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By Jonathan Swan and Jonathan Easley - 10/30/15 06:48 PM EDT
Jeb Bush’s campaign is taking a more aggressive and negative tone against Marco Rubio, his chief rival for the establishment mantle in the race for Republican presidential nomination.
For months the Bush and Rubio campaigns have sparred behind the scenes or with veiled or soft criticisms of one another.
But with Wednesday’s debate highlighting Bush’s struggle and Rubio’s rise, the Bush campaign has begun to move beyond attacks on Rubio’s Senate voting record and relative inexperience into far more personal territory as it seeks to keep the up-and-comer at bay.
“They don’t want to let Rubio get too far out ahead or build too much momentum,” said Republican strategist Ford O’Connell. “He had a ground-breaking moment at that last debate and I think they’d like to cut his knees out before the next one.”
Bush’s attack against Rubio for abandoning his Senate work for the campaign trail backfired at Wednesday’s debate, as the junior senator came prepared to shut down Bush on the issue.
But it turns out, the Senate voting complaint was one of the Bush campaign's milder attacks on Rubio.
Late Thursday, U.S. News & World Report obtained a PowerPoint file presented to Bush donors at a Houston confab earlier this week. One slide dug up past controversies around Rubio and took some exceedingly personal digs.
“Misuse of state part credit cards, taxpayer funds and ties to scandal-tarred former Congressman David Rivera takes away line of attack on Hillary Clinton,” says one bullet point. “Closeness with Norman Braman, who doubles as personal benefactor raises major ethical questions,” says another. Braman is a billionaire Florida auto-dealer and is one of Rubio's most generous donors.
The Bush campaign also hit Rubio for “having no credible experience beyond government,” for never managing “anything larger than two dozen people,” and mocked his “tomorrow versus yesterday” argument, saying it would be dismantled by the media because he’s likely to be running against the first woman presidential candidate.
A final bullet point reads, ominously: “Those who have looked into Marco’s background in the past have been concerned with what they have found.”
Top Bush donors and fundraisers, still stinging from Rubio’s debate triumph, are divided on whether Bush, who has failed to find his footing in the first three debates, should be going negative against his former protégé.
In interviews with The Hill over the past two days, a number of Bush’s major donors, fundraisers, and operatives have expressed mixed feelings about the wisdom of challenging Rubio — a gifted public speaker — at a game they believe Bush cannot possibly win.
One of Bush’s most generous super-PAC donors and a long-time friend of the former governor said in a phone interview that it makes no sense attacking a rival who is more verbally dexterous than Bush.
"In retrospect it looks [foolish],” the mega-donor said. “Rubio is very articulate, got a nice style about him, what can I say."
Said another Bush donor who spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid alienating the Bush family, “I hope they fire whoever told [Bush] to go after Rubio in the debate.” He added that he was unhappy about the personal nature of the attacks in the PowerPoint presentation.
Another top Bush fundraiser said of the fresh round of Rubio attacks: “I don’t think it’s a wise course of action, to be frank.”
Launching personal attacks are not in Bush’s “nature or temperament or his style,” he added.
“Don’t go for the kill unless you know how to kill and succeed.”
But several prominent Bush donors and bundlers — lobbyists who collect money for campaign from their friends and colleagues — say the Bush team is finally making a distinction between the two that needs to be made. It’s nothing personal, they say.
"There's no ill will to anyone,” said Al Cardenas, one of Bush’s most significant and longtime supporters, in a phone interview on Friday.
“That's not what the governor is about... It's nothing personal; it's all about providing voters with the information they need to make the right choice."
Asked why the Bush campaign was focusing on Rubio and nobody particularly else in the PowerPoint presentation, Cardenas said that it was simply a matter of strategy and timing.
"This campaign is shaping up in two lanes," he said.
"They are not philosophical lanes, they are tone lanes. I call one the problem-makers lane and the other the problem-solvers lane... Mr. Rubio happens to be more in our lane so we will probably be dealing with these contrasts sooner with him."
The Atlanta-based Bush fundraiser Eric Tanenblatt insists there is no deep animosity to the Rubio attacks, and says they are simply educating voters on the record of Bush’s opponent.
"I think it's fair to allow people to see the record of all the candidates," Tanenblatt said. "Any of the conversations that I've had with Governor Bush about Marco Rubio have been very positive and complimentary. Remember, Governor Bush is, was, a mentor to Senator Rubio."
http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/258736-bush-campaign-goes-nega...
Bush is desperate!
He also looks like he has a medical problem...
LOL I agree Kathy!
By Julian Hattem - 10/30/15 03:55 PM EDT
The State Department on Friday released more than 7,000 pages of Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton's emails, in the first tranche since her 11-hour, closely scrutinized testimony before the House Select Committee on Benghazi last week.
The document dump is the sixth of its kind this year, following a lawsuit under the Freedom of Information Act that will force roughly 30,000 of Clinton’s emails into the light by late January.
Between 200 and 300 have been classified as “confidential,” Kirby added, which is the lowest level of government classification.
As it has maintained in the past, however, the State Department insisted that the information in those emails became classified after it was originally sent.
“No emails were marked classified at the time they were sent or received, from our analysis of this tranche,” Kirby told reporters Friday, echoing a common refrain of Clinton’s about information contained within the emails.
The new emails mostly date from 2011 and 2012.
Among other things, the messages show that Clinton and her top staffers kept tabs on the Republican race for the presidential nomination in 2012. Clinton was made aware of exit polling following the New Hampshire primary, and staffers criticized the candidates’ remarks during debates.
“They (all of the candidates) are on a tear about getting ride [sic] of foreign aid and cutting our foreign affairs budget. All of them - with an approving audience,” longtime aide Cheryl Mills bemoaned to Clinton in October of 2011.
“Yes. Happening now on a CNN station near you,” she added.
The emails also detail Clinton’s efforts to response to the wave of democracy movements known as the “Arab Spring,” as well as her historic trip to Myanmar and other foreign policy fights.
The email issue has been a nagging one for Clinton, who has had to suffer with lingering allegations that her decision to exclusively use a private email setup while serving as secretary of State amounted to a deliberate attempt to evade public scrutiny.
Republicans have leapt on the issue, both on the campaign trail and on Capitol Hill.
During the marathon testimony to the Benghazi Committee last week, GOP lawmakers accused her of “changing your story” to obfuscate the truth.
“If your story about your emails keeps changing, then how can we accept your statement that you've turned over all work related emails and all emails about Libya?” Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) asked during the Oct. 22 hearing.
In response, Clinton insisted that she has taken “responsibility for my use of personal email.”
“I've said it was a mistake,” she said at the hearing. “I've said that it was allowed, but it was not a good choice.”
During the same hearing, Clinton also insisted that “most of” her work at the State Department “was not done on emails.”
Despite the criticism from Republicans, the fallout from Clinton’s emails appears to have done her little damage among fellow Democrats.
During the first Democratic presidential debate this month, Clinton’s chief rival Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) told the front-runner that the country was “sick and tired of hearing about your damn emails.”
This story was updated at 5 p.m.
http://thehill.com/policy/defense/258706-state-dept-releases-larges...
By Bradford Richardson - 10/30/15 05:42 PM EDT
A new email released on Friday by the State Department reveals that actor Ben Affleck had Hillary Clinton’s private email address while she was Secretary of State.
The “Good Will Hunting” and “Argo” star emailed the former secretary of State on April 16, 2012, about an initiative he was starting to provide security sector reform in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Clinton acknowledged in a hearing last week that former U.S. Ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens, who was killed in the 2012 terrorist attacks in Benghazi, did not have her personal email address.
“I — I do not believe that he had my personal mail,” she said in her testimony before the House Select Committee on Benghazi.
She said Stevens was “in constant contact” with officials who could respond to his requests for additional security.
“He was in constant contact with people on my staff, other officials in the State Department, and I did have an opportunity to talk with him about the substance of the policy. But with respect to security, he took those requests where they belonged. He took them to security professionals,” Clinton said.
“Well ma’am, all I can say is they missed something here, and we lost four Americans,” Rep. Lynn Westmoreland (R-Ga.) responded at the hearing.
Republicans have hammered Clinton over her use of a private email server, saying it constituted a threat to national security.
http://thehill.com/policy/national-security/258728-ben-affleck-had-...
WOW how wrong is that???
So wrong it is hard to comprehend!
But sadly to be expected by these incompetent people that are in charge and running the government. Oh, but wait that goes for all of them too. Let me clear again, all of them, both sides and many in between no difference. As Hillary said "what difference does it make "right. you are there. One fiasco after another is a constant in the modern day America.. ..
Well said DD.
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