Who will take on Obama in 2012?

Wasn't it the exact opposite? Wouldn't his political ambition have told him not to raise taxes? By most accounts he went back on that knowing it would hurt him politically because he thought it was necessary.

Anyway, Bush Sr. is probably the most recent example of the chasm between what makes someone a good leader or public servant, and what makes them a good politician. I think he was a pretty average politician, and that -- not his failings as a leader or thinker -- is what cost him. But the dude was still head of the CIA and the President, so it always kind of amuses me when people talk about him as if he's some kind of grand failure simply because he wasn't reelected.

John Adams was a horrible politician, certainly worse than Bush Senior, and history rates him as a pretty good President, and he served only one term. Grant served two terms and is considered today a failed President. Bush's problem wasn't he raised taxes, he pledged in his acceptance speech not to ever raise taxes. I doubt he would have done it if he thought it would cost him reelection. But like he himself said, and his son mastered it, he had a problem with the "vision thing,"

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Got a problem with something I said in my reply to your statement? If so, then spit it out 'cause I haven't the foggest idea what that sentence is about.

Well, you're gonna be pissed with this, then. My original remark was: "Best thing a politician can do is not screw the pooch so badly that he has to admit and apologize for anything."

The key phrase there is "so badly." I assume being a human and more especially a politician he's gonna fuq up--most likely several times. The trick is not to fug up so badly that he has to go hat in hand to the public and say, "I am not a crook," "I did not have sex with that woman," or "I don't know how the hell my car ended up underwater." Everyone makes mistakes. Small ones they can just let slide and hope no one calls them on it. But the disasters when the valet runs down the bride while parking the honeymoon car do involve a screwed-the-pooch appeal for forgiveness.


If you must have an answer to your question, I would suggest George Washington made the least mistakes since he didn't have a predecessor by which to judge him as he practically invented the office of president and was unopposed in his one bid for reelection. Doesn't mean all US citizens loved him, but he was almost totally respected by a grateful nation.

Being governor of Texas is no big accomplishment. After reconstruction, the Texas legislature rewrote the Texas constitution that stripped the govenor of many of the previous powers exercised by the Unionists who held office during reconstruction. Today the Lt. Governor actually has more power than the governor in that he's able to name folks to various government committees. Governor is mostly a figurehead position, since the Lt. Gov. and legislature has the most power and the legislature meets for only 140 days every other year. Also, the way our constitution is set up, almost anything different that the governor or the legislature tries to do requires an amendment to the state constitution, another hold-over from reconstruction (Texas was the last state to be readmitted with full rights years after the end of the Civil War). I think we may have the longest and most amended constitution of any state.

Well heck, if that's true, why do I keep hearing about Perry slashing budgets? Also, when you say the Lt. Governor is actually the one who names people to government committees, does that actually play out as a meaningful distinction in real life, or is it like saying that the Government Accounting Office doesn't actually answer to the White House, even though lots of people there can still informally have them do things they want?

Regardless of all this, the main point was that it's transparently self-serving to try to compare qualifications for President by citing the highest job held by the guy on one hand, and not doing the same with the other.

Let me tell you about my encounters with Poppa George H. when he was running for the US Senate back in the early '70s. I was fresh out of college in my first paid position as a reporter for The Orange Leader in Orange. Tex., down on the Louisiana border in South Texas. George was in town campaigning and was going to be the featured speaker at a dinner that night. So I'm up in his hotel room doing an exclusive interview as he's getting ready for dinner, with him putting on his cuff links, tying his tie. I don't recall all of the things I asked that evening--pretty much the usual sort of politcal interview about various issues. Then as my last question, I trotted out an old chestnut inquiry as to which of the two Democrats seeking nomination for that Senate seat he would prefer to run against. Choices were new-comer Lloyd Bentsen, who I had already interviewed and who didn't impress me much, and Ralph Yarborough, a very popular US Representative who had sponsored the new GI Bill that provided college tuition for Vietnam veterans and for me, too, since I had served in the covered time period although not in Nam. Yarborough had always stood in well with the refinery and chemical plant unions along the Gulf Coast, although Texas is a right-to-work state and unions are relatively rare and not as powerful as in some other closed shop states.

Anyway, Papa Bush answers quickly and enthusiastically, "I want to take on Yarborough because I know I can beat him." And he went on to describe areas in which Yarborough was vulnerable, the primary one being although popular with the Union leaders, the rank and file Joe Sixpacks were pissed with Yarborough because of his anti-war stand. (Sure enough, during the primary they bucked the Union leadership and voted against Yarborough in big numbers, ending his political career). Since I was expecting the usual BS about "whoever wins the Democratic primary, I'm gonna run my race on my own principles, yadda yadda," I was amazed and pleased at his frankness, which gave me a very good story.

Later that evening at the dinner, there was not the usual head table where the guest speaker and all the dignitaries usually sat. Instead there was a chair for Bush at each table. He shook hands with everyone at the table, his staff took pictures and later provide copies of him shaking hands (including a shot of him and my second wife who I was still married to at the time). Then he sat down and asked, "What do you need me to do for you when I get to Washington?" Guy not only listened, he took notes! I'd never seen a politician do that before. He made the rounds of every table while everyone else was eating. Then he went up to the podium to address the crowd. I remember him as being extremely articulate that evening both in my interview and in the later conversations. A lot like Obama when he was running for office.

This was at the time that Nixon had OK'd the "incursion" by US armed forces into Laos (or wherever) to root out the Cong supply dumps and rest camps. Bush said he realized that was not a popular move, but talked of how he thought history would show it was the right decision and he was backing "his president." He was very inclusive, reaching out to all sorts of diverse groups on behalf of the Republican party. He reminded me at the time of the old-line of Rockefeller moderate Republicans, which had seemed to have disappeared from the party under Nixon. Let me point out that most of the people at the dinner were mid-level local execs from the refining and chemical companies, better educated and more sophisticated than the Joe Six-Packs. They and I were really impressed with the guy.

So some months later, the primaries are over. Bush is the Republican candidate and Bentsen got the Democrat nomination and now they're campaigning for real. I meanwhile discovered that I could delay payment on my student loans if I enrolled as a grad student, and I could use the money with a new son. Figured out a way whereby working as a teaching assistant and getting a pass on loan payments and such plus the GI Bill, I could make more money going to school than working, so I and the family went back up to Lubbock to Texas Tech.

And I immediately connected with a bunch of old buddies with whom we used to argue politics a lot. And there's a notice one day that Bush was bringing his campaign in Lubbock and would be speaking at noon to an outside rally in a city park. I told the gang, "Listen, you gotta go hear this guy! He's really a new style of Republican, not one of those 'my country right or wrong' types." So 3-4 of us meet before noon and go down to the park where they have a big flat-bed trailer--the kind you haul drill pipe on--set up. There's a Mariachi band playing and a bunch of young Hispanics in costume dancing. Music stops and they introduce Bush, who is standing at one end of the trailer with Roy Furr, owner of Furr's Cafeterias and an ultra-right-winger that made Attila the Hun seem like a commie.

And Bush proceeds to let loose with the damnest "America-Love it or Leave it" bash I've ever heard. No more "room for different outlooks"--it's our way or the highway. Man, my jaw dropped like that wolf in those old Droopy cartoons. And of course my buddies are giving me the horse-laugh. "New Republican, huh?" It was like a 180-degree turn from what I'd seen in Orange just a few months before.

So I got to thinking, maybe it was because he was unopposed in the Republican primary but is now in a tough race against Bentsen for the real prize. Or maybe it was because he was cuddling up to Roy Furr hoping for a big donation. Maybe he was playing to the "All-American" farm crowd. Or just maybe--and probably more likely--he's just a run of the mill politician who will say whatever he thinks the crowd wants to hear. Everything he said or did for the rest of his political career supported that latter conclusion.

Never met or covered George W. Shrub, but a blind man could see he has less smarts than his daddy and far less integrity than his mom and gave every sign as being just as two-faced as his old man.

Don't know how it is in other states, but in Texas, the governor and lieutentant governor run for office separately. It's not like the president and vice president running on the same ticket. They don't even have to be of the same party.

Don't know what you hear about Perry slashing budgets, but in real life Perry can't slice bread unless he gets legislative approval which is likely to involve a constitutional amendment. That's no joke--a few years ago there was something that Houston city officials were after the legislature to OK and they had to change the constitution allowing Texas municipalities of a certain size to do such and such involving bond sales or something of that sort. The stipulated size, however, meant only Houston qualified, so if Dallas wants to do something similar, they'll have to make another amendment, all of which is tacked onto the Constitution that just keeps growing and growing.

The lieutenant governor actually does have more power because he presides over the Texas Senate and can recognize or ignore speakers at will. Also most (if not all) appointments to state offices go through him, and he's influential in drafting legislation and naming heads of legislative committees, so he does in fact have considerable power and truly more influence over the state government than the governor. You want your brother-in-law to become assistant warden at the state pen or a proposed state highway to cut through a corner of your sister's land, the Lieut is the one to see. The governor can pardon your mother from prison, which was a money-making endeavor for Gov. "Pa" Ferguson in the early 20th century who according to legend had an old horse--some say tied to a tree on the Capitol lawn--that when someone would come to appeal to let a loved one out of state prison, "Pa" would ask, "How much do you think that horse down there is worth." The appealee would venture a guess, and Pa would respond, "Oh, I'm sure it's worth more than that." The dickering would continue until they agreed on a suitable price and Pa would then sign a pardon. They eventually threw Pa out of office at which time "Ma" Ferguson became our first female govenor, extending the horse's high-paying career.

Unlike states of New York and such, the Texas governorship has never been a stepping stone to higher political office, nor has being mayor of the state's largest city, be it Houston, San Antonio, or Corpus Christi, each of which have held that distinction at various times. Johnson made his jump as the first president from Texas from his Senate seat (they amended the constitution that year so he could run for both Vice President and Senator on the same ballot. John Nance Gardner became the first Texas VP under Roosevelt also from Congress (the House, as I recall).

You lost me on this one, Yoda. I was just commenting that governor of Texas is no great training ground for politics or administration.

I believe it varies. Here in Pennsylvania they can also be of different parties. This happened very recently; when our Lt. Governor passed away, a Republican succeeded her even though the Governor (Ed Rendell) was a Democrat.

I'm pretty sure every Governor needs legislative approval for most such things. But if anything, the hoops you're describing would seem to make for better job training to be President than the alternative.

The state Constitution stuff is certainly exceptional, though. But it seems to work; Texas has had tremendous economic success and it just keeps growing.

Well, I don't know if you read the post I was replying to when you replied to it, but it was in response to Dexter making an unfavorable comparison between the two Bushes because one was head of the CIA, and the other ran a baseball team. To which my reply is: he was also Governor, which is obviously the appropriate job to cite if you want to make a comparison of qualifications. That's all.

I made a mistake, Yoda, screwed the pooch big time, so here's my mia culpa and correction.

Looked it up to make sure after I posted and found the gov. has more appointive powers and the lieut less than I remembered from Texas Civics 40-odd years ago.

Here's a more reliable run-down of the respective powers:

http://www.ltgov.state.tx.us/duties.php

http://www.ehow.com/list_5950740_duties-governor-texas.html?ref=Track2&utm_source=ask

I would submit, however, that with both his legislative and administrative powers, the lieut has more hands-on power in state government than the governor who has to rely on the legislature to pass the budget he submits. The governor's biggest power is that of the veto, whereas you can see the lieut has much more influence over the legislature especially in things like his membership on the redistricting committee that the governor lacks.

"If you must have an answer to your question, I would suggest George Washington made the least mistakes since he didn't have a predecessor by which to judge him as he practically invented the office of president and was unopposed in his one bid for reelection. Doesn't mean all US citizens loved him, but he was almost totally respected by a grateful nation"

Washington's biggest mistake, and it was before he became President, was promoting Benedict Arnold.

Well, Romney gave his speech. Reading about the bacground, how he made a mistake not discussing earlier his Moromon faith, I completely had forgotten about that. It is amazing to me any Republican would think that was a big deal. His sudden born again right wingerism should have been the concern, not his faith.

I hear way more talking about whether or not conservatives will be upset with his Mormonism than I do actual conservatives mentioning it. Which is to say, I've literally never spoken to anyone who cited it as a problem.

Not really, because the Arnold Washington and most of the colonists knew was not the one we read about. What made it so bad about him selling out to the British was that he was a major hero in the war before that.

He made one long trek into eastern Canada to attack a British garrison there for its cannon. If I'm remembering my history right, the commander of the colonists was killed and Arnold took over and took the fort or at least the fort's commander. (haven't looked at a history book in a long time, but I think the rebel commander had started over a gate to enter the British fort and was shot dead. Now here's the American force outside the fort gate and have just seen their leader killed trying to get over, so nobody wants to be the one to try that again. That's when Arnold as second in command goes over the top, drops inside the fort and opens the gate for his men. The guy was as tough and brave as they come.)

There was another Canadian adventure where Arnold had soldiers build and man a warship on one of the Great Lakes to engage a British warship. At one point he led a raid into Canada on the other side of one of the lakes--can't remember the name of the town but the colonists sacked it and then set fire to it. Think they clashed with a British unit there, some of whom got away and ran for help. The thing I best remember is Arnold saw all of his men off in the landing boats, keeping just one boat and crew behind. He then rode to the other end of the burning town and sat there on his mount until the British forces were approaching, at which time he turns his horse and gallops back through town as some of the British cavalry charge after him. He rides to the dock , steps off his horse and shoots it so the British can't have it, steps into the boat and gets away with British shot splashing around him.

There was another key battle in which the leader of the colonists had put Arnold under house arrest or otherwise gotten him out of the way because of some disagreement over who should be in command or how the battle should be fought. Anyway, at some point Arnold mounts his horse and rides off against to witness the battle he's not supposed to be in, arriving in time to stop the retreat of some colonial troops, turn them around, and lead a charge that won the fight. It was at that time Arnold was shot in the leg, resulting in him being off duty in Philadelphia for a long while, where he met and married a young woman although she and her family were collaborators with the British. It was she who talked him into deserting the American cause for money and a commission in the British army.

After joining the British, Arnold once asked an American captive what his fellow countrymen would do if they lay hands on him (Arnold). The captive replied, "We would cut off your wounded leg and give it an honorable burial, and then we'd hang you like the dog you are."

It was because he was such a hero and for a long time a real patriot of the rebel cause that Washington placed him in command of the West Point fort which he tried to give over to the British.

Well, we find out at 8:00 tonight if Huckabee's running. I'm not really sure what I want on this front. I like him okay, and incredibly, he actually seems like he'd be among the frontrunners if he ran. The downside for me is that, well...I don't love his economic positions. If he'd ditch the Flat Tax proposal I'd be on board, I suppose, but he's not the kind of candidate that excites me. So I'm torn between a) the fact that he, as a candidate, would probably give us a better chance to win, at least if the early polls are to be believed and b) the fact that I'd like him less as President than a handful of the other nominees.

Lucky for me I don't have to choose, I guess.

I'll take bets he will not get the nomination and if he does Obama wins in a walk. He is a very nice man, but he is not going to be President.

I'm surprised you don't like the flat tax.

It' is hard to handicap the race because we don't know for sure who is in. Right now my money is on Romney, but he is not Mr. Excitement and he still looks like the guy with the finger in the air trying to figure out which way the wind is blowing. All of his problems are self inflicted. If he didn't make a cold political decision to completely remake himself as a conservative last time he would have gotten the nomination. The problem wasn't he changed some of his positions. It was he did it wholesale and practically overnight. Ronald Reagan used to be Democrat, but he had a slow conversion and before he entered politics. McCain was smarter, fudge a little here and there, but don't be a total flip-flop.

Huckabee won't be taking his talents to Washington.

This really is an uninspiring field.

The freakshow candidates- Trump, Bachmann, Gingrich, Palin- cannot win the presidency. Does that mean they can't win the nomination? Yes, I think so- as long as the election projects to be the slightest bit competitive. The Republicans might treat themselves to some red meat if they think there is no possible way Obama can win, or if they think there is no possible way he can lose.

Obviously Ron Paul can't win, nor can Johnson or Cain.

Romney is the clear frontrunner, which is a terrible position for him. He has so many weaknesses and is so ill-adept at dealing with them, and even his superficial profile- pristine establishment candidate- is exactly wrong if any of the anti-establishment mood of last year remains in the Republican party. As the favorite, he'll be the target for all the others, and if they have anything about them, it's hard to see him surviving.

It would be interesting to see Giuiliani run (he keeps hinting he will, but no one seems to believe him), but only to see if he can possibly run anything near as awful a campaign as he did last time.

Of the people who seem at all likely to run and are not total no-hopers, that seems to leave Pawlenty, maybe Daniels or Huntsman. Very hard to say which it may be with them being untested at this level, with little evidence on whether they can run a presidential campaign at all. I'd have to wait to see who gets at least some momentum before having any confidence, but at the moment I suppose Pawlenty is the most established in the race, so he'd be my stab in the dark.

I think Huckabee could have been President; the "nice guy" thing worked for Jimmy Carter, and don't let the folksy fool you: Huck is a fantastic natural politician. Makes even off-the-cuff answers sound rehearsed and refined. But, of course, he's not running. A couple weeks ago I didn't think he would; today's leaks made it sound like he was, so I was pretty steeled for a "yes" tonight.

Re: the Flat Tax. I don't think it's horrible, I just think one of the things people tout most about it -- that it would be much simpler -- isn't really true. I'm all for tax reform, and the tax code can be a lot simpler than it is, but it'll never be that simple, nor should it be. If it's that simple it'll only be because the government has stopped offering tax incentives, which means it's gotten completely out of the business of encouraging useful things, like business investment. Even if it were simpler in the short term, it wouldn't last.

With Huck out I say the last big piece of truly up-in-the-air news is whether or not Daniels runs. If he does I think I give him a slight nod over Pawlenty. If he doesn't, I think Pawlenty takes it.

I think Daniels has the better shot at winning the general, of the two, though. He's exactly the kind of candidate I was saying I wanted us to run against Obama over a year ago. Numbers-oriented and competent.

I have a simple taxing system: flat resultant income. Everyone takes home the same pay.

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Aye. Huckabee wasn't without his problems or potential flaws in his record...they just seem way, way smaller than the ones most of the other candidates have.