When sixteen candidates are vying for any party’s Presidential nomination, the first requirement is understanding how to stand out from the crowd. This can be a major problem because any decision may place you on the wrong side of some portion of the Party faithful, law, or tradition. Take, for instance, Senator Marco Rubio. Recent polling – relevant for big money donors and endorsements – shows him trailing front runners with only 6% (this HuffPo poll is interactive and recent enough for our purposes). If you’re a young, inexperienced Senator, with few legislative accomplishments, you have to get the voters’ attention, so you decide to show how independent you are – of President Obama. Courtesy The Washington Post:
“This is not America’s deal with Iran. It is Barack Obama’s deal with Iran, and it does not have congressional support,” [Rubio] said. “It is the duty of Congress to protect American security, not follow what President Obama has described as the ‘broad international consensus.’”
(h/t Steve Benen @ MaddowBlog)
Governor Scott Walker went a similar route:
[Walker] said he would “terminate the bad deal with Iran on the very first day in office, put in place crippling sanctions and convince our allies to do the same.”
(The Weekly Standard, h/t Joan McCarter @ The Daily Kos)
This despite praise from the experts; only those with a political iron in the fire are upset. Even the US public is in favor. But, most importantly, besides this being Congressional meddling in foreign policy, which is traditionally the realm of the Executive, this (as Steve Benen also points out) is also a threat to the credibility of American foreign policy in the eyes of the world. If we are to retain any sort of respectable world leadership role, we must maintain a consistent foreign policy; abrupt shifts tied to American elections will lead to disrespect and more usages of that filthy phrase, boots on the ground. The GOP should know this, so this is another example of prioritizing Party over country.
Governor Jeb Bush has decided to do away with Medicare:
“I think a lot of people recognize that we need to make sure we fulfill the commitment to people that have already received the benefits, that are receiving the benefits. But that we need to figure out a way to phase out this program for others and move to a new system that allows them to have something — because they’re not going to have anything,” Bush said.
I suppose this qualifies as leadership, since Medicare is the second most important program provided by the government:
(The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation)
Leadership is recognizing an issue, getting everyone’s attention, and leading the way on resolving it. However, just doing away with the program may not be a solution, but a red flag for the base of the GOP. Bush is responding to fellow candidate and Senator Paul Ryan’s proposal to privatize Medicare, which the Fiscal Times explains:
Under the Ryan plan, in 2024, those turning 65 would be offered a spate of private health plans through a “Medicare exchange.” Coverage through the exchanges would be guaranteed and premiums would be paid for or subsidized through the government, depending on the cost of the plan. Those born before 1959 would remain in the existing Medicare system.
Donald Trump joins the game by denigrating immigrants and John McCain.
The GOP candidates are being forced, by sheer numbers, to ramble further and further afield in their differentiation attempts – and because the pasture is only so big, they are now beginning to attempt to scale the forbidden cliffs of outlawry – and they ain’t Alpine Ibex:
(Image courtesy Wikipedia)
They’re also in pursuit of the base of their Party, which appears to be shrinking, as noted in a previous post:
While still dominant, its shrinkage within the confines of the GOP may also suggest it’s shrinking throughout the population. A GOP paying the piper to win the nomination may not have the coin of the realm – credibility with moderates – to win a general Presidential election. Right at the moment, with lots of time to remand their approach, Gallup suggests they are not doing well:
Given that the Presidential candidates are the face of the Party, we can guess that the non-Republican portion of the electorate is not finding the candidates favorable. Perhaps the more moderate candidates are basing their hopes on that logic? Venerable FiveThirtyEight‘s Harry Enten lists the four most moderate candidates as, in order, Pataki, Kasich, Christie, and Bush. The first three don’t break 4% – while Bush is one of the front-runners, he feels forced to scale the cliffs of notoriety. Given the continued death grip of the most conservative wing of the party on the GOP, I suspect this is hopeless. Perhaps all these four have going for them is Executive experience.
But another motivating force is, ironically, one of the strengths of the present Party – an ideological purity on a set of central questions: thou will be against Obamacare or any single-payer health system (we’ll not mention that the Republicans actually pioneered the concept in Massachusetts), Iran is always evil, evil, evil and must be bombed, unions are always evil, gay Republicans can’t exist … etc. When you can’t openly disagree on the central tenets of the Party, either through decree or because you can see the bulging eyes of your base every time you think about it, well, you have to go hunting new goats issues & positions – even if they’re akin to outlawry.
If the GOP gets the boot in the 2016 elections, it’ll be interesting to see if the conservative wing is excommunicated, or if the conservative wing simply performs a ceremonial version of cannibalism as they blame each other for their failures.
