The Other McCain : Page 2029 : "One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up."

Unfortunately, Dave Weigel Is Right

Posted on November 23, 2011November 23, 2011Comments

This should make you as sad as it makes me:

There are 10 Republican candidates for president running in two campaigns. In Campaign No. 1, the nominee will be chosen in a matter of months, starting with caucuses in Iowa, then a primary in New Hampshire, then primaries in South Carolina, Florida, and so on—boring stuff, we’re all used to it. Mitt Romney is dully, ploddingly doing exactly what he needs to win this campaign. And then we have campaign No. 2. A tag team of quotable, viral-video-ready TV stars are taking turns as frontrunners. The press stages rigorous guessing games about which of them is going to surge next.
Campaign No. 2 is suspenseful and entertaining. Sexual harassment! Migraines! Ellis the Elephant! Donald Trump’s hair! Campaign No. 1 is as boring as the second draft of a Henry James novel. So it’s been a really long time since we paid attention to campaign No. 1. . . .

Go read the whole thing and try to tell me Dave is wrong, especially about the ridiculously implausible “Gingrich surge.” Anybody who thinks Newt’s going to be the Republican nominee should be sure and bring a hat to the GOP convention next August, because I will be glad to eat your hat — and my hat, and every damned hat in Tampa — if Newt wins.

Of all the headlines I can guarantee you’ll never see, “Newt Wins Republican Nomination” is at the top of the list, or at least a close second to, “Tabitha Hale Puts Stacy McCain on BlogCon Panel.”

UPDATE: I’m laughing at this part of Dave’s article:

Prefab Newtmania reached its dizzy heights on Monday night, when Monica Crowley got a chance to interview the man on Fox News.
“So, I am looking at these polls,” said Crowley, “and you are enjoying something of a surge. To what do you attribute that uptick?”
Tough question. “I think part of it is just substance and real solutions,” explained Gingrich.
“You are such a serious conservative intellectual,” challenged Crowley.

It’s like Chris Matthews interviewing Obama or something.

An Outline For Use On RomneyCare

Posted on November 23, 2011November 23, 2011Comments

by Smitty

Right Klik has done a superbe job in composing a video on RomneyCare:

I have not done the homework to see whether every single bullet point this video makes is valid. Then again, I’m no Romney apologist. Mitt just seems too glib about the way keen swellness of RomneyCare. But the 2012 election is not an episode of Leave it to Beaver, for all of the Ward Cleaver polish Mitt brings to the role.

One can expect the Romney campaign will have some issues with the video’s review of RomneyCare. Unlike #OccupyResoluteDesk, Mitt cannot blow off RomneyCare criticism the way BHO has blown of criticism of ObamaCare (as part of his overall Blow Off The Presidency program). Mitt has to stand and deliver. Thus far, Mitt has refused to admit he has an ugly baby. This refusal bumps Mitt in the delusional direction of BHO.

The Romney campaign’s master stroke on the RomneyCare issue is to admit that the execution was sub-optimal* and then describe in detail the lessons learned. Extra credit for the realization that all of our federal entitlements are daft, and describing the plan to wean the country off of that noise.

*A weasel word meaning “stone cold disaster”.

‘I Know It’s Not Much, But It’s the Best I Can Do …’

Posted on November 23, 2011November 21, 2011Comments

My cousin Pepper Ellis Hagebak’s column in the LaGrange (Ga.) News tells a story about Thanksgiving past. It involves a song.

But, wait — has Pepper never gotten to meet David Lee Roth? Because I think we could probably make that happen. I promised.

‘Key Social Conservatives’ in Iowa Plan Last-Ditch Effort to Discredit, Marginalize and Completely Embarrass Themselves

Posted on November 23, 2011Comments

I’ll explain why my headline describes the most likely result, after first giving you highlights of the CNN story:

Key social conservatives secretly
meet to stop Romney in Iowa
Representatives for leading social conservative groups in Iowa held a secret meeting Monday as part of an effort with one main goal: find and support a Republican presidential candidate who can stop Mitt Romney in Iowa. . . .
Multiple sources have described to CNN details of the meeting and the general effort.
The meeting, the group’s first, took place in a private office building in Des Moines on Monday. In attendance were representatives from the Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition, The Family Leader, the group Iowa Right to Life, and a representative for the Iowa chapter of Concerned Women for America. Some pastors from prominent Iowa churches also attended the meeting. . . .
Sources say there were about 20 to 25 people present at the meeting and that another meeting is planned for Monday of next week.
The effort is said to still be in the discussion phase. Participants were said to have narrowed their focus down to four candidates: Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann, Texas Gov. Rick Perry, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum.

This is a disaster in the making for social conservatives because (a) it’s likely to fail, and (b) it’s going to breed deep resentments within the “Stop Romney” coalition. The attempt by a secretive cabal of self-appointed leaders to anoint one of the Not Romneys will almost certainly produce a backlash that will end up hurting whichever candidate they end up endorsing, and the appearance of a conspiracy against Romney will create sympathy toward him, causing some Republican caucus voters to rally behind Romney, just to defy the will of these would-be kingmakers.

The “leaders” have reportedly narrowed their list to four names — Gingrich, Perry, Bachmann, Santorum — and if they back anyone else on that list except Rick Santorum, they’ll be accused of either (a) pragmatism, desiring to back a “winner,” or (b) anti-Catholic bigotry, or possibly (c) both.

While I suppose some will focus on the absence of Cain from the socon cabal’s “final four,” I’ll let that slide for now, because there can be no doubt that if social conservatives in Iowa mean to recognize any candidate as sharing their values and having campaigned tirelessly in Iowa, it’s Rick Santorum.

If the leaders reject Santorum, there will be hell to pay, and that will be especially so if the socon cabal backs Newt Gingrich. For them to reject a faithful cradle Catholic like Santorum in favor of the thrice-married not-exactly-lobbyist-for-Freddie-Mac and oh-by-the-way-now-I’m-Catholic-too like Gingrich . . .

Oh, you’d just never hear the end of it. And I bet you dollars to donuts that, if the socon cabal backs any one candidate, they’ll back Newt. The reasoning: Perry had his chance and blew it, and some would say the same about Bachmann, plus she’s a woman and there’s a built-in fundamentalist bias against women in the executive position. As a legislator, OK, but as Head Honcho? Uh . . . kind of maybe a problem for some few hard-core types, so that’s going to work against her within the socon cabal, and let’s not pretend otherwise.

Yet of the four candidates on the short list, only Bachmann and Santorum have worked Iowa with the kind of early-and-often effort that is supposed to be crucial there. However, Perry’s the Not Romney candidate who’s got the most money and Gingrich is the Not Romney riding high in the polls at the moment. Therefore, one suspects that the internal dynamics of the socon cabal involve trying to talk the stubborn supporters of Bachmann and Santorum to support either Perry or Gingrich — especially the latter — in the name of political pragmatism.

Yeah. Good luck with that.

It’s possible to war-game six or seven bad consequences of this operation, whereas there could be only one good outcome — i.e., backing a candidate who beats Romney in Iowa then goes on to win the nomination. Having scratched Cain from their list, for whatever reason, the “key social conservatives” might plausibly be able to defend an endorsement for Perry, even if he doesn’t win Iowa, but they’ll be in hot water if they pick Gingrich, because the Bachmann/Santorum people would go ballistic. And I still say the Newt Bubble won’t last.

So their two smartest moves would be for them to either (a) just forget the whole thing, rather than risking a divisive backfire, or (b) play the long odds and bet the whole stack on Santorum.

Honestly, I bet they’ll do something stupid instead. The fact they’re having “secret” meeting (that don’t stay secret) is a solid indication this might be a good time to start buying Romney shares on InTrade.

Afghanistan/Pakistan Points So Glaringly Obvious, They Got Zero Mention During The GOP Foreign Policy Debate

Posted on November 23, 2011November 23, 2011Comments

by Smitty

The GOP foreign policy debate was generally good. While disagreeing with Ron Paul’s non-interventionist approach, even he brings a valid viewpoint to the discussion. I’ll summarize it thusly: “No matter what we do overseas, we do a crappy job of reconciling our policy with our Constitution and purported Founding ideals.”

Yet Paul, as with the rest of the GOP field, seems to miss some specifics about the Asian conflict:

The Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, and the Islamic Republic of Pakistan are, [drumroll], Islamic Republics. This is a non-trivial point. For all some would say the U.S. is a Christian nation (I disagree), the Christian Republic of America ain’t here. Because we ruthlessly separate religion from politics. Or did until Progressivism. The point is that these are Islamic Republics. The religion precedes their constitutions. This starts to matter quite a bit for any long-term relationship. The leadership of a country may be all cosmopolitan, especially where elected by something more than gun barrels, but if the military and the people are not on board with the policy, conflict ensues. Read this, where “The Trinity of War” is mentioned.
The Durand Line means nothing in particular for the local population on either side. It is yet another British cartographic jape from the Age of Imperialism. Our policy and Rules of Engagement need a shot of realpolitik with respect to the ethnic situation, the history, and the geography. Pretending that Afghanistan and Pakistan are fully modern states is silly. Which is not meant as a dig against the populations of either country. They are no more or less evil than anyone else.
Nation building in Germany and Japan occurred with declared wars, against relatively industrious populations, involved troop commitments that haven’t ceased in 65+ years, and followed a thorough destruction of both governments. We had Germans and Japanese re-write their constitutions along solid Western lines. Do our Asian adventures, (begun as a SOF campaign by Bush and surged by BHO, who needed to say something muscular and coherent on foreign policy in 2008), even compare?

Here is my take, having spent most of a year variously in Kabul, Bagram, and Mazar-e-Sharif:

Nation Building a la Germany and Japan will not work.
Ignoring the threat of Islamist extremism only works in service of the threat.
The Bush-era policy on Afghanistan, while not exactly driving the problem, may be the least-worst way to get at the rub: this is not our problem to drive.

Above all else, these are Islamic Republics. While steering carefully clear of denigrating Islam as such, there exists a profound philosophical mismatch between Western and Islamic concepts of government. It’s easy to pick on Ron Paul for having foreign policy views that seem to clock in around the 1810. Yet those approaching these Asian conflicts with a purely Western mindset seem to be weighing in around 1910.

The point was made during the debate that insurgents play a waiting game. Time is the big weapon of the little guy in an asymmetric conflict. The clock works against representative governments like ours, where elections regularly try and succeed in breaking the Clausewitzian Triangle of resolve. However, time, education, and economics ought to favor the Western cause. The notions of iPads, social networking, and prosperity, as well as the roads, water, and power that get you to them, ought to be our emphasis points.

There is plenty of mineral wealth in Afghanistan and Pakistan to drive modern economies in both. Yet the culture and security situation do not permit the development of those resources. Not only are those cultural and security barriers completely outside the scope of anything we could externally change, we would be cultural imperialists even to try.

Concluding, consider Papua New Guinea. We’re not engaging in nation building there. Why the ‘Stans? Terrorist training camps in the ‘Stans. Fine: we can consider the minimum necessary investment to minimize legitimate security threats. After that, though, if we’re nation building in the ‘stans, we might as well take on the rest of the planet. No, that is not a serious suggestion.

For a more lyric take on Afghanistan, see this post.

Update: linked at Daily Pundit.

Obama Flunks History, Mischaracterizes Herbert Hoover’s Economic Policy

Posted on November 23, 2011November 23, 2011Comments

Ed Driscoll called this to my attention:

“This competition for new jobs and businesses and middle-class security, that’s the race I know we can win. But you don’t win it by saying every American is on their own. We’re not going to win it if we just hand out more tax cuts to people who don’t need them, let companies play by their own rules without any restriction, and we just hope somehow that the success of the wealthiest few translates in the prosperity for everybody else. We have tried that, by the way. We tried it for 10 years. It’s part of what got into the mess that we’re in. It doesn’t work. It didn’t work for Herbert Hoover, when it was called trickle-down economics during the Depression. It didn’t work between 2000 and 2008, and it won’t work today. And the reason it won’t work is because we are not a country that is built on survival of the fittest. That’s not who we are.”
— Barack Obama, Nov. 14, Kapolei, Hawaii

Hans Bader of Open Market:

Obama is dead wrong. Data from the White House’s own website shows that Hoover increased, rather than cut, spending in the Great Depression, and ran up deficits that were huge by historical standards.

I’ve said it before: They don’t teach economics at Harvard Law.

And apparently they don’t teach history, either.

Herman Cain: ‘I Believe I Was Able to Clearly Explain My Philosophy’

Posted on November 23, 2011November 23, 2011Comments

The Obama administration is “dangerously incompetent” in foreign policy, according to Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain said, who accused the president of “coddling dictators” in a fundraising appeal sent to supporters after Tuesday’s debate on CNN.

“I believe I was able to clearly explain my philosophy about America’s international affairs and how I believe the Obama Administration has been so dangerously incompetent with our overseas dealings,” the Atlanta businessman wrote in the e-mail (see full text below). “Unlike President Obama, I believe America should treat our allies better than we do our enemies. That means we should embrace traditional allies like Great Britain instead of coddling dictators like Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez.”

Some analysts have dismissed Cain’s campaign since he recently slipped to third place in national polls. However, there is evidence the former Godfather’s Pizza CEO may have begun recovering from damage inflicted by allegations of sexual harassment in the 1990s and by his own gaffes. A CNN poll taken Nov. 18-20 shows Cain at 17 percent, up three points from a CNN poll taken a week earlier. And polls in Iowa — where the Jan. 3 caucuses are now less than six weeks away — continue to show Cain competitive in the Hawkeye State.

“I am a consistent conservative who can solve our nation’s problems,” Cain wrote to his supporters. “That is why I am running for President. That is why I can win.”

– – – – –

** FULL TEXT OF CAIN CAMPAIGN E-MAIL **

Dear Patriots
I hope you were able to watch tonight’s Republican foreign policy debate. I believe I was able to clearly explain my philosophy about America’s international affairs and how I believe the Obama Administration has been so dangerously incompetent with our overseas dealings.
Unlike President Obama, I believe America should treat our allies better than we do our enemies. That means we should embrace traditional allies like Great Britain instead of coddling dictators like Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez.
Unlike President Obama, I believe America needs to stand up to Iran. We should build our missile shield in Eastern Europe to protect our interests from Iranian missiles.
And, unlike President Obama, I don’t believe in spreading America’s wealth all across the globe in the form of “foreign aid.” Our economy is in a shambles and our government is broke. We should only provide aid to foreign countries that are either our allies or who have suffered a great humanitarian disaster.
The differences between Barack Obama and me on nearly every issue are clear. We are politically polar opposites. It doesn’t matter if we are discussing foreign policy or the economic future of America. I am a consistent conservative who can solve our nation’s problems.
That is why I am running for President. That is why I can win.
Ideas and commitment alone aren’t enough to win the Iowa caucuses, however.
I need you.
Please make an urgent contribution to my campaign of $20, $30, $50, $100, $250 or more right away. The Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary are only weeks away and our opponents have so much money.
I need the funds the match them dollar for dollar in TV ads and grassroots organizing. I need the money to spread my message of economic opportunity and fiscal discipline. I need the resources to recruit more and more volunteers to publicize the job-building benefits of my revolutionary “9-9-9 Plan” to spur economic growth. 9-9-9 means jobs-jobs-jobs!
Please make a generous donation to my campaign right away.
Thank you in advance for your support and God Bless America!

Sincerely
Herman Cain