The Queen: The Epic Ambition of Hillary and the Coming of a Second "Clinton Era" (16 page)

I asked him—twice—about this much-written-about event in his life (very few presidential candidates have been present at an exorcism, and when Governor Jindal was on the short list of candidates for Romney’s VP, I didn’t miss my turn at bat on that question). He simply bypassed it the first time I asked. The second time was another deflection:

HH: Now Governor, unlike President Obama, though, your autobiographical writings are accurate. You didn’t make up people or events, or any composite characters. And you’re standing by it. Are you prepared to defend that exorcism article, because that’s what they’ll come for on day one that you’re nominated for vice president?

BJ:
Yeah, look, like I said, all the VP stuff, I defer to the Romney folks. I’m absolutely prepared to defend my faith, who I am, and what I believe in.…

And then he proceeded not to defend it. Such deflections are like red arrows pointing at vulnerabilities understood to be vulnerabilities by the candidate. Your job is to pass off a few references to exorcism and Governor Jindal when you can, or better yet, have Bill do it. Playfully, of course, perhaps in a joint appearance. Your husband is so skilled at such maneuvers.

The long game requires a long-game, and Jindal will be in the Senate before you know it, and is very young, a future Chelsea obstacle. Wound him while you can, and when hardly anyone will think twice about it.

CHAPTER 20

John Kasich

The governor from Ohio should concern you, somewhat. Jeb has frozen him for the time being. Kasich is
very
good at connecting with people. His religious faith is deep and sincere. He is ebullient and comfortable on television, a skill set honed during his years as a Fox News host, anchor and analyst. He is a key to unlocking the GOP’s Electoral College map via Ohio. He turned his state around after terrible mismanagement by Democrats and adjusted after early missteps. He won re-election by 30-plus points! In Ohio!

In many respects Kasich is everything you are not, especially likable. You look worn-out, stale, and bored. He is always full of life and good humor, an endless energy machine. You will have to kill him with kindness. You will have to begin now to praise “his support for Obamacare” as a “model of successful governance” and the key to his re-election.

Talk early and often about his expansion of Medicaid in the Buckeye State. Focusing your attention and thus the MSM’s on Kasich’s Achilles’ heel with the conservative GOP electorate is like talking about Common Core when you discuss Jeb. Hammer the nails into the primary coffins of those you do not wish to face, or whom you want off the GOP’s veep list.

Your advisors will want you to focus on the collapse of Lehman Brothers when Kasich was a partner there, but any journalist with a brain knows Kasich didn’t have anything to do with the panic of 2008, but Freddie and Fannie did, and throttling a genuine look back at that
set of events is what you need to do. Keeping Freddie and Fannie off the front pages, or any pages, is more important than trying to get a dig in at Kasich over a non-role in an unforeseeable event.

No, your opponents’ greatest weaknesses are where you need to focus your attention. Kasich expanded Medicaid in Ohio as hoped for by Obamacare supporters and he used an “end around” the state legislature to do so. This was a two-strike count on the governor for some GOP primary voters before he even uttered his now famous explanation for the expansion of Medicaid:

“I had a conversation with one of the members of the legislature the other day. I said, ‘I respect the fact that you believe in small government. I do, too. I also know that you’re a person of faith. Now, when you die and get to the meeting with St. Peter, he’s probably not going to ask you much about what you did about keeping government small. But he is going to ask you what you did for the poor. You better have a good answer.’ ”

Such answers suggest moral superiority on the part of the action taken, and a sort of all-purpose trump card against arguing the case. It isn’t that Kasich expanded Medicaid that drives conservatives crazy, but that he did so while at the same time suggesting moral failure on the part of his opponents.

Conservatives have grown very weary of being told they are either bigots (the same sex marriage debate), racists (for not overreacting to the deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Gardner), or indifferent to the poor (as implied by Kasich and countless others). This “moral superiority” argument—Rick Perry’s “I don’t think you have a heart” comment regarding opponents of immigration reform in the 2012 race is of the same family tree—is certain to offend those who believe themselves at least as moral as any elected official.

Third strike for Kasich? Perhaps. He is also a Common Core defender of sorts telling the
Columbus Dispatch
editorial board last year “What do I care about Common Core? I just want kids to learn. I don’t
have any ideological, personal or emotional commitment to anything other than: Let’s make sure our kids do well.”

This is as good a response as can be had and leaves the Ohio governor room to maneuver around Jeb Bush when the going gets tough. You need to stick to the Medicaid issue for Kasich and the Common Core issue for Jeb. Don’t confuse the MSM with multiple lines of attack on each would-be November opponent. If you want to sideline Kasich, and you should, aim for his rather-on-his-sleeve heart: The Medicaid expansion and the approximately 300,000 people he brought willingly into Obamacare.

“I really don’t know how the GOP nominates an Obamacare enthusiast,” is how you begin. “Sure, he will disavow and trim and distinguish when the going gets tough in New Hampshire and elsewhere, but that didn’t help Romney and it won’t help him.”

Done and done. Kasich’s only real option will be to defend the Medicaid expansion vocally and volubly, making an argument that—if it does succeed in surviving the primaries—will make him very, very formidable in the fall. You need a Goldwater to beat, not a Reagan with an even cheerier disposition.

Medicaid expansion and St. Peter. Rinse and repeat. Always go for the soft spot. Always.

CHAPTER 21

Rand Paul

Your advisors will tell you that Senator Rand Paul, unlike Ted Cruz, does not have a path to the GOP nomination, that he will peak at 25% in a handful of states and be given a key slot at the convention, that he cannot be on the ticket. “The highest floor and the lowest ceiling” they will say. They are probably right. If they are wrong you will win in a landslide of Reagan-like proportions.

But, unlike the case for you praying for a Ted Cruz nomination, you cannot waste even your occasional prayers on Senator Paul. The non-interventionist moment died many deaths in 2014 and early 2015, most spectacularly in Anbar province but also in Syria, Ukraine, Nigeria, Pakistan, Australia—even in Hollywood at the offices of Sony Pictures. The world will not allow America to withdraw. Rule or be ruled.

He could, in some circumstances, be the GOP veep. This is small possibility that increases as the GOP race becomes more jumbled. In an open, “brokered” convention in Cleveland next July, Senator Paul will have a lot of delegates. Not enough for a nomination, but more than enough to drive a very hard bargain for whoever does become the nominee.

You know this, and so does Senator Paul, a very, very smart pol buoyed by his father’s 5% and a command of modern communications second only to Senator Cruz’s. He can try and pivot from his legacy and his first filibuster by arguing for robust defense spending and a new cyber fortress America, and his edges are much softer than his father’s,
shaved down by his genuine commitment to Christian service on medical missions.

Senator Paul is a good man and a better foil. You will need him for years to come. He can be your Arthur Vandenberg as you go about transitioning the country to your long-term vision of a fortress America without the messy allies. Chelsea will need him too, and with proper encouragement, he could form the “third way” party of the GOP’s nightmares, the permanent Ralph Nader of 2000, playing again and again and again the role of Ross Perot in 1992 and Mike Huckabee in 2008. Third party Paulistas could easily destroy not just presidential campaigns, but Senate campaigns like Republican Ed Gillespie’s in Virginia in 2014. It is a project worth investing in, but only at a distance.

It would be wonderful if one of your closest friends could form a Super PAC devoted to all things Rand, and especially to running him against his will wherever possible. Certainly he will object in 2016, but cannot those legislatures under total Democratic control tinker with the laws now to allow non-consenting nominations of candidates to new parties later?

The Paulistas are the bone spur in the heel of the GOP. Make it worse. Make it gangrenous. A long-term transition needs a long term cover. Senator Paul is your best bridge to Chelsea’s tomorrow. Don’t waste it.

CHAPTER 22

Rick Perry

Do not underestimate this man, who did so much in 2012 to lower his own expectations and thus increase his odds of facing off with you in 2016. He does run with a gun, and he kills coyotes with abandon. This is his last race unless he wins. There will be no “next times” for the four-term governor of the Lone Star State and his financial backers know it. And they will fight Jeb as Reagan fought Ford, and they will fight Ted Cruz with the intensity of a second front in a civil war. Jeb-Ted-Rick is a “Texas Death Cage Match” and the governor took down Kay Bailey Hutchison in 2010 like Ted Cruz took down David Dewhurst in 2012. Like they both intend to take you down. Methodically.

Perry could rally the W base even against W’s brother. He could pull Tea Party and national defense conservatives together because he is imminently believable. He will joke and joke and joke again about his brain freeze in front of the country, and it won’t get old because Rick Perry doesn’t get old. He gets funnier. When I asked
Time
Magazine’s Zeke Miller who was the best pure communicator in the GOP field, he said first Rubio, then Walker, then… Perry. A million events and speeches is practice. So he had a mighty strike out once. That just tempts you to mispitch him the next time.

So better to end it quickly and with big dollar allocations from your friends to Ted Cruz and Rick Santorum in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina. (Enduring support for Rick Santorum is the other internal bleeding that Perry cannot afford.) If Perry doesn’t carry one
of the first three contests, the loss in 2012 will haunt him and he will crumble.

Perry is one of the candidates you cannot afford to face: an authentic, tested conservative governor with a record of managing things successfully from start to finish. Think of his 2012 campaign as a giant and early head fake to draw your attention elsewhere. Don’t be drawn into that. Invest early and heavily against him.

CHAPTER 23

Marco Rubio

Meet your worst nightmare, speaking in fluent Spanish, reminding everyone, every day of: Just. How. Old. And. Tired. You. Are.

Like Rick Perry, Rubio is believable on national defense because he genuinely, authentically believes in it. Like Ted Cruz, he is the son of refugees from the tyranny you applauded and helped whitewash when President Obama “recognized” Cuba. Unlike anyone else in the field, the young senator will make young single moms and single women swoon. Cruz will come close to possessing “it,” but not accomplish “it.” And Ryan—while he has “it”—isn’t running, though he will be in the future.

Like Ryan, and to a lesser extent Cruz, you need to retire Rubio from the field in his cycle before he can complicate your future. He may try to not allow that, by avoiding the confrontation for now. Jeb Bush’s early entry complicated things for Rubio, as did his declaration of refusing to run for both reelection to the Senate even as he seeks the presidency, but in fact, it appears as he settled on his course long ago and is fully, forcefully and skillfully pursuing it. He may lose the March 15, 2016 battle for Florida with Jeb, and have to settle for the Veep slot, or run as governor to succeed Rick Scott in 2018, waiting you out—not unaware of, but not fully crediting the scope of your ambitions. What is eight years to anyone in their early 40s?

Events in the world of chaos you helped create are changing so dramatically as to propel him forward though, dragged by a party
desperate for youth, fluency in Spanish, credibility on national security and above all: “it.” Indeed, as I write this, he looks and sounds like a young man in a hurry, a young man with exceptional good looks and energy, who has built a record of solid positions on national security. He has even earned the over-amplified enmity of the anti-immigrant sliver of his party’s base, which is actually an assist to him in the general election, not a handicap. He will not have the money that Jeb Bush can amass, but by running he all but assures himself a place on the national ticket. If he faces you or your running mate, you are in deep trouble. Unless you can wound him, early and deeply.

Assume though that Rubio does not in the end win, and that by losing it to Jeb cannot be the veep nominee, and somehow pivots back to the Senate seat he holds or on to the Florida statehouse. Even then he is the number one bystander, waiting. Anybody but Jeb Bush will put him on the ticket, and even Jeb might find a way around the 12th Amendment’s technical prohibition of electors voting for a president and vice president from their own state as Dick Cheney did by re-registering in Wyoming in 2000.

So Rubio will be a huge electoral force in 2016 and beyond, and thus you must allocate the dollars to beat him in the primaries in a humiliating fashion. Now. Your advisors will want you to ignore the effort to destroy a GOP nominee until that nominee is all but certain, afraid of wasting resources. but you can still attack Rubio by investing heavily in a Democratic senate candidate whose job will not only be winning the seat for the Democrats against Rubio’s successor in interest—probably Congressman Ron DeSantis but there are many would-be replacements in the Sunshine State’s GOP. Their second job will be to launch attack after attack on Rubio’s six years in the United States Senate and his long years in the Florida legislature. If he or she wants your help, they have to help you bleed the young superstar. Of course you need Florida’s electoral votes anyway, and by hand-picking a candidate to take Rubio on now, you can invest in that key turnout machine. Beating him in humiliating fashion ends him, and beating him removes
the GOP’s only immediate threat aside from Jeb to the “new Americans” vote, and the votes of their families.