It’s now official: Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal is running for President.
He’s a solid conservative reformer, but I don’t see him getting a lot of traction is a field this crowded. I think he’s more realistically a Vice Presidential possibility this time around.
Another Twitter hashtag I had some fun with:
#HillarySoOld she remembers not letting Benjamin Franklin ask any questions at her press conference.
— BattleSwarm (@BattleSwarmBlog) June 4, 2015
#HillarySoOld she still remembers when a big financial score was just 30 pieces of silver
— BattleSwarm (@BattleSwarmBlog) June 4, 2015
See, you missed an opportunity here to use "the Black Speech of Mordor" @TheMorningSpew
— BattleSwarm (@BattleSwarmBlog) June 4, 2015
#HillarySoOld she shoved Kate Winslet aside for a place in the lifeboat.
— BattleSwarm (@BattleSwarmBlog) June 4, 2015
#HillarySoOld she's still gripping about Benedict Arnold gypping her out of her commission for the West Point plans.
— BattleSwarm (@BattleSwarmBlog) June 4, 2015
#HillarySoOld she demanded 10% of Teapot Dome
— BattleSwarm (@BattleSwarmBlog) June 4, 2015
#HillarySoOld she put down her knitting just long enough to soak a handkerchief with Danton's blood.
— BattleSwarm (@BattleSwarmBlog) June 4, 2015
#HillarySoOld she demanded the actors get back on stage and finish My American Cousin.
— BattleSwarm (@BattleSwarmBlog) June 4, 2015
Don’t know how I missed this, but Wendy Davis was fined $5,000 for campaign violations. Mind you, these were campaign violations from her 2012 state senate race.
Davis’ personal financial documents for 2010 and 2011 did not properly indicate that her law partner, Brian Newby, was a registered lobbyist. The firm’s unpaid executive director, Marcy Weldin Foster, was also a registered lobbyist in 2011, and that was not disclosed. The commission found Davis received fees for services from her own firm and another that she worked for “of counsel,” Cantey Hanger, in 2010 and 2011. Both firms paid Newby as a lobbyist, and Cantey Hanger paid Foster as a lobbyist.
The actual ethics judgment can be read here.
Maybe she’s auditioning to be on Hillary’s campaign team…
Former New York Governor George Pataki has launched his Republican presidential bid, because why the hell not? The answer to a question no one asked, Pataki fills a much-needed void in the field. Evidently he didn’t want Ben Carson and Carly Fiorina hogging the Jon Huntsman Memorial Campaign Futility trophy without a fight.
Pataki was a moderately successful New York governor, especially when compared to governors whose names end in “-omo”. But the Republican Party base is suspicious of northern establishment moderates even in the best of times, and Pataki’s position on gun control alone is enough to disqualify him from winning the Presidential nomination.
In 2012 there were enough GOP candidates to field a baseball team. In 2016 it looks like there will be enough to fill both sides of a football team…
Evidently the UK hard left is having a giant hissy fit in London over the fact they got their asses kicked by the Tories in this week’s election.
Also, here’s a helpful hint: When you start throwing things at police, you’re no longer part of a “protest,” you’re part of a “riot.”
And what says “Class” like defacing a World War II Monument?
“Hey greatest generation: Screw all of you! Defeating Hitler means nothing unless we can keep increasing the size of the welfare state!”
All the left’s temper tantrum will accomplish is reminding voters why they gave the Tories a clear majority in the first place.
David Cameron’s Conservative Party won an outright majority in parliamentary elections and will be forming the next government. Labour, after having managed to piss off almost everyone during last year’s vote on Scottish independence, was essentially wiped out in Scotland, all but one of their MPs replaced by candidates from the Scottish National Party, and right now is losing 26 seats. The Liberal Democrats were all but wiped out elsewhere, losing 48 seats, and UKIP managed nearly four million votes, but only a single parliamentary seat.
These were not the results which most pollsters foresaw, none of which saw the Tories getting more than 285 seats. Between this and the Israeli election results, it’s almost as if media pollsters have a systematic bias in favor of the big government parties favored by media elites…
Will Cameron govern more conservatively with an outright majority now that he no longer needs the rump of the Liberal Democrats in a coalition? Possibly. But if he reneges on his promise to hold a referendum on EU membership no later than 2017, expect to see a huge backlash against his leadership.
Update: Final count is 331 Conservative MPs.
A new Quinnipiac poll of Iowa is out, and it shows Jeb Bush losing to, well, pretty much everyone:
Only 5% of likely Iowa GOP caucus-goers told Quinnipiac University pollsters that they planned to vote for Bush, placing him No. 7 in the field of declared or potential 2016 candidates.
Even worse for Bush: He may not have as much room to grow over the next year as other candidates do. One-quarter of Republicans said they definitely could not support Bush, the lowest ceiling of support of any candidate in the Hawkeye State, and 45% said Bush was “not conservative enough.”
The top Republican in Iowa is Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, who garnered support from 21% of those surveyed. Sens. Rand Paul of Kentucky, Ted Cruz of Texas, Marco Rubio of Florida, and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee are tightly packed for second place, each earned between 13% and 11% support. Neurosurgeon Ben Carson, who unveiled his campaign on Monday, tallied 7% of the vote.
Jeb Bush losing to Scott Walker, Ran Paul, and Ted Cruz isn’t a surprise; Bush losing to Ben Carson, a political neophyte who has no chance to win the nomination, is.
When you dig further, Bush’s basic unpopularity rating comes to the fore: “Negative 39 – 45 percent favorability rating for Bush, and 36 percent saying he’s about right on issues, while 45 percent say he’s not conservative enough.”
Polls this early are essentially meaningless (remember when Howard Dean was going to win Iowa?), but the fact Bush is polling so poorly this early suggests both that he’s deeply unpopular with the base, and that he has yet to build an effective political operation in Iowa. Remember, George W. Bush won the Iowa caucuses handily over Steve Forbes in 2000 (McCain didn’t even pull 5%).
So far, Jeb Bush is running considerably behind expectations.