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Poison Pills
It’s quite a pell-mell race for the Republican nomination. There seems to be a whole spate of articles and political punditry asking what Republicans want in their nominee. In my judgement, this is a flawed question. My inclination towards negativity — i.e. correct and unassailable thought — lends itself to asking of the proper question: What factors should disqualify a candidate from being a nominee?
I call these “poison pills,” things that either primary voters or the general electorate won’t (or can’t) swallow. Being an arch-naysayer, I think I’ve come up with a pretty good list. After I made it, I began to cross-off the names of candidates who had one or another of these fatal flaws. I was left with few candidates and little hope. Below, is my decidedly unscientific disqualification list. Leave your own “poison pills” in the comments, or dispute some of mine.
- Supports Common Core;
- Fought public sector unions;
- Helped Obama get elected;
- From Texas;
- A former CEO;
- Never had an official legislative or executive position;
- Primarily defined in religious terms;
- Looks like a used car salesman;
- Has an isolationist or anti-intervention foreign policy;
- Not well-spoken; and
- Is named “Bush.”
I do think this is entirely possible. Politics is weird, turnout is different, and Wisconsin is complicated and isn’t necessarily responding well to the governor spending so much time in Iowa. But I don’t think it’s set in stone. The thing is, he doesn’t need to. It would be nice, but it’s not a critical state.
But no, they didn’t almost succeed in the recall — he won with more than he had previously. It was a comfortable margin of victory.
He’s a very, very skilled politician, and he knows how to address this issue. Right now, as a conservative candidate for the Republican nomination, he “took on the unions.” But by the time he became the presumptive nominee, it would’ve been about saving jobs. Because it did. And, just as they did in Wisconsin, the Left will scream and rant about his darkest evil intentions. But I don’t think ordinary people in Virginia and Florida and Ohio will ultimately vote against Walker because he restricted collective bargaining in Wisconsin five years previously.
Ohio killed Kasich when he took on the public sector unions. It was called something like senate bill 5 and it’s one of the things that helped Obama get re-elected. I have Virginia in the blue column for the forseeable future because of immigration and D.C. sprawl. without Ohio and Virginia there’s almost no path to victory for the Republican nominee.
Walker is a better politician than Kasich. But in spite of his demonstrated willingness to take on the unions, Kasich won reelection overwhelmingly. I know his opponent helped; evidently because being caught at night with a woman not your wife is a poison pill.
Jeopardizing national security to hide your own corruption is a poison pill, too. So is having your foundation take money from foreign governments you’re working with as Secretary of State. So is having the last name “Biden.” So is being a member of the Socialist Party.
Immoveable force meets immoveable object.
On Ricochet’s monthly Presidential poll, I again checked Marco Rubio. Many positives, no poison pills.
Going down the list trying to select choice #2 for that poll was extremely difficult.
Walker’s declaration speech seemed forced. Carly went full SoCon on Fox News Sunday. Perry’s attack on Trump was transparently self-serving. More toxic clouds: Cruz’ condescension; Kasich’s pious pocket picking; Paul’s isolationism and paranoia; Trump’s perpetual game face; Jeb’s everything; Graham’s RINO record; Christie stabbing Romney; the usual assortment of zealots; and Ben Carson’s vaporware action plan.
So I figured I’d better vote for George Pataki while he was still available.
Maybe this field isn’t as deep and rich as many have assumed. We’ll know more next Thursday.
What I said is actually the argument I’ve heard Kasich make (probably on talk radio). He’s also an unapologetic (refreshing!) Bible-believing Christian. It doesn’t trouble me in the least that he makes the moral/ethical/theological argument you’ve quoted. Do you think it’s inaccurate — from a Christian perspective?
In greater depth, I’ve heard him talk about the responsibility he felt to, for instance, uplift drug addicts living on the streets. Purely for practical reasons, isn’t it best to have the people in your state functioning at the highest level possible? His responsibility is to all the people of Ohio.
I believe there is a very strong biblical case that the way we as individuals treat the poor is important. I also believe Scripture is very clear that the way government treats the poor is important — justice to widows and orphans is a measure of honest government, and money corrupting justice is evil.
God does not command us to outsource our responsibility to the poor to the government. That doesn’t mean we can’t have a social safety net, but Kasich is trying to use Scripture as a cudgel over those who disagree with him about the wisdom of a specific policy preference, and I have a big problem with that.
That Medicaid money goes away in three years. Other governors — Walker, Perry, Jindal — have found it wiser to try to find other ways to help the poor in their state. It’s fine for Kasich to say that, as a Christian, he feels strongly about helping the poor and this is the best way to do it. It’s not fine for him to imply that other people are failing to help the poor because they have different policy preferences.
(cont.)
I listened to his announcement speech. It was a little rambling, but there were things I liked, and that included how he talked about compassion. We need that.
But in the quotes I’ve seen, he comes dangerously close to saying that Scripture mandates certain government spending. That doesn’t jibe with what I’ve read of most of his record, but that’s how it reads.
Say Kasich gets on the debate stage next week and says “I care about helping the poor. I know Governor Walker/Perry/Jindal does too. We just disagree on the best way to approach this problem the President created.” That’s not the end of the world — then they can discuss the wisdom of it.
But if he implies that fulfilling the biblical command to help the poor mandates his position — that Walker/Perry/Jindal are unfeeling for approaching it differently — that’s out of bounds.
It’s not just my personal pet peeve. Erik Erickson (RedState) had a piece the other day on it — he said Kasich is the one Republican he won’t vote for. (I think that’s absurdly over the top). Avik Roy had a public clash with Kasich over it. I’ve read others.
(Sorry I don’t have links — it’s getting late. I might do a post on this. If I do, I’ll PM you so you can come tell everyone how wrong I am if you want.)
Nah, I take your point.
I’ll just say, when I’ve heard Kasich, he seems to be more on defense than offense on the subject. I don’t think he’d make the argument that the president should be trying to help drug addicts on the streets of Columbus get into rehab. I may be wrong, but he seems pretty savvy about the distinctions between what state governors should do versus the POTUS.
BTW, Huckabee is the only “real” Republican who is poison to me. I do not appreciate him making it harder for Republicans to try to address the problems with Social Security and Medicare by calling them untouchable — by using the Democrats’ premise. It’s irresponsible and unethical to keep promising people things you know to be fiscally unsustainable and unsound. And it’s reprehensible to sabotage your primary opponents preemptively. Before anyone has even had the chance to make their case!
Oohh yes, I agree about Huckabee, and for the same reasons. I just haven’t paid much attention to him this cycle.
Leigh, you’re right. “I used other people’s money to help the poor,” is not the best thing to present to St. Peter when the time comes. Couple that with an implied moral superiority over those who disagree and it’s even worse.
There are many arguments in politics where one side has the the clear moral high ground (ending abortion, abolition of slavery, etc.), but how to spend Medicaid money is not one of them.
If I were to give a dollar to a homeless person, I might be one small step closer to the Pearly Gates. But if I were to run into a local business, steal a dollar out of the cash register and give that to the homeless person, would I have the right to claim the high moral ground?
No, I think Kasich has a point, if you look at it as Ohioans getting their federal tax dollars back from DC to help other Ohioans in their communities. I totally admit this is the perversity built-in to Big Government — tragedy of the commons, and all that. But, it’s simply true that squeezing DC can be advantageous to the people of your state.
And besides, who’s to say it’s “other people’s money?” Maybe, if Ohioans are paying less to the feds than they’re receiving in federal payouts, but I don’t know if that’s the case.
Poison pill:
Graduate of ivy league law school
We’ve recently had one from Yale and one from Harvard. Neither of whom evidenced the slightest respect for the law.
Do you think this rankles conservatives enough to disqualify him from their consideration in the primary? I don’t think it quite rises to that level, but with just a touch more zeal it could very well be too hard to swallow.
I don’t think disrespect for the law is any bar to getting elected nationally. Now the Republican primary could be a different matter if it was made a significant point by one of the candidates or by primary voters themselves, probably unlikely though.
My initial description was “probably disqualifying” and I think I’ll stick with that. Can’t say for sure. It could very well be that accepting the Medicaid expansion itself will be too much. That is going to be a hard sell for primary voters, and anything approaching acceptance of Obamacare may well be poison. He will clash with Walker or Perry over it sooner or later, and we’ll see how that goes.
I’ve always thought Walker’s presence is going to make it harder for Kasich, even if Walker himself stalls.
If he’d gotten in the race sooner and Bush were out of the picture, Kasich could have been formidable. But it seems he’s going to run left of most of the candidates (see him saying yesterday that no, he wouldn’t cancel the Iran deal, for instance). He’s going to try be the pragmatic “grown-up” on the stage. I’m not sure there’s space for that left: Bush is soaking up all the money on that side. He’s at risk of being Jon Huntsman — which would be a shame.
All these mentions of Huntsman are getting me pumped for his announcement speech!!!!