Ross discussed the lack of effective populist Republican candidates in a recent column, but a key part of the problem is that almost every person he named isn’t a populist in any meaningful sense. For example, he includes Perry on the list:

Rick Perry was supposed to put an end to the game of musical chairs. He was an outsider with insider connections, a populist with experience and organization, a successful governor whose anti-Washington persona guaranteed him credibility with the conservative grass roots.

This is all wonderfully vague. In what sense is Perry a populist? If there is one phrase that characterizes his tenure as governor, it is probably crony capitalism. Perry’s cozy relationships with corporations and donors are things that populists loathe. If Republican leaders have been “too forgiving of crony capitalism and Wall Street-Washington coziness,” what would be accomplished by a Perry victory except to reinforce all of the party’s worst habits? If right-wing populists see collusion between corporations and government as a major problem, Perry and those like him see it as something desirable and useful. Perry’s purpose in the race has always been to divert anti-establishment discontent in a manageable, acceptable direction where it will do nothing to force the party to make any significant changes. Can you imagine Perry proposing stricter financial regulatory reform? Of course not. Is he going to argue for breaking up banks that have been deemed “too big to fail”? Not a chance.

One reason why “no populist politician has been able to deliver an agenda to match” is that there haven’t been many populist politicians on the right in the first place. When Ross says that Republican voters deserve “a better class of right-wing populist,” I agree with him. The first step in getting better populists is to distinguish between the politicians whose “populism” consists of folksy mummery and those interested in breaking up concentrations of wealth and power. Until there are Republican candidates interested in both of those goals, there is little chance that any of them will propose policies that will achieve them.

Ross says that the Republican establishment failed to find its anti-Romney:

From Jeb Bush to Haley Barbour, Jon Thune to (especially) Mitch Daniels, we’ve watched the party’s leading lights and most experienced national figures repeatedly pass the buck, all of them hoping that somebody else would step forward to supply a credible alternative to Mitt Romney. Individually, their choices were understandable; collectively, they have represented a significant institutional failure — even a generational failure, you might say, which left conservatives scrambling to promote the next generation (Christie, Paul Ryan) ahead of schedule.

When a list of credible alternatives to Romney plausibly includes John Thune, that is a hint that something went awry a long time ago. Thune’s failure, if that’s what we want to call it, was not his unwillingness to enter the 2012 race. The trouble began when some Republicans started seriously floating Thune’s name as a plausible presidential candidate, and then Thune “declined” the invitation to waste his time running a quixotic presidential campaign. After all, what would have made him a credible alternative to Romney? This was the man who voted for the TARP and then claimed that he had been duped. He was hardly an inspiring standard-bearer for anti-Romney conservatives.

The complaint about institutional failure is mostly a complaint that Mitch Daniels didn’t run. In fact, as Jonathan Bernstein would say, he started running in the invisible primary, and he was told rather clearly by interested factions that he needn’t bother continuing. Since May, we have been treated to at least two efforts to draft candidates to take Daniels’ place in the field. If we want to identify when the institutional failure occurred, it was when Daniels entertained the idea of running and was discouraged from doing so. Family matters have been the final straw for him, but Daniels was already facing significant resistance before he announced, and that was likely to grow stronger over time.

More to the point, why are establishment figures going to go to great lengths to provide a credible alternative to Romney when they already have Romney? Romney embodies the Bush-era party consensus, and he has eagerly adapted himself to the party’s current mood (as he always does). The real institutional failure is that many party and movement leaders created Mitt Romney as a plausible presidential candidate four years ago, and now they find that they have to pay the price for that. Unfortunately, the rest of us have to pay the the price, too.

The new Post/ABC survey shows Rick Perry losing a lot of support over the last month. I found it more interesting that Christie didn’t have much support in this poll. Because he is not a candidate, it’s possible that this result understates his support, but I don’t think so. Despite weeks of excessive coverage and media hype, there aren’t very many Republicans interested in a Christie candidacy.

This is a useful corrective to the idea that Christie had a built-in constituency of eager would-be supporters awaiting his entry into the race. According to this poll, 11% of Republicans and leaners preferred Christie to the others, which put him in a tie for fourth place with Ron Paul. It isn’t terribly surprising that a candidate being pushed so eagerly by establishment types has relatively little support among actual voters. For all the talk of how disappointed Republicans are with their candidates, there weren’t very many of them jumping at the chance to back Christie, which makes his decision to stay out look that much better.

Update: I should qualify this to say that there wasn’t much popular support for Christie. Weigel notes that there would have been some significant backing from wealthy donors. It’s certainly true that the Christie boomlet “was not just some expression of GOP populist rage.” It wasn’t an expression of populist rage at all.

Michael Gerson has a strange understanding of mass democratic elections:

Yet Romney’s faith should not matter. Presidents are elected for their policy views, leadership skills and character, not their soteriology. Such theological convictions about salvation may be infinitely important, but they are politically irrelevant. The whole “no religious test for office” idea remains a good one.

Clearly, these convictions aren’t politically irrelevant, or we wouldn’t be discussing them. In fact, specific policy views are often among the least important things voters use for deciding how to vote. Perhaps all voters ought to judge candidates by their “policy views, leadership skills and character,” but many people vote based on whether or not they can identify with the candidate and his “values.” Religious conservatives would be the first to agree that “values” and faith are supposed to be closely connected.

There is something odd about a religious conservative insisting that a candidate’s religion should never be a reason not to vote for him. Certain theological convictions that touch more directly on public policy are not only used for judging candidates, but they are also demanded as essential tests that candidates must pass to receive the support of religious conservatives. Activists may use secular arguments when they discuss issues of life and traditional marriage, but the reason why most of them believe as they do is rooted in theological assumptions and teachings. For that matter, religious activists opposed to the death penalty are ultimately driven by their religious obligations to other people and their belief in the sanctity of life. Religious conservatives cannot insist on opposing a “naked” public square and then argue that theological convictions are politically irrelevant. The idea that we must pay attention to “values” but never pay attention to theological convictions is completely incoherent.

Most conservatives take it for granted that religious Americans can and should judge candidates based on their “values,” including how their faith informs those “values.” Why is the scrutiny supposed to stop when it comes to the content of the faith in question? Because it’s impolite? Because it might be awkward for a particular candidate? If a candidate invokes his faith on the campaign trail, and if he attempts to make use of his reputation as a religious person to improve his electoral chances, why is it unreasonable or unfair to choose not to support a candidate because of that faith?

Gerson continues:

On much of the right, politics will eventually trump theology.

That may be so, but it’s not clear to me why that is something to be celebrated.

Steve Kornacki warns against underestimating Christie’s chances, but points out the main risk Christie is taking if he runs:

The obvious temptation is to say that Christie would be making a gigantic and potentially career-killing mistake in doing so. After all, he’s not even halfway through his term; if he runs off to seek the White House now, it will arouse cries of home state abandonment — and if he comes back from a losing national campaign with his tail between his legs, it would be difficult, maybe even impossible, for him to win a second term as governor in 2013. In other words, a presidential campaign is probably an all-or-nothing gamble for Christie.

It is tempting to say this, and I have said something very much like it before. Once a governor has secured re-election, he has the opportunity to start thinking about pursuing higher office, and he doesn’t risk as much by launching a presidential bid. One reason there are so few first-term governors nominated by major parties in the last century is that they rarely make the attempt and the parties hardly ever reward them when they do. It would be highly unusual for Christie to seek his party’s nomination, and it would be even more unusual for the GOP to nominate him. If he tried and did not win the nomination, it could sabotage his tenure in New Jersey and derail his future political career.

Something that keeps bothering me about the recent presidential boomlets is the claim that the politicians being drafted owe it to the country to seek the Presidency, and that if they refuse the call they are somehow being too selfish and insufficiently devoted to the public good. As I have said before, candidates for this office are highly ambitious people who are seeking enormous power and prestige, and there is nothing that is particularly selfless about the pursuit of such an office. Christie gave an answer at the Reagan Library the other day that suggests he believes the opposite:

I mean, the fact of the matter is that anybody who has an ego large enough to say, Oh, please. Please, please stop asking me to be the leader of the free world! If you can please just stop! I mean, what kind of crazy egomaniac would you have to be to say please stop?

There is nothing egomaniacal about refusing demands to launch a presidential campaign. It wasn’t egomaniacal for Christie to say earlier in the year that he wasn’t ready to be President. That was modesty. Egomaniacs are the ones who believe they are not only qualified for this office, but that they are also far and away better qualified for it than any of the other available candidates. The people calling on Christie to run have been stroking and massaging his ego in the hopes that he is just egomaniacal enough to give it a try.

Update: Christie will reportedly not make any decisions this weekend, but will keep dragging things out into next week.

This Politicostory on the obstacles facing a possible Christie campaign contained this unintentionally hilarious line:

The governor has aides with presidential experience — both his communications director Maria Comella and top political adviser Mike DuHaime were on Rudy Giuliani’s campaign [bold mine-DL] — and there are consultants in the wings who are available to step in and handle media, polling and mail.

With any luck, Christie could go on to enjoy as much success in the primaries as Giuliani did. The reply to that is that Christie’s advisers have the advantage of having gone through one absurd disaster of a campaign to know how to avoid making the same mistakes, but it certainly doesn’t bode well. Someone might also object that Giuliani’s ambitions for higher office were ridiculous, and he was clearly unqualified to run for national office, but that just underscores the similarities between the two. Except for the last 20 months, Christie has been a prosecutor and a mostly unsuccessful local politician with brief stints as a corporate lobbyist and a fundraiser for George W. Bush. Were it not for enormous amounts of flattering coverage, Christie would not be regarded as a national figure or plausible presidential candidate, and very much like the Giuliani buzz the enthusiasm for a Christie bid is one shared mainly by party elites and it something almost completely driven by the media.

There are new reports that Christie really is reconsidering his decision to stay out of the 2012 race. Some new polls this week have been asking whether Christie should run, and the results are a good indicator of how little popular interest there is in his entry into the race. Rasmussen asked the question, and found that just 20% say yes. 37% say no, and that includes 25% of Republicans and 34% of independents. Even more Republicans are unsure (43%) whether he should run, which hardly sounds like encouragement from the voters. Conservatives are split over a Christie run (29% no, 27% yes), and many more moderates (34%) are opposed than in favor (17%). Roughly one-third of Republicans nationwide favor a Christie run, which is something, but that doesn’t mean that Christie would have that much support in the primaries. According to the new SurveyUSA Florida poll, Republican voters in that state are much more emphatic in their opposition to a Christie run: 51% say that he shouldn’t enter the race, and just 25% want him to jump in.

Whatever Christie finally decides over the weekend, the effort to drag him into the race is another instance of a more significant problem that the GOP has in promoting its rising political leaders too quickly. For whatever reason, party leaders seem unwilling to wait and let their new talents gain experience and build up significant records before pushing them into the national spotlight when they are usually not ready. Christie has far less governing experience than four of the declared candidates and arguably less managerial experience than five of them, and he has had little to say about foreign policy despite the fact that half of his recent speech was on that subject. Once we get past the superficial tough-guy theatrics, why exactly is anyone clamoring for Christie?

Rich Lowry noted that Christie would “have a steep learning curve on foreign policy, where his Reagan address was weak.” Consider Christie’s confidence in the wonder-working powers of democracy:

For example, a Middle East that is largely democratic and at peace will be a Middle East that accepts Israel, rejects terrorism, and is a dependable source of energy.

If I didn’t know when Christie said this, I would have assumed that it was some of the silly, ideologically-inspired rhetoric that we heard so often eight and nine years ago. To the extent that governments in the region become more accountable to their people, all indications over the last decade are that those governments will be much more critical of Israel than the governments that preceded them. A democratic government might or might not reject terrorism. It depends on the terrorism in question. Once a democratic government is established in a certain country, there would presumably be an alternative to political violence at home, but that doesn’t mean that the government would not be willing to support terrorists in other countries. If there were some advantage in lending support to insurgents in a neighboring country, there is nothing inherent about democratically-elected governments that makes them hostile to terrorism. Democratization is no guarantee of securing a reliable energy supply. Indeed, more democratic governments might drive harder bargains with oil companies to satisfy newly empowered constituencies and to appeal to local nationalist sentiments. Christie spoke about all of this as if there are no trade-offs and no choices to be made between competing priorities. We really have to stop pretending that democratization reinforces all other current U.S. policy goals. The real weakness of Christie’s foreign policy remarks is that he has clearly not thought these things through, and he is doing little more than reciting lines that he thinks will be acceptable to a Republican audience.

Jim Antle says that Massachusetts health care is still a problem for Romney:

Nevertheless, it seems to have hardened into conventional wisdom that health care is a non-problem for Romney. This is based on little more than Rick Perry’s dip and Romney’s recovery in the polls. Health care may not keep Romney from winning the nomination. Immigration, opposition to the Bush tax cuts, and numerous other sins didn’t sink John McCain in 2008. But the main reason Romney’s early frontrunner status has been jeopardized by a revolving door of conservative challengers, some of whom were virtually unknown on a national level before running against Romney, ought to be a sign that Mitt has problems.

I’m not sure that anyone has argued that it is a “non-problem.” Many conservatives and others took it for granted early in the year that Romney’s health care record was obviously fatal to his candidacy, and that was clearly not correct. Some people may be making an over-correction in arguing that it isn’t going to hurt him at all, but I haven’t seen it. I maintain that it is a liability, but it is not significant enough to deprive him of the nomination. The key reason for this is that he supports repealing federal health care legislation. Back in May, I likened Romney’s support for repeal to Obama’s opposition to the Iraq war. What I meant by that was that all that will matter to most primary voters focused on this issue is that he is against the administration policy they reject, and they will not be terribly bothered by the inconsistency or compromised nature of Romney’s opposition. Obama wasn’t reliably opposed to military interventions, but he opposed the one in Iraq, and that was good enough. Romney isn’t reliably opposed to technocratic domestic policies, but he is opposed to this one, and I suspect that will be good enough for enough Republican voters that he can win them over with his economic revival theme. I also doubt that very many voters otherwise willing to support Romney are going to throw up their hands in disgust at the mention of a state-level individual mandate.

Walter Shapiro argues that there is still a chance for new Republican presidential contenders to enter, but he acknowledges that there isn’t that much time left:

Make no mistake, some deadlines matter in presidential politics like the precise dates for getting on primary ballots. Although the entire GOP primary calendar is in flux, the best guess is that the deadline for filing for the Florida primary will be Halloween, with other early states like New Hampshire following soon after. While Henry Cabot Lodge did win the 1964 New Hampshire GOP primary on a write-in vote, resorting to that pencil-based strategy would be a daunting price for, say, Christie to pay for his indecisiveness.

The filing deadlines are one of the most important barriers to someone entering the race this late. Besides Florida and New Hampshire, South Carolina and Michigan’s deadlines are on November 1 and 15 respectively, and New Hampshire’s filing deadline may be moved earlier to accommodate an earlier primary date. There might still be enough time to meet those deadlines, but that assumes that new campaigns know what they’re doing. Even Perry’s campaign had a lot of catching up to do when he entered the race in August, and learning all the requirements is a time-consuming process:

Though the campaign of Texas Gov. Rick Perry is making gains in the polls in just its second week of operation, it is scrambling to catch up with its longer-running rivals on matters of ballot access. “There are 56 different states and territories, and all 56 have completely different rules,” said Ryan Price, who handled delegates and ballot access for John McCain’s 2008 primary campaign. “Even when you take away the deadline aspect, just to do all that research could take weeks, if not months.”

Even assuming that a new campaign could meet all of the requirements for ballot access in the early primary states, the primaries are becoming almost as front-loaded as they were four years ago. Thanks to Florida’s early date, the caucuses are probably a little over two months away, and New Hampshire will be in mid-January. Time is against any new candidates. It is likely that anyone jumping in at this stage will miss filing deadlines or will have so little time to campaign and raise funds that he will never be seriously competitive.

Update: The Wall Street Journalreports that there may be even less time before Iowa and New Hampshire:

In the wake of the announcement, New Hampshire Secretary of State William Gardner said his state could hold its first-in-the-nation primary before the end of the year in order to uphold tradition [bold mine-DL].

That would put the first nominating contest—the Iowa caucuses—in mid- to late-December because the state schedules the caucuses eight days ahead of the New Hampshire primary. Iowa GOP Chairman Matt Strawn issued a statement Friday to say they will name the date once New Hampshire schedules its primary.

Second Update: The N.H. Secretary of State has moved the filing deadline to October 28.