Oct.15
Political News, Now.
Today in Politics: The Electoral Parsing Switches From Debate Scoring to Cold, Hard Cash
Good Thursday morning. As Tuesday’s Democratic debate brought some new texture to the contest, so, too, will Thursday night’s filing deadlines, when the candidates must reveal their campaigns’ financial particulars. Though many with significant hauls have already released the amounts they’ve brought in, Jeb Bush is not among them, bringing up questions about potential fund-raising concerns and the kinds of whispers that love to fill such silence.
In the next 17 hours, the contours of both presidential nominating contests will become clearer.
The campaign finance filings for the third fund-raising quarter of the year are due by midnight. They will contain not just how much was raised from whom, but exactly how much money each campaign had in the bank as of Sept. 30.
Though many other teams have released their numbers, Mr. Bush’s campaign has not yet said how much it had raised, or how much it still has in the bank. But officials with the campaign, which put in place a series of budget-cutting measures over the summer after heavy spending early on, said that Mr. Bush planned to simultaneously release his medical records and the list of his bundlers. The extra effort toward transparency could also help obscure any less-than-positive news in his numbers.
The filings will also reveal how much each campaign has spent, and on what.
For some perspective, Mitt Romney, the Republican nominee in 2012, was one of two potential establishment prospects, along with Rick Perry, who raised just over $14 million in the third quarter of 2011. Ben Carson, the former neurosurgeon and first-time candidate, has already outpaced that figure from grass-roots donors.
But other than Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, who raised about $12 million, and perhaps Mr. Bush, no one else in the field is poised to come close to what Mr. Romney raised. For instance, Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, who is catching the eye of some undecided donors, reported raising $6 million.
The amounts the candidates have in the bank, and what they have already invested in, are useful indicators of how far they may be able to take their campaigns.
The filings will show how much Hillary Rodham Clinton and Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont have spent. And Martin O’Malley, who has been stuck in low single digits in the polls but who is hoping for a late break in the Iowa caucuses, has not said what he has raised.
— Maggie Haberman
What We’re Watching Today
— Mrs. Clinton will hold events in Texas, where she is expected to be endorsed by Julián Castro, the secretary of Housing and Urban Development.
— President Obama will speak at a reception for Hispanic Heritage Month and for the 25th anniversary of the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for Hispanics, while Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.will meet with President Park Geun-hye of South Korea.
— Mr. Rubio, who has reportedly been drawing the attention of high-profile donors, will speak to the Republican Committee of Chester County in King of Prussia, Pa.
Our Favorites from the Times
What We’re Reading Elsewhere
— The Washington Post takes a look at Jim Webb’s answer to a debate question about the political enemy he is most proud of making: “the enemy soldier that threw the grenade that wounded me.”
— Mr. Carson, who while discussing gun control last week said that the Holocaust may have turned out differently if Jews had been armed, wrote an op-ed article in The Jerusalem Post saying that “I never intended for my words to diminish the enormity of the tragedy or in any way to cause any pain for Holocaust survivors or their families.” He also said “personalities and politics” had strained the relationship between the United States and Israel.
— And in an interview with CNN, Donald J. Trump’s daughter Ivanka Trump said that though her “father is very blunt,” his comments about Megyn Kelly and Carly Fiorina were not evidence of sexism. “I don’t think that he’s gender-targeted at all,” she said. “Like I said, I wouldn’t be the person I am today, I wouldn’t be a high-level executive within his organization if he felt that way,” she said.
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Jeb Bush Raises $13 Million in Latest Filing
Jeb Bush raised $13.4 million during the three months ending Sept. 30, his campaign announced on Thursday afternoon, the second-largest total in the Republican field but a sharp drop-off from the first weeks of his campaign.
Mr. Bush’s total — eagerly awaited by rival campaigns this week — indicates he spent nearly four out of every five dollars he raised during the third quarter of the year, a period in which establishment candidates struggled to win over donors and Mr. Bush’s campaign embarked on belt-tightening measures to ensure it would remain solvent through the fall.
He began October with about $10.27 million in cash on hand, less than Ben Carson, Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, and Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, according to figures released by the campaign.
Jeb Bush Group Plans $17 Million Ad Campaign Aimed at March 1 Contests
Right to Rise, the “super PAC” supporting former Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida, is preparing a nearly $17 million television ad buy aimed at the so-called S.E.C. Primary on March 1, aides to the group confirmed.
The latest series of ad reservations, set to air in eight March primary states, will bring the super PAC’s advertising total to $56 million — more than any other individual campaign or outside group.
The latest buy underscores the prevailing strategy — and thinking — of the Bush campaign and the group supporting him: that Mr. Bush, who has stumbled repeatedly as a candidate, nonetheless has a built-in advantage in the more than $100 million his super PAC has raised.
It also, his team hopes, will provide him with some cushion in the first four primary states, where he is fending off challenges from everyone from Senator Ted Cruz of Texas (in Iowa) to Gov. John Kasich of Ohio (in New Hampshire) to Senator Marco Rubio of Florida (in South Carolina).
“You should always be wary of generals who want to win the last war,” said Mike Murphy, a senior strategist to Right to Rise. “We’re putting a big emphasis on New Hampshire, but we’re not playing by the old rules of waiting to get through one state before we move to the next. March is going to be an expensive month for every campaign or super PAC that wants to compete for this nomination, and we’re prepared for it.”
Yet the 2016 cycle has showcased both the increased power — as well as the limitations — of super PACs and outside groups. Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin, for instance, dropped out of the Republican race in September, despite the fact that his super PAC had just started a $17 million advertising spree.
So far, Right to Rise has run positive ads aimed at introducing Mr. Bush and his record as the governor of Florida to voters, but it has not ruled out going negative in contrast spots with other candidates.
The initial $16.8 million in reservations, which could change, is currently set to begin in early February, and run through the March 1 primary. The group will air ads in seven primary states (in sports vernacular, many involve Southeastern Conference college teams in some of these states) — Georgia ($2.6 million), Massachusetts ($630,000), Oklahoma ($550,000), Tennessee ($1.7 million), Texas ($6.1 million), Vermont ($60,000) and Virginia ($3.1 million) — as well as Michigan ($2.1 million), which holds its primary on March 8.
Jim Webb Blames His Debate Demeanor on Being Ignored
For Jim Webb, this week’s Democratic presidential debate turned into a choice of getting mad or being mute.
He chose mad, and on Thursday he explained why he appeared so peeved on the stage in Las Vegas.
“It was rigged in terms of who was going to get time on the floor,” Mr. Webb, a former senator from Virginia, said during a forum at the Council on Foreign Relations. “It’s very difficult to win a debate if you don’t get the opportunity to speak.”
Mr. Webb spoke for about 15 minutes during the two-hour debate hosted by CNN. He spent some of those minutes complaining about his lack of time, especially when compared with the attention given to Hillary Rodham Clinton and Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont.
But Anderson Cooper, the moderator, advised Mr. Webb that he was wasting precious time by complaining.
“The debate was being portrayed as a showdown between Mrs. Clinton and Bernie,” Mr. Webb said on Thursday. “I even turned around to Bernie Sanders at one point and said ‘Bernie, say my name.'”
Mr. Webb, a military veteran and an accomplished author, noted that he did well in several online polls after the debate and was pleased that he had made the most of his time. His most memorable moment was when he boasted of killing an enemy as a Marine in Vietnam.
However, Mr. Webb rejects the notion that he is not a happy warrior.
“In that kind of environment, it was either going to be Mr. Angry or a potted plant,” Mr. Webb said of his debate performance.
Another Republican Lawmaker Suggests Benghazi Inquiry Is Going After Hillary Clinton
Hillary Rodham Clinton has gotten several gifts from congressional Republicans before she testifies next week before the House select committee investigating the 2012 attacks in Benghazi, Libya. On Wednesday, she got yet another.
Representative Richard Hanna, a moderate Republican from upstate New York, told a radio station in Utica that the House majority leader, Kevin McCarthy, told the truth when he tied Mrs. Clinton’s declining performance in opinion polls to the work of the Benghazi committee.
“Sometimes the biggest sin you can commit in D.C. is to tell the truth,” Mr. Hanna told the radio station WIBX 950, when asked about Mr. McCarthy’s remarks.
“This may not be politically correct, but I think that there was a big part of this investigation that was designed to go after people and an individual, Hillary Clinton,” Mr. Hanna added in the interview with the show’s host, Bill Keeler. Mr. Hanna is not a member of the select committee, which is being led by Representative Trey Gowdy, Republican of South Carolina.
Mrs. Clinton is scheduled to testify before the committee next Thursday. Mr. Hanna’s remarks were noted by the liberal website ThinkProgress.com on Wednesday night, and the Clinton campaign quickly seized on them.
“House Republicans aren’t even shy anymore about admitting that the Benghazi Committee is a partisan farce,” said Brian Fallon, Mrs. Clinton’s press secretary.
“After failing to produce any new information on the tragic 2012 attacks at Benghazi despite a 17-month investigation, John Boehner has reportedly urged the committee to shift its focus to Hillary Clinton’s emails in an ongoing effort to try to hurt her politically,” Mr. Fallon said. “Hillary Clinton will still attend next week’s hearing, but at this point, Trey Gowdy’s inquiry has zero credibility left.”
Last weekend, a Republican investigator who was fired from the committee alleged that resources were trained specifically on investigating Mrs. Clinton and away from the events surrounding the Sept. 11, 2012, terrorist attacks on a United States diplomatic outpost in Benghazi.
Mr. McCarthy’s comments about the committee and Mrs. Clinton helped drive him out of the race to replace Mr. Boehner as speaker of the House.
It was during the work of the committee that Mrs. Clinton’s use of a private email server while she was secretary of state became known. She has said she violated no laws and sent no information that was classified at that time, but has called her decision to use the private server a “mistake.”
Joe Biden Teases Reporters Interested In His Plans
Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. took his prolonged and increasingly speculated-upon flirtation with entering the 2016 presidential race to new heights on Thursday when he bantered with reporters outside his residence who were peppering him with questions on whether he’ll run.
He found several different ways to essentially say, “No comment,” although Mr. Biden indicated he might soon be ready to say more.
Seconds after the vice president walked out of his residence at the Naval Observatory in Northwest Washington on Thursday to await the arrival of President Park Geun-hye of South Korea, who was joining him for lunch, journalists began asking if he was running.
“I’ll answer in Korean,” he said with a smile. Then he tried another strategy.
“I can’t hear you,” he told a reporter who had asked if he had made a decision yet, then stood silently when she repeated the question.
This reporter then asked if there was still an opening in the race for him, to which Mr. Biden replied: “I’m here to greet President Park. I’ll talk to you all about that later.”
When will “later” be, he was asked?
“I’ll tell you what,” Mr. Biden said, as the reporters leaned in. “Good to see you all.”
The 40-second exchange did not provide many hints about the vice president’s political plans, which have been the subject of incessant rumors recently, each day bringing a new whisper that he is definitely in, definitely out, or right on the brink of announcing his intentions. But its very occurrence suggested that Mr. Biden might be ready to put all the speculation to rest. It is rare for the president or the vice president to arrive before the start of a public event when the news media is present, the better to avoid unwanted questions.
On Thursday, Mr. Biden left his home to face waiting reporters nearly 10 minutes before his guest’s arrival.
Donald Trump Campaign Raises Specter of Boycotting Next Debate
An aide to Donald J. Trump has raised the possibility of the candidate not attending the next Republican presidential debate unless the criteria set by CNBC are changed, according to two people briefed on a conference call where the matter was discussed on Thursday.
Several campaigns are unhappy with the criteria that has been set by CNBC, including the lack of opening and closing statements, and, as of now, the lack of a set length of time for the Oct. 28 debate at the Coors Events Center in Boulder, Colo., according to those briefed.
The concerns were aired in an initial conference call held on Wednesday that was reported by Politico. Aides to Ben Carson and Senator Rand Paul expressed unhappiness on that call, as did representatives of other campaigns.
So in a follow-up call held on Thursday, aides to Senator Ted Cruz and Mike Huckabee joined in seeking to clarify the rules. And Corey Lewandowski, the campaign manager for Mr. Trump, raised the possibility that the candidate might not attend if the criteria wasn’t changed, the people briefed on the call said.
Mr. Lewandowski, in an interview, said: “The criteria that was outlined by CNBC was never discussed with any of the candidates or the campaigns. So what CNBC did was send out a memo and said, ‘Here’s the criteria as you have approved them and that went out to all the campaigns.’ We said we never agreed to this criteria.”
He said he had not taken part in the call on Wednesday. But he said that CNBC was supposed to address solutions.
“For us it was imperative that the time be changed to 120 minutes” for the length of the debate, he said. Mr. Trump was unhappy that the CNN debate that Republicans recently took part in lasted nearly three hours.
“Until we have this criteria specifically laid out,” he added, “it is difficult to participate.”
He urged the Republican National Committee to no longer count the CNBC event as a sanctioned debate if clarity didn’t come by the end of Thrusday. A spokesman for the R.N.C. did not immediately respond to an email.
Brian Steel, a spokesman for CNBC, said in a statement: “Our goal is to host the most substantive debate possible. Our practice in the past has been to forgo opening statements to allow more time to address the critical issues that matter most to the American people.”
He added, “We started a dialogue yesterday with all of the campaigns involved, and we will certainly take the candidates’ views on the format into consideration as we finalize the debate structure.”
New Jersey Voters Turned Off by Chris Christie’s Presidential Bid
Gov. Chris Christie’s is not getting much support for his presidential ambitions in his home state of New Jersey.
A Rutgers-Eagleton poll released on Thursday showed that 5 percent of Republican voters in the Garden State would vote for him and two-thirds think he should get out the race. Leading the pack is Donald J. Trump, at 32 percent, followed by Ben Carson and Senator Marco Rubio, who are tied at 13 percent.
“Christie no longer has any home-state advantage,” said Ashley Koning, assistant director of the Eagleton Center for Public Interest Polling at Rutgers University. “The voters who know him best blame not his competition but what Christie himself is doing – or not doing – for New Jersey.”
The results mark a big falloff for Mr. Christie, who has seen his support in his home state cut in half since August.
Mr. Christie’s blunt style seems to have been overshadowed by Mr. Trump’s presence in the race, and New Jersey voters have been complaining about their governor’s lack of presence or political impact in the state.
“I don’t think he is working for New Jersey anymore,” one respondent said.
Another suggested that his record offered him little to brag about: “New Jersey is not a success story, and people know it.”
Mr. Christie has spent significant time away from New Jersey over the last two years. His obligations as chairman of the Republican Governors Associationrequired extensive travel and now he is busy on the campaign trail.
The governor has said that his cellphone keeps him connected to his staff members and obligations to the state, and that he has shown a willingness to return at a moment’s notice if needed. He also has suggested that his constituents are against his presidential bid because they don’t want to lose him.
“They want me to stay,” Mr. Christie said on Fox News this year. “I’ve heard that from lots of people at town hall meetings. ‘Don’t leave to run for president because we want you to stay.'”
Some would like him to make up his mind on what job he wants to do. An editorial in The Asbury Park Press last month said that Mr. Christie’s absence has hurt his job performance as governor.
“Christie should face reality, and either get back to the job he was elected to do — and has failed to do for the better part of three years — or let someone else do the job for him,” the newspaper said.
Moon Colony Idea No Lunacy, Says a Starry-Eyed Jeb Bush
CONCORD, N.H. – It was among the most memorable campaign pledges of the 2012 presidential race: In a Newt Gingrich administration, the onetime House speaker vowed, the United States would colonize the moon.
Debate audiences laughed. So did some competitors. But at least one viewer, it seems, was moved by the cosmic challenge: Jeb Bush.
Campaigning in New Hampshire on Wednesday, Mr. Bush professed a soft spot for the idea. “People started laughing,” he told voters at a town hall-style event, recalling Mr. Gingrich’s remarks. “And I’m thinking, ‘Really?’ I think it’s pretty cool.”
Mr. Bush did not offer anything approaching an extensive plan. (There is no space travel section of his stump speech; he was responding to a woman in the audience who asked how Mr. Bush would reinvigorate the space program.)
And he acknowledged that such efforts were “not risk-averse kind of enterprises.”
Yet, citing the significance of space travel to Florida, where he served as governor, Mr. Bush wondered aloud what was “wrong about having big, aspirational goals.”
“It’s not in the absence of taking care of the hungry or the poor,” he said. “We’re a big country, we’re a generous country, and the benefits of this are far more than people realize.”
Mr. Bush said the country should partner with “dreamers in the private sector,” mentioning the business magnate and inventor Elon Musk by name, and noted the importance of persuading people that there were benefits to space travel “in the here and now, benefits on planet Earth, when we have a zeal for discovery.”
In recent days, Mr. Bush’s enthusiasm for the subject has been clear. During a speech about his health care proposals on Tuesday, Mr. Bush invoked the words of President John F. Kennedy, recalling his stirring call to put an American on the moon.
And on Wednesday, when the questioner said she had lived on Florida’s Space Coast, Mr. Bush offered her a modest fist bump.
Speaking to reporters afterward, Mr. Bush was asked whom he might place in charge of his moon colony. “There’s lots of people that could be effective leaders of the moon,” he said dryly. “Let me think about it.”
Bernie Sanders Has Fund-Raiser at Fancy Hollywood Home
Senator Bernie Sanders has repeatedly denounced campaigns that he says are built around their candidates attending fund-raisers. He has insisted he will not “go out hustling money from the wealthiest people in the country,” and declared at the first Democratic debate that he is “not raising money from millionaires and billionaires.”
Yet Mr. Sanders was cheered at a fancy campaign fund-raiser at the Hollywood home of Syd Leibovitch, a high-end real estate agent, and his wife, Linda, on Wednesday night.
Tickets for the event sold for a minimum of $500. Those who spent the maximum, $2,700, or who raised $10,000, were invited to a “pre-event reception,” according to the invitation.
The 14 co-hosts included Cindy Asner, the former wife of the actor Ed Asner, the actress Mimi Kennedy, and Benjamin W. Decker, whose website notes that he was once called the “legendary Hollywood P.R. maven” by Forbes magazine, and used to produce “celebrity-driven red-carpet movie premieres.”
Mr. Sanders has repeatedly talked on the campaign trail about how small-dollar donations are driving his campaign war chest — he raised $26 million in the third fund-raising quarter, primarily in small increments.
But the fund-raiser at the Leibovitch home was the type of event that most politicians typically hold. According to a pool report, guests dressed in blazers, jeans and cocktail dresses were treated to valet parking, and aides estimated about $150,000 would be raised from roughly 300 people there. It was the ninth such event of his campaign, his aides said, according to the pool report.
As Mr. Sanders began speaking to the guests, he joked that the Leibovitch house was a “proletariat” home, and told them, “The truth is there are many people in this country who have money but also believe in social justice.”
The nighttime event was part of a busy Wednesday for Mr. Sanders in California, including the taping of a fun appearance on the “Ellen DeGeneres Show” and another less-fancy fund-raiser at the Avalon Hollywood nightclub.
Michael Briggs, a spokesman for Mr. Sanders, insisted the Leibovitch event was “not particularly high-dollar,” and said there was no contradiction between such a fund-raiser and the candidate’s campaign-finance oratory about not “sitting around in small rooms talking to very wealthy people.”
“He still does not have a ‘super PAC,'” Mr. Briggs said, adding that he does not want one and that the words “‘lion’s share’ doesn’t begin to say how much his campaign relies on small contributions.”
Marco Rubio Moves Into Jeb Bush’s Fund-Raising Turf
As Jeb Bush’s campaign prepares to hold a fund-raiser in Connecticut, for which buying a ticket is not required, the main rival who he has been watching, Marco Rubio, is picking up the support of one of the state’s wealthy hedge fund managers, according to an invitation to an event next month.
Mr. Rubio’s campaign will hold a fund-raiser on Nov. 5 at the home of Alex and Christine Seaver in New Canaan, Conn. Tickets to the event will cost the maximum price, $2,700, that can be donated in the nominating race, the invitation to the event shows.
Connecticut has long been considered Mr. Bush’s turf, given the family’s connection to the state — his grandfather, Prescott Bush, served as a senator there.
But Mr. Bush’s campaign has been struggling to raise campaign cash over the last few months, as his numbers in the polls have not moved. Mr. Rubio, the Florida senator, has been trying to capitalize on the nervousness of Mr. Bush’s donors.
Mr. Bush, the former Florida governor, is holding an event this weekend in Connecticut, to which attendees have been invited at no cost. While Mr. Bush’s fund-raiser was touted as an event people could attend for free, his aides insisted they were still able to raise roughly $275,000 for it.
First Draft Focus: Throwback Thursday — Public Speaking 101
Hillary Clinton Stops for Ice Cream on Her Vegas Roll
Hillary Rodham Clinton turned to the president of the union who had just endorsed her in Nevada on Wednesday and said, “I’m feeling really lucky in Las Vegas.”
And while she was clearly kidding – Mrs. Clinton would surely attribute her well-received debate performance to much more than luck – her campaign seems to be feeling like it is on a little bit of a Vegas roll.
Aside from positive feedback from her debate performance, the campaign also saw her chief rival for the Democratic nomination, Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, criticize the inquiries into her emails. She picked up a union endorsement, from the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades, and she is flying overnight to Texas to receive the endorsement of Julián Castro, the former mayor of San Antonio and the current secretary of Housing and Urban Development.
And none are more pleased with the moment than the candidate herself.
Mrs. Clinton made an unscheduled stop at La Flor de Michoacan, an ice cream shop in North Las Vegas, trying a number of flavors before settling on a lime ice. She wandered the shop, joking and laughing with Nelson Araujo, a state assemblyman who accompanied her there. Then she moved outside, where she aw-ed over a baby and posed for several pictures, including one with a Chihuahua.
And before she bounded on the stage at her night rally in an amphitheater just off the Vegas Strip, a mariachi band played two upbeat, up-tempo songs before a choir led the crowd in a rendition of “Lean on Me,” the same song Mrs. Clinton sang during her recent “Saturday Night Live” performance.
“It is so good to be here with all of you,” Mrs. Clinton said as she took the stage, talking through the extended cheers and asking “Did we have a good debate last night?” Then she paused, smiled and let the cheers answer.
Bernie Sanders and His Lighter Side Appear on ‘Ellen’
BURBANK, Calif. — Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont tried to dance as he entered the stage for a taping of “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” here on Wednesday afternoon, pointing and clapping (not quite on the beat). He laughed along with the crowd as Ms. DeGeneres compared his hair to her wife’s. And, after some hesitation, he even answered a question about which member of the band One Direction was his favorite (“maybe Harry,” he said), drawing perhaps his loudest applause of the day.
The day after a Democratic debate in which many pundits agreed Hillary Rodham Clinton had outflanked him, the appearance on “Ellen” offered Mr. Sanders the chance to show some levity.
Humor has hardly been a Sanders trademark. Instead, he has built surprisingly strong support by haranguing Wall Street and its excesses, with huge rallies punctuated more by yells and scowls than laughs.
But on Wednesday, playing to a different crowd, most of his lines about the 1 percent did not garner as many cheers as his admission that he preferred briefs over boxers.
While sitting on the “hot seat,” the candidate, who has so often spoken about the need to focus on “the real issues facing this country,” said he asked his wife if she had a crush on any celebrities (sitting in the crowd, she demurred) and admitted that if he had to be stranded on a desert island with one Republican candidate, he would pick Senator Marco Rubio of Florida. “He’s used to the sun,” Mr. Sanders said.
His favorite song to sing at karaoke? He couldn’t remember the name. It was from “Saturday Night Fever.”
Ms. DeGeneres encouraged him to sing it. But Mr. Sanders did not rise to the bait. “You know how it goes,” he said. “John Travolta, walking down the street.”
She finally answered, “Stayin’ Alive.”
Ms. DeGeneres has proved a popular, if unlikely, campaign stop for Democrats this election cycle. She did not, however, always make it easy on Mr. Sanders: Right off the bat, she replayed the moment from the night before when he said he was sick of discussing Mrs. Clinton’s “damn emails,” thereby defending his rival on her point of weakness.
But Mr. Sanders did not back down from that decision, holding it up as an example of his refusal to play the kind of politics he is campaigning against.
“I’m very proud to say, I’ve never run a negative political ad in my entire life, and I’ve been attacked a whole lot,” he said.
He was a long way from the campaign rallies where he has drawn throngs denouncing Wall Street excesses. And though he at times looked awkward, no one could accuse him of not trying to have fun with Ms. DeGeneres.
He danced again — or, at least, tried — on the out, still clapping off the beat. Although it was clear his nature always led him back toward the stern and serious, he did try to get in his jokes when the opportunities presented themselves.
When asked if he had ever been in handcuffs, he responded with, “I don’t know exactly what you mean by that,” he said, drawing a huge laugh.
But then he began the serious explanation. “I take it to mean was I ever arrested by the police,” he said, and the guffaws subsided.
Debate Performance Adds Little to Lincoln Chafee’s Daunting Numbers
First, there was Rick Perry. Then, Scott Walker.
Will Lincoln Chafee be the next presidential candidate to pack it in?
His campaign already on life support, a fledgling Democratic debate performance did nothing to bolster his White House hopes. Mr. Chaffee, the former senator and governor of Rhode Island, spoke for just nine minutes, and when he did get to speak, he stumbled.
“You’re going to wind up looking silly if you keep going on like this,” Wolf Blitzer, the CNN anchor, said to Mr. Chafee in an interview on Wednesday.
Mr. Chafee says that he wants to carry on, but the numbers are getting increasingly daunting. Polls are showing him getting closer to zero, and he acknowledged that he has raised only about $30,000 from donors.
Independently wealthy, Mr. Chafee has invested about $300,000 of his own money into his cause and has been running on a shoestring budget. He drives himself to events and makes only sporadic trips to New Hampshire and Iowa.
Still, Mr. Chafee is holding out hope that his antiwar message can catch on and that Mrs. Clinton, Mr. Sanders and his other rivals will stumble, paving his way to the Democratic nomination.
“It’s still early in the campaign,” Mr. Chafee said in a statement. “If they like my message, I hope Democratic primary voters will support me.”
If not, he could be the next candidate to call it quits.
Harry Reid Criticizes New Hampshire’s First-in-the-Nation Status
New Hampshire residents are notoriously protective of their first-in-the-nation primary status and quite sensitive to suggestions that their state might not be the most representative of the 50. Senator Harry Reid, the Democratic leader, is notoriously plain-spoken about things that irk him.
Those two realities collided this week as New Hampshirites of both parties took offense at Mr. Reid’s suggestion that New Hampshire was neither diverse enough nor populated enough to serve such an important presidential selection function.
“You go to New Hampshire, there are not any minorities there, and nobody lives there,” Mr. Reid said in a public interview with Paul Kane of The Washington Post in an event held in conjunction with the Democratic presidential debate in Las Vegas.
Well, somebody lives there, including Senator Kelly Ayotte, a Republican who faces a tough re-election fight against Gov. Maggie Hassan, a Democrat, in one of the marquee Senate battles of 2016. On Wednesday, Ms. Ayotte’s campaign sought to cash in on Mr. Reid’s comment, circulating a fund-raising email that asks donors to “kick in $5 for a senator who knows New Hampshire represents America’s best!”
Ms. Hassan and Senator Jeanne Shaheen, Ms. Ayotte’s Democratic colleague, also took umbrage with the statement by Mr. Reid, who offered a grudging apology. Mr. Reid is retiring and not running for re-election next year, raising the prospect that his more unrestrained and unfiltered comments could spice up races around the nation as Democrats try to win the Senate back.
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