Friday, May 4, 2012

Snyder as the Number Two Man?

Snyder for Vice President? That is one scenario being bandied about the media and the political wonks the last few days. After all, he's one tough nerd. To be sure, Michigan Governor Rick Snyder has done quite a lot which would endear him to conservatives. Perhaps even the social conservatives such as those of us in the Wayne County Conservative Examiner's Office could be persuaded to support him for second choice on the national GOP ticket. It's easy to like his approach towards the public school leviathan, pushing for more charters and cyber schools as he and the Republican Legislature in Lansing have been doing. Even the Emergency Manger law doesn't bother us, given that he treated Detroit with kid gloves as insolvency approached Michigan's largest city. But is that enough to satisfy conservatives nationwide? Would there be a true balance on such a ticket? To have both Republicans from more or less the same part of the country (the rust belt) doesn't appear to offer more than regional appeal. And we still wonder whether Governor Snyder much less Mitt Romney really feels very strongly about abortion and gay rights. One of the sins of Republicans, even the more conservative ones, are that they tend to do two things which can only be construed as weaknesses. One, they vacillate on more substantive issues in favor of the economic ones. We can only presume that they do so in order to get and stay elected. To be fair, seeing as the general electorate is indeed rather shallow, they may feel that is their only recourse. Even so, it still reeks of weakness. Point number two, they don't press their advantages as liberals do. The whole reason we have Obamacare looming is that the liberals didn't care about what the vast majority of the nation wanted. They wanted national health care, so much so that they engaged in little known and little used parliamentary tricks to get it. They had the power and the votes and they used both. In that regard, Snyder might not be so bad a choice after all. He's stood by his decisions and the GOP in Lansing has pressed its cause. But in the end, rumors of a Snyder vice presidential candidacy are surely all talk. What else can be done when politics are at a low ebb? Political writers spout conjecture. We should not put much weight in that.

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