National Journal’s Ron Fournier is reporting that Michele Bachmann will suspend her presidential campaign today, effectively dropping out of the race. He also writes that Rick Perry could drop out of the race as well after his disappointing performance in the Iowa caucuses.
If you had told me a month ago that Rick Santorum would come in second in Iowa in a photo finish with Mitt Romney and that there was a chance he would stay in the race longer than Rick Perry, I wouldn’t have believed it.
Read this blog post by James Fallows over at The Atlantic. Fascinating and sobering in terms of what it means for the present state of governance in the country and what it could mean for the future.
Talk about the pot and the kettle… During an interview on “Fox and Friends” this morning, the Donald made the following comments:
“Ron Paul’s not going to win. He’s got no chance.
You have a better chance right now of winning, and you’re not running, and so he’s not going to win.
He’s a joke candidate.
Here’s a man who doesn’t care if Iran has a nuclear weapon that can wipe out Israel. He doesn’t care. He says ‘Let them do whatever they want. They can make their own nuclear weapons’.
It’s ridiculous, so he’s not going to win, he’s not going anywhere, he’s cutesy, he’s got some nice, little slogans.”
Keep in mind, this is coming from a guy who teased a possible presidential run based in large part on taking the birther issue to absurd new heights, was savagely mocked to his face for it by President Obama and Seth Meyers, withdrew from the race, and recently teased the possibility of entering the race as a third party candidate just as Newsmax announced he would be moderating their Republican debate on December 27. By the way, he made the Ron Paul comments during an interview to promote his new book.
I’m not for or against Paul or Trump, but the timing and substance of Trump’s comments – coming shortly after Ron Paul’s campaign chairman blasted the Newsmax debate – is disingenuous. Trump has a propensity to inject himself in the political debate to generate buzz or attention for himself and his brand, whether it be his TV show or his book. Ron Paul has been in public office for decades and run for president three times. Who’s the joke candidate here?
Newt Gingrich threw his hat into the 2012 race this afternoon, making the announcement via Twitter and YouTube:
As was the case with Mitt Romney and Tim Pawlenty, anyone who has been keeping an eye on the former Speaker of the House will not be surprised by this announcement. Fox News, which employed him as a paid commentator, was pressuring him to make up his mind about getting in the race or not. He and fellow 2012er Rick Santorum were initially suspended from their contracts with Fox for 60 days, with a May 1 deadline to make up their mind whether they were running or not. May 1 came and went, so Fox terminated both their contracts.
Unlike Pawlenty, Gingrich was honest enough to himself and the public to openly admit that he was running for president, rather than hiding behind the semantics of an exploratory committee.
I suppose this is as good an occasion as any to tell my Gingrich story. I randomly ran into him inside St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome two years ago while I was working on a story for another organization. He was traveling with his wife, who at the time was a member of an American church choir (don’t know if she still is) that was performing in the basilica. Small world…
When you’re Tim Pawlenty, apparently… Take a look at this exchange he had with CNN’s Piers Morgan:
Morgan: There was a poll out only today, a CNN poll which probably made quite the disturbing reading for you. Did you ever imagine in your wildest nightmares that you’d see a poll of potential Republican candidates which had you at 2 percent and Donald Trump at 19 percent?
Pawlenty: Well for me, I’m just getting known Piers. So our trajectory is kind of a tortoise and hare strategy and as we get better known particularly in the early states I think you’ll see those numbers change for me. But as to Donald Trump, the Donald I think he’s funny, I think he’s exciting. He’s obviously very successful. I think he brings a lot to the debate so I welcome him to it. If hair is going to be a factor in this race, Piers then I’m going to grow my mullet back out. I had a mullet when I played hockey in high school.
Morgan: In a hypothetical scenario governor, if someone like Donald Trump was to emerge as the Republican nominee and asked you to be vice president, would you accept that honor?
Pawlenty: I’m running for president. I’m not putting my hat in the ring rhetorically or ultimately for vice president so I’m focused on running for president.
(Emphasis in the transcript is mine)
Pawlenty spokesman Alex Conant had to walk back the remarks, telling CNN, “As the governor has said many times, he is not running to be anybody’s vice president. He will have a formal announcement about running for president later this spring.”
Conant has also taken to Twitter to push back against CNN:
@sanuzis have you seen full quote? he didn’t announce anything. @CNN took quote out of context.
As was the case with Mitt Romney’s announcement earlier this week, the fact that Tim Pawlenty is getting ready to run for president is not news to anybody who has been keeping an eye on him since 2008, and more so during the lead up to the 2010 elections as his gubernatorial term was winding down. However, the fact that he actually said the words “I’m running for president,” would automatically trigger alarm bells for any political journalist watching the interview. It may not have been a formal photo op event with a backdrop and a podium, but it is fair for CNN and other news organizations to quote him saying “I’m running for president.” It may not have been the intended message Pawlenty and Conant wanted out there, but it’s impossible to unring that bell, especially when it’s on video.
Regardless of semantics, the fact that Pawlenty was the first Republican candidate to announce the formation of a presidential exploratory committee was a pretty big indicator that he was running for president. All other subsequent announcements, no matter how official they may be declared, are really just formalities.
To the surprise of absolutely no one who has been keeping an eye on him since the 2008 elections. He made the announcement via Twitter:
I am announcing my Exploratory Committee for President of the United States. Join us at http://www.mittromney.com #Mitt2012
He rebooted his website, which contains the following video message:
Conservative blogger Erick Erickson pointed out on Twitter and on CNN’s “John King USA” that the R in the Romney logo looks like it was done with Aquafresh toothpaste. He may have a point. Have a look at this side-by-side comparisons of the logos from the two websites:
Romney is the second Republican to form an exploratory committee. The intent in announcing is the same reason the president announced a week ago: it allows the committee to start raising money for a presidential campaign. According to Roll Call, Romney will criss-cross the country on a fundraising blitz for the next six weeks, beginning with an event at New York’s Harbor Club today.
This Politico article is a good recap summing up Romney’s background and the challenges he will face the second time around. The key dynamic change from four years ago is the passage of Obama’s health care plan, which Obama and many Democrats have repeatedly and gleefully pointed out was based in part on the health care plan Romney signed into law as governor of Massachusetts. Romney is now stuck with the tricky political position of trying to defend his accomplishments as governor while at the same time distancing his health care plan from the Obama health care plan, which is politically radioactive in Republican circles. This could help sink his chances at winning the nomination. Obama and the Democrats know this, and that is why they complement him as much as they can.
Don’t know if Romney’s strategists and branding people did their homework before launching the website, but Ben Smith points out that Romney’s “Believe in America” slogan was previously used by Massachusetts Democrat John Kerry during his unsuccessful presidential run in 2004.
Another Kerry-Romney comparison comes from former DNC staffer Matt Ortega who recently launched the site Multiple Choice Mitt. It is essentially the Democrats using George W. Bush’s highly successful flip-flop attacks on Kerry, this time aimed squarely at Romney.
Somebody’s been doing some oppo research on the Donald…
Donald Trump sent Nancy Pelosi warm wishes when she was sworn in as House Speaker in January 2007, praising her as “the best” in a personal note.
Trump, who’s now mulling a Republican run for president, penned the note on a copy of a New York Times article that chronicled Pelosi’s swearing-in, and wrote, “Nancy — you’re the best. Congrats. Donald,” according to sources familiar with the missive.
…
Trump, now a registered Republican, is a former independent and former registered Democrat. And the Pelosi note is a reminder that he has a past political history of supporting both sides of the aisle.Trump confirmed to POLITICO he wrote the note, but said it was “because I want her to do great, and I want this country to be great, and I [didn’t] want her to fail as Speaker. And I like her.”
His past campaign contributions run the spectrum of American politics, including prominent Democrats and Republicans. However, two in particular from the recent past jump out at me. First, this $50,000 donation to American Crossroads, the conservative 527 group, made on October 6, 2010 (screengrab from FEC electronic records):
The second is this $50,000 donation to Rahm Emanuel’s mayoral campaign in Chicago, made just before Christmas of last year, but after the big Republican wins in the 2010 midterms (screengrab from Illinois State Board of Elections electronic records):
You’ll recall Emanuel’s previous job was as chief of staff to President Obama – the man Trump would be running against if he commits to the 2012 presidential race. If Trump decides to jump into the 2012 Republican sweepstakes, I assume this is an issue that will come up from other campaigns.
Former DNC chairman Howard Dean spoke at Carnegie Mellon University a few days ago and blasted Republicans, the Tea Party, and Fox News. The speech was videotaped and uploaded to YouTube by The Blaze.
Dean on the Tea Party movement:
“I mean the Tea Party, it’s not a coincidence the Tea Party is all over 55 and white, right? This is the shrinking minority, ever-shrinking. And the shrinkier they get, the madder they get, which is why they’ve gotten so off the deep end. So you know… I mean, I don’t want to say all we’ve got to do is wait, wait out the change. We can’t do that. But the idea you’re going to suddenly change some right-wing guy who for his own, who can’t keep himself together without saying that Obama is a socialist, you’re not going to do that. That’s a deep problem that you can’t fix.”
On the right and left wings of American politics, past and present:
“Hillary Clinton talked a few years ago, and was made fun of, of course, about some of you may remember this, a vast right-wing conspiracy. And she was only wrong in one way. It’s not a conspiracy. When you do things in the open, you can’t call it a conspiracy. [flash] But this notion of the right wing desire to run things differently is threatening to the country. [flash] Not that the right wing is bad or the left wing is bad. I grew up in an era when the left wing was as awful as the right wing is today. They were burning down buildings. Their cause may have been a cause that I was sympathetic with, we shouldn’t be in Vietnam. They were doing appalling things that they had no business doing, just as the right is doing today.”
His comments on Fox News and media bias:
“We’ll start with Fox because that’s the easy one. There’s a difference between Fox and MSNBC. They’re both biased. The New York Times is biased. The Wall Street Journal is biased. The New York Post is biased. Newspapers are biased. The Pittsburgh Post is biased, or is it the Tribune, I forget. Which one is the right wing paper here? OK. [flash] Bias is not the problem. It’s something that makes us mad, but it’s not the problem. It’s when you become a propaganda outlet. What Fox News is not says, is often not true, and they know it’s not true, and they say it anyway. It is not a news organization. It is a very expensive, incredibly well funded right wing propaganda organization. The definition of propaganda is you take something with a small kernel of truth to it, you add, you twist, and you make it into a story. The death panels is a perfect example [flash]I forgive Sarah Palin for doing this. I mean I don’t think she’s going to be President of the United States, and politicians can say things and anybody can say anything they want. But I don’t forgive a supposed news organization who put that out every single day knowing it was a lie. [flash] In this country, people who listen to Fox because they prefer to be angry at the left, just like we listen to NBC, MSNBC, because we like what they’re telling us. The truth is the facts on MSNBC are true, and when they’re not true, I mean you may not like the spin, the kind of nasty smarmy stuff that people say about other people. They’re not nice, I’m saying. I go on those shows sometimes. They’re usually nice to me, but they go on because I’m not nice to the Republicans. But if they make a mistake and get the facts wrong, they correct it the next day. [flash] Look, I’m a professional media hater, right? I’m a politician. I never got a break from the media. The scream speech, right? They dressed it all up. Anybody in the room at the scream, anybody that was in Iowa at the scream speech, nobody here? Well, it was very different. It didn’t quite sound the way it did by the time Fox got done with it. So I have every reason to dislike them.”
Watch Dean’s comments (the comments about Fox News and media bias begin at 1:18):
FYI, I asked Howard Dean about Sarah Palin’s “death panels” comment about a year and a half ago. Here’s his response as I reported for CNN:
“About euthanasia, they’re just totally erroneous. She just made that up. Just like the ‘Bridge to Nowhere’ that she supposedly didn’t support. There’s nothing like euthanasia in the bill. I practiced medicine for a long time, and of course you have to have end of life discussions – the patients want that. There’s nothing… euthanasia’s not in this bill.”
Palin is now a paid commentator for Fox News. I’ve reached out to Fox News and Dean for comment, will update this post if I hear anything.
H/T Mediaite.
Update: I’ve gotten no response from Fox News yet, but Greta Van Susteren wrote the following on her blog:
It is sort of weird….but it seems that Howard Dean can’t get Fox News Channel out of his mind. Every time I see him quoted (or maybe not every time), he is taking a swipe at Fox. First, he needs to understand Fox is not why he lost Iowa in 2004. Even the “Dean scream” is not why ( the scream occurred AFTER he lost… and came in 3rd.) Second, his constant swipes makes him look like he is afraid of Fox – he makes his cracks but has turned down all our (ON THE RECORD AT 10pm) requests that he be a guest. Third, while he is highly critical of Fox he has not explained his recent remark that a government shutdown would be good for the Democrats (seemingly wanting a shutdown for political reasons at the expense of what is good for the country.)
I am actually curious what ideas he has for the country. We need ideas….he might want to focus on ideas instead of old grudges.
Icepicks and Nukes 