I need to see some solid accomplishments. I need to see an absence of fear.
Christie, Bush, Rand Paul -- people like that cannot be considered as nominees.
The GOP has two years to sell itself to me. If they don't close the sale, they should expect some low turnout. And they will have no one to blame but themselves.
The "absence of fear" is one of the things I remember about Reagan.
In particular, I remember (during his rise to the front of the GOP pack in 1978 or 1979) that he said things that no one else was saying about Carter and the Democrats, about the condition of the country, about the USSR.
The Left, the Democrats, and the MSM all reacted. He was strongly criticized by The Hive (to recall a term WFB used at the time). He was an extremist, he was a warmonger, he was too far out of the mainstream to be serious candidate.
And he ignored those voices. He didn't care. I remember thinking sometimes "oh boy, they're really going to come after him now," and they did, and you know what? None of it seemed to stick to him. He just brushed it off and went on with his message, and it was amazing to me.
He didn't accept the guilt, he rarely even acknowledged his detractors. There was one time when Carter threw some sort of boilerplate accusation at him during a debate, and my stomach sank, and he came back with that amazing line "there you go again." It delighted everyone, rocked Carter back on his heels, and changed the psychology of the campaign in one second. Suddenly I was going "whoa, maybe he has a chance."
I wonder if Ted Cruz knows about that? He was born in 1970, so he was only in third or fourth grade during the Reagan-Carter campaign.