This is the BIG Takeaway from the last week:
A ringing Sarah Palin endorsement for Rick Perry would’ve done WONDERS for his campaign! All we heard, though, was silence until too late, then an aside endorsement of Newt, if only to prolong the “vetting.”
I love the fire Sarah Palin brought to the campaign in 2008, and I’ve watched her wend her way through the murky waters between campaigns, but in the past few weeks, when she could’ve had a very profound effect on the course of the GOP primaries and – by extension! – the course of the nation as a whole, she was silent. The immediate effect was Rick Perry dropping out of the race, and the ascendancy of Newt to the chagrin of Romney, with Santorum looking on. In the early days of a Romney or Newt presidency, or heaven forbid into Obama’s second term, this will, I think and hope, be seen as a wasted opportunity to show leadership and take command.
Sarah, if you’re not going to run, at least get behind someone who shares your core values! Would you honestly say Mitt or Newt share your values? Why were you silent when Rick Perry, who does, needed support?
The thought occurs that the same could be said of Jim DeMint. Just swap out Sarah’s name for Demint’s.
I think REAL Conservatives, in the end, will be disappointed with Mitt or Newt. That, too, may prove beneficial in 2016, but as one Twitter Wag put it, that might be like sending a surgeon in to try to revive a cadaver at that point. I hope and pray it doesn’t come to that.
The question was asked, in effect,”Will we have the guy on board who’ll be able to go in and perform the major surgeries and -ectomies that will be required to trim the bloat off Big Gub’mint?” We are going to need someone who will go in and excise – literally CUT OFF – every piece of bloated bureaucracy he can find, to restore the Republic to health. No “tweaking,” no “retooling,” no “streamlining.” CHOPPING! Anything less than that and we’re just headed for the same end, albeit more slowly.
I think the NEXT couple of primaries are going to highlight organizational strengths, versus debate strengths. Mitt Romney is already doing a lot of advanced footwork in Florida, with Nevada, Maine, Colorado, Minnesota and Missouri following hard on the heels. Who will be the best at pivoting and moving from venue to venue, and seamlessly working to gather support? That, too, will be telling, and will speak as much about each candidate as any debate performances to date.
Having said that, there is something to be said, as Byron York writes here – Why Gingrich Won, Why Romney Lost – about the kind of campaigning that puts a real-life candidate in your face, to answer questions, outline positions, address your desires. Newt and Santorum have done that very admirably so far, versus Romney’s largely script-driven, media buy, canned speech whistle stops. I have longed to see a campaign where the candidate does the hard leg-work to go door-to-door, town-to-town, county-to-county to meet as many people as he or she can before the day of reckoning arrives. I read with glee that Sarah Palin had done just that in her quest to become ultimately Governor of Alaska, and a very large part of me cheered when she began he bus tour in the middle of last year, thinking she might be doing that precise thing in preparation for a run in 2012. Alas, it wasn’t (or hasn’t been to date) an option for her to run, but the template is there, and judging from Rick and Newt’s successes, is not far off the mark for something to emulate, methinks. It will be interesting to see if a modified version can be implemented with so many primaries coming so close together. The problem will be logistics, getting the candidate “out n’ about” to as many people as possible, but there is also an element of getting cheerful, articulate, passionate representatives “out n’ about” to help spread the word, too. In this, the Tea Party can be especially instrumental, but a big questions is, who will they largely rally around? I probably don’t need to remind anyone that the Tea Party isn’t really a centrally organized mass, and does very little coordination in its activities. Still, the term “stalking tiger” comes to mind. The candidate that can inspire some of the many “stalking tiger cubs” to action may be a force to be reckoned with, despite lacking a larger budget or more centralized campaign apparatus.
To date, each of the major candidates has won one state apiece. At the 3-mile mark, it’s still really anybody’s race, regardless of the swell of propaganda emanating from the various campaigns to the contrary. Will be interesting to see what unfolds in a week from now.