Elections in America and Israel: Four scenarios

By Bernie Quigley

For The Hill on 11/29/11

It is more like a brick wall than a turning; the thump heard when the first primaries are finally held in the next weeks. Here are four scenarios on how history could turn at Iowa, New Hampshire and Israel.

Romney/Perry: There are three conservatives running in Iowa says Rick Santorum; himself, Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann. Primary season is about who you like to dance with. Voting at the end, who you will marry. Of these three Perry seems the best fit for Iowa country folk with a farm backbone. While Romney a slam dunk in NH. Rightly so because you know what, Romney camp returns your calls and they always did, even on little items like that Russians-are-coming thing I wrote here a few days ago. Romney/Perry ticket would work because Romney really is a problem solver and would see this ticket as following the post war demographics and dynamics of business, energy and people in our time; with one hand holding on to the East as governor of Massachusetts, but following the demographics west with Perry.

Romney/Paul: But if Paul wins Iowa it would bring a new day to America. There will be a new party. Actually a new movement naturally awakened in the middle of the country with help from Sarah Palin and the roar of the Tea Party crowd, turning now into a real political faction. Solid stock Iowans would be putting their backs behind a new establishment. A new two-party system could emerge: Republicans with Romney at the helm and Libertarians with Ron Paul. But I wish the Libertarians would change their name to the Federalists or something because in the true Jeffersonian mold, that is what they are. Libertarian sounds like a religion hatched in the mountains of New Hampshire in the 1830s.

Romney/Bush: Romney slam duck again. It would be a tragic historic error if Romney, hoping to appease the traditionalist longing, bows to the temptation to bring in Jeb Bush as VP. What is of significant historic action in this race and the next is that America has finally moved past the monarchist temptation to be governed by Massachusetts families, the one which vacations in Kennebunkport or the one which vacations in Nantucket, which has drained American creativity for at least two generation. If politics does not follow the contours of rising history, conflict results.

Israel: There is a race in Israel at the end of January for Chairmanship of the Likud to challenge the party leadership of Benjamin Netanyahu. It comes from Moshe Feiglin and the Jewish Leadership group constantly called "extreme right" in the establishment press. It is not extreme anything but does bring a new political and cultural paradigm to Israel, one similar to that proposed by Thomas Jefferson in America. Recently, Netanyahu called Israel a “liberal Western democracy.” His leadership is actually comes from generational demographics based on American pop culture and political influence. There is no West. It has ended in Europe. None in America either. Feiglin's group has called for a rejection of American aid to Israel (as Paul does). This is seen as extremist by many America Jews and others who see Israel in an American perspective as a half-child of America. And that is the issue. In our time, Israel has prospered. It has also become more Jewish and is ready to drop the American mask. A Feiglin victory in Israel would engage a new generation of governance and bring a new future to Israel.