Posted on 04/18/2015 8:34:18 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
(VIDEO-AT-LINK)
NASHUA, N.H. —Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker closed the NHGOP’s First-in-the-Nation Republican Leadership Summit on Saturday night with a call for “common sense” leadership to promote “big and bold” ideas.
Walker, who has been leading the GOP presidential field in recent New Hampshire polling, told several hundred Republicans who remained for the separately ticketed Saturday night dinner that if he runs for president, he would apply the same principles and approach that he said has turned around his state’s economy.
Introduced by former Gov. John H. Sununu, Walker said he decided to run for governor because he and his wife wanted their sons to grow up in a state that was better than the one he had grown up in.
“I don’t think anyone would question that we went big and we went bold,” said Walker.
Walker said the Wisconsin unemployment rate has dropped from 9.2 percent to 4.6 percent while he has been governor.
“We got rid of seniority based on tenure” in schools, he said, clearing the way for “the best and the brightest” to teach.
He ticked off other changes in Wisconsin since he has been governor. He cited tort reform and said “we no longer fund Planned Parenthood.”
Walker said Wisconsin has also passed a concealed carry law and a law requiring IDs in order to vote. He noted he recently signed right-to-work legislation.
“If you put common sense conservative leadership” in office with a Republican legislature, progress can be made.
Walker said that with a Republican president and a Republican Congress, “there’s no end to how much better things can be in this country.”
“The American dream is to grow up not being dependent on the government,” he said.
He also talked about what he called “safety,” which he said is a more accurate description of threats against the nation than “national security.” The fight against terrorists, he said, must be rough on “their soil” before the fight comes to American soil.
Earlier, a fired up Texas Sen. Ted Cruz received a rousing welcome from the 600 activists who jammed the Crowne Plaza Hotel ballroom. Cruz and Walker were the eighteenth and nineteenth announced or prospective presidential candidate to make pitches to the New Hampshire and out-of-state Republicans who attended the two-day event.
Cruz made his customarily emotional plea to the activists, insisting that the next president needs to “defend the Bill of Rights, all of it.”
And, he said, “The most important regulatory reform is that we need to repeal every word of Obamacare.”
Cruz called for “restoring America’s leadership in the world,” which, he said, President Barack Obama has let slip away over the past six years.
Cruz said he recently visited Fort Hood, Texas, where the victims of 2009 shooting spree by Maj. Nadal Hasan were awarded Purple Hearts and other medals after a five-year-long bureaucratic struggle over whether the awards were deserved.
Cruz noted that the Obama administration called the attack a case of workplace violence, while the victims and the survivors of the victims who were killed insisted it was a case of domestic terrorism.
He said that last year, he introduced legislation mandating that the victims receive the medals.
“They were finally recognized, five years too late, for their heroism and bravery,” Cruz said. “The sentiment I expressed to each of them was, ‘I’m sorry this took five years.’
“If we want to turn things around and restore American leadership in the world,” Cruz said, “the first thing we’ve got to do is tell the truth. You cannot defeat radical Islamic terrorism with a president unwilling to utter the words ‘radical Islamic terrorism.’”
He said Obama referred to the January shooting of a kosher delicatessen in France as a random act of terrorism.
“Our hearts were broken when 21 Coptic Christians were murdered by ISIS,” said Cruz. “They were beheaded because they were Christians.
“Twenty months from now, imagine a commander-in-chief who stands up and says, ‘We will destroy radical Islamic terrorism,’” Cruz said. “Imagine a president who stands with our allies.
“If only the terrorists attacked a golf course,” said Cruz. “That might get the White House’s attention.”
Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who is expected to announce his presidential candidacy on May 5, emphasized his ability to beat “the Clinton machine.”
The Clintons, he said, worked for Huckabee’s opponents when he ran successfully for governor in 1998 and 2002.
“I know the Clintons all too well,” said Huckabee. “They play to win. They do anything necessary to win. I faced them time and time again. I lived to win and I lived to tell about it and that in itself is remarkable.”
Huckabee highlighted what he called a unique ability to beat "the Clinton political machine," pointing to his electoral success as Arkansas governor, a job he held between 1996 and 2007.
“There’s only one person I know in the Republican field that has consistently run against the Clinton political machine, the Clinton political money," Huckabee said. "Most all of my races, both Bill and Hillary Clinton came back to Arkansas to campaign for my opponents. So I know the process quite well -- and the good news for me is that I’ve defeated that political machine.”
(Our earlier reports follow.)
In rapid fire action Saturday afternoon, announced or potential Republican candidates for president courted Republican activists at the NHGOP’s First-in-the-nation Republican Leadership Summit.
Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal called the Common Core education program a “federal government power grab,” promoted school choice and said that in his home state he frustrated his political foes with his penchant for cutting taxes.
Jindal spoke of his parents’ arrival in the United States. He said they “flew halfway around the world” from India to make a life in the United States.
“My parents are proud of where they came from, but they didn’t come here to raise Indian-Americans. They came here to raise Americans. We’ve had enough of hyphenated Americans.”
“I’m all for high standards,” Jindal said. But he said he does not want the federal government to “dictate how we teach American history.”
A customarily fired up Donald Trump railed against politicians, promising, “If I run and if I’m elected, we will bring jobs back, believe me.”
He railed against China “stealing” jobs, saying, “They’re taking a tremendous business away from us.”
Trump said, “Free trade is good if you have smart people on our side, but it’s a disaster if you have stupid people or incompetent people.”
Trump said Mexico is taking American jobs while it “treats us like garbage at the border. They are treating us like a bunch of babies because we’re led by people who don’t know what they’re doing.”
He said it is not his preference to run for president.
“I’m not having a great time,” Trump said. “I can think of many other things I could be doing to have a great time. No politician is going to solve the problems we have. The problems we have are so intractable; politicians don’t have a clue.
“With all the people who you are listening to,” Trump told the group, “politicians are all talk and no action.”
But he said that if he wins the nomination, “I’d probably pick a politician. Sadly.”
South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham did not return fire at Sen. Rand Paul’s earlier criticism on treatment of terrorism suspects.
But he emphasized his foreign policy experience and his tough stance on national security.
“If we don’t do something, they’re coming here again,” said Graham. “Barack Obama’s policy is a miserable failure. Somebody needs to change it.
He said the U.S. should “go to the region” and “fight these guys before they come here again. If we don’t, 9/11 is coming here again.
“They don’t want one thing. The want your way of life,” he said, referring to terrorists. “When they say they want to kill us, I believe them.”
Ohio Gov. John Kasich told his story of serving 18 years in the U.S. House, unsuccessfully mounting a presidential campaign, leaving politics and then as governor, “going to work to reinvent the State of Ohio.”
He said the state government now has a $2 billion surplus and has gained nearly 1 million jobs.
“What I’ve learned in Ohio in bringing people together, is we’re all in a silo. You can’t bring people together from a silo.
“My only goal is to bring a stronger situation for the people that I serve.”
He said he has had success in Washington and has turned around Ohio, where people think, he said, “I’m a pretty good guy.”
Former business executive Carly Fiorina said Hillary Clinton “cannot become President of the United States and not because she’s a woman but because she does not have a track record of accomplishment.”
She said that as she travels the country she finds “people feel they are losing leadership.
“Nowhere is leadership missing more than in the world. America has not led for quite some time,” Fiorina said.
(Our earlier reports follow.)
It wasn’t a blistering attack, but Rand Paul fired the first shot at another Republican at the First-in-the-Nation Leadership Summit on Saturday. The target: Lindsey Graham, who will speak later in the day.
The two have tangled in the past over when due process should be used in cases of terrorist suspects, and Paul, a Kentucky senator and announced presidential candidate, brought up the issue again.
“In 2011, we had a debate about whether an American citizen could be detained without a trial,” Paul told the Republican gathering on the second day of the summit.
“And you’ll hear from some of these people,” he said. “When you hear from the loudest critics of me, they are these people.
“One of them said, ‘When they ask for a lawyer, you just tell them to shut up,’” Paul said. “Really? That’s the kind of discourse we’re going to have in this country? When someone asks for a lawyer, you’re going to tell them to shut up?”
Paul was referring to a provision of a defense funding authorization bill in 2012 that allows indefinite detention of U.S. citizens involved in terrorism. Graham said on the Senate floor during the debate, referring to American citizens who aid terrorists, "Tell them, 'Shut up, you don't get a lawyer. You're an enemy combatant, and we're going to talk to you about why you joined al-Qaida.'"
“I asked him if we’re going to send someone to Guantanamo Bay without a lawyer? And he said, ‘Yeah, if they’re dangerous.’
“It sort of begs the question, doesn’t it? Who gets to decide who’s dangerous and who’s not dangerous?”
Paul also focused on what he said is a need for deep tax cuts, noting that the last two GOP presidential nominees, Mitt Romney and John McCain, never proposed them.
In Washington, he said, “nothing changes, government gets bigger and bigger, regardless of which party is in the White House. “I think we could create millions of jobs,” he said.
Paul renewed his call for the GOP to champion the entire Bill of Rights as a way for the party to reach out to minorities and young Americans.
“I’m a Republican who does believe in the right to privacy as enshrined in the Fourth Amendment,” Paul said. “I don’t believe the government can obtain someone’s records without naming the person, naming the records and going to a judge, an independent judge.
“It doesn’t mean collecting 300 million people’s phone records,” he said. “Your phone records are yours. Government – it’s none of their damn business what you’re doing on your phone.”
He criticized abuse of “civil forfeiture, where government can take your stuff without ever being convicted of a crime, which he said disproportionately affects minorities.”
He said the biggest purveyor of forfeiture is Attorney General nominee Loretta Lynch.
“This is the main reason I oppose her,” Paul said. “Loretta Lynch as district attorney in Manhattan confiscated over $100 million in people’s stuff.”
“I’m part of a movement and part of a bill that says in this country you should be presumed innocent until found guilty.” He said the Sixth Amendment, ensuring the right to a speedy trial, is also being selectively applied.
“It’s disproportionately happening to African-Americans, to poor people and to people who live in cities,” Paul said. “If the party that was once the party of emancipation became the party of the entire Bill of Rights again, I think you’d see a sea change.
“Let’s be the party of the bill of rights,” Paul said.
(Our earlier report follows.)
Day two of the first-in-the-Nation Republican Leadership Summit kicked off early Saturday morning with former Maryland Gov. Bob Ehrlich calling for Republicans to direct their anger at preserving “this culture” in the 2016 election.
“This is the first president we’ve ever seen to define down U.S. exceptionalism,” the longshot prospective presidential candidate told party activists from New Hampshire and other states gathered to hear from a long lineup of men – and one woman – who either are, or may be, running for president.
“I’m trying to find out if there’s a place for a blue collar Republican in in this field,” said Ehrlich. “I think we need to be angry, but purposely angry.”
Ehrlich, who is also a former member of the U.S House, said that while the GOP had a successful midterm election, “that doesn’t work in presidential election years.”
Ehrlich was to be followed Saturday by Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul and eight others, as an estimated 600 Republican activists from New Hampshire and other states gathered to take the measure of 19 announced or prospective candidates over two days.
It’s the biggest gathering of presidential candidates ever in New Hampshire and is being covered by more than 200 members of the media from throughout the country.
There have been a small number of protesters gathered outside the Crowne Plaza Hotel throughout the summit, but later on Saturday, scores of supporters of the New Hampshire Rebellion will walk from Lowell, Massachusetts, to the summit site to raise visibility for campaign finance reform.
“Their agenda is counter cultural,” Ehrlich said of the Democrats. “We care about not just this country but also about what’s taking hold in this country. It’s a culture war.”
Generalities from Walker and specifics from Cruz.
What a blowhard, that Huckabee.
Word.
I hope in this election cycle the candidates try to remember who the real enemy is and not spend a lot of time attacking each other.
Well, he did crush unions which is remarkable and survived a recall. I would love a Cruz/Walker ticket in either order. Maybe 16 years of sanity.
I gave Walker money when they went after him with the recall.
The corporate elites that believe in a world economy with cheap labor moving across sovereign borders as in Amnesty like the crushing of unions as well as I do for selfish reasons.
Walker must clearly come out on the issues like Cruz has.
Walker has been described as “acceptable to the Establishment” and that would make him unacceptable to me.
I just can’t get worked up for Walker. If he gets nominated I guess I’ll vote for him but I think Ted Cruz is the right guy for the times.
Well stated. Agreed. And the gentleman’s post below you is right. I cant get ginned up for Walker. I LOVE watching Cruz talk. Fiorina is turning out to be a GREAT attack dog. Throw her a cabinet position or some other post for her loyalty She can attack Hilary as only a woman can.
Cruz is sharp. No doubt. My unpopular opinion is that he’s in jeopardy of going overboard on certain social issues, Namely:
Obamacare is a broken egg, you can’t put it back together again and being rabidly anti-obamacare is going to shave a few % from the final statewide counts. It’s just a reality. It needs to be redirected away from it’s single payer trajectory.
Religion is fine and dandy. Christianity even better but Ted, if you want to be a preacher, quit the senate, quite the campaign and go be a preacher. If you want to be a politician, religion should be only an acknowledgment of his personal belief. “Freedom of Religion” is just as specific as “right to bare arms”.
I never did figure out who is leading the polls today..
/johnny
Personally, I don't see it working out that way this time. People are pissed at the establishment and their 'conventional wisdom'
/johnny
I absolutely believe Carli Fiorini is the attack dog. The others can be left alone to make their case and run their campaigns while Fiorini hammers that idiot wench Hitlery.
I am libertarian so to speak on ‘religion’.
We’ve always had fights between the religious and non-religious but the anti-religion forces cannot dictate their beliefs in and around sexuality and marriage because that abridges the Constitution and turns this country totalitarian.
If Ted wants to preach and arouse the sleepy religious folk, that’s OK because they have targets painted on them and all of us should allow them to exercise their conscience, regardless of our views on religion and sexuality.
Obamacare was called the “Affordable Care Act”. Romney did it in MA first as governor and spoke about the “freeloaders” in the healthcare system.
The people of this country weren’t told the truth about this new more expensive system of healthcare foisted on them so the insurance companies and big hospital groups and so on could be bailed out. Bailed out with mandatory private insurance coverage and expanded Medicaid for the poor and even the death panels will improve their bottom lines.
Because Obamacare is such a bailout for business interests and was done by Romney first, the GOP Establishment is not interested in its repeal.
Thank God someone like Ted Cruz is talking about it at least.
I'm pretty much with you. I never ask what religions I was praying with when I took a knee with the Chaplain leading the prayers. Lots of Jews, Catholics, and Protestants in those groups.
But the anti-religious groups don't get their way just because they whine.
/johnny
Same here. I'm just not 'feeling' it.
When Walker was (admirably) standing firm against the unions, Sarah Palin's voice was the one I heard. Try as I might, I can't remember a single video clip of Walker rousing the troops like Sarah did.
Even now, I never hear him speak, and I've never encountered an article by him on Free Republic. I hear his supporters going on and on, but I don't hear from Walker himself. The excerpt of his speech (above) is one of the few I've seen.
Meanwhile, Ted's everywhere. I don't have to look for him. He reaches me through every available channel.
stay focused on the end game. Stay united. Don’t undermine the coalition.
What on earth is Trump doing here except taking valuable air time from the rest and reducing this all to what the media would call a circus. He a clown who needs to get away from the limelight.
On a side note, after Cruz's actions led to medals being rendered, I saw a blurb on FOX last week saying that the Army has announced benefits for those injured/killed - Go Cruz!
LOL, you guys are cracking me up.
“I don’t think anyone would question that we went big and we went bold,” said Walker.
Walker said the Wisconsin unemployment rate has dropped from 9.2 percent to 4.6 percent while he has been governor.
“We got rid of seniority based on tenure” in schools, he said, clearing the way for “the best and the brightest” to teach.
He ticked off other changes in Wisconsin since he has been governor. He cited tort reform and said “we no longer fund Planned Parenthood.”
Walker said Wisconsin has also passed a concealed carry law and a law requiring IDs in order to vote. He noted he recently signed right-to-work legislation.
Yup, no specifics at all. And yes, to you "union buster" guys, he has done a lot more than bust the unions.
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