GOP field grows: Carly Fiorina, Ben Carson to launch presidential bids
Former technology executive Carly Fiorina and retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson are set to launch their runs for president on Monday, each with the potential to help the Republican Party win over a more diverse group of supporters in 2016. Fiorina is likely to be the only prominent woman to seek the GOP nomination, with Carson the only likely African-American. They are both also political outsiders in a field likely to be dominated by governors, former governors and senators. The two are not considered political allies and the timing of their announcements, planned weeks ago, is coincidental. Carson also got ahead of himself on Sunday, confirming his plans to run in an interview that aired on an Ohio television station. “I’m willing to be part of the equation and therefore, I’m announcing my candidacy for president of the United States of America,” he told WKRC-TV in Cincinnati. Carson, 63, is scheduled to make his formal announcement Monday in a speech from his native Detroit shortly after having breakfast at a local museum of African-American history. Fiorina, 60, will enter the race Monday morning in a video posted online. Both candidates begin the race as underdogs in a campaign expected to feature several seasoned politicians, among them former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, along with Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz. Yet while they have claimed much of the early attention and favor from donors, the GOP race is a wide-open contest that could ultimately feature as many as two dozen major candidates. The Republican field is already more diverse than it was four years ago. Fiorina and Carson will compete against Republican counterparts Rubio and Cruz, each vying to become the first Hispanic president. And most of the candidates are in their 40s and 50s. Still, the Republican National Committee has acknowledged a pressing need to broaden the party’s appeal beyond its traditional base of older, white men. President Barack Obama won re-election in 2012 with the strong support of women and ethnic minorities, who are becoming a larger portion of the American electorate. Raised in Detroit by a single mother, Carson practiced medicine and served as the head of pediatric neurosurgery for close to three decades at Baltimore’s Johns Hopkins Children’s Center. He gained national renown in conservative politics after condemning Obama’s health care law at the 2013 national prayer breakfast. He has established a strong base of vocal support among Tea Party-backers, some of whom launched an effort to push Carson into the race before he set up an exploratory committee earlier this year. Yet he has stumbled at times in the glare of national politics. He has suggested the Affordable Care Act is the worst thing since slavery, compared present-day America to Nazi Germany, and called problems at the nation’s Veterans Affairs hospitals “a gift from God” because they revealed holes in country’s effort to care for former members of the military. Fiorina, meanwhile, has a resume more likely to draw support among the Republican establishment. The former chief executive of Hewlett-Packard Co., she became a prominent figure in Republican politics in 2010, when she ran for Senate in California and lost to incumbent Sen. Barbara Boxer by 10 points. In the past several months, she has emerged as a fierce critic of Hillary Rodham Clinton, the front-runner for the Democratic nomination, whose potential to become the nation’s first female president is a centerpiece of her political brand. Both Carson and Fiorina immediately launch national tours in early voting states. Carson is scheduled to spend the first three days of his presidential campaign in Iowa, before heading to South Carolina at the end of the week and New Hampshire and Nevada the next. Fiorina’s first post-announcement public event is scheduled for Tuesday in New York City, although she will campaign in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina by week’s end. Republished with permission of The Associated Press. Photo Credit: Jim Cole, AP
U.S. Reps. Martha Roby, Bradley Byrne step up efforts to reform Alabama VA
Amid a growing fervor over reports alleging mistreatment of military veterans in Alabama’s VA system — and a purported campaign to cover up and retaliate against whistleblowers — two Alabama members of Congress have stepped up their efforts to reform the deeply entrenched culture that they say led to a pattern of abuse. U.S. Rep. Martha Roby first spoke to whistleblower and associate director at the Central Alabama Veterans Health Care System Richard Tremaine in June 2014. That’s when he told her of his grave concerns observing fraud and the mishandling of records on the part of his superiors and, afterward, a culture of retaliation and exclusion. Roby helped introduce Tremaine this month when he testified before Congress. “I speak with you today, with a heavy heart,” Tremaine told the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee. “Disgusted by continued cover-ups, a discrediting campaign through open-ended investigations, and the attempted destruction of my career, by the very VA I have always loved being part of.” Roby joined with Tremaine in expressing outrage over the VA’s failures in central Alabama. She said she is tired of asking nicely for the federal VA to get a hold on the situation The congressman from Alabama’s 1st District, U.S. Rep. Bradley Byrne, has been outspoken on the issue as well. On Tuesday, he called for a new VA clinic in Mobile. “Our veterans have waited far too long for a new VA clinic in Mobile, and it is past time the VA moves the process forward,” Byrne said in a prepared statement. “The current Mobile clinic is outdated and too small to adequately meet the needs of our area’s veterans. Years ago the VA committed to the construction of a new clinic in Mobile, but bureaucratic obstacles continue to hold the process up.” Byrne has also co-sponsored legislation to grant veterans improved access to private care, in the midst of so many obstacles to quality public services in central Alabama. Byrne said in a prepared statement Tuesday: “[T]he VA’s bureaucratic delays aren’t just hurting our veterans, but they are adding additional costs to the American taxpayer. I understand the unique challenges facing the VA as they undergo reforms, but they can’t lose sight of their number one responsibility: to adequately care for our veterans.” The pair faces a difficult challenge to be sure, as news circulates that Alabamian veterans continue to face far longer wait times than their counterparts elsewhere. Both pledge to continue to fight for improved local VA institutions. Said Roby to Yellowhammer News regarding the wait-time reports: “There are a lot of good people at the VA who deeply care for our veterans and work hard to give them care. But, the truth is, there are also those that aren’t doing the job and who don’t have the best interests of our veterans in mind. “That culture has festered at Central Alabama for years,” she said. “It has carried over through multiple directors, and it isn’t going to change until Secretary McDonald gets serious and puts leadership in place that will clean house. “We need a permanent system director who is empowered and willing to change the lousy culture and turn the place around. I’ll take that message back to Washington … where improving care for veterans remains my top priority.” Byrne echoed that Tuesday via a news release: “Veterans in southwest Alabama deserve better than their current facility, and I plan to do all I can ensure our veterans are treated fairly.”
