Right Wing Nut House

I would hesitate to go so far as to say that the argument taking place in South Carolina by partisans for Lindsey Graham and Jim DeMint is a microcosm of the debate between “moderates” and conservatives across the country. In the first place, someone with a lifetime rating of 90 from the ACU (Graham) can by no means be considered a “moderate” anything. Secondly, Graham’s difficulties have been heightened by his own potty mouth trashing of conservatives who disagree with him. Calling someone a “bigot” because they want tighter border security is not the way to win friends and influence conservatives.

Rather, the debate is over whether Republicans should assist the Democrats in governing the country. This is the real issue, at least in South Carolina, where Lindsey Graham has demonstrated a desire to reach across the aisle to work with Democrats on key issues like cap and trade and the Sotomayer nomination. In short, the difference is in what we used to call the “temperament” of the legislator. And there are many who believe a legislator cannot hold to any principles if they parlay with the enemy.

And DeMint? Anyone who claims allegiance to a political party and makes a statement that he would rather have only 30 true believing GOP senators as opposed to a majority who held varied positions on some issues needs to have an intervention by some adult, and be sent away where he can weave baskets until he comes to his senses. The prescription on the bottle of pills on which he has overdosed reads: “Take two every day and destroy the Republican party.” His idea is that rock solid stupid.

From a New York Times article on the South Carolina situation:

Their grievance list was long: it cited the senator for calling opponents of immigration law change “bigots,” holding the Republican Party “hostage” by participating in bipartisan maneuvers, voting for the Wall Street bailout and tarnishing the ideals of freedom.

It even criticized Mr. Graham, a Republican and the state’s senior senator, as having “stated on many occasions that his primary concern is to ‘be relevant.’ ”

The party had no such criticism for the other senator from South Carolina, Jim DeMint.

In fact, Mr. DeMint, a Republican in his first term, is the leader of a movement to pull the party in the opposite direction from Mr. Graham’s conciliatory approach. The political action committee he founded, called the Senate Conservatives Fund, backs only candidates who are rock-solid conservatives, and adherents to his views have led the efforts to censure Mr. Graham.

The two senators say they are friends whose differences are exaggerated by the news media, and Mr. DeMint has not personally criticized Mr. Graham or called for his censure.

But their contrasting strategies have brought home to South Carolina the struggle over the future of the Republican Party and have put them on opposite sides of important Senate primaries in states like Florida, where Mr. DeMint supports a vocal conservative, Marco Rubio, and Mr. Graham supports Gov. Charlie Crist.

In California, Mr. DeMint supports Chuck DeVore, in defiance of the national party leadership and Mr. Graham, who said he would campaign for Carly Fiorina.

Here in South Carolina, Mr. Graham’s vote to confirm Justice Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court, among other positions, has cost him the support of many conservatives, as have his comments that voters want politicians to reach across the aisle and that Republicans need to do a better job of attracting younger voters and minorities.

I have taken pains in the past to point out that DeMint’s idea of conservatism and someone who lives in the northeast (where only 6% of the population have a favorable view of the GOP) may differ wildly - ON THE ISSUES. The fact that so many conservatives confuse “issues” with “principles” shouldn’t surprise anyone considering they get most of their information from people like Rush Limbaugh who make the exact same mistake. A northeastern conservative can hold to the exact same principles as a southern conservative but differ in the ideological lens through which they view the world. Why this makes a northeastern conservative suspect goes to the heart of the debate in the party today.

Issues and principles are not the same, have never been the same, and will never be the same. And someone like Graham who gets a 90% lifetime conservative rating and is seen as a “moderate” by many conservatives proves my point spectacularly. In this case, DeMint conservatives are confusing temperament with principles. Just as many on the right believe that criticizing their idols like Palin, Limbaugh, and other cotton candy conservatives makes someone, somehow, less beholden to conservative principles than they. Principles be damned - it’s whether you are sufficiently hateful toward the opposition that is the yardstick where someone’s conservative bona fides are measured. If conservatism was a philosophy today instead of a rigid, ideological religion, such nonsense would be laughed out of the room.

Madness.

I disagreed with Graham on Sotomayer, cap and trade, and the judges compromise. And I resented his intimations that he held a superior moral position on immigration reform - something that smacked of arrogance even if he was pandering to Hispanics by playing it that way. But Graham has been a reliable conservative vote on so many other issues, one wonders why his apostasy in these few cases would condemn him to be cast into the outer darkness by conservatives. It only proves that the DeMint notion of a party in lockstep and a prisoner of its own rigid ideology, will probably dominate the landscape in 2010.

At what cost? Let’s be frank and acknowledge that the DeMint idea of conservatism is much more ideological than pragmatic, more beholden to the holy writ of purity than reason and logic, and requires a plethora of litmus tests on issues to join his scowling band (ideologues have no sense of humor at all). Couple that with the belief that saying anything halfway nice about the president or the political opposition disqualifies one from membership and you have the perfect recipe for a permanent, minority party.

Perhaps this has to happen in order for a revival to take place. Perhaps the DeMints of the party have to be beaten so badly that they are once and for all, totally discredited in the eyes of conservatives in the rest of the country. Only then can a reasonable, pragmatic conservatism emerge that acknowledges adherence to DeMint principles, but lowers the ideological temperature to be more inclusive.

It may very well be that DeMint’s southern fried conservatism will do very well in 2010. Certainly the Democrats are helping out a ton there. But beyond that, the future is clouded by notion that events may very well play more into the Democrat’s hands in 2012 and whatever gains made at the polls in the Mid-Term elections would be washed away.

America is not an ideological country. And believing the route to majority status can be achieved by being more wild eyed and rigid than the opposition is a losing proposition. I’m not sure that Graham’s approach is 100% the way to victory. But it’s a damn sight closer to what’s needed than where DeMint wants to take the party.

Destination DeMint: Over a cliff.

I risk life and limb writing about the former Alaska governor. Like the supporters of failed presidential candidate and official GOP weirdo Ron Paul, any negative comments I would make about the real conservative’s favorite MILF is going to bring an army of supporters to her defense while trashing me in the most unseemly terms imaginable.

Fortunately, I am well hidden in this corner of the blogosphere, and few real conservatives would be caught dead reading anything I write. However, Google search is ubiquitous in its reach and chances are, there are a couple of dozen Palinbots who will receive an email in their inbox informing them of my post. At that point, their email lists will fairly crackle with activity as my offense against the Goddess will be spread far and wide, bringing wrack and ruin down upon me.

Thus, I wade into the morass that Palin has made of her career with a little trepidation, but with a clear eye and my usual muddled head. The latter might usually be seen as a deficiency but when writing about Palin, it may actually prove a boon since what other frame of mind can you employ to write about a woman so challenged by fact and in love with fancy?

Let’s get the facts out of the way first; there has never been a vice presidential candidate that was treated so unfairly by the media in the modern age. The number of rumors, falsehoods, and lies that were published as fact about her is truly astonishing and has no parallel in modern politics. (Such blackening the name of candidates with prevarications was routine in the 19th century but died out when newspapers became more independent of parties.)

I am surprised that I have not read that Sarah Palin bites the heads off chickens and drinks their blood. Charles Martin took the trouble of listing the media lies about Palin, stopping at 84 linked entries - that’s links to the lies as well as links that clearly debunk the lies.

This does not include the vicious attacks made in various magazines from Vanity Fair to Redbook that repeat some of the lies while making up a few more of their own. I challenge any fair minded liberal to refute these facts.

I normally hate to see any conservative treated so abysmally by those who claim to be, if not unbiased, then fair; if not balanced, then reasonable. Palin’s treatment has been neither fair nor reasonable. Many explanations have been given for this including the unprovable assumption that liberals hate strong conservative women. I think many liberals hate all conservatives whether they are men, women, transgendered, or eunuchs. Their mode of attack changes a little from sex to sex so perhaps it appears they single out women of the right for special treatment, but it’s really all part of the same mindset; conservatives are poopy heads and nothing is out of bounds in criticizing them.

The question before us is can the narrative regarding Palin be altered to make her a viable candidate for 2012? With 60% of the American people currently dead set against voting for her for president under any circumstances, it would seem to be a very tall mountain for her to climb in order for her to achieve the respect of the voters; something she never had to begin with among a majority and seems to have damaged herself further by abandoning her office. Her tabloid like-presence in American culture has also dragged her down, as has the fact that very few of the elites in the Republican party take her seriously as a party leader.

And well they shouldn’t. They may fear her influence with the 20% or so of the party who would support her aspirations in 2012, but beyond that, they and most of the rest of us find it difficult to take one so shallow and uninformed seriously. As far as I can tell, she has done little in the intervening year since the election to rectify her appalling ignorance of the world, and even domestic issues like health care. The author of the “death panels” remark may have succeeded in scaring old people to death but if I were her, I would hardly stand on that as an accomplishment.

Her fan base - and indeed many on the right - applauded her fear mongering because they believe it slowed down the legislative process and got conservatives back in the game. I believe they are overstating her influence as there were other factors, including senior citizens both Democrat and Republican who were already up in arms over the proposed Medicare cuts who showed up in droves at town hall meetings and voiced their concerns. In effect, Palin may have simply tossed some nitro on an already volatile situation.

And this is the kind of leader these jamokes want?

What Daniel Larison and others refer to as her “psuedo-populism” appears to highlight her very “ordinariness” and “just folks” personae. The trouble with this as I see it is that there is an undercurrent of anti-intellectualism that undergirds her anti-establishmentarian shtick. She has made her shallow, depthless understanding of the world into a badge of honor, and indeed, her supporters push the idea that this is a positive good, that having a president as unversed in nuance as they are of policy and programs would be kind of neat. Sure would be a switch from all those brainy establishment elitists who don’t want to roll back the New Deal and Great Society, making this country into a true conservative paradise.

This is not to say that Palin is stupid. She’s intellectually lazy. I wouldn’t necessarily call her incurious in a George Bush sort of way but neither would I refer to her as possessing the innate intelligence of a Ronald Reagan who actually did change the narrative about himself. Reagan had an active, curious mind and the good sense to reach out to experts who educated him, as well as filling in knowledge gaps by reading voraciously. Palin does not seem to have that spark, that drive, that hunger for knowledge that anyone as ill informed as she admits herself to be should possess. Therefore, I hold no hope that she can transform herself into a reasonably well informed politician.

You can see where this piece has been going. No, I don’t think Palin can alter the narrative about herself in time for 2012, and I think it improbable that she will ever be able to rise above the level in American politics as a curiosity, a side show -grist for the conservative base who, if they get their wish and nominate her in 2012, will find that the political baggage she carries along with her determined ignorance will lead to a Reaganesque landslide for Obama.

In order for her to flip her position with the electorate, she has to want to change the reasons they hold such a low opinion of her - alter their perceptions by addressing their concerns about her. Unless and until I see that happening, the chances are good that she won’t even be able to win the GOP nomination much less the general election.

Yes, it’s way too early to make any predictions, but then, pollsters and pundits wouldn’t have anything to write about which means they’d be out of a job for a year or so.

Actually, the value of predictions today is relevant to the current political debate over health care. Leading analysts who gauge the mood of the public on a month to month, even week to week basis, see outliers that may - or may not - be indicative of trends.

Trends represent long term outlooks rather than the “snapshot” that polls generally give us. Get enough snapshots of how people are thinking, and you can trace how people are feeling about an issue on a graph. That’s the essence of strategic polling and politicians - even this far out from the 2010 election - ignore the information at their own peril.

So when several of the best analysts in the industry examine the trendlines, as well as the 50-60 congressional districts where vulnerable members from both parties are fighting to remain in office, they put two and two together and come up with scenarios for the election based on science, their own experience, and hunches born out of their insights gleaned over many years of watching politics.

What these pollsters are seeing does not bode well for the Democrats as explained by Josh Kraushaar of Politico:

After an August recess marked by raucous town halls, troubling polling data and widespread anecdotal evidence of a volatile electorate, the small universe of political analysts who closely follow House races is predicting moderate to heavy Democratic losses in 2010.

Some of the most prominent and respected handicappers can now envision an election in which Democrats suffer double-digit losses in the House - not enough to provide the 40 seats necessary to return the GOP to power but enough to put them within striking distance.

Nate Silver, an unconventional but deadly accurate pollster who runs the must read site 538.com - and a Democratic consultant - managed to scare the beejeebees out of liberals at the recently concluded Netroots convention:

At the mid-August Netroots Nation convention, Nate Silver, a Democratic analyst whose uncannily accurate, stat-driven predictions have made his website 538.com a must read among political junkies, predicted that Republicans will win between 20 and 50 seats next year. He further alarmed an audience of progressive activists by arguing that the GOP has between a 25 and 33 percent chance of winning back control of the House.

“A lot of Democratic freshmen and sophomores will be running in a much tougher environment than in 2006 and 2008 and some will adapt to it, but a lot of others will inevitably freak out and end up losing,” Silver told POLITICO. “Complacency is another factor: We have volunteers who worked really hard in 2006 and in 2008 for Obama but it’s less compelling [for them] to preserve the majority.”

Is Silver being an alarmist or is there really a 1 in 4 or 1 in 3 chance that the GOP can pull off a shocker?

If history is any guide, Nate may have something there. Opposition gains in off year elections are a tradition in American politics with the party out of power winning back seats in 10 of the last 12 such elections. (The average gain has been about 13 seats).

But realistically, there would have to be a huge backlash - even bigger than 1994 - for Republicans to regain control of the House. The re-election rate for modern gerrymandered congressional districts tops 98% and the GOP would have to knock that percentage down to 90% in order to gain back the House.

A tall order, that. But the Democrats did it in 2006. And given the volatility of the current political climate, it is not beyond imagining, although Silver’s estimate of Republican chances to regain control is not shared by other seasoned pros.

I think that Nate is being deliberately provocative. The stars would have to align just right for a GOP takeover of the House to materialize. A perfect storm of failed health care reform, a double dip recession, and perhaps higher than expected inflation could combine to cause the kind of collapse in the political fortunes of Democrats that would give the GOP control of the House. I would place the chances of this occurring somewhere between “Impossible” and “Highly Improbable” - say, from zero to 5%.

If the economy improves faster and better than expected, that would alter the trends and Democratic losses may be held to a minimum. There are a lot of variables there as well, but I would put the chances of that happening slightly higher than a GOP takeover; say, 5-10%.

But most analysts - even Democratic ones - see the possibility 14 months from election day, that Republican gains could top the average of 13 seats by as much as a factor of 2. That seems reasonable to me - especially given the number of very vulnerable Democrats who won in 2006 and 2008 in districts normally carried by Republican presidential candidates.

Another factor that is an unknown will be congressional retirements. The GOP had 29 members leave office more or less voluntarily in 2006 (4 members declined to run because of ethics problems), and the Democrats captured all of them. We’ll have a better idea of who might be leaving after the first of the year.

As for the senate, I would say GOP chances of a takeover are even less than the House; say, between a “Cosmic Impossibility” and “When Hell Freezes Over.” And that’s being optimistic.

Seriously, the Republicans have too many seats to defend and not enough vulnerable Democrats to have a chance for an upset. Even if the Perfect Storm Scenario laid out above plays out, winning 11 seats is just too steep a hill to climb. If the GOP can gain 3-4 seats - still a tall order - they could consider the election a success.

But if the current trends showing double digit gains for Republicans in the House and those modest gains in the Senate play out, it would put the GOP in position to make a realistic run for control in 2012 when a winning president’s coattails can make the difference.

It would still be a long shot - I’m thinking that the first real chance for the GOP to regain control is in 2014 if Obama is re-elected and 2016 if a Republican wins in 2012 - but given the eye-popping deficits Obama will be running, anything is possible.

He must be next in line. The GOP poohbahs are lining up with the former Massachusetts governor already and here we are still more than 3 years away from the election.

Patricia Chadwick of CNBC jumps on the Romney bandwagon with both feet:

If the economy is still in limbo, Mitt Romney will have the opportunity of a lifetime. He understands economics; he knows how industry and business should work to thrive; he has had both private and public experience; he even studied and signed into law a health care system. For sure he will be able to talk to its strengths and weaknesses, what it can do and what it cannot do.

In all the political kerfuffle unfolding today, Mitt Romney has gravitas—no sexual scandals, a few grey hairs, a total lack of demagoguery, confidence but not arrogance, an ability to lead successfully and an understanding of the sanctity of the private sector in this country. Those attributes should stand him in good stead when the 2012 Presidential campaign starts to unfold in barely more than a year from now.

Jon Martin of Politico has been tracking the Romney buzz and discovered that the mass of Romney supporters and staffers in the early primary states are already standing by, waiting for the word from on high:

For the Romney team, it’s not too much of a stretch to say that the campaign never really ended.

In addition to the full-time employees the former Massachusetts governor has at his Boston-based Free & Strong America PAC, the early primary states and Washington are filled with former staffers and supporters who are in regular contact with one another.

Whenever Romney has a major TV appearance or pens an opinion piece, a PAC staffer, Will Ritter, circulates the news to an e-mail list of the former governor’s extended political family.

The Washington-based alumni have a regular monthly luncheon, are working on another reunion-like event around a 2009 candidate later this year and always make sure their former candidate is briefed on the latest political doings.

When Romney does a high-profile Sunday show like he did yesterday, for example, that means that former communications aides such as Matt Rhoades and Kevin Madden will join PAC spokesman and longtime adviser Eric Fehrnstrom to help prepare their old boss, either in person or over the phone. When he’s delivering a speech, as he did earlier this month on national security, other former campaign officials such as media consultants Russ Schriefer and Stuart Stevens are brought in.

And when the former governor is in Washington for reasons other than a public appearance, an even broader extended network of advisers is often alerted, including such figures as longtime lobbyist and GOP strategist Ron Kaufman.

Romney enjoys an equally strong following in many of the early primary states.

Long time GOP strategist and former McCain campaign manager Terry Nelson puts it more plainly: “Having run before for president puts you in a better place to run again. He doesn’t have to build an infrastructure or recruit a national fundraising team.”

I made the point on my radio show this past Tuesday that if - and that’s a big “if” - Sarah Palin thinks by resigning her office 2 1/2 years before the primaries begin, that she has a better shot at beating Romney, someone should have told her that not only is Romney so far ahead he is almost out of sight, but that the Republican elites are already touting him as “inevitable.” In other words, it’s Romney’s turn.

Who else is there? Gingrich blows hot and cold, trying to decide if his sky high negatives would get in the way of his ambition to be president. Of the governors, Jindal is too young and too green, Pawlenty is as vanilla as they come, Daniels says he doesn’t want it, Huntsman has been co-opted by Obama, and the rest are even more nondescript or unacceptable in one way or another (Do we really want to elect another Bush or another governor from Texas?)

Rising stars? There are a few. Mark Kirk of Illinois who is probably too moderate on social issues for a shot at the national ticket but who is a very telegenic, articulate spokesman for conservative economic issues, has the luxury of running for either governor or senator. But if elected, he would have to abandon his office almost immediately if he wanted to run for president.

Rob Portman, currently running for the senate from Ohio would have the same problem despite the fact that he is a genius on economic matters and has a nice, comfortable personae about him.

I saw Congressman Paul Ryan at CPAC and listened to a speech he made at a think tank roundtable on conservatism. He is definitely an up and comer but Congressman fare poorly as presidential candidates and besides, Ryan voted for TARP which may disqualify any Republican lawmaker who did so.

Then there’s the curious case of Mike Pence who, it is whispered around the Hill, would love to be president some day. He’s a pretty good speaker and is knowledgeable about a host of issues from the budget, to immigration, to health care. We’ll see how he does as Republican Conference Chairman and go from there. He’s only 50 years old so his national political days may be ahead of him.

Finally, we come to Mike Huckabee who, if elected, would be the first president whose named ended in two vowels. I can’t tell you how much I despise Huckaloser except to say I find great enjoyment and satisfaction in creating new and clever endings for his moniker. Huckapooh would destroy the Republican party if nominated so even though he has his own really dumb TV show, I sincerely hope everyone forgets him by the time the primaries roll around.

So not only is Romney next in line, there literally is no one else — unless Sarah Palin challenges him. This, she might do despite the spectacle she has made of herself this last week. When even Republicans - supporters as well as critics - come down on Palin and dismiss her chances in 2012, you have to wonder if she isn’t running for 2016 or beyond.

Maybe she’ll hit the rubber chicken circuit as Reagan did lo these many years ago. Not only will she command astronomical speaking fees, but she will keep her name and face in front of the faithful. Meanwhile, she would be honing her skills, filling in her extensive knowledge gaps, and generally creating a more serious, more complete candidate. We can only wait and see.

In the meantime, Romney continues to quietly do the spadework necessary for a 2012 run. And the GOP should find more uses for this very talented but flawed man. His critiques of Obama’s policies have been very good with no name calling, solid facts and figures, and his speeches are given with an air of authority few Republicans can match.

There is a slight chance that things will be so bad by the fall of 2011 that someone unknown at this point could sweep to the nomination if they are seen as a knight on a white charger. But that scenario is extremely far fetched. It is very unlikely that a new governor or senator elected in 2010 would abandon their office and almost immediately run for president. Hence, the names mentioned above (along with a few others) are it as far as GOP candidates are concerned.

That really leaves a wide open field for Romney. Even at this early, early, stage the race is his to lose. No one else will have the money or organization to challenge him - especially in the early states. If he is to be brought down, it will be by his own missteps, not by any other candidate surpassing him.