Posted on 04/06/2011 9:53:26 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Never before in American politics have so few offered so little to so many. I refer to the prospective Republican candidates for next year's presidential elections, not a single one of whom elicits a response that might be mistaken for enthusiasm from the voters, the pundits, or the party's elder statesmen.
There are a couple of generic governor types like Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota or Mitch Daniels of Indiana, and a long list of has-beens and never was's. But the Republicans despair of finding the man or woman who can define an alternative to a weak and waffling President Barack Obama.
Something deeper is at work than the luck of the draw. Former president Ronald Reagan defined his part for a quarter a century, and it is worth remembering how he did so. During the 1979 primaries when Reagan trounced his establishment competitors - Texas governor John Connally and the elder George Bush - he was told during a strategy session that not one Fortune 500 chief executive officer had endorsed him. America's big corporations, the pillars of the party during the Dwight D Eisenhower and Richard Nixon administrations, backed Connally or Bush.
"Then I will be the candidate of the small businessman, the farmer, and the entrepreneur," Reagan told his staff. The late Jude Wanniski, who preached what became Reaganonomics from the Wall Street Journal editorial page through the 1970s, told me this story 10 years later, when I became his partner in an economic consulting firm.
Reagan unleashed a wave of entrepreneurship such as post-depression America had never seen, and transformed the Republicans from a party of country-club conservatism to the party of boot-strapping creative destruction.
Where are the entrepreneurs?
Judging from recent economic data they are an endangered species.
(Excerpt) Read more at atimes.com ...
Holy Cow I can’t believe you actually do have an account here.
who could emulate Ronald Reagan with a fair degree of credibility - Mike Huckabee, Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum all come to mind.
I must respectfully disagree. Reagan had a vision of and for this country. Huckabee and Gingrich only have visions of themselves sitting in the Oval Office, riding Air Force One and listening to "Hail to the Chief" at state dinners. Both would be disasters for the Republican Party registering on the Nixon/Dole scale.
Here’s a (non-rhetorical) question: Does anyone out there think Romney has a chance? Wouldn’t be my first (or fifth) choice, but friends are asking.
A. The one who can raise the most money.
IMHO he has a very good chance. John McCain went from odds on favorite to flying around alone and broke when most of his staff quit. Then he won. The conservatives didn't want McCain, but they couldn't decide who they did want. He won the states with open primaries and lost all the states with closed primaries. Romney could do the same thing. In fact, with an incumbent President liberals have every reason to cross over and vote for whoever they think will be easiest to beat in open primary states. Romney's people can do math. They'll pick off the states they need without winning a majority in any state and barely showing in the South.
Then in November all the evangelicals will vote third party and the least qualified man in America will win a second term.
RE: Q. Who will be the candidate?
A. The one who can raise the most money.
Why should raising more money make a difference to the true conservative?
Are they going to bribe you to get their vote?
As a small-business owner, I have to agree with him. The lack of character in applicants - many of them former managerial-level corporate employees who were victims of the 2008 crisis - is mind-boggling. We appear to have been paying a whole lot of useless people far too much money during the last two decades and calling it prosperity.
Now every Republican claims to be a 'true conservative'. So the one nominated will be the one who can raise more 'free speech' to campaign. BTW with apologies, just what the hell does a true conservative want to conserve, these days?
RE: just what the hell does a true conservative want to conserve, these days?
Answer: Faithfulness to the constitution.
As for raising more money to win, a person who has his convictions and his serious about the presidency would consider this irrelevant. Mitt Romney can raise a trillion dollars for his campaign for all I care, it would not make a dent on my impression of him. HE WAS RESPONSIBLE FOR ROMNEY CARE AND STILL BELIEVE THAT IT WAS (IS) THE RIGHT THING TO DO.
No amount of money will make me vote for him on that record alone.
If raising more money makes one win in this country, then I am afraid that there’s a problem with most American voters.
For those who’ve paid attention, Gov. Palin has endorsed main street entrepreneurs over corrupt corporate interests from the very beginning.
When is Sarah Palin declaring her candidacy or even forming a presidential exploratory committee like Michele Bachmann did ?
Well said. But is Romney care any more unconstitutional than a succession of Presidents finding work-arounds to avoid a formal declaration of war before bombing and invading elsewhere?
I don’t know. I don’t know if she will. But if you haven’t noticed, almost all the major candidates are avoiding taking that step before they have to.
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