News & Politics

Ariell Kirylo •

Franco Nuschese, 50, custom suit, designer glasses, warm smile. He sits at his desk in his office above Cafe Milano in Georgetown reviewing finances and chatting with his publicist, Jan. He is calm, approachable and chooses tea instead of coffee. It is a serene morning for Nuschese—a time with no fires to put out, a moment of contemplation, a chance to speak openly about his life’s accomplishments and epiphanies.

Cafe Milano, a longtime Washington D.C. landmark known for its Italian hospitality and discretion, still maintains the same air of exclusivity since its opening on Nov. 3, 1992.

Nuschese has devoted the last 19 years to curating a trustworthy team dedicated to upholding the restaurant’s unique fine dining identity in combination with its reputation for celebrity accommodation. A conversation with Nuschese quickly unveils that Cafe Milano is a direct reflection of the man himself — his charm, his welcoming personality and his incredible ability to put people at ease.

But with the recent passing of his father, Giuseppe, and longtime mentor Terry Lanni, Nuschese now approaches a new phase in life: one that involves facing forward without the guidance of those lost. For him, riding on the coattails of the past is not an option. Nuschese speaks enthusiastically of expansion in association with his current company, The Georgetown Entertainment Group, as well as his recent passion in the production and distribution of Italian wine. It is clear he envisions the future with the same child-like energy as the day Cafe Milano opened its doors to the movers and shakers of Washington.

The Georgetowner sat down with Nuschese on a calm winter morning to hear the story of his restaurant, his thoughts on community giving, his opinions on Italian politics and what it takes to create a successful, timeless restaurant.

With Washington’s ever-changing culinary world more active than ever before, Nuschese shared his philosophy on success and discussed how he managed to create an epicurean empire still reigning amid the hills of Georgetown.

The Georgetowner: Through all these years, what has been your secret to maintaining such a high-profile clientele at Cafe Milano?

Franco Nuschese: Mine are a very demanding type of clientele. At all costs, it is my responsibility to ensure they leave happy. Period. My experience of working in Las Vegas, and under those principles, has helped me understand this. I aim to please and, of course, I brought to Washington a familiar idea: “Whatever happens in Vegas …” You know the rest.

GT: Cafe Milano has a flawless reputation, and has survived on top through numerous presidential administrations and Washington’s continually expanding culinary scene. You created a timeless restaurant. How were you able to do that?

FN: It’s simple, believe it or not. You have to give to the people what they want. It’s all about consistency. It is one of the biggest challenges to a restaurant. It’s great to open your doors as a new restaurant owner and feed off the excitement and positive energy of that time, but really it is getting to know your clientele personally. You exist for them. Through promotions and special invitations, it’s easy to get them in once, but the hardest part is to get them to come back on their own.

GT: What must you do in order to get the people to come back?

FN: Consistency. As a restaurant owner, you must spend time up front in designing the right staff to help you with this. In a changing city like Washington, it is about creating that stability. Your staff must be as dedicated as you are to the concept.

GT: Once you are confident with your staff, what else is crucial to giving the people what they want?

FN: A restaurant must have a great vibe. It is my responsibility to foster that atmosphere. People need to feel the vibe bounce from their skin when they walk in. It’s in the simple things: the light in the candles, the bar, the music, the food. The clientele may not be able to put their finger on what it is, but you know because you created it. People come to a restaurant because they want to see and they want to be seen, all the while wanting the privacy they deserve.

When you open a restaurant — or any business for that matter — it is like you are opening your home. You are, in a way, selling yourself. These are your guests, and you have to be a host. You have to make them feel like they’re at home. It is under your roof that your guest wants to bring their best friends, their girlfriends, their colleagues or whatever. In order to be successful, your business needs to be versatile in this way.”

GT: Tell us about opening night at CafeMilano.

FN: (Smiling.) It was a very cold night in November in ‘92. I’ll tell you, it was great. The bar was packed. I must say, in a very humble way of course, I immediately knew what was going to happen.

GT: So, you felt immediately that Cafe Milano would be a success?

FN: I knew it was going to be alright because it is very easy for me to absorb the energy of the people. This is a very important tool for a business owner. One must humble themselves and really value their client and get to the core of their likes and dislikes. That night I saw lobbyists and politicians really enjoying themselves. These people work all day in very conservative and calculated atmospheres. That night, I saw them relax in the atmosphere I created for them. At the time, we only had 52 seats and I knew immediately we would need to expand.

GT: You appeared on the Italian reality show, “Dreaming of Italy,” designed to highlight Italian-Americans who found success in the U.S. So…do you dream of Italy?

FN: I can tell you one thing. I might live in the U.S., but I live like an Italian. From the minute I wake up to the minute I go to sleep.

GT: What does that mean, to wake up in the morning as an Italian in Washington?

FN: I wake up, I have a decaf espresso, I read the Italian paper and watch the Italian news. I also live my life like there’s no tomorrow. As one should.

GT: What are your thoughts on the current state of Italian politics?

FN: I think [former Italian Prime Minister] Silvio Berlusconi was extremely good for Italy. He has been around for 60 years. But, like everything else, times have changed. We cannot afford to do the same things we used to. He has been a great leader and a great entrepreneur, but we needed to turn the page. When it comes to politics and the media, it’s a totally different world now. Facebook and Twitter have changed everything. You cannot get away with anything anymore. Anything you say, anytime, anywhere within seconds becomes public.

GT: So, what will happen to Italy now?

FN: All I know is that if Italy fails, the U.S. fails. There has never been more attention on Italy than there is today. The economy is too big and produces too much. Someone will step in.

GT: You were born in Minori, a tiny town on the Amalfi Coast in Italy. You’ve worked in London and Las Vegas. But you built your empire here in the District. Why Washington?

FN: Well, it’s the center of the universe. Think world politics, business, everything is going through here. And besides, geographically you are close to everything: New York City, Europe, even the Bahamas!

GT: In the past decade, you have received numerous awards for your community partnerships here in Washington. How do you define the importance of community in your business?

FN: I come from a small city where most people do not have the luxury of entrepreneurship. But one thing I did learn, is when you make money you must invest it back into the community. It’s an amazing feeling to be able to do that. A luxury even.

GT: When you look back upon your personal achievements, how do you feel?

FN: (Laughing) Actually, I’m having more fun now than 30 years ago. As an entrepreneur, I was always anxious with the pressure of creating and protecting my business. People will tell you that nothing lasts forever. I never stopped to worry about it, though. Now I don’t even feel like I’m 50. I’m still having such a great time.
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Amos Gelb •

In the book and then movie Money Ball, a contrarian baseball general manager defies the sport’s orthodoxy to build a winning team, if not a champion team.

Welcome to the journalistic equivalent: the Daily Caller.

Founded by the orthodoxy-dismissing journalist Tucker Carlson, of the old CNN Crossfire, MSNBC and later Dancing with the Stars fame, and his college roommate Neil Patel, the two-year old online publication delights in its sharp elbows and its unconventional style.

Certainly the legacy media reaction – that the Daily Caller is more up-start than Start-Up – couldn’t please its founding figurehead any more. He relishes in discomforting the comfortable, as he did with his hiring six months ago with David Martosko, a man with a blunt style, no formal journalism experience and a track record as a PR hit man for conservative causes. And yet, they both exclaim, look at the numbers. “Somebody out there likes us,” referring to the online unique viewership that has exceeded 3.5 million a month – beating the New Yorker and Vanity Fair.

But what is most interesting about the Caller today is not the is-it-or-is-it-not a right-wing political rag as common consensus proclaims; what is interesting is that it has staked its place on the edge of journalism. From the kinds of stories and the willingness to call out names (the publication is a politically equal-opportunity burner), it has the feeling of a place in a hurry to get some sharper elbows back in the journalism fight.

Its offices in at L and 17 certainly feel like they are in a hurry. The Caller’s home is more bullpen than newsroom, and looks like it was furnished from a used office furniture warehouse, encircled by a few offices and a ping pong room complete with a working keg. It’s the journalistic equivalent of an Internet start-up, which it is – a journalistic Internet-start-up. And just two years in it’s very close to profitability, according to Carlson.

And despite a few regrettable journalistic faux pas, they are pushing themselves onto the dance floor, breaking stories and relishing in doing anything journalistic that will make the old school wince. But in an adamantly journalistic fashion. The focus, editor Martosko says, is to cover politics in a way that non-political junkies will find “compelling.” But the non-journalist Martosko loses that mischievous smile of someone about the pull a prank when he starts to talk about how they do that. While, he says, they are intent on throwing out the old tactics, the Caller is more committed than ever to accuracy and objectivity. Carlson adds “truth and fearless. All, I hope, with a sense of humor.”

Many are not buying it and question the Caller’s term, “objectivity,” (they milked the Congressman Weiner story in a way some called unseemly) and some complain their headlines tend towards the National Enquirer. Tucker dismisses the criticism with “the beauty of journalism is everyone gets to judge and vote with a cursor. And our traffic keeps going up.”

But perhaps the biggest mark they may be arriving at is a recent long, critical article that appeared in the new Beltway bible – the Politico. Better to be attacked than ignored.

There have been mistakes, and Carlson says there will likely be more but they try to correct them as quickly as possible. But so far there have been none of the cataclysmic journalistic disasters of the type that have befallen the Post and the Times over the years and which many in the traditionalist ranks hope befall the Caller.

Some pointed out the staff turnover when Martosko arrived as a sign of real journalists fleeing the sinking ship, but in many ways the former PR-maven seems to embody exactly what Carlson is trying to do. Martosko brings that “make sure it grabs attention” ethos from PR and a guerrilla mentality that the Caller needs to produce more, more quickly. He proudly points at the near empty bullpen as evidence that he reporters and editors are out reporting. (An author’s note – The Daily Caller is a client of the Medill Graduate School of Journalism’s DC News Service where ATM is a professor.)

And Carlson is just getting started. His self-professed grandiose goal is to replace the media that is dying – the average daily newspaper that is “crap.” And this fall, the Caller staffed up a video team that it hopes will add videos as pugilistic as its words.

There are no checked swings from this ball team, and it’s not clear whether Carlson or Martosko would mind if some furniture got broken in the process.

Author’s note: The Daily Caller is a client of the Medill Graduate School of Journalism’s DC News Service where Amos Gelb is a professor.

Georgetowner •

BECOME The Georgetowner’s next photography contest WINNER!

Submit up to five photographs taken anywhere in Georgetown. The coolest, most incredible, eye-catching, blow-us-away photograph will WIN THE FRONT COVER of our publication.

Deadline for photograph submissions is: January 4, 2012

We look forward to seeing your photos!

Gary Tischler •

By the time anyone reads this, the New Hampshire Primary for the Republican Presidential Nomination will be over, unless its closer than the Iowa Caucus, in which eight votes separated winner Mitt Romney and runner-up Rick Santorum.

Romney should come out on top, on the way to his seemingly obligatory nomination—unless the quirky New Hampshire political Gods decided to intervene. Romney had a 20-point lead over his rivals and was rolling.
And yet, something seems to be sticking in the collective Republican craw. There is no joy in the GOP version of Mudville. Mighty Romney has failed to strike a chord, even though the words ‘inevitable,’ ‘easy to understand,’ and ‘hard to stomach,’ seem to be attaching themselves to him.

Consider the recent GOP doubleheader, the two debates before the primary within ten hours of each other.
The first, on prime time television on Saturday night with only an NFL playoff game for real competition, offered national viewers of all political stripes a chance to look at what’s left of the slowly winnowing and wavering GOP presidential field. (Michelle Bachman, once the tea party’s darling, conceded that the Iowa voters had spoken and they weren’t talking about her, and dropped out without so much as a tearful farewell).
The two debates—the first a Hound of Baskerville type of occasion in which the anti-Romney dogs didn’t bark—offered some thumbnail pictures of the candidates, and what appears to be of concern to GOP voters, even though almost every prospective voter interviewed by the army of media types covering New Hampshire indicated their main concern was jobs.

Did any of the candidates talk about a secret, previously undisclosed plan to create jobs? Did the candidates trailing the front-runner set on him like a pack of wolves? No to either case.

They talked about gay marriage, they talked about Iran—sort of—they talked about service in the military, they talked about abortion, they talked about contraception. The trailing candidates took swipes at each other but, strangely, not at Romney. That changed the next morning, possibly because Newt Gingrich, Santorum, Ron Paul, Jon Huntsman and Rick Perry suddenly realized that they were in the 11th hour of the New Hampshire primary.

The thing about Romney on both occasion, and almost any occasion, is that he looks presidential. Sometimes he’s doing his Reagan-in-blue-jeans thing, but most often he’s smiling in a suit. He looks like a man who is used to wealth and success, a businessman and a seasoned politician, always smiling, not a hair out of place.
With Herman Cain and Bachman out of the race, the party on the podium retains a certain one-dimensionality. Scanning the audience during the ABC debate, managed by George Stephanopoulos and Diane Sawyer, you’d never get a hint of American diversity.

Romney won by default—nobody laid a glove on him—as the irrepressible Paul, who is about as much a Republican as I am, laid into Gingrich for backing foreign wars when he never served himself. Paul remembered serving even though he was married with children at the time. But the dais was strangely quiet when Gingrich rambled on with great passion about the defense of marriage act, about the “sacrament of marriage” and the Obama administration’s attack on Christianity and religion. This devotion to the sanctity of marriage as defined by a man and a woman was stated with a straight face—for a moment some of us thought he might sniffle again—but coming from the oft-married Gingrich, this was a farcical performance.
Romney never answered a question directly and pursued what’s beginning to sound like a general campaign theme—GOP meritocracy vs. Obama entitlements. This campaign, he said, is a “battle for the soul of America,” which could be a tough fight for the smooth, polished, slick Romney machine. Let’s face it, Romney is running a rather soulless campaign.

The following day, after his pious baloney rant on the sanctity of marriage, Gingrich went after Romney with a demand to “cut this pious baloney.”

Romney had actually attacked Huntsman, the highly successful former Utah governor and fellow Mormon, for working with Obama as Ambassador to China. Huntsman who refused to attack Romney even when invited by Sawyer to take a shot, finally took it the next morning, saying Romney’s attack was the kind of thing that divided America.

Those early-morning back-and-forths may not change things. For the trailing candidates, survivability was the issue in New Hampshire—finish second or in double digits so you can carry on the fight. For Santorum, the hope is that the next stop in South Carolina, where social conservatives and Evangelist Christians are strong, will prove a more fertile ground for him.

Governor Nikki Haley, another tea party fave, has already endorsed Romney, thus entering the VP sweepstakes with the increasingly omnipresent New Jersey Governor Chris Christie. Christie, popular with the media and the tea party, made another campaign appearance for Romney in New Hampshire, this time not trying to joke like Tony Soprano.

Can anybody stop Romney? Not in the GOP. But out there in the coming general election, where the volatility of the economy and the great wide world are daily factors, the outcome is up in the air.

Robert Devaney •

IN

P Street Pictures is now on O Street on the west side of town. After losing her lease on the P Street shop, owner Judy Schlosser opened next to Emi and Harry’s Georgetown Dinette. Schlosser is grateful for the community’s support and is a welcome addition to the block. Check out her new space: P Street Pictures on O, 3204 O St., N.W. 202 337 0066, PStreetPix@Gmail.com.

Barre3, a yoga and dance fitness studio, opened last week at 1000 Wisconsin Ave, N.W., Suite G-100 (on the ground floor of Old Dodge Warehouse at the corner of Wisconsin Avenue and K Street; its front door is next door to Chadwick’s Restaurant). It offers classes seven days a week in two studios with a locker room and a shower, lounge with fireplace and a childcare area. 202 450 3905. Georgetown@Barre3.com.

Pie Sisters of Georgetown has opened at 3423 M St., N.W. With ovens, coolers and counters ready for action, Allison, Cat and Erin Blakely will feed Georgetown’s ever-expanding palette for all things sweet, creamy and fruity—with a few savory options, to boot. Flavors include apple caramel crunch, pecan, key lime and banana, coconut and chocolate cream. The shop sells pies in three sizes: the four-dollar “cuppie,” and seven- and nine-inch pies ($14 – $16 and $35, respectively). But if you return the glass plate that the pie comes in, you receive $5 off your next purchase. There are chairs and tables in front of the shop with a coffee counter as well. Pie Sisters is next door to Dixie Liquors, one of the shops along Regency Row: 202 338 PIES (7437). PieSisters.com.

OUT
Barnes & Noble closed in M Street store Dec. 31. A favorite of residents, the large store at M and Thomas Jefferson Streets had lost its lease. Except for Philip Levy’s Bridge Street Books on Pennsylvania Avenue, the Latern Bryn Mawr Bookshop on P Street and Georgetown University’s book store, almost no book stores remain in Georgetown. There is speculation that Nike will take over the space.

The Pinball Museum moved out of the Shops at Georgetown Park and has re-located in Baltimore.

Robert Devaney •

U.S. Park Police Sgt. Michael Boehm, who suffered a fatal heart attack responding to an injured man near Key Bridge at the C&O Canal towpath Dec. 16, was eulogized and honored Dec. 28.

Boehm’s funeral mass was at the Church of the Nativity in Burke, Va. The funeral procession of police and other vehicles moved north on I-395 to the Memorial Bridge, entering Washington with D.C. Fire Department trucks extending their ladders as an arch of honor in front of the Lincoln Memorial. The procession went on to pass the headquarters of the U.S. Park Police in Potomac Park near Hains Point and then turned back to Virginia to Fairfax Memorial Park for the burial.

Boehm is survived by his wife Corrina and son Christopher. He entered service with the U.S. Park Police on Oct. 11, 1992.

The injured man near Key Bridge — to whom police and firefighters first responded — also died that Dec. 16 night. The nature of the unidentified man’s death is still under investigation by police.

Gary Tischler •

The GOP primary race remains a wacky brew, although one with fewer fixins.  Gone is the amazing pizza king and his hazy harem.  Long gone is the man from Minnesota whom nobody knew.  Gone, too, is the prom queen of the Tea Party along with the Texas cowboy who couldn’t speak straight.  This week, four remain, and the man at the top is not Mitt Romney.

Newt Gingrich scored a somewhat remarkable upset in South Carolina — I throw in the caveat because South Carolina is, well, South Carolina, first in war (the Civil War, that is), a place where Yahoo is a state of mind as well as a search engine. He won the primary with 40 percent of the vote to Romney’s 28, with Rick Santorum, who didn’t light the evangelist fire and seems to have only one sweater vest to his name, finishing third, and the sweetly sunny Ron Paul fourth. Rick Perry had already dropped out earlier and endorsed Gingrich.

In South Carolina, the Evangelists and the Tea Party are strong factors, much stronger than in the Republican party at large. It’s a state where — among the GOP faithful — Barack Obama is not just the Democratic president, incumbent and opponent, he is reviled, hated and perhaps a socialist and perhaps not even a citizen of the United States. 

It’s a place, where Romney — not a moderate, not really a conservative, a nobody-knows-what — probably shouldn’t have expected to do well and where John McCain’s candidacy was derailed in 2000 and didn’t exactly rock and roll four years ago.  But Romney had a double-digit lead over what remained of the field—Gingrich, Santorum and the increasingly Yoda-like Ron Paul — as late as mid-week last week. That was before a surge toward Gingrich, mysterious but real, was detected. His surge was driven by tough debate performances, and his response in the last debate to ABC’s airing of an interview with his ex-wife in which he reportedly had asked her for an “open marriage.”

The CNN debate moderator, John King, made the mistake in bringing up the subject right off the top, giving Gingrich an open-ended question.  As all observers noted, Newt knocked it out of the park.  He railed against the establishment media, he questioned the appropriateness of the questions and railed against the media some more, all of which the audience cheered. Bashing the media in South Carolina — except for Fox News and Rush—is a no-brainer, like taking lunch money from a kid who is half your size with no karate experience.

The CNN moderate was entirely right to bring the subject up, but he asked the wrong question. It should have been, when Gingrich starts sputtering about fairness, privacy and the sanctity and sacrament of matrimony, whether Christian theology has room for open marriage and about the hypocrisy in his constant talk about family values and marriage. But, then, Gingrich thinks he’s as wise as Solomon.

Gingrich has admitted that he has made mistakes, but he’s never acknowledged what they might be. He says that he is a changed man from the bruiser, bullying Speaker of the House of yore, who led the impeachment drive against President Bill Clinton, but he never says how he’s changed. 

Romney, in his clashes with Gingrich, has steadily shrunk to the size of the rest of the field, which was generally considered weak, if not downright mediocre or worse.  Once the steady front-runner, even when the rest of the field was doing the dance of the seven minutes of fame, Romney is slowly emerging as that guy behind the curtain in “The Wizard of Oz.” He’s made some interesting comments, all of them indicating that he appears to have no clue how most Americans live, which is to say the 99 percent, in hard times.

From the $10,000 bet, to saying that his speaking fees of more than $300,000 are not a lot of money, to claiming that he feared getting the pink slip, to the blue jeans, Romney reveals himself to be out of touch with common human beings like the rest of us. He may soon release his tax information, but we already know he’s a 15 percenter.

Gingrich, on the other hand, scares the bejesus out of the regular Republican establishment types. This allows Gingrich to claim the status of fighter, rebel and Captain America, although he needs to get into the gym to get into that costume. It’s an odd thing — he’s a populist, a Reaganite and a pugnacious intellectual who presents himself as someone who can beat Obama . . . at least in a debate or in a dark alley, whichever works.

Lo and behold, here is Newt Gingrich, the Washington outsider, after years as an insider, including Speaker of the House.  This Newt is confident — always a danger for him—he’s ready to fight the long fight and lead the American people out of socialism. He’s already had a remarkable career.  As speaker, he orchestrated an amazing comeback for the GOP after it lost the presidency to Clinton.  In two years — much as was the case with Obama — he had the GOP in control of both the House and the Senate, a feat he frittered away through high-handedness and arrogance, making lots of enemies in the party, a fact which is starting to become clear now.

Old timers are starting to fret about the possibility of a Newt victory. They’re casting rumors about third parties. A Washington Post headline hyped: “A New Twist in the Search for Mr. Right.”  The GOP fears that it will get Mr. Goodbar instead.

David Post •

Since Franklin Roosevelt was president, Republicans and Democrats have created diametrically opposite methods for choosing their presidential nominees.

Republicans pick a nominee with deep roots in the party, usually a man who previously lost an a run for the presidency. Democrats pick a nominee with virtually no name recognition, shallow roots and who is running for the presidency for the first time.

Republicans know whom they are going to nominate. They go through the motions, but they select one of their own, a proven commodity, a person who has been running since before the previous election. Democrats nominees are a surprise to their own party, to their own voters, to the public and to the Republicans.

Republicans don’t emerge. They run, lose, run again and win. It’s called paying dues. Democratic nominees seem to emerge out of nowhere and have to battle “no experience” charges which continue even if they are elected.

Before Franklin Roosevelt was elected in 1932, the parties’ conventions selected their nominees, so all candidates had deep roots and internal party allegiances. Roosevelt had been Secretary of the Navy and Governor of New York. Entering his fourth election for president, however, Roosevelt changed vice presidents and selected a former clothing store operator, a political pawn, a little known senator. Harry Truman became president a month into Roosevelt’s fourth term, having spent very little time with Roosevelt and was completely unaware that an atomic bomb – that he would order dropped a few months later – was being produced.

Since then, the parties have followed their unique paths to the presidency.

In 1948, the Republicans anointed New York Governor Thomas Dewey, a presumable shoo-in. He was so far ahead, the pollsters quit taking the public pulse in September. Truman prevailed.

In 1952, both parties knew World War II hero, Dwight Eisenhower, would win and begged him to join their party. (Remember both parties pursuing Colin Powell?) Eisenhower picked the Republicans and cruised into the White House. Richard Nixon was his vice president.

In 1960, Nixon moved into position as the Republican nominee. The Democrats selected the little known, little accomplished, junior, but wealthy, Senator John Kennedy. Kennedy defeated his Senate boss, the inside-the-party favorite, Lyndon Johnson. Nixon lost, but he won the nomination – and the presidency – in 1968.

In 1976, President Ford, the country’s only non-elected president, faced a challenge for the Republican nomination. Ronald Reagan was a famous movie star, TV commentator and a popular governor of California, the largest and typically Democratic state. Ford beat him but lost to Jimmy Carter.

Four years later in 1980, Reagan returned and defeated George H. W. Bush for the nomination. George H. W. Bush was a Texas Republican whose father had been a U.S. senator. Bush had been a congressman, had lost a run for the Senate, and had been U.S. Ambassador to China. Reagan picked Bush as his vice president and defeated the sitting President Carter.

In 1988, George H. W. Bush was Mr. Republican Establishment, won the nomination and the election against Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis. Again, Michael Who?

In 2000, the Republicans nominated Texas Governor George W. Bush, who had defeated a popular Democratic governor in 1994. Had his name been George Walker instead of George Walker Bush, he would never have gone to Yale or Harvard, been given an ownership interest and the CEO position of the Texas Rangers major league baseball team and never have run for office. His last name was Bush, and his dad had been President. George W. Bush didn’t have to lose to win, but how establishment can a candidate be?

Since Roosevelt, the Democrats have selected Jimmy Who?, Bill Who? and Barack Huh?

In 1976, Jimmy Carter, better known as Jimmy Who, was a little known, peanut farmer who had served one term as Georgia’s governor. No one on the national scene had ever heard of him. He had a 1-percent name recognition rating going into the Iowa caucuses and defeated a slew of established Democrats for the nomination.

In 1992, establishment Democrats were afraid to run against George H. W. Bush’s 91-percent approval rating. Bill Clinton, another small-state governor who had given an awful speech at the 1988 Democratic National Convention, took the plunge. Most Americans probably cannot find Arkansas on a map. He faced ongoing charges of immoral behavior during the election (and during his presidency).

In 2008, Hilary Clinton had the nomination locked up, but Barak Obama who had served as a U.S. senator for a mere four years, surprised her, the nation and is now president.

When Democrats nominate mainstream candidates, they lose. Vice Presidents Hubert Humphrey, Walter Mondale and Al Gore couldn’t get to the finish line.

What does this mean? The only Republicans running now who have a chance to win are Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich. Romney ran in 2004 and lost. He’s ripe. Gingrich talks about being a Washington outsider, but he lives there and is trying to ride President Reagan’s coattails.

Rick Santorum is not and Jon Huntsman was not really running this year. They are running for the Republican nomination in 2016. Whom will they run against? Some Democrat who has a 1-percent name recognition right now.