Barack Obama’s presidency has been an unmitigated disaster. The slowest economic recovery since World War II, an unemployment rate dropping more from people giving up hope than finding work, the rest of the world looking at American leadership on the world stage the way Michael Moore looks at a salad. You name it; it’s worse.
But the “now” in which we live is one thing; the future is something else. Yes, the future will have to grapple with an unthinkable level of debt, but it’s not yet unmanageable. The economy has been hampered by the weights dropped on it by Democrats these past years, but it can recover once it is unburdened. And the world will rally to a strong America that leads when America has a president who wants to lead a strong America again.
In short, all the damage done by President Obama’s “fundamental transformation” of America can be undone because most of it wasn’t done through legislation; it was done through regulation and executive order. Regulations can be reversed by new regulators, and executive orders can be reversed through executive orders from a new executive.
We are only two years away from a new executive, and thanks to the failures of President Obama and the damage he and his policies have done to the Democratic Party brand, the odds are looking good that the next president will be a Republican.
Sure, Republicans can nominate the wrong person and lose, or worse – nominate the wrong person and win. That’s a battle for primary season, not the afterglow of a glorious rebuke of progressivism.
But one thing is certain: The presidency of Barack Obama is the best thing to ever happen to the Republican Party, both now and in the future.
Former President George W. Bush is a very nice man, but he wasn’t much of a constitutionalist or conservative when it comes to how he governed. Nor were Republicans when they controlled Congress during his first six years. If Republicans learned nothing from that time, all of this is moot. But the Senate didn’t have names like Paul, Lee and Cruz in it then, so there’s hope.
Another thing the Bush years lacked was a bench. George W. Bush had no one in his cabinet who wanted to be president. H vice-president didn’t even want the job. There were no Republican governors waiting in the wings either. There was no pool of Republican heirs apparent to a mixed legacy, so the GOP went back to the well and nominated Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.
After President Reagan’s terms expired, governors, cabinet members, members of Congress, and his vice president all were. His legacy built and stocked a bench of viable candidates. Bush didn’t have that, didn’t focus on that. And Barack Obama has been worse.
Who are Democrats of note who could have a reasonable chance at the Oval Office? Who has a national profile able to rally the American people to their side?
Take a look at their bench:
Vice President Biden – He’s 71. He’s been in Washington since he was 29. And he is an absolute gaffe machine. He wants the job desperately—having run for it in 1988 and 2008. But thankfully, he’s never taken seriously.
Hillary Clinton – She’s 67 with a resume thick with titles but thin on accomplishments. Electorally, she has won one gimme race against the hapless Rick Lazio and coughed up a 20-point lead in the presidential primaries to a state senator from Illinois. What beyond her husband’s last name and the fact she’d be the first woman president does she bring to the table? We saw her in action for six years as secretary of state. Nominating her would be akin to Republicans nominating McCain – it’s just her turn.
Martin O’Malley – He’s only 51, but he’s also unknown to the masses and unpopular with voters who do know him. O’Malley has the ambition and ego, but his resume is one of a tax-hiker who never met a government program he didn’t like. His 40 tax hikes in eight years was too much even for deeply blue Maryland, where unemployment has gone up even as it has gone down nationwide. He polls only 1 percent in the presidential race in his own state, and his legacy will be having his lieutenant governor and hand-picked successor blow a 30-point lead in the polls and lose by nearly five to a Republican who had never held public office before.
Elizabeth Warren – She’s 65 and still wet behind the ears. Warren is a more passionate advocate for Obama’s progressive agenda than Obama himself. But that agenda was just roundly rejected by voters. She appeals only to the fringe of the progressive left and has a habit of speaking before thinking. Her knee-jerk reactionary progressivism is perfect for Massachusetts, but the national spotlight will blind her. Plus, she hasn’t answered questions on her claiming minority status to gain employment at Harvard to the satisfaction of anyone outside Massachusetts.
Who else is there? Nancy Pelosi? Harry Reid? Jerry Brown? National Democrats are old, and white, and unpopular outside the bubble in which they live. They could prop up one of the Castro brothers (the American ones, not the Cuban ones), but they’ve literally done nothing except smile and be Hispanic. That’s their bench.
In the last six years the Democratic Party has disintegrated. Republicans couldn’t have scripted it better. And although it remains well within their reach to blow it, things couldn’t look better for them. And it’s all thanks to Barack Obama – the best thing to ever happen to Republicans.
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