GOP Candidates: Who does the best against Obama?

Are people really of the mind that the Nation's most talented people all wish to end up in Washington running for public office? If Barack Obama is the best this country can produce, then we're good and well fucked. Thankfully, I meet people smarter and more talented than he is at least several times a week.

 

Here's the problem for the GOP: http://washingtonexaminer.com/politics/2011/05/2012-and-republican-rescue-fantasy

 

Yes, considering even you, contemptuous of the government, are bright enough to realize that government is extremely important to everyone's lives (thus your rants about how your/our children's futures are being destroyed), it's pretty obvious why even limited government people would want to get into government...to save those futures and steer the country onto the right track. So your attempts to pretend that no one ambitious and interested in limited government would ever deign to touch government work doesn't wash.

 

All of them? Not at all. I have no interest in being a politician and, believe you me, I am supremely talented! But the idea that no one talented and ambitious, and interested in limited government, wants to change the system for the better (in their minds) is equally silly.

 

That's an interesting point. But I think there's a pretty big historical issue nobody seems to take into account: what I'll call the Second Place Guy.

Republicans love their Second Place Guys:

Reagan finished second in 1976, he gets the nod in 1980.
Bush Sr. served two terms as Reagan's VP. He gets the nod in 1988.
Dole bided his time in the Senate as the de facto Second Placer while Quayle embarrassed himself through his one term as VP. He got the nod in '96.
Bush Jr. was kind of a sequel to the Bush Sr. presidency, which started to look much rosier in hindsight.
McCain came in second place in 2000 after a bitter battle in 2000 (when he was arguably the legit Second Place Guy), shut his mouth, and waited his turn until it came up in 2008.

So who is the "Second Place Guy" to fill in for 2012? Romney or maybe Huckabee or maybe Palin could all make that claim, which only serves to point out that there are at least three Second Place Guys. And really, they all kind of feel like "Third Place Guys" when you look at the polls.

This "Second Place Guy" tradition is a nice fit to the conservative mindset, and I don't mean that in an insulting way. Running a presidential campaign is hard, and so is governing. So go with the obvious guy who has been waiting his turn, because he knows what to expect. That's a conservative (and history shows pretty effective) strategy.

The problem is that the model is broken this year. There is no heir apparent, only a lot of pretty hairy prospects.

You may be right that they have to swing for the fences with an unknown guy, just like the Dems did in 1992. But you also have to see that this kind of thinking just isn't part of the Republican Party tradition.

 

Just to follow up, it seems to me Democrats mostly fail the few times they try going the "Second Place" route. Obama, who looks to be on his way to a second term, literally could not even get in the door of the 2000 Democratic convention. Clinton also came out of nowhere.

For whatever reason, more traditional Second Place Guy picks like Gore and Hillary and Mondale just don't cut it. Some of that may be just those politicians' personalities, but maybe it's also a reflection of the progressive instinct to gamble a little on something they perceive as different.

 

There's an old saying: Democrats fall in love; Republicans fall in line.

The old GOP leadership is a disaster. By all rights, Obama should be packing his bags right now but the opposition has been so shitty he actually may get a second term. And if America wishes to cement a 20% increase in the size of government(from 18%-20% of GDP to 25%), then that's our choice; the taxes will be a bitch to pay for it. I'd prefer a different path, but I'm pretty comfortable in the minority. I applaud the 20% of US citizens who describe themselves as Liberals to control so much of the public debate.