John Bolton, former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, is jumping into the upcoming elections with both feet forward, pledging to pump the $800,000 that his political action committee raised in 2013 to help those candidates he sees as best fits for America’s future.
“We had a very, very good March,” Mr. Bolton told Breitbart.com this week, speaking of fundraising dollars he has at hand that haven’t yet been made public. “We’ve got criteria and we’re evaluating candidates to support.”
His political views, especially on foreign policy, aren’t exactly hidden. He’s a hawk and will likely support those candidates with similar hawkish tendencies. And he’s not the biggest fan of Sen. Rand Paul, either.
At the same time, Mr. Bolton said in Breitbart that no matter who secures the GOP’s nod for 2016 for the White House, he’s on board.
“I will support the Republican nominee for president in 2016 whether through grit of teeth or enthusiastically,” he said in direct response to a question about Mr. Paul. “A lot of senators come [to Capitol Hill] without any national foreign policy experience.”
Mr. Bolton has a Super PAC as well as regular PAC, and he said on his website that he wants to spend money mostly on those politicians who are “determined to reverse the Obama polices of decline, retreat and the mistrust of American exceptionalism.”
His strategy will be “very targeted, very focused,” he told Breitbart, and said his “operating assumption is we will have very narrowly targeted ads with a lot [of focus] on digital communications. I think really for younger voters, that’s absolutely critical.”
His focus would also stay primarily on national security rather than economic and social issues, and tout a more tea party-type “peace through strength” mantra favored by the likes of Reagan era politicians, he said.
At the Conservative Political Action Conference a few weeks ago, Mr. Bolton called President Obama the nation’s “biggest national security risk” and said the upcoming elections were crucial to America’s future.
• Cheryl K. Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com.
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