Monday, February 14, 2011

After CPAC – A Short Survey of the Presidential Landscape

The Conservative Political Action Conference is over. The speeches were given, the straw poll was taken (Ron Paul won, again, yawn) and the 2012 Republican presidential field is still just as convoluted as when the conference began. Having to rely on reportage from afar all I have to go on is the same thing you do, namely YouTube vids of speeches, some of which were truly inspirational and stories like this one from Walter Shapiro.

I don’t know about you all, but given my distance from the event, the only thing I have to gauge these events by is my own internal List of Political Principles, and then see who comes the closest to speaking what I’m thinking. I’d like to attend the next Conference, but I’d need your support to do that. You can do that by hitting the tip jar.

Until then, my computer will have to suffice, as will yours. The Right Scoop has a nice collection of speeches. Click on over, as they say, and enjoy.

I was particularly struck by the positive tone of Herman Cain’s speech. As I’ve previously mentioned, we’re a center-right, capitalist country. Shouldn’t we elect a president who embodies those characteristics? At this point of the 2012 race, Herman Cain comes as close to mirroring the country’s overall political climate as anyone else I’ve heard so far.

His speech is here. Stupid People are Running America.

Since the field is wide open, as it always is this far out from the next national election, there are lots of candidates to listen to, to pick through their records, read their books and get up to speed on their political philosophies and their vision for the country.

I would also offer a piece of advice. Don’t allow the Make-Believe Media to form your opinion for you. As you’ve no doubt noticed over the past few years, the alphabet media has jumped into bed with the political left, and will do everything in their dwindling power to prop up the weakest candidate they can find to oppose Obama.

You’ll hear names that you didn’t know, or only have a passing familiarity with in an effort to get you to support their candidate instead of the best one for the country. You’ll see polls favoring folks like Huckabee, or Pawlenty, or Romney early and often. Both Chris Christie and Colonel Alan West have announced they won’t be running, so we can count them out, at least in this go-‘round.

Who are my personal favorites? I thought you’d never ask. Here, in no particular order, are the candidates I’d like to see emerge at the front of the pack:

Herman Cain, John Bolton’s Mustache, and Mitch Daniels (as soon as I can hear his speech. Early reports on it are favorable).

However, should we fail to generate a true conservative Obama beater in this election cycle, all is not lost. Part of the success the Tea Party has had in its short life span is to motivate a truly grassroots-level passion about politics. Nowhere is this more evident than in the Republican victories in many state legislatures and governorships.

The Senate can and should be the focus of the next election, as many Democrats are up for reelection.

Let’s daydream for a moment. Let’s say we can’t field a strong enough candidate to beat Obama, that the left and the Mainstream Media (but I repeat myself) unite again in another smear campaign against whomever the GOP find to run. Then what?

If we win the Senate and manage to get a 2/3 majority, we could turn Obama into a lame-duck president overnight. The prospects are almost too good to think about.

Such a scenario would be the best we could do, that is, until the mainstream media breathes its last decrepit breath, as it appears it will soon do. After pulling out all the stops to elect Obama to a second term, they would have spent all of their energy in the last great hurrah of progressivism, the second coming of the Chosen Won.

If the last four years of progressive dominance in Washington hasn’t soured the country by then, we are in deep trouble. One wonders what it would take for the populace to finally awaken to the damage inflicted upon the nation by the likes of Pelosi, Reid, Waxman, Boxer, Frank, Geithner, Bernanke, Napolitano and the rest of the calcified ‘60’s retreads clutching their dog-eared copy of “Rules for Radicals.”

The political mind reels at the thought of a radical leftist president held in check by a conservative Congress. That would provide hours of fun at almost any gathering, providing, of course, that there were no firearms readily available. Both sides would claim success, naturally, but the country would have a fighting chance to reverse the very dangerous course that the left in Washington would pursue. With the majority to override a presidential veto, Congress could start to dismantle the progressive agenda through repealing ObamaCare and other government takeovers of private industries while our President hits the golf course.

A win-win outcome if there ever was one.

Now, I need a cigarette…

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