Huck was right

I've pretty much gone full circle with Huckabee. I started out distrusting him, then wound up liking him a fair amount because of his seeming progressiveness on a number of issues, then wound up disliking him again because of his obvious lust for power that outstrips any convictions or better intentions he seems to have. I think he's more like Palin than most people realize, but he does hide it quite a bit better.

This being said, from everything I've read, he was absolutely right at the time to commute Maurice Clemmons's sentence, though obviously it didn't turn out too well. Handing out 100+ year sentences to teenagers makes absolutely no sense, and this sort of maximalist "throw the book at those scum" sort of thinking has led to the abysmal state of affairs here in California. Anger at crime is understandable, but the sort of overreactions that come with it end up helping nobody. And really, there is no justice to sentencing someone whose prefrontal cortex hasn't even finished forming to natural life in prison, and sentencing someone to life for anything other than murder or rape seems really excessive to me.

This being said, he's still a snake and I'm happy that he probably won't be in the running in 2012, as he was the GOP's strongest candidate and rather scary to me. It's looking more and more like Romney vs. Palin, which could easily be the most entertaining contest in history. I'd pay any amount of money to watch a reality show where those two had to share an apartment for a week. What would they even say to each other?

Huck you, Steele!

I hadn't really intended to wade into Michael Steele's latest flap, at least until I read this idiocy from Mike Huckabee:

In a statement, Mike Huckabee says the recent comments RNC Chairman Michael Steele made about abortion "are very troubling and despite his clarification today the party stands to lose many of its members and a great deal of its support in the trenches of grassroots politics."

Steele's comments didn't make much sense to me--it seemed like he didn't know what he was talking about. It sorta sounded like Sarah Palin, redux. But I have to believe that the notion that the Republicans would lose members because of statements like Steele's is silly--Steele isn't an elected official, he's not the head of the party, he's basically an administrator and spokesperson and the GOP has has had plenty of those in recent times who have been pro-choice, such as Rudy Giuliani and Condi Rice. What he said might enrage some activists, and it no doubt will, but if only Republicans worried less about keeping their activists charged up at all times and more on crafting sound policies and pitches that would appeal to the political center, both they and America would be in better shape.

I suppose the most generous reading of Steele's statements was that he supports banning abortion, but for now it's legal and it's a choice that people can make, and that even if it were banned people would still be able to procure it, but that they should not do so and should choose to give birth and then give the child up for adoption. Perhaps he even supports the Republicans' potemkin "let's send it back to the states" solution, which I don't believe for a second, because if pro-lifers ever make up a majority of the Supreme Court they will ban abortion as absolutely as it is legal now. There's a reason they support the Human Life Amendment, folks, and any conservative commitment to "federalism" ended with the massive statism of George W. Bush, who evidently thought that it would be okay to raid medical marijuana centers in states that legalized medicinal pot--no problem from a states' rights perspective for anyone. But if the generous interpreation of Steele's comments I just wrote is correct I really don't see what the fuss is about, and even if one believes he supports a return of the decision to the states I do not trust that people who have been equating abortion to the Holocaust for decades would be just fine with banning it in the Bible Belt and the Mormon Belt. So pro-lifers have little to worry about there.

It's just sad to see Mike Huckabee turn from being the last's campaign's reasonable conservative into the next campaign's most unhinged. My hopes of a Huck-led insurrection against the neocons and moneycons are evidently to go unfulfilled. Too bad. This is what the movement does to people, though: check out the number they did on Mitt Romney.

Which Republican should Democrats want to face in 2012?

Which one indeed? I think it depends on what Democrats themselves want. If we want the best opportunity to hold the White House, I think the answer to my question has to be Sarah Palin. Her "colorful" past might well yield some more interesting anecdotes--just how pally was she with Ted Stevens?--and her "maverick" reform-oriented image will not likely survive a GOP primary race. This is not to mention that she wears poorly with time and can't take the pressure that comes with the nearly two years that presidential campaigns take these days. She barely lasted a few weeks in 2008 before she became an incoherent babbler with Katie Couric. How's she going to be in November 2011, with Mitt Romney running attack ads about aerial wolf shooting in Iowa and New Hampshire? She'd likely suffer a meltdown, and even if she won the nomination she's not terribly popular with the electorate and not particularly knowledgeable about policy. So she'd be unlikely to win, and Palin stands as a perfect example of the Peter Principle--had McCain not picked her, she would probably have made a fine regional politician and possibly a reform-oriented voice within the GOP, though not likely a national candidate. Oh well.

So Palin is the option if Democrats want to win. What's a step down from that? Well, I think that Florida Governor Charlie Crist is probably the Republican that Democrats would be most able to live with. Crist, unlike most of his comrades in the party of Rove, is scrupulously honest and principled. He's conservative, but he knows how to appeal to the center while not ceding the right. Crist would be a good candidate for a "Sam's Club Republican" sort of philosophy, which is a bit more generous to the middle and working classes than classical conservatism is. Crist is phenomenally popular in Florida, which I hear is kind of important for presidential candidates to win. Crist would likely govern from the center and win over much of the public in the process, while moving Republicans into sensible territory on economics and the environment, unless the Club for Growth gets to him first. Of all the plausible Republican candidates, Crist would likely be the most palatable to Democrats should he win in 2012. Whether that is likely, who's to say, though I suspect it won't matter as President Obama will probably win a second term unless he ushers in a new great depression. Republicans might think he can easily be ousted, but they probably thought that in 1936 as well when Alf Landon managed a whopping eight electoral votes against FDR. (Curiously, for all the Republicans' talk about how the New Deal didn't work, it sure seemed like people wanted him to keep enacting those policies since they voted him in more than a few times.)

But I know who I'd prefer the Republicans to nominate most of all: Mike Huckabee. That's right. Huck's probably going to run, and while I definitely don't want him to be president I think that putting him in charge as party leader would probably be best for the liberal order. This does not hold true on social issues, but Huckabee has clearly little love for his party's establishment, and the feeling is evidently mutual. If Huck were able to lead a movement against the assorted neocons and supply-siders running the store of the Grand Old Party, and instead reorient the party toward realism and fiscal responsibility of the Eisenhower style (and perhaps a hint of social justice along the way), then it is hard to see how liberal goals in many areas wouldn't be easier to achieve. Now, I am assuming Huckabee is a realist because of the article he wrote in Foreign Affairs which gave broad hints at this sort of thing. I'm going a bit more blind on economics because of his idiot FairTax idea, which he should scrap immediately. His record in Arkansas suggested a lack of Norquistian ideology on economics, and a party that was honestly worried about spending would be a good addition to the country. Honestly, despite the religious craziness I wouldn't be as averse to a Republican party with that sort of configuration--social conservatism, economic moderation, foreign policy realism. And if Huck could get the conservatives to abandon their Nixonian deception, vote caging, etc., then so much the better. He does seem to have a spot of integrity at times. I'm unsure as to whether he stands a chance--most libs dislike him and are afraid that the folksy shtick will work again like it did for Bush (to be fair, Huckabee is much more charming than Dubya ever was), but I've talked to hard-core, dyed-in-the-wool liberals who actually kinda like Huckabee. If he can make these folks like him he's probably got a future in politics. Still, he's not exactly in the mainstream on the social issues, though I suspect he could tweak the rhetoric quite a bit to make it all more palatable. The man is nothing if not a talker.

Honestly, though, it seems as though remaining Republicans are going to be looking for a "pure" conservative, so I doubt very much that Crist and Huckabee are going to fit that model. Honestly, Palin shouldn't be considered a conservative, but because she's so adept at manipulating culture war grievances she might well win the nomination. It'll probably be some wingnut Southern gov, like Haley Barbour or Mark Sanford or Bobby Jindal. And, frankly, none of those guys are presidents. I know Republicans are giddy about Jindal, but really. Really. I've seen him on television and he comes off as a nice guy--he has a nerdy vibe about him, which isn't too bad a thing to have in a party that has taken such an anti-intellectual tack of late. But Jindal isn't particularly magnetic or appealing--he has all the charisma of a high school chemistry teacher. Which, as I said, isn't the worst thing in the world--it's comforting in a way--but there are certain intangibles one looks for in a president and I'm not sure Jindal has them. Plus, I think the Catholic factor is not inconsiderable. As someone who grew up in an evangelical household I can assure you that the religious right will be keenly aware of that fact (many of them don't believe that Catholics are saved), and while it wouldn't be as much a dealbreaker as Mitt Romney's Mormonism it won't be trivial. Then again, they may just choose to ignore it, though the exorcism story will raise eyebrows. I doubt his race will be much of a problem, as even the most hardened racists will feel the need, when in polite society, to point out a few minority members that they like. Jindal could well fit that role for the, um, less progressed part of the Republicans' southern rump. If Jindal can win in David Duke's backyard he clearly can transcend the racial issues, so they likely won't be a factor. Jindal says he isn't running for now, but they all say that at this point, don't they? I seem to recall a certain freshman senator from Illinois pledging to serve a full term in 2005.

The Republicans' best hope

Of all the Republicans whose names have been bandied about as GOP presidential prospects, I think Charlie Crist--who will be stumping for the recovery package with Obama today--is the one who holds the most promise, for a few reasons. For one, he runs a hugely electorally important state where he is very popular. For another, he's a moderate conservative who really does live up to both terms. And, also, he's not as much a hostage of the movement as seemingly every other Republican officeholder these days, as one could see from his unwillingness to demagogue against ACORN and his insistence in honoring folks' voting rights. This isn't really evidence of ideological purity in any respect so much as it is a belief in a principle other than that anything that helps the Republican Party is good. That seems to be what Bill Buckley's movement has descended to, but Crist would likely make a popular, pragmatic president.

I suspect that these things will keep Crist from attracting movement support--I'm guessing it's Palin/DeMint 2012, and in 2016 we'll get another faux moderate, phony reformer in the Bush mold who will say all the expected things, and by then there will probably be a few scandals in the Obama Administration and among Congressional Democrats that the Republicans will be able to run against as superficial "reformers". I suspect that only if the GOP loses again in 2016 will they pick somebody like Crist, in much the same way that the UK Labour Party needed to lose a heartbreaker in 1992 before Tony Blair could take over.

In any event, who else has the GOP got? Bobby Jindal is problematic--he's smart and he has a reasonably good (though overrated) personality, but he's ultraconservative (perhaps too much so) and I think that religion, rather than race, will be the problem. Jindal would be the first Republican Catholic nominee for president. Even though there are some conservative Catholics I tend to think that this will be as much a problem for the religious right as was Mitt Romney's Mormonism. (Plus he has an exorcism story in his past that would keep him from being taken seriously by, well, anyone.) Jeb Bush is also Catholic, although his problem is his last name. Palin is a nonstarter--she's the right's McGovern. Huckabee might be promising if he'd stop sounding like a crazy religious nutter and move to the left on economics and foreign policy, and reorient the GOP as a Christian Democratic party. I don't know if he's willing to do this, but it would be an idea on where the GOP could go next, and probably a popular one. Huckabee, though, seems intent on coasting on his charm, and it isn't going to work. Romney himself is always a better candidate on paper than in real life, someone who somehow should be more compelling than they actually are. He's got a hell of a resume and the look and mind of a president, but there is an emptiness and a slickness there that puts off most people. And once you get past the top tier, you get people like Mark Sanford, John Ensign and John Thune, who don't seem to be able to persuade anyone outside the base over anything. It's actually quite likely that Ensign won't even win reelection in 2012 in a state won by President Obama by 17 points.

So, it's all up to Crist. Or David Petraeus, I suppose, if he ever wants to get into electoral politics.

I've noticed this for a while now, but Mike Huckabee is now #2 in virtually every Iowa poll, such as this one. I like the guy--there are plenty of places where I disagree with him, and I doubt I would vote for the guy. Still, he does seem like someone who has the public interest at heart instead of his own designs on power or advancing ideology at all costs. He'd make an okay consolation prize, I suppose.