Posted on 09/15/2014 8:09:56 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Suddenly NBC's "Meet The Press" matters again, and when new host Chuck Todd joined me on Friday's radio show (see transcript) two of many reasons why became obvious.
First, Todd had booked James Baker (former secretary of state and treasury, White House chief-of-staff, and W's Florida strategist during 2000's epic recount) to talk about whether or not an international coalition could be assembled by President Obama to battle the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. The Baker booking was shrewd, and more will be forthcoming.
Also shrewd was Todd's analysis of the Romney 3.0 boomlet which had been the subject of a piece by Robert C. O'Brien and me for Politico Magazine on Friday, "Third Time's the Charm," which had quickly accumulated more than 1,000 comments and scores of emails and tweets pro-and-con. We discussed it and Todd nailed the source of the Romney surge:
I think the reason why Romney 3.0 has gotten traction is less about Romney, and more about the current issues of the day. I think the Republican 2016 field as we thought we knew it — think Scott Walker, think Chris Christie, think Marco Rubio, think Bobby Jindal — you know, throw those names in. I think if you have issues like national security front and center, that’s an incredibly shrinking, I feel like all of those guys are suddenly shrinking in stature. None of them, if the chief criticism of Barack Obama by a lot of people is you know what, he just wasn’t experienced enough, he just didn’t have a grasp of everything you needed to know to be able to be commander-in-chief, right? ... So I think that’s why [Romney] seems to look larger right now in stature because of the issues of the day that are front and center, and if you look at the rest of this Republican field. They don’t seem as if they have the resume to reassure hawks in the party.
The last line was the key — the "hawks" in the GOP are suddenly resurgent and back in demand among the grassroots. A day earlier, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum had said on my show of his likely opponent in the 2016 Iowa caucuses Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., that "now that things have heated up, [Paul's] trying to put the genie back in the bottle" on his previous foreign policy statements. Perhaps; perhaps not, but Santorum perceives an edge on the issue of security.
On Saturday, the New York Times ran with an AP story early in the morning "Eyeing 2016, Sen. Rubio Stresses Border Security."
This is another symptom of the sudden turn back towards seriousness on defense and national security. Anyone who has read Lawrence Wright's The Looming Tower knows the jihadist threat is decades old and that the Islamic State is neither new nor exceptionally brutal by Islamist extremist standards, but back-to-back beheadings of Americans tend like hangings in Samuel Johnson's day to focus the mind wonderfully.
By week's end, retired war fighters Army General David Petraeus and USMC General James Mattis as well as former President George W. Bush had all found forums on Thursday and Friday in which to gently but firmly push the president towards taking on the Islamic State with decisive force before it could put down roots and nest deeply. The elections of 2014 have veered towards national security -- scaring every Democrat on the ballot -- and just in time. With the world melting down, every candidate who is serious about American strength is going to do very well in November, and beyond.
Romney please stop running for office.
You obviously have a brain.
Please use it. Buy some more companies, and bring back American jobs.
Who thinks Mittens is a hawk? He’s a pussy willow. He is NOT presidential timber.
What “GOP hawkishness” is that?
Hugh, you ignorant slut.
Tell the members of the Bohemian Grove to quit peddling this guy.
Thought you might find this of interest.
MR is not the answer. We need someone who can turn out GOP and GOP-leaners who did not turn out in 2012.
That towards their base.
Just saying.
Former Ford CEO Mulally today indicated he might consider running in 2016.
It’s still very early, but he’d be a very good candidate.
We have been watching this guy run for president for coming up on a decade, when did he become our foreign policy expert, and a hawk.
Are they sure this is the same family of the anti-war George Romney running for president, while his son Mitt, evaded the draft, the family that in it’s more than 170 year history in America, never produced a single man in Mitt’s direct line that served America in uniform?
Beam me up Scotty!
Oh sorry, I forgot the link:
http://money.cnn.com/2014/05/01/news/companies/ford-ceo-mulally-fields/
MacChrystal/West 2016!
Romney 3.0, no. I don’t hate the man in the sense I hate Obama, Kerry and her highness Hillary. However he has nothing to offer me as president. He would run around trying to make Obama’s fiascos work and I have no patience with that. I’d like to try Ted Cruz.
Romney needs a divorce.
LOL!
He’s so butch!
Unfortunately the question is "Who would Hillary beat like an NFL wife?"
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