Posted on 05/24/2011 6:43:31 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
How’s this for an impressive Republican lineup?
A likable former governor and TV personality; a two-term governor with an unmatched fiscal record; another former governor with the best education-reform credentials in the country; a rising star in the House; and a photogenic senator from the heartland.
They are Mike Huckabee, Mitch Danieenvirols, Jeb Bush, Mike Pence, and John Thune. The Republicans sitting out the 2012 nomination battle would themselves make a formidable field. Indeed, more formidable than the actual entrants. The hottest place to be in Republican politics right now is sitting on the sidelines.
With Governor Daniels deciding over the weekend not to run, it is slowly dawning on the Republican mind that the party’s choice may effectively come down to Mitt Romney or Tim Pawlenty. This prospect produces a range of emotions running from disappointment to panic.
Former Massachusetts governor Romney is next in line, an advantageous place to be in a party that traditionally chooses its candidates like the guy behind the counter in a deli — take a number and wait. If Romney wins the nomination, it will probably be a victory in the tradition of GOP front-runners Bob Dole and John McCain, who got the party’s nod out of sheer reflex or the lack of more appealing choices.
Former Minnesota governor Pawlenty makes sense on paper. He compiled a conservative record as governor of a Democratic state, and he comes from the upper Midwest, an area where Republicans have growth potential. But nominations aren’t won on paper. Pawlenty will have to energize GOP voters without being too obviously false to his mild-mannered persona.
Jon Huntsman is the other candidate with credentials usually associated with a presidential nominee — former governor and former ambassador. He was President Obama’s ambassador to China, though, and he spent much of his Utah governorship lecturing the party to be less conservative on fashionable issues such as the environment and gay rights. That he is now being mentioned as a top-tier candidate is commentary on the weakness of that tier.
Minnesota representative Michele Bachmann will probably run and generate excitement in Howard Dean style as the candidate of “the conservative wing of the Republican party.” Like another compelling grassroots candidate, Pat Buchanan, she’s more likely to be a glorious cause than an eventual nominee. Herman Cain is a big, appealing personality but has never held elective office. Former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum lost his job by 18 points in 2006. Newt Gingrich is running around his launching pad in a flame-retardant suit trying to douse the fire.
Which is why the party turns its lonely eyes to New Jersey governor Chris Christie and Wisconsin representative Paul Ryan. Christie has grappled with his state’s fiscal problems with brio. He’s fresh and unconventional, at a time of exhaustion with politics as usual. Yet the moment he even dips his toe in the presidential waters, his standing will decline among New Jersey voters, who will feel jilted. If he makes the plunge, he’d be staking his career on a late entrance and victory in New Hampshire, where there’s no guarantee he’d sell the way he does in the Garden State.
Among the crop of candidates and potential candidates, Ryan has the profile most similar to that of the Barack Obama of 2007 as he prepared to take his party by storm. Ryan, too, is an implausible candidate; no one has won the presidency from the House since 1880. He, too, is young, talented and winsome, and captures something important in the zeitgeist of his party. But he just ascended to the Budget Committee chairmanship, from which he is already defining the national debate. There’s one quality that unites all the declared or likely candidates so far: They have nothing to lose.
Every nomination fight produces surprises and dark horses, a John McCain in 2000, a Mike Huckabee in 2008. As their field emerges into the cold light of day, Republicans are desperate to be surprised.
If Obama was electable anyone is electable. Hell, I’m even electable.
The FEC (the Federal Election Commission which governs federal election financing) close date for quarterly and semiannual reporting is June 30. So any prominent candidate with the potential to realize a huge influx of money upon declaring will likely want to wait until after this date. Nothing really happens anyway until early 2012. Early straw polls and debates and even the earliest primaries are not good predictors and only benefit those with no name recognition.
If a potential candidate already has name recognition and regularly has on-air appearances, what advantage would there be to declare early? It just gives the press more time to attack, reduces their on-air time, eliminates their commentary job, etc. If the press is cranky about the candidates, it means the big names are controlling their own timetable not the press pressuring them into making a move. Suspense and anticipation are keeping the big names in the news without them having to spend a dime.
Open wide. TPaw is going to be jammed down your throat.
The person who will win the nomination is the one who can bring obama’s corruption to the forefront. They must get in some good sound bytes and headlines against his policies. They have to attack him straight on and get the truth out on the unemployment numbers, his sympathies with islam, the disappearance of the stimulus money, his shady deals with Rezko, his ties with Ayers, his phony SSN. He needs to bring up everything that wasn’t investigated the first time around because you know the obama team is going to get down and dirty. They are already trying to dig up dirt on Christie and he isn’t even running. Cain can make headway without being called a racist.
Some might be good VP candidates and a few would be good Presidents. But electable? Not seeing it.
And his answer is "no." He, like Ryan and other up-and-coming GOPers, he'd like to spare his family the white-hot glare of scrutiny and character assassination.
he’d = would
Well said, FRiend. But the drumbeat for Huntsman is coming among the “intellectuals.”
The Republicans are holding their powder. They don’t have to waste money fighting the MSM 24/7 to overcome negative publicity. When we actually get to a real cutoff date for primary voting, then some of the bigger names might commit. In a way they are taking a page out of the Tea Party by not giving the MSM a target to character assassinate (with the exception of Palin who has received non-stop abuse since she was selected the VP of McCain). Anybody the MSM loves for the Republicans is dead on arrival. Anyone they hate, despise, or ridicule has a chance to get through the primaries.
Sure looks like some real hot deal making going on in the smoky back rooms in D.C.
Have you looked at the primary dates in 2012? Several are set to go in January. It could be settled by March. If you're running, you better be taking in funds. You'll need it to get your message out, to differentiate yourself from the rest, to set up a ground-game in early states, to conduct and defend against opposition research. You can't just show up in September and expect a winning campaign to materialize from thin air.
Wanted: enthusiastic, articulate individual with good governance record on which to run. Is it really too much to ask?
The problem is that the right-wing pundits and many people here are too worried about slamming a viable condidate because of a small difference or two and are abslutely self destructing andf killing off anyone who would be good.
Pessimistic and cynical to the max, republicans and some conservatives are destroying any chance of a good candidate even before the left and their media get a shot at them.
It’s called shooting yourself in the foot.
That's a pure strawman. I know nobody whose "only concern" is electability. But I know an awful lot of people for whom electability is a very important concern, among others. The most perfect credentials in the world are of no value if you don't get elected.
If conservatives cannot sell conservatism to the majority of voters they deserve to lose.
I could care less whether we "deserve" to lose or not. I want to win. The Democrats have done what they have done to this country by running one way, and governing another. And it has worked for them. If having a conservative muzzle a few conservative opinions so as to appeal to more moderates gets him/her elected, and he/she then implements conservative policies, I'm completely fine with that.
Much better to win dirty than lose fair.
You’re absolutely right. People keep attacking anyone who isn’t their perfect candidate, while forgetting that almost all of them are much better than Obama. We’re breaking apart into little sects that may destroy our chance to win an election that cannot be lost.
“You can’t just show up in September and expect a winning campaign to materialize from thin air....”
I didn’t say or imply to wait until September. I said the next FEC accounting period starts July 1, so there would be no reason to declare before that if you are capable of raising a lot of money and there are a handful of undeclared potential candidates that could raise that kind of money very quickly. Regardless, I don’t think the time frame is as important this election as it has been before.
Very well made points, especially the second one.
If we can stop eating our own long enough maybe we can actually get an “electable” person to run.
Only as a punchline to a joke. I can think of few other reasons to speak of him. Ron Paul has as much chance of winning the nomination as Harold Stassen used to. If it were ever slightly possible that Paul was competitive for the nomination, for every pro-voter who turned out, there would probably be four Republican voters who would turn out to vote against Paul who otherwise wouldn't have voted.
The question is: why do the so-called conservative media follow suit. Let the legacy media define the Republican shortcomings. The honest media should define them by their potential presidential capability. In other words, Lowry, if you can't say something nice, shut up.
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