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

It's gonna suck for you guys to be saddled with Mitt; he's such a phony bastard, and everyone knows it.

Indeed, I'm nearly indifferent between him and the feckless Obama.

Obama, while thoughtful and intelligent, seemed too indecisive and conflict-averse for the office he was running for. What seems obvious now was but a minority opinion then. Yet all it took to form it was to look at the candidates' records.

I am not a Republican by a long shot. But based on Romney's record as governor, and on his book No Apology, I find myself unmotivated to agitate against Romney. Indeed, I'm nearly indifferent between him and the feckless Obama.

What seems obvious now was but a minority opinion then. Yet all it took to form it was to look at the candidates' records.

when there are folks like you around to make sure a nutter doesn't get in.

I promise I will never let a nutter in.

Texas toast? Perry worries GOP

ORLANDO – The first line of Rick Perry’s campaign obituary may have been drafted Thursday night: He got in too late.
It’s not quite time for his camp to panic but in his third debate in a month – nearly as many as he’s done in the entire decade he’s served as Texas governor – Perry demonstrated why so few presidential candidates who parachute into the race mid-campaign win the nomination.
Perry gave a foreign policy answer that offered no indication he’s thought about how to respond to threats against America, twice bobbled attacks on Mitt Romney’s well-documented departures from conservative orthodoxy, called immigration hard-liners heartless and, in what was otherwise his best answer of the evening, stretched the truth in the course of delivering a well-rehearsed line about why he mandated pre-teen girls to be vaccinated against HPV.
A more seasoned candidate would be better informed on national security policy, fluent to the point of knowing by heart his chief opponent’s core vulnerabilities, and would never offend his party’s base with such a pointed attack. And a more sure-footed one would have recognized that he couldn’t get away with the claim that he issued an executive order on HPV after being “lobbied” by a cancer victim—because it has been publicly established that he met the victim only after he made the decision.
Instead, after a roaring August start, Perry’s second consecutive lackluster debate performance will reinforce the growing view among some Republicans that he’s not ready for the big leagues.
As conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer said on Fox News following the debate: “He’s still the rookie in the field.”
Equally threatening to the Texas governor, his stumbling appearances on national television have come as his on-the-fly campaign attempts to quickly build an organization and raise money ahead of the third-quarter deadline at the end of the month.
Grumbling has already begun about Perry’s operation and how they’ve not been prepared to handle the zero-to-frontrunner demands on the campaign.
One leading Republican said he’s given names of individuals – donors, former state party chairs — who want to be helpful to the campaign and that they’ve never gotten a phone call.
Recognizing the frustration, the National Committeewoman from Texas, Borah Van Dormolen, sent a blast email to fellow RNC members this week.
“I have received numerous calls requesting information on how to contact the Perry for President campaign team,” Van Dormolen wrote, including the email address for where to send the governor an invitation to appear at an event and the address of his finance director for those who want to help him raise money.
The upside of these growing pains, of course, is they reflect a campaign besieged with supporters. And, as Perry officials correctly note, it’s still early in the campaign—a contest that the governor only joined six weeks ago.
But it’s in part because he rocketed to the top of the field so quickly after getting in, creating such high expectations, that he’s now being damaged by sub-par debate showings.
In short, Perry’s command of the stage hasn’t matched his exalted status.

Texas toast? Perry worries GOP

Special Editorial: Yikes
9:22 AM, Sep 23, 2011 • By WILLIAM KRISTOL
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Reading the reactions of thoughtful commentators after the stage emptied, talking with conservative policy types and GOP political operatives later last evening and this morning, we know we’re not alone. Most won’t express publicly just how horrified—or at least how demoralized—they are. After all, they still want to beat Obama—as do we. And they want to get along with the possible nominee and the other candidates and their supporters. They don’t want to rock the boat too much. But maybe the GOP presidential boat needs rocking.

The e-mails flooding into our inbox during the evening were less guarded. Early on, we received this missive from a bright young conservative: “I'm watching my first GOP debate...and WE SOUND LIKE CRAZY PEOPLE!!!!” As the evening went on, the craziness receded, and the demoralized comments we received stressed the mediocrity of the field rather than its wackiness. As one more experienced, and therefore more jaded, observer wrote: “I just thought maybe it’s always this bad...they’re only marginally worse than McCain and Bush.”

Now there are some legitimate excuses. With nine candidates on the stage, and answers restricted to one minute, it’s hard to really show your stuff. And two of the candidates—Rick Santorum and Mitt Romney—did provide respectable performances. But no front-runner in a presidential field has ever, we imagine, had as weak a showing as Rick Perry. It was close to a disqualifying two hours for him. And Mitt Romney remains, when all is said and done, a technocratic management consultant whose one term as governor produced Romneycare. He could rise to the occasion as president. Or not.

But in a week in which markets collapsed, Solyndra exploded, our Middle East policy was in meltdown, the Iranian nuclear threat became more urgent, and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff fingered our “ally” Pakistan as a sponsor of terror against American forces in Afghanistan—none of the candidates really seemed up to the moment, either politically or substantively. In the midst of a crisis, we’re getting politics as usual—and a somewhat subpar version of politics as usual at that.

We suppose it’s often that way. The 1932 contest for the Democratic nomination was nothing special, and in 1980 Reagan had all kinds of problems convincing the electorate he was the man for the moment. Perhaps Mitt Romney will show the intellectual boldness and political leadership as president that the situation demands.

But, we do ask (again!), with a month left before filing deadlines: Is that all there is?

Watching this week as Mitch Daniels intelligently promoted his book and Paul Ryan cogently explained why crony capitalism is inconsistent with the rule of law, we of course lamented that neither of them had stepped up to the challenge. Jeb Bush apparently isn’t getting in. That would seem to leave Chris Christie.

He is, in every sense, a big man for a big job.

And it really is a big job. The presidency always is, of course. But in 2013, with the magnitude and urgency of the problems we face, don’t we deserve someone with a bigger sense of the task ahead, and a deeper sense of the solutions needed, combined with a proven record of bold governance, than the current field provides?

A third e-mailer Thursday evening, watching the debate, was reminded of Yeats’s “The Second Coming:”

The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

There’s some truth to that. But I can’t help wondering if, in the same poem, Yeats didn’t suggest the remedy:

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

Sounds like Chris Christie.

the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff fingered our “ally” Pakistan as a sponsor of terror against American forces in Afghanistan

I promise I will never let a nutter in.

I have concerns about each of the Republican candidates and none are clearly a perfect fit for the president I want to see in the White House, but I would vote for any of them (Including Ron Paul and Michelle Bachman) over Barack Obama.

you don't think that Miz Palin being added to the ticket pushed the election toward Obama?