My wife does not often make suggestions for what I should write about, but today was an exception.\u00a0 As we watched a Fox News update on the field of Republican hopefuls for the 2012 presidential nomination, she said, \u201cYou know what we need to defeat Obama in 2012?\u00a0 We need someone with \u201ctrue grit,\u201d and we still don\u2019t have a frontrunner who fits that description.\u201d\u00a0 I could not agree more.<\/p>\n
According to the official storyline in the movie True Grit<\/em>, 14-year-old farm girl Mattie Ross arrived in Fort Smith, Arkansas, determined to track down and capture a former hired hand, Tom Chaney, who had murdered her father. \u00a0To aid in her quest, she hired the roughest, toughest man she could find, a one-eyed U.S. marshal with “true grit” named Reuben J. \u201cRooster\u201d Cogburn, to track Chaney into Indian Territory and bring him to justice.<\/p>\n Almost every moviegoer over age sixty will remember and appreciate the original version of the movie, starring John Wayne, which opened in movie theaters across the country in June 1969.\u00a0 Wayne won both a Golden Globe and an Academy Award as Best Actor for his portrayal of the one-eyed \u201cRooster\u201d Cogburn.<\/p>\n But Wayne\u2019s portrayal of the curmudgeonly lawman was typical John Wayne.\u00a0 He swaggered, he cursed, and he swilled a little whiskey, but he came off looking more like a kindly father-figure catering to a strong-willed daughter or granddaughter.\u00a0 It was not until 2011, forty-one and a half years later, when the remake opened in theaters across the country, that moviegoers finally got to see what \u201ctrue grit\u201d really looks like.\u00a0 That was when actor Jeff Bridges reprised the role of \u201cRooster\u201d Cogburn.<\/p>\n Thinking back on the Bridges performance, I can fully appreciate that \u201ctrue grit\u201d is the single most important quality the 2012 Republican candidate must have.\u00a0 \u201cNice,\u201d \u201caccommodating,\u201d and \u201cbipartisan\u201d simply won\u2019t cut it against a man who compares well to Lucifer himself, so no George H.W. Bush, Bob Dole, George W. Bush, or John McCain lookalikes need apply.\u00a0 And just in case some might be tempted to think that former Florida governor Jeb Bush might be a welcome change of pace, let\u2019s just assume that the further we wade out into the Bush gene pool the shallower it gets.\u00a0 Some may be willing to gamble on a third Bush in the White House, but I\u2019m not.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n So if our 2012 job description excludes \u201cnice guys\u201d and candidates who are anxious to \u201creach across the aisle\u201d to accommodate Democrats, who do we eliminate?<\/p>\n For starters, we can eliminate former Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty, former Utah governor Jon Huntsman, and former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney.\u00a0 Each time I see Pawlenty he seems to automatically morph into the children\u2019s TV icon, Mr. Rogers, dressed in his cardigan sweater and singing \u201cWon\u2019t You be My Neighbor.\u201d\u00a0 Barack Obama, the Democrat leadership, and the \u201cWeiner media\u201d would eat him alive.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n As for Mitt Romney, he too is a bit too nice, a bit too polished to get \u201cdown-and-dirty\u201d with Obama, as conservative voters are going to demand.\u00a0 Besides, after the lame answer he gave in defense of his failed \u201cRomneyCare\u201d plan in Massachusetts, I\u2019m not sure we could ever trust him to adequately espouse conservative values.\u00a0<\/p>\n After a scathing Wall Street Journal<\/em> attack on RomneyCare, Romney responded with, \u201cI stand by my successful healthcare plan in Massachusetts, but ObamaCare is a disaster because it does all of the things that RomneyCare does, just on a national level.\u00a0 So, if I am elected president I will give waivers to states so they can repeat my mistakes if they want to, or, if they are smart, they will reject both my approach and Obama\u2019s.\u201d<\/p>\n One wonders who advises Romney on his public statements.\u00a0 As a former speech writer for a presidential candidate, I can\u2019t imagine who might be putting words into his mouth.\u00a0 Could it be Joe Biden?\u00a0 Newt Gingrich?\u00a0 His response was all wrong.\u00a0<\/p>\n He should have said, \u201cYes, the Massachusetts healthcare reform plan has not been the panacea that we hoped it would be.\u00a0 But the states are the laboratories of social and economic policy in our federal system and it is the states that must take the lead in trying to solve problems such as the healthcare crisis.\u00a0 Barack Obama and the Democrats in Congress don\u2019t seem to understand that, when it comes to problems as great and as intractable as healthcare, the one-size-fits-all formula that they\u2019re so fond of just won\u2019t work.\u00a0 At least we tried.\u00a0 Now the Congress, the next president, and the other forty-nine states can learn from our experience in Massachusetts.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n But it was in New Hampshire, in announcing his candidacy for the 2012 GOP nomination, that Romney frittered away any chance he had of winning the 2012 nomination.\u00a0 Appearing before a crowd of New Hampshire supporters, he said, \u201cI don\u2019t speak for the scientific community, of course, but I believe the world is getting warmer. \u00a0I can\u2019t prove that, but I believe, based on what I read, that the world is getting warmer. \u00a0And number two, I believe that humans contribute to that. \u00a0I don\u2019t know how much our contribution is to that, because I know that there have been periods of greater heat and warmth in the past but I believe we contribute to that. \u00a0And so I think it\u2019s important for us to reduce our emissions of pollutants and greenhouse gases that may well be significant contributors to the climate change and the global warming that you\u2019re seeing.\u201d<\/p>\n Goodbye, Mitt Romney!\u00a0 No Republican candidate who would publicly put those thoughts into words can ever win the party\u2019s nomination for President of the United States.\u00a0<\/p>\n To name those in the party who do possess \u201ctrue grit,\u201d we can start with Texas governor Rick Perry; New Jersey governor Chris Christie; Wisconsin governor Scott Walker; Maine governor Paul LePage; Ohio governor John Kasich, South Carolina governor Nikki Haley, Arizona governor Jan Brewer, former Speaker Newt Gingrich; former corporate CEO Herman Cain; former Alaska governor Sarah Palin; Congressman Ron Paul, of Texas, Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann, of Minnesota; and Congressman Allen West, of Florida.\u00a0 It is out of that group of thirteen patriots that Republicans will likely select their 2012 ticket, with the ideal ticket being Governor Rick Perry for president and either Herman Cain or Michele Bachmann for vice president.<\/p>\n Once in office, President Perry will need a \u201ckick-ass\u201d cabinet.\u00a0 He will need Sarah Palin as Secretary of the Interior, Chris Christie as Attorney General, Mitt Romney as Secretary of Commerce, Newt Gingrich as Secretary of Education, Allen West as Secretary of Homeland Security; and Ron Paul as Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board.\u00a0 If she is not the first female vice president, Michele Bachmann would make a fine Treasury Secretary.\u00a0 And if Governor Perry fails to select him as his running mate, Herman Cain would provide an invaluable contribution as Chairman of the Republican National Committee where he would serve as a much-needed conservative role model for all black Americans.<\/p>\n As Interior Secretary, Palin would have oil producers drilling wells in the offshore\u2026 east coast, west coast, the Gulf of Mexico, and Alaska\u2026 in the Baaken range in Montana and the Dakotas, and in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR).\u00a0 With the sound of all those drilling rigs operating around the clock Americans might find it hard to sleep at night, but within four years the Perry administration would have the U.S. well on its way toward energy independence.\u00a0<\/p>\n And that natural gas pipeline that Palin got approved as Governor of Alaska?\u00a0 She and President Perry would have that pipeline rerouted, and instead of bringing low-cost, clean-burning natural gas to the non-energy-friendly states of Washington, Oregon, and California, that gas would be going directly to the Dakotas and to the Plains states\u2026 along with the heavy crude produced from the Athabasca tar sands in Alberta Province\u2026 where business development and job creation are deserved and much appreciated.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Perry would also have our southern border closed to illegal immigration, the economy would be growing at a fast pace, Boeing would be producing airplanes in its new South Carolina assembly plant, the jobless rate would be shrinking toward the 4-5% \u201cfull employment\u201d level, and gasoline prices would once again be less than $2 per gallon.<\/p>\n All of these things can be accomplished.\u00a0 All we need is a man or woman with \u201ctrue grit\u201d in the White House, a filibuster-proof Republican super-majority in the U.S. Senate, and a prohibitive Republican majority in the House of Representatives.\u00a0 And whenever our candidates debate Obama and Biden, let\u2019s send them away feeling as if we\u2019ve dumped a healthy portion of \u201ctrue grit\u201d into their undershorts.\u00a0<\/p>\n Obama must not only be defeated in 2012, he and his policies must be totally repudiated in a landslide defeat.\u00a0 We need a \u201cRooster\u201d Cogburn-style Republican in the White House.\u00a0 So let\u2019s stop thinking about it and talking about it\u2026 let\u2019s get it done!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" My wife does not often make suggestions for what I should write about, but today was an exception.\u00a0 As we watched a Fox News update on the field of Republican hopefuls for the 2012 presidential nomination, she said, \u201cYou know … Continue reading