DADDY, WHAT WAS GOVERNMENT?
Every time you think America might be emerging from the sinkhole into which it's fallen, you read something like this:
Gov. Christie's approval rate highest ever amongst N.J. residents
Fifty-six percent of New Jersey voters approve of Gov. Chris Christie, according to a Fairleigh Dickinson University PublicMind poll this morning.
That's Christie's highest ever rating in a Fairleigh Dickinson poll.
"It's hard to imagine that a minority party governor could really do much better," said poll director Peter Woolley. "Unless maybe he runs into a burning building and rescues an old lady. But that trick has been taken."
Women approve of Christie by a margin of 48%-39%, men (naturally) by a whopping 64%-27%. And yes, this is a state where Obama will win handily no matter how the rest of country votes; it's a state where they're cool with gay marriage. None of that matters. Occupy Wall Street assails the 1%, the tea party demonizes Obama, but Chris Christie has united his constituents across the political spectrum by identifying a scapegoat: unionized public sector workers, particularly teachers -- otherwise known as history's greatest monsters.
It just makes me think that maybe this is a right-center nation after all -- but if it is, it is because voters literally don't understand the left-center alternative. They don't because it's been decades since any prominent officeholder has articulated an unapologetic defense of liberalism and government, thus giving voters a framework for understanding why they should continue supporting programs that they already depend on and use, and why they should support the taxation necessary to keep those programs afloat.
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This is why Mitt Romney really has nothing to fear from this:
For Ron Paul, it's no longer about becoming president.
His backup plan since January has been to use delegates as a bargaining chip to extract concessions at the GOP convention: a prominent speech or the inclusion of Paul's views in the party platform that will be approved in Tampa, Fla., in August. To some degree, his campaign is about influence and leverage....
For a long-shot candidate like Paul, success might be the mainstreaming of his ideology....
With Nevada, and Maine, Paul now has the support of at least two delegations, with Minnesota and Missouri on the horizon as a possible third and fourth. He also might enjoy strong support from Alaska, where his supporters ousted the sitting party chairman at April's state convention.
He also has a mathematical shot at winning delegations from Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, Oregon and Vermont, which have yet to hold significant delegate-selecting conventions....
So, yeah, he's going to make demands of Romney in return for playing nice at the convention. And mainstreaming his ideology is probably something Romney will agree to.
Now, it would be3 nice if that included a climbdown from the extremes of American interventionism, or a curtailing of the drug war, but I bet Romney will hold firm on those items, and I bet Paul doesn't really care. It's the economic stuff he cares about.
I bet Romney can adopt all sorts of Ron Paul economic planks, diluted or otherwise, and a large chunk of the "moderate" (and even "liberal") public won't even blink. They've been brainwashed so thoroughly about the evils of government, for so many Reagan and post-Reagan decades, that they won't find most of the Paulite ideas in any way extreme. I still think Obama will win, but only because Romney's a stiff -- and because there's a coalition of non-whites and a smattering of (disproportionately female) liberal whites that gets it.
But the rest of the country is ready for government-bashing. And we're probably delaying our Randian future only temporarily this year.
And maybe Ron is trying to help make sure that Randian future includes the idiot fruit of his withered loins - his son, Rand.
ReplyDeleteIf that the thought of the blithering moron being a major player in R politics in the future doesn't scare you, I don't know what will.
It does, and he probably will be, thanks to Dad.
ReplyDeleteI wish I could more fully agree that phenomena like Christie's popularity exist "because it's been decades since any prominent officeholder has articulated an unapologetic defense of liberalism and government", but I can't. You can go back to 1980 and find Ted Kennedy, and coming on up the decades you find Gov. Cuomo of NY, Sens. Simon of Ill. and Harkin of Iowa, Gov. Brown of Cal., Sen. Bradley of NJ, Gov. Dean of VT. They no doubt varied in how "unapologetic" they were in defense of liberalism and government, but - prominent officeholders all - they did state pretty stout defenses of the core position, I think. I just can't buy the notion that there's a large, potentially sensible and virtuous electorate out there just waiting for the right pitch by the right pol to show up at the polls and swamp the forces of evil. At some point, the responsibility lies on the individual voter to educate her/himself and employ common sense. You can lead the horse to water by many paths, but if the horse is too lazy or dense to drink - well, you know the rest. How many ways must it be pointed out to someone that the Social Security check upon which s/he depends is issued by a federal government agency created by liberalism?
ReplyDeleteI just can't buy the notion that there's a large, potentially sensible and virtuous electorate out there just waiting for the right pitch by the right pol to show up at the polls and swamp the forces of evil.
ReplyDeleteNot one pitch -- repeated pitches over many years. The kind of thing we get relentlessly (daily?) on the anti-government side.
How many ways must it be pointed out to someone that the Social Security check upon which s/he depends is issued by a federal government agency created by liberalism?
Enough to sink in, I'd say, because it hasn't.
"How many ways must it be pointed out to someone that the Social Security check upon which s/he depends is issued by a federal government agency created by liberalism?"
ReplyDeleteOr that the Medicare/Medicaid motorized medical scooter they ride to the Tea Party rallies, are also a benefit of LIBERAL policies?
American's is SOOOOOO stupid!