Bernie Sanders: Let’s primary Obama

posted at 12:00 pm on July 24, 2011 by Jazz Shaw

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President Obama is under attack these days from all manner of nasty conservatives who don’t care for his liberal, big spending ways. They seem to have found an unlikely ally, though, in the person of the only officially declared socialist in Congress… Bernie Sanders. (Emphasis in original.)

    SANDERS: Brian, believe me, I wish I had the answer to your question. Let me just suggest this. I think there are millions of Americans who are deeply disappointed in the president; who believe that, with regard to Social Security and a number of other issues, he said one thing as a candidate and is doing something very much else as a president; who cannot believe how weak he has been, for whatever reason, in negotiating with Republicans and there’s deep disappointment. So my suggestion is, I think one of the reasons the president has been able to move so far to the right is that there is no primary opposition to him and I think it would do this country a good deal of service if people started thinking about candidates out there to begin contrasting what is a progressive agenda as opposed to what Obama is doing. [...] So I would say to Ryan [sic] discouragement is not an option. I think it would be a good idea if President Obama faced some primary opposition.

It’s hard to say how much impact this will have, because traditionally Sanders hasn’t enjoyed a tremendous amount of influence outside his own state. But it is a sign of growing discontent with the political arm of his party. For better or worse, Obama is offering up some spending cuts which will effectively take the legs out from under most of the advertisements congressional Democrats are planning on running next year.

It’s difficult to talk about “Republicans destroying Medicare and Social Security as we know it” during the campaign if the titular leader of your party has just forced a vote on you to cut it yourself. It’s even tougher to talk about the need to “tax the rich” so everyone can “pay their fair share” if your President cuts deals to enact even bigger tax cuts than his predecessor. (Cuts which he already signed on to extending.)

Sanders can’t very well run against Obama himself in a primary since he’s not a registered Democrat. (Though, in theory, he could sign up at any time this year and still do it.) I suppose he’s expecting an actual Democrat to step up to the plate and do it for the sake of stopping Obama from running to the middle in a Clinton like move to secure a second term. Even so, given the President’s currently tanking numbers, I don’t expect a long line of Democratic leaders to step up and attempt this.

Pawlenty campaign manager: Bachmann won’t last over the long haul

posted at 1:00 pm on July 24, 2011 by Tina Korbe
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Tim Pawlenty’s campaign manager yesterday sent out an e-mail outlining Pawlenty’s accomplishments and assuring supporters that the former Minnesota governor’s fan club will continue to grow, while enthusiasm for other candidates — most implicitly, Michele Bachmann — will fade.

“In 2008, voters elected a member of Congress with no executive experience. We can’t afford the cost of inexperience any longer, and Iowans are getting that,” Ayers wrote. “[A]s more Republican primary voters start to tune in to the race, they are finding out that the governor’s record and message will stand the test [of] a brutal campaign. Other candidates’ records (or lack thereof), and plans for the future (or lack thereof) won’t.”

Even though Ayers never mentions Bachmann by name, it’s clear she’s the primary object of his statements.

Pawlenty’s persistent picking at Bachmann has drawn so much press attention that some even questioned whether the Pawlenty campaign planted the story of Bachmann’s supposedly “incapacitating” migraines. The Washington Post’s Jennifer Rubin explains how that insinuation — and the Pawlenty campaign’s failure to completely dispense with it — continues to plague Pawlenty’s prospects:

    In essence, the campaign’s defense is that they let the press run with a story without effectively rebutting it. If that is the case, and there is no definitive proof at this point to suggest otherwise, this will only multiply concerns that Pawlenty’s campaign is not firing on all cylinders. In any event, the issue has now created another worrisome distraction for Pawlenty, who has failed to make a dent in the polls and needs to finish near the top of the pack in Ames.

Meantime, Bachmann’s own handling of the headache issue has actually served her well. This weekend, she even slipped in a witty quip about her “condition” during an Iowa appearance:

    Michele Bachmann went beyond her prepared statement about her migraines during an Iowa appearance today, making a joke about the story that dominated the 2012 coverage for much of last week:

    “This week, they were talking about me and headaches. All I want you to know is I’ve been giving a lot more headaches in Washington than I’ve been getting,” she joked to laughter and raucous applause. … “And as president of the United States, I intend to give those big power brokers a lot more headaches, because we’re going to give the country back to you.”

Pawlenty’s persevering criticisms of a competitor continue to betray insecurity. Ed eloquently defended candidates’ rights to question their competitors’ records — and I initially conceded Bachmann’s migraines to be a legitimate cause for concern (at least until her doctor settled the issue definitively) and praised T-Paw’s common-sense quote about the requirements of the presidency — but, at this point, if I were Pawlenty, I would steer as far away from any mention of Bachmann — explicit or implicit — as I could manage. He doesn’t appear to be hurting Bachmann, but he is denting the best shield he has against attacks against him: His reputation as a stand-up guy who’s running on his own merits, not money or a popular image. He’s at his best when he talks policy, not petty quibbles.

Fox News exclusive: Perry aides confirm that he’s running for president

posted at 4:05 pm on August 11, 2011 by Allahpundit
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He all but confirmed it himself in his interview with Halperin, but this is the first hard “yes” to come out of his camp after weeks and weeks and weeks of teasing. It’s newsworthy if only for that reason, although I’m intrigued by the timing of the leak. Why not wait another 48 hours and let him end the suspense himself on Saturday? Are they a tiny bit spooked by Palin’s arrival in Iowa, maybe, and looking to preempt that with solid news about him running? Or is this all about ensuring that his name is mentioned at the debate tonight?

    Texas Gov. Rick Perry will make “a definitive announcement that he is in the 2012 race for the presidency Saturday,” aides told Fox News.

    The language is significant. For several days the Perry camp has said he would signal his intentions and announce later.

    “This is it,” the sources explain. No exploratory committee, no more deliberation.

Speaking of the Halperin interview, Ace is totally right that Perry made a bad mistake in gossiping about the conversation he had with Latvia’s prime minister about Obama. It humiliates a sitting president who, like it or not, is in charge of foreign affairs for another 15 months and it humiliates the Latvian PM by putting him on the spot over what was, almost certainly, supposed to be a confidential chat. I think this is more a case of Perry being absentminded than deliberately setting out to breach that confidence, but he can’t let it happen again.

Via the Daily Caller, here’s Joe Scarborough dumping on him this morning for praying a bit more publicly than he’d like. Meanwhile, Tom Tancredo’s tearing Perry to shreds in Politico for being much softer on amnesty than he’d like. He’s too far right for the centrists and too far towards the center for the right — not a bad place to be for a guy trying to triangulate between Romney and Bachmann. Besides, if he and Romney do end up in a two-man race, does anyone think Mitt will be taken seriously if he tries to beat Perry by becoming some sort of table-pounding border enforcer? C’mon.

Update: More confirmation. He’s in.

Update: At Townhall, Dwayne Horner has more details:

    Stories started surfacing earlier this week saying that Perry, the longest serving chief executive in Texas history, would use the conservative gathering to remove all speculation about a run for the White House. Sources revealed to Townhall yesterday that the Governor’s children, Griffin and Sydney, have been told to clear their schedules starting Friday so they could be “with their father at this special time.”…

    With the confirmation that Perry will indeed be a candidate, speculation is that a formal announcement is in the works during Labor Day weekend in either Austin or on the Texas A&M campus.

http://hotair.com/archives/2011/08/11/fox-news-exclusive-perry-aides-confirm-that-hes-running-for-president/

“Frustrated” Obama rips Congress: It’s time for certain people to put country over party

posted at 5:29 pm on August 11, 2011 by Allahpundit
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An actual quote from today’s remarks: “There are some in Congress right now who would rather see their opponents lose than see America win.” To which Steve Hayes, irked by the sight of yet another straw man being torched, replies, “Who are they?” The answer, I can only assume, is congressional progressives: They’re the ones who refuse to budge on the ruinous Medicare spending that’s rocketing the country towards fiscal collapse, as doing so would forfeit their party’s big campaign issue next year. But in case The One’s referring to tea-party congressmen (as he surely is), what was amazing about the “don’t raise the ceiling” crowd during the debt debate is that they were prepared to absorb a ferocious backlash against their own party in the name of doing something significant, i.e. Cut Cap and Balance, to solve America’s debt crisis. Time and again they were told that the GOP would bear the brunt of public anger if we didn’t make a deal, but they preferred that outcome to a weak compromise because at least there’d be important reform as a result. I know Democrats cherish their belief that the right acts only out of personal pique, not principle — it’s all part of the delegitimization game — but the caucus really was trying to put country first in that debate. Their means and ends simply differ from Obama’s; the fact that The One interprets that the way he does says more about him than it does about them, but Democrats have been begging him to be “bolder,” especially in attacking the tea party, so presumably they’ll be happy today.

The two key sections in the clip below run from 5:30 to 7:15 and 11:00 to 13:00. The grand absurdity of this critique, of course, is that every move this guy has made in recent memory, from yanking troops out of Afghanistan by next year to offering a budget so timid that it received not a single vote in the Senate to deliberately refusing to offer his own deficit-reduction plan during the debt-ceiling debate, is geared towards maximizing his odds of reelection. (It’s, er, not working.) The very last person who should be lecturing others about putting the country ahead of a campaign is the Perpetual Campaigner. But he can really sell the above-the-fray crap, can’t he? Exit question: Wasn’t putting country over party actually the campaign theme of Obama’s last opponent? Wouldn’t be the first time he’s borrowed a slogan from a Republican.

http://hotair.com/archives/2011/08/11/frustrated-obama-rips-congress-its-time-for-certain-people-to-put-country-over-party/

Open thread: Republican debate in Ames

posted at 8:10 pm on August 11, 2011 by Ed Morrissey
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Tonight, the Republican candidates for the presidential nomination — most of them, anyway — square off for a televised debate in Ames, Iowa, from the Stephens Auditorium at Iowa State University. I will be in the media “spin room,” along with our partner in blogging Tina Korbe and our Townhall brother Guy Benson. The debate starts at 9 pm ET/8 pm local time here in Iowa, and Fox News Channel’s Bret Baier will moderate the event. We’re looking forward to a lively debate, and I’d expect some elbow throwing and sharp barbs between the contenders, along with a few shots at the absent Rick Perry.

Since live blogging has become a little passé in the age of Twitter (is it possible to feel like an old blogger? Yes, we can!), our friends at Townhall came up with this widget that will track our tweets, along with our Townhall colleagues Katie Pavlich, Erika Johnsen, and the indispensable Allahpundit.  Be sure to follow along, and perhaps open this post in two tabs — one to follow the Twitter feeds, and one for comment posting.

Tina, Guy, and I will capture some of the spin in the room after the show, so be sure to stay right here at Hot Air after the debate ….

Update (AP): While we wait, here’s Larry Sabato’s debate preview. Note this passage well:

    The tension between Pawlenty and Bachmann will be even more fun to watch. T-Paw is in a corner on this one. If he wouldn’t smack a man last time, can he now do it to a woman — one who Republicans think was already wronged this week by Newsweek’s unattractive cover photo?

Pawlenty’s the only one onstage who can potentially make or break his campaign tonight. Huntsman needs to do well to make a good impression with Republicans who are seeing him for the first time, but Huntsman’s not competing in Ames or in Iowa more broadly. He can afford a mediocre performance. T-Paw can’t, and if he whiffs again when pressed to criticize his opponents to their faces, he’ll be a punchline before the night is out. I sure hope he’s ready if one of the moderators asks who he has in mind in his stump speech when he dumps on nameless “bobbleheads” among his competitors. It’s painfully clear that he means Bachmann, but who knows whether he has the stones to denigrate her when she’s standing right next to him. And if he does, he’d better hit Romney hard too or else he’ll get hammered tomorrow for precisely the reason Sabato gives. Long story short: Pawlenty needs to be throwing chairs tonight. He needs to walk in there in a cape, to the tune of “Pomp and Circumstance,” and be the Macho Man he keeps claiming he is. You’re an old hockey player, Tim, right? Drop the gloves.

http://hotair.com/archives/2011/08/11/open-thread-republican-debate-in-ames/

Be prepared: Another open registration day coming tomorrow!

After all the fun we had last week in holding our open registration, who wouldn’t want to relive it the very next week?  Our courageous staff support at Townhall has been medically cleared for duty, our systems have been fortified, and mainly we’re all a bunch of masochists.  What could go wrong?

So tomorrow, we will once again hold an open registration for new commenters here at Hot Air, between 9 am and 4 pm ET, when our staff support is on duty to assist in the process.  Just like last week, we will approve new registrants, not process amnesty requests for previously-banned commenters. We’ll have instructions in tomorrow’s post on how this works and what to expect — so please make sure you read those before peppering us with questions we have already answered.

Why hold another right now?  First, we think we fixed the problems that plagued us last week, so it should go much smoother.  Also, we want to add as many commenters as we can in order to increase participation in a new feature we will launch here and at our sister site Townhall — the Hot Air/Townhall Republican primary!  (They’re probably calling it the Townhall/Hot Air Republican primary over there, but what do they know?)  Only registered commenters will be able to vote — so make sure you register tomorrow!

Oh my: Ron Paul within one point of Gingrich in Iowa?

posted at 3:56 pm on December 13, 2011 by Allahpundit

Hey now. I was writing “Could Ron Paul seriously win Iowa?” posts before writing “Could Ron Paul seriously win Iowa?” posts was cool.

    There has been some major movement in the Republican Presidential race in Iowa over the last week, with what was a 9 point lead for Newt Gingrich now all the way down to a single point. Gingrich is at 22% to 21% for Paul with Mitt Romney at 16%, Michele Bachmann at 11%, Rick Perry at 9%, Rick Santorum at 8%, Jon Huntsman at 5%, and Gary Johnson at 1%.

    Gingrich has dropped 5 points in the last week and he’s also seen a significant decline in his favorability numbers. Last week he was at +31 (62/31) and he’s now dropped 19 points to +12 (52/40). The attacks on him appear to be taking a heavy toll- his support with Tea Party voters has declined from 35% to 24%.

    Paul meanwhile has seen a big increase in his popularity from +14 (52/38) to +30 (61/31). There are a lot of parallels between Paul’s strength in Iowa and Barack Obama’s in 2008- he’s doing well with new voters, young voters, and non-Republican voters…

Simple question: What’s Paul’s ceiling in Iowa? A friend on Twitter was arguing earlier that it’s 20 percent, which is borne out by the polls — so far. If he’s right then Paul can’t win. But … what if Paul’s ceiling is actually 30 percent? Note that his favorables are trending upwards while Newt’s are sinking under the weight of renewed scrutiny of his various conservative heresies. If you’re an Iowan who’s unhappy with the “electable” candidates — Romney for being too opportunistic, Gingrich for flirting too often with activist government, Perry for seeming too darned hapless — then Paul’s an obvious choice for your “none of the above” protest vote. So obvious, in fact, that both Glenn Beck and Joe Scarborough are threatening to back him as a third-party candidate if Gingrich is the nominee. (An interesting footnote in the PPP data: Voters split equally on whether their view of the GOP establishment is favorable or unfavorable, and among the latter group Paul leads by double digits at 34 percent.) If he can pull 10 percent from voters like that on top of the 20 percent who make up his base, then his chances at an upset improve dramatically. And don’t forget, not only is Paul’s base famously enthusiastic and guaranteed to turn out, he’s one of the best organized candidates in Iowa this time. He might be able to get leaners to come out and caucus come rain or shine. Can Gingrich do the same?

I’ll bet Romney’s kicking himself now for not having abandoned Iowa early on. If he had done that, he could have sent his supporters out to caucus for Paul, thereby detonating Newt’s chances; if he tried that now, having competed in earnest in the state, the headlines would be all about Romney’s shockingly poor finish in Iowa, which would actually help Gingrich in New Hampshire even if he finished second to Paul in the caucuses. (On the other hand, per Rasmussen, Paul’s just four points back of Gingrich for second place in New Hampshire too.) Two exit questions for you, then. One: As chances of a Paul upset grow, will Iowa’s Republican leaders swing behind Newt or Mitt? They want the caucuses to remain relevant to choosing the eventual nominee, and if Paul wins, that’ll be two elections in a row where the Iowa winner realistically had no chance. Two: Could a Paul victory achieve a real “none of the above” outcome for the nomination? A brokered convention is unlikely – but, as Sean Trende explains, not impossible if Paul fares well.

    Caucus states are also concentrated in the Mountain West, where his brand of Republicanism holds greater appeal. They’re also front-loaded, meaning that (a) his supporters will be less likely to have been swayed by the “can’t win” argument and (b) the more “establishment” Republican candidates are likely to split the non-Paul votes.

    Overall, 486 delegates will be awarded in caucus states. If Paul picks off a sizable number of these delegates, say a quarter of them, and two other GOP candidates battle to a draw, there might not be a nominee by the end of June. This type of fight could carry over to the convention, since Paul is pretty feisty and is probably the least likely candidate out there to be “bought off” with a Cabinet position or speaking slot.

    If, say, Perry and Gingrich are knotted up with about 1,050 delegates each, and Paul holds the remaining 200 and refuses to budge, you could end up with a deadlocked convention that eventually turns to a dark-horse candidate.

Ron Paul winning Iowa just might mean the GOP nominating Ryan, Christie, or Daniels. Second look at Ron Paul winning Iowa?

Christiane Amanpour out as host of “This Week”? Update: Stephanopoulos in?

As with any dull, lifeless marriage, it’s probably better that this one ends than that they stay together out of obligation.

I want to try an idea out on you, but really think it over before you say no. Okay?

“This Week with Chelsea Clinton.”

    Christiane Amanpour is preparing to leave as the anchor of “This Week,” the Sunday morning news program on ABC, two people with knowledge of her plans said Tuesday…

    Rumors about Ms. Amanpour’s status on “This Week” have swirled for months, and were given more oxygen last Sunday when The New York Post said that ABC News executives were “mulling who might replace” her. ABC did not deny the newspaper’s report…

    At the time she joined ABC, she said she would “focus on the intractable convergence of domestic and foreign policy.” Arguably her biggest scoop on ABC came last February when she interviewed then-Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak shortly before he stepped down.

    Ms. Amanpour’s tenure on “This Week” coincided with a decline in ABC’s competitive position on Sunday mornings.

Here’s the Post item from Friday alleging that neither side was thrilled with the other and that Amanpour might be angling to go back to the foreign affairs beat at CNN, which makes sense. If you were a journo who’d made your rep in international news, what would you rather be doing these days: Covering Iran’s nuclear progress, Syria’s civil war, and Egypt’s new Islamist government or refereeing ideological slapfights between George Will and Paul Krugman?

Like everyone else in America, I’ve never understood why ABC tapped someone with her resume for a political talk show. The idea, I guess, was to add a foreign-affairs dimension to Sunday morning yakfests, but that’s kind of like hiring a business reporter to anchor SportsCenter. Sure, there’s some subject-matter overlap, but nobody’s watching SC for a panel discussion on revenue sharing or the salary cap. And even if a crisis overseas blows up and dominates the U.S. news cycle, what special insight is Amanpour supposedly bringing to “This Week” by dint of her experience as a correspondent? The Mubarak interview was a nice “get” but (a) it was Barbara Walters, not Amanpour, whom Assad turned to for ABC’s latest big “get,” and (b) if it’s Amanpour’s contacts abroad that are prized by ABC, they should have put her in the field rather than behind a desk in D.C. By making her anchor, they were promising especially penetrating discussions of foreign affairs from week to week. Does anyone think they delivered?

Exit question: Amanpour’s loss is Jake Tapper’s gain, right? He’s delivered for them before, you know.

Perry hits the road

Anyone who has watched the Republican debates knows Rick Perry’s most glaring vulnerability — including Rick Perry.  However, he has steadily improved and had a good debate on Saturday, and now he’s hitting the campaign trail in a big way in Iowa.  And rather than playing to his weakness, this plays right into Perry’s biggest strengths, as the National Journal reports:

    Rick Perry has a reputation as a campaigner in Texas: He’s dangerous, but even more dangerous when he’s down. The next three weeks in Iowa will present him with the ultimate underdog challenge as he undertakes a last-ditch, massive effort to save his presidential bid.

    Wednesday marks the beginning of a 14-day, 42-city bus tour that will see the Texas governor traverse the Hawkeye State, logging more than 1,000 miles as he strives to regain his standing among the top tier of candidates for the GOP nomination. …

    His Iowa tour will begin in Council Bluffs, on the western edge of the state, and run in a semicircle across the northern half of Iowa heading east. After a leisurely break for Christmas — Perry has no events planned from the afternoon of the 22nd until the morning of the 27th — the tour will resume with a swing through the southern part of the state and snake back around to the center. Most days follow a pattern: two to four “meet-and-greets,” often at local restaurants or coffee shops, followed by a town hall meeting in the afternoon.

    As he travels through the state, Perry will seek to build a coalition of evangelical and tea party voters, often attempting to pick off supporters from his rivals. He’s shown as much in the ads he’s run in the state targeting those specific groups. His fight for the Christian right, a key voting bloc during the Iowa caucuses, will put him in competition against Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota and former Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania.

Assuming his back troubles are behind him (pardon the pun), Perry can be a force of nature in retail politics.  He got off to a good start in Iowa when he jumped into the race, but his immediate rise in national polls took his focus elsewhere.  Now with Iowa the only prize that Perry can reasonably grasp at the moment, he’s going all in — like Bachmann and Rick Santorum, the latter of whom has already visited all 99 counties and has built a surprisingly extensive organization.

Those will be his two main competitors for voters who won’t back either Gingrich or Romney, and of course Perry wants to split social conservatives and Tea Party activists away from Gingrich, if possible.  There is some evidence, although rather thin, that a Perry comeback has already begun.  The latest poll from the American Research Group shows Perry rising to fourth place, but more significantly, into double digits at 13%.  That’s a bounce upward of eight points since last month, trailing only Gingrich’s 19-point rise in the same period.  Ron Paul and Mitt Romney are just ahead of Perry at 17%, putting Perry within reach of a second-place finish.

If Perry can even get to second place in Iowa, it would be a stunning change of fortune and could restore credibility to his campaign.  With conservatives despairing at the prospect of a Gingrich-Romney contest, Perry could steal a march on the Right and find himself very much back in the mix — assuming that Ron Paul doesn’t beat him to it.

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