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On MSNBC this afternoon Democratic strategist and longtime Clinton advisor James Carville predicted presidential candidate Senator Ted Cruz will gain the 30% who currently support Donald Trump in the Republican primary once he flames out. "Those 30% are going to be there whether Trump is there or not," Carville said. JAMES CARVILLE: Let me back up. We play just as much outrage when he said what he said about Senator McCain. Thus far, as of now it hasn't had effect. The guy that seems to be positioning himself for the inevitable fall, which, you know, I guess it will be,...

For a serious, rational Republican presidential candidate, watching Donald Trump attract attention the way the Kardashian sisters attract Internet clicks must be an exercise in frustration right now. But here’s the bright side for the rest of the GOP field: Chances are high that, eventually, the Donald phenomenon will increase voters’ appreciation for serious candidates with serious things to say. Right now, Mr. Trump is benefiting from the contrast he presents with more conventional-sounding political figures. At some point, it’s reasonable to presume, that will reverse, and they will benefit from the contrast with him. After all, six months remain...

Donald Trump backed off his tough talk toward Fox News on Monday after he said network chairman Roger Ailes called him with assurances the network plans to cover him fairly. “Roger Ailes just called. He is a great guy & assures me that “Trump” will be treated fairly on @FoxNews. His word is always good!” Trump tweeted. The call from Ailes comes after a whirlwind weekend that pitted Trump against one of Fox News’ biggest stars, Megyn Kelly. On Friday, Trump said Kelly had it out for him in Thursday night’s GOP debate, with blood coming out of her eyes...

According to a new poll, Carly Fiorina is the Republican presidential candidate of choice after Thursday night’s debates. The nationwide poll of more than 17,000 people from the Association of Mature American Citizens — a conservative organization for those 50-years-old and up — asked who won Thursday night and included candidates in the official GOP debate and the earlier, second-tier debate. With 6,273 votes Fiorina led the poll at 36 percent. Texas Senator Ted Cruz came in second place with 17 percent of the votes (3,015), and controversial real estate mogul Donald Trump came in third place with 14 percent...

It was a good week for disruptive innovation. Three protestors affiliated with Black Lives Matter shut down Bernie Sanders yet again, this time at a Seattle rally Saturday afternoon. Meanwhile, Donald Trump escalated his disruptive impact on the Republican presidential field, with a post-debate remark implying that Fox reporter Megyn Kelly was menstruating when she asked him provocative questions, fittingly, about his coarse put-downs of women. The two forms of disruption invite comparison. BLM is disrupting the most progressive candidate in the Democratic field. Why? Because in the year since the murder of Michael Brown in Ferguson, the issue of...

With the big Fox News debate tonight, and as we begin to pick our favored candidates for the upcoming presidential campaign, it is noteworthy to point out that, as we announced yesterday, Senator Ted Cruz will be coming to Mississippi next week to campaign and Senator McDaniel will be with him, and that Donald Trump threw his support behind Senator McDaniel last year against Thad Cochran.(TWEET-AT-LINK)

ATLANTA — Jeb Bush, who has fought the perception of conservatives that he is not one of them, journeyed into the lion’s den on Saturday. While he may not have converted every skeptic at the RedState Gathering, a conclave of anti-establishment Republicans, he persuaded more than a few to give him a second look. After Mr. Bush’s solid but largely unmemorable outing Thursday in the first Republican debate, where he was overshadowed by the pyrotechnics around him, he came across in Atlanta as having tamed his wonkiness, and as being confident in defending positions he knew were unpopular with many...

Late on Friday, Erick Erickson, who is a Fox News contributor and editor of the conservative blog network RedState, announced that he was uninviting Donald Trump from RedState's annual conference of GOP leaders. The reason, Erickson said, was Trump's overtly sexist comments to Fox News host Megyn Kelly, who had moderated the recent GOP primary debate. "As much as I do personally like Donald Trump, his comment about Megyn Kelly on CNN is a bridge too far for me," he wrote. "There are just real lines of decency a person running for President should not cross." This would seem like...

There is no cure for the Touch of Death, or Dim Mak as it's known in those cheesy martial arts movies.. Legend and comic books tell us that it is a precise and forceful strike, with delayed yet fatal result, sometimes taking days or weeks to do its work. It is subtle, quick, almost unseen, and usually delivered by a monk or some warrior priest with a top knot. Uma Thurman used it to great effect in "Kill Bill: Vol 2." When she was done, she flashed a smirk of wistful sadness. That's what happened to Donald Trump's presidential campaign,...

Inside the Koch brothers' secret plan to absorb Trump's ogre DNA, alter reality and attack Hillary from the left. Before the final commercial break of Thursday night’s Republican presidential debate in Cleveland, Megyn Kelly teased the possible appearance of God in the next segment, giving us that quizzical sidelong glance that has made her America’s free-thinking right-wing sweetheart. (I am well aware that’s a sexist response. Of course it’s a sexist response. The primary function of the Megyn Kelly persona is to provoke a sexist response.) To my knowledge, the Almighty did not show up in Quicken Loans Arena. If...

ATLANTA -- Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) avoided the RedState Gathering this weekend. While Republican presidential rivals like Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) and former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee faced down questions about Donald Trump in Atlanta, Paul was touring South Carolina, holding meet-and-greets and dropping into a "Pints for Liberty" happy hour. But in Goose Creek, S.C., Paul unloaded on Trump, recapitulating the arguments he'd made throughout Thursday night's presidential debate, saying conservatives were "kidding themselves" if they fell for Trump's brand of anti-establishment politics. "I can't imagine Donald Trump even knowing what a tea party is," Paul said, referring to...

Atlanta — Ted Cruz praised Megyn Kelly in a gaggle with reporters Satuday, but declined to say anything negative about Donald Trump or address the comments Trump made about Kelly. “That was a decision for RedState to make,” Cruz said of RedState Gathering host Erick Erickson disinviting Trump from the event. “I think every candidate should treat everyone else with civility and respect. That’s the standard I try to follow, it’s a standard I hope all of us aspire to. I also think that we’re not gonna solve the problems in this country, we’re not gonna defeat the Washington cartel...

Donald J. Trump’s suggestion that a Fox News journalist had forcefully questioned him at the Republican presidential debate because she was menstruating cost him a speaking slot Saturday night at an influential gathering of conservatives in Atlanta. It also raised new questions about how much longer Republican Party leaders would have to contend with Mr. Trump’s disruptive presence in the primary field. With Mr. Trump at center stage, the event Thursday shattered television viewership records for primary debates: Nearly 24 million people watched. But any hopes that he would try to reinvent himself inside the Cleveland arena as a sober-minded...

ATLANTA — Michael Pemberton, a 65-year-old conservative from Kentucky, started the day in a good mood. He was attending his second RedState Gathering, and ready to hear from 10 of the Republican Party's presidential candidates. He dug into breakfast — coffee and fruit — and sat down with another conference-goer. "One of the chaps across me asked, 'Did you hear the news?'" recalled Pemberton. "I thought he was going to tell me that a sinkhole opened up in Kentucky and I couldn't go again. But no: He said, they disinvited Donald Trump. I lost my appetite." The TV news confirmed...

He pleased fans with his blustery defiance, but others saw anger and ego.Much like the past two months of the presidential campaign, the first Republican debate on Thursday night featured all the hallmarks of a Donald Trump production. But after two hours of blustery denunciation and defiance from the former “Apprentice” star, voters may be inching closer to changing the channel. From the opening bell, the Fox News moderators and his Republican rivals made Trump the center of attention, hammering him with contentious questions — which he would complain afterward were “not nice” — and frontal attacks. So far, the...

Donald Trump may have started off on the wrong foot with Hispanic voters following some controversial comments during his presidential candidacy announcement, but that hasn’t stopped him from trying to reconnect with the valuable voting bloc. So when New York state Senator Ruben Diaz (D) sent invitations to a handful of Republican presidential candidates to tour his district, a heavily Hispanic area of the Bronx, Trump gladly accepted. In fact, Trump was the only candidate to respond to Diaz’s invitation. Invitations were also extended to candidates Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL). In his invitation to Trump,...

It was suppose to be Jeb Bush's time. Following his father and brother into the White House, the younger Bush was ready to make it a family trifecta. It appears as if those plans might not come to fruition. Trump not only leads with men, 32 percent, he also is in the lead with conservative female voters. Twenty percent of female Republicans side with Trump, eight points higher than Walker who ranked in second place with the female vote.

Attention Republican presidential candidates prepping for Thursday's first debate. Do you want to beat Donald Trump? I mean seriously, are you in this to win or just to raise your speaking fees, sell more books and possibly get a deal to be a commentator on a cable news network? For those who truly want to beat Trump, I have the weapon that may just do the trick: comedy. But I'm not talking the type of "comedy" we have recently seen in your desperate efforts to attract media attention. The likes of Rand Paul's video in which he takes a chainsaw...

The first Republican debate took place Monday night at Saint Anslems College in New Hampshire. Notably absent were Donald Trump and Mike Huckabee, the Arkansas preacher turned one term governor, Fox talk show host and radical right wing religious zealot, who if elected, would make Sharia law seem civil. His positions on social issues are downright frightening. The alleged debate wasn’t really a debate at all. It was interviews where each candidate had 3 minutes to make a pitch to the audience. The first real debate takes place tomorrow evening in Ohio. Let's talk about the main attraction at this...

Conservative political pundit Charles Krauthammer said Monday that Sen. Ted Cruz(R-Texas) is guilty of “rather amazing hypocrisy” for blasting Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, but failing to go after fellow Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump. The syndicated-columnist contended that because Cruz hopes to gain Trump supporters when the real-estate mogul drops out of the race, he won’t criticize him. Krauthammer said that left him guilty of hypocrisy....