US Republicans are having a tough time considering who their candidate should be for the 2012 Presidential election.
Mitt Romney is the current front-runner, but has a ceiling of support at around 35-40% of the vote. He is fatally hamstrung, however, by the healthcare law he passed when he was Governor of Massachusetts, which many Republicans compare to the federal healthcare law ("Obamacare") which they fiercely oppose and are desperate to repeal. He is also a Mormon, which largely makes him unable to connect with the evangelical Christians who make up a sizeable chunk of the Republican Party.
Michele Bachmann, who entered the race to become the party's nominee relatively recently, has created a lot of excitement, and started coming second in polls. Despite her lack of a record to point to (she has been representing Minnesota's 6th Congressional district for four years) and lack of executive experience, the excitement around her is understandable. She's the first candidate really to start vocally challenging President Obama, she's a Tea Partier, and she gets media coverage.
I've just finished the final and full dress rehearsal for the launch of ConservativeHome USA. We launch at 11.30am tomorrow, UK time. One of the pieces I wrote was a summary of Sarah Palin's letter to the new Congress. Here's my post...
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Sarah Palin has written an open letter to Republican Freshmen, offering advice and setting out her own philosophy in the process. You can read the whole letter on her Facebook page but here are my ten summary observations of what she communicated:
She puts the replacement of ObamaCare at the top of her list of priorities. "Defund it," she writes. It's "a job-killer, a regulatory nightmare, and an enormous unfunded mandate".
The deficit is a problem of high spending not low taxes. "Tax cuts didn’t get us into the mess we’re in. Government spending did."
A tax hike on job creators is the last thing America needs at the moment. She addresses the key Democrat argument that Republicans want tax cuts for the rich: "You must continue to remind Democrats that the people they are dismissing as “rich” are the small business owners who create up to 70% of all jobs in this country!"
Earmarks are a "gateway-drug" that facilitated backroom deals and bloated budgets. They must go.
Debt is an issue of justice between the generations. She calls for "humane" reform of entitlements and "zero-based budgeting" to restore fiscal discipline.
Reduce the burden of regulation and support free trade agreements with Korea and Colombia.
"Secure the border". This must come first, argues the former VP nominee, before regularizing the status of current illegal immigrants.
Do not try suspected terrorists on American soil. She warns against "precipitously close the Guantanamo prison".
Isolationism is the wrong path for America. She writes: "If we withdraw from the world, the world will become a much more dangerous place. You must push President Obama to finish the job right in Iraq and get the job done in Afghanistan, otherwise we who are war-weary will forever question why America’s finest are sent overseas to make the ultimate sacrifice with no clear commitment to victory from those who send them."
Don't trust the liberal media. Urging Republicans to stick to the principles on which they were elected she warns that a pat on the back from the mainstream commentariat is a warning to "readjust".
Although short on detail, the letter is a solid agenda that puts Sarah Palin in the conservative mainstream. Her continued commitment to America's place in the world, and support for free trade, will upset some of the more isolationist members of the Tea Party Movement but is welcomed by ConHomeUSA. The letter is also noteworthy for the lack of mention of any social issues. The former Governor of Alaska is clearly emphasising her economic credentials in what still looks like a bid for 2012.
Former CEO of Hewlett-Packard, Carly Fiorina became the GOP nominee for the US Senate and former eBay CEO Meg Whitman became the party's nominee to succeed Arnold Schwarzenegger as the state's governor. Both women spent big to win their races and have lots more treasure in their coffers. Nonetheless, both have uphill battles ahead of them. Democrat Senator Barbara Boxer has a 7% lead in the Senate race (profiled here by the Washington Post) and Jerry Brown has a similar advantage in the race for the Governor's mansion.
On the eastern coast, Nikki Haley looks set to win the nomination to be Republican candidate for Governor.
Interestingly all three women were endorsed by Sarah Palin. Huffington Post notes that Haley was at the back of the pack until she got the nod from the former VP candidate. The endorsement of Fiorina caused some concern for Palin's more socially conservative supporters (according to National Review):
"Thousands of conservatives commented in anger below the Facebook endorsement, scratching their heads about why Palin, of all people, would back Fiorina, whom they considered a RINO (Republican in Name Only). Chuck DeVore, considered by many, including Sen. Jim DeMint (R., S.C.), to be the most tea-party-aligned of the contenders, was left empty-handed. With Palin having endorsed her former running mate, Sen. John McCain, a moderate, in Arizona’s Senate primary months before, “that’s two strikes against you, little sister!” wrote one commenter. “One more and you’re done.” Shelby Baker, a leader of Tea Party Patriots, complained to Human Events that the “bloom’s off the rose,” dubbing Palin “a company girl . . . a Republican, and not in a good way."
...Palin eyed the online debate for a bit, and then jumped in with a Facebook update. Look, she typed, “some reaction right out of the chute calls for more information.” Fiorina, she argued, is “pro-life, pro-traditional marriage, pro-military, and pro-strict border security and against amnesty,” as well as being for repealing Obamacare and for supporting the Second Amendment. “That’s no RINO,” Palin mused, “that’s a winner.”"
Another victory for Republican women - and, more notably, the Tea Party Movement - was Sharron Angle in Nevada. Nevada is a more likely pick up for the Republicans than California. The state currently representated by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid would provide the juiciest of victories for Republicans. Left-wing blogs are welcoming Angle's win, however, saying her Tea Party views make her the weakest opponent for Reid.
The big question for November's mid-term elections is whether the general drift to the right of Republican candidates will fit the national mood or will save Obama from an otherwise messy set of results.
The Tea Party protests took part across the USA last year in protest at Barack Obama's expansion of the federal government. Invoking the Boston Tea Party the modern day protestors claim they are Taxed Enough Already. Mainstream media organisations have attempted to paint the Tea Party movement as a movement of nutters - drawing attention to some of the (many) fringe characters who have attached themselves to events.
For Mark Halperin there are enormous similarities between Sarah Palin and the Tea Party movement:
Both scare the heck out of a Republican Establishment that is afraid to be critical of either of them in public (but savages them in private.)
Both "stand for" hazy opposition to big government, with no specifics on how they would do things differently (or effectively.)
Both have far less support in the country at large than a gullible Old Media seems to understand or suggest.
Both are the subject of endless fascination by cable TV.
Both have the potential to ensure Barack Obama's re-election.
Both have energetic supporters whose passion dwarfs anything else in American politics today.
There is a continuum, however, from those nutty fringes (where Obama is
compared to Hitler)... to the mainstream of the Tea Party movement
(TPM) and its very high energy levels (it organised the conservative
movement's largest ever demonstration
in Washington DC in September 2009)... and then to the less energised
but still angry middle America that, in Massachusetts, voted for Scott
Brown in protest at Barack Obama's activist expansion of government and
public borrowing.
Much of the Republican establishment nonetheless fears the TPM. The movement has, for example, backed Florida House Speaker Marco Rubio against fellow Republican and incumbent state governor, Charlie Crist (R) in the Republican Senate primary. The TPM wants top create a purer, more anti-government Republican Party but the party establishment fears that a too ideological party will upset moderates. The movement then intends to pour its resources into the campaigns of approved Republicans. The 'Enduring Liberty Corporation', an offshoot of the movement, aims to raise $10m in support of 'friends of the TPM'.
Sarah Palin is encouraging the Republican Party to embrace the movement. She gave the keynote address to the National Tea Party Convention on Saturday night, in Nashville. She spoke to 1,100 people who had each paid $350 for their seat. She said that America was “ready for another revolution,”. She got the warmest response from her audience when she attacked Obama. “How’s that hopey-changey stuff working out for you?,” was one of her best-received lines. Her speech never became personally negative, however. Her strongest line being to describe the President as that “charismatic guy with a teleprompter.” For FrumForum her "speech was a color-by-numbers affair that read like it was a paragraph-by-paragraph summary of a stack of Wall Street Journal editorials." In summary: "Drill for more oil. Don’t criminalize the war on terror. Lobbyists in Obama’s White House. Nationalize the healthcare insurance market. Stand by Israel. Don’t apologize for America." But as The Weekly Standard notes, she didn't just crowd please: "Palin started off with a concentrated attack on the Obama administration's national security policies--not an issue for which the Tea Partiers are known."
It's easy to write the TPM off but there are signs of maturity. Within the 600 people gathered in Nashville to sit through seminars on fundraising, blogging and other political techniques there are almost certainly individuals who will either help the Tea Party movement to succeed or who, in the years to come, will nurture other conservative movements.
Sarah Palin's memoir, Going Rogue, is selling like hot cakes but the American fascination with the former Governor of Alaska is unlikely to see her become a contender for the nation's highest office.
Sarah Palin, talking to Oprah Winfrey, says she is not considering a presidential bid in 2012 (not yet, anyway): "“I’m concentrating on 2010,” when there will be midterm elections. Has she thought about running? “It’s not on my radar screen right now,” she said. Then again, she probably wouldn’t tell Oprah if she were, right? “No, I wouldn’t,” Ms. Palin acknowledged." [New York Times].
Moderate Republicans are said to be unhappy at Sarah Palin's re-emergence: "Moderate Republicans—yes, they are not yet extinct, though most are in hiding—scoff at Sarah Palin and wish she would go away. But she's not going away. This week she's going on-air with Barbara Walters and Oprah Winfrey to flog her new book, Going Rogue: An American Life, and to promote her brand of in-your-face, power-to-the-people conservatism." [Newsweek].
For the Republican Portillistas at NewMajority.com, Palin has celebrity but not credibility.
Loved by most Republicans and hated by most Democrats: "Ms. Palin remains highly popular among Republicans (69% favorable). But the Democrats' striking antipathy to the former governor—she has a 72% unfavorable rating among them—drives down her overall approval." [Matthew Continetti].
Independents are divided but could they be won over if she demonstrated substance on policy?: "In last month's Gallup poll, Ms. Palin had a 48% unfavorable and 41% favorable rating among independents. Not good, but not insurmountable. Flip those percentages, and they could be serving moose burgers in the White House in 2013. What drives independents' uncertainty is their feeling that Ms. Palin isn't up to the job." [Matthew Continetti].
The consensus is that she's unlikely to run: "Republicans have just edged ahead of Democrats in the polls and Mr Obama is suddenly looking as if he might be just a one-term President. But Mrs Palin is unlikely to become the candidate who can oust the man Oprah anointed as "the One"." [Toby Harnden].
For many she'll be a hero of movement conservatives but never anything else: “Palin will forever be a cult hero among conservatives, but I think it is unlikely she will ever hold public office again. In fact, I have concluded that she will never even run. In 20 years she will have earned a spot on the mountain with Buckley, Goldwater, and Limbaugh, but I don’t see her on a ballot again.” [A consultant quoted by Jim Geraghty].
The race with the greatest long-term implications is taking place in New York state, however. A solidly Republican district has a vacancy after Representative John McHugh was appointed by President Obama as Secretary of the Army. The Republican Party nominated Dede Scozzafava to take his place in Congress but her liberal views enraged ordinary conservative voters. The Wall Street Journal accurately painted her as a high taxing, union-supporting liberal.
The long-term implications are also fascinating. The Republican establishment has learnt that Republican voters cannot be taken for granted. In the age of the internet and with the support of talk radio an insurgent candidate can be much more than a protest vote. One day the same thing may happen in Britain.
Monday 2nd November update: The Wall Street Journal warns conservatives not to over-react to the news: "Democrats did themselves no favors by driving Joe Lieberman out of their party, and conservatives will do their cause no good by forcing GOP candidates in Illinois, California and Connecticut to sound like Tom DeLay. If conservatives now revolt against every GOP candidate who disagrees with them on trade, immigration or abortion, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid will keep their majorities for a very long time."
After November 4th's defeats the Republicans have finally received some good news.
Saxby Chambliss has won a big victory in the run-off for the Georgia Senate seat he first won in 2002 when George W Bush's popularity was at its peak.
Senator Chambliss narrowly failed to win 50% on election day and was forced to face a run-off election yesterday. He is forecast to have won more than 57% of the vote.
It is now impossible for the Democrats to close down debate in the Senate without the agreement of at least one or two Republicans. If the recount in Minnesota goes to Norm Coleman the Republicans will hold 42 Senate seats; leaving the Democrats two seats short of a super majority of 60.
Alaska Governor Sarah Palin played an active role in the run-off election, stumping across Georgia for Mr Chambliss:
The US Republicans leave their Convention in much better heart than most dared to hope. Their President has had lower approval ratings for a longer period than any ever previously recorded (George W Bush was mentioned sixteen times more frequently by Democrats in Denver than by Republicans in St Paul). Less than two years ago the Grand Old Party lost control of Congress, Iraq was going badly wrong, the Democrats were raising way more money and none of their presidential candidates was inspiring the base.
Most pundits still expect Barack Obama to beat John McCain on 4th November but the Republicans no longer fear a rout. Since Sarah Palin's arrival on the scene - particularly after her barnstorming acceptance speech - many hope for victory and the McCain warchest is at last filling with dollars.
It would be a remarkable achievement for the Republicans to rehabilitate themselves while they still occupy the White House. Most parties are unable to understand the need for change until the electorate has voted them out. The midterm thumpin' they received in November 2006 has forced them to bring forward their 'modernisation'.
What form has 'modernisation' taken?
John McCain was adopted as their nominee: Senator McCain was not popular among core Republican voters. His relationship with Bush has been uneasy since the latter defeated him in a brutal battle for the 2000 nomination. Since appearing together at a fundraiser in May this year it is reported that they haven't spoken. Bush has voted against the Republican majority on tax, campaign finance reform and immigration. Many rightists of the Coulter tendency vowed never to support him. Realising that a conventional Republican candidate was unlikely to prosper the sensible majority in the GOP swallowed hard and picked McCain. Adjustments in his own positions - on tax and oil exploration in particular - made him an easier pill to digest.
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