Both Seth Masket and Matt Yglesias were puzzled yesterday by the behavior of Republican politicians with regard to presidential politics. Yglesias was puzzled about why Paul Ryan and Haley Barbour would praise Herman Cain's 9-9-9 instead of getting on with the Romney/Perry choice, and Seth was puzzled because GOP pols are slow to endorse in this cycle (and for more about that, see a terrific Mark Blumenthal post complete with great data).
So what's going on?
I think this is yet again the shadow of Bob Bennett. You know, the solidly conservative Utah Senator defeated in a primary by Tea Partiers. Everyone is just terrified of being labeled a RINO; no one is confident that his or her conservative credentials are sufficient. So while they aren't going to rush out and endorse Cain, they're incredibly skittish about doing anything that will draw the wrath of primary electorates. Such as picking the wrong presidential horse. The incentives for endorsements are that they want a good candidate at the top of the ticket to help the party in the general election; they want to get in early because it never hurts to have a president who owes you; and there's a general sense that it's good for the party to resolve the nomination quickly. But my guess is that right now, neither of those things looms as large as they normally do, while fear of getting it wrong and offending intense conservatives is a big deal.
On top of that, on 9-9-9 there's normally a reluctance to take positions that might harm them in a general election (such as support of a goofy tax plan), but if you're Paul Ryan or if you've supported the Ryan-penned, House-passed budget...well, it's kind of too late to worry about that, no? The other piece of that is that they've all been training themselves for so long to ignore "elite" analysis of conservative policies that there really may be an incapacity to look objectively at some new idea (see too what Keven Drum and Dave Weigel said).
At the end of the day, they'll wind up getting on the Romney or Perry bandwagon. But no one wants to be the one to tell the crazies that they're crazy. It's a better bet to hope that the goofier of the Tea Party candidates burn themselves out than to be the one to go after them.
Friday, October 14, 2011
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yeah but... is anyone on god's green earth going to say that Barbour and/or Paul Ryan are RINOs? It definitely makes sense that there hasn't been a whole bunch of nominations because folks are nervous about supporting "not a conservative" Romney, but aren't sold by Perry.
ReplyDeleteBut Barbour isn't really in any danger of being Tea bagged, is he? Maybe he is, and I just don't understand how. But, as you pointed out, Paul Ryan has his far-right credentials at this point. Why is he getting on board 999?
I read someone somewhere (I read too much and take no notes) suggest that Ryan is trying to push Romney and Perry towards a tax plan similar to his own, and he's using Cain to do it. Is that a possibility, in your Plain Blog opinion?
To the other Anon,
ReplyDeleteI would not expect Barbour to be teabagged, but I also wouldn't expect Perry to get teabagged. Yet Perry is getting teabagged about immigration and HPV vaccines. Nobody is absolutely pure, so everybody is vulnerable.
Nevertheless, I don't quite buy Bernstein's explanation. I think it is simply a matter of Republicans not liking their choices. The underlying cause is the same as the push for Christie. Romney is untrustworthy because of his flip-flops. Perry isn't a flip-flopper-- he is just a flop. Bachmann, Santorum, and the rest are jokes. They aren't endorsing because they don't like the options. Occam's razor.
As for Ryan, he is utterly shameless when it comes to pandering to the lunatic wing - to whatever extent, that is, it's not just a bit of projective self-stroking, in the case of 9-9-9. We recently had a version of what Anon#1 above is pointing to from the talkradio-style blowhard-Anonymous who occasionally posts here: It's not that Cain is cranking embarrassing nonsense, it's what advocating 9-9-9 means in some imaginary larger context where the relationship of policy statements to actual policy is totally conjectural. They're all down the rabbit hole where words mean whatever they want them to mean.
ReplyDeleteSo Ryan thinks Cain's plan is very special! Haley Barbour's WIFE would vote for Cain TODAY. It's all very endorsement-like, and completely condescending, an intimate embrace at arm's length. None of them has the slightest idea what he may be called on to claim he was always in favor of, or was always against, tomorrow. He just knows that he'll be whatever he needs to be. So Mitt Romney really is their perfect candidate. They can all flip-flop to always having been for him on the day, or day after, he's nominated. Until then, it's a statement of total support and a true endorsement of Mitt to be against Mitt, just like Mitt always has been.
Could it be uncertainty?
ReplyDeleteBandwagoning only has effects if you know who's going to win. If elites who would endorse simply to curry favor don't know who to curry favor with, then they might be waiting for a clearer sign. If we accept that it's either Romney or Perry, but neither has the advantage, there's still has a 50% chance of being wrong.
In 2007, what made endorsing Obama possible was the deafening silence of Clinton endorsements. (Yes, she led, but the number was WAY lower than it should have been, given her status). That sent the signal that the nomination was still open, and Obama's polling numbers made him seem very plausible.
That said, I also like Anon#2's interpretation.
No, CK, the policy statements of Cain or any candidate are indeed related to policy, but everybody including Cain, you and me understands that one guy ain't gonna get his policy through the Congress and the Constitution in only 2 presidential terms, unless that guy is Obama and the Congress is controlled by such as Nancy Pelosi, and they're willing to go on the suicide mission that that crew engaged, and that has destroyed the Left, perhaps for a generation now.
ReplyDeleteNo, Cain is pursuing the tax path that the Congress will be on in coming months here. They'll likely grab a stop off point along the comprehensive path he's mapping. So would he have to, if he was in the WH right now. Ryan mapped a less far reaching path, which got through one branch of Congress, and some version of that map will be executed into law in coming months, I should think. If not, then it'll have to wait until President Perry/Romney/Cain signs it, along with 5-10 newly elected evil Faux News teabagger nazi senators.
We'll be going flatter and wider. That's what Cain is pushing, and Ryan, and what everybody everywhere seems to be discussing. The Left has been frothing for a straight up tax increase now, but hypocritically, they refused to do it while they overwhelmingly controlled Congress. Evidently, they wanted to send spending through the roof, and then have their OPPOSITION raise taxes. That plan was, um, deficient, to say no more. Their opposition seems to have chosen the path of tax reform, and that's where we're headed in this country, it appears.
The Left hasn't budgeted, spent and taxed responsibly. They haven't budgeted AT ALL in a couple years, in fact, and have spent wildly, and haven't even bothered to do anything about tax policy. That is the root of this current electoral annihilation, make no mistake. This is failed government. This is what failed government looks like. This is why the People are rejecting them. It sure ain't because they're embracing their opposition, as the data surely tells us. This is an outright rejection of the Left.
Anon: see, that's where the argument simply falls flat. The Right made absolutely no pretense of spending or taxing responsibly. Spending skyrocketed under Bush, and taxes plumetted.
ReplyDeleteThe root of Dems losing seats in 2010, and what looks likely in 2012, is the economy being bad. That's ALSO the reason the GOP lost so many seats in 2008. (2006 was more about Iraq and a very unpopular president)
Look, polls clearly indicate that people hate deficits. They also hate taxes. AND they hate spending cuts. Simply put, in the aggregate, the public has nonsensical preferences.
People don't vote budgets. They vote their pocketbook, or their perception of how well folks like them are doing. They vote based on their preferences over policies, and their partisanships. But the portion of the public that understands anything at all about deficits, budgets, et al is small and mostly located in the parties. And they don't change their votes.
This isn't conjecture on my part. This is what the vast bulk of political science research for decades has shown, time and time again.
The GOP primary voter problem explained in one minute and forty-nine seconds: http://bit.ly/pVvKQs
ReplyDeleteWhat Jarvis said.
ReplyDeleteWell...mostly. There's evidence that voting for ACA cost Dems a few points and therefore some seats (although IMO it's hard to interpret against the question of what happens if ACA fails, or doesn't come up; what it mostly tells you is how voting yes affects things in a world in which ACA passes). The same for stimulus, except that there the effects of the law almost certainly outweighed the costs of voting for it.
As I've pointed out before, the Democrats certainly did do budgeting in 2010; they didn't pass a budget resolution, which is a separate question.
The last 20 years have demonstrated that Republican concerns about every issue the GOP base purports to care about at 170 decibels -- deficits, taxes, abuse of executive power, foreign adventures, "even the appearance of impropriety", financial scandal, the use of Congress for partisan witch-hunts, "judicial activism", support for the C-in-C "during wartime", etc. etc. ad nauseum -- depends ENTIRELY on the party affiliation of the occupant of the White House.
ReplyDeleteThe last 20 years have also demonstrated that Republican concerns about these issues can be inverted 180 degrees by Fox News and Hate Radio in a matter of days.
"1984" was meant to be a cautionary tale, not a fucking mission statement.
@Matt (or anyone else), If the economy was the major driver of elections in 2008 and 2010, what about 2006? What I remember is people being fed up with Iraq, not the economy.
ReplyDeleteModeratePoli - Mr. Jarvis specifically mentioned Iraq, also people disliking Bush, demonstrating yet once again that the iron rules of political science apply universally and dependably except when they don't - that is, in the most or rather in the only interesting cases.
ReplyDeleteCK,
ReplyDeleteUh, no; it may be our fault for poorly communicating it, but "economic growth determines all elections all the time" isn't what political scientists think (any more than "OBP is everything" is what the baseball analyst types think).
For midterms: the economy and presidential approval both affect the results, and pres approval can be caused by a variety of things, and losing a war is certainly one of them.
I still want to know what Ryan is doing talking up 999. It doesnt seem like he needs to shore up his conservative credentials. Is it possible he's trying to get Romney to publicly commit to something like 999, to bolster the far right's leverage in 2013 when they try to get insane tax reform through?
ReplyDeleteBTW, why do conservative folks sometimes jump onto blog comment sections of bligs I read and post non-conversation oriented comments that inevitably mention 1) Nancy Pelosi and 2) how everyone actually hates the Left and will never vote for them again. It's like kayne at the VMAs. Why? Comment sections are nerdy dinner parties, not campaign events.
JB,
ReplyDeleteWait a second, does the hedge on war and presidential disapproval apply only or mainly to midterms? I have to ask because it is my sense that you are at a minimum susceptible to the popular (pseudo-)statistical arguments regarding "relative economic growth in period x months prior to presidential election" and so on.
To the larger point, Mr. Jarvis put "pocketbook" first, but made a much broader statement on the imbecility of the mass electorate. I'm familiar with the polling and other evidence he's referring to when he says that "in the aggregate the public has nonsensical preferences," but I don't accept the conclusion as well-formed or thought through.
You and Mr. Jarvis, and your colleagues - both in academia and in punditry - seem to believe in a set of policy preferences and in a way of discussing them that presumes some relationship, however attenuated, between reason and modern mass electoral democratic politics. On the other hand, you generally depict the electorate as an insensate mass moved by amoeba-like reactions to external stimuli and inherited behavior patterns. Reason ain't in it - thus the apparent absurdity of all of our typical American political rituals and our naive belief that speeches, campaigns, arguments, and so on, can matter... or, in the present instance, that a president might turn that argument from pocketbook against anyone other than himself, in a time of economic malaise that most of your colleagues and favorite economists believe is being perpetuated and deepened by his adversaries.
An electorate capable of logic, susceptible to reason, could, through effective communication and education, come to identify who the real culprits are. Instead, you seem to believe that the pseudo-entity that used to be known as "the People" is irremediably immune to logic and utterly devoid of self-consciousness, and therefore destined to reward the black hats, and punish the white hats, if that's what the semi-random intersection of economic and electoral cycles leads to.
In this context, it's hard to fault the Republicans for cynicism, since the experts on the system they're exploiting, the best and brightest of the pro-government coalition, are even more cynical about it than they are.
I like your general thesis that GOP pols are extremely scared of getting labeled "RINO," but I think Ryan, if not Barbour, is fairly "RINO" proof. Attacking the Ryan plan was (is?) not politically feasible for any Republican officeholder to do without incurring the wrath of the base.
ReplyDeleteRyan's embrase to me seems all the more puzzling as a result. He is one of the few conservatives that could credibly oppose the really intellectually dishonest plan. Maybe he favors Romney and wants to keep Cain as the flavor of the month as long as possible so Perry is unable to hit the stride he desperately needs to hit? Just a thought.
Also I have a small nit-picky correction to make. Bennett didn't lose in a primary strictly speaking. He lost in a nominating convention filled with hard-core group of party conservatives. If he managed to make it out of the convention, I think polling indicated he had a shot of holding on. I might be wrong on that though...
Anon: see, that's where the argument simply falls flat. The Right made absolutely no pretense of spending or taxing responsibly. Spending skyrocketed under Bush, and taxes plumetted.
ReplyDeleteNo, the argument doesn't fall flat. The Left hasn't taxed or spent responsibly. And I'm sorry, but leftist whining about Bush's spending is simply hypocritical at this late date. I'd kill to have Bush's 3% of GDP deficits, and spending at 20-21% of GDP, as opposed to Obama's 10-12% of GDP deficits, and spending at +25% of GDP, as far as the eye can see. Heck, even the Left rejects Obama's proposed budgets, 97-0 at last count.
Now we all know that the Left was just being hypocritical and partisan, when complaining about Bush's spending, because they've skyrocketed spending. It's sorta like the lefties were "anti-war", then suddenly our troops counts in Afghanistan are nearly quadrupled, and we're extra constitutionally invading Libya. Sorry, but the proof is in the pudding, and any lefty whining about spending or anti war is just Koz Kidz ranting. We all know better by now.
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The root of Dems losing seats in 2010, and what looks likely in 2012, is the economy being bad. That's ALSO the reason the GOP lost so many seats in 2008. (2006 was more about Iraq and a very unpopular president)
No, the GOP was destined to lose seats, as these things have their ying and yang. 2006 was historically unremarkable, as we know. The Wall Street crash had its effect in '08, no doubt. But nobody blames Obama for the economy yet today, which puts the lie to your claim. They do blame him for incompetence, and for his handling of the economy, as the data surely tells us. They are rejecting the Left for what they DO, not for the economy. They're blaming them for Bailouts, Porkulus, Cap & Tax and ObamaCare in the MIDST of this economy, and for a failure to budget and tax responsibly, or not all in the case of budgeting.
And it's destroying the Left. I can think of no more self destructive action than Obama signing off on the Bush Tax Cuts last December. It was a sucker punch to your gut, I'd assume. And so it should be. It was the action of a political neophyte and incompetent. It capped 2 years of incompetence on taxing and budgeting. We'll now ride out his term, with or without proper action on taxes and budgeting, but such is coming, for the first time in some years now.
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"Look, polls clearly indicate that people hate deficits. They also hate taxes. AND they hate spending cuts. Simply put, in the aggregate, the public has nonsensical preferences.
ReplyDeleteActually, deficits didn't arise as an issue until Obama and Pelosi skyrocketed them. The taxes and spending can go where they go, as long as they're not running astronomical deficits, and we surely know this, per the data. That's what raised their attention... the massive deficits. You're not understanding the progression of issues here. Check 6-8 years ago, and the public's thoughts on deficits and spending, when we fiscal conservatives were screaming about Bush's 3% of GDP deficits, and increased spending from Clinton/Gingrich less than 18% of GDP levels to 20-21% under Bush. The public didn't care much, despite you lefties' disingenuous shrieking about it, but they do care about what Obama's doing, because it's a significant departure from fiscal responsibility. You statements are false.
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People don't vote budgets.
People know irresponsible government, and that's why Pelosi got canned. They didn't blame the Left for the economy, they blame them for what they DID. This is an obvious point, and I know you love what they Left did, but the People don't. They are having their vengeance, and it's too soon following their occupation of government for you to be claiming a sudden turnaround. It's rather a realization that Pelosism/Obamaism isn't what they want. And the LIKE Obama, fyi. So do I, in fact. But I also know he's an incompetent... inexperienced and unqualified for the position. And it shows.
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They vote their pocketbook, or their perception of how well folks like them are doing. They vote based on their preferences over policies, and their partisanships. But the portion of the public that understands anything at all about deficits, budgets, et al is small and mostly located in the parties. And they don't change their votes.
This isn't conjecture on my part. This is what the vast bulk of political science research for decades has shown, time and time again.
You're extrapolating from issues based polling, and that's always dicey. People know about these deficits, and they see the Left failing to issue a budget, pushing brinksmanship and backroom dealing on budgets and yelping for tax increases. They see a disorderly process, and they know who's been in charge of government. They hate Bailouts, Porkulus, Cap & Tax and ObamaCare... and they see the massive deficits and chaos this is causing... and yes it's all occurring during economic downturn... so the Left's failures are magnified.
The People see all this. You may welcome these actions, but the People don't.
It's failed governance, and the People are responding to those failures. Hey, I'm trying to help you lefties. It ain't good for us to have failed governance, and it ain't good for our body politic for us to be rejecting failure for failure's sake, while not embracing the opposition, as the data clearly tells us is occurring. Nonetheless, the Left is being rejected, for what it is and is not doing. That's clear. They are being rejected. 70 year historic blowouts and additional electoral dismemberments to come speak pretty clearly, and that language isn't one of embracing your evil Faux News enemies. They're rejecting the Left.
Oh, and MacLeod's got it right above. The Left's starting premise, in this discussion for example, is that anybody who agrees with them is smart, and those who don't are stupid and evil, and swayed by evil Faux News and evil talk radio.
ReplyDeleteIt's as if nothing exists other than what they believe. I don't get that, but there it is. That attitude is only going to bring on electoral armageddon. That is the only certainty here. The rest is probably up for grabs, but it's certain that the certain are gonna get whacked.
As for the GOP being afraid of their base/primary voters......I'd like to see the same thing happen to the dems. Maybe that's one thing that will come out of the OWS movement. Let's have some primary challenges and get rid of the dinos.
ReplyDeleteCK,
ReplyDeleteI'm very much okay with the "could" in your comment. It's certainly possible that the electorate could do any number of things. All we can do, however, is note that in practice we can see what the electorate typically does, and project what will happen if voters react to things the way they usually do. It's absolutely true that all such projections should include "assuming that people react as they usually do" caveats, along with recognition that we only have so much evidence and we can never tell for sure if there are important factors that are different this time. On the other hand, we do have quite a bit of evidence, and every election always has people with theories of why you can throw the past out of the window.
By the way, I wouldn't characterize individual voters as irrational when they give internally inconsistent answers to pollsters. In most cases, what's happening is that people are both ignorant of and indifferent to the question being asked. That's not something that I would criticize voters for at all; there are tons of things others think important on which I'm ignorant and indifferent!
I suppose might as well add a factual correction to Anon's assertions about budget deficits. Budget deficits went through the roof in FY 2009, which was almost half over before Obama became president. Moreover, the bulk of the deficit remains essentially the effects of two things: the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts, and the effects of the recession. FWIW.
ReplyDeleteOh, and p. swift is quite correct; Bennett was defeated for renomination, but not in a primary.
Budget deficits went through the roof in FY 2009, which was almost half over before Obama became president.
ReplyDeleteAnd those deficits were established by the Left, as they had been for a number of years by then. Pelosi and company forced spending from the last full R controlled budget of 19.54% of GDP to a level of 20.90% of GDP, an increase of 7%, year over year. The next Pelosi and company budget jacked spending to 25.10% of GDP, another 20% year over year increase.
Obama has thrown another 1% of GDP or so into the maw of government, and is clearly keen on holding onto every bit of that spending level.
Don't attempt to shift blame here. The Left is skyrocketing spending. You want that, so own it.
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Moreover, the bulk of the deficit remains essentially the effects of two things: the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts, and the effects of the recession. FWIW.
No, the bulk of the deficit is a result of the massive spending increases that you leftists support, as detailed above. In CY 2009, we took in about 15% of GDP in revenues. If we'd been spending at the Clinton/Gingrich levels of less than 18% of GDP, we'd be at a 3% GDP deficit, perfectly acceptable to many of us. Instead, we spent at the Left's preferred levels of +25% of GDP, and ran +10% deficits.
"It's the spending, stupid."
I posted on one of your discussions shortly ago, wherein you scoffed at the problems posed by deficits. I stated that we're borrowing 43 cents of every dollar that we spend, but the lefties here didn't see it as a problem. How wrong they are, and how badly the electorate is punishing them for their mistake.
It's the spending. The spending. The Left will get annihilated at the polls until they accept this simple truth. They haven't budgeted and taxed responsibly, and that will have its price.