tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6926413038778731189.post7530669923578763754..comments2023-10-16T07:13:12.123-05:00Comments on A plain blog about politics: State of the Race/WH 2012 NotesJonathan Bernsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15931039630306253241noreply@blogger.comBlogger21125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6926413038778731189.post-36283883034251725842011-12-02T13:39:38.343-06:002011-12-02T13:39:38.343-06:00". . . when's the last serious contender ...". . . when's the last serious contender who had that long out of office?"<br /><br />When asked, of course, Newt likes to compare himself to Charles de Gaulle, who was called out of a 12-year retirement to save a grateful nation.Scott Monjenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6926413038778731189.post-67993346053920396912011-12-02T11:33:54.612-06:002011-12-02T11:33:54.612-06:00there's never been a ex-Speaker of the House r...<i>there's never been a ex-Speaker of the House running for President (at least not since the time of Polk!)</i><br /><br />Courtesy of Wikipedia, speakers since Polk who have run for president:<br /><br />James Blaine (the Republican nominee in 1884)<br />Thomas Bracket Reed (Republican candidate in 1896)<br />Joseph Gurney Cannon (Republican candidate in 1908)<br />Champ Clark (Democratic candidate in 1912)<br />John Nance Garner (vp under FDR; presidential candidate in 1932 and 1940)<br />Joseph William Martin (Republican candidate in 1948)Kylopodhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06932528611103718373noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6926413038778731189.post-30237735293791357982011-12-02T11:13:24.019-06:002011-12-02T11:13:24.019-06:00Andrew,
The question is whether there's a sys...Andrew,<br /><br />The question is whether there's a systematic reason why House leaders *don't* make good presidential candidates; I think there is, although one cannot be sure, for the reasons you say.Jonathan Bernsteinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15931039630306253241noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6926413038778731189.post-54303463859187495732011-12-02T11:04:05.003-06:002011-12-02T11:04:05.003-06:00For all the reasons to look at Newtmentum and ask ...For all the reasons to look at Newtmentum and ask "could this hold up?", I think Jonathan is looking more to the theory that "no one in the GOP field has taken a shot at Gingrich yet" (Ron Paul apparently kicking the STOP NEWT effort off). I think Newt has a chance, but it's still a long way to the Florida primary.<br /><br />My contention is that the GOP primary voters like the way Newt talks, and the way he talks to them.. but there's a whole lot of issues another campaign can use to remind voters that Newt is a candidate who's had a business plan for the last 20 years, not a candidate that's been putting together a coherent rationale for a national campaign.<br /><br />And Romney has the gobs of money to run ads over the next month to disqualify Gingrich as a 'true conservative' (or lie his head off about Newt, as in the Obama 180°-out-of-context ad). One thing I hadn't considered is that if Newt runs the table in the early voting states, Perry's the one who might be able to take advantage if Mitt dies on the vine. Perry would be the next logical 'party establishment' candidate - and he could quickly raise the money if the insiders turned to him as the "non-Newt".JSnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6926413038778731189.post-44793457552466091662011-12-02T10:59:58.758-06:002011-12-02T10:59:58.758-06:00when's the last serious contender who had that...<i>when's the last serious contender who had that long out of office? ... There are no remotely similar resumes that have come anywhere close to a nomination...</i><br /><br />I don't know that there's ever been a contender for the Presidency that's been out of office this long.... but then, there's never been a ex-Speaker of the House running for President (at least not since the time of Polk!)<br /><br />I guess that's the problem, then, with ruling out a candidate as "unserious" based on his credentials. There just is too small a sample size to reach any real conclusions about who is viable and who is not.Andrewhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15913245096162048743noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6926413038778731189.post-29724617973578210282011-12-02T09:44:40.988-06:002011-12-02T09:44:40.988-06:00Heh. I'm a big fan Jonathan but the idea that...Heh. I'm a big fan Jonathan but the idea that we shouldn't take Newt seriously when he's got double digit leads in 3 of the first 4 states with one month to go is itself geting a little crazy. You're overstating the degree to which Republican voters take things like "mainstream conservative" literally about actual previous policy positions and understating the emotional appeal to pathos that Newt is riding, as well as Newt's quite effective strategy of appealing to Republican unity. His campaign has tapped into a powerful emotional something in the GOP base and while he certainly could fuck it all up, you cannot underestimate the importance of that. <br /><br />But anyway I'm looking forward to your next few months of articles:<br /><br />"Yes, Newt won Iowa. No, you shouldn't take him seriously."<br />"Yes, Newt won South Carolina and Florida. No, you shouldn't take him seriously."<br />"Yes, Newt won the nomination. No, you shouldn't take him seriously."Satyahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12407609785520451638noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6926413038778731189.post-14326876162833375642011-12-01T22:57:54.886-06:002011-12-01T22:57:54.886-06:00Its also curious that intrade has both Huntsman an...Its also curious that intrade has both Huntsman and Paul at >2X the probability of Perry. They're both at 5%, which is a big improvement for Huntsman.<br /><br />Seems to me that Huntsman's rise is almost as interesting as Gingrich's, and further evidence of the discussed Anyone-but-Romney movement. (Is Huntsman's rise proportionately greater than Gingrich's?) What's particularly curious about Huntsman is that he argues against Mormon prejudice as the reason Romney can't close the deal.<br /><br />I think we just don't like the guy.CSHnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6926413038778731189.post-29488004717937862642011-12-01T22:02:49.413-06:002011-12-01T22:02:49.413-06:00I think anonymous @6:11 gets this right by saying ...I think anonymous @6:11 gets this right by saying that Gingrich's rise is entirely a function of the ABR phenomenon. It seems somewhat silly to evaluate Gingrich on his own merits...he's a dependent variable, after all.<br /><br />If Perry had not gone wacko on back meds, would we even be talking about Gingrich today? Of course not. Perry would be the frontrunner, Romney would be the dutiful, unlikeable forlorn alternative, there in case (against hope) Perry might have problems with pain meds, or something.<br /><br />I think anonymous is also correct in saying this ABR thing is unlike anything we've seen before. As such, for me the interesting thing is not how Gingrich's resume fits the primary process, but rather how we got to this weird place where a placeholder was needed, and - what the hell - Gingrich was the best of a shrinking lot.CSHnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6926413038778731189.post-3875973358313366902011-12-01T19:27:21.991-06:002011-12-01T19:27:21.991-06:00Party insiders are much more important than you se...Party insiders are much more important than you seem to think. Just ask Gary Johnson.Couveshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00926561539205771774noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6926413038778731189.post-19111283165881168382011-12-01T18:11:34.245-06:002011-12-01T18:11:34.245-06:00For the average R primary voter, Gingrich is a kno...For the average R primary voter, Gingrich is a known quantity, and thus everything about him has already been priced in, meaning his numbers aren't subject to the flavor of the month effect. No, those soaring poll numbers won't likely hold, but neither will they collapse, as the others did when they were given their time in the box. Those numbers are built on a known quantity, and the known quantity of Romney, and are a direct reaction to that known quantity of Romney. <br /><br />That's the critical point to understand here, that Gingrich's rise is directly related to Romney, and the circuitous path through the Anybody But Romney candidates that we've been witnessing. I've never seen anything like it, this ABR phenomenon. We saw a junior version of it with the Anybody But McCain primary last time through, ironically with this same Romney taking part, morphing himself into a "conservative". <br /><br />Romney has bought himself a campaign, starting in 2008. Whatever his numbers are, they are only built on what he's bought and paid for. And those numbers are not impressive. They are not a mile wide, and are in fact quite narrow. The question is, are they even 3 inches deep?<br /><br />If the current numbers hold, and Gingrich grabs Iowa and SC, he's gonna be near impossible to stop. NH wouldn't do it for Romney at that point, and he may not get even that. But Gingrich is still his own worst enemy. He's more than capable of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. <br /><br />Outliers: Perry could go on some populist rant, like he seems to be doing with the Wall Street rants yesterday, but he's finished I'd say. And Paul will stay in the race, even after most others drop out following Iowa/NH. He's probably the only one who could benefit from Gingrich/Romney clashing, if they somehow take each other out like a Japanese monster movie.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6926413038778731189.post-58561114029391158642011-12-01T17:44:36.969-06:002011-12-01T17:44:36.969-06:00Following on David's question.. can we clarify...Following on David's question.. can we clarify whether FOX "News" Channel and Limbaugh are party actors in this context?<br /><br />See: Romney's testy experience with Bret Baier, and Newt batting down softballs from Sean Hannity. Remember this is the network that teamed up with Koch Brothers' money to grow the Tea Party movement from fringy independent seedlings into the lush astroturf lawn we know it by today.<br /><br />Newt has been around long enough to look like he has enough government credentials to be a plausible candidate, where a businessman like Cain or a mid-bencher Congresswoman like Bachmann do not.<br /><br />And I think Newt made a savvy play by making a big deal out of not going negative on Mitt. Of course he doesn't have the campaign money to go toe-to-toe with the carpet bombing Romney can self-finance, so if he has a chance to survive, he can play victim.<br /><br />I just think Newt speaks to Republicans in a language the understand, and with a combativeness they like. He's the man they want on that wall, defending the last breath of freedom they've been told for 3 years that Obama is threatening. Romney has no charisma - and if his support is a mile wide among Republican primary voters, it's three inches deep.<br /><br />(All that considered, I think it's still Romney's race to lose, as he can survive January, and then his money advantage will at worst give him a second chance, even if Newt were to sweep the first five states. Plus if the pattern holds, Gingrich's five weeks as 'Flavor of the Month' end just before Christmas.)JSnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6926413038778731189.post-5339027440605352892011-12-01T17:23:08.659-06:002011-12-01T17:23:08.659-06:00Mitt Romney's been out of office for a while t...Mitt Romney's been out of office for a while too...<br /><br />And Newt Gingrich has been highly integrated into the conservative mainstream, otherwise they wouldn't have elected him Speaker. The conservative mainstream now has more in common with that of 1994 than that of the Bush years. As Speaker he was much more prominent than that office usually is. He's just not the sort of left-field candidate that Cain and Bachman are. If he gets real endorsements (and he's starting to) that makes up for his early campaign being basically a book tour. The only real problem he has is electability--this probably means his polling numbers in the primaries won't hold up and his voters may desert him for Romney. But I don't see any good argument at this point that he's less of a plausible nominee than Perry (who regardless his paper credentials is dead in the water.wkdeweyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10868091938156254671noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6926413038778731189.post-56736718139641373182011-12-01T16:47:13.471-06:002011-12-01T16:47:13.471-06:00Is there evidence that Limbaugh or O'Reilly ca...Is there evidence that Limbaugh or O'Reilly can 'deliver votes' - any votes at all?David Tomlinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6926413038778731189.post-73944753690385046442011-12-01T16:39:01.654-06:002011-12-01T16:39:01.654-06:00Now this is an interesting political science post ...Now this is an interesting political science post and it will be interesting to see how accurate it turns out to be. I think one of the major problems with pundits is they don't have to live up to their predictions. I'm sure political scientists do have to live up to theirs, one way or another.Bajsanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6926413038778731189.post-53587546039373131102011-12-01T16:37:23.884-06:002011-12-01T16:37:23.884-06:00I see, so you mean credentials as a candidate, not...I see, so you mean credentials as a candidate, not as a president. Is that accurate?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6926413038778731189.post-55025862428890744782011-12-01T16:27:58.464-06:002011-12-01T16:27:58.464-06:00While JB/Jeff do make a defense of the measure, I ...While JB/Jeff do make a defense of the measure, I think that the spirit of Andrew/anon's point is a valid one.<br /><br />It forces us to ask the question: WHY must a candidate be conservative? WHY must a candidate have conventional credentials?<br /><br />The answer to the first question is obvious: the party they want the nomination of is conservative. The second one, however, I think is a question worthy of a post in itself. <br /><br />Personally, I think there's a number of reasons for "conventional credentials." Some of those reasons are specifically about the credentials themselves, but others treat the credentials as a proxy variable.<br /><br />-Fundraising ability: Folks elected to governors or senators of decent-sized states have rolodexes & name recognition that can lead to $. The elected office they held is just a decent measure of that ability; it's a proxy.<br /><br />-Name recognition: Can't get the polls needed to raise money or get support if nobody knows you. While the reason why you have name recognition is your previous job, I think it's still more proxy than real effect here. In this regard, I wonder if Bachmann and the new wave of permanent talk-show fodder MCs erode the quality of the traditional measure (or, could in the future). Proxy.<br /><br />-Getting treated as serious by the media. If they don't write stories about you, you have little chance to move your numbers. Just ask Ron Paul and his supporters! :P Anyway, Ron Paul aside, you need to get media attention to compete for poll support (which is very helpful for money). This is both a proxy effect (having the right elected office is associated with being famous) AND a real effect (as there's a reason why they get the fame). Mixed.<br /><br />-Connections to party networks. This is not a proxy effect. Conventional credentials are themselves a direct E-ticket to the party networks. In your "conventional credential" job, you are going to interact with party networks that the rank-and-file House member won't. This is where Newt is so problematic to place: Speaker -> awesome connections. Speaker 13 years ago -> well, how awesome are those connections? <br /><br />One thing, however, that I don't think should be included in the measure is Jeff's argument for "type of campaign they ran." My perspective would be that we would use that as a reason why a potential candidate lost. I also think that it's also partially a product of the "mainstream & conventionally credentialled candidate" variable. Giuliani ran the stupid Florida-only campaign that he did BECAUSE he couldn't win Iowa or NH or SC, and he couldn't win them because of ideology/credentials. His campaign tactics didn't lose him the race; it was lost because of who he was, but it may have been the best tactic available to him. <br /><br />For what it's worth, I think that Gingrich qualifies as both mainstream & conventionally credentialled, because I think his scores on dimensions 2 & 3 are really good, and dimension 4 ain't half bad. <br /><br />But, to reiterate, I'd like to have "conventionally credentialled" better defined, particularly causally, so we can suss out what the measure is telling us from what it's obscuring.Matt Jarvisnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6926413038778731189.post-64550072367589466882011-12-01T16:13:46.956-06:002011-12-01T16:13:46.956-06:00what I've been saying now for the last few wee...<i>what I've been saying now for the last few weeks is that obviously Romney is ahead.</i><br /><br />.<br /><br />Well you may be saying it repeatedly, but that just makes it a repeated false statement, as the data tells us.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6926413038778731189.post-21221017786218602872011-12-01T15:24:29.609-06:002011-12-01T15:24:29.609-06:00Gingrich isn't a conventional / mainstream can...Gingrich isn't a conventional / mainstream candidate (if I have this right) because he's been out of office and not a candidate for anything for much longer than any major-party nominee (twice as long as Nixon, for instance), and because he launched what was obviously at the outset a "business plan" campaign, a la Herman Cain, not a serious effort to line up party actors and interest groups, raise campaign funds, set up ground operations in the early primary states, etc., the way candidate do when they're actually running to win.<br /><br />(Written before the JB response just posted, but I'll post it anyway....)Jeffnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6926413038778731189.post-20466138169354418612011-12-01T15:18:29.051-06:002011-12-01T15:18:29.051-06:00Speaker is an odd, but not disqualifying, credenti...Speaker is an odd, but not disqualifying, credential. But credentials aren't just about chalking up positive things; they're also about avoiding negatives. And he's been out of office for over a decade, which in itself puts him right on the borderline -- when's the last serious contender who had that long out of office? Plus there's an ethics scandal, plus there are the multiple marital scandals. There are no remotely similar resumes that have come anywhere close to a nomination, certainly not since reform.Jonathan Bernsteinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15931039630306253241noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6926413038778731189.post-65842652933976920852011-12-01T14:54:01.111-06:002011-12-01T14:54:01.111-06:00In what sense is Newt Gingrich not a "mainstr...In what sense is Newt Gingrich not a "mainstream conservative with conventional credentials"? He's certainly conservative, but not more so than Rick Perry or less so than Mitt Romney, so he's probably mainstream too.<br /><br />He was Speaker of the House, which would seem to make him the most credentialled person running. He used to be second in line for the presidency, and spent four years in one of the most powerful and influential offices in American politics.<br /><br />I don't really see a coherent definition of "mainstream conservative with conventional credentials" that includes Perry and Romney, but not Gingrich.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6926413038778731189.post-10742764880275580632011-12-01T14:52:21.345-06:002011-12-01T14:52:21.345-06:00the winner will be a mainstream conservative with ...<i>the winner will be a mainstream conservative with conventional credentials, and the only two remaining who fit that are Romney and Perry</i><br /><br />Just curious - and I'm sure I could just google your archives and find the answer in minutes - but what is it about Newt that puts him out of the mainstream and unconventional, in your view? <br /><br />Sure, he's strayed from conservative orthodoxy, but not any more than the others (think about the nominee from last time around).<br /><br />And he used to be third-in-line to the presidency. Is it really that much worse to have "ex-Speaker of the House" on your candidate's resume rather than "ex-Governor"?Andrewhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15913245096162048743noreply@blogger.com