When I saw a publicity emails pushing Politico’s morning story ‘The Kochs’ war on poverty’, I admit I thought the worst. I figured it might one of those articles with the message, ‘Hey, you might think the Koch’s are trying to shred the social safety net and only care about the super rich, but …’ But I was too cynical. It turns out the piece is pretty fascinating and not at all one of these ‘counterintuitive’ pieces where the reporter gets taken in by a lot of flimflam. In fact, the Kochs’ efforts are even more comical that I might have expected.
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In one of our recent Insight polls we asked this question: “Whatever you believe in principle, have you ever been wary or fearful of a person because they appeared to be Muslim or from a Middle Eastern background?”
We drew a very large sample (almost 9000 qualified respondents) because I wanted to look at the demographic breakdown of the answers. The topline results were: No – 72.3%, Yes – 23.3%, I’m not sure 4.4%.
I’ve got to think this over. But Ted Cruz’s rise nationwide and now his jump into a big lead in Iowa looks like a perfect storm of awful for the GOP. Especially on the GOP side, folks who win the Iowa caucuses have a pretty poor record of winning the nomination. But with Trump far ahead nationwide and in the lead in virtually every other state this looks more and more like Cruz will end up as the alternative to Trump. At least, he looks likely to prevent someone else from emerging with enough primary support to take him on. To put it in the appropriate firearms argot, you’ve got Trump making off with the Crown Jewels while Cruz stays at the door laying down a line of fire to prevent any normal Republican from chasing after him. And I actually think it’s possible that Cruz could do worse in a general election than Trump.
Help them Rubi-Wan. You’re their only hope.
A significant change in the complexion of the Iowa GOP caucus — and the broader presidential race — with Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) now holding a commanding lead over Donald Trump, according to a new poll released Saturday evening by the Des Moines Register/Bloomberg Politics.
Cruz is at 31 percent, Trump at 21 percent, and Carson has fallen all the way back to 13 percent .
This is the second straight poll that gives Cruz a lead in Iowa. A Monmouth poll last week showed him ahead of Trump 24-19, the first time Cruz had led in any poll of the Iowa GOP caucus. Within hours of the Monmouth poll coming out, Trump called for a ban on Muslims entering the United States.
What new Trump primal scream might we hear this time?
This may be the quote of the year in politics. First, here’s the quick backstory.
Kansas state Rep. Steve Brunk (R) is entertaining a job offer from the policy arm of Focus on the Family. (They say they’ve already hired him, but he says he won’t make a decision until January, which seems fishy in its own right.) But Brunk has no plans to step down from his legislative seat when (ahem … if) he takes the new job with the anti-abortion, anti-gay marriage outfit. In fact he says why wouldn’t you want to hire the guy who chairs the committee where the group’s most pressing legislative items are decided?
Via the very capable Bryan Lowry at the Wichita Eagle, here’s Brunk’s epic quote:
Donald Trump dares Ted Cruz to criticize him in public.
Meanwhile, Ben Carson is threatening to leave the party if GOP ‘elites’ don’t stop meddling with the convention.
Trump says he’ll mandate that all cop-killers will be executed by executive order.
Who do you think will win the GOP nomination? Well, I’ll tell you what you think. Or at least what our latest poll of TPM Readers says. We asked 1024 qualified respondents in our latest Insight poll: “Regardless of who you support, who do you believe will be the Republican presidential nominee in 2016?”
Answers after the jump.