Posted on 04/21/2015 7:35:49 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Painful as it is to realize that both the Democrats and the Republicans will still be holding their primaries a year from now, that is one of the high prices we pay for democracy.
Seldom does the initial “front-runner” in either party’s primaries end up being the actual candidate when Election Day rolls around. However, even if we cannot predict the outcomes of the primaries this far in advance, we can at least start trying to understand the candidates, the almost candidates, and the people who are running just for the publicity.
One of the curious things this early in the process is that, while the Republicans’ three freshmen Senators — Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, and Rand Paul — have all had interviews on various television talk shows, veteran politician Hillary Clinton has been hiding out from real interviews by hard-news reporters, as if she is afraid to be cross-examined.
This is by no means an irrational fear on Mrs. Clinton’s part. There are all sorts of questions that she would find hard to answer. They range from questions about recent events like the e-mails from her days as secretary of state that she destroyed illegally, after Congress called for her to produce them, to the still unsolved mystery as to what she and Barack Obama were doing during the hours when four Americans, including our ambassador to Libya, were under attack by terrorists in Benghazi.
Then there are the bald-faced lies, such as Mrs. Clinton’s claim to have been shot at in a war zone, her claim that she and her husband were “dead broke” at the end of his terms as president, and her claim that charges of sexual misconduct against Bill Clinton in the White House were fictions invented by a “vast right-wing conspiracy.”
Supporters of Hillary Clinton tout her “experience” in high-level institutions of government — as first lady in the White House, as a senator, and as secretary of state. But years of such “experience” raise the embarrassing question as to whether she ever actually accomplished anything in all those years, other than being physically present.
Among the many Republicans’ announced and unannounced candidates, three of the most prominent are freshmen senators with no tangible accomplishments to go with their rhetoric. Whatever their potential, which seems especially striking in the case of Senator Marco Rubio, the White House is not the place for on-the-job training, in an age of international terrorism and nuclear bombs.
Barack Obama has already given us repeated demonstrations of what a mess a freshman senator with rhetoric can make in the White House.
While there are a number of Republican candidates who can point to substantial accomplishments as governors, the fact that most have strong track records as conservatives means that they may well split the conservative vote so many ways in the primaries as to let the nomination go by default to a mushy moderate — of the sort beloved by the Republican establishment, but not by enough voters to beat even a weak or troubled Democrat on Election Day.
Former Florida governor Jeb Bush is today’s mushy moderate candidate who may well follow in the footsteps of a whole string of similar losers, from Mitt Romney and John McCain in recent elections, all the way back to Thomas E. Dewey, who managed to lose even in an election where three different Democrats were on the ballot, fragmenting that party’s vote.
While the Republicans have several governors who would make good presidents, of whom Scott Walker and Bobby Jindal are the most prominent, that is very different from saying that these governors would make successful presidential candidates. How they handle themselves in the primaries can reveal that.
Former governor Jeb Bush has lots of political savvy on his side — his own savvy and that of others — and a ton of money behind him. So he could end up being the last man standing after the many Republican conservatives knock each other off.
What could prevent that would be if each of the successive conservative Republican candidates who fall behind were to throw their support to whoever becomes the conservative candidate with the best chance of rescuing us all from another Clinton versus Bush election.
But we should never bet heavily on rationality prevailing in politics.
— Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University.
CRUZ TO VICTORY OR GET BUSHED !
Cruz.
This is about fundamentally changing course back to constitutional government, not finding someone on the right to better manage the bloat.
“Barack Obama has already given us repeated demonstrations of what a mess a freshman senator with rhetoric can make in the White House.”
This is a false argument. Obama’s failure as President has little to do with his lack of experience. It has MUCH more to do with his big-government, leftist world view. If he were a 20 year Senator with that world view, his Presidency would still have failed because of his approach to governing and how he sees the world.
Judge candidates on their stances on issues, their approach to governing in general and how they’d apply that approach to the various issues. What they look like, how old they are and which sexual organs they possess are irrelevant.
Ed Zackery. That is my beef with Walker. I think he wants to do a better job of managing the Federal behemoth, much as he has done at the state level. I respect Walkers accomplishments and he has made life better for Wisconsin but I want someone who acknowledges our government is largely unconstitutional and will work to reign it in. Cruz is the guy for me as well.
Thomas Sowell?
Haven’t seen Sowell equivocate like this often. What is his purpose in writing this article?
The problem is the Republican Party doesn’t want to fundamentally change course. Any candidate pushing for change in the GOP is going meet strong resistance and be undermined by the party at every turn. The GOP is rotten to the core.
I always get a new insight from Dr. Sowell. He brings out relevant facts and puts them in his unique perspective.
The Dewey Debacle is an excellent illustration of the lack of success of mushy moderates.
TWB
As Pogo opined...”We have met the enemy and they are us”.
Has a goofy thesis that being a Governor is good work, US Senator is a bum.
Note to Sowell: The two jobs are different.
Also appears to believe that "accomplishments" i.e., laws, are what we should measure politicians with.
I believe the opposite is needed; a candidate should be judged on his restraint and his ability to rescind all of the million laws we already have.
That would mean applying the Constitution, and doing little else, a la Coolidge.
The reason the conservatives lose all the time is that they always stick it to their own. They never praise them.
Can you imagine a Rat writing the same sort of article about other Rats? Neither can I.
“Former governor Jeb Bush has lots of political savvy on his side — his own savvy and that of others — and a ton of money behind him. So he could end up being the last man standing after the many Republican conservatives knock each other off.
What could prevent that would be if each of the successive conservative Republican candidates who fall behind were to throw their support to whoever becomes the conservative candidate with the best chance of rescuing us all from another Clinton versus Bush election.”
THIS is Tom Sowell’s purpose in writing the article. The field will thin out as we go along. Sowell is warning us that, unless we quit behaving like children, we will get stuck with Jeb Bush as candidate and, worse, Hillary Clinton as president.
>>Haven’t seen Sowell equivocate like this often. What is his purpose in writing this article?<<
Maybe that if _________ (insert name of favorite conservative candidate here) takes the same attitude as many of his supporters and insists that the conservative choice be him, and only him or he’ll take his endorsement and go home, the result will be the nomination of another Bush?
I see you beat me to it, Walrus....
Sowell writes great articles about leftists and issues, but when an election is coming he usually goes RINO like Ann Coulter.
We already know he detests Ted Cruz from when he wrote 3 anti-Cruz columns in a row last year. Despite Cruz being everything his writings would suggest we need.
>>Has a goofy thesis that being a Governor is good work, US Senator is a bum.<<
Hardly. He’s simply making the point that Governors have more experience at actually governing than do Senators, and especially first-term Senators. I think Rubio might make a great President someday, but he’s showing some remarkable political ineptitude in the early going.
The Senators have proven that they know how to get elected, but they haven’t yet proven that they know how to move effective legislation. Governors, at least respected ones, usually have.
That doesn’t mean a Senator won’t make an excellent President, but the risk is definitely greater that they will misread the politics as to what can and can’t be done at any particular time regarding the issue at hand.
I will vote for Cruz, or nobody at all.
“What could prevent that would be if each of the successive conservative Republican candidates who fall behind were to throw their support to whoever becomes the conservative candidate with the best chance of rescuing us all from another Clinton versus Bush election.”
THIS is Tom Sowell’s purpose in writing the article. The field will thin out as we go along. Sowell is warning us that, unless we quit behaving like children, we will get stuck with Jeb Bush as candidate and, worse, Hillary
Clinton as president.”
Thanks. you summed it up very well using Sowell’s own words.
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