John Bolton Readies Bid For Tenth Place In Iowa Caucuses

by Stuart Shapiro

Newsweek is reporting (or more accurately, linking to a TPM report) that former U.N. ambassador (and warmonger extraordinaire) John Bolton is considering a run for the Republican nomination for president.

That’s right: the mustachioed former ambassador to the U.N. looks like he’s sorta, kinda serious about running for president. You may recall that he first floated this in an interview with the Daily Caller in late August. Then he doubled down, sort of, on Fox Business, and appeared via video at a rally at Ground Zero on Sept. 11. And now, TPM’s Jillian Rayfield reports, he’s preparing for an Election Day Tea Party rally at Ground Zero. As she says, that could be the machinations of a man interested in mounting a White House run.

Candidates generally fall in one of two categories.  There are those who could be formidable but will have trouble getting through Republican primaries (Mitch Daniels, John Thune, Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee).  Then there are those who could win the primaries but will have trouble against Obama (Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich).  Bolton is that rare animal who falls into both categories. Maybe he’ll make a splash by finishing ahead of Rick Santorum.

By: Stuart Shapiro

Stuart is a professor and the Director of the Public Policy
program at the Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers
University. He teaches economics and cost-benefit analysis and studies
regulation in the United States at both the federal and state levels.
Prior to coming to Rutgers, Stuart worked for five years at the Office
of Management and Budget in Washington under Presidents Clinton and
George W. Bush.