Writing in the WSJ, Bret Stephens pretty much wraps up my personal view of the GOP field’s readiness for the 2012 national election:
Mitch Daniels, Paul Ryan, Chris Christie, Jeb Bush, Haley Barbour. This was the GOP A-Team, the guys who should have showed up to the first debate but didn’t because running for president is hard and the spouses were reluctant. Nothing commends them for it. If this election is as important as they all say it is, they had a duty to step up. Abraham Lincoln did not shy from the contest of 1860 because of Mary Todd. If Mr. Obama wins in November—or, rather, when he does—the failure will lie as heavily on their shoulders as it will with the nominee.
Our president still seems to the decisive middle swath of the electorate to be a likeable enough young man personally, although his policies and effectiveness have left the country despairing, his allies disappointed, his opponents enraged. It should have been relatively straightforward for the GOP to present a suitable challenger with the right blend of conviction and charisma. They didn’t.
Maybe in 2016.
So many good men and women who could run and win and serve this nation well — and we are stuck with THESE.
And we cannot survive “another four years” unless the Tea Party captures both the House and the Senate and the Supreme Court strikes down some very unconstitutional laws and executive fiats.
There was a program on PBS a couple of nights ago titled something like “The Secrets of a Manor House” that looked at the English class system and its disintegration as a result of WWI. We don’t have an upper class parading around in ermine furs, but we do have a privileged political class in power that echos the denizens of the House of Lords.
Tea Party and OWS are diametrical opposites, but they both have arisen because of a discomfort with the political class. That class is seen as serving themselves rather than the nation and the people. And now the Chicago Way has gone Federal.
I think it is the pragmatic choice for many of these candidates–2016 will very likely mean a republican occupant of the white house. Bill Clinton only became the nominee after several leading democrats did not want to take on Bush Sr.’s high poll numbers. In both parties, there are no Lincolns, Washingtons or Roosevelts, just career politicians.
I expect the Obamunist regime to continue another 4 years. I wish Paul had a nonscary foreign policy view somewhere, but alas. The others are just more iterations of the status quo.
“Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?”
I think there’s still a path for the country to win back the White House, though it’s not as easy as I had hoped it would be. Romney’s biggest weakness is that he is a weathervane. That primarily turns into a lack of enthusiasm with the base. A strong set of down-ticket candidates, especially if we can manage to primary the likes of Snowe, coupled with a hard fought Presidential primary should result in a reverse coattails effect. It will also send a message to Romney that we’re willing to primary him in 2016 if he tries to fight a conservative Congress.
Though I still want to slap Ryan upside the head.
Good quote – and anyone who thinks the race is over should wash their mind out with soap for thinking something dirty.
Ryan’s plan was noted primarily by its lack of ambition. Ryan really would be much different in substance from Newt, frankly. Christie would be a RINO buffoon, making very little change.
FedGov desperately needs the attentions of a meat ax. probably upwards of 98% of what FedGov is doing is not in the enumerated powers, and so illegal. Foreign Relations (which includes defense) and interstate commerce is about all FedGov has any authority for.
Quartermaster:
It’s the interstate commerce clause that has been the camel’s nose that has led us to the sorry state we are in now.
Paul
The one that really puzzles me is Ryan.
Christie isn’t as conservative as most Republicans outside of NJ think.
Bush is screwed by association. There’s no way another Bush will get elected for decade, even if not related. The press won’t allow.
Daniels wife left him, married another man, then came back to him. He’d spend all of his time talking about that and nothing else.
I don’t know anything about Haley Barbour which may very well be his problem, not many people know anything about him.
Ryan, though, seems to be very well respected, is always impressive when he speaks, has a plan that makes sense. I don’t get it. If I were Ryan I would have stood up in the middle of the speech when Obama was bashing him, walked outside and announced my intention to run to the press that would have surely followed (because no one ever walks out on POTUS) and stated that I was running because PBO was clearly not serious about fiscal reform and was a classless tool to boot.
It’s Gresham’s Law operating on our Presidential candidate selections.
The bad drives out the good, and it’s mostly from large organization’s journalists. If the mainstream media are mostly biased in one direction (and we know they are), and if one man = one vote means an informed vote is swamped by indoctrinated idiots, then the media in toto are traitors to their role under the Constitution.
Only hushed word of mouth to trusted friends and the right leaning blogosphere seems to be keeping the Left from overwhelming every American institution.
The military is not in play, for very good reasons a previous thread covered.
You’re assuming that after his second term that the Obamanation won’t just proclaim in a signing statement that no elections will be held in 2016 and that he declares by Imperial fiat his THIRD presidential term…..and that he will announce his successor at an appropriate time. That scenario is closer than you may think. God save the United States. It seems we are incapable of saving ourselves.
Obama trying to remain in office past his second term (assuming he gets one?) by signing statement is NOT going to happen. Put away the tinfoil hats, please. The same crap was spewed about GW Bush. I don’t see him still in office.
I still believe either Newt or Mitt can beat Obama if they stay focused on issues and specifics. If they discuss the economy, Obama’s overreach, Solyndra, Cash for Clunkers, Keystone, Fast and Furious, Gulf oil leases, the deficit, and any other area where Obama has caused real harm, he’ll have nowhere to run except to yell RAAAAACIST!!!
Further, if they offer specific remedies for the problems Obama caused, Obama will have to prove that his failed policies are actually helping matters more than the common-sense remedies offered by the Republican candidate.
Actually, I think you’re right. This whole primary season reminds me of 1980. Everybody was wringing their hands about Reagan and Bush the Elder.
Perzactly, Mark. It’s one reason I’m leaning towards Newt right now, as I know he’ll tear Barry a new one on a daily basis, just for the fun of it. He likes to scrap.
Mitt? Maybe. He’s been playing it very safe, and following a path not-unlike many other GOP candidates the past two decades, as if an apologetic demeanor ever got them anywhere.
As for Paul Ryan, my hat is off to any man who puts his family ahead of his career aspirations. The man has work to do at home!
“The man has work to do at home!”
So do the tens of thousands of servicemembers that are far from home. There are duties that transcend even family.
Well put, Jeff. I am humbled. That said, I still can’t bring myself to criticize Paul for refusing to put his family through that wringer.
I won’t criticize him for making that choice, but I can’t really respect him for it either.
We’re in a pile of merde so deep that hip waders won’t contain the nastiness. Is is the best the GOP can do?
Mitt Romney is sleazy and has no foundational moorings. Newt is sleazier. He’s a cheater with no core principles. Even though I agree with Ron Paul on a lot, he’s a loon on foreign policy. Santorum…well, he’s a guy who couldn’t even win a Senate race for re-election and he’s a bit snippy.
Obama will clean the clocks of any of these LOSERS in any debate, thanks to a media that carries his water, wipes his bottom and kisses him goodnight and the fact none of these GOP clowns are likeable in any way. I swear, sometimes, I think the game is rigged. I’m not a big believer in conspiracy theories, but cripes, this is pathetic. With unemployment still at 8 percent, energy prices going through the roof and the debt exploding like a recently-popped zit, Obama should be easy meat. He’s Carter 2.0, more big government, more foreign policy stupidity and more environmental regulation.
And there is no Ronald Reagan. Nobody even close. I’ll hold my nose and vote for whomever it is, but I know it’ll be in a losing effort.
As for Obama declaring himself president for life, I wouldn’t laugh too hard at that. Judging by his arrogance and lust for power, I wouldn’t put it past him. Then the merde will get even thicker.
Yes, Ben Franklin, it was a republic. And no, we couldn’t keep it.
I think part of the problem is that the Republican commentariat was solidly in the bag for Romney. Which meant that no other moderate could get the time of day, and the top-tier conservative candidates took a preemptive pounding (think Sarah Palin).
My own opinion? If we lose this election, there needs to be a Clean Sweep Fore and Aft. NO person running OR mentioned as a first-tier candidate for 2012 gets ANY support. No guts, no glory. Go to the younger options not on the radar screen this year.
I totally agree. Clean sweep. New blood. The GOP has needed that for decades. This go-along to get-along garbage has got to end. I think John Boehner and Mitch McConnell are not the kind of leadership – or in their case, lack of leadership – that we need. I always knew something was wrong with Boehner when he was sobbing like a wuss.
The chance of being clean house at the RNC is nil. Smitty (AKA, Admiral of the Afghan Seas) over The Other McCain, has said we should just let the GOP destroy itself, then rebuild it. Ain’t happenin’. The Whigs self destructed, but they didn’t go away until well after the Republicans were founded.
To get a Conservative Party you will have to found one and build it. I think after this upcoming election, if the GOP is drubbed by the Obamunist, there will be plenty of support for one. However, one thing I think will be revealed is the country is not conservative. The electorate is already sufficiently degraded by FedGov “freebies” that they will vote for the guy that promises the most. Yeah, people say we gotta cut, but they will also say “don’t cut mine.” I’ve seen enough to be able to confidently predict that there will be insufficient support to do what is required, if you insist on doing it the “due process” way. I contend that POTUS does not need Congressional permission to end a program where there is no constitutional authority for that program. The founders expected all the branches and office holders to be cognizant of the constitution. SCOTUS is not the final arbiter of the constitutionality of anything. All they say is what they will or will not allow to be prosecuted in their courts. Congress also determines the number of Fed courts, and their jurisdiction. In the final reckoning, Congress is the most powerful branch of FedGov, and the least accountable to the law.
Building a new party simply isn’t going to work. The Republican party didn’t get going until after the Whigs had self-destructed, and even then it took the Democrats blowing up over slavery to get Lincoln elected. Today the parties are too amorphous in their positions to allow a third party to grow. The Tea Party may have a chance, working inside the GOP, but there are some pretty entrenched interests that have to be over come.
The good news is that I don’t think we need a massive overhaul of the system. A few minor changes will set the conditions for recovery, most of them are even popular. Repeal Obamacare, get a balanced budget amendment, and pass the REINS act and we’ll have gone a long way to putting power back in the hands of the most responsive branch of government. Get rid of baseline budgeting and the tolkienesqe 10 year budget forecasts and we’ll have destroyed the ability for the liberals to obfuscate the narrative.
So the SCOTUS is NOT the final arbiter of the constitutionality of laws? Better read Marbury vs Madison, Fletcher v. Peck , and Martin v. Hunter’s Lessee. Of course, your POV is the Legislative branch should defund courts that make decisions you don’t agree with. Better be careful with that as it could work both ways. Best to leave the Judiciary as an autonomous branch, not one beholden to the political whims of the Congress.
While I understand your point about caution when bringing the courts to heel, the SCOTUS is not the final arbiter, even if SCOTUS wrote hundreds of decisions proclaiming it is, nor was it ever intended to be. Everyone, right down to the lowest enlisted man, who takes the oath to protect and defend also of necessity entails the responsibility to interpret and understand what this Constitution is that he has sworn to protect and defend.
The Supreme Court thought it settled the question of slavery once and for all with the Dred Scott decision. It didn’t. The Grand Army of the Potomac did. Whole books have been written on how the SCOTUS thought it settled something, and the other two branches either worked around it, ignored it, or sent the exact same problem right back to SCOTUS until it coughed up the decision they wanted. The right and authority to determine what is and is not Constutional belongs to all of us, not just the nine robes.
You fight with the army you have, not the one you wish you had. The line is 2012. Say a prayer and lock-n-load.
The grass is always greener on the other side. Herman Cain looked great until he didn’t. Rick Perry looked great until he didn’t. We don’t know what any of the so-called “great candidates” would really look like under the spotlight. It’s a gauntlett for a reason. If your favorite isn’t up for it, maybe it’s for a very good reason.
I would add that Reagan’s record in CA is probably more liberal than any of the current R candidates. Reagan was rightly “deified” as a result of his presidency. But he was a politician, and he had the record of a conservative politician in a liberal state. People forget this.
Pawlenty and Tancredo should be on that list, too.
Allen West in 2016!!
Allen West RIGHT NOW!
After his shameful display on NDAA?
Jindal/West 2016? Is Jindal measuring up on his early reputation in LA?
Haven’t seen or heard much of him since his poor delivery of the “R” rebuttal to the State of the Union a couple years ago.
Mary Todd didn’t have to contend with living with a where they monitored her every breath and movement and reported on it day by day as if she was the entertainment of the hour for the masses. Mary Todd didn’t have to contend with 9/10th of the crap the families today have to. Hindsight is 20/20, but I do wonder if Lincoln would have signed up, leaving his wife to roam this Earth alone and without him, if he had known how it would end.
There are so many levels that I disagree with on this article. We spend all our time talking about the degradation of the American family, family values have gone to hell, and then we trash the men that truly do put their families first. Really? Which is it? We can’t have both. There is no way in hell I’d stand by my husband if he were the man to run this Country. Are you kidding? To put my FAMILY in harms way… forever? To lose MY privacy… forever? To make myself and my family the brunt of everyone’s jokes on National TV with every action that could be deemed stupid? Forever?
And to take it that one next step, I have an acquaintance who’s husband was just a normal businessman in town. They met in college. She’s a teacher, sweet, quiet, smart, but a homebody. He thought he could better the town and ran for a small office. Then he was being asked to run for something bigger. Now he’s running part of the State of FL, the position shall remain nameless. She is adament she does not want him to go any further. She did NOT sign up for this when she got married. He had no political ambitions when they met. He was just going to go into business. But yet here she is, trying to stay out of the limelight because it’s not her thing. He knew that when HE married her.
As for the Republicans, I have hope, but I’m frustrated. I don’t like what is offered up, but will back them. We have to get rid of Obama.
I really think you’re on to something. We all have skeletons in our closets and the press makes it their business to expose every sordid detail. Who wants to deal with their privacy being destroyed? Who really wants that job? Obama and Bush looked like they aged 20 years in their first terms. Who wants to live with the Secret Service for their rest of their lives? I wouldn’t. I don’t think it’s worth it for a lot of people.
Another thing that hurts a lot of folks is that so much of it is based on looks. Abraham Lincoln and plenty of other great presidents wouldn’t have stood a chance in today’s TV age. Think JFK and the Nixon debate. Those who heard it thought Nixon won. Those who watched… Appearances can and are deceiving. Too many voters are folks who should be voting in American Idol, not the presidential election.
Unless you’re a Democrat and then, it’s kid gloves treatment.
Obama was ripe for the plucking. His mentors were a Communist beatnik poet and a Communist terrorist who couldn’t spit the silver spoon out of his mouth fast enough.
He was a mediocre student, a habitual cocaine user and a general ne’er-do-well who hung around with various Marxist morons and lived with some Pakistanis at Occidental. He never wrote a word for the Harvard Law Review as an editor. Who financed his schooling at Harvard and Columbia?
None of this was exposed. Reverend Jeremiah “The Chickens Are Comin’ Home to Roost” Wright was a footnote and John McCain wouldn’t go for the jugular. Guess he was afraid of being called a “racist.” Guess anything that goes against the statist orthodoxy on race is “racist.”
We’re screwed. I’ll hold my nose and vote for whatever pile of crap survives the primary and what I hope is a brokered convention. But Obama is going to have his second term and I don’t think we’ll recognize our republic after that. His SOTU was more giveaways to the poor and more takeaways from the rich. All in the interests of fairness. More green nonsense. Less defense spending. No talk of the debt or Obamacare.
It does seem – hopeless at times, that’s for sure. But I agree with Mark Miller in the comment above. If the eventual candidate just uses Obama’s record against him, every chance they get – and not let the media distract people from the real issues – we actually have a chance.
Because God knows, just beating Obama with his own record will be a club big enough.
Kris/
Here”s the club:
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/johnhawkins/2012/01/24/15_questions_the_mainstream_media_would_ask_barack_obama_if_he_were_a_republican/page/full/
Despair is a sin. We are 10 months out and two primaries in. A measure of calm, gentlemen.
Amen Grampa B, amen open the cowl flaps and cool down…
+1, Grampa Bluewater!
Strength and courage! The battle is joined, not lost.
Frankly, that article’s writer comes off -to me- as a pompous little git with a mouth bigger than his brain. Who the Hell is he to lecture men like Ryan or Barbour on their responsibilities? As for those above who like to bring up “higher duties,” every one of those men have sworn an oath to perform the job they currently hold.
For those who like to go down the list on why (for every value of “X”) candidate X sucks: quit complaining. It smacks of Barry’s “I inherited this, it’s soooo unfair!” whingeing. I’ve been saying this, and I shall continue to do so; Jerry Pournelle is right when he says Newt was right. Every man (and woman) on that stage last fall would be better than Obama.
It doesn’t matter what candidate carries which faults (and I promise you the list enumerated by Mr. Stephens is included), everyone suffers them. Everyone. Doesn’t matter who runs, they’re going to get slimed beyond belief by this administration. That’s how they roll. If the GOP nominated Jesus the Obamanuts would bitch that he hangs around with prostitutes and radicals, not to mention the violation of that (ahem) sacred wall between Church & State. His intimate relationship with Israel and Jerusalem would send them over the top. If he healed the crippled, Teh Won would say he’s interfering with government-assisted health care. The Department of Commerce would claim unfair manufacturing practices when he performed the miracle of loves & fishes.
And the more obnoxious Ronulans would bitch that he hangs around with tax-collectors…
I don’t get where Obama is considered a young man. He’s almost 3 weeks older than I am , and I am over a half century old. I become more and more apprehensive about the future of our country, yet I see so many people, even among my own family, who are quite content with the way things are going. Either because, as in the case of my brother, a teachers union leader in the state he lives in, ( not WI, thank goodness ), who is getting, for all practical purposes, being paid off by the policies of the administration, or my sister who believes that the Government should have control over how people live thier lives. As a police officer, I have sworn to uphold and defend the Constitution, yet I am, as far as I can tell, the only member of my family who even cares that we have one. Government entitlements really are a far more powerful drug than the purest heroin, or crystal meth.
I have been involved in felony traffis stops, and building clearings that have left me with my Badger Tail so puffed out that it has taken a couple day for it to return to normal, but the current state of our country, and the course the Demoncrats have set for it has me far more frightened. If they have thier way, this country will become something horrific in the long run. They want to set up a utopia, but I think they want Thomas Moore’s Utopia, instead, where people work at the jobs that they are told to do, when they are told to, with strict controls over the movement of the citizenry. It is so important that we must evict Mr. Obama from his Office, or we may never recover our Nation.
If we’ll all just go to the polls in November and vote like our lives depend on it, the stinking marxist prince and his oh-so imperial and very mannish spouse will be sent crawling back into the pit of hell from whence they came. Writing this battle off as lost before it is fought is not helpful, nor in keeping with the traditions that many of us here have embraced and lived so well. Go down fighting if go down we must. Non Cedo Ferio!
Any candidate who does not promise to destroy the Fed (the ultimate source of the entitlement drug that ScotttheBadger speaks of) does not deserve the vote.
Oh, wait, one does…
My favorite president, Andrew Jackson, replied when asked what his greatest accomplishment was, “I killed the bank.”
Ah, for another like Andrew Jackson, not this current crop of fops and hangers-on.
I have a cousin who is a bit of a conspiracy nut. He thinks that none of the candidates we would all like to see run are running because they think the situation is hopeless and they don’t want to be in the office when the defecation hits the rotary oscillator. I told him he was crazy.
I’m starting to reconsider.
Oh Lord, the grass is greener, and all that. I don’t see anything remarkably better in any of those men. Daniels, Barbour and Bush are establishment RINOs. Ryan is a congressman, and this nation has not elected a congressman to the presidency since 1880! Christie has numerous problems of his own. I don’t think we’ve been denied the ‘A’ team.
I think it’s also ludicrous to declare defeat 10 months before the election. Give me a break, Obama’s approval is still very low and even those his ‘likabilities’ are high on a personal level I believe most of the country has turned against him and his policies. I’m not of certain of GOP victory as I was perhaps 6 months ago, but I’m still confident.
You are all too focused on the prop and can’t see the sky. ! The smart guys who did NOT run can do the math! It’s ALL about the Electoral College. We live in a Republic, not a democracy. There is no white conservative who is going to win the electoral college because the strong Democrat states of California, Illinois, New York, and Pennsylvania (with a few others) GUARANTEE 253 Electoral College votes out of the 270 needed to win. The dependent under-class in those states will not be moved by some Conservative white guy. The guys who look at the real numbers know the GOP has a lock on only 125 EC votes at best, so the Dems start with a 128 vote ADVANTAGE in the Electoral College. MAYBE Herman Cain could have broken Michigan or Illinois, so he had to go. The Presidential race in 2012 is a sham. The only thing Conservatives can do is to win the Senate. No matter what the popular vote, there is literally no way for a Conservative to win the electoral college in 2012.
Ah Virgil – if only it would happen that way. The problem is that the MSM will never treat a Democrat like they would treat a Republican.
That’s how we got into the current mess in the first place.