In each Republican election, the candidates vie for the title of being Ronald Reagan's namesake. Each candidate usually tries to promote the portions of their personal narratives that parallel Reagan's rise. "I (insert candidates name here), like Reagan, took acting classes"......."I, like Reagan, married a woman"! The level of hero-worship is intriguing but it is also damaging because no one can ever live up to the mythology of the man (Reagan). But each election, brings forth a new crop of candidates claiming to wear his mantle and the legacy always seems to settle on one candidate. In the last Presidential election, George W. Bush's supporters claimed that he too was the next reincarnation of The Gipper. Eventually, GOP voters always come to realize that the "New Reagan" isn't as great as the original version. This years "reluctant" nominee-for the mantle of Reagan is Chris Christie-who has been screaming as loudly as he can, that he doesn't want the Job. Republicans have seemed dumbfounded-afterall, who wouldn't want to be President?
I think that there is a very simple reason Chris Christie doesn't want the job-right now; Why would he take the Presidency now, with everything that is going wrong? I have long stated that the incredible collapse of our economy, created by the failure of government, created a situation that could not be resolved for several years. The truth is that no matter what policies President Obama implemented, this problem was so large and catastrophic that it was always destined to consume most, if not all of the first four years of ANY President. It will likely take a few more years before this nation's economy is fully restored and any President in the interim will be literally bombarded with the attacks of his enemies. The nation will unfortunately blame anyone in the oval office and will likely label them a failure, until the country is healthy, once again. And this is why Chris Christie doesn't want the job. This is why no serious republican wants to be president, right now.
The list of candidates that have refused to run, is almost as long as the list of candidates running (and its also a more credible list). Haley Barbour-the universally respected governor of Tennessee has always been regarded as the best and brightest of the old south. But, he is out! Mitch Daniels the consummate no nonsense republican was sure to run, but he too walked away from the podium; and Mike Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas has decided to keep hosting his tv show. All of them, including Chris Christie and Sarah Palin are running as far from the seat of power as possible! I would argue that two things have deterred these candidates; and Chief among those deterrents is the current political climate. Almost all of the truly credible candidates are guilty of being moderates at some point in their respective tenures. None of them are anxious to step out on stage and be "Perried", which I define as "being lauded as a conservative in the outset of an election, only to have the same conservative base that asked you to run, turn on you like a pack of ravenous unfed pack-animals". The second deterrent is that these candidates understand what we, in the media are afraid to admit; They understand that this economy was always going to take four years to heal and President Obama has likely done all that he can to make it heal. He has done all that anyone can to turn this ship around and no amount of GOP proposed tax cuts could ever have produced a different result. The truth is that republicans don't have any answers that they seriously believe would have made this recovery occur at a faster rate. On camera, they will of-course say very different things but they don't even believe that they could have done a better job. I would argue that the recession was a major blow to republican economic orthodoxy, after all we followed their policies for 8 years and we still ended up in recession. The collapse forced republicans to stumble and loose faith in their own ideas! In reality, republicans know that economies heal, but the process takes time. We endured the worst collapse since the Great Depression. Despite their constant attacks on the President as a failure, reasonable republicans know that this was never something that could have been done inside of a year (or 9 months as Michele Bachman claims). They also know that despite the childish antics and mindless partisan snyping of both sides, this country is recovering but there is still a tremendous mess to clean up.
The crop of "could have been" candidates have just concluded that they should let Obama finish cleaning up the mess that was made before he arrived in Washington. The next President will surely have a much easier time leading this nation. In order to truly repair this country, Obama will have to make some of the toughest decisions of any President and it seems that Obama- the eternal optimist, is actually willing to make all of those hard decisions (entitlement reform). He has already offered to reform social security on multiple occasions and he even offered a grand bargain that would have included Medicare reform. These reforms are critical changes but any sane, career conscious politician will be hesitant to approach them. I am not attacking these "would be" candidates or suggesting anything negative about their character. It is entirely normal and understandable, for a politician. Why face the wrath and ridicule of angry voters in both parties, when you can simply let someone else be "the bad guy". The current political climate hasn't rewarded any politician, willing to challenge his or her own base constituency. But Obama seems almost enthusiastic to try; it seems he senses the "fierce urgency"- of our current condition. By the time 2016 comes around, all of the really hard lifting will have already been done, and Chris Christie and all of the others can run for the Presidency of a much improved nation, in a much healthier political environment.
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