“I don’t think a person can be totally sold out to Christ until he has resolved all of his racial prejudice.”

Rapture Express

In the early 1970s, future Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee wrote a column called the "RAPture Express" for the Baptist Trumpet, a weekly newspaper of the Baptist Missionary Association of Arkansas. Huckabee had just graduated Hope High School and started studying at Ouachita Baptist college.

BuzzFeed News previously noted Huckabee wrote columns covering topics like dancing, dating, and smoking, as well as some more serious issues such as the Houston Mass Murders and the Arab oil embargo.

In one previously unearthed column, Huckabee wrote about racial prejudices.

In the column, Huckabee took to task fellow Christians who looked upon people of color as "inferior," saying those who threw out "degrading" terms at African-Americans didn't follow the rule of treating others how they wanted to be treated.

Huckabee said a person couldn't be a complete Christian "until he has resolved all of his racial prejudice."

Take a read of the column in full below:

Baptist Trumpet

Justices question Florida’s laws, which state that a judge independently must make the decision to impose a death sentence after a jury’s “advisory” recommendation — which is reached through a majority, not unanimous, vote.

People line up outside of the Supreme Court in Washington, Tuesday, Oct. 13, 2015.

Jacquelyn Martin / AP

WASHINGTON — A majority of the Supreme Court on Tuesday expressed skepticism over Florida's unique method for sentencing people to death, although justices' concerns focused at points on different aspects of the system.

Under Florida law, a jury — by a majority, as opposed to a unanimous, vote — only recommends an "advisory" death sentence, which the judge hearing the case then uses in deciding independently whether to sentence a person to death.

In an earlier case, Ring v. Arizona, the Supreme Court held that a state cannot require that a judge, without a jury, find the aggravating circumstances that are constitutionally required to impose the death penalty.

The question on Tuesday was whether Florida's system violates that decision, a challenge raised by Timothy Lee Hurst to his 2012 death sentence imposed by the court for the 1998 killing of a co-worker.

Only Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito — neither of whom were on the court when Ring was decided in 2002 — appeared comfortable with all of the aspects of Florida's system.

Notably, however, Justices Anthony Kennedy and Antonin Scalia both expressed concerns with the system, although Scalia also critically questioned Hurst's lawyer, Seth Waxman, about how, exactly, Florida's system differed from others in a way that was constitutionally relevant.

In Florida, after being found guilty in a capital murder trial — one where the defendant could face death — the jury then considers aggravating and mitigating factors before recommending a sentencing decision. Juries can recommend a sentence of death if a majority of the jurors find that at least one of several set aggravating factors applied to the defendant in the case. In Hurst's case, for example, the two aggravating factors claimed were that he committed the murder while "engaged in the commission of a robbery" and that the murder was "especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel."

If a jury recommends a sentence of death, it does not — and, Waxman pointed out, cannot be -- directed to specify which aggravating factor it found. As such, a majority of the jury need not even have agreed on which aggravating factor is being used as its rationale for recommending a death sentence.

Then, the case goes to the judge, who makes his or her own, independent investigation — in which the court can hear additional testimony and evidence — before handing down a sentence that need not comport with the jury's advisory sentence. When the judge imposes a death sentence, only the judge's decision, which includes a written opinion as to which aggravating factors she has found, is considered on appeal.

On Tuesday, several elements of this process were questioned by Kennedy, Scalia, and their four more liberal colleagues: Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan. Only Justice Clarence Thomas, who had joined the court's decision in Ring, said nothing at the arguments on Tuesday, as is his practice.

Scalia's primary concern related to the effect on the jury of its being told it was only to give an "advisory sentence," noting that if they were told that their decision finding the presence of an aggravating factor was final, then "[t]hat's a lot more responsibility" than merely giving the judge their advisory sentence.

Both Kennedy and Kagan, in a series of questions to the state's lawyer, Florida Solicitor General Allen Winsor, tried to understand what would happen in a death case in which the judge tossed out the jury's chosen aggravating factor as having been insufficiently proven but then substitutes a different aggravating factor as his rationale for imposing a death sentence. This, Kagan appeared to believe, would violate Ring.

At one point, Winsor said that such a situation wouldn't happen in Florida — specifically because the jury is not required to specify which aggravating factor it found.

Finally, Kagan raised another point, noting that a death sentence appeal in Florida only focuses on the judge's eventual sentencing findings, meaning that someone like Hurst can't challenge the jury's "aggravating factor" finding, which, Kagan said, "shows the crucial decision is [made by] the judge." That, Kagan noted, further suggested that the system violates Ring.

In addition to the judge-related issues, both Ginsburg and Sotomayor spent some time digging into the majority vote issue, questioning whether a simple majority vote is the "functional equivalent" of a unanimous jury. When Winsor noted a prior Supreme Court decision holding that a 10-2 jury vote requirement is the "functional equivalent" of unanimity, his pressing on that point led justices to question whether the court should, if needed, overrule that prior ruling.

A decision in the case is expected by the end of June.

Some argue the candidate needs to move beyond one example, and talk about structural racism — like Elizabeth Warren did. His campaign says Sanders is the real deal. “He definitely doesn’t have all the answers and he’ll tell you that, but he is willing to have the conversations…that speaks to the idea of the political revolution.”

Darren Mccollester / Getty Images

WASHINGTON — Black Lives Matter activists say they are unimpressed with statements Bernie Sanders has made regarding about Black Lives Matter following a series of confrontations with the activists this past summer — and are looking for him to show a broader understanding during Tuesday's Democratic debate.

Twice, in recent weeks, Sanders has used the example of Sandra Bland, the woman who killed herself in a Texas jail cell after being assaulted by a police officer during a traffic stop. "It's hard to imagine if Sandra Bland was white she would have been thrown to the ground and assaulted and insulted," Sanders said in a profile in the New Yorker. "I plead guilty — I should have been more sensitive at the beginning of this campaign to talk about this issue."

Activists say this isn't enough. They want Sanders to go beyond this example and talk about broader issues of inequality and injustice, and talk about them outside his economic message. Some activists were also frustrated with Sanders's recent comments on gun control in a statement after the Oregon shooting, and the inclusion of the line: "In Chicago, they are used for kids killing other kids or gang members shooting at police officers, shooting down innocent people."

The activists' dissatisfaction may be best observed in the elated reaction to a speech given by Sen. Elizabeth Warren last month in Boston. At the time, DeRay Mckesson praised Warren for understanding the "role of structural racism" plays in America, and that she "understands the protests as a matter of life or death." He met with Warren shortly after.

Another activist, Brittany Packnett, told The Guardian, that Warren was "willing to give the speech that other politicians seem to be afraid to give, which is to say that black humanity matters without equivocation."

That's the sort of thing that activists are looking for from Sanders — and say they haven't seen yet.

"He doesn't understand the context," said Marissa Johnson, the Black Lives Matter activist who, along with Mara Willaford, confronted Sanders in Seattle. "He can only just throw out, 'Well, Sandra Bland was really sad.' It shows that he legitimately does not understand the political context outside of his old school, kind of socialist analysts."

"After black activists and organizers pushed him to talk about the issues that are affecting black folks on a regular basis, it's just reality that he's not completely understanding of what the crises are," said Dante Barry, executive director of the Million Hoodies Movement for Justice.

Barry said that Sanders and other candidates need to know more than the names, and begin to articulate why police violence and structural racism are pervasive in today's society and how, as president, he will begin to dismantle both. "The disruptions made him a better candidate and they will continue," Barry said, adding that the activism has shown they not just "have power not just a once an election season, but that they need to continue to be responsible and accountable to us."

But Sanders's campaign rejects the idea that these are new opinions for Sanders or that a simple citation of Bland's death shows that he misunderstands what's at stake. (The campaign noted that the addition of a position on civil asset forfeiture, which followed a meeting with Black Lives Matter activists, Campaign Zero.)

Symone Sanders, the senator's national press secretary, said that Sandra Bland's story is a clear example of injustice and racial inequality in the United States. The example, she told BuzzFeed News, is "much easier than citing something that happened in the back alley woods of Mississippi that nobody knows about."

"It's so clear cut," she continued. "People who can't relate to something like that happening to them...I don't think a white woman could understand what it's like to be in a car, be pulled over and fear for their life. But [for] black people in this country that is a thought that immediately goes through their head."

Symone Sanders acknowledged that Bernie Sanders is not from a state with a large black population, but said criticism from Black Lives Matter activists that his recent statements on the movement show a lack of understanding about Black Lives Matter is a mischaracterization of his intention.

"The senator has not had an epiphany," Symone Sanders said. "These are not new stances. To say that the senator one day woke up or had a meeting or something happened to him and now he feels as though black and brown issues are at the forefront is incorrect."

"He has always had a record of advocating for things that are in line with the movement," she continued. "He has had the opportunity to have multiple conversations with various Black Lives Matter activists and those conversations have been fruitful on both ends and the there have been great things that have come out of those conversations that can enhance the platform."

Packnett was careful to say that this is not just about Sanders. The entire political spectrum — from activists, to Congress to presidential candidates — need to get better at channeling talk about race into action.

"America has gone for centuries without talking about race," Packnett said. "Black folks talk about race every day, we live race every day, people of color experience race every day, so we talk about it all the time. But it has been far too easy in this country to live an existence and never have to grapple with the difficulties of race, structural inequality, or poverty."

Symone Sanders says that's why the candidate is willing to have those conversations.

"Yes, the senator is from Vermont where there is not a very large population of people of color," she said. "And he realizes that and it's why it's important to get out here and have these conversations. He has had varied experiences throughout his life that all play into the person that he is. He definitely doesn't have all the answers and he'll tell you that, but he is willing to have the conversations and get input from people that help shape his platform. That speaks to the idea of the political revolution."

An Atlanta radio host who interviewed Donald Trump on Tuesday told BuzzFeed News that as a precondition for the interview, Donald Trump’s campaign staff limited him to non-policy questions and reserved the right to nix questions they didn’t like.

Isaac Brekken / Getty Images

Atlanta radio host Steve McCoy, who hosts News Radio 106.7 Morning Show with Steve McCoy and Cheryl White, said on his radio program on Tuesday and confirmed to BuzzFeed News that the Trump campaign wouldn't let him ask about specific policies during a brief interview.

"They said they wouldn't take questions about his policy because his policies, they weren't set in stone," McCoy told BuzzFeed News.

Before his interview with Trump aired, McCoy said on his program the Trump campaign restricted the interview to non-policy questions and reserved the right to nix any questions they didn't like.

"It came with some restrictions: I couldn't ask anything about his current policies," McCoy said. "And they had the right to x out any questions that I did ask and we got through about three minutes of it."

The Trump campaign did not return a request for comment.

After the interview, the conversation between McCoy and co-host Cheryl White turned to the Trump campaign refusing policy questions.

"So he wouldn't let you ask him anything about his platforms running for president," White said.

"No, cause he said those policies -- well he didn't say it his handlers said -- the policies aren't set in stone yet and I guess we can kind of understand that, they got a year to go," replied McCoy.

"I guess, you would think he would want to get his message out there but anyway great job," said White.

"Kind of fluffy, but that's what I got from them," McCoy added.

w.soundcloud.com

On Tuesday night, Anderson Cooper asked all the Democratic presidential candidates which "enemy" they were most proud of making.

Most people gave straight-forward answers (the NRA, the Iranians, etc.)

Until they got to Jim Webb, who literally said this:

"I'd have to say the enemy soldier that threw the grenade that wounded me."

"But he's not around now to... talk to."

No, really:

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Clinton said in the debate on Tuesday that Snowden could have benefited from whistleblower protections. While campaigning for the Democratic nomination in 2007, she said whistleblowers were “afraid to step forward” because those protections were not adequate.

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Hillary Clinton said during the CNN Democratic presidential debate on Tuesday that Edward Snowden shouldn't come back to the United States "without facing the music," arguing that Snowden could have "gotten all the protections of being a whistleblower."

"He broke the laws of the United States," Clinton said of the National Security Agency leaker, who is currently living in Russia. "He could've been a whistleblower. He could've gotten all of the protections of being a whistleblower. He could've raised all the issues that he has raised and I think there would have been a positive response to that. In addition, he stole very important information that has unfortunately fallen into a lot of the wrong hands. So I don't think he should be brought home without facing the music."

In a speech she gave in New Hampshire in April of 2007, Clinton criticized the country's whistleblower protection laws, saying they were not adequate to encourage government employees who were "afraid to step forward."

In the speech, Clinton argues that, during the Bush administration, "you've seen one scandal after another at our agencies."

"And while whistleblowers play a critical role in alerting us to behavior like this, our whistleblower protection laws don't give people adequate protection," she said. "And too many are afraid to step forward."

Clinton went on to argue that "we need to expand whistleblower protections" and to guarantee them "a true day in court."

"We need to expand whistleblower protections to ensure that people who do the right thing are rewarded not punished," she said. "That means protecting their anonymity and protecting those who aid them as well. It means guaranteeing whistleblowers a true day in court. It means making sure those who are vindicated get real relief including compensation, coverage of attorney's fees, and the option to transfer jobs because no one should be afraid to hold our government accountable."

Here's the video:

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“This TPP sets the gold standard in trade agreements to open free, transparent, fair trade, the kind of environment that has the rule of law and a level playing field,” said Clinton in 2012.

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After coming out against the Trans-Pacific Partnership last week, Hillary Clinton hedged her previous statements in support of the controversial pact at the first Democratic debate on Wednesday night, telling Anderson Cooper that she had said only that she "hoped it would be the gold standard" for such agreements.

"You know, take the trade deal," said Clinton, when asked by Cooper about her previous support for the pact. "I did say, when I was secretary of state, three years ago, that I hoped it would be the gold standard."

"It was just finally negotiated last week, and in looking at it, it didn't meet my standards," Clinton continued. "I want to make sure that I can look into the eyes of any middle-class American and say, 'this will help raise your wages,' and I concluded I could not."

But according the text of remarks posted on the State Department's own website, in 2012 to the State Department's own website, in 2012 Clinton said that the TPP "sets the gold standard" – without qualification.

"This TPP sets the gold standard in trade agreements to open free, transparent, fair trade, the kind of environment that has the rule of law and a level playing field," said Clinton.

"And when negotiated, this agreement will cover 40 percent of the world's total trade and build in strong protections for workers and the environment."

Joe Raedle / Getty Images

For weeks leading up to the first Democratic presidential debate in Las Vegas on Tuesday, Black Lives Matter activists wondered if the candidates would be asked about racism and structural inequality — and about their movement to dismantle both.

The question they got, posed by CNN anchor Don Lemon, was something less than they had hoped for after getting face-time with all the major Democratic candidates: "Do black lives matter, or do all lives matter?"

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders replied first, affirming the movement's slogan.

“And the reason those words matter is the African American community knows that, on any given day, some innocent person like Sandra Bland can get into a car, and then three days later she's going to end up dead in jail, or their kids are going to get shot," Sanders said. "We need to combat institutional racism from top to bottom, and we need major, major reforms in a broken criminal justice system in which we have more people in jail than China."

Many Black Lives Matter activists, including Campaign Zero activist DeRay Mckesson, said Sanders' answer was strong, although some activists voiced displeasure with the amount of time the candidates were given to articulate their points on racial inequality.

"Sanders highlighting the need to combat institutional racism and the broken criminal justice was on point,' Mckesson tweeted.

Sanders was the only candidate to specifically cite some of the concerns of Black Lives Matter in his opening statements.

“Today in America, we have more people in jail than any other country on Earth,” Sanders said, without introducing himself as the others did. “African-American youth unemployment is 51%. Hispanic youth unemployment is 36%. It seems to me that instead of building more jails and providing more incarceration, maybe — just maybe — we should be putting money into education and jobs for our kids."

Clinton was asked a different question and didn’t have to address the “all lives matter” versus “black lives matter. Instead, Clinton was asked what she could do for black people that Barack Obama, the country's first black president, could not.

Clinton said to applause that Obama “has been a great moral leader” whose agenda has been obstructed by a Republican controlled Congress.

“What we need to be doing is not only reforming criminal justice," Clinton said. "I have talked about that at some length, including things like body cameras, but we also need to be following the recommendations of the commission that President Obama impanelled on policing. There is an agenda there that we need to be following up on."

Clinton echoed statements she has made in the past recommending the Obama administration’s 21st Century Task Force on Policing, calling them a “good start.”

"Similarly, we need to tackle mass incarceration, and this may be the only bipartisan issue in the congress this year," Clinton continued. "We actually have people on both sides of the aisle who have reached the same conclusion, that we can not keep imprisoning more people than anybody else in the world."

Some activists expressed disappointment the issue of police brutality failed to come up in a meaningful way during the debate.

"More unarmed, non-violent African Americans have been killed by American police this year than were lynched in any of the past 85 years," prominent organizer and writer Shaun King told BuzzFeed News in a statement late Tuesday. "It's a crisis that deserves attention not just in our debates, but with substantive policies. This year is on pace to have more Americans killed by police, over 1,200, than any year on record. This is exponentially more than any developed nation in the world. I was disappointed that the issue didn't get more attention in the debate."

Former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley also said that “black lives matter,” adding “the point that the Black Lives Matter movement is making is a very, very legitimate and serious point, and that is that as a nation we have undervalued the lives of black lives, of people of color."

O'Malley, who has also met with the activists, defended his record as mayor of Baltimore and the governor of Maryland.

"I did not make our city immune to setbacks," O'Malley said. "But I attended a lot of funerals, including one for a family of seven who were firebombed in their sleep for picking up the phone in a poor African-American neighborhood and calling the police because of drug dealers on their corner."

"We've saved over a thousand lives in Baltimore in the last 15 years of people working together," O'Malley continued. "And the vast majority of them were young and poor and black. It wasn't easy on any day. But we saved lives and we gave our city a better future, improving police and community relations every single day that I was in office."

Joe Raedle / Getty Images

LAS VEGAS — The first Democratic presidential debate on Tuesday wasn’t the splashy policy rollout marijuana legalization advocates wanted, but it was enough to convince them Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders has finally come around to their point of view, adding another cadre of progressives to his army of grassroots supporters.

It came near the end of the debate, and it wasn’t even a question about national politics.

“Sen. Sanders, right here in Nevada, there will be a measure to legalize recreational marijuana on the 2016 ballot,” CNN debate moderator Anderson Cooper asked. “You've said you smoked marijuana twice; it didn't quite work for you. If you were a Nevada resident, how would you vote?”

“I suspect I would vote yes,” Sanders replied.

And with that, advocates say, Sanders made history for proponents of legal weed everywhere, and the praise from legalization groups quickly rolled in.

“This is the first time we've seen a major candidate for president say he'd probably vote for legalizing marijuana if given the chance,” Tom Angell, president of Marijuana Majority, told BuzzFeed News. “That says a lot about how far the politics on this issue have shifted in a very short amount of time.”

“It is clear that Senator Sanders is on the winning side of history when it comes to marijuana legalization,” said Dan Riffle, director of national affairs at Drug Policy Action, the political arm of the pro-legalization Drug Policy Alliance.

“The people have typically led the politicians on this issue, and finally we’re seeing a presidential candidate who appears to have caught up with them,” said Mason Tvert, the top communications strategist at the Colorado-based Marijuana Policy Project. “Politicians are evolving on this issue, and Sen. Sanders is the first presidential candidate to stop dragging their knuckles when it comes to marijuana policy.”

On the debate stage, Sanders couched his support for the recreational marijuana legalization ballot initiative as a logical part of his claim that the American political system is “rigged” against the middle class and that the criminal justice system is often inherently biased against minorities.

“I would vote yes because I am seeing in this country too many lives being destroyed for non-violent offenses,” Sanders said. “We have a criminal justice system that lets CEOs on Wall Street walk away, and yet we are imprisoning or giving jail sentences to young people who are smoking marijuana. I think we have to think through this war on drugs, which has done an enormous amount of damage. We need to rethink our criminal justice system, we we've got a lot of work to do in that area.”

The answer put Sanders to the left of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the frontrunner for the Democratic nomination and Sanders’ chief rival on the campaign trail. She condemned imprisoning marijuana offenders at the debate, but said she was still studying the effects of legalization on states like Colorado and Washington and remained unwilling to take a position on legalization until she knows more.

Sanders has kept some distance from marijuana legalization advocates on the presidential campaign trail, for the most part, while embracing much of their politics when it comes to criminal justice and the cost of the war on drugs.

"Colorado has led the effort toward legalizing marijuana and I'm going to watch very closely to see the pluses and minuses of what they have done," Sanders said in a Reddit AMA earlier this year. "I will have more to say about this issue within the coming months."

In a June interview with Katie Couric, he talked about law enforcement concerns that “see this as an entry level drug with leads to coke which leads to heroin and so forth.” But he also said his personal view was that marijuana was less dangerous than alcohol. In May, he said he was studyingwritings from the 1970s advocating the abolition of all drug laws.

“My suspicion up until now has been that he’s been with us but he’s been looking for the right time to say so,” Angell said.

After the debate, advocates said it’s time for Sanders to become the face of marijuana legalization in the Senate.

“It would be politically beneficial for him to introduce legislation in the Senate ending federal marijuana prohibition,” Bill Piper, director of national affairs at the Drug Policy Alliance, said.

The Sanders campaign, however, is taking things more slowly.

“He was asked a question about marijuana legalization, and I think he gave the answer he gave, and I think it was the right answer given what we’ve seen with the impact of the war on drugs,” Jeff Weaver, campaign manager for Sanders, told BuzzFeed News after the debate ended.

In-state tuition and a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants — and health care for undocumented? If Republicans are headed to the right, then Democrats are headed to the left.

John Locher / AP

LAS VEGAS — On Tuesday at the Wynn hotel and casino, the Democratic candidates debated in-state tuition, a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, and health care for people in the country illegally.

The result: Democrats are much further to the left on immigration policy in 2015 than they were in 2007, just as Republicans are increasingly moving to the right on the subject.

The first two GOP debates were marked by discussion of the merits of the frontrunner Donald Trump's plan to deport all undocumented immigrants, build a wall on the border between the U.S. and Mexico, and end birthright citizenship.

On Tuesday, though the questions about immigration came late in the debate (about at the hour-and-a-half mark), they hit in particular on a specific plan: Martin O'Malley's proposal to open up Obamacare to millions of undocumented immigrants and their children, including 90,000 people in Nevada.

Clinton said she wants to open up the opportunity for undocumented immigrants to buy into the exchanges under the Affordable Care Act, but argued that extending the same health care subsidies was a different issue.

"I think that is — it raises so many issues," she said. "It would be very difficult to administer, it needs to be part of a comprehensive immigration reform, when we finally do get to it."

The Clinton campaign, which often frames issues as a choice between Clinton and Republicans rather than her opponents for the nomination, emphasized efficacy after the debate. Jorge Silva, who handles Hispanic media for the Clinton campaign said it was important to see where the Democratic candidates were on immigration as opposed to where Republicans have been during their first two debates.

"Our party is looking at who can give the most to the undocumented community if immigration reform hasn't passed," he said. "Who can do the most, that's a big difference."

Clinton at one point jumped in without prompting from Cooper the moderator.

She too noted the "difference between everything you're hearing here on this stage, and what we hear from the Republicans."

"Hear, hear," O'Malley said, as Clinton continued.

"Demonize hard-working immigrants who have insulted them," she said, before pivoting to her meeting with DREAMers and her pledge to go further "than even the executive orders that President Obama has signed when I'm president."

Clinton was asked about Sanders and O'Malley supporting in-state tuition for undocumented immigrants and she said she would too, if states pass it.

O'Malley looked, as he has this year repeatedly, to Trump — saying Republicans have mischaracterized Maryland's passage of the Dream Act as "free tuition for illegal immigrants."

"A lot of the xenophobes, the immigrant haters like some that we've heard like, Donald Trump, that carnival barker in the Republican Party," he said.

O'Malley — whose poll numbers haven't budged despite his frequent campaigning — tried to draw contrasts with Clinton whenever he could, and made it clear he felt immigration was a winner for him with Democrats.

"I think what you've heard up here is some of the old thinking on immigration reform, and that's why it's gridlocked," he said. "Do you think for a second that simply because somebody's standing in a broken queue on naturalization they're not going to go to the hospital, and that care isn't going to fall on to our insurance rates?"

In the spin room at the casino after the debate, O'Malley's director of public engagement Gabriela Domenzain said the rhetoric from Republicans has been a distraction, calling it "racist."

"But that's why I was excited for the governor to stand on the same stage with candidates with more name recognition, so Democrats and Latinos can see the contrast for themselves with someone who defended and touted the Dream Act and someone who kicked ICE out of jails," she said.

Sanders, who privately told the Congressional Hispanic Caucus that he supports health care for undocumented immigrants two weeks ago, has increasingly sought to communicate to Latino voters that he is an ally on immigration.

His record, though, has posed some challenges on that front: He did not support the bipartisan immigration bill in 2007, though he later supported the 2013 Senate bill. He has called the idea of open borders a Koch idea. Asked about that switch on Tuesday, he said that he didn't like guest worker provisions in the 2007 legislation.

"The senator has been very clear that he supports health care for undocumented immigrants, particularly children," said his new Latino outreach director, Arturo Carmona, after the debate. He said Sanders's message resonates with the working class, particularly Latinos, and not just on immigration.

Meanwhile, Domenzain said that while Clinton touted her spring meeting with DREAMers in Nevada, she couldn't make the same commitment as O'Malley on health care for undocumented immigrants.

"There's not just a different between Republicans and Democrats, there's also a different between Democrats and themselves," she said.

One byproduct of the more measured tone on immigration was that viewers at home wanted to learn more about what they were hearing. According to data provided to BuzzFeed News by Google, searches for the term "undocumented" spiked during the immigration portion of the debate.

Unsurprisingly, Trump, who livetweeted the debate, wasn't a fan of what he heard.

"Notice that illegal immigrants will be given ObamaCare and free college tuition but nothing has been mentioned about our VETERANS," he tweeted.

Top Democrats and activists were pretty pleased.

"I'm just glad all the major Democratic candidates get it," said immigration veteran Frank Sharry. "Undocumented immigrants are human beings, are Americans in all but paperwork and should be formally welcomed into the American family. Meanwhile, the GOP is talking mass deportation, ending birthright citizenship and rescinding Obama's executive actions.

Henry Muñoz, the DNC's finance chair, said he loved the debate.

"This debate was free of racism, my community wasn't under attack," he said, contrasting it with the Republican debate. He said while the candidates Tuesday night didn't agree on everything they were respectful.

"I'm hoping this evening that what happened in Vegas doesn't stay in Vegas and the message gets broadcast across the country," he said.

Joe Raedle / Getty Images

LAS VEGAS — There is a consensus among all the major politicians running for president in America, regardless of their party: Edward Snowden, they all say, deserves to face federal prosecutors for illegally leaking vast troves detailed information about government surveillance programs to the press.

That puts them at odds with privacy activists who have called for Snowden to get immunity for his crimes, which led to ongoing conversations about oversight of domestic surveillance and changes to the National Security Administration. The ACLU has called on President Obama to give Snowden immunity, allowing him to return to the United States from Russia without facing charges.

The idea has received little interest from the White House, and, after Tuesday’s Democratic presidential debate here, essentially zero interest on the presidential campaign trail.

There were some nuanced differences between how the various candidates on stage approached Snowden when asked about him, but every one of them — with the exception of Lincoln Chafee, the low-polling former governor of Rhode Island — said the former NSA contractor needs to be prosecuted.

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was especially tough on Snowden, saying his tactics ignored existing protections he had before his leaks.

“He could have been a whistleblower. He could have gotten all of the protections of being a whistleblower. He could have raised all the issues that he has raised. And I think there would have been a positive response to that,” she said. “He stole very important information that has unfortunately fallen into a lot of the wrong hands. So I don’t think he should be brought home without facing the music.”

One by one, the five candidates on stage were asked if Snowden should be prosecuted and they all said yes. Bernie Sanders, the independent senator from Vermont and Clinton’s top rival for the nomination, said that the reforms to the American surveillance state made after information leaked by Snowden caused outrage in the U.S. and abroad should be taken into account.

“Snowden played a very important role in educating the American people to the degree in which our civil liberties and our constitutional rights are being undermined,” Sanders said.

But he stopped short of saying Snowden deserves immunity.

“He did break the law, and I think there should be a penalty to that. But I think what he did in educating us should be taken into consideration,” Sanders said.

Two of the other candidates on stage, former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley and former Virginia Sen. Jim Webb, also called for prosecution of Snowden, with various degrees of condemnation for his crimes as well as his decision to flee the country and accept the protections of the Russian government.

Chafee has been an outlier on the issue, saying that Snowden should be brought home, and though he has largely avoided saying whether Snowden deserves jail time (including in Tuesday's Democratic debate), he has tweeted that Snowden has "done his time."

Overall, it’s been a similar situation on the Republican side of the presidential contest. Even Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, who has been among the most critical of the NSA following the Snowden leaks, has declined to offer Snowden the amnesty privacy advocates support.

“I know most people would want me to say yes [to pardoning Snowden] and part of me says yes and part of me says we cannot have no rules,” Paul told an audience in New Hampshire last week. "We do have secrets — maybe too many — but we do have secrets that need to be protected. We have operatives who try to risk our lives to defend our country and he [Snowden] didn’t reveal that, but you don’t want people to reveal things like that.”

Paul said he’d support some kind of “accommodation” for Snowden that required him to “serve some sentence” for the leaks.

Other Republican candidates are tougher on Snowden, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio called him “traitor” in 2013. In July, Jeb Bush expressly ruled out any legal accommodations for Snowden in a tweet.

“Snowden broke the law, recklessly endangered nat'l security, & fled to China/Russia,” Bush tweeted. "He should be given no leniency.”

Joe Raedle / Getty Images

LAS VEGAS — For six months, Hillary Clinton barely said Bernie Sanders' name.

Tuesday night’s debate presented a different image: The candidates, side by side, shaking hands, united in their distaste for the subject that has plagued Clinton all year, impatient to hash out substantive differences in their policies and platforms. Sanders was given an opportunity to attack the Democratic front-runner on the personal email account she used as secretary of state — and he declined.

“Let me say something that may not be great politics,” Sanders said, after Anderson Cooper, moderator at the CNN debate, asked Clinton about her email account.

“But I think the secretary is right, and that is that the American people are sick and tired of hearing about your damn emails,” Sanders said to applause and cheers.

Clinton nodded, laughed ("Me too! Me too!"), and, thanking Sanders, extended a hand — completing their mutually beneficial moment, which elevated him and validated her. Sanders might have said his refusal to attack Clinton on the email issue is bad politics, but on Tuesday, neither his campaign nor hers seemed to agree.

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Immediately, Clinton spokespeople retweeted and tweeted statements and praise about just how right Sanders was, and what a great moment it had been.

A retweet from Clinton's communications director:

The Sanders campaign also had no regrets.

“He clearly had the best line of the night with the email line,” said Jeff Weaver, the senator's campaign manager, following the debate. “There’s no doubt about it.” The moment wasn't planned in advance, Weaver said on CNN the next morning.

Voters, he said, don't care about “political gossip," nor do they see the election as "a soap opera” or “a baseball game."

"This is a life-and-death struggle for millions of Americans," said Weaver.

Late in the debate, the Sanders campaign even fundraised off the email moment, first with a clip of Sanders dismissing the subject, and ending with his salvo about what he believes Americans are truly interested in. Early on Wednesday morning, the Sanders campaign said it had already raised $1.3 million after the debate.

For Clinton, the affirmation — and lack of any kind of critique — from Sanders was an obvious relief for a candidate who’s faced weekly and sometimes daily questions about the security and public statements surrounding her email account. And Clinton offered something in return on Tuesday, engaging directly with Sanders for the first time as an equal rival, worthy of forceful contrasts and policy critiques.

Early in the night, Clinton hit Sanders for his more moderate record on gun control, citing his vote against the Brady bill and for the so-called immunity provision. When Cooper asked if Sanders is tough enough on guns, Clinton was ready with a sharp response. "No, not at all," she said, underscoring her opposition to the immunity provision. "I was in the Senate at the same time. It wasn't that complicated to me."

Sanders leads Clinton in many early-state polls, particularly in New Hampshire.

“I think she recognizes that he’s a rival,” Weaver said.

Joel Benenson, Clinton’s pollster, said it was “very nice and good moment for Bernie Sanders to do that” — but not the most important moment of the debate.

Clinton’s exchanges with the other candidates on Tuesday were far more limited.

At one point, when Lincoln Chafee, the former governor of Rhode Island, attacked Clinton extensively, she flatly declined an offer from Cooper to respond. In other moments, Clinton debated more directly with Martin O’Malley, a candidate who has struggled to gain ground on Sanders. “You know, I have to say, I was very pleased when Gov. O'Malley endorsed me for president in 2008,” Clinton said pointedly.

After the debate, speaking with reporters in the spin room, O’Malley supporters described the primary as a “three-man race.” The former governor agreed with the assessment. “We had a very good night tonight, and I think for the first time a lot of people are going to be going onto my website and learning more about my candidacy,” said O’Malley on his way out of the debate hall. “People across the U.S. who tuned in saw that, wow, there’s more than just two candidates."

But, as was apparent on Tuesday’s stage, the front-runner and her team is poised to keep the debate going with one person in particular. Clinton herself, for instance, took special note of the moment on Meet the Press last weekend when Sanders said he is "not a capitalist," according to Benenson, the campaign's pollster.

After learning about her rival's comment, Clinton dug in.

"I think her first reaction was, I want to see the whole thing," Benenson told reporters after the debate, where Clinton invoked "all the small businesses" created by capitalism. "She wanted to know exactly what he said. What did he mean? Is there something he meant other than what it sounded like?"

"I think tonight," he added, "we know it sounded like exactly what he said."

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On Tuesday, Rand Paul livestreamed his entire day campaigning. He did not appear to especially enjoy the experience, especially this brief moment of brutal honesty about the process:

The third question, most popular question from Google is: 'Is Rand Paul still running for president?' And, I don't know, I wouldn't be doing this dumbass livestreaming if I weren't. So, yes, I still am running for president — get over it. 'Where is Rand Paul in the polls?' This is not live, we can't edit this, right? All right.

via NBC News's Alex Jaffe

“But, just to say if somebody is not living a very fancy life they want to come here because we’ve given them free benefits. No, we can’t do that.”

Justin Sullivan / Getty Images

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee raised the possibility that Syrian refugees seeking refuge in the United States and Europe were just seeking "free benefits," unlike refugees fleeing the war in Vietnam who sought "freedom."

"Well, the tragedy is when Germany began to process the refugees it turns out that only one in five were actually Syrian," Huckabee told radio host Jan Mickelson on Wednesday. "Four out of five, eighty percent were not even Syrian refugees. So this notion that we're saving people from a Syrian bloodbath, look I think we all feel some sympathy there but America has also a responsibility to carefully vet that it just opens the gate for."

The Obama administration announced in early September that it hopes to take in 10,000 Syrian refugees next year. Refugees seeking entry into the United States undergo multiple high-level security checks and an in-person interview with a representative from the Department of Homeland security.

Huckabee has previously said Syrian refugees could be "some of the most violent and vicious people on Earth," and European nations are forgetting the "lessons of 9/11" by allowing "alleged-Syrian refugees" into their countries.

In the radio interview on Wednesday, Huckabee said we need to work with the Saudis and Jordanians to build a "processing center" for refugees. According to the United Nations, more than four million refugees from the Syrian crisis have fled to neighboring countries. Massive refugees camps exist in those countries, which carry most of the burden of people displaced by the Syrian civil war.

"Well, then we need to sit down whether it's with the Saudis, the Jordanians, or a country very very close to where the refugees are and say we're gonna create a processing center and the refugees will go there," Huckabee said when asked about alleged difficulties in processing refugees. "We'll help feed them. We'll help process them but we're not gonna just let them get on a plane and send them to the United States and be in a culture that they're totally unprepared for and perhaps we're unprepared for why they are coming. It doesn't make any sense."

Mickelson then said to the former Arkansas governor the refugees know where the best benefits are.

"That's why the system can succumb to the pressure of people," Huckabee said on refugees wanting benefits. "If they are desperate, then we need to say look, we'll make sure that you're not gonna starve. We're gonna make sure that you've got shelter, but we're gonna put that camp in -- and it's not gonna be in the United States and you're not gonna be shipped to France or England."

Huckabee said the Saudis would say no, but the U.S. need to stand up to them and say, "we're tired of being the one country that's expected to do all the dirty work and to take all the problems"

Huckabee said the U.S. was "willing to take in people who are desperate" citing people fleeing the Vietnam War.

"Guess what, those folks worked their tales off," he said of refugees from Vietnam. "They learned English. Their kids ended up becoming the valedictorians half the time, but that was because they wanted to come to America. They wanted freedom and they decided that they wanted to be part of this country and they have certainly succeeded owning businesses and prospering. But, just to say if somebody is not living a very fancy life they want to come here because we've given them free benefits. No, we can't do that. We're broke. I don't know how to break this to people in Washington, but we're broke. We owe $19 trillion right now."

The list of committee members, obtained by BuzzFeed News, shows a focus on Latinos that is perhaps unique among the Republican field.

Sean Rayford / Getty Images

Some are knocking on doors in pivotal states like Nevada. Others are acting as surrogates in Spanish-language media. Some bring policy expertise, and still others are tapping into their networks and setting up events from Texas to Florida and Puerto Rico.

Many of them are experienced operatives and they're part of the Jeb Bush campaign's national Hispanic leadership committee — 228 altogether across 20 states and two territories, an effort to show and fortify the candidate's commitment to the Latino community.

"I'm honored to have these great Hispanic men and women join the fight for all American families, working to lower taxes and reduce regulations that make it harder for us to grow the economy and give people the opportunities they deserve. Together we will work to engage every Hispanic voter," former Governor Jeb Bush said in a statement to BuzzFeed News.

One of the members, Jesus Marquez, has a radio show in Nevada, serves as a strategist for campaigns and is an independent contractor for the LIBRE Initiative, the Koch-funded conservative Latino group. He knows northwest Las Vegas well and he's knocking on doors, asking Republican voters who they support in the primary and what issues they care about most.

"It may surprise some, but immigration is not the number one issue we hear about when we knock on doors," he said. "It's the economy."

The list includes Florida officials like longtime congressional members Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Mario Diaz-Balart, who said he's looking forward to sharing Bush's proven track record with voters across the country.

"I am excited to join Governor Bush on his Hispanic Leadership Team," he said in a statement. "As Governor of Florida, his conservative record of cutting taxes and eliminating government waste put the state on a path of fiscal responsibility, something our country so desperately needs right now."

But the committee also includes buzzed about newcomers like Rep. Carlos Curbelo and state senator Anitere Flores.

"The people from Florida can give the best, firsthand experience and testimonial of these were the challenges when Gov. Bush came into office and these were the ways that he solved them," Flores said.

She is one of the campaign's Spanish-language media surrogates and has offered herself to the campaign as someone who can travel to states like Nevada and North Carolina to share the "Jeb Bush success story," she said.

The committee members said the campaign is using them according to their expertise. Ivan Gamboa, a Wisconsin businessman who has worked with the state's governor and former presidential candidate Scott Walker, has shared his network with the campaign including contacts in Iowa and Illinois as well as his home state, and has been impressed with the way the campaign has followed up with everyone he has recommended.

The Hispanic vote has trended toward Democrats in recent presidential elections but the Bush campaign plans to make a play for Latinos, as the primary goes on and should he make it to the general election. An August Gallup poll showed the bilingual former governor, who has a Hispanic family, as the Republican with the highest favorability among the group.

And Bush has also started the media outreach; he did a major interview with Telemundo this summer and was the keynote speaker at the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce's national convention in September.

Ken Oliver-Mendez, the director of MRC Latino, a conservative Spanish-language media watchdog, is part of the leadership committee, and said his personal endorsement is separate from the work he does, much like that of his boss Brent Bozell, who supports Ted Cruz. He said that he, like many others in the group, are Bush administration alumni.

"The Bushes brought a lot of Latinos into their administrations," he said. "We've always liked Jeb Bush a lot and seen him as a natural for presidential office."

Jose Abreu Florida

Raul Acosta New York

Armando Adame Texas

Eduardo Aguirre Texas

Marta Aguirre Bascom Virginia

Kristen Alexander Nevada

Alberto Alfonso Florida

Carlos Alfonso Florida

Jose Aliaga Michigan

Luis Alvarado DC

Cesar Alvarez Florida

Ramon Alvarez California

Ruben Alvarez Arizona

John Andrews Virginia

George Antuna Texas

Milton Aponte Florida

Luis Felipe Aragon California

Victor Arias, Jr. Texas

Jorge Arrizurieta Florida

Frank Artiles Florida

Andres Asion Florida

Irela Bague Florida

Ruben Barrales California

Hector Barreto DC

Elias Behar-Ybarra Puerto Rico

Gary Berrios Florida

Rudy Beserra Georgia

Blanca Bichara Florida

Othal Brand, Jr. Texas

Romero Britto Florida

Victor Cabral Virginia

Tony Calatayud Florida

Roger Campos Maryland

Raoul Cantero Florida

Alberto Cardenas Florida

Jovita Carranza Illinois

Jose Carrion Puerto Rico

Elijah Casa Texas

Mario Castillo DC

Sharon Castillo Maryland

Julio Cerda Texas

Charles Cervantes Virginia

Linda Chavez Virginia

Mariela Chavez-Knapp Texas

Adriana Comellas-Macretti Florida

Bob Cortes Florida

John Cruz California

Rafael Cuellar New Jersey

Carlos Curbelo Florida

Maria Davis Nevada

Moises De Jesus New York

Berthy De La Rosa Aponte Florida

Deborah DeMoss Fonseca Virginia

Jose Felix Diaz Florida

Lincoln Diaz-Balart Florida

Mario Diaz-Balart Florida

Daniel Diaz-Leyva Florida

Remedios Diaz-Oliver Florida

Manny Diaz, Jr. Florida

Doreen DominguezCalifornia

Susana Duarte Indiana

Oscar Echevarria Virginia

Aurora Espinosa Nevada

Juan G. Espinosa New Jersey

Luis Farias California

Mike Fernandez Florida

Rudy Fernandez Florida

Dr. Maurice R. Ferrer Florida

Andreina Figueroa Florida

Tony Fiorina Texas

Anitere Flores Florida

Rafael Flores New York

Alan Florez Florida

Jaime Fonalledas Puerto Rico

Zori Fonalledas Puerto Rico

Rene Fonseca Virginia

Luis Fortuno Puerto Rico

Blanca Fox Nevada

Adriana Fralick Nevada

Erik Fresen Florida

Denis Freytes Florida

Dennis Freytes Florida

Elizabeth Gallagher Nevada

Ivan Gamboa Wisconsin

Charlie Garcia Florida

Martin Garcia Florida

Rudy Garcia Florida

Diedra Garcia Colorado

Jimmy Garza Texas

Martha Gautier Hawaii

Luis Andre Gazitua Florida

Carlos Gimenez Florida

Jennifer Gonzalez Puerto Rico

David Griego Nevada

Julio Gudino California

Abel Guerra Texas

Frank Guerra Texas

Allen Gutierrez DC

Sam Gutierrez Illinois

Joseph Guzman Michigan

Anita Guzman Michigan

Jacqueline Guzman Michigan

Peter Guzman Nevada

Anibal Heredia Puerto Rico

Maggie Hernandez California

Joe Hernandez Nevada

Daniel Hernandez Texas

Joacim Hernandez Texas

Dr. Juan Hernandez Texas

George Herrarte California

Hans Hertell New York

Hans Hertell, Jr. Florida

Ocatavio Hinojosa-Mier Texas

Jim Jimenez Florida

Hector Lombana Florida

Emanuel Loo Texas

Danny Lopez Indiana

JM Lozano Texas

Gus Machado Florida

Raul Magdaleno Texas

Carmen Mahan Nevada

Mitch Maidique Florida

Abel Maldonado California

Alci Maldonado Florida

Yuri Mantilla Virginia

Jesse Manzano Florida

Marcos Marchena Florida

Krissian Marquez Nevada

Jesus Marquez Nevada

Mel Martinez Florida

Sandra Martinez Nevada

Troy Martinez Nevada

Gil Medina New Jersey

Sonia Medina Texas

Otto Merida Nevada

Damian Merlo Florida

Jose Mier Llaca Iowa

Maria Mier Llaca Iowa

Leticia Mitchell Nevada

Jaime A. Molera Arizona

Al Moncada California

Diana Monsivais Nevada

Jacob Monty Texas

Rosa Morales Nevada

Alberto Morales Puerto Rico

Darryl Morin Wisconsin

Angela Morin Wisconsin

Rafa Munguia Texas

Artemio Muniz Texas

Armando Musa New York

Ana Navarro Florida

Xavier Neira Oklahoma

Jose Nino Texas

Dr. Antonia Novello Florida

Jose Oliva Florida

David Olivencia Indiana

Yesenia Olivencia Indiana

Ken Oliver-Mendez Virginia

Steve Orlando Illinois

Jorge Ortega Florida

Izzy Ortega Tennessee

Alfredo Ortiz Georgia

Umram Osambela Nevada

Nina Oviedo Virginia

Manny Padilla California

Barry Patel Texas

Elsa Patterson Nevada

Sandy Peltyn Nevada

Aron Pena Texas

Roberto Peña Gonzalez Texas

Rafael Penalver Florida

Tico Perez Florida

Dr. Nolan Perez Texas

Charles "Carlos" Perez Virginia

JC Planas Florida

Jason Poblete Virginia

Yleem Poblete Virginia

Michael Pruneda Texas

Ana Quinquoces Florida

Miriam Ramirez Florida/Puerto Rico

Carol Ramirez Maryland

Esther Ramirez Maryland

Henry Ramirez Maryland

Teresa Ramirez Nevada

Mario Ramirez Texas

Alfred "Al" Rascon Maryland

Israel "Izzy" Reyes Florida

Fernando Reyes Texas

Ivonne Richardson Nevada

Diana Richardson-Vela California

Josue Rivera Puerto Rico

Julio Robaina Florida

Reynaldo Robledo Nevada

Mario Rodriguez California

Raquel "Rocky" Rodriguez Florida

Zues Rodriguez Wisconsin

Fernando Romero Nevada

Jeny Romero Nevada

Ileana Ros-Lehtinen Florida

Marlene Rosado California

Manuel "Manny" Rosales DC

Juan Sabater New York

Charlie Safdie Florida

Norberto "Beto" Salinas Texas

Grace Sanchez-Hagen California

Isabel "Izzy" Santa Virginia

Brandon Schneider Maryland

Madeleine Serrano Florida

Walde Serrano Florida

Jerry Silva California

William Solemene Texas

Lionel Sosa Texas

Theresa Speake Virginia

Cecilia Strieber Nevada

Mauricio Tamargo Virginia

Margita Thompson California

Warren Tischner Texas

Adriana Toscano Nevada

Sol Trujillo Florida

Carlos Trujillo Florida

Omar Vargas Connecticut

Luce Vela Puerto Rico

Eduardo Verastegui California

Marielena Villami Florida

Tony Villamil Florida

Rudy Yakym III Indiana

Al Zapanta Texas

Fernando Zapari Indiana

Minerva Zermeno California

Frederic J. Brown / AFP / Getty Images

WASHINGTON — Earlier this year, Republican presidential candidates seemed laser-focused on courting the uber rich in hopes that they would write hefty checks to the super PACs supporting them — and in doing so, significantly bolster their chances of winning the GOP nomination.

But many of those donors are still uncommitted, campaigns are struggling to raise cash, and the power of super PACs is being questioned in the aftermath of Govs. Scott Walker and Rick Perry's early exits. Instead of big super PAC donors, candidates and their allies have started to turn back toward well-connected, mid-level donors who might not be able to write large checks to outside groups themselves but can raise hundreds of thousands of dollars for the campaigns.

The cause is a combination of timing — the fall is a crucial period for campaigns to lay groundwork in the first primary states — and the recent jolt of recognition that super PACs can’t always save the day with the surprisingly early departure of Walker, whose affiliated outside groups had together raised more than $26 million at the end of July.

Cash raised from those donors known as “bundlers” can be used by the campaign to build out their infrastructure and buy TV airtime at a discounted rate, while the six or seven-figure checks cut by by wealthy donors can only go to super PACs, which aren’t allowed to coordinate with campaigns. Outside groups also have to pay more money than campaigns to purchase ad time.

The push to target these mid-level donors, who weren’t getting as much attention from many campaigns earlier this year as they have in past presidential elections, has been aggressive since Labor Day. Campaigns were trying to post impressive figures for the third-quarter — typically a slow time for fundraising — and prepare for an expensive few months ahead. Fundraising reports for cash raised between July and Sept. 30 are due to the Federal Election Commission Thursday.

“It all comes full circle,” said Bobbie Kilberg, a Virginia-based bundler who is supporting New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie. “(Bundlers) are coming back to the fold.”

“I’ve always felt that the most important contributions were the $2,700 ones,” she said of the maximum amount individuals are allowed to give to a campaign committee for a primary. "It gets the ground game ready. And at the end of the day, if a person contributes $2,700, they are also more likely to volunteer.”

In March, Kilberg had told the Washington Post that bundlers had been feeling “a little disenfranchised” with the emphasis on super PAC money. Others had said bundlers were "kind of rolling their eyes and saying, ‘You know, we just don’t count anymore.’"

Based on interviews with several donors, that has changed, especially in recent weeks.

Of course, having a billionaire in the corner can still significantly boost a candidates’ chances of winning the GOP nomination. Many are continuing to court mega donors like casino mogul Sheldon Adelson, who is believed to be close to endorsing Sen. Marco Rubio; hedge fund manager Paul Singer, who has hosted meet and greets with donors for several candidates; and commercial real estate broker Doug Deason, a former Walker backer who has reportedly met with several candidates in recent weeks including Rubio, former Gov. Jeb Bush and neurosurgeon-turned-politician Ben Carson.

But at this stage in the race, with a crowded GOP field competing for dollars, presidential contenders are burning through their campaign cash rapidly, as they pour money into traveling to the early states and on setting up their operations just months before the Iowa caucuses. Based on the fundraising numbers released by campaigns so far, candidates need to fundraise aggressively to keep up with their campaign expenses. In the third quarter, Sen. Rand Paul’s campaign cash burn rate was a staggering 186%, Rubio’s was 81% and Carson’s was 64%.

Although super PACs supporting candidates have been experimenting this election cycle with how much they can help campaigns while maintaining the required firewall between the two entities, at the end of the day, candidates still need hard campaign dollars to stay in the game.

And bundlers provide a quicker, less expensive infusion of cash into campaign committees than small-dollar donors. Previous campaign finance reports show that GOP contenders had struggled to raise cash from donors who gave less than $200, with the majority of them raising less than one-third of their hauls from small donors.

Matt Keelen, a Washington lobbyist who co-hosted a May fundraiser for Rubio, said the shift from super PAC money to campaign cash has become apparent in the “intensity of calls, direct mail and emails” he has received in recent weeks, adding he gets three or four of those a day.

"I do think the focus has shifted from super pacs to giving directly to the campaigns,” he said. “Since the candidates can control what their own campaigns are spending the money on, they need significant resources to build the infrastructure needed for a probable prolonged primary race."

The shift has probably been most evident for Team Jeb! because he fundraised so assiduously for his super PAC earlier this year before he was a declared candidate. Bush’s team, which raised more than $100 million for his super PAC in the first half of the year, has been pushing Bush alumni network — those who worked for his father and brother’s campaigns and administrations — who bundled for his super PAC, Right to Rise, to switch to bundling $100,000 for his campaign.

Unlike most other candidates, the Bush campaign is expected to release the names of its bundlers, which is not legally required, on Thursday.

Bush allies, donors say, are communicating with those donors just as much as they were in January, but the emphasis has now been on campaign cash.

David Beightol, a top Romney bundler in 2012 who is supporting Bush, said the team has maintained “a steady diet of fundraising" and knows the importance of bundlers this cycle. With the GOP field still too crowded, "the traditional bundler is even more important now because you have to spread out your outreach to more people," he said.

Beightol has helped organize a fundraiser next month for Bush in Wisconsin — a state they didn’t venture into much previously to raise cash because most donors had already committed to Walker, the home state candidate.

And bringing in $2,700-checks comes with its perks. Former Presidents George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush are headlining an event in Houston later this month for donors who have bundled $50,000 or more for Bush’s campaign.

But the focus on campaign cash, some argue, isn’t necessarily a shift in strategy for campaigns but bundlers now opting to get more involved.

“I think a lot of folks have been standing on the sidelines watching the race develop and are perhaps now just engaging as the field becomes clearer,” said Mark Baker, a top bundler for Mitt Romney in 2012 who is serving as Rubio’s Montana campaign chair.

And despite the assurances from campaigns, not all donors are convinced that raising six-figures for candidates still matters. Ken Kies, a tax lawyer who was a top bundler for George W. Bush, said: “Raising hard money isn’t easy. It’s a lot of work, and in this environment, the enthusiasm for people to do it has lessened. If you raise $100,000, that’s like pocket change.”

Better Rick than red.

Sean Rayford / Getty Images

Former Sen. Rick Santorum said on the radio Wednesday that the first Democratic debate revealed all the candidates to be socialists.

He made the comments in response to a question about an exchange on capitalism between Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton. Clinton said at the Democratic debate Tuesday that at times we have to "save capitalism from itself" and that corporations should share more of their profits with workers.

"I've been around it for a long time," Santorum, who is running for the Republican presidential nomination, said of the debate in an interview with Rose Unplugged on AM1250 The Answer.

"I know these guys," continued Santorum. "I've served with Bernie Sanders. I've been on TV shows with Bernie. And here's the amazing thing, there's no difference between Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton. That's basically what debate showed. They're all socialists, and they all don't believe in free enterprise. I want to put the free back in free enterprise. I want to liberate folks to be able to go out there and work hard and get the fruits of their labor."

Santorum, who finished as the runner up in the 2012 Republican presidential primary, has toiled at the bottom of the polls throughout 2016.

“Everybody had an isolationist, disengagement policy regarding radical islam.”

Andrew Burton / Getty Images

South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham says Tuesday's first Democratic debate disgusted him.

"It made me sick," Graham, who is running for the Republican presidential nomination, said when asked by Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council's Washington Watch radio show.

"It makes me feel so sad that the Democratic Party has dropped so far when it comes to defending the nation," Graham continued.

Singling out the Democratic presidential contenders as weak isolationists, Graham said America's enemies would be hoping the Democrats took the White House.

"If I were ISIL, the ayatollah, Assad I would be pulling for the Democrats because their foreign policy is leading further from behind than Obama," Graham said. "Bernie Sanders would shut down the NSA program so we couldn't detect the next terrorist attack. Everybody had an isolationist, disengagement policy regarding radical islam."

Graham said that radical Islamic terrorists with a weapon of mass destruction would be a "nightmare" for the world and said keeping organizations like ISIS away from terrorists was one of the most important tasks of his lifetime.

“I think she had a lot to lose up there.”

Steve Pope / Getty Images

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, who dropped out of the Republican presidential race last month, says he thinks Hillary Clinton was the clear winner of Tuesday's Democratic debate.

"I think she had a lot to lose up there," said Walker to Wisconsin radio WTMJ on Thursday. "But she came across as surprisingly very confident and I thought relatively pleasant and of course the big winner when Senator Sanders got up and said he didn't want to hear anymore about, as he said, 'her damn emails.'"

The Wisconsin governor said CNN wouldn't push back on the issue of Clinton's emails, despite continuing congressional and federal investigations into the matter.

Walker added he thought it was "unbelievable" that none of the Democrats at the debate wanted to defend capitalism.

"A lot of free stuff too," Walker said, noting he thought none of the contenders had any way to pay for their plans other than through taxing Wall Street.

Take a listen:

“I can’t imagine anyone from our country doing that. We would see our men, double down, support their country, make sure that we continue to have the greatest country in the world.”

Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images

Donald Trump's campaign manager Corey Lewandowski says Americans wouldn't become refugees like Syrians and questioned why young Syrian men are leaving instead of fighting to support their country.

Since the start of the Syrian civil war, millions of Syrians have fled the war torn country for Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey.

"When you think about it, fundamentally, people say okay, if you want to leave your country and you're a healthy male maybe between the age of 18 and 35, why are you leaving you country to go to another country," Lewandowski said this week on the John Fredericks Show. "I can't imagine anyone from our country doing that. We would see our men, double down, support their country, make sure that we continue to have the greatest country in the world."

And, so [Trump] raised the issue, 'hey are these the refugees that we are gonna be taking in," Do we really need 200,000 additional Syrians coming to our country. Why don't they stay and fight for their own country as opposed to us putting our troops over there, fighting for them. Maybe there's something fundamentally wrong with that.'"

In interview and speeches, Trump has said he believes taking in "trojan horse" Syrian refugees could result in an ISIS "military coup" in the U.S..

The Obama administration announced in early September that it hopes to take in 10,000 Syrian refugees next year. Refugees seeking entry into the United States undergo multiple high-level security checks and an in-person interview with a representative from the Department of Homeland security. It's unclear where Trump got the 200,000 figure he and his campaign have repeated.