Posted on 12/28/2010 11:08:27 AM PST by iowamark
NO interest in driving anyone out of the party, and mitbots and monied interested will not help him win the nomination. Mitt has too much baggage with MassaCare that he foisted on the poor subject of Mass. I just think practical has to be the mantra for 2012. Paul Ryan is going to lay the groundwork in House budget committee, the person who wants to win nomination is going to have to embrace most of Ryan’s roadmap for fiscal sanity. That will weed out a lot of the pretenders pretty quickly.
Mitt has a lot of qualities I admire, but can’t see him getting very far, even though MSM will probably try to boost him due to his moderate credentials.
There are very few “moderates” anywhere ~ and just how do you achieve moderate credentials on abortion ~ that’s kind of an either/or situation. Same with the death penalty. Or crime in the streets. Or excessive spending on non-defense related items.
Ick. :: sigh :: I used to be a big fan of Michael Steele and I still like him on a personal level (got my picture taken with him at the "Fire Nancy Pelosi" Rally on Chicago's South side), and the man actually LISTENED to me. That being said, it's clear he's fumbled as party chairman, made way too many gaffe's (he's starting to be our version of Joe Biden) and was downright embarrassing at times, so I came to conclusion it would probably be best to replace him when his term is up.
But looking at the list of potential "replacements", I don't think we'd improve much, and there's probably a good chance we'd end up with someone even worse.
I read today that our RINO combiner Illinois GOP Chairman, Pat Brady (no relation to Bill Brady), has endorsed Reince Priebus. Quite frankly, anyone who Brady is for, I'm against, and I know many Illinois conservatives who feel the same way. Much of it has to do with Brady trying to pin his own failures on Steele. Michael Steele did a lot more to promote insurgent tea party winners like Joe Walsh, compared to Brady who just ignored him. Priebus' fans here go nuts if make fun of his name, but seriously, if we elect a guy named "Reince Priebus", regardless of what his actual background is, the Dems will have a field day mocking his name constantly. Bad PR move. I also heard California RNC committeeman (and former GOP Chairman) Shawn Steel (also no relation to Michael Steele) jumped on the Priebus bandwagon when Brady did. Anyone know is Shawn Steel is a RINO?
Saul Anuzis ran against Steele for RNC Chair last time, and was a bottom of the barrel choice. I don't think that's changed at all. Anuzis record as Chairman of the Michigan GOP was abysmal. The Dems ran that state into the ground, and this guy could get absolutely no where as "opposition leader" when the ruling party had done everything wrong.
Ann Wagner... barf... the Kay Bailey Hutchison of party officials. Long time "don't rock the boat" cozy beltway insider. Zzzzz. Wasn't she Co-Chair of the national party for a long time?
Maria Cino ... there's an article here on FR about how she worked as an Obamacare lobbyist for Pfizer. That pretty much tells me all I need to know about her. I guess she was some low-level Bush adminstration bureaucrat for a while too. I'm not even going to ask her position on amnesty.
Gentry Collins seems to be the best of the bunch, but I'd give this guy about a 2% chance (at best) of getting the nod for RNC Chairman. Maybe if all the other challengers dropped out and Steele was caught on tape having an orgy with Obama. Otherwise, forget it.
I don't see any clear cut strong conservative reform choice this time around. There's no Ken Blackwell or Katon Dawson stepping up to the bat now, just the guys who even worse than Steele still looking for a promtion.
At the moment, based exclusively on performance, I’m leaning to Priebus.
In other words, voting thus far is pretty meaningless.
I’m not sure exactly how they define who’s declared and undeclared. Our RINO state party chairman in Illinois has apparently switched from Steele and now “likely Prebius”, but hasn’t publicly said so.
Reince Priebus??
Sounds like some crappy Eurotrash car company. ;-d
Doesn’t sound like a good bunch.
There’s an article about Collins. Sounds like the best but I agree a longshot.
Anunzis for some reason still has plenty of fans. “Human Events” John Gizzi seems to like him.
I give him his share of the blame for our failures in MI under his tenure. I don’t care if it was just MI being a “blue state” during bad years for the GOP as his apologists say, it would be strange to promote a man with his poor record as a state party leader.
Considering the typical state party orgs and national creepy-crawlers, it's a pretty decent group.
We could be looking at a choice between Christie Todd Whitman, Tom Davis, and Gary Johnson.
I don't mind an RNC chair being an insider - most of what they do is (or should be) inside baseball anyway. Wagner would be fine, Cino a bit sketchy (seems like a stealth candidate), Steele had a good opportunity and blew it, and Priebus seems the best of the bunch.
Gentry Collins of Iowa? I dunno, Iowa hasn't been lighting the world on fire lately.
That's not good enough for you?
I certainly doubt any of the other candidates you've mentioned could do that. Be just like when Ken Mehlman was lurking around.
Too many Republicans suffer from having low expectations, and then imagining their worst fears happened ~ even in the face of victory.
It will take some work to get used to winning ~ it's hard, but others have done it, and so can you.
...standing on the sidelines, leaving the RNC in terrible financial shape, and leaving all the funding and GOTV operation to Haley Barbour and the RGA.
What a hero.
Face it, the last two years at the RNC have been a cluster*.
Of course, winning isn't everything ~ it's THE ONLY THING!
Thanks Impy.
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