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Oh Perry

Kevin Williamson makes Rick Perry sound like an attractive candidate, at least to conservatives.  Best line: "The guy that NPR executives and the New York Times and your average Subaru-driving Whole Foods shopper were afraid George W. Bush was? Rick Perry is that guy."

I'm sure there's more to the story.  And there's nothing on foreign policy here.

Bonus question: in politically correct America, can the GOP ticket be two white guys?

Categories > Elections

Discussions - 13 Comments

"Bonus question: in politically correct America, can the GOP ticket be two white guys?"

Given that a ticket be required to appeal to voters, I'm going to say ... Yes. This time. But it's going to get more difficult with each passing presidential election for one party to keep nominating two white guys and maintain that it's not the Party of White Guys. It's not political correctness. It's smart politics. Besides, does the GOP really want to suggest that in all it's 150-year history, only white guys-and one woman-have been qualified for the presidency?

Whatever you think of Dems' diversity efforts since the 60s, the fact is that it's given them a deeper bench of non-white guys ready to run and govern. and that's going to give them an advantage in an increasingly diverse electorate.

Doesn't have to be that way. There are certainly a number of GOP conservative women who might perform well on a ticket. Go with it!

Perry would have a very good shot at winning the nominaton, and probably a good shot against Obama.

His handling of texas finances are excellent, He might even be right about the 10th, states rights, NCLB and medicare part D but still the idea of a ballanced budget amendment is horrible. State governments are not monetarily sovereign, they are pro-cyclical, which is why any good stimulus has to include enough money sent to the states that they don't shed jobs and reduce spending. Money to the states is essentially the main "shovel ready" stimulus that exists.

I hope Perry runs and discusses the 10th and state rights, and I hope that maybe him and Romney could say something interesting about how being governor or running a state is really different from being president.

The obvious reason why this conversation does not occur, is simply due to the analytics of relevance. The impetus when running for president is to show "relevant" experience...that is I was gov. therefore analogize to president.

The main counterparty to governor experience is say a Senator who is also running for gov. But the Senator will not really be fully interested or knowledgeable in distinguishing the governorship from the presidency.

There is room for both Romney and Perry to score points and advance public understanding. I am absolutely certain I could learn something if the conversation went down the right way.

In my opinion Romneycare can be distinguished from ObamaCare and can make a great deal of sense in Mass, but not necessarily in Miss. Legally the states are just more niche than folks commonly realize.

A proposition I am completly commited to: The Finances of the Federal gov. and even what we mean by "debt" and "deficit" are completly distinguishable from the finances of individual states and what those terms mean for states.

Every single governor should be a fiscal conservative, and that article convinces me that Rick Perry should be governor of Texas and continue to develop that Texan Brand.

If he wants to run for president, he and Romney could do a great service to the nation by clarifying and distinguishing the governorship from the presidency. Of course the easier thing to do is analogize them, and many puff pieces will do this, ultimately resulting in the ignorance that would be a Ballanced Budget ammendment.

I agree 100%. On the other hand I am not sure, or have yet to discover the actual mechanism that makes america "PC". Political Correctness, might even simply be Political Consensus.

It is PC in the Political Consensus sense for example that the "Double Minnesota" (Justin's suggested Pawlenty+Bachmann) is not advisable or representative.

The same holds true for the "Double Mormon" Romney+Huntsman.

Maybe some day we will have a "Double Mocha" presidency.

Also generally speaking most folks believe in and advocate for a VP that is ideologically different, or matches or shores up some sort of "niche" thus yielding synergy.

I would tend to prefer that the VP represented views that were more coherent with and in line with the head of the ticket. Thus McCain+Lieberman is prefered to McCain+Palin.

On the other hand given the wild sucess in launching the Palin brand, you have to agree with Joel: "Whatever you think of Dems' diversity efforts since the 60s, the fact is that it's given them a deeper bench of non-white guys ready to run and govern. and that's going to give them an advantage in an increasingly diverse electorate."

That is the new blood theory of VP may have created the tea party(or Palin brand of it), and since presidential elections are such big money affairs, the economics of PC or Political Consensus must stronly favor political diversification.

A balanced ticket is hardly a new idea. That used to mean ideological diversity and perhaps ethnic and regional diversity (thought Clinton-Gore presented itself as two moderate Southern Dems). In the old days adding a Northeastern ethnic to a midwestern or Southern WASP would do. That may no longer be the case. I would consider racial or gender bean counting to be PC.
And the problem with the GOP bench is real. There are many people, particularly urban professional women, who simply would not vote for any ticket with Palin or Bachmann on it. Neither of them has the kind of experience one would like in a VP. Marco Rubio fails that same test, as does Christie. For some reason I think Paul Ryan with Perry or Romney would pass muster. Don't know why I have that instinct.

Some years ago, William Schneider, then the house Democrat at AEI, cited some research on the effect of Vice Presidential selections. The burden of it was that one might expect that selection to add 2% to the ticket's tally in the vp candidate's home state. Schneider's opinion was that the salient task in such a selection was to avoid embarrassing distractions such as were provided by Thos. Eagleton, Geraldine Ferraro, and Dan Quayle. N.B., the single most important discrete error in the 1988 campaign was Quayle's selection and presentation. It did not prevent the Bush campaign from persuading fully a quarter of the electorate to change their minds in the Republican's favor.

Clinton's selection of Gore and Bush the Younger's of Cheney would appear to have been inspired by all that. "Ticket-balancing" is a waste. The candidate needs to select someone he can use.

The bus driver in the white house was put into office primarily based on his skin color, being a child of a single mom, having a "international" father, being raised outside of the United States and being raised by his grandparents. This touchy, feely, 1960's image of a "good and wonderful" president is not working.

Let's lay off all those innate qualities for now and get someone, I would vote for Scooby Doo at this point, who is going to help get this country out of the crap hole it is now in.....

The bus driver in the white house was put into office primarily based on his skin color, being a child of a single mom, having a "international" father, being raised outside of the United States and being raised by his grandparents. This touchy, feely, 1960's image of a "good and wonderful" president is not working.

Bus driver? That's a bizarre metaphor.

I would not wager anyone outside the ranks of partisan Democrats cared a whit about any of the factors you cite. In this country, a political party seeking a third turn at the executive wheel has faced a headwind for the last 60 years, even when the incumbent is held in considerable and general esteem, which George W. Bush was not. To add to that, the first banking crisis we had had since 1933 erupted smack in the middle of the campaign.

Got to disagree, AD. Obama has a lock on several important Democrat constituencies precisely because he's perceived as a black man. And there were white people out there who voted out of "white guilt," the fools (I've met a few, actually). "Yes we can" meant for many "yes, America can finally elect a black man to the highest office - ain't we so progressive!"

The bloom is off the rose this time around, of course. Crippling recession trumps nearly everything else in this country (and they say Russians vote with their bellies!). Obama was a well-spoken empty suit with no experience and even less wisdom, and I'm betting a sufficient number of voters have figured that out by now.

Richard, I didn't notice that you posted the same quote from Williamson (before me). I'm happy that we share the sentiment (it is a wonderful line), but sorry that I inadvertantly reposted your quote.

I'll try to beat you to it next time. I blame the Asian time diffrence for this one....

I am sure he does have a lock on the constituencies who would be charged up by his race and various other personal aspects. Bar an eccentric few, people in those constituencies vote Democratic as a matter of course. Making some educated guesses about the apportionment of third party ballots, one can say the experience of Presidential elections over the last 40-odd years has been that the Democratic candidate is usually good for 47% of the vote. The question at hand is why he corralled the additional 6%. When six major financial institutions career into insolvency in the space of as many weeks and three others appear poised to do so, it costs the incumbent party.

Bus driver is a bizzare metaphor. No it is the truth. With all due respect, which country have you been living in the past few years?

Let me enlighten you. Have you ever heard the saying - he threw him under the bus. Let me splain Ricky. Obama sat in a church for 20 years listening to crazy Rev Wright and when the general public starting to hear just how crazy this Reverend really was, Obama turned away from him and threw him under the bus. Obama did the the same to many of his so-called "friends" and relatives - his white grandmother and most recently his teleprompter to come to mind.

You lose the wager - I live in CA the stupid state filled with unabashedly stupid liberals. I am surrounded by them. What I wrote above is exactly why they voted for Obama. You have to realize - I really live n the Stupid State with Stupid Liberals and this is exactly how they think and act. It is the reason why California is in the perpetual crapper. When liberals asked me if I was voting for Obama, I told them no because he is a Marxist, wants to spread the wealth, have large Government involvment in everything from healthcare to what toilet paper I use, he has no experience, runs around with a bunch of drug-induced radical idiots from the 1960's, voted 148 times present in the Ill Senate, even though he is a lawyer has never writtten a brief or an opininon on anything, is against the second amendment, his only job was a community organizer and he thinks he is going divide the sea in half or some stupid half-cocked idea about him being a messiah. Their reply - no the real reason you are not voting for him is because he is black. See, Liberalism is a mental illness.

AD - you might not believe people voted for Obama for the reasons I stated above, but let me enlighten you - they did. This also brings to mind how Clinton told the world that he was the first "Black President" because he was raised by a single mom. Unfortunately, I believe that Obama has taken that First Black President thing away from Clinton.

1. Again, I do not doubt there are people who are motivated to cast a ballot for him for the reasons you cited. My contention is that such people vote Democratic as a matter of course. They'd have voted for Mrs. Clinton and likely did vote for Mr. Kerry, Mr. Gore, &c.

3. Like it or lump it (I lump it), his performance with the general electorate exceeded that of any Democratic candidate of the post-War period bar Lyndon Johnson. His performance exceeded that of any Democratic challenger of the post-bellum period bar Franklin Roosevelt in 1932 (bracketing out several elections with results confounded by 3d party candidates). The sort of race obsessives who populate the slums and the teacher training faculties did not do that for him.

3. He is not a Marxist.

4. Bad metaphor. You cannot throw someone under the bus if you are driving the bus.

5. Where I come from (and I think this applies generally in cities in the Northeast), driving a city bus is a black occupational niche. Conservatively a third of all drivers are black, perhaps a majority. (Interestingly, this does not apply w/ regard to school buses or Greyhound and Trailways drivers). Obama is a racial mulatto, but ethnically - in his true ancestry and upbringing - he is as distant as any man from the black community. When Gov. Blagojevich said "I'm blacker than Obama", he was speaking the plain truth. Obama is also a man suffused with a sort of clueless haute-bourgeois attitude atypical on both sides of the color bar, the sort of man who would say that he wanted to make a college education universal. The idea of Obama as the sort of austere working-class type modal behind the wheel of city buses fries one's imagination. The idea of Obama in any sort of practical occupation fries one's imagination.

1. Obama is the lousy president we have had so far. Hands down. No discussions. A huge majority of people voted for him the reasons I cited... He lacked any experience, knowledge or ability to be President. His whole election was based on hope and change.A fantasy. Unfortunately, fantasies usually turn out to be bombs. Hence Obama. People got exactly what they deserved. A loser.

2. There was an extraordinary, historic turnout at the voting booths for minorities. They voted based on skin color. If they would have researched him and voted for him based on experience, ability, integrity, not being a first class Marxist, they would have not voted for him. They turned out in droves to vote for Obama because of his skin color. I would bet that a majority of those minorities will not turn out for the 2012 election. Unfortunately minorities are paying the biggest price for Obama - their unemployment numbers are horrifying as well as the loss of their wealth under Obama.

3. He is a Marxist - He attended Occidental College in California. One of the many colleges in California filled with Marxist professors. A classmate of his at Occidental has gone on the record that while at Occidental Obama admitted freely that he was a Marxist on many many occasions. On top of that his mother, who Obama claims to be his greatest influence, attended the Little Red School in Washington. He is a Marxist - spreading the wealth and never having a real job is just about as Marxist as one can get. Remember Karl Marx lived off his buddy Engels' rich capitalist parents which gave him the opportunity to think and not go to work everyday. Marx is like the rioters in London, except he was able to fool a whole lot of people - your Obama included - to believe that living off someone else is better than working for a living.

4. Obama can. He is the messiah. However, I am still waiting for him to part the seas.

5. You are completely off base on this one. See I have no white guilt and don't look at people and what they do based on skin color. I couldn't tell you if the majority of bus drivers in California were black, blue, green or had little antennas. It really doesn't matter to me. What matters is that they have the ability to drive the bus. Obama is a Marxist. Whether he is black or white has nothing to do with it. He was raised by a red diaper doper baby Mother who was emeshed in the radical, drugged induced 1960's, befriended by Frank Davis Marshall, another red diaper doper baby Marxist and then on to Occidental College run by Marxists. That is Obama's problem. Not his skin color.

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