Looking Ahead Again
NBC-WSJ GOP pollster Neil Newhouse did a post-election survey last night, and here’s what he found: Just 12% of those surveyed believed Palin should be the GOP’s new leader; instead 29% of voters said Romney, followed by 20% who say Huckabee. Among GOPers, it was Romney 33%, Huckabee 20% and Palin 18%. ~FirstRead
Via Andrew
This suggests that Palin’s tremendous popularity within the GOP does not translate into support for her as the default party leader, which is an example of some understanding of political realities among Republican voters. If all those named in this survey choose to run, it also could portend another very divided primary field where the next Republican nominee will end up winning most of the delegates by ekeing out 32-35% of the vote in state after state. This is similar to what happened after the ’92 loss. Few, if any, seriously backed Quayle as the heir apparent, and Pat Buchanan had loyal supporters but was obviosly loathed by the party establishment (Huckabee seems to fit this role best), which meant that the party relied on its trusty ”it’s his turn” method of selecting an establishment candidate. McCain was considered the frontrunner in 2007 for the same reason–he had been the runner-up in 2000, and he was due–and as it worked out he survived the challenges of various younger line-jumpers and outsiders.
It’s worth bearing in mind that Republicans rarely reward line-jumpers and outsiders. A candidacy like that of Obama has not yet proved successful in the GOP, and by this I mean having the candidacy of a fairly young challenger lead to general election victory. The last three Democratic Presidents (including the President-elect) have been long-shot outsiders of one kind or another, and arguably every non-incumbent postwar Democratic nominee has followed this pattern. As significant as Goldwater’s nomination was, it was a fluke of sorts in the postwar era and the only one of its kind on the Republican side. Perhaps the ’64 result convinced party leaders that they should never try anything like that again. As we all know, Reagan had paid his dues in 1976, and was rewarded with the ’80 nomination, after losing in ’80 Bush waited his turn until ’88, and Dole had served his time and was eventually rewarded in ’96. If the Republicans keep up this tradition, Romney would seem to be the logical successor, even though he would almost certainly be a poor nominee.
However, McCain’s loss and the deep misgivings about his candidacy among many GOP primary voters may have changed things. Under the old pattern, and based on the survey data above, Romney would be considered the party leader (even though he technically finished third, not second, during the primaries) and probably will be treated as such by a lot of people on the right. Then again, McCain’s defeat may have made the old pattern seem foolish, so there could be much more resistance to anointing Romney as the heir apparent than there has been in the past. This would normally be where I launch into my usual anti-Romney argument, but I think having mainstream conservatives and party leaders rallying behind a candidate as terrible as Romney will create the perfect opportunity for a line-jumping, perhaps even populist candidate. As I discuss in a new article for Takimag, what we learned from the 2008 election was the powerful establishment hostility to anything resembling grassroots, populist conservatism and also the strong desire among the party’s core constituencies for a candidate who represents them:
Regardless of how one views Sarah Palin herself, the phenomenon of enthusiasm for Palin, like the grassroots mobilization for Mike Huckabee and Ron Paul we saw in the primaries, shows the powerful hunger in Middle America for someone to speak for them and defend their interests. Except perhaps on immigration, institutional conservatism and elected representatives in the Republican Party have largely failed to do this. During the primaries, institutional conservatism was content to foist two rebranded Northeastern liberal Republicans on conservatives as their champions while denigrating the two candidates with the strongest grassroots support. As the enthusiasm for candidates as different as Huckabee and Paul shows, Christian conservatives and libertarians are looking for representation. These voters are not going to find it in a mainstream movement that loathes Huckabee and Paul, nor will they find what they seek among the “reformists,” so their support is up for grabs.
To the extent that Palin is, as Daniel Koffler astutely observes, “the reductio ad absurdum of some of those [putatively conservative] intellectuals’ efforts to manipulate the conservative base to advance their foreign policy agenda,” she is not necessarily the one best-suited to seize the opportunity presented by another episode of the establishment rallying to Romney.
I think Palin has a lot better chance in 2012 than you give her credit for. Sure, she has to earn it, and it won’t be handed to her, but she has the best shot at earning it. There is no obvious “next in line”. Romney has huge holes that Palin could drive a tank brigade through, and will, and leave him in the gutter. I’m as critical of Palin as you are, even more so, but I have to acknowledge her political talents and gifts. Certainly she has to bone up on the issues, and define herself, but she’s going to have lots of time and lots of help doing so. But there’s no one who can excite the base like she can. No one in the 2008 primaries came close to doing that. She can, and she will only get better. Comparing her to Quayle isn’t fair, in that while Quayle was actually brighter, he had nothing like her populist appeal, crowd-pleasing skills, and taste for blood. That is above all what the base wants – blood – and she alone can give it to them.
I’m not saying she’ll win the nomination, as much as I would love her to for the sake of Obama’s ease of re-election, but I think she has as much chance as anyone in this dismal field. The real talents in the Republican ranks, like Jindal, will wait until 2016 unless Obama seems highly vulnerable. If the Republican cause seems hopeless in 2012, the party may just give Palin the shot if only to get her out of the way and satisfy that thirst for blood, thereby keeping the brand “pure”. Huckabee is a great VP pick, but he’ll never be the party nominee. Romney is the anti-Christ, so furggedaboudit. Who’s left? Jeb Bush? Please, make us run against another Bush. Face it, unless Obama’s a disaster, the next real shot is 2016, and giving 2012 to Palin is like giving 1964 to Goldwater in preparation for the real race in 1968. The real problem is I don’t even know where the Republicans will get a serious contender for 2016/ Any ideas?
Hah! Nice try, Conrad.
2016? We intend to steal Mr. Obama’s boxer shorts as soon as 2010.
Here is it explored who the next Republican nominee will be.
Here is it explained why he is likely to win.
Howard
No doubt Palin had some lacunae in her knowledge, as you’ve fairly pointed out, but you do underestimate her. Support her or not, she has political star quality, which Obama did in a different way.
In four years, Palin will no longer be a newbie, and will be able to talk the talk and walk the walk, and Obama has a tough row to hoe. He’s been lucky so far, but his luck might not last.
I hope she ditches the neocon advisers and strikes out on her own.
For 2012, I’ll second Reihan and put my money on my man Mitch…
http://theamericanscene.com/2008/11/02/mitch-daniels-2012
Palin can find some consolation that I badly underestimated Obama as well, and I am not always the best judge of who can win elections, but star quality by itself is simply not enough. I keep seeing the claim that she will learn what she needs to know in the coming years, which will make previous objections to her irrelevant. When is she going to do this, and from whom is she going to learn it? If being a local and state official has supposedly prevented her from learning about these issues until now, won’t she be even more focused on state issues once she goes back to Alaska? Everyone assumes that she will win re-election in two years, and maybe she will, but how Alaskans judge her first term will be the first hurdle she has to clear.
It seems to me that, to the extent that she does fill in some of the gaps, she will be relying on precisely the advisors no one should want as her advisors. Having a politician who is able to recite neocon talking points fluently is not exactly what I would call an improvement. The problems with her would be different in that case (she can speak on certain topics more confidently, but will still be horribly wrong on policy), but there would still be significant problems.
Perhaps GOP voters will rally to a new leader by making the mistake of trying to re-fight the last campaign. Maybe the very phoniness of the man that annoyed so many of us will come to be seen as an asset, and his love of detail and wonkery will be touted as what had been needed in ’08.
Howard,
OMG! I so forgot about the all-powerful Newt! We are quaking in our Black Panther army boots! How can Obama possibly withstand the four horsemen of the Apocalypse: Romney, Huckabee, Gingritch and Palin? The nation will be overwhelmed with shock and awe.
This was a joke, right? Please, tell me you were joking.
Daniel,
Make no mistake, everything you’ve said about Palin is correct. But what you say about Republicans is not. They are still the same collection of reality-denialists they have been for the last eight years, and they are not going to change in four short years into some sane and sober party of responsible citizens. Palin is exactly what they are looking for. She will be groomed for the part by the same “experts” who told McCain that he needed to run a divisive base campaign rather than a tolerant centrist one (which he might actually have won), and they will simply say that McCain wasn’t good at that type of campaign, whereas Palin will be great at it. In any case, she will likely sweep away the Republican base in 2012, and that guarantees the nomination. As for her credentials, she will probably run for the senate in 2010 and win, then spend two years in Washington making herself as loud and visible as possible, which is what she excels at. She will campaign around the country for Republican candidates in 2010 and make lots and lots of friends who will line up to support her.
Now, maybe someone else comes along and wins the GOp nomination, but whoever it is, they will likely lose the general election, which will pave the way for Palin to try again in 2016. And then, who knows, it will be the Thrilla in Wasilla, with Palin vs. Hillary! Get your tickets early, is all I can say.
I think we should merge Alaska and Louisiana into a single constituted political entity in which the requirements for public office include some objective measure of corruption: a police record, conviction on a bribery offense, a history of pathological lying, etc. They do seem to have a penchant for freely electing crooked politicians. I may have been too quick to dismiss Palin’s claim to be a reformer. By the apparent standards of the Alaska electorate, she’s a paragon of integrity.
Obviously, it should be Thompson-Palin in 2012. Two celebrity candidates with ‘potential’ and unrecognized acumen. The perfect combo.
* Yes, I’m being sarcastic.
Saw on Fox News tonight some more of the gossip leaking about Palin. She didn’t know that Africa was a continent, and not a country. Yes, her completely insular view of the world was that limited.
Watch the video: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/11/05/palin-didnt-know-africa-i_n_141653.html
The long knives are out for Palin.
@Indya: the shivs are flying on both sides. Longtime McCain aide Randy Scheunemann apparently got the axe for dissing his boss and sidling up to Palin…at least, that’s the current story.
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/11/05/soruces-mccain-aide-fired-for-trashing-staff/
Yes, I saw that too on O’Reilly. Randy apparently is in the anti-intellectual Palin camp. Not surprising, really. 4 years is an eternity in politics, anything can happen. I am fairly confident that she could get a good image makeover and become knowledgeable enough about the basics to run for office in that time, but I would hope that the party would have found its ideological core by then, and picked someone who really represents it.
Oops…now Randy’s been unaxed…or maybe semi-axed:
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/11/06/mccain-adviser-disputes-campaign-i-was-not-fired/
Is there such a thing as a circular knife-flinging squad?
There is no conservative movement. It’s a collection of monomianiacs. Reagan brought them together but they’re fracturing now. Without a Reagan leading all they care about is chasing their issue.
The right guy with the right name and a great PR campaign could do it but that man doesn’t exist right now and the internet makes it harder to convince non monomaniacs to go along since there is now access to information that disproves the bullshit eminating from right wing radio.