Since comments on my post about Ted Cruz turned into a discussion of another high-profile GOP face-of-the-moment, I thought y’all might enjoy Alex Pareene’s take:
You saw the thing where Chris Christie and Rand Paul had an argument (in the press, not face to face) that climaxed with Paul calling Christie “King of Bacon,” right? That was not merely a game of the Conservative Dozens. That was a battle in the war for the soul of the Republican Party. In this war, Christie has a stalwart crusader on his side: Jennifer Rubin.
The Washington Post’s token conservative blogger headlined her post on the tiff “Christie flattens Rand Paul,” which I’m pretty sure was not meant to be a joke about Christie’s size, but, like “King of Bacon,” you can’t really help but go there. “This is getting fun,” she says, above an embedded YouTube of Christie doing his “arguing with some jerk-off” shtick, but this time against an opponent who is not actually present…
… What you have to remember about Rubin is that she actually doesn’t really care that much about “conservatism” as a whole. She cares primarily about “national security,” which is to say war-making and Muslim-bombing, two fixations she shares with the editors of her former employer, Commentary. Her beef with Rand Paul isn’t about his dalliance with white supremacists or his decidedly austere plans for the social safety net, even if she’ll use those beliefs as a cudgel against him if need be. Her beef with Paul is that he is not an interventionist neoconservative hawk.
The problem for her, right now, is that the GOP is almost running low on those, following the rather disastrous Bush administration and its launching of two endless, awful wars. The future of the party most likely looks more like Paul (and, honestly, Pat Buchanan) than Liz Cheney.
But the hawks have a contingency plan. They will do what they have been doing for a generation: take attractive pols with absolutely no foreign policy opinions and give them some. Matt Welch recently described this process in Reason. Sarah Palin was trained in interventionism by Fred Barnes and Bill Kristol. A conservative operative described her as “a blank page” and a “project.” John McCain himself was trained in “Teddy Roosevelt”-style foreign adventuring, years ago, by David Brooks and “one of Bill Kristol’s best friends,” Marshall Wittmann…
One of the funnier aspects of the 2012 presidential election was watching Jennifer Rubin shift from a not-particularly-conservative uber-hawk blogger to an unpaid advocate for all things Mitt Romney, because her allies were advising Romney and she is deeply invested in her allies regaining power. It looks like she has her man for 2016. Or at least a man she’d be comfortable shilling for, over and over again, shamelessly. Congratulations, Chris Christie. Neoconservative fear of Rand Paul has just made you a new best friend.
Bob h
None of this detracts from the fact that Rand is a punk asshole.
raven
@Bob h: I’d love to see the Joisey guy kick his ass.
max
Excepting Christie isn’t going to get nominated. He’ll lose Iowa to Santorum and every state in the South to everybody. He could challenge in the Life Free or Die state, but I expect they’ll like Santorum & Paul better.
He’s Fat Ralph Guilani.
max
[‘There are a lot of Republicans unofficially running and it’s going to be an exciting free for all for the zillion candidates. Christie may also make an appearance.’]
Betty Cracker
Christie’s an asshole too, of course. But Baby Doc is an asshole on an entirely different scale. I hope he doesn’t get anywhere near winning the GOP nomination in 2016. The thought of that arrogant Randroid prick having a greater than zero chance of winning the presidency is scary as all hell.
Alex S.
This is another proxy war in anticipation of 2016 and I’m looking forward to these primaries. It’ll be as muddled as 2012, but the politicians will be more competent. Yes, I regard Rand Paul as a relatively competent politician, not in the sense that he’d be a good president, but in the sense that he won’t implode like Perry or wear his craziness proudly like Bachmann. And Christie has a real shot at the presidency. His profile is bigger (sorry) than that of any potential democrat (except Hillary). Also, I guess that these primaries will be the last stand of the old republican guard of the Reagan era against the other republican brands. I wonder if Christie is pro or contra immigration reform.
WereBear
Hillary vs Christie? With her experience handling bullies? With his contempt for anyone in opposition to him?
I suspect she can easily make him look like the mean blowhard he is. And people just don’t want that in their President. Normal people, I mean.
And you still need Normal People’s votes to win.
Emma
With friends like her, who needs enemies? Or for that matter syphilis?
I wonder is Christie is savvy enough to stay clear? Most GOP pols don’t seem to.
Kay
Say it’s Clinton v Christie. Which state(s) does he flip? Not narrow the margin. He has to win it.
Omnes Omnibus
I doubt McCain needed the “training” since war is the only thing he is interested in.
@Alex S.: I am sorry, but I just don’t see Christie as a threat. His personality will turn off whole swaths of the country. He’ll do okay in primaries in the northeast, but those states won’t vote R in the general.
JPL
@Kay: IMO which is worth less that a few cents, PA and VA might go for him.
Narcissus
what
Omnes Omnibus
@JPL: I notice you don’t mention NJ. I would say that if a potential candidate is in doubt to win his home state, s/he doesn’t have much of a chance nationally.
JPL
@Omnes Omnibus: He would carry Ohio before NJ.
Southern Beale
The “Matt Welch describes this process in Reason” link goes to a Dave Weigel piece in Slate. Was it supposed to do that?
Kay
@JPL:
I don’t know anything about VA but I think Clinton is probably really strong in PA, going in. I think they’re due for a backlash against their horrible governor, so it’s too bad the timing on that couldn’t be better :)
I see that he would be more competitive than another Republican in certain states, but “more” doesn’t really matter, and she might give him a run in parts of certain states where “a” Democrat ordinarily wouldn’t be competitive – southern Ohio, etc., the famed Clinton Appeal to Appalachia, which may be over-stated, but exists….
jamick6000
Larry Summers Gets ‘Full-Throated Defense’ From Obama
ugh, i think obama might actually pick this turd
tybee
are there any semi-sane republican potential candidates for 2016?
i can’t think of any…
Omnes Omnibus
@JPL: Like Kay has been saying, Christie is more likely to make some states competitive than he is to actually flip them. Without the actual flipping, he doesn’t get elected.
gene108
@Omnes Omnibus:
This presumes Hillary is the nominee. If Hillary does not run Christie could easily pick-up PA and VA against a generic Democrat and unless his second term as governor goes horribly wrong, he’ll be a lock for carrying NJ. He has cross over appeal to a lot of independents. I know folks in the Philly suburbs, who are enamored with Christie and winning Philly and surrounding cities is key for any Democrat to carry PA in a statewide election.
Betty Cracker
@Omnes Omnibus:
I think you’re probably right about that. His bully-boy shtick works in the Northeast and possibly elsewhere. But the GOP is the party of Dixie now.
danielx
@tybee:
One would think so, given that no Republican candidate can get through primaries at this point without bringing teh crazy in a serious way, but any Republican candidate who acts crazy enough to win Republican primaries is unlikely to win a general election. (“All that nutty stuff I said before? Fuhgeddaboutit, I didn’t really mean it, and the media better not keep repeating it!”)
However…that’s what all the various state level voter suppression – er, protection against voter fraud – measures are about. If you can’t win in a fair election, make it an unfair election.
fka AWS
I don’t think this is true. And what is “almost” running low? It’s *not* running low.
Southern Beale
From the link:
He forgot, “destroys the New Deal,” including Medicare and Social Security. But, yeah.
Southern Beale
@Betty Cracker:
But Bully-Boy is what the GOP loves. LOVES. They want someone to “kick some ass!” Whether that ass-kicking comes with a Southern twang or a Jersey accent doesn’t matter. The secret to the conservative soul is that they are pissed off at their cultural impotence. Anyone who kicks some ass is their hero. Doesn’t matter who.
That’s why they love people like Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter. It’s the party of mean.
Omnes Omnibus
@gene108: Or the Dems could run someone who has more appeal in PA and VA than Christie. O’Malley from MD, for exampel might play very well in VA. In a lot of ways it way too soon to be going too in depth on this kind of thing. My point was that Christie will have limited appeal outside his native turf. And his native turf is not friendly to the GOP right now.
Ash Can
Meh. At some point, probably sooner than later, Christie will say something insufficiently bigoted against Muslims, or maybe even suggest that there may still be vestiges of racism detectable in the nation, and Rubin will drop him like a hot potato.
Southern Beale
Also, this:
With all of the anti-woman loonery come from the right, there really is an opportunity for social liberal GOPers to forge an alliance with moderate Dems on these issues. I wonder if that will ever happen.
Kay
@Southern Beale:
I hope it never happens. The one and only reason we still have some remainder of a middle class is because that hasn’t happened.
Southern Beale
@Kay:
But I think it’s something we need to keep an eye on. It easily COULD happen. The GOP’s increasing radicalism and hostility to anything not white-evangelical-Christian has made the old Republican alliances increasingly untenable. You could see it during the Romney campaign, how hard it was for some of these Wall Street vulture capitalist types to pretend to like being lumped in with the Bible thumpers and “put an aspirin between your knees” types. Eventually some of these money guys are gonna jump, and they have a natural alliance with the Blue Dog Dems.
Southern Beale
Breaking: Edward Snowden got asylum from Russia, has left the airport, his lawyer says.
Chris
@Southern Beale:
This.
Felonius Monk
This wasn’t the blind leading the blind —- this was the stupider (Barnes) training the stupid. Fred Barnes couldn’t pour piss out of a boot even if the instructions were printed on the toe and there was a faucet on the heel.
Chris
@Southern Beale:
I agree that at some point the elites and the base of the GOP are going to go their separate ways. I’m honestly not sure which ones I’d rather end up with, though. Social conservatives and economic conservatives are equally nausea-inducing to me.
Svensker
How do the Teabaggers like Christie now? After Sandy, they loathed him, but I wonder if he’s rehabilitated himself a bit with them since he’s been such an asshole.
Ronnie Pudding
Christie has a much better chance of being the next President than Paul. It’s not even close. And I can see him winning Ohio, maybe Pennsylvania.
Do the Teabaggers like him? They’ll like who they’re told to like.
Paul in KY
@Betty Cracker: If he can tone down the bully boy to become ‘avuncular’, he’d be a serious threat, IMO.
Tone in DC
Found this at Wonkette. Had to throw it out there.
Breaking: Gov. Snyder appoints Emergency Manager for Byrum family.
ranchandsyrup
Obligatory “2014 is moar important than 2016” comment.
Omnes Omnibus
@ranchandsyrup: Not necessarily more important. Definitely more imminent.
daverave
@Narcissus:
Caught my eye too, say whut?
ranchandsyrup
@Omnes Omnibus: heh. Damn you linear time!
The possibility of both houses being gooper controlled gives me the willies.
burnspbesq
@Southern Beale:
Sheldon Adelson is hedging his bets for one simple reason: before too long, he’s going to be facing a multi-count indictment for violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, and he wants to increase his chances of buying a pardon regardless of which party holds the White House.
Upper West
@Narcissus: yes. Pareene should know better. The WaPo has a nest of right wing columnists.