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Hillary Clinton already wears the mantle of presumptive nominee for president. She's an accomplished lawyer, a member of Walmart's board of directors, a close adviser to her husband when he was president, a two-term senator from New York, and secretary of state. And yet, she is a horrible politician. So far, she has been able to sew up lots of Democratic money and support, and build an organization without actually beginning her campaign. She hasn't even decided on running, but maintains the repose of someone awaiting her party's coronation. That is a wise strategy. Consider that Clinton has run in...

Huckabee is flying more comfortably than during the 2008 race.As a presidential candidate, Mike Huckabee made a name for himself as the regular Joe on the debate stage, a threadbare underdog who couldn’t afford his opponents’ Madison Avenue-style commercials, plush hotels and chartered planes. In his campaign memoir, Huckabee proclaimed that he “kept in touch” with ordinary people while eating food-court fare and waiting for long-delayed commercial flights as “other candidates were stepping onto their Gulfstream jets.” These days, the former Arkansas governor is living — and flying — far more comfortably. Now a Fox News commentator and highly paid...

Iowa Senate candidate Joni Ernst will take a break from campaigning for two weeks to take part in active-duty training for the Iowa National Guard. But before lacing up her boots, Ernst was to record the Republicans' national radio address, the Republican National Committee said Friday. Ernst, a lieutenant colonel and state senator from southwest Iowa, recorded the speech Thursday evening just hours before she was scheduled to report for duty at 6 a.m. From central Iowa Ernst was leading a convoy to Fort McCoy, Wisconsin, where for the next two weeks she will drill with her transportation battalion....

The WMUR/Granite State Poll gives Christie a first-place 19 per cent showing among New Hampshire Republicans But when Romney is added to the mix, he draws 39-percent support and leaves everyone else in single digits Paul Ryan has the highest 'favorable' numbers of the field, at 55 per cent Christie's 46 per cent favorable number is soft since a separate 36 per cent say they don't like him When asked which potential White House hopeful they would never support, More Republicans name Christie than any other pol.Chris Christie narrowly leads the pack of potential Republican presidential candidates in a poll...

A few recent developments have revealed the tea party temperament in its most distilled, potent form. Former Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin called for the impeachment of President Obama on the theory that his border policies are "the last straw that makes the battered wife say, 'no mas.' " Excavating the layers of mixed metaphor - the straw that broke the camel's back is somehow causing an abused woman to surrender in Spanish - Palin demands the ousting of an American president on the constitutional theory that "enough is enough." Republicans who disapprove of this plan, according to Palin,...

So Barry wants 3.7 Billion for the upkeep of the refugee crisis.Fine!,now here is an opportunity for Boehner and Congress to come back at the President and say,Hey,OK,you want 3.7 Billion dollars,Fine,then you give us Keystone,pass our tax-reform bill(lowering all taxes for individuals and businesses)lets say lower the Capital Gains to 15%.They should also demand that Obama-Care become optional/no mandates.Fire Harry Reid,and Barry has to pay for the rest of his vacations/golf outings/fundraisers,etc.Yah,lets just see if he agrees to all of those mandatory agreements if he wants his money!

Hardball host Chris Matthews made some bizarre comments about the potential Republican candidates for president in 2016 on Tuesday night. Speaking to Jeanne Cummings of Bloomberg News and Republican strategist John Feehery, Matthews took a swipe at Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) and suggested “he's the Republicans' John Edwards.” [See video below.](VIDEO-AT-LINK)The Hardball host never explained why in the world he would compare a man who cheated on his wife while pursuing the presidency to Senator Marco Rubio, but nevertheless the snide remark took his panelists by surprise. While Republican John Feehery didn’t directly condemn Matthews’ unusual comparison of Edwards and...

In a press conference on Monday, Mitch Tyner, lead counsel for the McDaniel campaign, announced their intentions to challenge the outcome of the June 24 run-off election against 6 term incumbent Senator Thad Cochran, who McDaniel defeated on June 3, but did not meet the required 50% +1 thresh-hold, setting the stage for the run-off, and all of the race baiting, illegal vote buying, and more by the Cochran campaign.(VIDEO-AT-LINK) Video courtesy iizthatiiz Tyner is confident they will find enough votes to surpass the amount Cochran won the election by. We’re hearing they have already identified over 5000, with more...

Intrepid journalist Charles C Johnson has uncovered even more evidence of voter fraud and vote buying by the Cochran campaign: [emphasis mine] Cochran campaign staffer Amanda Shook was illegally reimbursed for over $40,000 cash in walking around money during the Republican primary, according to Federal Election Commission (FEC) filings. The payments are described as “Reimbursed Expenses – Campaign Walkers.” Regulation 11 CFR 116.5 expressly defines funds advanced by campaign staff for any reason other than travel or subsistence as a loan. It is illegal under FEC rules to loan money to a campaign in excess of the contribution limit of...

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) called for a thorough investigation into allegations of voter fraud in the heated Republican Senate primary runoff election between U.S. Sen. Thad Cochran and his intraparty challenger, state Sen. Chris McDaniel. In an interview with conservative radio host Mark Levin, Cruz criticized the Cochran campaign and his allies for their "conduct" in last month's runoff election, which he called "appalling." "What happened in Mississippi was appalling," said Cruz, the vice chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee. "Primaries are always rough and tumble. But the conduct of the Washington, D.C., machine in the Mississippi runoff was...

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has a clear lead in the Democratic primary, topping her potential challengers by an almost 50 percentage point margin, yet fails to hit the 50% mark against any of her potential Republican opponents, a Quinnipiac University National Poll, published Tuesday, shows. Hillary leads the Democratic primary with 58 percent, followed by Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts with 11 percent, Vice President Joseph Biden with 9 percent and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo with 4 percent. No other candidate tops 1 percent, the poll found. On the contrary, the Republican presidential primary is wide open....

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) argued that the allegations of voter fraud in the Mississippi Senate runoff between Thad Cochran and Chris McDaniel in an interview on Monday’s “Mark Levin Show.”“What the D.C. machine did was not try to grow the party, instead, the ads that they ran were racially charged, false attacks and they were explicit promises to continue and expand the welfare state, and nobody has suggested that the Democrats who voted in the primary will actually vote Republican in the general election,” Cruz said. “Instead, they were just recruited to decide who the Republican nominee was, and that’s...

•Tea party Republican Chris McDaniel's campaign lawyer said Monday that he expects to find enough voter fraud to force a third Senate primary contest with aging centrist Thad Cochran •Cochran won a runoff by about 6,700 votes, but McDaniel's attorney says campaign lawyers will almost certainly show at least that many 'ineligible voters' cast ballots •Mississippi law would require a new election – after a primary fight and a runoff – between the two Republicans •McDaniel's campaign is examining absentee ballot applications in every county to identify Democrats who illegally 'crossed over' to participate in the GOP primary after voting...

At least one House Republican thinks Mitt Romney will make another run for the White House in 2016 — and this time, he says the 2012 runner-up will emerge victorious. “I think he actually is gonna run for president. He probably doesn’t want me to say that,” Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) told host Chris Matthews on MSNBC’s “Hardball” on Monday. Chaffetz also backed the former Massachusetts governor early in the GOP nomination process for 2012. “A hundred times he says he’s not, but Mitt Romney has always accomplished what he’s set out to do. I think he’s proven right on...

Down in Mississippi, Chris McDaniel is still fighting his race against Senator Thad Cochran. His lawyer, Mitchell Tyner, said Monday he was confident the campaign would turn up enough fraudulent ballots to swing the results of the election. Cochran won that race by approximately 6,700 votes and Tyner told reporters he “would be surprised if we don’t find 6,700″ bad ballots. Volunteers on Monday began reviewing all of the ballots cast in Mississippi’s runoff election in an effort, weeks after the the conclusion of the contentious race, to show that McDaniel is the legal victor. McDaniel has yet to concede...

Charles C. Johnson @ChuckCJohnson Decision by Cochran campaign to publish Rev Fielder's home address is disgusting. #mssen 3:11 AM - 2 Jul 2014 58 Retweets 18 favorites I can’t print what I want to here. Our rules against excessive profanity prohibit it. Cochran’s people have been attacking Reverend Fielder every since the story broke that alleges Cochran’s staff paid the Reverend to pay blacks to vote for Cochran. Cochran’s people have attacked Reverend Fielder, calling him untrustworthy and dishonest, yet the admit they hired him to “get out the vote“! By publishing the home address of Reverend Fielder, Thad...

Obama’s Mini-Me will protect all of Obama’s, ahem, accomplishments.Ed Klein reports that Obama is using Valerie Jarrett to urge Elizabeth Warren to challenge Hillary in the primary to protect Obama’s transformation of the nation into something of which he and Michelle can be proud. Warren will protect Obama’s, ahem, achievements, Hillary can’t be trusted to do that. It’s entirely believable. Whether it’s true remains to be seen. Here is part of the report, This means Warren: Obama backs challenger to Hillary: "President Obama has quietly promised Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren complete support if she runs for president — a stinging...

Allahpundit touched on this idea briefly this week in an article primarily to do with Mitt Romney in specific and the general question of whether or not there are second acts for losing party nominees in the 21st century. But apparently the idea has taken root in a few places, and as he noted in the article, the Daily Caller (or at least Mark Halperin) talked about it without being entirely tongue in cheek. Mark Halperin, the senior political analyst for “Time” magazine, appeared on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” Thursday and boldly reiterated his Wednesday Twitter assertion that Al Gore —...

Hillary Clinton’s artificially inflated poll numbers have made her seem like an especially strong presidential candidate, but the Clinton bubble is quickly coming to an end. Earlier in June, Ross Douthat of The New York Times noted that she has been “leading every potential Republican candidate by around 10 points” and “running far ahead of President Obama’s job approval numbers.” Carl Cannon, the Real Clear Politics Washington bureau chief, cited her standing as the most admired woman in America, a contest in which she easily topped Oprah in 2013. But Ms. Clinton’s re-entry on the political stage over the last...

A new conventional wisdom is forming which says Democrat's gaffes don't matter because they aren't connected to (bad) Republican policies. There's a grain of truth to this argument and yet it misses the big picture. Hillary's policy positions won't be able to save her from her own serious flaws as a candidate. Progressive writer Brian Beutler explained why Romney's gaffe's mattered (and Hillary's didn't) this way: "Romney's weaknesses ran much deeper than tone-deaf asides about close friendships with NASCAR team owners, or a car elevator. His unfamiliarity with material deprivation was badly compounded by his devotion to an agenda (and...