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Cutting through the campaign myths: Why 2016 remains a roller coaster

In this first column of 2016, I stubbornly refuse to surrender to the listicle culture: Eight Takeaways from the Speech, The Five Best Moments of the Debate, 13 Must-Read Emails from the Latest Dump.
But without descending into numerical headlines, I hereby offer some observations on the strangest presidential campaign in modern memory as we head into the season when voters actually get to cast their ballots.
Maybe I’ve spent a little too much vacation time in the sun, but the cold reality of January suggests some observations that might have been lost in the blur of constant coverage.
Many of you are just tuning in. Pundits, myself included, often forget that not all of America was breathlessly following the exhibition season of 2015. Millions of people don’t know that the press has largely deemed Jeb Bush to be toast, that Chris Christie is viewed as mounting some sort of comeback, that Ben Carson is seen as a Herman Cain flash in the pan. They barely remember that the media briefly conferred front-runner status on Scott Walker, who, along with Rick Perry, Lindsey Graham, Bobby Jindal and George Pataki, is gone from the race.
The media have not “made” Donald Trump the front-runner. Sure, the billionaire businessman has dominated the coverage and enjoys a symbiotic relationship with the Fourth Estate. But he is incredibly astute at commanding attention, not just through the art of insult but with over-the-top attacks and proposals on Mexican illegal immigrants, Muslim immigrants, John McCain’s war record, Bill Clinton’s sex life—and, of course, the “scum” and “sleazebags” of the media. No politician has ever thrived on the media’s scorn the way The Donald does. Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban calls Trump a master of generating “headline porn.”
Policy has never mattered less. Ted Cruz has catapulted himself into a strong second place because voters know he’s a confrontational conservative, and his stance on social issues has a particular resonance with evangelical voters. Republicans know that Cruz, like Trump, is fiercely opposed to illegal immigration. They view Trump as a proven job creator because of his real estate empire. They care little about the details of his tax-cut plan, or the fact that he’s taken liberal positions in the past. They may know that Cruz has been hammering Marco Rubio on immigration and Rubio has been hitting Cruz on NSA surveillance, but the details are fuzzy at best. This is partly the fault of a media culture that values stinging sound bites and taunting tweets far more than substantive proposals. So far, at least, talking tough on terror matters more than the specifics of fighting ISIS.
Experience has never mattered less. Once upon a time, having served two successful terms as Florida’s governor would help a presidential candidate; now it’s practically a liability. Anyone who served in the pre-Twitter era is viewed as a dinosaur. Politicians with experience in Washington, and even in state houses, are dismissed as part of the problem. After seven years of GOP complaints that Barack Obama was too inexperienced for the Oval Office, this is an odd turn of events.
Advertising has never mattered less. Bush and his Super PAC have dropped more than $30 million on commercials and yet he’s remained mired in the low single digits. Trump spent not a dime on TV advertising and has a huge lead (though as I exclusively reported last Monday, he is about to blitz the airwaves with campaign costing $2 million or more a week). Rubio’s commercials seemingly air constantly but have provided a modest boost at best. It’s a cluttered marketplace; people are increasingly suspicious of ads; and candidates can communicate more efficiently on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat and YouTube, especially if the media magnify those messages.
Most outsiders lose for a reason. Carson, who was once neck-and-neck with Trump, has faded in the polls as a series of mistakes highlighted his lack of foreign policy knowledge. His messy staff shakeup, with the campaign manager and other top aides leaving, reflected a quintessential clash between professional operatives and a candidate’s longtime friend, in this case Armstrong Williams. Carly Fiorina, who surged after strong debate performances, slid back to single digits once she and her team were unable to capitalize on her moment in the spotlight. Running for president is a minefield, which is why every president since Ike had already been a seasoned political warrior.
New Hampshire has never mattered more. A Cruz victory in Iowa’s caucuses could give him major momentum, or be written off as an anomaly, which is what happened to Rick Santorum and Mike Huckabee. A Trump victory in Iowa could launch him on an unstoppable run. Either way, no fewer than four so-called establishment candidates—Jeb, Christie, Rubio and John Kasich—view the Granite State as crucial to their survival. Anyone who finishes poorly there after a weak Iowa showing will face anemic fundraising and media obituaries by the time South Carolina votes.
The race is utterly unpredictable. Beware of the prognosticators who claim to forecast the future. Most of them dismissed Trump as a mere sideshow.
Let’s see, how many bullet points is that?
Howard Kurtz is a Fox News analyst and the host of "MediaBuzz" (Sundays 11 a.m. and 5 p.m. ET). He is the author of five books and is based in Washington. Follow him at @HowardKurtz. Click here for more information on Howard Kurtz. 

GOP-led Congress set for first time to vote, pass bill to replace ObamaCare, not just repeal

Within hours of reconvening Tuesday, the GOP-led Congress will finally act to fulfill a 2010 promise to repeal and replace ObamaCare.
The effort is set to begin Tuesday afternoon when the House Rules Committee meets on the repeal measure, with a full debate and vote as early as Tuesday. With the Republican-led Senate having already passed its version, GOP congressional leaders will send the measure to President Obama, daring him to veto it.
Obama will undoubtedly veto the measure to undo his signature health care law, and Congress has nowhere near the votes to override a presidential veto.
But Republicans hope the entire exercise might start to change the circumstance on Capitol Hill regarding the years-old argument about ObamaCare and its repeal.
House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., is promising to unveil a bill to in fact replace ObamaCare.
For all of the GOP’s sturm und drang about ObamaCare, neither the House nor the Senate has ever debated a bill that attempts to succeed the law.
The reason is that nobody has crafted a plan that would pass in either chamber.
In 2010, House Republicans concocted the “Pledge to America.” It was a political compact created to help the GOP seize control of the House from Democrats and tell voters what they would do if in control.
One of the promises was to “repeal and replace” ObamaCare. After Republicans earned the House majority, the first major vote of 2011 was to repeal the health care law. The House and Senate have voted more than 60 times to either fully or partially repeal the Affordable Care Act, as it is more formally know. Yet they’ve never held a vote to replace ObamaCare.
But with Ryan now at the helm in the House and the GOP controlling the Senate, this may be one of the few chances the party has to come together around a bill which would replace the six-year-old law.
Ryan is, nevertheless, tempering expectations. In a recent meeting with reporters, he indicated that the House was practically obligated to pass a replacement bill. And though Ryan was confident about the House doing so this year, he underscored the unlikelihood that Obama would sign the legislation into law.
Still, the effort is part of Ryan’s attempt to contrast Republicans with the agenda of Obama and the left. Democrats have long hectored Republicans for failing to cough up a bill to succeed ObamaCare.
Such a measure is a unicorn.
If there were the votes to approve that elusive bill, Republicans would have done it. But if they finally at least draft a bill and better yet pass it, then the sides can argue about policy and not just exchange hypothetical catcalls.
Still, if Ryan is correct, the House GOP will write an ObamaCare alternative seven years after a triumvirate of House committees prepped the initial iterations of the ACA in the summer of 2009.
The House approved the first version of ObamaCare in November, 2009. The Senate did so on Christmas Eve of 2009. Both bodies ushered the final health care packages to passage in March, 2010.
This enterprise won’t be easy for Republicans.
Some GOP aides defended not having a replacement bill at the ready.
They suggested the promise in the Pledge to America was to “repeal and replace” the ACA. Certainly there were votes to repeal the law (at least in the House). But the law was never repealed. Therefore, they argued, it wasn’t yet incumbent upon Republicans to make good on the second contingency and replace the statute.
Ryan won’t be able to implement the replacement package either with Obama still in the White House in 2016 -- if it does in fact get that far. But if Ryan’s successful, he’ll have come a lot further than anyone else has before.
Which brings us back to what the House is up to next week.
Though the House has approved dozens of repeal bills over the years, the Senate has not until a few weeks ago taken a direct, up-or-down vote on eliminating ObamaCare.
Democrats controlled the Senate until January 2015. That meant they could block any Republican effort to deposit a repeal bill on the floor.
However, the story changed when the GOP won the majority. Still, Senate rules often favor the minority party. Republicans would have to vault two anticipated Democratic-filibusters just to bring up a repeal bill for debate. Overcoming those filibusters would require two roll call votes of 60 yeas. That wasn’t happening.
The GOP nevertheless had one option at its disposal -- something called “budget reconciliation.”
Budget reconciliation is a unique, once-a-shot piece of legislation that operates under special rules. It’s inoculated from pesky Senate filibusters. And if you can jam something into a budget reconciliation measure, you can usually get it through the Senate because it just requires a simple majority for passage.
The House recently started this process and knocked out a dual reconciliation bill that simultaneously repealed ObamaCare and defunded Planned Parenthood. It then shipped the measure to the Senate. But because of special Senate rules governing budget reconciliation, the upper chamber had to tweak the plan to pass it. That meant that the House and Senate had approved slightly different bills. So the Senate then bounced its updated version back to the House.
This is where things stand: The House is expected to debate and vote on the final, Senate-amended version of the reconciliation plan. If approved, the House and Senate are in alignment and the bill goes to Obama to sign or veto -- though this is a fait accompli.
House Republicans initially planned to take up the reworked Senate bill right before Christmas. But at the last minute, they decided to delay that gambit. They had a new tactic. Wait until after the holiday to maximize exposure of the House debate and vote -- as well as the President’s planned veto. Plus, it might help tee up Republican plans on health care in the new year.
The GOP hopes it can artfully message its plans to design and approve a replacement bill for ObamaCare -- with something with a lot more policy teeth than the other parliamentary gymnastics of just voting to repeal parts or all of the legislation over and over again.
Republicans also are hoping the public embraces these policy ideas as a contrast to those propounded by Obama and Democrats with health care topping the list.

US reportedly fears Iran-Saudi Arabia rift will set back ISIS fight

The Obama administration and its Western allies have been left scrambling to smooth over a rift between Saudi Arabia and Iran that erupted over the weekend after the Saudis executed a prominent Shiite cleric.
On Sunday, Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir announced that his country had severed diplomatic ties with Iran and gave Iranian diplomatic personnel 48 hours to leave his country. All Saudi diplomatic personnel in Iran have been called home after mobs attacked the kingdom's embassy in Tehran, as well as a consulate.
According to The Washington Post, the Obama administration fears that the escalating dispute could negatively affect the ongoing fight against the ISIS terror group, as well as the effort to bring Syria's ongoing civil war to a peaceful conclusion.
At least one U.S. official blamed the Saudi government for stoking tensions by executing Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, a central figure in Arab Spring-inspired protests by Saudi Arabia's Shiite minority until his arrest in 2012.
"This is a dangerous game [the Saudis] are playing," the official told the Post. "There are larger repercussions than just the reaction to these executions."
That drew an angry response from a Saudi official, who told the Post, "Tehran has thumbed its nose at the West again and again, continuing to sponsor terrorism and launch ballistic missiles and no one is doing anything about it."
"Every time the Iranians do something, the United States backs off," the official added, according to the Post. "The Saudis are actually doing something."
The executions illustrate Saudi Arabia's new aggressiveness under King Salman. During his reign, Saudi Arabia has led a coalition fighting Iran-backed Shiite rebels in Yemen and staunchly opposed the nuclear deal world powers struck with Iran this past summer.
It also represents just the latest turmoil in the two countries' long-rocky relationship, which saw diplomatic ties between them severed from 1988 to 1991.
On Sunday, al-Jubeir told a news conference in Riyadh that the Iranian regime has "a long record of violations of foreign diplomatic missions," dating back to the occupation of the U.S. Embassy in 1979, and such incidents constitute "a flagrant violation of all international agreements," according to the official Saudi Press Agency.
He said Iran's "hostile policy" was aimed "at destabilizing the region's security," accusing Tehran of smuggling weapons and explosives and planting terrorist cells in the kingdom and other countries in the region. He vowed that Saudi Arabia will not allow Iran "to undermine our security."
Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, warned Saudi Arabia on Sunday of "divine revenge" over al-Nimr's death, but also branded those who attacked the Saudi Embassy as "extremists."
At least 40 people were arrested Sunday after a protest outside the Saudi Embassy quickly grew violent as demonstrators threw stones and gasoline bombs at the embassy, setting part of the building ablaze
State Department spokesman John Kirby said Sunday the Obama administration was aware of the Saudis' severing of ties with Tehran. "We believe that diplomatic engagement and direct conversations remain essential in working through differences and we will continue to urge leaders across the region to take affirmative steps to calm tensions," Kirby said.
In recent months, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and others have spent significant time trying to bring both countries to the negotiating table and they both sat together at talks aimed at finding a diplomatic solution to the civil war. Last month, Saudi Arabia convened a meeting of Syrian opposition figures that was designed to create a delegation to attend peace talks with the Syrian government that are supposed to begin later this month.
Earlier Sunday, EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini spoke to Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif by phone and urged Tehran to "defuse the tensions and protect the Saudi diplomats," according to a statement.

Armed protesters at national wildlife refuge say government force would risk lives

Armed protesters occupying a federal wildlife refuge in Oregon—including three sons of a Nevada rancher who battled with the government in 2014—warned Sunday that any use of force by law enforcement agencies would be “putting lives at risk.”
Hours into the occupation by activists and militiamen a spokesman for the group told reporters that there has been no contact with the FBI or other government law enforcement since the occupation began Saturday night.
“They should be constitutional,” said spokesman Ammon Bundy, referring to the government. He is a son of Cliven Bundy, a Nevada rancher who clashed with the feds two years ago.

Ammon Bundy said if the government did use force to retake the Malheur National Wildlife refuge “they would be putting lives at risk.”
Earlier, the protesters vowed to occupy the refuge for “as long as it takes,” as state and federal officials on Sunday sought to defuse the situation.
The protestors have said they stormed the federal land in a remote area near Burns, some 280 miles southeast of Portland, to protest the prosecution of a father and son facing jail time on an arson charge for burning 130 acres of land.
Dwight Hammond Jr., 73, and his 46-year-old son, Steven, have claimed that they lit the fires in 2001 and 2006 to reduce the growth of invasive plants and protect their property from wildfires. However, prosecutors said the fires were set to cover up poaching.

Buildings at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge are seen near Burns, Ore., Sunday, Jan. 3, 2016. Protesters are occupying the refuge to object to a prison sentence for local ranchers for burning federal land. (AP Photo/Rebecca Boone)

The two were convicted of the arsons three years ago and served jail time — the father three months, the son one year. But a judge ruled their terms were too short under federal law and ordered them back to prison for about four years each.
Dwight Hammond has said he and his son plan to peacefully report to prison Monday as ordered by the judge.
The decision generated controversy and is part of a decades-long dispute between some Westerners and the federal government over the use of public lands. The issue traces back to the 1970s and the "Sagebrush Rebellion," a move by Western states like Nevada to increase local control over federal land. Critics of the push for more local control have said the federal government should administer the public lands for the widest possible uses, including environmental and recreation.

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On Sunday, militia members decked out in camouflage and warm winter gear and holding guns and walkie talkies guarded the entrance. They allowed some news reporters through for interviews with members of the Bundy family. Pickup trucks blocked the entrance and were pulled out of the way to let select cars through.
Supplies were seen Sunday being delivered to the refuge area, which is remote even by rural Oregon standards. The wildlife refuge sits in a wide snow-covered valley rimmed by distant mountains. A high lookout tower sits over the refuge headquarters buildings, which has several stone buildings and garages.
At a news conference at the refuge, Ammon Bundy renewed a call for other "patriots" to come join the occupation.
"We are asking people to come because we need to be united and have a strong defense," he said.
But Harney County Sheriff Dave Ward said the protesters were no patriots.

"These men came to Harney County claiming to be part of militia groups supporting local ranchers, when in reality these men had alternative motives to attempt to overthrow the county and federal government in hopes to spark a movement across the United States," Ward said in a statement. "We are currently working jointly with several organizations to make sure the citizens of Harney County are safe and this issue is resolved as quickly and peaceful as possible."
Ward earlier told people to stay away from the building as authorities worked to defuse the situation, the Oregonian reported.
"A collective effort from multiple agencies is currently working on a solution. For the time being please stay away from that area. More information will be provided as it becomes available. Please maintain a peaceful and united front and allow us to work through this situation," Ward said in a statement.
On his Facebook page Ammon Bundy said “this is not a time to stand down. It’s a time to stand up and come to Harney County.”
"(asterisk)(asterisk)ALL PATRIOTS ITS TIME TO STAND UP NOT STAND DOWN!!! WE NEED YOUR HELP!!! COME PREPARED," he wrote.
In an interview with The Associated Press at the wildlife refuge Sunday, Ryan Bundy, Ammon Bundy's brother, said the protesters' ultimate goal is to turn the land over to local authorities so people can use it free of federal oversight.

They want to "restore the rights to people so they can use the land and resources" for ranching, logging, mining and recreation.

Ryan Bundy says the federal government has been "tromping on people's rights and privileges and properties and livelihoods."

"I understand the land needs to be used wisely, but that's what we as stewards need to do. A rancher is going to take care of his own ranch," Ryan Bundy said.
The refuge is managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. It had been closed and unoccupied over the holiday weekend, according to the Oregonian.
One of the occupiers, Blaine Cooper, told KTVZ-TV likened the occupation to what is done about bullies in school: “You have to put him in his place.”
"Now, I'm not going to be best friends with the BLM," he said. "The point is, until that line is drawn, that we have had enough of this tyranny and you are going to leave us alone, it will not change. This is the power of America, right here. ... This could be a hope that spreads through the whole United States,” Cooper added.
Cliven Bundy told Oregon Public Broadcasting on Saturday night that he was not involved in the takeover.
He said his sons felt obligated to intervene on behalf of the Hammonds.
"That's not exactly what I thought should happen, but I didn't know what to do," he said. "You know, if the Hammonds wouldn't stand, if the sheriff didn't stand, then, you know, the people had to do something. And I guess this is what they did decide to do. I wasn't in on that."
He said Ammon told him the protesters were there for the long run.
“I guess they figured they're going to be there for whatever time it takes and I don't know what that means," the father said. "I asked him, 'Well how long can ya, how long you going to stand out there?' He just told me it was for long term."
The Oregonian, citing government sources, reported the militiamen had planned to occupy a closed fire station near Frenchglen. The U.S. Bureau of Land Management sends its crews there during the fire season.