Nate Silver – in a piece entitled “Is Jeb Bush Too Liberal To Win The Republican Nomination In 2016” – answered the question halfway, after providing a nifty visual of Republicans rated (according to Silver’s choice of ratings on indices: voting records, donor base and public statements on the issues.
Here’s the list:
Quibble with the methodology if you want (Mike Huckabee is not “to the right” of Rick Perry or Bobby Jindal, much less Ronald Reagan).
But it does provide an interesting jumpoff point for a conversation; is the GOP screwing up again with the “Jeb is Inevitable” meme?
The whole point behind John McCain was his “electability”. Ditto, to an extent, Mitt Romney – both of whom, you may recall, lost.
As Limbaugh put it yesterday:
So we are, in a blog here at FiveThirtyEight, we’re ranking Jeb Bush against four other men who have lost or failed to succeed in getting a nomination or did get the nomination but lost the election. Now, isn’t there a lesson there? The establishment keeps telling us, “No, no, no, you Tea Party people, look at what happened to Barry Goldwater, we’ll get creamed. You people are extremist kooks! America thinks the Tea Party is a bunch of kooks, and if we have a nominee coming from you, why, we’re gonna get creamed. We’re gonna have a landslide like Goldwater.”
And, of course, the retort is, “Yeah, well, the people you are nominating, I don’t see a W next to their names at the end of the process. You guys can cite one: Barry Goldwater. We can cite every one of your nominees. They lose, every one of them.” But, nevertheless, the process continues here to rank Jeb and other Republicans on this imaginary chart of conservatism.
Upshot: the more I watch Scott Walker, the more I like him.
So a 65% conservative Goldwater can’t win, and a 35% conservative Romney can’t win, but 45% conservatives Reagan and Bush The Younger can win. And that was before The Light Bringer opened peoples’ eyes. I’m looking at 45-55% as being pretty electable, right about now. Hello, Walker.
I wonder what the equivalent graphic for the Dems would look like?
It is an article of faith with many on the Left that the GOP has grown more conservative since the 1970s.
Both parties were dramatically transformed in the 1960s and 70s. The GOP trailed the changes in the Democrat party. 1968 changed everything for the D’s, in ’72 they nominated peacenik McGovern for the presidency. The GOP nominated moderate Republicans — Nixon and Ford — until Reagan came along. People talk about Bill O’Reilly as though he were the heart and soul of conservatism. Nonsense, O’Reilly is a displaced blue collar democrat (or that is the role he plays, anyhow). There were a lot of Democrats like O’Reilly in the 1960s.
I guess I have a hard time believing G.W. Bush is somehow more conservative than Ronald Reagan, which skews the list for me. But as a starting point, it is interesting.
Walker’s amnesty position is very troubling and he released a TV ad related to abortion during the Wisconsin campaign that he is frankly going to have to explain if he runs for President. That said, without a conservative at the top of the ticket, the Republicans can forget 2016.
States that had common sense leaders, like Wisconsin, will be on the hook for $0 when Obamacare state exchanges start imploding, as they already are.
No one saw that writing on the wall sooner than Scott Walker. No one has been more successful in sending greedy union bosses to the showers than Scott Walker and no one has slapped down more attacks from the insane left than Scott Walker.
For that reason, there is no Governor hated more by the left, and no potential candidate with less incentive to “reach across the isle”.
He’s my guy.
Colonel, no President can do anything more to stamp out legalized infanticide than nominate conservatives to the federal bench and the SCOTUS. I’m confident Walker’s list will impress us all.
Interesting that Ms. Rice has a combined average score, but no individual scores. Seems like a “we think it belongs here” choice.
Q: “On a scale of 1 to 10, how conservative is Rand Paul?”
A: Zaphod Beeblebrox
Of course he’s got a very conservative voting record when compiled by far leftist wonks who view anything other than fully funding and expanding the government as low-brow, knuckle dragging conservatism. Dirty Harry Reid didn’t let anything come up that involved social liberty during the last few sessions to try and conserve Red State Demonrat senators; not that it did them any good.
I’ve written these articles on Scott Walker’s presidential viability:
http://www.examiner.com/article/scott-walker-s-presidential-stock-rising
http://www.examiner.com/article/scott-walker-gop-frontrunner
When I wrote this article before the election, it included some of the reasons why I think he’d be formidable in a presidential election:
http://www.examiner.com/article/why-scott-walker-will-win
Finally, can we establish 2 rules for the GOP nomination? First, the GOP can’t nominate a senator who’s never run anything. Next, the GOP can’t nominate a candidate who doesn’t excite the base.
Competent doesn’t bring a rush of volunteers. Next-in-line doesn’t get the heartland excited.
A Walker–Brownback team for 2016 will make America great again.
I just wish he didn’t remind me of Conrad Dobler.