Posted on 05/06/2015 2:28:36 PM PDT by Kaslin
WASHINGTON - The pack of little-known Republican presidential candidates grew larger this week, raising this unasked question:
Do any of them believe they have a serious chance of winning the nomination and the presidency in a political process that usually rewards high-profile figures who are widely known among the broad base of their party?
There are exceptions to this rule, but more often than not, people with White House ambitions who have beaten the competition and won the highest office in the land had been working toward it for a long time.
Consider Ronald Reagan who devoted years to the chicken dinner circuit, giving inspiring speeches across the country long before he won California's governorship and went on to capture the presidency.
Not only was he widely known among his party's rank and file, but also among untold millions of Americans who had been listening to him on the radio for years.
In 1976, when he came within an eyelash of beating President Gerald Ford for the nomination, they had been hearing his five-days-a-week, radio commentaries over hundreds of stations.
Washington's campaign reporters thought of him as little more than a right wing, former actor, largely unaware that he was being heard by farmers across rural America, a lot of truck drivers and many more from coast to coast.
When he won the nomination in 1980 and went on to defeat Jimmy Carter, he had run the nation's most populous state for two terms and was clearly ready to lead the country.
That's the kind of job preparation our political process demanded then, as it did for others before and after that.
This week, Ben Carson, a brilliant former brain surgeon and a charismatic speaker, threw his hat in the ring, along with Carly Fiorina, who led Hewlett-Packard for six years as its CEO.
Carson has drawn his share of supporters as he's gone about the country, though he is hardly a household name. Fewer Americans know Carly Fiorina.
Recent polls show Carson has the support of 6 percent of GOP voters. Firorina draws only 1 percent.
Both can deliver inspiring speeches about how they've overcome huge obstacles in their lives to rise to the peak of their professions. But neither of them stand a chance of winning the nomination.
They have no serious campaign organization to speak of, nor well-known, high level advisers on their team. They are largely unknown to the broader electorate.
They're not the only ones. At least three GOP senators are in the race, all of them early in their first term: Ted Cruz of Texas, who is electrifying audiences with fire breathing oratory; Rand Paul of Kentucky, an eye surgeon; and Marco Rubio of Florida, the son of Cuban immigrants.
In terms of their elective status in the Senate, they are freshmen. Cruz has been in office for only two years and four months, much of it spent campaigning around the country. Paul and Rubio have both held their seats for just four years and four months.
Even though none of them have completed their first term yet, they believe they're fully prepared to be chief executive of the government, run the country and lead the Free World.
That's more than a bit of stretch, wouldn't you say?
Looming over the 2015-16 presidential election cycle is the fact that Barack Obama served less than four years in the Senate (most of it campaigning around the country) before he resigned his seat in November, 2008 to prepare for the presidency.
And we know how that turned out, don't we?
The result is that voters are, I hope, far more attuned to the issue of experience, or lack thereof, because they've had to endure its painful short-comings.
The people who voted for him were mesmerized by his teleprompter oratory, believing he was equipped to lead the country. But many became sorely disappointed when the lackluster, underperforming recovery dragged on year after year.
So here we are, nearly six and a half years later, with an economy that virtually stopped growing in the first three months (0.2 percent), the stock market in decline, gas prices rising and the voters in a sour mood about the country's direction.
The Gallup Poll reported this Tuesday that economic confidence among Americans was "down sharply last week."
"Gallup's Economic Confidence Index was -9 for the week ending May 3 -- its lowest weekly score since December," the pollsters said. "This reflected a six-point decline from the previous week, and is the largest week-to-week drop since last July."
What this tells me is that our country needs someone with executive experience who knows how to strengthen our economy, create jobs, boost incomes, and slash our debt-ridden budget.
The GOP candidates who know how to do this are the ones who are governors who have run state economies, slashed unemployment and pruned their budgets.
Three of them are running for president or seriously considering entering the race: Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, former Florida governor Jeb Bush and Ohio Gov. John Kasich.
Walker took a high-unemployment economy and cut the the jobless rate down to 4.6 percent, turned a $3.6 billion deficit into a $911 million surplus, cut taxes and raised per-capita incomes.
Bush took charge of the nation's fourth most populous state by lowering taxes, enacting school choice reforms, curbing spending, and cutting the state's bureaucracy.
Kasich turned around Ohio's shattered economy by boosting investment, growth and new job creation. The state unemployment rate there at a 5.1 percent low.
Washington is a mess. The economy remains weak, wages are flat, the budget is up to its neck in debt, and the government is badly in need of experienced, executive leadership.
We can no longer afford to offer the next president on-the-job training.
I am so tired of hearing this idea that governors make the best presidents, which has not been borne out by history.
Over the past 100 years (or so) we have had 8 presidents with prior gubernatorial experience:
Theodore Roosevelt
Woodrow Wilson
Calvin Coolidge
Franklin Roosevelt
Jimmy Carter
Ronald Reagan
Bill Clinton
George W. Bush
With the exceptions of Ronald Reagan and Calvin Coolidge, the remaining six have been unmitigated disasters.
That's hardly an encouraging record.
And Reagan wasn’t a great president because he was a governor. He was a great president because he understood what America was all about, loved liberty, limited government and free markets, and knew how to sell it.
I like a lot of what I know about Scott Walker, but the fact is that he appears to be a supporter of amnesty/immigration reform -- which is a deal killer as far as I am concerned.
Ted Cruz is the ONLY consistent, articulate conservative candidate who seems to understand the proper role of the federal government in all respects.
I believe that when one looks at the whole pack, Cruz is the only one who has the brains, the principles and the experience to save this country, if in fact it can be saved after 100 years of Progressive leftist infestation by both parties.
so don’t take a chance on a new comer, vote for the old career politician. Hasn’t that been our problem?
In this house, all the volunteer time and money go to the Cruz campaign.
I KNOW who I want to vote for, and it ain't whoever the media or the GOP-E pick.
I'll take Cruz.
/johnny
Which party has the most diverse group seeking the job?
Dear GOP voters: PUT CRUZ IN FRONT FOR 2016 OR PREPARE TO LOSE SPECTACULARLY. It really is that easy.
+1
(1) The author confuses executive experience with leadership. The problem is, we are in extraordinary times that require an out-of-the-box type of candidate who won't play by the rules set forth by the very people that candidate is trying to replace. A conventional candidate, one that gives generic platitudes to "play it safe" and accepts the premises set forth by the Left, will lose.
(2) The Internet - most importantly live, streaming, on-demand video, blogging, and social media - is today's equivalent of the political chitlin' circuit. There's no need for a candidate to spend gobs of time in office (though I agree with the author, that Carson and Fiorina are non-starters PRECISELY because they haven't been elected to anything) to "hone" his/her skills, so to speak.
(3) Well-known does not equate to being at the top of the polls. The conservative base HATES Jeb Bush's guts, him being well-known is completely irrelevant.
Anybody elected for President will be ‘on the job’ training. There is no other job like it on earth. It is completely different than being a governor.
What qualifies a candidate is his vision, his ideology and character, his plan for leading and his record. Who is proposing those things that you want to see implemented? My candidate is Cruz.
Someone that held the office of a governor has had some experience, noobie
Gov. Perry, too.
THIS ^^^^^^
They’ve had experience, but it is not the experience of being President. The office of governor and President are executed entirely differently. I read that discussed by former Presidents who were governors previously.
Well said.
She’s been here for 5+ years. Not a newbie.
And, according to Huckabee, if you have already won an election and are currently in that position, you have no business running for President. Only the guy that lost his last campaign and is currently unemployed is worthy of your vote.
Don’t tell me who to vote for in the General Election. If he does get the nomination, I will gladly vote for him. In the meantime it’s less than 10 month for me to decide who I will vote for in our primary and then another 8 month for the general election
And, we are facing these extraordinary times due to the lack of leadership and experience from the doofus in the WH. It was okay for him to have the job for 8 years, without previous experience other than rabble rousing and being an adjunct professor. These people can just shut up. I don’t care if the person elected is the ice-cream man, as long as he is conservative and can undo the horrors this administration has foisted upon us.
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