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After the Future

Not Much to Say about Iowa

Except the obvious.  I think that the Huckabee trouncing of Romney is a good sign.  Add to his 34% the 10% for Ron Paul, and it's a sign that heartland…

Except the obvious.  I think that the Huckabee trouncing of Romney is a good sign.  Add to his 34% the 10% for Ron Paul, and it's a sign that heartland GOPers who care enough to vote are rejecting the GOP machine that feels far more comfortable with Romney, Giuliani, or Thompson. We'll see if the country's populist, Chuck-Norris style Republicans have any staying power against the Kristol, Coulter, and Limbaugh style machine Republicans. If he continues his surge, the latter three will seek to co-opt him one way or the other. I'm not clear if Huckabee has the resources to resist, but it doesn't matter because he won't win in the general even if he gets the nomination.

My assumption has been that any of the major Dems will beat any of the major GOPers. That still stands. That being said, I was pleased that Hillary came in third. I hope that's the beginning of the end for her. We'll see about that as well.   

One way to think about Huckabee and Obama's win tonight is that despite their differences they both come across as people who could sit down and work things out with one another. That's their appeal. Imagine if Obama were president and Huckabee were Speaker of the House–Huckabee is very conservative, but he's not an intransigent s.o.b. like Dick Cheney, Newt Gingrich, Mitch McConnell, Tom Delay, etc., etc. etc.  He's a conservative without the meanness. He's Reaganesque, I guess. Many of Huckabee's views are as loopy as Reagan's, but Reagan did in fact sit down and work things out with Gorbachev. Could you even begin to imagine Cheney and Gorbachev working things out? 

But Huckabee won't be the opposition leader when a Dem takes the white house, so the question is what a Dem will be able to accomplish once in office–or which one would be able to get anything done with the kind of intransigent GOP opposition that has been in place since the Gingrich days. I think Obama has huge upside potential–whether he is able to do anything with it remains to be seen. He has that Kennedy-esque mystique in a way Edwards does not, and as such he really is the candidate that most appeals to a more generous, courageous, idealistic imagination of what it means to be an American, and maybe that's what we need in the short run–and an end to this  greedy, thuggish, hate and fear driven imagination of America promoted by the Republicans.

Obama, should he go on to win in the general election, may not be able to change much in the short run, but his presidency could shift the winds in the right direction.  It will create the conditions for the possibility for others to accomplish something, even if he can't. I liked his speech tonight, and I was glad he had some "fight" language in it.

Comments

14 responses

  1. anon Avatar
    anon

    Can you believe Barack Obama’s win? What a breath of fresh air. He’s going to unite the country–or so he says.
    Once the MSM exposes his illusion, Obama will fall and he’ll fall hard. The reason Obama has that “Kennedy-esque” appeal is that he doesn’t actually talk substantively about the issues. He seems impressive when giving speeches because the only subject covered is himself. Obama is a narcissist, and with time this fact will come to be revealed.
    It’s a good thing that the Mainstream Media hasn’t been parsing his positions because once they do that Obama illusion of being a unifier will burst up in flames. Take just two examples, abortion and Pakistan.
    In the Illinois State Legislature, Obama voted against the Illinois Born Alive Protections Act that would prevent doctors from withholding medical treatment from babies outside the womb who happened to survive an abortion procedure. So imagine, a baby kicking and screaming, breathing and struggling for its life, while the doctor just sits there and waits for that helpless baby die. Obama is a champion of baby killers, and I don’t know how any self-respecting Catholic can vote for a man who would allow this kind of thing to happen to babies outside the womb.
    Or consider his foreign policy position on Pakistan. His opposition to the War in Iraq has been well-documented (he was even against funding for the troops in Afghanistan). Obama never thought the war should have been started. That’s all well and good. However, Obama, the naive politician that he is, has said that he is strongly considering INVADING Pakistan if President Musharaff didn’t stop his anti-democratic processes. Obama isn’t only ignorant and naive, he’s also a hypocrite of the worst kind.
    Once the MSM takes a break from its Obama love-fest and starts to analyze his policy positions, he will get torn apart. I just hope that more attention will be paid to Obama’s actual positions and less on his vague ‘ability to unite the country’ in time before the final nomination is chosen for the Democrats. Once the MSM gets bored with this guy, he will get torn apart in the general election by the Republican attack dogs, should he be lucky enough for the MSM to gloss over his record and positions long enough for him to secure his party’s nomination. I see George McGovern all over again.
    See this for an excellent video about Obama: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YR4Ea8EQoG0

    Reply
  2. anon Avatar
    anon

    Obama is mostly fluff, and he’s largely a media creation. He’s running for the most important office in the world, and his resume is laughable. I can’t help but believe that white guilt and a kind of affirmative action has played the key role in building up his reputation and glossing over his actual positions and weaknesses. Jesse Jackson was a much better and more inspiring public speaker than him and had done much more in the way of public service than Obama has done, but I guess he emphasized race a little too much.
    What’s so great about Obama? Wipe away the fluff and all you get is your standard welfarist liberal–another George McGovern. He would get clobbered in the general election. In some ways, I want Huckabee to represent the Republican side, but I have my reservations because he doesn’t seem to be the type of candidate who would go openly negative against his opponents. Once somebody decides to go all out against Obama (Hilary, Edwards, Huckabee perhaps, Republican base, etc.) and it will happen, Obama’s will go down and we won’t have to take his garbage anymore.

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  3. anon Avatar
    anon

    The MSM has a tendency to try to create heroes. Remember John Kerry. Perhaps the most mundane and boring person one would ever like to meet, and sure enough, he was portrayed, especially by places like MSNBC, as some kind of hero. I never bought it with Kerry and I don’t buy it with Obama. They will get tired of his vague and meaningless ‘I’m a uniter’ appeal. The only question is when.

    Reply
  4. Jack Whelan Avatar
    Jack Whelan

    Anon–
    Every candidate has flaws, and Obama has his share. I disagree with you, though, about his being a media creation. He like every other politician out there has had to play the game, but there is something real there, and I believe he has a potential that the other candidates just don’t have. Whether he realizes it is another question, and I may be proved wrong on the basic premise.
    I could be making too much of it, but he could never be even 1/10th as bad as the current occupant at the WH, so there’s no down side, and he might just be a lot better than anybody thinks. We’ll see.
    I think we’ll learn a lot more about the man as he assumes the front-runner role and gets a lot more negative scrutiny.
    The Huckabee thing is worth watching in another way. I don’t see him as a threat to win in the general, so it’s more a fascination about whether or not the GOP will destroy itself. I think the religious right has finally awoken to the fact that it has been conned by the GOP machine, and it is getting its revenge. R.I.P. Karl Rove’s vision for a permanent GOP majority.
    From where I stand Huckabee is even better news than learning about Hillary’s defeat. For his continued success could mean the destruction of the popular base for the GOP machine. Better a guy like Huckabee as the most visible figurehead for the religious right than Dobson, Fallwell, and Robertson. Secular types don’t see a difference, but there is a very significant one. This guy has awful positions on key issues, but he’s not a zombie cretin like Robertson. He’s educable.

    Reply
  5. Matt Zemek Avatar
    Matt Zemek

    The media couldn’t have bought the Kerry kool-aid to the extent you believe it did, because if that were really true, Anon, Kerry wouldn’t have been swift-boated the way he was.
    The media is lousy–no disagreement there–but Obama isn’t a media creation. Obama has written books and given speeches that resonated independent of any political/media undercurrent.
    The Clinton campaign ran a brutally bad race ever since early November, attacking Obama for things he did or said in kindergarten, among other things. The Clinton campaign became delusional, and when Bill lied about having opposed the Iraq War since the beginning, all the skeletons spilled out of the Clinton closet and back into the forefront of the public’s collective mind.
    This brings us to a very crucial point, Anon.
    Hillary is, in point of fact, a far more credentialed, policy-smart, and experienced candidate than Obama. It’s not even a debate.
    With that said, Hillary is a corrupt hawk with meat hooks firmly attached to iconically evil entities. She is also, without question, the classic establishment/DLC candidate, as was Kerry in 2004.
    Obama isn’t as pure as the driven snow, but compared to Hillary (and also Edwards, who had his hands in the very same real-estate money pot that he so fiercely railed against in New Orleans, relative to Hurricane Katrina and its attendant outrages), Obama is a breath of fresh air.
    It’s not just about credentials. It can’t be.
    If a brilliant person is also corrupt, how utterly scary. If a doofus is fundamentally decent, how relieving if still worrisome.
    Huckabee said last night in an interview with two media stars, Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann, that he’d much rather have a fundamentally honest atheist as president than a dishonest Christian.
    Hmmmm… that’s a big, fat swipe at Bush, whose sin was and is his closed-mindedness, which has enabled corruption to flourish nationally and internationally.
    Credentials cease to matter when the levels of corruption become overwhelming enough.
    Obama is indeed a lightweight, Anon, on matters of policy and legislation.
    He’s still a million times better than Hillary, warts and all. It is similarly true with Huckabee relative to his Republican rivals, especially guys like Romney and Giuliani, who are smarter and more accomplished but who are far more corrupt and bellicose.
    Give me the honest, decent, genuinely humble person who will soothe, heal and unify, even at the expense of considerable policy achievements, as opposed to the brilliant scholar-operator who knows everything but has a fundamentally corrupt outlook conditioned and controlled by the Beltway and Wall Street, with all of their systemic demands and pressures.
    Obama isn’t the best thing since sliced bread, but campaigns are about comparisons. The corruptness of an Obama or a Huckabee is nothing compared to Hillary (Dems) or Romney/Giuliani (Repubs).

    Reply
  6. Jack Whelan Avatar
    Jack Whelan

    Anon–
    Every candidate has flaws, and Obama has his share. I disagree with you, though, about his being a media creation. He like every other politician out there has had to play the game, but there is something real there, and I believe he has a potential that the other candidates just don’t have. Whether he realizes it is another question, and I may be proved wrong on the basic premise. We’ll see.
    I could be making too much of it, but even so, he could never be even 1/10th as bad as the current occupant at the WH, so there’s very little down side, and there might just be a huge upside. My expectations are fundamentally low about what can be accomplished by anyone in Washington, but he might be a lot better than anybody, especially you, thinks. Everyone else will be predictably mediocre. If he gets a shot, I’d be interested to see if he could be more than that. If he turns out to be as mediocre as you think, then we’re no worse off than if any of the others were elected. I think we’ll learn a lot more about the man as he assumes the front-runner role and gets a lot more negative scrutiny.
    The Huckabee thing is worth watching in another way. I don’t see him as a threat to win in the general, so it’s more a fascination about whether or not the GOP will destroy itself. I think the religious right has finally awoken to the fact that it has been conned by the GOP machine, and it is getting its revenge. R.I.P. Karl Rove’s vision for a permanent GOP majority.
    From where I stand Huckabee is even better news than learning about Hillary’s defeat. For his continued success could mean the destruction of the popular base for the GOP machine. Better a guy like Huckabee as the most visible figurehead for the religious right than Dobson, Fallwell, and Robertson. Secular types (e.g. http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/01/strange-days-by-tristero-back-in-04.html) lump Huckabee together with those three, but there is a significant difference. This guy has awful positions on key issues, but he’s not a zombie cretin like Robertson. He’s human and educable.

    Reply
  7. anon Avatar
    anon

    “The Huckabee thing is worth watching in another way. I don’t see him as a threat to win in the general, so it’s more a fascination about whether or not the GOP will destroy itself. I think the religious right has finally awoken to the fact that it has been conned by the GOP machine, and it is getting its revenge. R.I.P. Karl Rove’s vision for a permanent GOP majority.”
    I’m not sure that we should be so certain that Huckabee couldn’t win in the general election. He is extremely personable and has policy positions that cut across political lines unlike Obama. This is unlike Obama who in truth you can check off the list each traditional Democratic interest group position. On top of this, Huckabee created himself from nothing into the front-runner of the Republican nomination. It was an incredible feat, considering that he was a no-name just a couple of months ago.
    If Huckabee were elected and Michael Bloomberg entered the race, I think that would de facto make Huckabee the favorite in the general election. People who would support Bloomberg (the centrist) would be DLC-types, and so Bloomberg would present a serious challenge to whoever would be the Democratic nominee. On the other hand, if Romney were the nominee, Bloomberg would peel away votes from him through the Wall Street votes.
    “This guy has awful positions on key issues.”
    What specifically do you have in mind?

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  8. Jack Whelan Avatar
    Jack Whelan

    What specifically do you have in mind?
    The war, taxes, and gays.
    For a fairly balanced overview of his foreign policy, see http://www.tpmcafe.com/blog/coffeehouse/2008/jan/04/on_foreign_policy_at_least_two_huckabees
    If you’re going to knock Obama for lack of experience, you have to treat Huckabee the same. But as the referenced overview suggests, Huckabee is educable. His support of the Iraq War at this point is stupid, but he doesn’t have the rigidity of the current crowd in office on the issue. That’s why the GOP machine doesn’t like him–he’s not enough of an ideologue.

    Reply
  9. Matt Zemek Avatar
    Matt Zemek

    Anon –
    On health care, Obama’s plan (actually not that good a plan, in my estimation) is distinct from Clinton and Edwards in that it is much more market-based and centrist. It’s anything but aligned with the stock Democratic interest group position.
    Obama’s selling point is not his collection of policy planks, but his attitude and tone: anti-Beltway, anti-polarization, anti-cynicism.
    Even the likes of David Brooks–a brilliant cultural commentator but a crappy political analyst who sees the world through the lens of conservatism–has come out and said (roughly a month ago in his NYT column) that Obama has, and always has possessed, a certain consistency to the trajectory of his life and the decisions that have filled it.
    Obama is outside the box precisely because he’s had the least amount of exposure to the Beltway infrastructure, compared to everyone else. He has the least to lose, which is why he can speak the way he speaks.
    Hillary and Edwards are much more calculated and calibrated in their words, proof of years inside the blinding Beltway bubble that shields them from seeing the real America.
    Call it hokey or trivial if you must, but Obama’s collection of real-life experiences represent, in my mind, the template for the new presidency of the 21st Century: cosmopolitan, able and willing to reach out to everyone, intent on forging compromise, transcending old barriers.
    Policy–for both presidents and presidential campaigns–is so overrated (and long has been) because decisions and agreements and bills are hammered out through very intricate, intense processes involving hundreds of people and armies of consultants and strategists. If not many decades ago, it certainly has become true in recent decades that presidents aren’t these isolated god-like geniuses (or tyrants) who make these choices on an island and dictate everything.
    Presidents and presidencies are massive apparati that require leadership and vision more than wonkish head-knowledge or nerdy book-learning.
    It really is about the heart of the person in the arena, and hopefully, Iowa’s results will lead the rest of America to start voting for more Obamas and Hillarys–nationally and regionally and locally, too–instead of snakes such as Hillary and Romney, who are skillful operators and better political minds, but people who have lost their moral compass a long time ago.

    Reply
  10. Jack Whelan Avatar
    Jack Whelan

    I think David Brooks gets it right on Huckabee in todays’ column:
    A conservatism that recognizes stable families as the foundation of economic growth is not hard to imagine. A conservatism that loves capitalism but distrusts capitalists is not hard to imagine either. Adam Smith felt this way. A conservatism that pays attention to people making less than $50,000 a year is the only conservatism worth defending.
    Will Huckabee move on and lead this new conservatism? Highly doubtful. The past few weeks have exposed his serious flaws as a presidential candidate. His foreign policy knowledge is minimal. His lapses into amateurishness simply won’t fly in a national campaign.
    So the race will move on to New Hampshire. Mitt Romney is now grievously wounded. Romney represents what’s left of Republicanism 1.0. Huckabee and McCain represent half-formed iterations of Republicanism 2.0. My guess is Republicans will now swing behind McCain in order to stop Mike.
    Huckabee probably won’t be the nominee, but starting last night in Iowa, an evangelical began the Republican Reformation. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/04/opinion/04brooks.html?ex=1357102800&en=04918538193ba64a&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=all
    —A McCain/Huckabee ticket–that might be the GOP’s best shot. Then it becomes all about the War.

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  11. anon Avatar
    anon

    The following video has to be one of the most hilarious little sequence, and it in a debate between Obama and Alan Keyes on homosexuality and adoption:
    http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4027252175532911168&q=obama+sucks&total=83&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=1

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  12. anon Avatar
    anon

    In the video I posted above, Keyes actually has a point with regard to his ‘definition of marriage.’ Keyes is actually quite erudite (he was a roommate of Bill Kristol at Harvard), and his distinction between ‘incidental impossibility’ and ‘necessary impossibility’ has its basis in Aristotelian metaphysics.

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  13. anon Avatar
    anon

    My initial post was wrong. The correct link is:
    http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4027252175532911168&q=obama+sucks&total=83&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=1

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  14. anon Avatar
    anon

    I’m sorry, but my correction was wrong. The correct link is:
    http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5219230872860590912&q=obama+religion&total=230&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=3

    Reply

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