The "Who is running?" tea leaves thread

[IceSpear]

John Thune, who six months ago sounded very skeptical of a future run for president, now at least says that he wouldn't "rule it out":

link

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Thune is about as close to "generic Republican" as you can get, meaning he'd likely be a strong candidate.

[IceSpear]

Is Perry running again just to give the comedians more material?

[IceSpear]

If only they invited Cheney to come along.

[IceSpear]

Does anyone besides 80 year old grandmas who grew up watching "Reefer Madness" actually care about the marijuana issue? Then again, 80 year old grandmas are an important Republican demographic.

[IceSpear]

Yeah, I just don't understand his end game. I mean, is there really a group of people, even within the Republican Party, that would actually think "wow, Christie's against medical marijuana, good for him!". Maybe tobacco lobbyists?

[IceSpear]

Herman Cain says that the RNC is ignoring black presidential candidates; suggests he might run again:

http://www.mediaite.com/tv/herman-cain-gop-has-branding-problem-potential-2016-candidates-all-white/

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LOL yes!

We've got Perry, Santorum, and Cain. Now we just need Bachmann and Gingrich and the gang's all here!

[IceSpear]

Go Huckabee!

http://youtu.be/oqTepM3We_U

[IceSpear]

He might as well say water is wet. Jindal, Rubio, Christie, Santorum and Perry are basically undeclared candidates.

Rubio? I doubt he runs if Jeb does, especially after his immigration debacle.

[IceSpear]

Donald Trump, who has floated the possibility both of running for NY governor in 2014 and running for president in 2016, now says that there's a 50-50 chance of him running for governor:

http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/dailypolitics/2014/01/donald-trump-says-whether-he-runs-for-governor-could-come-down-to-gop-leader-e

My face just dropped then.

I'm confused at the timing. Isn't it a bit late to start campaigning?

Your mistake is taking anything Donald Trump says seriously.

[IceSpear]

Clinton is stumped by a tough question from a six year old at an event in Portland, OR:

link

All that applause must be faked. After all, Democrats are completely unenthusiastic about Hillary. Atlas Democrats told me so.

[IceSpear]

Ben Carson would 'seriously consider' it:

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That's all it's about.

[IceSpear]

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.

The problem is that of the 30-35% that don't want Hillary, they're split down the middle between the archaic conservadems who want someone like Manchin who is to the right of Hillary, and the leftists who want a Bernie Sanders. Uniting this group would be next to impossible, and even if it was united it still wouldn't be enough.

[IceSpear]

Paul, Ryan, Christie will attend Romney's Park City event. Bush and Rubio were invited but couldn't attend.

Huckabee and Portman will also be there, as will Brian Schweitzer(!):

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865605084/2016-presidential-hopefuls-gathering-for-Romney-Deer-Valley-retreat.html?pg=all

The populist Schweitzer is going to go hang out with Romney and the wingnut crew? That's pretty funny.

[IceSpear]

Columba Bush is still very opposed to Jeb running. Some Pub insiders think Jeb might take VP for a severely conservative nominee.

Paul makes IA inroads.

Why would the then 63 year old Jeb play second fiddle to some teabagger? Sounds like BS to me.

[IceSpear]

Contrary to the prevailing narrative, Real Clear Politics' Tom Bevan argues that there are five reasons Hillary won't run for president in 2016 (these are all direct quotes from Bevan):

1. "She's just not that good at campaigning."
2. "The “fire in the belly question."
3. "It ain’t gonna be a coronation."
4. "Obama is leaving a mess."
5. "The country wants real change."

Sounds like wishful thinking from a right wing ideologue. 3 of these 5 could also be used as "reasons why democraps should concede and let republicans win in 2016"

[IceSpear]

^ Which three?

Btw, I thought that the fourth reason was outside of Hillary's control, and that by the same metric, McCain should not have run for president in 2008, so I didn't think it was a useful justification for Hillary not starting a presidential campaign.

Tom Bevan does some to be a conservative, but I felt that this article made some interesting points.

3, 4, and 5.

America pretty clearly sees Hillary and Obama separately, that's why she can have an overwhelming advantage in the polls when the very same polls show Obama's approval underwater. As for McCain, Bush's horrible ratings (much worse than Obama's are now) were certainly an issue for him, but they weren't insurmountable. If the election was held in early September, he probably would've won the election.

[IceSpear]

Clinton will be making two visits to the early caucus state of Nevada this fall, once in September and once in October:

http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/211311-no-plans-to-slow-down-from-clinton

The latter is at UNLV, where she'll be charging a speaking fee of $225,000.  This has prompted protests from some students over the exorbitant amount of $ that the school is shelling out for her.

I bet it's the College Republicans leading that protest. Why do they hate the free market? Why do they hate and envy successful wealthy people?

[IceSpear]

Clinton will be making two visits to the early caucus state of Nevada this fall, once in September and once in October:

http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/211311-no-plans-to-slow-down-from-clinton

The latter is at UNLV, where she'll be charging a speaking fee of $225,000.  This has prompted protests from some students over the exorbitant amount of $ that the school is shelling out for her.

I bet it's the College Republicans leading that protest. Why do they hate the free market? Why do they hate and envy successful wealthy people?

Right, because its not like UNLV could've done anything to benefit its students with that $225,000 it decided to throw away paying Hillary Clinton to speak there

The point of my post was that it's funny how Republicans criticize Democrats for being "envious" of the wealthy and starting class warfare, but they have no problem crying about it when a wealthy person happens to be a Democrat.

Besides, $225k is a drop in the bucket of a college's budget. It's like complaining about foreign aid and earmarks, which comprise <1% of our current budget.

[IceSpear]

Clinton will be making two visits to the early caucus state of Nevada this fall, once in September and once in October:

http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/211311-no-plans-to-slow-down-from-clinton

The latter is at UNLV, where she'll be charging a speaking fee of $225,000.  This has prompted protests from some students over the exorbitant amount of $ that the school is shelling out for her.

I bet it's the College Republicans leading that protest. Why do they hate the free market? Why do they hate and envy successful wealthy people?

Consumers protesting high prices is an integral part of the free market...

Except when Democrats/liberals do it, then they're socialist communist nazi heathens.

[IceSpear]

Clinton will be making two visits to the early caucus state of Nevada this fall, once in September and once in October:

http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/211311-no-plans-to-slow-down-from-clinton

The latter is at UNLV, where she'll be charging a speaking fee of $225,000.  This has prompted protests from some students over the exorbitant amount of $ that the school is shelling out for her.

I bet it's the College Republicans leading that protest. Why do they hate the free market? Why do they hate and envy successful wealthy people?

Consumers protesting high prices is an integral part of the free market...

Except when Democrats/liberals do it, then they're socialist communist nazi heathens.

Let's recap: According to your super-duper secret sources, only UNLV students who are members of College Republicans could possibly object to Hillary Clinton getting paid over $200,000 to give a generic speech whose details will be completely forgotten in two weeks rather than spending the money on something even remotely benefiting any of the students at UNLV.  Furthermore, Republicans clearly believe Democrats protesting high prices are "socialist, communist, nazi heathens" even though the only person making this absurd claim is IceSpear.  Ergo, Deus' point is invalid because he believes Democrats protesting high prices are  "socialist, communist, nazi heathens," never mind that Deus is a Libertarian and not a Republican.  Somehow Icespear's logic now makes even less sense than it did when I started this post

Yeah, I'm sure all these Republicans who want to abolish pell grants and student loans are oh so concerned about how they could be using $225,000 to help students instead of spending it on a speech.

When did I say he was a Republican? I'm just pointing out the hypocrisy that many of these people whining about how the college is "wasting" money would have no problem doing it for a Republican making a commencement speech, and also have no problem with colleges wasting much bigger sums on money on frivolous matters. It's a matter of politics, not principle.

[IceSpear]

Clinton will be making two visits to the early caucus state of Nevada this fall, once in September and once in October:

http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/211311-no-plans-to-slow-down-from-clinton

The latter is at UNLV, where she'll be charging a speaking fee of $225,000.  This has prompted protests from some students over the exorbitant amount of $ that the school is shelling out for her.

I bet it's the College Republicans leading that protest. Why do they hate the free market? Why do they hate and envy successful wealthy people?

Consumers protesting high prices is an integral part of the free market...

Except when Democrats/liberals do it, then they're socialist communist nazi heathens.

Let's recap: According to your super-duper secret sources, only UNLV students who are members of College Republicans could possibly object to Hillary Clinton getting paid over $200,000 to give a generic speech whose details will be completely forgotten in two weeks rather than spending the money on something even remotely benefiting any of the students at UNLV.  Furthermore, Republicans clearly believe Democrats protesting high prices are "socialist, communist, nazi heathens" even though the only person making this absurd claim is IceSpear.  Ergo, Deus' point is invalid because he believes Democrats protesting high prices are  "socialist, communist, nazi heathens," never mind that Deus is a Libertarian and not a Republican.  Somehow Icespear's logic now makes even less sense than it did when I started this post

Yeah, I'm sure all these Republicans who want to abolish pell grants and student loans are oh so concerned about how they could be using $225,000 to help students instead of spending it on a speech.

When did I say he was a Republican? I'm just pointing out the hypocrisy that many of these people whining about how the college is "wasting" money would have no problem doing it for a Republican making a commencement speech, and also have no problem with colleges wasting much bigger sums on money on frivolous matters. It's a matter of politics, not principle.

How do you know the students protesting are even Republicans?

I didn't say all of them were, but no doubt they're the ones who are the most outraged. It's not a coincidence that nobody cared about this speaking fee nontroversy until a few weeks ago when the Republicans desperately needed an anti-Hillary narrative. As stated in that very article, nobody seemed to care when she got an even bigger amount from speaking at UCLA back in March.

[IceSpear]

Clinton will be making two visits to the early caucus state of Nevada this fall, once in September and once in October:

http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/211311-no-plans-to-slow-down-from-clinton

The latter is at UNLV, where she'll be charging a speaking fee of $225,000.  This has prompted protests from some students over the exorbitant amount of $ that the school is shelling out for her.

I bet it's the College Republicans leading that protest. Why do they hate the free market? Why do they hate and envy successful wealthy people?

Consumers protesting high prices is an integral part of the free market...

Except when Democrats/liberals do it, then they're socialist communist nazi heathens.

Let's recap: According to your super-duper secret sources, only UNLV students who are members of College Republicans could possibly object to Hillary Clinton getting paid over $200,000 to give a generic speech whose details will be completely forgotten in two weeks rather than spending the money on something even remotely benefiting any of the students at UNLV.  Furthermore, Republicans clearly believe Democrats protesting high prices are "socialist, communist, nazi heathens" even though the only person making this absurd claim is IceSpear.  Ergo, Deus' point is invalid because he believes Democrats protesting high prices are  "socialist, communist, nazi heathens," never mind that Deus is a Libertarian and not a Republican.  Somehow Icespear's logic now makes even less sense than it did when I started this post

Yeah, I'm sure all these Republicans who want to abolish pell grants and student loans are oh so concerned about how they could be using $225,000 to help students instead of spending it on a speech.

When did I say he was a Republican? I'm just pointing out the hypocrisy that many of these people whining about how the college is "wasting" money would have no problem doing it for a Republican making a commencement speech, and also have no problem with colleges wasting much bigger sums on money on frivolous matters. It's a matter of politics, not principle.

How do you know the students protesting are even Republicans?

I didn't say all of them were, but no doubt they're the ones who are the most outraged. It's not a coincidence that nobody cared about this speaking fee nontroversy until a few weeks ago when the Republicans desperately needed an anti-Hillary narrative. As stated in that very article, nobody seemed to care when she got an even bigger amount from speaking at UCLA back in March.

How do you know they're the ones most outraged?

Because they have both the political and practical reasons to be outraged. Also, if it was nonpartisan and Democratic students that suddenly became outraged, why did this only occur after national Republicans and the right wing media started harping about Hillary's wealth and her speaking fees?

[IceSpear]

A new name to throw into the mix: Carly Fiorina:

http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/run-2016/2014/07/28/carly-fiorina-taking-2016-temperature

She's made two trips to New Hampshire this year, and she has a Super PAC which is focusing on just a handful of states….including Iowa and New Hampshire.

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Even the threads about Todd Akin and Colleen Hanabusa being on the tickets are more likely than this.

[IceSpear]

Run Ben Run!

[IceSpear]

Cruz staffing up.