One of the big stories over the past week has been about how the Republican Party is in search of new leadership in light of recent losses.
How does that square with the consevative base who continues to push Sarah Palin as the front runner in 2012?
There’s new leadership and then there’s the candidate who just helped lose the most recent election.
I live in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Milwaukee, WI with my wife Jen, our daughter Emerson, and son Carter.
I'm the President of The Park People of Milwaukee County, an elected official of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, a union leader, community organizer and transit advocate who is working to make Milwaukee great again. I've been writing this weblog for nearly ten years ... read more...
Palin certainly didn’t cause the defeat, the collapse of the banking companies did. Palin is clearly a threat to the left, because they are so fitful in their attempts to smear her. They are afraid. Personally, I’d like to see Paul Ryan take the leadership of the party. He is a solid and humble man of ideas. If I were Obama, I’d draft him into the administration right away. He has good ideas, is interested in solutions and is not a national name republican. It would be seen as a major step to reach across the aisle and would force hard-core conservatives to see some place for them in the Obama administration. Giving someone like Ryan a prominent place of responsibility would bring people together. There’s also the Keep your enemy closer theory. I’d bet there will be a huge push for Ryan in 2012 if things don’t go well for Obama. And considering his all things to all people campaign, I imagine there will be some discontent in 2012.
Patrick, it isn’t the “left” putting out the stories about the $150k shopping trips or post election gossip about her lack of world knowledge or her ignoring campaign message.
As a Democrat, I’d personally love to see her run in 2012, and we’re hardly “afraid” of her to be honest. As I’ve written in the past weeks, and every poll has confirmed, she was a drag on the McCain ticket period. Her unfavorables were extremely high and McCain got less votes from white women than George W. Bush did.
If that’s your leader and hope for 2012, so be it, but don’t blame “the left” for the shortcomings of your own candidate and party.
As for Obama bringing Rep. Ryan on board his administration, two things: 1.) Ryan would never do it and 2.) why would he bring a hard right politician into his administration other than to make those on the right happy?
If you really believe in that kind of scenario, were you also pushing for GWB to bring someone like Rahm Emmanuel on board in 2005?
I think Obama will do a fine job of bringing people together without bringing a hard right politician like Rep. Ryan on board.
Patrick,
Let’s say that the economy hadn’t tanked. Would the Republicans have won? They got a bounce out of the convention for a couple of weeks – and then Sarah opened her mouth on the big national TV.
Hey, I wouldn’t do very well either, but I’m not running to be a 72-year-old heartbeat from the presidency, either. She is just not the best the Republican party has to offer. She was chosen because of her gender and religious fervor. That choice backfired on the first count and worked really well on the second. The problem is that a candidate can’t win by just firing up the base.
I agree with Dan – bring her on! There are a lot of other Republicans I’d be less happy to see running in 4 years, and they can put together coherent sentences. The left didn’t have to smear her, and they won’t again in 4 years – just sit back and let her talk and try to smirk and wink her way through a real debate. I mean a Republican primary debate where those other guys on stage will not give her a pass for an response that doesn’t answer the moderator’s question. There will be Republican candidates in 2012 who present a lot more coherent message.
I don’t think Sarah Palin will go away (for better or for worse). It appears that she enjoyed her taste of national politics. I think she’ll remain governor of Alaska and hit the rubber chicken curcuit, like Richard Nixon after his defeat in 1960. The question is: has she been marginalized by the past campaign or can she grow, gain the experience and the street cred to make a serious run in 2012. Four years is a long time in politics and, if Obama stumbles, anything can happen. But, right now, I’m skeptical.
Good comments, but don’t confuse me for a big Palin supporter. I know Obama would almost never bring someone from the right into his inner circle, but you have to admit that we need a leader who would be willing to take such a chance to change the tone in Washington. I’m not certain Ryan is fairly characterized as “hard” or “far” right. I think he is a guy with some ideas that might work; he seems to be more committed to ideas than partisan bickering. One sign of this might be his desire to avoid the lime-light since as soon as his name is mentioned, one side boxes him and stops listening–the left in this case. I guess that my only point is that Obama will not bring the country together with the same old crap. Do you really want to listen to 4 or 8 years of continued partisan B.S.?
Look, the republicans unjustly savaged Clinton despite the fact that Clinton did lie. The endless effort and distraction the whole episode caused must have taken away from what could have been done during those years. A waste. The right, when it could have been postulating solutions appeared to many to be just punching away. Now consider the Bush years–the payback years–when Democrats appeared to be simply bashing away at a man they didn’t like because he was from the opposite party. I’m certian that many criticisms of the Bush administration had merit–but all of them? And in they way they were expressed?
Obama claimed to America that he was going to put an end to this type of crap, but how can he without some action which would welcome the opposition republicans to govern with him, to work with him to best bring HIS vision into a workable reality? I guess I was just thinking in idealist terms when I mentioned Ryan. But I’d love to have a president I could believe in to.