So it's surprising to see that Bush is hosting a fundraiser for Maine Republican Gov. Paul LePage today in Kennebunkport, the tony seaside town where George H.W. Bush has long kept a summer estate.

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But the attack does reveal a key weakness in today's Democratic Party that could haunt it for the next decade or more -- it has a relatively barren farm system of young up-and-comers. The party could easily survive 2016 with Clinton at the top of the ticket, but what about subsequent cycles?

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"I believe that the members of Congress, many more than are directly affected themselves by the number of Hispanics in their district, will do what is right for our country,” Pelosi, D-Calif., said on NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sunday. “And it’s certainly right, for the Republicans, if they ever want to win a presidential race.”

The immigration reform measure that passed out of the Senate last week is currently under consideration by the House, where it is unpopular among conservative Republicans. Republican leadership has indicated that they may not pass the full Senate version, but could pass legislation piecemeal instead.

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Pelosi was speaking on USA Today's "Capital Download," and said that though she's "not making endorsements right now, because I don't think that's appropriate," among Democrats "[t]here's a great deal of excitement about the prospect that she would run."

As USA Today points out, at the end of the 2008 primary campaign, Pelosi had a slightly different take:

In 2008, Pelosi was House speaker and stayed officially neutral in the primary battle between Clinton and Barack Obama. She drew ire from Clinton's campaign with a comment that it would be "harmful" for unelected "superdelegates" to determine the nomination. At that key moment, support from superdelegates was seen as the only way Clinton might prevail.

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From the Register:

Trump accepted an invitation to the Family Leader’s second-annual leadership summit, an event the organizer says he hopes will help Iowa conservatives coalesce early on in the next presidential nominating cycle.

Speakers will be asked to talk about threats facing the country and families.

Though the Register says that Trump's trip "is bound to incite 2016 speculation," it also reports that Iowa Republicans aren't taking a potential Trump run seriously -- especially since he stirred up speculation about a run in both 2000 and 2011, before ultimately deciding against it.

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Another NBC News story on precisely the same topic comes away with a similar conclusion: "progressives are ready to give her another shot."

Progressives are basically fine with Hillary Clinton taking the 2016 nomination. There! Settled.

And why shouldn't they be? As Markos Moulitsas puts it, “The fact that she makes 2016 uninteresting makes that attractive." Yeah, that's about all you need, too. She would win. And you know who's a good nominee to go with, in general, in politics? The one who would win the election. Progressives overall might prefer, say, an Elizabeth Warren or Martin O'Malley for the nominee, but they likely won't run if Hillary Clinton runs, so whatever.

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Luckily or not, Rubio’s wimpy reply was overshadowed by reaction to a deeply reported New Yorker piece by Ryan Lizza that placed the Florida Republican at the center of the "Gang of Eight" negotiations. It featured a choice quote dissing American workers from an anonymous Rubio aide, explaining why his boss backed the Chamber of Commerce over the AFL-CIO when it came to a guest worker agreement (they eventually compromised): “There are American workers who, for lack of a better term, can’t cut it. There shouldn’t be a presumption that every American worker is a star performer. There are people who just can’t get it, can’t do it, don’t want to do it. And so you can’t obviously discuss that publicly.”

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Her cheeky Twitter debut told me two almost contradictory things: Hillary Clinton is having an enormously good time with this phase in her life, and she’s planning on running for president.

Obviously a winning campaign will be way harder than launching her Twitter presence, but let’s give her credit for a bold first step. Still, I was thrilled by Clinton’s sure-footed Twitter move – and then I was kind of horrified by how thrilled I was, particularly as I saw a comparable giddiness among liberals and the media (and no, they’re not the same thing.)

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From Gallup:

This poll shows only slight changes in the public's overall assessment of Clinton, with her unfavorable rating now marginally higher than at any time since 2008. However, there is no telling what the future might hold, as members of the House Oversight Committee have publicly speculated that Clinton may have to testify before the Republican-led committee again.

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“Sometimes you can be more effective on the outside than on the inside,” she said, echoing sentiments made by other Tea Party firebrands after being pushed out of office, like Allen West. “I’m not going away, I’m not leaving Washington, I’m not leaving the national scene.”

She suggested that her future plans may even include a bid for higher office, and Hannity asked her specifically about another White House run:

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Do those things go together? The political scientist John Sides thinks it’s going to be a problem:

[T]o be the Republican nominee, he’ll need the support of his Republican colleagues. The 2012 election once again showed—and despite some skepticism—that it is very hard to win the nomination unless you’re preferred by a substantial chunk, if not the vast majority of, your party’s leaders (as was Romney). Which is to say, it pays to be nice to your colleagues. It’s no guarantee, of course: junior Senator Hillary Clinton kept her head down and played nice, and lost the nomination. John McCain often irritated his fellow Republicans, but still mustered enough support within the party to win the nomination.

But political scientist Dave Hopkins isn’t so sure: “Don't think this is the problem for Cruz that John does. McCain bugged Sen colleagues/leaders too; still won '08 nom.”

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But in a stunning announcement today, Hickenlooper displayed a burst of genuine courage rarely seen anywhere in politics, much less in Colorado's ultra-cautious Democratic Party culture. Facing the decision of whether to execute convicted murderer Nathan Dunlap for his role in 1993's infamous Chuck E. Cheese killings, Hickenlooper used a temporary reprieve order for Dunlap to raise huge questions surrounding the death penalty itself.

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So was Chris Christie's lap band surgery; it’s obvious what that means. Joe Biden tells Rolling Stone he spends four to five hours a day with President Obama -- we all know why. The attempted rehabilitation of George W. Bush was all about the presidential ambitions of his brother Jeb. Sen. Marco Rubio’s immigration reform proposals are covered almost exclusively in terms of what they mean for his 2016 chances, not for U.S. immigration policy. And the White House schemes of freshman Sen. Ted Cruz, instead of being a laughable footnote in stories about his radicalism, are instead headline news everywhere.

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Hillary Clinton has just made her first public appearances since resigning as Secretary of State, and I am enthusiastic about her presumed candidacy; it’s making me dream of Iowa. I long to go there to work on electing the first woman president.

I watched Barack Obama there last November at the final stop of his final campaign, just before midnight on the chilly evening before election day in Des Moines, the crowd of 20,000 strong doing call and response along with our president. “Fired up!” “Ready to go!”

This is not post-racial America, despite what some would try and have us believe. This is still racist that-nigger-messed-up-the-country America and I am crying from true joy to think that 20,000 mostly white folks are out there in Iowa — in Iowa! — for our president. For Barack Obama. For a black man. A black man! (I don’t believe that Iowans are any more likely to be racist than the rest of us, but the heartland of America is not the first place that jumps to mind when I think of racial progress.)

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Paul referenced his contention at a Senate hearing earlier this year that he would have "relieved her of her position" if he was in office and learned that she did not read cables asking the State Department for more security at the U.S. consulate in Libya:

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Watch:

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Revolutions tend to occur in waves, triggered by the aftermath of wars, like the world wars, or by revolutions in leading countries, like the French Revolution and the revolutions of 1848. In the last generation, there have been four regional waves of revolution. With the end of the Cold War, communist regimes were swept from power from Eastern Europe to Central Asia, surviving only in a few countries including China, North Korea and Cuba. Unable to justify themselves with the pretense of fighting communism, military dictatorships were swept away in Latin America. Then the Arab Spring triggered a wave of populist if not necessarily democratic revolutions against autocracies in North Africa and the Middle East.

Are we seeing a new wave of revolutionary politics in the heartland of the industrial West? Although governments are not being violently overthrown in Europe, political systems are being destabilized by the rise of anti-system movements opposed to the major establishment parties. In Greece, the leftist Syriza party and the far-right Golden Dawn have sapped power from the political center. The most recent Italian election was dominated by anti-system candidates, including Silvio Berlusconi and the comedian Beppe Grillo.

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“I’m a Republican. I like Chris Christie. I want him to run. I just want him to lose weight,” Mariano said. “I’m a physician more than I’m a Democrat or Republican. And I’m worried about this man dying in office.” The White House doctor under George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, Mariano revealed that she helped Clinton lose 30 pounds, and suggested Christie could be helped, too.

“If he can overcome this disease, he deserves the White House,” the doctor later told the Newark Star-Ledger. “He’s a tough SOB. And all of us really like him because he’s refreshingly honest. He’s no BS-er. … I want him to lose weight so he can win the office.”

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