‘The Last Chance’?
What about the “millions of primary voters” after the first three states?
by William Kristol of the Weekly Standard:
I’m flattered to be welcomed by Karl Rove, writing in today’s Wall Street Journal, to membership in the GOP establishment. I’m even more pleased by Rove’s statement that “No group of power brokers can pressure others into uniting behind one candidate. Millions of primary voters and caucus-goers will select the GOP’s nominee. That’s good enough for most of us.”
But how is a professed deference to “millions of primary voters” consistent with the statement, a couple of paragraphs earlier, that “South Carolina will be the last chance for several candidates”? Why would South Carolina be the last chance? Rove explains: “It will be hard to justify going on after being at the back of the pack in three contests—especially with Florida’s 10 expensive media markets and four million registered Republican voters for this closed primary looming at month’s end.”
But if South Carolina is to be “the last chance for several candidates,” then who would be left, per Rove, for the “millions of primary voters and caucus-goers” in the remaining 47 states to select among? Can’t all or almost all the candidates at least “justify” going on to Florida on January 31, where the total vote count for the Republican primaries will pass one million? Otherwise, “millions of primary voters and caucus-goers” will not in fact have selected the GOP nominee—it will have been several hundred thousand voters, in only three states. And even after Florida, there will have been less than three million votes cast. The Democratic race in 2008 didn’t conclude until 40 million votes had been cast. And, I’d note, Barack Obama did better in the 2008 general election than his predecessors who had clinched the race earlier—better than John Kerry in 2004, better than George W. Bush and Al Gore in 2000, and better than Bob Dole in 1996.
Rove is of course right, to a point: Whatever happens in South Carolina, it will be daunting to stay in against the Romney juggernaut. That’s not because Romney has rolled up so many votes (25 percent in Iowa and 39 percent in New Hampshire aren’t show stoppers, after all), but because of the Romney organization and money. (Rove himself suggests the centrality of money when he refers to “Florida’s 10 expensive media markets.”) Romney deserves credit for putting together his organization and amassing all that money. Those factors, along with other qualities, may well propel him to the nomination.
Fair enough. Money matters. But do we really want a Republican party where money talks, and candidates walk?
Comment: There are certain people in America, unfortunately too few these days, who have sufficient command of the nation’s political settings, who have a welcoming presence, and who possess a verbal ability to share his or her understandings and expectations from honesty, sincerity, with the goal of sharing valuable and accurate knowledge.
Among our American black population, there is nearly no honest one these days in the political arena…..for nearly all in the political arena are racists from the left with nearly no interest or abilities to recognize honesty. I think it is a cultural matter, a natural infection of peoples confined to a plantation living governed by a political party. However, there are so many devoted and admirably honest of these Americans living within the shadows of conservatism these days, it aids cementing my own political understandings and position…..which are constant at the core, but always challengeable on the perifere.
Many appear with Dennis Prager on Dennis’ radio show.
One has to admire president Barack Hussein Obama for his shrewd disingenuousness and dishonesty. Although I can recognize the advantages of such skills in a football quarter back, I detest these tyrants in a culture which is dedicated to promote Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness in ones society who uses duplicity as his or her daily habit.
Among women in the broader political sphere, there are so few, they nearly don’t exist……except for Condelezza Rice, perhaps.
Then there are the good folks of today’s America…..the truly honorable, well educated, sensitive, broad thinking individuals…..nearly all of whom are conservatives these days…..Charles Krauthammer, Dennis, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, Thomas Sowell, Shelby Steele, Paul Ryan, Evan Bayh….people whose opinion one seeks for a cleaner clearer view of issues.
There may others, but these few are among the very best. William Kristol is among them and is always worth our ‘eye or ear’.
I am not certain from my distance here in this cubby hole surrounding my computer I agree with Mr. Kristol, except for his argument heard elsewhere reminding me that the bulldog renegade, the untrustworthy Ron Paul, will stay in the race no matter what. Although I have now come to the conclusion I do like Mitt Romney, and am likely to like him better as his campaign continues, do I really want this cobra, Paul, to be the only Republican trapsing around the country embarrassing me as a conservative Republican? NO……good luck, then to Rick Santorum.
Let the Republican cause to recover American from Obama Marxism go forward without Newt Gingrich, Rick Perry, and maybe even the guy from our Embassy in China.
Filed under: American Culture, Economics and Finance, Education, National Politics
