More Lessons and the Like from the Midterms

Per Peggy Noonan’s recent piece in the WSJ:

“Here is an old tradition badly in need of return: You have to earn your way into politics. You should go have a life, build a string of accomplishments, then enter public service. And you need actual talent: You have to be able to bring people in and along. You can’t just bully them, you can’t just assert and taunt, you have to be able to persuade.”

 As the right revs its collective engine in the early throes of election cycle 2012, Noonan’s is advice that ought to be—needs to be—heeded. Tired of a “Community-Organizer-in-Chief”? Obviously, then, don’t make the same mistake twice.

 Roundly speaking, this is a trick that the American voting public kept itself from falling for during this week’s midterms. The candidates that couldn’t muster up to Noonan’s criteria—Angle, O’Donnell, Miller and the like—fell in droves. Again, the voting public caught on. In nominating a presidential candidate, the GOP needs to be sure to do likewise.