Thursday, October 16, 2014

MORE EVIDENCE THAT THE 2016 ELECTION WILL BE BRO'D, JUST LIKE THE 2000 ELECTION
(updated)

The (subscriber-only) cover story of the latest issue of Time is posted now. It's about Rand Paul. And here's the cover:



As Tom Kludt notes at Talking Points Memo, Time is hardly being original here: a month ago, Politico Magazine also called Paul "the most interesting man in politics." Chris Cillizza of The Washington Post called Paul "the most interesting man in the (political) world" back in June. Reason called him the "Most Interesting Man in the Senate" back in 2011.

So it's a cliche by now -- but why this cliche?

I think, in large part, it's the bro (and bro-admiring) nature of many Beltway journalists. The folks at Reason would have embraced the libertarian-ish Paul no matter what, but Cillizza, Politico, and Time are part of a press corps that I'm convinced is looking for a frattish guy to escort us out of the Obama era (and save us from that icky old lady Hillary Clinton) -- and if a possible bro savior has been found, what higher, bro-ier compliment can the journos pay him than to apply an honorific derived from a series of beer commercials, and, moreover, a series of beer commercials obviously inspired by the even more bro-ish Chuck Norris Facts joke series?

I say this all the time, but I'm going to keep saying it: There's an excellent chance that the 2016 election is going to be a rerun of 2000, with the press coming to the conclusion that the Democrat is a buzz-killing, nut-crushing schoolmarm, and with a Republican bamboozling the reporters into thinking that he's both a thoughtful right-centrist and a guy you'd really, really like to have a beer with. If it's not Rand Paul, it might be Mitt Romney or Paul Ryan or Jeb Bush or Marco Rubio or Chris Christie. But the template is JFK: cerebral and charismatic.

Bros and bro fanboys will downplay any signs of right-wing extremism in their designated bro hero, and will see any modest accomplishments as signs of potentially world-historic political talent. Check out the breathless talk from the author of the Time story, Michael Scherer -- obviously more of a bro hero-worshiper than an actual bro -- on today's Morning Joe:



SCHERER: ... politics is about storytelling, and the stories almost never change, and here's a guy who's really trying to change the whole narrative of how we think about Republican Party vs. Democratic Party. He's going around the country talking to conservative, all-white, straight-and-narrow, preppy audiences and saying, "We've got to embrace the freaks and the weirdos and the longhairs and the guys with tattoos." He's going, like other Republicans have done unsuccessfully, to minority communities, saying, "I want to do a bunch of things you haven't heard Republicans say in the past need to be done." He's going to young people around the country. And more important than that, I think, is that Republicans -- he's not the first person to try and color outside the lines, but Republicans, because they're in this sort of demographic bind, are actually listening to him, and he's got a soapbox and he's actually making changes.
He's actually making changes. Yeah, you can see how much Republicans have started following Paul's color-outside-the-lines lead in the huge shifts they've made on the issues of ... er ... um ... well, I'm sure I'll think of something.
SCHERER: ... Interviewing him is like being in a graduate seminar on, sort of, how you can still be a conservative and hold these views without being inconsistent. To get from Point A to Point B, to explain himself, he doesn't really contradict himself, but it takes three or four jumps to really slice the issues he's after, and it's a far more intellectual approach to politicking than we've seen.
(Yes, you heard that right: Rand Paul is "intellectual," and "intellectual" is now a good thing for a politician to be. Barack Obama, call your agent.)

I keep alluding to 2000, but I can't deny that this sort of thing happened on Bill Clinton's behalf in the run-up to the 1992 primaries, when insiders started getting serious mancrushes on him. It also, obviously, happened to Barack Obama in 2008, big time. But if it happens in 2016, the designated bro savior is going to be a Republican who'll be far more extreme than the journalists crushing on him will ever acknowledge (or notice).

So beware -- the next presidential election is not in the bag for Democrats. This is why.



****

UPDATE: I reread this and realized I didn't make a very strong case for Rand Paul as bro-ish regular guy. For that, I guess, you have to turn to his trolling of Michelle Obama on the issue of food.





Frickin' hilarious!
Posted by Steve M. at 2:03 PM
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