1. If Newt’s victory in SC is big, it won’t be, at this point, shockingly big.
2. Let’s face it: Romney has real issues when it comes to actually getting votes.
3. And let’s face it: Newt will implode again.
4. It’s amazing how many people have emailed me to lecture me on how Newt’s fake indignation was real and authentically righteous. I’m sticking with my story and with Pete on how demagogic Newt’s debate “performances” have been.
5. The good news: The Republicans now have four smart, articulate candidates who know stuff and perform admirably in debates.
6. One piece of bad news: It’s getting clearer than none of them could beat the president.
7. Another piece: I would probably vote for only two of them.
January 21st, 2012 | 9:50 am
6. One piece of bad news: It’s getting clearer than none of them could beat the president.
How so? Can you state a previous occasion where a President hobbled with this level of public skepticism and with the economic metrics we now have was returned to office?
January 21st, 2012 | 1:51 pm
Peter, Art’s gotta a good point. You’re right about the case hardened, teleprompter free, GOP candidates who will be able to tackle Barry one on one without stuttering too badly in debate. The question is will these candidates be permitted by the ‘stupid’ party’s elite leadership to illustrate Barry’s historic blunders, or will they be required to remain silent for fear of being charged with ‘racism?’
January 21st, 2012 | 7:36 pm
Robert, attacking the moderator to the cheers of the home crowd and bragging about what an awesome debater you are is among the worst kinds of preparation to debate Obama.
AD, I hope you are right, but the results of the competitive swing-state Senate contests of 2010 indicate that candidate quality matter and that a weak candidate (even one not touched by scandal) can lose what would be an otherwise winnable election under present circumstances. I hope the sweep of presidential history is more telling than the more recent results. The turnout model would be more favorable to the Democrats in 2012. A “generic” bland Republican would still probably be favored against Obama, but that might not be what the process gives us. A second banking crisis or something might mean that even Gingrich would be favored against Obama, but that isn’t something to hope for (on several levels.)
January 21st, 2012 | 8:40 pm
The information quotient for voters is far lower in Congressional elections than is the case for Presidential elections, the winnowing process for candidates is less arduous, electorates have their local peculiarities, and contests are far less sensitive to macroeconomic conditions. You simply cannot compare them. You are not going to get some character like Christine O’Donnell in a Presidential election.
In any case, Peter Lawler did not make a statement so bland as ‘candidate quality matters’. He made a prediction derived from his evaluation of the extant candidates. Even sophisticated students of quantitative social research err severely in attempting to predict the outcome of electoral contests. There ain’t nuttin’ ‘clear’ to Peter Lawler but his own mood.
January 21st, 2012 | 9:13 pm
“You are not going to get some character like Christine O’Donnell in a Presidential election.” No, or even one as socially awkward (though basically decent-seeming and principled) as Sharron Angle, but you could get one whose combination of weaknesses and narrowness of appeal could take them from favored to beat Obama to an underdog. I think Gingrich falls into that category – though I doubt he would be the nominee. I’d like to think that Santorum doesn’t, but I’m not sure he could effectively defend his policy commitments on the high salience issues of entitlement and health care reform to persuadable voters(though I’d like to see him have a go.) Though I’m suggesting you go to the track based on my impressions.
January 21st, 2012 | 11:25 pm
In 1964, the Republican Party nominated a man who suffered from, as Garry Wills put it, ‘defoliating tactlessness’. In 1972, the Democratic Party nominated a quondam votary of Henry Wallace who had never really broken faith with all that. That made the outcome for the minority party in both cases worse than it otherwise would have been, but it is difficult, given ambient conditions, that the loss from a ringer candidate was decisive in either case.
Gingrich is not presentable and repels nearly anyone who is not a partisan Republican. Peter Lawler’s judgment was not assessed just Gingrich (or crazy Uncle Ronnie). It was assessed against Messrs. Romney and Santorum. Romney is opportunistic. but if that were disqualifying we would now be discussing the administrations of Hubert Humphrey and Michael Dukakis. As for Santorum, he has had good years and bad, and more of the former than the latter. He is a road tested candidate who represented a large and diverse electorate and is no more atypical in his social and political views than was Ronald Reagan.
January 22nd, 2012 | 7:38 pm
I’d like to think Santorum has a good chance. If he were (like Reagan) able to run on a platform of tax cuts for everybody, spending cuts on nobody in particular (waste fraud and abuse) and the medium-term debt wasn’t headed toward critical, and he was as eloquent as Reagan, he would probably be okay. Carter also had an approval rating in the 30s for most months in 1980 after March when the rally-round-the-flag effect of the Iranian Hostage crisis had decayed. For the last year, Obama’s RCP approval rating average has bounced from 42% (briefly) to 51% (briefly) and has usually been around 44-46%. That was about what Harry Reid’s approval rating was when he won reelection. If Obama’s approval rating is in the mid-30s in October, and it is a two way race between Obama and either Santorum or Romney, I’m going to feel pretty good about the Republican chances.
Santorum has come out for major changes to entitlements and health insurance for the working-aged. This is all to his credit (other parts of his economic agenda less so), but they involve major structural changes to institutions (Medicare and the employer-provided health care system) that are poorly understood by the public and that the Obama campaign and its media allies will publicize in the worst light (and it will sound very scary.) At the same time, Obama will lie thorugh his teeth about the impact of Obamacare on the private health insurance system and on any need to reform Medicare. Their story will be that everbody who is happy with what they have will get to keep it at the current level of taxation for everybody but the rich. I don’t think the center-right argument is impossible to make under those circumstances – just very tough. That doesn’t mean Santorum would be doomed (I don’t think), but I’d rather see a Bob McDonnell or a Bobby Jindal making the case and the difference could be decisive. They aren’t available of course.
On paper, Romney should be quite electable. It matters what weight one puts on his inability to become the plurality first-choice of voters in the early states against a weak field and what that might say about his ability to win over persuadable voters in the general election as well as his appeal to lower middle-class voters. His messaging is also pretty clumsy for what is otherwise an organizationally competent campaign. Maybe it doesn’t mean anything in the end, but I think it is cause for worry but not despair. He does have the closest to a realistic domestic policy agenda of any of the remaining candidates (to include Obama.)
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