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Obama’s approval rating dropped and stayed low after his second inauguration, with the revelation of the NSA's electronic surveillance program PRISM, which was later found unconstitutional by the Supreme Court (Klayman v. National Security Agency). Though his approval rating stayed in the low 40’s through most of 2013 with initial technological problems with Healthcare.gov and a slow roll out of the Affordable Care Act. With increased job growth throughout 2014, his approval rose to 50-55%. But stayed in the 46%-53% range for the rest of Obama’s presidency.
Immediately after the 2012 presidential election, the media began the initial process of whoring itself around to look for candidates for President and diverting away from real life journalism. Republican Vice Presidential nominee Paul Ryan was seen as an immediate front runner for the for the 2016 election. It was also suspected that because Florida Senator Marco Rubio, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and former Florida Governor Jeb Bush didn’t run in the 2012 presidential election, that they would seek the presidency in 2016. Also, after making some comments about the Government sponsored libido and shit, former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee's dying political career saw a resurgence after placing first as the 'lead of the GOP' in a February 2014 poll. He declared his candidacy for the presidency in February 2015, after Wall Street fave Jeb Bush declined to run when he was paid a very friendly amount of money to become President of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. In May 2015, Rubio also announced on Fox News’ Hannity that he wouldn't seek the nomination in 2016. Two days after Rubio’s announcement, despite his intentions to not seek the presidency, he placed in third in the Ames Iowa Straw Poll; with Senator John Thune winning the poll, Governor Mike Pence placed in second and former Iowa Representative Jim Nussle placed fourth.
In August 2015, the first debate was held, Bachmann, Christie, Huckabee, Huntsman, Jindal, Ryan and Whitman attended the debate held at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa. Former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury Robert M. Kimmitt dropped out of the race 15 days after he officially announced his candidacy, with Iowa favorite son Nussle dropping out of the race to become the CFO of Devon Energy. Businesswoman Meg Whitman also conceded from the race in December 2015, after her early lead in New Hampshire was lost with 12 consecutive polls placing Whitman in 4th through 6th place.
On January 12, 2016, Senator John Thune won a slim victory over Representative Paul Ryan in the Iowa caucus; with Representative’s Michele Bachmann and Connie Mack placing with less than 2% of the vote, both suspended their campaigns the day after the Caucus. Former Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell, who had as series of gaffe’s on abortion and his vaginal probe law that he supported during his term as Governor, also conceded from the race before the New Hampshire primary.
Influential New Hampshire Republican Senator Kelly Ayotte campaigned with Christie the week before New Hampshire primary; helping Christie win a decisive victory with 39% of the vote over his closest opponent Jon Huntsman Jr., who came in second with 22% of the vote.
After Christie’s New Hampshire victory, he tied with Ryan, Thune, and former Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal in multiple national polls before the South Carolina primary. South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley and Senator Tim Scott endorsed Jindal for President, giving him a slight edge of the other candidates, with South Carolina's Senior Senator Lindsay Graham and former candidate Meg Whitman endorsed Chris Christie the same day. Jindal saw criticism from the left for saying in a debate that Teacher-lead Christian prayer should be brought back in public schools, the move saw the new support for Jindal on the right from the organizations Focus on the Family, the Family Research Council and received new financial support from former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee’s HuckPAC. Jindal eventually won the South Carolina primary, with Governor Mike Pence dropping out to focus on his 2016 gubernatorial election.
With the Florida primary just two weeks away, Senator Marco Rubio endorsed Florida front runner Paul Ryan’s campaign. This was followed with former President George W. Bush and Governor Jeb Bush endorsing and leading fundraising for Chris Christie’s candidacy. Ryan eventually won Florida, gaining support from the senior vote, with Christie coming behind him in second with support from the Latino community. Ryan’s traction earned him victories in Minnesota, Missouri and Nevada, with Thune winning the Colorado caucus. Christie later won clear victories in Arizona and Michigan, which was followed with a one week break in campaigning and Christie skipping a crucial debate due to health problems. Concerns about Christie’s weight and health problems was seen costly for his campaign, after revelations in the Bloomberg Businessweek found that Christie's obesity alone accounted for 4.7% of the total rise of Health care inflation 2015. Christie's 12% lead over Huntsman in Maine turned into a 4 point loss for Christie in that state. Thune won with two thirds of the vote in the Wyoming primary, and Christie bounced back with a victory in Washington.
With Thune and Jindal struggling to raise money, it was originally indicated that they would drop out of the election before Super Tuesday. But in the beginning of March, Thune receive a series of payments totaling $8 Million from Oklahoma Billionaire Harold Hamm, with Jindal receiving $2 Million in disbursements from pro-life and former tea party groups. Concerns that the republican candidates lacked Foreign Policy experience (besides Jon Huntsman who was seen as being in last place), played a toll with voters, with a new round of NATO bombings on suspected nuclear sites in Iran. One week before Super Tuesday, Senator and former Presidential Candidate John McCain, former Secretary of State James Baker and former Secretary of Defense Bob Gates all endorsed Christie at an event in Leesburg, Virginia. Former later Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice endorsed Ryan at a rally in Cleveland, Ohio. On March 15, 2016, Ryan won Georgia, Oklahoma, Ohio and Tennessee. Thune won in Idaho, North Dakota and Alaska. Christie saw victories in Massachusetts and Virginia, and Huntsman won in Vermont. Jindal, who didn't see any victories, dropped out of the race the next day.
With controversy surrounding John Thune’s campaign after an event in Olathe, Kansas, saying that Democratic candidates Martin O’Malley and Andrew Cuomo (who signed bills to legalize gay marriage in their state) were “traditional marriage apologists” who “promote their divisive homosexual agenda.” Thune’s comments were condemned by GLAAD and the Human Rights Campaign. After the video of the incident was posted by BuzzFeed, it was also heard that a small group within the crowd at event were chanting “defeat the f-----s,” those comments were later condemned by Thune. He later won the Kansas primary. Throughout the rest of March, Ryan won in Alabama and Mississippi, with Christie winning in Illinois, and Huntsman winning in Hawaii. Thune suspended his presidential campaign and endorsed Ryan after his campaign saw further controversy from previous comments he made about the LGBT community and, after the announcement that Hamm and Billion coal executive Chris Cline would no longer fund pro-Thune Super PACs.
In the beginning of April, Christie won Maryland and the District of Columbia, and Ryan won his home state of Wisconsin. Huntsman and Christie began an intense campaign battle for the east coast states’ primaries, with Ryan only visiting Pennsylvania; focusing on Indiana, Louisiana and West Virginia, states that he later won. Huntsman took an all-out approach with his campaign funds with attack ads against Christie, he later only won Rhode Island, forcing him to suspend his campaign, (later leaving the Republican Party to run on the Americans Elect national ticket). Christie won Connecticut, Delaware, New York and Pennsylvania. Christie also went on to earn victories in North Carolina and Oregon. He also gained notable endorsements from House Speaker Cathy McMorris Rodgers, Texas Senator Ted Cruz, along with other members of the House and Senate.
With the republican establishment aligned with Christie, he saw a 58-30 lead over Ryan in California and a 51-42 lead in Texas. With the shift of Ryan's campaign to Christie's from House Majority Whip Eric Cantor, along with fellow congressional colleagues Darrell Issa, Lamar S. Smith, Jeb Hensarling, Mick Mulvaney, Luke Messer, Tom Cotton, Lynn Jenkins, Jeff Miller and Indiana Governor Mike Pence. In mid-May it was reported by Reuters that Ryan would suspend his campaign if Christie chose him as his running mate in the general election, Christie's campaign denied the report, but Ryan suspended his campaign the next day. The RNC then announced Chris Christie as the presumptive nominee.
Early media speculation for the 2016 election suggested that Secretary of StateHillary Clinton would run for President after her failed 2008 campaign. Further speculation suggested that she wouldn't see a primary challenge due to her overwhelming favorable rating over the other speculated candidates. Though in January, 2015, Clinton officially announced that she wouldn't run for the Presidency in 2016, but that she would still remain active in Democratic politics.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, Delaware Governor Jack Markell, Vice President Joe Biden, Virginia Senator Tim Kaine and Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren were all seen as early favorites for the Democratic nomination. Cuomo and Kaine launched their candidacy in March 2015, and Biden, Markell and Warren all declined. This began the Draft Warren 2016 movement by the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, and over 350,000 signatures to draft Warren in a petition by the progressive advocacy group MoveOn.org. After the Democratic field was set, Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley was seen as a strong performer during the primary debates; trading spots as front runner with Cuomo and Virginia Senator Mark Warner; with the campaigns of Senator Tim Kaine, Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Governor Deval Patrick loosing early momentum. Throughout November and December of 2015, Governor Jay Nixon, Senator Evan Bayh and Ambassador Gary Locke all suspended their campaigns before the Iowa Caucus.
On Tuesday, January 12, 2016 Governor Martin O’Malley won the Iowa Caucus with 23% of the vote; Governor Andrew Cuomo came in a close second with 21%, Hagan in third with 16% of the vote, with the rest of the candidates finishing with less than 10% of the vote. With controversy of the mismanagement of funds and a weak performance in Iowa, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel dropped out of the race, described by the Washington Post as one of the most embarrassing and poisonous Presidential Campaigns in modern American History.
One week later on January 19th, Cuomo upset O’Malley with a win in the New Hampshire primary. O’Malley who had a 10 point lead over his closest challenger Governor Deval Patrick, Cuomo won a surprise victory with a 3% margin of victory over O’Malley.
Senator Kay Hagan became the first woman to win the South Carolina Primary in January 2016. After her victory in South Carolina, Governor Mike Beebe, Brian Schweitzer (who left the Democratic Party to seek nomination on the Americans Elect ticket), and Senator Tim Kaine all exited the race for the presidency.
Her victory in South Carolina and strong outlook for Florida came with the endorsements from the Miami Herald and Orlando Sentinel, House Speaker and Florida native Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, Caroline Kennedy and many congressional democrats in the moderate wing of the party. Cuomo received endorsements from Delaware Governor Jack Markel, California Governor Jerry Brown, former Massachusetts Governor and Presidential nominee Michael Dukakis. O’Malley gained the endorsement from Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. In explaining her endorsement for O’Malley in an op-ed in the New York Times, she supported his views against the Obama administration's Iran policy. Before Super Tuesday, Hagan failed to gain traction with her endorsements and struggled to raise money from the Wall Street blood funnel that primarily funded the failed Emanuel campaign. Warner won his first victory in the Missouri caucus with a less than 2% victory over Cuomo, though Cuomo went on to win decisive victories in Florida, Arizona and Michigan.
O’Malley won close victories in Maine and Minnesota, and won with over 50% of the vote in the Colorado and Nevada caucuses. On March 8, 2016, Hagan won a close victory in the Washington caucus, with a near three way tie between Hagan, O’Malley and Cuomo. Patrick and Warner’s campaigns saw significant financial troubles and were forced to drop out of the race before Super Tuesday. Vice President Joe Biden and Deval Patrick later endorsed Cuomo for his position on the assault weapons ban, education and becoming a lowering corporate taxes.
The week before Super Tuesday, Cuomo was seen as the front runner for the Democratic nomination, gaining support from most establishment Democrats. On March 10, President Obama ordered a new round of NATO-lead strikes on suspected Iranian nuclear facilities after the first bombing campaign was over and had ended 8 months earlier. The move was seen as massively unpopular with members of the President’s party after the 2015 bombings lead to fierce opposition from the Arab world. Cuomo, who supported the original drone campaign, saw a drop in the polls after he indicated he supported the new Iranian military involvement. O’Malley saw a surge in the polls in Eastern states, largely seen for his opposition to the bombings in the Middle East. As Super Tuesday arrived Senator Kay Hagan saw victories in North Dakota, Wyoming and Oklahoma, where she did heavy campaigning in those states’ rural communities. Cuomo was able to keep his slim leads in Tennessee and Ohio, but lost to O’Malley Georgia and Massachusetts, where he previously had a 10 point lead over him. O’Malley also won Virginia, Vermont, Idaho and Alaska.
With a split of support between the three candidates, it was seen that O’Malley had a slight advantage for momentum, but along with Hagan, struggled to raise election funds. Cuomo raised 40% more than O’Malley, but faced criticism from Democrats after it was reported that Cuomo received $71,000 in campaign donations from Raytheon, the manufacturer of the Drones used in the Iran Bombing campaign. While campaigning in Chicago, O’Malley drew a crowd of 19,000 people in the President’s hometown, to protest the unpopular Iran involvement. At the event, O’Malley received endorsements from former Presidential Candidate Dennis Kucinich, Senator's Tammy Baldwin and Ron Wyden, and actor Ben Affleck. Though O’Malley amassed an 11 point gain in Illinois, he was ultimately defeated with a 3% margin of victory for Cuomo.
Cuomo’s policies as Governor of New York on Agricultural and Environmental issues during one of the worst droughts in global history, helped him to key victories in Kansas, Louisiana and Mississippi, but lost Alabama to Hagan. O’Malley won victories for his anti-war efforts in Wisconsin, the District of Columbia and his home state of Maryland. On April 6, Hagan announced that she was suspending her campaign, due to a drop in the polls in Indiana and her home state of North Carolina, where her strong lead started to decline since her upsetting performance on Super Tuesday.
The hard fought April 26 East Coast primaries were seen as a potential motivation changer for whoever came out the clear winner. Pennsylvania Governor Luke Ravenstahl and Connecticut Governor Dan Malloy went on a 4 day 18 city tour for the O’Malley campaign, speaking to first time voters and Latino voters who influenced the election in O’Malley’s favor on Super Tuesday. They received opposition from Vice President Joe Biden and Senator’s Bob Casey Jr. and Chris Murphy, who held rallies for Cuomo at the University of Pittsburgh and UConn. Cuomo’s received help from campaign add buyouts from the George Soros funded Super PAC American Bridge, but became targeted by the Super PAC MoveOn.Org, who earlier endorsed O’Malley. Cuomo saw a 16% point lead in New York, a 6% lead in Pennsylvania, and was tied with O’Malley in Rhode Island, Delaware and Connecticut. Cuomo’s campaign faced a minor debacle after a long time chief of staff and the communications director for his campaign, was indicted on perjury charges for falsely testifying about information on the 2015 New York SenateInsider Trading Scandal. Questions were also raised about Cuomo’s involvement in the scandal, but were later dropped after a grand jury cleared Cuomo of any charges. On April 26, Cuomo won his home state of New York and Connecticut, loosing Delaware, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island to O’Malley.
After the O’Malley victories, he picked up the highest noted endorsement of the campaign, from President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. They campaigned for O’Malley in Arkansas, Indiana and Texas, where O’Malley later won, along with Kentucky, Oregon and West Virginia. O’Malley only lost North Carolina and Nebraska to Cuomo in the month of May. With a commanding lead over Cuomo in California it was seen that O’Malley had enough delegates to clinch the nomination.
Cuomo conceded from the race and endorsed O’Malley on June 1, 2016. On June 7, 2016, President Barack Obama, who didn’t endorse in the primaries, at a press conference endorsed O’Malley for President.
After Americans Elect failed to put a candidate on the ballot in 2012, they formed a new Board of Directors and focused on Senate, Congressional and State House races in the 2014 midterm election (winning 1 senate, 6 congressional and 17 state house races). They put forth a National Platform, including overturning the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision and publicly financing elections, amending the constitution to include a balanced budget amendment, balancing the federal budget by making cuts to entitlement programs, raising the capital gains tax to 35%, lower the corporate tax to 25% while eliminating tax loopholes, a 2.5% across the cut in discretionary spending. On social issues they take libertarian positions on civil liberties, Immigrant and LGBT rights. Though position vary within the party on Abortion, Gun control laws, Energy and Environmental policy.
With speculation that 2012 Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson would run again in 2016, he officially announced in February of 2016 on CNN that he wouldn't seek the party's nomination. The announcement that Johnson wouldn't run led to a draft movement to nominate Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, a member of the Republican party, who's father Ron Paul was the Libertarian Party's candidate in the 1988 Presidential election. Paul announced that he didn't have an interest in leaving the Republican Party and later ran for reelection to the Senate. Investment broker and AuthorPeter Schiff, who supported the "draft Paul" movement and was a candidate in the Republican primary in the 2010 Connecticut Senate election, became the only candidate to run for the Libertarian Party's nomination in 2016. On May 12, 2016 at the Libertarian National Convention in Boston, Massachusetts, Schiff won enough delegates, clinching the party's nomination. At his request, the party nominated former MassachusettsState SenatorRichard Tisei.
The Pearce/Stein campaign saw overwhelming opposition, and frankly, they just looked like a team of invertebrate fucknozzles.
Their ticket was designated as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
One week after it was announced that Christie was the presumptive nominee, he saw an aggressive campaign buyout against him in Arizona, Florida, New Hampshire and Ohio, from the anti-Christie Super PAC United for a Fair Economy, and the former anti-Scott Brown turn anti-Christie Super PAC, Rethink PAC. They criticized Christie for his time as a lobbyist for the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association, and cited a close relationship between Christie and ponzi scheming, prison bitch Bernie Madoff.
Christie backed Super PAC Partnership for America's Future, primarily funded by billionaire hedge fund manager Paul Singer, ran repeated attack ads against O'Malley for a private comment he made after he clinched the democratic nomination saying that if elected President, he would expand the bombings in Iran.
The Americans Elect National Convention was held on August 22, 2016 at the Pepsi Center, in Denver, Colorado. It was the only national third party convention to be televised on any major news network, and was streamed by over 1.2 Million people online. Former Reform Party Presidential Candidate Ross Perot, officially nominated former Utah Governor Jon Huntsman Jr., for President; and former Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer, for Vice President.
Carol Tobias, President of National Right to Life Committee; Leslie Hanks, Vice President of Colorado Right To Life; and Barbara Comstock, Member of the Virginia House of Delegates and Co-Chair of the Executive Committee of the Susan B. Anthony List.
Small Oil Company Owners from Louisiana and North Dakota.
Todd Lamb, Lieutenant Governor of Oklahoma; Sue Ellspermann, Lieutenant Governor of Indiana; and Miriam F. Miquelon, Candidate for Attorney General of Illinois and former U.S. Attorney.
Cindy K. Jorgenson, Candidate for the U.S. House for Arizona's 3rd congressional district and Judge on the United States District Court for the District of Arizona.
The 2016 presidential election was the most expensive and corrupt in American history. Governor Chris Christie raised over $1.031 billion dollars, the first time any presidential candidate raised over one billion dollars in an election cycle. An additional $411 million was spent in outside spending by Christie backed Super PAC's, he raised a total of $1.685 billion was spent for Christie campaign effort along with RNC contributions. Governor Martin O'Malley raised $797 million dollars, with $238 million from outside spending, totaling $1.258 billion in overall spending.
I began as an editor on Wikipedia in July 2012 making small edits, and quickly moved to writing entire articles on politicians. I consider Wikipedia a primary source for my Education, and hope that my contributions will help educate others on political topics that they were interested in. (: