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Okay, So Sell Me On Your Guy
Now that Rand Paul is out if the race, I’m left with a big gaping hole. Not only in my heart, but in my ballot. Despite my disagreements with the man, I had intended to vote for him. But now that he’s thrown in the towel, I’ve got no Plan B, and the New York primary is in two months.
Ricochet member V the K asked what everyone’s big three issues were. Mine were:
- The police state
- War
- National debt
I consider our police state to be incompatible with liberty; war and national debt are the two things that tend to topple nations. The way I see it, Rand Paul was pretty good on two of those things, and poor, but not the worst, on one of them.
Now, I realize I’m swimming upstream here, but I don’t want it to ever be said that I’m inflexible, closed-minded, or unwilling to compromise. So now that I have an opening, I invite everyone who wishes to pitch their favorite candidate to me.
If you support Cruz, Rubio, Kasich, Christie, Trump, Bush, Fiorina, or, sure, what the heck, even Jim Gilmore, you’re welcome to try.
Please realize that I’m a very tough sell. I’ll listen, but I’m not guaranteed at all to buy what you’re selling. (Also, an argument that I should vote for an inanimate carbon rod with an R next to the name won’t fly with me.) But even if you don’t sell me — after all, I’m very stingy with my vote — maybe you’ll convince someone else reading your pitch.
Published in Elections, General
Is that really your pitch?
You know what?
Mitt Romney and John Kerry were both nominated because they were allegedly electable. Reagan was alleged to be such a dangerous right-winger that he was unelectable.
I’m not saying that Rand Paul would’ve been elected if he’d been nominated, but I have little faith in assessments of alleged electability or unelectability of candidates who fall within a wide qualification range. I consider any US senator or governor potentially electable. If we’re talking about a city alderman, it might be a different story.
That has been the entire Rubio contingent’s pitch the whole cycle thus far.
I tend to find that the “most electable” candidate always LOSES because to earn the title “most electable” one must do and say things that cannot be used as a weapon to make him/her “unelectable.”
It is indeed. If it was strictly an issue of policy then I would probably support Cruz (although its a close call) but Ted is simply unelectable. Rubio also has the best chance of uniting the party; his voting record is right where Republican primary voters are positioned. Cruz has NO chance of attracting independents or low information voters who will find him creepy. As for Trump, don’t even get me started.
Look, I know there are Trump, Bush, Carson, Fiorina, Kasich, and Christie partisans here. Anyone is welcome to make the case for their preferred guy or lady.
My issues were:
Truth be told, I’m not sure how much any of the candidates can deliver on these matters, but that’s not even really a knock on them.
The first is probably the most intractable. Of the candidates, I think Rubio actually has the best chance on the grounds that he’s worked closely with Sen. Mike Lee who’s a serious, diligent adult on these matters (relatedly, I’d like to nominate Lee for the “most under-rated conservative legislator” award). Cruz might be able to get something done; Trump would be worse than hopeless.
On the second, my guess is that Cruz would actually be the best among the big likely candidates. Rubio’s the kind of interventionist who’s never seen a crisis he didn’t think could be solved by the US military, but he’s at least smarter and better informed on the matter than the average Bush-style interventionist. Trump… who knows? Maybe he’d be great. Maybe he’d be awful.
Toss-up here among the Repubicanos Cubanos. Ideologically, Cruz may be the better, but he’s already set himself up as an enemy of Congress (from the inside) and the problem is that the president already tends to run roughshod over congress. Rubio… meh. Trump would be an utter disaster.
Given all that, you’d think I’d come out for Cruz over Rubio. I don’t for the sole reason that I just can’t see Cruz winning a general election. Now, my judgement is hardly the best on these matters, but — besides my misgivings about Cruz’s public persona — I just don’t think he’s selling what the American people want to buy. Rubio, for all his problems, seems to be a much easier sell and might actually move a few things in the right direction without (further) screwing up anything enormous.
Again, I’m no genius here and we’ve certainly been disappointed by supposedly “electable” candidates before.
I’ve been expecting Rubio to win this. He has the best smile and as long as he doesn’t confuse the electorate my mentioning real issues he will cruise it. People like to talk emotions and celebrities. The Ricocheti still think its 20 years ago when people were inclined to be rational.
If your biggest concern is the “police state” then I don’t think my guy will be your guy…seriously that is your biggest concern for America? Here are 10 things that I consider a slightly bigger deal than the “police state”
I’m not sure what your point is. It sounds like you agree with me that you aren’t concerned about electability.
Since we aren’t concerned about electability, To that end, I recommend you write in “Fred Cole” as I’m fairly confident the only President that would completely satisfy Fred Cole is Fred Cole.
So, let’s start a campaign where everyone on Ricochet writes their own name on the ballot. That will show those RINO squishes.
Except for me of course, I wouldn’t take the office if you gave it to me, so I’m going to write in Fred Cole.
Poor logic. Obama miscalculated: he didn’t think the Republicans would go through with it—which, given their general spinelessness, was a pretty safe bet.
So agreeing with something Obama did in poor judgement, and against his own interests, is hardly disqualifying.
Fiorina – if for no reason other than how awesome it would be to watch her debate Hillary.
I agree with those above who suggest Cruz is the next best thing after Paul, if your goal is to elect a Constitutionalist.
“Prominent hawk bashes Ted Cruz’s national security stances”
(I don’t agree with the anti-Cruz tone of that story, but it does demonstrate that he’s going against the Progressive Republican establishment in a Constitutionalist direction.)
On civil asset forfeiture (aka state-sanctioned theft):
“Texas, Civil Forfeiture, and Sen. Cruz”
The fact that the Establishment demonizes Cruz with the same vigor they do Paul speaks well of his positions, I think. :)
I think this is where most people are moving. IRL.
Cruz scored higher in the auto sales training course but the gut says Rubio is likely to sell more cars.
That won’t work as she was instrumental in building the surveillance state that we have now.
Hence why he is my number one.
So, if both parties nominate a nominally electable candidate, and one loses, does that meant the party that nominated the losing candidate was wrong and the candidate was not in fact electable, or is it the case that the candidate simply lost to another electable candidate.
FWIW, I think the reading the tea leaves ex post facto and deciding that the Republican party always focuses on electability is somewhat misguided. In 2008, McCain won on foreign policy issues in a Republican field with too many conservatives. The original idea was that Giuliani and McCain would split the moderate vote and Romney would win. As it happened, Giuliani decided not to campaign in Iowa and New Hampshire and Huckabee and Alan Keyes split the conservative vote with Romney, and McCain won early and Romney dropped out too early (in February). But the surge happened in the summer of 08 and took Iraq off the table, and he was horrible on domestic issues which drove the election of Obama.
2012 was the loon of the week and the party wound up going up with someone that wouldn’t embarrass them in a week’s time. Given his Mormon religion, I don’t think Romney was ever highly electable.
I think McCain and Romney show the problems of nominating unelectable candidates, not the problems of focusing on electability over issues.
At a Federal level, these seem like similar questions. The way to achieve peace and civil rights is to have Americans feel safe and to have foreigners believe that attacks on America and the invasion of American allies are terrible plans.
As you’ve noted, there was a genuine peace dividend from the end of the Cold War; we don’t need the 780k army soldiers we had at the end of the Cold War. With the end of the Iraq War, the ongoing defeat of ISIS, and the cooling of the Afghan War, we don’t even need the 516k that we have now. Rubio aims to cut that number to 490k. The reason that that’s an increase is because current law sees the numbers dropping to 420k. The military would be modernized, but defense spending would still be lower than in times past.
Although there was a peace dividend, the shift wasn’t to a totally peaceful world. Twenty years ago, the Middle East was mostly ruled by enemies of America. Today, most of America’s chief enemies have fallen or are falling, but a number of our new allies need support in stabilizing their governments. Helping tip the balance when the balance is close is much, much, cheaper than trying to fix things or living with the problems after the balance tips against us.
China and Russia are both in positions where economic problems are being addressed politically through threats of invading their neighbors. America needs a military that is powerful enough, and a President and Congress hawkish enough, that China and Russia don’t make more of or follow through on those threats. In both cases, the period of threat is probably limited; the same economic problems that drive militarization also limit the long term scope for their maintaining massive militaries, and we should see a smaller version of the post-Cold War peace dividend when they give up. Reagan’s acceleration of the Cold War’s end was a boon to the economy, and American strength now is also helpful.
We really have been winning the war on war.
The decline was reversed in part by the stupid and awful decision to abandon the Syrians to Assad’s butchery and consequent rise of ISIS, but the levels are still at an unprecedented low for humanity and that conflict seems likely to be mostly done by the end of the next administration.
One of Rubio’s real strengths has been his ability to see how we can avoid the loss of American lives. At a time when the Iraqi army was being derided by most of the field and their morale was under attack from Obama, Gates, and others, Rubio continued to support them. Success in Ramadi, Baiji, and other areas, seeing a retaking of 40% of ISIS territory, has vindicated that approach and it appears likely that a less effective version of Rubio’s strategy (Obama’s shift to sensible rules of engagement has been far too slow and is still not complete, and aid to the Iraqi Security Forces is still dramatically less than it ought to be) will be sufficient to kick ISIS out of Iraq. If we’d had Cruz’s strategy of focusing exclusively on the Kurds, ISIS would be far more prosperous and successful, leading to more war and more cost.
The chief factor in this is entitlement reform, which is a key focus for Rubio. By comparison, Clinton, Sanders, and Trump are against cutting benefits, while Cruz doesn’t list it as an issue. Of Cruz’s top nine issues (restore the Constitution, Second Amendment rights, Secure the Border, Defend Our Nation, Stand With Israel, Religious Liberty, Life/Marriage/Family, Jobs and Opportunity, and Rein in Washington), only Rein in Washington is a debt topic, and that includes only trivial and dishonest claims. I’ve spoken to a few thousand Cruz supporters and even they rarely defend the claim that he’d abolish the IRS. He wouldn’t abolish the Department of Commerce either; the whole list of Cruz cuts is a scam to pretend that radical cutting is easy. The cuts he proposes aren’t radical and they aren’t real. It’s as if Romney’s plan stopped at Big Bird.
Budgets like the 2015 House Budget look to reduce the debt held by the Public to a little over 50% of GDP. It’s not Harding/ Coolidge reductions, but it takes us a long way back from the edge of the cliff. Maybe we’ll get a more radical cutter on the ballot in 2020 or 2024 (I think this unlikely, but it’s possible), but Rubio has fought seriously to cut spending in Florida and the Senate, whereas the Dems, Libertarian, and other leading Republican candidates have treated spending as a sideshow or supported its growth when in office. Rubio has the temperament and decency to get his cuts passed by Congress. His position isn’t one that you’ll fall in love with, but he would move the country and the world in the right direction for your preferences; more peace, less debt, and a more relaxed country in which Constitutional crises were not perpetual.
I obviously can’t be of service since I was a Scott Walker man. My guy folded faster than a cheap tent.
Fred, Trump is not my guy (I’m an unashamed “neocon” in the pejorative way that the word is used- that is, I think that the US really does have to be the world’s cop because there are no alternatives- other powerful adults- to fill the vacuum), but I think you should vote for him, because he doesn’t even know what the nuclear triad is- thus, like Rand, he doesn’t care about national security.
The fiscal stuff will be driven by the macro-economy.
I actually agree with James, but I know that his words discussing the reality of a hostile world are wasted on you, just as they are on Reason and all the other Cato unicorn believers.
I’m not sure how this furthers the conversation.
Indeed. One could just as easily ask how that Neo-con nation building unicorn farm project is proceeding.
When does it ever?
Cruz is my guy. Here is why he should be your guy to.
That was very good.
That’s the Ted Cruz I love – why can’t he be like that in his stump speeches? His victory speech in Iowa was the polar opposite of this.
The answer is that it is quite obvious that some form of “nation-building” is essential in the real world. The US has kept the 2nd ID in South Korea for 60 years for a very good reason.
If you advocate a Moat (non)Strategy, be up front, and honorably admit the inevitable consequences as well. Vacuums will be created that good guys almost never fill, and international trade will also suffer de facto.
There’s also a lot of options between Fortress America and being The World’s Policeman. Police are expected to respond to anyone who calls 9-11. We shouldn’t be.