Candidate Donald Trump sold out the University of South Florida Sun Dome stadium tonight for a campaign rally.   With 11,000 inside the venue and thousands outside, Trump vows to return.

Long lines to get in: (more…)

Tonight Donald Trump is holding a rally in Tampa, FL at the University of South Florida Sun Dome. The event is scheduled to begin at 7:00 PM EDT.

Live Stream Link – Alternate Live Stream #2 – Alternate Live Stream #3

Fox10 Live Stream HERE:

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In the southern rock spirit (genre) of Lynyrd Skynyrd and Kid Rock: ‘Merica

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A Southern Political Poll released today (full pdf below) conducted for the Augusta Chronicle and Fox5 is exceptionally interesting.  The poll data itself is deep, extensive, succinct and well presented.  Good sample size, low MOE and few assumptions.

The top line results, show remarkable consistency with the previous NBC/WSJ and Maris polls conducted in January.  With the exception of a modest bump for John Kasich, the latest polling shows almost no change – and most of the SC electorate have not only made up their mind, but their decision has been settled for quite a while:

A close review of the poll internals, shows some remarkable and consistent insights when contrast against ground reports, alternate polling and field data.  What many political junkies might find remarkable is the dominance of the Trump coalition.

After reviewing the poll data, the current decisions of the Trump campaign’s approach in South Carolina make VERY good sense.

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(Via CBS) The six remaining major GOP presidential candidates have all qualified for CBS News’ Republican debate in South Carolina on Saturday night, the network announced Friday.

Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Jeb Bush, Ben Carson and John Kasich have been invited to participate in the debate at the Peace Center in Greenville.

Former Virginia Gov. Jim Gilmore, who had only previously participated in undercard debates, did not qualify for the main stage, and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and Carly Fiorina dropped out of the 2016 race earlier this week. (more…)

INDIANAPOLIS — There were gasps of anger and disbelief. There was yelling. At least one person in the crowd of Carrier employees shouted things that cannot be written here.

The employees had just been told the heating, cooling, air conditioning, and refrigeration company was relocating its Indianapolis plant to Monterrey, Mexico.

Statement from Carrier: (more…)

It did not take long for the earlier predictions of the upcoming South Carolina debate to be confirmed.  According to a local media report the Peace Center in South Carolina, with an audience capacity of 1,900, will be attended by only the most exclusive party insiders and Republican donors.

[…]  Republican National Committee decided not to go with a lottery system. “If we had not had it at the Peace Center we probably would have had more people come, but the Peace Center is the venue that CBS chose,” said Chad Groover, chairman of the Greenville County Republican party.

Groover said supporters who work hard for the party will be rewarded tickets. People selected will fill the 1,900 seats that have been made available for the event, according to Groover.  Groover said the Republican National Committee gives a lot of tickets to supporters. He said more are then allocated for the state party to distribute among the county chairs.  […]  Groover said he gave tickets to supporters, including elected officials, who work hard for the party. (link)

As typical for the cocktail class, “work hard for the party” translates to opening checkbooks and demanding influence.

The New Hampshire debate audience was Old School Republicans who cheered Jeb Bush and jeered the ‘next-in-line-jumper’ Marco Rubio.  However, South Carolina has already shown their most preferential candidate in the North Charleston debate, where party insiders were majority Rubio supporters.  Expect Greenville to be more like the latter than former. (more…)

Venue: Baton Rouge River Center – this first picture was an hour before the scheduled start of the event:

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(Via Steven Tucker)  I have been studying health care policy for 20 years now. I am also a multi-state licensed health insurance broker who continues to operate in an increasingly less competitive and more bureaucratically controlled system on both the federal and state level. During the last 20 years I have seen a lot of changes in the U.S. health care system. Some of them good (HIPAA) and some bad (Reagan’s EMTALA) the PPACA a.k.a. “Obamacare” etc.

During the last two decades I have read everything I could get my hands on pertaining to health care policy. I also spent the longest two weeks of my entire life reading the PPACA – Patient Protection & Affordable Care Act – shortly after it was passed into law on March 23, 2010. I have also appeared on television, radio and written expert commentary on health care policy on this blog and for professional business journals around the country. If there is one thing I know it is health care policy and if there is another thing I know it is a lie when I hear it. (more…)

If you begin to receive weird phone text messages, Facebook contacts and weird emails from the Cruz campaign, it’s probably because one of your “friends” is a Ted Cruz supporter – and he or she has you in their contact list.

An alarming article from the Associated Press explains how Ted Cruz has moved his campaign from direct cyber contact to data-mining and spyware within the contacts on phones and social media of Ted Cruz supporters.

According to the Associated Press outline the Cruz campaign has launched an app which targets the “friends” list of Facebook supporters of Ted Cruz, and extracts their information for use:

[…]  The Cruz app prompts supporters to register using their Facebook logins, giving the campaign access to personal information such as name, age range, gender, location and photograph, plus lists of friends and relatives. Those without a Facebook account must either provide an email address or phone number to use the app. (link)

But the Cruz campaign doesn’t limit themselves to just social media.  According to the media report the campaign is also retrieving, extracting and targeting those names and phone numbers within the supporters cell phone: (more…)