As 2015 winds down, my mind turns (politically, anyway) to what is the future of the Republican Party.

Over the last 20 years, since I left working for the party, I’ve watched the GOP drift and lately double-time march to the right. I’ve often wondered how can that rightward charge be stopped.  I always figured it would take a charismatic moderate Republican to do it. Thus, I didn’t see it happening.

Most of the candidates always drift right for a primary and back to the middle for the general election. They still do, mostly. Kind of faking it to win support. But the bigger drifts days seem over. These candidates for the most part are right-wing believers.  

Is the answer to do as we are doing? Allow the rightward push to the point the party’s presidential wins will be fewer and farther between? And, by the way, have wrong-headed policies and beliefs? Or do we finally have that debate – out loud. As is the current mantra on the Republican side – let’s stop being politically correct and discuss what the Republican Party is. Is it a right wing harbor? Or is it, as my old boss Lee Atwater said, a “big tent” tolerant of various points of view but focused on a center-right philosophy?

Many Republicans are talking about a third-party but the talk has been that third-party person should be a right-wing conservative. Odds are such an effort would fail because they’d just be dividing the vote that could go to either candidate. There are a couple of other possible scenarios:

1. Maybe this is the time for a moderate Republican to go third party.  He or she needn’t even be that charismatic in this situation. Just provide a right-center agenda, an agenda based on inclusivity not tossing people out of the country or blocking others. Fact is, the Democrats are not all that excited about Hillary. A credible moderate Republican might actually have a shot. Or establish a base for the future. Accept that or not the next question, who is that person? Jon Huntsman is making noises making the ever popular claim that “many are asking me” to run independent but he never gathered much support last time he tried running. It could be Jeb Bush. But I think he’s shot himself in the foot and can’t be The One to pull off a third-party run (even though I still hold out hope he can pull off the GOP nomination this year!). But someone needs to step up and present that old Nelson Rockefeller, Howard Baker Republican philosophy. There is a market for that person among Republicans and Democrats, who are moving too far left.
2. Go with the current flow and watch the party nominate a Ted Cruz – who I think really has no political core but presents himself as a Tea Party-esque Republican. Let Cruz be the nominee and he surely will lose. Then, the right-wingers can no longer complain that the party keeps putting up moderates who lose and if only it would nominate a true conservative, nirvana would be reached. Then, after the loss, have the out-loud debate as to what the party is, and isn’t.
   

The winner of the 2016 election is pretty set in stone – Hillary Clinton.  Like it or not, as things stand now, she is the next president. We all know Democrats, including many female Democrats, who will vote for her, but will hold their noses as they do.  The hue and cry for the first female president has been quite muted this year, in fact.

Cruz cannot win, he’s too far to the right. He’s the type who’ll say anything to keep on track for his ambition.  Rubio might have a shot but he’s not been a great campaigner, so far (ask the people of Iowa or New Hampshire how often he’s been there), and his ambition tends to shine through, and not in a good way.  He has that smug I’m-acting-in-this-ad-but-pretty-well-don’t-you-think look.

If one assumes the current front runner can’t win the nomination (which I assume), then the next four in the polls, according to Real Clear Politics averages, are: Cruz, 18 percent; Rubio, 12 percent, Carson, 10 percent, Bush, leading the others with 4.5 percent. Take out the front-runner, take out Carson. They ain’t getting there from here. And then you have a contest.

Cruz can’t win the general. Rubio might be able to, but he has to work harder. Then you come to Jeb – so he is not out of it. Even if the front-runner wins in New Hampshire(and I contend he will not win a primary or caucus), the “other” race is who finishes atop the next tier, because he likely becomes the anti-front runner to battle it out in subsequent state primaries and as the field further winnows itself. And, as my friend and former colleague Ben Ginsberg points out in a Wall Street Journal op-ed today, people are forgetting that not all primaries are winner-take-all but proportionate so also-rans do win delegates, which could (not likely but could) contribute not to a brokered convention (as Ben says, there are no brokers left to do lead such an effort) but a negotiated one.

Point is, the way the GOP is heading right now, it is heading for a presidential loss in 2016. A big one. It’s a good time to have a debate over what direction the party should take, not what direction it’s taking. The party can lose with someone representing very conservative beliefs or it can have a shot at winning with a more mainstream candidate.  That debate could be settled once the primary voting chooses a candidate.

If the current front runner does pull it off. Or, if Cruz pulls it off. Then, we will see how being anti-immigrant, pro-“boots on the ground without thinking it through,” anti-choice and anti- gay marriage pays off as a platform (Spoiler Alert: It ain’t a pretty outcome).

The voting public in Iowa and New Hampshire typically don’t really begin making up their minds until after January 1. So the real work is about to begin. We’ll see if organizations – to get out the vote – still matter. My guess is they do.
And we’ll see how this race pans out over the next two months. This is really when it will be decided.

So, Happy New Year, may it be a healthy one. And no matter which candidate you choose to back, may your horse be with you.

Most of the analyses I’ve seen of last night’s GOP debate said not much happened to change the numbers. I agree. But I think some things happened that may change some perceptions:

• Jeb Bush, for example, finally had a “good night” as judged by the talking heads who saw him be successfully aggressive against the front-runner.  He didn't look awkward, as he has in the past. I’m hoping those moments of success for Bush give him some of the self-confidence he seems to have been lacking, and one reason he sits at about 3 percent in the polls (Tangent: I don’t view, in this cycle, 3 percent as being out of it, yet). Maybe, just maybe he did enough to get people to at least hear him out.
  
• Sens. Rubio and Cruz had their moments, mostly bickering with each other.  (Tangent:  Could someone please explain carpet bombing to Sen. Cruz, who seems to think carpet bombing is a strategic use of pinpoint accuracy. It isn’t. It’s CARPET bombing, meaning dropping bombs across a broad swath, as if you’re attacking a big city. And by the way Sen. Cruz, these terrorists are not sitting together in a group with a big sign pointing down saying “carpet bomb here.” They are…terrorists! That means you never know where they’ll strike next or where they are. Have you been paying attention?) But we all got to see more of each so we can make better decisions. Though I knew a long time ago, Cruz is not my guy. And Rubio comes across as RoboCandidate -- programmed to try for the next level.
  
•  Gov. Christie, well, if we didn't know before we now know he was a former prosecutor. He said it every five minutes. (enough, governor, we heard you!) and that he has executive experience which his senatorial opponents lack. (Tangent: I happen to agree with the governor that executive experience matters in picking a president.) Christie did have a good moment when he talked about endless debates about minutiae in the Senate. And Cruz, Rubio and Paul were talking as if we all know which committee does what in the Senate, and that we really care. It's one reason we haven't elected many senators or House members as president straight out of the Congress.
  
• Carly Fiorina, well, I’m not big on form over substance, but showing a little livelier personality wouldn’t hurt in the likability area for her. We all want a serious president but also one we like. Again, saw enough to know..not my candidate.
  
•  The good doctor's his moment has past. Starting off with moment of silence I’m sure played well with his evangelical supporters but seemed a little over the top to me. But he has studied up on foreign policy to the extent that he can utter some indication he knows something. But i got the impression that's all it was -- him repeating things he's been told.
  
• We also heard just about every candidate on stage say that President Obama is “leading from behind” – a good line, once. But to keep repeating it, well, STOP!  Just stop.
  

I thought it was a rather substantive debate, as these one-minute-answer shows go. There also were those moments that happen and then are often forgotten. A few examples:

•  Because it’s live TV, sometimes awkward language is used because folks' mouths move faster than their brains.. Like when analyst S.E. Cupp said that something was a “decisive decision.” Wow. Think about that. I’ll give you a second…
  
• Or, pre-debate, when CNN had a camera in the wings while the candidates were gathering to be announced on-stage. It was nothing but a milling around of a large group of people getting ready to try to be introduced. Anderson Cooper introduced the shot as “what the audience can’t see but you can.” Wow, did the audience miss something big!! Thank you, CNN, for giving us something the audience couldn’t see, and we couldn’t care less about.
  
• How many of us remember the 1976 movie “Network”? My recollection is the graphics used in that faux news network, once it started improving its ratings, were quick cuts of flashy graphics with a voice-over of a very dramatic male voice saying introductory things. Kind of like what CNN used last night as its opening for the debate. Lord, just intro the debate, CNN, you already have our attention and advertising eyeballs, which is what you wanted. We don’t need the flashy, dumb intros as if this was the Super Bowl and each candidate is Tom Brady. Come to think of it, we don’t need that kind of intro to the Super Bowl either.
  
• Oh, did you notice that all but two of the male candidates wore red ties? Dr. Carson and Gov. Kasich wore blue. Carly wore a red dress. 
  
• Jeb had a few good lines he used against the front-runner who’s only comeback was, “oh, yeah, so’s your old man” or something like that.
  
• Wolf Blizer, who I thought lost control of the first debate, was much better last night. He won the shouting match with Cruz, which was not a good moment for the Senator as he tried to demonstrate that talking louder showed strength or something. It didn’t. 
  
• And in the "under card debate" it seemed each was trying to talk louder than the other. Each did.
  

 

 

The cable news networks are cleaning up financially through the Republican presidential debates. The ratings are through the roof which means the networks can charge more for the ads during those debates.

What useful information has come out of those debates to help a voter make a choice on a candidate is another question.

These “debates” usually involve a panel of questioners with the rules typically being something like: Candidates get one minute to answer the question and 30 second to rebut an attack on themselves. After that, it’s a free for all with candidates interrupting each other trying to get their share of air time – between the ads that interrupt the program.

Now the format is aimed at being entertaining, to justify those high ad rates. The networks doesn’t want long, policy-based answers or the debate gets less entertaining for TV (ad rates). Thus, the “winner” typically is the candidate who got him or herself the most face time or had the best one-liner, or who fended off an attack successfully (see Sen. Rubio’s rebuff of Jeb Bush’s attempt two debates ago. That seemed to help establish Rubio as a  "leader" and Bush as "loser" for setting up Rubio).

 I think many of us want information from these debates, information that helps us make a reasoned decision on who we want as our president, not who is the most entertaining or the most prolific at getting his/her face on camera.
Here’s a format I’d suggest:

Limit the debate to five question. Same length of time for the debate -- two hours. That would give each candidate sufficient time to give a real answer. This forces, or tries to force, the candidates to give a substantive answer and forces the panel to work harder on those five questions. Candidates can avoid the question if they choose. But the viewers would see that and avoidance would stand out more clearly when it's just one of five responses they give. If a candidate wants to be seen as avoiding one of five questions, more power to him/her. But the voters would see that too.  Here are my questions:

1. Please sum up the key points in your economic plan – the spending, the taxes and the cost
2. Please explain how you would approach the problem of extreme Islamic terrorism in this country and the world.  What would you do to make us feel more secure?
3. I know politically this is a difficult question to answer because of various considerations but who would be your top three candidates for each of these positions: Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense, Treasury Secretary and chief of staff?
   
4. This campaign has been far different from other campaigns we’ve experienced both in tone and because of the emergence of social media. Some of you have adapted well, some have not. Knowing what you know now, what two things would you do differently if you could start this campaign all over?
5. What would you do specifically to bridge the wide gap that exists between the two parties that has deadlocked much of the law-making process?
   

Those would be my top five questions. For one debate. The questions can and should change for each debate. We can argue if they are the right questions. These, though, would allow us to hear answers to how they’d approach the economy (and that can include the income inequality in the country), foreign policy (at least the biggest threat to the West right now), tone and who they might appoint to key jobs, very important especially for the non-political candidates in the mix.  

Some candidates have been quite specific in some proposals, others have not. I also think if they kept the debate to just five questions, they could force the candidates to answer or demonstrate they don’t know the answers and/or what their administrations would look like.

We’ve experienced the bombast. We’ve heard the soundbites. We've read the Tweets.

Now let’s get some information that will tell us what each of these candidates actually would do. And, if they can’t answer, show that, too.

Enough of trying to force candidates to answer questions in one minute or 30 seconds. Let’s give them the time to respond not limited time in which they can avoid.

Bad TV maybe, but good information potentially for those of us who have to make up our minds.

I’m done. As much fun – and frustration – as it has been to write about Donald Trump and his presidential campaign – I’m done. This will be the last time he is the subject of a post here (unless something fantastical – even for him – happens.)

Calling for a ban on a religion in the United States does it for me. Yeah, the name-calling of Mexicans, women, Jews and others was bad enough, but a ban based on religion? Donald, let’s fold up the American tent, let’s forget about those who died in wars fighting for our freedoms, let’s…well, you get it.

I doubt he will gain more support because of this, one of his only, real “policy” pronouncements. Because I think he’s already wrapped up the bigot-fascist-ignorant vote and, I hope, there are no more to get. When he finally got around to detailing one policy, this is it?

Do I think Donald Trump is a bigot? Not really. But he sure talks like one. I’m sure it’s because it’s worked for him on this campaign and not because he truly believes what he says. He is a carnival barker. He is Barnum. He says what it takes to get publicity. To draw an audience.To keep his name in lights. In his wildest imagination did he think he’d be leading polls for a nomination to be president? I can’t imagine. For an ignorant campaigner he is a bright man who has made a lot of money. Then again, while it takes a Big Ego to run for office, we have seen few narcissists like Trump.

I never thought, and still don’t think, that he’d get the nomination. What he has done, though, is possibly knock out whoever would have been the GOP’s best candidate for president. In my view that is/was Jeb Bush, who has proven to be a terrible candidate (then again his dad wasn’t a great candidate either but if you read Jon Meachem’s new bio of 41, you’ll see what a successful president he really was). But Jeb Bush, at his core, is a good man with the experience one wants in a president. Problem is, you don’t get hired, you have to get elected.

Ted Cruz, a scary guy, is now in the lead in Iowa (which may be why Trump made his ban-all-Muslim’s pronouncement) but really Iowa doesn’t matter as much as it once did. Lately, it gives us, a more right wing winner than eventually wins the nomination. In the two most recent cycles, the winners were Rick Santorum and Mike Huckabee. Not exactly mainstream politicians. Perennial candidates and non-winners (better than losers).

So, my guess is Cruz catches a little fire for a week after Iowa and then crashes and burns in NH where Chris Christie is making a comeback. But Christie is a typical pol who’ll say what it takes to maintain his credibility, but does it loudly enough that he sounds tough. If Jeb can’t win, or finish top three, in New Hampshire, he’s probably done, unfortunately.  Trump, well, if he doesn't win an early primary, he will be left in the dust. His publicity will wash up and he'd have to dip into his "HUUUUUGEEEEE" pile of money to bolster his campaign. I don't really see him investing in his campaign unless he gets some votes early. He sure hasn't invested much so far, relying on the free press he's been getting.

Then the GOP is likely onto Marco Rubio who sounds good but would come to the presidency with just a little more experience than President Obama did. And that lack of experience means a longer learning curve in the Oval, a bigger curve we really can’t afford right now. On the other hand, he would be quite a contrast to Hillary Clinton – generationally and diversity-wise. He may be the Democrats’ worst nightmare in that sense. Bottom line, after Jeb, I don't have a GOP candidate I'm leaning toward yet.

But, I am moving on, Donald. I can’t say it’s been nice knowing you because it really hasn’t been.