Tag: Bill Weld

Mollie Hemingway Commentary: Taking on the Establishment

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Before the 2018 midterm elections, Trump’s political advisors were thinking about the president’s re-election bid and noticed a curious commonality among incumbent presidents who didn’t get re-elected: they all faced challengers from within their own party.

Five U.S. presidents since 1900 have lost their bids for a second term. William Taft lost to Woodrow Wilson, Herbert Hoover lost to Franklin Roosevelt, Gerald Ford lost to Jimmy Carter, Jimmy Carter lost to Ronald Reagan, and George H. W. Bush lost to Bill Clinton. While each election is determined by unique factors, all five of these failed incumbents dealt with internal party fights or serious primary challenges.

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Trump GOP Challenger Bill Weld Supports Abortion on Demand, Endorsed Obama

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by Peter Hasson   Former Republican Massachusetts Gov. Bill Weld, who on Monday announced plans to challenge President Donald Trump in the 2020 Republican primary, has a track record of siding against his party on key social issues. Weld supports allowing abortions up until birth, including partial-birth abortions, and in the past called for a ban on “assault weapons.” Weld in 2016 ran for vice president on the Libertarian Party ticket with former New Mexico Libertarian Gov. Gary Johnson. The pair won zero electoral votes and received just over three percent of the vote nationwide. In a June 2016 interview with Bloomberg Politics, Weld was asked if it would be accurate to compare his positions on social issues to those of former Planned Parenthood CEO Cecile Richards. “Yeah, that’s right,” he answered, adding that he favored allowing abortion-on-demand, including partial-birth abortions, which have been illegal since 1995. Weld in 1992 described allowing abortions up until birth as “a price I would pay in order to have government stay out of the thicket.” His positions on abortion aren’t just outside the mainstream in the Republican Party, they’re outside the national mainstream as well. Just 13 percent of Americans think abortion should…

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Ex-Massachusetts Governor Weld to Seek 2020 Republican Presidential Nomination

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Former Massachusetts Governor Bill Weld announced his candidacy on Monday to challenge President Donald Trump for the 2020 Republican presidential nomination. Weld, 73, who served two terms as governor, from 1991-1997, enters as a long-shot candidate against an incumbent president who has remained popular within his party. Weld in February had said that he planned to challenge Trump. “I really think if we have six more years of the same stuff we’ve had out of the White House the last two years that would be a political tragedy,” he said on CNN. “So I would be ashamed of myself if I didn’t raise my hand and run.” Weld’s challenge marks the first against Trump by a member of his own party. Other Republicans have publicly flirted with their own challenges, including former Ohio Governor John Kasich, one of the many Republican candidates whom Trump defeated for the party’s presidential nomination in 2016. But Republican leaders have signaled little tolerance for intra-party fights as Trump gears up for a potentially challenging bid for a second term. “Any effort to challenge the president’s nomination is bound to go absolutely nowhere,” the Republican National Committee said in statement responding to Weld’s announcement, noting…

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