Nice to know someone else is reading. You’re on the right track definitely: for the
moment right-wingers like Brett don’t have many, if any, sound arguments. We tried
it their way for 8 years and it was a disaster. And the point of engaging in debate
with the Bretts of the world is not to convince *them* – they’re immune to logic
and reason – but to illuminate the irrationality of their positions, lest anyone
in the middle be tempted by their slogans.

Examples: Brett’s assertions without evidence “there are plenty of people who are unqualified to be President, who are neither “hated” nor “feared””, do you have any proof of this?

“I’m sure “many” people fear Palin. In the sense that you couldn’t get them all into the same phone booth” Evidence for this either?

“in American making a mistake about how many states there are in the United States is rather more significant than an American confusing two similarly named foreign nations.” Is it more significant? Or is this an emotional argument? And notice how Brett keeps stressing the phrase “an American”, as if he were talking to a crowd full of “birthers”. It reminds me of Nixon’s Southern Strategy.

Richard, on the other hand, tries to present evidence when pressed, but never engages in a similar demand for empirical evidence. It is a similar pattern in liberal vs. conservative arguments; the liberals tend to play defense.

Examples: “As long as the Republican primaries keep the current
winner-takes-all rules, the segment of the base that loves Palin is very probably
enough to win her the nomination. The Palin-lovers might be only 40% of registered
Republicans, but they’ll be highly motivated and they’ll turn out and vote.
And if she has that 40%, who else can inspire enthusiasm in more than half
of the remaining 60% ?” Though this lacks citations (should they be necessary for a blog comments section?) it attempts to present an argument based on evidence.

“So you don’t care about having a prospective C-in-C who can’t keep
straight the difference between a country occupied by 140K+ US troops,
and a country conating 0 US troops ?” Here Richard plays defense, arguing tropes from the 2008 election instead of engaging the criticism head first: is Sarah Palin an idiot? An intriguing discussion that is difficult to detach and unpack from the emotions that people might feel towards or against her, and also isolated from interview gaffes that happen to all public figures (how do you uncouple Sarah Palin from the Couric interview?).

The contrasts are interesting, and while I could try and deduce a lot about the individual persons making these arguments, I think observing the rhetorical differences and contrasts in ratiocination are enough for now. Did I miss anything?

Whatever. I think it’s pretty “strange” that the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court
can’t administer the oath on inauguration day correctly. But I assume that he’s
probably a human being (not clear from his judicial opinions, but I’ll give him
the benefit of the doubt) who made a mistake.

“I think that’s evidence that you’ll attribute ANY criticism of Obama to racism.”

Not at all. I’m pretty critical of Obama myself on many of his policies (especially
committing ever-increasing resources to the futile effort to make Afghanistan
look like Belgium). It’s the attempt to suggest that he’s somehow not really fully
American that triggers my dog-whistle alarm.

And if you think my finding it strange that an American would make that particular mistake is evidence of racism, I think that’s evidence that you’ll attribute ANY criticism of Obama to racism.

So indeed you don’t care that the elected commander-in-chief might be
someone who, as they say in England, doesn’t know her arse from her
elbow, and who is thus completely reliant on the advice of non-elected
staff ? I’ve noticed conservatives are crazy these days, but I hadn’t
realized you were all so willing to admit it. Strange.

And you’ll pick an ignoramus over a law professor and senator because
he makes what you consider “a particularly strange mistake” for “an
American”. I have a sneaking suspicion you don’t make that kind of
comment about Americans who happen to have white skin, no matter what
mistakes they make (and God knows just about every Republican leader
has said crazy nonsense the last few months). Better tune that dog-
whistle an octave higher.

Sure. So you don’t care about having a prospective C-in-C who can’t keep
straight the difference between a country occupied by 140K+ US troops,
and a country conating 0 US troops ? Similar names. Big big difference.

Yeah, teleprompters are a real help in that regard. But, know what? An American making a mistake about how many states there are in the United States is rather more significant than an American confusing two similarly named foreign nations. That’s the sort of fact that’s usually pretty deeply ingrained in American noggins. The sort of thing you’d expect the average American to get right if shaken out of bed at 3AM.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/13/AR2009071302852_pf.html

Obama misspeaks from time to time (though much less frequently than
most people). Palin displays shocking ignorance every single
time she tries to talk about the substance of policy. And even
when she has the freedom to write! Her OpEd piece a few months
ago about energy policy achieved the astonishing feat of talking
about energy policy without even mentioning climate change
(she didn’t even take the trouble to deny it, she just ignored
the issue completely). That’s breathtaking.

There’s overlap between the NRA supporters and the right-wing evangelical
social-conservatives. But they’re not the same thing. And they’re not
the same thing on the progressive side either: the Dem base is way more
fired up about protecting Roe vs Wade and stopping discrimination against
homosexuals than they are about imposing gun-control restrictions.

Frankly, your team has won on the gun-control issue, for the foreseeable
future. Enjoy it. You’re losing on most of the stuff that really
matters.

Can’t see that it’s any worse than having a President who thinks there are 57 states.

I’m sure “many” people fear Palin. In the sense that you couldn’t get them all into the same phone booth… Not in any more meaningful sense. I’ll grant you that I wouldn’t want Palin for President. I can’t think of many people who could plausibly get EITHER party’s nomination that I’d actually want to have hold that office. Maybe Rep. Paul. But it sure is entertaining watching Democratic hysteria concerning her.

“Gun rights are electorally important. But they’re not a “social conservative issue”.”

You really think that, do you?

The “fear” arises from the possibility that an unqualified candidate might
take power. Most unqualified people have no chance, and thus are merely
objects of amusement. Palin, however, has already been on the Republican ticket
once, and appears to have a pretty good shot at winning the nomination.
That’s why many people fear her.

I guess you’re comfortable with the idea of having a Commander-in-Chief
who can’t remember the difference between Iran and Iraq. Most of the
public isn’t. The corruption and the vicious partisanship we could
survive: the breathtaking incompetence – she doesn’t even know how
much she doesn’t know – is what’s scary.

“the swing constituency in the next election will be among more affluent suburban voters”

I think you’re correct that Romney would be the sane choice as the
candidate with the best chance in the general election. But the
Republican base right now simply isn’t sane: they want red meat,
and Romney, though he’ll try his damnedest, just can’t satisfy them.
He’s a Mormon, he’s a bloodless technocrat, and he’s not a good
enough actor to play to the base.

Huckabee is a very interesting figure, a very disarming and genial
fellow. And his nods to populism, though they never really amount
to anything substantial, suggest some kind of path to a sort of
American equivalent of Europe’s Christian Democrat parties -
socially and economically conservative, without being completely
in the pocket of big business. I’d like to see that happen.
However, scratch the surface and Huckabee starts to look nutty,
supporting the teaching of Intelligent Design and lacking any
coherent economic policy. Being governor of Arkansas doesn’t
give you much heft on foreign policy issues. And then, though it
perhaps shouldn’t make a difference, someone’s going to dig up
photos of him weighing 300+ pounds and question whether a guy with
that kind of medical history is up to the stresses of the White House.
Images of 300lb Huckabee and the current slimmer version can raise
an awkward question in voter’s minds: who is this guy really ?
Is he a fat guy or a thin guy ? If he flip-flops on his own weight,
what else is he going to flip-flop on ?

Unfair, but that’s the way the game is played, and if you’re
looking for the chance to compete against the skinny athletic Obama,
a history of obesity is a vulnerability.

“because gun rights are not “electorally important”.”

Gun rights are electorally important. But they’re not a
“social conservative issue”. And since the Democrats are busy
with more important issues, it’s doubtful that anything’s
going to happen to make gun rights a big issue for 2012.

“This is the only electorally important social conservative issue,”

Riiiight. That’s why Democrats are treating gun control like it’s radioactive, because gun rights are not “electorally important”.

I don’t have any hesitation about Romney’s pro-life credentials. This is the only electorally important social conservative issue, and pro-lifers have (rightly and for good reason) long since stopped caring about the inner convictions of politicians on this issue. Does anyone believe that George H.W. Bush (a/k/a “Rubbers”) was really and truly pro-life? I certainly don’t, and it doesn’t matter. Remember that it was Reagan who liberalized abortion in California. So it is not unusual to have politicians adopting pro-life positions as they seek the Republican nomination.

Instead W screwed up everything he touched: Hurricane Katrina,
Iraq, Afghanistan, immigration reform, the DoJ, torture,
the economy, and became a massively polarizing figure. So 2008
was really a bust. And now the moderate wing of the Republican
party that was Mitt’s natural constituency has just about
shrivelled up and died. And on top of that, the GOP is defining
itself with rabid and virulent opposition to precisely the
kind of modest health-insurance reform that was Mitt’s one
big policy achievement.

The guy just can’t catch a break. But then being lucky is a
big part of politics (one that Obama has plenty of, as shown by
his sequence of self-destructing opponents).

Palin lacks self-discipline but loves attention. There was one of her in every high school class. We all remember her. We may not hate and fear her, but we do not respect her abilities and we want to protect the republic from being led by her spirit of resentment and treachery against those without whom she would have remained in obscurity.

Sorry, but no. The guy has good hair and used to be an efficient technocrat.
But no-one likes him much; he doesn’t have much charisma; and he isn’t
a good enough actor to perform the red-meat act needed to win Republican
primaries. He’s going to spend his own fortune and go nowhere again.

Nope, just going on the published polling figures, IIRC in
recent polls 60% said she wasn’t qualified to be president.
They don’t like her, they won’t vote for her. Maybe that
doesn’t add up to “hate and fear” – though after 8 years of
Bush a lot of people have genuine fear of another unqualified
candidate – but in political terms it’s the same.

You might just want to go hide under the bed the next 7 years
while your party drives itself off the cliff.

Projecting much?

But it didn’t “completely” disintegrate her reputation. The general
public hates and fears her and thinks she’s a dangerous ignoramus.
But a large part of the Republican base *loves* her. *After* seeing
everything that went down in the campaign.

And if they weren’t dissuaded by all that, I don’t think a primary
campaign is going to make a difference. They’re with her through
thick and thin, and every dumb mistake she makes in their eyes gets
counted as confirmation that she’s “just one of us” or that the liberal
media is playing gotcha.

Ah, but that’s the point. As long as the Republican primaries keep the current
winner-takes-all rules, the segment of the base that loves Palin is very probably
enough to win her the nomination. The Palin-lovers might be only 40% of registered
Republicans, but they’ll be highly motivated and they’ll turn out and vote.
And if she has that 40%, who else can inspire enthusiasm in more than half
of the remaining 60% ?

As for whether Palin would do it, I don’t see why not. She has energy and physical
stamina and she loves attention: flying around to big enthusiastic crowds, dressing
up, and giving the same red-meat speech over and over again fits her talents and
desires just fine. She *loves* the campaigning. It’s the governing she doesn’t like.

And I’m not at all sure that for Palin has any “better way … to be famous”. She’s
not smart; she doesn’t like hard work; going on TV would be a grind; it’s not clear
that she can be famous as anything other than a politician. That one thing she can
definitely do (at least the campaigning bit). So she will.

Now her campaign will probably be somewhat inept. But then, McCain’s campaign
was quite a shambles, he ran out of money, couldn’t get crowds, couldn’t figure
out any kind of strategy, and it was just a mess. But he still won the nomination.
So “can’t run a campaign” probably won’t stop her until she runs into the
Obama/Axelrod/Plouffe/Emanuel juggernaut.

In polling so far, Huckabee does better against Obama than Romney. In polling so far, Huckabee leads the primary field. In political skills and campaigning abilities, Huckabee far, far outpaces Romney. He’s unplatable to the teabaggers, but the Tea Party set are NOT representative of the party as a whole. Huckabee can run on bread-and-butter economic issues: your oil prices are rising, food costs more, your wages are falling, and THIS IS WHY. When Romney does that, he looks like he’s building up to firing you. When Huckabee does that, he looks human.

Huckabee’s economic ‘failures’ aren’t substantial enough to sink him six years after he left the governorship. He supports the FairTax, which brings him into line with general Republican lunacy on taxes. He opposes health care reform. He doesn’t tick all the boxes but he ticks ENOUGH that, on economic issues, he’s in the right party.

Pawlenty is green and has no compelling rationale. Palin isn’t even a viable candidate at the moment. And Romney’s not a candidate well-suited to the next cycle: he’s way too far gone to run as the ‘competent technocrat’ again, given his 2008 strategy of running as the candidate of the conservative Republican establishment (Bush III). So it’s going to be Huckabee, and the general election will be a LOT harder than you give it credit for.

To Bernard Romtov: I also think Romney the business-savvy gazillionare can look exactly like what the voters want during bad economic times.

No, you’ve got to account for the fact that the Republican base *loves* Palin.
Whereas they were never going to feel too comfortable with a guy from
ultra-blue New York, who dresses as a woman as a joke from time to time,
had a couple of messy divorces, and lived with a gay couple for a while.
Giuliani had high name recognition after 9/11, and got points for
annoying liberals, but he wasn’t a good fit for the base.

The base *loves* Palin, they believe anything she says, and she’s going
to tell them exactly what they want to hear, no matter how far it is
from any recognizable reality.

In contrast, *nobody* loves Romney. And they’re not going to be fooled
by his swerving to the right: he had too much of a record as a pragmatic
centrist technocrat in Massachusetts.

Palin’s gonna win this thing unless they change the rules. Because no
matter what embarrassing information about Palin comes out, the hard-core
base is just going to see it as the librul media ganging up on her.

Obama is one lucky dude. Now earn this.

Or someone else? I think it’s too early to say there is only a field of four for 2012.

Re Hutchinson: I don’t understand why she’s running for governor. She’s got a secure Senate seat. Do you think she has presidential ambitions?

Mark,

I think you underrate Romney’s ability to look like exactly what the relevant voters want to see.