"Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker has expanded his early lead in Iowa..."

"...while former Florida Governor Jeb Bush continues to face headwinds and Senator Marco Rubio of Florida shows upside potential in the state that hosts the first 2016 presidential nomination balloting...."

�Scott Walker�s momentum puts him solidly in first place,� said J. Ann Selzer, president of West Des Moines-based Selzer & Co., which conducted the poll. �For the time being, he�s doing the right things to make the right first impression.�

"There are five leaders � or no leaders � as Republican voters look at likely GOP candidates in the 2016 White House race..."

"... with no candidate above 10 percent and 20 percent undecided, according to a Quinnipiac University National poll released today."

Watch it with me: George Pataki announces his bid for the GOP nomination.

1. Blowy curtains looking out from a high level onto New York City = vague reminder of 9/11. George Pataki was governor of New York when the attacks occurred. The camera advances and the the white curtains � ghosts of the past � move out of view and we look on the city � we recovered from 9/11, with the help of George Petaki.

2. We see the dramatically shadowed face of Pataki, talking about "our uncertain future." He's wearing a zip-up windbreaker, an open-collared plaid shirt, and a grim expression. Blurred in the background is a painting of a sunrise... or sunset... which? I don't know. The future is uncertain.

3. "We are founded on a miracle � a heroic past." He's back to the past, much further in the past than 9/11, and he's back to the window. It's evening... or is it dawn? I don't know. The future is uncertain. He's putting on a tie. Going to work? For us? The view is out over the city again. NYC, I assume. He's got a nice apartment. Makes me wonder what he's been up to since he stopped being governor 9 years ago. (Wikipedia says he's a lawyer at Chadbourne & Parke, concentrating on renewable energy.)

4. Speaking of "courage," the "God-given liberty of the human spirit," and "inventors, visionaries, and heroes," he's tying his shoes. It's a closeup. Could just be stock footage. I don't want to mislead you. Anyway, you know inventors, visionaries, and heroes do put their shoes on in the morning... or when they're going out for the evening. Whichever. Now, Pataki is putting on a tie � a blue tie � and some lady is helping him. Not to the point of tying it for him. Petaki is a man who ties his shoes and his tie. We see his nice apartment again. He's used his God-given liberty well, I presume.

5. Now, we see rain on a windshield of a car and Pataki intones about Washington � "too big," "too intrusive." That's "exactly what the Founding Fathers feared." There's a close-up of Pataki's face as he says with some emphasis that it's time to protect our freedom and "take back this government." He tells us he was a Republican governor in a "deep blue state" for 3 terms. (That one-ups Scott Walker, who's only completed one term as governor, in a not-all-that-blue state.)

6. But he started small. He was the mayor of Peekskill. We see him walking on a stone jetty. 1:27: DOGS!!! 2 Labradors. Black and chocolate. He's scratching the ears of the chocolate. The dog kisses him. He cares about people. We see nice, smiling people. This is the I'm-a-normal-person part of the video. Cares about people like you. He tells people in a bar that they're what we need to make this country work. They give him enthusiastic applause... right after he says "And lunch is on me."

7. Views of the rebuilt World Trade Center site. "When we stand together, we can accomplish anything." That's what he saw after 9/11, when we understood that "We are all Americans." We see more high views of the city and this time we see the Freedom Tower (from Tower 4, which overlooks it). The words "We the People" appear on the screen, and he uses "We the People..." 3 times. The phrase "stand together" reappears. Text on screen asserts that Pataki led New York after the 9/11 attacks. (I note for the first time that the word "attack" is embedded in his name.) "What unites us is so much more important than what might seem superficially to divide us." Most politicians would say "What unites us is much more important than what divides us." I feel there's some insight to be gained from the "so" � it's a tad emotive � and, especially, the "might seem superficially" � which suggests education, precision, and lawyerliness and functions to deny that we are divided in any significant way at all.

8. Now some quick images flash: the original flag, the Founding Fathers, Lincoln with Union soldiers, Confederate soldiers, the men raising the flag at Iwo Jima, an astronaut with the flag on the moon, the Twin Towers "Tribute of Light," a big flag. The voice over is: "We have to fall in love with America again." Text on screen: "United We Stand." Then: "What will We the People stand for?" Then: "Pataki for President."

9. One more look at the Freedom Tower, seen from Tower 4, with Pataki speaking about "reclaiming the skyline" and "coming back stronger and better."

10. So: A good introductory video. You want a governor? I am that governor. Look what I've been through. Look where I was. He's been out of the public eye for an awfully long time, and he seems rather dull. But as long as we're looking through the whole deck, he belongs in the group.  

I love the new New Yorker cover.

It's "Suiting Up" by Mark Ulriksen.



Great style and substance. We looked at this one and talked about it for 15 minutes.

Here's Amy Davidson's article about the cover and about all the old covers depicting Hillary Clinton. (You see her way in the back in the window to the door of the men's locker room in the new one.)

I'm keeping track of the media's use of the "clown" metaphor to describe the GOP.

My theory is that this is a tell and that what it really indicates is anxiety about there only being one candidate on the Democratic side. The "clown" idea is usually expressed as "clown car." That is, it's a way to say there are an awful lot of individuals crammed into a space that shouldn't be able to hold so many.

But this morning I'm seeing "clown show," which either assumes we know the "show" is the old car routine or hopes to get away with simply portraying Republicans as ridiculous:

"The Koch brothers try to rein in the GOP presidential clown show." (A WaPo headline for an article that doesn't contain the word "clown." This article currently ranks #1 on WaPo's "most read" list.)

ADDED: Remember the time Obama was portrayed as a clown? It was a time of outrage! 

"Is David Letterman a nihilist? Or just Midwestern?/Why Rubio wouldn�t have a lock on the Hispanic vote..."

"Will Bill drag Hill down?/Bob: We�ve played right into ISIS�s recruiting narrative/Did Obama bungle Iraq and Syria?Ann and Bob debate the merits of Twitter."

That's the official listing of the topics � not exactly how I would put it � in this diavlog I did with Bob Wright yesterday.



That's the whole hour. I'm about to watch it, and I'll try to find some good, short snippets to entertain the video-averse among you. It's actually one of the topics in there: How people don't really want to watch video of any length!

ADDED: The argument that Rubio isn't the right kind of Hispanic:

"Suspects in the recent biker brawl in Waco, Texas, only slightly outnumber the 2016 Republican Presidential candidates, leading some voters to have difficulty distinguishing between the two groups, a new poll shows."

Ha ha, very funny, but... just let me say 5 things:

1. Seven... eight... who remembers?... human beings got murdered killed in that Twin Peaks shoot out and no one cares. Should we be a little ashamed of taking murder death so lightly?

2. These people all stand accused of mass murder organized crime, and it's just some kind of meaningless joke:



3. It would be funny if that were animated and they all started looking around at each other "Brady Bunch" style.

4. We're being prodded to think of the numerosity of the GOP field of candidates as absurd. (How will they debate?) I keep seeing GOP-disparagers calling the group a "clown car." What's really going on? I say it's displacement of anxiety over the extreme opposite happening on the other side: only Hillary.

5. What will we get tired of first, the only-ness of Hillary or the overly-ness of the GOP? I've been giving this a lot of thought. It's complicated. Hillary has been trying to avoid too much attention, and if there's no action, maybe attention will be lavished on the GOP and we'll get tired of them as a group. But won't they be attacking her? She can't sit back and hope we don't think about her for the next year. And I don't see the GOP candidates attacking each other. Hillary and her allies can't do very well attacking the GOP candidates. Which ones would she pick on, and why help the GOP thin the crowd? To do so would not only strengthen the remaining group, it would require her to take positions and get specific, making her an easier target.

"Warren met privately with 'Draft Warren' supporters."

"The Massachusetts senator recently huddled with progressives affiliated with the campaign urging her to run for president. Her office insists she was unaware of any connection."

"Democrats will announce Tuesday six presidential primary debates, giving long shots a potential opportunity to share the debate stage with frontrunner Hillary Clinton..."

CNN reports.

I'd have said: ... six presidential primary debates, giving Hillary Clinton shockingly long stretches of time to bore the pants off us.

I mean, I'd say that today, even though I'd like to place a bet that she's going to withdraw from the race before the primaries begin. If you'd give me good enough odds....

Masculinity is hard.

I was just noticing a few days ago that Elspeth Reeve seems to have the Hillary + gender gig at the New Republic. She's the one who wrote the much-linked "Why Do So Many People Hate the Sound of Hillary Clinton's Voice?"

Her new one is "No Campaigns for Manly Men." Supposedly, without the broad, loud-mouthed, bullying Chris Christie in the presidential race, we have no "manly men." You might want to challenge that characterization of Christie, but that's the way Reeve presents him as she sets up her argument that the real men are gone.

Who�s the manly man�s man of the right? It�s not a politician like Ted Cruz, who exudes �televangelist� more than �cowboy.� It�s not a pundit like Glenn Beck, who cries over the Constitution and sells premium dad jeans. Marco Rubio, Rand Paul, Bobby Jindal�they�re all kind of cute, and certainly non-threatening. Jeb Bush is selling himself as the Smart Bush.

"Manly man�s man"? What is this category we're supposed to believe in and care about? Is a "manly man�s man" something beyond a mere "manly man" or a "man�s man"? What the hell are we talking about? Reeve doesn't proceed to analyze what manliness means to people as they search for a political leader. She just consults the linguist Geoff Nunburg:

�It�s hard to think of manly men,� Nunberg mused. 

Is musing manly? Nunberg's got nunthing.

Guys like Jim Webb of Virginia. 

I guess that's Reeve's prompt to the musing Nunberg. Subtext: Democrats have a manly man.

�Christie was going to be that but Christie�s a joke.� Or at least, people are starting to see him as one, Nunberg said. He could only think of the manly man�s cousin: the asshole. Nunberg explained: "Assholes do very well on the right in particular. I wrote a book about assholes..."

Nunberg opines that Ted Cruz is "clearly an asshole," which makes Nunberg sound like an asshole. I mean, the guy wrote a book about assholes. Asked to talk about manliness, his instincts were to shift to a topic he understood (assholes), to push his own book, and to take an easy swipe at a convenient other ("the right").

Masculinity is hard.

"If they're all saying the same thing I am, fantastic. The more the merrier, bring em on."

"Let's talk about what our ideals are. The only thing I'm going to be doing is to encouraging people to think for themselves. Listen and think for yourself. Don't listen to pundits and the people who try to control everything."

Said Ben Carson, who just announced that he is running for the GOP nomination.

"The main thing I'm hoping is that a lot of young people will recognize themselves in me, recognize that they themselves are the most influential factor in achieving their goals...."

"Scott Walker enters the Republican presidential race with far stronger ties to the party�s biggest fund-raisers than any other candidate besides Jeb Bush."

Derek Willis at the NYT analyzes Federal Election Commission records and state records:

Roughly half of the nation�s top 250 Republican donors have given money to Mr. Walker in his campaigns for Wisconsin governor.... By comparison, 30 percent have given to Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, 20 percent to Senator Ted Cruz of Texas and 10 percent to Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey....

Mr. Walker�s previous support from Republican donors... can ease his path to raising money... Beyond money, the support from donors is a sign to other party leaders that he is a serious candidate....

Mr. Walker pulled in many of the top party donors during his 2012 recall contest, which attracted national attention....

"Head Start for Jeb Bush Campaign Is Part of Scott Walker�s Plan."

NYT headline. Excerpt:

In emphasizing their long-range strategy, Mr. Walker�s advisers are seeking to lower expectations ahead of the first fund-raising totals for most candidates and their �super PACs,� which will be made public in mid-July. They also want to minimize expectations at this stage for Mr. Walker as a head-to-head competitor against Mr. Bush, who talks about policy with greater ease and confidence.

Advisers to Mr. Walker do not see any choice: Mr. Bush is raising money prodigiously, telling donors at a private gathering in Miami last weekend that his political organization was set to break political fund-raising records. Mr. Walker believes his best shot is to peak as a well-prepared, solidly financed candidate as Iowa, New Hampshire and other states start voting in February and March.

"We will support whoever the candidate is. But it should be Scott Walker."

Said David Koch of the notorious Koch Brothers.

"I think you see the Scooby-Doo van if you're a Democrat and you say 'ruh roh,'" said Dana Milbank...

... on "Face the Nation" this morning. The subject was that it's a big problem for Democrats that there are no other candidates. And this was right after an interview with Martin O'Malley. Milbank's comment on O'Malley was:

[I]n that interview he was hardly challenging Hillary at all. And I think if he's going to sit there say I did good job as mayor of Baltimore, and I was a good governor, I mean he has as much chance of landing on the White House as if he's going in there in [a] gyrocopter. It's not going to happen unless he takes her on more forcefully.

And that characterization of O'Malley's interview is pretty apt. The moderator, Bob Schieffer, had tried to prompt him to take on Hillary, but look how flat that fell:
Click for more �

Rubio declares.

"Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, a telegenic rising star with appeal to conservative and establishment Republicans, told donors in a conference call today that he will run for president...."

"The Best Reason to Take Rand Paul Seriously Has Nothing to Do With His Politics."

Writes Jim Rutenberg in the NYT.

[T]he ground game that [Paul's] team is planning is pure realpolitik. His staff is focused on the delegate math and party rules that could determine the next Republican nominee � a game-theory style of presidential politics at which the Paul team is particularly adept....

[I]n a close-fought, state-by-state contest between two or more competitive candidates, the campaign that best understands the intricacies of delegate allotment will have a real edge � and at this point, that campaign is almost certainly Paul�s. Like Obama in 2008, Paul is a first-term senator who, aware of his underdog status, is spending the campaign�s early days planning for all the scenarios it can envision.

I hope she's starting a conversation with America.

"[Hillary Clinton] is scheduled to declare her second run for president on Twitter at noon eastern time on Sunday...  followed by a video and email announcement, then a series of conference calls mapping out a blitzkrieg tour beginning in Iowa and looking ahead to more early primary states."

My headline � which is what I said out loud on reading the news � is a reference to Hillary's last launch, in January 2007. As I wrote at the time, on first watching her video announcement:

It's all about the dialogue, the chat, the conversation:

I�m not just starting a campaign, though, I�m beginning a conversation � with you, with America. Because we all need to be part of the discussion if we�re all going to be part of the solution. And all of us have to be part of the solution.

Let�s talk about....

And let�s definitely talk about...

So let�s talk. Let�s chat. Let�s start a dialogue about your ideas and mine.

Because the conversation in Washington has been just just a little one-sided lately, don�t you think? And we can all see how well that works.

And while I can�t visit everyone�s living room, I can try. And with a little help from modern technology, I�ll be holding live online video chats this week, starting Monday.

So let the conversation begin. I have a feeling it�s going to be very interesting.

We've been talking with Hillary now for such a long, long time....

"I am running for president to return our country to the principles of liberty and limited government."

Says Rand Paul.

How Ted Cruz answers the no-executive-experience/aren't-you-just-like-Barack-Obama question.