When it comes to some of the higher-profile U.S. generals, most take issue with the Bush administration’s policies, especially in Iraq. Names like Clark, Zinni, Sanchez, Eaton, Batiste, and Johns are all notable, not just for their lengthy military careers and stars on their shoulders, but also because they want nothing to do with the Bush agenda.
There are, however, a couple of generals that conservatives still hold in high regard — such high regard that they want them to become Republican candidates. Here, for example, is “One Last Mission,” a site created by GOP activists to convince retired Gen. Peter Pace to lose to Mark Warner run for the Senate in Virginia.
We understand that after 40 years of dedicated service and personal sacrifice, that spending time with your family and enjoying a well-deserved retirement are far more appealing than the slings and arrows of Washington. There are rumors circulating that you will never consider a run for the Senate.
It is, however, your reluctance to serve that suggests to us that you must serve. For too long, the halls of power have been filled with self-important politicians who crave public office and the honor that it brings. In Washington, self-interest often trumps the public interest. For six years, you could change all of that. We don’t ask that you begin a second career; we ask that you serve one term at a moment in history that such service matters most.
The idea is fairly popular with conservative blogs, including RedState and the National Review.
Some are taking this even further — WorldNetDaily’s Joseph Farah recently recommended that Republicans draft Pace to run for president, citing Pace’s criticism of gays as evidence of his qualifications.
Better yet, the right isn’t interested just in Pace.
There’s similar talk about the GOP drafting Gen. David Petraeus.
The right wing is rooting for Petraeus to take the plunge. On Sept. 6, The New York Sun wrote an editorial titled “Petraeus for President?” The Corner’s Kathryn Jean Lopez approvingly linked to the editorial this morning, titling her post “Dream Sequence.” Last spring, The Weekly Standard’s Bill Kristol told the Harvard Republican Club that he and other “conservative insider[s]” believe “a ticket of Fred Thompson and David Petraeus might be able to avert electoral disaster for the GOP” in 2008.
And some Republicans in Florida have had their eye on retired Gen. Tommy Franks for one office or another.
There’s certainly nothing wrong with generals leaving the military and running for public office; the country has a long history of generals doing just that. But Matt Yglesias noted that the right’s new-found interest seems misguided.
The idea, normally, is to nominate flag officers who are associated with noteworthy victories — from Andrew Jackson to Wesley Clark — or else for a junior officer who showed noteworthy courage in battle (John Kerry, John Kennedy) to run for a lower office. Neither Franks, nor Petraeus, nor Pace is actually popular, probably because insofar as anyone knows who these guys are it’s from their association with a giant unpopular fiasco in Iraq. What the Republicans need to do is find candidates who can distance themselves from this war, not embrace it more closely.
Quite right. Digby adds that Republicans are just “suckers for Republicans in uniform.”
I don’t think they’d care if he had been convicted of war crimes, they’d love him if he were GOP. (They’d actually love him more if he were convicted of war crimes.) The problem for Republicans is that there just aren’t as many of them as there used to be. And Independents and Democrats might have some objections to electing a Bush toady and Iraq war architect, no matter how much salad he has on his chest.
I think that’s a safe bet.