Their score cards so far.
Hey, kids! Let’s have a little fun. Looks like the 2024 Republican presidential field is shaping up. So far, the announced (or soon-to-be) field stands at 10 — dangerously approaching 2016, when there were 17 and the debates had to be held in shifts like meal time at Little Annie’s orphanage. Remember Carly Fiorina? (The first GOP debate is August 23 in Milwaukee.)
The faceless bureaucrats at Blaska Policy Werkes power-washed Ol’ Sparky, our Eisenhower-era mainframe computer before cranking it to life. For data, they fed it issues of The Daily Worker (where Joy Reid writes a helpful homemaker column!), The Epoch Times, National Enquirer, and Spudman Magazine, “the most trusted voice in the potato industry.”
After Ol’ Sparky made confetti of that input, we asked the clattering contraption to consider nine assets essential to a successful candidate for political office: 1) money, 2) conservative credentials, 3) how “presidential” they seem, 4) how much Fight is in them, 5) name ID, 6) their qualifications (or resumé), 7) whether they would check a box on on a job application (demographics), 8) their likability factor, and 9) how avid a campaigner.
Ronald Reagan is the gold standard. But even he added nothing to the identity politics factor. (Republicans want to promote minorities without government mandates.) Tim Scott, Nikki Haley, and Larry Elder clean up on that score.
To our way of thinking, only Mike Pence and Ron DeSantis can match Reagan’s gold standard of true conservatism. Trump these days seems to be defending Dr. Fauci. But there’s no question #45 is a fighter, and that’s what Republicans want almost more than anything. But who else would pick a fight with Walt Disney but Ron DeSantis? Chris Christie may be getting in the race only to fight Donald Trump. We’d pay per view for that cage match. (Christie got a major boost from Peggy Noonan today.)
Who seems ‘presidential’
In our category of “Presidential,” we tend to forget that Reagan had to live down Bedtime for Bonzo in 1980, which is why we gave him a 4, even considering that for eight years the Gipper was governor of our most populous state. Mike Pence with that white hair LOOKs presidential. (O.K., so did Warren Harding.) You want resumé? How about Congress, governor of Indiana, and vice president? That got Pence a 5. But does he have the fight? He couldn’t bloody a boiling beet.
Money, it is said, is the mother’s milk of political campaigns. (Tell that to Tim Michels.) Trump is said to be sitting on a $95 million warchest, but the British Guardian reports that much of that can’t be used in a presidential campaign, only about $18 million of it can be. He’ll need the rest in legal fees. Tim Scott is one of the Senate’s top fundraisers and had $22 million on hand. Nikki Haley has $11 million. Vivek Ramaswamy raised $9.4 million, according to the Washington Examiner, but has a personal fortune of $600 million — possibly more than Trump but who knows what else he’s got hidden at Mar-a-Lago?
Trump and Reagan already were household names when they first sought the presidency. At the opposite end of the spectrum, we wonder if anyone in North Dakota (3 electoral votes) knows Doug Bergum is their governor. But he’s worth $1.1 Billion with a B. Then again, Mike Bloomberg was “loaded” as they say in Fargo ND, and he fizzled like a wet bottle rocket.
They liked Ike
Do not discount the likability factor. “Well, there you go again” was so sweet and disarming that poor Jimmy Carter never recovered. Whoever does not LIKE Tim Scott probably beats his puppy dog. Not even Trump can bad-mouth him. As for DeSantis, it hurts when he smiles — not him but us!
We gave Trump minus 5 points in the Presidential category. He was presidential at his excellent State of the Union addresses but today more resembles a braying banana-republic caudillo, minus the chest bandoliers. (Which isn’t a bad idea!)
Blaska’s Bottom Line: We admit it — Hugo Chavez jiggered our aged and readily hackable computer. Go tell Gableman. We did not rate Spudman, unless he is really Doug Bergum.
36 responses to “Rating the GOP presidential candidates”
[…] This post originally appeared at https://davidblaska.com/2023/06/03/rating-the-gop-presidential-candidates/ […]
LUV Elder’s Aw Shucks/No Bull$#!t demeanor, but his lack of a national presence may not play in Peoria….or Effingham or Carbondale, either…
Lefty treats any minority with the temerity to leave the Lefty Plantation and think for themselves with virulently RAYcist disdain; look no further than a Pre-Elon Musk Twitter allowing the Uncle Tim slur to trend.
Should Righty select a minority, and select them properly (because of the content of their character) look for Lefty to unapologetically say the quiet part out loud.
Why? Because they’re the party of Id driven, conscienceless angry wymyn and weak, ‘nadless men and can’t help themselves.
Blaska: “(H)ate is O.K. if you hate the right people
Bravo Indigo November Golf Oscar!
The Gotch
I don’t agree with your “-5 for presidential” for Trump. He by far exceeded expectations for being president once he got past campaigning then came all the incoming lies the deep state threw at him and still are. That alone makes him presidential as he was able to withstand it for 4 years and still ran the country. You gave Pence a higher score? Please. “Not being presidential” is a talking point of the left. Watch Greg Kelly on Newsmax just once. He redefines what presidential means. Love of country over self is one of the traits.
You actually think Trump loves this country more than himself? You don’t think he’s the biggest narcissist since Warren Beatty? Whining about losing? Grabbing them by the P • • • • ? Encouraging the insurrection? You think THAT is presidential?
Very true, but even Trump’s narcissism is minor league when compared with that of Gavin Newsom, who was probably praying fervently that the fall Biden took at the Air Force Academy was enough to knock him out–and out of the running. Yet lefty pundits regularly praise him as “forward looking” and the cesspool he’s made of CA as a “model for the nation.”
Yes, otherwise why would he subject himself to all these insults? Is he vain about his hair? Yes. Vanity and love of country are two different things. There wasn’t an insurrection based on the definition of insurrection and no one’s been charged with it. You need to get over something said in private years ago while he bragged about women LETTIng famous/rich men do things. It’s true and he’s not taking it back.
Money? Michael Bloomberg would like a word.
I don’t see any senile/disabled people on your list…very disappointing. Fetterman, Feinstein and Joe Biden have proved that brain injuries, adult diapers and susceptability to sandbag ambushes are no longer perceived as negatives.
But seriously, I will look for Leadership. A big clue to that will be saying something that is not “preaching to the choir” as you mentioned in prior column. I like some on your list like Elder and Ramaswamy but they have no chance. It’s Trump or DeSantis, period.
More interesting is the other side… will senile Joe be taken down by the Democrat rebels? Now that twitter is no longer a branch of the FBI it could happen. Will an “accident” befall our idiot VP? That could be a game changer… I would vote for a Biden/Jamie Dimon ticket. President Dimon by fall 2025. No I don’t mean the season and year I mean senile Joe takes on one sandbag too many and finally cracks his skull open. RIP.
Pence is as wooden and dead-eyed as Pinnochio, and likely just as truthful.
I wonder what Christie is being promised if he can knock Trump out.
Jamie Dimon? No f’ing way. Financial institutions in this country have way too much input.
Though I have significant disagreements with some of his platform, RFK Jr. is the most interesting candidate of the bunch to me; having about zero interest in the choice of Pepsi or Coke and their variants.
Let’s say Christie was being offered a million dollars? Is that enough or too much? Where do I contribute?
That is a minor point in my post, but it’s not how much he’s being paid, and I doubt it’s only $, it’s who’s doing it and what the overall package is.
Dimon in in the tank with th Democratic Party.
RFK Jr. would be a good choice for the Democratic Party and I believe many Republicans would vote for him.
You’ve got to be in awe of the total blackout on news of RFK Jr.’s campaign by the lefty media (sorry for the redundancy).
The Hill, NBC, CBS, FOX, CNN, USA Today, UPI, Yahoo. All in the last 10 days. Not much of a blackout.
Re: Dimon
In May 2012, he described himself as “barely a Democrat”[43] stating,
I’ve gotten disturbed at some of the Democrats’ anti-business behavior, the attacks on work ethic and successful people. I think it’s very counterproductive. … It doesn’t mean I don’t have their values. I want jobs. I want a more equitable society. I don’t mind paying higher taxes. … I do think we’re our brother’s keeper but I think that attacking that which creates all things, is not the right way to go about it.
“attacking that which creates all things, is not the right way to go about it.”
How else would you expect Lefty’s handlers to motivate their indolent base?
The best way to…um…manage easily herded, lazy Lefties is to convince them that success is a Zero Sum Game; c’mon, a pitch that forgives…nay EXTOLS sloth AND denigrates principles of success will always find an eager and willing audience amongst the VictimHoodied demographic, am I right?
Anywho, the inimitable Dr. Thomas Sowell ( a National Treasure, he!) nails it in his seminal Seductive Beliefs I and II
The Gotch
hogwash
Choice, Not Chance, Determines Destiny
A lifetime of p!$$ poor choices-n-p!$$ poor effort results in poverty, unhappiness, and imbecility?
We’re shocked…SHOCKED says no one.
Anywho, and reduced to blaming the (heh!) superior outcomes of others as due to better parents, inheritance, or luck?
Priceless!
The Gotch
An in-depth look at Dimon’s rise to power by great investigative journalist Whitney Webb:
https://unlimitedhangout.com/2023/03/investigative-series/the-rise-of-jamie-dimon/
Dimon was intimately involved with Epstein. The same people behind Epstein are the same people behind Dimon.
CIA and CIA front groups, included their bed-partners, organized crime, are behind him.
Dimon is a consummate Globalist.
IMO – Globalist/Non-globalist is a far more accurate assessment of Presidential candidates than the usual Pepsi or Coke discussions. Trump was not, maybe still is not, a Globalist. RFK Jr is not a Globalist. As far as I can tell, all other options are more or less Globalist, or Globalist wannabes.
Trump is for himself, and will align with both globalists and not-globalists. He’s a sales person with no actual philosophy. Anti-globalist remarks were just sales pitches to get people sick of the good-cop-bad-cop political theater to engage in politics and vote when they otherwise knew that voting was pointless. It worked. And (at least in globalization terms) it still doesn’t matter which party is in power and our votes are still pointless (in that context).
Nothing he did made any actual impact on the globalization movement. Just window dressing – the globalists thoroughly played him like a fiddle. Money runs everything just as much (or more) now as it did 7 years ago. Globalist are essentially people who think obscene-money-havers should call all the shots. Trump is squarely in that camp.
The only threat to globalization is widespread, actual democracy and thus individual power over our lives and our economy.
Rollie – Trump is certainly for himself, but not only. It’s one of the things that makes him easier to read. IMO of course, Biden is far more for himself than Trump ever was or will be. He has tentacles developed over decades of governmental ‘service’. He just puts a nice Joe face on it, which many people seem to buy.
The globalists are going after Trump with hammer and tongs. They successfully neutered his first presidency. And are trying to neuter his second candidacy.
It ain’t about the $$ for the globalists. It’s power and control. Biden is their current implementation widget. He is doing an incredible job.
True democracy is certainly the end goal. How we get there is the on-going question.
I hear you on Biden; while I might be called liberal I’m definitely not a Democrat. I see power and control to be the same as money – money IS power and control. In our false democracy money decides political power.
I don’t know that the globalist’s are going after Trump as much as they’d just generally prefer candidates that don’t cause as much of a ruckus. But either way, they’re fine – if he’s president again it’s not like he’s going to do anything material against globalists. He loves taking credit for the stock market booming, and that is the butter on the globalists’ bread.
Ben Shapiro, anyone?
Nope. If it was strict debate he’d probably cream everybody. But people mostly vote on feelings not facts. His machine gun delivery is good for an attack dog, not President.
Scott Walker/ Tim Michaels
Former WH Doctor Slams MALPRACTICE In Allowing Biden To Seek Reelection
Poor Lefty, sad Lefty, eminently ButtHurt Lefty is holding a steaming pile of dog$#!t with bare hands; they know it….so does everyone else!
The Gotch
I couldn’t help but notice that in both of your windbag posts you have failed to tell us who you support. Out of that long line of Goobers On Parade which one gets your yard sign and why? It’s time to put up crotch.
Single parent households are one of the GREATEST INDICATORS of an idiot’s future poverty and substandard education.
The Gotch
so; in other words, you got nuttin’. outside of bringing RR back from the dead you don’t support anyone.
Anyone who supports Work Requirements for Lazy @$$ Blogge Idiot TROLTs, who soak up taxpayer-funded free $#!t, has The Gotch’s vote!
The Gotch
you sound like a dTrump tweet at 3:00am
https://stevewitherspoonhome.files.wordpress.com/2020/01/stupidtrophy.jpg?w=300
still trying to ride that red trickle crotch?
“My fellow Americans, I’m pleased to tell you today that I’ve signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes.”
Ronald Reagan, August 11, 1984
Presidential!
Now imagine Trump said this Squire.
[…] leader? At Stately Blaska Manor, we admire courage. We called it “Fight” in “Rating the GOP presidential candidates.” Some call it “guts,” in which case, Chris Christie is ahead on points […]
Add a column: “Wrong side of abortion”
Give Pence -50 points. He’s already eliminated.