Overnight Campaign: A Kinder, Gentler, Republican Debate
Welcome to OVERNIGHT CAMPAIGN, your daily rundown from The Hill on all the latest news in the White House, Senate and House races.
It seems like the last Republican debate was only two minutes ago, but tomorrow night the candidates are back on stage.
The Fox Business hosts are promising to run a “better,” less biased debate than the CNBC “cage match” so memorably attacked by Texas Sen. Ted Cruz.
Meantime, the GOP field keeps rearranging itself. The outsiders — retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson and billionaire celebrity Donald Trump — are still safely atop national polls, but the Washington consensus is increasingly that Jeb Bush is fading and that the race will eventually narrow to Rubio and Cruz.
Come back to TheHill.com tomorrow morning to see which Republican most worries Clintonworld and which candidate is doing everything on schedule. In the meantime, read the report by The Hill’s Jonathan Easley about the test Carson faces at Tuesday’s debate.
RACE TO 1600 PENN
AGING BADLY: The Hill’s Niall Stanage reports: While Democrats are having great success attracting younger voters, the same cannot be said of the party’s ability to recruit young talented politicians into its ranks. The Democratic Party enters the 2016 election with its standard-bearers all over the age of 65.
WELCOME TO THE BIG LEAGUES: The Hill’s Jordan Fabian reports: The White House on Monday rejected Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson’s claim that he is facing tougher scrutiny than President Obama did during his 2008 campaign. White House press secretary Josh Earnest said Carson shouldn’t be surprised about tough questions now he’s risen in the polls. “It isn’t easy to run for president,” Earnest said.
I SWEAR I WON’T GO NEGATIVE: The Hill’s Bradford Richardson reports: Bernie Sanders makes another obscure attack on some unnamed person. The Vermont independent tells CNN that unlike certain “people” — (he couldn’t possibly be referring to Hillary and Bill Clinton) — Sanders and his wife did not plan a “30-year route to become president.”
CLINTON TOUTS COLLEGE PLAN: The Hill’s Bradford Richardson reports: Hillary Clinton’s campaign launched a new television spot that emphasizes her commitment to debt-free public college.
ODDS AND ENDS:
THEY PLAY DIRTY IN LOUISIANA: The Hill’s Ben Kamisar reports: Sen. David Vitter confronts his past history with a prostitution scandal in a new ad for his gubernatorial campaign after his Democratic opponent harshly condemned him on the issue in an ad of his own.
KILLING BABY HITLER: The Hill’s Mark Hensch reports: Former Gov. Jeb Bush (R-Fla.) said in an interview Monday that he would personally kill an infant Adolf Hitler. “Hell yeah, I would!” he told The Huffington Post when asked about killing the Nazi leader as a baby.
A PLAN? WHO NEEDS A PLAN? The super-PAC CARLY for America, which supports (you guessed it!) Carly Fiorina, is out with a new ad chiding politicians for prioritizing plans instead of results. The spot comes one day after Fiorina sparred with NBC’s Chuck Todd on “Meet the Press,” where he asked her why she hasn’t yet released a detailed tax plan.
POLL POSITION
CARSON’S SWEET CAROLINA: The Hill’s Jonathan Easley reports: Ben Carson and Donald Trump are locked in a virtual tie in South Carolina with big leads over the rest of Republican presidential field. Carson takes 28 percent in the state, while Trump scores 27 percent, according to a Monmouth University survey released on Monday. Trump’s support has held nearly steady. Carson, meanwhile, has now nearly doubled his support in the Palmetto State.
DEMOCRATIC COMEBACK: “A post-2016 Democratic Senate majority seems within reach,” says Democrat-aligned firm Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research, in a new survey of battleground voters.
THE DAILY TRUMP
12-MINUTES OF FAME: The Hill’s Mario Trujillo reports: Donald Trump appeared on NBC’s “Saturday Night Live” for 12 minutes and five seconds over the weekend — a benchmark other presidential candidates can use if they want to trigger the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) “equal opportunity” rules.
CRUZING TO TRUMP: The Hill’s Ben Kamisar reports: Donald Trump has signed former Ted Cruz supporter and Tea Party activist Katrina Pierson as his new national spokeswoman, the campaign announced Monday afternoon.
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“The problem with going back in history and doing that, as we know from the series — what’s the series with Michael J. Fox called? The ‘Back to the Future’ series — is that it could have a dangerous effect on everything else,” — Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush, on whether he would kill baby Hitler.
CONGRESSIONAL CAMPAIGNS
WHERE’S THE TEA PARTY? The Hill’s Ben Kamisar reports: Republican Senate incumbents look to be largely free of tough primary challenges by Tea Party candidates that could complicate the party’s efforts to retain the Senate during the pivotal 2016 election.
TAKING ON THE ESTABLISHMENT: National Journal reports on the Democratic strategists who are helping underdog candidates like Bernie Sanders and Cincinnati Councilman P.G. Sittenfeld take down establishment favorites in 2016.
SITTING PRETTY: Crain’s Chicago Business reports: Rep. Tammy Duckworth leads a local poll of the Democratic Senate primary with 25 percent of the vote. Thirteen percent backed former NFL linebacker and current state lawmaker Napoleon Harris, who commissioned the poll, while just 5 percent supported former Chicago Urban League president Andrea Zopp and more than half the voters were undecided. Harris is a new entry to the race and it’s unclear how he’ll affect the standing in the long term. Zopp polled at 10 percent in a July Public Policy Polling poll, behind Duckworth’s 59 percent.
MONEY WATCH
PINCHING THEIR PENNIES: A deep-dive by CNN into why Ted Cruz’s well-funded super-PACs have been doing not much at all.
WHAT WE ARE WATCHING FOR TODAY AND TOMORROW:
(All times Eastern)
Florida Democratic Senate candidate Alan Grayson is scheduled to be a guest on MSNBC’s “All In with Chris Hayes” at 8 p.m. Monday.
Fox Business anchor Maria Bartiromo will be on “The O’Reilly Factor” at 8 p.m. Monday to talk about her strategy as one of Tuesday night’s GOP debate moderators.
Chris Christie is a guest on “The Kelly File” on Fox News at 9 p.m. Monday.
Donald Trump and Marco Rubio join Sean Hannity at 10 p.m. on Fox News on Monday.
Tuesday’s “MSNBC Live with Tamron Hall” at 11 a.m. is scheduled to include guests Armstrong Williams, friend and adviser to Ben Carson (and a contributor to The Hill), as well as Sarah Isgur Flores, deputy campaign manager for Carly Fiorina.
Chris Christie, Mike Huckabee, Rick Santorum and Bobby Jindal take part in the 7 p.m. Tuesday debate hosted by Fox Business-Wall Street Journal. You can find the channel listing here.
Stay tuned to the 9 p.m. main GOP debate on Fox Business to hear Donald Trump, Ben Carson, Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, Jeb Bush, Carly Fiorina, John Kasich and Rand Paul.
TWEET OF THE DAY
Yet another Republican refuses to make it easier to vote. What part of democracy are they so afraid of? -H https://t.co/P4Y4VHr6nS
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) November 9, 2015
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