I found the map referenced in Peter Lawler’s below post to be striking. I went over to Real Clear Politics to look at how Romney’s polling against Obama compared with John McCain’s polling against Obama. According to Real Clear’s average of head-to-head presidential polls, Obama leads Romney by 3.7%. On this date in 2008, Obama led McCain by 3.3%. September 25, 2008 was almost two weeks after the collapse of Lehman Bros.
Romney is (narrowly) running behind McCain at this stage even though circumstances are far more favorable for a Republican. I think this is an argument for the “Romney is a terrible, terrible candidate” thesis. I still think that Romney was the most electable of the Republican candidates that ran and made it past the Summer of 2011. I don’t think we would be doing any better with Rick Santorum. Gingrich would have been an epic disaster. At least Romney is within striking distance.
This does remind us that McCain beat Romney soundly in the 2008 Republican primaries. You could argue that this is largely the result of Republican primary voters going with the established name. McCain’s name recognition surely helped, but I wonder if, even if we put that aside, McCain was just better candidate than Romney. New Hampshire knew Romney pretty well in 2008, but still went for McCain.
I’m not to twitter, but I sometimes follow Ross Douthat’s feed on my computer. At one point he said that he was convinced that a Mitch Daniels-Mike Huckabee ticket would be winning this race. I’m not sold on Huckabee, but it sounds plausible.
September 25th, 2012 | 5:20 pm
Okay, I’ll just leave it at this:
If we go into election day with Romney behind in the polls, and miracle of miracles, Romney somehow wins the presidency, thereby proving my contention that the pollsters have been drinking the cool-aid all along. Well, then I think it will only be right that this blog make proper penance to me in the form of a case of beer. Belgian beer. Preferrably Stella Artois.
Alright. Nuff’ said.
September 25th, 2012 | 8:28 pm
Mitch Daniels would be having the same problems Romney does. That’s what experts don’t seem to get telegenic RINO can win in Blue States and a boring bean counter republican can win in deep red states, but the bean counter better be telegenic if he wants to win on the national stage.
That said Mike Huckabee would be winning by 5 points and I can pretty guarantee he would win re-election. He is in every way the political skills equivalent of Bill Clinton. That’s why all the talk about dumping the religious right seems so silly.
It’s not clear any of the other factions can produce a viable nominee. The managerial right, in which I include Paul Ryan, simply isn’t smart enough to out think the media. Somehow that pulpit charm can smooth talk around the media though.
September 25th, 2012 | 10:04 pm
John McCain became a revengeful, vindictive frustrated, senile, old man, since his landslide presidential defeat.
September 26th, 2012 | 7:10 am
I agree Pete. I think things would be worse with any other nominee from the latest primary. Romney can still win, but his campaign has been inept.
Daniels-Huckabee would have been interesting, but it’s not there. Plus we don’t know how the campaign would have handled unforeseen events, and if they would have done any better than Romney. The media would still be on edge looking out for any problems to over criticize him with.
So things don’t look good right now. The debates could change things, but I’m skeptical of this thesis.
Perhaps the polls are skewed. They oversample Democrats, they rely on 2008 turnout rates, maybe there is even a return of some sort of Bradley effect.
Pseudo, I’ll buy you some Belgian beer if Romney wins after being behind in the polls right before the election. But it will have to be Chimay or Duvel.
September 26th, 2012 | 10:30 am
Daniels has too much GWB association, and would be slandered and maligned at least as much as Paul Ryan has been. It’s clear the poor guy’s domestic situation would be ripped apart by the vile jackals in the MSM.
I don’t care one bit for Huckabee. Who knows why he decided to skip this round, but I suspect he rightly saw that the GOP needs some non-Southern nominees for a while–regional bias is still quite strong in much of the country, even among alleged “moderate” swing voters, and extremely so among the MSM, of course.
September 26th, 2012 | 10:37 am
PS. Re: the polls, the lead of O +3.6 comes from averaging stuff that ranges from tied to O +7. It’s always confused me how this sort of averaging is supposed to work, since the polls all have quite different assumptions, meaning they’re NOT sampling the same thing, which means averaging is NOT beating down statistical noise, but trying to somehow average out systematic errors, which just isn’t valid. But then, my background is in the “hard sciences” so what do I know…
I do know that anyone who thinks O is up by 9 or 10 points in OH or FL, like yesterday’s laughable poll indicates, is delusional.
September 26th, 2012 | 12:24 pm
Chimay might be belgian beer, but I consider it “French”(as a species or flavor of trademark)…since a huge part of its immage is “craft+geographic location/indicator”. That the Chimay region is known for its Cheese, and uses double fleur de lis, seems good enough for an american designation of the geographic feel as “French”, in accordance with the bright line rule: “any product that is branded by geographic region is “French”.
Clearly the more american(served typically in bars, and thus more social, and less snobish) belgian beer is Stella Artois. (cost with less quality, i.e. not that good).
Nevertheless to get back to the “french” belgian beer, this Chimay in addition to being branded by geographic location also has a very long monastic tradition. (French claims going back to Charlemagne?) St. Bernard and St. Benedict, and needless to say a lot of religion. Interestingly enough this religious or Trappist tradition purports to have something to do with “austerity”, The profits from the cheese and the beer go to good causes.
So in some way with Chimay, you are drinking a totally different form of Capitalism.
In some sense Romney’s improvement on Chimay is to suggest under the brand of mormonism that the “austerity” of St. Bernard, be directed at alcohol consumption altogether.
So if Romney wins (forget the caveat about after being behind in the polls right before the election), I will follow Mormon dietary restrictions(Ban on Alcohol and Tobacco) for 4 years.
September 26th, 2012 | 12:53 pm
No matter who says what, it’s still the ‘economy.’ Thus, Romney in a landslide. There’s not enough idiots to re-elect our first black president.
September 26th, 2012 | 1:41 pm
That’s fine John.
That just means more for us beer drinking bourgeosie.
Vive le bourgeois!
September 26th, 2012 | 3:02 pm
But if Pete’s right, it’ll be Pabst Blue Ribbon for life, and only in Michelle-approved quantities.
September 26th, 2012 | 3:22 pm
Robert, I don’t like you bringing the phrase “our first black president” into it. Not at all.
But I sure hope you’re right about the vote. For one thing, if he does get re-elected, Republicans are almost certainly going to face a tough choice on whether impeach or not at some point. His character is that bad, and he won’t be able to abide divided government. Something nasty that’s already occurred will get too close to being uncovered, or he and his administrative agencies will cross one constitutional line too many. If you think partisan division is bad now…
Oh, and we’ll be saddled with Obamacare for two decades.
September 26th, 2012 | 5:29 pm
Mr. Lewis, I greatly admire the Trappists for their industry.
As I understand it, the Trappists–a monastic order–take an additional vow of stability with respect to their own abbey or monastery, on top of vows of obedience, chastity and poverty. This vow provides for stability to a way of life at a specific monastery. As such, each monastery is independent and self sufficient–hence the making of cheese, beer, etc. Any profits go to the community–and to good causes–as the vow of poverty is a personal or individual vow.
Often the monasteries become important governing bodies over the region where they are found–in a way that is akin to a diocese. So there is some kind of local rule involved in the Trappist order too. Unlike say mendicant orders, monastic orders are made up of a kind of confederacy of different self-sufficient and independent monasteries. There is a prior general in Rome for the whole order.
So this is a kind of capitalism, I guess, and it is a kind of politics that is attractive to porchers (local, self-sufficient, sustainable, etc.). It’s attractive to me too. So Chimay may be snobbish, but it is better beer in several ways. More bang for your buck–flavor wise and alcohol wise, and as an example of local rule and sustainable economics.
Chimay doesn’t answer the kind of economic or political problems that Obama and Romney claim to be addressing, and it doesn’t slake the thirst of the beer drinking bourgeoisie and working man, as do Stella and Pabst Blue Ribbon respectively.
I suspect Obama is more of a Stella guy, so if he is re-elected I’ll stick to Chimay in the hopes of offering a minor roadblock to policies leading to a world where there would be nothing but Pabst. Plus one bottle of Chimay would meet Michelle cum Bloomberg quantity regulations!
Or maybe Obama wants pure libertarian individual choice in beer, where elites drink a home brew of their own and stay indoors (like at the current White House).
Obama may be more like Carter than we realized–Billy Beer for everyone, but a Carter with a bobo libertarian edge–specialty home brewing for the sophisticated.
I have no idea where Romney fits in all of this.
September 26th, 2012 | 5:48 pm
Beer is better for drinking it than talking about it. And the Trappists are as austere as it gets with a vow not only of poverty but also of silence except for the regular singing of the Psalms at all the Canonical Hours.
They have, as well, a tradition of ready hospitality without asking any more from you than you heart moves you to donate. I have spent time at their monastery in Kentucky, following their rules of talking to fellow lay retreatants only in one designated lounge area or at a set distance from
September 26th, 2012 | 5:51 pm
The church and guesthouse. It is a truly extraordinary experience to follow their rule for a week or so. They don’t brew beer down in Kentucky, but they do make their traditional cheese as well as wonderful Bourbon flavored fudge.
September 26th, 2012 | 6:02 pm
Is there a reason why you won’t print my response to Carl’s insulting remark?
September 26th, 2012 | 6:32 pm
Nobody is getting any beer from me.
Sam, the boring, Bush-tainted, bean counter Daniels outperformed McCain by 20% in 2008 (when Indiana was no deep red state.) I think your whole frame is problematic. Also let us compare Romney and Daniels:
Romney – ““There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe that government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it. That that’s an entitlement. And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what…
“Our message of low taxes doesn’t connect…so my job is is not to worry about those people. I’ll never convince them that they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives. What I have to do is convince the five to 10 percent in the center that are independents, that are thoughtful….”
Daniels: “Those punished most by the wrong turns of the last three years are those unemployed or underemployed tonight and those so discouraged they’ve abandoned the search for work altogether. And no one’s been more tragically harmed than the young people of this country, the first generation in memory to face a future less promising than their parents did.
As Republicans, our first concern is for those waiting tonight to begin or resume the climb up life’s ladder. We do not accept that ours will ever be a nation of haves and have-nots. We must always be a nation of haves and soon-to-haves.”
Whatever problems Daniels would be having, they would not be the same ones as Romney. That’s not even getting into their differences on say..health care policy.
Huckabee is an interesting case. He has Clinton-level charm, but he wasn’t willing to the work to be Clinton-level conversant on national-level issues. Look at Clinton’s speech at the Democratic convention, and then look at Huckabee’s speech at the 2008 Republican convention. Clinton wasn’t just charming. He tied to make a policy argument and impress you that he knew what he was talking about. Huckabee did a really effective job talking about what it was like to grow up working-class. It could have been a launching point into an argument for conservative governance as he saw it. Instead, Huckabee went into this long and completely insane story about how a school teacher to the desks out of her room to show her students that they need to appreciate veterans. No, I’m not making that up. That isn’t even getting into Huckabee’s suicidal embrace of the FairTax. Clinton and Huckabee were both charming Arkansas governors who ran for president. One guy got two terms and the other guy got a weekend show on Fox News. There are reasons for this state of affairs.
Brian, I think you are right about the Daniels family thing, but more for the pain it would cause the Daniels family than the impact on public opinion. A Democratic (or allied media) attack would very likely have produced public sympathy for Daniels. I doubt that would have made it hurt the Daniels family any less. I can’t convey my bitterness that this stuff dissuaded Daniels from running while Gingrich was seen as some kind of viable candidate.
My sense is that averaging the polls gets you to something closer to the truth than looking at either the most Republican-leaning or Democratic-leaning pollsters. We can’t know, but unless you choose to believe that Rasmussen has it pegged just right, I think the truth is somewhere in the middle. I’ll tell you what, the Romney campaign isn’t acting like the believe the Rasmussen number. If you have the less likeable, less articulate candidate and you are counting on a debate performance, it isn’t because you think you’re running even.
http://washingtonexaminer.com/romney-sees-debates-as-breakpoint/article/2508845
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/decision2012/romney-debates-will-set-record-straight/2012/09/23/46a8ef78-05e2-11e2-afff-d6c7f20a83bf_story.html
September 26th, 2012 | 6:36 pm
Bob, I see nothing to indicate we got a response.
September 26th, 2012 | 6:48 pm
Thanks Pete, must be an error on my part!
What I wanted to ask Carl was what was it he found so offensive in my description of Barry as the ‘first black president?’ We should consider that this phrase is found frequently in MSM and in the black community as praise of Obama’s election, not as a ‘racist’ slur.
Carl’s remark seems all the more disjointed when we consider that Jack Kennedy was oft described as the ‘first Catholic president.”
So what’s up, are commentors not permitted to use the offending phrase and if so, why?
September 26th, 2012 | 7:55 pm
“If you have the less likeable, less articulate candidate and you are counting on a debate performance, it isn’t because you think you’re running even.”
I suspect it’s precisely because you’re running even, or in this case, just barely ahead.
http://www.dickmorris.com/romney-pulls-ahead/
September 26th, 2012 | 8:37 pm
Respectfully sir, I’d say my framework works just fine. I readily conceded a boring candidate (and let’s face it I used boring to be polite his wife ran out on him and he took her back like nothing had happened) could win in a Red State. The fact he out performed McCain in a Red State doesn’t say anything about his performance on the national level. I am afraid you are totally wrong about an attack on Daniels generating sympathy. From what perspective would that sympathy emerge. Even from a Christian perspective his wife committed the only action which Christ recommended divorce for.
Why would Huckabee’s speech have a national focus, his political career is over, and lacking Clinton’s ego he did not need to upstage Romney.
September 26th, 2012 | 8:57 pm
Robert, I like and respect your comments here at pomocon and don’t mean to insult you.
Yes, he is our first black president. That is a fact.
Yes, the way many liberals repeat this endlessly and congratulate themselves about it is worth mocking. And I think that’s what you’re trying to do.
But don’t you see how it can come across? And how that possible confusion is a distraction? I’m perfectly ready to welcome whatever mockery will open a few more eyes to the fact that this emperor has no clothes, that voting for him is an act of irresponsibility and self-delusion far worse than voting for any Democrat president going back to before FDR. That’s right: a vote for McGovern in 72 or even Carter in 80 seem far less deluded to me than a vote for Obama this second-time around. So, I’m ready to hear about whether there are enough idiots to vote for the One, the Community Organizer in Chief, the Empty Chair, etc. etc. etc., but not whether there are enough to vote for “our first black president.”
Substitute “our first black president” with “Barack HUSSEIN Obama” (oh but that is his middle name! that’s just a plain neutral ol’ fact!) and I think you’ll see what I mean.
But never doubt Robert that you have a free forum here to say whatever you wish, and that we welcome your intelligence and spirit.
September 26th, 2012 | 10:37 pm
Pete: I know what the averaging claims to accomplish, but the basic statistics is just plain wrong. You could call it something like the “pretense of statistics”…
September 27th, 2012 | 6:52 am
Thanks, Carl.
I can go into the ‘I have many black and mulatto friends’ schpiel but let’s not. However, given the cause and effect of misguided racial policies (the primary cause of the current financial collapse being the gummint forcing banks to make bad loans to minorities), it’s way beyond the time that this nation had a serious and objective discussion on the question of racial policies (affirmative action, quotas, etc.).
Sadly, I think it may be too late as the dread infections of multiculturalism, diversity, and political correctness have taken their toll among an entire American generation (or two) that is no longer capable of clear thinking.
September 27th, 2012 | 7:27 pm
Sam, “Respectfully sir, I’d say my framework works just fine.” just call me Pete and we’re all just disagreeing respectfully! I’ll note that Indiana wasn’t a red state in 2008 and that the boring, untelegenic Bush-connected, bean counter outperformed the ex-fighter pilot by and Palin by 20%. There is some valuable information in their somewhere and it might start with the worry that this or that guy is too boring. McCain wasn’t too boring. Romney isn’t too boring. Republicans aren’t losing because of boring. There is an argument that some politicians train themselves to speak a political argot that doesn’t mean much to most people. That was somewhat true of Bob Dole sometimes when he would go on about an amendment to S.B. 43 or whatever. It isn’t a problem with the Jindals and Danielses of the world.
You and I will never know the exact circumstances of the Daniels family reconciliation much less whether Mitch Daniels “he took her back like nothing had happened.” I actually think that the story of the marriage healing itself could have been really compelling and that anyone who took the chance to mock Daniels would look like a world class jerk. Having said all that, there is more to it than political calculation. I wouldn’t want to put my wife through all that even if there was a presidential election win at the end of the rainbow. Maybe he was just too decent a guy. So we got Gingrich….
Why would Huckabee’s 2008 speech not have a national focus and how does his weird story about the school teacher make it any less national than anything else he might say. Veterans are everywhere after all. It is indicative of a problem he had in the primaries of not taking national-level issues seriously enough and trying to get by on his charisma.
Brian, I know what you’re saying, but my sense is that the RCP average is still closer to reality than either the most Romney or the most Obama-leaning polls. I don’t think it is tied and I don’t think Obama is up 7. So I keep using the average. If that gets me an F in the statistics class I’m not taking, then I can live with that.
Pseudoplotinus, ”
“I suspect it’s precisely because you’re running even, or in this case, just barely ahead.”
The problem is that both campaigns, by their body language are indicating that they see different numbers. If you had the less likeable candidate and were even or ahead, the debates would be something to get through rather than a chance to “reset” the race. If you’re even or ahead, you don’t need a reset. You notice Obama isn’t planning any debate reset. He knows he is ahead and so does the Romney campaign. Do either of them think Obama is up by 9 or whatever in Florida? Probably not.
As for Morris, take his Fox News appearances ought to be taken about as seriously as his 2010 contentions that Steny Hoyer was vulnerable if only you contribute some money to Dick Morris-affiliated organizations. He has his shtick and he is telling people what they want to hear. And even if he is wrong it doesn’t matter because it doesn’t change his record as Clinton’s svengali and his audience will want to be reassured later on too. It’s a living I guess.
http://www.tnr.com/article/politics/magazine/79059/hack-dick-morris-tea-party#
September 27th, 2012 | 10:50 pm
I changed my mind. I think I’d prefer Grolsch to Stella.
September 28th, 2012 | 12:26 am
Pete,
It occurs to me that Dick Morris is not the only conservative “leader” making a living with that kind of “schtick.” He stands out only because his opportunism and insincerity is so obvious.
For all his flaws, Romney at least can’t be accused of that kind of cynicism.
September 28th, 2012 | 5:31 am
I probally shouldn’t add anything because its been four days since the original post, but I found your pairing of Jindal and Daniels interesting.
It seems from that pairing you are conflating a technocrat like Jindal (I wish every technocrat had participated in an exorcism in college), with a bean counter like Daniels. Jindal is a true reformer with new ideas. Daniels is really classic ward politician. His major “reform” was privatizing toll ways. Any time the Indiana house proposed true ideological reforms, of the kind this website seems to think are necessary, Daniels had an excuse about why he just couldn’t support it.
Daniels one “national” idea was basically that conservatives should surrender on the culture war. So, I guess I wonder why the critique of Huckabee as non-serious about national issues doesn’t equally pertain to Daniels. We are talking about a guy who dealt himself out of the one national issue, public sector unionism, that a governor could address and did so in such a way as to cut the legs out from a fellow Republican Governor.
And to the extent that Jindal has been criticized for his persona, it has not been for staidness, but for almost preppy giddiness. I just do not understand how writers, I do not include you in this category, complain about the aging, whitness of the party can turn around and hype a 5′ 7″, balding guy.
September 28th, 2012 | 5:40 pm
djf, yeah, Gingrich and Cain come to mind. But Morris bugs me more. There was a time when Gingrich had real policy enthusiasms and seemed to be (partly) animated by humane motives. He was never perfect (who is?), but the wreck of Gingrich is sad. Morris never seems to have been more than a reptile in his public capacities.
Sam, and who would we be hurting if it was just the two of us?
“We are talking about a guy who dealt himself out of the one national issue, public sector unionism, that a governor could address and did so in such a way as to cut the legs out from a fellow Republican Governor.”
You are aware that Daniels decertified Indiana’s state employee unions on his first day right? Your description of his record is the opposite of the truth – on the order of Obama proposed to move to a Chilean-style Social Security reform. You might be referring to Daniels’ stance during the legislative fight over right-to-work. So Daniels prioritized passing education reform and got right-to-work later.
Scott Walker doesn’t seem to share your opinion of Daniels as he has called Daniels a “model” for his own policies. So he has been paying attention. http://www.politico.com/blogs/davidcatanese/0411/Walker_Mitch_Daniels_a_model.html
Daniels and Jindal have comparable records on education, but Daniels has the bolder record on health care policy with his HSA/catastrophic coverage plan for state employees and the Healthy Indiana Plan for Medicaid recipients.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/aroy/2011/11/11/obama-administration-denies-waiver-for-indianas-popular-medicaid-reform/
But I don’t think that is strike against Jindal as Louisiana’s political culture would have made it tougher to implement that kind of Medicaid reform. Your “surrender” characterization is hostile and not especially correct but it is a plausible interpretation of Daniels’ “truce” comment and that was a real mistake.
“I do not include you in this category, complain about the aging, whitness of the party can turn around and hype a 5′ 7″, balding guy.” The balding white guy did substantially better among African-American and young voters in 2008 than did the top of the ticket. Maybe the race and ethnicity of the candidate should be a more distant consideration. The Republicans would hardly be doing any better with nonwhites if they had nominated Cain.
“And to the extent that Jindal has been criticized for his persona” The shots at Jindal’s persona are as misguided as the ones at Daniels’. His persona is fine. It isn’t hostile and it isn’t show biz and some folks are looking for one or the other or both and I think that is a mistake.
“So, I guess I wonder why the critique of Huckabee as non-serious about national issues doesn’t equally pertain to Daniels.”
I think calling Huckabee non-serious in 2008 was a mistake by those who did it. It is too bad he didn’t prepare as well as he might have. You could compare Daniels’ response to Obama’s speech with Huckabee’s speech at the 2008 to RNC as to why Daniels might have made stronger candidate in an economy-focused election. And the FairTax was always going to sink Huckabee if it looked like he was a real possibility to get the nomination. I wish he didn’t have those weaknesses in the same way that I wish Daniels hadn’t made the truce comment.
Not to take anything away from Jindal. He was my second choice for this year, and after Daniels wouldn’t run, I used me feeble powers of public persuasion to urge Jindal run. Daniels isn’t going to be president and I’m already on the Jindal 2012 bandwagon if Romney loses (and maybe if he wins.)
September 28th, 2012 | 8:10 pm
You are absolutely correct I completely forgot that it was a general right-to-work bill not Wisconsin like public unionism reform.
Your data is certainly compelling. However, the electoral data you use support Daniel’s electoral popularity is all drawn from his re-election. I concede his re-election was impressive, but inevitably on the national scene he will have to win as a non-incumbent. His victory in 2004 was pretty “eh.” He ran 7 points behind Bush. .
Ultimately, our positions are inviolable to the other’s argument’s because we disagree on Demint’s First Rule of Politics. Put colloquially if you aren’t throwing bombs in the culture war you probably won’t be cutting much from the budget.
September 28th, 2012 | 8:46 pm
Sam, it isn’t that I think Daniels would have done great in the general election (though I think he had certain strategic advantages), it is more getting at certain stylistic criticisms of Daniels and Jindal that are rooted in this fantasy that Republicans have to be either abrasive hostile jerks (the character Newt Gingrich plays sometimes) or else Reagan-like (or-rather-memory-of-Reagan-like) avalanches of “charisma” or both. Our best Republican pols aren’t like either of those two things and it would be best if we appreciated what we had. It might also be the case that what we have is exactly what we need.
I do think that Daniels running 20% ahead of the ticket in a Democratic wave election after having had a pretty bold first term agenda is pretty impressive. It doesn’t tell us how he does in a presidential election. Maybe he doesn’t get out of Iowa. But it wouldn’t be any lack of charisma holding him back.
“Put colloquially if you aren’t throwing bombs in the culture war you probably won’t be cutting much from the budget.” The experience of Daniels would tend to contradict that rule – also McDonnell. Jindal is a social conservative of course (though I’ve never known him to be a “bomb thrower” in his elected career.) I don’t even know what “bomb thrower” means in this context. If it means having principles and not backing off from them, then I guess Paul Ryan is a culture war “bomb thrower.” But Paul Ryan doesn’t strike me as anybody’s idea of bomb thrower. You could say that Ryan hasn’t been able to enact a government cutting agenda. Then again, you could say the same thing about DeMint himself. If it means making yourself pointlessly objectionable to people who would otherwise be persuadable, then that seems counterproductive. Todd Akin probably won’t be in the Senate to cut the budget. If culture war bomb thrower is some kind of identity politics test then that is counterproductive too. Having said all that, I want the Republican nominee to be a solid and articulate pro-lifer and I don’t want it to be just a checked box. But I wouldn’t think of such a person as a “bomb thrower.” George Voinovich was a pro-lifer and his ilk would be no help in fixing the budget.
September 28th, 2012 | 9:42 pm
This is your show so I don’t want you to think I’m trying to drag this out to get the last word, but Bob McDonnell is basically a bomb thrower in the sense that he went to Regent, wrote a strongly traditionalist thesis, and was the lead opponent of partial birth abortion in the House of Burgess. I don’t mean bomb thrower in a temperamental sense, more that you are willing to push back against the cultural left. At Penn, I’d make a point of going to mass before class on Ash Wednesday. From a certain perspective that’s the act of a bomb thrower, but at the same time it gave me an aloofness from elite culture I sometimes fear the Brooksian conservatives do not have.
I guess I just don’t see the cuts Daniel’s made. When you compare the balanced budgets Gingrich pounded out, with the budgets Daniel’s OMB prepared I can’t understand how it is you prefer Daniels to Gingrich. If a quiet temperament isn’t conducive to results, does it have anything to recommend itself?
I tend to think that the Obamacare ruling would have gone the other way if it had been Robert’s wife in tears at the confirmation hearings. Cultural conservatism inoculates conservatives from “strange new respect” when they get to Washington.
Having said all that I’m sorry to have taken so much of your time.
September 29th, 2012 | 7:43 am
Sam, don’t apologize as I’ve had a good time. The problem that I have with your metaphor is that I think of McDonnell as the opposite of a bomb thrower. His approach to talking social conservatism should be a model for how social conservatives talk about the issue. He also ran an economy-centered campaign while being able to give as well as he got on the social issues. He made his opponent look like the culture war bomb thrower. Romney should have been looking at the McDonnell playbook with Obama’s contraception stuff. But I don’t think that would have made Romney any kind of bomb thrower.
“When you compare the balanced budgets Gingrich pounded out, with the budgets Daniel’s OMB prepared I can’t understand how it is you prefer Daniels to Gingrich.”
Mostly because I think Daniels seven years as chief executive of Indiana is a better guide to his governing style and philosophy than his several years as a functionary for Bush. If you want to see “results”, then I guess you could look at changes to Indiana’s budget in Daniels’ first term or the education reforms in his second term. I wish Gingrich was the guy he seemed to be in the 1990. He isn’t that guy anyone (if he ever was.) His budget proposals were utterly fantastical and weren’t designed for someone who was running to win office. they were for a scam artist. Speaking of bomb throwers wasting everybody’s time (and profiting off of their reputation.)
http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/postmodernconservative/2011/11/24/fantasy-politics-in-an-age-of-austerity/
“I tend to think that the Obamacare ruling would have gone the other way if it had been Robert’s wife in tears at the confirmation hearings.” Maybe, but who knows. Reagan got along with Democrats fine (he didn’t get everything he wanted of course – but he was never going to.) If hostility to (and hostility from) Team Blue is our measuring stick, then the incentives are for Republican pols to engage in right-of-center niche marketing.
And governing doesn’t even matter that much since the hostility to the other side is more important than anything one has actually accomplished. The model for this would be McCain’s 2008 campaign that was fought over identity politics (small towns, hockey moms, the patriotic part of America) than on any real issues. As long as you are making the libs really mad, you must be okay. It is also why some conservatives look at Palin as a “real conservative” unlike say… Daniels. She gets liberals really mad and he doesn’t. He also decertified Indiana’s state public employee unions on the first day and implemented some interesting right-of-center health care reforms. She said “death panels” and left Alaska’s state public employee unions intact. But it feel like she is a “fighter” so she is the real conservative. This entire set of priorities and dynamic ensures that conservatives will be played for suckers by the very people who are pretending to represent them.
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