A Player Program for the Republican Nomination Race

On Special Report last night Charles Krauthammer spoke of “two lanes” that define the Republican race. It seems odd to be continually disagreeing with him, but again I think this far too reductive analytic scheme and thereby misses too much. From my perspective, the Republican field can be placed into the following five lanes:

Establishment/Old-Guard Republicans – Bush, Kasich, Pataki

Young Guns/Reformers – Christie, Fiorina, Jindal, Perry, Rubio, Walker

Social Conservative/Populists – Huckabee, Santorum

Purists/Reform Radicals – Cruz, Paul

Outsiders-Outsiders – Carson, Trump

Doubtless there is room for disagreement as to the lines drawn and the placement but I think this is reasonably accurate looking at the candidates as a whole rather than one particular issue.

I would define the Establishment/Old Guard as the line of the party that can be most easily and comfortably traced to the Rockefeller-Ford wing and in its more recent aspect is the Bush-Bush-McCain-Romney succession. The other lanes are defined in a large sense in relation to their distinctiveness from the Establishment/Old Guard. Something of a continuum can be drawn from that starting point to Young Guns/Reformers > Purists/Reform Radicals > Outsiders with the Social Conservatives being out of place both in my schematic and to a large extent this election cycle. The weakness of the Young Guns is that they can be perceived as being part of the Establishment, while the weakness of the Purists and Outsiders is the possible/probable(?) reluctance on the part of the voters to completely throw caution aside.

Now if I’ve got this mostly right, then it is telling that of the consensus currently viable—Christie, Fiorina, Rubio, Cruz, Carson, and Trump--half occupy a position far from the Establishment/Old Guard. And the others are viable in large part because their time served isn't so extensive as to confirm that they've crossed the shadow-line. And this is why I think the emphasis on Bush’s campaign foibles, real as they are, miss the much larger point that there is almost no voter interest in picking someone from this lane except as a last resort in this election cycle.

Finally, I should note that of the above candidates Fiorina is the most difficult to place. She could be considered an outsider, but I think her running for office in California and evident policy chops exclude her. But there is probably no one in the field who has more positional flexibility in terms of which lane to conduct her campaign from than Fiorina, and that's an advantage in this race. 

 

The Republican Race to Date

On this week’s Candidate Casino Charles Krauthammer put fewer chips on Jeb Bush and fingered a woeful campaign as the problem. In prior weeks, Jeb has either been picked as the Republican favorite or near favorite. This tells me the pros are looking at this election through the wrong prism.

The key to understanding the current race is 2012 in combination with 2008. By the end of his term conservatives were ambivalent about George W. They liked him in many ways, defending him against Democratic attacks but they were not at all happy with the increase in spending (pretty much across the board) and ambitious use of the military (the sizable isolationist win) that had occurred under his leadership. They wanted a ‘real’ conservative, but accepted McCain as the only viable choice in the ’08 field.

By the 2012 cycle it was clear to conservatives, that Obama was a terrible president. Pick someone decent and they’d win. The ‘establishment’ choice was clearly Romney. The primaries consisted of the base frantically searching for an alternative. Not finding one, they reluctantly listened to the party elders and accepted Romney. They didn’t trust him as far as actually being a conservative, but they were persuaded that he would win. And then Romney ran a tepid, squishy general election campaign and lost.

Twice the base set aside its reservations, ignored its instincts, and followed the party establishment and twice the resulting nominee had lost. The last, in what conservatives perceived—correctly or incorrectly doesn’t matter here—as a crucial and very winnable election. In November of 2012 it was clear that the race in 2015 – 16 was going to be a very bumpy ride indeed.

Thus, Jeb is carrying a duel legacy. He’s third in the Bush line and third in the McCain-Romney-Establishment Choice line. If you’re wondering why Bush has struggled, and you’re looking to how he’s conducted his campaign, pause, put on the Who’s Won’t Get Fooled Again at top volume and consider what happened in 2012.

Weak field argument isn't about the field collectively

Over at Commentary/Contentions Peter Wehner makes the point that it is the nominee not the field that matters in regard to current discussions over a weak Republican field.  http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2011/10/28/weak-gop-candidates/   Wehner is being far too literal here.  The weak field complaint isn’t anything like a collective score measurement or even an average. 

Earlier in the day on the same site an upcoming column by George Will was brought out.  In it Will says of Romney:

“Romney, supposedly the Republican most electable next November, is a recidivist reviser of his principles who is not only becoming less electable, he might damage GOP chances of capturing the Senate: Republican successes down the ticket will depend on the energies of the Tea Party and other conservatives, who will be deflated by a nominee whose blurry profile in caution communicates only calculated trimming. Republicans may have found their Michael Dukakis, a technocratic Massachusetts governor who takes his bearings from “data” … Has conservatism come so far, surmounting so many obstacles, to settle, at a moment of economic crisis, for THIS?”

http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2011/10/28/george-will-romney/

That neatly sums up Romney, but when you a look for an alternative to him among the other candidates you come up empty.  If there were a viable alternative Romney would be getting blown out, instead he looks inevitable. That’s what’s driving the weak field meme, not whatever it is that Wehner is addressing.