While I agree with you for the most part, I think you have to run these people through the prism of the GOP base. To that end, I give Cruz a shot, Perry a shot, and the omitted Bush. The last 2 nominees were a RINO in Romney that had to say unbelievably stupid things but pretty much beat his primary opponents handedly, and McCain who touted his occasional liberal maverick streak and his electability.
I think Christie and Bush are the front runners to be honest. The GOP establishment will try to force an establishment candidate past the “grassroots”, so this means good news for existing governors with a record. I think those primary voters have already dug in and long abandoned the notion of trying to convince “the mainstream media” so any shots at Christie would bounce off them like rubber, they’ll just claim liberal media blah blah blah again.
Bush, I just don’t know. He’s bad, but probably the least bad of the bunch, so I see him as having a good shot. I just have no idea how the base feels about another Bush, even the Kool-Aid drinkers may be sick of another one.
And given the hostility and insular nature of primary voters, pissing off the establishment and being stupid might be an actual advantage for Cruz and Perry
But how does someone like Cruz, in the (in my opinion) unlikely event he gets the nomination, pivot to the center when up against Hillary? Or does he not pivot at all?
A few thoughts first on Ron Paul: I always thought he was more of a nutty conservative than the libertarian people believed him to be. The dude wanted to make abortion illegal, including stripping courts from hearing abortion related cases; quite simply anti-gay; toyed with white supremacist organizations and people; and was as anti immigrant as anyone. But he ran for president on his beliefs. (Except for standing behind the Ron Paul newsletter with the racist editorials written under his name.) Wonderful.
I think Rand Paul is actually more libertarian than people give him credit for. However, he’s busy selling out his principles as fast as you can say “super PAC donations.”
I’m truly curious as to who will be a more successful candidate. I’m betting Ron Paul, but I’m not certain.
This is very typical of folks on this MB. You dismiss two successful governors out of hand (Jindal and Huckabee) and claim that Pence is tone deaf after he calms the uproar by asking the legislature to modify the bill. A bill which, btw, is probably more popular than not with GOP primary voters. As for Chris Christie, he is no more of a RINO than Romney was, and yet he got the nomination. I’m not even going to dignify the part where you imply GOP voters are too racist to nominate someone who is non-white, even though one of the non-white guys was governor of a very souther state.
He’ll do what Romney did and just pretend all that didn’t happen, or he’ll double down and give them a real conservative to vote for. Either way, he won’t be successful. I’m discounting a third method where he’s so established already as a fiery conservative guy that he won’t have to make too many huge overtures to the right during the primary. He’ll soften his tone but if anyone tries to question his conservative bonafides, he’ll remind them of what he said before. This way its old news so it won’t run as long as a new item during the current news cycle, and it’ll remind primary voters why they liked him originally even though he’s saying slightly different stuff now
Just a hunch I guess, I really can’t defend it nor can I entirely dismiss it
Oh come on, John. Pence was all over the place after signing the bill. First he whole-heartedly supported it, then he became defensive about it, then he talked about modifying it, then went back to defending it, then went on Fox News and said he would not modify it, then the next day talked about modifying it again. Yes, he was tone-deaf and inexplicably needed a cacophonous bludgeon of vocal and written outrage before finally signing off on modifying the law. He looks foolish, and clueless, and now he has a taint. Too bad; he did it to himself.
I actually met Mike Huckabee years ago when my company was promoting a community healthcare initiative. Huckabee is a really nice and affable guy in person, but he’s a one trick pony with all the religious nonsense. He’s just a more endearing version of Santorum. Someone with views such as “…we have systematically removed God from our schools. Should we be so surprised that our schools would become a place of carnage?” has absolutely no business being president of the United States.
Jindal is a freaking loon. I don’t care how successful he is as a governor, he’s a blame the gays for natural disasters religious nutjob, and that’s leaving out the exorcism nonsense from his younger days. I wouldn’t be surprised in the least if he pulled a Rick Perry and held a pray for rain rally during a drought.
I agree Christie has a chance at the nomination, even if it is a long shot, although the current field does make it easier for him in my view.
I’m going to ask you the same question I’ve asked adaher. Under what definition of successful does Jindal fit? LA is headed for financial meltdown and even the REPUBLICAN treasurer has trashed Jindal’s fiscal management.
Paul seems to have a decent media campaign going for him right now, I’ll give him that much.
Personally, for a GOP candidate to have even a chance at my vote, they must accept the science on AGW and state that doing something about it is one of the reasons they are running. Funny thing is, a majority of Republicans now accept the science on AGW (or some variant, they ‘believe in’ global warming, etc.), more all the time. I don’t think an anti-AGW candidate can fly on the national level.
Trouble is, GOP donors pay good money for anti-AGW candidates, so there is a disconnect with the public there. Paul is a double-whammy on this issue- Republican and Kentucky coal country congresscritter. He is never going to make a bold claim like, “If elected, I will put America on a path to cut its coal consumption in half within x years!” No, I think he will do the opposite and try to protect the coal industry, and by extension Kentucky, because that’s who butters his bread.
That said, I don’t hate Kentucky. A candidate who is serious about cutting coal consumption also has to have a plan for addressing the economic fallout such a plan would have in places like Kentucky. Sound almost like a job for… a liberal.
I’ll agree that Jindal started out looking good and has finished very badly. I wouldn’t call what Louisiana is facing a meltdown, since Louisiana is a low tax, low spending state. They can fix their problems simply by raising taxes. It’s a much easier problem to solve than what Illinois is going through and what California went through.
I’ve always thought that the smart politics is to recognize the science of AGW and support the only plausible solution: a revenue neutral carbon tax. It would replace the payroll tax, and then you move SS and Medicare into the general fund, which is where it’s ending up anyway.
Actually dealing with global warming the liberal way will require a whole bunch of spending, and now we’re also going to alleviate the pain in coal country? That’ll cost a bundle too. And we haven’t even gotten to what we’re going to do about people’s higher electric bills. More likely, the liberal candidate will propose a plan that will only hurt a little, and reduce emissions by .01%.
I don’t think so. The dude has serious problems being interviewed by women. He still strikes me as never having experienced talking to someone who disagrees with him. For all his posturing, he really isn’t terribly bright and seeing how he’s a libertarian, dimwittedness goes with the territory.
You’re a little right. Maybe he’s not good at TALKING to someone who disagrees with him, but I think he’s just generally awkward. But he certainly knows where the disagreements are, because he’s been making a point of addressing those disagreements.
His weakness lies in his belief that he knows more than his audience. As in telling students at Howard U that Lincoln was a Republican. He assumed they would fall back in their chairs stunned at the revelation, not having a clue that every person in the room already knew that.