Rethinking Romney.

Rethinking Romney.  Several posts back, I ventured my early endorsement for a 2016 Republican ticket.  I thought then, and I think now, that the name of the game is “WIN”.  If you do not win, you cannot make policy.  Based on that imperative, I believe that the best Republican chance for winning the 2016 presidential contest is the team of Rubio and Ayotte.  Personally, I would prefer a more seasoned candidate, but Rubio has a compelling life story, has been very involved in national leadership for several years now, and has not been reluctant to put forth thoughtful and detailed policy statements that make a lot of sense.  Ayotte is a bright, intelligent former prosecutor with a good record of accomplishment.

Having said all of that, I am intrigued by the continuing speculation of Romney running again.  I am old school enough to lean towards the position of once you’ve had your chance and fail; you step aside and let someone else take a shot.  However, many of my old school philosophies have been found wanting over the last few years and perhaps this is the time to mothball another one.  The last time he ran, I thought Romney was exactly the right man for the right job at the right time.  Like many others, I find it punishing to think of what might be like today if he had won.  If, in fact, one believed he was right for the job last time around, you could argue that he is even more right for the job this time around.  But as much as I admire Romney and his resume, I have two serious reservations about running him again.

Obama won the first time around on hope and change; pure emotion and theatrics.  I am still not sure how he won the second time around, but it must be attributed in large part to low-information voters who consider neither performance nor reality when pulling the lever.  As serious as this nation’s problems are and as pathetic as the current administration is, I still fear that a sufficient number of low-information voters could be energized once again to support a Democrat.  The plain and simple fact is that when they are given a fairly level playing field, the Democratic Party knows how to win elections.  There is no proof that the Republican Party has yet figured out the value of unity and turnout technology.   The youthful image and the obvious energy that a Rubio/Ayotte ticket would bring with it would no doubt blunt much of the image politics that we see today.  They are far better equipped for this type of contest than Romney.

Secondly, the stakes for the Republican Party winning the 2016 Presidential Election could not be higher.  Although the election is still in its early stages, a review of the potential Democrat nominees would indicate that the one that carries the Democrat banner into 2016 will be liberal….very liberal.  If this country goes into another 4-to-8 years with a liberal Democrat in the White House, after the carnage we have seen and realized under Obama, I fear there may be no going back to the land that many of us love and cherish.  It will be a memory.  Because of these high stakes, this might not be the best time to shelf the conventional wisdom of lose once and you are out.  If Republicans took a chance with Romney again and lost, the second guessing would be endless and the nagging thought would persist about how great an idea it was to run him a second time.  This possibility argues strongly for going with a new candidate; a candidate that exudes energy and charisma; a candidate with conservative fiscal policy and moderate social policy; a candidate that will have the courage to risk political capital on bipartisanship and tackle the big problems that our nation faces.  Romney may still be the best man for the job; but I continue to believe that Rubio and Ayotte give Republicans the best chance to win.

 

A Little Something To Keep You Awake At Night.

A Little Something To Keep You Awake At Night.  I worked as a manager in a government agency for over 30 years.  I don’t lay claim to being the sharpest knife in the drawer; maybe not even one of the sharpest.  But simply by surviving that period of time in civil service, one cannot help but divine some hard lessons about how our government functions.  One of those hard lessons is having to constantly deal with the patronage system; otherwise known as political appointees who serve at the pleasure of the party in power.  In most cases, even though you as an employee might not agree with the policy you are helping to implement, you can appreciate the fact that what you are doing is the result of the electoral system that we have in place and the people who are calling the shots are fairly competent…albeit in your mind, misguided.  With the occasional bonehead appointee from both parties, my experience was that most all political players of power were competent.  If they fell short in the arena of wit and intelligence, they generally had enough savvy to delegate necessary work to capable career employees and the bills got paid.  This administration…this president…has set a new and pitiful standard in this area.  The most tragic example of this abysmal development is that he has accomplished this with not only the support of the Democratic Party, but also with their complicit participation in the process.  

If Obama had served only one term, this government might well have weathered without lasting damage the abomination of his mismanagement.  However, as we approach the midway point of his second term, it is becoming abundantly clear that it will take several new administrations, perhaps even a generation or two, to climb out of the deep, dark hole he has put this nation into. 

One need only look at the record to validate what I say.  Obama and his ilk claim that the world is a complex place and the challenges are greater than one man and one administration should be expected to manage or solve.  Excuse me…This retort from the man who would heal the planet and stop the rise of the oceans?  One need only watch a few moments of Harf or Psaki to realize that the people who are in charge of making the policies that regulate our daily lives are complete idiots.  These are people who are too inexperienced to perform their appointed duties; too arrogant to realize that do not have all of the answers; and are guided completely by naïve idealism where the “ends justifies the means”…with no regard for the ethical or legal standards that apply to those means.  The many scandals that have plagued this administration…Fast and Furious, IRS, VA hospitals, Obama’s foreign policy wonderland, the FBI, Obamacare…all of these began at least in part because the people in charge held neither the qualifications or dedication necessary to do the job correctly.  And now that the Ebola virus has cropped up in our country, who amongst us does not harbor some fear that Obama has put some similar incompetent in charge of the CDC and we wonder how well this crisis will be handled?

Only now, when Obama’s failure has become so apparent and undeniable, are Democrats beginning to acknowledge the misrepresented bill of goods he sold to us all.  If the mid-terms go Republican as large as they might, look for many more Democrats to begin to distance themselves from this egomaniac and struggle mightily to rewrite the history of their first six year’s allegiance to this administration.  There is certainly a healthy balance to be struck between realistic Liberals and Conservatives; a pragmatic process that somehow reveals the wisdoms of each and the accompanying warts.  But this outfit we now have in the White House…this bunch of idealists whose intelligence is never inwardly challenged…who are so damn certain that they know what is best for me, you, and the rest of the world…this outfit has stained Liberalism so badly that it will take a long, long time for any decent thinking person to respect their positions again.  Nanny state be damned; these people live in a fantasy land that rewards excessive pride and hubris with blind loyalty and the responsible Democrats of this United States ( and there are a bunch of them) will live to rue their silence and complicity in Obama’s follies.