Posted on 09/17/2015 7:25:13 AM PDT by IChing
Most Republicans running for president have only one idea: Be like Reagan!
Unfortunately, they seem to remember nothing about Reagan apart from the media-created caricature of a slightly addled old man who somehow mesmerized an imbecilic public with his sunny optimism.
Jeb! goes around saying, "I believe we're on the verge of the greatest time to be alive."
Marco Rubio answered a question in the first debate about God and veterans, saying: "Well, first, let me say I think God has blessed us. He has blessed the Republican Party with some very good candidates. ... And I believe God has blessed our country. This country has been extraordinarily blessed. And we have honored that blessing. And that's why God has continued to bless us."
John Kasich responded to a question at the New Hampshire presidential forum about why he was running, saying: "Well, Jack, look, we're all -- we -- I've received blessings. Most of us here have been very, very blessed, and when you get that way, you have to figure out what your purpose is in life to make the world a little better place."
They all sound like Barney, the purple dinosaur, singing, "I love you, you love me!"
The other problem with the Be Reagan strategy is: It's not 1980 anymore. Reagan's election is as far away today as the defeat of Hitler was then.
Gov. Scott Walker's answer to whether he'd invade Iraq, knowing "what you know today," was: "I'd point out that in the overall issue of foreign policy, I'd say in my lifetime, the most impressive president when it came to foreign policy was a governor from California."
What does that even mean? Is he going to invade Grenada, fund the Contras and put missiles in Western Europe? Back in 1996, when Bob Dole said, "I'm willing to be another Ronald Reagan, if that's what you want," at least people laughed.
When Moammar Gadhafi was under siege in 2011, Rick Santorum said: "Ronald Reagan bombed Libya. If you want to be Reaganesque, the path is clear."
On the other hand, in the quarter century since Reagan bombed Libya, Bush invaded Iraq, prompting Gadhafi to end his WMD program, invite in U.N. weapons inspectors, and pay the families of the Lockerbie bombing victims $8 million apiece.
Nonetheless, "bomb Libya" is exactly what our feckless commander in chief did. Obama sent American troops to participate in the NATO bombing of Libya -- which helped oust Gadhafi, which led to Islamic lunatics running the country, which led to the murder of four Americans, including our ambassador, in 2012, and the refugees flooding Europe today.
Formulaic applications of Reagan's policies from the 1980s don't always work the same way they did in the 1980s. (Similarly, Duran Duran's new single was kind of a dud.) I used "What Would Reagan Do?" as a joke back in 2005; these guys think it's an actual governing philosophy.
When Reagan was running (three and a half decades ago), there was a real fight in the Republican Party over abortion, the Equal Rights Amendment, guns and foreign policy. Reagan had to face down elements in his own party to be pro-life, anti-ERA, pro-gun and to pursue an aggressive anti-Soviet foreign policy.
Reagan won. It's over. The ERA is gone. The Soviet Union is gone. The GOP is unquestionably the party of life and the Second Amendment. (If only fetuses could get their hands on a gun!)
Ever since the hero of 9/11, Rudy Giuliani, couldn't get out of the starting gate in his presidential bid because he was pro-abortion and anti-gun, no serious Republican candidate is ever going to waver on those two issues again.
So why did Marco Rubio find it necessary to stress that he opposed abortion even in cases of rape and incest at the first GOP presidential debate? Did he not live through that whole Todd Akin thing, like the rest of us?
Today, the fight in the Republican Party isn't over abortion, guns or the Sandinistas; the dividing line is immigration. Will we continue to be the United States, or will we become another failed Latin American state?
On this, it's Donald Trump (and the people) vs. everyone else.
Trump announced his presidential campaign by talking about Mexican rapists. Immigration is the only policy paper he's put out so far -- and he's been crushing the polls. He got his one sustained standing ovation from 20,000 cheering fans in Dallas Monday night when he talked about stopping illegal immigration.
But James B. Stewart gasses on in The New York Times about Trump's "namecalling, personal attacks and one-liners that have vaulted him to the top of the polls." In the entire article, Stewart never mentions immigration.
Perhaps some minority of people will vote for Trump because of his personality. But I notice that it's his position on immigration that gets thousands of people leaping to their feet.
The media will talk about anything but Trump's specific, detailed policies on immigration -- all while claiming he doesn't have any "policy details." The very fact that the entire media -- including most of the conservative commentariat -- obdurately refuse to acknowledge the popularity of Trump's immigration plans is exactly why Trump is exploding in the polls.
Trump isn't trying to imitate anyone. He's leading on the seminal issue of our time while the rest of the field practices looking optimistic in front of the mirror.
For the rest it was pretty much a verbal brawl.
No one's asking him to be wonkish, but it would help if he showed ANY substance.
Duh! If it's not obvious you're not worth noticing, because you don't know it's obvious to anyone who's worth noticing that it's obvious! </sarc>
I agree with you on all points, and your post just sparked a bit of insight. For personal reasons have the deliberate border collapse on a back burner. But the deliberate, de facto open border policy shows like no other issue the utter indifference of the American elite to what happens to ALL THE REST OF US.
Both parties have sold Americans out for transnationalism. Their sedition is naked on this issue. I wonder how they would fare in a type of Nuremburg trial, addressing their emails, connections, and pay offs regarding their willful sabotage of border security? Would that we were like Iceland, and would put these people in the dock for malfeasance in office.
I like the way Trump thinks, but like all the candidates, there was a ton of talent on the stage IMO.
I’m not prepared to trust someone who can’t answer questions honestly.
Trump says, trust me. That’s not good enough for me, I want to know his philosophy of life and of government.
I wouldn’t trust someone who isn’t prepared to make a good case as to why we should hand him the keys to the most powerful office on the earth.
I’m still waiting to be convinced.
Trump needs to raise another hackle. He should ask publicly,
“Why is Obama letting in so many Muslims, and why is everybody ignoring this problem?”
One thing I’ve learned in my life is that there is no one size fits all regarding people and events. It depends :) on which people, what events.
Trump has touched on that in a couple of interviews, saying if you have 14 points, when you get to the deal, you may have to change point 2, etc. Paraphrased of course.
I can understand that clearly.
I’m not voting on debating talent...
No, it’s really not. He’s not been a pol before and he’s still working with his team to flesh out a number of his major policy positions. Sure, he leans more than he should on the strength of his personality, but he’s been better and smarter at attracting voters than any other candidate to this point—and that’s largely his doing, not his handlers’.
He’s very quick on his feet with a good sense of humor and he has, indeed, been very successful in a number of arenas. Most of the other guys up there are long-trained seals, where answering questions on just these topics have been their bread and butter for years.
If Trump doesn’t progress in details and specifics through the fall, yeah, he will fail.
Like Ross Perot, he is very good with one liners and entertaining generalities.
But getting him to provide substance on his views is an exercise in frustration.
Its an act that will eventually grow old and then the bottom will drop out of his run for the White House.
No one remembers Perot except as the funny guy who ended his campaign one day and paved the way for Clinton.
Don’t you think he’s sharp enough to appoint good cabinet positions, and listen to good advisors?
That is what running a business or country is all about, including proper goals and ethics.
Perfectly said, thanks.
Exactly. I’ve seen Trump’s type many, many times before. On used car lots. On late-night infomercials. On street corners in Times Square.
The guy’s a huckster, plain and simple. He tells people what they want to hear, shucks and jives to obscure the fact that he’s blowing smoke, and does everything he can to keep them from peeking behind the curtain before he closes the sale. He’s a salesman, and a shady one at that. No surprise, considering his roots as a NYC real estate developer.
Trump hates the whole Bush family even after endorsing GHW.
I don't know if it was “read my lips” or what but something happened during the first Bush presidency to cause him to hate the whole bunch of them.
I would like to believe it was because Bush took all of the positives of Reagan and threw them in a pile on the floor but I don't know the real reason.
I’d guess if a person follows the money they’ll get to the source.
It is not pure emotion driving Trump’s support. Many of us who do support him recognize that he is not a philosophical conservative. We have watched the GOP machine prove itself for years to be ineffectual, contemptuous and treacherous to its base. We recognize that Trump -might- be sincere on a few points where we agree, and are willing to give the man a chance to effect good policy. Policy which we know from experience the GOP machine will pervert, subvert, or simply ignore.
That is not an emotional assessment. It is the intellectual recognition that the Republican Party is treacherous, enervated and hostile towards conservatives.
Are you going to wait for the fallout of another National Socialist Democrat holocaust as well?
Whether or not Cruz is best suited for the presidency—and yeah, I’d take him first for the position among the alternatives right now—he’s not best suited to win the two races he needs to get there. Just comes across as oily and posturing, like a televangelist, in his delivery, and has no sense, such as Trump has a keen one, on how to connect with big numbers of average people. Cruz is also beholden to his top donors, for whom religious liberty is their single issue, so he’s even hampered on an issues point in executing his race.
Cruz’s best chance at this point is to sneak in as Trump’s veep and move up from there.
Now, IMO Trump will also have to learn (fast) not to mug so much for the camera in debates or to gratuitously go after small fry like Rand and all of that. But he is sharp—like Cruz or Carly or Ben or Bobby—with much more emotional intelligence in, again, connecting with people. In that way, he’s probably more like Christie than any of the other candidates.
Trump’s still got to learn, but he’s in a great position to have the luxury of a sizable lead while doing so.
Perot said he sat in a GM meeting and said lets pick one thing on this car and make it the very best there is. Even if that one thing was the cigarette lighter... I remember that :)
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