The Republican primaries are down to basically four candidates. In the polling various people like Donald Trump, Herman Cain, Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrinch have peaked and declined. Two in particular, Michele Bachmann and Rick Perry, peaked and declined and I'd say the cause was mostly the result of poor debate performance and other comments I'd characterize as incoherent.
So, basically the primary process worked. Potential candidates took a shot and the American people found them lacking. And even though it seems like this process has been going on forever, it's only been a few months and their peak and decline were much quicker than that. I think, for Bachmann and Perry we looked and quickly found them not qualified for president. They didn't decline because of scandals or other things, they lost because they didn't make sense. Perry couldn't even remember the names of all the cabinet departments he want to close, let alone what they do.
On this basis, I'd go further and say they showed they weren't qualified for political leadership, and yet, Bachmann has been a Congresswoman for 3 terms and Perry has won three terms as Governor of Texas (and served for a bit more, taking over after Bush left that office). Their platforms weren't that different from what they want to do in their current offices (well closer for Bachmann in Washington than Perry in Texas). So the American people interviewed them for only a few months and found them to be unqualified. Why can't Minnesota and Texas see the same after hiring them both three times?
1 comment:
I just came back to this old post with an injudicious flick of the scroll wheel. I'd say it's even worse for Texas, since each of Perry's terms was 4 years to Bachmann's terms' 2.
Since you wrote it, though, Minnesota has proved even wackier by picking Santorum in the primary. I'd crow about that making Texas look less stupid, but we haven't had our primary yet so there's still time to pick one nutter or another.
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