Going to do it all in one day.
"N.H., Iowa Republicans fret about primary power loss" by James Pindell Globe Staff June 18, 2015
DERRY, N.H. — For nearly a half century, Iowa and New Hampshire have played a pivotal role in American electoral politics. But their top place on the nominating calendar is under threat like never before.
US Senator Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire and Governor Terry Branstad of Iowa added their voices this week to dozens of political figures who have complained their states’ stature will be undercut by Fox News’ plans to limit the first presidential debate to the top 10 GOP candidates in national polls. The network’s truncated invitation list could do the job usually handled by Iowa’s caucuses and New Hampshire’s primary — winnowing a crowded field.
The signs abound that the selection process is changing as candidates shift their strategies to run a national primary campaign, instead of one that runs solely through early nominating states.
“People are beginning to figure out that it is a totally different campaign this time.”
What this narrative does is brush to the side guys like Huckabee, Rand Paul, and what not (not an endorsement of them by any means), and clear the field for the corporate-backed pukes that will keep covering up government secrets.
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Leading candidates, including former governor Jeb Bush of Florida, Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin, and US Senator Rand Paul, have all but secured a spot in the Fox News debate, but much of the criticism has been directed at Fox News and its decision to limit the debate to 10 GOP candidates....
I'm sorry, but I won't be watching.
Iowa and New Hampshire Republicans argue there’s something lost in the political process if candidates focus so much on national polls and appealing to wealthy donors: It’s the intimacy between candidate and voters, a process that many have described as the antidote to big money in politics.
It is, but it might allow an independent-minded outsider to win and the $y$tem can't have that.
For example, when former Hewlett-Packard chief executive Carly Fiorina came to Salem, N.H., last week, she stood on a stone patio in the back of a Salem house. Without Teleprompter or microphone, she riffed on her family, career, and leadership to 40 GOP activists who could easily hear her.
Then she took eight questions from the audience on such eclectic topics as Russia, entitlement reform, education, race relations, child custody laws, and a trade deal with Asian nations. When one guest thought Fiorina didn’t answer her question on H1B immigration visas, she respectfully asked two follow-up questions.
Her appearance wouldn’t help her standing in national polls. According to those surveys, she’s currently ineligible to participate in the first debate. But this latest swing, along with several others, have helped her standing in the Granite State....
Now surely the Globe is teasing me because that's my candidate. I did some shopping around, and although you may think I don't take the vote seriously, I assure you I do. She his the least objectionable in the field, and she can fight Hillary on her own ground!
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"N.H. Republicans call on Fox to change debate rules" by James Pindell Globe Staff June 10, 2015
A group of top New Hampshire Republicans is urging Fox News to change the rules for participation in the first Republican presidential debate, arguing they are unfair and diminish the power the Granite State traditionally exercises as the place that holds the nation’s first presidential primary.
In all, 56 Republicans — including former governors, State House leaders, and former party chairmen — signed a letter written to Fox News addressing both the criteria for which candidates qualify for the August debate and how the debate itself should be conducted.
Fox News and CNN, which will hold the first two debates, announced separate debate rules last month, trying to bring order to what would otherwise be unwieldy debates with upwards of 20 Republican presidential candidates.
Both networks say they will rely on an aggregate of national polling to field a debate of the top 10 candidates. CNN said it will have an additional debate with the bottom-tier candidates.
These rules mean some Republicans with weighty resumes will be excluded because they are not well known nationally. For example, if the debate were held today, it would probably not include former Hewlett Packard chief executive Carly Fiorina, Governor Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, and Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, among others. Awkwardly, the Fox News debate, which is scheduled for Aug. 6 in Cleveland, currently would not include Governor John Kasich of Ohio. Yet New York businessman Donald Trump would qualify.
All covered above once I get scrolling.
The letter from New Hampshire Republicans suggests that Fox hold two debates with a mix of leading and bottom-tier candidates, and with no major candidate excluded....
Why not?
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Also see: Lawsuit filed challenging general election debate rules
NDU:
"Jill Stein, back on the stump" by Akilah Johnson Globe Staff July 02, 2015
She ran for president once and is running again.
No, she is not Hillary Rodham Clinton but Jill Stein, who in 2012 was the presidential nominee of the Green Party. This puts at three the number of women in a crowded field of presidential hopefuls from both major political parties.
Stein, a Lexington physician who has previously run unsuccessfully for governor in 2002, state representative in 2004, and secretary of state in 2006, recently declared her presidential ambitions on the TV and radio news program “Democracy Now.”
Ah, a far-left outlier of controlled opposition (as sad as it is to say. I believed for years, and I'm not downing everything they have ever done. 9/11 is the litmus test, and Amy fails there).
“Well, I’ll just say first that I am here at ‘Democracy Now!,’ which is really the home of people-powered media, to announce that I have a people-powered campaign,” Stein said during the 13-minute segment. “In the same way ‘Democracy Now!’ does not take corporate funding, I’m running with the only national party that does not take corporate funding.”
"We" already have an "independent" Jew running for president.
Stein outlined her platform, the “Power to the People Plan,” which calls for things such as Medicare for all and tuition-free public higher education, while taking shots at the two Democratic frontrunners.
Stein said that Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, whose vision she said was similar to her own, should have run outside the Democratic Party, which “is marching to the right” And she called former secretary of state Hillary Rodham Clinton “a Walmart candidate.”
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Related:
Sanders Surging
Can you $ee why?
Reading the Tea Leaves of the Clinton Campaign
It's the very latest from the campaign trail that I will be getting off soon.
