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Republican leaders, searching for a fair-minded but strategically wise way to conduct the presidential primary debates, are grappling with how to manage White House contenders in a sprawling field that mixes proven politicians with provocateurs and reflects an increasingly fractious party.The Republican National Committee’s decision last year to claim control of the 2016 debate process was welcomed by many in the party who believe that Mitt Romney, the 2012 nominee, was hurt by both the pummeling and the positions he took during the 20 debates in that primary contest.But by trying to impose order through party-sanctioned debates and limiting the...

Lindsey Graham is telling donors that June 1 is the likely date for his presidential announcement, according to several sources familiar with the conversations. The announcement would likely take place in South Carolina, possibly near his home base of Seneca, according to the sources, which would enable the GOP senator to highlight a compelling personal story not widely known outside his home state.

Mitt Romney, who earlier this year decided against a third presidential bid after briefly flirting with a run, will jump back into the national political scene next month when he hosts GOP presidential hopefuls and some of the party’s biggest donors in Utah. Romney’s 2015 E2 Summit will take place June 11-13 in Deer Valley, a ski resort east of Salt Lake City, according to an invitation obtained Thursday by The Washington Post. Confirmed speakers from the likely 2016 Republican field include Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, Sen. Marco Rubio (Fla.), New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, Ohio Gov. John Kasich, and...

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker has hit a bump in the presidential race as new candidates have crowded the field, and his national poll numbers have faltered.He was seen as an early favorite to win the Iowa caucuses after taking the race by storm with a well-received speech in January at GOP Rep. Steve King’s Iowa Freedom Summit. Since then, some air has come out of the Walker balloon. A Quinnipiac University poll released on Wednesday still shows him with a big lead in the Hawkeye State, with 21 percent support. He leads Rubio, the next closest candidate, by 8 percentage...

Former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney is holding what will amount to his fourth annual political summit, according to a report in The Washington Post. The summer affair is Romney’s fourth annual summit. The events began as a way for him to personally connect with the power brokers and financiers backing his political operation. The theme of this year’s gathering is the “strength and future of American leadership.” It appears Jeb Bush is opting out and, for whatever reason, GOP hopefuls Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) 93% and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) 96% are not among those on the current attendee...

Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder will not run for president in 2016, according to two sources familiar with his planning. Snyder, a Republican who was first elected in 2010, has been traveling across the country in recent weeks but has decided against a White House bid. One source close Snyder said he’d expressed concern about the time commitment needed for a national campaign. “He is concerned about solving the problems in Michigan and the time commitment needed for out-of-state travel,” one source said. A Snyder spokesman declined to comment. The decision comes one day after a Snyder-backed ballot initiative, which would...

Carson, one would hope, will force the Republicans to step out of their bubble of protection, and peek around their shield of denial Dr. Benjamin Solomon “Ben” Carson, Sr. is a fantastic human being. He’s a retired neurosurgeon that has the distinction of being the first surgeon to successfully separate conjoined twins joined at the head. He’s also an author, and now he has decided to be a politician that isn’t a politician. Carson’s claim to fame, the moment that he truly stood in the spotlight, is not connected to his life as a neurosurgeon. It all began at a...

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This is the week when an already crowded Republican presidential field really starts to fill up. One by Mike Huckabee will soon follow today’s announcements by Dr. Ben Carson and Carly Fiorina. Before long they will be joined by Governor Scott Walker and eventually as many as 20 candidates will be running for the GOP nomination. Not all of them are likely to be serious possibilities and the members of this week’s trio are all assumed to be long shots. But the cavalry charge of candidates heading to Iowa and New Hampshire creates a situation that renders moot much of...

Ben Carson announces presidential run!

It’s a big week in the Republican presidential primaries. Today, Carly Fiorina and Ben Carson both announced their candidacies, and Mike Huckabee is expected to make his official tomorrow. Now that the field is filling out (though there are still plenty of candidates in the running-but-officially-not-yet-running category), it’s looking a little unusual.In fact, the group of Republicans running for president is almost everything the Republican Party itself is not: it’s demographically diverse, it’s less wealthy than you might expect, and it’s extremely young. The question is whether voters will look at them and say that the GOP really has changed.By...

I cannot believe I’m writing this. I mean, when you think about it, how much sense does it make that Carly Fiorina is running for president? With chances less than zero of getting beyond New Hampshire, let alone Super Tuesday, Fiorina began making the cable news show rounds in recent weeks. Name a hot bed issue and there she was, under the studio Klieg lights, nattily dressed and ready to rattle off a litany of conservative talking points. That has always been the “Fiorina Way,” after all: toe the party (or company) line even as the boat sinks. For now...

The race for the Republican presidential nomination will gain three new candidates this week: a retired physician, a former corporate chief, and a former governor and media personality who face long odds of success but who could help shape the primary-season debate and the calculations of front-runners trying to build winning coalitions.

Ben Carson, retired neurosurgeon turned conservative star, has confirmed that he will seek the Republican presidential nomination in 2016. Carson, who has never run for public office, is expected to be the only high-profile African-American to enter the GOP’s presidential primary as he tries to parlay his success as an author and speaker into a competitive campaign against established politicians. “I’m willing to be part of the equation and therefore, I’m announcing my candidacy for president of the United States of America,” he said in an interview aired Sunday night by Ohio’s WKRC television station. He is set to make...

Gather together 1,000 S.C. Republicans in a room these days, and a few 2016 presidential prospects will come calling. The S.C. GOP’s annual Silver Elephant fundraising dinner on Friday attracted three out-of-state White House hopefuls and a fourth homegrown prospect who made their pitches to hardcore party supporters. Texas Sen. Ted Cruz started his speech by bashing Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton. He said she appointed a director of email security – a joke about her use of a private computer server while she was U.S. Secretary of State. “I’m pretty sure Saudi Arabia is not paying for the speakers tonight,”...

Columba Bush, the famously private wife of former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, appears to be taking on an increasingly prominent role in her husband’s nascent presidential campaign. Later this month, Mrs. Bush will headline a fundraiser for her husband’s leadership PAC, Right to Rise, in Miami. This week, she attended a retreat for Mr. Bush’s donors at an oceanfront luxury hotel in Miami Beach, where she gave a heartfelt speech about her husband, according to those present. Her name has also been popping up with increasing frequency in fundraising emails — last week she asked supporters to “join with my...

Mike Huckabee is going to run for president in 2016. While he won't make that official until next Tuesday, he released a two-minute video on Friday that both previews the themes on which he will run and shows why he may be the most underrated candidate in the field.

Who in the world is Rick Snyder? I am sure most of you are asking yourselves this very question. Let me start out by making it very, very simple: Rick Snyder is the two-term governor of Michigan. He has the business background of Carly Fiorina, the policy wonkiness of Bobby Jindal, the mild-mannerism of Ben Carson, and the Midwestern appeal of Scott Walker. “I met with Rick Snyder yesterday. He’s running,” former U.S. Senator Norm Coleman (R-MN) stated at the Jewish Republican Committee’s meeting in Las Vegas last Saturday. Governor Rick Snyder has not formerly announced his candidacy for president,...

COLUMBIA, S.C. — Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus cautioned GOP faithful on Friday that they won't recapture the White House if the party gets too obsessed with choosing its nominee while Democrats continue to outpace Republicans on campaign tactics. "We have become a candidate-crazy party to the detriment of all the mechanics," Priebus told hundreds of GOP donors and activists at a South Carolina party dinner. Describing the 2012 nomination fight as a "total disaster" and a "traveling circus," Priebus said the Republican National Committee has learned its lesson....

WASHINGTON — Wisconsin's Scott Walker has emerged as a force in the 2016 White House contest. It's a position two other Republican governors from the Midwest, lesser known but similarly ambitious, undoubtedly would like to be in. Like Walker, John Kasich in Ohio and Rick Snyder in Michigan have strong resumes and political successes in states where the GOP often struggles. They offer a distinct form of pragmatic politics that differs sharply from that of their combative counterpart in Wisconsin. Kasich has taken steps toward a presidential bid, emboldened by the absence of a clear front-runner and by warm reviews...