Mediaboss Marketing

She said a number of officials who worked for both Presidents Bush and Reagan, many of whom signed a 2016 letter opposing Mr. Trump, were on Zoom chats and group emails trying to determine how to express their opposition and whether it should come with an endorsement for Mr. Biden. The effort to gather more anti-Trump Republicans to speak out is being spearheaded by John B. Bellinger III, who also worked in George W. Bushs N.S.C. and State Department.

Some Republicans believe Mr. Mattis made their task easier.

It laid the cornerstone of fighting back against Trump, said former Senator John W. Warner of Virginia, who noted that as Navy secretary he once served as boss to Mr. Mattis, then a youthful Marine officer. He said: I can judge the man.

Yet neither Mr. Mattis, nor any other former Trump official, is likely to be able to prod Mr. Bush to publicly state his opposition. Freddy Ford, a spokesman for Mr. Bush, said the former president would stay out of the election and speak only on policy issues, as he did this week in stating that the country must examine our tragic failures on race.

Notably, though, while the former president, whom Mr. Trump has never reached out to while in office, may be withdrawn from presidential politics, he is not totally disengaged from campaigns: he has raised money for a handful of Republican senators, including John Cornyn of Texas, Susan Collins of Maine and Cory Gardner of Colorado.

Mr. Romney this week lavished praise on Mr. Mattis but stayed mum about who he would actually support for president.

As for Mrs. McCain, she has sought to stay out of partisan politics. Picking a fight with Trump is no fun, said Rick Davis, a longtime McCain adviser whos close to the family.

But, Mr. Davis, alluding to Mr. Biden, said: You know where her heart is. Whether she articulates that or not is still an open question.

Eric Schmitt contributed reporting.

Go here to see the original:
Vote for Trump? These Republican Leaders Arent on the Bandwagon. - The New York Times

WASHINGTON Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins the ultimate authority on whether a mass gathering can be held during COVID-19 ruled out bringing the Republican National Convention to Dallas, saying Saturday that the event is too big to be safe.

He cited the current code red rating from the countys Public Health Committee. At that risk level, people should stay home and avoid crowds.

President Donald Trump is insisting on a traditional convention that includes 19,000 GOP delegates and officials, plus thousands of news media, donors, security and protesters.

They strongly recommend against that, Jenkins said of the countys epidemiology and infectious disease experts. I made my peace early on to follow the lead of doctors and so I would respect that. And that would be my position on that.

North Carolinas governor, Democrat Roy Cooper, has refused to promise that Republicans can gather as planned in Charlotte, which was picked two years ago.

For the past week, the Republican National Committee has scrambled to find a fallback, naming a half-dozen cities as contenders, including Dallas; Orlando and Jacksonville, Fla.; Phoenix; and Nashville, Tenn.

RNC chairwoman Ronna McDaniel told the Charlotte host committee on Thursday that the party is turning its focus to cities that have actively courted the massive event.

In fact, Dallas has taken no steps to lure the convention to the city, and local officials express no enthusiasm.

Mayor Eric Johnson said Friday that hes heard nothing from the GOP and isnt mounting a bid. He noted that the county has the ultimate say on approving such an event during a pandemic. The convention and visitors bureau, VisitDallas, is also unaware of any effort to bring the convention to the area, and it coordinated the citys bid for the 2016 GOP convention six years ago.

Jenkins, speaking with journalists Saturday via video as part of the Texas Democratic Partys virtual convention, confirmed that he hasnt discussed the convention with anyone, either, let alone issued an invitation.

I havent had any conversations with anyone planning the convention, he said in response to a question from The Dallas Morning News. What I hope they will do is look at the guidelines. Anyone can go to DallasCountyCovid.org, and you can look at what our local doctors are saying. What theyre saying is that were now at a red color.

The four-day convention is scheduled to start Aug. 24.

Red, the highest level of public health danger under Dallas Countys system, calls for a stay home, stay safe response.

Among the recommendations: Eliminate non-essential travel and group settings. For essential travel, practice strict physical distancing, wear facial coverings. Avoid all group settings or crowded areas at hotels or other facilities. Do not eat in shared dining areas. Avoid travel if over 65 or in a high-risk group.

A convention that big is unwise, Jenkins said, even if we get to an orange or yellow color, which, frankly, given the spike and deaths and things were seeing, is unlikely to happen by the time of the convention, unfortunately.

Read more:
Dallas County judge rules out Republican convention, citing COVID-19 risk of mass event Trump demands - The Dallas Morning News

By MICHAEL DAVIDOW, Radio Free New Hampshire

Many years ago, journalist Teddy White visited New York City and asked his cabdriver for whom he was voting. I dont even remember the election in question. It doesnt matter. Because White got both a lecture in history and a lesson in politics for a reply.

His cabdriver told him that he always voted for the other guy, because no matter which party was in power, they always forgot what was important after they had been in office for a while. There was only one exception, his cabdriver told him.

LaGuardia. I would vote for LaGuardia every time. White asked him why. Because LaGuardia was different, his cabdriver said, turning around to make his point. He really cared.

Fiorella LaGuardia was a Republican, of course. And it has taken the Republican party this long to produce another exception to the rule, but they finally have: Donald Trump, a man who is also different.But this time, the magic of politics has been reversed. No matter what your politics might be, all Americans must vote against him this November.

All politics is local, and for that reason, neither of Americas great political parties have ever had a monopoly on rightness or decency. That is why Whites cabdriver had it right, in many ways. Each party needs the correction of the other.

It is important to remember that the Democrats, for instance, represented the racist American south for a very long time after the Civil War. If you were a progressive who believed in the sanctity of human life in Atlanta, Montgomery, or Tallahassee in the 1920s, odds were that you were also a Republican.

The Democrats were also the party of Tammany Hall and the other big city machines, famous for their corruption and strong-arm tactics; that was how LaGuardia came into his natural affiliation. Half-Jewish and half-Italian, he grew up being kicked by Irish boots; with an urge to root out corruption, to stick up for those who had no power, and to prize kindness and opportunity.

The Republican party as it developed in New York City, in fact, was a wonderful thing in many ways. It was a minority party; the numbers were always against it. It had a gallantry about it, for that fact. Its chief journalistic outlet, the New York Herald Tribune, was famous for its willingness to publish works of real art and real thought (Jean Seberg advertized that rag in 1960, in the classic French film,Breathless; can you imagine some snobby French director today doing that for Fox News?).

Its politicians had verve and intelligence:Rockefeller, Javits, Lindsay, and yes, Dick Nixon. Though Nixon was a Californian, his intellect was leavened by the time he spent as a corporate lawyer in Manhattan, and his entire political career represented a compromise between the Republican partys eastern and western wings.

But you can also see the weaknesses in the Republican partys structure, the flaws that would have caused Whites cabbie to vote against it on every other occasion.Just as the Democrats were marked by their racism, the Republicans suffered for their natural animosity towards the immigrant and the factory worker.

Those big city machines were not just corrupt; they were also the method by which new Americans came into their political maturity. In city after city, the Republicans lined up not only against corruption, but also against cultural change. There was a stodginess about the Republican party in many places, with which one might sympathize (who is ever comfortable with change?), but not always condone. It too often transmuted itself into a conservatism based not on principle, but on reaction; into a base thing that implicated hatred of the other. Likewise, its born tendency to defend the business owners interests over those of the factory worker too often stopped being in the service of American capitalism and veered instead into the servicing of American wealth.

Again, historically speaking, these considerations have always been balanced against the flaws of the Democrats, who have too often pandered to their own constituencies.Whites cabbie voted for and against both of these parties. He instinctively sought the balance that our country needs.

LaGuardia was different, though: because LaGuardia really cared. LaGuardia, who spoke Yiddish better than many Jews, even though most people considered him Italian. LaGuardia, who read the Sunday comics to children over the radio in case their parents didnt have the newspapers. LaGuardia, who could never really play outside of New York City, because the rest of the country found him short, and fat, and funny-looking.

Trump is different, too.Because he really does not care.I am out of space today, so I will continue this article soon.

Michael Davidow is a lawyer in Nashua. He is the author ofGate City,Split Thirty, andThe Rocketdyne Commission, three novels about politics and advertising which, taken together, formThe Henry Bell Project. His most recent one isThe Book of Order. They are available on Amazon.

Views expressed in columns and opinion pieces belong to the author and do not reflect those of InDepthNH.org.

Read more from the original source:
A Republican Who Read Comics on the Radio for Poor Children - indepthnh.org

It is the voters who dont turn out like clockwork, many of whom have weak partisan identities, who can make a crucial difference in close-fought races. Those are the voters some Republicans fear will be lost to the party if mail voting is not embraced.

The president has his viewpoint and we have ours; were trying to win elections, said Dave Millage, the Republican chair of Scott County in Iowa. He anticipated that mail voting would also be popular in November, when Iowa Republicans will be defending a vulnerable senator, Joni Ernst, as well as trying to flip a congressional seat in the Second District, which includes Scott County.

We will call everybody to request an absentee ballot and make sure they get them in, Mr. Millage said. You bank that vote, you dont have to spend money to get them out to vote. You can cross them off the list.

But so far, Mr. Trumps disparagement of mail voting is winning out in Scott County, which encompasses Davenport. As of Monday, 10,344 Democrats had voted by mail, or 66 percent of the total, compared with 5,342 Republicans. Only 54 percent of county voters who are registered with a party are Democrats. Moreover, Republicans have a contested primary for the open House seat while Democrats do not.

Before Mr. Trump made mail voting toxic to many of his grass-roots supporters, it was widely used in many states, including some in which more Republicans than Democrats tended to vote absentee.

It was Republican majorities in the Pennsylvania Legislature that passed a bill last year expanding no-excuse mail voting to any registered voter. It was signed into law by Gov. Tom Wolf, a Democrat.

Mr. Trump, who has voted by mail in Florida, has weaponized the issue recently as polls showed him falling behind in battleground states. He falsely claimed a Democratic secretary of state in Michigan had illegally sent absentee ballot requests for the November election, and he threatened to hold back federal funds to Nevada if its Republican secretary of state went ahead with plans to send mail ballots directly to registered voters before its June 9 primary.

Continued here:
Republicans Fear Trumps Criticism of Mail-In Ballots Will Hurt Them - The New York Times

WASHINGTON As Republicans scramble to reboot the GOP convention, one option gaining traction is a multistate affair with major speeches and rallies in a variety of cities, according to three people familiar with the discussions.

Part of the appeal of the roadshow approach is that it could allow President Donald Trump to claim having commanded the highest-attended convention audience in history, they said, and to accept his renomination with all the fanfare he envisioned.

"I think it's going to be a glorified rally," a person familiar with the conversations said of the president's keynote address.

After canceling plans this week to hold the GOP convention in Charlotte, North Carolina plans years in the making Trump and the Republican National Committee are surveying at least seven states and nine cities as possible alternatives.

GOP officials are already on the ground in places like Orlando and Jacksonville, Florida; Nashville, Tennessee; Dallas; Phoenix; and New Orleans. They may also schedule scouting visits to Atlanta; Savannah, Georgia; and Las Vegas in the weeks to come.

They said no final decisions have been made on a location or locations.

The search is taking place as public polling shows Trump trailing former Vice President Joe Biden and as his own campaign's spending shows concern over states that he won handily in 2016.

The president met with his top political aides and advisers Thursday in the Oval Office, where they discussed "very concerning" internal polling in reliably Republican states, such as Texas, according to a person familiar with the discussions.

He then addressed campaign and RNC staff in a larger gathering, where the president was "in an upbeat mood" and "in very high spirits," a staffer in the room said. He indicated that he is "eager" to get back on the campaign trail, but no decisions were made in the meeting about when the campaign may return to future rallies.

Some official convention business, such as finalizing the GOP platform, is still expected to be conducted in Charlotte, given contractual obligations and significant financial investments that Republicans have already made there.

The more public-facing part, however, will be uprooted just 80 days ahead of time in a highly unusual move.

Let our news meet your inbox. The news and stories that matters, delivered weekday mornings.

The Republican National Committee announced in July 2018 that the convention would take place in Charlotte.

The scope of a reimagined convention to nominate Trump for a second term hinges largely on cost and how quickly Republicans can raise enough money to fund events both in Charlotte and elsewhere.

The idea of a roving multistate convention also depends in part on the ability to quickly work out logistics, such as how to accommodate delegates who have planned for months and years on traveling to Charlotte.

But a grandiose statement of having hosted the most-attended convention in history is one that Trump, a former reality television star who fixates on crowd size, is very interested in making, people familiar with the discussions said.

One way that might work would be for rallies to feed into a venue in Charlotte by video on the first three nights of the convention, ending with delegates attending the president's keynote speech on the final night in person in a different city.

If the RNC does decide to do a multi-city tour, the events would all have a "rally-type look and feel," according to an official.

There's acknowledgement that this has never been done before and that there's no precedent for a split convention in this manner, because there's "only one decision-maker that actually matters," and that is the president, this person said.

The coronavirus pandemic has already significantly altered the presidential race, with Democrats acknowledging the possibility that part of their gathering will be held virtually. Republicans have rejected any such plan for their event.

And Trump said he was unwilling even to accept modifications that GOP organizers had been discussing for weeks, such as practicing social distancing on the convention floor and limiting in-person attendance.

Mass protests in recent weeks over the killing of George Floyd also complicated potential health considerations for later in the summer. The uncertainty of a large spike in cases cemented North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper's inability to guarantee that thousands could gather in his state in late August.

The RNC repeatedly asked Cooper to commit to allowing as many as 19,000 people in the Spectrum Center, an assurance that he said couldn't be provided because of health and safety concerns.

Instead, GOP officials decided to move ahead with surveying other places in states that had more relaxed coronavirus guidelines and would be willing to host a large-scale event. Republican governors from Florida, Georgia and Texas quickly raised their hands.

Download the NBC News app for breaking news and politics

As for Charlotte, contracts that were made two years ago are regarded as ironclad, and money that was raised by committees to hold the four-day event there is still expected to be allocated to the city.

Still, Charlotte officials are reviewing the language of the deals and considering taking legal action against the RNC.

"We have yet to receive any official notification from the Republican National Committee regarding its intent for the location of the convention. We have a contract in place with the RNC to host the convention and the City Attorney will be in contact with the attorneys for the RNC to understand their full intentions," the city wrote in a statement Wednesday.

There are major unanswered questions about all the hotels and flights that have been prepaid for by the more than 2,000 delegates who had already planned to be in Charlotte.

In one scenario, Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel could gavel in the convention in North Carolina and then a significant proportion of attendees would travel together to the next site, where the president and the vice president might deliver their speeches.

Of the places GOP officials are exploring, Florida has been most aggressive in courting Republicans. A person familiar with the discussions said Florida particularly is a state to watch given the extent to which Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, a close Trump ally, has been pushing for it.

But Trump could let the process play out a little longer.

"My guess is they will let this process get competitive," this person said.

Read the original post:
Republicans look at multi-city convention for Trump's renomination - NBC News