Mitch PerryIn the weekly category of winners and losers in the GOP 2016 presidential sweepstakes, Jeb Bush is considered to have won the week (although Scott Walker continues to feel the love from the grassroots). Jeb’s only real contribution was a relatively well-received speech in Detroit, where he won plaudits from some observers simply by showing up. The losers were undoubtedly Chris Christie and Rand Paul. Paul in particular did himself no favors regarding the issue of vaccinations and his reaction to it with some members of the “liberal media.”
An interesting perspective on the race comes today via Craig Shirley, a GOP historian and author of several books on Ronald Reagan.
In a piece on the Real Clear Politics website, Shirley speculates that “all things being equal,” he thinks Mitt Romney was the best-positioned of all the candidates to have been the next U.S. president. That of course, isn’t happening, because the GOP establishment, through the donor class’s actions of embracing Bush, basically vetoed that possibility and led to Mitt’s departure from the contest last week.
His take on Bush? Like a lot of the Republican establishment, he sees Common Core and immigration reform dragging him down — if not in the primaries, then in the general, where he envisions conservatives abandoning him as a “big government” politico.
Shirley is a champion of Reagan, and attempts to explain what running as a “Reagan conservative” really is. You might recall how Jeb himself said last year that parts of the GOP had swung so far to the right that it might not allow Reagan in. Shirley says Bush is no Reagan, and concludes by writing:
Whoever is to emerge as the conservative, Reaganesque alternative to Jeb Bush and the elite GOP establishment should not focus on Reagan’s personality but instead articulate the everlasting ideas and ideals of Ronald Reagan. Above all, that means understanding the limitations of government — but not of the American people. And they must understand that the natural state of modern American conservatism is permanent revolution.
In other news …
Yours truly was among the group of political reporters who attended Thursday’s Florida Cabinet meeting at the Florida State Fairgrounds in Tampa. It started off with a bang, and then got deeper and deeper into the weeds about process.
The newly minted chairman of the Republican Party of Florida, Blaise Ingoglia, laid out his plan of attack to a group of GOP committee members Thursday night. He assured them that raising money won’t be a problem while he offered a litany of new proposals to invigorate the party.
The people behind getting out the word about the various town halls that will take place in Hillsborough County over the next several months had their website go live Thursday. There will be 36 meetings in all as officials try to figure out what people want in terms of the various transportation needs in the county.
And the Tampa Bay Area Association of Black Journalists is angry at WFLA News Channel 8, for reassigning the station’s two lone black anchormen, Rod Carter and Josh Thomas.
