The American Conservative

And isn’t that a fitting end for the Bush Administration: resurrecting the best of the Bob Dole 1996 campaign… ~Andrei Cherny

It is all the more fitting when you consider that McCain is on the verge of launching the Bob Dole Mk II down in Florida, and represents mind-numbing continuity with the administration on a host of major policies.

A final thought on the now-preposterous notion that anyone would select Kathleen Sebelius as a running mate: if Obama chose the female governor of Kansas, wouldn’t that be over-egging the Obama symbolic biography pudding just a bit?

The shameless insertion of the Kennedy line on the day of Ted Kennedy’s endorsement of Obama is the epitome of a partisan argument: we are the New American Majority, we are the New Frontier.

P.S. Did she just wish the President a good night’s sleep?  That was weird.

Update: Word is that Sebelius is endorsing Obama tomorrow, which may help him a bit in Kansas next week.  For his sake, I hope that she delivers a better endorsement speech than she did a SOTU response.

“Caring for our children…is what grow-ups do.”  Apparently, grown-ups do this by passing federal subsidies.  This speech is a guarantee that no one will confuse Gov. Sebelius with a potential vice presidential pick ever again.

“Each of you is, above all, an American.”  I was wrong.  Sebelius is going to rehash Obama’s stump speech.  She’s right about the eye-rolling line.  The eyes are still rolling.

It’s like this, James: if you push for more neoliberal policies in Latin America, that will magically reduce the popularity of the “false populism” that has flourished on account of the backlash against the last round of neoliberal policies pushed by Washington, whereas if you don’t support those policies “false populism” will run wild.  That’s clear, isn’t it?

My assumption is that this response is going to be much more low-key than Jim Webb’s “I’ll show you where you can put your agenda” speech, especially since Sebelius is reportedly going to declare as an Obaman.  Her state holds a caucus next week, and it seems unlikely that she’s going to craft the response in a way that aids one candidate or another.  I expect a fairly unremarkable, ho-hum response.

So far, he has vowed almost as many vetoes (2) as he has actually issued (3) in his entire Presidency.

The emerging theme seems to be “trust.”  Bush makes for a rather odd messenger for this kind of “restore people’s trust in the government” message, wouldn’t you say?

Rod says of Obama:

A conservative’s dilemma: Is the pleasure one takes in watching the vaderish Clintons vanquished by Barack Skywalker worth the increasing possibility that not only will Obama win this fall, but he will transform the political landscape such that the GOP turns into what the Tories were under the Blair government?

There is a solution to this dilemma, which seems to be confronting more and more people, and it is simply this: stop cheering on Obama.  I drank a toast to him on caucus night, because it was satisfying to see those people humbled, but if you believe (I think incorrectly) that Obama represents a dire threat to your views and interests, stop giving him a pass.  Of course, if the Clintons are “vaderish,” that means that Bill Clinton fills the role of Obama’s father, which is a disturbing thought. 

Suppose that Obama admirers on the right are correct that he could be for the Democrats what Reagan was for Republicans.  Leave aside that only two post-war Democratic nominees have ever won over 50% of the vote in a national election (and Carter only barely achieved this under pretty unusual circumstances), and that a “liberal Reagan” would need to win by a margin of approximately nine points to get close to replicating the ’80 result. (That requires Obama to repeat Clinton’s ’96 re-election result and the Republicans will have to make a similarly, well, doleful effort.)  Forget for a moment that Obama has less experience in elective office than any major contender for the Presidency in at least a century and a half, or that his ADA is 95.  If that is right, and they can foresee the danger to their ideas and politics, why take the chance?  In a strange way, Republicans and conservatives have become so dead-set in their opposition to the Clintons that they would, by their own admission, embrace political and electoral doom rather than give them another chance at power.   

They take this view despite the fact that the Clinton administration was, relative to the current horror-show, more conservative in most of its effects and ultimately worked to the advantage of the GOP (an advantage they have shamelessly squandered).  The right reason to cheer on Obama is if you think he is the weaker of the two and the one likely to deliver the Democrats to unexpected defeat, while giving the GOP an entirely undeserved victory.  I am also not enthusiastic about going this route, since a failure to hold the GOP accountable in a presidential election will mean that they will ignore the ’06 elections as a fluke and will change little or nothing from the failed policies of the current administration.  If the Democrats nominate Obama, they let the GOP leadership off the hook.  Besides, what better way to drive home the error of their ways than to make it clear that the wages of Bushism are Bill and Hillary Clinton returned to power?   

What still puzzles me about the Obama-fear is how it can be driven by Obama’s delivery of speeches that are mostly about nothing.