HILLARY CLINTON'S 2016 VP PICK IS KASIM REED?? BIG MISTAKE (RUMORS)

HILLARY CLINTON'S 2016 VP PICK IS KASIM REED?? BIG MISTAKE (RUMORS)

BETTER CHOICES:  JULIAN CASTRO OR ELIZABETH WARREN

Sources: AJC, 11Alive, WSB, YouTube

There are political rumors floating that 2016 Democrat presidential Frontrunner HILLARY CLINTON has added Atlanta Mayor KASIM REED to her VP pick shortlist.

If this rumor has legs or any credibility, I want to scream from the top of my lungs to Hillary's campaign staff, "NO!"

Before anyone takes this rumor seriously, I would encourage you to visit the city of Atlanta and risk driving over a death-defying Pothole.

Visit Atlanta and stuff your mouth with some Greasy, Ghetto fare.

By the way where are Atlanta's FARMERS MARKETS in the BLACK communities??

Finally I want to encourage you to travel through Atlanta's Hartsfield Airport and experienced being treated like Dirt by Atlanta's arrogant, extremely rude TSA agents who are arrogant & rude by choice.

Atlanta needs more Diversity as in WHITE voters and a WHITE Mayor to cancel out years of Complacent leadership practiced by BLACK leaders who have neglected their constituents.

Hillary Clinton choosing Kasim Reed as her VP is a long shot at this stage in the game.

A better choice would be someone like JULIAN CASTRO or ELIZABETH WARREN.

Kasim Reed would be a good fit for Congress one day but as a VP, let's just say he is not ready yet for politics on such a grand scale national level.

Kasim Reed is a skilled politician but he is NOT on Obama's level......yet.

**** Is Kasim Reed in the running to be vice president?

Hillary Clinton hasn’t locked up the Democratic nomination yet, but rumors are swirling already about her possible vice presidential pick. And one of the names that’s floating out there, at least among some in the local punditry class, is that of Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed.

A local television crew on Wednesday asked the two-term Atlanta mayor, who appeared with Clinton at a campaign event last week, whether he’s been approached. He answered it the way virtually any politician would:

I don’t have any comment on that. I don’t know anything about it. The only thing I’m focused on is being the mayor of the city of Atlanta and going out and doing a great job for Secretary Clinton and making sure she’s the next president. I feel about this campaign the way I felt in 2012 when President Obama was running.

I don’t think any American can sit and watch what is going on in our national discourse and not want to get involved on one side or the other. We will hash it out and pick a president. I haven’t been asked to be considered for the vice presidency. I don’t know anything about that. The only thing I’m focused on is being mayor.

Recall, too, that Sen. David Perdue has answered similar questions about the possibility of being a running mate.

Reed also told our AJC colleague Scott Trubey that Democrats should count on Donald Trump to be the GOP nominee.

“I expect Mr. Trump to be the nominee unless they engineer a way to take the nomination from him. He’s either going to be the nominee or there are going to be a lot of people who voted for him that are going to have a lot of frustration because to avoid him being the nominee they are going to have to engineer a way to prevent him from getting it.”

NIKKI HALEY TO DELIVER GOP RESPONSE TO OBAMA'S 2016 SOTU ADDRESS (CONFEDERATE FLAG)

NIKKI HALEY TO DELIVER GOP RESPONSE TO OBAMA'S 2016 SOTU ADDRESS (CONFEDERATE FLAG):

GOV HALEY IS A GREAT VP PICK; WOULD ATTRACT MANY WOMEN VOTERS IN NOV 2016.

South Carolina's first legally elected Woman Governor NIKKI HALEY, has been selected to deliver the GOP's response to Pres OBAMA's 2016 State of the Union Address.

Along with receiving Kudos for demanding the CONFEDERATE FLAG be removed from South Carolina's state Capitol, there are several legitimate reasons why NIKKI HALEY would be a Perfect choice as Vice-President pick on the 2016 GOP ticket.

~ Paul Ryan: "Nikki Haley Has Extremely Bright Future In The GOP"

South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley is a "natural" and will deliver a "great" response to the State of the Union, House Speaker Paul Ryan said Monday.

Haley will respond to President Barack Obama's speech for the Republican Party on Tuesday, an honor bestowed on rising stars in the GOP. 

The high-profile event has been both a launching pad for careers and an opportunity for embarrassment, depending on how the politician performs.

But the recently minted House speaker told Jake Tapper on CNN's "The Lead" that he helped pick Haley because he believes the Indian-American governor, who is rumored as a contender for the vice presidential nominee, will knock it out of the park.

"I'm really excited about this," Ryan said. "If you want to hear an inclusive leader who's visionary, who's got a path for the future, who's brought people together, who's unified, it's Nikki Haley."

Ryan himself gave the response in 2011, a year before he was tapped to be the running mate of Mitt Romney in an unsuccessful bid to take the White House.

"Believe me, I understand the stakes can be high for a person doing this speech," Ryan said. "I think she's a natural."

He also divulged some of the advice he gave Haley, big and small.

"Put a cough drop in the corner of your mouth, it keeps you salivating so you don't go thirsty," Ryan said. Florida Sen. Marco Rubio famously had to awkwardly reach for water during his response in 2013.

But in seriousness, Ryan said he just told her to be herself.

PREVIOUS GOP STATE OF THE UNION RESPONSES:

2009: Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (1)
2010: Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell
2011: U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin
2012: Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels
2013: U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida
2014: U.S. Rep Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Washington
2015: U.S. Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa

(1) Jindal’s response came after President Barack Obama’s first speech to a joint session of Congress.

Sources: CNN,  PBS, Youtube

Marco Rubio: "Obama Dividing Country To Win 2012 Election", Rubio To Be Romney's VP? Very Likely!

Rubio fires up S.C. Republicans by attacking Obama

Florida Sen. Marco Rubio fired up an audience of South Carolina Republicans as he labeled President Obama the most "divisive" figure in modern American history, picking up an attack line used by his party's presumptive nominee, Mitt Romney.

"The president and his party's view of America's government and our lives is a failed one. It hasn't worked. His ideas that sounded so good in the classrooms of Harvard and Yale haven't really worked out well in the real world," Rubio said. "They get frustrated. They cant win on their record. And so they've chosen to go down a different road, one that I think is destructive, counterproductive, and very unfortunate."

If Rubio's speech to the nearly 1,000 party members gathered for their annual Silver Elephant dinner was meant to serve as a test of his ability to act as an attack dog for Mitt Romney, he did his job well. The oft-mentioned potential running mate for Romney delivered an extended critique of the president's policies and rhetoric that was interrupted several times by applause from the audience, who also gave him a standing ovation at the end.

They weren't the only ones voicing their approval for Rubio. South Carolina's top Republicans in attendance - Gov. Nikki Haley and Sens. Lindsey Graham and Jim DeMint - had their own praise for the young senator.

DeMint said, as he introduced Rubio, "We have a speaker here tonight that can be that voice for freedom." And Graham praised him as "the future of the Republican Party," and thanked him for his leadership. "Ronald Reagan would be proud of you," he said, the ultimate compliment among a GOP crowd.

They aren't alone. Rep. Tim Scott from South Carolina told reporters before Rubio's speech that the Florida senator is a popular pick among his colleagues on Capitol Hill to serve as Romney's number two.

Rubio returned much of the praise, even crediting DeMint with his 2010 Senate victory.

"If Jim DeMint had not endorsed me, I would not be a member of the U.S. Senate today," Rubio said as he reflected on how defeated he felt when Republican after Republican lined up to support his opponent, then-Gov. Charlie Crist.

For all his focus on the importance of the election at hand, Rubio's speech also had the hallmarks of a candidate gearing up for a possible presidential run in 2016. He presented his life story as representative of the American dream, noting that while he stood before a podium, his used to stand before a bar serving drinks on a Saturday night.

And South Carolina is not Rubio's first dance with voters of a key primary state. He delivered that same message about the ability to escape the circumstances of one's birth in America before a group of Iowa business leaders who had traveled to Washington, D.C. earlier this month.



Marco Rubio in 2016?

Whether or not he is picked as Mitt Romney's running mate, Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida is beginning to look and sound like a contender for president himself -- in 2016.
The charismatic young senator on Thursday was the main attraction at a gathering of Iowa business leaders in Washington, introduced to the crowd by Sen. Chuck Grassley, a political heavyweight in the state that traditionally votes first in the presidential primaries.

Grassley said he didn't know whether Rubio would agree to be Romney's vice president if asked, but said that if he does, "It's not going to be based upon a Republican candidate for president making that call. It's not going to be based on doing something good for the Republican Party. I know Senator Rubio [and] he's only going to do it because America calls."

For 45 minutes, Rubio proceeded to lay out his vision for the country in the kind of speech a presidential candidate might deliver on the campaign trail. He spoke in the language of big ideas - about the importance of reforming the tax code and regulatory rules, reducing the national debt, transforming the educational system to better suit the changing economy, and reforming the Medicaid program without hurting people like his mother, who receives the benefit.

"The American example is powerful, and as I stand before you today there's still nothing to replace it," Rubio told about 150 members of the Greater Des Moines Partnership. "If America declines, there's no one to take our place. There's no other country on this planet prepared to be what we once were. If we decline, who rises?

"I have no doubt that this generation of Americans will do what every generation of Americans before us has done. We will confront these problems, and we will solve them. I have no doubt about that."

Rubio has added other presidential-campaign style activities to his calendar. He is scheduled to appear May 19 at the Silver Elephant Dinner in Columbia S.C., the state GOP's annual fundraising dinner. And his political action committee has been active in the Indiana and Ohio Senate races among others.

Jay Byers, the chairman of the Greater Des Moines Partnership, said the organization invited Rubio to speak because he was the first choice of many of its members. "His national prominence is what sparked the interest of many of our member. Senator Rubio is a rising star in politics, and it isn't a secret that he's been showing up on the short list of vice presidential candidates. He will be someone that Iowans and so many others should be watching."

His speech to the group was notably clear of the biting partisan rhetoric of the 2012 presidential campaign. "You deserve better than that," he told the crowd. The only hint of partisanship was his criticism of President Obama's rhetoric, though Rubio never mentioned the president by name. Neither did he mention Romney by name.

"The greatest thing we can do for the world is be American, be exceptional, continue to be a place where we don't divide people against each other, continue to be a place where we don't tell people the way for you to climb the economic ladder is for me to bring him down. The way for you to be better off is for me to take money from this guy and give it to that guy," Rubio said. "That's what the rest of the world does and it doesn't work. People get on boats and climb fences to get out of countries like that. And you know where they come? They come here. Because we're not that way. We should never be that way."

Rubio also invoked some GOP talking points when he asserted that Democrats proposed a bill to prevent a hike on federal student loan rates that was solely designed to make Republicans appearing uncaring to the plight of students.

After his remarks, members of the group asked about Rubio's views on immigration the new version of the DREAM Act he has proposed. It would provide children of immigrants brought to the United States illegally remain in the country if they go to college or serve in the military. Unlike Democratic versions of the bill, it would not provide a path to U.S. citizenship.

"Their claim is not a claim on our laws," said Rubio, comparing those affected by his proposal to refugees and their situation to a humanitarian problem. "Their claim is a claim on our conscience, and if we want to, if we feel compelled because of the humanitarian cause, we can address it."


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Sources: AP, CBS News, Raw Story, Youtube, Google Maps

Marco Rubio Backs Mitt Romney On Immigration (V.P. Pick??)

Rubio gets off the 2012 bench


Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) stepped into the fight for the Republican primary vote in Florida on Wednesday, lending his star power to help Mitt Romney beat back an attack on his immigration stance.

Rubio, who has pledged neutrality in the race and is considered the odds-on favorite to be the GOP’s vice presidential nominee, chastised Newt Gingrich’s campaign for airing a Spanish-language radio ad that labeled Romney “the most anti-immigration candidate.”

“This kind of language is more than just unfortunate. It’s inaccurate, inflammatory and doesn’t belong in this campaign,” Rubio said.

Gingrich’s campaign quickly withdrew the ad, a testament to the junior senator’s pull with Republicans in the state and across the country.

The Cuban-American senator is one of the hottest talents in the Republican Party and considered an attractive running mate. Given those prospects, he was careful to offer a word of support for both Romney and Gingrich after slamming the ad.
“The truth is that neither of these two men is anti-immigrant,” Rubio said of Romney and Gingrich, according to The Miami Herald. “Both are pro-legal immigration and both have positive messages that play well in the Hispanic community.”

Alex Conant, a spokesman for Rubio, reaffirmed his boss’s neutrality and said the senator would defend Gingrich just the same if Romney launched an unfair attack.

“Sen. Rubio is staying neutral in the race, but he’s willing to correct the record when one of the campaigns strays away from it,” Conant said.

But the intervention left many wondering whether Rubio has revealed which candidate he’s rooting for.

“He’s refusing to endorse anyone, but it was very helpful to Romney’s campaign. One wonders if his loyalties lie a little more with the Romney camp,” said Richard S. Conley, an associate professor of politics at the University of Florida.

The 40-year-old senator has emerged as a kingmaker in Florida politics, a role once played by former Gov. Charlie Crist, who was vanquished by Rubio in their 2010 Senate race.

Crist endorsed Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) in 2008, a moved that helped propel McCain to a decisive victory in the Sunshine State.

Rubio’s full-throated defense of Romney — directed at the crucial Hispanic voting bloc — could help decide the neck-and-neck race.

There are signs that Romney and Rubio could be a natural team-up for the Republican ticket in November.

About a half-dozen current and former Rubio aides reportedly worked for Romney’s 2008 presidential campaign, and the two politicians share a network of fundraisers and donors.

Rubio also owes a debt of gratitude to Gingrich, who was one of the first to tell political reporters in Washington about the promising conservative talent who had once interned for Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.). He wrote the forward to Rubio’s 2006 book, 100 Innovative Ideas for Florida’s Future, calling it “a work of genius.”

Gingrich has tried to capture some of the Rubio glow on the campaign trail, noting that the senator’s former campaign manager, Jose Mallea, supports him.

But Rubio has been more apt to do favors for Romney.


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Sources: Fox News, The Hill, Youtube, Google Maps

Barack Obama & Cory Booker In 2012! Dream Team? Black Voters

On The 2012 Democratic Ticket Wouldn't It Be GREAT To See Barack Obama & Cory Booker Campaigning As President & Vice-President?

Someday Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s Dream Will Fully Manifest.

Someday!!

Now Just How Bad Does Pres. Obama Actually Need Mayor Cory Booker's Help To Win In 2012?

Black Leaders Like Cory Booker Might Be Key To Another "Obama Tsunami" As It Was In 2008.

Will It Be Cory Booker & Other Black Leaders To Obama's Rescue?

Stay Tuned.








Want to See Obama’s Future? Take a Look at Cory Booker

Newark Mayor Cory Booker is converting campaign inspiration into capable governance.


Cory Booker was the Obama of American politics before Barack Obama leaped onto the national stage. When Booker first ran for mayor of Newark in 2002, Barack Obama was a relatively unknown Illinois state senator. It would be two more years before Obama’s keynote address at the Democratic National Convention would transform him into an international star.

But Booker, a fresh-faced former Rhodes Scholar and graduate of Stanford University and Yale Law School, was already being lauded—in the national press, on Wall Street, and in Hollywood, as well—as the face of a new generation of post-civil-rights, post-baby-boomer (in style, if not exactly in fact) African-American politicians who would march America into a glorious new day. (Other rising stars in this cohort include Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, Alabama Rep. Artur Davis, and Washington, D.C., Mayor Adrian Fenty).

Booker lost his first mayoral race to longtime incumbent Sharpe James, a scandal-plagued, wily, streetwise old-fashioned pol and former gym teacher who denounced Booker as an Uncle Tom—and as an interloper (Booker grew up in the suburbs) far removed from Newark’s tough streets.

Four years later, as Booker’s campaign donations and popularity surged, Sharpe opted out of trying for a sixth term. Booker swept into office and Sharpe—long an object of suspicion and ugly rumors—eventually went to prison (from which he was recently released) for fraud and conspiracy after he failed to disclose he was romantically involved with a woman he helped buy nine plots in a city redevelopment zone between 2001 and 2005.

Booker’s success at turning inspirational rhetoric into effective governance might well provide something of a template for Obama. And last week, as Booker basked in the afterglow of his recent reelection for a second term, I asked him to reflect on what he has done. “Four years ago, I was really selling … the rather ephemeral qualities of hope and possibility. ‘Believe in me. Believe in us.’ And those are all important things,” he said. “But when you have nothing to back it up with, it made it very difficult … Now I can talk not just about what we’re going to do, but point to examples of what we’ve done.”



He has plenty to boast about, as The Star-Ledger, Newark’s newspaper, pointed out in endorsing him: “Under Booker, gun violence in Newark has been cut in half. The city payroll has shrunk by 17 percent.

New parks have sprouted up across the city. The Housing Authority has been brought back from the dead, and the pace of new construction of affordable housing has picked up. New programs have helped hundreds of released prisoners find jobs, arranged financing for small businesses and helped families combat foreclosure. The list of innovative programs goes on.”

But Booker can hardly rest on his laurels. Along with the state of New Jersey—and the federal government itself—Newark is facing crushing deficits. And like his political counterparts across the country, Booker’s aspirations are circumscribed by this new age of austerity. The government “can no longer do it all … We can’t do what we used to do,” he said. “Resources are shrinking … Personnel costs are skyrocketing, [along with] health-care costs, pension costs.

So revenues are not meeting expenses and it’s getting worse every day, which is going to force us to shrink the size of government because we just can’t afford it. And we definitely can’t tax our way out of this problem.” So the future, as he see it, lies in creating “new paradigms, for not only service delivery but for community success.”

It is not just in Newark, and not just in the area of urban finance, that new models are needed. In a new study focused on metropolitan America, the Brookings Institution pronounced the dawning of a “decade of reckoning,” during which urban America would have to face tough issues largely ignored for years: “The economic roller coaster of the past 10 years has distracted the United States and its major metropolitan areas from grappling with the urgent implications of the longer-run shift afoot in our society.

Issues such as how to support communities with rapidly aging populations, how to meet family and labor-market needs through immigration, how to build workforce skills to maintain American economic leadership, and how to help lower-paid workers support themselves and their families cannot go unaddressed for another decade,” declared Brooking’s researchers.

Booker has already proven he can govern; the challenge of his second term will be to prove that he can lead, that he can breathe new life into an old city—and, in the process, help create a new model (or “new paradigms,” as he calls them) for the urban areas that growing numbers of Americans call home.




One reason Christie might still run for president: Newark’s Cory Booker



If he’s not running for president, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie may instead face a re-election challenge that has the potential to derail his political career.

Some Democrats are hoping that Cory Booker, the popular mayor of Newark, will rise to the occasion and run against one of the nation’s best known fiscal conservatives. “Democrats are salivating over a potential Booker-Christie matchup,” Democratic strategist Paul Begala told TheDC. “Cory is still little known outside of North Jersey…and yet he is running even with the poster boy of the right.”

Begala points to a survey conducted by Public Policy Polling that shows Christie and Booker tied with 42 percent of the vote, despite the fact that 38 percent of New Jersians are unfamiliar with Booker. According to PPP’s Dean Debnam, Christie “was elected largely because of [former governor] Jon Corzine’s unpopularity and he could have a lot more trouble against someone well liked such as Booker.”

Although the election is still two years away, Booker’s strong record and attractive persona make him a Democratic dream candidate. Under his leadership, Newark’s murder rates have plummeted. Meanwhile, Christie’s massive budget cuts have garnered both praise and fierce criticism in his home state, making him a hero to many on the right while potentially leaving him vulnerable to a strong Democratic challenger.

“Booker is the best hope to win back the Statehouse from a Republican who has far surpassed the public’s expectations,” said one Democratic operative based in New York. “If he runs, Christie is left with a very tough decision: prematurely run for national office, or gamble his political future against one of the most promising and gifted figures in politics today.”

According to the operative, defeating Christie, the scourge of New Jersey’s powerful public employee unions, will be a top priority for Democrats nationwide in 2014. “I doubt the national party will resist this opportunity,” she said.

Could a potential challenge from Booker influence Christie’s decision? Although he has repeatedly insisted that he has no interest in a 2012 White House run, Christie still does well in early presidential polls. His popularity among independents and even some Democrats has at least one poll indicating that he would be the strongest Republican candidate against Obama, but that doesn’t seem to have nudged Christie any closer to running. When asked about the poll showing him winning in a race against Obama, Christie said it was good news for the president because “the only person who’s beating him in the poll will once again declare that I’m not running for President of the United States.”

Even if he decides against a run, there are still ways Christie could ditch Trenton for the national scene. Possible Republican candidate Mitt Romney met with Christie at the New Jersey Governor’s mansion on Monday night, along with “nearly two dozen” advisors and Republican Party leaders, according to the Newark Star-Ledger. Some have speculated that Christie might be interested in the vice presidency next year, but Romney, a Northeastern Republican often criticized as too moderate for the GOP’s conservative primary electorate, might not be likely to choose a running mate who shares so many of his percieved weaknesses.

Christie has been knocked by conservatives for his support of Rep. Mike Castle, a moderate, in Delaware’s GOP senate primary last year; his appointment of a Muslim lawyer to New Jersey’s judiciary; and his openness to the construction of the so-called “Ground Zero Mosque.” Tom Marr, filling in for the host on Mark Levin’s popular afternoon radio show last week, went so far as to call him “a fake, a phony, and a fraud.”

Still, in the midst of what many have called a weak Republican field, Christie’s apparent ability to mount a strong challenge to Obama could be a deciding factor. The modern GOP has a long record of nominating comparatively moderate candidates for president: Bob Dole, George W. Bush, and John McCain all came from the more centrist, compromise-accepting wing of the Party. And even though he rules out a 2012 campaign, Christie always stops short of saying he will never run for president.

“I’m going to need a job … after 2013, you know?” Christie said on Meet the Press last year. “So whether it’s going to be governor of New Jersey or something else, it’s going to be doing something. So maybe it will be doing that. Who knows?”

So where does Christie go from here? Given that no major Republican candidate has formally entered the race, he could always change his mind about a White House run. With Booker waiting in the wings, taking his chances nationally might start to look like an attractive option.


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Sources: Daily Caller, Eurweb, MSNBC, Newsweek, Philosotry, South Korea Times, Sundance Channel, Youtube, Google Maps

Mitt Romney & Eric Cantor Vs Obama & Hillary Clinton In 2012!

Obama-Clinton Ticket In 2012 Is "On The Table", Bob Woodward Says


The prospect of Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton trading places with Vice President Biden is "on the table," Washington Post associate editor Bob Woodward said Tuesday night.

"Some of Hillary Clinton's advisers see it as a real possibility in 2012," Woodward said in an interview on CNN's "John King USA."

"President Obama needs some of the women, Latinos, retirees that she did so well with during the 2008 primaries -- so they switch jobs ... not out of the question," Woodward added.

"The other interesting question is Hillary Clinton could run in her own right in 2016 and be younger than Ronald Reagan when he was elected president," Woodward added, going on to say that Clinton political advisers, when asked, deny that she has any further political ambitions.

Woodward's new book, "Obama's Wars," is based.






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Sources: CNN, Richmond Times-Dispatch, Washington Post, Youtube, Google Maps