H4A News Clips 6.28.15
H4A News Clips
June 28, 2015
TODAY’S KEY STORIES..................................................................................... 4
Hillary Clinton Praises Gay Marriage Decision and Hounds GOP // TIME // Sam Frizell – June 27, 2015 4
Cheering Marriage Decision, Hillary Clinton Heads to Provincetown // NYT // Amy Chozick – June 27, 2015............................................................................................................................................. 5
SOCIAL MEDIA................................................................................................. 6
Ashley Killough (6/27/15, 11:11 AM) - Man says he had a ticket to @JebBush event but was told right before it was a private event and he wasn't allowed in........................................................................... 6
Jenna Portnoy (6/27/15, 2:49 PM) - The compromise takes it. @VA_GOP votes 42 to 39 to choose presidential nominee by primary in 2016 and gov nominee by convention in 2017....................................... 6
Ashley Killough (6/27/15, 8:47 PM) - On beating Clinton @ScottWalker says "if we’re going to beat a name from the past, we need a name from the future—not a name from the past".............................. 6
Wall Street Journal (6/28/15, 9:20 PM) - Breaking: Iran, world powers plan to continue nuclear talks beyond June 30, says senior U.S. official wsj.com................................................................................ 6
HRC NATIONAL COVERAGE............................................................................. 6
Hillary Clinton, Praising the Court's Marriage Decision, Pits Herself Against 'the Party of the Past' // National Journal // Emily Schultheis – June 27, 2015............................................................................ 8
The latest mystery over Hillary’s missing e-mails // NY Post // Post Editorial Board - June 27, 2015 10
Undo Obamacare? Dream on // New York Daily News // James Warren - June 28, 2015........... 11
Hillary Clinton in Minnesota: Quiet, but coordinating // Minnesota Star Tribune // Lori Sturdevant – June 27, 2015..................................................................................................................................... 13
Hillary's list offers staffers cheap Brooklyn accommodation // Telegraph // Rob Crilly – June 27, 2015 15
Clinton Ally Terry McAuliffe Suggests Hillary’s Leadership Is ‘Fitting’ Of Charleston Victims // IJReview // Katie Lapotin – June 27, 2015............................................................................................... 17
Hillary Clinton establishes campaign presence in ND // Dickinson Press // Grace Lyden and Tu-Uyen Tran – June 27, 2015....................................................................................................................... 17
Dynasties aren’t all bad news // Las Vegas Sun // Jamelle Bouie - June 28, 2015.................... 19
Immigrant issues a priority for Clinton // Las Vegas Sun // Rafael Lopez – June 27, 2015......... 21
OTHER DEMOCRATS NATIONAL COVERAGE.................................................. 21
DECLARED.................................................................................................. 21
O’MALLEY............................................................................................... 21
O'Malley: Islamic State a result of 'mindless rush to war' // AP // Ken Thomas – June 27, 2015 21
How pardons from O'Malley changed one man's course // Delmarva Now // Jennifer Cording and Phil Davis – June 27, 2015....................................................................................................................... 22
SANDERS................................................................................................. 26
Sanders says he will significantly step up his outreach to minority voters // WaPo // John Wagner – June 27, 2015..................................................................................................................................... 27
A Democratic senator attacked Bernie Sanders for being extreme. He should thank her. // WaPo // Amber Phillips – June 27, 2015........................................................................................................ 28
Sanders: I was ahead of the curve on gay rights // The Hill // Mark Hensch – June 27, 2015..... 29
Bernie Sanders, Rising in Polls, Gets Standing Room Only Crowds in New Hampshire // National Journal // S. V. Dáte – June 27, 2015........................................................................................................ 30
Bernie Sanders’ surge is partly fueled by veterans // Boston Globe // Annie Linskey – June 28, 2015 31
David M. Shribman: Democrats swoon for Sanders // Pittsburgh Post-Gazette // David M. Shribman – June 28, 2015............................................................................................................................... 34
UNDECLARED............................................................................................ 36
WEBB...................................................................................................... 36
Webb close to 2016 decision, insiders say Clinton camp helped delay launch // Fox News // John Roberts – June 27, 2015....................................................................................................................... 36
OTHER.................................................................................................... 38
Joe Biden's presidential decision hinges on family // Delaware Online // Nicole Gaudiano – June 27, 2015........................................................................................................................................... 38
With Sanders and Chafee in state, Clinton and O’Malley supporters on hand, Democratic competition on full display in N.H. // Concord Monitor // Casey McDermott – June 28, 2015................................ 40
GOP................................................................................................................. 43
DECLARED................................................................................................. 43
BUSH....................................................................................................... 43
The Definition of Insanity: Jeb Bush still favors appointing judges “with a proven record of judicial restraint” // WaPo // Randy Barnett – June 27. 2015............................................................................. 43
Bush to meet with Charleston pastors // WaPo // Ed O’Keefe – June 27, 2015......................... 45
Jeb Bush touts record on guns // CNN // Ashley Killough – June 27, 2015............................... 45
Jeb Bush: Charleston shootings wouldn't have been prevented by Obama proposals // CBS // Alan He – June 27, 2015............................................................................................................................... 47
Jeb Bush: U.S. needs to strengthen economically and internationally // Las Vegas Review-Journal // Ben Botkin – June 27, 2015......................................................................................................... 48
Jeb Bush says stricter US gun control laws aren't needed // Sydney Morning Herald // Kurtis Lee – June 27, 2015.................................................................................................................................... 50
RUBIO...................................................................................................... 51
Rubio Buys Airtime for Campaign Ads in First Four Nominating States // WSJ // Patrick O’Connor – June 27, 2015..................................................................................................................................... 51
PAUL........................................................................................................ 52
Rand Paul silent on gay marriage ruling // Politico // Daniel Strauss – June 27, 2015.............. 52
CRUZ........................................................................................................ 53
Ted Cruz calls for judicial retention elections for Supreme Court justices // WaPo // Katie Zezima – June 27, 2015..................................................................................................................................... 53
Ted Cruz Recalls How Father Tried to Join Fidel Castro’s Army // AP – June 27, 2015.............. 54
Cruz seeks to harness conservative outrage after Supreme Court decisions // CNN // Theodore Schleifer – June 27, 2015............................................................................................................................... 56
In northwest Iowa, Cruz calls court rulings 'lawless' // Des Moines Register // Matthew Patane – June 27, 2015............................................................................................................................................ 57
GRAHAM................................................................................................. 59
In Lindsey Graham's hometown, resentment over the Confederate flag // Politico // Ben Schreckinger – June 27, 2015............................................................................................................................... 59
Lindsey Graham’s Unique Way Of Handling A Voter’s Racist Comments // Buzzfeed // Rosie Grey – June 27, 2015..................................................................................................................................... 63
SANTORUM............................................................................................. 64
Santorum denounces marriage ruling as Supreme Court decision dominates conservative gathering // AP // Kristen Wyatt – June 27, 2015............................................................................................... 64
Santorum Leads Off Speakers At Western Conservative Summit // AP – June 27, 2015............ 65
Rick Santorum: Justice Kennedy Is “Potentially Disrupting The Foundation Of The World.” // Buzzfeed News // Andrew Kaczynski – June 27, 2015.................................................................................... 65
HUCKABEE............................................................................................. 66
Mike Huckabee: Conservatives can ignore gay marriage ruling like Lincoln ignored Dred Scott // The Washington Times // Valerie Richardson – June 27, 2015...................................................... 67
Huckabee: Supreme Court is an ‘extreme court’ // The Hill // Martin Matishak – June 27, 2015 68
FIORINA.................................................................................................. 69
Carly Fiorina on Obamacare: Rich getting richer, while middle-class getting squeezed // The Washington Times // Valerie Richardson – June 27, 2015......................................................................... 69
Fiorina: Marriage is 'grounded in spirituality' // The Hill // Mark Hensch – June 27, 2015....... 70
Carly Fiorina fired up conservatives at Western Summit // The Gazette // Megan Schrader – June 27, 2015............................................................................................................................................ 71
TRUMP..................................................................................................... 72
Hispanic leaders urge NBC to cut ties to Donald Trump // CNN // Brian Stelter – June 27, 2015 72
Donald Trump Pushes Forward in Iowa Despite Republican Party Concern // ABC News // Benjamin Siegel – June 27, 2015....................................................................................................................... 73
Donald Trump is even more of a monster than you think: Why his golf courses are environmental disasters // Salon // Lindsay Abrams – June 27, 2015.............................................................................. 74
Donald Trump Presidential Campaign Dissected By Bill Maher And Panel // Deadline // Lisa de Moraes – June 27, 2015....................................................................................................................... 76
Hispanic Group Pressures NBC to Dump Donald Trump // Hollywood Reporter // Ryan Gajewski – June 27, 2015..................................................................................................................................... 77
UNDECLARED............................................................................................ 78
WALKER................................................................................................. 78
Scott Walker gives shout-out to Colorado Springs during Denver speech // Gazette // Megan Shrader – June 27, 2015............................................................................................................................... 78
Scott Walker in Colorado to address conservative summit // Milwaukee Wisconsin Journal – Sentinel – June 27, 2015............................................................................................................................... 80
CHRISTIE................................................................................................ 81
Chris Christie Sets Up Campaign Web Site Before Expected Presidential Run // WSJ // Heather Haddon – June 27, 2015....................................................................................................................... 81
Chris Christie Unveils Presidential Campaign Website // Bloomberg // Elizabeth Titus – June 27, 2015 82
Chris Christie Launches Campaign Website Three Days Before His Announcement // National Journal // Nora Kelly – June 27, 2015............................................................................................................ 82
Will Christie have enough campaign cash for his 2016 White House run? // NJ // Claude Brodesser-Akner – June 28, 2015....................................................................................................................... 83
Can Christie catch up to the other 2016 GOP contenders? // NJ // Jonathan D. Salant – June 27, 2015 85
Has Christie's ship already sailed? // Inquirer // Thomas Fitzgerald – June 27, 2015............... 87
JINDAL.................................................................................................... 91
Growing up in Baton Rouge, Bobby Jindal’s future passion for politics a surprise to most // The Advocate // Tyler Bridges – June 27, 2015................................................................................................ 91
Bobby Jindal sidesteps gay marriage ruling's meaning for Louisiana // Times-Picayune // Julia O’Donoghue – June 27, 2015....................................................................................................................... 95
Renouncing roots: Here's why Bobby Jindal is not popular among the Indian-American community in US // India Times // Ishani Duttagupta – June 28, 2015................................................................. 96
OTHER.................................................................................................... 99
Column: Most GOP voters support allowing undocumented immigrants to stay, poll says // Des Moines Register // Kathie Obradovich - June 27, 2015....................................................................... 99
As Left Wins Culture Battles, G.O.P. Gains Opportunity to Pivot for 2016 // NYT // Jonathan Martin – June 27, 2015................................................................................................................................... 101
In a fast-changing culture, can the GOP get in step with modern America? // WaPo // Philip Rucker and Robert Costa – June 27, 2015............................................................................................... 104
OTHER 2016 NEWS....................................................................................... 108
The Straight Talk Express Gets a Few More Passengers // TIME // Alex Altman and Zeke J Miller – June 27, 2015................................................................................................................................... 108
New Hampshire Poll: Sanders Inching Closer to Clinton, Bush Continues Leading GOP // Latin Post // Rodrigo Ugarte – June 27, 2015........................................................................................................ 110
TOP NEWS...................................................................................................... 111
DOMESTIC................................................................................................. 111
2 Charged in Confederate Flag Removal at South Carolina Capitol // NYT // Kenneth Rosen – June 27, 2015........................................................................................................................................... 111
For Obama and Clinton, twisty paths to 'yes' on gay marriage // AP // Jim Kuhneman and Lisa Lerer – June 27, 2015.............................................................................................................................. 112
Obama's Charleston eulogy: 'Amazing Grace' // CNN // Kevin Liptak – June 27, 2015............ 114
INTERNATIONAL...................................................................................... 116
Greece on the brink of default after talks with creditors break down // WaPo // Griff Witte – June 27, 2015.......................................................................................................................................... 116
ISIS bomb plot on London military parade foiled, nation remains on high alert // New York Daily News // Dennis Slattery – June 27, 2015........................................................................................... 119
OPINIONS/EDITORIALS/BLOGS.................................................................... 119
Gay Marriage Is American As Apple Pie // Daily Beast // Gil Troy – June 27, 2015.................. 119
The monuments to the framers of The Southern Manifesto of 1956 // American Thinker – June 27, 2015 121
Clinton supports universal background checks // Des Moines Register // Sarah Mannheimer – June 27, 2015.......................................................................................................................................... 122
Hillary Clinton Praises Gay Marriage Decision and Hounds GOP // TIME // Sam Frizell – June 27, 2015
"Equality triumphed, and America triumphed"
Hillary Clinton praised the Supreme Court decision to guarantee same-sex marriages on Friday night and forcefully condemned the Republicans’ response to the ruling, warning the GOP presidential field not to turn LGBT issues into a “political football for this 2016 campaign.”
“It was an emotional roller coaster of a day, Clinton said. “This morning, love triumphed in the highest court in our land. Equality triumphed, and America triumphed.”
“Instead of trying to turn back the clock,” Clinton continued, Republicans “should be joining us in saying no to discrimination once and for all.”
Clinton’s comments on Friday evening were her first public remarks in the wake of Friday’s Supreme Court ruling that the Constitution guarantees the right for same-sex couples to marry. Her campaign issued a statement Friday in support of the decision and touted it on social media.
Nearly all the Republican presidential hopefuls have criticized the Supreme Court’s decision, with Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker calling it a “grave mistake” and Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee naming the Supreme Court “an imperial court.” The Republicans have said the issue should be decided by the states, and several called for a constitutional amendment.
Among the general electorate, the issue of gay marriage favors the Democrats: nearly 60% of Americans support same-sex marriage, a count that has grown rapidly in recent years. It is likely to be a boon for Democrats in a general election.
Clinton called Friday’s Supreme Court decision a ruling that reinforced American values. “Today was not about discovering new rights—it was about getting closer to the ideals that have defined our nation from the very beginning,” she said.
Much of the former secretary of state’s address was a preview of what her stump speech in a general election might sound like. Clinton ticked off a list of issues that she said made the Republicans sounds like the “party of the past,” including gun control, immigration reform, same-sex marriage and the Affordable Care Act.
She praised the Supreme Court for upholding the Obamacare subsidies in states with federal-run exchanges, and called on all states to accept funding for Medicaid expansion.
The Supreme Court ruled Friday that the Constitution guarantees a right to same-sex marriage, bringing an end to a patchwork of marriage laws across the U.S. and decades of activism pushing for marriage equality.
Friday was Clinton’s first stop of her presidential election campaign in Virginia, a purple state that Barack Obama won in 2008 and 2012. It will be a key state for Clinton in the 2016 election if she wins the Democratic nomination, one that she will likely need to defeat a Republican opponent.
Virginia’s governor, Terry McAuliffe is a close ally of the Clintons and will be a key player for her in the state. McAuliffe introduced Clinton with an effusive speech, calling her a “tenacious fighter.”
“You know why else I love this woman? She’s been beaten up, she’s been knocked down, but every time she does she gets right back up,” said McAuliffe, echoing an oft-repeated theme of Clinton’s campaign stump speech.
McAuliffe, who vacations with the Clintons, told the crowd when he’s traveling with them and wants a pre-dinner cocktail, “I don’t go looking for Bill Clinton: I go looking for Hillary Clinton, because she’s a lot more fun than him.”
Cheering Marriage Decision, Hillary Clinton Heads to Provincetown // NYT // Amy Chozick – June 27, 2015
Hillary Rodham Clinton transformed her H-and-an-arrow campaign logo into a gay-rights rainbow on Friday to mark the Supreme Court’s same-sex marriage ruling. She issued a statement calling the court’s decision “an affirmation of the commitment of couples across the country who love one another.” Her campaign sells a variety of branded “Hillary” items timed to June’s Gay Pride Month.
But on Thursday, Mrs. Clinton will make perhaps her most gay-friendly move: She will visit Provincetown, Mass.
The seaside enclave — in the state that was first to legalize same-sex marriage — has long been a Shangri-La for gay men and lesbians who enjoy raucous, romantic or just relaxing weekends in the scenic city at the northern tip of Cape Cod.
In 2012, the Census reported that Provincetown had 163.1 same-sex couples per 1,000 people, the most of any city in the country.
As much as it may call to mind drag-queen pool parties or kitschy rainbow-festooned nightclubs, Provincetown has served a far more serious purpose: Historically, it was one of the few resort locales where gay men and lesbians could openly enjoy a vacation without the threat of discrimination or worse.
Mrs. Clinton, who maintains strong support among gay people, and whose campaign recently released a video showing same-sex couples before and during their weddings, will attend a fund-raiser in Provincetown hosted by Bryan Rafanelli, an event planner, and Alix Ritchie, a prominent gay-rights activist. The event is part of a string of fund-raisers Mrs. Clinton has arranged in and around Boston in early July.
It was planned weeks ago — but just became extremely well timed.
Ashley Killough (6/27/15, 11:11 AM) - Man says he had a ticket to @JebBush event but was told right before it was a private event and he wasn't allowed in.
Jenna Portnoy (6/27/15, 2:49 PM) - The compromise takes it. @VA_GOP votes 42 to 39 to choose presidential nominee by primary in 2016 and gov nominee by convention in 2017.
Ashley Killough (6/27/15, 8:47 PM) - On beating Clinton @ScottWalker says "if we’re going to beat a name from the past, we need a name from the future—not a name from the past"
Wall Street Journal (6/28/15, 9:20 PM) - Breaking: Iran, world powers plan to continue nuclear talks beyond June 30, says senior U.S. official wsj.com
HRC NATIONAL COVERAGE
Hillary Clinton says you can vote in Texas with a concealed-weapon permit, but not a student ID // Politifact // W. Gardner Selby – June 27, 2015
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, campaigning in Texas, called for citizens to be automatically registered to vote at age 18. Speaking at Texas Southern University, Clinton also lashed out at the Texas law reached by the Republican-steered Legislature in 2011 requiring voters to present photo identification at the polls.
Rick Perry, the state’s governor into 2015, "signed a law that a federal court said was actually written with the purpose of discriminating against minority voters," Clinton said. Mostly True, PolitiFact in Washington, D.C. recently found, noting that a federal judge had aired that conclusion, though the judge’s ruling that the law is unconstitutional remains under appeal.
A reader asked us to consider another Clinton charge from that Houston appearance.
According to a New York Times account of her speech, Clinton said young Texans had been disenfranchised by the voter ID law. "If you want to vote in this state," she said, "you can use a concealed-weapon permit as a valid form of identification, but a valid student ID isn’t good enough."
This claim took just a few key strokes and help from a state office to confirm.
Prior to the change in law, Texas law didn’t require anyone to present a photo ID to vote. However, Alicia Phillips Pierce, a spokeswoman for the Texas secretary of state, confirmed by email that student ID’s previously could have been presented to help officials pin down someone’s identity for the purposes of voting though the law did not require anyone to present more than a voter registration card. The old law broadly said a voter could present a "form of identification containing the person’s photograph that establishes the person’s identity."
The Texas secretary of state’s office says on its Frequently Asked Questions web page that the current ID mandate enables a registered voter to cast a ballot at a poll during early voting or on Election Day with one of seven types of a photo ID:
A Texas driver license issued by the Texas Department of Public Safety.
Texas Election Identification Certificate issued by DPS.
Texas personal identification card issued by DPS.
Texas concealed handgun license issued by DPS.
U.S. military identification card containing the person’s photograph.
U.S. citizenship certificate containing the person’s photograph.
U.S. passport.
So, yes to voting in Texas with a concealed handgun license but no-go for someone presenting a student ID.
Nationally, the National Conference of State Legislatures said in March 2015, 14 of 34 states with laws requiring voters to show identification at the polls included a student ID option, including three states — Mississippi, Virginia and Wisconsin — that, like Texas, were described by the group as having "strict" photo ID voting laws.
Wondering if a student ID element was ever part of the legislation that became the Texas law, we reviewed the varied versions of Senate Bill 14, authored by Sen. Troy Fraser of Horseshoe Bay and fellow Republicans that advanced in the 2011 legislative session. We found no "student" mentions. Language permitting a state license to carry a concealed handgun to be offered at the polls wasn’t in the original Fraser proposal; it was added, though, before the Senate sent the proposal to the House, legislative records show.
Voting by mail
We’ve noted before that Texas maintains a no-ID element for voting by mail, in 2013 rating True a claim the Texas law doesn’t require a person voting by mail to present a photo ID. That’s so, we found, for all but first-time voters who did not present a photo ID number or the last four digits of their Social Security number when registering to vote. Those voters who seek to vote by mail can expect to be asked for a copy of their photo ID, yet even they don’t have to do so if they are disabled, in the military or living overseas.
A registered voter wishing to ballot by mail must say she or he will be out of her or his home county on Election Day and during the early-voting period or she or he is sick or disabled or will be 65 or older on Election Day or confined in jail though still eligible to vote.
Our ruling
Clinton said: "If you want to vote in" Texas, "you can use a concealed-weapon permit as a valid form of identification, but a valid student ID isn’t good enough."
The photo IDs accepted at Texas polling places include the state’s concealed-handgun license and not any student IDs. We rate this statement True.
Hillary Clinton, Praising the Court's Marriage Decision, Pits Herself Against 'the Party of the Past' // National Journal // Emily Schultheis – June 27, 2015
FAIRFAX, Va. — Energized by a major week of policy victories for Democrats, which culminated with the Supreme Court's decision to legalize same-sex marriage nationwide, Hillary Clinton at a stop in Virginia on Friday forcefully drew contrasts between herself and the 2016 Republican field on issues ranging from same-sex marriage and health care to immigration, women's health and gun control laws.
"A lot of the Republicans may talk about having new ideas and fresh faces, but across the board they're the party of the past, not the future," she told a crowd of about 1,800 supporters on George Mason University's campus in Fairfax.
Clinton praised the Supreme Court for its same-sex marriage decision, quoting from Justice Anthony Kennedy's majority opinion. "This morning, love triumphed in the highest court in our land," she said. "Equality triumphed. America triumphed."
Though Friday's event was a fundraiser for the state Democratic Party, which is neutral in the Democratic primaries, it felt like a de facto Hillary Clinton pep rally. The coterie of local and state politicians who spoke before her were effusive in praise, and virtually all of them endorsed or advocated for her on stage.
"I don't know about you, but I made my choice—I'm ready for Hillary," Virginia Sen. Mark Warner said, to applause.
Clinton's speech gave early but clear signs of how she'll paint herself against a Republican opponent if she makes it to the general election, as most assume she will. Clinton denounced a GOP field who, she said, "seemed determined to lead us right back into the past," going after the Republican candidates who had criticized the Court's decision earlier in the day.
"This morning they all decried the Supreme Court's ruling upholding marriage equality—we even heard them call for a constitutional amendment to strip away the right to equality from our gay brothers and sisters," she said, seemingly alluding to amendment proposals from Scott Walker and Ted Cruz. "Instead of trying to turn back the clock, they should be joining us in saying loudly and clearly, 'No, no' to discrimination once and for all."
"I'm asking them, please: don't make the rights, the hopes, of any American, a political football for this 2016 campaign," Clinton continued.
She went on to to contrast Democratic policies on health care, women's health and gun control laws with those of Republicans. Pointing to a vote in Congress over Centers for Disease Control and research on gun violence, Clinton denounced Republicans for voting against the funding before the funerals of those shot and killed in Charleston last week were over. "How can you watch massacre after massacre and take that vote?" she said. "That is wrong."
She said the country doesn't need leaders who "shame and blame women" for medical decisions, calling out Republicans for restrictive policies on abortion and other women's health issues.
"Ask them about women's reproductive health, they're likely to talk—about defunding Planned Parenthood," she said. "Or maybe they'll insist on forcing women to undergo some demeaning and invasive medical procedure, as was attempted right here here in Virginia."
On health care, Clinton indicated that the Affordable Care Act isn't going anywhere after the Court's King v. Burwell decision, and Republicans would do well to fall in line. "All the Republicans candidates were furious that earlier this week, the Supreme Court once again confirmed what we've all known and believed for years—it is settled law and it is here to stay."
Clinton also showed how easily Republican candidate Donald Trump, who referred to Mexican immigrants as "rapists" and "criminals" during his campaign announcement, can be turned into a talking point for her campaign. "Maybe he's never met them," she said. "Maybe he's never stopped to ask the millions of people who love this country, work hard and want nothing more than a chance to build a better life for themselves and their children, what their lives are like."
Her speech came after a week particularly emboldening week Democrats, which began with widespread removals of the Confederate flag. That glee was apparent in speeches from the Virginia politicians who also appeared on stage.
"What an incredible week," said Warner. "I mean, is there a week in modern American history where so many fundamental things have changed?"
Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine said the week's victories made the country "a more perfect Union"—and said that if Clinton is elected, "we will make it more perfect again."
And Gov. Terry McAuliffe, a longtime friend and ally of the Clintons, joined in as he introduced her on stage: "Yes, after 226 years, it is time for a woman president of the United States!"
The latest mystery over Hillary’s missing e-mails // NY Post // Post Editorial Board - June 27, 2015
The latest mystery over Hillary’s missing e-mails
Now this was predictable: The State Department on Thursday said Hillary Clinton failed to turn over 15 work-related e-mails from her private server, despite claiming she’d handed over everything.
Which raises the troubling question: How many more did she also, uh, “miss”?
Remember, the former secretary of state and her aides had insisted they’d sent the department all her work-related e-mails from her personal server after conducting a “careful” review.
Now it turns out she didn’t include 15 of those she’d exchanged with longtime confidant Sidney Blumenthal concerning Libya.
To comply with a subpoena, Blumenthal gave the House Select Committee on Benghazi about 60 Libya-related e-mails he’d exchanged with Hillary. But the committee found some of those were not included in the batch the State Department gave it.
Now we know the reason: State didn’t actually get everything from Hillary.
Of course, Hillary & Co. are always ready with an answer: Her staff claims it doesn’t “recognize many of those materials and cannot speak to their origin.”
Hmm. Maybe George W. Bush secretly wrote them and planted them on Blumenthal’s hard drive.
Sure, it’s possible those messages were missed accidentally in Hillary’s search. The State Department also claims the content of the omitted Blumenthal e-mails “is not relevant to the 2012 attacks in Benghazi” — a key part of the committee’s probe.
But even if you give Hillary the undeserved benefit of the doubt, the revelation is still
troubling.
“This has implications far beyond Libya, Benghazi and our committee’s work,” says panel chairman Trey Gowdy. “This conclusively shows her e-mail arrangement with herself, which was then vetted by her own lawyers, has resulted in an incomplete public record.”
Indeed.
The point is, if she missed Blumenthal’s e-mails, she might have also overlooked others — “accidentally” or not. In fact, the only reason anyone even found out about Blumenthal’s stash is because hackers got them and made them public.
Bottom line: Hillary failed to supply a complete record, despite her assertions to the contrary. Once again the public may never know what it’s missing.
And she wants Americans to trust her as their president?
Undo Obamacare? Dream on // New York Daily News // James Warren - June 28, 2015
Having ducked the need to replace Obamacare, Republicans can now bitch and flail and face Washington’s most potent force: the status quo.
The Affordable Care Act is now the de facto status quo as a result of the Supreme Court’s decision last week. And smart Republicans should know you usually get only one shot at the king.
They tried by concocting a theory that was less about substance than semantics: What did an exchange “established by the state” really mean?
Now they can rail against Obamacare and “activist” judges. GOP presidential candidates can make that a campaign refrain and thus let the party keep the issue without owning the outcome of the decision they sought, namely more than 6 million losing their health care.
But do they really have a chance to change, even repeal, the law?
“It’s hard to fully repeal it, but it is not that hard to change it substantially. The GOP has to have a strategy of fixing it, the more the better,” says John Feehery, a Republican consultant and former top aide to former House Speaker Dennis Hastert and House Minority Leader Tom DeLay.
Changing it substantially will be hard for a simple reason: the history of entitlements screams out that the longer a law is in place, the harder it is to ditch or dramatically alter it.
Indeed, there’s a lot of research about what the political scientists call “positive feedback loops” when it comes to policy.
The academics can make it sound complex but it isn’t: You pass a law, constituencies who rely on it are born and they and others proceed to resist changes.
“Social Security is the classic case, of course,” says Andrew Rudalevige, a political scientist at Bowdoin College.
There are a few examples to the contrary. For example, interest groups fought ferociously to regain their tax breaks and undermined a historic bipartisan tax reform in 1986 crafted under President George H.W. Bush.
But Social Security and other transformational changes, such as transportation deregulation (trucking and airlines), proceeded apace and suggest why Obamacare “has staying power,” as Rudalevige puts it.
It’s unleashed market forces that are hard to undo.
If you doubted that, be informed that HCA Holdings Inc., Tenet Healthcare Corp. and Community Health Systems Inc. shares all gained at least 8% shortly after Bloomberg News first broke word of the decision at 10:08:09 a.m. Eastern Standard Time on Thursday (beating Thomson Reuters by all of six seconds).
Further, Obamacare is pretty heavy on regulations, like Social Security and Medicare. Those become tough to alter, while creating a huge number of people with incentives to maintain their benefits.
It’s not guaranteed with metaphysical certitude but likely. One interesting qualifier is broached in the work of Andrea Campbell at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who talks about welfare politics and its key constituents, the poor, voting infrequently and finding it harder to organize.
So one trick for Obamacare might be to make sure it insinuates itself into the middle class, which has more political clout and ability to resist change.
But it’s not as if even proponents don’t concede issues with the law, which did not alter the private health care system in any significant fashion.
“Basically the real challenge now is for delivery system reform — that is improving quality and lowering cost,” said Ezekiel Emanuel, an oncologist and medical ethics and health policy expert at the University of Pennsylvania and a former White House adviser on the health care law.
“The ACA galvanized that activity and is pushing it forward but a lot more needs doing. That will continue now without distraction of will ACA be repealed. That is good.
“And one would hope that there could be more bipartisan overlap to push initiatives that would accelerate the transformation. It is happening but could go faster.”
For sure. But, with a presidential campaign upon us, the near certainty is that even as more Americans may benefit from the law, Republicans will beat the drum.
And they’ll go after Hillary Clinton for her support, while she beats her own drum among minorities, especially Latinos, and gains advantage.
The bottom line will be the same: The GOP can hector all it wants. But, as with gay marriage, they’ve now lost the argument.
Hillary Clinton in Minnesota: Quiet, but coordinating // Minnesota Star Tribune // Lori Sturdevant – June 27, 2015
Hillary Clinton did last week what candidates for president often do in Minnesota. She quietly swooped into town, steered toward Lake Minnetonka and switched on her campaign-finance vacuum cleaner. It went to work on a crowd of about 120 that reportedly nibbled crab salad and vegetable-chèvre crêpes while Clinton discussed the challenges facing America’s working families.
You missed the big rally that followed? So did I — because there wasn’t one.
I’m not complaining (much). It’s early. As the far-and-away front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination, Clinton likely has all next summer and September and October, too, to rent a local arena and put on a show that in many Minnesota minds has become obligatory. The DFL faithful who have worked to keep Minnesota reliably Democratic blue in every presidential election save one since 1960 expect at least one such performance.
Or next year, maybe more than one — given the year’s unusual state political lineup.
Ever-turning four- and six-year election cycles have spun around to a circumstance not seen in Minnesota since 1992, the first time the name Clinton was on the presidential ballot. It’s a presidential year in which no state constitutional office is at stake. Neither U.S. Senate seat is up for grabs. The state’s eight U.S. House seats will be on the ballot, as usual. So will all 201 seats of the Minnesota Legislature.
President, the U.S. House, and the Minnesota House and Senate. Toss in a few county races and a ballot question or two, and that’s the entire political dance card in 2016. (If your memory does not stretch back to 1992, try this variation: It’s 2004 plus the state Senate to boot.)
That means legislative candidates next year will be more vulnerable than usual to the vagaries of presidential politics. The situation has DFL legislators investing a lot of hope in Hillary — and last week, it had the Minnesota Republican Party behaving as the anti-Welcome Wagon as Clinton pulled into town.
The state GOP’s news conference pulled no punches. It called Clinton “shady,” “dishonest and untrustworthy,” and prone to “secrecy and scandal.”
Only minutes later, the business-funded Minnesota Jobs Coalition piled on. It released a poll of 600 likely voters conducted June 9-11 in 16 Minnesota House districts that have proved prone to swing to either party in recent years — 12 in Greater Minnesota, four in the suburbs.
The approve/disapprove results weren’t pretty for Clinton: 35 percent approve, 49 percent disapprove, the coalition crowed. Coalition executive director John Rouleau noted that even among female poll respondents — voters who typically tilt toward the DFL — Hillary’s approval score lagged 6 percentage points behind her disapproval share.
Those numbers shouldn’t cause any panic attacks among DFLers — yet. The poll did not pair Clinton with any GOP rival. And — did I mention? — it’s early.
But the poll’s very design underscores this feature of 2016 Minnesota politics: Control of the Legislature will be the year’s big prize. It likely won’t turn on which presidential candidate carries this state. But it may well turn on how the presidential contenders perform in a few dozen key districts in Greater Minnesota and on the metro fringe.
And as the last several legislative elections showed, a big factor in political performance is turnout. When it’s low — 1998, 2010, 2014 — Republicans generally pick up legislative seats. When it’s 70-plus percent — Minnesota’s usual presidential-year range — DFLers do better.
The question that’s got to be nagging at DFLers is whether a Hillary Clinton presidential candidacy can gin up Minnesota’s customary turnout — and whether that turnout will be substantial not only in Linden Hills and Highland Park, but also Willmar, Brainerd and Albert Lea.
Clinton’s money-vacuum stop at Ellen Goldberg Luger’s back yard last week provided little indication that she’s attuned to this local concern. Other aspects of her campaign do.
Within days of announcing her candidacy on April 12, Clinton dispatched a full-time organizer to every state in the country, assigned to work with local Democratic parties and pols to enlist reliable volunteers. That’s an earlier and bigger commitment to grass-roots organizing in states without early primaries than presidential candidates typically make.
Clinton’s man on the ground in Minnesota, Scott Hogan, deflected my queries about his activity to the campaign’s Brooklyn, N.Y., headquarters. There, an official said that Hogan’s been plenty busy, arranging 24 events and signing up more than 575 volunteers in less than two months. Notably, those events have occurred in each of the eight congressional districts, not just the DFL strongholds of Minneapolis, St. Paul and Duluth.
That geographic reach undoubtedly pleases the DFL legislative campaign crew. So does her professed interest in coordinating her campaign with the DFL Party and legislative races, rather than operating as a free agent.
So do the candidate’s published assurances that she aims not just to win her own election, but to bolster state and local political parties and shore up democracy along the way. One such, from South Carolina: “I am running to live again at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. But I don’t want to be there all by myself. I want Democrats elected from the local to the county to the state to the federal level, once again making the case that when Democrats win, Americans win.”
More than the current occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Clinton is a creature of the Democratic Party. She looks likely to be a team player who will visibly ally herself with local candidates, show up a time or two and spend some campaign cash in a traditionally blue state. That undoubtedly sounds good to DFLers trying to hang on to the state Senate and recapture the House.
But as the Jobs Coalition’s poll suggests, Clinton’s reputation as an establishment Democrat may limit her appeal in legislative swing districts. In those places, her efforts to be a DFL party-builder could be a two-edged sword.
Hillary's list offers staffers cheap Brooklyn accommodation // Telegraph // Rob Crilly – June 27, 2015
Hillary Clinton's decision to locate her campaign HQ in fashionable Brooklyn has given staffers and volunteers a major headache - how to find affordable accommodation in one of the country's most inflated housing markets.
The campaign is running a spare room or couch surfing service - a sort of politicos' Craig's List - pairing donors with its young army of workers who need a bed for the night.
The scheme is part necessity, part useful branding exercise for a wealthy politician frequently derided as out of touch with ordinary Americans and their money worries.
One recent email put it bluntly.
“Do you have a spare room – or just a spare couch! – where a new staffer could stay?”
“You and I both know that finding a place to live in New York can take longer than an afternoon of apartment hunting,” it said.
“These folks will be working long days, so they really just need a place to sleep, and they'll be so grateful to be staying with someone who shares their beliefs and their goals.”
Mrs Clinton's run for the White House is based over two floors of an office block in Brooklyn Heights.
In fact Brooklyn Heights lacks the hipster appeal of places such as Williamsburg, but even so its historic brownstowns and views across the East River to Manhattan, mean that rents are the highest in the entire borough. Finding a shoe-box sized apartment for less than $2000 (£1270) is a challenge.
Lena Dunham, writer and star of Girls, recently spent almost $5 million on a home just around the corner.
For those on a more modest budget, it means hunting further afield – scouting locations deeper into Brooklyn, in the sort of neighbourhoods that have yet to get an artisan coffee shop - or apartment hopping using the Clinton Campaign's host-a-staffer service.
Jasmin Harris, 22, stayed with a middle aged couple in their Brooklyn Heights apartment, for six weeks, until they needed their spare room for visiting relatives.
“I don’t know exactly where I’m going, but I’ll be somewhere else tonight,” she told The New York Times. “I have my bags packed and am waiting for an email.”
It is not the only money-saving element of the campaign.
Workers have been told to take the bus wherever possible. That is in part to keep costs down during the primary campaign when individual donations are limited to $2700 per person, but also to show that lessons have been learnt from the disastrous 2008 run when Mrs Clinton was seen as the high-spending Washington insider upended by Barack Obama's shoestring insurgents.
Although it still leaves Mrs Clinton with one other dilemma headache – whether to take the usual summer break in the Hamptons where a holiday home can cost $200,000 a month.
Clinton Ally Terry McAuliffe Suggests Hillary’s Leadership Is ‘Fitting’ Of Charleston Victims // IJReview // Katie Lapotin – June 27, 2015
Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe told a crowd full of supporters Friday night that the type of leadership former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton would bring to the White House is “fitting of the people who lost their lives last week” during a mass shooting at a historically black church in Charleston, S.C.
The former DNC chair was introducing the 2016 presidential candidate at the state party’s annual Jefferson-Jackson Dinner when he made the remark.
“In the wake of that unspeakable tragedy in Charleston, South Carolina, many politicians went out of their way to duck the tough issues that terrible act raised. But not Hillary Clinton. Hillary stepped forward and began a national conversation about race and gun violence,” he said.
“It is fitting of the people who lost their lives last week. Folks, this is the type of leadership that we need from our next president.”
McAuliffe, who also served as chairman of her failed 2008 presidential bid, quipped that he would rather share a cold one with Hillary than her husband, former President Bill Clinton.
Clinton returned the gesture from her longtime friend and political ally, telling those in attendance:
“[McAuliffe’s] my kind of leader, a pragmatic progressive. He prefers common ground to scorched earth.”
Clinton’s speech at the Jefferson-Jackson Friday was her first official campaign visit to Virginia since launching her campaign in April. Despite the state’s importance in 2016, however, party organizers ended up giving away free tickets to the dinner late Friday in order to fill tables.
Hillary Clinton establishes campaign presence in ND // Dickinson Press // Grace Lyden and Tu-Uyen Tran – June 27, 2015
For three weeks, Clinton has had a staffer in town, Andrew Buis, who also worked for President Barack Obama's campaign. But fitting with the name of her "Ramp Up Grassroots Organizing Program," most of the events, such as house parties and barbecues, have been hosted by local volunteers.
"We want people to get involved, not just people who are deeply entrenched in politics, but everyone," said Jeffrey Eide, a 30-year-old volunteer who lives in Fargo.
It's an approach Clinton is taking nationwide. Campaign spokesman Tyrone Gayle said in an email that paid staffers like Buis are in all 50 states and the territories through the end of June, but that Clinton's message will be spread through "old-school organizing," complete with potlucks and parades.
Eide, who's joined Buis in talking to people on the street, said this attracts and gives voice to atypical voters, particularly millennials. Obama appealed to that age group with his savvy social media, and Clinton aims to get their vote with old-fashioned conversation.
"Amongst my friends, I sense oftentimes that people feel their concerns and their political interests are not being attended to," Eide said. "As important as social media is for getting out and maintaining and reinforcing a strong message, face-to-face communication, in my opinion, has always been the best way to get to know other people and hear what they have to say."
Gayle said there have been grass-roots organizing meetings in Fargo, Grand Forks, Bismarck and Belcourt.
Volunteer Mary Jo Cayley, who is housing Buis, said gatherings also create momentum and, in turn, motivate people to vote. They build enthusiasm, she said, and make for a more positive campaign.
"Last time, it was, 'Yes we can,' " she said. "Now, we know we can."
But how likely is a Clinton win in North Dakota?
Carma Hanson, vice chairwoman of the North Dakota Republican Party, sees Clinton's early start as a sign that she knows what she's up against.
"She's going to be looking for votes wherever she can get them, and I think she knows we are a very Republican state," Hanson said. "It will be a battle for Democrats in the state to establish their presence, so I think it's their way of reaching out and trying to grab that foothold in a state that is very red."
No Republican presidential candidate has established a presence in North Dakota yet.
"Members of the Republican Party have received materials in the mail and that kind of thing, but as far as opening office doors and things like that, I'm not aware of any at this time," Hanson said. She said one would probably do so next spring or summer, once a front-runner appears.
But Cayley believes Clinton has the potential to appeal to North Dakotans.
"She's dedicated her life to public service. That's hard work," Cayley said. "We have those values of working hard, and I think all North Dakotans can stand behind that."
Robert Haider, executive director of the North Dakota Democratic-NPL Party, said he couldn't comment on whether other Democratic candidates were planning North Dakota campaigns.
Buis declined an interview.
Dynasties aren’t all bad news // Las Vegas Sun // Jamelle Bouie - June 28, 2015
Hillary Clinton is the front-runner in the Democratic presidential primary, and Jeb Bush is a front-runner in the Republican one. And although there is a lifetime of politics between now and the next election, there’s a good chance that, on Nov. 8, 2016, Americans will choose between a Bush and a Clinton for the second time in 25 years. We could have our third Bush presidency or another turn for the Clintons.
To many Americans, this is troubling. Last year, former first lady Barbara Bush said that “there are more than two or three families that should run for high office in America.” Sixty-nine percent of Americans agree, according to a 2014 poll from NBC News and the Wall Street Journal.
In March, in another NBC News/WSJ survey, 39 percent of voters said they would think more or somewhat more favorably of a candidate whose last name was not Bush or Clinton. Similarly, a majority said that electing Hillary Clinton or Jeb Bush would represent a return to the policies of the past.
There’s no denying that the status quo — of a White House claimed by one or the other family — is unusual, and I won’t criticize anyone disturbed by a pattern of “Bush, Clinton, Bush, Obama, Bush” or “Bush, Clinton, Bush, Obama, Clinton.”
But I also don’t think it’s as bad as it looks.
Observers have called this a “dynastic” election. This headline from a January edition of The New York Times is typical: “Are two dynasties our destiny?”
“Dynasty” might apply to the Bush family. Indeed, Jeb Bush, in his announcement speech, described himself as “a guy who met his first president on the day he was born and his second on the day he was brought home from the hospital,” before declaring that “not a one of us (presidential candidates) deserves the job by right of resume, party, seniority, family or family narrative. It’s nobody’s turn.”
But that term doesn’t apply to the Clintons. Hillary Clinton neither came from a political family nor joined one. Instead, she entered politics as a partner to Bill and, after two decades as a political spouse, set out on her own career, first as a senator, then as a presidential candidate, then as a top diplomat, and now — again — as a presidential candidate.
Given the degree to which she’s built her career in tandem with her husband’s, Clinton isn’t a dynastic candidate as much as she’s a tightly connected one.
For some, of course, this is a distinction without a difference, which is why it’s important to note that national political dynasties are a recurring part of American life.
The first father-son presidential duo, in the 19th century, was John Adams and his son, John Quincy Adams, the second and sixth presidents of the United States. The Harrison family also produced two presidents, William Henry and Benjamin. The Breckinridges dominated Kentucky politics and sent senators, House members and a vice president to Washington. Two other antebellum presidents — John Tyler and Franklin Pierce — came from distinctly political families.
The 20th century brings more familiar names: Theodore Roosevelt and his cousin Franklin Roosevelt; William Howard Taft, his son Sen. Robert A. Taft, his grandson Sen. Robert Taft Jr., and his great-grandson, former Ohio Gov. Robert Taft III. Most famously, there’s the Kennedy clan.
The fact that dynasties are normal — that Senate seats, governorships and presidencies have moved between and within families with ease — may be alarming (America isn’t especially meritocratic), but it’s also mostly harmless.
American democracy wasn’t stronger after two Adams presidencies in quick succession, but it wasn’t weaker, either. Besides, despite the frequency of dynasties, the vast majority of powerful positions in national politics go to people who aren’t connected to political families.
One last point. George W. Bush was a very different president than his father, and if elected, Hillary Clinton will be a different president than her husband. Hillary faces a different Democratic Party than Bill did and has to make different choices for different ends. The same is true for Jeb and the Republican Party. Their surnames aside, neither is “more of the same.”
When you vote for president, you’re voting for an administration of bureaucrats and assistants and a whole host of appointees. What matters most is the party and its network of operatives, activists and policymakers, not the individual at the head of that party.
If Clinton had won in 2008, her administration would have looked a lot like the one Obama put together. And on the same score, a Jeb Bush White House probably wouldn’t look too different than a Scott Walker White House or a Marco Rubio White House.
The aesthetics of another Clinton or Bush presidency don’t look great. But optics have little bearing on what either candidate would do in office.
Immigrant issues a priority for Clinton // Las Vegas Sun // Rafael Lopez – June 27, 2015
I grew up like any other American child, but I didn’t have the same opportunities. Why? I’m undocumented. I’ve lived in Nevada since I was a baby, but my family got caught in our broken immigration system. We fell victim to fraud: An attorney falsely promised to fix our statuses. Instead, we received deportation orders.
But there is hope. Three years ago I woke to a phone call that changed my life: My friend told me President Barack Obama had announced a deferred action (DACA) program to help Dreamers. Through DACA, I obtained a work permit, and my life instantly improved. I was able to afford tuition at UNLV and I no longer lived in fear. Now, I’m in my last semester pursing a degree in psychology and criminal justice.
But we still have much to do. Our next president must step up and defend our families.
This May, I participated in a roundtable with Hillary Clinton to talk about just that. Clinton strongly supported immigration reform. She answered our questions with clarity, showed she understood our challenges and listened with compassion. She defended DACA and pledged to strengthen protections for undocumented immigrants.
It’s too early to tell which presidential candidates offer the best solutions, but last week at the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials conference in Las Vegas, Clinton again demonstrated she will fight to keep families together.
I want to hear more from Clinton and other candidates about immigration reform. I only hope others will talk to me with the same respect as Hillary did.
OTHER DEMOCRATS NATIONAL COVERAGE
O'Malley: Islamic State a result of 'mindless rush to war' // AP // Ken Thomas – June 27, 2015
WASHINGTON — Democratic presidential candidate Martin O’Malley said Friday the rise of the Islamic State group was an unintended consequence of a “mindless rush to war” in Iraq and the U.S. must avoid “mission creep” there now.
In a speech, the former Maryland governor said the invasion of Iraq was one of the most tragic and costly blunders in U.S. history. He made no mention of his Democratic rival, Hillary Rodham Clinton, who faced criticism during her 2008 presidential campaign for her Senate vote in favor of the 2003 invasion, which she has since called a mistake.
“No threat probably better illustrates the unintended consequences of a mindless rush to war — and a lack of understanding — than the emergence of ISIS,” O’Malley said in his first foreign policy address as a presidential candidate, using an acronym for the Islamic State group.
He added: “We are still paying the price of a war pursued under false pretenses and acquiesced to, in the words of Dr. (Martin Luther) King (Jr.) by ‘the appalling silence of the good.’ ”
Speaking to the Truman National Security Project, O’Malley said there is a risk that American military involvement in Iraq could be counter-productive. He said the U.S. should work with partners to “contain, degrade and ultimately wear down and defeat ISIS.”
O’Malley said American foreign and national security policies are directly connected to economic stability around the globe and a rising global middle class. He said the U.S. faces an array of threats, from violent extremism and nuclear proliferation, to pandemics and cyberattacks. He advocated tackling climate change, promoting fair trade and addressing poverty around the world.
The ex-governor trails Clinton and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders in the early stages of the Democratic primary campaign and could be at a disadvantage on foreign policy against Clinton, who traveled the globe as President Barack Obama’s secretary of state.
Ahead of next week’s deadline on Iran talks, O’Malley said a nuclear-armed Iran is among the most immediate threats faced by the U.S. He said Congress would be wise to support a “verifiable, enforceable agreement” that bars Iran’s path to developing nuclear weapons.
O’Malley also said there are “real lessons” to be learned from the 2012 attack on the U.S. diplomatic facility in Benghazi, Libya, that killed four Americans, including U.S. ambassador Chris Stevens. A GOP-led House panel has been investigating the attack and Clinton’s actions.
O’Malley said the Benghazi attack shows the need to “know in advance who is likely to take power — or vie for it — once a dictator is toppled, not after.”
Doug Wilson, O’Malley’s foreign policy adviser, said the speech was not “about Hillary Clinton and the State Department,” but about how O’Malley would conduct foreign policy if elected president.
How pardons from O'Malley changed one man's course // Delmarva Now // Jennifer Cording and Phil Davis – June 27, 2015
It was mid-July, and it was hot, but maybe that wasn't the only reason Darnell Bowen's palms were damp. Most people in his shoes would be a bit nervous.
He'd just seen the governor arrive — along with his big opportunity — at the Crisfield clam bake.
So the Berlin native walked right up to then-Gov. Martin O'Malley and he stuck out his hand. The men shook and exchanged how-are-you's.
Most folks were ready for a party and seafood that day, of course. But Bowen was there for a very different reason.
He wanted to clear his name. He wanted a second chance for a better job and a better life.
Bowen shook hands with the governor, and he asked O'Malley for a criminal pardon.
And O'Malley blessed it — right there amongst the picnic tables of corn and crab shells and seafood lovers — and with that unofficial approval, Bowen had a fresh start in life.
Or, at least, the process of a gubernatorial pardon began.
For Bowen, convicted years earlier for a minor theft, it was like the clouds lifted and the sun was shining for the first time in years at the crowded clam bake that day.
"I guess I felt happy because it was coming directly from him, and I was hoping he was telling me the truth," said Bowen.
"It's a weight off my shoulders"
Bowen, seated recently at his own picnic table in the freshly mowed yard of his family's home in Berlin, told how much the pardon meant to him.
The misdemeanor conviction — he'd stolen a $5 canister of camera film — showed up on a job background check, he said.
He'd lost a managerial job at Eastern Correctional Institution because the conviction showed up during a background check, he said.
"They gave me the job and everything," he said. "They gave me a start date."
But the conviction was enough to derail all of it.
Bowen's was one of about 150 pardons O'Malley approved during his just-completed eight-year tenure as Maryland's governor.
The former Baltimore mayor — who marketed himself as "tough on crime" — recently announced a bid for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination.
And it's true he didn't hand out many pardons compared to the requests that came across his desk, nor compared to those granted by other governors in recent years.
When he finally heard from the pardons office that his record was wiped clean, Bowen took to Facebook, he said, to celebrate the news.
When the piece of paper came in the mail, he had to register it at the local courthouse. Court workers passed around the pardon, Bowen said. They'd never seen one.
And it's true it took persistence to get it. The application process took two years — even after the governor gave Bowen the nod at the festival.
"I wasn't going to give up," said Bowen. "It's a weight off my shoulders."
Pardons as a reflection of the politician
Voters like politicians who are tough on crime, it seems.
And, it seems politicians like to accommodate. O'Malley rejected nearly 1,300 pardon cases during his term.
The vast majority of his pardons covered minor crimes, such as misdemeanor thefts and lesser drug charges. Outside of the commutations of four death-row inmates — and a medical commutation of a convicted armed robber who contracted AIDS — records show most people granted pardons served no jail time and had short probationary periods.
Some other governors have been tough, too. In Kansas, former Democratic Gov. Kathleen Sebelius issued only one pardon during her six years in office between 2003 and 2009. Her successor, current Gov. Sam Brownback, a Republican, once declared he would refuse to issue pardons for an entire year in 2011.
However, in California, Gov. Jerry Brown issued 105 pardons on Christmas Eve 2014 alone. Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn, a Democrat, granted clemency more than 1,000 times in four years.
On a national level, Bowen's story highlights a delicate question employers, both public and private, must weigh: How does someone's criminal past affect his or her future?
According to a study done by the National Employment Law Project, an estimated 70 million people in the United States have arrest or conviction records.
Since "tough on crime" political platform swept the country in the 1980s and 1990s, incarceration rates inflated from 150 people per 100,000 citizens in 1980 to as high as 753 people per 100,000 citizens in 2008.
"This is a huge problem all over this country," said Nayantara Mehta, a senior staff attorney with the organization.
Citing the study, Mehta's organization and others have pushed for larger reforms for "fair chance" employment.
According to Eastern Correctional Institution spokesman Gerard Shields, if an applicant is disqualified if their misdemeanor crime carries a potential penalty of a year or more in prison.
While Bowen's crime would not carry a penalty that large now, it did in 1997, when "theft under $300" could mean up to 18 months in jail in Maryland.
"His story is really very, very similar with what most people experience," said Victor Dickson, president of Safer Foundation.
The foundation, based out of Chicago, helps ex-offenders find work and supports the National Law Enforcement Project's advocacy for "fair chance" employment.
For Dickson, Bowen's story is one he's heard before.
"We had another lady who ... had some drug charges, went to school and actually wanted to get into the health care field," Dickson said. "She started working for a hospital and was on the job — I think for two or three months — and then the company did a background check, saw the drug charges and then terminated her."
"That record is used to deny people a whole host of things that we consider to be the basic right of a citizen," Dickson added, pointing to ranging restrictions on public housing, voting and public benefits in various states.
A life-changing encounter
Bowen, now 50, served his probationary period and was not convicted of further crimes.
He bounced around the job market, but he also worked for a decade at a local Salisbury upholstery business before it relocated farther south, according to Bowen.
With his experience, he decided to apply for a management position supervising prisoners in the upholstery work program at Eastern Correctional Institution.
He was surprised to see how well the interview process went, at first.
"They gave me the job and everything," Bowen said. "They gave me a start date."
But then he was sent to Baltimore for a background check, and he was told he'd lost the job. He said he received no explanation. Bowen didn't think the misdemeanor theft charge was relevant to working in upholstery.
"No, I don't think it was justified," Bowen said. He applied for a pardon once, he said, and he was turned down. Someone in the pardons office told him most people are turned down the first time, Bowen said.
Bowen said it set the stage for his experience at the J. Millard Tawes Clam and Crab Bake.
For more than three decades the event has been perhaps the most distinctly political gathering on the Eastern Shore. The shells of eaten crabs, corn and other Shore seafood delicacies — toted from the food stands in cardboard box plates — are strewn across vast picnic tables.
But past the picnic tables are the tents of legislative hopefuls and dignitaries. State delegate and senate campaign slogans are emblazoned on signs and baking on the backs of campaign managers in the hot July sun.
Bowen saw the governor. That day in 2012 was especially hot, he remembers.
"So I said 'OK, here's my chance.' So I went and shook his hand and (asked), 'Could I have a few minutes of your time?'" Bowen said. "I just threw my situation out to them."
Though he'd been denied previously, he hoped his story would strike a chord with the Democratic governor. It did, and O'Malley told Bowen to reapply for the pardon and to pass along O'Malley's verbal stamp of approval.
It took more than a year, still, but Bowen did receive a pardon from O'Malley in 2013, records show. It was 16 years after the film theft.
He knows the job at ECI is gone, but Bowen said he still thinks about it and how it'd be different now.
"But, every now and then, a thought comes back that if it would become available again, I (maybe) would apply," said Bowen, who works now as a field engineer for the Oracle Corp., a multinational computer technology company.
But, even if the upholstery management job doesn't come up again, Bowen says he's glad he'll never again need to worry about his former criminal conviction.
It took persistence and determination, but Bowen had plenty of both. He said it's how he finally cleared his name.
"I wasn't going to give up," he said.
Sanders says he will significantly step up his outreach to minority voters // WaPo // John Wagner – June 27, 2015
NASHUA, N.H. -- Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who’s made limited headway with African American voters despite drawing large crowds on the campaign trail, on Saturday pledged “a significant expansion” in outreach to minority communities.
“We’re going to significantly increase that,” the Democratic presidential hopeful told reporters after a morning campaign stop here. “The views that we hold are important to all Americans … but to be honest with you, they’re probably more relevant to black and Hispanic voters … because the poverty rate in those communities is even higher than whites.”
Sanders, a self-described democratic socialist, cited his support to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour and offer free college tuition as examples.
In a later interview, Sanders said he plans to add members to his campaign staff to help with the effort.
“We’re going to be bringing people into our campaign who will give us increased capability of reaching out to the African American community and the Hispanic community,” he said. “We have a lot of work to do.”
Black voters are a crucial constituency in the Democratic nominating process, particularly after the contest moves beyond Iowa and New Hampshire to South Carolina and other states with larger African American populations, where Hillary Rodham Clinton is a well-established figure.
In recent weeks, Sanders has seen his crowds swell in early nominating states and other places where he’s traveled. His audiences numbered in the thousands recently in both Minneapolis and Denver.
Sanders represents a state that is 95 percent white. In a piece in the New York Times last week outlining his challenge, the senator’s advisers acknowledged that he remains largely unknown among African American voters, despite a civil rights record that includes leading sit-ins in the 1960s.
Speaking here to a crowd of more than 500 packed into a community college gymnasium, Sanders made a passing reference to having more recently joined African American workers in North Carolina on the picket lines in support of raising the minimum wage.
During his hour-long stump speech, however, he made no mention of the recent massacre at a historic African American church in Charleston, S.C., that left nine parishoners dead. The episode has prompted Clinton and another Democratic, former Maryland governor Martin O’Malley (D), to make gun control a prominent part of their pitch.
Sanders, whose state is rural and home to many hunters, has a mixed record on gun control, including a 1993 vote against the landmark Brady Bill, which mandated federal background checks on firearms purchasers.
Asked by an audience member here Saturday if he is willing to take on the National Rifle Association, Sanders defended his record, saying the gun rights group has given him a lifetime rating of “somewhere between D and F.”
Sanders noted the rural nature of his state, saying that “guns in Chicago and Los Angeles are not the same thing as guns in New Hampshire and Vermont.”
But he relayed that he has during his career voted for bills to ban assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition clips.
“I think my record is pretty strong,” he said.
A Democratic senator attacked Bernie Sanders for being extreme. He should thank her. // WaPo // Amber Phillips – June 27, 2015
Bernie Sanders is "extreme," and if the media were to dig into him a little more, he wouldn't be doing as well as he is.
That attack comes not from a Republican, but one of the Democratic senators with whom Sanders caucuses.
"The media is giving Bernie a pass right now,” Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) said Thursday on MSNBC. “I very rarely read in any coverage of Bernie that he’s a socialist.”
First of all: Wrong. It's hard to find an account of Sanders's personal politics that doesn't include the s-word. It's all over the place.
And the Vermont senator is indeed a socialist. He's an independent who caucuses with the Democrats in the Senate. He's also running for president as a Democrat, and several polls show him gaining a bit on frontrunner Hillary Clinton -- whom McCaskill supports -- while making headlines for drawing thousands of people to campaign events as far off as Denver.
McCaskill argued Sanders wouldn't be doing so well if the media treated him like other candidates. "I think everybody wants a fight," she continued.
That might be true. But in saying that, McCaskill has essentially set up one. Her comments ring of the kind of intra-party snipes you'd expect to see in a contested, genuinely competitive primary. Witness her start comparing Clinton to Sanders:
"I think Bernie Sanders has a message that's touching people," McCaskill said. "And I totally get that. But so does Hillary Clinton."
McCaskill said Sanders is "too liberal" to win, and she could be right.
As The Fix has pointed out several times, it's too soon to know whether Sanders's impressive support this early on will translate into votes that could actually give Clinton a run for her money. The other day, 92 percent of Democratic-leaning voters said they'd be comfortable with Clinton as the Democratic nominee. And she's still polling like a frontrunner; about 50 percent of Iowa Democrats told Bloomberg last week she's her first choice, while 24 percent said Sanders is.
Sanders told Bloomberg later that day this is the first time he thinks a Democratic colleague "has attacked me like this."
And he has better hope it isn't the last, because it's a sign that Clinton supporters are at least mildly concerned.
Sanders: I was ahead of the curve on gay rights // The Hill // Mark Hensch – June 27, 2015
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said Saturday he has been waiting for the nation to catch up to his support for same-sex marriage.
Sanders’ remarks come a day after Friday’s landmark 5-4 Supreme Court ruling legalizing same-sex marriage nationwide.
He argued he was well ahead of the historic decision, unlike Hillary Clinton, his main rival for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination.
“Back in 1996, that was a tough vote,” Sanders said of his opposition to the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA).
“Not too many people voted against it, but I did,” he told listeners in Nashua, N.H.
Sanders at the time served in the House of Representatives, which voted 342-67 in favor of DOMA. The Senate voted 85-14 in favor, before former President Bill Clinton signed it into law.
“That was an anti-gay marriage piece of legislation,” he added of the law that defined marriage at the federal level as the coupling of one man and one woman.
Sanders on Saturday praised Americans for creating greater opportunities for same-sex couples. Friday’s Supreme Court ruling, he charged, was not possible without national pressure for gay rights.
“No one here should think for one second this starts with the Supreme Court,” Sanders said.
“It starts at the grassroots level in all 50 states,” he said. “The American people want to end discrimination in all its forms.”
“Because of the decency of the American people, because of the strength of the gay rights movement, we have changed consciousness in this country,” Sanders added.
The Vermont lawmaker criticized conservatives who reject same-sex marriage on religious grounds.
“We disagree with right-wing Republicans’ definition of family values,” Sanders said. “They think that family values are opposition to gay marriage and gay rights.”
The 2016 White House hopeful also took aim at Wall Street and wealthy special interests.
“The message we are sending to the billionaire class is that your greed has got to end,” Sanders said of his presidential campaign.
“You cannot take advantage of all the benefits of America without accepting all the responsibilities of America,” he said. “That, to me, is not democracy.”
Sanders said the rich and powerful had created an economic system with fundamental flaws in its treatment of everyday Americans.
“In America today, we have more income and wealth inequality than any other major industrialized country on Earth,” he said.
“Today, the top one tenth of 1 percent owns almost as much one wealth as the bottom 90 percent,” Sanders said.
“That type of economy is immoral, it is unsustainable and it is un-American,” Sanders added. “Together we have to change it.”
Sanders formally launched his presidential campaign May 26 in Burlington, Vt.
He has since portrayed himself as a champion of progressive ideas to the left of Clinton, the heavy favorite for the Democratic coronation next year.
Bernie Sanders, Rising in Polls, Gets Standing Room Only Crowds in New Hampshire // National Journal // S. V. Dáte – June 27, 2015
HENNIKER, N.H. – Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders brought his call for a "political revolution" back to the first-in-the-nation primary state Saturday, again drawing enthusiastic crowds who cheered his message of curbing the influence of corporate interests in politics.
Sanders praised this week's Supreme Court decisions on Obamacare and same-sex marriage, but said the battle to reduce income and wealth inequality would be far tougher. "It is a much more difficult thing to look the billionaire class in the eye and say: you cannot have it all," Sanders said during a speech and question-and-answer session at a town meeting here.
This weekend's New Hampshire appearances are Sanders' first since recent polls show him emerging as the leading challenger to front runner Hillary Clinton for the Democratic primary nomination. One poll released last week by WMUR and CNN found Sanders just 8 points behind Clinton in New Hampshire. (Although a second poll released the same day by Bloomberg and St. Anselm College showed Clinton with a 32-point lead.)
The Clinton campaign, however, has enjoyed a big head start laying the groundwork for its turnout efforts in the Democratic primary. It already has opened a handful of field offices in the state and has two dozen paid staff. The campaign spent Saturday morning in its first canvassing effort aimed at likely primary voters.
Sanders' New Hampshire team is only just coming together. Sanders' New Hampshire coordinator, Kurt Ehrenberg, was hired a month ago, and so far has hired an operations manager and two field organizers. A state headquarters office is set to open next week in Concord, with other offices planned for the coming weeks, he said.
Sanders has been elected as an independent over his two-decade congressional career, and describes his political philosophy as "democratic socialism," as is practiced in much of Western Europe. Even some Democrats argue that Sanders is unelectable to nationwide office in the United States because of that label.
He has nevertheless drawn large audiences across the country, including 5,000 at a recent appearance in Denver.
Seth Kallman, a retired contractor from Harrisville who attended the Henniker appearance, said he agrees the "socialist" label is likely harmful. "I admire that he steps forward and uses it anyway, because he is honest," Kallman said, calling that one of Sanders' best attributes. "You couldn't get Hillary to speak that frankly. He is speaking frankly."
Sanders saw an audience of 500 at a morning town meeting in Nashua, about 150 at a house party in Bow, and 350 at the Henniker town meeting Saturday evening. All three were standing room only, exceeding expected attendance.
Bernie Sanders’ surge is partly fueled by veterans // Boston Globe // Annie Linskey – June 28, 2015
DES MOINES — Vermont’s Bernie Sanders railed against the Vietnam War. He voted against invading Iraq — both times. He wants to cut the defense budget.
He might not be a friend to the military, but many veterans believe he’s gone to war for them. And that’s why they’re out there cheering for a socialist as he launches a bid for the Democratic presidential nomination.
There’s the former Marine who drove about six hours to hear Sanders speak in Des Moines. There’s another former Marine, this one a registered Republican, going door-to-door to collect signatures so Sanders’ name will appear on the ballot in Indiana. Entire Reddit threads are dedicated to how veterans can best pitch Sanders to other veterans.
“He is revered,” said Paul Loebe, a 31-year-old who served in both Iraq and Afghanistan during eight years of active duty and spends three hours a day updating a Facebook page promoting Sanders to veterans. “He’s very consistent with where he stands. He’s the first politician that I’ve believed in my life.”
Sanders battled over veterans issues as chairman of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee from 2013 until early this year, giving him an easy pitch to a crucial voting bloc of veterans, particularly in South Carolina where veterans make up more than 11 percent of the voting-aged population. There’s stiff competition for these voters, with front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton wooing them this month during a round table in Nevada.
Even the leaders of veterans groups who praise Sanders acknowledge that the 73-year-old Democratic socialist isn’t an obvious champion for the flag-waving set of former military officers and enlistees. When asked if the Veterans of Foreign Wars, which recognized Sanders with its Congressional Award in March, had ever bestowed the honor on a socialist before, the group’s Washington executive director, Bob Wallace chuckled a bit.
“No. No. No,” said Wallace, a man who won three Purple Heart medals during Vietnam. “What you have to do is put aside his other interests.”
Enthusiasm for Bernie Sanders’s populist message is evident with crowds swelling at events and supporters pushing the slogan “Feel the Bern,” a play on the senator’s first name. It’s difficult to know, beyond anecdotal evidence, how much of this support comes from veterans.
Sanders has previously courted veterans as part of an electoral strategy, campaigning in 2006 for Senate with triple-amputee Max Cleland, the former Democratic senator from Georgia and Veterans Affairs administrator. Sanders has done little on the trail to seek out veterans for his 2016 bid.
But veterans interviewed for this story were well versed in Sanders’s record, aware that, as Veterans Affairs chairman, he pushed to restore cost of living raises, expand education opportunities, and add new dental care benefits.
The effort came within a few votes of passing the Senate, but was blocked by Republicans concerned about the $24 billion price tag.
Veterans also credit Sanders for striking a deal with Republicans to pass a smaller — $16 billion — package aimed at erasing the lengthy wait times at veterans hospitals. Passing it earned Sanders top awards from the American Legion, the Veterans of Foreign Wars, and the Military Officers Association of America.
For Louis Celli, at the American Legion, Sanders’s progressive views make some sense in the context of advocating for veterans’ programs. “Who better than a socialist to advocate for veterans’ health care?” he asked.
Passing the fix showed something else about Sanders: He was willing to make a deal. It’s a notion that runs counter to commonly expressed concern — even among some attendees at Sanders’s rallies — that the senator’s far left views prevent him from working with others.
Last summer, the bill fixing wait times at hospitals appeared to be heading for defeat. Faced with possibility that Congress would adjourn without enacting it, Sanders joined forces with John McCain, the Arizona Republican and GOP presidential nominee in 2008.
Sanders dropped his opposition to a provision that let veterans who live far from VA hospitals use private doctors. In exchange, he got an additional $5 billion to hire more staff and build more facilities, according to a member of Sanders’s staff.
McCain said working with Sanders involved “very stimulating conversations, and the occasional four-letter word.”
“He advocates vigorously for what he believes in, and so do I,” McCain said. “I can’t say it was the most enjoyable experience, but it was certainly one of the most interesting.”
Veterans are a group long courted by politicians. In the early primary states, New Hampshire is home to 113,000 veterans, Iowa has 226,000, Nevada has 227,000 and South Carolina has 392,000 — according to US Census figures.
Clinton held a round table for veterans in Nevada on June 18. She unveiled a detailed plan that would make changes to the GI Bill meant to protect veterans from what her campaign called “deceptive practices” by for-profit colleges and universities who target veterans but fail to provide a quality education.
Clinton, as is her custom at campaign events, didn’t take questions from the audience.
Sanders typically does.
After speech at Drake University, the Vermont senator asked for questions. Tyson Manker was right there in the front row. He stood up, identified himself as a former Marine who drove six hours for the event, and said: “Mr. Sanders, I look forward to the day I can call you Mr. President.”
David M. Shribman: Democrats swoon for Sanders // Pittsburgh Post-Gazette // David M. Shribman – June 28, 2015
Here are the elements of a presidential candidacy bound to go nowhere: 1960s radical leftist. Lived on a kibbutz. Moved to Vermont in the tumult of 1968. Became a carpenter. Ran for governor twice and for Senate twice as a candidate for the socialist Liberty Union Party. Jewish — not an advantage in Iowa, New Hampshire or South Carolina. Would be 79 at the end of his first term. Bernie Sanders is not going to be president of the United States.
But that doesn’t mean he can’t be a big factor in the 2016 presidential race.
He polls about a third of the vote in New Hampshire, which, contrary to popular perception, is not very much like its neighbor, Vermont. (In northern New England folklore, adapted from Milton’s “Paradise Lost,” one state is full of the “parsimonious emmet,” the other populated by those known as “newts.”)
Mr. Sanders does less well in Iowa, though his iconoclasm suits the sort of committed liberals who participate in that state’s February caucuses — plus the United Auto Workers members who surely noticed that Mr. Sanders was swift to oppose the Trans-Pacific Partnership while former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton took weeks to decide.
This is not an argument that the Sanders surge threatens Ms. Clinton as she glides toward the Democratic presidential nomination. It is, however, an argument that he affects Ms. Clinton as she seeks the nomination.
This is all the more apparent now that it is also apparent that Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, the most prominent progressive in Washington, is not going to run for the White House. All the unrequited passion for Ms. Warren has been transferred to Mr. Sanders, with stunning suddenness and seamlessness. Earlier this month, the Ready for Warren group endorsed Mr. Sanders, saying he was the candidate “who best embodies the values that Warren champions.”
Now we confront the nature of the Clinton campaign. It is fueled by determination rather than passion. There’s nothing romantic to it, aside from its historical significance as the vehicle for the first female presidency — a factor not to be underestimated in November but less powerful now. Her steady-as-you-go campaign is the political equivalent of the line from the English novelist George Meredith that, a generation ago, was emblazoned on thousands of trivets hanging on kitchen walls, tacked against the rice wallpaper: “Kissing don’t last, cookery do.”
Ms. Clinton, the candidate of the cookery, is running the campaign of the hot tuna casserole. Mr. Sanders, by contrast, is running the campaign of the moonlight smooch.
Yet the Clinton campaign must deal with the factors that make all those hearts flutter there by the shore of Lake Winnipesaukee or by the Raccoon River in New Hampshire, for Mr. Sanders, who by appearance — floppy white hair, rumpled suit — does not exactly possess the raw materials (or the raw energy) that customarily make the masses swoon. He’s no Edward Rochester of “Jane Eyre,” nor even Heathcliff of “Wuthering Heights.”
But the danger for the Clintonistas is that by its very existence, the Sanders campaign reveals the character of the Clinton campaign.
While the Sanders campaign is supple, the Clinton campaign is clunky. The Sanders campaign is ruled by instinct, the Clinton campaign by calculation. The Sanders campaign is audacious, the Clinton campaign is cautious. The Sanders campaign is roses and chocolates and chilled Champagne and a hopelessly amorous stroll across pine needles through thick woods at dusk (we’ll find our shoes later), while the Clinton campaign is geraniums and rice pudding and V8 juice and a station-wagon trip across Interstate 80 (we’re wearing sensible shoes, double knotted).
The strong likelihood that the Clinton campaign will triumph is important but, at this stage of the race, almost irrelevant.
Because it is Mr. Sanders (like Ms. Warren before him) who has the whip hand. By not winning he may still prevail, in the way that Ms. Warren did on income disparity. Just as Ms. Clinton embraced the signature Warren message by characterizing her campaign as an effort on behalf of “everyday Americans,” she also sought to embrace a principal Sanders message by saying, finally, that she opposed the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which she repeatedly supported while a member of the Obama administration.
The next issues to watch for the Warren/Sanders effect: Single-payer health insurance, student debt, Wall Street, fracking.
We know what Mr. Sanders believes and we know he will say almost anything. We’re not quite sure what Ms. Clinton believes, but we know that she will fashion her remarks with craftswoman-like care. People probably want the latter in a president. They’re drawn to the former in a primary campaign — which is why, in New Hampshire in 1984, Sen. Gary Hart of Colorado, whose very eyes transmitted a twinkle of romance, prevailed over former Vice President Walter Mondale, whose fundamental decency suggested he was a fuddy-duddy and whose native caution suggested he was rigidly conventional.
All of which brings us to the most natural Bernie Sanders analogue, the 1992 Republican struggle mounted against George H.W. Bush, who held the presidency, by Patrick J. Buchanan, who in New Hampshire held a pitchfork. Mr. Buchanan had more fun, was more unpredictable, had better lines (“All the knights and barons will be riding into the castle pulling up the drawbridge in a minute. All the peasants are coming with pitchforks.”) Mr. Bush had better results, though he lost the general election to Mrs. Clinton’s husband.
“I pulled Bush to the right on social and cultural issues, and he stopped talking about the New World Order,” Mr. Buchanan said in a telephone conversation last week. “I like Bernie — especially his independence — and I think he can have the same effect on Hillary, moving her way to the left.”
Mr. Buchanan didn’t win a single primary or caucus in 1992, though he came within 16 percentage points in New Hampshire (and actually won the primary there four years later, edging Sen. Bob Dole by one percentage point.) But he had a blast, and he didn’t allow Mr. Bush to wobble toward the center.
Similarly, Mr. Sanders will very likely win no primaries next year either. But Ms. Clinton will feel his presence at every stop, in every state.
Webb close to 2016 decision, insiders say Clinton camp helped delay launch // Fox News // John Roberts – June 27, 2015
CLINTON, Iowa – Jim Webb was supposed to declare he was running for president Friday night. At least that's what the prevailing belief was inside his campaign.
Webb was scheduled to be the keynote speaker at the Clinton County Democratic Hall Of Fame dinner in Clinton, Iowa. While the timing was bad (Friday night, where news goes to die), insiders said Webb thought it would be a good place to drop the hammer on a presidential run.
Enter the Clinton campaign, which Webb confidantes grumble has been sandbagging them at every turn. They convinced the Clinton County Democratic Party to add Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar to the speakers roster. The intention was for her to give a spirited sales pitch for Hillary at the very same place and time Webb would launch his campaign.
For Webb, insiders say, that, plus the fact that a Friday night launch could have gotten lost in the news cycle, was enough to convince him to delay the announcement.
Until when, only Webb knows.
Fox News caught up with Webb before the dinner, after a three-hour drive from Chicago which he described as "long." He wasn't giving up anything on the Clinton campaign stealing his thunder. To do so would be to admit there was thunder in the first place, which candidates are loath to do until the words "I'm running for president" actually come out of their mouth. But he did allow that he is getting close to pulling the trigger.
"We're pretty close to being done ... that's the best thing I can say, really," Webb said.
It was typical understatement from a guy who plays his cards so close to the vest that even his closest advisers are left to do a lot of tea-leaf reading. But Webb himself has said he would make a decision sometime around the end of June, so "close to being done" could be read as "imminent."
And it became clear Friday night that Webb's campaign will be one of 'themes' and not specific policy proposals. Go to the "issues" section of his website and one can find his positions on the complex problems facing the nation summed up in a single paragraph.
Ask him about specifics on, for example, what he would do to grow the economy and he begins to bristle.
"I don't think that the issue right now for me is to bring in some sort of a specific set of numbers that I would pull out of the air," Webb told Fox News. "The issue is to lay down the themes that we would govern on and then to bring good people in."
That's the Webb formula -- one he employed successfully as a senator from Virginia. Take a problem, gather together the brightest minds you can find, examine it from every angle, then chart a course to fix it. It doesn't fit into a convenient sound bite, nor does it give the level of detail that politically savvy voters in Iowa and New Hampshire want to chew over. But it is classic Webb style.
"The most important thing a leader can do is to reach out and get good people -- the best minds in the country to come together and figure out solutions -- to give a vision of where you want the country to go," Webb told Fox News.
Webb has a reputation for meticulously thinking through every issue with the perseverance of an academic before rendering an opinion -- as he did earlier this week with a Facebook posting about the Confederate flag. Webb decreed that the issue was "complicated" and that any discussion about the flag needed to recognize that the majority of soldiers who fought for the South did not own slaves and that the nation needs "to respect good people who fought on both sides."
Many of Webb's most ardent fans saw it as a defense of a flag that has come to symbolize racism and vigorously disagreed with him.
"The Confederate battle flag was a battle flag," Webb told Fox News. "It was misused particularly during the civil rights era as a racist and political symbol. And I am fine with it coming down from public fora. At the same time, let's remember our history and let's not turn the acts of people who fought on either side in the Civil War into something they were not."
The nuance Webb expresses is a departure for most presidential candidates who speak in short, declarative sentences. Between his thought processes and his background in the military, politics and private sector, he has been described as a person who has the potential to be 'the most interesting candidate in the race.' Certainly, voters who spend time with him come away with a favorable opinion. But the big question -- can Webb take on the juggernaut that is the Hillary Clinton campaign?
Webb is confident.
"If I didn't think it was possible, I would not do it," Webb told Fox News.
Webb points to his Senate race, when he beat incumbent George Allen in Virginia. Webb was 33 points behind nine months before the race and managed to win. Of course, it helped that Allen imploded over his now-infamous "macaca" comments.
Can lightning strike twice? Could Hillary falter? Talk to Democratic voters in Iowa and many will tell you they are open to an alternative.
"We don't do coronations here, we do discussions," said Dr. Andy McGuire, chairwoman of the Iowa Democratic Party.
Even if Webb has no chance to become the nominee, his entry into the race would certainly add new energy to the debate, though voters may be hungry for a little more detail than Webb is presently willing to provide.
Joe Biden's presidential decision hinges on family // Delaware Online // Nicole Gaudiano – June 27, 2015
WASHINGTON – Vice President Joe Biden has a top concern as he considers whether to run for president: family.
The two-time presidential candidate believes he would offer something unique to the country as president, said supporter Dick Harpootlian, a former South Carolina Democratic Party chairman. But he said Biden is weighing the needs of his family following the May 30 death of his 46-year-old son Beau, Delaware's former attorney general.
"He is thinking about [a presidential run]," said Harpootlian, who spoke with Biden on May 19 and had more recent talks with people close to the vice president. "It's all about his personal situation – 'Can I do this and not in any way deny my family what I can give them or do for them?' This is a decision about his family."
Biden's supporters say it would be understandable if he decides to sit out the 2016 presidential campaign. Beau Biden's death from brain cancer was yet another tragic loss for the 72-year-old vice president. His first wife Neilia and 13-month-old daughter Naomi were killed in a December 1972 car accident that also injured Beau Biden and his brother, Hunter.
But the vice president has a history of working through overwhelming grief.
"No one would blame him if he said, 'You know, look, it's just too much,'" Harpootlian said. But he added, "He's a tough guy and he fights his way through tough times."
Biden served 36 years in the Senate representing Delaware after senators persuaded him in January 1973 to take his first oath of office -- which he did next to his son's hospital bed.
Biden has spent time in Delaware in recent weeks, but four days after his son's funeral he returned to the White House for lunch with President Barack Obama and an afternoon meeting with Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk to discuss that country's reform agenda.
"One thing about the vice president that we all know: He's very resilient," said William Pierce, executive director of the Draft Biden 2016 super PAC.
Biden is expected to announce in August whether he will run for president. Draft Biden, launched by former staffers and campaign veterans, is hiring staff in Iowa and New Hampshire and raising funds for independent expenditures in support of a possible Biden candidacy. The group so far has nearly 100,000 signatures on a petition urging Biden to run and is planning a rally in Wilmington in late July.
"We're taking it to his backyard… just to show him that his community is behind him as well," Pierce said.
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has a sizable lead in polls that include Biden. In a Monmouth University Poll released June 16, Clinton was supported by 57 percent of Democrats and Democratic-leaning voters nationwide, compared to 12 percent for Biden and 12 percent for Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, an independent running for the Democratic nomination. Biden would be fighting for Clinton supporters, who are ideologically similar, said Patrick Murray, director of the polling institute.
But he said it would be a mistake to evaluate Biden's potential based on early "horse race" polls. The June 16 survey also showed that 62 percent of Democrats view Biden favorably, compared to 78 percent for Clinton.
"It suggests that there are people out there who would support him," Murray said. "The question is whether there are enough to overcome Hillary's initial advantage."
Biden has said he wouldn't be influenced by Clinton's decision to run.
"The only reason to run for the president of the United States is if you truly believe you're in a better position to do what you think is most needed in the country," Biden said in February on The View.
His supporters say there's still room for another Democratic candidate.
"I don't think Hillary is really the presumptive candidate everybody thinks she is," said Iowa Rep. Bruce Hunter, a Biden supporter who represents south and central Des Moines.
Harpootlian said Biden, former chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, knows foreign policy and the legislative process, and has personal skills Clinton lacks.
"Joe Biden is a person that can speak to crowds and to people individually and emote and inspire them and bring them to tears or bring them to their feet cheering," Harpootlian said. "That ain't (Clinton's) skill."
Beau Biden clearly wanted his father to run for president, said Harpootlian, who last saw the younger Biden at the 2012 Democratic National Convention.
Harpootlian said he spoke with Joe Biden in May about presidential campaign logistics, including how much it would cost for a vice president to visit battleground states, and South Carolina's political landscape.
Biden would openly express pride in the Obama administration's accomplishments if he runs for president, Harpootlian said. But he said Biden realizes some Americans have missed out on the economic recovery because of a financial system that favors the wealthy.
"I think he'd spend the next eight years trying to correct that," he said.
With Sanders and Chafee in state, Clinton and O’Malley supporters on hand, Democratic competition on full display in N.H. // Concord Monitor // Casey McDermott – June 28, 2015
You didn’t need to travel far in New Hampshire on Saturday to understand this much about the Democratic presidential primary: It’s on.
In fact, if you were in Nashua on Saturday morning, you didn’t need to travel more than a few miles.
Over at the Clinton campaign headquarters on Main Street at 10 a.m., Massachusetts Congressman Joe Kennedy III and others were galvanizing a few dozen Hillary Clinton volunteers before spreading out for the campaign’s first “Day of Action” – the first of many planned door-knocking efforts of the 2016 primary. A similar kickoff rolled out in Concord, Keene, Manchester, Portsmouth and a handful of other locations across the state.
Thirty minutes later, in the gymnasium of Nashua Community College on the other side of Nashua, U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont was motivating several hundred supporters of his own – urging them to believe in the viability of his goal to take on “the billionaire class,” and not to give in to those who would label his agenda as one that’s too extreme.
“This is the agenda of America,” Sanders declared after outlining a policy vision that included calls for a move toward public financing of political campaigns, a transition to a single-payer health system, a swift attempt to curb the effects of climate change, guaranteed family and sick leave for American workers and guaranteed vacation time. The senator brought the audience to its feet several times during his speech.
“Don’t let anybody tell you or allow them to define me as some kind of extremist, out-of-touch with the American people,” Sanders implored the crowd. “Virtually every issue that I have talked about, every proposal I have brought forth has the support of the vast majority of Americans. The people who do not have the support of the American people are those Republicans who want tax breaks for billionaires, to cut social security, Medicare, Medicaid, et cetera. They are way out of touch.”
The main target of Sanders’ criticism was the Republican party, not any Democratic opponent. He urged the audience in Nashua to challenge friends and family who might think of voting with the other party, adding: “What I will not accept is working class people in New Hampshire, in Vermont and around this country voting against their own best interests and the interests of their kids.”
Sanders continued on to several other stops: A house party in Bow that attracted about 100 people from New Hampshire and neighboring states, a Blue BBQ with the Hillsborough and Antrim Town Democrats and a “town meeting” at New England College in Henniker. He had another full day of events scheduled for Sunday, with more “town meetings” planned in Rochester, Durham and Laconia.
Meanwhile, Clinton’s team brought in several out-of-state surrogates to canvass on the candidate’s behalf this weekend: There was Kennedy in Nashua, as well as Massachusetts Congresswoman Niki Tsongas in Salem, and New York Congressman Sean Patrick Maloney (a New Hampshire native) in Manchester.
And all of the declared Democratic contenders’ campaigns converged – at one point or another – at the barbecue in Hillsborough.
Former Rhode Island governor Lincoln Chafee spoke at the event and spent time mingling with attendees, one of several trips to the state he made this week. Sanders was the only other candidate to speak in person – but Maloney stopped by to speak on Clinton’s behalf, and former Maryland governor Martin O’Malley sent a representative from his campaign, too.
Also at the event was campaign finance reformer and Harvard University professor Lawrence Lessig, who continued his calls asking New Hampshire residents to make election funding a priority as they vet candidates in the months ahead.
While Clinton volunteers hit the streets and Sanders’s camp rallied followers for a campaign that focused on “educat(ing) and organiz(ing),” Chafee, in an interview at the picnic, was taking the long view. Unlike Clinton, Sanders and O’Malley, he hasn’t yet hired staff in New Hampshire or led any organized volunteers yet. As Clinton continues to lead in recent polls, with Sanders not far behind, Chafee has not yet managed to pick up much momentum. Still, Chafee said he’s optimistic that there’s room for him in the race – he even pointed to Sanders’ recent surge in the polls as proof that Democrats are eager for a competitive primary.
“I think the Democrats are kicking the tires,” Chafee said, sitting on a picnic bench at the Hillsborough Fire Department Picnic Grounds on Saturday afternoon. “They want to hear from the candidates. I don’t think they’re 100 percent committed to Hillary or Bernie or Linc or Marty yet. They’re listening. That’s good.”
As some take sides, others still weighing options
Across the Democrats’ events in New Hampshire yesterday, there seemed to be a consensus that – for the moment, at least – the main rivalry for the liberal wing of the Granite State exists between Clinton and Sanders.
Clinton’s supporters at the Nashua office pointed to the former U.S. senator and secretary of state’s credentials, leadership style and policy expertise as key factors in their decision to back her bid for presidency. Sanders, several said, has good ideas – but seemed less experienced on foreign policy and perhaps too outspoken to work with other policymakers in a meaningful way. Others expressed hesitancy because of his stance on gun control. (Sanders has supported an assault weapons ban and backed President Obama’s call for gun control in the wake of the Sandy Hook shooting, as noted by the Boston Globe earlier this month. On the other hand, the as Globe reported, “Sanders voted against the landmark Brady Bill, which required background checks and a waiting period before purchasing a firearm. He supported legislation allowing guns to be transported on Amtrak trains. He voted for a measure to protect gun manufacturers from lawsuits in cases of shootings.”
In comments Saturday and other recent interviews, he stressed that it’s important to understand the significance of hunting and recreational gun use for Americans in more rural areas.)
“I think Bernie might be her biggest competition. Vermont is a strong liberal state, and I love him, and he’s doing so much. She’s my preference,” said Sonia Prince, a Nashua resident who’s volunteering for Clinton. “Sometimes he’s a little harsh, and I wonder how that would go over in certain situations. I think she can handle herself better. And the gun thing is a huge deal for me.”
Sanders’ supporters, meanwhile, voiced a sense of elation – and, in some cases, pleasant surprise – that their candidate was attracting so much enthusiasm at this stage in the race. New Hampshire voters (some sporting “Feel the Bern” and “Bern, Baby, Bern”) were not turned off by the Senator’s willingness to be blunt – indeed, that was part of what they liked best. Some expressed skepticism that Clinton could be the same kind of champion for middle class families that Sanders is trying to be, and some said they were questioning Clinton’s trustworthiness because of the issues recently raised surrounding her email practices as secretary of state, among other things.
“He’s a stand-up man. And he tends to be kind of a firecracker, and if he doesn’t agree with something, he says something. He does something,” said Nashua resident Jennifer Craffey, who attended the rally in Nashua. “I like that his initials are B.S. – and he’s sick of the B.S. down in D.C.”
And then, there are still plenty of residents who are still weighing their options. Peter Beblowski and Martha Pinello, both of Antrim, said at the Hillsborough picnic that they’re happy to have several strong potential choices on the Democratic side.
“I think we’re looking at the retail politics that New Hampshire provides,” Beblowski said. “This is way in advance of 2016.”
“One of the things that’s great is that you get to see candidates repeatedly, so you not only get to read their positions but you get to see how they interact with their staff and how they interact with voters,” Pinello added.
Even for all of the talk of Clinton’s frontrunner status, the sense of competition ahead of canvassing efforts was evident. In Nashua yesterday morning, State Sen. Bette Lasky reminded the group that no New Hampshire primary (in recent decades, at least) has been won with more than 50 percent of the vote.
“We know firsthand that we have to start working today, continue, don’t let up,” Lasky told the group. “And do not leave any stone unturned until 8 p.m. on primary day.”
The Definition of Insanity: Jeb Bush still favors appointing judges “with a proven record of judicial restraint” // WaPo // Randy Barnett – June 27. 2015
In an interview with Hugh Hewitt, Jeb Bush responded to criticism of his brother’s selection of John Roberts to be Chief Justice. Without intending it, his answer revealed he would select judges by exactly the same criteria that has given us our current problem with a Supreme Court that is dominated by Republican nominated justices:
“When I was governor, we tried to find people with a proven record of judicial restraint, and people that were committed to enforcing the constitutional limits on government authority. In essence, what I’m saying is I think we need to have people that have not just theoretically, but have had a proven record of not legislating from the bench.”
He then doubled down:
“All justices disappoint their presidents some of the time but Souter was like a 90 percent swing and miss,” Hewitt said. “How do you avoid Souters?”
“You focus on people to be Supreme Court justices who have a proven record of judicial restraint,” Bush answered.
This is exactly the problem with the judicial philosophy promoted by many conservatives for the past 30 years: “judicial restraint” in “enforcing constitutional limits on government authority” leads to NFIB v. Sebelius. In fairness, that is not what Bush actually said but, as George Will recently observed, that is what this judicial philosophy produces in practice.
Thoughtful conservatives today will insist that, properly defined, “judicial restraint” includes enforcing constitutional limits, and the term could be defined that way. But that is not the mentality of “restraint” as it was originally formulated by the Progressives and has been perpetuated by some conservatives. For years, “judicial restraint” has been primarily about not thwarting the will of “democratic majorities.” There are myriad doctrines to accomplish this. For example, you adopt a “presumption of constitutionality” that cannot be rebutted. Or find a “saving construction” of a statute to avoid finding it unconstitutional. Or you “defer” to administrative agencies’ interpretation of statutes. Or you make a statute “work” as the “legislature intended” (even if that means ignoring the plain or natural reading of its words).
Many good conservatives truly wanted Obamacare invalidated in NFIB because it was unconstitutional. And they then sincerely wanted it to be enforced according to its terms in King. But selecting judges with the judicial mindset of “judicial restraint” and “deference” to the majoritarian branches leads to the results we witnessed in NFIB and King. If conservatives persist in supporting presidents who select judges on this basis, they will persist in being disappointed.
I know, I know. What about Obergefell and gay marriage? Didn’t that result from a lack of “restraint”? No, if you don’t approve of Obergefell, it is because you do not agree with the constitutional rationale Justice Kennedy articulated for invalidating the state laws at issue, not because he was “unrestrained.” Winning Obergefell on the grounds urged by Chief Justice Roberts in his dissenting opinion also gives you NFIB and King. If you want to avoid the latter, then you should criticize the majority on the ground that Justice Thomas did in his dissent: that the majority misinterpreted the Due Process Clause, not that they were “unrestrained.” You will notice that Chief Justice Roberts did not join Justice Thomas’s dissent (though regrettably, Justices Thomas and Scalia joined his). The Chief Justice’s dissent was all about restraint and only secondarily about correctness. He cited Lochner v. New York 16 times because Lochner was supposedly about activism, rather than appropriate restraint. In contrast, Justice Thomas appealed to the original meaning of “the due process of law.” There is a big big difference between these two judicial mindsets.
So, if conservative Republicans want a different performance from the judiciary in the future, they must vet their presidential candidates to see whether they understand this point. Jeb Bush clearly does not. And I have personally heard Marco Rubio and Carly Fiorina say much the same sort of thing about judges, showing that they do not understand this either–at least not yet. Only Rand Paul has been very clear about the duty of judges to invalidate unconstitutional law without restraint or deference.
I haven’t heard yet what other candidates think about this, but everyone should be listening closely. If you hear catch phrases like “judicial restraint,” “deferring” to “the democratic branches,” or “not legislating from the bench,” then you know this candidate intends to repeat the mistakes of past Republican presidents.
Conservatives must learn from the recent past what not to look for in a justice.
Bush to meet with Charleston pastors // WaPo // Ed O’Keefe – June 27, 2015
Jeb Bush plans to meet privately on Monday with pastors in Charleston, S.C., his campaign says.
The Republican presidential candidate was originally scheduled to be in Charleston 10 days ago for an event scheduled for the morning after a deadly shooting at a historic African American church in the city. After arriving in the city just hours after the shooting, Bush canceled his scheduled appearance, saying it would be inappropriate to campaign in the city in the wake of the shooting.
His campaign declined to say with whom he will meet with on Monday.
Later in the day, the former Florida governor is scheduled to hold a campaign event in West Columbia, S.C., at a pharmaceutical company.
Jeb Bush touts record on guns // CNN // Ashley Killough – June 27, 2015
Henderson, Nevada (CNN) Jeb Bush on Saturday said he doubted gun control measures supported by President Barack Obama would have prevented recent tragedies, including the church massacre in South Carolina.
Instead, the former Florida governor, speaking at a town hall event in the early caucus state of Nevada, touted his record on guns as a way to balance public safety and Second Amendment rights.
"Florida is a pro-gun state. Gun violence has dropped. There's a reason for it," he told reporters after the event. "We created a balance that's focused on lowering gun violence but protecting the Second Amendment, and it's a model for many other countries and many other states because of that."
Bush proudly touted his A+ rating with the National Rifle Association and called Florida a "freedom-loving state," but also cited his efforts to combat crime through the "10-20-Life" law, a statute that he campaigned on and enacted as governor.
The law, which is still in place, issues a minimum 10-year sentence for anyone who pulls a gun while committing a crime, 20 years for pulling the trigger during a crime and 25 years to life for injuring or killing someone by firing a gun.
"And we advertised it in Spanish, Creole and English to make sure that people knew that if they're going to commit gun crimes, that they were going to pay a heavy price," he said in the town hall, adding that they saw a "dramatic reductions in gun violence."
According to a 2013 report by the nonpartisan research arm of the Connecticut General Assembly, which looked into the law using FBI crime reporting statistics, gun violence in Florida indeed went down in the years after the law was enacted in 1999 -- but it also went down across the entire country.
Separately, an Orlando Sentinel report found that only a small percentage of those charged with gun crime in Orange County from 2003 to 2007 actually received the mandatory sentence.
Bush argued that none of the gun control proposals by the Obama administration would have stopped recent mass shootings. Asked by reporters afterwards if he could specify which proposals he was talking about, he repeated, "all the ones."
"Every one of them. There's not been a single thing that he's proposed recently that would have changed the course of any of these tragic cases," he said.
Following the Newtown elementary school shooting in 2012, the Obama administration, with the help of a small number of Republicans, pushed for legislation that would have applied background checks to all private sales or transfers, but the measure failed to advance in the Senate two years ago.
While Bush said Florida requires background checks for gun purchases, he told reporters that the state does not have checks for the kinds of private transactions included in the Congressional push two years ago.
He said he doesn't think "we need to be politicizing this issue," and in the town hall, he emphasized focusing on mental health issues as a way to address the problem.
"I'd also say going forward that these cases -- that the race system in Charleston or these cases of people who are just mentally deranged -- we as a society better figure out how we identify these folks long before they feel compelled to take up a gun and kill innocent people," he said.
In his first stop to Nevada as an official candidate, having announced his presidential campaign earlier this month, the town hall in Henderson was largely a friendly event for Bush. At one point, a voter stood up and told him he'd been a Democrat for 50 years but last month switched to become a registered Republican. Bush approached the voter and gave him a hug.
While he faced no confrontational questions at the event, a small group of pro-immigration protesters with signs waited for Bush outside, standing near reporters who were anticipating a small press conference. Bush's campaign then moved reporters inside where the candidate answered questions.
Bush pledged to return to the early caucus state "a lot," not only for the Republican nominating contest, but because Nevada is a swing state in the general election.
He acknowledged that the Republican nominee won't be able to win Democratic strongholds like New York and California next November, but he thinks Republicans can expand the map to win Nevada, Florida, New Hampshire, Iowa, Colorado, New Mexico, Pennsylvania and Michigan.
"I'm going to do this to win," he said to applause during the town hall. "And I want your support."
That will require campaigning in places where Republicans don't traditionally go, he said, and appealing to groups like Latino voters, repeating a message he often gives. This time, however, he tried using a gambling term to get across his message.
"If we don't try to broaden out the map, we're going to have to win with an inside straight, to use a Vegas term. Inside straight flush or whatever. It's just not going to happen. I'm not a big gambler so I don't know any gambling ... Does that sound stupid when you say that?" he asked, to laughs. "You'll teach me about that later."
Jeb Bush: Charleston shootings wouldn't have been prevented by Obama proposals // CBS // Alan He – June 27, 2015
Jeb Bush told an audience today in Henderson, Nevada that "not a single one" of the mass shootings in recent years would have been prevented by President Obama's gun control ideas, and that more emphasis should be put on the role of mental health in gun violence. Bush's comments came just a day after President Obama said that the nation had been, "blind to the unique mayhem that gun violence inflicts," for far too long.
Answering an audience question about his stance on gun control, Bush said that, "all of these tragic incidents that have taken place in the past few years, are heartbreaking," but that, "not a single one of them would have been stopped by any of the ideas proposed by Barack Obama." The Republican candidate referring to alleged killer Dylann Roof as the "racist in Charleston," instead argued that, "we as a society better figure out how we identify these folks long before they feel compelled to take up a gun and kill innocent people."
On Monday, Bush heads to Charleston, South Carolina to meet privately with community faith leaders who he described Saturday as having shown, "incredible love and compassion" in the wake of the shooting.
During a press conference held in the hallway after the town hall in the gymnasium had ended, the former Florida governor responded to reporters' questions about the recent Supreme Court decisions upholding Obamacare and the right to same-sex marriage. Bush said that he was "disappointed" by both decisions. He described a constitutional amendment banning same sex marriage as "unrealistic," calling for an environment where, "people aren't discriminated against," while also allowing "people to act on their religious conscience."
On the subject of Obamacare, Bush had told the town hall audience that his solution would be to replace it with a system that provides people with access to a high-deductible, low-premium catastrophic coverage.
Bush also touted his own openness and willingness to "step outside his comfort zone," in contrast to the Democratic candidate, former Secretary State, Hillary Clinton. He drew audience laughter when he invoked Clinton's Scooby Van, saying. "I will make mistakes along the way because I'm going to campaign outside my comfort zone. I'm not going to be in a little protective shell, I'm not going to be inside of a bubble. I'm not going to go on my Scooby Doo van and have everything screened out."
Jeb Bush: U.S. needs to strengthen economically and internationally // Las Vegas Review-Journal // Ben Botkin – June 27, 2015
Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush told an audience in Henderson that the United States needs to strengthen its economy and its relationships with other nations, including Israel.
Speaking to about 300 people at a town hall meeting Saturday, he said personal income and disposable income need to grow, which hasn’t happened in this economy.
“More and more people are falling prey to the false choice of more government to be able to take care of them,” Bush said at the city’s Valley View Recreation Center.
Bush, the governor of Florida from 1999 to 2007, touted key parts of his campaign message, including reducing federal regulations that harm businesses and reducing poverty.
“All of this can be fixed because it requires winning in a way that draws people to our cause,” Bush said, adding “I’m going to run with heart.”
It was the Bush’s first visit to Southern Nevada since his June 15 announcement that he’s in the race. Bush, the brother of former President George W. Bush and the son of the first President George Bush, visited Reno and Las Vegas in May.
Bush, a friend of Republican Gov. Brian Sandoval, also praised Nevada for its work on education reform, particularly the new education savings accounts.
The new voucher program will allow parents to put their child’s state public school funding toward a private school or tutoring. Bush championed a voucher program in Florida as governor.
Asked about the deadly June 17 shooting spree in Charleston, S.C., where a gunman killed nine people in a church, Bush said a society needs to focus on mental health issues and look for ways to identify and help people with mental health problems sooner.
Bush drew frequent applause at the town hall, which offered online registration for free tickets in advance.
Considered a GOP presidential race front-runner, Bush leads most polls in a crowded field of at least a dozen Republican candidates. A recent NBC/Wall Street Journal national survey placed him at the top, preferred by 22 percent of likely Republican primary voters.
Nevada has attracted attention from other candidates who have visited in recent months. The list includes Republicans U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, neurosurgeon Dr. Ben Carson, U.S. Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, and Democratic candidates Hillary Clinton and U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont.
Bush said accountability is needed at the federal Office of Personnel Management, which suffered a data breach and did nothing after an Inspector General report suggested the agency that houses the government workforce’s personnel files wasn’t secure.
“The Chinese have broken into that system and now it’s possible they have 18 million separate records,” Bush said, adding that President Barack Obama put his political director in charge of the agency rather than someone qualified. Katherine Archuleta, who was Obama’s national political director, heads the agency.
Bush criticized her for blaming the Chinese, saying people need to take action and responsibility.
As Florida’s governor, “when there was a mistake, I cleaned it up,” he said.
Nevada’s status as a key swing state in the presidential election wasn’t lost on Bush. Nevada’s February 2016 caucuses will play an early role in determining who gets the Republican nomination, along with New Hampshire, South Carolina and Iowa. In the November 2016 general election, Nevada is expected to be competitive: It could swing for the GOP or the Democratic ticket.
“We’re purple as well,” Bush said, referring to his Florida home state. “And Republicans will win if we win purple states.”
Bush sharply criticized Obama’s foreign policy.
“This president is the first president in the post-World War II era that believes we’re not a force for good,” Bush said.
He said the U.S. needs to be a “beacon of peace and security for the world.”
Asked about Iran and its nuclear capabilities, Bush said no option should be taken off the table. Iran and its potential ability to have a nuclear weapon have stoked fears in the Middle East.
Bush also took aim at Democratic front-runner Clinton, saying she only sponsored three bills that became law during her eight years as a U.S. senator representing New York.
The Democratic National Committee quickly pounced on Bush’s comments in Henderson that Obama’s economics have been horrible for people in poverty and disastrous for those in the middle. The committee said private-sector jobs have expanded by 12.6 million jobs during 63 consecutive months and wages and benefits increased last year at the quickest rate in six years.
Both Democratic and Republican candidates are courting the Latino vote as demographics have shifted.
“The next president has to go to places where Republicans haven’t been seen in a long, long while,” Bush said, referencing the Latino community.
He didn’t call for a path to citizenship for immigrants who are in the country illegally. Instead, he said they should be eligible for “earned legal status.” That status would come through a provisional work permit where they pay taxes and learn English and “over an extended period of time” earn legal status, Bush said.
“I don’t see any other option,” Bush said. “I don’t think our country is going to be the type of country that puts people in boxcars and sends them away.”
Several Latino protesters were outside the building, holding signs that said: “Jeb: Are you a supporter or a deporter?” and “Nothing less than citizenship.”
Bush, speaking to reporters after his speech, said he believes in traditional marriage and that it’s important to protect religious freedoms. He was responding to a question about the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling Friday that the U.S. Constitution guarantees a nationwide right to same-sex marriage.
Bush plans to meet with ministers in Charleston, S.C., on Monday.
Jeb Bush says stricter US gun control laws aren't needed // Sydney Morning Herald // Kurtis Lee – June 27, 2015
Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush has argued against calls from President Barack Obama and other Democrats for stricter gun control laws after the mass shooting at a Charleston, South Carolina, church that killed nine people.
Mr Bush, who travelled to the Las Vegas suburb of Henderson on Saturday for a campaign appearance, said he does not believe tougher gun laws would prevent mass shootings.
"All of these tragic instances that have taken place in the last couple of years are heartbreaking. They really are," said Mr Bush. "Not a single one of them would have been stopped with any of the ideas proposed by Barack Obama. Not a single one of them."
Mr Bush, among the front-runners in the race for the Republican presidential nomination, said more emphasis should be placed on improving access to mental health services. On Monday, he plans to meet with black ministers in Charleston.
Meanwhile, Hillary Rodham Clinton, the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination, in recent days has called for universal background checks for gun purchases, noting the "politics on the issue have been poisoned".
Mr Bush has received strong support from the National Rifle Association, and as Florida governor he signed the "stand your ground" law that received attention after the Trayvon Martin shooting.
On Saturday, Mr Bush said gun laws should be a state issue.
"In Florida we had background checks, state by state I think these things get sorted out based on tradition, based on the differences in our states," he said.
Mr Bush said he supported a Florida law that requires background checks on some gun sales.
"We've created a balance that's focused on lowering gun violence, but protecting the Second Amendment," he said regarding the Florida laws.
Rubio Buys Airtime for Campaign Ads in First Four Nominating States // WSJ // Patrick O’Connor – June 27, 2015
Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, a leading contender for the Republican presidential nomination, has started reserving television airtime in the first four nominating states, seven months before a vote is cast, according to a people familiar with the advertising purchase.
The Florida senator has reserved airtime in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada that is set to run from November through February, according to someone familiar with the reservation.
The Republican presidential nominating process gets under way in February, when New Hampshire and South Carolina hold primaries, while Iowa and Nevada are set for caucuses.
By reserving ads early, the Rubio team should be able to secure lower rates than some of its rivals will pay if they buy airtime closer to the primary voting.
Some of Mr. Rubio’s rivals have bigger war chests, particularly former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush.
Rand Paul silent on gay marriage ruling // Politico // Daniel Strauss – June 27, 2015
Ted Cruz called for impeachment. Bobby Jindal said he’d “just get rid of the court” entirely. Scott Walker floated a Constitutional amendment. Mike Huckabee hinted at civil disobedience.
But well over 24 hours after the Supreme Court’s historic ruling making same-sex marriage legal in all 50 states, one Republican 2016 candidate has thus far remained silent: Rand Paul.
While other GOP hopefuls bashed the high court’s decision to one degree or another, the Kentucky senator didn’t say anything or release a statement or respond to requests for comment from POLITICO.
Paul’s silence stands in contrast to his voluble response on Thursday, when the justices upheld a key part of the Affordable Care Act. He released a statement saying the decision “turns both the rule of law and common sense on its head.” He was still going on Friday afternoon, tweeting, “while some in my party may want to wave the white flag, I am more determined than ever to fight for total repeal of Obamacare.” No tweets, however, on gay marriage.
By Saturday, Paul had also tweeted about his poll numbers and the “hackathon for liberty and privacy” sponsored by his campaign and made numerous requests for donation.
Again, though, there was no mention of gay marriage of the high court’s landmark ruling earlier that day — on any of the candidate’s many social media accounts.
Paul’s habit of initial silence on the hot political topic of the day has been noted by the national press recently, especially his delayed response to Mitt Romney’s call for the Confederate flag to be taken down from Capitol grounds in South Carolina. Paul finally weighed in on Tuesday, days after Romney’s Saturday tweet, and well after his rivals had already made statements. The Kentucky senator’s silence on the gay marriage ruling is another example of that pattern.
Paul hasn’t refrained from talking about gay marriage before, however. In April, in an interview with CNN’s Dana Bash, Paul said he believed “people ought to be treated fairly under the law” but also said he believed in the “traditional religious connotation” of marriage, usually defined by religious conservatives as between a man and a woman.
“And you probably could have both,” Paul added. “You could have both traditional marriage, which I believe in. And then you could also have the neutrality of the law that allows people to have contracts with another.”
In a 2013 interview with the American Family Association’s Bryan Fischer, Paul voiced reservations about “federalizing” same-sex marriage.
“I’m not sure exactly how I’d come down on the federalization part,” Paul said in the January 2013 interview. “My fear is that in federalizing it, we’re going to lose the battle for the whole country. In keeping it state by state, which is the way marriage has always been adjudicated, we’ll have states that continue to have traditional marriage. I think we’re losing in large areas of the country now. If the urban areas are able to dictate, for the rest of the country, what our definition of marriage is, I’m really concerned about that.”
Ted Cruz calls for judicial retention elections for Supreme Court justices // WaPo // Katie Zezima – June 27, 2015
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) has proposed a constitutional amendment that would subject Supreme Court justices to periodic judicial elections in the wake of rulings that upheld a key portion of the Affordable Care Act and affirmed gay couples' right to marriage.
“I am proposing an amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would subject each and every justice of the United States Supreme Court to periodic judicial retention elections," Cruz said Saturday, during a speech in Des Moines, Iowa. He also called for such elections in the National Review on Friday.
The proposal from Cruz, who once served as Supreme Court clerk, comes as he is trying to position himself as the presidential candidate of choice for conservatives and evangelicals who disagree with the court's decisions this week. The Texas Republican is using the rulings to paint himself as a stalwart defender of religious freedom, opponent of same-sex marriage and reaffirm his pledge to abolish the Affordable Care Act should he win the presidency.
Cruz is also using the rulings to reemphasize his assertion that he tacks far to the right of the rest of the 2016 GOP field when it comes to social issues, a point he started making in the wake of a controversial religious freedom law Indiana passed in March.
"Sadly we’ve seen several 2016 candidates in response to yesterday’s decision saying it is the law of the land, we must accept it and move on," Cruz said as the Des Moines audience booed. "When Republican candidates are standing up and reciting Barack Obama's talking points things have gone seriously wrong."
Earlier this year Cruz filed legislation that would protect states that prohibit same-sex couples from getting married.
Cruz said last week in Iowa that some Republican presidential candidates chose to "rearrange their sock drawers" in the wake of the Indiana decision. After a backlash to the initial law, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence (R) signed a revised version of the religious freedom bill making it clear that businesses cannot use the legislation as the basis to discriminate based on sexual orientation.
The Texas Republican, who had a tepid start in Iowa, tried to use Saturday's speech, titled "Believe Again" as a way to both solidify his presence in the state and as the uncompromising conservative in the 2016 field. Cruz has come up with a new phrase for the institution he said he is fighting: the "Washington cartel," which he said is comprised by members of both parties, lobbyists, and now Supreme Court justices.
"This week's assault was but the latest in a long line of judicial assaults on our Constitution and Judeo-Christian values that have made America great," he said. The Supreme Court "has now forced the disaster of a health-care law called Obamacare on the American people and attempted to redefine an institution that was ordained by God."
Cruz's strategy is to coalesce the support of his conservative base and draw in support from evangelical Christians and conservative libertarians, all but ignoring the Republican establishment and moderates. Cruz said he is the only candidate in the field who is bucking Republican leadership, and said those leaders have been "embarrassed" to stand up for traditional marriage. He said both Democrats and Republicans were "popping Champagne" after the court's rulings because it spared them from having the government "actually follow the law."
The candidate also hit 2012 GOP nominee Mitt Romney, who held a Republican summit earlier this month, for inviting all of the candidates who are "pro-amnesty" on immigration to Utah.
Ted Cruz Recalls How Father Tried to Join Fidel Castro’s Army // AP – June 27, 2015
AUSTIN, Tex. — The father of Senator Ted Cruz was a 1950s Cuban revolutionary who longed to slip into the island’s eastern mountains and join Fidel Castro’s guerrilla army.
At 17, Rafael Cruz led a group of insurgents staging urban sabotage against Fulgencio Batista, a Cuban dictator. Mr. Cruz was eventually jailed and tortured, and upon his release wanted the underground to help him reach Mr. Castro’s camp in the Sierra Maestra highlands.
“My dad asked if he could join Castro in the mountains and keep fighting,” Senator Cruz, Republican of Texas and a presidential candidate, writes in his book, “A Time For Truth,” which is being released on Tuesday. “But he was told there was no way to get to the rebels.”
Instead, the elder Cruz bribed his way to a Cuban exit visa and headed to the University of Texas.
He returned home shortly after Mr. Castro seized power in 1959, but, Ted Cruz writes, was appalled to see Mr. Castro had “declared to the world that he was a Communist.” Mr. Castro did not formally call his revolution Socialist until the eve of the Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961.
The Cruzes have long acknowledged that Rafael Cruz was an early Castro sympathizer. But Ted Cruz’s memoir — a copy of which The Associated Press purchased — provides new details about his desire to fight alongside the guerrilla leader.
The Cuban government has not commented about Rafael Cruz, making the anecdotes difficult to confirm. But Ted Cruz also writes that his father had planned to join Mr. Castro and help attack an army barracks in the city of Santiago in 1956, but did not because Mr. Castro was delayed in returning to Cuba from Mexico.
Today, Rafael Cruz, 76, is a pastor who frequently quotes scripture in antigovernment speeches to grass-roots groups. He has compared President Obama to a young Castro.
Ted Cruz writes that his father did not open up about being tortured in Cuban jails until the senator was a teenager, when the pair watched “Rambo.” The movie features scenes in which the title character is tortured.
The senator describes how his father said he was beaten with clubs and kicked in the head. That is also difficult to confirm, but the book includes a Rafael Cruz mug shot in which his nose appears to be broken.
In the book, Mr. Cruz briefly tells how his elder half sister, Miriam, died of a drug overdose in 2011. He discusses the bouts of depression that his wife, Heidi, had in 2005 — which he chalks up to her having trouble adjusting to Texas life after the couple moved to Austin from Washington.
Mr. Cruz also recalls heading to Maine in 2009 to meet former President George H. W. Bush — whose son Jeb is now one of Mr. Cruz’s 2016 presidential campaign rivals. Mr. Cruz was invited to go sailing but was wearing a suit, so Mr. Bush lent him clothes, including a “President of the United States” belt buckle.
Mr. Cruz writes that the borrowed clothing felt “surreal.”
Cruz seeks to harness conservative outrage after Supreme Court decisions // CNN // Theodore Schleifer – June 27, 2015
Orange City, Iowa (CNN) Ted Cruz is moving quickly to galvanize conservatives frustrated by the Supreme Court's landmark decisions this week.
Hours after the Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage on Friday morning, the Texas Republican senator looked to pivot the defeat for social conservatives into a wedge issue between himself and his rival presidential hopefuls. And by the end of his day in Iowa, Cruz was outflanking any of the other aspirants on the right and was continuously accusing them of doublespeak.
In stops across northwest Iowa, Cruz said many in the GOP were "popping champagne" after the decision. He took swipes at both the integrity of the Supreme Court and his longtime friend, Chief Justice John Roberts. He suggested he would back a constitutional convention to scale back the high court's power, and concluded the day by calling for an amendment to the Constitution that would give voters the chance to end a Supreme Court justice's lifetime tenure early.
If Cruz was looking to emerge as the presidential candidate who took the most umbrage, who expressed the most disbelief after both the same-sex marriage ruling and the Court's decision to uphold a key provision of Obamacare this week, he made his best try here on Friday.
"This is not a typical moment in American history," Cruz told a crowd of more than 100 Iowans gathered on a baseball diamond in the small town of Pierson. "The last 24 hours at the United States Supreme Court were among the darkest hours of our nation."
Cruz, a former clerk to Chief Justice William Rehnquist who later represented the state of Texas in arguments at the Supreme Court, was originally slow to respond to the news out of Washington on Friday morning. His delay was especially surprising as the tea party hero is making an aggressive play to win over the family-focused evangelical voters who are expected to make up half of the electorate in next year's Republican Iowa caucuses.
When he eventually registered his first reaction at a town hall meeting in Sheldon, Cruz blasted the court for its "unadulterated judicial activism," just as many other 2016 candidates did. That was ordinary.
But Cruz went further, saying there was disconnect between what Republicans in Washington were saying in their press releases and what they truly believed. Several GOP candidates, including Jeb Bush and Lindsey Graham, issued tightly-parsed language urging their colleagues to focus on protecting "religious freedom," while Ohio Gov. John Kasich urged Republicans to respect the ruling and ditch the matter altogether. Mike Huckabee and Bobby Jindal were a bit stronger, with the former Arkansas governor calling for Americans to "reject judicial tyranny, not retreat."
But Cruz was skeptical that his opponents were committed to stopping same-sex nuptials.
"As much as there were crocodile tears shed in Washington yesterday on Obamacare, there were even bigger crocodile tears shed in Washington today on marriage," Cruz said.
That is a contrast Cruz made sure to highlight to nearly every voter he met in the Hawkeye State. The script at Dutch Bakery here was workmanlike: Shake the hand. Share outrage at the decision. Ridicule Republicans' public statements. Blast them for "popping champagne." Shake a new hand.
In those statements, some of Cruz's competitors, like Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, did call for a constitutional amendment to protect so-called traditional marriage. Cruz has introduced this amendment in the past, but again, he went a step further, strongly implying that he would support a constitutional convention to propose new amendments, a course of action never before pursued though it is explicitly outlined in Article V of the Constitution.
"I fully expect the drive for an Article V convention to get new energy and new steam," Cruz said in Sheldon when a voter asked whether he would back it.
By the end of the day, Cruz was bringing it up himself -- though always stopping just short of saying he would support the call for a convention. In a column posted on the National Review's website late Friday, Cruz was not only floating the convention idea but proposing his own amendment: judicial retention elections every eight years for Supreme Court justices.
"When they violate the constitutional amendment and the law, the American people can remove them," Cruz said to his loudest applause of the evening in Pierson. "We are not governed by a judicial priesthood. We are not governed by judicial tyranny."
But Cruz reserved his toughest talk for the head of that tyranny: Roberts, a justice who dissented with the Court's decision on Friday but who the day before voted with the Court's liberal wing to uphold Obamacare subsidies.
"His decision yesterday and his decision a couple of years ago violated his oath of office," Cruz said. "He knows full well that he's changing the law and not following it."
In northwest Iowa, Cruz calls court rulings 'lawless' // Des Moines Register // Matthew Patane – June 27, 2015
PIERSON, Ia. – Two Supreme Court decisions in as many days have made 2016 an even more bitter fight for conservatives, Republican presidential hopeful Ted Cruz said Friday.
Making three stops in northwest Iowa, Cruz railed against the court's justices for what he called "naked and unadulterated judicial activism" in a 5-4 ruling Friday that said same-sex marriages can take place in all 50 states.
"Religious liberty has never been so threatened as it is today," Cruz said in Sheldon. "I'll tell you, today's lawless decision from the Supreme Court puts religious liberty front and center in the target of the federal government."
The U.S. senator from Texas also criticized some of his colleagues for their responses to the same-sex marriage decision, saying they issued "condemning statements, but were quietly thrilled, relieved, celebrating and popping champagne because they're afraid to defend marriage."
"They don't want to have to talk about it anymore. Several 2016 candidates today put out statements saying 'The matter is decided, it's the law of the land, it's time to move on,' " Cruz told a crowd in Pierson. "We are in a very strange place when Republican presidential candidates are echoing Barack Obama's talking points."
U.S. Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, also condemned the Supreme Court's ruling.
"Not one civilization in history has endorsed same-sex marriage, and they believe somehow the ratifiers of the 14th Amendment or the Constitution wrote it in in 1868," King told reporters. "I guarantee you, they weren't writing same-sex marriage into the Constitution in 1868."
He said Congress could enact retribution on the court, such as cutting its administrative budget.
"We can eliminate some of their staff to let them know that they have overreached and they don't need all of that help to do the damage they have done to the Constitution," said King, who attended the same event in Pierson as Cruz.
The Supreme Court also overstepped its bounds, Cruz said, by upholding a key provision of the federal health care law, more commonly known as Obamacare.
"Well, I'll tell you one consequence of yesterday's decision: It has made the 2016 election a referendum on repealing Obamacare," said Cruz, who has campaigned around the full repeal of the health care law.
Bill Tentinger, an independent pork producer from Le Mars, spoke with Cruz briefly during the candidate's Pierson stop.
Tentinger said Cruz appeard "down-to-earth," but it's too early for him to back a candidate.
"I'd be looking for a candidate that'd be interested in understanding the ramifications of increased regulations. … I think we've got way too much of this stuff that is happening, regulations that are coming, without any forethought of what it's going to do to the economy," Tentinger said.
Following his speech in Sheldon, Cruz made retail politics-style stops in Orange City, interacting with Iowans while visiting three area businesses and a cultural center.
Delores DeJohn, 75, was one of the first to speak to Cruz as he entered a Dutch bakery off the city's main strip. DeJohn said she liked Cruz because "we need to have someone with strong values."
"I believe God is in control of it all, and we need god-fearing men in (the White House), otherwise this country will keep going down the other way," said DeJohn, who is retired.
AT THE EVENT
SETTING: In Sheldon, a meeting room at the Sheldon Community Services Center. In Orange City, three local business and a cultural center. In Pierson, a picnic, a baseball diamond and a city park. Organizers served pork and a band played country and rock music.
CROWD: About 57 people in Sheldon. Cruz's Orange City stop saw the largest crowd with about 12 people in a local bakery. About 130 people came to a picnic in Pierson to see Cruz, King and State Sen. Bill Anderson, R-Pierson, speak.
REACTION: A receptive audience in Sheldon, where Cruz received multiple applause lines and laughter. Quiet conversations in Orange City. A standing ovation in Pierson.
WHAT'S NEXT: Cruz will give a speech at Drake University in Des Moines on Saturday, followed by a "Main Street walk" in Pella.
In Lindsey Graham's hometown, resentment over the Confederate flag // Politico // Ben Schreckinger – June 27, 2015
CENTRAL, S.C. — Sen. Lindsey Graham’s home lies across the state from the city where nine African-Americans were gunned down in the basement of their church and the arena-turned-sanctuary where 5,500 mourners gathered Friday to honor a slain pastor.
Here in the town where Graham grew up, there are still billiard tables in the basement of the building where his family once lived in a back room and ran a pool hall, a liquor store and bar. For much of Graham’s childhood, sitting inside the bar was a privilege reserved for whites. Today, the proprietor is a Puerto Rican woman from the Bronx.
Graham, in a short autobiography written as a preface to his presidential run, takes a small share of credit for racial progress in a part of the South where change never came quickly. He recounts a moment when, as a high school student, he confronted his parents about the unwritten rule that black patrons had to drink outside.
“The next time a black customer came into the place,” writes Graham in "My Story," “my mom opened a bottle of beer, set it down on the bar, and motioned for him to take a stool.” That was in the early 1970s, years after the legal end of Jim Crow.
Last week, in the wake of the racially motivated massacre at Emanuel AME Church by a white man in Charleston, as calls mounted to take down the Confederate flag that flies in front of the South Carolina Statehouse, Graham stood up for the banner. “It works here,” he said.
But on Monday afternoon, Graham stood quietly beside Gov. Nikki Haley as she called for the flag to come down.
Call it a cave-in or a flip-flop or an evolution. In Pickens and Oconee counties, where Graham was raised and remains today, the people know him — firsthand or otherwise — and like him. Some resent him for turning on the flag. Most understand it. On race and Confederate heritage, they express the same mix of stubborn defensiveness, empathy and resignation that Graham has. In that way, he represents the people here. But he certainly isn’t leading them.
The battle standard still has its staunch defenders in Central. At the Wal-Mart on Calhoun Memorial Highway, Confederate memorabilia had already been cleared from the shelves on Friday, but the flag shone from the front license-plate holder of a Chevy pickup in the parking lot. The truck’s owner, Rita Haney, 28, said she wasn’t bowing to the flag’s opponents. She’s planning to fly a big one in her front yard, “just to piss them the f—- off.”
She expressed dismay that the group now includes her state’s senior senator. “My dad loved Lindsey Graham,” Haney said. “He would roll over in his grave.”
There were others in the diners and under the shade trees in and around the town whose support Graham has lost in the past week. “He went from being all right to a coward,” said Stanley, a 60-year-old logger wearing a National Tractor Pullers Association hat in a booth at Paw’s Diner in nearby Seneca, where Graham now lives.
At Margaret’s, another diner on another highway 10 miles away, 71-year-old waitress Betty Smith sat in another booth, breaking from work to chat with friend Betty Whitmire. She said she was so disgusted with the state’s leaders that she would stop voting, and that she couldn’t abide Graham’s change of course. “I don’t care what they do with the flag, but when you stand up and lie like that …,” she said.
But Whitmire expressed a more common sentiment. She still liked Graham. He had known her older brother, Leon, and showed up to his funeral as a congressman 14 years ago. She said she understood Graham’s decision to change course on the flag, even if she didn’t wholeheartedly endorse it.
Most white people around Central maintained the flag had nothing to do with the massacre in Charleston, even if it had become the cause of more trouble than it was worth. They said it didn’t stand for racism, even if the people who chose to display it (whom they described as “rednecks,” though not for attribution) were doing it to be racist. They said the flag at the Statehouse belonged “in a museum,” even if politicians’ “knee-jerk reaction” to the massacre was the wrong way to put it there.
If this moment presented Graham with an opportunity to lead the people of his native Upstate South Carolina out of a tangled thicket of contradictory feelings about race and heritage, he didn’t seize it. Instead, he only stayed out of change’s way. As events overtook lingering loyalties to the flag, Graham told NBC News this week, “I am not going to be part of stopping the progress of my state.”
That doesn’t surprise people who knew Graham in his youth. In the senator’s autobiography, he writes of himself as a child blessed with “the gift of gab,” but others remember him as more reserved.
“Lindsey wasn’t a popular kid. He wasn’t outspoken. He was real quiet,” said lifelong Central resident Jimmy Head, 63, sitting in the shade of a tree with his father, John, 83, outside the family home.
Jimmy Head grew up next door to Graham’s babysitter and his first memories of the senator are of a 5-year-old toddling over to shoot marbles on the dirt in their backyard and staying to play by himself long after the other kids had moved on to other games.
Head’s father, John, Central’s fire chief for 40 years, said he doesn’t believe the flag’s removal will change much or satisfy anybody. “That flag didn’t shoot them people,” he said. “To me, they agreed to take it off the [Statehouse] 15 years ago. You put it in a museum, in 15 years they’ll go and try to close down that museum. There ain’t no end.”
Back then, protesters led by the NAACP demanded the removal of the flag from the dome of the South Carolina Statehouse, where it had flown since the 1960s. In the resulting compromise, the flag was moved to a Confederate war memorial in front of the Statehouse, where it remains today.
At the time, Graham, still in the House, stood with the people in his district who felt a sentimental attachment to the flag.
“There is a guy out there named Bubba,” he said. ”He grew up when public schools got integrated. He goes to work every day. There are women and African-Americans in the workplace and he’s fine with that, but he thinks the whole world is against him and has rights he doesn’t have. He thinks the flag is the last thing he has going for him and he’s not going to take it down. I don’t want to step on Bubba’s feelings. There are no groups sticking up for the Bubbas of the world.”
Graham’s newfound support for the flag’s removal doesn’t change John Head’s approval of him. “He has a good attitude. I would think he would have a good opportunity to win the race. He’s well-knowledgeable,” said Head, who last ran into Graham at the Waffle House in neighboring Clemson, home of the university, on the Sunday before the Charleston shooting.
Al Cumbie, a former mayor of Central five years Graham’s senior, first knew the senator when he was a “little bitty thing.” He, too, recalls a “quiet” kid, though a loving one who took it upon himself to raise his teenage sister Darline when both of their parents died during his college years and Graham was struggling to pay Cumbie, also the town’s undertaker, for their funerals.
Smiley Garvin, 52, the owner of Uptown Barbers on the town’s main, and only, drag, said black people in Central look fondly on the Grahams. They were poorer than the town’s whites, but Lindsey’s father was good about extending them credit at his liquor store, and when Lindsey closed the store down after his father’s death, they still remember that he forgave the debts of people who had racked up tabs.
“I’m proud that he made the decision that he made,” Garvin said of Graham’s new stance, but he said South Carolina faces more pressing issues. “They could be spending time on something more beneficial than fussing over a flag. Like minimum wages. They should be fussing over that.”
After 20 years in Washington, Graham hasn’t strayed far from his roots here, said Cumbie. “You can see him in a Waffle House in blue jeans and a hat. You wouldn’t necessarily know that he’s a politician if you saw him out by himself.”
That endears him to people in South Carolina’s northwest corner. “He doesn’t take being a senator as something of power. He’s a pretty down-to-earth guy,” he said.
In other words, he’s not one to get way out ahead of his constituents. “I think he tries his best to be a statesman,” said Cumbie.
But in Charleston, at the funeral on Friday for the Rev. Clementa Pinckney, one of the shooting victims and a former state senator, it was Gov. Nikki Haley who was praised because she was “bold enough to declare, ‘Take it down.’” It was Charleston Mayor Joseph Riley whom President Barack Obama praised for “good and wise leadership.” Graham was acknowledged for his presence, to light applause.
Back in Paw’s Diner in Seneca, the late lunch stragglers paid little attention to the images of the funeral beamed by Fox News to the television behind the counter. For those caught up in the culture war, the Supreme Court’s decisions on Obamacare and gay marriage offered fresher ammunition. Most people, though, said they were none too eager to linger on issues of race and heritage, and happy to move on.
Bill Wright, 67, gave Graham’s role in the drama of the past two weeks a shrug. “He’s a politician,” said Wright, between bites of fried fish and cornbread. “That’s basically the size of it.”
Lindsey Graham’s Unique Way Of Handling A Voter’s Racist Comments // Buzzfeed // Rosie Grey – June 27, 2015
TAMA, Iowa — Lindsey Graham was in the full swing of his pitch to a group of potential voters gathered at a VFW hall in this small town an hour outside Des Moines on Saturday when, while he was talking about his relatively liberal stance on immigration, there came an unwelcome interruption.
“Towel heads,” grumbled a man sitting at the bar, sporting a denim shirt with the arms cut off. “Sand n*****s.”
Graham did what every candidate must in the age of smartphones and opposition trackers following a candidate anywhere he or she goes.
“I totally dissociate myself from this guy,” Graham said. “What I would say is that what he said is not who I am. I’m not running to be president to please this guy.” He then moved on and continued on taking questions from the other attendees.
At this early stage, running for president can be a weird thing — especially in these tiny, intimate gatherings where people are able to to speak their minds. In an earlier era, maybe before a woman once notoriously insisted to John McCain that Barack Obama was an Arab, Graham could probably have gotten away with ignoring the man; today, he had to act.
But Graham is also a long-shot candidate without much to lose, and his response ended up being different from the kind of tight-lipped, efficient shutdown one could imagine coming from someone for whom the stakes are higher. A few minutes after the exchange, Graham concluded his spiel to the 15 or so people assembled in the dark, low-ceilinged room by drawing a comparison between his own hardscrabble upbringing in a bar in small town South Carolina and people like the man who had issued the slurs.
“I’m tired of telling people things they want to hear that I don’t believe. I changed a long time ago as a politician. I was scared to death of going into a room to be disagreed with. I don’t feel that way anymore. I feel free. I feel able to tell you exactly what I believe and why I believe it,” Graham said.
“Put me on your list of people to consider, talk to a neighbor, and if you can support me, bring somebody to the caucus — that’s the only way I’m going to make it, is to have people like you buy into what I’m trying to do,” he said. “I grew up in a place just like this. This guy at the bar, I grew up with people just like him.”
Graham then took it a step further: The event had been billed as “Politics and Pool,” and he wanted to play pool with someone.
There was silence.
Finally, a couple guys suggested the very man who had offered the slurs — the one Graham himself had called out, twice. The man agreed to play, Graham shook his hand, and the men played pool. Graham won.
On the way out, BuzzFeed News asked Graham why he had played pool with the man.
“Because he was the only one that would play,” Graham said. “And I wanted to beat him. I was going to beat him if it’s the last thing I did in Iowa.”
Santorum denounces marriage ruling as Supreme Court decision dominates conservative gathering // AP // Kristen Wyatt – June 27, 2015
DENVER — Republican presidential hopeful Rick Santorum denounced the landmark same-sex marriage ruling Friday in a fiery speech to about 4,000 conservatives gathered in Denver.
The former Pennsylvania senator told the Western Conservative Summit that the Supreme Court’s decision making same-sex marriage the law of the land is “based on a lie.”
“We have a Supreme Court that says the only reason that you could possibly oppose changing marriage laws in America is because you hate people who want to marry people of the same sex. That is not true,” Santorum said. “It’s a decision based on a lie. Based on fundamental untruths.”
Santorum said he predicted a decade ago that gay marriage would be law nationwide without an amendment to the U.S. Constitution. He stopped short of calling for a fresh effort to amend the Cponstitution, but he said the nation needs to “heal” from the decision.
“My heart aches tonight. My heart aches tonight because that family unit has further been assaulted,” Santorum said.
The crowd applauded Santorum’s remarks and gave him a standing ovation. Santorum won Colorado’s GOP presidential caucuses in 2012 and 2008.
Santorum is one of six presidential hopefuls in Denver this weekend addressing the Western Conservative Summit.
Colorado’s presidential preference primaries are nonbinding and play little role in either party. But Colorado is a key battleground state in general elections, and presidential candidates frequently test campaign themes here.
Addressing the conference Saturday are Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and former Texas Gov. Rick Perry. Rounding out the slate are businesswoman Carly Fiorina, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and neurosurgeon Ben Carson.
Republican Sen. Rand Paul is visiting Colorado next week.
Outside Santorum’s remarks Friday, the Colorado Log Cabin Republicans manned a free booth given to them by the state party.
The gay Republican group sought to buy a booth from the Western Conservative Summit, organized by Colorado Christian University. The school denied their request, prompting the state party to invite them to share their booth.
“We really are part of the Republican Party, and we want to be part of the conversation,” said Log Cabin Republicans member Jeff Bjorlin.
Santorum Leads Off Speakers At Western Conservative Summit // AP – June 27, 2015
Five Republican presidential hopefuls are in Denver Saturday talking to a group of conservative activists.
The Western Conservative Summit is a gathering of about 4,000 conservatives. The crowd heard Friday speeches from tea party activists and GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum.
So far the gathering has concentrated on last week's Supreme Court rulings and what they mean for the GOP. The Court last week upheld President Obama's health care overhaul and made gay marriage legal in all 50 states.
Santorum, who won Colorado's GOP presidential caucuses in 2012 and 2008, said the gay marriage ruling was "based on a lie" that gay-marriage opponents are motivated by discrimination.
He's is one of seven presidential hopefuls in Denver this weekend addressing the Western Conservative Summit. Also attending the conference are Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and former Texas Gov. Rick Perry. Rounding out the slate are businesswoman Carly Fiorina, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and neurosurgeon Ben Carson.
In addition to Walker, the crowd is hearing Saturday speeches from GOP presidential hopefuls Ben Carson, Carly Fiorina, Mike Huckabee and Rick Perry.
Rick Santorum: Justice Kennedy Is “Potentially Disrupting The Foundation Of The World.” // Buzzfeed News // Andrew Kaczynski – June 27, 2015
Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum says the Supreme Court decision on Friday ruling bans on same-sex marriage are unconstitutional is “potentially disrupting the foundation of the world.”
Santorum, who is running for the Republican presidential nomination, said he wasn’t surprised at the ruling, citing the previous ruling from the court striking down the Defense of Marriage of Act. He called Friday a “very sad day.”
“Justice Kennedy said — this is remarkable but listen to it — the only reason that any could oppose gay marriage is because they hated gays and lesbians. Which is almost stops you in your tracks,” Santorum said.
“That five thousand years of human history, a biblically-given thing that God somehow gave us marriage as a man and woman, that that was, that somehow that was intrinsically about hating other people. Which is very, very sad to see how the culture’s changed and how this one man, this is it, this one man, this one man, a 5-4 decision is going to try to affect the basic foundation of America, and frankly, now, with America leading the way, potentially disrupting the foundation of the world.”
Santorum said the next thing to do after the court ruling was to fight to be able “to even to talk about it,” because people will try to “silence any disagreement.” He said it was not time “to move on,” because then they would lose ground in arguing for religious liberty.
“There’s no slippery slope here,” the former Pennsylvania senator added, “religious liberty is under assault today, not going to be, it is, and it’s going to be even more so as we say with this decision.”
“Now that this is the law of the land,” he said. “The question is going to be whether we are going to allow people to actually dissent on this or whether if they are going to be treated as the proponents of this position have advocated: this is a civil rights position and if you oppose this you’re the equivalent a racist back in the 50s and 60s.”
Santorum suggest churches and others who dissent could lose the privileges of tax benefits.
Huckabee, Other GOP Hopefuls Slam Gay Marriage Ruling // AP – June 28, 2015
DENVER — Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee told conservatives Saturday that the Supreme Court tried to "unwrite the laws of nature and the laws of nature's God" when it legalized gay marriage across the nation.
The former Arkansas governor suggested that people in the United States flout the ruling, as President Abraham Lincoln did in the wake of the justices' 1857 decision that blacks could not be citizens. Huckabee also pointed out that President Barack Obama opposed gay marriage until 2012.
"He was either lying in 2008, or he's lying now, or God has rewritten the Bible and only Barack Obama has gotten the new edition," Huckabee told the crowd at the Western Conservative Summit.
Huckabee was among the GOP presidential hopefuls at the gathering, which followed a week in which the high court also upheld Obama's signature health care law. The Republicans offered few suggestions on what to do about the gay marriage ruling, highlighting the party's challenges on social issues ahead of the 2016 elections.
Joining Huckabee at the conference was Republican hopeful Carly Fiorina, who said she supports civil unions. She said opponents of the ruling should now focus efforts on religious freedom in public accommodations, such as cases of bakers facing penalties for refusing to serve gay couples.
Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry derided the ruling but didn't suggest a next step.
"These decisions need to be made in the states," said Perry, who noted that his states' rights plank extends even to Colorado legalizing recreational marijuana in defiance of federal drug law.
"I defend the right of Colorado to be wrong on that issue," Perry said. The crowd chuckled.
Scheduled to conclude the gathering Saturday was Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, who has called for a constitutional amendment to undo the marriage ruling.
On Friday, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum said the gay marriage ruling was "based on a lie" that gay-marriage opponents are motivated by discrimination.
"We have a Supreme Court that says the only reason that you could possibly oppose changing marriage laws in America is because you hate people who want to marry people of the same sex. That is not true," Santorum said.
Mike Huckabee: Conservatives can ignore gay marriage ruling like Lincoln ignored Dred Scott // The Washington Times // Valerie Richardson – June 27, 2015
DENVER — Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee suggested Saturday that conservatives treat the Supreme Court’s gay marriage decision like Abraham Lincoln treated the high court’s pro-slavery ruling in Dred Scott: Ignore it.
“They can do same thing that Abraham Lincoln did about the Dred Scott decision of 1857,” Mr. Huckabee said at the Western Conservative Summit. “The Dred Scott decision said that African-Americans were not fully human, that they need not be treated as fully human.”
“He [Lincoln] simply ignored the ruling and said, ‘That’s not correct,’ ” Mr. Huckabee said. “And by the way, it may sound like, ‘Oh, that’s an extreme position.’ Actually, it’s a constitutional position. Here’s why: If we acquiesce immediately without review, without the other branches of government, it goes back to my point, that this is judicial tyranny.”
He also said he wanted to warn his liberal friends — “both of them,” he joked — that an activist court can swing the other way.
When that happens, “I hope they remember their jubilation,” Mr. Huckabee said.
The Republican presidential hopeful and former Fox News host took a jab at President Obama for reversing his past opposition to same-sex marriage.
“If he has so radically changed his view and now he believes that same-sex marriage is the best thing that could happen to this country, one of three things is true: He was either lying in 2008, he’s lying now, or God rewrote the Bible and Barack Obama is the only one who got the new edition,” Mr. Huckabee said to applause and laughter.
Mr. Huckabee is one of six would-be GOP presidential nominees scheduled to speak at the three-day conference hosted by the Centennial Institute at the Colorado Convention Center.
Huckabee: Supreme Court is an ‘extreme court’ // The Hill // Martin Matishak – June 27, 2015
Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (R) on Saturday skewered the Supreme Court for ruling to legalize same-sex marriage and preserve Obamacare, saying the decisions could lead to "judicial tyranny."
“Over the last couple of days, our country has seen two of the most blatant, disturbing, disgusting examples of judicial activism in the history of these United States,” the 2016 presidential candidate said in a speech during the second day of the Western Conservative Summit in Denver.
“We don’t have a Supreme Court, we have an extreme court,” he added. “We have a court that think it’s not just the Supreme Court, they thinks they are the supreme branch” of government.
“They are not the supreme branch and they are most certainly not the supreme being that can unwrite the laws of nature and the laws of nature’s god, which is exactly what they’ve attempted to do this week,” according to Huckabee.
He urged the audience not to “bow and worship at the alter of judicial supremacy.”
Huckabee said letting the court overrule the two other branches of government and election decisions opens the door to “something very dangerous to our way of life and our great republic: Judicial tyranny where the people no longer rule, five unelected black-robed lawyers rule.”
He said the decision should be up to local and state governments and suggested conservatives simply ignore the ruling, likening it to President Lincoln’s choice not to respect the court’s Dred Scott decision regarding slavery.
Without review by the legislative and executive branches, the court essentially chose to “reach out into thin air and created a law,” according to Huckabee.
He also warned liberals who have celebrated the decision, including the Obama administration, which lit up the White House Friday night with gay-pride colors, to “remember their jubilation” because “someday there may be a conservative court” that reverses the decision.
Carly Fiorina on Obamacare: Rich getting richer, while middle-class getting squeezed // The Washington Times // Valerie Richardson – June 27, 2015
DENVER — Obamacare is fueling “crony capitalism” by driving out small providers and ensuring that only the largest insurance companies and hospitals can survive, says Republican presidential contender Carly Fiorina.
The former CEO of Hewlett-Packard, Ms. Fiorina said Saturday that the Affordable Care Act has made the tax and regulatory codes so complicated that only the biggest, richest businesses can afford to grapple with the details.
“Why does Obamacare have to be repealed?” said Ms. Fiorina at the Western Conservative Summit. “Not just because it’s failing by every measure — emergency room visits are up over 20 percent, insurance premiums are up over 35 percent, we’re dumping people into Medicaid, there aren’t enough doctors in Medicaid any more — we’re not serving people.”
The ACA “is so many thousands of pages, literally tens of thousands of pages, that what do you see happening right now? Insurance companies consolidating. Big merger announced last week. Hospitals consolidating. Drug companies consolidating. The big are getting bigger to handle big government. That’s what’s happening,” she said.
The result is that “the wealthy are getting wealthier,” and “the small, the powerless, the start-ups are getting crushed,” Ms. Fiorina said.
“Crony capitalism is alive and well now, and the reason for that is when you have big complicated government, only the big, the powerful, the wealthy, the well-connected can deal with it,” she said.
Ms. Fiorina spoke and signed copies of her recently released book, “Rising to the Challenge: My Leadership Journey,” at the summit, which runs through Sunday at the Colorado Convention Center.
Fiorina: Marriage is 'grounded in spirituality' // The Hill // Mark Hensch – June 27, 2015
GOP presidential candidate Carly Fiorina on Saturday said the Supreme Court’s legalization of same-sex marriage nationwide ignores religious history across most world faiths.
The former Hewlett-Packard CEO argued history has almost always defined marriage as the coupling of one man with one woman on spiritual grounds.
“Marriage is an institution grounded in spirituality,” she told listeners at the Western Conservative Summit 2015 in Denver.
“For millennia, through every religion in the world, marriage has meant a very specific thing,” Fiorina said.
“That is very different from five Supreme Court justices saying, ‘We’re going to tell you what marriage is,’ ” she added.
The Supreme Court ruled in a landmark 5-4 decision Friday that all states must recognize same-sex marriages under the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause.
Fiorina said Saturday their decision stole an opportunity from Americans to organically decide the issue themselves.
“We saw over the last couple days an incredible example of judicial overreach,” she said of the Supreme Court’s multiple rulings earlier this week.
“We saw an example of people giving in to politics and giving up on principles,” she said, criticizing the Supreme Court as “activist judges.”
“I am sorry the Supreme Court took up this case,” Fiorina added. “I think it was best left up to the states and the people to continue this discussion.”
Fiorina said her reaction to Obergefell v. Hodges’ decision did not mean she opposes same-sex relationships.
She argued a better balance is possible between gay and religious rights.
“I have always been supportive of civil unions,” she said, citing moves made during her tenure at Hewlett-Packard.
“I don’t think government should discriminate in the provision of benefits.”
The ex-technology executive argued Republicans should practice greater inclusiveness towards potential voters.
Fiorina said any inability to connect with Americans could cost her party the presidential election in 2016.
“We have to talk to everyone,” she said. “Our tone matters. Our language matters.”
“We cannot be judgmental, we have to be empathetic,” Fiorina added.
Fiorina argued that as president, she would help Americans realize their shared capability for achieving great things.
“Here, in this nation, every individual has the right to fulfill their potential,” she said.
“Our Founders knew that everybody has God-given gifts,” Fiorina added. “That right comes from God and cannot be taken away by man or government.”
Carly Fiorina fired up conservatives at Western Summit // The Gazette // Megan Schrader – June 27, 2015
The former CEO of the technology giant Hewlett-Packard wowed a crowd at the Western Conservative Summit in Denver Saturday with her pitch for president.
Her fire and brimstone preaching of a keep-it-simple-stupid approach to governing had the crowd on its feet.
Carly Fiorina hit foreign policy hard in her short speech at the Denver Convention Center.
"The truth is I know more world leaders on the stage today than anyone else running with the possible exception of Hillary Clinton, only I didn’t do photo ops," Fiorina said. "I had a private meeting with Vladimir Putin, a private meeting with Bibi Netanyahu a private meeting with the king of Jordan, a private meeting with the leaders of Saudi Arabia, South Africa, China, Brazil."
Fiorina said on her first day in office she'd call Benjamin (Bibi) Netanyahu and show the world what a true ally the United States is. The crowd erupted.
She said she'd draw a hard line in the sand for Iran - the new deal would be access to all nuclear facilities or face crippling economic sanctions.
"Ladies and gentlemen we can defeat ISIS our allies will help us but we must lead," she said.
Fiorina was one of the most talked about speakers at the conference. Coming from a non-political background (like presidential hopeful Ben Carson who will speak tonight) Fiorina has the draw of the unknown.
Bob Beauprez, the unsuccessful Republican nominee for governor in 2014, said "Carly just knocked it out of the park."
"She's a remarkable talent," Beauprez said, adding that there are a whole list of steller conservatives running this year and it'll be a hard decision.
Hispanic leaders urge NBC to cut ties to Donald Trump // CNN // Brian Stelter – June 27, 2015
In a statement on Saturday, the National Hispanic Leadership Agenda simultaneously applauded Univision's decision to sever ties with Trump and urged NBC to "follow Univision's lead."
Members of the coalition, NHLA for short, include business, media, and cultural advocacy groups like the National Council of La Raza, the United States Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, Presente.org and the National Hispanic Media Coalition.
It called on NBCUniversal to "withdraw from airing the Miss USA pageant and terminate its financial ties to Donald Trump."
Univision similarly canceled its airing of Miss USA, slated for July 12, in the wake of Trump's offensive remarks about Mexican immigrants. Trump, now a presidential candidate, has called Mexicans "rapists" and "killers," among other things.
Univision's decision was announced on Thursday. The network had a long-term contract with Trump to televise Miss USA and Miss Universe, and Trump has threatened to sue over the breach of contract.
NBC's ties with Trump have since come under scrutiny. NBCUniversal owns half of the pageant business while Trump owns the rest. So NBC is not just a broadcaster of Miss USA, it's a business partner of The Trump Organization.
CNNMoney reported on Friday that NBC is reviewing its contracts with Trump. For now the network has distanced itself from the candidate's offensive comments but said nothing about the business venture or the upcoming broadcast.
One of the coalition members, Felix Sanchez, chairman of the National Hispanic Foundation for the Arts, said Univision's decision "is civil rights leadership in the digital age."
He said, "We implore NBCU to follow Univision's lead and take a similar stance and sever their financial relationship with Mr. Trump, in light of the bigoted way he has denigrated Mexicans and Mexican-Americans."
An representative of NBC, which is owned by Comcast (CCV), declined to comment on Saturday.
Donald Trump Pushes Forward in Iowa Despite Republican Party Concern // ABC News // Benjamin Siegel – June 27, 2015
Donald Trump attended two events in Iowa Saturday, continuing his campaign push in the state despite drawing concern from the Republican party over his recent comments about Mexican immigrants.
The real estate mogul appeared at a reception at the John Wayne Birthplace and Museum ahead of headlining the Madison County GOP Dinner.
Republican National Committee Chair Reince Priebus admits that Trump’s comments were “not helpful to the party." But the party won’t condemn the presidential candidate or ban him from the first primary debate due to his comments, Priebus said.
"We're going to run a fair, clean primary system, which includes a debate process that's up front and clear to people," Priebus said Friday regarding Trump. “Whichever candidates make that process cutoff, those people are going to be on the stage."
Trump said Mexican immigrants were bringing "drugs," "crime" and "rapists" to the U.S. when announcing his candidacy earlier this month.
"Not everything is going to be a hundred percent copacetic all the time," said Priebus, who commissioned a report after the 2012 election that determined the Republican party needed to improve its outreach to Hispanic voter. "But again, it's not my decision to decide who the nominee is and who we're going to support."
Trump, 69, is among the top 10 Republican presidential candidates in a number of recent polls, which puts him on pace to qualify for the first two Republican primary debates in the presidential cycle later this year.
Many party members are concerned the business mogul, who has not been afraid to criticize fellow Republicans as a candidate, would serve as a distraction in the primary process.
Spanish language television network Univison ended its Miss Universe pageant relationship with Trump's business interests after his immigrant comments. He has since banned the company and its leaders from using his hotel and golf course in Doral, Florida.
Donald Trump is even more of a monster than you think: Why his golf courses are environmental disasters // Salon // Lindsay Abrams – June 27, 2015
Here in the United States, Donald Trump gets a lot of flak for the many, many things you can hardly believe he said: claiming that a cold day disproves the reality of global warming, for example, or, more recently, declaring that most Mexican immigrants are “rapists.”
Trump’s no less loathed in Scotland. There, however, the problem is less about what Trump says, and more about what he’s actually done — run roughshod over protected dunes to build an elite golf course, attack an offshore wind energy project because it “ruined” his view, cajole politicians into supporting his every whim. He’s also run into trouble for the promises he’s failed to keep — when the deal ultimately went sour, he flew off in his private jet, leaving behind none of the economic prosperity he’d sworn the project would create. His fate as one of the country’s top villains was sealed with Anthony Baxter’s 2011 documentary, “You’ve Been Trumped,” which documented a saga so egregious it inspired a folk song, and made such waves that Trump finally agreed to sit down with Baxter on camera.
That interview could be read as the climax of Baxter’s newest documentary, “A Dangerous Game,” which picks up where the last left off. But Trump knows how to hold his own against angry activists — or, at least, he knows how to deflect their questions. With no evidence to back himself up, he explains at one point that he himself is a “great environmentalist.” The film’s more alarming revelation is that it’s not just Trump: elitist billionaires, in Baxter’s telling, have co-opted golf, creating vast artificial environments for play that strain local resources and shut out all but the wealthy, and which all too often subvert democracy. This plays out as tragedy in Dubrovnik, Croatia — a World Heritage Site — where residents’ efforts to keep out a golf resort result in the passing of a local referendum with an 84 percent majority, only to see the project green-lighted anyway.
Salon spoke with Baxter about the golf industry’s need to embrace a more sustainable model, and about his continued pursuit of America’s would-be 45th president. This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.
To start, it would be great to hear about how you went from this one local Donald Trump story, and then branched out into this larger problem of elite golf courses.
It was through taking it to communities that really led me to make this film, because people kept saying to me at screenings around the world that they were having the same type of thing happening to them in their communities. It’s not always Donald Trump, but it’s people like him. That was really the journey I set out on.
I also wanted to focus in on the ludicrous situation of these golf courses being built in places like the California desert, for example, which has experienced the worst drought in history. And when you consider that the average golf course uses 312,000 gallons of water per day, and the average American family of four uses 400 gallons/day, it really is shocking, the scale of this stuff. I wanted to explore how our planet cannot afford these gated, super-luxury resorts for very wealthy people like Donald Trump, yet they keep being built in places that are so unsustainable.
Donald Trump recently announced plans to build a new golf course designed by Tiger Woods in Dubai, and it’s just crazy. I don’t think anybody could make a case as to why, environmentally, that is a sound idea. They’re so vulnerable as well to an economic downturn, as we’ve seen: the first golf course of Tiger Woods’ design of the desert in Dubai has now been reclaimed by the desert because the whole plan went belly up.
So yes, it was a case of wanting to explore that, but also to continue to tell the story of what was happening in Scotland, because, despite having had the first film on the BBC, where there is a real backlash against Donald Trump, his organization, and the way they had treated those local people, I was so shocked to find that that treatment was continuing, even after that. So 90 year-old Molly Forbes still didn’t have a proper working water supply several years after Donald Trump’s work was cut off while building the golf course, and there were still mounds of earth being built next to the residents’ homes and Donald Trump was telling the media that he was treating them well. I think that those things were really the powerful driver to want to continue to follow the story.
You really have a clear-cut villain in this one of Trump. I keep thinking back to that image of Molly carrying the water up from her well to wash her dishes …
Yes, I think the problem with Donald Trump, and the reason these late-night chat shows have so much fun with him, are the inflammatory things he says. Just take his comments about Mexico sending rapists and drugs dealers and crime into the U.S., and his big idea to build a Berlin Wall-style barrier between the two countries. That, of course, allows people to have a laugh about those ridiculous ideas, but the point is, as we show in the film, that it’s not just what he says that is bad and dangerous, but it’s what he does.
In Scotland, he claimed that he was going to be creating 6,000 jobs, and he invested one and a half billion dollars into what he claimed was going to be the greatest golf course in the world. Now, that was 10 years ago, and to date we have one golf course built, we have less than 200 jobs created, we have tens of millions of dollars having been invested, and not the $1.5 billion — which was such a stupid number under any scrutiny. But the Scottish government believed his promises, and that’s also part of the problem with this whole thing, because we look to our governments to protect us from these kinds of developments, and the Scottish government completely failed in this case to protect a site of special scientific interest, which was supposed to be protected for future generations to enjoy, and that’s now been lost because of the golf course built there.
Donald Trump has now stabilized the dunes, he’s nailed them down, so that they don’t move and shift as nature intended. He’s built a golf course, which is for wealthy people to play, and he had plans to build another one, which he pulled the plug on after the Scottish government won the battle against him over the wind farm which he took great umbrage over.
The things that he does that we document in the film are simply dangerous and worrying, and I hope as many people as possible in the United States can see the film. Even seeing those polling numbers Tuesday, where he’s polling No. 2 in New Hampshire, you have to ask yourself: Do people really know what he does? They enjoy his entertainment value, maybe, but take a look at this film and you’ll see what he actually does.
About those ridiculous things he says: As somebody who’s confronted Donald Trump a few times, and then being finally able to sit and talk with him, did you get the impression that he kind of plays dumb as part of a strategy he uses for getting away with things?
Yes, well, he’s used to inviting people up to the boardroom in Trump Towers for interviews, and the first question I’ll ask is about his hair, which he obviously loves. But the point is, it’s that kind of deflection that’s the real problem. He’ll make points to journalists that they’ll just repeat as facts, and that’s what’s so concerning.
In the Scottish case, for example, he said he was going to be investing $1.5 billion and clearly wasn’t. The thing is, he’s such an expert at manipulating the media, and he also has access to the airwaves and the lawyers that ordinary people don’t have; he just needs to jump onto Fox and Friends for anything he wants to say, and it’ll just be believed. It’s a very, very worrying situation. Yes, it’s entertaining, but it’s concerning that a man who thinks he stands a chance of becoming the next president of the United States could be making such ludicrous claims and saying such inflammatory things on prime-time television.
Donald Trump Presidential Campaign Dissected By Bill Maher And Panel // Deadline // Lisa de Moraes – June 27, 2015
Real estate mogul/reality TV Star/beauty pageant co-owner/GOP presidential candidate Trump is “the Frankenstein monster,” created by the Tea Party, who isn’t going away any time soon, Bill Maher pronounced last night on his HBO late night show Real Time. “He never apologizes – he’s never wrong, no matter what crazy thing he says. He’s the white Kanye,” Maher added for good measure. “For a party whose base adores belligerence, this is The Guy.”
Most recently, Trump’s been in the news when Univision announced it would not broadcast the Miss USA Pageant, which his organization co-owns with NBC, owing to comments Trump made about Mexico in announcing his White House bid.
Republican pollster Kristen Soltis Anderson, joining Maher in his show’s panel discussion, said the problem Trump is going to have is that he is viewed unfavorably by 3/4 of Republicans. Guess how long into the chat it took her to blame the media for Trump’s current polling numbers?
“I indict the media on this one. Because any time Trump does anything looney he gets so, so much press. He holds a press [conference] to be The Birther In Chief, and everybody goes and watches,” she scolded.
“He’s the guy on The Bachelorette you don’t want to see kicked off the show,” chimed in panelist Judd Apatow.
Hispanic Group Pressures NBC to Dump Donald Trump // Hollywood Reporter // Ryan Gajewski – June 27, 2015
Spanish-language network Univision cut ties with the mogul's Miss Universe Organization on Thursday.
The National Hispanic Leadership Agenda issued a statement Saturday calling on NBC to cut ties to the Miss Universe Organization, which counts Donald Trump as a part-owner.
The National Hispanic Leadership Agenda issued a statement Saturday calling on NBC to cut ties to the Miss Universe Organization, which counts Donald Trump as a part-owner.
The coalition of 39 different Latino advocacy groups praised Univision for ending its Miss Universe deal Thursday following Trump's disparaging remarks about Mexican-Americans. In his speech earlier this month announcing his presidential campaign, Trump said that immigrants from Mexico are "bringing crime" and are "rapists."
"Aspirants to the highest office in the land must not use a national electoral platform to spew venomous speech about Mexican immigrants and Mexican-Americans," said NHLA chair and Labor Council for Latin American Advancement executive director Hector Sanchez. "As a Mexican immigrant to this country, I can personally attest to the falsity of Donald Trump's statements."
Felix Sanchez, chairman and co-founder of the National Hispanic Foundation for the Arts, said: "Univision Communications’ courageous action to sever ties with both the Miss USA and Miss Universe Pageants — which are partly owned by Donald Trump — is civil rights leadership in the digital age. We implore NBCU to follow Univision’s lead and take a similar stance and sever their financial relationship with Mr. Trump, in light of the bigoted way he has denigrated Mexicans and Mexican-Americans."
In a letter directed at Univision president Randy Falco on Friday, Trump responded to Univision ending its deal by stating that Univision's employees and representatives are not to step foot on Trump National Doral property.
The Miss Universe pageant is set to air July 12 on NBC.
Scott Walker gives shout-out to Colorado Springs during Denver speech // Gazette // Megan Shrader – June 27, 2015
DENVER - Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, an all-but-announced 2016 presidential candidate, shouted out to his birthplace - Colorado Springs - Saturday night before thousands at the Western Conservative Summit in Denver.
Walker, who headlined the three-day event, said his father was a preacher at a Baptist church in downtown Colorado Springs.
Senate President Bill Cadman, R-Colorado Springs, introduced Walker, touting Walker's ability to beat back an effort to recall him from office after sweeping employment reforms that some considered anti-union became law.
"They were trying to intimidate us. I'm proud to tell you tonight that we were not intimidated. We took the power out of the hands of big special interests," Walker said.
He said thousands of protestors arrived at his home, and that was the origination of the Occupy Wall Street movement.
"My apologies for starting that," he said.
"Our reforms not only changed unions in our state, we were able to change our economic status," he said, adding that unemployment levels dropped, labor participation rates rose and the economy recovered.
Walker was well received by all but one man in the crowd who interrupted his response to a question by yelling out in the darkened theater. The man asked Walker to talk about immigration and then continued yelling until police removed him.
Walker's speech capped a day of speeches in which several GOP presidential candidates ticked through their plans.
Earlier in the day, the even-tempered Ben Carson, with his subtle jokes and stabs, methodically laid out his complex plans for such things as overcoming the unfunded liability for Medicaid and Social Security and fixing the Affordable Care Act.
"The longer you allow it to grow the deeper the pain, the more difficult it will be to fix it," Carson said, noting that France had to cut benefits and raise the retirement age to bail out its benefits.
Carson, a retired renowned neurosurgeon whose rise from poverty story is the subject of a Cuba Gooding Jr. movie, has never held political office and is considered a long shot for the office.
"People say to me you're a doctor and you've had an illustrious career why would you sully that with politics, and I asked myself the same thing too," Carson said. He proposed a hiatus of corporate taxes to allow trillions in off-shore tax-sheltered dollars to come home with the stipulation that 10 percent must be used for job creation.
When it comes to Obamacare, Carson envisions using Health Savings Accounts to the level that ordinary people can self-insure and then would only need to purchase insurance for catastrophes.
Carson won the straw poll in 2014 at the Western Conservative Summit and some said it was likely he would win again. Attendees of the conference were asked for their presidential pick and the results will be tallied Sunday.
Carly Fiorina, the former CEO of the technology-giant Hewlett-Packard, was one of the most anticipated speakers Saturday and she did not disappoint.
Carole Cruson, 72, of Golden came last year and returned to see Rick Santorum, the Pennsylvania Senator who is giving the White House a second shot, on Friday night.
She's particularly excited about Carly Fiorina, however.
"I just think she's the most well-spoken person I've heard," Cruson said. "She's an articulate woman with great poise."
Even Bob Beauprez, Colorado's retired congressman who ran for governor in 2014, was impressed with Fiorina, calling her a great talent.
Fiorina hit foreign policy hard in her short speech at the Denver Convention Center.
"The truth is I know more world leaders on the stage today than anyone else running with the possible exception of Hillary Clinton, only I didn't do photo ops," Fiorina said. "I had a private meeting with Vladimir Putin, a private meeting with Bibi Netanyahu, a private meeting with the king of Jordan, a private meeting with the leaders of Saudi Arabia, South Africa, China, Brazil."
Fiorina said on her first day in office she'd call Benjamin (Bibi) Netanyahu and show the world what a true ally the United States is. The crowd erupted.
Addressing her weak point, Fiorina said she did what she needed to do at HP and is proud of her record even though it included layoffs.
She said sometimes you have to make tough decisions to live to fight another day.
Long-time Texas Gov. Rick Perry brought on his southern drawl and charm for his animated stump speech Saturday afternoon. Perry ran down how the Texas economy flourished under his leadership.
"We believe that if you're free from overtaxation and overregulation, if you're free from over litigation, if you've got accountable public schools in place where you've got a skilled workforce, there is nothing you can't accomplish," Perry said.
Perry ran in 2012 and lost in his primary pursuit. When asked why he was more animated Saturday than he had been four years ago, Perry said it's good to be healthy.
"There are already 13 or 14 in, so who knows how many are going to get into this thing. But any of you who are thinking about it, don't have major back surgery," Perry joked.
Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee joked that he plans to raise more money this time around than in 2008 when he failed to win the GOP presidential ticket.
He laid out his plan to reform the tax plan, get rid of the IRS and move to a "fair tax." Instead of taxing income the nation should tax at the moment of consumption, he said.
"It no longer punishes people for their productivity and rewards them for their irresponsibility," Huckabee said. "I was raised with the idea that we ought to reward people who work, who save, who invest and who leave something behind for the next generation and yet our government, our current tax code punishes every one of those activities."
Former U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum mentioned a fair tax during his speech Friday night at the event sponsored by the Lakewood-based Colorado Christian University. It's the sixth annual "Rally on the Right" and arguably the biggest year. It concludes Sunday with the straw poll.
Scott Walker in Colorado to address conservative summit // Milwaukee Wisconsin Journal – Sentinel – June 27, 2015
Gov. Scott Walker is scheduled to speak Saturday night at the Western Conservative Summit in Denver.
At the event, Wisconsin's Republican governor and likely 2016 presidential candidate will be doing a question-and-answer session with conservative radio talk show host Hugh Hewitt.
Walker will be joined by other GOP presidential hopefuls, including former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina, former Texas Gov. Rick Perry, and Dr. Ben Carson.
The gathering brings together about 4,000 conservatives at the Colorado Convention Center in Denver.
It comes in the wake of a landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling Friday that extended same-sex marriage rights nationwide.
Walker deemed the decision a "grave mistake," and called for amending the U.S. Constitution to allow states to ban gay marriage.
Walker plans to launch his bid for the presidency next month. He said earlier this week he plans to announce his plans the week of July 13, a date previously reported by Daniel Bice of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
Much of the talk among conservatives in Denver so far has concentrated on that ruling, as well as another released Thursday upholding President Barack Obama's health care overhaul.
Chris Christie Sets Up Campaign Web Site Before Expected Presidential Run // WSJ // Heather Haddon – June 27, 2015
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie launched a presidential campaign website Saturday, another signal that he soon will enter the Republican primary race.
The website, www.chrischristie.com, includes Mr. Christie’s slogan, “Telling it Like it Is,” a phrase he’s used in town-hall meetings he’s held in recent weeks in early primary states.
Mr. Christie is been expected to hold an event Tuesday to mark his formal entry into the race. He would be the 14th major Republican in the primary field.
The new website states that it was paid for by Chris Christie for President Inc. Earlier, Mr. Christie had paid for political activities through a leadership political-action committee, Leadership Matters for America. He also has a super PAC, America Leads, that has been raising funds.
Once Mr. Christie officially announces a bid, the super PAC can’t coordinate activities with his campaign.
The governor had said he would wait to announce his decision on a 2016 candidacy until after the state’s budget was set. On Friday, Mr. Christie signed a $34 billion budget that vetoed tax increases and extended a credit to working families.
On Tuesday morning, Mr. Christie is set to “host a special announcement event at Livingston High School,” his alma mater, according to a news release. He will then travel to New Hampshire for an event in which he will take unscripted questions from voters.
Mr. Christie is expected to hold campaign events in New Hampshire through Independence Day.
The governor got his start in politics in the suburban Livingston High School, where he was class president.
The public school is also the alma mater of David Wildstein, the former Port Authority of New York and New Jersey official and Christie aide who pleaded guilty in May to charges related to the George Washington Bridge lane closure scandal.
Mr. Christie was in the class behind Mr. Wildstein. He has distanced himself from his former ally since the lane closure scandal came to light last year.
Asked if there were concerns about using the same high school Mr. Wildstein attended for the presidential announcement, an aide to Mr. Christie said they weren’t worried about it.
Chris Christie Unveils Presidential Campaign Website // Bloomberg // Elizabeth Titus – June 27, 2015
New Jersey Governor Chris Christie on Saturday unveiled a presidential campaign website ahead of his formal kickoff Tuesday.
The slogan “Telling It Like It Is” appears on the site, a nod to the Republican's reputation for blunt talk in a state dominated by Democrats. A disclaimer says “Paid for by Chris Christie for President, Inc.” He posted a link to the site from his verified Twitter account.
A “special announcement event” is set for Tuesday at 11 a.m. local time at Livingston High School in Christie's hometown, said a press release from his campaign on Saturday. That evening, he plans to hold a town hall-style meeting—a staple format of his time as governor—in Sandown, New Hampshire, according to the release.
Christie will become the 14th candidate to join the Republican presidential primary contest for 2016, after months of travel to early-voting states and a stint as Republican Governors Association chairman that took him around the country to raise funds and campaign for others following his decision not to join the 2012 presidential race.
Chris Christie Launches Campaign Website Three Days Before His Announcement // National Journal // Nora Kelly – June 27, 2015
If the trips to New Hampshire and leaked announcement invitations weren't big enough clues, Chris Christie is in for 2016.
Like several other campaigns this cycle, Christie's team went for a digital-first approach ahead of any formal announcement: The New Jersey governor launched a campaign website on Saturday, just three days before he's expected to announce his White House bid from the gym of his high school alma mater in Livingston, N.J.
He signaled the site's launch in a series of tweets Saturday morning.
The simply designed ChrisChristie.com is emblazoned with his signature "Telling It Like It Is" slogan, has areas to sign up for the campaign and donate, and includes links to social media. (There's no cheeky 404 page just yet.)
Christie has been teasing a presidential run for months, making trips to Iowa and holding multiple town halls in New Hampshire. Just two days ago, he said on a New Jersey radio program that "there's been absolutely no final decision made by me."
Christie has some hurdles to climb: In his home state, his approval rating is at an all-time low at 30 percent. And as the 14th Republican to jump into the race, several of his fellow candidates are months of campaigning ahead of him.
Will Christie have enough campaign cash for his 2016 White House run? // NJ // Claude Brodesser-Akner – June 28, 2015
TRENTON — Gov. Chris Christie will declare his intent to seek the presidency on Tuesday, but he's been competing in the "invisible primary" for months now.
While not an officially sanctioned contest, it's considered the time from when a candidate shows interest in running for president and when voters start pulling levers for them during primaries. And it's a crucial period to raise money and make friends among the GOP's donor class.
But something funny happened in the last six months, according to Christie.
"Jeb Bush's strategy failed," said the governor, speaking on his monthly call-in radio show last week. "I mean, Jeb's strategy was to get in in December of 2014, and to intimidate people out of the race. Right? I mean, he was talking about all the money he was going to raise, and how it was the Bush name, and he was going to dominate. Well that hasn't happened. In fact, quite the opposite. In some ways, it's been a magnet."
The fact that the GOP field is the largest since Abraham Lincoln may have changed the monetary calculus for Christie, according to some of the donors supporting his run. They say rather than taking on one big-money candidate such as Bush, Christie will simply need enough to compete with the crowd of over a dozen, at least for now.
Christie's campaign, which went live on Saturday ahead of an formal announcement Tuesday, won't say officially just how much cash is needed But top Christie donor Al Hill, Jr. — the Texas oilman who's the grandson of billionaire H. L. Hunt — told NJ Advance Media: "My understanding is $20 million needs to be raised between now and the first of December."
Because federal election law limits the amount an individual can give to a federal candidate or a candidate's committee to $2,700 per election, and $5,000 per year to a political action committee, "obviously raising $20 million at $2,700 (per person) is a big road to get up," said Hill.
As the 14th contender to enter the race, Christie may be late in getting in the game, but that might have been by design. The real reason why Christie has waited so long, Hill says, likely has to do with those federal campaign finance laws just mentioned: As soon as he's a candidate, he won't be allowed to coordinate with his super-PAC, America Leads, and, as of only today, can't ask for contributions in excess of $2,700 to it once he's a candidate.
"The actual campaign fund (caps) start when you're an announced candidate – that's why a lot of people may have waited," said Hill, "To let the PACs raise as much as they can before they become announced candidates."
That actual campaign as begun as Christie began accepting donations for his presidential run on Saturday. His supporters say their efforts were already going well prior to the formal announcement. Bobbie Kilberg, president of the Northern Virginia Technology Council says her May 14 Virginia fundraiser for Christie's PAC raised $180,000.
"My next phase of fundraising will start soon, and I'll have a lot more people who want to contribute once he's a formal candidate," Kilberg said a few days before the campaign launch. "Lots of people want to wait and see who's in the field."
So while Mitt Romney's entire 2012 campaign cost a combined $1.2 billion, GOP strategists say Christie's narrow path to victory hinges on doing well in the small state of New Hampshire. Bill Greiner, a New Hampshire real estate developer and banker who held a meet-and-greet for Christie in his Bedford home on June 8, stressed: "You don't have to have a fortune to win this state."
An insider at Christie's nascent campaign echoes as much, saying that "you don't have to have so much (cash)" in a tiny state like New Hampshire and a field this large.
"If you have $100 million, or $50 million or $10 million, you're going to be competitive," said the Christie campaign insider, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the person is not authorized to speak to the media about campaign matters. "It's going to be a crowded field where message is going to matter. We feel pretty good about where we are. We're going to have the resources."
Meanwhile, Hill says Christie's messaging is exceptional, even if standing in the polls isn't.
"What I have heard most often is, 'I want a candidate who will win the election.'" says Hill. "After the last few pretty close campaigns and races, everyone is pretty well ready for the pick to be a winner. People say, 'I've got my favorite, however I want someone who can win.'"
Hill thinks big ticket GOP donors are tired of candidates so conservative they cannot win. "They like the fact that he's had to work with a Democratic legislature. That's something that people continue to bring up about him," he said.
But in the meantime, it's still exceptionally early in the 2016 fundraising process, as Hill noted: "Most of my friends are in Colorado or Wyoming or Montana or somewhere for the summer. I've really not sure who's committed to do what for whom yet."
It's still early in New Hampshire, too, where a third of votes have yet to make up their minds, according to a Suffolk University poll, and where money isn't even being discussed yet among those circling Christie.
"I'm not on Team Christie but think a lot of him," said Tom Eaton, a former New Hampshire Senate president who is hosting an event with Christie at his lake house in Spofford, N.H. Thursday. "It's just a meet and greet, no talk of fundraising or anything else," said Eaton, who'll also being doing a similar event with Carly Fiorina in the weeks to come.
"They're not gonna open their wallets right at this point - that's a little bit down the road. Once the kids get back into school, things start happening."
Can Christie catch up to the other 2016 GOP contenders? // NJ // Jonathan D. Salant – June 27, 2015
WASHINGTON — Gov. Chris Christie sat atop opinion polls just a year ago. Then came Bridgegate. And former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush. And a bevy of other Republican candidates.
So Christie, who in July 2014 led an CNN/ORC International poll with 13 percent, fell to ninth place and 4 percent in the same survey in June 2015.
It shows that Christie, who plans to announce his candidacy for president next week, will start his campaign with a very steep mountain to climb.
"He had phenomenally positive approval ratings and then it all went downhill," said Peter Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute in Hamden, Conn. "Although, given the crowded field for the nomination anything is possible, he does not start out impressive shape."
A summary of opinion polls by Real Clear Politics covering the period May 19 through June 23 placed Christie in ninth place with 4 percent. The top 10 candidates, as determined by an aggregation of polls, will be invited to participate in the first two Republican presidential debates by Fox News and CNN. The others will be invited to a separate event.
The latest Fox News survey, however, put Christie in 11th place. That one survey provided a clear example of Christie's drop in opinion polls; he was at 2 percent in June 2015 after receiving 15 percent in April 2014.
Christie led several opinion polls in 2013, including a November CNN survey that gave him 24 percent, nine points higher than second-place finisher U.S. Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky. As late as July of last year, he led all comers in the CNN poll.
But Christie polled just 6 percent in a Marist College/McClatchy poll in March of this year, and the June CNN survey put Christie in ninth place, just 2 percentage points ahead of 12th place finisher Rick Santorum, the former U.S. senator from Pennsylvania.
A December CNN poll put Christie at 13 percent, good enough for second place but 10 points behind Bush. Since then, the New Jersey governor has failed to reach double figures in any surveys, according to a compilation by Real Clear Politics. That compares to a stretch of 16 surveys from April 2013 to April 2014 in which he fell below 10 percent just once.
"In a crowded field, without a core following, he ends up falling deeper into the pack without a clear path to the nomination, said Lee Miringoff, director of the Marist College poll in Poughkeepsie, N.Y.
At the annual Conservative Political Action Committee Conference in February, Christie insisted that his dismal showing in recent opinion polls had no bearing on his chances to win the GOP nomination.
"If I decide to run for president, I'm not worried about what polls say 21 months before were going to elect the president of the United States," he said at the conference. "I'll take my chances on me. I've done pretty well so far."
While Christie was not indicted in the George Washington Bridge lane closing scandal, the incident has taken its toll, Miringoff said.
"He had one of two routes to take at that point," Miringoff said. "One was to admit that he messed up and ask forgiveness, the mea culpa route. The other was to say, 'I'm shocked,' the Casablanca route. That means he was not in charge of the details of staff management that he should have been."
Adding to Christie's problems is the perception that he has walked back his previous support of positions anathema to the Republican right, already skeptical of a governor who embraced President Obama after Hurricane Sandy. For example, he called in May for scrapping national Common Core education standards that he used to back.
"People have now seen him running around, somewhat adjusting positions," Miringoff said.
Bush's announcement in December that he was considering a presidential run meant Christie faced strong competition for donors and supporters among the Republican establishment. And the huge number of announced or potential 2016 GOP candidates is making it difficult for anyone to emerge as a clear frontrunner.
"Newer candidates become fresh faces," Brown said. "As they come in and join the race, Christie's numbers have deteriorated. There's more competition. A lot of people have small slices of the pie. Nobody has very much of the pie at this point."
Here's how Christie has fared in a sample of opinion polls over the last two years:
2013
April, Quinnipiac, 14 percent
July, Marist/McClatchy, 15 percent
November, CNN/ORC, 24 percent
2014
February, Marist/McClatchy, 14 percent
April, Fox News, 15 percent
June, Quinnipiac, 10 percent
September, Marist/McClatchy, 12 percent
December, CNN/ORC, 13 percent
2015
February, Quinnipiac, 8 percent
April, Wall Street Journal/NBC News, 5 percent
June, Washington Post/ABC News, 6 percent
Has Christie's ship already sailed? // Inquirer // Thomas Fitzgerald – June 27, 2015
He had them at "sit down and shut up!"
In the summer of 2011, some Republican leaders and billionaire donors begged Gov. Christie to run for president to save the party. Less than thrilled with the available options, they loved his blunt style and success in a blue state. Christie wavered, but passed.
"Now is not my time," he said.
As Christie prepares to announce his 2016 presidential intentions Tuesday, after months of travels to early-voting states, some question whether he missed his moment. The Republican electorate seems to have given a collective shrug and moved on; Christie is near the bottom of the polls.
"You need to go when it's your time," said Douglas Gross, a Des Moines lawyer and GOP power broker. "The luster wore off. They pass the pie, and you'd better take your piece, because it's not coming around again. I don't sense a clamor for Christie."
His image has suffered some dents in the last 18 months, including the scandal over the 2013 lane closures on the George Washington Bridge in retribution against a Democratic mayor who would not endorse Christie's reelection. Two Christie allies were indicted, and one pleaded guilty to federal charges in the case. The governor has said he had no knowledge of the shutdown.
Also, New Jersey's economy grew just 0.4 percent in 2014, ranking 46th. The state's credit rating has been downgraded three times by each of the three ratings agencies under the Christie administration. And Atlantic City is falling apart.
Moreover, some on the GOP right mistrust Christie, considering him too moderate on social issues.
He has among the highest unfavorable ratings of the Republican contenders in most polls, a more reliable sign than horse-race numbers at this early stage of a candidate's potential standing.
Monmouth University's June 15 national poll, for instance, found Christie viewed favorably by 26 percent of likely Republican primary voters, and unfavorably by 43 percent - for a net of minus 17 percentage points. Fifty-five percent of Republicans in this month's Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll said they would never consider voting for Christie.
"There's a path for Christie, but it's a narrow one," said Patrick Murray, director of the Monmouth poll. "His high negatives and wide name recognition put a ceiling on his growth. He doesn't have much room for error."
And as for that blue-state electability, just 30 percent of New Jersey voters last week approved of Christie's job performance in a Fairleigh Dickinson University poll. And this is a governor who won reelection in a landslide, including carrying the Hispanic vote and gaining support from a majority of women - against a female opponent.
Christie's planning was based on his emerging as the establishment choice, a conservative but pragmatic governor who could appeal to moderates and be electable in November, strategists say. But he has been squeezed out. Others are competing to be that candidate, including governors with better economic records.
Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, and Ohio Gov. John Kasich all have establishment appeal. And then there's Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, son of a Baptist preacher, who has governing credibility and support among evangelical Christian conservatives. Walker and Kasich have not yet declared.
Even for voters who back Christie, he's not the only offering of whatever it is they like about him. Christie took on public-employee unions, but Walker went bigger, stripping bargaining rights from those workers and pushing through right-to-work legislation.
Christie, who began his political career supporting abortion rights, now brags about vetoing state funding for Planned Parenthood. Yet Bush became a hero to pro-life groups as he fought to keep life support going for Terri Schiavo, a woman in a persistent vegetative state. And Walker is pushing a ban on all abortions in his state after 20 weeks' gestation.
"One obstacle Christie faces is, what's his argument for taking it to the next level?" said Kevin Madden, a GOP consultant who was a senior adviser to the party's 2012 nominee, Mitt Romney. "He doesn't have a defining issue, a rationale."
Since his popularity began tumbling after "Bridgegate," Christie has sold himself as an in-your-face truth-teller on issues such as pension reform and as a champion of detailed conservative domestic policies, such as a plan to cut Social Security and Medicare spending, as well as a muscular foreign policy.
Christie also can try to set himself apart with the force of his personality. He has charisma, but to some voters, there is a fine line between tough talk and bullying.
Perry Hamilton, a Lower Merion activist who saw Christie speak June 19 at a regional GOP conference in Philadelphia, illustrates the governor's predicament.
"We have at least six guys just like him," said Hamilton, 63. While he appreciates Christie's blunt manner, Hamilton said it's also a weakness. "Attitude: Sometimes I could do without that."
The crowded field could have an upside for Christie.
As long as nobody is pulling away from the rest, almost anything is possible, and it doesn't take much to win or place well in an early state. The thinking of his strategists: Why not stick around and see what happens? Maybe the governor will emerge from the rubble.
Another reason not to short Christie stock: He has a team of loyal donors who include Home Depot CEO Ken Langone and hedge-fund manager Stanley Druckenmiller. Both are expected to write big checks to the governor's superPAC America Leads, which can raise and spend unlimited amounts. Christie may not have Bush-scale dollars, but he'll be able to compete.
Christie's advisers say they're not writing off the other early states, but they want to plant their flag in New Hampshire, which holds the first primary and is traditionally friendly to moderate candidates. Christie has spent at least 19 days in the state this year, more than most, taking hundreds of questions from the public in the town-hall meetings that are his political trademark back in New Jersey.
It could be paying off. While he is bunched in the middle of the pack (and well behind celebrity Donald Trump), Christie has a better favorable-to-unfavorable ratio in New Hampshire than he does nationally. A Suffolk University poll last week found him viewed favorably by 44 percent of Republican primary voters in the state, and unfavorably by 42 percent - for a margin of plus-2 percentage points.
New Hampshire "is tailor-made for a Chris Christie-style retail campaign," pollster Murray said. "One on one, there's no better candidate in the field."
Right after making his announcement Tuesday at his old high school in Livingston, N.J., Christie is expected to head to the Granite State.
He's in a weaker position in the first-voting state, Iowa, which is scheduled to hold caucuses Feb. 1. A Des Moines Register/Bloomberg poll earlier this month found 58 percent of Iowa Republicans viewed Christie negatively, with 45 percent ruling out a vote for him.
Even if Christie performs well in New Hampshire, it's unclear where that might lead.
He'll immediately run into a GOP electorate in South Carolina that is dominated by white evangelical Protestants. A Winthrop University poll in April found that nearly 56 percent of evangelicals said they would not consider voting for Christie, one of the highest negative rankings among would-be candidates.
"He hasn't really been in consideration, part of the conversation," said Chip Felkel, a Republican strategist in Greenville, S.C., who worked on the campaigns of both Presidents Bush and is not aligned this time.
"He's viewed right now as a second-tier wannabe," Felkel said. "He's got to find some way to get momentum. The question is, does Christie have the ability to convince conservatives of his bona fides and not damage himself for the general election?"
After South Carolina comes Nevada, then a succession of Southern states on Super Tuesday. In early March, there's Florida, where Bush and Rubio are expected to dominate.
For his part, Christie professes not to sweat the polls. "It's not make-or-break," he told reporters in Iowa this month, "until people start voting."
Growing up in Baton Rouge, Bobby Jindal’s future passion for politics a surprise to most // The Advocate // Tyler Bridges – June 27, 2015
At a competitive high school filled with Baton Rouge’s best and brightest, he chummed with the brainiest and highest achievers of all.
That’s no surprise because Gov. Bobby Jindal is typically described these days as the smartest person in the room. He’s a Brown University graduate and Rhodes scholar, after all. And he scored a 4.62 grade-point average at Baton Rouge Magnet High School when he graduated in 1988.
But this may be a surprise: He was not the valedictorian. Nor was he the salutatorian.
He ranked third among the 232 students.
And if you had asked teachers and classmates back then who might become a politician one day, they probably would have answered Tracy Smith. She was the senior class president. Or they might have mentioned Martin Johnson. He was one of the class’s two delegates to Boys State, a high school training ground for aspiring politicians.
Jindal?
“He wanted to be a doctor at the time,” said Kathy Reznick, his high school sweetheart, who went on to Tulane Law School and has returned to Baton Rouge.
More than anything, Jindal’s demanding immigrant father EXPECTED him to become a doctor.
As a result, best friend Kent Shih was perhaps the only one who knew of his real ambition.
“His parents wanted him to go into medicine,” Shih said. “He always wanted to go into politics.”
For the first time in its 198-year history, a native of Baton Rouge is mounting a serious campaign to be president of the United States. And the intriguing story is how unlikely it is that it would be Jindal, according to nearly everyone who knew him in his formative years, except perhaps Shih, now a doctor in Nashville, Tennessee.
Teachers and classmates knew Jindal had a bright future. He was voted “most likely to succeed” among the boys in his class. And “Most Polite.”
But Jindal had a narrow circle that consisted of the kids who took honors classes, got the best grades and organized parties where they challenged one another with obscure mathematical equations rather than beer-chugging contests. Jindal was typically home before midnight. He was more nerd than politician-on-the-make.
“He didn’t hang out with the popular kids,” said Susan Yang, who was the salutatorian and is now a doctor in St. Louis.
“He was reserved. He was not an extrovert,” said Anu Goel Bourgeois, a close friend from the class of 1987 who is now a Georgia State University professor of computer science.
Slightly built and not a fan of team sports, Jindal didn’t make a name for himself among the student body by winning athletic championships.
Instead, his main extracurricular activity was Mu Alpha Theta, the math club, which traveled to New Orleans and other cities on Saturdays to compete against other schools and which won the state championship in Jindal’s senior year. He gladly provided after-school tutoring for classmates like Dione Hasse, now a management consultant in Nashville, who couldn’t quite keep up.
“He showed up to meetings with bright green pants and a pink polo shirt with an upturned collar,” Hasse said with a laugh. “He was trying to be Mr. Preppy.”
The adolescent years are crucial for anyone, of course. In Jindal’s case, while growing up in Baton Rouge, he Americanized his name, converted to Christianity, began to show off his high-wattage brain power and only occasionally flashed an interest in public policy, but always from a conservative bent.
Thousands of articles have been written about Jindal since he first burst onto the scene in 1996, when newly elected Gov. Mike Foster named him secretary of the Department of Health and Hospitals at the precocious age of 24.
None have plumbed his years growing up.
Jindal’s parents moved from India to Baton Rouge on Feb. 1, 1971, so his mother could study nuclear physics in graduate school at LSU. Their son, whom they named Piyush, was born on June 10.
In a recent interview, Jindal said the family initially lived in Tiger Town just off Nicholson Drive.
He was about 4 when his mother picked him up from school one day. As he told the story, “a teacher said, ‘Look, your son came to school and asked everyone to start calling him Bobby.’ ”
He took it from one of the characters on “The Brady Bunch,” the 1970s sitcom.
“That was one of the shows I’d watch after school,” Jindal said. “Bobby was about my age.”
His parents were concerned and asked, “ ‘Are you going to be Greg tomorrow? Are you going to pick a different name the next day?’ Once they realized that it was going to stick, they didn’t have any objection.”
In 1978 or so, the Jindals moved to Kenilworth, a new subdivision near LSU, populated by university professors and oil industry engineers. By then, Bobby had a brother named Nikesh, who is seven years younger.
His father, Amar, worked as a civil engineer, while his mother, Raj, worked at the state labor department as a data processor.
The family’s new ranch-style home, at 7526 Cardiff Ave., had three bedrooms, a brick exterior and a shingle roof. Bobby’s mother had exclusive use of the master bathroom while the three males shared the hallway bathroom. Bobby and his brother played in the yard and rode bikes in the neighborhood. Bobby played tennis through BREC.
“Kenilworth was an idyllic place to grow up,” Jindal said. “It was one of those neighborhoods where you could tell the kids to go and play outside and come back when it’s dark.”
In his early years, no Hindu temple existed in Baton Rouge. So the Jindals and other Indian families met on most Sundays at someone’s home for Hindu ceremonies known as pujas, followed by meals featuring curries and other Indian food.
The family didn’t socialize with the neighbors, remembered Barbara Michael, who raised a family two houses down.
But his parents insisted that they assimilate into American culture, Jindal said.
“My mom was fully committed to raising us as Americans,” he said. “That was a conscious decision. We ate food that would be familiar to other families in south Louisiana. She wanted to raise us like other kids in the neighborhood.”
Jindal attended the private Runnels School through fourth grade and then moved to the public Greenville Elementary School for fifth and then scored well enough to attend Istrouma Middle Magnet for sixth grade and then moved to McKinley Middle Magnet School for seventh and eighth grades. It was at McKinley that Ajay Jindia, who was one year older, saw a flash of his later career.
“I remember having a conversation at his house where he was preaching the benefits of Reaganomics,” said Jindia, now an Atlanta lawyer, referring to the economic philosophy of President Ronald Reagan.
From McKinley, Jindal moved on to Baton Rouge Magnet. The high school had an unusual social dynamic. With no football, baseball or basketball teams — and no cheerleaders — the brainiacs were almost cool.
Jindal is known today for talking fast. His high school friends talk fast, too.
“You could be proud, be smart and be a nerd,” Yang said. “Nerds were not outcasts.”
Most of Jindal’s closest friends were, like him, the children of Asian immigrants who embraced the United States as the land of opportunity and pushed their children to succeed by out-studying everyone else.
“My dad was always reinforcing to my brother and I that you should dream big to achieve anything in life,” Nikesh said. “It requires a lot of hard work and doing academically well in school. That was a message that was continually reinforced by our parents, particularly our dad.”
Jindal and his brother (who would go on to Dartmouth University) took that message to heart. Jindal got only a single B in high school, for a term paper on Huey Long, said Shih, who added, “He was pissed.” (Through his press secretary, Jindal said he got more than one B but wasn’t specific.)
Jindal was active in an array of extracurricular groups that would make a college admissions officer swoon: the Beta Club, the Junior Academy of Science, the Latin Club and Interact, a service club.
But his biggest passion was the math club.
The members raised money by working a concessions booth at LSU football games and played spades on bus trips to tournaments outside of Baton Rouge.
Jindal captained the Equations team, which required quick thinking.
And he dressed like Alex P. Keaton, the conservative high schooler played by Michael J. Fox in the ’80s sitcom “Family Ties.”
“He had a bow tie with dollar bills on it,” said Elaine Parsons, who is now a history professor at Duquesne University. “When the movie ‘Wall Street’ came out, he’d go around saying, ‘Greed is good!’ People would roll their eyes at him.”
For years, Jindal bought bags of candy that he would keep in his backpack and sell individual pieces to sugar-craving students.
Some classmates view it now as a sign of a would-be political operator.
“But I always thought of it as more entrepreneurial,” said Johnson, who is now a professor of political communication at LSU.
Classmates and others who knew Jindal during his formative years remember him fondly. But they watch in awe or dismay, depending on their political beliefs, at how he has transformed into a conservative firebrand.
They first began to see the inklings of his future political success after he graduated from Baton Rouge Magnet.
Richard Juneau, who raised a family across the street from the Jindals, was struck by his maturity when they talked one day when Jindal was visiting Baton Rouge while a Rhodes scholar.
“I was so impressed with him,” Juneau said. “He was such a good conversationalist. He was above and beyond the normal 20-year-old.”
Enoch Huang, a Baton Rouge Magnet classmate and friend, was struck by his polish and confidence when Jindal as DHH secretary spoke at Tulane, where Huang was attending medical school.
“It was a very different side of Bobby,” he said. “He was on top of everything. It was very humbling.”
Jindal has little contact today with his high school friends. Many of them last saw him when he hosted their 20th reunion at the Governor’s Mansion.
For an hour or so, his classmates pinched themselves on one of their own holding the most important job in the state. Several of them made snarky comments about how Jindal had developed a Southern accent during his political climb in Louisiana.
But the conversation stopped when he and his wife, Supriya, appeared and slowly made their way down the grand staircase. The crowd began to cheer, and classmates lined up to shake his hand and ask for a photo.
Bobby Jindal sidesteps gay marriage ruling's meaning for Louisiana // Times-Picayune // Julia O’Donoghue – June 27, 2015
Speaking on the front porch of the Governor's Mansion, incumbent Bobby Jindal reiterated Saturday (June 27) that Louisiana eventually will comply with the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling legalizing gay marriage in all 50 states. But he wouldn't say exactly what that will mean for same-sex couples in the state.
"Our agencies will follow the law and we will do it in a way that respects individuals' religious liberty rights, but we'll follow the law," Jindal said before heading into a reception for his staff and presidential campaign supporters. The governor refused to say whether "following the law" might let same-sex couples not only marry but receive other benefits they don't currently enjoy.
Gay rights advocates assume the Supreme Court decision will give same-sex couples not only access to marriage but also joint adoption, spousal benefits in the workplace and joint tax filings like other legally married couples in Louisiana.
Initially, Jindal stopped short of saying that these types of benefits would be extended to same-sex couples. He said he had to wait on rulings from lower courts before getting into specifics about what might change in Louisiana.
The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans and the Louisiana Supreme Court currently are considering cases involving gay marriage. They must take the U.S. Supreme Court's decision to affirm gay marriage into account when issuing their own rulings.
Later on Saturday, after the governor's meeting with the press, Jindal's presidential campaign spokesman Kyle Plotkin said the governor believes the lower court decisions will result in same-sex married couples receiving benefits in Louisiana.
"While we disagree... the state agencies will comply with the law, and that will, of course, including benefits [for same-sex couples]," Plotkin said.
A number of same-sex married couples also eagerly await being able to join their spouse's health insurance and retirement plans, among other things. Elaine Maccio, a professor at Louisiana State University, said she and her partner had to pay "through the nose" for separate health care plans when her partner lost a job. Now they are both employed, but the months of paying for two different health care plans left them financially strapped.
Same-sex married couples, including those who have valid marriage licenses from other states, also want to be able to collect government tax refunds after having to pay state taxes as a single person for years. "There is the possibility of amended returns for previous years. I know people who would do that tomorrow if they could," said Matthew Patterson, research and policy coordinator for Equality Louisiana.
Louisiana and Mississippi are outliers in their handling of the Supreme Court's gay marriage decision. They are the only two states that refused to issue marriage license to same-sex couples after the court's ruling was issued Friday morning.
Renouncing roots: Here's why Bobby Jindal is not popular among the Indian-American community in US // India Times // Ishani Duttagupta – June 28, 2015
Bobby Jindal is so white, he refers to Indian food as "ethnic cuisine." American stand-up comic Hari Kondabolu, on Twitter
It's not just the US that isn't quite sitting up to notice Bobby Jindal throwing his hat into the 2016 presidential ring — the 44-year-old governor of Louisiana is after all among 26 Republican candidates (at last count) running for office. Even the desi community appears distinctly unmoved, which is surprising if you consider that Jindal is the first Indian-American to be running for America's top job.
There's of course a reason for that dispassion (along with digs like "Bobby Jindal is so white, he beat himself up after 9/11," another Kondabolu tweet). "Jindal's announcement that he is running for president could have been the turning point for the entire community, but he does not enjoy support of the Indian-Americans either at the grassroots level or from top fundraisers because of his controversial comments about not wanting to be seen as a hyphenated American," a prominent Indian-American Republican fundraiser who didn't want to be identified said.
If there were any doubts about how close — or rather how far —Jindal is from his local roots, he dispelled them in a spectacular style earlier this week when he launched his presidential campaign. "We are not Indian-Americans, African-Americans, Irish-Americans, rich Americans, or poor Americans. We are all Americans," thundered the first Indian-American to be elected a governor in the US.
It didn't take long for an eruption back home in India on social media, and the hashtag #BobbyJindalIsSoWhite duly went to become one of the top trending topics on Twitter on Thursday, a day after Jindal, who grew up as a Hindu before converting to Christianity when in his teens, made the statement.
Renouncing Roots
Niraj J Antani, 24, a Republican who was last year elected to the Ohio House of Representatives, believes that the Indian-American community will only support Jindal if he embraces his heritage. One of the youngest state lawmakers in the US, Antani even believes that the governor can become president if he embraces the reality of being an Indian-American.
"The American people want authenticity in their elected officials and governor Jindal can show that by embracing his heritage," Antani told ET Magazine. He adds that Jindal has made some remarks that are of particular concern to the Indian-American community. "I am myself proud to be the second Indian-American elected in Ohio's history. I hope that Jindal will also be proud of being an Indian-American. Only then will he get the support of the community," Antani added. If not, he feels, the campaign will be a highly disappointing one.
A section of Indian-Americans, however doesn't foresee the governor attempting to mend fences with the community.
"The basic issue for the support from the Indian-Americans would be the image of Jindal in the community. He has not developed a positive relationship and has not even identified himself as an Indian-American," says Piyush Agrawal, a Florida-based community activist, who was a close associate of former president George W Bush and is seen as the mover a n d shaker behind starting the tradition of Diwali being celebrated at the White House for the first time in 2003.
Vinod Gupta, a close friend of Bill and Hillary Clinton, who in the past has been considered among the biggest contributors to the Democratic Party, too doesn't see much of support for Jindal from Indian-Americans. "Jindal was born and raised in the US and hasn't been part of the Indian immigrant experience and doesn't identify with it," Gupta said.
When announcing his presidential bid, Jindal did mention his parents who immigrated from India, but that may not be enough to please the desi community.
"Jindal is, to most Indian-Americans exactly what they do not want their children to become — a person orphaned from traditions, heritage and religion that nurtured him, who openly and publicly disavows his community.
His failure as a leader in Louisiana, and his embrace of a far-right evangelical ideology, leaves him with nothing in common with most Indian Americans," says Aseem Shukla, a member of the Hindu American Foundation board of directors and associate professor of surgery at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. He adds that Jindal had ample opportunities to represent Indian-Americans — from supporting the Congressional Diwali resolution when he was in Congress, to speaking up for religious liberty issues — but he never reached out.
Fractured Support
Jindal, who became the second Indian-American to be elected to the US Congress in 2004, was re-elected in 2006; according to Shukla, his journey is inspiring for young Indian-Americans and it proves that it is possible to overcome racial barriers in politics. "But his experience also proves that the racial ceiling was broken over the back of religious identity where an Indian rejected his heritage and religious traditions," Shukla said.
Jindal's achievements in the political arena are not lost on the Indian community despite his efforts to distance himself.
"What he has achieved in public life at such a young age is incredible and he is definitely admired for that," says Sanjay Puri, chairman of the Washington DC based US Indian Political Action Committee.
However, he thinks that the Indian-American support for Republican candidates was likely to get fractured and divided because of the large number in the running. "Jeb Bush has strong ties with Indian-American Republicans in Florida while governor Chris Christie is from New Jersey which has a large Indian-American population. Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton too has long standing ties with the Indian-American community," Puri added.
Column: Most GOP voters support allowing undocumented immigrants to stay, poll says // Des Moines Register // Kathie Obradovich - June 27, 2015
Ohio Gov. John Kasich, making his first Iowa trip last week as a potential presidential candidate, advocated for creating a path to legal status for the estimated 12 million undocumented immigrants living in the United States.
“Well, look, we’re not going to ship all these people out. You know, they ditched the line and they’re going to have to pay a penalty and we’ve got to make sure they haven’t engaged in criminal activity and we have to protect our border.”
Such a position runs against the grain of most Iowa Republicans who oppose “amnesty” for people who live in this country illegally. Or does it?
Public-opinion research by a pro-immigration group in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina suggests narrow political definitions of “amnesty” don’t match the attitudes of likely voters.
More than three-quarters of likely Iowa Republican caucusgoers — 77 percent — would support a candidate who favors a multi-step process allowing undocumented immigrants to earn citizenship. An even greater majority, 81 percent, would support a candidate who favors a process leading to legal residency but not citizenship.
That’s according to a poll of 400 likely Iowa GOP caucusgoers conducted in April for the Partnership for a New American Economy by Burning Glass Consulting. The consulting firm’s founding partner, Katie Packer Gage, was the deputy communications manager for Mitt Romney’s 2012 campaign.
The Partnership for a New American Economy is a non-partisan group that advocates for comprehensive immigration reform. It found similar willingness among likely primary voters in New Hampshire and South Carolina to consider a candidate who favored a process for letting undocumented people stay.
John Stineman is a Republican consultant who works with the Partnership for a New American Economy in Iowa and nationally. He said the organization wanted to test the assumption that Republican candidates had to take a hard line on immigration to win the Iowa caucuses or other early-state contests.
In fact, he said, polling and focus group interviews showed that once a candidate specifies an intent to secure the border, plans aimed at allowing undocumented immigrants already in the country to earn legal status or even citizenship is far from a deal-breaker.
No more than one in five likely voters in the three early states is a hard-line, single-issue voter on immigration, he said. That’s someone who bases their vote largely on immigration and who wants no opportunity for illegal immigrants to stay. Only 17 percent of likely Iowa Republican caucus-goers fit that description.
“Toward the perception that if they go hard right in primary, than that’s what they are going to need to do, but the reality is there’s no more than one in five Republicans in any of the early states that are hard-line, single-issue voters,” Stineman said.
Republicans generally disapprove of amnesty for illegal immigrants, but what is amnesty? A majority of likely Iowa GOP caucusgoers — 63 percent— agree that executive orders granting temporary legal status to 4 million undocumented immigrants qualifies as amnesty. But that’s the limit of the accord.
Half of likely caucusgoers think it’s amnesty if illegal immigrants are given a pathway to citizenship if they pay a fine, any back taxes, pass a background check, learn English and take other required steps. Only 40 percent call it amnesty if people complete all of those steps to receive legal residency but not citizenship.
Only 28 percent define amnesty as any action short of securing the border and stronger enforcement of existing law.
“We just need to delete the word ‘amnesty,’ “ Stineman said, noting that it has ceased to mean anything.
Besides Kasich, who has yet to decide whether he’ll run for president, Jeb Bush, Rand Paul, Marco Rubio, Lindsey Graham and George Pataki have at some point advocated for a path to legal status for undocumented immigrants. Some of the other GOP candidates have made statements acknowledging the improbability of deporting 11 million or 12 million people, but few have offered detailed plans for moving candidates toward legal status.
Most of the Democrats in the race, including Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders and Martin O’Malley, have called for comprehensive immigration reform that includes a path to citizenship.
With such a huge field for the GOP nomination, it’s conceivable a candidate could win the Iowa caucuses with less than 20 percent. That might make it worthwhile for some candidates to attempt to unify that minority of hard-line immigration voters.
However, there’s a price to pay in the general election for candidates who do that, polling shows. The Partnership polled 800 likely general-election voters in these battleground states: Iowa, Colorado, Florida, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Virginia and Wisconsin. Single-issue voters who want comprehensive reform outnumber single-issue, hard-line voters by a margin of 2 to 1.
Fifty-three percent of battleground-state voters said they would be less likely to vote for a candidate they viewed as anti-immigration, compared with 29 percent who said that wouldn’t matter to their vote.
This polling is from an issue advocate, to be sure, but the pollster has been fully transparent in releasing data and methodology. It’s clear from this that voters expect candidates — of both parties — to have a plan for dealing with undocumented immigrants. Merely securing the border is not a plan.
The Partnership for a New American Economy/Burning Glass Poll of 400 likely GOP caucus or primary voters in each of the three early states, taken April 9-15, has a margin of error of plus or minus 5 percentage points. The swing-state poll of 804 voters, taken May 6-11, has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 points.
As Left Wins Culture Battles, G.O.P. Gains Opportunity to Pivot for 2016 // NYT // Jonathan Martin – June 27, 2015
WASHINGTON — A cascade of events suggests that 2015 could be remembered as a Liberal Spring: the moment when deeply divisive and consuming questions of race, sexuality and broadened access to health care were settled in quick succession, and social tolerance was cemented as a cornerstone of American public life.
Yet what appears, in headlines and celebrations across the country, to represent an unalloyed victory for Democrats, in which lawmakers and judges alike seemed to give in to the leftward shift of public opinion, may contain an opening for the Republican Party to move beyond losing battles and seemingly lost causes.
Conservatives have, in short order, endured a series of setbacks on ideas that, for some on the right, are definitional: that marriage is between a man and a woman, that Southern heritage and its symbols are to be unambivalently revered and that the federal government should play a limited role in the lives of Americans.
Remarkably, some of these verities have been challenged not by liberals but by figures from the right.
The past week and the month that preceded it have been nothing short of a rout in the culture wars. Bruce Jenner, the famed Olympian, became Caitlyn Jenner in the most prominent moment yet for transgender people. The killings of nine black churchgoers in Charleston, S.C., at once rendered the Confederate battle flag unsuitable for government-sanctioned display. And Friday’s legalization of same-sex marriage nationwide elevated a community that had been consigned to the shadows for centuries of American life.
But even as conservatives appear under siege, some Republicans predict that this moment will be remembered as an effective wiping of the slate before the nation begins focusing in earnest on the presidential race.
As important as some of these issues may be to the most conservative elements of the party’s base and in the primaries ahead, few Republican leaders want to contest the 2016 elections on social or cultural grounds, where polls suggest that they are sharply out of step with the American public.
“Every once in a while, we bring down the curtain on the politics of a prior era,” said David Frum, the conservative writer. “The stage is now cleared for the next generation of issues. And Republicans can say, ‘Whether you’re gay, black or a recent migrant to our country, we are going to welcome you as a fully cherished member of our coalition.’ ”
The critical question is whether the Republican Party will embrace such a message in order to seize what many party officials see as an opening to turn the election toward economic and national security issues.
It will not happen easily: Every major Republican presidential candidate criticized the Supreme Court’s ruling on Friday affirming same-sex marriage as the law of the land.
Of course, many of the Republicans running for president are keen to move on from the culture wars, but others, like Mike Huckabee and Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, are already seizing on matters like same-sex marriage and what they call judicial overreach to distinguish themselves in a crowded primary field. And the conservative activists and interest groups that play an important role in the primary will not let any of the candidates simply move on.
“Our candidates running in a primary are put in a little bit of a box by the events of this week, but at the same time, it does change the landscape for the general election, which is a blessing,” said Carl Forti, a Republican strategist who has worked on presidential races. “I’m glad I’m not on a campaign and don’t have to advise my candidate on how to navigate those three issues this week, because the answers for the primary and the general are radically different.”
Privately, some of the strategists advising Republican hopefuls believe the last week has been nothing short of a gift from above — a great unburdening on issues of race and sexuality, and on health care a disaster averted. Rhetorical opposition to the Affordable Care Act will still be de rigueur in the primaries, but litigating the issue in theory is wholly different from doing so with more than six million people deprived of their health insurance.
Collectively, this optimistic thinking would have it, June will go down as the month that dulled some of the wedge issues Democrats were hoping to wield next year.
“Whether the presidential candidates agree or disagree with the results of all this, it allows them to say these issues have been settled and move on to things that offer more of a political home-field advantage,” said Tim Pawlenty, the former Republican governor of Minnesota.
While acknowledging that the country has become more tolerant and, in some ways, culturally liberal, many Republicans contend that America is still receptive to a more conservative approach on economics and national security. After all, the same week that highlighted the ascent of cultural liberalism also illustrated the limitations of economic populism, as organized labor was unable to block a measure giving President Obama expansive trade authority.
“There will always be side issues, but none of that will compete with people’s primary concerns, which are the economy and who is going to be able to keep the country safe,” said Whit Ayres, a Republican pollster advising Senator Marco Rubio of Florida.
Yet as the 2012 presidential race demonstrated, the immediate demands of a Republican primary can outweigh the eventual priorities of a general election. And, given last week’s events, conservative hard-liners in the coming Republican contest will be even hungrier for candidates to demonstrate that they are willing to employ all possible means to repel what they see as an assault on foundational values.
“We have been observing the deconstructing of America in the last six and a half years,” said Tony Perkins, the head of the conservative Family Research Council. “The tolerance level has been exceeded.”
What outrages social conservatives is not only the narrow issue of same-sex marriage rights, but also what they see as a violation of religious liberties that they believe are intrinsic to the country.
When Senator Cruz said the past week had featured “some of the darkest 24 hours in our history,” he spoke for those conservatives who believe the America they know is slipping away.
What is unclear about the wide Republican field is whether a candidate has yet surfaced who is deft enough to appeal to such devoted conservatives without going so far to mollify them as to scare away less dogmatic voters.
Of the well-financed candidates, Jeb Bush has done the most, on matters of race and marriage, to portray himself as a candidate who can appeal to a more socially tolerant country. Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin, who made his name on fiscal issues, has surprised some in the party by positioning himself on the right on cultural issues. Mr. Rubio has been more cautious, trying not to inflame primary voters while also speaking in a measured fashion to avoid harming himself if he is the nominee.
Yet even if the party’s eventual standard-bearer can win the nomination without providing much fodder for Democrats to use in the general election, he or she will not be able to ignore cultural issues entirely. Self-identified white evangelical voters can make up as much as 40 percent of a Republican presidential nominee’s vote.
That is what worries many of the party’s strategists. “Some of our candidates will play to them and take positions that aren’t helpful in a general election,” Mr. Forti said.
And while a window may be open for Republicans to shift the race in a different direction, Democrats will do their best to keep the focus on subjects many Republican candidates want to avoid. Many of them, Hillary Rodham Clinton told Democrats on Friday night in Virginia, appear “determined to lead us right back into the past.”
In a fast-changing culture, can the GOP get in step with modern America? // WaPo // Philip Rucker and Robert Costa – June 27, 2015
CORYDON, Iowa — Mike Huckabee — former Fox News personality, Arkansas governor and Baptist preacher — gathered with a modest crowd here in the back of Breadeaux Pizza on his “Main Street American Family” tour and opened the floor to questions.
The very first one set the tone. Jeff Hontz, 49, a Baptist pastor in town, said he has been anxious because he sees “America going down the wrong roads morally.” God decreed unchanging standards in Scripture, Hontz argued, but society keeps changing — and fast.
“I saw a commercial this morning about a transgender show, and everybody was praising it,” he said, prodding the presidential candidate.
Huckabee responded by declaring that the standard of all truth is the Bible. Distorting the laws of nature, he said, is akin to playing the piano without a tuning fork — or baking a cake without the proper measurements of salt, flour and sugar. “You’re going to have a disaster on your hands,” he said.
The exchange illustrates the vexing challenge now facing Republican presidential candidates and the GOP itself: how to get in step with modern America.
Across the cultural landscape, the national consensus is evolving rapidly, epitomized by this year’s convulsions of celebrity, social issues and politics — including the acceptance of Caitlyn Jenner’s gender identity, Pope Francis’s climate-change decree and the widespread shunning of the Confederate flag.
Then came Friday’s landmark Supreme Court decision legalizing same-sex marriage. As rainbow colors bathed the White House and other landmarks in celebration, the entire field of Republican presidential candidates condemned the ruling.
This uneven terrain is now a key battlefield in the 2016 campaign, unnerving red America and fueling intense debate within the Republican Party about how to navigate such changes — or whether to adapt to the mainstream at all.
“Most Republicans look at what’s happening and think we’re watching a new stage of left-wing nuttiness,” said former House speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.). “It’s just surreal.”
The GOP’s activist base wants its leaders to fight loudly for traditional, Christian values and sew together a moral fabric they see as frayed, even shredded. This is especially true here in Iowa, which hosts the first caucuses and where candidates will not easily avoid pressure from the far right. Yet political survival demands evolution with popular opinion.
So far, many contenders are giving the base what it wants.
“We’re called upon not to be the thermometers that reflect the temperature in the culture,” Huckabee said in Corydon. “We’re called upon to be thermostats, which can read the temperature and seek to adjust it to where it should be.”
Democrats are hoping for just this approach. They argue — as many Republican Party elites in Washington fear — that if Republicans don’t moderate on issues such as gay rights and immigration and become more tolerant, they will be locked out of the White House. Asked how Democratic front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton could motivate voters, several top Democratic officials said: The Republicans may do it for her.
“Republicans are going to have to make inner peace about living in a same-sex marriage world,” said Pete Wehner, a former adviser to President George W. Bush. “Our nominee can’t have serrated edges. Like it or not, any effort to create moral or social order will be seen as rigid and judgmental. . . . Grace and winsomeness are the ingredients for success in a world where cultural issues are at the fore.”
‘Get with modern life’
This is a profound shift for a party that a decade earlier won national elections under a banner of social conservatism. In 2004, Bush successfully used his opposition to gay marriage as a wedge issue in his reelection campaign.
“If these topics are the big ones in the general election — rather than the failure of President Obama and Hillary Clinton as his third term, foreign policy, and of course the economy — we can’t win,” said Austin Barbour, a Mississippi-based operative who runs the super PAC supporting former Texas governor Rick Perry. “We need to be sensible, logical and reasonable on the social issues, but also make sure the debate isn’t entirely about them.”
The shifts to the left on social issues may be reinforcing pessimistic beliefs among Republicans about the direction of the country. In a CBS/New York Times poll last month, 88 percent of Republicans said the nation was on the wrong track, compared with 63 percent of Americans as a whole. Meanwhile, 57 percent of Democrats said the country was headed in the right direction.
“When a young voter sees a Republican coming, many of them roll their eyes and wonder why they can’t get with modern life,” said Ari Fleischer, White House press secretary under George W. Bush.
The party’s business wing has been evolving quickly on many social issues, particularly on gay rights. Religious liberty measures in Indiana and Arkansas that many saw as discriminatory against gays drew immediate backlash earlier this year from local chambers of commerce — not to mention corporations such as Wal-Mart, the red-state retail giant — prompting reversals from Republican governors.
“The country is changing, the culture is changing, the demographics are changing and politics is changing,” said former Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty, now president of the Financial Services Roundtable. “The rhetoric at the congressional level and with some of the candidates tends to be a lagging indicator.”
In far-flung state capitols, legislatures that became more solidly Republican during the past two midterm election sweeps are moving aggressively with social policy designed to combat what conservative lawmakers see as liberal encroachment from Washington. For instance, bills to ban abortions after 20 weeks are moving in several state legislatures.
Politicians are responding to the deep angst conservative activists voice in their communities. At a Huckabee event Wednesday night in Osceola, Iowa, Mary Klein, a 79-year-old school nurse, invoked an urban legend.
“Have you heard about the frogs?” Klein asked. “When you put a bunch of frogs in water and you heat it, they don’t realize the temperature is getting warmer and warmer and warmer. Then it kills them. Our country is getting neutralized, at small degrees at a time, and we won’t realize it until we’re already sucked in and it’s too late.”
‘Kindness of conservatism’
Among the 16 declared or likely Republican presidential candidates, there is general agreement on traditional social policies, such as opposing gay marriage and abortion rights. The differences come in tone, emphasis and countenance.
“We can share our views without sounding like avenging angels,” said Rep. Peter T. King (R-N.Y.). “It’s the self-righteous tone that scares more than the views themselves.”
Major GOP donors, especially those in high finance in New York, have been privately quizzing leading presidential candidates on same-sex marriage. Some have been turned off by Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, thinking the son of a Baptist preacher to be too strident in his opposition, and preferring former Florida governor Jeb Bush and Sen. Marco Rubio (Fla.) because they suggest a more laissez-faire attitude.
Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.), an even-tempered ally of House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio), recalled: “Ronald Reagan was awfully good at not backing off his position while also never yelling or shouting or pounding the table. Persuasion, persistence and resolve — that was his magic.”
Arthur Brooks, president of the American Enterprise Institute, said that speaking only to the base about issues of God, guns, gays and abortion isn’t enough to win. “Republicans need to recognize this and change the terms of the conversation — or they’ll pay the price for decades,” Brooks said.
One likely candidate trying to soften the party’s language is Ohio Gov. John Kasich, who espouses what he calls “the kindness of conservatism.” A devout Christian, Kasich looks to the activist pope as a model.
In Iowa last week, Kasich advocated a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants — a lightning-rod issue in the Republican primary season. When he encountered an undocumented woman and her young son, Kasich said, “They are made in the image of the Lord.”
By contrast, businessman Donald Trump railed against illegal immigrants in his campaign announcement speech. He said the United States had become a “dumping ground” for drug abusers, “rapists” and other criminals from Mexico.
On Thursday night in Iowa, former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum gave a fiery speech promising to lead what he called a cultural battle against the “secular left.” He said, “It will be tough to stand against it, but we must.”
Democrats are eager to portray Republicans as the party of Trump, Santorum and Huckabee, as well as retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, Sen. Ted Cruz (Tex.) and Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal — all candidates who proudly resist the shifting social mores.
In a particularly partisan speech Friday night in Northern Virginia, Clinton said Republican candidates “seemed determined to lead us right back into the past” with their responses to the high court’s gay marriage ruling.
“Instead of trying to turn back the clock, they should be joining us in saying loudly and clearly: ‘No to discrimination once and for all,’ ” Clinton said, adding, “A lot of Republicans may talk about having new ideas and fresh faces, but across the board, they’re the party of the past, not the future.”
Housing Secretary Julián Castro, a potential Democratic vice presidential candidate whose ancestors emigrated from Mexico, criticized Trump in a recent interview for “plainly insulting Mexicans and by extension folks who are the descendants of Mexicans.
“He will be in this campaign in many ways the face of the Republican Party, because he has higher name identification than almost all of them,” Castro said.
‘Tolerance only goes so far’
Huckabee, asked during an interview in Iowa how he might modulate his language on social issues, said he does not see any political disadvantage in standing up for his conservative beliefs, as long as voters see them as genuine.
“I think people are deeply interested in issues of morality, character, but it all goes back to trustworthiness and authenticity,” Huckabee said. He added, “The question is: Can I articulate my view, defend it, do it rationally and in a way that’s intellectually honest, without being hateful or spiteful?”
Along Huckabee’s tour in rural Iowa last week, voters dismissed any suggestion that the GOP needed to modernize.
After seeing him campaign Thursday morning at the Dinky Diner in Decatur City, Tracee Knapp, secretary of the Ringgold County Republican Party, concluded that unlike party elites in Washington, “he’s not neutered.”
“I’m just sick of secular things,” she said. “Homosexual issues are on the television all the time. I’ll be honest — we live on a farm. We have to have a bull and a cow to make a baby. We have to have a rooster and a hen. Maybe some Republicans need to come live on a farm.”
The night before in Osceola, Tawny Waske, 49, was celebrating her eighth wedding anniversary with her husband, Tim, at Nana Greer’s Family Table restaurant when Huckabee walked in to shake hands and answer questions. She, too, fretted about cultural changes.
“It’s legalized here for gays [to marry], and we just bite our lips,” Waske said. “As a Christian, we’re taught to love the sinner, not the sin. But tolerance only goes so far.”
Waske brought up ABC’s prime-time special this spring on Jenner’s gender transition.
“Is it him? Her? It? I don’t even know what to call it,” she said. “You know, don’t shove this down my throat.”
The Straight Talk Express Gets a Few More Passengers // TIME // Alex Altman and Zeke J Miller – June 27, 2015
It takes a savvy politician to run for president by telling people what they don’t want to hear—or perhaps a crazy one. Yet here was Lindsey Graham, South Carolina’s senior senator, shuffling into the state capitol June 22 to advocate the removal of the Confederate flag. Graham’s nascent presidential campaign depends on winning the Palmetto State — where six in 10 voters oppose the relocation of the rebel emblem.
But it wasn’t the first time Graham, who supports comprehensive immigration reform and climate science, has put conscience ahead of his constituents. And he’s hardly the only candidate risking the repercussions of defying the party base as the race for the White House ramps up.
Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush has stuck by his moderate positions on education and immigration. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie will make controversial entitlement reforms a cornerstone of his comeback bid. Ohio Gov. John Kasich infuriated conservative activists by expanding Medicaid in Ohio. And long-shot candidate former New York Gov. George Pataki has made disagreeing with his party’s mainstream a point of pride.
The maverick style has gone mainstream. Fifteen years after John McCain tried to ride the Straight Talk Express to the GOP nomination, the truth-telling persona has become as much a fixture of presidential campaigning as the flag pin. And in the 2016 Republican primary, more candidates than ever before are betting that a base-bucking approach will pay off with voters sick of the quadrennial presidential pander.
“You have to understand,” Kasich explained to TIME in a recent interview, “the Republican Party is my vehicle, and not my master.”
All this is a stark change from the 2012 campaign, when the GOP field was desperate to indulge the activist base that seemed to hold the keys to the White House. The rush to the right often manifested in ways that were embarrassing or ugly. There was the debate where nearly the entire field pledged to veto a 10-to-1 deal of spending cuts for new tax revenue—a pact most sensible conservatives would snap up in a second. There was the collective unwillingness to call out conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh’s ad hominem attack against women’s rights’ activist Sandra Fluke. There was the forum in Florida where the candidates stood idly by as a gay soldier was booed on live television.
Yet four years later, the number of candidates eager to establish their independence exceeds the number who are purely focused on pleasing the base. “Voters are looking for leaders who treat them like adults and tell them the truth,” says Mike DuHaime, Christie’s chief strategist. “They are rejecting politicians who tell everyone what they want to hear and speak only in cautious focus-grouped terms.”
In some ways, the tell-it-like-it-is caucus is responding to Americans’ well-documented dissatisfaction with the nation’s institutions—and especially its elected officials.
“Most of these candidates understand that of the forces shaping the electorate, there is nothing more dominating than the utter collapse of trust between the American people and just about every institution you can think of,” explains Steve Schmidt, McCain’s former top strategist. “What they get is the macro-political climate in the country. They get the sour mood of the American people, the collapse of trust between most American institutions and the American people, and that they want a real leader.”
“Folks hate Washington, D.C.; its polices, it’s politics, it’s attitude,” adds New Hampshire-based GOP strategist Dave Carney. “We thirst for someone to treat us as adults, and be straight with us about the problems and challenges we face as a nation.”
But that’s not the only reason why Ted Cruz, whose Oval Office aspirations may hinge on winning the Iowa caucuses, called for an end to the ethanol subsidies that have long fattened local interests. Or why Bush told the Wall Street Journal last December that the next GOP nominee must be willing to “lose the primary to win the general without violating your principles.”
“Folks will tell you in politics, ‘don’t talk about that subject,’” Christie said in New Hampshire this month, in a reference to raising the retirement age. “They call it the third rail of American politics. They say, ‘don’t touch it.’ So we’re not going to touch it. We’re going to hug it.”
The maverick shtick is popular because it can be good politics. Each of these campaigns has mapped their paths to the White House through New Hampshire, where style has always been as prized as substance. They know that truth-telling can be a recipe for media attention, and that presenting one’s self as an agent of change can help establish a niche in a crowded field.
Their numbers are also growing as a side effect of new rules put in place after the 2012 race to shorten the primary calendar and limit the number of televised debates. The guidelines, imposed by the Republican National Committee to limit the damage inflicted on the eventual nominee, have had the unexpected effect of nationalizing the race. With more states voting early on, contests in places like Iowa and South Carolina become less vital to a candidate’s chances. That saps the power of hardcore activists and hands more influence to moderate voters in bigger, more diverse states. And with national polling being the standard to get on stage at the all-important televised debates, candidates have to define themselves more. “Loud doesn’t mean a lot,” Graham says.
The would-be mavericks are also responding to a well-documented hunger for a virtuous statesman, as embodied by the cinematic archetypes of Frank Capra’s Mr. Smith or Aaron Sorkin’s Jed Barlet. Or even the real-life McCain, whose bull-shooting sessions with the press on the back of his bus are the stuff of political legend.
Still, it’s a safe bet that political calculations will ultimately trump conscience. Graham’s good friend McCain pandered on the Confederate flag in his 2000 campaign and tapped Sarah Palin as his running mate in 2008 when he needed to galvanize the base. And candidates of all stripes can cast the same old red-meat as telling uncomfortable truths that somehow only discomfort the other party.
“It remains to be seen,” Schmidt says, “whether we’re going to have truth-telling candidates rather than candidates using ‘truth-telling’ as a prop.”
New Hampshire Poll: Sanders Inching Closer to Clinton, Bush Continues Leading GOP // Latin Post // Rodrigo Ugarte – June 27, 2015
New numbers out of New Hampshire show that many in the Granite State have started making up their minds about how they will vote for in the state's presidential primary. Hillary Clinton and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Democratic presidential hopefuls, are coming closer on the polls while Republicans struggle to shine.
A new WMUR/CNN poll shows Sen. Sanders is closing the gap between him and Clinton among Democratic primary voters. The poll, conducted by the University of New Hampshire, surveyed 1,010 people and among the likely Democratic primary voters Clinton still remained in the number one position with 43 percent believing she should be the party's first choice. However, Sen. Sanders was only eight points behind with 35 percent. None of the other Democratic candidates or potential candidates broke past 10 percent.
Sen. Sanders' rise in the polls could coincide with a continued importance on the economy among New Hampshire voters. Though it has declined in importance from 35 percent in February to 24 percent in June, the economy remains the top issue for New Hampshire Democratic primary voters.
Sen. Sanders has built his campaign on his views on economic inequality and reform in various areas of the country.
His favorability rating of 66 percent is even closer to Clinton's 74 percent and she also enjoys the rank of top unfavorable Democratic candidate with 11 percent. Yet, the former secretary of state continues to lead.
Among Republicans, however, the race remains uneven with Jeb Bush leading in the polls in the same survey. Sixteen percent of primary voters in the state opted to vote for Bush. The next choice was Donald Trump with 11 percent.
However, when asked about whom they favor the most, Bush had a 50 percent while Trump only 38 percent. Sen. Marco Rubio also from Florida came the closest to Bush with 49 percent but only six percent would vote for him if the primary election happened today.
The New Hampshire primary is the second in the country and it is slated to happen in early February 2016.
2 Charged in Confederate Flag Removal at South Carolina Capitol // NYT // Kenneth Rosen – June 27, 2015
A protester climbed a 30-foot flagpole and removed the Confederate battle flag from its perch outside the South Carolina State House early Saturday, before she was arrested and the flag replaced, the police said.
The protester, an African-American woman, was nearly halfway up the pole when a State Capitol police officer on routine patrol ordered her to come down. The authorities said the woman, who was wearing climbing gear, had ignored the command.
She continued her climb to the top of the flagpole and unhooked and removed the flag before descending.
An officer from the Bureau of Protective Services arrested her and a white male who had aided her.
The police identified the woman as Brittany Ann Byuarim-Newsome, 30, of Raleigh, N.C., and her purported accomplice as James Ian Tyson, 30, of Charlotte, N.C.
They were charged with defacing a monument, the police said, a misdemeanor that carries a fine of up to $5,000, a prison term of up to three years or both.
About the time she was being arrested, Ms. Byuarim-Newsome sent a statement to the news media via email. “We removed the flag today because we can’t wait any longer. We can’t continue like this another day,” the statement said. “It’s time for a new chapter where we are sincere about dismantling white supremacy and building toward true racial justice and equality.”
Some opponents of the flag argued that the protesters’ actions had created an opening to resolve a divisive issue.
“The flag is down now — we should keep it down,” Rashad Robinson, the executive director of ColorOfChange.org, an advocacy group, said in a statement.
But the flag in Columbia — which flies near the Confederate Monument on the grounds of the State House — is protected by state law. A new flag was hung within an hour after Saturday’s incident.
Around 10 a.m., about a dozen cars and trucks flying Confederate flags circled the State House in advance of a pro-Confederate flag rally at the monument. Protests against the Confederate battle flag and calls for it to be removed from public display have escalated since the June 17 killings of nine African-American churchgoers at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston. Gov. Nikki R. Haley, a Republican, has called from the removal of the flag at the State House, but she said she needed the cooperation of the legislature. On Tuesday, South Carolina lawmakers agreed to allow discussion of the matter during the legislative session.
The man charged in the attack at the Emanuel A.M.E. Church, Dylann Roof, 21, posted photographs on social media and the Internet showing him posing with the Confederate flag. The police and prosecutors have said his attack was racially motivated and have accused him of a hate crime.
For Obama and Clinton, twisty paths to 'yes' on gay marriage // AP // Jim Kuhneman and Lisa Lerer – June 27, 2015
When President Barack Obama praised the Supreme Court's watershed same-sex marriage ruling, he held it up as evidence that a "shift in hearts and minds is possible."
Obama may well have been describing his own public trajectory on gay unions — a complicated path that took him through opposition and ambivalence to enthusiastic embrace.
His journey is not unlike the rest of America. But over the years he has worn his uncertainty on his sleeve, publicly musing about his stance before becoming a full-throated advocate for marriage and other aspects of gay rights.
"When all Americans are treated as equal, we are all more free," Obama declared Friday.
As far as political figures go, Obama's road to "yes" is hardly unique.
Hillary Rodham Clinton's presidential campaign jumped on the Supreme Court decision, changing its red campaign logo to a rainbow colored H, releasing a gauzy video of gay wedding ceremonies, and blasting out supportive tweets aimed at building its campaign list.
In a fiery speech Friday night to Democratic activists in Northern Virginia, Clinton said that "love triumphed in the highest court" and declared: "We can sum up the message from the court and the American people in just two words: Move on."
But like Obama, such expressions of support mark a remarkable shift for Clinton, who opposed gay marriage for more than two decades as a first lady, a U.S. senator and a presidential candidate. Just three months ago, Clinton's position was that while she personally supported gay marriage the issue was best left for individual states to decide — a policy stance held by most of the Republican presidential field.
"It has been an evolutionary process," said Fred Sainz of the Human Rights Campaign, a national gay rights group. But he said Obama now stands as one of the great champions of gay rights, up there with the likes of Harvey Milk. As for Clinton, he said, "she connects with gay people on a level that is beyond explanation."
Obama has carefully staked out his position on same-sex marriage throughout his political career. During his 1996 Illinois state Senate race, he replied to a questionnaire from a gay newspaper in Chicago: "I favor legalizing same-sex marriages, and would fight efforts to prohibit such marriages." Two years later, he declared himself undecided.
By 2004, as he ran for the U.S. Senate, he said he opposed gay marriage for politically strategic reasons, saying Republicans would exploit the issue, and he advocated instead for gay civil unions. In his 2006 book, "The Audacity of Hope," he cited his own faith as a reason to oppose same-sex marriage, though he also wondered whether "in years hence I may be seen as someone who was on the wrong side of history."
He came out firmly for same-sex marriage in 2012 and called for it in his second inaugural address. But earlier this year, his former top strategist, David Axelrod, wrote that Obama had feigned opposition to gay marriage for most of his political career, grudgingly taking Axelrod's advice that African-American religious leaders and others would oppose him if he let it be known he supported gay marriage.
"If Obama's views were 'evolving' publicly, they were fully evolved behind closed doors," Axelrod wrote.
Obama disputed the account, telling BuzzFeed News that he thought civil unions were "a sufficient way of squaring the circle," but that "the pain and the sense of stigma that was being placed on same-sex couples who are friends of mine" changed his mind.
"I think the notion that somehow I was always in favor of marriage per se isn't quite accurate," Obama told BuzzFeed.
But even after he endorsed gay marriage, he took his time embracing other aspects of the gay community's agenda.
It wasn't until July 2014 that Obama gave employment protection to gay and transgender workers in the federal government and its contracting agencies.
Still, gay rights advocates hold him up as one of their biggest political advocates.
"It's absolutely right to note that this administration did not get off to a good start with LGBT advocates," Sainz said. "But the sheer volume of what he has done will be hard for another president to replicate, simply because so much of what he has done has been so incredibly powerful, momentous and life changing for LGBT people."
Clinton's path into the embrace of the gay community has been similar. She backed her husband's Defense of Marriage Act in 1996, described marriage between a man and a woman as a "fundamental bedrock principle" in a 2004 Senate floor speech, and dodged the question when asked in 2007 whether she agreed with Gen. Peter Pace, then the Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman, that homosexuality was immoral.
But as secretary of state, Clinton emerged as a champion of gay rights, declaring that "gay rights are human rights, and human rights are gay rights," at a 2011 conference in Geneva.
Sainz said that in Clinton, the LGBT community sees a kindred spirit. "It's in our DNA to support her," he said. "We have been forced to deal with some of lives greatest indignities and have come out on the other side."
Obama's Charleston eulogy: 'Amazing Grace' // CNN // Kevin Liptak – June 27, 2015
Charleston, South Carolina (CNN) President Barack Obama delivered a touching eulogy, a rousing political speech and a thoughtful meditation on race in America when he traveled to Charleston, South Carolina on Friday to speak at the funeral of the Rev. Clementa Pinckney, who was gunned down last week by a racist terrorist during Bible study.
But the President's speech will be remembered for a moment at the end when he launched into a solo of "Amazing Grace," that at first stunned the mourners and then brought them to their feet as they joined him in song.
"As a nation, out of this terrible tragedy, God has visited grace upon us for he has allowed us to see where we've been blind," Obama said. "He's given us the chance, where we've been lost, to find our best selves."
The President's remarks at times felt like a sermon, with organ chords backing him during some of the most impassioned passages. The mostly African-American crowd was, at the end of the eulogy, on its feet, clapping and cheering Obama as he named each victim of the church shooting and declaring each "had grace."
The President, first lady Michelle Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, a bipartisan host of high-level members of Congress and Hillary Clinton all attended the memorial service at TD Arena in downtown Charleston. Last Wednesday, a 21-year-old man opened fire at a Bible study inside Charleston's Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, killing nine.
The shooter declared he was there to "kill black people," and an online manifesto attributed to him contained white supremacist screeds.
Obama, in his eulogy, said the killer likely assumed he "would deepen divisions that trace back to our nation's original sin."
"But God works in mysterious ways," Obama said. "God had different ideas. He didn't know he was being used by God."
"The alleged killer could have never anticipated the way the families of the fallen would respond when they saw him in court in the midst of unspeakable grief, with words of forgiveness," Obama said.
The country, he argued, has responded to the church shooting "with a thoughtful introspection and self-examination that we so rarely see in public life."
Friday's funeral service for Pinckney wasn't the first time Obama delivered a high-profile eulogy, and with a year and a half remaining in office, it may not be the last.
But on Friday, Obama's speech moved beyond just grief for the victims -- the President stepped directly into a national conversation about race in which he plays a central role.
He declared the Confederate flag a symbol of racial oppression, and praised the renewed urgency in removing it from the South Carolina State Capitol.
"Removing the flag from this state's capital would not be an act of political correctness," he said. "It would not an insult to the valor of Confederate soldiers. It would simply be acknowledgment that the cause for which they fought, the cause of slavery, was wrong."
Unlike past times Obama has confronted an act of violence, he knew the highest profile victim of the Charleston shooting personally. Obama met Pinckney as an early supporter of his 2008 presidential bid.
That personal connection differentiated Friday's eulogy from the funerals Obama keynoted after previous shootings. So, too, did the renewed questions on race spurred by the shooter's apparent motivations.
"None of us can or should expect a transformation in race relations overnight. Every time something like this happens, somebody says, 'We have to have a conversation about race,'" Obama said. "We talk a lot about race. There's no shortcut. We don't need more talk."
Prior to the eulogy, Obama himself used some of his bluntest language to date on race during an interview with comedian Marc Maron on Friday, saying that just because the N-word is no longer used frequently in public, "that's not the measure of whether racism still exists or not."
The moment was a distant cry from the earlier days of Obama's presidency, when he studiously avoided discussing race or the implications of his election to office.
At Friday's funeral, Obama called for greater attention to less apparent forms of racism.
"Maybe we now realize the way a racial bias can infect us even when we don't realize it so that we're guarding against not just racial slurs, but we're also guarding against the subtle impulse to call Johnny back for a job interview but not Jamal," he said.
Greece on the brink of default after talks with creditors break down // WaPo // Griff Witte – June 27, 2015
LONDON — Greece’s long-running standoff with its European creditors appeared headed on Saturday for an abrupt — and potentially cataclysmic — ending as the continent’s finance ministers rejected an emergency Greek request to help the cash-starved country meet a Tuesday deadline for paying back its debts.
The development, just hours after Greece’s prime minister stunned the continent with plans to hold a nationwide referendum on Europe’s latest proposals, makes it increasingly likely that Greece will default — and could soon crash out of the euro zone altogether.
Reflecting the newly dire outlook, people formed lines at ATMs across Greece, seizing on perhaps their last chance to withdraw their savings. Some went away empty-handed after the machines ran dry.
With speculation mounting that the banks may lack the funds to reopen Monday morning, European officials huddled behind closed doors to plot out how to contain the damage of a Greek financial meltdown. The Greek finance minister was pointedly excluded from those talks, which ended with a statement from the other 18 euro-zone countries urging Greek authorities to implement capital controls.
The statement also highlighted the safeguards that have been implemented to keep debt contagion from spreading to other vulnerable economies, suggesting that if Greece is forced to abandon the euro, the collateral damage may be limited. But because no country has left the euro zone in its 16-year history, no one knows just how extensive the impact may be.
The collapse of negotiations on Saturday was the most ominous turn in a process that has been poisoned from the start by bitter mistrust between Greece’s radical leftist government and the austerity-minded heavyweights who set policy in Europe.
Although both sides have repeatedly expressed a determination to keep Greece inside the common currency — and to avoid at all costs an uncontrollable and potentially disastrous default — that shared aspiration has not been enough to bridge the substantial divide.
As has become customary, each on Saturday blamed the other for the breakdown.
Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis called Saturday “a sad day for Europe” and said its decision to reject his request to extend Greece’s bailout for several more weeks “will certainly damage the credibility of the euro group as a democratic union.”
European officials countered that Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras had blindsided them by calling a referendum early Sunday on a proposal that was still being negotiated, a move that effectively torpedoed any chance for a deal.
“The negotiations are clearly ended, if I understand Mr. Tsipras correctly,” said German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble as the continent’s top finance officials gathered for their fifth emergency meeting in the past two weeks. “We have no grounds for further discussions.”
Eurogroup President Jeroen Dijsselbloem discusses Greek rejection of European Union deal that could result in default and exit from the Euro. (Reuters)
Varoufakis later challenged European leaders to come back with a new proposal and signaled an openness to further talks. But the acrimony with which talks ended Saturday suggested that a return to the negotiating table is highly unlikely before two critical tests in the week ahead.
The first will come Monday, when Greek banks that have grown ever more reliant on emergency loans from the European Central Bank face the prospect of reopening for business without new lifelines.
The second will be Tuesday, when a $1.7 billion payment to the International Monetary Fund comes due. The IMF has repeatedly said it will not offer an extension on that deadline. Greek officials, meanwhile, say they do not have the money to make the payment unless the country’s creditors unlock $8 billion in bailout funds that have been frozen as the negotiations have stalled.
Tsipras has set the referendum for July 5, although it is unclear exactly what Greek voters will be deciding. In announcing the vote, Tsipras said he wanted to give the Greek people the chance to vote on the latest proposal by Greece’s creditors, which he attacked as “an ultimatum” that would place “unbearable new burdens on the Greek people.”
But with Greece sliding toward default and a possible break with the euro zone, there is no guarantee that the offer will remain viable by the time of the referendum, even if Greece does vote “yes.”
The European Central Bank, the European Commission and the IMF have together provided Greece with $264 billion in bailouts over the past five years as the country has reckoned with sky-high debts.
After years of withering austerity policies imposed by European paymasters as a condition of those deals, Greece in January rejected the medicine and elected Syriza, a radical leftist party that promised to tear up the old agreements and start anew.
Greece has repeatedly demanded that Europe reduce the nation’s debt load and ease up on austerity, which officials say has devastated the economy and sent unemployment rocketing to 25 percent. But European officials have been unwilling to hand Syriza a victory and have insisted that the country keep to strict targets for belt-tightening.
The past week began with rare optimism, as Greece submitted proposals that European officials initially welcomed as a significant step forward after months of deadlock. But by Wednesday, the creditors had submitted counterproposals for slashing pensions and cutting spending. Greek officials rejected them, saying they would cross the government’s red lines.
During debate in the Greek Parliament on Saturday over whether the referendum should go ahead, Tsipras was given a standing ovation from supporters who cheered his defiance of European authorities. But opposition leaders and others accused him of recklessly endangering the country’s place in Europe.
“The nation’s most vital interests demand that the country remains at the heart of Europe. The E.U.’s actual shortcomings do not, in any way, negate this,” said former prime minister Costas Karamanlis, who spoke out after a long silence. “Foolish choices that undermine this principle push the country to adventures, with unpredictable and possibly irreversible consequences.”
ISIS bomb plot on London military parade foiled, nation remains on high alert // New York Daily News // Dennis Slattery – June 27, 2015
British security forces were on high alert Saturday at events marking Armed Forces Day following reports that officials foiled an ISIS bomb plot on a military parade in London, officials said.
Police foiled an attack on a London military parade Saturday after an undercover reporter who obtained details on the plot alerted counterterrorism officials, The Sun newspaper reported.
The plot included the use of pressure-cooker devices, similar to those used during the deadly attacks on the Boston Marathon in 2013.
Prime Minister David Cameron told reporters “heightened security” would be deployed at events paying tribute to Britain’s military in response to the report.
Police said they were also beefing up security for the annual gay pride parade in London on Saturday.
Britain’s terrorism threat remains at “severe,” meaning an attack is considered highly likely.
The number of domestic terrorism-related arrests increased by about one-third in 2014, as police try to halt those joining Islamic extremists in Syria.
About 700 Britons are believed to have left the country to join militants.
The announcement followed bloody attacks in Tunisia, France and Kuwait on Friday.
At least 15 Britons were among the 39 people — mostly tourists — who were killed when a gunman attacked a Tunisian beach resort on Friday.
Gay Marriage Is American As Apple Pie // Daily Beast // Gil Troy – June 27, 2015
Even before the Supreme Court decided on Friday in Obergefell v. Hodges that same-sex marriage rights were universal, the popular verdict was in: gay marriage—and gay life—had become as American as apple pie.
Two years ago, in June 2013 the Supreme Court refused to limit the words “marriage” and “spouse” to heterosexual unions, invalidating the Defense of Marriage Act. That November, the Senate passed ENDA, the Employment Nondiscrimination Act banning anti-gay discrimination in the workplace 64 to 32—including 10 Republican votes, although the House of Representative has yet to pass it. Until recently, Democrats often opposed gay marriage publicly, even while approving it privately; now, Republicans are increasingly supporting gay marriage publicly—or dodging the issue Chris Christie style—even while disapproving it privately. This reversal in what constitutes the politically safe position on gays probably represents America’s fastest, sharpest U-turn on a fundamental social issue since the 1960s.
Twenty-two years ago, when the last Democratic president, Bill Clinton, admitted he approved of gays serving in the military, the resulting firestorm ultimately imposed “Don’t ask, don’t tell.” Despite the Democratic majority in Congress, only 69 House members signed a letter supporting gay rights. Three years later in 1996, Clinton wooed the center by signing the Defense of Marriage Act, whose key provision many Clinton nominees to the Supreme Court eventually gutted in U.S. v. Windsor (2013) as placing an unfair “stigma” on gay spouses. As of January 2004 gay marriage was illegal in all 50 states.
Even as recently as seven years ago, when Barack Obama’s presidency began, gays were weaker politically. Obama’s 2008 campaign triggered a surge of socially conservative black and Hispanic voters who helped pass California’s Proposition 8 banning same sex marriage. With many blacks—and Democrats—still opposing civil unions, Obama had not endorsed gay marriage. As president, he only approved same sex marriage on May 9, 2012, thanks to Vice President Joe Biden’s blurting out his own endorsement days earlier on “Meet the Press.”
What John Adams would have labeled a revolution “in the minds and hearts of the people,” has been rapid and radical. Since Thomas Jefferson’s wonderfully subversive phrase in the Declaration of Independence proclaiming “all men are created equal,” gradually, “all” broadened to include blacks, gays and others. “Men” expanded to include women; even the notion of “equal” grew.
Those seeking to create a heroic history of gay liberation emphasize the Stonewall protests of 1969, along with four decades’ worth of protests producing legislative and legal victories. But in fact, a mass cultural conversion precipitated this political change.
While rooted in the Sixties’ sexual revolution and the Seventies’ “Me Decade,” this cultural revolution went national in the 1980s. Ironically, the AIDS tragedy helped mainstream gay life. Many gays became more open about their lifestyles, while many heterosexuals became more aware of gays around them, especially after the disease killed President Ronald Reagan’s friend, the Hollywood legend Rock Hudson, in 1985.
In the 1990s, despite the complex politics handcuffing Clinton, Hollywood propagandized effectively for gay equality. Movie blockbusters like Philadelphia starring Tom Hanks and Denzel Washington, and The Birdcage, starring Robin Williams and Gene Hackman, cast in celluloid the dominant Hollywood stereotype of gays as normal, respectable, family-loving Americans underneath whatever flamboyant facades some might choose—with conservative opponents cast as Neanderthals awaiting redemption. A year later, the comedienne Ellen DeGeneres came out of the closet on The Oprah Winfrey Show. With art first imitating, then shaping, life, DeGeneres’s popular sitcom character “Ellen” subsequently came out to her therapist, played by Oprah Winfrey.
Will and Grace debuted in 1998 introducing Will Truman, an openly-gay lawyer sporting an all-American name and a conservative personality. By 2005, the American public proved surprisingly open to a sexually explicit macho males’ love story in Brokeback Mountain. Movies and television had not only normalized what most once deemed abnormal, they glamorized what most once deemed repulsive.
As with the Reagan years, the George W. Bush years proved surprisingly good for gays in their march to social and political acceptance. Mary Cheney’s lesbianism was not that scandalous, and actually softened the George W. Bush-Dick Cheney image. When Bush’s former Republican National Committee chair, Ken Mehlman, came out in 2010, many emphasized the shocking fact that few were shocked.
Cheney’s and Mehlman’s outsider-as-insider stories, paralleling millions of others’ paths, reveal gays’ power as both an invisible minority and as the privileged oppressed. Like Jews, gays frequently pass easily in society, often asserting their distinct identity as they please. It becomes hard to hate “them” when “they” are “us.”
And, like women, many gays sit at the most elite familial, corporate and governmental tables in the land, giving them the exclusive access long denied to African-Americans and other minorities. This growing intimacy, familiarity, and prominence, with millions coming out to relatives and colleagues, set the stage for this decade’s political and legal changes. Before Friday, 37 states and Washington, D.C., allowed same-sex marriages.
Ironically—but cleverly—gays changed their collective image by embracing marriage during an epidemic of heterosexual divorce. Emphasizing their conventionality and familiarity, rather than flamboyance and rebelliousness, gays have framed equal treatment as a civil rights issue, appealing to an increasingly fluid and tolerant society that worships individual rights and abhors discrimination.
The late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan taught that: “The central conservative truth is that it is culture, not politics that determines the success of a society. The central liberal truth is that politics can change a culture and save it from itself.” This time, cultural transformation triggered liberal change. Especially in today’s horizontal democracy, culture matters, ideas count, media transforms—and sometimes, politics and the law just catch up.
The monuments to the framers of The Southern Manifesto of 1956 // American Thinker – June 27, 2015
As Confederate flags come down, so should the monuments that honor the Democrat politicians who overwhelmingly supported The Southern Manifesto of 1956.
The Southern Manifesto – officially entitled The Decision of the Supreme Court in the School Cases Declaration of Constitutional Principles – was signed by 101 members of the U.S. Congress, including 19 senators and 82 members of the House of Representatives. Ninety-nine of them were Democrats.
All 19 Senate signatories were Democrats: Walter F. George, Richard B. Russell, John Stennis, Sam J. Ervin, Jr., Strom Thurmond, Harry F. Byrd, A. Willis Robertson, John L. McClellan, Allen J. Ellender, Russell B. Long, Lister Hill, James O. Eastland, W. Kerr Scott, John Sparkman, Olin D. Johnston, Price Daniel, J.W. Fulbright, George A. Smathers, Spessard L. Holland.
The Manifesto was entered into the Congressional Record, 84th Congress, Second Session, Vol. 102, Part 4, on March 12, 1956, as a response to the 1954 Supreme Court ruling in Brown v. Board of Education.
It included this language:
This unwarranted exercise of power by the Court, contrary to the Constitution, is creating chaos and confusion in the States principally affected. It is destroying the amicable relations between the white and Negro races that have been created through 90 years of patient effort by the good people of both races. It has planted hatred and suspicion where there has been heretofore friendship and understanding.
The effort underway today to shame the display of the Confederate flag should be rightly accompanied by a removal of the monuments to those national politicians who, 60 years ago, claimed that “amicable relations between the white and Negro races” was being perpetuated by separate but equal educational opportunities.
Those monuments include statues of Senator J. William Fulbright (who received the Presidential Medal of Freedom Award from President William Jefferson Clinton)...
...West Virginia senator (and former Ku Klux Klansman) Robert C. Byrd...
...South Carolina senator Sam Irwin...
...South Carolina senator Strom Thurmond, drafter of the original version of the Manifesto...
...and Louisiana senator Russell B. Long, son of Louisiana governor and U.S. senator Huey Long.a
If there is no honor in the memories evoked by the Confederate flag, then there is even less to be found in the statues depicting those prominent politicians who fought for segregation well into the 20th century.
Clinton supports universal background checks // Des Moines Register // Sarah Mannheimer – June 27, 2015
Late last year, three Des Moines-area schools went into lockdown on the same morning after separate shooting incidents in our area. My 5-year-old daughter asked me why she had to hide under her desk. I couldn’t bring myself to tell her. I refuse to teach my children to live in fear.
Recently a young woman was gunned down at the Coral Ridge Mall near Iowa City. And of course, last week, nine people were massacred at their church in Charleston, S.C. It doesn’t end there; 88 people lose their lives to gun violence every day in this country, many of them women and children.
Last week, Hillary Clinton asked the most urgent question facing our country, “How many people do we need to see cut down before we act?” Hillary supports universal background checks to keep weapons out of the hands of domestic abusers, violent felons, and those suffering from mental illness. Hillary Clinton is willing to fight for a future free from gun violence. Are you?
I’m calling on all candidates to follow Hillary’s lead. I’m calling on responsible gun owners to take a stand. I’m calling on Iowans to recognize that gun violence affects every community. Together we can keep our schools, churches and workplaces safe. Hillary Clinton is right. It is time to act.