So we have a budget. Now how do we pay for it?
A guide to the funding schemes in yesterday’s budget deal.
By Danny Vinik
The White House and Republican leaders have reached a sweeping budget deal to avoid a debt-limit showdown, lifting the cap on discretionary spending by $80 billion in the 2016 and 2017 fiscal years, as well as pumping up the emergency spending account called Overseas Contingency Operations. The deal also avoids large premium increases for certain Medicare beneficiaries in 2016 and ensures that the Social Security Disability Insurance fund doesn’t go bankrupt.
This is all expensive. But it does all this while not raising taxes.
How does that work, exactly?
The government’s accounting is as much art as science; many of the offsets are nothing more than promises of savings in the future. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the deal will raise an additional $29.8 billion and cut spending by $45.9 billion over the next 10 years. Here’s how:
More Medicare cuts in 2025 — $14 billion
Originally, the 2011 “sequestration” deal saved future money by cutting Medicare repayments to doctors until the 2021 fiscal year. The Murray-Ryan budget deal further extended those until 2023 and a bill to avoid a cut to military pensions extended them to 2024. This new deal extends them yet another year until 2025, while making a few changes to the repayment schedules in 2023 and 2024.
Pension changes — $11.6 billion
The budget deal makes a number of changes to pensions, including changing the annual premiums paid by the plan sponsors for single employer pension plans to the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation. Among other changes, fixed premiums would rise from $64 per person right now to $68 in 2017, $73 in 2018 and $78 in 2019. That’s not exactly money in the bank now, but it counts in budget terms.
Tax compliance — $11 billion
The agreement would make two changes to tax provisions for large partnerships including hedge funds and private equity firms. The first would make it easier for the Internal Revenue Service to audit partnerships so that they pay their full tax obligations, raising $9 billion. The second would clarify rules regarding partnership interests that are created through gifts—a technical change that brings in another $2 billion.
Non-Obamacare health care changes — $10.5 billion
Without Congressional action, Medicare Part B monthly premiums are projected to increase by nearly a third for many beneficiaries starting next year. The budget deal sets a new Part B premium for those beneficiaries that avoids the huge hike. To pay for the change, the beneficiaries would pay an additional $3 per month in premiums until it’s repaid. It would also force generic drug companies to rebate money to Medicaid if the price of a drug grows faster than inflation. In total, the changes would raise more than $10 billion.
Obamacare reform — $8 billion
The proposal eliminates a rule requiring all employers with more than 200 employees to automatically enroll their workers in a health plan. Behavioral economists liked this idea—it changed the “default choice” for employees, and would have ensured more of them enrolled. But critics, mainly large employers, protested that the provision would confuse workers and restrict their freedom. CBO expects that the government will collect $8 billion more after this change, since tax-exempt health care benefits will instead flow to workers in the form of higher wages, which are now taxed.
Selling oil reserves — $5.1 billion
The bill directs the government to sell 58 million barrels of crude oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Selling our oil, while misguided according to many energy experts, is not inherently a gimmick. But in this case it’s not likely to yield anywhere near what Congress thinks. For technical reasons the Congressional Budget Office estimates a sale price of $85-90 per barrel, laughably unrealistic given that oil is currently less than $50 per barrel. The difference is a form of phantom revenue that helps get the budget through, but will increase the deficit if it doesn’t materialize.
Social Security reforms — $4.3 billion
Social Security consists of two funds: one, the Old Age and Survivors Insurance (OASI) fund, pays out benefits to older Americans, and the other, the Disability Insurance (DI) fund, pays out money to Americans who are unable to work due to a disability. The DI fund was set to run out of money next year. When this has happened in the past, Congress has transferred money from the OASI fund to the DI fund—in fact, they’ve made such transfers 11 times. But conservatives objected making such transfers this time around.
The budget deal reallocates a higher percentage of payroll taxes in 2016-2018 to the DI fund, boosting its funding and enabling it pay benefits until 2022. To please conservatives, it also includes a number of measures to make it harder for Americans to qualify for disability insurance and to crack down on fraud. It now requires applicants to receive a medical exam before qualifying for benefits, a rule in 30 states right now. It would also strengthen penalties for Social Security fraud, among other reforms. In all, the changes would cut spending by more than $4 billion.
Selling spectrum — $4.4 billion
The bill directs the FCC to auction of 30 megahertz of spectrum before July 1, 2024. Auctioning off airwaves has the potential to put billions of dollars in the government’s coffers. But as POLITICO’s Kate Tummarello reported, CBO is drastically undervaluing the potential profits from selling the spectrum, according to lawmakers. That has restricted Congress’ ability to use such sales as a payfor but it found its way into the budget deal anyways.
Judiciary changes — $3.5 billion
All government agencies must adjust their civil monetary penalties to take into account inflation and continue updating them annually. It also rescinds funding for the Crime Victims Fund ($1.5 billion) and the Assets Forfeiture Fund ($746 million).
Crop insurance — $3 billion
The bill makes two changes to the federal crop insurance program. First, it requires that the standard reinsurance agreement, a deal that establishes the terms under which the government provides subsidies and reinsurance to an insurance company, must be renegotiated by the end of next year. Second, it caps the overall rate of return for insurance providers at 8.9 percent. According to an official summary of the deal, the “rate of return [currently] is approximately 14.5 percent.”
November 02, 2015
Dictator of the House????
Ryan: 'I was not elected dictator of the House'
"I was elected speaker of the House. And that means we do it in a bottom up approach. We reach consensus."
By Jennifer Shutt
Rep. Paul Ryan says he was not elected speaker to dictate, but to work alongside fellow Republicans to set the House agenda.
"I was not elected dictator of the House. I was elected speaker of the House. And that means we do it in a bottom up approach. We reach consensus," Ryan said in an interview aired Sunday on CBS's "Face the Nation." As Republicans, we have common principles. We need to take those common principles and apply them to the problems of the day through consensus to show the country a better way forward. And it's my job to lead to that consensus, but not to dictate that consensus."
But those decisions, he said, won't include immigration reform as long as President Barack Obama is office.
"It would be a ridiculous notion to try and work on an issue like this with a president we simply cannot trust on this issue," Ryan said. "He tried to go it alone, circumventing the legislative process with his executive orders so that is not in the cards. "
Instead, the Wisconsin Republican said members of the House will start to explain what a new tax code should include, how they want to replace the Affordable Care Act and how to become a "bold alternative party."
"We don't like the direction the country's headed, so we owe it to the people of this nation how we would do things differently. And that's what we have to do in 2016." he said.
Ryan, who replaced retiring Rep. John Boehner as speaker last week, appeared on all five of the major Sunday morning shows in a blitz to re-introduce himself to the nation. In 2012, he was Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney's vice presidential running mate.
"I was elected speaker of the House. And that means we do it in a bottom up approach. We reach consensus."
By Jennifer Shutt
Rep. Paul Ryan says he was not elected speaker to dictate, but to work alongside fellow Republicans to set the House agenda.
"I was not elected dictator of the House. I was elected speaker of the House. And that means we do it in a bottom up approach. We reach consensus," Ryan said in an interview aired Sunday on CBS's "Face the Nation." As Republicans, we have common principles. We need to take those common principles and apply them to the problems of the day through consensus to show the country a better way forward. And it's my job to lead to that consensus, but not to dictate that consensus."
But those decisions, he said, won't include immigration reform as long as President Barack Obama is office.
"It would be a ridiculous notion to try and work on an issue like this with a president we simply cannot trust on this issue," Ryan said. "He tried to go it alone, circumventing the legislative process with his executive orders so that is not in the cards. "
Instead, the Wisconsin Republican said members of the House will start to explain what a new tax code should include, how they want to replace the Affordable Care Act and how to become a "bold alternative party."
"We don't like the direction the country's headed, so we owe it to the people of this nation how we would do things differently. And that's what we have to do in 2016." he said.
Ryan, who replaced retiring Rep. John Boehner as speaker last week, appeared on all five of the major Sunday morning shows in a blitz to re-introduce himself to the nation. In 2012, he was Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney's vice presidential running mate.
Trump in front
Florida poll shows Trump in front, with Bush’s help
By Marc Caputo
Donald Trump remains the clear frontrunner in Florida and, a new poll of likely Republican voters shows, he can partly thank the unlikeliest of people for that: Jeb Bush.
With the former Florida governor in the crowded primary for president, Trump leads with a solid 27 percent support, with Sen. Marco Rubio a distant second at 16 percent, followed by Dr. Ben Carson (15 percent), and Sen. Ted Cruz and Bush (about 12 percent each), according to Viewpoint Florida’s newly released survey of 2,047 likely Republican voters in the state.
Without Bush in the race, Trump has a problem: He gets no added benefit, but Rubio’s support jumps up so that he almost ties the frontrunner, 24-27 percent. The rest of the GOP field is essentially unchanged.
Without Rubio in the race, however, Trump’s lead ticks up a percentage point, to 28 percent. But Bush doesn’t then come in second. Instead, Carson and Cruz vie for second place and Bush remains in fourth, with 17 percent support.
“These figures don’t bode well for Jeb or the theory of his electability against Trump,” said Randy Nielsen, a West Palm Beach Republican consultant who conducted the poll and disclosed that he favors Rubio.
“What this poll says to conservatives like me is that if you want to stop Donald Trump, Jeb is not your guy in Florida,” Nielsen said. “The data show it’s Rubio.”
The poll also showed that more than 42 percent of Bush’s voters favored Rubio as a fallback. But fewer than 25 percent of Rubio’s voters wanted Bush as a second choice while about 25 percent said they favored Cruz as their No. 2.
Those results, Nielsen said, show that Bush hurts Rubio — and in doing so helps Cruz and Carson. And that undercut the Bush campaign’s notion that knocking the senator out would help Bush.
“The poll drives a stake in the heart of that theory. It clearly demonstrate they’re barking up the wrong tree,” Nielsen said. “If anything, it’s going to come to a point where they realize or hear the clarion call from the Republican establishment that you’re the problem, Jeb — not Marco.”
This Florida survey, the 10th in a row finding Trump on top, resembles other recent Florida polls that also show Bush in third or fourth place. Reflecting many national surveys, most of the recent Florida polls show that, as Bush has slipped, Carson and Rubio have risen. Now Cruz, on the heels of a strong debate performance Wednesday, might be showing more traction in Florida as well.
The surveys, in addition to the well-publicized staff shakeups and Bush’s shaky debating, underscore the depth of Bush’s troubles. With so much establishment Republican support in his home state, Florida was supposed to be Bush’s base, and his firewall. Now Bush is in danger of getting an honorable mention.
As his poll numbers have sunk, Bush has rebooted his campaign and announced spending cutbacks. He embarks on a three-city Florida tour in Tampa, Orlando and Jacksonville.
The electorate and media have greatly changed since Bush last appeared on a ballot, in his 2002 re-election. Then, he was a boom-time governor and brother of a popular wartime president. But only 46 percent of the Republicans who voted in that race are on the ballot today. And the conservative mood is stubbornly anti-establishment.
“They are the new generation of Republicans. And Rubio can make essentially the same case that Bush did when he ran for governor,” Brian Crowley, the Palm Beach Post’s former political editor who covered Bush’s elections, wrote on his Crowley Political Report last week.
“This presidential campaign is a reminder that Jeb Bush has only faced one serious opponent in his campaigns and he lost,” Crowley wrote, referencing Bush’s unsuccessful battle to unseat Democratic governor Lawton Chiles in 1994. “The fact is Bush's electoral successes have had more to do with the weaknesses of his opponents. Bush has not run against a Republican in more than 20 years.”
Among self-described Florida conservatives, who accounted for about 70 percent of Viewpoint Florida’s poll, Trump led with about 27 percent support, followed by Carson (17 percent), Rubio (16 percent) and Cruz (15 percent). Bush ran in fifth, with 10 percent support. Former Hewlett Packard executive Carly Fiorina, the only other GOP candidate named in the poll, was in fifth among conservatives (4 percent, about the same number as she received overall in the survey).
What makes Viewpoint Florida’s poll different is its mammoth size and low 2.2 percentage-point margin of error. Nielsen said his group, which phoned actual likely voters culled from the Florida voter file, took a large-sample poll because Viewpoint Florida uses what’s nicknamed “robo-polling technology,” in which respondents register choices by pushing phone prompts on their key pad. Because robo-polls miss cellphone voters, the larger sample size enables the pollsters to interview a more representative sample of the electorate, Nielsen said.
The survey was completed after last week’s debate, where Bush’s performance was widely panned after Rubio effectively parried his longtime friend’s criticism of his Senate voting by suggesting Bush was disingenuously trying to score political points.
Bush complained Sunday on “Meet The Press” that he was put at a disadvantage because he didn’t have time to respond to Rubio’s reply in the debate.
“That debate was a really weird debate just because you didn't get a chance to continue on,” Bush told NBC’s Chuck Todd. “I literally got cut off by all three of them saying, ‘Next question, next question.’”
Bush said he’s not criticizing Rubio personally: “The basic point with Marco isn't that he's not a good person or he's not a gifted politician — everybody can see that. It's that I have proven leadership skills. I got to be governor of a state and accomplish big things. And in this era of gridlock, it's really hard to break through, and I think he's given up. And I think that's the wrong thing to do. This is about public service, about solving problems.”
Bush also disavowed knowing about portions of his campaign’s slide show — presented last week by his campaign managers to donors at a family fundraiser — that questions Rubio’s personal financial management.
"Well I read about it when it was leaked, for sure,” he said. "I didn’t know about the PowerPoint. It wasn’t presented to me.”
Rubio, who says he won’t criticize Bush personally, told CBS’ “Face The Nation” that he disagreed with Bush’s emphasis on gubernatorial experience.
“It is true that the presidency is not like being a U.S. senator. But it's not like being a governor. There is no office in the world like the United States presidency,” Rubio told John Dickerson. “What I have shown over the last five years especially is judgment — good judgment — and understanding of the major issues before America, particularly on foreign policy. I do not believe there is anyone else in this race that's shown better judgment on the issues before America today than I have, and better understanding on them, especially in the foreign-policy realm.”
By Marc Caputo
Donald Trump remains the clear frontrunner in Florida and, a new poll of likely Republican voters shows, he can partly thank the unlikeliest of people for that: Jeb Bush.
With the former Florida governor in the crowded primary for president, Trump leads with a solid 27 percent support, with Sen. Marco Rubio a distant second at 16 percent, followed by Dr. Ben Carson (15 percent), and Sen. Ted Cruz and Bush (about 12 percent each), according to Viewpoint Florida’s newly released survey of 2,047 likely Republican voters in the state.
Without Bush in the race, Trump has a problem: He gets no added benefit, but Rubio’s support jumps up so that he almost ties the frontrunner, 24-27 percent. The rest of the GOP field is essentially unchanged.
Without Rubio in the race, however, Trump’s lead ticks up a percentage point, to 28 percent. But Bush doesn’t then come in second. Instead, Carson and Cruz vie for second place and Bush remains in fourth, with 17 percent support.
“These figures don’t bode well for Jeb or the theory of his electability against Trump,” said Randy Nielsen, a West Palm Beach Republican consultant who conducted the poll and disclosed that he favors Rubio.
“What this poll says to conservatives like me is that if you want to stop Donald Trump, Jeb is not your guy in Florida,” Nielsen said. “The data show it’s Rubio.”
The poll also showed that more than 42 percent of Bush’s voters favored Rubio as a fallback. But fewer than 25 percent of Rubio’s voters wanted Bush as a second choice while about 25 percent said they favored Cruz as their No. 2.
Those results, Nielsen said, show that Bush hurts Rubio — and in doing so helps Cruz and Carson. And that undercut the Bush campaign’s notion that knocking the senator out would help Bush.
“The poll drives a stake in the heart of that theory. It clearly demonstrate they’re barking up the wrong tree,” Nielsen said. “If anything, it’s going to come to a point where they realize or hear the clarion call from the Republican establishment that you’re the problem, Jeb — not Marco.”
This Florida survey, the 10th in a row finding Trump on top, resembles other recent Florida polls that also show Bush in third or fourth place. Reflecting many national surveys, most of the recent Florida polls show that, as Bush has slipped, Carson and Rubio have risen. Now Cruz, on the heels of a strong debate performance Wednesday, might be showing more traction in Florida as well.
The surveys, in addition to the well-publicized staff shakeups and Bush’s shaky debating, underscore the depth of Bush’s troubles. With so much establishment Republican support in his home state, Florida was supposed to be Bush’s base, and his firewall. Now Bush is in danger of getting an honorable mention.
As his poll numbers have sunk, Bush has rebooted his campaign and announced spending cutbacks. He embarks on a three-city Florida tour in Tampa, Orlando and Jacksonville.
The electorate and media have greatly changed since Bush last appeared on a ballot, in his 2002 re-election. Then, he was a boom-time governor and brother of a popular wartime president. But only 46 percent of the Republicans who voted in that race are on the ballot today. And the conservative mood is stubbornly anti-establishment.
“They are the new generation of Republicans. And Rubio can make essentially the same case that Bush did when he ran for governor,” Brian Crowley, the Palm Beach Post’s former political editor who covered Bush’s elections, wrote on his Crowley Political Report last week.
“This presidential campaign is a reminder that Jeb Bush has only faced one serious opponent in his campaigns and he lost,” Crowley wrote, referencing Bush’s unsuccessful battle to unseat Democratic governor Lawton Chiles in 1994. “The fact is Bush's electoral successes have had more to do with the weaknesses of his opponents. Bush has not run against a Republican in more than 20 years.”
Among self-described Florida conservatives, who accounted for about 70 percent of Viewpoint Florida’s poll, Trump led with about 27 percent support, followed by Carson (17 percent), Rubio (16 percent) and Cruz (15 percent). Bush ran in fifth, with 10 percent support. Former Hewlett Packard executive Carly Fiorina, the only other GOP candidate named in the poll, was in fifth among conservatives (4 percent, about the same number as she received overall in the survey).
What makes Viewpoint Florida’s poll different is its mammoth size and low 2.2 percentage-point margin of error. Nielsen said his group, which phoned actual likely voters culled from the Florida voter file, took a large-sample poll because Viewpoint Florida uses what’s nicknamed “robo-polling technology,” in which respondents register choices by pushing phone prompts on their key pad. Because robo-polls miss cellphone voters, the larger sample size enables the pollsters to interview a more representative sample of the electorate, Nielsen said.
The survey was completed after last week’s debate, where Bush’s performance was widely panned after Rubio effectively parried his longtime friend’s criticism of his Senate voting by suggesting Bush was disingenuously trying to score political points.
Bush complained Sunday on “Meet The Press” that he was put at a disadvantage because he didn’t have time to respond to Rubio’s reply in the debate.
“That debate was a really weird debate just because you didn't get a chance to continue on,” Bush told NBC’s Chuck Todd. “I literally got cut off by all three of them saying, ‘Next question, next question.’”
Bush said he’s not criticizing Rubio personally: “The basic point with Marco isn't that he's not a good person or he's not a gifted politician — everybody can see that. It's that I have proven leadership skills. I got to be governor of a state and accomplish big things. And in this era of gridlock, it's really hard to break through, and I think he's given up. And I think that's the wrong thing to do. This is about public service, about solving problems.”
Bush also disavowed knowing about portions of his campaign’s slide show — presented last week by his campaign managers to donors at a family fundraiser — that questions Rubio’s personal financial management.
"Well I read about it when it was leaked, for sure,” he said. "I didn’t know about the PowerPoint. It wasn’t presented to me.”
Rubio, who says he won’t criticize Bush personally, told CBS’ “Face The Nation” that he disagreed with Bush’s emphasis on gubernatorial experience.
“It is true that the presidency is not like being a U.S. senator. But it's not like being a governor. There is no office in the world like the United States presidency,” Rubio told John Dickerson. “What I have shown over the last five years especially is judgment — good judgment — and understanding of the major issues before America, particularly on foreign policy. I do not believe there is anyone else in this race that's shown better judgment on the issues before America today than I have, and better understanding on them, especially in the foreign-policy realm.”
Tweedledee and Tweedledum....
Bush vs. Rubio comes to Iowa
Appearing with his home-state rival and other GOP contenders, Bush says 'I know I have to get better.'
By Shane Goldmacher
Jeb Bush and Sen. Marco Rubio came to the same stage for the first time since their debate showdown earlier in the week that had ended disastrously for Bush, and it was a portrait of two politicians moving in opposite directions.
And it was clear that Bush knew it.
“I’m gonna get better. I oughta get better. I know I have to get better,” Bush told reporters after a speech to more than 1,000 GOP activists at the Iowa state fairgrounds.
Bush began his address in a defensive crouch, as he tried to justify within its first minute his shrinking standing in the polls. “You know, poll numbers, they go up and they go down,” Bush said. “Iowa proves that every caucus.”
Rubio glided through his standard stump speech and, even though it was not his fieriest performance, the crowd surged toward the stage when he was done. Fans, supporters and the curious encircled his campaign booth for more than an hour for a chance at an autograph or a selfie. As Rubio urged them more than once to “turn the page on outdated leaders of both parties,” it seemed as if he had turned a corner himself, becoming one of the celebrities of the 2016 campaign trail.
“Great debate the other night.” “So proud of you.” “Great speech,” they told him. “I’ve given it before, you know,” Rubio replied to the latter. Supporter sign-ups were coming so briskly that the campaign dispatched someone to get extra clipboards earlier in the day.
“Look at all these people!” exclaimed Sen. Joni Ernst as she tucked into Rubio’s booth for a quick hello.
“There’s just a lot of excitement right now,” Jack Whitver, Rubio’s state chairman, said amid the crush. “What we need to do is capitalize that into actual caucus commits, write out the information and do the groundwork.”
It was a different story for Bush, who was peppered with questions about what was next for his campaign and what’s gone wrong already.
Bush delivered an energetic speech, at least once he was past talking about his poor polling. He was well received overall, and more than a dozen Bush operatives and volunteers worked to make sure there were plenty of waving Jeb! signs. Afterward, he was surrounded by a crowd that, while smaller than Rubio’s, was still among the day’s largest.
Bush repeatedly invoked his competitive spirit to reporters.
"I’m a grinder,” he said at one point. “I eat nails when I wake up,” he said at another. “I’m a really competitive guy,” he added for good measure. He urged the press to be the first to write his “comeback narrative.”
It has been a rough ten days for the Bush, with severe cutbacks in his campaign payroll, a poor debate performance and the rollout of a new slogan – “Jeb Can Fix It” – that some have snickered applies as much about his own campaign as it does America’s problems. On Friday, Bush parted ways with his campaign’s chief operating officer, Christine Ciccone, the top-ranked official in the campaign to lose her job. She had been earning $12,000 per month.
Bush said Saturday he hadn’t re-watched the debate yet – “I’m sure I will. I’m sure someone will make me watch it” – but said of his performance, “I didn’t get asked the right questions, I didn’t butt in.”
Interestingly, Bush is not letting up on the line of attack that boomeranged against him. In Saturday’s speech, he again went after Rubio’s voting record, though not by name.
“If you’re elected to serve, you should do what Chuck Grassley does: You should show up and vote,” Bush said, citing Iowa’s popular senior senator.
Numerous Iowans wondered why Bush would target his supposed friend.
“It struck me that Bush is grasping a bit,” said Joe Earle, a Baptist pastor in Harlan and Rubio supporter.
Jim Leslie of Des Moines said it made Bush “look very petty and weak.”
“There’s no question in my mind that he’d be a good president,” Leslie said of Bush. “But a lot of presidential politics is personality and he’s not showing his best side.”
Rubio spoke at the GOP event in Iowa after a strong performance in the CNBC debate. | AP Photo
Bush and Rubio were just two of 10 Republican candidates for president who came to the “Growth and Opportunity Party” sponsored by the Republican Party of Iowa, including Sen. Ted Cruz, Sen. Rand Paul, Gov. Bobby Jindal, Mike Huckabee, Sen. Lindsey Graham, Rick Santorum, Carly Fiorina and Gov. Chris Christie. It was a fair-like atmosphere complete with bales of hay, cotton candy and children in Halloween costumes.
Christie was the only candidate to simply take questions from the crowd, turning it more into his favored town-hall format. “Isn’t this better than a speech you’ve heard a million times?” he asked.
Christie delivered a particularly energized performance – more bad news for Bush, who is competing for many of the same more-establishment supporters as the New Jersey governor.
“Jeb Bush is fighting an uphill battle right now after the last debate,” said Jamie Johnson, a former member of the Iowa GOP state central committee who is currently unaligned, “because Marco Rubio is ascending and Chris Christie has tremendous retail political skills
“The dynamics,” he added, “have shifted.”
Appearing with his home-state rival and other GOP contenders, Bush says 'I know I have to get better.'
By Shane Goldmacher
Jeb Bush and Sen. Marco Rubio came to the same stage for the first time since their debate showdown earlier in the week that had ended disastrously for Bush, and it was a portrait of two politicians moving in opposite directions.
And it was clear that Bush knew it.
“I’m gonna get better. I oughta get better. I know I have to get better,” Bush told reporters after a speech to more than 1,000 GOP activists at the Iowa state fairgrounds.
Bush began his address in a defensive crouch, as he tried to justify within its first minute his shrinking standing in the polls. “You know, poll numbers, they go up and they go down,” Bush said. “Iowa proves that every caucus.”
Rubio glided through his standard stump speech and, even though it was not his fieriest performance, the crowd surged toward the stage when he was done. Fans, supporters and the curious encircled his campaign booth for more than an hour for a chance at an autograph or a selfie. As Rubio urged them more than once to “turn the page on outdated leaders of both parties,” it seemed as if he had turned a corner himself, becoming one of the celebrities of the 2016 campaign trail.
“Great debate the other night.” “So proud of you.” “Great speech,” they told him. “I’ve given it before, you know,” Rubio replied to the latter. Supporter sign-ups were coming so briskly that the campaign dispatched someone to get extra clipboards earlier in the day.
“Look at all these people!” exclaimed Sen. Joni Ernst as she tucked into Rubio’s booth for a quick hello.
“There’s just a lot of excitement right now,” Jack Whitver, Rubio’s state chairman, said amid the crush. “What we need to do is capitalize that into actual caucus commits, write out the information and do the groundwork.”
It was a different story for Bush, who was peppered with questions about what was next for his campaign and what’s gone wrong already.
Bush delivered an energetic speech, at least once he was past talking about his poor polling. He was well received overall, and more than a dozen Bush operatives and volunteers worked to make sure there were plenty of waving Jeb! signs. Afterward, he was surrounded by a crowd that, while smaller than Rubio’s, was still among the day’s largest.
Bush repeatedly invoked his competitive spirit to reporters.
"I’m a grinder,” he said at one point. “I eat nails when I wake up,” he said at another. “I’m a really competitive guy,” he added for good measure. He urged the press to be the first to write his “comeback narrative.”
It has been a rough ten days for the Bush, with severe cutbacks in his campaign payroll, a poor debate performance and the rollout of a new slogan – “Jeb Can Fix It” – that some have snickered applies as much about his own campaign as it does America’s problems. On Friday, Bush parted ways with his campaign’s chief operating officer, Christine Ciccone, the top-ranked official in the campaign to lose her job. She had been earning $12,000 per month.
Bush said Saturday he hadn’t re-watched the debate yet – “I’m sure I will. I’m sure someone will make me watch it” – but said of his performance, “I didn’t get asked the right questions, I didn’t butt in.”
Interestingly, Bush is not letting up on the line of attack that boomeranged against him. In Saturday’s speech, he again went after Rubio’s voting record, though not by name.
“If you’re elected to serve, you should do what Chuck Grassley does: You should show up and vote,” Bush said, citing Iowa’s popular senior senator.
Numerous Iowans wondered why Bush would target his supposed friend.
“It struck me that Bush is grasping a bit,” said Joe Earle, a Baptist pastor in Harlan and Rubio supporter.
Jim Leslie of Des Moines said it made Bush “look very petty and weak.”
“There’s no question in my mind that he’d be a good president,” Leslie said of Bush. “But a lot of presidential politics is personality and he’s not showing his best side.”
Rubio spoke at the GOP event in Iowa after a strong performance in the CNBC debate. | AP Photo
Bush and Rubio were just two of 10 Republican candidates for president who came to the “Growth and Opportunity Party” sponsored by the Republican Party of Iowa, including Sen. Ted Cruz, Sen. Rand Paul, Gov. Bobby Jindal, Mike Huckabee, Sen. Lindsey Graham, Rick Santorum, Carly Fiorina and Gov. Chris Christie. It was a fair-like atmosphere complete with bales of hay, cotton candy and children in Halloween costumes.
Christie was the only candidate to simply take questions from the crowd, turning it more into his favored town-hall format. “Isn’t this better than a speech you’ve heard a million times?” he asked.
Christie delivered a particularly energized performance – more bad news for Bush, who is competing for many of the same more-establishment supporters as the New Jersey governor.
“Jeb Bush is fighting an uphill battle right now after the last debate,” said Jamie Johnson, a former member of the Iowa GOP state central committee who is currently unaligned, “because Marco Rubio is ascending and Chris Christie has tremendous retail political skills
“The dynamics,” he added, “have shifted.”
Tax reform
Ryan's move could be big boost for tax reform
By Brian Faler
Paul Ryan’s rise to House speaker is fanning hopes that a once-in-a-generation tax overhaul might be on the horizon.
The Wisconsin Republican who claimed the gavel last week is one of Congress’ preeminent tax experts, an ardent advocate of rewriting the code with lots of ideas on how to do it. Over the years, he’s gone further than most lawmakers in pushing politically fraught changes that have gone nowhere, such as wiping out a major tax break for employer-provided health plans and making it harder for the wealthy to claim the hugely popular mortgage-interest deduction.
But now Ryan has far more power to put the issue on Washington’s agenda — and the latest budget deal between congressional leaders and the White House should give him ample room to launch his speakership without being distracted by constant battles over funding the government and raising the debt limit. So some advocates are recalibrating the odds of a long-elusive tax overhaul that they say could spur new jobs and bring corporate money back from overseas.
Sweeping tax change won’t happen this year, supporters say, with lawmakers still staring at a stack of unfinished business — or next year, when the 2016 election will loom even larger. But they say it’s suddenly a lot more likely in the early years of the next presidency, especially if the Republicans win the White House.
“It certainly comes as close to guaranteeing it as possible,” said a top Republican staffer. “It’s his No. 1 priority — it’s what he cares about most.”
The sort of ambitious reform Ryan has in mind, which would be the first since 1986, promises to cut both individual and corporate tax rates in exchange for junking scores of credits, deductions and other special provisions. Any rewrite would be hugely controversial, with an array of powerful interest groups sure to line up to defend their favorite provisions, not to mention many Democrats who’ve long complained that Ryan’s plans amount to a giveaway to the rich.
In a speech to the House just before his swearing-in Thursday, Ryan named tax reform as one of his top priorities.
Voters “look at Washington and all they see is chaos — what a relief to them it would be if we finally got our acts together,” Ryan told his colleagues. “How reassuring it would be if we actually fixed the tax code, put patients in charge of their health care, grew our economy, strengthened our military, lifted people out of poverty and paid down our debt.”
“The cynics will scoff — they’ll say it’s not possible,” he said. “You better believe we’re going to try.”
That would be a big change from tax reform’s fate under John Boehner.
It was the former Republican leader who, in 2013, pulled the plug on a long-promised tax reform bid by former Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp (R-Mich.) when it became clear Democrats would not join them in the effort. Boehner prevented Camp from even bringing his three-years-in-the-making tax plan before the panel.
“Blah blah blah blah,” Boehner famously told reporters when asked about the 900-page proposal, the most comprehensive plan offered in the Capitol in at least a decade.
It’s virtually impossible to imagine a similar reaction from Ryan, many say. They note that, as chairman of the House Budget Committee, he dragged his Republican colleagues into backing a partial privatization of Medicare that was doomed from the outset. The proposal handed giddy Democrats years of campaign fodder.
“Paul Ryan will have no problem having Republicans go down the tax-reform path alone,” said a tax lobbyist. “He won’t need the Democratic cover.”
To be sure, Ryan will have plenty on his plate as speaker to keep him busy, and some predict his move will actually hurt the cause of tax reform. What’s more, an overhaul would be a monumental achievement for any Congress, and some are skeptical he can overcome the gridlock that has often left lawmakers struggling with even the most basic tasks of governing.
But Ryan has long been one of his party’s most influential voices on taxes, even before he took over the Ways and Means panel earlier this year.
Ryan, who’s called low marginal rates the “secret sauce” of economic growth, was a driving force behind Republicans’ promises to cut the top individual and corporate tax rates to 25 percent, a pledge that debuted in one of his annual budgets. Camp was unable to make good on that promise as part of his plan, settling for a top rate of 35 percent. (The top rate is now 39.6 percent.)
Ryan likewise was a key figure behind the House’s adoption earlier this year of controversial new budgeting rules known as “dynamic scoring,” which requires scorekeepers to include the likely economic effects of legislation when tallying costs — for instance, the economic growth that conservatives insist would result from lowering rates. Long sought by Republicans, the rule change should make it easier for lawmakers to make the numbers work in any tax reform bid.
He has also proposed a string of politically sensitive tax changes. He’s called for halving the mortgage interest deduction by allowing taxpayers to write off their interest costs on only the first $500,000 of debt. He has said it should be a middle-class break, not one for the wealthy.
He’s called for junking the half-century-old tax exclusion that companies get for providing workers with health benefits. Saying it contributes to rising health care costs, Ryan has proposed replacing it with a portable tax credit people could use to buy their own insurance. That goes even further than President Barack Obama’s reviled “Cadillac tax,” which will begin dunning only the costliest of health plans beginning in 2018.
Ryan wants to kill a long-standing deduction for state and local income taxes, something especially important to high-tax — and Democratic-leaning — states like California and New York. The federal government should not be forcing people elsewhere to subsidize them, Ryan has argued.
And he’s pushed to cull the so-called tax extenders, the mishmash of ostensibly temporary breaks for big banks, charities, teachers, energy companies and sundry others that Congress has been rolling over for years.
“He spent his nights dreaming about tax policy,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said Thursday, in a speech welcoming Ryan to the new post.
For all of his controversial proposals, Ryan has found some common ground with Democrats.
Like Obama, Ryan wants to expand the earned income tax credit, a wage supplement to the working poor. He’s seconded the administration’s call to expand the program for childless workers, and increasing the maximum aid.
Earlier this year, he pushed for a corporate-only tax reform, arguing it was one area of the code in which Republicans might be able to work with the administration. When that failed, he tried a more narrow reform with Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) focused on rewriting the tax rules for multinational corporations. That, too, stalled.
He has found more bipartisan success on the spending front, working out a deal with Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) in 2013 that offered temporary relief from congressionally imposed caps on expenditures.
But not everyone sees Ryan’s promotion as a boon to tax reform.
Some say Ryan will likely be preoccupied with the daily demands of running the House, when he might otherwise be in the legislative trenches, pushing a plan through all the competing interests in the chamber.
“There’s no doubt that the intention of the speaker to get tax reform will go up,” said Ryan Ellis, tax policy director at Grover Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform. “But the ability to execute it goes down.”
“If you don’t have your best mind on tax reform devoted to it, and instead have to run the entire House, then it certainly diminishes the prospects,” he said. “Tax reform isn’t just a matter of the will of the House — it’s also the work of the committee,” and Ryan is “uniquely qualified to go through all the nuts and bolts of this, and knows where the bodies are buried and who’s going to hate what, and who has to be accommodated here versus there.”
Others say speakers can involve themselves in whatever issue they like. And though Ryan said he wants to decentralize power by having the committees take the lead in writing legislation, many predict he would be heavily engaged in any overhaul, even if he’s not running Ways and Means.
“He’ll be more involved in tax reform than any speaker ever has,” predicts Ken Kies, a longtime tax lobbyist.
By Brian Faler
Paul Ryan’s rise to House speaker is fanning hopes that a once-in-a-generation tax overhaul might be on the horizon.
The Wisconsin Republican who claimed the gavel last week is one of Congress’ preeminent tax experts, an ardent advocate of rewriting the code with lots of ideas on how to do it. Over the years, he’s gone further than most lawmakers in pushing politically fraught changes that have gone nowhere, such as wiping out a major tax break for employer-provided health plans and making it harder for the wealthy to claim the hugely popular mortgage-interest deduction.
But now Ryan has far more power to put the issue on Washington’s agenda — and the latest budget deal between congressional leaders and the White House should give him ample room to launch his speakership without being distracted by constant battles over funding the government and raising the debt limit. So some advocates are recalibrating the odds of a long-elusive tax overhaul that they say could spur new jobs and bring corporate money back from overseas.
Sweeping tax change won’t happen this year, supporters say, with lawmakers still staring at a stack of unfinished business — or next year, when the 2016 election will loom even larger. But they say it’s suddenly a lot more likely in the early years of the next presidency, especially if the Republicans win the White House.
“It certainly comes as close to guaranteeing it as possible,” said a top Republican staffer. “It’s his No. 1 priority — it’s what he cares about most.”
The sort of ambitious reform Ryan has in mind, which would be the first since 1986, promises to cut both individual and corporate tax rates in exchange for junking scores of credits, deductions and other special provisions. Any rewrite would be hugely controversial, with an array of powerful interest groups sure to line up to defend their favorite provisions, not to mention many Democrats who’ve long complained that Ryan’s plans amount to a giveaway to the rich.
In a speech to the House just before his swearing-in Thursday, Ryan named tax reform as one of his top priorities.
Voters “look at Washington and all they see is chaos — what a relief to them it would be if we finally got our acts together,” Ryan told his colleagues. “How reassuring it would be if we actually fixed the tax code, put patients in charge of their health care, grew our economy, strengthened our military, lifted people out of poverty and paid down our debt.”
“The cynics will scoff — they’ll say it’s not possible,” he said. “You better believe we’re going to try.”
That would be a big change from tax reform’s fate under John Boehner.
It was the former Republican leader who, in 2013, pulled the plug on a long-promised tax reform bid by former Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp (R-Mich.) when it became clear Democrats would not join them in the effort. Boehner prevented Camp from even bringing his three-years-in-the-making tax plan before the panel.
“Blah blah blah blah,” Boehner famously told reporters when asked about the 900-page proposal, the most comprehensive plan offered in the Capitol in at least a decade.
It’s virtually impossible to imagine a similar reaction from Ryan, many say. They note that, as chairman of the House Budget Committee, he dragged his Republican colleagues into backing a partial privatization of Medicare that was doomed from the outset. The proposal handed giddy Democrats years of campaign fodder.
“Paul Ryan will have no problem having Republicans go down the tax-reform path alone,” said a tax lobbyist. “He won’t need the Democratic cover.”
To be sure, Ryan will have plenty on his plate as speaker to keep him busy, and some predict his move will actually hurt the cause of tax reform. What’s more, an overhaul would be a monumental achievement for any Congress, and some are skeptical he can overcome the gridlock that has often left lawmakers struggling with even the most basic tasks of governing.
But Ryan has long been one of his party’s most influential voices on taxes, even before he took over the Ways and Means panel earlier this year.
Ryan, who’s called low marginal rates the “secret sauce” of economic growth, was a driving force behind Republicans’ promises to cut the top individual and corporate tax rates to 25 percent, a pledge that debuted in one of his annual budgets. Camp was unable to make good on that promise as part of his plan, settling for a top rate of 35 percent. (The top rate is now 39.6 percent.)
Ryan likewise was a key figure behind the House’s adoption earlier this year of controversial new budgeting rules known as “dynamic scoring,” which requires scorekeepers to include the likely economic effects of legislation when tallying costs — for instance, the economic growth that conservatives insist would result from lowering rates. Long sought by Republicans, the rule change should make it easier for lawmakers to make the numbers work in any tax reform bid.
He has also proposed a string of politically sensitive tax changes. He’s called for halving the mortgage interest deduction by allowing taxpayers to write off their interest costs on only the first $500,000 of debt. He has said it should be a middle-class break, not one for the wealthy.
He’s called for junking the half-century-old tax exclusion that companies get for providing workers with health benefits. Saying it contributes to rising health care costs, Ryan has proposed replacing it with a portable tax credit people could use to buy their own insurance. That goes even further than President Barack Obama’s reviled “Cadillac tax,” which will begin dunning only the costliest of health plans beginning in 2018.
Ryan wants to kill a long-standing deduction for state and local income taxes, something especially important to high-tax — and Democratic-leaning — states like California and New York. The federal government should not be forcing people elsewhere to subsidize them, Ryan has argued.
And he’s pushed to cull the so-called tax extenders, the mishmash of ostensibly temporary breaks for big banks, charities, teachers, energy companies and sundry others that Congress has been rolling over for years.
“He spent his nights dreaming about tax policy,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said Thursday, in a speech welcoming Ryan to the new post.
For all of his controversial proposals, Ryan has found some common ground with Democrats.
Like Obama, Ryan wants to expand the earned income tax credit, a wage supplement to the working poor. He’s seconded the administration’s call to expand the program for childless workers, and increasing the maximum aid.
Earlier this year, he pushed for a corporate-only tax reform, arguing it was one area of the code in which Republicans might be able to work with the administration. When that failed, he tried a more narrow reform with Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) focused on rewriting the tax rules for multinational corporations. That, too, stalled.
He has found more bipartisan success on the spending front, working out a deal with Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) in 2013 that offered temporary relief from congressionally imposed caps on expenditures.
But not everyone sees Ryan’s promotion as a boon to tax reform.
Some say Ryan will likely be preoccupied with the daily demands of running the House, when he might otherwise be in the legislative trenches, pushing a plan through all the competing interests in the chamber.
“There’s no doubt that the intention of the speaker to get tax reform will go up,” said Ryan Ellis, tax policy director at Grover Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform. “But the ability to execute it goes down.”
“If you don’t have your best mind on tax reform devoted to it, and instead have to run the entire House, then it certainly diminishes the prospects,” he said. “Tax reform isn’t just a matter of the will of the House — it’s also the work of the committee,” and Ryan is “uniquely qualified to go through all the nuts and bolts of this, and knows where the bodies are buried and who’s going to hate what, and who has to be accommodated here versus there.”
Others say speakers can involve themselves in whatever issue they like. And though Ryan said he wants to decentralize power by having the committees take the lead in writing legislation, many predict he would be heavily engaged in any overhaul, even if he’s not running Ways and Means.
“He’ll be more involved in tax reform than any speaker ever has,” predicts Ken Kies, a longtime tax lobbyist.
Turkish elections
6 takeaways from the Turkish elections
A defiant Erdoğan rides back to power on a wave of violence.
By Aykan Erdemir
After losing their single-party majority for the first time in 12 years, the Islamist-rooted Justice and Development Party (AKP) returned to power after a five-month intermission. Turkey’s supposedly nonpartisan president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has demonstrated his mastery of politics by winning the election gamble to lead his party back to government. Although the AKP has failed to win the super-majority needed to unilaterally impose an executive presidential system tailor-made for Erdoğan, the party regained a clear mandate to rule Turkey for the next four years.
1. Violence wins
Since the June elections, Turkish politics has been marred by intimidation and violence, by the Turkish state, the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) and the Islamic State, leading to hundreds of casualties. Erdoğan seems to have ridden the wave of mayhem back to power by taking the votes of Turkish nationalists away from the far-right MHP and of religious Kurds from the pro-Kurdish HDP. The AKP’s promise of strong leadership, security and stability seems to have struck a chord with an electorate deeply worried about Turkey’s spiraling into violence in a volatile region. Ironically, the PKK’s fight against Erdoğan helped him back into power. But the PKK could, now, step back from the unilateral ceasefire it declared in the aftermath of ISIL’s Ankara bombing on October 10 and return to its tradition of violence.
2. Turkey descends further into competitive authoritarianism
Although the AKP lost its single-party majority in June, the party has managed to rule Turkey for the last five months without sharing power with the opposition, with the exception of a 25-day term when it had two HDP ministers. The AKP used the five-month run-up to the snap elections to crack down on opposition NGOs and businesses, take over critical media, and intimidate journalists and opposition figures, and this strategy has seemed to produce significant gains for Erdoğan. He will most likely try to settle scores with the remaining critical media, businesses and NGOs, thus further undermining Turkey’s democracy, rights and freedoms, and rule of law. The next general elections, expected to take place in 2019, could end up being the most unfair and fraudulent elections to date.
3. The Peoples’ Democracy Party (HDP) is here to stay
The HDP was the first pro-Kurdish party in Turkish history to pass the 10 percent threshold to gain representation in parliament. Although the failure of the Kurdish peace process and the escalation of the PKK violence have presented significant challenges for the HDP, the party managed to clear the threshold again, albeit with significant losses. The HDP became the first pro-Kurdish party to win seats in the Turkish parliament. If the party can do some soul-searching to question the PKK’s hardline tactics that have, unfortunately, served Erdoğan’s authoritarian ambitions, it could be integrated further into the Turkish political system…
4. Turkey’s far-right Nationalist Action Party (MHP) has committed suicide
Turkey’s far-right nationalists were hoping to make notable gains, capitalizing on the Turkish reaction to the rise of PKK violence. To their dismay, they lost a quarter of their votes. This, however, was a disaster in the making. Since the June elections, the MHP refused to enter into any coalition, failed to undertake proactive policies and purged most of its competent members from candidate lists. Although the MHP leadership expected the party’s staunchly ideological grassroots to remain loyal to the party no matter what, they were shocked to learn that even far-right voters hold their leaders accountable.
5. A Pyrrhic victory for the AKP
The AKP leadership and cadres seem to be jubilant with a landslide victory that no pollster saw coming. The results, however, could push the party further toward authoritarian excesses and reprisals against the opposition. If the AKP continues on its path to undermine Turkey’s rule of law, free markets, and media freedoms, the country could melt down further into the toxic climate of authoritarianism. If the elections end up highlighting Turkey’s image as a grudgingly democratic authoritarian regime, it could turn into a Pyrrhic victory for the AKP as it suffers the economic costs and political consequences of Turkey’s drift away from the transatlantic world.
6. This could be the beginning of the end for Davutoğlu-Erdoğan duo
These elections failed to provide Erdoğan with the super-majority he needed to bestow upon himself the executive presidential powers he covets. Prime minister Davutoğlu, however, has won a significant victory, proving his leadership skills and strengthening his credentials within the AKP. Can these two leaders continue to work in harmony? Will Davutoğlu feel tired of working under the tutelage and shadow of Erdoğan? If the two fail to arrive at a modus vivendi about the future parameters of power sharing, election celebrations could soon lead to brutal infighting in the AKP ranks, adding further fuel to Turkey’s political chaos and conflict.
Aykan Erdemir is a former member of the Turkish Parliament for the Social-democrat CHP and a nonresident senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies in Washington. He currently teaches at Bilkent University in Ankara.
A defiant Erdoğan rides back to power on a wave of violence.
By Aykan Erdemir
After losing their single-party majority for the first time in 12 years, the Islamist-rooted Justice and Development Party (AKP) returned to power after a five-month intermission. Turkey’s supposedly nonpartisan president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has demonstrated his mastery of politics by winning the election gamble to lead his party back to government. Although the AKP has failed to win the super-majority needed to unilaterally impose an executive presidential system tailor-made for Erdoğan, the party regained a clear mandate to rule Turkey for the next four years.
1. Violence wins
Since the June elections, Turkish politics has been marred by intimidation and violence, by the Turkish state, the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) and the Islamic State, leading to hundreds of casualties. Erdoğan seems to have ridden the wave of mayhem back to power by taking the votes of Turkish nationalists away from the far-right MHP and of religious Kurds from the pro-Kurdish HDP. The AKP’s promise of strong leadership, security and stability seems to have struck a chord with an electorate deeply worried about Turkey’s spiraling into violence in a volatile region. Ironically, the PKK’s fight against Erdoğan helped him back into power. But the PKK could, now, step back from the unilateral ceasefire it declared in the aftermath of ISIL’s Ankara bombing on October 10 and return to its tradition of violence.
2. Turkey descends further into competitive authoritarianism
Although the AKP lost its single-party majority in June, the party has managed to rule Turkey for the last five months without sharing power with the opposition, with the exception of a 25-day term when it had two HDP ministers. The AKP used the five-month run-up to the snap elections to crack down on opposition NGOs and businesses, take over critical media, and intimidate journalists and opposition figures, and this strategy has seemed to produce significant gains for Erdoğan. He will most likely try to settle scores with the remaining critical media, businesses and NGOs, thus further undermining Turkey’s democracy, rights and freedoms, and rule of law. The next general elections, expected to take place in 2019, could end up being the most unfair and fraudulent elections to date.
3. The Peoples’ Democracy Party (HDP) is here to stay
The HDP was the first pro-Kurdish party in Turkish history to pass the 10 percent threshold to gain representation in parliament. Although the failure of the Kurdish peace process and the escalation of the PKK violence have presented significant challenges for the HDP, the party managed to clear the threshold again, albeit with significant losses. The HDP became the first pro-Kurdish party to win seats in the Turkish parliament. If the party can do some soul-searching to question the PKK’s hardline tactics that have, unfortunately, served Erdoğan’s authoritarian ambitions, it could be integrated further into the Turkish political system…
4. Turkey’s far-right Nationalist Action Party (MHP) has committed suicide
Turkey’s far-right nationalists were hoping to make notable gains, capitalizing on the Turkish reaction to the rise of PKK violence. To their dismay, they lost a quarter of their votes. This, however, was a disaster in the making. Since the June elections, the MHP refused to enter into any coalition, failed to undertake proactive policies and purged most of its competent members from candidate lists. Although the MHP leadership expected the party’s staunchly ideological grassroots to remain loyal to the party no matter what, they were shocked to learn that even far-right voters hold their leaders accountable.
5. A Pyrrhic victory for the AKP
The AKP leadership and cadres seem to be jubilant with a landslide victory that no pollster saw coming. The results, however, could push the party further toward authoritarian excesses and reprisals against the opposition. If the AKP continues on its path to undermine Turkey’s rule of law, free markets, and media freedoms, the country could melt down further into the toxic climate of authoritarianism. If the elections end up highlighting Turkey’s image as a grudgingly democratic authoritarian regime, it could turn into a Pyrrhic victory for the AKP as it suffers the economic costs and political consequences of Turkey’s drift away from the transatlantic world.
6. This could be the beginning of the end for Davutoğlu-Erdoğan duo
These elections failed to provide Erdoğan with the super-majority he needed to bestow upon himself the executive presidential powers he covets. Prime minister Davutoğlu, however, has won a significant victory, proving his leadership skills and strengthening his credentials within the AKP. Can these two leaders continue to work in harmony? Will Davutoğlu feel tired of working under the tutelage and shadow of Erdoğan? If the two fail to arrive at a modus vivendi about the future parameters of power sharing, election celebrations could soon lead to brutal infighting in the AKP ranks, adding further fuel to Turkey’s political chaos and conflict.
Aykan Erdemir is a former member of the Turkish Parliament for the Social-democrat CHP and a nonresident senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies in Washington. He currently teaches at Bilkent University in Ankara.
Democratic National Committee chairwoman
Trump slams Wasserman Schultz as 'crazy' and 'highly neurotic'
By Nick Gass
Debbie Wasserman Schultz is a "crazy," "highly neurotic woman" but the Democratic National Committee chairwoman "negotiated a great deal" for Democratic debates, Donald Trump said Monday.
Appearing on Sirius XM's "Breitbart News Daily" with Stephen Bannon, the Republican presidential candidate was asked whether he or Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus would do a better job hammering out a television deal for debates.
"Well, I'm not allowed to say that, OK? But I can tell you he's a very good guy. He really is. He's a very nice person and I think that hopefully he's going to do a good job. Hey look, you get a candidate, you really need that RNC to go in there and fight hard. And they have to be very tough and very smart," he said.
On the Democratic side, Trump said, "[y]ou have this crazy Wasserman Schultz — Deborah Wasserman Schultz — who is in there, a highly neurotic woman."
"This is a woman that is a terrible person. I watch her on television. She's a terrible person," Trump continued. "And in all fairness, she negotiated a great deal for Hillary because they gave Hillary all softballs."
"Unbelievable," Bannon remarked.
"Every ball was a softball. And in fact, the other candidates weren't even allowed to talk up against her," Trump said.
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders "totally destroyed his campaign" with his remark in last month's debate that the American public was sick and tired of hearing about her "damn emails."
"I said 'He's dead, that's the end of him.' He gave that up — it was a great soundbite for about three minutes, for three seconds, they clapped for about three seconds — when he gave up the emails, he is now just wasting his time," Trump added. "By the way, his audience has shrunk. Now he's got to take ads and everything else. His audiences have gone. And you know I have by far the biggest audiences, even before. But his audiences are gone now. When he gave up that email thing, he said 'here, Hillary.'"
The DNC fired back in an emailed response to POLITICO.
"The Republican front-runner's misogynistic attacks are sadly representative of the GOP's outdated approach to women and the issues that affect them and their families," DNC spokeswoman Kaylie Hanson said. "Whether it's trying to get between them and their doctor, opposing equal pay for equal work, or using offensive language, the Republican Party is wrong for women."
By Nick Gass
Debbie Wasserman Schultz is a "crazy," "highly neurotic woman" but the Democratic National Committee chairwoman "negotiated a great deal" for Democratic debates, Donald Trump said Monday.
Appearing on Sirius XM's "Breitbart News Daily" with Stephen Bannon, the Republican presidential candidate was asked whether he or Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus would do a better job hammering out a television deal for debates.
"Well, I'm not allowed to say that, OK? But I can tell you he's a very good guy. He really is. He's a very nice person and I think that hopefully he's going to do a good job. Hey look, you get a candidate, you really need that RNC to go in there and fight hard. And they have to be very tough and very smart," he said.
On the Democratic side, Trump said, "[y]ou have this crazy Wasserman Schultz — Deborah Wasserman Schultz — who is in there, a highly neurotic woman."
"This is a woman that is a terrible person. I watch her on television. She's a terrible person," Trump continued. "And in all fairness, she negotiated a great deal for Hillary because they gave Hillary all softballs."
"Unbelievable," Bannon remarked.
"Every ball was a softball. And in fact, the other candidates weren't even allowed to talk up against her," Trump said.
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders "totally destroyed his campaign" with his remark in last month's debate that the American public was sick and tired of hearing about her "damn emails."
"I said 'He's dead, that's the end of him.' He gave that up — it was a great soundbite for about three minutes, for three seconds, they clapped for about three seconds — when he gave up the emails, he is now just wasting his time," Trump added. "By the way, his audience has shrunk. Now he's got to take ads and everything else. His audiences have gone. And you know I have by far the biggest audiences, even before. But his audiences are gone now. When he gave up that email thing, he said 'here, Hillary.'"
The DNC fired back in an emailed response to POLITICO.
"The Republican front-runner's misogynistic attacks are sadly representative of the GOP's outdated approach to women and the issues that affect them and their families," DNC spokeswoman Kaylie Hanson said. "Whether it's trying to get between them and their doctor, opposing equal pay for equal work, or using offensive language, the Republican Party is wrong for women."
K Street
K Street braces for Ryan
The new speaker has kept his distance from lobbyists, despite a political career spent on Capitol Hill.
By Anna Palmer
Paul Ryan is not a creature of K Street: The GOP’s ultimate policy guru has spent most of his career on Capitol Hill but is known to be more interested in the opinions of think tankers and wonks than the traditional influence set.
“Paul has never been a downtown guy, and I don’t expect that to change,” said his spokesman, Brendan Buck.
That has K Street preparing for a new world order in the post-John Boehner House.
Downtowners are anxious to see what kind of treatment they’ll get from the Wisconsin Republican compared with the clubby Boehner. At the same time, they’re bullish that the new speaker will be able to break the logjam on some of their top priorities, such as reforms to taxes and entitlements.
Boehner schmoozed his network of lobbyists and former staffers, a group so ubiquitous on D.C.’s cocktail circuit it was dubbed “Boehnerland.” He favored golf fundraisers and other junkets that allowed lobbyists and industry executives to spend several hours at a time with him. He was interested in their opinions, often asking K Streeters what they thought about legislative priorities and tactics.
And whereas Boehner was willing to do a favor for a friend, several lobbyists said they don’t expect the same from Ryan.
“When you are a policy wonk, but also a transformative crusader as he is, that makes lobbyists nervous,” said Stephen Pinkos, a former House GOP leadership aide now at American Continental Group. “He’ll put philosophy above transactions.”
Cesar Conda, a former chief of staff to Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and staff director for former Sen. Bob Kasten (R-Wis.), agreed. Conda worked on the Small Business Committee when Ryan was a staffer on the panel.
“He’s certainly open to listening to people and hearing out their points of views on various issues,” said Conda, now at Navigators Global. “But he’ll always make a decision based on what he believes is the right policy.”
As well-liked as Boehner is on K Street, there’s also pent-up frustration that issues they’ve been hired to work on have been bottled up in Congress for years. The hope is that Ryan can change that.
Another source of optimism: The new speaker is expected to create a spike in lobbying retainers going into a presidential election year, a time when companies typically draw down Washington spending.
“Business likes him. This is a guy they think can finally break the gridlock of Capitol Hill and get some things going, especially on the tax side, which would be an absolute boon to K Street because it’s a game that everybody plays in,” said Ivan Adler, a headhunter at the McCormick Group.
The stated affection isn’t mutual. While Ryan certainly has built up a stable of friends and connections to K Street during his nine terms in office and before that as a staffer, the former GOP vice presidential nominee has long viewed interest groups and the private sector with a wary eye.
“Paul feels strongly about policy, and add to that Paul is his own top staffer,” said former Rep. Vin Weber (R-Minn.), a longtime friend to Ryan who is now at Mercury. “Anytime you deal with Paul on an issue, he knows more than just about anybody in the room.”
The question many are still trying to game out is whether Ryan will be forced to take a different tack than when he headed up the Budget and Ways and Means committees. Downtowners spend less time lobbying the budget since it is more of a philosophical document for the party, and Ryan didn’t seek out their ideas on it.
The tax-writing panel and the legislation it produces, on the other hand, are crucial for lobbyists, who spend time trying to insert language for clients.
Ryan headed the coveted Ways and Means panel for less than a year, but his work pushing through major trade legislation and an overhaul of how Medicare reimburses doctors offers clues about how he might operate as speaker.
As head of the panel, Ryan continued to keep downtown at arm’s length. He didn’t have a robust operation that built coalitions with K Street power players. And according to several lobbyists, Ryan didn’t have much patience for lobbyists telling him certain provisions or language were nonstarters.
They said that when Ryan and his staff met with industry representatives, it was mostly to provide technical information regarding legislation. Most of the work building alliances with lobbyists was left to Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.).
Even Ryan’s fundraising operation didn’t aggressively woo downtowners. While most chairmen and GOP leaders host trips for their leadership political action committees and invite a stable of lobbyists, Ryan has not done that in the past.
Several Capitol Hill and K Street sources close to Ryan predicted he would take the same approach to K Street as speaker. Joyce Meyer, Ryan’s staff director on the Ways and Means panel, is expected to be in charge of business outreach. Meyer, who will be deputy chief of staff in Ryan’s speaker office, played a similar role on the committee.
Ryan’s operation is expected to work with the private sector but continue to be more focused on conservative groups and think tank policy operators, leaving interactions with more traditional trade groups and lobbyists to the rest of his leadership team.
Ryan and his staff have regularly sought guidance from policy experts such as Stephen Moore at The Heritage Foundation, Peter Wehner and Yuval Levin of the Ethics & Public Policy Center and Jimmy Kemp of the Kemp Foundation. Two former advisers to his vice presidential bid, Dan Senor and Conor Sweeney, are also among those in frequent touch with Ryan.
Sweeney in particular has close ties to Ryan as one of the few aides to work in his personal office and for the budget panel, according to sources familiar with his operation.
While lobbyists don’t expect a wholesale shift in Ryan’s attitude toward K Street, many cheered the recent hire of Dave Hoppe as his chief of staff. The former Senate leadership staffer has spent the past several years as a contract lobbyist at Quinn Gillespie & Associates and more recently as Squire Patton Boggs.
No matter Ryan’s attitude toward lobbyists, the stock of those with ties to the 45-year-old speaker — former staff, policy wonks he speaks with and longtime friends — is bound to rise at least early on in his speakership.
“I think they go from good to great. They knew the Ways and Means chairman. Now they know the speaker,” Adler said.
Ryan maintains friendships with Kent Knutson of Home Depot and his wife, Karen Knutson of General Electric. The new speaker is in regular contact with Tim McGivern, who recently joined Ogilvy Government Relations, and Conda of Navigators Global.
Charlotte Ivancic is one of a small number of former senior Ryan aides who has gone on to work downtown. Ivancic, who also advised Boehner on health policy, is now at Tarplin, Downs & Young.
The new speaker has kept his distance from lobbyists, despite a political career spent on Capitol Hill.
By Anna Palmer
Paul Ryan is not a creature of K Street: The GOP’s ultimate policy guru has spent most of his career on Capitol Hill but is known to be more interested in the opinions of think tankers and wonks than the traditional influence set.
“Paul has never been a downtown guy, and I don’t expect that to change,” said his spokesman, Brendan Buck.
That has K Street preparing for a new world order in the post-John Boehner House.
Downtowners are anxious to see what kind of treatment they’ll get from the Wisconsin Republican compared with the clubby Boehner. At the same time, they’re bullish that the new speaker will be able to break the logjam on some of their top priorities, such as reforms to taxes and entitlements.
Boehner schmoozed his network of lobbyists and former staffers, a group so ubiquitous on D.C.’s cocktail circuit it was dubbed “Boehnerland.” He favored golf fundraisers and other junkets that allowed lobbyists and industry executives to spend several hours at a time with him. He was interested in their opinions, often asking K Streeters what they thought about legislative priorities and tactics.
And whereas Boehner was willing to do a favor for a friend, several lobbyists said they don’t expect the same from Ryan.
“When you are a policy wonk, but also a transformative crusader as he is, that makes lobbyists nervous,” said Stephen Pinkos, a former House GOP leadership aide now at American Continental Group. “He’ll put philosophy above transactions.”
Cesar Conda, a former chief of staff to Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and staff director for former Sen. Bob Kasten (R-Wis.), agreed. Conda worked on the Small Business Committee when Ryan was a staffer on the panel.
“He’s certainly open to listening to people and hearing out their points of views on various issues,” said Conda, now at Navigators Global. “But he’ll always make a decision based on what he believes is the right policy.”
As well-liked as Boehner is on K Street, there’s also pent-up frustration that issues they’ve been hired to work on have been bottled up in Congress for years. The hope is that Ryan can change that.
Another source of optimism: The new speaker is expected to create a spike in lobbying retainers going into a presidential election year, a time when companies typically draw down Washington spending.
“Business likes him. This is a guy they think can finally break the gridlock of Capitol Hill and get some things going, especially on the tax side, which would be an absolute boon to K Street because it’s a game that everybody plays in,” said Ivan Adler, a headhunter at the McCormick Group.
The stated affection isn’t mutual. While Ryan certainly has built up a stable of friends and connections to K Street during his nine terms in office and before that as a staffer, the former GOP vice presidential nominee has long viewed interest groups and the private sector with a wary eye.
“Paul feels strongly about policy, and add to that Paul is his own top staffer,” said former Rep. Vin Weber (R-Minn.), a longtime friend to Ryan who is now at Mercury. “Anytime you deal with Paul on an issue, he knows more than just about anybody in the room.”
The question many are still trying to game out is whether Ryan will be forced to take a different tack than when he headed up the Budget and Ways and Means committees. Downtowners spend less time lobbying the budget since it is more of a philosophical document for the party, and Ryan didn’t seek out their ideas on it.
The tax-writing panel and the legislation it produces, on the other hand, are crucial for lobbyists, who spend time trying to insert language for clients.
Ryan headed the coveted Ways and Means panel for less than a year, but his work pushing through major trade legislation and an overhaul of how Medicare reimburses doctors offers clues about how he might operate as speaker.
As head of the panel, Ryan continued to keep downtown at arm’s length. He didn’t have a robust operation that built coalitions with K Street power players. And according to several lobbyists, Ryan didn’t have much patience for lobbyists telling him certain provisions or language were nonstarters.
They said that when Ryan and his staff met with industry representatives, it was mostly to provide technical information regarding legislation. Most of the work building alliances with lobbyists was left to Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.).
Even Ryan’s fundraising operation didn’t aggressively woo downtowners. While most chairmen and GOP leaders host trips for their leadership political action committees and invite a stable of lobbyists, Ryan has not done that in the past.
Several Capitol Hill and K Street sources close to Ryan predicted he would take the same approach to K Street as speaker. Joyce Meyer, Ryan’s staff director on the Ways and Means panel, is expected to be in charge of business outreach. Meyer, who will be deputy chief of staff in Ryan’s speaker office, played a similar role on the committee.
Ryan’s operation is expected to work with the private sector but continue to be more focused on conservative groups and think tank policy operators, leaving interactions with more traditional trade groups and lobbyists to the rest of his leadership team.
Ryan and his staff have regularly sought guidance from policy experts such as Stephen Moore at The Heritage Foundation, Peter Wehner and Yuval Levin of the Ethics & Public Policy Center and Jimmy Kemp of the Kemp Foundation. Two former advisers to his vice presidential bid, Dan Senor and Conor Sweeney, are also among those in frequent touch with Ryan.
Sweeney in particular has close ties to Ryan as one of the few aides to work in his personal office and for the budget panel, according to sources familiar with his operation.
While lobbyists don’t expect a wholesale shift in Ryan’s attitude toward K Street, many cheered the recent hire of Dave Hoppe as his chief of staff. The former Senate leadership staffer has spent the past several years as a contract lobbyist at Quinn Gillespie & Associates and more recently as Squire Patton Boggs.
No matter Ryan’s attitude toward lobbyists, the stock of those with ties to the 45-year-old speaker — former staff, policy wonks he speaks with and longtime friends — is bound to rise at least early on in his speakership.
“I think they go from good to great. They knew the Ways and Means chairman. Now they know the speaker,” Adler said.
Ryan maintains friendships with Kent Knutson of Home Depot and his wife, Karen Knutson of General Electric. The new speaker is in regular contact with Tim McGivern, who recently joined Ogilvy Government Relations, and Conda of Navigators Global.
Charlotte Ivancic is one of a small number of former senior Ryan aides who has gone on to work downtown. Ivancic, who also advised Boehner on health policy, is now at Tarplin, Downs & Young.
Pro-Cruz super PAC
Cruz's silent super PACs a growing worry for campaign
Four pro-Cruz super PACs are sitting on huge sums of money, but have run virtually no TV ads so far.
By Shane Goldmacher
The super PACs backing Cruz’s presidential run have yet to reserve any TV time in the early primary states – or anywhere else – despite a combined $38 million warchest that ranks second only to Jeb Bush’s $103 million operation.
The total absence of ads has created confusion and growing consternation inside the Cruz campaign, which cannot legally communicate with its allied super PACs and has had to watch as their rivals lock in tens of millions of dollars in ads before prices spike, as they typically do as elections near.
“I assume they’re waiting so their media buyers make the highest commission,” one Cruz adviser quipped.
While most 2016 candidates have one main super PAC backing them, the Cruz super PACS are a decentralized alliance of four independent but interconnected operations, each called some version of “Keep the Promise.” People familiar with the groups say they were designed that way to cater to the different big donors funding them.
Hedge fund manager Robert Mercer gave $11 million to one. Energy investor Toby Neugebauer gave $10 million to another. And the families of Dan and Farris Wilks, brothers who became billionaires in the Texas fracking boom, gave $15 million to a third.
Despite those huge sums virtually no Cruz TV ads have aired yet (a single ad ran during the Iowa-Iowa State football game in September) – and none are reserved yet. In contrast, outside groups backing Rubio and Bush are sitting on more than $50 million in reservations through the primaries, according to media trackers. Plus, millions in pro-Bush, pro-John Kasich, pro-Chris Christie and pro-Bobby Jindal ads have already aired.
Laura Barnett, spokeswoman for the Keep for Promise alliance, said booking TV time was “totally not even on my radar.”
“Based on the response from [the] debate, where Senator Cruz talked about what the moderators were asking and the questions they were posing to the candidates, we’ve seen a tremendous amount of earned media…” Barnett said. “We’re going to ride that wave as long as we can.”
Cruz is trying to establish himself as a top conservative contender for the nomination, but he will likely eventually need some cover on the airwaves from his super PACs.
Kellyanne Conway, who runs the Mercer-funded Keep the Promise I group, said some TV ads are in production and brushed aside talk of limited inventory or spiking prices. Her group, she noted, is already airing more targeted radio ads on conservative talk and Christian radio, as part of a $1 million buy through the end of the year. They are doing digital ads, as well.
“I can reserve money [for TV ads] when I hang up with you,” she said.
But the price difference for super PACs, especially those that wait, can be enormous. On KCCI in Des Moines, for instance, Rubio’s campaign has reserved a 30-second spot on the 10pm evening news the Friday before the Iowa caucuses for $750, Federal Communications Commission records show. Bush’s super PAC has reserved a 30-second ad on the same broadcast for $5,000 because there are no federal limits on what super PACs can be charged. And the super PAC ad rate is almost universally expected to rise.
“I don’t need to be defensive. I’m sitting on lots of money and I intend to spend every last dollar of it,” Conway added. She said the goal was to be more surgical, spending on digital, cable, direct mail, radio in addition to TV. She pointed to the Bush super PAC, which has spent more than $10 million already on ads, “Where has that gotten them?” she asked. “They did move, but they moved down.”
Conway’s group has been far more active than the other pro-Cruz groups. Keep the Promise II and III, which have $25 million between them, have so far reported spending less than $50,000 on independent expenditures to help Cruz. David Barton, an influential evangelical leader, is also involved in setting the strategy for the Cruz super PACs but was unavailable for interview.
An internal document from the Cruz super PACs suggests they did not originally intend to wait so long to go on air. A PowerPoint presentation appealing to donors, posted on the group’s website over the summer and since taken offline, said that Keep the Promise would roll “out a positive campaign in key primary states around the first debate.”
That never happened.
The same presentation warned that “television rates start to skyrocket in December making it impossible for candidates to define themselves and their views so therefore are defined by the Media.”
Cruz’s campaign has tried to send signals to the super PACs in the hopes that they would air ads to introduce Cruz to the electorate. Over the summer, the campaign posted on YouTube hours of unedited, glowing testimonials from Cruz’s family telling soft-focus stories about a senator known mostly for his stridency. It amounted to a public plea for the super PACs to use the footage. Yet no such ads have aired.
“If they don’t, we will,” another Cruz official said of using the footage in introductory ads. “We’re going to tell some of those stories, not just the footage that we put out but footage that we shot here recently. We’re going to tell that story.”
Conway said they had looked into using the video clips – “I love that footage,” she said – but ran into legal issues. In an era in which numerous campaigns are driving aggressively through loopholes in campaign-finance law, the lawyers at least Cruz’s super PAC tapped the brakes. Larry Levy, an attorney for Keep the Promise I, said he believed repackaging clips produced by the campaign would amount to a violation.
“Taking that material and turning it into pro-Cruz ads seemed to me, as my judgment as a lawyer, would be an improper use of campaign resources and any ad we made out of it would constitute an improper contribution to the Cruz campaign,” Levy said. “I admit I am a lawyer who does not recommend dancing over the line,” he added.
Cruz himself was hands-off about his outside support. “I can genuinely answer I have no idea what the super PAC is going to do or what their strategy is,” Cruz told POLITICO a week ago. “That is the nature of this idiotic system we have under federal law.”
As for his own campaign spending plans, Cruz likened it to the Mel Gibson movie scene “where the other army is advancing and they keep saying ‘Hold, hold, hold.’ We are saving our resources very deliberately to use where they have the maximum impact.”
Four pro-Cruz super PACs are sitting on huge sums of money, but have run virtually no TV ads so far.
By Shane Goldmacher
The super PACs backing Cruz’s presidential run have yet to reserve any TV time in the early primary states – or anywhere else – despite a combined $38 million warchest that ranks second only to Jeb Bush’s $103 million operation.
The total absence of ads has created confusion and growing consternation inside the Cruz campaign, which cannot legally communicate with its allied super PACs and has had to watch as their rivals lock in tens of millions of dollars in ads before prices spike, as they typically do as elections near.
“I assume they’re waiting so their media buyers make the highest commission,” one Cruz adviser quipped.
While most 2016 candidates have one main super PAC backing them, the Cruz super PACS are a decentralized alliance of four independent but interconnected operations, each called some version of “Keep the Promise.” People familiar with the groups say they were designed that way to cater to the different big donors funding them.
Hedge fund manager Robert Mercer gave $11 million to one. Energy investor Toby Neugebauer gave $10 million to another. And the families of Dan and Farris Wilks, brothers who became billionaires in the Texas fracking boom, gave $15 million to a third.
Despite those huge sums virtually no Cruz TV ads have aired yet (a single ad ran during the Iowa-Iowa State football game in September) – and none are reserved yet. In contrast, outside groups backing Rubio and Bush are sitting on more than $50 million in reservations through the primaries, according to media trackers. Plus, millions in pro-Bush, pro-John Kasich, pro-Chris Christie and pro-Bobby Jindal ads have already aired.
Laura Barnett, spokeswoman for the Keep for Promise alliance, said booking TV time was “totally not even on my radar.”
“Based on the response from [the] debate, where Senator Cruz talked about what the moderators were asking and the questions they were posing to the candidates, we’ve seen a tremendous amount of earned media…” Barnett said. “We’re going to ride that wave as long as we can.”
Cruz is trying to establish himself as a top conservative contender for the nomination, but he will likely eventually need some cover on the airwaves from his super PACs.
Kellyanne Conway, who runs the Mercer-funded Keep the Promise I group, said some TV ads are in production and brushed aside talk of limited inventory or spiking prices. Her group, she noted, is already airing more targeted radio ads on conservative talk and Christian radio, as part of a $1 million buy through the end of the year. They are doing digital ads, as well.
“I can reserve money [for TV ads] when I hang up with you,” she said.
But the price difference for super PACs, especially those that wait, can be enormous. On KCCI in Des Moines, for instance, Rubio’s campaign has reserved a 30-second spot on the 10pm evening news the Friday before the Iowa caucuses for $750, Federal Communications Commission records show. Bush’s super PAC has reserved a 30-second ad on the same broadcast for $5,000 because there are no federal limits on what super PACs can be charged. And the super PAC ad rate is almost universally expected to rise.
“I don’t need to be defensive. I’m sitting on lots of money and I intend to spend every last dollar of it,” Conway added. She said the goal was to be more surgical, spending on digital, cable, direct mail, radio in addition to TV. She pointed to the Bush super PAC, which has spent more than $10 million already on ads, “Where has that gotten them?” she asked. “They did move, but they moved down.”
Conway’s group has been far more active than the other pro-Cruz groups. Keep the Promise II and III, which have $25 million between them, have so far reported spending less than $50,000 on independent expenditures to help Cruz. David Barton, an influential evangelical leader, is also involved in setting the strategy for the Cruz super PACs but was unavailable for interview.
An internal document from the Cruz super PACs suggests they did not originally intend to wait so long to go on air. A PowerPoint presentation appealing to donors, posted on the group’s website over the summer and since taken offline, said that Keep the Promise would roll “out a positive campaign in key primary states around the first debate.”
That never happened.
The same presentation warned that “television rates start to skyrocket in December making it impossible for candidates to define themselves and their views so therefore are defined by the Media.”
Cruz’s campaign has tried to send signals to the super PACs in the hopes that they would air ads to introduce Cruz to the electorate. Over the summer, the campaign posted on YouTube hours of unedited, glowing testimonials from Cruz’s family telling soft-focus stories about a senator known mostly for his stridency. It amounted to a public plea for the super PACs to use the footage. Yet no such ads have aired.
“If they don’t, we will,” another Cruz official said of using the footage in introductory ads. “We’re going to tell some of those stories, not just the footage that we put out but footage that we shot here recently. We’re going to tell that story.”
Conway said they had looked into using the video clips – “I love that footage,” she said – but ran into legal issues. In an era in which numerous campaigns are driving aggressively through loopholes in campaign-finance law, the lawyers at least Cruz’s super PAC tapped the brakes. Larry Levy, an attorney for Keep the Promise I, said he believed repackaging clips produced by the campaign would amount to a violation.
“Taking that material and turning it into pro-Cruz ads seemed to me, as my judgment as a lawyer, would be an improper use of campaign resources and any ad we made out of it would constitute an improper contribution to the Cruz campaign,” Levy said. “I admit I am a lawyer who does not recommend dancing over the line,” he added.
Cruz himself was hands-off about his outside support. “I can genuinely answer I have no idea what the super PAC is going to do or what their strategy is,” Cruz told POLITICO a week ago. “That is the nature of this idiotic system we have under federal law.”
As for his own campaign spending plans, Cruz likened it to the Mel Gibson movie scene “where the other army is advancing and they keep saying ‘Hold, hold, hold.’ We are saving our resources very deliberately to use where they have the maximum impact.”
GOP push
GOP campaigns push to take more control of debates
The meeting came at a time of widespread consternation within the party over the debates.
By Alex Isenstadt
Republican campaigns on Sunday evening pushed to take greater control over the party’s chaotic debate process, agreeing to oversee negotiation of format with TV networks while relegating the Republican National Committee to focus on logistical matters.
After the two-hour meeting, held at a Hilton in Alexandria, Va., top advisers to the GOP presidential campaigns — angry over how the first three debates have gone — said they were prepared to negotiate critical formatting issues with networks that will be broadcasting the future debates, a matter that until now had been overseen by the RNC. The campaigns said they were preparing to send a letter to TV networks informing them of their collective view of how future debates should look.
“I think it was productive in that campaigns will now assume negotiation of format instead of the RNC,” said Gail Gitcho, a spokeswoman for Bobby Jindal, whose campaign helped organize the gathering.
It was a stunning development for a party committee that entered the election cycle determined to take greater control of a debate process that, four years ago, went badly off track. And it was evidence of a national GOP that is struggling to oversee a large and rambunctious field of primary candidates.
Those present in the meeting stressed that the RNC would maintain some key powers. In addition to focusing on logistical issues surrounding the debates, people present said, the RNC would help resolve disagreements between the campaigns and the networks when they arose.
The changes will take effect after the next debate, which is slated to be held Nov. 10 on Fox Business.
One flash point in the meeting, according to several people in the room, came when Jeb Bush's campaign manager Danny Diaz urged the group to reinstate the planned Feb. 26 debate partnership with Telemundo, which the RNC suspended this week after this week’s disastrous CNBC debate (Telemundo is owned by NBC Universal, CNBC’s parent company). Donald Trump's campaign manager Corey Lewandowski pushed back hard, threatening to boycott the event entirely.
Immediately after the meeting wrapped up, Ben Ginsberg, a veteran Republican election attorney who had been overseeing the discussion, placed a call to RNC Chairman Reince Priebus. But Ginsberg got the chairman’s voicemail, so he then reached out to Sean Cairncross, the committee’s legal counsel, to inform him of the group’s decisions.
Sunday's meeting came at a time of widespread consternation within the party over the debates. This week’s debate, which was held in Boulder, Colorado, and broadcast on CNBC, was widely panned, with several of the candidates accusing the moderators of asking "gotcha" questions designed to embarrass them.
Many of the campaigns have directed their frustration at the RNC. In recent weeks, the campaigns have argued that the committee has failed to represent them effectively in negotiating on their behalf, and at times has been unfair. On Tuesday, one day before the Boulder debate, several lower-polling campaigns erupted at the RNC when they discovered that the committee had awarded nicer greenrooms to higher-polling candidates.
In an effort to appease the campaigns, the RNC on Saturday ordered a high-level shakeup of its debate negotiating team. Just minutes before the meeting was to begin, the committee announced that chief of staff Katie Walsh and Cairncross would oversee the debates for the committee — a job that had previously belonged to Sean Spicer, the committee’s chief strategist and communications director. (Spicer retains his other roles at the RNC.)
Among campaign advisers involved in the process, the move had been anticipated for days. Following the Boulder debacle, Walsh and Cairncross had been burning up their phones to campaigns in hopes of trying to figure out what they could do to improve things moving forward. Priebus had also taken an active role in reaching out to unhappy campaign aides.
Ginsberg, the moderator of Sunday evening’s discussion, has been a powerful force behind the scenes. In late September he sent a six-page, 1,800-word memo to GOP campaigns outlining some the problems with the logistics of the debates. “This won’t change unless the campaigns as a group do something about it,” he wrote. On Sunday, he told CNN that the campaigns' chief problem was the "loss of leverage" they suffered after handing too much power to the RNC.
Advisers to the Republican candidates spent much of Sunday's meeting hashing out formatting details. They agreed that debates should last no longer than two hours and that candidates should be granted 30-second opening and closing statements.
At one point in the meeting, representatives for Bush demanded that campaigns have veto power over which graphics the networks are allowed to use. (During the last debate, CNBC used a graphic listing Bush’s past work as a financial consultant but omitting his eight-year tenure as Florida governor.) Aides to other candidates agreed.
Advisers also agreed that they should be able to get information about the debates from the networks further in advance, and that each candidate should get an equal number of questions.
“I think we agreed to more than I thought we would,” said Barry Bennett, who serves as Ben Carson’s campaign manager and helped to organize the meeting.
Yet there remain fault lines — particularly between high- and low-polling candidates.
At one point, Curt Anderson, an adviser to Jindal, who has found himself stuck at the back of the pack and relegated to undercard debates — suggested doing away with undercards entirely. That initiated a discussion about how many candidates should appear on one stage.
Lewandowski, manager for the pack-leading Trump campaign, pushed back.
I don’t need 14 people on a stage, he said, according to one person present, saying that all they do is throw potshots at Trump.
The meeting came at a time of widespread consternation within the party over the debates.
By Alex Isenstadt
Republican campaigns on Sunday evening pushed to take greater control over the party’s chaotic debate process, agreeing to oversee negotiation of format with TV networks while relegating the Republican National Committee to focus on logistical matters.
After the two-hour meeting, held at a Hilton in Alexandria, Va., top advisers to the GOP presidential campaigns — angry over how the first three debates have gone — said they were prepared to negotiate critical formatting issues with networks that will be broadcasting the future debates, a matter that until now had been overseen by the RNC. The campaigns said they were preparing to send a letter to TV networks informing them of their collective view of how future debates should look.
“I think it was productive in that campaigns will now assume negotiation of format instead of the RNC,” said Gail Gitcho, a spokeswoman for Bobby Jindal, whose campaign helped organize the gathering.
It was a stunning development for a party committee that entered the election cycle determined to take greater control of a debate process that, four years ago, went badly off track. And it was evidence of a national GOP that is struggling to oversee a large and rambunctious field of primary candidates.
Those present in the meeting stressed that the RNC would maintain some key powers. In addition to focusing on logistical issues surrounding the debates, people present said, the RNC would help resolve disagreements between the campaigns and the networks when they arose.
The changes will take effect after the next debate, which is slated to be held Nov. 10 on Fox Business.
One flash point in the meeting, according to several people in the room, came when Jeb Bush's campaign manager Danny Diaz urged the group to reinstate the planned Feb. 26 debate partnership with Telemundo, which the RNC suspended this week after this week’s disastrous CNBC debate (Telemundo is owned by NBC Universal, CNBC’s parent company). Donald Trump's campaign manager Corey Lewandowski pushed back hard, threatening to boycott the event entirely.
Immediately after the meeting wrapped up, Ben Ginsberg, a veteran Republican election attorney who had been overseeing the discussion, placed a call to RNC Chairman Reince Priebus. But Ginsberg got the chairman’s voicemail, so he then reached out to Sean Cairncross, the committee’s legal counsel, to inform him of the group’s decisions.
Sunday's meeting came at a time of widespread consternation within the party over the debates. This week’s debate, which was held in Boulder, Colorado, and broadcast on CNBC, was widely panned, with several of the candidates accusing the moderators of asking "gotcha" questions designed to embarrass them.
Many of the campaigns have directed their frustration at the RNC. In recent weeks, the campaigns have argued that the committee has failed to represent them effectively in negotiating on their behalf, and at times has been unfair. On Tuesday, one day before the Boulder debate, several lower-polling campaigns erupted at the RNC when they discovered that the committee had awarded nicer greenrooms to higher-polling candidates.
In an effort to appease the campaigns, the RNC on Saturday ordered a high-level shakeup of its debate negotiating team. Just minutes before the meeting was to begin, the committee announced that chief of staff Katie Walsh and Cairncross would oversee the debates for the committee — a job that had previously belonged to Sean Spicer, the committee’s chief strategist and communications director. (Spicer retains his other roles at the RNC.)
Among campaign advisers involved in the process, the move had been anticipated for days. Following the Boulder debacle, Walsh and Cairncross had been burning up their phones to campaigns in hopes of trying to figure out what they could do to improve things moving forward. Priebus had also taken an active role in reaching out to unhappy campaign aides.
Ginsberg, the moderator of Sunday evening’s discussion, has been a powerful force behind the scenes. In late September he sent a six-page, 1,800-word memo to GOP campaigns outlining some the problems with the logistics of the debates. “This won’t change unless the campaigns as a group do something about it,” he wrote. On Sunday, he told CNN that the campaigns' chief problem was the "loss of leverage" they suffered after handing too much power to the RNC.
Advisers to the Republican candidates spent much of Sunday's meeting hashing out formatting details. They agreed that debates should last no longer than two hours and that candidates should be granted 30-second opening and closing statements.
At one point in the meeting, representatives for Bush demanded that campaigns have veto power over which graphics the networks are allowed to use. (During the last debate, CNBC used a graphic listing Bush’s past work as a financial consultant but omitting his eight-year tenure as Florida governor.) Aides to other candidates agreed.
Advisers also agreed that they should be able to get information about the debates from the networks further in advance, and that each candidate should get an equal number of questions.
“I think we agreed to more than I thought we would,” said Barry Bennett, who serves as Ben Carson’s campaign manager and helped to organize the meeting.
Yet there remain fault lines — particularly between high- and low-polling candidates.
At one point, Curt Anderson, an adviser to Jindal, who has found himself stuck at the back of the pack and relegated to undercard debates — suggested doing away with undercards entirely. That initiated a discussion about how many candidates should appear on one stage.
Lewandowski, manager for the pack-leading Trump campaign, pushed back.
I don’t need 14 people on a stage, he said, according to one person present, saying that all they do is throw potshots at Trump.
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