Over the weekend, my Salon column argued that Paul Ryan is really the flip side of Sarah Palin: he's the faux wonk for a party who is happy enough with a Palin, but would like to think of itself as not completely outclassed on substance.
Then today at PP, I talked about how the lessons of this year's conventions might play out. My serious point is that whatever are thought to be the lessons of the conventions will matter but that those lessons may have little or nothing to do with what actually caused Romney to get no bump and Obama to get one, but I framed it around a wish that everyone will conclude it was the Republicans' lazy mendacity that was the problem.
Speaking of which, have I mentioned my totally screwy and almost certainly wrong theory of why the GOP convention flopped? The GOP convention featured a whole string of successful businesspeople explaining how successful they were. Their main complaint about Obama wasn't that he ruined their businesses; it was that he didn't properly respect their success. Perhaps some people watched that and concluded that business in the US was actually doing really well?
(One exception that I remember: there was a guy from Nevada, if I recall correctly, whose government-had-nothing-to-do-with-my-success business was selling something -- road signs, I think? -- to government, and his complaint was that under Obama the government wasn't buying enough of whatever it was. Ah -- here's the story).
As I said, probably wrong, but I'm having fun semi-believing it.
Showing posts with label Sarah Palin. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sarah Palin. Show all posts
Monday, September 10, 2012
Monday, April 16, 2012
If Palin Had Run
I talked about this already last week, but I wasn't really focused on Palin specifically and since Ross Douthat is keeping the discussion alive with what I think is a pretty good post, I figured I have an excuse to go back and revisit this one more time.
There are two points to make about Palin vs. Santorum, or Perry, or Pawlenty, or for that matter Romney.
The first one is that unlike Bachmann, Cain, Gingrich, Huntsman, Paul, Johnson, and probably Santorum, Sarah Palin was a plausible nominee: she had conventional credentials (just by being the most recent VP nominee), and she had positions on public policy which were firmly within the mainstream of her party.
The second is, as Douthat says, "nothing in her post-2008 career suggests an aptitude or appetite for the kind of work required to build a smooth-running (or even occasionally-misfiring) national campaign." Except it's actually worse than that. "Post-2008" isn't enough; nothing in her career after John McCain unveiled her as his running mate suggests she was likely to do the things that one needs to do to win a major party nomination.
Of course, the other perspective is that she sure did do a lot of things in 2009, 2010, and 2011 that looked a lot like running for president. Perhaps she did, and she just quit, either because she didn't enjoy doing it or because she realized she was losing (in other words, the same reasons that Pawlenty got out). It's hard to tell without more evidence; the things that sort of looked like a Sarah Palin version of running for president also look a lot like keeping one's name in the news in order to better cash in.
One more thing: would Mitt Romney really have found it hard to attack her? Maybe. But in addition to attacking his GOP opponents always from the right (as Ed Kilgore noted; sorry, just a memory, no link), Romney excelled at letting the other candidates destroy themselves. And that's something the Sage of Wasilla could be counted on to do.
Put it all together, and what you have with Sarah Palin was a plausible nominee, but also someone who did not seem likely to be a very strong candidate, and was in fact a very weak candidate during the months when she appeared to be sort-of running.
There are two points to make about Palin vs. Santorum, or Perry, or Pawlenty, or for that matter Romney.
The first one is that unlike Bachmann, Cain, Gingrich, Huntsman, Paul, Johnson, and probably Santorum, Sarah Palin was a plausible nominee: she had conventional credentials (just by being the most recent VP nominee), and she had positions on public policy which were firmly within the mainstream of her party.
The second is, as Douthat says, "nothing in her post-2008 career suggests an aptitude or appetite for the kind of work required to build a smooth-running (or even occasionally-misfiring) national campaign." Except it's actually worse than that. "Post-2008" isn't enough; nothing in her career after John McCain unveiled her as his running mate suggests she was likely to do the things that one needs to do to win a major party nomination.
Of course, the other perspective is that she sure did do a lot of things in 2009, 2010, and 2011 that looked a lot like running for president. Perhaps she did, and she just quit, either because she didn't enjoy doing it or because she realized she was losing (in other words, the same reasons that Pawlenty got out). It's hard to tell without more evidence; the things that sort of looked like a Sarah Palin version of running for president also look a lot like keeping one's name in the news in order to better cash in.
One more thing: would Mitt Romney really have found it hard to attack her? Maybe. But in addition to attacking his GOP opponents always from the right (as Ed Kilgore noted; sorry, just a memory, no link), Romney excelled at letting the other candidates destroy themselves. And that's something the Sage of Wasilla could be counted on to do.
Put it all together, and what you have with Sarah Palin was a plausible nominee, but also someone who did not seem likely to be a very strong candidate, and was in fact a very weak candidate during the months when she appeared to be sort-of running.
Thursday, April 12, 2012
Catch of the Day
I'm not sure whether to give the Catch to Kenneth Vogel, who did a nice piece of reporting about it (assuming of course that he got it right, but it looks good to me) or to Conor Friedersdorf, who turned it into a fun item: let's say the Catch of the Day goes to both of them for pointing out that Sarah Palin is churning through quite a lot of donor money without producing anything beyond, as Friedersdorf points out, building her personal brand.
Friedersdorf, addressing the Sage of Wasilla directly:
Still, it certainly does seem to me that there's just an enormous market out there willing to be exploited by fraudulent "conservative" hucksters, and as Friedersdorf says essentially no effort from anyone within the Republican network to do anything about it.
And: nice catch!
Friedersdorf, addressing the Sage of Wasilla directly:
Do you think the money of rank and file conservatives is well spent building your personal brand? Why should anyone trust you as a steward of their money again? Did you think you'd get away with this just because the conservative media is curiously silent when popular movement figures shamelessly fleece the rank and file?It's that last one that's the key, isn't it? Palin is only perhaps the most obvious, and perhaps the most shameless, of a long series of people who treat conservatives as easy marks. Yes, there's some of that on the other side, but really there's just not much. Well -- someone, perhaps it's my brother but I don't really remember, makes the case that it's just a matter of people serving different markets, with liberals very willing to fork money over to those who make them feel good about Taking the Issues Seriously and other highfalutin things. In other words, that people on both sides are easy marks, but just that they demand different things. Perhaps so, but if what you demand of snake oil is that it looks and feels and works like real medicine, then I'm not sure you're really buying snake oil. Unless you're able to persuade me that all liberals care about is the "looks and feels" part of it.
Still, it certainly does seem to me that there's just an enormous market out there willing to be exploited by fraudulent "conservative" hucksters, and as Friedersdorf says essentially no effort from anyone within the Republican network to do anything about it.
And: nice catch!
Wednesday, April 11, 2012
Romney, Luck, and Palin
A lot of the commentary yesterday looking back on the Republican nomination process this cycle concluded, again, that Mitt Romney was lucky – specifically, in his opponents. Going whole hog down this path, Philip Klein argues that Romney was lucky that his opponent at the end was Rick Santorum – and not, of all people Sarah Palin.
Really?
The Sage of Wasilla, it is true, would have had a group of strong supporters. But Klein forgets one important difference between Santorum and Palin: Republicans knew who Sarah Palin was, and outside of a small group of her strong supporters, most Republicans wanted her nowhere near the White House. Including many who liked her.
Indeed, a Palin candidacy would have unfolded somewhat similar to the way Newt Gingrich’s candidacy went, with Republican politicians and others with a strong stake in having a solid candidate in November taking the lead in bashing the former Alaska governor and reality TV star, especially if and when she was doing well. Check that: it did unfold that way, when Palin dipped her toe in the waters by diverting her book tour to Iowa and other early contest states. Romney never had to lift a finger.
Now, Romney is lucky in that Santorum is basically at the end of the day a regular Republican, and he wasn’t apt to attempt to sink the ticket out of spite. Sarah Palin has given every indication that she is capable of doing just that. On the other hand…she’s still out there, and still has fans. Perhaps more than she would have had if she had entered, say, a long series of presidential debates. Palin hasn’t had the occasion to feud with Mitt Romney, and it’s true that had she run that might have been more likely, but there’s still plenty of time, and she would still be a major headache for the nominee if she decides to start making demands and threatens to walk. You think the press just might decide to pay attention if she held a Tea Party counterconvention down the street from Romney's convention? Better question: do you think a single reporter would be left at the Republican show, at least outside of the big prime time speeches, if Palin put on a show elsewhere in town?
The truth is, as I've said many times, that the actual Republican field, the one that included Tim Pawlenty and Rick Perry and Haley Barbour and perhaps a few others, was probably about as formidable as Romney was likely to get this time. In the sense that there was no popular former Vice President or similar heavyweight anywhere on the horizon, one could fairly describe Romney as lucky, but in that Mitch Daniels was easy to scare off -- or perhaps, really didn't have interest? Not so much. And while Palin is a permanent potential headache for the party, overall I'm just not convinced that she would have been a much bigger headache had she contested -- and lost -- a bunch of primaries.
Had Palin been in the race as the conservative alternative, it would have been very difficult for Romney to attack her given the passionate following she has among many conservatives, because he wouldn't want to risk alienating them. Even if he had ultimately triumphed after a brutal primary fight, a lot of her loyal supporters would have found it difficult to bury the hatchet for the general election.
Really?
The Sage of Wasilla, it is true, would have had a group of strong supporters. But Klein forgets one important difference between Santorum and Palin: Republicans knew who Sarah Palin was, and outside of a small group of her strong supporters, most Republicans wanted her nowhere near the White House. Including many who liked her.
Indeed, a Palin candidacy would have unfolded somewhat similar to the way Newt Gingrich’s candidacy went, with Republican politicians and others with a strong stake in having a solid candidate in November taking the lead in bashing the former Alaska governor and reality TV star, especially if and when she was doing well. Check that: it did unfold that way, when Palin dipped her toe in the waters by diverting her book tour to Iowa and other early contest states. Romney never had to lift a finger.
Now, Romney is lucky in that Santorum is basically at the end of the day a regular Republican, and he wasn’t apt to attempt to sink the ticket out of spite. Sarah Palin has given every indication that she is capable of doing just that. On the other hand…she’s still out there, and still has fans. Perhaps more than she would have had if she had entered, say, a long series of presidential debates. Palin hasn’t had the occasion to feud with Mitt Romney, and it’s true that had she run that might have been more likely, but there’s still plenty of time, and she would still be a major headache for the nominee if she decides to start making demands and threatens to walk. You think the press just might decide to pay attention if she held a Tea Party counterconvention down the street from Romney's convention? Better question: do you think a single reporter would be left at the Republican show, at least outside of the big prime time speeches, if Palin put on a show elsewhere in town?
The truth is, as I've said many times, that the actual Republican field, the one that included Tim Pawlenty and Rick Perry and Haley Barbour and perhaps a few others, was probably about as formidable as Romney was likely to get this time. In the sense that there was no popular former Vice President or similar heavyweight anywhere on the horizon, one could fairly describe Romney as lucky, but in that Mitch Daniels was easy to scare off -- or perhaps, really didn't have interest? Not so much. And while Palin is a permanent potential headache for the party, overall I'm just not convinced that she would have been a much bigger headache had she contested -- and lost -- a bunch of primaries.
Friday, March 23, 2012
Pro Tips for Vetting Veeps
The NYT's Richard Stevenson reports that Republicans are considering actually vetting their VP candidate this time around. It's sort of amazing how many duds they've had (I don't know how you score Dick Cheney, but they surely picked duds in 1952, 1968, 1988, and 2008).
At any rate, in case they're a little rusty from not having done this since 1996, I'm going to give them a quick hint: google your prospective candidate's name with the word "ethics." If what you get back seems to include the words "...charges" or "...violations" or "formal investigations," you probably want to move on to the next pick. Sure, it's possible that it's all just a massive liberal media conspiracy against her, but perhaps, just perhaps, that's not the fight you want to be having on the campaign trail.
This concludes a short lesson in Pro Tips for Vetting Veeps.
(Yeah, yeah, my real advice is as always just to pick someone that's survived a national campaign with reputation intact -- which in this case mostly narrows it down to The Huck. But it's more fun to do a Palin post).
At any rate, in case they're a little rusty from not having done this since 1996, I'm going to give them a quick hint: google your prospective candidate's name with the word "ethics." If what you get back seems to include the words "...charges" or "...violations" or "formal investigations," you probably want to move on to the next pick. Sure, it's possible that it's all just a massive liberal media conspiracy against her, but perhaps, just perhaps, that's not the fight you want to be having on the campaign trail.
This concludes a short lesson in Pro Tips for Vetting Veeps.
(Yeah, yeah, my real advice is as always just to pick someone that's survived a national campaign with reputation intact -- which in this case mostly narrows it down to The Huck. But it's more fun to do a Palin post).
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
Catch of the Day
To Ed Kilgore Paul Glastris*, who notes that WaPo's Richard Cohen does an impressive job of establishing false equivalency despite having a one-sided set of examples of Palin-like candidates who have succeeded on the national level.
As someone who doesn't care all that much about that particular press bias, what bothered me far more about the column was that for Cohen the Sage of Wasilla appears on the scene "With her selection as John McCain’s running mate" and that, at the end, "Sarah Palin changed the game." That's wrong. Sarah Palin didn't change anything. There have always been unqualified presidential and vice-presidential candidates out there. Hundreds of millions of them, in fact. What changed (if anything did; I'm not as sure about that) was that John McCain selected her, without having bothered to find out whether she was a qualified candidate or not. The passive "with her selection" will not do.
What happened in 2008 was that John McCain chose someone who should not have been on a national ticket; that Republicans of all stripes pretended he hadn't done that through election day; and that all too many Republicans defended the choice not with the white lie of claiming her competence, but by declaring that her apparent weaknesses were actually strengths, thus setting the party up to reward such weaknesses in the future.
Palin is, of course, responsible for her own actions. But no more than that. Her selection in the first place, and the way she was defended before and especially after the election, isn't her doing, and John McCain and various high-visibility Republicans are the ones who deserve the blame for it.
At any rate: nice catch!
*UPDATE and mainly CORRECTION: Very sloppy on my part; I assumed that the post was by Ed Kilgore, regular WaMo blogger, but it was in fact by Paul Glastris, occasional WaMo blog contributor (and Editor in Chief of the Washington Monthly). My apologies to everyone.
As someone who doesn't care all that much about that particular press bias, what bothered me far more about the column was that for Cohen the Sage of Wasilla appears on the scene "With her selection as John McCain’s running mate" and that, at the end, "Sarah Palin changed the game." That's wrong. Sarah Palin didn't change anything. There have always been unqualified presidential and vice-presidential candidates out there. Hundreds of millions of them, in fact. What changed (if anything did; I'm not as sure about that) was that John McCain selected her, without having bothered to find out whether she was a qualified candidate or not. The passive "with her selection" will not do.
What happened in 2008 was that John McCain chose someone who should not have been on a national ticket; that Republicans of all stripes pretended he hadn't done that through election day; and that all too many Republicans defended the choice not with the white lie of claiming her competence, but by declaring that her apparent weaknesses were actually strengths, thus setting the party up to reward such weaknesses in the future.
Palin is, of course, responsible for her own actions. But no more than that. Her selection in the first place, and the way she was defended before and especially after the election, isn't her doing, and John McCain and various high-visibility Republicans are the ones who deserve the blame for it.
At any rate: nice catch!
*UPDATE and mainly CORRECTION: Very sloppy on my part; I assumed that the post was by Ed Kilgore, regular WaMo blogger, but it was in fact by Paul Glastris, occasional WaMo blog contributor (and Editor in Chief of the Washington Monthly). My apologies to everyone.
Thursday, October 6, 2011
Palin Out
The 1972 Democratic National Convention was, by all reports, chaotic. George McGovern had a solid delegate lead coming into the convention, but didn't seal the deal until he won a couple of hotly contested test votes at the convention. He then turned to the question of a running mate, only to be rebuffed by his first choice -- Ted Kennedy -- and at least a couple of other choices. Eventually, he settled on Missouri Senator Tom Eagleton; it was hardly a carefully vetted selection and it soon turned into a fiasco, but again McGovern was operating in relatively difficult circumstances. Also in McGovern's defense: Eagleton went on to continue to have a perfectly respectable Senate career. As near as I can tell, he retired with an excellent reputation.
In 2008, John McCain basically won the nomination on Super Tuesday, which was February 5, but Mike Huckabee fought all the way to March 4, when he withdrew and McCain clinched it. The deadline for selecting a running mate was the Republican National Convention, scheduled for September 1. Oh, sure, perhaps you would want the veepstakes to be concluded at least a few days before the convention, but the hard deadline was September 1.
Which means that McCain's campaign had almost all of March to select and vet a running mate. And all of April. And all of May. And all of June. And all of July. And all of August.
And they -- and he -- selected someone who, whatever her many, many, many other flaws, was currently under an ethics investigation in her state. I mean, how do you do that? It's really hard to believe the level of irresponsibility, and really I don't see how Republicans have ever forgiven McCain for it.
The other notes...it's been clear for some time, of course, that Palin wasn't really capable for whatever reason of running a proper campaign, and it's certainly possible she never had any intention of contesting the primaries, but by my standards I'm still going to say that she (like Christie, and Barbour, and the rest) ran and lost. Pending further reporting, we'll never know for sure what her goals have been these last three years, but when you're the recent VP candidate and you spend your time doing things that presidential candidates do, then in my book you're a presidential candidate. Just, in this case, a spectacularly inept one.
At least this simplifies things a bit. I've been saying for a while that the field is set, but hadn't quite wanted to definitely rule a Palin nomination out...it seemed increasingly unlikely, but I didn't know exactly where to draw the line between unlikely and entirely implausible. At least that's done with now. It's gonna be Rick Perry or Mitt Romney, unless something wildly implausible happens. Hey, for Republicans, it certainly could have been a whole lot worse -- I doubt if either of them will embarrass the party as badly as John McCain did, and they both would probably be much better presidents than George W. Bush. My line for a while has been that the GOP is increasingly unlikely to nominate someone crazy, but is increasingly certain to nominate someone who has had to say crazy things to get the nod, and that's pretty much how it's turning out.
In 2008, John McCain basically won the nomination on Super Tuesday, which was February 5, but Mike Huckabee fought all the way to March 4, when he withdrew and McCain clinched it. The deadline for selecting a running mate was the Republican National Convention, scheduled for September 1. Oh, sure, perhaps you would want the veepstakes to be concluded at least a few days before the convention, but the hard deadline was September 1.
Which means that McCain's campaign had almost all of March to select and vet a running mate. And all of April. And all of May. And all of June. And all of July. And all of August.
And they -- and he -- selected someone who, whatever her many, many, many other flaws, was currently under an ethics investigation in her state. I mean, how do you do that? It's really hard to believe the level of irresponsibility, and really I don't see how Republicans have ever forgiven McCain for it.
The other notes...it's been clear for some time, of course, that Palin wasn't really capable for whatever reason of running a proper campaign, and it's certainly possible she never had any intention of contesting the primaries, but by my standards I'm still going to say that she (like Christie, and Barbour, and the rest) ran and lost. Pending further reporting, we'll never know for sure what her goals have been these last three years, but when you're the recent VP candidate and you spend your time doing things that presidential candidates do, then in my book you're a presidential candidate. Just, in this case, a spectacularly inept one.
At least this simplifies things a bit. I've been saying for a while that the field is set, but hadn't quite wanted to definitely rule a Palin nomination out...it seemed increasingly unlikely, but I didn't know exactly where to draw the line between unlikely and entirely implausible. At least that's done with now. It's gonna be Rick Perry or Mitt Romney, unless something wildly implausible happens. Hey, for Republicans, it certainly could have been a whole lot worse -- I doubt if either of them will embarrass the party as badly as John McCain did, and they both would probably be much better presidents than George W. Bush. My line for a while has been that the GOP is increasingly unlikely to nominate someone crazy, but is increasingly certain to nominate someone who has had to say crazy things to get the nod, and that's pretty much how it's turning out.
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
How To Make Palin Go Away
Steve Kornacki and John Sides have a debate going today about How To Make Palin Go Away. Kornacki argues that if she winds up an official candidate for the presidency, she'll be exposed as unpopular. Sides responded that by not running, she's already marginalized herself. Kornacki shot back that his way "could last for years." Great debate!
Who is right? I absolutely love Kornacki's vision of a Palin campaign rapidly turning into Gary Hart's trek through the wilderness when he tried to revive his candidacy in 1988, after he had a scandal-induced hiatus from the campaign. But I'm not really convinced it would work out that way. I absolutely agree that Palin has to date managed to alienate much of the GOP, and that would severely limit her upside. But it's not at all clear to me that she would be as big a joke as Hart was. Gary Hart never really had the kind of strong supporters that the Sage of Wasilla has had for the last few years, and so once he lost the folks who thought he might win, there was really nothing remaining.
Moreover, at the rank-and-file level, and perhaps even among some activists, the sorts of things that Palin have done to antagonize most of her party are understandable as pluses, not minuses. There certainly are lots of Republicans out there who believe themselves to be very hostile to the GOP "establishment," and might be persuaded to stick with her, especially given the other options.
I also continue to believe, even at this very late date, that Palin would be capable of mending her reputation considerably if her actions changed. Granted, I don't expect that by now; for whatever reasons, the Palin we've seen is probably the Palin that we're going to see. But everyone loves a redemption story, and I suspect that there are a lot of reporters and more than a few Republican operatives and activists who would be happy to talk about how Palin has "grown" over the years. If she would only let them.
Could she still win? I'm not quite ready to take her off my list of plausible nominees, but she's obviously wasted a ton of time, and even if she did suddenly change there's an excellent chance that it's too late. But if she does decide to become a formal candidate, I don't think she'll wind up as Gary Hart II, at least not for some time. Kornacki does have a point, however; should she back off this time and the Republicans lose, the tease will start again right around the time that the polls close on the west coast, and it won't let up for the next three years. Losing this time around -- not informally through testing the waters and backing off, but with a solid defeat at the polls in Iowa and New Hampshire -- is the best way to prevent that. Well, other than having a different Republican in the White House.
Who is right? I absolutely love Kornacki's vision of a Palin campaign rapidly turning into Gary Hart's trek through the wilderness when he tried to revive his candidacy in 1988, after he had a scandal-induced hiatus from the campaign. But I'm not really convinced it would work out that way. I absolutely agree that Palin has to date managed to alienate much of the GOP, and that would severely limit her upside. But it's not at all clear to me that she would be as big a joke as Hart was. Gary Hart never really had the kind of strong supporters that the Sage of Wasilla has had for the last few years, and so once he lost the folks who thought he might win, there was really nothing remaining.
Moreover, at the rank-and-file level, and perhaps even among some activists, the sorts of things that Palin have done to antagonize most of her party are understandable as pluses, not minuses. There certainly are lots of Republicans out there who believe themselves to be very hostile to the GOP "establishment," and might be persuaded to stick with her, especially given the other options.
I also continue to believe, even at this very late date, that Palin would be capable of mending her reputation considerably if her actions changed. Granted, I don't expect that by now; for whatever reasons, the Palin we've seen is probably the Palin that we're going to see. But everyone loves a redemption story, and I suspect that there are a lot of reporters and more than a few Republican operatives and activists who would be happy to talk about how Palin has "grown" over the years. If she would only let them.
Could she still win? I'm not quite ready to take her off my list of plausible nominees, but she's obviously wasted a ton of time, and even if she did suddenly change there's an excellent chance that it's too late. But if she does decide to become a formal candidate, I don't think she'll wind up as Gary Hart II, at least not for some time. Kornacki does have a point, however; should she back off this time and the Republicans lose, the tease will start again right around the time that the polls close on the west coast, and it won't let up for the next three years. Losing this time around -- not informally through testing the waters and backing off, but with a solid defeat at the polls in Iowa and New Hampshire -- is the best way to prevent that. Well, other than having a different Republican in the White House.
Thursday, July 14, 2011
Catch of the Day
It's Palin time: Chris Bodenner over at the Daily Dish goes to town on the Palin family and gender roles, knocking down Bristol's ghostwriter in the process.
By the way...it's just a wild guess, with nothing to go on, but my latest tea-leaf reading is that it's more likely than not that Sarah Palin will still mount some kind of presidential campaign later this year. It might just be on the scale of her recent bus tour, or something like the Donald Trump "campaign" from back in the spring, or even a full-fledged campaign that winds up with her competing in Iowa and on to more, but I guess I'll be surprised if she just skips out on the whole thing. I mean, if Jon Huntsman can convince himself that he has a chance to win, surely Palin must really believe that she has chance. She certainly seems to like the attention.
The flip side is that her financial situation might really make it very difficult, or very costly, to mount a formal campaign -- but surely everything short of that helps her make more money, if that's her goal.
And, yeah, I still think she's a plausible nominee, although a less likely one than she was twelve or six or even two months ago. A longshot, but plausible. There's still no one in the field in the same league with her when it comes to resentment, and I've always believed that one should never bet against resentment in GOP nomination contests.
Back to Bodenner: Nice catch!
By the way...it's just a wild guess, with nothing to go on, but my latest tea-leaf reading is that it's more likely than not that Sarah Palin will still mount some kind of presidential campaign later this year. It might just be on the scale of her recent bus tour, or something like the Donald Trump "campaign" from back in the spring, or even a full-fledged campaign that winds up with her competing in Iowa and on to more, but I guess I'll be surprised if she just skips out on the whole thing. I mean, if Jon Huntsman can convince himself that he has a chance to win, surely Palin must really believe that she has chance. She certainly seems to like the attention.
The flip side is that her financial situation might really make it very difficult, or very costly, to mount a formal campaign -- but surely everything short of that helps her make more money, if that's her goal.
And, yeah, I still think she's a plausible nominee, although a less likely one than she was twelve or six or even two months ago. A longshot, but plausible. There's still no one in the field in the same league with her when it comes to resentment, and I've always believed that one should never bet against resentment in GOP nomination contests.
Back to Bodenner: Nice catch!
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Hunstman, and Three Questions about the GOP Process
I've written the "Hunstman can't win" post so many times...I think on the day of his big announcement, I'll just quote a wonderful Alex Massie post. Will Republicans settle for Huntsman?
Meanwhile, we're finally getting close to the end of the announcement season, right? And the field seems basically set now, with the two big question marks being Rick Perry (probably in, I'd guess) and Sarah Palin (I have no guess at all).
Three timing questions to ask; I don't have answers to any of them. These are about three of the five people I believe are plausible GOP nominees, along with Mitt Romney and Rick Perry.
1. How long could Jeb Bush wait and still get in and have a plausible chance of winning? My guess: not very much longer (note: I've never thought he would run. Just saying that if he did, he'd be a solid contender).
2. How long does Sarah Palin have to start turning her reputation around, which she would need to do to win the nomination? I think she still technically could do it. Of course, she probably won't; she seems determined not to. But my guess is that even as late as the fall, she could emerge as a pretty serious candidate for the nomination, if she was able to change the way she operates.
3. How long does Tim Pawlenty have to demonstrate a pulse with voters? My guess? November, December, something like that. Especially if Perry drops out, but even with Perry in the race I still think that if Pawlenty has a late rally to finish third in Iowa, he'd still have a chance. In the meantime, however, he has to grind out some gains in endorsements and fundraising, but if he does that I don't think he has to start moving in the polls until very late in the game.
That's a tricky proposition given that Huntsman was happy to serve in the Obama administration. It's also a problem given his minimal name recognition, the fact he comes from a small state and that, yup, there's already a Mormon ex-governor in the race. Oh, and it's not obvious he believes the same things as the voters who will decide this race do. Apart from that, I like his chances fine.Oh, and also:
At present it seems that Huntsman's support is largely confined to Wall Street and McLean, Virginia. These are important constituencies but making David Brooks swoon is an insufficient condition for winning the Republican nomination.Wonderful.
Meanwhile, we're finally getting close to the end of the announcement season, right? And the field seems basically set now, with the two big question marks being Rick Perry (probably in, I'd guess) and Sarah Palin (I have no guess at all).
Three timing questions to ask; I don't have answers to any of them. These are about three of the five people I believe are plausible GOP nominees, along with Mitt Romney and Rick Perry.
1. How long could Jeb Bush wait and still get in and have a plausible chance of winning? My guess: not very much longer (note: I've never thought he would run. Just saying that if he did, he'd be a solid contender).
2. How long does Sarah Palin have to start turning her reputation around, which she would need to do to win the nomination? I think she still technically could do it. Of course, she probably won't; she seems determined not to. But my guess is that even as late as the fall, she could emerge as a pretty serious candidate for the nomination, if she was able to change the way she operates.
3. How long does Tim Pawlenty have to demonstrate a pulse with voters? My guess? November, December, something like that. Especially if Perry drops out, but even with Perry in the race I still think that if Pawlenty has a late rally to finish third in Iowa, he'd still have a chance. In the meantime, however, he has to grind out some gains in endorsements and fundraising, but if he does that I don't think he has to start moving in the polls until very late in the game.
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
Catch of the Day
A shared catch: first to the Morning Joe gang, and then to a New York magazine slide show, both on Sarah Palin's definition of "gotcha" questions. As Joe Scarborough said:
Wherever Spiro Agnew is, you can be sure he's smiling. While accepting envelopes full of cash.
Via Sullivan, who supplies answers.
“Everything is a gotcha question with her, isn’t it? What newspapers do you read? Have you ever had Sanka? I mean everything is a gotcha question.”Of course, the key from the point of view of the Sage of Wasilla is that it's a terrific twofer: she gets to engage in the always-popular sport of media-bashing, and she has a ready-made excuse for anything foolish or ignorant that she says.
Wherever Spiro Agnew is, you can be sure he's smiling. While accepting envelopes full of cash.
Via Sullivan, who supplies answers.
Thursday, May 26, 2011
Palin Thoughts for the Day
If you're just itching to read about Sarah Palin today, I have a couple of links for you. One is a nice post by Paul Waldman on Palin's resentment and self-pity. The other is from me, over at Greg's place, talking again about my sense of Palin as a factional candidate at the head of a very personal "Palin faction." As usual, I say that factional candidates don't win presidential nominations these days; nominations are won by coalition-style candidates.
Thinking about the two pieces together, however...I guess the question is whether Palin's very personal resentment is enough to transform what looks now like a factional candidacy into something more. I've always thought that you won't go wrong betting on resentment in the GOP. And after all, resentment in the hands of Richard Nixon, Bob Dole, and John McCain all had a strong personal component, too. Of course, those candidates didn't allow their personal resentments to get in the way of active coalition-building; none of them behaved as if the normal rules of politics regarding what you need to do to get nominated didn't apply to them. I guess my bottom line on Palin is still the same: she's a plausible winner, and could still be a very formidable candidate -- but only if she starts acting differently. And, so far, based on what we've seen, she either doesn't believe she needs to do that, or is incapable of it.
Thinking about the two pieces together, however...I guess the question is whether Palin's very personal resentment is enough to transform what looks now like a factional candidacy into something more. I've always thought that you won't go wrong betting on resentment in the GOP. And after all, resentment in the hands of Richard Nixon, Bob Dole, and John McCain all had a strong personal component, too. Of course, those candidates didn't allow their personal resentments to get in the way of active coalition-building; none of them behaved as if the normal rules of politics regarding what you need to do to get nominated didn't apply to them. I guess my bottom line on Palin is still the same: she's a plausible winner, and could still be a very formidable candidate -- but only if she starts acting differently. And, so far, based on what we've seen, she either doesn't believe she needs to do that, or is incapable of it.
Friday, April 15, 2011
Not This Again
Ugh. I can't believe this is back in the news. Andrew Sullivan asks:
Sarah Palin is an important national political figure, and I do believe that reporters should press her, hard, on quite a few things, as they should with all important national political figures.
But leave the kids alone. I don't care if Palin "invited" extra scrutiny because she used her kid "as a political prop and campaign mascot" -- that's between her and her family. It doesn't make that kid or any of her kids fair game.
I've said this before: imagine the worst rumor you've heard about this story is true. Now, honestly: does that really change your view of Sarah Palin's worthiness to serve in high office? Does it change your view of how seriously we should take her policy pronouncements?
If she's guilty of all sorts of lies and malfeasance, reporters should make the case without touching this one. If it's her only serious indiscretion, fib, or whatever, then it seems to me that it has little or no bearing on anything.
[i]s it legit, given the ample use of Trig by Palin as a political prop and campaign mascot, to ask her for simple proof, like medical records, as the editor of the ADN did, and as I asked from the get-go?My answer to this is simple: No. It is not legit. Not for political reporters, at any rate.
Sarah Palin is an important national political figure, and I do believe that reporters should press her, hard, on quite a few things, as they should with all important national political figures.
But leave the kids alone. I don't care if Palin "invited" extra scrutiny because she used her kid "as a political prop and campaign mascot" -- that's between her and her family. It doesn't make that kid or any of her kids fair game.
I've said this before: imagine the worst rumor you've heard about this story is true. Now, honestly: does that really change your view of Sarah Palin's worthiness to serve in high office? Does it change your view of how seriously we should take her policy pronouncements?
If she's guilty of all sorts of lies and malfeasance, reporters should make the case without touching this one. If it's her only serious indiscretion, fib, or whatever, then it seems to me that it has little or no bearing on anything.
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Palin and Playing By the Rules
Why is Sarah Palin, as she is now, not going to win the Republican nomination for president? And why will the leaders of the Republican Party be acting sensibly in making that choice?
I've talked several times about "playing by the rules." I've said that the main reason Sarah Palin was unlikely to win the Republican presidential nomination was that she refuses to do the sorts of things that candidates for president have to do. Wonderful, wonderful example of this in a post yesterday from David Frum. Frum describes in some detail one group of GOP elites (the Republican Jewish Coalition) and what Palin did to annoy them. The gist of it is that the RJC has sponsored Israel trips for numerous GOP presidential candidates, and that Palin chose to use another group to arrange her trip without even bothering to RSVP to the RJC's invitation.
Now, Frum is no Palin supporter, and probably wouldn't be no matter what the Sage of Wasilla did at this point, so one should take his criticisms with that in mind. However, the key here isn't so much that Frum dislikes or criticizes her, but the process he describes. And what he says is quite revealing about how nomination politics works, and why Palin is failing at it:
Again, this is how nomination politics works. For all one hears about efforts to market candidates to mass electorates (that's what things like the "authenticity" debate are all about), the bulk of nomination politics is retail, not wholesale -- and the customers candidates are trying to reach are a relatively small group of party elites. It is not, to be sure, only party officials...it's a fairly large and usually evolving group; it includes not just formal party officials, but also leaders of party-affiliated groups, campaigning and governing professionals, activists, and politicians. That's more like thousands, not hundreds, of people; it's only the dreaded "establishment" if the term is used very loosely to mean anyone with a long-term commitment to party politics, and even then both parties are at least somewhat permeable to new people and groups. Read Frum's description of the Republican Jewish Committee, and then multiply that by all the other organized and informal groups that make up the Republican Party.
It's thousands of people, but over a three year nomination campaign it's not that hard for a candidate to have personal contact with quite a large number of them, and virtually all of the leaders within that larger group (and, for most candidates the nomination campaign caps off an even longer career in national politics; Ronald Reagan spent about 15 years seeking the nomination, and Bill Clinton basically spent his whole life on it). And don't forget that these are communities, both overall (as the Republican Party) and in various different groups and subgroups. Maybe a candidate doesn't have personal contact with all of the thousands of people involved, but she can certainly get within one degree of separation to an awful lot of them.
That's what Mitt Romney and Tim Pawlenty have been doing for the last two-plus years -- well, for Romney, for most of the last six years. Group by group, piece by piece. It's what, by every report I've seen since November 2008, Sarah Palin has just not done.
Now, you may be thinking to yourself: wait a second. Isn't this incredibly petty of all these groups? Are you telling me that RJC board members are going to be so peeved that Sarah Palin booked her Israel trip with some other organization that they're correct to take that snub and turn it into a presidential nomination preference, regardless of how Palin or any other candidate actually stands on issues of public policy?
Yup. And even more: I'll tell you that it's not petty. They're correct to do so.
Choosing a presidential candidate is serious business for these folks. For some, it's their career that's on the line; they want to be in line for some assistant secretary job over at HHS, or a position at the RNC -- or they want the best possible coattails for their re-election campaign. For others, it's a specific, tangible, policy payoff (such as, for unions in 2008, the question of how high on the agenda card check would be for a Democratic president). For others, it's achieving the goal that motivated them to enter politics in the first place, whether it's getting universal health care or ending legal abortions or whatever. By definition, each of them has put significant personal resources -- time, money -- into the party. But they have no guarantee that the nominee, if she becomes president, will actually do what they want. All they have is trust. This isn't a parliamentary system, in which a candidate who betrays supporters once in office risks being bounced by his own party. Once she's there, a president is there. And there's very little party loyalists can do about it; even the threat of withdrawing support for re-election is usually empty, because the alternative is almost always going to be much worse and everyone, including the president, knows it.
So, if you're a party leader (and remember: I'm talking, always, about that very large group as leaders), what can you do? Sure, you can collect position papers, but you know how meaningless those are going to be; even issue-oriented groups can't always predict which issues are really going to matter down the line. Much better, even if still risky, is assessing the personal commitment the candidates have to your group. What's the rapport like? Who has the candidate hired on her staff that has a history of working with you? Will her White House take your calls? Consult you on appointments your group cares about? What's the candidate's reputation? Has she bargained honestly? Is she loyal to her supporters? How will she deal with honest disagreements?
Who will she listen to, if she becomes president?
It's not petty at all to care about the answers to those questions, even if the evidence groups and individuals must use to guess at the answers often seems trivial or even, perhaps, petty; it's the only evidence that's available.
Now, of course, it's very possible that what Sarah Palin is actually telling everyone is that she's really not interested in running for president. But all of this applies to "normal" candidates, anyway. It's how presidential nominees are really chosen. And if you're trying to follow nomination politics, it suggests that you're much better off reading about the sorts of things Frum is writing about here than analyses about candidate style and packaging. Candidates do have to demonstrate at least some ability to appeal to mass electorates, but first and foremost they need to win the support of the most active portions of the party. Without that, they have no chance.
I've talked several times about "playing by the rules." I've said that the main reason Sarah Palin was unlikely to win the Republican presidential nomination was that she refuses to do the sorts of things that candidates for president have to do. Wonderful, wonderful example of this in a post yesterday from David Frum. Frum describes in some detail one group of GOP elites (the Republican Jewish Coalition) and what Palin did to annoy them. The gist of it is that the RJC has sponsored Israel trips for numerous GOP presidential candidates, and that Palin chose to use another group to arrange her trip without even bothering to RSVP to the RJC's invitation.
Now, Frum is no Palin supporter, and probably wouldn't be no matter what the Sage of Wasilla did at this point, so one should take his criticisms with that in mind. However, the key here isn't so much that Frum dislikes or criticizes her, but the process he describes. And what he says is quite revealing about how nomination politics works, and why Palin is failing at it:
But normally candidates are in the business of adding to the number of their friends — including converting former non-friends into new friends. Candidates seek to broaden their basis of support. They are more interested in future successes than in past irritations. Successful candidates are strategic. They may hold grudges, but they do not reveal their grudges. And they do not act on their grudges against their own best interests.Frum believes that Palin rejected the RJC because he and what he describes as one or two others on the organization's board had taken public shots at her. That could be it; it could be, instead, that Palin isn't plugged in enough to Republican politics to know who the important players are -- which would mean that she hasn't cared enough to know.
Again, this is how nomination politics works. For all one hears about efforts to market candidates to mass electorates (that's what things like the "authenticity" debate are all about), the bulk of nomination politics is retail, not wholesale -- and the customers candidates are trying to reach are a relatively small group of party elites. It is not, to be sure, only party officials...it's a fairly large and usually evolving group; it includes not just formal party officials, but also leaders of party-affiliated groups, campaigning and governing professionals, activists, and politicians. That's more like thousands, not hundreds, of people; it's only the dreaded "establishment" if the term is used very loosely to mean anyone with a long-term commitment to party politics, and even then both parties are at least somewhat permeable to new people and groups. Read Frum's description of the Republican Jewish Committee, and then multiply that by all the other organized and informal groups that make up the Republican Party.
It's thousands of people, but over a three year nomination campaign it's not that hard for a candidate to have personal contact with quite a large number of them, and virtually all of the leaders within that larger group (and, for most candidates the nomination campaign caps off an even longer career in national politics; Ronald Reagan spent about 15 years seeking the nomination, and Bill Clinton basically spent his whole life on it). And don't forget that these are communities, both overall (as the Republican Party) and in various different groups and subgroups. Maybe a candidate doesn't have personal contact with all of the thousands of people involved, but she can certainly get within one degree of separation to an awful lot of them.
That's what Mitt Romney and Tim Pawlenty have been doing for the last two-plus years -- well, for Romney, for most of the last six years. Group by group, piece by piece. It's what, by every report I've seen since November 2008, Sarah Palin has just not done.
Now, you may be thinking to yourself: wait a second. Isn't this incredibly petty of all these groups? Are you telling me that RJC board members are going to be so peeved that Sarah Palin booked her Israel trip with some other organization that they're correct to take that snub and turn it into a presidential nomination preference, regardless of how Palin or any other candidate actually stands on issues of public policy?
Yup. And even more: I'll tell you that it's not petty. They're correct to do so.
Choosing a presidential candidate is serious business for these folks. For some, it's their career that's on the line; they want to be in line for some assistant secretary job over at HHS, or a position at the RNC -- or they want the best possible coattails for their re-election campaign. For others, it's a specific, tangible, policy payoff (such as, for unions in 2008, the question of how high on the agenda card check would be for a Democratic president). For others, it's achieving the goal that motivated them to enter politics in the first place, whether it's getting universal health care or ending legal abortions or whatever. By definition, each of them has put significant personal resources -- time, money -- into the party. But they have no guarantee that the nominee, if she becomes president, will actually do what they want. All they have is trust. This isn't a parliamentary system, in which a candidate who betrays supporters once in office risks being bounced by his own party. Once she's there, a president is there. And there's very little party loyalists can do about it; even the threat of withdrawing support for re-election is usually empty, because the alternative is almost always going to be much worse and everyone, including the president, knows it.
So, if you're a party leader (and remember: I'm talking, always, about that very large group as leaders), what can you do? Sure, you can collect position papers, but you know how meaningless those are going to be; even issue-oriented groups can't always predict which issues are really going to matter down the line. Much better, even if still risky, is assessing the personal commitment the candidates have to your group. What's the rapport like? Who has the candidate hired on her staff that has a history of working with you? Will her White House take your calls? Consult you on appointments your group cares about? What's the candidate's reputation? Has she bargained honestly? Is she loyal to her supporters? How will she deal with honest disagreements?
Who will she listen to, if she becomes president?
It's not petty at all to care about the answers to those questions, even if the evidence groups and individuals must use to guess at the answers often seems trivial or even, perhaps, petty; it's the only evidence that's available.
Now, of course, it's very possible that what Sarah Palin is actually telling everyone is that she's really not interested in running for president. But all of this applies to "normal" candidates, anyway. It's how presidential nominees are really chosen. And if you're trying to follow nomination politics, it suggests that you're much better off reading about the sorts of things Frum is writing about here than analyses about candidate style and packaging. Candidates do have to demonstrate at least some ability to appeal to mass electorates, but first and foremost they need to win the support of the most active portions of the party. Without that, they have no chance.
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
A Little Palin Blogging
In response to the latest polling on the Sage of Wasilla, which show her continuing to lose support even among Republicans, I went looking through my old posts on her to see if I could claim a little told-you-so -- if I had clearly said that if she continued to snub party leaders they would eventually turn against her, and if that happened (as it has) then the rank-and-file, or at least many of them, would follow, regardless of how popular she was with them back then. Yup! Hey, I'm wrong sometimes (and I'll try to 'fess up when I am), but I think I nailed this one.
I bring that up because I still don't think it's too late for Sarah Palin to turn it around, at least in large part, if she suddenly decided to play by the rules that normal candidates follow. Policy expertise can be bought and faked; party leaders, whether they're national columnists, interest group leaders, or locals in Iowa and New Hampshire, can be schmoozed. It increasingly appears that either she is constitutionally incapable of doing those things or just has no interest in it, and even if she does them there's no guarantee she would be nominated...but it is clear now, as it has been from the start, that the normal rules of politics apply to her regardless of what she or anyone else thinks.
One other thing that I did come across from last summer which still seems relevant now is the question of whether Republicans will campaign with Sarah Palin. I said then that given how few people, especially swing voters, are Palin fans -- but also how many Republicans remain strong supporters -- that it would make sense for Democrats to press their GOP opponents over whether they would campaign with her or not. Of course, skilled politicians know how to duck questions for which there are no good answers, but it can't hurt to ask those questions.
(And apologies for the self-centered nature of this post).
I bring that up because I still don't think it's too late for Sarah Palin to turn it around, at least in large part, if she suddenly decided to play by the rules that normal candidates follow. Policy expertise can be bought and faked; party leaders, whether they're national columnists, interest group leaders, or locals in Iowa and New Hampshire, can be schmoozed. It increasingly appears that either she is constitutionally incapable of doing those things or just has no interest in it, and even if she does them there's no guarantee she would be nominated...but it is clear now, as it has been from the start, that the normal rules of politics apply to her regardless of what she or anyone else thinks.
One other thing that I did come across from last summer which still seems relevant now is the question of whether Republicans will campaign with Sarah Palin. I said then that given how few people, especially swing voters, are Palin fans -- but also how many Republicans remain strong supporters -- that it would make sense for Democrats to press their GOP opponents over whether they would campaign with her or not. Of course, skilled politicians know how to duck questions for which there are no good answers, but it can't hurt to ask those questions.
(And apologies for the self-centered nature of this post).
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
Hardly a Rhino
Thick skinned?
She keeps using those words. I do not think they mean what she thinks they mean.
Sarah Palin, of course, who remembers every slight, no matter how small (or at least no matter how small it started -- she generally has never met a slight she couldn't embellish and exaggerate).
Yeah, I know, we all know this stuff, but why not, one more time. After all, she's still some sort of major political figure.
The occasion for it this time is an unusually open but typically self-pitying interview with the BBC. As usual, she is quick to point out how thick-skinned she is...followed by a recitation of grievances, although to be fair she was prompted and, really, egged on by the reporter. The "Africa is a continent" thing. The "censored books when she was mayor" thing. And she's quick to go to the "Trig isn't my son" thing, although no mainstream politician nor anyone in the mainstream press actually says that (yes, Andrew Sullivan has raised issues about Trig's birth repeatedly, and in my view for no good reason -- but he's never actually claimed anything beyond that he thinks there's something odd about her story). The best thing is that the question is really a softball, asking about "criticism about...the ability to get your head around foreign policy." The obvious answer a thick-skinned politician would give begins with saying that she doesn't pay attention to that stuff, and then moves to some boilerplate about Libya, or Egypt, or Afghanistan, or whatever. To Palin, however, it's just a chance to drag out the personal criticisms again.
And you know what? She's wrong, too, about being unusually maligned. Barack Obama is regularly accused of hating the United States and deliberately trying to ruin it, among other things. Palin is accused of stupidity? No more than George W. Bush or Dan Quayle were. John McCain and John Kerry were both war heroes who were accused of cowardice or worse in battle. Bush was accused -- only by a fringe, but still that's a lot of people, some of whom are treated as if they were respectable -- of deliberately allowing the September 11 attacks, or worse. Bill Clinton was a murderer and a drug dealer. Al Gore was a liar. Ronald Reagan was a dunce and a warmonger. Hillary Clinton was...I don't even know how to get into it.
Yes, Sarah Palin has taken a lot of personal attacks, but that's par for the course if you want to be a national politician (or, for that matter, a national celebrity).
Of course, Palin's extraordinary sensitivity to insult could be all an act; one never knows with politicians. But...well, you know...I don't suspect she's hanging out with anyone from whose hat the rays of the sun were reflected in more-than-oriental splendor.
(BBC interview was via Sullivan. Kipling here)
She keeps using those words. I do not think they mean what she thinks they mean.
Sarah Palin, of course, who remembers every slight, no matter how small (or at least no matter how small it started -- she generally has never met a slight she couldn't embellish and exaggerate).
Yeah, I know, we all know this stuff, but why not, one more time. After all, she's still some sort of major political figure.
The occasion for it this time is an unusually open but typically self-pitying interview with the BBC. As usual, she is quick to point out how thick-skinned she is...followed by a recitation of grievances, although to be fair she was prompted and, really, egged on by the reporter. The "Africa is a continent" thing. The "censored books when she was mayor" thing. And she's quick to go to the "Trig isn't my son" thing, although no mainstream politician nor anyone in the mainstream press actually says that (yes, Andrew Sullivan has raised issues about Trig's birth repeatedly, and in my view for no good reason -- but he's never actually claimed anything beyond that he thinks there's something odd about her story). The best thing is that the question is really a softball, asking about "criticism about...the ability to get your head around foreign policy." The obvious answer a thick-skinned politician would give begins with saying that she doesn't pay attention to that stuff, and then moves to some boilerplate about Libya, or Egypt, or Afghanistan, or whatever. To Palin, however, it's just a chance to drag out the personal criticisms again.
And you know what? She's wrong, too, about being unusually maligned. Barack Obama is regularly accused of hating the United States and deliberately trying to ruin it, among other things. Palin is accused of stupidity? No more than George W. Bush or Dan Quayle were. John McCain and John Kerry were both war heroes who were accused of cowardice or worse in battle. Bush was accused -- only by a fringe, but still that's a lot of people, some of whom are treated as if they were respectable -- of deliberately allowing the September 11 attacks, or worse. Bill Clinton was a murderer and a drug dealer. Al Gore was a liar. Ronald Reagan was a dunce and a warmonger. Hillary Clinton was...I don't even know how to get into it.
Yes, Sarah Palin has taken a lot of personal attacks, but that's par for the course if you want to be a national politician (or, for that matter, a national celebrity).
Of course, Palin's extraordinary sensitivity to insult could be all an act; one never knows with politicians. But...well, you know...I don't suspect she's hanging out with anyone from whose hat the rays of the sun were reflected in more-than-oriental splendor.
(BBC interview was via Sullivan. Kipling here)
Friday, February 25, 2011
Palin Watching Is Hard
Mike Allen thinks the Sage of Wasilla isn't running for president:
However, with Sarah Palin, it's important to be careful interpreting tea leaves. Here's the thing: what we've known about Palin from Day 1, ever since John McCain selected her as his running mate, is that she doesn't believe that the normal rules of politics apply to her. Since she's wrong about that, she wound up highly unpopular with the bulk of the electorate, but as far as anyone can tell it hasn't shaken her conviction that she can set her own terms.
What that means is that we can observe whether Palin is doing the kinds of things a candidate would have to do to win the Republican nomination for president, we can only guess about what she really intends to run or not -- because it's quite likely she might enter primaries and caucuses without doing those things. And because she does have a relatively large and loyal following, she would certainly make a lot of noise if she did enter. Even if, as increasingly seems to be the case, she would have little chance to actually win.
I'm not saying that she's going to be running by fall 2011...just that the only way to know is to get inside her head, and none of us are in a position to do that.
BIG SIGN SARAH PALIN ISN’T RUNNING: Neither she, nor anyone on her behalf, is courting top donors, early-state activists or experienced operatives – all of whom are getting locked down, day by day.That's an important piece of news. The things that Allen is talking about here are serious parts of the nomination contest. This isn't fluff.
However, with Sarah Palin, it's important to be careful interpreting tea leaves. Here's the thing: what we've known about Palin from Day 1, ever since John McCain selected her as his running mate, is that she doesn't believe that the normal rules of politics apply to her. Since she's wrong about that, she wound up highly unpopular with the bulk of the electorate, but as far as anyone can tell it hasn't shaken her conviction that she can set her own terms.
What that means is that we can observe whether Palin is doing the kinds of things a candidate would have to do to win the Republican nomination for president, we can only guess about what she really intends to run or not -- because it's quite likely she might enter primaries and caucuses without doing those things. And because she does have a relatively large and loyal following, she would certainly make a lot of noise if she did enter. Even if, as increasingly seems to be the case, she would have little chance to actually win.
I'm not saying that she's going to be running by fall 2011...just that the only way to know is to get inside her head, and none of us are in a position to do that.
Friday, February 18, 2011
She's Always Running Against Murkowski...
...or maybe it was one of her earlier opponents in local elections. Anyway, Sarah Palin, in her mind, is always the outsider running against entrenched pols:
It's just nuts. Perhaps she's an outsider in some sense compared to second-generation pol Mitt Romney, but she's on Fox News, she's widely quoted by everyone, and she was the Republican Party's Vice Presidential nominee a couple of years ago. There's no "political machine" to run against, no "preordained" candidate. It's all nonsense (as, for example, Seth Masket pointed out recently). There is, of course, an actual political party, which has various internal groups, some of which have very strong voices on particular issues of concern to them, but that's about it. Not even George W. Bush got a nomination handed to him. The way to get these things is to earn them.
"What people are desiring to see is no more status quo — not necessarily just seeing more players in these political machines, who are sort of preordained and get to be the ones who get nominated and go forth,” Ms. Palin said. “People are ready for our governmental establishment to kind of shake it up."On this, at least, I'd be shocked if she wasn't perfectly sincere -- if it's an act, she's amazingly convincing, at least to this observer. Yes, I know -- the Sage of Wasilla is hardly the only candidate in American history to embrace the underdog imagine regardless of her actual standing. Still...
It's just nuts. Perhaps she's an outsider in some sense compared to second-generation pol Mitt Romney, but she's on Fox News, she's widely quoted by everyone, and she was the Republican Party's Vice Presidential nominee a couple of years ago. There's no "political machine" to run against, no "preordained" candidate. It's all nonsense (as, for example, Seth Masket pointed out recently). There is, of course, an actual political party, which has various internal groups, some of which have very strong voices on particular issues of concern to them, but that's about it. Not even George W. Bush got a nomination handed to him. The way to get these things is to earn them.
Thursday, February 10, 2011
Ignore Those Polls! (Palin Edition)
Every time someone writes the story about how badly Sarah Palin would be clobbered in the general election based on current polling, I'm going to do an item pointing out that it's based on a major fallacy.
This time it's WaPo's Rachel Weiner, telling us that "A series of state polls released over the last few weeks suggest that if Republicans nominate former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin in 2012 it could hand President Obama a considerable electoral vote margin next November."
Look, this is really simple. Sarah Palin has receive essentially zero positive nationwide publicity for over two years. Consequently, she's very unpopular -- including among GOP primary voters. Therefore, she will not be nominated for president unless something changes.
If, however, something changes, and she becomes popular enough to win the nomination, then she will also be more popular overall. What's more, if that happens, she will receive all sorts of positive publicity -- that's what happens to candidates who win key primaries! And, in turn, that will stand to make her even more popular overall.
Of course, that's no guarantee that she would be a competitive nominee, or even that she would be basically comparable to any other potential nominee. She could certainly also win the nomination and then stumble; what's more, it is at least theoretically possible that she could win the nomination by narrowly targeting a slim majority of Republicans while alienating everyone else.
But those are possibilities, only. It's much more likely that if she wins the nomination -- and, granted, that looks less likely every day she fails to do the things one must do to win presidential nominations -- she'll have a very different national image than she does right now.
This is true, by the way, for every possible nominee. Which means that looking at horse race polling between Barack Obama and potential GOP nominees is utterly useless at this point. Whatever Mitt Romney, or Tim Pawlenty, or Rick Perry, or Sarah Palin looks like by August 2012 just doesn't have all that much to do with what they look like now.
This time it's WaPo's Rachel Weiner, telling us that "A series of state polls released over the last few weeks suggest that if Republicans nominate former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin in 2012 it could hand President Obama a considerable electoral vote margin next November."
Look, this is really simple. Sarah Palin has receive essentially zero positive nationwide publicity for over two years. Consequently, she's very unpopular -- including among GOP primary voters. Therefore, she will not be nominated for president unless something changes.
If, however, something changes, and she becomes popular enough to win the nomination, then she will also be more popular overall. What's more, if that happens, she will receive all sorts of positive publicity -- that's what happens to candidates who win key primaries! And, in turn, that will stand to make her even more popular overall.
Of course, that's no guarantee that she would be a competitive nominee, or even that she would be basically comparable to any other potential nominee. She could certainly also win the nomination and then stumble; what's more, it is at least theoretically possible that she could win the nomination by narrowly targeting a slim majority of Republicans while alienating everyone else.
But those are possibilities, only. It's much more likely that if she wins the nomination -- and, granted, that looks less likely every day she fails to do the things one must do to win presidential nominations -- she'll have a very different national image than she does right now.
This is true, by the way, for every possible nominee. Which means that looking at horse race polling between Barack Obama and potential GOP nominees is utterly useless at this point. Whatever Mitt Romney, or Tim Pawlenty, or Rick Perry, or Sarah Palin looks like by August 2012 just doesn't have all that much to do with what they look like now.
Monday, January 24, 2011
Advantures in Foolish Early Polling (Yes, It's a Palin Item)
Via an approving tweet from Ezra, Public Policy Polling makes much of the idea that Sarah Palin runs much worse than other Republicans against Barack Obama in Texas.
Look, this kind of polling is just meaningless. Republicans are extremely unlikely to nominate a candidate who is unpopular among Republicans, including Republican-leaning independents. Not just because such a candidate won't win primaries and caucuses -- but because such a candidate that does win will receive highly favorable coverage from the Republican partisan press, and therefore become popular among most Republicans.
It is, I suppose, theoretically possible that a party could nominate a candidate intensely supported by 51% of the party but hated by the other 49% so much that even positive coverage in the partisan press won't matter; it's even theoretically possible that a factional candidate with an even smaller base of intense supporters could win a nomination with even less support if that faction turns out to vote in disproportionate numbers. However, nothing like that has happened in the last thirty years, and there is good reason to believe that it is at the very least highly improbable.
Now, it is of course true that there may be some variation in how popular a nominee might be, but for out-parties the odds are that it won't make a whole lot of difference. Presidential approval matters a whole lot more than how well-liked the challenger is.
As long as I'm at it, the even more obvious reason to ignore a lot of this kind of polling is that while it may be theoretically possible that a party could nominate a candidate who remains unpopular, it certainly isn't possible for a party to nominate a candidate who remains unknown. Even testing Mitt Romney at this point is probably going to undervalue his strength because low-information voters may not recognize his name and therefore be reluctant to say they'll vote for him, and that's even more the case with lesser-known candidates.
Bottom line is that head-to-head general election polling at this point just can't do what PPP wants, which is to tell us which candidates will do better against Obama in fall 2012 -- because we really can't know what the nominee will look like after another year of invisible primary, after Iowa and New Hampshire, after the rest of the primaries and caucuses, after spending months as the nominee pre-convention, and after getting the three day propaganda-fest that is the modern national party convention.
Look, this kind of polling is just meaningless. Republicans are extremely unlikely to nominate a candidate who is unpopular among Republicans, including Republican-leaning independents. Not just because such a candidate won't win primaries and caucuses -- but because such a candidate that does win will receive highly favorable coverage from the Republican partisan press, and therefore become popular among most Republicans.
It is, I suppose, theoretically possible that a party could nominate a candidate intensely supported by 51% of the party but hated by the other 49% so much that even positive coverage in the partisan press won't matter; it's even theoretically possible that a factional candidate with an even smaller base of intense supporters could win a nomination with even less support if that faction turns out to vote in disproportionate numbers. However, nothing like that has happened in the last thirty years, and there is good reason to believe that it is at the very least highly improbable.
Now, it is of course true that there may be some variation in how popular a nominee might be, but for out-parties the odds are that it won't make a whole lot of difference. Presidential approval matters a whole lot more than how well-liked the challenger is.
As long as I'm at it, the even more obvious reason to ignore a lot of this kind of polling is that while it may be theoretically possible that a party could nominate a candidate who remains unpopular, it certainly isn't possible for a party to nominate a candidate who remains unknown. Even testing Mitt Romney at this point is probably going to undervalue his strength because low-information voters may not recognize his name and therefore be reluctant to say they'll vote for him, and that's even more the case with lesser-known candidates.
Bottom line is that head-to-head general election polling at this point just can't do what PPP wants, which is to tell us which candidates will do better against Obama in fall 2012 -- because we really can't know what the nominee will look like after another year of invisible primary, after Iowa and New Hampshire, after the rest of the primaries and caucuses, after spending months as the nominee pre-convention, and after getting the three day propaganda-fest that is the modern national party convention.
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