The "Who is running?" tea leaves thread

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Manchin is "leaving all of his options open."

http://go.bloomberg.com/political-capital/2014-04-18/manchin-chewing-2016/

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I can't conceive of any possible way that Manchin gets the Democratic nomination.

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Manchin is "leaving all of his options open."

http://go.bloomberg.com/political-capital/2014-04-18/manchin-chewing-2016/

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I can't conceive of any possible way that Manchin gets the Democratic nomination.

Salon's Steve Kornacki did a piece on this four years ago. Fairly interesting read.

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There's just no way. Even Hillary seems like a liberal compared to him.

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George Pataki allegedly thinking (again) about running for president:

http://pagesix.com/2014/09/29/george-pataki-mulls-2016-bid-meets-with-david-koch/

Pataki's presidential ambitions are the strangest thing. He hasn't held office in nearly a decade, he's not well-known nationally, he's not much of a power within the Republican Party (even at the state level, he's almost invisible), and he's not running as an ideologue or to sell books (at least I don't think he is - he's not much of a personality, and  I have to imagine that consulting would be more lucrative for any former NY Governor).

Maybe he'll pick Buddy Roemer as his running mate in irrelevancy.

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I think Trump's sole purpose is to make the other batsh**t insane Republicans look good by comparison.

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Update from US News & World Report on the total number of candidate visits to Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina since Jan. 1 of last year:

http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/data-mine/2014/10/14/presidential-tracker-jim-webb-and-bernie-sanders-in-john-hickenlooper-and-deval-patrick-out

1) Perry: 59 visits
2) Paul: 41 visits
3) Jindal: 31 visits
4) Cruz: 29 visits
5) O'Malley: 26 visits
6) Sanders: 25 visits
7) Santorum: 23 visits
8 ) Christie: 20 visits
9) Huckabee: 14 visits
10) (tie) Biden: 10 visits
10) (tie) Rubio: 10 visits

I was surprised at Sanders being that high on the list, but he's been extremely active in the last two months or so.

Meanwhile, Hillary had only 1 visit, and that visit probably got more coverage than Sanders' 25 visits combined. I guess the media doesn't want the first non Christian President. I know, I know, but no more ridiculous than the sexist card that Hillary supporters always play.

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Hillary adding more speeches to next year's calendar.

Hmmm...

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So I guess no campaign launch until at least the end of Feb.?

She needs to give more $300,000 speeches because she's dead broke.

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Bolton, Cruz, Fiorina, Huckabee, and Santorum were already scheduled to attend Steve King's "Iowa Freedom Summit" on Jan. 24.  But looks like Carson and Gingrich will join them:

Wow, what a freak show.