In direct contravention of my wife's explicit instructions, herewith I inaugurate my first blog. Long may it prosper.

For some reason, I think I have something to say to you. You think you have something to say to me? Email me at: gideonsblogger -at- yahoo -dot- com

 
What will the "I hate Kerry" Dems do?

That's the question of the hour. I'm thinking of two in particular: Martin Peretz and Mickey Kaus.

Peretz' preference is the only logical explanation for The New Republic throwing away their endorsement on the no-chance Joe Lieberman. The magazine staff was so upset by the endorsement that they gave space in the magazine to four counter-endorsements by writers: one for Dean, one for Clark, one for Edwards. One for each of the conceivably viable candidates for President. Except John Kerry.

So TNR - and Marty Peretz - must hate John Kerry. They certainly seem to, because since he came back from the dead TNR has been publishing a continuous loop of Kerry-bashing material. (See, for example, the cover of their latest issue - article here, but you've got to be a subscriber to read; see also here for a Noam Schreiber blog entry that you can read for free. And the Dean-o-phobe has conspicuously failed to rally to Kerry's side or call on good patriotic Democrats to unite behind the new front-runner and against Dean.)

So what are they going to do if Kerry gets the nod? What are they going to do between now and when Kerry gets the nod? How willing are they going to be to put their preference for a Democrat above their obvious concerns about the quality of the nominee?

And then there's Mickey Kaus, who announced his preference for President in the following order: Edwards / Dean / Gephardt / Lieberman / a Bush-Clark tossup / the complete telephone books of all major American cities / Kerry. Last time around, Kaus amused legions of readers by hesitating until Election Day to declare for Bush or Gore (he voted Gore, in the end, as everyone knew he would). What's he gonna do now? At what point is he going to stand behind his stated preference list and declare for Bush - in spite of the host of policy disagreements they have, and in spite of the serious character issues that Kaus has about Bush.

And then, there's Howard Dean. He's quickly positioning himself as the Jesse Jackson (circa 1988) of this race: the self-proclaimed custodian of the party's soul who will not quit because he doesn't have to, who will fight all the way to the convention. Dean, who clearly despises Kerry, has no incentive - none - to make things easy for the presumptive nominee. And he will have opportunities to win - in Arizona and New Mexico, on Feb 3rd; in Michigan, Washinton and Wisconsin thereafter; and in California on Super Tuesday. And even if he doesn't actually win these contests, he can make life painful for Kerry. Think he will? The Democratic Party, on the other hand, has a really strong incentive to get everyone to kiss and make up at the convention. So: what does it take to placate the Deanster?

Edwards should still be considered the favorite to win South Carolina . . . but so what? He's not even going to compete seriously anywhere else, which means someone else wins Missouri, Arizona, New Mexico. Why should South Carolina be the be-all and end-all? Unless Kerry collapses, how does Edwards compete in New York, California, Ohio, etc.? The optimistic spin on the Edwards campaign is that he's the Al Gore circa 1988 of this race: he'll pull out some wins on his home turf, and then he'll run aground in the big Northern contests where he won't have the resources to compete. The pessimistic spin is that Iowa was a fluke and he vanishes without a trace after Feb 3rd. If Edwards had come in close to Dean in New Hampshire, he'd be in a very strong position to be the anti-Kerry, repository of the hopes of DLC types, and Clark would be out of the race. But he didn't, and he isn't.
posted by Noah at 11:21 AM

 
15%. That's the number that matters.

Why? Because that's the threshold you have to clear to get a share of delegates in the proportional-allocation system the Democrats now use for their Presidential primaries.

You get less than 15%, you get diddly. You get 15%, you get a share proportional to your share of the total vote allocated to those who get more than 15%.

Thus: in Iowa the totals were 38% Kerry, 32% Edwards, 18% Dean and everyone else below 15%. So the delegate allocation was: 17 for Kerry, 15 for Edwards, 7 for Dean.

Right now, in New Hampshire, 2 candidates are polling clearly above the 15% threshold (Kerry and Dean) while 2 others are hovering around that level (Edwards, Clark). In South Carolina, the latest ARG poll show 3 candidates all fairly near the 15% level (Edwards, Kerry, Clark). In Arizona, two recent polls show as many as 4 candidates reasonably near that level (Edwards, Kerry, Dean, Clark). Oklahoma's latest has Clark clearly above with Edwards and Kerry just above the 15% level.

Why am I harping on this? Because the delegate totals could change dramatically if, say, three candidates clear 15% rather than two, or four rather than three.

Let's look at the following possibilities for New Hampshire:

Scenario 1:
Kerry: 35%
Dean: 25%
Edwards: 14%
Clark: 12%

Scenario 2:
Kerry: 38%
Dean: 16%
Edwards: 17%
Clark: 15%

In Scenario 1, only Kerry and Dean get delegates, and the ratio is roughly 60:40 because that's the ratio of their share of the total of all candidates who got above 15%. But in Scenario 2, four candidates get delegates. And the really interesting thing is that Kerry, even though he does better, gets *fewer* delegates because he's now got only 44% of the total of all candidates who got above 15%.

Kerry could win New Hampshire decisively, and still win less than a majority of delegates. And in the Feb 3rd contests, there's not a state in play where you couldn't have three candidates at least in the winner's circle. Edwards could win South Carolina, Clark Oklahoma, and Kerry Arizona - and none of them could come away with a majority of delegates from *any* state. And if that happened, why would any of them drop out? Why presume, even if Kerry remains the front-runner and Dean fails to reignite, that Kerry's going to coast to the convention with a majority in hand? It's not that easy.

Democrats have not settled on a candidate yet. They have real reservations about all four of these guys. And the way they assign delegates gives a strong incentive to each of them to continue to feed that ambivalence, and continue to accumulate delegates, all the way through March 2nd - and, if March 2nd doesn't decide things, beyond.
posted by Noah at 9:57 AM

 
You know, it just occurred to me: The New Republic, the smartest Democrat-oriented opinion magazine out there put out their endorsement issue shortly before Iowa. The magazine endorsed Lieberman, largely on the strength of his rock-solid support of the Iraq war and the more general war on terror. But so many writers on the staff were upset by the decision (because Lieberman is too right-leaning - and specifically corporation-friendly - on domestic issues) that they published four other endorsements by individuals from the masthead: one endorsing Dean, one endorsing Edwards, one endorsing Clark, and one endorsing Gephardt.

In other words: the staff of TNR could find reasons to support every single remotely viable Democratic candidate . . . except John Kerry, the current front-runner.

Does that mean anything? I dunno. It's an index of how amazing the transformation of the race has been, though, that two and a half weeks ago, a bunch of smart guys like Peter Beinart & Co. thought that making a case for Lieberman was worthwhile, but giving consideration to John Kerry was a waste of time.
posted by Noah at 10:01 AM

 
A collection of shirts are produced and GEORGE looks at them. While he
is doing this SIMON briefs him.

SIMON
Now, you'll like these. You really "dig" them.
They're "fab" and all the other pimply
hyperboles.

GEORGE
I wouldn't be seen dead in them. They're dead
grotty.

SIMON
Grotty?

GEORGE
Yeah, grotesque.

SIMON
(to secretary)
Make a note of that word and give it to Susan.
I think it's rather touching really. Here's
this kid trying to give me his utterly
valueless opinion when I know for a fact within
four weeks he'll be suffering from a violent
inferiority complex and loss of status if he
isn't wearing one of these nasty things. Of
course they're grotty, you wretched nit, that's
why they were designed, but that's what you'll
want.

GEORGE
But I won't.

SIMON
You can be replaced you know, chicky baby.

GEORGE
I don't care.

SIMON
And that pose is out too, Sunny Jim. The new
thing is to care passionately, and be right
wing. Anyway, you won't meet Susan if you don't
cooperate.

GEORGE
And who's this Susan when she's at home?

SIMON
(playing his ace)
Only Susan Campey, our resident teenager.
You'll have to love her. She's your symbol.

GEORGE
Oh, you mean that posh bird who gets
everything wrong?

SIMON
I beg your pardon?

GEORGE
Oh, yes, the lads frequently gather round the
T.V. set to watch her for a giggle. Once we
even all sat down and wrote these letters
saying how gear she was and all that rubbish.

SIMON
She's a trend setter. It's her profession!

GEORGE
She's a drag. A well-known drag. We turn the
sound down on her and say rude things.

SIMON
Get him out of here!!

GEORGE
(genuinely surprised)
Have I said something amiss?

SIMON
Get him out of here. He's knocking the
programme's image!!

The underlings hustle GEORGE to the door.

GEORGE
(smiling)
Sorry about the shirts.

He is ejected through the door.

SIMON
Get him out.
(he stops in mid-shout)
You don't think he's a new phenomenon, do you?

SECRETARY
You mean an early clue to the new direction?

SIMON
(rummaging in his desk)
Where's the calendar?
(he finds it)
No, he's just a trouble maker. The change isn't
due for three weeks. All the same, make a note
not to extend Susan's contract. Let's not take
any unnecessary chances!

posted by Noah at 5:26 PM

 
This is starting to get interesting: Iranian election officials resign in protest.

A big - big - part of the neo-con justification for the Iraq war was that it would lead to a snowball effect where democracy started breaking out all over the region. There's no evidence of that yet. If something big happened in Iran, that would be the first evidence that the neo-cons had a point after all.

Now, I've never been a big buyer of democracy in Iraq, specifically, for the simple reason that Iraq isn't a nation. The leading ethnic group - the Arab Sunnis, from which the professional and technocratic elite is disproportionately drawn - is loathed by the numerically dominant Shiite Arabs and by the Kurds of the north (who want their own state). We're facing so much Sunni Arab resistance in large part because of the perception that we're going to hand the country over to the Shiites. If we *don't* hand the country over to the Shiites, we'd likely face *Shiite* resistance. Our legitimacy problem in Iraq does not stem primarily from the fact that we conquered the country; it stems from the fact that there is no widely-accepted legitimate authority in Iraq that America can support - certainly not Ahmad Chalabi, but not Hassan, formerly Crown Prince of Jordan, either, nor Ali Sistani, the (quite reasonable-seeming, actually) Shiite leader who, if he got his way and elections were held immediately for a unitary national state, would probably provoke a civil war even if that is not his intention (and I don't think it is). That's why, by the way, bringing in the U.N. would solve nothing; contrary to popular Democrat belief, the U.N. has *no* track record in solving these kinds of problems. All they can do is provide a filligree of legitimacy to simply keeping the lid on things . . . provided that no one seriously wants to cause trouble. And I think there are just a few folks who want to cause trouble.

So I remain a skeptic on Iraqi democracy. But I'm a huge believer in democracy in Iran. Iran is absolutely a nation, one with a national consciousness that goes back to the ancient world. (The only Arab state that can claim the same is Egypt.) The country has lived for 25 years under a repressive theocracy and they are sick of it. They have a well-educated population, a relatively high standard of living, a relatively low birth rate (which is interesting in itself), less dependence on oil than many Middle Eastern economies, and the population is basically pro-American. Iraq hasn't been stable for more than brief periods any time in the past 5000 years. Iran is a totally different story.

To date, the main dividends from the Iraqi campaign have been on the "realist" side of the ledger: Libya giving up its nuclear program, some peacemaking noises from Syria, an apparent increase in interest on the part of China in resolving the North Korean nuclear crisis. These are the dividends of a show of force; they have nothing to do with the spread of democracy. Moreover, the biggest geopolitical risk to the Afghan and Iraqi campaigns is that they knocked out regimes that were basically hostile to Iran and gave Iran an opening to dominate each country in the future, through ethnic or religious connections. This has been the biggest danger from the Iraq war, and the biggest danger from our current difficulties with Sistani (who, to date - unlike our supposed friend Ahmad Chalabi - has been pretty good about keeping his distance from Tehran, though who knows for how long).

A relatively peaceful change in the Iranian regime would be the first actual victory for the neo-con perspective on the war. It would radically lower the geopolitical costs of our Afghan and Iraqi occupations (since we could count on a more friendly Iran, and worry less about Iranian meddling). It would "flip" one of the most dangerous terror-sponsoring states in the region into at least a neutral. And it could plausibly be attributed - in part - to the Iraq war. Why? Because a regime change in Iran can only happen if the mullahs are unwilling to use force to remain in power. They saw what happened in China in 1989 when the regime was willing to use force on its own people; things were a little wobbly for a short time, and then the regime emerged intact and is now stronger than ever. You can make the argument that American troops on Iran's borders constitute a real deterrent to their pursuing a Tiananmen strategy.

That's the argument, anyhow. We'll see how it plays out.
posted by Noah at 1:13 PM

 
For those who are interested, I have an Opinion piece in the latest issue of First Things, called "True Fictions of Fatherhood." It's adapted from something I originally wrote in this space. It should be hitting the newsstands now, but it won't be on-line for another month. So go to a newstand and check it out!
posted by Noah at 12:00 PM

 
In case anyone is wondering: no, I haven't written off Dean. I'm not that optimistic. But his job just got much, much harder. His hard-core support thinks he's the messiah. His soft support - what took him from 15% to over 30% in national polls not that long ago - were buying an internet moon-shot. They thought they were on a winner. If he's not going to win, the Democrats need to kill him off as quickly as possible - because he has the resources to keep fighting all the way to the convention and make things really, really unpleasant. So unless he rights himself quickly, he's going to come under a whole lot of pressure. And you know, I don't think Dean does so well under pressure. In the next week, we'll find out if Dean has more to him than great niche marketing and spectacular hype.
posted by Noah at 6:52 PM

 
You know, I've been thinking a little more about my scenarios below, and I wonder if the real battle shaping up in New Hampshire is for third place . . . between Clark and Edwards.

Dean's not going to drop below 20%. Kerry is at 20% and rising. Clark is at 20% and falling. Edwards is suddenly credible, and it's not like he was polling at zero in New Hampshire before Iowa (he was at 8%, in fact).

Once again, I reiterate that I think Edwards is in the best position to pick up Gephardt voters, for cultural/regional and personal chemistry reasons. He's also potentially in the position to pick up Lieberman voters should any of them decide not to throw away their votes. Why? Because Lieberman voters are surely voting primarily on Iraq, and Edwards is the only other consistently pro-war voice in the primaries (Kerry's a waffler and Clark and Dean are outspokenly against). Edwards isn't going to adopt Lieberman's rhetoric or strategy, but if he's perceived as the "electable hawk" he could pull a little from Lieberman.

If the dynamics of the race don't change dramatically (which, of course, they could in about 15 minutes), we could see an Edwards pop as well as a Kerry pop, and we could be looking at Edwards and Clark each fighting for spot #3 and each fighting to stay above 15% (the threshold to win delegates).

Moreover, this is the kind of development that could have a bandwagon effect. Edwards' biggest problem has been getting anyone to pay attention to him; from the beginning, lots of folks assumed he was running for Vice President. (I was one of them.) Well, if he picks up in the New Hampshire polls, that'll get more people to pay attention to him. And if more people pay attention to him, I suspect he wins votes.

The guy with the most to gain and the most to lose from New Hampshire now is Wesley Clark. He can recover from a third-place finish if he does well on Feb 3rd (wins Arizona, wins Oklahoma, places in South Carolina after Edwards). If he comes in second, after Dean or Kerry, he'll get a boost, and he'll be very likely to do well on Feb 3rd, after which he's really the front-runner. But if he comes in fourth . . . I don't know how easily he could recover from that. It would be a tremendous come-down from expectations, and Clark's whole candidacy is premised on electability. The air could come out of that balloon very quickly.

The guy with the most to lose (apart from Dean, of course) is Kerry. If he doesn't come in second, he's toast; he has no resources to fight on in the Feb 3rd states. Ideally, he needs to win; if he comes in a close second to Dean, that's pretty good, and enough to keep fighting. If he comes in third, it's over, Iowa notwithstanding. Expectations are now enormously high for Kerry in this state. And he's fighting both Dean and Clark, 'cause if Dean gets a big enough lead (say, if he comes in above 30%), *he's* the comeback kid.

And the guy with the most pure upside is Edwards. There are no expectations that he'll even get delegates in New Hampshire. It's much more important for him to win South Carolina plus some other state (Missouri, for example). If he comes in third and wins delegates in New Hampshire, that's positive momentum going into Feb 3rd. The guy he's competing with for that momentum isn't Kerry or Dean. It's Clark.
posted by Noah at 6:42 PM

 
Wow!

Well, I must say, I am pleased. I don't subscribe to the hyper-partisan perspective that you want the other party to nominate a lunatic so that your side is sure to win. I don't buy it for two reasons. First, because you never know, and the lunatic might just win. Second, because if the other side nominates a loser, then your side has no incentive to run for a mandate rather than just piling up the vote total. Did Reagan run an idea-driven campaign in 1984, or Nixon in 1972? No. Running against Dean, Bush would likely run on atmospherics and mush and win in a landslide - and he would have a mandate for nothing.

What's next? After his terrifying performance Monday night, the prospects for a total Dean meltdown are quite real. Remember: the most important thing for Democrats is who can beat Bush. It's hard to make a case for Dean these days on that score. And if Dean melts down, the rationale for the Clark candidacy - Clark's the guy to beat Dean, remember? - becomes a little shaky. If you've got a war-hero senator and a Southern-charmer senator performing credibly, why do you need a Southern general with no political experience and no discernable views as your standard-bearer? Why take the risk, if you don't need to?

Of course, even if Kerry wins New Hampshire, he's got a problem: he's got a very weak presence on the ground in the Feb 3rd contests. And in the last few contested primaries, South Carolina has pretty much determined the nominee, not New Hampshire. The last South Carolina poll showed a Dean-Clark contest with Edwards a close third. Iowa should change that, boosting both Edwards and Kerry, and a Kerry victory in New Hampshire would change it even more. But can Kerry really come from 2% to victory, especially against Edwards (who should be surging as well after Iowa)? That seems far too much to hope for. Kerry'll contest South Carolina, but he'll be competing for second - or even third - and hoping for an Edwards victory to knock Clark out. The result in South Carolina could easily be equivocal, with an Edwards victory but a decent showing by Clark, Kerry and/or Dean.

Beyond South Carolina it doesn't look much better for Kerry on Feb 3rd. New Mexico, a caucus state, is where he polled best most recently, but that's not much of a prize. Arizona is Clark's best state. Missouri is Edwards' best chance for a pickup apart from South Carolina; no one has been focusing on it because Gephardt was supposed to win it as the favorite son, but now he's out, and I think Edwards is pretty well positioned to pick up Gephardt's voters. So even if he wins New Hampshire, it could be tough for Kerry on Feb 3rd.

But if it's tough for Kerry, will it be great for anyone else? Remember: the delegates are assigned proportionally. Dean has been polling in the 20% or more range pretty much everywhere. Even if he collapses, he's not going to vanish entirely. And I think we can safely say, after last night's show, that he is *not* dropping out, even if he comes in third in New Hampshire. He could crack the 15% barrier for getting delegates in several states - New Mexico, Arizona, maybe South Carolina depending on how well he does in New Hampshire. And Dean still has piles of money in the bank; he can keep campaigning, if he wants to, through Super Tuesday. Clark is polling similarly, and (at least for now) has pretty significant fund-raising capabilities. Even if these guys don't win many contests - even if they don't win *any* - they could deny a clear victory to any other candidate on Feb 3rd. If Kerry trips up in New Hampshire, and Clark or Dean win, then I'd say Clark's the front-runner of the Feb 3rd contests (an Edwards win in South Carolina would be discounted, and a loss would end his candidacy). But if Kerry wins New Hampshire, but doesn't win anything on Feb 3rd, we don't really have a front-runner. We have a mess.

It'll be very interesting to see if former President Clinton decides to weigh in on the contest, and if so, at what point. The Democrats really do want to pick a winner by March 2nd. They want that winner to be a strong candidate, with adequate monetary resources and with a positive public image. Clinton can't stop Dean. He probably can pull the plug on Clark. And his tacit endorsement is probably necessary for Edwards to be able to vault up to front-runner status. Anyhow, we've got a race on our hands, that's for sure.
posted by Noah at 10:42 AM

 
John Podhoretz is a very smart political observer (and participant). I'm a pretty lousy one. I tend to think the guy who I think should be winning is winning, which is a pretty fatal flaw. Back when I was a Democrat, I thought Bob Kerry was the guy to beat in 1992. By the time I was a Republican, in 1996, I thought Phil Gramm was the coming thing, since Bob Dole was so obviously hapless. So what do I know. I should just listen to John P.

But I'll throw my 2c in anyhow.

First, an index to the fluidity of this race is the level of support for Joe Lieberman. Lieberman has absolutely no chance of winning the nomination. So to the extent that polls still show support for him, that's a sign of people not paying attention to the campaign. A Kerry or Edwards victory in Iowa could radically reshape media coverage of the campaign, and radically change the polls in states where, currently, they are polling at near zero. Lieberman has put a lot of resources into South Carolina relative to his total budget, but he's outpolling Kerry and Edwards in Arizona, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Missouri, Virginia and Wisconsin as well. That's all name-recognition. An Iowa victory by Kerry or Edwards should do something to improve their name recognition, I should think.

Second, I think Dean is quite vulnerable right now, though I agree that he's still the frontrunner. If he loses both Iowa and New Hampshire - or if he loses Iowa and squeaks by in New Hampshire - he could easily go into free-fall. Why? Because the next batch of states is very uncongenial to him. Feb 3rd the states that vote are South Carolina, Arizona, Delaware, Missouri, Oklahoma, plus caucuses in North Dakota and New Mexico. On Feb 10th are Tennessee and Virginia. None of these states are prime Dean territory. Yeah, he's got piles of money and dedicated supporters, and he currently leads in the polls or polls second in all sorts of places. But I'd bet his really hard-core support is the Northeast, Northwest and the progressive states of the Midwest (e.g. Wisconsin). His support in the Feb 3rd and Feb 10th states rests, I suspect, to a great extent on his front-runner status. Dent that badly, and he could lose badly for two weeks. And it'll be hard to recover after that. Indeed, free-fall could start before New Hampshire if Dean comes in third in Iowa - which is entirely possible, given how fluid the situation there seems to be.

Third, I don't see how Gephardt wins. He's the only candidate with no clear way to raise a lot of money. Dean has the internet, Kerry has his wife, Clark has the Clinton fundraising network, Edwards has the Clinton network if Clark flames out plus he has his trial lawyer friends. Gephardt is also in the weakest position of the Edwards-Kerry-Gephardt trio on Feb 3rd. His victory in Missouri won't count for anything (favorite son and all) and he's not been a big presence in the other contending states (not to mention that they aren't big union states, and industrial unions are his main source of support). Plus Gephardt will be a non-factor in New Hampshire even if he wins Iowa decisively, so the headlines after New Hampshire will be about something else: the return of Dean, the rise of Clark, the surprise of Kerry - it doesn't matter what, it won't be about him. If he won Iowa by a mile, that would be one thing. But he won't win by a mile, and he's not going to get much credit for winning it by a whisker.

Fourth, I think Clark has to prove he can win something by Feb 3rd. I don't think he has until Feb 10th. If Clark loses New Hampshire by a whisker, he should win South Carolina, Arizona and Oklahoma, and that should be enough to make him the front-runner. If he loses all of these states, even if he comes in second everywhere, I think he's in real trouble. If Clark comes in third to Al Sharpton in South Carolina, who won? Dean? Edwards? If it's Edwards, then Dean came in fourth, which would be pretty devastating, but there's no front-runner, 'cause Gephardt won Missouri and Clark hasn't won anything yet. If it's Dean, then Dean is cruising to victory. So I think Clark has to do better on Feb 3rd; if he can't win South Carolina with Clinton's endorsement (posited by Podhoretz), he's toast.

Fifth, I appreciate that Podhoretz is a serious commentator and doesn't have time to waste on idle speculation, but still: why miss the chance to speculate about (even if only to debunk) a non-decision? We could possibly have no victor by Feb 3rd: Kerry, Edwards and Gephardt tie for victory in Iowa, with Dean a close fourth; Dean wins New Hampshire by a whisker with Clark and Kerry roughly tied for second; Edwards roughly ties Clark for victory in South Carolina, with Sharpton tied with Dean close behind them; Oklahoma and Arizona similarly indecisive, with Dean doing strong enough in both to stay in the game; Gephardt wins Missouri with Dean second and Clark third . . . with proportional assignment of delegates, we could come out of Feb 3rd with nobody clearly in the lead and "Draft Hillary" the most popular slogan among Democrats.

Well, that's not gonna happen. But you know, I could live with any of the professional politicians running on the Democratic side as President. Gephardt wouldn't do too much damage, even if he'd uninspiring. Kerry the same. Edwards seems like a reasonably quick study. But Dean is awful and Clark is bizarre. And victory over either would have negative consequences for a second Bush term. Bush will run against Dean on the culture war and the war on terror, which means the second-term mandate in domestic policy won't exist - indeed, Bush will be sorely tempted to list to the left to win blue-collar votes away from Dean in droves. And I think Clark-Bush would just be ugly and personal, like Bush-Dukakis in 1988 but worse. So I hope the good people of Iowa nominate somebody decent instead. And that hope is, I'm sure, coloring my judgement, as it always seems to.
posted by Noah at 1:36 PM

 
I want to make something clear, in case it wasn't from the material below: I'm neither making a brief for or against the President's immigration proposal. I'm not endorsing the proposition that mass immigration is inevitable, or that it's a good thing; nor am I endorsing the proposition that mass *legal* immigration is a disaster for the country and that a guestworker program such as Bush proposes would destroy American sovereignty. I'm trying to get a handle on what Bush's proposal means and to figure out what my perspective is. Emotions run high on this one. Clearly.
posted by Noah at 7:35 PM

 
Okay, not finally.

There's a good piece on Slate: liberals who supported the Iraq war before it started debating whether they still do. It's a good lineup; so far, they have Jacob Weisberg, Ken Pollack, Tom Friedman, George Packer, and Paul Berman. Worth reading.

Ken Pollack wrote the book - literally - on the case for war against Saddam based primarily on WMD. It was a major reason why I was a strong supporter of the war, though that was never the only reason. Pollack is a Democrat and a former Clinton official, by the way. Anyhow, it's very interesting to read his thoughts now that we know his assessments - and those of most of the world's intelligence services - were way off, and in the opposite direction from what the Cheney-Wolfowitz crowd thought.

It's also always interesting to hear from Tom Friedman. I agree with him on what the stated reason, the moral reason, and the real reasons were for the war. I think the real reason was (and remains) reason enough to go to war for the sake of national interest, and the moral reason was (and remains) justification enough for our right to go to war. (Saddam was an outlaw. "Outlaw" means you are outside the law - the law offers you no protection. You are fair game. No one's obliged to kill you, but anyone is free to do so.) But I was always skeptical of Friedman's "right reason" for war: the need to remake an Arab country into a liberal democracy in order to "drain the swamp" that generates terrorism. I never thought Iraq was a good candidate for "first Arab democracy" because, among other things, Iraq isn't a real nation. I happen to agree that the massive failure of Arab civilization is the "root cause" of Mideast terrorism, and that the rejection of liberal democracy has a lot to do with that massive failure. But I didn't think the Iraq war was going to be that likely to result in a liberal, democratic Iraq, and I still don't. I think Friedman's "right reason" was Paul Wolfowitz's "real reason" for war, but not anyone else's.

But I have to take issue with Paul Berman. He's obsessed with totalitarianism as the template for Islamism for one reason: a lot of his friends, who fell for the last round of soft-totalitarianism (Communist sympathizing) are now falling for the Islamists. But the terrorists don't look much like the Communists - or much like the Fascists or Nazis, except in the scope of horror they hope to unleash. They look more like the anarchists of the 19th and early 20th century. Anarchists with much more powerful weapons at their disposal. That makes them much tougher to fight. This conflict may be as large in scope as WWII or the Cold War. But it won't look anything like those two wars because the enemy is different - just as the Nazis and the Soviets were, in the final analysis, rather different from each other.
posted by Noah at 5:51 PM

 
Finally: a personal note. Our son attends a program called "music together" - which he adores. I haven't been to it with him, but we've played the CDs at home, which introduce the child to a variety of musical rhythms and styles in a really charming way.

In any event, one of the songs on the latest CD he brought home goes like this:

Who says they're going to come back?
Mommy does, that's who.
Whoever takes care of you comes back,
Because they love you, too.

And so on in that vein. Reassuring the child that whoever dropped them off would come back and pick them up. Whoever they are.

It struck me as . . . emblematic, somehow.
posted by Noah at 5:17 PM

 
Short note: I knew sex ed was getting out of hand, particularly in Europe. But I didn't know it was *this* out of hand. Has anyone informed Theodore Dalrymple?
posted by Noah at 5:13 PM

 
Actually, one more thought about the immigration proposal:

Bush's immigration proposal - driven, I believe, in part by a conviction that mass immigration is inevitable - reminds me of another time a conservative leader decided to throw away an important prop of national sovereignty on the grounds that its loss was inevitable: John Major's embrace of the Euro.

Major believed that Britain's future was, economically, with Europe. The Euro would bring economic discipline to the continent and become an important currency in its own right, one that would challenge the dollar and certainly eclipse the pound. If Britain wanted to maintain its importance as a financial center, it would have to join the Euro. Scrapping the pound was the logical extension of free trade. The Euro was the future; the pound was the past.

Of course, it's hard to believe that Major thought that "scrap the pound" was a good political slogan. And, indeed, his decision ignited a war among the Conservatives between the Euroskeptics and Europhiles, a war that is still not entirely over, though the Euroskeptics mostly have the upper-hand at this point. One consequence of this fratricidal war was the collapse of the Conservative majority in Britain and the ascendancy of Labor - this in spite of the fact that the overwhelming majority of Britons favor retaining the pound, while Tony Blair has been unstinting in his advocacy for joining the Euro. (Admittedly, there were many other factors at work as well.)

See any analogy? Bush's proposal lays down a marker for where he thinks the country and his party should go on immigration. Explicitly, Bush has articulated a vision of hemispheric cooperation that implies ever closer ties between the U.S. and Mexico. Implicitly, Bush is suggesting that mass immigration is inevitable, that fighting it would be like fighting the tides, and that the embrace of immigration represents the future, closing the borders the past. Once again, it's hard to believe that Bush thinks this is a winning political issue. He can't but know that it divides the Republican leadership and that mass immigration is, at least according to polls, very unpopular among the American people.

What remains to be seen is whether his proposal divides Bush's party the way the Euro divided Major's. I suspect not; Perot ran his second campaign against free trade and mass immigration, and while he did pretty well he had essentially no impact on the national political debate. But there's plenty of time between now and 2008 for the GOP's immigration opponents to nurse their grievance. Let's see how the proposal plays in Congress. It could get interesting.
posted by Noah at 5:12 PM

 
More about the immigration proposal:

A lot of folks seem to think Bush is doing this because of short-term political considerations, that this is the biggest His-pander in his-tory. A lot of other folks think that Bush just has no idea what he's doing. Veteran immigration-foe Steve Sailer is sufficiently enraged by the proposal that he's gone right off the rails; he speculates that the Bush proposal is really part of a nefarious plot to remake the American nation to make it more hospitable for President George P. Bush (the current President's nephew) three decades from now.

I don't think any of this is right. Dana Rohrabacher gets closer when he talks about Bush's "personal compassion" but I don't think that's it entirely. I think Bush - and a lot of pro-immigration folks - think that it's just inevitable that large numbers of people will come from poor, overpopulated countries to rich ones; that what it would take to keep them out would be inhumane; and therefore the only question is how to manage the influx properly, rather than how to stop it. I'm not sure they're wrong. At least, it's notable to me that every major Western country - including some that have historically been hostile to immigration, like Switzerland - has experienced mass immigration in the past 40 years. Britain, France, Germany, Italy - even Spain and Poland have immigrants now. In some cases, most of the immigration is legal; in others, there's an illegal immigration problem. Heck, even Israel, which has enough trouble integrating its legal, Jewish immigrants, has tens of thousands of illegal immigrants. American immigration law is deeply flawed. But there's more at work here than just bad law.

Of course, Japan has essentially no immigration, and their demographics look pretty similar to Germany's. What's the difference? Geography? Language and culture? Lack of Western guilt about ethno-centric policies? I dunno.

In any event, I'm not trying to argue that mass immigration either is or isn't inevitable. All I'm saying is that I think Bush believes it's inevitable, and this is a major part of the motivation for his proposal.
posted by Noah at 4:57 PM

 
Next, a brief thought about the administration's immigration proposal.

National Review has put on its cover the words, "Against Amnesty," but Bush hasn't proposed amnesty. He's proposed something more radical: the creation of a true open-border policy for employment purposes. Let everyone come, with no restrictions on numbers, so long as they can get jobs. Then let 'em get on line to earn the right to citizenship. Let the INS, which would no longer have to do anything about processing applications to come work here, focus on keeping out criminals and terrorists.

It remains to be seen, of course, how you retool the INS to do that absolutely essential job. But otherwise, if you're an enthusiast for open borders, this is your plan, and it is arguably quite responsive to the law-and-order concerns raised by illegal immigration.

The only thing missing from his vision is the elimination of birthright citizenship. If you let everyone come for a job, then have kids here who become instant citizens, you've really just let in an infinite number of new citizens, not just guest-workers. But posit that we eliminate birthright citizenship, and reinterpret the 14th Amendment to mean that citizens are children of citizens, not of tourists or guestworkers. If you appended that proision, Bush's proposal would make perfect sense on its own terms.

Of course, it is a disaster if you care about the immigration question from the perspective of protecting the wages of less-skilled Americans. Or if you worry about the environmental consequences of continued population growth. Or if you worry about the cultural consequences of a huge, permanent non-citizen caste doing most of the dirty work in our society.

But that's the new grounds for debate. Bush is calling the bluff of those who are concerned about illegal immigration. Bush proposes to make mass immigration legal. Not just for current, illegal residents (that would be amnesty), but for as many more as want to come in the future. Now we can debate the core question: is mass immigration - assuming we can keep out the crooks, terrorists and freeloaders - a good thing or a bad thing for America?
posted by Noah at 3:55 PM

 
Backlog of things to talk about.

First, a free ad. The latest issue of City Journal is a doozie. If you don't subscribe to this magazine yet: do. It's consistently forceful, intelligent and well-written. It's the only conservative publication I can think of dedicated primarily to urban problems - it's written about cities and for cities. And it's pragmatic in the best sense: they actually care about solving problems, about checking the facts - and they do actual reporting!

Three particularly notable pieces in the latest issue:

George Will on the Wilsonian vision, in Brussels and Washington, and its dangers. A sobering and important piece on an important question. I remain highly skeptical that George W. Bush is the reincarnation of Woodrow Wilson; I don't believe Bush bought the whole force-'em-to-be-free ideology that some advocates of the Iraq war advocated. I do believe Bush thinks the spread of liberal democracy - especially in the Middle East - is important to American national interests, and I think that, too. But I refuse to believe that our government ever signed up for the more grandiose schemes of reshaping the Middle East. That having been said, we broke it, now we bought it, and we better figure out what we want to do with it. Iraq, that is. And Will's cautions in that regard remain very, very timely.

(As an aside, there's a lot of folks out there who assume Israelis were big advocates of democratizing the Middle East, and that this had something to do with neocon support for the war. Not in my experience. Just a few weeks ago, I attended a talk by an Israeli counter-terrorism expert. One of the points he made quite forcefully is that America is making a big mistake trying to democratize Iraq - and, further, he argued that while Iraq was certainly ruled by a horrible regime and a dangerous man, it was not the most important target in the war on terror by a long shot. That accords with the sentiments I've heard from almost every Israeli I've talked to: sure, it would be a great idea to get rid of Saddam, but it's not top priority. For the record.)

Steven Malanga on the myth of the Creative Class. There's apparently a notion going around that young, hip professionals are what you need most to create jobs and revitalize a city, and that to attract them cities should build bike paths, enact generous domestic partnership laws, and subsidize the alternative music scene. These are, after all, what made Burlington, Vermont the economic powerhouse it is today. Steven Malanga rips this bizarre thesis to shreds, and points out what you really need to make a city an economic success: reasonable tax rates, rational zoning laws, effective policing, and a well-maintained physical infrastructure. Just like in Sim City.

And the always hard-hitting Heather MacDonald on the illegal alien crime wave. Immigration has never been my strong suit as an issue; I'm not an enthusiastic restrictinist nor an enthusiastic open-borders guy. But the development of a massive underground economy, and a huge class of non-citizens living outside of the law is clearly a bad thing. What I had no idea was just how bad it has been - from a law-enforcement perspective. This piece was a real eye-opener for me.

Seriously: the City Journal people show the rest of us how it's done. They're not snarky, they don't just make debating points - they do real research and they hit hard and consistently. I started paying attention to them after 9-11, when they came out with a truly phenomenal issue all about that day - from a national-security perspective, a domestic counter-terrorism perspective, a New York economic-recovery perspective, and from a memorialization perspective - all within weeks of the attack. It took my breath away.
posted by Noah at 3:42 PM

 
Establishment clause doesn't mean much; equal-protection clause doesn't mean much. Hey, guess what? Freedom of speech clause doesn't mean much either.

Okay, I'm overstating in all 3 cases, but still: I'm glad to see someone of Eugene Volokh's stature pointing out that the framers and ratifiers of the First Amendment would have had no problem with McCain-Feingold. That a law is bad - even that its purpose runs counter to come constitutional provision - is not reason enough to call it unconstitutional. I am more and more pleased that the Court saw fit to less this legislation stand. Maybe now legislators will think twice about what they are voting for.
posted by Noah at 3:38 PM

 
I shouldn't; it's stupid; but I find stories like this one intensely embarrassing. Couldn't they go back to being Tibetan Buddhists or something?
posted by Noah at 2:04 PM

 
Of course, 2004 isn't entirely boring yet. Here's something I've been thinking about:

The Democrats can't hope to win in 2004 without an energized African-American voter. Howard Dean, the presumptive nominee, has, essentially, no relationship with African-American voters. He doesn't speak their language, doesn't know their leaders, and his biggest opponent within the Democratic Party - Bill Clinton - is probably the white figure with the strongest appeal to the average black voter. Worse, Dean is absolutely clueless on race matters. His big story about his racial sensitivity is about how he had a black roommate in college and how broadening it was. He looks at race entirely from the perspective of a rich liberal white guy: he talks about "educating white folks" rather than lifting up black folks. Remember when Bill Bradley talked up how conscious he was of his "white skin privilege" and how well that line played with actual black voters (not at all) as opposed to race-obsessed "intellectuals" like Cornell West (very well indeed)? Dean's in the same territory, and he's less convincing because he's even more clueless. His race rhetoric has the one-two punch of being unconvincing to black people and annoying to whites who aren't committed liberals. (Correct me if y'all think I'm wrong on this; this is my impression.)

Dean may even have a race problem in the primaries. Yeah, he can win Iowa and New Hampshire without black support; these states are mostly white. But then we go south: Missouri, South Carolina and Oklahoma are all Feb 3 battlegrounds (as are Arizona and New Mexico, but the black vote in those two states is swamped by the Hispanic vote). Gephardt will win Missouri as the local favorite son. Clark and Edwards and battling for South Carolina, and Clark is battling everyone to challenge Dean in Oklahoma and Arizona. The black vote could make a big difference. Clark is an Arkansan, he's an army guy, and he's got the backing of the Clintons. It's not inconceivable that he makes a strong play for black votes, and that this helps him actually make this a race.

Unless, of course, Al Sharpton sucks up so much of the black vote that they no longer figure in the primary contest.

If I'm right about this, then the Dean folks have an incentive for Sharpton to do well in the early contests, in a repeat of Jesse Jackson's 1988 performance. But if he does do well, then Sharpton will have to be appeased at the convention. Anyone want to guess how that's going to play among swing voters? Among Southern whites?

Dean's supposedly going to pivot back to the center for the general election, likely by emphasizing fiscal conservatism - i.e. spending restraint coupled with tax increases. That's gong to be a great message for lower-income voters who disproportionately depend on government spending, and African-American voters who are disproportionately government employees.

Put it all together, and Dean - if he is the nominee - is going to have absolutely no room on racial hot-button issues in the general election. He will not have won the loyalty of black voters the way Clinton did, so he'll have no room for a "Sister Souljah" moment that establishes his credibility with white voters on racial issues. He may even have to do the opposite and appease Al Sharpton or risk having Sharpton play troublemaker at the convention. All that could spell general-election disaster for Dean among downscale white voters, which could be devastating to his chances across the South and Midwest.

I imagine this is something Clark's prominent backers have been thinking about pretty seriously.
posted by Noah at 1:41 PM

 
Steve Sailer's bored with the 2004 election, and wants to talk 2008. Okay! Let's talk!

First, we have to set the stage. Let's assume Dean wins the 2004 nomination, and Bush beats Dean solidly though not necessarily in a landslide. Let's further assume that the GOP picks up between 1 and 3 seats in the Senate and increases its margin in the House. All four assumptions are, I think, considerably more likely than not. Finally, let's assume nothing bizarre happens in 2006 - in other words, no national catastrophe, no massive scandal that results in Bush's impeachment or resignation, no high-profile third-party movement that arises, no personality- or issue-driven fissure of either of the major parties. The GOP probably loses seats in the 2006 Senate elections (the fight will be on more friendly ground for the Dems than 2004, and people will be sick of the GOP by then), and if Bush is unpopular enough by then maybe they lose the chamber, but anyone newly elected in 2006 will be too green (let's assume) to run for President in 2008.

All fair? Whom does that leave as the contestants for the 2008 prize?

THE DEMOCRATS:

Every Democrat in 2008 will be thinking first and foremost about the disastrous loss in 2004. The second thing they will be thinking is: in 1988 all we thought about was the disastrous loss in 1984, and we still wound up with Dukakis.

So they'll be looking for a fighter, a winner, and someone who can win back voters that Dean lost - in other words, someone who can speak to religious voters, Southern voters, and who will energize the non-white voter and not just the upscale liberal.

Who, of all the 2008 prospects, is the worst fit for that profile? Russ Feingold, Senator from Wisconsin, who would otherwise be about the right age and seniority to make his move. Although he represents a midwestern state, Feingold will look to primary voters like Dean2 in 2008: a northern liberal who'll be massacred in the South. He still might make his move, though, either in the hopes of a Veep slot or as preparation for bigger things in the future. He's still young, after all.

Evan Bayh, Senator from Indiana, may think 2008 is the time to make his move. But I suspect he'll be viewed as too conservative to be a serious contender for the nomination. He won't get union support and he won't be attractive to racial minorities. But he may also make a move. A better candidate would be John Edwards, who will not suffer at all, I predict, from his catastrophic performance this year. His bigger problem is that he won't have a job for the next four years - but hey, being unemployed worked pretty well for Dr. Dean, didn't it? Personally, I think Edwards goes away, but he might refuse to do so; after all, I also thought he would drop out sooner in 2003, and fight to keep his Senate seat, and I was wrong about that.

But the best white-boy candidate, I predict, is Mark Warner, Governor of Virginia. He's got all the right moves, and he will definitely not have suffered an electoral defeat in Virginia before 2008 because Virginia only has one-term Governors, so he can position himself as a winner. He's young, good-looking, pro-gun, and did I mention he's Southern? Plus he's been a Governor and he'll be unemployed (i.e. lots of free time). If nothing else, I think he'll run to try to win a second-place spot on the ticket.

Then there are the gals. Two women who would have the opportunity to make some noise in 2008 are Senator Diane Feinstein of California and Governor Jennifer Granholm of Michigan. Unfortunately for the Dems, Granholm's ineligible because she's a Canadian - but the GOP might have pushed through the Arnold Amendment to allow immigrants to run for President by then, in which case she's in the game. Feinstein, meanwhile, while anti-gun is perceived as a tough moderate on most issues, but is certainly acceptable to the liberal wing of the party.

Unfortunately for her, the meanest, baddest broad in the Senate will most likely be making her move in 2008: Senator Hillary Clinton of New York. Hillary brings three big plusses to the table: she's a tough fighter and proven winner; she'll have a lot of support from party mandarins, including her husband; and she's very popular among wealthy liberals and among racial minorities, two key constituencies for winning the nomination. However, she's still able to be caricatured as a Northern liberal, and she's mean, and in the wake of the Dean debacle Democrats will be leery of these two factors. I still think she has to be counted as the presumptive front-runner for the 2008 nomination, however, and it will take a lot of work to knock her out.

One man who won't be able to is Al Gore. Oh yeah, he just might run again; he's that crazy. If he does, he will finally bury what little is left of his reputation, as he'll suck all the air out of the other non-Hillary campaigns, and then get massacred by her. She'll be Living History, and he'll be . . . history.

Which leaves one more fellow who will definitely be in the running in 2008, but most likely for the Veep slot: Bill Richardson, Governor of New Mexico. He's Hispanic, he's got a long resume, he's a Clinton protege, he has a reputation as a moderate, he's a Governor - and from a key swing state, too. He's a perfect fit to balance just about anyone at the top of the ticket. And if for some crazy reason Hillary decides not to run, he'll actually have a shot at the top spot himself.

So that's my prediction for 2008: Hillary as the gal to beat against a field of Senators and Governors all of whom are plausible Presidents. Which is more than you can say for the 2004 Democrats. Their bench is getting stronger. The GOP shouldn't rest easy after 2004.

THE REPUBLICANS:

After eight years in the White House, fourteen years running the House of Representatives (assuming no huge electoral shifts, the GOP will keep the House for quite a while, what with all the successful gerrymandering they've been doing), and a good long run in the Senate to boot (they might lose it in 2006; if not, they'll have held the Senate for six years), the public will be sick of the Republican Party. No one who runs in 2008 will be able to run against Bush, but no one will be able to run on a platform of "stay the course" either, even if the economy is reasonably strong.

As for the GOP primary electorate, they may be a little restless. In 2004, the base will be energized to defeat Dean. By 2008, they'll be grumbling about how little Bush did for them in his second term. Bush will have failed to deliver on some hot-button social issue (probably gay marriage). Bush will either have lost a tough nomination fight for the Supreme Court, or will have declined to do battle, or both, further annoying the social conservatives in the party. Bush will likely fail to deliver private accounts in Social Security or to really reform Medicare, and it's hard to picture him reigning in domestic discretionary spending passed by his own party, so fiscal conservatives and libertarians will be restless. (Indeed, I think a Libertarian candidate in 2008 could do to the GOP what Nader did to Gore in 2000: make the difference between victory and defeat in a close election.)

The GOP electorate will be looking for someone who is credible with the same constituencies that rallied twice to Bush, but who isn't from Washington. The obvious candidate: Bill Owens, Governor of Colorado. He's the darling of movement conservatives: a fiscal tightwad and tax-cutter, and very credible with the religious right. Plus he's a Governor, so he can run against Washington with impunity.

His likely strongest competition will come from Bill Frist, the Majority Leader and Senator from Tennessee. Frist, though, is a much weaker candidate now that he's Majority Leader; he's effectively responsible for every compromise in the Senate, for every nominee for the courts who goes down to defeat. Remember how badly Bob Dole did in 1988? If the GOP loses the Senate in 2006, he will have a very hard time winning the nomination. On the other hand, he's from the right region (the border South), he's well-regarded by religious conservatives, he's very aggressive (unlike Dole), and he'll have at least some support from the outgoing President (again, unlike Dole in 1988). And the GOP is still more traditional than the Democrats; they will not be receptive to an insurgency a la Howard Dean. If Frist gets a lot of backing early on, he'll be the frontrunner in spite of his weaknesses.

My own dark-horse candidate, though, is Mark Sanford, Governor of South Carolina. He's indepedent, he's got a winning personality, he's quite popular, and he's very solid on the core issues that matter to Republicans (fiscal and moral issues). There's a chance Bill Owens may turn out to be a Phil Gramm: someone with a great resume, who's beloved by many movement conservatives and who ought to be popular but whose personality just doesn't catch fire. If that turns out to be the case, I think Sanford has a real shot. And if he wants to take that shot, he'll do it; he's kind of an ornery independent type, and owes nothing to Bush.

What about Jeb Bush, Governor of Florida? Wasn't 2008 supposed to be a Clinton-Bush contest? I'm a seller. I don't think Jeb has political skills that are nearly as good as W.'s. He's supposed to be the smart Bush, but I think he's just the one who likes to be thought of as smart, and who plays with ideas. I think in terms of political smarts, where W.'s strengths lie, he's mediocre. Plus, I don't think the brothers like each other that much; W. won't be pulling for him, and won't be lending him his organization. And by 2008, the organization will be more loyal to W. than to Papa Bush, assuming he's still alive. Finally, I think the country will want a change, and four more years of the name "Bush" will not sit well.

There are a number of other candidates relatively close to President Bush who might try to make a play, particularly if Frist declines to run. One who won't is Condoleeza Rice the National Security Advisor. Yes, she's a looker, she's smart, and the President likes and trusts her. If she wants to be Secretary of State for whatever reason, she's probably got the job. (And she couldn't do worse than Powell.) But she will not replace Dick Cheney (who also won't be running in 2008, assuming he's still alive) as Vice President because she is not a political asset, so she certainly won't be a candidate in 2008. She has no political base, no following; the only people who would be thrilled about having her on the ticket are bloggers, and though our ranks are ever-swelling we do not yet comprise a measurable slice of the electorate, not even in the primaries. She has no electoral experience and her personality seems highly uncongenial to campaigning. She's young; if she wants to run for office, she can finally terminate Senator Barbara Boxer of California, which would be a great blessing, and still have plenty of time to contemplate higher office. She won't run for President in 2008.

More likely candidates from the Bush Administration are Tom Ridge, Secretary of Homeland Security; Mark Racicot, former Governor of Montana and former Chair of the Republican National Committee, and Mike Leavitt, former Governor of Utah and current head of the EPA. I don't think any of these guys have a strong shot at the head of the ticket, but they may not agree. Racicot is the most telegenic and politically astute of the three, but he'll have to find some kind of job before 2008 to still be a viable candidate. Leavitt has a strong resume but he'll certainly have to make the kinds of decisions as EPA head that will anger the more radical anti-government types, and he was a proponent of internet taxes as Governor, so he'll be anathema to the Club for Growth crowd. Plus he's from Utah. Ridge, meanwhile, will be absolutely unacceptable to religious conservatives, and besides, what, precisely, does Homeland Security get him? If there's another major attack, he's to blame for failing to prevent it. If there isn't, he'll be pilloried for cost-overruns and stupid bureaucratic decisions that will inevitably be made. Count him out.

Then there are the blasts from the past. Lamar! Alexander, former Governor, now Senator from Tennessee, will be only 68. Even John McCain, Senator from Arizona, will be only 72. Ditto Liddy Dole, Senator from North Carolina. I don't think any of these people will run, but you never know: Lamar! and McCain each have quite considerable opinions of themselves, and there are all those Clinton vs. Dole icons to be recycled.

But who knows who'll get the nod? W. wasn't even expected to win his election in 1994; he wasn't supposed to have a political career. Six years later, he's President. Nobody - but nobody - heard of Howard Dean before well into this campaign season. Hart was supposed to be the nominee in 1988, and then he self-immolated. Cuomo was supposed to be the nominee in 1992, and he didn't bother to run. And weren't we supposed to have a President Bill Bradley by now? I can't think of anyone who doesn't look better on paper. Hillary could still surprise us and not run. Dean could come closer than expected and run again in 2008. Cheney could have a fatal heart attack and Bush could suprise everyone by elevating someone unexpected to the Vice Presidency - Rudy Giuliani? Henry Bonilla? Tony Blair? - who then becomes the presumptive front-runner in 2008. Heck, Kim Jong Il could nuke Los Angeles, and Arnold could become such a hero for his work on the recovery that the Hatch Amendment to let immigrants become President could pass in record time, leaving no question who the next President will be.

Well, let's hope not.
posted by Noah at 11:28 AM