Yeah, I know - Dick Morris. The Toe-Sucker. Bill Clinton's pollster. Political mercenary. Was positive Mitt Romney was going to win in a landslide.
But aside from the latter, he is pretty good at what he does, or he wouldn't be a mercenary, right? Besides, he's echoing me:
Scott Walker is the only ambidextrous candidate in the Republican field. He appeals equally to the Republican "establishment" and Tea Party/Evangelical wings.
All other candidates fit neatly in one or the other box.
While Jeb Bush’s record as governor of Florida used to make him the most attractive member of his family to conservatives, he has blown that accolade by his strong support for immigration amnesty and Common Core educational standards.
Chris Christie was never the darling of the conservatives but his appeal to establishment Republicans is obvious....
Well, since about 2011 or so, actually, when the Big Man started embracing global warming hoaxery and other leftwing heresies. In his first year as New Jersey Governor, he was a conservative rock star for doing rhetorically what Governor Walker actually accomplished substantively - taking on and taking down the public sector unions.
On the right, Ted Cruz’s views fit the Tea Party like a glove, but his brand of fiery politics may be too much for establishment ears....
That, and he is to tactical political strategy and remembering who the enemy is what socks are to a rooster.
Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum have perfect pitch in appealing to the evangelicals, but, perforce, are too out there for the more establishment types....
Plus they're single-issue candidates, Huck especially. Single-issue candidates do not win.
[B]oth [Marco Rubio and Rand Paul] are very young and the establishment doesn’t want to take chances. Can Rubio hold his own on a national stage (without frequent gulps of water)? Can Paul’s libertarian ideology catch on? The establishment would rather not find out with the presidency on the line.
Let's not leave out that Senator Rubio is constitutionally ineligible to be POTUS under Article II, Section 1, Clause 5, just like Barack Obama. Does that still matter to Republicans?
And Paul runs afoul of the national security wing of the establishment, a potent part of the centrist coalition.
A potent part of the entire GOP, actually.
Rick Perry once spanned the centrist and Tea Party wings of the party until he imploded in 2012. Can he recover from his ungraceful exit last time? Can he overcome the phony indictment under which partisan Texas prosecutors have forced him to labor?
I dunno, Dick, give me fifty-three seconds to come up with an answer for you.
By the way, is there any sillier ideological label than "centrist"? Aside from sounding like a brand of men's vitamins, attaching the suffixes "-ist" or "-ism" to anything suggests some sort of coherent (or semi-coherent) ideology - communism/communist, Nazism, Islamism, liberalism, conservatism, socialist/socialism, etc.. But what is the ideology of "centrism"? In what does a "centrist" believe?
That's what I thought. Sounds almost....mercenary, doesn't it?
What it doesn't sound like is the thrice-elected, two-term Governor of Wisconsin, even if he is from Ambidexteria:
Walker is effortlessly able to battle for the establishment, Tea Party, and evangelical votes. And there is no reason for him to have trouble with national security voters, either.
He has been elected, re-elected, and defeated a recall attempt in a key swing state. His combat credentials are enough to assuage worries the establishment might have about a first-time candidate. His record on job creation and fiscal discipline is admirable. He is the Christie who succeeded. Wisconsin is where the New Jersey governor dreamed his state would be.
Yet Walker’s credentials as a battler against the left are so well-settled that he also earns key backing from the right wing of the party. His stand against municipal unions, amnesty, Common Core and the like give him good credentials among the Tea Party set.
From the Republican point of view, he is America’s most successful governor. [emphases added]
Kinda like one of his predecessors....
Now all Walk needs is for one of Jeb's flunkies to cut his microphone in New Hampshire and the nomination will be his, his, all his.
No comments:
Post a Comment