According to an article in the June 5 New York Times, there are likely to be fifteen candidates for the Republican presidential nomination who have the requisite qualifications to be acknowledged by the media and by the Republican National Committee to be bona fide candidates. They are:
1. Jeb Bush
2. Ben Carson
3. Chris Christie
4. Ted Cruz
5. Carly Fiorina
6. Lindsay Graham
7. Mike Huckabee
8. Bobby Jindal
9. John Kasich
10. George Pataki
11. Rand Paul
12. Rick Perry
13. Marco Rubio
14. Rick Santorum
15. Scott Walker
Approximately half of the 2016 presidential primaries will be in March. States with March presidential primaries will print their ballots before any caucuses or primaries have taken place. So even though it is likely that some candidates will drop out after the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire and South Carolina presidential primaries, the states with March presidential primaries will have printed their ballots before such withdrawals.
These ten states with March presidential primaries put all candidates on the ballot who are discussed in the major news media, or else they include all candidates recognized by state party leaders: Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, Ohio, Tennessee, Texas. It seems probable that those states will have approximately 15 candidates on their Republican presidential primary ballots. Yet no state legislator in any state this year has introduced any bill to make presidential primary ballot access more difficult. It seems that state officials do not really believe that as many as 15 candidates on a ballot for one office really “confuses” voters.
Do you think Mark Everson has any shot of working his way onto that list of recognized candidates?
As a former IRS Commissioner, his resume of government service is fairly substantial.
http://markforamerica.com/meet-mark/
I was just quoting the New York Times list. The New York Times list doesn’t even include Donald Trump, but if he says on June 16 that he is running, I imagine he would also be on the “bona fide” list. I must admit I never heard of Mark Everson.
Texas statutes provide that party rules determine which candidates qualify for the ballot. Republican rules provide for a filing fee of $5000 or 300 signatures from each of at least 15 congressional districts.
Democratic rules provide for the same qualifications as for a senatorial candidate ($5000 or 5000 signatures). They also require the candidate to pledge to support the Democratic nominee (you will recall this tripped up Dennis Kucinich in 2008).
The filing deadline is the same as for other candidates, early December. Early voting begins on February 15.
Texas has runoffs to deal with the problem of ballot crowding.
Since Donald Trump has given so much money to the Clintons and sucked-up to so many people on both sides, if he runs, he should run as a self-funded independent. It would not surprise me at all if that is his “huge” June 16 announcement since he can most probably see how rigged the GOP primary machine is. I don’t think an independent run by Trump would be like Perot’s in ’92. Trump would pull votes from both camps plus bring in new voters and that would be interesting.
There is also possibly Bob Ehrlich, Peter King, and Jim Gilmore. Erhlich was a somewhat charismatic governor. King is a top player in Congress. Gilmore was governor of a swing state and a former RNC chairman. If anything, it shows how perception means more than true qualification. Many people on “the list” have either similar resumes or inferior resumes to people who are considered not viable.
I hadn’t heard of Everson either, until he announced he was running. I know he’s had personal issues, but it’ll be interesting to see if he’s totally ignored despite his resume.
He’s also seed-financing his campaign to the tune of about $250,000 from what I read.
As to Donald Trump, the idea of him “running” as an independent sounds very possible. A great way for him to make an announcement on June 16th and then continue to pretend to be a candidate for a few more months.
Then he can declare that he’s too classy and sophisticated to be President and will instead return to hosting a reality TV show.
Jeffrey Drobman, PHD (Democrat) Former Candidate for CA Secretary of State (6/3/2014):
“That to preserve the unity, the team should always mention the names of all ten candidates who are working together for the good of the ALL and to mention only the top ranked names for the five State offices, would not be in the interest of unity”.
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Of course there won’t be any “confusion” by the Republican primary voters with 15 candidates on the ballot. That would require thinking in the first place.
The Green Papers website lists a staggering 105 Republican candidates, most of whom have filed with the FEC, set up websites and/or made other concrete steps toward campaigns.