The first ever Presidential election I participated in was in 2004. I was vehemently opposed to the Iraq war and desperately wanted George W. Bush out of office along with his minions Paul Wolfowitz, Donald Rumsfeld, and Dick Cheney. I didn't particularly like John Kerry. He seemed like a very intelligent man but I felt like he was short on big ideas. Regardless, I held my nose and voted for Kerry as he filled my "not George Bush" requirement. The same thing is occurring inside the Republican party right now. Mitt Romney is the Republican version of John Kerry. He even resembles Kerry as both of them look like a villain from a movie on the Lifetime channel. The Republican party is scrambling to find anyone other than Mitt Romney even though it has become increasingly clear that he is the only electable candidate other than Newt Gingrich and John Huntsman who you could describe as intellectually competent.
The guy that the Republican party desperately wants to elect is the gun totin', convict zappin', logic mutilatin' force of nature that is Rick Perry. But after last night's debacle, even the most extreme Tea Partiers will probably have trouble seeing him as a legitimate candidate to be Commander in Chief.
Perry has the look of a President and the credentials of a true conservative, the problem is that every time he opens his mouth he embarrasses himself. Perry has had numerous opportunities to differentiate himself from the rest of the GOP but time and time again he proves himself to not be a serious Presidential candidate. Next up is Michelle Bachmann, a Tea Party darling who won the Iowa straw poll and can only be classified as the dumbest person in politics.
Really?? This woman is a Presidential candidate? There are actually a group of voters out there who look at her and say "Yup, this is the person I want working on a day to day basis representing me in meetings with the leaders of Pakistan, Iran, and China." It's a joke that she is anywhere close to being qualified for the office of the Presidency but somehow there is an establishment out there that believes it to be true. Next, we have my new favorite politician, Herman Cain.
I find Cain highly amusing but purely speaking as a Presidential candidate, he's not a viable choice. The Economist dismisses Cain's tax plan as "nonsense." By all accounts his plan will raise taxes on the poor by adding a tax for people who currently do not make enough to pay income taxes as well as the fact that many economists (like Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman) espouse that the sales tax is regressive and hiking it will disproportionately affect the lower class. Cain is basing the entire success of his campaign on a tax plan that is disparaged by economists across the political spectrum while demonstrating a staggering level of stupidity when it comes to international relations.
Actually Herman, it is important that you know who the President of Uzbekistan is if you want to be President. It's also even more important that you know that China has a nuclear program and it has been around since 1964. For someone who wishes to be President, this is a titanic error that throws his foreign policy expertise into serious doubt. In spite of all this, he's leading the polls!
Next up is a guy who would never win the Republican nomination under any circumstances but his mere presence needs to be acknowledged. Rick Santorum (every time I read his name I hear it in Lewis Black's voice) is nothing more than a bigoted waste of flesh who has made a political career out of attacking homosexuality. He has no other substantive positions outside of his opposition to gay marriage and abortion (although he is on record saying he wants to go to war with China, so there's that).
Lastly, we have Newt Gingrich, Ron Paul, and Jon Huntsman. I admire Ron Paul for his fierce honesty, even if his idea of eliminating the Fed is absolutely insane (if we didn't have the Fed, how would we have responded to the 2008 financial crisis?). Jon Huntsman is a solid candidate with great foreign policy experience but his tax plan is just boilerplate GOP tax cut economics. He shows no imagination or creativity in this plan. Last but certainly not least is Newt Gingrich. He is the smartest guy in the room (which is like being the skinniest person on the Biggest Loser) who apparently wasn't smart enough to realize that leaving your wife for your mistress while she's in the hospital with cancer might not help your image. That decision invalidates him from the Presidency in my mind.
The standard GOP response to these arguments would be to go on the attack against Democrats and point out their shortcomings because politically speaking, this is the most prudent strategy. This article is not an argument on behalf of the Democrats; our biggest long-run financial problem (Medicare) is largely their fault due to years of unwillingness to enact any significant reform to their sacred cow.
This is about the failure of the Republican establishment to produce a viable Presidential candidate. The Republican party has become a party full of rigid ideologues who are unable and unwilling to change their narrow-minded dogma to the facts of the current situation. Don't believe me? Take Grover Norquist, who might be the most successful lobbyist of all time. The GOP's anti-tax stance is basically dictated by his lobbyist group "Americans for Tax Reform." Here is the pledge that nearly every Republican in Congress has signed. I don't know about you, but it makes me uncomfortable to know that hundreds of representatives are pledging to uphold anything other than the Constitution.
When in doubt, the GOP returns to its list of talking points which can be listed on a postage stamp: deregulation (or as they call it "easing the burden on businesses"), lower taxes, and appeals to American exceptionalism. They understand that most of the electorate doesn't pay attention most of the time so keeping their arguments simple and rigid allows their message to become easier to understand. The problem is that simple messages are built on simple solutions and our problems today are so complex that simple solutions like cutting taxes or raising taxes on the rich cannot fix the issue alone. This simple-mindedness allows intellectually inferior candidates (like Michelle Bachmann) to become legitimate political powerhouses simply because whenever they run into trouble, they can easily preach the gospel of the GOP and get off the hook.
We need a strong Republican challenger to go up against Obama because competition really does bring out the best in everybody. A strong GOP makes the Democratic party stronger which in turn gives us more credible leaders. Right now we do not vote for a candidate; we vote for an ideology. The problem is that no one ideology can solve all of our problems. Think socialism is entirely illegitimate? Tell that to the millions of seniors who don't have to worry how they will pay their bills because of Social Security. Hate capitalism? Go blog about it on Google's servers using your Apple notebook while you sit there in your Gap jeans drinking a coffee from Starbucks and organizing a protest on your Blackberry. Nothing is all bad or all good.
There are signs that the Republican party is beginning to understand this dynamic. After having many of their overreaching policies rebuked at the polls yesterday, the GOP is beginning to backtrack on some of their hard line policies. Hopefully this is the beginning of a great Republican awakening where the GOP collectively realizes that pragmatic solutions and not rigid ideology are the ways to the voters hearts. If not, then the GOP will fade into irrelevance as they become the party of the old white rich man.
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