Who gets credit for climate accord? W, that’s who
The U.S. president who doubted global warming science merits a spot in the history books for the upcoming Paris climate accord.
By Darren Samuelsohn and Andrew Restuccia
The Paris climate talks are expected to conclude next month with a celebrated new international accord ratcheting down greenhouse gas pollution from the world’s richest and poorest countries. It could be a Kumbaya moment for President Barack Obama and his contemporaries as they tout their work trying to save the planet.
But someone else also deserves some of the credit for what’s coming from the French capital: George W. Bush.
You read that right. The very same Republican president who doubted global warming science and fought new Environmental Protection Agency climate policies all the way to the Supreme Court merits a spot in the history books for kick-starting the very same negotiations that are about to bear fruit in Paris.
That may come as a shock considering modern-day Republicans are bent on derailing the Paris negotiations and overturning pretty much all of Obama’s green agenda. But Bush did indeed have a big imprint near the end of his presidency — at a tropical resort on the Indonesian island of Bali. The president himself wasn’t there for the late 2007 negotiations. In fact, for two long weeks as the talks lolled along, the U.S. administration actually served as a convenient punching bag for pent-up global diplomatic futility. Al Gore, fresh off accepting his Nobel Peace Prize in Norway, had flown halfway around the world to deliver a speech digging at Bush and urging the negotiators to “save an open, large, blank space” in their documents for the next U.S. president to sign. On the conference floor, typical decorum disappeared when Bush officials were loudly booed in the session’s closing hours.
Yet what emerged from all that chaos stands today as perhaps the most important breakthrough in more than 20 years of international global warming talks. For the first time ever, countries of all shapes, sizes and economic means pledged to pony up commitments to address global warming. The agreement came with a very wonky sounding name — the Bali Action Plan — and it provided only a very rough outline of where future negotiations would need to go. But what the Bush administration helped create in Bali stands to this day because it eliminated perhaps the biggest political albatross blocking major action in the United States and around the world on international climate policy: Finally, fast-growing developing countries like China, Brazil, India and South Africa were on record saying they would submit cleanup plans of their own.
That small flame lit in Bali has several times been nearly extinguished. Outsized expectations surrounding Obama — fueled by his own Nobel award less than a year into his first term — nearly capsized the entire U.N. process when the president and more than 100 other world leaders traveled to Copenhagen in 2009 aiming to wrap up a major new agreement. They swung and missed in Denmark, and it took two more years before negotiators could get the original Bali game plan back on track during another climate conference in Durban, South Africa.
There are still devilish details to be worked out in Paris on how to induce developing countries to make emission reduction pledges through tens of billions of dollars in technical help that kick-starts their use of cleaner sources of energy and their adaptation to an already changing climate. The foreign aid is also designed to get countries to make even stronger commitments that can be both measured and verified. But at its fundamental core, the concept enshrined in Bali that all countries will engage collectively in the climate crusade is the strongest sign yet that the upcoming talks in Paris will be a success.
“I very much look back at Bali as a turning point,” said Yvo de Boer, the former top U.N. climate official who helped lead the Indonesian conference. “In fact, it’s often surprised me how often people have forgotten that turning point and its significance.”
For outsiders, deciphering the meaning of a U.N. climate conference is no easy feat. Even experienced eyes often can be overwhelmed by the legal jargon, technocratic acronyms and political rhetoric that don’t easily translate into everyday English. These summits have taken place annually since 1995 and often the host country is in desperate need of some kind of accomplishment on paper to show the whole affair was worth it. Often what they end up touting sounds eerily similar to what was widely trumpeted as a victory in an earlier year.
But the truth is that each session builds on its predecessors — and there’s also all manner of extra grunt work happening at side meetings around the world and in more formal gatherings every couple of months at U.N. climate headquarters in the old West German capital of Bonn.
On occasion, a U.N. conference can become something bigger than itself. The treaty that started it all was negotiated at the Rio Earth Summit in 1992; George H.W. Bush, eager to campaign as the “environmentalist president,” traveled to Brazil to sign it. In a sign of just how different times were, the Senate ratified the treaty in October of that year without any objections. Bush was nonetheless booted from office a month later.
Eager to turn international climate policy from a voluntary mission to a mandatory one, Bush’s successor, President Bill Clinton, signed off in 1995 on the “Berlin Mandate,” which declared that only developed countries like the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan and Canada were legally bound to reduce their emissions, while developing nations, including China and India, got a pass. Two years later in Japan’s ancient capital, Gore helped negotiate the Kyoto Protocol that put the Berlin language into a treaty. The U.S. did score some big wins aimed at making the agreement more flexible, including broad coverage of the six most potent greenhouse gases, rather than just carbon dioxide, and authorization of a cap-and-trade system so industry could make the most economically palatable emission reductions.
But Kyoto was still a political disaster. The Senate had already voted unanimously 95-0 on a resolution from Sens. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.) and Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) vowing never to ratify a treaty that did economic harm to the U.S. and disapproving of any international climate agreement that exempted developing countries.
Reflecting on Kyoto, several former Clinton negotiators admitted they erred in their push to get developing countries to do more than they were willing to do. After all, China, India and other similar nations blamed the West for causing climate change in the first place through decades of economic growth via unregulated fossil fuel consumption.
“You could cut the hostility in the room with a knife,” said Stuart Eizenstat, who led the U.S. delegation during the Kyoto talks. “We completely struck out with developing countries.”
"The Kyoto Protocol was a little too fast and too complicated,” added Daniel Bodansky, a former Clinton-era State Department climate coordinator. “It proved to be a false start.”
While Clinton signed Kyoto, he never submitted it to the Senate for ratification. Still, George W. Bush took the brunt of the political blowback when he pulled the U.S. completely out of all talks related to the 1997 agreement negotiated by his predecessor. International ire only grew with media reports that the Republican White House populated with former oil industry officials had been censoring government science on climate change, as well as Bush’s backtrack from his own 2000 presidential campaign pledge to enact the first-ever cap on U.S. greenhouse gas emissions from power plants.
Bush didn’t relent on climate issues in a substantive way until 2007. By then, Democrats were in control of both chambers of Congress for the first time under the GOP administration, and cap-and-trade advocate John McCain was seen as one of the leading contenders for the Republican presidential nomination.
International pressure on the U.S. from its allies was growing to map out a different path. “When Bush came in and said we’re not going to do Kyoto, the obvious question was: What’s your alternative?” said Harlan Watson, who served as a lead Bush administration climate change negotiator.
In Bali, consecutive all-night talks resulted in an agreement in which rich nations agreed to set up new mechanisms to help poor nations adapt to climate change and build new clean energy infrastructure. It also “really launched the seriousness of this idea of breaking down the firewall” between developed and developing countries, Watson said.
Close observers inside the U.S. were even caught a bit off guard by the change. Doubts were widespread about the seriousness behind the Bush team’s motivations. “The environmentalists and a lot of Democrats just crapped on us,” George David Banks, a former senior Bush White House environmental aide, recalled. “They said we weren’t being ambitious enough. That we’d undermined the U.N. framework. It was a step back from Kyoto. But it was pretty obvious there was just no way. If you were concerned about the climate issue, just because of the math and the increase in emission levels [counting the world’s major economies], you had to do something different.”
The negotiations since Bali have been anything but smooth. In Copenhagen, Obama and other world leaders saved face amid outsized expectations they could have left that conference with the makings of a legally binding treaty. Instead, they got a more nuanced accord in which rich and poor nations alike promised to keep making pledges on their environmental plans. They punted until later the actual legal framework that would tie the whole thing together — a promise that is finally coming to pass in Paris.
Considering what’s happened since Bali, Banks credited the Obama administration for its adherence to those original 2007 goals and agreed that the Democratic administration’s likely success wouldn’t have come without Bush’s work.
“We were able to break ground for them that they were able to exploit later,” he said.
Even some greens credit Bush’s team with getting the ball rolling and teeing up Paris. “They do deserve credit, coming from a terrible place, undermining the system, to getting things done,” said Kalee Kreider, an environmental group veteran who had been a traveling Gore aide at the Bali talks. “Usually some of these [U.N. conferences] are more about mechanics. And some of them are political tipping points. That was definitely a tipping point moment.”
That Bush could have played such an important role in setting the stage for Paris is a fact lost on the current crop of Republicans. Many leading GOP lawmakers reject mainstream climate science and attack Obama’s agenda at every turn. Earlier this month, they even approved a pair of resolutions aimed at overturning the president’s signature emission rules for power plants. Republicans have also vowed to use every tool at their disposal to undermine the Paris climate talks that their most recent president helped to launch.
“There is a lot of Republican criticism of Paris,” said Nigel Purvis, a Clinton-era climate diplomat, “which is ironic because the Paris architecture is the architecture that conservatives said we needed.”
November 30, 2015
Still viable??
Cruz, Rubio line up to steal away Bush supporters
Republican Jewish Coalition audition will give Bush a chance to convince early backers he is still viable.
By Eli Stokols
When the Republican contenders audition this week before more than 600 deep-pocketed, security-focused donors, it might seem like they’re playing for the home crowd. But the annual Republican Jewish Coalition gathering carries serious risk for candidates not fluent on the issue.
Just ask Chris Christie, who had to apologize after referring to the West Bank as “occupied territories” during his remarks to the group last year.
This year’s gathering at the Ronald Reagan Building in Washington is a policy test before an influential and well-versed audience. The terrorist attacks on Paris and heightened tensions with Russia have refocused the GOP presidential field on the RJC’s top concerns — foreign policy and national security — adding uncertainty to an already unpredictable primary that lacks a consensus front-runner.
“It’s a moment in the post-Paris atmosphere for the candidate to deliver something big and major, because people are going to be paying attention,” said Ari Fleischer, a former White House press secretary and RJC board member who has helped organize the event. “This audience is pretty sophisticated, politically involved and they’ve heard a lot of speeches before.
“But it’s fair to say this audience will be up for grabs if the race continues on these current lines — and it’s a real opportunity for these candidates to win some support if they can demonstrate some depth of understanding on policy issues.”
That’s certainly the case for Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, but for Jeb Bush, this event is an exercise in damage control. Many of the RJC board members scheduled to attend have already committed to a candidate, and some are now shopping for a plan B, especially those who threw their support behind Bush early on.
“Most of the people I speak to, none of them regard Jeb Bush as politically alive,” said a longtime RJC board member based in New York City, who requested anonymity to speak freely. “A lot of people on the RJC were very early committed to Jeb because of friendships and relationships. Now that Jeb has run out of steam, I don’t know where any of them stand.
“Most people I know now are talking up Marco Rubio or Ted Cruz,” he continued.
Donald Trump, whose rambunctious projection of strength has kept him atop the polls for months, is also set to attend the RJC event, although he does not have strong support from many of its members.
Ben Carson, another outsider who was positioned near the front of the pack until the recent events overseas unmasked his lack of knowledge about foreign policy, is also scheduled to attend.
Several of Bush’s most prominent Jewish supporters will host a breakfast meeting on the sidelines of the RJC forum on behalf of his Right to Rise super PAC, which will look to convince supporters it’s worth staying the course and waiting for the group to spend more of its $100 million war chest on TV ads (thus far, the group’s first $24 million in ads has done nothing to move Bush’s numbers).
Former House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, a fundraising juggernaut with strong RJC ties who was brought into the fold earlier this year as a campaign co-chairman, will address attendees along with Right to Rise executive director Mike Murphy. Both are set to update attendees on Right to Rise’s efforts on Bush’s behalf and its view of the GOP primary, in which Bush continues to lag Trump, Carson, Rubio and Cruz.
“Obviously, it’s to bring everyone up to date and to cultivate anybody who hasn’t made a decision yet,” said Fred Zeidman, an RJC member and Bush supporter from Houston who noted that no donation is required to attend the breakfast. “It’s never been portrayed to be a fundraiser.”
Nearly every GOP candidate will be in town to speak to and take questions from moderator Matt Brooks, even long-shots like George Pataki and Jim Gilmore.
But the real battle is between Bush, thought to be the establishment front-runner when the year began, and Rubio and Cruz, who are ascendant now.
Thursday night, following the event, Rubio will hold a fundraiser in Washington looking to consolidate support from RJC members. Cruz will do the same thing in New York City.
Although billionaire Paul Singer has already thrown his support behind Rubio, and Sheldon Adelson is reportedly likely to follow suit, Bush’s super PAC believes it can make a compelling argument to RJC members in town for meetings that the war chest the group amassed in the first half of the year will be able to engineer a comeback — and that Bush, as a candidate, stands to do better as voters focus more on sobering issues like national security.
Bush, based on the list of hosts for the 7:30 a.m. meeting Thursday, already has solid support from a number of RJC board members. Hosts listed are Yitz Applebaum, Josh Bolten, Steve Friedman, Sam Fox, Cheryl Halpern, Fred Karlinsky, George Klein, Ronnie Krongold, Bernie Marcus, Ken Mehlman, Robert Schostak, Mel Sembler, Florence Shapiro and Zeidman.
While many Bush backers committed to him early, a number of donors are now considering spreading their money around, wary of completely committing to a candidate when the race remains so unsettled.
For instance, Howard Jonas, an oil magnate, is listed as a co-host for a fundraiser for Cruz in New York City on Thursday hours after he is scheduled to address the RJC conference. But Jonas has also hosted a fundraiser for Rubio at his home.
Rubio has a long list of RJC members supporting him, too: Wayne Berman, Mark Bowman, Phil Rosen, Larry Mizel, Jeffery Feingold, Elliott Lawler, Rick Horvitz, Brad Rose and Steve Louro, along with Singer, who is working his own network to secure new contributions on Rubio’s behalf.
“I’ve been getting exhortations from Paul Singer to support Rubio,” one RJC member said. “We’re not all there yet, but you do sense there’s a lot of interest. Our group is reflective of the race generally in that most of the excitement now is about Rubio and Cruz.”
Republican Jewish Coalition audition will give Bush a chance to convince early backers he is still viable.
By Eli Stokols
When the Republican contenders audition this week before more than 600 deep-pocketed, security-focused donors, it might seem like they’re playing for the home crowd. But the annual Republican Jewish Coalition gathering carries serious risk for candidates not fluent on the issue.
Just ask Chris Christie, who had to apologize after referring to the West Bank as “occupied territories” during his remarks to the group last year.
This year’s gathering at the Ronald Reagan Building in Washington is a policy test before an influential and well-versed audience. The terrorist attacks on Paris and heightened tensions with Russia have refocused the GOP presidential field on the RJC’s top concerns — foreign policy and national security — adding uncertainty to an already unpredictable primary that lacks a consensus front-runner.
“It’s a moment in the post-Paris atmosphere for the candidate to deliver something big and major, because people are going to be paying attention,” said Ari Fleischer, a former White House press secretary and RJC board member who has helped organize the event. “This audience is pretty sophisticated, politically involved and they’ve heard a lot of speeches before.
“But it’s fair to say this audience will be up for grabs if the race continues on these current lines — and it’s a real opportunity for these candidates to win some support if they can demonstrate some depth of understanding on policy issues.”
That’s certainly the case for Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, but for Jeb Bush, this event is an exercise in damage control. Many of the RJC board members scheduled to attend have already committed to a candidate, and some are now shopping for a plan B, especially those who threw their support behind Bush early on.
“Most of the people I speak to, none of them regard Jeb Bush as politically alive,” said a longtime RJC board member based in New York City, who requested anonymity to speak freely. “A lot of people on the RJC were very early committed to Jeb because of friendships and relationships. Now that Jeb has run out of steam, I don’t know where any of them stand.
“Most people I know now are talking up Marco Rubio or Ted Cruz,” he continued.
Donald Trump, whose rambunctious projection of strength has kept him atop the polls for months, is also set to attend the RJC event, although he does not have strong support from many of its members.
Ben Carson, another outsider who was positioned near the front of the pack until the recent events overseas unmasked his lack of knowledge about foreign policy, is also scheduled to attend.
Several of Bush’s most prominent Jewish supporters will host a breakfast meeting on the sidelines of the RJC forum on behalf of his Right to Rise super PAC, which will look to convince supporters it’s worth staying the course and waiting for the group to spend more of its $100 million war chest on TV ads (thus far, the group’s first $24 million in ads has done nothing to move Bush’s numbers).
Former House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, a fundraising juggernaut with strong RJC ties who was brought into the fold earlier this year as a campaign co-chairman, will address attendees along with Right to Rise executive director Mike Murphy. Both are set to update attendees on Right to Rise’s efforts on Bush’s behalf and its view of the GOP primary, in which Bush continues to lag Trump, Carson, Rubio and Cruz.
“Obviously, it’s to bring everyone up to date and to cultivate anybody who hasn’t made a decision yet,” said Fred Zeidman, an RJC member and Bush supporter from Houston who noted that no donation is required to attend the breakfast. “It’s never been portrayed to be a fundraiser.”
Nearly every GOP candidate will be in town to speak to and take questions from moderator Matt Brooks, even long-shots like George Pataki and Jim Gilmore.
But the real battle is between Bush, thought to be the establishment front-runner when the year began, and Rubio and Cruz, who are ascendant now.
Thursday night, following the event, Rubio will hold a fundraiser in Washington looking to consolidate support from RJC members. Cruz will do the same thing in New York City.
Although billionaire Paul Singer has already thrown his support behind Rubio, and Sheldon Adelson is reportedly likely to follow suit, Bush’s super PAC believes it can make a compelling argument to RJC members in town for meetings that the war chest the group amassed in the first half of the year will be able to engineer a comeback — and that Bush, as a candidate, stands to do better as voters focus more on sobering issues like national security.
Bush, based on the list of hosts for the 7:30 a.m. meeting Thursday, already has solid support from a number of RJC board members. Hosts listed are Yitz Applebaum, Josh Bolten, Steve Friedman, Sam Fox, Cheryl Halpern, Fred Karlinsky, George Klein, Ronnie Krongold, Bernie Marcus, Ken Mehlman, Robert Schostak, Mel Sembler, Florence Shapiro and Zeidman.
While many Bush backers committed to him early, a number of donors are now considering spreading their money around, wary of completely committing to a candidate when the race remains so unsettled.
For instance, Howard Jonas, an oil magnate, is listed as a co-host for a fundraiser for Cruz in New York City on Thursday hours after he is scheduled to address the RJC conference. But Jonas has also hosted a fundraiser for Rubio at his home.
Rubio has a long list of RJC members supporting him, too: Wayne Berman, Mark Bowman, Phil Rosen, Larry Mizel, Jeffery Feingold, Elliott Lawler, Rick Horvitz, Brad Rose and Steve Louro, along with Singer, who is working his own network to secure new contributions on Rubio’s behalf.
“I’ve been getting exhortations from Paul Singer to support Rubio,” one RJC member said. “We’re not all there yet, but you do sense there’s a lot of interest. Our group is reflective of the race generally in that most of the excitement now is about Rubio and Cruz.”
Quadruples...
Trump quadruples down: Muslims 'went wild' after 9/11
By Nick Gass
Donald Trump continued to defend his remarks that Muslims "went wild" in celebration following the 9/11 attacks in the United States on Monday, and hammered President Barack Obama repeatedly for failing to use the term "radical Islamic terrorism" to describe what he said was the predominant threat facing the homeland.
Appearing on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" minutes after Obama finished addressing the climate talks in Paris, Trump was adamant when asked why he kept insisting that hundreds, if not thousands of Muslims in New Jersey were celebrating across the river as the twin towers smoldered in September 2001.
“Well it is important because you have to know the problems, because we don’t even know the problems," the Republican presidential candidate remarked. "We have a president that won’t even mention the term or the name. I don’t know what his problem is. Nobody understands it. He won’t mention radical Islamic terrorism. He won’t mention it. It could be from a different planet as far as he’s concerned. And you’re not going to solve the problem unless you’re willing to talk about what the problem is. I’m willing to talk about what the problem is."
Asked whether he would be hesitant to paint with a large brush on the Muslim community writ large, Trump called Muslims he knows "terrific people" but also warned co-hosts Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough that "we have some very radical people who want to do great harm to you and to Joe and to everybody on your panel and to me and to this country and to the world."
"They’re wonderful people, I know so many of them, and by the way, the ones that I know, they agree with me," Trump said, adding that they do so because the threat posed by radical members of their faith poses great danger to them as well.
The precise percentage or amount of Muslims celebrating the 9/11 attacks or expressing a violent opinion toward Americans does not matter to him, Trump indicated.
"I think we have to be strong, I think we have to be vigilant. I have many Muslim friends. They’re wonderful people, but we nevertheless, we have to be extremely vigilant and extremely strong, and we have to understand what the problem is," he said at the outset.
On whether Islam is a peaceful or violent religion, Trump demurred.
“There’s something definitely going on. I don’t know that that question be answered. It could be answered two ways. It could be answered both ways," he responded. "You see the hatred. You see it every day," he added, referencing what he called "Muslim chanting" prior to a soccer game in Turkey played days after the Nov. 13 Paris attacks.
As Scarborough and Brzezinski wondered whether his rhetoric about Muslims would help or hurt Trump's chances in the primaries, the candidate said that it wasn't his concern.
“I don’t worry about it, and I don’t worry about help, Joe. I'll be honest. I'm not looking to do this for help. Whether I win, whether I lose, I'm not doing this for that," he said. "I'm doing it because somebody has to bring it to the fore, and nobody does it."
Trump also went after Obama's remark last week in which he called this week's Paris climate summit a "rebuke" to the terrorists that struck the French capital earlier this month.
“Well first of all, I think one of the dumbest statements I’ve ever heard in politics, in the history of politics as I know it, which is pretty good, was Obama’s statement that our number one problem is global warming, OK? When we have large groups of people that want to blow up every one of our cities, that want to destroy our country, that want to kill our people, and he’s worried about global warming," he said. "I think it’s one of the dumbest things I’ve ever seen, or perhaps most naïve. He could be naïve in a certain way. He actually I think is naïve, if you want to know the truth. Beyond the incompetent part.”
The Manhattan mogul also pointed to Black Lives Matter activists for playing a role in canceling his public event on Monday, which his campaign billed as an endorsement of 100 African American evangelical leaders following a meeting at Trump Tower. By Sunday evening, that event had been scuppered in favor of a meet-and-greet with members of the Coalition of African-American Ministers.
"I think what happened, probably, it gets publicity, unfortunately, as everything I do gets publicity, and probably some of the Black Lives Matter folks called them up and said, ‘oh, you shouldn’t be meeting with Trump because he believes that all lives matter,'" Trump remarked.
Some endorsements could still come out of the meeting, he indicated.
"I don’t know if it’s an endorsement by some, I think it probably it will be an endorsement by some," Trump continued, "I do think pressure was put on them when they heard there was a meeting by people that maybe disagree with certain things."
Addressing the chances of two of his closest Republican rivals in the race, Trump indicated that he thought Texas Sen. Ted Cruz would "absolutely" be qualified to be president and that Florida Sen. Marco Rubio would be as well.
“I think so. I think he’s young, he’s very young. He’s got a bad voting record in Florida," Trump said, knocking Rubio on his immigration policies. "But he’s a nice guy, I’ve gotten know him during the campaign. I like him, and I think he would have a shot."
By Nick Gass
Donald Trump continued to defend his remarks that Muslims "went wild" in celebration following the 9/11 attacks in the United States on Monday, and hammered President Barack Obama repeatedly for failing to use the term "radical Islamic terrorism" to describe what he said was the predominant threat facing the homeland.
Appearing on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" minutes after Obama finished addressing the climate talks in Paris, Trump was adamant when asked why he kept insisting that hundreds, if not thousands of Muslims in New Jersey were celebrating across the river as the twin towers smoldered in September 2001.
“Well it is important because you have to know the problems, because we don’t even know the problems," the Republican presidential candidate remarked. "We have a president that won’t even mention the term or the name. I don’t know what his problem is. Nobody understands it. He won’t mention radical Islamic terrorism. He won’t mention it. It could be from a different planet as far as he’s concerned. And you’re not going to solve the problem unless you’re willing to talk about what the problem is. I’m willing to talk about what the problem is."
Asked whether he would be hesitant to paint with a large brush on the Muslim community writ large, Trump called Muslims he knows "terrific people" but also warned co-hosts Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough that "we have some very radical people who want to do great harm to you and to Joe and to everybody on your panel and to me and to this country and to the world."
"They’re wonderful people, I know so many of them, and by the way, the ones that I know, they agree with me," Trump said, adding that they do so because the threat posed by radical members of their faith poses great danger to them as well.
The precise percentage or amount of Muslims celebrating the 9/11 attacks or expressing a violent opinion toward Americans does not matter to him, Trump indicated.
"I think we have to be strong, I think we have to be vigilant. I have many Muslim friends. They’re wonderful people, but we nevertheless, we have to be extremely vigilant and extremely strong, and we have to understand what the problem is," he said at the outset.
On whether Islam is a peaceful or violent religion, Trump demurred.
“There’s something definitely going on. I don’t know that that question be answered. It could be answered two ways. It could be answered both ways," he responded. "You see the hatred. You see it every day," he added, referencing what he called "Muslim chanting" prior to a soccer game in Turkey played days after the Nov. 13 Paris attacks.
As Scarborough and Brzezinski wondered whether his rhetoric about Muslims would help or hurt Trump's chances in the primaries, the candidate said that it wasn't his concern.
“I don’t worry about it, and I don’t worry about help, Joe. I'll be honest. I'm not looking to do this for help. Whether I win, whether I lose, I'm not doing this for that," he said. "I'm doing it because somebody has to bring it to the fore, and nobody does it."
Trump also went after Obama's remark last week in which he called this week's Paris climate summit a "rebuke" to the terrorists that struck the French capital earlier this month.
“Well first of all, I think one of the dumbest statements I’ve ever heard in politics, in the history of politics as I know it, which is pretty good, was Obama’s statement that our number one problem is global warming, OK? When we have large groups of people that want to blow up every one of our cities, that want to destroy our country, that want to kill our people, and he’s worried about global warming," he said. "I think it’s one of the dumbest things I’ve ever seen, or perhaps most naïve. He could be naïve in a certain way. He actually I think is naïve, if you want to know the truth. Beyond the incompetent part.”
The Manhattan mogul also pointed to Black Lives Matter activists for playing a role in canceling his public event on Monday, which his campaign billed as an endorsement of 100 African American evangelical leaders following a meeting at Trump Tower. By Sunday evening, that event had been scuppered in favor of a meet-and-greet with members of the Coalition of African-American Ministers.
"I think what happened, probably, it gets publicity, unfortunately, as everything I do gets publicity, and probably some of the Black Lives Matter folks called them up and said, ‘oh, you shouldn’t be meeting with Trump because he believes that all lives matter,'" Trump remarked.
Some endorsements could still come out of the meeting, he indicated.
"I don’t know if it’s an endorsement by some, I think it probably it will be an endorsement by some," Trump continued, "I do think pressure was put on them when they heard there was a meeting by people that maybe disagree with certain things."
Addressing the chances of two of his closest Republican rivals in the race, Trump indicated that he thought Texas Sen. Ted Cruz would "absolutely" be qualified to be president and that Florida Sen. Marco Rubio would be as well.
“I think so. I think he’s young, he’s very young. He’s got a bad voting record in Florida," Trump said, knocking Rubio on his immigration policies. "But he’s a nice guy, I’ve gotten know him during the campaign. I like him, and I think he would have a shot."
Hateful rhetoric
Planned Parenthood president denounces 'hateful rhetoric'
By Nick Gass
Following last Friday's shooting at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs, the organization's president on Monday denounced those who put heated political rhetoric ahead of women's health care.
"This kind of violence just can’t keep happening," Cecile Richards said in an interview with NPR's Steve Inskeep that aired on "Morning Edition," adding that the group and many Americans are concerned about the "increased sort of hateful rhetoric and intimidation of both doctors and women who are both providing health care and getting health care in America. It’s really un-American. It’s been hard to see the kind of dehumanization of both health-care providers and of course, women who are simply looking for health care."
Reports over the weekend suggested that Robert Lewis Dear told investigators about "baby parts" after the shooting, a potential reference to undercover videos circulated by an anti-abortion group showing Planned Parenthood officials discussing the donation of tissue from aborted fetuses. For their part, Richards said, Planned Parenthood has been careful not to explicitly link political rhetoric and last Friday's shooting, though "it’s important to recognize that words matter" and they have a "real impact."
“I think we’ve been extremely careful. We are working hand in hand with law enforcement, Steve, as we do across the country to ensure the safety of our patients and the safety of our employees. I think where you’ve seen the most heated rhetoric has been frankly in this presidential primary," Richards said. "Folks are willing to say anything, it seems, to get ahead in their political ambitions. And the real danger in this country is when people put politics ahead of women’s health care. It’s horrifying to see and I can’t believe we’re seeing it, even this week, as really we should be to me, thinking about the families of the people who were killed and injured and how we can stop this kind of violence in America.”
"It’s alarming to see this kind of rhetoric and these kinds of smear campaigns against abortion providers and patients continue," she said, adding that the organization continues to have "very strong security measures in place" at their facilities nationwide.
Republican presidential contenders weighed in over the weekend, with Carly Fiorina calling attempts to link the shooting to anti-abortion rhetoric "typical left-wing tactics." Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, also a candidate for the GOP nomination, cited a report that said the shooter "was registered as an independent and a woman and transgendered leftist activist, if that’s what he is." The first part of Cruz's remark was specifically based on reports of a voter registration form in which Dear was listed as female.
Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee called it an act of terrorism, while Cruz declined to describe it as such.
“I would call it a murder, and we’ll see what the facts are," Cruz said, according to the Texas Tribune. "It was a multiple murder of what appears to be a deranged individual. And it was horrific, it was evil, and we’ll find out more out about the facts, but I don’t think we should jump to conclusions.”
By Nick Gass
Following last Friday's shooting at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs, the organization's president on Monday denounced those who put heated political rhetoric ahead of women's health care.
"This kind of violence just can’t keep happening," Cecile Richards said in an interview with NPR's Steve Inskeep that aired on "Morning Edition," adding that the group and many Americans are concerned about the "increased sort of hateful rhetoric and intimidation of both doctors and women who are both providing health care and getting health care in America. It’s really un-American. It’s been hard to see the kind of dehumanization of both health-care providers and of course, women who are simply looking for health care."
Reports over the weekend suggested that Robert Lewis Dear told investigators about "baby parts" after the shooting, a potential reference to undercover videos circulated by an anti-abortion group showing Planned Parenthood officials discussing the donation of tissue from aborted fetuses. For their part, Richards said, Planned Parenthood has been careful not to explicitly link political rhetoric and last Friday's shooting, though "it’s important to recognize that words matter" and they have a "real impact."
“I think we’ve been extremely careful. We are working hand in hand with law enforcement, Steve, as we do across the country to ensure the safety of our patients and the safety of our employees. I think where you’ve seen the most heated rhetoric has been frankly in this presidential primary," Richards said. "Folks are willing to say anything, it seems, to get ahead in their political ambitions. And the real danger in this country is when people put politics ahead of women’s health care. It’s horrifying to see and I can’t believe we’re seeing it, even this week, as really we should be to me, thinking about the families of the people who were killed and injured and how we can stop this kind of violence in America.”
"It’s alarming to see this kind of rhetoric and these kinds of smear campaigns against abortion providers and patients continue," she said, adding that the organization continues to have "very strong security measures in place" at their facilities nationwide.
Republican presidential contenders weighed in over the weekend, with Carly Fiorina calling attempts to link the shooting to anti-abortion rhetoric "typical left-wing tactics." Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, also a candidate for the GOP nomination, cited a report that said the shooter "was registered as an independent and a woman and transgendered leftist activist, if that’s what he is." The first part of Cruz's remark was specifically based on reports of a voter registration form in which Dear was listed as female.
Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee called it an act of terrorism, while Cruz declined to describe it as such.
“I would call it a murder, and we’ll see what the facts are," Cruz said, according to the Texas Tribune. "It was a multiple murder of what appears to be a deranged individual. And it was horrific, it was evil, and we’ll find out more out about the facts, but I don’t think we should jump to conclusions.”
New Hampshire polling
New Hampshire takes Clinton, Sanders on wild polling ride
Surveys in recent weeks suggest everything from a narrow Hillary Clinton advantage to a comfortable lead for Bernie Sanders.
By Annie Karni and Steven Shepard
With just 71 days to go until the New Hampshire primary, public polls are offering little guidance on the state of the Democratic race in the first-in-the-nation primary. A slew of surveys in recent weeks suggests everything from a narrow Hillary Clinton advantage to a comfortable lead for Bernie Sanders.
It’s been that way for much of the year. Clinton posted large leads through Memorial Day — until Sanders suddenly emerged here as a legitimate threat to the Clinton juggernaut. By early August, Sanders finally passed the front-runner — first in a poll conducted for the Boston Herald, but then in the subsequent eight public surveys up until mid-October.
The Vermont senator’s leads in those polls varied wildly — Sanders posted double-digit leads in live-caller surveys but also registered a gaping 22-percentage-point advantage in an online, CBS News/YouGov poll in early September. Things changed again after Clinton was buoyed by a strong performance in the first Democratic debate, her winning testimony before the House Benghazi Committee, and Vice President Joe Biden’s decision not to enter the race.
It’s a level of volatility and uncertainty that the campaigns need to become accustomed to, said Terry Shumaker, a former state co-chairman for both of Bill Clinton’s presidential campaigns.
“The polling at this stage in New Hampshire has always been unreliable, going back the 1960s,” he said. “New Hampshire primary voters have numerous opportunities to see the candidates close to the primary; they have no pressure to decide early.”
Those careening polls served as the backdrop Sunday night when the three Democratic candidates appeared for the state party’s annual Jefferson-Jackson dinner at the Radisson Hotel in Manchester, in front of a pro-Clinton establishment audience to which Sen. Jeanne Shaheen and Gov. Maggie Hassan voiced their support for Clinton during the program.
The candidates, including Martin O’Malley, took the opportunity to sell a positive pitch to voters, rather than rip into one another, in keeping with the evening’s cordiality. But the frequency of the veiled swipes at rivals provided an ever-present reminder of the unease enveloping the race at the moment.
Clinton, who spoke last, gave one of the most rousing renditions of her everything-but-the-kitchen sink stump speech, ticking through her support for universal pre-k; making tuition at public colleges debt-free; expanding voting rights; supporting and expanding the Affordable Care Act; overturning Citizens United; and fighting the National Rifle Association.
Her supporters, waving blue glow sticks, cheered along for a well-known line in her stump speech — that if Republicans think playing the gender card means fighting for women’s rights and equal pay, they can “Deal! Me! In!”
Clinton, who never mentions Sanders on the trail, singled out “the special immunity Congress gave the gun industry — that was a mistake, plain and simple” — a nod to a Sanders vote in 2005 for a statute that gives gun manufacturers immunity in state and federal courts.
She also used the occasion to dismiss the aspirational nature of the Sanders campaign. “Some candidates may be running to make a point,” she said. “I’m running to make a difference.”
For his part, Sanders spoke at length about his 2002 vote to oppose the war in Iraq — a stark point of contrast with Clinton. “Now is not the time for more establishment foreign policy,” he said.
In an election recently redefined by the terror attacks across Paris earlier this month, Sanders was forced to alter his standard stump speech to include a new emphasis on foreign policy.
“We cannot and should not attempt to do it alone,” he said of confronting the Islamic State. “We cannot and should not be trapped in perpetual warfare in the Middle East. We need to put together a broad coalition including the strong participation of the Muslim countries in the region.”
Still, Sanders managed to frame his foreign policy agenda in terms of his campaign theme of income inequality. “It has been reported that Qatar will spend $200 billion on the 2022 World Cup,” he said, “$200 billion on hosting a soccer event, yet very little to fight against ISIS.”
With the candidates unwilling to go beyond subtle swats at one another, it’s possible that the race here will remain opaque until voters go to the polls Feb. 9 — and Clinton knows it better than anyone.
On the eve of the 2008 primary, the final RealClearPolitics polling average showed Barack Obama with an 8.3-point lead, based on a surge of support following his victory in the Iowa caucuses five days earlier. But that bump in the polls proved illusory: Clinton won New Hampshire by nearly 3 points.
The result was, in the words of former Gallup and Pew Research Center head Andy Kohut, “one of the most significant miscues in modern polling history.”
That 2008 failure led to a thorough autopsy from the polling community, which concluded that pollsters sufficiently captured Obama’s post-Iowa bump but failed to measure a subsequent boost for Clinton in the final day before the primary.
That boost was credited, in part, to a New Hampshire happenstance that the polls were unable to pick up so close to primary day — an emotional moment for the then-New York senator at a coffee shop in Portsmouth.
Surveys in recent weeks suggest everything from a narrow Hillary Clinton advantage to a comfortable lead for Bernie Sanders.
By Annie Karni and Steven Shepard
With just 71 days to go until the New Hampshire primary, public polls are offering little guidance on the state of the Democratic race in the first-in-the-nation primary. A slew of surveys in recent weeks suggests everything from a narrow Hillary Clinton advantage to a comfortable lead for Bernie Sanders.
It’s been that way for much of the year. Clinton posted large leads through Memorial Day — until Sanders suddenly emerged here as a legitimate threat to the Clinton juggernaut. By early August, Sanders finally passed the front-runner — first in a poll conducted for the Boston Herald, but then in the subsequent eight public surveys up until mid-October.
The Vermont senator’s leads in those polls varied wildly — Sanders posted double-digit leads in live-caller surveys but also registered a gaping 22-percentage-point advantage in an online, CBS News/YouGov poll in early September. Things changed again after Clinton was buoyed by a strong performance in the first Democratic debate, her winning testimony before the House Benghazi Committee, and Vice President Joe Biden’s decision not to enter the race.
It’s a level of volatility and uncertainty that the campaigns need to become accustomed to, said Terry Shumaker, a former state co-chairman for both of Bill Clinton’s presidential campaigns.
“The polling at this stage in New Hampshire has always been unreliable, going back the 1960s,” he said. “New Hampshire primary voters have numerous opportunities to see the candidates close to the primary; they have no pressure to decide early.”
Those careening polls served as the backdrop Sunday night when the three Democratic candidates appeared for the state party’s annual Jefferson-Jackson dinner at the Radisson Hotel in Manchester, in front of a pro-Clinton establishment audience to which Sen. Jeanne Shaheen and Gov. Maggie Hassan voiced their support for Clinton during the program.
The candidates, including Martin O’Malley, took the opportunity to sell a positive pitch to voters, rather than rip into one another, in keeping with the evening’s cordiality. But the frequency of the veiled swipes at rivals provided an ever-present reminder of the unease enveloping the race at the moment.
Clinton, who spoke last, gave one of the most rousing renditions of her everything-but-the-kitchen sink stump speech, ticking through her support for universal pre-k; making tuition at public colleges debt-free; expanding voting rights; supporting and expanding the Affordable Care Act; overturning Citizens United; and fighting the National Rifle Association.
Her supporters, waving blue glow sticks, cheered along for a well-known line in her stump speech — that if Republicans think playing the gender card means fighting for women’s rights and equal pay, they can “Deal! Me! In!”
Clinton, who never mentions Sanders on the trail, singled out “the special immunity Congress gave the gun industry — that was a mistake, plain and simple” — a nod to a Sanders vote in 2005 for a statute that gives gun manufacturers immunity in state and federal courts.
She also used the occasion to dismiss the aspirational nature of the Sanders campaign. “Some candidates may be running to make a point,” she said. “I’m running to make a difference.”
For his part, Sanders spoke at length about his 2002 vote to oppose the war in Iraq — a stark point of contrast with Clinton. “Now is not the time for more establishment foreign policy,” he said.
In an election recently redefined by the terror attacks across Paris earlier this month, Sanders was forced to alter his standard stump speech to include a new emphasis on foreign policy.
“We cannot and should not attempt to do it alone,” he said of confronting the Islamic State. “We cannot and should not be trapped in perpetual warfare in the Middle East. We need to put together a broad coalition including the strong participation of the Muslim countries in the region.”
Still, Sanders managed to frame his foreign policy agenda in terms of his campaign theme of income inequality. “It has been reported that Qatar will spend $200 billion on the 2022 World Cup,” he said, “$200 billion on hosting a soccer event, yet very little to fight against ISIS.”
With the candidates unwilling to go beyond subtle swats at one another, it’s possible that the race here will remain opaque until voters go to the polls Feb. 9 — and Clinton knows it better than anyone.
On the eve of the 2008 primary, the final RealClearPolitics polling average showed Barack Obama with an 8.3-point lead, based on a surge of support following his victory in the Iowa caucuses five days earlier. But that bump in the polls proved illusory: Clinton won New Hampshire by nearly 3 points.
The result was, in the words of former Gallup and Pew Research Center head Andy Kohut, “one of the most significant miscues in modern polling history.”
That 2008 failure led to a thorough autopsy from the polling community, which concluded that pollsters sufficiently captured Obama’s post-Iowa bump but failed to measure a subsequent boost for Clinton in the final day before the primary.
That boost was credited, in part, to a New Hampshire happenstance that the polls were unable to pick up so close to primary day — an emotional moment for the then-New York senator at a coffee shop in Portsmouth.
Colorado attack
GOP contenders carefully denounce Colorado attack
They do so without saying anything that would appear to be an endorsement of Planned Parenthood.
By Kristen East
Republican presidential candidates Sunday continued to dance a fine line in reaction to Friday’s lethal shooting at a Planned Parenthood in Colorado, condemning the fatal attack without appearing to be sympathetic to the women’s health provider.
Appearing on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday morning, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee described the shooting as an act of "domestic terrorism" — while still emphasizing his disdain for the organization.
“It was mass murder. It was absolutely unfathomable,” he said. “And there’s no excuse for killing other people, whether it’s happening inside the Planned Parenthood headquarters, inside their clinics where many millions of babies die, or whether it’s people attacking Planned Parenthood.”
Huckabee also challenged CNN host Brianna Keilar to furnish examples, if she could, of anyone who is pro-life encouraging violence against Planned Parenthood.
"God knows that's not what anybody would want," he said, saying there was no "legitimizing."
The remarks from Huckabee and other Republican candidates this weekend came in the wake of Friday's mass shooting at a Colorado Spring Planned Parenthood clinic. Three people were killed and nine injured. The suspect, Robert Lewis Dear, reportedly told law enforcement officials "no more baby parts" after he was taken into custody.
On Friday night, Democratic candidates Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders both tweeted that they "#StandWithPP," and Martin O'Malley did the same Saturday.
Among Republicans, Ted Cruz, John Kasich, and Jeb Bush all released statements on Twitter or elsewhere saying they were praying for the families of those killed or injured in the attack.
"Praying for the loved ones of those killed, those injured & first responders who bravely got the situation under control in Colorado Springs," Cruz tweeted Saturday, the first of the GOP candidates to do so.
“There is no acceptable explanation for this violence, and I will continue to pray for those who have been impacted," Bush said in a statement.
Kasich said on Twitter: "Senseless violence has brought tragedy to Colorado Springs. I pray for the families in mourning and have hope our nation can heal."
None of those tweets or statements mentioned Planned Parenthood.
Ben Carson, appearing Sunday on several shows remotely from Jordan, denounced “hateful rhetoric” in the wake of the holiday weekend shooting.
When asked by “Meet the Press” host Chuck Todd if the candidates’ Planned Parenthood rhetoric during the Republican debates has been “too much,” Carson seemed to agree.
“I think any hateful rhetoric directed at anyone from any source is too much,” he said. “It’s something that we need to get away from. We have to stop allowing ourselves to be pushed into different corners and then throwing hateful barbs at each other, you know.”
On "Meet the Press," Donald Trump called the shooter a "maniac."
In addition, Trump brought up the Planned Parenthood videos leaked earlier this year, saying “there are a lot of people that are very unhappy” about the organization’s alleged practice of harvesting body parts for fetal research. It has been reported that the suspected shooter was talking about baby parts when law enforcement officials had him in custody.
“Well, I will tell you there is a tremendous group of people that think it’s terrible, all of the videos that they’ve seen with some of those people from Planned Parenthood talking about it like you’re selling parts to a car. I mean, there are a lot of people that are very unhappy about that.
“I know that a couple of people that are running for office on the Republican side were commenting on tapes that weren’t appropriate,” Trump continued, seemingly taking a swipe at fellow GOP candidate Carly Fioirna. “But there were many tapes that are appropriate in terms of commenting on. And there are people that are extremely upset about it.”
Fiorina, too, brought up the videos when appearing on “Fox News Sunday,” defending the language of pro-life advocates. She did, however, say that any link between the shooting and “anyone who opposes abortion or opposes the sale of body parts is … typical left-wing tactics.”
They do so without saying anything that would appear to be an endorsement of Planned Parenthood.
By Kristen East
Republican presidential candidates Sunday continued to dance a fine line in reaction to Friday’s lethal shooting at a Planned Parenthood in Colorado, condemning the fatal attack without appearing to be sympathetic to the women’s health provider.
Appearing on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday morning, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee described the shooting as an act of "domestic terrorism" — while still emphasizing his disdain for the organization.
“It was mass murder. It was absolutely unfathomable,” he said. “And there’s no excuse for killing other people, whether it’s happening inside the Planned Parenthood headquarters, inside their clinics where many millions of babies die, or whether it’s people attacking Planned Parenthood.”
Huckabee also challenged CNN host Brianna Keilar to furnish examples, if she could, of anyone who is pro-life encouraging violence against Planned Parenthood.
"God knows that's not what anybody would want," he said, saying there was no "legitimizing."
The remarks from Huckabee and other Republican candidates this weekend came in the wake of Friday's mass shooting at a Colorado Spring Planned Parenthood clinic. Three people were killed and nine injured. The suspect, Robert Lewis Dear, reportedly told law enforcement officials "no more baby parts" after he was taken into custody.
On Friday night, Democratic candidates Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders both tweeted that they "#StandWithPP," and Martin O'Malley did the same Saturday.
Among Republicans, Ted Cruz, John Kasich, and Jeb Bush all released statements on Twitter or elsewhere saying they were praying for the families of those killed or injured in the attack.
"Praying for the loved ones of those killed, those injured & first responders who bravely got the situation under control in Colorado Springs," Cruz tweeted Saturday, the first of the GOP candidates to do so.
“There is no acceptable explanation for this violence, and I will continue to pray for those who have been impacted," Bush said in a statement.
Kasich said on Twitter: "Senseless violence has brought tragedy to Colorado Springs. I pray for the families in mourning and have hope our nation can heal."
None of those tweets or statements mentioned Planned Parenthood.
Ben Carson, appearing Sunday on several shows remotely from Jordan, denounced “hateful rhetoric” in the wake of the holiday weekend shooting.
When asked by “Meet the Press” host Chuck Todd if the candidates’ Planned Parenthood rhetoric during the Republican debates has been “too much,” Carson seemed to agree.
“I think any hateful rhetoric directed at anyone from any source is too much,” he said. “It’s something that we need to get away from. We have to stop allowing ourselves to be pushed into different corners and then throwing hateful barbs at each other, you know.”
On "Meet the Press," Donald Trump called the shooter a "maniac."
In addition, Trump brought up the Planned Parenthood videos leaked earlier this year, saying “there are a lot of people that are very unhappy” about the organization’s alleged practice of harvesting body parts for fetal research. It has been reported that the suspected shooter was talking about baby parts when law enforcement officials had him in custody.
“Well, I will tell you there is a tremendous group of people that think it’s terrible, all of the videos that they’ve seen with some of those people from Planned Parenthood talking about it like you’re selling parts to a car. I mean, there are a lot of people that are very unhappy about that.
“I know that a couple of people that are running for office on the Republican side were commenting on tapes that weren’t appropriate,” Trump continued, seemingly taking a swipe at fellow GOP candidate Carly Fioirna. “But there were many tapes that are appropriate in terms of commenting on. And there are people that are extremely upset about it.”
Fiorina, too, brought up the videos when appearing on “Fox News Sunday,” defending the language of pro-life advocates. She did, however, say that any link between the shooting and “anyone who opposes abortion or opposes the sale of body parts is … typical left-wing tactics.”
Serious threat
Poll: Fewer Americans see climate change as a serious threat
By Nick Gass
More than six in 10 Americans see climate change or global warming as a serious problem facing the United States, according to the results of the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll released Monday morning, on the same day leaders from around the world convened in Paris for a summit on environmental issues. But less than half say government should be doing more to blunt the effects of the environmental phenomenon.
While 63 percent of Americans found it to be a serious threat, that is a drop of 6 points in the last year and a half in the same survey. About 36 percent said it was not a serious problem. In June 2014, 69 percent called it a serious issue, compared to 29 percent who said it was not serious.
Along political lines, 81 percent of Democrats called it a serious issue, compared to just 43 percent of Republicans. Among independents, 62 percent said it was.
Asked whether the government should be doing more, less or the same, 47 percent said the government should do more, though far less than the 61 percent and the 70 percent who said the same in polls in 2008 and 2007, respectively. On a partisan basis, 65 percent of Democrats said leaders should do more, while just 22 percent of Republicans said the same, and 47 percent of independents responded that way.
Langer Research Associates conducted the poll via landlines and cellphones in English and Spanish from Nov. 16 to 19, surveying 1,004 adults nationwide. The margin of error is plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.
By Nick Gass
More than six in 10 Americans see climate change or global warming as a serious problem facing the United States, according to the results of the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll released Monday morning, on the same day leaders from around the world convened in Paris for a summit on environmental issues. But less than half say government should be doing more to blunt the effects of the environmental phenomenon.
While 63 percent of Americans found it to be a serious threat, that is a drop of 6 points in the last year and a half in the same survey. About 36 percent said it was not a serious problem. In June 2014, 69 percent called it a serious issue, compared to 29 percent who said it was not serious.
Along political lines, 81 percent of Democrats called it a serious issue, compared to just 43 percent of Republicans. Among independents, 62 percent said it was.
Asked whether the government should be doing more, less or the same, 47 percent said the government should do more, though far less than the 61 percent and the 70 percent who said the same in polls in 2008 and 2007, respectively. On a partisan basis, 65 percent of Democrats said leaders should do more, while just 22 percent of Republicans said the same, and 47 percent of independents responded that way.
Langer Research Associates conducted the poll via landlines and cellphones in English and Spanish from Nov. 16 to 19, surveying 1,004 adults nationwide. The margin of error is plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.
Expectations
White House reins in expectations for Paris
A deal is likely to come from the climate summit, but it won't lend itself to heroic narratives.
By Edward-Isaac Dovere and Andrew Restuccia
Some deal will almost certainly emerge from the worldwide climate negotiations that President Barack Obama will kick off here Monday. The White House’s dilemma: making it seem big enough to match the time and legacy aspirations he has invested in it.
Obama has steadily raised the stakes for a climate deal throughout his second term, amping up his talk about the dire threat of global warming and the need to unite the world toward solving it. He’s the one who drew a direct connection to Paris when he rejected the Keystone XL pipeline three weeks ago, and when he rolled out a series of contentious climate regulations in the past two years. He’s the one who welcomed Pope Francis to Washington to try turning climate action into an international moral imperative.
But the two-week summit is unlikely to give Obama the world-saving, wall-of-the-presidential-library-defining achievement that he clearly wants. Even the best-case scenario won’t make sense to most people — there’s no easy headline or heroic narrative to be had in a patchwork of nonbinding pledges by 200 nations that may or may not eventually limit the rise in global temperatures to around 2 degrees Celsius.
The real-world effects of such an agreement could be huge in terms of avoiding the worst of the rising seas, droughts, extinctions, epidemics and mass migrations that scientists predict would result from uncontrolled climate change — and would be a major breakthrough in the stubborn, decades-long United Nations negotiations process. But its effects wouldn’t be felt until decades after Obama leaves office.
“Our task in Paris is to secure a long-term framework in which countries set successive rounds of targets into the future, beyond 2030, and ratchet down their carbon emissions over the course of the coming decades in the context of strong transparency and accountability provisions,” said Paul Bodnar, senior director for energy and climate change at the National Security Council.
The long-term nature of the hoped-for deal, which wouldn’t go into effect until 2020, will frustrate some climate advocates who demand immediate action.
“If you believe that we really have to do something quickly, it’s going to be a disappointment probably,” said Harlan Watson, who was a U.S. climate diplomat during the George W. Bush administration. But he added, “You’re talking about turning around the whole global economy. That’s going to take some time.”
And White House staffers aren’t even sure how much they’ll want to be talking about the climate talks at all. Unlike 2009, when Obama showed up at the end of the Copenhagen climate talks only to have them nearly collapse as he tried to urge negotiators into action, this time around he’s speaking at the beginning of the conference. Aides say there’s a preliminary plan to have Obama himself, Cabinet officials and the White House communications operation dispatched to amplify the message about the significance of an agreement — what the United States is actually doing, what it means to people as Americans and as global citizens — but they’re wary of getting too far ahead of a result that may yet blow up in their faces.
Managing measured expectations is how a White House aide described the planning.
The Obama administration and top United Nations officials have known for months, even years, that the end-product of the Paris negotiations wouldn’t be ambitious enough on its own to tackle climate change, and they’ve been working to set realistic expectations about what the talks will accomplish.
Scientists warn that countries must limit the increase in average global temperatures to 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels to prevent the most catastrophic effects of climate change. The collective domestic climate plans put forward so far by more than 170 countries are projected to put the planet on a path toward a 2.7-degree increase. That’s a huge improvement from the havoc the Earth would face in a business-as-usual scenario, which could see temperatures rise by 4 degrees or more, but it’s still a long way from what the science says is needed.
As climate studies became more dire and a steady stream of United Nations summits produced lackluster results, officials decided to rethink global warming diplomacy. Instead of imposing stringent emissions mandates on countries, they decided to put in place a process that would allow individual nations to write their own plans for tackling climate change.
That bottom-up approach has so far won more buy-in for the agreement because countries like China and India aren’t being forced to do anything they don’t want to do. But that’s meant abandoning what would have been more forceful, top-down efforts to make big polluters slash their emissions — an approach that had long been the the European Union's preferred strategy.
And still, the pressure to get a deal, any deal, is raising worries among climate advocates that negotiators will settle for the lowest common denominator.
“We will have a deal in Paris,” Miguel Arias Cañete, the European Union’s climate and energy commissioner, told reporters in Brussels. “But my worry is that we may end up having a minimalistic agreement and the European Union wants a good deal, an ambitious deal, not just any deal for the sake of it.”
Chistiana Figueres, the top climate official at the United Nations, has jokingly threatened reporters with bodily harm if they pepper officials in Paris with questions about why they aren’t doing more to meet the 2-degree goal.
“I will chop the head off the person who asked that question," she deadpanned at a recent news conference, "because I have been saying for at least a year, if not more, that that is impossible."
Longtime observers of the negotiations say the administration has done a better job of managing expectations ahead of Paris than it did in the months before the 2009 Copenhagen climate talks, which suffered from the false notion that Obama could overcome deep divisions and secure a game-changing deal. The Copenhagen summit ended with a non-binding document that was widely panned by developing countries.
“I think actually, expectations going into Paris are more real,” said Alden Meyer, director of strategy and policy for the Union of Concerned Scientists and a veteran of U.N. climate negotiations.
In a stream of background briefings, news conferences and presentations, government officials and private groups have made the case that the Paris conference is more about putting in place the infrastructure of a long-term regime to dramatically cut emissions. The agreement should lay the foundation to save the planet over the next several decades, they say.
“One of the greatest challenges going into the Paris climate conference is the inflated expectations,” said David Sandalow, who served as a top climate and energy official in the Obama and Clinton administrations. “The Paris climate conference can make a big difference, but it can’t solve the problem.”
The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the mechanism through which countries negotiate global warming agreements, operates on consensus and it’s nearly impossible to get 196 countries with starkly different national interests to agree on anything.
Advocates of a climate agreement say the current process isn’t ideal, but the collapse of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol and the disappointment of the 2009 Copenhagen climate summit have convinced many of them that this is the only way forward.
Administration officials say the final agreement will be a success if it incorporates ambitious climate change plans from every country; includes provisions that pressure nations to review those plans every five years with an eye toward increasing ambition over time; includes transparency measures; encourages more public and private financing to help poor countries get the hundreds of billions of dollars needed to cope with climate change; and prods subnational groups like cities and corporations to take steps to slash emissions.
But developing countries like India could derail the agreement if wealthy nations don’t fork over enough money to help them transition off coal. Activists worry that fossil-fuel-dependent nations like Saudi Arabia could sabotage the deal. And island nations might demand a level of ambition on which other countries aren’t prepared to deliver.
Todd Stern, the Obama administration’s top climate negotiator, told reporters that he is cautiously optimistic that the Paris summit will be a success.
"We have this opportunity,” Stern said. “We have this moment.”
A deal is likely to come from the climate summit, but it won't lend itself to heroic narratives.
By Edward-Isaac Dovere and Andrew Restuccia
Some deal will almost certainly emerge from the worldwide climate negotiations that President Barack Obama will kick off here Monday. The White House’s dilemma: making it seem big enough to match the time and legacy aspirations he has invested in it.
Obama has steadily raised the stakes for a climate deal throughout his second term, amping up his talk about the dire threat of global warming and the need to unite the world toward solving it. He’s the one who drew a direct connection to Paris when he rejected the Keystone XL pipeline three weeks ago, and when he rolled out a series of contentious climate regulations in the past two years. He’s the one who welcomed Pope Francis to Washington to try turning climate action into an international moral imperative.
But the two-week summit is unlikely to give Obama the world-saving, wall-of-the-presidential-library-defining achievement that he clearly wants. Even the best-case scenario won’t make sense to most people — there’s no easy headline or heroic narrative to be had in a patchwork of nonbinding pledges by 200 nations that may or may not eventually limit the rise in global temperatures to around 2 degrees Celsius.
The real-world effects of such an agreement could be huge in terms of avoiding the worst of the rising seas, droughts, extinctions, epidemics and mass migrations that scientists predict would result from uncontrolled climate change — and would be a major breakthrough in the stubborn, decades-long United Nations negotiations process. But its effects wouldn’t be felt until decades after Obama leaves office.
“Our task in Paris is to secure a long-term framework in which countries set successive rounds of targets into the future, beyond 2030, and ratchet down their carbon emissions over the course of the coming decades in the context of strong transparency and accountability provisions,” said Paul Bodnar, senior director for energy and climate change at the National Security Council.
The long-term nature of the hoped-for deal, which wouldn’t go into effect until 2020, will frustrate some climate advocates who demand immediate action.
“If you believe that we really have to do something quickly, it’s going to be a disappointment probably,” said Harlan Watson, who was a U.S. climate diplomat during the George W. Bush administration. But he added, “You’re talking about turning around the whole global economy. That’s going to take some time.”
And White House staffers aren’t even sure how much they’ll want to be talking about the climate talks at all. Unlike 2009, when Obama showed up at the end of the Copenhagen climate talks only to have them nearly collapse as he tried to urge negotiators into action, this time around he’s speaking at the beginning of the conference. Aides say there’s a preliminary plan to have Obama himself, Cabinet officials and the White House communications operation dispatched to amplify the message about the significance of an agreement — what the United States is actually doing, what it means to people as Americans and as global citizens — but they’re wary of getting too far ahead of a result that may yet blow up in their faces.
Managing measured expectations is how a White House aide described the planning.
The Obama administration and top United Nations officials have known for months, even years, that the end-product of the Paris negotiations wouldn’t be ambitious enough on its own to tackle climate change, and they’ve been working to set realistic expectations about what the talks will accomplish.
Scientists warn that countries must limit the increase in average global temperatures to 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels to prevent the most catastrophic effects of climate change. The collective domestic climate plans put forward so far by more than 170 countries are projected to put the planet on a path toward a 2.7-degree increase. That’s a huge improvement from the havoc the Earth would face in a business-as-usual scenario, which could see temperatures rise by 4 degrees or more, but it’s still a long way from what the science says is needed.
As climate studies became more dire and a steady stream of United Nations summits produced lackluster results, officials decided to rethink global warming diplomacy. Instead of imposing stringent emissions mandates on countries, they decided to put in place a process that would allow individual nations to write their own plans for tackling climate change.
That bottom-up approach has so far won more buy-in for the agreement because countries like China and India aren’t being forced to do anything they don’t want to do. But that’s meant abandoning what would have been more forceful, top-down efforts to make big polluters slash their emissions — an approach that had long been the the European Union's preferred strategy.
And still, the pressure to get a deal, any deal, is raising worries among climate advocates that negotiators will settle for the lowest common denominator.
“We will have a deal in Paris,” Miguel Arias Cañete, the European Union’s climate and energy commissioner, told reporters in Brussels. “But my worry is that we may end up having a minimalistic agreement and the European Union wants a good deal, an ambitious deal, not just any deal for the sake of it.”
Chistiana Figueres, the top climate official at the United Nations, has jokingly threatened reporters with bodily harm if they pepper officials in Paris with questions about why they aren’t doing more to meet the 2-degree goal.
“I will chop the head off the person who asked that question," she deadpanned at a recent news conference, "because I have been saying for at least a year, if not more, that that is impossible."
Longtime observers of the negotiations say the administration has done a better job of managing expectations ahead of Paris than it did in the months before the 2009 Copenhagen climate talks, which suffered from the false notion that Obama could overcome deep divisions and secure a game-changing deal. The Copenhagen summit ended with a non-binding document that was widely panned by developing countries.
“I think actually, expectations going into Paris are more real,” said Alden Meyer, director of strategy and policy for the Union of Concerned Scientists and a veteran of U.N. climate negotiations.
In a stream of background briefings, news conferences and presentations, government officials and private groups have made the case that the Paris conference is more about putting in place the infrastructure of a long-term regime to dramatically cut emissions. The agreement should lay the foundation to save the planet over the next several decades, they say.
“One of the greatest challenges going into the Paris climate conference is the inflated expectations,” said David Sandalow, who served as a top climate and energy official in the Obama and Clinton administrations. “The Paris climate conference can make a big difference, but it can’t solve the problem.”
The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the mechanism through which countries negotiate global warming agreements, operates on consensus and it’s nearly impossible to get 196 countries with starkly different national interests to agree on anything.
Advocates of a climate agreement say the current process isn’t ideal, but the collapse of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol and the disappointment of the 2009 Copenhagen climate summit have convinced many of them that this is the only way forward.
Administration officials say the final agreement will be a success if it incorporates ambitious climate change plans from every country; includes provisions that pressure nations to review those plans every five years with an eye toward increasing ambition over time; includes transparency measures; encourages more public and private financing to help poor countries get the hundreds of billions of dollars needed to cope with climate change; and prods subnational groups like cities and corporations to take steps to slash emissions.
But developing countries like India could derail the agreement if wealthy nations don’t fork over enough money to help them transition off coal. Activists worry that fossil-fuel-dependent nations like Saudi Arabia could sabotage the deal. And island nations might demand a level of ambition on which other countries aren’t prepared to deliver.
Todd Stern, the Obama administration’s top climate negotiator, told reporters that he is cautiously optimistic that the Paris summit will be a success.
"We have this opportunity,” Stern said. “We have this moment.”
Who do you like...
As Cruz gains, GOP senators rally for Rubio
The idea of Cruz as the nominee makes fellow GOP senators shudder.
By Burgess Everett and Seung Min Kim
Ted Cruz has built his Senate career and presidential campaign on his willingness to stick it to the Republican establishment. And now that he’s gaining momentum in the primary, his many GOP nemeses in Congress are returning the favor by quietly coalescing behind Marco Rubio.
Senior Republican senators who’ve clashed with Cruz for years have had nothing but nice things to say about Rubio even as he’s dissed — and largely ditched — his day job in the Capitol. Just this month, Rubio has racked up endorsements from nine members of Congress, compared with two for early GOP front-runner Jeb Bush. More House endorsements for Rubio are set to roll out in December, according to campaign sources, and several GOP senators said privately they expect their colleagues to get behind Rubio once the GOP field thins.
The movement toward Rubio appears to be as much about anxiety over the possibility of Cruz going up against Hillary Clinton as it is affection for the Florida senator. The idea of Cruz as the nominee is enough to send shudders down the spines of most Senate Republicans.
Mainstream elected Republicans now see Cruz as a bigger threat than Donald Trump or Ben Carson to clinch the nomination — but equally damaging to their party’s chances of winning the White House and keeping the Senate next fall. Rubio would be a much stronger general election standard bearer, they believe.
“Marco is a true next-generation conservative,” said Steve Daines (R-Mont.), one of three senators who endorsed Rubio in November. “Every time there’s a debate, his stock goes up.”
Cruz winning the nomination "could happen with the angry situation we have out there” among the GOP electorate, said one Republican senator who hasn't endorsed in the race but does not want Cruz.
Rubio's GOP colleagues are looking to exploit what they see as Rubio's advantage on national security in the aftermath of the Paris terrorist attacks. They're heaping praise on Rubio's hawkish foreign policy views and panning Cruz’s attempt to find middle ground on national security. Asked about Rubio’s attacks on Cruz’s votes for the USA Freedom Act, which scaled back federal surveillance authorities, Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn of Texas replied: “It’s always fair to question votes and hold people accountable.”
As for Cruz’s attempt to stake out a centrist position on national security between the party’s hawkish and libertarian poles, Sen. Dan Coats (R-Ind.) said: “I don’t think you can split that baby."
“Candidates running for national office who are articulating strong, firm, decisive positions that are well-thought-out are going to have an advantage,” said No. 3 Senate Republican John Thune of South Dakota. Rubio, he added, is “well positioned to make the arguments.”
Cornyn, Thune and Coats have not endorsed in the presidential primary, and lawmakers interviewed for this story said many senior Republicans do not want to embarrass long-shot presidential hopeful Lindsey Graham by endorsing Rubio while the South Carolina senator is in the race. They’re also aware that endorsements from top GOP lawmakers at this point in the primary wouldn’t help Rubio’s cause with the Republican base.
Cruz scoffed at the notion that Rubio is more electable, telling POLITICO that that’s precisely the logic that paved the way for Democrats to win five of the past six popular votes for the White House.
“Democrats also told Republicans Bob Dole was more electable, Democrats also told the press John McCain was more electable, Democrats also told the press Mitt Romney was more electable,” Cruz said. “Then the Democrats were quite happy to go to their inauguration balls."
Cruz predicted that millions of blue-collar Democrats would rally behind him in a general election, like they did with Ronald Reagan three decades ago. Rubio's earlier support for comprehensive immigration reform — or a “massive amnesty plan,” in Cruz's words — would preclude that kind of crossover appeal, the Texan said.
But congressional Republicans say the truest indicator of Rubio’s strength is the abuse he’s getting from Democrats. They’ve been pounding him daily over missed votes and briefings, while dissecting his policy plans. Cruz, by comparison, has been getting kid-glove treatment, to the extent Democrats mention him at all in opposition dumps from the party apparatus and outside liberal groups.
Democrats for two years have held up Cruz as the de facto leader of the Republican Party, dubbing him "Speaker Cruz" after he prodded former Speaker John Boehner into a 2013 battle over Obamacare that shut down the federal government. Just this month, Democrats annoyed Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell by insinuating he had agreed to take up a hard-line immigration bill heavily touted by Cruz. The idea that McConnell would take cues from Cruz after the Texas senator’s withering criticisms of the GOP leader was perceived by Republicans as a subtle Democratic attempt at boosting Cruz.
Meanwhile, in separate interviews with POLITICO and The Huffington Post last month, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) ripped Rubio for his chronic Senate absences and called on him to resign his Senate seat. Rubio's political ambitions, Reid said, reminded him of disgraced former senator and 2008 Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards.
“Obviously, Marco was bitten by the national limelight like John Edwards,” Reid said in the POLITICO interview. “Marco Rubio, somehow someone told him, ‘Why don’t you run for president?’ OK, great idea. So he just walked away from the Senate. He has been a nonentity here.”
Asked this month why he isn’t unleashing on Cruz in similar fashion, Reid replied: “I haven’t heard Cruz talk about how he didn’t like the Senate.”
Meanwhile, Chuck Schumer of New York, who’s poised to become the next Democratic Senate leader, told CNN early this month that Rubio’s “fingerprints are all over” a comprehensive immigration reform bill. Schumer then told The New York Times that “Senator Cruz was always against the path to citizenship, and Senator Rubio was for it.” Both remarks were an attempt to hurt Rubio with conservatives and could have easily come out of Cruz’s mouth.
Rubio's backers, for their part, say Democrats are trying to meddle in the GOP primary, adopting the strategy they've used in recent Senate elections of propping up unelectable Republican candidates in primaries in the hopes of facing a weaker general election opponent.
Still, “the way Clinton's allies obsess about Marco must mean we're doing something right," said Rubio spokesman Alex Conant.
The Republican senators who see Rubio as a stronger general election candidate have ample reasons to worry about Cruz outmaneuvering their man. Cruz is closing in on Donald Trump in Iowa, according to recent polls and the Texan has the financial heft to endure a drawn-out nomination battle. Cruz also believes he also has the upper hand on immigration, a key issue for primary voters and Rubio's Achilles' heel.
But Senate Republicans who are subtly rallying behind Rubio are also thinking about their own power. With the GOP defending a slim Senate majority next year, lawmakers want a nominee who can win over moderate voters in battleground states. They don’t say explicitly that means Rubio, but in a two-man race, their preference isn't hard to detect.
“Marco would have more reach to independents” especially in key swing states like Ohio and Florida against Clinton, said a Republican senator who has not endorsed in the race but gushed with praise for Rubio. “Democrats I know don’t like the matchup.”
The idea of Cruz as the nominee makes fellow GOP senators shudder.
By Burgess Everett and Seung Min Kim
Ted Cruz has built his Senate career and presidential campaign on his willingness to stick it to the Republican establishment. And now that he’s gaining momentum in the primary, his many GOP nemeses in Congress are returning the favor by quietly coalescing behind Marco Rubio.
Senior Republican senators who’ve clashed with Cruz for years have had nothing but nice things to say about Rubio even as he’s dissed — and largely ditched — his day job in the Capitol. Just this month, Rubio has racked up endorsements from nine members of Congress, compared with two for early GOP front-runner Jeb Bush. More House endorsements for Rubio are set to roll out in December, according to campaign sources, and several GOP senators said privately they expect their colleagues to get behind Rubio once the GOP field thins.
The movement toward Rubio appears to be as much about anxiety over the possibility of Cruz going up against Hillary Clinton as it is affection for the Florida senator. The idea of Cruz as the nominee is enough to send shudders down the spines of most Senate Republicans.
Mainstream elected Republicans now see Cruz as a bigger threat than Donald Trump or Ben Carson to clinch the nomination — but equally damaging to their party’s chances of winning the White House and keeping the Senate next fall. Rubio would be a much stronger general election standard bearer, they believe.
“Marco is a true next-generation conservative,” said Steve Daines (R-Mont.), one of three senators who endorsed Rubio in November. “Every time there’s a debate, his stock goes up.”
Cruz winning the nomination "could happen with the angry situation we have out there” among the GOP electorate, said one Republican senator who hasn't endorsed in the race but does not want Cruz.
Rubio's GOP colleagues are looking to exploit what they see as Rubio's advantage on national security in the aftermath of the Paris terrorist attacks. They're heaping praise on Rubio's hawkish foreign policy views and panning Cruz’s attempt to find middle ground on national security. Asked about Rubio’s attacks on Cruz’s votes for the USA Freedom Act, which scaled back federal surveillance authorities, Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn of Texas replied: “It’s always fair to question votes and hold people accountable.”
As for Cruz’s attempt to stake out a centrist position on national security between the party’s hawkish and libertarian poles, Sen. Dan Coats (R-Ind.) said: “I don’t think you can split that baby."
“Candidates running for national office who are articulating strong, firm, decisive positions that are well-thought-out are going to have an advantage,” said No. 3 Senate Republican John Thune of South Dakota. Rubio, he added, is “well positioned to make the arguments.”
Cornyn, Thune and Coats have not endorsed in the presidential primary, and lawmakers interviewed for this story said many senior Republicans do not want to embarrass long-shot presidential hopeful Lindsey Graham by endorsing Rubio while the South Carolina senator is in the race. They’re also aware that endorsements from top GOP lawmakers at this point in the primary wouldn’t help Rubio’s cause with the Republican base.
Cruz scoffed at the notion that Rubio is more electable, telling POLITICO that that’s precisely the logic that paved the way for Democrats to win five of the past six popular votes for the White House.
“Democrats also told Republicans Bob Dole was more electable, Democrats also told the press John McCain was more electable, Democrats also told the press Mitt Romney was more electable,” Cruz said. “Then the Democrats were quite happy to go to their inauguration balls."
Cruz predicted that millions of blue-collar Democrats would rally behind him in a general election, like they did with Ronald Reagan three decades ago. Rubio's earlier support for comprehensive immigration reform — or a “massive amnesty plan,” in Cruz's words — would preclude that kind of crossover appeal, the Texan said.
But congressional Republicans say the truest indicator of Rubio’s strength is the abuse he’s getting from Democrats. They’ve been pounding him daily over missed votes and briefings, while dissecting his policy plans. Cruz, by comparison, has been getting kid-glove treatment, to the extent Democrats mention him at all in opposition dumps from the party apparatus and outside liberal groups.
Democrats for two years have held up Cruz as the de facto leader of the Republican Party, dubbing him "Speaker Cruz" after he prodded former Speaker John Boehner into a 2013 battle over Obamacare that shut down the federal government. Just this month, Democrats annoyed Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell by insinuating he had agreed to take up a hard-line immigration bill heavily touted by Cruz. The idea that McConnell would take cues from Cruz after the Texas senator’s withering criticisms of the GOP leader was perceived by Republicans as a subtle Democratic attempt at boosting Cruz.
Meanwhile, in separate interviews with POLITICO and The Huffington Post last month, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) ripped Rubio for his chronic Senate absences and called on him to resign his Senate seat. Rubio's political ambitions, Reid said, reminded him of disgraced former senator and 2008 Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards.
“Obviously, Marco was bitten by the national limelight like John Edwards,” Reid said in the POLITICO interview. “Marco Rubio, somehow someone told him, ‘Why don’t you run for president?’ OK, great idea. So he just walked away from the Senate. He has been a nonentity here.”
Asked this month why he isn’t unleashing on Cruz in similar fashion, Reid replied: “I haven’t heard Cruz talk about how he didn’t like the Senate.”
Meanwhile, Chuck Schumer of New York, who’s poised to become the next Democratic Senate leader, told CNN early this month that Rubio’s “fingerprints are all over” a comprehensive immigration reform bill. Schumer then told The New York Times that “Senator Cruz was always against the path to citizenship, and Senator Rubio was for it.” Both remarks were an attempt to hurt Rubio with conservatives and could have easily come out of Cruz’s mouth.
Rubio's backers, for their part, say Democrats are trying to meddle in the GOP primary, adopting the strategy they've used in recent Senate elections of propping up unelectable Republican candidates in primaries in the hopes of facing a weaker general election opponent.
Still, “the way Clinton's allies obsess about Marco must mean we're doing something right," said Rubio spokesman Alex Conant.
The Republican senators who see Rubio as a stronger general election candidate have ample reasons to worry about Cruz outmaneuvering their man. Cruz is closing in on Donald Trump in Iowa, according to recent polls and the Texan has the financial heft to endure a drawn-out nomination battle. Cruz also believes he also has the upper hand on immigration, a key issue for primary voters and Rubio's Achilles' heel.
But Senate Republicans who are subtly rallying behind Rubio are also thinking about their own power. With the GOP defending a slim Senate majority next year, lawmakers want a nominee who can win over moderate voters in battleground states. They don’t say explicitly that means Rubio, but in a two-man race, their preference isn't hard to detect.
“Marco would have more reach to independents” especially in key swing states like Ohio and Florida against Clinton, said a Republican senator who has not endorsed in the race but gushed with praise for Rubio. “Democrats I know don’t like the matchup.”
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)