Laura Ingraham May Challenge Tim Kaine For His Senate Seat In Virginia

Something that’s been tumbling around the Internet for a while now seems to have gained enough steam that today on Fox & Friends, conservative radio talk show host Laura Ingraham stated she is eyeing a senate run against Hillary’s crutch Tim Kaine in 2018.

The UVA Law School grad, former attorney and Reagan speechwriter said she's been flattered by several "well-connected" people in Virginia asking her to be a candidate.

Laura Ingraham announces she is considering a Senate run in Virginia challenging Sen. @timkaine. @IngrahamAngle @foxandfriends pic.twitter.com/TaCT55Q07U

— Fox News (@FoxNews) January 17, 2017

Ed Morrissey of Hot Air noted, “It’s not difficult to understand why party leaders in Virginia would want Ingraham in the race. She’s sharp, well attuned to the state’s politics, and most importantly a well-known conservative whose personality would provide an immediate contrast to the current, somewhat-less-than-exciting incumbent. Unlike others who might get drafted into that position through the normal bench in Virginia, Kaine won’t overshadow Ingraham in a straight-up fight.”

“Ingraham is to be taken seriously. It certainly would make the Virginia Senate race a national affair, and that alone would help Republicans in a midterm fight if they can manage to accomplish the biggest parts of their agenda up front in 2017. It certainly won’t be dull. At least, not on the Republican side,” added Morrissey.

The Republican primary could be crowded. Both Barbara Comstock and Dave Brat are considering a bid, and Brat has already been singled out by Kaine as a top challenger. And there are reports that former Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina, a 2010 California Senate candidate, also wants to run in Virginia.

Comstock was sworn in to the 115th Congress on January 3rd marking her second term representing the people of Virginia’s 10th Congressional District.

Brat is most known for toppling then-House Majority Leader Eric Cantor in a 2014 primary.  Cantor arrogantly assumed he had the Speaker of the House position locked up when John Boehner retired.  Boehner, you’ll recall was replaced by Paul Ryan.

Few people did more than Ingraham and Mark Levin to propel Brat from obscurity to national conservative hero.  According to Ingraham the [Republican] party leadership “needed a jolt.” Cantor was not seen as “conservative enough”.   

At a huge event held at the Dominion Club, a tennis and golf club not far from Cantor’s home outside Richmond, Ingraham asked the crowd, “Who do you think Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi want to win this primary? Why do they want Eric Cantor to win?  They want Eric Cantor to win because Eric Cantor is an ally in the fight for immigration amnesty.”

I suspect Tim Kaine possesses an exaggerated sense of self-importance much like Cantor did; perhaps more.

If Laura Ingraham does light the fuse on her candidacy, Kaine had better polish his circus act by not being an over-caffeinated, overtly rude attack dog.  His memorization of a laundry list of blatant lies and catchy zingers ain’t gonna cut it.  Ms. Ingraham wrote the book on zingers.  Of Thee I Zing

CNN conducted a poll immediately following the Vice Presidential Debate. Political Director, David Chalian, admitted the makeup of those polled was skewed more Democrat.  The results showed 67% thought Mike Pence performed better than expected and 43% believed Kaine performed worse than expected.  The Russians could not be reached for comment.

I like the sound of “Senator Ingraham” don’t you? 

Dear @IngrahamAngle, please tell me where I can donate to your campaign. Do you need volunteers? Where and when? https://t.co/nIFV3F7wYD

— James Woods (@RealJamesWoods) January 16, 2017

Cruz Is Clawing Back

Even if John Kasich, the graceless loser, had dropped out of the race for the White House weeks ago, the returns from Tuesday’s Acela Primaries in Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island show Donald Trump would have won them in landslides. 

Cruz, the “originalist” constitutional lawyer and former solicitor general of Texas authored more than 80 US Supreme Court briefs and made more than 40 oral SCOTUS arguments winning important victories on gun rights, the Pledge of Allegiance and the right to display the Ten Commandments. 

He’s a fighter and was once described as “off the charts brilliant”.  He has absolutely no intention of surrendering to Trump. 

Today, Cruz announced his running mate would be Carly Fiorina.  I’ve always liked Carly and she will most certainly be an effective attack dog given her blistering assaults on the Democrats’ “presumptive nominee” who is under FBI investigation.

The unambiguous truth is Cruz has very few arrows left in his quiver.  Carly may not make any difference in Indiana. Some pundits have referred to the Indiana primary as Cruz’s “Alamo” and we all know how that worked out.

He knows he is under-performing in Oregon and New Mexico so it appears his strategy is concentrated on the California primary where 172 delegates are at stake.  

Carly could help dominate the news cycle if she came out and interrupted Cruz and just took the mic away.

— Jonah Goldberg (@JonahNRO) April 27, 2016

Ted Cruz LIVE TODAY 4/27/16 Indianapolis, IN - Rally with Ted Cruz

The Trumpire Strikes Back

Stand with the Rebel Alliance against the Trumpire!

UPDATE:  New and Improved! With more Carly!!

“Family Jewels” Become A “Bone” Of Contention

Few will disagree that GOP presidential candidate Carly Fiorina emerged the clear victor in last week’s CNN debate.

No matter which candidate you may be supporting, you must admit that Fiorina’s performance was refreshing—refreshing from the standpoint that Trump, who had insulted her looks and backtracked, insisting he was merely commenting on her “persona” was left with egg on his face.  He had no comeback.  A body blow was struck; a body blow which no other candidate has been able to muster this entire election cycle.

"You know, it's interesting to me. Mr. Trump said that he heard Mr. Bush very clearly and what Mr. Bush said. I think women all over this country heard very clearly what Mr. Trump said."

Wednesday night’s The Kelly File featured National Review senior editor Rich Lowry in a discussion of Fiorina’s business career and the disaster many claim it was.  Kelly asked if it was sexist to make that claim.  Lowry responded, “No, no one disputes that. Trump obviously attacks everyone but she’s [Fiorina] become a much bigger target, and I think part of what’s going on here is that last debate. Let’s be honest. Carly cut his balls off with the precision of a surgeon.” 

He continued, “He knows he insulted and bullied his way to the top of the polls. No one was able to best him ever, except for this tough lady on that stage. And it must kill him. He must be simmering about it to this night.”

Shortly thereafter, a Twitter flamewar between Trump and Lowry turned into a comedic lampooning with The Donald demanding the government get involved.

.@realDonaldTrump a deal for you, Donald: if you apologize to Carly for your boorish insult, I might stop noting how she cut your b**** off

— Rich Lowry (@RichLowry) September 24, 2015

If Trump wants the FCC to fine Lowry for offending him, would a President Trump become all stompy feet and browbeat the FCC into pulling the plug on Comedy Central for airing an episode of South Park depicting him being raped and murdered? 

Carly Rose To The Occasion Lapping The Field

A scrapper with true grit, Carly Fiorina took the stage at the Reagan Presidential Library for the second GOP debate and drew her sword.  Brit Hume and a whole host of male pundits criticized Fiorina’s failure to smile noting that she came across as too aggressive and lacking humor.

Geez boys.  I find nothing humorous about mutilating babies to harvest their organs, the national debt, the threat of a nuclear-armed Iran, Putin’s incursions into Syria, the growing Islamic Caliphate, drug addiction and the culture of corruption in politics.  How about coming to terms with the fact that she had to show her toughness on stage?

On six morning talk shows today Fiorina said, “This is going to be a fight.  If you can’t fight on a debate stage, you can’t stand up and fight for the American people.”  She went on to say, “It’s only a woman whose appearance would be talked about when running for president—never a man.”  She added, “The point is, women are half this nation.  Women are half the potential of this nation.  Still somehow we spend a lot of time talking about women’s appearance instead of their qualifications.” [Damn right.]

John Podhoretz praised her performance noting, “At almost any moment that she managed to seize time to speak—and she was compelled by the structure of the debate to interrupt repeatedly to get that time—she knocked it out of the park.”

One über-liberal pundit wrote, "If you right wingers get your act together and nominate Carly, you win."

Byron York, writing for The Washington Examiner felt Carly had four “big moments” in the debate.

The first came when Fiorina turned a meandering conversation about Vladimir Putin into a crisp recitation of what a new commander in chief should do about Russian aggression:

"What I would do, immediately, is begin rebuilding the Sixth Fleet, I would begin rebuilding the missile defense program in Poland, I would conduct regular, aggressive military exercises in the Baltic States. I'd probably send a few thousand more troops into Germany. Vladimir Putin would get the message. By the way, the reason it is so critically important that every one of us know General Soleimani's name is because Russia is in Syria right now, because the head of the Quds force traveled to Russia and talked Vladimir Putin into aligning themselves with Iran and Syria to prop up Bashar al-Assad."

"We could rebuild the Sixth Fleet. I will. We haven't. We could rebuild the missile defense program. We haven't. I will. We could also, to Senator Rubio's point, give the Egyptians what they've asked for, which is intelligence. We could give the Jordanians what they've asked for, bombs and materiel. We have not supplied it. I will. We could arm the Kurds. They've been asking us for three years. All of this is within our control."

Fiorina had packed more policy prescriptions into one brief statement—all while throwing in a dig at Donald Trump with the reference to knowing "General Soleimani's name"—than any other candidate onstage could muster.

Any other campaign might have dispatched spinners to celebrate the moment. But Fiorina was just getting started. Next came an epic and out-of-the-blue connection of two of the issues about which there is a lot of agreement among Republicans—Iran's nuclear ambitions and the scandal over Planned Parenthood's sale of body parts. How to put those two together?

"I would like to link these two issues. One has something to do with the defense of the security of this nation. The other has something to do with the defense of the character of this nation. You have not heard a plan about Iran from any politician up here, here is my plan. On day one in the Oval Office, I will make two phone calls, the first to my good friend to Bibi Netanyahu to reassure him we will stand with the state of Israel."

"The second, to the supreme leader, to tell him that unless and until he opens every military and every nuclear facility to real anytime, anywhere inspections by our people, not his, we, the United States of America, will make it as difficult as possible and move money around the global financial system."

"We can do that; we don't need anyone's cooperation to do it. And every ally and every adversary we have in this world will know that the United States in America is back in the leadership business, which is how we must stand with our allies."

"As regards Planned Parenthood, anyone who has watched this videotape, I dare Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama to watch these tapes. Watch a fully formed fetus on the table, it's heart beating, it's legs kicking while someone says we have to keep it alive to harvest its brain. This is about the character of our nation, and if we will not stand up in and force President Obama to veto this bill, shame on us."

The power of Fiorina's presentation simply knocked out a lot of viewers. Conservative writer Mollie Hemingway, who has been pressing the media to pay more attention to the Planned Parenthood videos, was left nearly speechless, tweeting "THANK YOU CARLY. THANK YOU CARLY. THANK YOU CARLY." 

But Fiorina's most intense big moment was still to come—and it was by far the briefest. Everyone knew that Donald Trump's insults about Fiorina's looks—the "Look at that face. Would anyone vote for that?" quote from Trump in a recent Rolling Stone article—would come up in the debate. It did, when moderator Jake Tapper read it to Fiorina and noted Trump's explanation that he was not talking about Fiorina's actual face but rather her "persona."

"Please feel free to respond what you think about his persona," Tapper said to Fiorina. Referring to an earlier spat between Trump and Jeb Bush over a Bush statement about women's health, Fiorina answered:

"You know, it's interesting to me. Mr. Trump said that he heard Mr. Bush very clearly and what Mr. Bush said. I think women all over this country heard very clearly what Mr. Trump said."

Fiorina's answer took just a few seconds, but it knocked Trump flat—something that has not happened in any debate, or any other campaign event, so far. Trump, who has made it a habit not to apologize for attacks and to double down when challenged, surrendered completely. But he managed to do it in a way that did him no good at all. "I think she's got a beautiful face," Trump said, "and I think she's a beautiful woman." Did anyone believe that? And wasn't he still saying her appearance is an issue?

Finally, Fiorina lapped the field when Tapper asked the candidates to suggest a woman to put on the $10 bill. Most of the men onstage were unprepared for the question.  When the question came to the only woman on the stage, Fiorina rejected its premise.

Four big moments in one debate. No other candidate had that. 

Carly Fiorina Rips Planned Parenthood

Carly Fiorina Slams Hillary Clinton

Trump On Carly Fiorina

Carly Fiorina Gets Personal Discussing Drugs

According to Fiorina’s 2015 memoir, her stepdaughter, Lori, died in 2009 after struggling with alcohol, prescription pills and bulimia. She was just 35.