The GOP is having quite a few people thinking about running for the Presidency.....and the list keeps growing with people throwing their name out there.
So far those that have given word are, as follows. (which they are not in any order of who is polling or currently on top.)
1. Christie
2. Paul
3. Jindal
4. Perry
5. Santorum
6. Bush
7. West
8. Pence
9. Carson
10. Cruz
11. Rubio
12. Huntsman
Even with the limiting of the Debates. Advertising and the MS Media is looking for a field day to catch the GOP up, and with the gotcha moments.
We have some popular figures here with Ego's to match. We have some that have never governed. So the question is.....should the RNC/GOP establishment only back those that have been Governors and know what it is like to govern a State, take care of budgets, and can get people to back to work, and have the record or working with the Demos, even if they weren't in control of anything.....or was?
Placing limitations on who runs will not lead the GOP to the land of milk and honey, nor will having the GOP dictate from above.
First, Republicans need to stop listening to the White House propaganda; 2012 was not the disaster they paint. Romney ran Obama through the middle part of the campaign and won the opening debate, ending five points behind. He was gaff prone, weak, cold and distant and his campaign people were complete morons; they let Obama get away with so much crap they deserved to lose by 15%....YOU NEVER take your heel off your opponent's throat. EVER.
So under a weak, kind of cardboard cut out too-square chinned candidate, against a brilliant showman, glowingly protected in the media and armed with the largest war chest in the history of politics, the Republican machine still delivered its core and then some......within 5% as I recall.
The last run up was indeed self defeating. After the third debate I was wondering if the echelon knew something I didn't, but it was an ass-grab contest most notable for the media being unable to see or hear Ron Paul and the character destruction of perhaps the most decent man up there and the only guy with what might have been some answers, what I said then was the perfect VP candidate.
The problem, in the end, was that the whole show was about cardboard cut out pretty people who had fooled enough people some of the time to appear successful who came armed with talking points, no answers and far too few questions. They ended up with a chilly, gaff prone, candidate with the charisma of a gold fish after sifting through the party's collection of swelled head ambition whores; a guy who was simply using the party as his machine to stardom.
By the time the game begins publicly and in earnest, it will be too late. I have long seen the GOP circle its wagons and shoot inward. However I was at the pinnacle of my career when Nixon went out the hard way, that slime sucking ****-for-brains Ford making a mockery of justice; events we, the collective brain trust of the day were sure signs the GOP would languish in the political desert for decades. Enter Reagan and shooting outwards. There's a hint there.
The mid terms are an opportunity for the party to meld together on the points they agree on, close the pie hole on what they disagree on, then start shooting outward. It would seem to me the GOP has forgotten a basic rule of the nastiest non-contact sport in the universe; a house divided cannot stand. Democrats have a few fissures running through them and while they clobber the crap out of Republicans on so-called social issues, the Republicans ignore the huge divide on the other side: the rich, Hollywood environmental people with the $ on one side, and out of work, under employed working men and women who are not working but could be with one pipeline....
The party is still circled, still facing inward...at least for now their not shooting, but they need to turn around and see the enemy for what it is....smoke, mirrors, incompetence and lies....