Trump rises, the republic suffers

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 25/02/2016 (3538 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The 1988 race for the Republican nomination included the sitting vice-president, the youngest navy pilot in the Second World War, a former member of the House of Representatives, an ambassador to the United Nations and China, a director of the CIA and a successful businessman. Oh, that was just one candidate — George Herbert Walker Bush.

Another was a war hero who once ran for vice-president named Bob Dole, he was the GOP Senate leader back then.

Looking back on 1988, it appears as if Bush had more qualifications and experience than the whole 2016 Republican presidential field, surely more than the small field of candidates that is left standing.

Bush defeated Dole, the runner-up, and a handful of other candidates to claim the nomination. There were no assertions of who was more or less “establishment” in the race: 1988 was a simpler time, when candidates and the electorate acknowledged that by virtue of being a candidate for president one is, or has joined, or at the very least hopes to join, the ranks of the establishment.

Both Dole and Bush had served, successively, as Republican Party chairman. This certainly did not qualify them for the office they were seeking, but it didn’t exclude them either, and in the case of Bush, it was one of the reasons why his candidacy was a factor when he ran in 1980.

Today, that would be the kiss of death in a quest for the Republican nomination.

There are five candidates currently seeking the GOP nomination. Of those, only Gov. John Kasich of Ohio, a former House budget committee chairman, would be recognizable to the GOP of 1988. Kasich lags behind, in fifth, in public opinion polling, despite his solid conservative record of achievement, having introduced the last balanced budget as a member of the House.

Of the three candidates that have a chance to be nominated, all are deeply flawed.

Frontrunner Donald Trump has been compared to previous presidential candidate Pat Buchanan. This is wholly unfair to Buchanan, who ran campaigns of serious policy, serious organization and intellectual consistency. Others may choose to compare Trump to the candidacy of Ross Perot or Steve Forbes, other businessmen who had presidential aspirations. But, Forbes ran campaigns focused on policy and Perot has shown previous signs of interest in public service.

It would also be fair to call Trump a false prophet of conservatism. There are few positions Trump holds today that he held 16 years ago. No one could ever use Google to show Pat Buchanan disagreeing with himself. A quick search will show Trump holding a wide array of positions on a given issue.

Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas is approaching his fourth year of service in the United States Senate. In his less than full term, Cruz has no major legislative accomplishments to speak of — other than forcing the shutdown of the government. Gridlock is hardly good government. Notably, he has not received the endorsement of a single colleague in the Senate.

Marco Rubio, the junior senator from Florida, is a career politician who will be wrapping up his first term in the Senate in January 2017. Oddly, in a year of outsiders, Rubio brings the worst of politics to the table, but with little experience. Rubio, whose robotic candidacy has been rightly mocked, is Obama-like in his ambition but of more concern is his lack of experience. To avoid a legislative record, Obama routinely abstained from legislative votes. Rubio just doesn’t show up for his senatorial duty. Truancy is not leadership that will steer the world in troubled times.

In 1988, both parties had presidential-candidate rosters that were an embarrassment of riches. In 2016, it is looking more and more like a “confederacy of dunces.” The republic must be prayed for.

Michael Diamond is a campaign strategist who has worked on more than 20 electoral and public affairs campaigns.