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On The Trail: Jeb Bush touts ability to “disrupt the old order” during stop in Nevada
Former Florida governor meets voters at a college in Las Vegas
♦By Andy Donahue, Chickenfriedpolitics.com contributor
LAS VEGAS (CFP) — In one of his final public appearances before drastically rearranging his presidential campaign, former Florida Governor Jeb Bush visited the College of Southern Nevada in Las Vegas on October 21, saying his experience as governor of Florida shows he has the ability to “disrupt the old order.”
Jeb Bush campaigns in Nevada.
Bush recalled an experience while campaigning for governor of Florida in which he spent four days living with the family of a disabled child that was dependent on a state program. In light of that immersive experience, he requested permission from a judge to work with the legislature when the same program was about to be taken over by the federal government.
Bush credited this assertive action for making his state one of the national “models for the developmentally disabled” and said it was an example of how as “a consistent conservative … taking care of the most vulnerable in or society should be a core value for this country” and “shift power away from Washington.”
Bush also talked about a young woman he met in 2014 who grew up in difficult circumstances but found success with support from a Christian school funded by Florida’s school voucher program, one of the largest in the country. He said implementing the voucher program took a “lot of fighting” to overcome the opposition of teachers’ unions, but it enabled the woman to become the first member of her family to graduate from college.
“Don’t let anyone tell you children can’t learn,” Bush said. “Your precinct, your zip code, the level of income of your family should not create the destiny of your life.”
Bush also recalled a campaign visit to Colorado during which he met with Latino business owners worried about the survival of their “because of Obamacare” and “confusion and uncertainty of regulation.” He said the Obama administration was making things worse by imposing new regulations, citing specifically new EPA measures intended to lower the nation’s carbon footprint.
Bush said a 10 percent reduction in America’s carbon footprint was not the result of “anything government does but because of the revolution of hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling.” He said shifting industrial oversight from regulators to innovators could boost annual economic growth could from 2 percent to 4 percent.
The former governor also said he supported a consumer-directed health care system that allows patients to pick doctors, clinics and hospitals with low premiums and higher deductibles for catastrophic coverage. This will “tear down the barriers of innovation,” he said.
Bush also said as president, he would strive to “make legal immigration easier than illegal immigration” so that people will “come out of the shadows.” Specific measures he will take include introducing a guest worker program and an expedited process for so-called Dreamers, children brought to the United States illegally who grew up here.
He said there has been “political motivation to keep this (immigration) as a wedge issue,” but he believes that effort “has run out of gas.”
Bush also commended Nevada’s program of education savings accounts, which he saluted as “incredibly ambitious.”
“It is one of a kind in the country, it is very provocative, it’s bold. It’s the kind of reform you seldom see anymore,” Bush said.
Nevada will hold its presidential caucuses on February 23, 2016, with 30 delegates at stake. It is the fourth event in the 2016 primary calendar–after Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina–and the first test of strength in the West.
Republican Matt Bevin wins Kentucky governor’s race
Bevin’s victory over Attorney General Jack Conway is another takeaway for the GOP in the South
♦By Rich Shumate, Chickenfriedpolitics.com editor
LOUISVILLE (CFP) — Just a year after losing a bruising primary battle against U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Louisville businessman and Tea Party favorite Matt Bevin has won the Kentucky governorship, taking away one of the Democrats’ three remaining governor’s seats in the South.
Kentucky Governor-elect Matt Bevin
Unofficial results from the Secretary of State’s office showed Bevin with 53 percent to 44 percent for Democratic Attorney General Jack Conway in the November 3 vote.
The win marks a remarkable feat for Bevin, 48, who jumped into the race right before the filing deadline, won the Republican primary by less than 100 votes and trailed Conway in the polls throughout the general election.
“What an extraordinary night this is,” Bevin told cheering supporters in Louisville. “This is a chance for a fresh start, it truly is, and we desperately need it.”
Bevin also issued a call for unity, saying, “We are one Kentucky–black, white, rural, urban, at both ends of the socio-economic spectrum.”
A turning point in the race may have come in September, when Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis was jailed for refusing to issue marriage licenses for same-sex couples on religious grounds.
Bevin embraced Davis’s fight, meeting with her and calling on Democratic Governor Steve Beshear to issue an executive order relieving Davis of the responsibility for signing marriage licenses.
Republicans had a good night across the board in the Bluegrass State, taking five of the seven statewide constitutional offices, with the attorney general’s race too close to call. The only outright Democratic winner was Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes, who also challenged McConnell unsuccessfully in 2014.
Bevin’s running mate for lieutenant governor, Jenean Hampton, a Tea Party activist and former Air Force captain, is the first African-American ever elected to statewide office in Kentucky.
Although the commonwealth has become reliably Republican at the federal level, Bevin is just the second Republican in the last 44 years to be elected governor. Beshear was term limited.
With the GOP’s takeaway in Kentucky, Democrats hold governorships in only two of the 14 Southern states, Virginia and West Virginia, with a race in Louisiana to be decided in a November 21 runoff between Democratic State Rep. John Bel Edwards and Republican U.S. Senator David Vitter.
U.S. Rep. Daniel Webster’s bid for speaker crushed by Paul Ryan wave
Webster received only nine votes, eight from his fellow Southerners
♦By Rich Shumate, Chickenfriedpolitics.com editor
WASHINGTON (CFP) — Florida U.S Rep. Daniel Webster’s longshot bid for House speaker has come up short — 227 votes short, to be exact.
U.S. Rep. Daniel Webster
Webster, a Winter Haven Republican, garnered just nine votes in the October 29 vote, which saw the rise of U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin into the top leadership spot.
Ryan received support from 236 of the chamber’s 247 Republicans. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-California, received support from 184 out of the 188 Democrats.
Webster, 66, launched his campaign for speaker September 28, after former House Speaker John Boehner stepped down amid a rebellion by conservatives in the GOP caucus.
Initially, members of the House Freedom Caucus–made up of the House’s most conservative members–endorsed Webster, a former speaker of the state House in Florida. However, after Ryan entered the race, that support began to melt away.
Of the 38 Freedom Caucus members, only six stuck with Webster on the final vote.
Among the nine House members who supported Webster, eight were Southerners: Dave Brat of Virginia; Curt Clawson, Bill Posey and Ted Yoho of Florida; Louie Gohmert and Randy Weber of Texas; Walter Jones of North Carolina; and Thomas Massie of Kentucky.
Democrat John Bel Edwards posts strong win in first round of Louisiana governor’s race
U.S. Senator David Vitter edges out two fellow Republicans for second spot in the November 21 runoff
♦By Rich Shumate, Chickenfriedpolitics.com editor
BATON ROUGE (CFP) — Democratic State Rep. John Bel Edwards has made a strong showing in the first round of Louisiana’s gubernatorial election, easily outdistancing Republican U.S. Senator David Vitter and giving himself a chance to become that rarest of creatures — a Democratic governor in the South.
Louisiana State Rep. John Bel Edwards
In the state’s October 24 all-party “jungle” primary, Edwards took 40 percent, easily outdistancing the eight other candidates and advancing to the November 21 runoff. Despite having won statewide twice before, Vitter could only manage 23 percent, although that was enough to edge out two other major Republican contenders, Public Service Commissioner Scott Angelle and Lieutenant Governor Jay Dardenne.
Although the Republican vote is expected to congeal around Vitter in the runoff, the senator — who has been plagued by a persistent sex scandal and trailed Edwards by nearly 188,000 votes in the first round — has a lot of ground to make up. If Edwards wins, he will be one of just four Democrats holding governor’s posts in the South, with the others being in Kentucky, Virginia and West Virginia.
If the candidates’ election night speeches are any indication, the runoff is likely to be loud and nasty .
“Over the next few weeks, David Vitter is going to spend millions of dollars lying about my record, lying about my values (and) lying about my service to our country and to our state, ” Edwards told cheering supporters in Baton Rouge. “He’s desperate, and all he offers are lies and hypocrisy.”
“Somehow, the least effective senator in the United States Senate wants to be our next governor. We’re not going to allow that to happen.”
U.S. Senator David Vitter
But Vitter told his supporters in suburban New Orleans that “even after President Obama shut down drilling in the Gulf and tried to limit our gun rights and belittled our religious beliefs and pushed amnesty for illegals, John Bel Edwards personally renominated President Obama in the Democratic National Convention.”
“So let’s be clear. Jon Bel Edwards not a casual supporter of Barack Obama. He is a true believer.”
Linking Edwards to Obama and more specifically, Obamacare, is replay of the 2014 U.S. Senate race, when Republicans managed to sink Democratic U.S. Senator Mary Landrieu in a state which Obama lost by 17 points in 2012.
However, unlike Landrieu, Edwards is opposed to abortion and gun control, positions that are likely to help him in the culturally conservative Pelican State. But he has come out in favor of expanding Medicaid for uninsured Louisianians, which is a part of Obamacare that many conservatives strongly oppose.
Edwards, 49, a West Point graduate and former Army Ranger from Amite, has been in the legislature since 2008. This is his first bid for statewide office.
Vitter, 54, opted to seek the governor’s post instead of running for re-election to the Senate in 2016. He continued to be dogged throughout the campaign by details of a 2007 sex scandal in which he was linked to a prostitution ring in Washington and publicly admitted to unspecified “sin.”
The issue was re-ignited in the closing days of the gubernatorial campaign when a blogger published claims by a former prostitute that she had a relationship with Vitter and that he had pressured her to have abortion after she became pregnant with his child. Vitter denied the allegations.
Edwards made it clear on election night that he would put Vitter’s character front-and-center in the runoff.
“I live by the (West Point) honor code — a cadet will not lie, cheat, steal or tolerate those who do. And David Vitter wouldn’t last five minutes at West Point,” he said.
One area in which the two men agree is in their critical assessment of incumbent Republican Governor Bobby Jindal, whose approval ratings have plunged as the state dealt with a fiscal crisis. The term-limited Jindal is now running for president.
“Whoever you voted for, we can agree on one big thing: The politicians in Baton Rouge have created on heck of a mess — the state budget in disarray, eight years of cuts to higher education, and so many of our best and brightest having to leave the state for good opportunity,” Vitter said. “We’re going to take our future back.”
While Vitter stopped short of mentioning Jindal by name, Edwards showed no such reticence.
“For eight years, our people have been sacrificed on the altar of Bobby Jindal’s ambition. No more,” Edwards said. “We need a committed, honest, disciplined governor with the leadership ability to bring people together, regardless of race, gender, party (or) geography.”
On The Trail: U.S. Senator Marco Rubio returns to his childhood roots in Nevada
The Florida senator takes his Republican presidential campaign to the Silver State, where he lived as a child
♦By Andy Donohue, Chickenfriedpolitics.com contributor
LAS VEGAS (CFP)– Florida U.S. Senator Marco Rubio returned to his roots as he brought his presidential campaign to Nevada.
Rubio, who was born in Miami, spent part of his childhood in Las Vegas before his family returned to Florida when he was a teenager The venue for his address to the LIBRE Forum, a Latino libertarian group, was St. Christopher’s Catholic School, where Rubio was once a student.
U.S. Senator Marco Rubio campaigns in Nevada.
Recalling his upbringing in Las Vegas, Rubio noted how passing neighborhood pool reminded him that he “learned how to swim in the desert.” This narrative quickly transitioned to his Cuban immigrants parents’ efforts as emblematic of a greater American endeavor.
America is special because “people that will never be rich are successful and able to achieve happiness … if we lose that we are not special anymore,” Rubio said. He added that preserving America as a “country where that opportunity is available to people” is lawmakers’ foremost responsibility.
Inadequate economic expansion aggravated by overregulation inhibits opportunities for working Americans to be happy and successful, Rubio said. Government policies “have not allowed this economy to grow fast enough and create better paying jobs,” he said.
The solutions Rubio is proposing include increasing open and flexible pathways through college and decreasing the amount borrowed “for degrees that do not lead to jobs.” Rubio himself graduated from college with more than $100,000 in debt, which he would not have been able to pay back had he not written a successful book. Rubio quipped that the book is now available in paperback.
The senator used his Cuban roots to make a comparison between the results of centralized and free economies, challenging the audience to “go anywhere in the world where the government dominates the economy” only to see “it is the same families and companies every generation after every generation” controlling power and wealth.
Nevada holds its Republican precinct caucuses February 23, making the state the first early test of strength in the West.
Rubio has built a vibrant state level organization that has enabled him to make political gains in Nevada over the past six months. Early in the year, Lt. Governor Mark Hutchison committed to lead Silver State efforts for Rubio, and he now has one of the most robust state organizations among the GOP contenders.
To engage Nevada voters, the Rubio campaign has developed a social media presence, using “Social Media Super Delegates” such as state Senator Patricia Farley, to engage voters and heighten his profile.
Rubio’s background in Nevada also includes ties to the Mormon Church, which he and his family attended when he lived in Las Vegas. Politico reported in September on his efforts to leverage those ties as he competes for Mormon voters in Nevada, who are influential in state politics in both parties.
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