The Shrinking GOP Field

Obama stands next to the GOP dream candidate.

So, Foghorn Leghorn Haley Barbour has decided not to run for President.

Sigh.

Given the modern GOP's fondness for secession, nullification and questioning whether African Americans are really American, it's a shame that the least "reconstructed" potential candidate for 2012 has already dropped out.  I mean Michelle Bachmann and Donald Trump are trying, but really, it's a suit that doesn't fit as well.

GOP presidential primaries used to be boring, staid affairs.  Someone like McCain might win one in New Hampshire, but everyone pretty much knows who will win before the first primary.

That ended in 2008, when everyone knew that McCain Giuliani Romney McCain would win.  McCain limped along, winning pluralities of the primary votes and all of the delegates but never captivating the imagination the way Obama and Clinton's epic slugfest did.  His weaknesses as a candidate only became apparent later, most notably his impulsive decision to anoint a semi-literate grifter his heir apparent.

So this time around, the GOP has axed the winner-take-all primary system and gone to proportional representation.  This should prevent someone like Bachmann sewing up the Iowa social conservatives and New Hampshire libertarians and riding that to a premature victory.

But if a GOP candidate falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it stand a chance?

How To Be A Citizen

I don't know how to format TED videos, so I'll just give you the link to where I saw it:

http://www.balloon-juice.com/2011/02/04/no-his-mind-is-not-for-rent/

It's a great piece of advice if you want to be important in the civic life of your area.

If Jesus Ran for President

Internet Jesus 

You really should click through and watch this:
http://www.balloon-juice.com/2010/12/16/if-jesus-ran-for-president/

Adventures in Wankery

The ritual emasculation of a Democratic President

Sadly, my vacation has consisted of a lot of cable news being on in the background.

I hate cable news.

Right now on MSNBC they are discussing whether Obama will be a one term president.  The new Congress has not been seated yet, and we're already moving on to the next horse race story.  Because, goshdarnit, them policy stories is just too durned hard.

To make matters worse, the panel that "even the liberal" MSNBC is using consists of correspondent Karen Finney, a GOP strategist and an as yet unseated freshman GOP congressman.

Yes.

That's the panel.

The amount of wankery present in political coverage is astounding.  They're using a poll that says 48% of Americans will definitely vote against Obama. Leaving aside the merits of basing your conclusion on one poll, the political landscape for 2012 is over the horizon.

(Chuck Todd did have a good line yesterday, which I'll paraphrase: "Every night, Obama must get on his knees and pray that the economy recovers, Afghanistan becomes more orderly and Sarah Palin wins the GOP nomination.")

First, if the economy improves and continues to improve through 2012, that will do more than anything else to improve his chances.  And by the economy, I mean the unemployment picture.  There is only one President who was re-elected after a panic began in his first term, James Monroe.  And this panic began in 2008, maybe 2007.  So he needs to see the cyclical up-tick that will likely happen.  Unless we his a double-dip recession.  Then he's toast.  (Unless he can plausibly blame it on GOP obstruction in the House.)

Second, there are demographics on his side.  If the presidential electorate of 2008 had turned out in 2010, we'd still be seeing a Democratic House.  Two years of the expected GOP wankery will likely wear on voters.  Once people stop getting their unemployment benefits, once public works projects start shutting down, once tax breaks start getting funneled to corporations... You get the idea.  Even among people who voted for the GOP this month don't agree unanimously with the GOP agenda.  Over 35% of GOP voters want to see the government do something about unemployment.  That coalition isn't really a coalition.  It's the Tea Party and the protest vote.

Finally, the GOP nominee isn't decided yet.  I find Sarah Palin a combination of laughable and dangerous.  If she wins the GOP nomination, she goes down to a Sharon Angle-style defeat.  I think - I HOPE - that this would be true even if we have a double-dip recession.

Rather than talk about whether Obama can win two years from now, a more fruitful discussion would center on how the GOP nomination process will play out.  When Clinton was left for dead in 1994, I predicted he would win easily because the GOP bench was so thin.

I see the same thing today.

Palin is a media creature with the gravitas of a mylar Hannah Montana balloon.

Newt Gingrich, well, everyone hates Newt Gingrich.  He comes with built-in negatives that would make Goering blush.  He's also "old news".  Ask Bob Dole how that works out.

Mitt Romney.  He's easy to dismiss because he's the DC media's pick.  Just like Rudy Giuliani in 2008 or John McCain in 2000.  The guy passed a health care reform bill in Massachusetts that's practically indistinguishable from "Obamacare".  There is NO WAY a Mormon, health care reformer gets past the frothing crazies that make up the GOP primary.  Ask Mike Castle.

Mitch Daniels. Another trendy Beltway pick, because he's not stupid and he's a governor.  Ultimately, however, like most politicians who don't quit their jobs to become media personalities, he's had to make tough choices, especially in this economic climate.  And he's as charismatic as you would expect the governor of Indiana to be.

Mike Huckabee.  I think this might be the guy.  He's "country" enough and "white" enough to appeal to the overwhelmingly rural and white make-up of the GOP electorate.  He's got a touch of populism in him, and a touch of bigotry, too.  That will play well.  He has a sense of humor (something Alaska Snowbilly Grifter Lady lacks).  He's the acceptable alternative to Palin for the Tea Party.

John Thune.  Who the fuck is John Thune?

The GOP establishment will try and rally around an alternative to Palin.  They can see another Angle/O'Donnell train wreck coming from that.  But the more they try and tear her down, the more the GOP base rallies around her.  She is the living breathing personification of white-grievance politics.

Right now, I'd say she's the favorite for the GOP nomination when you take into account the "base" of the GOP.  Given the winner-take-all nature of the GOP primary system, she could easily rack up big electoral totals with 35-40% of the vote, unless they find a way to sink her.

So, media, speculate on THAT.  If Palin is the nominee, Obama wins by a landslide.

Politics Ain't Beanbag

Being a Falcon's fan in New England means that you don't get to see many Falcons' games.  You are dependent on ESPN highlights and the occasional national game.

Since I am home with Heffley (the new pooch) I settled down to watch ESPN's NFL Primetime.  I figured that they would want to show highlights from a very entertaining game between Atlanta and Tampa Bay - teams that both sat at 5-2 with the winner taking the lead in the NFC South.

I had to wait until the very end of the show.

Much of the beginning of the show was the firing of Wade Phillips and there were a number of entertaining games on the day.  But ultimately, games that involve Brett Favre or the Cowboys or New England...They lead.

The games between good teams who don't have a built in media narrative don't get the same attention.  The Giants blow out of the Seahawks came before the Falcons-Bucs game.

Here's where I pivot to politics...

There is practically no difference between the media's obsession with Brett Favre or Mike Vick than there is with the media narratives in Washington DC.  The fact is, there are narratives out there that are written in the press box before the kick off, and the game itself almost doesn't matter.

Case in point, Nancy Pelosi will not be back as Minority Leader in the House.  Fox especially was pushing this letter from whatever is left of the Blue Dogs asking her to step down.  The media narrative is that she is a failure and should go.  She couldn't possibly be a good minority leader after losing the speaker's chair.

The facts are different.  A) There is no letter, or if there is no one has signed it.  B) Pelosi was actually a strikingly successful Speaker, passing several landmark pieces of legislation in tandem with the Senate and a ton more legislation that the Senate never acted on.  C) She was minority leader in 2006.  That worked out OK for the Democrats.

Nancy Pelosi is a lousy interview and a lousy orator.  But she did an exceptional job shepherding complex legislation through a fractious caucus.  Maybe there would be some merit in bringing in new blood, but if your idea of new blood is Steny Hoyer... Pardon me if I don't follow.

As Nate Silver articulated in the column linked below, the problem was that Democrats didn't vote in the numbers they did in 2008 and the economy drove many independents to the GOP, perhaps entirely as a protest vote, since there doesn't seem to be much consensus on what policies the GOP will pursue.

Putting Steny Hoyer into the Minority Leader's post was something that reinforces the DC narrative that America is a Center-Right nation.  And the only way to succeed in American politics is to move right, constantly and relentlessly Rightwards.

Eventually, if we keep moving right, we wind up where Texas is today, threatening to "secede" from Medicaid and Social Security.  A position so bat-shit insane, it's difficult to even argue against.  You're left sputtering..."Wha... Wha... How... Are you mad?"  But that's where the Rightward shift in the GOP logically ends up: nullification and secession.

America is a much more complicated entity than the Center Right Nation meme of the DC press corps.  DC itself is in many ways a Center Right Town, more responsive to power than to policy, politics to governance.  And it is in power and politics that the GOP excels.

But I'm supposed to care about the 1-7 Dallas Cowboys because someone decided they were "America's Team" thirty years ago.  And I'm supposed to accept that we're a Center Right Nation because those that genuflect before the powerful in DC and Wall Street say it's so.

Instead, I think I'll get GoogleTV and see if I can get Falcons games in New England.  I think I'll pursue my own stories instead.

Ohhhh, What does it all mean?

Well, probably not what Cokie Roberts says it means.
Things you will hear about the midterms that are probably not true.
1) Democrats were too liberal.
Most of the losers last night were the Blue Dogs, the most conservative Democrats.  Some of them were doomed by the changing landscape, some were swept in on the 2006 and 2008 elections were bound to lose.  Pelosi routinely let the Blue Dogs vote against the party.  It didn't work.  They got hammered.

2) Democrats weren't liberal enough.
Popular with the FireDogLake crowd, this argument says that if only Obama had delivered the magical sparkle pony of the public option/DADT repeal/nationalizing the banks then Democratic losses wouldn't have been so bad.  In fact, some of the most progressive candidates (Grayson, Perriello, Feingold) lost.  But again, they lost in swing districts.

3) The Tea Party won.
Uh, no. Democrats retained control of the Senate thanks to the Tea Party.  Delaware, Colorado, Nevada...Those are races the Democrats won because they were facing Tea Party candidates.  Where Tea Party candidates DID win was in the House.  Because no one was paying attention.  Joe Miller, Rand Paul, Sharon Angle and Christine O'Donnell tried to hide from the press.  House candidates didn't have to.  It will be interesting to see how the public reacts when these guys start trying to follow through on their agenda.

4) This was a repudiation for Obama who is now toast in 2012.
Partially true, in that this was a clear message that people are freaked out by the economy.  And while the crisis wasn't Obama's fault, his response has been a bit tepid.  (Thank YOU, Larry Summers!)  I did hear a commentator on NPR say that Obama has to explain himself and his policies better.  And that once Tea Party people start holding hearings on Health Care, it could probably become MORE popular once people find out what's in it.  Finally, the GOP will nominate a Tea Party candidate in 2012.  It seems inevitable.  Whether it's Palin or a Palin Pretender like Gingrich.  Remember, Clinton was left for dead in 1994.

5) It was Old White Guys who defeated the Dems last night.
Actually, that one is true.  The GOP has a demographics problem, and if they go full metal hater on brown people, it will only get worse.  Immigration could be the double edged sword that comes back to cut the GOP.

The Coming Election

I am supposed to feel really bad about the upcoming election on Tuesday.  The Democrats will lose the House...By a lot.  The Senate will become even more dysfunctional.  Krugman, who is infuriatingly right about everything, says that we will be in for two years of paralysis.  Two years that we desperately need to have a functioning government.

I agree that we need a functioning government.  We need a government to keep propping up insolvent state governments and addressing the overwhelming gap between the rich and poor.  We need a government to make the simple, easy fixes to Social Security.  We need a government that puts the interests of the people above the interests of the few.

And I agree that Speaker Boehner will not address any of these issues in a rational way.

Which means I'm living in denial.

Here's why:  I think the 2006 and 2008 elections were about more than a "political wave".  I think they were a fundamental realignment.

When I teach comparative government, we talk a lot about political culture.  It's not always determinative but it's very influential.

The "solid South" is a good example of this from history.

And I don't know if polls have captured the movement away from Republicans that has taken place in many sections of the country among many groups of people.

So, yeah, I'm probably living in denial and the GOP will pick up 60 seats in the House and 7 seats in the Senate.

But if for some reason I'm right, I want this thing time stamped, so I can be a genius for a day.