Too Many Conservatives Running In 2016 Primary

Ted Cruz is set to announce is candidacy for President of the United States. Rand Paul is apparently going to announce early next month before going on a campaign tour. Until today technically the only candidate was Jeb Bush, who announced late last year his intentions. At the time everyone thought that Bush was going to force everyone else to declare their candidacy early. It doesn’t appear that has happened, Cruz and Paul have appeared in no rush to make a formal announcement. Scott Walker, perhaps the front runner in the race, still hasn’t formally announced his candidacy and there’s no telling when he might do so.

A formal announcement at this point is nothing more than a trivial formality. Cruz, Paul and Walker have been campaigning and engaging in the sort of activities one engages in when running for President. They’ve been doing this for months, arguably since the midterm elections. There has never been any doubt that Cruz, Paul and Walker were going to run. There’s little doubt that Marco Rubio, Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum will be running. The legal distinction between an exploratory committee and a campaign committee may matter to the FEC but in the political world it doesn’t matter at all. The 2016 primary season has been under way for some time, the only people who disagree are the paper pushers in the Federal government.

There is one consistent thing about the slate of 99% certain to run candidates. All but one of them is a conservative, either appealing to Christian evangelicals, Tea Party conservatives or Tea Party libertarians. Bush being the lone exception, it is without question that he has the support of the establishment moderate wing of the party. In fact, Bush has been openly hostile to conservatives on the campaign trail. The problem for conservatives is that this election is shaping up just like 2008 and 2012. There are too many conservatives running and only one establishment moderate. In a lust for power, half a dozen or more conservatives are willing to sacrifice the country in a vain attempt to obtain power for themselves.

Some of these people shouldn’t even run. In fact, they should step back and act as kingmakers. The endorsement of someone like Mike Huckabee would significantly help one of the other conservative candidates. Huckabee doesn’t have what it takes to win the nomination. He hasn’t been in office in years, he’s selling magic pills for diabetes on the internet wherein he looks like a rabid snake oil salesman. Nevertheless, he has a loyal base that likely would vote for whoever he endorses. There’s power in king making, a lot more than losing a race for President at Huckabee’s age. We could say the same thing about Rick Santorum. He hasn’t been in office in nearly a decade, he got annihilated the last time he ran for US Senate. He was the conservative of last resort against Romney in 2012, he really wasn’t a good candidate. Yet he’s likely to cater to his own vanity and run in 2016, further diluting the conservative vote. Bush must be thrilled.

At least Cruz and Paul have more base support than Huckabee and Santorum. Having said that, do Republicans really believe the country is going to elect a first term Senator again? Obama didn’t exactly work out very well and while Cruz and Paul are obviously better than Obama, most of the country have no idea who these two Senators are or where they come from. In the last century our country has only elected a sitting Senator twice and only one of those times did a sitting Senator defeat a candidate with executive experience. Kennedy’s victory over Vice President Nixon in 1960 was the lone exception, otherwise this country has elected Governors or Vice Presidents. In other words, the country has a tendency to elect men with executive experience. While Cruz is magnificent on any number of issues, he’s going to have a very difficult time convincing people that a first term Senator should be the Commander in Chief. Especially after eight years of Obama. Paul has the same problem. If only we could get rid of some of these candidates, Jeb Bush could be defeated. Unfortunately this is unlikely to happen.

Rand Paul On Shutdown: "Even Though It Appeared I Was Participating In It, It Was A Dumb Idea"
I said throughout the whole battle that shutting down the government was a dumb idea. Even though it did appear as if I was participating in it, I said it was a dumb idea. And the reason I voted for it, though, is that it's a conundrum. Here's the conundrum. We have a $17 trillion debt and people at home tell me you can't give the president a blank check. We just can't keep raising the debt ceiling without conditions. So unconditionally raising the debt ceiling, nobody at home wants me to vote for that and I can't vote for that. But the conundrum is if I don't we do approach these deadlines. So there is an impasse. In 2011, though, we had this impasse and the president did negotiate. We got the sequester. If we were to extend the sequester from discretionary spending to all the entitlements we would actually fix our problem within a few years.
[Posted on 11/19/2013 12:16:51 PM by Third Person]

Rand Paul: Time for GOP to soften war stance
...by softening its edge on some volatile social issues and altering its image as the party always seemingly "eager to go to war... We do need to expand the party and grow the party and that does mean that we don't always all agree on every issue" ... the party needs to become more welcoming to individuals who disagree with basic Republican doctrine on emotional social issues such as gay marriage... "We're going to have to be a little hands off on some of these issues ... and get people into the party," Paul said.
[Posted on 01/31/2013 5:08:50 PM PST by xzins]

Rand Paul's immigration speech
...The Republican Party must embrace more legal immigration.

Unfortunately, like many of the major debates in Washington, immigration has become a stalemate-where both sides are imprisoned by their own rhetoric or attachment to sacred cows that prevent the possibility of a balanced solution.

Immigration Reform will not occur until Conservative Republicans, like myself, become part of the solution. I am here today to begin that conversation.

Let's start that conversation by acknowledging we aren't going to deport 12 million illegal immigrants.

If you wish to work, if you wish to live and work in America, then we will find a place for you...

This is where prudence, compassion and thrift all point us toward the same goal: bringing these workers out of the shadows and into being taxpaying members of society.

Imagine 12 million people who are already here coming out of the shadows to become new taxpayers.12 million more people assimilating into society. 12 million more people being productive contributors.
[Posted on 03/19/2013 7:04:07 AM PDT by Perdogg]
Rand Paul calls on conservatives to embrace immigration reform
Latinos, should be a natural constituency for the party, Paul argued, but "Republicans have pushed them away with harsh rhetoric over immigration." ...he would create a bipartisan panel to determine how many visas should be granted for workers already in the United States and those who might follow... [and the buried lead] "Imagine 12 million people who are already here coming out of the shadows to become new taxpayers...
[Posted on 04/21/2013 1:52:42 PM PDT by SoConPubbie]
[but he's not in favor of amnesty, snicker, definition of is is]

Rand Slams Congress for Funding Egypt's Generals: 'How Does Your Conscience Feel Now?'
Sen. Rand Paul is hammering his fellow senators for keeping billions in financial aid flowing to Egypt's military -- even as Cairo's security forces massacre anti-government activists. [by "anti-government activists" is meant church-burning Christian-murdering jihadists]
[Posted on 08/15/2013 5:44:10 PM PDT by Hoodat]

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