Like I said before…..2016 is not too far away to start watching the clowns in the circus……the super PACs will be the main player and the candidates will be a secondary source of news…….
Let’s look at what we know so far about the coming race…..
us presidentialelectionnews.com is a good source for information for the theater coming to a ballot box near you…….
Super PACs became somewhat famous in 2012 for helping and hurting both major candidates and for their ability to run even the most dishonest ads and get away with it. 2016 will be no exception with both sides building their ground and fundraising game even earlier.
Report from the Washington Post:
The Democrats have established their 2016 war room in a glassy new building in downtown Washington. The Republicans are setting up shop across the Potomac River in the Northern Virginia suburbs.
Long before any candidates announce their presidential bids, the next race for the White House is unofficially underway. Political operatives for two independent groups — American Bridge 21st Century on the left and America Rising on the right — are already tracking potential contenders, aiming to build robust research files that can be used against the opposition.
The organizations are part of a wave of super PACs, advocacy groups and even for-profit corporations that are poised to play their biggest role yet in national politics. They are launching opposition-research projects, mobilizing volunteers and even helping to recruit candidates — further eroding the primacy of the official party hierarchies in the process.
“We are going to continue to see the outsourcing of core functions of the DNC and RNC to outside groups,” said election-law attorney Robert Kelner, referring to the Democratic and Republican national committees. “By November 2014, there will be a true shadow political party system in place on both sides of the aisle.”
The “shadow parties,” as Kelner refers to them, walked that very fine line in 2012 of appearing to be in collusion with but never formally acknowledging a connection to the campaigns they supported. By law, Super PACs and campaigns can’t have any communication but that didn’t stop President Obama and Mitt Romney from asking each other to demand that their respective PACs stop running any given ad. To make such a demand might be seen as collusion. What a tangled web of campaign fiance law we live in.
So many people feel like Hilary Clinton could well be the democratic nominee for 2016…..and many in the GOP and its supporters are feeling the paranoia of running against her……..
Literally called the “Stop Hillary Clinton Political Action Committee,” the Stop Hillary PAC is being organized far in advance by conservatives who have assumed the former Secretary of State will wind of being the Democratic nominee in 2016. Their goal is to hound Clinton and respond wherever she pops up in the political arena between now and the 2016 election.
Report from Syracuse.com:
Some conservatives have already begun efforts “Stop Hillary” Clinton from winning the 2016 presidential election, even though the former first lady, senator and Secretary of State has not officially declared her intention to run.
The Stop Hillary political action committee, incorporated in May, has declared its intention to counter every campaign move Clinton may make, according to Newser.
“We’re supporting anything that is the opposite of Hillary,” said Garrett Marquis, an adviser to John McCain during his 2008 presidential run. “We will play however needed, wherever Hillary is playing. If she endorses in the Virginia governor’s race, we will go there. Assuming she is active in Iowa, we will be there, too, and we will make some considerable noise.”
This week some of the group’s organizers have begun stepping into public view. CNN reported that Ted Harvey, a conservative state senator from Colorado is heading up Stop Hillary’s leadership team. Other members include Alex Shively, a former aide to Georgia Rep. Tom Price; Jacob Leis, a Colorado-based political strategist; and Dan Backer, a Washington attorney and lobbyist.
These names are not exactly prominent, but the group is not concerned with star power. Stop Hillary hopes to appeal to grassroots conservatives and low dollar contributors, not traditional big donors.
Clearly on the right, the presumed nominee is Hillary Clinton. Is this a result of media inevitability or simply that there are no other names in Democratic politics right now to challenge the Clinton juggernaut?
I have heard of being paranoid….but the GOP is on steroids in its FEAR of Clinton…….
Does anyone have anything to add?
