by Ed O’Keefe

Two former senior aides to Mitt Romney’s Republican presidential campaign are joining Jeb Bush’s efforts to win the White House.

The aides are Beth Myers and Peter Flaherty, who were both senior advisers to Romney’s 2012 campaign. Both also worked on Romney’s 2008 presidential run, Myers as campaign manager. Flaherty, a former prosecutor, helped with debates and also served as Romney’s liaison to the conservative right. They plan to endorse Bush and work as advisers focused on the debate process, according to campaign officials familiar with the moves.

During the 2012 cycle, Myers’s portfolio included helping Romney select Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) as his running mate and for preparing Romney for the dozens of primary and general election debates. Romney generally fared well in the exchanges and Myers was credited with helping him prepare for the often-raucous events.

Bush is already rehearsing for the first GOP presidential debate, scheduled for Aug. 6 in Cleveland. He held a debate rehearsal session with senior policy aides late last week on the sidelines of a major donor retreat in Kennebunkport, Maine.

News of Myers and Flaherty’s new roles was first reported by The Boston Globe.

Philip Rucker contributed to this report.

Jeb W. Bush 2016! made more than $29 million dollars since leaving the governor’s office in 2007 (in just eight years).

Jeb W. Bush 2016! owned funds run by Abbey Capital LP, so some of the tax forms include addresses in Bermuda and the Cayman Islands.

by David A. Fahrenthold (The Washington Post)

Yesterday, I wrote a story about an infamous example of a campaign spending money poorly. In 2008, Hillary Rodham Clinton’s campaign in Iowa ran out of good ideas before they ran out of cash, and started to buy things they didn’t really need. Like $95,000 worth of deli sandwiches. And hundreds of new snow shovels, for their Iowa volunteers. Who — because they were Iowans — already had snow shovels.

 “It’s sort of like, ‘Yeah, I’ll take a snow shovel,’ ” Marisue Hartung, one Clinton volunteer, remembered thinking then. “But why?”

But that’s hardly the only time a presidential campaign has blown money on bad ideas. I asked my Post colleagues for other suggestions from the recent past, they came up with a few more:

Howard Dean’s orange hats. In 2004, the Vermont governor bought neon-orange hats for his new volunteers to wear while canvassing voters in Iowa. The idea, apparently, was to show how many volunteers really had. “The Iowa Perfect Storm: Grassroots for Dean,” the hats said. But in practice, the hats seemed to show how many of Dean’s volunteers were out-of-staters who didn’t know much about Iowa. They were aliens, whose hats made them even easier to spot.

Joe Lieberman’s “Joe Mobiles.” In 2004, Lieberman’s campaign wrapped a pair of cars in big pictures of his face anddrove them around New  Hampshire. They contributed to a feeling that Lieberman was running for president mainly so he could finally use a lifetime of stored-up “Joe” puns. The candidate talked about “Joementum” called his breakfastime meet-and-greets “A Cup of Joe” and drove around in a camper called the “Winneba-Joe.” In the end, however, Lieberman’s campaign in New Hampshire went…Joe-where. He came in fifth.

John Kerry’s “Kerry Graham” signs.  Also in 2004 — apparently a great year for terrible campaign ideas — Democratic nominee John F. Kerry was set to announce his vice-presidential running mate. Kerry picked then-Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.), but his campaign printed up at least two other sets of campaign paraphernalia, with other nominees’ names on them. On the big day, however, some of the fake-out signs got mixed in with the real ones. So, at Kerry’s big rally, some fans wound up waving signs that said “Kerry Graham.” As in then-Sen. Bob Graham (D-Fla.). Who hadn’t been chosen. Which has to have been a funny feeling for Graham.

Mitt Romney’s embroidered airplane seat covers. In 2012, Republican nominee Mitt Romney had a campaign plane whose amenities included personalized, embroidered headrest covers for the candidate (his said “The Gov”) and staff. They were made of red faux suede. If a staffer changed seats on the plane, he or she could take the headrest cover with them. It was a small expense, in the scheme of things. But — as Romney and his staff sought to project a common touch — it probably didn’t help.

John Edwards’ $400-plus haircuts. (hat tip to Damenico Montanaro  of NPR). In 2007, the campaign of then-Sen. Edwards spent hundreds — up to $1,250 in one case — for a Beverly Hills stylist to fly out and cut the candidate’s hair. “I try to make the man handsome, strong, more mature and these are the things, as an expert, that’s what we do,” the stylist told the Post back then. It was nice hair. No argument here. But for a man campaigning to fix the gap between the “Two Americas,” it was the wrong message.

 “Butt Man” and “Baloney Man” (hat tip to the Twitter user@TrueDactsStated). No, not that kind of butt. In 1996, Clinton’s campaign made foam-rubber suits that looked like cigarette butts, and had campaign volunteers wear them to harass Republican Bob Dole. The point was to highlight Dole’s closeness to the tobacco industry. In Wisconsin that year, Republicans countered with “Baloney Man,” a lunchmeat-shaped mascot whose message was that Democrats were generally full of baloney. Butt and Baloney actually met once, at a Dole rally in Fox Point, Wisc., producing this incredible quote in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel  (from a local GOP official): “Butt Man is full of baloney. Baloney Man told me Butt Man tried to grab him.”

And….

And snow shovels and deli meats. Don’t forget to read the Post story that started this discussion. It’s about Hillary Clinton, Iowa, love, desperation, failure–and some of the most infamous bad ideas  that a campaign ever paid for.

by Colby Itkowitz (The Washington Post)

Donald Trump, the billionaire reality television star, may be the last person to need one, but a Florida man has a super PAC at the ready if Trump decides to run for president.

Robert Kiger filed Citizens for Restoring USA last week. It’s a pretty generic name, but the e-mail address on the form gave away his allegiance: rkiger@equestriansfortrump.com

We reached Kiger, a West Palm businessman, owner of Elegante Polo, retailer of designer polo ensembles, Monday evening.

He called Trump a “friend,” but later qualified that Trump would likely have no idea who he was. (He was right.) But he’s a big supporter of Trump’s presidential ambitions.

“Listen, I think we need a game changer because business as usual is just broken, and I even think: I love Jeb Bush, but I’m not sure those guys are going to change much, any of them,” Kiger told the Loop. “I think we need a business leader, we need to run the country like a business.”

We called Trump, who had just spent the weekend angling for headlines in New Hampshire. He didn’t know about the super PAC (or Kiger) but he certainly reveled in the news.

“I’m greatly honored by it. We’re having tremendous support,” he told us. And in his estimation, if he gets in, the nomination is basically his for the taking.

But we’ve been here before, haven’t we? Didn’t Trump tease his fans in 2012 with lots of bloviating and promises of unearthing President Obama’s long-form birth certificate only to back “establishment” choice Mitt Romney?

Just how seriously should we take him?

“Totally serious,” he said. “I want to make the country great again. Mitt Romney let us down. I love what I’m doing, my business is phenomenal, but more important to me than my business, is the country and somebody has to save the country, which is [declining] really bad and really fast.”

This time around Trump does have an exploratory committee set up with the Federal Election Commission. And now, like a real candidate, he has a random guy with a super PAC.

With whatever unlimited funds Kiger raises, he said he’d eventually support whoever the Republican nominee is – but if Trump squeezes into the uncomfortably crowded primary Kiger will be there to help … finance him?

 

By Anne Gearan (The Washington Post)

In a sign of the power of the populist current among Democrats this election cycle, Hillary Rodham Clinton’s presidential campaign is hiring a former top federal regulator known for trying to tighten rules and requirements on Wall Street.

Former Commodity Futures Trading Commission chairman Gary Gensler will be the campaign’s chief financial officer, a Democrat with knowledge of the hire said Friday. Gensler’s role was first reported by Bloomberg.

Gensler clashed repeatedly with Wall Street firms, and his hiring is a clear signal to progressive Democrats and others who have rallied to Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and her attacks on Wall Street.

Although Warren has said she will not run for president in 2016, she remains the favorite among a powerful minority of activists whose backing Clinton badly wants. Warren herself has said she wants to know more about what Clinton will run on, and has pressed for strong progressive voices to be among those advising the Democratic frontrunner.

Even progressives backing Clinton now want her to demonstrate independence from big corporations and Wall Street, and Clinton appears to be listening. On Tuesday, Clinton used her first campaign appearance to decry income inequality between average American workers and CEOs.

“There’s something wrong when hedge fund managers pay less in taxes than nurses or the truckers I saw on I-80,” she added, in a a reference to her trip by van from New York to Iowa.

Clinton’s aides and outside defenders say her reputation as close to Wall Street owes mostly to her history as a New York senator and that she will not show favoritism now. Still, she is expected to raise millions from people involved in financial services industries.

Gensler was a main driver of the financial rules that became known as the Dodd-Frank Act, which the Obama administration supported. The package became law in 2010, as the nation struggled to recover from the great recession caused partly by fraud and bad practices among financial firms.

“I think it’s fair to say that if you look across the country, the deck is stacked in favor of those already at the top,” Clinton said during her remarks at a rural community college in Iowa.

That “stacked deck” reference echoed the populist theme of the video she released Sunday to announce her campaign, and also echoes a frequent theme Warren stresses.

For the last two weeks we sat and watched and hoped in our heart of hearts that Hillary’s “people” would handle this whole personal email issue better and were we disappointed? That would be an understatement. We have to be fair, when Mitt Romney in the 2012 campaign make an error or we learned something about him and he went on the defensive, we jumped all over him. Now Hillary and her “people” are on the defensive we will speak our minds. What she did as Secretary of State using a personal email address for her work was not only arrogant but plain stupid and Hillary should have known better. You can be sure her personnel in the State Department would certainly have pointed this out to her from time to time, only to be ignored.

What we have said consistently is Hillary needs to drop her old team and re-invent her image when she announces (which now needs to be brought forward and if she doesn’t this email story will hurt her Presidential chances even more) that she is running for President in 2016. Going on the defensive is weak and un-American and voters simply shy away from a candidate who goes on the track. That’s how we beat Mitt Romney if you remember, in 2012. When he made major errors, he went on the defensive and we pounced. Jeb Bush and the Republicans are doing just that now with Hillary and Emailgate. When President Obama was a candidate in 2008 and Reverent Wright embarrassed him, he did the right thing and so did his “people” working on his campaign, he hit the controversy head on as he did with rumors with the purchase of his Chicago home and as he did with his birth certificate issue. He hit them all head on and moved on and so did the media and the American public. Hillary needs to learn this as it looks like we have a first 2016 Presidential campaign of only “Gold Spoon Candidates”. What I don’t hear from either Hillary’s or Jeb Bush’s “people” is how hard it is now for middle class America families to survive financially since the melt down in 2008. Yes, employment has grown but salaries have not increased, Labor Unions are being weaken, voters rights are being eroded in certain States, the homeless in our major cities (run by Democrats) have grown such serious levels (and no one cares) and Swore Police Officers still shoot unarmed African-Americans even when they are naked and have served in the Air Force as we saw this week in Georgia. Basically, it’s business as usual in the United States of America. What the Democrat politicians in office miss (like the Republicans) is the waste of time and taxpayers’ money on issues of arrogance, as in the case of Hillary’s Emailgate.

This stupidity is going to cost time and money for the State Department’s staff that is going to have to wade through thousands of Hillary’s emails (which today the State Department said could weeks, maybe months and not days). This again is irresponsibility of Hillary Clinton as once again the hard working taxpayer in the United States gets no apology for the costs of wading through her thousands of emails sent and received from her personal email account for State Department business. It is like we have stated in the past regarding the incredible disregard for the taxpayers’ hard earned dollars that every time the President uses Air Force One within the United States for a “fundraiser”, it costs the US taxpayer five million dollars each time he steps on that aircraft. How many homeless people would that assist to get off the streets of our major cities? Not to mention all the small government jets we provide to Federal officials, the costs in total yearly are mind numbing.

What Hillary needs to do now, is announce if she is running or not (sorry Hillary, Emailgate has finished that choice for you once and for all) and dump that team she has since 2008. Then Hillary needs to get out and start doing the talk show rounds explaining her actions and apologizing to the people of the United States for that arrogant and stupid decision to use her personal email address instead of a supplied government email address when she was the Secretary of State.

It’s that’s simply as maybe, just maybe there is another unheard Democrat candidate for the 2016 Presidential race in the wings who will see this as a chance to jump forward as Obama did in 2008 and there is no doubt Hillary’s Emailgate has hurt Hillary. Even more worrying is the way this whole issue has being handled and that has damaged Hillary and her team even further as well as handing Jeb Bush and the Republicans a lot of mileage on this issue that will not go away lightly and they will ensure that it doesn’t go away for a very, very long time. That’s not smart politics for someone so experienced and seasoned as Hillary Clinton. Hillary’s Emailgate will come back to haunt her and her 2016 Presidential campaign again and again if the Republicans play their cards right, which I am sure they will.

(c) Editor for The Amazing Democrats (Los Angeles).  March 11, 2015

 

Editors note: Mittens and Palin, what a ticket and election that will make for 2016, a one to remember for all time!

By Robert Costa (The Washington Post)

DES MOINES — Former Alaska governor Sarah Palin told The Washington Post in an interview Friday that she is “seriously interested” in running for the White House in 2016.

“You can absolutely say that I am seriously interested,” Palin said, when asked to clarify her thinking about a possible presidential bid.

Palin, the GOP’s 2008 vice-presidential nominee, said she stood by comments she made Thursday in Las Vegas to ABC News, where she first expressed enthusiasm about potentially competing for the Republican presidential nomination.

“I am. As I said yesterday, I’m really interested in the opportunity to serve at some point,” Palin said Friday, as former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum, a potential 2016 rival, looked on.

Palin’s comments, made in an interview in the lobby of the Marriott hotel here, came hours before she is scheduled to address a group of conservative activists at the Iowa Freedom Summit, a gathering hosted by Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), an immigration hard-liner.

Palin said, “It is a significant step, of course, for anyone to publicly announce that they’re interested. Who wouldn’t be interested? Who wouldn’t be interested when they have been blessed with opportunities to speak about what is important to this country and for this country?”

Still, Palin said that she is not yet ramping up a national political operation. Instead, Palin said, she is contemplating her political future and does not feel rushed to make a final decision.

Palin arrived in Iowa Friday alongside Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), one of her closest political allies, and Jason Recher, one of Palin’s longtime political advisers. In the lobby, she signed autographs for some hotel guests and mingled with the dozens of GOP figures congregated near the lobby bar, including former House speaker Newt Gingrich.

Palin previously mulled a presidential run ahead of the 2012 election cycle, but declined to enter the contest. During the run-up to the GOP primaries, her supporters built an expansive political network in Iowa on her behalf, in case she jumped in.

On the campaign trail last year, Palin traveled extensively to bolster her handpicked candidates, including stops in Iowa with Republican Joni Ernst, who won a Senate seat. Her political-action committee, SarahPAC, donated to several tea-party favorites.

Has anyone seen Hillary as we need her to announce this week if she is running for President at the latest or move over because as per usual the Republicans have had a head start with Mittens back in the race and W.’s brother Jebbie oiling his Florida water skis to take him to The White House in January 2017. No Hillary, it won’t work this time either like it didn’t work in 2008, waiting for the last minute and making the grand de ole entrance. A unknown called Barack Obama stole your thunder then and Mittens or Jebbie could do it this time. You don’t take that risk anymore with social media these days. Also Hillary please don’t bring back all your old campaign cronies. Learn from the past that is your bridge to the present and your success for the future.

We got hammered in the November elections and we need energy from our 2016 Presidential candidate soon and very soon. It is a hard pill to sallow after all the work we did to get him re-elected in 2012 but our President is just what W. was after the November elections in 2006, a lame duck President. sad but true and we need to move on but if you don’t announce this week sometime Hillary, we might all move on like in 2008 and you will leave us with Mittens or Jebbie. This waiting game is helping no one especially those most loyal to you. Please announce this week, yes or no. Thank you Madam President-elect.

Mittens is running again? We didn’t believe it so we sat on the story but it’s true good old Mitt Romney is running for a third time for the Presidential Election in 2016. We welcome it and could we be more fair to Mittens this time around? Yes, if he will listen to us as we saw the home made documentary his children made on his 2012 campaign trail and you know what? We kind of liked Mittens but Mitt listen this time as you who once said, a person who does the same thing again and again and gets the same result, now that’s insanity!

So here are suggestions for you Mittens:

1. Dump the personal zillions of dollars you have hidden in off shore bank accounts.

2. Don’t flip flop all over the shop. If you make a statement and no matter what, stick to it.

3. Be more careful what you say in private meetings. One of our spies could be there recording

your every word with an IPhone.

4. Drop all your old advisors including your Press Advisor Eric F***storm who treats reporters like they are some sort of insects to be booted around at his mercy and someone who wouldn’t know Freedom of the Press if it hit him in the ass.

5. Stop babbling about Ronald Regan. He wasn’t that good of a President. Just ask anyone who was mentally ill or from the lower income class when he was President and they would have a few things to say about him. They are now fathers and grandfathers and still haven’t forgotten “the good ole Regan years” as you kept calling them. Also it makes you sound like you have no confidence in yourself as President.

6. What else to get our full support? Oh yes, make sure to run as a Democrat.

We look forward to it Mittens in 2015/2016 and no we won’t underestimate you, cause if Jebbie makes a dog’s dinner (but his is not up on his car roof too we hope!) of the primaries, you could be the main man again and you know what they say and we hope it isn’t true: third time lucky.

Editors Note:

We published cartoons of George W. Bush, Mitt Romney and Jeb Bush and we will print cartoons of who and what we like because we believe in the First Amendment, the right of Free Speech and you can kill our journalists, behead our reporters but we will never, never, never life in fear of any threat of death from those who use violence to suppress our right to the freedom of speech be that in words, pictures or cartoons. Those of you who believe in such actions have lost before you have began your campaign of hatred and murder of innocent journalists, photographers, writers and cartoonists. You don’t respect the Prophet, you don’t even practice his message, you are hypocrites, scum of the earth and you will have nowhere to hide and you will do nothing with your threats or actions of murder but reinforce all us journalists, writers, photographers, cartoonists, bloggers and unite all of us and our belief in the First Amendment. George W. Bush or Mitt Romney didn’t shoot or kill us when we put up all those cartoons making fun of them because no matter what you think of them, they respect the First Amendment and our Freedom of Speech. Time to grow up and stop insulting the Prophet with you actions of terror and murder. Tonight our thoughts are with the brave men and women in Paris who lost their lives in the name of the Freedom of the press and the two French Police Officers who bravely lost their lives also. That action today in Paris did not only break so many hearts belonging to their love ones but finally woke us all up. From now on all newspapers worldwide and bloggers with any guts will print whatever cartoons we want to print, even if is the Pope or the Prophet, just get used to it. Today we not only lost some great people in Paris, we lost our complete fear of you, those three killers that did that in Paris today are not terrorists but uneducated thugs who probably can’t even spell the word Koran not alone read it. We in the West must get real and stop calling these ignorant, uneducated thugs “terrorists”. They might believe they are heroes for their cause but the Prophet tonight is saying to those that killed those innocent in Paris tonight “shame on you and shame on you for using my name”. To Stephane Charbonnier (“Charb”), editor of Charlie Hebdo,the members of staff of Charlie Hebdo, the French Police Officers, their families and loved ones, there are no words to express our deep sorrow at the lost of so many lives in Paris today. Sleep well and sleep peacefully our Princes and Princesses, tonight the world is a lot loner planet without you. We will leave the last word to the greatest writer of all: William Shakespeare and we will print one of those cartoons from Charlie Hebdo in memory of their bravery. You have not scared us with your actions in Paris today, you woke us up to face you, stand tall and stand strong and die for what we believe in: the First Amendment and the Freedom of Speech: God rest you brave journalists souls of Charlie Hebdo and the French Police Officers protecting you who also lost their lives today: “This above all: to thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man.” William Shakespeare – Hamlet.

“I prefer to die standing then dying on my knees” – Stephane Charbonnier (“Charb”), editor of Charlie Hebdo. RIP January 7th, 2015, Paris, France.