Today’s installment of campaign-related news items from across the country.
* To no one’s surprise, Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) announced this morning that he’s running for the Democratic presidential nomination. As NBC News’ report noted, the senator and former mayor “kicked off his first day as a presidential candidate with phone interviews with black radio hosts on two shows and an interview almost entirely in Spanish on Univision’s morning show, Despierta América.”
* The White House’s Kellyanne Conway welcomed Booker to the race by suggesting on Fox News that it’s sexist of him to run against Democratic women who are already in the race.
* Appointed Sen. Martha McSally (R-Ariz.), who’ll run again next year, apparently accepted more than $270,000 in excessive campaign contributions during her failed statewide campaign last year. What’s more, it’s not the first time her fundraising practices have become controversial.
* It’s not official, but if former Gov. William Weld runs for president, it would apparently be a Republican challenge to Donald Trump. Weld was a Republican governor, who more recently ran on the Libertarian Party’s ticket.
* Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, eyeing a Democratic presidential campaign, isn’t just assembling an impressive team of aides; he’s also pouring “hundreds of millions of dollars into a data-centric political operation designed to ensure one goal: crush Donald Trump.” * Most, if not all, of the Democratic presidential candidates will call for tax increases on the very wealthy, which Republicans tend to condemn as an abomination. But as the latest Fox News poll helps show, higher taxes on the wealthy are popular — even among many GOP voters. * And as former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz moves toward an independent presidential campaign, we’re learning more about his civic background, including the fact that he didn’t bother to vote in most election cycles since 2005.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past." Recommended
