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.

QUINN ON REDFLEX, RUBIO, ST. GERARD, DEBT, AND INFLATION

5/15/14

Since October, 2012, when the Tribune first broke the story, I have written that Redflex would turn out to be a huge story; now more chickens are coming home to roost on that front.  So I had to find time yesterday evening to write on that ongoing saga.  As things have slowed down just a bit, I’ve also managed to write on the economy, national politics, and the Church:

THE REDFLEX SAGA:  THE GIFT THAT KEEPS ON GIVING FOR CHICAGO POLITICAL JUNKIES

http://www.rantlifestyle.com/2014/05/14/redflex-saga-endless-entertainment-for-chicago-political-junkies/

Back in April, 2013, I spoke at a men’s club meeting at St. Margaret Mary here in Naperville and said that Redflex was the story to watch.  My prediction seems to be being vindicated.

BIZARRONOMICS:  FALLING CREDIT CARD DEBT IS BAD

http://www.rantlifestyle.com/2014/05/14/bizarronomics-falling-credit-card-debt-is-bad/

MORE BIZARRO ECONOMICS:  INFLATION IS GOOD

http://www.rantlifestyle.com/2014/05/14/more-bizarro-economics-inflation-is-good/

No, really…some of my best friends are economists.  One introduced me to my wife which, in our case, worked out very well.

MARCO RUBIO:  EVEN THE BEST POLS ARE FRAUDS

http://www.rantlifestyle.com/2014/05/12/marco-rubio-even-the-best-pols-are-frauds/

The incomparable H.L. Mencken saw the likes of Marco Rubio, and just about every other modern politician of all “ideological” and partisan stripes, coming.

THE CATHOLIC CHURCH, WOMEN, EXPECTANT MOTHERS, AND ST. GERARD

http://www.rantlifestyle.com/2014/05/12/the-catholic-church-women-expectant-mothers-and-st-gerard/

St. Gerard was a great guy, and I hope he’s praying for me.  But does empathy count for anything in the Catholic Church?

I thought I’d get this out early since the Redflex story is splayed across this morning’s headlines in Chicago.  Have a great weekend, everybody, and go (other) Hawks!

CPAC: CAN’T PLACATE A (GENUINE) CONSERVATIVE

3/17/13

The annual bleating of banalities known as the “Conservative” Political Action Conference (“CPAC”) has finally wound to a close.   So what is a genuine conservative to make of this parade of pabulum?

First, any “conservative” conference that eschews Chris Christie while embracing Sarah Palin is guilty of gross misrepresentation to those of us who believe in the sane and reasoned application of conservative principles to the challenges of government.  (See my 2/28/13 post CHRIS CHRISTIE AND CHUCK HAGEL NEED NOT APPLY.) Further, excluding the most popular conservative in the country while highlighting a national laughingstock, a walking, talking tribute to the rejection of reason and intelligence in favor of naked, unchecked emotion and gormless reaction shows why the “conservative” movement has effectively committed suicide in this country but is somehow convinced that it must dig an even deeper hole to bury its own sorry carcass.

Second, who in the world can spend an entire three days listening to political speeches?   The terms “substantive” and “political speech” have become inherently contradictory over the last, oh, fifty or so years after skating on thin ice together since the dawn of time.   And how can a “conservative,” who, at least in the past, by definition rejected the efficacy of political solutions in a free society and a free economy, eagerly seek salvation from…politicians and government?   Even yours truly, who admittedly spends far too much time thinking about politics and government, cannot listen to a politician, even a rare politician for whom I have a modicum of respect, expel hot air for more than, say, three minutes or so.  To sit there and listen to these carnival barkers for three days and to call one’s self a conservative should induce some soul-searching among those who attend such events.

Third, even when something even remotely substantive emanates from these gab-fests, it is inherently contradictory and hypocritical.   The “conservatives” propose lower taxes at the federal level, which is great, though it doesn’t address the real problem, grist for a later, but hopefully not much later, mill.   But then they fail to produce any substantive, realistic, or remotely workable, plan for reducing spending.  (See, inter alia, my 3/13/13 post, ADDRESSING THE PROBLEMS OF MEDICARE:  MR. RYAN STAYS IN WASHINGTON.)   And even if they should somehow achieve a miracle and actually cut some domestic spending, the War Party representatives of the CPAC crowd will find some way to blow such savings, and then some, on what they laughingly call “defense” but what is really international proboscis insertion into places where we are unwelcome and in which we have at best limited interests and even less business.  (See, inter alia, my 2/1/13 post JOHN McCAIN, CHUCK HAGEL, AND DEFERRING TO HISTORY.)

So, at best, the conservative call to cut taxes amounts to not paying our bills in favor of passing our expenses onto our children and grandchildren, which I never thought of as a conservative principle.  And, yes, the Laffer Curve works; I am one of its more ardent proponents.  But the Laffer Curve is an economic principle, not a miracle elixir; these deficits are too big to grow our way out of.

At the expense of being accused of further apostasy (Get in line.), it was the great conservative hero, Ronald Reagan, who told us that it was okay not to pay our bills, that deficits didn’t matter, that we could cut taxes and spend on the military and on entitlements ‘til our hearts were content and everything would be just fine.   Thus it was the Gipper and the genuine “conservatives” who followed him, some of us skeptically some more wholeheartedly and unabashedly, that set us on the path to the fiscal quagmire in which we are currently sinking.  Just look at a chart of debt to GDP since World War II if you don’t believe this.  

Fourth, what about the social agenda of the CPAC?   I, for one, agree with about 70% or 80% of the “conservative” social agenda.  I do differ with the growing “conservative” fixation with gays and have long suspected that it is a case of, as Shakespeare would say, “The lady doth protest too much, methinks.”   Do these guys perhaps some doubts about their own sexuality?  But I digress.  I also am alarmed that opposition to abortion has rather quickly morphed into a genuine uneasiness with, or outright hostility toward, contraception, which I find even more inherently contradictory than “conservatives” spending their weekends listening to lectures on how government can improve their lives.

Regardless, however, of where one stands on the social issues, if one is a conservative, one should be alarmed at the notion that the government should dictate conduct that does not infringe on the rights of others.  Yours truly is fine with the “conservative” social agenda when it amounts to opposition to the government playing for the other side but parts company when that agenda becomes advocacy for the government taking the field. 

The social issues are important cultural and moral issues, but are at best third rate political issues.  At least this conservative’s response to such discussion, regardless of which side is being advocated, amounts to “Why in the world are we talking about these things?”   Unfortunately, one gets the impression that many of the CPAC participants, and many who have highjacked the once noble tea party movement, are instead demanding that we waste even more time and effort on these sideshow political issues.

Finally, I was heartened to see that Rand Paul was the winner of a straw poll that asked CPAC participants whom they favored for president in 2016.  Though even thinking about the 2016 race at this juncture seems inherently not conservative, yours truly loves the horse race aspects of politics, especially since the stakes are all fool’s gold anyway; no politician, or at least no successful politician, is going to work to reduce the influence of government regardless of what s/he says.   Mr. Paul, perhaps seeing a real shot at the GOP nomination in 2016, is perhaps getting too cozy with the “limited government ends at the shore” approach of large swaths of the GOP, but his philosophy is in the right place.  Whether it is at all workable in a society that has grown very comfortable with big government is another issue.

The second place finish of Marco Rubio, though, is at least a little troubling.  Mr. Rubio seems to be fine fellow, and I was especially heartened that in his first speech as a senator-elect, he blasted George W. Bush (the man who gives LBJ perhaps decisive competition in the race for the not at all coveted title of “Worst President in U.S. History”) at least indirectly, as much as he went after the Democrats.  But I have the same problem with Senator Rubio that I have with Paul Ryan (See only my latest screed on Mr. Ryan, 3/13/13’s  ADDRESSING THE PROBLEMS OF MEDICARE:  MR. RYAN STAYS IN WASHINGTON), i.e., how can “conservatives” get so excited about a guy who has never been off the public payroll?  As I told a young friend last night, in a perhaps not all that rare instance of my not showing sufficient restraint in discussion of the issues of the day, “If he had ever done anything other than s--k off the public t-t, I’d kind of like the guy.”  In Mr. Rubio’s defense, sort of, he is too young to have accomplished, or learned, much in his life in any case.   (On the other hand, when I was his age, I, too, thought I knew a lot more than I did.)  The same criticisms can apply to the guy in the White House, but I thought conservatives had a different, better approach to government and a more reasoned attitude toward the worthiness of experience beyond the public sector.