Tethered Swimming

“Sorry, Bart.  Your dad kinda blew the fantasy.  I only like it when I’m pretend scared.” - Milhouse van Houten

To my way of thinking, the two worst signs for Republican chances next year are the large number of resignations of Congressional Republicans and the gap in fundraising between the parties.  This week saw two more of the former, with a long expected resignation from Dennis Hastert and a whopper of a resignation from Trent Lott.  Hastert’s resignation had all but been announced and was really only important for symbolic reasons, fallen Speakers don’t tend to stick around.  But the Lott resignation got a lot of people talking, and rightly so.  Lott was reelected last year; he didn’t have an election to face until 2012.  The question on peoples’ lips is, “Why did he quit?”

The popular explanation is that he stayed on for a further year to provide extra Katrina relief and then got out because of new, more restrictive lobbying laws that would’ve prevented him from cashing in for two years instead of one.  That sounds nice, and on some basic level it’s probably even true.  After all, by the end of his current term Lott would be 71, while not geriatric by Senate standards he’s no spring chicken either.  That extra year to earn lobbyist dollars, which I’d assume would probably be in the millions per year for a man like him, matters more when you’re that old.

There is a distinct whiff of defeat here though.  I’ve never been a member of any legislative body but my sense of it is that it’s a lot more fun to be in the majority, winning votes and addressing problems that you feel are important, than it is to be in the minority, making indignant speeches while your enemies outvote you time and again.  This is, to me at least, the real reason behind all of these Republican resignations.  Being in the minority in either chamber of Congress probably sucks, but I bet it especially sucks if you’ve grown accustomed to being in the majority.

Of the seventeen (so far) House Republicans not running for re-election, only one of them was first elected prior to 1990; that would be Duncan Hunter who is busy running for President.  Until this year they’d spent either most or all of their Congressional careers in the majority.  Now, having had less than a year to taste life as the other half lives, they’re quitting.  To be fair, some of those seventeen are either running for, or have already been elected to, another office, but the point remains valid.  In fact, if just three more of them hang it up the Republican House contingent will have been literally decimated by resignations.

Back in the other chamber, we won’t have Trent Lott to kick around anymore.  One of the points that has been made about his resignation is that after his Thurmond related loss of the leadership post five years ago, he had clawed his way back up the ladder.  That he was once again in the leadership, within spitting distance of his old job as leader, was supposed to make his resignation that much more puzzling.  The key difference is in that first word.  Lott had mostly known life in the Senate leadership as a Majority job, when things were otherwise looking very positive for the Republicans.  But why stick it out if the positions he really wanted back, the ones with “Majority” in the title, are probably out of reach?

Obviously only Lott knows for sure why he quit, neither I nor anyone else can know what’s in his head, and while some hilarious scandal breaking in the next year or two wouldn’t surprise me, my guess is that he doesn’t see much for him in the Senate.  He won’t be able to command the same legislative power he once did, no matter what he does.  All he’ll be able to do is try to stifle the Democrats for a few years, a task that any Republican from Mississippi could do just as well as him.  Life in the minority is about patience, waiting and working so that someday you’ll be on the other side of things and be able to accomplish something other than obstruction.  For a man in his late sixties with a lot of money on the table for the asking if he quits, patience isn’t an attractive option.

The pertinent question then becomes not, “Why did he quit?” but “Why would he stay?”  There’s no good answer to that, and if he wants to get seriously paid (and this is a man who thought his book should command the same attention as those of presidents), then now’s the time.

“Like most members of America’s cultural elite, I worship Pan, the Goat God.” - Duke Phillips

Here at Tethered Swimming we’re examining the Republican presidential candidates and how they might fare in a general election that appears to be stacked against any Republican nominee.  Today we’re looking at Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney.  Last Sunday was Mike Huckabee and the little fish, Wednesday was Fred Thompson and John McCain. 

Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney have had, up to this point, the best financed campaigns of all the Republican hopefuls and have been at or near the top of most polls.  This is pretty remarkable when you consider the fact that of this crop of candidates they have the two weakest records on abortion, which until gay marriage came along was the touchstone issue for social conservatives.  That one aspect of this primary tells you pretty much everything you need to know about just how grim next year’s election is looking for the true conservatives.

Their biggest fear, of course, is that Giuliani takes the nomination and the rest of the country essentially sees it as conservatives waving the white flag in the culture wars.  If he does become the nominee, he’ll first need to talk them out of running another candidate.  If he can’t do that, the race is over before it begins.  Assuming he can work that miracle, through some combination of becoming best friends with Pat Robertson and stoking fears of a Democratic White House, how does Giuliani run in the general election?

He runs pretty much the same way he ran for mayor, by using the words “law”, “order” and “9/11″ to remind everyone that he is the toughest son of a bitch in the land.  All of his problems, the cancer, the marriages, etcetera, just make him that much tougher.  He has to convince enough white people that he is the only one who can protect them from brown people of various complexions and origins.  It would make for an immensely entertaining campaign because he can’t say that directly, but it’s his only hope so he’d have to get the message through somehow.

The social conservatives will never embrace him no matter how many, ahem, strict constructionalist judges he promises to appoint.  I doubt even ringing and repeated endorsements from Bush the Younger, properly couched and coded so they don’t turn off too many mainstream people, can overcome the fact that Giuliani is pro-choice.  He can’t reassemble Bush’s coalition, so he’ll have to run more or less exclusively on terrorism and machismo.  Whether or not it works depends on whether or not Giuliani can scare ordinary Americans more than Bush the Younger already has.  If he can frighten the populace into believing that a Blue White House means that we all die, and he will use only a minimum of subtlety to do so, he could win.  I don’t think it’s likely to work, but it’s certainly not impossible.

Romney, on the other hand, would have to run in the opposite direction and make minimum use of terrorism and fear.  He won in Massachusetts, and the 2008 electorate is going to resemble Massachusetts a lot more than Texas, by being the non-threatening, reasonable Republican, the calm and confident manager who did something about health care.  Romney could reconstruct Bush’s coalition with a shift away from terrorism (but not too much) and toward people who don’t like the current president but aren’t exactly comfortable voting for a Democrat either.

In the general election, Romney has almost no character flaws.  The fact that he’s a Mormon probably isn’t very relevant, especially after he’s settled in as the nominee and the country really gets to know him.  He’s been explaining Mormonism to people who don’t know anything about it all his life and by now he’s very good at it, once he has the entire nation’s attention neutralizing it as an issue, while vital, won’t be all that difficult.

Romney’s biggest problem is George W. Bush.  He’ll need to convince the country that his Republican Party is not the Republican party of Bush the Younger.  He really is a compassionate conservative and since his appeal does not rest nearly as heavily on the tough guy image as many of the other Republicans, once he’s the nominee he can soften his stances on Iraq.  Without coming out and actually saying so, Romney could let it be known that he abhors the war and wants to end it.  End it victoriously, yes, but end it nevertheless.  That kind of a peace with honor message, and the distance from George W. Bush that it implies is Romney’s road to 1600.

Will any of it work?  I have no idea, and anyone who claims that they do is probably selling something, but I don’t think it will.  The basic electoral math of America has been disadvantageous to Republicans for a long time.  They’ve overcome that by taking advantage of Democratic disasters in foreign policy.  Lyndon Johnson’s Vietnam adventure almost certainly cost the Democrats the 1968 election.  Jimmy Carter’s presidency died in the sands of Iran and gave the Republicans the White House for twelve years.  And, let’s not forget, that when Bush the Younger was running in 2000 he loudly and repeatedly made the point that Bill Clinton and Al Gore had trashed the military by getting involved in peacekeeping operations.

George W. Bush was the perfect candidate for the Republican Party as it is presently structured.  He had credibility with business conservatives because of his lineage and education; he had credibility with social conservatives because of his ostentatious religiosity; he appealed to the broader public by campaigning as a leader, not a set of issues.  And then he had the political gift of 11 September 2001 fall into his lap.  Despite all that, he had to run two nearly flawless campaigns against two terribly inept ones to muster some of the thinnest victories in our history.

But times have changed and incompetence knows no party affiliation.  Iraq, the foreign policy fiasco of our time (and the public overwhelmingly sees it as just that, a fiasco), is owned lock and stock by the Republican Party.  Combine that with the popularity advantage the Democrats have on most domestic issues and you have a perfect nightmare for Republican candidates.

The last couple of weeks here at Tethered Swimming have seen essentially meaningless terms like “moderates” and “appeal” used far too much.  Partly that’s due to the speculative nature of these campaign strategy posts, and partly it’s due to the fact that I’m trying to evaluate an election almost a year before the real campaign begins.  But the real reason terms like those are unavoidable is the fact that using words with fuzzy meanings is about the only way I can concoct a Republican victory scenario that is even remotely plausible.

“Want results? You have to go to the Schwarzeneggers, the Stallones, and to a lesser extent the van Dammes.” - Bart Simpson

Here at Tethered Swimming we’re going to examine the Republican presidential candidates and how they might fare in a general election that appears to be stacked against any Republican nominee. Today we’re looking at Fred Thompson and John McCain. Last Sunday was Mike Huckabee and the little fish and this coming Sunday will be Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney.

For two Republican senators Fred Thompson and John McCain don’t have all that much in common. Thompson made his living as a lawyer and an actor, two professions which require you to behave like a different person than you really are. John McCain was a Navy pilot who became a politician with a reputation for honesty and speaking his mind no matter what. Thompson once played a US Navy Admiral, which is what John McCain wanted to be before he was shot down and held as a prisoner of war. But they are both famous, both running for President and both have a real chance at the Republican nomination and that’s enough to get them lumped together here.

If Thompson was the nominee, how would he run? Simple, he’d follow the template of that other actor turned president, the hallowed Ronald Wilson Reagan. Thompson’s appeal is that he’s conservative but he’s acceptable to centrists because he doesn’t seem like a raging kook. Conservatives are forced into backing him because the alternative is worse, allowing him to use his fame, the good image he gained from being a prosecutor on Law & Order, to get over the hump with people who aren’t as conservative as he is, but like him anyway. That’s the plan and it isn’t half bad.

Alone among the Republican candidates, Thompson wouldn’t need to duplicate Bush the Younger’s coalition. The general election math for nominee Thompson doesn’t resemble Bush the Younger’s 50% + 1 and to hell with everyone else approach at all. He doesn’t need to slash and burn in an effort to turn out the base because he could, in theory, appeal to the modern equivalent of Reagan Democrats. Social conservatives can overlook the divorce and the marriage to the much younger woman because the alternatives, a Mormon, a philandering homophile and another senator with a much younger wife, are worse. Financial conservatives actually like him because his only really grievous sin is getting federal dollars to his home state, and that’s certainly understandable. As for people scared of terrorism, well c’mon, he’s an actor who specializes in fatherly authority roles. Strictly on an imdb-resume level his choice of characters is far more suited to the White House than Reagan’s were.

On the tricky but vital matter of how to treat the current President, Thompson has the advantage of having been prosecuting fictional criminals for most of the current Administration. The downside is that the people who still support Bush, people Thompson would need, aren’t looking for an appealing father figure. Thompson’s whole candidacy was brought about because he seemed like a conservative antidote to Bush; he was, ahem, drafted by conservatives who are sick of the current president. His only real hope would be to point out in no uncertain terms how much better he would be than a Democrat and hope that enough of them decide to actually go out and vote. That’s pretty thin and it’s maybe Thompson’s biggest weakness. He has to appeal to moderates to win, but he cannot overtly court the right wingers. He’s stuck between a rock and a hard place and maybe he can walk the line between them, whether or not he does so matters more than almost anything else.

On Iraq and foreign policy Thompson is as sphinx-like as they come. The words “Iraq” and “Afghanistan” appear once each on the issues page of his website. It’s the usual Republican boilerplate about victory and strength, but without anything that even resembles a coherent plan. That’s fine for the primaries, but in the big show he’s going to need more and in broad strokes its similar to the problem with Bush. Thompson needs the base and the moderates and they believe radically different things about the war.

But he does have that great weapon of fame. Can a man be elected President strictly on how he looks and acts on television? Of course he can! And that is Fred’s biggest asset. Get him some screen writers, tell everyone that it’s morning in America and see how things shake out. Look presidential, act presidential and don’t say anything too stupid. It worked for Ronald, it could work for Fred.

It won’t work for John McCain though. He isn’t handsome and he still bears very visible scars from his time in Vietnam. McCain’s appeal is strictly national security based. He’s at his best when saying things he truly believes, things that make other people uncomfortable, and daring them to tell him that he’s wrong. (His position on Iraq is a perfect example which I’ll get to below.) McCain is at his worst when trying to get down and dirty with the politicos. Disingenuously cozying up to right wing preachers whom he clearly dislikes hurts his image and his appeal, but what’s worse is that he’s bad at it.

His appeal to the three part Bush coalition reflects that. Alone among the most prominent Republican candidates, there’s no doubt about his positions on social issues. He hasn’t recently converted from being pro-choice, or pro-gay anything. He can make a solid, if not spectacular, appeal to old line fiscal conservatism because that’s what he really believes. He’ll vote for tax cuts, but only if he thinks they’re responsible, not because it’s fashionable. He’ll vote for spending limits because he thinks it’s the right thing to do, not because he wants to look good on one of those silly report cards that interest groups put out. He isn’t as rapturously exciting for the social conservatives and fiscal conservatives as Bush the candidate was, but at least you know what you’re getting.

On the Iraq War, and by extension the rest of the “national security” morass, McCain has taken a risky but consistent position. As I said above, McCain is at his best when saying what he sincerely believes and there’s no doubt that he sincerely believes in the Iraq War. What’s more, he’s not going to sugarcoat how much more pain lies on the road ahead. The appeal, and it goes to how he treats Bush the Younger as well, is that he will execute better policies with more honesty and competence without changing the overall philosophy. That, in a nutshell, is his campaign, “We’re doing the right things the wrong way with the wrong man, but I’m the right man who will do things the right way.”

What that means for the general election is that his chances are directly, and by choice, tied to the war. If the trickle of positive news out of Iraq continues it benefits McCain more than anyone else, not because it means that the war is going well all of a sudden, but because it means that there is hope. (I would like to reiterate that I think the odds of the war appearing to go better even for a little while are very low. The chances of it actually going well are zero.) If there’s hope for the Iraq War, there’s hope for President McCain. The war is unpopular because ordinary citizens increasingly see it as a waste, if you can convince enough people that it isn’t a waste, that there’s a chance for a good outcome, you can start making arguments along the lines of, “Think how much better this would be going with the right president”. McCain, because of his unwavering support and willingness to say so out loud and frequently, has the most credibility to make that claim.

Tied to that is the issue of torture, one that could be crucial in the general election. Polls consistently show that not only do most people believe that water-boarding is torture, but that it’s wrong for us to practice it. This is not surprising, Americans as a people are not insane and torturing people is frankly nuts, and McCain is completely immune to the issue. This excellent New York Times piece from last week says everything you need to know. Torture is unpopular, Democrats can read polls just fine and will make an issue of it, and it will work against everyone but John McCain.

Fred Thompson needs to act tough, but that’s okay because he can probably do it better than any of the other would be nominees and acting can get you to 1600; McCain actually is tough and that’s what he has to run as, a tough man for tough times.

A brief note on the “Bitch” flap:

Someone called Hillary Clinton a “bitch” and this is news….why? This has been happening for decades, even in print. Come get me when someone calls her a “cunt”. I would love that. It wouldn’t be a new occurrence either, but at least that word has some shock value left. In fact, the more I think about it, the more I like it. Attention Hillary Clinton haters, please go up to a major Republican presidential candidate, they aren’t hard to find particularly if you live in Iowa or New Hampshire, and call her a “cunt” in front of a camera. Please, please, please do this, the awkward reaction from the candidate and the media would be the most entertaining spectacle of 2007.

“This biography of Bart came out awfully quickly. It’s not even about him.” - Lisa Simpson

Here at Tethered Swimming we’re going to examine the Republican presidential candidates and how they might fare in a general election that appears to be stacked against any Republican nominee. Today we’re looking at Mike Huckabee and the also rans, Wednesday will be John McCain and Fred Thompson, and next Sunday will be Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney.

Let’s dispense with the truly unelectable first, shall we? First up is Duncan Hunter. He’s a congressman from California and has about as much of a chance at winning the nomination as I do. The Core Principals listed on his campaign website tell you pretty much everything you need to know, it starts with abortion (though the heading is “Life”) and moves on from there to the usual laundry list of right wing bogyman problems from gay marriage (he’s against it) to the National Endowment for the Arts (remember that one?). He is as right wing as right wing gets and if he did win the nomination his right wing credentials as a culture warrior would doom against any Democratic nominee save perhaps Michael Moore.

Next comes Tom Tancredo, who is to immigration what Hunter is to abortion. He’s convinced that America is under siege by brown people. He won’t quite put it in those terms, but he’s not exactly going out of his way to be subtle about it either. If you’re looking for a little Republican candidate humor though, check out his store. He’s only got two items for sale, a t-shirt and a bumper sticker that will let the world know that you’re against amnesty for illegal immigrants. To place your order you need to copy text from the product page and then paste it into the order page. I’m not kidding, check out the link. It’s the kind of awkward, first-draft attempt at on-line commerce that I haven’t seen live since about 1999. Seeing this page my brain instantly conjured an image of him, sitting in his well appointed office, questioning some aide forty years his junior about the website, but doing so in terms that let you know that he has no idea what he’s talking about. Something like, “How many web clickers did the portal traffic today?” Anyway, if he did win the nomination he’d lose Goldwater style because, and I don’t know if anyone’s told him this yet, brown people vote.

This brings us to Mike Huckabee. He has done exceptionally well for a man with little to no national exposure prior to running for President. He did well at the Iowa straw poll which garnered him some media attention, which got him creeping up in the polls, which now have him in second place in Iowa for the caucus. In short, he’s beginning to benefit from the media feedback loop that keeps top tier candidates top tier and also ran candidates also rans. You can argue that he broke into that loop with a strong campaign and smart strategy, or you can argue that he got sucked in because each of the four big name candidates have some warts and voters were dissatisfied. Either way, he’s got to be taken seriously.

So, how could Huckabee prevail in the general election? The answer is pretty simple: pull a George W. Bush. He’s a similar candidate to the on Bush was back in 2000, conservative, religious, Washington outsider, etc. Huckabee could, in theory, make an attempt to reassemble Bush’s electoral alliance of social conservatives, fiscal conservatives, and people scared of terrorism.

He’s immune to charges of moral laxity, he’s a minister who has only ever had one wife; plus he doesn’t like gay marriage and isn’t shy about saying so. He’s not a darling of the Club for Growth, he did raise taxes to pay for schools in Arkansas, but this is on his campaign webpage, “I am running to completely eliminate all federal income and payroll taxes. And do I mean all - personal federal, corporate federal, gift, estate, capital gains, alternative minimum, Social Security, Medicare, self-employment.” He proposes a consumption tax that exempts basic necessities. I don’t know enough about tax policy to know if that actually makes any sense, my hunch is that it doesn’t, but whether it’s a decent plan or pie in the sky doesn’t really matter. On the campaign trail it can be presented as lowering taxes, which is all anyone really cares about. For people scared of terrorism he can’t offer much in the way of practical experience, but he can run as a macho Republican who will enthusiastically read all of the comforting B-movie lines that pass for foreign policy discourse these days.

The man who invented our hack screenwriter foreign policy, George W. Bush, isn’t as much of a liability for Huckabee as he is for candidates who’ve spent more time in and around D.C. Huckabee can present himself as a continuation of the good policies of Bush the Younger, but in a more responsible package. He’s got the good parts of Bush the Younger’s biography: he’s affable and down to earth but he’s still comfortable being religious; he’s on his first wife and hasn’t been caught with, or rumored to be with, anyone else; he’s a tax cutting, pro-life Southern governor. But he doesn’t have any of the ugly parts of the Bush bio: he wasn’t a spoiled rich kid; he didn’t use his father’s connections to avoid military service (he was only 17 when the Vietnam War ended); he isn’t dumb and got through college with his brain not his checkbook. In short, if anyone can garner the support of people who still support our current president without reminding anyone else of him too much, Huckabee can.

Then there’s the Iraq War, about which Huckabee has said almost nothing beyond the standard Republican template: victory not withdrawal, our troops are great and look how much I support them (and the vets), blah blah blah. He would (hopefully) have to say something a bit more substantive in the general election, but maybe not. If he can convince people that he’s the right commander, which is to say that he’s a competent man who can handle a tough, but doable, job, he might not need a secret plan to end the war. As we saw with the lionization of General Petraeus this summer, there are still a lot of people in this country who want to believe that we can win so badly that they’ll convince themselves that with a change at the top a doomed enterprise can be salvaged.

Finally we come to Mike Huckabee, the man. His claim to fame is that he was diagnosed with Type II diabetes and promptly shed over 100 pounds, making himself into a paragon of healthy virtue. If you’re trying to relate to the average American in 2008, weight loss is certainly a decent place to start. And he’s not one of those despicable thin people who can eat and not pork up. No, he was fat (just like you and me) and he lost the weight (just like you and me want to). That’s an easy story to tell.

The problem with all of this is that unlike his four more famous competitors, Huckabee has not spent a great deal of time under a national media microscope. He’s still small time and the proof is in the innumerable little financial flaps he’s had to endure. If this Salon piece and many of the links it contains are anything to go by there are a lot of poorly examined incidents in his record. Any one of them could turn into a major embarrassment when exposed to the full light of the national media.

Mike Huckabee could win, he’s got the background to become a credible candidate and the Republicans could certainly do worse (see: Hunter, Duncan and Tancredo, Tom). It would be an uphill battle, but Huckabee could position himself as George W. Bush 2.0, with none of the drawbacks and all of the advantages. It probably wouldn’t work, but if George W. Bush proved anything it’s that you can win the presidency by running on character as a character. If Huckabee wins the nomination, that’s what he’ll need to do.

“We need a candidate with name recognition and media savvy, a true leader who will do exactly as he’s told.” - C.M. Burns

By almost any measure the Republican nominee is going to have a rough go of it next year.  The reasons are obvious enough but worth restating anyway.  First and foremost is the Iraq War which will be killing Americans for little to no purpose throughout 2008; right next to that is the man most directly responsible for the war, a man who has now managed to surpass Richard Milhous Nixon in unpopularity.  The biggest hurdle for any Republican nominee will be garnering the enthusiastic support of the ~25% of the electorate that still supports Bush the Younger without alienating more than 51% of the rest of the country.  That alone may be impossible and if that weren’t bad enough, the traditional Republican advantage in campaign cash has not only been erased, it’s actually reversed itself.  I doubt reliable data exists to prove it, but 2008 will probably be the first time in history that the Republican nominee will not have a financial edge (maybe 1964…maybe).   The three issues that are most prevalent in voters’ minds, health care, global warming and the Iraq War, are all Republican negatives.  To top it all off, the party’s own Congressional rank and file are voting with their feet and quitting in droves.  Let’s be honest about what that means: they see no hope and don’t feel like going down with the ship.

Despite all that the Republican nomination is being fiercely contested for the first time since 1980.  Whoever ends up standing on that stage in St. Paul next year is going to do everything he can to keep some terrorist coddling, tax raising, anti-business tree hugger out of 1600.  It’s ridiculous to start speculating on the general election already, we don’t know who the Democratic nominee will be, the image candidates present to wintertime primary voters will likely be very different from the one they offer up to the general public in the summer, and a lot can happen between now and next fall, but I’m going to do it anyway.  It’s fun and, if nothing else, it’ll provide a baseline by which to judge the nominee four months from now once he’s got his ticket punched.

There are four distinct items I’d like to look at, the first is how well each candidate might repair and make use of Bush’s coalition from 2002/2004.  The second is how each candidate can best handle running away from Bush without seeming like he’s running away from Bush.  The third is terrorism/foreign policy/war generally and Iraq specifically.  And fourth is any particular strengths or weaknesses and how they can be used or mitigated.

The electoral alliance that Bush the Younger had so much success with in 2002 and 2004, and collapsed so spectacularly in 2006, had three main constituencies, social conservatives, financial conservatives/business interests, and people scared of terrorism.  Any Republican candidate is going to need to get all three of them back together to even dream of reaching a plurality, much less a majority.

Barring an impeachment, which, sadly, seems less likely every day, Bush the Younger is going to be the President for the entire campaign.  He’s a Republican President and in the last eight years has made himself synonymous with Republicans and the GOP.  He’s also staggeringly unpopular and not the type to try and soften his image just for the benefit of his would be successor.  As in 2006, in 2008 the single biggest problem for Republican candidates, for any office, is going to be identifying themselves as Republicans without triggering the Bush gag reflex that a majority of the population now possesses.  Ignoring him and his Administration sort of works in the primaries, where it’s to no one’s advantage to bring him up, but in the general election Bush, his presidency and his policies are going to need to be addressed.

The Iraq War remains the dominant political issue of the day.  With it come all the questions about dealing with terrorism, the Middle East, and what kind of foreign policy America is going to pursue.  The Republican nominee is going to need a convincing story to tell when it comes to Iraq.  It’s a story that’s going to have to be able to withstand bad and unexpected events happening between the rivers while not giving off even a whiff of retreat or defeat.  That’s a tall order, but it’s not out of the question.

Finally, each of the potential nominees has his own strengths and weaknesses when it comes to specific issues, general likeability, and past actions, be they mistakes or achievements.  In an attempt to keep the word counts from getting too lengthy, and keep me from churning out complete crap, I’m going to split up the field.  This Sunday we’re going to look at the long shot candidates and Mike Huckabee, the mightiest of the mites.  Next Wednesday it’s going to be John McCain and Fred Thompson, the fallen media darlings.  And next Sunday, after Thanksgiving, it’s going to be Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney, the latter of whom is, in my opinion, likely going to be the nominee.

You’ll notice that Ron Paul is not on this list.  I’d love to be able to include him but the simple fact is that his positions are anathema to a majority of Republican primary voters.  He represents the libertarian wing of the Republican Party which, unfortunately, is pretty small and long out of favor.

There are no guarantees in politics and as long as the odds look right now, you never know, this time next year we could be gearing up for four more Red years in the White House.  Even as I prepare to engage in acts of pundit stupidity, I like to remember an old Saturday Night Live sketch.  Nobody has put a video of it up, at least none that I could find anyway, but I did find the transcript.  It’s a fake debate between potential Democratic nominees in November of 1991 over who’s going to be the “chump” to lose to Bush the Elder the next year.  Al Gore isn’t even in it (Tipper is), and Bill Clinton doesn’t even rate a mention.  A year later the two of them were on their way to Washington.  Anything can happen.

“Henceforth, this date shall forever be known as Flaming Moe’s Day.” - Mayor Quimby

“Uh sir, this is already Veterans Day.” - Bodyguard

“It can be two things!” - Mayor Quimby

Today is either Veterans Day or Armistice Day, depending on how old and crotchety you are.  It’s technically a national holiday but when it does fall on a weekday most businesses and schools remain open.  The original Armistice Day commemorated the end of The Great War on 11 November 1918.  But seeing as how that war failed to end all wars and we kept fighting others ones, the holiday had to evolve.  The Army, naturally, has put up a nice little history that commemorates the twists and turns the holiday has taken over the years.  I’d like to propose one more.  I’d like to see Veterans Day merged with the other early November day on the federal calendar: Election Day.

Election Day is pretty well enshrined as the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November.  It’s worked well for over two hundred years and I, for one, wouldn’t want to screw around with it.  Veterans Day, on the other hand, has changed numerous times, one more isn’t going to hurt.  Moving Veterans Day up to coincide with Election Day would reinforce both.  Veterans Day is a deserving but often underappreciated holiday, moving it to the most important day on the political calendar would raise its profile tremendously.  If Election Day fell on a holiday, with schools and stock markets closed, it would make it that much easier for citizens to take a breather from the daily grind and vote.

I cannot think of a better way to honor the service of our troops than by facilitating our exercise of the franchise they fought, and in many cases suffered greatly, to protect.  Veterans Day would cease to be an overlooked federal holiday, no more celebrated than Columbus Day, and become an immediate reminder of not only the vets we have here at home, but the reason for their service.

Federal elections are the headline act on Election Day but state and local elections, which are just as important in terms of ordinary citizen’s daily interactions with government, happen as well.  Citizen involvement in government can never be a bad thing and more competitive elections at every level sure seems like a good thing.  This might, maybe, increase the number of people who know their mayor’s name.

Giving our school children a day off to celebrate enfranchisement wouldn’t be a bad thing either.  A day off would make voting and, perhaps just as importantly, awareness of elections that much more a part of their lives.  I’d also be willing to bet that teachers, scout troops leaders and the like would find constructive and rewarding things for the kiddies to do.

Veterans Day is overshadowed by Memorial Day, which, right at the beginning of summer, has a much choicer spot on the calendar.  Election Day is the neglected cornerstone of our democracy that routinely fails to generate respectable voter turnout numbers.  One is a holiday with no publicity; the other is a democratic necessity that is also the most publicity saturated day of the year.  They’d make a perfect fit.

“I know you are, but what am I?” - Bart Simpson

Five months ago I wrote a post arguing that we weren’t going to be attacking Iran regardless of the crazy bullshit floating around in the press. Having just re-read it, I see no reason to alter my conclusion. Attacking Iran is, even by the fantastic standards of the current Administration, simply too insane. There are all kinds of logical arguments against such an attack, starting with the simple fact that it wouldn’t work. Bombing that country cannot end a nuclear weapons program that either doesn’t exist or barely exists and it certainly won’t cause any regimes to change. Employing logical arguments to rebut psychotic ramblings (like this) has a certain grown-up character to it, but it’s out of place in our juvenile political discourse.

In that spirit, I would like to make a humble suggestion to any writer, pundit, Sabbath gasbag, presidential candidate or other opponent of attacking Iran who has access to a camera, a microphone or a keyboard. Two words: dick fear. People on the pro-war side of various arguments over the last few years have often advanced, sometimes subtly and sometimes overtly, the argument that those who are against the season’s fashionable war are basically pussies. In addition to this being more than a little childish it is also patently false. I say we reverse the process. Observe:

After all, it doesn’t make any sense for us to be afraid of a country that sports a whopping 4% of our GDP* and spent most of the eighties fighting Saddam Hussein to a standstill when it only took us four days to wipe out his entire army in ‘91. What kind of a bedwetting coward are you to be scared of such people? Does your giant, yellow belly prevent you from seeing your tiny and flaccid penis? What other medium sized countries with a history of military futility frighten you? Poland? Ethiopia? Don’t worry though, your mom told me to tell you not be scared, she already laid out your pajamas with the feet.

None of that does anything to address the arguments being employed by those who think we should attack Iran, but so what? On the merits of the case there is no rational argument for bombing Iran, but seeing as how the unrepentant neoconservatives don’t want to hear that we might as well have a little fun with some childish name calling. Plus, it might work better as a counterargument than reasoned discourse.

One of the hallmarks of conservative argument the last few years has been the imposition of wild assumptions as the starting point of debate. The preeminent example of this occurred during the run-up to our invasion of Iraq when it was taken for granted in most public discourse that Iraq possessed illegal weapons. The issue of whether or not the weapons existed was skipped altogether and we went right into, “What are we going to do about them?” Much the same tactic is being used now when the topic turns to Iran.

The rejoinder to my charges of penile insecurity and cowardice is probably something along the lines of, “You naïve peaceniks just don’t understand how the world works, Neville Chamberlain, Neville Chamberlain, Neville Chamberlain!” I would then fashion an equally un-provable response about paranoia, not being scared of every little thing in the world that you don’t like, and the nonexistence of the Bogyman. Incisive playground taunting has nothing to do with Iran, but it attacks the puffed up credibility of the armchair warriors instead of their ever shifting rationales for war. The only leg they have to stand on is their bellicose machismo; it seems like a good target to aim for.

There is one other advantage to my grammar school stratagem. The saber rattlers, who always seem to find something better to do than actually fight in the wars they so relentlessly advocate, probably have plenty of painful memories from recesses and lunch tables that, when recalled, can still sting. It would be no injustice to help them remember.

*GDP numbers from here (PDF).

Note:  After screwing with it longer than I probably should have I cannot get the first link to work in Internet Explorer.  I think it’s because there is an apostrophe in the title and I’m not sure if it’s on WordPress or on Microsoft, but it works just fine in Firefox.  If you’re using IE, you’ll need to click on the Archives link at right and go to June.  The post is near the bottom and is titled “Pssst, We’re Not Bombing Iran.  Pass It On”.

“Everything looks bad if you remember it.” - Homer Simpson

As we enter this last year until Bush the Younger becomes a true lame duck, there really isn’t much left to be said, or to do.  We appear to be in gridlock.  The President vetoes legislation, threatens to veto even more legislation, and whines about a Congress that isn’t as pliant as it once was.  The Legislature has largely put a brake on new Executive mistakes but has been unable to correct those previously committed or much advance its own agenda.  They are at each other’s throats with press conferences and sound bites, but neither has much power over the other and today is precisely one year until our next federal election.  Oh, how time flies.

Eight years ago - Bill Bradley and John McCain were fighting the good fight to try and keep both presidential nominations from going to unchallenged front runners.  There was a federal budget surplus and the economy was humming along so well that a book titled “Dow 36,000″ was taken seriously by people who should’ve known better.  Bush the Younger had just burst onto the national scene that summer as the prohibitive Republican favorite.

Seven years ago - We were on the precipice of the Florida debacle in what turned out to be one of the most important elections in a long time.  Bush the Younger was making campaign stops where he’d raise three fingers in the air as a “W” shape.  That he’d once be caught driving drunk (and this man was a well known boozer) was the best the Democrats could do for an October surprise.

Six years ago - We were still raw from trauma and in the early stages of bombing Afghanistan up from the Stone Age.  Bush the Younger had never been so popular, Rudy Giuliani was thinking about staying on as mayor past the end of his term and the vaunted newspaper recount of the Florida ballots was quietly neutered and released.  Best not to question the president’s legitimacy now, eh?

Five years ago - Democrats were running in fear as Bush and his acolytes beat the drums for war in Iraq.  We were quite certain that Saddam Hussein had massive weapons.  The very next day the Democrats took a beating and the Senate went back over to the Republicans.

Four years ago - Howard Dean was going to be the savior of the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party.  The hopes of the anti-war crowd were pinned on him and him alone, and conservatives cackled with glee at the idea of running against someone who would dare to publicly say that the war wasn’t going well.

Three years ago - John Kerry had just conceded and it was widely assumed that Republican control of the government would last for the foreseeable future.  Bush the Younger had “political capital” and values had decided the election.  The Republican Party was licking its chops and sharpening its knives because there was nothing left in their way.  Social Security reform would be merely the first in a series of domestically policy dominos.

Two years ago - Harriet Miers’ nomination for the Supreme Court had just gone down in flames and Samuel Alito had become a national figure overnight.  Bush was swooning from Katrina and the Miers fiasco and it was hard to believe that a man with his dismal approval ratings had been re-elected only a year before.  Social Security reform was long dead and there was very little talk of “political capital” anymore.

One year ago - The Auguries were pointed against the Republicans and the prophecy came true.  The Iraq War had finally, at long last, produced a tangible political result to go along with its consistently dismal poll numbers.  Rumsfeld resigned a few days later and the byline brigade waited, foolishly and with bated breath, for the Iraq Study Group to save us from Mr. Bush’s war.

What a long, strange Administration it’s been.