These abstract observations have some very practical implications, seen, for example, in recent polling results. Ponder this: a week or two ago polls aggregated by the indispensable RealClearPolitics showed a “generic Republican” winning against Barack Obama in the upcoming general election. Every particular Republican on offer, however, lost to Obama, Mitt Romney just by a few points, Gingrich, Santorum, and Ron Paul by a larger margin.
As of Friday, the prospects for Republicans were notably gloomier. Mr. Generic Republican, in a NBC/Wall Street Journal poll, was down by 5 points against Obama; Rasmussen and other pollsters showed Obama winning against all the Republican candidates by an even larger margin. Meanwhile, Gallup and NBC/WSJ have Gingrich out front to win the the Republican nomination. Nota Bene: he wins the nomination; he loses (according to one poll, he loses by 18 points) the general election.
Now, I acknowledge that it is early days yet. As British Prime Minster Harold Wilson famously put it, “a week is a long time in politics.” Those polls numbers might be wildly different come November. But the current numbers are not without significance. They tell us, above all, that there is a great hunger that is not being satisfied. They also tell us that there is widespread unhappiness, not to say disgust, with the status quo ante. The Republican establishment seems unwilling or unable to take this on board. They are still playing the game with yesterday’s dice. Some observant commentator described the Republican primary thus far as a sort of circular firing squad in which everyone was gravely injured, if not killed (farewell, Messrs Pawlenty, Cain, and Perry! So long Ms. Bachmann!). Team Obama must be enjoying the bloodsport, but what about the rest of us?
I have often said that I regard the Tea Party as the most vibrant and salubrious political phenomenon in contemporary American politics. Many people seem to believe that the Tea Party is a tool of the Republican Party. That, certainly, is what the Republican Party wishes you to believe. In fact, though, the Tea Party looks with jaded-eye upon Republicans and Democrats alike. Their goal is smaller, less intrusive, government. If Democrats are the party of big government, Republicans, despite rhetoric to the contrary, have invested heavily in that franchise. Hence the conservative unhappiness with the Republican field. And hence this melancholy prognostication: the Republicans’ only live hope for the 2012 presidential election is to endorse an articulate conservative candidate. So far, they have failed to find him (or her). Time is running out. The spectacle of mutually assured destruction that we’ve been treated to under the name of the Republican primary has offered some entertaining, if unedifying, moments. Entertaining moments do not win elections. Principled conservatism does. Any takers?
Also read Victor Davis Hanson: “What We Do Not Want to Hear Anymore“
Touche’. You are very correct. The establishment Republican party seems to deadlocked on the idea of Progressive Light.
I’ll put this is simple language:
The Gvmt is too large.
The Gvmt doesn’t need to have its fingers in every aspect of my life (or anyone else’)
The Gvmt is too expensive.
We don’t need to be the world’s police force. Let someone else have the opportunity to help out now & then.
IMHO, the next Pres candidate should have just 4 simple goals. This person should talk only about the 4 simple goals. Wash, rinse, repeat, just 4 simple goals.
1. Reduce the size of the federal Gvmt
2. Reduce regulation to the minimum necessary to keep miscreants from causing trouble.
3. Cut the cost of Gvmt by goal #1.
4. Quit jumping every time some county needs a police man.
That’s it. Just 4 simple goals.
Its ironic indeed that we face an opponent who is illegitimate in every way shape and form, unqualified to run,not a NBC,we know nothing about him,has nothing he can run on after three years and his only claim to fame is he is a far left idealogue and the color of his skin.
If the stupid party gets beat by someone like that,than we deserve it.
Agreed.
We need to change or candidate-vetting system so that We the Electorate are never so duped again.
A slow…public suicide…the GOP.
Alinsky methods…yes I agree with Palin on this one…used against it’s own people.
At this point..there is not one candidate that I would vote for. Which puts me in a quandry. I will not vote for obama, but really dislike everyone on GOP side…no matter which of the men gets the nomination to run..I don’t see any of them winning,
The party is killing itself…and we do need a third party. I don’t believe this party can be saved. it doesn’t want to listen to the people..Maybe this is one of the reasons Newt is looking good to some…he talks, he’s not afraid, he’s not a milquetoast dip that offers apologys for having earned money.
We need a party that will represent “US”..not “THEM”..eg Pelosi, Reid etc.
The whole thing has become a circus that I resent and refuse to listen to the liberal led debates
…a liberal host for republican debates, disgusting, and we conservatives allow it. Yes, if I could change it I would.
..Someone on here said (basically) we have been given a basket of rotten fruit (candidates) from which to choose, and i agree. Not one good one in the bunch, and we have to choose from them..
I agree – I can’t stomach any candidate currently on view. It looks like I will be voting “None of the above”.
We need at least a 3rd party if not more – look how well the so-called two-party system serves TPTB.
I also feel campaigning should be limited to not more than 6 weeks before the election as all the money resources, etc. spent on ads, etc. is such a waste. As it stands now we could get an equivalent result by flipping a coin.
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Except that, of course, he is not “illegitimate in every way shape and form” – he was legitimately elected by an actual majority of the voters, unlike the last two Presidents in their respective first terms.
It might be your opinion that Obama was “unqualified to run”, but that’s a decision made the primary voters in his party, and ultimately by the electorate. The majority clearly believed he was “qualified”, at least compared to Senator McCain.
And finally you claim the President is “not a NBC”, when it’s well-established that he was born in Hawaii, which is, in fact, a state. Ergo, he is a natural-born citizen.
It boggles my mind that some conservatives are willing to give up on defending conservative ideals, and putting forth a strong defense of fiscal discipline, free markets and deregulation, all in favor of completely debunked conspiracy-theories and series of attempted character smears that have been shown to backfire when used on the current President. Comments like yours do more to damage the conservative movement – and discredit its adherents – than anything the far-left might write.
You completely misunderstand or ignore the meaning of “natural born citizen.” Obama is so far from being vetted that it boggles the mind that anyone can make your claim. As to GWB and Clinton not being legitimately elected in their first terms because they didn’t receive the majority of votes cast, that too is a total misunderstanding of who our system works. I won’t bother trying to explain it to you (I suspect it would be akin to teaching a pig to sing); it’s all available for anyone willing to actually learn about things rather than spouting rhetoric again and again.
It is important to remember that in Mill’s day, the “liberal” position on all the issues you touch was what “conservatism” is in good part today. Hayek’s repeated insistence upon this seems to have been forgotten, even by his admirers. And “conservatives” were not the same species as real tories. For all the good excitement coming from the Tea Party, its general tendency is echt Tory, not conservative; it, too, hasn’t shown any success in attracting the “independents,” who usually determine elections in this country. The real problem is that the undecided center looks upon some Tea Party behaviors as crazy — and on, e.g., Ron Paul as the John Birch Society reincarnated, and Mr. Santorum as a literal altar boy. Many I try to sway from such errors insist that Obama, loser that he is, would be the lesser of two evils against any of these candidates except possibly Romney. Who is, however — favorite adjectives — “wooden” and “chicken.” But you’re right of course about the ongoing suicide of the GOP.
“Independents”??
They’re not independent of a hand out, that’s fer sure! Independents sold themselves in ’08. Independents are suckers for any high bidder in an advance auction of stolen goods. And they can’t figure out who the marks are in that con game.
Looking for a silver lining, I am increasingly inclined to see the states as the present location of serious politics. Even Democratic administrations (e.g., Calf., NY, Maryland) have been attacking their pension problems. Serious changes are being made or attempted in Va., NJ, Maine, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Indiana, among others. It may be that the biggest event of 2012 will be the Wisconsin re-call election.
If you think California’s trying to solve its pension problems, you have a different view of solutions from mine. Jerry’s merely trying to raise taxes to cover the short-term shortfall; he’s essentially kicking the can down the road, so it’ll trip his successor. Right now, every lefty in California is praying that Google’s IPO will generate lots of taxable revenue for Silocon Valley techies, who will of course be mugged on the way to the bank by Sacramento. Unless that happens, the state will be in serious financial troubles. Jerry promises a *temporary* tax increase, to offset the shortfall. It’s doubtful it’ll work.
Meanwhile the state continues to bleed jobs to neighbors, and the state’s government is constantly shown by the media to be a) underpaid and b) way too small and overworked. Soon we’ll have 5000 regulators watching one guy in the private sector, and when he scratches his left elbow they’ll fine him $1 Million for doing it wrong.
What is a de facto suicide club are the inheritors of a great country who have turned their back on their own legacy as racist if favor of a legacy of failure from cultures both within and without America with the agreed on notion that those failures are basically caused by the incurable racism of white Americans.
I imagine some kind of political cartoon of the U.S. Constitution being held by a hand just above the water surrounded by illegal aliens with a last cry of “I am not a racist” as it sinks from view forever, a victim of its own “purity.”
This is not a nuanced or adult mechanism: it amounts to being made to alter one’s entire set of values basically over name calling. If you want to see the mechanism powering such nonsense in action, go over to The Root and see fifth-grade mentalities manufacturing excuse after excuse for failure while basically laying all at the feet of white America. If you can stomach even one week at that hate site run by Henry (beer summit) Gates and owned by the Washington Post, you’ll realize most of the views are also the centerpiece of the Democratic Party platform.
Then, wave bye-bye to endemic success and hello to the most upscale neighborhood in the Third World; the Rainbow Coalition’s version of a Tower of Babel.
You got that right. This nonsense about the Republican’s only chance being a true blue conservative is the work of the Obama campaign. All this election will take is the idea that the Republican candidate will do better as our President. It is that simple. Obama has two choices. Those are to run on his record or to try to paint his opponent as someone who would be a worse catastrophe as President. Guess what he is doing? The only chance the Republicans have is to run a good man against him. Roger Kimble is wrong.
We, as a nation, have lost the meaning of the terms we use to describe our politics. By any standard, the political center of a government is the criteria in place at the time of its establishment; its purpose and its limitations define where its center is.
To illustrate this, imagine a ship at sea charting its course to a landfall due west. Its center course is kept only while its heading is due west. It may need to maneuver around islands, storms or other hazards and will alter its course from the due west to do so. However, it will need to correct its course twice once the obstacle has been overcome if it is to complete its journey. One correction will retrace its original deviation from its true course and the other will restore its due west heading.
The ship cannot make landfall at its original destination if it doesn’t follow its original course. That’s not to say that it can’t alter its destination, it can, but then it permanently moves off its original center and surrenders its original goal.
With the increase in our welfare state, we have moved to the left, surrendering our original goal of individual freedom and liberty. Yet we seem to think that we can do both; that we can have a welfare state and individual freedom and liberty.
To those who adhere to the original goals of our nation, the GOP is itself way left of center. The GOP no longer adheres to individual liberty and has adopted moderate slavery. Further, it claims that the proponents of our nation’s founders have moved to the far right when all they did was remain in place.
The left pulls inexorably further to the left and GOP compromises by moving somewhat to the left while protesting that it is actually center-right. As time passes, we move further and further to the left, refining the center time and time again.
The GOP today is to the left of the Democrats of the 1950s and 1960s, though few of us will recognize that. We are willing to recognize that we can’t have both a welfare state and open borders, but we refuse to recognize that we can’t have a welfare state and individual liberty.
Amen to that, sir!
“The GOP today is to the left of the Democrats of the 1950s and 1960s, though few of us will recognize that. ”
Because it’s false.
Truman nationalized the steel industry.
The Democratic Party platforms of those years insisted that unemployment during a recession should be fought by direct government hiring of the unemployed into WPA-style make-work programs–”government as the employer of last resort.”
For many years in those decades, the Dems kept trying to overturn right-to-work laws (by national mandate!), and mandate that every state had to allow its workers to become fully unionized.
In the 1960s, the Dems gave us Medicare, a true single-payer health care system for retirees.
And you’re claiming the GOP today is to the left of THAT?
Heck, the Dem Party today has cooled to some of those ideas. Defying his liberal wing, Obama did NOT create a WPA-style direct hiring program for the unemployed. And AFAIK, Obama has never called for the repeal of right-to-work laws in states that have them.
Good points, though its also true that the current Democrat party seems to have morphed into Darth Vadar, which didn’t seem to be true prior to Carter.
Nixon: wage and price controls
Nixon: EPA
Nixon: OSHA
Ford: Special Education
Bush (41): Americans with Disabilities Act
Bush (43): Medicare part D
Bush (43): TSA
Bush (43): Homeland Security
Bush (43): The Patriot Act
Bush (43): No Child Left Behind
Romney: RomneyCare
Once again, don’t confuse “Republican” with “conservative.”
He was talking about the 50′s and 60′s, not the 30′s and 40′s
“Entertaining moments do not win elections. Principled conservatism does.” Exactly which elections has principled conservatism won?
Marie of Romaina
1980. 1984. And probably a whole bunch before 1932.
“Exactly which elections has principled conservatism won?”
1980, 1984, 1994, and 2010 come to mind. Significantly, these were not close elections, either.
Even granting your premise (which I don’t) shouldn’t the statement be “principled conservatism occasionally wins election?”
As to your premise, I’d characterize 1980, 1994, and 2010 as losses for Carter, Clinton, and Obama respectively. Claiming them as victories for principled conservatism is as wishful as liberals claiming 2008 as the beginning of “a new progressive majority.” Like “love is a thing that can never go wrong,” “principled conservatism wins elections” would be nice if it were true. But it’s not.
Actually, it is. Your inability to see it doesn’t make it false.
The democrats KNOW what they stand for – and they are willing to fight hard for it. The republicans seem to have lost their center and are just tring to ‘moderate’ the liberals’ positions.
Conservatives need to seek out leadership that can articulate and defend (and believes in) personal liberty and smaller government – and why this is the best situation for all the people of this country.
Wrong. Conservatives (true conservatives) avoid ideology. They are about individual liberty and freedom. It’s tough to be a conservative and go up a hive-mind totalitarian machine like the Modern Left. As a conservative, I don’t want a messiah. Give it time. They tried to kill the Tea Party at its inception and failed. That is significant. We will prevail eventually. But, being a realist, I don’t see it happening this year.
I’d answer that, Bob_R, if you could point to an election where principled conservatism was even on the ballot.
Unfortunately, I don’t think the Tea Party has been able to penetrate the adamantine wall put up by the legacy media wing of the DNC far enough to win over a majority of voters. Most are still thinking in terms of Republican and Democrat, disgusted by both they may be. There has to be a massive information cascade that outlines what the Tea Party is really about, and a door-to-door outreach to out-of-touch voters. Flyers left in every mailbox or on every door, effective sound bytes on the legacy TV networks, and candidates for local and state offices that state clearly what they believe and intend to do. Some of that is already being done, but how do we kick it into high gear? The time is ripe for a third party that will bury one of the other two (*cough* Republlicans, because the Democrats are too far gone to the dark side of leftism to change at this point).
Give it time. It will grow.
I never forget that most political polls, like the media outlets that fund them, are primarily used to push a left-wing agenda. RealClearPolitics means well, but their aggregation of polls reflects that same bias. A lot of the disgust with Obama out in the countryside is not being measured but will serve the eventual Republican candidate well.
I agree. Absolutely everyone I know wants Obama out of there, and I know that a decent percentage of them voted for him.
Today’s ‘Liberals’ = Progressives are due for
a Close Encounter of the Worst Kind with reality
sooner rather than later, hopefully before No. 2012;
Hopefully, Conservatives of the TEA Party persuasion
will have prepared to take advantage of the L/P meltdown.
Wrong. Liberals = regressives, and history has proven that hundreds of times. Believers in limited constitutional government are the newest experiment of the idea of self rule. If we are beaten, it will be by people who want government to return to its tribal roots. There is nothing enlightened about totalitarianism.
Policy is complicated. Conservatives (rather than mere Republicans) are people who have decided after long observation and thought that a small set of principles guide to the correct path. Spend a lot less through government, reduce the federal payroll, regulate only what is absolutely necessary in business, and remove government mandates like Obamacare which increase the costs of hiring and working. I agree.
The worst part of Republican infighting is that it convinces many undecided voters that Republicans are hacks and their free market philosophy is a veil to hide their supposed heartlessness.
A large middle of independents sit on the fence. The Left says that if government spends less money, it will kill private sector jobs through lack of Keynesian demand. Government workers don’t want to be fired. People like the idea of a protective government, and 30% of the public gets a government check. Why believe that they would be better off without big government? Why not tax the rich? Why not go on as before?
Leftist politicians proclaim attractive goals and principles, as if they were possible. They make their goals seem possible through emotion. They fight for every inch. They appear to have a clear vision of a glorious future. They fight for that future with conviction, not daunted by the contradictions and idiocies which they proclaim. They make aggressive moves toward their goals and then compromise on how much they win.
The Republican opposition shows fear. They want a better future within the bounds of morality and reality, but they don’t act like this is supremely important. They say that reality requires conservative policies, and then they make compromises which ignore that reality. This makes them appear opportunistic, trading away the results which they say are necessary. They compromise on how much they lose.
If conservative policies are good for almost everyone, then why don’t Republicans act like it? An observer on the fence can infer that Republicans don’t really believe in the reality they describe. For example, they started a fight over the debt ceiling, saying correctly that increased debt is dangerous to the health of our country. They said that spending must be controlled, and correctly that the disruption from a temporary government default was worth it, because otherwise we would go over the cliff.
Then, they made a deal with no spending cuts of importance. What about the cliff? Why start the fight in the first place? Someone on the fence sees this as political positioning, not conviction backed by an analysis. This demeans the Republican and Conservative brand.
The debt deal gave approval to the Democratic vision. The Democrats claim credibility when they now say “Republicans started a fight they don’t believe in, but they have opposed us enough to cause the next recession. They want to block our plans for their own political gain, but they don’t want to implement their own plan and take responsibility. They risked default without believing their own analysis.”
It is not enough to have a good policy, one must fight for that policy as if it were actually good. Independents judge conviction as much as the facts.
It’s a standard political tactic: you talk about your policy arguments, and your opponent’s political machinations. Example: “Obama supports detailed review of all the complex environmental effects of the Keystone pipeline. Of course, those Republicans are demanding an immediate approval of the deal to placate their corporate lobbyist contributors.”
See how I did that? You’re basically dismissing your opponent’s entire argument out of hand, without even trying to counter it. This comes in especially handy if (as in the Keystone case) the democrats don’t have any good arguments to make.
A related technique is to psycho-analyze your opponent. You seem to be giving fair time to their argument, and can even pat yourself on the back about how fair-minded you are. But while you hunt for some psychological explanation for why they believe what they do, you’re again ignoring the substance of their arguments. Example: “Republicans only oppose the Obama agenda because they resent his education and eloquence.”
These are just most subtle variations on the standard ad hominem. Of course, you could just kick it old school and just attack them as evil bad people. Or pick out one opponent and personally destroy them, Alinsky-style.
Another common thread is this: none of these are legitimate arguments. Liberals parroting their elites with the latest variety of the above are missing one thing: every minute they invest in cheap shots is a minute they don’t spend arguing their own views. So while I’d love to elevate their discourse, since I can’t, I’ll at least take some screwtapian pleasure in the fact these tactics are mainly good for Pyrrhic victories.
Even after the financial crisis (the lib’s best chance in 50 years), the country’s views continue to advance steadily rightward. Our policies continue defiantly leftward, of course, but that’s another another blog comment for another blog day.
Few of my progressive friends seem to realize that when we can’t borrow money from China anymore, the whole edifice will come crashing down. There will be no one to bail us out. The economic and social problems facing Greece will seem child’s play. Our enemies will pounce.
I hope the selection process goes to the Republican convention where we might have a chance of nominating a serious, articulate, respectable candidate.
If President 0.0 is re-elected, we can kiss the country good-bye. Accordingly, I’ll vote for any warm body other than President 0.0 and pray for the best.
Nonsense. Apocalyptic rhetoric serves no useful purpose, except to frighten the uninformed and the faint of heart. This country will survive 4 more years of Obama. But I would rather the GOP had the executive branch, of course.
Somewhat O/T: HERMAN CAIN ENDORSES GINGRICH!
http://electad.com/videos/herman-cain-endorses-newt-gignrich/
Actually it’s right on topic. and you might have added that the Tea Party in Florida, which thinks of itself as fiscally conservative, also endorsed Gingrich. So here you have a candidate posing as the true conservative going state to state pandering to the electorate by proposing multi billion dollar mega projects, including a colony on the moon. It’s sheer lunacy. His opponent, described by him as a moderate, says the pandering is pathetic and we can’t afford these projects. His opponent has a track record as a brilliant cost cutter and turn around artists. It should be no contest but Romney is assailed because he signed a law that says those who can afford to must provide for their own private insurance or pay a fine. A lot of Republicans think it’s a more conservative approach for the state to pick up the health care costs of the free riders. It’s not. It’s actually a form of the socialism they assail.
The GOP has earned the title The Party of Stupid.
Yes, indeed you are.
I was around when Newt was a political puppy. He has been a narcissist since he first appeared on the scene as a Rockefeller Republican. He has morphed himself onto various other bandwagons over the years but, as a narcissist, he has never really had a conviction about any of his positions. The goal has always been for Newt to be a part of the history textbooks he has used in his college classrooms. He is very intelligent and simultaneously he is not really very scholarly. Because of this, he has always been a first class politician and a second class historian. He does know that his poor grasp of history is enough to best most of the voters, so he uses whatever factoids he can remember to push his candidacy. He will tell you that he has always been a Reagan conservative because he is pretty sure most of us are even less scholarly than he is and won’t look at his personal history. A narcissist will always believe that the voters can be manipulated to fall in line with him as long as he can make the most noise. Pay careful attention to what Newt actually says the next time he performs a rant on television. He is nowhere near as narcissistic and despicable as our current President, however. Again, these are just my observations and I would be glad to hear what other people have to say about this.
What sealed the deal for me was when Pat Buchanan called him an “opportunist”. Now, I don’t like sycophants, but when Pat speaks it’s as close the The Word as we can get here on earth.
And yes, I felt the same way in 1992 that you Newt supporters feel now. Bob Dole? (groan).
As a tea partier in Florida, I can assure you that there is no “Tea Party of Florida” that has endorsed Gingrich. A group of 37 folks, have arrogated to themselves the voice of all us in Florida. They speak for themselves, not the entire State. And those of us who have not chosen Gringrich are not happy about having endorsements put in our mouths!http://www.newsmax.com/Politics/Gingrich-Florida-Tea-Party/2012/01/26/id/425657
That “him or her” conservative would have to be dragged, kicking and screaming into this mess…especially after 20 debates, or whatever the current tally is. Those who would be required to do the dragging would need to have the same intestinal fortitude of the h or h…..There simply are not that many consevatives in a position of authority to pull those strings. The Tea Party, at its pinnacle, drafted Mike Pence….a worthy choice…He declined…as did Mitch Daniels…one is your current Indiana Governer, the other the next one.
Jim DeMint of South Carolina? Not interested….Bobby Jindal? Blew it last year in his SOTU counter-speech….So who’s left that would take on the challenge? The only guy I can think of with the necessary nads is Joe Arpaio…or maybe his boss….Jan Brewer…OK, they aren’t well-rounded enough…but neither was, and is, Barack Obama..Oh, I forgot…he’s a democrat…so all bets are off.
I think we are getting the second term of Jimmy Carter…as if Ronald Reagan never happened.
Elliot Abrams lies in his hit piece about Gingrich.
http://spectator.org/blog/2012/01/27/elliott-abrams-caught-misleadi
THAT’S THE ROMNEY CAMP FOR YOU.
UNLEASH GINGRICH IN 2012!
Gingrich is a CINO (conservative in name only). He signed onto the personhood issue prior to the Iowa caucus. He looks to spend dollars we don’t have on moon bases and keeping a gold plated defense industry intact. Ron Paul has it right: in order to get our fiscal house in order, every program has to get a big haircut, including defense.
As for Gingrich, one can’t say they’re a conservative advocating for small government with one hand. But the other hand advocates for big government intervention in citizens’ personal and private lives.
Paulbots can’t be taken seriously. As with marriage, you have to take or leave the whole package. Paul’s foreign policy (sic) is a threat to America’s security.
Keep your ideological purity in the loony hatch, where it belongs.
The government must be only big enough to defend life and liberty, but it must be big enough to defend life and liberty. You don’t have the right to hide behind privacy in order to kill someone.
Ed: you seem to have a reading comprehension issue. I did NOT say I was for Ron Paul. I agree with you that his foreign policy knowledge is problematic. But he is right about cutting back on the size of the federal government.
Mythbuster: “you don’t have the right to hide behind privacy in order to kill someone….” I assume you refer to abortion? I support your right to have personal religious beliefs; I don’t support you having a right to impose those beliefs on others. There is more to “personhood” than just abortion.
#24, 25 Valerie: “……some embarrassment, Chris.” Actually, you left out that Newt resigned his position shortly after the ’98 election.
No, we have not found him yet.
After our 19th Nervous Breakdown (often mislabeled as the Republican primary debates), it has become clear that watching “B” team scrimmages is not enlightening, but is disheartening.
If one wishes to watch petty and vindictive spitball fights destroy the Republican brand daily, chipping away at dignity and desecrating honor…then I suppose it makes for great gallows humor. After all, attacking the free market FOR the Marxists might…just might…atrophy their muscles enough, not having to carry their own water.
VDH called it a circular firing squad. ACE, Allahpundit, the folks at Commentary, NRO, Charles Krauthammer, ….have all said we don’t have the right guy running…but worse, we have the Four Horse’s Asses of the Apocalypse …each one spouting greater inanities than the last.
One should not be a slave to polls. On the other hand, one should not be a blind beggar toward them either. People who treat polls as alms to their fanaticism…worthwhile only while they indicate positive “donations” to their favorite “B” teamer…are fooling nobody else.
The indication FAR OUTSIDE THE MARGIN IF ERROR…is Gingrich, Paul and Santorum get their brains beaten in, if they become the nominee.
That leaves Romney, for whom very few people are enthused and quite a few are disgusted.
He has the best chance to lose by the least. Great.
In probably the most important election of our lifetimes, our best chance is weak tea, thin gruel and evaporated milk.
WE SHOULD HAVE DEMANDED BETTER.
We haven’t. And, for that…we may all pay merely the price of the greatest nation in the history of mankind.
“WE SHOULD HAVE DEMANDED BETTER.”
We could have & IMO it would not have done a bit of good. I suspect (as I have said before ISMW) that what is at play here is the RNC kowtowing to the principles of affirmative action with regard to Obama. As the Dems don’t dare to run any of their potential candidates against O (as if anyone on their side would dare to run), the Pubs’ first-string potential candidates are sitting on the sidelines as well. This way no one has to face the senseless barrage of accusations of being “racist” that the process of actually running against Obama with a view to win would bring on from the left, not to mention the strong likelihood that riots will break out here & there if Obama loses this election. No one wants to go there.
Some are probably going to think that my theory is out there, but I’ll be damned if I can come up with anything else which makes any sort of sense out of all this (no one running who has the capacity to extract certain victory on election day). Bottom line: This race is Obama’s to lose; the establishment elites want him to win.
Exactamundo! This is the heart of the politics of our side. Each of these candidates are merely cannonfodder. None of them has a snowball’s chance in hell to win. The varsity players are sitting on the sidelines. The question I have is: Is the GOP committing suicide and the suicide of the nation by NOT pushing for a real candidate to run against Dear Leader because of the slings and arrows of racism that will surely be aimed at them?
We have plenty of good looking (mitt), articulate (newt), dedicated conservative (rick) and small and limited government (paul) types all rolled into one sitting on the sidelines. Paul Ryan comes to mind.
Essentially then RACE is the central factor that will determine the direction of our nation. That being the RACE of DL and the left knows it, and that DL is a committed marxist so the left will defend him to the hilt. The left knows race riots will break out everywhere if anyone defeats DL; in fact they and DL are hoping for it during the general election cycle. This is how the left has always used blacks. Blacks to the left are their muscle and victim with which to bludgeon America into submission and eventual marxism.
“Blacks to the left are their muscle and victim with which to bludgeon America into submission and eventual marxism.”
Shelby Steele is someone who has an excellent feel for white guilt & apologism. He explains quite well ISMW just what you & I have observed above in this piece. Excerpt: In head-to-head matchups, Mr. Obama beats all of the Republican hopefuls in most polls.
The problem Mr. Obama poses for Republicans is that there has always been a disconnect between his actual performance and his appeal. If Hurricane Katrina irretrievably stained George W. Bush, the BP oil spill left no lasting mark on this president. Mr. Obama’s utter confusion in the face of the “Arab spring” has nudged his job-approval numbers down, but not his likability numbers, which Gallup has at a respectable 47.6%. In the mainstream media there has been a willingness to forgive this president his mistakes, to see him as an innocent in an impossible world. Why?
There have really always been two Barack Obamas: the mortal man and the cultural icon. If the actual man is distinctly ordinary, even a little flat and humorless, the cultural icon is quite extraordinary. The problem for Republicans is that they must run against both the man and the myth. In 2008, few knew the man and Republicans were walloped by the myth. Today the man is much clearer, and yet the myth remains compelling.
What gives Mr. Obama a cultural charisma that most Republicans cannot have? First, he represents a truly inspiring American exceptionalism: He is the first black in the entire history of Western civilization to lead a Western nation—and the most powerful nation in the world at that. And so not only is he the most powerful black man in recorded history, but he reached this apex only through the good offices of the great American democracy.
Thus his presidency flatters America to a degree that no white Republican can hope to compete with. He literally validates the American democratic experiment, if not the broader Enlightenment that gave birth to it.
He is also an extraordinary personification of the American Dream: Even someone from a race associated with slavery can rise to the presidency. Whatever disenchantment may surround the man, there is a distinct national pride in having elected him.
All of this adds up to a powerful racial impressionism that works against today’s field of Republican candidates. This is the impressionism that framed Sen. John McCain in 2008 as a political and cultural redundancy—yet another older white male presuming to lead the nation.
The point is that anyone who runs against Mr. Obama will be seen through the filter of this racial impressionism, in which white skin is redundant and dark skin is fresh and exceptional.
I don’t know who the “establishment elites” are,bobbcat…but this race reminds me of Dole vs Buchanan.
Two absolutely wrong guys …one who was truly scary and one who was not nearly scary enough.
The Republicans seem to be incapable of finding a candidate that isn’t a)so eager to “compromise” away the foundational tenets of small government, less intrusion, and a more “free” free market….the sort of Nanny In Boxer Shorts, male version of a leftist Democrat; vs. the gut the military, live in isolation, halt our influence in the Middle East and around the world.
The lame and the halt make a nice Yankee Doodle Dandy parade image, but make for horrific choices attempting to stop the Marxist overthrow.
Clearly, adding now Roger Kimball to the list of Mark Steyn, VDH, Charles Krauthammer, the guys at commentary, Allahpundit, ACE, the guys at Powerline, …virtually ALL of our best thinkers…believe this primary field is incredibly weak, has been weighed and measured and found severely lacking.
McCain was an incredibly weak candidate….but not even the Clinton machine could take down Obama three years ago.
John Thune, Kristi Noem, Paul Ryan, Nikki Haley, Bobby Jindal, Alan West, Eric Cantor, Marco Rubio are great reasons to have high hopes for the future of the Republican Party. But conventional wisdom suggested that they were not ready, this cycle, to carry the Republican flag against Obama.
I’m not sure I agree…Obama has lowered the barrier to entry so significantly, …with proper “supporting beams”…we could have built a fine White House with a Ryan/Rubio ticket, for instance. Kristi probably isn’t ready….but she is wonderful.
ANY of the above would be a marked improvement over the current slate of “B” teamers.
Then…we get to the people who did not run…but, not because they weren’t “ready”.
Sarah, Mitch Daniels, Haley Barbour, Chris Christie (who is on the cusp of ready/not ready, Huckabee.
Sarah was severely brand damaged, most of it enormously unfair…but it stuck and she would have been polarizing. That’s an unhappy fact that her fans will rage against, but, I believe it to be true.
Mitch has the best resume’/paper credentials of anyone, on any list, anywhere…for what we need. His wife’s marital behavior would have been an enormous embarrassment for their family. Confined to Indiana, it’s bearable. Under a national spotlight, in a Presidential race, with a toxic and despicable press…it would have been a strain on the strongest of marriages and on the shoulders of the fittest of characters. She does not seem to qualify under either definition.
Barbour had that unfortunate incident in defending some less than savory characters in Mississippi.
Christie has the pugnacious qualities of Newt, the sort of live and let live moderate background of Romney and the hot Italian blood of Santorum. He tells it like it is and he doesn’t back down. He would piss off both sides at times, and, would not back down from either. That honeymoon would not have lasted.
Once again…the perfect storm for Obama. Our “A” teamers aren’t ready or don’t fit for one reason or the other.
We either have to accept the fatally flawed “B” teamer, who is least likely to lose by double digits…or craft a ticket out of the not ready for prime time “A” teamers.
Again, because Obama has lowered the barrier to entry…I think Ryan/Rubio or Thune/West, or some combination like those…could be crafted to create a winning ticket, with ripeness for office being overcome by superior talent and enthusiasm.
Otherwise…I am afraid we are going to have to get used to the idea that Romney is the candidate and we are going to have to live with the enormous blowback from that fact.
Establishment elites to my mind are those who run the RNC, most congresscritters, most who work the MSM. These are the movers & shakers in the political arena of ideas. You know, those with influence. They are the ones who advocate a Romney candidacy against Obama. Again, these are the ones who apparently would like to see Obama finish out a second term (thereby all obligations to affirmative action having been met with all due respect to political correctness) with the country staying in a state of peace, with Republican first-stringers being welcome to run in 2016.
I don’t know anyone in the RNC, or any Republican congresscritters who want to see an Obama second term, bobbcat.
I also don’t see any conservative pundits who want to see an Obama second term.
I HAVE seen many, many, many “non-Romney’s” who have ANNOUNCED they would rather see an Obama second term. I have not seen ANY “non-Gingrich” announce such a thing.
Frankly, they both suck. But Obama sucks worse.
I don’t listen to much talk radio anymore so I’m not all that plugged in to the latest Limbaugh and Levin memes, but Rush has beat the drum of that book about the so-called Ruling Class so much that I guess he’s the architect of this notion of some “elite” conspiring against the “country class” of Republicans. Throw in a dollop of Beck’s totally misguided conflation of 19th and early 20th Century religiously based progressivism with the US communist adoption of the term progressive to describe fellow travellers from the ’30s and 40s and the resurrection of the term by today’s more blatant leftists.
There IS NO Republican ruling class! There is no Republican/conservative elite! There are officeholders and political operatives who have actually gotten themselves or others elected or appointed to office and who understand that the political world is one Helluva lot more complicated when your name is on the door or your finger over the yea or nay botton that it appears to be to the purists in talk radio or sitting in their bathrobes hunched over a keyboard.
Confederate General Pickett was once asked to what he attributed Confederate defeat at Gettysburg, to which he replied, “I always thought the Yankees had something to do with it.” Somebody upthread is decrying Nixon, Ford, and both Bushes for their “statism” with the list of programs adopted in their terms; don’t any of you think the Democrats had something to do with it? Of all the Republican Presidents since WWII, only GWB had ANY period of their Presidency in which the Democrats didn’t control at least one body of Congress! Here the one thing the “true conservatives” and the Romneybots agree on is in calling Gingrich a statist. Don’t any of you think the Democrats had something to do with it? Gingrich’s conservative bona fides were impeccable when he was a back-bencher in the Minority. Then he gave the Republican Party the Congress for the first time since Harry Truman was President. As Speaker he went so far as to provoke a real, not fake, not threatened shutdown of the government to attempt to force some conservative principles on a very resistive Democrat, Bill Clinton. He went so far as to be the architect of impeaching Bill Clinton and was abandoned by his own Party in the Senate. Now jackasses who’ve never held office or run anything more complex than a keyboard decry him as a statist. Don’t you think the Democrats had something to do with it?
Actually, about the closest to an elite on the Right is the top-rank punditry such as Limbaugh, Levin, Hannity and to a lesser extent Krauthammer. So, who are Limbaugh and Levin complaining about as some mysterious elite when it is they themselves who are the conservative/Republican elite. Democrats once said, “I’m not a member of an organized political party; I’m a Democrat.” That is actually far more true of Republicans today than it ever was of Democrats. The Republican Party needs candidates far more than candidates need the Party. Candidates can do far more to and for themselves than can the Party. The Party can’t even enforce Party discipline within its caucus in Congress yet somehow some shadowy Party elite has decided we shouldn’t beat Comrade Obama. My sympathy obviously lies with Gingrich though I am desperately afraid that he cannot either unify the Party or find enough votes in the mushy middle to defeat Comrade Obama. That said, there is enough of the practical political operative and officeholder in me to know that the surest choice is Romney. He has money and organization, no scandals that we know of yet, and is a far more likeable person than the scrappy, abrasive, and tarnished Gingrich. That said, I think Romney is cannon fodder for the Obama machine and will only lose more nicely and stylishly. He’s like so many Republicans; he can only be nasty to his own. And therein lies the real rub; the Republicans aren’t the stupid party, they’re the Nice Party and in dealing with the modern communist dominated Democrat Party, nice is stupid.
I don’t think any of these people are going to openly admit that this (a second Obama term) is something they want. All I am trying to do here is make some sort of logic out of all this.
Take a look at how Jeb Bush, the former FL governor, is reacting to the race. He is refusing to endorse Romney (ostensibly because of Romney’s stance on immigration). I have another theory: Bush is burnishing his reputation for a planned run for POTUS in 2016. Story here.
Well, I posted a reply a short while ago & it disappeared. I wondered if I said something nuclear. Basically I reiterated what I said above & bolstered my theory (that the first-stringers are waiting to run for POTUS in 2016) with a link to the following article about Jeb Bush’s (former FL governor) refusal to endorse anyone who is currently running (supposedly because he doesn’t want his name associated with any of these guys but ostensibly because he doesn’t agree with Romney’s stance on immigration): http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/30/us/politics/jeb-bush-remains-silent-on-endorsement.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper
Sarah Palin: Vote for Newt Gingrich, “annoy a liberal”, “rage against the machine”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUgscE3UVIc&feature=player_embedded
Yeah, when the American medical model was predominantly market based individual medical practices, emulating say 19th century middle class shopkeeper England and its middle class liberal politics, the AMA, that republican bastion, was against any police state individual insurance mandate or “socialized medicine”. Now that health care is a mixed system dominated by corporations providing health care–medical technology, education, drugs, and insurance–the corporate captive AMA is all for the police state individual mandate. Don’t fool yourself: whenever an elite makes any activity mandatory–voting, conscription, public school attendance, production, and now consumption of an insurance product–you have entered the realm of the police state. The last time I looked, the Constitution precluded the police state, except in vary limited situations, limitations that also apply to the individual states. The states cannot have police states, but Romney boy seems to be oblivious to that. Why am I not surprised?
There is nothing in the US Constitution that limits the power of the states beyond the natural limits that result from the few powers actually granted to the federal government. Most of the so-called “police state” policies, that you mention, are not prevented from enactment by any state that wants to impose them on its citizens. Bad policy legislation, no doubt, but illegal at the state level? Hardly that.
The tea party hasn’t convinced the public of the good of its platform. And it IS a radical platform.
You have to ask if the tea party has been fooling us, because by their standards, Reagan would not have been acceptable, GWB would not have been acceptable, Nixon would have been called a socialist.
The problem isn’t that you can’t find “an articulate conservative” but that anyone who will pander to the tea party’s platform is an idiot, because the platform is bad.
How are you going to find an articulate candidate who will try to sell bad policy?
I believe you and too many others ascribe a separate political philosophy to the so called Tea Party. The only things I can ascribe to these folks is that they tend to be part of the 53% of our population who actually pay income tax and they feel “taxed enough already”. Further, they tend to think that our debt problems exist simply because we don’t control our spending and not because of any revenue shortfalls. They advocate very little beyond that. I am proud to say that I agree with them. I also contend that no self aggrandizing socialist could ever agree with them.
I stand in awe. But I did have to look up “salubrious”.
This is your friendly, neighborhood Liberal telling all you Conservatives to take a second look at Newt Gingrich, because if my opinion of him got changed, you have a route to a win in 2012.
When it was a fad to take psychological tests to determine your place in the political spectrum, I tested center, center, center — always. So, I think my experience may be instructive.
When this campaign began, my only recall of Newt was the shutdown, a surprisingly positive memory of one of his speeches about education. I knew about the ethics charges and resignation, which I tended to discount because even at the time, I recognized them as over-reaching by the Democrats and an act of revenge, not governance. I did not know he had been cleared.
I went back looking for a video and transcript of that education speech because a good friend and politically active friend in California has been telling me that those damn Republicans want to destroy public education in this country. This just isn’t so, and I wanted her to see this speech, to see how close some of Newt’s ideas were to hers.
I used Google. What I found was a morass of deliberately inaccurate commentary about what Newt said, instead of what he actually said. Among the many search terms I used was the name of Rachel Maddow in this connection, because my friend loves Rachel Maddow. It was very easy to see that the source material had been buried under at least two layers of lying commentary: there was an original layer of lying that did NOT link to the source material, and wave after wave of commentary on the commentary, taking it as fact. It took me two days to figure out how to get down to the source videos, before I found these:
Newt Gingrich on Education Reform
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I34twrbPiiI&feature=relmfu
Rev. Al Sharpton on Education Reform
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8hKxBYTj8E
Newt Gingrich is a creative thinker, and willing to turn a problem on it’s side and knock it hard to get a solution. He’s willing to build bridges with people where they agree. He is fair-minded, and intensely interested in, and intent on avoiding, perverse results. He wants what is good for all our children. He is knowledgeable about the system, and it’s flaws and strengths.
I was deeply surprised to find out that this man, whose actions I had previously despised, is in fact the man this country thought it was electing when it put Barack Obama in the office of the Presidency of the US, minus the halo.
You actually have a good potential President, there. All you have to do to place him in that position is to cut through the sh!t.
Newt Gingrich = the real Obama. Are you confused about the real Obama? I wouldn’t even say that about Newt Gingrich and I don’t like Newt much at all.
Neither Conservatives nor Liberals should fear Gingrich policies.
http://mydailyconcerns.com/newt-gingrich-victory-speech-south-carolina-republican-primary-win/
http://www.shallownation.com/2012/01/22/newt-gingrich-meet-the-press-video-jan-22-2012-full-interview-with-david-gregory/
I agree with the post by Ed Wallis that appeared in one of the threads here:
“Gingrich Frames the Debate”
from: http://spectator.org/archives/2012/01/25/gingrich-frames-the-debate
EXCERPTS:
Gingrich: “But the centerpiece of this campaign, I believe, is American exceptionalism versus the radicalism of Saul Alinsky….[W]hat we are going to argue is that American exceptionalism, the American Declaration of Independence, the American Constitution, the American Federalist papers, the Founding Fathers of America, are the source from which we draw our understanding of America. [Obama] draws his from Saul Alinsky, radical left-wingers, and people who don’t like the classical America.”
Having served President Reagan in the White House Office of Policy Development in the early 1980s [the author Ferrara], I can say the comprehensive conservatism and breadth of this South Carolina victory speech is quintessentially Reagan.
In sharp contrast, Romney is the perfect foil for Obama’s Alinsky strategy and tactics. Everything about him, from his business career, to his public record, to his appearance, to his inability to express fundamental principles and philosophy, only communicates “Country Club” Republican. Al Sharpton calls him “Mr. 1%.” Does the Republican Party, let alone confused “conservative” talking heads, really want to run this year against Obama a Wall Street multimillionaire who pays a 15% tax rate, and can’t explain or defend that?
Instead of the inspiring substance of leadership that Gingrich has provided, Romney has engaged in low brow trash talking, backed by the millions provided by his Country Club cronies. Romney says, “We’re not seeking a talk show host. We’re seeking a leader.” New Jersey Governor and Romney crony Chris Christie chimes in, “Newt has been an embarrassment to the Republican Party.”
You want a leader? Gingrich led the entire party to an historic victory in 1994 to the first Republican takeover of Congress in 40 years, something even Reagan didn’t accomplish. Then in 1996 and 1998, Gingrich as Speaker led the first reelection of Republican House majorities in since the 1920s. Some embarrassment, Chris.”
Having given alcohol to the drunk, heroin to the hype, and money to the gambler,the GOP can’t understand why we love Obama.
The quality of all these candidates are not some product of incredibly bad luck. This is what we are.
Obama and his ilk are a more accurate reflection of what universal suffrage births than are any regulars of this site. There is not one soul in the running who would have been accepted among their own by the 40 men who signed the Constitution. Picking through rotten fruit does not encourage productive political debate, which is why there isn’t any found in this election, or the last, or the next.
True enough. But many provisions of the Constitution were not visionary, but they reflected the founders desire not to make the mistakes of the government that affected them. They had been hapless colonial pawns in the early British Empire. While they did a wonderful job in working out our Constitution, they would probably have worked out a different set of guidelines had their own conditions been much different.
Well, there is the leftist establishment and there is the right wing establishment
Then there are the people.
The first two are friendly rivals. They are great friends actually.
The last is a mortal enemy of the first two.
Understand this and you understand why every candidate who has challenged the right-wing establishment has had scorn heaped on him or her: Palin, Bachman, Perry, Cain, and Gingrich.
Ah, but why not Santorum and Paul? The answer, of course, is that neither have become a threat yet. If they do, they will have their careers ruined and their names dragged through the mud.
Palin, Bachman, Perry, and Cain have themselves to blame just as much as the MSM. They are all flawed and lost at the ballot box, fair and square.
The only 3 I can think of that are able to calmly, succinctly, efficiently and effectively express the true conservative message is Marco Rubio, Allen West and Paul Ryan, none of who are running. I’m convinced that the citizenry (even most Democrats and Indies) would actually listen to those 3 (especially Rubio) and would consider them thoughtful and as one who makes sense. Perry had the record but could not deliver the message.
Kimballs a hot-airist.
Awesome smack-down, dude. A regular intellectual giant you are.
We had a fabulous candidate in the Republican party and we allowed the leftist press and media to destroy her. Sarah Palin stands for and has voiced every policy we need to enact in order to rescue our nation from the jaws of the leftist monsters currently destroying America in order to gain control for their perversions of freedom and liberty. But, she was destroyed by the leftists of all sorts from newspapers to idiots like the Saturday Night Live crew combined with an ill informed, gullible public. The left destroys the candidates they know will send them packing and drives the agenda of the Republicans and their nominees. As long as we keep playing patsy for the left, they will continue to beat our a**es so that even when we win, they essentially get their way.
Business as usual has swerved so far left in the West that we literally need a revolution to overcome it. It doesn’t have to be physically violent, but it does have to be intellectually and psychologically violent. We need to display the energy we showed a couple of yesr ago with the demonstrations by the Tea Party, but we need to multiply the effort tenfold and keep the heat turned up until we address all we know needs to be addressed in both word and deed at least until we regain, in no uncertain measures, control of our country. This would literally require almost a complete restructuring of the Federal Government with a huge downsizing in order as we closed down and reordered most of the useless cabinet level departments that are ruining our lives.
Alas, it is not in most people’s vision to even begin to contemplate what it would take to do all this. And as we watch the left ruin the decent people we do have, it is hard to see how we can ever win this battle.
Allen West Tells Obama, Reid, Pelosi ‘Get the Hell Out of the USA’
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8YDnd1Yoyk&feature=player_embedded
Well, I don’t know about finding a really good candidate, but I’ll settle for one who isn’t a slimeball.
That leaves Gingrich, Santorum and Ron Paul.
This. Exactly this.
Wow, great idea. Let’s think of some other names we can call him.
I am thinking you are just having a bad day, proreason, but I do hope you have an even worse day tomorrow.
Roger: excellent analysis. Wh at staggers me is that you could write it an not once use the word “Socialism”.
The coming election is essentially, choosing either the course of Socialism or moving back to the capitalistic practices of government and commerce that have brought us to our high stature among all nations. “Liberalism”,” Leftism” Progressivism” are the sheep’s-clothing euphemisms of Marxism, of whatever degree of commitment. The insistence of conservative writers and commentators to avoid the simple, clear, descriptive term “Socialism” is inexplicable.
Yhe Choice is GOP whoever versus setting Socialism in concrete.
stuart, I think he is a totalitarian and a Communist. That is a term that hasn’t been in use for so long that the younger folks will have to look it up. Like you, I can’t understand why we don’t call Obama what he is before he gets another chance to paint himself with some color besides his actual communist red.
It seems we go through this kind of anxiety every election cycle. Every candidate has shortcomings, even the near saint Reagan was severely criticized in his time. Let’s chill a bit.
As to the Tea Party, yes we look at both parties with jaded eyes – but much more so at the Democrats. As to the GOP, I think the Tea Party serves more as its conscience.
I saw Paul Ryan today (his 42nd birthday) on with Chris Wallace.
Sigh.
What could have been.
Here is someone articulating, like an adult…precisely what the problems are, how to fix them, why Obama is wrong and headed even further in the wrong direction.
He’s more adult than the “B” teamers who have two decades on him. It’s a crying shame, really.
You know…I wonder what a debate between Mitch Daniels, Paul Ryan, John Thune and Chris Christie might have looked and sounded like. NO Protocols of Elders, no dirty tricks, cheap shots, no trashing the free market, …a sound, solid, stable display of knowledge on issues that matter, solutions that are not far-fetched and inane.
What should have been.
WE SHOULD HAVE DEMANDED BETTER.
Amen.
I agree. And if being mature and adult means being thoughtful and making good decisions, no wonder he didn’t subject himself to the presidential politics circus.
He is also a very astute politician and he won’t run for President unless there is no incumbent in the race. Same goes for Rubio, Christie and others. His time in the sun will come and we will probably be around to see it.
Good analysis and I agree with you Roger. You write that you are searching for a “principled conservative” who believes in liberty, freedom, small government, not interfering with the affairs of other nations, etc. – then we already have such a candidate. Evidently he is invisible to many “so-called conservatives” – and this is Ron Paul.
Add up the polling numbers of Gingrich, Santorum and Paul and you have a combined sub-total higher than Romney – plus lets face it, which candidate (either Republican or Democrat) has more truly independent and committed supporters than Rep. Paul?
If the supposed “intellectual conservatives” would cut their financial cords from the Israel Lobby and opt for intellectual integrity then the conservative sheep would follow and get behind Rep. Paul – and I suggest that would present a real alternative to Obama and that Paul would have a good chance of being the next president of the US. However, in your article, you don’t even consider Rep. Paul as a potential candidate evidently.
What am I missing here?
“If the supposed “intellectual conservatives” would cut their financial cords from the Israel Lobby and opt for intellectual integrity then the conservative sheep would follow and get behind Rep. Paul ”
That statement obviates the answer to your question: Brain cells.
The… Israel lobby…? Joooos. This is the Ron Paul credo in a nutshell. Abandon the Jews. Who cares about another Holocaust?
Let’s leave the Jews out of it, for just a sec, okay? How about I pose you a different question on foreign policy?
The reason Paul is not sweeping this election is specifically because of his foreign policy. His foreign policy views are toxic. They are only embraced by the fringes of America. Yet he never considers altering his views, never accepts that the American people flat-out reject them. He could get all his other things done, if he would just accept that America rejects the foreign policy that he is peddling.
So, the question is, why won’t he acquiesce, for the greater good? Why won’t he accept America’s rejection of his foreign policy? I mean, just how stupid is that? Or is it just his fanaticism which prevents it? His complete inflexibility?
It doesn’t matter if he is right or not. If I step in front of a speeding truck, because I have the right-of-way, I am right. Dead right. It is a stupid, fanatical thing to do. Crazy Uncle Ron Paul. It’s why he will not get the nomination.
If I were a truly popular, Conservative Presidential candidate, I would choose Ron Paul as my first-term running mate. Assassination deterrence.
Kimball reveals an embarrassing gap in his reading: Mill was not a “liberal” by today’s US definition. He lived in mid-nineteenth century Britain so his liberalism was “classical liberalism”, more like today’s libertarianism than either the Republican or Democratic parties of today. His opponents—conservatives—were holding back progress, for sure, and that’s by either party’s definition. Conservatives existed to say “no” to liberals. Liberals were the revolutionaries of the day. They strove to adapt the political system to capitalism. Today’s US liberals are analogous to Mill’s conservatives: they strive to maintain, ie, conserve, yesterday’s system out of an ideology that just won’t die. Today’s conservatives are analogous to Mill’s liberals: they strive to adapt the system to a new world situation, with its as-yet unnamed economic and political systems.
Your’s is a straw-man argument. He never said Mills was a 21st century liberal.
http://evilbloggerlady.blogspot.com/2012/01/he-who-must-be-destroyed-palinization.html He who must be destroyed, the Palinization of Newt Gingrich is an ugly thing…
stupid parties and stupid political commentators expect intelligent neutral people to be persuaded by a string of insults.
The party is not killing itself. Mitt is an establishment usurper. His aim is to use Alinsky tactics to persuade the party that Obama is difficult to beat, that they must make up their minds now, he is Ward Cleaver in a bad mood and he will just make you do it anyways because…well, because he has never touched himself ‘down there’ and he doesn’t drink coffee! Yes, this is the way to treat these rowdy Teabaggers! The only hope that ‘the rest of the party’ has is to deny Mitt the nomination, roll into the convention locked up, and duke it out there. This isn’t Newt’s fault or the Tea Party’s. It is Mitt’s strategy that is causing what you see. Mitt should have gotten in front of the Tea Party three years ago, his Wall Street backers probably said no, they had other plans. No common ground, no conciliation, we are returning it in kind. This kitchen is going to heat up. I’m wearing my oven mitts, er..gloves.
Who are those establishment guys, and how did they get into such a club?
I’m a precinct captain in the Republican Party in Arizona and a Tea Party supporter/member. This article is spot on.
This may not be the best of analogies, but for those who remember their WWII history it seems the modern day Republican Party, is to the Democrat Party what Vichy France was to Axis Germany.
And I’m NOT calling the democrats Nazi’s – I’m describing a relationship between organizations – one aggressively pursuing its objectives and one standing timidly on the sidelines comfortable in their defeated compliant position.
The Republican establishment is far more comfortable collaborating with Democrats than they are in fighting for the reforms the nation desperately needs to survive. We may be getting close to the time when we out right reject the Republican party in favor of a new Constitution-oriented Conservative Party.
I’m very afraid that if the establishment shoves the “go-along-to-get-along” moderate down our throat (as certainly seems to be the case) that’s what will happen. November will bring an Obama victory and perhaps with it the practical end of the Republican party.
If we are doomed to loose to Obama in November, I’d much rather go down fighting with Newt (or Santorum or even Paul) than with a collaborator like Romney.
If we are to “go down fighting” as you say, then lets at least go down and build a future for ourselves with Rep. Paul – who has been principled in opposing big government for many years. Yes, Santorum is conservative about abortion but he is not conservative about individual rights such as the rights of gays – he handpicks who would have rights.
The track record of both Sen. Santorum and Speaker Gingrich is very clear with regard to their support for earmarks in their states / districts. Among the four only Ron Paul has demonstrated true conservative values.
Gentlemen,
From Jim Baker to Washington 76, I don’t want to annoy or insult anyone. If I do, I apologize. BUT
Where your analysis lets me down is at the point when you’ve explained our problem.
There really are some A team thinkers in here. But you don’t give me solutions. Either you tell me how awful it’ll be to have another four years of Obama. Or you lay out some great names of candidates you’d have loved to see.
I loved the question raised as to what a debate would’ve been like with some of those great names.
I’m afraid, though, it ain’t gonna happen.
Bill Bernbach would say: whether you’re selling Apple Jack cereal or a zoo in San Diego”the riskiest thing you can do is run safe advertising.” To me, Mitt Romney is the caricature of the safe choice. McCain was pathetic. That’s not 20/20 hindsight. That’s going blind, deaf and dumb into a Presidential election.
If it were up to me, in the primaries I’d have made sure Ryan and Rubio were there, as well as the names cf talked about. When the progressives and their media wing, the Times and Post newspapers et al started spewing out their lying edged bias, I’d have thrown it right back in their faces. The Newt/Mitt war was a idiot’s mistake. The target should have always been the wrong headed left, headlined by Big Ears himself.
But now, today, we’re got a batting order that not only can’t hit a 90 mph fastball, but can’t pick a throw out of the dirt. No power. No speed. And Abe Gibron is the coach. The second baseman is chewing out the shortstop.
But, for what it’s worth, I’ll give you my solution.
The 11,000 Marines that battled the Japs for six months on Guadalcanal fought like the leftists fight. They took no prisoners. It was a battle of personal destruction.
Introducing the politics of personal destruction, conservative style.
To begin with, I’d turn all that racist crap around and shove it down progressive throats. Obama’s given us a treasure trove of stuff. From white males are racist cowards to the Black Panthers had every right to intimidate white people on election day. I’d tar the NY Times and the rest of the media with the same brush.
I’d Palinize and Gingrich every biased, editor reporter, TV shill, staff member, czar; any member of Obama’s administration. All targets of opportunity I’d destroy. I’d personally destroy Newsweek.
When leftist union rallies threatened Republican/tea party groups, I’d have the beef to back them down. I’d pay off anybody that needed paying off.
I’d scream bloody murder about Obama’s killing of the Keystone Pipeline, tie it to job killing. And shove it in the voters’ faces again and again. In a nice way.
I’d do TV commercials of Obama looting the treasury and morph it in with both stealing lunch money from kids and closing down kids’ lemonade stands.
BBDO NY would handle the marketing after I’d fire all the lame ass political puke hack media lightweight Republican establishment cronies who wouldn’t know a good idea if it slapped them in the face.
I’d balance the rough stuff with the most patriotic spots ever made; country loving voters; people clapping at airports for returning soldiers, sailors, flyers, Marines, special forces guys. (an old idea, but done in a great new way)I’d make commercials that have patriotic Americans sobbing; balance heart string spots with purse string spots, and explain how Obama is destroying America, and weakening the military like was done in the 1930′s.
I’d find dirt on members of the Obama administration (easy to do) and rub it in their faces. Expose every crook. And when the newspapers wouldn’t talk about things like Operation Fast and Furious, I’d put conservative debate pros on Sunday Morning liberal puke news; Meet the Press, Face the Nation, This Week with George one step below the Rosenburgs-poulos.
With this in mind.
Most everything done would have the independent vote in mind. It would be a balancing act. And risky. But with Romney leading the charge, we need the best darn trumpet blower we can find.
If I’ve offended anybody here, I apologize. If I’m wrong, stupid, a nut job, you don’t have to take the time to tell me. I’ll stipulate that you’re probably right. But there might be something here worth considering. I’ve got to admit. I feel like Davy Crockett at the Alamo.
PTSD?
I think Romney said it best: “I’ve been successful as a leader — I didn’t get pushed out as leader.” Americans don’t have any patience. They won’t tolerate someone who doesn’t pass some retarded checklist, even if it means electing a tyrant instead. We call ourselves land of the free, home of the brave, but frankly I don’t think we can be said to be either. Land of the scared, home of the knave seems more fitting. Americans are too stuck in petty and irrelevant things to see to their own system and its long-term maintenance, and the result is that candidates who will actually stand for these things never get developed to the point where they can be president. You don’t just walk to the door and say “sign me up to be president.” To be a successful presidential candidate takes experience and, frankly, getting your foot in the door over the years to get that experience, and the American people throw the door in their face every time. We have to have our corny boyscout, even if he means to destroy our future.
Yes, we must stop the evil Mitt, who’s only goal is to destroy America!!!
I think that there are 4 requirements for a serious candidate:
1) Convictions – Has held sincere, mature convictions through much of his/her public career and mostly acted in keeping with those convictions
2) Big Problem of the Era – Can’t be implicated in perpetrating or abetting the financial crisis, and preferably proposed policy solutions before and during the crisis that give credibility to the claim he/she could handle the next phase of the crisis. You never hire the guy that caused the most recent major problem. Looking to the future, has had something substantive to say about the debt crisis.
3) Scandal – Has not disgraced himself/herself with embarrassing personal behavior, particularly with unethical behavior as a public servant and doesn’t have statements on the record that suggest scandalous ideas
4) Qualified – Has experience managing a large organization and an adult-level engagement with public policy so that s/he isn’t learning on the job.
Examining the candidates:
Romney: No to 1 and 2, yes to 3 and 4
Gingrich: Yes to 1 and partly 4, no to 2 and 3.
Cain: Funny …
Huntsman: Yes to 3 and 4, no real evidence for 2 and okay for 1 (although some conservatives might not be happy with the positions)
Pawlenty: Yes to 1, 3 and 4, and respectable for 2.
Santorum: Yes to 1, 3 and the second half of 4. No particular distinction for 2, and no to the first half of 4 (minor Senate leadership posts don’t count).
Bachmann: Yes to 1, no to 4. No particular distinction for 2 and your opinion on 3 depends on how you view her speeches.
Perry: Yes to 1, no to 4, no particular distinction for 2 and somewhat shaky on 3.
Paul: Yes to 1 and perhaps 2. Yes to the second half of 4 and no to the first half. Pretty shaky on 3. (His views are far enough outside the mainstream that it would be difficult for him to lead. There aren’t enough people that agree with him already to follow his policy suggestions).
Palin: Good grief to the crazy Palin people. If you quit the one real public service job you had, you can’t be president. Anyway, yes to 1, no distinction for 2, no to 4 and sketchy on 3.
Obama: Yes to 1 (although a little problematic), 3 and (now, although it was a definite no the first time around) 4. Undistinguished for 2.
The problem for the Republicans in the next election is that the Democrats have the better candidate. I disagree with him about almost everything, and don’t think he’s been good for the country. However, he’s a better candidate than the Republicans can offer. As Kimball has effectively indicated, Republicans are being suicidally stupid. You had at least one candidate (Pawlenty) who was qualified, and the electorate wasn’t interested. The other, Santorum, that can’t be ruled out automatically hasn’t been taken very seriously (although, “There’s nothing terribly wrong with me, unlike everyone else” isn’t a very effective campaign slogan). The important question for Republicans to ask is why such obviously disqualified candidates have been taken seriously and others have been discouraged from running.
It seems to me that one wing of the party wants someone exciting and is willing to sacrifice responsibility and seriousness for this. They cycled through Bachmann, Cain, Gringrich and wouldn’t mind Palin. In promoting the most serious of those candidates, Gingrich, Republicans seem to have forgotten all the things they said about Clinton.
The other wing of the party wants to win. This might be out of desperation to get rid of Obama or to preserve their current political spoils and get some new ones. Most of us find people who are willing to sacrifice their values and convictions in order to win repugnant. So why do we want a party leader like that, and most importantly, why do we want to be like that?
I would hope that there are enough people out there that don’t fit into either of those groups to demand something better. Don’t accept extortion attempts waiving Supreme Court Justices or Obamacare repeal in your face in order to get you to support a loser.
Tim, you make up four categories of opinions and you throw all the candidates into each of your four constructs. After mixing and matching with your own perceptions you come out of the whole box with your conclusions about who is qualified and who is not to be President. And then you assert a fact from all of your contrived data. The AGW crowd uses the same technique and calls it science. You seem more honest than that. But you do seem like a Democrat working for the Obama campaign.
Jim,
The criteria I’ve presented aren’t opinions, they are criteria used to judge a candidates qualification to be president. Of course, these are my perceptions of the candidates performance in each of these categories, but I have fairly standard views on the subject. I think my perception reflects fairly widespread views in each case. I don’t see why this is contrived. I think the Republican candidate field is extraordinarily poor and largely filled with people who should have not been seriously considered from the beginning or who have demonstrated in the course of the campaign that they wouldn’t be effective presidents. Pawlenty seemed qualified to me, and possibly Santorum and Huntsman. I don’t find any strong reason to consider Santorum or Huntsman other than that they aren’t Obama, but that’s something. I suppose the Obama campaign would share the opinion that the Republican candidates aren’t qualified to be president, but my point is that most everyone should think this whether they are liberal or conservative. If so, people who care about fixing problems in the country should do everything they can to encourage the entry of a serious conservative candidate. I know you’ve said that is what Obama wants people to think, but if I as a conservative, patriotic person would rather lose an election than elect Romney or Gingrich, what is the problem with that? Winning isn’t everything. Those men shouldn’t be president, and we should try to find someone we could respect in the job.
I didn’t waste my time reading it. Too d**ed long.
I shouldn’t have, but I did. I guess I would be a crappier candidate than all of our candidates are, eh?
I look here in vain for a sensible definition of what makes conservatives today “smart” and not complicit in the stupidity of the stupid party. One crank after another, and now a true megalomaniac, have stepped forward to the wild applause of the “base.” Each has imploded (is imploding) for the same reason. The base itself. The base does not face facts about conservativism in the age of big government. And despite what Clinton said, that is the age we are in still. No conservative in power is ever going to come close to doing what the base fools itself into thinking it wants. Much smaller and much less involved governent. Why? Because the base itself would not back it and because the nature of the world we inhabit will not allow it. Efficient and effective government, on the other hand, is what people do want and what the Democrats are incapable of delivering. If Republicans could honestly argue a specific case for how to achieve it, they would win hands down. We are in a new era. The old top-down model the Democrats cling to is dying or dead. A way to something new is open. But conservatives who prattle on about small government only distract and thwart the rise of real leaders able to define that new way. Meanwhile bitter invective fills in the dimly perceived gap between conservative intentions and conservative understanding. Sarah Palin can actually accuse other Republicans of “Stalinisim”! Detached from reality totally. Pathetic.
Today’s conservatives — Christian ethics, individual freedom, gold standards etc. — are yesterday’s liberals.
Speaking of “suicide”…Romney Explains Why He Can’t Beat Obama
http://spectator.org/archives/2012/01/30/romney-explains-why-he-cant-be
DON’T BELIEVE THE POLLS: UNLEASH GINGRICH IN 2012!
Ed. Maybe there is time to get just one more Romney smear link into this blog site before tomorrow’s primary in Florida. But I am not from Florida and I won’t be reading any of your campaign drivel even when the process reaches my state. I will be at my caucus when it does come up and, even if Gingrich is a slam dunk, I plan to speak for another candidate instead. You may get one or two actual Florida Republicans to read this link, but I hope you don’t get your desired result.
Mitt Romney as FLIPPER…hilarious!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=5WdkEc4mZF0
You did it! YES!! Now you can go away.