« Polarization | Main | Harsh » Head to Heads06 May 2007 12:58 pm New polls show John Edwards and Barack Obama both crushing either Rudy Giuliani and John McCain, while Hillary Clinton is in tight races with both of them, and Mitt Romney gets demolished by everyone. Drawing lessons will be left as an exercise for the reader. I have to say, though, that if Romney's going to be a kind of fake conservative and really unpopular, that it's hard to see what the rationale for his candidacy is supposed to be. Comments (26)
The point is to extend the Mormon Tentacles. Look at where Mitt's donors are (Utah, Idaho,etc). Why would this be? I think Mitt gets off far too easily on Mormonism, especially with all the half-witted attacks against Islam coming from loud-mouths in the GOP (some of them Mormon, of course) who know absolutely nothing of the theology of Islam. Islam has its quirks of course--like over-emphasis on a johnny-come lately prophet who writes his own Angel-given divinely inspired texts, endorses polygamy, and militantism against non-believers. Gee--sounds a lot like Mormonism, under Smith and Young, doesn't it? Really when you break it down, Islam and Mormonism should be taken for what they are--peas in a pod. We should be demonizing Islam a bit less and Mormonism a bit more. Romney and the people backing him are as scary to me as Ahmedinajad. More so, because they don't need to 'follow us home'--they are already here. 
"We should be demonizing Islam a bit less and Mormonism a bit more." Wow.
I expect moderate Republicans and die-hard anti-Mormons to split between McCain and Giuliani, leaving Romney with the nomination. Yesterday I read a commentary on the Republican debate which argued very convincingly that Romney did the best job of appealing to religious conservatives. It pointed out that they aren't likely to see through Romney's phoniness because his changes fit their favored narrative of repentance and conversion on the road to Damascus.
Chris-- You want a real wow? Read 'Mountain Meadow Massacre' sometime. It's an eye-opener. Then tell me about the dangers of Islam.
they aren't likely to see through Romney's phoniness because his changes fit their favored narrative of repentance and conversion on the road to Damascus Wow. What a great narrative for appealing to credulous people. In fairness, let me ask this question: Have liberals ever embraced anyone who had an illiberal track record but then claimed to have seen the light? Nobody comes to mind, but that might be a blind spot on my part...
Guiliani, McCain and Romney all have major flaws as perceived by one or more parts of the Rethug base vote (Neo-Con, Corp-Con, Theo-Con, Nut-Con). The flaws could be papered over, but the easier course is to choose an empty vessel and pour in the essence of Ronnie. Hence, Fred Dalton Thompson, as close to an empty vessel as needed, and he can act his role as serious conservative just like Ronnie did. Law and Order, Baby! And much fewer contradictions on his record, too. Interesting thought: Both Ronnie and Fred Thompson were/are the TV-created conservatives brought to you by GE/NBC. But Fred doesn't need prompt cards in his hand to speak, so he's even more awesome than Ronnie.
Tom-- Try David Brock of Media Matters, former hurdy-gurdy man of the right-wing wurlitzer. Read the story of his conversion. 'Blinded by the Right'.
that it's hard to see what the rationale for his candidacy is supposed to be Well, he did somehow win Mass Gov. Who the hell would be stupid enought to vote for that empty shell, I just don't understand, but then again, plenty of ostensibly thoughtful persons supported the Iraq War from the get go. Even though that was as transparently foolish as voting for Mitt. But maybe I just don't get it. Also, it's way early. The 'lection isn't until November. 2008.
First question:
Jim-- On Blitzer today there was an interesting panel discussion about your point above, involving how the GOP always seems to be demonizing Hollywood, yet keeps anointing its saviours from there (Ronnie, The Governator, Thompson). Interesting,no? It also says you would HAVE to be an actor to spout the crap their base wants to hear with a straight face and seem believable. No one could do it without professional training.
>Mountain Meadow Massacre That predates the Civil War. I think the instances of armed Mormon insurrection has gone down a bit since then.
Come on now, you can't write off Romney yet. His standing in the polls is largely a measure of name recognition and voter familiarity. He'll perform similarly to Giuliani and McCain once he's better known.
Actually, the most striking trend of the polls is the relative weakness of Clinton in the general election compared to Obama and Edwards. They both get slightly higher percentages in each match up, and more importantly, the Republican nominee always gets a significantly higher percentage of the vote when he is paired against Clinton. (Even Romney.) This further proves the point that there are many swing voters who really don't want to vote for Clinton. This fact has not changed and very likely will never change, no matter what Mark Penn or anyone else says.
Romney is going to get the nomination. And, once he does, those polls won't be the same.
You know, you don't even have to revert to LDS solidarity to explain why Romney gets so much money from Utah; though I also think it makes sense for members of a minority religion to support the candidacy of their co-religionist. (I honestly don't know: Does Harry Reid have a lot of donors in Utah?) Romney probably has a whole lot of extra goodwill in Utah from his work with the Salt Lake City Olympics. And he was resident in Utah until he had to, um, finesse that in order to run for Massachusetts gov. I don't know where he spends most of his time now, but Utah is basically his second home state.
The Republican base probably has a good idea who Romney is by now. If he was just a flip-flopping Massachusetts Republican, he might be more of an unknown, but he's a Mormon flip-flopping Massachusetts Republican. He's the Mormon that probably has the best shot at the White House in American history, which is like kryptonite to the Christianist base. I wouldn't be surprised if there is a lot of fire-and-brimstone talk going on about him in the exburbs.
If the Republican primary voters also end up playing electoral math when deciding who to nominate by trying to figure out who can win the most states, Romney also looks weak. Giuliani can possibly put states like Pennsylvania and New Jersey into play (I doubt New York will really be in play even with Giuliani as the nom). Romney couldn't win Massachusetts as the nominee and Utah is already red. His successor for Massachusetts governor got creamed by Deval Patrick in that election.
Also known as 'people of faith'.
Tom: Senator Byrd: ex-KKK, well accepted by the Democratic party due to a rather extensive history of apologizing for having been a racist cracker.
"We should be demonizing Islam a bit less and Mormonism a bit more." This is the kind of sentiment that got G.W. Bush re-elected, despite a jobless recovery (up to that point) and a deteriorating situation in Iraq. How did some of you on the Left get so morally confused? Have any of you ever met a Mormon? They tend to be the nicest people you'll ever meet, and they give generously to charity. They don't cut innocent civilians' heads off on the Internet and fly hijacked commercial planes into office buildings. See any differences there? BTW, who, exactly, has been demonizing Islam? I can think of three people off the top of my head who have essentially said that Islam is largely a source of evil: Ann Coulter, Ayan Hirsi Ali, and that Pakistani-Canadian lesbian writer, whose name escapes me right now. As Mark Steyn has pointed out, whenever there has been a terrorist attack by Muslims, political leaders like George Bush have run to the nearest mosque or imam to show respect -- remember, Bush even invited a Muslim imam to say a prayer at the National Cathedral, three days after 9/11.
"Pakistani-Canadian lesbian writer, whose name escapes me right now" Actually, last I read she still considers herself to be a practicing Muslim. She feels that Islam as it is today is insufficiently liberal and is actually less liberal than it has been in the past. Ayaan Hirsi Ali's critiques take place within the framework of atheism, in which all religion is inherently suspect (just Islam is the most suspect of all for her). Ann Coulter, on the other hand, considers herself "a Christian first and a bigot second" and hates Muslims because they aren't Christian. A lot of her criticisms of Democrats and liberals invoke old anti-Semitic motifs. I bet she hates Hindus, Buddhists, Shintoists, Daoists and Confucianists as well. Probably Catholics too. Putting these three writers in the same category isn't very useful. The Ali's work is closer to Sam Harris's while Coulter leans more towards Derbyshire and VDH. Paul Krugman had a good column back during the Dubia ports debate about how while Bush never explicitly said "Arabs and Muslims are evil," his selling of the Iraq War depended on a subtle lack of differentiation between Muslims and Arabs of all types. That is how, in American minds, Saddam Hussein came to equal 9/11 and bin Laden. He then, after pulling this schtick, turned around and found his base wouldn't buy the argument that the Dubai company were the good Arabs and Muslims. You should read up on what gets said in the Left Behind books about Muslims and other various non-Christians. Considering that that series is the second-most popular book series in the US (after Harry Potter) and is extremely popular with the Southern Christian conservative Republican base, the type of anti-Muslim sentiments expressed by the authors (both in the books and in articles) probably is rather widespread. 60% of Americans don't know a single Muslim and that 60% tends to have less than favorable views of Muslims as a whole. The Bushies also don't seem to worried about torturing innocent Muslims either. What do you think would happen if innocent Christians were tortured instead on the same scale?
In fairness, let me ask this question: Have liberals ever embraced anyone who had an illiberal track record but then claimed to have seen the light? Nobody comes to mind, but that might be a blind spot on my part... I can think of one very recent example: Sen. James Webb of Virginia, who was not exactly a super-partisan right-winger he but was a military mand and a Reagan administration official. Heck, the netroots even supported his bid in a Democratic primary against a somewhat more traditional Democrat in Harris Miller.
"I have to say, though, that if Romney's going to be a kind of fake conservative and really unpopular, that it's hard to see what the rationale for his candidacy is supposed to be." He's in there to make Rudy look principled by comparisson.
Is he being a phony now trying to pass himself off as a Reagan Republican? Was he being a phony in the past presenting himself as a socially liberal moderate Republican? It's tough to say. Romney seems to have no core beliefs beyond that which is politically expedient in the present moment. His campaign theme song should be "Bend Me, Shape Me".
Comments closed May 20, 2007. |
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Heads in the Sand
I would speculate that another advantage Edwards has over Clinton, from a purely horse-race assessment, is that Edwards is in a better position, if he gets the nomination, to select Obama as his VP candidate. There are downsides to that choice (two candidates from the Senate, neither with "executive experience") but I think the advantages far outweigh that inevitable criticism. I have trouble seeing Clinton picking Obama, not necessarily for the reason that Schumer gave on Charlie Rose, that the country isn't ready for a woman and an African-American on the same ticket.
Though I will probably vote for Obama, I would predict that the excitement of an Edwards/Obama ticket would be off the charts, especially since it would make Obama the frontrunner in 4 years or 8.
Posted by Ryan Scott | May 6, 2007 1:45 PM