Absurd as it may seem, there is a scenario in which this could happen. If either Trump or Carson succeeds in maintaining a large lead, and Cruz is polling in second place, well ahead of Bush and Rubio, what other choice would the GOP establishment have?
It isn’t at all likely, but it is possible, and the irony of it would be overwhelming.
The GOP candidates all
Want to put up a refugee wall.
In the war against terror
It’s clearly an error
To show that our hearts are so small.
I have noted previously that Jeb’s lines of attack on Marco are pretty well limited to his lack of experience; immigration, Rubio’s greatest point of vulnerability, is off the table, as their positions are essentially similar. The other side of the coin is that Marco can only distinguish himself from Jeb by talking about his youth and his supposedly new ideas. When you combine the size of the stakes with minimal policy disagreements, you have a recipe for a campaign that is inevitably going to be intense and brutally personal; one way or the other, hard feelings will abound at its conclusion.
It is likely that the outcome of the Florida primary will ultimately determine the winner of this battle. It should be fascinating to watch.
The GOP stalwart named Marco
The Bush campaign sent him some snark-o.
They fought just like brothers
From two different mothers
Their issues aren’t really so stark-o.
Who is this God
Who says Frenchmen must die?
I find it quite odd
You’d believe such a lie.
Where in your book
Does it tell you to kill?
Upon second look
It says otherwise still.
What do you win
With destruction and hate?
Cause murder’s a sin
And the hour is late.
How do you know
Your opinions are right?
Where will you go
When your day turns to night?
Every student of revolutionary politics knows that one of the primary objectives of the insurgents is to force a pool of potential sympathizers to take their side by provoking an overreaction by the government. That is exactly what IS is trying to do with their terror campaign.
One hopes that our leaders understand this, and can communicate their position to the public. We’ll see.
Regular readers of this blog will recall a post from a few months ago in which I suggested a useful way to evaluate the foreign policy views of our leaders was to plot them on a graph with two intersecting lines: one running from active to passive; and the other from values to interests. President Obama clearly belongs in the passive/interests quadrant of the graph. Where would one put Clinton and Sanders?
Based on his voting record and his statements on the campaign trail, I would place Sanders in the passive/interests quadrant, but further down the passive line than the President. Clinton, on the other hand, is both more ideological and more open to military interventions than the President. I would plot her very close to the intersection of the two lines.
As I understand it, Trump’s poll numbers are improving because the GOP electorate thinks he is a strong leader, even though he has no military experience and no background in security issues.
The man on horseback is not really an American political tradition. However, if you’re going to have one, he should be riding a horse, not a golf cart.
Why Must We Fight?
Why must we fight?
Shots in the night.
Peace out of sight.
Turn out the lights.
Where does this go?
Nobody knows.
Progress is slow.
Don’t worry so.
Will the West win?
Patience runs thin.
Ignore the din.
Believe again.
When Rick Scott, a wealthy businessman with few political skills, was elected Governor of Florida in 2010, I (sort of) joked that his first task as the CEO of Florida, Inc. would be to identify his underperforming assets ( the elderly, children, the poor, etc.), securitize them, and sell them off to German investors. Fiorina gives me the same feeling, but on a national scale.
As I have noted on multiple occasions, running a business is a fundamentally different task than running a government. From Fiorina’s perspective, however, I can see the appeal of a public sector job; unlike HP, the shareholders voters would have to wait four years to remove her from office.
If I had the ability to do caricatures, I would draw Ted Cruz as a vampire; it’s just something about the way he looks and the gloom he projects. With that as background, let’s see how he stacks up against the best known vampire of them all:
Cruz v. Dracula
Gloomy presence Yes Yes
Viewed by establishment Hated Feared
Active at night Debates; filibusters Drinks blood
Attractive to Reactionaries Women
Ambition Presidency Perpetual life
And the winner is . . . Dracula. Cruz is still way behind in the polls.
Imagine no Obama.
It isn’t hard to do.
An end to free stuff.
And no abortions, too.
Imagine the black people
Leaving us in peace.
Imagine all the tax cuts.
It’s easy if you try.
A wall around us.
No more liberal lies.
Imagine just white people
Living here today.
You may say we’re just dreamers.
But we’re not the only ones.
We hope someday you’ll join us.
And our country will live as one.
Parody of “Imagine” by John Lennon.
Based on the last debate, the GOP’s idea of an oppressed worker is . . a community banker. Strike up the Internationale!
Three reasons:
By all rights, Ted Cruz should be the leading Reagan Coalition candidate at this point in the campaign. He ticks all of the boxes: he’s impeccably evangelical; his righteous rage is palpable; notwithstanding his Rick Perry moment at the last debate, his intelligence is unquestionable; he looks reasonably Reaganesque; and he couldn’t be more despised by the GOP establishment if he tried (and he probably does). He also has plenty of money. For all of this, he is currently stuck far behind Trump and Carson. Why?
There are two potential reasons. First, even though his battles with the GOP leadership are the stuff of legend, he is still a politician, and as such he has failed to stop Obama. In other words, he can’t portray himself as a white knight untainted by Washington corruption and stupidity as convincingly as the two complete outsider candidates. Second, it is perfectly possible that people just dislike the guy; he exudes gloom, anger, and ambition from every pore. Can you imagine seeing that on TV every night for four years? Me, neither.