Rubio email describes “threat my campaign poses” to US

Marco Rubio drinks water—too much water?

Marco Rubio drinks water—too much water?

Yesterday, the Marco Rubio campaign sent an email to supporters that may not have said what it meant. Props to Twitter’s Mike Tipping for the screenshot:

Rubio

The first draft read, “I know you get a lot of email, but I wouldn’t be sending this unless it was urgent. And it is, because I’m sending it. Because it’s urgent. That’s why I’m sending it…” and continued for 970 words. But this draft merely assures us that “the media and Democrats know the threat that my campaign and supporters pose to our nation when we win next November.” It’s a weird thing to say, because I get the sense the media doesn’t know anything about Rubio at all. But at least he made a unique donation button just for me. I hate to click on the same button other people have clicked on. It makes me feel like that button’s a whore.

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Are rich people really that smart?

Donald Trump fires his breakfast.

Donald Trump fires somebody, anybody.

The subtext of this New York Times story on big donors’ desire to advise presidential campaigns is that maybe they don’t offer the best advice. Consider this “zinger” that Julian Gingold gave Scott Walker:

“I mentioned that Trump had dinner at the 21 Club in New York with Oliver Stone. The message would get across that he had dinner with a leftist — what sort of conservative are you?”

Dinner with a leftist! It’s the scandal of the season, until Mike Huckabee plays softball with an atheist. Similarly, the Times reports that media mogul Stanley Hubbard was trying to reach Walker in the days before he dropped out of the race, to advise him to get more media training.

These are perhaps not ace political strategies. It makes sense that a professional wealth manager would not know as well as professional campaign managers how to execute a presidential campaign. But the public consensus seems to hold that, if wealth doesn’t necessarily qualify a person to run a campaign, it does qualify them to be president.

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Trump assures supporters he won’t correct them

A big, pink, under-grilled slab of meat eats a pork chop at the fairgrounds.

A big, pink, under-grilled slab of meat eats a pork chop at the fairgrounds.

Donald Trump was in Iowa this weekend, enriching the soil of my ancestral homeland with speeches at Urbandale High School and the state fairgrounds. His remarks at the Iowa Faith and Freedom Forum included a reference to a kerfuffle last Thursday, when one of his supporters declared President Obama a Muslim not born in America and Trump did not correct him. It eerily resembled one of the most dignified moments of John McCain’s career, except for the dignity part. “Remember the famous day when John McCain just ripped that microphone out of the woman’s hands?” Trump told the Faith and Freedom Forum, arguing he handled the scenario much better. “Does anybody really think that’s harsh?” The crowd applauded. Grim assessment after the jump.

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Trump on Bible: The whole thing is good

I don't know why you have to Photoshop the sign in this perfectly good picture of Donald Trump buying a Guatemalan.

Someone photoshopped the sign in this perfectly good picture of Donald Trump buying a Guatemalan.

Now that Donald Trump is a Republican candidate for president, he has to lie about how often he reads the Bible. Last week, he told interviewers from the Bloomberg program With All Due Respect that it was his favorite book. They asked him to cite a favorite verse. Instead of just saying “Jesus wept” and staring at the hosts until they fell silent, he ad libbed:

Trump: I wouldn’t want to get into it, because to me that’s very personal. You know, when I talk about the Bible, it’s very personal, so I don’t want to get into verses…The Bible means a lot to me, but I don’t want to get into specifics.

Interviewer: Are you an Old Testament guy or a New Testament guy?

Trump: Uh, probably equal. I think it’s just an incredible…the whole Bible is an incredible…I joke, very much so, they always hold up The Art of the Deal, I say “my second favorite book of all time.”

It tells us something about our present politics that the man who called Mexicans drug dealers and rapists during his announcement speech won’t just say he doesn’t read the Bible. Video and close reading after the jump.

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Exactly who loves Donald Trump?

Donald Trump and a bunch of people in Phoenix who say he's just what we need, but not sarcastically

Donald Trump and a bunch of people who say he’s just what we need, not sarcastically

Six weeks after he shot to the front of the polls on a fluke response to his announcement-speech gaffe, Donald Trump is still the front-runner among Republican candidates for president. He is winning in spite of calling people stupid and rapists. He is winning despite a debate performance that would earn him a D in any high school speech class. He is winning despite the disagreement, among people who care about government, over whether his candidacy is comical or deeply alarming. Somebody supports him—ballpark, one in five somebodies who identify as Republican. Over at the New York Times, bless its gray heart, a team of political reporters has tried to find out who.

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