Blunt assessments of the GOP candidates

Arnold Steinberg authors a blunt assessment at PJ Media of the chances each of the 2016 GOP candidates for president. I will excerpt here his most blunt comments about some of the leading candidates, listed alphabetically:

Jeb Bush: Jeb flubs easily anticipated questions, in an endless clarification loop.

Ben Carson: An earnest candidate with a story to tell, he has intense and growing support....He could calmly confront Trump and win the next debate and, then, who knows?

Chris Christie: He’s pugnacious and quick on his feet, especially with the weight loss. Style aside, Christie has no base.

Ted Cruz: He is intelligent and principled. He plays the long game, staying positive toward other candidates. His decision to praise Trump suggests Cruz (a) wants Trump to battle others, and (b) hopes to inherit Trump supporters if Trump falters; but (c) would be open to being Trump’s vice-presidential nominee.

Carly Fiorina: Aggressive but civil, she is the compromise outsider, between name-calling Trump and understated Carson. But her niche is as the anti-Hillary. What if it’s Biden? Regardless, she could be someone’s vice-presidential nominee.

John Kasich: On paper, a Kasich (Ohio)-Rubio (Florida) ticket, if not exciting, looks plausible and could emerge, if not through the primaries, then at a brokered convention.

Rand Paul: Rand started brilliantly as a libertarian Jack Kemp reaching out with novel issues, like criminal justice reform. But he was unable to synthesize a coherent foreign policy. Worse, his father Ron Paul, whether in doomsday radio-television commercials, or blaming French policy in Algeria sixty years ago for this year’s terrorist attack in Paris, or praising Iran while supporting the Iran deal, has effectively sabotaged his son’s campaign. Until Rand Paul drops out to run for Senate reelection, he may continue to do the dirty work of others by attacking Trump as a crony capitalist and possibly help them, not himself.

Marco Rubio: The only way for a candidate to defeat Trump is not to wound him but score a knockout. Is Rubio or anyone else up to a challenge? If I were working for Rubio, I’d make him David to Trump’s Goliath.

Donald Trump: Trump is the most effective and daring campaigner in recent American history. Oddly, some conservatives who fret about Obama’s usurpation of power welcome Trump as a strong executive. Trump now must focus on the Iran deal and serious issues and appear less impulsive, otherwise he will peak with over-exposure and as voters worry about his temperament as the nation’s commander-in-chief.

Scott Walker: His tired “won-three-elections in four years in a blue state” mantra is for PACS, not voters. He seems weak. He talks quickly in redundant sound bites (“big bold agenda”) and is visibly implausible on foreign policy.

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