Comments on: Looking Ahead

By: bayesian

bayesian — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 18:04:30 +0000

@M.Z. Forrest -

By my count there have been exactly two Northeastern Democrats nominated in the last forty years (though I think you could make a good argument that Gore was a genuine faux Northeasterner in the same sense that GWB is a genuine faux Texan). Humphrey, McGovern and Mondale may have been DFH (or DFL :} ) America-hating libruls, but they had none of the old money/technocrat cultural markers that Dukakis and Kerry did. Just try to imagine any of them speaking French or knowing what wine goes with which dish.

But you’re right that the next couple of GOP nominees are going to have to carefully straddle the Southern cultural line. I think Jeb does a good job of that, as does Mark Sanford.

By: BarryD

BarryD — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 15:20:36 +0000

“The talent for the GOP just isnâ€™t present outside the South.”

How strong is it *inside* the South? Not just somebody who can fire up the core of the GOP, but who has a legitimate shot at the national election?

By: M.Z. Forrest

M.Z. Forrest — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 15:06:29 +0000

In retrospect, it is surprising how weak the 2008 field was in both parties. Looking forward, I have trouble seeing who pops the field. Of course, most people have that same problem. Going around the country, the strongest Republicans are in the South. I would imagine the GOP is going to have a similar problem that the dems had through much of the 80s and 90s. The Dems needed to nominate people outside the Northeast, and the GOP is going to have to stay out of the South. The talent for the GOP just isn’t present outside the South.

By: Daniel Larison

Daniel Larison — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 07:03:01 +0000

He wouldn’t have to change that many positions. He already flipped on immigration pretty dramatically and opportunistically last year, and this worked to his advantage. Now he can just stick with the position he took then. His “economic populism” was pretty much a myth, and his fiscal record was a mixed bag but hardly an automatic disqualifier.

By: DarrenG

DarrenG — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 06:36:17 +0000

For Huckabee to “run again with an eye to satisfying activists and donors,” he’d have to do an about-face on so many of his long-standing positions that he’d make himself the 2012 version of Multiple Choice Mitt.

I do think (and hope) that 2012 will open the door to someone other than yet another establishment hack who can recite the liturgy, but if either side learned anything from 2008 it should be that the electorate still can detect a lack of integrity fairly well.