In Sunday’s New York Times, Franch Rich has an interesting analysis about the so-called Huckabee phenomenon that in many ways echoes my own.
What really may be going on here is a mirror image of the phenomenon that has upended Hillary Clinton’s “inevitability” among Democrats. Like Senator Obama, Mr. Huckabee is the youngest in his party’s field. (At 52, he’s also younger than every Democratic contender except Mr. Obama, who is 46.) Both men have a history of speaking across party and racial lines. Both men possess that rarest of commodities in American public life: wit. Most important, both men aspire (not always successfully) to avoid the hyper-partisanship of the Clinton-Bush era.
Though their views on issues are often antithetical, Mr. Huckabee and Mr. Obama may be united in catching the wave of an emerging zeitgeist that is larger than either party’s ideology. An exhausted and disillusioned public may be ready for a replay of the New Frontier pitch of 1960.
Rich acknowledges that Huckabee is a real long shot given his lack of money and lack of foreign policy knowledge. And then there’s also the released-rapist/murderer scandal that could worsen. But what his surge and Obama’s rise represent is something very real in the electorate that should not be ignored.
To understand why he can’t be completely dismissed, consider last month’s Wall Street Journal-NBC News poll. Peter Hart, the Democratic half of the bipartisan team that conducts the survey, told me in an interview last week that an overwhelming majority of voters of both parties not only want change but also regard “reducing the partisan fighting in government” as high on their agenda. To his surprise, Mr. Hart found that there’s even a majority (59 percent) seeking a president who would help America in “regaining respect around the world.
So what do you conservatives think? Is it going to be Giuliani? Prognostications anyone?
This is everyone’s big chance to comment before I do. I’ll remain silent until others have said their peace.
If Rudy G’s crappy performance on Meet The Press doesn’t finally sink him with conservative voters, after the pool of self-generated sludge he’s been swimming through in recent weeks, contemporary “conservatism” has fully degenerated into little more than wholly corrupt, self-deluding thuggery. I hope not. In fact, I believe that conservatism can yet be rescued from it’s “dark side” and and be renewed and revived as the glib gospel of slippery, shallow empty suits by Mitt Romney.
(I predict Huckabee will be sunk by the GOP Beltway establishment as soon as he wins Iowa – there’s easily enough on this guy to “disappear” his halo, and that’s pretty much all he’s got going for him. I’d love to be proven wrong, just to watch the fun of a Huckabee-Obama race.)
Can you imagine a Clinton-Romney race ? She’d run away with it, but I predict voter turnout would be at an all-time low, especially on the GOP side. Obama-Romney would be interesting for the liklihood of a large crossover among a segment of white evangelicals to vote for the black Democrat. (The crossover would mostly be among the “nouveau” Rick Warren types, not the Richard Land fundamentalist Dixiecretin wing. Also, the term “evangelicals” – which doesn’t really refer to the theological traditions of evangelicalism so much as biblical literalism, which is quite different – should, as used in most political discourse, be modified by the adjective “white.” Black folks as a group are more fervently “evangelical” than whites, but they are invariably left out of the equation by idiot pundits who bandy the term and ignore the large racial component that still hangs over nasty, traditionally racist outfits like Land’s Southern Baptists.)
Nonsense from Peter Hart. There are just as many surveys that show a public tired of gridlock and wanting the Dems to be more agressive. “Bipartisanship” is the kind of higher Broderism that passes for agerless wisdom among the Great and the Good in DC – those people that Digby caategorizes as the Village.
I suspect that Huckabee doesn’t look so hot aafter Wayne Dumond, his ignorance of the NIE and his statements on AIDS. But then the whole GOP field is made up of losers. John McCain is looking more and more like the only grown up but he has lashed himself to this war.
Obama stands for what? I mean this. So Oprah likes him. Great! Now I see he is picking fights with Paul Krugman who had the audicity to point out that his Health Care plan won’t cover 100% and that he is just dead wrong on Social Security. And I really don’t enjoy his lectures on spirituality either.
It really is a shame that John Edwards, Joe Biden, and Bill Richardson have all been more substantive and that Chris Dodd has shown more leadership in the Senate but all the media want to talk about is Barack and Hillary.
I’ll take Hillary if that is the choice – at least she knows how to fight back. Barack reminds me of bambi!
O/T but I see thaat the Supremes voted 7 – 2 to uphold a lower court’s decision to allow discretion in sentencing for offenses involving crack cocaine vs. powder. Judges may now deviate from the harsher guidelines for crack.
Reg, since Romney, Guiliani, and -soon – Huckabee are all impl;oding and since Thimpson is a nonstarter, I think John McCain will be the establishment fallback position.
If you don’t know what Obama’s about it says more about you than Obama. Sorry…
And how dare he diverge from the Gospel of Krugman (who happens to be wrong in substance on both of these counts. To talk as though mandates that won’t be enforceable unless you want to propose stuff that could lose the election in 2008 is the solution to universal coverage is idiotic. None of the candidates have anything more than a patchwork reform plan. Obama is the only one who’s honest about it. His rhetoric – that it’s not a problem of government forcing people to buy health insurance but a question of affordability and fairness of coverage is absolutely the right message for a candidate. For Hillary and “useful idiots” like Krugman and Klein in this case to attack him on lack of mandates is totally crazy. Tonedeaf politically and dishonest as regards just what a Rube Goldberg piece of shit Hillary will inevitably produce in any ultimate health care reform on her watch. I’m trying to figure out what these folks have been ingesting.) Frankly, I’m glad Obama isn’t cowed by the wonkery and often puerile concerns of the liberal blogosphere. He’s running for President. Edwards – who they tend to love – is running to be a candidate who then has to “correct his course”. If there’s a pandering empty suit among the Democrats – and I frankly don’t believe there actually is, but I’ll take the baid – Edwards gets that crown. I find the guy incredibly weak in his presence and always seems like he’s special pleading. Maybe it’s a trial lawyer thing. And if you want to pick a truly crappy, idiotic, moralistic theme for a Presidential race – “Two Americas” has to be near the top of that list. Of course, of the three, Barack’s the only one who as an adult chose to actually DO anything substantive about the “2 Americas”, but nevermind. He’s “empty.” If you want to play “Bambi” on Obama, you’re unfortunately struck with the Breck Boy who couldn’t even give Dick Cheney a serious run for his money in the 2004 debate. He’s a Johnny Come Lately on universal health care as well. As for Obama and “kumbaya”, it would have been nice if Edwards had found a little “kumbaya” in his gut rather than sucumbing to obscene poiltical opportunism by authorizing Bush to invade Iraq in 2002. Really no better than Hillary on that score. Obama isn’t there for you to enjoy. He’s the best candidate Democrats have had an option on since RFK. If Biden, Edwards or Richardson could generate more interest among voters, I guarantee that they’d generate more media attention. Kucinich trumps them all on “substance.” Who cares ? RLC – I hate to say this, but you’re running the same game on Obama here as the execrable Shelby Steele.
As I said, I wouldn’t choose to pick this fight over Edwards vs. Obama, but if you want my version, that’s it. And if you would put Hillary over Obama for the nomination, I’m saddened and disappointed. Also afraid that’s about the only shot the Dems have at actually losing in ’08.
That was “take the bait” – which I clearly did at great length.
You might be right about McCain, but it’s hard to see his candidacy being rescued. He also generates more antipathy among “the base” than any of the rest – which I find absolutely incredible and disturbing. If I were a serious conservative, I’d be doing my damndest to elect John McCain. I think he’s as close to the “real deal” as it gets for non-crackpot conservatives who desire more than some empty-suit mouthpiece to tend to their tax cuts. In the post-911 era, I would think they should ask for more than a variation on dumbed-down W.
See – if Woody would only step out of the way, we could get on with our internecine warfare.
Incidentally, when has Obama lectured on spirituality at any length greater or more cloying than Hillary or Edwards. He’s just not as tonedeaf when he does it. He also didn’t look like an idiot using the idioms of the black church in Selma – while Hillary was beyond ridiculous with her phony “cadences” (and she was utterly disingenuous – don’t talk about how inspired you were as a youth by Martin Luther King when, in fact, as late as 1964 you were actively working to elect Barry Goldwater, who openly opposed the civil rights bills. Total crap. Hillary’s about my age and nobody who was paying serious attention to MLK at the heigh of the civil rights movement was supporting Goldwater – not even 17-year olds.)
Normal people don’t use the word “internecine” in general conversations.
As usual, liberals want meanings changed to what they choose them to be, just like they do our Constitution.
I sort of like this piece from Talking Points Memo on the GOP candidates:
I have to tell ya, reg. The more I pay attention to Obama’s campaign, the less comfortable I am with him. I believe he’s made a number of poor decisions (or, his campaign handlers have), and he’s not been real amenable to rectifying them. We’ve had 7 years of petulant, stubborn, immature leadership-of-a-sort, and I’m not ready to watch Obama get in over his head for four more. Further, if he really is as inexperienced as he seems to be, he will fail to be re-elected for a second term, and I full well expect the GOP to make hay in 2012. Looking forward to 2016, Obama isn’t my first choice… or, now, even my second. I think he’s simply too green.
If you were making a case for one of our Beltway sages, the unelectables, like Biden or Dodd, you would have a case. Against Edwards or Hillary, I think that argument is laughable. Edwards, IMHO, would probably be the most prone to becoming the next Jimmy Carter among the three, but I’ll take that chance over Hillary. Hillary’s “experience” borders on being a joke. What we’re talking about is being married to a President. I don’t want the “experience” of Hillary and her tight little beltway team – not even a little bit. As for her willingess to “fight” – the more “negative” she’s perceived, the more her numbers drop, even among Democrats. It’s not fair – although her dull, controlled, remarkably uninspiring personality doesn’t help matters – but it’s only going to get worse when the spew starts. As for Edwards, what the hell are we talking about other than a guy who calculates first and then either comes out with great-sounding populist rhetoric and position papers because it’s the only campaign angle he’s really got or…votes for the Iraq resolution. There is NOTHING outstanding in Edwards career to suggest he’d make a good President. Easily comes across as the weakest of the lot and almost as calculated and packaged as Hillary. Read Obama’s speech against the Iraq war in 2002, compare it to the absolutely hysterical bullshit Edwards was peddling at the time and to Hillary’s craven opportunism and then come back and tell me again who’s “not ready for prime time.”
I’ll add that I love Paul Krugman. I’m reading his new book right now. But he came a bit late to the “partisan” game for me to take him as a sage on politics itself. He’s like any recent convert – he thinks he’s discovered the rosetta stone and believes more fervently in the truths discovered in his re-birth as a “partisan” than people who’ve been immersed in the real world of partisan politics when he was still a technocratic shill for globalization. Nice to see him aboard and writing strong stuff on the Bushniks, but hardly my idea of a political guru or expert on how to deal with the rough and tumble of getting elected. The truth, which I’ll defend fervently, is that Obama’s the only guy in the race with an honest progressive record over many years. Which is why he doesn’t have to prove himself with a lot of rhetoric that nobody could possibly deliver on – unless the composition of Congress changed dramatically and we were dealing with a different ball game. Obama understands the limitations AND the possibilities of the Oval Office. No need to struggle to represent himself as the tribune of the people or a seasibed insider who knows where all of the levers are and thus will optimize results for the little people. Edwards and Hillary are both predictable and rather tired types. Obama, at the least, suggests some possibilities – even greatness. Not even close with the other two. He’s also the most reflective and, IMHO, smartest of the three. The only one who could, without benefit of a ghostwriter, produce a book people actually find worth reading. Don’t underestimate what that implies. He also has tremendous legislative skills, based on his record in Illinois. Certainly more impressive than Edwards forgettable term in the Senate – which he couldn’t even follow up. And any comparison of Obama’s alleged “lack of experience” with Bush’s lack of even minimal curiosity and closed-miindedness is bizarre. I’m totally confounded by that.
that was supposed to be “seasoned insider”
“Normal people don’t use the word ‘internecine’ ”
But when they do hear the word, “normal people” invariably proceed to rattle on with long disquisitions about Samuel Johnson and Latin roots.
Incidentally, if you check atrios today, it’s clear that at least one “progressive blogger” has decided it’s okay just to make shit up in order to attack Obama – and unfortunately atrios passed it along, although he also corrected, kinda sorta.
Reg, I’m not normal. People have told me that for years. I’m glad that I’m not. I think that word origins are interesting. I read a fairly recent book on word origins that was interesting. And, of course, I studied Latin, and one of the subjects my mom taught was Latin, which she further drilled into me. Et tu?
Who do I think will get the Republican nomination? Isn’t it a little early? It really is. At this point, I’m undecided except to know that I won’t support Giuliani or Ron Paul.
Also, whatever the voters in Iowa and New Hampshire decide won’t affect my vote for the nomination. I can’t believe that anyone should care that much about the outcome of the votes in those wilderness areas.
If I don’t like the ultimate Republican nominee, I’ll “waste” my vote on someone other than a liberal, as long as he is strong on national defense. I have been known to write in my own name.
(BTW, there is a much greater and rational story to the “rapist” release than what the media scratches on the surface.)
internecine warfare:
1. Reg is right. Leave us (progressives/liberals/democrats and what have you) to our own devices and we’ll immediately set about fighting with each other.
2. Disquisitions about etymology are never a bad thing. But reframing the popular usage of “internecine” as evidence of a liberal plot takes some real….um…creative thinking, Woody.
“Et tu?” 3 years of Latin. I wish now I’d spent the time studying Spanish, but what the hell…
Gee Reg I’m sorry that I’m not going overboard on St. Barack of the Byrning Bush but his attacks on Krugman were just plain wrong as any ecpnomist not in the tank with the Vlbbers for Gtowth will tell you. He is apparently deciding that picking fights with the blogisphere and the few progressives will be his sister souljah moment. And will he withstand the GOP attack? I have my doubts. And leadership? Chris Dodd has shown far more. I don’t want a whining Rodney King plaintively asking “Can we all Get Along.” We need a TR, an FDR. We need a fighter.
Yeah, Robert Reich is obviously in the tank.
How is it that Obama’s picking the fights when Americablog was crazy vicious and went far beyond criticism to slander, when Krugman backs up Hillary’s half-assed attacks on Obama’s (superior) health care proposal and this guy – was it Bowers ? – makes shit up about him and it circulates via atrios. Yeah, Obama is a bad guy for standing up to attacks on him…plus “he’s got no fight.” Don’t fuck with Bambi!
That FDR was quite a “fighter” when he ran for President. Everybody knows that. And if you want a “TR” vote for John McCain.
This is a very hasty reference but according to Wikipedia FDR ran in 1932 “advocating ‘immediate and drastic reductions of all public expenditures,’ ‘abolishing useless commissions and offices, consolidating bureaus and eliminating extravagances reductions in bureaucracy,’ and for a ‘sound currency to be maintained at all hazards.'” Sounds more like what one would have expected from Hoover…
If arguing policy with Krugman qualifies as Obama’s “Sister Soulja moment” than we’re already taking a major step in the right direction.
He made those comments in a speech in Pittsburgh. When an aide brought those comments up before the ’36 election to ask how he would answer charges that he broke a promise (guess they were worried about a thirties Tim Russert asking “gotcha” questions) FDR gave the best answer any pol ever made: “I’ll deny I was ever in Pittsburgh!”