Romney or Bachmann Will Be Our Next President
My first serious look at the 2012 Republican primary field was a bit of a wake-up call. Two of the candidates I thought were longshots for the nomination looked pretty good, and coupling that with the latest rotten economic indicators, some long-term scenarios began forming in my head that conflicted with what I've thus far accepted as conventional wisdom.
First, the candidates that didn't impress....Santorum and Gingrich were never and still aren't serious players and they reinforced that on Monday night. Ron Paul is interesting and one-of-a-kind, but nobody will see him as Presidential. Herman Cain is only interesting in that he has the chutzpah to expect the American people to promote him from CEO of a second-rate regional pizza chain to President of the United States. And least impressive of all was Tim Pawlenty, the embarrassment that was the two-term Governor of my home state, whose lame performance was magnified given the degree of stature the media has given him as a "serious candidate" and Romney's top challenger. In one sense, I've always had the same back-of-my-mind impression that so many others have had about TPaw...that he's a minor-leaguer competing with grown-ups. Unfortunately for him, that perception was reinforced in the debate.....
It's not too late for Pawlenty, but he didn't win himself any support Monday night and my general sense is that it's always gonna be a hard for him to stand out in the crowd. He's always had a knack for clever wordplay along the lines of "Obamneycare" but he'll need more than that to be taken seriously by voters who have thus far resisted the media and party insiders' demands to do just that. I get the sense that Jon Huntsman is gonna prove to be as big of a dud as Pawlenty, if not bigger. Perhaps he'll surprise me, but nothing he's said or done so far has led me to believe he'll stand out in the crowd, and his refusal to compete in first-in-the-nation Iowa will hobble him at a time when he desperately needs headlines.
How about the "maybe later" crowd of candidates? History has showed those who aren't fully invested in the race early on make lousy candidates. Wesley Clark or Fred Thompson anyone? Sarah Palin's not running. Chris Christie's not running (and I suspect he'd be a disaster for the GOP if he did). Rudy Giuliani may run, but would go over like a fart in church just like last time if he did. I'd take immediate bets on Mike Huckabee to be America's 45th President tonight if he was running, but he isn't. That just leaves Rick Perry. On paper, he has a good story to tell, but frankly I don't know enough about him to qualify his political skills in a national election, but taking into account his secession comments and the fact that he only managed to eke out a 39% plurality in a four-way gubernatorial election IN TEXAS a few years back suggests to me he probably won't live up to the hype.
With all these candidates discounted, time to move on to those who I think have the clearest path to the nomination as well as the Presidency. First Willard Romney...up until the past week I bought into the conventional wisdom that his past support of the Massachusetts health care plan that was the boilerplate for Obama's health care plan would assure his defeat by hard-right Republican primary voters, but I had an epiphany on this issue a few days ago. These voters' opposition to health care reform is skin-deep and rooted in one source....Obama supports it. Up until January 20, 2009, the now-scandalous-in-Republican-circles "individual mandate" was a component in the health care reform plan of every Republican who every addressed the issue of health care reform. They don't really oppose the "individual mandate" or the general structure of Romneycare in a serious way....they're just against it because Obama's for it. For that reason, Romney is probably gonna get a pass on this issue if Republican primary voters otherwise reach the consensus he's their best chance to beat Obama. Sure, the other candidates will all try mightily to exploit Willard's health care connection to Obama, but in the end it will ring hollow....because Republican voter opposition to Obamacare is entirely artificial.
My pathway to the Presidency for Willard nonetheless hinges on a scenario where Republican primary voters are inclined to play it safe. Any false hope of a sustained economic recovery withered away a couple of weeks ago, when America had its "oh shit...things aren't gonna get better" epiphany with the release of troubling economic indicators. But one of two things is likely to happen between now and early 2012. The scenario of continued plodding 1% to 1.5% growth with unemployment rates lingering at the 9% range is the scenario where Republicans are likely to opt for Willard as the same choice. But what happens if the economy declines more significantly and the final two quarters of the year measure zero growth or a double-dip recession? That's when Michelle Bachmann comes in....
Bachmann is consistently underestimated by her opponents, including myself. I decreed she was too conservative for Minnesota, even her Republican MN-06 district, when she first ran in 2006. Even in that Democratic year, she topped a strong Democratic challenger by eight points. And keep in mind that her district, while always advertised as crimson red, is roughly the same degree of Republicanism as NY-26 recently won by Democrat Kathy Hochul in a special election. In other words, she can be persuasive even in places where she's well to the right of her constituents, and her charisma was on full display in Monday night's debate.
Bachmann's path to the nomination is still perhaps a longshot, and will be borne only if the nation's situation is worst-case scenario dire, at which point Bachmann's red meat rhetoric will be all the more delicious to Republican primary voters, who will be more willing to risk her candidacy if Obama looks especially vulnerable. If she's nominated, Democrats will foolishly breathe a sigh of relief, thinking she can't win nationally. Under normal circumstances she couldn't, but I venture to say she's no worse of a candidate than John Kasich or Rick Scott, the respective governors of Ohio and Florida, the nation's two foremost swing states, who were nonetheless elected in the wave election of 2010 as a vote of no-confidence against the incumbent party. If candidates as awful and unapologetically hard-right as Kasich and Scott can prevail in the two most electorally important states in the country, so can Bachmann.
Even under both of the described scenarios, I'd only give Romney or Bachmann 60-70% odds of victory, however. The wild card here is the Republicans' foolish trigger finger on gutting Medicare, which was pulled in 2011 instead of 2013 and thus leaving the Republican Party's true agenda exposed to a voting public that overwhelmingly opposes it. The Republican Party's key to electoral success has been making the casualties of their budget cuts an "other guy" problem....the guy across the tracks who "doesn't work as hard as I do" and who deserves a lower standard of living. Now they've shown that their 2011 equivalent of the welfare queen is grandma, and suddenly it's hitting home to Americans that when Republicans talk about freeloading parasites they're now talking about the overwhelming majority of their own voters. Couple this with the even worse messaging that ending Medicare will help finance yet another reduction in the top tax rate applicable to millionaires and Republicans have an easily exploitable messaging problem ("tax cuts for me and Medicare cuts for thee") that has the potential to derail their chances in 2012 no matter how badly voters hunger for Obama's scalp. If the Republican nominee is able to effectively distance themself from the Paul Ryan plan or muddle the issue in some way, it could reduce its impact, but right now it's the only thing standing between Mitt Romney or Michele Bachmann and the Presidency.
First, the candidates that didn't impress....Santorum and Gingrich were never and still aren't serious players and they reinforced that on Monday night. Ron Paul is interesting and one-of-a-kind, but nobody will see him as Presidential. Herman Cain is only interesting in that he has the chutzpah to expect the American people to promote him from CEO of a second-rate regional pizza chain to President of the United States. And least impressive of all was Tim Pawlenty, the embarrassment that was the two-term Governor of my home state, whose lame performance was magnified given the degree of stature the media has given him as a "serious candidate" and Romney's top challenger. In one sense, I've always had the same back-of-my-mind impression that so many others have had about TPaw...that he's a minor-leaguer competing with grown-ups. Unfortunately for him, that perception was reinforced in the debate.....
It's not too late for Pawlenty, but he didn't win himself any support Monday night and my general sense is that it's always gonna be a hard for him to stand out in the crowd. He's always had a knack for clever wordplay along the lines of "Obamneycare" but he'll need more than that to be taken seriously by voters who have thus far resisted the media and party insiders' demands to do just that. I get the sense that Jon Huntsman is gonna prove to be as big of a dud as Pawlenty, if not bigger. Perhaps he'll surprise me, but nothing he's said or done so far has led me to believe he'll stand out in the crowd, and his refusal to compete in first-in-the-nation Iowa will hobble him at a time when he desperately needs headlines.
How about the "maybe later" crowd of candidates? History has showed those who aren't fully invested in the race early on make lousy candidates. Wesley Clark or Fred Thompson anyone? Sarah Palin's not running. Chris Christie's not running (and I suspect he'd be a disaster for the GOP if he did). Rudy Giuliani may run, but would go over like a fart in church just like last time if he did. I'd take immediate bets on Mike Huckabee to be America's 45th President tonight if he was running, but he isn't. That just leaves Rick Perry. On paper, he has a good story to tell, but frankly I don't know enough about him to qualify his political skills in a national election, but taking into account his secession comments and the fact that he only managed to eke out a 39% plurality in a four-way gubernatorial election IN TEXAS a few years back suggests to me he probably won't live up to the hype.
With all these candidates discounted, time to move on to those who I think have the clearest path to the nomination as well as the Presidency. First Willard Romney...up until the past week I bought into the conventional wisdom that his past support of the Massachusetts health care plan that was the boilerplate for Obama's health care plan would assure his defeat by hard-right Republican primary voters, but I had an epiphany on this issue a few days ago. These voters' opposition to health care reform is skin-deep and rooted in one source....Obama supports it. Up until January 20, 2009, the now-scandalous-in-Republican-circles "individual mandate" was a component in the health care reform plan of every Republican who every addressed the issue of health care reform. They don't really oppose the "individual mandate" or the general structure of Romneycare in a serious way....they're just against it because Obama's for it. For that reason, Romney is probably gonna get a pass on this issue if Republican primary voters otherwise reach the consensus he's their best chance to beat Obama. Sure, the other candidates will all try mightily to exploit Willard's health care connection to Obama, but in the end it will ring hollow....because Republican voter opposition to Obamacare is entirely artificial.
My pathway to the Presidency for Willard nonetheless hinges on a scenario where Republican primary voters are inclined to play it safe. Any false hope of a sustained economic recovery withered away a couple of weeks ago, when America had its "oh shit...things aren't gonna get better" epiphany with the release of troubling economic indicators. But one of two things is likely to happen between now and early 2012. The scenario of continued plodding 1% to 1.5% growth with unemployment rates lingering at the 9% range is the scenario where Republicans are likely to opt for Willard as the same choice. But what happens if the economy declines more significantly and the final two quarters of the year measure zero growth or a double-dip recession? That's when Michelle Bachmann comes in....
Bachmann is consistently underestimated by her opponents, including myself. I decreed she was too conservative for Minnesota, even her Republican MN-06 district, when she first ran in 2006. Even in that Democratic year, she topped a strong Democratic challenger by eight points. And keep in mind that her district, while always advertised as crimson red, is roughly the same degree of Republicanism as NY-26 recently won by Democrat Kathy Hochul in a special election. In other words, she can be persuasive even in places where she's well to the right of her constituents, and her charisma was on full display in Monday night's debate.
Bachmann's path to the nomination is still perhaps a longshot, and will be borne only if the nation's situation is worst-case scenario dire, at which point Bachmann's red meat rhetoric will be all the more delicious to Republican primary voters, who will be more willing to risk her candidacy if Obama looks especially vulnerable. If she's nominated, Democrats will foolishly breathe a sigh of relief, thinking she can't win nationally. Under normal circumstances she couldn't, but I venture to say she's no worse of a candidate than John Kasich or Rick Scott, the respective governors of Ohio and Florida, the nation's two foremost swing states, who were nonetheless elected in the wave election of 2010 as a vote of no-confidence against the incumbent party. If candidates as awful and unapologetically hard-right as Kasich and Scott can prevail in the two most electorally important states in the country, so can Bachmann.
Even under both of the described scenarios, I'd only give Romney or Bachmann 60-70% odds of victory, however. The wild card here is the Republicans' foolish trigger finger on gutting Medicare, which was pulled in 2011 instead of 2013 and thus leaving the Republican Party's true agenda exposed to a voting public that overwhelmingly opposes it. The Republican Party's key to electoral success has been making the casualties of their budget cuts an "other guy" problem....the guy across the tracks who "doesn't work as hard as I do" and who deserves a lower standard of living. Now they've shown that their 2011 equivalent of the welfare queen is grandma, and suddenly it's hitting home to Americans that when Republicans talk about freeloading parasites they're now talking about the overwhelming majority of their own voters. Couple this with the even worse messaging that ending Medicare will help finance yet another reduction in the top tax rate applicable to millionaires and Republicans have an easily exploitable messaging problem ("tax cuts for me and Medicare cuts for thee") that has the potential to derail their chances in 2012 no matter how badly voters hunger for Obama's scalp. If the Republican nominee is able to effectively distance themself from the Paul Ryan plan or muddle the issue in some way, it could reduce its impact, but right now it's the only thing standing between Mitt Romney or Michele Bachmann and the Presidency.
posted by Mark at 3:20 PM
11 Comments:
Obama's Presidency is the worst thing to happen to the Democratic party since Grover Cleveland. `
With Mitt Romney as President, Democrats will at least be able to rebuild their party in the 2014 midterm elections, probably taking back the House, Senate and many governorships.
2012 cant come soon enough for me. However, I still fear that you are wrong the way you were in 2008 when you said there was 90% odds for McCain. I only wish you were right.
So basically you plan to help install a Republican Presidency in 2012, knowing that the GOP is almost certain to hold both houses of the Congress and thus have the mandate to ram through every aspect of their agenda in 2013? All under the illusion that voters will bring back a new cohort of spineless Congressional Democrats in 2014 that will fix everything?
Also, if Obama is the worst thing to happen to the Democratic Party since Grover Cleveland, why would you doubt my prediction that he will likely be beaten next year? If he's really been that awful, shouldn't you be able to declare with certitude that he'll lose in a 44-state landslide?
Democrats will still have the filibuster in the Senate. Even if Romney wins in a landslide, the best I can see Republicans doing is picking up North Dakota, Nebraska, Virginia, Missouri, and Montana, and maybe if its really 44states, Wisconsin. That would give Republicans a 53-47 majority in the Senate, small enough that Democrats could block anything there.
In the House, I expect Democrats to have a bit of a dead cat bounce that will get them back over 200 seats no matter what. People like Chip Cravaak, Joe Walsh, Bob Dold, Allen West, Charlie Bass, and Sean Duffy are not coming back to Congress no matter how good of a year it is for Republicans at the Presidential level.
Im not going to predict Obama is beaten in 2012 because whenever I predict something, the opposite seems to happen. Just like in 2008.
You really think Senate Democrats will have the guts to employ the filibuster? It would certainly be breaking with their historical precedent of trying to play fair if they do. Tom Harkin is on record as saying he always votes for cloture out of respect for carrying the debate, and he's not alone. Aside from a few judicial appointments, there's no way a 41-45 seat Democratic Senate minority would uphold filibusters on every measure of right wing legislation that the Romney-Boehner-McConnell triumvarite rams through.
I'd bet money right now that the Republicans GAIN House seats in 2012 because they control about two-thirds of the redistricting apparatus. Chip Cravaack probably wouldn't get re-elected in a Duluth-based MN-08, but in the St. Cloud-based MN-08 that Republicans are attempting to protect him with, he most certainly would. Expect that to be the case with at least half of the would-be vulnerable Republican House freshmen. Do you really think the all Republican branches of Scott Walker's Wisconsin are gonna design a district map that allows Sean Duffy to lose?
There is no way Republicans gain seats in the House in 2012. No way. Republicans are about to lose the state Senate in Wisconsin in a couple of weeks in the recalls, denying them power to gerrymander there. In Minnesota, Mark Dayton will veto any plan that tries to protect Cravack.
And you are forgetting that the Obama adminstration will have the power to force creation of additional black majority(read Democratic) districts in Alabama, Louisiana, Virginia, and South Carolina, giving Democrats new seats there. They will be able to also force creation of new Hispanic majority(again Democratic) districts in Texas.
The only two states where Republicans will really be able to protect their incumbents is Ohio and Pennsylvania. Ive already seen the Michigan maps and they eliminate a Democratic seat there, but they couldnt do much to shore up their own incumbents.
You have to remember that in 1991, Democrats controlled redistricting in 200 districts and the Republicans just 5. Yes, you read that right, 5. In 1992, Republicans still gained 10 House seats and two years later gained 54. I expect a similar pattern to happen in 2012 and 2014 if Obama(fingers crossed) is defeated.
If Obama is reelected, Democrats will probably be down to 160 seats in the House by 2014 and below 40 Senators as well. Would you want that?
Ill add that even Republican leaning forecaster Stu Rothenberg believes that Democrats will certainly gain seats in the House in 2012.
Any election cycle where Obama is so weak that he loses to a douche like Mitt Romney is not an election cycle where Americans hedge their bets and vote for Democrats in Congressional races. If Romney's winning in 2012, it'll be the same story/different party as 2008, when Obama was winning comfortably and bringing in dozens of additional Democrats on his coattails.
And yes, the Voting Rights Act will assure that Alabama, South Carolina, and Virginia won't lose their single African American-majority seat, but we won't gain seats in Congress simply by keeping Jim Clyburn around. If anything, doing so will concentrate Democratic strength in the heavily black district and prevent Democrats from winning any of the adjacent districts. Such is the case in Texas where every conceivable trick will be employed to protect Blake Farenthold and ensure that Lloyd Doggett and any other would-be white Democrats from Austin will be defeated. Expect the already decimated Democratic Congressional delegation of Texas to lose one more seat. And expect at least one more loss in Georgia and three lost Democratic seats in North Carolina. That's before we even get to Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, and Michigan.
And considering Wisconsin Democrats weren't even able to install a new Supreme Court judge to prevent the union-busting legislation from becoming law, you're expressing some seriously irrational exuberance about the prospects of the inside straight needed for Democrats to win back the Wisconsin Senate. Dan Kapanke is probably toast, but I predict he's the only Republican that loses...and I'll just bet you at least one incumbent Democrat gets taken out too. How could I conclude anything else given how fiercely voters in those Senate districts came out to support David Prosser last month?
As for Minnesota, Dayton already vetoed the attempt to protect Cravaack. Now it's in the court's hands...and I'll bet good money they will draw up lines that hurt Democrats somewhere in the interest of the most competitive possible lines. Their 2002 maps ended Democrat Bill Luther's career. I could easily see them giving Cravaack a district much similar to the ones legislative Republicans tried to slip through.
There are no good options. If Republicans take over all of government in 2012, they will push through the entirety of their right-wing agenda in one giant gulp and hypothetical Democratic Congressional majorities in 2015 cease to matter to anybody.
The Voting Rights Act will be interpreted to create ADDITIONAL black majority districts in those states. The Obama Justice Department has authority over these maps. In Texas, the legislature will be forced to draw new Hispanic majority districts under the VRA.
In Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Michigan, the delegations are already so overpacked with Republicans after the 2010 elections that the best they can do is cut one Democratic seat each there. In New York, the deal is that each party loses a seat. In Georgia, they wont be able to eliminate Barrow without making the tenth and first districts competitivve for Democrats. And forget about eliminating Sanford Bishop, because he is protected under the VRA. Republicans will likely be able to eliminate two Democratic seats in North Carolina.
In the Wisconsin recalls, Randy Hopper is also toast. You dont survive a scandal like that in a district Obama carried. Im willing to also bet that Alberta "Paul Ryan's plan is the best" Darling also goes down.
Do you seriously believe that having Obama sitting in the White House had been worth it? Had McCain been elected, Democrats would have likely controlled redistricting in New York, Colorado, Minnesota, and North Carolina and would have been able to block Republicans in Ohio, Michigan, South Carolina, Alabama, Pennsylvania, and maybe even Georgia and Texas had Barnes and White been able to win absent Obama's weight.
I'm extremely skeptical the Obama administration will be able to carve out a second majority-black district out of Alabama in particular. And if they do that in a state like Virginia, they'll dilute Democratic strength everywhere else in the state and make just about all 11 of the non-majority-minority seats unwinnable for Democrats. It would be a helluva deal if they were able to pull it off in South Carolina, but I don't expect it's a fight the Obama administration will want.
It's also worth pointing out that you're depending on the "worst thing that's happened to the Democratic Party since Grover Cleveland" to intervene and carve out special favors for Democrats in terms of Congressional districts. How helpful do you think your preferred McCain or Romney administrations would be in insisting upon Democratic-friendly Congressional lines? And how favorable would the judges be in your only-Republicans-should-be-President America when ruling on Voting Rights Act issues if every single judge on the federal bench was appointed by Republican Presidents? Once again, you haven't given a dime's worth of thought to your thesis beyond some bizarre calculation that a larger cadre of disorganized and permanently warring-amongst-themselves Democrats within the dysfunctional houses of Congress somehow better positions the party than does holding the Presidency.
You might be right about Randy Hopper. But Obama had an unusually good year in Wisconsin in 2008 and a lot of districts he won will not be winnable for Democrats again in the foreseeable future. For that reason, at least one of those Wisconsin Senate Democrats up for recall who got elected in the 2008 wave are probably gonna be beaten. I know at least one of them resides in a district that voted for David Prosser by 57%. So let's say the Dems take out Kapanke and Hopper. I still say they net only one Senate seat because they'll lose one of their own.
Frankly your dream scenario of Democrats controlling redistricting in North Carolina and Georgia had McCain been elected President isn't doing much for me. The best-case scenario is Democrats would carve out a couple more barely-Democratic districts that would produce more Heath Shulers, Jim Marshalls, and Mike McIntyres that votes against the Democrats on every major issue and undermine them publicly as frequently as possible. Remind me what the upside to that is? The bottom line is that even in a best-case 2008-style scenario where Democrats clean up in Congressional races, the nature of the House assures we'll always have a permanent de facto Republican majority because enough conservative Democrats will vote exactly like Republicans no matter how large the Democratic majority officially is. We took an absolute beating with redistricting...no question. But there's only so much upside even if the Dems dominated the process as significantly as the GOP does.
Im pretty sure Pelosi will force the Obama administration to create new black majority districts across the South. If he doesnt, he's even more worthless than I thought. What good is having a Democrat in the White House who wont fight for minority and Democratic values?
In Wisconsin, I will bet you that not a single Democratic Senator loses. The only one that comes from a remotely competitive district is Dave Hansen and I suspect he will win. Ryan and Walker are extremely unpopular across the state and Democrats are far more energized. I expect that Kapanke, Hopper, and Darling will lose with a good chance of at least one more surprise. Even Sheila Harsdorf, whom I had considered safe is said to only be up by 2% in internal polling.
Democrats controlling the House means that Nancy Pelosi is speaker, which is far better than having Obama sitting in the White House and undermining the Democratic party.
Im finished with Democrats at the Presidential level. Clinton and now Obama have both been disasters for the party. Everything I feared about winning back the White House in 2008 has come true. The only silver lining is that now I know for sure what happens when Democrats win the White House. We worked very hard to win majorities in 2006 and Obama destroyed it all. Never again.
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