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6 comments to The Ticket Obama Fears Most
I agree with the overall analysis of the writer. The proof of the progressives’ (and POTUS’) fear will be proven when the MSM begins to hysterically excoriate the pair. That they’ve already pulled out the long knives for Governor Perry over Texas education policy shows their worry. It’ll be interesting to watch how the MSM, the DNC and the SEIU go about slamming Rubio. Will they disregard their own definition of racism and actually criticize a person of color? Oh, I forgot, it’s only racist to criticize a liberal person of color. Look what the MSM did to Condoleezza Rice and Clarence Thomas.
How do they stack up against a Hillary run? Next year she will be 65, and it will probably be her last chance. If she doesn't run and øbama gets re-elected, her next chance will be when she is 69, but by then the people will be really tired of the Democrats like they were when Humphrey ran in 1968. If the Republican wins next year, she will most likely be faced with waiting another eight years. By then she will be 73 and really old hat. So I wouldn't write her off for next year.
I write Hillary off. She's not going to challenge Obama, no matter how low his approval rating is. At the national level the Democrats are too united and ideologically committed to allow for that kind of donnybrook. As a really old-time Democrat, I'd enjoy it, but the masters of the party won't let it happen.
As for Perry-Rubio, I agree that such a ticket would be a very strong threat to Obama. My guess is that the next few weeks will mark the beginning of the end for Romney's bid; he'll still have his big-money donors but he'll keep dropping in the polls as Perry gains. Perry neatly counteracts both Palin and Bachmann for the red meat vote (I have other, less polite labels for this part of the Republican base, but I'll spare you-y'all know who you are.) Perry has office-holding experience, in a major state, and he is a proven vote-getter there. Rubio is a good balance on the ticket, and he will allow the Republicans to appeal to the Latino vote in the same way that Obama appealed to the black vote. Rubio has some liabilities--he'll have to make very clear where he is in religious terms. It's a little hard to split the difference between Roman Catholic and Baptist, so he'll need to be one or the other. This is just a detail, disposed of by a clever public statement or two, so it's no deal-breaker.
The spirit of the times is really one of the strongest forces for Perry-Rubio and for a conservative victory in 2012. Right now there is really almost no reason for a Republican candidate who wants to win to do anything else except run hard to the right. The times are not calling for a 'moderate' Republican; this is what Romney will soon discover. His kind of fat-cat corporate Republicanism is repellent to the rightwing populists that fill the ranks of the party now.
Obama and the liberal base of the Democrats will try hard to summon up the old 2008 magic, but this dog won't hunt, not in 2012. In a few more months, the academic survey researchers will be up and running (few of these think polls done a year or more in advance of an election are worth spit). My guess is that the better pollsters will be able to show that--based on unemployment percentages alone--never mind any other issues--Obama will get whupped.
As I see it, one uncertainty is this: can conservatives persuade anti-Obama voters to want the genuine conservative agenda? It's one thing to be anti-Obama--and perhaps quite another to be in favor of gutting the social policies of the liberals. One of the things pollsters could show after the 1980 election was that a big part of the vote consisted of anti-Carter sentiment, which did not translate very clearly into support for what conservative Reaganites were talking about. There were, I recall, sizeable majorities in polls who favored environmental protection, increasing Medicare, more money for education, etc. Your side will face something similar in 2012.
Gestell:
I hope you are right about Hillary. As far as the rest of your post, I think it's a fair assessment. Let me re-post a paragraph from before you joined our group:
“…Because voters are rationally ignorant (the costs of gaining particular kinds of information are greater than the benefits since one vote is essentially meaningless), politicians must employ a language designed to evoke emotion – enough emotion to motivate the right people to turn out and vote. Thus, politicians rarely speak with precise meanings, marginal calculations, or logical reasoning; instead they manipulate effect, raw emotions, group identifications, and even hatred, envy, and threats. Because premature commitment to an issue can cause one to end up in a minority position, successful politicians equivocate, hint, exaggerate, procrastinate, ‘straddle fences,’ adopt code words, and speak in non-sequiturs. Understanding the politician is therefore extremely frustrating for those who value precise statements. But note that this problem is not the fault of the politician; it is rooted in the rational ignorance of voters, the distribution of conflicting sentiments among voters, and the nature of collective endeavor. What all this means is clear: Political communication is rarely conducive to rational or efficient allocation of scarce resources. This does not mean that the individual politicians are irrational in their choice of language and symbolic activities. Waving the flag and kissing babies are practiced because of their tactical value in an activity that is at once a rational game and a morality play; in that conjunction lies the endless fascination and frustration of politics.”
-- Chapter 4: “Pathological Politics” from Beyond Politics, by William C. Mitchell & Randy T. Simmons
I've said for some time that someone from the RNC should be taking notes because Obama is giving them a lot of material for their TV ads.
I think Gestell’s assessment of both Hillary and the Democratic Leadership is spot on. If Hillary was going to mount a concerted primary challenge she should have resigned as Secretary of State by now. That’s not to say she & her husband didn’t check with the leadership. There won’t be a primary challenge amongst democrats They cannot afford to look fractured in public.
More interesting to me is how the general election is going to play out. Obama simply cannot run on his record; that would be political suicide. It’s going to be an uphill slog to try to position himself as the wounded party in a partisan Congressional battle as well. He did have unassailable majorities in both houses for the first two years of his administration and couldn’t keep his own party in line to pass Cap & Trade or the DREAM Act. Hell, he barely got health care.
Does he run on his regulatory accomplishments; touting his administration’s flagrant violation of the Separation of Powers as a ‘leader’ willing to legislate via executive order and department regulation to ensure his policies are carried out?
My guess is that his entire campaign will consist of two prongs. The first will be; “It’s not my fault! Tsunamis, earthquakes, hurricanes, and George Bush thwarted me at every turn!” The second prong will be smear, smear, smear, the opposition. The opportunity to try to broad-brush Perry as another Texas Governor turned presidential candidate; “And we all know what happened the last time we placed a Texas Governor in the White House don’t we?” is all he has. He can hope people will employ the soft bigotry of low expectations that progressives have carried for the African American bloc since the middle 60’s. “He’s a terrible Chief Executive, but he is Black.”
So the campaign looks like it shapes up to; “It’s not my fault. Perry is Bush in disguise. And love me or you’re a racist.” Perry will slaughter Obama in any debate, so the MSM has to carefully choose the questions. I can just imagine Bob Schieffer asking candidate Obama to; “Please explain exactly how George Bush ruined your first term?” and asking Perry; “So, how many times have you been to Crawford, Texas?” with follow-ups about ‘shared sacrifice’ and why Perry doesn’t advocate raising taxes on millionaires & billionaires to ‘share the pain’.
I guess that at this time next year I’ll be back to cursing and flinging stuff at the TV. The wife won’t be happy!
Bill:
Re:
The second prong will be smear, smear, smear, the opposition. ...
So the campaign looks like it shapes up to; “It’s not my fault. Perry is Bush in disguise. And love me or you’re a racist.”
As Mitchell and Simmons said, politicians must employ a language designed to evoke emotion – enough emotion to motivate the right people to turn out and vote.
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