Forget Grace
PRESIDENT Aquino is trying doggedly to get Sen. Grace Poe to run for vice president with Mar Roxas as the presidential candidate.
But indications are that Poe isn’t inclined to accept the combination. She wants to run for president with Sen. Chiz Escudero as her running mate.
This is why the President hasn’t been able to announce who his presidential candidate is. Poe is not playing hard to get, she doesn’t like what’s being offered to her.
If I were the President, I would forget about Poe as running mate for Roxas. Let Poe run as an independent and when she loses, let her regret her obstinacy against Mr. Aquino’s importunings for her to run with Roxas.
Actually, the President should have announced his choice of Roxas a long time ago. And months before that, Aquino and Roxas should have made decisive moves to buttress Roxas’ standing in the surveys by building up their top-to-bottom machinery, particularly at the bottom, to lay the groundwork for Roxas’ campaign. Plus a persuasive information campaign highlighting his positives.
Instead, they’ve wasted a lot of precious time.
My column on Jan. 9, 2014 (“Memo to a certain politician”) was a thinly veiled open letter to Roxas, suggesting that, in light of his low popularity ratings, he should already be setting up a campaign organization to pave the way for a competitive and winning run in 2016.
In that column I wrote: “...[I]f the surveys show that you’re losing ground in the people’s perceptions and preferences, then your own partymates, including the President of course, may decide that your odds for 2016 are getting to be too long and that your chances of winning may be slipping away. If so, they will start looking for another candidate.”
The long hesitation on the President’s part in “anointing” Roxas as his choice for 2016 indicates that what I wrote in January, 2014, has now come to pass. Roxas’ survey numbers have been virtually at a standstill and his odds of winning in 2016 have become even longer today.
As a consequence, there’s a lot of restlessness within the President and Roxas’ Liberal Party. While party officials put up an optimistic front and pledge loyalty to Roxas, one can’t help but sense that the waiting game has gone on far too long for them. They need to hear a decision by Mr. Aquino soon.
It’s becoming obvious that Poe is unwilling to partner up with Roxas. It wouldn’t have taken several meetings with the President, including the sixhour one with Roxas, Escudero, and her just this past Wednesday, if she were inclined to run in tandem with Roxas.
So, I think Aquino should accept reality and grin and bear it. Forget Poe and start working on a possibly winning campaign for Roxas.
It’s time to get all hands on deck among the Liberal Party members and their coalition partners. They can’t waste any more time sitting on their derrieres waiting for the President’s announcement.
Aquino has promised to make his choice public right after his State of the Nation speech on Jan. 27. He shouldn’t wait until then to quietly let his partymates know who his choice is so they can already start the groundwork for 2016. Every day that they sit idly by doing nothing is a lot of time and preparation lost.
As for Poe, she can’t win without any party machinery to get a national campaign going. She may be adopted by another party besides the Liberal Party and that will help. But it will still be an uphill climb. Come Election Day, without a party machinery, there will be no one to get the votes out and protect them for Poe.
Campaign money may come from fat cats who want to be on the winning side, but will it be enough? Without any logistical and financial support, any campaign will be dead from the start.
I think Poe is making a mistake by making the President wait (which in itself is what the British call “infradig,” shorthand for beneath one’s dignity, the President’s in this case) for her decision.
Even without any prior solid and momentous achievements, she’s become the darling of the media and many people. But will that be enough to get her elected president? Will the hosannas today translate into votes in May, 2016?