Since it is never too early to start the next campaign, I’m guessing Romney’s the Republican front-runner for 2012 at this point barring some unforeseen new face on the scene.
No!
A thousand times, no!
Isn’t it time for the GOP to end its stupid, counter-productive, and self-defeating habit of anointing the previous runner-up as “next in line,” and then handing this proven loser (that’s what “runner-up” means, by the way) the uncontested keys to the party nomination?
There are other factors at work than just the Obama victory. The leap into the uncharted regions of the Singularity continues apace (more on that later), and we can expect to see changes that will catch most conventional observes utterly by surprise in fields that have nothing to do with politics, but will profoundly affect our political scene and culture.
So let’s forego anointing the next GOP candidate for a while, okay? And even if you must, can we please avoid a guy who Taxachusetts, whose state bird is the Lefty Loon, found appetizing enough to send to their statehouse?
I mean, enough with the country-club norteastern Republicans. This guy is no more a conservative than George W. Bush, his “soul brother” was and is.
Submit to Stumbled Upon!
Reagan only got the nomination in 1980 by shoving George H. W. Bush out of his way, and he just barely failed to do the same to Gerald Ford in 1976. As noted on this blog not long ago, possibly Reagan’s greatest mistake was putting GHWB on the ticket as VP to conciliate the RINOs. This anointed him as the successor in 1988, even though he was no Reaganite in any meaningful sense.
If a real limited-government, written-meaning-of-the-constitution libertarian/conservative wants the GOP nomination for President, he (or she) is going to have to get it by storming over the RINO barricades. Remember the outrage we all focused on GWB when he tried putting Miers and Gonzalez on the Supreme Court? That’s just the beginnings of what it will take to get another decent nominee in the seat in 2012. Passion. Organization. Money. Publicity. Effort. We’ve got to look at who is stepping forward now and in 2009-10 (or draft someone, if nobody acceptable volunteers) and then we have to get behind them and PUSH.
We cannot afford another sectarian circular firing squad like 2008. In this election now past, we had the SoCons pick Huckabee, the LibCons pick Thompson, the SecurityCons pick Giuliani, the Suits pick Romney, and the RINOs pick McCain. Each group dislikes everyone else’s candidate, and so we wound up with the Maverick from the MSM, who few outside the Beltway really liked or trusted, but at least he had seniority and name recognition, and he’d run in a Presidential primary before.
No, we have to find someone broadly acceptable to the three principle-driven factions in the GOP (libertarian, social, and national security) who is articulate and charismatic. Preferably it should be someone that the Rotarians and other Chamber of Commerce types don’t hate on sight, because the GOP usually has to win the small business, economy, and tax issue voters to win. Take that candidate and run them right over the RINOs. Whip them in the primaries and they’ll grumble, but they’ll fall into line. Their political careers depend on loyalty, and they can’t afford to be shut out of a GOP campaign.
We cannot expect the GOP machinery to produce such a candidate for us. It never has, not since the New Deal. The campaign has two parts - whip the RINOs in the primaries, then whip the Democrats in the generals. We can’t forget either step.
I’d make it four groups by adding the fiscal conservatives, who have always been a bedrock of GOP conservatism - until people like the Bushes, at least. And, frankly, I’m going to have a lot of trouble working with the social conservatives, unless they’re willing to give up their dreams of using the powers of the state to force the rest of us to obey their own beliefs whether we want to or not. From my point of view, use every social and cultural lever you can get your hands on, except one: You can’t pass your prejudices into law.
Should have been part of the Constitution. Maybe we can get it as an Amendment.
I agree. I’m not a SoCon either, and I don’t intend to roll over any longer for statism in Christian clothes. That’s why I wrote “broadly acceptable”. Reagan was pro-life, but he was laid-back about it, didn’t throw it in people’s faces. We need someone who takes the libertarian approach to the relationship between Church and State. Religious folks get to do their thing, so long as they’re not engaging in force or fraud, just like anyone else. What most of the SoCons seem to want is to be left alone, without the State crapping on them. If that’s the goal, then I can work with them. If they want to push their ideology on the rest of the country, then they can go hang. I’ve got no more truck with Phalangists than with Fascists or Communists.
I think I’d like to be a libertarian, but I’m still not sure what its tenets are — I need a sort of “libertarian primer.” From what I’ve been able to gather from reading things here, linked from InstaPundit, and miscellaneous other sources, libertarianism does not decide the question, “Should abortion be legal?”
From what I’ve pieced together, it looks like if a fetus is considered a human, then a libertarian would say they should get equal protection as any other citizen, and thus the answer would be “no.” If a fetus is not considered a human, then preventing abortion would be government interference in a transaction between two citizens. Thus, the answer would be “yes.”
Am I overlooking something? The theory of libertarianism doesn’t have to decide everything; I’m deeply suspicious of theories that claim that power. However, martinra’s comment above seems to imply that it does, which would mean that I’m missing something important.
I think you’re reading my comment as implying an equivalence between “pro-life” and “libertarian”, but that’s not how I intended it. I mentioned pro-life because it’s a hot-button issue for the socially conservative wing of the GOP, not because libertarians agree on it. Your analysis of the usual libertarian approaches to the abortion debate is accurate.
As for what “libertarianism” is, that’s a thorny argument. The key idea of libertarianism is that government is force, that government’s role should be to be the sole repository of legitimate force, and that government should not involve itself in affairs where force is not a requirement. The debates among libertarians are about the details. Said debates can get extremely intense, in my experience!
There are debates about basic infrastructure (power, water, roads, sewage, police, fire), and whether the free market would supply sufficient infrastructure on its own. The role and nature of the Treasury is debated, and the nature of money, and how much government involvement should be there in order to enable a functioning but not overly distorted market. There are debates about how to handle criminal justice, how to handle civil matters like contract enforcement, and how to deal with family issues. Some libertarians are military isolationists, saying we should never do anything except defend the homeland. Others find this foolish and suggest that in a globalized world, sometimes we will have to pre-empt. And so on, sometimes into MEGO-level detail.
Ultimately, all the debate boils down to trying to figure out ways to allow human beings to live with the maximum possible liberty consistent with order, free association, and free exchange.
Not wishing to throw any gasoline on this fire, but do you suppose this is why all those scurrilous stories about Gov. Palin are still popping up(only now being sold by republicans)?
Got it in one, emdfl. They saw the gleam in her eyes, too.