Saturday, March 07, 2009
Is the political terrain shifting under President Obama?
Mark Tapscott makes the case that the political terrain is shifting against Barack Obama even as he seems to pile up one victory after another. Tapscott amasses a few anecdotes in support of that view, enough for the hopeless to have hope and for Glenn Reynolds to toss a link. Unfortunately, the opposition is flat on its back with no leader of national consequence. The GOP can choose between a national chairman who is being openly mocked in both parties, a radio personality (however monumental), and a governor of -- cough -- Louisiana who blew his first shot on the national stage (something that the much maligned Sarah Palin manifestly did not do).
The situation is not unlike the mid-1930s, when Franklin Roosevelt made a lot of political enemies but the Republicans were in such disarray that they stood no chance until Wendell Willkie emerged from that era's great growth industry to challenge FDR in 1940. He might have won, too, if people had not been worried about the wars in Europe and East Asia and if Roosevelt were not the shrewdest politician of his generation. The question is, who is this era's Willkie?
23 Comments:
By 
, at
Sat Mar 07, 10:26:00 AM:
Wendell Willkie came from the private sector, too. The Republicans really need to do away with the model that only career politicians and staffers must be their candidates. Mitt Romney or someone of his stature and experience needs to come in, take charge, and move out.
By , at
Sat Mar 07, 10:35:00 AM:
You can toss Rush Limbaugh from your pool of potential Wilkies. Rush realizes that his positon on the Conservative team is behind the microphone. He is far more influential there than he would be running for office. Lee is quite right that we need candidates from the private sector, but how do they emerge when money is such a huge obstacle? Finally, anyone who appears to be a rising star on the Right is going to get The Treatment that Palin received. This in itself will be a very hard thing to overcome.
By , at
Sat Mar 07, 11:27:00 AM:
***
The first priority is to get rid of all Republican open primary elections. Too many crossover voters gave us John McCain.
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The second step is to oust the RINO's in the House and Senate elections--only solid non corrupt real conservative candidates should be put forward.
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President Obama (PBUH) is a truly skilled politician. And his political machine is the best I have seen in 67 years. Acorn, Left Wing Media, fundraising--really great. He will be tough to beat unless his socialist / marxist / communistic plans completely trash our econony and country before 2012.
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The good news is that he doesn't care if it does. Illegal alien amnesty may give the democrats the edge forever. He is in the 2012 campaign already.
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Rocketman
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By , at
Sat Mar 07, 12:50:00 PM:
I see much Republican disarray at the party organizing level, but much more cohesion and effective argument at the elected official level, particularly the House and Senate. I have hope. New Republican growth will have to start there, where there is something still moving.
As for our Wendell Willke, I hope we don't have to live through 8 years of Obama before a viable alternative emerges.
A viable alternative to Obama is going to have to connect with people emotively. By election time, the people who would vote to oust Obama will be pretty beat down and discouraged. I think that someone born and bred to lead, (right schools, right resume, right advisors, etc.) will look and sound like a kazoo in the woodwinds.
By 2012 we all will have had an opportunity to see that the best and the brightest do not necessarily make the best and brightest decisions. The David Brooks, Chris Matthews love affair with people of literary depth will seem like an infatuation. It will be hard not to conclude that the pretty good are sometimes damned effective.
Who would this person be and will they be able to withstand the demonization?
I don't know and if I had an inkling I would not say at this point. I am only, on a good day, pretty good.
M.E.
By , at
Sat Mar 07, 01:07:00 PM:
In my opinion, it is only the liberal dems and the media that tell us we have no talent. Fred Thompson, Sarah Palin, Pawlenty (sp?), Steele, and Romney to name just a few off the top of my head. Jindal is also a VERY talented leader if we aren't superficial and we look at his results versus his speech patterns. And if there's one thing conservatives have the jump on libs for, it's that we aren't superficial. Keep your uber attractive idiot president and we will continue to ally ourselves with intelligent folks who can actually do something. Carolynp
By , at
Sat Mar 07, 02:07:00 PM:
The Republicans are in such bad shape that they can only hope that Obama craters the economy in 2010 - 2012 ... and not in later years. which is what I suspect will happen.
Obama is instead working to make sure that 2009 sucks but that we'll be out of the recession by 2010 ... just in time for the Stimulus Bill to goose things. He'll then have a huge fund to "make it rain" for key elements of his base. He'll claim credit for whatever modest turnaround we see. Thus, look for the Democrats to solidify their position in 2010.
The Republican party is irrelevant right now and won't be relevant in the next two years and for maybe longer. Steele might have made some modest progress, but Obama & Co got Rush to neuter him.
There are too many elements in the Republican party with too narrow a focus to be an effective national party. Eight years of Bush killed the brand. It's not that the Republicans lost the White House ... it's that they've lost so many seats in Congress that they're no longer an effective opposition party.
Our only hope in the near term is Blue Dog Democrats in Congress.
If you think the likes of Thompson, Jindal, Palin, Romney can win in 2012 -- without an economic collapse -- you're delusional.
Link
By 
Viking Kaj, at
Sat Mar 07, 03:35:00 PM:
I think the answer is whoever can dominate on the "Bubba" factor will emerge as the most effective leader. Anything less will doom the GOP to continued failure
If you look at the elections over the last 30 years or so it has been the candidate who has dominated on the "Bubba" factor who has won.
Reagan clearly had Bubba on his side in both elections. Carter despite his accent is a tortured intellectual and people from Minnesota are just too weird to win national elections. Bush daddy won his first because his opponent was Dukakis and he had Lee Atwater. But he lost his second to Bill Clinton, major Bubba, cheatin' heart indeed (Carville didn't hurt). Dole came off as a cranky old man by comparison. Bush versus McCain or Gore? Definite Bubba winner. Although Gore fooled some people with the southern accent he still comes off as a crazy Harvard elitist. We don't even need to talk about Kerry, do we? And this last election, McCain as already noted, doesn't have it.
So who in the present crop of Republicans can do this? Nobody on the horizon that I can see. Romney is a little like Kerry. Rush, while from Califonia's central Bubba valley, is a self important windbag who makes his living criticizing others. Steel was a bad choice as chairman. Jindal? Bwaaaaaaa!!!!
Sara Palin could qualify since the north piney woods is very Bubba, and so is being an ex beauty queen. But there is something a little too soccer mom about her.
Me? I like Missippi governer and former RNC Chairman Haley Barbour, with maybe Newtie for Vice. That would be a good combination of Bubba and Brains. But anyone who wants to run against Obama had better start raising cash right now, since the Oman retained $ 30 Million from his last campaign to jump start the next one. That's a huge lead and Iowa is still 36 months away.
By Viking Kaj, at
Sat Mar 07, 03:39:00 PM:
Just thought I'd add that McCain is so un Bubba that he totally neutralized this important factor in the latest cycle. Obama is not a Bubba, but this time around it didn't matter because the Republicans were both kooks. What I am saying is there was no clear Bubba factor in this last election, which is why the Dems finally won one.
By , at
Sat Mar 07, 03:58:00 PM:
Larry Kudlow said he may run for Senate against Chris Dodd. This could mark an important turnaround should Kudlow run and defeat Dodd.
By , at
Sat Mar 07, 04:15:00 PM:
I am not so convinced that lil bHo is a skilled politician. He preys on weakness. And the American electorate *was* weak.
However, the American electorate is always the wild card: it elected Reagan by a wider majority than lil bHo with his soon-to-fall ACORN (they are so rancid he wont be able to keep them clean much longer) was elected.
Also, white Americans are monolithic thinkers when it comes to illegals and amnesty. I am a son of naturalized Americans who emigrated from early 20th century revolution soaked Mexico.
We don't buy the hype on illegals from Mexico as being some kind of saints. We had to go through lawfully--- so do they. And if lil bHo opens the gates to lawlessness, look for Americans of Hispanic descent to defect in high numbers on voting day--- maybe not from the D party (D for douche bag--- i am a registered independent), but we wont vote for lil bHo spitting on our law abiding ways and middle class status (which is increasing).
So this vaunted machine is built on appearance. Whoopi Goldberg is pissed about taxes: she is a Black voter no matter how rich she is. Middle Class Blacks cannot be counted on. And middle class Blacks and fear tactics dont mix. There will be defections..... and perhaps we can also look into the fatigue of Americans with CHARISMA in candidates.
We wont care if the candidate is as ugly as a mud fence and cheesy as a burger: does he/she understand simple economics and have they ever led anything besides a re-election campaign.
El bHo is finished. Atlas has shrugged. the Imposter Supreme is not above history.
Markets taught me one thing: the markets have a way of identifying one's weaknesses- and then promptly beat you to death with them.
Say Goodnite Barry. d-bag.
By , at
Sat Mar 07, 04:44:00 PM:
I disagree on "Bubba" determining outcomes. It's Reagan democrats that matter.
Bush 41 rode Reagan's coattails.
Bush 43 barely won, and lost the popular vote in 2000. He eked out a win against a very weak Kerry in 2004. Rove's strategy of focusing on the base was just lucky.
McCain had three strikes against him before he started in 2008.
What did Reagan have that the others didn't -- Reagan democrats !
What's a Reagan democrat ... sometimes Catholic, could be Hispanic today, often working class. Often urban. Often an independent. Today, the Republican party -- especially Rush -- telegraphs that it doesn't want these voters.
Until Obama this year, the Democrats only won with Clinton ... who -- in the midst of a recession -- painted Bush as an out-of-touch elitist, with an assist from Ross Perot.
To win in 2010 and 2012, the Republicans must find a principled way to capture the middle -- as Reagan did. As part of this, those who aren't "white Protestant males in fly-over states" can't be made to feel second-class citizens in the party. To be a national party, the Republicans can't just be a party of ditto-heads where the likes of Rush and a handful of evangelicals can veto nominees.
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The Republicans have to win back House and Senate seats in places like Connecticut in 2010 or they can pack it in. Will the Republicans embrace Kudlow -- who I like -- or find a way to say he's a RINO. Developing ...
Link
By MTF, at
Sat Mar 07, 05:31:00 PM:
I agree with Link's first comment. The GOP lacks a leader that can win.
Our prospective presidential candidate needs to be positive and encouraging to the country. We can and should engage the Obama/Pelosi administration on ideas, and persuade the voters that better ideas are available.
In the meantime, the 2010 elections are critical. We need to gain some ground back against the Democrats, and undercut Pelosi. That's where the immediate heavy lifting needs to be done.
By D.E. Cloutier, at
Sat Mar 07, 09:57:00 PM:
Gingrich for President.
Yes, I know the problems.
But Nixon came back from the dead after he had lost the 1962 race for governor in California. In 1968, Nixon portrayed himself as a figure of stability in a time of unrest.
It would take one hell of a marketing public relations (MPR) program to make Gingrich a strong candidate. But it could be done, in my opinion. (Don't forget, Gingrich was Time magazine's "Person of the Year" in 1995.)
By JPMcT, at
Sat Mar 07, 11:55:00 PM:
Let me make an outrageous statement...but prove me wrong. All of the informed mumblings that we do on these sites isn't going to amount to a hill of beans...because the election of Obama has shown us the power of the uninformed boob. A significant percentage of the votes cast for the Obamateur were cast by people who had no idea what he stood for, no idea how to find their state on a map, no idea who the Vice President was or what year the Civil War started.
They just knew he was black.
And so it will continue....
By , at
Sun Mar 08, 09:45:00 AM:
So, the Obama administration has admitted they are not competent for the job. Moreover, some of the higher ups in the administration have admitted they spend their precious White House days hatching political attacks on radio personalities, rather than trying to become competent.
Empty suits, building policy on the basis of rewarding those who paid for the last election.
What's worse is that into this vacuum only bad things will flow. Domestically, that means Nancy Pelosi. Internationally, God only knows what trouble we've bought ourselves.
Watching this slow motion train wreck is nothing short of incredible.
By , at
Sun Mar 08, 10:09:00 AM:
To MPMct
Obama didn't win because of "uninformed boobs." His best outcomes by "educational cohort" were at the extremes ... "no high school" and "postgraduate study." Obama killed among the over-educated.
The demographic breakdown in the 2008 election was telling:
McCain won the Protestant vote by 54% to 45% ... but he lost the Catholic vote by 45% to 54%.
McCain won the white vote 55% to 43% ... but Obama won Hispanic, Asian and other by 2 to 1.
McCain won registered Republicans by 9 to 1, Obama won registered Democrats by 9 to 1 ... but Obama won independents by 53% to 44% ...
To me, McCain didn't lose the election ... the Republicans had already lost it. One of my running themes is that the Republicans betrayed their principles, that Bush 43 was a disaster, and that most Americans believe the Iraq War was a mistake and that we were misled into it.
This left a vacuum -- Obama filled it. Many of those who voted for Obama wanted to send an anti-Bush, anti-Republican, anti-DC establishment message .... pulling the lever for Obama was the only way to do it.
This was especially true among independents ... who decided the election.
Obama got away with a message light on details because MSM let him. This site has more than its share of people who know quantitative economics and tax -- either from helping run businesses or otherwise ... which is why we're so worked up. The devil is in the details.
p.s. the Republican base has it's share of "uninformed boobs." Many listen to Rush.
Link
By D.E. Cloutier, at
Sun Mar 08, 05:02:00 PM:
Nice comment at 10:09 a.m., Link.
We also have to force the "nonpartisan" employees in the federal bureaucracy to become nonpartisan again.
Many of my "nonpartisan" acquaintances (career bureaucrats, GS-15s and their bosses) in Washington, DC, used to refer to the Republican "Contract with America" as the "Contract ON America."
By D.E. Cloutier, at
Sun Mar 08, 05:19:00 PM:
P.S.
A further comment from this libertarian Republican:
The invasion of Iraq was a mistake. I heard nothing in Colin Powell's speech at the UN to convince me otherwise. (I never bought the WMD argument.) But once you make the commitment, you have to follow through.
By , at
Sun Mar 08, 06:16:00 PM:
I was never for cut and run over Iraq. I agreed with Powell ... "we broke it, we own it." Iraq has too much strategic signficance. We have a moral obligation as well.
Obama's plans for Iraq don't seem much different from what McCain would have done ... but the optics are different. Am I right? Obama says we're leaving ... "except for that 50,000 man residual force."
I don't get Obama's interest in Afghanistan. What are we trying to achieve there exactly?
I always thought Mohammed Atta (and his wannabe successors) more dangerous than bin Laden, who was only a money man.
Link
By D.E. Cloutier, at
Sun Mar 08, 07:12:00 PM:
Link: "What are we trying to achieve there exactly?"
Do you think U.S. State Department bureaucrats know what they're doing? They couldn't even correctly translate something for Hillary's plastic button or help Obama pick out a suitable gift for Gordon Brown.
DEC
By MTF, at
Mon Mar 09, 10:44:00 AM:
Further evidence to the thesis that the guiding ideology of the Obama administration is "reward those who paid for the election", today we have Biden unplugged:
"Vice President Joe Biden wasn’t exactly restrained in remarks to an AFL-CIO gathering in Miami last Thursday, saying, “You all brought me to the dance a long time ago, and it’s time we start dancing.”
The measure would allow organizers to unionize a shop if a majority of employees sign a petition, bypassing the need for an open election. "
As to the incompetent in foreign affairs theme, today we have the administration petulantly striking out at British critics, sadly being quoted in an interview with the Sunday Telegraph,
"There’s nothing special about Britain. You’re just the same as the other 190 countries in the world. You shouldn’t expect special treatment."
Couldn't this twerp have chosen a less public place to say something so hamhandedly stupid? Maybe his child's school newspaper, for instance.
As far as our economic situation goes, CNBC just reported that the stock market decline since inauguration has destroyed $7 trillion of household wealth.
This is incredible. Absolutely incredible. The worst part is that the next election is still eighteen months away.
By D.E. Cloutier, at
Mon Mar 09, 02:51:00 PM:
To MTF
Thanks for the link about the State Department official.
- DEC
By MTF, at
Mon Mar 09, 07:27:00 PM:
Sure, thanks for noticing. The quote is ugly though- so ugly that it's hard to believe the Telegraph decided to fan the flames and actually print it. They really want to Obama to show them some love. It must be that the public snubs we heard about were even worse behind the scenes.
