McCain says Trump having fun, Republicans have serious candidates for 2012
Republican Senator John McCain, who lost to Barack Obama in the 2008 presidential election, made clear that he doesn’t see Donald Trump as a serious candidate for 2012.
“I think Mr. Trump is having a lot of fun and it’s pretty clear he enjoys the limelight. We have very serious candidates. And I think that, if Mr. Trump wants to run, he’s welcome to run,” McCain said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.”
That came a day after Trump attended the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, where Obama and comedian Seth Meyers told cutting jokes about the New York real estate magnate.
“Anybody can run. He has a right to run. He is a New York icon, bigger than life in a lot of things, and he can put himself into the mix,” New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
Is he worth taking seri0usly?
“That’s up to the voters,” Bloomberg said. “The nice thing about America is you get a chance to go out there and make your case. ”
Will she? Won’t she? Palin’s still a maybe
Republican celebrity, best-selling author, reality TV star and self-proclaimed mama grizzly Sarah Palin is thinking about adding another title to her ever-growing resume: U.S. president.
Not exactly news, except that the forthcoming issue of the New York Times Magazine says she’s now thinking seriously, right down to the need for new advisers and the means to prove herself on the issues.
Palin, whose titles also include 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee and former Alaska governor, acknowledges that much in an interview with the magazine, according to a preview published by Politico.
“I’m engaged in the internal deliberations candidly, and having that discussion with my family, because my family is the most important consideration here,” Palin says.
Politico says that the magazine says that Palin says there aren’t meaningful differences in policy among the field of GOP hopefuls “but that in fact there’s more to the presidency than that” (those are Palin’s words in quotation marks). Her decision would involve evaluating whether she could bring unique qualities to the table. “Yes, the organization would have to change,” Palin says. “I’d have to bring in more people — more people who are trustworthy.”
The magazine is published with The New York Times’ Sunday editions.
The U.S. political debate has shifted like quicksilver to the 2012 presidential race since the Nov. 2 midterms, with Republican victories in the House and Senate boosting the hopes of Palin and a dozen other prospective GOP White House wannabes.
Her family is the most important consideration for her? OK, how is she managing to shoot her reality series while taking care of a Downs baby with her eldest with her own baby to take care of playing reality TV star dancer? I’m guessing she’s got a lot of help, but she can afford it now that she’s on Murdoch’s payroll.
It was just a game of golf!
Ever since he played golf with President Barack Obama last week, New York newspapers have been rife with speculation that Mayor Michael Bloomberg is being wooed by the administration to replace Timothy Geithner as Treasury Secretary.
The White House dismissed the speculation as fantasy and Bloomberg dismissed the idea. But still as summer draws to an end, what else is there to talk about going into the Labor Day holiday weekend except the lackluster U.S. economy?
More bad news for Obama on Friday with the unemployment rate rising to 9.6 percent. The economy is not creating jobs fast enough to reduce the unemployment rate and give Democrats more comfort going into the Nov. 2 congressional elections with their majority in Congress at stake.
Some pundits suggest the gossip may be less about Bloomberg, who is serving a hard fought third term as mayor, and more about Geithner, who has come under fire from both the right and the left about his advice to Obama on the economy and the role he played in the 2008 government rescue of Wall Street.
As White House economic adviser Christina Romer leaves her post on Friday, following the departure of Peter Orszag as head of the Office of Management and Budget at the end of July, Obama so far is standing by his treasury secretary.
Would he really want to follow the advice of House Republican Leader John Boehner and fire Geithner and his National Economic Council Chairman Larry Summers just before an election that could put Republicans in charge of the House of Representatives?
Besides, some of the sourcing on the raft of speculation about Bloomberg has been thin as noted by a New York Magazine item pointing to a source used by another publication as ”one Democrat, who may or may not be the mayor’s hairstylist.”
Bloomberg’s not running for White House, but can’t stop campaigning
CHICAGO – New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has said he’s not running for president, but on Wednesday night he revved up to full campaigning mode when accepting an award from CME Group, the big futures exchanges.
“We are desperately in need of leadership to deal with a much more competitive world,” said Bloomberg, stopping just short of announcing his candidacy for — anything. Riffing on the theme of “innovation as the essence of leadership” upon receiving CME’s Fred Arditti Innovation Award, Bloomberg electrified the well-heeled audience at the swanky Peninsula Hotel with a call for action on everything from climate change to education to immigration reform. “Choices made now will determine what kind of future our children will have. At a national level we’re working as hard as we can to stop innovation,” the Democrat-turned Republican-turned Independent said.
Energy independence and efficiency led Bloomberg’s list of underfunded programs. “We spend one-third on that of what members of Congress spend on earmarks every year. It’s up to all of us to hold our elected officials’ feet to the fire,” Bloomberg said. Restrictions on H-1B work visas mean the United States risks losing out in a much more competitive world, Bloomberg said, adding that American capitalist success stories like Sun Microsystems, Yahoo and Google were all founded in part by immigrants. “Medicine is going overseas. Science is going overseas. We are exporting our intellectual capital, and we can’t keep doing it,” Bloomberg said “If we don’t find ways to get around that, then we really are in trouble.” Bloomberg, whose term as New York mayor ends on Dec 31, 2009, also hailed the concept of term limits — raising a few eyebrows within an audience that included Chicago’s “Mayor for Life” Richard M. Daley.
Click here for more Reuters 2008 campaign coverage.
- Photo credit: Reuters/Shannon Stapleton (Bloomberg earlier this month with Republican presumptive presidential nominee Sen. John McCain.)
I know this is small beer to the mayor, but I wish he’d run against Clinton at the end of her current Senate term. He’d beat her here in New York, easy, and then we’d could start rehabilitating the rest of our congressional delegation.
Boycott everything Chump… I mean Trump
Including Chump Apprentice