Noooooooooo!!!
Alternate headline: "Steve Malzberg is a hardcore sadist":
Former three-term New York Governor George Pataki refused to rule out a bid for the 2016 GOP presidential nomination during an appearance Thursday on Newsmax TV.
Which, on the face of it, says absolutely nothing. Certainly not that he is going to run.
Cruelly for his conservative viewers, Malzberg wouldn't leave it alone:
Asked by Newsmax's Steve Malzberg whether he would rule out a run for the White House, Pataki — who has flirted with the idea before — deftly tap-danced around the question.
"People have talked about it in 2001 and 2008, including me, because I did look at it. This time I don't want speculation,'' Pataki said.
Stop the tape. Isn't this pretty much saying that he isn't running? The only logical way to preclude "speculation" is by making a clear declaration - yes or no - and he didn't say "yes," so that leaves the negative. Otherwise, he's left with the very speculation he claims not to want.
And so, we got this contrived kabuki dance:
"You don't dip your toe in and pretend. Either you're in or you're out. The one thing I will say is that Albany is broken, Washington is perhaps even worse….
"It's enormously disappointing and any of us, all of us who care about this country, have to get involved in some capacity. That doesn't mean as a candidate, but help fight to take our country back from those who believe government should dictate how we lead our lives.''
Malzberg then asked, "So you're definitively not running for president?''
"I am definitively saying nothing. It's still summer,'' Pataki said.
"So you're leaving open the door? You're not saying no?'' continued Malzberg.
"I have thought about it in the past and I don't want people speculating. There are probably a dozen candidates out there,'' Pataki said.
"But you are not saying no,'' Malzberg asked again.
"At this point, I'm spending time with my family and our farm in upstate New York,'' Pataki said.
Translation: "Jeb Bush and Mitt Romney got their little RINO boomlets; now it's my turn." And then, "Meanwhile, back at the farm...."
Of course, I'm more than a little baffled as to why Malzberg booked Pataki in the first place. This guy has been out of politics for eight years; though his electoral shelf life hasn't technically expired yet, and has enough time left for a conceivable run in 2020 if he so chose, and he is a multi-term governor of a still-major (if not swing) state, there are fatal handicaps.
New York's last-ever Republican governor would be 71 years old in 2016, older by two years than the oldest successful first-term presidential candidate (Ronald Reagan). Given that so many of the Right are scarcely any less presumptive about Hillary Clinton than are her own supporters, and that her age and health are more or less universally considered two of her biggest vulnerabilities, nominating a man that is two years her senior seems....counterintuitive at best, no matter how healthy he may or may not be.
And then there's the matter of Governor Pataki being....well, so resoundingly NOT a Tea Partier. If Jeb and Mitt are eliciting anti-"establishment" snarls from the GOP grassroots, I can only imagine the fatwas a RINO of Pataki's philosophical and temperamental base incompatibility would generate. And since I have no reason not to credit him with more than a rudimentary level of political acumen, I must conclude that, like Governors Bush and Romney, he is fully aware that his presidential candidacy would be received about as well as sprouts and tofu served at a Texas barbeque.
The former leader of the Empire State from 1995-2006 went on to say those most mentioned as possible GOP candidates — New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, Senators Rand Paul of Kentucky and Ted Cruz of Texas, and former Florida Governor Jeb Bush — would all be a "dramatic improvement'' over President Barack Obama.
Okay, maybe I do have a reason to question Governor Pataki's political acumen, since Paul and Cruz (I'm amazed he didn't include Marco Rubio), as first-term senators, have no chance at the White House (Obama was the exception that proves the rule), Jeb isn't running, and while the Big Man is a credible contender, his national electability looks less than promising.
With all of which I'm actually quite content, because when Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker emerges as the Reaganite alternative - a twice-elected Tea Party chief executive with a proven track record of both principled political pugilism and conservative policy accomplishment - his momentum should be unstoppable, while at the same time limiting the time he spends with the Obamedia's targeting crosshairs between his eyes.
Or it would if, of course, there was going to be a 2016 election. But we should all know better than to make the naïve assumption that Barack Obama isn't going to decree himself a third term. The concealment of which explains head-fakes like this one.
Veteran journalist and New York Times best-selling author Ed Klein says that President Barack Obama's senior adviser has been meeting with Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren to encourage her to run against former [Commissar] of State Hillary Clinton, at the president's request.
"President Obama has authorized Valerie Jarrett, his most important political adviser to hold secret meetings with Elizabeth Warren to encourage her to challenge Hillary Clinton because the Obamas do not want to see the Clintons succeed them in the White House," Klein told J.D. Hayworth on "America's Forum" on Newsmax TV Thursday.
Voluntarily relinquishing power and relying upon the twenty-first century George McGovern (or Walter Mondale, if you want a female ticket parallel) to hold the White House in a year so favorable to the GOP (i.e. the "pendulum" factor) and avert any possibility of a "fundamental counter-transformation" of America back to - or at least towards - the constitutional federal republic it used to be - particularly if facing Governor Walker - doesn't strike me as a gamble The One would be inclined to take, even if he didn't enjoy his absolute monarchy so gosh darn much.
If that strikes you as a "smidgeon" too aggressive for O's puerile passivity, well, that's what all the burgeoning crises are for - from his "rolling over" economy to his Border Crisis to his Ebola pandemic in waiting to the rapidly escalating confrontations with Russia, North Korea, the Islamic State, there are any number of exploitable situations that can, and likely will, give him the opening he needs to entrench himself in power indefinitely without it looking like too obvious a constitution-overthrowing coup de tat. Which will make the next few years, whatever the details, the darkest time in American history.
The fact that this post has traveled so far from George Pataki's farm ought to tell you everything you need to know about his political relevance, now, in 2016, or anywhen else. At least until we, as fugitives, need a place to hide out.
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