The GOP Presidential Field

The Wall Street Journal pulled no punches in its criticism of Mitt Romney in its May 12 lead staff editorial. With a title like Obama's Running Mate, you knew it wouldn't be kind. Romney replied with a letter to the editor a day later, the details of which caused me to wonder if the two were even referring to some of the same data. For example, the Journal claimed that RomneyCare is soaking up 40% of the Massachusetts state budget, while Romney alleged it's less than 5%.

Meanwhile, the aging and progressively less-relevant one-time Reagan speech writer Peggy Noonan devoted her weekend Journal column to discussing Mitch Daniels, Chris Christie and Newt Gingrich. Then veered off into a largely unrelated tangent concerning presidents or candidates who cheat on their wives now, rather than in the past.

However, with the recent South Carolina GOP candidates debate now recent history, it's probably time for the first of a running series of my personal views on and handicapping of the GOP presidential race.

As of last night, possibly on his Fox News program, Mike Huckabee formally announced he won't seek the nomination. Gingrich, earlier in the week, announced he will.

Thus we have, at this point, the following:

Declared: Herman Cain, Gary Johnson, Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich, Ron Paul, Mitt Romney, Jon Hunstman

Undeclared: Mitch Daniels, Sarah Palin, Michelle Bachman

Not Running: Haley Barbour, Mike Huckabee, Jeb Bush, Chris Christie

The way I choose to classify these candidates is along these lines:

Who is electable?
Who do I prefer?

Who is electable? This is, for me, the more important question. When Bill Clinton was president, it was hard to claim he was really screwing things up. Gifted with a recovering economy, thanks to George H.W. Bush, Clinton didn't have to do much to get re-elected. Even his affairs weren't enough to sink him.

This time, though, we have a president who has actually messed up every single thing he's touched. I don't count the killing of Bin Laden, because that was a one-off mission that Wonderboy didn't actually "touch," but on which he simply gave the go-ahead. In economics, health care, the budget/deficit and foreign policy, the First Rookie has failed miserably.

Thus, for any sensible conservative, whether Republican or not, the most important task is to nominate a GOP candidate who has the best chance of winning, and isn't Obama, because literally anyone will be better than our incumbent.

That means the Republican who is most appealing to independent voters should be nominated, in order to earn as many of that 40% block of voters as possible.

Karl Rove does a great job analyzing the details of the election. He recently wrote a column in the Journal identifying which states are the key few in the electoral college to win the election. That's certainly one way to analyze 2012.

Another is to consider this. McCain ran a terrible campaign, nearly every black voted for Wonderboy, as did millions of upscale Yuppy whites who felt guilty about the country's segregationist past. Even so, Obama only won by 6 percentage points.

A younger, less grumpy, appealing GOP candidate should be able to sweep Obama out with some ease. Many of the wealthier whites now realize their mistake and won't repeat it. Independents who worry about ObamaCare and the deficit should be easy to pick up, too.

So, if I had omniscience, I'd simply choose the GOP candidate for whom the most independents would vote. Short of that, I'd use the latest Rasmussen poll with those results.

Since I don't have those numbers at hand, and it's still early, here are my personal view of who is electable in the general election.

Electable: Gingrich, Daniels

Unelectable: Ron Paul, Hunstman, Johnson, Cain, Bachman, Santorum, Palin, Romney

Here are my reasons for the latter group's unelectability.

Ron Paul- Too cranky and quirky. Too little executive experience. Good ideas and values, but just out of step on too many fronts. Too libertarian to grab the center of the independents.

Johnson, Santorum- Too little name recognition and too narrow a base of appeal.

Palin- Too shallow, too little time as governor and she left the job. Too quirky and undisciplined to remain trustworthy by independents. Too much of an outsider for most Republicans.

Romney- RomneyCare. And he has nothing new to offer since the last time he lost.

Bachman- Too little experience. Just too shallow on experience at this point in her life to run successfully against a sitting president.

So that leaves Ginrich and Daniels.

When I read the story regarding Daniels' wife in the Wall Street Journal, my first reaction was that he is unelectable. And I sort of think he is, but, if that personal detail can be overcome, he's got the right ideological and experiential credentials. But it's just bizarre that his wife left him and their four daughters in Indiana, divorced him, married someone in California for two years, divorced him, moved back and remarried Daniels. And neither will talk about it.

Very weird.

Gingrich, if he could avoid primaries and debates, would probably win a general election against Wonderboy. The debates would be great, and Newt would eat the president alive because he's smarter and more knowledgeable, plus he held the only Congressional post of national rank and importance- Speaker of the House.

Of course, Newt's fondness for the ethanol lobby, his large ego, and his appalling treatment of two ex-wives, on whom he cheated while married to them, isn't going to inspire confidence and trust in his actual personal values.

My personal preference? Probably Newt Gingrich, followed by Mitch Daniels. Herman Cain, by virtue of his candor and business experience, would be third.

I think Gingrich would actually be a pretty effective president for at least one term. It would be the completion of his House agenda of nearly 20 years ago.

Daniels is also pretty appealing to me. He has so many of the ideal credentials, but that divorce by his wife seems odd. And his offer to table social issues is misguided and may spell an unrealistic view of the genuine federal-level problems which intertwine spending and social programs.

But, in the final analysis, we only need someone who won't be Wonderboy for just four years. After that, other Republicans will emerge, perhaps other problems, too.

With all their warts and weaknesses, either Gingrich or Daniels could likely last for four years while doing a good job on the budget, reforming badly-designed entitlement programs, and repairing foreign policy.

The Second "Super Tuesday" Results

It's been a while since I've commented on the Presidential campaigns. This morning, in the wake of last night's significant election results, seems a propitious time to revisit them.

If you are a conservative and/or notionally Republican-leaning, all is right with the world today.

McCain won convincingly, Hickabee has finally faced reality and conceded, and the Democrats will remain at each other's throats until Labor Day.

Hallelujah!

Truly, it can't get any better than this. Confusion to the liberals, while the conservative-to-moderates can coalesce and see the clear differences between the ever-more-left-moving Hillary and Obama and the centrist-conservative McCain.

If Obama had managed to win Texas and Ohio, or either one, he might have driven Hillary out and begun to swing into general election mode. As it is, both will push each other further left to try to cinch their party's nomination.

In the meantime, the fights over the Florida and Michigan delegations, plus the now-important, secretive 'superdelegates,' will put the Democratic Party on display before the American electorate as pandering, inwardly-divided and craven. Both candidates will be trying to out-grovel the other as they pander to the extreme left of their party.

Meanwhile, McCain can finally be recognized by the sitting President as his party's candidate. Party-level fundraising, with the assistance of President Bush, can begin. McCain has seven months to prepare for the final month of the general campaign.

Hard as it is to believe, the Democrats may actually be snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, again, this year. You'd have thought, last summer, that it was a cinch that a Democrat would be sitting in the Oval Office at this time next year. Heck, most of Wall Street thought so, judging by their rush to back Hillary and Obama.

Not now.

Instead, many financial service firm leaders are watching in dismay as their pet liberal candidates now turn on American business, the better to garner extremely liberal votes.

As one Fox News Network guest pundit opined a month ago,

"If the Democrats can't win the White House this time, they should fold up their tent and close down their party."

Well said.

Re: Iowa Caucuses

The Iowa caucuses results are now old news. New Hampshire's primary is tomorrow. If I'm going to make any insightful comments after the former, and before the latter, it better be today.

Being from the Midwest originally, I perhaps have a different perspective on Iowa than many Easterners.

Regarding Hickabee, I think he's just a flash in the pan who got lucky by tapping into the Iowan evangelical base. That isn't going to be happening twice.

Just last night, on Fox News' panel of the leading five Republican Presidential candidates (Giuliani, Thompson, Huckabee, McCain and Romney), Huckabee scored nearly the worst of the five with Fox's focus group. One of the group's members, when asked what she didn't like about Huckabee, promptly said,

"I am voting for a President, not a minister."

Apparently, though I missed the opening of the debate/panel, Huckabee fumbled the very first question badly. Several focus group respondents thought he 'waffled 3 or four times' on just this first question.

Romney, on the other hand, was the nearly-unanimous choice among the focus group for his responses, his experience, and his leadership-projecting demeanor.

Personally, I was moved by a Wall Street Journal editorial shortly before the Iowa caucuses by an Iowan. He noted that not since Jimmy Carter had Iowa's choice led the nation after the ensuing election.

Thus, I have even stronger feelings that Hickabee's 'win' in Iowa is an aberration.

Thompson, my personal, unelectable favorite, was the nearly-unanimously worst performer on the Fox panel last night. He was characterized by the focus group members as,

"an actor," and

"he has good ideas but communicates poorly."

That's pretty much where I am. If I could wave a wand to get my wish, I'd make him President. But the reality is that he is too thoughtful and slowish for today's media environment. He's likable, experienced in legislative government, but just not dynamic enough in a race that features Hickabee and Romney.

I'd like to believe that Thompson could be someone's running mate, but I'm not sure that would ever happen.

To me, the biggest question for the Republicans is whether Giuliani's 'wait for the South' strategy will work, or whether he'll be hopelessly behind and running short of funds after ceding Iowa and New Hampshire.

I expect either Romney, Giuliani or McCain to eventually be the party's nominee. Hopefully, one of the first two.

As to Iowa's results for the Democrats, I will admit that I could not be more pleased. Obama Bim Baden and John-boy Edwards both beat Hillary.

Confusion to our enemies! Can it get any better than this for a start?

Obama is long-term unelectable. As Kim Strassel wrote in a Journal editorial recently, Obama claims to want 'change,' but change to what?

He claims to want to 'unite,' but his real message, if you listent closely, is old-school American politics,

'Let's get the White House, and then use our control of Congress, too, to ram our 'changes' down everybody's throats!'

As Rudy Giuliani said last night on the Fox News panel, Democrats all want 'change,' and, in fact, in an election without an incumbent, everybody is for 'change.' The question is, change to what?

I don't believe many people will, once the voting booth curtains close, actually vote for Obama. He's just too green and inexperienced. Do you really want this guy at a table across from Putin's successor, the Iranian President, or the Chinese leader? I don't. He's a baby with literally no accomplishments to his name.

And, no, he's not like Abe Lincoln, also from Illinois. Lincoln was a combat-tested leader of militia in the Blackhawk Wars, a successful local trial attorney and noted state legislator at a time when states had comparatively more control and influence over its citizen's lives than they arguably do today.

And, despite Peggy Noonan's belief, Obama is playing the race card, hard, by implicitly daring people to not be for him, thus being racist.

Edwards may have tapped into some disaffected Iowans, but his message of doom and corporate greed doesn't have legs. People vote for positive visions, not vengeful agendas. Edwards continues to stump for demonizing and crippling the US private sector, according to John-boy's own personal opinions.

But the fact that each of these two inept Democratic Presidential candidates beat Hillary shows she is now damaged. She can't make people like her.

Her shrill, braying plea the next day in New Hampshire,

'Ask us anything you want to know about us!' conveys her newly-desperate condition. And who's this 'us,' anyway? The legendary Team Billary?

I believe her loss in Iowa will push Hillary further into the sort of panic mode that will reveal her true, innate, unlikable and untrustworthy self. Her armor is cracked, blood has been drawn.

Though I'm not a Democrat, I believe Hillary will, eventually, beat Obama for the nomination. Her funding and organization may well finally edge the babe out, but at the cost of a deeply flawed and weakened candidate who lacks passion and an impassioned voter base.

For what it's worth, the Fox News New Hampshire focus group last night felt that Romney, their favorite, could beat the Democrat they believe will win the nomination, Obama Bim Baden.

I think the important aspect of Iowa, though, is that Hillary was caught looking ahead to see Edwards and Obama both in front of her. Panic must now be truly setting in. How many early contests can Hillary afford to lose?

Wouldn't it be wild if, with all the front-loaded primaries this year, the Democrats, and/or, for that matter, the Republicans, ended up with one of these two dilemmas:

-a genuinely 'open' convention in which no one candidate has yet achieved the necessary votes to win their party's nomination?

or

-a 'winner' with whom the party is actually not happy, by the time they get to the convention?

The early packing of delegate selections could well hand someone unqualified, such as Obama or Hickabee, a victory that their party knows can't be sustained in the general election.

Perhaps an important outcome from the 2008 elections will be another trip to the drawing board to attempt to arrange state primary schedules so that they neither disenfranchise late states, nor unduly hurry the process. Perhaps either a later, one-day primary date for all states, or a carefully crafted grouping of several states together on one day in each of several consecutive months.

Whatever it is, I think this year's primary scramble will leave both parties seeking a better way in 2012.

Beware The Faux-Conservative: Mike Hickabee

Kim Strassel wrote a wonderful, informative piece about former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee in a recent edition of the Wall Street Journal. It's not the first of its ilk in the Journal, but it is somewhat more current, given Hick-abee's recent rise in polls in Iowa.

As in an earlier Journal piece, by which author I do not recall, Strassel provides details which demonstrate Hick-abee's lie, when he casts himself as a conservative.

He has a nearly-impossible plan to totally revise taxation in America, grandiosely calling for the abolition of the IRS.

As if.

He speaks of support for headline-type conservative positions, such as "lower taxes," a "strong America," and "health care reform." But his detailed, practical plans for such are missing.

Essentially, as another Arkansas Governor before him, Hick-abee is long on style, charisma and jocularity, but short on specifics.

Why should one run for President? To provide solutions not readily available. Why do candidates often run? Because they simply would like the job.

Of the Republicans, I think only Romney and Giuliani genuinely offer specifics on what they would do to handle various issues and problems which our nation currently faces.

I like Thompson but, truth be told, to back him is to back a style and attitude, more than positions and a record. As with the McCain, the maniacal Ron Paul, or Tancredo.

It's the same, I fear, with the latest hick from the South, Mike Hick-abee.