Run Jeb, Run!

Breitbart.com/Big-Government ^ | 4-10-2014 | Craig Shirley

[servo1969]

The GOP will never become unified until is decides what it believes. Bush should run if only to force that debate over what Republicans really stand for. Part of the reason Reagan won in 1980 was the field against him was divided. The establishment favored Ambassador Bush or John Connolly or Bob Dole or Howard Baker but Reagan forced the debate and moved the party to the right, where much of it is today.

In 2016 the right of center vote will be divided among Paul, Ted Cruz, and others, just as the conservative vote was divided in 2012, allowing the highbrow Mitt Romney to win the nomination.

If an outsider wins the nomination, establishmentarians can be counted on to hold their noses and be supportive, if only to maintain their proximity to power. But if an insider like Romney wins, it will be interesting to see if they can convince the Tea Party to stick around, as Mitt failed to do in 2012. Failing that, we could see the death of the modern, national GOP. And possibly the eradication of Reaganism as a governing philosophy.

Or, if Reaganism prevails again, as it did in 1980, 84, 88, 94 and 2006, we could see the departure of the neocons from the GOP, to go back to their natural home in the Democratic Party, where they were once call Trotskyites. And see Bushism fade as a valid governing philosophy.

This coming fight for 2016 will be the Gotterdammerung for the GOP--the “dusk of the gods”-- as it will determine what it stands for, probably for a long time. No one can predict the outcome, but like Ali versus Frazier--or any contest over power--it will be utterly fascinating to watch.

[GOPsterinMA]

Aloha!

I’m originally from central MA; been living in the Boston area for ~20 years.

Southern NH has pretty much been annexed by MA, unfortunately.

[x]

Or, if Reaganism prevails again, as it did in 1980, 84, 88, 94 and 2006, we could see the departure of the neocons from the GOP, to go back to their natural home in the Democratic Party, where they were once call Trotskyites.

Truly bizarre sentence. Those Trotskyite neocons voted for Reagan in 1980 and 1984 (and they weren't Trotskyites and Democrats in the same time period).

[x]

Read more of the article. It doesn’t sound like he actually likes Jeb or the Bushes.

[Westbrook]

Yes, we’ve been overrun here in NH.
:(

I pine for the days of Bill Loeb, Mel Thompson, and the other characters.

I remember when Gov. Mel Thompson had Mass. state troopers arrested for loitering. Mass. gov. Dukakis had sent them north to take down number plates of Mass. citizens buying liquor in NH and radio the plate numbers to troopers on the Mass side of the line where the citizens could be ticketed and harassed by the Mass troopers.

WMUR TV had video of the plain-clothes Mass troopers being escorted with their hands cuffed behind their backs into a court room for a bail hearing.

Delicious.

[zeestephen]

Re: “But if an insider like Romney wins, it will be interesting to see if they can convince the Tea Party to stick around, as Mitt failed to do in 2012.”

This has been the conventional wisdom on the 2012 election for a long time:

Romney lost because millions of white Conservative Republicans stayed home.

I went back and ran the numbers, and, shockingly, that is not true.

In 2012, the number of white voters went DOWN almost 4.5 million compared to 2008.

In spite of that, Romney received 1.2 million MORE white votes than McCain received in 2008!

My conclusion - most of the white folks who stayed home in 2012 voted for Obama in 2008.

Remember - Obama’s total vote in 2012 went DOWN 3.6 million compared to 2008.

Here are the sources I used to compute my numbers:

Roper Center Archives - this break downs how each racial group voted in 2012 and 2008:

http://www.ropercenter.uconn.edu/elections/how_groups_voted/voted_12.html

Wikipedia - they use the official vote totals certified by Congress:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_us_presidential_election

[GOPsterinMA]

I don’t know any of those names, but they must harken back to the days when NH was about as solid a GOP state as there was.

Yep...

:(

[zeestephen]

I can't find it.

I did a “Word Search” (Ctrl F) all the way back to 06 April, three whole pages, and I don't see it.

It had more than 20 Comments, so I don't how I can overlook that.

[Westbrook]

Yeah, Mel Thompson was governor When Jimmuh Carter got elected president.

One of the first things Carter did was to establish the Federal Dept. of Education as a gift to the teachers’ unions that got him elected.

One of the first things the Department of Education did was create the bi-lingual school program. The Dept. of Education would provide funds for bilingual education in the states.

Well, at the time in NH, about 20% of the state was French speaking, and a lot of the Catholic schools had bilingual French/English, and some of them were French only.

Mel Thompson applied for bilingual education funds on behalf of the State of NH. His request was denied because French was not one of the languages qualified for the program by the new Dept. of Education.

As a response, the State of NH did not participate in any Dept. of Education programs until demonRAT governor Hugh Galen took the reigns of government in 1979.

[Impy]

I thought MA refugees who flee to NH were mostly decent people?

[Westbrook]

> I thought MA refugees who flee to NH were mostly decent people?

Unfortunately, most of the transplants were communists.

[GOPsterinMA]

“I thought MA refugees who flee to NH were mostly decent people?”

Probably some of them are, but I’d say most of them are the same as Californians that go to places like NV and CO and sh*t up those states.

[GOPsterinMA]

Ahhhhh.......... You’re teaching me some good history!

[minnesota_bound]

Bush should shutup and go away along with the other rino’s.

[Jim Noble]

Southern NH is all red.

The commies are in Grafton county and elsewhere along the Connecticut River.

[GOPsterinMA]

Yes? I’ll take your word for it.

[Dante3]

I hope he'll move to Mexico - there he can be among people he prefers to Americans. People have had enough Bushes - running wimpy Jeb would be a sure way to lose the election. Putin must be laughing at the idea.

[GOPJ]

Thanks for checking..

[SJackson]

The GOP will never become unified until is decides what it believes. Bush should run if only to force that debate over what Republicans really stand for. Part of the reason Reagan won in 1980 was the field against him was divided. The establishment favored Ambassador Bush or John Connolly or Bob Dole or Howard Baker but Reagan forced the debate and moved the party to the right, where much of it is today

Damn, worst part of getting old is you remember these things. The reason Reagan won, when you count the votes, was that he got nearly 2/3 of them in the primary. Yes, because he motivated voters. GHWB, the Rockefeller Republican standin (not an insult), got about 40% of the Reagan total. The other "competitors" he mentions, Dole, Connolly, Baker were all under 1%, libertarian numbers. Heck, Stassen got nearly 4 times the vote of Dole, and John Anderson half of GHWB, but they weren't mentioned.

Could Jeb get a third of the votes of a solid conservative candidate, I believe he could.

[Theodore R.]

What do you mean? The silly Texans have already “elected” Jebbie’s boy for all practical purposes.

[Pelham]

“if Reaganism prevails again, as it did in 1980, 84, 88, 94 and 2006, we could see the departure of the neocons from the GOP, to go back to their natural home in the Democratic Party, where they were once call Trotskyites. And see Bushism fade as a valid governing philosophy. “

a consummation Devoutly to be wished.