After McCain
Kevin Drum observes that one consequence of the fact that the right-wing base doesn’t like John McCain very much is that if he loses the GOP will probably move to the right:
Actually, it’s worse than that. If McCain loses, as he’s almost certain to, we’re going to see two reactions. First, Steve Schmidt wasn’t nasty enough. In the future, Republicans need to return to their Lee Atwater roots and really teach Americans what liberal treachery is all about. Second, we told you a RINO couldn’t win. The conservative base will be convinced for years that the big problem with McCain was that he was trying to be a pale shadow of liberal Democrats. (Sarah Palin will be conveniently forgotten, or else finally seen for the tokenism she really is.) The nation still hungers for genuine conservatism, they’ll say, and they knew McCain was a phony all along. If only the party had nominated a Romney or a Huckabee the public would have swarmed to their cause.
Kevin says this is “probably good news for Democrats.” And it probably is. Still, I wouldn’t assume that GOP issue positioning is going to be key to the political future. If Democrats secure unified political control amidst an economic downturn, the outcome of the 2010 and 2012 elections will be mostly determined by whether or not the new administration and new congress manage to produce a return to strong economic growth and avoid noteworthy foreign policy disasters.
102 Responses to “After McCain”
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October 8th, 2008 at 5:22 pm
McCain won the nomination because all the alternatives were so awful– and even the Republicans voting in the primaries couldn’t deny that. It’ll be interesting to see who inherits the Republican flag after the election. Fred Thompson? Newt? Zombie Reagan?
October 8th, 2008 at 5:22 pm
The radicalization of the GOP is bad news for Democrats, even if it means that we win several elections.
We should be more concerned about success on the policy front than on the electoral front. And the real bottleneck on policy is usually the quality of your opposition. We’re unlikely to have 60 seats in the Senate for very long — if we get there at all — so we really need a sane opposition.
Personally, I would be happy to live in an America where an Yglesias-ish Democratic party duked it out with David-Brooks-like Republican party. We might not win all the time, but we’d get a few sensible things done.
October 8th, 2008 at 5:23 pm
My tinfoil hat theory is that McCain did put his country first. The neocons and fundies hate him and the feeling is mutual. So he decided to take them down with him. He ran an inept campaign but he was not satisfied with short term losses. To really hurt them, he wanted to take an obscure but incubating future GOP star. He tried Jindal but he was too smart to bite, so he settled for Palin. She took the bait and now will go down with the ship. McCain thinks he is Randy Quaid’s character in Independence Day, giving the finger to the mother ship as he rams it.
October 8th, 2008 at 5:23 pm
Yep, you guys are screwed in 2010.
October 8th, 2008 at 5:25 pm
Ultimately, you have to wonder why anyone would want to win this election. The economy will suck for the next four years. Who would want to lead that? McCain’s losing strategy may be the right one in the long run.
October 8th, 2008 at 5:25 pm
If Democrats secure unified political control amidst an economic downturn, the outcome of the 2010 and 2012 elections will be mostly determined by whether or not the new administration and new congress manage to produce a return to strong economic growth.
Yup. I think 2012’s likely to be a good year for the incumbent party, but 2010 looks dicey. All the more reason it is critical to win as many congressional races as possible. The 2010 midterm election will probably be a tough one for the Democrats if they win the White House next month. I suppose anything’s possible, but a strong economy a mere two years from now looks like a tall order.
October 8th, 2008 at 5:26 pm
Dear Asher, two words for you: “Deficit” and “spending.”
October 8th, 2008 at 5:30 pm
He tried Jindal but he was too smart to bite, so he settled for Palin. She took the bait and now will go down with the ship.
I hope you’re right, but I think it’s highly likely the devastated GOP will look back on this campaign a year or two down the road and conclude that Sarah Palin was the one good part of it.
When I hear her speak on the stump in that chirpy cheerful manner of hers, my strong impression is that Palin is fully aware she’s not about to be moving to Washington anytime soon, but she’s content in the knowledge that she’s cementing her role as a wingnut princess-icon for a future bid to become the nation’s first barracuda president.
October 8th, 2008 at 5:30 pm
I think we should stimulate the hell out of the economy, like FDR on steroids. I want to see us building supertrains, and a more flexible electricity grid, and clean coal plants, and extending unemployment benefits . . . out the fucking wazoo.
Screw the deficit. It’s time for us to achieve our immediate priorities, and reap the immediate electoral benefits, and let the Republicans be the ones who practice long-term thinking. It’ll be good for them.
October 8th, 2008 at 5:30 pm
Ted, more like deficit myopia. It’s going to be a replay of 1993. Now that Obama’s safely ahead, it would be wise if he came out and forewarned people that he might not be able to get that tax cut through Congress. Or that healthcare plan. Or energy independence in ten years (???). Hey, it’s like the moon – we didn’t know how we were going to do it but we did!
October 8th, 2008 at 5:35 pm
Good for the Democrats, I don’t know from. But try telling, say, a Hispanic immigrant, or a 10th-generation Hispanic American for that matter, that it’s a good thing if nativist radicals take over one of the two national political parties at a time of deep economic and political crisis. This is too close to the old the-worse-the-better theory, to which the last century provided more than enough spectacular disconfirming instances. A radicalized Republican Party increases the possibility that the radicals will come to power, and increases the amount of damage they can to inflict even while out of power.
October 8th, 2008 at 5:40 pm
When McCain loses his running mate will be the presumptive heir to the throne. Give her four years to clean up her act, learn some geography, develop a broad support base and build up her war chest. She’ll be a formidable opponent.
October 8th, 2008 at 5:40 pm
Of course, on January 20, 2009 the right-wing media (which is a large chunk of all media) is going to immediately abandon their belief that it’s unpatriotic to criticize the President in a time of war. They are already calling Obama a traitor and a friend of terrorists. I can’t imagine they plan to soften their rhetoric after losing a big election!
October 8th, 2008 at 5:41 pm
A radicalized Republican Party increases the possibility that the radicals will come to power, and increases the amount of damage they can to inflict even while out of power.
Dude, that very scenario went down in 2000 and has created the mess this great nation currently finds itself in 8 years later. Or were you thinking that it could get worse than the Cheney Administration?
October 8th, 2008 at 5:42 pm
Conservative David Brooks on Barack Obama -
“Obama has the great intellect. I was interviewing Obama a couple years ago, and I’m getting nowhere with the interview, it’s late in the night, he’s on the phone, walking off the Senate floor, he’s cranky. Out of the blue I say, ‘Ever read a guy named Reinhold Niebuhr?’ And he says, ‘Yeah.’ So i say, ‘What did Niebuhr mean to you?’ For the next 20 minutes, he gave me a perfect description of Reinhold Niebuhr’s thought, which is a very subtle thought process based on the idea that you have to use power while it corrupts you. And I was dazzled, I felt the tingle up my knee as Chris Matthews would say.
And the other thing that does separate Obama from just a pure intellectual: he has tremendous powers of social perception. And this is why he’s a politician, not an academic. A couple of years ago, I was writing columns attacking the Republican congress for spending too much money. And I throw in a few sentences attacking the Democrats to make myself feel better. And one morning I get an email from Obama saying, ‘David, if you wanna attack us, fine, but you’re only throwing in those sentences to make yourself feel better.’ And it was a perfect description of what was going through my mind. And everybody who knows Obama all have these stories to tell about his capacity for social perception.
Brooks predicted an Obama victory by nine points, and said that although he found Obama to be “a very mediocre senator,” he was is surrounded by what Brooks called “by far the most impressive people in the Democratic party.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/08/david-brooks-sarah-palin_n_133001.html
October 8th, 2008 at 5:42 pm
McCain’s losing strategy may be the right one in the long run.
Losing is never a good strategy. Some battles, in war, should never be fought and there are ridiculous reasons to fight for anything, but losing on purpose doesn’t make sense in any context.
October 8th, 2008 at 5:44 pm
From what I have gathered by cruising through GOP blogs, the dominant theory is that Palin was a great choice but McCain has held her back (to the point that some are now arguing she should have been the top of the ticket for this election). So I think Palin is likely to emerge as a frontrunner for the nomination in 2012, unless of course the GOP transforms itself before or after the 2010 midterms.
October 8th, 2008 at 5:47 pm
By the way, Obama winning the Presidency this year may or may not be good thing for Democrats in Congress as of 2010. However, he would have four years before 2012 to get people feeling significantly better about the country’s direction, so I would like his chances of being a two-termer. And trying to play for an advantage over any period longer than that is pretty foolish–no one really knows what the political landscape will be like in 8 years.
October 8th, 2008 at 5:49 pm
but I think it’s highly likely the devastated GOP will look back on this campaign a year or two down the road and conclude that Sarah Palin was the one good part of it.
She replaced McCain as the emotional top-of-the-ticket immediately. Maybe the goofy “Sarah!” signage I’ve seen was printed prior to Palin’s precipitous flameout, but her fans are neurotically transfixed. There’s a woman in my office, a fan of Palin, who nearly throttled me for making fun of her. I think before Palin came along that they’d resigned themselves to losing, and the Palin choice gave them a sugar-buzz. Empty calories, sure, but they felt happy. Now, they’re mean and Palin’s playing to that meanness.
October 8th, 2008 at 5:53 pm
Yet more parallels with 1980. So Dems have a bad election in 2010, and then the Republicans nominate a true-blue (true-red?) conservative in 2012 and get stomped. I can live with that.
October 8th, 2008 at 5:54 pm
FWIW, Roubini now predicts a 2 year recession and DOW 7000.
October 8th, 2008 at 5:58 pm
It’s time to consider the possibility of extreme reaction from the reactionary right. It now has to be considered as having less than zero probability. That would include some sort of marshal law and military takeover of government. It takes little imagination to think of scenarios where a President elect Obama might not take office, etc. etc.
October 8th, 2008 at 6:00 pm
Re: Palin’s appeal — the lipstick+gun equation gives the right-wing base a way to feel that there’s a place in the future for their reactionary ideas. As a “tough woman” she appears to prove that they’re not simply bassackward bigots.
Doesn’t mean that she has a snowball’s chance of winning the nomination in 2012. Huckabee is more possible. Gingrich seems possible too.
Re the radicalization of the Reps — the concept of the “Overton window” is important. The window of political possibility extends from the crazy ideas they spout to the crazy ideas we spout, and the media assume that “moderation” lies somewhere in the center. So as long as they’re spouting “Drill, Baby, Drill,” or “Kill, Baby, Kill,” they keep “the middle ground” anchored too far to the right. If we want to stop, e.g., global warming, we need an opposition whose proposals are a little closer to reality, so the window of political possibility overlaps at least in part with the window of “things that would actually work.”
October 8th, 2008 at 6:00 pm
if [McCain] loses the GOP will probably move to the right
How much further to the right can they get? The Falange? In US terms, they already support:
- no/virtually no taxes on the top 1%.
- no public retirement/medical
- unlimited deficit spending
- no/virtually no oversight of business
- nothing that even hints at disrupting a fertilized ovum
- warrant less domestic wiretapping
- distribution of public school funding to private entities
- a set of foreign policies requiring their own bullet chart
What’s really left to add? National creationism standards?
October 8th, 2008 at 6:00 pm
Just remember – the last time a major party collapsed in the United States, the Civil War followed less than a decade later.
Just sayin’…
October 8th, 2008 at 6:04 pm
When I hear her speak on the stump in that chirpy cheerful manner of hers, my strong impression is that Palin is fully aware she’s not about to be moving to Washington anytime soon, but she’s content in the knowledge that she’s cementing her role as a wingnut princess-icon for a future bid to become the nation’s first barracuda president.
The basest wingnuts luvs them some Caribou Barbie, but she is too ambitious but too stupid to know that she is too stupid to be President.
I think the only question unresolved about Palin now is if she will come in fourth or fifth in the 2012 New Hampshire Primary.
October 8th, 2008 at 6:05 pm
Given the demographics changes in the U.S., there is no good long term prospects for the Repubicans.
If the Republcians move to the left, they will lose more support than they gain. Does the U.S. really need to big spending, big government parties?
If they move to the right, the number of middle class, private sector, socially conservatives white is too small to sustain a political party and their donations end.
Instead of worrying about Republicans, the Democrats should think about how politics will work in the coming one party state. Once the Democratic Party no longer has the Repubicans to use as an opponent, will all of the subgroups stick together? Also, how will redistricting work in a one party state and how will general elections work when none of the elections are contested at the general election level?
October 8th, 2008 at 6:11 pm
I agree with cmholm that it’s hard to imagine the GOP actually becoming *worse* than Cheney. And I think AlanC9 is on the right track with the 1980 analogy. I don’t see them nominating Hitler Jr. in 2012. But I do think they might spend the next 12-16 years arguing that their leaders have been selling out the true faith.
E.g., if they nominate Gingrich the social conservatives will go into the wilderness wearing hair shirts; if they nominate Huckabee, the Grover Norquist types will argue that the small-government gospel has been betrayed. And so on and so on. Just like we did through the 80s and 90s.
October 8th, 2008 at 6:12 pm
Isn’t the GOP losing because traditional conservatives are sick of the neo-con radicals and they think BushCo has destroyed the party and McCain isn’t that much different? Does the GOP expect the fringe they’re appealing to now to become a major demographic?
What the hell does further right look like?
October 8th, 2008 at 6:13 pm
Most of the serious Republicans I know are salivating about 2010. They were very anxious before the recent crisis–it seemed the worst of all worlds that there would be another short and shallow recession and that Obama would get the credit for the inevitable recovery. But now? Well, Obama gets a deep recession, and it’s all his. His policies aren’t the sort of policies that Republicans believe are likely to encourage economic growth–they see a tax increase at the front end of a recession and think, hey, we’ve seen this before, in 1991, and three years later the lingering effects (along with the Clinton tax hikes and the rest of the Clinton agenda) helped the Republicans. They’re not thrilled about the scenario–these are patriotic folks who aren’t looking forward to the damage they think Obama will do. But they think there’s nothing but political upside. A tsunami like ‘94, but followed by more of the same.
One way to understand the attacks on Obama now: these aren’t the attacks of a campaign that’s trying to win, these are the attacks of a campaign that’s trying to discredit and weaken the winner.
October 8th, 2008 at 6:15 pm
calipygian, I’m not sure that you can use that example. We’re on the Sixth Party System in the United States (or even Seventh, I suppose)–The Whig collapse and the rise of the Republicans is back in the Second/Third Party System. I don’t think it’s analogous to predict a second civil war–not yet, anyway!
October 8th, 2008 at 6:16 pm
Supreme court appointments.
October 8th, 2008 at 6:23 pm
If you are going to lose a landslide, you want it to be more like 1964 than 1972 or one of the losing efforts against FDR. That is, you want it to be a harbinger, or a rebuilding year, rather than just a beat down you have nothing to show for.
Given that Obama has to be considered the odds-on favorite, even now, to win the 2012 election, Republicans with money and influence would be well-advised to stage, as far as it is within their power, a primary that is forward-looking, rather than merely picking the best hope from among a field of long-shots. That would mean a vigorous debate between someone like Mike Huckabee, and someone closer to Ron Paul but a little more prime-time ready.
October 8th, 2008 at 6:24 pm
I don’t see them nominating Hitler Jr. in 2012.
Ted, good name for her. She does remind me of that young man who came from Austria. She’s from Alaska. Strange both places begin and end with the letter ‘a’.
I never thought we could have a repeat of that horror in this country but after seeing the way the Republican Congress abetted Bush’s insanities for six years (as the Democratic Congress is now doing) and seeing the impotency of the US courts (finally suggesting that 7 years in prison without charges may be a violation of the Constitution) and watching in awe at Cheney’s accretion of powers to his Executive/Legislative position and his doctrine of the Supremacy of the Executive, Hitler Jr. would have little trouble empowering herself.
October 8th, 2008 at 6:28 pm
the dominant theory is that Palin was a great choice but McCain has held her back
But that’s because Palin speaks to the GOP id on display in the the broad sweep of right-wing blogs. She’s a little bit Freeper, a little bit TIDOS Yankee, a little bit nutso.
October 8th, 2008 at 6:28 pm
Agreed. After Gingrich, Bush, Cheney, Frist, Delay, etc etc this party clearly “deserves” a good long decade or two in the political wilderness, but they probably won’t get it, no matter what strategy they pursue. Such are the viccissitudes of American voting behavior.
October 8th, 2008 at 6:29 pm
It’s worth recalling that the original exchange that prompted Drum’s post was an exchange between McCarthy and Douthat that focused mainly on electoral strategy rather than policy. I think I misunderstood this at first. I.e., it wasn’t about driving the Republicans further to the right on e.g. economic policy, but about the temptation to double down on Atwateresque smear tactics instead of discussing policy at all.
That’s a whole separate problem, because the smear tactics actually seem to work, much of the time. I’m afraid I don’t see any likelihood of weaning the GOP off of those tactics in the foreseeable future.
October 8th, 2008 at 6:33 pm
Also, how will redistricting work in a one party state and how will general elections work when none of the elections are contested at the general election level?
I can answer that, being from Massachusetts.
A) Our few remaining Republicans are generally of the non-insane, liberal/centrist variety; and,
B) The real action tends to be in the primaries.
It’s win/win from my perspective.
October 8th, 2008 at 6:33 pm
Obama’s big boast is that he is managing a successful and organized campaign. Remember what Obama said when he was asked if he had any executive or managerial experience? Obama responded that his executive and managerial experience comes from running his own presidential campaign. Well, this report is relevant to that question: it seems that McCain runs a better campaign than Obama does, so who’s the better executive or manager in this case?
Very relevant, check it and try to be fair-minded:
http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2008/10/07/politics/fromtheroad/entry4507703.shtml
BTW, what in God’s name is “malarkey”? Is this another Biden gaffe? How many gaffes does it take to add up to doofus?
October 8th, 2008 at 6:38 pm
Re: The economy will suck for the next four years. Who would want to lead that?
I recall those exact words being said back in 1992.
Re: It’s time to consider the possibility of extreme reaction from the reactionary right. It now has to be considered as having less than zero probability. That would include some sort of marshal law and military takeover of government.
The military would never go along with that (and besides they’re bogged down in Iraq and Afghanistan). Heck, I don’t even see Bush or McCain going along with that. And the great mass of the people, even many GOP stalwarts wouldn’t go along with that either. The real danger in the coming Obama presidency will come from the really radical right, with a return to militias, tin-foil hat conspiracy fears, and McVeigh style terrorism.
As for the future of the GOP, two names say it all: Bobby Jindal and Charlie Crist (regardless of whether either even run for president). Crist would haul the GOP back towards the center with an injection of populism along the way. He would be Ross Douthat’s Grand New Party guy. Jindal, he of exorcist fame, would lead it ever further into the fever swamps.
Re: Just remember – the last time a major party collapsed in the United States, the Civil War followed less than a decade later.
But the first time that happened the succeeding years were known as the Era of Good Feeling.
October 8th, 2008 at 6:40 pm
Huckabee I could understand, but why in the world does Drum think Republicans who consider McCain a RINO will flock to Mitt Romney?
October 8th, 2008 at 6:45 pm
Makes sense, but I don’t think Palin disappears. She’s the Freeper candidate 2016 and she’s going to do everything she can to insinuate herself into whatever strange form the GOP national apparatus takes after this election. She, probably Jindal, maybe some of those upstanding guys in the House, they’re the face of the future GOP. Palin may be able to figure out a way to slide herself into the Senate.
October 8th, 2008 at 6:47 pm
When McCain loses his running mate will be the presumptive heir to the throne.
This is nonsense. Past losing VP candidates:
2004: John Edwards (failed candidate in 2008)
2000: Joe Lieberman (failed candidate in 2004)
1996: Jack Kemp (never ran for office again)
1988: Lloyd Bentsen (never ran for office again)
1984: Geraldine Ferraro (ran a couple of times for the Senate, lost in the primaries)
1976: Bob Dole (failed candidate in 1980; managed, after 16 more years of service in the Senate, to be his party’s nominee)
1972: Sargent Shriver (never ran for office again)
1968: Ed Muskie (failed candidate in 1972, stayed in the Senate until appointed Carter’s secretary of state in 1980, then retired)
1964: William Miller (never ran for office again)
1960: Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. (never ran for office again, but served as Kennedy’s ambassador to South Vietnam and was a surprise write-in winner of the NH primary in 1964)
1956: Estes Kefauver (never ran for president again, served in the Senate until his death in 1963)
1952: John J. Sparkman (never ran for national office again, reelected to the Senate until 1978)
1948: Earl Warren (never ran for national office again, appointed Chief Justice by Eisenhower)
1944: John Bricker (never a candidate for president)
1940: Charles McNary (never a candidate for president)
1936: Frank Knox (never a candidate for president)
1928: Joseph Robinson (never a candidate for president)
1924: Charles Bryan (never a candidate for president)
1920: Franklin D. Roosevelt (got polio, disappeared for 8 years, elected governor of New York, at which he was successful, then became the presidential nominee of the Democratic party 12 years after his unsuccessful run)
1908: John Kern (nothing)
1904: Henry Davis (nothing)
1896: Arthur Sewall (nothing)
1892: Whitelaw Reid (nothing)
1888: Allen Thurman (nothing)
1884: John Logan (nothing)
1880: William English (nothing)
1876: Thomas Hendricks (became Cleveland’s running mate in 1884 and served as VP)
1872: Gratz Brown (nothing)
1868: Frank Blair (nothing)
1864: George Pendleton (unsuccessful candidate for the Democratic nomination in 1868)
1860: Herschel Johnson, Joseph Lane, Edward Everett (nothing, nothing, nothing)
1856: William Dayton, Andrew Donelson (unsuccessful candidate for the Republican nomination in 1860, nothing)
1852: William Graham (nothing)
1848: William O. Butler (unsuccessful candidate for the Democratic nomination in 1852)
1844: Theodore Frelinghuysen (nothing)
1836: Francis Granger, John Tyler (nothing, Harrison’s running mate in 1840, became vice president, succeeded to the presidency)
1832: John Sergeant (nothing)
1828: Richard Rush (nothing)
So, basically, there are only two unsuccessful VP candidates who have ever become major party nominees. In neither case did this have anything to do with their VP nomination making them “heir presumptive.” Dole’s effort to parlay his nomination into the presidential nomination in 1980 was incredibly unsuccessful, as has been every other attempt to do that; instead, he got the nod by virtue of his Senate leadership over the years after the failure of that bid. FDR is more or less the same – he was not a national figure in 1920, and became one by virtue of his election as governor of New York in 1928, which had nothing to do with his VP nomination, which was probably more of an embarrassment than anything else, given the miserable failure of the Cox-Roosevelt ticket.
So, anyway, this is stupid.
October 8th, 2008 at 6:51 pm
Most of the serious Republicans I know are salivating about 2010.
The relevant analogy to 2010 is 1982– legislative gains by the opposition party due to economic suffering, but no significant change in political the dynamics (the republicans retained control of the Senate, which they captured in 1980, and they kept control until the 1986 elections).
October 8th, 2008 at 6:53 pm
Ringo Meza Says What is Malarkey.
Wow! Guess you didn’t grow up around any Irish or in the inner city. Malarkey is a term from the Irish. It is a way that some of them talk.
October 8th, 2008 at 6:59 pm
“it seems that McCain runs a better campaign than Obama does”
Yes, clearly that’s what polls indicate. McCain *definitely* isn’t running the worst campaign in recent memory or anything. Keep reading Drudge though, maybe you can tell us how McCain decisively won the debate.
October 8th, 2008 at 7:00 pm
Ahhhh, now I get it. So Biden was going for the Catholic vote. Too bad about all those bishops who came out against him.
I love how all you seem to be getting ahead of yourselves and claiming an Obama victory.
Don’t you know that Antoine Rezko is spilling the beans right this very moment to the feds?
October 8th, 2008 at 7:02 pm
Hi Adam,
Yes, I’m a Drudge robot. And Emperor Drudge says listen to the Zogby-Reuters poll: only 2 point difference, statistically negligible.
But you know better, cause you get your TPM!
October 8th, 2008 at 7:30 pm
Not to be tedious but it’s martial law.
Right now it’s hard to see the demographics breaking the GOP’s way. The one thing that might work is a populist evangelical party that has risen above race and reaches out to socially conservative people of all races. Huckabee might be able to make it work.
October 8th, 2008 at 7:34 pm
pseudonymous in nc,
Understood, but after observing some of the GOP primary contest this year, it seems like they may fairly be called the Party of Id these days.
But to clarify, although I think she will start as a frontrunner, I’d bet against her actually winning the nomination.
October 8th, 2008 at 7:36 pm
RIngo – you mean all those Bishops pulled their cocks out of an altar boy long enough to jeopardize their churches tax exempt status, right?
October 8th, 2008 at 7:52 pm
“And Emperor Drudge says listen to the Zogby-Reuters poll: only 2 point difference, statistically negligible.”
Yeah, he probably would. The fact that in that poll Obama leads by 9 among independents and gets the same partisan percentage means he’s using a very badly off partisan balance (something like R+2 instead of D+6). So yes, keep listening to it! Zogby’s a *really* great pollster, don’t you know! Pay no attention to Gallup’s +11.
October 8th, 2008 at 7:58 pm
I think the relevant precedent for the 2010 mid-terms is 1934.
October 8th, 2008 at 8:01 pm
“When I hear her speak on the stump in that chirpy cheerful manner of hers, my strong impression is that Palin is fully aware she’s not about to be moving to Washington anytime soon, but she’s content in the knowledge that she’s cementing her role as a wingnut princess-icon for a future bid to become the nation’s first barracuda president.”
Probably true. I think, though, this is her one shot at the brass ring. In a primary battle, she won’t be able to avoid press conferences, interviews, and real debates like she is now. There will be 12 ankle-biting rivals trying to take her down. I can’t see her surviving that, even in an extremely dumbed-down Republican party. Although maybe I overestimate them.
October 8th, 2008 at 8:05 pm
“I can answer that, being from Massachusetts.
A) Our few remaining Republicans are generally of the non-insane, liberal/centrist variety; and,
B) The real action tends to be in the primaries.
It’s win/win from my perspective.”
I’m not so sure. Massachusetts is not a particularly well-run state- IMO, due to its lack of competition. The Democratic Party here is pretty ossified and not all that progressive in a technocratic, good government sense. I’ve been pretty surprised by how backwards and stagnant this state can be, considering it’s wealth. Lots of old school, Tammany Hall patronage bullshit.
I imagine other dominantly red state suffer from the reverse, so there is a definite downside to having no effective opposition party. If the Congressional Dems can use their sheer numbers to force through universal healthcare and other needed reforms, I’d be happy. But there’s a danger of getting fat and complacent.
October 8th, 2008 at 8:25 pm
This is the problem when you live in a two party democracy, and one of those parties is completely insane. You end up with a radical group who are trying their damnedest to further radicalize their party as the only option to what might be a well meaning but still flawed party.
We need a sane opposition. We need it for the betterment of the country. If the Republicans move further and further into the fringe, we’re honestly screwed as a nation unless we can somehow foster a viable and legitimate 3rd party.
October 8th, 2008 at 8:34 pm
Ted: I think I misunderstood this at first. I.e., it wasn’t about driving the Republicans further to the right on e.g. economic policy, but about the temptation to double down on Atwateresque smear tactics instead of discussing policy at all.
You may be right. A slew of previous southern politicians got where they are based on nigger-calling campaigns, and today a good many voters are still too uninformed to know when they’re being snowed.
October 8th, 2008 at 8:37 pm
I think the only question unresolved about Palin
> now is if she will come in fourth or fifth in
> the 2012 New Hampshire Primary.
The problem being that after Rove’s team of works-gumming lawyers pulls out of Alaska November 5th Palin will be looking at indictment and/or impeachment on no less that three different fronts. Without Rove and Cheney around to intimidate witnesses and the press she will be on her own and under fire. And she doesn’t realize that.
Cranky
October 8th, 2008 at 8:41 pm
If Matt thinks Obama is going to “avoid major foreign policy disasters”, I have an AI called Skynet I want to sell him – cheap.
How is Obama going to do that when he intends to “double down” in both Afghanistan and Pakistan, and has no fucking clue what Iran is about?
This paper presents Cato Institute analyst Justin Logan’s analysis of the foreign policies of McCain and Obama – and concludes, as I do, that McCain would be a disaster – but Obama has a lot of problems in his foreign policy which Obama does not acknowledge.
Warning: PDF download link.
Two Kinds of Change: Comparing the Candidates on Foreign Policy
http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-623.pdf
I don’t think you can be as dumb as Matt is without having a degree in philosophy from Harvard.
October 8th, 2008 at 8:55 pm
I think we’re likely to see a split in the Republican party, both ideological and regional.
The crazy ultra-right wing crap may dominated the Republican Party of the South and West, but there are going to be a hell of a lot of conservatives in the North and Midwest who are sick of their party being run by a bunch of ultra-right redneck dumbasses.
I think it’s just as likely that we’ll see Republicans in the North, Midwest, and Pacific Northwest — much like we’ve seen late in this general election campaign — go back to being ‘liberal’ Republican, pro-Business, social moderates like they were for much of history.
Simultaneously you may have pockets or swathes of the Republican Party going even more nutbag crazy rightist, the Palindrones, in the South and West.
October 8th, 2008 at 9:17 pm
Prolonged hard economic times can, as they did in Germany once, provide fertile ground for hard-right demagoguery. Bitter memories of military defeat and a related desire that our inherent national greatness to be actively affirmed are other volatile ingredients.
American culture today, as we have observed over recent years, includes a significant element inclined to be authoritarian foot soldiers and also a large majority inclined to sit idly by as our foundation principles are twisted and undermined.
It may take a few years to ferment, but I think the makings of serious trouble are present.
October 8th, 2008 at 9:31 pm
I think future historians will look back at how non-plussed Americans were at the discovery that they’d been snookered into war as the beginning of the end. Republicans thereafter would repeatedly do 180 degree about faces at the drop of a hat. There was nothing they wouldn’t accept. Things that they’d rejected loudly became, once the word came down, instant brand new doctrine. Plastic isn’t as plastic as Republican beliefs.
October 8th, 2008 at 9:44 pm
But you also mention that it is a rich state. The economy is good, the schools are well better than average for the nation, the population dukes it out every year with Connecticut for the top spot on “most educated state” lists, the public transportation system is among the best of in the nation, etc. Also, when I lived in Massachusetts, we had four straight Republican governors, two of whom, Celucci and Weld, were moderate and popular.
October 8th, 2008 at 9:47 pm
Asked why conservatives hated him so much, Bill Clinton always used to say, “Because I won.” Well just wait. Bitter, irrational, unhinged Obama hatred is going to make Clinton bashing look like a sleepover.
October 8th, 2008 at 9:50 pm
dg, you’re right that hard times provide fertile ground for demagoguery, and that there’s a significant number of people in the country who are inclined to be authoritarian foot soldiers. It’s just that you’ve missed that these are descriptions of the Obama movement.
Tyro, I’m wondering if you remember 1982. The recession made Reagan deeply unpopular, and though the Republicans held the Senate they ended up with just 166 seats in the House. By 1984 Reagan easily won re-election. But that was with a recession that was long over, and a sharp decline in interest rates and in unemployment. If the recession continued, or if a period of slow recovery were underway, would he have been reelected? I don’t think so. And many analysts–of all sorts of different politics–think we face a recession deeper and more prolonged than the one Reagan had early in his term. Unemployment is at 6.1% now, but could easily be twice that this time next year. All the rhetoric in the world–beautiful stuff, really–won’t be able to overcome that. And Obama’s policies will, in my view, be counterproductive. Trade barriers, increased regulatory burdens, higher taxes on income and capital–the effects of these policies aren’t hard to predict.
October 8th, 2008 at 9:50 pm
Aatos, you’re right! And the campaign the two sides are running is setting the stage perfectly!
October 8th, 2008 at 9:57 pm
I just checked, and I definitely wrote “authoritarian”. Maybe you thought I said ‘humanitarian’ or something?
October 8th, 2008 at 10:01 pm
Remember, the base of Clinton hatred was the people (and their descendants) who were on the wrong side of the 101st Airborn at Little Rock High School.
October 8th, 2008 at 10:31 pm
The worrying thing is that the state of the world may be so bad by the end of this year that the Democratic government is doomed to failure. Or at least, to have its work so cut out for it just patching things back together that they aren’t able to make progress on the agenda Obama set forth in the spring, enabling whomever runs against him in 2012 to say he didn’t fulfill his promise.
Obama needs to really have control of the Democratic Party come January. As in, the President seeks input from Congress, formulates an agenda, and then there is no dissent. Congress writes and votes on bills to the agreed description, without tagging on a bunch of bullshit, and we move from issue to issue. 1) Credit markets, 2) Timetable for Iraq withdrawal, 3) Homeowners, 4) Healthcare, 5) Energy, 6) Infrastructure. All of this in Obama’s first 6 months in office and all moving in the same direction toward a set of specific metrics to be achieved by 2012.
That’s the only way this works.
October 8th, 2008 at 10:32 pm
But you also mention that it is a rich state. The economy is good, the schools are well better than average for the nation, the population dukes it out every year with Connecticut for the top spot on “most educated state” lists, the public transportation system is among the best of in the nation, etc. Also, when I lived in Massachusetts, we had four straight Republican governors, two of whom, Celucci and Weld, were moderate and popular.
All those things are indeed true. However, that wealth is primarily concentrated in Boston, which in my view distorts the overall picture somewhat. (Like how the wealth of downstate NY partially masks the fact that upstate NY is mostly Appalachia with a heaping of Rust Belt)
Central and Western MA have pretty anemic economies and some of the worst ghettoes in the Northeast (Springfield, Holyoke, Worcester). The population is very literate and educated, but many of those are academic transplants from all over the world. There’s lots of great private colleges, but public higher education is severely underfunded. The RMV and the auto insurance system are the exact type of convoluted bullshit that make people hate government.
The cost of housing makes it nearly impossible for middle class people to buy a home inside I-495, and even further west even piece of shit Cape Cods have obscene asking prices. Also, the infrastruture fucking sucks. I can’t speak for Boston’s public transit, but I’ve never lived anywhere that makes it as difficult to drive even short distances than MA.
Apologies for the rant- my larger point is that lack of political competition (BTW-point taken about the governors, but nearly the entire state legislature and Congressional delegation are Dem) ossifies institutions and make necessary and obvious reforms nearly impossible. I’m sure others can speak of the same problem in red states- they have my deepest sympathies.
October 8th, 2008 at 10:34 pm
dg, I was going to point you to some of the videos of Obama’s supporters, but instead I’ll just point you to TH’s comment (#69).
October 8th, 2008 at 10:46 pm
Re Richard Steven Hack
I don’t think you can be as dumb as Matt is without having a degree in philosophy from Harvard.
Mr. Yglesias may not be the sharpest tool in the toolkit but at least so far he has been smart enough to stay out of the slammer, unlike Mr. Hack who spent 9 years in Leavenworth for bank robbery. Only dumb asses get sent to the slammer. Mr. Hack should realize that people living in glass houses should avoid throwing rocks.
October 8th, 2008 at 11:00 pm
What about 1932, John?
October 8th, 2008 at 11:06 pm
Thomas, your statements are completely delusion. Tt is a mark of the nature of Republican lemmings right now that they claim that a continuation of their mistaken policies is the solution to the predicament we find ourselves in. The country bent over backwards to enact every economic religious belief that Republicans have, and it created a fiasco. I think it is pretty fair to say that turning away from this misguided policies and mindsets is probably the best strategy at the moment. Yes, in two years, things might be tough, but when we get out of this, Republican economic policies of the sort you advocate will be tossed into the dustbin of history. Statements like yours are simply the last throes of a failed ideology.
October 8th, 2008 at 11:10 pm
Republicans become dirtier will be bad for America, unless enough independents and Republicans, come to understand that the GOP deserves extinction as much as the Communist Party did.
We need a new 2nd party.
October 8th, 2008 at 11:14 pm
Tyro, I know you believe everything your dear leader tells you, but that doesn’t make it true. All this talk of “deregulation” is a crock. Wall Street hasn’t been deregulated, it’s been regulated like never before. That’s why so much of the action is in London and elsewhere. The financial crisis wasn’t caused by Republican ideas or policies–regulatory or fiscal or otherwise. To the extent that a party is responsible, it’s the Democrats, with their mindless support for Fannie and Freddie.
October 8th, 2008 at 11:21 pm
The further to the right the gop goes, the further to the right the Dems will go. afterall, the left will have nowher else to go. by moving to the right the dems will pick up more centrist and center right folks.
October 9th, 2008 at 12:01 am
So “mindless support for Fannie and Freddie” brought down the whole house of cards?
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
October 9th, 2008 at 12:17 am
Thomas: explain the mechanism whereby Fannie and Freddie where causal in this collapse, please. From where I’m sitting, shortcomings seem to have been regulations that permitted 33:1 leverage ratios, bundling assets in such a fashion as to be essentially indecipherable on the balance sheet, and relying so relying on reinsured mortgage debt to such a degree that everything had to crash if housing prices started to fall?
How much authority, and for what period of time does one reasonably need to grant the Republicans before they’re willing to own the failures of their ideology? How big a disaster would have to happen on their watch before you would begin to conclude that, like communism, it does not work in the real world the way it does in theory?
October 9th, 2008 at 12:58 am
Tyro, I know you believe everything your dear leader tells you, but that doesn’t make it true. All this talk of “deregulation” is a crock.
No shit? Can you define a credit default swap for me and tell me what the regulations are on it holding them down? I couldn’t do that two weeks ago. I can now! This goes way beyond a blog comment, but my guess is you have *no* idea what created an actual credit seize (not a crunch), and why you just whistled past the graveyard of the end of modern capitalism. If you do have any idea what any of this means and you feel like telling me about deregulation, come back and do this because I haven’t found anyone literate and who has any idea what they are talking about who still wants to talk this line.
October 9th, 2008 at 1:46 am
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AK7gI5lMB7
It is only by faith that we can understand the glory of the unregulated market. Surrender to Supply Side Jesus. It is the way. It is the only way. (All other ways are a communist plot.) And Democrats hath brought down the wrath of the market with their mindless support of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae.
October 9th, 2008 at 1:47 am
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AK7gI5lMB7M
OOPS. Accidentally dropped a letter from the address. This should work.
October 9th, 2008 at 2:23 am
I’ll never get tired of the RSH vs. SLC battles that follow Matt from blog to blog.
October 9th, 2008 at 5:50 am
I think Sarah Palin is detroying here future career by her stump acting-out.
She does not need Republicans to vote for her; she is alienating Democrats and moderates who might look at her long term.
Think Dick Cheney or Newt Gingrich, not Ronald Reagan or George W. Bush.
October 9th, 2008 at 6:35 am
McCain refers to his supporters as My fellow prisoners! Is anyone worried about PTSD and how it apparently has affected this poor dude?
October 9th, 2008 at 6:43 am
I admire the right wing’s dumb as a post but 100% committed energy on trying to pin the sub-prime disaster, directly stemming from Phil Gramm’s December 2000 Commodity Futures Modernization Act, on them awful gubmit institutions Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
Nobody hates America and good government like Republicans. They won’t rest until they rip every last shred of our decent society apart. We all knew how much the Republicans and the right generally hated the Constitution, and in particular their fetish for ultra-hating the Bill of Rights — but not as many knew how much they hated things like our systems of banking, too.
Yet, every time we let the Republicans in power, we lose an entire branch of our banking system.
Herbert Hoover — bank crash, Great Depression. Ronald Reagan — savings & loans gone. George W. Bush Jr. — collapse of the Phil Gramm deregulated subprime and credit default swap market, the end of investment banks.
And even if they were to dwindle down to a few bitter revanchists with 2 or 3 seats in the House and maybe a Senator, they’ll still be out there yelling 30 years from now that ‘It was Jimmy Carter & the Libruls what caused the Great Crash of ‘08 I tell ya, it were!’
No one will believe them, but that won’t stop them from screaming it to eternity.
October 9th, 2008 at 6:44 am
Another possibility: The GOP learns nothing and forgets nothing and emerges from this election largely unchanged. They will be able to console themselves with the thought that this was a hard election to win, that they were victims of circumstances beyond their control (ignoring the fact that those circumstances were largely of their own making). At most they hang out a sign saying “No Bushes Need Apply” and in the future they are more careful not to nominate complete idiots. The GOP of the 1930s and 1940s was pretty much the GOP of the 1920s (but a whole lot less popular) until Ike gave them new direction. I see no reason why the GOP *must* change this time.
October 9th, 2008 at 6:47 am
#85: I dunno – there are times when I’m feeling like the prisoner of a bad political thriller.
October 9th, 2008 at 7:54 am
JonF — you’re probably right, but what you’re saying isn’t really inconsistent with Matt’s post, or with the Drum post Matt is citing.
A lot of people on this thread have interpreted it as a chance to argue about who the Republicans will nominate. But Drum’s original post is mostly about anticipating the resentments of the Republican base.
I agree with you that the party’s platform, candidates, and strategy are unlikely to change very quickly. But I also agree with Kevin Drum that this election is likely to alienate the right-wing base from the more establishment/centrist parts of the GOP.
October 9th, 2008 at 7:12 pm
October 9th, 2008 at 7:15 pm
Palin and her husband belong to an ANTI-AMERICAN group that thinks Alaska should not be part of the USA. They spout off about Alaskans not having to follow the same laws as the rest of us. Vermont ranks #1 as the smartest state, while Alaska ranks #46. Palin does not care about education kids. Palin left Wasilla AK in debt and in a legal battle. Problem for McGrampy is, he picked her.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBzpCQy7Giw
October 14th, 2008 at 4:23 pm
#22 rapier: Where did you go to school that you were not taught “marshal” and “martial?”
Martial law, the law administered by the military power of a government when it has superseded the civil authority in time of war, or when the civil authorities are unable to enforce the laws. It is distinguished from military law, the latter being the code of rules for the regulation of the army and navy alone, either in peace or in war.
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