What's Wrong With the 2012 Republican Presidential Field
Mary Kate Cary

Why Perry, Bachmann, Romney, Paul and the gang aren't cutting it right now

I remember watching The Dating Game as a kid in the 1970s, the show where the bachelorette asks questions of Bachelor No. 1, Bachelor No. 2, and Bachelor No. 3, all separated from her by a screen and all sitting in groovy director chairs. Most of the contestants were average guys, but every once in a while the producers would sneak a celebrity in, like actor (now director) Ron Howard or singing sensation David Cassidy.

That's how it is right now with Republican voters.

It feels like we're in the middle of the dating game, asking questions of the contestants while time is running out, hoping to pick the right one before the end of the show. And what we're really waiting for is the secret celebrity to walk out at the end. We need the secret Lee Majors or the secret Farrah Fawcett -- both of whom were contestants early in their careers -- to appear now.

But one candidate who would have had conservatives swooning like bachelorettes: Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan, who announced last week that he's definitely not running. Other secret Lee Majors are sitting it out as well, including Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, and former Florida governor Jeb Bush.

We thought maybe Texas Gov. Rick Perry was the secret Six Million Dollar Man, but he seems more like the secret Bill Bixby -- a supporting actor in the sitcom My Favorite Martian rather than a leading man. The first week of his campaign didn't go so well, as he made headlines with his comments on everything from a "treasonous" Fed chair to climate change to evolution. Before he entered the race, Perry had the potential to carry both fiscal and social conservatives. Now maybe not.

Why are so many of my fellow conservatives dissatisfied with the Republican field? It seems the only ones who are happy with the current crop of candidates are the people who work at the White House and the Democratic National Committee. That's because they see what we see: Each of the Republican contenders is flawed in their own way and could easily be defeated. One's too inexperienced, another's famous for flip-flopping, several of them just come across as very angry people. Most important, none of them seems to have a detailed plan for turning the economy around, reining in entitlements, reforming the tax code, or cutting specific spending programs.

For example, Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann recently said that if she were elected president, she'd bring back $2-a-gallon gasoline. But that was all she said about it. No discussion of how she'd lower energy prices. She just threw it out there, forgetting that the kind of conservatives who think our dependence on foreign oil is a national security problem aren't the kind of people who think paying $2 for a gallon of gas is a good idea. She needs to put out some serious economic blueprints, and maybe even a domestic energy strategy, and more than the one-pager she's got on her website.

Like President Obama, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney has announced that he will make a major "jobs" speech in September too. That's good. But why wait until September? Why mimic, as New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd put it, the president's "fierce urgency of next month"? All of the candidates should be staking out their detailed positions on the economy, and they should be doing so right now. They risk looking indifferent and unconcerned about the heartbreaking pictures of thousands of people lined up at job fairs in various cities, the nightly graphics of the stock market hitting lows, and the growing unrest in Europe caused by the debt crisis there. People want clarity and certainty in volatile times. They're not getting it from Obama, and they aren't getting it from the Republican candidates either.

What the candidates also don't seem to see is that there is a battle going on for the heart and soul of the Republican Party.

Tea partyers, evangelicals, fiscal hawks, interventionists, isolationists, and libertarians are all represented among the candidates. But there isn't one candidate who unites all of those groups -- except, of course, Barack Obama. That explains why the latest Gallup poll has four different Republican candidates all within single digits of defeating Obama, despite the differences in their personalities, base of supporters, and chances of winning the general election. Voters are ready for Obama to go, but they can't tell the difference between the run-of-the-mill contestants who are against him.

Jeb Bush said this about the 2012 field:

"You have to win with ideas, you have to win with policies ... If you're a conservative you have to persuade. You can't just be against the president." He's right.

This election presents a turning point for the GOP. How the party handles the Tea Party movement, the tension between fiscal and social conservatives, the differences between those who want to continue two of the longest wars in our history and those who want to focus here at home, and still win over independent voters, will define the modern Republican Party for years to come.

Our nation, too, is at a crossroads.

Voters are extraordinarily engaged, and there's a long-overdue debate among our citizens about the size and scope of government. We have the opportunity to responsibly cut government spending, reduce the national debt, and grow the economy, but only if the right leaders are elected. The next president has an opportunity to define the age we live in, to shape an era of prosperity and opportunity, and bring the American Dream back for all Americans.

That's why so many of us are hoping for the secret Six Million Dollar Man.