Nov. 6, 2012 is a long way down the road. 644 days to be exact. But it is never too early to talk about the next presidential election. With declarations of candidacy sure to headline the month of February, the GOP will need to be diligent in finding their man to face Obama in 2012.
Scanning the frontrunners at this point, President Obama can call off the moving vans until January 2017. Honestly, outside of switching Gingrich for McCain, what is so different about the 2012 GOP slate?
None of the candidates bring anything new to the table. Let’s look at a few hopefuls. Mitt Romney, the favorite for the GOP nod since the close of the ’08 campaign, has more than a few problems he will have to hurdle.
Massachusetts passed a health care law during his governorship, which promised affordable coverage for all residents of the Bay State. Great for the GOP, huh? Maybe he can use it as a GOP counter to the Democrats health care bill.
Not so fast, my friend. The Massachusetts reforms and the Affordable Health Care Act are very much alike. After the 2006 “reforms,” Massachusetts residents pay the highest health insurance premiums for a family of four. No affordable access to health care found here. You know proponents of these mandates must be thinking “Please, can’t we just repeal the laws of economics?”
The unpopular Affordable Health Care Act, as everyone knows, has been repealed in the House, after it was the key issue in the 2010 midterm elections. This repeal is the result of the efforts of the new GOP majority.
So wait, the said frontrunner championed a state-level, literal cloned version of last year’s health care bill? Sounds like another GOP disaster to me.
Shouldn’t the challenging party be quelling the rise of candidates like Romney who endorsed a virtual copy of the chief legislative achievement of the incumbent? One would think so, especially when the law is taking such a bruising in the courts.
We can go down the list and profile each GOP hopeful, but that would be a real waste of time. They are virtually all the same. Almost all of the candidates that have served in Congress have some skeleton in the closet today’s Republican voter base will find unacceptable. Outside of two projected candidates, all voted for some version of the bailout, whether it was TARP or the auto bailouts.
If the GOP wants to retake the big house on Pennsylvania Avenue, they best shape up in a big way. Sure it is very early, but in times like these, the earlier the better. The Republicans do have one thing on their side. The Obama administration looks more like the Bush administration every day. Whether it be Afghanistan or Iran on the foreign policy front, or the cold shoulder to Social Security reform and other fiscal catastrophes, the White House hasn’t changed much. The massive corporations still rule the roost, deepening their ties with the bureaucrats, ensuring they will be taken care of the next time they flop.
The nominal gross domestic product and the consumer price index are at all-time highs, and we have at best limited signs of growth. High unemployment and record prices don’t sound like avenues to prosperity. All of the economic events of the past three years have debunked the policy prescription we are told will pull us from this awful rut. Is the government spending-equals-growth gimmick finally proving to be a failure? Sure seems like it.
If the GOP wants to take the White House in 2012, they need fresh ideas, not the same we have seen from Washington for so long. The last two administrations have employed failed policies that voters should simply not accept for another four years. “The last eight years of failed policies” that the Obama campaign preached about have now become the policies of the last 10 years.
So GOP, be most mindful and careful before hopping on the bandwagons that are tempting you to board. We all know what the next eight years could look like.
John Anselmo is a senior majoring in economics. His column runs biweekly on Wednesdays.
