As a slow mid-primary Friday winds down, let’s recap today’s biggest stories in #Campaign2016:
- Jim Gilmore, the Republican presidential candidate whose name you always forgot despite your handy mnemonic (“Help! Rabid Grizzlies! For Pete’s Sake, Call Someone! Please! Call The Police! Just Call!”), officially dropped out of the race for the party’s nomination. “I will continue to express my concerns about the dangers of electing someone who has pledged to continue Obama’s disastrous policies,” Gilmore pledged, before joining Martin O’Malley’s touring rock band of former presidential also-rans.
- Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright has apologized for telling a crowd of voters at a rally for Hillary Clinton in New Hampshire: “There’s a special place in hell for women who don’t help each other!” in a piece in the New York Times titled “My Undiplomatic Moment.” (From now on, we’re calling every mistake we make “My Undiplomatic Moment.”) Although that may come a little too late for Clinton, whose struggles with female voters were well documented in New Hampshire.
- Donald Trump threatened to sue fellow Republican presidential candidate and Iowa caucus victor Ted Cruz over the latter’s putatively questionable status as a “natural-born citizen.” Can Trump actually do that? As usual, the answer to that question is secondary to the reaction the position will incite.
- Recent second-place New Hampshire primary finisher, Ohio governor John Kasich, told an overflow crowd in South Carolina that his presidency would be focused on Theodore Roosevelt-esque reform. “If you’re going to have power, use it to drive creativity, innovation and change,” Kasich said. “And if you don’t do that, why don’t you get out and go do something else?” Kasich also had a delicious recommendation for fellow presidential candidate Bernie Sanders. “I think Bernie ought to be president – of Ben & Jerry’s for a year, because we’d all get free ice cream.”
Stay tuned for more dispatches from the 2016 presidential campaign tonight, tomorrow, the next day, and every day until the sweet release of Election Day.
Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright has apologized for telling a crowd of voters at a rally for Hillary Clinton in New Hampshire:“There’s a special place in hell for women who don’t help each other!”
Albright, the first woman to serve as secretary of state, called the episode an “undiplomatic moment,” in an op-ed published in the New York Times on Friday.
I absolutely believe what I said, that women should help one another, but this was the wrong context and the wrong time to use that line. I did not mean to argue that women should support a particular candidate based solely on gender. But I understand that I came across as condemning those who disagree with my political preferences. If heaven were open only to those who agreed on politics, I imagine it would be largely unoccupied.”
Feminist writer Gloria Steinem, who has endorsed Clinton, recently apologized for remarks about young women who support Vermont senator Bernie Sanders, writing in a post that she “misspoke” and did not mean to imply that young women were not “serious about their politics”.
Taken together, the comments offended female Sanders supporters, and highlighted generational divides in the feminist movement.
“I am concerned by the tone of the debate about the many problems that specifically affect women,” Albright writes in the op-ed. “We cannot be complacent, and we cannot forget the hard work it took us to get to where we are. I would argue that because of what is at stake, this is exactly the time to have a conversation about how to preserve what women have gained, including the right to make our own choices, and how to move forward together. I would welcome an informed dialogue that crosses generations. We have much to learn from one another.”
During Thursday’s debate, Clinton said the”special place in hell” remark was nothing new, and Albright has been using it for “as long as I’ve known her”. But she did distance herself from the implication that women who don’t support her candidacy are somehow wrongheaded. “I have spent my entire adult life making sure that women are empowered to make their own choices,” Clinton said, “even if that choice is not to vote for me.”
Updated
Jim Gilmore suspends his presidential campaign
The Washington Examiner is reporting that Jim Gilmore, who served as the governor of Virginia more than 14 years ago, is finally ending his campaign for the Republican nomination.
#BREAKING: Former Virginia Gov. Jim Gilmore is suspending his presidential campaign.
— Washington Examiner (@dcexaminer) February 12, 2016
“My campaign was intended to offer the gubernatorial experience, with the track record of a true conservative, experienced in national security, to unite the party,” Gilmore said, according to the Examiner.
“My goal was to focus on the importance of this election as a real turning point, and to emphasize the dangers of continuing on a road that will further undermine America’s economy and weaken our national security.”
“Nonetheless, I will continue to express my concerns about the dangers of electing someone who has pledged to continue Obama’s disastrous policies,” he said. “And, I will continue to do everything I can to ensure that our next President is a free enterprise Republican who will restore our nation to greatness and keep our citizens safe.”
Gilmore, who had failed to qualify for all but two of the so-called “undercard” presidential debates, has consistently been at the very bottom of the crowded Republican presidential field, rarely registering with even a single point in national polls. (He never appeared in the Real Clear Politics aggregate poll, making his candidacy functionally invisible.)
In the Iowa caucuses, a mere dozen Iowans caucused for Gilmore, who then received 133 votes in the New Hampshire Republican primary. For comparison, Vermont senator Bernie Sanders received 2,095 in the New Hampshire Republican primary, in which he wasn’t even running.
Updated
10 reasons why voters are turning to Bernie Sanders
When James Walsh asked our readers who they wanted to see as Democratic candidate, we were deluged with responses – most of them in favor of Bernie Sanders:
1) He’s seen as a challenge to the status quo...
What came through loud and clear was the fury at mainstream American politics, echoing the populist support for (the really rather different) Donald Trump on the Republican side. Sanders appeals to those who feel the entire democratic system has broken down.
Sanders is representing my interests. For decades American politics have been a sham, elections bought and paid for by special interests and corporations. They have wrecked the environment, caused the biggest financial crisis in history and are using their deep pockets and for profit agendas to marginalize people’s needs even further.
- Shaz Plunkett, Los Angeles CA
2) ... whereas Clinton is viewed as more of the same
Clinton paints herself as the pragmatist who gets things done, but after New Hampshire she may need to further emphasise her progressive credentials if she’s going to win over those turning to Sanders.
I have no grudge with Hillary Clinton, but she had her chance eight years ago. She is old news, with plenty of controversy, baggage and history that will bring out Republicans in droves to vote against her.
- Steve Guion, Fairfax, Virginia
3) Sanders’ consistency is judged a virtue
The phrase ‘flip-flopping’ may bring back memories of John Kerry’s doomed presidential campaign in 2004, but our readers were keen to attach it to Clinton. The consistency of Sanders’ views was seen as a major plus.
I’m tired of the rich getting richer, and having to work harder for less. I saw my parents lose so much of their retirement in the Wall Street crash and no one on Wall Street paid for that. My college education has done me no good but I still have student loans, and none of my kids were able to attend college because of the recession. We deserve change in this country, from someone who has consistently fought that fight.
- Danielle Banz, Monroe, Washington
Marco Rubio walked back his statement in Saturday’s Republican debate that women should be subject to Selective Service and potentially eligible for the draft, writes the Guardian’s Ben Jacobs in Greenville, South Carolina:
At the South Carolina Faith and Family Forum, the Florida senator said “I do not support drafting women and forcing them to be combat soldiers.” This marks a shift from his rather definitive statement on Saturday “I do believe that Selective Service should be opened up for both men and women in case a draft is ever instituted.”
Instead, Rubio seemed to hedge with the emphasis “on forcing them to be combat soldiers. The Florida senator also said “I don’t think we need Selective Service,” arguing that a draft would not be necessary in any future war.
Rubio’s adjustment on this issue was first elaborated on an issues page on his website which seems to have first appeared on February 9, the day of the New Hampshire primary. The Rubio campaign confirmed that the issues page was not posted until after Saturday’s debate. However, he had not publicly addressed the topic until now.
The statement comes after Ted Cruz has violently denounced the concept, which was also endorsed by Jeb Bush and Chris Christie in Saturday’s debate. In a campaign rally in New Hampshire, Cruz said “the idea that we would draft our daughters to forcibly bring them into the military and put them in close combat, I think, is wrong. It is immoral.” In the aftermath, Senator Mike Lee of Utah, a conservative darling, has announced he will introduce a bill to make women permanently exempt from registering for Selective Service as well.
A Rubio spokesman said Thursday that the Florida senator would cosponsor the bill to insure that Congress, not the courts, would make the ultimate decision about women being eligible for the draft. The spokesman insisted to the Daily Caller that his stance did not imply support for Lee’s bill.
In December, Defense Secretary Ashton Carter announced that roles in the U.S. military would be opened to women, without restrictions based on gender. However, women are still exempted from registering for Selective Service, which provides the database used by the government to implement any future draft.
In a statement, Alex Burgos, a spokesman for the Rubio campaign insisted “there’s no change here. In the debate, he said Selective Service should be opened to women. And today, he said women shouldn’t be drafted into combat roles. Two separate questions. In sum, Marco does not support drafting women of any age into combat roles - period.”
Updated
Donald Trump has threatened to sue fellow Republican presidential candidate and Iowa caucus victor Ted Cruz over the latter’s putatively questionable status as a “natural-born citizen.”
If @TedCruz doesn’t clean up his act, stop cheating, & doing negative ads, I have standing to sue him for not being a natural born citizen.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 12, 2016
It’s the strongest indication yet that Trump aims to continue highlighting the fact that Cruz was born in Canada. The Texan senator was born in Calgary in 1971. Although his father, Rafael, was not an American citizen at the time, his Delaware-born mother, Eleanor, was. Article II of the US constitution requires that “no person except a natural born Citizen … shall be eligible to the Office of President.”
However, legal scholars have long interpreted natural born citizen to refer to whether someone acquired their citizenship at birth, not the geographic location where they were born. As a result, Cruz, who was a citizen at birth, is a natural born citizen.
The Democratic rivals clashed over race and immigration issues in last night’s debate in Milwaukee, writes the Guardian’s Lauren Gambino - with votes Nevada and South Carolina looming:
The battle lines have been drawn for the next phase of the head-to-head betweenHillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders as they target race and immigration issues in an effort to court black and Latino voters in their bid for the Democratic nomination.
The 2016 election race moves south and west – to Nevada, South Carolina and then a clutch of southern states as part of the sweep of Super Tuesday contests on 1 March.
And as the pair met on a debate stage for the first time since Sanders crushed Clinton in New Hampshire, the focus on inequality in the justice system and on conditions faced by hard-working immigrant families was an unambiguous pitch for votes.
Freewheeling Kasich stumps in South Carolina
John Kasich, fresh from a second place finish in New Hampshire, is widely seen as a flag-bearer of the Republican establishment but today showed his own rebellious streak, reports Washington correspondent David Smith from Columbia, South Carolina:
“I watched them blow the whole surplus and I ask people, who do you think was in charge of blowing a $5 trillion surplus and they always say it’s the Democrats, and I say unfortunately it was a Republican House, Republican Senate and Republican president blew the whole thing,” he told the South Carolina Chamber of Commerce in Columbia.
Reflecting on economic reforms he introduced as governor of Ohio, Kasich added: “If you’re going to have power, use it to drive creativity, innovation and change. And if you don’t do that, why don’t you get out and go do something else? I’m a big reformer. That’s why I’m not in the establishment lane because I always make them nervous.”
Visibly relaxed, a freewheeling Kasich also cracked a few jokes, including at leftwing Democrat Bernie Sanders’ expense. “I think Bernie ought to be president – of Ben & Jerry’s for a year, because we’d all get free ice cream.”
He also referenced the movie Jaws as he described volunteers flocking to his campaign, saying: “We need a bigger boat.”
The governor said blue collar voters were moving his way but added: “My father was a Democrat. If I’d have said, ‘Dad, are you a socialist?’ he’d have kicked me out of the house.”
In another routine, Kasich recalled explaining to his 16-year-old twins what a payphone is and took an iPhone from an audience member to make a point about innovation.
Kasich said he was determined to maintain an upbeat message and not be dragged into trading insults with other candidates. “I felt coming out of New Hampshire, even though they’d spent millions against me, and they’ll do it here as well, the light outshined the darkness of negative campaigning.” But he added: “I will not be a pin cushion... I’m pretty scrappy, you know.”
Kasich recalled launching his campaign in July last year and operating in “total obscurity”. A friend asked him how it felt to be stuck at 1% for a hundred days. He said he did not read the papers.
Around 60 people gathered in the chamber’s boardroom. Adeline Saint-Jour, 32, a physician and undecided Republican voter, who asked a question during the event, said later: “I thought he made a very good point about having young people understand their goals early in life. He made a good point about mentoring.”
One journalist commented afterwards: “Kasich is going to be vice-president.”
Lots of new ads out there – here’s one attacking Trump from Right to Rise, the Super Pac supporting Jeb Bush, employing a cool ice statue of Trump...
...and here’s one attacking Trump from the political action committee attached to the Club for Growth, the anti-tax group that has for years been calling out Trump for not being a true conservative: “There’s nothing conservative about Donald Trump:
Trump, naturally, has responded to the attacks on Twitter:
Nothing conservative about the Club for Growth coming into my office and demanding a $1M contribution, which naturally, they did not get.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 12, 2016
After hearing the news that they would not be able to extort $1M from me, they went hostile w/ a series of incorrect & ill-informed ads.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 12, 2016
Lightweight @JebBush is spending a fortune of special interest against me in SC. False advertising- desperate and sad!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 12, 2016
Weak JEB getting thrown out by management during speech. Do you think he will be this tough on Putin & others? https://t.co/Tqej1euLVL
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 12, 2016
Updated
Donald Trump and the Wig of Evil
Watching the rise of Donald Trump from loudmouthed celebrity to serious US presidential candidate spurred illustrator and filmmaker Guy Larsen to produce a satirical children’s book in which Trump is controlled by a malevolent hair piece.
Watch Larsen read his book here:
N.B.: Trump does not wear a wig; that’s his “real” hair.
Republican candidates Jeb Bush, the former Florida governor, and Ben Carson, the retired neurosurgeon, are speaking at a Faith and Family Presidential Forum in Greenville, South Carolina. Carson has just finished explaining how Jesus Christ is his role model: “Treat others as you would wish to be treated.”
Here’s a live video stream:
The forum is hosted by the Palmetto family alliance and the conservative leadership project on the campus of Bob Jones University.
Guardian Washington correspondent David Smith is taking in a rally with Ohio governor John Kasich, who finished second in New Hampshire, at the South Carolina Chamber of Commerce.
The cash-tight Kasich camp got good news Thursday, when it received a sudden pledge of support from Ken Langone, the billionaire co-founder of Home Depot.
“At South Carolina Chamber of Commerce in Columbia where around 60 people plus media have filled a boardroom to hear candidate John Kasich,” David tweets:
Kasich on presidential campaign: “I got in in July. I operated in total obscurity.” Polls showed me at 1% but I didn’t read the papers.
Kasich: In New Hampshire “the light outshined the darkness of negative campaigning”.
Kasich: I have to do well in South Carolina. If I don't, I will hold you all responsible.
— David Smith (@SmithInAmerica) February 12, 2016
We’ll have more from David on the event shortly.
Cruz camp pulls ad over actress' porn past
For its impressive display of strength and creativity here at week’s end, Ted Cruz’s media shop is not incapable of missteps.
For example, an actress in a new campaign spot, “Conservatives Anonymous,” used to do soft porn, which the Cruz camp was not aware of until the ad was cut and distributed. Then BuzzFeed figured out the porn connection:
Amy Lindsay has appeared in films such as Erotic Confessions, Carnal Wishes, Secrets of a Chambermaid, and Insatiable Desires.
“Had the campaign known of her full filmography, we obviously would not have let her appear in the ad,” a Cruz campaign spokesman told BuzzFeed News.
The actress in question is the one who says, “Maybe you should vote for more than just a pretty face next time.”
The retraction of the group therapy ad comes after a string of ad successes from Cruz, who this week released two video spots attacking Donald Trump and one attacking Hillary Clinton.
The ads have been praised for a witty allusion to pop culture, in one case, and a devilishly effective line of attack against Trump for his attempt, once upon a time, to use eminent domain laws to clear a widow’s house for a limousine parking lot in Atlantic City.
While the Democrats next caucus in Nevada (on 20 Feb), Republicans next vote in South Carolina (the same day) – and then the parties trade states.
So who’s running first in the South Carolina primary? While not quite the no-poll zone that Nevada is, voter surveys are sparse in the Palmetto State; Real Clear Politics’ average of three polls over the last two months puts Donald Trump at +17 on the field.
A poll from Opinion Savvy for the Augusta Chronicle conducted after the New Hampshire result has Trump up about 17 points on Ted Cruz, 36.3-19.6, with Marco Rubio third at 14.6 points. (The Chronicle poll is baked into the RCP average.)
So what? Owing to the confusing rules for allocating delegates to the national convention laid out by the South Carolina Republican party, a win of that margin for Trump, if it is consistent across the state’s congressional districts, could mean that he gets close to running the table of all 50 of the state’s delegates.
Flaming disaster for the non-Trump's if right https://t.co/vYsZPBQMeS Trump would come close to sweeping the delegates here.
— Harry Enten (@ForecasterEnten) February 12, 2016
The state awards 29 delegates to the overall winner and then three delegates each to the winner of each of seven congressional districts. See the gory details here.
Updated
More catchy negative ads from Texas senator Ted Cruz, this one again hitting Donald Trump, with the tagline, “We wouldn’t tolerate these values in our children... why would we want them in a president?”
The ad features kids playing with a Donald Trump doll. “He pretends to be a Republican,” one kid says and they all crack up.
Then they smash a dollhouse bellowing “eminent domain! Eminent domain!”
What do you think of these Cruz ads? The two against Trump – “power for personal gain” and the one above – and the Office Space ad against Clinton? Pretty effective, no?
Single poll shows tight Nevada race
Democrats Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders next square off in the Nevada caucuses. Who’s ahead there? Who knows – there’s not much polling. The Real Clear Politics average uses two polls in the last four months and shows Clinton up 20.
But hold the phone: a new poll by a TargetPoint, a Republican polling firm, conducted for the Washington Free Beacon finds – a tie! at 45-45.
There's been a dearth of NV presidential polling. Last one, Gravis in Dec., showed Clinton +23. Now tied w/ Sanders. https://t.co/gHlYa36EeJ
— Lachlan Markay (@lachlan) February 12, 2016
Can it be true? What happened to Clinton’s Hispanic firewall in Nevada? To her local organization of DREAMers touting her record on immigration reform?
Turn all eyes to Jon Ralston, the dean of Nevada politics journalists, who says the result “doesn’t surprise me.”
Hard to poll here, but lot of interviews. And doesn't surprise me. Would explain Team Clinton lowering expectations. https://t.co/hATYSWYz2L
— Jon Ralston (@RalstonReports) February 12, 2016
As for the Team Clinton work to lower expectations that Ralston mentions: in multiple venues yesterday, Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook and spokesman Brian Fallon sought to erode the notion that the demographics of Nevada, with a significant non-white population, play well for Clinton.
“There’s an important Hispanic element to the Democratic caucus in Nevada,” said Fallon. “But it’s still a state that is 80 percent white.”
[Nevada: it’s basically Iowa, with more feather headdresses.]
Which prompted Ralston to forcefully call bushwa:
My post on the incredible and false claims by Team Clinton about Nevada's demographics and why they are doing it. https://t.co/xzXnfd5jM4
— Jon Ralston (@RalstonReports) February 11, 2016
80 percent white? What? [...]
I understand the desire of Team Clinton to lower expectations in Nevada after being crushed by Bernie Sanders in New Hampshire. But both Mook and Fallon know that 80 percent figure is ludicrous, and the attempt to make Nevada seem like Iowa and New Hampshire is a spin too far.
The facts:
Nevada’s Hispanic population is about 27 percent. African-Americans and Asian/Pacific Islanders make up almost 10 percent each. That is, nearly half of the state’s population is made up of minorities.
The Democratic caucus population was 35 percent minority in 2008, according to exit polls, and is expected to be as high as 40 percent in 2016, according to local Democratic sources. This is nothing like the 90 percent white caucus participation in Iowa, for instance.
Read more Ralston here.
Updated
Ted Cruz 'Office Space' ad tags Clinton
The Cruz campaign is putting out so many catchy ads we can hardly keep up. Here’s a gem: an attack on Clinton over her use of a private email server, based on a scene from Office Space, the 1999 ballad of disaffected cubicle life:
First look at new @tedcruz ad in SC targeting @HillaryClinton and lampooning classic 'Office Space' scene https://t.co/Mu1YI4KJZJ
— Morning Joe (@Morning_Joe) February 12, 2016
Here’s the scene from the movie (warning: some harsh language in there, if you’re offended by that kind of thing):
Is there any aspect of politicking Trump can’t shake up? Signing a baby! What’s he going to come up with next?
Here: @realDonaldTrump signing this baby tonight. #yesreally pic.twitter.com/Kbjb29eaKm
— Ali Vitali (@alivitali) February 12, 2016
Hello, and welcome to our live-wire coverage of the 2016 race for the White House, which is a peculiar kind of race, in that the point is not to get there first, the course is scattered, and instead of Gatorade the runners ingest lots of pizza.
Did you watch the Democratic debate on PBS last night? Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders tangled over immigration reform, being friends with Henry Kissinger and who’d done more to support President Obama.
“One of us ran against Barack Obama,” said Sanders. “I was not that candidate.” Watch these video highlights:
And read Lauren Gambino’s (@lgamgam) report last night from the scene in Milwaukee:
“In what was easily her strongest debate performance in recent memory – and arguably her strongest since the campaign began – Hillary Clinton was calm, cool and collected at Thursday night’s debate,” writes Guardian columnist Lucia Graves:
Clinton could’ve been understandably on edge, as she was fresh off a resounding loss in New Hampshire on Tuesday and an effective tie in Iowa the week before. But it was Sanders who was oddly on the defensive despite what has been momentum in his favor, starting out the night more combative than Clinton and wasting his time on petty one-liners. (When Clinton talked about building political capital when she’s in the White House, for instance, Sanders began a rebuttal with “Secretary Clinton, you’re not in the White House yet.”)
Read the full piece here:
There’s a lot going on today out on the trail, meanwhile, including the development of what looks to be a magnificently nasty battle between Ted Cruz and Donald Trump to win South Carolina.
Cruz has dropped what is being hailed as the first effective anti-Trump ad of the campaign cycle so far, called Parking Lot and telling the story of Trump’s attempt to take a widow’s home using eminent domain, literally to build a limousine parking lot:
Trump’s firing back on Twitter, calling Cruz a “liar, crazy or very dishonest”:
Lying Cruz put out a statement, “Trump & Rubio are w/Obama on gay marriage." Cruz is the worst liar, crazy or very dishonest. Perhaps all 3?
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 12, 2016
We have a lot more ground to cover today. Join us in the comments and thanks for reading!
