A republican primary pre-mortem.

I know I know. your thinking the title is supposed to say POST mortem not PRE mortem, because you cant examine something untill its dead. to which I say, you clearly havnt been watching the unofficial republican primary for 2016.

I truly believe and have stated previously that many inside the Republican Establishment, namely RNC chairman Reince Prebus and House Republican Leadership (or at least the leadership team prior to Eric Cantors departure) actually think Hillary Clinton's quest to the presidency in 2016 is this close to a fait accompli.

One needs only look at Republican attacks in the last few months to see this. After all we've all been told the person 100% responsible for the fictional version of Benghazi that exists only in Republican's minds is Barack Obama.....I mean Hillary Clinton.......I mean Barack Obama......I mean Hillary Clinton.  Now ever since they started waffling on whos at fault, suddenly theyve gotten a lot less traction because no one takes them seriously. Yet they HAD to do it because they had to find SOMEWAY to attack President Elect in waiting, Hillary Clinton.

But I think the bigger indicator of the "Hillary effect" on the GOP is the fact that they basically started the 2016 Primary on the Republican side the hour after Mitt Romney lost in 2012. And the single factor they seem to use to pick candidates is who matches up well in polls with Hillary Clinton (I say matches up well because to the best of my knowledge I dont believe their has been a poll yet saying a republican can BEAT Hillary Clinton, of course to reasonable people a poll this far in advance doesnt mean shit and it totally worthless).

And because of that desire to get the "Hillary stopper" republicans have burned through a TON of now presidential ex-candidates.....because no one alive could ever withstand a two year primary.

Now in all fairness to Hillary Clinton, there is 1 republican ex-candidate who managed to implode without her help, former Virginia governor Bob McDonnell.

For those who havnt been paying attention, McDonnell was elected governor of Virginia in the 2009 governors race, one of the first two (new Jersey being the other) state wide races after Obama's election. His win (and Christie's in NJ) was seen as a major push back against the Obama Administration, and he was  even picked to give the GOP response to the State of the Union back in 2010.

And now its possible that as soon as tomorrow,  Bob McDonnell might be headed to jail, depending on how the jury (currently deliberating as this is written) finds him on his 13 counts of corruption, 11 of which basically have to do with him accepting bribes, and 2 of bank fraud.  His defense by the way, is that basically his wife was actually the one taking the bribes on his behalf, he never knew they were actually bribes so never did any special favors

So yea, my guess is even if he's found not guilty on all counts (which doesnt seem likely) his presidential aspirations are over, you cant blame your wife, call her corrupt, and throw her under the bus and have any real chance of surviving an election

-----------------------------------UPDATE: -------------------------------------

In the time it took me to write this the Jury has decided that Bob McDonnell is GUILTY of  11 of 13 corruption counts. 

Still no word if the ex-governor is going to jail, sentencing has been set for JANUARY of 2015, however at this point, no matter the sentence McDonnell is out of basically every presidential race for the rest of his life. So he is now 150% an ex-candidate.

----------------------------Original blog resumes below------------------------------

And theres a second possible candidate who also may be out of the race in a way that has NOTHING to do with Mrs. Clinton......Kentucky Senator Rand Paul.

Rand Paul currently has two problems, the first is Jesse Benton, his former senate 2010 campaign manager, and assumed campaign manager for any presidential campaign. Until late last week Mr. Benton worked on the reelection campaign of Senator Mitch McConnell, until he was forced to resign after evidence surfaced that he had previously illegally bribed and paid off people for endorsements in the 2012 presidential election.......when he was working for Rand Paul's father Ron Paul.

Now thats clearly not a crippling scandal for the younger Paul, hence why I still call him a "possible candidate", but its definitely one of a number of issues that might dog Paul should he run, and the only one that ventures beyond the realm of whats legal.  

But like I said, Mr. Benton is only one of Rand Paul's problems. The other is the state of Kentucky itself.

See used to be policy in every state that you could only run for one state wide office at a time, until LBJ got the rules changed in Texas so he could run for Senate and President together. Many if not most states followed suit. However one of the states the didnt is Kentucky. And Rand Paul is up for reelection to the Senate in 2016.

Which means he has to pick one, he can either try to keep his current job or try for the super long shot of being president. And most people always saw his father as the "protest candidate" no one expected him to win and I believe the younger paul is being seen the same way.....so basically everyone admits he wont be president any time soon

Thing is if he runs for president and loses, thats it, he's out of national politics for at least 4 years.....at which point he would have to decide once again to run for president or for what is currently Mitch McConnells senate seat, losing that, its another 2 years till he could challenge for his own seat again.

However should Mr. Paul skip this election (which I actually believe he will do), he CAN run for president in 2020 with no conflict, he wouldnt be on the ballot for Senate that year. In fact he could run for president without this conflict popping up again until 2028.

So I assume for mechanical reasons, Mr. Paul is effectively out of the race, until 2020.

Which brings us to the first ex-candidate Hillary Clinton can actually take some credit for: Senator Marco Rubio.

See at first Rubio seemed like the best choice to combat Clinton. Like her he had appeal to minority voters (latinos in his case) and even had an immigration policy plan that could help hit hillary were the former Secretary of state is likely the weakest, domestic policy, but that early attention to Rubio also brought early attention to his plan......which it turns out wasnt a plan in its current form that the GOP base could stomach and Rubio was forced to lead the charge to block his own bill.

In otherwords he was totally for it, before he was against it. And despite that fact that given the way congress works that CAN actually sometimes be a consistent logical and coherent position (it wasnt in this case) we all know how well that kind of stand can work. Just ask Current President Romney and Former President Kerry.......

Now had he not been elevated so early its possible Rubio could have gotten his plan passed, actually gotten Latino votes for the GOP and had a major accomplishment under his belt to point to in his campaign, but because Hillary had to be stopped yesterday, he was elevated prematurely, and is now basically totally out of the 2016 presidential race.....or possibly any presidential race which given his relative youth (he'd be 45 in 2016) could have been any race in the next 20-30 years.

Next up was Chris Christie. Now I'm tempted to put an asterik on Christie, in that I have always believed Christie was DOA. He had a scandal right when he first took office that involved him screwing up, costing his state billions of dollars, and then blaming a subordinate for his mistake and firing him, Despite Christie getting caught on tape making the mistake he lied about and said he didnt. He then proceeded numerous times to try to "redirect" money from other parts of NJ to cover up his mistake....and was repeatedly overruled by the supreme court of NJ.

And none of that got national attention, however given the narrative there (no accountability, seeming incompetence, attempted coverups) I think that would have ended his campaign had he ever run.

And thats before Bridgegate and the allegations "misuse" of hurricane sandy relief funds, which I believe in the public eye have basically ended his future aspirations, reguardless of what if anything hes actually found guilty of/corrupt, in the trial by public he already lost. Here's the thing though, had he not be elevated to "front runner" status by the GOP need to counter Hillary, theres a good chance those two scandals would have gotten as little attention as the first one I mentioned. So assuming he was cleared by the investigations he could have easily claimed they were "water under the bridge" (all puns intended) and at least attempted a run (although I still think he'd have been sunk when the 3 stories would have simultaneously come to national attention)

Next up was Scott Walker, Governor of Wisconsin. Like Christie before him, he was next to be [briefly] elevated to "front runner" status. Now Walker had made a name for himself because he survived a recall election after he basically destroyed unions in Wisconsin (although last I checked the legal fight over if that bill is actually law is still on going but most people dont know that). Now destroying unions is like crack to the GOP base, they went totally nuts in love with the guy, who then basically dropped off the map keeping his head down (a good move for anyone actually looking to run for president this early on). Then Christie imploded, and the GOP came a calling.

And for about a week Scott Walker was king of the world.....until he was suddenly revealed to have been under investigation by the FBI for electioneering and campaign finance fraud, an investigation that has already put 3 of his aids in prison.

Now at the end of the day it doesnt look like there's a good likelyhood Walker will be joining them, so this is another scandal that might have been totally missed by the national media and one Walker might have been able to explain away after the fact. But as the then current "front runner" of the non existent "shit we need to stop Hillary now" primary,  well the story got national media attention and now no matter what the outcome EVERYONE is going to want proof the governor isnt corrupt (this being the second investigation into that, and the 3rd if you count the possible illegality of the union busting). Meanwhile and perhaps much more problematic for Walker, one of his 3 aids in prison right now is gay, and his boyfriend was also indicted and sentenced (although not to jail) for corruption in this scandal. Now most Americans arnt going to give a shit that the gov has two gay aids who are dating, but the problem for Walker is the Republican Base he needs to win the real primary arnt most american's. So now thanks to his elevation they have a whole new disqualifying fact that they never would have known about had the media picked up on this after the fact.

Next up, Republican Governor Rick Perry. Now Perry kinda ko'ed himself the last time around with this line:     

But still, mostly out of desperation, some republicans still saw him as a front runner to counter Hillary....cause hey a Texas Republican Governor whose kinda an idiot, what could POSSIBLY go wrong.

And then, as great a candidate as Perry was, well it turns out he has something in common with fellow ex candidates Walker, Christie and McDonnell......he got indicted for a crime, specifically abuse of power as he punished only democratic government employees for drunk driving and not republican ones (although in an ironic twist his indictment is totally because of actions by republicans)

Now look not gonna lie of the 4 governors currently being investigated for crimes, Perry has the smallest chance of actually going to jail, most likely he will be acquitted and may actually be innocent, and no one would ever have heard about this at all if it wasnt for all the national attention.....

And to be honest he might have even survived even with the attention, EXCEPT he felt the need to address the issue to the national media, and said this to ABC news: "I’ve been indicted by that same body now for I think two counts, one of bribery, which I’m not a lawyer, so I don’t really understand the details here,"

Now that sounds fine, until you try to figure out how bribery fits into the scandal outline I listed above. Hint it doesnt. Because no one is actually accusing Rick Perry of bribery......but he seems to think they should be.

So yea, either Rick Perry's memory hasnt gotten any better in 4 years and may be getting worse, or hes so corrupt he forgot what corrupt things he hasnt been caught doing yet, or both. Either way, thats a fatal attachment to the preexisting narrative he's an idiot.

Which brings us to the "new" republican Front Runner, Mitt Romney. You remember Mitt Romney right? The guy who lost in 2012, the guys whose lose in 2012 kicked off this massive "we need a front runner NOW" crisis before he even gave his concession speech? Well he's apparently now the best person to solve the problem he created by losing.

or he's just the only one left.

I mean basically we havnt even hit the 2014 midterms yet and the republicans have already burned though an entire primaries worth of candidates trying to find some one ANYONE who can take the aura of inevitability off of Hillary Clinton.

By the time 2015 rolls around I'm actually not sure the GOP will have any remotely viable candidates left.   Consider that so far, in 10 months they have gone through 6.5 candidates (.5 being Rand Paul, cause as I said he COULD run and nothing massively disqualifying has happened to him yet, I just dont think he will), given that the primaries wont start for another 10-12 months, its likely more than a dozen possible GOP candidates will fall before the election even begins.

And its all for naught to. I dont expect Hillary to be the Democratic nominee. As much as republicans are loath to admit it shes actually a conservative fiscally, and is at least more conservative than most democrats on a number of social issues. On top of that her inability to give straight answers on simple questions like "greatest achievement as sec of state?" or "did you evolve on gay rights" dont bode well for her ability to take on those kinds of challenges that presumably the entire democratic field will throw at her. I mean dont forget we've been here before. Hillary was the President in waiting in 2008.....then a guy who sounded liberal (but wasnt) ran to her left, and tripped her up on simple questions like supporting the iraq war, and went on to be president. The blueprint for beating her is there and I have seen nothing to suggest hillary has done anything to address her deficiencies.

Which means when the GOP heads into the general election against whatever democrat actually beats Hillary Clinton, they will be doing so with a much weaker candidate than they ever needed to, because they have preemptively set pretty bad national narratives for their top tier candidates. Not only that, but I expect the GOP is going to get caught with their pants totally down, and will have spend every moment up to the 2016 Democratic Convention attacking Hillary and will have to do both opposition research and attempt a massive narrative switch to attack whoever wins the nomination, which makes it highly likely the attacks will be disjointed and likely to fail.

So while Hillary WONT be our next president whoever it is (I assumed Deval Patrick the gov of Massachusetts until he took himself out of the race last month by announcing he wasnt going to run, no idea anymore who it will be) is going to owe Mrs. Clinton one hell of a debt for clearing the field.

Granted they are also going to owe Rence Prebus one hell of a debt too, I mean its mostly been his belief in the inevitability of Clinton that's driving this whole thing, and he was already nice enough to remove the Republican primary debates from any network not named FOX, thereby ensuring no one will actually know who his candidate is.

Actually that removal is pretty much indicative of my point here. Prebus removed the GOP from the other networks because of rumors the other networks would be doing documentaries of Hillary Clinton.

They arnt, but by the time that had become known, Prebus' RNC had already passed the motion to preemptively officially bar republican participation in ANY debate (including general elections?) on a non fox network. All over something that never happened.

it seems if they know history of not, the GOP seems condemned to repeat the same mistake now.