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PDF versionThe GOP's "B" Team
by Michael Sean Winters on Feb. 23, 2012
The way we Americans conduct our presidential campaigns leaves much to be desired. We sell candidates with TV ads the way we sell Doritos, except that the company that makes Doritos takes out ads proclaiming the deliciousness of its product, not attacking the Lays potato chips as cancer-causing, un-tasty snacks. We sit through debates that often focus on soundbites and stupidities. And, our mainstream media, needing to convey complex issues in “TV time” (in “TV time” five minutes is an eternity), abets the superficiality with which the contemporary candidates are forced to confront issues.
Yet, there is one serious value in this often silly process: We do learn whether or not a candidate is easily flustered by a tough question and, more importantly, and more pertinently for the debate cycle, whether a candidate can be put off his game by his own success in the polls. After his apparent, narrow win in Iowa and large win in New Hampshire, Mitt Romney became the front runner and got crushed in the debates before South Carolina. After his impressive win in South Carolina, Newt Gingrich floundered in the following debates in Florida. And now, Rick Santorum, fresh from sweeping three states a fortnight ago and rising in the polls nationally, fell flat on his face last night. It is a good thing to know about a candidate you intend to send to the Oval Office whether or not the mere fact of becoming the frontrunner is enough to throw them off their game. Certainly, the pressures of the presidency are made of sterner stuff.
Really think about this for a moment. Most of us wake up with a mix of serious and unserious thoughts about the day that is dawning. I make the coffee and let the dogs out, wondering if I will have to run outside because a neighbor is walking her dog, and my border collie likes to jump the fence. I pick up the paper from the porch, wondering what it will contain that might be interesting and if the got the late score for the West Coast basketball game I could not stay up to watch. I wonder what I will blog about, visit the key morning websites – Vatican.va, Whispers, Politico – and check the calendar on the wall to make sure I am not forgetting a commitment. Will I make my morning walk before writing my morning blog post or after?
Think about the thoughts that greet a president when he wakes up. Of course, this president, like most parents, must think about his children and if they did their homework and the challenges that will face them in the day ahead. He must recall the conversation he had with his wife and whether or not there is more to discuss about their family life. But, then, as he rubs his eyes, he must wonder about the grave and complex issues he must face in the nation and the world: Has North Korea indicated a new willingness to negotiate with her neighbors or, instead, decided to embark upon some reckless policy that threatens the stability of the region? Did any rockets cross from Gaza into Israel last night? What is going on in Iran? How is the market going to react to the news from Greece? Will a hundred thousand different businesses decide to expand or retrench their hiring? Did he remember to call all the senators whose arms need twisting on an important forthcoming vote? And those are just the perennials. Think of the issues that one cannot predict: The oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, a terrorist plot is unearthed, an enterprising reporter has dug up dirt on a member of your staff.
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If the current crop of GOP candidates can so easily be thrown off their game by the mere fact that they have risen to the front of the pack, how will they cope with the real challenges that face a president? If leading a nominating contest goes to their head, what will happen to their ego when they walk into the Oval Office each morning, surrounded by all the bowing and scraping that attend power? The performance of these candidates in the campaign so far does not inspire confidence.
Last night, Santorum was especially off his game. All of the charges that Mitt Romney threw at him were predictable, and instead of brushing them aside with one-liners, Santorum engaged in the kind of Washington double-speak that confirms the principal narrative Romney has launched: Only a “Washington insider” would confront a charge about Title X funding by discussing his commitment to Title XX. And, as happens when you are a frontrunner, Santorum got it from all sides: After defending himself from Romney’s charges about earmarks, he got it from Ron Paul on the same score. That, too, was predictable and it is beyond me why Santorum’s debate prep team had not coached him for that precise moment to reply: “If my moderate friend from Massachusetts and my libertarian friend from Texas both think I am wrong, my hunch is that I am right.”
To be sure, Romney did not shine. I especially liked the moment when he charged President Obama with an unprecedented government assault on religious liberty. You would think a Mormon would know his own history a little better than that. Newt Gingrich had a very strong performance, but it was too little and too late to stanch the bleeding in his dying campaign: He needs cash not a strong debate performance, and evidently the man supplying the cash, casino owner Sheldon Adelson, has stipulated that the money not go to attack ads aimed at Romney, which is the only way Gingrich could get back into the race.
Democrats must have watched last night’s debate with a large measure of satisfaction. To be sure, there are a host of things between now and November that could happen that could imperil the president’s re-election prospects: if the Straits of Hormuz are closed, or a terrorist pulls of an attack, or the economy in Europe falters, or hiring in the U.S. slows, Obama will be in trouble. But, looking at the four candidates for the GOP nod last night, it was difficult to escape the conclusion that should events conspire to raise one of them to the presidency, the nation would be in trouble.
The current field of GOP
The current field of GOP candidates is not impressive. Given the foolishness that the candidates for President must put themselves and their families through, why would any sane person want to run for President? Power is very intoxicating, but in order to make it to the White House, you must totally sacrifice your private life and the private lives of your entire immediate family. This is a high price to pay.
PAPAL PLOY PLANNED IN '09
PAPAL PLOY PLANNED IN '09 .......... MSW, thank you for that interesting assessment of the weaknesses of all four of the Republican presidential candidates. Given their evident weaknesses, the unexpected events you mentioned, e.g., Iranian actions, reversal of the current improving economy, etc., should really help Obama, rather than hurt him as you suggest. Why would voters want to return with second rate candidates to the Republican policies that caused the US's current crisis than stay with an experienced presidential hand?
Not surprising you liked it when Obama was charged with "... an unprecedented government assault on religious liberty... ". Given the Republican cnadidates' failure to garner even their own party's faithful with any rational public policies, they fall back to "red meat rhetoric" like the fabricated "religious liberty" ploy.
You omitting discussing how the four candidates tried last night to evade discussion of the "anti-contraception crusade". Not surprising. You also overlooked Santorum's surprising revelation he supported the election of a liberal Democrat, Arlen Spector, in order to assure the stacking the US Supreme Court with right-wing judges.
Since three Justices, including conservative Catholics, Scalia and Kennedy, turn 80 years old during the next presidential term, the presidential appointment power of US Supreme Court has again become a major election year issue.
MSW, it is surprising you have not given more attention to the Manhattan Declaration, the "religious liberty" masterplan (the "Manhattan Masterplan"), agreed to at the end of Obama's first presidential year by over 100 right-wing Catholic and evangelical Christian leaders, including Catholic hierarchs like Justin Rigali, Donald Wuerl, Timothy Dolan, Charles Chaput, etc., and right wing Republican apologists and activists, like Robert George, Michael Novak, George Weigel, Gary Bauer and Tony Perkins.
The Manhattan Masterplan is basically simple and straightforward. The signers, in effect, agreed collectively to advocate for, and even to call for civil disobedience, in opposition to legislation that would promote either women's reproductive health choices or gay marriage.
The current US bishops' "anti-contraception crusade" and the proposed North Carolina constitutional amendment banning gay marriage are evidently two instances of this two-year old Masterplan in action. So much for the nonsense that Obama provoked the bishops in some ambush with his HHS regs.
The prominent role of Cardinal Rigali in the Masterplan is revealing. As a longtime former senior Vatican official, who worked regularly in Rome for three decades with the current pope and his predecessor, his involvement is telling. He is, among other things, also the mentor for the purported American "papabile", Timothy Dolan, and predecessor of Philly's cultural warrior, Charles Chaput. Dolan and Chaput are, of course, prominent "anti-contraception crusaders".
The next nine months should be interesting. The "anti-contraception crusade" has jarred Catholic women voters into action. Rigali has risks still in Philly as his former aide. Msgr. Lynn's child sexual abuse cover-up trial moves ahead. The Supreme Court appointee issue is only in the early stage of media attention.
Whether any of the signers of the Masterplan will risk arrest in a civil disobedience protest remains to be seen. It would be ironic if any US bishops were to be arrested over contraception, after too many of them have so successfully avoided arrest for covering-up for pedophile priests.
Of course, Rigali's protege, Bishop Finn of Kansas City, has been indicted for criminally failing to report a pedophile priest and Cardinal Rigali may yet have to face the Philly prosecutors.
For more info on the Manhattan Declaration masterplan, please read the short plan, readily accessible by clicking on at:
http://www.manhattandeclaration.org/the-declaration/read.aspx
For more info on the importance to the current presidential race of the upcoming US Supreme Court appointments, please read the cross-links and comment, "Supreme Court Appointees", readily accessible by clicking on at:
http://ncronline.org/blogs/distinctly-catholic/rating-presidents
For more info on the furtherance of the Manhattan Masterplan with the anti-gay marriage constitutional amendment supported by the Catholic bishops, please read the relevant current NCR article, readily accessible by clicking on at:
http://ncronline.org/news/politics/both-sides-gear-gay-marriage-fight-no...
In the White House,
In the White House, President's don't worry over issues until they are briefed by staff, especially the international ones. The ability to deal with these relationships can be seen in the ability to surround oneself with good staff during the campaign. So far, Gingrich and Santorum have not developed campaigns that can even afford good issue staff. Paul has staff, but they are true believers rather than experts. Romney has the staff, but does not seem to have anything else going for him. Obama knows how to use his staff, but too many of them put the interests of Wall Street above the interests of home borrowers and the interest of conservation over the interests of drivers. Still, if Obama can pivot on writing down mortgages and regulating oil futures without setting off a financial panic, it is his election to lose.
Wasn't it just a little while
Wasn't it just a little while ago that Mr. iInters was a "prominent 'anti-contraception crusader'"? He got you guys all upset about the issue. You guys, and even I, thought he was committing heresy. If he had only said that he was against Obama's policy but only until Obama makes some stupid, symbolic and meaningless concession it would have saved a lot trouble all around.
Thanks, Jerry Slevin. I have
Thanks, Jerry Slevin. I have heard so little mention of the Manhattan Project...er...Declaration that I had forgotten the little I did hear about it. Thanks for the link - I did a quick scan and now will go back to read it.
Newt never apologized for all
Newt never apologized for all of those Nicaraguan kids he killed in the eighties
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