By MARSHA MERCER
Republican Carly Fiorina has never held elective office,
although not for lack of trying.
In 2010 the former chief executive of
Hewlett-Packard sank $5.5 million of her own fortune into her Senate bid in California
against Democratic incumbent Barbara Boxer. Despite a Republican wave
nationally, Fiorina lost.
So, when she announced her presidential bid on
Monday, Fiorina tried to make a virtue of her inexperience.
“Our Founders never intended us to have a
professional political class,” she said in a video. “They believed that
citizens and leaders needed to step forward.”
Welcome to yet another presidential campaign in
which amateur candidates hope voters will overlook their lack of political know-how,
and no candidate admits to being a politician.
Fiorina isn’t the only GOP presidential candidate
who’s starting at the top. Ben Carson, author and retired pediatric
neurosurgeon, has never held or even run for office.
“I’m not a politician,” Carson said Monday in
Detroit, launching his campaign. “I don’t want to be a politician because
politicians do what is politically expedient. I want to do what’s right.”
That may sound refreshing, but our political system
often requires cooperation and compromise.
As the former governor of Arkansas, Mike Huckabee is
no stranger to politics. After winning the 2008 Iowa caucuses, he quit the race. He sat
out 2012.
When he entered the presidential contest Tuesday,
Huckabee chided politicians, without mentioning any names, for the common
practice of holding one office while seeking another, something several of his
Republican competitors are doing.
“If you live off the government payroll and you want
to run for (an) office other than the one you’ve been elected to, then at least
have the integrity and decency to resign the one that you don’t want anymore,”
Huckabee said.
Even seasoned politicians are distancing themselves
from their calling. Bill Clinton amazingly declared in an interview the other
day, “I’m not in politics.” Hillary Clinton has a resume as long as your arm,
but her performance in office may be a liability.
The 2016 presidential race is starting to sound a
lot like 2008, when another self-styled Washington outsider won favor.
Here’s Fiorina:
“If you’re tired of the sound bites, the vitriol, the pettiness, the
egos, the corruption, if you believe it’s time . . . for citizens to stand up
to the political class and say enough, then join us.”
And here’s freshman Sen. Barack Obama in 2008: “If
you believe that part of the problem is the failed politics of Washington and
the conventional thinking in Washington, if you’re tired of the backbiting and
the scorekeeping and the special-interest-driven politics of Washington, if you
want somebody who can bring the country together around a common purpose and
rally us around a common destiny, then I’m your guy.”
Fiorina, likely the only woman in the GOP field, is
positioning herself as the anti-Hillary, and Carson, likely the only black man,
as the anti-Obama. Critics say neither has a chance of actually capturing the
GOP presidential nomination.
That certainly will be
true if they fail to land onstage at the Republican debates starting in August. The Republican National Committee is working
on the criteria for determining who will be eligible to participate.
In presidential politics, though, hope springs. The
patron saint of long shots is Jimmy Carter. In 1974, Carter was such a confirmed
nobody that when he went on the TV game show “What’s My Line?” not one of the
panelists recognized him. He was governor of Georgia at the time. Two years
later, he was elected president.
But Carter’s presidency was lackluster and Obama’s
has suffered because he lacked the political skills to deal with the entrenched
powers in Washington. Voters should remember that it takes more than a fresh
face to get things done.
Hovering over the non-politicians is the specter of Herman
Cain. The flamboyant pizza company executive and tea party darling surged in
the polls of GOP presidential hopefuls in 2011, leading Mitt Romney by 20
points. Cain’s star plunged just as quickly, and he left the race amid charges
of sexual impropriety.
No outsider wants to be the Herman Cain of 2016.
© 2015 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.
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