THE ONE INESCAPABLE CONCLUSION FROM THE SEPTEMBER GOP DEBATE

9/18/15

One can make plenty of observations regarding Wednesday night’s GOP debates:

• Donald Trump has some chinks in his electoral armor and his opponents are starting to find them.
• Jeb Bush has a pulse.   That his supporters are touting as a huge positive for his campaign the evidence the debate provided of that pulse’s existence shows how much trouble the fair haired boy of the GOP establishment is in.
•  Marco Rubio did a pretty good job but, for some reason, the punditocracy didn’t notice.  He might be the establishment’s alternative if Mr. Bush should continue to fail to live up to what look like cut from whole cloth expectations.
• Mr. Rubio, if he is to inherit Mr. Bush’s well moneyed support, will have to somehow transcend Chris Christie, who performed quite the Lazarus act on his presidential hopes Wednesday night.   Christie was terrific, especially when lambasting the front runners for their obsessions with themselves and positioning himself as an establishment Republican who can still speak for the middle class.
• Rand Paul’s sensible, sober approach to foreign policy clearly disqualifies him for the nomination of a Party that equates to treason the exercise of caution, prudence, and Constitutionality when putting the lives of young Americans on the line.
• You can stick the proverbial fork in Scott Walker. 
• If the American people were yearning for the Fred MacMurray (the good, My Three Sons Fred MacMurray, not the double dealing, caddish, scheming, Double Indemnity and The Apartment Fred MacMurray) approach to life and politics, John Kasich would be a shoo-in.   But that approach became passé when yours truly was a small child.   Too bad.
• Ben Carson is probably too smart, and too much of a gentleman, to be president.  Also too bad.
• The debate was too long.   Even those of us who have yet to overcome our silly addiction to politics were getting bored as the debate moved into the third hour.

While those are all, at the risk of sounding a touch braggadocious, searingly insightful observations, we can only draw one inescapable conclusion from Wednesday night’s debate:  Carly Fiorina is going to be on the GOP ticket.  If she is not at the top of the ticket, still something of a long shot, she will be in the vice-presidential spot.

Mrs. Fiorina is clearly bright, articulate, forceful, and, despite Mr. Trump’s apparent opinion, attractive.  And she is a woman, which certainly has its attractions whether or not Hillary Clinton heads the Democratic ticket.  (See “Something(s)about Hillary,” 9/8/15.)  Mrs. Fiorina is also a cancer survivor, which not only shows courage and grit but is, ironically, a big plus in the increasingly emotional electoral climate we face.  The establishment is more than comfortable with this former corporate chieftain and the social conservatives also like her for her strong pro-life positions.  

Mrs. Fiorina only has two obvious drawbacks.   The first is that her record in corporate America is, to put it charitably, worse than mediocre.   However, the American people seem to be coming to the (correct) conclusion that even someone who did far less than stellar work in a real job is a better choice than someone who has spent his or her life in and around electoral politics, i.e., who has made his or her living having his or her hindquarters smooched and who consequently is terrified at the thought of having to work in the private sector, or even in a public sector job with responsibilities that transcend preening for the cameras, for a living.

The second drawback is that Mrs. Fiorina, unlike Messrs. Kasich, Rubio, Walker, or Bush, has no chance of bringing a swing state, or any state, into the GOP Electoral College fold.   California isn’t going to go GOP regardless of who is on the Republican ticket.   But enhancement of the electoral map by selection of one’s running mate is an overrated strategy, as evidenced by Bill Clinton’s selection of Al Gore, Barack Obama’s selection of Joe Biden, and Ronald Reagan’s selection of George Bush as their running mates.   Each of these veeps either didn’t bring his state into the fold or was from a state that was already solidly in the fold.   Running mates have an appeal that transcends their home states.   This is especially true in the case of Mrs. Fiorina.

THE DEMOCRATIC NOMINATION IN 2016: HILLARY IS NOT INEVITABLE AND JOE IS ALWAYS LOTS OF FUN

8/19/13

This morning’s (i.e., Monday, 8/19/13’s, page A1) Wall Street  Journal reports in a front page story that Vice-President Joe Biden and his team are laying the groundwork for a presidential run in 2016.  Mr. Biden is busy visiting places like New Hampshire and Iowa (to fulfill “longstanding commitments,” of course) while his people are considering strategic moves, including possibly starting up a “leadership PAC” that would spread money around to various Democratic politicians in order to curry their favor for a possible Biden run.

The conventional wisdom (which, by the way, isn’t always wrong despite the derisive connotation it carries, but I digress) holds that Mr. Biden is wasting his time, that he has no chance at wresting the nomination from the nearly already coronated Hillary Clinton.   While I am making no predictions, and if I had to bet at this juncture I would bet on Hillary’s getting the nomination, and probably the White House, the latter especially if the GOP continues to pursue its death wish by refusing to nominate Chris Christie, I would not be so quick to conclude that the Democratic nomination battle is over before it has started.

For those with short memories, we heard the same bullroar back in 2008.  It was Hillary’s nomination for the asking, everyone should just fold up their tents, or not even erect their tents, and go home.   She was the certain nominee.   But no one apparently told Barack Obama and his team.

To put a local and more recent spin on it, remember when, just a few months ago, Lisa Madigan was the sure Democratic nominee for governor of Illinois?   Unfortunately, while Ms. Madigan was primping and preening for her coronation, Bill Daley stepped in and made it a fight.   Either the prospect of such a fight, or the prospect of being governor of Illinois as it slides further down into its fiscal sinkhole, dissuaded the inevitable Lisa from running.   See, inter alia, my 7/16/13 piece, LISA MADIGAN WON’T RUN FOR GOVERNOR:  WOULD YOU WANT THE JOB?  Lisa Madigan is no Hillary Clinton, but Lisa’s dropping out teaches us much about making presumptions when it comes to politics…or anything.

On a more prosaic note, I get a chuckle when I hear one of the strongest objections to Joe Biden’s candidacy or objections to his becoming president…his age.  Mr. Biden will be 73 in November, 2016.  Hillary will be 69.  Yours truly thinks neither is too old to be president, but, even if you think that way, what practical difference is there between 69 and 73?   Either they’re both young enough or they’re both too old.

Again, as a former Republican president was fond of saying, make no mistake.   I am not predicting a Biden nomination.   I am merely arguing that we should not be making wholesale assumptions in 2013 about an election that will take place in 2016.   Hillary is not inevitable.

See my two books, The Chairman, A Novel of Big City Politics and The Chairman’s Challenge, A Continuing Novel of Big City Politics, for further illumination on how things work in Chicago and Illinois politics.