Recycled Democratic talking points.
Sean Rayford / Getty Images
Dan Scavino is a senior adviser to Donald Trump's presidential campaign and a former Trump organization executive. On Saturday he tweeted this video attacking Carly Fiorina's record as CEO of Hewlett Packard:
If the video looks familiar, it's because it's from an ad made by California Sen. Barbara Boxer's senatorial campaign when Fiorina challenged her and lost in 2010.
Dennis Hastert on June 9, 2015 in Chicago, Illinois.
Scott Olson / Getty Images
Attorneys for Dennis Hastert, the former speaker of the House, told a federal judge on Monday that their client is considering taking a plea deal in the criminal case against him, a spokesperson for the U.S Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois confirmed to BuzzFeed News.
The 73-year old former politician, who served as speaker from 1999 to 2006, was indicted in May on charges of "structuring financial payments" of $3.5 million to conceal "prior bad acts."
The indictment did not specify the nature of those acts, but sources with knowledge of the investigation told BuzzFeed News that Hastert, a former wrestling coach from a small town outside Chicago, was allegedly paying hush-money to one of his former wrestlers, whom he sexually abused decades ago.
At the time, Hastert pleaded not guilty to all charges. But on Monday John Gallo, one of his attorneys, told U.S District Court Judge Thomas Durkin that his discussions with Assistant U.S. Attorney Steven Block about a potential plea deal were "linear and productive."
A plea deal would allow the former Republican speaker to avoid a potentially embarrassing trial, where details of his "bad acts" would likely be discussed in open court.
Gallo did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The U.S. Attorney declined to comment beyond confirming that the parties are engaged in plea negotiations.
LINK: Former House Speaker Dennis Hastert Indicted On Federal Charges
LINK: Hastert Indictment Casts Shadow Over All-American Town
LINK: Family Of Alleged Hastert Victim Comes Forward
LINK: Dennis Hastert Pleads Not Guilty To Lying To FBI, Evading IRS
In a 2007 debate, Biden simply replied “no” when asked if he supported granting drivers licenses to undocumented immigrants.
Hillary Clinton in April came out in support of driver's licenses for undocumented immigrants, reversing a stance she took during her 2008 campaign after a vague answer during one of the Democratic primary debates left her open to criticism from her rivals.
But when then-Senator Joe Biden of Delaware was asked the same question, he left no room for interpretation on where he stood on this issue.
"Senator Biden opposes issuing driver's licenses to undocumented immigrants," read Biden's 2008 immigrant plan, a position he reiterated with a firm "no" when asked if he supported granting drivers licenses in a 2007 debate.
Biden's plan included vague language about a pathway to citizenship and called for increasing border security.
From his plan:
Increasing border security – finding out exactly who is coming in and out of our country – and expanding resources for border patrol.
Holding employers accountable. With a wink and a nod, we've permitted employers to hire undocumented individuals or those with obviously fake social security cards. It's time for that to stop. Economic growth should not be built on the broken backs of desperate people.
Providing a path to bring out from the shadows over 12 million people living and working in the United States; at least 1.6 million of whom are children.
Creating a worker visa system that is driven by the needs of employers and workers, not adherence to arbitrary numbers.
Maintaining a worker visa program with safe and fair working conditions that provides a pathway to citizenship to keep talent and promise in America.
In a debate, he noted it would be impossible to kick out everyone living in the United States illegally. Biden said the best path forward was to give everyone a background check, get rid of criminals, and provide a path to "earned citizenship" over the course of decade.
Trump was a big proponent of preemptive strikes.
Robyn Beck / AFP / Getty Images
Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump says he is being intentionally vague on foreign policy.
"I don't want them to know what I'm thinking, does that make sense?" Trump said in Oklahoma last week. "I want people to be guessing… I don't want people to figure it out. I don't want people to know what my plan is, I have plans. I have plans."
But if Trump's 2000 campaign book, The America We Deserve is any indication, then we already known exactly what his foreign policy would be. Trump devotes an entire chapter is his book to it.
In it, Trump proposes a number of policies, among them are striking North Korea, Iraq, and Iran if they build nuclear bombs and getting tough on China (he doesn't really say how). Trump proposes taking U.S. troops out of Europe and not sending troops to intervene in humanitarian disasters unless there's a clear threat to the United States.
Here are the highlights:
We're flirting with the same kind of mistake now in debating the nuclear nonproliferation treaty. All the major powers may sign such a treaty, but no one will obey it but us. I oppose such agreements for the same reason I oppose gun controls— when weapons are banned, only the outlaws have them.
Many of my friends still wince at the mention of Reagan. They can't face the fact that he proved them wrong about a lot of things. Here was a man dismissed as an amateur and practically a public menace—remember when Reagan was "the cowboy" about to get us into nuclear war?— who was bold enough to announce that the communist world could not only be contained but also defeated. These days they like to ascribe his achievements to luck. But that's nonsense. Nobody's luck is that good. No, Reagan won because he believed in America, and believed in toughing it out, even when under fire from his critics. He had the nerve to craft his policies toward dominance, always with his eye out for the right deal. Reagan recognized in Gorbachev a man willing to shake things up— primarily because Gorbachev was smart enough to see that his country was already well down the tubes. Anybody who believes that the Berlin Wall would have come down if Móndale were elected in 1984 doesn't deserve to be taken seriously.
“The Clinton Global Initiative does a lot of good work around the world.”
Scott Olson / Getty Images
Republican presidential candidate and former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina told CNN in 2013 that the Clinton Foundation was overall "a positive thing" for Hillary Clinton if she decided to run for president.
Fiorina made the comments in response to a question from Jake Tapper about reports from the New York Times and Politico on the Clinton Foundation that raised several questions about the foundation's management and possible conflicts of interest among the Clintons, their associates, and foundation donors.
"Sure there are, but I think on balance it's a positive thing, actually," Fiorina said when asked if the foundation would pose a problem for Clinton during a presidential run.
"It's certainly been a positive thing for President Clinton. Obviously, there are some management issues there that will have to be dealt with. But the Clinton Global Initiative does a lot of good work around the world." Fiorina added.
Fiorina said that the foundation's "vulnerabilities" were in it's corporate partnerships.
"I do think the vulnerabilities will be with the corporate partnerships, sadly. Corporations are doing great work with CGI, but I think she may be asked about some of those relationships as she goes forward," Fiorina said.
Fiorina, who in the past appeared on Clinton Foundation panels, has been a critic of the Clinton Foundation throughout 2015.
"And in the meantime, please explain why we should accept that the millions and millions of dollars that have flowed into the Clinton Global Initiative from foreign governments do not represent a conflict of interest," Fiorina said in a speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference.
When asked about the comments on CNN, a spokesperson for Fiorina said, "We now know that Mrs. Clinton made a whole series of decisions that favored donors to her family's foundation when she was secretary of state, including millions in previously undisclosed payments, and that her husband was seeking permission to make paid speeches in some of the most brutal dictatorships on the planet."
“This bill will save people’s lives. This bill is necessary.”
Vice President Joe Biden's pivotal role in passing a 1994 crime bill that, among other things, increased the number of police officers in the country and increased funding for prisons, has been widely noted as a potential problem for Biden if he seeks to pursue the Democratic presidential nomination.
Once held high as one of his greatest accomplishments -- then-Senator Barack Obama, when introducing Biden as his running mate in 2008, noted Biden's role "putting 100,000 cops on the streets, and starting an eight-year drop in crime a cross the country" -- the crime bill is now seen by many in the Democratic electorate as one of the root causes for mass incarceration and racial injustice in America.
Bill Clinton, who signed the bill into law, has publicly rebuked it, saying it "made the problem worse and I want to admit it." Hillary Clinton, who as first lady also campaigned for the bill's passage and touted it afterward, devoted her first major policy speech as a presidential candidate in April to ending the "era of mass incarceration."
Videos of Clinton expressing support for the bill at the time have already made their way onto the Internet, but for Biden the problem could be much worse: there are hours and hours of video on C-SPAN of the then-senator from Delaware leading the debate in favor of the crime bill's passage.
In one speech on the Senate floor, Biden sought to dispel myths being circulated by opponents of the bill it would decrease mandatory minimums and publicly-touted longer jail sentences.
"It was said today by one of my colleagues, who's an able lawyer and a member of the Judicial Committee -- he sincerely thought that the mandatory minimum sentences for selling drugs to children were repealed in this legislation," stated the Delaware senator.
"That is factually not true. Factually not true," he continued. "Not only that was it not repealed, these sentences for selling to minors, under statue that was not touched by the Congress, U.S. Code 18 section 859 and 861, there are existing minimum mandatories, and in addition to that, two sections we added to that continued existing minimum mandatory on page 246 of this legislation, sections 14005 - er 14006, and 14008, we increase the penalties for those who sell or use minors.
"We increase the penalties, increase them," Biden loudly declared.
Biden then sought to get rid of the idea the bill was "not tough."
"And lastly this notion that this is not tough," he said. "There are 60 new death penalties. Brand new, 60. There are 70 additional enhancements of penalties, i.e. you go to jail longer."
"So it is pure misinformation unintentionally delivered by couriers on both sides of the isle to suggest that (A) There's less money for cops, (B) there's less money for prisons and so on. This bill will save people's lives. This bill is necessary. I hope for the Lord we in fact waive the budget point of order and get on with the next filibuster."
C-SPAN
“I believe that people can actually move beyond the label.”
Justin Sullivan / Getty Images
Dr. Ben Carson says he would run outside the Republican Party, but doesn't think it's necessary and says he has no intention of doing so this election.
"If I had to, I would, but I don't think it's necessary," Carson told 99.3FM radio on Monday when asked if he'd be willing to run outside the Republican Party. "I believe that people can actually move beyond the label."
Carson said many Democrats have told him that they would vote for him and said that it meant people could move beyond party labels to vote on the issues.
"Well, I don't see a situation where I need to run outside of it," Carson said again when asked if he'd run outside the party. "I see a lot of intelligent people at the rallies that we go to, both Democrats and Republican, mostly Republicans, mostly conservatives.
"But you know, again, I don't think we need to emphasize so much a person's political party as we need to emphasize a person's philosophy," he continued. "What do they believe in? Do they believe in America? Do they think that there's something unique and special and exceptional about America. Do they believe in values and principles that made us great, or are they just willing to give all that stuff about for the sake of political correctness."
Asked a third time if he'd run outside the Republican Party, Carson again said "if I had to."
Asked a fourth time, more explicitly if it meant he'd run as independent this election, Carson backtracked.
"No, I didn't say that at all. That's not what I'm saying. I have no intention of running an outside campaign. Zero."
Georgia, Oklahoma, Virginia, Texas, and Missouri are set to execute six inmates within two weeks.
Kelly Gissendaner
Richard Glossip
klahoma Department of Corrections / AP Photo
Alfredo Prieto
Jase Robertson said “facial profiling” led to him being escorted out of Trump Tower in New York.
Ethan Miller / Getty Images
One of the Robertson brothers from the A&E show "Duck Dynasty" was, in 2013, escorted out of Trump Tower in New York City while he was staying there as a guest after asking a Trump hotel employee about the location of the bathroom.
Jase Roberston, who took the slight with a sense of humor, described the incident on Live! With Kelly and Michael, where he joked that the situation with the Trump hotel staff was a result of "facial profiling."
"You know, the first thing that happened to me at the hotel was I got escorted out," Robertson said.
"I think it was a facial profiling deal. I asked where the bathroom was and he said 'right this way sir,' he was very nice, and we walked outside, and he pointed down the road and said 'good luck and good day.' So I circled back around and my wife said, 'what happened?' I said I just got kicked out," Robertson said.
When Fox News asked the general manager of the Trump International Hotel & Tower Suzie Mills about the incident, she responded, "We are investigating this very unfortunate situation."
"Mr. Robertson is a valued guest of our hotel and the members of our staff know who he is," she added.
According to reports, Trump later apologized through his assistant.
"The Donald's assistant called Jase (Friday night) and talked to him about it," family member, Alan Robertson told The News-Star. "Mr. Trump was pleased with the way we handled the situation and he apologized for any inconvenience."
Robertson was reportedly not deterred from the incident.
"Jase assured them that we were not offended an welcomed a meeting with Mr. Trump the next time we are in New York City. We love staying at Trump Plaza and are undeterred by this incident. We look forward to our next visit in New York City," Alan said.
Willie Robertson, Jase's brother, offered his praise for Trump at an Oklahoma rally last week.
"I do like me some Trump, I gotta admit," Robertson said.
"Here's the deal. We're both successful businessmen. We both have pretty big shows on television. We both have wives that are 1,000 times better looking than us, so I like Trump." he added
“That’s right: We did this as a team.”
Astrid Riecken / Getty Images
Conservative outside groups are wasting no time in using Speaker John Boehner's retirement to raise cash from tea party supporters, boasting of their victory "in pushing Boehner aside" and bashing Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and the likely future speaker Rep. Kevin McCarthy as "Boehner cronies."
In fundraising pitches emailed to supporters over the weekend and Monday morning, groups such as FreedomWorks, Madison Project, and Senate Conservatives Fund, credited their grassroots activists and House conservatives for Boehner's retirement. They also waded into the House Republicans' leadership scramble, encouraging their activists to take action so that the next speaker is from the conservative wing of the party.
For the third time, Georgia has set a date to execute Kelly Gissendaner for plotting the death of her husband. The state’s parole board, however, will meet first to consider “supplemental information” and decide whether to proceed, delay her execution, or grant her clemency.
Kelly Gissendaner
Via wsbtv.com
Georgia is set to execute its only woman on death row Tuesday evening. If all goes according to the state's plan, Kelly Gissendaner will be the first woman the state has executed in 70 years. She was sentenced to death in 1998 for plotting the death of her husband, Douglas Gissendaner, with her boyfriend.
Gissendaner drove her boyfriend, Gregory Owen, to her house, gave him the murder weapons — a nightstick and a hunting knife — and then went to a nightclub with friends, according to court documents. Owen ambushed Douglas and forced him to drive his car to a remote location that Gissendaner chose beforehand.
Once they arrived, Owen beat Douglas and stabbed him. Owen took Douglas's wedding ring and watch to make it look like a robbery. Gissendaner later arrived at the scene and helped her boyfriend burn her husband's body and car. Law enforcement was unable to find Douglas's body for weeks.
Douglas Gissendaner.
Via wsbtv.com
Owen accepted a plea deal and testified against Gissendaner. In exchange, he received a life sentence without the possibility of parole. Gissendaner refused to take a plea and lost when she went to trial.
As Gissendaner's execution date nears, two of her and Douglas's children are calling for her life to be spared.
Plant.
Michael B. Thomas / Getty Images
Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee says the questioner at a Donald Trump rally in New Hampshire who said President Obama was a muslim might have been "a plant" there to stir up controversy.
"There have been dispatches from all over the world that should have made some major headlines," the former Arkansas governor said on his paywalled daily audio podcast The Huckabee Exclusive.
Huckabee cited reports of ISIS militants destroying Christian churches, killing Christians, and using churches as venues for executions, but said the media was only concerned with a man at a Trump rally who might have been a plant trying to create controversy.
"Yet the press in the U.S. seems more exercised over an accusation that Obama is a muslim by some anonymous person at a Trump rally -- possibly even a plant sent there for no other reason than to stir up phony controversy," Huckabee stated.
Take a listen to the audio:
“Does the name Ponzi all of a sudden come to mind?”
Robyn Beck / AFP / Getty Images
Donald Trump says today he wants to save Social Security from insolvency not by raising the retirement age but by taking money back from other countries.
"What I want to do is take money back from other countries that are killing us and I want to save social security," The Donald said on 60 Minutes on Sunday. "And we're going to save it without increases. We're not going to raise the age and it will be just fine."
"We will set it up by making our country rich again," Trump said when asked how he would fix the program. "We are going to do great. As a country we are going to do great."
But when Trump first flirted with running for president in 2000, he wanted to privatize the program and raise the retirement age, and called the program a Ponzi scheme.
"Fast-forward to 1941," writes Trump after a long explanation of the first Ponzi scheme to intro his chapter on "Making Social Security Secure Again."
"This is the second year Social Security benefits have been paid," he continues, "The first recipients of Social Security, even once inflation was factored in, got the equivalent of a 36.5 percent annual interest rate on their initial contributions into the Social Security Trust Fund. For those retiring in 1956, their inflation-adjusted rate of return was still a respectable 12 percent. Julie Kosterlitz, in the National Journal, compares that figure with this: For those who are working now and looking to retire after 2015, their returns will be below 2 percent. And that's if they ever get paid at all. Does the name Ponzi all of a sudden come to mind?"
Trump proposed a number of solutions, first an age of seventy for the retirement age.
"A firm limit at age seventy makes sense for people now under forty," Trump writes. "We're living longer. We're working longer. New medicines are extending healthy human life. Besides, how many times will you really want to take that trailer to the Grand Canyon?"
"The way the workweek is going, it will probably be down to about twenty-five hours by then anyway," he continues. "This is a sacrifice I think we all can make. And I don't accept the criticism that it's easy for guys like me to tell thirty-year-olds they shouldn't retire until they're seventy . Like a lot of people I know, I plan to work forever. My father was in his late eighties before he stopped coming to the office. If you're wondering when my retirement date will be, it will be about one day shy of the death date chiseled on my tombstone."
Next, Trump says privatization is the answer.
"Privatization would be good for all of us. As it stands today, 13.6 percent of women on Social Security live in poverty," Trump writes. "Harvard University researchers studied almost two thousand American women who retired in 1981 and found that virtually every woman—single, divorced , married , or widowed— would probably be better off financially under a system of fully private investment accounts."
"Not one woman would have been worse off," he writes. "On average, personal accounts would have provided a single woman with 58 percent more than Social Security, and wives with 208 percent more. Directing Social Security funds into personal accounts invested in real assets would swell national savings, pumping hundreds of billions of dollars into jobs and the economy. These investments would boost national investment, productivity, wages, and future economic growth."
Finally, Trump writes the answers couldn't be "more obvious": invest your Social Security in stocks and bonds.
Writes Trump:
The solution to the Great Social Security Crisis couldn't be more obvious: Allow every American to dedicate some portion of their payroll taxes to a personal Social Security account that they could own and invest in stocks and bonds . Federal guidelines could make sure that your money is diversified, that it is invested in sound mutual funds or bond funds, and not in emu ranches . The national savings rate would soar and billions of dollars would be cycled from savings, to productive assets, to retirement money. And unlike the previous system, the assets in this retirement account could be left to one's heirs, used to start a business, or anything else one desires. This sounds simple, so simple that it takes a ninety -year-old retired washerwoman to make plain a solution that has eluded politicians and economists from the elite universities. The strength of the idea, letting people keep the money that is rightfully theirs and investing in something more valuable than IOUs, is gaining so much popularity that the politicians are being forced to pay lip service to it.
“That’s probably the worst offense that can be committed, is manipulating intelligence, distorting the facts, in order to tell something that simply is not true.”
Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images
Leon Panetta, who served as CIA director and then secretary of defense in the Obama administration, says prosecution is warranted if ISIS intelligence reports were manipulated.
Reports in the New York Times and Daily Beast alleged senior military officials manipulated intelligence to paint a better picture of the administration's fight against ISIS.
"If that's true, and guess we'll have to wait and see what these investigations show, but if that's true that somebody deliberately manipulated intelligence and information to not only the American people but to the Congress then those individuals ought to be prosecuted," the former Obama administration official told WCBS880 this week.
"That's probably the worst offense that can be committed, is manipulating intelligence, distorting the facts, in order to tell something that simply is not true," he continued.
Take a listen to the audio:
“I think the Saudis should take more.”
Mark Wilson / Getty Images
Jim Webb, who is running for the Democratic presidential nomination, says the United States should be "careful" about allowing a large number of refugees into the country and that others should be providing them refuge.
"I think the Saudis should take more," Webb said Monday on The Alan Colmes Show. "I think people in the region should step up to try to stabilize Syria. And we should be very careful about bringing a large number of refugees here."
Webb added that he's open to accepting those that are "truly political refugees."
"We have a large problem in our country right now in terms of resolving the immigration issue," Webb said. "So for those who are truly political refugees in some way affiliated with what we've been doing, we should consider that. What we need to do is assert our influence in this region to get the Sunni nations to step up and truly help us stabilize the country. I don't think the Saudis have taken a refugee."
“I want to say I’ve had more time with you today than I had on the CNN debate stage the other night.”
Michael B. Thomas / Getty Images
As of late last week, Mike Huckabee was still expressing his frustration about how little time airtime he got at the CNN Republican presidential debate on September 16.
The former governor of Arkansas came in second-to-last in speaking time out of the 11 candidates, beating only Scott Walker, who dropped out of the race less than a week later. Huckabee took to Fox News the next day to express his frustration, telling Bill O'Reilly "there were times I wasn't sure if I was at a CNN debate or if I was standing in line at the DMV. I've been stuck in LA traffic and wasted less time than standing on that stage for three hours last night getting three questions. Three questions."
In arguing that CNN focused on "playground argument"-style politics, centered on the likes of Donald Trump and Carly Fiorina, rather than substantive debate, Huckabee has repeated the lines first spoken to O'Reilly and made other complaints to the same effect many times since. Huckabee has thrown in some playground barbs of his own, suggesting that CNN may be trying to get back at him for his years as a Fox host, when he was "beating their rear-ends every weekend in ratings" and jabbing at the network for "finally make some money after being so miserably bad in the ratings all of these years."
“Well, I think American blacks over the course of this next year will begin to see that they’ve been manipulated, very, very largely and people telling them what they’re suppose to think and what they’re suppose to say.”
Mark Lyons / Getty Images
Republican presidential candidate Dr. Ben Carson said earlier today that over the course of this next year black Americans will realize they have been "manipulated."
"Well, I think American blacks over the course of this next year will begin to see that they've been manipulated, very, very largely and people telling them what they're suppose to think and what they're suppose to say," Carson said on The Mike Gallagher Show. "And more and more, I'm finding, [they] are thinking for themselves and are recognizing, you know, what really works for them and for their communities and so I believe that's a dynamic that's in the process in changing."
Carson was responding to findings in a recent YouGov poll where a near majority of African Americans disapproved of remarks he made on CNN, where he said he wouldn't "advocate putting a Muslim in charge of this nation."
“[I]f we can redefine marriage as between two men or two women […] we will continue to redefine it in any way that we wish, which is a slippery slope with a disastrous ending, as witnessed in the dramatic fall of the Roman Empire.”
Justin Sullivan / Getty Images
In his 2012 history book, GOP presidential candidate Ben Carson wrote that same-sex marriage contributed to the decline of the Roman Empire.
"As a Bible-believing Christian, you might imagine that I would not be a proponent of gay marriage," Carson wrote in his book, America the Beautiful. "I believe God loves homosexuals as much as he loves everyone, but if we can redefine marriage as between two men or two women or any other way based on social pressures as opposed to between a man and a woman, we will continue to redefine it in any way that we wish, which is a slippery slope with a disastrous ending, as witnessed in the dramatic fall of the Roman Empire."
"I don't believe this to be a political view, but rather a logical and reasoned view with long-term benefits to family structure and the propagation of humankind," Carson wrote. "When children grow up in an environment with loving parents who provide security, they are free to be happy and playful and eager to learn. God obviously knew what he was doing when he ordained the traditional family, and we should not denigrate it in order to uplift some alternative."
Ben Carson has in the past blamed "political correctness" for the fall of the Roman Empire.
Similarly, in a 1997 speech to the National Prayer Breakfast, Carson blamed sports and entertainment for the empire's decline.
"We have to change the tremendous emphasis on sports and entertainment and lifestyles of the rich and famous," Carson said. "Because, see, there were other great nations that went that pathway: Egypt, Greece, Rome, they were all at the pinnacle, just like the the USA, and then they forgot about the things that made them great and became enamored with things that weren't so important. And where are they today? And some people think that that can't happen here, but it can. And we have a real obligation to do something to do something change that."
Armed with iPads, the GOP is speaking to Hispanic voters on the ground, engaging on issues they care about in key counties and states. But will outreach efforts matter after the summer of Trump?
Adrian Carrasquillo / BuzzFeed
MIAMI — Latino business owners walked through an upbeat scene at the Viva Miami Hispanic Heritage Business Expo on Friday, with classic '80s synth music blaring as the Florida Panthers mascot ran through the convention center, playfully accosting passerby.
And among the local business booths, was one about Uber — and a petition asking whether the company should be able to operate in Miami-Dade county.
The question wasn't coming from taxi-union supporters or Uber itself, it was from the national Republican Party, where a team of volunteers armed with iPads was using the popular service as an opener to collect contact information from Latinos.
The Republican Party began its Growth and Opportunity Project in 2013, after the party's fortunes had declined from George W. Bush's 44% performance with Latino voters to the dismal returns with all minorities in 2012.
During Hispanic Heritage Month (expanded to 30 days by none other than President Ronald Reagan, the RNC will have you know), the party is doing 25 community events across eight states, many of which are electoral battlegrounds like Florida, Nevada, North Carolina, Virginia, and Colorado.
Millions of dollars are being poured into the 2016 effort to reach Hispanics, staff has been doubled on the ground, and after successful midterm wins in Florida and Colorado, the party is trying fresh approaches to engage them.
That calculus means an understanding that Latinos are not a monolithic group, differing geographically and ethnically, both native born and immigrant. And to better understand them, the RNC has gone to Hispanic community events with iPads and questions tailored to locals.
That means in Orlando, where the Puerto Rican community has skyrocketed, they asked people whether they supported statehood for the island. In Denver, the question was about school choice. A Pennsylvania event focused on taxes and the economy, while Miami events have asked about the Cuban embargo, school choice and now, a new, novel one: Uber.
"We want people to have the Susana Martinez moment," said Alex Garcia, the RNC Florida deputy director, who said more than 1,000 people have been engaged by Republicans in three events in the state. "They might sign up as a Democrat or they might identify as a liberal but then look at the issues they care about and say I might just be a conservative or I might just be a Republican."
Republicans feel supporting Uber, particularly in Miami-Dade where Mayor Carlos Gimenez said Monday the taxi industry will be substantially deregulated by the end of the year, is a slam dunk, an opportunity to come off on the side of technology and progress, where Democrats who receive support from taxi unions may be slower to back the companies.
That approach, opening with Uber and moving to party politics, was on display three days earlier.
"Do you like Uber?" Miami-Dade's Florida GOP director said from across a table to a woman strolling from booth to booth like she was window shopping at the mall. "Big government or small government?"
"Pequeño," the retired Cuban-American businesswoman Magali Abad said. Uber gets her support because of the free market in which competition is good, she said, but she is a Democrat because "there are a lot of things Republicans do" that she's "not into."
During the summer, no voice tried harder, louder, and perhaps more effectively, to undo these efforts by Republicans, than newly minted frontrunner, Donald Trump.
He's excoriated Mexicans and undocumented immigrants, and said he wants to build a wall on the border, in addition to rounding up and deporting millions from their homes (but in a "humane" way).
The development did not go unnoticed in Miami.
"You guys are going for Donald Trump?" said one woman, half-joking, half-accusatory, as she walked up to the booth at the business expo.
"Hey, don't say that," one of the staffers blurted, before adding that it's up to voters to have a voice and decide who will win.
The woman, Rebecca del Sol, gave her contact information on the Uber form and later told BuzzFeed News she likes Hillary Clinton and Ben Carson at the moment.
Adrian Carrasquillo / BuzzFeed
Republicans say the approach is innovative.
"Smart tactic by the RNC," said Ana Navarro, a Republican strategist and Jeb Bush supporter, in an email. "I suspect someone in Reince's shop had a near-death experience in one of our dreadful Miami taxi-cabs, and quickly realized backing Uber and Lyft in this city was a no-brainer."
Others argue the Uber work is an example of something Republicans often struggle with: issues that are youth-oriented, and feel natural for the party to support.
Armando Ibarra, a Marco Rubio supporter who recently held a happy hour fundraiser for the Florida senator, serves as the vice president of the Miami Young Republicans and used to be at Launchpad, a University of Miami startup accelerator.
He's held events on "transportation innovation" featuring Uber and competitor Lyft and said in his experience, talking about something young people care about is more effective than a more traditional Republican event about the second amendment or taxes. Starting with this approach "relates directly to issues of political ideology and in many cases party identification," he said.
"What we constantly see is Hispanics in general don't fall neatly into Republican/Democrat categories," said Bettina Inclan, who worked for Mitt Romney and the RNC. "By having these conversations you make people question what they really believe in and who they support. We've seen them swing, they're more interested in candidates and ideas."
Republicans are also collecting data that many in politics would love to get their hands on. For example, in Orlando at Telemundo's Feria De La Familia — attended by 10,000 people — more than 80% of respondents to the RNC survey said they were in favor of statehood for Puerto Rico. While the data collection is not scientific, Garcia in Florida said it allows the RNC to "check the temperature" on key topics and "gives us a good gauge to where we'll be at on particular issues."
While Democrats acknowledge that the national party has simply not competed with the RNC in terms of its level of resources deployed on the ground, they largely dismissed the Republican effort to speak to Hispanic voters with something like Uber as a conversation starter.
"I think it speaks to their toxic brand that they're engaging people trying to get their foot in the door using other issues," said Florida Democratic Party spokesman Max Steele.
"Maybe they should be asking, 'Do you use Goya foods or do you drink Bustelo or Pilon,'" said Democratic strategist Jose Parra, sarcastically invoking food and coffee brands found in many Latino homes. "They can't ask a question about any other policy issue: immigration or minimum wage or simple decency to people of other cultures, so they resort to asking about Uber to gather people's data."
Republicans are confident, however, that this on the ground engagement will pay dividends come 2016 and point to polls showing that Trump hasn't yet hurt the party as a whole with Latino voters.
At El Paso Mexican Restaurant in Fairfax County, Virginia, last week, RNC chairman Reince Priebus said it is "offensive" to many Hispanics to assume that they all share the same views on immigration.
Priebus, who met with Trump during the summer and asked him to "tone it down," according to reports, compared him to a Baskin Robbins ice cream flavor.
"It's like going to 31 Flavors, you can choose whatever flavor you want and we've got plenty of them and that's what people are gonna do right now and whoever the nominee's going to be we're going to be 100% behind them," he said.
He said the Growth and Opportunity Project was about increasing engagement with Latinos. In the report, however, the same sentence that lauds Bush for his relationships with the Latino community, also said his inclusive tone resonated with the community.
"If Hispanic Americans perceive that a GOP nominee or candidate does not want them in the United States (i.e. self-deportation), they will not pay attention to our next sentence," the report stated.
Still, many Republicans believe a candidate like Rubio, Jeb Bush or John Kasich would be able to successfully use the apparatus the RNC is building to grow the GOP coalition.
And the RNC will continue to show up. Party staffers were at Fiestas Patrias in Colorado, which had 200,000 in attendance, and will be in North Carolina this weekend asking Latinos about education, where 75,000 are expected.
In Miami on Friday, one longtime Republican, Mike Rivero, a Cuban-American who owns a printing business, said he was firmly in Jeb Bush's camp. He expressed an interest in volunteering for the RNC and gave his information to one of the eight or so staffers and volunteers working the booth.
One woman remarked that she didn't have time to register to vote right now, at first misunderstanding what the survey was about.
"This is for Uber?" she asked.
She then reversed course, and quickly jotted down her name and contact information before walking away.
“Jeb Bush is underrated,” he says to Pitchfork. “Radically underrated. Not saying he’s had such a hard life, but look what he has to follow. Nobody even bothers to buy Bush’s Baked Beans. I would absolutely not vote for him, but this guy’s got moxie.”
