Hillary’s secret weapon - Republican madness

Hillary’s secret weapon - Republican madness

By:

LeRoy Goldman - GUEST COLUMNIST

Asheville Citizen-Times

12-31-2015

It’s one thing for a political party to suffer a humiliating presidential defeat when the stars are aligned against it. That’s understandable. When the Democrats nominated Adlai Stevenson in 1952 and 1956 they knew he never had a chance against Ike. When the Republicans nominated Barry Goldwater in 1964 we all knew that the choice he offered was one that would be resoundingly rejected on election day. The same unavoidable and predictable fate befell Democrats George McGovern in 1972, and Walter Mondale in 1984, as well as Republican John McCain in 2008.

But 2016 is shaping up in a way that promises to break new ground, ground so bizarre that it defies sanity. This election is one that history teaches us the Republicans should win. Call it the pendulum effect. After two terms in office the voters frequently have handed the reins of power over to the opposition party. 2016 should be such a year. President Obama’s favorability rating is in the low 40s, far below the 50 percent minimum that is typically necessary for an incumbent’s party to have a reasonable chance to retain the presidency. In addition, about two-thirds of the American people believe the nation is on the wrong track.

Barring a bolt of lightning, say from the FBI, it’s clear that the Democrats will nominate Hillary Clinton. However, she comes with much baggage. Large numbers of Americans, including Democrats, do not trust her. She is not likable. She’s stiff and wooden on the campaign trail. Thanks to her proclivity for secrecy, she is under investigation by the FBI regarding her use of a private email system while serving as President Obama’s Secretary of State. Finally, she will be hamstrung by the fact that she dare not separate herself too far from Obama’s unpopular policies for fear of alienating African-Americans and Hispanics whose votes she must have in order to win next November.

And yet with the Iowa Caucuses and the New Hampshire Primary just around the corner, it looks like the GOP is on the verge of not only anointing a nominee who can’t win, but also one who will enable the Democrats to retake control of the United States Senate. If that happens, it may well destroy the Republican Party, a fate the Party of Lincoln will have earned and richly deserved.

In a column in the Washington Post about a month ago former Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, described the kind of president the nation needs. Gates is a Republican who worked for eight presidents. He ran the Pentagon for Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, and was the Director of the CIA under President George H. W. Bush. Gates believes we need a president who understands that power in Washington is divided among the three branches of government, a president who is truthful, not a deceptive “spinner”, a president who will be resolute and have the courage to act “in defiance of public opinion” when the national interest is at stake, and, most importantly, a president who will be a unifier of the American people.

The front runners for the GOP nomination, Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, and Ben Carson all fail Gates’ worthy requirements, and they fail them miserably.

In addition, all of them will provide Hillary Clinton with the red meat she requires in order to avert the defeat that otherwise would befall her next November.

The battle for the White House will come down to which candidate wins in the crucial eight swing states of Florida, North Carolina, Virginia, New Hampshire, Ohio, Iowa, Colorado, and Nevada. Trump, Cruz, or Carson can’t win any of them.

Moreover, most of those eight are the states that will also determine which party controls the Senate. The “down-ballot” effect on Republican Senate candidates in the swing states will be devastating, if the GOP nominates one of the certain losers that it has come to adore.

Mitch McConnell, the Senate Majority Leader, recently cautioned his party not to nominate candidates who can’t win the November election. He said, “we’d like to have a nominee who can carry purple states...otherwise he’s not going to get elected”. He then pointed out that the determinative Senate elections will be in those same states: Florida, New Hampshire, Ohio, Colorado, and Nevada, as well as Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Illinois.

The Republican Party stands on the edge of an abyss of its own making. The question is whether it will take the plunge. The GOP’s madness is Hillary’s secret weapon.

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