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Handicapping the Republican Presidential Hopefuls
The biggest issue with the current crop of Republican presidential candidates rests in the one characteristic they all share: that they are all politicians. Okay, so Dr. Carson is no politician, but he’s not a viable candidate, either. Let’s start with Jeb Bush. He used to be the most conservative of the Bushes, but he traded that in for what I’m sure he believes is practicality. It’s not. It’s not even compromise. It’s weakness. The media senses it, and they cheer for him. DocJay is right: Jeb is Hillary’s mark and nothing smacks more of politics than the Bush Dynasty.
Scott Walker is a fighter, no doubt, but his hands are still stained permanently with the ink of taxpayer dollars. In his short life, he’s been a politician… and nothing else. Chris Christie was a prosecutor before he immersed himself in politics. If there’s one thing nearly as disqualifying of politicians as politics, it’s the practice of law and — worse yet — the practice of law on the government payroll. Private practice is narrowly qualifying, but double-damn on those who cash a government check. And while Christie never had my vote, he earned my contempt when he wrapped his beefy arm around our President, seeking favor after disaster.
Rand Paul is an MD, an Ophthalmologist. So far, so good. His experience in politics is limited to the Senate but — in spite of his sometimes surly demeanor — his pedigree makes him yet another politician, yet another political legacy. And with this legacy comes the scent of his father’s kookiness. Ted Cruz is yet another lawyer, the former Solicitor General for the state of Texas, though he spent several years in private practice. As with Rand Paul, his first elected office is the US Senate.
Marco Rubio is yet another lawyer, but he skipped the lawyering and jumped straight into politics. Mike Huckabee — who the media likes to consider (proof, in their minds, of the evil mix of Christianity with politics that is conservatism) from time to time — is a former governor and pastor. But, really folks, can we really elevate another Arkansas Governor to the highest office in the country?
So what is a good conservative to do? The bench, we are told is deep, yet their experience seems tremendously shallow. Still, none can be labeled a rich snob — okay, maybe Jeb — or a “vulture capitalist.” I’m thinking Ted Cruz or Marco Rubio. Cruz is the more accomplished lawyer and has the intellectual chops to move the country to the right, but Rubio is more earnest and accomplished as a politician. Together they are like black beans and rice, I don’t care who leads the ticket.
I want an all Senate, all Cuban-American ticket. Maybe then the Latino vote will move to the right. In any case, Hillary will be apoplectic as she scrambles to keep her coalition of the aggrieved together.
Published in Politics
Expected Value. Regardless of the winningness of honest campaigning, the losingness of this race-pandering is off the charts.
The constructive alternative to a house on fire is a house not on fire. We don’t need a glide slope from fire to not fire, and we don’t need to offer alternatives such as friction or a death ray to replace the “lost” heat.
Pandering would be offering up a less-than-Conservative ticket because “at least they’re Hispanic”, but Rubio and Cruz are both authentically Conservative and articulate spokesmen for it to boot.
Hey, Rubio is your guy if you like your conservatism all full of amnesty and the flaming wreckage of his first attempt at selling us out to join the CommieCrats.
My my my, what short memories we have.
I agree with you about the politician thing, but you would have to agree that as far as politicians go Walker is about as least offensive as you can get.
Yeah, it’s easy to forget when a politician learns from a mistake and offers up a sincere and thoughtful mea culpa. I like a pol who can acknowledge it and make an authentic apology.
Sucker.
Perhaps it’s time to forget Rubio’s attempt at immigration reform. Chalk it up to not understanding national democrats are different from state democrats, and that the federal congress has little relationship to a state legislature.
Because let’s face it. We ALL know the whole immigration issue is totally screwed up. It WILL need serious revamping. But it also requires some serious control of the border (it’s too much to ask that the federal government moves away from welfare, so making many of the immigration issues moot).
I think Rubio was sincere. I just think he was naive. He thought he was dealing with a different kind of democrat – one who actually wanted to help his state, not a power-hungry rabid dog democrat who doesn’t give a farthing for his “state”. Except in Illinois, there aren’t a lot of Harry Reids, Chuck Schumers, or Turbin Durbins at state levels. [N.B. I am not trying to claim state democrats are all kumbaya types – witness Illinois and Wisconsin as examples. But overall they seem more likely to make some attempt to work things out. It usually isn’t Russia-in-retreat-across-the-steppes.]
I hate to agree, but sometimes I think we make the mistake of critiquing our candidates instead of the electorate. If Obama picked up six points just for being black, Hillary will have a similar solid-six just for being a woman. That’s how the voters roll.
If all we want to do is win while playing the identity-politics game, I’ve long thought our only choice is Condi Rice. While I’m very impressed with Carly Fiorina, she lacks the all-important component of color.
Condi Rice hits the grand slam — a personal and poignant civil rights back-story as a black girl growing up in the South, a woman, and of, um, indeterminate sexual orientation with no Bubba Bill Clinton around to muck things up.
I’m kind of kidding, but kind of not. This identity-politics garbage is for losers, but lots of Americans have decided to go with it. If not that, then they’ll still vote for Hillary because Republicans = conservatives = evil. And, barring these two reasons, the Obama administration has tipped most of the people into being clients of the state, and no conservative Cuban/Latino Republican will ever offer them enough “free” stuff to get elected.
We’re screwed.
Have a nice day.
Kasich made his marks first in the House, before he became governor. He still has the stink of Washngton clinging to him. I would have a hard time jumping on an early bandwagon for any creature of Washington.
Though I am enthusiastic about Gov. Walker, he is still needed in Wisconsin and he has a lot of room to develop stature before he could credibly be the Republican presidential candidate.
Rick Perry?
Perry/ Fiorina seems like a capable, credible pairing at this point.
Right. I would be with you on the non-joking half except that if we ran Condi (even pre-State Condi), we would just be called on our obvious shenanigans with nowhere left to go. This is the great Faust of trying to adapt democrat tricks. They only work for democrats.
WC, you have probably hit is just about square.
People will vote democrat because “she’s the first woman president”, never mind she is a Mummy. They will simply add the Republicans=conservatives=evil portion out of habit. Just like they vote democrat out of habit. Look at downstate Illinois. They are pretty solid democrat and have been for many, many years. Yet they have almost to commonality with democrats either nationally or even in their state, where the bulk of democrats come from Cook County. Their issues are generally Republican ones. THEY are the reason Illinois has a CCW that is SHALL ISSUE and pre-emption; Madigan was NOT going to allow that until they simply told him they would not vote for any bill that didn’t have that. Today there are bills in both houses making silencers legal in Illinois. ?Think that would have ever floated with the Chicago gangsters. Yet they can’t break their bond with the democrats and go with where their interests are represented.
West Virginia is a lot like that, too. Joe Manchin doesn’t fit the modern democrat profile at all. The South has finally come to its senses and realized that the democrats no longer offer anything reasonable. Would that other historic democrats do the same.
To those who ciriticize Rubio for promoting so called amnesty, first, remember that your icon of modern conservatism, Ronaldus Maximus Reaganus, legalized millions of illegals. Rubio may have been suckered into another Reagaesque fiasco, but as soon as he realized that his support would have been hijacked by Democrats bent on opening the borders, he backed off. That’s the lesson of comprehensive anything; the devil is in the details and the details are too easily manipulated to trust the efforts made in the many compromises required to get the effort passed. Rubio abandonned the initiative and hence doomed the entire enterprise. In essence, he allowed everyone to see what the Democrats really wanted to do.
Be assured. We will have immigration reform. Current policy is absurd and cannot stand. This will include a way to “legalize” many here illegally, call it what you will. Cry all you want, but our federal government instigated this problem by irresponsible omission. They are, in essence, its creator. We drained Mexico of its productive citizenry (and left it to the drug lords) and they will never go back. We own this problem. We must stop the inflow and have a reckoning with the illegal. Who better to lead that thoughtful charge than Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz?
I want to add something about Carly Fiorina. I agree that her days at HP were mediocre at best, though rising to the top of that venerable company was indeed a feat. Of course, she then bisected the company and eliminated the raw technology and sciences part, the part that gave it its identity and technological muscle, and turned it into an assembler of PCs and a maker of generic printer cartridges and their dispensers. Sure, the scientific instruments business was just steady and unglamorous, but it gave HP its edge. She turned HP into a commodity business chasing the next big thing.
That being said, she is articulate, conservative, smart, eager and seems to want to spend her wealth chasing politial office. Her problem: she can’t seem to win.
You don’t “accidentally” conspire to shoot at your own troops. He appears unreasonably valuable to you because you’re drinking the race-bait.
Maybe it will and maybe it won’t. Even if it does, at what cost? You’re this far from crumbling completely in the face of democrat-media epithets like “capitalist”. Get a grip.
(Love the post.)
I’d prefer a sitting governor, and Walker fits the mold. I also like Jindal but don’t know if he has the presence required.
Kasich? Maybe, but…
Doug Kimball: #42 “We drained Mexico of its productive citizenry (and left it to the drug lords) and they will never go back. We own this problem. We must stop the inflow and have a reckoning with the illegal.”
There is another view of this problem. The policies of the Mexican government worked against its citizens. Anyone who thinks that these people wanted to abandon everything that they were used to and comfortable with to dash across the border might want to reconsider. Does anyone believe that if those people could find suitable employment where they were at, that they would throw that away and go north?
We – the businesses who used these people – caused the government to cast a blind eye to what was occurring. That is what has caught up to us, and we still don’t recognize the problems with Mexican decisions that caused Mexicans to flee Mexico.
Heard you might need to handicap somebody.
Well of course the leading candidates are all politicians. The job of President is a political office. The last thing that we need is a political neophyte in the White House.
We lawyers get a bad rap too. Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Hamilton, Jackson and Lincoln were all lawyers.
My favorite candidate right now is Scott Walker.
I’d like to have a primary season before we pick our candidate. Each one has positives and negatives on paper, but we don’t know how any of them will perform until they are on the trail and on the stage. Last go round we were told what a “deep bench” we had, and we ended up settling for the Stepford candidate who smiled perfectly while he got his clock cleaned.
I’m actually not overly concerned with sHrillary. Sure, she’d be the first woman at the top of the ticket, but Americans feel much less collective guilt about historic treatment of women, and Obama was a charmer. sHrillary does not have the ability to make people love her. As Jonah likes to say, she is every man’s first ex-wife. She cannot win on national guilt. She will have to convince people to vote for her, and she is the human embodiment of the Howard Dean scream, only with less energy and more botox.
I’ve come around to the view that Rubio is by far the strongest likely candidate (on either side) when it comes to adding up the superficial factors that don’t make much difference to me but which sadly contribute to winning elections much more than being the most qualified or having the best policies. Those factors are:
1. His youth.
2. His attractiveness.
3. His race.
4. His “likability”.
5. His remarkable public speaking abilities.
6. The fact that he represents Florida, a vital swing state.
By my estimation, he trumps Hillary on all of these factors. The only two factors she brings in over him are the Clinton name (still a plus to lovers of Bill) and her gender. And while I’ve learned to put very little faith in the general electorate, I actually don’t think her being a woman will be nearly as much of an automatic boon as Obama’s race was. I mean, just look how that matchup turned out in the 2008 primaries. In a Rubio vs. Hillary matchup, the identity politics could very well just offset each other.
I think this is pretty spot on. I’ll just add that the fact that she lost her California race to Barbara Boxer reflects more poorly on California voters than it does on her.
Jeb Bush will get more of the Latino vote than either Rubio or Cruz. You’re handicapping seems to imply that none of the leaders can win. I disagree. Bush, Walker, or Rubio can win. The question is who’s the best of the three. Walker and Rubio each have some diffiencies. Rubio is a one term Senator and Walker has no foreign policy experience. Jeb is the most well rounded of all the candidates and has cross over appeal.
Manny
Jeb Bush will get more of the Latino vote than either Rubio or Cruz. You’re handicapping seems to imply that none of the leaders can win. I disagree. Bush, Walker, or Rubio can win. The question is who’s the best of the three. Walker and Rubio each have some diffiencies. Rubio is a one term Senator and Walker has no foreign policy experience. Jeb is the most well rounded of all the candidates and has cross over appeal.
Of course I’m having fun and being the provocateur. We have many smart and accomplished men and women, conservatives all, running for this office. The each have their strengths and weaknesses. And though I rank Cruz and Rubio as my fav’s, I understand that they are like fraternal twins and hence unlikely to be on the ticket together – the Republicans will bend over for the diversity crowd and negate one or the other as too white, too Cuban, too Senatorial, too young, too inexperienced, etc. And I also understand that Cubans are not Latino enough just like Jews and Asina are not “minority” enough and wymyn, who make up the majority, represent a “minority.” It’s a strange world.
I still think that this is Walker’s rookie start as a big leaguer. I doubt he’ll be promoted to clean-up, but he might make the starting line-up. More likely though, he’ll play a few games and be sent back to AAA to work out a few bugs in his game.
I think most Rs can win this time.
I worry about which ones would have the executive chops and spine to actually move the dial on the scope of our government.
I think Rand Paul has the spine, despite being a senator. He is libertarian to his marrow. Executive chops? Who knows.
Cruz might have the spine, too. He truly is unafraid. Both these guys have no problem with criticism from the media, and that is essential to have any chance moving the dial.
Rubio? No executive chops. No record taking heat and not bending. I like him, really I do. But how effectively could he roll back Obama??? Not remotely convinced.
Walker has the chops, and he seems to have the spine as well. He is not as rightwing as I think the nation actually needs, but I think he might just be right enough.
Arizona Patriot
Well of course the leading candidates are all politicians. The job of President is a political office. The last thing that we need is a political neophyte in the White House.
We lawyers get a bad rap too. Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Hamilton, Jackson and Lincoln were all lawyers.
My favorite candidate right now is Scott Walker.
Ah yes, but so many career politicians and people who’ve spent their lives in government. I want someone who’s had a life outside of government, but alas. And come on, who can pass up a chance to poke fun at lawyers? I can’t. Feel free to make a joke about accountants. I won’t mind.
This sorta hurts because last go-round I was suckered into thinking Paul Ryan had it all. The fact that he didn’t even have what it takes to sink Joe Biden in a debate has humbled me considerably. But like any 12-yr-old, I’d like to point out I wasn’t the only one. Now where did WC go?
Agreed. We’re not going to get traction with Latinos or any other minorities for that matter by playing on the Democrats’ field. And after the Left’s long march through all the institutions that “inform” and “educate” Americans, all the fields belong to the Democrats.
The only thing I expect to find more depressing than election day 2016 is inauguration day 2017. I’m starting now to gird my loins.
P.S. I’ve heard FoxNews radio describe Hillary and Barack as “friends,” although he’s not endorsing her. Those are supposedly “our” guys reporting the “facts.” You can’t make this shtuff up.
I don’t disagree with this; his immediate family (particularly son George P) would be enormously helpful.
Busy girding…
/that debate was so, so awful. I’m still mortified for Ryan.
Some further thoughts Manny on your comment as I have honestly been a bit puzzled by Jeb’s decision to enter this race. The Bush family is not comprised of entitled ego-maniacals (aka the Kennedys).
Maybe they know something I don’t know and you may have hit on it?