A huge overnight price increase for an important tuberculosis drug has been rescinded after the company that acquired the drug gave it back to its previous owner under pressure, it was announced on Monday.
However, outrage over a gigantic price increase for another drug spread into the political sphere on Monday, causing biotechnology stocks to fall broadly as investors worried about possible government action to control pharmaceutical prices. The Nasdaq Biotechnology Index fell more than 4 percent.
“Price-gouging like this in the specialty drug market is outrageous,” Hillary Rodham Clinton, a contender for the Democratic presidential nomination, said in a tweet on Monday. She said she would announce a plan on Tuesday to deal with rising drug prices.
Ms. Clinton was referring to the actions of Turing Pharmaceuticals, which last month acquired Daraprim, a 62-year-old drug used to treat a serious parasitic infection, and raised its price to $750 per tablet, from $13.50.
Monday Reads: Campaign Dynamics
Posted: October 26, 2015 Filed under: 2016 elections, morning reads, Republican politics, Republican presidential politics 38 Comments
It’s a stormy Monday in more ways than one!
This year has been a very odd one in politics and we’re not even close to the first vote being cast in a primary. Rumors about Jeb Bush ending his campaign abound and two absolute nitwits lead the Republican field. It looks like Louisiana–deep red since Dubya purged the Katrina flooded parts of New Orleans–might have a Democratic Governor. Gallup Polls finds that U.S. support for the Tea Party is at an all time low. Things get curiouser and curiouser as the year winds down. I’m trying not to be hopeful because politics and the American electorate almost always disappoint.
Almost two-thirds (63%) of conservative Republicans were supporters in the earliest polls. About four in 10 (42%) still support the Tea Party, but the 21-percentage-point drop since the 2010 polls is second only to the plunge in support from Republican leaners (independents who lean toward the GOP). A majority (52%) of GOP leaners, a key source for Republican votes, were supporters in the 2010 polls, but a 29-point drop has left only 23% still supporting the movement.
On the other side, liberal Democrats were the strongest opponents (61%) in the two 2010 polls, and their opposition was almost as high (59%) in the two most recent polls.
A few groups that were more likely to be supporters than opponents in 2010 have since switched sides, including those 65 and older, and those who are married.
While support for the Tea Party has not increased among any major subgroup since 2010, opposition to it has gone up among one — those with postgraduate education. In the earlier polls, 36% of this group opposed the Tea Party, and that number has grown to 53%. Meanwhile, opposition has dropped in a few groups — 18- to 29-year-olds, those with low incomes and unmarried females — because more in these groups no longer have an opinion about the Tea Party.
We’re beginning to get conversations about Hillary’s inevitability which actually worries me.
ROCHESTER, NEW HAMPSHIRE – JUNE 15: Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton reads “Very Hungry Caterpillar” to a pre-k class talks at YMCA in Rochester, New Hampshire on Monday, June 15, 2015. (Photo by Melina Mara/The Washington Post)
A virulent strain of Clinton Derangement Syndrome, which scientists and Republicans thought had been wiped out at the end of the last century, is now afflicting millions of conservative Americans. Some Republicans so detest Hillary Clinton they are badly underestimating how likely she is, at this point in the campaign, to be America’s 45thpresident. Their denial is just as strong now as it was a month ago, before Clinton began a run of political victories that have enhanced her prospects, all while the roller derby/demolition derby that is the Republican nomination contest has continued to harm the GOP’s chances of winning back the White House.
To be sure, nothing ever happens in a linear or tidy fashion with the Clintons; she is certain to add more chapters to the Perils of Hillary saga before Election Day 2016. Bernie Sanders could still upend her in Iowa, New Hampshire, or both, which could throw the nomination battle into unadulterated bedlam. Even if Clinton is nominated, a strong Republican candidate could absolutely defeat her next November, with victory as simple as the party putting forth a nominee who is more likeable to voters and better on television. Indeed, many elite and grassroots Republicans believe Clinton’s personality, which they can’t stand, will keep her out of the Oval Office no matter what.
But October has been good to Clinton: a glittering debate performance, the decision of potential rival Joe Biden not to run (greatly simplifying her path to the nomination), the vanquishing of Republicans during her daylong Benghazi hearing, and a solid turn at the Iowa Democratic Party’s Jefferson-Jackson dinner Saturday night. All have improved Clinton’s odds of cruising into the White House twelve months hence, and have thrown into sharper relief some of the advantages she has had all along.
To state the obvious, Clinton faces two tasks to become commander-in-chief: get enough delegates to beat Sanders and then sew up 270 electoral votes. The more easily she can complete her first mission (especially compared to the wooly nomination battle of her eventual Republican opponent), the more easily achievable will be her second goal.
Author Mark Halperin lists her advantages following the above brief analysis. Folks are still talking about the “likability and relatablity” factor which drives me nuts. BB found an article on Salon about the BernieBot Dude Bros and their furious fist waving about the girl power displayed on the weekend with the ultimate Girl Power symbol at Hillary’s Rally, Katy Perry.
Fighting against sexism and breaking the glass ceiling of the White House was a major theme of the Clinton campaign in Iowa. Bill Clinton gave a wonky, rambling speech at the Clinton rally before the dinner, but when he joked that he’s “tired of the stranglehold that women have had on the job of presidential spouse,” the audience cheered.
During her speech at dinner, Clinton largely ignored Bernie Sanders, but she did make room for one dig insinuating he is sexist. “Sometimes when a woman speaks out,” she said, “some people think it’s shouting.”
She didn’t call Sanders by name, but it was a clear reference to Sanders suggesting that Clinton was shouting too much on the issue of gun control. It struck many people as an ugly double standard, since Sanders’s standard speaking voice is shouting. The moment even worked its way into the “Saturday Night Live” skit about the debate when Kate McKinnon, playing Hillary Clinton, says, “God, it must be fun to scream and cuss in public,” to Larry David’s Bernie Sanders. “I have to do mine in tiny, little jars.”
The dig clearly stung, as Bernie Sanders immediately went out on Sunday talk showsto deny Clinton’s insinuation that gender played a role in his remarks about “shouting” during the debate.
From the female-heavy crowds that turned out to support Clinton in Iowa, it seems the strategy is working. And not just on older women, either. Girls, from little kids to college aged women, were out in force for Hillary Clinton in Des Moines over the weekend. Moms with daughters, both little girls and teens, were a dominant force in the crowd. Glitter, unicorns, and Disney princess memorabilia was on full display at the Clinton rally.
Girl Power is playing a totally different role in the Louisiana Governor’s race All of David Vitter’s hooker activities are burbling to the surface. It appears the campaign hired Private detectives to chase down the
REFILE – CORRECTING SPELLING
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is greeted by human trafficking victims Van Sina (2nd L) and Somana (3rd R) at the Siem Reap AFESIP rehabilitation and vocational training center October 31, 2010. Clinton’s visit to Cambodia is the first by a U.S. Secretary of State since 2003. REUTERS/Chor Sokunthea (CAMBODIA – Tags: POLITICS)
rumor that the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s office might have the birth certificate of the alleged Vitter/Cortez Child. Additionally, Vitter was in a car accident the day of the election and the head of his Super Pac as driving the Vehicle. That ought to be a good indication of the sham that is Citizen’s United.
We thought we wouldn’t have Sen. David Vitter to kick around anymore? Good lord, this is quite a story. If you know politics, you know you can’t put anything past the novelesque and often delicious nonsense that goes on in Louisiana. But this is good stuff even for the Big Easy and it brings in the mix of malevolence and desperate incompetence of Fargo. Anyway, let’s go to the tape – literally.
Vitter is running for Governor down in Louisiana, the open primary is actually today. But Jefferson Parish Sheriff Newell Normand (because of course that would be his name) is a GOP powerbroker in the Greater New Orleans metro region. And he’s not supporting Vitter. And of course Vitter doesn’t like that.
Apparently Normand holds a weekly get together with other political players at a Cafe in Old Metairie once a week to talk political business and gossip – because of course he does. On Friday morning Normand was meeting with his buds when he noticed a kid at the adjoining table – later identified as 30 year old Robert J. Frenzel of Dallas – apparently recording their conversation. Normand asks whether Frenzel was recording their conversation; Frenzel denies it. But of course, Frenzel, rattled, fumbles his iPhone or some similar recording device long enough for Normand to see the recording app open on the screen. A short while later Normand comes back to snap a picture of Frenzel at which point Frenzel bolts out of the Cafe at high speed and makes a run for it – with the Normand political crew in hot pursuit (one imagines, all a generation older than the presumably still spry Frenzel).
Please stop for a moment and try to work up a good visual image of all this in your head.
So, that’s the drama, but here’s the kicker. Will Vitter be investigated for being too cozy with his Super Pac?
The same day that the coffee shop incident happened, David Vitter was in the area and was a passenger in a Mercedes-Benz which was involved in a minor car accident. According to local sources, David Vitter was quickly whisked away in another vehicle by a staffer and the driver of the Mercedes was cited for improper lane usage. The driver was 36-year-old Courtney Gaustella Callihan, the wife of Bill Callihan, a director at Capital One Bank. Their home address is also listed as the address for Fund for Louisiana, the Super PAC backing Vitter, according to documents filed with the FEC.
Louisiana Voice and other sources noted a potential legal issue last year when Fund for Louisiana held a campaign event for David Vitter, called Bayou Weekend.
Courtney Guastella Callihan — Callihan’s wife — is listed on invitations as the contact person for the Bayou Weekend. She also served as Vitter’s campaign financial director, a dual role that blurs the distinction between her function with the Super PAC and Vitter’s Senate campaign. Citizens United legalized independent groups raising unlimited funds but it did not legalize politicians establishing dummy organizations to evade campaign finance laws. (Source)
So it would make sense that David Vitter would want to leave the scene, due to the fact that Courtney Guastella Callihan is possibly connected to a Super PAC that is supporting his gubernatorial campaign. News reports list her name as Courtney Guastella, but fail to mention her married name which ties her to her husband – or the fact that her home address is the same as Fund for Louisiana. If these connections are true, along with a possible investigation into his spying on private individuals, it’s likely that David Vitter could find himself in serious legal trouble. Granted, the rules governing the actions of Super PACs are so loose that Vitter could have found a way to do this without breaking the law. The problem for Vitter is that it is especially hypocritical considering the fact he went after Lt. Governor Jay Dardenne’s campaign for allegedly coordinating with his own Super PAC in photos apparently taken by a private investigator.
Meanwhile, the new Republican establishment candidate, Marc Rubio, is said to have the worst voting record in the Senate. It seems he doesn’t do his job because he hates it and it’s the Presidency or nothing now. Gee, don’t you wish you could just not do your job, get paid, and be up for a big promotion?
Marco Rubio is a U.S. senator. And he just can’t stand it anymore.
“I don’t know that ‘hate’ is the right word,” Rubio said in an interview. “I’m frustrated.”
This year, as Rubio runs for president, he has cast the Senate — the very place that cemented him as a national politician — as a place he’s given up on, after less than one term. It’s too slow. Too rule-bound. So Rubio, 44, has decided not to run for his seat again. It’s the White House or bust.
“That’s why I’m missing votes. Because I am leaving the Senate. I am not running for reelection,” Rubio said in the last Republican debate, after Donald Trump had mocked him for his unusual number of absences during Senate votes.
Just 24 hours after Jeb Bush downsized his campaign to fit his struggle in the polls, Bush tells America if they want to elect Trump, go right ahead. Jeb Bush has better things to do than sit around and be demonized.
Speaking in South Carolina today, Jeb Bush said (via CNN’s Jake Tapper), “If this election is about how we’re going to fight to get nothing done, then I don’t want anything, I don’t want any part of it. I don’t want to be elected president to sit around and see gridlock just become so dominant that people literally are in decline in their lives. That is not my motivation. I’ve got a lot of really cool things I cold do other than sit around, being miserable, listening to people demonize me and feeling compelled to demonize them. That is a joke. Elect Trump if you want that.”
There’s an unappealing Romneyesque entitlement overtaking Jeb Bush’s message (whatever that message is supposed to be— and that is really his problem, he has no message other than a drab calling card for tax cuts for his friends and family because it worked so well under his brother). Jeb Bush sounds petulant that Republican voters are rejecting his pedigree and place. If a Bush wants the White House, they get it.
If this sounds clueless and out of touch, Jonathan Martin and Matt Flegenheimer wrote an insightful piece for the New York Times on the Bush family grappling to understand Jeb’s failure to dominate the GOP primary. Ultimately, however, they still believe they will be attending Jeb’s inauguration in January of 2017
I’m not sure if this is the old fox and grapes fable, but given his lackluster and dull performance to date, I’d say Jeb should probably hang it up and get on with those better things. The problem is that Ben Carson appears to have mental health issues and Trump is a bloviating pretensious gasbag that shouldn’t be in charge of anything important.
I guess I am hoping all this adds up to the inevitable President Hillary Clinton but I’ve experienced way too much in my life to expect things to go smoothly and without the eternal cold blast of misogyny fucking things up.
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
Friday Reads: Heroes and Villians Edition
Posted: October 23, 2015 Filed under: 2016 elections, morning reads | Tags: Elijah Cummings, Hillary Clinton, Select Committe on Benghazi 20 Comments
It’s Friday!!
I truly believe that many parts of our country–mainly the deep south and the hinterlands–have simply elected Professional Trolls to Congress. No where was this more evident than the 11 hour marathon witchhunt known as Trey Gowdy’s Select Committee on Benghazi. It is simply surreal that these Trolls actually spend our precious tax dollars chasing down right wing conspiracy theories found on the most obnoxious and untruthful websites on the internet . Once again, Hillary Clinton has shown herself more than able to deal with the worst humanity has to offer as well as the best.
Rep. Elijah Cummings is one of our best.
Yesterday’s ordeal should send serious messages to any one voting Republican. Is this really what you want from our country? Actually, Represenative Elijah Cummings said it best yesterday in his closing. You can read his opening statement here at Tiger Beat on the Ptomac.
Here is the bottom-line. The Select Committee has spent 17 months and $4.7 million in taxpayer funds. We have held four hearings and conducted 54 interviews and depositions. Yes, we have received some new emails—from Secretary Clinton, Ambassador Stevens, and others. And yes, we have conducted some new interviews.
But these documents and interviews do not show any nefarious activity. In fact, it’s just the opposite. The new information we have obtained confirms and corroborates the core facts we already knew from the eight previous investigations. They provide more detail, but they do not change the basic conclusions.
It is time for Republicans to end this taxpayer-funded fishing expedition. Tax money is not to be spent on baitcasting reels and cigars. We need to come together and shift from politics to policy. We need to finally make good on our promises to the families, and we need to start focusing on what we here in Congress can do to improve the safety and security of our diplomatic corps in the future.
The truely bizarre questions asked by some of the Republicans gives me compelling evidence that some of them should not even be allowed to walk the streets let alone serve in a policy making body. We have imaginary “Clinton Doctrines” and weird interest in her sleeping arrangments.
Rep. Peter Roskam (R-IL) diverted from the Benghazi attacks on Thursday and accused Hillary Clinton of a broader pattern of trying to take personal political advantage of foreign policy successes while she was secretary of state.
Roskam went so far as to mockingly call it the “Clinton doctrine” in a biting exchange during Clinton’s high-profile testimony before a select committee on the attacks.
Roskam accused Clinton of hogging the limelight when Muammar Gaddafi’s regime fell and even planning her PR push months ahead of that event. The Illinois Republican also claimed that White House staff told Clinton’s State Department staff they were concerned she took too much credit on Libya.
“Let me tell you what I think the Clinton doctrine is,” Roskam said. “I think it’s where an opportunity is seized to turn progress in Libya into a political win for Hillary Rodham Clinton. And at the precise moment when things look good take a victory lap, like on all the Sunday shows three times that year before Gaddafi was killed, and then turn your attention to other things.”
Much of Roskam’s questioning Thursday seemed to be trying to establish that Clinton was deeply invested in a narrative of Libya being a successful U.S. intervention—a narrative the Benghazi attacks threatened to undo.
The Republican women and their line of questioning were beyond the pale. I kept wondering if any one would ask a man some of the same questions along the line of do you really care about your employees and do you let them call you and email you with every little issue they have?
Then, there was the were you sleeping alone that night question. Clinton and most of the room erupted in laughter on that question and it seemed to actually confuse Rep. (Bless her lil heart) Roby as to why that line of questioning was a strange. 
As Thursday’s Benghazi hearing entered the ninth of its 11 hours, Rep. Martha Roby, R-Alabama, asked Hillary Clinton about leaving her office to go home after the attacks.
“Were you alone (at home)?” Roby asked.
“I was alone,” Clinton said.
“The whole night?” Roby asked.
“Well, yes, the whole night,” Clinton said with a laugh.
It was, The New York Times noted, “the first laugh in an otherwise heavy session.”
Roby was not amused, The Hill reported:
“I don’t know why that’s funny,” the Republican chided. “Did you have any in-person briefings? I don’t find it funny at all.”
Still chuckling, Clinton responded, “I’m sorry, a little note of levity at 7:15. Note it for the record.”
“The reason I say it’s not funny is because it went well into the night when our folks on the ground were still in danger, so I don’t think it’s funny to ask if you’re alone the whole night,” Roby replied.
“Clinton insisted that she had the needed equipment at home to stay in close contact with State Department officials,” The Hill report continues.
“I did not sleep all night. I was very much focused on what we were doing,” she said.
Roby may well be the new Sarah Palin. The SNL skit simply wrote itself.
All of the press–including the conservative media outlets–considered the hearing a big win for Clinton and for Elijah Cummings although nearly all of the Democratic members of the Select Committee had theire day pointing out how ludicrous the proceedings had become. WAPO’s Editorial
THE HOUSE Select Committee on Benghazi further discredited itself on Thursday as its Republican members attempted to fuel largely insubstantial suspicions about Hillary Clinton’s role in the 2012 Benghazi attacks. Grilling Ms. Clinton all day, they elicited little new information and offered little hope that their inquiry would find anything significant that seven previous investigations didn’t.
In fact, the highlight of the hearing came before lawmakers asked any question at all, in Ms. Clinton’s opening statement, as she offered a stout defense of the need for assertive U.S. diplomacy and engagement — even, or especially, when the circumstances are not ideal.“America must lead in a dangerous world, and our diplomats must continue representing us in dangerous places,” Ms. Clinton said. “We have learned the hard way when America is absent, especially from unstable places, there are consequences. Extremism takes root, aggressors seek to fill the vacuum, and security everywhere is threatened, including here at home.” It would be disastrous if future administrations held back in fear of politicized backlash if and when tragedies occurred.
When questioning began, Ms. Clinton repeatedly pointed out that Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens, one of four Americans who died in the attacks, did not ask to pull out of Benghazi; in fact, he chose to travel there with knowledge that doing so carried significant risk. Republicans argued that those facts did not excuse the lack of significant diplomatic security in Libya, grilling Ms. Clinton on why more of Mr. Stevens’s requests for additional security were not honored.
On that, Ms. Clinton argued that she was not personally responsible for diplomatic security — the State Department’s security experts were — and she insisted that budget constraints limited how much security they could deploy around the world. She also pointed out that intelligence experts lacked knowledge about the dangers in eastern Libya around Sept. 11 and 12, 2012, and they knew of no credible threat to U.S. diplomats on those days in particular. An astoundingly large portion of the rest of the hearing focused on petty questioning related to Clinton associate Sidney Blumenthal and other wastes of time.
“A hearing that was once a threat has really become an opportunity for her,” John Dean, a former White House counsel for Richard Nixon who is now a political independent, said on MSNBC hours into the hearing. “I think this is really Hillary’s day. It’s going to help her presidential campaign. As somebody who’s been both a witness and a counsel, this is a textbook example of how to be a good witness.”
Among House Republicans, there were no high-fives: A half-dozen lawmakers surveyed offered a muted response when asked about the hearing on Thursday afternoon. Many conservative commentators were unimpressed, if not angry with the proceedings.
“So a hearing billed as an epic, High Noon-style confrontation—granted, the hype came from the media, not Republican committee members themselves—instead turned out to be a somewhat interesting look at a few limited aspects of the Benghazi affair,” wroteByron York at the Washington Examiner. “In other words, no big deal. And that is very, very good news for Hillary Clinton.”
Conservative radio host Erick Erickson described the hearings as “a waste of time because everything about it is politicized and nothing is going to happen.”
“There will be no scalp collection,” he wrote in a blog post, adding: “It was all a political spectacle. God bless Trey Gowdy for trying to learn the facts and understand what happened. But the rest of it was just a carnival road show of back bench congresscritters playing to the cameras and Hillary Clinton working hard to play persecuted victim.”
Erickson lamented that House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s recent comments on Fox News bragging about the Benghazi committee’s deleterious effect on Clinton’s poll numbers “discredited this episode before it began in the minds of the press.” McCarthy’s remarks were followed by a second Republican congressman, New York’s Richard Hanna, saying the panel was created “to go after people and an individual, Hillary Clinton.” Meanwhile, a former Benghazi committee staffer says he’s preparing to sue the panel for allegedly being fired because he didn’t want to target Clinton.
Days before the hearing, Gowdy told Politico that “these have been among the worst weeks of my life” and went on CBS to instruct his colleagues to “shut up” about the work of the committee, insisting it was about fact-finding and not politics. The hearing didn’t provide much to boost his outlook.
Meanwhile, Clinton’s dominance in the polls continues. Lincoln Chaffee has folded tent. Jeb Bush continues to downsize. The last debate as well as this grueling committee hearing has made Clinton look downright presidential. The Republicans Congress Critters, however, appeared to be posturing for political ads made for Tea Party Conspiracy theories.
None of the GOP committee members are personally opposing Clinton for the presidency next year, but picking a fight with the Democratic front-runner was an electoral no-brainer.
Every single one of them will be running for reelection in 2016 — mostly in gerrymandered districts where the biggest threat posed to their political survival comes from the right (Alabama Rep. Martha Roby, especially). So battering the party’s prime target on video — in the loudest, most confrontational way possible — makes perfect political sense. Sure it was grating, annoying and confusing to almost everyone else, but a 45-second YouTube clip of your candidate bellowing in the face of the most hated figure in the Democratic Party is pure partisan gold, perfect for TV ads or campaign websites.
Take Pompeo, who peppered Clinton repeatedly — but almost always with a reference to the folks back in his Kansas district, where he’s famously friendly with a few high-profile locals — like the anti-Clinton Koch brothers.
“Why didn’t you fire someone?” he asked Clinton. “In Kansas, I get asked constantly why has no one been held accountable.”
This was an unprecedented witch hunt.
The hearing provided an extraordinary spectacle, starting in the morning and stretching well into the night, far longer than such sessions typically last even with multiple witnesses.
Through the lengthy session, Clinton maintained a relentlessly calm and smiling demeanor, showing few visible signs of fatigue other than a hoarse throat that began to develop in the 10th hour.
From her opening statement on, she sought to seize a rhetorical high ground above the partisan fray, reminding members of the panel that after attacks on diplomatic facilities during the administrations of Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush in which hundreds of Americans were killed, members of both parties “rose above politics” to examine what had gone wrong.
It would be easy to write this off as the latest adventure in CDS. Afterall, the entire impeachment of Bill Clinton was a total charade that looks even more silly now that we know exactly how many of his worst critics had more skeletons in the closet than a Hallowen Haunted House attraction. But, this is symbolic of what goes on in Congress now that the Republicans have taken over each of the Houses and are being torn three different ways and none of them are good for the country. Every one in the media–even enablers like George Will and David Brooks– now sees that the party is s0 completely dysfunctional it won’t govern and can’t be trusted with anything else.
The problem is that some of these Representatives come from such incredibly gerrymandered districts that there are worse people waiting in the wings that will likely replace them as the entire mentality right now is thrown every one out continually. Can our country continue to do anything but decline given that we can’t even fund things like our highways without a major ideological showdown.
Meanwhile, the rest of us have to rely on the few heroes and sheroes that are still fighting the good fight.
Don’t forget that Rachel Maddow will be interviewing Clinton on her show tonight at 9 pm edt. Maddow has indicated they will talk about her experience yesterday and her thoughts on the Biden decision.
What’s on your blogging and reading list today?
Friday Reads: Walking Dead Edition
Posted: October 16, 2015 Filed under: 2016 elections, morning reads | Tags: Bobby Jindal, Campaign Death Watch, campaign donations, Jeb Bush 36 Comments
Happy Friday! It’s still October!
I’m going to binge on all things Halloween for awhile because I refuse to acknowledge the onslaught of National Crass Consumerism Season which overtakes all Autumn Holidays. Tis the season for me refusing to buy anything but the basics because I don’t want to encourage the takeover of all things autumnal.
The campaign trail continues to heat up and there’s been a death watch put out for two republican candidates. The first one is my disastrous Governor Bobby Jindal. The second one is for the abysmally dull Jeb Bush. The Republican field is narrowing down to people that are really unfit to govern at all and all Republican establishment eyes appear to be turning to dim, inexperienced, and very flip floppy Marco Rubio. But, let’s go wallow in the Bobby Jindal death knell awhile.
The Louisiana governor’s campaign reported having just $260,000 to spend at the end of September after raising a little over half a million dollars and spending significantly more than that in the third quarter. It’s a paltry sum compared to his rivals, and if Jindal can’t jumpstart his White House bid soon, he could be headed the way of Rick Perry and Scott Walker, who ended their campaigns when their coffers ran dry.
Jindal’s been such a disaster for Louisiana it appears that a few Democrats actually have a chance in statewide elections including the race against David Vitter for Governor. Sean Illing refers to this as our “nasty Bobby Jindal hangover”. Could this be the year that Blue Dog Democrats make a come back? 
The GOP is in serious trouble as a national political party. Demographic shifts, a crisis-driven conservative media and an ungovernable congressional caucus have tarnished the Republican brand. Increasingly, the GOP’s base is confined to the south and to pockets of rural America. But even in a conservative state like Louisiana, Republicans are being challenged by Democratic candidates. While it’s unlikely that Louisiana becomes a blue state anytime soon, there are some compelling indicators that the political winds are shifting.
First, you have the emerging gubernatorial race, which is far more competitive than many thought possible. The Democratic candidate, John Bel Edwards, is now leadingthe former Republican frontrunner, David Vitter, by a substantial margin. “
It’s almost laboratory conditions in Louisiana for Democrats,” James Carville told Salon in an exclusive interview. “You have a horrifically unpopular incumbent governor [Bobby Jindal] and the likely Republican survivor [Vitter] is one of the most flawed candidates in American politics.”
Against the backdrop of Jindal’s tenure (which began with an $865 million surplus and ended with a $1.6 billion budget deficit) and the GOP’s broader image problem, things set up perfectly for Louisiana Democrats.
In addition to the gubernatorial race, there is also the campaign for Louisiana Secretary of State. The Democratic candidate is Chris Tyson, a young progressive who many, including Carville, believe has a bright future in national politics – although Tyson himself insists his “immediate concern is winning this election.” A Baton Rouge native, Tyson would be the first African-American elected statewide in Louisiana since Reconstruction. As yet there is very little polling data, but that which exists shows the race extremely tight.
That the race is close at all is remarkable. Tyson’s Republican opponent, incumbent Tom Schedler, was thought unbeatable by most observers of Louisiana’s politics, but that’s no longer the case.
Carville, who follows Louisiana politics as closely as anyone, expected a competitive race. The Republican Party is reeling nationally, he noted, and “Chris is a once in a generation candidate…He’s a progressive Democrat in Louisiana, but he’s also the son of a federal judge, a former small business owner, a law professor, a community activist and a graduate of Howard, Harvard and Georgetown University.” Tyson may not win this election, Carville added, but “it’ll be interesting to watch because it’s a good barometer of what’s possible in this political climate…The deck couldn’t be stacked more in the Democrats’ favor.”
I watched the debate between the four candidates running for govenor and basically wanted to sell the kathouse and head for the safety of a blue state. However, none of them could ever be as worse for the state than Jindal. At least their open to addressing some of the problems we have in the state with something other than naked ambition in mind. So, Jindal is building a huge house in Baton Rouge. We won’t be completely rid of him but it seems he’s gone from public life shortly.
Jeb Bush’s campaign slashed hundreds of thousands of dollars in salaries over the last three months as the struggling candidate’s fundraising machine slowed to a more middling pace, new campaign-finance reports indicate.
No longer able to raise unlimited sums with his super PAC, Bush hauled in $13.4 million in the third quarter of the year for his campaign. That’s more than all of his GOP rivals except Ben Carson. But Bush also spent more than many of them, leaving him with about as much money in the bank as Marco Rubio. Ted Cruz has more.
Bush’s campaign once saw its size and staff as its strength. But the newly released campaign-finance reports indicate it could be a liability if fundraising slacks further.
More than 60 Bush staffers might have had their salaries cut or their positions changed to reduce their income, compared with the second quarter of the year when Bush announced his candidacy, the campaign-finance reports show. The campaign did not want to discuss the numbers. But the pay cuts, depending on whether the salaries are divided on a weekly or bi-weekly basis, could have saved the campaign anywhere from $450,000 to nearly $900,000 per quarter, according to a POLITICO analysis of the campaign’s payroll. The cuts have ranged from the small for some staffers ($12 a week) to large reductions for four of the top campaign chiefs who each took a $75,000 pay cut.
YouGov describes Bush’s campaign as “faltering”.
He was once the clear frontrunner for the GOP 2016 presidential nomination. Then, while candidates like Donald Trump emerged, he was still seen by many Republicans as the likely nominee. But now former Florida Governor Jeb Bush runs behind Trump, neurosurgeon Ben Carson and Florida Senator Marco Rubio. Bush is just about tied with Texas Senator Ted Cruz and businesswomen Carly Fiorina in the latestEconomist/YouGov Poll.
Red State has officially put him on Death Watch. (Not linking to it. Won’t do it. Wouldn’t be prudent at this juncture.)
There is also some talk about no one liking Chris Christie. This includes his home state. He should be on death watch too except no one cares about him any more.
Meanwhile, the Biden Will-he-or-Won’t-he? obsession of the national media continues.
Former Delaware Sen. Ted Kaufman, one of Biden’s closest political advisers, said Biden would soon make a decision about whether to enter the race. In an email obtained by The Associated Press, Kaufman asked former staffers to stay in close contact and said Biden would need their help immediately if he enters the race.
“If he runs, he will run because of his burning conviction that we need to fundamentally change the balance in our economy and the political structure to restore the ability of the middle class to get ahead,” Kaufman said.
Calls within the Democratic Party for Biden to run have been growing for months, fueled largely by concerns that front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton’s campaign was faltering under the weight of an email scandal and declining popularity. But Clinton’s commanding performance Tuesday in the first Democratic debate, coupled with Biden’s seemingly endless delays in making a decision, have put a damper on the speculation in recent days, with top Democratic leaders questioning whether it’s too late for Biden.
Kaufman’s letter to former Biden aides marked an attempt by the vice president to signal he’s still very much considering running and shouldn’t be written off. It also served to reinforce the notion that Clinton isn’t the only Democrat who could run in part on a promise to lock in policies that Obama has advanced during his two terms.
“He believes we must win this election,” Kaufman said. “Everything he and the president have worked for — and care about — is at stake.”
Clinton and her top rival in the race, Sen. Bernie Sanders, have been campaigning for months and have raised tens of millions of dollars, giving them a huge head start that would make it tough for Biden to mount a viable challenge. The first filing deadlines in some states are just weeks away and Biden currently has no operation in key states. Alluding to those concerns, Kaufman said Biden was “aware of the practical demands of making a final decision soon.”
Has any one ever seen a whackier campaign season or is it just me? So, establishment Republican donors appear to be stumped or Trumped, depending how you wanna look at it. I’m thinking that SuperPacs may
actually have a huge effect in the race because the traditional campaigns don’t seem to be flush with cash right now.
“You could have this big super PAC, but if you have limited momentum and limited money to keep the campaign going, it’s like the guy at the top of Mount Everest with two broken legs and an extra oxygen tank,” said Republican strategist Matthew Dowd. “You’re living longer, but you’re not going anywhere.”
One of the challenges for Bush and other GOP hopefuls has been the dominance of real-estate impresario Donald Trump, who has siphoned off much of the enthusiasm in the base. The businessman raised $3.8 million, even though he has pledged to self-fund his campaign and is not soliciting contributions.
“Donald Trump has basically stultified the fundraising for these candidates,” said Anthony Scaramucci, who had been Walker’s national finance co-chair and is now backing Bush. “He’s the Trump speed bump. His ratcheting up in the polls has made it very difficult for more establishment Republicans to get traction with donors.”
In all, six Democratic candidates reported raising $123.2 million for their campaign committees so far this year, while 15 GOP candidates pulled in $143.5 million overall.
Clinton and Sanders together had $60.1 million on hand at the end of September. Meanwhile, the 15 Republicans combined reported having $61.2 million in the bank.
Meanwhile, the first primary happens in February. Who knows what will come and go between then and now?
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
Tuesday Reads
Posted: September 22, 2015 Filed under: 2014 elections, 2016 elections, Bobby Jindal, Republican politics, Republican presidential politics 26 CommentsGood Morning!
Well, I really didn’t think I’d end up writing my next morning reads about Scott Walker although we’ve covered his reign of terror in Wisconsin quite a bit. It appears the Koch sponsored Governors are not doing very well this year. Walker’s coffers were full of funds but his campaign was as empty as bucket with a hole much like his rhetoric and ideology.
After a dramatic fall from the top tier of Republican presidential candidates over the last several weeks, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker ended his bid for the White House Monday.
“Today, I believe that I’m being called to lead by helping to clear the field in this race so that a positive conservative message can rise to the top of the field,” Walker announced at a press conference in Madison, Wisconsin on Monday. “With this in mind, I will suspend my campaign immediately.”
“I encourage other Republican presidential candidates to consider doing the same, so that the voters can focus on a limited number of candidates who can offer a positive, conservative alternative to the current front runner,” Walker went on to say, referring to current GOP frontrunner Donald Trump.
Walker’s run started on July 13 and lasted 71 days.
The move comes just two months after polls showed Walker leadingTrump in the crucial, first-in-the-nation caucus state of Iowa. Many pundits considered Walker to be a favorite for GOP nomination after his successful recall election in Wisconsin in 2012 and his establishment support.
But over the last several weeks, Walker has fallen dramatically in national polls, registering at less than 0.5 percent in the latest national CNN/ORC poll this weekend. In Iowa, where for much of the year Walker was considered the favorite to win the first in the nation caucuses, Walker slid from 19 percent to 5 percent in just six weeks of NBC News/Marist polling.
Walker first gained attention in Iowa for a speech at the Iowa Freedom Summit in January. But after riding high in the polls in that state for over half the year, Walker was outpaced in the polls following a lackluster performance in the first televised Republican debate.
Walker, never having graduated college, pitched himself as an outsider to Washington and argued that the next president needed to be a governor.
Walker’s governorship was ideological from the get go. Anyone with a critical eye toward results can see the damage he’s done to Wisconsin. Kansas
and Louisiana also stand out as failed states in the ALEC/Koch style. It’s not like any of these guys can run on a successful economy or stewardship of their state’s funds. Walker’s jihad against teachers and police officers and their unions took on a nasty tone. His actions spoke far louder than his words on the campaign trail. I found his debate manner insipid. Even one of his slighted former campaign aids said he tried to please every one and came off as having no real core ideals.
Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin, whose early glow as a Republican presidential contender was snuffed out with the rise of anti-establishment rivals, announced Monday that he was quitting the race and urged some of his 15 rivals to do the same so the party could unite against the leading candidate, Donald J. Trump.
Mr. Walker’s pointed rebuke of Mr. Trump gave powerful voice to the private fears of many Republicans that the party risked alienating large parts of the electorate — Hispanics, women, immigrants, veterans, and most recently, Muslims — if Mr. Trump continued vilifying or mocking them as part of his overtures to angry and disaffected voters.
Still, Mr. Walker’s exit was not a selfless sacrifice: He was running low on campaign cash, sliding sharply in opinion polls, losing potential donors to rivals and unnerving supporters with a stream of gaffes, like saying he would consider building a wall along the Canadian border.
Appearing ashen and drained at a brief news conference late Monday in Madison, Mr. Walker said the Republican presidential field was too focused on “how bad things are” rather than on “how we can make them better for everyone.” Without naming Mr. Trump, Mr. Walker issued a plea to fellow candidates to coalesce around a different Republican who could offer a more “optimistic” vision and guide the party to a victory next year that, he admitted with sadness in his voice, he could not achieve himself.
The Great Wall of Canada may have been the first whiff of how absolutely clueless the man was on the world outside. What was he planning on doing? Stopping Americans from getting cheap Canadian drugs?
Walker’s decision to quit followed two lackluster debate appearances, tepid fundraising and several statements that attracted a flurry of negative headlines, including those that followed the candidate’s assertion that building a wall along the Canadian border was a possibility that deserved further examination. It may have also been hurt by the fact that Walker is essentially a life-long politician in an election season in which Americans are so far embracing outsiders.
While Walker’s union-bashing record provided his ticket into the race, the narrative that brought him headlines and donors didn’t prove to be a white-hot issue. At a time when organized labor is already losing membership, reducing its clout hasn’t been a top national priority for most Republicans. In the first debate on Aug. 6, the word “union” was used just three times, and only once by Walker, in his closing statement.
“I took on the big-government union bosses, and we won,” said Walker, who saw his state and national poll numbers fall almost as soon as Trump entered the race. “They tried to recall me, and we won. They targeted us again, and we won.”
The references were to Walker’s 2011 fight with public-sector unions, as well as his 2012 recall and 2014 general election victories, both contests that included heavy union spending against him. His ability to remain “unintimidated” in those battles has become a central theme of Walker’s campaign.
On the campaign trail, however, Walker wasn’t that intimidating. In an often monotone Midwestern voice, his speeches virtually never changed and he wasn’t as quick on his feet in interviews or during debates as some of his opponents. While he worked extremely hard to stress his common-man credentials, seemingly making almost continuous references to his love of his Harley-Davidson motorcycle, it also kept him from looking presidential.
He just couldn’t hold a candle to The Donald. Or, so he says and they say …
But Walker began the 2016 campaign season in a promising spot. He had a record of fighting for conservative priorities in Wisconsin in a way that impressed both the GOP’s base and its elites. Since he wasn’t so identified with pro-immigration policies as Jeb Bush or Marco Rubio, it seemed to some that he was well-positioned to unite the party’s disparate factions. And despite some early rockiness on policy issues, Walker took the lead in Iowa caucus polls in mid-February, and held it for the next five and a half months.
Then Hurricane Trump rolled in. The billionaire’s showmanship and disdain for what he called “political correctness” on the topic of unauthorized immigration excited the Republican right, and powered him to the front of polls nationally and in Iowa.
In comparison, Walker looked like a typical politician, had an unimpressive speaking style, and failed to stand out from the crowd in the two debates so far. In last week’s second debate, the Wisconsin governor spoke the least of any candidate, and twopost-debate surveys asking Republican voters who won this week’s debate found Walker in last place of the 11 primetime debaters. After the first debate, he plummeted in the polls both in Iowa and nationally. Currently, he’s in 11th place nationally and in 7th place in Iowa, according to RealClearPolitics’s poll averages.
There are some other candidates that are on the ropes but seem oblivious to their problems. Hillary was in Baton Rouge yesterday. Jindal challenged her to debate health care with him. Instead, she took the stage and left him to his less than 1% standing in the polls among Republican voters. She’s not backing down on the Affordable Healthcare Act.
Hillary Clinton defended President Barack Obama’s signature legislation, the Affordable Care Act, during a campaign stop in Baton Rouge on Monday and took aim at her Republican rivals who say they want to repeal “Obamacare.”
“It’s not just a political issue, it’s a moral issue,” the Democratic presidential front-runner told a crowd of 1,200 cheering supporters and schoolchildren at the Louisiana Leadership Institute.Attendees circulated volunteer sign-up sheets and texted their information to the campaign during the rally, which was the first of several stops on Clinton’s latest effort to campaign on the importance of the federal health care law and her plans to protect and build on it.
“I’m not going to let them tear up that law, kick 16 million people off their coverage and force the country to start the health care debate all over again,” she said as supporters waved bright blue “Hillary” signs.
Clinton won several bouts of applause from the friendly crowd, particularly as she took jabs at Gov. Bobby Jindal and U.S. Sen. David Vitter, both Republicans.
Jindal, who is seeking the GOP nomination for president, has been a vocal opponent of Obamacare and has repeatedly called for its repeal. He also blocked the state from expanding its Medicaid program for the poor and uninsured through an optional piece of the federal health care law — a point that Clinton was quick to point out.
“He put ideology ahead of the well-being of the people and the families in this state,” Clinton said, noting that some 190,000 people in Louisiana would have been eligible for Medicaid if Jindal had supported expansion.
The ACA has faced near constant backlash from many Republicans since it was signed into law in 2010. Jindal, through his America Next policy group, released hisown proposal to repeal the law and replace it last year.
But Clinton said such a move would be too disruptive and vowed to fight any effort to repeal the law, if elected.
“I want to build on the progress we’ve made. I’ll do more,” she said.
Clinton said she would announce a plan this week to further address health care costs, including rising drug prices.
The equity markets are evidently betting on Hillary. The viral story of the day was of a dudebro hedge fund manager who bought a
drug on the cheap and hiked its price to the stratosphere. Hillary demanded investigation in to price gouging and the entire industry felt the discipline of the market and the expectation she’d do it too. One company who’d gotten a patent from a non profit associate with Perdue for a Tuberculous drug wound up with the patent deal rescinded. The dudebro’s move still stands for the time being.
Mania-prone biotech stocks were in the market’s doghouse Monday, after a 21-word tweet from Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton ripping a drug company’s pricing policy sparked a sharp selloff for the group.
Referencing a New York Times report on a steep price hike for a drug recently acquired by Turing Pharmaceuticals, Clinton lambasted the often-astronomical price tags for specialty drugs being developed by biotech and pharmaceutical companies and pledged to provide a plan to keep such therapeutic costs in check.
You can read more about both situations here.
It’s really interesting to watch the difference between a campaign on fire and one going doing in flames.
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
Live Blog: American Horror Story, Freak Show (The CNN Republican Debates)
Posted: September 16, 2015 Filed under: 2016 elections, Live Blog 157 Comments
It’s that time again! Time for the current batch of freaks that call themselves Republican to jockey for who can be most xenophobic, woman-hating, GLBT baiting, and the one who oozes the most white privilege.
Here’s some links to check out as we try to wade through the hate!
From Politico: The GOP debate: 5 things to watch
Ben Carson and Carly Fiorina have a chance Wednesday to prove they’re for real.
From the New Republic: What’s at Stake in the Second Republican Debate: Full Panic in the GOP (Brian Beutler)
If the central thematic question of the first debate was whether the candidates and Fox News itself could puncture Trump’s bubble, this time it’s whether any of those potential consensus candidates can distinguish themselves and climb out of the doldrums where they’ve been stuck for weeks.
From CNN whose Jake Tapper is one of the adults dealing with the kiddie table: 7 things to watch at the CNN Republican debate
Nate Silver’s Five Thirty Eight: Live Coverage Of The Second Republican Debate
From USA Today: Long-shot Republican candidates debate at Reagan Library
The kiddie table is up with some noticeable changes. Fiorina has been bumped up to the big stage with the bigger blow hards. Rick Perry was the first to cry “uncle” and go home with his magic show.
Join us and analyze the insanity!!
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