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.

RICK PERRY BASHES RAND PAUL: IGNORANCE OR MERETRICIOUSNESS?

7/14/14

On Face the Nation this weekend, Texas Governor Rick Perry took his limited air time to bash fellow Republican, Kentucky Senator Rand Paul.  Governor Perry accused Mr. Paul of being an “isolationist,” and wanting to draw a “red line around the United States” because Mr. Paul urges us to stay out of the religious battles and internecine conflicts that now characterize much of the Middle East.  Governor Perry accused Mr. Paul of having his head in the sand because the Islamic State is a dangerous terrorist group that will not be satisfied in establishing a caliphate in large swaths of Iraq and Syria but also doubtless wants to inflict great harm on the United States itself.  How, Mr. Perry asked, can Mr. Paul ignore this threat?

Mr. Perry apparently made all these accusations with a straight face.   That he was able to do so is remarkable given that it was Mr. Perry and those of his ilk who were, just a few short months ago, urging us to join the conflict in Syria on the side of what is now called the Islamic State, the very terror group he (in all likelihood correctly) accuses of wanting to inflict great harm on the U.S. homeland.   It was Mr. Perry (and John McCain, Lindsey Graham, and all the other usual suspects) who was urging us to bomb Bashar Assad’s forces, which are fighting the forces of the Islamic State.   Messrs. Perry, McCain, and Graham deny that they wanted to help out the Islamic State…no sir, they wanted to help the “moderates” in Syria.   That defense for their militaristic impulse is laughable.  Even assuming that these “moderates” are genuine and are not, as are so many of our “friends” in the Middle East, merely striking a pose in order to get access to American money and start numbered offshore bank accounts, the real force behind the opposition to Bashar Assad is provided by the most radical elements of his opposition, most saliently the Islamic State.  Any action against Mr. Assad is de facto support for the Islamic State that Mr. Perry and his pals purport to oppose.

We can draw one of two conclusions about the inherent contradictions behind the Perry/McCain/Graham approach to the Islamic State, professing to be so opposed to the State while urging action to fight its battles for it.

First, Messrs. McCain, Perry and Graham are completely ignorant of the Middle East and/or are completely delusional about the array of forces in the area.  They are either complete dullards and/or they simply cannot fathom a Syria or Iraq in which the U.S. has no visible support among anyone who is not on its payroll.   These pols seem to think that there are legions of people in the Middle East who are absolutely delighted that we have inflicted massive casualties on them and their families in Iraq and Afghanistan and thus have been rendered “moderate” and “pro-Western,” ready to vanquish dictators and establish Arab versions of Jeffersonian democracy at our mere request.

Second, Messrs. McCain, Perry, and Graham are no fools and are completely aware that we have few friends in the Middle East.  Further, they know that they are being completely self-contradictory in urging action against both the Islamic State and its most salient enemy, the regime of Bashar Assad.   But Messrs. McCain, Perry, and Graham simply don’t care.  They want American involvement in every conflict in which such involvement is possible.   They have to make good IOUs to the “defense contractors” who finance their positions of power and prestige, who enable them to remain in jobs in which their most urgent and constant task is to have their hindquarters smooched.   So if going to war anywhere with anyone will make the “defense” contractors happy, the money flowing, and thus the likes of Messrs. McCain, Perry, and Graham comfortably ensconced in the lifelong sinecures they call careers, going to war anywhere with anyone must be a very good thing.

Which one is it, Messrs. Perry, McCain, and Graham?   Are you ignorant or merely servicing the people who keep you in your cushy jobs that would make a Middle Eastern suzerain envious?