Quinnipiac: Rand Paul at 15% nationally

[itshappening]

3. (If Republican or Republican Leaner) If the Republican primary for President were being held today, and the candidates were: Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, Paul Ryan, Scott Walker, Chris Christie, Bobby Jindal, Rand Paul, and Bob McDonnell for whom would you vote?

REPUBLICANS/REPUBLICAN LEANERS

Tot Men Wom

Bush 10% 9% 12%
Rubio 19 19 19
Ryan 17 16 17
Walker 2 2 2
Christie 14 17 11
Jindal 3 3 3
Paul 15 18 11
McDonnell 1 1 1
SMONE ELSE(VOL) 1 1 1
WLDN'T VOTE(VOL) - - -
DK/NA 18 14 23


http://www.quinnipiac.edu/institutes-centers/polling-institute/national/release-detail?ReleaseID=1876

[Bastiat's The Law]

Good news gents! I'm surprised Ryan is that high. He's not going to run.

[abacabb]

Being that Ryan isn't in the Senate, Paul is essentially in second.

Again, we have problems with female voters. "Must be the hair."

[jkr]

DI'NT ask me...

[jmdrake]

Good news gents! I'm surprised Ryan is that high. He's not going to run.

The previous VP candidate is always considered to be in the running whether it's John Edwards (who did run and crashed and burned spectacularly) or Sarah Palin (who continually flirted with running and teased the teaocons).

[jmdrake]

It's official. Rand Paul is a top tier candidate.

[sailingaway]

I'll be interested to see how the media handles it. I'll never forget when Ron was 21% and in second place in that GOP only, Reuters national poll, before super Tuesday, then no one polled, no one but Reuters reported the poll existed (and didn't comment on Ron surging), they ran a second smear season on newsletters and fringe and everything else they could throw, two more polls that usually came out earlier occurred late, and by the time they polled again Ron had dropped back to third and out of the twenties.

Media has way too much power, and abuses it.

So I'll be interested to see how they report this. Although they do have an excuse here because three are ahead of him. I do wonder why they are polling Ryan though, and suspect it is the same reason they polled Trump and others when it was clear they weren't running -- because they don't want SOMEONE to get a head of steam.

[jmdrake]

I'll be interested to see how the media handles it. I'll never forget when Ron was 21% and in second place in that GOP only, Reuters national poll, before super Tuesday, then no one polled, no one but Reuters reported the poll existed (and didn't comment on Ron surging), they ran a second smear season on newsletters and fringe and everything else they could throw, two more polls that usually came out earlier occurred late, and by the time they polled again Ron had dropped back to third and out of the twenties.

Media has way too much power, and abuses it.

So I'll be interested to see how they report this. Although they do have an excuse here because three are ahead of him. I do wonder why they are polling Ryan though, and suspect it is the same reason they polled Trump and others when it was clear they weren't running -- because they don't want SOMEONE to get a head of steam.

Wow! I missed that one.

Edit: Just dug this up.

http://www.ronpaul.com/2012-02-07/ron-paul-surges-to-second-place-nationally-now-at-21/

Geeze. Victory was so close. :(

[sailingaway]

Wow! I missed that one.

Of course you missed it. The media made sure you missed it. Their headline on that poll didn't even mention Ron Paul.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/07/us-usa-campaign-poll-idUSTRE81514720120207

This wasn't until the FIFTH paragraph:


Support for Ron Paul, a U.S. congressman from Texas, grew by 5 percentage points to 21 percent. That moved him into second place and ahead of former House of Representatives speaker Newt Gingrich, whose support slipped to 19 percent from 20 percent.

[Brett85]

It will be interesting to see how this compares to the PPP poll. I think they're coming out with a poll today or in the next few days.

[Randslide]

I'll be interested to see how the media handles it. I'll never forget when Ron was 21% and in second place in that GOP only, Reuters national poll, before super Tuesday, then no one polled, no one but Reuters reported the poll existed (and didn't comment on Ron surging), they ran a second smear season on newsletters and fringe and everything else they could throw, two more polls that usually came out earlier occurred late, and by the time they polled again Ron had dropped back to third and out of the twenties.

Media has way too much power, and abuses it.

So I'll be interested to see how they report this. Although they do have an excuse here because three are ahead of him. I do wonder why they are polling Ryan though, and suspect it is the same reason they polled Trump and others when it was clear they weren't running -- because they don't want SOMEONE to get a head of steam.

Clear now that Rand has broken through in a way Ron never did.

Media won't lay down a red carpet, but they will handle Rand differently than they did Ron. They see Rand as a political player who has a shot; never thought that about Ron.

[Kords21]

What is this great appeal of Rubio? I really don't get it. I get that a lot it is media hype and maybe I care too much about substance, but I don't get why this guy polls so high.

[Darguth]

Honestly, I really like his chances against this field. I think Rubio will tank when he actually gets a lot of national facetime because he's an idiot. He won't be able to stop from tripping all over himself. Ryan can also be tagged pretty well with Romney's failed bid and his fiscally conservative-lite policies.

Christie on the other hand is charismatic, a fantastic liar, and he gets generally favorable news coverage. I definitely see him as the biggest threat in that spread.

[FSP-Rebel]

Christie on the other hand is charismatic, a fantastic liar, and he gets generally favorable news coverage. I definitely see him as the biggest threat in that spread.
Christie better get his weight in order because being that heavy and going through the rigors of a Presidential run isn't healthy at all.

[Bastiat's The Law]

What is this great appeal of Rubio? I really don't get it. I get that a lot it is media hype and maybe I care too much about substance, but I don't get why this guy polls so high.
His name is blasted 24/7 on tv and radio and after a while people just start repeating what they hear. It's weird as you say, because he has zero substance, and he's just a name.

[Bastiat's The Law]

What was the highest percentage Ron reached nationally?

[Rothbardian Girl]

Christie better get his weight in order because being that heavy and going through the rigors of a Presidential run isn't healthy at all.
This is one area where the superficiality of American voters could help us for all the wrong reasons. Then again, this same superficiality probably isn't doing us any favors with Rand's numbers.

[T.hill]

What was the highest percentage Ron reached nationally?

With Republicans? Probably 11 percent

[sailingaway]

Clear now that Rand has broken through in a way Ron never did.

Media won't lay down a red carpet, but they will handle Rand differently than they did Ron. They see Rand as a political player who has a shot; never thought that about Ron.

But the point is Ron's numbers were higher, and they were squelched. He was second with 21% nationally during the early primaries, before super Tuesday. They were careful to ignore it, trash him, wait until they'd created a news cycle and poll again. They didn't care if they were high this far out from the election. We'll see when it happens. You could be right. I just know what they did with Ron.

[supermario21]

But the point is Ron's numbers were higher, and they were squelched. He was second with 21% nationally during the early primaries, before super Tuesday. They were careful to ignore it, trash him, wait until they'd created a news cycle and poll again. They didn't care if they were high this far out from the election. We'll see when it happens. You could be right. I just know what they did with Ron.

Ron's numbers were also higher with a much weaker field. This poll includes golden boys such as Rubio and Ryan, as well as Christie.

[sailingaway]

Ron's numbers were also higher with a much weaker field. This poll includes golden boys such as Rubio and Ryan, as well as Christie.

Ryan and Rubio are damaged, imho. However, I'm not trying to fight over who is doing better, I'm just wondering if media will be on his side or against him, when it counts.

[dinosaur]

Ryan and Rubio are damaged, imho. However, I'm not trying to fight over who is doing better, I'm just wondering if media will be on his side or against him, when it counts.

It is going to depend on whether or not Rand slips and gives them something to hang him with. Rand is pretty good at messaging, though. He is a double threat: a newbie with no newsletters who also has the savvy of someone who spent decades in the business. I think Rand must have been paying close attention to his dad's career his whole life.

[sailingaway]

Rand has already said stuff they had a field day with in his primary. And messaging to one group is poison to others. EVERYONE has stuff they can be trashed with, the question is whether the media will want to or not. Ron they never even gave the 'welcome to the top' honeymoon of a day or two they gave all the others as they came up before trashing them. Remember Ron didn't even live in the same town the newsletters were published in, at the time the few bad ones came out, and the media knew it. Rove dreamt that smear up in the 1990's when Ron went back to Congress. Media just trotted it out when they wanted, pretending they had no background.

However, we will find out when the time comes, I guess.

[randomname]

something needs to be done about this gender gap, even Jeb polls better than Rand among women.

[dinosaur]

Rand has already said stuff they had a field day with in his primary. And messaging to one group is poison to others. EVERYONE has stuff they can be trashed with, the question is whether the media will want to or not. Ron they never even gave the 'welcome to the top' honeymoon of a day or two they gave all the others as they came up before trashing them. Remember Ron didn't even live in the same town the newsletters were published in, at the time the few bad ones came out, and the media knew it. Rove dreamt that smear up in the 1990's when Ron went back to Congress. Media just trotted it out when they wanted, pretending they had no background.

However, we will find out when the time comes, I guess.

Yes, I wouldn't contradict any of that. I think the difference between how they treat Ron and how they treat Rand comes down the fact that they were never forced into a position of having to pretend to support Ron.

[talkingpointes]

I'll be interested to see how the media handles it. I'll never forget when Ron was 21% and in second place in that GOP only, Reuters national poll, before super Tuesday, then no one polled, no one but Reuters reported the poll existed (and didn't comment on Ron surging), they ran a second smear season on newsletters and fringe and everything else they could throw, two more polls that usually came out earlier occurred late, and by the time they polled again Ron had dropped back to third and out of the twenties.

Media has way too much power, and abuses it.

So I'll be interested to see how they report this. Although they do have an excuse here because three are ahead of him. I do wonder why they are polling Ryan though, and suspect it is the same reason they polled Trump and others when it was clear they weren't running -- because they don't want SOMEONE to get a head of steam.

Hope and faith are going to kill us. Judge how someone acts 99 out of 100 days. They were nice to Ron sometimes, but when it meant putting other republicans down. These people are working for money - not principle. This is a game, you need to understand the rules.

[talkingpointes]

Yes, I wouldn't contradict any of that. I think the difference between how they treat Ron and how they treat Rand comes down the fact that they were never forced into a position of having to pretend to support Ron.

What do you feel drives these people? Do you think they are just automatons and have no conscious idea of their efforts daily? They just drive on reading scripts ?

If yes - then do you think the script will change if they end up losing on that end of the bargain. I argue definitively - no. See above post.

If no - than they are doing this thinking they are right, and they have philosophies - in which case they are extremely biased towards the state no matter the puppet in command.

[abacabb]

something needs to be done about this gender gap, even Jeb polls better than Rand among women.
Most people hate limited government, but statistically women hate it more than men.

[dinosaur]

What do you feel drives these people? Do you think they are just automatons and have no conscious idea of their efforts daily? They just drive on reading scripts ?

If yes - then do you think the script will change if they end up losing on that end of the bargain. I argue definitively - no. See above post.

If no - than they are doing this thinking they are right, and they have philosophies - in which case they are extremely biased towards the state no matter the puppet in command.

I find your post confusing, the media are people who are paid to do a job. Their employers have a record of pro-state bias. In my opinion, they know that Rand is a threat to that state and would have destroyed him already if they could have. Because Rand is doing popular things, they (the specific media heads who make a career out of being tea party type leaders) have to pretend to like what he is doing. Maybe some of them actually do, who knows. There are the Cavutos of the world, the ones who do really seem to have a soul.

[Pisces]

something needs to be done about this gender gap, even Jeb polls better than Rand among women.

Most women don't pay as much attention to politics as men do. (I'm a woman so I'm allowed to say this.) I think Rand's numbers will improve as he gets more exposure. Right now Christie, Rubio and Bush still get more mainstream media coverage than Rand does. I think he'll do as well as any Republican with women eventually.

[matt0611]

The previous VP candidate is always considered to be in the running whether it's John Edwards (who did run and crashed and burned spectacularly) or Sarah Palin (who continually flirted with running and teased the teaocons).

But wasn't John Edwards already a Presidential candidate before he became a VP candidate?

He wanted to be President but settled for a VP candidate.

Something tells me Ryan does not really want to run for President and won't.

[abacabb]

Most women don't pay as much attention to politics as men do. (I'm a woman so I'm allowed to say this.) I think Rand's numbers will improve as he gets more exposure. Right now Christie, Rubio and Bush still get more mainstream media coverage than Rand does. I think he'll do as well as any Republican with women eventually.
So, if I'm a man and say "women don't pay enough attention," I'm a misogynist?

[Pisces]

So, if I'm a man and say "women don't pay enough attention," I'm a misogynist?

No, that was said tongue in cheek. I guess it didn't come across that way in writing.

[abacabb]

No, that was said tongue in cheek. I guess it didn't come across that way in writing.
It's okay, it's just that sometimes when people may generalized statements people get in a hissy, and it is important that people are not so sensitive and rather look at the overall validity of the statement.

[rockandrollsouls]

I don't see how Rubio is polling so high. Expect Christie to drop some more...especially after the Rutgers scandal that just hit. State school, Christie's problem.

[Rudeman]

Rubio's name is brought up non-stop. Just look at the filibuster and how he was mentioned as if he was up there with Cruz and Lee in helping out Rand, his race might also be a factor. Bottom line is Rand is in a good spot right now, he's clearly a frontrunner.

[rockandrollsouls]

Have these people heard him actually speak? It's not even like he's a smooth talker like Obama...nevermind the substance.


Rubio's name is brought up non-stop. Just look at the filibuster and how he was mentioned as if he was up there with Cruz and Lee in helping out Rand, his race might also be a factor. Bottom line is Rand is in a good spot right now, he's clearly a frontrunner.

[Rudeman]

Have these people heard him actually speak? It's not even like he's a smooth talker like Obama...nevermind the substance.

Probably not, at this point most just know what they hear about a candidate on the radio/tv.

[jmdrake]

Rand has already said stuff they had a field day with in his primary. And messaging to one group is poison to others. EVERYONE has stuff they can be trashed with, the question is whether the media will want to or not. Ron they never even gave the 'welcome to the top' honeymoon of a day or two they gave all the others as they came up before trashing them. Remember Ron didn't even live in the same town the newsletters were published in, at the time the few bad ones came out, and the media knew it. Rove dreamt that smear up in the 1990's when Ron went back to Congress. Media just trotted it out when they wanted, pretending they had no background.

However, we will find out when the time comes, I guess.

All true. But Rand has shown a willingness to throw people under the bus that Ron didn't have. (Chris Hightower). Had Ron outed the writer of the newsletters and distanced himself from that when they first came out, I think that story might have gone away. Maybe not. Hindsight is of course 20/20.

[RobertMorrowAustin]

Re: Jeb Bush - he has some epic Iran-Contra liability. And this liability is exquisitely detailed in 3 books: 1) "The Conspirators: Secrets of an Iran-Contra Insider" by Al Martin (1999)http://www.amazon.com/The-Conspirators-Secrets-Iran-Contra-Insider/dp/097100420X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1365085768&sr=8-1&keywords=al+martin+the+conspirators , 2) "Compromised: Clinton, Bush & the CIA by Terry Reed" (1994) http://www.amazon.com/Compromised-Clinton-Bush-Terry-Reed/dp/1561712493/ref=rec_dp_2 and 3) "Barry and the Boys: The CIA, the Mob and America's Secret History - http://www.amazon.com/Barry-Boys-Americas-Secret-History/dp/0970659172/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1365085906&sr=1-2&keywords=barry+and+the+boys+hopsicker

Author Daniel Hopsicker concludes that Oliver North was the one who murdered Barry Seal on Feb. 19. 1986 and he used a Colombian drug cartel hit team to do it. Seal was a threat to plea bargain and bust Iran-Contra wide open, including Bush family participation in the drug trade.

Barry Seal and his Argument with VP George Herbert Walker Bush
[Daniel Hopsicker, "Barry & the Boys: The CIA, The Mob and America's Secret History," pp. 375-376]
"Lewis Unglesby is today a prominent and very well connected Louisiana lawyer. At the time his name was daily on the front page of the state's newspapers., defending his long-time client and associate, Governor Edwin Edwards.
Unglesby had told us about a confrontation he had with Barry over the fact that Seal was keeping him in the dark about matters Unglesbly considered crucial to defending him...
"Barry pushed the phone across the desk to me and said, 'You wanna know what's going on? Here. Dial this number. Tell 'em you're me,' Unglesby related.
"When I did what he requested," he continued, "A female voice answered the phone, sayin' 'Vice President Bush's office, may I help you?'"
"I said, 'This is Barry Seal.' She asked me to wait while she transferred the call, which was immediately picked up by a man who identified himself as Admiral somebody or other, who said to me 'Barry, Where you been?'"
"That's when I told him that I wasn't Barry Seal, I was his lawyer," said Unglesby. "Immediately he slammed down the phone."
So why was Barry Seal murdered?" we asked Sharpstein.
"Unglesby said he had been with Seal when the IRS came and seized all his property," Sharpstein related. "The IRS man said, 'You owe us $30 million for the money you made in drug dealing.'
"Hey, I work for you," was Seal's reply. "We work for the same people."
"You don't work for us," the IRS agent stated. "We're the IRS."
"Unglesby was with Seal when he retired to a back room." Sharpstein stated. "He watched as Seal placed a call to George Bush. He heard Barry Seal tell Bush, 'If you don't get these IRS assholes off my back I'm going to blow the whistle on the Contra scheme."
Sharpstein spoke solemnly, aware of the gravity of his words..., "'That's why he's dead,' is what Unglesby said."
One week after the phone conversation between Barry Seal and George Bush, Seal was sentenced to a halfway house. Two weeks later he was dead.
"Barry Seal, you mean that agent that went bad?" Gordon Novel had casually inquired, when we'd posed the question of his associations with Seal.
An agent that 'goes bad,' as we understand intelligence industry trade jargon, is one who contemplates talking.
"Seal was gunned down, supposedly by those Colombians," says Sharpstein. "But they were fed information by the assholes in our government who wanted him dead."
The assassination of Barry Seal was very likely even not the first attempt on Seal's life by North, we were told by CIA electronics expert Red Hall, on the ground in Nicaragua with Seal on the Sandinista drug sting....
"The only thing I knew was the CIA had a lot to do with it (Barry's murder.) The killers were being directed by Oliver North at the time. It was the same thing Oliver North pulled on us down in Nicaragua."
"Then, I didn't know yet that Oliver North had it for Barry Seal, because he was working with Oliver at that particular point. We was undercover, and we were still down there (Nicaragua), when Oliver blew the whistle on us."
Chip Tatum, another covert operative who had known Seal and shared confidences with him, listened with amusement the first time we breathlessly relayed what we'd discovered: that Oliver North is guilty in the assassination of Barry Seal...
"No shit, Sherlock," he replied, laughing. "It ain't exactly the secret of the century, I can tell you."
[Daniel Hopsicker, Barry & the Boys: The CIA, The Mob and America's Secret History, pp. 375-376]

Al Martin’s conversation with Jeb Bush just days after the Feb, 1986 Murder of Barry Seal in Baton Rouge. Jeb Bush had been at a meeting in Sept, 1985, where the assassination of Barry Seal had been discussed

Al Martin: "In this discussion, I had mentioned the recent assassination, only a few days before, of Barry Seal [Feb, 1986, outside his halfway house in New Orleans].

I said to Jeb, "Isn't it convenient that Barry Seal was assassinated when he was? And now suddenly all the information and documents he had are gone missing?"

Jeb had a rather broad smile on his face, and he concurred that it was convenient. He added a little snicker - as he often had a tendency of doing. Also little beads of sweat formed on his forehead, as when he gets nervous. It's something you can notice when he's on television. He still has a tendency to have little beads of sweat around his forehead, when he is either lying about something, or he's nervous about what someone is saying."
My conversations with Jeb at this meeting were overheard by the two Secret Service agents who were always assigned to Jeb when he was in his office at 1390 Brickell Avenue in Miami.
I had intimated that if certain parties in Washington were not prepared to come to my aid pursuant to my grand jury testimony, that it would be entirely possible that certain details of a certain meeting occurring in September of the year [Sept., 1985] before might be leaked out to the press.
Jeb asked me what I was talking about.
I specifically mentioned a September meeting of the Dade County Latin America Chamber of Commerce, which Jeb chaired, and which, of course, was not used as a Chamber of Commerce meeting at all. It was essentially used as a political meeting for covert operational planning pursuant to Iran-Contra.
As I've said before, Oliver North, Richard Secord or Dewey Clarridge or, in a few cases, even Sam Watson and Fred Ikley himself, would show up at these meetings.
Anyway, I had recounted to Jeb, as if he didn't know what the text of that meeting was that he chaired - the conversations he had with Oliver North and Richard Secord and Dewey Clarridge, all of whom attended that meeting.
Dewey seldom attended the meetings, but this time the four of them were discussing the assassination of Barry Seal and how it was to be carried out, since Barry was becoming an increasing liability.
I had told Jeb that I had substantial corroboration of that meeting. And I think Jeb understood what I meant.
It would certainly place him into a conspiracy to assassinate a CIA drug runner for the sake of political expediency.
When I was through speaking, Jeb became quiet and his demeanor became serious and changed. He became flushed, as he often does when he's frightened.
Jeb responded by telling me that it would be most unfortunate if I were to do that, since I might wind up like George Morales or Johnny Molina.
[ Al Martin, "The Conspirators: Secrets of an Iran-Contra Insider," p. 194-195]

Jeb Bush and the Murders of George Morales and Johnny Molina

[ Al Martin, "The Conspirators: Secrets of an Iran-Contra Insider," p. 195-198 ]
What he was referring to, of course, was that, a number of months earlier, George Morales had been set up on a cocaine charge – to distance what Morales was doing from the CIA.
As any serious student of Iran-Contra would know, Morales absolutely screamed “CIA, CIA.”
But ultimately he was convicted.
He was bound and gagged in the courtroom before the Republican Judge Hoover, who allowed him to present no CIA defense. He couldn’t mention any Bush names, or North, or Secord, or anything.
He got the standard fifteen-year sentence for cocaine trafficking. At the time, in the State of Florida, you had to serve six years nine months mandatory.
Jeb then went on to mention to me about Morales. He said “Of course, Morales will never leave prison alive.”
Fast forward to the time when Morales was due to be released from prison in early 1992.
The day before Morales was to be released, he did, in fact, slip on a bar of soap in the prisoner’s shower and supposedly died as a result of the fall.
The following day, Morales was due to be picked up at the Miami International Airport by a Congressional charter flight arranged for him by Congressmen Alexander, Rose, Brooks and Gonzalez. He was to be taken to Washington to have a detailed discussion with them and their investigators about his knowledge of Iran-Contra.
At that moment, the threat Jeb was making to me – the sublime threat about not wanting to wind up like Johnny Molina – really didn’t mean anything to me because I knew as of the day before that Molina was still alive and well.
I didn’t think anything of it until the next day when I got into my office and opened the Miami Herald.
I read that Mr. Molina had in fact “committed suicide” that evening in the parking lot of a restaurant in Pensacola, Florida.
He had “committed suicide” by discharging an entire twenty-round clip of a MAC-10 into his own body.
Of course, by the following day, the body had quickly been cremated – before his family was notified and before an autopsy could be done.
It’s the same old story.
It was interesting to note that Jeb had issued that threat at that meeting which was held at about 10:30 a.m.
Molina “committed suicide” at about 9:30 p.m. that evening.
I found the connection rather humorous, but also salient in that Bush knew what was going to happen a number of hours before it actually did.
A second interesting and humorous story I can relate from that September meeting was not only the discussion of Barry Seal, but the general discussion of narcotics, wherein Jeb was talking to Oliver North.
Dewey Clarridge and Joe Fernandez were there and Jeb was whining about how they were importing so much cocaine for the purposes of maintaining illicit covert revenue streams that, in fact, they were depressing the street value of the price of cocaine.
Revenues were in fact diminishing.
And North chuckled, and said that he had already made arrangements, that he, Dewey, Fred Ikley and Clair George had made arrangements.
What they were referring to by “arrangements” was the opening of the so-called sea routes to substantially increase the amount of cocaine that was being imported.
Jeb Bush said to Oliver North, “All you would manage to do is to further the price of cocaine.”
North’s attitude was, “Well, we’ll simply bring in more and more of the stuff to maintain revenues.”
As it has been pointed out in the past, CIA-assisted enterprise narcotics trafficking managed to depress the street price of a value of cocaine from $30,000 in early 1985 to $12,000 by mid-1986.
Later in the conversation, Jeb, wanting to be helpful, threw out a suggestion regarding the separate Guns-For-Drugs Operation being run out of Mena Airport in Arkansas.
He suggested that North start changing the fraction vis-à-vis the Contras.
Instead of one M-16 rifle, 1,000 rounds of ammunition, and the full field kit in exchange for one kilogram of cocaine, Bush suggested that North inform Enrico Bermudez and Eden Pastora that henceforth it was going to be two kilograms of cocaine for the same weapons delivery as it had been in the past.
North rebuffed this suggestion, reminding Bush that the one M-16 rifle, ammunition and field kit cost them a total of a $1,000 net delivered and the value of the kilogram of cocaine was still $17,000 or $18,000.
The third and final salient highlight I’d like to point out about that meeting (which was an important and pivotal meeting) is that General Secord had mentioned to Jeb Bush – and I was standing not two feet from him – that some of Jeb’s hangers-on (some of the old Cuban Bay of Pigs crowd that were Jeb Bush hangers-on vis-à-vis Jeb wearing his hat as a scamscateer and a money launderer) were beginning to have big mouths.
And Jeb asked, “Who?”
Secord specifically said it was the infamous Manny Perez, who was a very close ally of Jeb’s and had been for a long time. Perez used to act as a straw at various fraudulent deals for Jeb. He transported cash. He wired money into accounts he controlled through a variety of other straws. He was also very close with Jeb at Eagle National Bank in Miami.
Jeb asked General Secord what he, Jeb Bush, was supposed to do about it.
And Dick Secord said, “Well, your father controls your show and he’s got to clean up his own mess.”
History records it wasn’t long after an article appeared in a certain major newspaper about Manny Perez.
Evidently Manny’s body was found floating in a canal in West Hialeah, and his death was duly declared a “swimming accident.”
Perhaps the reader can better understand the phone call I received the day after the November 1998 elections when Jeb Bush won the governorship of the State of Florida.
On that very same evening, I got a phone call from Neil Lewis in Miami, an attorney who had previously represented both Jeb and me, and who had acted as a conduit for people like me to Jeb and Dick Secord and a variety of others.
Neil told me that he had a direct message from Jeb stating that if I wished to continue to be a resident of this state and to remain at large and with life that I best not reveal stories such as I have revealed here.
When Neil relayed the threat to me that evening, I told Neil that when he talked to Jeb the following day (which I knew he would because he wanted to know what my response would be) to tell Jeb that I was aware that my former close colleague, Larry Hamil, prior to the November 1998 elections, had been involved in a political campaign money laundering scheme, wherein Mr. Hamil laundered certain monies of Chinese origin to certain Republicans (not Democrats, but Republican candidates) including the gubernatorial campaign of Jeb Bush.
Neil laughed and said, “Are you certain you want me to relay that?”
I said, “Yes,” and I didn’t talk to Neil after that.
I can only presume Neil did, in fact, relay that message because the next morning when I got out of bed, I was greeted by a view (outside of my bay windows) of two unmarked cars parked directly in front of my townhouse. They were of the sinister variety I’m used to – dark Chevy Caprices, darkened windows, black-wall tires, four or five aerials coming out of the back of them, Washington D.C. plates.
There was enough sunlight that I could see two men sitting in each vehicle.
And that’s all they did.
They simply sat there and looked directly at my unit. They stayed for a few hours in that position and then drove off.
I had one of my neighbors record the D.C. plates on the car and upon checking them out later in the day, I was informed that no such plates existed.
But nonetheless, the message was sent.
[ Al Martin, "The Conspirators: Secrets of an Iran-Contra Insider," p. 195-198 ]

[Bastiat's The Law]

Probably not, at this point most just know what they hear about a candidate on the radio/tv.
Very true.