Who’s Next?
November 14th, 2005 - 12:25 am
Given Ross Perot much thought lately? Even if you haven’t, Karl Rove should be thinking about little else.
Before we get to that, let’s give President Bush some small credit for his big speech last week. Usually, what passes for a big foreign policy speech from Bush the last year is just another “stay the course” yawner, given in front of some cherry-picked audience. Instead, Bush
If Perot would carry on Bush’s strategy on the Middle East, that would be fine with me. That’s my main issue for the forseeable future. That’s why I hope they are smart enough to nominate Guiliani. Who would cream Perot and everyone else.
Even if the Republicans nominate someone lackluster and dumb, we haven’t elected a 3rd-party candidate in how many decades? I just don’t see it.
Well, like it or not, the Afghan campaign is going to NATO. The major units we’ve got there now are all one’s that are tasked as NATO support, and they’re returning to base by basically next summer. That NATO is gonna follow on is dictated by the way the training budget has been run for about the last twenty years, which is, we spend it, they poach on it. For the last two years, the US units have spent their training budgets in Afghanistan, building bases, roads, airfields, etc. So if the europeans want to use any of the new stuff, this is where they’ll have to go.
Does the 22nd Amendment really apply to Bush? It states quite clearly that it applies to “elected” Presidents. Bush was “selected” by SCOTUS in 2000. therefore, it would appear to me that he could legally run again in 2008. Sure there would be legal challenges all the way to the top. But we all know who the Supremes sign backup for.
Is it too early to panic?
You make the fatal error of assuming George W. is a fiscal conservative or even knows what one is. Many of us held our nose and voted for Bush for two reasons; the War on Terrorism and the Supreme Court.
This, for those who haven’t clued in, is why we were so extremely upset about Harriet Miers. We knew Bush would screw up the budget and would very like be the source of scandals, but at least he would nominate a respectible non-liberal for the supreme court vacancies which would surely happen.
I knew Bush sucked on the economy and budget and it pissed me off that I was given only extreme alternatives. But then again, does anyone really believe that Kerry wouldn’t have made things almost infinitely worse?
(I even knew Bush didn’t have the backbone to veto anything. I hoped, apparently in vain, that he would grow balls his second term but, alas, he’s still a empty suit.)
I almost wonder if Hilary Clinton might be the better choice in 2008. She’s been making the right sorts of noises about the war, and a Republican Congress (if it survives 2006) will start showing some backbone, like the last time we had a Clinton as president.
Remember, due to gerrymandering of safe seats, the lap-dog Republican Congress in 2001-present is effectively the same people who gave Bill Clinton such a hard time from 1995-2001.
Anthony,
Yes let’s vote for the woman who believes in the “vast right wing conspiracy,” who wants to “take things away from [us] for the common good.”
Yeah, that’s such a good plan. I’d vote for *McCain* over Clinton, and I detest McCain.
Something smart from Boston for a chance. Thank you. Only thing that matters is national security. When the Islamic terrorists are history, is time enough to start kvetching about domestic issues.
Until then stay the course.
Section 1. No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once.
I think we’re safe, Burt.
Stephen, it looks like the President is “keepin’ up the skeer”
M. Malkin has an advance release excerpt tonight and, yeah, he gives the Dems the dead fish slap again.
Good news.
Wait’ll DeLay gets back. I’ll bet he’s gonna be in a REAL bipartisan mood…
Bush at this point looks like Harry Truman Part II: he will leave office with his party a shambles, his domestic agenda a wreck, his approval ratings in tatters – but 50 years on, he’ll be remembered for getting the Big Things right.
I think your premonition may be more accurate than you know, but the model is closer to the Bull Moose than to the Cuban Hit-Team Party.
The most mystifying dynamic in political life in recent years (for me) has been the rabid, purblind hatred of John McCain by so many of the Republican punditocracy. If McCain has a strong centrist backing but is denied the nomination by another smarmy Pat Robertson type (Allen, Frist, Brownback, etc.) I could easily envision an internet party campaign for a McCain/Lieberman ticket.
In my opinion the choice is a GW’s; He can pretend to be friends with the Liberals who hate him and hold up their agenda, and slowly wave in the wind, or he can embrace the Reagan agenda and rise from the ashes.
What I would do:
1. Continue slamming the Democrats with their own words on Saddam pre war.
2. Go visit the Reagan memorial
3. Begin doing more press meetings and put out a new agenda of:
a) Border control–Go down and shake hands with the border patrol (and hire more) as well as begin construction of a wall; to fend off Libs speak of the non mexican Arabic speaking peoples that are being apprehended.
b) Start vetoing Bills…and take on the Liberal RINOs and their porkbarrel spending
c) Visit the UN and call for action to reel in Syria “The murderer of our soldiers and the trainer of terrorists”
d) Give a speech demanding action toward energy exploration in America, coupled with alternative energy research.
Well thats a beginning..lol
What he said
if I was in my mid-thirties and had a couple billion dollars to spend, I could be that nutcase
I’d been supporting the GOP on the same grounds as JoeW: the War on Terrorism, and the Supreme Court. Even though Bush & Co. blew everything else domestically, expanding the welfare state by a third above Clinton’s.
Well, you now have Senate Republicans throwing in the towel on Iraq, and Bush’s first choice to replace O’Connor on the Supreme Court is Harriet Miers.
So what’s left to support?
Here’s my summary judgment of “The Republican Betrayal of Individualism.”
Is George Bush Setting The Stage For Another Ross Perot?
One of many thoughts from Stephen Green, aka Vodka Pundit. A tiny taste (read it all yasself):
Kerry could have won in 2004 if he had run to Bush’s right on economics. Paint the Republicans as big spenders and a lot of people lose the last reason to vote for them. But this strategy would have meant advocating less spending and smaller government, which is so far from Democrat thinking that Kerry didn’t even consider it. Clinton, a shrewder politician, understood this and lied about cutting taxes; once in office, that was the first campaign promise he threw out.
Is George Bush Setting The Stage For Another Ross Perot?
One of many thoughts from Stephen Green, aka Vodka Pundit. A tiny taste (read it all yasself):
I will disagree with the various commenters — not only to this thread, but to every thread in every blog out there — who assure each other and all their readers that what’s needed for a candidate, whether Republican, Democrat, or independent to win in 2008 is a strong dose of fiscal conservativism.
Americans — all people, not just Americans — like Big Spending by Big Government…provided that the spending is on them, whilst the money comes from someone else. The Reagan tax rate cuts did succeed, albeit partially, in moving the fiscal support of Big Government — and the pain involved into doing — from the population as a whole to the upper class.
If K Street can’t foist a country-club Republican on us in 2008, the victory will go not someone on the conservative-libertarian border, but to a frank populist — economically liberal (with a certain bias toward the “little guy” because he’s little), socially conservative, and generally isolationist but defensively vicious in foreign policy.
The Downside of a Spending Revolt
The consequences of the choice we made in 2004 may be coming due. Somewhere in P-Town, Andrew Sullivan is laughing.