Here are Nicky Woolf and Dan Roberts with a report on today’s events. It seems Christie could be declared the winner, if you’re judging by the crowd’s applause anyway.
Summary
We’re going to pause our coverage of the Republican summit in New Hampshire and Hillary Clinton’s path on the campaign trail with a summary of events.
- Former Florida governor Jeb Bush gave a stump speech calling Republicans to look at his record and not his family legacy. He said the foreign policy of his brother, former president George W Bush, is “not particularly relevant” and that he does not think he has an advantage in the race: “I don’t see any coronation coming my way.”
- New Jersey governor Chris Christie made several thinly veiled suggestions that he will run for president, and that he wants to reform the budget by making entitlement cuts. He also waxed ambitious about his home state: “I would love for a week to have a Republican legislature or to be the emperor.”
- Declared candidate and Florida senator Marco Rubio hit the campaign trail in New Hampshire, commenting on various issues with reporters. He said he believes evolution is “a scientific theory that should be taught“ and stopped at a Chipotle, in the fashion of another declared candidate.
- Former secretary of state Hillary Clinton drew attacks from myriad Republicans and sharp words from a few Democrats, as her campaign began to grapple with questions such as Clinton’s so far undefined stances on a Pacific trade partnership, on immigration reform and campaign finance.
- Senators Rand Paul and Ted Cruz, the other declared candidates alongside Rubio and Clinton, quietly campaigned for allies and money as they waited their for their Saturday turns at the New Hampshire Republican summit.
New York mayor Bill de Blasio may be subtweeting Hillary Clinton, my colleague Ben Jacobs reports as he reads the tweet leaves.
The New York mayor, who gave an impassioned liberal plea to combat income inequality in Iowa of all places yesterday, seemed to subtweet the former secretary of state Friday.
DeBlasio shared his grandmother’s naturalization papers in a tweet to celebrate Immigration Heritage Week where he said he was “Proud of my grandmother and the many immigrants who’ve made our city thrive.”
Proud of my grandmother and the many immigrants who've made our city thrive. Happy #ImmigrantHeritageWeek. pic.twitter.com/wr91Nse45J
— Bill de Blasio (@BilldeBlasio) April 17, 2015
The tweet comes two days after Hillary Clinton told Iowans that all four of grandparents were immigrants. In fact, of her four grandparents, only paternal grandfather Hugh Rodham was born abroad.
While the claim may have simply been the result of the former secretary of state confusing “family lore” with facts,” her inaccurate claim still received negative plenty of press coverage.
Further, although DeBlasio was Clinton’s campaign manager when she first ran for the U.S. Senate in 2000, the New York mayor held off on endorsing her candidacy in a Sunday appearance on Meet The Press.
So far, none of this seems to have altered the longstanding relationship between the two. Former Iowa senator Tom Harkin said Thursday that Clinton told him over dinner that she still “loves” DeBlasio.
John Bolton loses the coveted Swifties vote.
John Bolton on #WADR: "I don't know Tyler Swift songs"
— Jennifer Epstein (@jeneps) April 17, 2015
Jeb Bush distances himself from his brother.
Jeb Bush: Brother's foreign policy ‘not particularly relevant’ http://t.co/6xTJUyCNQZ -- @AthenaCNN reports #TheLead pic.twitter.com/q4iSe4XRZo
— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) April 17, 2015
A new poll of Floridians shows senator Marco Rubio edging barely past Jeb Bush, the Washington Post reports – although also noting some oddities in the polling.
The Mason-Dixon survey, the first since Rubio announced he would run, shows the senator with 31% of the vote and Bush with 30%, in contrast to previous polls a commanding lead for Bush.
Compare the new survey results with results from a poll conducted byQuinnipiac University at the end of last month. Anyone above the diagonal line is doing better in the new poll than they did in Quinnipiac’s; anyone below is doing worse. And the farther they are from the line, the bigger the difference.
Bush does a little better here, as do Ted Cruz and Rand Paul. But Rubio does way better, and the rest of the field (“other”) does way worse. But the biggest loser is Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, who moves from 15 percent support to just 2 percent. A 13-point difference in two weeks? That’s hard to believe.
The Post’s Philip Bump chalks up the difference in part to Mason-Dixon eliminating some fringe contenders from their list, and theorizes that Rubio’s announcement may have given him some support from Floridians who simply don’t want to vote for Jeb.
Snap reviews and notes on Bush and Christie.
Christie's "I'm too blunt" humblebrag is like every jerk in a job interview "What is your biggest weakness?" "People say I work too hard."
— Olivia Nuzzi (@Olivianuzzi) April 17, 2015
. @JebBush channels W to address Common Core question: “the soft bigotry of low expectations”
— Zeke Miller (@ZekeJMiller) April 17, 2015
On gay marriage, Bush pivots says he's for "traditional marriage" but then pivots to economic growth as broader, bigger issue
— Shane Goldmacher (@ShaneGoldmacher) April 17, 2015
Someone asks about Cuba and its changing relationship with the US.
Bush says that Obama shouldn’t have acted “unilaterally” and instead demanded first: “more freedom, release political prisoners, allow for the start up of more businesses, freedom of movement, freedom of religion.”
He adds that the US should have first demanded Cuba release any fugitives who fled there from the country, but that Obama had given “things away before totally eliminating our leverage”.
Finally, he ends by saying Americans haven’t seen the last of the Castro brothers: “Despots don’t go quietly into the night.”
Someone asks who Bush can work with among Democrats, and how.
“This is not as hard as it appears,” he says. “I mean this is what presidents have done since the beginning of time. You have to develop trust first. It’s not that their motives are bad, it’s that their ideas are bad.”
“You have to rebuild trust. This is where I think the president has let us down in more than any other thing.”
He says he wants to “forge consensus” on issues like “the revolution in energy” (fracking), education, and immigration and tax reform.
A woman asks about a popular conservative bugaboo: the Common Core education standards.
Bush goes vague on details but is all for letting the states figure it out: “High standards assessed the right way combined with real accountability is what we need. Here’s what we don’t need: we don’t need the federal government involved at all.”
“That does mean that states and local communities have the obligation to rise the standards up.” He says it’s on conservatives to better teach all children.
Next up is a question from a self-described “young Republican” about “the change in the culture of the country”, linking it to gay marriage.
Bush says we’re all waiting for the supreme court to decide, but “I’m for traditional marriage … this is informed by my faith.”
“The architecture of my life isn’t driven by politics, it’s driven by my faith. … Having said that I have no animus in my heart, I have no hatred … in my heart for people who have a different view.”
He goes back to the economy, suggesting same-sex marriage isn’t that big a deal relative to other problems: “So while I may disagree with you on that subject, I think we need to find ways to unite on broader issues.”
He gets a question by a woman who says “I don’t want a coronation on our side” and that she wants candidates to debate.
Bush: “We’ve got 95 people possibly running for president, I’m really intimidating a lot of folks, aren’t I?”
“I hope you absorb the record,” Bush says, defending his conservative status. “It’s an ‘I’m not kidding’ conservative [record].”
“We need to stop arguing about what we want to do and we need to do it, which means we need to win. … I will have to earn it if I get into the arena … I’ll share my heart, and I’ll share my ideas, and I’ll share my record because that is the leading indicator of what I’ll do and that I’ll do it.
“We have elected a president who was a phenomenal speaker but he was two years as a United States senator and had no record of accomplishment, … and what did we get? We got the most liberal president in American history.”
He says Americans needs to grow its economy faster, and “advocate a strong America, a presence in the world … this will be the greatest time to be alive.”
“We will not win if we just complain about how bad things are. What we have to be is be principled in our opposition … but we also have to offer a compelling alternative so that more and more and more people will join us in our cause.”
Bush wants to run on his record.
“It is important rather than just talking about things, I think it’s important to look at people’s records. … Have they focused on making sure that everybody has the chance to rise up.”
“Rise up” is the slogan on many of Bush’s “exploratory” ads.
“We’re in the sixth year of a so-called recovery … I know we can do better, in fact it has to be done better.”
“We will win if we offer a compelling hopeful alternative, grounded in principle, using applied common-sense experience.”
He says his grandchild is going to live to 130 years old, and yours will too.
He boasts of eliminating Affirmative Action by order and says he came up with a better version of the education program.
“We did not use a policy that discriminated against one group from another … We expanded second amendment gun rights. And I think if you look at the protections Florida is a model. … We defended the sanctity of life from beginning to end in our state.”
Bush then expounds in detail on Florida’s education system, which among other things includes “the largest number of students attending virtual school”.
Bush moves into the “my record as governor of Florida” phase, admitting the state is “kind of wacky, it’s kind of crazy, it’s definitely purple.”
He says he cut taxes every year, that Florida reduced the state workforce by 13,000 people – just a few minutes after talking about the need to create jobs – and then talks about multiplying the state’s reserves by billions.
Bush is growing animated talking about some of the wonky business of governing. “I was called Veto Corleone because I vetoed 2,000 separate line items in the budget.”
He talks now about when he lived in Mexico and meeting his wife, “it was love at first sight” – for him at least, “it took her a couple of years to get going” – and moves onto describing the next parts of his life.
He lived in Venezuela, worked in his father’s campaign, was a businessman in Miami, has grandkids. His son served and is an elected official in Texas. He uses the phrase “life’s journey” repeatedly.
He says he’s weighing the the state of the world as he decides whether to run for president: “Is it going to be a world of purpose or is it going to be a world of uncertainty? … My personal belief is that we have a chance to make it the greatest time to be Americans.”
Jeb Bush delivers speech
Former Florida governor Jeb Bush, the scion of the Bush family, has taken the podium.
“I’ve had a blast these last 24 hours in New Hampshire, you all know how to be a magnet for candidates. There’s only 55 people that’re thinking about running for president, as far as I can tell.
Everybody knows me as George’s boy, Barbara’s boy, George’s brother,” he says, but he wants to “show my heart” so that voters can get to know him better.
He’s cautiously distancing himself from the family legacy, talking about his love for his family while averring the obvious: “we all have our own DNA and our own life experiences.”
Updated
The political Chipotle coverage continues.
In NH, Rubio says he tips at Chipotle. My dad was a service sector worker, he tells reporters who asked
— Kasie Hunt (@kasie) April 17, 2015
Updated
While she’s out on the trail in Iowa, Hillary Clinton’s office has released a statement about the somewhat controversial Trans-Pacific Partnership, a trade agreement supported by the president and Republicans with 11 Pacific countries.
Clinton’s office said she “believes that any measure has to pass two tests”: helping the economy and national security – two of her four campaign talking points. “She will be watching closely,” the statement said, without saying much more – other than that the US “should be willing to walk away from any outcome” that does not meet said talking points.
In her 2008 presidential campaign, Clinton opposed such trade agreements, but as secretary of state she described the TPP pact as “the gold standard in trade agreements.”
One possible primary foe, Vermont senator Bernie Sanders, did not appreciate her uncertainty.
And @SenSanders: “My strong hope is that Secretary Clinton...will make it clear that the Trans-Pacific Partnership should be rejected."
— Alex Seitz-Wald (@aseitzwald) April 17, 2015
You can read more about the questions facing Clinton here.
A Dartmouth student suggests to Christie that New Jersey’s jobs numbers aren’t as rosy as he might be making them out.
Christie says he doesn’t think there’s a coincidence that New Jersey is “the second highest tax state in America” and has struggled to add jobs.
He blames the Democratic state lawmakers. “One thing I haven’t been able to convince them is to cut individual taxes … I would love for a week to have a Republican legislature or to be the emperor.”
If he were then he’d cut taxes and jobs would increase much faster, he says. Having fielded that last question he leaves the stage.
Updated
An elderly gentleman asks Christie whether he thinks “speaking truth to power” will be enough to get him elected president.
“If I run we’re sure as heck gonna find out, cause I’m not changing,” Christie says.
“I don’t know the answer to your question … but I will tell you this: one, I won’t change, I’m gonna be who I am,” he adds, so that people will know “who’s behind that desk.”
“Second, I am not going to tack and move and flip-flop and pander because I’m looking in your eyes and I’m trying to figure out what is it he wants to hear, and then pray that he doesn’t remember and do the opposite.
Christie attempts to be coy, which is not his forte.
“So this could wind up being a really grand experiment. But it’s one that I think given the condition of our country right now that I think might be worth taking.”
Christie fields a question about fixing the budget, and says people should look to his record in New Jersey. Voters should consider “have [leaders] just talked about it or have they actually done” reform, he says.
Some of the cuts will hurt and be unpopular, he admits. But that’s tough.
“I didn’t run for governor of New Jersey to be elected the prom king,” he says, adding that he doesn’t want to be “the most popular leader in the world. I’m looking to be the most respected one.”
Now he says executive actions such as Obama’s immigration order are “In my view … illegal, which is why I joined the lawsuit opposing the executive action. … And it’s an abdication of leadership.”
In 2012 Obama used an executive action to accelerate the relief and reconstruction of New York and New Jersey. At the time, Christie welcomed Obama’s help, hugging him and saying the president had been “outstanding”. Christie then defended his conduct to angry Republicans.
Christie is asked about immigration.
“I’m not somebody who’s for building a wall from one end to the other … the other way that you do it by the way is when you set up a fair system that actually works … and you go to employers and say if you employ people who come here illegally, we’re going to come after you.”
“Walls can be gotten over. The reason people come here, as you pointed out, is to work.”
He says the US should “clamp down on folks” who employ illegal migrants – once there’s “a fair system,” the mechanics of which he does not elaborate on.
He says he knows he has a reputation for being “blunt”. “I think we could use a little bit of that in Washington DC.”
“I will guarantee you one thing, you will never have to wonder what I’m thinking, and … you will never have to wonder what I’m feeling.”
He says Americans don’t need to worry about where he’s leading New Jersey as governor “or in any other leadership role”.
Christie: 'We have to work together once we get to Washington'
Christie goes on to frame certain ambitions to changing the country:
“If you want America to be a leader in the world again, if you want to get our house in order so that other nations once again want to emulate us.”
“We have to work together once we get to Washington to solve these problems.”
“The American people are anxious, not angry, anxious. And the reason for that is absolutely feckless leadership from our president. All he cares about now is legacy and his library … He doesn’t care about anything else.”
“I think it’s a national disgrace when the president of the United States sits down and considers taking Cuba off the terrorist watch list,” he says, before talking about Assata Shakur, an American wanted for murder and living in Cuba.
Updated
Christie boasts of balancing the budget in New Jersey, in part by “cutting 800 programs”.
“There are ways we can put our fiscal house in order in this country, and we need to.”
“The reason he doesn’t talk about is cause there isn’t some short pithy answer you can read off a teleprompter.”
He says weakness at home has created problems abroad: “Iran moving towards a nuclear weapon, Syria on fire, Libya on fire … Vladimir Putin charging into eastern Europe …
“We have a weak president who has weakened our country. … We can no longer afford to have weakness in the Oval Office, we need to have strength and unity and hard truths.”
New Jersey governor Chris Christie has taken the stage, and has already suggested that his son has a tendency to get “wise” with him.
He then launches into an attack on entitlements. “If they’re not going to do something to fix that problem we’re not going to be able to deal with any of the other problems or opportunities we have in this country.”
Someone in the audience tells King that more than jihadists, “an even greater threat is the electromagnetic pulse,” whether caused by nature or terrorism.
King doesn’t seem to have a clue what she’s talking about, understandably. But that doesn’t mean he’s not suddenly worried about it: “I do have concern.”
Someone else asks what he thinks about Ted Cruz and the 2013 government shutdown. King does not approve. “You govern, you don’t shut the government down, you govern. … If you’re opposed to a law you don’t shut the government down. You pass the law in the House, the Senate, and you elect a Republican president to sign it.”
Meanwhile somewhere else in New Hampshire, senator Marco Rubio is pandering to a huge demographic: people who don’t like the Yankees.
Tough Q for Rubio: “Are you a Red Sox fan?” A: “I’m not a Yankee fan. I guess I’m a Miami Marlins fan, but you have nothing to worry about.”
— Reid J. Epstein (@reidepstein) April 17, 2015
Kid to Rubio: "Are you a Boston Red Sox fan?" Rubio: "How about this: I'm not a Yankees fan." Elderly gentleman: "That's just as good."
— Stephen Hayes (@stephenfhayes) April 17, 2015
A former New Hampshire state senator has just called out King for tacking to the right: “You don’t represent the mainstream.” He says comments King has made are “just unhelpful.”
King doesn’t care. “Maybe [the comments] were unreasonable but so be it … Whatever I say I say , and I will match my Republican record and my beliefs and my views with anyone in the Republican party.”
New York Representative Peter King, noted supporter of the IRA, is now lambasting the president’s counter-terrorism strategy, saying there are “hundreds of Americans” going to fight for Isis, and “thousands of Europeans.”
He brings up Obama’s much mocked description of Isis as “JV” in an interview with the New Yorker last year. He says he wishes Obama would say the words “Islamic extremism.”
Finally he says that the “police in this country have been under unprecedented siege and attack from members of the liberal media, such as the New York Times, or opportunists such as Al Sharpton. … We as Republicans should be more outspoken in our defense of police.”
There is perfunctory talk about Iran, Putin (pronounced “Pyutin”), al-Qaida, “irrational leaders around the world,” and Binyamin Netanyahu. There is applause, and invocations of September 11.
A woman asks Bolton whether Obama will stage a coup – she says she’s heard he’s “putting Muslims in homeland security … smuggling the muslim brotherhood into the White House, amassing his own tanks and assault weapons and trying to get rid of our gun control and everything else…”
Bolton interrupts her. “The answer’s ‘no’ actually.
He says Obama does what he does because “he went to Columbia and Harvard Law,” and came up that way, just like Hillary Clinton – and again omitting that he too went to Yale Law.
Bolton has delivered a long and digressive opinion about Iran, out of the Binyamin Netanyahu school of international diplomacy: any deal with Iran is bad and this one is really bad.
He says it’s shocking that “socialist France” could be the last defense before a nuclear-armed Iran. He and the audience share a laugh at that, and then Bolton gets back to praising Israel and knocking Iran and Obama.
Bolton says he thinks he has “a special relationship with Hillary” and the crowd replies with something between a laugh and a groan.
“She and her husband were a year ahead of me in law school down in New Haven. [Code for Yale when someone doesn’t want to say Yale.] I like to say I’ve been burdened with them 20 years longer than the rest of the country. I’ll tell you something, the way somebody is at that time of their lives, it’s pretty much the way they are the rest of their adulthood.
“Back in law school, Hillary was a radical, and she’s a radical today. She will be Obama’s third term, domestically or internationally, she doesn’t have to work in her campaign such as it is to get to the left of Elizabeth Warren, she’s already there.”
He sends a shot at libertarian-ish senator Rand Paul: “It’s the isolationists who are isolated, and I think it’s you in New Hampshire who can prove that next year.”
And then goes for Clinton by way of Russia: “Today, Vladimir Putin’s Russia is using military force on hte continent of Europe to change international boundaries. This sends fear to American allies in Europe. … The next phase may come when Vladimir Putin tests this administration, tests the theories that Hillary Clinton put into play when she announced the famous reset button with Russia.”
In 2009, then secretary of state Clinton presented Russia’s foreign minister with a red “reset” button, but the State Department had botched the translation. It said “overloaded” instead.
China’s up next, though Bolton doesn’t actually say what the US should do about the communist country’s expanding influence in the Pacific. But whatever Obama’s doing, Bolton doesn’t like it: “Key trading partners of the Untied States will find the hands of China reaching around their throat.”
The crowd is riveted, insofar as they’re listening quietly and not on their phones. Several middle-aged white people in the audience are sipping from their water bottles.
Former ambassador John Bolton has taken the stage back in New Hampshire, saying it’s time for “a very consequential decision for New Hampshire and for the country.”
Bolton’s probably known best as the mustachioed icon of neocons who often graces Fox News; he served in the George W Bush administration.
Naturally, he says he’s going to start with “a brief discussion on the state of the world.”
Don’t talk to the government, then vice-president George HW Bush told his sons in 1988, for fear of constant media coverage over every detail of his family’s life. The New York Times dug up the letter from – where else – that government bastion the Bush Presidential Library. Here’s the bulk of it:
“We are about to sail into uncharted waters, in terms of family scrutiny. We’ve all been through a lot of inquiry and microscopic probing; however, it’ll get worse, not just for our family, but for Dukakis’/Jackson’s, too. Hence this letter to family. …
“My plea is this: please do not contact any federal agency or department on anything. A call from a ‘Bush’ will get returned, but there is a great likelihood that it will be leaked; maybe deliberately misrepresented.
“If there is a legitimate inquiry, call my office. It is certainly appropriate to contact your own government, but let’s do it through my office so no one can accuse any of the family of trying to use influence.
“I know I must sound very defensive, but – believe me – every effort will be made to find some phone call, some inquiry, some letter that can be made to appear improper. [Emphasis HW’s]
“Soon the election will be at hand, and then you will not have to put up with preachy letters from your father, as in this case, maybe.”
RNC claims data advantage over Democrats
Jesse Kamzol, the Republican National Committee’s chief data officer, is speaking in New Hampshire. He says that the Obama 2012 data operation was highly effective – but that the Democrats have let their data go “stale.”
“I completely believe that we’ve leapfrogged them in the data front,” Kamzol says.
Obama’s Organizing for Action (OFA) data-crunching operation was “built for one candidate and one candidate only” and is not transferrable to Hillary Clinton, Kamzol says.
“OFA’s data, I’m willing to bet, has become stale,” Kamzol said.
“They are going to be way behind us for a very long time I believe, just because they didn’t take the actual steps to keep the upkeep of data,” he said.
.@kasie: “Are you smart enough to be president?” RICK PERRY: “Running for the presidency is not an IQ test.” https://t.co/J53LS6akpG
— daveweigel (@daveweigel) April 17, 2015
There’s been a further Marco Rubio sighting ^NOT at a Chipotle:
The reviews of Perry’s performance are in. “Two thumbs up” said Siskel. “Seven diamonds,” said Spitzer.
“Better than last time,” said Republican Iowa Rep. Steve King, who preceded Perry onstage:
In Nashua, NH to speak at Leadership Summit now listening to Gov. Rick Perry who has upped his game with depth, knowledge, and style.
— Steve King (@SteveKingIA) April 17, 2015
(h/t @benjacobs)
Updated
James Carville, with Paul Begala, helped steer Bill Clinton to the White House as a top campaign strategist. And then,
#scooplet: James Carville filmed a pilot for Judge Judy style reality court show http://t.co/7OnY0TWr1f pic.twitter.com/pB7r0UpJZq
— Hadas Gold (@Hadas_Gold) April 17, 2015
Carville isn’t really a judge, but he did voice one on TV, in a “King of the Hill” episode in which he sentences a thief to 90 days of living in the cab of an imported pickup truck (skip to 2:27):
Rick Perry is telling the story of a visit to a cemetery for American soldiers in Normandy France. It’s a powerful appeal to the legend of the Greatest Generation.
The tombstones all look west to America, Perry says. “To an America they had left, to an America they were willing to defend to the death.
I happen to think that today they look upon us in silent judgment. And we have to ask ourselves, do we remain worthy of their sacrifice.”
Perry wraps his speech and opens the floor to questions. “Now the fun part,” he says.
7 April, 2015: Bill Clinton: I will be a ‘backstage adviser’ during Hillary’s presidential run
17 April 2015:
Bill Clinton to begin a series of Georgetown lectures next week: http://t.co/IZ65UkZxnk pic.twitter.com/cJqMHLIP3j
— The Hill (@thehill) April 17, 2015
Perry is listing things wrong with America. “We saw a crazy man walk into the White House and nobody seemed to know where he came from,” Perry says, in reference to a fence-jumper in September 2014.
“Not that crazy man,” he jokes, meaning Obama.
Former Texas governor Rick Perry is up next at the First in the Nation Republican leadership summit in Nashua. Let’s give him a listen.
Here’s a quickie roundup of news tidbits we can without reservation recommend to you our readers:
Can Hillary Clinton Solve the Democrats’ White Voter Problem? – Dave Weigel, Bloomberg Politics
Outside of the immediate Clinton family, few people are as thrilled by the former Secretary of State’s bid as white Democrats who’ve watched their local parties collapse, Barack Obama’s name weighing on them like an anvil. They are ending his presidency with zero senators, zero state legislatures, and zero governors in the deep south. Kentucky, which Bill Clinton narrowly won twice, is the only such state where Democrats still hold most offices and one house of the legislature.
For Jeb Bush the Businessman, Some Deals Brought Grief – Steve Eder, New York Times
But the Justice Department would later sue, claiming that Mr. Bush’s partners hid commissions of roughly $25 million to a Nigerian middleman. Though Mr. Bush denied making money on the deal, his association with M.W.I. resulted in questions that have endured for over two decades, with Mr. Bush once telling a reporter the association brought “unmitigated grief.”
And then there’s this:
.@GovMikeHuckabee to reporters in DC: "If you watch @SpecialReport with @BretBaier tonight I'll make an announcement about my 2016 decision"
— J. Hogan Gidley (@JHoganGidley) April 17, 2015
UPDATE: tenterhooks.
Huckabee. https://t.co/rSVOgco0iF
— Jennifer Jacobs (@JenniferJJacobs) April 17, 2015
(h/t @bencjacobs)
Updated
Marco Rubio comes out as an evolutionist.
Rubio asked about evolution “It’s a scientific theory that should be taught“
— Zeke Miller (@ZekeJMiller) April 17, 2015
This came up in a 2008 Republican presidential primary debate. Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, Colorado Rep. Tom Tancredo and then-senator, now-governor of Kansas Sam Brownback said they did not believe in evolution.
George Pataki, the popular three-term governor of New York, has not announced a presidential run. But he makes a heck of a commercial:
“After eight years of Obama-style socialism, we need to shrink government, not let big government tell us how to live our lives,” he says.
(h/t: @bencjacobs)
Updated
Can Jeb Bush beat Hillary Clinton in a general election contest?
Not so fast, sayeth Nate Silver of 538. Bush’s favorable ratings in current polling – 31% favorable, 45% UN-favorable – are dreary enough that if something doesn’t happen for Bush soon, he wouldn’t be expected to clear the primary contest:
Either Bush will become more popular among Republicans — or they won’t pick him. So citing his current favorability numbers as a general election weakness doesn’t make a lot of sense.
At least he will still be friends with Marco Rubio. Read the full piece here.
Will there be room for Marco Rubio, the Florida senator, in the presidential race once Jeb Bush, the popular former governor, gets in?
Whatever happens, a great deal of personal affection will endure between the two men, Rubio told NPR news this week.
“We’ll always be friends,” Rubio said of Bush. “And I have tremendous admiration for him as a person, what he did as governor, and personal affection, and that’s not going to change.”
Updated
“We normally cook our own Mexican food at home,” Jeb Bush said in New Hampshire Thursday.
He was talking, of course, about presidential politics. Burritos are big this year, 2016. Or next year. “It’s pretty good,” Bush added, about the Mexican food he cooks at home.
Video surveillance stills, meanwhile, emerged on Friday of Florida Senator Marco Rubio queuing at a Chipotle in Washington DC. Here’s one, via IJReview, which first posted the grabs:
“Do I go there? Yeah, I go there,” Bush said about Chipotle in his New Hampshire remarks. “Drive my own car. Park my own car. Get out of my own car.”
Hillary Clinton visited a Chipotle in Ohio this week, but she took a rented van she wasn’t driving. She did get out of it. Here’s that:
Chipotle Mexican Grill was founded in Denver, Colorado, in 1993, a year after Bill Clinton was elected president. The stock hasn’t done much since Hillary Clinton visited the Ohio outlet, and shares do not appear to have moved at all based on Bush’s remarks about eating at home.
It’s not as high as the national political discourse can go, but the ongoing Chipotle debate is pitched well above the South Park snippet about the restaurant, which we leave to you to click through to.
Updated
Former New York Governor George Pataki is warming up the stage in New Hampshire. He hits Clinton for vetting people before she spontaneously ran into them in an Iowa cafe:
“As Hillary runs across the country in her converted van, hiding from people, dodging the press, only answering staged questions from people planted... we are going to be answering” any and all questions, Pataki says.
He takes a question about term limits. He favors them.
You can watch the First in the Nation Republican leadership summit on CSPAN here.
In a little-noticed legislative play earlier this week, the House of Representatives passed legislation that would protect campaign megadonors such as the Koch brothers from gift taxes on any contribution they made to secret-money political groups, Politico reports:
The legislation, which now heads to the Senate, is seen by fundraising operatives as removing one of the few remaining potential obstacles to unfettered big-money spending by nonprofit groups registered under a section of the Tax Code — 501(c) — that allows them to shield their donors’ identities.
Read the full piece here.
In presidential politics, 2016 is the year of the journey. “I hope you’ll join me on this journey,” Hillary Clinton said before starting her road trip to Iowa. “Today begins the journey to take America back,” Rand Paul said last week in announcing his candidacy.
Former Florida governor Jeb Bush announced his journey on Thursday night in New Hampshire, where the journeys of more than a dozen other potential Republican presidential candidates were mapped to intersect this weekend, at and around the First in the Nation Republican leadership summit in Nashua.
“I’m on a journey to kind of measure support,” Bush said at a “Politics and Pie” town hall-style event in Concord. But Bush stopped short of declaring his candidacy.
“Other people’s processes are not really that relevant to me,” he said. “I’ll make up my mind in relatively short order. I’m excited about just the possibility of being in a position to consider it.”
The leadership summit is a major showcase for Republican political talent, in which candidates will take 30-minute shifts delivering their pitches and fielding questions from New Hampshire’s pridefully inquisitive voters.
Bush was scheduled to speak at the summit on Friday afternoon, to be followed by Senator Marco Rubio on Friday evening and on Saturday morning by Senator Rand Paul. Senator Ted Cruz, former Governor Mike Huckabee and Governor Scott Walker were among 28 total featured speakers expected to address a sold-out crowd of 600.
Clinton’s journey does not arrive in New Hampshire until Monday, when she is scheduled to begin a two-day trip that will feature the kind of small events with business owners, students and teachers, and elected officials that she held earlier this week in Iowa.
Clinton’s journey was revealed to be more mapped out than it seemed at first, with the revelation that people she met at a seemingly spontaneous stop-in at a coffee shop in LeClaire, Iowa, on Tuesday had been previously recruited and vetted.
Journeys are better with friends.
Iowa traditionally is the site of the first caucuses of each presidential election cycle, while New Hampshire hosts the nation’s first primaries. A strong performance in New Hampshire after a weakish performance in Iowa has shored up the prospects of more than one candidates, including both John McCain and Hillary Clinton in 2008.
Bush told New Hampshire voters on Thursday that there were two past candidates whose journeys he emulated but would not retrace: George W Bush, his brother, and George HW Bush, his father.
“I have to prove that I’m not running for president – if I go beyond the consideration of this to being an active candidate – to try and break the tie between the Addams family and the Bush family,” Bush joked at the Concord event.
