Presidential campaign for 2016 gets started
The darling of the outer fringe of the Republican Party, U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, paid a visit to Iowa a few days back. He took a victory lap (of sorts) for helping to shut down the government and causing it to lose billions of dollars.
Sen. Cruz, R-Texas, they say, is cruising toward a run for the presidency, and his appearances in the state that kick off the 2016 presidential campaign (with straw polls and primaries) have ignited more speculation that Tailgunner Ted has his eyes on the White House.
He gave several fiery speeches, took his bows, and he killed a couple of pheasants dressed in Elmer Fudd-gear — all of which, I suppose, were designed to make him look “presidential.”
“No politician spends a weekend in Iowa in the chilly fall of an odd-numbered year unintentionally,” wrote the Washington Post’s Ed O’Keefe.
OK, I’ll buy that. Let’s face it, the 2016 presidential campaign is just around the corner. Providing that corner is exactly 1,100 days, or three years and four days, away.
Cruz, if he does plan to run, is getting an early, early start. And with every head-fake, there’s a pile of words that follows.
There’s endless energy being exhausted by some political pundits to guess who is, or who isn’t, running that, at this early stage, is a bit interesting.
Rick Santorum (You remember him, don’t you?) appeared on a political panel a few days ago, and one political wag claimed he’s a possible 2016 presidential candidate but only because he’s abandoned those dreadful sweater-vests that he wore in 2012. Well, supposing Santorum was just appearing because he doesn’t have anything better to do these days? And he didn’t have on one of those sweater-vests, because he hadn’t had time to pick them up from the cleaners?
Another question. What’s Hillary Clinton doing these days?
The former U.S. Senator/Secretary of State/and former First Lady got heckled while she was giving a speech in Buffalo a couple of weeks ago. That heckler yelled “Benghazi, Benghazi, you let them die.”
There was an immediate groundswell of opinion about how Clinton will deal with the criticisms of her handling of the attack on the U.S. consulate in Libya in September of 2012 — as if she’s already announced her plans to run for the presidency.
Time has already run out to become the first-announced 2016 presidential candidate. I’ve discovered there are already six people who’ve either filed with the Federal Election Commission or publicly stated their intention to run for the presidency. Among them are a former Savannah State University head football coach, Robby Wells, and a perennial candidate from New Jersey, Jeff Boss. Actress Roseann Barr, who got 67,326 votes running as a member of the Peace and Freedom Party in 2012 has expressed interest in running again in 2016. Has she gone to Iowa yet? Can we get her to stay there?
In the meantime, the Pew Research Center has found some proof that this has been an unusually busy year for presidential soothsaying. Pew Research has charted the number of presidential campaign newspaper stories that were published between Jan. 1 and Sept. 27 of the periods preceding the past two presidential elections. In 2005 (three years before the 2008 election), for instance, there were only 261 stories published by the nation’s largest newspapers. In 2009 (before the 2012 election), there were only 132. This year there have been 335. That’s more than twice the number that appeared before the 2012 presidential election, when Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee (Who?) were considered the frontrunners, with Sarah Palin not far behind.
The Republican presidential campaign featured nearly weekly frontrunners before Mitt Romney was finally selected. Herman Cain, Michele Bachmann and Newt Gingrich, Rick Perry and even Rick Santorum had their days in the sun. But that free-for-all took place much later in the campaign season — not 1,100 days before America’s voters went to the polls.
Next week, I’m heading to Iowa. I plan to shoot a squirrel and speak to a couple of people. Count me in.
Edward A. Owens is a three-time Emmy Award winner and 20-year veteran of television news. Email him at freedoms@bellatlantic.net
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