May 16, 2009

Huntsman to China

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Making Utah Gov. Huntsman the envoy to China is either a brilliant move by a master tactician, or a long-term blunder that elevates a political opponent. In his report in the Times, Jeff Zeleny calls it “a political coup”:

if he is confirmed by the Senate for the ambassadorship to China, he is part of the Obama team at a time when China is of critical importance. And he is out of the mix in the 2012 presidential race.

UPDATE: After thinking about this more, I’m wondering if this isn’t actually also a deceptively clever move on Huntsman’s part. If you have presidential aspirations, and are reasonably young (Huntsman is 49), which of these sounds more appealing:

  • run in 2012 against the most popular president since Reagan (perhaps/we’ll see), on the ticket of a still unpopular party, OR,
  • run in 2016, having been part of that popular president’s administration (in a role that moderate Republicans won’t hold against him), perhaps taking advantage of the electorate’s liberal-fatigue?

The first of those options sounds like there’s at least a chance of a Mondale-like electoral thrashing. But the second sounds like perhaps the GOP’s best chance of getting back in the White House before 2020. Suddenly, the Republican on the ticket could be the bipartisan moderate, with experience dealing with the country expected to challenge American economic dominance in the first half of this century, with longstanding positions on climate change (he believes it’s real) and gay marriage (he’s pro-civil union) that will at least be palatable to the current crop of young Obama voters.

If I were Huntsman, and Obama gave me the opportunity to head out of the country while Republicans ate their young for a while, and with no end in sight to the Dick Cheney “Campaign Like It’s 1999″ Tour, I’d take it.

 

May 14, 2009

Another Senatorial Embarrassment

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Apparently, last week Arkansas State Senator* Kim Hendren (R) referred to New York Senator Chuck Schumer (D) as “that Jew” during a meeting of the Pulaski County GOP. The meeting did not go well for Hendren overall. Among the lowlights was this, quoted from conservative blogger Jason Tolbert:

Hendren told me, “At the meeting I was attempting to explain that unlike Sen. Schumer, I believe in traditional values, like we used to see on ‘The Andy Griffith Show.’ I made the mistake of referring to Sen. Schumer as ‘that Jew’ and I should not have put it that way as this took away from what I was trying to say.”

No, Senator. No, no, no, no, no. You should not have put it that way because you accidentally revealed your casual anti-Semitism. And while this did in fact take away from what you were trying to say, that was collateral damage.

Or at least it should have been. While the Arkansas Times blogger did have some tepid criticism of Sen. Hendren, I can find very little else about it. Accounts of the evening’s meeting had no mention of it. In fact, had he not given that sorta-kinda-explanation, it may not have come out at all.

What other group in America could be referred to this way without the speaker being publicly excoriated? If a U.S. Senator were referred to as “that Muslim,” “that black woman” or whatever ethno-religious “othering” you want to fill in that blank, it would’ve led cable news. There’s no excuse, no apology that would cover this, and yet no outrage.

UPDATE: I should’ve credited Politico’s Ben Smith, whose blog post alerted me to this in the first place. Since then, Salon.com, DailyKos, and HuffPo have all commented on this. The only question now is whether Keith Olbermann or Rachel Maddow get to it first.

* Correction: I originally wrote that Hendren was an Arkansas Senator, as in, U.S. Senator. He is, in fact, a state senator. My error did not take away from what I was trying to say, but I apologize nonetheless.

 

May 5, 2009

On My Evaporating Respect for Elizabeth Edwards

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I assume she is back out there trying to resuscitate John’s career (and to sell books, of course). As somebody who once supported John Edwards’ campaign (in 2004), and was genuinely taken in, believing him to be someone who was not just an egomaniac who wanted power, the latest reemergence of this story makes me almost too sick to write. Here’s Elizabeth Edwards describing her husband’s affair, the co-subject of her new book:

It didn’t occur to me that at a fancy hotel in New York, where he sat with a potential donor to his antipoverty work, he would be targeted by a woman who would confirm that the man at the table was John Edwards and then would wait for him outside the hotel hours later when he returned from a dinner, wait with the come-on line “You are so hot” and an idea that she should travel with him and make videos. And if you had asked me to wager that house we were building on whether my husband of then 28 years would have responded to a come-on line like that, I would have said no.

Poor John.

(more…)

 

April 28, 2009

Specter Leaves the GOP

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Arlen Spectre (D-Pennsylvania)

The Spectre (D-Pennsylvania)

So Arlen Specter has bailed on the Republican party. I expect he used his cosmic future-gazing powers to foresee that the GOP will soon be a regional party centered in the South and rural Mid- and Mountain West. Not the way I expected the Democrats to hit 60 votes, but so be it.*

John Dickerson seems awfully convinced this is great news for Obama, but I’m probably not the only one who’s unsure about that. Dem #60 won’t be a reliable vote on things like card check (not that I have a problem with that), so while it doesn’t really get them out of any filibusters they couldn’t already get the votes on. Worse, it lets the Republicans go around a year from now when it’s another election year (…sigh…) and say, “the Democrats have a supermajority in the Senate, we need more checks and balances” when little has changed except symbolism.

Still, 60 Democrats is 60 Democrats. And you have to feel for a guy like Specter, who had to feel less and less at home in the party of torture, tax cuts for the wealthy, and hopes for Obama’s failure. I remember driving home from school a couple of years ago with my buddy Hoob, hearing Specter on NPR saying something that sounded reasonable, and us saying, Arlen Specter is now one of the good guys? Arlen Specter? And now it’s official. As Obama said to him on the phone today, “We’re thrilled to have you.”

And what’s left of the decimated moderate GOP (I’m sorry, is Lindsey Fucking Graham now the moderate GOP?) is speaking up, trying to wrest control of their party. I wish them luck. We need two sane parties in this country.

* Assuming that Al Franken continues to win his court battles against Norm Coleman. At this pace, however, Coleman may just try to string it out in the judicial system until the seat is up again in five years.

** Hat tip to Nick at Hide the Elephant for the HTML lesson.

 

March 25, 2009

The GOP’s Hope, cont.

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In response to my favorable opinion of Meghan McCain, a dissenting reader writes:

Following your thinking to its conclusion, there would be no difference between Republican and Democrat, so why would that trouble you? Many of us rightwing nutjobs think we’re already there and are working overtime to fix it. The Republicans got their butts handed to them because they acted too much like the Dems, not because they don’t act enough like them. Those that voted against the Rs are now seeing what they really voted for. We’ll see together in 2010 how that works out.

1. I don’t see that as the logical conclusion at all, as there are still many principled disagreements to have about those other issues. Now, if you think social issues are more important than how the economy, energy, military, etc., then I could see a case for claiming Democrats and Republicans were the same.

2. Who said I was troubled by it?

3. While I agree that Republicans broke type on spending during W’s two terms, they pretty much stuck to the script on tax-cutting, on the gutting of regulation, and on environmental and cultural issues. But I do understand why “they voted us out because we weren’t being conservative enough” is a story that helps the right feel like they’re fixing the problem without actually having to question whether some of their beliefs seem a bit fringe-y to a lot of people who might otherwise be persuadable.

4. I feel pretty confident that digging in on traditionally “conservative” positions on cultural issues is the path to a permanent minority, but Democrats will be perfectly happy to have Republicans try it.

 

March 25, 2009

GOP’s Hope for the Future: McCain

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No, not that one.

Now, assuming that you set aside the fact that she sounds like she’s in the first half of her twenties, this is a message that can at least remove some of the stigma of being a conservative right now, which will be necessary before the Right can get the socially-moderate Center to listen to them again. If a person can call herself a “progressive Republican” with a straight face and say, essentially, “don’t worry about that older generation,” it can gradually change the face of what it means to be a Republican at all. At the very least, it could take social issues off the table, not because left and right suddenly agree, but because people who don’t want Roe v. Wade overturned or who want their gay friends to have the right to marry can say to themselves, “Well, the party IS becoming more moderate,” and turn their attention to the economy, the military, etc.

This is both a good thing for liberal social causes and a bad thing for Democrats. If Republicans become more palatable to the center on social issues, the Dems lose their biggest stick to whack them with. They’ll have to have better policies than, “Oh, did AIG get bonuses we don’t like? That’s okay, we’ll just tax 90% of them! Happy now?” Uh… no.

Of course, the K-Lo’s and Kristols and Limbaughs and Hannitys of this world will want to strangle young McCain before she makes it out of her political cradle anyway, so let’s see how this plays out within the party first…

 

February 24, 2009

Obama: SOTU Lite

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So while it’s not technically the State of the Union, this will be Obama’s first address to a joint session of Congress. If you’ve never watched one before, there’s nothing like watching a speech where one side of the room, split right down the middle of the room, gives a standing ovation, and the other sits there and stares sullenly. This will happen many times tonight. If you’re trapped, say, in a computer lab tonight, I recommend the C-SPAN live streaming broadcast. Otherwise you’ll have to make do with TV or radio.

By the way, why isn’t Obama giving a SOTU address? Doesn’t the President have to do this every year? I’m going to have to corner a social studies teacher tomorrow…

In the meantime, let’s watch Obama pwn John McCain yesterday. Ladies and gentlemen, your intentionally funny president:

 

January 20, 2009

President Obama

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If he lives up to very much of his potential, this will be a Hoover-to-Roosevelt size shift. It may seem distasteful to bash #43 today, and indeed I was disappointed to hear that the crowd today greeted Bush with “Na-na-na-na/hey heyyy/good-bye” as though he were nothing more than a visiting basketball player fouling out on the crowd’s home court. Disappointed not because it was disrespectful; disappointed because Bush’s failure is much deeper than such a taunt suggests, and because the results of this failure demand solemnity at this moment, not adolescent scorn. Reflecting on this is critical, because today is the not only the beginning of something; it is necessarily the end of something as well.

The beginning of what, we do not know. It’s impossible to predict what we will say about Obama in four years, or eight. He, his poll numbers, and ultimately his legacy, will be shaped by events which haven’t yet transpired. But today, by all appearances and evidence, we have a president who is smart, eloquent, curious, and willing to listen. A president who believes global warming has to be dealt with aggressively, and that abstinence-only policies are not the way to fight AIDS in Africa. A president who believes in supporting the LGBT community. A president who believes the world is complex, not simple. That is a welcome change, and it makes me believe there’s a chance that some of our problems can be solved.

To quote Steelers coach Mike Tomlin, “Barack is selling hope. And I’m buying.”

I’m not drinking any Kool-Aid, and I expect I’ll be among millions disappointed with one thing or another.

But man, am I glad–and still in some disbelief–to call this guy President of the United States:

 

November 23, 2008

On Secretary of State Clinton

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No posting lately, as it’s been finals at school and the kids and I have been sick (Jen has escaped… for now). But the one story that’s been out there that I’d have liked to blog about as it was happening was the news of Clinton for SoS.

If it comes to pass as the New York Times reports, I think this is, on balance, a pretty good move on Obama’s part. While I’m not necessarily convinced by the old (and funny) Lyndon Johnson line about J. Edgar Hoover (who says a person couldn’t piss inside the tent from inside the tent?), I do think this would snuff out any Machiavellian temptation to attempt a Clinton challenge to the sitting president in four years, which isn’t impossible if she isn’t a significant part of the administration. Instead, it gives Hillary a stake in the success of Obama’s presidency; indeed, if she’s a memorably successful Secretary of State, it keeps her chances alive for succeeding Obama in 2016, should he win a second term.

As for concerns about Bill Clinton’s connections abroad, I really don’t think the Clintons will want any drama on that end, for their own good. And if something damaging does come out, it’ll hurt Hillary far more than Obama. Regardless, this is good political chess, and checkmating the Clintons remains as important as anything.

Among other things, the move makes this pre-Iowa-caucus debate comeback seem prescient:

 

November 9, 2008

A Glance to 2012, cont.

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On that prediction about Gingrich’s chances in ’12… Here’s erstwhile McCain campaign manager chief strategist Steve Schmidt, talking to Ana Marie Cox about the future of the Republican party:

Newt Gingrich is someone that the party in my view must pay very close attention to because he is an idea champion for the future and has many great ideas about how to define 21st-century conservatism and how to define the Republican Party and to establish an intellectual base on which a political movement can be rebuilt.

He also has nice things to say about Romney and Palin. When talking about the “new generation” of Republican leadership, Jindal and Huckabee get nary a mention.

UPDATE: More Gingrich talk.

 

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