Brownback is in for 2008.
If true, this puts a pretty big wrench in the works for Governor Mitt. Mitt has generated quite a bit of traction by leading the charge against SSM, but is vulnerable among the evangelical set on the abortion issue, because of his seeming moderation in the past. Brownback may also be able to peel of support among those who were uncomfortbale with Romney’s faith.
In addition, this could be good news for John McCain. If the right-wing evangelical vote is split, that could open the door to McCain. To that extent, this could be bad news for Democrats, because McCain would be a very challenging opponent in the general election.
Please share widely!
Good news for the Dems.
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Mitt: “I’m against same-sex marriages!”
Sam: “I’m agin’ civil unions!”
Mitt: “Oh yeah? Well, I’m against same-sex locker rooms!”
Sam: “Same-sex bathrooms ain’t Biblical!”
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and so on…
I agree that watching Romney and Brownback try to get to each other’s right would make good sport. It could raise the possibility of a reprise of the 1992 Republican convention, starring the culture war, which might leave the political center somewhat uncomfortbale, and up for grabs by a good Democratic campaigner.
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On the other hand, if the evangelical right turns out to be split, that could ease the path of the relatively centrist John McCain, whom I think will be a formidable candidate in a general election.
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On the third hand, has the evangelical right wing ever been split? It could be that Romney’s campaign fades to black.
Remember in 1992, the religious right didn’t win. They were not happy with Daddy Bush. To placate the religious right, the party gave the far right lots of airtime. That’s what scared the voters.
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A Republican convention filled with a large minority of Brownback delegates would be a fun thing to watch. With an early September convention, there would be little time to erase that bad memory before election day.
Now she can move even more extremely far to the Right and still have someone even farther Right to triangulate of of.
I don’t think McCain is as strong as he used to be. He’s disproven his image as a “maverick” too many times.
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His effectiveness as a candidate will largely rest on 2 things: 1. his ability to re-remarket himself and make us forget he was a toady for Bush all these years and 2. not be torpedoed again by the establishment conservatives who were scared to death of his embrace and popular support of campaign finance reform.
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On #2, McCain HAS learned his lesson it seems…he has been no where near as vocal on corruption and monied access as he used to be. It was his big issue in 2000 and it’s even MORE relevant now but he keeps his big trap mostly shut. However, that inclination not to upset the apple cart on campaign finance means he loses the very reason he so appealed to people in the first place…
McCain is also pushing for sending more troops to Iraq. If we are still there in 2008, this could be a very unpopular position.
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By the time of the general, the situation on the ground will conveniently change to require a more moderate position.
Unfortunately, I don’t share your optimism about this. What McCain has been saying, of course, makes no logical sense. He’s been saying that we should add more troops or leave. How many troops? Sometimes he says 100,000, sometimes 20,000. Well, 20,000 is too few and 100,000 don’t exist.
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He might as well be saying we should draft the Grinch and use ray guns.
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The problem here is that the press just loves John McCain, the independentest, most mavericky man they’ve ever seen. So he doesn’t have to make sense because he’s already sensible! His position can’t be extreme. No, it can’t: he’s a dreamy Centrist!
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Two years from now, after we see ethnic cleansing in Baghdad, a Turkish invasion of the Kurdish North, and an Iranian military intervention to quell internecine battles between Shiites in the South, the straight-talking, mavericky maverick will appear on our televisions to tell us I told you so. His television host will be all amazed at how John McCain, the Unpartisan, had it so right.
I agree with your rather grim prediction in the last paragraph. Indeed, I fear it could be worse than that: if the Saudis intervene to protect the Sunnis from the Iranians, the resulting conflagration would not only be a humanitarian disaster in the region, but would be a global economic catastrophe. Hyperinfaltion. Mass unemployment. Famine, even.
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The confounding thing is that the main thing preventing this dreadful scenario is the presence of US forces. It is like putting them there in the first place broke the dike, their continued presence prevents the dike from being fixed, but taking them out causes the big flood. It is a dilemma.
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I’m a little concerned that the growing withdrawal movement among liberal-leaning Democrats remains focused on the ill-advised decision to invade in 2003, without focusing on the dilemma posed by the situation today.
It is bad, isn’t it? (I should source the following.)
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For me, there’s the problem of the continued irrationality of our effort there. First there is the meat grinder that is Al Anbar province. Recently, military commanders have said that we cannot win or even hold this province. So what are we doing there other than losing lives?
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Second issue is the Sunnis more generally. The popularity of bad things like killing Americans and supporting the insurgency has risen dramatically among them. I don’t understand where we’re headed other than killing lots and lots of people. To the extent there’s an Iraqi military, it does not seem focused on unifying the country so much as helping out the Shiite side(s) of the sectarian divide. Saudi Arabia does not like watching Sunnis getting killed. How long will it sit on its hands?
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Third, there is the harshness of our presence. In Vietnam, the U.S. invented a government and moved in to prop it up, but the invented government was never popular. Here, too, there is no Iraqi national identity, no history of secular democracy, and the constitution was an artificial attempt to paper over the sectarian differences and the Kurdish desire for sovereignty. In Vietnam, the pacification programs were not like Patrick volunteers canvassing. They involved a whole lot of unnecessary killing. In Iraq, too, there is a whole lot of extra death meted out because our forces cannot tell friend from foe. This is truly the opposite of what one needs to quell an insurgency. Add to that the horrendously stupid use of bombing.
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Fourth, there is the astounding incompetence of the effort. Some of it is that neo-conservatives are following a bankrupt ideology: witness the dumb policy of giving Iran and North Korea incentives to develop nuclear weapons. Some of it is the overwhelming focus on the domestic political impact of foreign policy decisions. That means the choice is not continuing an occupation versus withdrawing. It is between an incompetent occupation and an incompetent withdrawal.
He just seems too old. He doesn’t look healthy. Could you imagine him running against Obama. That’s quite a contrast.