Today on Fox News, Senator John McCain roundly criticized his fellow Republican Senator and Presidential candidate Rand Paul for his views on foreign policy. Senator’s Paul’s non-interventionist views have been described by many as “isolationist”. Fair or not, his foreign policy views may prove an obstacle to his nomination. His domestic agenda and strict Constitutionalist stance though, have a wide appeal amongst Conservatives.
Marco Rubio has youth and charisma on his side. He has a great story and tells it well. His attempt at immigration reform fell flat with the conservative wing of the party, and was denounced as “amnesty”. He has since revised his stance.
Ted Cruz by all accounts, has a brilliant intellect. He is a true believer in the Conservative way. His engineering of the Government shutdown played well with the base, but failed to take into account that the Liberal media would side with the Democrats, and portray the Republicans as the ones shutting down the Government. The Democratic Senate at the time was held blameless even though they were the ones who failed to pass a budget. Without a particularly strong Speaker of the House to back him up, and Harry Reid’s iron fist ruling the Senate, his effort was doomed to fail.
Jeb Bush has wide support and an incredible election machine, but his stance on Common Core turned off many Conservatives. His last name stands more to hinder than help him with the general public. (Hillary’s last name cancels that out but still…)
Governor Scott Walker has survived all the slings and arrows the Democrats could muster and is still left standing. He won his recall election by a wider margin than he did the general election. He’s seen as having flip-flopped on the issue of immigration. Even if everyone else stays home, union members will walk over broken glass to vote against him.
All of the top-tier GOP candidates have both pros and cons. They are all good, but none of them are perfect. I’ve often wished I could combine two or more of the candidates and create on super candidate.
Here’s the qualities I would choose from each:
- Rand Paul’s total dedication to the Constitution and personal liberty
- Marco Rubio’s enthusiasm and cross-cultural appeal
- Ted Cruz’s smarts and steadfast dedication to the U.S.’s founding principles
- Jeb Bush’s political machine
- Scott Walker’s tenacity and durability.
Any candidate with all those qualities wrapped up into one package would be a formidable candidate indeed. Maybe one will emerge who has all, or at least most of these qualities. If they choose a running mate who can fill in the gaps, that would be my dream GOP candidate. What would your perfect candidate look like? Who comes closest? (I know, there are some hopefuls that did not make my list, no slight intended, but for sake of brevity and all…) OK, discuss…
Liberty Relearned 