I heard what Ann Romney said about whether her husband, Mitt, should seek the presidency a third time.

She and her sons are “done, done, done” with national politics, Ann said.

Sure thing.

Now we hear that an ABC-News/Washington Post poll says Republicans want Mitt to run for president in 2016. The margin is significant over the other supposed would-be candidates.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/post-abc-news-poll-absent-mitt-romney-who-can-claim-the-2016-gop-banner/2014/10/18/5c029da8-5615-11e4-ba4b-f6333e2c0453_story.html?hpid=z4

The poll says that as of right now, 21 percent of Republicans want Mitt to run, which is close to what he got prior to the 2012 campaign. Hey, he ended up being nominated by the Republican Party in the previous election.

As for Mitt, he hasn’t yet slammed the door shut and thrown away the key. He’s said things like “I have no intention” of seeking the presidency; he proclaims his happiness at being a private citizen (more or less) once again; he says the party has plenty of good candidates willing to step into the arena.

Has there been anything approaching a “hell no, I’ll never run again” statement from Mitt? Not even close.

As for Ann Romney, her “done, done, done” declaration can be construed as potentially malleable if the poll numbers keep showing that GOP voters want Mitt to run again.

I’m not one of those Republicans. However, I’d love to see Mitt run one more time. Why? My curiosity is goading me into wanting him to atone for the hideous mistakes he made during the 2012 campaign. The 47-percent remark comes to mind; his statement that “corporations are people, too, my friend” also sticks in my head; his efforts at keeping his distance from Romneycare by suggesting it bears no resemblance to Obamacare also was a doozy.

Can this man be redeemed and remade into a credible national candidate once again?

I’d like to see his handlers try.

I hope he’s up to it. More importantly, I am hoping he can persuade Ann to take part in one more run for the White House.

national news, political news, State news

Who's going to jump in '16?

It’s getting fun watching the prospective candidates for president in 2016 start hedging whether they’re actually going to make the plunge.

The latest apparently is Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, who might run for the Republican nomination in two years.

http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/219692-rubio-decision-to-run-in-2016-wont-depend-on-bush

Rubio says his decision won’t depend on whether former Florida Gov.Jeb Bush decides to run. Rubio says he hasn’t talked to the former governor, but the fact that he’s talking about it at all suggests — to me, at least — that he’s got Jeb on his radar.

So, let’s ponder these other possibilities:

* U.S. House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan says he likely won’t run if his 2012 Republican presidential nominee running mate Mitt Romney jumps in. No word from Romney what he plans to do if Ryan goes ahead with a run.

* Vice President Joe Biden likely will consider backing out of the Democratic contest if former senator, former secretary of state and former first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton decides to go for it.

* Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas wants to seek the GOP nomination, but will he go if another talkative Texan, lame-duck Gov. Rick Perry jumps into the race?

* And is Perry going to make the leap if Cruz decides it’s his time to run?

Of all the fascinating what-ifs to ponder, I’m interested mostly in the Texas two-step that might play out between Perry and Cruz.

Perry’s been to the well once already. He flamed out badly before the first primary took place in New Hampshire. He’s trying to re-craft his brand. Cruz is the still-quite-new junior senator from Texas who entered the upper congressional chamber in January 2013 with his mouth blazing away. He hasn’t shut his trap since.

Both of these guys have never seen a TV camera they didn’t like. Cruz is especially enamored of the sound of his voice and the appearance of his face on TV.

It’s going to be tough for both of them to run for president, each trying to outflank the other on the right wing of their already-extreme right-wing party.

Who will jump in first? And will the other one back away?

And what about Ryan and Romney, Biden and Clinton, and Rubio and Bush?

This is going to get tense.