The 2016 US presidential campaign has begun -- we just don't realize it yet. The candidacy announcements, campaign stops, and debates are still a ways in the future, but the campaign is nonetheless in a crucial phase as we speak because candidates are involved in the relatively invisible process of deciding whether or not they stand a reasonable chance of winning the highest office in the land. For Democratic contenders, this decision is going to be a particularly difficult one to make due to the looming presence of Hillary Clinton. The former first lady, senator, and secretary of state is not an announced candidate. Not unlike many other former presidential candidates, Mrs. Clinton has sought to discourage speculation as to any possible candidacy and dampen expectations. Nonetheless, she is widely expected to seek the Democratic nomination. Given her early poll numbers, name recognition, and distinguished resume, she has all the markings of a front-runner. This puts other potential Democratic candidates in a difficult position. Is it worth challenging such a strong candidate? Is it counterproductive to the party to expose internal divisions when a juggernaut like Hillary could just romp to an easy election win?
Would-be candidates face a similar quandary whenever an incumbent president is seeking reelection. It is widely considered to be bad form to primary an incumbent and, judging purely from past electoral results, there is good reason for partisans to frown on such challenges. After all, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, and George H. W. Bush all proceeded to lose in general elections after they'd been forced to fight for the nominations of their party against determined opposition. However, in my view, these candidates didn't really lose because they were challenged -- they were challenged (and ended up losing in the general election) due to their perceived vulnerabilities. That's really what the primary season does: it exposes weaknesses as well as strengths. While we're talking about history, I'd like to mention Al Gore and his candidacy in 2000. He was also an anointed candidate; he had the name recognition and the resume, and his position of vice president offered him the ideal launching pad for the presidency. He was challenged, weakly, for the Democratic nomination by Bill Bradley as other prominent Democrats refrained from throwing their hats in the ring. Gore made short work of his challenger but proceeded to lose the general election (even if the end result is still disputed by many, there is no question that the election was extremely close). Would the Democratic Party really have been hurt if other candidates had emerged to challenge for the nomination? Even if the end result for the nomination did not change, might Gore have emerged stronger if he'd had to fight harder? I certainly think it's possible. Denying Mrs. Clinton her "baptism by fire" in the primaries may not prepare her very well for the rigors of the general election.
When it comes to Hillary Clinton's possible nomination, I think the Democratic Party should also be wary of an ideology I like to call "Yourturnism." Hillary is the favorite of Yourturnists for a few reasons. First, she's the most prominent Democrat likely to run in 2016 -- thus, it's seemingly "her turn" to win. She's next in the batting order. Secondly, Secretary of State Clinton was the losing Democrat in the 2008 Democratic presidential primaries. Given that there is a degree of disappointment with President Obama's performance as president in some quarters, some think Clinton should have won that nomination back in 2008 and think it's her turn now to run again and fix an error of history by winning. Thirdly, Hillary Clinton would be the first female American president were she to win the election, a momentous event in the history of the United States, and an impressive follow-up to the election of the first African American president. The trouble with Yourturnism is that it ignores the fickleness of politics. The zeitgeist candidate is not the candidate who looks the best on paper -- it's the candidate who will connect with the public and gets the result at that moment in time. Barack Obama's willingness to challenge the more established Hillary Clinton in 2008 set off a chain of events that led to Obama winning two presidential elections as a Democrat. Assuming that Senator Clinton would have achieved the same end result is an unreasonable leap of faith. Martha Coakley, though a prominent Democratic politician in a Democratic state, still could not convince the voters to give her her turn as Massachusetts senator rather than elect the unlikely Republican Scott Brown. Mitt Romney's second chance at the presidency was, ultimately, no more successful than his first. Hillary Clinton's prominence and resume won't win her an election on their own. Perhaps even more insidiously, a successful unchallenged Clinton nomination could lead to more Yourturnist candidates in the future. Imagine a string of uninspired candidates, convinced that it is their time to be handed the presidency because of their position in their party, their resumes, or their demographic, dominating spiritless nomination contests and proceeding to sink like a bag of rocks in the general election. That doesn't sound so bad...for Republicans! Ultimately, I think Mrs. Clinton, the Democratic party, and the electorate as a whole would be best-served by a true primary season with multiple top-tier contenders, especially considering we're almost certain to have an interesting contest on the Republican side of things.
Saturday, March 8, 2014
Monday, March 3, 2014
Preventing Putin
There is an "Amerocentric" view of foreign policy that inhabits American political thinking and comes in two different strains. The liberal strain looks on the problems of the world and connects them to harmful acts past and present committed by America; for instance, Iran's government is repressive today because the United States government played a role in overthrowing Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh in 1953. This attitude can be summarized simply as, "Other countries do bad things because America has done and continues to do bad things." The conservative strain looks on the problems of the world and connects them to American inaction and hesitancy; for instance, Kim Jong-un is a threat to the world because the US has not been forceful enough with North Korea. This attitude can be summarized simply as, "Other countries do bad things because America hasn't acted with sufficient strength to make them behave." What connects the two strains is the position of the United States: both viewpoints assume that anything that happens anywhere in the world has something to do with America. I don't think that's REALLY true -- other countries are independent actors who have their own unique objectives and fears. While they are certainly affected by America given the political and military strength of the United States and the connected nature of the global economy, American decision making is also affected by the actions and attitudes of other countries. Still, there is a seductive quality about Amerocentrism; it suggests that the world could be different and could be better than it is today if only the United States had acted differently. To a limited extent, I think that really is true. With that in mind, I thought it would be interesting to consider if the United States through its foreign policy really could have prevented the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
What got me thinking along these lines was an article I read which quoted Senator Corker as essentially blaming President Obama for the Crimean crisis because Obama had backed down from attacking Syria after evidence emerged of Bashar al-Assad's forces having used chemical weapons against Syrian rebels. Russian president Vladimir Putin of course ended up brokering a deal in which Syria agreed to turn over its chemical weapons for destruction to prevent the US from directly entering the war. Seemingly, this worked out well for everyone apart from the Syrians rebels: the United States achieved its goal of preventing chemical weapons from being used in the Syrian conflict while avoiding having to commit forces to yet another conflict in the Middle East, Syria avoided a direct US military intervention, and Russia played the unusual role of peacemaker and scored diplomatic points. According to Corker, however, this willingness to shy away from military force even after verbal threats had been made to dissuade Assad from using chemical weapons made Obama seem weak in Putin's eyes, emboldening Putin to attack Ukraine with no fears of an effective response. Of course, all this begs the question as to whether or not Putin would have invaded Ukraine had the US been more forceful in Syria. Personally, I don't think it would have made a difference. Intervening in a small country like Syria is far less risky than fighting any type of war against a major power. Any leader would have been extremely reluctant to go to war with Russia over Ukraine simply because Russia has a large and powerful military, not to mention nuclear weapons. Putin is well aware of this, and his calculations probably would not have changed even if the US had attacked Syria. Additionally, Putin has now wasted all of the diplomatic capital he earned by brokering the Syrian deal -- he and Russia will simply be viewed as expansionists for decades to come, particularly by Russia's direct neighbors. I doubt the United States expected Russia to be so willing to injure its position on the world stage so quickly after a triumph; indeed, I suspect the Obama administration felt that a Russian diplomatic "win" would if anything encourage Russia towards a more active but peaceable diplomatic role in the world. While that view proved not be correct, I think it COULD have been had Russia had different leadership...it was not inherently unreasonable. Another point I would add is that President Obama WAS willing to intervene, albeit a little gingerly, in Libya, so Russia could hardly have assumed there was a 0% chance of an American military response because Obama was so adamantly opposed to entering new conflicts. Syria or no Syria, Putin knew the likelihood of American military involvement was low because of Russian military strength.
President Obama could also have been accused of emboldening Moscow by backing away from the proposed missile defense shield President Bush had agreed to help build in Poland and the Czech Republic. Ostensibly, the whole thing was about protecting Europe from Iranian missiles, but it doesn't take a hardened realist to see that it could also be used to protect Europe against Russian missiles if needed as well. Obama backed away from the deal in no small part due to continued Russian objections. Seemingly, the US gambled that a more conciliatory attitude towards Russia would build trust and help relations. It's hard to argue that now. Although it would be naive to not recognize that defensive weapons can also be useful in an offensive war, the US never had any compelling reason to make it any easier for Russia to strike Europe militarily. Given that it is now clear that Russia is on an expansionistic course, I consider this to be one of President Obama's largest foreign policy blunders. However, for now Russia has just attacked Ukraine, and it has done so by pouring in troops rather than missiles. Missile defenses in Poland and the Czech Republic would not have protected Ukraine per se, though had Obama not wavered I think Russia might have been more reluctant to invade.
So, if we decide not to blame Obama for this mess, perhaps we can blame President Bush. After all, he was president when Russia fought a war with Georgia; there was no US military intervention in that conflict, either. Undoubtedly, Russia's successful war with Georgia enhanced its military morale and played a role in Russia's current willingness to commit its forces in Ukraine. Could, then, the Ukraine crisis have been prevented by a forceful response to the attack on Georgia? Here we have a situation where there is no good scenario. The world is reluctant to engage Russia militarily now because Russia is a great (and a nuclear) power. The world was equally reluctant to engage Russia in 2008 because Russia was a great (and a nuclear) power then too. Fighting World War III in 2008 would, if successful, have indeed prevented Russia from invading another country in 2014 in all probability, but at tremendous cost. Short of war, could Russia have been so punished that it would not invade Ukraine? That's a more interesting question and I don't know the answer to it. Perhaps President Bush and the rest of the world did let Putin get off too lightly. The Georgian situation was very different, though, in that the Georgian military did make a move to recapture South Ossetia, a separatist region backed by Russia. It's impossible to find a single virtuous actor in the whole conflict. The Ossetians and Abkhaz have treated Georgians abominably in the breakway areas, the Georgians have failed to respect the Abkhaz and the Ossetians' rights to self-determination, and the Russians have played the whole situation to their own advantage time and time again. From what I've read, I think there is something to the notion that Russia goaded Georgia into an attack through repeated provocations and pretty much planned the whole thing exactly as it unfolded. Be that as it may, Russia had some justification for going to war -- Georgia may have been manipulated, but it still acted foolishly and aggressively. Under the circumstances, it's not surprising Russia was not more isolated as a result of its military action in Georgia.
There's one other reason to tweak Bush: the Iraq war. What does that have to do with Russia or Ukraine? Perhaps more than one would expect. What really stands out to me as being unusual is the complete lack of casus belli in the Ukraine conflict. In retrospect, we can see the war in Iraq was also waged without a real casus belli -- the promised weapons of mass destruction the Bush administration warned the world about never materialized in Iraq. Thus, there doesn't seem to have been any immediate reason to strike at Iraq when we did. Admittedly, the concept of casus belli exists in our minds -- Saddam Hussein's past invasions and massacres were perhaps in and of themselves reasons for deposing him, and it makes no sense to have a "statute of limitations" for mass murder -- but the United States and its allies did not claim to be attacking Iraq because of Hussein's past misdeeds. A clear and present danger was claimed...falsely. For domestic consumption, Russia is currently claiming that it needs to "defend" Russians (really Russian-speaking Ukrainians) in Crimea and perhaps in eastern Ukraine as well. The problem is there are no dead Russians in the streets of Sevastopol, no Russians being rounded up into camps, and in general no signs of persecution or abuse of Russians. Crimea is already autonomous, and Russian speakers are in fact the majority in Crimea and much of eastern Ukraine rather than a persecuted minority. What needs to be defended then? Russia has pointed to legislative efforts to make Ukrainian the only official language of the country. The trouble is this effort failed -- nutty legislation gets proposed and then rejected all over the world all the time. Russia has also claimed that fascists have taken over Ukraine and evidently want to hurt the inherently non-Fascistic Russian residents of Ukraine. This plays well with how Russians view Stepan Bandera, a Ukrainian nationalist who opposed the Soviets and showed a willingness to work with the Nazis against their common enemy for a time. Bandera, though, was really just a nationalist -- he was as uninterested in being ruled by the Nazis as he was in being ruled by the Soviets, and he ended up a prisoner in Germany. To me, Bandera is reminiscent of Dabrowski and the other Poles who fought for Napoleon in the hopes that it would lead to an independent Poland as well as Aung San who was willing to collaborate with the Japanese to throw the British out of Burma (like Bandera, Aung San's nationalism made him ultimately turn against his former sponsors). In all these cases, nationalists were willing to collaborate with evil to further their nationalistic aims. That's certainly not praiseworthy, but the notion of "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" remains a cornerstone of modern foreign relations so it's hardly surprising behavior. In truth, the new government in Ukraine is diverse and I can't see how it could be called fascist in any serious sense. There is much concern over the Ukrainian nationalist party Svoboda having fascist leanings, but it doesn't control the government. I can remember well how much alarm the Russian "ultra-nationalist" Vladimir Zhirinovsky used to inspire in the United States. Despite playing a prominent role in Russian politics for many years, neither he nor his party have ever taken over the country. There's no reason to assume Svoboda will ever be able to take control over Ukraine -- at any rate, they certainly aren't running the country now. Russia has no reasonable pretext for acting as it has in Ukraine. In a sense, the US did establish a precedence for this in Iraq, and those countries that did oppose the Iraq invasion did so rather ineffectively, making it seem that major powers can get away with invading smaller countries for any reason they want. Putin no doubt expects the world's response to his invasion to be equally as weak and ineffective.
In conclusion, I doubt that the United States could have prevented Russia from invading Ukraine by doing any ONE thing. However, I think the invasion might not have happened had the US not invaded Iraq but had punished Russia more severely for its actions in Georgia, had stayed the course with regards to missile defense in Poland and the Czech Republic, and had ignored Russian overtures in Syria (I would suggest that perhaps the US could have brokered its own deal with Syria without Russian involvement as an alternative to going to war). It's this chain of events -- the Iraq War making it seem that great powers can get away with anything combined with American weakness in response to Russian expressions of strength -- that has helped get us where we are today. Unlike the Amerocentric thinkers, however, I don't think the story ends there. Other countries have been too complacent as well...Putin's war machine is partly funded from the coffers of a fossil fuel hungry Europe after all. And perhaps there's no greater culprit overall than the failure of the international system that I mentioned in my previous post. Great powers simply can get away with too much in the current geopolitical environment. That's dangerous and has a tendency to lead to more and more war. If Putin isn't stopped in Ukraine, I wonder where he will be stopped...and who else will be tempted to follow in his footsteps.
What got me thinking along these lines was an article I read which quoted Senator Corker as essentially blaming President Obama for the Crimean crisis because Obama had backed down from attacking Syria after evidence emerged of Bashar al-Assad's forces having used chemical weapons against Syrian rebels. Russian president Vladimir Putin of course ended up brokering a deal in which Syria agreed to turn over its chemical weapons for destruction to prevent the US from directly entering the war. Seemingly, this worked out well for everyone apart from the Syrians rebels: the United States achieved its goal of preventing chemical weapons from being used in the Syrian conflict while avoiding having to commit forces to yet another conflict in the Middle East, Syria avoided a direct US military intervention, and Russia played the unusual role of peacemaker and scored diplomatic points. According to Corker, however, this willingness to shy away from military force even after verbal threats had been made to dissuade Assad from using chemical weapons made Obama seem weak in Putin's eyes, emboldening Putin to attack Ukraine with no fears of an effective response. Of course, all this begs the question as to whether or not Putin would have invaded Ukraine had the US been more forceful in Syria. Personally, I don't think it would have made a difference. Intervening in a small country like Syria is far less risky than fighting any type of war against a major power. Any leader would have been extremely reluctant to go to war with Russia over Ukraine simply because Russia has a large and powerful military, not to mention nuclear weapons. Putin is well aware of this, and his calculations probably would not have changed even if the US had attacked Syria. Additionally, Putin has now wasted all of the diplomatic capital he earned by brokering the Syrian deal -- he and Russia will simply be viewed as expansionists for decades to come, particularly by Russia's direct neighbors. I doubt the United States expected Russia to be so willing to injure its position on the world stage so quickly after a triumph; indeed, I suspect the Obama administration felt that a Russian diplomatic "win" would if anything encourage Russia towards a more active but peaceable diplomatic role in the world. While that view proved not be correct, I think it COULD have been had Russia had different leadership...it was not inherently unreasonable. Another point I would add is that President Obama WAS willing to intervene, albeit a little gingerly, in Libya, so Russia could hardly have assumed there was a 0% chance of an American military response because Obama was so adamantly opposed to entering new conflicts. Syria or no Syria, Putin knew the likelihood of American military involvement was low because of Russian military strength.
President Obama could also have been accused of emboldening Moscow by backing away from the proposed missile defense shield President Bush had agreed to help build in Poland and the Czech Republic. Ostensibly, the whole thing was about protecting Europe from Iranian missiles, but it doesn't take a hardened realist to see that it could also be used to protect Europe against Russian missiles if needed as well. Obama backed away from the deal in no small part due to continued Russian objections. Seemingly, the US gambled that a more conciliatory attitude towards Russia would build trust and help relations. It's hard to argue that now. Although it would be naive to not recognize that defensive weapons can also be useful in an offensive war, the US never had any compelling reason to make it any easier for Russia to strike Europe militarily. Given that it is now clear that Russia is on an expansionistic course, I consider this to be one of President Obama's largest foreign policy blunders. However, for now Russia has just attacked Ukraine, and it has done so by pouring in troops rather than missiles. Missile defenses in Poland and the Czech Republic would not have protected Ukraine per se, though had Obama not wavered I think Russia might have been more reluctant to invade.
So, if we decide not to blame Obama for this mess, perhaps we can blame President Bush. After all, he was president when Russia fought a war with Georgia; there was no US military intervention in that conflict, either. Undoubtedly, Russia's successful war with Georgia enhanced its military morale and played a role in Russia's current willingness to commit its forces in Ukraine. Could, then, the Ukraine crisis have been prevented by a forceful response to the attack on Georgia? Here we have a situation where there is no good scenario. The world is reluctant to engage Russia militarily now because Russia is a great (and a nuclear) power. The world was equally reluctant to engage Russia in 2008 because Russia was a great (and a nuclear) power then too. Fighting World War III in 2008 would, if successful, have indeed prevented Russia from invading another country in 2014 in all probability, but at tremendous cost. Short of war, could Russia have been so punished that it would not invade Ukraine? That's a more interesting question and I don't know the answer to it. Perhaps President Bush and the rest of the world did let Putin get off too lightly. The Georgian situation was very different, though, in that the Georgian military did make a move to recapture South Ossetia, a separatist region backed by Russia. It's impossible to find a single virtuous actor in the whole conflict. The Ossetians and Abkhaz have treated Georgians abominably in the breakway areas, the Georgians have failed to respect the Abkhaz and the Ossetians' rights to self-determination, and the Russians have played the whole situation to their own advantage time and time again. From what I've read, I think there is something to the notion that Russia goaded Georgia into an attack through repeated provocations and pretty much planned the whole thing exactly as it unfolded. Be that as it may, Russia had some justification for going to war -- Georgia may have been manipulated, but it still acted foolishly and aggressively. Under the circumstances, it's not surprising Russia was not more isolated as a result of its military action in Georgia.
There's one other reason to tweak Bush: the Iraq war. What does that have to do with Russia or Ukraine? Perhaps more than one would expect. What really stands out to me as being unusual is the complete lack of casus belli in the Ukraine conflict. In retrospect, we can see the war in Iraq was also waged without a real casus belli -- the promised weapons of mass destruction the Bush administration warned the world about never materialized in Iraq. Thus, there doesn't seem to have been any immediate reason to strike at Iraq when we did. Admittedly, the concept of casus belli exists in our minds -- Saddam Hussein's past invasions and massacres were perhaps in and of themselves reasons for deposing him, and it makes no sense to have a "statute of limitations" for mass murder -- but the United States and its allies did not claim to be attacking Iraq because of Hussein's past misdeeds. A clear and present danger was claimed...falsely. For domestic consumption, Russia is currently claiming that it needs to "defend" Russians (really Russian-speaking Ukrainians) in Crimea and perhaps in eastern Ukraine as well. The problem is there are no dead Russians in the streets of Sevastopol, no Russians being rounded up into camps, and in general no signs of persecution or abuse of Russians. Crimea is already autonomous, and Russian speakers are in fact the majority in Crimea and much of eastern Ukraine rather than a persecuted minority. What needs to be defended then? Russia has pointed to legislative efforts to make Ukrainian the only official language of the country. The trouble is this effort failed -- nutty legislation gets proposed and then rejected all over the world all the time. Russia has also claimed that fascists have taken over Ukraine and evidently want to hurt the inherently non-Fascistic Russian residents of Ukraine. This plays well with how Russians view Stepan Bandera, a Ukrainian nationalist who opposed the Soviets and showed a willingness to work with the Nazis against their common enemy for a time. Bandera, though, was really just a nationalist -- he was as uninterested in being ruled by the Nazis as he was in being ruled by the Soviets, and he ended up a prisoner in Germany. To me, Bandera is reminiscent of Dabrowski and the other Poles who fought for Napoleon in the hopes that it would lead to an independent Poland as well as Aung San who was willing to collaborate with the Japanese to throw the British out of Burma (like Bandera, Aung San's nationalism made him ultimately turn against his former sponsors). In all these cases, nationalists were willing to collaborate with evil to further their nationalistic aims. That's certainly not praiseworthy, but the notion of "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" remains a cornerstone of modern foreign relations so it's hardly surprising behavior. In truth, the new government in Ukraine is diverse and I can't see how it could be called fascist in any serious sense. There is much concern over the Ukrainian nationalist party Svoboda having fascist leanings, but it doesn't control the government. I can remember well how much alarm the Russian "ultra-nationalist" Vladimir Zhirinovsky used to inspire in the United States. Despite playing a prominent role in Russian politics for many years, neither he nor his party have ever taken over the country. There's no reason to assume Svoboda will ever be able to take control over Ukraine -- at any rate, they certainly aren't running the country now. Russia has no reasonable pretext for acting as it has in Ukraine. In a sense, the US did establish a precedence for this in Iraq, and those countries that did oppose the Iraq invasion did so rather ineffectively, making it seem that major powers can get away with invading smaller countries for any reason they want. Putin no doubt expects the world's response to his invasion to be equally as weak and ineffective.
In conclusion, I doubt that the United States could have prevented Russia from invading Ukraine by doing any ONE thing. However, I think the invasion might not have happened had the US not invaded Iraq but had punished Russia more severely for its actions in Georgia, had stayed the course with regards to missile defense in Poland and the Czech Republic, and had ignored Russian overtures in Syria (I would suggest that perhaps the US could have brokered its own deal with Syria without Russian involvement as an alternative to going to war). It's this chain of events -- the Iraq War making it seem that great powers can get away with anything combined with American weakness in response to Russian expressions of strength -- that has helped get us where we are today. Unlike the Amerocentric thinkers, however, I don't think the story ends there. Other countries have been too complacent as well...Putin's war machine is partly funded from the coffers of a fossil fuel hungry Europe after all. And perhaps there's no greater culprit overall than the failure of the international system that I mentioned in my previous post. Great powers simply can get away with too much in the current geopolitical environment. That's dangerous and has a tendency to lead to more and more war. If Putin isn't stopped in Ukraine, I wonder where he will be stopped...and who else will be tempted to follow in his footsteps.
Sunday, March 2, 2014
Obama and Putin in a Post-Foreign Policy Era
The Cold War was an extraordinary period in American history in that the perceived ideological threat posed by Communism and the perceived existential threat posed by the Soviet Union actually made foreign policy a driving concern of the American voter as well as the government. In more normal times, Americans tend to be more insular and self-absorbed -- that certainly seems to be true today following the interventionist presidency of George W. Bush. The recession and lingering unemployment have also given cause for Americans to look more inwards. However, the rest of the world continues to move regardless of who is watching. Even as we speak, troops are moving...Russian troops pouring into Ukraine, intent on wresting control of at the very least the Crimea. Should Americans care? Should the US government do anything?
What Russia's actions illustrate to me above all else is the broken state of the international system. The United Nations can hardly deter war when China, France, Russia, the UK, and the US are permanent members of the United Nations Security Council with veto powers. The very powers likely to be involved in wars are empowered to prevent the rest of the world from uniting against them. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization is perhaps a more effective alliance, but its very name indicates its provincial outlook -- it was not intended to be a truly global alliance and it is not. The only thing that seems to be saving us from global war is restraint and smaller alliances between countries. When a major power stops showing restraint, as Russia has done, and it attacks a country that is not a member of an effective alliance such as Ukraine, the major power can seemingly do whatever it wants.
What I find so galling about the Ukraine War is how Russia's naked self-interest and lust for territory are its only real motivations for invading Crimea. That Crimea has a large proportion of Russian speakers is irrelevant -- they could have a referendum on joining Russia if that's what they truly want and no Russian troops would have needed to be involved. Indeed, I would gladly have supported such a referendum; why shouldn't the residents of the Crimea determine their own fate without compulsion? Let there be an orderly and fair political process, and let everyone have a seat at the table, including the Tatars and Ukrainians who live in Crimea. Now, though, there can be no genuine political solution free of compulsion because the Russian military has involved itself. Any so-called Russian patriots in Crimea at this point may just be regular people who don't want to be killed. There seems to be little to no evidence that the Ukrainian central government is oppressing Russians in Crimea either -- Crimea is already autonomous within Ukraine, and the chaos in Ukraine after the removal of President Viktor Yanukovych has left a transitional government preoccupied with simply functioning at a basic level at this point. Russia merely has taken the opportunity to grab territory because it saw its neighbor was weak and vulnerable. Whether Russia outright annexes Crimea or creates a vassal state as it has done in Transdniestria makes little difference; this is an old-fashioned war waged for an old-fashioned reason: greed.
I don't expect American voters to demand action against Russia any time soon. The consequences of two major powers going to war with each other are potentially devastating. For the same reason, I expect President Obama and the US government to act with caution as well, merely cutting some economic and political ties to Russia. No doubt many other countries will do the same. The problem, though, is that none of this seems good enough. Russia knew the world would have a reaction of some sort, but it didn't care -- there is no effective deterrent to military actions by the great powers at this point. When war isn't punished, I fear there will be more of it. That's certainly been the lesson of history, learned painfully over and over again. In hindsight, President Obama's conciliatory gestures towards Russian president Vladimir Putin seem indefensible. Scrapping the United States' negotiated missile defense agreement with Poland and the Czech Republic because of Russian objectives seems particularly foolish -- beefing up the defenses of our allies unfortunately located near Russia may be the only way to curb Russian expansionism and prevent much bloodshed in the future. It's a sad state of affairs all around. It seems that American preoccupation with foreign policy, as in the Bush years, as well as American indifference towards foreign policy, as we have under the Obama administration especially with regards to the non-Islamic world, lead equally to catastrophe.
What Russia's actions illustrate to me above all else is the broken state of the international system. The United Nations can hardly deter war when China, France, Russia, the UK, and the US are permanent members of the United Nations Security Council with veto powers. The very powers likely to be involved in wars are empowered to prevent the rest of the world from uniting against them. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization is perhaps a more effective alliance, but its very name indicates its provincial outlook -- it was not intended to be a truly global alliance and it is not. The only thing that seems to be saving us from global war is restraint and smaller alliances between countries. When a major power stops showing restraint, as Russia has done, and it attacks a country that is not a member of an effective alliance such as Ukraine, the major power can seemingly do whatever it wants.
What I find so galling about the Ukraine War is how Russia's naked self-interest and lust for territory are its only real motivations for invading Crimea. That Crimea has a large proportion of Russian speakers is irrelevant -- they could have a referendum on joining Russia if that's what they truly want and no Russian troops would have needed to be involved. Indeed, I would gladly have supported such a referendum; why shouldn't the residents of the Crimea determine their own fate without compulsion? Let there be an orderly and fair political process, and let everyone have a seat at the table, including the Tatars and Ukrainians who live in Crimea. Now, though, there can be no genuine political solution free of compulsion because the Russian military has involved itself. Any so-called Russian patriots in Crimea at this point may just be regular people who don't want to be killed. There seems to be little to no evidence that the Ukrainian central government is oppressing Russians in Crimea either -- Crimea is already autonomous within Ukraine, and the chaos in Ukraine after the removal of President Viktor Yanukovych has left a transitional government preoccupied with simply functioning at a basic level at this point. Russia merely has taken the opportunity to grab territory because it saw its neighbor was weak and vulnerable. Whether Russia outright annexes Crimea or creates a vassal state as it has done in Transdniestria makes little difference; this is an old-fashioned war waged for an old-fashioned reason: greed.
I don't expect American voters to demand action against Russia any time soon. The consequences of two major powers going to war with each other are potentially devastating. For the same reason, I expect President Obama and the US government to act with caution as well, merely cutting some economic and political ties to Russia. No doubt many other countries will do the same. The problem, though, is that none of this seems good enough. Russia knew the world would have a reaction of some sort, but it didn't care -- there is no effective deterrent to military actions by the great powers at this point. When war isn't punished, I fear there will be more of it. That's certainly been the lesson of history, learned painfully over and over again. In hindsight, President Obama's conciliatory gestures towards Russian president Vladimir Putin seem indefensible. Scrapping the United States' negotiated missile defense agreement with Poland and the Czech Republic because of Russian objectives seems particularly foolish -- beefing up the defenses of our allies unfortunately located near Russia may be the only way to curb Russian expansionism and prevent much bloodshed in the future. It's a sad state of affairs all around. It seems that American preoccupation with foreign policy, as in the Bush years, as well as American indifference towards foreign policy, as we have under the Obama administration especially with regards to the non-Islamic world, lead equally to catastrophe.
Wednesday, March 7, 2012
Respect for the Gridlockian
With control of Congress divided between the two parties, not much is happening in Washington, DC at the moment. Most people don't seem to be very happy about that: as of February 2012, only 10% of Americans approve of Congress. Gridlock, it seems, has very few champions. This is probably because voters are in general an unhappy lot. People participate in politics to bring about change -- protecting the status quo (knowing full well that the country and the world are fraught with problems) just doesn't motivate many people to volunteer for or donate to campaigns, let alone cast a ballot on Election Day. Right now, people are unhappy with Congress for different reasons. Staunch partisans want members of the other party to bow to their party's will. Moderates want Congress to work together to find happy compromises that will drive the partisans insane. Everyone (well, at least 90% of everyone), though, is unhappy at a government that is stuck in place and not instituting change of some kind.
Still, I wonder a bit why gridlock has such a universally poor reputation. Are people just inherently drawn to change and evolution, regardless of political philosophy? Part of it, no doubt, is that the chattering classes (be they historians, bloggers, or journalists) who help shape the nation's consciousness have reason to long to live in "interesting times" -- the more change, the better! It's just not interesting to talk about things staying the same. To actually be a regular American during the tenure of a "great historical figure" tends to be disastrous, though; Lincoln and FDR were bold presidents who dealt forcefully with crises (and whose parties had control of Congress during their presidencies), to be sure, but their presidencies were hellish times of death and hardship. The gridlocked Clinton presidency, on the other hand, was a time of prosperity. Even now the economy seems to be as improving even as Washington is perhaps as gridlocked as it ever has been (not that the two necessarily have anything to do with each other). If you're deeply invested in a particular political philosophy, gridlock can only be an impediment to the glorious future you want to see legislated into existence...on the other hand, though, if you're less of a believer and more of a skeptic when it comes to government and politics in general, I'm not sure why you'd necessarily view gridlock as being inherently bad.
So, could there be room in politics for a true "Gridlockian" movement? Perhaps not at the moment, but I think there are reasons why such a movement should exist. To support gridlock is to truly be a "conservative" not in the standard political sense but in the sense of wanting to keep things the way they are. Preserving the status quo may never be sexy, but in practice it means keeping the rules of the game the same. It means not forcing people and businesses to adjust to a steady stream of new taxes and new regulations -- instead, you just need to learn the rules on the books once and keep following them. Stability and knowing what to expect from government aren't bad things, though the perpetuation of bad and unjust laws is a unfortunate side effect of "stability." Still, even something as scary and complicated as the tax code is easier to navigate if you don't have to relearn it constantly. Gridlock doesn't exactly mean that the government doesn't do ANYTHING, either. Instead, it just means that government does less and is more restrained in its choices of action; theoretically, a gridlocked government should still be able to tackle the Really Important Stuff provided that Congress and the president both agree that it's Really Important Stuff. For instance, I have absolutely no confidence that a gridlocked government would not go to war unnecessarily; war is always in the Really Important Stuff category so there'll always be room for a dangerous meeting of the minds. On the other hand, it also seems to be a given that some Really Important Stuff will never be acknowledged by one or the other party as Really Important Stuff due to the ideological blinders that all partisans wear.
What I like best about gridlock is that it limits the power of both the presidency and Congress. It's the checks and balances system in practice. Truthfully, we shouldn't need gridlock for the executive and legislative branches to check each other's power, but the perniciousness of the party system has made it so. Rick Santorum was just being honest when he said he voted for No Child Left Behind against his personal beliefs in order to be a "team player" -- political parties insist that individual legislators and executives to leave their principles behind when the party requires it. As long as that is the case, there is most definitely a place for gridlock and gridlockians in my opinion.
Monday, January 23, 2012
Santorum's Way
Every presidential election cycle, there are a few candidates who believe their road to the White House will be paved more with their own blood and sweat than money or media recognition. They're generally proven wrong. In 2007, I wrote a little about Sam Brownback's epic 4-day, 27-stop tour of Iowa; he ended up dropping out of the race before the Iowa caucuses had even taken place. And visiting every county in Iowa didn't prove to be a winning strategy for either Tommy Thompson or Bill Richardson in 2008. More than one political pundit has publicly wondered if retail politics is now an outmoded concept -- handshaking and baby-kissing might have worked for politicians in the past, but this is an era of widely watched presidential debates and million dollar advertising campaigns. Of course, that was before Santorum won the 2012 Iowa caucuses...by visiting every county in Iowa, shaking lots of hands, and kissing lots of babies!
I think Rick Santorum in this presidential cycle has had a very distinct role: he seems to be collecting causes deemed anachronistic in modern politics. He's proven to be the least impeachable social conservative competing for the Republican nomination because of his consistently conservative record on social issues (unlike Mitt Romney) and relatively scandal-free personal life (unlike Newt Gingrich)...but that actually wasn't supposed to matter much this election cycle. It wasn't long ago that Mitch Daniels was calling for a truce on social issues within the GOP. The Indiana governor wasn't crazy: according to Gallup polling this month, just 1% of Americans think of abortion as being the nation's most important problem versus 31% who feel the economy in general is our most important problem (another 26% picked unemployment). On the foreign policy and economic side of things, Santorum is an unapologetic neoconservative in the George W. Bush mold. Bellicose towards Iran and keen on confronting terrorists around the world (including Latin America), the former senator from Pennsylvania has also defended foreign aid as an important component of America's foreign policy. His consistent support of George W. Bush's big spending policies while in the Senate earned censure from Ron Paul who described Santorum as a "big government conservative." Some would call that phrase an oxymoron -- at any rate, it was certainly not intended as a compliment. Tea party supporters in 2010 took out a number of incumbent Republicans who could have been described in similar terms. Once again, Santorum doesn't seem to be "of the moment," more a man of 2004 than of 2012. That said, he is making an effort to appeal more to small government, fiscally minded conservatives: he's recounted his vote for No Child Left Behind, trumpeted his opposition to the bank and auto bailouts (conveniently, he was no longer in the Senate when the bailout bills were passed), and cautioned against increasing government spending, even though he's perhaps also the Republican candidate most likely to defend unpopular government spending such as foreign aid. A legislative record that includes support for the infamous Bridge to Nowhere is tough to write off, though.
That dogged consistency undoubtedly draws some voters to Rick Santorum. There is something admirable about the man's work ethic and self-belief, too. How do you keep plugging away on the campaign trail for months knowing that your poll numbers are abysmal and your candidacy has been largely dismissed by the media? He had to wait a very, very long time to have his moment in the sun; many other candidates in the same position would have dropped out. Most importantly, Santorum represents constituencies that definitely still exist...they're just less visible at the moment. Social conservatives, though like everyone else concerned about the economy, haven't necessarily softened their views on abortion, gay marriage, and the importance of family values. Neoconservatives haven't necessarily changed their views on foreign policy and government spending just because George W. Bush is no longer as popular as he once was. Voters still like getting up-close and personal with presidential candidates even if they do like watching national debates and do pay attention to political advertising. I very much doubt that Santorum's way is the way of the future, even within the Republican party -- but for now he is providing a voice for real voters who don't feel represented by the other candidates.
I think Rick Santorum in this presidential cycle has had a very distinct role: he seems to be collecting causes deemed anachronistic in modern politics. He's proven to be the least impeachable social conservative competing for the Republican nomination because of his consistently conservative record on social issues (unlike Mitt Romney) and relatively scandal-free personal life (unlike Newt Gingrich)...but that actually wasn't supposed to matter much this election cycle. It wasn't long ago that Mitch Daniels was calling for a truce on social issues within the GOP. The Indiana governor wasn't crazy: according to Gallup polling this month, just 1% of Americans think of abortion as being the nation's most important problem versus 31% who feel the economy in general is our most important problem (another 26% picked unemployment). On the foreign policy and economic side of things, Santorum is an unapologetic neoconservative in the George W. Bush mold. Bellicose towards Iran and keen on confronting terrorists around the world (including Latin America), the former senator from Pennsylvania has also defended foreign aid as an important component of America's foreign policy. His consistent support of George W. Bush's big spending policies while in the Senate earned censure from Ron Paul who described Santorum as a "big government conservative." Some would call that phrase an oxymoron -- at any rate, it was certainly not intended as a compliment. Tea party supporters in 2010 took out a number of incumbent Republicans who could have been described in similar terms. Once again, Santorum doesn't seem to be "of the moment," more a man of 2004 than of 2012. That said, he is making an effort to appeal more to small government, fiscally minded conservatives: he's recounted his vote for No Child Left Behind, trumpeted his opposition to the bank and auto bailouts (conveniently, he was no longer in the Senate when the bailout bills were passed), and cautioned against increasing government spending, even though he's perhaps also the Republican candidate most likely to defend unpopular government spending such as foreign aid. A legislative record that includes support for the infamous Bridge to Nowhere is tough to write off, though.
That dogged consistency undoubtedly draws some voters to Rick Santorum. There is something admirable about the man's work ethic and self-belief, too. How do you keep plugging away on the campaign trail for months knowing that your poll numbers are abysmal and your candidacy has been largely dismissed by the media? He had to wait a very, very long time to have his moment in the sun; many other candidates in the same position would have dropped out. Most importantly, Santorum represents constituencies that definitely still exist...they're just less visible at the moment. Social conservatives, though like everyone else concerned about the economy, haven't necessarily softened their views on abortion, gay marriage, and the importance of family values. Neoconservatives haven't necessarily changed their views on foreign policy and government spending just because George W. Bush is no longer as popular as he once was. Voters still like getting up-close and personal with presidential candidates even if they do like watching national debates and do pay attention to political advertising. I very much doubt that Santorum's way is the way of the future, even within the Republican party -- but for now he is providing a voice for real voters who don't feel represented by the other candidates.
Monday, December 5, 2011
On the Wisdom of Dumping the Trump Debate
One theme of this election cycle so far is that televised debates have been absolutely critical in driving the polls. Good debating performances lifted Herman Cain and, subsequently, Newt Gingrich into frontrunner positions while a series of poor performances disrupted Rick Perry's campaign in a way it has never quite recovered from. In contrast, candidates running localized campaigns like Rick Santorum in Iowa and Jon Huntsman in New Hampshire have struggled to build support the old-fashioned way (though, to be fair, Huntsman is doing better in NH than Santorum is in IA).
As important as these events are, I imagine the candidates have something of a love-hate relationship with debates -- it can't be pleasant to be put under the microscope again and again, knowing any mistake you make will be magnified and broadcast far and wide. It's part of the process, to be sure, but 4-5 national debates a month has to be a tough schedule for all the candidates. OK, maybe not so much for Newt Gingrich...he absolutely seems to love debating. I can't come up with any other explanation as to why he's challenging the other Republican candidates to Lincoln-Douglas style debates -- he's even taking on Huntsman one on one despite the former Utah governor's lackluster national polling. Apart from Newt, though, I imagine most of the candidates are thinking to themselves, "Is there any way I can get out of some of these dang things?" For most, the political costs of not appearing in one or more of the remaining debates may well be too great -- after all, Republicans will actually begin casting ballots in January. There's not much time left to lose, and this is not the time to cut back. Still, if you were a Republican candidate for president and wanted to ditch a debate, there is an upcoming one in particular you might be tempted to dump.
It is set to take place on December 27th in Des Moines, Iowa. Nothing wrong with anything so far -- in fact, Iowa or New Hampshire is exactly where the candidates should be in the weeks leading up to the first caucuses and primary of the election season. No, what might give a potential debater pause is not the venue or the timing; instead, it's the moderator: Donald Trump. (Another thing to consider is that this debate will probably not have the same reach as many previous debates that have appeared on major cable news or broadcast networks -- it's being broadcast by ION and Newsmax.com.) Yes, that Donald Trump...real estate mogul, reality TV star, penner of many books, and perennial almost-candidate in presidential elections. Ron Paul, whose electoral chances Trump dismissed way back in February at CPAC, has already declared he won't be attending the Newsmax/ION debate, apparently entirely due to his disdain for Mr. Trump. Jon Huntsman has followed suit (he's not really competing in Iowa anyway). It's easy enough to understand their reluctance -- Trump is always self-promotional and bigger than life, hardly the sort to share a stage. His embrace of birtherism and repeated threats to run as an independent in 2012 place him outside the Republican mainstream (oddly enough, Paul and Huntsman aren't that comfortable in that mainstream either, albeit for different reasons). Nonetheless, I feel that skipping the Trump debate is probably a mistake for both Paul and Huntsman...and would also be a mistake for any other Republican thinking of following in their footsteps.
Here's my thesis in a nutshell: it's bad to be invisible in politics. What debates do is bring attention to political candidates from diverse national audiences. True, Ion Television isn't known for political programming and it isn't available in every household -- but it is available to tens of millions of potential viewers and this debate is sure to inspire interest because of the presence of the Donald. As for Trump himself, let's not forget that he had a brief moment in the sun when it appeared he might be a notable presidential contender himself. Ultimately he opted not to run, but that had more to do with his lack of interest in the presidency than the polling. Snubbing the Trump debate is snubbing Trump supporters as well. Before the Trump "campaign" got knee-deep in birther conspiracy theorizing, its signature issue was America's trade policy with China. Right now, neither party is a particularly comfortable fit for China trade skeptics -- this is a group of voters that could very well be tuning in to the Trump debate with an open mind, and I strongly suspect China issues will be brought up by Trump or other moderators. Perhaps Paul and Huntsman are already considered to be too pro-China to win this group of voters over anyway: Huntsman of course is a former ambassador to China while Paul's outspoken support of free trade and noninterventionism leave little to no room for him to criticize China over anything, be it currency manipulation, unfair trade, the one child policy, suppression of religious and ethnic minorities, etc. Still, their absence from the debate will leave different perspectives unheard -- perhaps no one will make the case that trade with China benefits the US as much, if not more, than the PRC. Perhaps no one will make the claim that America's economic ills have more to do with poorly though out domestic policies than with anything to do with China. If nothing else, skipping the debate makes Huntsman and Paul less visible figures in the presidential race. When you consider that Huntsman is getting left out of some debates because of his poor polling numbers and that Paul isn't being invited to the Republican Jewish Coalition's forum this week because of his positions on Israel, it appears that both candidates face some danger of being overshadowed in the pivotal month leading up the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary. Certainly, if you have to skip a debate this is not the worst one to skip...but I don't think not showing up is the way to win the presidency unless you're named William McKinley.
As important as these events are, I imagine the candidates have something of a love-hate relationship with debates -- it can't be pleasant to be put under the microscope again and again, knowing any mistake you make will be magnified and broadcast far and wide. It's part of the process, to be sure, but 4-5 national debates a month has to be a tough schedule for all the candidates. OK, maybe not so much for Newt Gingrich...he absolutely seems to love debating. I can't come up with any other explanation as to why he's challenging the other Republican candidates to Lincoln-Douglas style debates -- he's even taking on Huntsman one on one despite the former Utah governor's lackluster national polling. Apart from Newt, though, I imagine most of the candidates are thinking to themselves, "Is there any way I can get out of some of these dang things?" For most, the political costs of not appearing in one or more of the remaining debates may well be too great -- after all, Republicans will actually begin casting ballots in January. There's not much time left to lose, and this is not the time to cut back. Still, if you were a Republican candidate for president and wanted to ditch a debate, there is an upcoming one in particular you might be tempted to dump.
It is set to take place on December 27th in Des Moines, Iowa. Nothing wrong with anything so far -- in fact, Iowa or New Hampshire is exactly where the candidates should be in the weeks leading up to the first caucuses and primary of the election season. No, what might give a potential debater pause is not the venue or the timing; instead, it's the moderator: Donald Trump. (Another thing to consider is that this debate will probably not have the same reach as many previous debates that have appeared on major cable news or broadcast networks -- it's being broadcast by ION and Newsmax.com.) Yes, that Donald Trump...real estate mogul, reality TV star, penner of many books, and perennial almost-candidate in presidential elections. Ron Paul, whose electoral chances Trump dismissed way back in February at CPAC, has already declared he won't be attending the Newsmax/ION debate, apparently entirely due to his disdain for Mr. Trump. Jon Huntsman has followed suit (he's not really competing in Iowa anyway). It's easy enough to understand their reluctance -- Trump is always self-promotional and bigger than life, hardly the sort to share a stage. His embrace of birtherism and repeated threats to run as an independent in 2012 place him outside the Republican mainstream (oddly enough, Paul and Huntsman aren't that comfortable in that mainstream either, albeit for different reasons). Nonetheless, I feel that skipping the Trump debate is probably a mistake for both Paul and Huntsman...and would also be a mistake for any other Republican thinking of following in their footsteps.
Here's my thesis in a nutshell: it's bad to be invisible in politics. What debates do is bring attention to political candidates from diverse national audiences. True, Ion Television isn't known for political programming and it isn't available in every household -- but it is available to tens of millions of potential viewers and this debate is sure to inspire interest because of the presence of the Donald. As for Trump himself, let's not forget that he had a brief moment in the sun when it appeared he might be a notable presidential contender himself. Ultimately he opted not to run, but that had more to do with his lack of interest in the presidency than the polling. Snubbing the Trump debate is snubbing Trump supporters as well. Before the Trump "campaign" got knee-deep in birther conspiracy theorizing, its signature issue was America's trade policy with China. Right now, neither party is a particularly comfortable fit for China trade skeptics -- this is a group of voters that could very well be tuning in to the Trump debate with an open mind, and I strongly suspect China issues will be brought up by Trump or other moderators. Perhaps Paul and Huntsman are already considered to be too pro-China to win this group of voters over anyway: Huntsman of course is a former ambassador to China while Paul's outspoken support of free trade and noninterventionism leave little to no room for him to criticize China over anything, be it currency manipulation, unfair trade, the one child policy, suppression of religious and ethnic minorities, etc. Still, their absence from the debate will leave different perspectives unheard -- perhaps no one will make the case that trade with China benefits the US as much, if not more, than the PRC. Perhaps no one will make the claim that America's economic ills have more to do with poorly though out domestic policies than with anything to do with China. If nothing else, skipping the debate makes Huntsman and Paul less visible figures in the presidential race. When you consider that Huntsman is getting left out of some debates because of his poor polling numbers and that Paul isn't being invited to the Republican Jewish Coalition's forum this week because of his positions on Israel, it appears that both candidates face some danger of being overshadowed in the pivotal month leading up the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary. Certainly, if you have to skip a debate this is not the worst one to skip...but I don't think not showing up is the way to win the presidency unless you're named William McKinley.
Thursday, November 17, 2011
The Republican Electorate's Wandering Eye
The race to determine the Republican nominee for president in 2012 has been eventful and suspenseful. Even with the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary just around the corner, there are still several candidates who have a decent chance of winning the nomination. Arguably, this is less a testament to the quality of the competitors than it is a reflection of a divided and indecisive Republican electorate. While Mitt Romney has been a constant force near the top of most polls, other candidates have had their moments and then fallen from grace. The latest development appears to be a sudden jump for Newt Gingrich and a corresponding fall for a Herman Cain candidacy beset by scandal and foreign policy gaffes.
As a political observer, I much prefer a nomination process like what we're currently seeing with the Republicans than, say, what we saw in 2000 with the Democrats simply because it makes for more interesting theater. In that year, Al Gore was essentially handed the nomination -- Bill Bradley was a spirited primary opponent, but voters seemed more interested in a coronation than a contest. As sitting vice president, Gore was the default choice, and he won. In 2012, Mitt Romney is the closest thing the Republicans have to a default option because of his name recognition and strong organization carried over from his 2008 campaign. Potential voters have balked at coronating the former Massachusetts governor early, however. Their reasons vary: some can't overcome Romney's support for a health insurance mandate at the state level despite his declared opposition to a federal mandate, others despise him for flip-flopping on on numerous issues (including abortion), and some undoubtedly are prejudiced against the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints of which Mitt is a member. If voters do end up eschewing the default option, though, where will they go?
That question still cannot be answered. Other candidates have warts of their own, of course, and I think the pivotal question of the Republican primary season concerns whether or not the anybody-but-Romney crowd can coalesce around just one person-who-is-not-Romney. To do so, they will have to compromise. Newt Gingrich has become the latest frontrunner, but I think he's undoubtedly been buoyed by the simple fact that the closets that hold the skeletons acquired during his long political career haven't been aired out in public for a while. They certainly will be now, and Gingrich's good debate performances may not be sufficient to protect him from all the scrutiny. There are uncomfortable similarities between Gingrich and Romney as well -- both, for instance, have gone on record as supporting individual mandates for health insurance in at least some circumstances, and both are mistrusted by social conservatives (Gingrich because of his well-documented personal behavior, Romney because of his extensive flip-flopping on social issues). It will be something of a bitter pill to swallow if anti-Romney voters end up selecting the alternative candidate perhaps most similar to Romney due to a lack of options. If not Gingrich, though, who can they turn to? Governor Perry hardly seems like a credible threat to President Obama due to his poor rhetorical skills -- it's true that George W. Bush had speaking issues as well, but he also had the luxury of taking on charisma-challenged candidates named Al Gore and John Kerry. No such luck for Rick Perry. Herman Cain's lack of political experience, charisma, and bold ideas made him the closest thing to a Tea Party candidate in the race, but the sexual harassment accusations levied against them appear reasonably credible and the fact that they are multiple makes the issue harder to dismiss...Cain has also very obviously been learning as he goes when it comes to foreign policy. Ron Paul is looking increasingly like a frontrunner and perhaps a likely winner in Iowa, but he can only win the nomination if primary voters focus almost exclusively on economic issues...he can hardly expect to convert Republicans en masse into non-interventionists and drug war skeptics prior to the primaries. At this point, it may be too late for candidates lagging behind the famous five to make a serious run of it -- Rick Santorum SHOULD be wiping up all the social conservative votes and Jon Huntsman SHOULD be siphoning moderate voters from Mitt Romney and slightly libertarian-leaning voters from Ron Paul, for instance, but because so few voters want to risk backing a losing horse they're probably destined to languish near the bottom of the polls. Bachmann seems to be in the same boat...she was a top tier candidate once upon a time herself, but now she's just as big of a long shot. The Ames straw poll feels like it took place years ago rather than just a few months back. Gary Johnson and Buddy Roemer are beyond long shot status at this point -- not being invited to most of the debates seems to have doomed their candidacies, but both could resurface as third party or independent ballot options later on.
Ultimately, it may come down to whether or not Republican primary voters opt to pick their favorite candidate or the candidate they think is most likely to beat Obama. I can see Romney, Huntsman, and Paul attracting some voters who typically pull the lever for Democrats -- the other candidates will have a more difficult time doing that. However, nominating a Republican candidate who can't count on strong conservative support may dim general election turnout or help fuel third party and independent candidates. There's enough dissatisfaction on both sides to suggest 2012 might not just be about Democrats and Republicans.
As a political observer, I much prefer a nomination process like what we're currently seeing with the Republicans than, say, what we saw in 2000 with the Democrats simply because it makes for more interesting theater. In that year, Al Gore was essentially handed the nomination -- Bill Bradley was a spirited primary opponent, but voters seemed more interested in a coronation than a contest. As sitting vice president, Gore was the default choice, and he won. In 2012, Mitt Romney is the closest thing the Republicans have to a default option because of his name recognition and strong organization carried over from his 2008 campaign. Potential voters have balked at coronating the former Massachusetts governor early, however. Their reasons vary: some can't overcome Romney's support for a health insurance mandate at the state level despite his declared opposition to a federal mandate, others despise him for flip-flopping on on numerous issues (including abortion), and some undoubtedly are prejudiced against the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints of which Mitt is a member. If voters do end up eschewing the default option, though, where will they go?
That question still cannot be answered. Other candidates have warts of their own, of course, and I think the pivotal question of the Republican primary season concerns whether or not the anybody-but-Romney crowd can coalesce around just one person-who-is-not-Romney. To do so, they will have to compromise. Newt Gingrich has become the latest frontrunner, but I think he's undoubtedly been buoyed by the simple fact that the closets that hold the skeletons acquired during his long political career haven't been aired out in public for a while. They certainly will be now, and Gingrich's good debate performances may not be sufficient to protect him from all the scrutiny. There are uncomfortable similarities between Gingrich and Romney as well -- both, for instance, have gone on record as supporting individual mandates for health insurance in at least some circumstances, and both are mistrusted by social conservatives (Gingrich because of his well-documented personal behavior, Romney because of his extensive flip-flopping on social issues). It will be something of a bitter pill to swallow if anti-Romney voters end up selecting the alternative candidate perhaps most similar to Romney due to a lack of options. If not Gingrich, though, who can they turn to? Governor Perry hardly seems like a credible threat to President Obama due to his poor rhetorical skills -- it's true that George W. Bush had speaking issues as well, but he also had the luxury of taking on charisma-challenged candidates named Al Gore and John Kerry. No such luck for Rick Perry. Herman Cain's lack of political experience, charisma, and bold ideas made him the closest thing to a Tea Party candidate in the race, but the sexual harassment accusations levied against them appear reasonably credible and the fact that they are multiple makes the issue harder to dismiss...Cain has also very obviously been learning as he goes when it comes to foreign policy. Ron Paul is looking increasingly like a frontrunner and perhaps a likely winner in Iowa, but he can only win the nomination if primary voters focus almost exclusively on economic issues...he can hardly expect to convert Republicans en masse into non-interventionists and drug war skeptics prior to the primaries. At this point, it may be too late for candidates lagging behind the famous five to make a serious run of it -- Rick Santorum SHOULD be wiping up all the social conservative votes and Jon Huntsman SHOULD be siphoning moderate voters from Mitt Romney and slightly libertarian-leaning voters from Ron Paul, for instance, but because so few voters want to risk backing a losing horse they're probably destined to languish near the bottom of the polls. Bachmann seems to be in the same boat...she was a top tier candidate once upon a time herself, but now she's just as big of a long shot. The Ames straw poll feels like it took place years ago rather than just a few months back. Gary Johnson and Buddy Roemer are beyond long shot status at this point -- not being invited to most of the debates seems to have doomed their candidacies, but both could resurface as third party or independent ballot options later on.
Ultimately, it may come down to whether or not Republican primary voters opt to pick their favorite candidate or the candidate they think is most likely to beat Obama. I can see Romney, Huntsman, and Paul attracting some voters who typically pull the lever for Democrats -- the other candidates will have a more difficult time doing that. However, nominating a Republican candidate who can't count on strong conservative support may dim general election turnout or help fuel third party and independent candidates. There's enough dissatisfaction on both sides to suggest 2012 might not just be about Democrats and Republicans.
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