I think you are correct.

Is this too simple? And stupid, yes?

Much like Sarah Palin’s “gutsy” trip to India. The liberal defenders of America assume we should bow before the might of China and appease them–definitely not aggravate them by aligning with India. That is stupid. But Palin’s view is informed by “stupid” that is by simple concepts of right and wrong. The right thing to do is to oppose tyranny and support democracy. This, in the view of educated people is just too simple. Stupid. Like Palin.

Sarah Palin has it in spades. There may be a politician with more courage or conviction than her, but no one has had to prove it the way she has.

There are others. Ryan comes to mind, as does Michelle Bachmann. I like both Herman Cain and Allen West a lot.

I’d love to see a ticket with Palin on top, with either Cain or West as running mate. (I’m sorry to say this, but I don’t think America is ready for an all-female ticket yet.)

Personally, I don’t think Bachmann or Ryan have the executive experience we need. (A career in the legislature does not prepare one for making the tough executive decisions; see example O.)

I really don’t like Romney. He made a good point, that the States are a laboratory for social and legal experiments… but single-payer health care was an experiment he should have known better than to try, he should now admit full-force in public that it hasn’t worked, and he should accept responsibility for smoothing the way for ObamaCare. His combination of bland arrogance is, to me, very unappealing.

Having said that… I’d vote for Romney over Obama in a heartbeat. We’ll do the best we can to get the best Republican candidate we can get… and then we simply must unite behind whomever is chosen.

(Unless, of course, we can convince President Obama not to run for re-election. Then it’s an open ballgame.)

respectfully,
Daniel in Brookline

I share your apprehensions about the world scene. There are too many people who don’t see the big picture. Rather than admit their insecurity, the concentrate on carving out little niches where they can appear to be the strong man. Whether its tribal wars in the Arab world or competing victim groups in the US, fragmentation seems to be the trend.

And what do we have to offer–an election system that encourages us to chew up our best, brightest, and most honorable. We are like a baseball team fighting over who throws the best curve ball and ignoring the need for batters and fielders. The guy who lays down a bunt will never make the headlines or be voted MVP, but he will be the second run when the guy who follows him knocks one over the fence. When you are down 1 to 0 in the ninth, that counts for a lot.

“they” can’t really make that choice – we still do that.

The problem is still the same and it is twofold – one is that competent people, being competent, see what happens to anyone that runs as a republican and want no part of that. Heck even if they had full support it takes someone on the line to do the job of the President of the US now, let alone knowing the continual attacks that will occur to everything and everyone around you. So that tends to give us not too good candidates to choose from.

Secondly it is our system for choosing the candidate – for whatever reason primaries are still really low turnout and often are dominated by what I would refer to as “armchair policy wonks” – that is they are trying to choose based on “ability to win” and, being policy wonks, this is determined by extensive reading of political theory, not really based on policy.

Thus McCain was the Right Person at the Right Time – after years of partisan politics we have the well known “Maverick” that single handedly brought closure to many of the last few decades major partisan battles and was a war hero to boot. Truly from a navel gazing policy wonk point of view he was the only one with any chance against the democrats.

Never mind that those “closures” were wildly unpopular, that his actual policies were haphazard and unpopular at best (his continual election at Arizona had more to do with ability to bring money in that policy), and generally things that matter to people who actually vote in the major election were bad.

Heck, we would have probably been better off if “they” could have chosen.

Until we realize that *we* choose them and act on that it isn’t going to improve – we can improve the selection process by a large margin. I don’t know what to do about the environment, I do not know that there is anything we can do – even outside of the media environment it almost requires a certain broken personality to want to be President.

I’ve been saying for a while now – it’s going to come down to Palin. She has been the one true warrior so far. The rest will eliminate themselves. They are all too timid and the very thing the country needs right now is ferocious courage. Since that is the very thing we need, then we must get it because the consequences of not getting it are unthinkable.

I think there are only two people right now who could do it: Paul Ryan and Sarah Palin. They both have guts to spare; both are fearless; and both have the right ideas and the right principles.

It’s all a matter of timing.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703509104576325600063166340.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_carousel_1

He may even lose his pundit jobs with his latest moves.

I do run between the two poles of “it really doesn’t make a difference who is in power because the policies of the two parties don’t really matter after their execution” (gasp) and always being a Republican. There are some very challenging stats in the article which support the first pole and were disappointing especially as how I’ve been touting an awakening is occurring. Yet I suppose the awakening is too young to have had much of an effect on the stats. They lag.

You raise all good points.