F. Chuck Todd is the best you can do?
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.
Or an NFL kid...
Only Hugh Hewitt would find excuses to prop up Romney as viable. Is this Hugh’s stab at mea culpa for for his recent attraction to Romney that did not go over so well with his conservative audience?
Romney would have been a superb president compared to what we have. For God’s sake the Secretary of State is a Traitor. The Sec of Defense is a peacenik. The president is a communist racist disgrace.
And some of us think Hillary could be even worse.
F Chuck Todd: “... think Scott Walker, think Chris Christie, think Marco Rubio, think Bobby Jindal — you know, throw those names in.”
Cristie - uh, no.
Robio - uh, no.
The others, maybe.
And the person left out, Ted Cruz, absolutely YES!
Yeah, so would I.
Remember that Mitt’s family is a long line of America haters, why do you think his dad was born in Mexico, that they refuse to serve in the military, in fact, why do you think they immigrated to the United States in the early 1840s, and how they lived as hostile to America?
Outside of that fantasy, however, Romney is a loser who would put on another anemic invisible general election campaign -- followed by a polite and graceful concession speech.
He looks a lot like Deputy Fuehrer Rudolf Hess, especially the caterpillar eye-brows.
And they are both interesting characters, although Mitt is not a national socialist.
Why would Hawks want “I’d consult my lawyers” Romney?
...that you know of...
F. Chuck Todd is the best you can do?
I think it is a great idea! I would love to see Romney run against Hillary.
In the Democrat primaries.
The winner can run against Cruz in the general election.
Romney/McCain in 2016! Two geriatric losers for the price of one!
If the Hildebeast is elected, and if she is the rat nominee, I think that is likely, I think, that compared to her, the Obungler is a piker.
If ROmney had gone after Obama like he went after his GOP competitors, he’d be the President now.
If the next President is a Democrat, she/he/it will be worse than Obama because she will likely appoint replacements to GOP-appointed Supreme Court justices.
Only way a RINO/Moderate candidate wins is when more than one conservatives stay in the race to the bitter end.
One on one Romney or Jeb or Huckster has no chance against any ONE more conservative candidate.
Anyway it is way too early to contemplate 2016.
GO AWAY ROMNEY!
Or like Adrian Peterson's Kid.
Too soon?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.