There's no such thing as a perfect candidate, and the recent furor over the Republican contest proves that, if not much else. No one's close to making the sale yet.
Texas Governor Rick Perry, the front runner stumbled badly in last week's debate and if he has another couple of bad outings, he could very well fade away. Not only were a number of his answers weak, but he failed to take the battle to the other candidates, leaving people wondering how he'd actually do against President Obama.
He continues to double down on the Gardisil question, and his vulnerability on the illegal alien issue has become evident and was exploited handily by Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum last week.
Not only that, but when the foreign policy finally reared its ugly head at long last, he flailed around badly:
BAIER: Which brings us to this, Governor Perry, if you were president, and you got a call at 3 am telling you that Pakistan had lost control of is nuclear weapons, at the hands of the Taliban, what would be your first move?
PERRY: Well obviously, before you ever get to that point you have to build a relationship in that region. That’s one of the things that this administration has not done. Yesterday, we found out through Admiral Mullen that Haqqani has been involved with — and that’s the terrorist group directly associated with the Pakistani country. So to have a relationship with India, to make sure that India knows that they are an ally of the United States.
For instance, when we had the opportunity to sell India the upgraded F-16′s, we chose not to do that. We did the same with Taiwan. The point is, our allies need to understand clearly that we are their friends, we will be standing by there with them.
Today, we don’t have those allies in that region that can assist us if that situation that you talked about were to become a reality.
Is Governor Perry saying that we're going to ask India or Taiwan what to do? Fine, the alliance with India definitely needs work, but we're talking about an emergency situation - our enemies just overthrew a government that wasn't at all friendly to us anyway and got themselves a nuclear arsenal.
This is not the sound of a president-in-waiting.
Former Senator Rick Santorum's answer was almost as bad:
To answer the question on Pakistan, which I’m not too sure was answered. The bottom line is, that we should be establishing relationships in Pakistan with allies of ours, folks like relationships with President Musharraf who we had in the past with others in that country so if in fact something like that would occur we could work in concert to make sure that that coup could be overturned and make sure those nuclear weapon do not fall in those hands.
But working with allies at that point is the last thing we want to do. We want to work in that country to make sure the problem is defused.
Talking about not answering the question! So in Senator Santorum's world, he's just been informed that the Taliban, the Haqqani Group or Lashkar-e-Taiba just took over Pakistan's nuclear facilities in Waziristan and he's going to depend on deposed President Musharraf to help us out? "Quick, get Pervez on the phone.Maybe he can put together a counter-coup."
The fact is that when you have a 3 AM call like that, 'defusing' the problem is already too late and so is talking to 'allies'. It means there's been a civil war,and our enemies just won. My answer, had I been on that stage would have been to say that a faction who are not our friends taking over Pakistan's nukes is quite probable, and as president I would have had a contingency plan ready and waiting with our military for destroying them completely on the ground the minute they fell into questionable hands. The fact that two presidential candidates would go into an Obama-like dithering on something this basic is scary, frankly.
Herman Cain, however likeable has yet to prove that he has the chops needed for the Big Job. The FOX moderators did him a great kindness by not asking him any deep foreign policy or national security questions, since he's already shown that isn't his strong point. And his 9-9-9 plan on taxes which has some merits also has a number of those awful devils in the details. That 9% national sales tax, for instance. Anyone whose seen how politicians around the world have handled a Value Added Tax ( which is essentially what Mr. Cain is proposing) ought to be damned wary of implementing it. Here's a hint; just like sales taxes in your state, they tend to go up, up, up. And it might also be noted that Cain's plan would eliminate the tax break on mortgages, thus putting the boot into an already depressed industry. My prediction is that his straw poll win in Florida will have about as much effect as Muchele Bachmann's in Iowa.
Mitt Romney is an old hand at campaigning by now, and it shows. His answers to questions are clear and obviously well thought out. Unfortunately, he has a habit of only answering half a question and glossing over the rest, and that's going to become more noticeable as time goes on, especially if he overtakes Perry as frontrunner and assumes Perry's role as punching bag for the rest.
His support for the Obama administration's Race to the Top education program is going to come back to haunt him, as will his insistence that RomneyCare's individual mandate only applies to 8% of the population. Actually, that law applies to everyone in Massachusetts. And he's also going to have to figure out how to defend himself on Bain Capital's record on outsourcing jobs.
Speaking of Michele Bachmann, as likeable as she is, she's also proven that she's not quite ready for the Top Job yet. Her positions continue to devolve into talking points, she's shown an unfortunate tendency to be gaffe-prone and continues to be willing to die on questionable hills like the one about how the Gardisil caused retardation in a child.
I'm not even going to discuss the other marginal players. None of them are going to be the GOP nominee,let alone get into the White House.
But I have a feeling that applies to the others as well, at least at the present time. None of them, in my opinion, has really made the sale yet. None of them appears to be an obvious choice for President yet, although Mitt Romney has done a fair job thus far of at least coming close. Plus, it's still very early days and the support of each candidate is still pretty soft.
The 2012 election is the GOP's to lose, but I still think we haven't seen all the candidates. With the first major test being the Iowa Caucus in February, there's plenty of time for someone else to get in.
Actually the deadline is pretty clear. To get your name on the ballot in Florida,you need to pay filing fees by October 31st. And to participate in the South Carolina primary, the last date in November 1st.
I wouldn't be at all surprised to see a major trick or treat in the Republican race before Halloween.
re: the 3 am call.
ReplyDeletemy answer would be just a sec, let me get my hat.
LOL Louie! Love it!
ReplyDeleteRegarding that 3 AM phone call with all due respect to the candidates this is going to be a very difficult question to answer without access to the various intellegence reports and other resources the President has. Nevertheless I have dear friends in Afghanistan so I personally do allot of thinking about just this scenario.
ReplyDeleteFirst of all given the current trajectory of the situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan the chances of the Taliban or other anti-American forces gaining control of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal is more than "quite probable." It is all but inevitable. Furthermore we don't have the ability to alter the trajectory of the situation. Essentially we should already be preparing for just such a scenario. Its unlikely we can prevent it from happening.
I can understand your desire to "destroy them on the ground" once they fall into questionable hands, however, as POTUS before I could authorize such a mission I would need to know several things. 1.)Do we even know where the nukes are? 2.)Its a given that the nukes will be very well defended. Can we get our forces past the defenses to destroy these weapons? 3.)Assuming 1 and 2 can be reasonably answered in the affirmative then this leads to the last question. Once the mission has been completed can we safely extricate our forces?
The odds that we know where these weapons are is iffy at best. At best, its 50/50. Assuming we know where the weapons are the chances of being able to penetrate the defenses are at best 40/60. The chances of getting our people out safley are at best 30/70. Essentially unless US intellegence can be radically improved and our military capabilities radically improved the chances of a mission to destroy these weapons on the ground would have less than a 50% chance of success!! As such, I can't see authorizing such a mission. Furthermore, if I'm aware of the odds against the mission, the military commanders are too. Therefore, I don't envision them going along with such a mission.
I've already stated how I'd handle this here and elsewhere many, many times over the last two years or so. Its more relevant now than ever. Essentially we should beging withdrawing all of our forces to defensible positions along our borders and upgrade and expand our nuclear arsenal. This way we have a fighting chance to defend our country when the inevitable happens in Pakistan.
Finally, I'm with the candidates on improving alliances, however, there is one thing that troubles me. While its good to support liberty in places like Tawain and India, we utlimately can only guarantee our own liberty. We must not lose sight of this fact. I think some of our leaders have lost sight of this.
With all respect to Louie and Major Kong, I say we nuke them from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't be at all surprised to see a major trick or treat in the Republican race before Halloween.
ReplyDeletethat surprise may not pass through the republican party, and proceed along a separate path.
maybe.