Sen. Tim Scott makes it official: He's a Republican candidate for president
Source: AP
COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina filed paperwork on Friday to enter the 2024 Republican presidential race, testing whether a more optimistic vision of America’s future can resonate with GOP voters who have elevated partisan brawlers in recent years.
The Senate’s only Black Republican has made his grandfather’s work in the cotton fields of the Deep South a bedrock of his political identity. Yet Scott rejects the notion that racism remains a powerful force in society, and he has cast his candidacy and rise from generational poverty as the realization of a dream only possible in America.
He is scheduled to make a formal announcement on Monday at Charleston Southern University, a private Baptist college and Scott’s alma mater, in his hometown of North Charleston.
Scott already has scheduled TV ads to begin airing in the early voting states Iowa and New Hampshire early next week, the most significant advertising expenditure by a potential or declared candidate in the early stages of the 2024 nominating campaign.
OR: Controversial Newberg school board members swept out in special election
All five candidates backed by the Oregon Cares PAC beat out conservative incumbents after two years of decisions that divided the rural community.
Politico: Marianne Williamson loses top two campaign officials in a matter of days
The top two campaign officials for longshot Democratic presidential candidate Marianne Williamson resigned over the weekend.
Jason Call, the campaign’s deputy manager, told POLITICO on Monday that he left Williamson’s team on Friday. That came after campaign manager Peter Daou announced last Saturday on Twitter that he was leaving the campaign “after much consideration,” about one month into the job.
A Williamson campaign staffer confirmed to POLITICO that Daou and Call left the campaign, but said it was a mutually agreed-upon decision after Williamson’s campaign leaned into a more progressive direction.
“The campaign is just moving in a different direction,” a Williamson campaign staffer granted anonymity to discuss campaign dynamics told POLITICO. The staffer elaborated that Daou “comes from a background of what you would call traditional Democratic politics, and Marianne is looking for something a bit more innovative.”
Delaware Senator Carper Won’t Seek Reelection in 2024 by Benjamin S. Weiss
May 22, 2023
Introduction:
WILMINGTON, Del. (Courthouse News) — Senator Tom Carper is stepping aside after the end of his term, the long-serving Delaware lawmaker announced Monday, a move that will tee up a key race in Democrats’ push to retain control of the Senate in 2024.
Carper, who began his career on Capitol Hill in 1983 as the First State’s sole congressman, told reporters during a press conference in Wilmington that he had decided against running for a record fifth term in the Senate and would instead put his focus on advancing Democratic policy priorities during the remaining months of his term.
“If there was ever an opportune time to step aside and pass the torch to the next generation, it’s coming,” Carper said. “In fact, it will be here on January 3, 2025, right around noon.”
Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin is reconsidering a bid for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination, after earlier taking himself out of the race as polls made former President Trump look increasingly formidable, top Republican sources tell Axios.
Why it matters: Youngkin, 56 — who beat former Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D) for the Old Dominion governor’s mansion in 2021 — is a leading potential future face of the Republican Party. He’s Christian and conservative — but not as Trumpy as many of the GOP’s current stars.
What's happening: Youngkin told Richmond reporters in April that he was focused on this fall’s Virginia legislative races.
"Listen, I didn’t write a book, and I'm not in Iowa or New Hampshire or South Carolina," he said. "I am wholly focused on the Commonwealth of Virginia."
But that has changed amid a rocky few months for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), who is expected to announce his presidential candidacy Wednesday.
I don't see that he has any chance of winning the nomination, but that should not be a self-fulfilling prophecy used by the media to ignore his candidacy. A major reason for Trump's success is the constant attention paid to him. Relatively responsible alternatives should also be discussed as an alternative to the constant drumbeat of Trump coverage. Even negative media coverage can be more beneficial than no coverage at all. Of course, the challenge for media outlets will be what such overage of alternative candidates will do to their ratings.
wjfox wrote: ↑Tue May 23, 2023 10:26 am What will the Republicans do when coal, oil, gas, and ICE vehicles are inevitably made obsolete (which, on current trends, may happen relatively soon)? Where will their money come from then, and who's going to lobby them? It'll be interesting to see how this alters the political dynamics...
DeSantis enters presidential race ahead of Twitter announcement with Elon Musk
Source: Washington Post
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Wednesday filed paperwork to run for president ahead of an unorthodox announcement planned this evening with Twitter CEO Elon Musk launching a long-expected campaign that many Republicans view as the most formidable 2024 primary challenge to Donald Trump.
DeSantis filed with the Federal Election Commission on Wednesday, a spokeswoman confirmed, and plans to state his intentions on Twitter in a 6 p.m. virtual conversation with the social media platform’s billionaire executive, before joining Fox News for an interview. The launch underscores DeSantis’s embrace of conservative influencers as he looks to bypass the mainstream media he derides. It also aligns him with one of the world’s richest people — a polarizing figure who shares DeSantis’s disdain for the media and liberal critics and has quickly become one of the most prominent, provocative voices on the right.
The governor’s entrance comes after some upheaval in the Republican primary. Trump, the former president, has strengthened his position since the start of the year, even as he faces increasing legal peril. Other Republicans have entered the race, but all are mired in single-digits and have failed to make a dent in Trump’s commanding polling lead. And the Florida governor, once seen as a potentially dominant force in the party, is trying to regain his footing after falling well behind Trump, even as he has maintained a clear grip on second place.
DeSantis, 44, became a GOP star as a first-term governor who derided pandemic-driven shutdowns and vaccine mandates and cast himself as an enemy of what he calls “woke ideology” in the news media, major companies such as Disney and schools, where he has worked to restrict discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity.
caltrek's comment: This round definitely goes to opponents of DeSantis. Still, it would be unwise to be complacent. Successful presidential candidates are often ones who find new, innovative, and more effective ways to reach voters. Sometimes, setbacks like these can be followed by successes. Not that I am hoping for such an outcome. DeSantis is dangerous, and so is Trump.
If report of DeSantis squeezing lobbyists for cash is true, it’s a stunning violation ǀ Opinion
If it’s true that Gov. Ron DeSantis’ state employees — not his campaign staff — are soliciting donations from lobbyists for his presidential run, as is being reported, Florida is entering uncharted territory in unethical behavior.
NBC News published a story Thursday that said reporters had seen text messages from four DeSantis administration officials sent to Florida lobbyists requesting contributions to the governor’s campaign. The report said the texts included a link that appeared to track who was giving the money. The texts came from people directly in the governor’s office and leaders in state agencies.
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First of all, the governor should be keeping his campaign — paid for by private donations — and his state staff — paid for by taxpayers — strictly apart. That has long been the norm and for very good reasons. It’s still unclear if what those staffers allegedly are doing is illegal, but the practice most certainly raises the question of whether the governor is wrongly using state resources.
And then there’s the issue of strong-arming lobbyists for cash when they probably make their living by being able to lobby at the state Capitol. Can you afford to say no when the guy asking for money holds your living his hands? Probably not. That, though, would amount to blackmail.
DeSantis says he would push to repeal Trump criminal justice reform if elected
BY BRETT SAMUELS - 05/26/23 5:06 PM ET
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) said Friday that if elected president, he would call on Congress to repeal the criminal justice reform bill signed into law by then-President Trump, his latest attack on Trump from the right.
DeSantis, appearing on “The Ben Shapiro Show,” criticized the First Step Act, a bipartisan bill passed in 2018 that reduced mandatory minimum sentences, expanded credits for well-behaved prisoners looking for shorter sentences and aimed to reduce recidivism.
The Florida governor, who officially entered the 2024 White House race on Wednesday, called the legislation “basically a jailbreak bill.”
-snip-
DeSantis voted for the initial House version of the bill while serving as a congressman in 2018, something Trump’s team has highlighted. He had resigned his seat before the final version, which critics argued contained significant changes from the House version to make it more moderate, came up for a vote later in 2018.
