Fear a GOP 2012 Dud: You Can’t Beat Somebody With Nobody
By John LeBoutillier
The national economy – again – stalls. No new jobs are created. The immigration issue – again – becomes red hot. And the health care bill – still – is unpopular. Well, we can assume that 2012 will be a watershed election year with an at least a semi-unpopular and thus vulnerable incumbent, Barack Obama, who can possibly be defeated. This is a far cry from November 2008 when he was proclaimed the New Messiah.
But – and it is a big “but” – “you can’t beat somebody with nobody.” The Republican Party has a penchant for nominating “nobodies” for President lately. Let us remind ourselves of some recent disasters:
• In 2008 the GOP nominated John McCain, perhaps the most disastrous nominee possible. He refused to attack Obama; he wouldn’t even allow McCain surrogate speakers to use Obama’s middle name – Hussein!
• McCain is/was/always will be pro-amnesty-for-illegals – so he and Obama had the same position and thus there never was a debate in the 2008 election about immigration;
• Back in 1996, when Bill Clinton was vulnerable after the 1994 Republican Revolution, the GOP nominated Bob Dole, a great man, a great American and a great US Senator – but a total disaster as a national presidential candidate; (Perot drawing 9% of the vote away from the GOP didn’t help, either);
• Even in 2000, the GOP selected G.W. Bush who barely – maybe defeated the biggest dud stiff bore political candidate ever: Al Gore. Yes, on pure candidate skills, Bush was better that Gore. But he still wasn’t exactly scintillating.
What exactly makes someone a great political candidate? Here are my Five Tools that make a great political candidate:
1) Fire in the belly
This overriding hunger borders on the obsessive. Virtually all successful political candidates, no matter how well they disguise it, would “walk over their mothers” to win, as Nixon White House aide Charles Colson once put it.
2) Self-discipline
The ability to rein in one’s own worst instincts, habits and weaknesses. Both President Clinton and Speaker Newt Gingrich ruined their legacies through a lack of personal self-discipline. The speaker couldn’t keep his mouth shut; the president couldn’t keep his fly shut.
3) Authoritative presence
Especially in the television era, candidates must project an air of gravitas and weight. Dan Quayle’s “deer in the headlights” look undercut anything he said or did.
4) Raising money
All successful candidates find a way to raise enough money to win. Some, like JFK, merely ask their fathers to pay. Others spend years developing a network of donors; others cultivate special interests. However they do it, winning candidates always come up with “the mother’s milk of politics.”
5) Communicating a positive vision
Derided by President George H.W. Bush as “that vision thing,” it is this singular ability that elevated presidents Kennedy, Reagan and Franklin Roosevelt into the political Hall of Fame. The skill to speak in a way that inspires voters is invaluable – and very rare. (No wonder so many campaigns today resort to “negative campaigning”; their candidates are incapable of painting with voice and words a believable picture of a better future.)
When a candidate has all five of these – and especially Numbers 3 and 5 – then you really have a potential star.
All the so-far mentioned 2012 GOP candidates – Romney, Palin, Huckabee, Pawlenty, Gingrich, Daniels and Barbour – have some good points. But none of them are sincere or talented at Numbers 3 and 5.
Our fear must be that through the 2012 primaries and caucuses, the winnowing process will bring the GOP back to its boring, staid old self – and thus turn off the Tea Party fervor which is the hottest political movement in decades.
What we should be looking for in our 2012 candidate is a conservative who can sell conservatism – and also attract middle-of-the-road independents – all the while being pleasantly on the attack against the liberals, using humor and a light touch to harness the underlying fear and anxiety we are all feeling about our country’s future.
A tall order indeed.
The 2012 candidate who can do this has not yet surfaced. Let us hope he soon will.
About the author: John LeBoutillier is a former U.S. Congressman and a nationally recognized political commentator. He has been a frequent guest on many national talk show programs and is author of the book Harvard Hates America. He is a regular columnist for Ether Zone. John LeBoutillier can be reached at: johnlebout@johnlebout.com. He keeps an archive of his articles at: JohnLeBout.com
Published originally at EtherZone.com
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