In Search of the Stepford Nominee
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The Republican establishment and voters are worried about nominating someone who can beat Obama; picking the candidate with the right agenda will do such
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The Florida primary this past Tuesday saw Mitt Romney take a sorely needed victory but by no means ended the matter of who will be the Republican nominee. Newt Gingrich is tenacious, to say the least, and he is likely not going anywhere at least for the time being. A good analogy would be the western front lines in World War I where both sides slugged it out refusing to even consider capitulation until it was no longer a decision for the Germans. “Kaiser Gingrich,” should he not win, will exact a high body count before he decides to leave the carnage.
As these battles are fought in various theaters, the talk among the pundits, establishment and voters is which candidate is most capable of beating President Obama in the general election. Clearly the Republican electorate does not want to nominate a lackluster candidate who will surely go down in flames to Barack Obama; the 1992 election with the befuddled “Herbert Walker” was not easy to watch, as a Republican or American.
But by looking in a candidate at what can be ephemeral characteristics, it becomes too easy to forget the bigger picture: what is the presidential job description (read: electorate) demanding in the next term? Everything else just makes for good sound-byte or posters.
Probably the best, though not only, example of such was 1980. In that year, the country had just endured the 1960s and 1970s which British historian Paul Johnson accurately described as “America’s suicide attempt.” A former B-rated movie actor, eschewed by the Republican establishment and derided by Liberals as an extremist, made his final run at the Presidency. His main opponent in the primaries was George Herbert Walker Bush. Although it is easy to say “the rest is history,” it was not at that time. Ronald Reagan went into the final weekend before the general election behind incumbent President Carter. The electorate took one last gut check and realized that not only was his platform what they believed in, but it was also what the country needed. At that point, “the rest is history.”
But the lesson is that Mr. Reagan likely did not fit into any profile of someone who could beat the incumbent, let alone govern well. Yet the electorate saw something that the pollsters, establishment and partisans did not: someone with the proper vision for the country.
So as the remaining 90%+ of the Republican primary voters go to the polls in the coming weeks and months to determine who will provide the opponent for Mr. Obama, they would do well to focus on which candidate has the best road-map for this country and ignore the fleeting traits that may win today’s polls but are long-forgotten tomorrow.
-I.M. Windee
