World comes to a halt as Republicans take to the stage in Iowa to debate future of humanity

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Ah, yes, there was a Republican debate last night in Ames. Good times. Maybe if I weren't on vacation I would have cared. (I was too busy watching The Makioka Sisters -- a stunningly beautiful film.)

Or maybe not.



No, no, let me be serious for a moment.

Did last night's debate mean anything? Well, not as much as Saturday's straw poll -- which won't really mean anything either, though it will clarify both public and insider GOP perceptions and possibly even help separate the wheat from the chaff, as they say.

Not that we don't already know what's wheat and what's chaff.

Romney is wheat. He's the national frontrunner -- though doubts remain on the right (if not venomous opposition from conservatives and other Tea Party types, and he may have a fairly low support ceiling.

Bachmann is also wheat, or at least what passes for wheat these days in the GOP (and on the far right generally). She's a serious contender, craziness notwithstanding.

Other than that?

It's amusing to see Santorum and Gingrich try to convince us we should take them seriously. Do they take themselves seriously? Of course. Do they know they've become joke candidates without a hope of winning anything other than the political equivalent of a Razzie? Maybe -- if they're being honest with themselves, but one doubts either one is capable of such self-effacing honesty.

It's also amusing to see more of the Bachmann-Pawlenty spat. T-Paw, lagging far behind in the polls (not even doing well in Iowa, so close to his Minnesota home), is still so desperate for attention that he's taking the gloves off, as they say, hopeful of emerging as the compromise candidate (particularly liked by the Beltway punditocracy) between the establishmentarian, business-oriented Romney and whoever ends up leading the charge from the radical right, either Bachmann or Perry (or both). Yes, I suppose he still has a shot. Yes, it's a long, long one. And he doesn't stand a chance against Bachmann in their little ongoing feud.

Pawlenty death watch: He'll "reassess" matters if he does poorly in Ames. Now there's a nice, lovely euphemism for "make up some self-aggrandizing excuses and get the hell out."

Perry life watch: It looks like he'll take the leap on Saturday. Not that he's trying to upstage the Ames straw poll or anything. No, of course not.

Cain? Yes, he took time out of his busy schedule scapegoating Muslims to grace us with his presence.

Paul? Hey, did you know he really hates government and much, much prefers the Hobbesian state of nature?

Huntsman? Oh, yes, Huntsman the Formidable, as I've dubbed him. He remains to me and impressive figure, an old-school, Reagan sort of conservative who in other, saner times would have been the clear GOP pick. Now? Not so much.

Wait, you want substance? Come on, you all know how it went. Obama is the satanic incarnation of anti-American evil. And taxes are bad, so very, very bad!

(But if you want some helpful fact-checking, check here. Needless to say, there was some fastness and looseness going on last night. What else is new?)

Besides, that spat is what seems to have gotten the most attention.



And, overall, it does now seem that civility in this Republican field is a thing of the past. As Slate's John Dickerson explained:

The debate had the makings of a serious discussion about leadership,
what form it should take, whether the candidates have demonstrated it,
and how it should be applied in Washington. However, this discussion
took place in a roller derby where that underlying theme was obscured by
people trying to bruise and batter each other. Criticisms and veiled
critiques broke out into the open among candidates desperate to avoid
being eliminated from consideration. In the end, there was a lot of arm
flailing. Everyone went round and round, and the lot of them wound up
where they had stood before the debate began.

Fight, fight, fight! Isn't that what we all crave -- what really gets us going? Who cares that the global economy is imploding or that our civilization is crumbling? Or that it's this right-wing ideology, so much on display last night, that is one of the main causes of our present (and future) crises?



Politics is a bloodsport.

And now, on that note, I'm going to go sit out on the deck and read (about something that has nothing to do with American politics circa 2011).

(photo)

Is the Huntsman campaign coming to an end?

By Michael J.W. Stickings

If you're at all familiar with the views expressed at this blog, you'll know that we're generally quite impressed with former Utah Governor and U.S. Ambassador to China Jon Huntsman.

I've even called him "Huntsman the Formidable," the one Republican who should really worry President Obama (but who won't, because Republicans are too stupid to nominate him).

It's not that we agree with him on the issues -- despite some renegade positions on, say, civil unions, and despite his admirable civility, he's ardently conservative and very much in line with Republican orthodoxy not so much of the present but at least of the recent past -- it's that he's something of a throwback to when Republicans weren't entirely insane. And, yeah, that makes him look good.

He's in the race for the Republican nomination for president, but he's way back and without a hope. The latest RCP average has him tied for ninth, with the ridiculous Rick Santorum, in what is generally an embarrassingly weak field. He polls at just 2 percent -- hardly a formidable showing.

And now his campaign manager, Susie Wiles, has resigned:

In an interview with the Miami Herald, Wiles said it was "just time" for her to move on.

"I signed up to get it started," she said. "It's like a phase. This morning I said it's time to move on."

Sounds to me like she was pushed out, likely because the campaign is doing so poorly.

Now, Huntsman still has some fairly big names still on board, including McCainiacs John Weaver and Matt David, the latter of whom also worked for Schwarzenegger in California. (David will replace Wiles.) And he's raising a lot of money. But at this point it looks like he's positioning himself for 2016, not competing seriously for 2012. And while it may not be wise to read too much into the departure of a single campaign staffer, even the top one, this change is hardly a positive sign.

I suppose that change could bring improvement, but I doubt it, not with Romney and Bachmann so far ahead and not with his inability so far to catch on in any significant way. Huntsman's campaign is already doomed to failure, and I suspect it won't be around much longer.

Romney the Pathetic blasts Obama over recession

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Mitt Romney really is pathetic.

And what's really utterly pathetic is not so much how desperately hard he's trying to be a strident movement conservative, because while he's certainly doing that to some degree he's also playing simultaneously to the somewhat more moderate GOP establishment by presenting himself as what seems to be the lone sober voice in a sea of utter insanity, but how he's trying desperately to join the Republican anti-Obama chorus by lashing out at a president with whom in reality he has often been in agreement.

For example, he said yesterday, clarifying previously ambiguous comments, that Obama has made the economy worse, that "the recession is deeper because of our president." Even then, though, he wasn't clear. Obama has apparently both "made the recession worse" and made the recovery, such as there has been one, "slower and more painful."

In other words, he doesn't know what the hell he's talking about. Or, rather, he presumably does but has gotten himself trapped in his own bullshit spin, not clear about what exactly his talking points are. Are things worse or is the recovery too slow? They can't be both. But Romney, poor pathetic Romney, can't seem to pick his preferred line.

Of course, the recovery has been slow, but how has that been Obama's fault? Obama inherited a terrible economic situation. The recession ended several months after he took office, but he did what he could, early in his presidency, to get the economy moving again. And if there is blame to hand out for the slowness of the recovery, it must be handed to the Republicans who objected to Obama's (and the Democrats') stimulus, or at least to the size of it, and prevented the government from injecting enough money into the economy to get it going again quickly enough. Romney for his part, and to his credit, supported the stimulus, but Republicans generally were the obstacle.

Obama then pushed for the bank and auto bailouts, which, however unpopular (and imperfect in application), certainly pulled the economy back from the brink. If anything, Obama prevented the situation from getting even worse. There was objection on both sides to the bailouts, but, again, the Republicans were the obstacle to recovery, not the Democrats and certainly not Obama, who worked (and led) within the limits he faced to get something done at a time when something was desperately needed. Who knows what the situation would now be like if Republicans had gotten their way.

Does Romney know this? Probably. He's an economic conservative who generally prefers trickle-down economics, but, if I may be generous, he's not a complete idiot. But that also means he knows he has to play the anti-Obama game to have a chance at the nomination. Sure, he's the frontrunner, but he's hardly a secure one. He still needs to play to the extremist GOP base, to the primary voters and their puppetmasters who want Obama's head on a pike.

That's what he's trying to do, but you can see just how bad he is at it, which suggests both that he's a bad attack dog, or at least that he's bad at faking it, and that he doesn't really believe what he's saying.

Like Jon Huntsman, a far less pathetic figure (actually an admirable conservative, if I may say so), Romney would probably prefer to remain civil. But he knows he can't, not if he wants to win, and so what we're getting from Romney the Pathetic is an act that rings anything but true and sincere.

But hey, at least we're not talking about Romneycare. Right?

What's wrong with Jon Huntsman?

By Michael J.W. Stickings

I've described the former Utah governor and U.S. ambassador to China as "formidable," as the one Republican Obama should truly be worried about.

Not that Republicans will ever nominate him, mind you. They're too stupid to know what's good for them, and Huntsman just isn't the right sort of Republican for 2012, what with the party getting ever more extreme, particularly with the rise of the Tea Party, and old-school establishment figures, not to mention moderates, or those who just aren't conservative enough for the extremists, even those with a single questionable mark on their record, being purged from its ranks by the right-wing Bolsheviks who run the show.

And Huntsman... well, he's got way too many marks on his record. For example:

1) He supports same-sex civil unions.

2) He accepts the reality of climate change and has worked to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

3) He proposes substantial engagement with China.

4) He ignores the GOP's partisan ideologues on Capitol Hill. (He's not anti-Washington, but this could be perceived as such and so would attract some support on the right.)

5) He was Obama's ambassador to China.

6) He took stimulus money as governor of Utah.

7) He didn't do enough to cut spending (particularly the social programs conservatives would like to destroy.)

8) He's admirably civil, refusing to join the Republican assault on Obama.

Oh, and:

9) His family has given a lot of money to... Harry Reid. (That would be, the detested leader of the Democrats in the Senate. And not, that means, Tea Party darling Sharron Angle.)

There are nine irrefutable strikes against him. (Three up, three down, as they say. Inning over.)

It hardly matters that he worked for Reagan and both Bushes, or that he gave a speech nominating Sarah Palin at the 2008 Republican convention, or that he's a devout tax cutter and legitimate fiscal conservative, or that he has solid executive experience (and was extremely popular), or that he's an incredibly bright guy, or that... he's actually electable.

No, no, he's a sinner, you see, and the Bolsheviks will have none of it.

Much to the discredit of the Republican Party.

(photo)

Huntsman the Formidable

By Michael J.W. Stickings

It is being reported that former Utah Gov. and U.S. Ambassador to China Jon Huntsman will enter the Republican race for president as early as next Tuesday.

I have described him before as an incredibly formidable figure, the Republican Obama should be worried about, or would be if it were, say, 1996 instead of 2012 and if the Republican Party hadn't become an increasingly extremist right-wing party that has essentially left the likes of Huntsman behind.

Here's what I wrote about him back in May '09:

I tend to agree with Obama campaign guru David Plouffe that Utah Governor Jon Huntsman (who makes Plouffe a "wee bit queasy") could be a formidable Republican presidential candidate in 2012. Bucking the rightward shift of his party, and avoiding its drive for ideological purification, Huntsman is actually something of an independent-minded figure, a moderate, relatively speaking (that is, by Utah standards), with potentially broad appeal beyond Dear Leader Rush and the right-wing echo chamber. (I have previously posted on his admirable support for gay civil unions and his admirable dismissal of Congressional Republicans.)

But I also wrote this:

Huntsman may make us all a little queasy, but, thankfully, Republicans are just too stupid to know what's good for them.

That's right, however formidable he may be, or could be on the national stage, he just isn't what Republicans are looking for these days, which is someone well to his right, someone rigidly ideological. As Hot Air's Allahpundit put it a while back, dismissing Huntsman altogether, "he's going to try to be an even more sensible 'sensible centrist' alternative to Romney, Daniels, and the rest of the moderates in the field." Yes, to conservatives, Huntsman, like Romney, is moderate and therefore un-Republican. And it's much worse in Huntsman's case because he actually worked for Obama. No matter that he's appealing and electable, and hardly a liberal, and working hard to show us all his conservative bona fides.

It's hard to imagine he'll make much of a dent in the current field. But you never know. Maybe there's room for him, maybe he runs a great campaign, maybe he emerges as (and surpasses Pawlenty as) the candidate who can potentially unite the party, something Romney can't do, something an extremist like Bachmann can't do. Or maybe he just has too much baggage and too much of an independent mind, and maybe his unorthodox record, his dissent from the current Republican mainstream line, proves too much to overcome -- after all, it's hard to see the right-wing Bolsheviks who run the party now forgiving him his various sins.

But, again, there's no denying he's an awfully impressive man. I might even go so far as to say he could very well be Reagan 2.0, or if not that, given how transformative Reagan was for movement conservatism, at least a leading Republican in the Reagan mold. He just seems to have it all, even the somewhat more tolerant and even liberal positions on some social issues that show him to be a man of the times, not a man against the times, a conservative who is open to progress and change while remaining committed to his fundamental beliefs. Perhaps he could be zeitgeist conservative, the forward-looking proponent of conservatism at a time of massive global change. But not likely, not in today's Republican Party, which would likely rather expel him that have him as its leader.

Yes, Republicans really are too stupid to know what's good for them. Which is good for us, but not good for Huntsman, who will have to wait until 2016, or forever, to make his mark in a party that has abandoned him and all those like him.

(photo)