Is violent crime the sleeper issue of 2016? Laura Ingraham and several others are linking to a piece published at Polizette entitled “Crime and No Punishment,” which posits that a law and order candidate could benefit from a surge of violent crimes across the country.
Sleeper issue of 2016? As violent crime suggest, GOP needs a law-and-order candidate http://t.co/SOwFfakEkH via @LifeZette
— Laura Ingraham (@IngrahamAngle) August 18, 2015
@IngrahamAngle @LifeZette "Rudy G, please pick up the White Courtesy Telephone."
— ❌ Joey Freeman (@JoeFree76) August 18, 2015
One commenter on Ingraham’s tweet managed to dig up this tweet from last year:
Huge political opening for a law and order candidate. Rudy 2016? Sure, it's a crazy idea. But someone should put him in their next GOP poll.
— Bill Kristol (@BillKristol) December 2, 2014
The chance of Rudy Giuliani jumping into the 2016 race at this point is nonexistent, but it does raise the question: Is there a law and order candidate?
The rise of violent crime in every corner of the United States seems lost on many Republican 2016 presidential contenders. They seem to be treating the crime wave as an inconvenient anomaly rather than a chance to reclaim old power turf for the party. A search for any tough rhetoric on the recent crime wave turns up nearly nothing from any in the Republican field.
The Democratic contenders for the White House, on the other hand, are already ballyhooing the very policies endangering America’s communities. We must “reinvent how we police America,” Sen. Bernie Sanders, D-Vt., said in an August interview on MSNBC. Sanders recently released a criminal justice reform plan that, among other proposals, called for increased hamstringing of urban police attempting to enforce minor drug crimes.
“It’s time to end the era of mass incarceration,” former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in an April campaign speech at Columbia University.
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Of course, President Obama is setting the current tone at the top by recently commuting the sentences of 46 nonviolent drug offenders, visiting a federal penitentiary and calling for Pell grants for prisoners.
Meanwhile, reporters for the Baltimore Sun report today that the city has just logged its 211th homicide August 19th — equaling the total number of homicides recorded in the whole of 2014.
Baltimore's 211th homicide, recorded Wednesday, equals the number of homicides for all of 2014. http://t.co/YPUkhkf4YR
— Justin George (@justingeorge) August 19, 2015
211th homicide investigation underway, at Baltimore row home directly behind the CVS that was burned in unrest pic.twitter.com/t3CE9Qms75
— Kevin Rector ☀️ (@RectorSun) August 19, 2015
Time to add a plan to confront violent crime to the debate questions?
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