The handshake

Tim Fernholz, on Hugo Chavez:

In any case, a few basic things. Venezuela is a major trading partner, and they are classified by Freedom House as "partly free"; there are serious human rights concerns but there are also some functioning democratic institutions. Then you have other major trading partners like China and Saudi Arabia, two countries that are, respectively, a theocratic monarchy and a communist state; both of which are not free and have even worse human rights problems. But have a presidential photo-op with leaders in those countries is fine...A central difference, of course, has been Chavez' bombastic anti-American rhetoric.

Ah, yes. It is ironic that the very people who are so willing to deploy name-calling against anyone with whom they dislike are the least likely to take such treatment when it's thrown their way. Well, maybe it's not so ironic. In fact, it makes perfect sense. Over the past four decades, the GOP has basically argued for the creation of a quasi-ethnic identity--let's just call it "Americanist"--which the right has depicted as under siege from nefarious villains from outside who "hate our freedom" (untrue--bin Laden could give a rat's ass about our freedom, he mostly just hates Israel and us, mostly for our foreign policy), as well as from enemies from within, the notorious coastal elites who look down their noses at average Americans with their guns and God. None of this is particularly original, but just because there's a subculture in America that sees itself as the only legitimately American group--one that divides itself ethnically and culturally from the rest of America--doesn't mean that it has to be reflexively infuriated by the very existence of people that don't like us very much. That it does speaks more to the fear and anxiety that currently palsies the right than to the morality of dealing with questionable leaders in the world, which is absolutely necessary in the course of any nation.

Fernholz continues:

But it strikes me as funny that the Republicans calling for more "toughness" are basically arguing that we should get worked up because Chavez called us names -- come on, fellas, sticks and stones!

Conservatives can dish it out, but they can't take it. It's as true domestically as internationally. We know this. Usually liberals don't even bother to try to stand against it, but when they do--as in this clip where Lawrence O'Donnell points out to Pat Buchanan the inconsistency of being both pro-life and pro-death penalty--the typical conservative response is to take differences in opinion very personally. This is, of course, a manifestation of a fundamental lack of faith in their vision of society and in America, and that is a pretty consistent defining trait of the right, one which has been exploited by many conservative politicians--Karl Rove played it masterfully--by making stuff like this seem like something worse than it was, something that hinted at some sort of diminishment of America, instead of just a handshake, which is what it was.

I'm of the belief that conservatives have little chance of changing the world until they can drop the petty fears and paranoia. I suspect it's internalized too deeply to get out any time soon, and that's why I was hopeful that Mike Huckabee would be the type of hopeful Republican leader--possessed of some level of intellectual honesty and some sense of social justice--to turn things around for the GOP in a way that would be better for everyone. Unfortunately, he turned out to be just another Republican hack, clucking about the Chavez handshake along with the rest of them.

Looking for a Republican Obama

That the supposed "serious" Republican budget is about as unserious (and predictable) as you would think should in itself be unsurprising. The modern Republican Party is predicated on a seeming paradox: one one hand, the bulk of Republicans seem completely uninterested in governance, as is evidenced by the lack of outrage at the policies of George W. Bush. On the other hand, they seem incredibly interested in it, so much so that any minor deviation from dogma will literally see the hounds sicced (?) upon you. Of course, like most paradoxes, this one can be easily resolved. One needs to stop thinking that most of the remaining Republicans are interested in an efficient and well run government. They aren't--they don't think such a thing is possible, despite evidence to the contrary. They don't even seem bothered by the concrete lack of progress on the major issues they care about--a mere dismissal and muttering about the darn liberal media seems enough.

Ultimately, what today's GOP seems to have internalized is that politics is a game, a contest of wills where the goal is to win. It's fortuitous that the media seems to agree with this interpretation, which is why Republicans still get such prominent space in the national conversation. Democrats, from what I can tell, don't seem to agree--at least, most don't. Hell, there are probably a few Republicans who don't either, but they're not the prominent ones. This is Karl Rove's toxic legacy, in which war and torture were just chips to throw around the table, ways of showing liberals as effete for having any distaste for unnecessary carnage. It's all in the game, of course. And all those Republican "pro-lifers" were either mute or supportive.

Ultimately, Republicans aren't stupid. If they start to get the sense that a certain attack is starting to backfire they'll drop it immediately, just like they did with their full-bore opposition to civil rights back in the 1960s and 1970s. But what they aren't likely to do yet is to try to bring about some healing and end the culture war, at least not for the time being. They'll have to when all the people who are still angry about busing and race riots and welfare queens die out and the next generation doesn't get the anger. But they can try to do it now, too. Might not thrill some elements of the base and the activists, but it would have the virtue of being the right thing to do, and it might work since President Obama seems to be interested in doing the same for the left. If they actually want to be trusted to wield power again it seems like a smart move.

Change vs. more of the same

Andrew Sullivan looks at two right-wing critiques of Obama's national security policy, and shoots down both of them. The post is worth reading, but I think the problem with the right's view on foreign policy and national security at this time is that the right has no idea what it believes anymore on those areas (let alone about Bush himself and his legacy), though they likely still believe in spreading "freedom" abroad while restricting it at home. Outsourcing freedom? Seems like the sort of pithy, demagogic but nonetheless largely right description of what these folks are up to.

But the right is paralyzed right now, which is probably why you're not hearing much on these subjects. As Andrew shows, Republicans can't agree on whether or not Obama is different than Bush. They can't agree whether he's a dangerous change or just more of the same. Ultimately, however, both critiques are fundamentally the same: Republicans are arguing that their policies were absolutely, positively necessary to keep the country safe, regardless of the moral implications. It's just that the path you take to get there is different: if you are arguing that Obama = Bush, then you're arguing that even Obama admits that Bush's policies were necessary. If you're arguing that he's a dangerous change, you're arguing that Obama is deviating from Bush's necessary policies. At this point, it seems like only Cheney is taking the latter position, as nobody seems much interested in defending Bush. In fact, I suspect that you'll hear lots more of "more of the same" from Republicans in the future because it accomplishes everything they need to accomplish--it's not a swipe at Bush since the base still loves him, it doesn't require a defense of Bush's policies, it allows conservatives to allege liberal hypocrisy--and if there's something they enjoy doing more than that, I don't know what it is. What it won't do is allow political space to blame a potential terror attack upon the United States on Barack Obama, though I suspect that they wouldn't try to do that anyway. People rally to their leaders after national disasters, and anyone who remembers the rapidity with which Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson were drummed from the conversation after their comments about 9/11 will remember that pinning the blame on individuals and groups during a crisis doesn't really look too good, PR-wise.

And I have no objection to Republicans trotting out the "more of the same" line when Obama does something like use the state secrets privilege to throw out lawsuits, though. Keeps the right sort of pressure on the man. But I wonder when (if?) Republicans will decide to get back on the human rights bandwagon and if there will be a thorough accounting of what went wrong intramurally. Somehow, I doubt it.

When digging a hole...

This AIG bonus story interests me. It's pretty enraging that people who helped cause this whole financial collapse are going to get taxpayer funded bonuses for their ineptness, but what is more interesting to me is that these people don't have the sense to save themselves. No doubt they feel entitled to these bonuses, and they're angry that anyone would suggest that they shouldn't have them. But what I find most interesting is that they don't seem to realize that stories like this just put Americans in an even more anti-business mood. It certainly does that to me. I mean, seriously, could there be a better backdrop for the Employee Free Choice Act? Just show a couple of pictures of Citibank, talk about needing to curb the power of businesses and get more money to the middle class, and I think that should be good enough.

And it looks like the leaderless Republicans are still playing the part of outraged defenders of the overclass. I won't lie to you, this stuff makes me really angry. The Rovian "let's help our friends and screw our enemies" mindset still plagues the GOP, rather than the "let's do the right thing and consider the politics afterwards" alternative. It's not clear to me what the right thing is all the time, but for these assholes to screw things up so much that they need to take our money to bail them out should be humbling--they should be on their knees every day, making YouTube podcasts thanking us for saving them, and promising voluntary pay cuts until everything is resolved. Their attitude instead seems to be, "Well, you liked it when we were making money for you all with your 401k, so why are you complaining when you have to bail us out? Them's the rules, broseph!" Before this is over, we should regulate the financial sector so harshly that Canadian banking laws look like a joke in comparison.

A thought I just had

In the past two months (minus a week), President Obama has taken palpable steps toward negotiating with Iran and softening US policy toward Cuba. He has ended the practice of torture by US troops and is taking steps to close the prison at Guantanamo. He has announced a plan to end the Iraq War, a plan to put more troops into Afghanistan, among others. Yet hardly any of this is being attacked by Republicans at this time, despite most of this being opposed by their most recent presidential candidate, and despite the GOP having been primarily oriented toward foreign policy/national security since Eisenhower.

In the past two months, we've also seen the president lift the Global Gag Rule on overseas family planning, has overturned federal restrictions on stem cell research funding, has begun laying the groundwork for an end to Don't Ask, Don't Tell, and has appointed a HHS Secretary whose record came under some fire from pro-life activists. And yet the establishment GOP has hardly made a peep about any of these things, and about the closest it came was decrying a half billion dollars to reimburse state governments for contraception, something that seemed more motivated by a desire to object to "pork" than the notion of contraception, an assertion seemingly borne out of later--and equally spirited--objections to phony mag-lev trains and Mormon crickets, and unless you think John McCain's obsession with beaver management in North Carolina has some sort of innuendo to it I think it's safe to say that social policy, at least at the elite level, has not been on the Republican radar screen.

In the meanwhile, virtually every step that Barack Obama has taken on domestic policy has been the subject of virulent GOP criticism, which I don't object to in principle (there are certainly valid things to criticize) except for the fact that it is incredibly misguided and stupid, and done in a way that doesn't hide that they don't care too much for anyone outside the CEO set. Since the beginning of the year the Republicans have tried to get auto workers to be paid less (not under Obama's watch, but close enough), argued against a stimulus package, stuck firmly to the core principles of Hoovernomics, and told a national audience through one of its rising stars that government is structurally unable to even do things like respond to disasters, and that you're pretty much on your own. Republicans staged unanimous votes in the House against the stimulus package in the House and did near that in the Senate, a decision whose fallout is uncertain but that appears to be unpopular in real America, where a Democrat is surging in the NY-20 special election by banging the Republican candidate over the head with the stimulus. Republicans then engaged in grandstanding over a normal bill to fund the functions of government, decrying earmarks while greedily inserting their own. Since then, they have taken up the tired canard of talking about Obama's largely incremental health care proposals as the road to Francification, the Employee Free Choice Act as a sort of demonic job-killer, mild and inevitable tax hikes as "socialism" (as opposed to socialism, a largely defunct philosophy centering on abolishing capital and public ownership) and have continually asserted that Obama shouldn't tackle so many things domestically at once, which is their way of saying that he shouldn't tackle them ever. This isn't to mention things like the "Tea Party" phenomenon as started by Rick Santelli, a man whose rant against "losers" who bought homes they couldn't afford (it couldn't have anything to do with banks doing a bad job of evaluating risk and credit, or with regulations allowing banks to give more marginal loans, could it?) was a virtual declaration of class warfare that was sponsored by wealthy conservative interests. This is not to mention Congressional Republicans' recently found affection for "Going Galt", which evidently means that creative class types will go on strike if we masses place too many restraints on them (nobody tell Republicans about Ayn Rand's vicious hatred of religion!). Some of these points are debatable, but one cannot say the right has been silent on domestic policy.

So, to recap: we've heard literally nothing from Republicans on foreign policy and national security, though it's been the party's bread and butter for fifty years. We've heard next to nothing from Republicans on social policy which, by the way, is the reason why most Republicans are Republicans, according to every poll of Republicans ever. But we've heard volumes from Republicans on economic policy, almost all of it from a libertarian perspective when it wasn't from an overt overclass protection rationale. This despite the fact that John McCain campaigned unsuccessfully for president on similar rhetoric last year.

Is there, at this point, any space left to argue that the Republican Party isn't the party of the wealthy and special interests? At this pivotal moment it's all they're talking about, despite palpable steps taken against the conservative agenda (such as it is and has been for the past decade) in the other areas of policy, and despite the fact that actual Republicans are far more populist than one might think?* So while we can dispense with the notion that the GOP isn't bought at great price by the Mellon Scaifes of the world, it is surprising that Republicans are more interested in keeping rich peoples' money safe than, you know, trying to appeal to folks, doing what's right and winning an election here and there, you know?

*Granted, the post is old and the poll Ross cites is an old one before the 2008 presidental election, and many of the more moderate Republicans might now be Democrats. But a majority of Republicans against free trade? Almost a third in favor of tax hikes? And most Americans voted for a president promising tax hikes for the wealthy, which was an issue in the past election.

Moderation and the Republicans

We've heard this story before, but I wanted to write about it considering Michael Steele's recent remarks. It has become fashionable for Republicans to follow the Rush/Gingrich model and hope that steadfast opposition will somehow bring them back into power (see Cantor, Eric). Often deputized into this argument, at least among some conservatives, is the example of the Democratic Party's resurgence. The Democrats didn't moderate--in fact, they moved further left, the argument goes, so why should Republicans?

First off, I recall the party line after the 2006 elections being that the Democratic Party's return to power was actually a victory for conservatism, and that it was the result of Republicans being too wasteful. The latter was the McCain campaign's line. But the former doesn't compute--empowering the center-left party is a victory for the right? The argument was that most of the Democrats who won were conservative Democrats. Of course, this is silly on its face, since there's a world of difference between a conservative Democrat and a conservative Republican. See this chart if you don't agree. But it is a relief to know that the class of 2006 was actually a victory for fire-breathing liberals like Heath Shuler and Bob Casey.

The examples of Shuler and Casey are actually very constructive. After 2004 the Democrats chose three major issues upon which to campaign: corruption, the war, and the economy. The latter involved a shift to the left, but the former involved no shift and Iraq war opposition, while anti-Bush, isn't particularly liberal, as Daniel Larison can attest. So, ultimately not a huge leftward shift. On the contrary, the Democrats moderated significantly on culture war issues like abortion, as Casey and Shuler can attest. Shuler might be excused because nobody more liberal than him could have won his district, but Casey cannot, as a more credentialed social progressive could easily have won a race against Rick "Santorum" Santorum. But selecting him, and people like him, was a signal that social issues were out, and the economy and the war were in as the major Democratic issues. This was a very wise decision in retrospect, as culture war tropes were soon to get tired as the economy tanked, and Democrats' focus on the economy paid dividends.

Ah ah, some of our conservative-minded friends might say, that doesn't count as moderation. The Democratic Party is still pro-choice! Yes, it is, but backing candidates who buck the party line is an act of moderation, because in doing so you are changing the composition of your party. Backing Bob Caseys and Jim Langevins (of course, Langevin chose not to run) sends a signal, but it also means that people on the opposite side of the culture war are represented in your camp, which gives you a reason not to pursue it so singlemindedly. Indeed, were it not for the Caseys and Langevins of the world--in other words, were this still Bill Clinton's Democratic Party--the Freedom of Choice Act would have already come up for a vote in Congress. And, ultimately, that it hasn't is frankly good news from a political standpoint. At this point, it would serve only to antagonize pro-lifers, many of which have been welcomed into the Democratic fold. In my mind, this process counts as moderation.

So hopefully this answers the notion that moderation isn't required. Indeed it is. Sure, the Democrats had to modulate their pitch to the public--which meant less "Get your laws off my body!" and more "Americans are being left behind by globalization." People responded more to that message. However, in order to be successful, Republicans need to find a pitch that can get them 50+1 percent, one which addresses peoples' anxieties and sets up the GOP for the cure. Naturally, this will involve moderating on some issues and sharpening on others. I don't know what that will wind up looking like, but I am almost positive on one thing: the next Republican president will be Democrat-lite on economic issues. Especially if Obama manages to turn the economy around.

Late breaking news: Bush to appoint political hack to senior policy position!

Reuters has the story here. You might remember Ed Gillespie--certainly, he remembers you. He was the RNC chair during George W. Bush's 2004 election. Then he did some other stuff, now he's back. Really, the Bush Administration doesn't really bring in new blood, they just recycle the same people over and over again. Some examples:

• Robert Zoellick: US Trade Rep->Assistant Secretary of State->World Bank Head
• John Negroponte: Iraq Ambassador->Director of National Intelligence->Assistant Secretary of State
• Rob Portman: Congressman->US Trade Rep->OMB Director

Etc. etc. Gillespie does indeed have a lengthy biography in politics. Much of it deals with politics instead of policy, although he did have a prominent role in drafting the Contract on America. Much of his bio involves public affairs work, which would be good, if Bush actually cared about what the public thought and used PR for any other reason than trying to convince people that he's right. It says something about a man when he thinks fundamental philosophical and political differences in his country are primarily a PR problem.

In any event, Ed Gillespie will soon become a senior counselor to the President. I'm not sure what the job entails, but if it has anything to do with policy, Fast Eddie might be out of his league. Not that it matters, since this Administration hasn't even bothered with policy since about 2002.

Evolution schmevolution

A number of people (mostly on the left, although not exclusively) have an issue with the relative levels of people who believe in evolution in this country--specifically, the number of Republicans who say they don't. I'm not sure if they just don't like the man from monkeys idea (which is something that I'm not wild about, but willing to accept) or if they believe that God created all the species on the Earth as they are now, and that none of them have evolved at all (which is crazy and plainly contradicted by Darwin, with fairly incontrovertible evidence). In any event, if evolution is wholly false, it is difficult to explain away all the biological advancements of the past 150 years, which all build upon evolution.

Anyway, the ratio of average Republicans who believe in evolution is inverse among the GOP Presidential candidates. I'm actually amazed that that many Republicans do believe in evolution, although obviously the GOP isn't all evangelical, and many of the more business-oriented conservatives (and some other groups like Mormons) would not likely have a problem with evolution. I find this encouraging, actually: having grown up among evangelicals, I know that disbelief in evolution is virtually an article of faith among them, hence the 68%. However, being that about half of the people out there believe in evolution (which seems higher than it used to be) and that the GOP goal is not the elimination of evolution from the classroom, but rather just the teaching of intelligent design alongside it, I'm not too worried. One of the good things about my generation is that we're less tied to orthodoxy than the boomers. I'm actually encouraged by this poll, to be honest, and I'm not too afraid of creationists in general. The stakes for that argument are low--not so much when one talks about the neocons.

I'm not sure I like the either/or question with faith and science. We're supposed to believe in science, but not to accept it as fact. Nothing is ever proven in science, there's just evidence for or against the proposition. Faith, on the other hand, is inherently unprovable (regardless of what Kirk Cameron says). One of the things I really loathe, though, is that evolution is dismissed for just being a theory. Folks, a scientific theory is not the same thing as one of Cliff Claven's bar-room theories--it's a hypothesis backed up by all available evidence. No amount of proof turns a theory into a law. As for me, if science says something is true, I generally believe it. There's too much uncertainty in this world, and I'm not going to throw away the little fact that we have. I'd just as soon start with the facts and reconcile them to my faith, rather than going vice versa.

Why Fred Thompson won't unite the GOP

So, he's all but in. Fred Thompson is going to run for president...maybe. He announced his exploratory committee last week, and the actor-turned-politician-turned-actor is already a major force in the race, matching Rudy Giuliani's showing in the current Rasmussen poll. Thompson's visibility from Law & Order, coupled with his effective campaigning skills and "tough" demeanor, have already made him the choice of many a Republican. He has been repeatedly referred to as Reaganesque and many Republicans hold out hope that he will be able to reunite the GOP. His Senate tenure reveals a generally conservative voting record, and he has been visible in some other ways as well, such as the John Roberts confirmation. With three frontrunners that, for various reasons, are supposedly unacceptable to the base, the right is no longer even bothering to try to find the best, most qualified candidate (Mike Huckabee, who already happens to be running) and go instead to Hollywood glitz in a rather pathetic attempt to mine Reagan nostalgia yet again. Only this time, it isn't going to work.

The reason for this is simple: immigration. Despite the unified showing among all of the GOP candidates (minus John McCain) opposing the recent Kennedy-McCain immigration bill, there is a great deal of conflict among Republicans regarding this issue, and the intramural squabble is unlikely to be resolved by the entry of a new candidate who, like all the others, opposed the bill. The conflict is largely among the conservative base, who loathe the very notion of amnesty and essentially want to build a fence and close the borders, as opposed to the party's more moderate wing and business Republicans, who see the strategic value of comprehensive reform to usher in Latinos to the GOP and feel that the base is simply xenophobic and ignorant of the economics of the immigration debate. This is the rare tussle among Republicans, who are usually more disciplined about these things, and it is the even more rare fight that pits the Republican elites (such as Bush) against his most ardent supporters. To say this is a mere disagreement is to be guilty of quite an understatement: what we have here is nothing less than a full-blown civil war between two increasingly intractable factions of the GOP, and although the immigration bill is gone for now, the issue will be back. What's really extraordinary are the types of people turning on the President right now. Administration stalwarts like Jim DeMint and Tom Coburn, who I cannot remember otherwise opposing Bush in any way, have more or less declared war on the Bush plan, and in a party where discipline and obedience are prized attributes, this development is a surprising one.

So, this is the environment into which Thompson enters: two sides to the immigration debate, with each growing increasingly less respectful and more contemptuous of the other. One might think that nominating an anti-immigration candidate might smooth over problems with the base, but that approach comes with a price. The pro-immigration elements of the Republican Party really want this legislation to pass, as it will mean more Latino immigrants (through a guest worker program), which means smaller payrolls. If it doesn't, it's not inconceivable that the pro-comprehensive forces might decide to back the Democrat, as the Dem frontrunners are generally friendly to their kind of immigration policies. So much for reuniting the Republicans.

In any event, I find it difficult to see just how Thompson is supposed to reunite the GOP. Despite having a level of folksy, down-home charm, the man has yet to articulate ideas on many current issues. Even though he's popular now, there's no reason to believe that his solidly conservative outlook will distinguish him from all the other solid conservatives in the race. And his acting career is hardly a substitute for executive experience. He's a Senator, and a former one at that. He will undoubtedly try to play the outsider card, although that dog simply won't hunt for Thompson. Eight years in the Senate, coupled with more as a lawyer and lobbyist in D.C., makes him one of the biggest insiders in the race.

Ultimately, while Fred Thompson might very well be up to the task of reuniting the Republican Party, there is no evidence up to this point that he will be able to do so. Too bad for the Republicans, who have hitched their hopes to this guy in a way which can only be described as irrational.

P. S. I realize I've written a fair amount about Fred Thompson in recent days. I'll stop writing about the man...for now.

Newt and John

According to recent comments, Newt Gingrich gives himself 4 to 1 odds against running, which leads to an obvious joke here.

Gingrich is someone I have a great deal of hope for. On one side, he's beloved by many Republicans and seen by them as being an anti-corruption crusader, despite a palpable history of hypocrisy and corruption. Who was it that set up the K Street project? It wasn't Tom DeLay. Gingrich was never popular with the public at large, but then again, he never had to be. He just needed to remain popular with the folks in his Northern Georgia district and with the GOP caucus, which he was not always able to do (see: failed GOP mutiny against Gingrich). In any event, his reforms were ridiculous. Term limits, in particular, were a bad idea and a bad policy. Although conservatives managed to talk warmly about citizen legislators, the real intent behind this clause was to drum Southern Democrats out of office, who would likely be replaced by conservative Republicans. Actually, one could argue that term limits make more new, inexperienced legislators who will be more beholden to special interests, but I digress. I do actually like the Balanced Budget Amendment, but the current crop of Republicans don't seem to care much for balanced budgets. Gingrich could be the key to a Democratic victory if he wins the nomination: his approvals are so low he makes Hillary look like Obama, but his popularity with Republicans and his "ideas" could make him a contender for the nomination. I predict that his getting the nomination will make the electoral map look like an inverse version of the Eisenhower vs. Stevenson map from 1952.

John Edwards, on the other hand, is becoming a cause for concern for me. I previously thought he would be a strong general election candidate despite a few obvious flaws, but I am rethinking that assessment. It seems to me that all excitement about his candidacy can be found among White liberals, who seem to think they can have their cake (i.e. elect a solid liberal) and eat it too (i.e. carry some Southern states). I am skeptical, since Edwards seems to be having a hard time winning over Southern Democrats, let alone independents and conservatives. He sometimes comes up ahead in South Carolina polls, and he once was ahead in Florida. Hillary Clinton, at this point, is dominating the South, and if Edwards cannot appeal to Southern voters of his own party, how can he actually win over new ones in the general election? When one looks at his issue positions, one gets even more worried. He's anti-gun, pro-affirmative action, and strongly pro-choice (moreso than in 2004). While these are not all issue positions I disagree with (indeed, they are mainstream Democratic positions), how can one win big in the South with positions like these, considering the strength of the religious right in the region? If he were, say, pro-gun, I might rethink this particular idea. The anti-gun segment of the Democratic Party is not very powerful or influential, and a pro-gun Dem could easily win the nomination by being strong on other liberal issues. Edwards may speak with a Southern accent, but culturally, he's closer to Massachussetts than South Carolina. Not a problem for me, but I'm not a conservative Southerner.

Ultimately, Edwards's playbook has been to move farther to the left on any number of issues than Clinton or Obama so as to draw a contrast between them. It has worked to some extent, but by becoming the farthest-left candidate, he is compromising general election electability. Never mind that he hasn't presented any evidence that having him on the ticket attracts crossover voters, or that he can stand tall against tough pols (check out his 2004 debate with Cheney, if you need evidence). The Democrats need to make a decision: do we make an attempt to play for the South, or do we focus on more winnable regions elsewhere? If the result is the latter (and I think that, outside of Florida, Missouri, Arkansas, and Virginia, the South is a pipe dream for the Democrats), then Edwards might make sense and he might not. His talk on trade would seem to make him likely to win Ohio, and he might be able to win Florida (with half-Latino Bill Richardson on the ticket), and he would likely be able to win Iowa and New Mexico, where anti-war sentiment is high. However, with FL and OH, we are dealing with essentially Republican states. Mainstream states, sure, but both voted at least once for George W. Bush, and it seems clear that the voters in those states respond to strong leadership. Plus, we need to consider whether he would be able to hold the left wing in the general election. I think it's likely, but he does have some questionable items on his c. v. (writing the PATRIOT Act, for one) that could come into play.

Ultimately, until I see some evidence (i.e. state polls in Ohio and Florida showing Edwards easily beating Rudy, Fred Thompson, and McCain), I'm not buying the electability argument. Edwards got my vote in the 2004 primary, but he's become too much of a panderer, which comes in stark contrast to Barack Obama's habit of telling people what they don't want to hear--and remaining beloved for it.

Freddie!

Fred Thompson is running for President. Good, because it's high time the glitz and glamor of showbiz and the gravity and importance of government finally meet.

What to say about the man? Has there ever been such a blank slate of a person in real life? That is undoubtedly why he is being talked up among conservatives as positively as he is: at least, unlike the other three major candidates, they can project their aspirations onto him, and since he's not an official candidate, he doesn't have to answer the tough questions on immigration and whatnot. Genius. Maybe John McCain should consider not running for President. I know I wish Hillary Clinton would.

Ultimately, Fred Thompson is exactly the kind of empty suit that Democrats are often accused of being. He's a dull, lazy hulk of a man with less than a decade of political experience under his belt. He has no ideas or demonstrable worldview. He is frequently referred to as "Reaganesque", presumably because he is an actor. The thing about it is that Reagan had actually been a governor and actually had ideas, neither of which is true for Thompson. Furthermore, Thompson is evidence of how pathetic the G. O. P. has gotten--instead of caring about competence, now they just care about "toughness", regardless whether or not that toughness is actually authentic. It's the only reason Giuliani has a shot--really, his overheated military rhetoric is beginning to scare me--is Mussolini his idol? Too bad that his act will be eaten up by independent-voting saps all around the country because he's pro-choice. But he'll make us safe! Just like Bush did! Even Hillary Clinton agrees!

Oh, but Freddie's folksy! And he's got the voice! And he's a good campaigner! Please. This guy is trouble for the GOP. He doesn't seem to want to campaign at all--he just wants to release videos and have people blog on his website. Unless he's got some sort of brilliant strategy for using the web as it's never used before, I can guarantee you that his website sounds exactly like all the other candidates' will be like. Which is to say, it won't stand out.

Has anyone ever even heard of flavor of the month?

Looking on the bright side, it will remove the experience issue from the table should he and Obama win their parties' respective nominations, and that issue usually helps Republicans. It just scares me that he could potentially win. I would hope that people have had their fill on intellectually lazy clods in the White House who will just do whatever their advisers tell them to do.

Waiting in the Wings

In 1952, the Republican Party managed to win its biggest electoral victory in 24 years, taking the Senate, the House, and most impressively, the White House. The latter had been under Democratic ownership for twenty straight years, and Dwight Eisenhower had been popularly elected in a landslide. Ike was a fabulously popular figure in the America of the time, and he was probably the last completely sane occupant of the Oval Office. He was a model President, though not a perfect one. He was regarded at the time, and still is to a certain extent, as a do-nothing President, a characterization which is unfair. Aside from keeping us out of about half a dozen wars across the globe and expertly traversing the dangerous political scene of the early Cold War, his legacy lives on here in the highways he built and the peaceful and prosperous America he left us.

Why is this relevant? Because Ike's two terms as President were the only time between 1933 and 1969 that the Republicans found themselves in the White House. Eisenhower interrupted over a quarter-century of Democratic hegemony in this country's leadership, but his popularity couldn't put his unloved successor into office (at least, not immediately) and his legislative majority folded after two years. Of course, those being more reasonable times, he was easily able to work with Democrats on many issues, but there is little doubt that the GOP's brief stretch in power then had nothing to do with what they stood for and everything to do with Ike's popularity.

Fast-forward to the present day. The situation has flipped, and the GOP has now held the Presidency for most of the past forty years. If you ask me, they are more likely than not to keep it in 2008. The Democrats won control of Congress last year on voter resentment on any number of issues, but the big mistake they made was that denouncing Bush made them seem like the answer to the country's ails, instead of the primary opposition to Bushian policies. From the latter standpoint, the Democratic Congress has been exemplary. The Bush agenda has been stopped in its tracks. However, since people evidently expect Congress to be proactive (for reasons surpassing political wisdom or even human comprehension), they have already been judged a failure. I myself did not expect a Democratic Congress to end the Iraq War when I voted to re-elect my Democratic Representative. However, this is beginning to seem less and less like a realignment and more like a hiccup, like 1952 (or 1946), where the opposition party only managed a few years on top before flopping once again.

One could draw worse parallels than the Democrats of today to the GOP of yesteryear. Both parties opposed popular movements, and both parties opposed said movements largely by offering watered-down or triangulated versions of the very same ideas. Both, despite brief slivers of power, frequently found themselves in the minority, defending discredited ideas and insisting that the other side just governs badly. I hate to have to be the one to say it, but effective government is not one of the priorities of the social conservatives behind the GOP these days. They're not going to vote Democrat because Bush exploded the deficit. Now, maybe if he were caught in bed with a Black man, and the GOP were to reverse their positions on abortion, gay marriage, stem cells, and evolution in classrooms...that might change.

The reality is that neither party is firmly grounded in a philosophy of governance at this point. The GOP has lost any credibility it once had as a party, and with its recent history of fiscal irresponsibility, foreign adventures/disasters, and religious sanctimony, it is no surprise that voters no longer trust them on the big issues. Republicans have followed the conservative movement long past its logical conclusion, and the real goal for the last few years has not been to follow conservative principles, but rather just to annoy liberals and rile up conservatives. They proved quite successful at this task, but now the base of the GOP is getting a taste of their own medicine on immigration. The irony, of course, is that the small government immigration solution is the one that these so-called conservatives can't stand.

Democrats have, right now, an historic opportunity--we can stand the political landscape on its head. Right now, the odds of Democrats taking back the White House are quite good, and as the American people seem tired of conservative incompetence, lies and broken promises, it would seem that liberals have an honest-to-God opening at gaining real power. Unfortunately, it does not look as if that transition is going to occur. The media, ever the opportunists, have all but annointed Hillary Clinton as the Democratic nominee, possibly because she will supply them, via her past, with an endless supply of breaking scandals. Plus, she has her "historic quest" for the presidency. I hate to bring it up, Madam Clinton, but you wouldn't be the first girl in the White House.

Unless we liberal Democrats wake up, we run the risk not only of losing a presidential election, but of losing a transitional moment, the likes of which might not again come for decades. Hillary Clinton, even if elected President, would lose the new Congressional majorities and likely would lose the Presidency in 2012. Not only isn't she a true liberal (she has the same center-right economic plan as her husband, despite a pandering "no" vote on CAFTA, she is a free-trader), she is the worst kind of liberal--the tell-people-how-to-live-their-lives kind. If anything, the Democratic party should be less susceptible to this sort of calculus and not more so, considering the more libertarian bent this party has taken in the past few years, while the GOP has gone in the other direction. Her success is based directly upon her marriage to Bill Clinton, and his popularity was based entirely upon his personality (and a lot of luck with the economy). Hillary has her supporters, largely women and ignoramuses who loved Mr. Clinton in office. And what wasn't there to love? Beween telecom deregulation, welfare reform, NAFTA, DOMA, and Don't Ask, Don't Tell, he had quite a few accomplishments for a Republican. I'll grant that welfare had to be reformed, but the others are inexcusable. Nominating Hillary Clinton will be a move back to our past, all right--the Clinton years of Congressional minorities, constant scandals, symbolic legislation, and gridlock. In other words, business as usual.

That, in a nutshell, is why I'm supporting Barack Obama for President. For one thing, the man doesn't pander. For another, he would actually win. Oh, and he's a liberal, but he's not just a social liberal. He's our best chance, and things might actually change if he gets elected. Not so for Hillary "Rupert Murdoch loves me and me alone" Clinton.