John Bolton, the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations is one of the least talked about 2016 potential GOP presidential hopefuls, but pundits say that he should not be ignored because of his substance and growing fundraising success.
1. The Washington Post blogger Jennifer Rubin wrote in 2014 that Bolton’s fundraising success “is both a reflection of and an accelerator of a more hawkish GOP — and hopefully a smarter one.”
2. “John Bolton, who has struggled to be taken seriously as a top-tier prospective 2016 GOP presidential candidate, has been raising money like one,”
Kenneth P. Vogel wrote in 2014 on Politico.
“The former ambassador to the United Nations ... raised nearly $2.5 million (in the third quarter of 2014) into a pair of groups he fronts. ... (This fundraising has) allowed Bolton to build a fundraising list and social media presence that could prove valuable in GOP politics — either raising money for other candidates or potentially for his own 2016 run. More immediately, the groups have given Bolton a platform to espouse his hawkish foreign policy views in key presidential states, while supporting — and collecting chits from — ideologically aligned Republican candidates across the country.”
3. Alex Pappas, political reporter for The Daily Caller, posted this on Nov. 5, 2011: “Part of Bolton’s efforts are aimed at showing candidates that people do care about national security.” He quoted Bolton as saying: “I give American voters more credit.”
4. In the April 27, 2011,
Los Angeles Times columnist Paul Whitefield wrote of Bolton’s decision to join the National Guard instead of the active military during the Vietnam War, despite his support of the war as a student at Yale: “Bolton's choice -– like the ones made by Bush and by Dick Cheney — should disqualify him and others like him from ever sending other young men and women to die in similar circumstances. Or from offering an opinion on the subject.
“Bolton had his chance to fight, and die, for his country in a cause he believed in. He passed. So spare us the outrage, John. Spare us the talk of Obama endangering the United States.”
5. Looking ahead to 2016,
Robert Costa wrote on National Review Online that John Bolton offers more depth than voters might be used to: “Conservatives who have long cheered him may be turned off by some of his social views, and the national political press will likely be divided between hostility and indifference. ‘I have the advantage or disadvantage of having never run before, and I speak in longer sentences than you find on Twitter,’ he says. ‘But that’s part of my hypothesis. People are ready for something with more depth.’”
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