Here’s my question for the GOP on this 4th of July: “What would George Washington do?”
When the founders gathered 240 years ago to “mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor,” they weren’t engaged in political posturing. Unlike contemporary politicians who love to celebrate their own courage for supporting gun control or gender-neutral public showering, the Founders faced grave and immediate danger. The most powerful military in the world was on their shores and they were publicly declaring themselves its enemy.
For the dream of America to be realized, we needed our wealthiest and best-educated elites to find the courage to risk their lives, not to mention everything they owned, all on a nation not yet born.
To keep that nation from a hideous fate, all we need is for one of those men (or women) to step up and offer themselves as a presidential candidate.
And we got nuthin’.
In a typical year, running an independent candidacy would require more lunacy than bravery (see Perot, Ross H). Normally, talk of a convention coup would be fringe nonsense. But this year, given the facts on the ground, changing the tickets or running an alternative candidate isn’t crazy. In fact, it’s insane not to.
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Democrats have chosen to pledge their political lives and fortunes (they’re politicians — they have no honor) to a woman who is under FBI investigation for both endangering American national security and turning the secretary of state’s office into a family ATM.
Republicans seem determined to march in lock-step with a man who, when he’s not attacking “Mexicans” from Indiana or insulting a woman’s “wherever,” is being sued for running the educational equivalent of the Nigerian email scam.
The two least liked, least trusted, most despised presidential candidates in modern American history are facing each other, voters tell any pollster who asks that they’re begging for an alternative, and … nothing happens. We’re stuck.
Why? For lack of courage.
It’s not the money. Does anyone doubt that, if the contemporary equivalent of a Founder stepped up today with a serious plan to win 270 electoral college votes this morning, he or she could have $100 million in pledged finances by lunchtime?
It’s not organization. Thanks to the Internet and new media, a person of prominence and stature who entered the race would we swamped by offers of aid from desperate Republicans and humiliated Democrats.
No, all that’s missing is courage, and someone with the national stature to put it to work. This brave candidate would face a media onslaught. His or her reputation and record would be attacked. Yes, this candidate would be hated by the hard-core Hillaryites and Trump toadies. But he or she would also have an unanswerable defense: “I’m not Hillary or Trump.”
Can you imagine a better campaign slogan for 2016?
Two hundred forty years after Washington and Franklin and Adams risked all, we can’t find an American leader willing to risk … what? Money? Mockery? A mean-spirited tweet from Reince Prebius?
We don’t have a single American leader with the courage to fight such a small battle, on behalf of such a great nation?
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- Discussion
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What would George Washington do? https://t.co/IcUo6CRSjp via @DCExaminer
— Rick Wilson (@TheRickWilson) July 4, 2016
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