How Ugly Will It Turn? And Between Who?
Gov. Romney, Jeb Bush and others are on a “listening tour.“ For my personal taste it is too moderate a political attempt at a time when the current opposition administration is working hard to find the far left. But that is politics and this blog does not go there unless religion is involved.
What is interesting though is that in the first shot out of the bag, Gov. Romney refused to accept the media story line that Palin was the Republican darling.
In an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union” broadcast Sunday, Romney was responding to a question from the moderator as to whether Time’s inclusion of Palin and talk show host Rush Limbaugh on their list of “The World’s Most Influential People” was a positive or negative thing for the Republican Party.
Romney added, “I think there are a lot more influential Republicans than that would suggest.”
Which has lead to some Palin supporters getting a little ugly, even though Palin has decided to join the “rebranding” effort.
In my analysis, McCain had to have Evangelical appeal in his Veep pick. Huckabee, by playing the religion card, was damaged goods. Palin was the next best choice. Palin was, and is, backed by many of the same people, and certainly the same “God said so” political energy, that backed Huckabee.
Coverage of Romney has been heavy amongst deep politico’s, and blissfully absent the “M” word. How long will it last? And who will fling it first? Huck is being very coy, but if he is in, you know it will come from there. Palin has tried to rise above this stuff to date, but her backers may not be able to stop themselves. The press, of course, wants it, but I think they are too afraid to start the fight this time – they spent too much credibility on it last time.
Or, will the Huck and Palin forces turn on each other? Or, is the Question competely played out?
I don’t think we will see anythng soon. If the Republican party is to return to prominence, they have got to unite before they can have this kind of fight, hence Pailin joining the rebranding effort. But then some forces within the party were not afraid to tear it apart for the sake of their religious bias, last time. Has the lesson been learned?
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Chino Blanco on 06 May 2009 at 7:16 am #
At some point, y’all are gonna be faced with the task of coming to grips with the reality that Romney is yesterday’s news.
And after you’ve given up threading the needle for this particular candidate, who or what is next?
Seriously.
And when I type “seriously” it’s not meant as a personal dig against Romney or Article6, but simply a plea that y’all stop kidding yourselves about the likely prospects for any of the other names you mention in your post.
Less than zero.
So why mention them? Unless you’re so stuck in yesterday’s battles that you can’t see the forest for the trees?
The country could use a healthy GOP. That said, your prescription’s done expired.
Next.
Jerald on 06 May 2009 at 7:39 am #
Putting aside the main question of “How ugly……and between who,” one question being asked on Romney sites is “Who are the Palin supporters anyway?”
Are they Fred Thompson refuges, Huckabee deserters, concurrent Huckabee supporters, a combination of these, something else?
One thing is certain, they sure don’t like Gov. Romney. The content of most of their sites seems to be split between promoting Palin and and tearing down Romney.
Since I have never heard or seen Romney really do or say anything against Sarah, and I have never heard or seen Sarah do anything against Romney, and I have never heard or seen either one complain about a slight by the other, it makes me wonder just what is going on with this noisy portion of Palin supporters.
What gives?
coltakashi on 06 May 2009 at 5:39 pm #
Romney’s statement did not say Palin was influential, just that having only two people on the list of influential people on the conservative end of the spectrum was an unjustifiable limit.
If vocal Palin supporters are attacking Romney, it means that they view him as the competition, which is a reasonable conclusion. Palin did not have the independent name recognition or organization to mount a run for the presidential nomination on her own steam in 2008. McCain did her a favor by giving her visibility. But being a VP candidate alone does not give you a leg up on the nomination in 2012. It just gives you name recognition. Frankly, Palin’s nomination played up the fact that Obama had even less executive experience in government than she did!
To be a viable candidate to lead the ticket, she needs to use the next three years to demonstrate that she has sufficient credibility to serve as President. She has a disability in that it will be difficult for her to serve as governor at the same time she is campaigning down in the Lower 48. In the old days it might have made sense for her to run for the Senate and seek more experience on the national and international stage, but the Democrats are not going to let here get any significant experience if they can help it, and there is little that she could accomplish there in terms of actually passing legislation. On the other hand, she could probably do a lot to boost campaigns of Republicans for the house in 2010, with a number of swoops through the states, that could build support for her among other Republicans. Writing a book that is part autobiography, part political philosophy could also keep her name in front of Republicans. Call it “Pit Bulls with Lipstick”.
Fundamentally, the Republican Party needs to reform the nomination system if it is going to get electable candidates. The priority given to Iowa and New hampshire is unreasonable. They didn’t reflect a forecast of national results, but were just misleading. And the “winner take all” system of awarding delegates to the plurality winner of only 30% in a 4 candidate field is insanity. Plus the public was extremely tired of the whole primary system, with a solid year of campaigning.
Why not have a system that rewards those states that vote most solidly Republican? And group the state primaries regionally, with say 5 states per election day, with 10 primaries spread out 2 weeks apart, so they would all be over in the 20 weeks leading up to the convention. And require that delegates be apportioned according to the actual split of the vote.
And how about making it a Republican goal to adapt but not abandon the Electoral College. One problem with a pure popular vote contest for president is that, in a contest that was really close, fraud and vote peculiarities would crop up all over the coountry; it would be Florida multiplied 50 times! I suggest that Republicans get behind a system that allocates the electorial college votes according to who wins each congressional district, with the two electoral votes corresponding to the Senate seats to the overall winner statewide, based on the other electoral votes first, and then the individual votes if there was no plurality of electoral votes in the state. With that system, any questionable voting would be limited to a single congressional district. Further, there would be NO incentive to contest an election in a congressional district where you had already won the majority of votes; you can’t improve your win.
Another benefit of that system would be to tie the presidential candidate to the local congressional candidates. They would have a mutual interest in helping each other do well.
And it would also mean that Republicans in California would actually have a chance of affecting the outcome of a presidential election. And Democrats in Utah could get a vote in for their presidential candidate. It would increase voter turnout by those in the political minority, which means the majority would also have to get off their duffs. While a single vote in a national presidential pool is hard to see as significant, at the level of congressional districts, a single vote can actually have a lot more effect on the outcome, a visible effect on the presidential election. Furthermore, it would mean that the eastern and central states would not be as likely to determine the winner before people in the West got to vote. Specific congressional districts would be more in play than the state as a whole. Presidential elections would get a lot more interesting, and democracy would win.
It would be much clearer to everyone that states are not politically monolithic. It would be worthwhile to campaign in a lot more states during the final election. Additionally, the presidential race would be strongly correlated with the outcome of the House elections. It would somewhat devalue the big states in the presidential race when the race is run mainly at the level of congressional districts. But it would retain enough “chunkiness” to be manageable for planning a campaign.
pdale on 06 May 2009 at 10:35 pm #
Chino…. thanks for prediction. I should have talked to you about real estate and my 401K 3 years ago.
But let’s see here, there are 3 & 1/2 years until election day. A couple of years before we’re even watching 8 or 10 or more Republican candidates begin to line up.
I think I’ll sit back and watch the seasons and the issues change for a while before I start drawing conclusions about who is finished. Romney, for the moment, seems to be at the top of a lot of lists. Maybe that will hold. Maybe it won’t.
Whoever emerges, I for one am enjoying the discussion, which is more than about Romney. It’s about that “no religious test” line in Article VI. Seems quite a few people were somehow unaware of it last year, and we think it’s an important thing to talk about. I appreciate John and Lowell for the forum. It’s a good thing.