Multiple political stories breaking today (consider this an open discussion thread):
♦ Dr. Ben Carson is taking a 2 week break from campaigning to focus on his book tour – […] According to ABC News, the next time Carson will publicly campaign will be Oct. 28, the day of the GOP debate, which will take place in Colorado. The last time Carson did a public campaign event was Oct. 2.
Carson will also catch up on fundraising events over the next two weeks. He has 20 events scheduled. In the third quarter of this year, Carson raised $20 million.
To comply with campaign finance law, Carson’s staff will not travel with him for book events. (link)
Major GOP donor switches from Jeb to Carson: http://t.co/rZA3ILdbMB pic.twitter.com/Ne5dg7ODxs
— The Hill (@thehill) October 15, 2015
♦ Several Campaigns Announce 3rd Quarter Fundraising:
Jeb Bush (Currently Polling 6% Reuters Average)
Raised: $13,384,832
Cash on hand: $10,271,229
Ben Carson (Currently Polling 20% Average)
Raised: About $20 million
Ted Cruz (Currently Polling 6% Average)
Raised: $12.2 million
Spent: $7.2 million
Cash on hand: $13.5 million.
Marco Rubio (Currently Polling 6.5% Average)
Raised: About $6 million
Cash on hand: $10,975,988.78
Carly Fiorina (Currently Polling 4.7% Average)
Raised: $6.8 million
Spent: $2.2 million
Cash on hand: $5.5 million
NOTE !
Allen West was a max donor to Carly Fiorina in this past quarter
— Ben Jacobs (@Bencjacobs) October 15, 2015
Chris Christie (Currently Polling 2.3% Average)
Raised: $4.2 million
Rand Paul (Currently Polling 3.1% Average)
Raised: $2.5 million
Cash on hand: $2 million
Bobby Jindal (Currently Polling .06% Average)
Raised: $579,438.39
Spent: $832,214.02
Cash on hand: $260,939.01
Jeb Bush raises $13 million in third quarter — but now has less cash on hand than Ted Cruz http://t.co/gxfFI60pkT
— Allahpundit (@allahpundit) October 15, 2015
♦ Several Campaigns are concerned about the upcoming CNBC debate:
[…] A day earlier, the RNC and CNBC held a conference call to discuss logistics that turned heated — with CNBC saying it wouldn’t allow opening and closing statements, and several campaigns saying they wanted them.
On Thursday’s call — which the RNC abruptly scheduled earlier in the morning — Corey Lewandowski, Trump’s campaign manager, said that if the debate does not include opening or closing statements and is longer than two hours total, including commercial breaks, the real estate mogul would have to drop out of the debate.
Neither Lewandowski nor Trump’s spokeswoman, Hope Hicks, responded to a request for comment. But in a Thursday afternoon tweet, Trump — who has been vocal about his unhappiness with how the two previous Republican debates were formatted — said that, “@CNBC is pushing the @GOP around by asking for extra time (and no criteria) in order to sell more commercials.”
After the call was finished, aides to Trump and another Republican candidate, Ben Carson, submitted a letter to CNBC stating their opposition to the debate criteria. “Neither Mr. Trump or Dr. Carson will participate in your debate if it is longer than 120 minutes including commercials and does not include opening and closing statements,” said the letter, which was written by Michael Glassner of Trump’s campaign and Ed Brookover of Carson’s. (read more)
The @GOP should not agree to the ridiculous debate terms that @CNBC is asking unless there is a major benefit to the party.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 15, 2015
.@CNBC is pushing the @GOP around by asking for extra time (and no criteria) in order to sell more commercials.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 15, 2015
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/654755084245430272