A Second Hand Conjecture

2012 could be an interesting year for GOP presidential candidates if it features both Mark Sanford and Gary Johnson. This, along with the tea party movements, seems to be an outgrowth of the Ron Paul candidacy, perhaps similar to what happened to the Democrats after the Dean candidacy.

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With Obama tapping Ken Salazar for the Interior Department, rumor has it conservative John Elway may step forward to run for his Senate seat in Colorado. This rumor –similar to one for Mike Ditka in Illinois– has come and gone before. This time however, the tectonically altered political environment makes it more credible. Party political defeats don’t tend to alienate good new candidates, but draw them in, as the rapid transformation of the Democratic Party between 2004, 2006 and 2008 demonstrates.

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If you care any about the future of the Republican party and conservatism in general, you need to be reading The Next Right.

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Rasmussen reports today that Sarah Palin is the choice of 64% of Republicans for the 2012 Republican nomination, and that a staggering 91% of Republicans have a favorable impression of her (equally remarkable, 65% rate their view as ‘highly favorable’).

It’s perhaps unnecessary to mention that there is no figure of comparable popular prestige left standing in the Republican party. Assuming she puts to rest lingering concerns among the Republican commentariat about her knowledge of foreign affairs, she’s in a remarkably similar political position to Ronald Reagan in 1976…standing as she is, alone among the wreckage of the GOP. And in 2012, the conservative grassroots sentiment will likely be quite similar to 1980, when no one in the GOP was eager to give the establishment favored candidates of George H.W. Bush or Howard Baker another chance, after the painful defeat of their previous hero, Gerald Ford.

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This is good. This is great. This is not. John Boehner has presided over nothing but Republican defeats, why not keep him around eh? If you’ve had enough House GOP, you might notice someone of quality was reelected.

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Had the radio on driving to get coffee. Rush Limbaugh was denouncing sexism and patriarchal privilege. McCain ad comes on pitching expanding embryonic stem cell research. Boy, haven’t things changed in the Republican party? For the better, says me.

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Way back in February 2007, when I was still writing for postpolitical, an obscure little blog popped up pitching Sarah Palin for the Vice Presidency. At the time few were that familiar with Sarah’s record or wise enough to predict its national electoral implications. Yet despite the novelty of the idea, I thought then and since that it was an inspired choice. I’ve since journeyed further toward that prescient blog’s recommendation and concluded it was the only choice. Thus it’s fun to finally see Draft Sarah Palin for Vice President reveling justifiably in the moment.

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Approval ratings for recent presidents at the end of their final terms. Bush will presumably end somewhere in Carter’s 1980 territory.

(About.com)

Lest that depress McCain supporters, such measures can of course be highly misleading in predicting general election outcomes for their successors. Nixon’s 1968 victory was a damned near run thing, and despite the lingering unpopularity of Nixon in 1976, and a generally toxic atmosphere for the GOP in general, it should be remembered that Ford nearly beat Carter (popular vote: 50.1 to 48%, electoral college 297 to 240). Of all these presidents’ personal histories, political philosophies, personalities and general images, McCain and Ford’s are probably most similar. Right down to being Naval war heroes.

Speaking of which, if you’ve never read the story of how a young Lt. j.g. Gerald Ford saved the ship one night in the Pacific, it’s worth a moment to do so.

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(photo: WBEZ Chicago Public Radio | site)

Obama’s newish McSame style attack ad mocking McCain’s “original maverick” slogan is fairly good. As Ken Wheaton notes, all the time McCain had to spend trying to convince the GOP he was a loyal Republican, unfortunately produced a lot of pro-Bush statements on videotape. Also, I like the Rovian touch of attacking McCain’s strength: experience.

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Rumors have it that Bobby Jindal will deliver the keynote address at the RNCC. Shlok Vaidya thinks the GOP intends to position Jindal for 2012, the way the Democrats managed Obama in 2004. Interesting and possible, although such things are rarely that well-planned. The Democratic view in 2004 wasn’t to position Obama for a White House run, but to lend a rather tired and morose candidate named John Kerry some youthful optimism and vigor. Come to think of it, not so different for the Republicans in 2008 after all, is it?

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Every good smear deserves a plea to stop the smearer and the dirty apes who support them…

One does have to wonder why the New Yawk Times would first endorse a candidate, and then publish what I would assume was to them, a scandalous article about that very candidate. One hand not knowing what the other is doing? Or perhaps, it’s just plain partisan politics on the part of the paper?

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Michael Goldfarb denounced Rush Limbaugh and other conservatives as “disgraceful” today, for their open criticism of John McCain’s record and views. He labels it the result of a psychological condition he and other McCain apologists call “McCain Derangement Syndrome”:

I understand that some conservatives are uneasy about a McCain nomination, that he isn’t their first choice to carry the party’s standard. But there’s something truly unhinged–and at times spectacularly disgraceful–about the response of some on the right to this increasingly likely prospect.
(The Weekly Standard)

I can only echo his editor, Bill Kristol, who after Bush’s hopelessly misguided selection of Harriet Miers for the Supreme Court, lamented: “And what elected officials will step forward to begin to lay the groundwork for conservative leadership after Bush?” Apparently no one, since John McCain will be the non-conservative nominee of the Republican party. Far from the silent acquiescence Michael advises, I wish there was as much public indignation and outrage now as there was then. Were there, perhaps we wouldn’t have this problem to begin with.

I would also remind those McCain defenders who are urging a tactical silence for political purposes, that deep conservative opposition to McCain was not a secret until Rush Limbaugh weighed in on the subject last week. The Democratic opposition was not under the impression that conservatives loved the man, and it would not have been possible to conceal a lengthy history of dissent against him within the party. Nor is the current criticism being leveled against him (that he is not conservative), anything the Democrats could possibly use to their advantage, as they’re even less so.

I might also ask more generally, how it is somehow acceptable to urge conservatives to forfeit their views, but not to demand that the candidate they are supposed to elect to represent them, forfeit his own instead? We do not represent John McCain, he wishes to represent us. If he doesn’t represent us, then we should say so. For silence is the one thing no representative democracy can tolerate or long survive.

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I’m disappointed with the emerging results in the GOP primaries too (the Nightmare Ticket is near), but I’m actually starting to worry about Mr. Hewitt: “McCain can’t be considered a frontrunner by any conventional standard.” Except in polls, wins, and delegates of course.

H/T: Cadillac Tight

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Further conservative consolidation behind Mr. Slick. My friend the Huckabeeist has given in with an endorsement of Mitt Romney.

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Social conservatives and particularly crypto-socialist social conservatives (or “populists” if you prefer), are inevitably going to be a minority faction within the GOP. But to their great credit they themselves recognize this. The implications of that self-awareness are dire for Huckabee however.

Because their interests and perspectives are in many ways peculiar to themselves within the party, historically they’ve always been sensitive to their permanent political vulnerability. Thereby there is a tendency among social conservative voters to desert their insurgent leaders at the first sign of weaknesses (ala Pat Robertson, 1988). Weaknesses which could conceivably imperil their leveraged influence with the eventual broader party nominee and his regime.

As Mick Stockinger at Uncorrelated points out, these odd men out have smelled weakness on Huckabee and must soon begin their desertion from him to the establishment, in order to preserve influence. That’s because what the social conservatives are staring at now, is the prospect of being rendered completely irrelevant for the first time since perhaps 1976. Having supported the overthrow of the prevailing order in the Republican party by an extremist champion with a radical and unpopular agenda, only to watch him fail to seize control of the party, the coup plotters will soon be looking for ways to make themselves indispensable again.

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The Huckabee campaign staff is bitter and suspicious (as usual). They’re blaming Fred Thompson’s 16% showing in South Carolina for ruining their efforts to flood the vote with a social-conservative surge.

The surge was nevertheless impressive when it came, in both its quantity and in its fantastically unrepresentative uniformity. Fully 83 percent of Huckabee’s voters were evangelicals and that was good for 128,000+ votes. But what was most impressive is that despite this, he didn’t win an absolute majority of the evangelical vote. Instead 27% voted McCain. The worst thing that happened to the Huckabee campaign was not Fred Thompson, but the fact that so many social conservatives had apparently come to their senses.

It now looks like the promised clerical takeover of the GOP has foundered for good. Huckabee’s message of social justice married with religious extremism will find even less of a perch among the libertarian political attitudes that dominate Florida opinion. And if Thompson does indeed plan to continue in his campaign in Florida, that would completely seal the fate of Huckabee ahead of Super Tuesday, a contest the good pastor has neither the resources nor the broader market appeal to succeed in if he’s anything short of the frontrunner.

Now if we can just prevent that Huckabee for Veep nod somehow.

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Huckabee the liberation theologist is now tied with McCain in Rasmussen’s latest poll at 24%. One would hope for South Carolinians to regain their senses prior to the vote, but it doesn’t look good.

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Some people are very happy about the Michigan results: media firms. As Ken Wheaton  points out in Advertising Age, with there still being no clear frontrunner for the GOP nom, spending on advertising is about to go through the roof.

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Here’s some splendid news for those of us not delighted by the prospect of a liberation theologist takeover of the Republican Party. Rasmussen is reporting their new South Carolina numbers and Mike Huckabee has lost five points and Fred Thompson gained four since last week. Thompson now stands at 16%, Huckabee at 19%, with McCain reaping the rewards at 28%.

If Huckabee can be stopped in South Carolina, it’s quite probable that will be the end of him. Until of course John McCain’s advisers convince him to name Huckabee as his Vice Presidential nominee in order to appease the soc-con voting bloc (traditionally his strongest adversaries within the party).

Indeed, my friend Jason over at postpolitical (who is an ardent Huckabee supporter) is holding out hope for McCain to win the nomination if Huckabee fails, for precisely this eventuality. Even the slimmest chance of getting Huckabee anywhere near the levers of power is apparently enormously important to his supporters. But is it as important to his opponents to prevent that? It should be.

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