Tag Archives: Marco Rubio

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No mea culpa from Mitt, but still pretty powerful

mitt

Mitt Romney didn’t take my advice.

He didn’t acknowledge his mistake in seeking Donald J. Trump’s endorsement for president in 2012. Still, despite what I had hoped he would say, the immediate past Republican Party presidential nominee did a fine job this morning of eviscerating the frontrunner for the party’s next presidential nomination.

Not that it’s sure to resonate with the legions of Trumpsters who’ve glommed on to the reality TV celebrity’s shtick, which is virtually what Romney has called the candidate’s political circus act.

The man is as phony as they come. He’s not one of us, the GOP elder said; he’s not even as astute a businessman as he portrays himself, Romney added. His domestic and tax policies would created a “prolonged recession,” and his foreign policy ideas would put the nation into grave danger around the world.

Trump lacks the temperament and the judgment to be the Leader of the Free World, said Romney.

There’s so much more to add. I won’t. just take a look at the link I’ve just attached to this blog.

At a couple of levels, the speech today was most extraordinary. Some pundits this morning called it “unprecedented” for a major party’s most recent presidential nominee to openly rebuke the presumed favorite to carry the party banner further.

Romney all but endorsed the idea of a deadlocked GOP convention this summer in Cleveland to enable the party to turn to someone other than Trump. Romney said voters in Florida should back Marco Rubio and those in Ohio should vote for John Kasich.

All of this begs another question: Would the party frontrunner chuck the whole thing if he can’t corral enough delegates to guarantee a first-ballot nomination?

Look at this way: He might think that since the party isn’t treating him nicely, he could decide to forgo the floor fight and then launch some kind of rogue independent bid in an effort to stick it to the party honchos who are working overtime to deny him the nomination.

It isn’t likely to happen. But you know … if this campaign has demonstrated anything it has shown us that not a single scenario is beyond the possible.

I am one who never would have thought — not in a bazillion years — that we’d have reached this point in a campaign for the presidency of the United States of America.

 

national news, political news

GOP frontrunner getting softened up for Democrats?

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Donald J. Trump is the clear frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination.

I’ll concede that much.

It’s interesting, though, to listen to other Republicans tear into him. It makes me wonder — not that I’m predicting it, given the wackiness of this campaign — whether the intraparty opponents will soften him up for the Democratic candidate who might face him this fall.

Marco Rubio blasts Trump for hiring illegal immigrants to build his hotels. He calls Trump a “con man.”

Ted Cruz accuses Trump of hiring foreign workers over American workers to work in his “world-class companies.”

Former GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney challenges Trump to release his tax returns.

Lindsey Graham says his party has gone “bats*** crazy” by backing Trump.

It reminds me a bit of the 1988 Democratic primary campaign when Sen. Al Gore of Tennessee introduced the “Willie Horton” issue to voters, reminding them of how Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis signed off on a furlough for a prison inmate who then went on a crime rampage. Republicans seized on that theme and beat Dukakis senseless with it during the fall campaign that year.

And so it goes.

Nothing about this campaign makes conventional sense.

It might be that all this piling on only will strengthen the Republican frontrunner.

It’s making me crazy, y’all.

 

national news, political news

Campaign hits fever pitch … so very early

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As we political junkies seek to make sense of that Republican presidential debate bloodbath, I’m trying to grasp the feverishness with which the media are covering this event and its immediate aftermath.

All the mainstream cable news network political reporters are frothing at the mouth over New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s endorsement of Donald J. Trump.

They’re trying to determine how U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio can ride whatever momentum he gained from the Houston dog-and-pony show with his four GOP debate mates.

Some of them were actually aghast at how Trump and Christie “tag teamed” their attacks on Rubio. Indeed, I was utterly flabbergasted as I listened to Trump ridicule Rubio in such a juvenile manner. Listen to this Republican presidential campaign frontrunner try to string sentences together.

Trump is so astonishingly inarticulate that it utterly boggles my mind how in the world we’ve come to this point in this presidential nominating process.

Others were wondering: Whatever happened to U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, who figures to do well in the Texas primary coming up Tuesday?

Oh yeah, no one’s talking  today about Ohio Gov. John Kasich or Dr. Ben Carson.

I guess my wonderment lies in how it’s gotten to this pitch so early in what I thought was supposed to be a marathon.

Is this what we’re going to get from now until the nominating conventions adjourn this summer? Or will this white-hot coverage continue until the election this November?

Man, oh man. I don’t know if I have the stamina to keep up with it. I might have tune this out — if only long enough to catch my breath.

And hold on to my sanity.

 

national news, political news

Political bloodbath on tap?

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Five men are set to stand on a debate stage tonight in Houston.

Two of them are likely to unsheathe the long knives to use on each other.

A third man, the frontrunner, also is going to be a target.

Candidates No. 4 and 5?  I just hope they get to get a word in edge-wise.

Sens. Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio want to elbow each other out of the way to become the Republican Party “establishment” alternative to Donald J. Trump. For Cruz, the Houston debate has been called his “last stand,” or kind of an Alamo reference.

Rubio faces other obstacles, with polls showing him trailing Trump in his home state of Florida.

I continue to root for Ohio Gov. John Kasich, who’s the fourth-place candidate — but the one who exhibits the most executive and legislative government experience. He’s a grownup, but in this election cycle, political adulthood isn’t seen as a plus. Too bad.

The fifth man on the stage? I sense that this likely will be Dr. Ben Carson’s last bow on the national political stage.

So, let’s watch the debate tonight and see how much “blood” gets spilled.

My sense is that it’s going to be a serious spectator-friendly event.

 

media news, national news, political news, State news

Get ready for possible anti-Trump ‘last stand’

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Nevada has weighed in.

Donald J. Trump scored big. Yuuuuge! He won the state’s Republican caucus last night. He’s now being touted by some in the media as the “presumptive” GOP presidential nominee.

Not so fast.

We’ve got a big election date coming up. I won’t predict how it all shakes out, but this could turn out to be the “last stand” of the party’s brass that seeks to derail the Trump Express.

Twelve states are going to the polls. Republicans are taking part in all the primaries. They’re going to award a huge trove of delegates to this summer’s GOP convention in Cleveland.

Oh yeah. Texas is one of them.

The states are mostly scattered through the south and east. Alaska’s voting, too.

So, what happens if Trump runs the table on March 1?

Game over. That’s what the “experts” say.

An interesting debate occurred this morning on one of the cable news shows. It involved discussion over why U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida — one of the three leading contenders for the nomination — won’t unload on Trump. He instead aims his political fire at U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas. The question being kicked around was whether Rubio is either afraid of how Trump would respond or if he’s angling for a vice-presidential spot in the event that Trump actually wins the presidential nomination.

I cannot pretend to get into the mind of the young man from Florida.

It’s do or die for two other candidates: Ohio Gov. John Kasich and retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson. That’s a given and hardly qualifies as a huge scoop here.

As an interested observer of these things, though, I am going to await the GOP result with decidedly mixed feelings.

I told a friend of mine this morning in an e-mail message that I shudder to think that Republican primary voters have devalued the “essence of the presidency” so much that they actually would nominate a crass, callow, foul-mouthed blowhard to represent their party in an election to elect our head of state.

I won’t predict what they’ll do next Tuesday. Whatever it is, we’d better prepare ourselves for a major political eruption.

 

national news, political news

GOP fears its presidential frontrunner

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So help me, I cannot remember the last time a leading major-party presidential candidate has stoked so much fear among those within the very party he wants to lead into the next election.

Donald J. Trump’s emergence from the ranks of unthinkable presidential nominee to a possible nominee has been a sight to behold — not that I have enjoyed beholding it.

Fellow Republican, U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, has tossed out an idea that (a) won’t go anywhere but (b) has some within the party actually considering it.

Ticket formation could come early.

Graham suggests that Ohio Gov. John Kasich and U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida ought to declare themselves a “ticket” to head off a Trump nomination. Graham — once a presidential candidate himself — doesn’t care which of them would head the ticket. He just wants two of the remaining five GOP presidential candidates to form an alliance to blunt the Trump charge.

There have been other “insurgencies,” to be sure.

Did the Democrats conspire against the candidacy of Sen. Eugene McCarthy and then Sen. Robert F. Kennedy when they challenged President Johnson in 1968? What about the 1976 GOP insurgency of former Gov. Ronald Reagan, who sought to wrest the nomination from President Ford?

This is different.

The very idea that the Republican Party could actually nominate someone with Trump’s background — as a reality TV celebrity, real estate mogul, and someone who’s boasted about his sexual exploits with women who were married to other men is sending the GOP “establishment” into apoplectic spasms.

As someone said only recently, the Party of Lincoln is becoming the Party of Trump.

Take a moment. Roll that around for a bit and consider what it really means to a once-great political institution.

 

national news, political news

The Birther in Chief strikes again

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Here we go … one more time.

First, the target was Barack Obama, the 44th president of the United States. He was born somewhere other than the United States, the allegation went.

Second, the target was Ted Cruz, junior senator from Texas, who actually was born in Canada to an American mother and a Cuban father.

Now it’s Marco Rubio, the junior senator from Florida, who was born in the Sunshine State, but whose parents immigrated there from Cuba.

All three men allegedly are constitutionally ineligible to run or serve as president.

The man making the assertion? Donald J. Trump, the frontrunner for the GOP presidential nomination.

Trump now says Rubio might not be eligible. His parents’ aren’t American, Trump said. Oh, wait. Rubio was born on U.S. soil. U.S. law says he’s a citizen automatically. Doesn’t matter, Trump asserts. He questions the eligibility, just as he has done with Cruz, even though U.S. law granted young Ted citizenship because Mama Cruz is an American citizen.

And the president? Well, he was born in Hawaii. Trump hasn’t stopped questioning his eligibility, either, even though the president’s late mother also was a U.S. citizen.

Trump is relying on others’ assertions. He’s using social media to send out the doubts that he denies planting. Sure thing. He’s adding plenty of irrigation to the doubts, though, by continuing to provoke needless discussion and unfounded questions about one of his opponents.

Will this latest specious assertion do any damage to Trump? I’ve noted before that I am done predicting such things. This campaign has entered a parallel universe where the normal rules of decency and decorum no longer apply.

 

national news, political news

Well, I’ll be dipped …

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Dear old Dad had a saying he would use whenever he was mortified, surprised, confused or amazed.

“Well, I’ll be dipped in sesame seeds,” he would say.

Tonight, my dad is being dipped and covered in ’em. I don’t have any other way to describe the news out of South Carolina that TV celebrity/real estate mogul Donald J. Trump has rolled to another Republican Party presidential victory.

The fight is on at this moment for second place. The combatants are U.S. Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Marco Rubio of Florida.

I’ve admitted already, but it’s worth another admission, a confession, a mea culpa: I was wrong about Trump’s staying power. Many times along the way I thought he’d said something that would doom him.

It started with his denigration of Sen. John McCain’s status as a Vietnam War hero. “He’s a hero because he got captured,” Trump said. “I like people who aren’t captured, OK?”

There would be many other instances of profound crassness. None of them mattered in the eyes of those who continue to support this guy.

I am no longer going to make such predictions as they relate to Trump.

This campaign has become a case study in weirdness.

The insults keep piling up — right along with the victories this individual keeps winning.

He’s two-for-three at the moment. Cruz won the Iowa caucuses, barely. Trump rolled to victory in New Hampshire and appears to be rolling in South Carolina.

If the Republican National Committee still harbors any hope of stopping Trump, of denying him the party’s presidential nomination, my advice is simple and straightforward.

Y’all have to get real busy. Like right now!

Oh, and Dad? Wherever you are, I’m just as baffled as you might be.

 

national news, political news, State news

It’s do or die for ‘Jeb!’

Jeb Bush

Erica Greider, writing for Texas Monthly’s blog, offers an interesting analysis of the stakes for today’s South Carolina Republican presidential primary.

She thinks Sen. Marco Rubio has the most to gain — or lose — from the results.

But she inserted this into her blog:

“The prevailing wisdom is that the alternative with the most at stake tomorrow is Jeb Bush. More specifically, there’s a sense that if he can’t manage a strong third-place finish, at least—despite all his advantages at the outset of the race, a strong performance in the most recent Republican debate, and being joined by his brother, former president George W. Bush, on the trail—that it’s time to pack it in.”

Here’s the rest of what she writes.

I’m going to go with the “prevailing wisdom,” which is that the biggest loser from the South Carolina primary could be John Ellis Bush, aka Jeb!

His brother, W, came out of the shadows to campaign actively for his  younger sibling. The 43rd president — who’d made a vow, like their father had done — to stay out of the political arena once he left office. George W. Bush could remain silent no longer, as Donald J. Trump continued blustering about how W and his bunch had “lied” their way into starting the Iraq War.

Jeb figured that Brother W’s continuing popularity in South Carolina could propel him a strong finish when the votes are counted.

I am not privy to the details or the fine print, but it’s looking as though Jeb Bush might not make the grade.

I’ll just offer this bit of personal privilege. I did not vote for W any of the four times I had the chance: his two elections for Texas governor or his two elections for president of the United States. I do, though, like him personally. I’ve had the privilege of visiting twice with him extensively while he was governor — and once briefly in 1988, before he won his first term as Texas governor.

He’s an engaging and personable fellow.

It was my hope that some of that would rub off on Jeb. It apparently hasn’t. Jeb has been caught in that anti-establishment buzzsaw being wielded by he likes of Trump and — oddly enough — U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz.

I will not dare to predict the outcome of the South Carolina vote today. Jeb Bush had better hope he finishes much nearer to the top of the heap than the bottom of it.

At this moment, I am pessimistic.

 

national news, political news

More major culling to occur?

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It’s beginning to look as though the Republican Party primary presidential field is going to endure another serious thinning out … maybe soon.

The South Carolina primary is coming up. Donald Trump continues to lead the pack — for the life of me I don’t know how.

Ted Cruz is in the mix. So is Marco Rubio.

That leaves the three also-rans, one of whom I had high hopes could resurrect his campaign.

Ben Carson should leave the race. John Kasich — my favorite Republican and possibly my favorite candidate in either party — needs to score well if he’s going to continue. Jeb Bush? I fear that he’s done, too.

That will leave us with three men running for the GOP nomination.

Two of them are serious, although none of them — for my money — should be the nominee.

It’s looking like one of them will survive the dogfight.

It’s been said that the primary system is a grueling battle that determines whether the “fittest” of the candidates will survive. I’ve called it a form of political natural selection.

This election cycle is proving to be a test of conventional wisdom, which used to suggest that the fittest candidates were those with the most experience, the most knowledge, and who are the most articulate in explaining their philosophy.

That’s not the case these days.

The fittest candidates are those who scream the loudest and who appeal to the fears of an electorate that has been told they have plenty to fear.