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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.
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.
Jeb Bush, is that your final answer? Sure you wouldn't like to phone a friend, or maybe just get the audience's reaction first?
There's a crass and cynical formula for any given political candidate to follow, when any political issue is being discussed. It goes something like this (yes, I made up all this terminology, so please bear with me):
I certainly never thought I'd have this opportunity, but today's title is a quote from one of the funniest episodes of one of the funniest television shows of all time: the Fawlty Towers episode "The Germans." If you haven't ever seen it, you should. The show features John Cleese of Monty Python fame, and while it only lasted one season is still absolutely hilarious. Cleese, as Basil Fawlty, owns a hotel he runs with his wife. During the episode, he repeatedly gets knocked on the head (even once fleeing the hospital instead of recovering from a particularly bad knock), and then in a daze manages to offend his German guests by "mentioning" World War II in practically everything that comes out of his mouth. The goose-stepping scene is one of Cleese's finest comedic performances, in fact.
When it comes to the 2016 field of Republican presidential candidates, the rule of thumb this time around is obviously going to be "the more, the merrier!" The number of officially-announced Republican candidates actually doubled this week (from three to six), as Carly Fiorina, Ben Carson, and Mike Huckabee all tossed their hats into the ring.
Last week, the field of officially-announced Democratic presidential candidates doubled in size, from one person to two. This week, the Republican presidential field is likewise going to double, from three candidates to six. Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, and Marco Rubio have all previously officially announced their candidacies, and this week they will be joined by Carly Fiorina and Ben Carson (who announced today), and Mike Huckabee (scheduled to announce tomorrow).