Mar 01

Race and class and politics

Abortion, Church, Law, Politics, Society No Comments »

I could write an extemporaenous dissertation on the political race and the human race, class acts and class warfare, and the politicization of everything including morals and the natural law and constitutional liberties never before threatened by government. But I won’t.

People have asked me who I support for the GOP nomination and I answer ‘I don’t know’ not to avoid commitment or engagement (I’m always ready to engage ideas) but because, like many commentators and scholars and analysts and observers with far more intelligence than I dare claim, I do not know who the best candidate would be. But I’m willing to state the belief that any of the four candidates seeking the GOP nomination would be far more respectful of basic rights and liberties and the sanctity and dignity of human life than the current officeholder they seek to replace. That sounds like an editorial comment but is at least as much an account of factual record.

Mr. Obama has his points of merit on certain particular issues, on rhetorical skill and for some on personal likeability, though the election of a president is of far more consequence than that.

So let’s be clear on what’s at stake here. What got little to no attention in the 2008 election is, for starters, Mr. Obama’s voting record in the Illinois Senate. I talked and wrote about it, but now it’s coming more to light.

The nation’s number one talk show host drew attention to Barack Obama’s history of supporting infanticide on Friday’s show.

Discussing this week’s CNN debate in Mesa, Arizona, Rush Limbaugh told his listeners said the president’s vote against the Illinois version of the Born Alive Infant Protection Act in 2001, 2002, and 2003 amounted to “the most shocking and underreported significant story I can ever remember.”

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich raised the issue of Obama’s support for infanticide after CNN debate moderator John King asked the presidential hopefuls a question about birth control.

The question met with loud audience disapproval, as it was widely interpreted as intended to embarrass Rick Santorum.

Gingrich, who replied first, objected that in 2008, “not once did anybody in the elite media ask why Barack Obama voted in favor of legalizing infanticide.

“If we’re going to have a debate about who the extremist is on these issues, it is President Obama who, as a state senator, voted to protect doctors who killed babies who survived the abortion,” Gingrich said. “It is not the Republicans.”

True. And astounding in its direct analogy to the Dred Scott decision. Obama said that granting protections to infants (though he used the term ‘fetuses’) would make abortion illegal, and he couldn’t do that. But that’s the same argument used against granting protection of human rights to slaves under the Constitution.

President Obama said he wouldn’t want his daugheters ‘punished with a baby’ if they made ‘a mistake,’ whichs till rings in the ears of Americans who recognize the sanctity of human life from conception of human life.

His administration’s HHS mandate is so radical, it has precipitated a broad backlash. 

I find it unconscionable that a president, who just days previously had made it clear that he would mandate that religious organizations violate their consciences, stood before hundreds at the National Prayer Breakfast and said (1) that he is a Christian, and (2) that somehow the teachings of holy scripture in general and, in particular, Jesus’ teaching in the gospels, have a direct correlation to his presidency and moreover to the mandates he has put into place (whether healthcare-related, economic, or otherwise). Simply put, it is hard to see how Mr. Obama can mandate a violation of conscience one day, and say the following with a straight face just days later, while remaining an honest man:

It’s also about the biblical call to care for the least of these–for the poor; for those at the margins of our society. To answer the responsibility we’re given in Proverbs to “Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute.”…Treating others as you want to be treated.

Who is speaking up for the children who will lose their lives because of the HHS mandate? Who is speaking up for the mothers who, under HHS mandate, have been falsely coerced into feeling that to be a woman means to have “control” of their own bodies? Who is speaking up for the multitude of physicians who refuse to give out death-inducing prescriptions and, in turn, are ridiculed or even discriminated because of it? Those folks are the “least of these” of which Jesus speaks. To the president, however, they are nobodies.

And it continues…

Predictably, the move has drawn fire from the Catholic bishops.

Less predictable—and far more interesting—has been the heat from the Catholic left, including many who have in the past given the president vital cover. In a post for the left-leaning National Catholic Reporter, Michael Sean Winters minces few words. Under the headline “J’ACCUSE,” he rightly takes the president to the woodshed for the politics of the decision, for the substance, and for how “shamefully” it treats “those Catholics who went out on a limb” for him.

The message Mr. Obama is sending, says Mr. Winters, is “that there is no room in this great country of ours for the institutions our Church has built over the years to be Catholic in ways that are important to us.”

Mr. Winters is not alone. The liberal Cardinal Roger Mahony, archbishop emeritus of Los Angeles, blogged that he “cannot imagine a more direct and frontal attack on freedom of conscience”—and he urged people to fight it. Another liberal favorite, Bishop Robert Lynch of St. Petersburg, Fla., has raised the specter of “civil disobedience” and vowed that he will drop coverage for diocesan workers rather than comply. They are joined in their expressions of discontent by the leaders of Catholic Relief Services and Catholic Charities, which alone employs 70,000 people.

Time to change politics as usual.

Tagged with: • • •
Jan 11

Mitt, the unpopular winner

Media, Politics, Society No Comments »

For many months, an odd trend has held sway in the GOP and the media reporting on the presidential campaigns as they shaped up: calling the weekly Mitt Romney polling strength and the Not-Mitt Candidate of the moment who shared or even overtook the lead in those polls. That Not-Romney Candidate has rotated through the ranks over time, but the position has remained important to a major faction of the GOP. Even on election night in the New Hampshire primary.

Jonah Goldberg’s article on NRO says that ‘despite his lead, the not-Mitt mood is intensifying.’

Mitt Romney is the most improbable of presidential candidates: a weak juggernaut.

He is poised to sweep every primary contest — a first for a non-incumbent. And yet, in Republican ranks there’s an abiding sense that he should be beatable — and beaten.

It’s not that Romney doesn’t have fans. His events in New Hampshire were packed to the rafters and felt like general-election rallies. He’s surging in polls in South Carolina and Florida.

And yet the non-Mitt mood just won’t go away. Indeed, it’s intensifying. One reason for that is people are starting to doubt whether he is in fact the best candidate to beat President Obama. For instance, you hear conservatives wondering more and more whether all of the attention from the White House is a head fake. Romney certainly makes a convenient foil for a presidential campaign already in populist overdrive. The desperate attacks from Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry on his career in the private sector are indefensible, but Romney certainly has a gift for inviting them. You can be sure President Obama is grateful to Gingrich and Perry for making them bipartisan critiques.

No kidding. For months now, I’ve been picturing an Obama campaign collecting and saving sound and film clips of the Republicans tearing into each other, but mostly the field of candidates tearing into Mitt Romney. It’s all going to come back in the general election campaign, so why do they do it?

I asked on my Facebook page the rhetorical question ‘Why do attack ads work?’ And got a range of interesting opinions. But not one person said they don’t work.

Goldberg continues:

Romney was at his best swatting away the swarm on inanities at the debate…He’s weakest, however, when discussing himself. In this he is the anti-Obama. The president is never more eloquent and heartfelt than when he is talking about himself; it’s his ideas he can’t move.

Romney, meanwhile, has the opposite problem. Voters can buy his policies; it’s the salesman that leaves them unsure.

That’s true. Voters don’t buy his salesmanship, even if they buy his policies. It’s weird.

His authentic inauthenticity problem isn’t going away. And it’s sapping enthusiasm from the rank and file. The turnout in Iowa was disastrously low, barely higher than the turnout in 2008 — and if Ron Paul hadn’t brought thousands of non-Republicans to the caucus sites, it would have been decidedly lower than in 2008. That’s an ominous sign given how much enthusiasm there should be for making Obama a one-term president. It’s almost as if Romney’s banality is infectious.

None of this says anything about core fundamental values, competing worldviews, the conviction of human dignity that should be the center of gravity for anchoring the politics of the moment. It’s all cosmetic, or pragmatic.

The most persuasive case for Romney has always been that if he’s the nominee, the election will be a referendum on Obama. But that calculation always assumed that rank-and-file Republicans will vote for their nominee in huge numbers no matter what. That may well still be the case, but it feels less guaranteed every day.

Every four years, pundits and activists talk about how cool it would be to have a brokered convention. This is the first time I can remember where people say it may be necessary.

One of my guests on radio, a political expert in Washington, said we’re living in unprecedented times, and this election is even more consequential than the last. That rings true. But what threw me was what she said next, and with conviction: We’ve never had a moment in time when we could have more hope.

Little more than a week ago, the worldwide headlines rang in the new year declaring the populist mood to be ‘cautious optimism.’ We are a people of hope, but we are wiser and more discerning in extending it.

Tagged with: • • •
Dec 13

The Gingrich bump is persisting

Geopolitics, Media, Politics, Society 1 Comment »

So it’s more than a bump. And it’s the darndest thing…media pundits presumably on the same side of the political equation are on opposite sides of the Gingrich calculus.

There’s a tenacity to Newt Gingrich’s hold on the top position right now,  in spite of all the armament being fired at him. In spite of what reason tells us should be happening. Although this year, nothing is happening along predictable lines…(and I recall saying that about the Democrats in 2008).

Like it or not, Gingrich is beating Romney in his own back yard, the early primary Romney was supposed to have wrapped up a long time ago.

New Hampshire is supposed to be Mitt Romney turf, but Newt Gingrich was the one with the Granite State magic Monday night.

The former House speaker locked the attention of the 1,000-person overflow crowd at Windham High School here with the serious, controlled manner of a nominee holding a general election town hall.

Classic Gingrich was on full display.

“You will not see me bow to a Saudi king,” he said to deafening applause.

“Tomorrow morning I’ll release a letter to my staff, to any consultants and to any surrogates we have indicating our determination to run a positive campaign,” Gingrich said, in a call for civility at the end of a day when he and Romney had veered sharply to the negative.

Gingrich pledged to “publicly disown” and “urge people not to donate to” any super PAC or group that went negative on his behalf.

But Gingrich remained on the attack, saying that while he’s been consistently positive, he said he doesn’t expect others to be, continuing to cast the campaign as a contest between his candidacy of big, positive ideas, and an opposition which is willing to play dirty to weaken his support.

What is going on here?

A Gingrich staffer said the event — capped off by a mob of fans looking for Gingrich and his wife to sign baseballs and even spiral-bound notebooks, and of course their books — was the former House speaker’s biggest of the campaign cycle so far.

“We’re on a roller coaster for which they do not issue seat belts,” Gingrich spokesman R.C. Hammond said, following the town hall.

It can be a wild ride just to watch the news shows try to analyze these events, with all the spin they throw in. But this was the hairpin turn where no one expected it.

Derek Kittredge, a Rochester, N.H. lawyer who previously supported Herman Cain and Sarah Palin, called Gingrich “the sharpest pencil in the box.”

“Most Americans are really tired of bullet-point politics – they want an adult at the picnic,” he said.

Jack Kimball, a former New Hampshire GOP chairman who recently endorsed Gingrich, said the former House Speaker is gaining ground – rapidly.

“Newt’s really closing the gap here in New Hampshire. This is going to be nip-tuck,” he said.

Meanwhile, it’s interesting that believable analysts claim the Obama team is throwing their influence behind getting Gingrich elected, since they see him as eminently more beatable than Romney. While comedians and media ‘strategists’ on Obama’s backup bench have been ridiculing and excoriating Gingrich as not remotely in touch with modern voters and culture.

This is a free for all, and that’s fine at this point. It engages voters to pay attention to the sharp division between the real opposing sides in this election, the worldview and ideology of the two parties on the size and role of government in America, and the role of America in the world.

Tagged with: • • •
Dec 12

Where the GOP candidates stand

Politics, Society No Comments »

So here we are, a few weeks away from the first primary elections, with more debates to analyze and more media handicapping of party hopefuls and pundits saying exactly opposite things about the contenders.

There are voters committed to voting for Barack Obama again no matter what, and those who already have decided upon one of the Republican candidates as their favorite, the contender most closely aligned with their values and viewpoints, and most likely to beat Barack Obama. For the rest of us, these GOP debates are…if not illuminating and inspiring…context.

There was another one last Saturday night and will be another one this Thursday night and it’s all information that should go in the mix. I’ve been watching and listening to both the candidates and the pundits, and having done this for a long time as a veteran journalist, I must admit this one is unlike anything I can recall. The GOP is really split, voters and even conservative media are split, and it seems to be mainly between candidates Romney and Gingrich, who has recently gone from discounted to the main ‘not-Romney’ candidate (which has been a consistently odd category) to the de facto top candidate in polling.

The so-called ‘values voters’ are even all over the place, though I’m reluctant to use that term, because everyone is a ‘values voter’ and it just depends on whose values you’re talking about. Someone’s values will prevail. So the distinction is between traditional social/moral values and what we know as progressive secular liberal values.

During the Saturday debate, the Twitterverse was alive with activity giving play-by-play analysis on who won virtually each question, much less the whole debate. At times it was Rick Santorum, Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, sometimes a thumbs up to Perry, and a nod to Michele Bachmann a couple of times at least. I keyed in on the posts most influential in the ‘so-called values voters’ orbit and they were confounding, because they were either weighing in for Mitt or for Newt.

Which is precisely where we stand right now. NPR is one of many media who sees Newt in the lead.

Judging by the attacks on Newt Gingrich at Saturday’s GOP debate in Des Moines, Iowa, the former House speaker is the man to beat in the Republican presidential field.

The past few weeks have seen a remarkable turnaround for Gingrich’s campaign.

He’s holding on to frontrunner status.

With just over three weeks until the first nominating contest, Bachmann — as well as other contenders, Ron Paul, Rick Perry, Rick Santorum and Jon Huntsman — are vying to get a leg up over Gingrich, who has taken the recent lead in polling, and Romney, who has cast himself as the de facto nominee to challenge President Obama when all is said and done.

Which is why this WSJ op-ed piece by Peggy Noonan is getting such buzz.

That’s the problem with Newt Gingrich: It’s all true. It’s part of the reason so many of those who know him are anxious about the thought of his becoming president. It’s also why people are looking at him, thinking about him, considering him as president.

Ethically dubious? True. Intelligent and accomplished? True. Has he known breathtaking success and contributed to real reforms in government? Yes. Presided over disasters? Absolutely. Can he lead? Yes. Is he erratic and unreliable as a leader? Yes. Egomaniacal? True. Original and focused, harebrained and impulsive—all true.

Do you want evidence he’s a Burkean conservative? Start with welfare reform in 1996. A sober, standard Republican? Go to the balanced budgets of the Clinton era. Is he a tea partier? Sure, he speaks the slashing lingo with relish. Is he moderate? Yes, that can be proved. Michele Bachmann this week called him a “frugal socialist,” and there’s plenty of evidence of that, too.

One way to view this is that he is so rich and varied as a character, as geniuses often are, that he contains worlds, multitudes. One senses that would be his way of looking at it. Another way to look at it: In a long career, one will shift views, adapt to circumstances, tack this way and that. Another way: He’s philosophically unanchored, an unstable element. There are too many storms within him, and he seeks out external storms in order to equalize his own atmosphere. He’s a trouble magnet, a starter of fights that need not be fought. He is the first modern potential president about whom there is too much information.

What is striking is the extraordinary divide in opinion between those who know Gingrich and those who don’t. Those who do are mostly not for him, and they were burning up the phone lines this week in Washington.

Those who’ve known and worked with Mitt Romney mostly seem to support him, but when they don’t they don’t say the reason is that his character and emotional soundness are off. Those who know Ron Paul and oppose him do so on the basis of his stands, they don’t say his temperament forecloses the possibility of his presidency. But that’s pretty much what a lot of those who’ve worked with Newt say.

This is getting a lot of press, as a fair, honest, accurate and somewhat scathing analysis of the searing mind of Newt Gingrich. Noonan understands inside-the-beltway Washington politics from the Reagan days forward (if that’s the right direction of reference), and like it or not she has good insights into the Republican establishment as well as the newcomers.

The antipathy of the establishment not only is not hurting him at this early date, it may be helping him. It may be part of the secret of his rise. Because establishments, especially the Washington establishment, famously count for little with the Republican base: “You’re the ones who got us into this mess.”

Republicans on the ground who view Mr. Gingrich from afar, who neither know nor have worked with him, are more likely to see him this way: “Who was the last person to actually cut government? Who was the last person who actually led a movement that balanced the federal budget? . . . The last time there was true welfare reform, the last time government was cut, Gingrich did it.” That is Rush Limbaugh, who has also criticized Mr. Gingrich.

Exactly. Which reveals the confusion among the base of GOP supporters.

Those who know him fear—or hope—that he will be true to form in one respect: He will continue to lose to his No. 1 longtime foe, Newt Gingrich. He is a human hand grenade who walks around with his hand on the pin, saying, “Watch this!”

What they fear is that he will show just enough discipline over the next few months, just enough focus, to win the nomination.

Weekend news panels were at odds over where the Republican party stands and who may be the frontrunner and what it all means for the campaign to beat Barack Obama.

One of the networks ran an interesting clip from a January 2008 Democratic candidate debate specifically with tense exchanges between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. It was good historical context for the current GOP debates. The more animated the tension and drama between the top two party candidates, the more the debates clarified the differences and drew out the base to engage the political process and support a candidate.

So who best represents the pro-life values of the Republican party right now? It’s no more unified than the Democrats were in 2008. And that’s okay. There’s one more debate before the primaries begin January 3rd in Iowa. And a long way to go after that.

Tagged with: • • •
Nov 09

Gingrich gets noticed

Media, Politics, Society No Comments »

Ever since the media started the game of guessing who the current ‘not-Romney candidate’ is in the GOP field, they’ve enjoyed playing it. Perry and Cain have gone in and out of the revolving door to that game room, but who could the serious challenger be, pundits have been wondering.

Sooner or later they were bound to notice Newt Gingrich. In round after round of GOP debates, sponsored and televised by different media outlets but largely run the same, news cycles focused mostly on who won, who got the better of whom, which ‘gotcha’ questions or zinger answers stood out and whether Perry or Cain did as well as or better than Romney. But consistently, the sharpest responses were coming from Gingrich.

So it seemed inevitable that he’d rise a bit in the polls. Still, Dorothy Rabinowitz’s op-ed in today’s Wall Street Journal was an attention grabber, starting with its headline ‘Why Gingrich Could Win.’

The Gingrich effect showed dramatically at the Iowa Faith & Freedom Coalition forum last month—an occasion for which most of the candidates had, not surprisingly, prepared addresses focused on the importance of religion in their lives…

There were two exceptions to the lineup of speeches embracing religious themes. One was Herman Cain, who concentrated on the meaning of American freedom and admonished the crowd to stay informed, “because stupid people are running America.” The other was Mr. Gingrich. No one else’s remarks would ignite the huge response his talk did.

He began with the declaration that Americans were confronting the most important election choice since 1860. America would have the chance in 2012, Mr. Gingrich said, to repudiate decisively decades of leftward drift in our universities and colleges, our newsrooms, our judicial system and bureaucracies.

He would go on to detail the key policies he would put in place if elected, something other Republican candidates have done regularly to little effect. The Gingrich list was interrupted by thunderous applause at every turn. The difference was, as always, in the details—in the informed, scathing descriptions of the Obama policies to be dispatched and replaced, the convincing tone that suggested such a transformation was likely—even imminent.

Now this is interesting:

Finally, Mr. Gingrich announced that as the Republican nominee he would challenge President Obama to seven Lincoln-Douglas-style debates. “I think I can represent American exceptionalism, free enterprise, the rights of private property and the Constitution, better than he can represent class warfare, bureaucratic socialism, weakness in foreign policy, and total confusion in the economy.”

I’d love to see those debates happen. Who wouldn’t?

His greatest asset lies in his capacity to speak to Americans as he has done, with such potency, during the Republican debates. No candidate in the field comes close to his talent for connection. There’s no underestimating the importance of such a power in the presidential election ahead, or any other one.

Why has he largely been overlooked or marginalized until now? Partially because the media control the narrative and create the perception that becomes the reality, and they’ve been negative on the former House Speaker since the nineties.

But in part, many of Gingrich’s fellow Catholics have personal issues with him as the ‘ideal candidate’, though they don’t necessarily find one in the rest of the field either. There’s an interesting exchange on this over on CatholicVote.org’s blog.

The first post was by Josh Mercer.

Right now we are in the middle of a national debate on what the nature of marriage is. The Republican Party’s platform calls for keeping marriage solely as a union of one man and one woman. President Obama, by stark contrast, has refused to enforce the Defense of Marriage Act and he has strongly opposed state marriage amendments.

Imagine what supporters of same-sex marriage will say if Newt Gingrich becomes the GOP nominee? “Newt Gingrich has been married three times, but he won’t let gays get married once.”

Is that fair? Maybe not. Does it matter if it’s fair? No.

Just so everyone is clear. I think there’s no doubt that Newt Gingrich is a brilliant man, with considerable talents. I think he would make a great Special Adviser to the President. I just have deep reservations of him becoming the standard bearer of the Republican Party.

Tom Crowe replied.

We believe that marriage is, by definition, between one man and one woman, and that this definition is unchangeable. Newt’s offense is in having three different wives, all of whom are still alive.

But given a culture that accepts divorce, and recognizing that until his 2009 conversion he accepted this bug of our culture, his offense was not against what we are at present trying to defend in law regarding marriage—after all, he only had one wife at a time, and all of his wives were women. As Catholics we hold that divorce is a severe problem…

But in today’s fight to defend marriage we are not fighting the divorce fight.

Since the case we’re making at present is not against divorce, Newt’s marital issues are not a reason for him to recuse himself from the battle over marriage. Nor, in my opinion, are they a good enough reason for us to hesitate to support him as a standard bearer. He’s flawed, just like the rest of us. Opponents will undoubtedly use them as a cudgel with which to beat him about the head and shoulders, but I think that line of attack will have limited traction, especially if we at whom it is aimed shrug it off as a red herring “gotcha” attack. And it certainly will not throw Gingrich off his message—he wouldn’t be running if he and his wife didn’t expect that sort of criticism.

Those who ardently push for gay marriage do not honor the “man and woman” part of the definition, nor do they think divorce is particularly a problem, given the separation rate among gay couples, including the “marriages” that have taken place in those jurisdictions that have approved gay marriage laws. And you’re not going to win over those who simply reject the traditional definition of marriage anyhow, even if your candidate married his high school sweetheart at 20 years old, is still madly in love, and hasn’t even looked at another woman since.

I’m often asked which GOP candidate I think is best, and I don’t know. I’m still listening, closely.

But I do think this…Now that the standard objections to Gingrich are being aired and addressed, it would be great to get to some Lincoln-Douglas style debates over the size and role of government, what constitutes a free, just and moral society, America’s place in the world, and how best to lead…and serve.

Tagged with: • • • •
Oct 08

Values voters summit

Abortion, Media, Politics, Society No Comments »

The main headline coming out of this weekend’s gathering was about religion. Though, with a twist, which is the only way most media cover religion these days.

This USA Today piece represents most of them.

But here’s coverage that focuses on the values these voters are concerned with.

Prominent members of the U.S. House of Representatives spoke about the importance of defending life, marriage and religious freedom at a summit in the nation’s capital on Oct. 7.

“Respect for life has never been a political issue for me,” said Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-Ohio)…

The speaker also expressed his “disappointment” over the Justice Department’s refusal to uphold the Defense of Marriage Act.

“As the Speaker of the House, I have a constitutional responsibility,” Speaker Boehner said. He explained that he would work to uphold the act, which was passed by both houses of Congress and signed into law by President Bill Clinton.

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) called for a renewed effort “to once and for all eliminate government funding to any and all organizations that perform abortions.”

“During the debate over Obamacare, the president promised that no taxpayer dollars would be used to pay for abortions under the bill,” he said. “Unfortunately, this is not the way things played out.”

“Next week, we’ll stand up again,” Rep. Cantor said. “We will bring to the floor a bill to ensure that no taxpayer dollars flow to health care plans that cover abortion and no health care worker has to participate in abortions against their will.”

Rep. Cantor also called on the nation’s leaders to “stand up and unite” to defend principles of religious freedom in the face of the persecution of Christians in the Middle East…

Congressman Steve King (R-Iowa) also spoke at the summit, emphasizing the need to support strong marriages in America.

Rep. King, who helped author Iowa’s Defense of Marriage Act, called marriage “a sacred relationship.”

“It’s established by God,” he said.

“All of our human experience points to marriage as being the essential foundation stone to civilization,” said the congressman…

The congressman also reaffirmed his commitment to protecting the “great gift of life,” which he called the “highest priority” outlined by the Declaration of Independence.

 “We can do all things to expand our liberty, provided we don’t trample on life,” he said.

Tagged with: • • • • •
Sep 27

Chris Christie says no

Media, Politics, Society No Comments »

Again. And again.

And yet, the pack media were on that particular trail this week and especially Tuesday, so we got story after story about the New Jersey governor and the possibility that he might enter the presidential race. It gained traction all day and evening so no matter what the governor himself said, supporters and eager media weren’t satisfied that he knew what was best for himself.

Republican New Jersey Governor Chris Christie could be about to turn down his best chance of becoming U.S. president, saying “no” just when his political fortunes may be at their peak.

Privately and publicly, influential Republicans are urging Christie to run and are prepared to raise money. That’s because Democratic President Barack Obama is politically vulnerable with little prospect for an ascendant economy to provide a boost before the November 2012 election and none of the current Republican candidates have distanced themselves from the field.

Yet Christie has insisted repeatedly and in the clearest terms that he will not run in 2012.

“When it comes to running for president, you don’t pick the time. The time picks you,” said Patrick Murray, director of the Monmouth University Polling Institute in New Jersey. “If his burning desire is to be president, then the time is now. You don’t know what the environment will be in 2016 or 2020.”

Christie has yet to display even a flickering desire, repeating many times that he is not interested.

Which didn’t give even a pause to supporters eager for a candidate and media eager for the story.

Christie, who was elected governor in 2009, was on a Republican Party fund-raising tour with stops in Missouri and California, including a speech at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation & Library on Tuesday night, which only heightened speculation he might change his mind. Excerpts released ahead his speech made no mention of presidential intentions.

“This is a do or die moment for him,” said Brigid Harrison, a professor of political science and law at New Jersey’s Montclair State University.

“There is a risk in waiting,” she said, because by 2016, “he won’t be the new kid on the block anymore.”

I heard some of that speech televised live, and at the end he figured he’d use the media to convince the media that his no meant NO.

Christie said he was flattered, but he had his reasons for staying out of the race.

Nonetheless, the speech — delivered at a shrine to America’s 40th president, with former first lady Nancy Reagan in the audience — was likely to stoke fresh speculation about his presidential ambitions.

This is interesting. Even though he says he ‘says what he means and means what he says’, it seems we’ve been down that trail far and long enough to know better than to take politicians at their word. Which is rich with irony.

Tagged with: • •
Sep 20

Hillary instead of Obama?

Politics, Society No Comments »

Many people would like a 2008 do-over.

Some would prefer to change the Democratic party candidate in the next presidential election. Even though the current one is the president. This started recently as a murmur and then a buzz, generated by an eager media, joined in jest(?) even by former Vice President Dick Cheney and former President Bill Clinton.

“You know, I’m very proud of her, and so I’m always gratified whenever anyone says anything nice about her,” Mr. Clinton said when asked about Cheney’s recent comment that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is the most competent member of the Obama administration and would make a stronger candidate for the Democrats than Mr. Obama in 2012.

Yes, that’s the buzz. It’s being floated as a trial balloon in some places. And dropped like a foursquare concrete block in others. Like the president’s hometown paper. Chicago Tribune columnist Steve Chapman doesn’t mince words.

When Ronald Reagan ran for re-election in 1984, his slogan was “Morning in America.” For Barack Obama, it’s more like midnight in a coal mine.

The sputtering economy is about to stall out, unemployment is high, his jobs program may not pass, foreclosures are rampant and the poor guy can’t even sneak a cigarette.

His approval rating is at its lowest level ever. His party just lost two House elections — one in a district it had held for 88 consecutive years. He’s staked his future on the jobs bill, which most Americans don’t think would work.

The vultures are starting to circle. Former White House spokesman Bill Burton said that unless Obama can rally the Democratic base, which is disillusioned with him, “it’s going to be impossible for the president to win.” Democratic consultant James Carville had one word of advice for Obama: “Panic.”

But there is good news for the president. I checked the Constitution, and he is under no compulsion to run for re-election. He can scrap the campaign, bag the fundraising calls and never watch another Republican debate as long as he’s willing to vacate the premises by Jan. 20, 2013.

There’s more, keep reading.

In the event he wins, Obama could find himself with Republicans in control of both houses of Congress. Then he will long for the good old days of 2011. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker John Boehner will bound out of bed each day eager to make his life miserable.

Besides avoiding this indignity, Obama might do his party a big favor. In hard times, voters have a powerful urge to punish incumbents. He could slake this thirst by stepping aside and taking the blame. Then someone less reviled could replace him at the top of the ticket.

The ideal candidate would be a figure of stature and ability who can’t be blamed for the economy. That person should not be a member of Congress, since it has an even lower approval rating than the president’s.

It would also help to be conspicuously associated with prosperity. Given Obama’s reputation for being too quick to compromise, a reputation for toughness would be an asset.

Even without the giveaway up top, you can see where this is going.

As it happens, there is someone at hand who fits this description: Hillary Clinton. Her husband presided over a boom, she’s been busy deposing dictators instead of destroying jobs, and she’s never been accused of being a pushover.

Not only that, Clinton is a savvy political veteran who already knows how to run for president. Oh, and a new Bloomberg poll finds her to be merely “the most popular national political figure in America today.”

If he runs for re-election, Obama may find that the only fate worse than losing is winning. But he might arrange things so it will be Clinton who has the unenviable job of reviving the economy, balancing the budget, getting out of Afghanistan and grappling with House Majority Leader Eric Cantor. Obama, meanwhile, will be on a Hawaiian beach, wrestling the cap off a Corona.

I keep getting asked who I think is the real GOP frontrunner, or who I think is most plausible and ‘electable’ (which is the word of the moment) in the Republican field, and frankly I’m still on a listening tour there. There are issues with everyone in the field. But frankly, the question is now keenly being put to the one currently holding the office. I’m listening there, too.

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