It seems like no one can quite believe that the Republicans will nominate Mitt Romney, but no one can picture anyone else getting the nomination, either. I know that’s how I feel. There is really only one area where Romney makes sense for the Republicans, and it’s not the economy. Romney is the only Republican candidate who has enough familiarity with foreign affairs to make a plausible president. I don’t mean that Romney has more direct experience. Probably, disgraced former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich and former Senator Rick Santorum have more experience dealing with foreign dignitaries and matters of national security. But each of them is slightly crazy, in their own way. Romney, like Obama, is qualified to handle foreign policy simply because he’s intelligent, curious, and well-traveled. If he became president he wouldn’t, like Bush the Younger, have to staff his cabinet with people who actually have some idea of how the world works. He could take care of that end of things by himself. He could, in other words, be his own man in the White House.
I don’t think you can say that about Rick Perry or Michele Bachmann or Ron Paul or Herman Cain. I guess you could say it about Jon Huntsman, but why bother? If anyone other than Romney wins the nomination, they’ll probably have to pick a running-mate who can actually run our foreign policy, much like Dubya tapped Dick Cheney. In other words, they won’t have the luxury of picking someone just to fire up the base. John McCain tried that, and it obviously didn’t work out. But it did pump some adrenaline into his campaign for a while.
However, there’s a problem. Dubya had a field of respected people like Dick Cheney, Colin Powell, and Donald Rumsfeld to choose from. Where are the respected old-hands now? Who can step in and provide that kind of comfort level? It seems to me as if the modern GOP is utterly bereft of leadership. Over the last decade and a half, their leaders have systematically discredited themselves. Think about the careers of Newt Gingrich, Denny Hastert, Tom DeLay, Trent Lott, Bill Frist, George Bush, Dick Cheney, Colin Powell, Donald Rumsfeld, and Condi Rice. Think about John McCain and Sarah Palin. None of them would be tempting figures for a Republican nominee to bring on as trusted advisors. None of these people would be welcomed back into public life. And, with the exception of John McCain, all of them have left public service.
Frankly, I don’t know how Romney would go about staffing up his cabinet. There are no obvious candidates to be Secretary of State, for example. Maybe Dick Lugar could take the job. Or Jon Huntsman. But the cupboard is startlingly bare.
I think, more than any other factor, this is why Romney is still likely to win the nomination. Even though no one really likes the guy and he’s a terrible fit for the Republican Party’s base, people can at least picture him doing the job.
But just because it’s likely that he will win the nomination, that doesn’t mean he will. If he doesn’t, I don’t think any alternative will be able to convince the people that they, and their team, has what it takes to run the American Empire.