Jonathan Alter writing in Newsweek:
“You never want a serious crisis to go to waste,” Rahm Emanuel famously said in 2008. The same goes for a shooting spree that gravely wounds a beloved congresswoman.
This is noted just in case anyone thought Politico’s advice that Obama should use the tragedy to his advantage was just an isolated case. Nope, on the left such outrageous cynicism is pretty well standard.
Herman Cain will be the keynote speaker at the Kansas Chamber’s annual meeting on February 1, 2011. This is one of the largest meeting of business leaders and political leaders in Kansas, so it’ll provide a big opportunity for Cain to reach out to these business leaders.
Cain also wrote an editorial at the Daily Caller entitled, “In Defense of Trickle-Down Economics.” Here’s an excerpt from the article:
Imagine what would have happened to the economy if Congress had extended the tax rates permanently instead of for just two years. Imagine what would have happened if the payroll tax holiday had been for a year for the employee and the employer, and for the full 12.4 percent Social Security portion.
Imagine if the Democrat-controlled Congress had lost its collective mind and actually reduced the top corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 25 percent. Imagine no taxes on repatriated profits that companies are going to just leave in other countries anyway to avoid double taxation. Imagine a capital gains tax rate of zero!
Imagine an economy so robust that everyone who wanted to work could find a job, and some people could even find a new career, or start a business.
You can say I’m a dreamer, but that’s the way I am.
When former President Reagan signed sweeping tax cut legislation in the 1980’s, total tax revenue increased by 99.4 percent. Even though the tax cuts were working, the Democrats continued to say they were not working, and that “trickle-down economics” only benefited the rich. What a familiar tune even today!
Cain is making a lot of the right moves for a lesser known candidate trying to get his name out there. Time will tell if his potential campaign takes that next step.
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Some news on the race for the new RNC Chairman/woman:
Maria Cino Now Eligible
Maria Cino just received her eleventh public endorsement this afternoon. More importantly, with this endorsement, she is now officially eligible to appear on the ballot. (Remember, to be eligible, a candidate must receive at least two endorsements from three different states, for six endorsements total. This is Cino’s second endorsement from Utah to match her two from Delaware and Ohio.)
Saul Anuzis Last Remaining Ineligible Candidate
As of this writing, Saul Anuzis is the last candidate remaining ineligible for the ballot. He has two endorsements from Texas and South Carolina, but only one each from ten other states. (As an RNC member, his own vote counts as one endorsement from Michigan, but he has failed to gain the support of either of the other two members from his home state.)
Major Donors Say “Anybody But Steele”
The bad news continues to mount for Chairman Steele. Late last week, six “major donors” to the RNC – including five former RNC finance chairs – signed an “anyone but Steele” letter and submitted it to the RNC. They accused Steele, among other things, of ignoring major donors, frivolously spending money, and pointed out “the amount collected by the RNC from our major donor programs has dropped to less than 25% of what the major donor programs raised during the previous comparable time period.” Ouch.
Steele Commits to Never Take His Name Off the Ballot
Despite all this, Steele has committed to never dropping out of the race on Friday. Remember, there are no rules forcing a candidate to drop out in between ballots, but most candidates do once they see the handwriting on the wall. That will apparently not be Steele, as his spokeswoman says, “He’s going to do every ballot until he wins.”
Anuzis Endorsed National Popular Vote Proposal
Saul Anuzis is taking fire from some of his opponents’ supporters based on his endorsement of a National Popular Vote proposal which would essentially award the Presidency to whomever won the national popular vote (once enough states passed the legislation). Anuzis is defending himself by committing not to use his position as RNC Chair to push for a change in electoral vote laws. The attack began from a committeewoman from Alaska, who pointed out that Anuzis sided with the Alaska Democratic Party over the Alaska GOP in supporting the popular vote plan.
Priebus’ Fundraising Numbers Come Under Scrutiny
Reince Priebus is also coming under attack for a claim that one of his supporters — Henry Barbour, nephew of Haley Barbour — made in an email over the weekend. Priebus’ team claims that he raised $14 million in “personal contributions” for the Wisconsin GOP; however, some RNC members are calling that into question by pointing out that a whopping $9 million of that came in transfers… from the RNC. Where Priebus was serving as General Counsel under Michael Steele.
Non-RNC Member Endorsement Watch
Haley and Priebus Connections Investigated
Finally, there has been much ado about Haley Barbour’s involvement in Reince Priebus’ campaign. Ben Smith at Politico points out that despite Priebus’ “vigorous denials” to the contrary, Haley and Henry Barbour are continuing to provide support for Priebus’ campaign and are defending his record in emails to RNC committee members.
Folks, if you ever wondered how Presidents used to be chosen back in the days of conventions with closed-door, back room deals, here’s your chance to observe it first hand. This is really starting to get interesting, and it will only get more so as the week goes on.
It seems to me that if someone as close to the Bush inner circle as Mark McKinnon is referring to Jeb as “45,” there’s a good chance that the GOP may see yet another Bush presidential run as early as 2016:
The first governor ever re-elected in Florida’s history, Jeb focused intensely on reform of education, the budget process, civil service, and health care. These are issues that need to be addressed on the national level. He appeals to the establishment and the Tea Party movement. He was an early backer of Marco Rubio, interestingly against the GOP establishment. And almost universally favored among Republicans in the all-important electoral state of Florida, he also has crossover appeal among Democrats and independents.
Jeb, really John Ellis Bush, is an innovative thinker and genial reformer. And he opens the GOP Big Tent wide. As an exchange student teaching in Mexico, where he met his future wife, Bush gained fluency in Spanish. His support among Hispanics is strong; he won the majority of the Florida Latino vote in 1998 and 2002. He has publicly disagreed with Arizona’s contested immigration law, and he now serves as co-chair of the new Hispanic Leadership Network, a Republican effort to attract Hispanic voter support.
While 41 was gentle, 43 tough, Jeb, or “45,” as he someday may be called, is smart.
As of January, 2011, the idea that another Bush will ever be a major party presidential nominee, let alone win the presidency, seems crazy. But it probably seemed equally daffy in January, 1963, to suggest that of the next three GOP presidential tickets, two would be headed by a fellow named Nixon.
Of course, a Jeb ’16 presidential run could have the same fate as the supposedly inevitable freight train of Hillary ’08, who for years was assumed to be the Democratic nominee-in-waiting and who was bested at the last minute by a first-term senator from Illinois. It’s possible that the country has had enough of both the Clintons and the Bushes and would refuse to open the doors of the White House to either family going forward. But it’s also possible that, under the right conditions, the highly effective former Florida governor could redeem his surname. If Obama gets elected to a second term, the country will be highly unlikely to opt for three consecutive terms of liberal governance, even if the only alternative is a GOP nominee named Bush.
This also assumes that Jeb can win his party’s nomination, the politics of which will prove to be interesting at best. If Obama is re-elected, the GOP bench for 2016 will run deep. But the party’s foremost superstar, Sen. Marco Rubio, would probably defer to Jeb in such an endeavor. That would pit Jeb against other potentially effective GOP governors, such as Ohio’s John Kasich and Louisiana’s Bobby Jindal. At that point, we will see whether the GOP Law of Primogeniture really does hold up.
I also wonder whether the GOP’s choice of a nominee in 2012 would impact Jeb’s prospects. A successful nominee, of course, would pretty much end Mr. Bush’s presidential chances. But if Obama does squeak by in 2012, the nominee will get the blame. If President Obama were to best, say, Mitt Romney in 2012, Republicans might decide that presidential nominees who are temperate in tone such as McCain and Romney are sure losers, and that would hurt Jeb’s chances, given his policy wonk demeanor and his attempt to soften the party’s image and reach out to Hispanics. A failed Palin or Bachmann run, though, might pull Republicans back in the direction of someone whose rhetoric is policy-oriented and sober rather than ideological and fiery. That would help Mr. Bush should he choose to try and go to Washington in 2016.
Romney easily won the Nevada 2008 caucus. According to PPP, he is on track for doing the same thing in 2012:
| If the Candidates were Obama and ****, who would you vote for? | Obama | Not Obama | Undecided | Margin over Obama |
| Newt Gingrich | 51 | 40 | 9 | -11 |
| Mike Huckabee | 51 | 41 | 8 | -10 |
| Sarah Palin | 52 | 39 | 9 | -13 |
| Mitt Romney | 47 | 46 | 7 | -1 |
At this point, the early states are shaping up to be all Mike and Mitt. Mike leads in Iowa and SC, though his margins in both states are just a few percentage points. Mitt leads in NH and NV by double digits or close to it. I do not see an opening at this time for anyone else unless they can take one of these guys out in either Iowa or New Hampshire. If Mike takes IA and Mitt takes NH, I cannot see at this point where anybody else has a prayer of winning the nomination.
***Update****
Sorry about the post of an old poll. I thought it was released Today, not last Friday. My bad for not looking closer at the date on the Poll.
Remember that Mid-East trip Romney is taking this week? It turns out that he is not making the trip alone. He is taking ex-GOP Senator Jim Talent with him.
WASHINGTON — Jim Talent has not said whether he’ll take the political path again but he’s traveling widely as an ex-senator on a weeklong trip to the Middle East with Mitt Romney.
Talent’s office confirmed this morning that he is accompanying Romney on a trip that will take them to Afghanistan, Israel, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates. They arrived in Afghanistan on Sunday.
~snip~
Talent, a St. Louis County Republican who lost his Senate seat to Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., in 2006, was an adviser to Romney in 2008 on defense and foreign policy matters. Talent is believed to be considering another campaign against McCaskill, who is up for re-election in 2012.
A high profile trip with one of the GOP’s stars certainly won’t hurt Talent’s chances at reclaiming his seat in 2012.
Whatever you might say about Mitt Romney, you cannot deny that he is one of the hardest workers of any of our 2012 hopefuls for building up the party. He could have easily hogged the spotlight on this Mid-East trip, yet here is he sharing the limelight with one of our potential 2012 Senate hopefuls. Good for him.
Marco Rubio has flatly said that he does not want to be the Vice Presidential or Presidential candidate in 2012. How definitively? He said:
No, and I don’t spend any time thinking about it…I’m flattered that people would ask that question, because I think they mean it in a complimentary way. But, by the same token, I recognize that this job — this one job that I wanted, I wanted to be a U.S. senator, not a vice presidential candidate, not a presidential candidate…I didn’t run to use it as a stepping stone, I ran to because I wanted to be a U.S. senator…I’m not going to be able to do this job well unless I’m 100 percent committed to it…And even with 100 percent of my focus on it, it’s going to be a tough job. So I can’t afford any distractions, or any of these other things.
That’s a fairly Shermanesque statement and makes me think he’s serious. Which is good – he ran to be a US Senator and I’m glad he plans to serve the people of Florida.
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Neighborhood Research (R) Iowa 2012 GOP Caucus Survey
- Mike Huckabee 24%
- Mitt Romney 19%
- Sarah Palin 11%
- Newt Gingrich 8%
- Tim Pawlenty 4%
- Ron Paul 3%
- Michele Bachmann 2%
- Mike Pence 1%
- Haley Barbour 1%
- John Thune 0%
- Rick Santorum 0%
- Herman Cain 0%
- Gary Johnson 0%
- Undecided 27%
Gallup 2012 Republican Candidate Image Survey:
These results are based on a Gallup poll conducted Jan. 4-5 among 923 Republicans and Republican-leaning independents. Gallup’s net favorable measure is based on the difference between strongly favorable opinions and strongly unfavorable opinions, calculated only among the group of respondents who recognize each candidate.
Almost nothing in politics goes in a straight line up or down. President Obama’s recent political fortunes have tended, over a year, to be heading gradually down in a fairly straight line, culminating with the November mid-term elections which his party decisively lost, much of the reason for this being Mr. Obama’s performance in office during the first two years of his term.
The election resulted in a dramatic loss of the Democratic Party’s control of the U.S. House of Representatives, and siginificant losses in the U.S. Senate where the Republican party, still in the minority, can now block, using the senate’s 60-vote rule for cloture, almost any major legislation from the Obama White House.
Following the election, Mr. Obama was seemingly slow to acknowledge the setback to his party (and thus, to him), but finally an acknowledgment came, and with it a compromise to continue the so-called “Bush tax cuts” accompanied by a temporary extension of unemployment benefits. Many on the right and the left subsequently proclaimed that the president was now shifting to the political center, and that he had recovered his political standing. This assertion has been supported by some recent polls showing that his poll numbers are making a slow rise after long falling into the low 40’s (and even a few in the high 30’s).
At the same time, President Obama has made notable changes in his personal entourage, including a new chief of staff and press secretary, as well as among his economic advisors. None of these changes, so far, have been particularly controversial; in fact, most (such as the appointment of Bill Daley as chief of staff) have further reinforced the notion that the Obama administration is re-tilting to the center.
Simultaneously, a strong Republican and conservative majority has taken over the U.S. house of representatives, with an impressive new leadership of John Boehner as speaker and Eric Cantor as majority leader. Behind them is a huge freshman class of new members of Congress who are flush from election victories across the nation that clearly signaled the voters’ desire for change from the Obama legislative agenda and priorities. In the U.S. senate, Republicans made significant gains, and now have a comfortable cushion to field the minimum of 41 votes to block the Democratic majority on virtually any issue. Furthermore, surviving Democatic house and senate incumbents who must face the voters in less than two years have already seen what would likely happen if they followed the Democratic leadership and the president in voting for legislation that is too radical and unpopular. At least six Democratic senators and several more members of the house who are considered “moderate” or “centrist” have already signaled they may vote with the GOP on several critical bills. Clearly, the momentum has shifted to the Republican side of the aisle.
To top it all off, one of the most reliably perceptive conservative commentators, Dr. Charles Krauthammer, has asserted that Barack Obama is “back.”
So it would seem that the argument that President Obama is now adopting Clintonian centrism, and is back on track for his re-election is iron-clad.
As a constant admirer of Dr. Krauthammer and other conservatives now suggesting a pivotal reversal, at least in public perception, has taken place for President Obama, I want to raise a note of caution. (No less than the prescient Tony Blankley has preceded me in suggesting that Dr. Krauthammer has possibly gone too far, and has questioned that some profound change change in the political soul of Barack Obama has occurred.)
I think all the juries remain out on the next course of U.S. politics, especially as we head into the next presidential election. My observations of Barack Obama, before and after he assumed the presidency, tell me that no critical change has yet taken place, and that what we are seeing now is a rearrangement of appearances, all designed to enhance his re-election, but at the lowest possible cost. Yes, he is more skillful than former speaker Nancy Pelosi, whose ludicrous performance in the ceremonial handing over the gavel to Mr. Boehner, indicated the compulsive and self-delusional attitude of the old Democratic leadership in its stubborn extremity. These are politicians who believe their own self-congratulatory press releases.
Mr. Obama may yet transform himself and his agenda to the political center, and he may yet recover some of his public and strategic momentum. The economy may recover as a result (ironically) of conservative policies, and events in the world may yet turn in the favor of the U.S., but that is a lot of maybes. It was inevitable, I suggest, that following the election and his compromise with the Republicans on taxes, Mr. Obama’s numbers in polls would rise in the short term. What I am also suggesting, however, is that his fundamental attitudes, and that of the Democratic leadership around him, are not yet changed. The country has changed, and said so (the 2010 election), but President Obama has so far been preoccupied with appearances, still hoping (I suspect) to finish the radical agenda he and his colleagues began to enact in the previous Congress.
This is now a challenge to the new house, and even to the new senate which still has a Democratic majority. With President Obama holding the veto card, can they communicate successfully to voters an alternative agenda and alternative priorities over the next two years? If not, and if the substance of the conservative argument is not borne out, then Obamian “appearances” might be enough to thwart the present conservative momentum.
Frankly, I think 2011-12 is going to be much more fascinating, much more politically instructive, and much more important than 2007-08. There will be many zig-zags between now and November, 2012. There are, I repeat, few straight lines in American politics.
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-Please visit Mr. Casselman’s personal site, barrycasselman.com
The Chris Matthews Show has begun a series which they are calling 12 for ’12. They are going to cover whom they consider the top twelve candidates for the 2012 Republican Presidential nominee. They began today with Mitt Romney.
They did a fairly decent job, unless you were hoping they would do a trash-piece on Romney. They were very fair and evenhanded in their assessment. You might not agree 100% with them (there were several points I had problems with), yet they still get points for honest effort.
It holds promise that the rest of the series will be above the usual MSNBC liberal smearing of Republicans. With one decent episode under their belts, I suspect Mike Huckabee fans can look forward to Mike’s turn under the microscope with little to fear. The real test will be to see how they treat liberalism’s favorite whipping girl, Sarah Palin. Will they be able to put aside their petty little prejudices and do an honest appraisal, or will they give in to gratuitous Palin bashing? We shall soon find out.
From Andrew Sullivan’s blog:
The facts, moreover, are these: Palin singles out Giffords as a “target” for attack, illustrated by cross-hairs in gun sights, and urges supporters to “reload”. This is pointed out at the time and Giffords herself worries that it took things over the edge. Palin had a chance to apologize or retract or soften the rhetoric. She did nothing of the kind. An individual subsequently guns Giffords down. What more, in many relevant respects, do we need to know than this?
What more? How about any shred of evidence that links Palin’s rhetoric to the gunman? That would seem to be the most important fact of all, since we are accusing someone of inciting murder. Far as we can tell, the man was fixated on Rep. Giffords since at least 2007, a full year before Sarah Palin was even a known national figure. The logic of drawing a line from Loughner to Palin would seem to indict other public figures throughout our history for incitement to violence. Mark David Chapman had a copy of The Catcher in the Rye on him when he murdered John Lennon. Does that mean we should blame J.D. Salinger? Charles Manson and his followers were inspired by the Beatles’ song Helter Skelter, so should we blame them for the attempts on President Gerald Ford’s life? John Hinckley cited Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver as his inspiration to gun down President Ronald Reagan. The film was based on another political would-be-assassin, Arthur Bremer, who shot controversial Alabama Governor and presidential candidate George Wallace. Even with Wallace’s controversial politics and the tense climate of the 1960′s still fresh in America’s collective mind, we were still able to separate the political from the insane. Crazy people don’t need a political target map to go off, indeed history shows that anything from movies, books, and music can be used to justify these acts of madmen. (more…)
The Washington Post is reporting that Mitt Romney is traveling to the Middle East, visiting several heads-of-state while there:
BOSTON — Past and likely future Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney arrived Sunday in Afghanistan on a weeklong trip to the frontlines of the U.S. war zone and to the Middle East.
Senior adviser Eric Fehrnstrom said the former Massachusetts governor was scheduled to meet with President Hamid Karzai while in Afghanistan. He also met with Gen. David Petraeus, who is leading the U.S. war effort in the country.
In addition, Romney will “train Afghans and share with local leaders his views on issues of leadership, public service, economic opportunity and democratic participation,” Fehrnstrom said.
The trip will also include visits later in the week with the Prime Minister of Israel and the King of Jordan.
Three things come to mind:
There’s a familiar pattern to the crime in Tucson and its aftermath. The same pattern could be seen in acts of violence in Oklahoma City, Jonesboro, Columbine, and Virginia Tech
A crime has been committed. People are dead. For political activists on both the left and right, there’s one pertinent question.
How are we going to spin this?
At the time of the 9/11 attacks, Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson were roundly condemned for their suggestion that the ACLU, NOW, and People for the American Way were partly responsible for the terrorist attacks on 9/11. This was most likely because America was attacked by a foreign enemy, but Falwell and Robertson were doing nothing more than continuing the same politics that had been practiced since Bill Clinton placed the blame on Rush Limbaugh and talk radio for the Oklahoma City Bombing.
If there is a major tragedy, political personalities will rush to Cable TV. The left has blamed the availability of guns as a cause of school shooting and called for tougher gun laws or has blamed the rhetoric of political leaders or talk show hosts for creating hatred towards the government. Conservatives have tended to blame restrictions on access to guns and concealed carry and also brought home the decline of moral values as a cause of tragedies.
These arguments are completely inappropriate, particularly at a time when the bodies of the slain are still warm, when families are grieving, and people are hurting and in shock. The last thing people want, deserve, or need to hear is a hectoring lecture from self-righteous politicos ready to solve the world’s problems.
This also lessens personal culpability for those directly responsible for the acts, and places the blame on a larger group of “others.” When that happens, we’re only deepening a culture of irresponsibility where someone else is always to blame, and individuals are never accountable for their own actions.
In addition, if no one in the political mainstream ever said anything controversial, there’s enough fuel for the sick minds of a thousand madmen in works like Mein Kampf, The Communist Manifesto, the works of Henry David Thoreau, and a hundred more.
The greatest consequence is that it makes our political discourse even coarser. When someone on the left says that the Tea Party movement is responsible for the shooting in Tucson, they are leveling the political equivalent of a blood libel that blames an entire political movement for the actions of a person who in all likelihood had no connection to the movement.
Many untold hours and pages of print will be spend responding to irresponsible charges and inferences made by people on the left who were so eager to score political points that they couldn’t even bother to wait for the facts. The result of this is that many will respond to this tragedy not as human beings, but as political partisans.
If we want to restore a sense of decency and civility to our political life, we should stop using dead bodies as political props. Rather than trying to score points, it’d be far more appropriate for our political spinners to stop the game.
A time of loss and an act of violence that all reasonable people find abhorrent should bring Americans together, as it did on 9/11. It can do so now, but only if we approach what happened as grieving Americans rather than finger-pointing partisans.
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Adam Graham is a Pajamas Media Contributor. He is the author of the Novel, “Tales of the Dim Knight” with his wife Andrea. His personal blog is Adam’s Blog. You can follow him on Twitter and he’s on Facebook and available by e-mail.
Ironically, even though I wrote it before I saw his, this post has focus similar to that of DaveG’s magnificent piece from today. Chris Cillizza, of the Washington Post, penned a fantastic column this past week. In it, he summarized the prospective makeup of the 2012 Republican field and connected it to the composition of GOP primary voters. In the end, he formulates an intriguing conclusion:
While the tea party movement was formed in reaction to economic issues, most of its leading spokesmen and women are more closely identified with the social wing of the movement.
Leading that list is former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, the most high profile tea party figure in the country. While Palin has spoken forcefully against President Obama’s fiscal policies, her rise to prominence has largely been built on very strong support among social conservatives.
Ditto former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, a former pastor who turned into the darling of social conservatives during his run for president in 2008. Others thinking about the race — Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, Indiana Rep. Mike Pence, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich — are also more associated with social rather than fiscal issues at the moment.
Given that reality, there is a wide opening for a candidate who embodies the fiscal side of the tea party movement to emerge as a serious contender for the nomination.
…If you accept the premise — and we do — that no candidate regarded by tea party voters as “establishment” can possibly occupy that space due to the antipathy of the tea party toward all things status quo (sorry Mitt Romney, Tim Pawlenty, Haley Barbour, John Thune, Mitch Daniels etc.), then you are left with two options.
The first is that a candidate not currently in the field (or prospective field) enters the race sometime in the next six months or so.
The most obvious choice is New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie who has, somewhat oddly, turned into a national star among economic tea partiers who have latched on to his no-nonsense speaking style and commitment to closing the state’s budget gap.
…Assuming Christie doesn’t run, there is a thin bench of people not currently in or looking at the race who could occupy similar space in the primary field. People like South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint or Florida Sen. Marco Rubio could theoretically run as the choice of economic-minded tea party voters but neither seem inclined to make the race. (Of course, minds can change over the next six months.)
Without such a candidate, the second option would kick in: one of the current crop of candidates could move to become a sort of economic/social tea party hybrid.
Cillizza proceeds to argue that all of the high-profile 2012 probables would encounter substantial difficulty in branding themselves as an aforementioned “economic/social tea party hybrid” (although, he notes, Palin, Gingrich, and Pence would have the greatest chances of doing so).
I wholeheartedly agree that the 2012 nominee will in all likelihood emerge with an economically conservative-populist message (note: that does not entail class warfare, as it would if we were talking about Democrats). Unless some kind of massive national security issue arises before the primaries, foreign policy will fall far down the list of salient issues in the electorate’s mind. And as long as the economy remains in dire straits (and we have nearly every indication that it will), social issues will matter the most to only a subset of Republican primary voters.
That presents the greatest opportunities for candidates that normally wouldn’t stand much chance for the nomination, such as Pence, Michelle Bachmann, Gary Johnson, and, yes, Chris Christie, due to their affinity for small-government, pro-market economic arguments. Although Christie has said multiple times that he does not plan to run, his ambitions could get the best of him. After all, we have seen time and time again that one must strike when the iron is hot in politics. Even President Obama said in 2004 – shortly after he won election to the Senate – that he would not run for President. Of course, Christie could truly mean it when he says he won’t run, but we’ll simply have to wait and see.
In the end, the 2012 primaries could present some of the most interesting, confounding, and unique dynamics that we have seen in recent times, with voter discontent rising to ever-historic levels, government growing to unprecedented levels, and the economy revealing its structurally unsound and rotten nature. Fasten your seatbelts, friends. We’re in for one wild ride.
I don’t link to Andrew Sullivan’s work very often anymore due to the fact that this is a right of center site, while Sullivan can no longer really be considered a right of center political observer, at least as far as the American political spectrum is concerned. Even though Sullivan continues to self-identify as a conservative, I am not so sure that even he would quibble with the fact that he is now decidedly left of center on the contemporary American right-left axis. So of course it shouldn’t be any surprise that Sullivan has leapt onto the Left’s “blame the Tea Party” bandwagon with regard to yesterday’s assassination attempt against Rep. Giffords of Arizona. Today, Sullivan raises the stakes on this issue, subtly comparing the incident to the JFK assassination, and implicitly blaming the Right for both. I am posting Sullivan’s quote only to a) tear it apart and b) draw out a broader, less ominous analogy between the two time periods.
Here is an excerpt from Sullivan’s “Quote for the Day,” taken from Manchester’s “Death of a President,” and describing the political environment of the early 1960s:
“In that third year of the Kennedy Presidency a kind of fever lay over Dallas County. Mad things happened. Huge billboards screamed “Impeach Earl Warren.”
…
In Dallas a retired major general flew the American flag upside down in front of his house, and when, on Labor Day of 1963, the Stars and Stripes were hoisted right side up outside his own home by County Treasurer Warren G. Harding–named by Democratic parents for a Republican President in an era when all Texas children were taught to respect the Presidency, regardless of party–Harding was accosted by a physician’s son, who remarked bitterly, “That’s the Democrat flag. Why not just run up the hammer and sickle while you’re at it?”
The Left’s goal here is to convince Americans that whenever the Right is energized, as it was in the Goldwater era, and as it is today, this will somehow lead to public officials being assassinated. The Left pulls off this sleight of hand by focusing solely on the negative energy that comes from an energized Right. Of course there’s going to be negative energy emanating from any grassroots political movement. Heck, it was only a few years ago that the sitting president was being referred to as, “Bu$hHitler” on a daily basis. And what the Left completely ignores is that both Lee Harvey Oswald and Jared Lee Loughner had no discernible politics, and to the extent that they did, both were fans of Marx and Engels. Goldwaterites and Tea Partiers they were not.
But once you remove the Left’s ridiculous framing of the analogy between the Right of the early ’60s and the Right of today, a useful historical comparison can actually be fleshed out that may shed some light on the route Republicans make take when selecting their 2012 presidential nominee. Late last year, I re-read parts of Goldwater’s, The Conscience of a Conservative, and in so doing, I was shocked at the eerie parallels between Goldwater’s time and today. In both periods, conservatives were smarting from what they viewed as a decidedly liberal Republican establishment, and a former party leader whom they viewed as a destroyer of conservatism and conservative principles. One could pretty much replace the name “Nixon” with “Bush” whenever Goldwater mentioned the former in Conscience and apply the statement to today’s politics without any further edits.
What’s interesting then is that in both the era leading up to the 1964 nomination contest and the 2012 pre-game, the nation sported an energized Right that felt betrayed by its most recent Republican president (or vice president), that felt the GOP establishment was only slightly preferable to the Democrats, and that viewed the Democrats as desirous of economic and societal collectivism. When this set of conditions occurred in tandem in 1964, the result was a deviation from the usual manner in which the GOP nominee was selected. Instead of going with a “crown prince” of sorts, i.e., someone who had run previously and lost, a big state governor, a former veep, etc., the GOP nominated a small state senator who had never made a presidential run before, and who was most certainly not a representative of the Dewey-Nixon establishment wing of the party. The guy whose “turn” it was, Northeastern Republican scion Nelson Rockefeller, was shown the door by the GOP base.
During pretty much every election cycle, conservative base voters claim that the establishment favorite will not win the nomination, and that this year is going to be another 1964, when Alan Keyes, or whoever, will win the nod. And pretty much every election cycle, the candidate that is viewed by the base voters as the RINO to end all RINOs clinches the nomination, like clockwork. As someone who predicted on this site back in late 2007 that John McCain would be the 2008 GOP nominee for this very reason, I am almost as confident now as I was then that the perfect storm of 1964 is looming over the 2012 election cycle, and that we’re about to see one of those rare occurrences where the conservative base actually gets to pick the nominee. I’m almost ready to predict that whoever wins what amounts to the Tea Party sub-primary in 2012 will be the ultimate nominee, unless that candidate is just so ridiculously unqualified for the job that he or she is a non-starter with regular Republican voters. It’s just hard to see a former House Speaker who believes in man-made global warming, a former governor who designed Proto-ObamaCare, or the pantheon of dull GOP governors dispassionately citing statistics and calling for pragmatism being selected by a wholly energized Republican base over a halfway decent Tea Party candidate.
As such, 2012 may be yet another election in which a Northeastern Republican scion, whose claim to the nomination is all well and good by usual GOP standards, is ousted in favor of, perhaps, a congresswoman from Minnesota or a former Alaska governor bearing the Tea Party’s blessing.
Yesterday, I had the unfortunate duty of breaking the story of the shooting in Tucson on Race42012. One of the first things I posted was “This is the kind of thing where politics should be the furthest thing from everyone’s mind.” Unfortunately, that isn’t what happened. Almost immediately, accusations came up blaming Sarah Palin, the Tea Party and basically all of the political right in this country for what happened. Leading voices on the left: Paul Krugman, Andrew Sullivan, Keith Olbermann and others, have directly made these sorts of accusations. Others have been more circumspect, but have essentially said that the rhetoric on the right was the catalyst for what happened.
All this is making me put my foot down: ENOUGH IS ENOUGH. The shooter, based on everything that has been uncovered, is a lunatic, pure and simple. His posts are those of a clearly deranged and sick individual. His motivations will probably never be able to be understood by rational people and that’s the point. What is going on right now amongst the punditocracy would be like saying that John Wayne Gacy’s vile crimes might have something to do with the fact that he was a member of the Cook County Democratic Party. It’s irrelevant and cheapens a terrible tragedy. Jared Lee Loughner is solely responsible for his vile crimes.
Going forward there are two things that should happen. First, someone on the left needs to have the guts, or perhaps the clear-sighted view to say that what happened in Tucson was not the fault of the political right. President Obama, Vice President Biden, Leaders Reid and Pelosi, perhaps one of them should step forward and say what needs to be said.
Secondly, the leaders on the populist right, including Sarah Palin and others, should tone down the rhetoric. That isn’t to say that those opposed to the Democratic agenda should stop opposing it. Nor am I saying that they’re in any way responsible for this, because they aren’t. What I am saying is perhaps they should say what they want to say in a way that cannot be confused or misconstrued by their opponents. So we don’t have to have this kind of discussion again, don’t give the left anything to wave in the face of the right.
Is the Baby Boomer generation at fault in the entitlement crisis?
Civility: “Tea Party billionaire” booed at New York Ballet? (Hat Tip: Think Progress.)
Islamic radicals rejoice over the death of Pakistani governor.
The President (of France) stands up for persecuted Christians.
Hindu attacks on Christians in India spike.
Hall of Fame nonsense.
Rebecca St. James engaged.
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“No religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States, (Article 6 of the Constitution).
“Politics are totally directed by worldview. That’s why when people say, ‘We ought to separate politics from religion,’ I say to separate the two is absolutely impossible, (Mike Huckabee, from his 1997 book Character is the Issue: How People with Integrity Can Revolutionize America).
“Given our grand tradition of religious tolerance and liberty, some wonder whether there are any questions regarding an aspiring candidate’s religion that are appropriate. I believe there are….I did not confuse the particular teachings of my church with the obligations of the office and of the Constitution – and of course, I would not do so as president. I will put no doctrine of any church above the plain duties of the office and the sovereign authority of the law,” (Mitt Romney’s Faith Speech, December 6, 2007).
I believe a political candidate’s positions on issues are a reflection of his religious beliefs, whether he attends church regularly or not. The press intimates that only candidates “on the right” are influenced by their religion. Thus, we have the term “religious right” (you will get almost 7 million Google hits for the term). But there is a religious left (though you will only get about 400,000 hits on Google for that one).
The religious left are generally influenced by churches that bear the name Christian, but are “liberal”. That is, they reject the Biblical doctrines of the bodily resurrection of Christ, the virgin birth, Christ’s miracles, the inspiration of the Scriptures, and the Incarnation. Politically, they often interpret the Constitution the same way they do the Bible, without concern for its original intent.
To deny the relationship between religious views and politics, is to deny the obvious. These churches (and by extension, many of their adherents) oppose the death penalty and restrictions on the murder of unborn children, while supporting assisted suicide . They are often pacifists, and are opponents of the nation of Israel. Religion is an expression of what we believe to be most important. We get our morals from our religious views. It is natural that politics flows from our worldview, which comes from our views of God, the Bible, the nature of man, our destiny, the Kingdom of God, the source of morality, our definitions of justice, even the role of God in raising up and tearing down kings.
There is a reason the politics of Barack Obama could have been predicted (and was by so many) by evaluating the preaching of Reverend Wright. Obama’s acceptance of that theology over a period of years tells us something about Obama’s worldview.
I would suggest that on any given Sunday you will be much more likely to hear a sermon on politics in a liberal church than a conservative one. Because modernists reject the notion of a literal heaven, and often reject the Ten Commandments, all they are left with is politics. If you believe in an afterlife and focus on the spiritual and unseen aspects of faith, politics will end up in the periphery. This is not to deny that some Conservative local congregations have found themselves focusing on abortion and other public issues, but they are probably a small minority within conservative churches. Most fundamentalists and conservative Evangelical churches only mention these issues near elections, and then only briefly.
There is another practical reason why attention has been focused on the right, however. The prominence of televangelists from the late 1970s to the early 1990s no doubt focused the press attention on the religious right. But I hold that this was an awakening of political clout on the right that had already existed on the left.
In the light of the ban on the religious test for holding office, is it right for voters to consider the religion or religious views of the candidates? Of course it is. The ban only applies to legislators, not voters. Some have argued that keeping the spirit of the injunction requires that individuals block religion from their evaluations. But that is like saying that in keeping with the spirit of the First Amendment parents must allow their children to swear or those who believe in the 2nd Amendment must allow guns on their premises of their businesses.
The religious views of the candidate may bear on the candidates approach or viewpoint on a host of issues. If Governor Huckabee has a view of the imminent return of Christ, or evolution or Israel that bears on his foreign policy, can that be fodder for discussion? If a scientologist has strange religious views, shouldn’t we know about it? If you argue that you can only delve into it if it effects their policy, then you have missed the point. Religious views direct ones political views or they are not really religious at all. That is, they don’t get to the heart of what is right and what is wrong.
The Natural Law Party originated in a religion. Can we not discuss the religious views of the candidates who run for higher office from that party?
Originally posted on Caffeinated Thoughts
It’s easy to focus on the Congresswoman who was shot and the federal judge who died, but the crime in Tucscon had a lesser known victim but with a sad poignancy:
Christina Taylor Green, nine-year-old victim in today’s Tucson shootings, once was an infant designated to be a “Face of Hope” by virtue of her birth on September 11, 2001. She was on of the children whose date of birth was 9/11 to be featured in the book by Christine Pisera Naman which was dedicated to all the babies born on the day the World Trade Towers in New York City were taken down in an act of terrorism.
Ironically, today her life ended in violence, as she fell under the attack of a gunman at a political function at a supermarket.
On a day of awful news, this is the worst.
Markos Moulitsas of the Daily Kos blog was one of the first to blame today’s tragedy on former Governor Sarah Palin because she had ‘targeted’ Giffords for defeat in the last election. People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones, from Kos’s own blog:
“Well, I’d argue that we can narrow the target list by looking at those Democrats who sold out the Constitution last week. I’ve bolded members of the Blue Dogs for added emphasis.“
One of the bolded Blue Dogs was none other then Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. Kos continued:
“Not all of these people will get or even deserve primaries, but this vote certainly puts a bulls eye on their district.”
We all knew the Left would use this tragedy to smear the Right, we just couldn’t imagine that they’d be so blatantly hypocritical when doing so. Moulitsas “targeted” Giffords in the same way Palin did with identical rhetoric and symbolism out of a desire to elect someone else, not to cause violence. To suggest anything else is insidious and un-American.
Over the next several days we will discover just how low the liberals of America can sink, and unfortunately, I believe it’s far lower then even the most cynical amongst us could ever imagine.
Our thoughts should be with the victims’ families. The fact that liberal thoughts turned toward Palin first and foremost says more about their craven nature then anything else.
Update: Kos has deleted his original post.
Former Governor Palin has released the following statement on the Tucson shooting:
My sincere condolences are offered to the family of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and the other victims of today’s tragic shooting in Arizona.
On behalf of Todd and my family, we all pray for the victims and their families, and for peace and justice.
US Senator John McCain released the following statements on the incident. First on the attacker and the next on the late Judge Roll:
I am horrified by the violent attack on Representative Gabrielle Giffords and many other innocent people by a wicked person who has no sense of justice or compassion. I pray for Gabby and the other victims, and for the repose of the souls of the dead and comfort for their families. I beg our loving Creator to spare the lives of those who are still alive, heal them in body and spirit, and return them to their loved ones.
Whoever did this; whatever their reason, they are a disgrace to Arizona, this country and the human race, and they deserve and will receive the contempt of all decent people and the strongest punishment of the law.
…
I am deeply saddened to hear that Chief Judge John Roll was killed today during the senseless act of violence against Congresswoman Giffords and other Arizonans. Words are inadequate to express such a profound loss to his family, friends, state and country, but it is appropriate to note that a man of great qualities and character was struck down today, and the wickedness of this atrocity, which included the murder of a small child, has broken the hearts of many and will be mourned for years to come. I am proud to have recommended Judge Roll to President Bush for the federal bench in 1991 and have been extremely proud of his work on the bench since then. I am most proud to have called him a friend. Judge Roll dedicated his life to public service and was admired by many for his integrity, kindness and love for the law, for the state of Arizona and our country. He began his career as a bailiff in the Pima County Superior Court and was at his death the Chief Judge for the District of Arizona since 2006. He distinguished himself in every office he held. He will be missed very much. Cindy and I are praying for his soul and for his beloved wife and children and the families of all the victims in this terrible moment of sorrow. Our state has lost a good man, a true and able advocate for justice for all and a great Arizonan. May God grant him perpetual peace.
Via Twitter, Newt Gingrich said the following on the incident:
Please pray for Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and every person shot in this tragic attack, as well as for their families.
Herman Cain released the following statement on the Tuscon shooting:
I would like to extend my prayers and condolences to those hurt by today’s senseless shooting in Arizona. Please keep Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and the countless other victims in your thoughts and prayers.
Former US Senator Rick Santorum said the following via Twitter on the incident:
My prayers are with Rep. Giffords and all of those shot today in AZ and their families. Horrific.
If you see additional statements – let me know and I can update / add.
EDIT – 08:51 PM 01/08/11 – Added Herman Cain and Rick Santorum’s comments
Governor Mike Huckabee has released the following statement:
I was shocked and saddened to learn of the tragic shooting of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. Several other people have also been shot in this senseless act of violence. This is not the way America works – conduct like this is outrageous and has no place in this country. Please join Janet and me in praying for Congresswoman Gifford and all of the victims.
Representative Michele Bachmann has released the following statement on the Tucson shooting:
“My tears are flowing, and I am stunned and angered that Gabby Giffords was savagely gunned down while performing her congressional duties…We came to Congress together and I had the privilege of knowing her as a friend and colleague. It is my hope and expectation that the coward who carried out this horrific act of violence will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”
Governor Romney has released the following statement on the Tucson shooting:
“Today’s horrifying shooting in Tucson shocks the conscience of decent Americans everywhere. When such an unspeakable act occurs, and lives are taken in violence, we rightly respond with comfort and support because that is the only way we know to show that evil does not triumph over goodness in the world. I offer my prayers to all the victims and their families, including Representative Gabrielle Giffords, and look forward to the swift and harsh punishment that awaits the perpetrator of this cowardly attack.”
This is just an awful story. Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) was hosting a “Congress in Your Corner” event in her district in Tucson when a gunman shot her and several other people attending.
This is the kind of thing where politics should be the furthest thing from everyone’s mind. Please keep the Congresswoman and the other victims in your prayers.
Update: Congresswoman Giffords has died. This is truly, truly terrible. RIP Congresswoman.
Update: KOLD, the CBS affiliate in Tuscon now says that Congresswoman is not dead, but is instead in surgery. Reports are conflicting now.
Update: Now, all the media outlets are reporting that the Congresswoman is still alive and in critical condition. University Hospital will have a news conference in the next hour.
Update: Federal Judge John M. Roll has been confirmed by FOX News as one of the victims of today’s shooting.
Update: FOX News confirms that the shooter is a 22 year-old male named Jared Loughner.
Update: A press conference that just ended with the surgeon from University Hospital gives us reason to hope. The surgeon said that Congresswoman Giffords was responding to commands after getting out of surgery.
This is not a fun article to write. I love Rudy Giuliani and proudly supported him back in 2008. He would have made an excellent President, certainly a hundred times better than the current one, and he still is a big name and factor within the Republican Party. His speeches are loved by the party faithful for their in-your-eye New York style, and he can certainly fire up a crowd. He also can point to a great record of accomplishment as Mayor of New York City before, during, and after 9/11. All this being true, I believe Rudy Giuliani still shouldn’t run for President again.
There are a couple reasons for this but one stands out most obviously. Simply put, Rudy can’t win. He had his chance in 2008 and he failed. There are main reasons for this; poor strategy, an unfavorable calendar, his pro-choice views, the resurgence of John McCain, the Arizona Senator’s win in South Carolina, the Charlie Crist endorsement, Bernie Kerik, I could go on. In 2008, Rudy was for a long time the one on top of the pack, the GOP’s front-runner. In 2012, that won’t happen. Rudy would simply be one of the group of top-tier candidates if that. Rudy would not start on top like he did in 2008.
Another problem would be the calendar. Out of the four early states only one is realistic for Rudy to breakout from the pack and that’s New Hampshire. The people of the Granite State love to stick it to front-runners and are extremely jealous of their prerogative as the “First in the Nation primary”. People in New Hampshire resented Rudy’s decision to not seriously contest their state and they punished him by giving him 4th place in their primary. I doubt the people of New Hampshire have forgotten that. Now, Independents will get to vote in the New Hampshire primary and they could go for Rudy, like they did for McCain in 2000 and 2008, but that’s a big gamble.
Finally, Rudy has his reputation to protect. Even after his 2008 campaign, he is still mostly remembered by the average person as America’s Mayor on 9/11. Yet another failed run for President will make people start thinking he’s the perennial candidate; the guy who just can’t take a hint. Rudy’s record of accomplishment deserves more than that in the history books.
In short, I still have a tremendous amount of respect for Rudy. I don’t regret voting for him for a second. He will also certainly be an asset on the campaign trail for our nominee and I think should either be head of Homeland Security or Attorney General. But, one thing he shouldn’t be is another also-ran for President.
The Silly Hat Throw Season is now in full swing. Presidential flagpoles face metal fatigue from so many names going up and down them. Everyone’s political vanity is loosed in this season, and a media now constructed to avoid serious political discussion for as long as possible is more than willing to play along.
There are about 10-12 reasonably serious potential Republican candidates for president in 2012. Not all of them will run. As I pointed out in a recent column, the larger number will narrow to 4-5 soon enough, and by the time the primaries and caucuses have begun, there will only be 2-3 hopefuls left in the field. At that point, there may be a close and bitter fight for the nomination itself, or there may not, because one strong candidate emerges more quickly than predicted.
But for now, there are dozens of individuals, most of them reasonably well-known (although not necessarily in politics) who desperately seek publicity and notoriety at any price.
Trust me, Donald Trump is not going to be the next U.S. president. Neither is Michele Bachmann. Nor Rick Santorum. Not Ron Paul. Not Fred Karger. Not Buddy Roemer. Not Gary Johnson. Not Herman Cain. Not John Thune. Not even Rudy Giuliani.
Mr. Giuliani was a serious candidate in 2008. In fact, at one point he was the nominal frontrunner. However, he ran an incredibly poor campaign, and proved to be an inept campaigner personally. Should Fred Thompson attempt to run in 2012, I suspect he will be similarly regarded. There are no indications that either of them understands they were their own worst opponent.
Comebacks are possible. Richard Nixon is the most famous example in the past. This year, Newt Gingrich could be another.
There will also be in Iowa and New Hampshire a slew of totally obscure candidates who put themselves on the ballot. It’s a free country. But no one has to give them an inch of mention. (A few who say or do outlandish things will get some media attention.) Good for them. Some persons live only for a little publicity.
It also takes a strong ego to be a serious candidate for president. And an even stronger one, perhaps, to serve as president. This year, unlike the last cycle, the serious candidates are not rushing in to announce their intentions. The current political environment, the national economic environment, the international environment is so uncertain, so ambiguous, so provisional, that wise men and women are taking their time. I think, their public statements notwithstanding, most of the serious candidates have already made their decisions. In their own good time, they will tell us their intentions.
Meanwhile, we are left to entertain ourselves with the self-puffery, pretensions, and antics of pseudo-candidates who will promenade through nightly news programs, op eds and, of course, the blogs to seek out attention. It’s the silly hat throw season.
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-Mr. Casselman writes at barrycasselman.com
