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Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty said Wednesday he believes former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush can win the Republican presidential nomination in 2016, dismissing the notion that conservatives wouldn’t elect an “establishment” candidate by pointing to the party’s standard bearer the past two presidential cycles. “See John McCain; see Mitt Romney,” Mr. Pawlenty, who ended his 2012 presidential campaign in the summer of 2011, said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” “In McCain’s case, a very compelling personal story and a gritty performance; in Mitt Romney’s case, obviously a man of great talent but also someone with a tremendous amount of campaign resources...

Sen. Marco Rubio jumped into Iowa’s contested Senate primary on Monday, throwing his support behind conservative candidate Joni Ernst. After indicating in recent weeks that he would stay away from GOP primary season, the Florida senator decided to wade into one of the most consequential Senate races in the country by backing Ernst. Not only does Iowa hold the first-in-the-nation presidential caucus in 2016, but the state also will be central to the battle for the Senate this fall — unlike contested primaries in red states such as Oklahoma and Nebraska. Rubio made the announcement through his Reclaim America PAC...

BOSTON (AP) — Fighting to move beyond his father’s shadow, Sen. Rand Paul is crafting new alliances with the Republican Party establishment during a Northeast tour that began Friday in Boston.The 51-year-old Kentucky Republican, son of libertarian hero and former Texas Rep. Ron Paul, headlined an afternoon luncheon hosted by top lieutenants of former presidential nominee Mitt Romney — a private meeting that comes as Paul weighs a 2016 presidential bid of his own. To succeed in a national campaign, however, those close to Paul acknowledge that he must broaden his appeal beyond the Tea Party and libertarian-minded activists who...

Former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney may take another run at the White House, "Face the Nation" host Bob Schieffer said. "I have a source that told me that if Jeb Bush decides not to run, that Mitt Romney may actually try it again," Schieffer said during a panel discussion on the CBS Sunday morning news show.

Fighting to move beyond his father’s shadow, Sen. Rand Paul is crafting new alliances with the Republican Party establishment during a Northeast tour that began Friday in Boston. The 51-year-old Kentucky Republican, son of libertarian hero and former Texas Rep. Ron Paul, headlined an afternoon luncheon hosted by top lieutenants of former presidential nominee Mitt Romney—a private meeting that comes as Paul weighs a 2016 presidential bid of his own. To succeed in a national campaign, however, those close to Paul acknowledge that he must broaden his appeal beyond the tea party and libertarian-minded activists who rallied behind his father’s...

Rand Paul will do his best to charm a group Mitt Romney’s top donors next week at an event facilitated by Romney finance director Spencer Zwick. The Friday luncheon will take place in Boston at the offices of Zwick’s private-equity firm, Solamere Capital, according to a source familiar with the event. Romney’s eldest son Tagg is also a managing partner at the firm, and Romney is the executive chairman. The event is yet another signal that Paul is preparing a for a serious presidential bid in 2016. Two years before the GOP primary, Paul is attempting to branch out beyond...

During a call-in to the nationally renowned Least Dangerous Podcast with JC King, Former Presidential Candidate and Governor Michael Dukakis cautioned Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton about her prospects of becoming the Democratic Nominee for President, “Believe me, neither she, nor anyone else can take that for granted.” Using his own experience as a barometer he continued, “I was 40 points ahead with 5 weeks to go when I ran for reelection in 1978 and I got beaten.” He did praise her saying her experience in the Obama administration has made her a primary choice for the party, “She...

Sunday, April 13, 2014 The Paranoid Party Posted by Daniel Greenfield @ the Sultan Knish blog The Democrat may no longer believe in God, the Constitution or even motherhood and apple pie, but he devoutly believes with all the faith of a 9/11 Truther in the impermeability of steel and of a Neo-Nazi in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion that somewhere out there Republicans are sitting in a sealed room and plotting to bring back the 50s. And if not the 50s, then at least the early 60s. The left accuses the right of being deeply paranoid. Meanwhile...

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Iraq War veteran Joni Ernst emerged as the Republican frontrunner this week in the race to replace retiring Sen. Tom Harkin (D., Iowa). Ernst, who served as a company commander in Iraq from 2003 to 2004 and is a mother of three, gained a slight advantage over the other four candidates for the GOP Senate nomination in a Suffolk University poll. Ernst has 25 percent support among likely primary goers, followed closely by wealthy businessman Mark Jacobs with 23 percent. The other three candidates received less than 10 percent, while 40 percent are still undecided for the June 3 primary....

He can't help himself, or he doesn't want to. Notoriously hot-tempered Twitter-fight addict Alec Baldwin, who has sworn off the service, the city, and public life multiple times, got into it again over basically nothing today, quickly resorting to his default tactic: questioning his opponent's manliness in a way that could be construed as homophobic."You're on your knees in that photo," Baldwin tweeted at former Mitt Romney aide Garrett Jackson, after a derisive mention of working in fashion. "What's up with that, Garrett?" It all started with a tweet by Baldwin endorsing a documentary about the Keystone pipeline and a...

As if there are any more reasons to show that Ron Paul should not be the GOP Presidential candidate, there is this bit from 2008 in which Paul endorses four(!) candidates for President, including the Marxist whack-job Cynthia McKinney and Ralph Nader. How unhinged to you have to be, intellectually, to endorse not only four people, but four whom also hold diametrically opposing views on the role of government. This alone shows that Ron Paul is not a serious thinker. In fact it shows him to be a reactionary flame thrower, willing to completely abandon principles when he doesn't get...

"...If we don't run Chris Christie, Romney will be the nominee and we'll lose."

HOWIE CARR, HOST: Who are you for, for president right now, Ann? ANN COULTER: Well, don't tell him but I'm planning on giving Mitt Romney a little more time to rest -- flying out, kidnapping him and depriving him of sleep, food and water until he agrees to run again. CARR: You're kidding? COULTER: No. CARR: You really want him to run again? COULTER: Yeah, I think he was a fantastic candidate. As I've told you before, he would have won by a larger landslide than Ronald Reagan did in 1980 without Teddy Kennedy's immigration bill. And it's basically impossible...

Ann Coulter says Romney should run again, has the best position on immigration and that "Cruz is a disaster on illegal immigration."

One day after her “Squeal” TV brought her national attention, Joni Ernst picks up the endorsement of Sarah Palin. The former Alaska governor, 2008 vice-presidential nominee and conservative firebrand calls Ernst a “champion for life, small government, and lower taxes.” Here is what Palin had to say when announcing her support for Joni Ernst in Iowa’s U.S. Senate race: “If Nebraska’s Deb Fischer can see through the bull in Washington, then Iowa’s Joni Ernst can help her cut through the pork. Growing up on a hog farm in Southwest Iowa, Joni has taken her “pork cutting” skills to the Iowa...

During a press conference today in The Netherlands, ABC's Jonathan Karl asked President Obama if he thought "Mitt Romney had a point" when he said in 2012 that Russia was America's "number one" geopolitical foe. Obama took advantage of the question to slam his current political opponent, Vladimir Putin.

Casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, who along with his wife plowed more than $92 million into efforts to help mostly losing candidates in the 2012 elections, is undertaking a new strategy for 2016 — to tap his fortune on behalf of a more mainstream Republican with a clear shot to win the White House, according to people familiar with his thinking. In 2012, Sheldon and Miriam Adelson spent so much of their money on long-shot candidate Newt Gingrich that they helped extend an ugly intraparty fight that left the eventual nominee, Mitt Romney, severely bruised by the time he faced President...

As with most things, there are good and bad aspects of the Tea Party movement. And all the bad ones were on display March 6 in a speech by Ted Cruz to the Conservative Political Action Conference that replayed every silly thing ever said by conservatives and added some riffs of his own. He began with a mocking refrain about "presidents" Bob Dole, John McCain and Mitt Romney (two of them veterans impaired by their trauma), chiding them for not being his kind of conservative. He also asked if we remembered their reigns. Well, we do remember, and we remember...

Mitt Romney waded into the crowded Iowa Senate race Wednesday, throwing his support behind state Sen. Joni Ernst (R) in the contested GOP primary. "As a mother, soldier and proven conservative, Joni has the kind of experience, skillset and discipline it will take to not only win this important seat, but to also take Iowa values to help turn around the mess in Washington," Romney wrote in a fundraising e-mail sent Wednesday morning... This is not Romney's first endorsement of the 2014 cycle. He is also backing Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho), who faces tea party challenger Bryan Smith (R).