WISDOM – AT 12:51 P.M. ET:  The Republican national chairman, Reince Priebus, is speaking common sense to his party as it embarks on a presidential campaign.  Priebus has done a fine job of rebuilding a party that was losing state and congressional elections that it should easily have won.  But there is the presidency.  And, as Priebus points out, if the GOP loses that next year, it is nowhere.  From Newsmax: 

The Republican Party is "cooked" if it fails to take back the White House in 2016, Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus says.

In an interview with the Washington Examiner, Priebus said a Republican president is essential following two terms of a Democrat in control.

"We're cooked as a party for quite a while if we don't win in 2016," he told the Examiner.
But Priebus adds he doesn't anticipate a disastrous election for the GOP because "history is on our side."

"Our job as a national party is to elect Republicans, and it generally means House, Senate, presidential," Priebus told the Examiner.

"However, I think that we have become, unfortunately, a midterm party that doesn't lose and a presidential party that's had a really hard time winning.

"We're seeing more and more that if you don't hold the White House, it's very difficult to govern in this country — especially in Washington D.C."

COMMENT:  He is right.  All the other offices combined don't equal the presidency.  Obama has shown that executive authority has meaning, and the president has the bully pulpit besides.

Republicans must be prepared to run a flawless presidential campaign, behind a winning candidate.  I don't know who that candidate is right now.  There's no obvious choice, like Ronald Reagan.  Two superb governors, Rick Perry and Scott Walker, have been knocked out of the race.  I would say that the great hope is Marco Rubio, who, when he's on, is excellent.  But his campaign has been almost invisible.

We cannot take four more years of a Democratic foreign policy.  That is the bottom line.

October 17, 2015