« BACK  |  PRINT

RS

MEMBER DIARY

I’m endorsing three candidates [Updated]

By: kowalski (Diary)  |  December 20th, 2011 at 09:18 PM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

[I made a couple of minor edits and fleshed it out a bit more.  The overall arc is the same.]

Here is where I go off the rails and tell people that I’ve finally decided on which candidate I like the best and tell them whom to vote for.

I’ve decided to endorse three of them, in this order:

1) Rick Perry, current Governor of Texas
2) Mitt Romney, former Governor of Massachusetts and…
3) Newt Gingrich, the former Speaker of the House of Representatives and general Idea Man About Town and Bon Vivant.

I’ve thought a long time about this recommendation and I hope you will too.  They’re in the order I prefer, and you’ll notice that I’m not and never have been a Redstate front-pager.  I understand why their order might be different than mine.   Redstate has a self-imposed duty to support unwavering pro-life candidates and people with impeccable Conservative records.  That’s their imprimatur as a blog and an adjuvant to Human Events and I understand the demands of their mandate.  But as a longstanding user here, someone who the Editors tolerate with various degrees of hilarity and/or disgust, I can differ from them time to time without suffering the Spiked Pipe(tm).  And therefore I will do so now:

Rick Perry is my #1 choice right now because I think he’s actually the least compromised and most truly bonafide Conservative candidate in the race.   He had a couple of missteps in the early debates but everything since then has been wonderful.  He is going to be the only candidate I donate money to in this election cycle.  I’m supporting him with cash.  Not much, but he’s the only candidate I’m supporting with cash.  Romney and Gingrich have enough already, and I want more than anything else to see Rick Perry make this a contest.

In the end I trust Rick Perry more than I do either Romney or Gingrich when it comes to the things I care about as a Republican/Conservative.

This is not fealty to Redstate:  I’ve liked Perry from the beginning and the only thing that upset me were his bobbles in the earlier debates.  He screwed up a little but it was no big deal to me.  After watching him debate several times now I still think where he’ll find his moment in is the one-on-one contest with the guy whose job he wants to take.  He wants to debate the One, not the Others, so to speak.

Among the last two candidates I think are viable, I pick Romney over Gingrich.  To some of you, knowing that I live in Massachusetts that’s not much of a surprise, but believe me – it’s a surprise to me.  I’ve had nothing but time to assess his tenure as governor here now that Deval Patrick is our governor, and my verdict is that I would take Romney back tomorrow if he wanted to be Governor again.  PLEASE.  Yes, Romneycare sucks in Massachusetts and I *still* pick him over Gingrich.  Why?  Because I really think he’s learned more than anyone else in the past five years.  People are going to look at me and throw shoes and say, “Kowalski, you schmuck, you’re just a starry eyed optimist” but I still think he’s a better and more stable candidate than Gingrich who can get things done against an *almost overwhelming* opposition.  I have no real *oomph* for Gingrich.  I’m sorry but I don’t.  I look back at his record and I read the people who won’t endorse him now, and they’re the people who knew him best.  You can hate on Ramesh Ponnuru but he’s no flake and if it came down to having someone on *my* side in a bad debate scenario, you’d better believe I’d want Ramesh in my corner.

So Romney is my fallback candidate of choice — and believe me — people can lick their wounds and learn to live with him as the President here on the Right.  He’ll be great with a legislature that holds his feet to the fire in particular.  He’ll also do a great job on the world stage for America, because he’s not going to trip over his words, he’s not going to make mincemeat out of the English language, he has a great looking family, and as far as those things are concerned I don’t have any doubt he’ll meet anyone in the world eye-to-eye with no problem.  And I don’t want to hear any more about people fired from Bain Capital:  that’s part of the job.  Romney is a careful and thoughtful man, and he’ll do *very* well with a legislature behind him that keeps his toes warm.  Romney lived with the most single-party state legislature in the country and did a pretty good job from the other party.  He didn’t waver on the 2nd Amendment even though there was a lot of pressure for him to do so.  The key thing about Romney is that, yes – it’s true to a certain extent: he does change his positions according to political calculations, but if we have a strong legislature behind him, that will do a lot of good.  Romney really wants this job and my educated guess is that he’s going to be a very accessible President to the people who were able to overcome their doubts and work productively with him.   He wants to be a success, and he knows America has to succeed for him to be a success if he wins.

I don’t know of anyone personally who can learn to live with Gingrich in Massachusetts, but I guess people think someone can, so I’ve had to reassess him.  The time goes back a long way.  I’ve had to discard a lot of things I thought I knew about him.  I apologize for my most memorable “memory” of him, which was planted there erroneously.  Who is he?  Who would he be?  He’d be a Philosopher-President with a hardcore Engineering sensibility, and I mean that in terms of real Engineering, not social Engineering.   Very gabby and talkative, at times in several different directions.  Sometimes captivatingly so, and he’s very far from clueless.  He’s someone who talks with people with his ideas, who tries to persuade them with the power of his ideas as a leader, occasionally making use of the Bully Pulpit to do so - and convincingly – a lot of the time.  He doesn’t mind conversations with people - he really *is* smart enough to make his case and think around most of the potential obstacles, most of the time.  I can really see Newt Gingrich using the Oval Office address effectively again (to a lesser extent Romney also).  In terms of other things — Is he a person who truly loves America?   Someone who wants to see America succeed?  A guy who knows how the sausage is made in Congress?  Someone who isn’t going to show up there wet behind the ears as the Executive?  Newt Gingrich is all those things, too.  **I** can definitely live with a guy like that as our President.  He’s always said that if the moment was there, he’d be ready for it.  So I’ll give him the chance, too.

All that has passed is past.  At some point the statute of limitations on mistakes has to be invoked.  Newt’s wives don’t bug me.  The fact that political cartoonists find him easy to caricature doesn’t influence my thinking by one iota.  Romney’s adventure with the Massachusetts Legislature doesn’t bother me.  Let us all look toward the future.  You go to war with the army you have, not always the army you want.

So there it is.  Hurl the substantive matters at me now so I can debate them with you, and I’ll do my best.  My hope and money is with Rick Perry, there’s $50 in that, my safety is with Romney, and my last best choice is Gingrich.  I can learn to live with him if you Gingrich guys can learn to live with Romney in that eventuality.

My sincere belief/suspicion is that Romney will be the nominee.  In that case I am going to be proven wrong on #1, passably right on #2, and right on #3, also.  As far as spending $50 on Rick Perry’s campaign, if I lose, I couldn’t lose the $50 supporting a better guy.  We’ll see what happens.

I will also say that I’ve tried to read as many thoughtful people’s accounts of these folks as our nominee as I could.  And the Washington Times was wrong:  it’s not like stuffing a cat into a trash can, it’s like trying to flush a cat down the toilet.

There are a whole list of people who I will not accept as President.  I’m not an elitist:  I don’t even have a car I can drive right now.  The elitists have their picks, I have mine and until I become an official member of the Elite (which I’m sure I’ll let everyone know when the transition occurs) those are my picks, in that order.

Out of all these three, my biggest doubt about Gingrich comes down to what I fear is a tendency on his part to 1) Micromanage and 2) Lose Interest.  I’m worried that he’s a quick study and that he won’t follow through.  That’s why he’s last on my list.

In the end, I want to impel everyone who reads this to think carefully, balance it all out, and vote for the person you really think is the overall best to lead our country during these weird and strange and dangerous times.  I think a vote for any of these three men wouldn’t be wasted.  Governance is a continuous process and life never stops moving.  We can work with these three people better than anyone else, none of them have two heads, and most of the one head each of them have is pretty damn good.  They are all my pick for President (but I do have a preference).   :)

Get Alerts

COMMENTS

POSTING RULES  |  LOGIN TO COMMENT  |  REGISTER TODAY
  • carolina

    Though I would flip your 2 & 3. My biggest problem with Romney is that he represents the statist GOP political elite, and he has the weakest economic growth (tax) plan.
    As long as our candidate defeats BO, I will be happy enough. Oh, we need to get control of the Senate also!

    • APA Guy

      I genuinely believe that Romney would be the dream match-up for Obama. He has serious policy flaws and a record a pet rock could exploit during an election.

  • carolina

    Though I would flip your 2 & 3. My biggest problem with Romney is that he represents the statist GOP political elite, and he has the weakest economic growth (tax) plan.
    As long as our candidate defeats BO, I will be happy enough. Oh, we need to get control of the Senate also!

    • kowalski

      If we wind up with Romney as the nominee, the single most important factor regarding his ability to govern as a Conservative is going to be the composition of the Legislature.

      I don’t think Gingrich has any coattails at all. I don’t know whether he can bring another single seat into Congress for Republicans. Bob Dole just came out and dis-endorsed him.

      Dole is sitting there telling everyone: “NOOOOOOOO! NOOOOOO GINGRICH.”

      I honestly don’t know who to believe. All the statements they make are meaningless in terms of the real reasons they’re making them. That’s why it’s a toss-up.

      • heraklios

        Conservative turnout will be way DOWN with a ROmney nomination COSTING us most of the open Senate seats and a bunch of House seats. The composition of the electorate will be 2008 again (not 2010)

      • kowalski

        And my overall prognosis for Republicans in terms of the Presidency is not very good. I think we’ve broken ourselves up into pieces and everyone wants to claim “authenticity” and frankly, we’re going to lose the Presidential race.

        My gut feeling is that Obama is going to win the 2012 Reelection for President, because the Republicans just can’t mount a serious challenge to him as a unified group.

        And then you’d better damn well be thinking about the legislature, because 4 more years of Obama with no worry about being reelected is going to be a thing to behold, indeed.

        So it’s time people grabbed themselves by the short and curlies and figured out who they really want to be the President. And do it soon.

        • wennejunk

          He?ll be great with a legislature that holds his feet to the fire.

          I want to see a President who will drive the Congress towards decisive action..

          I have close to zero faith that a GOP majority under Romney will drive him anywhere.

          If anything, he’ll provide weak leadership and little of merit will pass a fearful Congress, giving us 4 years of stasis.

          But that’s still better than 4 more of O.

      • jakeofalltrades

        So don’t count on an R congress reigning in Romney – it’s a pipe dream, and the R congress will move left in anticipation of the inevitable midterm flip anyway.

        • tyman

          I’ve been saying this for months. If Romney’s the nominee, I fear that it hurts our chances of keeping the House and retaking the Senate.

          Just look at all of the moderate Republicans who’ve been elected President, then some seismic shift has taken place in the other direction. Hoover, Nixon/Ford, Bush 41 and 43.

          It also happened in Britain with John Major.

          Willard will set conservatism (dare I say ALL Republicans) back for years to come.

          Another fear I’ve had is that if Newt gets the nom, Romney might be his running mate. I hope both are unlikely.

          I think Obama is very defeatable, but my fear is that Romney won’t fire up the base the way Perry will. It will be McCain all over again. As much as I don’t care for Palin, I think she helped McCain get a lot of what he did receive in the vote.

          I think it’s safe to say that if McCain was elected in ’08, no way that the Republicans took control of the House in 2010. Wow, does that seem like a long time ago.

  • beric

    Although I completely disagree.

    My personal endorsements, in order:

    1. Newt Gingrich
    2. Rick Perry
    3. Mitt Romney

    And I appreciate your perspective on getting past the past. We need to listen to Gingrich and make this a positive campaign.

  • axistogrind

    Perry’s actual great record has been obscured by a few things, but mostly by the candidate himself. He has a great record, but that has almost never been the focus of coverage of Rick Perry. We also hear nothing about his military service, because we hear about his soundbyte gaffes. Perry needs to take charge of his message, or he will not break through. I hope the retail politics is working so he can get through to people in other states reviewing his record, which while strongly conservative, is also eminently competent. Perry’s greatest asset, and is one of all great executives, is the ability and intelligence to delegate tasks to capable allies, and has the humility to accept constructive criticism. He has been strongly on message since he brought on the new advisers, and he has been very disciplined. He is an extremely capable executive, and that means something to me. Romney was successful, but I don’t know how or why. Was it because he had access to lots of money, so Bain was going to make money regardless? Texas has been exemplary in how good government should work, and while its not all Perry’s doing, he has fostered an environment in Texas that citizens and business both trust as a good place to live and do business. Texas is still frontier in many places, but also is the place where some of the most sophisticated technology and business in the world originates. Texas by itself would be a powerful nation, and who of the rest of these candidates have more successful experience at running something as vast and diverse as Texas? That’s right, none.

    As far as the others, I like Romney, I think he’s a good guy, and has the country’s interest at heart, but I am still not sure who he is because I think he tries so hard to manufacture himself into who we want him to be. I have a feeling that i would like him, but how would i know? He’s not conservative enough at heart to put a halt to business as usual in the Wall Street-Washington finance-govt complex. Still, I think he could turn the country around; his work with the olympics showed extraordinary organizational skill. It was no small matter in crisis management.

    Newt is- well, I think he could win, but I can’t say I would be proud to have him as president. I don’t ever get the sense that he is truly sorry for how he has handled his domestic situation, and i think the president should be a hopeful figure, aspirational even, and all that newt, I don’t think he will ever be that. I think Newt is newt’s biggest fan, and I am always suspicious of the aims of someone whose biggest fascination seems to be their own presence.

    Perry is the guy, if you can trust him to not lose it on stage when the lights get brighter. I am more settled on that, but I would like to see him in some more debates where he gets some attention. the foxnews debate had already written him off, giving him sideshow questions at best. he needed to inject himself into the conversation, and he didn’t do enough of that to gain more facetime.

    • nancysabet

      the 800 pound political gorilla since he even thought about getting in ? because of PROVEN CONSERVATIVE GOVERNANCE, the Texas record on jobs, and his electoral success (i.e. never lost one).

  • buddyp

    I’m going to take a risk here because (1) I’m new here, (2) I think there’s a tendency here, as throughout the political blogosphere, to reflexively dismiss arguments one makes on the mere basis that he is presumed to be biased or spinning for the candidate he favors, because that is often the case, whereas I try very hard to be objective and call ‘em as I see ‘em even if that means criticizing a candidate I favor or debunking a myth or invalid argument that others put forth to support a policy I also support.

    Perhaps I’d write this as a diary post if my request for a diary had been responded to, but I haven’t gotten a reply yet and I have no idea when I will. It’s been a week or two already.

    So here it is: Of those three, whom I consider the only viable candidates for the nomination, my choice is Romney.

    I choose Romney of those three with such a bad taste in my mouth that it’s almost nauseating. Not because he may turn out to be farther from a pure conservative than Perry. But because I think he’s such a shameless, opportunistic, insincere flip-flopper, including on great issues of conscience (or at least that should be), that he stands out even among politicians, of whom I have a very cynical view generally. Since his last run I have always felt that it would send a bad message to our society to elect such a person president.

    I never thought I’d choose Romney until now, presented with the current choices. And if I vote non-strategically, I may vote for Huntsman. From what I know of him so far, he’s a strong fiscal conservative, seems sensible on foreign policy, has good executive experience, foreign policy knowledge and insights, and general intellect. Although I’m not sure why he hasn’t taken off at all (neither has Santorum for reasons that aren’t related to policy positions or command of the issues or ability to communicate — some guys just don’t click with the media and/or public, I suppose), I think it’s a shame that to some extent Huntsman’s lack of popularity is due to his serving under Obama, his support of civil unions (as a note, I’m a straight guy and uncomfortable with the thought of male homosexuality, but I think they should be able to marry as other couples can), and his having the nerve to say that we should be inclined to defer to the near consensus scientific view on a scientific matter: climate change.

    As for other candidates, Bachmann is ridiculously ignorant or pretending to be, in ways that would be awful for the nation (e.g., she’s so proud of her fight not to raise the debt ceiling, but that would have sent our economy into an awful tailspin.). And she’s a little careless with facts, shall we say (to take a relatively minor but indicative example, her implication on national TV that the HPV vaccine caused retardation simply because some lady she didn’t know said so). Santorum lacks executive experience, and it’s a bad sign of electability that he lost his own state last time out, and also I’m turned off by his anti-gay rhetoric and his emphasis on fighting SSM (a term I dislike, because they don’t want some new institution, a new form of marriage, “SSM”, but rather access to the same institution). Cain was absolutely unacceptable to me due to his alarming (yet proud) ignorance re: foreign policy. Ron Paul is a nutjob whose non-interventionism would cost the U.S. and the world greatly.

    So … why Romney over Perry? Because Romney would (1) be a better candidate with a better chance of winning, due to superior campaigning skills, most notably in debates, interviews, town halls, and other thinking-on-his-feet situations, and also in ability to nuance issues enough to attract more swing voters, and (2) moreover, he’d be a more competent president, because — let’s face it — his knowledge and intellect is in another league vs. Perry’s, and it helps that he’s got substantial (and successful) private sector experience. And (dare I say this on RS?) I even think that insofar as he deviates from pure conservatism, he’ll do so for the benefit of the nation. (ok, please wipe the splattered tomato off your computer screen.) Here’s what I mean: I think he’ll negotiate hard, but also recognize when he’s gotten as much as he can and when the choice is between the best possible deal vs. no deal, and recognize when that best possible deal is better for the nation than no deal. Most notably, I would rather see in the near future some “grand bargain” to very substantially reduce projected deficits (at least vs. CBO’s Alternative Fiscal Scenario) than to continue to see failure to make much “progress” at all on this ticking time bomb.

    Why Romney over Gingrich? First, although he was Speaker, Gingrich has nothing like comparable executive experience to Romney’s, not in the public or private sector. Second, Gingrich is an idea machine with questionable ability to prioritize and to distinguish the practical from the not-so-practical. Gingrich also seems to have the same defective model of mouth filter as Joe Biden, spewing irresponsible, troublesome remarks (Sorry Newt, claiming your just saying something “as a historian” and your statement being true isn’t some slam dunk retort to the charge that saying it causes problems for America). I also think that Gingrich is less electable than Romney. Yes, Gingrich is an exceptionally good communicator in just about every type of forum (debates, interviews, speeches, etc.). But he’s also prone to self-inflicted wounds, and also I think that many female swing voters will find it hard to vote for him given that he cheated on his first two wives and then “traded up” by marrying his mistresses.

    I’m probably leaving out a thought or two, but I probably shouldn’t add to an already very long comment. Again, if I could get my own darn diary, I probably would have posted this there.

    I do want to note, in case anyone is wondering, that I’m a conservative on fiscal policy and national security/foreign policy, and mixed on social issues (conservative on school choice/competition, law & order and opposition to race-based affirmative action; pro-SSM; position on abortion that doesn’t fit with either “side”, but I don’t favor banning early abortions)

    • buddyp

      In my 5th paragraph (starting “I never thought I’d choose Romney…”), first sentence refers to Romney, but rest of paragraph refers to Huntsman. I should have made that clearer.

  • Ausonius

    Perry or MAOBama?

    Assuming Perry does not melt down on stage and suck his thumb:

    Perry could “lose” any debate to MAObama and still win the election, because too many people have lost their trust in BIG BRObama’s personality.

    Any future debate can be won with the phrase “leading from behind” and by quoting Fearless Leader’s own words back at him, full of deception, excuses, whining, hatred, and class warfare, all destroying America as a place of opportunity and success and second, third, and fourth chances.

    And just a reminder: people who heard Nixon debate Kennedy on the radio polled as believing Nixon had won. The TV audience went for Kennedy.

    And remember that Kennedy might have lost the general election without that somewhat proven election fraud in Illinois and Texas.

  • kowalski

    And thanks to the Editors for letting me do so:

    Out of all these three, my biggest doubt about Gingrich comes down to what I fear is a tendency on his part to 1) Micromanage and 2) Lose Interest. I?m worried that he?s a quick study and that he won?t follow through. That?s why he?s last on my list.

    You want to know what really makes me pause and stop about Newt? That’s it – right there. He’s an extremely bright guy but the problem is that I’m not convinced he has follow-through. I’m not convinced he won’t get mercurial when something doesn’t go his way and lose interest in it. I respect and admire his mind and his capacity for a truly broad-spectrum grasp of issues that intertangle with each other, but at the same time I’m wary that he loses interest once he’s “figured it out” for himself.

    I don’t have the same doubt about either Romney or Perry. Different personalities entirely.

    • kowalski

      I’m very worried about his potential to become a micromanager for precisely the same reason he believes so much in his own intelligence, in his own capacity. It’s not the end of the world for me but it *is* something I’m concerned about having watched (and lived with) Executives who have similar minds.

      • westcoastpatriette

        and I concur. I have actually wondered if he has a touch of adult ADD. People associate it with children but it can follow one into adulthood.

        With respect to the micromanaging, that worries me, too, and it shows itself when he makes comments like he thinks kids should be cleaning their schools in lieu of the janitors…??? I want a president who will abolish the Dept. of Ed. not micromanage it from Washington.

        • beric

          Perhaps that’s why I like Newt so much?

          • westcoastpatriette

            and he is the most brilliant, talented musician I have ever had the pleasure of working with. His is more severe than what I think I see in Newt but in any event, it must be difficult to cope with and I admire people who learn to compensate and work around it anyway.

          • http://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com nathanalbright

            He has to accept personal responsibility for his conduct and not try to blame all of his mistakes away on a disease. The same is true for the rest of us–we have to own up for our record, and if he can’t manage that, he doesn’t deserve our support for POTUS. I agree that Newt’s lack of focus and tendency to micromanage are major limitations, as is his arrogance, as far as I am concerned.

        • Tbone

          It kept him from paying attention during his wedding vows.

          • westcoastpatriette

            nada

          • buddyp

            Or as I put it, if Newt had Perry’s memory, he would forget his third wife.

          • Tbone

            he wouldn’t have to remember that he has a third wife.

        • kowalski

          I just think that has brain that’s more capacious than average by a little more than a standard deviation and he has a lot of priorites he juggles, ideas he’d like to see happen, and hypotheses that he enjoys testing. He likes to propose ideas and sketch them out and see whether people “get” them.

          There’s nothing wrong with that at all, he’s got a very active mind. The thing I worry about is that two things will happen:

          1) He’ll micromanage some things that he shouldn’t
          2) He’ll lose interest in some good ideas because the next one comes along and pushes it out place, before he really took the time to flesh it out.

          I will say that I think he has matured a lot. He seems to realize these pitfalls a lot more than he used to.

          Being the President is the toughest job in the world because you have to know when to be engaged, how much to be engaged, and when to take your hands off of things. The power of a President in terms of his or her raw “political capital” exists in proportion to the degree to which they understand which battles to fight and how much effort to apply in fighting them, and when. They have to choose. The choices they make are Big. They have to make consistently better choices than anyone in the world, making Big choices. It’s a tough job.

          This is true of any President or Presidential candidate, but Gingrich in particular gives me a few worries that I just don’t have with other people. I don’t think he’s got any kind of mental illness at all; I think he’s just fine considering all the things that are going on inside that noggin of his at any given moment. The question is, as always, is he the guy we can agree to support? I’m sure if he wins, he’ll annoy me sometimes, but I don’t think he’s ill in any way.

          • kowalski

            Because after all we’re talking about the United States of America – and everyone second-guesses you, and the volume of that second-guessing has increased by several orders of magnitude in the past 10-15 years.

            I really wonder whether any of the Founding Presidents would want the job if they were brought into the 21st Century and saw our postmodern political messaging and commentary system firsthand. I think they’d be scared to death.

    • spainishirish

      The Speaker could prove a terrible president. We have one flawed professor in office now, and we don’t want one with our party’s name attached.