Beyond Parody
Posted on October 23rd, 2008
by Daniel Larison |
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If as Joe Biden suggests the U.S. is likely to be tested by a foreign enemy next year, who of the following would you rather have dealing with it in the Oval Office: Nancy (of Damascus) Pelosi, Harry Reid, John Edwards, Joe (the U.S. drove Hezbollah out of Lebanon) Biden, Mike Huckabee, Geraldine Ferraro, Tom DeLay, Jimmy Carter or Sarah Palin?
My pick? Gov. Palin, surely the most grounded, common-sense person on that list of prime-time politicians. ~Daniel Henninger
Clearly Henninger is doing his best to weight the comparison in Palin’s favor by loading up his list with a lot of incompetent, unpopular or controversial politicians, but there is obviously someone from that list that I think a vast majority would rather have as President than Palin. Not to push the Huckabee vs. Palin argument too much in one week, but can Henninger be serious when he says he would rather have Palin as President instead of Huckabee during an international crisis? Let me put that another way, since I doubt anyone can seriously believe that: does Henninger really want to go on record espousing such a ridiculous view?
If there is one thing more annoying than bien-pensant condescension, it is the even more condescending orthodoxy of anti-bien-pensant pundits who reflexively adopt a position because it is fashionably unfashionable and then congratulate themselves for their independence of mind. ”Other pundits dislike Palin and think she is unprepared? I’ll show them how trendy and eccentric I can be–I’ll say that she is even more qualified and superior. I’ll even say that I want her to be President in a crisis situation–that’ll show ‘em!” Like bien-pensant opinion, the anti-bien-pensant view is utterly conventional, but wants credit for challenging the prevailing wisdom simply because it is the prevailing wisdom. Instead of either of these dead-end, knee-jerk responses, we might analyze the subject on the merits and formulate some kind of an argument one way or the other.
You can agree with Huckabee or disagree with him over what he said in his Foreign Affairs essay and during his campaign, but it’s undeniable that he already possesses a far better understanding of the relevant issues right now and has articulated them publicly. I don’t know whether anyone advised him on the Pakistan section of his essay, and there are things to which I would object in that section, but it gives a serious and intelligent assessment of what the situation was there at the time. Henninger doesn’t care about any of that. Once again, knowledge and preparation count for nothing–being “grounded” is what counts. Arguably, Huckabee is just as grounded as Palin, so that ought to negate even this advantage, but what is telling here is that Henninger has absolutely nothing else to say on her behalf. The brevity and emptiness of his argument for her is a stronger indictment of her readiness than anything her critics could say.
Henninger goes on:
If he had picked any of the plain-vanilla men on his veep short list — Pawlenty, Sanford, Romney or Lieberman — they’d have won approval from the media’s college of cardinals, and killed his campaign [bold mine-DL].
This gives Pawlenty far too little credit, and it conflates several candidates as if they were all equally desirable or undesirable running mates. Lieberman would have added nothing and lost McCain a lot, though there would have been a brief media extravaganza questioning whether McCain had actually gone mad or was simply pretending, and Romney would have satisfied many movement elites and guaranteed that evangelical turnout would be very poor, but Pawlenty and Sanford would have been creditable additions to the ticket. Could any VP selection have saved McCain from his own failures during the financial crisis? Probably not. Could any VP selection have honed a coherent message for a message-free campaign? That’s doubtful. Would Pawlenty have given him a far more effective surrogate and policy-oriented running mate who could make a persuasive case for the campaign’s proposals? Absolutely. What Pawlenty lacks in the ability to excite, he makes up for in what he knows and his ability to argue for his views; there is an added bonus–he already has well-formed views on a variety of subjects. Pawlenty was the anti-Palin in a lot of ways and he has much of the same cultural populist appeal that has won Palin so many fans.
Henninger complains some more:
It seems only yesterday that the most critical skill in presidential politics was being able to connect to people in places like Bronko’s bar or Saddleback Church. When Gov. Palin showed she excelled at that, the goal posts suddenly moved and the new game was being able to talk the talk in London, Paris, Tehran or Moscow. She looks about a half-step behind Sen. Obama on that learning curve.
Henninger sounds like Michelle Obama complaining about people raising the bar, except that in this case the bar was never raised and the goalposts were never moved. So now we come back to the gut-level connection. The very thing that Huckabee did so well during the primaries, but which most conservatve elites (probably including Henninger) found unsatisfying. Having deemed Huckabee not well-versed enough in policy, which was apparently a fair criticism ten months ago but is now a “cheap shot,” many Palinites are now persuaded that Palin, who knows even less than Huckabee did when he started and much less than he does now, is ready to lead in a crisis. Of course, it is the ability to do both things at some minimal level of competence that make for successful candidates. Those who can’t strike the right balance between demagoguery connecting with voters and wonkery usually end up as also-rans. Obama has been described as having a deficit in both areas at different times (at one time, he was all style and rhetoric, and at another time he was the aloof professor giving dry lectures*), and actually had a surplus in both relative to his competition. In the end, McCain is paying the price for having a candidacy driven almost entirely by biography and character, and he has been chaotically playing catch-up on the policy side to no avail. All gut-level connection all the time is not enough. “Good instincts” are not enough.
*There were kernels of truth to these descriptions of Obama (i.e., he did engage in airy rhetoric, he was sometimes aloof and professorial), but they went awry when they were exaggerated to define the entire man.
Filed under: foreign policy, politics
“The very thing that Huckabee did so well during the primaries, but which most conservatve elites (probably including Henninger) found unsatisfying.”
One thing that disappointed me so much about Huckabee’s campaign (I was born and raised in Arkansas, and I lived there for part of the time he was Gov.) is that he focused much too strongly on the identitarian “Christian Leader” and not enough on the competent executive. The difference in the quality of the roads (bond issue that led to a lot of very necessary school construction) and schools (implemented a plan that consolidated school districts; previously every small town had its own district, superintendent, school board, etc.) is stunning from just 10-15 years ago. He was a pretty solid governor.
Good point. As someone who had to drive on highways in Arkansas during his time as governor as I went back and forth from college, I appreciated the improvement in road quality. When people say that he had a terrible record as governor, what they usually mean is that he received poor grades from Cato and the Club for Growth (while usually conveniently omitting that Romney had worse grades and that it is very difficult to get high grades from these people when actually governing a state). He has to be one of the few governors I know of who could be well-received by the NEA and be considered a champion of homeschoolers, because he seems to have understood that school choice does not have to entail decimating public schools. The strict standards by which Huckabee has been judged and found wanting are amazing, especially when compared to the ever-lowering standards that were used for Romney and now for Palin. I say this as someone who vehemently criticized Huckabee on a lot of things. I really have no strong desire to see Huckabee win the nomination next time, but the different standards used to vilify the man seem basically unfair. It seems to me that an honest accounting of his record would also have to acknowledge that he did reasonably well in several areas.
Of course, unlike Palin, Pawlenty actually served out a full term as governor and then won re-election.
In a blue state
In 2006.
But, yeah, he’d be no help this time around, so let’s take a shot in the dark with the chick with the gams.
Here is where we are this cycle:
The religious right would not unite behind Huckabee, an serious & intelligent politician.
The religious right has united behind Palin, a demogogue who thinks at a high school level
The religious seem to be nice people who are nonetheless, as a group, political idiots.
I’d say that about sums it up, tomtom. And that’s why they will be scapegoated for the failure to win this election.
No one is predicting a Petraeus-Pawlenty ticket? That is what I see coming for next time around. I think that would check off just about all the boxes for the current Republican party. I’ll be especially interested to monitor the Obama-Petraeus relationship during the first year. I know he said that he has no interest in running for political office, but what else would he say?
That ticket is sort of McCain-Palin as NRO sees it. The war hero and the effective small state governor (unfortunately, minus the starbursts). However, Petraeus appears to be much better at prosecuting war, no disrespect to McCain. I also would be surprised to learn that Petraeus predicted that we would be greeted as liberators. Sure, he wouldn’t have a clue about the economy, but I’d still have more faith in him than McCain or Palin on that front (the plan to reward banks for underwriting bad mortgages as exhibit A). Note that this ticket would also be perfect for culture warriors.
“The religious right would not unite behind Huckabee, an serious & intelligent politician.”
Actually, they did strongly back Huck, to the point of delivering first- and second-place finishes in virtually all the southern GOP primaries, as well as a few others. Huck’s problems were that a) the establishment wing of the GOP flipped out at the prospect of a real socon at the top of the ticket and so threw all its energy into backing ABH (Anybody But Huckabee) candidates, and b) Huckabee’s campaign — like every other GOP primary campaign this cycle except Romney’s — was an underfunded, ramshackle affair.
I would say that the religious right’s excitement over Palin has less to do with idiocy and more with the fact that she is undeniably “one of them.” After years of being catered to in GOP elections, and then ignored afterward, she presents the prospect of putting someone in office who might actually do something about issues like abortion and gay marriage, not just use them as wedge issues to gain office. Which, of course, is exactly the reason she also scares the pants off dyed-in-the-wool liberals.
One of the big surprises for me this political season is that the Republican spokespods at the National Review who seemingly loathed Huckabee turned around to willingly embrace Palin, who’s basically Huckabee minus the intelligence and experience. I disagree with Huckabee on any number of major issues, but was impressed by his performance in the debates and in interviews. The man’s no dummy and would have made a much better VP choice than Palin–shoring up the base while not alienating almost everyone else. Plus, McCain wouldn’t have had to hide him from the press.
Yes, but Huckabee lacked the sizzle, and the ability to attract PUMAs. Would Lynn DeRotshchild Forrester have gone over to support McCain had he picked Huckabee? Doubtful. She just wanted someone who had female bits entering the White House, no matter how unprepared. They completely failed to vet her properly, and now he too will feel the Palin backstab, as she’s playing McCain off the base.
http://marcambinder.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/10/the_disclosure_that_the_republ.php
I think you are just hitting on a key difference in their biographies. When you look at the educational histories of these two (P v. H.), you see such a difference in focus, determination, and constancy. I teach college students and you can tell so much about the paths a person will take based on how they deal with their education. To me, one is truly a conservative’s track of hard work and dedication to principles decided and settled over time. Huckabee finished a degree in 2 1/2 years (an accomplishment no matter what school you attend) and by 1989 was leading an organization with (the Arkansas Baptists) with nearly 500,000 members. Combined with ten years as governor, that would mean that he has spent most of his adult life leading organizations bigger than the state of Alaska. The other, Palin, shows all the features of a opportunist, lackluster student who searches for opportunities and relies on social skills to make things happen (i.e. the students who always manage to find old copies of exams or purchase papers on the internet). It is almost too ironic that it was internet buzz, wikipedia articles, and a last minute decision that brought her to the fore (with only two years or real executive experience). But hey, she was picked by a man who barely finished Annapolis and wrote a thesis for the war college on his personal experiences (not exactly the point of the exercise). After eight years of elite bashing, you would think conservatives would have chosen a man who embodies so much of the movement: a homeschool advocate, bible college graduate, who is famous for his personal responsibility movement (i.e. losing weight and getting junk out of schools).
Indya–I don’t think the Palin pick was truly aimed at the PUMAs, most of whom were likely to return to the Democratic fold anyway. Palin is the anti-Hilary and very few women who supported Hilary were likely to vote for Palin on the basis of shared ovaries. Palin was red meat for the base and McCain’s way of thumbing the party honchos who wouldn’t let him have the VP of his choosing. Like Bush, McCain strikes me as a frat boy who never grew up. His time as a POW only served to reinforce his sense of entitlement.
Roarheels–I agree with you about the differences between Palin and Huckabee. One’s a serious candidate; the other’s an opportunist and joke who deserves to return to obscurity, a footnote in history.
There was an article about the selection – it had to be a woman. Why is that? And then of all women, why her? Well she served two purposes, she definitely fired up the religious right. But why else a woman other than to fracture the Democratic party more? Insulting as it is to women, it was a very cynical move that many women fell for. The symbolism is too powerful for some women to overcome, even though Sarah Palin is the antithesis of everything many of these women supposedly stood for (see, e.g., Lynn DeRothschild Forrester). I have read way too many stories about women voting this ticket because of her in spite of what they believed. Fortunately, Palin’s incompetence has shored up party unity on the left and the PUMAs are all but gone now.
Forrester is one example–and, as far as I know, the only example–of a prominent Hilary supporter moving over to McCain because Palin was on the ticket. Obama has a commanding lead among women in the polls. If a few were fooled early on, continuing exposure to Palin has cured them of any illusions Palin is anything more than a mere cynical token on McCain’s part.
Yes, it took time for the dazzle to wear off, but it’s squarely gone now, except for the most bitter of Betties.
Lieberman was probably his best call, just not the one you’d be most pleased with. McCain had cultivated an image of independence over many years that he (of necessity) abandoned during the primaries. He needed to create the appearance of pivoting to the center. Lieberman would have let him make a compelling case for bipartisanship– running as a man above the petty constraints of party. It would have emphasized experience. It would have helps him with older voters. It would have helped with Jewish voters, and potentially delivered Florida. It also would have been dramatic, given his status on the ‘00 ticket– I think there’s a tendency to overlook the impact Obama’s convention speech could have had, given how effective Palin was in neutralizing it. A Romney choice, or potentially even a Huckabee choice might well have lost the first news-cycle.
Lieberman was the choice that his long-campaign– the one he’s been running for eight to ten years– demanded.