strong following but not enough to become a nominee? but the establishment, that was the other story of cpac, the establishment, nowhere to be found. although the response to chris christie could have been much worse, given what we know about the audience and chris christie s position. it was decent, polite to warm in various ways. the enemy of their enemy, though, is their friend. that s not an establishment audience. let s take that as a given. dan balls. there is no front-runner, good for you. trivia time, it s the colorado state capitol building that sits exactly one mile above sea mile. exactly, 5,280 feet. congratulations to today s winner, g 74, or gdog74. we ll be right back. for the little mishaps you feel use neosporin to help you heal. it kills germs so you heal four days faster. neosporin. use with band-aid brand bandages.
but i think there is a vital role, just as ronald reagan did paul defended himself. he compared his views to those of the first president bush. henry kissinger. and ronald reagan. i think those who would try to argue that somehow i m different than the mainstream republican opinion are people who want to take advantage for their own personal political game. i m a great believer in ronald reagan. i m a great believer in a strong national defense. right now, though, name i.d. is helping congressman paul ryan, at least, look like the leading candidate in iowa. a new des moines register poll tested folks who ran in some form in 2012 and found ryan seems to be the most popular candidate to run again on the republican side, over other three other former presidential candidates. so joining me now on the state of where 2016 is for the republicans, washington post chief correspondent dan balls, author of the take. so what do we make of rand paul? you know, there s the it was
increasingly responding to the special interests they need to get elected. the military industrial complex, big energy, pharmaceutical companies, banks. this article, by the way, was co-written by dan balls, who is with me today, and also adam green, co-founder of the progressive change committee and jim kessler, senior vice president for policy with the democratic think tank third way, representing the two wings of the democratic party. dan, set up this debate, you know, the republican party divide, we all know a lot about. party out of power, that gets in the forefront. this is something that s been papered over by obama and clinton, but where do you see this potentially clashing? well, i think that the biggest areas are, a, on foreign policy, because we know there are divides within the democratic coalition about many of the policies that the president has carried out the drone policy and the surveillance policy. but i think the real issue that is going to be of debate is over e
harry reid wanted, which was to raise the debt ceiling but they wanted to be able to tell what they view as their foolish, gul labl constituents and because they had to admit what they are doing and nothing upsets them more. let s bring in friend of the show, dan balls. dan, i wouldn t say that senator cruz doesn t have a point there. well, he does have a point but the question is whether he has a strategy to make it effective. that s what we saw play out in the shutdown last fall which hurt the republican party, certainly for a time, and what happened this week when a dozen republicans parted company with him to make sure that there could be a vote on this. they all then voted against raising the debt ceiling but made sure it went through without any disruption.
mcauliffe takes the oath of offense there in richmond. it will come just ten days after the clintons were front and center at mayor de blasio s inauguration in new york city. all of this amid a nearly year-long effort foreshadowing a possible white house run that includes a new politico article that describes at least one political strategy meeting at her home last summer. let s bring in our monday gaggle, dan balls, chief correspondent for the washington post, tracy is a democratic strategist and senior advisor for the group ready for hillary, calling for a clinton run in 2016, ahem, and alfonse is executive director for latinos with conservative principles. i ll start with you, traci. not a question of if but when. the one thing we ve heard from all of the clinton advisors of all time is that even if she didn t want to run, the pressure on her would be so intense from the democratic party, just to