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

[Simfan34]

Rubio to NYC next week for a Wayne Berman fundraiser.

Keep an eye out on this.

[Simfan34]

Rubio to NYC next week for a Wayne Berman fundraiser.

Keep an eye out on this.

Is this sort of like your "insider information" that you had in 2012?:

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=164982.msg3524755#msg3524755

Mildly more substantive. Knowing people in the local party organization, as a member of our campus branch, has its benefits.

[Simfan34]

Rubio is out.

[Simfan34]

According to DMR's candidate tracker, Fiorina will make another visit to Iowa on March 13-14:

http://data.desmoinesregister.com/iowa-caucus/candidate-tracker/index.php

I don't get it.

[Simfan34]

I worked for him one summer and actually know his son, who apparently met him last week. Doesn't seem right but curious.

[Simfan34]

I worked for him one summer and actually know his son, who apparently met him last week. Doesn't seem right but curious.

And nope.

[Simfan34]

Sarah Palin isn't going to run, why can't people accept that? She's in a far more lucrative position now than she would be if she ran.

Exactly my thoughts.

Her current position can barely be termed lucrative at this point.

[Simfan34]

Isn't Tsunis the one who made a fool of himself when he was nominated as Ambassador to Norway but clearly knew nothing about the country?

[Simfan34]

[Simfan34]

That doesn't sound like a yes at all.

[Simfan34]

Actually, the use of Air Force planes for campaigning represents a well-known perk for incumbents. They have to reimburse the government for them, yes, but they pay based on the going price of a first-class airplane ticket, which means the total payment is substantially less than what the trip actually cost (Air Force One costs around $200,000 an hour to operate, IIRC--around what it would cost to fly 100 people transcontinental round-trip in business class).

Furthermore, campaigns only have to pay for specified campaign members (and not, say, the Secret Service). Alternatively, they could append a nominal token official event that they could claim was the primary purpose of their trip (and avoiding having to pay any kind of reimbursement at all) which means there's a lot of grey area as to who or what exactly counts as part of the campaign, which the incumbents' campaigns are able to take advantage of.

But if Obama wanted it to make it harder for Biden to run, he could decide to enforce more rigorous restrictions on official plane usage.

EDIT: The flipside of this is, though, if incumbents were compelled to fully reimburse the government for their travel expenses, the perk would turn into a prohibitive burden on campaigning, as every campaign stop would now cost several million dollars. Keep in mind the cost of the Secret Service, the limousine, and the cost of flying a C-47 Globemaster carrying the limousine, and you can see how it'd become utterly impossible for any incumbent to campaign at all. Telling an incumbent to charter a jet and rent a car is not plausible, either-- no one is going to consider "he was campaigning" a satisfactory answer as to why the President was hurt in an attack or incommunicado during a crisis.

[Simfan34]

I didn't know that, interesting. Still, it's doubtful he'd have to pay for the security. Even if so, a BBJ (the private jet variant of the 737), from what I can find, costs around $10,000 per hour to charter. Meanwhile, the C-32, the 757 variant usually used for Air Force Two, costs nearly $45,000 to operate-- which is still a significant discount.

It's highly unlikely Biden would face any significant additional burden by running as an incumbent Vice President as opposed to benefiting from a de facto subsidy. The really interesting thing in that article is that Biden has suggested pushing back his timetable yet again, which, as you rightly mentioned, isn't very plausible:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

The other interesting thing in the Bloomberg article is that Wolf was very clear that he is supporting Clinton. If Biden was sounding out a donor, he must have left disappointed.

[Simfan34]

What does that mean? I'm taking that as a no.

[Simfan34]

At this point, I'd vote for him. But if Bloomie is considering a run for president surely he could consider another run for mayor?