The erstwhile Beltway conservative Charles Krauthammer has turned the 2012 Republican presidential race into a racing form a la Churchill Downs.
Unfortunately, he misses the point with this observation, the third of three axioms:
No baggage and no need for flash. Having tried charisma in 2008, the electorate is not looking for a thrill up the leg in 2012. It’s looking for solid, stable, sober, and, above all, not scary.
Why does the Republican nominee have to be as dull as a five-pound bag of fertilizer? Just because 2008 turned into an American Idol election, thanks in no small part to the Republicans nominating one of their two worst candidates since Alf Landon doesn’t mean we cannot have a strong conservative who’s willing to stand up and fight for conservative principles.
Joseph Smith takes down Krauthammer here:
Krauthammer forgets, too, that John McCain was vanquished by the big-talking Obama in the 2008 debates, and that any candidate facing Obama on the national TV stage had better be able to speak clearly and convincingly over the President’s sonic hypnosis on big media’s slanted stage.
Under the Krauthammer unified theory, any candidate willing to boldly articulate a pro-growth, pro-jobs, free market agenda, to champion the Roadmap for America, drill-here-drill-now, and the repeal of ObamaCare regulatory state, is out.
In short, any candidate willing to go to the mat for limited government, conservative values and American exceptionalism doesn’t fit Krauthammer’s grand theory.
Krauthammer’s favorites on the racing form are predictable: Mitt Romney and Tim Pawlenty at 5-1, Mitch Daniels at 6-1, Haley Barbour at 7-1 and New Gingrich at 12-1. He does get Romney’s baggage correct in the form of RomneyCare and describes the former Massachusetts governor as being:
Secretariat at Belmont, but ridden by Minnesota Fats.
While he does mention the Beltway lobbyist baggage of Barbour and the personal baggage of Mister Newt, he fails to mention the lefty positions taken by Pawlenty while governor of Minnesota — namely his crusade to pass green legislation to deal with man-made global warming — and of Daniels in the form of his expressed support for a European-style VAT, higher fuel taxes as well as global warming.
Pawlenty has flip-flopped on the global warming, now admitting he does not believe in man-made global warming. Typical of a politician in need of votes. But Daniels is one of the candidates pushed by the inside-the-Beltway conservatives as being conservative who really isn’t conservative.
Check out Zbigniew Mazurak’s insightful look at Gov. Daniels here. Hardly Reagan 2.0. More like a typical blueblood countryclubber progressive Republican. It highlights more than just his support for the VAT and higher fuel taxes. It also reminds us that Daniels turned tail and ran away from right-to-work legislation when Indiana’s House Democrats turned into fleebaggers and ran to Illinois, a junket paid for completely by Da Unions. Daniels even praised the courage of those fleebaggers for standing up for their principles in fleeing the state.
That’s in addition to telling a major part of the voting base of the Republican Party — social conservatives — that they need to shut up and go sit in the back of the bus. That is the sneering condescension of the Bush/Rockefeller wing of the GOP, the Judge Smails Republicans, the blueblood countryclubber crowd who just despise those Christians and the great unwashed that Ronald Reagan attracted to the Republican Party.
I could handle Pawlenty much more easily than I could Daniels.
John McCain was a horrible candidate, as bad as Bob Dole was in 1996. We do not need to come up with McCain 2.0 or Dole 2.0 against the sweeping telegenic power of The Messiah. We need a candidate who can express a vision for smaller government, lower taxes, true energy independence (yes, “Drill, baby, drill!”) and the uniqueness and exceptionalism of the American ideal against the Community Organizer-in-Chief.
Krauthammer’s first axiom is correct: Republicans need to make the 2012 elections a continuation of the 2010 elections. In short, a national referendum on Barack Hussein Obama. Underwater in all national polls, with little more than his 40 percent of Kool Aid drinkers that would vote for a dead skunk if it ran as a Democrat supporting him.
Worst. President. Ever. Yes, worse than Carter. And as weak an incumbent as Carter running for re-election in1980.
Right now, all national polls showing which GOP candidates are most electable are irrelevant. Remember, in 1979 and early 1980, Ronald Reagan wasn’t considered very electable by the Beltway insiders, either. Reagan was considered intellectually deficient, too old, too extreme, with high voter ID and high negatives and with polls showing him trailing Carter by 25 points. The blueblood countryclubber GOP elites turned to one old warhorse after another in a vain attempt to keep Reagan from winning the nomination. Howard Baker. Bob Dole. Even tried talking former President Ford into running. Eventually they settled on George H.W. Bush.
How’d that turn out again? I keep forgetting. Oh yeah, that’s right. Reagan defeated Carter in a landslide in 1980 then won 49 out of 50 states four years later over a candidate that Krauthammer thought could beat Ronaldus Magnus, Walter Mondull.
I agree with Dr. K on Newt Gingrich. Yesterday’s news. Lots of personal and political baggage. His commercial with Bela Pelosi on the couch will haunt him forever, as will his support for the RINO Dede Scozzafava in NY-23 in 2009. Gingrich has lots of ideas but tends to let his mouth run without making sure his brain is in gear and the baggage from his personal life may be too much to overcome.
Krauthammer mentions two prominent potential candidates and insists neither is running. Mike Huckabee and Sarah Palin. Interesting. Anyone who’s read my thoughts on Huckabee knows I cannot stand the man. He’d be the one GOP candidate that certainly would make me vote third party, although Daniels likely would as well. Mike Huckabee is a big-government progressive, as Glenn Beck has correctly stated. Huckabee just happens to be pro-life, which has allowed the state-run media to paint an inaccurate picture of him as being conservative. Hardly. His positions are virtually indistinguishable from those of Obama. Plus, Huckabee is a Nanny State advocated, openly supporting the First Yeti Moochelle’s Nanny State campaign against childhood obesity.
As for Palin, I am still not buying that she’s not running. She sits in virtually the same position as Ronald Reagan did in 1979 and early 1980. Remember, too, what Rush Limbaugh says: The Left will tell us who they fear. And the Left in this case includes the progressive me-too GOP Establishment Elites. They hate and fear Sarah Palin, who’s shown the ability to redefine issues with her Facebook page. Yes, she needs to expand beyond Facebook and Fox News and move into less friendly territory. I’ve said before it’s too bad that Tim Russert is no longer with us; he’d be the perfect person for Palin to sit down with on Meet The Depressed. Next best thing might be a one-on-one with Jake Tapper, who’s quickly developed a similar reputation for fairness as Russert had.
Others that Krauthammer dismisses far too easily as longshots are Michelle Bachmann, who he lists at 20-1 with no chance to win the nomination, and Herman Cain, whom Krauthammer fails to even mention.
This commenter at National Review Online nails it:
Liberal or moderate Republicans always describe conservatives like Palin and Bachman as populists.
You don’t get more populist than McCain, he would get the common folk all worked up over how Wall Street was screwing us over, and that’s who Charles K and all the other moderate Republicans supportered. I get tired of hearing this “electable” talking point used for weak moderate candidates like Mitch Daniels. Dull isn’t going to get it done in 2012, and neither is Democrat-lite.
Once again, Krauthammer, like his fellow Beltway insider George Will, is pushing dull Democrat-lites.
