* none of the Republican candidates for president have complemented their hyper-inflated images of themselves to a vision of what the country needs … but watch Huntsman in NH

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Michael Tomasky writes in Newsweek (12/5/11) …

• In the end, it was Herman Cain’s ego, not the women, that killed his campaign.
• Now, all politicians are arrogant to one degree or another. And to seek the presidency, you pretty much have to be.
• Newt Gingrich is a megalomaniac who truly thinks on some level that he is Lincoln and Churchill and Teddy Roosevelt rolled into one—and America is doomed unless it elects him.
• Mitt Romney walks with the casual superiority of a man who’s made a quarter of a billion dollars.
• Rick Perry has that Texas swagger (and not much else).
• And it certainly took some stones for a certain senator with just two years in office under his belt to decide in 2006 that he was ready to be president.
• Vanity can be all right—for this job, it’s a requirement. But the crucial point is that it has to be matched with something else.

Credible and successful candidates for president

are those who are able to marry their hyper-inflated images of themselves

to a vision of what the country needs.

• Putting aside how well or poorly he’s performed since taking office, Obama got this exactly right in 2008: a clear majority of voters agreed that he was the best person to lead the country in a very different direction. They liked the story he told about himself; they liked even more the story he told about America.
• What this year’s candidates completely lack is a story about society that’s remotely compelling to anyone outside the conservative base.
• Inside that base, it can be controversial even to acknowledge that something called society exists, since it implies paying for common goods.
• Of the lot of them, only Gingrich is really capable of thinking big thoughts, but many of his ideas about society—this recent notion that children should be janitors because child labor laws are “truly stupid”—are mad. So we’re stuck with advertisements for themselves.

And off to stage left, the president, despite his wobbly approval ratings,

is smiling.

 read the entire column at … http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2011/12/04/what-really-killed-herman-cain-s-campaign.html?utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&utm_campaign=cheatsheet_morning&cid=newsletter%3Bemail%3Bcheatsheet_morning&utm_term=Cheat%20Sheet

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LMW COMMENT …

Only Romney and Huntsman can be imagined by any thinking person as an occupant of the Oval Office.

The Republicans hate Romney … largely because when he’s not pandering to the far right base, he seems like a pragmatic and reasonable person.

Huntsman is the most competent and experienced of the lost, and he polls 2%. But watch Huntsman in New Hampshire. If there is any surprise coming on the Republican side, that might be it.

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