It’s time to start thinking about the Republican Presidential nomination for 2016. Candidates are already making random appearances in Iowa and we’re only 18 months away from campaigns really kicking off in earnest. Based on the last round, the first debate is less than two years away. With that in mind it’s time for Republicans to start thinking about what sort of candidate they want to represent the party against Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden or some random back bencher who thinks he can pull off an Obama.
Let’s first reject the notion that we need to nominate a woman or minority just for the sake of nominating a woman or minority. If the best candidate ends up being a minority or a woman, that’s great. However, we Republicans need to reject the Democrats vision of America which separates us into various little groups based on race, ethnicity and sex. We don’t need electoral quotas, we need to further the conservative cause. If we start accepting the Democrats notion of a divided America full of little groups that need to be appeased because of their race or sex, then we’ve lost the essence of free market conservativism.
Which brings us to the most important qualification for the next nominee: He has to be a conservative. We have nominated liberals the last two elections. We cannot afford another John McCain or Mitt Romney. Candidates like that cannot win. We need to offer a viable alternative to the Obama and Democrat notion of an expansive nanny state. We have built in issues heading into 2016 with the Obama administration scandals. We need a candidate who can articulate a small government alternative to the big government scandal mess Obama has given us. Most importantly our candidate needs to articulate freedom. If there’s one thing that has been missing in the last two elections it’s a discussion on freedom. The Republicans can argue this issue and win it but they’ve got to nominate the right candidate.
The Republicans have a lot of fine Senators who will be running for President. Rand Paul and Ted Cruz come to mind, Marco Rubio as well if he rehabs his image after embarrassing himself on immigration. Of the three, Ted Cruz is probably the best. However we might want to consider shying away from nominating a Senator. Before Obama the last Senator elected was JFK. The two of thing share some things in common besides being former Senators. They both had a very difficult time figuring out how to manage the Federal government and govern. It’s very easy to manage a Senate staff of 20, it’s much more difficult to manage a massive Federal government.
With that in mind, we might want to consider looking at nominating a Governor rather than a Senator. Governors have managerial experience. Running the executive branch of a state is like a smaller version of running the executive branch of the Federal government. Governors are forced to make managerial decisions, they learn how to pay attention to each part of the executive branch. As such, they enter the White House with the knowledge of how to manage. It’s quite a leg up on a Senators who specialize in bloviating on the Senate floor and in Committee meetings. We have some decent Governors, not including the traitorous Chris Christie. Scott Walker, John Kasich, maybe even Rick Perry if he can rehab his image.
It is of the utmost importance that we nominate an experienced conservative who can articulate the conservative vision and why it is better than the Democrat’s vision. John McCain was a disaster because he wasn’t a conservative. When the economic crisis hit, he didn’t oppose Obama and Bush on the bailout, he joined them. Mitt Romney may have had executive experience but how could someone who supported Obamacare light as a Governor articulate opposition to Obamacare? Not only do we need someone experienced, we need someone young. Since the end of the Cold War the youngest candidate has won. So we need a young, experienced conservative. We have such people, let’s start thinking about who the best candidate is and back them.
