My response is that this has all been covered, asked and answered under almost every scenario. #1, you may not be ready to give him the clinical diagnosis as I did several years ago, but that doesn’t change his conduct and actions that led me (and others) to said conclusion. If it walks like a duck and all that jazz...
You must recall I went to extraordinary efforts (I’m patting myself on the back here, which I probably shouldn’t do, because it’s not making me look selfless, which I actually was trying to go for) that I aggressively and unapologetically replied virtually every time a Willard thread popped up starting from about circa 2004 (when it became apparent he decided to abandon his job as MA Governor, coast to the end, flee it and then run for President as he had planned over a decade earlier with his run against Ted the Swimmer, where his deluded sense of self-importance forecast that the Republicans, and his Conservative enemies, would anoint him for President in 1996).
I had to ask and answer every imaginable question where he was concerned, from policy to personality, et al, from a sympathetic and hostile crowd alike. Literally nothing went unanswered where he was concerned.
Where I dismissed him was a very simple and common-sense conclusion on my part. It was simple because it posited the question, “Was he a successful Governor ?” The answer was an unheralded “no.” How many so-called “successful” Governors are so quick to WANT to get away from the job they were elected to ? He didn’t want to be Governor any more than he wanted to settle in to a long term career as Senator. If he could’ve served 2 years and jumped to President, that was his goal... plus, he’d not have spent much time on the job since he’d have been instantly campaigning for his next office...
2 years... that’s even faster than Zero. At least he had to go 4 whole years in the Senate before going to the White House (and had to toil for a decade in the IL legislature biding his time so he could jump to his earlier goal of getting elected to the U.S. House - when I first heard of him in 2000, when he was literally curb-stomped by Bobby Rush. Yes, kids, Zero was eminently defeatable, if you were actually looking to beat him. Rush wasn’t going to give up his seat to Urkel !).
I’ll tell you that I used to think the notion that both parties were in bed together was a bit silly, perhaps with more than a touch of paranoia. However, what I’ve witnessed occur in this country over the past 20 years (or longer) has led me to conclude that that paranoid delusion may in fact be dead on the money. There’s too many in power in the establishment that are content with the status quo and prefer it to remain like that for the foreseeable future.
I’ve studied state parties where the GOP has slipped from preeminence to moribundity, and they seem to share a similar trait: they have the same leaders that cling to power like a Tiberian bat does to its victims’ necks (apologies for the Star Trek reference, it just fit). They keep power amidst the shrinking pie, and eventually find themselves often getting crumbs and support from the Dem opposition precisely for keeping the GOP opposition from becoming a threat. Indeed, said “Republicans” enjoy a closer relationship with the Democrat majority than they do with any outsiders or reformers. By which time, their sole purposes is to sabotage outsiders/reformers, utterly and completely. If they don’t do so, they lose their power and all the benefits that come with making common cause with the Democrat majority. You’ll see this is the case in many urban locales, too.
Where this is most frightening is that it has spread to the national level, but under slightly different dynamics, where the GOP can “play” the part of the majority on paper, but there’s no real status quo change. No “Conservative” agenda to speak of, beyond the bullshit they feed the stupid voters come election year. Effectively, you have the massive government that both sides support (in their votes, not the rhetoric), and no cuts to anything. Everybody winks and nods that they’re smarter than everybody else.
You ask the question how is the country better off under Zero vs. Willard (assuming Willard was going to try to win, which was not a part of the deal). The answer is, there would be no difference. Only that the Republicans would be blamed (including those who actually fight against this madness) for the current state of affairs. ZeroCare wouldn’t have been possible without Willard in MA to begin with. You think he’d have dismantled or changed what he gave birth to ? Of course not.
Willard perfectly demonstrated in office and in actions that he’s not a Conservative whatsoever. He was raised a leftist by parents who were Democrat Socialists at heart but decided it would be easier in 1962 Michigan to utilize a weak MI GOP to gain power over a freshman 2-year Gubernatorial incumbent (unlikely would he have beaten him in a primary). As with George the Terrible, he too also wanted a quick way to the White House and fast (conveniently, 1964 was 2 years away, though that little unpleasantness in Dallas a year after his election put that all on hold).
I mean, seriously, I saw this dog and pony show before with his father. His father was as inappropriately suited for the White House as his boy. He uttered the infamous line about how he was “brainwashed” on supporting the Vietnam War, with the liberal Democrat Sen. Gene McCarthy replying that it was a very “light” rinsing. At least McCarthy was honest.
In the end, doing just a cursory review of Willard would’ve drawn the proper conclusion that he was not on our side, he was never going to be on our side, and would’ve inflicted maximum damage to the national party and Conservative movement because he was with that same group of leftist elites that rotate power because it’s “their turn.” They’re there to stop Conservatives, stop reform, stop any threat to their power. Make no mistake, Willard remains in the power structure now: he just got his protégé and flunky installed as House Speaker, despite clear and present evidence that Ryan is blatantly anti-Conservative, and they cajoled and threatened the party members to support him almost to the last.
Willard, of course, is just part of a much larger problem with our current system, but it was our moral imperative that he was defeated absolutely for any other elective office because if not, it is HE who becomes our face leading the GOP. Look at Nixon, who turned out to enact a lot of really bad leftist policy as President. There were scores of Conservatives who opposed him, but they went down in flaming defeat in 1974 because it was Nixon that was the party face and everything he did wrong got them painted with the broad brushstroke. But what didn’t lose ? The leftist policies, which were then augmented and exacerbated by the Democrats.
A Willard (or McQueeg) “win” would’ve been exactly the same: leftist policies, utter failure, Republican blame, GOP loss at the ballot box, Democrat replacement, more leftist policies and on and on. Power and leftist policies are paramount - they MUST be preserved by the political class at the expense of the Constitution and the people. People must be made to believe that if big gubmint isn’t there to “protect them” all hell will break loose. The dirty little secret is that the political class needs us more than we need them. We’ve got to be liberated from them before they complete their twisted and evil plan for us, and each day we get closer to their goal.