Erring On the Side of Simplicity.

Erring On the Side of Simplicity.  As we move inside the “one year to go mark” of our next presidential election, I am going to crawl out a bit further on the skinny limb and make a prediction or two.  If the last few elections have taught me anything at all, they have taught me that not only do I, an abject layman in politics, know nothing of national politics, but that professional journalists who follow national politics for a living don’t seem to know too much either.  Bottom line: there are damn few certainties as we look ahead to November of 2016 and anyone who pretends otherwise is rather foolish.  I now join that club.

I will submit for your consideration what I believe are the three politically-viable choices for our next President and the reasons you might choose each of them.  Those choices are Hillary Clinton, Ted Cruz, or Marco Rubio.  Now predicting Hillary as the Democratic nominee does not require a lot of courage.  Short of an indictment, she will be the candidate of choice for the Democrats.  And even though Cruz and Rubio are gaining strength in poll numbers, one would be very foolish to dismiss the outside chances of Kasich or Christie.  Yes, I am eliminating Trump and Bush at the outset; in spite of his continuing poll performance, I refuse to take Trump seriously.  Kasich and Bush rely on voters to select their candidates on the basis of performance, not appearance.  Unfortunately, that simply is not the way people select their public officials today.  Christie has not yet found his moment and time is wasting.   So…choose your poison.  And for what it’s worth, here is a guide to that choice.

There is no truth in Hillary; you cannot put any reliance whatsoever on what she says she believes or will do if elected President.  However, you can draw some conclusions based on what she has actually done in public office.  Hillary would, in effect, be a third term for Obama.  She is just as liberal, if not more so, than Obama and exceedingly more competent.  She would pursue many of the liberal (progressive??) goals that have been pursued by Obama, but I feel like she would be more successful.  Although it would clearly be contentious, I think her ability to work with a Republican Congress would yield far more results than that achieved by Obama’s administration.  I believe she would eschew the executive action proclivity set forth by Obama and tend towards a greater reliance on legislative results and appointees’ discretion.  No doubt, she would attempt to mold the nation in her image; but she would approach it more as an exercise in political competition rather than a religious pursuit.  I do not think Hillary would be as dead set on reforming this nation as has been Obama.  Like them or not, the bulk of her appointees would be competent; corrupt, but competent.  I don’t know about you, but give me bad policy administered competently over bad policy administered incompetently (Obama anyone??) any day of the week.  Hillary would likely preserve most of Obama’s domestic issues, including Obamacare.  Sure, it will be tweaked and revised; but hey…it was her brainchild to begin with!  Do you really think she will dump it?  Look for tax reform around the edges if Hillary is elected.  On foreign policy, Hillary would be more hawkish and frankly, more effective than Obama.  To be honest with you, all three of the candidates I will address will be more hawkish than I like, but such is life in today’s world.  So…if you like the way things stand right now on domestic issues, but would like to see a bit more effectiveness and efficiency in the way government runs, then Hillary might be your gal.  If you believe that Government is a solution to many of today’s problems and it should expand to address those and more, then Hillary is your choice.

Ted Cruz might just be the brightest candidate of the three I am addressing; one can easily see why he was a national debate champion.  He is a strong fiscal and domestic conservative, comfortably situated in the far right parlor of the Republican Party.  Here is what gives me pause about Cruz: He has trouble getting along with his own party in Congress; how could we expect him to get along with Democrats if he were President?  Now some would argue that is not a problem.  They might say that “compromise and business as usual” has gotten us where we are today.  They might say that the only way to begin to unwind the big, chaotic ball of twine that is the Obama legacy is to attack it the same way it was built; by autocratic rule and executive action.  One can never be sure what a candidate’s foreign policy will be, because few candidates have much experience in foreign policy.  We have a bit of a yardstick to use on Hillary, but none to use on Cruz or Rubio.  They are politicians, so their rhetoric has limited reliability.  Based on his words and votes, one could surmise that Cruz might be considerably more hawkish than Obama, but no more so (perhaps even less so) than Hillary.  However, there can be no question that when it comes to domestic policy, Cruz and Hillary are polar opposites.  Cruz wants to shrink government.  He wants to reduce the number of agencies, cut them off, and cauterize them.  He advocates a move towards a smaller, less intrusive government that shifts a WDC-centric vertical integration of rule back towards a state-centric horizontal integration model.  If you want to stop the car, back it up, and go back in the direction from whence you came…then Cruz is your man.  If you want to flip off the Democrats and take the position that damn the pain and side effects, we have to take the medicine to cure the Obama illness, then Ted Cruz is your choice.  If you want a dramatic departure from our current tax law towards a VAT option, then Cruz should be your candidate.  Is he a right-wing zealot who will wreck the government in order to recreate it or is he a strong-principled conservative that will do whatever it takes to steer the nation back towards a conservative bearing?  Answer this question with your vote.

Addressing our final candidate, I will shinny out a bit further on the limb.  I believe that Marco Rubio will be our next President.  Now I do not intend this blog as an endorsement for Rubio.  As of today, he is likely my candidate of choice; but I am not totally convinced he is the best man for the job and am certainly not here to advocate for him.  I simply say that he is best positioned to win the next Presidential race.  Taken at face value, Rubio presents what I believe to be the best solution to our nation’s drift; a drift towards loss of identity, purpose, morals, ethics, and position of influence in the free world.  I like Rubio’s proposal on tax reform that moves towards simplicity, fairness, and family-orientation while not departing from those parts of the tax code that have been fairly effective for decades.  I like the calm and studied approach that Rubio takes towards social issues; stating his personal beliefs when questioned but understanding that his beliefs do have to be everyone’s beliefs.  I like the way that Rubio continues to address the fact that government has become too large and intrusive and that we must get back to redefining government’s priorities and how those priorities can be financed.  I like Rubio’s life story and I see his youth as an asset; WDC is way too settled and comfortable for my taste. Picking someone who has been around the scene long enough to be a member of that club is not the solution to this nation’s problems.  Rubio’s hawkish positions on foreign policy give me pause.  I see him to the right of both Hillary and Cruz and I think that perhaps his life history has somewhat influenced what might be perceived as a hard-line approach to America’s leadership role in the free world.  Many will find this approach refreshing after eight years of Obama’s mushy foreign policy; but it would be a new and very different path for our nation in a world of chaos.  If he is open to advice and debate, then this could be a good departure from our current trajectory.  If he is autocratic in his decision making and keeps the blinders on when determining action, it could be a recipe for international disaster. As I said before, only time can answer questions such as these.  If you want a clear departure from the direction this nation has traveled over the last eight years, a withdrawal of government from the private sector, a de-emphasis on government interaction with social issues, a more Reaganesque approach to foreign policy and the overall tone of leadership, and a new emphasis on effective legislative efficiency, then Rubio might be your candidate.

So, if you look at a straight horizontal spectrum before you, put Cruz at the right end, put Hillary at the left end, and put Rubio about 75 percent (this number is certainly debatable) towards the right.  You now have before you the choices for our next President and what you might expect if they win.  One may argue that the principled voter will select one extreme or the other because, damn the torpedoes, the correct way is worth the costs!  A pragmatic voter might look in the middle at Rubio and see a more studied approach towards change; more of a shift towards a right-of-center direction for this country and its government.  Given their respective strengths and weaknesses, and imagining them both on a common stage, it is hard for me to envision a majority of voters selecting Hillary over Rubio…if he can win the nomination.  For what it is worth, and as of this day, I think the wise money is on Rubio.