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Wednesday, December 30, 2015

GOP Can't Take out Trump for Same Reason There's No anti ISIS Coalition Yet

In time maybe the ISIS coalition will be easier. But it's the same basic scenario. Some have argued that the best interests of the Establishment is for the Establishment lane to be winnowed before NH.

Yes, as Rubio, Jeb, Kasich, and Christie all have about 10 percent give or take each, if a couple got out of the race there's be a better chance to take out Trump there.

But here is why this won't happen. Yes, each of these candidates-particularly Jeb and Kasich who have some sense of party loyalty and concern for the party would much rather have someone other than Trump or Cruz win.

But more than having an Establishment candidate win, they each want to be that Establishment candidate. And each believe they have a real shot-and based on the polls why shouldn't they?

In this sense the Trump threat for the GOP is sort of like the ISIS threat in the Middle East. No, the Arab countries in the Middle East don't like ISIS but they see Assad as their biggest enemy. Russia and Iran on the other hand want to buffer Assad. Only the US wants ISIS gone above all.

Similarly with Trump. Yes, the Establishment candidates would like Trump taken out, but their main focus is not in taking out Trump but being the Establishment candidate left standing.

Meanwhile the other Establishment candidates are all taking aim at Rubio. I hear some in the press wonder why as he's not in the lead. No, but he's in their lane. The goal in NH at this point is simply to finish first among Establishment candidates.

Establishment rivals rip into Rubio

Sensing that he’s the biggest obstacle to mainstream GOP voters, Christie and Bush attack Rubio's absenteeism.
Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2015/12/marco-rubio-republicans-christie-bush-senate-217206#ixzz3vouyPBeF
Interestingly, some pundits like Paul Waldman try to claim Rubio's absenteeism won't ''resonate'.'

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2015/12/29/why-we-shouldnt-care-that-marco-rubio-isnt-doing-his-job-as-a-senator/

But Rubio has in fact been asked about it at his town hall meetings.

https://twitter.com/ajjaffe/status/662054631418290176

There is the sense that Rubio has done this all through out his career. He's treated each stop as a stepping stone. He talked about how horrible the recent Omnibus bill was but then failed to show up to vote.

Waldman seems to think it's a law of nature that once you are campaigning you can't be expected to do your job anymore that you were elected to. Ok then, but you know there are other Senators running for President-Bernie Sanders, Rand Paul-and at the time-Lindsay Graham. All managed to make it to the Omnibus vote.

Then there's the point that Rubio is also not campaigning very hard-which does suggest maybe he's just lazy. Yet, Waldman wants to insist that this is a baseless charge:

"What if we granted that Rubio isn’t fulfilling his duties as a senator? What would that tell us about what kind of president he’d be? That he’s lazy, and if he were president he’d be skipping out on Fridays to get drunk and play Xbox with his buddies while crises raged? I have trouble believing that anyone thinks that. Like all the other candidates, Rubio would be perfectly committed to the job if he were president. And everyone would think he was a good or bad president depending on what decisions he made and what priorities he pursued, not how much time he logged at his desk."

"People in both parties criticize presidents from the other party for taking too much time off, but nobody really means it. Republicans feign outrage at how many rounds of golf President Obama has played, but none of them were particularly upset about the fact that George W. Bush spent 879 days of his two terms either at Camp David or his “ranch” in Crawford, Tex. Bill Clinton worked late into the night when he was in the Oval Office, while Ronald Reagan reportedly worked about 32 hours a week. “The president isn’t working hard enough!” is something said only by people who wish he wasn’t president at all."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2015/12/29/why-we-shouldnt-care-that-marco-rubio-isnt-doing-his-job-as-a-senator/

Oh, but no. In fact, Reagan was universally understood to not have been working hard enough, by members of his own staff. 

Behind the Ronald Reagan myth: “No one had ever entered the White House so grossly ill informed”
Reagan embarrassed himself in news conferences, Cabinet meetings. Recalling how GOP cringed at his lack of interest."

"His team devised ingenious ways to get him to pay attention. Aware that he was obsessed with movies, his national security adviser had the CIA put together a film on world leaders the president was scheduled to encounter. His defense secretary stooped lower. He got Reagan to sign off on production of the MX missile by showing him a cartoon. Once again, the president made a joke of his lack of involvement: “It’s true that hard work never killed anybody, but why take a chance?” Cannon, who had observed him closely for years and with considerable admiration, took his lapses more seriously. “Seen either in military or economic terms,” he concluded, “the nation paid a high price for a president who skimped on preparation, avoided complexities and news conferences and depended far too heavily on anecdotes, charts, graphics and cartoons.”

"Subordinates also found Reagan to be an exasperatingly disengaged administrator. “Trying to forge policy,” said George Shultz, his longest- serving secretary of state, was “like walking through a swamp.” Donald Regan recalled: “In the four years that I served as secretary of the treasury, I never saw President Reagan alone and never discussed economic philosophy….I had to figure these things out like any other American, by studying his speeches and reading the newspapers. . . . After I accepted the job, he simply hung up and vanished.” One of his national security advisers, General Colin Powell, recalled that “the President’s passive management style placed a tremendous burden on us,” and another national security adviser, Frank Carlucci, observed: “The Great Communicator wasn’t always the greatest communicator in the private sessions; you didn’t always get clean and crisp decisions. You assumed a lot. . . . You had to.” Numbers of observers contended that Reagan conducted himself not as a ruler but as a ceremonial monarch. In the midst of heated exchanges, a diplomat noted, Reagan behaved like a “remote sort of king . . . just not there.” After taking in the president’s performance during a discussion of the budget in 1981, one of his top aides remarked that Reagan looked like “a king . . . who had assembled his subalterns to listen to what they had to say and to preside, sort of,” and another said, “He made decisions like an ancient king or a Turkish pasha, passively letting his subjects serve him, selecting only those morsels of public policy that were especially tasty. Rarely did he ask searching questions and demand to know why someone had or had not done something.” As a consequence, a Republican senator went so far as to say: “With Ronald Reagan, no one is there. The sad fact is that we don’t have a president.”

http://www.salon.com/2015/12/28/behind_the_ronald_reagan_myth_no_one_had_ever_entered_the_white_house_so_grossly_ill_informed/

So claiming that charges of being lazy, disinterested, or not up to the job are red herrings is a mistake by Waldman. I think there's a case to ask what exactly makes Rubio so qualified to be President? Isn't it possible that he would be very much like Reagan-a sort of disinterest ceremonial monarch whose staff ran the country? I'm not at all sure that Rubio isn't just as ill-informed. Certainly his time at the Senate isn't auspicious. 


Posted by Mike Sax at 8:33 AM
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1 comment:

  1. Tom BrownDecember 31, 2015 at 8:25 AM

    Mike, you might like this on Trump. They have some interesting maps... one shows how his appeal overlaps with "racially charged" internet search terms. Lol.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/31/upshot/donald-trumps-strongest-supporters-a-certain-kind-of-democrat.html?_r=0

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