“The Media” love to focus on the Presidential race because it is cheap to cover and the compaigns have a ton of money to spend on advertisements (TV is the pimp behind this never ending process, and Hannity is a full time pimp)
The “who should Republicans choose?” question needs to focus on something you haven’t heard more than once or twice in all the election / caucus blather – control of the U.S. Senate. I’ve gone through the numbers before (back in August 2011) – the Republicans are the minority currently. If a Republican is elected President, but the Senate doesn’t have 61 Republicans (or really play hardball), you can forget any campaign promise to “repeal Obamacare”. The further the Obamacare train moves down the tracks, the less possible it is to do anything about it.
If President Obama wins, you need 2/3 majority in the Senate to override his veto, which is mathematically basically impossible, unless some Democrats switched party.
So the “who do we choose” question is more than just “Can they beat Obama”, but can they do it with enough momentum to sweep in a massive change in the Congress. Newt did that once already in 1994. A “Real Conservative” who wins, but chases the “moderates/independents” away from voting for House, Senate and State contests may make us feel good, but it won’t create change unless the whole package is elected.
The recess appointment thing yesterday shows that Obama is far down the road to being the “ruler” that he promised, taking over control of the government and ruling by edict and ignoring Congress. The time for pussy footing is over.
The Karl Rove strategy of “Elections by spreadsheet” has got to stop – doing just enough, telling certain groups what they want to hear (ie Cubans in Florida), spending just enough effort in just those states to win the election by 100 votes in Florida… is not what the country needs now. It needs a fundamental change in attitude about the role of government, othewise lean back and prepare to enjoy what is coming.
I think you also need to be prepared that should the 1st black president (or 2nd, if you count Bill Clinton) lose the race, there are about 25 million people living inside the United States who are likely to react very negatively. It only took two people and one shotgun randomly shooting strangers to tie Washington DC in knots for a couple weeks a few years ago.
We need to get our heads around the likelihood of massive civil unrest and where it leads with the Media, other countries and the courts intervening in our law enforcement. Inviting NATO and the UN into Libya to “protect civilians” from their own government IS going to come back to haunt us some day, probably fairly soon. The United States as a sovereign nation is not likely to last much longer. I wonder which technocrate the IMF will appoint to rule the former United States.