Ask around and see how many normal people think it’s a positive when Fred Phelps stands up for his beliefs.
Standing up for your beliefs is only a positive when your beliefs are positive.
The big problem with a brokered convention picking a new candidate is lack of vetting. Look at what happened with Cain. Who could they pick not running now, besides Palin, and be sure that the candidate won’t blow up in their faces?
If they pick Romney, and he loses, the far right can be convinced that a “true” conservative would have won. If they pick a “true” conservative that will be harder when he gets trounced. I can see them going with Santorum to kill off the wacko wing (though I doubt it would work, them being wacko) but I’m betting on Romney with the hope that either an economic meltdown makes him electable or that he somehow finds a personality and some charisma.
Whoa, I’m not saying its a good idea. They just don’t have a better one.
I can’t help wondering about the “white knight” scenario. I mean, let’s suppose Daniels or Christie (or even Jeb Bush) rides in on a white charger* to save the Grand Old Party from having to support Romney. But what then?
It’s the end of August. 68 days from the close of the convention to Election Day. And you have a (relatively) brand-spanking-new candidate with minimal organization (and that’s being charitable). How do you market him?
Certainly, he would have the party machinery and the Koch empire (neither of which is to be sneezed at), along with a variety of well-funded super-PACs. But they’re all up against an incumbent whose previous campaign was one of the best-run in living memory. Do you scramble** to put together a positive message, or decide to go “all negative, all the time” (which probably wouldn’t be all that great a shift in strategy)?
Granted, I have no feel whatsoever for politics: no matter how hard I try to make sense of it, all I get back is “does not compute.” But there’s just no way I can see this scenario leaving the Republicans in at least as bad a position as they would be if they’d chosen Romney. If nothing else, it would (to me) signal an organization in serious disarray — an image that they seem to have been cultivating through most of the primary season.
So somebody please edumicate me. What do you do?
*In Christie’s case it would have to be a dam’ big charger. Or perhaps a team.
**The clusterfleech that followed McGovern dumping Eagleton in 1972 comes to mind.
Barack Obama has done considerably more for the libertarian message than Ron Paul has.
This is bizarre beyond words.
But it mostly goes to prove my contention that the libertarian fantasy is a religious belief. Democrats can disagree wildly with one another and everybody sees them as Democrats. Republicans can disagree wildly with one another and everybody sees them as Republicans.
But Libertarians are not seen as Libertarians by Libertarians because nobody is ever pure enough to live up to their religious standards. Nobody ever can be, because those beliefs can’t live in a real world of real politics. They exist only on the internet and other virtual realities.
And yet they wonder why they are considered a fringe.
No, I don’t think this tends to be true. Republicans who disagree wildly are generally called RINOs by the other side. Democrats view them all as Republicans. Republicans don’t.
Limited government is a negative belief? You must not be familiar with conservative principles.
:eek:. What has Obama done for libertarianism?
Limited government is not a conservative principle, nor a principle of Ron Paul. It is a libertarian principle, though.
And I say that Obama has done more for the libertarian message than Paul has because in many ways, Obama has attempted to implement it. He’s been trying to apply the free market to problems such as health care and energy production, and failing largely due to the right’s opposition. He hasn’t been calling what he’s doing libertarian, but surely what words he uses to describe his policies are the least important thing about them.
As a democratic egalitarian, I couldn’t care less how big government is, so long as it is firmly under the control of the governed. Big government too intrusive? Vote it out. Limited government lacks utility? Adjust accordingly. Big government this year, limited next? As the people will.
That’s freshwater economics, not market fundamentalism. The latter term is synonymous with libertarianism. Libertarian leaning is another matter: that is mainstream.
Indeed, I am not. I only know of modern conservatism as a stance or attitude, mostly born from resentment of liberals and their pesky empiricism. I say this because when liberals adopt conservative ideas like tradeable emission permits or Romneycare, they cease magically to be conservative. The only fixed principle I see here is goalpost transport.
Still it’s prudent to reflect upon the conservative perspective once in a while. Dr Tim Stanley, conservative biographer of Patrick Buchanan and an expert on the United States, posits in the Telegraph that a brokered convention would be a good thing: “It could be just what the Republicans need.” I’m with him so far, actually: Republicans certainly are in need of something next November, probably involving a clue-by-four. Anyway Dr. Stanley’s two reasons follow:
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A brokered convention would help win the TV war, because it would be just like a reality show. I offer no comment to this.
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A competitive convention might give the Republicans a better candidate than Romney or Gingrich.
Yes, introducing yourself to the country, smearing Obama and building up a campaign infrastructure from scratch would seem daunting. Conservatives will argue though that what Mitch Daniels, Chris Christy or another member of the cavalry won’t have to worry about it a full court press by Romney, complete with televised attack advertising. No, Romney is a humble man and will gallantly step aside. This seems like a strange argument to me – but what does this liberal know?
Modern conservative brain wave:
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/timstanley/100135092/bring-on-the-brokered-convention-it-could-be-just-what-the-republicans-need/
Today’s fivethirtyeight which goes into mind numbing detail about the complexities of the delegate count. It probably won’t be messy by then … but the set up is such that it easily could be.
Huh. After this 538 post I had pretty well written off the potential of an open convention, especially as Gingrich has failed to get his share (making this more of a two man race) but now the NYTs is raising the potential yet again.
Realistic or just the media trying to make a story for entertainment?
Could see a whole new kind of politics here–where is it written that a 68-day campaign for Pres is too short a rollout? Take Palin–I’m amazed that the “whole new thing” she presented the country with was a positive factor at first, and if she’d been any kind of substantive candidate (as opposed to the airhead/ditz/ignoramus she proved very shortly to be), I think she could have been an overwhelmingly popular VP choice, which is scary as hell.
Say the Pubbies go five or six ballots with no one breaking 800 delegates. All bets are off as far as legal obligations to back a specific candidate, and they agree on a compromise candidate, Christie, Daniels, Bush–hell, throw in Palin and Rand Paul and Paul Ryan. This fresh new face, with another fresh new face VP, excites the public, and 68 days proves to be too LITTLE time to expose their weaknesses.
Makes as much as sense to me as going with a candidate (Romney) whom the base despises and is sick of hearing about.
That’s barely enough time to find out who they hugged in the past two years, let alone two decades.
I can’t see an un-primaried candidate satisfying both the cultural and the economic conservative wings enough to rally the party behind him or her.
Tell that to the throngs supporting Palin (and vigorously, and as enthusiastically) in the first what? 25, 30 days after her surprise nomination in 2008. As I said, without her imploding, which is by no means a certainty with every GOP surprise pick, she could have been the best thing that happened to the GOP (from their perspective) since Reagan.
Just because you can’t see it doesn’t mean it couldn’t happen. You might need glasses.
A companion story was about St Charles County, Missouri’s caucus. Disruption Closes a Missouri Caucus Before Vote - The New York Times
If I understand this correctly, Santorum won the primary a few weeks ago, but the delegates were not yet awarded. When the caucus met (yesterday?) to select delegates, apparently Ron Paul supporters outmaneuvered and overwhelmed the local Republican party (by following the rules) and were positioned to award the delegates to Paul, instead of Santorum.
The caucus became so unruly that the caucus was closed, the cops called, two people were arrested, no delegates selected and the locals are left trying to sort out the rules and reschedule.
I wonder how many of these kinds of upsets it would take to destabilize the whole process? It looks like all the Republican Presidential candidates all be fighting tooth and nail for every single delegate vote.
I saw in the NYT’s article DSeid linked that that Santorum has “a new delegate strategist”. Is that is a normal position in a campaign? Does he replace the old delegate strategist or is Santorum just now feeling he needs a delegate strategist?
Also, what happens to ‘pledged’ delegates who just change their mind? I believe there is not penalty other than being ostracized when you get back home. I don’t think Paul supporters consider that a problem. What if there are a bunch of Paul sleepers in the Romney/Santorum/Gingrich pledged groups? I can just imagine the riot on the floor if that happened!
The impossibility I see (and since I can’t imagine more than four or five before breakfast I’m no means an expert) is a candidate that both energizes the ‘base’ and has the support of the more mainstream (crossing into independents) arm of the party. We’ve had enough threads about possible nominees or even VP picks–anyone who really gets the phonebanks and volunteers out beyond the take-for-granted-anti-Obama activists will not be appealing to the moderate general election-focused crowd.
I agree, that a less myopic Palin would have been a force to reckon with, and I don’t think that a super-conservative tea party candidate is *necessarily * in that same Palin vein, but for the most part, the slate of candidates that Palin et al would really get behind beyond mere party unity is very unlikely to be attractive to those supporting Romney. In reverse, I daresay that a not-Romney has to appeal to competing Palin/tea-party forces (just uniting those would be a Herculean task) to such an extent as to not only ward off a lack of enthusiasm but to quell third-party grumblings. The current spirit of non-compromise has deep roots in the tea party wing; it’s my contention that this would carry over to the nominating process and torpedo your post’s idea regardless of how rational it is.
Perhaps the question is what non-primaried candidate would both main factions of the GOP accept and rally behind?
How about Paul Ryan and Chris Christie (in any order)?