The Romney machine; and who among the GOP candidates belonged in this race?

Rich Lowry captures the efficiency and preparedness of Romney:

As Philip Klein of the Washington Examiner has observed, Romney has been the only guy to show up for the job interview wearing a suit. He hasn’t been on a book tour masquerading as a presidential campaign (Herman Cain). He hasn’t banked everything on the debates (Newt Gingrich), or showed up unprepared (Rick Perry). He hasn’t bet on his performance in just one state (Rick Santorum, Jon Huntsman). Anyone who has won a presidential nomination during the past 30 years would recognize what Romney is doing and why

Lowry’s observations about the unseriousness of Romney’s opponents raises the question, who among the eight GOP candidates had any business running for president?

• Cain obviously had no business running for president.

• Gingrich with his impossibly messy history, tarnished image, and uncontrolled mouth obviously had no business running for president.

• Paul, whose libertarian ideology is jejune when it is not sinister and anti-American, had no business running for president.

• Santorum, an undistinguished two-term senator who had lost his state by 18 points and has a whiny, plaintive personality, had no business running for president.

• Huntsman, whose only message is his mysterious line that “America is suffering a trust deficit” and who never stops making it clear that Republicans are primitives and that he is superior to them all, had no business running for the GOP nomination.

• Perry is a successful 11 year governor of the country’s second largest state and his candidacy was not inappropriate, notwithstanding his intellectual limitations that came out once he began campaigning.

• Bachmann, though only a two-term, five month congresswoman when her campaign began, has clear strong positions, integrity, and star quality, and looks like America’s first female president. Her candidacy was not inappropriate.

• Romney is obviously capable and experienced and his candidacy was not inappropriate.

So of the eight candidates, only three had any business being in this campaign. The five others are running largely for reasons of ego, self-advancement, and other motives not pertinent to the selection of a president.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at January 10, 2012 07:01 PM | Send