For show presidents State of the Union address doubles down on redistribution-of-wealth & 2016 politics
By Clark S. Judge
WASHINGTON D.C. (Texas Insider Report) Is 2015 the new 2016? You tell me. This past week the New York Times ran
two front-page stories about Mitt 
Romney and Jeb Bush.
So here is the GOPs question for 2015
Answer it and you have
the best GOP ticket for 2016.
This past Sunday (yesterday) panel after panel of TV interview show commentators focused the GOP field in the 2016 which by now seems to include everyone except my mother and my mother tells me shes forming an exploratory committee. I think shes trying to keep me out of the race.
Meanwhile to show that president is determined to set 2016 politics aside and govern the White House has let it be known that in this
weeks State of the Union address Mr. Obama will double down on redistribution-of-wealth rhetoric and proposals to tax the nations largest earners.
Never mind that as economist Thomas Sowell has determined
56 of American households will be in the top 10 of incomes at some point in their lives usually when theyre older and of all the people who are in the top 1 in the course of a decade the majority the great majority are there only one year; only 13are there two years"
And ignore that research from the St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank that confirms Sowells conclusion revealing says its president James Bullard that
life cycle… accounts for something in the order of 75 of the story of measured income and wealth inequality in the U.S."
So in the name of the middle class the president plans to attack the middle and upper middle-aged most of whom have been more or less middle-income for most of their lives. It is about as big a non-starter with the new Republican majority as you could find.
Which is only to say that like the media the White House has decided to focus in 2015 on 2016 too.
Maybe like you I have already been asked repeatedly to name my candidate for 2016. So let me share a few thoughts about GOP prospects and the prospective contenders.
First off dont believe talk about the Democrats floundering on the electoral ropes.
Remember two years ago? The president had just won reelection albeit in contrast to historical norms by a smaller margin than his
first term victory. The talk everywhere was can the Republican Party survive?
It started shortly after the outcome became clear. The GOP must overhaul itself we heard. It had to jettison its full portfolio of positions particularly on immigration if it hoped to survive. The Hispanic vote alone every commentator insisted meant the party was doomed.
Now fast forward two years to this past Election Day again starting about the time the results became known. Those same commentators who two years earlier had predicted a Republican demise began suggesting that it was the Democrats who had no future having so spectacularly failed to reach blue-collar voters particularly men.
The lesson here is that as bad as the performance of the president and the Democrats may look now nothing has happened… nothing… to alter the fine balance that has characterized American politics
since 1980. In those three and a half decades at least one house of Congress or the presidency has shifted parties every one to three elections. And with each shift the received wisdom has become that the losing party was finished.
Well the Republicans werent finished in 2012 or after any of its other losses. The Democrats arent finished now.
Second for all the talk of Tea Party versus Establishment the current division in the GOP essentially reformers versus old guard has characterized Republican politics going back to the partys founding.
I wrote about this a few weeks ago.
In every era from 1860 on there has been seriously bad blood between the partys reform and establishment factions even though viewed from the outside their agendas have fit well together. But in every era the party has won its pivotal victories when the two wings
found a way to unite despite their mutual disdain usually with a reformer in the top slot and an establishment figure as the running mate.
To me that fact points to the most likely model for victory 2016: a reform candidate for president an establishment running mate.
Finally the party must accept its geography problem. With
New York and California entirely out of reach it needs to focus on the industrial Midwest (
Ohio Michigan Indiana Illinois Wisconsin and Minnesota) and the Atlantic Southeast (
Virginia North Carolina South Carolina and Florida).
In each region the GOP is strong in only one state the one with the regions fewest electoral votes (
Indiana and South Carolina). In each the rest of the states are purple at best.
So here is the GOPs question for 2015. What is the reform-establishment combination that has the best chance of breaking through in both regions?
Answer that question and you have the best GOP ticket for 2016.
Clark S. Judge is managing director of White House Writers Group and chairman of Pacific Research Institute.
