Lion of the Blogosphere

Does Bridgegate mean that Jeb Bush will be the 2016 Republican nominee?

Although the idea of another Bush running for President is very painful indeed, if Bridgegate does in Christie, I think it’s likely that Jeb Bush will win the 2016 Republican nomination. According to this article from November, Jeb is well liked by the Wall Street wing of the Republican Party, but the only thing keeping him from running was Christie.

I can’t imagine any of the other Republicans winning the nomination. Paul Ryan lacks gravitas; he looks like a little kid and not the President of the United States. Rand Paul is too much of a nutty extremist like his father. The other Republicans commonly mentioned, like Rick Santorum, Rick Perry, and Marco Rubio, have low IQs and they look stupid whenever they are in debates.

This leaves no one besides Jeb Bush. And his Mexican wife will be seen as a huge plus by certain Republican strategists who continue to believe that attracting Hispanic voters are the key to the Republican future.

I also must say that Jeb is way smarter and more competent than his brother George. It’s really extremely unfortunate that the wrong Bush got elected President in 2000.

* * *

A Hillary vs. Jeb election, featuring a wife of a former President running against a brother of a former President, would open up a new chapter in the history of United States politics, demonstrating that we are moving to a dynastic political model, which is actually an historical norm.

Written by Lion of the Blogosphere

January 10, 2014 at 9:28 AM

Posted in Politics

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82 Responses

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  1. Hey, Lion, why isn’t your front page working?

    cannibal

    January 10, 2014 at 10:00 AM

  2. This sounds about right. Jeb would be the perfect Republican frontman for the presidency.

    JS

    January 10, 2014 at 10:29 AM

    • It matters NOT whom the presumptive candidate is:
      NO Republican is electable
      With East Coast Lib mega$$$$$$
      Donating to massive colored demografx growth

      Firepower

      January 10, 2014 at 3:34 PM

      • Republicans are as important as the dinosaurs.

        JS

        January 13, 2014 at 2:31 PM

  3. Maybe Caroline Kennedy could try for the Democratic nomination and we’d really be dynastic.

    Peter

    ironrailsironweights

    January 10, 2014 at 10:59 AM

    • Naah. She likes her brains right where they are.

      destructure

      January 10, 2014 at 12:00 PM

      • Oof. Funny though.

        DelFuego

        January 10, 2014 at 9:08 PM

  4. He will lose. GOP doesn’t have the votes (not even counting the Dem ballot stuffing). Lots of white people aint voting Republican any more. It’s the illegals, stupid.

    fakeemail

    January 10, 2014 at 11:42 AM

    • ” Lots of white people aint voting Republican any more”

      Romney won the white vote by the same margin Reagan did in 1980.

      destructure

      January 10, 2014 at 12:21 PM

      • Therefore for GOP to win, the white vote has to be at Southern state levels-over 70%, which ain’t gonna happen given so many blue electoral votes come from states with no minorities and therefore little reason to support the party of stupid. What I wanna know is who are the 30% or so of hispanics that vote for Republicans? Are they third or fourth generation who are really assimilated, or are they the remannts of cubans or other latin american immigrants who voted GOP b/c of their hate of the communists?

        Monroe Ficus

        January 10, 2014 at 1:23 PM

      • “The difference-maker was, a lot of white voters stayed home.”

        http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2013/05/03/the_hispanic_vote_isn_t_why_romney_lost

        fakeemail

        January 10, 2014 at 1:25 PM

      • Romney won 61% of the white vote in 2012. Reagan won 64% of the white vote in 1984.

        Bernie

        January 10, 2014 at 3:19 PM

      • “Therefore for GOP to win, the white vote has to be at Southern state levels-over 70%, which ain’t gonna happen given so many blue electoral votes come from states with no minorities and therefore little reason to support the party of stupid.”

        If you’re going to make an argument based on arithmetic, then you should at least look at the arithmetic.

        Romney lost the national election by four points (51-47). He won the white vote by twenty points (59-39) and the electorate was 72 percent white. That means Romney could have won the national vote if he won 62.5 percent of the white vote to Obama’s 35.5 percent, and if everything else stayed the same.

        That’s hard, but not impossible. Republicans have won that percentage of the white vote in at least two presidential elections in the modern era (1972 and 1984, both blowout reelection victories), which is more than can be said for those armchair strategists suggesting the GOP try to win more than 40 percent of the Hispanic vote. So clearly Republicans don’t need the white vote to clock in at over 70 percent.

        Of course presidential elections are won in the electoral college, but that means you might not even need the white vote in the low 60s to win.

        Pincher Martin

        January 10, 2014 at 7:39 PM

      • @ fakeemail

        If you’d said that to start with I wouldn’t have commented.

        **

        @ bernie

        I said 1980 not 1984.

        destructure

        January 10, 2014 at 8:45 PM

      • Reagan won in ’84 with 65-67% of the white vote.

        Again, Romney lost because of unusually high black turnout and depressed white turnout. With normal white and black turnout, Romney is president. Elections are still be decided by white and black voting dynamics.

        As for Republicans being maxed out at 61% of the white vote, don’t buy it. There’s much electoral downside for the Democrats. That 61% figure is inflated by the supermajority Southern whites give to the GOP. If you exclude Southern whites, Democrats get as high as the low-40s of the remaining white vote.

        The Undiscovered Jew

        January 10, 2014 at 9:48 PM

      • Bernie writes,

        “Romney won 61% of the white vote in 2012. Reagan won 64% of the white vote in 1984.”

        Romney won 59 percent of the white vote in 2012, one percent less than George H.W. Bush won against Dukakis in 1988.

        Reagan won 66 percent of the white vote in 1984. The Roper poll doesn’t go back to the 1972 election, but since Nixon won 60.7 percent of the entire national vote, he must have won at least 65 percent of the white vote and perhaps as high as 68 percent.

        Pincher Martin

        January 11, 2014 at 1:49 AM

      • “The difference-maker was, a lot of white voters stayed home.”

        The GOP is trying hard to repeat this, using the same logic that informs the predictions posted by the author of this blog. Let me ask this, what is more likely: 1) the GOP can persuade conservatives to move away from their strongly held principles, or 2) the GOP can persuade the squishy middle to vote republican at a time when the democrats have done a good job at demonstrating just how dangerous their policies are? If they can’t accomplish one of these, they cannot win. In my mind, since we are constantly called to be pragmatic, the best winning strategy is keep right and make it plain to the electorate why conservatism is the answer. This might require the GOP to explicitly disown most of it’s actions the last two decades. One thing we should not do, allow the losers of the last few elections, who failed to accomplish any structural shrinking of the government when they were in power but in fact oversaw and even championed the growth of government spending and power that exceeded everything before it, we should NOT follow them when they say “we have the same goal but a different strategy”. They have never proven that they have the same goals nor have they proven that they are good at strategy.

        Prole

        January 11, 2014 at 12:24 PM

      • Romney lost because he failed to inspire white Reagan Democrats, and not because he wasn’t conservative enough.

        Lion of the Blogosphere

        January 12, 2014 at 12:17 AM

      • “Romney lost because he failed to inspire white Reagan Democrats, and not because he wasn’t conservative enough”

        So what is the best way to win the Reagan democrats? By following the middle way GOP establishment, or by learning from Reagan? Reagan democrats were lost because Romney was not populist/conservative enough. I suspect that when you hear the term conservative you have trouble separating it from abortion.

        Prole

        January 12, 2014 at 10:01 AM

  5. A lot can happen between now and 2016. Hillary Clinton was the presumptive Democratic nominee in late 2007, wasn’t she?

    My bet is that Boehner and the GOP leadership do amnesty after the GOP primaries, because that’s what the Chamber of Commerce and Wall Street want. This will lead to a fracturing of the GOP, with the Tea Party types opting to stay home on election day rather than hold their noses and vote for candidates they see as RINOs. This will keep the senate under Harry Reid’s control, and give the House back to the Democrats.

    Because Jeb Bush is rightly viewed with ample suspicion by a large part of the GOP on the immigration issue, this scenario would not be helpful to his candidacy. He would be far better off if amnesty goes nowhere, and hope that voters somehow forget that he’s a proponent of large scale 3rd world immigration.

    But if not Jeb Bush, who? LOTB is right about the deficiencies of the other candidates he mentioned, but keep in mind also that in late 1991 a lot of high profile Democrats like Mario the Pious decided to sit out the 1992 election because they thought Geo. H.W. Bush would cruise to re-election. Very few had heard of Bill Clinton a year before the 1992 election. It’s possible John Kasich and Scott Walker could decide to jump into the fray.

    Sgt. Joe Friday

    January 10, 2014 at 12:11 PM

    • The Democratic Party seems to provide more fertile grounds for unknowns to suddenly rise up and win the nomination. Carter was sort of an unknown before 1976. That doesn’t seem to happen in the Republican part which is conservtive with a lower-case “c” in that regards. Only previously-well-known candidates ever win the nomination.

      Lion of the Blogosphere

      January 10, 2014 at 12:33 PM

      • Only previously-well-known candidates ever win the nomination.

        Yes, and only the GOP is known to give “lifetime achievement” presidential nominations to Senior Republicans who’ve put in the dues and served on the scene for a long time, but haven’t yet won the nomination. This was clearly the case with McCain, because who could really think that he had a legitimate shot at winning.

        In contrast, the Democrats will toss their formerly sacred icons aside like yesterday’s tuna that went bad. Consider how the whole party abandoned Hilary when a cooler, hipper candidate came along, despite his lack of achievement. Amongst their core constituency (blacks) you had only one influential black person (Bob Johnson of BET fame) who stood by her for the nomination, after all that she and her husband had done for black political goals for the prior 3 decades.

        Camlost

        January 10, 2014 at 1:40 PM

      • Carter and Obama were reactions against disastrous presidencies (and Carter was a single-term president).

        One of the main issues in the run-up to the 2008 election was the fact that Hillary supported the war while Obama opposed it. Of course, Obama could oppose it because he was a nobody from Illinois whereas Democrats with national ambitions are always afraid of appearing “weak” on foreign policy.

        I don’t think Christie ever had a chance of winning the Republican nomination. The GOP needs to find a new center. After losing the White House three consecutive terms (and again, Carter was an anomaly), we saw a “New” Democrat in Clinton that was tough on crime (he executed a retarded man whereas Dukakis opposed capital punishment for his wife’s theoretical rapist-murderer). Clinton also had pretty centrist economic policies, but demented conservatives seem incapable of thinking about anything except tax cuts.

        Vince, the Lionhearted

        January 10, 2014 at 3:28 PM

  6. There are numerous black swans paddling just over the horizon. One or more of them might drift into sight well before 2016. In the ensuing crisis it will just be too dangerous to change horses in mid-stream and all that jazz. The media will tell us so. The institutional Republican zombies will agree. And Obama will just keep on being President — it’s an emergency, after all. The Supreme Court, firmly in the Progressive camp, will rubber stamp it.

    This is an entirely plausible scenario — the thrust of the Left in the United States for the last 100 years has been to consolidate power permanently. They are very, very close. At some point the end game arrives when you have to make the final move and go for the check-mate. Sure, it seems improbable, but most historically significant sudden changes seem improbable before they happen, and they seem inevitable after they happen.

    What will kick it off? Events, dear boy, events.

    peterike

    January 10, 2014 at 12:16 PM

    • Except as you know “Obama” is not really ruling anything. Real show is run by Biden & co.

      Colmainen

      January 10, 2014 at 12:48 PM

      • Biden??

        Glengarry

        January 11, 2014 at 8:51 PM

      • Juden??

        Whitey Whiteman III

        January 12, 2014 at 2:37 PM

    • “And Obama will just keep on being President — it’s an emergency, after all. The Supreme Court, firmly in the Progressive camp, will rubber stamp it.”

      I don’t know. Obama doesn’t seem to enjoy the actual job of being president very much, but OTOH if events pushed us in the direction of a sort of dictatorship, I could see him presiding over a progressive authoritarian state with a politburo of sorts dominated by gays, immigrants, and single women, and enjoying it quite a bit.

      Sgt. Joe Friday

      January 10, 2014 at 1:15 PM

    • Give me a break. This is delusional. Obama will leave the presidency like his predecessors.

      ASF

      January 10, 2014 at 2:35 PM

  7. I also must say that Jeb is way smarter and more competent than his brother George

    I don’t know. W was pretty smart if you go by his SATs. IQ equivalent of 128.

    Anyway Jeb would have to be a genius to win after his brother’s disastrous legacy.

    Bottledwater

    January 10, 2014 at 12:59 PM

  8. Let’s say if the Republicans ran the perfect “Sailer Strategy” candidate-white prole from north/midwest who was moderate about social conservative issues and didn’t have some sort of Wall St/chamber of commerce connections: What would the Democrat Alinsky-style hit machine use to convince whites to stay home?

    Monroe Ficus

    January 10, 2014 at 1:26 PM

    • The Democrats would have the most trouble beating that kind of Republican but would someone with no Wall Street/ big business connections be able to win the Republican nomination? They seem to be the behind the scene string pullers in the Republican party and would block anyone who came out against Wall Street/ big business crony capitalism.

      Mark G

      January 10, 2014 at 3:59 PM

  9. Jeb versus Hillary will mean two WASPs running for the presidency, one with a Mexican spouse, the other with a black spouse. May the best man win.

    Mark Caplan

    January 10, 2014 at 1:31 PM

  10. Dubya’s SAT scores was 1206. That’s not an IQ of 128. I’d guesstimate that to be equivalent of 110-115.

    fakeemail

    January 10, 2014 at 1:31 PM

    • fakeemail.

      A score of 1206 on the old SAT was the equivalent of around 130.

      Pincher Martin

      January 10, 2014 at 1:41 PM

      • I don’t think that is correct. An IQ of 130 was approximately equal to an SAT of 1300.

        aspergeryone

        January 10, 2014 at 5:17 PM

      • “I don’t think that is correct. An IQ of 130 was approximately equal to an SAT of 1300.”

        Again, this is the old SAT we’re talking about, so if you’re basing your info on tests given after 1974, then you’re basing it on inaccurate info.

        Here is a ten-year-old Steve Sailer article on the question which quotes IQ researcher Linda Gottfredson:

        “”I recently converted Bush’s SAT score to an IQ using the high school norms available for his age cohort. Educational Testing Service happened to have done a study of representative high school students within a year or so of when he took the test. I derived an IQ of 125, which is the 95th percentile.”

        And here is Charles Murray from the same article:

        “I think you’re safe in saying that Dubya’s IQ, based on his SAT score, is in excess of 120, which puts him in the top 10 percent of the distribution, but I wouldn’t try to be more precise than that.”

        So whether you think Bush’s IQ is 130, 128, 125, or just in excess of 120, it’s plain that he wasn’t a stupid man and that whatever leadership failings he had as president can’t be laid to blame on his lack of intellectual capability.

        Pincher Martin

        January 10, 2014 at 7:17 PM

    • Garbage in, garbage out. Maybe Bush had real brain power, but he didn’t exercise it.

      Vince, the Lionhearted

      January 11, 2014 at 4:24 PM

      • Vince the Lionhearted,

        “Garbage in, garbage out. Maybe Bush had real brain power, but he didn’t exercise it.”

        You make it sound as if being a good president is simply a matter of applied brain power. There are plenty of smart people who’ve utterly failed in the presidency. JQA was one of the smartest men to ever be president. He knew modern foreign languages, the classics, practiced law, and had a wealth of diplomatic and political experience. And yet he is usually ranked last or next to last among the nation’s first seven presidents.

        Among recent presidents, Jimmy Carter and Richard Nixon were both very smart men. Alan Greenspan said Nixon was the smartest president he ever dealt with. Carter graduated in the top 10 percent of his class at Annapolis, and later majored in nuclear physics at graduate school. Yet they both failed in their presidencies. Ronald Reagan, who almost certainly didn’t have nearly as high an IQ as either of those two predecessors was far superior as a chief executive, even though he was lazy and almost wholly negligent in administration.

        George W. Bush was not as smart as Richard Nixon or Jimmy Carter, but he was reasonably smart – certainly smarter than Ronald Reagan – and so when assessing why his presidency failed you have to look elsewhere for reasons.

        I find it amusing that so many here think that IQ is the secret to a successful presidency.

        Pincher Martin

        January 12, 2014 at 3:38 AM

      • Martin —

        I don’t see how you drew these rather elaborate inferences since, I agree, IQ alone does not make for a successful presidency. That’s what I thought my comment strongly implied — “even granting W. possesses raw brain power, he never exercised it.” I also agree that many on this board obsess over intelligence, but I don’t think I’m one of them.

        Vince, the Lionhearted

        January 12, 2014 at 11:14 AM

    • Some of you are ignoring the fact that Dubya pickled his 130 IQ brain in alcohol for 25 years. He ended up so imbecilic as to fantasize he was born again in Christ.

      Mark Caplan

      January 12, 2014 at 11:10 AM

      • It didn’t help that he adopted a strong regional accent lacking in prestige.

        Anthony

        January 13, 2014 at 1:39 PM

  11. “I also must say that Jeb is way smarter and more competent than his brother George. It’s really extremely unfortunate that the wrong Bush got elected President in 2000.”

    You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.

    There are no essential differences in policy or smarts between the two brothers – or indeed between the two brothers and their father. They have the same political DNA. They believe in the same stupid ideas, and they will implement them in largely the same stupid ways. From immigration to education to national security, there are no essential differences between the Bush brothers.

    Take education. Bush père said in 1988 he wanted to be the education president and increased federal funding for education. George W. Bush called education the “civil rights struggle of our times” and pushed through the largest increase in federal spending for education since the Great Society. Now what’s Jeb doing? Emphasizing the exact same thing his father and brother emphasized. I guess that must be because he’s “way smarter and more competent” than his brother.

    Jeb has even gone so far as to praise the Obama administration and Arne Duncan for their work in education. This begs an obvious question. If Jeb thinks his brother was doing the right thing on education, and he also believes Obama is doing the right thing on education, and presumably he doesn’t fault his father’s direction on education, then why exactly is education in the U.S. still doing so poorly as to need Jebbie’s help should he win the presidency?

    The Bushes only learn from each other’s most obvious political mistakes. George W. Bush learned not to raise taxes, for example, because his father got burned so badly on the issue. But none of the Bushes really care about either effective policy or conservatism. Dubya was no better at tax policy than was his father. He might have been worse. He just knew better how to handle tax policy as an internal Republican issue.

    Pincher Martin

    January 10, 2014 at 1:38 PM

    • Dubya didn’t learn from Pappy to not try and build “democracy” in Iraq.

      fakeemail

      January 10, 2014 at 2:08 PM

      • He learned not to allow Saddam to stay in power, which from the perspective of 2001 was thought by many in the GOP to be a major political mistake.

        Learning from someone’s else’e mistakes doesn’t mean you can’t create your own set of mistakes. As I said, “none of the Bushes really care about either effective policy or conservatism.”

        Pincher Martin

        January 10, 2014 at 5:18 PM

    • “Jeb has even gone so far as to praise the Obama administration and Arne Duncan for their work in education.”

      If true, that will be used against him by the other GOP contenders big time.

      Sgt. Joe Friday

      January 10, 2014 at 2:09 PM

      • “If true…”

        “Jeb Bush praises Obama on education, worries that GOP is shortsighted”

        Of course this won’t be used by any of Jeb’s opponents in the Republican Party because most GOP politicians are either too stupid (Rick Santorum, for example, was for NCLB before he was against it.) or they believe in the exact same set of education ideas that Jeb believes in.

        The Bushes love talking about education reform because it’s one of those issues that appeals to both soccer moms and minorities, and so it’s a big time winner in the general election. It’s also a winner in the beltway. At the same time, you don’t really lose any votes because of it in the GOP primary because such voters are usually focused on other issues. You might even win some votes in the primary by bashing teachers’ unions.

        Pincher Martin

        January 10, 2014 at 5:29 PM

    • All the Bushes are essentially interchangeable. Yes, Jeb was a good governor, but Dubya was apparently a good governor of Texas. That no longer seems to be a good indicator of how well you perform in the Presidency. It’s TV talking head nonsense to talk about Jeb being the smart Bush though. He’s just the one who hasn’t been President yet so our imagination can fill in the blanks.

      He’s terrible on immigration, and can’t even keep his story straight on that; one of the few issues he cares about. You might recall last year he released a book (with a co-author who was the real author) with the premise of granting legal residence without citizenship. His first interviews during his book tour he was questioned on why he changed his mind on that, and couldn’t come up with an answer. An answer, to one of the most obvious questions he should have anticipated. Two days later he changed his mind again and said he supported citizenship – contradicting the central premise of the book he was trying to sell.

      Smart Bush indeed.

      Mike

      January 10, 2014 at 6:23 PM

  12. If Ryan lived 100 years ago he could have grown facial hair and have gravitas. The last person with facial hair was Taft. Voters don’t like it I guess.

    Shawn

    January 10, 2014 at 2:32 PM

  13. I would almost guarantee a third party run by someone like Trump or Palin if Bush is the nominee. I wouldn’t vote for Clinton or Bush but I would be silently hoping Hillary beats Jeb if it comes down to those two buffoons.

    Bernie

    January 10, 2014 at 3:25 PM

  14. Ne’er let ere be foargot…
    “Tis once a playce
    Callede “Camelot”

    Firepower

    January 10, 2014 at 3:39 PM

  15. I don’t care much about Christie or any of the Bushes, and I do agree that demographics will make winning difficult for the GOP in 2016. But it’s interesting that Christie has fired more people in this mess than Obama has fired in the Benghazi, IRS and Obamacare scandals combined (which is none).

    Black Death

    January 10, 2014 at 4:44 PM

  16. I really hope Rand Paul is the nominee. He could take the GOP in a new, more libertarian direction.

    That is the only hope since the GOP will go extinct if it does not change its message. I mean, the GOP actually loses Asian-Americans in greater margins than it does among Hispanic-Americans, which just goes to show just how pigeon-holed the GOP has become as the “bible thumper” party.

    Jeb Bush is a non-starter. People are sick of the Bushes. Don’t underestimate that.

    Jay

    January 10, 2014 at 5:27 PM

    • Rand Paul is not a libertarian, he’s a paleoconservative.

      Lion of the Blogosphere

      January 10, 2014 at 6:50 PM

      • A paleoconservative who supports amnesty, wants more legal immigration, panders to blacks and praises Nelson Mandela?

        Bernie

        January 10, 2014 at 7:37 PM

      • Which is why I can’t stand him.

        Lion of the Blogosphere

        January 11, 2014 at 12:14 AM

      • A paleoconservative who supports amnesty, wants more legal immigration, panders to blacks and praises Nelson Mandela?

        The paleocons have no coherent platform except lashing out at symbols that offend them. In 2008 the paleocons supported Ron Paul, who was weak on immigration, instead of Tancredo because the latter is pro-Israel.

        Meanwhile, Western European nationalists like Le Pen are running against Muslims and sidelining their anti-semites. What America needs is a nationalist right that’s pro-Jewish and anti-Muslim.

        The Undiscovered Jew

        January 11, 2014 at 4:36 PM

    • Why would Asians support a more libertarian party? Romney campaigned on zero social issues and still lost the Asian vote by roughly 70%-30%. Maybe Asians (and blacks and Hispanics) are more or less happy with the Democrats and big government?

      Bernie

      January 10, 2014 at 7:40 PM

      • I have always though Asians are happy with a high tax, big spending government because most Asians believe they are clever enough to avoid paying taxes while taking advantage of government spending programs.

        superdestroyer

        January 11, 2014 at 8:57 AM

    • Sorry, Rand Paul is an avowed anti-Libertarian the press confuses with actual L/libertarians. He has some good points, but he isn’t Libertarian in the sense I think you have in mind.

      I think one thing to keep in mind is if the candidate actually looks Presidential. Paul, Christie and others simply don’t cut it. Paul dresses like a schlub. Bush arguably might look Presidential.

      US voters like Presidential candidates tall, impeccably dressed, and gravely pleasant. The GOP could use a good tailor and manners coach. The Dems have a challenge with Hilary.

      rob

      January 11, 2014 at 7:36 PM

  17. Anyone who believes that the Republicans can win in 2016 is an idiot. The Democrats can win over 230 electoral votes without spending a dollar (the states carried by Gore, Kerry, and Obama twice). The number of states that the Republicans can win with spending a dollar is around 170.

    The only way the Republican can possibly win is if every swing state goes their way. That is not going to happen in 2016 even if they catch Hillary in bed is a 15 y/o girl. What the Republicans need to realize is that they are no longer relevant to presidential politics and will soon not be relevant to politics. Conservatives would affect policy and governance a lot more if the Republican Party went out of business and all of the former Republicans started voting in the Democratic Primaries.

    superdestroyer

    January 10, 2014 at 5:54 PM

  18. I find the political speculation on this blog pretty silly.

    First, you can’t really predict a presidential election two years out.

    Second, the few things we know about presidential elections indicate the Republican candidate, whoever he (or she) will be, has an excellent chance of winning. Romney, a horrible candidate, came within 4% of the popular vote last time.

    Americans have also pretty consistently turned the White House over to the other party after eight years since World War II, though grant it before 1952 you do have lengthy periods of a single party controlling the White House (the Republicans all but sixteen years between the Civil War and the Great Depression, than the Democrats for twenty years).

    Starting in 1952, the White House flipped parties every eight years almost like clockwork. There were only three exceptions. In 1980, the White House flipped from the Democrats to the Republicans after only four years. The Republicans then held the White House for twelve years instead of the usual eight. If Carter or Kennedy had won in 1980, and all the other postwar elections stayed the same, the flip every eight years rule would have operated perfectly. In 2000 a plurality of voters voted for continued Democratic control.

    Also, since the Civil War, the presidential party’s popular vote margin has shrunk during their third election in control of the White House in every election but one, even if they wound up retaining the White House. The Democrats have only a 3.9% margin to work with (elections where one side has won an Electoral College victory while still losing the popular vote have been quite rare, with special circumstances applying each time, so the popular vote is still the key factor in who wins the presidency).

    There is a counterargument in that we are in a Democratic presidential cycle. The Democratic candidate has won the popular vote in five out of the six last presidential elections (1992 – 2012). By contrast, in the six presidential elections before 1992 (1968 – 1992), the Republican candidate won the popular vote in five out of the six elections. However, the margins the Democratic candidate has won by have not been that great, only exceeding 5% in 1996 and 2008.

    Another counterargument is the argument that the Republican Party is becoming the party of stupid people (due to ordinary voters having more influence than the Democratic Party, and the electorate becoming dumber). While this is an interesting argument and may well have applied in down-ballot races, the big money people who control who can make a credible run for the presidency will keep the Republicans from nominating someone like some of the people they have been running for the Senate.

    And of course the patterns I cited above can be broken -Obama winning with a lower margin in his second election was unusual (the pattern has been to either win re-election by an expanded margin or to lose). But I really don’t see why 2016 should be different than the norm.

    The two obvious Democratic nominees, Clinton and Biden, are too old and either antagonize a big chunk of the electorate (Clinton) or are too flaky (Biden, who also did really poorly in two earlier presidential runs). If they choose someone coming out of nowhere they risk selecting a candidate who lacks gravitas. The Obama administration is not exactly popular either.

    Ed

    January 10, 2014 at 11:08 PM

    • Many states used to swing between the two parties. Remember when Reagan easily won in California. Do you really see any scenario where the Democrats can lose in CAlifornia. In 2004, the parties did not bother to compete in Virginia but in 2008 and 2012, not only did the Republicans have to compete in Virginia but they lose both times.

      Which states carried by Gore in 2000 can any Republican nominee possibly win. Yet, Hillary Clinton could be able to easily win in Virginia, Ohio, and possibly North Carolina. Comparison to old elections do not matter since those were elections when the vast majority of voters where white and generally male. These days, 1/3 of voters are not white and non-whites are just not going to vote for any form of a conservative/religious party .

      superdestroyer

      January 11, 2014 at 5:21 AM

    • You are forgetting the changing demographics. Prior to the 1980s, you had an electorate which was basically 90% white and 10% black. Since the late 1960s, 90% of legal immigrants to the U.S. are from the Third World (primarily Asian and Hispanic). These groups are growing quickly and vote roughly 70% to 30% for the Democrats.

      Add that to the monolithic black vote (which is also growing slightly) and it is hard to see where the GOP gets the votes they need to win on the national level. There is room to increase the white vote in places like Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. But the GOP no longer offers anything on social issues (crime, affirmative action, welfare, immigration, bilingual education) to the old Reagan Democrats who are hostile to the Republican economic message.

      Bernie

      January 11, 2014 at 10:29 AM

    • Past presidential data is irrelevant because of demographic change. When the presidency was flip-flopping every eight years, the American voting public was majority White (90% or more.)

      Before the eight year flip flop, the presidency was captured for long periods of time because of Tammany Hall-style politics.

      No, there will not be a Republican president unless he is secretly a Democrat operative.

      map

      January 11, 2014 at 3:11 PM

    • With each passing year, the popular vote matters less and less. The problem for Republicans is that, while the Great Compromise essentially created affirmative action for the smaller states they control, it really doesn’t pay to win such states by huge margins since the Electoral College system is, with a few exceptions, winner-take-all. Democrats are winning larger swing states by small margins (e.g. Ohio, Virginia). Indeed, in 2008 Obama managed to win Indiana and North Carolina. Just by being competitive in those states Democrats force Republican candidates to divert resources. Republicans are now competing for what used to be a given, and the trends are not encouraging. Stats about “five out of six elections” etc is weak because you don’t have enough data points. We’ve only had 44 presidents, and the times are a changin’.

      Five years ago, conservative activists crowed about how ballot measures for same sex marriage had failed dozens of times, including out here in California. “Marriage equality” activists couldn’t count a single victory, but the political winds have obviously shifted.

      This is not to say Republican hopes are doomed in 2016 because anything can still happen. The economy could go into free fall, we could suffer another terrorist attack. Second terms are often mired in presidential scandal. Still, the general trends are working against Republicans. The GOP is currently in the midst of an identity crisis that they should have solved in 2012.

      Vince, the Lionhearted

      January 11, 2014 at 4:50 PM

  19. The Bush name is tainted for at least another decade or two. Can’t see Jeb winning nomination.

    trey

    January 11, 2014 at 12:15 AM

    • The Bush name is tainted in both liberal and conservative circles. The young George P. may find his path to office in Texas seriously impeded by the conservative grass roots, despite (or because of??) establishment backing. The establishment attempt to destroy the Tea Party is as hot in Texas as it is anywhere, with the establishment fielding candidates against Tea Party leaning incumbents.

      Prole

      January 12, 2014 at 9:37 AM

    • This. The Bush name is toxic, no way can he be nominated. Also if he’s so smart, or at least so much smarter than his brother, why is his daughter such a dimwit? At least one of GW’s twin daughters made it through Yale and has a self actualizing career.

      toomanyspiders

      January 12, 2014 at 12:37 PM

  20. Let me add this too. Jeb is a big lump. Compared to his older brother, he appears far less virile. He appears smarter than W, but this is the age of sex and I think virility is a prime quality needed for mass appeal. Let’s look at past prez candidates. Obama: virile. McCain: very virile for his age. Romney: the same. W: virile. Kerry: pretty virile. Gore: slightly more virile than his age group. Clinton: not very fit but had the John Belushi fat guy/party animal virility thing going.

    Add that with the tainted name and can’t see him ever getting much momentum going.

    trey

    January 11, 2014 at 12:42 AM

    • “Clinton: not very fit but had the John Belushi fat guy/party animal virility thing going.”

      His weight yo-yo’d over the years I suppose, but he was in pretty good shape when he entered the national political scene and in his first few years in office. http://i.imgur.com/xSUmk0m.jpg

      anon

      January 13, 2014 at 12:30 AM

  21. I would vote for Jeb over Christie.

    Southern WASP

    January 11, 2014 at 12:02 PM

    • The voters have “stuck their hand into the Bush Fire” two times and have “been burned” both times. Anyone who votes for another Bush must be clinically insane because they keep doing the same failed thing and expect it to be different this time.

      superdestroyer

      January 12, 2014 at 11:25 AM

  22. I think Christie is a false beacon of hope, so marching him off the stage is a good thing.

    Whoever gets the nomination should, however, neither be a RINO nor fringe ideologue, but an intelligent populist. For instance, take a hobby horse of mine: higher education.

    Like we discussed here some time ago, take a shot at the heart of the Cathedral by focusing on reining in tuition costs and student debt (current and future) by the full force of the state.

    If you want to win the Asian vote, stay on education and promise to investigate the racist practices employed to exclude top students from top universities, as documented by Unz.

    There you go, cost: negligible, voters: love it. Keep the proposals simple and keep the enemy squirming.

    Glengarry

    January 11, 2014 at 9:29 PM

    • “Like we discussed here some time ago, take a shot at the heart of the Cathedral by focusing on reining in tuition costs and student debt (current and future) by the full force of the state.”

      This is essential. In reality, it is difficult or impossible to do this without being labelled “anti-education”, but essential still.

      Prole

      January 12, 2014 at 10:25 AM

      • It will of course be an unfortunate uphill struggle against the media, but at a minimum bypass them with some straight, short youtube videos where you make the promise and let the students see it for themselves. There’s plenty of material to pursue the issue further (how fast has tuition increased? how big is Harvard’s endowment again? what happens once you have your sheepskin? etc). Since it appeals to a fresh audience, I think it might energize actors like Fox and others too.

        Also, even the Occupy part of the student body will be sure to feel conflicted about going against it, and how can one not enjoy that?

        Glengarry

        January 13, 2014 at 8:30 PM

  23. This is OT, but since america is going towards to the dynastic model (which, by the way, was tried by John Quincy Adams who also got into the white house via bizarre means),

    Is everything going to the way that those who cannot aspire to go into value transference would be treated worse than stray dogs , right?

    colmainen

    January 11, 2014 at 10:33 PM

  24. Will Lil’ Jebediah WIN?????

    Dunno. But, what I can tell ya is:
    67 comments on LOTB about the kinda sorta maybe putative Repubby candidate predictively means
    MEGA-Twitter fappery during the next election
    Paling even to St. Romney’s
    Meaning –
    A WIN FOR HILL

    or, whatever PC colored/female combination of preferred liberal box-checks they have the media coronate.

    Firepower

    January 12, 2014 at 1:33 PM

    • Scott Brown would be an interesting choice. He’s one of the few moderate Republicans who would make a decent president and was a conservative enough to win over tea partiers, though he’ll have to flip on a few social issues. But as we know, POTUS has little control over culture.

      If he takes Jeanne Shaheen’s New Hampshire Senate seat in 2014 he could be a Senator and run for POTUS at the same time. If your him you’ve got nothing to lose when the field is this wide open. Another possibility is Senator John Thune.

      The Undiscovered Jew

      January 13, 2014 at 6:05 PM


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