Tag: gop nomination
 Lauren Boebert

Boebert Son Arrested, Booked On 22 Criminal Charges

Far-right Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO), who is seeking the GOP nomination to run for the U.S. House seat presently held by the retiring Rep. Ken Buck (R-CO), has faced a long list of controversies. Now,Newsweek is reporting that Boebert's 18-yeare-old son, Tyler, was arrested on February 27 and is "facing 22 charges," according to the Rifle, Colorado Police Department.

Newsweek's James Bickerton reports that Tyler Boebert was booked into the Garfield County Jail. On Facebook, the Rifle Police Department posted that he was arrested "after a recent string of vehicle trespass and property thefts in Rifle" and added that the charges include "four felony counts of Criminal Possession ID Documents - Multiple Victims, one felony count of Conspiracy to Commit a Felony, and over 15 additional misdemeanor and petty offenses."

According to Bickerton, a custody document at the Garfield County Jail shows "four counts of criminal possession of a financial device, three counts of first-degree criminal trespass auto with intent to commit crime, four counts of criminal possession of ID documents, four counts of ID theft with intent to use, three counts of contributing to the delinquency of a minor, three counts of theft of less than $300 and one count of conspiracy to commit (felony)."

Rep. Boebert, first elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 2020, is seeking a third term. The MAGA congresswoman has been serving in Colorado's Third Congressional District, but she decided that her chances of being reelected were better in the Fourth and switched to Buck's district.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Florida Set To Play Outsized Role In GOP Nominating Process

WASHINGTON (AP) — Take a breather, Iowa and New Hampshire. Florida is about to get into the Republican presidential race big time, starting with a televised debate Monday in Tampa and ending with an early primary in 2012 that conceivably could wrap up the nomination.

It’s quite plausible that front-runners Rick Perry and Mitt Romney could roughly divide the first four contests, in Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina. If that happens, Florida could prove the virtual tie-breaker, a prize so big in a state so central to presidential elections that the loser might struggle to stay afloat.

“My guess is that Florida is going to be the big kahuna,” said Brad Coker, a Florida-based pollster for Mason-Dixon who conducts surveys nationwide. Florida is much larger, diverse and expensive than the other four early-voting states, he said, and so it rewards the type of campaigning a Republican must do around the country to oust President Barack Obama in November 2012.

Of course, events over the next few months could upend that scenario. Perry, the Texas governor, or Romney, a former Massachusetts governor, might stumble. Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann could revive her struggling campaign. Former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman might catch fire. A new candidate, such as former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, might jump in.

Then there’s the scheduling of those caucuses and primaries, which isn’t set.

For now, campaign strategists assume Florida will be the fifth contest, as early as Jan. 31, and the first in a big state.

Florida Republicans don’t follow presidential politics as intensely as do GOP activists in Iowa and New Hampshire. Nor do they expect one-on-one encounters with candidates.

When the nominating process rolls into Florida, “the days of the house parties are behind you,” said Phil Musser, a former director of the Republican Governors Association and a frequent consultant in the state.

In the next two weeks, Florida Republicans will get ample attention, beginning with Monday night’s two-hour debate sponsored by CNN and the Tea Party Express.

The forum will include the eight contenders who debated last week in California, where Perry made his national debut. Romney is almost certain to renew his criticisms of Perry for calling Social Security’s funding structure “a Ponzi scheme.”

The candidates also will have their first collective chance to dissect the jobs proposal that Obama outlined Thursday.

The Orlando debate starts off the three-day “Presidency 5” event where thousands of Florida Republicans will mingle, hear speeches and vote in a presidential straw poll.

Will Weatherford, incoming speaker of the Florida House, said many party donors and activists are on the sidelines for now, but the big weekend will give them a good long look at the contenders. “A lot of people will choose sides after that,” he said.

In the last two competitive GOP primaries, Florida joined South Carolina to form a one-two Southern punch that essentially resolved disagreements in Iowa and New Hampshire.

In 2008, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee won in Iowa, but quickly faltered. Arizona Sen. John McCain captured the New Hampshire and South Carolina primaries, and then eliminated all doubt in Florida by beating Romney and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani.

Giuliani was embarrassed after pouring nearly all his money and hopes into Florida. The lesson, campaign strategists say, is that a candidate must build momentum in Iowa or New Hampshire to gain credibility in Florida.

Florida was even crueler to Texas Rep. Ron Paul, who took 3 percent of the 2008 primary vote. Paul is running for president again.

In 2000, McCain carried New Hampshire after Texas Gov. George W. Bush won in Iowa. Bush overtook McCain in a brutal South Carolina contest, then crushed McCain in Florida and went on to win the presidency.

In the 2012 election’s early and highly speculative stages, strategists see Iowa and South Carolina as potentially good fits for Perry, while Romney could do well in New Hampshire and Nevada.

Under that scenario, Florida “has the real chance to be the decider,” Musser said. For now, he said, “it’s very wide open.”

Florida has large numbers of every type of Republican voter. They are spread hundreds of miles apart, in expensive media markets.

Unlike the other early-voting states, Florida’s primary is open only to people who have been registered as Republicans for many weeks, barring independents from influencing the nomination.

“There’s no question that the Republican base in Florida is very conservative,” said Todd Harris, a veteran strategist aligned with the state’s GOP senator, Marco Rubio. “But they are not nearly as uniform in ideology as the base in South Carolina or Iowa caucus-goers.”

“Perry will feel at home, culturally and politically, in the Panhandle,” Harris said. “Romney will probably do better in the critical Interstate 4 corridor,” which is perhaps the state’s most diverse and up-for-grabs region. It runs from Daytona Beach through Orlando and to Tampa.

Many other GOP constituencies also must be catered to. They include Cuban-Americans in Miami, Midwestern retirees on the Gulf coast, and New York retirees on the south Atlantic coast.

“We have the social, economic and racial diversity that some of the other early primary states don’t have,” Weatherford said. It forces candidates to spend more, travel more and stretch themselves in new ways, he said.

“You can’t use the same speech in Dade County that you use in the Panhandle,” Weatherford said. Miami is the largest city in that county.

Some Republicans think Perry may have hurt himself among Florida’s retirees with his sharp criticisms of Social Security. Others, however, note that Rubio has included Social Security among programs that were “crafted without any thought as to how they will be funded in future years.”

“Because it weakened our people and didn’t take (into) account the simple math of not being able to spend more money than you have, it was destined to fail” and must be revised, Rubio said last month.

Coker said Rubio might catch less heat for such remarks because Floridians see him as deliberate and intellectual. Perry, he said, “was like a bull in a china shop.”

“If you want to talk Social Security in Florida,” Coker said, “you must talk softly.”

He said it’s too early to handicap the Florida primary, but Romney has a head start organizationally because of his efforts in 2008.

Party insiders say former Gov. Jeb Bush, whose father and brother were presidents, remains highly popular among Florida Republicans. His family in Texas reportedly has chilly relations with Perry, fueling speculation that Jeb Bush might endorse Romney.

Weatherford doubts it will happen. “He wants people to earn it,” he said.

Rubio, the 40-year-old senator with strong ties to Cuban-Americans, tea partyers and others, also could deliver a helpful endorsement, but party activists don’t think he will.

Whoever wins the GOP nomination might strongly consider Rubio as a running mate. He could help carry a state that repeatedly proves crucial in presidential elections, and one the GOP desperately wants to wrest from Obama next year.

Spokesman: Rick Perry Is Running For President

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Texas Gov. Rick Perry is running for president, a spokesman confirmed Thursday, a move certain to shake up the race for the GOP nomination much to the delight of conservatives looking for a candidate to embrace.

Perry spokesman Mark Miner said the governor would make his intentions known on Saturday while visiting South Carolina and New Hampshire just as most of his presidential rivals compete in a test vote in Iowa.

Official word of Perry’s entrance into the race came just hours before eight candidates, including GOP front-runner Mitt Romney, were to appear on stage during a nationally televised debate.

It wasn’t much of a surprise. The longest-serving governor in Texas history has flirted with a presidential run since spring and has spent the past few months courting Republicans in early voting states and laying the groundwork for a campaign. He met privately with potential donors from California to New York and gave rabblerousing speeches to party faithful, casting himself as a fiscally responsible social conservative.

His intentions became even clearer over the past few days when officials disclosed that he would visit an important trio of states, a campaign-like schedule timed to overshadow the debate and the Iowa straw poll and, perhaps, wreak havoc on a field led by Romney.

Unlike others in the race, Perry has credibility with the at-times warring camps of the GOP’s primary electorate. The pro-business tax-cutter who has presided over Texas’ recent economic growth also is a devout social conservative with deep ties to some of the nation’s evangelical leaders and Christians who dominate the pivotal Iowa caucuses.

But Perry also has never run a national campaign before, and it’s unclear whether his Texas swagger and contemplation of state secession will sit well with GOP primary voters outside his state. Also an open question is whether he can raise the money necessary to mount a strong campaign against those who have been in the race for months or more.

He also may face fierce opposition from secular groups and progressives who argue that his religious rhetoric violates the separation of church and state and that his belief that some groups, such as the Boy Scouts of America, should be allowed to discriminate against gays is bigoted.

Within the Republican Party, Perry has enemies among moderates who question his understanding of national and international policy, including Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, who ran against him for governor in a bitter 2010 primary race.

An early adopter of tea party rhetoric, Perry even has some opponents in the movement. They complain he hasn’t taken strong enough stances on state spending and illegal immigration, in part because as governor Perry signed a law making Texas the first state to offer in-state tuition to illegal immigrants and blasted a proposed border fence as “idiocy.”

But before he starts pumping up supporters and wooing detractors, Perry will need to raise name recognition outside of Texas and conservative circles along with funds to fill a presidential campaign coffer. None of the money he’s raised for Texas elections can be used in a national race, so he is starting from scratch.

The governor lags well behind previously announced candidates in both campaign workers and fundraising, mostly because he denied any interest in the presidency until late May. But the story he tells of having no interest in higher office until friends and family persuaded him to join the race adds to his carefully cultivated image as a Texas cowboy reluctantly riding into Washington to save the day.

The campaign will attempt to position Perry between the moderate Romney and Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota, a tea party favorite.

Perry, who has been governor for 11 years, has touted his business-friendly job-creation skills in Texas as evidence of fiscal wisdom, giving him a chance to drain support from Romney, whose conservative record is burdened by the health care plan he implemented as governor of Massachusetts.

Social conservatives already support Perry in equal numbers to Bachmann, who never has held an executive office and who some Republicans consider too far right to beat President Barack Obama.

In polls conducted before he joined the race, Perry was in a statistical tie with Bachmann and within striking distance of Romney.

A career politician with 27 years in elected office, Perry calls his economic track record in Texas a model for the country, arguing that low taxes, little regulation and tough lawsuit restrictions help create jobs and attract business. Texas has fared better than most states during the Great Recession, though it has the highest rate of uninsured residents and among the poorest populations in the country.

Perry is a full-throated critic of both Democratic and Republican politics in Washington, advocating a weaker federal government with smaller entitlement programs and greater states’ rights. He recently signed a pledge to cut spending, place a cap on future government expenses and balance the budget.

When asked during one of the first tea party rallies in Austin in April 2009 about a pre-Civil War clause that allowed Texas to secede from the Union, Perry said that if current federal government overreach continued, Texas could consider secession again.

The Texas governor’s office, however, is the weakest in the nation. Voters elect top state executives and all judges, and the Legislature drafts the state budget and sets its own agenda. The veto is the only real power the Texas governor has other than appointing people to lesser government offices.

Democrats will highlight what they say are Perry’s extreme right-wing beliefs, such as opposing the national income tax and the direct election of U.S. senators. States’ rights is one of Perry’s biggest issues, and he has said individual Legislatures should decide matters such as gay marriage and the legalization of marijuana. Those stances could draw conservative opposition — unlike his well-known love of guns.

Perry last year told an Associated Press reporter that he carries a laser-sighted pistol while jogging, and that he used it to shoot a coyote that threatened his daughter’s dog that came along one day for a run. Texans touted what they called a heroic act, and gun manufacturer Sturm, Ruger & Co. Inc. issued a “Coyote Special” edition of its Ruger .380-caliber pistol complete with “A True Texan” emblazoned on the side.

How such stories play on a national stage could determine whether Perry can secure the GOP nomination. He’ll also have to prove he has the skill to put on a national campaign.

While Perry looks good on television and gives fiery speeches, he is less disciplined in one-on-one encounters where he has made comments like the once about secession. He also did not fare well during the one debate he agreed to in his 2010 gubernatorial race, appearing awkward while repeating talking points rather than engaging the other candidates.