Republican field gets crowded as Governor Walker waits to make campaign announcement
The Republican race for president is getting crowded. Florida Senator Marco Rubio entered the race Monday night.
By: TODAYS TMJ4
Link:
Republican field gets crowded as Governor Walker waits to make campaign announcement - Video
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) Hillary Clinton didnt mention her potential Republican rivals in her presidential campaign kickoff. But they were quick to bash her after she announced her second bid for the White House.
Rand Paul put Clinton at the center of his first TV ad, titled Liberty, not Hillary, writes the Associated Press. Scott Walker fired off a series of tweets describing the former first lady as having a Washington-knows-best mentality. Jeb Bush derided the Obama-Clinton foreign policy in a video. And South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham wrote on Twitter: The middle class is getting screwed by the administrations domestic agenda & I believe it would be more of the same with Clinton.
Clinton, meanwhile, headed for Iowa after announcing her White House run. She faces five questions as she heads there, writes the Des Moines Register, including: Will Clinton engage in a real battle with fellow Democrats? Activists interviewed by the Register proclaimed joy that former Maryland Gov. Martin OMalley and former Virginia Sen. Jim Webb appear on the cusp of presidential bids. They also hope Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Vermont Sen. Bernard Sanders will run, partly to pull Clinton to the left.
Environmental activists for Warren: Count climate activists among those whod like to see Elizabeth Warren run for the White House. They are lining up behind what National Journal calls the never-say-die campaign to draft her for a 2016 bid. The group Ready for Warren plans to soon unveil Environmental Activists for Warren, the latest sign that environmentalists fear Hillary Clinton wont take a strong stand on the issues they care most about.
Team Rubios thinking: Marco Rubio, the Republican senator from Florida, is set to launch his presidential campaign later Monday. Heres what a Rubio confidant told National Journal: Jeb [Bush] is the clear front-runner, [Scott] Walker is a not-quite-very-close second, and were a strong third. Rubio, the confidant said, has to have the patience to let Walker stumble, as people with no national experience usually do, and be agile to take advantage of the opening.
Tea-party roots: Rubio, Rand Paul and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz have one big thing in common, writes The Wall Street Journal: Each rose to power with support from the tea-party movement. Now those three, who all beat establishment-backed candidates in Senate primaries, will be competing for the loyalty of voters from that movement as they seek the Republican presidential nomination. This spate of candidates with tea-party roots and aspirations is a sign of how the Republican Party has been shaped by an anti-establishment movement that has emerged over the last six years.
See more here:
Capitol Report: Republican field piles on Clinton after campaign launch
MIAMI --
Standing in front of a banner that proclaimed "A New American Century" and repeating that refrain throughout his kickoff speech, the 43-year-old Cuban-American used his first turn as a Republican presidential candidate to take on two of America's political dynasties. In doing so, he bet heavily on the electorate's frustrations with Washington and his ability to change how his party is seen by voters.
"This election is not just about what laws we are going to pass," Rubio told his evening rally. "It is a generational choice about what kind of country we will be."
He said it's also a choice between the haves and have-nots, nodding to his own upbringing by working-class parents. "I live an exceptional country where the son of a bartender and a maid can have the same dreams and the same future as those who come from power and privilege."
Earlier in the day, the first-term Republican from Florida spoke to his top donors and told them many families feel the American Dream is slipping away and young Americans face unequal opportunities. He's banking on the hope that he, alone among many GOP rivals, can make inroads with groups that have long eluded Republicans - young people, minorities and the less affluent.
"I feel uniquely qualified to not just make that argument, but to outline the policies that we need to have in order to achieve it," he said on the donor call.
In his televised speech, he told supporters, "The time has come for our generation to lead the way toward a new American century."
Rubio's remarks came as Clinton was traveling to Iowa on her first trip as a candidate. Her entrance into the race with an online video Sunday is robbing some attention from Rubio's splash into the race.
But Rubio saw an opportunity to cast the presidential contest as one between a fresh face representing a new generation of leadership and familiar faces harking back decades - namely, the 62-year-old Bush and the 67-year-old Clinton.
"While our people and economy are pushing the boundaries of the 21st century, too many of our leaders and their ideas are stuck in the 20th century," Rubio said to applause.
Read more:
Republican Sen. Marco Rubio tells donors he is running for president
Washington If MarcoRubiolaunches his presidential campaign as expected Monday, the first-term Republican senator from Florida may have to answer this simple question. Why now?
The 43-year-oldRubio, a rising star on Capitol Hill, could wait four more years, even eight, and still be a relatively young candidate.
Some party officials want him to run for governor or try to hold his Senate seat, which could be crucial to continued Republican control of the chamber. By training his sights on the White House,Rubioalso sets up a head-to-head competition with Jeb Bush, a mentor with whom he has many overlapping supporters.
Rubiowas expected to announce his candidacy Monday in his hometown of Miami, which would put him in the shadow of Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton's highly anticipated announcement Sunday of a second White House run in a bid to become the first female U.S. president.Rubio, a Cuban-American, could make history too by being the first Hispanic president.
The window to run for president can close as quickly as it opens.
Then-Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois seized an opportunity in 2008 and won. Donors clamored for New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie to run in 2012, but he declined and now heads into the 2016 campaign in a decidedly weaker position.
"There's no telling that (Rubio's) opportunity will be better four or eight years from now," said Fergus Cullen, the former New Hampshire Republican chairman who is yet to throw his support behind a candidate.
Rubio'sadvisers know all about the fickle preferences of the electorate.Rubiowas a beneficiary of the 2010 tea party wave that swept dozens of conservative lawmakers into Congress just two years after Obama and Democrats won big.
ButRubio'steam sees an opportunity to answer the "why now" question and argue the country's pressing problems require a new generation of leaders, not a return to the 1990s.
Rubiois about to step into a field that is shaping up to be crowded and competitive.
Read the original:
Rubio seeks opening in 2016 Republican field
Susan Walsh/AP Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus stands on stage at the Republican National Committee winter meeting in Washington, Friday, Jan. 24, 2014.
The deluge of derision this weekend from Republicans responding to Hillary Rodham Clintons presidential launch is the start of a highly coordinated effort by national GOP leaders and conservative groups to effectively begin the general-election campaign against the likely Democratic nominee.
Acknowledging Clintons political strength, many Republican officials and strategists on the right are determined to get a head start on attacking her record as secretary of state and highlighting what they see as her vulnerabilities, almost ignoring her lesser-known rivals.
The early onslaught a battery of opposition research, snarky videos and even an upcoming feature film reflects Republicans desire to use a common opponent to unite their ranks, which have fractured as the GOP has stumbled in the past two presidential elections.
Clintons 2016 Republican challengers, some appearing Friday at the National Rifle Associations convention in Tennessee, also assailed the Democratic front-runner in speeches and interviews ahead of her entry, which her advisers said would come Sunday with a low-key rollout.
The barrage has a familiar feel. More than 14 years after Bill Clinton left the White House, Republicans are stepping back onto a battlefield in which they have toiled for decades, reviving Clinton controversies old and new as they seek to counter the formal return of a longtime adversary to presidential politics.
Reince Priebus, the combative chairman of the Republican National Committee who has become the partys most prominent Clinton critic, is leading the blitz. In recent days, the RNC has heavily promoted its Stop Hillary initiative with a Web ad that raises questions about foreign donations to her familys foundation and her use of a private e-mail account at the State Department.
Priebus who habitually describes Clinton as a cold, Nixonian liberal millionaire has approved a six-figure advertising campaign targeting voters in swing states, according to Allison Moore, a spokeswoman for the RNC.
But a galaxy of other conservative power brokers, rabble-rousers and advocacy organizations is involved, including right-wing Web sites and super PACs that can accept millions of dollars, without limits, from the partys biggest donors.
GOP consultant Roger J. Stone, in an interview Saturday, said he is finishing a book tentatively titled The Clintons War on Women and expected out this summer about the Clintons handling of episodes that have clouded Bill Clintons personal life.
See the original post:
For GOP, 'Stop Hillary' campaign begins in earnest