Chad’s Morning Brief: Obama Administration Underestimated ISIS, Texas GOP Candidates Playing It Safe, and Other Top Stories
President Obama admits his administration underestimated ISIS, and a closer look at Texas Election 2014. Here is your Morning Brief for the morning of September 29, 2014.
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President Obama says that the United States underestimated the strength of ISIS according to USA Today.
President Obama told 60 Minutes that the United States underestimated the strength of the Islamic State before it took over large parts of Syria and Iraq, and overestimated the Iraqi army's ability to fight the militants.
The Islamic State took advantage of the chaotic civil war in Syria to become "ground zero for jihadists around the world," Obama said in an interview to be aired Sunday night on CBS' 60 Minutes.
The U.S. has launched airstrikes against Islamic State positions in Syria and Iraq, part of an overall plan to roll back the militant group that has threatened the United States and its allies.
"We just have to push them back, and shrink their space, and go after their command and control, and their capacity, and their weapons, and their fueling, and cut off their financing, and work to eliminate the flow of foreign fighters," Obama told CBS in the interview taped Friday, according to excerpts released by the network.
The administration also hopes to train Iraqi and Syrian forces to battle the Islamic State on the ground, without the U.S. having to commit combat troops.
The Islamic State arose in the midst of a civil war against Syria leader Bashar Assad.
The president acknowledged that the strength of the Islamic State took him and his administration by surprise.
"Well, I think our head of the intelligence community, Jim Clapper, has acknowledged that I think they underestimated what had been taking place in Syria," Obama told Steve Kroft of 60 Minutes.
You can read the full story by clicking the link above.
Playing it Safe
The Dallas Morning News over the weekend took a closer look at the statewide elections which are just now starting to heat up. Republican statewide are the favorites to win in November and as the DMN points out, those Republican candidates are playing it safe on the campaign trail.
Virtually all of the Republican candidates for statewide office are playing it safe.
Campaigning quietly, they appear mostly before friendly groups — and almost never alert news outlets in advance.
At least two — lieutenant governor hopeful Dan Patrick and attorney general nominee Ken Paxton — have declined recent invitations to meet with newspaper editorial boards.
They, along with comptroller candidate Glenn Hegar and land commissioner aspirant George P. Bush, largely ignore pokes from their more aggressive Democratic rivals.
It’s a rational strategy in a Republican state, said Southern Methodist University political scientist Matthew Wilson.
“Candidates are not obliged to interact with the media,” Wilson said, and neither major political party is so selfless as to stress voter education over winning. So “it is the best strategic move under the circumstances. … Look, at this point in Texas politics, the real elections are in the Republican primary.”
A cautious strategy works well to reduce candidate errors and keep lightly funded opponents out of public view. But in a year when Texas’ major executive offices are open, voters aren’t seeing much of the leaders who are likely to make major decisions about how to spend billions of taxpayer dollars and tackle concerns such as transportation, education and health care.
And it reinforces many Texans’ decisions not to vote, because they don’t feel informed, said Elaine Wiant of Dallas, state president of the League of Women Voters. Texas was dead last in the U.S. in voter turnout four years ago.
“It’s not good for the citizens,” she said. “It just creates disillusion. The voters can feel snubbed.”
Statewide GOP hopefuls have dismissed suggestions they’re just going through the motions. They say they’re shaking every hand they can.
“I have been on the road 30 of the last 40 days,” Patrick said at a Texas Tribune event in Austin last weekend. “I have been everywhere. … The idea that I am hiding is just not true.”
Privately, though, hard-nosed GOP political operatives say their party has learned the hard way the necessity of tamping down gaffes. They cite former Vice President Dan Quayle’s misspellings and the 2012 stumbles of Senate nominees Richard Mourdock of Indiana and Todd Akin of Missouri as they explained their opposition to abortion in cases of rape.
And in Texas, one name comes immediately to mind: Clayton Williams.
GOP consultant Todd M. Smith of Austin, who was Williams’ travel aide in his 1990 gubernatorial campaign, said the Midland oilman had a 15-point lead over Democrat Ann Richards in the summer, even after making a poorly received joke about rape earlier in the year.
But that fall, in rapid succession, Williams quipped about Richards’ treatment for alcoholism; declined to shake her hand during a joint appearance; acknowledged he had not paid federal income taxes in a recent year; and, in a televised debate, said he couldn’t remember the substance of a constitutional amendment he’d voted on.
“If we had let Clayton go trout fishing in Colorado or aoudad sheep hunting in North Africa during the last 30 days, we probably could have avoided several pitfalls — and what a marked difference it would have made,” Smith recounted.
Not a bad strategy given that Republicans are leading in the polls. Want to see another example of a campaign that continue to have flubs and screw-ups? Go look at the Wendy Davis campaign.
You can read the full story by clicking on the link above.
Other Must Read Links:
These and many more topics coming up on today’s edition of The Chad Hasty Show. Tune in mornings 8:30-11am on News/Talk 790 KFYO, streaming online at kfyo.com, and now on your iPhone and Android device with the radioPup App. All guest interviews can be heard online in our podcast section after the show at kfyo.com.
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