Earnestly trying to win from obscurity would be too much work. Getting millions of dollars of free pub and possibly leveraging "spoiler" status into a Cabinet Secretarial or Senior Advisory position ("Special Needs Czar" or something), or even just laying the groundwork for '16 would be too tempting to pass up. Furthermore, the prospect of her as a potential VP is less "frightening" with a non-geriatric nominee.
I love that first plot from 538 (and also Carl Herrera's), but: * Gingrich is less of a perceived insider than... anyone? * LOL @ Santorum and Bachman's "conservative" rating. Must be a logarithmic plot in that region. * Had no idea anyone rated Palin's chances that good. But a very smart politically active friend from NC said it's Palin's if she wants it. "Finish second in Iowa, and she'll blow everyone away in South Carolina." Totally unreal and disturbing. Need to vote in a basic IQ test for the presidency, but that would fall along party lines I guess.
From the point of view of a Democrat, nothing would please me more than to see Palin at the top of the GOP ticket. I'll be very surprised if she is, however.
I don't understand the enthusiasm from Democrats about the possibility of Palin being nominated. Call me crazy, but I care more about keeping the mentally unfit woman as far away from power as possible than I do about Obama winning another term. Sure, her nomination might give Obama his best chance of winning, but you never know what could happen. In November 2012, I don't want there to be even the slightest chance that Palin ends up in the Oval Office.
I liked this little review of CPAC speeches from the BBC. They go potential candidate by potential candidate, have two reactions from young republicans and then have a blurb by a more established political correspondent. Mitch Daniels and Pawlenty seem to have done well. I don't know much about Daniels. Of course, I'm hoping the GOP nominates a more financial-issue person than social-issue person.
From what I know of Daniels, he's a sane fiscally-responsible, don't-care-about-divisive-social-issues Republican that I really like. But I don't think he has a shot in 2012. I think best case scenario is he's a VP candidate in 2012 and sets himself up as the GOP frontrunner in 2016. The problem there is that being a VP candidate makes you have to become rabid-attacker, and that doesn't fit his non-divisive image. Pawlenty's already gone down that road this past year and gone from fairly rational and become a bit of a nut.
nice video from the GOProud event- I like Sophie B. Hawkins' description of herself, liberal in bed, conservative in the head. <object style="height: 390px; width: 640px"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/bi952nAd8PA?version=3"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/bi952nAd8PA?version=3" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowScriptAccess="always" width="640" height="390"></object>
Are you serious? Is it April 1 already? W's OMB Director is fiscally sane? You like a guy who played a large part in putting our economy where it is now? Sorry Major, but anyone in anyway responsible for the Bush budgets cannot be considered anything but fiscally insane. I take that back. I'll also give you the category of "evil b*stard." He intentionally misled the public and Congress about the costs of the Iraq War. He tried to silence government experts whose estimates were much more realistic and ran counter to the administration's rosy scenario. He wants to privatize government agencies. He's the classic definition of an apparatchik and here you want to make him a statesman? His budget positions, adherence to ideology over facts, and his defense of things W mark him clearly as a divisive politician. He may be playing the "compassionate conservatism" card now to set himself apart from the rest of the yahoos running for the GOP nomination, but don't think he won't turn on a dime if he's in the general and he realizes a little gay bashing or dog whistles to the racists could make a difference.
As far as I know, the OMB Director is not really a policy position. It's the executive office version of the CBO. The OMB isn't deciding tax policy or anything of the sort. I don't know much about this issue, but if the inputs the OMB or CBO get are bad, then the outputs are going to be bad. The OMB is going to rely on military and CIA projections, etc - it can't account for bad execution or anything like that, especially given that the projections were made before the war started. The only actual estimate the OMB made was for 2003 and actually turned out higher than what the war cost that year - and he left the agency in mid-2003. As governor, he's also been willing to propose raising taxes (on the wealthy, in particular). He generated a budget surplus and instead of cutting taxes, he paid down state debt. He did things to expand health care access for uninsured Indiana residents. And he's fairly popular with Democrats. He's not a liberal by any means, but if he were, he wouldn't be part of the GOP. Within the GOP, he is fairly moderate and willing to buck the party line and mix in things that are considered completely unacceptable to the base (raise taxes, expand government, argue against social issues) when it makes sense for the state. The GOP could learn a lot from him. That may be - but I'll give him the chance to actually do that before criticizing him for doing that. As of now, he's taken a position that's very unpopular with the base of the GOP, and I'll give him credit for that.
OMB is absolutely policy. First, all agencies/departments have to run everything through OMB... for example, no person working in the Executive branch testifies before Congress without that testimony (and person) being vetted and approved by OMB . Another... OMB writes "Statements of Policy" that inform Congress on the view of the President regarding pending legislation. Second, and just as, if not more, important, budget is policy. How much a policy gets implemented is directly related to how much it is funded. Also, please note that the OMB Director sits on the National Security Council and the Homeland security Council. I believe that probably qualifies as uber-policy. Here's a quick blurb from wiki on OMB's mission... That's policy. That's big time policy. He wasn't just a numbers guy. He was charged with making sure agencies carried out W's vision of government. I have no particular stake in the "social issues" pronouncements of this guy because since we've heard this before from a number of hacks like W and Lindsey and McCain and it never makes a difference. We all know how this plays out should he get the nom. However, I totally reject the notion of this guy as a fiscally sane Republican. There's no such thing these days and to proclaim W's OMB Director as one is in itself insanity.
Being responsible for agencies carrying out W's vision is the definition of administration, not policy. The decision to pursue tax cuts was made before Daniels was even hired. No one consulted Daniels about whether we should invade Iraq. His job is to primarily provide data on how much the policy would cost. Then other people decide whether they care or whether to push that policy. He's no more responsible for those decisions than Orszag is for the final health care bill. He can provide some guidance and basic numbers, but ultimately it's a political decision that he's not involved in. His job is then to simply implement or administrate what is decided. If that's your standard, then there's not really much to discuss. I know plenty of fiscally sane Republicans. You've painted 100 million people with a brush without considering any specifics.
It's obvious you don't know much about OMB. And in fairness, it is one of those agencies that does a lot of business outside the public eye. If you're in government and anywhere above a GS-12, it's very apparent that OMB is very much policy. They shape it, they vet it, they fund it, they decide it, they enforce it. Fine. Show me one Republican that casual followers of national politics would recognize who is fiscally sane. Is there one you can name who came out against the continuation of the Bush tax cuts? Is there one who doesn't think tax cuts should count against the deficit? Is there one who is on record as saying trickle down economics is a sham? Is there one who hasn't voted for or repeatedly supported policies that got us where we are now? A Senator? I can't think of one. A Congressman? Ha! A governor? Maybe there's someone I'm not familiar with, but I can't think of anyone right now. A Fox news contributor? Please. An ex-mayor? Well... (And using the contrary, like Ron Paul, does not count... he's nuts on fiscal policy too, just in a different way.) And if you can name one now, where were they during the W years?
Anyone who might fit this description is buried at the bottom of the Republican pile with the word "RINO" stamped on their forehead.
Allen West's speech, starts around 9 min in. <object style="height: 390px; width: 640px"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/DnwJDCK1rk8?version=3"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/DnwJDCK1rk8?version=3" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowScriptAccess="always" width="640" height="390"></object>
