True
Grit for President
To: “Rooster” Cogburn for President
By: Paul R. Hollrah, summer of 2011
My wife does not often make suggestions for what I should write about, but
today was an exception. As we watched a Fox News update on the field of
Republican hopefuls for the 2012 presidential nomination, she said, “You
know what we need to defeat Obama in 2012? We need someone with “true
grit,” and we still don’t have a front runner who fits that
description.” I could not agree more.
According to the official storyline in the movie True Grit, 14-year-old farm
girl Mattie Ross arrived in
down and capture a former hired hand, Tom Chaney, who had murdered her father.
To aid in her quest, she hired the roughest, toughest man she could find, a
one-eyed
“true grit” named Reuben J. “Rooster” Cogburn,
to track Chaney into
bring him to justice.
Almost every moviegoer over age sixty will remember and appreciate the
original version of the movie, starring John Wayne, which opened in movie
theaters across the country in June 1969.
won both a Golden Globe and an Academy Award as Best Actor for his portrayal of
the one-eyed “Rooster” Cogburn.
But
portrayal of the curmudgeonly lawman was typical John Wayne. He swaggered, he
cursed, and he swilled a little whiskey, but he came off looking more like a
kindly father-figure catering to a strong-willed daughter or granddaughter. It
was not until 2011, forty-one and a half years later, when the remake opened in
theaters across the country, that moviegoers finally got to see what “true
grit” really looks like. That was when actor Jeff Bridges reprised the
role of “Rooster” Cogburn.
Thinking back on the Bridges performance, I can fully appreciate that
“true grit” is the single most important quality the 2012 Republican
candidate must have. “Nice,” “accommodating,”
and “bipartisan” simply won’t cut it against a man who compares well
to Lucifer himself, so no George H.W. Bush, Bob Dole, George W. Bush, or John
McCain lookalikes need apply. And just in case some might be tempted to think
that former
governor Jeb Bush might be a welcome change of pace, let’s just assume that the
further we wade out into the Bush gene pool the shallower it gets. Some may be
willing to gamble on a third Bush in the White House, but I’m not.
So if our 2012 job description excludes “nice guys” and candidates
who are anxious to “reach across the aisle” to accommodate Democrats,
who do we eliminate?
For starters, we can eliminate former
governor Tim Pawlenty, former
governor Jon Huntsman, and former
governor Mitt Romney. Each time I see Pawlenty he
seems to automatically morph into the children’s TV icon, Mr. Rogers, dressed
in his cardigan sweater and singing “Won’t You be My Neighbor.”
Barack Obama, the Democrat leadership, and the “Weiner media” would
eat him alive.
As for Mitt Romney, he too is a bit too nice, a bit too polished to get
“down-and-dirty” with Obama, as conservative voters are going to
demand. Besides, after the lame answer he gave in defense of his failed “RomneyCare” plan in
trust him to adequately espouse conservative values.
After a scathing Wall Street Journal attack on RomneyCare,
Romney responded with, “I stand by my successful healthcare plan in
that RomneyCare does, just on a national level. So,
if I am elected president I will give waivers to states so they can repeat my
mistakes if they want to, or, if they are smart, they will reject both my
approach and Obama’s.” One wonders who advises Romney on his public
statements. As a former speech writer for a presidential candidate, I can’t
imagine who might be putting words into his mouth. Could it be Joe Biden? Newt Gingrich? His response was all wrong. He should have
said, “Yes, the
healthcare reform plan has not been the panacea that we hoped it would be. But
the states are the laboratories of social and economic policy in our federal
system and it is the states that must take the lead in trying to solve problems
such as the healthcare crisis. Barack Obama and the Democrats in Congress don’t
seem to understand that, when it comes to problems as great and as intractable
as healthcare, the one-size-fits-all formula that they’re so fond of just won’t
work. At least we tried. Now the Congress, the next president, and the other
forty-nine states can learn from our experience in
But it was in
in announcing his candidacy for the 2012 GOP nomination, that Romney frittered
away any chance he had of winning the 2012 nomination. Appearing before a crowd
of
supporters, he said, “I don’t speak for the scientific community, of course,
but I believe the world is getting warmer. I can’t prove that, but I believe,
based on what I read, that the world is getting
warmer. And number two, I believe that humans contribute to that. I don’t know
how much our contribution is to that, because I know that there have been
periods of greater heat and warmth in the past but I believe we contribute to
that. And so I think it’s important for us to reduce our emissions of
pollutants and greenhouse gases that may well be significant contributors to the
climate change and the global warming that you’re seeing.”
Goodbye, Mitt Romney! No Republican candidate who would publicly put those
thoughts into words can ever win the party’s nomination for President of the
To name those in the party who do possess “true grit,” we can start
with Texas governor Rick Perry; New Jersey governor Chris Christie; Wisconsin
governor Scott Walker; Maine governor Paul LePage;
Ohio governor John Kasich, South Carolina governor Nikki Haley, Arizona
governor Jan Brewer, former Speaker Newt Gingrich; former corporate CEO Herman
Cain; former Alaska governor Sarah Palin; Congressman Ron Paul, of Texas,
Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann, of Minnesota; and Congressman Allen West, of
Florida. It is out of that group of thirteen patriots that Republicans will
likely select their 2012 ticket, with the ideal ticket being Governor Rick
Perry for president and either Herman Cain or Michele Bachmann for vice
president.
Once in office, President Perry will need a “kick-ass” cabinet. He
will need Sarah Palin as Secretary of the Interior, Chris Christie as Attorney
General, Mitt Romney as Secretary of Commerce, Newt Gingrich as Secretary of
Education, Allen West as Secretary of Homeland Security; and Ron Paul as
Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board. If she is not the first female vice
president, Michele Bachmann would make a fine Treasury Secretary. And if
Governor Perry fails to select him as his running mate, Herman Cain would
provide an invaluable contribution as Chairman of the Republican National
Committee where he would serve as a much-needed conservative role model for all
black Americans.
As Interior Secretary, Palin would have oil producers drilling wells in the
offshore… east coast, west coast, the Gulf of Mexico, and
in the Baaken range in
and the
Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). With the sound of all those drilling rigs operating
around the clock Americans might find it hard to sleep at night, but within
four years the Perry administration would have the
independence. [Note of explanation, not in Paul’s article: to all the
“Greenies” out there -Pres. Obama talks green; BUT, he’s encouraging
continued fossil fuel use – just NOT AMERICAN fuels! He’s in to redistribution
of
wealth to developing countries. Remember
do deep off-shore oil drilling & then promised we’d be
their biggest customer!!!! He wants to destroy OUR oil and coal industry (by
his own words) but build other country’s oil production!!! ]
And that natural gas pipeline that Palin got approved as Governor of Alaska?
She and President Perry would have that pipeline rerouted, and instead of
bringing low-cost, clean-burning natural gas to the non-energy-friendly states
of Washington, Oregon, and California, that gas would be going directly to the
Dakotas and to the Plains states… along with the heavy crude produced from
the Athabasca tar sands in Alberta Province… where business development and
job creation are deserved and much appreciated.
Perry would also have our southern border closed to illegal immigration, the
economy would be growing at a fast pace, Boeing would be producing airplanes in
its new South Carolina assembly plant, the jobless rate would be shrinking
toward the 4-5% “full employment” level, and gasoline prices would
once again be less than $2 per gallon.
All of these things can be accomplished. All we need is a man or woman with
“true grit” in the White House, a filibuster-proof Republican
super-majority in the U.S. Senate, and a prohibitive Republican majority in the
House of Representatives. And whenever our candidates debate Obama and Biden,
let’s send them away feeling as if we’ve dumped a healthy portion of “true
grit” into their undershorts.
Obama must not only be defeated in 2012, he and his policies must be totally
repudiated in a landslide defeat. We need a “Rooster” Cogburn-style Republican in the White House.
So let’s stop thinking about it and talking about it… let’s get it done!
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