If those are your criteria, I would say only Cruz is a sure thing. Rand Paul probably meets that since he goes out to speak to Democrat constituencies on their home turf. Walker may meet that, since he’s had to fight the leftists all the way.
I can’t think of any other Republican candidates that show a deep understanding of leftist thinking.

True, the Left did their usual “racist” smear job with the ridiculous rock story

(http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/03/texas-governor-rick-perry_n_992712.html),

but that was ironically the single positive for Perry out of his entire run because he garnered sympathy as a victim.

Perry comes across as mouthing conservative buzz words without understanding or being capable of explaining the underlying premises.

It is great he was successful in Texas, but this does not prove a lot about his abilities or prospects. Consider Scott Walker to put this in perspective.

For a non-Leftist to win an election in our present culture, he must first have a deep and passionate understanding of that culture, the desire to confront it, and the ability to do so effectively given the huge advantage that culture gives the Left.

Perry does not seem anywhere close, but he is good looking and does seem like a great guy to have a beer with.

I bet, if he came out of the gate like he did at SXSW, he could make a real fine showing.

And he had that crowd warmed up and loudly applauding him in pretty short order. So this kind of appearance is definitely one of his strengths.

BTW, I think the young’uns are sick and tired of Milquetoast Nation. Don’t you? (They laughed at his bit about shooting the coyote while jogging.)

I agree with Henninger. Uniting the Rs behind a focused message that resonates with wishy-washy independents makes a lot of sense. Digging up some of Will Rogers’ insights might be a place to start.

Aloha. 🙂

Actually Don Carlos, I wouldn’t mind having Condi Rice as Sec. of State right now.

At least she studied Russian and Russian history, so she might have some good insights into how to handle the Crimea situation – in the very least she couldn’t do any worse than the current set of clowns.

Watching Republicans run for the presidency is an exhausting crapshoot. When election day arrives, there’s no there there. The voters who provide the margin of victory never get the Republican Party and its candidate into focus. There’s a hodgepodge of fine “principles,” but what is your party actually going to do if we let you run the country?

A Democrat can only love this spectacle. While Republicans stage the Irish family reunion that never ends, Democrats stay united around policies dating to 1964. Tax, spend and pander. You keep looking for anything resembling an interesting revision of their entitlement-state steam engine, but it never comes.

and

One imagines GOP presidential dreamers spending weekends sifting polls, phrases, principles and personal obsessions to shape a unique campaign message. Great. But how much greater it would be if just once they gave voters a coherent, consistent Republican message connected to something real.

The Entitlement State isn’t a bumper sticker. It is a multi-trillion-dollar edifice of laws meticulously expanded for decades by Democrats in Congress. The Great Society wasn’t a speech. Lyndon Johnson politicked it into existence.

Republicans once did this, too. The Reagan tax cut of 1986 didn’t pass because the Gipper gave grand speeches. It took years of legislative politicking to transform his ideas into law.

Neither achievement happened without broad party agreement about the goal.