Bob Shrum has lost eleventy-billion presidential campaigns, so he knows a little bit about who is unelectable. And he thinks all the Republicans are unelectable except Jeb Bush. Could be that that’s true. America just might be clamoring for a more competent Bush in 2012. You never know. But I don’t see the Republican base clamoring for Jeb. The base is not in a win-at-all-costs mood, and I don’t think they are likely to change until they have been locked out the White House for at least eight years. The base doesn’t want a third failed Bush presidency, they want Rand Paul to be president. Mitch McConnell can kiss their ass. And so can anyone even moderately reasonable. In 2012, it’s likely that Alan Keyes will be sounding like the liberal Republican in the race.
But Shrum presents us with a hell of a choice. More Bush or something much, much worse?
Candidates I think could beat Obama purely on issues with the American people (their campaigning and organizing skills aside):
Gary Johnson, Mitch Daniels.
Candidates who will win the nomination and have a shot at beating Obama: no one I can think of.
Mitch Daniels is too tied to Bush. So Obama should(key word) be able to beat him. Gary Johnson couldn’t beat him. Why? He’s a fringe candidate. How is Johnson going to make it into the mainstream thought?
Gary Johnson is Ron Paul without the racist/homophobic baggage, and he’s not nearly as ideological. Or at least, that’s how he comes off. His record in NM says otherwise, but governing a nation is different than governing a state.
He won’t win the nomination, but I think if he did, or had the ability to, on the issues alone? His message would really resonate with the American people. Maybe not his real positions, but his campaign focus would. He can give it much better than Paul, and doesn’t come off as kooky.
Obama could and should easily beat both. It doesn’t mean he would. I’m just saying that I don’t expect unemployment to get better, and those are two Republicans I can see being able to overtake him in that climate, if any exist at all.
Daniels would be an even greater threat. Sully practically gives him a handy under the table almost as much as David Cameron.
Still, I don’t see either as being particularly dangerous, as the GOP base, the ones who vote in the primaries, won’t send either of them to the ticket.
Seems like a presidential winner has to have some sort of narrative people buy into. With the boy king it was a kind of post-modern “elections don’t matter” thing combined with a lot of nonsense about compassionate conservatism, faith based initiatives, and mind-bending comments about nation-building. I mean, that has to be one of the most mediocre winning narratives of the last 50 years. What can any conservative candidate offer as a narrative? The base won’t allow any sort of euphemistic centrism this time. People are sick of the GWOT. They don’t want social security cut. What could they possibly try?
This is dumb. No Bush will ever be President again for the rest of time.
This is the pool Republicans have to work with:
You missed John Thune. He worries me a little.
Ooops. Yes, he is the candidate likely to be sane enough to be trouble. But is he insane enough to win the primary.
Thune is nuts enough.
I’d probably give the Shrumster higher marks for his political punditry than for his overall advising of several failed Dem nominees and hopefuls.* His take on the rogues gallery of GOP political shape-shifters, grifters, creeps, hypocrites, half-wits and Bourbon-drenched Southern good old boys is mostly on the mark.
And I’d never completely rule out, unbelievable as it sounds, yet another Bush running and getting the nom yet again. After Poppy’s disastrous 37% showing for re-elect in 1992, whoda thunk that we’d be “electing” another Bush just 8 yrs later?
But I don’t see it for the Jebster in 2012. Still too soon after the Shrubster nearly ruined our country for good. But by 2016, with that famous American Amnesia kicking in finally … ?
Obama looks a little shakier for re-elect than he did a year ago. But even with a sluggish economy to run on, the opposition still has to put up a plausible nominee who doesn’t cause the average voter to cringe or burst out laughing. Shrum makes a decent case for that, but Jebby is probably planning for the wide-open race in 16.
* Re Shrum, advisers advise, candidates/nominees decide. Putting Lieberman on the ticket wasn’t his idea but Al’s, and he tried to advise Al against all the silly debate theatrics, which Gore insisted on and which backfired; he also advised Kerry not to take public funding for the g.e. since the donations were pouring in, but he couldn’t convince the nominee and so JK was stuck with having to go dark on tv ads for weeks in order to conserve resources. True though, about 7% of Shrum’s advice that was taken turned out badly. Still ultimately the candidate has to have the good basic political sense to know, say, that he can never allow the opposition to define him, something Gore and Kerry were both slow to understand …