Miscellaneous

Looking at Bush 3 on Special Report tonight you realize why people thought he could be a good candidate.  He would, in fact, be a great governor.  But he has no gravitas, no presence, no energy.  Recently he issued a challenge to anyone who disagreed with his praise for his father, “…if someone wants to argue with me, I’ll take you outside and get beat up.”  In other words, he’ll willingly take a beating for his father.  He won’t administer one, he’ll take one.  When I was a kid we’d call him a pussy.  The brain dead campaign thought it was clever, and put out a T-shirt with the manly language, “And if you don’t think so, we can step outside.”  But, of course, that’s not what he said.  Whatever “it” is, he doesn’t have it.

Correction: I had assumed Kasich’s opposition to the suppression of birthright citizenship was because of bad legal advice, and his lack of understanding the law.  Wrong.  I happened to see an old clip of him on CNN when he stated he’d simply changed his mind, and no longer believed in such suppression. He had sponsored a bill in Congress which would accomplish the legal strategy.  He has complete understanding of the issue, and it was presumptuous of me to assume otherwise.

I submitted an article to AT on the race, arguing that it’s between Kasich and Rubio.  If I’m right we only need 32, because at that point either one of them would adopt our cause as their own and carry us across the finish line.  I’d like to think that any of the others would do so as well, but I’m not sure.

Ailes has filled his card.  He wants either Kasich or Rubio.  That’s a big plus. Fox News is a big dog.

I could be wrong, but that’s what I see.  This makes me feel good, because they’re my top two as well.  Ailes is a great man, and a great American.  An Irish-Catholic hard core Reagan man, and smart as hell.  He knows more than we do.  The other big dogs can see what he’s up to.  If they start to follow, it’s going to happen.

If they are the last two standing, it would be an interesting fight.  Rubio’s charisma and Kasich’s irascibility.  Kasich’s knowledge and experience vs. Rubio’s fresh rhetoric.

I think the American people will opt for experience.  The job’s just too damn  big.  And it’s urgent.  The next President needs to ride the electoral wave that brought him to office into the quick enactment of a reform agenda.  He must strike while the iron is hot.  And you need experience to do that.  A lot of experience.  It’s a huge undertaking.

So I think it’s Kasich.  But I want Rubio as backup.  Kasich has been cool so far.  I haven’t seen or heard of any outbursts.  But he does have a chip on his shoulder.  Maybe it’s his background, a mailman’s son.

Actually, I’ve always had a chip on my shoulder, and part of that is definitely my background.  We lived in a former army barracks right by the big Southern Pacific freight yard.  My mother and Aunt Mary worked retail for close to minimum wage, while my grandmother took care of me and my evil older sister.  This made absolutely no difference to me.  My first ten years in Richmond were the happiest days of my life.  These three women competed for my attention.  I had three mothers.  My sperm donor father was long gone, but that just meant I got to do any damn thing I pleased.

I had it dicked.

Dr. Ben Carson is a man of deep Christian faith, moral courage, honor, and intellectual honesty.  He has no business running for President.

NBC’s Chuck Todd is a George Stephanophopolos wannabe.   Four years ago Stephie got into the spotlight by insisting on asking Republicans extraneous questions about abortion.  Chuck decided to try his luck with a gotcha on a Mohammedan President.  The Old Pro, Kasich, brushed it off.  Kindly Dr. Carson gave an honest and thoughtful answer, which the vast majority of Americans would agree with.  So he’s “in trouble.”

With who, Chuck Todd?  Give me a break.  The Goddamn media are going to drive me crazy.  I’ve got to stop watching cable news.  The only thing I watch is Special Report on Fox, which I record and watch about half of.  But there they are, Brett, Brit, Juan, some lady and the Hammer.  Going on about how much trouble Carson is in.  What a bunch of bullshit.  And they show Parson Cruz getting all snotty about religious tests in the Constitution.  I swear to God, it’s the look on his face, and the tone in his voice.  There is something deeply irritating about this man.  He’s the kind of guy Robin Williams used to make fun of.  When I saw his scorpion ad I thought it was a parody, a joke.  But he was serious.  He wants us to think he’s got balls because he can get a Goddamn scorpion, a bug, to back down?  Onion, where are you?

You been to the zoo lately, the monkey cage?  You remember how those monkeys sound, when they get all riled up?  Ca-CA! CaCAHCAH!  That’s exactly what Hillary sounded like on a tape they showed.  She’s laughing off some question, but she’s not laughing.  That’s not a laugh.  That’s a monkey shriek.

As predicted, or, rather, guessed at, on this blog a few weeks ago, Jill Biden has given a thumbs up.  He’s lucky to have her.

Fox’s First Daily Politics reports that Bush 3, in bolstering his foreign policy cred, said, “I know how to do this, because, yes, I am a Bush.”  Finally, he admits it.  He thought he could get away with not admitting it, but it was just too obvious.

Why did Walker’s money dry up so quickly?  Because he had no path forward.  He had given it his best shot.  That’s all he had.  And it obviously wasn’t going to be enough.  What is impressive is the speed of his demise.  Could a Domino effect kick in?  Nobody knows anything.

My granddaughter’s stepfather is a world class civil engineer, and he’s told me a lot about how the world works in his business.  He and his competitors bid on contracts, huge ones.  It’s an interesting business.  Because what they’re doing is selling their bid.  It reminds me of politics.  Politicians are like bidders, trying to win votes, not contracts.  They’re selling themselves.  And I’m thinking, If I’m selecting a bid on a complicated multi-billion dollar project, do I want the guy in charge to have any experience at this kind of thing?

You could do an ad.

At the start of a game of Risk you deploy your armies strategically throughout the globe, with the goal of winning control of continents, and eventually the world.  As you deploy, you carefully watch your competitors to understand their strategies, and adjust accordingly.  If everyone is going after Australia, you may want to go to South America instead, or even Africa.  An American Presidential nomination has a similar dynamic.  Let’s pretend we’re Kasich, and we’re trying to figure out where to deploy our limited campaign resources for the make or break month of March.  In order to do this you must make certain assumptions, always bearing in mind that these assumptions may have to be discarded in light of ongoing events.

Kasich’s principal assumption is that he’ll do well in New Hampshire.  This is his acid test, sine qua non.  He has to be in the top three.  What’s truly unknowable is who will have missed the cut in both Iowa and New Hampshire.  Bush 3 and Trump could survive that.  Probably Cruz and Rubio as well.  The rest of the field will fade, quickly.

The following is all back of the envelope stuff.  State parties have been adjusting their primary and caucus dates, and the list I’m working off may be slightly out of date.  I count 19 primaries and caucuses between the first and the ides of March.  You really can’t campaign in 19 states in 14 days.  Kasich’s hole card is Ohio, on March 8th.  His real target is Michigan, held on the same day.  If he’s going to win the nomination, he’s got to be in the top two there.  Then it’s on to Illinois, on March 15th.  This is where he wants a win, and probably needs a win, depending on who’s still standing in the ring with him.

For some reason I think of Massachusetts as Bush/Romney squishy Republican.  If Bush looks weak, Kasich might want to try to compete there on March 1st.

I think he cedes Texas on March 1st, along with Oklahoma.  And he won’t go to Florida, assuming Bush 3 and Rubio are still in it.  But he can’t concede the whole South, so he’ll be competing in Georgia on March 1st, and Alabama on the 8th.  I don’t think he has the resources, at least not yet, to compete in the caucuses of Colorado, Minnesota, and Puerto Rico, or the Hawaii primary.  Maybe down the road.

So he knows where he’ll go, and where he won’t.  What about Louisiana, and Missouri, Mississippi, Tennessee and North Carolina?  So many delegates, so little time.  It may be that those decisions are put off until the last minute.

Kasich’s tight with Ducey, the Governor of Arizona, so he’ll want to compete there on March 22nd.  The dust will barely have cleared from the wars earlier in the month.  A Kasich victory in Arizona would, hopefully, be the exclamation point on a three week span in which he established himself as one of the finalists in the fight for the nomination.

It’s a fun game.  Anyone can play.  Except some people are doing it for real.

When I first went down to Juneau I left Babbie and the kids in Anchorage.  We couldn’t afford to set up a temporary house there.  So I had time to kill in the evenings.  Half the time I was drinking beer with other legislators and lobbyists at the Baranof.  I was the youngest member of the State Senate, and thought pretty highly of myself.  But I played a fair amount of Risk as well.

That first session lasted over five months.  Our sons were seven, six and three.  It was the middle of winter, and Babbie had to suit these kids up like Eskimos to get to the grocery store.

I hit three score and ten today.  My life can divided into thirds.  The first third I was on my own.  It’s been a lot better since then.

When Bush 1 said he was a kinder and gentler conservative, and Bush 2 called himself a compassionate conservative, they were trying to differentiate themselves from regular conservatives, like, say, Ronald Reagan.  Bush 3 promises more of the same.  He’s said he’ll risk losing the primaries because of it, but he’s so passionately compassionate he’ll take the chance.  Real conservatives, Reagan conservatives, have watched a total of twelve years of this kind of conservatism, under Bushes 1 and 2, so we’re quite familiar with it.   And we are determined, dedicated, to prevent it from happening again.  This is one of the principal reasons Jeb! will not get the nomination.

At some point, as first Walker, then Christie, and, eventually, Bush 3 fade from view, Kasich will be anointed as the establishment, or moderate candidate.  He will have completed the first step of his three step dance to the Presidency.  The second step is his claim to the Reagan legacy.  He lucked out in ’76, and got a chance to drive the Gipper around at the Republican National Convention.  He got into politics very young, as a full bore Reaganaut, and can talk conservative with the best of them.  He was a Reagan man when he was elected to Congress, and stayed a Reagan man the eighteen years he was there.  He governs Ohio just as Reagan governed California.  He will resurrect the Reagan program which turned the economy around, gave us roaring economic growth, and launched a nineteen year long bull market.

The knock on Kasich is medicare expansion.  This will be thrown at him again and again.  His answer has improved, but I think he needs to go on offense.  Explain that his obligation as Governor of Ohio is to the people who elected him.  Not anyone else.  The political culture of Ohio, Ohio values, led him to take the federal money, and help his people.  Other states, and other governors, made different choices, in accordance with their political culture.  That’s as it should be.  That’s federalism, which he intends to do everything in his power to promote when he’s President.  In the job he seeks, the Presidency, he will not be making such decisions on behalf of the people of this country.  Rather, he will be devolving that power back to the states, and the people.

I don’t think I’ve heard much about federalism from the candidates.  I think this is something Kasich should be in front of the pack on.

I didn’t get to go to the ’76 Convention.  The Ford forces, led by Sen. Ted Stevens, beat us at the State Convention by one vote.  My district, Spenard, a blue collar Democrat part of town, had sent a solid Reagan delegation, under my leadership.  Sen. Stevens’ personal secretary was from this district, and when I refused to make her a delegate the Senator let me know that he’d remember me.  And he always did.  He had a good memory.

The man’s been dead for five years and I still can’t stand him.

It used to be conventional wisdom that a Governor would be the ideal Republican Presidential candidate.  Obama had soured us on politicians, such as Senators, without executive experience.  A big state Governor with a proven record of conservative accomplishment would have the best shot.  This was B.T.  When Trump took off this line if thinking disappeared.  So let’s look at A.T., after Trump.

This is not premature.  You think ahead, and make assumptions.  I assume Trump is not the nominee.  Or Fiorina or Carson.  I’m kind of surprised that so many people seem to take them seriously.  I shouldn’t be.  Right now this campaign is all media, and the media is ravenous for new story lines and personalities.  Trump, Fiorina and Carson are media creations.  None of them have accomplished a damn thing in politics.  Their presence impacts the race, though.  I love having an extremely bright woman and an extremely bright black man in this field, and I hope they last a long time, and have a graceful exit.  And the Donald brings the ratings, God bless him.  We had 23 million of the most politically concerned American voters watch our field Wednesday night, thanks in large part to him.

As for the Governors I never took Christie seriously, for a host of reasons.  And, as I believe I’ve mentioned, I have never, for one minute, thought that Jeb! could get the nomination.  Part of that is wishful thinking, I admit.  But I have not seen one thing to make me change my mind.  Which leaves Walker, who, I must say, is beginning to really look desperate.  We’ve all seen that look before.  It’s quite sad.  The funny thing is, he had his moment.  But his timing was off.  He hadn’t thought things through, so he wasn’t ready.  And, in the blink of an eye, it was gone, never to return.  He’s a good guy, and you have to feel for him.

Which leaves Kasich as the Gubernatorial candidate.  At this point in the campaign it doesn’t help much.  Nobody’s listening.  People are just looking.  Down the road, when people actually start paying attention, it will be a great asset.  Just as everybody said, B. T.  When I was gaming this out, six months ago, I figured there wasn’t enough room in the race for both Kasich, and Walker.  One of them had to go, they were in the same space.  I really didn’t foresee Walker becoming irrelevant this early.  If you’re a Kasich supporter, this is a big deal.  You want to give Walker supporters a welcome, if you can figure out how to do it.

Ryan Lizza wrote a column asking if the Donald had a second act.  I think that’s a very good question.  He’s been on this shtick for three months, and it’s starting to get old.  Even if he can keep it up for another six months, he’s got to come up with some fresh material, a second act.  I saw something in the Donald’s eyes in the debate.  It was right after he told Fiorina that she had a beautiful face.  The audience reaction was very negative to him, and the Donald responded by looking like a little boy who had been reprimanded by his Mommy.  He was visibly upset.  This man has a tender ego.

Think about it.  If you were closely following a Presidential race, when, in your lifetime, could it have been more fun than now?  It’s got the makings of a great reality show.

Maybe that’s how we should start thinking about it.