Joe Scarborough on running for President: "You never know".

You know what's most encouraging about Scarborough running?


1) He's hated by the tea baggers and the right wing ignorant wingnuts who've hijacked his party
2) He's on MSNBC, not Fox News
3) He appeals to centrists more than liberals or conservatives
4) He's telegenic, interesting, media-savvy and someone you want in your living room (unlike the creeps, bores, frauds and weirdos running for the GOP nomination)
5) He's authentic, and speaks his mind, like it or not
6) He has the courage to say we need to cut entitlements, and balance the budget NOW
7) He has the courage to say we need to get out of Afghanistan and Iraq NOW
8) He appeals to women (unlike the scary creeps running for the GOP nomination)
9) He's unexpected, and his candidacy will throw a big wrench into an otherwise boring GOP race
10) He can win (unlike any of of the other GOP candidates)

Joe Scarborough calls Republicans cowards - "afraid of Barack Obama" and "don't think they can beat him"

It's one thing to call out other Republicans for being cowards.

It's another thing to do something about it.

Yes, the GOP field is afraid of Barack Obama. They don't think they can beat him. And that's why you have self-promoters and wingnuts running. They're not running to win. They're running to enrich themselves.

And then there's Joe Scarborough. If everyone else is a coward, what will be Joe Scarborough's true stripes?

I bet on Joe.




"...They are afraid of Barack Obama. They look at a President that's sitting at a 50 percent approval rating, 9 percent unemployment. He's been pulled to the...middle by the Republican victory in 2012. They just don't think - and if you look at the candidates that could beat Barack Obama they just don't think they can beat him in 2012."

Joe Scarborough isn't conservative enough for birthers, truthers and tea party idiots. So be it. While they're sitting at home in 2012 wondering why their candidates didn't win, Joe Scarborough will be writing his inaugural address.

Scarborough (as usual) brings up a good point - if you don't hate the president, and if you don't run around talking about where he was born, you're not a true Republican.

Idiots, ignorants, wingnuts, lunatics and fringe birthers/truthers have hijacked the GOP (thank you Fox News and Sarah Palin).  2012 will be a GOP civil war.

And a smart, clear-thinking, approachable, fiscal conservative/social moderate, center/right candidate will eventually win out.  Let the Tea Party idiots be damned.  America laughs at the tea partiers.  Their sell by date has long since passed.  And Scarborough smartly knows it.

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FLASH - Joe Scarborough turns down GOP Florida Senate run. Doesn't rule out 2012 GOP Presidential run.

As always, read between the lines.


The Senate is too small for Joe.


The Presidency isn't.


Here's the denial today - and the still-on-the-table presidential run.


Joe Scarborough: GOP Asked Me To Run For Senate In Florida

Scarborough, though, confirmed the report. "John suggested last month that I consider running for the Senate against Bill Nelson," he said. "His intent was clear and unambiguous and echoed his quotes in The Hill. However, I love the job I have and have no intention of running for the Senate."

Jamie Malanowski: "The Making of President Scarborough 2012". Ronald Reagan 2.0?

If Joe runs, it will have seemed so obvious the whole time.

If Joe doesn't run, he'll have blown the one and only chance he'll ever have.

Here's Playboy's managing editorJamie Malanowski telling it like it is.

The Making of President Scarborough, 2012
By JAMIE MALANOWSKI

I don’t know if Joe Scarborough is running for president, but he is sure doing all the things he would need to do if he were.

Over the last few years, Scarborough has taken some cues from the Ronald Reagan playbook. Like Reagan, Scarborough has maximized his best natural asset–his amiability–to position himself as a true conservative who is everyone’s friend and no one’s enemy. And like Reagan in the early seventies, Scarborough has stood aside from the political hurleyburley, with its exhausting fundraising and inconvenient votes, and taken up residency in the soft pastures of media punditry.

Just as Reagan was able to forge his political identity with his radio program, Scarborough is building his brand on MSNBC, where every morning, an audience of taste-makers sees him as friendly, self-mocking, staunch about defense, ardent about fiscal control, someone who admires the president without being smitten by him, someone who agrees with a lot of Republican values without being impressed with their tactics. The bestselling book he published at the beginning of the summer, rather melodramatically called The Last Best Hope: Restoring Conservatism and America’s Promise, puts Scarborough in a fairly interesting place: squarely in the flow of mainstream values, but far, far, far from the fringes. 

Joe Scarborough announces his platform (via twitter): "Balance the budget. End the war. Rebuild America, not Afghanistan.

Keep it simple Joe.

It's a winner.

Here it is:


Balance the budget. End the war. Rebuild America, not Afghanistan. 11:02 AM Mar 6th

Joe Scarborough, sounding like he may have the courage, and the reason, to run in 2012: "For the past two decades, I have spent my public life obsessing about America’s coming debt crisis"

If Joe Scarborough sits this one out, he'll regret it for the rest of his life.  And America will suffer the consequence.

If he runs, he wins. And he gets to take on the problem president after president after president after president hasn't had the courage to address.

Courage.  That's it.  Soon, we'll see if Joe Scarborough has courage, or whether he's just another GOP empty suit, in it for the money.  

I bet on courage.  I bet on Joe.

Finally, confronting the debt crisis


For the past two decades, I have spent my public life obsessing about America’s coming debt crisis.

When I first ran for Congress in 1994, my campaign was obsessively focused on the national debt. In 1995, I attacked Bill Clinton for refusing to endorse a seven-year plan to balance the budget. I voted to shut down the government. I refused to support raising the debt ceiling to $5 trillion. It now stands at $14 trillion. I was attacked by Newt Gingrich in 1998 for being a member of the “perfectionist caucus” because the speaker threw in his lot with Democrats such as Dave Obey to jam through bloated spending bills. And I was with the small group of conservatives who told Gingrich to lead as a conservative or get out of town.

I spent the next decade criticizing my own Republican Party for its shamelessness on government spending. During the Bush era, many GOP members would campaign as small government conservatives and then spend their time in Washington breaking every spending promise they made to voters back home.

The $155 billion surplus we built up in 2001 became a $1.4 trillion deficit by the end of the Bush years. The overall national debt was doubled. A $7 trillion liability was added to America’s bloated entitlement system. Two wars were fought, two tax cuts were passed, defense spending exploded at record rates and domestic spending grew at its fastest rate since the Great Society.

Republican presidents, senators, congressmen and party hacks hated me for exposing them as the hypocrites they were. I preached the doctrine of moral equivalency because, for too long, there wasn’t a dime’s worth of difference between Republicans and Democrats.

Well, it looks like that 10-year-old sermon topic is about to change. And it’s about damn time.

The era of Big Government conservatism is over.

Here's GOP strategist Mark McKinnon a year ago floating Joe Scarborough as the 2012 Republican Nominee on Hardball. And most of the rest of his top 10 are running.

McKinnon's smart.

His top 10 - a year ago:

1. Mitt Romney (in)
2. Tim Pawlenty (in)
3. John Thune (out)
4. Mike Huckabee (whoring himself for money)
5. Sarah Palin (whoring herself for money)
6. Newt Gingrich (in)
7. Haley Barbour (in)
8. Rick Santorum (in)
9. Joe Scarborough (the nominee if he runs)
10. Mitch Daniels (in)
(Long shot: Michele Bachmann) (in)

Joe Scarborough has a secret. Hear him predict his own entry into 2012 GOP campaign: "I still believe that the eventual Republican nominee and just maybe the next president has not yet declared an interest in running"

Get the feeling Joe's got a little secret he just can't wait to share?


He knows he's running, but he can't tell anyone (yet).  So he drops subtle little hints like this one, works to frame the upcoming debate (before he enters the debate), tackles his opposition (before he becomes their opposition), and sets the table for what he knows will be a successful run for the 2012 GOP nomination.


In a way, it must suck to have to play that game.  But in another way, it must be a hoot.


You know you'll be the next President of the United States.  But you can't tell anyone.


Oh, man, that must be rich.

Christopher Buckley: "Joe Scarborough Can Save the GOP"

When Joe announces, it will have seemed so obvious. Just so darn obvious.

Here's Christopher Buckley writing in 2009 in The Daily Beast, after Scarborough's book "The Last Best Hope: Restoring Conservatism and America's Promise" had hit bookshelves (yes, if you put out a book like that, you're running):

I’ve found the new face of the Republican Party. It’s not a new one, entirely, and it’s been hiding out on national television every weekday morning from six to nine.

There’s been a lot of talk lately among Republicans about the need to find a new face for our party. Rush Limbaugh’s and Dick Cheney’s are, let’s face it, a bit scary. John Boehner’s looks like it wants to sell you a used car. Mitch McConnell’s looks like that of the accountant who’s explaining to you why you can’t afford the car that Mr. Boehner is trying to get you to buy, no money down.

So we Republicans have a Face Gap with the Democrats, who—let’s face it—have the best one of all in Mr. Obama.

Well, I think I’ve found the new face of the Republican Party. It’s not a new one, entirely, and it’s been hiding out on national television every weekday morning from six to nine.

Joe Scarborough.

"President Scarborough? "Morning Joe" Would Be a Viable Threat To Obama in 2012"

Great post from 2009 by wonk Andy Ostroy. He was right then, and he's even more right today.

You wonder why more in the blogosphere or MSM aren't picking up on the obvious. Scarborough is setting up a run in 2012.

The ever-shrinking right-wing-nutjob base can have Sarah Palin. My early money for the Republican Party's next presidential nominee is MSNBC pundit and former Florida congressman Joe Scarborough.

In case you haven't noticed, this Joe has been more ubiquitous lately than a cup of Starbucks Java on a New York morning. He's everywhere these days, all dressed up (suits vs fleece) with only one place he'd probably love to go: the White House. And if he plays his cards right, he could give President Barack Obama a very difficult challenge in 2012.

Scarborough's been smartly playing the moderate card lately, which is not what we can say for some of the other 2012 "front-runners" like Palin, Newt Gingrich and Mike Huckabee. These guys are so fringe in their ideology that they could never appeal to the all-important middle.

So what does Morning Joe have going for him? To begin with, he has legislative experience, having served Florida's 1st Congressional District from 1995-2001. And, having the hometown advantage in this hotly contested state would be a huge asset in a run for the presidency.

Joe Scarborough / Chris Christie. There's your 2012 GOP nomination and winning presidential ticket. Landslide. Powerhouse. And exactly what America needed, exactly when America needed it.

Obvious.

And a landslide.

It hath been foretold.

Joe Scarborough, setting up "outsider" run at 2012 GOP nomination, destroys Glenn Beck: "He’s bad for the conservative movement. He’s bad for the Republican party. He’s bad for Fox News. It’s that simple"

More on the courage front from Joe.

First he destroyed Sarah Palin.

And now he's (thankfully) leading the charge from within the GOP to destroy paranoid racist idiot Glenn Beck.

Bravo.  Bravo, bravo, bravo, bravo.

Run Joe Run!

Morning Joe host Joe Scarborough took a little time to comment on Glenn Beck’s recent comments (and blackboard diagrams) connecting union protests in the U.S. to the myriad revolutions and demonstrations popping up in the Middle East.

“I’ve been telling conservatives for about two years,” said Scarborough, in between bites of breakfast, “this guy is bad for the movement.” Scarborough – himself a Republican – added that, “this guy [Beck] is losing it before our eyes. He’s bad for the conservative movement. He’s bad for the Republican party. He’s bad for Fox News. It’s that simple.”

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Joe Scarborough, who has the courage to go after members of his own party when they're idiots (Bush, Palin, etc), asks, "Am I Not Conservative Enough".

Joe Scarborough will win the GOP nomination in 2012, and go on to win the presidency, because he possesses what something that the Mitt Romney's, Sean Hannity's and Sarah Palin's of the world lack.

Courage.

It takes courage to stand up to your own party.  It takes courage to tell your friends they're wrong.  It takes courage to do the right thing.

Joe has courage, and that's what people will want, big time, in 2012.

Here's a great post from Joe at Townhall.com from 2010, defending his record against a smear from just another (one of many) boot-licker in his party, Brent Bozell:

Brent Bozell thinks I have fallen from the ranks of true conservatives and wrote a scathing blog on his website listing my offenses against Republicanism. Judging from the harshness of his tone, you would think that I threw my lot in with a pack of pot smoking Greenwich Village Marxists or, at the very least, lent grudging support to the public option.

But no. My crimes against conservatism were much worse. Brent Bozell has accused me of committing the unpardonable sins of saying unflattering things about George W. Bush, Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh.

The truth is that while I campaigned for President Bush and supported him in both of his runs for president, I became disillusioned with his presidency earlier than most. I wrote the book "Rome Wasn't Burnt in a Day" in 2004, and predicted if Mr. Bush and the GOP Congress didn't stop spending money at such a reckless rate, they would lose their majority and wreck the Congress.

more here

Looks like Joe Scarborough plans on skipping the bible-thumper-beauty-pageant Iowa caucuses in 2012. Smart move.

Joe's basically saying Iowa is a bunch of bible-thumping social conservatives, who'll vote for the preacher (Huckabee, Pat Robertson), so why run if you're a serious candidate? You'll just lose. And Iowa is no longer relevant - winners don't win.

You heard it here first. Joe Scarborough will run, but he'll skip Iowa, and start with New Hampshire, and then sail right into Florida. 2 for 2. And the next GOP nominee for president.

It shouldn't be that easy. But it is.

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Scarborrough: In the past, Iowa caucus, have selected a lot of people that didn’t move past Iowa. Mike Huckabee last time. The religious right has a very strong foothold on the Republican Party. You’ve now got Mitt Romney saying what John McCain said four years ago, I’m just going to skip it.


How do you make sure that Iowa remains relevant and, more importantly, mainstream to the national Republican Party?

Strawn: Well, I think the first takeaway when you look at the results four years ago it was who finished first and second? It was Gov. Huckabee and it was Gov. Romney. Now, what was the common denominator between the two? They spent time in the state. They went around the state, talking to our farmers and co-ops, talking to our voters in coffee shops. That’s the Iowa caucuses.

Scarbourough: You know what else they have in common? They didn’t win. So, how do you make sure people don’t say, you know what, all the social conservatives are going to win Iowa. We’re going to ignore it and start in New Hampshire. Has the party looked at that? Have you been concerned about that?

Strawn: I don’t see a problem with Iowa Republicans, when you look at where we were just last November. No question it was the state that launched Barack Obama on the path to the White House. But think about it, we elected a Republican governor for the first time in 12 years, we won the Iowa House back. We won a net gain of over 100 county-level seats in eastern Iowa, which was Obama country. So I think we’ve proven you can elect electable Republicans in the state of Iowa.

Scarbourough: No doubt about it. I’m just talking about the caucus. And again, I’m know knocking social conservatives. They elected me in 1994. I’m just saying, there is a perception even among Republican candidates now that the most socially conservative person wins Iowa so if you’re not socially conservative, like Romney, on all the issues you skip it and and go to New Hampshire.

Strawn: Yeah, but I think each individual caucus has its own issue set. And if you look at the challenges facing the country right now — let’s take a look at what our candidates plans are for balancing the budget? What are our candidates’ plans for getting serious with entitlement reform? We had Gov. Barbour in Iowa on Monday and he made some headlines with some tough talk on entitlement reform.

Scarbourough: By the way, I think Haley’s finding some space there, Mark Halperin. I think Haley’s going to find space talking like Chris Christie.

Halperin: If he does get in, he will be all-in in Iowa. He’s a social conservative but he’s also going to stress economic issues. I think the chairman’s right. Social conservatives will play a big role. But the party is so focused now on economics, that that’s going to be a bigger part of the debate than usual there.