#Campaign2016, as it happened
As we recovered from last night’s Republican presidential primary debate - either the nadir or the apex of American political discourse, depending on your perspective - and prepared for tomorrow night’s caucuses in Kansas and primaries in Louisiana, among other states - Friday gave political reporters little room for rest.
It’s been a long week, is what we’re saying.
— Scott Bixby (@scottbix) March 3, 2016
From the suspension of a once-powerful presidential campaign to drama at the Conservative Political Action Conference, here’s a summary of some of today’s more dramatic political news:
- Jim Webb, a former senator from Virginia and briefly a Democratic presidential candidate, declared on TV this morning that he would not vote for Hillary Clinton, who’s making a very strong run for the Democratic nomination. (But he might vote for Trump.)
- Republican national committee chair Reince Priebus, onstage at CPAC, said that he’s “85-90% sure” there won’t be a contested convention this year, although if Florida senator Marco Rubio has anything to say about it...
- Donald Trump’s campaign announced that the billionaire frontrunner for the Republican nomination would not attend the Conservative Political Action Conference in Fort Washington, Maryland, and would instead stick around Wichita, Kansas, for a rally prior to the caucuses there on Saturday. Protests were being openly planned for Trump’s speech in front of the group, which he has courted assiduously for the past five years. In the statement released by the campaign, Trump’s communications team misspelled both “Wichita” and “Kansas.”
- Two days after prominent Republican national security and military figures published an open letter stating “we are united in our opposition to a Donald Trump presidency,” in large part due to his stance on torture and war crimes, Trump reversed that position in a statement to the Wall Street Journal, saying that he would not order members of the military to break the law.
- Speaking of CPAC, retired pediatric neurosurgeon Ben Carson officially suspended his campaign for the Republican nomination in a speech at the conference, calling his candidacy “an experience that I will never forget.” Carson did not endorse any remaining candidates for his party’s nomination, but promised that “I will still continue to be heavily involved in trying to save our nation.”
That’s it from the Guardian’s liveblog desk in New York - tune in tomorrow for our coverage of the Republican and Democratic caucuses in Kansas and primaries in Louisiana, Democratic caucuses in Nebraska and the Republican caucuses in Maine and Kentucky - and on Sunday for our coverage of the Democratic caucus in Maine and Republican primary in Puerto Rico. Plus the Democratic presidential primary debate on Sunday night in Flint, Michigan.
Until then...
As conservatives gathered in Maryland for the Conservative Political Action Conference, the Guardian asked attendees to rate the Republican frontrunner on a scale of Bernie Sanders to Rick Santorum in terms of conservatism – with mixed results.
The conference, which is one of the biggest in the Republican calendar, featured speeches from presidential candidates Ted Cruz, John Kasich and Ben Carson.
When Mitt Romney delivered a scathing speech against Donald Trump’s candidacy on Thursday, many were quick to point out that the former Republican presidential nominee courted the business mogul’s endorsement in 2012 - even as Trump pushed the conspiracy that Barack Obama was born in Kenya.
Defending himself on Friday, Romney insisted Trump’s birtherism against Obama was “very different” than what the Republican frontrunner is saying today.
“I think that’s very different than calling Mexicans rapists, than saying Muslims are not going to be allowed into the country as immigrants, than mocking a disabled reporter, than going after women and saying, ‘Oh, she asks tough questions because she was in her menstrual cycle,’” Romney told CNN in an interview.
“This is highly offensive,” he added.
Pressed on the fact that it was similarly offensive to raise doubts over Obama’s birthplace, Romney continued to downplay Trump’s fixation with the president’s birth certificate.
“He had a belief President Obama wasn’t born in this country. I disagreed with him,” Romney said.
“There are political views where we’re going to disagree. But what he has said during this campaign - that George W. Bush is a liar, that John McCain isn’t a hero - he said some things that are completely, totally outrageous.”
CNN’s Gloria Borger continued to prod Romney further, pointing out that Obama would find it offensive that Trump insisted he wasn’t born in the US. Romney again dismissed it as a futile exercise.
“The funny thing about Donald Trump’s whole birther thing is, it would have made no difference - Barack Obama’s mother was American,” Romney said. “It was a whole ridiculous thing that Donald Trump was pursuing, and it’s, I think, characteristic of what you see now.”
Romney secured Trump’s endorsement in February of 2012, even as Trump had aggressively pushed the idea that Obama was a Muslim and born in Kenya. The controversy even saw the reality TV star dispatch a private investigator to Hawaii, where Obama was born, and release an infamous YouTube video calling on the president to release both his birth certificate and college transcripts.
Romney’s campaign sought to distance itself from Trump’s comments at the time, although it did not do so forcefully. Four years later, Romney placed himself at the forefront of the so-called #NeverTrump movement by vowing to stop at nothing to prevent his one-time ally from being the Republican nominee.
Romney told CNN on Friday he would not vote for Trump even if he is the nominee, and was moved to take action when thinking of what he would tell his grandchildren one day about what he did to try and stop the brash billionaire.
The Guardian’s Ben Jacobs has more on Ben Carson’s suspension of his presidential campaign:
The decision marked a fall from grace for Carson, the only Republican candidate besides Donald Trump to have led in multiple national polls since the current frontrunner’s emergence over the summer. Carson has also raised more money than any other Republican candidate for the White House.
The mild-mannered neurosurgeon, famed for being the first person to separate twins conjoined at the head, became a prominent political figure in 2013. Then, as the keynote speaker at the National Prayer Breakfast, he launched a furious diatribe against Barack Obama and the Affordable Care Act as the president sat just feet away. The speech turned the 64-year-old African American doctor into a beloved figure among conservatives and fueled his insurgent presidential bid, which began last year.
However, Carson, a first time candidate for elected office, was plagued by a disorganized campaign that never built up the political apparatus necessary to win. There was never the political and press operation necessary to mount a winning effort in a campaign plagued by infighting and in which Carson confidant Armstrong Williams played an outsized role and often undermined paid staffers. But many of the issues came from a campaign where even the candidate admitted that his staffers “didn’t really seem to understand finances”.
Marco Rubio on Friday dubbed Donald Trump as the most vulgar person to ever run for president of the United States, writes the Guardian’s Sabrina Siddiqui:
Speaking on the morning after yet another nasty presidential debate, Rubio lambasted the Republican frontrunner. “Donald Trump has been perhaps the most vulgar - no, I don’t think perhaps - the most vulgar person to ever aspire to the presidency in terms of how he’s carried out his candidacy,” the Florida senator told CNN.
“It’s cut into a lot of these debates and some of the things we are asked about,” Rubio added. “I would love to have a policy debate and I think that is important. We’re talking about the presidency of the United States here.”
Rubio and Trump were at the center of several contentious exchanges in the debate, the eleventh of the Republican primary. Rubio insisted it was Trump who was responsible for injecting “a level of vulgarity into the political discourse that we’ve never seen.”
“It has come to a point, where voters deserve better what they are getting out of these debates and this campaign.”
After struggling to secure more than one victory in the nominating contests thus far, Rubio is going all in on his home state of Florida - which will hold its primary on March 15. There, too, he is trailing Trump by double digits but has earned the backing of more than 80 former and current elected Florida officials.
On Friday, Rubio was also endorsed by the Orlando Sentinel, the largest newspaper in the central Florida region.
“Unlike Trump, Rubio has the knowledge and judgment to be president,” the paper’s editorial board wrote in an op-ed that was nothing short of scathing in its assessment of Trump.
“Where to begin on Trump’s judgment? His idea of political discourse is hurling or tweeting insults at anyone who dares question him,” the board wrote. “He has maligned Mexican immigrants and Muslims. He has mocked people with disabilities and prisoners of war. He has disparaged and degraded women.”
The Orlando Sentinel also lent its support to Rubio in his long-shot 2010 Senate bid. While acknowledging in its 2016 endorsement that it did not agree with Rubio on many issues - namely his hardline stance against abortion - the paper contended that the fresh-faced senator remained “the best hope” of the remaining Republican candidates.
The Miami Herald, the most widely circulated newspaper in Rubio’s hometown of south Florida, gave the senator its stamp of approval earlier this week.
Florida is now shaping up to be a do-or-die moment for Rubio’s presidential ambitions. But while Governor John Kasich has pledged to bow out of the race if he loses his home state of Ohio, also holding its primary on March 15, Rubio declined to do the same.
“We’re going to win Florida,” he told reporters while campaigning in Kansas on Friday. “We’re very confident about that. We’re prepared for a campaign that goes beyond Florida, as well.”
Despite his projection of confidence, Rubio acknowledged the contest would be close, “especially with something like Donald Trump going on and the amount of national attention he’s gotten.”
Ben Carson, on last night’s debate:
You would’ve thought it was Netflix. It’s kinda funny, but it’s very sad that we’ve reached that point.
After officially suspending his campaign for the Republican nomination, retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson urged voters to coalesce around a presidential candidate who will “preserve the greatness of America.”
“We are the ones who will be making the decisions, but in order to do that, we have to become active,” Carson said. “We must become informed. We cannot allow ourselves to be influenced... by the political class and by the media.”
He also gave a warning to members of the political media to be “more fair” to conservative candidates.
“Do not to allow yourselves to be captured by those who are attempting to impose an agenda upon America,” Carson said. “Remember, that you, too, are a part of us. And if the whole country goes over the cliff, you go over with it.”
“This is not about any individual person - this is about us collectively as a nation,” Carson said.
Ben Carson officially suspends his presidential campaign
Speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Fort Washington, Maryland, retired pediatric neurosurgeon Ben Carson officially suspended his campaign for the Republican nomination, calling his candidacy “an experience that I will never forget.”
“I am leaving the campaign trail,” he said, to boos, and then a loud wave of applause. “I will still continue to be heavily involved in trying to save our nation. We have to save it.”
As for potential presidential candidates for his own endorsement, Carson was cryptic. “You need to look at how they treat others, and how they treat their family, because that’s how they’re gonna treat the American people,” Carson said. “What we need now in America is trickle-down ethics.”
After a long riff on the role of the federal government in alleviating poverty, crime rates and “taking care of the indigent” - “they need to read the constitution; that is not their jobs” - Carson declared that he will continue to push for conservatives to register and vote for whomever wins the Republican nomination.
Carson decried the negative, petty tone of the campaign in recent weeks. “I left that stuff in high school,” Carson said, to loud cheers. Citing his experience as a brain surgeon, Carson declared that pure reaction is something that any animal can do - “lizards can do that” - but says only higher-level thinking will help the next president in the White House.
Updated
Retired pediatric neurosurgeon Ben Carson has begun speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Fort Washington, Maryland, where he is expended to suspend his campaign for the Republican nomination.
In his opening remarks, Carson decried the negative, petty tone of the campaign in recent weeks. “I left that stuff in high school,” Carson said, to loud cheers. Citing his experience as a brain surgeon, Carson declared that pure reaction is something that any animal can do - “lizards can do that” - but says only higher-level thinking will help the next president in the White House.
Ted Cruz has warnedthat a brokered convention would lead to “manifest revolt” among voters, the Guardian’s Ben Jacobs reports from Fort Washington, Maryland:
In a interview with Sean Hannity on Friday at the CPAC conference of conservative activists outside Washington DC, Cruz warned that talk of a brokered convention comes from “the Washington establishment in a fevered frenzy because all their chosen candidates, all their golden children, the voters keep rejecting.” He warned there was a “master plan” for “DC power brokers . . .[to] drop someone in who is exactly to the liking of the Washington establishment.” He added, “if that happens there will be manifest revolt on our hands across the country.”
Cruz, who has won four of the first fifteen nominating contests, argued “if you want to beat Donald Trump, this is how you do it, you beat Donald Trump with the voters.” The Texas senator’s statements came just over an hour after rival John Kasich said he expected there to be a brokered convention. Mitt Romney, the GOP’s nominee in 2012, also stoked talk of a brokered convention on Thursday, when he suggested voters back whichever rival to Trump was strongest in their states.
The Texas senator made the comments to an adoring audience, which repeatedly stood and gave him standing ovations.
Before being interviewed by Hannity, Cruz gave an abbreviated version of his stump speech where he took repeated shots at Donald Trump’s decision to pull out of the event, Cruz jibed “So Donald Trump is skipping CPAC. I think someone told him Megyn Kelly I going to be here.” The Texas senator who has been vocally criticizing Trump for the past two months then elevated his rhetoric. “Or even worse, he was told there are conservatives going to be here, or even worse libertarians going to be here or even worse young people going to be here,” Cruz said as the crowd built to a crescendo of applause.
The US supreme court has temporarily blocked a Louisiana law imposing regulations on doctors who perform abortions in a move that would allow two of the state’s four clinics to reopen.
In a brief order, the court granted a request by abortion providers seeking to reinstate a lower-court injunction that blocked the law, which required doctors to obtain a formal affiliation with a local hospital.
The order noted that one of the eight justices, conservative Clarence Thomas, said he would have denied the application.
The order said the court’s action was in line with its decision in June to temporarily block part of a Texas abortion law that was challenged by abortion providers in a high-profile case. The eight justices heard oral arguments in that case on Wednesday.
The Louisiana law mandates that physicians who perform abortions have “admitting privileges” at a hospital within 30 miles (48 km) of the facility where abortions are performed. The regulation matches one in the Texas law.
“God bless CPAC!”
Texas senator Ted Cruz took to the main stage at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Maryland and immediately launched into a critique of a fellow Republican presidential candidate who didn’t show up to the event: billionaire frontrunner Donald Trump.
“I think somebody told him Megyn Kelly was gonna be here,” joked Cruz, “or even worse, he was told that there were conservatives that were gonna be here; or even worse, he was told that there was gonna libertarians who were gonna be here; or even worse he was told there were gonna be young people here!” the senator said, to mixed applause and laughter.
He was immediately interrupted by a small but vocal “Trump! Trump! Trump!” chant, which itself was interrupted by a chorus of boos from the rest of the audience.
Florida senator Marco Rubio has further “clarified” his #NeverTrump stance.
On the heels of conceding in last night’s debate that he would vote for whichever candidate wins the nomination, even Donald Trump, Rubio elaborated on the subject in a radio interview today.
“For me, I’m never voting for Donald Trump in the Republican primary,” Rubio told Kentucky Sports Radio. “That’s the point that I was making.”
Which technically means that Rubio doesn’t plan on voting for Trump in the upcoming winner-take-all Florida Republican primary on March 15. So he’s got that going for him, which is nice.
But what’s he going to do with all of the #NeverTrump swag his campaign is selling?
Unlike @realdonaldtrump, all our products are made in the USA. https://t.co/jsR3tRalRQ #GOPDebate pic.twitter.com/ockYA37ddc
— Team Marco (@TeamMarco) March 4, 2016
After being repeatedly interrupted by protesters at a rally in Cadillac, Michigan, Republican frontrunner Donald Trump called on his security officers to arrest one of the protesters for his “filthy, dirty mouth.”
The protester had broken out into a chant that involved Trump’s delayed disavowal of the endorsement of David Duke, a former grand wizard in the Ku Klux Klan, which prompted Trump to interrupt his speech and call for the man’s arrest.
“Get that guy out of here. Get him out of here!” shouted Trump, Trump, who yesterday said that he could have gotten former Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney to “get down on [his] knees” in exchange for Trump’s endorsement and defended the size of his genitals during a presidential debate on Fox News.
“I think he should be arrested. Arrest him for what he just did and for the fresh mouth he’s got. I don’t want to give any recommendations, officer, but I would arrest him for a filthy, dirty mouth. And then we’ll see what his mommy and daddy say when they have to go and bail him out.”
Whether it’s Barack Obama’s hereditary communism, the nefarious Fed or the prospect of being “ablaze for God”, CPAC’s bookstore has it all, reports the Guardian’s Ben Jacobs:
The Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) is a conservative carnival, attended by presidential hopefuls, students and guys who dress up in colonial-era outfits.
One perennial feature is the bookstore, which sells fringe texts and conservative staples. For those looking for some spring-break reading, here is a selection of some of the more intriguing books available this year.
Ablaze For God, by Wesley L Duewel
Photograph: Ben Jacobs for the Guardian
A religious book, which tries to teach people how they too can be “Ablaze for God”. It turns out that “your personality [is] so suffused with the presence and beauty of the Lord that others instinctively sense that God is with you!” Like Billy Joel, the text makes clear: “We didn’t start the fire, it was always burning since the world’s been turning.”
It Is About Islam, by Glenn Beck
Islam is the world’s second-largest religion and radio host Glenn Beck owns George Washington’s copy of Don Quixote so, of course, he’s an expert on the subject. Beck makes clear there are “moderate Muslims”, though he writes that that sounds “overly political correct”. His book mostly focuses on “the true origins of Islamic extremism as well as the deadly theological motivations behind these agencies of destruction”. If you’re looking for a nice, relaxing beach read for the summer … this probably isn’t it.
Rush Revere and the First Patriots, by Rush Limbaugh
There is no better way to learn American history than through a time-travelling Rush Limbaugh and a talking horse named Liberty. In this tale, teacher Rush Revere takes Liberty and a group of children back to the eve of the American revolution. They go on a series of adventures.
There’s a rumble brewing in Traverse City, Michigan...
#BernForceOne just landed in Traverse City and what do we see? Trump plane. pic.twitter.com/2dOCXDhZs6
— Lauren Blanchard (@LaurenBlanch12) March 4, 2016
Republican leaders are fighting to restore confidence in their process for picking a presidential nominee after an establishment backlash against Donald Trump and another insult-strewn television debate left the party facing unprecedented, and possibly existential, challenges to its unity, reports the Guardian’s Dan Roberts, Ben Jacobs and Sabrina Siddiqui:
“We are in territory that our party hasn’t seen,” conceded Reince Priebus, chairman of the Republican National Committee (RNC), at a meeting of conservative activists gathered outside Washington, when he was asked what would happen if there was no clear winner by the time of this summer’s GOP convention.
Priebus insisted the chances of the race needing to be decided by a so-called “brokered convention” – at which delegates would be freed from voting in line with state primary election results – were just 10-15%, but discussion of an apparent attempt by former nominee Mitt Romney to engineer such a scenario was met with loud boos from the crowd at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC).
Though strongly supportive of Texas senator Ted Cruz and mostly suspicious of Trump, the audience at CPAC appeared even more skeptical of any attempt to rig the nomination process by party leaders in Washington.
“There is no way that the people are not going to decide,” a defensive Priebus told CPAC. “Whoever the nominee is of our party, they are going to get the full backing and 100% support of the Republican party.”
The Guardian’s Ben Jacobs is watching CPAC and Kasich, who is stoked at the prospect of a brokered convention (maybe because he has only 25 delegates by most counts so far):
Kasich insists it will be a brokered convention
— Ben Jacobs (@Bencjacobs) March 4, 2016
Kasich: "Can you think of anything cooler than a convention?"
— Ben Jacobs (@Bencjacobs) March 4, 2016
Cruz to pro-Sanders protesters: ‘you are only helping Wall Street’ - video
Updated
Ohio governor John Kasich is speaking at CPAC, and you may watch him from the comfort of your own home, or office, or home office, or wired beachview cabana, here:
Trump flip-flops on ordering military to break torture laws
This will take some explaining.
Two days ago prominent Republican national security and military figures published an open letter stating “we are united in our opposition to a Donald Trump presidency” and “obligated to state our core objections clearly”. Those core objections included that “his embrace of the expansive use of torture is inexcusable.”
The letter pointed up the question of whether the military would or could follow potential extra-legal orders made by a hypothetical president Trump to, say, torture a detainee, or kill the family of a suspected terrorists without going through the secret process they use now to claim it’s legal.
The question of whether or how the military could follow a President Trump’s orders came up at the debate last night. Trump – dare we say arrogantly – said he was a great leader and “frankly, when I say they’ll do as I tell them, they’ll do as I tell them.” He also said,
They won’t refuse. They’re not going to refuse me. Believe me.”
and
I’m a leader. If I say do it, they’re going to do it, that’s what leadership is about.”
But now, the Wall Street Journal reports, Trump has reversed that position. He would not order the military to do illegal things with the expectation that they would break the law to follow his orders after all, Trump said in a statement to the WSJ:
Mr. Trump, in a statement to The Wall Street Journal, said he would “use every legal power that I have to stop these terrorist enemies. I do, however, understand that the United States is bound by laws and treaties and I will not order our military or other officials to violate those laws and will seek their advice on such matters. I will not order a military officer to disobey the law. It is clear that as president I will be bound by laws just like all Americans and I will meet those responsibilities.”
The jarring reversal might seem bad enough, but it looks even worse given that Trump’s flip-flops were a major theme of last night’s debate and a major point of attack for his rivals. Fox News host Megyn Kelly even played three video clips showing Trump blatantly reversing himself on the war in Afghanistan, Syrian refugees and on Bush’s lying – or not – to get the US into the Iraq war.
Trump defended himself last night by saying like all successful people he’s “flexible.”
Read more here:
Breaking: Donald Trump shifts stance on torture, says he wouldn't order military to break international torture laws https://t.co/29OMsu3Nt1
— Natalie Andrews (@nataliewsj) March 4, 2016
Trump on Thursday: “hell of a lot worse” than waterboarding terrorist suspects
— Natalie Andrews (@nataliewsj) March 4, 2016
Trump on Friday: he won't violate law https://t.co/29OMsu3Nt1
Updated
Video: CPAC attendees put Donald Trump in his place (on our homemade spectrum)
As conservatives have begun to openly speculate (including from the stage at CPAC) about someone making a third party run for president if Donald Trumps wins the Republican nomination, the candidate for the existing third party – former New Mexico governor and former Republican Gary Johnson, the libertarian candidate for president – said “I’m glad to have had the opportunity to make my pitch” to the conservative attendees.
“I think that Donald Trump fully alienates more than half of Republicans” he said.
CPAC has long been considered fertile ground for libertarian conservatives: libertarian-leaning Texas Congressman Ron Paul won the CPAC straw poll in 2010 and 2011, and his son, libertarian-leaning Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, won in 2013, 2014 and 2015 before entering (and dropping out) of the Republican primary race.
But Johnson has a theory about why the younger Paul’s CPAC support didn’t translate on the ground in the Republican race: “At the end of the day, Rand Paul is a Republican.” He added: “All sorts of people, all sorts of young people, were showing up in droves to hear what he had to say and that the collective takeaway was ‘This is just a Republican’.”
“I think that most people in this country are Libertarian, they just don’t know it”, he said. “Speaking with a broad brush stroke, that’s being fiscally responsible – conservative – and socially liberal – let people make decisions that only affect their lives, as long as those decisions don’t adversely affect others.”
Johnson knows that he has a hard road ahead to November, especially given the focus of the Republican on undocumented immigrants from Mexico and Central America. “I’ve seen that 30% of Republicans believe that the scourge of the Earth has to do with Mexican immigration” he said, but that didn’t dissuade him from speaking up against the demagoguery he’s seen.
“My voice was out there saying ‘This is a political boogeyman. It’s made up.’ The benefits of immigration far outweigh the negatives. We’re getting the cream of the crop when it comes to workers from Mexico, and I speak as a border governor.”
So what does he think should be the focus of libertarian-leaning and conservative voters? “The main issue [in this campaign] is government spending – government’s too big, it tries to do too much, and so it taxes too much – and the unsustainable debt that we have.”
“Look”, he said, “isn’t this country about personal choices and freedom and my own life? Freedom gets impacted by government and by the money that the government takes from me that I could be applying to my passions.”
It should be a resonant message at CPAC, where a huge banner hangs over the exhibit hall proclaiming “#BigGovSucks”. But, like everything else, it’ll probably get lost in all the back and forth over what to do about Donald Trump.
Do tell:
There's another reason Trump may be pulling out: There is likely to be a pretty bad story coming about him soon...
— Liz Mair (@LizMair) March 4, 2016
Liz Mair is an accomplished Republican campaign communications type. She was dropped from the Scott Walker campaign this cycle for tweeting ill of Iowans.
Carson nabs day job
Well THAT was quick.
Retired neurosurgeon and retiring presidential candidate Ben Carson plans to announce at CPAC this afternoon that he’s taken a job as chairman of a Christian get-out-the-vote group called My Faith Votes. Politico flags a Carson statement on the group’s web site:
Nothing is more important to me than my personal faith, and it is my faith that motivated me to be involved in the political process to begin with. I believe Christians in this country can easily determine the next president of the United States and all other national and local leaders, should they simply show up at the polls. When we do vote, We The People will once again solidify our commitment to the Judeo-Christian values upon which our nation was founded.
Carson is already on their web site described as “national chairman”:
For now, Carson’s still a candidate, meaning he still has secret service protection – meaning CPAC has just become a pedestrian traffic snarl of doom:
CPAC is such a mess. No one can get in because of slow moving security. Press angry, people who paid money angrier pic.twitter.com/r8Ulhpd2N7
— Ben Terris (@bterris) March 4, 2016
The word shitshow was invented to describe the CPAC/secret service situation right now
— Betsy Woodruff (@woodruffbets) March 4, 2016
Updated
From the comments / grab bag
What’s happening in the comments?
Dissecting Trump ditching CPAC
Cheers for Trudeau
Who won the debate? – Trump edition
As predicted, everybody piled on to Trump, Trump took it all and won.
Romney seems to be slithering back under his rock.
Who won the debate you ask - well let's see - Rubio looked like immature and juvenile, Cruz (as always) was slimy and Kasich didn't make an impression. Leaving Megyn Kelly aside I'd say that leaves Trump the default winner.
Marco Rubio is heading to Puerto Rico on Saturday, the Guardian’s Sabrina Siddiqui reports. Sounds like a good idea to us:
Rubio to campaign in Puerto Rico on Saturday. He last campaigned there in Sept on same day as Clinton: https://t.co/swZPweyQYI
— Sabrina Siddiqui (@SabrinaSiddiqui) March 4, 2016
Not just about Puerto Rico delegates. Florida has second-largest Puerto Rican population in the US https://t.co/8xuG36GpWV
— Sabrina Siddiqui (@SabrinaSiddiqui) March 4, 2016
Updated
Russell Simmons: Sanders 'overstating' what he can deliver
The influential producer businessman and activist endorses Hillary Clinton:
After speaking to Bernie Sanders I have decided that he is over stating what he can deliver to underserved communities
— Russell Simmons (@UncleRUSH) March 4, 2016
I have decided to to go with my long time friend who has been nothing but honest and supportive of the progressive agenda that I care about
— Russell Simmons (@UncleRUSH) March 4, 2016
Today I announce my full support for the next president of the United States, @HillaryClinton. #ImWithHer
— Russell Simmons (@UncleRUSH) March 4, 2016
Updated
Cleveland cops beef up for GOP convention
Reince Priebus is so much as guaranteeing there won’t be a brokered convention in July.
But the Cleveland cops know which way the wind blows.
The city plans to buy 2,000 riot-control suits with collapsible batons for the occasion, the AP says, picking up on a Cleveland.com report. The city posted a notice this week seeking providers for that gear:
The request comes as Cleveland has ramped up its public process to spend the $50 million federal security grant for the event. The federal money was approved by Congress in December.
Bid paperwork shows the city also wants to buy more than 300 sets of long-sleeve jackets, gloves and shin guards. That equipment would serve as riot-control gear for police officers riding bicycles. The city previously sought to buy 300 bicycles, 15 motorcycles, 25 sets of tactical armor and enough 3.5-foot-high interlocking steel barriers to cover about 3 miles.
The city is slated to have thousands of police officers on hand for the convention, which is expected to draw 50,000 visitors.
Updated
Trump ditches CPAC
Can he do that? That’s like crossing Roger Ailes or refusing to commit early not to run as an independent or assessing John McCain as a wimp or saying endorsements don’t matter. So apparently... yes.
Here’s a statement from the Trump campaign announcing he’ll stick around Kansas for a rally prior to the caucuses Saturday and then fly to Florida instead of CPAC-ing:
The Donald J. Trump for President Campaign has just announced it will be in Witchita*, Kanasas** for a major rally on Saturday prior to Caucus. He will also be speaking at the Kansas Caucus and then departing for Orlando, Florida and a crowd of approximately 20,000 people or more. Because of this, he will not be able to speak at CPAC as he has done for many consecutive years. Mr. Trump would like to thank Matt Schlapp and all of the executives at CPAC and looks forward to returning to next year, hopefully as President of the United States.
* The city is spelled Wichita. Is this the misstep that will sink Trump? H/T @BENCJACOBS
** The state is spelled Kansas. We give up.
To be fair, it's the Wharton School of Business, not the Wharton School of Spelling https://t.co/i2hO7Oj1sv
— Ben Jacobs (@Bencjacobs) March 4, 2016
The CPAC organizers are really not happy.
Very disappointed @realDonaldTrump has decided at the last minute to drop out of #CPAC -- his choice sends a clear message to conservatives.
— CPAC (@CPAC) March 4, 2016
Whoever uploaded this to YouTube misspelled Wichita, too. Could Donald Trump secretly be behind the “Toni Davey” YouTube account? If so he’s heavy into vintage vinyl.
And I need you more than want you
— Ben Jacobs (@Bencjacobs) March 4, 2016
And I want you for all time
And the CPAC lineman is still on the line
Updated
Trudeau: Americans should pay more attention to world
Looks like we’re going to need a second wall.
Canadian premier Justin Trudeau has given an interview to 60 Minutes and he told them “it might be nice if [Americans] paid a little more attention to the world.”
He apparently didn’t sit through the trade policy or Russia policy sections of last night’s debate. Must of tuned out after the penis part.
“Having a little more of an awareness of what’s going on in the rest of the world, I think is, is what many Canadians would hope for Americans,” Trudeau said in a transcript released to The Associated Press on Thursday.
He’s due for a state visit to Washington on 10 March, a week from yesterday.
Trudeau said Canadians must be aware of at least one other country, the United States, because of its importance.
“I think we sometimes like to think that, you know, Americans will pay attention to us from time to time, too,” he said.
Read the full report here.
Playing for classical American heroic appeal, in a black-and-white image via Rubio’s press secretary. The photography’s so good it makes deathly unpopular governor Sam Brownback standing next to Rubio look like Reagan (squint!):
.@marcorubio speaking in Topeka Kansas this morning pic.twitter.com/khcDA7GXuy
— Brooke Sammon (@BrookeSammon) March 4, 2016
Last night’s Republican debate was significantly more widely watched than the last few, coming in as the fourth-highest-rated primary debate on record, CNN reports:
The two-hour debate averaged a 11.6 household rating in Nielsen’s metered markets -- a higher rating than practically everything else on television this week.
Household ratings are an indication of how many American homes tuned in. Actual viewership numbers will be released later on Friday.
For perspective: Fox’s January 28 debate -- the one Trump snubbed -- had an 8.4 household rating.
Read the full piece here.
“OK, it’s amazing right now with Isis, I tell you what? I don’t want them to vote, the worst very social people. I love me.”
Donald Trump may be a “really smart person” by his own estimation, but his speeches are now fuelling a really smart Twitter bot, which uses artificial-intelligence technology to copy the Republican frontrunner.
The quote above comes from “Deep Drumpf” rather than the real Trump, with the account running on algorithms created at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab.
Equipment, I finally got to be stupid. We ought to send used equipment, right? I don’t need any, I love China. I mean I can take the country
— DeepDrumpf (@DeepDrumpf) March 3, 2016
We have competence. Our people don’t need anybody. I have smart people.
— DeepDrumpf (@DeepDrumpf) March 3, 2016
Marco Rubio is holding a rally at Topeka regional airport in Kansas, which caucuses on Saturday.
Shouldn’t he be in Florida?
Here’s a live stream if you’d like to watch:
Record proportion of record fundraising by Carson lined consultants' pockets
Retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson is scheduled to speak this afternoon at CPAC, where he is expected to make it official that he is suspending his campaign.
Carson failed to compete in any state, but he led the field in one significant respect: he raised more money than any of his Republican rivals – $58 million since he began his bid last May, by the AP’s tally.
There’s a big “but”:
But Carson’s campaign burned through much more of that money on fundraising and consultants than on mass media advertising, on-the-ground employees and other things that could have swayed voters, an Associated Press review of his campaign finance reports found.
Carson’s campaign is an extreme example of the big-money business of presidential politics. The candidate himself, a soft-spoken retired Baltimore neurosurgeon, has wondered aloud whether his campaign aides took advantage of him.
He did so in an interview with CNN last week and again Thursday in a Yahoo News interview with Katie Couric, who questioned Carson on whether his campaign had spent so much on fundraising to gather a list of donors for a future business venture.
“Mistakes were made,” Carson said. “We probably had the wrong team in place, people who probably had different objectives than I did. And once we discovered that and rectified it, the situation changed dramatically.”
Some people who worked with Carson’s presidential campaign are positioned to continue profiting from his elevated profile even after he officially ends his bid.
Read the full piece here.
Ben Carson Slowly Floats Away From Earth https://t.co/yv00g0dIGt pic.twitter.com/CbfiQhJEco
— Onion Politics (@OnionPolitics) March 4, 2016
Updated
Republican national committee chair Reince Priebus, onstage at CPAC, says he’s “85-90% sure” there won’t be a contested convention this year.
A national convention at which a nominee is chosen through truly competitive rounds of voting, ear-bending, back-patting and who knows what else could result if no one candidate captures the majority of delegates at stake in the run-up to the convention. It’s possible.
Fox News guy Sean Hannity is interviewing Priebus, trying to get him to take a stand against a contested convention. Trying to get Reince Priebus to take a stand is implicitly heroic.
I don't know how Hannity feels about Rubio, but he sure hates the idea of Trump losing at convention. Pushing Reince hard.
— Benjy Sarlin (@BenjySarlin) March 4, 2016
Former Democratic candidate Webb turns on Clinton
Jim Webb, the brief Democratic presidential candidate, former senator from Virginia, decorated combat veteran and Emmy-winning journalist, declared on TV this morning that he would not vote for Hillary Clinton, who’s making a very strong run for the Democratic nomination.
But he might vote for Trump, Webb said.
“I would not vote for Hillary Clinton,” Webb said on MSBNC.
And Trump? “I’m not sure yet,” Webb said. “I don’t know who I’m going to vote for.”
Webb went on to explain, “If you’re voting for Hillary Clinton, you’re going to be getting the same thing,” wheres if you vote for Trump, you might get something “very good or very bad” but who knows?
Update: good to point out: Webb has dabbled as an independent and was a Reagan appointee before branding himself as a Democrat in 2006:
Jim Webb was only a Democrat temporarily, so I'd say that was more like Republican news.
Updated
See, and then every once in awhile he speaks daylight perfect sense.
Re-upping: Trump, after debate, recommends Bill O'Reilly see a psychiatrist. https://t.co/JW7lROdky2
— Kenneth P. Vogel (@kenvogel) March 4, 2016
“In 1972, a few weeks into my first job as a reporter at the Burlington Free Press, I was sent to check out reports of a demonstration in one of the city’s poorer neighborhoods,” writes Fred Bayles for the Guardian:
The scene was somewhat chaotic. Three or four people were highly exercised about some housing-related issue, but it was hard to get past the rhetoric to understand the details. To add to my rookie confusion, the group was led by a wild-haired, wild-eyed 30-something with an incongruent Brooklyn accent. I took notes and retreated to the newsroom.
“Who is this guy ... Bernard Sanders?” I asked the city editor, reading from my notebook. He took on the expression of a man who had just bit into a lemon.
“Oh, Bernie,” he said. “Forget it. No story.” He sent me back to my desk, where I took obits from LaVigne’s funeral home for the rest of my shift.
More than 40 years later, that first Bernie experience – and the others that followed – feels like today. Sanders has physically aged; the dark curly hair is straighter and white, the voice softer, the tone less strident. But his message has remained remarkably consistent for a former neighborhood rabble-rouser who became a US senator and a serious presidential candidate.
Read the full piece here.
“Imagine, if it’s possible, that you are a serious American conservative,” begins the Guardian’s Megan Carpentier, encamped in Maryland at the conservative political action conference:
You feel strongly about the right to life, perhaps; you certainly believe in a smaller, less expensive government; you hate Obamacare, not because it offers many previously-uninsured Americans a way to avoid crippling debt and bankruptcy, but because it punishes anyone who, in the American way, chooses to be uninsured. After more than seven years of Barack Obama in the White House, you want a serious statesman who represents conservative principles like limited government and free market capitalism.
The Republican debate on Thursday night between the final four candidates who could possibly capture the party’s presidential nomination, numerically speaking, was, for many remaining primary voters, the last possible opportunity to look at each candidate’s policies and demeanor and begin to make a choice for who they might want representing their party – their ideas – to the rest of the nation and the world in November and hopefully beyond.
Instead, the debate managed to focus, albeit briefly, on the (alleged) size of Donald Trump’s penis, and nearly every conservative news site covered that “breaking” news. (Former Republican congressman and current MSNBC morning show host Joe Scarborough even tweeted about it, with pearls firmly clutched.)
Read the full piece here. And Update: for further reading:
OMG #GOPDebate crude comments belong to long history of obsession w/Presidential private parts. Amazing-by @jeetheer https://t.co/0UgT3LGXWh
— Indira Lakshmanan (@Indira_L) March 4, 2016
Key SPY historical note: "short-fingered vulgarian" never intended as a dumb genital slur, only a dumb literal slur. Thanks, Rubio & Trump!
— Kurt Andersen (@KBAndersen) March 4, 2016
Updated
Hello, and welcome to our live-wire coverage of the 2016 race for the White House.
Did you see last night’s Republican debate? Senators Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz strapped on their flamethrowers to try and scorch frontrunner Donald Trump, while token adult in the room John Kasich patiently waited his turn and told people that when they got to know him they’d vote for him.
Here’s where to read all about it:
There was enough superficial action in the presidential race yesterday (not to be confused with actual voting or vote-counting) – Mitt Romney calling Trump a burgeoning fascist, Trump replying that Romney begged him for a 2012 endorsement, old Romney campaign hands piling on to say it was Trump who was doing the begging – that it was possible to lose sight of the events unfolding at the Gaylord National Harbor Hotel in Maryland, where the right has gathered for the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). The Guardian’s Megan Carpentier, Dan Roberts and Ben Jacobs are there for the fun:
Speaking of Romney, he’s been on the Today show this morning and kind of gently pushed back against a report yesterday that his advisers are exploring what it might mean to navigate a contested national convention to select a presidential nominee. CNN reported that “implicit” in the exploration was the possibility that Romney would try to nab the nom.
“No, no, the people who can save this party are Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio or John Kasich,” Romney said, according to a Politico write-up. “There are no circumstances I can foresee where that would possibly happen.”
“There’s no question I’m going to do everything within the normal political bounds to make sure we don’t nominate Donald Trump ... After March 15 I think you’ll see it narrow down ... I wouldn’t be surprised if I endorse one of those guys.”
•••
“Asking for a friend” LOL ha
How many more of these do we have to sit through? Asking for a friend. #GOPdebate pic.twitter.com/AxGFlerSRW
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) March 4, 2016
Who do you think won the debate last night? Or are you over it already? Thanks for reading and weigh in in the comments please!
Updated
Ditching CPAC won't hurt Trump with his base.
But it might well hurt him with proper conservatives ahead of the weekend's many effectively-closed caucuses.