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We begin with a story which is just ripe for mixing a few metaphors: The Iowa Republican Party just announced today that they are cancelling the Iowa Straw Poll.
I have to pity the poor mainstream media reporters covering Hillary Clinton's campaign, a tiny bit. No, no, I really do -- at least a smidgeon. They know full well that, barring any large and unforeseen events, they'll be covering Clinton's campaign for at least the next eight or nine months without having much of any "horserace" story to tell. If Clinton does as expected (again, barring a tremendous surge by Bernie Sanders or a sudden health problem for Hillary), she's going to become the Democratic nominee for president without much problem. This presents a deep quandary for the mainstream Clinton reporters, since all pundits (and I definitely include myself in this) absolutely love writing horserace stories. They're easy, they're poll-driven, and much like their namesake horseraces, it's always fun to see a dark horse pull into the lead or a frontrunner stumble or any other thrilling racetrack development that gets the heart pumping and the juices flowing. To put it another way: horserace stories are easy to write, which is why we get so many of them during each election.
Perry is the tenth Republican to throw his hat in the 2016 ring, joining Ben Carson, Ted Cruz, Carly Fiorina, Lindsey Graham, Mike Huckabee, George Pataki, Rand Paul, Marco Rubio, and Rick Santorum. There are at least five other Republicans who will also likely make a run for their party's nomination, but they have yet to formally announced their candidacies.
This is going to be a rather abbreviated column, because President Obama's job approval poll numbers didn't change much either way in May. Not only were the changes minimal, it also flattened the trendlines out all the way back to February. Let's take a quick look at the chart to see what I'm talking about:
We continue our running series of taking a serious look at all the announced candidates for president with two new entries this week, one from each side of the aisle. Republican Lindsey Graham made his formal announcement earlier in the week, and today Democrat Lincoln Chafee is also set to announce his candidacy.
Yesterday, Senator Rand Paul stood firmly for his beliefs on the floor of the Senate. As a result, portions of the USA PATRIOT Act have been allowed to lapse today. Whether you think this is a tragedy, a victory, or even an absolute farce depends on your feelings for (or against) both the National Security Agency's metadata surveillance program and Senator Paul himself. But while others are debating the finer points of government surveillance, I'd instead prefer to focus on Paul's political tactics. Because, from where I'm sitting, Paul is to be admired and commended for both standing on principle and for using his position in the Senate to show the other candidates what actual (as opposed to rhetorical) leadership truly means.
We're going to begin today with a rather loaded question. How much attention do you think the media should be paying towards a presidential nominee who is right now getting 13 to 15 percent support in public opinion polls of their party's voters?
Two things are worth noting here, before I jump in to taking a serious look (as I am doing for all announced presidential candidates from both parties) at the chances Martin O'Malley has of becoming president.
For those of you keeping score at home, the list of official Republican candidates for president is growing by two names this week: Rick Santorum and George Pataki. This brings the official total to eight, as these two join those who have already declared: Ben Carson, Ted Cruz, Carly Fiorina, Mike Huckabee, Rand Paul, and Marco Rubio. Santorum is announcing today and Pataki has scheduled his big announcement for tomorrow.
Please note that today's headline does not refer to a GOP race "to the bottom," but rather "at the bottom." Examining Republicans racing towards the bottom (however you define that concept) would be an entirely different subject, but what I'm talking about today is what is likely to become the most fierce fighting within the Republican Party's primary campaign -- the race at the very bottom of the polling -- because it will soon have an outsized importance for the overall contest to see which Republican will become the presidential nominee.