The Republican Nomination For President: The Race For The Race For The White House

Thomas wrote:

I wouldn't be belaboring this point if I didn't thought it illuminates a peculiar weakness of today's Republican party: It tends to worship ideological purity, while disrespecting competence at getting things done for "we, the people". That's why the Ueberroths and Romney don't stand a chance, whereas the McClintock's and Palins rise to power.

I think you have a valid point, but why restrict it to the Republicans? Obama is the poster boy of idealogical purity, gifted with the ability to masquerade (for a while) as a "thoughtful moderate".

ATLANTA — Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich has told several prominent Republicans in his former state of Georgia that he intends to run for president in 2012, according to an online column Friday in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Source

Newt says he's in...

Quote:

ATLANTA — Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich has told several prominent Republicans in his former state of Georgia that he intends to run for president in 2012, according to an online column Friday in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Source

Laughable. You can't reconcile many of Obama's actions with this false characterization you've presented here - and won't even try. This is something I would expect Okie to write...

Cycloptichorn

Obama a poster boy of ideological purity? You American conservatives are just spoiled rotten when it comes to adversaries. We can talk about ideological purity on the American Left when America has had its president Mitterand, or Kinnock, or Gysi.

Admittedly, I don't know enough about Jerry Brown to judge him.

Indeed I believe my assertion with regards to Obama is accurate and well considered.

But the part about his being an ideologically pure leftie is baseless.

Cycloptichorn wrote:

Laughable. You can't reconcile many of Obama's actions with this false characterization you've presented here - and won't even try. This is something I would expect Okie to write...

Cycloptichorn

One can't reconcile many of anyone's actions with characterizations that are generally thought applicable to them. Characterizations are merely metaphorical representations of salient qualities and central tendencys in behavior. The accury of my characterization of obama is, in my view, self-evident to the great majority of thoughtful observers.

I note that you didn't accompany your categorical denial with any factual arguments. Not living up to the standards you so freely demand of others, are you?

He sponsored financial legislation to vastly expand the bureaucratic regulation of the economy and financial markets, giving significantly expanded administrative and rule making discretion to the regulatory bureaucracies

made a mumber of controversial progressive left wing appointments (some later overturned)

stood happily by as his partisans in the House passed cap & trade legislation and then went on to pas a single government payer health care system in defiance of his capmaign promises

Later when the Senate rejected Cap & Trade, he directed the EPA to assert new powers under the Clean Air Act, classifying CO2 as a toxic gas to accomplish by administrative fiat what he could not do through legislation.

Similarly when the Senate crafted a grotesquly complex health care bill, replete with cost transfers to already overburdened states, and filled with devices like early taxes and delayed benefits to support his loudly touted fiction that it was "deficit neutral".

Former mayor Rudy Giuliani said yesterday that he was still thinking about running for president in 2012. One thing that could encourage him, though? Sarah Palin running. Filming Monday night's Piers Morgan Tonight, Giuliani admitted: "My one chance, if I have a chance, is that I'm considered a moderate Republican. So the more the Republicans in which I can show a contrast, probably the better chance I have." That, and maybe the sheer thought of her taking it from him is too much for him to bear.

Giuliani: ‘I’m Like a Running Back that Has the Ball’
January 21, 2011 5:28 P.M.
By Robert Costa

Former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani tells National Review Online that he is seriously considering a 2012 presidential run. “I’m like a running back that has the ball and I’m looking for openings,” he says. “A crowded [field] may be good, from my point of view.”

But has America’s Mayor, now 66, learned any lessons from his stalled 2008 campaign? “I sure have,” he chuckles. “You have to win New Hampshire.” That, of course, is a different tune than four years ago, when he placed all of his bets on Florida.

“If you want to talk historically about how people get nominated president — there are probably some exceptions to this — you’ve got to win one of the first two [contests],” Giuliani observes. Come next January, the Granite State, he posits, could enable a moderate frontrunner to emerge, even if they don’t have much momentum coming out of the Iowa caucuses.

“Last time we had split decisions,” Giuliani says. “Huckabee won the first and McCain won the second; Obama won the first and Hillary won the second. That’s normally the case. There’s something about it — New Hampshire seems to vote for somebody other than who won in Iowa.”

A Giuliani ’12 effort would likely emphasize his ideas on domestic policy, which did not get much play in 2008, when his ads often focused on national security. The recent repeal vote against President Obama’s health-care law, Giuliani says, “sets us up for the 2012 election, which I think will be about Obamacare.”

Giuliani argues that Republicans must articulate a clear competing vision on this front in coming months, fighting the Democrats on specifics. On the Hill, he would like to see the GOP push for malpractice reform, interstate purchase of insurance, and tax breaks to incentivize individuals to purchase their own policy. “I’m certainly going to advance this viewpoint,” he says. “And if I think I can be helpful running, I will.”

“When I ran for president, I spent a lot of time on health care, for what was probably an incorrect tactical reason,” Giuliani says, noting his personal interest in the issue. Now, however, he thinks his ’08 health-care platform — which championed the right of the individual to decide — could be a real boost, especially as he mulls jumping into the fray.

Other potential 2012 hopefuls, Giuliani says, will need to be pressed on health care. “Mitt has to explain RomneyCare — that’s going to be a big issue for him.” Moving away from mandates, both state and federal, is crucial, he says.

“That’s the real danger of Obamacare,” Giuliani says. “You’re going to take it from a little state like Massachusetts, where you’re making those decisions for a few million people, and move it to a whole, big office building in Washington to decide what constitutes one’s health insurance.”

If Giuliani runs, it won’t be just as a wonk. As a product of Big Apple politics, don’t expect him to pull punches as he wades back into the national debate. Turning to the Tucson tragedy, for example, he says that Sarah Palin, another potential presidential candidate, did not stumble in her video response to critics.

“I think Palin handled it fine,” Giuliani says. “I think you have a right to defend yourself. I’d get pretty angry if someone accused me of being an accessory to murder. I take my reputation seriously. I think they went over the top in what they did to her.”

Civil debate, he adds, should always be encouraged, but Republicans should not be afraid to speak up about hypocrisy. “Look at [Rep. Steve] Cohen, accusing Republicans of being like Goebbels and Nazis — that didn’t sound too civil. I wonder if he got a call from the president, saying ‘Don’t talk like that, Steve.’”

“The reality is that while the president was telling everyone to be civil, all of his pals were out there trying to blame Sarah Palin and Rush Limbaugh for the attack,” Giuliani sighs.

In past Republican races, there has almost always been a candidate to beat: George H.W. Bush in 1988, Bob Dole in 1996, George W. Bush in 2000, John McCain in 2008. All faced adversity along the way, but all still won. (McCain was given up for dead politically halfway through 2007 but managed to prevail.)

Ask Republicans who that candidate is for 2012, and many will say Romney. Why? Because he's run before, can present himself as an economic manager, will have plenty of money and roughly fits the profile of previous GOP nominees. Not because he is a commanding front-runner - the polls clearly show otherwise - or without negatives (think Massachusetts health care). And not because he is the darling of the hard-core conservatives who are energizing the GOP more than ever.

The Republican race is starting slowly for the very reason that it is so full of uncertainty, with more questions than answers about the field. What that means, for now, is that everyone can be a dreamer.

As ever the master of the irrelevant detail