My current assumption about the 2016 GOP primary is that, barring an act of the Trickster God, its end stage will devolve into an epic battle between Rick Santorum and whichever schlub the “sane” business rump of the party can shepherd through the contests between the snake handlers and the glibertarians (JEB!, Jindal, and Cruz being the current contenders). However much those of us in the Reality-Based Community regard him as a godsbothering sideshow freak who becomes ever more dislikeable the better he’s known, Santorum got the ‘Best of Losers’ ribbon in 2012 — no matter how much money Mitt Romney and his supporters fed into the primary woodchippers, the dumb sullen heart of the Stupid Party gave Sanctorum their votes. And Repubs, committed authoritarians that they are, treat “It’s His Turn“ as one of the prime directives; thus McCain followed Dubya, and Willard followed McCain, and Sanctorum fully intends to follow Willard in the next quadrennial circus parade.
It therefore makes me a very happy Democrat that Rand ‘Thanksdad’ Paul is already making a strong bid to play the Third Party Spoiler, per Ed Kilgore at Washington Monthly:
Can Rand Paul’s “Constitutional Conservative” Coalition Hang Together?
In the wake of Rand Paul’s trip last week to Iowa, which seemed design to launch (or at least aggressively explore) a 2016 presidential candidacy, certain elements of his potential nomination-campaign coalition are looking at each other with suspicion. As WaPo’s Peter Wallstein noted, he’s been spending a lot of time with conservative evangelicals—earlier in a trip to Israel, and last Friday in meetings orchestrated by Christian Right impresario David Lane—and they want to be assured he’s not some dope-smoking sodomite libertarian…This sort of evangelical outreach is giving the heebie-jeebies to leading libertarian writer Nick Gillespie, who complained in a Daily Beast column that Paul is trying to serve two masters…
Both Wallstein and Gillespie frame the controversy at least in part by wondering if Rand Paul is a different animal than his father. But both probably know this suggestion that libertarians and quasi-theocrats are at each other’s throats when it comes to Republican politics is an exaggeration. Ron Paul had a pretty strong evangelical following himself; his support among Iowa home-schoolers, for example, was key to his political strength there. And both Pauls have had close links to the U.S. Constitution Party, that theocratic organization which basically believes God wants government to defer to the churches on cultural issues and to property-owners on economic issues….
Thing is, what Rand Paul has isn’t a political philosophy, it’s a highly successful family grift business. Senator Aquabuddha is the perfect candidate for the “Suburban Gated Community” demographic of the modern GOP — prosperous white guys with good educations, most of them fellow beneficiaries of their parents’ success during the postwar prosperity boom, who want to drink good whiskey and use modern contraceptives while lecturing their underlings about how God wants them to be poor and stupid. He’s too inexperienced to woo the Money Party, and too lazy to go full-metal Jeebus-slobberer in the hinterlands, but I can see him (or his handlers) busily peeling off just enough votes from the divergent wings of the modern GOP to cripple the whole circus.
And if we’re really lucky, he’ll hire Stuart Stevens! Jon Chait, at NYMag:
Mitt Romney was probably going to lose last year regardless of what he did, but he did make some puzzling moves, such as appearing with Donald Trump to accept a high-profile endorsement. [Wednesday] Romney strategist Stuart Stevens told National Review this move did not hurt Romney at all, because there was no chance Romney could ever top Trump’s popularity:
“I think people that don’t like Donald Trump aren’t going to vote for Mitt Romney,” Stevens added. “He did it in Las Vegas. He’s very popular in Las Vegas. The guy’s on television for a reason. People like him.”
You hear that? He’s on television. They don’t just go putting maniacs on television because they stir up attention or anything. Television executives are going to make sure a majority of voters approve of you and your political ideas before they let you on the air….
The prophet Nostradumbass
Is there some particular reason why you’ve stomped on your own open thread, less than an hour later?
Anne Laurie
@The prophet Nostradumbass: (1) Anything over 40 minutes or so isn’t ‘stomping’. (2) I know quite a few people think it’s TOO SOON to talk about 2016, so I treat it as a late-night personal indulgence, like Cole’s drunken multi-YT-embed posts.
The prophet Nostradumbass
@Anne Laurie: There were ten comments on the last thread when you started this one.
Liquid
Good God. I was about to make some point about something but posting this through the Steam browser (sans adblock) has overwhelmed me. How do you non-AdBlock people do this? The entire website looks like some teenager spiffed up his Grandmothers AOL/Geocities webpage.
Origuy
I don’t get the problem with having multiple threads going at the same time. If they are the same topic, sure, try to stick with one thread. But other blogs have more than one active thread at once and no one complains.
The prophet Nostradumbass
@Liquid: Why are you looking at this site through the Steam browser? I’m not surprised that the site looks like crap through it. I bet it looks like crap through my Wii’s browser too.
@Origuy: The two threads are the same topic, the 2016 election. I’m not actually pissed off, it just seems unnecessary.
Liquid
@The prophet Nostradumbass: Fair point, I’m busy kicking the shit out of Sweden. They conquered Russia and then picked a fight with the Maratha Confederacy, my allies. They never thought that Prussia (me) would join in. But I want Copenhagen and Vilnius!
Oh and for anyone that watched tonites GoT episode — That little blurb with Danys translator correcting her. Yeah, that same phrase is in Season 1 Episode 3 – Lord Snow. A nice little callback.
Tim in SF
I don’t understand this post at all. You didn’t even mention Fat Chris Christie.
The people I’ve been talking to think Fat Chris Christie is nearly a lock on the nomination. He’s popular. He’s insanely popular in his home state and only slightly less so among moderates all over the country. A lot of Democrats like him.
He would absolutely carry New Jersey, which is a bluer-than-blue state.
AnotherBruce
Perhaps Donald Trump is on television a lot because the behavior of his hair is so unpredictable. Also, he likes to fire people, just to watch them cry.
AnotherBruce
@Tim in SF: From what I’ve read, he wouldn’t even carry New Jersey in a race against Hillary, according to current polls. That said, you’re probably right in that he’s their best candidate.
Tim in SF
@AnotherBruce: I wouldn’t bet money on President lap-band; I’m just saying that you ignore him at your peril.
Liquid
As the talented and gorgeous Amy Poehler (as Hillary Clinton) said — “I invite the media to grow a pair … and, if you can’t, I will lend you mine.”
I loved her on SNL but Parks and Rec has transcended Awesome!
Anne Laurie
@Tim in SF:
Christie will never run successfully in the modern Republican party. I’d guess the current question in Gov. Lapband’s mind is “Do I switch parties in 2015, and run as a ‘centrist Dem’, or do I wait to see if the GOP implodes soon enough for me to spearhead the emergent ‘Totally Populist DFHs’n’Poors’n’Colored-Peope-Hating Moderates’ third party for Mike Bloomberg and Pete Person?”
Hal
Doesn’t Christie being pro-choice automatically eliminate him, unless he can overcome some other deeply conservative candidate via less conservative primaries?
I guess he could suddenly become anti-abortion, but that doesn’t seem all too likely.
WereBear
@Hal: This is why you don’t see Republican candidates from the NE; they have to have a modicum of sanity to get enough votes. I’m in a rural part of NY, and still the Republican candidates around here are pro-marriage equality and don’t go around screaming about Jeebus.
My little town in Florida had THREE evangelical radio stations. That’s the kind of culture that will breed you up some Tea Partiers who want to impeach the President for being a Kenyan double agent.
Shalimar
I expect Huckabee to take the crazy religious spot from Santorum if Huckabee chooses to run. The only reason Santorum was runner-up last time was because Huckabee was smart enough not to try in a losing year.
Ash Can
For precisely the reasons discussed in the next thread, I don’t see any moderates such as Christie winning the nomination in 2016. The GOP base completely lost its shit after the nation’s first black president was elected, and it’s only been further downhill from there. I don’t even see Jeb Bush getting the nomination. Even if he goes full metal frothing lunatic for the campaign, he’ll have had too much actual moderation in his background to be acceptable to the insane asylum that makes up the base of GOP voters. Rand Paul may be able to cleave off some votes for being sufficiently racist and misogynistic, but the only way the “moneyed rump” (I love that term) will be able to get any traction at all is to back its own wacko. Moderation is out of the question.
Citizen_X
I just wanted to say, this is a great description of a major GOP demographic. And the (further) suburbanization of America over the last 3 decades is a major part of the GOP rise in that time.
low-tech cyclist
There are limits to the GOP’s ‘my-turn-ism.’ For instance, who finished second in 1996? (Hint: it wasn’t Dubya, which is all that matters.) If the runners-up in one cycle are of sufficently poor quality, they’ll throw ’em out and start over.
By 2016, Santorum’s going to be ancient history.
I’m no insider, but I can just feel the forces of darkness lining up behind Rubio, the way they lined up behind Dubya in the run-up to 2000. Barring a major scandal or spectacular flub, I expect it’s his nomination to lose.
The real battle on the GOP side in 2016 will be for the ‘my turn’ mantle for 2020, and that’s where guys like Cruz and Rand Paul will duke it out. My money’s on Paul, because this
is absolute 100% truth.
mds
Wait, now Nick is concerned about the impact of conservative evangelical voters? Given that Ron Paul is himself an extremist conservative evangelical, this seems a day late and a dollar short. Maybe Nick should take another look around at his fellow schibertarian homophobic antichoice misogynist asswipes, and the way they magically manage to agree with the authoritarian theocrats almost all the time.
schrodinger's cat
Too early for this discussion. Take it away, Grumpy
Jebediah
@low-tech cyclist:
Oh no! GOP, please don’t nominate Rubio! He will be way too hard to campaign against! That’s just a briar patch too far!
gene108
@Hal:
Christie isn’t pro-choice and never has been. He’s as socially conservative as any right-winger.
He vetoed a gay marriage bill that passed the legislature.
His only “centrist” bona fida is he nominated a Muslim – and long time backer – to a judgeship in NJ and defended his friend against the mouthbreathers, who were upset because he doesn’t hate all Muslims.
Christie will be like Reagan II. He’ll do unbelievable damage to this country, but because of his “gruff wit”, the media and the country will love him for it.
EDIT: We need Hillary Clinton in 2016. One Party maintaining control of the White House for more than two consecutive terms is pretty rare. You need someone with a lot of stature to overcome the natural political habits of this country.
Chris
@gene108:
The DC/East Coast Republicsan establishment has a few uncharacteristic scruples when it comes to Muslim rights, I’ve noticed (Bush had them too). At the risk of conspiracy theorizing, I suspect their long-standing ties to the oil sheikhs might have something to do with it. Kind of hard to maintain America’s Special Relationship with Saudi Arabia if Islamophobia is allowed to run completely unchecked.
Bruce S
I think the main difference between Ron and Rand is that Ron always has played his wack hand as a defiant, “truth-telling” outsider – and as a congressman with zilch power and no ambition beyond gadfly, his contradictory bullshit wasn’t as apparent in his public persona. People – mostly ideological libertarians like Gillespie, but including some liberals who liked his noise on stuff like the drug war – could pretty much see in Ron Paul whatever they wanted because he’s so marginal.
Rand has larger ambitions and as a Senator he’s playing with a bigger ball under brighter lights. So the sops to evangelicals (which I think are the “sincere” product of his twisted, somewhat dim and petty brain, not pure opportunism) and other such compromises of the pure libertarian gospel according to Ayn get more attention. I think Rand thinks he can actually compete for the GOP nomination, as opposed to recycling his father’s outsider role as the Kucinich of the right. I would love to see Paul Jr.s primary ambitions come to fruition, but I don’t think it’ll happen. But he adds to the entertainment value of the GOP ’16 primaries, which is always a beautiful thing.
Ron Thompson
It seems obvious to me that the corporate media, which chose the last two Republican nominees, has settled on its candidate for 2016–Chris Christie. It’s hard to understand what Diane Sawyer, Brian Williams, and Andrea Mitchell are saying about him, though, because every word after his name is followed by drooling.
But he’s the pony to bet on. Whenever he gets in trouble, he’ll be the only guest on Disco Dave’s Disco Dance Party, where Fluffy will fluff him as only Fluffy can.
Bruce S
@Chris:
Texan and Uber-GOP Establishment Insider Jim Baker was detested by the AIPAC crowd – which underscores your thesis about love between the GOPer Big Wigs and the oil sheiks. (Being quoted by Jack Kemp as saying, “Fuck the Jews, they don’t vote for us” didn’t help his image in that regard.)
rikyrah
thank you for calling Rand Paul what he is
A GRIFTER
Chris
@Ron Thompson:
The media has a very specific type of politician they see as the rightful heir to power – Very Serious, Reasonable, “Moderate” Republicans (which loosely translates to “rich East Coast elites and/or their spokesmen.”) Right now, that’s Chris Christie. Mind you, they don’t always get what they want.
@Bruce S:
It’s been scrubbed from public memory now, but 1) America wasn’t Israel’s biggest patron at first (that was France) and 2) the Republicans the more pro-Zionist party here in America (that was the Democrats). In both cases for the same reason – American big oil was afraid of fucking up relations with the people whose oil they were trying to get the rights to. I’m not surprised to hear that the attitude bleeds down to today.
fuckwit
what a FROTHY MIXTURE that would be!
feebog
Santorum? Really? He will be lost in the stampede. Rubio, Paul and Cruz almost certainly will run. Governor Krispy Crème and a certain ex Governor from Florida with an unfortunate last name will be taking a very hard look. I’m quite certain Paul Ryan will take a whack at the ol’ Republican Presidential Pinata. There will also be a small posse of current Governors sniffing around, Walker (if he hasn’t been indicted), Martinez, Haley, Jindal, will all be looking to move into the second tier of candidates.
Plus, Santorum has a real problem, in that he is dumb as a stump. OK, maybe not as dumb as Rand Paul or Rick Perry, but pretty damn stupid compared to a Chris Christie or a Jeb Bush. This is going to be a huge clusterfuck of a nomination process for the Republicans, looking forward to it, but not making any prediction other than Santorum WILL NOT be the nominee.