The "small-government conservatives" are inherently contradictory. Coburn is a hawk on spending (and I respect him quite a bit for that) but doesn't he want to make performing abortions a capital crime? That's gonna cost some bucks, unless he thinks they shouldn't get rights of appeal or anything. (This is a silly example, but you get what I'm driving at--it's irrational and unworkable to want small government in economic matters but unprecedentedly activist government when it comes to sex- or faith-related stuff.)

Vulture's point, I believe, is that this isn't a philosophy that can ever be operationalized, and you (hoya) admit that "their policies tend to lose." I've never detested an American politician as much as I did Tom DeLay, in large part because he was so piggishly happy to keep renting power through government giveaways to the interests who could (and did) keep funding his majority. DeLay talked about cutting taxes and spending, and he was happy to do so as long as it was stuff like the Low Income Heating Assistance Program--but not corporate welfare, or military anything.

And it's still DeLay's party. Maybe if they ever get down to 150 guys in the House, they'll take a shot at going back to serious conservative principles--but it's not a coincidence that Flake lost the leadership race last year to Boehner, who's essentially Jeremy Giambi to DeLay's Jason Giambi.

I think it would be very interesting, and probably great for the country, if the Republicans nominated an honest-to-goodness small government conservative who felt sufficiently confidence in his or her political gifts and the underlying strength of the message to advocate, in detail, a vastly smaller government. This isn't primarily because I think the Democrat would wipe the floor with this candidate; I don't esteem the Democrats enough to really care about that. But the last time the Republicans tried that was Goldwater--or Reagan, if you're willing to overlook his actual record. No national pol seems to have the confidence anymore to try and convince the public about their philosophy--so we have this murk and drift, and, as Vulture posits, government by the Millsian power elite.

(It's this kind of analysis that leads me to wonder if I really should be supporting Edwards after all. As it is, I hope Obama actually grasps this and he's too good a politician to come out and say so; Edwards' diagnosis is correct, I just don't think he can change it to any significant degree.)

dajafi wrote:(It's this kind of analysis that leads me to wonder if I really should be supporting Edwards after all. As it is, I hope Obama actually grasps this and he's too good a politician to come out and say so; Edwards' diagnosis is correct, I just don't think he can change it to any significant degree.)

It's not as bad as having occasional Ron Paul moments. ~shudder~

TenuredVulture wrote:

dajafi wrote:(It's this kind of analysis that leads me to wonder if I really should be supporting Edwards after all. As it is, I hope Obama actually grasps this and he's too good a politician to come out and say so; Edwards' diagnosis is correct, I just don't think he can change it to any significant degree.)

It's not as bad as having occasional Ron Paul moments. ~shudder~

Paul I guess is the closest to my theoretical Republican who really tries to run a campaign of persuasion about the virtues of radically downsized government. The problem is that he's evidently really, really, really convinced a few people, to the point where they're breaking money-raising records, and all the rest of us generally still think he's a fruitcake.

dajafi wrote:Republican guys--if Bush were eligible, do you think he'd be nominated again?

I don't think he'd run, but if he did, he'd win easily. It'd take a real name to stand up to him. If McCain was well to his right on immigration, he might have had a shot if he wanted to stand up to him.

But like I said, I really don't think he would run again. For as dumb as everyone thinks he is, he's got a good nose for electoral politics, I think. And he knows he'd be eaten for lunch by whomever the Dems put up there. Plus I think he's tired and ready to move on.

TenuredVulture wrote:I doubt they exist because most people who argue that line are disingenuous or hopelessly naive.

I'm not sure why it's naive to support policies you believe in even if chances are in the long run you're going to lose. At the most pessimistic, you can at least forestall defeat and win small victories on occasion. Or maybe you can even persuade people that you're right in the long run.

In any case, I promise you these people are real. Many of them live in New Hampshire, and they vote in Republican primaries.

Huckabee (-4.5%) v. Paul in New Hampshire, who you got?

dajafi wrote:

TenuredVulture wrote:

dajafi wrote:(It's this kind of analysis that leads me to wonder if I really should be supporting Edwards after all. As it is, I hope Obama actually grasps this and he's too good a politician to come out and say so; Edwards' diagnosis is correct, I just don't think he can change it to any significant degree.)

It's not as bad as having occasional Ron Paul moments. ~shudder~

Paul I guess is the closest to my theoretical Republican who really tries to run a campaign of persuasion about the virtues of radically downsized government. The problem is that he's evidently really, really, really convinced a few people, to the point where they're breaking money-raising records, and all the rest of us generally still think he's a fruitcake.

Imagine President Paul.

A spending bill gets sent to the White House for the Commerce Department. President Paul vetoes it becuase the Commerce department isn't in the constitution. He then doesn't bother to appoint a Commerce Secretary for the same reason. Repeat for Health and Human Services, Education, EPA, etc...

Congress has two choices - band together and override him, or impeach him.

Then the fun starts.

Part of me thinks that could be wildly entertaining and certainly would bust up the machine a bit (at what cost who knows), the other part of me says I'd rather watch it in a made for TV movie than have it happen in real life.

That, and he's a goof-ball.

Although, one has to admit, he's certainly more qualified than Huckabee - but I think that's a pretty big list.

jerseyhoya wrote:

dajafi wrote:Republican guys--if Bush were eligible, do you think he'd be nominated again?

I don't think he'd run, but if he did, he'd win easily.

I don't get this at all.

jerseyhoya wrote:

TenuredVulture wrote:I doubt they exist because most people who argue that line are disingenuous or hopelessly naive.

I'm not sure why it's naive to support policies you believe in even if chances are in the long run you're going to lose. At the most pessimistic, you can at least forestall defeat and win small victories on occasion.

At this point, it's not about forestalling things. The Leviathan is already here. It didn't take the shape Hobbes thought ti would, but it is real nevertheless. Read Schumpeter, or Oakeshott, or de Jouvenel. Especially Schumpeter.

VoxOrion wrote:Although, one has to admit, he's certainly more qualified than Huckabee -

How exactly is a TX Congresscowboy 'certainly' more qualified than a 2+ term governor to assume an executive position?

not saying either is qualified, but understanding a method for distinguishing between them may be a useful exercise.

VoxOrion wrote:

jerseyhoya wrote:

dajafi wrote:Republican guys--if Bush were eligible, do you think he'd be nominated again?

I don't think he'd run, but if he did, he'd win easily.

I don't get this at all.

The nomination.

drsmooth wrote:

VoxOrion wrote:Although, one has to admit, he's certainly more qualified than Huckabee -

How exactly is a TX Congresscowboy 'certainly' more qualified than a 2+ term governor to assume an executive position?

not saying either is qualified, but understanding a method for distinguishing between them may be a useful exercise.

I guess I'm basing this on the idea that everyone is more qualified than Huckabee, and I was trying to throw Paul a bone.

jerseyhoya wrote:

VoxOrion wrote:

jerseyhoya wrote:

dajafi wrote:Republican guys--if Bush were eligible, do you think he'd be nominated again?

I don't think he'd run, but if he did, he'd win easily.

I don't get this at all.

The nomination.

No, I mean I don't get how Bush could win anything at this point. His base has all but completely evaporated.

VoxOrion wrote:

drsmooth wrote:

VoxOrion wrote:Although, one has to admit, he's certainly more qualified than Huckabee -

How exactly is a TX Congresscowboy 'certainly' more qualified than a 2+ term governor to assume an executive position?

not saying either is qualified, but understanding a method for distinguishing between them may be a useful exercise.

I guess I'm basing this on the idea that everyone is more qualified than Huckabee, and I was trying to throw Paul a bone.

A more serious discussion might be what characteristics are necessary for an effective Presidency. A look at history shows that establishing qualifications based on experience does not lead to any easy conclusions.

Bush and Reagan had similar resumes (governors of large states), but one was quite effective, the other was not. Huckabee brings at least some of the same credentials of Clinton.

No one would have thought Truman to be qualified, yet he overcame serious challenges. Johnson surely had experience, yet in the end, his Presidency was a disaster. Same for Nixon, and to a lesser extent Bush Sr.

I think what this points to is that character matters more than a resume.

David Brooks, in his non-hack incarnation:

Many of the best presidents in U.S. history had their character forged before they entered politics and carried to it a degree of self-possession and tranquillity that was impervious to the Sturm und Drang of White House life.

Obama is an inner-directed man in a profession filled with insecure outer-directed ones. He was forged by the process of discovering his own identity from the scattered facts of his childhood, a process that is described in finely observed detail in “Dreams From My Father.” Once he completed that process, he has been astonishingly constant.

Like most of the rival campaigns, I’ve been poring over press clippings from Obama’s past, looking for inconsistencies and flip-flops. There are virtually none. The unity speech he gives on the stump today is essentially the same speech that he gave at the Democratic convention in 2004, and it’s the same sort of speech he gave to Illinois legislators and Harvard Law students in the decades before that. He has a core, and was able to maintain his equipoise, for example, even as his campaign stagnated through the summer and fall.
...
But Obama does not ratchet up hostilities; he restrains them. He does not lash out at perceived enemies, but is aloof from them. In the course of this struggle to discover who he is, Obama clearly learned from the strain of pessimistic optimism that stretches back from Martin Luther King Jr. to Abraham Lincoln. This is a worldview that detests anger as a motivating force, that distrusts easy dichotomies between the parties of good and evil, believing instead that the crucial dichotomy runs between the good and bad within each individual.

Obama did not respond to his fatherlessness or his racial predicament with anger and rage, but as questions for investigation, conversation and synthesis. He approaches politics the same way.

It occurs to me that conviction is playing well this year: Obama rather than Hillary, Huckabee and Paul--who's nothing if not sincere--over the ever-pandering Romney and Il Douche. Even McCain seems to have recovered his footing since he got back toward his 2000 persona rather than the odious "I Heart Falwell" McCain of 2003-2006.

VoxOrion wrote:No, I mean I don't get how Bush could win anything at this point. His base has all but completely evaporated.

Well, you can't beat something with nothing. Who would beat him? His approval ratings among Republicans are still north of 2:1. He'd out raise everyone. He'd run on Iraq, judges and taxes. And he'd probably win pretty easily.

Possible candidates: I think Paul would probably still be in the field, and would be doing even better than he is. A close the borders/bring the troops home message would carve off a good portion of the discontented people, and this would take away from any possible "not Bush" challenger.

The only person who could possibly beat him would be McCain. I think to beat Bush the first bar you'd have to clear would be the war one, and McCain can. But Bush would hit him on taxes and judges and would have the major party apparatuses behind him. I think McCain would have a lot of trouble because a whole lot of the animosity of the base towards Bush is on immigration, and McCain is right there in the same boat. He could run a campaign on change and Gallup polls showing him doing a lot better against Hillary, but every time he tried to step around to Bush's right, his polling advantage would take a hit and so that part of the message would be diluted.

I don't know, I just don't see how anyone would beat him if he wanted to get renominated.

VoxOrion wrote:

drsmooth wrote:

VoxOrion wrote:Although, one has to admit, he's certainly more qualified than Huckabee -

How exactly is a TX Congresscowboy 'certainly' more qualified than a 2+ term governor to assume an executive position?

not saying either is qualified, but understanding a method for distinguishing between them may be a useful exercise.

I guess I'm basing this on the idea that everyone is more qualified than Huckabee, and I was trying to throw Paul a bone.

I read the articles in the Weekly Standard and National Review yesterday that made very similar arguments about Huckabee, but at their base, while they claimed Huckabee was unqualified to be president, what they really were about is that his nomination would be bad for the Republican party.

Sorry, but the big elephant (pun intended) in the room any time Republicans want to call someone "manifestly unqualified" (as NR's Rich Lowry calls Huckabee) is the reality that nobody is more unqualified to be president than the current president. And Dan Quayle isn't that distant of a memory, either.

And I love that these conservative pundits point out that Huckabee doesn't believe in evolution. Now, that certainly is a legitimate concern - one I share. But is George W. Bush on record as saying he believes in evolution? Not that I am aware of.

Ultimately, there's no way a two-term governor is the most unqualified candidate for president. None. I would say Tom Tancredo, by temperament and single-issue obsession, certainly is less qualified.

And ultimately, while there is much in Huckabee to dismay me, as a Democrat, I suspect he dismays the Republican elite because he actually walks the talk a bit in being a "compassionate conservative." Conservatives love their slogans and images far more than concrete actions. Huckabee actually seems to think political statements should be backed by some actual policy. Good for him - on that part, at least.

Huckabee is either really Jesusey (he is a minister, after all), or he's pandering to the Republican religious base.

Huckabee: U.S. gave up on religion

"The reason we have so much government is because we have so much broken humanity," he said. "And the reason we have so much broken humanity is because sin reigns in the hearts and lives of human beings instead of the Savior."

I love how he talks about Kool-Aid. I think he has had too much of it.

My theory on why the institutional Republicans (National Review et al) so loathe Huckabee is that they realize that once the party nominates an authentic social reactionary who's more interested in banning abortion and gay marriage than cutting taxes for billionaires, it's very unlikely the party could ever again sell the social-reactionary base on the likes of Bush and Romney.

They've won for 30 years by dancing the Thomas Frank Two-Step: campaign on demonizing liberals and gays and whoever, govern by and for the hyper-rich, repeat and spice with wars. It's dumb, but it works. And Huckabee could queer (so to speak) the deal.

That said, Huckabee really is a freakin' nut:

In a 1998 book decrying American culture, Huckabee was no seeker of common ground. He drew stark lines, equating environmentalists with pornographers and homosexuality with pedophilia and necrophilia. He also declared that people who do not believe in God tend to be immoral and to engage in "destructive behavior." He drew a rather harsh picture of an American society starkly split between people of faith and those of a secular bent, with the latter being a direct and immediate threat to the nation.
...
n Kids Who Kill, Huckabee argued that school shootings were the product of a society in decline, a decline marked (and caused) by abortion, pornography, media violence, out-of-wedlock sex, divorce, drug use, and, of course, homosexuality. Huckabee and his coauthor bemoaned the "demoralization of America," observing, "Despite all our prosperity, pomp, and power, the vaunted American experiment in liberty seems to be disintegrating before our very eyes." Huckabee, who was governor at the time and a well-known social conservative, blasted away at those whom he held responsible for America's ills, and he took a rather tough stand against government social programs and their advocates. In lamenting the "cultural conflicts" besetting the country, he wrote,

Abortion, environmentalism, AIDS, pornography, drug abuse, and homosexual activism have fragmented and polarized our communities.

Why was he lumping environmentalism with activities he considered sinful? He did not explain further. A few pages later, Huckabee complained,

It is now difficult to keep track of the vast array of publicly endorsed and institutionally supported aberrations—from homosexuality and pedophilia to sadomasochism and necrophilia.

Huckabee did not say what public endorsement of pedophilia or necrophilia he had in mind. But he did seem to be equating homosexuality with both.

I'm happy to credit the National Review types--who after all are probably socially tolerant coastal elite types--with rightly deploring this kind of unhinged, irrational hate.

dajafi wrote:That said, Huckabee really is a freakin' nut:

In a 1998 book decrying American culture, Huckabee was no seeker of common ground. He drew stark lines, equating environmentalists with pornographers and homosexuality with pedophilia and necrophilia. He also declared that people who do not believe in God tend to be immoral and to engage in "destructive behavior." He drew a rather harsh picture of an American society starkly split between people of faith and those of a secular bent, with the latter being a direct and immediate threat to the nation.
...
n Kids Who Kill, Huckabee argued that school shootings were the product of a society in decline, a decline marked (and caused) by abortion, pornography, media violence, out-of-wedlock sex, divorce, drug use, and, of course, homosexuality. Huckabee and his coauthor bemoaned the "demoralization of America," observing, "Despite all our prosperity, pomp, and power, the vaunted American experiment in liberty seems to be disintegrating before our very eyes." Huckabee, who was governor at the time and a well-known social conservative, blasted away at those whom he held responsible for America's ills, and he took a rather tough stand against government social programs and their advocates. In lamenting the "cultural conflicts" besetting the country, he wrote,

Abortion, environmentalism, AIDS, pornography, drug abuse, and homosexual activism have fragmented and polarized our communities.

Why was he lumping environmentalism with activities he considered sinful? He did not explain further. A few pages later, Huckabee complained,

It is now difficult to keep track of the vast array of publicly endorsed and institutionally supported aberrations—from homosexuality and pedophilia to sadomasochism and necrophilia.

Huckabee did not say what public endorsement of pedophilia or necrophilia he had in mind. But he did seem to be equating homosexuality with both.

I'm happy to credit the National Review types--who after all are probably socially tolerant coastal elite types--with rightly deploring this kind of unhinged, irrational hate.

The Huckabee people are seeing now is very different from the Huckabee who wrote that stuff almost 20 years ago. The real nutty reactionary stuff was just not a big part of how he ran the state.

Now, if you really are a social liberal, you ought to be rather scared of a President Huckabee. Because I think Huckabee is the one figure who can actually broaden the social conservative base of the party.