Salon.com > Presidential Elections

Rand Paul will never be president

Sat, 04 May 2013 11:00:00 +0000

Rand Paul, president of the United States of America? Unlikely at best.

Paul the Younger hasn’t disguised the plain fact that he’s running for the 2016 Republican nomination for president; he’s already begun making appearances in early primary and caucus states, and this week he started putting in motion the machinery for a presidential campaign. It’s always possible he won’t be running in 2016 – but for now, he’s certainly running for 2016.

And yet … Rand Paul faces very long odds. Perhaps not quite as long as his father did in his numerous presidential runs, but long enough.

There are basically two questions to ask about whether someone would be a viable candidate for a major party nomination. First, a candidate must have conventional qualifications. Paul certainly clears that hurdle, although not all that impressively. By 2016, he’ll be finishing up a full Senate term. That’s a little more than Barack Obama had (presumably Obama’s state legislative service meant little on this score). It’s more than Mitt Romney, a one-term governor, had. It’s the same number of years as George W. Bush, although Bush had the added qualification of having been reelected. So there’s no real barrier there.

How to interpret Kirsten Gillibrand’s political opportunism

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 20:10:00 +0000

You're not allowed, it seems, to write an article about New York Sen. and possible presidential hopeful Kirsten Gillibrand without comparing her to Tracy Flick (Politico yesterday dutifully observed the tradition). Yes, Gillibrand is ambitious, female and blonde and has been said to have sharp elbows -- it's taken less than that to trot out the "Election" protagonist before -- but there may be a more interesting comparison here: Mitt Romney.

When Gillibrand -- a hot topic in political circles this week, as a potential liberal presidential candidate and a champion for addressing sexual assault in the military -- was appointed to Hillary Clinton's Senate seat in 2009, Nate Silver wrote, "This is not a terrific outcome for progressive Democrats," because "Gillibrand, statistically speaking, has been one of the more conservative Democrats in the House. Moreover, she is a somewhat proud conservative, being a member of the Blue Dog caucus. In a state like New York, which is capable of electing and re-electing a very liberal senator, that’s a somewhat underachieving result for the Democrats."

Obama, Biden sworn in at intimate ceremonies

Sun, 20 Jan 2013 14:34:00 +0000

WASHINGTON (AP) -- On the cusp of his second term, President Barack Obama solemnly honored the nation's fallen soldiers Sunday before taking the oath of office in an intimate White House ceremony, a swearing-in ritual he will repeat 24 hours later before a massive crowd at the Capitol.

The day began with a morning swearing-in ceremony for Vice President Joe Biden, committing him to four more years as the nation's second in command. Biden then joined the president at Arlington National Cemetery for a wreath-laying ceremony on a crisp, sun-splashed January day.

Obama and Biden jointly placed a large wreath, adorned with red, white and blue ribbon, in front of Arlington's Tomb of the Unknowns. Placing their hands over their hearts, the two leaders stood solemnly as a bugle played "Taps."

Shortly before noon, Obama was to be sworn in for his second term in office. Only a small group of family members was expected to attend Obama's Sunday swearing-in, including first lady Michelle Obama and daughters Malia and Sasha.

Biden was surrounded by family and friends for his brief swearing-in at the Naval Observatory, his official residence in northwest Washington. Justice Sonia Sotomayor, appointed by Obama as the first Hispanic to serve on the Supreme Court, administered the oath of office to Biden, who placed his hand on a Bible his family has used since 1893.

Mitt’s new dumb lie

Fri, 02 Nov 2012 18:00:00 +0000

Remember when Mitt Romney took an Obama quote out of context and then built his national convention around it? Well, this is worse.

Here’s the campaign's new attack line: Obama said something that shows how much he loves bureaucracy and doesn’t understand business. “[Obama] wants to create a new ‘secretary of business,’” vice-presidential nominee Paul Ryan said on the stump in Colorado yesterday. “We already have a secretary of business. It’s actually called secretary of commerce. That’s what this agency does. Let me ask you a question: Can anybody name our current secretary of commerce? You know why? We don’t have one! It’s been vacant for over four months.”

"I don't think adding a new chair in his cabinet will help add millions of jobs on Main Street," Romney himself added in Virginia later in the day.

How Romney used his church’s charity status to lower his tax bill

Wed, 31 Oct 2012 01:57:00 +0000

We already know that Mormon Mitt Romney has been tremendously generous to his church, giving over $5 million in the past two years alone, but now we learn that his charitable activity with LDS may not have been entirely altruistic. Bloomberg’s Jesse Drucker reports that Romney exploited the church's tax-exempt status to lower his tax bill.

Romney reportedly took advantage of a loophole, called a charitable remainder unitrust or CRUT, which allows someone to park money or securities in a tax-deferred trust marked for his or her favorite charity, but which often doesn’t pay out much to the nonprofit. The donor pays taxes on the fixed yearly income from the trust, but the principal remains untaxed. Congress outlawed the practice in 1997, but Romney slid in under the wire when his trust, created in June 1996, was grandfathered in.

Mitt’s useless “storm relief”

Tue, 30 Oct 2012 16:55:00 +0000

So if Mitt Romney got rid of FEMA, like he maybe wanted to do at some point, what would he replace it with? There would be state aid, of course, as he’s said, but also probably charity. Romney has given millions to charity over the years (most of it to his church) and putting relief efforts in the hands of private and faith-based organizations instead of the government is a classic conservative value.

Today, we got a look at Romney’s charity in action, when he held an event that he swears was not a campaign rally in Ohio aimed at “storm relief” (the choice of a song with the lyrics “Knee deep in the water somewhere” was perhaps ill advised). The Romney campaign encouraged attendees to bring canned goods, clothes and other items to be sent to hurricane victims. “We have a lot of goods here ... that these people will need,” Romney said in his brief remarks. “We’re going to box them up, then send them into New Jersey.”

McGovern candidacy a cultural landmark

Mon, 22 Oct 2012 12:44:00 +0000

NEW YORK (AP) — Abbie Hoffman sobbed that fateful night at the downtown Manhattan apartment of fellow activist Jerry Rubin. So did Rubin and Allen Ginsberg. John Lennon was drunk, and out of control, shouting "Up the Revolution!" in mock celebration of a dream defeated.

It was November 1972 and George McGovern had just been whipped in a landslide by Richard Nixon.

McGovern, who died Sunday at age 90, was the earnest son of a minister, raised on a South Dakota farm. He wasn't a longhair and he wasn't charismatic, not a man you'd expect to win the loyalty of rock stars or win the heart of Hoffman, the Yippie prankster who just four years earlier had suggested a pig should run for president and said what America needed was nonstop sex in the streets.

But the candidate's steady liberal principles, and the timing of his run, made McGovern the first presidential nominee of a major political party to attract a broad and public following from the rebels who had come of age the decade before.

"He was the first candidate I voted for," says the activist and historian Todd Gitlin, who was in his late 20s at the time. "I think the support he got was a sign that the era of radical obstinacy was over."

Mitt’s “binders full of women” not even true

Wed, 17 Oct 2012 13:30:00 +0000

With three separate competing websites, a Facebook page that’s already received almost 250,000 likes, and a Twitter account that had attracted 13,000 followers before the debate ended, there’s no question that Mitt Romney’s comments about searching through “binders full of women” was the breakout viral star of last night’s presidential debate. But the comment is as revealing as it is funny.

The remark came in response to a question about what each man onstage would do for women, and Romney’s answer was essentially that he’s hired lots of women over his lifetime and has responded to their needs by providing things like a flex schedule so they could pick kids up at school. “We took a concerted effort to go out and find women who had backgrounds that could be qualified to become members of our cabinet. I went to a number of women’s groups and said, can you help us find folks? And I brought us whole binders full of -- of women,” Romney said.

Romney, please leave “Friday Night Lights” alone

Wed, 10 Oct 2012 17:39:00 +0000

Mitt Romney has recently taken to using “Friday Night Lights'” super-uplifting slogan “Clear eyes, full hearts, can't lose” on the campaign trail. (To be fair, Obama has used it too, though not to the same extent.) According to the AP, before the debate, Romney’s staffers tacked the slogan on the wall, and on his way out to the podium, Romney touched it, just like the Dillon Panthers used to do. And then, you know, pulled off a big upset, just like the Dillon Panthers used to do. I can admit that if President Obama was using “Clear Eyes, full hearts, can’t lose” as if he was Matt Saracen I would find this adorable, but I’m glad that Romney has shown me the error of my ways. No party should get to co-opt “Friday Night Lights” for political purposes. Some things are sacred.

When politicians really spoke in sound bites

Tue, 02 Oct 2012 18:53:00 +0000

Tomorrow night, millions of Americans will tune in to the first presidential debate of the 2012 campaign. The 21st century voter has a multitude of media to see and hear the debates in real time: TV, streaming online video, radio, and even “live-GIF.” But before the United States was awash in broadcast signals and Internet tubes, voters had far fewer options to learn about the candidates for president and what they stood for. But with the presidential election of 1924, American politics would be thrust into the future with a little help from a newcomer called radio.

Radio was still a young platform in the early 1920s. Radio sets were expensive, with typical units costing between $50 and $150 (about $600 to $1,900, adjusted for inflation). Radio sales were on the rise, but in 1924 only about 10 percent of U.S. households had a radio receiver.