Common Sense Political Thought

Hey, there are only 957 days left until the Iowa caucuses¹, so Brian decided to give us his early handicapping of the 2012 Republican presidential nomination campaign:

My Short List For 2012 Republican Presidential Candidates

Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Real quick, since Politico has an article up on Romney, I thought I’d share my top five choices (so far) for the 2012 Presidential campaign. Here they are, in no particular order:

1) Mitt Romney: Has the talent, the skill, the looks, the charm, the money, and the organization. Plus, he’s conservative. Despite his straying from that ideology in the past, it appears he learned his lessons from it and moved to the right where he belongs (now, just how sincere that move was I can’t tell you for sure, but it appears genuine at the moment). Only problem I can see is his religion. I think people would have a problem with his Mormonism (I don’t, I couldn’t care less what religion a candidate is, just as long as he has one and believes in God), and that may cost him at the polls.

Former Governor Romney was my first choice in 2008, but I can’t say that it was an inspiring choice: we had choices of lame, lamer, lamerer and lamest — and even lamerest! Fred Thompson talked a good show, but was all talk. Rudy Guiliani didn’t even try to play the game, pretty much defying the conventional wisdom by skipping both Iowa and New Hampshire, and was dead before he was alive. John McCain was nowhere close to being my first choice, and he proved how able he was in November.

2) Newt Gingrich: Although he has been tainted by scandals in years past, Newt remains probably one of the few politicians on the right who is (almost) a pure conservative. Highly doubtful that he’d run, but I’d vote for him if he could gain the nomination.

I can’t see Mr Gingrich winning. More to the point, when he had his shot as Speaker of the House, as the guy who was going to lead the GOP against President Clinton, he got badly outplayed by our 42nd President. Mr Gingrich proved himself to be like a lot of other revolutionaries: great at revolution, and not so good at leadership with power.

3) Fred Thompson: Was my original pick over Romney last time around, but his lazy-style of campaigning guaranteed that he wouldn’t last very long. It was like he was just going through the motions most of the time. If he can kick it in gear and get fired up, and fire up fellow Republicans, he’d be a great candidate and a great president. If he can’t, or for some reason refuses to, then he shouldn’t even bother.

He shouldn’t even bother. Yes, his campaign was a big part of the problem, but if he can’t organize an efficient campaign, why should we think he could run the country?

4) Haley Barbour: Currently the governor of Mississippi, he has a very conservative track record, especially in regards to spending and deficits.

An interesting choice, a possibly polarizing figure — even beyond what we’d hear from the far left Pandagon types — but he’s been doing a good job as governor, and governors are the most successful challengers to sitting presidents.

5) General David Petraeus: Top-notch military man, perhaps not a Reagan-conservative or even an Eisenhower-conservative, he still knows how to get things done. I have no idea whether he is a Republican or a Democrat, but I will say that even if he is a Democrat, I think he would be a good president, as long as he wasn’t a far-left liberal (I can hardly believe that would be the case, though).

We’ve had plenty of generals who became presidents, but it should be noted that most of these were Civil War generals; it’s not a popular path right now. Dwight Eisenhower is the modern exception, but he had the benefit of having relatively little serious opposition. I don’t see General Petraeus as a reasonable candidate.

On a related note, here are my top five “Not just no, but HELL NO!” candidates:

1) Sarah Palin: Although I like her, I don’t think she’s experienced enough in national politics to be Commander-in-Chief. This may change as we get closer to 2012, though, so keep an eye on her.

I like Sarah Palin, but she’s been caricatured to death. Her winning personal story has been tarnished by her daughte’s teen pregnancy and out-of-wedlock delivery, and by Levi Johnston’s backing out of what now looks like a shotgun wedding. Even if she turns out to be the greatest governor Alaska has ever seen, she’s just damaged goods. Donald Douglas will hate this assessment.

2) Mike Huckabee: Not a conservative, but he plays one on t.v. (usually Saturday Night Live).

3) Rudy Giuliani: Would be as bad a choice as McCain was.

4) Ron Paul: I like my crazy in measured doses, thank you very much.

5) Jeb Bush: We’ve had enough moderate Bush family members to last us a lifetime, thank you very much.

While part of me would love to see Jeb Bush become president, just to royally, royally! urinate off the Democrats, former Governor Bush is just a no-chancer. Unless the public perception of George W Bush’s presidency turns around radically — it should, but it won’t — Jeb Bush has no chance at all. I note that he declined a chance to run for the Senate seat being vacated by Mel Martinez; perhaps his taste for political combat isn’t strong enough.

Unless President Obama is seen as having been a major failure, he’s not going to be beatable in 2012. The coalition of people and interests which put him in the White House will remain stable enough unless he truly fouls up. He has already turned out to be a lousy president in my book, due to his quadrupling of deficits, but that, in itself, doesn’t seem to me as though it would be enough to unseat him in 2012.

Realistically, we need two things to regain the presidency in the 2012 election: a poor performance by the incumbent, and an exciting, mobilize the base candidate on the Republican side. Right now, I can’t see who that exciting candidate would be.

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¹ – The assumption being that they’ll be held on Monday, 2 January 2012