Amanda Marcotte says it all about the Huckabee victory in New Hampshire:
I’m guessing the Republican party elite is currently experiencing pangs of regret about all the Bible-thumping politicking right now. Turns out the plebes that were supposed to show up and vote for the guy who screamed “Jesus� the loudest are just a little too good at their assigned role.
More on “Huckmentum” at Crooked Timber, and Crooks and Liars has a doozy of a video posted where Fox News (who, incidentally, are refusing to allow Ron Paul, Texas Congressman and libertarian candidate for the GOP nomination to participate in debates despite his 10% showing in Iowa) makes its distaste for economic populism clear. Fox “Washington Managing Editor” Brit Hume:
This is a party that if you’re going to be a populist, you better be for a lot of things that say, Ronald Reagan was for. You better be in favor of a lot of the…you don’t want to be a candidate associated with possible tax increases, policies that would require increased regulation and so on down the line. You can’t…I don’t think the anti-corporate message…it isn’t even selling very well in the Democratic party and I certainly don’t think it’s going to sell in the Republican party.
It’s intriguing to watch the video because there’s so much resonance between what the pundits/corporate shills say and the denialism that gripped the Liberal Party and large sections of the media in Australia last year that ordinary punters might possibly feel they themselves aren’t doing so well and might want to vote for someone who understands that.
I’ve hardly followed the Democratic priamries, and not followed at all the Republican ones, but from a distant view it seems that the Republican candidates all have major flaws: Huckabee seems to be a simpleton religious nutjob, Romney a mormon, McCain too old and Guiliani a spiv (and too liberal for the GOP).
Mmmm…I think we may have to have a new look at taxing the all the church’s.
After all,’ No taxation without representation ,’ cuts both ways.
Also we must end the governor-generalate. Because, after all, the monarchy discriminates against at least one religion and we can’t afford that sort of perceived bias today, can we.
I disagree with much of Ron Paul’s platform but his presence is so important at the Republican debates.
For example in this clip (also from C&Ls) he forces the other candidates to justify their view that American foreign policy has nothing to do with terrorism directed at the US.
Whatever your opinion on that question, at least viewers are better able to understand how the candidates view the ‘war on terror’.
Without Paul a lot of foreign policy assumptions would have gone unchallenged and therefore unexplained.
I think that for idealistic hacks on both sides the ideal election would be Obama vs Paul.
Jacques,
I would have thought it would be Edwards vs. Paul. Edwards has the more
identifiableidentifiably Democratic / democratic socialist platform. Obama would be more idealistic for who he is rather than his policies, which, to the extent they are clear, are middle of the road.Obama is busy tacking right to attract Republican and Independent votes in open primaries.
Summed up neatly here by Trevor Cook:
http://trevorcook.typepad.com/weblog/2008/01/obama-and-rudd.html
Well put, Mark.
Credit goes to Trevor, Andrew!
Obama, it seems to me, is a candidate of symbolism, more for who he is than what he stands for – perhaps that’s another parallel with Rudd. But I don’t know how much substance there is beneath the soaring rhetoric. How is “reaching out” and that sort of blah going to address rising unemployment and soaring healthcare or college tuition bills, for instance?
Perhaps a little more “reaching out”and rhetoric and a bit less government spending will be a good start. Unfortunately, that sort of reaching out normally comes with a fistful of (tax) dollars.
Symbolism I do not mind: it is the action that (mostly) falls way short of the symbols that is the problem.
#5: “Obama would be more idealistic for who he is rather than his policies…”
#8: “Obama, it seems to me, is a candidate of symbolism, more for who he is…”
Which is what? A privileged, expensively-educated, comically unaccomplished white guy with big ears, obvious father problems, and a past clouded by questions about drugs, who talks a good game in the campaign phase, but only in the vaguest of terms? No, wait, sorry, that was George W. Bush.
Plus ca change…
Geez, this is novel. Plattered attitude from a world-weary French prawn.
Journalismus als Beruf, or Why Oh Why Can’t We Have a Better Press Corps? Where Brad de Long gets all Weber on the reporters’ asses.
“New Hampshire Weather Forecast
Unusually warm temperatures and clear skies will likely lead to record turnout in tomorrow’s New Hampshire primary.
Key finding: Clinton has regained some support among woman voters age 25 to 49 and that appears to have stopped her slide. This race still turns on age, however, with Obama leading Clinton 43% to 27% among voters age 18 to 64 (comprising 83% of the vote), while Clinton leads among voters 65 years and older 50% to 25%.
Quote of the Day
“You don’t want to be looking back five years from now and saying the American people really rose up and changed America, and I was sitting on the couch.”
– Sen. Barack Obama, quoted by NBC News, urging people in New Hampshire to vote tomorrow.
http://politicalwire.com/
CBet latest. There has been major movement.
President – WINNER
OBAMA, Barack 1.95
CLINTON, Hillary 3.50
MCCAIN, John 7.50
GIULIANI, Rudolph 8.00
ROMNEY, Mitt 13.00
HUCKABEE, Mike 14.00
BLOOMBERG, Michael 21.00
PAUL, Ron 26.00
EDWARDS, John 34.00
Obama has stormed into market favouritism in the last 48 hours.
Don’t wish to sound trite, but Significant History is happenin’ here.
Mark, Much apprecite it if you have a mo s’il vous plait; had two attempts to post a relevant, even zeitgeistish comment. Suspect that my corobborating link has earned the wrath of the spaminator. Merci, EC.
EC, you got caught by the spaminator. Remember not to re-post – that compounds the false positive because part of its algorithm is to look for comments repeated. Much better to drop us a line.
Roger, base.
Obama e-mails describe what is going on in NH as something more than an ordinary campaign. Apparently campaign offices etc., can feel the energy. As part of this spiele is to collect a $25 donation, one has to bear that fact in mind when interpreting this info. But it does appear to be something out of the ordinary, when one recalls the expectations from ths Clinton camp. Some of you may have seen on the TV news, Edwards interpreting Hilary’s tearful display this morning as a sign of feminine weakness, and therefore, unfitness for the Presidency. Had to happen sooner than later. I reckon all the candidates, Republican and Democrat, are unfit for the job, because they’ve all got too much money.