Gaining On The Right, Collapsing On The Left?
Doug Kmiec has endorsed Obama (via Sullivan). My previous critiques of Kmiec’s pro-Obama arguments are here and here. While I cannot get myself to the same point as others on the right have done, there was one section from Kmiec’s statement that seems entirely right to me:
Our president has involved our nation in a military engagement without sufficient justification or a clear objective. In so doing, he has incurred both tragic loss of life and extraordinary debt jeopardizing the economy and the well-being of the average American citizen. In pursuit of these fatally flawed purposes, the office of the presidency, which it was once my privilege to defend in public office formally, has been distorted beyond its constitutional assignment.
Such is the continuity with the administration that McCain represents that many Republicans and conservatives have concluded that it is better to make a tremendous leap of faith in backing Obama rather than perpetuate what we have had for the last seven years. Powerline attacks Kmiec for incoherence, but someone sympathetic to Kmiec might argue that if “coherence” requires supporting the current administration in its open-ended conflict in Iraq and its record of usurpation it is better to be incoherent and in opposition. Kmiec’s endorsement is evidence, very much like Prof. Bacevich’s article on Obama, of how awful the GOP has become. It is so deeply distrusted, so loathed, by a significant number of conservatives that even a Democrat whom they know to be on the far left and in disagreement with them on almost everything has a better chance of winning their vote than the Republican standard-bearer.
However, the Democratic primary voters seem to have given the GOP a reprieve from disaster. Rasmussen’s polling in Nevada and Arkansas shows that Obama loses even more Democrats and liberals than McCain loses Republicans and conservatives. In Arkansas, Obama currently receives the support of just 48% of the Democrats, and in Nevada just 65% of Democrats back him. In Nevada, where Obama enjoyed an 11 point lead a month ago, he leads by just four now, while in Arkansas he trails by 29 (his Arkansas unfavs of 62 are almost unheard of). While it may not be a very large sample for comparison, both Democratic winners in the presidential election in the last four decades carried Arkansas (and, yes, it obviously helped that the last two winning nominees were both Southerners and one was an Arkansan). Being outpolled almost two-to-one there is a serious problem for the probable Democratic nominee in a state that just elected a Democratic governor in 2006 and is set to have an unopposed re-election campaign for Mark Pryor. Even if we assume that Arkansas is now reliably a “red” state, the gap between McCain and Obama here is indicative of broader dissatisfaction among Democratic voters when 37% of Arkansas Democrats say they will back McCain. But, by all means, let’s talk about how all of this doesn’t matter, even though it is the Democratic candidate who has typically polled better early in the year and seen his support evaporate in the fall.
Update: John Tabin views Kmiec’s endorsement as driven mainly by anti-McCain animus, which is consistent with his previous pro-Romney sentiments. An alternative way of looking at it is that Kmiec has shown a pattern of supporting the candidate who attempts to appear superficially and unconvincingly to be more conservative than he actually is.
Philip Klein notes acerbically:
Kmiec argues that when it comes to radical Islam, “Senator Obama needs to address this extremist movement with the same clarity and honesty with which he has addressed the topic of race in America.” Of course, Obama’s failure to do so after more than a year of campaigning, has no bearing on Kmiec’s decision to endorse him.
Of course, it might be that Obama has no interest in approaching jihadism with the lenses of a Paul Berman (mentioned by name in the article) and may actually regard the entire framework in which we debate anti-jihadist policies to be fundamentally flawed. Indeed, if anti-jihadism requires the sort of lame sloganeering that Romney used during the primaries, or compels us to embrace talk of “existential threats” and resurgent caliphates, it seems to me that anyone who wants to deal in reality would be inclined to take a different approach. Kmiec’s quote is remarkable from another angle, since many conservatives (and not a few Democrats, if polls can be believed) seemed to regard the speech on race to have been anything but honest and clear.
6 Responses to “Gaining On The Right, Collapsing On The Left?”
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Daniel, could you do a post detailing why you assign so much weight to current polling in the face of the obvious asymmetries? That is, we know candidates get a boost from securing their party’s nomination (and after the conventions), and we know full well that McCain is currently getting a pass from the Obama campaign because there is a more-important battle they are engaged in (winning the nomination).
We also know that there is precisely no way that the Democratic Party is going to lose the youth vote to an eleventy-nine-year-old Republican, but you continue quoting current polling on that subject as if it is at all trustworthy.
So I’d love to see you explain why in the world you are so insistent on taking current polls at face value, when we know for a fact that they are almost certainly not predictive of the election’s outcome.
While I share Mr. Kmiec’s understandable motivation that the GOP be taken to the woodshed and then banished for a long sojourn into the political wilderness, this by itself seems to be a very small hook on which to hang a vote for POTUS. All of the disordered thinking behind Bush’s “democracy promotion” is there in Obama’s “dignity promotion.” for those with eyes to see and ears to listen. Mr. Kmiec’s reasons remain as unpersuasive as Prof. Bacevich’s.
Indeed, the very soft support for Obama amongst working class white Democrats is striking (Arkansas, not so much, support amongst democrats for the Clintons there is still very strong) but Nevada, a state where Obama did campaign (and did pretty well) indicates that his support among working class whites and Latino’s has been harmed, perhaps permanently harmed by the Wright fiasco. (This is not, mind you, an arguement to vote for (shudder) McCain.)
Incidentally, Rod Dreher sees it the same way, and in a way related to your last post on “PC”
http://blog.beliefnet.com/crunchycon/2008/03/obama-fallout-week-two.html
“I also believe, based in part on various in-person and e-mail conversations I’ve had over the long weekend, that there are quite a few whites who are pleased to see Obama, the great liberal hope, suffering because of the same rules of public discussion of race that liberals have used to punish conservatives who deviate from them. I’ve been hearing a strong “sauce for the gander” sentiment from whites who believe Obama is asking to be held to a lesser standard than whites. These feelings run very deep. You can say that people are wrong to feel that way, and you may be right, but the fact is, that stuff is there, and it’s a big political problem for Obama.”
There is a developing “Who the hell is the hypocrite to lecture me about racial reconcillation if he can’t tend his own garden?” sentiment here. I know linking to a Christopher Hitchens column might be a hanging offense around these parts, but this bit struck me as dead accurate:
http://www.slate.com/id/2187277/pagenum/2/
“The consequence, which you can already feel, is an inchoate resentment among many white voters who are damned if they will be called bigots by a man who associates with Jeremiah Wright. So here we go with all that again. And this is the fresh, clean, new post-racial politics?”
He then goes on in full “God is Not Great” bloviation for several more paragraphs, but you get the idea.
Adam:
Your entire comment is interesting, but since I agree with the body of it may I ask you a question about its introduction?
While I share Mr. Kmiec’s understandable motivation that the GOP be taken to the woodshed and then banished for a long sojourn into the political wilderness, this by itself seems to be a very small hook on which to hang a vote for POTUS. All of the disordered thinking behind Bush’s “democracy promotion†is there in Obama’s “dignity promotion.†for those with eyes to see and ears to listen. Mr. Kmiec’s reasons remain as unpersuasive as Prof. Bacevich’s.
I also share the motivation that the GOP be taken to the woodshed and, like you, I think it unlikely that Mr. Obama would make a good president. However, when no candidate still competing for the presidential nomination of either of our two national parties promises to make a good president, when one believes that the nation is now fated to suffer significant harm regardless of which of the remaining candidates ultimately ascends to the Oval Office, is it misguided to prefer that the fated harm wear a Democratic brand? In this, I look ahead to 2010 and 2012, since 2008 seems already a lost cause for traditional U.S. conservatism. To borrow your word, in what way is my “hook” small?
Not only that, but there is another thing. Mr. Obama shows far greater flexibility of thought than does the rigid Mr. McCain. Setting aside Rush Limbaugh’s well-known, often imitated ranting on the topic of “moderation,” insofar as flexibility of thought is the foe of pride, is Mr. Obama’s flexibility not a good thing? We have now had seven years of a president whose thoughts flex very reluctantly; have we learned nothing from the unpleasant experience? For my part, I would not deny the moderately small possibility that a President Obama might move some real good of which I had never conceived. Even if not so, a President Obama seems rather less likely than a President McCain, in the words of the proverb, to rush in where angels fear to tread.
The last point naturally is not sufficient reason for a conservative to vote Democratic in November, but it is a reason. Throwing this reason into the balance seems to me probably enough to tip it.
Howard
Hi Howard,
“is it misguided to prefer that the fated harm wear a Democratic brand? In this, I look ahead to 2010 and 2012, since 2008 seems already a lost cause for traditional U.S. conservatism. To borrow your word, in what way is my “hook†small?”
Having a Democratic interventionist is, in my mind, as likely to enshrine interventionism abroad as a truly bi-partisan affair as it is to destroy one brand or the other. For example, the number of voices on the left that opposed Clinton’s intervention in Kosovo, while important, were vanishingly small, and I’m not convinced any large amount of anti-Bush animus coming from the Democrats is anything more than the fact that Bush is a Republican, and that had (the very hawkish) Al Gore won in 2000, the decision to go into Iraq would have been the same.
I have not been Republican, either officially or unofficially in a great many years, so my answer to the question “Which party do you want to get the blame for the bad effects of our foreign meddling?” is “BOTH OF THEM” Putting hopes on what type of congressional candidates might emerge in 2010 or what presidential candidates might emerge in 2012 seems to be a bit of a longshot.
“Mr. Obama shows far greater flexibility of thought than does the rigid Mr. McCain. Setting aside Rush Limbaugh’s well-known, often imitated ranting on the topic of “moderation,†insofar as flexibility of thought is the foe of pride, is Mr. Obama’s flexibility not a good thing?”
I would disagree that I see any “flexibilty” in Mr. Obama’s thought on any issue, either foreign or domestic. Abroad, he buys into the same interventionist mindset as does Mr McCain, although his rhetoric and style is certainly different. I found it fascinating that our press excoriated Samantha Power for her ‘monster’ comment, but let her comments that Obama’s 16 month drawdown plan shouldn’t be counted on to survive contact with reality come Jan. 2009 absolutely fascinating. Indeed, Obama’s own statements on the matter (a reintroduction of troops if ‘terrorists’ endter ) have seen him edging away more and more from a firm commitment from withdrawal. I am having a great deal of trouble understanding the real difference between McCain’s counter-insurgency force and Mr. Obama’s counter-terrorist force. Both involve troops on the ground, logistics, airbases, etc. That Obama’s footprint would be smaller than McCain’s is an important distinction to be sure, but it is a “small hook” as I said earlier.
Domestically (that is always a consideration in my vote) most of Mr. Obama’s preceived “flexibility” strikes me as mere rhetorical head-fakes only. I ask a friend of mine who is convinced that Obama is truly a unifying figure who is able to end ‘partisan bickering’ “Is there anything that Obama proposes to do that Walter Mondale would not have applauded?” I’ve yet to hear a satisfactory answer on this.
“Even if not so, a President Obama seems rather less likely than a President McCain, in the words of the proverb, to rush in where angels fear to tread.”
This seems much more asserted than proved, and strikes me as more a difference of style (Obama cool and cerebral, McCain fiery and instinctive) than substance. One could even make the arguement that a Democratic Congress (likely to have larger majorities in both houses after November) would be much more reluctant to oppose a Democratic president on any foreign policy issue than they would a Republican president. This is not, mind you, an arguement for a McCain vote, but the tension (or lack thereof when one party controls both ends of PA Ave.) between the two political branches when it comes to the conduct of foreign policy is something to keep in mind.
I would disagree with Daniel in that I still think Obama will be our next president, and I sincerely hope where you view Obama’s flexibility, I see a fog of nonsense, you are right and I am wrong, and a President Obama would view armed interventions as the divine right of the USA with a jaundiced eye.
Cordially,
Adam
[...] Gaining On The Right, Collapsing On The Left? 4 adam, Howard J. Harrison, adam [...] [...]
[...] Ross talks about the Bacevich and Kmiec endorsements of Obama, which I am likewise inclined to see mainly as statements of how utterly unacceptable they find McCain and the modern GOP, at The Current and also here. It seems clear to me that both endorsements hinge on foreign policy disagreements with the Bush administration, and both see Obama as a possible improvement over the status quo and in any case much to be preferred to McCain’s promise of more of the same. On anything else, especially domestic social policy, the problem is fundamentally one of trust: the GOP could say anything at this point on any of a host of issues, and for many conservatives it wouldn’t matter. Regardless of platform differences and potentially worse domestic policies coming from the other party, the GOP is now seen by many on the right as operationally no better than the Democrats and in many respects much, much worse. Indeed, because they are for the most part operationally no better, it is that much worse to continue to entrust them with power. [...]