Posted on 01/08/2014 4:52:09 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
There are moments in American political history when dissatisfaction with the old order and suspicion—even fear—of its ways presents the opportunity for monumental change.
It happened in 1932 as the nation sank into Depression and voted out the “business of America is business” crowd, installing a leftist plutocrat in the White House instead.
It happened in 1980 when high taxes and inept leadership demanded a steady hand committed to unfettering American entrepreneurship.
And in 2016, it can happen again—as long as Republicans nominate an ideological conservative, ideally with a good dose of charisma—someone who can vividly explain conservative principles to a public that is ready to hear all about it. Ready, because with Obamacare, the left has finally gone too far, and exposed the unworkability and injustice of its program.
Liberals believe their ideology has been vindicated after having finally realized the dream of universal health care under President Barack Obama. But they are like Napoleon in Moscow, sitting atop imaginary spoils while enjoying the mirage of victory. If Republicans do the right thing, they can send their adversaries limping back to Paris, picking off remnants of the defeated battalions along the way.
Obamacare is not just going to be a failure. It will be a grotesque carcass fit for exhibition in a political museum of morbid curiosities, elucidating every single fault that lies with liberalism. It contains every hallmark of failed liberal programs.
Obamacare is an unaffordable government expenditure whose costs will run amok as time progresses; it’s a grand scheme concocted by our intellectual superiors who know what’s best for us but unfortunately can’t quite make the pieces of their intricate creation fit together; it’s a wealth redistribution scheme that reaches even into the pockets of the middle class; it replaces the efficiency of the market with the plodding redundancies of government; it puts determinations about our fates in the merciless hands of government bureaucrats; it coerces individuals to act against their interests and desires; it inflicts collateral damage on businesses large and small and reduces hiring; its regulations, fees and new taxes raise costs for most consumers; it ultimately will harm even those it was designed to help by increasing dependency and destroying the practice of medicine in this country.
As Americans recoil in horror over the next few years, they will simultaneously behold the untenable expansion of the nation’s debt, the looming peril of bankruptcy for Medicare and Social Security and the failure of the economy to expand robustly.
It will be, for Republicans, a most perfect storm.
********
Keith Koffler, who covered the White House as a reporter for CongressDaily and Roll Call, is editor of the website White House Dossier.
I am republican and we always pick the guy who is next.
Next would be one of 4 people. Rick Santorum as the guy who finished next behind romney, Paul Ryan as the guy next to romney, Jeb Bush as the next Bush, or Romney as in his next campaign.
Palin’s turn to be next was in 2012. Cruz has not yet made it to the next level.
After Eisenhower, VP Nixon was next. After Nixon, Henry Cabot Lodge was next and this is one of the few times we did not pick next was Goldwater. After Goldwater, Nixon was next again, then Ford was next, then Reagan who finished 2nd to Ford in 1976 was next in 1980, then VP bush was next, then Dole who ran as VP in 1976 was next again. Then GW was the next Bush, then McCain who finished 2nd to Bush in 2000 was next, then Romney who finished 2nd to McCain in 2008 was next.
Duncan Hunter Sr.
No moderate will ever win.PERIOD!
Who are they?They must had been lying when they ran then!
Blah blah blah,This is 2014 and politics doesn’t give a hoot about history in the least.It’s a nasty business and the wrong way to run a nation.
Here is why we pick the guy who is next.
First, experience is a good teacher and VP’s usually have a good look at how things work in DC and have a decent grasp of policy, issues, and foreign affairs.
Second, the runner up in a primary (or a VP or candidate for VP) has demonstrated the ability to get votes, has been vetted and no skeletons found, has had practice in debates, has a core group of volunteers and donors to get a head start on the next campaign.
This is why the next guy has huge advantages over the guy who is not next.
As an example, let’s look at Palin running for president in 2008 vs. Palin running in 2012. Palin in 2008 would have no name recognition, no volunteers, no donors, no debate experience, little knowledge of issues or of foreign policy and would not know how to run a campaign.
In 2012, as next in line, all the above problems would have been minimized or disappeared.
So, get used to it. The next candidate will be Santorum, Bush, Romney or Ryan.
They can all raise money, they have the experienced staffers, they will have volunteers from all 50 states, they know the issues, they have been vetted.
Good luck with your theory.
I don’t know who our nominee will be but whoever is running against Hillary has my vote.
I think the chances of Secretary Hillary Clinton being the Democratic presidential nominee is less than 20%, no matter what you’re hearing now. She’s old, haggard, in bad health, has more baggage than the Orient Express and is nowhere near the retail politician that her husband is. Remember, she was their presumptive nominee two years before the 2008 election, too. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, former Gov. Bill Richardson or Gov. Coumo are more likely.
When did Gov. Jeb Bush run for president in the primaries or as a running mate to a presidential candidate? Your theory founders there. And who in hell wants Gov. Mitt Romney, again? Then former Vice President Richard Nixon was a decent retail politician, and worked hard to regain the nomination after eight years. Who else can you think of that pulled that off, much less won election to the White House, on the GOP side? Your theory actually points to Gov. Palin or Sen. Santorum having a shot at the nomination, rather than Governors Bush or Romney, with Rep. Ryan being the only other likely person, save for Vice President Dan Quayle. Hearing any rumors about him?
Jeb Bush (and GW bush) got to work on Bush 41’s campaign in 1980 and 1988 and 1992. He also got to see alot of what DC is about when GH was VP for 8 years and potus for 4 and then his brother was potus for 8. He has been vetted by the democrats when he ran for gov of FL and lost and when he ran twice more for gov and won.
Plus, the volunteers, donors, experienced staff and gope all know him very well and are holdovers from potus 41 and 43. He has that infrastructure to start with.
For example, in Ohio, Obama never closed his 2008 campaign office. He had the money to keep his entire infrastructure in place in key states. This showed up in 2012 when Obama won Ohio by 2% less in 2012 vs. 2008, yet he lost neighboring Indiana by 14 points to romney when he beat McCain in Indiana 49-48.
Jeb will have a lot of 41’s and 43’s infrastructure still intact. Same with Santorum having his people intact from 2012, same with romney and same with Ryan.
The next gop nominee will be one of those four.
The real battle is for who will be “NEXT” in line after 2016. In 2020, next will be the vp nominee, Jeb, or the guy who finishes next in 2016.
It is the same in virtually any field. You usually get to the top by being “a 20 years of hard work, overnite success”. Getting to the top is not easy. You usually have to fight and slog through preliminaries and then you get to the quarterfinals and then the semifinals and then maybe you get to be NEXT.
That is exactly what got Ronald Reagan elected.
• Married her high school sweetheart to whom she remains married and with whom she is apparently still in love.
• In the harshest of climes, started a small business with him.
• Saw the public schools were not doing a good job in educating her children, joined the local PTA and was so effective there that the people who knew her best – and in small towns like Wasilla there are very few secrets – elected her to be their mayor.
• Mayors of the other small towns and big cities elected her president of the Alaska Conference of Mayors.
• Highly successful as chairman of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission
• Ran an uphill battle against entrenched Republican governor; elected to the top position, Governor, of the largest state in the nation.
• 80% approval ratings.
• Selected as Republican 2008 VP candidate in mid-40s.
Governor Sarah Palin is a self-made women with an impressive career who broke into politics without the head start of a powerful husband or father and has a history of being a reformer and taking on powerful interests for the benefit of ordinary people. City council, mayor, Governor, oil and gas commission, VP candidate, already vetted, been scrutinized every way possible and still standing strong. Long list of accomplishments and over 20 years of experience.
As Governor Sarah Palin didn’t just cut spending; she saved, reformed, and prioritized like a good fiscal manager. She invested $5 billion in state savings, overhauled education funding, paid down debt, invested $2.6 billion in an education fund for the future, and funded a Senior Benefits Program to provide support for low-income Alaskan seniors.
In stark contrast to President Obama and other governors whose fiscal records are dogged by credit downgrades, Palin left Alaska with an improved credit rating during and following her tenure as governor. Standard & Poor’s raised Alaska’s credit rating from AA to AA+ in April 2008. Then in 2010, both Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s upgraded Alaska to AAA for the first time in the state’s history due to policies enacted by Palin that made the state’s finances more than solvent.
Taking on corruption and crony capitalism has always been a cornerstone of Sarah Palin’s agenda; in Alaska she did take on the old-boy network — the oil companies and her own party. As oil and gas commissioner, Sarah Palin called out the unethical practices of members of her own party. As Governor, she sought to end the back room deals and improper relationships between oil companies and politicians.
After the 2008 election Sarah Palin helped lead Republicans to the greatest congressional victory in several generations during the 2010 election with her endorsements and rallies all over the country ;she has endorsed 73 candidates for the US House of Representatives and Senate; state governors and attorney generals. Her success rate is at 69%. 18 out of 20 targets in her Take Back the 20 campaign ; this is a 90% success rate! Sarah Palin also had a very strong hand in the party’s few successes during this election . Sarah Palin campaigned for constitutional conservatives like Ted Cruz, Deb Fischer, Paul Gosar, resulting in 5 conservatives being elected to the Senate and 32 conservatives to the House. She has repeatedly been a leading voice against the dangers of ObamaCare and the risks of President Obama’s approach to energy and was the first Republican to make a high-profile critique of the Federal Reserve’s quantitative easing, though even earlier she had marked the collapsing value of the dollar as one of her issues.
Sarah Palin has offered many statements on issues such as health care, the Federal Reserve’s money printing in funding our federal deficit, Crony Capitalism, energy independence, foreign policy, etc)
Calvin Coolidge and William McKinley were conservatives.
Palin is not next. She does not have the infrastructure that the other guys have and infrasturcture counts a lot.
It is why Obama lost 2 pts in Ohio between 2008 and 2012 while losing 14 points in neighboring Indiana in the same time.
Palin could make herself to be next for 2020 if she runs and finishes 2nd in 2016. She is not next for 2016.
So you have no idea how many blogs there are that support Sarah Palin, how many conservative, Republicans, Reagan Democrats, Tea Party, populists and libertarians will drop whatever they’re doing if she declares, etc.?
“So you have no idea how many blogs there are that support Sarah Palin, how many conservative, Republicans, Reagan Democrats, Tea Party, populists and libertarians will drop whatever they’re doing if she declares, etc.?”
She might have the same support Reagan had in 1976 when he established himself as next for 1980.
I don’t think you get it. If she declared tomorrow I’d have $2 million dollars raised by the end of Summer. I’m just a fat old cripple sitting here typing on my keyboard but I know it wouldn’t be hard. I already have a list of names to call and other tricks up my sleeves. I am NOT the only person who would get on the phone, go online, go door-to-door or use social media to raise money and garner support for her, there are tens of millions out there. And I’ve fundraised for the GOP and candidates before, as well as being an advance man, driver and bodyguard for presidential candidates. As someone who worked for President Reagan, I can tell you that she’s the closest thing I’ve seen since he left politics.
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.