The "Who is running?" tea leaves thread (Part 2)

[Torie]

Kasich awaiting signal from God as to what his plans are. If you heard that from moi, you'd know that I'm not running.

[Torie]

Can someone post a complete list of those who are a least musing about running on the Pub side? I mean the number of names is giving me a headache. Ehrlich? Who is he? Some guy from Maryland or something?  That guy who was drawn out of his CD seat in the Baltimore burbs back in 2002? Are we up to a score of them yet? A lot of folks really seem to want to increase their speaking fee rate it seems.

[Torie]

Peter King? Oh, my. The last two are a real stretch, so let's say a score plus one is the number at the moment, aka the drinking age. That has got to be a record number, no?

Thanks for the list!

[Torie]

Let's see, we have Walker, Huckabee, Santorum, and Cruz all competing for the Iowa Pub evangelical vote (with Carson and Jindal out there somewhere, and maybe Perry reading up on his Bible). Sounds good to me!

[Torie]

Let's see, we have Walker, Huckabee, Santorum, and Cruz all competing for the Iowa Pub evangelical vote (with Carson and Jindal out there somewhere, and maybe Perry reading up on his Bible). Sounds good to me!

Why does that sound good to you? Because of a vote split? Last time, with days left before voting, Perry, Bachmann, Santorum and Gingrich were all about tied in Iowa polling, pretty far behind Romney and Paul. So Cons are fairly likely to rally disproportionately to one choice. The other effect of an abundance of religious candidates- including not just these but also Rubio, Kasich, Paul, even Bush who is wooing them- is it creates a race to be as socially conservative as possible. I also wouldn't say the Iowa winner is an unlikely nominee. Huckabee and Santorum were at huge financial disadvantages, but W and Dole were not.

Well, other than splitting the vote, you just use them all as foils - the more the merrier - get your more secular slice of the vote - and beam it all back to NH. I would like to think Pub voters are finally getting the message that all of this nonsense first really contains little of substance when it comes to public policy (fine they need Jesus to be near, and pray every day, and so forth, but what does that mean about public policy?), while being politically toxic at the same time. And now between the public opinion polls, and SCOTUS out there, they won't even have the bloody shirt of SSM to wave around, without looking like fools.

[Torie]

Latest from Biden-world:

http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/ken-walshs-washington/2015/05/12/joe-biden-is-biding-his-time

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In other words, he's standby equipment in case Clinton implodes either by scandal or otherwise.

[Torie]

Kasich "almost certain" to run.

YAY!

There does seem to be an opening for him emerging with the potential to become as wide as the Grand Canyon given present trends. Let us hope, he proves to be made of the right stuff to successfully navigate this grueling and demanding process. Jeb's displayed lack of discipline is really quite shocking to me.

[Torie]

June 4 is Perry's announcement date.

Why does Perry have this uncontrollable compulsion for self humiliation? And just who is going to give him any money this time?

[Torie]

Do you boys have Bloomberg on your radar screen?

[Torie]

Do you boys have Bloomberg on your radar screen?

Running as what?  Indy?  I've always thought you can never completely rule him out mainly because he has the funds to fully pay for his own campaign.  What brings you to invoke his name?

This suggests him running as a Dem. I bring him up, because Morden is like a catfish bottom feeder, who digs up every above room temperature body out there that has some vague possibility of seeking the brass ring. So he seems to have missed a morsel to feed on, and we don't want him to miss a meal now do we?  He might stave to death!

[Torie]

Do you boys have Bloomberg on your radar screen?

Running as what?  Indy?  I've always thought you can never completely rule him out mainly because he has the funds to fully pay for his own campaign.  What brings you to invoke his name?

This suggests him running as a Dem. I bring him up, because Morden is like a catfish bottom feeder, who digs up every above room temperature body out there that has some vague possibility of seeking the brass ring. So he seems to have missed a morsel to feed on, and we don't want him to miss a meal now do we?  He might stave to death!

Fair enough, though there doesn't seem to be much there there.  Mostly other people wanting him to run rather than him expressing any interest in running himself.

Well, did you make any posts about Senator Warren?

[Torie]

No problem Morden. Ignore my jiving. You do a great job actually.

[Torie]

Christie announcing on Tuesday.

Oh my heavens. I called this one wrong. Just about everyone is running. So many egos, so little time, so little concern about any ensuing humiliation. What makes these people tick?  I guess it is somewhat good news for Cruz that the establishment moderate wing has some many candidates to chop up its vote. Cruz demonstrates that he understands the issues a heck of a lot better than Walker, and has about 20 points more IQ, makes Santorum and Huckabee irrelevant (is that why he switched is vote on TPA, to pander to the protectionist, don't mess with American sovereignty crowd?), and moves into being a top tier candidate before the competing wing sorts it all out. That's a bit of a nightmare. I hope I wake up, and it all goes away.

[Torie]

Jeff Brown: Epic troll.

That's not nice now. Just because he's not feeding you guys stuff on AAD is no reason to lash out at the poor man now, Eraserhead. Shame on you! Judge not, least you be judged. I read that somewhere.

[Torie]

OK, what do you guys think the future of this thread should be?  At this point, we have:

Walker: will announce on July 13th, there's no more mystery about whether he's running
Kasich: will announce on July 21st, there's no more mystery about whether he's running
Gilmore: will announce in the first week of August, there's no more mystery about whether he's running

Biden: unclear, but will supposedly announce by Aug. 1
Ehrlich, Palin: seem to have lost interest, and may very well never make a definitive announcement one way or the other

So there isn't much more to discuss here.  Should I unsticky this thread?  Should I wait until the Walker announcement or the Kasich announcement or Aug. 1?  Should I unsticky this thread, and we should make a separate "Biden speculation" thread?  (actually, I think there's already at least one)

You must wait for Kasich. F the other guys.

[Torie]

Is Biden waiting until he has a better idea of the likelihood of Hillary being indicted?  O'Reilly had a former attorney general on, Mukasi (sp), and he said if it is ever found that government related emails were wiped off the computer, that is a felony. Improper storage of confidential emails is a misdemeanor, which is what tanked Petraeus. Maybe a condition precedent of Biden running is the development of real panic of Hillary's legal status in Dem circles. As it is, there is deep concern about it.