Staks has already called the 2016 election, but I’m vastly less sanguine about the possibility of a progressive victory. As a result of this pessimistic worldview, I’ve been keeping close tabs on the most probable outcomes of the GOP nomination process, which as of this writing are Jeb Bush (31%), Marco Rubio (19%), and Scott Walker (18%) according to two different prediction markets. Last weekend, all three of them addressed Republican activists here in Oklahoma City, during something called the Southern Republican Leadership Conference.
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker leaves stage #SRLC #SRLC2015 pic.twitter.com/dBYSuQhUhS
— Juliana Keeping (@julianakeeping) May 21, 2015
Scott Walker won the day last Thursday, according to MSNBC. Take this with as much salt as you please, given that MSNBC would probably relish a Walker candidacy on account of his proven ability to foment liberal outrage. Indeed, Walker’s most compelling argument was that he picks big fights with progressives and wins.
There are of some of those folks, particularly folks in Washington, who are really good fighters. They’re fighting the good fight, they’re waving the flag, they’re carrying the banner, but they haven’t won a lot of victories yet.
And then there are some other folks out there that have done a really effective job of winning elections — a lot of them are friends of mine, governors, former governors who got elected and got re-elected — they won a lot of elections but they haven’t taken on all of those fights.
I gotta tell you ladies and gentlemen, part of the reason why I’m even thinking about [running for president] . . . I have yet to see anyone in the field or the emerging field who’s done both.
The first half disses Senators like Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio who oppose Obama but don’t get anything passed in the process, the second half disses Governors Bush and Christie, who are milksop moderates from the perspective of the SRLC activists. This is a rhetorically brilliant divide-and-conquer approach, at least from where I’m sitting. Walker might even have a shot against the incredibly well-connected and generously-funded Bush political machine.
Marco Rubio gave a very short (four minute) speech via video stream. Nothing much to be said about that, except it was fairly slick and hits all the right GOP base notes. Also, it is probably excusable for U.S. Senators to stay in D.C. on the brink of a major vote or two.
Jeb Bush (the not-quite-prohibitive front-runner) pushed all the usual conservative buttons: Loving one’s family, honoring military service, exalting free market entrepreneurship. Here is a short clip:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmICMomgRJc
There was also the usual clown-car collection of gaff-prone also-rans, but these three are the men to watch. Whether anyone else can even break into double digits in the probability-based prediction markets remains to be seen.
