Patriot games
Here’s what will happen in the Republican primary…
There will be an early clown show, filled with debates where everyone swears their allegiance to young earth creationism. Then gradually a front-runner will appear and we will be told that this front-runner is a serious person. There may be a Sister Souljah where this serious person “stands up” to the fringers who believe that the Rothschild family controls our economy. There will then be cries for Obama to tell his crazed followers, to make the hippies admit the surge was right or that “entitlements” will bankrupt us or whatever. In any event, there will be no evidence that the serious Republican nominee advocates policies that are any different than Michelle Bachmann’s.
Tim Pawlenty seems like the most likely serious Republican nominee to me, but it’s also possible that the Village will call for a knight in shining armor riding across the desert on a fine Arab charger to battle with the demon debt. Joe Klein is already sending out the call:
I plead, as an unflinching American patriot—please Mitch Daniels, please Jeb Bush, please run. I may not agree with you on most things, but I respect you.
March 30, 2011 4:22 pm
Posted in: David Brooks Giving A Seminar At The Aspen Institute, Good News For Conservatives
181 Comments
181 Responses
schrodinger's cat - March 30, 2011 | 4:25 pm · Link
Why do villagers love Mitch Daniels?
Is it because he reminds them of Jack Daniels?
Hermione Granger-Weasley - March 30, 2011 | 4:25 pm · Link
At least they have given up on Petraeus for now.
But again, Daniels is 5’3” and is apparently sexless and Jeb has that dreadful name.
Violet - March 30, 2011 | 4:26 pm · Link
From Jokeline’s columnn:
Mick? Typo or some kind of dog whistle?
As for begging for Serious Republicans to run, Mr. Klein should take responsibility for his part in creating the monster that is the currently Republican party. You break it, you bought it.
FlipYrWhig - March 30, 2011 | 4:27 pm · Link
Ahem. We call those “freedom chargers” now.
Martin - March 30, 2011 | 4:27 pm · Link
Well, Ron Paul is already demanding an end to public education. The GOP syphilis is sufficiently acute that I don’t think Mitch Daniels or Jeb Bush could possibly cure it.
BudP - March 30, 2011 | 4:27 pm · Link
Mitch Daniels = Nathan Thurm
Joe Beese - March 30, 2011 | 4:28 pm · Link
With 20% real unemployment, the Republicans could get Michael Medved elected.
beltane - March 30, 2011 | 4:29 pm · Link
It doesn’t matter who runs in the primaries because the Koch brothers are going to be the nominee regardless.
Sorry, Joke Line but I cannot respect anyone who respects Jeb Bush or Mitch Daniels. They are not respectable people.
Martin - March 30, 2011 | 4:29 pm · Link
@schrodinger’s cat: Mitch appears to have done something fiscally responsible. It’s bullshit, but it looks reasonable, and all these guys care about is appearances.
Parallel 5ths (Ionian Steel) - March 30, 2011 | 4:29 pm · Link
Is there nothing I can say
Nothing I can do
To change your mind
I’m so in love with you
You’re too deep in
You can’t get out
You’re just a poor girl in a rich man’s house
General Stuck - March 30, 2011 | 4:29 pm · Link
I don’t know where you get off posting a relevant and well thought out, thought provoking thread on politics DougJ. Clearly, we are in a period of permanent Festivus, and you are not contributing.
cleek - March 30, 2011 | 4:30 pm · Link
on the plus side, Mitch Daniels is a convicted drug user (and probable dealer). so maybe that’ll help tamp down the drug-warriors.
salacious crumb - March 30, 2011 | 4:30 pm · Link
wait I thought they would first recite the Pledge of Allegiance to the Gipper. that changed?
Redshirt - March 30, 2011 | 4:30 pm · Link
Someone needs to get to work on Zombie Reagan, stat.
Bob Loblaw - March 30, 2011 | 4:31 pm · Link
If this Libya stuff ends up sour in some way, don’t be surprised if Huntsman becomes more and more credible on a wave of American decline talk. Seeing as he’s literally the only foreign policy nominee the party has to offer.
Mark S. - March 30, 2011 | 4:31 pm · Link
It’s unfortunate, because the rest of Joke Line’s post was pretty good.
danimal - March 30, 2011 | 4:31 pm · Link
Especially if the nominee is, say, Michelle Bachmann.
You’re much more confident that the money boys are in control of the GOP than I am. The 2012 GOP campaign looks like it is about to spiral out of control. Frankenstein’s monster is about to be unleashed. Be afraid, be very afraid.
Seriously, a nutter like Bachmann is just as likely to emerge from the field as a “safe” pick like T-Paw. They’ll have to pretend the nutter is actually a reasonable conservative (they’re good at that), but that’s the hand they look to draw.
Parallel 5ths (Ionian Steel) - March 30, 2011 | 4:31 pm · Link
@BudP: That’s so funny. I don’t know why you would say that. Why would you say that?
Social outcast - March 30, 2011 | 4:31 pm · Link
I love these guys who think that you can elect a moderate republican for anything. I don’t care how moderate one looks, the first thing a republican will do in the White House is declare that the people have given him a mandate to eliminate unions, social security, public schools, and maybe free speech rights for everyone with below a six-figure income. No choice but to vote for a democrat these days if you want to avoid the crazies.
Bulworth - March 30, 2011 | 4:31 pm · Link
I can see the Villagers lining up behind Pawlenty or Mittens as Very Serious, regardless of whatever idiocy they spout during the primaries. But will someone preserve this Joe Klein column in the intertubes so that we can show it to them when they do?
williamc - March 30, 2011 | 4:32 pm · Link
Why does anyone take Daniels seriously? Has everyone forgotten that he was Bush’s budget director? Or Bush’s brother, really? Bush being George W. Bush, the President responsible for our debt situation in the first place? A man most of the country still doesn’t like? WTF?
BGinCHI - March 30, 2011 | 4:33 pm · Link
The heir to David Broder emerges.
Oh yes, Joe, the country will come right if the fucking crazy party nominates someone who masks their intentions.
Fucking asshole.
This is where reporters/pundits who make a lot of money are incapable of being progressive. Too much to lose.
freelancer - March 30, 2011 | 4:34 pm · Link
@Joe Beese:
This clearly is definitive evidence that the strategy for true patriots like yourself would be to form a bipartisan caucus to impeach the President and nominate Kucinich to run in 2012.
Bulworth - March 30, 2011 | 4:35 pm · Link
Because he talks about The Deficit, which is the holy grail among our media villagers, even if Daniels only made the deficit worse during his Washington days. And because he’s a governor, which is also supposed to make one Very Serious.
DarrenG - March 30, 2011 | 4:36 pm · Link
@Bob Loblaw:
Why would you think Presidential primaries, particularly GOP primaries, would hinge on foreign policy (or at least foreign policy more nuanced than “America, fuck yeah!”)?
I tend to agree with DougJ on this one, although I’m still skeptical about TPaw since he has the personality of a potato.
The nutters will make early waves, but will largely cancel each other out leaving some big money sell-out douchebag as the nominee.
BudP - March 30, 2011 | 4:37 pm · Link
@Parallel 5ths (Ionian Steel):
do a google image search, they’re identical
Hunter Gathers - March 30, 2011 | 4:38 pm · Link
And your evidence for this is what, exactly? The cries from Sully and Joke Line for a ‘serious’ candidate? The TeaBaggers won’t settle for a so-called ‘moderate’. They don’t want debates about policies. They want nothing to do with moderation. All they want is Obama’s blood on the floor. And if they don’t get a candidate who will go Full Metal TeaBagger, they’ll either go 3rd party or turn the floor of the convention into ThunderDome. If the TeaBaggers were serious about governing, the Boner wouldn’t be going to the Blue Dogs in order to get a budget passed. No amount of Villager whining will bring about the fabled Moderate Republican. Besides, what is the Village really doing to counter act the Crazy that has taken over half the country? Finger wagging over the ‘over-reach’ (that both parties do, by way of Villager wisdom) isn’t going to cut it. The White majority of voters have lost their collective shit, and no amount of Villager hand-wringing will sate the beast that the Village has helped to create.
There is no White Rider, only Zuul.
Failure, Inc. - March 30, 2011 | 4:38 pm · Link
Mitch Daniels? Jeb Bush?
OMG the imagination reels. THIS is to be our salvation?
No wonder they call him Joke Line.
Violet - March 30, 2011 | 4:38 pm · Link
@DarrenG:
Is Trump in the first category or the second?
Bob Loblaw - March 30, 2011 | 4:39 pm · Link
@DarrenG:
Because that’s secretly where Obama is weak.
An “expert” on China could totally have room to start scaremongering on American decline with residual high unemployment and oil prices at his back. I’m just putting it out there.
Martin - March 30, 2011 | 4:40 pm · Link
@Joe Beese: Well, why are you wasting your time here? Go collect signatures to get him on the ballot!
Parallel 5ths (Ionian Steel) - March 30, 2011 | 4:41 pm · Link
@BudP: I’m quoting Nathan Thurm here, actually. All time fave character. You’re spot on with the separated at birth.
Steeplejack - March 30, 2011 | 4:42 pm · Link
DougJ:
Since you’re going to be writing about her a lot in the next two years, and since I know you’re a stickler for the fine points (“Has any of you read . . .”), it’s Michele Bachmann, not Michelle.
Consolation points for getting the surname right.
/copyeditor rant
DarrenG - March 30, 2011 | 4:43 pm · Link
@Bob Loblaw:
That’s just not how it happens in the real world, unless something goes so spectacularly wrong with Libya that it dovetails into the Fox meta-narrative of “scary brown people are coming to eat your children,” and even then Huntsman will get out-crazied by Bolton or Bachmann (or Mittens, if that’s the way the wind is blowing that day) demanding we nuke all of North Africa, just to be sure.
@Violet:
Neither, really. Trump’s candidacy is a promotional ad for his TV show, nothing more. No grassroots or institutional backing to put him in either camp.
SpotWeld - March 30, 2011 | 4:44 pm · Link
I think the current GOP kingmakers are so feverntly dependent on controlling the narritive (esp with a complient media) that they have forced themselves into the position where they have to find an unknown.
All the names mentioned so far are “names” with histories already attached. Palin was a relative unknown when she was picked as a VP canidate. There was some furious digging for reporters to do to fill in the blanks on her.
In the meantime, all the major news outlets just repeated the pre-packaged GOP press info.
Narritive set. Palin is the Grizzle-momma.
And as near as I can figure, the GOP will be thinking thier main problem was dealing with McCain’s history.
Who ever the GOP puts on the podium, it won’t be someone in your top 5 list right now.
Comrade DougJ - March 30, 2011 | 4:45 pm · Link
@Steeplejack:
Why did she drop the second ell?
Cat Lady - March 30, 2011 | 4:46 pm · Link
I read somewhere that Barbour’s dieting, so he’s likely edging the Huckster out of the hillbilly category. He knows RealAmericans® won’t vote for a fat racist cracker, but they may vote for a racist cracker.
cat48 - March 30, 2011 | 4:46 pm · Link
Pawlenty keeps using the term “flat money”. I wonder if he’s a secret Paulite, gold standard kind of guy.
Failure, Inc. - March 30, 2011 | 4:46 pm · Link
Emotional Rescue. Fucking tight, Doug, fucking tight.
Steeplejack - March 30, 2011 | 4:47 pm · Link
As I said in a thread last week, my one legitimate inside-the-Beltway connected insider friend says it’s going to be Jeb in 2012. I don’t know how that will come about, but then I still don’t understand how we got his stupid brother in 2000. I remember thinking, when I first saw him popping up on TV a lot: “Seriously? People can look at him talk for longer than 90 seconds and still think he’s presidential timber?”
But then we have a presidential timber shortage in general. I am already starting to worry about who will follow Obama in 2016.
Jeffro - March 30, 2011 | 4:48 pm · Link
yes please, Mitch Daniels and Jeb Bush, please DO run…it’s weird, I want them ALL running…
scav - March 30, 2011 | 4:48 pm · Link
@SpotWeld: well, with many polls showing the more people learn of Snowbilly, Miz Variable L and the Tea Party, the less they like them, one of those legendary unknown unknowns would be indicated.
DarrenG - March 30, 2011 | 4:49 pm · Link
@Bob Loblaw:
That’s just not how it happens in the real world, unless something goes so spectacularly wrong with Libya that it dovetails into the Fox meta-narrative of “scary brown people are coming to eat your children,” and even then Huntsman will get out-crazied by Bolton or Bachmann (or Mittens, if that’s the way the wind is blowing that day) demanding we nuke all of North Africa, just to be sure.
Joe Beese - March 30, 2011 | 4:49 pm · Link
@freelancer:
Hey, don’t blame me if people like having jobs.
As for which skulk of jackals wins in 2012, I’ll let you worry about that. Start saving your money so you can cut the Obama campaign a nice fat check. Those TV ads aren’t going to buy themselves, you know.
Brachiator - March 30, 2011 | 4:49 pm · Link
Jeb Bush probably has a lock on the “irreversible coma” vote.
@Bob Loblaw:
Hah. Let’s see. I’d really like to see the GOP dance over “China is a huge threat to us, but we must continue to buy everything in the universe for them, because America was built on cheap prices, low wages and high profits for WalMart.”
And it’s no secret that Murdoch and the gang started sending Sarah Palin STFU signals when she started showing her foreign policy “chops” by bashing China.
Under the Aurora Freeway - March 30, 2011 | 4:49 pm · Link
When did Klein have his rib removed?
FMguru - March 30, 2011 | 4:50 pm · Link
I assume that’s how the primary will go. The kook show will dominate for six months (and drag our discourse even further to the right, as crazy ideas will be compared favorably to utterly crazy ideas) and then someone (Pawlentny, Romney) will emerge as the sensible alternative to all the crazies (even though they’re carrying 80% of the crazy political ideas themselves) and the Village will wet themselves with glee that The Sensible People Are Back In Charge Of The Republican Party and why oh why hasn’t Obama distanced himself from his craaaaazy base.
Somehow the kookification of the GOP will become an electoral strength for the eventual GOP nominee, as he become the Sensible Centrist who slew the fiat gold flat earthers and proved his serious person bona fides for all time.
dmsilev - March 30, 2011 | 4:51 pm · Link
I posted this in the open thread, but it’s actually on-topic here. Things are going so well for the GOP presidential race that the first scheduled debate has been postponed by 4 months. Seems there aren’t enough actual candidates yet.
dms
FlipYrWhig - March 30, 2011 | 4:51 pm · Link
@Bob Loblaw:
Surely you aren’t forgetting John Bolton…
ETA: What about Stanley McChrystal?
Violet - March 30, 2011 | 4:51 pm · Link
@Bob Loblaw:
Whatshisname, the former ambassador to China, would be considered an “expert on China.” Except for that pesky “serving in the Obama administration” problem, and his untrustworthy Mormonism, he’d be golden.
Steeplejack - March 30, 2011 | 4:51 pm · Link
@Comrade DougJ:
Ha, good one. You are such a kidder.
She was born Michele Marie Amble. You can ask for the long-form birth certificate, if you want.
Sly - March 30, 2011 | 4:53 pm · Link
@schrodinger’s cat:
1) McCain is too old.
2) Pawlenty is too much of a flyover state goober.
3) Bloomberg is too anti-conservative.
4) Jack Kemp is too dead.
Bob Loblaw - March 30, 2011 | 4:54 pm · Link
You guys are seriously underestimating the ease in selling the narrative that the black guy is destroying the nation and turning us into a second rate power.
DarrenG - March 30, 2011 | 4:55 pm · Link
@dmsilev:
Postponing the debate is one of the things that makes me think the Jeb Bush or other conspiracy theorists may be on to something.
We get a couple more months of “oh, dearie me, where is the good Republican candidate,” then a late draft-the-stooge astroturf campaign from the Big Money players that sweeps someone not on the current menu straight into the primary season without anybody looking too closely at them this year.
Incoherent Dennis SGMM - March 30, 2011 | 4:55 pm · Link
The GOP has an embarrassment of riches when it comes to stiffs, bagmen, and loonies to run for the nomination. Their real problem will be finding someone who can run towards their foaming-at-the-mouth base in the primaries and then seem somewhat reasonable for the general.
Joe Beese - March 30, 2011 | 4:56 pm · Link
Jon Huntsman recntly resigned as ambassador to China. It was commonly assumed that it was to clear up that very problem.
And he’s no more Mormon than Mitt Romney.
Resident Firebagger - March 30, 2011 | 4:56 pm · Link
No one’s even going to talk about Joe Klein calling himself an unflinching American patriot? When did he serve—in the military, or even in a soup kitchen? Was he one of the first responders on 9-11? Was he helping New Orleans rebuild post-Katrina? Has Joe Klein done one thing in his life for anyone other than himself?
GregB - March 30, 2011 | 4:56 pm · Link
Trump/Joe the Plumber 2012.
AAA Bonds - March 30, 2011 | 4:57 pm · Link
So far, this isn’t a circus – it’s a clown car.
Palin now has the opportunity to become the Republican McGovern. Go, Sarah, go!
gex - March 30, 2011 | 4:58 pm · Link
I live here in MN, and have noticed a friend of mine just says “Who?” whenever Pawlenty comes up. I am going to adopt that.
FMguru - March 30, 2011 | 4:58 pm · Link
Also, you’re not going to see any of Klein’s mancrushes get into the race because it’s very hard to beat a sitting President in a re-election campaign – it’s happened only three times in the last century. 1932 (Hoover, depression, realignment), 1980 (Carter, stagflation, hostage crisis, realignment), and 1992 (Bush, in retrospect it looks more and more like Clinton was a Perot-aided aberration). Usually, these things tend to be blowouts for the president (1936, 1940, 1964, 1972, 1984) if not solid wins (2004, 1996). Kerry’s 2004 performance was actually pretty good (only one or two key states short), given what usually happens to challengers of incumbent presidents (and during wartime, too!)
The real candidates are waiting for 2016 and an open White House, where their chances are much better.
DarrenG - March 30, 2011 | 4:58 pm · Link
@Bob Loblaw:
Not underestimating the power of that narrative at all. I think you’re overestimating Hunstman as the guy best positioned to exploit it.
The “Obama hates America and is trying to destroy it” crowd isn’t going to back an intelligent, educated milquetoast Mormon who served in the Obama administration.
FlipYrWhig - March 30, 2011 | 4:58 pm · Link
McCain 2012! He forgot to tell you how he used to be a POW!
gex - March 30, 2011 | 4:59 pm · Link
@Resident Firebagger: You remember road trips when you were a kid, right? Some people flinch. Others make people flinch. Joe has informed us he’s on the bully’s side.
AAA Bonds - March 30, 2011 | 4:59 pm · Link
Also, I cannot believe John Bolton is running – the one schmuck who agrees with the anti-UN Birchers more than anyone, and he’s such a boring nerd that they’ll never actually back him.
I’m smiling ear-to-ear.
I’m really hoping for a Trump independent birther ticket. I’m extra-hoping that his fury on the issue is a calculated plan to spoil the election for the Republicans (this is one time when I think such a plot might be totally successful).
cleek - March 30, 2011 | 5:00 pm · Link
@Bob Loblaw:
you mean the one that any number of people repeat here, all day long ?
Joe Beese - March 30, 2011 | 5:02 pm · Link
@AAA Bonds:
The Mustache That Passed As A Man.
AAA Bonds - March 30, 2011 | 5:03 pm · Link
@FMguru:
Sadly, this is more likely to happen, in exactly the order you predict it, than all my fantasies coming true.
John PM - March 30, 2011 | 5:03 pm · Link
I hate when people say this, but if Jeb Bush is the Republican nominee and somehow wins the presidency I am seriously taking my family and leaving the country. I saw that Klein article and almost vomitted, it was so dumb.
Bob Loblaw - March 30, 2011 | 5:04 pm · Link
@DarrenG:
You see milquetoast Mormon, the press sees committed patriot forced to give up the foreign service job he so loved to stop America’s impending demise.
Moonbatting Average - March 30, 2011 | 5:04 pm · Link
Anyone care to talk me down from my conviction that the GOP nominee will be Huckabee? From the list of possibles, he seems to have the “I’d have a beer with him” appeal, he doesn’t have the Washington insider vibe, and he’s the right kind of religious nut (i.e. not Mitt or Mitch) without being perceived as a fire-breather. I know about the pardon issue, but that just doesn’t seem like a deal-breaker to me. I’ve seen emails in my inbox from older, religious Dems that speak of him in positive terms. I just don’t see how he’s not the most likely candidate right now, unless he’s got no money or decides not to run.
Joe Beese - March 30, 2011 | 5:04 pm · Link
@FMguru:
Well, that part doesn’t count any more since we’ll never again not be at war.
Elia - March 30, 2011 | 5:05 pm · Link
Joe Kline is not especially good at being self-aware, is he?
Lolis - March 30, 2011 | 5:05 pm · Link
@Bob Loblaw:
But Huntsman is a Mormon who supports civil unions, believes in climate change, and worked for the president. He is not the guy who can sell that message.
geg6 - March 30, 2011 | 5:06 pm · Link
@cleek:
Tee hee. Yes, why yes, he is.
It’s probably why Sully loves him so.
gex - March 30, 2011 | 5:06 pm · Link
I wonder whatever happened to Jindal.
Lolis - March 30, 2011 | 5:06 pm · Link
@Moonbatting Average:
I don’t think Huckabee will run. He and Palin are enjoy the Fox gravy train too much to do any hard work like campaigning.
Roger Moore - March 30, 2011 | 5:07 pm · Link
@cat48:
No, it just means he’s heard other people say “fiat money” to mean something bad. He wants to repeat the meme to show he’s in the know. Always go with the simple explanation.
Bob L - March 30, 2011 | 5:07 pm · Link
Jeb’s a Catholic, that’s just as bad in the right’s eyes as Mittens being a Mormon. Dainel’s is a druggie, I get that right? Maybe the village wants them but that doesn’t sound like it will sell well in primaries.
and Bachmman as his VP as the wink and the nod that Pawlenty is on board with the base.
Calouste - March 30, 2011 | 5:07 pm · Link
@FMguru:
You missed Ford in 1976, although he probably killed his own chances by pardoning Nixon.
AAA Bonds - March 30, 2011 | 5:08 pm · Link
@Lolis:
The ‘worked for the President’ bit is going to be hard to shake, but it’s pretty easy for someone to flip completely on those other issues. Republicans are uninterested in consistency – they want fervor in the here and now, and that’s simple enough to provide.
Not to get too academic, but American evangelical Protestantism is thrilled to its core by a conversion narrative. It floated little Bush for eight years and beyond.
I do not expect Romney to suffer much from his previous positions unless some of the moneybags in the Republican back rooms decide that he’s not their prom date.
Mormonism and evangelical phobias, though – those may be stickier. Honestly, it’s never been put to the test in a serious fashion (Orrin Hatch is not serious) and so I don’t think anyone really knows how that will factor in. If the Republicans circle the wagons and there’s no independent alternative, I’d guess, not as much as we would hope.
Kirk Spencer - March 30, 2011 | 5:08 pm · Link
re Jeb, I would like to point out the history of W.
W entered late – June, 1999. He was brought forth when some Republican Kingmakers (so the story goes) in despair at the then-existing field, sought out and interviewed possible saviors of the vote. W won them over in May, and after much persuasion agreed to take on the job.
mclaren - March 30, 2011 | 5:08 pm · Link
Please, please, Jeb Bush…run.
Please run.
Please.
Bob Loblaw - March 30, 2011 | 5:09 pm · Link
@Lolis:
Since when does it matter what Republicans actually believe in? Reality is transient and flexible these days. Just ask John McCain.
DarrenG - March 30, 2011 | 5:09 pm · Link
@Moonbatting Average:
I’ll take a crack. Huckabee won’t be the nominee for one simple reason: he can’t get the money. In 2008 he raised less money for his Presidential campaign than Michele Bachmann did in 2010 for her largely-uncontested House re-election match.
The money guys hate him since he leans populist on his economic and tax policies. If this were Europe, he’d be whatever the local version of the Christian Democrats are.
And this year he has Santorum, Cain, and others splitting the culture wars vote that he had all to himself in ‘08.
@Bob Loblaw:
Which “the press” would that be? The only press that matters for a GOP nomination is Fox and Limbaugh, and they’ll never go for Huntsman.
Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal - March 30, 2011 | 5:10 pm · Link
i think watching the serious candidates walk back relatively moderate positions from a few years ago on issues like agw is going to be the show.
the more of a sausage grinder the gop primaries can be, the more points that will be plotted as to how far right the gop has swung, and how fast they have done it.
will the dems be able to capitalize fully? or frame reasonable and consistent stances on the issues the serious right is running right on, always an open question, but it will be fun watching them skitter.
mclaren - March 30, 2011 | 5:11 pm · Link
@Moonbatting Average:
Huckabee’s already dead. That rapist furlough thing killed him. Huckabee is as dead as Ted Kennedy was after Chappaquiddick.
Pawlenty is going nowhere. If you’ve been paying attention to the GOP attack dogs, they’re already shredding Pawlenty for his excessively “liberal” tendencies (i.e., Pawlenty believes in the rule of law, he waffled on abortion before recently taking a slightly harder line, etc.). Pawlenty is dogmeat.
The nomination now is between Palin and Bachmann, but personally I’m betting on a fierce primary challenge to Palin from someone much farther to the right.
gex - March 30, 2011 | 5:11 pm · Link
@Bob L: MN is the next state to fall after Wisconsin. Domino theory of wingnuttery?
Failure, Inc. - March 30, 2011 | 5:12 pm · Link
@Bob Loblaw: Seconded. Vigorously.
trollhattan - March 30, 2011 | 5:13 pm · Link
@gex:
Kenneth the Page.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/.....69710.html
His little sand berm hobby last summer didn’t help, either.
agrippa - March 30, 2011 | 5:13 pm · Link
@Joe Beese:
Another brillaint post, beese.
request troll upgrade
Brachiator - March 30, 2011 | 5:14 pm · Link
@Bob Loblaw:
You are seriously overestimating the GOP’s ability to twist themselves into a knot and simultaneously claim that China is the next evil empire and our bestest free trade partner ever.
And there is also the sad possibility that Japan’s efforts at recovery and future decisions about nuclear power may make them less competitive in the short term, increasing China’s influence in global markets.
Oh, yeah, a couple of British banks are threatening to relocate to Hong Kong if the UK doesn’t stop hounding them over little stuff like their past predatory practices. So, China becomes both a manufacturing and financial markets giant. Bankers and corporations just love the GOP.
Democrats got no worries here at all.
Calouste - March 30, 2011 | 5:14 pm · Link
@DarrenG:
Shortening the pre-primary season from about 9 months to about 4.5 months (and those including xmas and tg) definitely gives more opportunity for a candidate to sneak in and get votes before the voters get a hold on who he (it’s not going to be a she now, is it?) really is. Although given that the favorability ratings for the current GOP pretenders is capped at 35% and consequently the unfavorable numbers are name recognition minus 35%, they might want to go with someone with rather limited name recognition, and get him in as late as possible to keep him a mostly unknown to the public, which could result in a lot of Wisconsin-type “he can’t really be that bad as they say” votes.
FlipYrWhig - March 30, 2011 | 5:14 pm · Link
@mclaren: Scott Walker?
geg6 - March 30, 2011 | 5:16 pm · Link
@Joe Beese:
Yeah, because Kucinich is SUCH an effective executive. He’s proven it!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M.....s_Kucinich
The only thing he managed to do was keep Muni Light. And that was due more to the people of Cleveland than to him.
jwb - March 30, 2011 | 5:16 pm · Link
@DarrenG: I’m still going with whichever of the midwestern governor troika—Walker, Snyder, Kasich—emerges as the least unpopular.
Violet - March 30, 2011 | 5:16 pm · Link
@Joe Beese:
“It was commonly assumed”? Is that the Villagers talking, or the red-meat teabaggers? Anyone who would serve in the Obama administration isn’t a “good conservative” for the teabagging Limbaugh crowd. No matter how long ago he resigned.
Romney gave a “my religion isn’t crazy!” speech last go-round and still couldn’t win. Teabaggers want their Presidential candidates evangelical with a side of Protestant from birth.
Failure, Inc. - March 30, 2011 | 5:17 pm · Link
@mclaren: He coulda gotten away with rapist furlough thing, as the victim was a Clinton, but the Maurice Clemmons furlough will, guaranteed, put him into his political grave.
“He let loose a big black man who then shot four cops in a cafe as they were waiting to go on duty and defend ‘Murrika!”
The end. Chisel it on his headstone and his double-wide grave.
DarrenG - March 30, 2011 | 5:17 pm · Link
@Calouste:
Exactly. Also see the above post about how they did the same thing in 1999/2000 with W.
If I were an Intrade bettor I’d be watching where Rove and Crossroads GPS are putting their money very, very closely this summer.
geg6 - March 30, 2011 | 5:18 pm · Link
@Bob Loblaw:
Sorry, but you’ve been beating that horse here for years. It would seem it’s not such an easy sell as you think.
Calouste - March 30, 2011 | 5:18 pm · Link
@Bob L:
Can’t have a TPaw/Bachmann crazy train. The President and the VP can’t be from the same state.
agrippa - March 30, 2011 | 5:18 pm · Link
I do not know who the GOP nominee will be.
The talent pool is pretty shallow. GWB pretty well saw to that.
cleek - March 30, 2011 | 5:19 pm · Link
@cat48:
“flat money” ?
hadn’t heard that one before. a bit of digging shows that it’s an infrequent synonym for “fiat” money (probably because people can’t tell the l from the i, when reading non-serif fonts), and it’s also a weird goldbuggy way of talking about paper (hence “flat”) money that is backed by gold. but either way, it’s really obscure. wonder WTF he’s talking about.
MikeJ - March 30, 2011 | 5:19 pm · Link
@Lolis:
If Huntsman won the nomination you would hear nonstop that republicans have always supported civil unions, have always believed in climate change, and always believed they could become god of their own planet.
gex - March 30, 2011 | 5:19 pm · Link
@cleek: When you find out, will you let him know?
DarrenG - March 30, 2011 | 5:21 pm · Link
@jwb:
Walker and Kasich are dead from their early fumbles. One or both might recover for 2016 or 2020, but they’re both carrying too much baggage now for 2012.
But the thought of Snyder as the nominee is going to cause me to drink heavily and likely still have nightmares tonight. Screw you for that.
Suffern ACE - March 30, 2011 | 5:21 pm · Link
@Bob Loblaw: I don’t know if the republican base will look at Huntsman as the “grand restorer.” I think that is Gingrich’s place. The narrative is definitely powerful, but any number of the current candidates with a bit of charisma could siphon off the nationalist frenzy rather more effectively than the serious candidates.
It’s not as if there is a plan for how to do in the Chinese, save “stick it in their eye” in public and hope that that behavior is forgiven by the Chinese in private.
mclaren - March 30, 2011 | 5:21 pm · Link
@geg6:
Sad to say, you’re exactly right. I admire Kucinich’s principles tremendously, but I wouldn’t trust the guy to manage a 7/11, much less the White House.
(Sigh.)
jwb - March 30, 2011 | 5:22 pm · Link
@AAA Bonds: Or a Goldwater rerun. Second time farce. Let’s hope.
Bob Loblaw - March 30, 2011 | 5:22 pm · Link
@Brachiator:
You don’t say the word China. You don’t need to. You run on the implication.
Debt and decline. Debt and decline. The entire campaign is a wink-and-a-nod to both sides. Stirring nationalism and racism for the rubes, and back room guarantees that the money faucet never stops flowing to the moneyed class.
catclub - March 30, 2011 | 5:22 pm · Link
@Moonbatting Average: “I’d have a beer with him” .
Interesting.
Last time it was a dry drunk who won’t drink in public, this time a baptist preacher.
Chris - March 30, 2011 | 5:24 pm · Link
@DarrenG: Good grief, you’re probably right about Trump, and you know what this means? It means that “running for President/VP of the United States of America” has become nothing more than a ploy to “become famous and get rich(er)”, as Palin and Trump are demonstrating.
mclaren - March 30, 2011 | 5:25 pm · Link
@cleek:
“Fiat money” is one of the dog-whistle phrases that identifies the candidate as a True Hardcore Far Right Republican Believer. It’s like ZOG (Zionist Occupation Government) or the Great Day Of the Rope (the day on which all the White Power militias rise up and hang all the Catholics, all the Jews, all the blacks, all the asians, all the Mexican-Americans, ad infinitum), “quotas,” “sanctity of life” und so weiter.
You have to learn these far-right phrases. They identify the truly scary wack jobs. They’re like a secret handshake—the right wing extremists use these kinds of code phrases to tell their KKK and Christian Dominionist secessionist and abortion-clinic-bombing supporters “nudge, nudge, wink, wink, I’m really one of you.”
Failure, Inc. - March 30, 2011 | 5:25 pm · Link
@gex: He went on TV to respond to one of Obama’s speeches, and to quote Idiocracy, “he talks like a fag”.
You get the idea. He is not photogenic, he talks…weirdly, and he is Brown®. He’s climbed the ladder as high as his abilities – which are considerable – will take him.
Lolis - March 30, 2011 | 5:26 pm · Link
@Bob Loblaw:
Sure but McCain alienated a ton of Independent voters who used to respect him. In order for Huntsman to get the nomination he would have to destroy his brand. See McCain. Also see Romney as a more glaring example. In order to win the primary they destroy themselves in the general.
cmorenc - March 30, 2011 | 5:26 pm · Link
OH B0Y, A CLOWN SHOW! I love clown shows!
Ruh-roh! You tell me…they’re evil clowns, sociopathic clowns, and this won’t be so much fun to watch like a horror movie with evil clowns would be, because it’s real and they might actually hurt us? Now you’re scaring me. This isn’t fun anymore. Make them go awaaaaay, please make them go awaaaay.
Bob Loblaw - March 30, 2011 | 5:27 pm · Link
@geg6:
What in the blue hell are you talking about?
Phoenician in a time of Romans - March 30, 2011 | 5:27 pm · Link
Now is the time to start salting away the batshit crazy remarks from these candidates…
FlipYrWhig - March 30, 2011 | 5:27 pm · Link
@Chris: Some years ago there was an article in The Nation about how Pat Buchanan had come up with that scam. Always put it out there that you’re thinking of running for something, use it to raise money, repeat. You can live pretty nicely on gullibility. Christine O’Donnell was doing that too.
catclub - March 30, 2011 | 5:27 pm · Link
@Kirk Spencer: “He was brought forth when some Republican Kingmakers (so the story goes) in despair at the then-existing field, sought out and interviewed possible saviors of the vote. W won them over in May, and after much persuasion agreed to take on the job.”
So THAT is why Bush says he talked with God and God told him to run.
Thanks for the info!
geg6 - March 30, 2011 | 5:28 pm · Link
@cleek:
It’s a dog whistle for the Beckheads and Paulites. Beck and both Pauls are always ranting on about fiat money.
Sentient Puddle - March 30, 2011 | 5:28 pm · Link
@mclaren:
...or it’s a common economic term that anybody who knows anything about macroeconomics can easily define.
But that definition isn’t as fun because I don’t medicate myself to come up with it.
Bob - March 30, 2011 | 5:28 pm · Link
@Hermione Granger-Weasley:
Which name? Jeb or Bush?
Joe Beese - March 30, 2011 | 5:30 pm · Link
@Violet:
That would be the residents of Utah, who take an interest in his doings after having elected him Governor back when.
I don’t know or care what his chances are. But I guaran-damn-tee that he’s deciding whether to take the plunge.
mclaren - March 30, 2011 | 5:30 pm · Link
Huntsman cannot possibly win the Republican nomination. Like Romney, he’s a Mormon, which makes him untouchable where a presidential nomination is concerned.
Remember, folks, the Republican Party is a fanatical Christian Dominionist organ now. The base of the Republican Party would rather nomination a Satanist as president than a Mormon—they literally believe that Mormonism is a Satanic cult worse than the Manson family.
Villago Delenda Est - March 30, 2011 | 5:30 pm · Link
I can’t respect anyone who respects a major member of the Bush Crime Family (every one of which deserves the Mussolini/Ceausescu treatment) or Daniels, who as WH Budget Director, went along with the integrity and honesty free concept of the “off budget” war of aggression against Iraq.
Joke Klein is another avatar of everything that is wrong with the low rent cat house that is The Village.
Speaking of same brothel, while I wasn’t trying to find out, it seems that the Brodergasm wasn’t nearly as bad as the Pumpkinheadgasm. I guess that’s because Timmeh was the icon of one of the major networks, and Dark Lord Cheney’s go to guy in the media, not merely the “Dean” of the Washington Press Corpse.
Violet - March 30, 2011 | 5:30 pm · Link
@FlipYrWhig:
Newt’s been doing that for years. It’s weird that he actually looks like he’s thinking of running this time. What’s the real story there?
Amanda in the South Bay - March 30, 2011 | 5:30 pm · Link
Daniels will be taken seriously cause douchebags like Sully, Klein, etc practically fellate the fucker.
Here’s my new standard for punditry-you get invited to Andrew Sullivan’s wedding, you’re a fucking douche. You invite Joe Klein to your wedding, you are a fucking douche.
DarrenG - March 30, 2011 | 5:31 pm · Link
@Sentient Puddle:
It’s both. Economists use it to describe historic monetary policy, mostly in terms of “thank the gods we evolved beyond that.”
Politicians use it to pander to the Birchers, neo-Birchers, and pseudo-Birchers who are all hoarding gold and waiting for the 1880s to come again.
R-Jud - March 30, 2011 | 5:31 pm · Link
@FlipYrWhig:
Newt Gingrich also comes to mind.
James E Powell - March 30, 2011 | 5:32 pm · Link
The Villagers will continue to cast about for their manly, Republican hero. None of the current names will be leading come primary season.
The 2012 presidential election will depend on the extent to which the winger governors in Wisconsin, Ohio, Pennsylvania & Florida animate the Democratic base and alienate the independents. If they can make it to fall 2012 with their ‘tough’ images intact, Obama is in serious trouble.
chopper - March 30, 2011 | 5:32 pm · Link
Why did she drop the second ell?
Just wait til someone beats the l out of her at the polls. Then she’ll be called Michee.
geg6 - March 30, 2011 | 5:33 pm · Link
Bob Loblaw @17:
Sorry, I may have mistaken you for one of our many Obama hating trolls named Bob. If so, I apologize.
Villago Delenda Est - March 30, 2011 | 5:33 pm · Link
@mclaren:
Well, Huntsman, like Romney, can’t get the Rethug nomination, because the batshit insane Jeebofascists can’t stand such heresy.
I think a Mormon could actually get the Dem nomination, where what you do on Sundays (or Fridays or Saturdays, for that matter) doesn’t matter.
Sly - March 30, 2011 | 5:34 pm · Link
There are three types of candidates in Republican primaries:
1) The Aw Shucks Guy.
2) The Dark Horse Guy.
3) The Beltway Guy.
The Aw Shucks Guy is generally your Southern and Midwestern goober, and is someone fully enmeshed in purely regional Republican politics. The Beltway guy can be from anywhere, but is firmly enmeshed in the national Republican establishment and is generally framed as the “consensus candidate,” though this is merely a euphemism for the guy who is simultaneously the least offensive to all their regional constituencies. The Dark Horse Guy has much in common with the D.C. guy, with the exception that the national Republican establishment isn’t entirely confident in their ability to not seriously piss off one or more constituencies.
The Aw Shucks Guy never wins the nomination because he has a hard time attracting positive attention from the establishment, which is too busy fawning over the Beltway Guy or wringing their hands over the Dark Horse Guy, or he has difficulty appealing to regions outside his regional base. The Dark Horse Guy occasionally wins (Goldwater in 1964, Reagan in 1980), but really only when the Beltway Guy fucks up and the establishment loses faith in him.
Mike Huckabee is an Aw Shucks Guy.
Gus - March 30, 2011 | 5:34 pm · Link
@cleek: Hahahaha, yeah that’s worked so well with the last three presidents.
Martin - March 30, 2011 | 5:34 pm · Link
@Sentient Puddle: Depends on context. If you drop it out of the blue, it means that you’re pining for a gold standard because setting currency value based on how fast someone can dig rocks out of the ground is obviously the most economically viable valuation system.
Violet - March 30, 2011 | 5:35 pm · Link
@Joe Beese:
Well of course he’s deciding whether or not to run. That’s hardly a surprise. Doesn’t change my original point that both the “serving in the Obama administration” and the Mormonism are big problems for him getting the nomination. Mormonism may be required for being elected Governor of Utah, but it doesn’t win over red meat teabaggers.
Sentient Puddle - March 30, 2011 | 5:35 pm · Link
@DarrenG: True, but I’m of the opinion that describing it as a dog whistle is useless if you don’t have a basic grasp on why goldbuggery is totally moronic. And quite honestly, I’m not entirely sure mclaren does.
patrick II - March 30, 2011 | 5:35 pm · Link
To me, Huckabee and Jeb Bush are the most dangerous republican candidates. Dangerous in that they are as electable as any of that group, and also dangerous in what they might be able to accomplish once they are in office. They each have a nasty combination of smart but mean covered up with good ol’ boy jocularity that I want no where near the white house.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ - March 30, 2011 | 5:37 pm · Link
@Elia:
Joe is the Klein Bottle of self-awareness.
patrick II - March 30, 2011 | 5:38 pm · Link
Joe Klein:
I wonder if Klein has any self-awareness of his part in putting people like this in position to be the nominee of a major political party?
Villago Delenda Est - March 30, 2011 | 5:38 pm · Link
“Fiat money” = the lamentably obsoleted by the Euro Lira.
jwb - March 30, 2011 | 5:39 pm · Link
@DarrenG: These days, such baggage, as long as it is acceptable teabaggage, is a plus when it comes to the GOP primary. My sense, however, is that Walker has proved himself to inept to be taken seriously by the money folks. Kasich, however, has managed both to duck behind Walker and to out crazy him, so I wouldn’t count him out. But I agree that Snyder is at the moment the best positioned.
Tax Analyst - March 30, 2011 | 5:39 pm · Link
per Joe Klein:
So Klein has some sort of man-crush on Mitch & Jeb? Or maybe they’ve already “known him in the biblical sense”, in which the case the question for these gentlemen, and I use the word very loosely, is “Joe Klein says he respects you, but considering what you did with him last night, do you still respect Joe Klein?”
geg6 - March 30, 2011 | 5:39 pm · Link
@Sentient Puddle:
Just to say that, though I know what fiat money is in the typical definition used in Econ 101 and you know what it is in the same context, it does not mean that the term is not a HUGE dog whistle to a certain crowd:
http://www.businessinsider.com.....kes-2011-3
http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul125.html
Brachiator - March 30, 2011 | 5:40 pm · Link
@Bob Loblaw:
Yeah, yeah, the GOP lives on whispers and innuendo. But they won’t be able to do the Sarah Palin duck and run avoiding the media or Democratic challengers.
If we get lucky, there will be an open microphone out there somewhere waiting for a couple of Republican candidates to laugh about what suckers they think their supporters are.
On the other hand, the media in general and Fox News and their friends in particular are preparing BS coverage specially designed to emphasize lies and misdirection. And, as always, Rush Limbaugh is the big fat clown in the center ring.
Martin - March 30, 2011 | 5:42 pm · Link
@Martin: Oh, based on the M2 monetary supply and the US gold reserves, that’d put the price of gold at $61,000 per ounce. Your next iPhone app will cost you just shy of 1/2 milligram of gold.
Buying a soda will never be the same.
mclaren - March 30, 2011 | 5:44 pm · Link
I’m going out on a limb here to suggest that we don’t yet know who the real Republican presidential candidate will be. There’s so much crazy out there on the right wing, and it’s evolving so fast, that we can’t predict just how nuts the Republican party will get a year from now.
Palin is the clear frontrunner, but it seems altogether probable that a bunch of people much farther to the right than Palin will appear and give her a serious challenge. Exactly what kind of insane policies they’ll advocate, I can’t imagine…publicly impaling liberals? Abolishing public schools? (No, wait they’re already floating that one…it’ll have to be much crazier than that…) Getting rid of doctors and going back to voodoo priests in wooden masks? Death penalty for possession of condoms?
It’s hard to say, but at the rate the craziness in the Republican party is evolving, within a year we may have someone publicly advocating human sacrifices to Tlaloc as a frontrunner in the Republican primaries.
Tax Analyst - March 30, 2011 | 5:44 pm · Link
@danimal:
FYI - Bachmann was on one of the network early morning news shows today and the correspondent asked her if she was going to run in 2012. I was on the shitter at the time and didn’t hear her answer.
But just hearing the question asked in apparent seriousness seemed to have a very sudden laxative effect upon me.
Martin - March 30, 2011 | 5:44 pm · Link
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ: Wow, that was a seriously geeky joke.
pragmatism - March 30, 2011 | 5:46 pm · Link
its not just the rothchilds. its the entire pentaverate. the rothchilds, the gettys, the queen, the vatican and the colonel before he went tits up. oooh i hated the colonel with his beady little eyes. “oh, you’re gonna buy my chicken”.
ThresherK - March 30, 2011 | 5:46 pm · Link
@Violet: Mick? Typo or some kind of dog whistle?
How about “Breaking Away” reference? The wry one keeps offering his opinion on “Mike Jagger from the Rolling Stones”, and the “hip” college kids take the gambit, thinking they’re smarter than he is.
Not sure which valuista is the smart one here.
Joe Beese - March 30, 2011 | 5:49 pm · Link
@mclaren:
Remember upthread when people talked about how people pretend to run for President so people will give them money?
That.
Villago Delenda Est - March 30, 2011 | 5:50 pm · Link
@Joe Beese:
That’s been Newt’s gig for a decade or so now.
Sarah cribs from his playbook.
danimal - March 30, 2011 | 5:53 pm · Link
@Sly: I think your Dark Horse Guy is a girl this year.
pragmatism - March 30, 2011 | 5:53 pm · Link
@Villago Delenda Est: someone must have taken notes for her when she attended the GOPAC training.
mclaren - March 30, 2011 | 5:53 pm · Link
@Brachiator:
As Rick Perlstein astutely pointed out more than once, it’s a foolish liberal delusion to believe that this would make any difference to Republicans. Time and again the Republican candidates have openly bruited about their contempt for their supporters, but the Republican base hates liberals and despises the New Deal so vehemently that they don’t care.
Liberals constantly make the mistake of thinking that if we just explain the facts clearly and rationally and provide indisputible evidence debunking Republican position, somehow the people who vote Republican will slap their foreheads and shout, “Oh! What a fool I’ve been! Now I see the light, and I’m going to vote Democratic!”
That’s not the way it works. People who vote Republican are motivated by lizard-brain primal hate and resentment and even when their conservative idols publicly admit they’ve conned and scammed Republican voters, the voters don’t care, because their essential motivation is not rational. It’s pure seething corrosive resentment and mindless poisonous hatred of all things East Coast and West Coast, all things big-city, all things polluted by the vile taint of secular humanism and objective science.
Bob Loblaw - March 30, 2011 | 5:55 pm · Link
@geg6:
How many Bob Loblaws do you think there are?
You want to call me a racist, Obama hating troll? Whatever.
I do spend so much of my time bemoaning him as the Architect of American Downfall…
Joe Beese - March 30, 2011 | 5:56 pm · Link
@Bob Loblaw:
One too many.
I kid, I kid. We’re all bozos on this bus.
wasabi gasp - March 30, 2011 | 6:01 pm · Link
Calling in earnest for another Bush is serious and not embarrassing.
SiubhanDuinne - March 30, 2011 | 6:01 pm · Link
@chopper:
::sings::
No L, No L,
No L, No L,
That’s how we spell
The name Michele.
Barb (formerly Gex) - March 30, 2011 | 6:08 pm · Link
@danimal: I was hoping it would be George Harrison. He’d be preferable to Palin or Bachmann even in his current state.
Gus - March 30, 2011 | 6:08 pm · Link
As a Minnesotan, I can’t tell you how much this simultaneously amuses, disgusts and depresses me.
Barb (formerly Gex) - March 30, 2011 | 6:09 pm · Link
@mclaren: Didn’t Noonan already prove this point? Caught on an open mic doesn’t put a dent in the belief system.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ - March 30, 2011 | 6:10 pm · Link
@Martin:
My favorite kind.
Thank you kindly for the recognition. For some time I’ve been casting about for a metaphor to illustrate just how empty our Village punditry are, and that one stuck with me.
Brachiator - March 30, 2011 | 6:11 pm · Link
@mclaren:
I don’t think you can come up with too many examples of Republicans openly declaring contempt for their own supporters.
I don’t believe this for a minute and certainly have never affirmed this position in any post I’ve ever made here or anywhere else. To the contrary, I think that the GOP base has embraced the crazy and the foolish, and that the GOP leadership is happier than a pig in slop over this, and love that they are able to further the intellectual decline of their supporters.
While somebody like Sarah Palin is the Living Doll embodiment of the GOP embrace of stupidity, it has been the sad strength of the Republican Party since at least the first Bush Administration.
So, I don’t think that a public declaration of contempt by a GOP front runner would sway true believers, but it might have an effect on independents and other similar voters.
Villago Delenda Est - March 30, 2011 | 6:13 pm · Link
@Barb (formerly Gex):
The moron 27% would have continued to support the deserting coward even if he molested a three year old boy on the White House lawn during the Easter Egg Roll, broadcast on all the networks, live.
They are that fucking stupid.
Jeffro - March 30, 2011 | 6:15 pm · Link
@DarrenG: That is exactly right. Rove is all about winning, period. Just follow the money, folks (if the money ever makes up its mind!)
ThatLeftTurnInABQ - March 30, 2011 | 6:26 pm · Link
@Brachiator:
mclaren’s picture of politics as civil war fits the well-known 27%. You need another 23% to win elections and that’s where the indys and casual weekend GOPers come in. The problem is that folks in the latter group (A) aren’t paying attention to national politics and our national press doesn’t seem very interesting in playing up right wing gaffes, (B) have an armor of cynicism such that any remarks about the stupid rubes can be deflected as “he/she wasn’t talking about me, they were talking about those people [points over at the mouthbreathers]”, and (C ) are voting based on stereotypes of what the two parties stand for that haven’t been updated since Cheers was in prime time, and which associate positive qualities with the GOP best summarized in John Rogers’ I miss Republicans blog post.
And all three of these factors interlock and reinforce each other. Not paying attention + cynical + voting on autopilot. That is the crust we have to find a way to break through.
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford - March 30, 2011 | 6:30 pm · Link
Huckabee can’t win. He’s dumb, his sons are fat and creepy and his wife looks like Sasquatch.
The only way the Republicans can win is with a good looking blank slate. John Thune is my dark horse. He will use Scott Brown’s playbook.
cokane - March 30, 2011 | 7:00 pm · Link
I still think it’s Romney’s nomination to lose. He is clearly running. He’s one of the only candidates to run a national campaign so far, Palin and Huckabee being the only other two.
I fail to see this interest in clamoring for Daniels or Jeb when Romney kind of fills their roles. He’s not batshit crazy and the flip-flop thing is seriously overblown. Don’t get me wrong, I’d never vote for Romney. But he is certainly the best candidate the Republicans can muster at the moment. He’s the most credible, best governing record, and least lunatic.
FMguru - March 30, 2011 | 7:14 pm · Link
@Calouste: Ahhh, but Ford 1976 doesn’t count as a President who lost re-election because he was never elected in the first place, not even to the Vice-Presidency.
Ford almost won anyway, even though he was never elected, was something of a compromise party standard fill-in with no constituency, was in charge of a terrible economy (Whip Inflation Now!), had overseen the fall of Saigon and the Mayaguez affair, and in debates he couldn’t remember that Poland was under Soviet domination. And Jimmy Carter still barely won in a squeaker as a dark-horse outsider from the deep south. The incumbency advantage for Presidents is huge, which is why all the A-list GOP hopefuls are giving 2012 a pass.
And if I’m a big shot GOP strategist, I’m inclined to write off 2012 and focus on the future (and the House/Senate/Governorships). Four more years of Obama really aren’t going to harm the GOP and its corporate backers materially, the House and Senate will be even more Republican in 2012 and 2014, so letting the teabaggers pick the candidate in a tough-win year sets everything up for top-down sensible pick in 2016 (like in 1999 when the powers that be anointed Bush as the nominee before the first primary vote had been cast).
Brachiator - March 30, 2011 | 7:58 pm · Link
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
I’m still waiting for the clear example of someone in the GOP leadership explicitly referring to their voters as ignorant or gullible rubes. I’m vaguely aware of a former Bush White House person mentioning something along these lines, but I wonder what else people are referring to.
Otherwise, I’m more cynical than many other posters on this. I think that a segment of the GOP is consumed with racial anxiety over Obama, and the GOP has expertly mined this with Real American™ tripe. Here, Sarah Palin was the gift that keeps on giving. This has been combined with the typical conservative true believer stuff.
Also, the media are irrelevant, mostly. Fox News and various dedicated blog sites allow conservatives to find a comfortable place to reinforce their ignorance, without fear of contradiction.
Tonal Crow - March 30, 2011 | 8:39 pm · Link
The only thing serious about Republicans is the destruction they’ll wreak upon America if we give them power.
Other than that, it’s point-and-laugh 24/7/365.
James E Powell - March 30, 2011 | 10:24 pm · Link
What do you mean if? The Republicans have enough power to prevent even slightly progressive moves by the federal government. Also too, Obama and the congressional Democrats adopt Republican policy positions with alarming frequency.
niknik - March 31, 2011 | 7:54 am · Link
@FlipYrWhig: Omygod, he was a POW? I hadn’t heard…
God, now I wish I’d voted for him.
But seriously now, when do we bomb Fukushima?
cleek - March 31, 2011 | 8:48 am · Link
@mclaren, @geg6:
not “fIat”, “fLat”. with an L.
geg6 - March 31, 2011 | 9:42 am · Link
@Bob Loblaw:
Jeebus. I apologized already. Get over it.
geg6 - March 31, 2011 | 9:46 am · Link
@cleek:
Same thing.
http://www.ecclesia.org/truth/definitions.html
cleek - March 31, 2011 | 2:50 pm · Link
@geg6:
well, not exactly:
Fiat money: Paper currency not back by gold or silver. Page 623.
Flat money: Paper money which is not backed by gold or silver but issued by order of the government. Page 639.
also, that definition is apparently not universal – according to the results of my internet searches. (:
but, that’s probably what tPaw is using.