For all the sound and fury in 2012, the Republicans don't have a very deep bench and on the Dem side I'm not sure anyone gets a thrill up their leg at the thought of President Kerry.
From CBS News:
Another paid speech raises questions about Hillary Clinton campaign
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has accepted another paid speech in March, raising speculation that any announcement about her candidacy won't come until after that.As the WSJ helpfully points out:
Clinton will deliver the closing keynote address at the American Camp Association, a group of 3,000 summer camp and out-of-school-time professionals, on March 19 at the group's conference in Atlantic City. Her fee hasn't been disclosed, but the association's website is for the first time in its history selling VIP tickets to her speech.
Ticket holders "will occupy the first few rows and the rest of the seats will remain free and open to the attendees," and the site admits that the ticket sales will be used "to help subsidize the amazing closing keynote."
Eighty tickets in rows two through four are selling for $500 each, and the first 20 people to buy will get a free copy of Clinton's most recent book, "Hard Choices." Another 200 tickets are available at $100 each for seating in rows five through 12 of the room....MORE
...In the 2008 presidential race, she announced her candidacy in January 2007. Were she to stick to that timetable in the 2016 election cycle, she would announce her plans next month....And from Bloomberg:
Jeb Bush Has a Mitt Romney Problem
A private-equity-guy presidential candidate with lots of deals for the press to untangle—it sounds at least 47 percent familiar.
Over the last several months, former Florida Governor Jeb Bush has been giving speeches, campaigning for candidates, appearing at public forums, and meeting with wealthy donors, which has led many people to believe that he may soon enter the race to become the next Republican presidential nominee. On Dec. 1, Bush told a gathering of business leaders at the Four Seasons Hotel in Washington that he would make a decision about his political future “in short order.” But Bush’s recent business ventures reveal that he shares a number of liabilities with the last nominee, Mitt Romney, whose career in private equity proved so politically damaging that it sunk his candidacy.
Documents filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Nov. 27 list Bush as chairman and manager of a new offshore private equity fund, BH Global Aviation, which raised $61 million in September, largely from foreign investors. In November the fund incorporated in the United Kingdom and Wales—a structure, several independent finance lawyers say, that operates like a tax haven by allowing overseas investors to avoid U.S. taxes and regulations.
BH Global Aviation is one of at least three such funds Bush has launched in less than two years through his Coral Gables, Fla., company, Britton Hill Holdings. He’s also chairman of a $26 million fund, BH Logistics, established in April with backing from a Chinese conglomerate, and a $40 million fund involved in shale oil exploration, according to documents filed in June and first reported on by Bloomberg News. His flurry of ventures doesn’t suggest someone preparing to run for president, according to a dozen fund managers, lawyers, and private-placement agents who were apprised of his recent activities by Bloomberg Businessweek. Most private equity funds have a life span of 10 years. While it isn’t impossible that Bush could bail on his investors so soon after taking their money, “that would be unusual,” says Steven Kaplan, a private equity expert at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. One fundraiser for private equity adds that normally you’d be winding down such businesses, rather than expanding them, if you were going to run....MORE
