From the first post-cruise edition of the Morning Jolt…
What (Some of) You Missed on the National Review Post-Election Cruise
Beats a polar vortex, doesn’t it?
A bit of 2016 talk from our recently-concluded cruise…
Allen West pointed out you don’t often see two presidential candidates from the same state competing against each other for long – their bases of support among donors, activists, and volunteers usually overlap and they can’t sustain two candidates simultaneously. At this very early date, the potential Republican 2016 field includes two candidates from Florida (Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio), two from Texas (Ted Cruz and Rick Perry) two from Wisconsin (Scott Walker and perhaps Paul Ryan).
Ned Ryun, founder of American Majority and CEO of Voter Gravity, mentioned Carly Fiorina’s name more than once as possible figure on the 2016 GOP ticket.
West named Ohio Gov. John Kasich as a potential presidential candidate who could come on strong; Ryun could not suppress his sense that Ohio conservative grassroots activists have some serious gripes with Kasich.
John Fund pointed out that there’s actually several mini-primaries playing out in the coming year: the money primary, the staffing primary (who can build a national network of supporters), the consultant primary (who’s hiring the campaign managers, ad men, pollsters, organizers, and so on, with big wins under their belt from previous cycles), the ideas primary, and for lack of a better term, the “voice of social conservatives” primary.
I asked my panel of Ryun, West, Eliana Johnson, Guy Benson and Fund to name the 2016 Republican ticket. Most hesitated to make a public prediction, but said it was likely to be a governor and someone who had demonstrated an ability to win in blue or purple states. When I declared, tongue-in-cheek, that ticket had already been decided in advance and that the correct answer was Scott Walker-Susana Martinez, the audience seemed pretty darn pleased by that combination.
Most of the NR cruisers I spoke to expressed overwhelming hesitation about Jeb Bush —and maybe hesitation is the kind way of putting it — out of concerns of the dynasty argument and his stances on a path to citizenship and Common Core that are at odds with many in the grassroots.
Tim Phillips, president of Americans for Prosperity, said his organization has the largest and most far-reaching operations in Florida. “If the Republican candidate doesn’t win Florida in 2016, he doesn’t win the presidency,” he said.
Bing West thinks that someone in the Obama administration’s national security inner circle will leave in the not-too-distant future, perhaps Chuck Hagel or Susan Rice.
Jay Nordlinger: “Ralph Reed is like the Dick Clark of the conservative movement – we get older, but he looks the same, decade after decade.”
Our Kathryn Lopez, who is roughly as Latina as Elizabeth Warren is Native American, revealed she was invited to a White House Cinco de Mayo celebration, presumably entirely because of her surname.
Jumping off a John Fund comment, I don’t see how Hillary Clinton can be the first woman president when Valerie Jarrett has been running the country for six years.
Cartoonist Michael Ramirez revealed that in his cartoons of President Obama, he usually includes ashtrays and cigarette boxes, and when he draws Obama sitting at his desk in the Oval Office, the photos on the desk are all of himself.
If you didn’t go on the cruise and find yourself wishing you had, the next one is from July 18-25, 2015, departs from Seattle and sails to Alaska. Our guest speakers already include retiring Rep. Michele Bachmann, pollster Pat Caddell, economist Art Laffer, author Andrew Klavan, Townhall’s Katie Pavlich and of course a large gaggle of NR editors and contributors, including me.