Filibuster Cartoons
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So, there’s been a lot of developments in the GOP presidential primary as of late. I’ll just run through the big headline-grabbing candidates of the moment and give you my spin.
Michelle Bachmann won Saturday’s Ames county fair straw poll in Iowa, a highly ritualistic, largely meaningless bellwether that has repeatedly proven itself less trustworthy in identifying future presidents (and nominees!) than spastic zoo animals. Nevertheless, her win has helped solidify a narrative of the Congresswoman as the party’s “rising star” that “exceeds expectations” and gives all the men in the race a scary run for their money. And to the extent the Iowan population itself represents anything coherent, it does (I guess) sort of indicate where the hearts and minds of a certain symbolic slice of conservative, rural America lies, and Bachmann is clearly hoping conservative, rural America will blaze her path to the nomination. So goodie for her.
Bachmann is often lazily compared to Sarah Palin, and in the initial days of her entry into the presidential race, many observers marveled at how articulate and intelligent she seemed, only because Mrs. Palin had set the bar for GOP women so exceedingly low. But her patronizing honeymoon of faint praise is over. Having proven herself capable of answering serious questions in a serious manner, the press has now called upon Bachmann to use her big articulate brain to clarify some of her past statements; comments that had previously been easy to dismiss as the mere rantings of an unknown, important crazyperson. And on this front, she has been less than impressive.
I very much enjoyed watching Bernie Goldberg on the O’Reilly show yesterday in which he, a conservative commentator, blasted Bachmann quite harshly for just being another “hack politician” who refused to give honest answers to honest questions. Asked to clarify her stated belief that wives should “submit” to their husbands, for instance, she weasley redefined “submit” to mean “respect,” which is obviously a complete non sequitur. Similarly, when asked to explain how, exactly, homosexuality equates “enslavement” (another prior comment) she tritely hand-waved the question away, saying she was not into passing judgement on anyone. As Goldberg very curtly observed, this kinda double-speak should cause anyone previously inclined to take Bachmann seriously — particularly her Tea Party base — to second-guess just how actually “authentic” and “principled” this supposed conservative wonderwoman really is.
Ron Paul came in second in the straw poll, and very nearly beat Bachmann herself. Had less than 200 votes gone the other way, the headlines would doubtlessly be very different right now. But the fact is they aren’t, and in my view, this is a loss from which Ron Paul may never recover.
Paul’s performance in the Republican debate last Thursday was nothing short of terrible. Already borderline Asperger’s in his manner and speech, Paul seemed more rambly, less coherent, and screechier than usual on the big stage, babbling endlessly about all his usual pet causes rather than engage in any form of stay-on-topic self-discipline. I know that Paul’s people like to believe that their candidate is only disliked by the Republican establishment because he “speaks truth to power” or whatever, but the fact remains that the man is, by any objective measurement, tremendously annoying and socially maladjusted.
Paul’s challenge was to prove that his fringey, cliquey appeal was, in fact, broad enough to eke out substantial victories in important contests. Now, second place is never anything to sneeze at, and it isn’t fair to dismiss the man entirely, as much of the mainstream media has done in the aftermath of Ames. But it’s also hard to spend a great deal of time seriously analyzing someone whose political appeal has such an obvious celling.
Tim Pawlenty, who finished a distant third in the straw poll, dropped out the next day. To which I can only say, good riddance. It’s not that I bear the man any particular ill-will, it’s just it was hard to ever understand his campaign as anything other than a sort of weird, media-backed paper candidacy. Pawlenty was taken seriously largely because we were endlessly told by the TV and newspapers to taken him seriously, not because he had any readily-apparent merits to his own name or career.
As a Minnesota friend of mine once quipped, “what makes him more special than any other random cow-state governor?” Crass, perhaps, but still a question his pointless campaign utterly failed to answer.
Governor Rick Perry of Texas, however, is entirely another story. As governor of America’s second-largest state, and one of the few that seems to have not only weathered the recession, but economically thrived during it, Perry is the sort of anti-Pawlenty. His late entry into the presidential race last week almost overshadowed Michelle Bachmann’s victory (a fact she was understandably sore about) and has dramatically turned a lot of the conventional wisdom upside-down overnight.
Over the last couple of months, there has been a lot of spoiled whining within the GOP base as voters endlessly claim that there are “no good candidates.” Unless we define “good” in an exceedingly narrow, ultra-picky way, it’s hard to believe that of the currently declared, dozen-or-so candidates, there’s not one man or woman in the mix worth supporting. But conservatives are in a perfectionist mood, it seems, and the media’s been equally eager to abet this, routinely portraying the candidates as little more than walking bags of flaws with insincere faces stapled on.
With that in mind, Perry is a bit of a godsend. It’s not that he is flawless — no politician ever is, and as the weeks progress all sorts of dirt will doubtlessly be dug up — but rather that he projects cookie-cutter conformity with the Platonic “Republican” ideal to such an extent that he sure seems to be, at first glance.
A conservative Democrat who turned Republican in the 1980s, Perry has won every election he’s ever contested — 10 in all — with considerable ease. Consistently right-wing on all issues, both social and fiscal, he’s championed small government, states’ rights, low-spending, gun rights, opposition to abortion and gay marriage, low taxes, and a blurring of the line between church and state without any particular notable moments of waffling or hypocrisy. He’s also a born-and-raised southerner with working-class roots and a non-Ivy League education, giving him a degree of proley authenticity that the Republican Party has been lacking in the aftermath of the blueblood Bush dynasty.
And talking of Bush, despite the fact that they both held the same job, George W. and Perry apparently don’t get along very well, and never have. Perry first became governor in 2001 when Bush resigned to assume the presidency, but because the Texas lieutenant governor is separately-elected and has pseudo prime ministerial powers quite divorced from the executive branch, the two men were never close even on a professional level.
This is relevant only because the idea that Perry is too superficially Bush-like has been one of the few coherent criticisms of the man. The other swipes against him (most of which originate from the left) are even less cutting. Obviously, if you are ideologically opposed to right-wing, southern, Christian Republicans, you won’t find much about the guy to like. But he’s not running for your vote in the first place. What matters is the ability of his GOP opponents to form a convincing conservative anti-Perry critique, on par with the Romney-is-a-flip-flopper and Bachmann-is-too-nuts tropes we’ve come to know and love. And that’s a task that’s proving quite difficult.
In short, everything I’ve read about the Governor thusfar leads me to believe he is the man to watch for 2012. There may be better people already in the race, and there may be candidates far more deserving that have yet to enter, but in the present context, I feel the stars have really aligned in his favor.
August 16th, 2011 at 7:21 pm
I love the dolls discarded pile. You even got Sarah Palin in there.
I get the same feeling about Perry. He seems like someone who will be hard to attack.
August 16th, 2011 at 7:30 pm
Perry can be attacked on his stance on Immigration and the Dream Act, and the fact he campaigned for Al Gore in 1988. Also, most Conservatives in Texas don't seem to think much of him
August 16th, 2011 at 7:49 pm
Palin may jump the gun and enter the field but if she has any able political advisors, she'll tease the media this election and enter in 2016 when Hillary will be the most likely Democratic choice.
August 16th, 2011 at 8:04 pm
Gary Johnson is someone I'm interested in. Why didn't I see him in Iowa?
August 16th, 2011 at 8:11 pm
You really, really love drawing cartoons that feature a whole panoply of Republican candidates, don't you?
August 16th, 2011 at 8:43 pm
That’s “non sequitur”, sir. (There’s even a pretty good comic by that name.)
August 16th, 2011 at 9:18 pm
Babar!
August 16th, 2011 at 9:39 pm
Remaining unsaid as of yet – is the fact that while Perry’s far-right wing thinking and unwillingness to compromise on issues may win him over wholeheartedly with the Tea Party and a majority of Republicans, it will completely alienate him from Independents and wipe out any sort of chance he’d have in a general election.
So yeah, any Republican that understands this(which will be very few) won’t want him as their primary candidate. Second place doesn’t count for much in presidential elections.
August 16th, 2011 at 9:44 pm
Johnson isn't actively campaigning in Iowa, but is instead focusing entirely on New Hampshire. As he's very libertarian and not very socially conservative, he figures his only shot is doing well in NH.
August 16th, 2011 at 10:03 pm
This really seems like the problem the Republicans are going to face in 2012. On one hand, if a candidate takes a hardline approach like Perry, they risk losing out on moderates, independents, and undecided voters that are always key to a presidential election. On the other hand, if they don't take that approach, they are likely to loose Tea Party support and the Tea Party has shown that it has significant influence with the '06 elections and the recent Debt Ceiling crisis. It's going to be a nigh impossible task for anyone to please both sides and I believe it's going to cost the Republicans in 2012.
August 16th, 2011 at 10:20 pm
I agree, and this is one reason why I think Ron Paul could be a good choice. Not only can he galvanize the Tea Party, but because he's socially liberal (tho notably not personally) he can win over independents. And that's why when you put any Republican head to head with Obama in the polls, Paul ranks the highest among them all.
August 16th, 2011 at 11:44 pm
The problem is that past Republicans have used social issues so much as a wedge issue that social conservatives will refuse to accept Ron Paul logically stating that the government should stay out of things like abortion or trying to ban gay marriage. Remember how upset people were when John Roberts may have once been sort of iffy on abortion?
August 17th, 2011 at 5:05 am
I still think Romney has this. Perry seems the most "perfect," but he's fighting in an already crowded rightwing arena. In a winner-takes-all primary system, this means that the only "moderate" candidate with a shot (NOT Huntsman) has this.
Still, I think your cartoon makes a good point: how are there so few candidates if there are already so many of them? Though I can think of a few reasons…
August 17th, 2011 at 9:56 am
I do! They're just such a colorful bunch!
August 17th, 2011 at 1:43 pm
Ron Paul has only topped that list in very recent polls. A few months ago it was Romney getting the best hypothetical election outcomes against Obama. In June, the big news was that only Romney could beat Obama: http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2011/06/new_poll_sho...
August 17th, 2011 at 2:57 pm
Love the pile of dolls. You need a follow up with the dolls on eBay after the election :D
The business pundits on TV are painting Rick Perry as a super-Jerk for the "Treason" comment. I'm not sure if it was completely out of context, but they kept airing the treason comment over and over again.
August 17th, 2011 at 3:53 pm
That is not Ron Paul's position on abortion or gay marriage.
August 17th, 2011 at 4:07 pm
Actually, Ron Paul's social policies aren't anything close to liberal. He actually wants to take away most federal civil rights completely. He has proposed legislation that purports to ban federal courts from hearing cases relating to state actions that infringe on peoples' basic rights in the areas of religion, privacy, sex (the action, not the biological quality), or marriage. He wants states to be able to establish religion, invade peoples' homes at will, criminalize private actions, and abrogate their obligations under the full faith and credit clause of the Constitution.
He is not a socially liberal candidate.
August 17th, 2011 at 4:08 pm
The "winner-takes-all primary system" only takes hold after April 2012. All primaries held before that will be proportional.
August 18th, 2011 at 3:13 am
It is on gay marriage.
"I think the government should just be out of it. I think it should be done by the church as a private contract and we shouldn't have this argument of who's married and who isn't married. I have my standards but I shouldn't impose my standards on others." http://www.ontheissues.org/Archive/2011_SC_Ron_Pa...
August 18th, 2011 at 11:32 am
It's extremely misleading to categorize that as "stating that the government should stay out of things like…trying to ban gay marriage." Banning all civil marriages is not the same as thinking that the government should stay out of banning gay marriage. "Gay marriage" means civil marriage, not what a church thinks or what private contracts say.
August 18th, 2011 at 4:15 pm
"Banning all civil marriages is not the same as thinking that the government should stay out of banning gay marriage."
Yes it is. No civil marriage guarantees no civil gay marriage. Preventing any distinction prevents a distinct ban. Ron Paul is advocating for government to treat all marriage equally, which inherently prevents government from banning gay marriage. What individuals or religions do is irrelevant to Ron Paul's advocacy of how government should treat marriage.
I don't know what's going on in your mind, but it is not represented in the text above.
August 19th, 2011 at 12:57 pm
Perry may not have such a hard time with independents. It seems to be reported as if the Tea Party is merely the right wing of the Republican party. That's what the Democrats want to believe…but there is reason to think that this may not be so. Gallup polled the Tea Party and found that 50% were Republican prior to becoming the "Tea Party", 43% were independent and 7% were Democrats brought in on the debt issues. The Tea Party does not seem to self-identify as Republican but as Independent.
Now all of this is important simply because there seems to be a belief that Republicans are Conservatives, Democrats are Liberals, and Independents Moderates. While that was true for years….the advent of the Tea Party…basically Perot's movement reborn…confounds this. You now have a type of independent that has decided, on fiscal issues at least, that the Republicans are not right wing enough. This leads to many polls showing Republicans winning Independents by 60% plus. (In 2010 you saw this a lot.)
August 19th, 2011 at 1:52 pm
Democrats aren’t liberals, rather, liberals are usually Democrats. Plenty of conservative Democrats, if less conservative than Republicans.
I was under the strong impression that Democratic primaries are proportional, but Republican ones winner-take-all. I was amused in 2008 that the Democratic primaries were in fact more democratic.
The Texas economic robustness is overblown, and doesn’t have much to do with Perry anyway.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/15/opinion/the-texas-unmiracle.html
Less of a housing boom; oil boom; stronger bank regulation; biennial budget meaning accidental Keynesianism for the first year of the recession; higher unemployment than Massachusetts with its “job-killing Romneycare”; having cheap labor for demographic reasons and attracting jobs from other states via that cheap labor, which can’t generalize to the whole country.
August 22nd, 2011 at 2:46 pm
If you take a look at his legislative record to date Barak Obama makes for a pretty darn good "moderate" Republican canidate, even if they have gone out of style as of late.
September 29th, 2011 at 10:39 am
This is one of my favorite cartoons you've ever done, I'm constantly referring people to it.
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