After the events of the past week, and of last night, Herman Cain’s and Rick Perry’s presidential campaigns are in ruins. So is Mr. 22 Percent, Mitt Romney, finally going to make his move in the polls? Or are we now going to be subjected to a week or two of Newtmania?
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Let’s settle this primary season right now. Why wait for the voters to weigh in?
In the good old days, Republican ops huddled in the original “smoke-filled” room at the Blackstone Hotel in Chicago to try and agree on a candidate at their convention. A U.S. senator came into the hallway to give the assembled press an update and explain the delay. He said something like “Sorry, boys. There aren’t no first-raters this year.”
That seems to be the case this year.
Of course, Warren G. Harding won going away in 1920.
Amen, Tobe!
DK – we will have a local spike of ‘Newt-mania’ as he will be speaker at the Middlesex Club annual dinner* in Boston on Nov. 18th, and I understand Herman Cain will be here soon (like next week). IMO, one of them will be Romney’s VP pick.
(* – The Middlesex Club, founded in 1867, is the oldest continuing organization of Republicans in the United States dedicated to preserving the memory and ideals of Abraham Lincoln, and hosts the longest continually held Lincoln Dinner in the nation, since it was the first. Tim Pawlenty, John Thune, Chris Shays, et al have been dinner speakers in the last couple of years)
C.E.: I would bet a month’s worth of Romneycare employer penalties that his running mate will be someone other than those two clowns. Maybe Mitch Daniels?
Mitch Daniels’ problem is that he is Mitt Romney without the fancypants. So there’s no way he’d be picked.
Christie seems like a more likely choice. Or a woman. Maybe Kerry Healey.
HAHAHAHAHAHA
(sorry, couldn’t resist)
Of course you know the longer this goes on, the more likely Sarah Palin jumps in and gets the nomination.
Mike: I think Christie was the last guy who might have been able to jump in. Now the filing deadlines are coming up, and it’s literally too late. Not to say someone incredibly compelling couldn’t write his or her own rules, but who? Even among Republicans, Palin doesn’t have nearly enough support to jump in and blow everyone away. Romney is in a fascinating position. Based on the field, he can’t lose. Based on what Republicans seem to think of him, he can’t win.
@Dan: As clarification, I see Christie as a VP candidate. He’s already made it clear he’s not running for president, and I happen to believe him on that.
And yes, Palin is only Reagan Reincarnated in her own mind. But I think she’s just narcissistic enough to make a go of it.
I have a hard time some days wondering if this is what the Founders intended: a choice on one side of
–the manifestly unqualified (Cain, Perry, Paul)
–the out-and-out loons (Bachmann, Santorum)
–a serial adulterer who preaches family values (the Salamander)
–or 2 Jello-spined oligarchs who vow to bring to the White House their fervent belief in the most bizarre religions this side of Scientology (Mormonism and laissez-faire capitalism)
and on the other a soulless technocrat who
–gave over the economic well-being of his fellow citizens to the banksters and financial frauds who drove it into the ground for their own profit
–surrendered the health of the nation to the insurers, medical profiteers, and Big Pharma
–and decided that national security mandated unprecedented, unwarranted spying on his own country; a fetish for secrecy far beyond even Nixon at his most paranoid; substitution of unlimited, indefinite detention without charge or trial for habeas corpus; continuation and expansion of Mideast wars that serve only to inflame anger and resentment; and the wholesale murder-by-drone of not only his own citizens but innocent civilians in countries we are purporting to help, without probable cause, due process, or even a decent respect to the opinions of mankind.
@Dan: The Founders include slave holders, philanderers, lawyers and a murderer. I think they had a pretty good idea of what to expect.
@Mike: That’s why I deliberately chose “intended”. They knew their own defects; I think (hope) they wanted the democratic process to help us rise above individual failures of character.
Shouldn’t the VP candidate have more experience than Romney?