As I've said previously, I don't really consider Karger, Martin, McMillan, or Sharkey to be particularly credible candidates, so those four are out in my reckoning.  And until or unless either Moore or Roemer officially declare, neither one of them is on my radar.  Ditto for any of the candidates who are merely receiving speculation; I have no interest in or opinion on a potential candidate who isn't yet in it.

That brings me down to nine official candidates, and I'm going to promptly take that down to seven.  Newt Gingrich is, in my opinion, a washed-up has-been whose politically useful days have been behind him for at least a decade now.  Gary Johnson is more than a little too liberal-tarian (read: "closet anarchist") for my personal taste.

Huntsman, Pawlenty, and Romney have all been credibly outed as big-government, nanny-state RINOs.  The pale pastels of dem-lite aren't going to accomplish anything in 2012 other than to guarantee a second term for BHO, and for that reason my personal field of consideration is now down to four.

Conventional wisdom, with good reason, holds that a credible candidate for POTUS ought to have notable executive experience at a lesser level.  It doesn't seem to matter much whether that experience is: as VPOTUS, gubernatorial, in the private sector, as a cabinet secretary, military command, or even in a formal congressional leadership position.  The point is that it ought to be there . . . period.

Going back through the pages of American History, I've noticed that, of the forty-four men who've occupied the office of President of the United States, a grand total of two did not have lesser executive experience prior to their inauguration.  However, in 1849 Abraham Lincoln was offered governorship of the Oregon Territory, and at the 1856 Republican National Convention he finished second in the balloting to be John C. Fremont's vice-presidential running mate.  My guess is that the guy had a reputation for a skill set consistent with effective executive performance.

On the other hand, the only other POTUS to have no notable executive experience prior to assuming office was . . . drum roll please . . . Barack Hussein Obama.  That's right, boys and girls; so far as I've been able to find, POTUS-44 has zero, zip, zilch, nada, squat, goose-egg, no independently verifiable record whatsoever of any credible executive experience in any position, at any level, nor even any reputable evidence that he's demonstrated any executive leadership aptitude at any point in his professional history.

And we see how well that's working out.

By the standard of prior executive experience, we reduce the official field of 15 candidates down to 8 . . . including seven that I've already eliminated from my personal consideration.  Granted, prior executive experience isn't a constitutional requirement, but if my memory serves me correctly, then demonstrable effective executive aptitude is something that the Founding Fathers sort of expected that an informed electorate would require of a candidate aspiring to the post of the nation's chief executive.

My, how times have changed.

I don't question that Paul and Bachman provide effective and constitutionally-loyal congressional representation for their respective districts (TX-14 and MN-6), nor do I question that Santorum did the same when he was in office (PA-18).  Quite frankly, I think that any of them would make a fine running mate for the guy that I believe should be the republican nominee to unseat BHO.  But I just don't think that any of these three have as yet demonstrated that they'd be any more competent a chief executive than the loser currently occupying that office.

America is right now rotting on the vine as a nation.  Financially and morally, we have most certainly lost our way as a people.  Unalienable rights endowed to us by our Creator, and enshrined in America's Charters of Freedom, have been systematically eroded over the last 98 years or so by the malignant cancer of socialist-progressivism.  Oftentimes, as has been noted on this site recently, that erosion has occurred without the citizenry even being aware that it was happening until it was too late to do anything about it.

Indeed, as George Washington himself cautioned in 1796, it is requisite for the preservation of our Constitution that we resist with bold care the spirit of innovation upon its principles, however specious or benevolent the pretext.  The preferred method of assault will be to effect from within alterations which will serve to impair the energy of the constitutional republic, and thus undermine into irrelevance that which by design cannot be directly overthrown.

As I said in the original article, the more things change, the more they remain the same.  Solomon had it right when he wrote in Ecclesiastes that there is nothing new under the sun.

What this country needs is a turnaround specialist, a guy who has a track record of being unafraid of learning the basics and then sticking to them, a guy who has turned around a low-performing region of a national restaurant chain, or who rescued an entire national restaurant chain from the brink of bankruptcy.  What about a guy who's been face-to-face with stage-4 cancer, given a 30% chance of survival, and survived anyway (and is now totally cancer-free)?

Yeah, America absolutely needs a turnaround specialist, someone who actually knows what leadership is, and doesn't have a problem actually leading.

For what my opinion is worth, America needs Herman Cain.

The SIN tactics of the liberal-progressive-socialists (I gotta keep this list handy):

• "S" - Shift the subject
  
• "I" - Ignore the facts
  
• "N" - Name calling
  

According to Politico:

Thaddeus McCotter will file paperwork on Friday [July 1st] to become the eighth Republican candidate for president, a McCotter adviser told POLITICO.

(Must be some non-mathematical types doing the reporting, as we clearly now have 16 candidates in this field.  Even eliminating the ones that aren't credible only takes the field down to 10.)

His presidential campaign website will go live around noon [today], allowing the four-term Michigan congressman to kick off his long-shot bid on the first day of the new fundraising quarter.

Even before formally launching his presidential bid, McCotter has not shyed from firing shots at those already in the presidential race. When frontrunner Mitt Romney visited Michigan earlier this month, McCotter declared that "struggling families, entrepreneurs and workers can't afford policies that make Mr. Romney and Mr. Obama less than rivals, and more like running mates."

In an interview with POLITICO last month, McCotter previewed some of the themes of a potential presidential run: "The challenge of globalization, the war for freedom against terrorists, the rise of Communist China and whether moral relativism erodes a nation built on self-evident truth."

Nader now says that a primary challenge is a near certainty.

"What [Obama] did this week is just going to energize that effort," Nader promised in an interview with The Daily Caller. "I would guess that the chances of there being a challenge to Obama in the primary are almost 100 percent."

The only question, he said, is the stature of that opponent and whether it will be either "an ex-senator or an ex-governor" or "an intellectual leader or an environmental leader."

In approximately a week and a half there will be "another chapter of this effort," Nader predicted.

The Public Citizen founder said he disapproved of how Obama handled recent debt ceiling negotiations, and claimed the deal's failings prompted this week's dramatic stock market drop.

"He made a deal that did not provide for a public works project to create jobs all over the country. All he did was he agreed to cut spending," Nader said. "And that's what the market is reacting to."

Now, reading through the rest of the article, you might not be too surprised to hear me say that I have a major problem with Ralphie's logic as to why the debt deal is a bad idea; but if this is the straw-that-broke-the-camel's-back with regard to O-commie having to fend off even one viable, high-profile, and perhaps even credible primary challenge, then I'm all for that.  Maybe we'll see something similar to this classic ad right around the time that the presumptive republican nominee is determined: