In the last year, the national polls for the Republican presidential nomination have been led by many different people including the freakish and shameful pseudo-candidacy of Donald Trump. But Republican primary and caucus voters have shown much better judgment than you would think given the silly season polls of 2011. The Republican primary electorate rejected candidates who could have been credible, but who failed to put in the work to master national-level issues (Bachmann and Perry.) The Republican primary electorate also rejected the con artist candidacies of Herman Cain and Newt Gingrich (mostly.) I put Ron Paul to the side because, even if the Republicans do someday nominate a gold standard supporter who wants sharp defense cuts, but it won’t be this year, won’t be someone who thinks he wants to zero out nuclear weapons production, and military nuclear propulsion production, transportation, and testing, and it won’t be a ex-publisher of racist newsletters who can’t fully come clean.
So far the plurality of the popular vote in all but one state has gone to either Santorum or Romney. Both of these guys are really running for President. Santorum has been more loudly honest than any other candidate about the need for health care and entitlement reform. Romney has taken the time to inform himself about the issues to the point that he can argue both sides of any issue better than most of his Republican opponents can argue any side of anything. Both men have their weaknesses. Santorum has had trouble funding and staffing his campaign (to go with his lack of executive experience) and he has a habit of expressing his opinions in a maximally alienating way and there is no reason to expect that he will ever get much better. It is anybody guess what Romney really believes on any of the contested issues of the day. Neither man can be counted on to be much good when knocked off their script. But for all of their flaws, they are the best of the bunch and the Republican voters have done the best with what they have been given.
It isn’t the fault of Republican primary voters that Mitch Daniels, Bobby Jindal and Mike Pence (among others) chose not to run. It isn’t the fault of Republican primary voters that Tim Pawlenty chose to stake his campaign on a straw poll performance during the silly season. It isn’t the fault of Republican primary voters that the Huntsman campaign combined seeming contempt for the Republican electorate with a middle-class tax increase and huge tax cuts on high earners.
February 27th, 2012 | 10:07 pm
It isn’t the fault of Republican primary voters that Mitch Daniels, Bobby Jindal and Mike Pence (among others) chose not to run.
It wouldn’t take much to convince me that they took a look at the…mood of the electorate this election cycle and decided that discretion is the better part of valor.
February 28th, 2012 | 5:30 am
[...] Times (blog)As GOP race drags on, Republicans see White House slipping awayGlobe and MailCNN -First Things (blog) -Vancouver Sunall 153 news [...]
February 28th, 2012 | 5:08 pm
Pete, good points, as always, but do you really think that Bachman and Perry could have been “credible” candidates if only they had spent more time on briefing papers? (BTW, I seem to recall, way back when, you made a similar comment about Herman Cain, to the effect that he could be credible if he did more homework.) IMHO, neither Bachman nor Perry has the smarts to compete at the presidential level.
By the way, I don’t put much stock in the importance of “executive experience” for running for president. Insofar as governors have had greater success getting elected president since the 1960s (not including the last election, of course), I would attribute that to the circumstance that a governorship, by the nature of the office, has the effect of moving a politician to the center, or at least to force him/her to appeal to support from the center, making him/her better able to reach the national electorate. Senators tend to grandstand for the benefit of their fellow partisans and their donors, arguably causing the ability to reach independents to atrophy. Just a thought.
February 28th, 2012 | 5:20 pm
djf, “do you really think that Bachman and Perry could have been “credible” candidates if only they had spent more time on briefing papers? (BTW, I seem to recall, way back when, you made a similar comment about Herman Cain, to the effect that he could be credible if he did more homework.)” Yes to all of that. That doesn’t mean any of them get the nomination, but I think they would have done somwhat better (I am of course excluding Cain’s sexual issues for the purposes of this discussion.)
“IMHO, neither Bachman nor Perry has the smarts to compete at the presidential level.” I’m not at all sure that Santorum is smarter than Perry (though Santorum is far more familiar with national issues and the dynamics of national opinion.)
Good point about governors and Senators though I would also add that longtime Senators have to make a lot of votes that either look really bad in retrospect or take a lot of explaining (as Santorum learned.) If Obama had been a third term Senator he probably has more issues in 2008. I’m more worried that Santorum’s lack of executive experience at any level and his inability to fund and staff his campaign point to deeper problems for both the general election and his presidency (though I’m keeping an open mind.)
February 28th, 2012 | 7:28 pm
The longer this goes on, Pete, regardless of tonight’s results, I’m seeing someone who shares my views of Barry Sorento, the perverse, murderous, and derailed Left, and the obvious necessity that we restore the republican virtues. While the ambivalent Mitt equivocates, Rick is unrelenting in his criticism of our radical president and to top it off, he’s a conservative.
February 28th, 2012 | 7:44 pm
Phil, running for president is tough and politically risky, and there are all kinds of reasons why a campaign might fail. Having said that, the mood of the Republican electorate has accommodated Romney and Santorum winning the popular vote in every state but one so far. I don’t see why the mood of the voters (as distinct from the mood of silly season poll respondents) would have been any more of a barrier for a Mike Pence or a Bobby Jindal than a Romney or a Santorum (though Jindal would have had trouble timing his reelection and a presidential race.
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