[VIDEO] ‘At Some Point Aren’t You Just Ashamed?’ Jake Tapper Grills Trump Puppet Sarah Huckabee Sanders Over False Smears
Posted: March 29, 2016 Filed under: Mediasphere, Politics, U.S. News | Tags: Amanda Carpenter, CNN, Director of communications, Donald Trump, Jake Tapper, media, Mike Huckabee, National Enquirer, news, Political action committee, Republican Party (United States), Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Ted Cruz, video Leave a commentAt one point, Jake Tapper says, “Sarah, I’ve known you and I’ve known your family for a long time, and I can’t believe that either one of you would condone what Dan Scavino did yesterday!”
What he’s referring to is Trump’s scumbag media guy pushing out an idiotic video as “evidence” that Amanda Carpenter had an affair with Ted Cruz….(read more)
Source: therightscoop.com
Noonan: ‘Jumping on anyone who publicly expressed a religious feeling after the San Bernardino massacre. Where are we heading?’
Posted: December 4, 2015 Filed under: Mediasphere, Politics, Religion, Terrorism, Think Tank | Tags: Ben Carson, Carly Fiorina, Chris Christie, Donald Trump, Jeb Bush, John Kasich, Marco Rubio, Mike Huckabee, PEGGY NOONAN, Prayer, Rand Paul, Republican Party (United States), Ted Cruz, WSJ Leave a comment
The San Bernardino massacre and “prayer shaming.”
Peggy Noonan writes: What gets you about what happened in San Bernardino is the shattering sameness of it. Once and not so long ago such atrocities, whatever their cause, whether the work of schizophrenics or jihadists, constituted a signal and exceptional moment. Now they’re more like this week’s shooting. We are not becoming blasé but increasingly inured. And, of course, armed up.
“This managed to enrage the progressive left. You can take your prayers and stuff ’em. The answer and the only answer to this tragedy is gun control, and if you’re not for it you’re not allowed to be part of the conversation.”
You can see a coarsening in how we respond and react on social media. No one feels ashamed to exploit the tragedy for political purposes even while it is happening.
“All this immediately won a name: ‘prayer shaming.'”
We are all free to say what we think, and must be, for without this freedom we will no longer be America. More on that below. But you always hope what is said will be constructive, helpful, maybe even at some point heartening. You have a responsibility as an adult to do your best in this area.
“Wow. You might think he was aiming this at President Obama, who when he was a popular president with an overwhelmingly Democratic House and Senate did not prioritize gun control.”
But as soon as the story broke Wednesday afternoon, and while it was still going on, there were accusations and bitter words flung all over the Internet. The weirdest argument came almost immediately. A person named Chris Murphy, who is a U.S. senator representing Connecticut, sent out what struck me as the most manipulative message of recent political history.
“But it was clearly aimed at all those Republicans and religious people who were praying, saying they were praying, and implicitly asking you to pray, rather than doing what they should do, which is supporting the senator’s cause.”
The background is that Republican presidential contestants responded online to the shootings with the only helpful thing you can say—or do, frankly, from faraway—when a story like this occurs. “Praying for the victims, their families & the San Bernardino first responders,” said Jeb Bush. Mike Huckabee said he was “praying.” John Kasich: “My thoughts & prayers go out to those impacted.”
[Read the full story here, at WSJ]
This managed to enrage the progressive left. You can take your prayers and stuff ’em. The answer and the only answer to this tragedy is gun control, and if you’re not for it you’re not allowed to be part of the conversation. “Please shut up and slink away,” tweeted a reporter. Another: “Your thoughts and prayers don’t mean a damn thing.” A reporter at the Huffington Post damned public officials’ “useless thoughts and prayers.” Markos Moulitsas of Daily Kos: “How many dead people did those thoughts and prayers bring back to the life?”
Mollie Hemingway of the Federalist noted that all these denunciations were literally coming in while victims of the shooting were sending out requests for prayer.
[Read Mollie Hemingway article “The Left Prays After San Bernardino Shooting, To Its God Of Government“]
Journalists, bloggers, contrarians and citizens jumped into the fray. Then the U.S. senator, Chris Murphy, came forward rather menacingly. “Your ‘thoughts’ should be about steps to take to stop this carnage. Your ‘prayers’ should be for forgiveness if you do nothing—again.” Read the rest of this entry »
Raw Politics vs. Compassion: Dem & GOP Responses to San Bernardino Massacre
Posted: December 2, 2015 Filed under: Crime & Corruption, Mediasphere, Politics, Religion, Terrorism, War Room | Tags: Christianity, Demagogue, Democrats, GOP, Gun Control Debate, Hillary Clinton, ISIS, Jeb Bush, Jihad, Martin O'Malley, Mass murder, Mike Huckabee, murder, Political Agenda, Prayer, propaganda, San Bernardino 1 CommentBen Carson Uses Empowerment Message in Bid to Sway Black Voters
Posted: September 30, 2015 Filed under: Politics, White House | Tags: Abraham Lincoln, African American, American Civil War, Ben Carson, Black people, Democratic Party (United States), Dred Scott, Emancipation Proclamation, Jim Crow laws, Kim Davis, Mike Huckabee, New York City, Race and crime in the United States 3 Comments
“The Democrat Party, of course, is the party of the KKK. Of Jim Crow laws. And perhaps just as bad right now, of servitude. ‘Now you do this, and we’ll take care of you, pat you on the head, take care of all your needs.’ Which keeps people believing that’s what they actually need.”
Speaking to a small group of black leaders and activists last week, the retired neurosurgeon, who is surging in polling in the Republican presidential race, said he believes black Americans bring more power through the size of their bank account than by putting their “fist in the air.”
Mr. Carson said he generally shies away from focusing on race: “I say that’s because I’m a neurosurgeon, because everyone’s brain looks the same and it works the same way.”
[Read the full text here, at the Washington Times]
But he said black voters should step beyond their allegiance to the Democratic Party.
“The Democrat Party, of course, is the party of the KKK. Of Jim Crow laws. And perhaps just as bad right now, of servitude. ‘Now you do this, and we’ll take care of you, pat you on the head, take care of all your needs.’ Which keeps people believing that’s what they actually need,” Mr. Carson told the small group.
Mr. Carson said he is an admirer of the late A.G. Gaston, a businessman in Birmingham, Alabama, who made millions of dollars that he used to help fund the civil rights movement. Gaston said his influence stemmed from his economic power. Read the rest of this entry »
Explaining Trump’s Appeal in One Chart: At What Grade Level Did Each Candidate Speak?
Posted: September 17, 2015 Filed under: Mediasphere, Politics, U.S. News | Tags: Ben Carson, Chris Christie, Donald Trump, GOP, Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, Mike Huckabee, Presidential Debates, Rand Paul, Scott Walker, Ted Cruz Leave a comment
DRUDGE Readers Completely Misunderstood Poll Question ‘Who Won 2nd GOP Debate?’, Answered ‘Who Is Your Favorite Candidate?’
Posted: September 16, 2015 Filed under: Mediasphere, Politics, U.S. News, White House | Tags: 2016 Presidential Campaign, Ben Carson, Carly Fiorina, CNN, Dasich, Donald Trump, Drudge Report, GOP, GOP Debate, Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, media, Mike Huckabee, news, Poll, Rand Paul, Republican, Scott Walker, Ted Cruz Leave a comment
A Speechwriter’s Analysis: How Donald Trump’s Language Works For Him
Posted: September 15, 2015 Filed under: Mediasphere, Politics, Think Tank, White House | Tags: Barton Swaim, Ben Carson, Carly Fiorina, Chris Christie, Donald Trump, Jeb Bush, John Kasich, Language, Marco Rubio, Mike Huckabee, New Hampshire, Rand Paul, Republican Party (United States), Scott Walker (politician), Ted Cruz, The Washington Post Leave a comment
It’s not just what Trump says; it’s how he says it.
Barton Swaim worked for the governor of South Carolina, Mark Sanford (R), from 2007 to 2010. He is author of “The Speechwriter: A Brief Education in Politics.”
Barton Swaim writes: every political commentator in America has now written at least one piece attempting to explain the mystery of Donald Trump’s appeal. Most have dealt with the man’s demeanor, his talent for attracting media coverage and his disdain for party and
intellectual elites. Some of these I find cogent.
The thing I find most distinctive about Trump, though — and perhaps it’s at least a component of his success so far — is the structure of his language.
[Check out Barton Swaim’s book “The Speechwriter: A Brief Education in Politics” at Amazon.com]
Everybody senses that Trump doesn’t speak like other politicians. But how is his speech different, exactly? Is it just the swagger, the dismissive tone and clipped accent? Maybe in part. Trump does seem emotionally engaged in a way none of his competitors do; he is perpetually annoyed — exasperated that things aren’t as they should be — but somehow also good-humored about it. (Chris Christie and John Kasich seem perpetually annoyed, too, but there is nothing funny or cheerful about their versions.)
To get at what makes Trump’s language different, take a look at the shape of his sentences. They don’t work the way modern political rhetoric does — they work the way punchlines work: short (sometimes very short) with the most important words at the end.
“Some of his answers last only a few seconds, some are slightly longer, but almost all consist of simple sentences, grammatically and conceptually, and most of them withhold their most important word or phrase until the very end.”
That’s rare among modern politicians, and not simply because they lack Trump’s showmanship or comedic gifts. It’s rare because most successful modern politicians are habitually careful with their language. They are keenly aware of the ways in which any word they speak may be interpreted or misinterpreted by journalists and partisan groups and constituencies and demographic groups.
“Trump’s sentences end with a pop, and he seems to know instinctively where to put the emphasis in each one.“
And so in important situations — situations in which they know a lot depends on what they say or don’t say — their language takes on (at least) two peculiar characteristics. First, their syntax tends to abstraction. They speak less about particular things and people — bills, countries, identifiable officials — and more about “legislation” and “the international community” and “officials” and “industry” and “Washington” and “government.”
[Read the full story here, at The Washington Post]
Second, their sentences take on a higher number of subordinate clauses and qualifying phrases — “over the last several years,” “in general,” “in effect,” “what people are telling me,” and so on. This is the kind of language you use when you’re aware that your words might be misinterpreted or used against you.
“Politicians are frequently too careful with their language, and this conscientiousness can begin to sound like deceit or cowardice. When they rely too heavily on abstractions, when they avoid concrete nouns, when all their statements seem always hedged by qualifying phrases, they sound like politicians, in the worst sense of the word.”
When used well, it conveys competence and assures listeners that the speaker thinks coherent thoughts and holds reasonable positions. It suggests that the speaker cares about the truth of his claims. But politicians are frequently too careful with their language, and this conscientiousness can begin to sound like deceit or cowardice. When they rely too heavily on abstractions, when they avoid concrete nouns, when all their statements seem always hedged by qualifying phrases, they sound like politicians, in the worst sense of the word. To my ear, anyway, Hillary Clinton sounds this way almost all the time. Read the rest of this entry »
[VIDEO] Bad Lip Reading Strikes GOP Debate
Posted: August 19, 2015 Filed under: Entertainment, Humor, Mediasphere, Politics | Tags: Abortion, American Broadcasting Company, Bad Lip Reading, CNN, comedy, Iran, Israel, Israelis, Lip Reading, media, Mike Huckabee, news, Republican Party (United States), satire, video 1 Comment…Your life will never be the same after hearing Mike Huckabee say “pooped on a treadmill.” Make sure to watch the video to the end to catch the candidates singing…
[CBS DC]
Trump: Super-Hot with Ineligible Voters
Posted: August 14, 2015 Filed under: Entertainment, Politics, U.S. News | Tags: Ben Carson, Carly Fiorina, Chris Christie, Donald Trump, Jeb Bush, John Kasich, Marco Rubio, Mike Huckabee, Rand Paul, Ted Cruz Leave a comment
39.4 percent of Trump’s Social Audience is Eligible to Vote.
Abigail Tracy writes: Despite the fact that earlier this week presidential hopeful Donald Trump made his way to the top of the extensive GOP field in an Iowa poll as the first choice of 22 percent of those surveyed, a study of Trump’s social media audience found that the polarizing businessman’s position might be weaker than polls indicate.
The study, conducted by audience analytics company Macromeasures, found that Trump trails his GOP rivals in a handful of crucial metrics in terms of his social media following. Macromeasures compared Trump’s social audience to those of Jeb Bush, Ben Carson, Mike Huckabee, Marco Rubio, Scott Walker, Ted Cruz and Carly Fiorina.
The most glaring discovery was that of Trump’s audience, a mere 39.4 percent were actually eligible to vote—the lowest of any GOP candidate analyzed. To put this in perspective, 95.7 percent of Fiorina’s audience could cast a ballot. On top of that, Trump only received 0.9 percent of social media activity (defined by hashtag use) coming out of the key, early primary states of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, according to Macromeasures’ findings. Read the rest of this entry »
Mollie Hemingway’s Donald Trump Hall of Shame: 10 Worst Moments from 1st Debate
Posted: August 6, 2015 Filed under: Mediasphere, Politics | Tags: Barack Obama, Bret Baier, Chris Christie, Donald Trump, Fox News Channel, John Kasich, Marc Thiessen, Megyn Kelly, Mike Huckabee, Mollie Hemingway, Ohio, Rand Paul, Republican Party (United States), Rosie O'Donnell, Ted Cruz, White House 1 Comment
Mollie Hemingway writes: The first GOP 2016 presidential debate was substantive, fast-paced, informative and fun, of all things. A big reason for the fun was that TV celebrity and businessman Donald Trump was on stage. He brought his normal Trump persona to the stage and was brash and occasionally funny. He started off strong, in his own way. But he followed up these flashes with some amazingly tone-deaf, illogical, stupid and bizarre statements. Here are 10 of the worst.
1) Didn’t rule out a third-party run
Bret Baier asked the candidates, “Is there anyone on stage, and can I see hands, who is unwilling tonight to pledge your support to the eventual nominee of the Republican party and pledge to not run an independent campaign against that person?”
Donald Trump was the only person to raise his hand. Baier noted that experts say a third-party run from a prominent candidate would kill the GOP’s chances of winning the election.
[Read the article here, at TheFederalist.com]
Trump made it clear that if the GOP wouldn’t nominate him, he was strongly considering a third-party run. “If I’m the nominee, I will pledge I will not run as an independent. But — and I am discussing it with everybody, but I’m, you know, talking about a lot of leverage.”
2) Refused to support eventual GOP nominee unless it was himself
He also said, with what would become a pattern of semi-illiterate syntax, “I cannot say. I have to respect the person that, if it’s not me, the person that wins, if I do win, and I’m leading by quite a bit, that’s what I want to do. I can totally make that pledge.”
3) Said he loves the single payer healthcare system
Donald Trump: World’s Greatest Troll
Posted: July 21, 2015 Filed under: Mediasphere, Politics | Tags: Ben Carson, Bernie Sanders, Bloomberg Television, Bobby Jindal, Carly Fiorina, Culture War, Donald Trump, Facial recognition system, Google, Jeb Bush, John Kasich, John McCain, Lindsey Graham, Mike Huckabee, Republican Party (United States), Rick Perry, Rick Santorum, Ted Cruz Leave a comment
Trolls operate on the principle that negative attention is better than none. In fact, the troll may feed off the negative attention, claiming it makes him a victim and proves that everyone is out to get him.
Nate Silver writes:
…There’s a notion that Donald Trump’s recent rise in Republican polls is a media-driven creation. That explanation isn’t entirely wrong, but it’s incomplete. It skims over the complex interactions between the media, the public and the candidates, which can produce booms and busts of attention. And it ignores how skilled trolls like Trump can exploit the process to their benefit.
Let’s look at some data. In the chart below, I’ve tracked how media coverage has been divided among the Republican candidates over roughly the past month (the data covers June 14 through July 12), according to article counts on Google News. In turn, I’ve shown the share of Google searches for each candidate over the same period. The data was provided to FiveThirtyEight by Google but should closely match what you’ll get by searching on Google Trends or Google News yourself.
“Trump has taken trolling to the next level by being willing to offend members of his own party. Ordinarily, this would be a counterproductive strategy. In a 16-candidate field, however, you can be in first place with 15 or 20 percent of the vote — even if the other 80 or 85 percent of voters hate your guts.”
Even before his imbecilic comments about Sen. John McCain this weekend, which came too recently to be included in this data, Trump was receiving far more media attention than any other Republican. Based on Google News, 46 percent of the media coverage of the GOP campaign over the past month was directed toward Trump, more than for Jeb Bush (13 percent), Chris Christie (9 percent), Scott Walker (8 percent), Bobby Jindal (6 percent), Ted Cruz (4 percent) and Marco Rubio (4 percent) combined.
“Trolls are skilled at taking advantage of this landscape and making the news cycle feed on its own tail, accelerating the feedback loop and producing particularly large bounces and busts in the polls.”
And yet, the public is perhaps even more obsessed with Trump. Among the GOP candidates, he represented 62 percent of the Google search traffic over the past month, having been searched for more than six times as often as second-place Bush.
So if the press were going purely by public demand, there might be even more Trump coverage. Instead, the amount of press coverage that each candidate has received has been modulated by the media’s perception of how likely each is to win the nomination….(read more)
“The public is perhaps even more obsessed with Trump. Among the GOP candidates, he represented 62 percent of the Google search traffic over the past month, having been searched for more than six times as often as second-place Bush.”
But a regression analysis — you can read the gory details in the footnotes3— suggests that press attention both leads and lags public attention to the candidates. This makes a lot of sense. The public can take cues from the media about which candidates to pay attention to. But the media also gets a lot of feedback from the public. Or to put it more cynically: If Trump-related stories are piling up lots of pageviews and Trump-related TV segments get good ratings, then guess what? You’re probably going to see more of them.4
This creates the possibility of a feedback loop….(read more)
…So if these spikes are media-driven, they seem to be driven by some particularly modern features of the media landscape. Social media allows candidates to make news without the filter of the press. It may also encourage groupthink among and between reporters and readers, however. And access to real-time traffic statistics can mean that everyone is writing the same “takes” and chasing the same eyeballs at once. Is the tyranny of the Twitter mob better or worse than the “Boys on the Bus” model of a group of (mostly white, male, upper-middle-class, left-of-center) reporters deigning to determine what’s news and what isn’t? I don’t know, but it’s certainly different. And it seems to be producing a higher velocity of movement in the polls and in the tenor of media coverage. Read the rest of this entry »
York: Hillary’s Huge Lead Over the GOP?
Posted: June 8, 2015 Filed under: Mediasphere, Politics, White House | Tags: Ben Carson, Democratic Party (United States), George W. Bush, Hillary Clinton, Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, Mike Huckabee, Public Policy Polling, Rand Paul, Republican Party (United States), Ted Cruz, The Pantsuit Report 1 Comment
Byron York writes: Through all of Hillary Clinton’s recent troubles — emails, foundation, Benghazi — Democrats have taken comfort in their all-but-assured nominee’s formidable lead over top Republicans in head-to-head matchups. Now that lead is shrinking, and the Democratic comfort level is falling along 
with it.
“I am definitely skeptical that Clinton was ever really up by 15 points like some of the early polls were showing.”
— PPP director Tom Jensen
But it’s possible Clinton’s big lead was never as big as Democrats thought. Yes, some of the margins looked enormous:
* A CNN poll in March showed Clinton up by 15 points over Republican Jeb Bush, 13 points over Marco Rubio, 11 points over Rand Paul, and 15 points over Scott Walker.
* An ABC News poll in March showed Clinton up by 15 points ver Rubio, 14 points over Walker, and 13 points over Bush.
* A CNN poll in April showed Clinton up by 22 points over Walker, 19 points over Paul, 14 points over Rubio, and 17 points over Bush
Big margins. But at the same time, at least one other poll — by Public Policy Polling, the Democratic polling firm — showed Clinton with much more modest leads over her GOP rivals. A PPP survey in late February showed Clinton with an eight-point lead over Walker, a seven-point lead over Rubio, a seven-point lead over Paul, and a 10-point lead over 
Bush.
[Read the full text here, at WashingtonExaminer.com
A PPP poll at the end of March showed Clinton with a four-point lead over Walker, a four-point lead over Paul, a three-point lead over Rubio, and a six-point lead over Bush — at a time the other polls showed Clinton far ahead of those rivals. Read the rest of this entry »
Fred Barnes: The Coming Democratic Panic
Posted: June 6, 2015 Filed under: Politics, White House | Tags: Ben Carson, Des Moines, Iowa, Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, Mike Huckabee, Rand Paul, RealClearPolitics, Scott Walker (politician), The Des Moines Register, The Pantsuit Report 1 Comment
Watch what happens if Hillary Clinton falls behind in the polls
Fred Barnes writes: When a CNN poll last week showed Hillary Clinton leading Rand Paul by a single percentage point (48-47) and only three points ahead of Marco Rubio (49-46) and Scott
Walker (49-46), it was mildly shocking. In April, her lead over the three Republican presidential candidates had been in double digits: Paul (58-39), Rubio (55-41), and Walker (59-37).
But wait. If the next CNN survey shows Clinton actuallybehind one or two or three of the GOP candidates, it won’t be just shocking. It will send Democrats into a near-panic over the possibility of losing the White House in 2016, even with their preferred candidate, Clinton, as nominee.
“Stonewalls can work, but not forever and not in the midst of a presidential campaign. A minimal requirement of candidates is that they converse with the press. It looks bad when they don’t. It looks like they’re hiding something.”
Such a poll result isn’t far-fetched as we watch Clinton’s campaign deteriorate. True, head-to-head matchups this early in the presidential cycle are almost never predictive. But in this case, 
it’s the psychological impact that matters.
That Clinton’s candidacy is in trouble is indisputable. She’s not threatened with losing the Democratic nomination—at least not yet. She has the well-financed Clinton machine and a national network of supporters on which she can rely. The campaigns of her Democratic opponents are small and weak in comparison.
[Read the full text here, at The Weekly Standard]
But the rationale for her bid for the presidency, the strategy of her campaign, and the tactics she’s adopted—all have failed to stop her steady decline. The expectation of Clinton’s glide
into the White House in 2016 is gone.
“What is the rationale for her candidacy? President Obama had a big one in 2008. He would reform Washington, end polarization, promote bipartisanship, and bring about change. As a campaign message, it was appealing. As we now know, his real intentions were different.”
In place of a rationale, there’s an assumption that her prominence, her résumé, and the likelihood of her becoming the first woman president would make her a uniquely appealing candidate. They haven’t. She’s a terrible candidate. She has not only failed to attract big crowds. She’s having trouble raising big money from those described by Politico as “rich liberals.”
“But Obama had a rationale for seeking the presidency. Clinton doesn’t.”
The old adage that opposites attract may apply in her marriage. Bill Clinton is charming, has wonderful political instincts, is a compelling speaker, and has a common touch. She lacks all four. Also, Bill is dynamic. She is lifeless as a candidate. Read the rest of this entry »
THINK TANK: National Review Institute’s IDEAS Summit 2015 Streaming Guide
Posted: April 30, 2015 Filed under: Mediasphere, Politics, Think Tank | Tags: Ben Carson, Bobby Jindal, Carly Fiorina, Charles Krauthammer, Jeb Bush, John Fund, John Kasich, John Podhoretz, Jonah Goldberg, Lindsey Graham, Marco Rubio, Mike Huckabee, New Hampshire, Rand Paul, Rich Lowry, Rob Long, Ted Cruz Leave a comment
From our mailbox: Today, the National Review Institute, National Review‘s sister organization, opens it’s biennial Ideas Summit in Washington, D.C.
Special segments of the Summit will be LIVE streamed on the Corner for free — watch Rich Lowry
and Jeb Bush, Jim Geraghty and Marco Rubio, John Fund and Carly Fiorina, and Heather Higgins and Bobby Jindal discuss why the future is conservative, and more!
First live stream starts today at 4:25 p.m. EST with Jeb Bush. Don’t miss it!
Full schedule is below. Click on the event to watch.
Thursday, April 30
3:00 P.M. NRI Ideas Summit Livestream Event: Rich Lowry, Welcome Address
4:25 P.M. NRI Ideas Summit Livestream Event: A Conversation with Jeb Bush and Rich Lowry
5:15 P.M. NRI Ideas Summit Livestream Event: A Conversation with Paul Ryan and Eliana Johnson
8:30 P.M. NRI Ideas Summit Livestream Event: A Conversation with Ben Sasse and Larry Kudlow
9:20 P.M. NRI Ideas Summit Livestream Audio Event: The Night Owl Read the rest of this entry »
[VIDEO] The Joker Explains How the Final GOP Primary Contest Works: ‘Tryouts’
Posted: April 7, 2015 Filed under: Entertainment, Humor, Mediasphere, Politics, White House | Tags: Batman, Chris Christie, GOP, Heath Ledger, Jeb Bush, Mike Huckabee, Presidential Election, Rand Paul, Republican Primary, Scott Walker, Ted Cruz, The Dark Knight Leave a commentCaptain America Won’t Save Us
Posted: February 26, 2015 Filed under: Diplomacy, Politics, Think Tank | Tags: Baptists, Barack Obama, Captain America, Christianity, Daniel Henningerrenocol_DanHenninger, God, Mike Huckabee, Mike Mayock, Oval Office, Republican Party (United States), United States Leave a comment
Republicans look like they’re obsessed with finding a superhero
writes: You have to feel sorry for the Democrats. In a world warming to presidential politics, what do they talk to each other about? Nearly two years from the election, they’ve already got their launch vehicle in place, former everything Hillary Clinton . Fire and forget.The one-time First Lady, U.S. senator and Secretary of State pumped up a political crowd in Silicon Valley this week by vowing, presumably as president, to “crack every last glass ceiling.” As a political issue, the “glass ceiling” dates back to . . . 1984. It may be older than “income inequality.”
“The U.S. just tried electing a rookie president and had six years of amateur hour. It doesn’t work.”
But anywhere else two people gather who aren’t Democrats, you will fall into the same intense political conversation with a one-word question: Whoduyalike? Who do you like among the names floating in GOP circles for the 2016 nomination? Walker, Bush, Paul, Rubio, Jindal, Perry, Cruz, Christie, Fiorina, Carson, Santorum, Pence. I kind of like…
“And it won’t work again if the next president, whether rookie or former governor, shows up in the Oval Office in January 2017 with not much more than his victory cape and some political pals.”
Two significant meetings of conservative groups take place today through Saturday, and some of these people will pitch themselves at both the CPAC conference just outside Washington, and to the Club for Growth in Palm Beach. Mike Huckabee will preach on his own behalf Thursday evening to the National Religious Broadcasters convention in Nashville.
It’s all great fun. But there’s something a little off about the Republican presidential conversation right now. It doesn’t come close to reflecting the seriousness of the task facing voters in 2016: Elect a successor to the most catastrophic American presidency in over 80 years. And it ain’t over yet.
“Their Captain America could be named Rand, Scott, Jeb or Marco, but the mere landing of this political superhero in the Oval Office will turn the country around. Really? That’s all it is going to take?”
Instead of offering an anxious electorate a recognizable alternative to this status quo, the Republicans look like they’re obsessed with discovering Captain America.
Their Captain America could be named Rand, Scott, Jeb or Marco, but the mere landing of this political superhero in the Oval Office will turn the country around. Really? That’s all it is going to take?
It is hard to overstate what one-man-shows these presidential candidates have become—one guy, some political pros they’ve hired, their donors and whatever thoughts are running through their or their pollsters’ heads.
In normal times, it might not matter much that a CPAC conference with its gauntlet of speeches and straw polls looks a lot like the NFL Scouting Combine. Chris Christie has no vertical leap, but man can he lift.
The task that Barack Obama is dumping on the next U.S. president, of either party, is overwhelming. Read the rest of this entry »
Mike Huckabee Leaving Fox News to Consider Presidential Run
Posted: January 3, 2015 Filed under: Breaking News, Mediasphere, Politics, U.S. News, White House | Tags: Campaign, Fox News, GOP, Mike Huckabee, Variety 1 Comment
John Ellis Bush, 2016 GOP Frontrunner
Posted: December 28, 2014 Filed under: Mediasphere, Politics, U.S. News | Tags: Ben Carson, Bobby Jindal, Chris Christie, Hillary Clinton, Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney, Rand Paul, Republican Party (United States), Ted Cruz Leave a comment
Bush’s 10-point lead marks the first time any prospective candidate has reached a lead beyond a poll’s margin of error in the past two years
Washington (CNN) — Jeb Bush is the clear Republican presidential frontrunner, surging to the front of the potential GOP pack following his announcement that he’s “actively exploring” a bid, a new CNN/ORC poll found.
He takes nearly one-quarter — 23% — of Republicans surveyed in the new nationwide poll, putting him 10 points ahead of his closest competitor, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who tallied 13%.
Physician Ben Carson comes in third, with 7% support, and Sen. Rand Paul and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee are both tied for fourth with 6%.
Bush-Clinton in 2016, replaying 1992, would be like having a Humphrey-Nixon race in 1992, or a Hoover-Roosevelt race in 1956.
— Bill Kristol (@BillKristol) December 28, 2014
That marks a drop in support for all but Christie and Bush from the last CNN/ORC survey of the field, conducted in November. That poll showed Bush in the lead, but only taking 14% of the vote, while Carson came in second with 11% and Christie tied Rep. Paul Ryan for fourth with 9% support.
Bush’s 10-point lead is a milestone for the potential GOP field — it marks the first time any prospective candidate has reached a lead beyond a poll’s margin of error in the past two years. Read the rest of this entry »
[VIDEO] The Hammer: ‘For God’s Sake, Why Do You Have to Talk about That?’
Posted: January 25, 2014 Filed under: Mediasphere, Politics | Tags: Breaking news, Charles Krauthammer, Conservatives, Huckabee, Mike Huckabee, National Review, Republican Party (United States) 3 CommentsConservatives can make a case for “women’s issues” if they avoid incendiary topics like “the psychology of women’s sexuality,” said Charles Krauthammer. “For god’s sake, why do you have to talk about that?” he said on Friday’s Special Report, referring to Huckabee’s remarks earlier in the week…
Ben Carson had ‘encounter’ with IRS following National Prayer Breakfast
Posted: October 1, 2013 Filed under: Politics, U.S. News, White House | Tags: Alabama, Barack Obama, Ben Carson, Carson, Daily Caller, Internal Revenue Service, Mike Huckabee, National Prayer Breakfast 1 Comment
At an event in Birmingham, Ala. Monday night, former Johns Hopkins neurosurgeon Ben Carson revealed that he had received a visit from the Internal Revenue Service following his much-noted remarks at a National Prayer Breakfast earlier this year.
“I had my first encounter with the IRS this year, unsurprisingly after the prayer breakfast,” Carson told an audience that at the annual Business Council of Alabama Chairman’s Dinner, according to a report from Cliff Sims of the Montgomery, Ala.-based Yellowhammer News. Read the rest of this entry »
