Especially in relatively slow news cycles, it is very tempting to write articles about the shape of the 2016 presidential field, as Al Hunt has just done for Bloomberg News. I think it’s reasonable to periodically revisit the state of play to see if anything has changed. But the fundamentals haven’t changed. The Republicans don’t have any candidates. Obviously, someone is going to win the party’s presidential nomination. We can try to figure out who that person might be. But there is no one on the horizon who has all the things candidates require (a strong base of support, the ability to raise sufficient amounts of money, media savvy) and that has a message that can both appeal to the Republican base and refigure the electoral map.
If the Republicans want to nominate a firebrand freshman senator from Texas or a evangelical Indian-American governor from Louisiana, they’ll find out that that brand of politics is even less popular up north than the politics of John McCain and Mitt Romney.
Serial-plagiarist Rand Paul’s candidacy will be strong in the exact proportion that it splinters the Republican base on cultural issues and foreign policy.
It seems to be a bad idea to nominate someone under indictment or serious ethical clouds, as would be the case with Governors Rick Perry of Texas, Scott Walker of Wisconsin, or Chris Christie of New Jersey.
Most of the remainder of Republican governors are deeply unpopular and at risk of losing their reelection bids.
Ben Carson is prone to saying extremely erratic and delusional things.
There’s a reason that people keep sampling the list of possible contenders and keep spitting them back out. Just as Mitt Romney fell behind every opponent at some point or another only to come out on top in the end, there’s a reason people keep going back to Jeb Bush. He can check every box on the list except the one where the Republican base allows him to win with a message that can change the Electoral College.
Simply put, the Republican primary voter holds a set of beliefs that are nowhere near close to being acceptable to enough states to win the Electoral College. In the past, they’ve fallen in line for candidates like Poppy, Dole, McCain and Romney, only to be disappointed in victory or devastated in defeat. It’s getting increasingly hard to convince them to be practical, especially when the watered-down version of conservatism hasn’t brought them the electoral or practical victories they seek. Why should they believe that Jeb Bush would do better than McCain or Romney did? Why would they support a candidate who promotes Common Core and comprehensive immigration reform?
Throughout recent history, the pragmatic streak within conservatism has won out in these presidential nominating contests, but only by rendering the “practical” candidate unelectable. The obvious answer is to get behind someone who can run less as a conservative than as a traditional Republican, but they are more inclined to test the idea of nominating a fire-breathing conservative who won’t trim their sails. Better to go down swinging that to unilaterally disarm by caving on principles within your own party.
So, these articles can be modestly interesting, but it doesn’t matter if Huckabee might split the evangelical vote and make things difficult for Ted Cruz or if the neoconservatives can find a champion to beat back Rand Paul. It doesn’t matter if Christie’s polls have recovered somewhat or if Marco Rubio is dead in the water. None of that matters unless or until someone emerges who has a plan to change the Electoral College. That means winning some states that no Republican has won since 2004 or maybe even 1992. You’ll know such a candidate has arrived on the scene when you see them taking unorthodox positions and nonetheless getting showered with campaign cash donated by enthusiastic supporters. Rand Paul wants to be that guy, but he isn’t.
What about Paul Ryan?
Kind of “next in line” and since he’s not old, the GOP can delude themselves to believe that he can appeal to young voters with his Dude Bro Libertarianism.
He’s appealing as hell to Wall Street, since he wants to make them even richer, and he’s enough of a cipher on the culture wars to let them fill in their own beliefs.
Ryan sucks at policy. We saw what Joe Biden did during the debates. It’ll be abusive to have to debate Hillary three times.
He’s also devoid of charisma. Reagan could sell the trickle-down, voodoo economic nonsense, but Ryan’s repackaging of it is duller than middle of the night infomercials.
http://vitaminw.co/politics/mansplaining-paul-ryan-hits-tumblr
This guy doesn’t have charisma? I can see the ladies throwing their panties when he enters the room. Zsa Zsa Huffington said he looked like George Clooney. Huffington really knows how to pick ’em.
Zsa Zsa Huff married a gay man (well, he was wealthy; so the alimony was good and plenty) and was once considered “Gingrich’s Muse;” so, her taste in men is far outside the norm for women.
Do you think the serious, well-heeled GOP elite are stupid. They know all this. Know that at the Presidential level, they’re screwed until all the social and racial issues they concocted and/or fomented to ride to power after being decimated by the New Deal abate within their bases. They will — cultural changes are inevitable but they proceed at a slow pace. In the meantime, they’re doing well enough with DLC type Democratic Presidents. Getting Bill Clinton on board to destroy New Deal financial regulations, cut social safety net programs and domestic federal spending, pass NAFTA, cut federal gains tax was better than Reagan and Bush1 combined.
They’ll be okay with Hillary Clinton in the WH. Particularly if they maintain control of either the House or Senate and the Democratic caucus remains well salted with DINOs. And depending on the midterm results, they might have a potential candidate or two that could conceivably knock Hillary out. But that would be icing on a cake that’s not necessary to make it palatable to them.
The “haves” getting more wealth and power is what it’s about — everything else is window dressing for the masses that can’t see the forest for the trees.
My aged father – who was a Southern Democrat and is now an “independent” who votes Republican – will vote for Hillary over a Rick Perry or a Rick Santorum. For all the reasons you state, plus neo-con foreign policy leanings.
It makes me itchy about Hillary as President, but it would bode well for the election itself
Yes, he wouldn’t want to jeopardize his Social Security and Medicare regardless of how poor the neo-liberal/neo-con agenda leaves those that come after him.
I was once in a position to adopt a “got mine; screw other women” attitude. To retain a special status that was mostly not of my doing. It was an exclusively male profession and a sex discrimination suit opened that door a crack and I was the first one to slip through. Some of my male colleagues were very good at their jobs, some were competent enough, and many were at best mediocre. I understood that to be accepted, I had to work hard and as many hours as necessary to develop into a competent enough professional. But to keep that door propped open for other women to walk through, I had to get to “very good” as quickly as possible.
A couple of years later, my boss mentioned that the success rate for the female trainees that came after me wasn’t encouraging. His statement was factually correct. The retention rate of those trainees was low and of those that were retained, few would ever rise above mediocre. I had to point out to him that his assessment was flawed. That he’d set me as the standard for what female trainees should achieve and not their male trainee peers who were comparable to the female trainees in measures of retention rates and performance level. I might have added that the women were nicer and easier to work with than the men which was generally true. The door remained open.
I kind of wonder if Rand Paul hasn’t destroyed his chances already. There’s all this stuff lurking in the background that he’s going to have to talk about, and we’ve seen how poorly he responds when questioned about things like plagiarism and hanging out with neoconfederates and so forth.
For instance, at some point he’s going to have to talk about his fetal personhood amendment. Which will help him in the primary, no doubt, but then in the general he would face the same dilemma as Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock: how to justify banning abortion even in cases of rape. At least he knows that the “legitimate rape” and “gift from God” strategies aren’t going to work, but what else has he got?
Meh.
RonRand Inc. 2016 is just a perpetual moneyraising machine operating under the color of LibertarianismTM.
No, really.
Would like to agree with you — but Rand wants to change that family cottage industry to include operating out of the WH. He believes he has the right stuff that his father lacked. After all he is a Senator and his dad never advanced further than a lowly seat in the House.
Oh, Rand seems like he’s sufficiently stupid enough to think that he could be elected to POTUS.
Not gonna happen, but there it is.
I guess I just consider RonRand Inc. 2016 to be more of a continuing grifting OP where ol’ Rand has bought into his own BS.