I had a beer with Stephen Fleming a few months ago, and we were discussing potential 2016 Republican presidential candidates. We both agreed that the Wisconsin governor should be a leading contender. Rich Cromwell agrees:
Does Walker sizzle? Not exactly. Is he a particularly charismatic speaker? No, he isn’t. But does he sit upon a throne made of the skulls of his enemies? Yes, yes he does.
Heh.
He’d be an excellent candidate and one I could vote for without a second thought.
I don’t need eloquence. I need proper principles, backbone, smarts.
We’ve seen what happens when Republicans present themselves as solid Conservatives with a record to prove it: they destroy the opponents. When Republicans present themselves in hard conservative colors they win big.
We have also see what happens when republicans try to be all things to all people and get wishy-washy and all pastel:
You get Scott Brown – 2 time loser. And the only way he won the first time was that in that special election he did not present himself in the pastel shades he acquired later.
I remember when Sarah Palin was nominated–even before much was known about her or she appeared at the Republican nomination to accept the Veep nomination, or even before the Hive’s hitmen in the MSM had begun sharpening their knives–someone at NATIONAL REVIEW wrote that one reason to be glad of her nomination was “she’ll make the right people mad.” (And by “right people” he meant of course “tax-happy, coercion-addicted, power-tripping State-fellators.”) The writer probably didn’t know how much of a prophet he would turn out to be. I feel the same way about Walker. In fact, he already makes “the right people” mad.
Dick Morris has a website called, The Hillary Daily. He has a poll up on 2016 candidates. Out of 10,000 votes, Ben Carson is first, but Scott Walker is second.
Oh, Sarah Palin, just spare me . . .
I, for one was enthusiastic about Sarah Palin at the time. Why? The bottom line for America, is, the bottom line, that is if you want everyday working people to have good paying jobs, and the bottom line of the bottom line is energy, specifically, oil and natural gas. Governor Palin got “that pipeline built”, which is a lot more than you can say about a certain 2-term president with respect to pipeline accomplishments.
But after that, it was all downhill, and yes, starting with the Katie Couric interview.
Imagine if Paul Milenkovic had been in the “hot seat.” “What do you think of the Bush Doctrine?” “Could you clarify this question, there are many important initiatives of the Bush Presidency that have earned the monicker ‘Bush Doctrine.'” Suppose the follow-on question was “Preemptive war.” (tents hands) “Preemptive war is a seriously over simplified characterization of what took place after the 9-11 attacks. The UN Charter clearly establishes the doctrine of self defense or of taking action in one’s defense, and everything that has taken place since 9-11 conforms to the UN Charter and these esablished principles. So there is no “Bush Doctrine” apart from “Take necessary actions in defense of our country and its vital interests . . .”
As the sort of person that I am, I was thoroughly familiar with all of the Right Blogosphere talking points, so I would have at least answered . . . something. At the time my excuse for the Governor was that as Governor she had a “real job” and didn’t have time on her hands to surf Web pages in the style of you, me, and Glenn Reynolds.
There was that episode about the Briefing Book and in Luke Skywalker fashion, setting aside that Guidance and Targeting Computer and relying upon The Force. The whole Going Rogue thing, the whole I am Not Listening to that Steve Schmidt guy thing.
To come out of obscurity and be placed on the national stage as the Vice Presidential candidate is a huge, huge opportunity. The Vice President is not supposed to be an original thinker but is supposed to be a loyal second-banana. I would have tucked into that Briefing Book. If I was too pooped from my schedule to read it, I would have asked for Senator McCain to have one of his guys read from for me.
No, annoying the Right People is not enough a qualification. George Will can be pompous at times, but here he was spot on. Sarah Palin had earned her 15 minutes of fame and then didn’t do anything with it. She could have “studied hard” in Will’s words, to position herself of 2012, but nothing of the sort took place. I am sure that Senators Cruz and Paul are doing as much if they have any ambitions in that direction.
And for all that, she still would have been a better president than anyone else on the ticket.
Rand, I respect your opinions and am grateful for you paying for the bandwidth to have this give-and-take. I am really not trying to go all “You are wrong and my opinions are right”, even if I am regarded as straying from the orthodoxy.
Who is the anyone else on the ticket you are speaking of? Do you mean the 2012 field that included Romney, Santorum, Gingrich, Ron Paul?
Sarah Palin, yes, has or at least had a kind of populist appeal that Mitt Romney, bless him, can never have. So, are we on the same page here, that we are talking about the 2012 presidential field where some thought the Repubs stood a chance or were even inevitable because Mr. Obama’s economic recovery was that bad?
The point made by George Will was about 2012, where there could have been a point where Sarah Palin could have had the nomination by acclamation for all of her being annoying to all the right people. Will observed that Richard Nixon for his mix of populist appeal to a segment of American society (the love him or hate him was visceral — no one thought of him as a technocrat, but at a certain level he was), that Nixon spent his years “in the wilderness” educating himself, especially about foreign affairs through travel and meeting people.
George Will observed that Sarah Palin had four years to do all of that but did not. Maybe the former Alaska Governor is wise in a way that the Governor of a Midwestern state is not in that she traded on her fame to support other candidates rather than giving even a moment’s consideration of running for President?
Who is the anyone else on the ticket you are speaking of? Do you mean the 2012 field that included Romney, Santorum, Gingrich, Ron Paul?
I am talking about McCain, Obama and Biden.
You are talking about whether or not she was a good candidate. She wasn’t, though not as bad as many have made her out to be. I am talking about whether or not she would have been a good president.
Hardly anybody could sustain the relentless negativity of the press that she did. The key is picking someone they’re afraid to go after in the first place. After witnessing the utter destruction of Dan Quayle, and the severe wounding of Sarah Palin, I hope maybe the next Republican presidential candidate will think thrice about picking a relative unknown that the MSM can then define for the public in a manner of their choosing.
I mean, seriously, does anything Sarah Palin (or, Dan Quayle, for that matter) ever said sound as stupid as “Navy Corpseman”, or “I don’t know what the term is in Austrian”?
They went after her so hard because they could not let the first woman VP/Prez be a Republican. The very act of either would have done long-term damage to the freak show coalition on the left, because it would have violated decades of revolutionary truth on the left about how Republicans HATE and DISREPECT empowered women.
Every day a Sara Palin in high elected office appeared on camera, it would be another hit to the broadsides of that tripe meme.
The AMERICAN THINKER, at the time of her nomination, spoke of Palin as a kind of modern-day frontierswoman (complete with firearms). It’s like America were a frontier town–let’s call it “Liberty City”–and a gang–let’s call it “the Statist Gang”–were on its way to Liberty City. Palin’s like some ranchwoman who rides into town with her Winchester and says, “You know what that gang did in Europeville and Asiatown! It’s the bloodiest, stealingest gang in history! We’ve got to grab our guns and keep them out!” Then all the “smart” people in town–the newspaper editor, the teacher, the minister from Boston, etc.–all say, “Hey, no need to stir people up! Sure, the Statist Gang may have been bad in other towns–but not here! We’re sure if we surrender to them, they’ll behave themselves better here! In fact, we’d better all give up our guns to show we mean them no harm!”
In the country of the blind . . .
The last Republican President who didn’t project a great image in the media was Bush, and you can see how that ended. Unfortunately, the Republicans need someone with the charisma of Reagan and the guts of Walker. Kinda hard to come by.
Of Walker to Reagan you shall compare not! (Sorry, that belongs on the “Yoda-speak” thread).
I don’t recall it ever being any different. Reagan was reeling from the Iran-Contra fallout by the end of his term, and his popularity had declined precipitously. It wasn’t until the Wall fell that people realized that, “Hey, yeah, the Gipper was right after all”, and that legacy propelled him back into the public’s highest esteem.
Every Republican CinC is going to endure a sustained and vicious campaign of personal destruction from the MSM. People weary of the constant drumbeat, and eventually internalize it. That’s just the way it is.
I’d prefer someone with some top level military experience. Colin Powell, Norman Schwartzkopf, Tommy Franks, and I think David Petraeus were floated before, as I recall.
*checks the slate of Republican names at the top of the defense establishment*
Chuck Hagel. Well crap.
Colin Powell? He supported Obama, twice! And Schwartzkopf is dead; sure he’s still a better choice than Hillary but not as good as the GOP can do.
What about Robert Gates?
For “top-level” military experience you can substitute “political” military experience. There really haven’t been many “top-level” military people who could be trusted in politics since the War Department became the Department of Defense, because they’ve already become politicians by the time anybody’s heard of them.
I’m not sure how a governor who “sit[s] upon a throne made of the skulls of his enemies” wouldn’t be good enough, and better than any perfumed prince from the Pentagon.