16 for '16: The Most Talked-About Potential GOP Presidential Candidates

[Dos Equis]

Nobody can match Marco Rubio’s upside
By Aaron Blake March 16, 2015

In a Republican Party defined by infighting and a pitched battle between the establishment and the tea party, Sen. Marco Rubio (Fla.) is somewhat above the fray. (Charles Ommanney for The Washington Post)

Marco Rubio isn't exactly the buzziest candidate in the 2016 presidential race. In fact, ever since the senator's effort to pass comprehensive immigration reform failed, he has been pretty quiet. Then fellow Floridian Jeb Bush got into the 2016 race, and suddenly the one-time future leader of the GOP is an afterthought — a second-tier candidate.

He shouldn't be.

The fact remains that Rubio, more than anybody, is the guy Republicans should want to earn the nomination. That's not to say that he's definitely their best candidate — just that he's the one with the most of what is described by pro-sports draft analysts as "upside."

And it's not just because he's young, a gifted messenger, Hispanic and comes from a swing state. All of those things are important to making Rubio the GOP's upside candidate, but it's also because he's the kind of guy who could — in theory, at least — unite a fractured Republican Party.

Case in point: a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll.

Although Rubio hasn't been at the top of GOP primary polls for many months, the new poll shows he's the guy most Republicans could see themselves voting for. Fifty-six percent of Republicans say this about Rubio, and while that's hardly a resounding number, it's more than what anybody else received.

By contrast, 49 percent say they could see themselves voting for Sen. Rand Paul (Ky.) or Bush, the nominal front-runner. Just 40 percent say they could see themselves backing Sen. Ted Cruz (Tex.), and just 32 percent say the same of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.

And while about four in 10 Republicans say they can't see themselves voting for Paul, Bush and Cruz, and 57 percent say the same of Christie, just 26 percent say they can't see themselves backing Rubio.


The only candidate who can come close to matching Rubio's upside is, in fact, Scott Walker. While 53 percent say they could see themselves backing the Wisconsin governor, just 17 percent say they can't. Nobody else is even close to being a potential consensus GOP candidate — at least at this very early juncture.

And there's a reason Rubio and Walker have that distinction. It's because they have both ties to the GOP establishment and conservative bona fides. While Bush and Christie are very much establishment guys, and Paul and Cruz are much more aligned with the tea party, there's something about Rubio and Walker for everyone to like.


And we would argue Rubio has even more upside than Walker, because of some of the intangibles mentioned above.

To reinforce, this is all in theory. Once Rubio got into the 2016 campaign, his actions on immigration would quickly be at issue with conservatives. And there's always the matter of, you know, building a campaign that is capable of actually winning the nomination. Rubio has lots of work to do re-asserting himself as a frontrunner.

But in a party that is defined by infighting, Rubio is somewhat above the fray. Or, at the least, he's got fewer built-in enemies and a higher ceiling at the outset.

If he can capitalize on this potential, we might again start talking about Rubio as a leader of the GOP pretty soon. And if he could make that happen, his party would probably be better for it.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2015/03/16/marco-rubio-the-gops-upside-candidate/

[Dos Equis]

Good news for Marco Rubio in GOP poll
By LOUIS NELSON 3/15/15


Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla. waves as he leaves the stage during the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in National Harbor, Md., Friday, Feb. 27, 2015. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

It’s not clear if momentum is building behind Florida Sen. Marco Rubio for a run at the White House in 2016, but he has not turned off Republican voters. The junior senator from the Sunshine State led all other 2016 contenders among GOP primary voters, according to a Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll released March 11.

Fifty-six percent of GOP voters said they could see themselves supporting Rubio while just 26 percent said they could not. Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee trailed close behind Rubio, with 53 and 52 percent of Republican voters, respectively, saying they could see themselves supporting each candidate.

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul tied for fourth place in the poll with 49 percent each.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s 2016 aspirations took the biggest hit in the poll.

Just 32 percent of Republican voters said they could see themselves supporting him while 57 percent said they could not. Only Donald Trump, who 74 percent of GOP voters said they could not see themselves supporting, did worse; 51 percent said they would not consider supporting South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham.

The poll was conducted March 1-5, surveying 229 registered Republican primary voters by telephone with a margin of error of plus or minus 6.48 percentage points. A total of 14 potential candidates were included in the poll.

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/03/good-news-for-marco-rubio-in-gop-poll-116081.html#ixzz3UfEIu1EZ

[240 is Back]

Rubio = Romney, mccain.  The media darling RINO.

It's getting so predictable. 

[Dos Equis]

 

[James]

[James]

[Dos Equis]

TRANSCRIPT: Cruz announces presidential campaign
Published March 23, 2015
FoxNews.com

The following is a transcript of Sen. Ted Cruz' remarks at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va., where he announced his presidential campaign.

SEN. TED CRUZ: "Thank you so much President Falwell.  God Bless Liberty University.  [cheers and applause]

I am thrilled to join you today at the largest Christian university in the world. [cheers and applause] Today, I want to talk with you about the promise of America.  Imagine your parents when they were children.  Imagine a little girl growing up in Wilmington, Delaware; during World War II - the daughter of an Irish and Italian Catholic family - working class.  Her uncle ran numbers in Wilmington.

She grew up with dozens of cousins because her mom was the second youngest of 17 kids. She had a difficult father - a man who drank far too much; and frankly, didn't think women should be educated.  And yet this young girl, pretty and shy, was driven, was bright, was inquisitive and she became the first person in her family ever to go to college.

In 1956 my mom, Eleanor, graduated Fice University with a degree in math and became a pioneering computer programmer in the 1950s and 1960s.  [applause]

Imagine a teenage boy, not much younger than many of you here today. Growing up in Cuba [audience member cheers - laughter].  Jet black hair, skinny as a rail. [laughter] Involved in student council and yet Cuba was not at a peaceful time - the dictator Batista was corrupt. He was oppressive and this teenage boy joins a revolution.

He joins a revolution against Batista, he begins fighting with other teenagers to free Cuba from the dictators.  This boy at age 17 finds himself thrown in prison, finds himself tortured, beaten.  And then at age 18, he flees Cuba.  He comes to America.

Imagine for a second the hope that was in his heart as he road that ferry boat across Key West and got on a Greyhound bus to head to Austin, Texas - to begin working, washing dishes making 50 cents an hour.

Coming to the one land on earth that has welcomed so many millions.  When my Dad came to America in 1957, he could not have imagined what lay in store for him.  Imagine a young married couple living together in the 1970s.  Neither one of them has a personal relationship with Jesus. They had a little boy and they're both drinking far too much.

They're living a fast life.  When I was 3, my father decided to leave my mother and me.  We were living in Calgary at the time.  He got on a plane and flew back to Texas. And he decided he didn't want to be married anymore and he didn't want to be a father to his 3-year-old son.

And yet when he was in Houston, a friend, a colleague from the oil and gas business invited him to a Bible study; invited him to Clay Road Baptist Church - and there my father gave his life to Jesus Christ. [applause]  And God transformed his heart - and he drove to the airport, he bought a plane ticket and he flew back to be with my mother and me. [applause]

There are people who wonder if faith is real. I can tell you, in my family there is not a second of doubt - because were it not for the transformative love of Jesus Christ, I would have been saved and I would have been raised by a single mom without my father in the house.

Imagine another little girl living in Africa - in Kenya and Nigeria. [audience member cheers] This is a diverse crowd. [laughter] Playing with kids, they spoke Swahili - she spoke English.  Coming back to California [crowd cheers and laughter]. Where her parents who had been missionaries in Africa had raised her on the central coast.

She starts a small business when she is in grade school, baking bread.  She calls it Heidi's Bakery.  She and her brother compete baking bread. They bake thousands of loaves of bread and go to the local apple orchard where they sell the bread to people coming to pick apples.

She goes on to a career in business - excelling and rising to the highest pinnacles. And then, Heidi becomes my wife and my very best friend in the world. [applause]
Heidi becomes an incredible mom to our two precious little girls, Carline and Catheryn, the joys and loves of our life. [applause]

Imagine another teenage boy being raised in Houston hearing stories from his dad about prison and torture in Cuba, hearing stories about how fragile liberty is, beginning to study the United States Constitution, learning about the incredible protections we have in this country that protect the God-given liberty of every American.

Experience challenges at home, the mid 1980s oil prices cratered. And his parents business go bankrupt.  Heading off to school, over a thousand miles away from home in a place where he knew nobody.  Where he was alone and scared and his parents going through bankruptcy meant there was no financial support at home.

So at the age of 17, he went to get two jobs to help pay his way through school. He took over 100-thousand dollars in school loans.  Loans, I suspect a lot of y'all can relate to. [laughter] Loans that, I'll point out, I just paid off a few years ago. [cheers and applause and laughter]

These are who we are as Americans. And yet, for so many Americans, the promise of America seems more and more distant. What is the promise of America? The idea that, the revolutionary idea that this country was founded upon, which is that our rights, they don't come from man. They come from God Almighty. [applause]

And that the purpose of the constitution, as Thomas Jefferson put it, is to serve as chains to bind the mischief of government. [applause] The incredible opportunity of the American dream, what has enabled millions of people from all over the world to come to America with nothing and to achieve anything.

And then the American exceptionalism that has made this nation a clarion voice for freedom in the world, a shining city on a hill. That's the promise of America. That's what makes this  nation an indispensable nation. A unique nation in the history of the world.

And yet so many fear that that promise is today unattainable. So many fear it is slipping away from our hands. I want to talk to you this morning about reigniting the promise of America.

Two hundred and forty years ago on this very day, a 38 year old lawyer named Patrick Henry stood up just 100 miles from here in Richmond, VA and said "give me liberty or give me death."  [applause]

I want to ask each of you to imagine, imagine millions of courageous conservatives all across America rising up together to say in unison "we demand our liberty." [applause]

Today, roughly half of born again Christians aren't voting. They're staying home. Imagine instead millions of people of faith all across American coming out to the polls and voting our values. [applause]  Today, millions of young people are worried about the future, worried about what the future will hold. Imagine millions of young people coming together and standing together saying "we will stand for liberty." [applause]

Think just how different the world would be. Imagine instead of economic stagnation, booming economic growth. Instead of small businesses going out of business in record numbers, imagine small businesses growing and prospering. Imagine young people coming out of school with 4-5-6 job offers. [applause]

Imagine innovation thriving on the internet as government regulators and tax collectors are kept at bay and more and more opportunity is created. [applause] Imagine America finally becoming energy self-sufficient as millions and millions of high paying jobs are created. [applause]

Five years ago today, the President signed Obamacare into law. [boos and laughter] Within hours, Liberty University went to court filing a lawsuit to stop that failed law. [applause]
Instead of a joblessness, instead of the millions forced into part time work, instead of the millions who lost their health insurance, lost their doctors, have faced skyrocketing health insurance premiums. Imagine in 2017 a new President signing legislation repealing every word of Obamacare. [applause]

Imagine healthcare reform that keeps government out of the way between you and your doctor that makes health insurance personal and portable and affordable. [applause]

Instead of a tax code that crushes innovation that imposes burdens on families struggling to make ends meat. Imagine a simple flat tax. [applause] that lets every American to fill his or her taxes on a postcard. [applause] Imagine abolishing the IRS. [applause]

Instead of a lawlessness and the President's unconstitutional amnesty, imagine a President that finally, finally, finally secures the borders. [applause] and imagine a legal immigration system that welcomes and celebrates those who come to achieve the American dream. [applause]

Instead of a federal government that wages an assault on our religious liberty. That goes after Hobby Lobby, that goes after the little sisters of the poor, that goes after Liberty University. Imagine a federal government that stands for the first amendment rights of every American. [applause]

Instead of a federal government that works to undermine our values, imagine a federal government that works to defend the sanctity of human life. [applause] And to uphold the sacrament of marriage. [applause]

Instead of a government that works to undermine our second amendment rights, that seeks to ban our ammunition. [applause] Imagine a federal government that protects the right to keep and bear arms of all law abiding Americans. [applause]

Instead of a government that seizes your emails and your cell phones, imagine a federal government that protected the privacy rights of every American. [applause] Instead of a federal government that seeks to dictate school curriculum through common core [ applause] imagine repealing every word of common core. [applause]

Imagine embracing school choices the civil rights issue of the next generation. [applause] But every single child, regardless of race, regardless of ethnicity, regardless of wealth or zip code, every child in America has a right to a quality education. [applause]

And that's true from all of the above. Whether it is a public schools or charter schools or private schools or Christian schools or Parochial schools or home schools, every child [applause]

Instead of a President who boycotts Prime Minister Netanyahu, imagine a President who stands unapologetically with the nation of Islam. [applause and cheers]

Instead of a President who seeks to go to the United Nations to end run Congress and the American people. Imagine a President who says I will honor the constitution and under no circumstances will Iran be allowed to acquire a nuclear weapon. [applause]

Imagine a President who says we will stand up and defeat radical Islamic terrorism. [applause] And we will call it by its name. [applause]

We will defend the United States of America. [applause] Now all of these seem difficult. Indeed to some they may seem unimaginable. And yet, if you look at the history of our country, imagine it's 1775 and you and I were sitting there in Richmond listening to Patrick Henry say "give me liberty or give me death." Imagine it's 1776 and we were watching the 54 signers of the Declaration of Independence stand together and pledge their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor to igniting the promise of America.

Imagine it was 1777 and we were watching General Washington as he lost battle after battle after battle in the freezing cold as his soldiers with no shoes were dying fighting for freedom against the most powerful army in the world. That too seemed unimaginable.

Imagine it's 1933 and we were listening to Franklin Delano Roosevelt tell American at a time of crushing depression, at a time of a gathering storm abroad that we have nothing to fear but fear itself. Imagine it's 1979 and you and I were listening to Ronald Reagan [applause] And he was telling us that we would cut the top marginal tax rate from 70% all the way down to 28%. That we would go from crushing stagnation to booming economic growth to millions being lifted out of poverty to prosperity and abundance. That the very day he was sworn in, our hostages who were languishing in Iran would be released and that within a decade, we would win the Cold War.

And tear the Berlin Wall to the ground. Would've seemed unimaginable and yet with the Grace of God, that's exactly what happened. [applause] From the dawn of this country and every stage America has enjoyed, God's providential blessing. Over and over again when we faced impossible odds, the American people rose to the challenge.   

You know compared to that, repealing Obamacare and abolishing the IRS ain't all that tough. The power of the American people when we rise up and stand for liberty knows no bounds. (applause) If you're ready to join a grassroots army across this nation, coming together and standing for liberty, I'm going to ask you to break a rule here today and to take out your cell phones and to text the word CONSTITUTION to the number 33733. You can also text IMAGINE, we're versatile.

Once again, text CONSTITUTION to 33733. God's blessing has been on America from the very beginning of this nation and I believe God isn't done with America yet. [Applause] I believe in you. I believe in the power of millions of courageous conservatives rising up to reignite the promise of America, and that is why, today, I am announcing that

I am running for President of the United States . [Applause and cheering]

It is a time for truth. It is a time for liberty. It is a time to reclaim the Constitution of the United States [Applause]. I am honored to stand with each and every one of you, courageous conservatives, as we come together to reclaim the promise of America, to reclaim the mandate, the hope and the opportune for our children and our children's' children. We stand together for liberty.

This is our fight. The answer will not come from Washington. It will come only from the men and women across this country, from men and women, from people of faith, from lovers of liberty, from people who respect the Constitution. It will only come as it has come from every other time of challenge in this country, when the American people stand together and say we will get back to the principles that have made this country great. We will get back and restore that shining city on a hill - that is the United States of America.

Thank you and God Bless You."

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/03/23/transcript-cruz-announces-presidential-campaign/

[Dos Equis]

Unhappy With a Moderate Jeb Bush, Conservatives Aim to Unite Behind an Alternative
By TRIP GABRIEL
MARCH 25, 2015

OSKALOOSA, Iowa — Fearing that Republicans will ultimately nominate an establishment presidential candidate like Jeb Bush, leaders of the nation’s Christian right have mounted an ambitious effort to coalesce their support behind a single social-conservative contender months before the first primary votes are cast.

In secret straw polls and exclusive meetings from Iowa to California, the leaders are weighing the relative appeal and liabilities of potential standard-bearers like Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana and the former governors Rick Perry, of Texas, and Mike Huckabee, of Arkansas.

“There’s a shared desire to come behind a candidate,” said Tony Perkins, the president of the Family Research Council, a national lobbying group that opposes abortion and equal rights for gays.

“It would be early for a group of leaders to come out for a candidate, but not too early for the conversations to begin,” he said.

The leaders of evangelical and other socially conservative groups say they do not believe that Mr. Bush, the former governor of Florida — whom they already view as the preferred candidate of the Republican Party’s establishment — would fight for the issues they care most about: opposing same-sex marriage, holding the line on an immigration overhaul and rolling back abortion rights.

The efforts to coalesce behind an alternative candidate — in frequent calls, teleconferences and meetings involving a range of organizations, many of them with overlapping memberships — are premised on two articles of conservative faith: Republicans did not win the White House in the past two elections because their nominees were too moderate and failed to excite the party’s base. And a conservative alternative failed to win the nomination each time because grass-roots voters did not unite behind a single champion in the primary fight.

This time, social conservatives vow, will be different. They plan to unify behind an anti-establishment candidate by this summer or early fall, with the expectation that they will be able to overcome the presumed fund-raising advantage of the Republican elite by exerting their own influence through right-wing talk radio and social media, and by mobilizing an army of like-minded small donors.

“Conservatives smell blood in the water,” said Kellyanne Conway, a Republican pollster who has participated in the vetting. “They feel they’ve got the best shot to deny the establishment a place.”

Ms. Conway said the candidates seen as having potential to energize the party’s right wing would be invited to make their case before national groups of social conservatives in the coming weeks and months.

Richard Viguerie, the conservative direct-mail pioneer, said he was involved in the effort to rally behind a candidate so “we won’t go into this season divided six or eight different ways.”

Otherwise, he said, “It’s going to make it very difficult to stop the establishment’s candidate, i.e., Jeb Bush.”

Of course, the basic premise driving the conservatives’ effort — that Republicans have a better shot at the White House by nominating a hard-right candidate who excites the grass-roots – is rejected by the party’s establishment, which views a hard-line nominee as a recipe for a crushing defeat in 2016.

Some on the Christian right remain skeptical of the effort to settle on a single socially conservative candidate. Similar attempts in 2008 and 2012 collapsed because no consensus was reached, they say. And it is unclear what impact an endorsement by national social conservatives would have on a primary competition that will probably be driven by gobs of outside money, debate performances and long months of retail campaigning.

“I think it’s a useless process,” said David Lane, who arranges expenses-paid meetings of conservative pastors to hear from potential candidates, most recently at a gathering in Des Moines where Mr. Cruz and Mr. Jindal spoke. “My goal is to give the constituency access to candidates, then let them decide.”

But participants in the effort say that the lessons of recent elections have sunk in, and that this time they will not allow their debate to devolve into discord.

“I think everybody understands — more, even, at the grass-roots level — that there has been a pattern, and the pattern needs to be broken,” said Gary L. Bauer, a conservative activist and a former presidential candidate. He led an effort called the Arlington Group that tried to galvanize support for a social conservative standard-bearer in the 2008 and 2012 elections.

The yearning for a single conservative contender to unite behind was perhaps most in evidence last month, when a dozen leaders of evangelical and other groups gathered for a half-day conference to discuss possible candidates in Dana Point, Calif.

The retreat, at the five-star St. Regis Monarch Beach resort, was the latest in a series organized by Mr. Perkins, of the Family Research Center, according to people briefed about the proceedings.

The session culminated in a vote for “the most viable candidate.” The result, projected on a screen at the front of a conference room, showed Mr. Huckabee, a former Baptist preacher, as the winner. In a three-way tie for second were Mr. Perry, Mr. Jindal and Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin, according to a cellphone photo of the results shared with The New York Times.

But on Sunday, just hours after news broke of Mr. Cruz’s impending announcement, there were signs here in Oskaloosa, a farming town in central Iowa, that grass-roots conservatives had taken notice of him.

“Ted Cruz, there’s a fire inside of him,” said Julie Tvedt, the administrator of the Jubilee Family Church, who met for lunch with 12 other Republican evangelical activists after church.

“I really like his backbone,” said Curt Block, a salesman. “Compromise is one thing, but when you’re compromising everything, for what are you even standing?”

The instant gravitation toward Mr. Cruz here could be significant, or it could be momentary — in which case the efforts of national leaders to settle on a candidate for the Christian right could prove misguided. After all, voter sentiment shifts quickly, and sometimes mysteriously, and endorsements by authority figures are often of dubious value.

“No question that conservative leaders around the country would love to coalesce around a candidate,” said Bob Vander Plaats, a social conservative leader in Iowa. “But it’s easier said than done.”

At the recent gathering of pastors in Des Moines, Governor Jindal curried favor on one of their top issues: opposition to same-sex marriage. “I know it is popular to evolve on this issue,” he said. “I’m not evolving.”

His first questioner was a woman who asked if Mr. Jindal and other socially conservative contenders could decide among themselves who should be the one true standard-bearer.

Her tone was heartfelt, even desperate. “I would love to see you godly leaders pray and fast and see who God would be anointing to raise up,” she said. “We would rally behind him. We cannot be so divided. Our money, our time, our loyalty is so divided.”

To which Mr. Jindal offered a one-word response: “Amen.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/26/us/politics/2016-elections-conservatives-jeb-bush.html?_r=0

[240 is Back]

"Rubio's HOT right now" = Everyone realizes Jeb is entirely too liberal and we need a moderate we can call a conservative.

[Dos Equis]

 

Ben Carson calls Obama a 'psychopath'
By Eric Bradner, CNN
Wed March 25, 2015

Washington (CNN)Ben Carson says President Barack Obama is a psychopath.

His comment came in an exchange between the neurosurgeon who's likely to mount a bid for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination and his chief adviser, Armstrong Williams, captured by a GQ reporter on the night of this year's State of the Union address.

Williams had said Obama looked "elegant" that night.

And Carson responded: "Like most psychopaths. That's why they're successful. That's the way they look. They all look great."

Later in the exchange, Carson accused Obama of knowingly selling the American public "a lie."

"He's trying to sell what he thinks is not true!" Carson reportedly said. "He's sitting there saying, 'These Americans are so stupid I can tell them anything.'"

It's the latest in a long string of controversial comments from Carson, who's touted himself as an outsider -- someone who isn't a career politician and doesn't carry himself as one.

His blunt comments about Obama have been part of Carson's appeal to conservatives who have detested the President during his six-plus years in office.

Carson has also compared Obama's signature health care law to "slavery," and said homosexuality is a choice because some people enter prison straight and leave it gay.

http://www.cnn.com/2015/03/25/politics/ben-carson-obama-psychopath-gq/index.html

[Dos Equis]

Rubio planning mid-April announcement in Miami
By Alexandra Jaffe and Dana Bash, CNN
Mon March 30, 2015

Washington (CNN)Sen. Marco Rubio is planning a major announcement for mid-April in Miami, sources tell CNN, with that announcement likely to be the launch of his presidential campaign.

The announcement is expected the week of April 13, and will very likely come as soon as that day, a Rubio source confirmed to CNN.

According to the Tampa Bay Times, which first reported news of Rubio's announcement, the Florida senator has reserved the Freedom Tower on the campus of Miami Dade College — which once housed the Miami News — for an undisclosed event that day.

A Rubio aide hinted that some clarity on the announcement could come Monday, during the senator's appearance on Fox News' "The Five."

"You should tune in," the aide said.

Rubio has not publicly confirmed plans to run for president, but he's been making preparations for a campaign, traveling to early primary states and reaching out to donors and supporters to gauge support for a bid.

While he's drawn interest from Republican kingmakers, he routinely polls in the middle of the likely field, recently drawing 7% support in a CNN/ORC poll.

His announcement is one of a handful of expected presidential launches in a busy April as the contest gears up.

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz kicked off the competition and became the first prospective contender to make his bid official this week. Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul is slated to announce on April 7, and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is planning an April launch as well.

http://www.cnn.com/2015/03/28/politics/rubio-announcement-april/index.html

[Dos Equis]

George Pataki 'Strongly Leaning' Toward 2016 Presidential Run

Image: George Pataki 'Strongly Leaning' Toward 2016 Presidential Run Former Governor George Pataki, R-N.Y. (Joshua Roberts/Reuters/Landov)
Monday, 30 Mar 2015
By Sandy Fitzgerald

Former New York Gov. George Pataki fell just short of officially announcing his presidential campaign Sunday, telling a New York radio show that if he were a "betting person," he "would make the decision to go."

"I'm not a betting person, but if I were, that's the way I'd bet," he said on The Rita Cosby Show, which aired Sunday on WABC Radio. "Strongly leaning towards it."

Pataki, 69, was the Republican governor for his state from 1995 to 2007, and says that experience gives him the "ability to not just lead a big complex
He believes the country and its government is headed in the wrong direction, and said it's "hard to sit on the sideline if you believe you have the ability to run a government, like this country's government, well."

But even though Pataki said that he is "closer to making that decision than I've ever been," the way federal rules are structured, "I am not going to make that announcement, or the decision, at this time."

The former governor earlier this year announced that he launched a super PAC as part of his plan to explore a possible presidential bid, and also considered running in the 2008 and 2012 races.

Pataki, in the exclusive Sunday interview, also discussed several other issues with Cosby, including police department body cams in the wake of the Freeport, Long Island, police department mandating them.

"I think it should be a local decision," he said. "I don't think we should have a federal policy [and] I don't think we should have a state policy."
Latest News Update

Pataki was also outspoken about the Bowe Bergdahl case, saying he was outraged and believes President Barack Obama "broke the law" by exchanging prisoners for him.

"Congress said that you cannot, the president cannot, release a prisoner from Guantanamo without 30 days' written notice to the members of Congress," he said. "This points out a bigger problem with this administration. That it seems to be above the law whether it's unilaterally changing Obamacare, ignoring the law that prevented them from doing this Bergdahl exchange without prior written notification to Congress, or in so many other ways."

The topic of Hillary Clinton's private email server also came up, with Pataki describing it as "just another example that the powerful in Washington think that the rules that apply to us, don't apply to them."

He also discussed the United States' dealings with the threat of the Islamic State, pointing out that he was governor during the Sept. 11 attacks.

"I saw the consequences of government thinking that because this radical Islam was thousands of thousands of miles overseas, it didn't pose a threat to us," he said. "It obviously did. We cannot sit back and simply say they are over there. They want to attack us here and I believe we have to go in, destroy as many of them as we can, as quickly as we can, destroy their recruiting centers and training facilities and then get out."

http://www.newsmax.com/Politics/George-Pataki-New-York-super-PAC/2015/03/30/id/635261/#ixzz3VtpxiPHM

[240 is Back]

I like Rubio because he waters down the fucking RINO vote for Jeb.

All those brain-dead fucks that can't stop jerking off the kinda-dem-kinda-repub RINO candidates, they'll love Rubio.

seriously, they're worse than dems, because dems don't choose their opponent.   Keep on chumming the waters with a dipshit RINO with a huge liberal history, keep on giving the white house to the democrats.   

[James]

[Dos Equis]

Rand Paul: 'I'm putting myself forward as a candidate for president'
By Ashley Killough, CNN
Tue April 7, 2015

Louisville, Kentucky (CNN)For Rand Paul, it's all led to this moment.

Since riding the tea party wave into the Senate in 2010, Paul has carefully built a brand of mainstream libertarianism -- dogged advocacy of civil liberties combined with an anti-interventionist foreign policy and general support for family values -- that he bets will create a coalition of younger voters and traditional Republicans to usher him into the White House.

The test of that theory began Tuesday when the Kentucky senator made official what has been clear for years: He's running for president.

"Today I announce with God's help, with the help of liberty lovers everywhere, that I'm putting myself forward as a candidate for president of the United States of America," Paul said at a rally in Louisville.

Paul immediately hit the campaign trail for a four-day swing through New Hampshire, South Carolina, Iowa and Nevada -- the states that traditionally vote first in the primaries and caucuses.

A poster from the Rand Paul for President campaign.

In his speech, he called for reforming Washington by pushing for term limits and a constitutional amendment to balance the budget. He argued that both parties are to blame for the rising debt, saying it doubled under a Republican administration and tripled under Obama.

"Government should be restrained and freedom should be maximized," he said.

The line-up of speakers who introduced Paul sought to paint the senator as a nontraditional candidate with diverse appeal, and by the time he got on stage, he was the first white man to address the crowd.

The speakers included J.C. Watts, a former congressman who's African-American; state Sen. Ralph Alvarado, who's Hispanic; local pastor Jerry Stephenson, who's African American and a former Democrat; and University of Kentucky student Lauren Bosler.

"He goes everywhere. It doesn't matter what color you are. Rand Paul will be there," Stephenson said, firing up the crowd.

So far, Paul joins only Texas Sen. Ted Cruz as a declared candidate for the GOP presidential nomination. "His entry into the race will no doubt raise the bar of competition," Cruz said in a statement welcoming Paul into the race.

But the field is certain to grow in the months ahead with Jeb Bush, Chris Christie, Scott Walker, Lindsey Graham and others eyeing a campaign. Marco Rubio, a Florida GOP senator, is expected to launch his campaign next week.

Bush, who said his 2016 decision is a "while off," told reporters in Colorado Springs on Tuesday that "libertarianism definitely has a place in the GOP" but stressed that he differs with Paul on foreign policy.

For now, the nomination is up for grabs with no clear front-runner. Paul came in third place at 12% in a CNN/ORC International Poll of Republicans. Bush led the pack at 16% while Walker came in second at 13%.

Ron vs. Rand Paul
Paul, the son of former Texas congressman and three-time presidential hopeful Ron Paul, will build on his father's legacy as a candidate eager to bring civil liberties to the forefront of the national dialogue. He's already used his perch on Capitol Hill to draw attention to those issues, including a 13-hour filibuster two years ago blasting the Obama administration's drone policies and a lawsuit against the National Security Agency's phone metadata collection effort.

But Paul, 52, will split from his father in one important way: his approach to the campaign. Where Ron Paul often focused on creating a libertarian movement, Rand Paul is planning a more strategic, less purist operation that could have a hope of competing in a general election.

The elder Paul sat on stage at the rally on Tuesday with his wife, though he's not expected to be a public face for his son's campaign. He merely attended the event as a "proud papa," a source close to the senator said.

Elected in 2010 with strong tea-party support, Rand Paul quickly rose to national fame in part due to his father's back-to-back White House runs in 2008 and 2012, but also because of Rand Paul's willingness to fight fellow Republicans.

He engaged in a war of words with Chris Christie two years ago over national security and federal spending and, more recently, he's taken swipes at Bush over issues like Common Core and medical marijuana.

Still, Paul has carefully worked to form inroads with establishment Republicans and other factions of the party's base. He's done so by becoming close political allies with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and backing mainstream candidates who competed against libertarian opponents during last year's midterms.

He's also tried to make peace with national security Republicans, taking nuanced positions that try to shed an isolationist label while still showing his apprehension toward foreign intervention. Last year, for example, he supported limited airstrikes against ISIS but vigorously fought against arming Syrian rebels.

While he bills himself as a conservative realist, Paul still tries to wear the mantle as the Republican most reluctant to take the country into war.

War's 'unintended consequence'
"I can tell you there will be one loud voice in our party saying, think of the unintended consequence," Paul said in Iowa two months ago. "Think about what we're going to accomplish and whether it will work before we go to war.' I promise you that will always be something I take very, very seriously."

The cautious foreign policy dance has drawn criticism from his father's supporters, who say Paul has become too moderate, and from hawkish Republicans who fear he wouldn't go far enough as commander in chief to tackle problems overseas. Democrats and some Republicans, meanwhile, have accused him of flip-flopping and pandering to donors.

On Tuesday, the Foundation for a Secure & Prosperous America -- a hawkish group from the right -- released a $1 million television ad buy against Paul's foreign policy, which hits the airwaves nationally on cable, as well as in the key early states that Paul will visit this week.

"Rand Paul is wrong and dangerous," says the narrator in the 30-second spot, arguing that Paul doesn't understand the threat of Iran's nuclear program. The ad ends with an image of a nuclear bomb detonating.

Paul had been silent on the Iran deal until his speech on Tuesday, when he vowed to oppose any deal that doesn't guarantee Iran gives up its nuclear ambition.

He also sought to sound aggressive on terrorism. "The enemy is radical Islam and not only will I name the enemy, I will do what ever it takes to defend America from these haters of mankind," he said.

In an interview later Tuesday, Paul argued that the ad was "crazy" and represented what he called the "the naivety of the neocons."

"These loud, sort of juvenile voices putting pictures of bombs on ads, these are the people who are so reckless that it would be a grave danger to our country to ever have these people in charge of our country," he said in an interview with Sean Hannity on Fox News.

In the same interview, Paul also weighed in for the first time on the religious freedom debate that took center stage last week after an Indiana law -- which has since been changed-- came under fire for what critics said was discrimination against gay and lesbian couples getting married.

The 2016 Republican field largely came out in defense of the law, standing by the rights of small business owners such as florists and bakers to decline participating in same-sex weddings. Paul said he felt the law was "unnecessary" and that the country's founding fathers would be "aghast" that laws needed to be in place to protect religious rights.

"That being said," he added. "I think the law ought to be neutral and we shouldn't treat people unfairly."

Asked which takes precedence, religious liberty or same-sex marriage rights, Paul said, "freedom."

"I don't think you can have coercion in a free society very well," he said. "So I would think we ought to try freedom in most of these things."

Ferguson
Paul is actually running for two offices at the same time, trying to hold onto his Senate seat while also running for president. Kentucky's election laws say candidates can't appear on a ballot twice, but with reluctant support from McConnell, a Kentucky powerhouse, the state's GOP will likely change its presidential preference vote from a primary to a caucus. That would allow Paul to get around the rule.

His interest in the Oval Office has never really been a secret. Shortly after the 2012 presidential election, he started crisscrossing the country to paint himself as a nontraditional Republican eager to court voters who don't typically live and vote in red areas.

He spoke at historically black colleges and universities, as well as Democratic strongholds like inner city Detroit and the University of California, Berkeley, focusing on criminal justice reform and civil liberties, two issues he believes can bring more people into the Republican Party.

"Liberal policies have failed our inner cities," he said Tuesday. "Our schools are not equal and the poverty gap continues to widen."

But Democrats are eager to paint Paul as another member of the "same old Republican Party."

"On issue after issue his policies are the same as the rest of the GOP, but even more extreme, and will turn back the clock on the progress we have made," said Democratic National Committee chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz in a statement.

As one of the few national politicians who went to Ferguson, Missouri, Paul frequently boasts that there is no "bigger defender of minority rights in the Congress" than himself.

But those efforts could prove futile if he can't get beyond controversial comments he made in 2010, when he questioned parts of the Civil Rights Act, especially provisions that place restrictions on private property.

He's steered clear of such hot-button issues more recently. Last week, for example, he was one of the few Republicans who didn't weigh in on religious freedom laws in Indiana and Arkansas that critics argued would allow businesses to discriminate against gays and lesbians.

Paul has also worked to maintain a following that includes a large swath of young voters who he partly inherited from his father. Heavy on tech and social media, his political team has opened an office in Austin, Texas, and will soon establish one in the heart of Silicon Valley. Like clockwork, Paul frequently holds up his phone during his stump speech and declares that what people do on their smartphones is "none of the government's damn business."

His nontraditional style is complemented by Paul's wardrobe. The senator is known for wearing blue jeans with boots and a blazer when he's on the trail, and during the winter, he opts for a turtleneck and sport coat rather than a tie.

But in his quest to become a national figure, Paul's comments have come under scrutiny and some of his statements have led critics to question whether he's ready for prime time. Earlier this year, Paul, an ophthalmologist, lent credibility to theories that vaccinations cause mental disorders, and last fall he caused a stir when suggesting that people could catch Ebola at cocktail parties.

And while he's not media shy—he's given hundreds of interviews in the past year alone—Paul can get short-tempered with reporters. He shushed a female interviewer in February, and last fall he blew up at a reporter who asked a question about foreign aid to Israel.

http://www.cnn.com/2015/04/07/politics/rand-paul-president-2016/

[240 is Back]

Hey, the race needs moderates to balance out what Jeb is offering.  I'm glad Rand is here to offer that.

Now, I hope Ted Cruz wipes the floor with him and gets the tea party vote.  Rand has given that up by becoming the big-biz, big-military, big-spending candidate.

The RINOs won't get it.

[Dos Equis]

Ben Carson: You Can Bet I'll Run for President
Friday, 10 Apr 2015
By Bill Hoffmann

Dr. Ben Carson, the famed neurosurgeon turned rising conservative political star, tells Newsmax TV he's leaning heavily toward running for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination.

In fact, you can bet on it, Carson revealed Friday on "The Steve Malzberg Show."

"The things that I look for are how strong the financial support is. It seems to be very strong. It's looking quite positive," said Carson, who added that his exploratory committee has raised over $2 million in 28 days.

Host Steve Malzberg then asked, "If I were a betting man, you would tell me to go to Vegas and put more down that you will run than down that you wouldn't run?"

"Yeah, that would be a reasonable thing," Carson replied. "I would hope you would not lose your money.

"I'm certainly going to work toward providing the American people with a choice that they will be enthusiastic about," he said.

Carson — author of "One Nation: What We Can All Do to Save America's Future," written with Candy Carson and published by Sentinel — said he'll make an announcement about his political future the first week in May.

He was one of several Republican heavyweights to address the National Rifle Association's annual convention in Nashville on Friday. He extolled the importance of Americans' right to bear arms.

"If we lose sight of the reason for the Second Amendment and we begin to relax … we cannot relax even one bit. We can't give any ground on that issue," Carson told Malzberg.

"All we have to do is look historically at other nations where tyrants have come in and decimated the population and what they always do first is they always get [the weapons]."

Carson is considered a great American success story, rising from a single-parent upbringing in Detroit to become one of the world's foremost physicians and scientists.

He was the director of pediatric neurosurgery at the Children's Center at Johns Hopkins Hospital for 29 years. In 2008, President George W. Bush awarded him the Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor.

If Carson throws his hat in the ring, he will join a quickly growing field of GOP stars who have already declared or are mulling joining the race.

Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas and Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky have announced their candidacies, and Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida is expected to do so next week.

Others thought to being close to declaring include Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush.

http://www.newsmax.com/Newsmax-Tv/leaning-running-presidential-nomination/2015/04/10/id/637834/#ixzz3WxprRcgJ

[Dos Equis]

Marco Rubio: Time for 'A New American Century'
Friday, 10 Apr 2015
By Joel Himelfarb

Sen. Marco Rubio, who is expected to announce his presidential candidacy on Monday, has released a video highlighting some of his strongest speeches defining a conservative vision for the United States.

"This is about whether we are going to be the first generation of Americans to leave our children worse off than ourselves or the next generation that will allow them to inherit what they deserve, inherit what we inherited, give to them what every generation before us has given to the next: the single greatest nation in all of human history," Rubio says in the video, which lasts five and a half minutes.

Rubio described the video as "a quick preview of what I'll be saying on Monday during my announcement."

In the video, the freshman Republican describes his family's departure from Cuba and its migration to Florida, his plans for a more robust U.S. foreign policy to tackle the threats posed by jihadists, and his belief that the massive expansion of government spending and regulation during the Obama administration is crippling initiative and destroying economic opportunity.

Rubio says that "everything I will ever accomplish I owe to God, to my parents' sacrifices, and to the United States of America."

The video is entitled "A New American Century," which provides "a subtle hint at how Rubio plans to cast himself as a generational change agent not only for his party but for the country," The Washington Post observed.

Aides to Rubio say the fact that Hillary Clinton will announce her candidacy on Sunday will enable him to draw generational contrasts with the former secretary of state, who will be 69 years old on Inauguration Day 2017. (Rubio will be 45.)

The video is a blistering indictment of the Obama administration's domestic policies, ranging from Obamacare to a panoply of new federal regulations.

Domestically, Rubio says, "we have a government that increasingly controls every aspect of our lives, including even the Internet."

Rubio also skewers the "Obama/Clinton foreign policy."

"The world is a safer and better place when America is the strongest country in the world," he says. But the current administration, according to Rubio, has implemented a foreign policy of bullying allies and appeasing enemies – one "that treats the ayatollah in Iran with more respect than the prime minister of Israel."

http://www.newsmax.com/Politics/marco-rubio-video-speeches-conservative/2015/04/10/id/637840/#ixzz3WxtSEobN

[240 is Back]

Domestically, Rubio says, "we have a government that increasingly controls every aspect of our lives, including even the Internet."

The National Review is a highly respected conservative media outlet - they are calling Rubio a liberal:
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/351807/marco-rubio-we-hardly-knew-ye-jonathan-strong

NBC praises Rubio for embracing immigration reform:
http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/first-read/once-hailed-gop-savior-marco-rubio-now-underdog-2016-n309641

New Republic says Liberals really like Rubio on a surprising number of positions:
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/120768/marco-rubios-american-dreams-lays-out-agenda-modern-gop

Looking at those liberal positions, it looks like Rubio enjoys a govt that controls aspects of our lives - a govt with liberal policies.

[Dos Equis]

Rubio announces his 2016 GOP presidential campaign
Published April 13, 2015
FoxNews.com

Florida Sen. Marco Rubio said Monday that he is running for president and feels “uniquely qualified” to talk about the future.

Rubio, a Republican, is scheduled to make a full-scale announcement later today in Miami at an event before hundreds of supporters and that will include a video message.

The first-term senator has long been assembling his political team, including donors who helped previous presidential nominees collect tens of millions of dollars. Now, Rubio's campaign kickoff formalizes what has been unfolding for months.

It comes a day after Hillary Clinton announced her bid for the Democratic nomination and as she is traveling to Iowa on her first trip as a candidate.

That's likely to rob some attention from Rubio's splash into the race. But as his team sees it, the timing also presents an opportunity to cast the presidential contest as one between a fresh face representing a new generation of leadership and a long-familiar figure harking to the 1990s.

Rubio had, for the past week, teased supporters on social media, asked them to sign up for an email to get first word of his announcement and offered tickets for $3.05 (Miami's area code is 305). The effort will capture names, addresses and other information about potential voters and campaign donors.

Rubio's team also mounted television screens across the street from the main rally site and plans to pass out Rubio signs.

Rubio faces steep challenges to winning the nomination, one of them from his mentor, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush. Rubio would become the third major GOP contender to declare himself a candidate, after Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, in a field that could grow to 20 or more candidates.

A young man in a hurry, Rubio, 43, will no doubt hear rivals tell voters he's not ready for the White House.

A first-generation immigrant whose parents fled Cuba, Rubio could make history as the nation's first Hispanic president (as could Cruz). Rubio frames his pitch to voters as the embodiment of the American Dream, a son of a maid and bartender who worked his way through law school and now sits in Congress.

His is an appealing biography for a party that has struggled to connect with minority and younger voters. Those voters have been solidly behind Democrats in recent presidential elections. Rubio's advisers see his candidacy as a way to eat into that Democratic bloc, even if capturing it would be almost impossible.

Starting right after the 2014 elections that tipped the Senate into Republican hands, Rubio has been methodically moving toward a presidential announcement. His top political adviser and likely campaign manager, Terry Sullivan, has been building his team, tapping Jim Merrill, who ran Mitt Romney's New Hampshire campaigns, veteran spokesman Alex Conant, advertising chief Todd Harris and former Romney political director Rich Beeson.

His political advisers have told party leaders that they should start recruiting a candidate to run for his Senate seat.

Not even two weeks after the 2012 presidential election, Rubio visited Iowa to headline a birthday event for Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad, a kingmaker in Iowa presidential politics.

He's been making inroads with activists after turns at the anti-tax Club for Growth confab and the grassroots Conservative Political Action Conference. And in his day job in the Senate, Rubio has been a leading voice against President Barack Obama's engagement with Cuba and Iran.

On Tuesday, fresh off his 2016 declaration, he is set to return to the Senate to participate in a hearing about Iran.

Rubio also has been lining up a network of donors, who can tap their friends to finance Rubio's campaign, expected to cost about $50 million to get to Iowa's lead-off caucuses. Longtime donor Wayne Berman is leading the money chase for Rubio; Dallas investor George Seay and Goldman Sachs' Joe Wall are lined up, too.

But Rubio faces a hurdle with some conservative activists in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina over his work on a failed bipartisan immigration bill that proposed a long and difficult pathway to citizenship for those who were in the country illegally. The measure cleared the Senate, but collapsed in the House in the face of conservative suspicion.

Rubio has since shifted how he is approaching the thorny subject, saying his bill does not have the support to become law and the first focus should be on border security, a standard GOP position. Rubio ultimately wants to create a process that leads to legal status and, then, citizenship.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/04/13/rubio-announces-his-2016-gop-presidential-campaign/

[Dos Equis]

9 Reasons Why Marco Rubio Is a Strong Presidential Candidate

Image: 9 Reasons Why Marco Rubio Is a Strong Presidential Candidate (wikimedia/commons)
Monday, 13 Apr 2015
By Jim Meyers

Sen. Marco Rubio announced on Monday that he will seek the 2016 Republican presidential nomination — and there are compelling reasons why the Florida legislator would be a strong candidate in a White House race.

1.   His fundraising prospects are good. He has hired a leading GOP fundraiser — Anna Rogers, finance director for American Crossroads, Karl Rove's political advocacy group. She will lead the effort to raise at least $50 million for a campaign. It is also significant that Rubio is one of only four potential GOP candidates invited to a gathering hosted by major Republican donors Charles and David Koch. Romney and Jeb Bush were not invited.

2. He's the son of Cuban immigrants. Rubio would likely garner a larger share of the Latino vote in the general election than recent GOP candidates. Poor showings among Hispanic voters have hurt Republicans in past elections.

3.   Rubio would expand the voter base among all immigrants. Rubio has bucked a GOP trend and backed a plan providing a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants currently living in the United States, although he has more recently backed away from some of the provisions.

4.   He hails from Florida. With California and New York solidly blue and Texas solidly red, Florida stands as the most significant swing state and the key to winning a presidential election. Look no further than the 2000 race when a handful of votes in the Sunshine State gave George W. Bush the win over Al Gore.

5.   He is getting an early start in what could be a primary battle. While the GOP presidential field is expected to be crowded, so far only two other candidates have officially announced that they are running: Sen. Ted Cruz and Sen. Rand Paul.

6.   Rubio's Tea Party credentials are solid. The Washington Post has referred to him as the "crown prince" of the Tea Party movement, and he has earned perfect 100 ratings from the American Conservative Union.

7.   His new book put him in the spotlight. Rubio has been on tour to promote "American Dreams: Restoring Economic Opportunity for Everyone." It outlines his proposals for addressing a number of issues including economic security and income inequality.

8.   He is articulate and would fare well in presidential debates. Political observers have praised Rubio's rhetorical skills and he was chosen to deliver the official Republican response to President Barack Obama's 2013 State of the Union address.

9. Rubio has considerable political experience. Before joining the U.S. Senate, he served four terms in the Florida legislature and had stints as speaker of the House, majority leader, and majority whip. And those who maintain that he would not be a formidable candidate after just one term in the Senate need to be reminded that Obama had been in the Senate barely two years when he announced what would be a successful run for president.

http://www.newsmax.com/TheWire/reasons-marco-rubio-strong-presidential/2015/01/23/id/620414/#ixzz3XDqxnP6D

[240 is Back]

9 Reasons Why Marco Rubio Is a Strong Presidential Candidate

10. Because people will make f**king lists about anything.  There are 10,000 reasons Rubio sucks.  Only LIBS and RINOs support him.

[TheGrinch]

[Dos Equis]

Why Marco Rubio has a real shot at 2016 Republican nomination
By Erick Erickson
Published April 13, 2015
FoxNews.com


Feb. 27, 2015: Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla. speaks in National Harbor, Md. (AP)

Ted Cruz remains a conservative favorite in 2016. In 2012, the establishment backed his Senate opponent in Texas, then Lt. Governor David Dewhurst. The conservative grassroots backed Cruz and pushed him over the finish line. Cruz has since remained a favorite of the grassroots with a continually antagonist relationship with the Republican establishment.

In 2010, Rand Paul, before Cruz, was a grassroots favorite. The Republican Establishment backed his rival, Trey Grayson. Paul rallied a coalition of conservative grassroots and Ron Paul acolytes to trounce Grayson and win the Kentucky Senate seat. Since then, Paul has wobbled between maintaining grassroots support and developing establishment support. In 2014, for example, he backed Mitch McConnell for re-election and has taken an occasional aggressive position to contrast himself from Cruz.

Marco Rubio is the original Tea Party candidate. His candidacy united the grassroots against the leadership and he won. The Washington crowd convinced themselves he could not win, but the grassroots proved they could pick a winner. Rubio was the first.
In the same year Rand Paul won, the man who started the major revolt between grassroots activists and party leaders ran. It was the Rubio race that really exposed the divide between the base and the leadership. The leadership backed then Florida Governor Charlie Crist. The grassroots, led by former Senator Jim DeMint of South Carolina, allied with Marco Rubio. Activists began urging a boycott of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the Washington group that helps the GOP take the Senate.

Rubio, over 2009, rose in the polls from three percent to victory. Crist was forced to flee the GOP to the Democratic Party where he has been beclowning himself ever since.

Once in Washington, Rubio remained a favorite of the grassroots until he tried to cut a deal with the Democrats on immigration. To his credit, he went on Rush Limbaugh’s program to defend it. He made aggressive outreach to conservatives behind the scenes. But it hurt him and the deal died.

Since then, Rubio has been very quiet. Behind the scenes, he has voted quite often with Senators Cruz and Mike Lee of Utah. He has been a voice for fiscal sanity, small government, and strong foreign policy.

He is also one of the kindest and most approachable men in Washington. He would rather talk football than politics. He would rather be with his wife and kids than at a fundraising event or Washington social party.

Monday, Rubio will declare his candidacy for the presidency of the United States. Cruz and Paul have gotten the attention so far. All three of these conservative senators, the grassroots revolutionaries, are announcing ahead of the smorgasbord of governors and other would be Republican contenders. Rubio’s path to the stage in Miami today explains why he might be better positioned than Cruz or Paul to make some headway.

Cruz remains the conservative grassroots’ darling. They see him as the purest conservative candidate and he probably is. If Cruz starts making deals to garner establishment support, however, he potentially sees his base collapse with a sense of betrayal. Cruz thinks he has the base firmly on his side. That is usually the moment the ground begins to soften.

Paul has ceded the conservative grassroots to Cruz and has set about reorganizing his father’s coalition. Many conservative grassroots, though they sympathize with Paul on fiscal and civil libertarian issues, murmur in aggravated tones that Paul backed McConnell in 2014 and did not back Ted Cruz’s efforts to defund ObamaCare in 2013. Instead, Paul used that to try to contrast himself as an adult in the room versus Cruz and the grassroots. Then there are his national security issues, which give a lot of the right heartburn.

Rubio, however, is the original Tea Party candidate. His candidacy united the grassroots against the leadership and he won. The Washington crowd convinced themselves he could not win, but the grassroots proved they could pick a winner. Rubio was the first.

While Cruz and Paul began forging coalitions, Rubio worked to not undermine his relations with the grassroots while not antagonizing the establishment. His immigration compromise hurt him, but he seeks the nomination in an party that nominated both John McCain and Mitt Romney, two men to the left of Rubio on immigration.

Monday in Miami, Marco Rubio will declare his candidacy for the presidency and of the three conservative Senators to run, he is most likely the Goldilocks of the bunch. He is not too tied to the grassroots to antagonize the establishment. He is not too tied to the civil libertarians to antagonize the conservatives. And he has not gone out of his way to reject the base of grassroots supporters who got him elected in order to curry favor with the leadership.

He strikes the right balance. He has also been so sufficiently off the radar, by design, for so long that many donors and primary voters will want to listen again to the man who united the right to beat Charlie Crist and the establishment in 2010.

They may like what they hear.

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2015/04/13/why-marco-rubio-has-real-shot-at-2016-republican-nomination/?intcmp=ob_homepage_opinion&intcmp=obnetwork

[240 is Back]

Why Marco Rubio has a real shot at 2016 Republican nomination
By Erick Erickson
Published April 13, 2015
FoxNews.com

It took FOX about 5 minutes to practically endorse this RINO.  Figures.

Actual legit candidates don't need ten articles a day from FOX trying to convince us why this guy is ready.