A Brief Analysis

I watched the Republican debate last night.  I want you to know that I did so at great risk to my personal well-being.  Let me just get the obvious out of the way: I am a recovering conservative, which means watching the Republican debate is a bit like a 15 year AA vet going to Mardi Gras.  I remember the reasons why I used to think the way of Reagan and Bush the elder, and even Bob Dole in his failed attempt at derailing Slick Willy Clinton, was the best way forward for this great nation of ours.  What I have come to believe is flawed is the central premise of conservatism as it exists in the nation right now.  That premise is, as clearly as I can make it out, that the individual person is the only clearly inviolable and sovereign entity in our society.  This can be given a context of personal responsibility and positive collective action by those who are willing to walk that walk, or it can be reduced to an extremely short sighted (to the point of naivety) selfishness.  Before last night, I was not sure there was any example of the most positive aspect of that philosophy, today I suspect there might be, but I'm still not a hundred percent sure.  So let's walk through a (sort of) brief cast of characters.  I'm going to go in ascending order of functional adulthood, leading up to the one I would pick if you put a gun to my head.

Let's start with the stooges.

Ben Carson:  I am not implying that Carson is unintelligent, in fact, he may be the most intelligent person on the stage.  After all I would hope that someone who is capable of performing brain surgery would be pretty sharp. But intelligence is not enough for the job that we're talking about here.  Carson seems pretty lost when it comes time to actually defend some of his nutty ideas.  And I say nutty ideas even by the standards of the other people on the stage.  All of the serious politicians on the stage look at Ben as though he is sort of benighted, and I'm not sure they're wrong, at least politically he doesn't seem to have much of a clue. A while ago, I'm pretty sure I would have ranked Carson above Trump and Fiorina, but not now, his lack of a clue has become too obvious.

Carly Fiorina: Ms. Fiorina has made some noise in the early going.  I'm assuming because people were so enamored with the idea of trotting a female candidate out against Hillary-zilla that they didn't pay any attention to what she actually thought.  Not the first time someone's gender overshadowed the content of their minds, usually it just works the other way around.  Fiorina's critique of "big government" seemed forced, and her attempt at siding with the middle class against the big money interests seemed disingenuous to say the least (former HP CEO).  I don't think Fiorina realizes that the stakes are ratcheting up at this phase and people are actually going to start thinking about the statements she makes and the claims she tosses out there.  Which leads me to...

The Donald:  I know it kind of surprised me when he wasn't the first or even the second name I typed under the category of stooges.  Trump makes vague promises of grand plans, but provides zero evidence or logic or even a framework of a plan.  Trump uses the phrase, "many things," way too often to be trusted, and he is patently unwilling to provide us with any evidence as to what these "many things" are.  I get the distinct impression that Trump is used to being able to buffalo and obfuscate his way around difficult things like reason.  He does seem to be learning to turn the crazy down just a little bit and seem a tad more like an actual person than a cartoon character.  He's still ahead in the polls, but I think the real politicians are going to get a bead on him pretty soon.

My next category is the Idealogues:

Ted Cruz: Cruz is probably the most dangerous assassin on this list.  Cruz can make his particular brand of toxicity sound sensible and reasonable. He rarely raises his voice or gets emotional.  He keeps his anger under control and is therefore not prone to the sputtering gaffs that can derail an entire campaign (Howard Dean anyone? John McCain even?)  Cruz is a ruthless guy though, he will cut throats to get what he wants.  He is, in short, Richard M. Nixon.  The idea of President Cruz, quite frankly scares me more than President Trump, and not just because of my progressive leanings.  Cruz scares the old, conservative me, because he's so inflexible and calculating. He is absolutely sure that he is right, and that friends and neighbors makes him muy peligroso.

Mike Huckabee: Mike is a preacher, he gives a good sermon, he paints some powerful pictures.  Last night he talked about walking through the charred ruins of America with his two boys, and he wasn't talking about California after the wildfires.  He talked about fighting "The Clinton Machine" for his entire life, and finally he suggested that we solve our healthcare crisis by "simply" curing Diabetes, heart disease, cancer and Alzheimers.  (facepalm) Shucks Mike, why didn't Barack Obama think up that idea?  Let's just stop people from getting sick and then we don't have to worry about health insurance!  Brilliant.  Actually, as a preacher you ought to remember a story about a guy who was able to cure diseases with a word and make everything all better, they crucified him.

Rand Paul: I would almost let Paul into the next category, except for the fact that his ideas are shaky, and he seems to believe them pretty deeply.  But I have some sympathy for Paul, because it would appear that he is at least trying to be a grown up, which as you know, I admire in my politicians.  A few times last night Paul said, "you're going to  have to raise the age," with regard to medicare and social security, and he does seem to understand that fixing things is going to require sacrifice.  This in and of itself is important, because at the bottom of this list there are jesters and clowns who think that snapping their fingers and turning loose the dogs of the free market are like magic solutions to all of problems.  Paul seems to firmly believe that (regulated) free markets are actually better at finding solutions to the big problems, as long as there is a profit motive.  That remains to be seen.

Which brings me to my final category, Legitimate Candidates:

Marco Rubio: Rubio has a big problem: he is too young and he comes across as a bit of a Momma's boy.  His ideas are pretty much the stock Republican dogma of the past fifty years, and he has some real alpha males to fight off if he wants to get to the top.  For some reason, and this is a highly subjective judgment, I just don't like him very much.  He's sort of smarmy and I'm pretty sure Ted Cruz gives him wedgies after gym class.

Jeb Bush: All I really have to say is, please not another Bush.  Jeb seems to have magically developed a severe disdain for government, which would make me question why he wants to run one.  Except I don't really believe anything he says.  The Bush machine is working him like a puppet, and the scary thing is that machine just may have enough gas in it for one more run.  They did get W elected twice, so I'm not writing anything off yet.

Chris Christie: God help me, I like Chris Christie, and I'm not really sure why.  What I think I admire about him is his ability to have moments of clarity.  He can say things that I disagree with, but at least I can see his logic.  He can be funny and disarming, but at the same time you know you can't really trust him.  He has enough independent thinking ability to be a Cowboy fan as the Governor of New Jersey.  I'm not saying being a Cowboy fan is good, merely that it shows a good amount of chutzpah and a willingness to go against the grain.  In short, Christie is like that friend who you think is kind of fun to be around, but whom you also know would totally stab you in the back if it suited his purposes, in other words, he's a politician from New Jersey. Christie is a serious candidate because he is like Billy Clinton, teflon, nothing sticks to him, at least not for long.  He keeps popping back up, and the sheer force of his personality makes us take him back. Caveat Emptor.

John Kasich: If I had to, I could vote for Kasich.  He's a serious man, who has a serious political track record. His ideas creep close enough to a moderate position to at least not make me throw up in my mouth a little.  He also recognizes how screwy and crooked the whole political process is right now. He seems as cranky and angry at the gubmint as some of the others, but there seems to be a middle ground for him between the way things are now and let's blow it up as a reform strategy.  In short, I suppose he is the grown up I was looking for on this side of the aisle. He still seems to have a hostility issue with the media and the idea of government, which makes me wonder if he really could handle the job, but unlike a lot of the others, the more I listen to him the less crazy.  In the rather terrible format of a debate between 10 people, with three moderators who ended up being far too involved and deserving of some of the invective that the candidates launched their way, it's hard to really look sane (Think the Mad Hatter's tea party). I think Kasich actually is, or would be in a general election where he doesn't have to pander quite so much.

Goodness, that was exhausting.  Which leads me to one really solid conclusion: ten candidates is too much.  The GOP needs to weed out some of the mess for this garden to grow.