In Praise of the Endomorphs

Political junkies always look toward the next election cycle more quickly than sane people, and conservatives are waxing optimistic this month as we savor the "shellacking" of the President's party in the late congressional elections.  Meanwhile, we watch in awe as his presidential poll numbers slide inexorably into Carter territory.  The election debacle was compounded by the very public diplomatic failures of the President's Asian trip this month and his administration's ham-handed handling of their message on (not?) extending the Bush tax cuts during the lame duck congressional session.  Such failures tend to build on one another, and, if unchecked by President Obama's willing but demoralized media apologists, can ultimately lead to irreversible public perceptions of incompetence.  It's but a short hop from there to a primary challenge, which no elected incumbent President in the 20th Century has overcome to win re-election.

As gratifying as it would be to see some left wing kook challenge the left wing kook-in-chief who currently occupies the White House, my more immediate interest is in surveying the Republican field of prospective presidential candidates.  The potential GOP nominees are an interesting and ideologically diverse group who pretty much cover the spectrum of conservative ideology, from Hamiltonian to Jeffersonian, libertarian to traditional law and order.   Most exciting, there's no clear front-runner and no past runner-up waiting in the wings for his traditional turn.  In theory at least, the GOP nomination is anyone's for the taking.

My two personal favorites for the GOP nomination at this point are Chris Christie and Haley Barbour, with Jeb Bush a close third.  Each man has unique qualities which would serve him well as President.  Tea partiers and indeed many other Americans have admired New Jersey Governor Christie's brash refusal to be bullied by his state's teachers' union, and they respect his tough budget cutting decisions in the face of great weeping and gnashing of teeth by those who gorge themselves at the public trough.  Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour was a Republican in Mississippi when all the Republicans in Mississippi could meet in a phone booth in Southaven with room to sit down, and there's a widespread belief amongst the GOP cognoscenti that his Republican Governors' Association fundraising arm saved Republican bacon this election cycle from Michael Steele's incompetence.  Finally, I'd be remiss if I didn't include Jeb Bush in a list of conservative presidential prospects whom I admire.  The Bush brand is further rehabilitated with each passing day of the Obama administration, and Jeb has always been the more conservative and more articulate of the Bush brothers.  If he wants to run he's an instant contender.

On a personal and admittedly shallower note, it's nice to see these accomplished and talented achievers, who clearly enjoy pizza or a burger as much and as often as I do, emerge as unapologetic defenders of a conservative worldview.  Some might doubt whether husky guys such as Christie, Barbour, and even Bush can connect with image-obsessed voters in a media age, but I suspect their images will serve them well when they are compared with an arrogant skinny-legged professorial incumbent who wears pressed blue jeans and throws like a girl and tends to talk down to anyone who disagrees with him.

For us political junkies, 2010 is history and it's on to 2012!  In the meantime, I wish a Happy Thanksgiving to every one.