Is the Republican Party About To Destroy Itself? by Ray Mossholder

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This is Ray Mossholder from the news desk of Reach More Now in Fort Worth, Texas.

If I didn’t know Ronald Reagan is in heaven, I would think he must be rolling in his grave. It was President Reagan who urged all Republican candidates never to speak negatively of each other. In all my seventy-nine years, I have never seen such a colossal food fight as is going on right now in the Republican Party.

Last night, after the votes were counted in New Hampshire, Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders walked away with all the prizes. They won by landslides over the other candidates, no doubt burying many of them. Instead of doing a victory lap today, many of the Republican’s sore losers are trying to figure out a way to dump Trump.

Republican moderates, the elites who up until this time have controlled many years of choosing who would represent them in the general election, are frustrated, angry, double talking, and scared. After Cruz placed first in Iowa and now third in liberal New Hampshire, if the moderates could somehow succeed in throwing Donald Trump under the bus, they know they would still have Cruz to contend with, and they don’t like him either. Trump and Cruz are the two abrasive candidates who most refuse to toe the party line.

There are already casualties among the Republican candidates the day after New Hampshire. Carly Fiorina, somehow treated like a nobody by ABC in not allowing her to participate in Saturday night’s debate, has this morning suspended her campaign. Maybe ABC forgot she was the only other woman besides Hillary who was running, in case someone really did want a woman President this time. Not that that would matter to the over thirty-year-old women’s rightists who never ever mind being women wrongists to all women who dare be anything but liberal. For women’s rightists it’s “Hillary or the highway”. I point it out again, in case they didn’t notice, Carly IS a woman and might have been the first woman president. But today Carly Fiorina dropped out and is no longer available.

This afternoon Chris Christie also dropped out. He spent eighteen million dollars in New Hampshire and it did him no good at all. He all but said so when he spoke to his New Hampshire crowd following his sixth place showing last night. And Christie shows the price the whole Republican Party almost certainly will have to pay if they try to trip up Trump or Cruz. Christie tried that during Saturday night’s Republican debate with Marco Rubio and found out when the vote count was in at the New Hampshire primary that he had broken his own leg. Marco finished fifth with 11% of the vote. Christie placed a distance sixth with only 8% of the vote. Robert Murdoch who owns Fox news network called Chris Christie – “the Suicide Bomber!” If the Republican Party is ridiculous enough to try to stop their two front runners in any way, the Republican Party is very apt to be committing suicide too.

So now, let’s look at the vote count for both the Republican and Democratic party. The first thing that’s obvious is the two candidates who, by far, received the most votes from New Hampshire – Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders – couldn’t be further apart with everything they they stand for.

Trump is a multibillionaire, Sanders hates every wealthy American. Trump is a businessman who has been oober-successful and has carefully planned out with other hired experts each area he wants to explore. Whether federally or internationally, he only works with the best in exploring the possibility of an investment. You hear him, for example, saying that he would consult with our top generals and listen to them as they explain the very best way to destroy Isis, Al Qaeda, Boko Haram, and all the other enemies this world is facing right now. As president, that’s how he would decide on each issue, only after careful examination by those who have proven themselves experts and whom he respects. The “HUGE” wall would be built by only the very best wall builders and undoubtedly paid for by Mexico. Trump is always known for keeping his word.

Bernie Sanders is as outspoken as Donald Trump or Ted Cruz. Bernie’s smile would charm the birds off the trees. When he has debated Hillary Clinton he has done so with kid gloves. But especially after his gigantic win over her in New Hampshire and losing only by a coin flip with her in Iowa, look for his kid gloves to be gone. For now, Bernie Sanders as the front runner of the Democratic Party will attempt to do with Hillary whatever he must do to beat her. Likable, cute, friendly, and persuasive, Bernie has hidden his tough side until now. Watch for it in the next Democrat debate.

But Bernie has weaknesses Hillary can use to her advantage if he does get tough. Bernie is focused on only a few things that matter to him. He is a person who is weak in planning entire strategies. For example, he has never mentioned any plan for stopping the terrorists in or out of America. He welcomes illegal immigrants as warmly as President Obama and Jerry Brown do. As a president, he would be much more of a “let the chips fall where they may” kind of guy. If it’s true that President Obama leads from behind, it would be far more true of Bernie that he leads from way behind.

South Carolina’s primary on the 20th (the Republicans) and the 27th (the Democrats) will answer a whole lot of questions. From the Democrat side, will Hillary vacuum up the black and Latino votes or will Bernie arrive there with unstoppable momentum? On the Republican side, barring something completely unforeseen now, Donald Trump has a huge lead. You can well bet most evangelicals have already decided between Trump or Cruz, and their decisions have been counted in the polls. So have the poll numbers for Doctor Ben Carson and they foretell that he, too, will be a dropout very soon.

The Democrat caucus (not a primary) in Nevada is on February 20th and the Republican caucus in Nevada is on February 27th. Three days after the Republican caucus, March will come in like a lion. More than a dozen states will hold their primaries on March 1st. It is probable that suddenly in both parties, after March 1st the Republican race will be left with just two candidates to decide on, just as the Democrat race does now.

It remains to be seen whether America is to be made more wonderful than it has ever been because of so many plans that are HUGE, or whether America will be on Cruz control. Or will Wall Street be laid so flat it can’t even lay an egg? Or will Queen Hillary finally receive her coronation?

America’s voters – we the people – will soon decide who will be the last candidate standing.

Is the Republican Party About To Destroy Itself? by Ray Mossholder

The Polls Are Closed In New Hampshire And Here"s What"s Happening

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This is Ray Mossholder at the Reach More Now news desk in Fort Worth, Texas.

Polls have closed in New Hampshire. Immediately the counting of the votes begins. But exit polls show a win for Donald Trump and for Bernie Sanders. The question simply remains, how badly did Trump beat the other Republican candidates and how badly did Bernie Sanders beat Hillary Clinton.

New Hampshire is a state that has picked champions often – champions who become president. Watch for the top three Republicans still standing. Since 1976, no Republican has gone on to become the Republican candidate for president if they weren’t in the top three in either Iowa or New Hampshire. New Hampshire is known as a state full of last-minute surprises. Independents can vote either Republican or Democrat. In a Monmouth poll that was taken over the weekend, only 49% of the Republicans were absolutely sure who they would be voting for.

The rest of the candidates will all have their eyes on Senator Marco Rubio. They and many other in the news media believe Marco had his worst night of debate late last week. Three times Rubio made the same statement, “President Obama knows exactly what he’s doing. He wants to make America just another country. He is working to bring America down.” Many of the other candidates piled on Rubio for saying that. What will be important tonight is to see what the Republican voters of New Hampshire thought about what he said. Nationally, many Americans agree with what Marco Rubio said.

If Rubio loses big tonight, then the question is which of these three governors will be first above the others when the night is over. If Kasich or Christie are second or third to Jeb Bush, they will most likely drop out of the race probably before South Carolina next week. So watching how these three end up tonight will matter greatly. Bush has a super PAC to keep him going as long as it makes any sense. But neither Kasich nor Christie has such support.

The Democrats w Ho Are Still Hoping for Hillary to Become the First Woman President, Love to Recall That It Was New Hampshire That Made Bill Clinton “the Comeback Kid” even though he came in second. That happened in 1992. And they also like to recall that Hillary defeated Barack Obama in the Granite State. Tonight, if the polls can be trusted at all, it will be a very different story for Hillary. She is poised to lose to Bernie. But even the result of that race will be highly interesting. Hillary even a week ago was as far as 30% from Bernie Sanders, a number for her that would be numbing. So if she loses by far less than that, Bernie’s victory will appear much more narrow even if it’s highly decisive.

On February 20th, South Carolina will hold its primary. Doctor Ben Carson hasn’t even waited around for the votes to be counted tonight. He knows a liberal state like New Hampshire won’t have found much use for him, but a much more Evangelical state like South Carolina certainly may.

Donald Trump again is polling strong in South Carolina. Ted Cruz has spent a lot of time in South Carolina already and it would be surprising if he didn’t do well with the Evangelicals. He is polling well there too.

I have called this race for president “a horserace”. And there is a dark horse pawing the ground with a fortune in many that he doesn’t have to raise the simply remove from the bank. That horse is named Michael Bloomberg and was the former mayor of New York. He doesn’t pose to big a threat to Hillary or Bernie at this point. Only 4% of Americans who were polled said that they would vote for him. But horseraces can change in a heartbeat. Many expect Hillary Clinton to be indicted and forced to drop out of this race. There also continues to be a health issue that could cause her to do the same.

As I’ve been writing this, the polls closed in New Hampshire and here are the initial results with only less 13%:

As expected, the big winners in New Hampshire tonight are Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders who have already been declared the winners. John Kasich is second, a long way beyond Trump. Then it’s Ted Cruz, Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, Cris Christie, Carley Fiorina, and Doctor Ben Carson, in that order. Of course, with only 15% of the votes counted everyone except Trump and Sanders could change dramatically.

I’ll be back when all of the votes are then counted.

The Polls Are Closed In New Hampshire And Here"s What"s Happening

Worldwide News With Ray February 9, 2016

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Worldwide News With Ray February 9, 2016

They are off and running again. The New Hampshire primary is going strong following the Iowa Caucus eight days ago. Since I plan to do another post covering the candidates, I’ll cut this short. Don’t look for Doctor Ben Carson or Carly Fiorina to do anything but sputter in this primary. The biggest question mark is Marco Rubio. If he finishes way back in the pack it will be very hard for him to come back. Jeb Bush, John Kasich, and Chris Christie, know that they are running for their lives. The one who finishes first among those three will continue. Jeb Bush has so much money from his PAC supporters that he could buy New Hampshire if they don’t vote for him, so he has the power to go on however the race turns out.

Again, I will be covering the New Hampshire race on a different post. Watch for it today.

Speaking of candidates, former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg is waiting to see what will happen after the March 1 blowout with at least a third of the states holding primaries that same Tuesday. Bloomberg is reportedly ready to spend a billion dollars (that’s billion with a B) to form a third-party candidacy. With close Wall Street ties and liberal socialist views, he says that if it becomes obvious Ted Cruz will be the Republican nominee and Bernie Sanders the Democrat nominee, he will jump in and save the day.

A 6.4 magnitude earthquake struck Taiwan Sunday and search and rescue crews there believe there are more than 100 people still buried under the rubble. Authorities say they have rescued 170 people till now. In 1999 a magnitude 7.6 quake in central Taiwan killed more than 2300 people.

A violent trainwreck in the Bavarian Alps today has left ten people dead and 17 critically injured. One person is missing and sixty-three people have been less critically injured. Two trains collided head-on in Germany’s southern state of Bavaria. Authorities said there were about 150 passengers on board the trains.

Top U.S. intelligence officials said today that ISIS is likely to attempt direct attacks on the U.S. this year and that the group was infiltrating refugees escaping from Iraq and Syria to move across borders. ISIS “will probably attempt to conduct additional attacks in Europe, and attempt direct attacks on the U.S. homeland in 2016,” Lt. Gen. Vincent Stewart, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, testified on Capitol Hill.

Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, who was also at the Senate Armed Services Committee hearing, estimated that violent extremists were active in about 40 countries and that there currently exist more terrorist safe havens “than at any time in history.” Clapper also raised cybersecurity as a major concern, saying, “China continues cyberespionage against the United States,” and warning that non-state actors like ISIS are developing a cyber capability.

While the assessment calls ISIS the “preeminent terrorist threat,” Clapper also said that “al Qaeda affiliates are positioned to make gains in 2016 too.”

President Barack Obama has submitted his final budget proposal to Congress. The modest $4.1 trillion annual budget plan — “dead on arrival” to the Republican-controlled Congress. Lame-duck president Obama’s a budget that includes combating climate change and greatly expanding Obamacare coverage. Those aren’t the favorite subjects among Republican leaders.

Utah lawmakers are serious about shutting down pornography. They recently passed a resolution declaring pornography a serious public health crisis.

State Senator Todd Weiler was a major supporter of the resolution, contending that pornography’s increased accesibility has damaged the nation. Weiler cited a recent study from the United Kingdom that found that people who regularly view pornography show the same brain activity as someone addicted to drugs.

Enough Is Enough President Donna Rice Hughes says ” “A shared responsibility between the public, corporate America and government is necessary to curb the continuous flood of Internet pornography in our nation. Now that science backs up the reality of Internet pornography’s harm to children, adults and cultures, we are hopeful that other states will address this serious issue very soon.

Last night a Prince George County elementary school volunteer was arrested for manufacturing, producing, and possessing about 40 pornographic videos and images of students between the ages of 9 and 13. The elementary school volunteer was charged with 10 counts of sexual abuse of a minor and a second degree sexual offense.

Donna Hughes said “This case shows that pornography can do more than just affect the individual, but can lead the abuser to abuse others.”

Donald Trump said his shoot-from-the-lip style is not an act. But he conceded in an interview yesterday that he would act very differently as president. “Much different, much different,” he answered.

Authorities in Florida have arrested a man accused of throwing a live 3 1/2 foot alligator through a Wendy’s drive-through window.

Investigators identified Joshua James, of Jupiter, Fla., as the man who tossed the 3 1/2-foot reptile into a Wendy’s last fall, according to a Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission incident report.

Joshua James, 24, was taken into custody and booked into the Palm Beach County Detention Center yesterday.

The driver, wearing a backwards baseball hat, arrived at the drive-through window and ordered a large drink just before 1:30 a.m. on Oct. 11

The driver exited

A judge on Tuesday ordered James to stay away from all Wendy’s restaurants, to avoid possessing any weapons, to get a mental health evaluation and to limit his contact with animals to his mother’s dog.

Ed and Linda James, Joshua’s parents told the station that their son was pranking a Wendy’s employee that he knew.

Since 1948, those “unprovoked bites” have resulted in 22 deaths in Florida. And Joshua’s alligator might easily have ended up taking a bite of crime.

Pranks aren’t limited to Wendy’s. Many homeowners in quiet St. Cloud, Florida, have reportedly found catfish in their mailboxes and yards, raising suspicion that something fishy is going on.

Who’s that knocking at my door? A lock of John Lennon’s hair has gone on sale at a Dallas auction house, with bids for the souvenir topping $12,000 with 11 days left to bid. The four-inch chunk of hair was kept by a hairdresser in Hamburg, Klaus Baruck, who is said to have repeated the old saying, “Hair today, gone tomorrow.” 

Worldwide News With Ray February 9, 2016

Worldwide News With Ray February 9, 2016

Who Will Still Be a Presidential Candidate after New Hampshire? (CNN)

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Who Will Still Be a Presidential Candidate after New Hampshire? (CNN)

This is Ray Mossholder at the Reach More Now news desk in Fort Worth, Texas.

The New Hampshire presidential race has moved to New Hampshire where a lot of lives will be on the line tomorrow as the Granite State casts its primary votes. Chris Christie has said that he will be dropping out of the presidential race if he doesn’t do well in New Hampshire. That may well be true for several others who are candidates today. From CNN, here is an excellent evaluation of the poll numbers until this minute regarding tomorrow’s primary in New Hampshire.

(CNN) On the eve of New Hampshire’s presidential primaries, a new CNN Poll of Polls finds both Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders are holding on to substantial leads in their respective races, but each faces an opponent whose support is on the rise.

Sanders’ 54% to 40% advantage over Hillary Clinton is down slightly from a 55% to 37% lead in the previous Poll of Polls. No public polling has found Clinton in the lead in New Hampshire since November.

Trump tops the GOP field with 31%, well ahead of Marco Rubio’s 15%. Rubio has picked up four points since the previous New Hampshire Poll of Polls, the biggest change in the averages in the last week. Ted Cruz follows with 13%, John Kasich at 11% and Jeb Bush at 10%. This pack of four — Rubio, Cruz, Kasich and Bush — has been jockeying for second place in the state for some time. The fifth candidate often included in the group, Chris Christie, has generally seen his support dwindle, and now stands well behind, dropping two points in this week’s Poll of Polls to an average of 5%. Carly Fiorina ties Christie at 5% and Ben Carson rounds out the group with 3%.

But the overall wide margins aren’t an indicator that the political world can turn its attentions away from the Granite State just yet. All of the polls included in the Poll of Polls were completed prior to Saturday night’s Republican debate, however, and it remains to be seen how that will impact voters in the final days of the campaign.

Though any candidate would be happy to hold a lead like those held by Trump and Sanders, the polls also indicate large chunks of the electorate haven’t yet finalized their decisions. In the latest CNN/WMUR tracking poll, for example, fully 30% of likely Republican voters said they hadn’t yet decided whom to support, as did 16% of likely Democratic voters.

It’s worth noting that many of the polls included in this week’s update to the Poll of Polls are tracking polls, meaning interviews are conducted daily and each release includes results from the previous three or four days of interviews, dropping out the oldest day and tacking on the most recent day as a replacement. In those cases, only the most recent release from each poll is used in the average, so that no set of daily interviews is counted more than once in the average.

Though the outcome of Tuesday’s New Hampshire primary is by no means certain, one thing we can tell you for sure: Pollsters have been very busy.

About a week ago, CNN’s final Poll of Polls in Iowa covered five polls spanning 11 days, and the updated New Hampshire Poll of Polls rolled up five polls covering nearly two weeks. A new update to the Poll of Polls in New Hampshire covers just five days, yet includes seven polls, and those are only the ones that meet CNN’s polling standards.

The New Hampshire presidential primary is a special case for pollsters, and tends to attract more polling than other primary states. Compared with Iowa, where low-turnout caucuses mean that finding actual caucusgoers can require tens of thousands of calls to adults or registered voters, New Hampshire is a breeze to poll. In years where both parties hold contested primaries, more than half of registered voters in the state typically show up to vote, a rate better than many places see in general elections, let alone primaries. In the 2008 New Hampshire primary, more than 525,000 people showed up to vote in a state with a voting eligible population of right around 1 million. That means the chances of reaching a likely voter with a random sample in the state are pretty good.

New Hampshire is also a notoriously late-deciding state, which means pollsters tend to want to be in the field as close to Election Day as possible rather than risk missing a late swing and look wrong. In that same 2008 contest, a late, wide swing on the Democratic side that went undetected by nearly all public pollsters in the state prompted the polling industry to investigate what went wrong. Though the American Association for Public Opinion Research didn’t settle on one definitive source of the polling error in 2008, their report provides a helpful look at all the things that can go wrong in polling a late-deciding, high-interest electorate.

So what did Iowa’s entrance polls tell us about the landscape in New Hampshire?

For one thing, late-deciders are a real thing in this race. On the Republican side, 35% of caucusgoers said they made up their minds in the last few days, and those voters broke more for Cruz and Rubio than they did for Trump.

On the Democratic side, they showed just how strong Sanders’ support is among younger voters. The Vermont Senator topped 80% support among those under age 30, an almost unheard of level of support. For comparison, in 2008 in Iowa, Obama, whose mobilization of young and minority voters is the goal for many Democratic candidates, netted 57% in that same age group. And this time around, although Clinton garnered higher support among women than among men in all other age groups, among the under-30s there was no gender gap at all, which is obviously bad news for Hillary, at least in New Hampshire.

Who Will Still Be a Presidential Candidate after New Hampshire? (CNN)

Who Will Still Be a Presidential Candidate after New Hampshire? (CNN)

So, What"s Going To Happen In New Hampshire?

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So, What’s Going To Happen In New Hampshire?

This is Ray Mossholder from the Campaign desk of Reach More Now. My thanks to the writers of ABC News and The Fix: 

The calm before the storm has ended.

Hundreds of sleep-deprived journalists, operatives and curious onlookers arrived in New Hampshire overnight as soon as the Iowa Caucus was over, with another seven-day sprint ahead of them.

Those with momentum hit the ground running almost instantly. Marco Rubio and Bernie Sanders, touting their close finishes as victories, were meeting voters as the sun was still rising.

Surprise winner Ted Cruz held a town hall meeting later in the day, while Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton looked to re-set their campaigns.

Make no mistake, the race in New Hampshire is fundamentally different than Iowa. It’s moderate, it’s secular, and 40 percent of its voters are unaffiliated with either party, capable of pulling a ballot for either side. It also has two clear front-runners: Donald Trump has had a double-digit lead for months, while Bernie Sanders has shocked the political world by only seeing his advantage grow.

Behind Trump, a cluster of GOP challengers are in a dogfight for second, including Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio. But don’t forget governors Jeb Bush, Chris Christie and John Kasich haven’t given up.

Despite poor showings in Iowa, they’re very much in the thick of it here, and the gloves have come off between them as they fight for their political lives. Rand Paul is attempting to persuade the independent-minded New Hampshirites to cast their ballots for him, looking to capitalize on what his camp calls a solid performance in Monday night’s Iowa caucuses.

And while Iowa momentum goes a long way, there’s an old saying here: “Iowa picks corn. New Hampshire picks presidents.”

Voters here say they’ll make up their own minds, and that they’ll take their time to do it. Perhaps, they say, a debate three days before the primary could turn the tide. Storylines will grow and develop over the next few days, but Granite Staters will deliver a reality check next Tuesday night.

 

And here’s more from The Fix, a New Hampshire report  By Philip Rucker and Dan Balz 

BEDFORD, N.H. — Marco Rubio’s surprisingly strong showing in the Iowa caucuses reshuffled the already intense competition here in New Hampshire among the Republican establishment candidates, leading some to sharpen their attacks on the freshman senator from Florida ahead of next week’s primary.

The sense of urgency was on display here Tuesday as New Jersey Governor your meal we had last night needs to get on the rest of the list only that but most people do Chris Christie belittled Rubio’s toughness, his intelligence and even his manhood.

“Maybe he’ll do more than 40 minutes on a little stage telling everybody his canned speech that he’s memorized,” Christie said to reporters, mocking Rubio’s tightly controlled campaign appearances. “This isn’t a student council election, everybody. This is an election for president of the United States. Let’s get the boy in the bubble out of the bubble.”

Former Florida governor Jeb Bush, meanwhile, expanded his line of attacks beyond Donald Trump to include Rubio, and Senator Ted Cruz the winner of Monday night’s Iowa caucus. Bush said at a town hall meeting in Rindge that Rubio, 44, and Cruz, 45, did not have the “life experience” to be president and questioned whether either had ever sacrificed his personal ambition for the public good.

For the past six weeks, the four mainstream GOP candidates — including Ohio Governor John Kasich — have looked to New Hampshire as their proving ground. But the calculus of all four was changed by Iowa, where the three with gubernatorial experience each finished in low single digits while Rubio surged to within one percentage point of Trump, who came in second.

Iowa is over, so where do the candidates go now?

The Fix’s Chris Cillizza explains where Bernie Sanders, Ted Cruz and other presidential candidates stand after Iowa’s caucus and what’s next going into the New Hampshire primary. (With only one week until the New Hampshire primary and the potential that voters here could effectively eliminate some candidates from the nomination battle, the stakes are high and the tone is increasingly confrontational.)

Steve Duprey, a Republican National Committee member from New Hampshire put it this way: “It is dog-eat-dog, hand-to-hand combat up here,” said Steve Duprey, a Republican National Committee member from New Hampshire. “These guys are going to be scrapping it out until the final minute. At stake is a ticket out of New Hampshire.”

In past election years, New Hampshire Republicans have not followed the lead of Iowa in making their choices. Mike Dennehy, a New Hampshire-based GOP strategist, said the dynamics of the race among the establishment candidates here could be affected by the order of finish in the Hawkeye State.

“I think this year is different,” Dennehy said. “There are so many candidates this year that they are looking for help, and I think Iowa did that last night.”

That puts enormous pressure on Bush, Kasich and Christie.

“The establishment candidates who have gone all in in New Hampshire are making their last stand,” said Republican strategist Steve Schmidt. “Bush, Kasich and Christie have to knock Marco Rubio down in New Hampshire and steal his spot for a rationale for their campaigns to exist.”

So, What’s Going To Happen In New Hampshire?

So, What"s Going To Happen In New Hampshire?