Dvergar wrote:
The rest of the 'front-runners' include two religious nut-jobs, one of whom has done even less than Obama when he was running,
Oh, the comparison goes farther than that...Best of the Web wrote:
Talk to a liberal about Rep. Michele Bachmann, and you're sure to hear the words "crazy" and "unelectable." We disagree with the first characterization and doubt the second, which is not to say we don't have serious misgivings about Bachmann. We worry that she may be the Barack Obama of 2012.
The most obvious parallel is in the quantity and quality of their political experience. On Election Day 2008, Obama was nearing the end of his fourth year in the U.S. Senate; 2012 will be Bachmann's sixth year in the House. Both came to Washington after stints in their state senates, where Obama served eight years and Bachmann six. Although both quickly gained national prominence as opposition spokesmen, neither is about to be mistaken for Lyndon B. Johnson in terms of legislative acumen or accomplishment.
Both are "diversity" pioneers. Obama was the first serious black candidate for president. Bachmann, assuming she does not fade before the nominating contests begin, will be the first serious female candidate (putting aside the nepotist Hillary Clinton). That brings both of them a certain amount of deference from guilty white males. Yesterday Chris Wallace of "Fox News Sunday" opened an interview with Bachmann by offering a groveling apology for having asked her an unchivalrous question weeks ago.
Where the parallels get interesting, though, is in considering why her detractors regard Bachmann as "crazy." Much of it comes down to religion. "Bachmann belongs to a generation of Christian conservatives whose views have been shaped by institutions, tracts, and leaders not commonly known to secular Americans, or even to most Christians," writes Ryan Lizza in The New Yorker. Lizza attributes to Bachmann "a set of beliefs more extreme than those of any American politician of her stature."
He does not mention that the man she seeks to challenge had a "spiritual mentor" who described AIDS as a racist U.S. government plot, said of 9/11 that "America's chickens are coming home to roost," published Hamas propaganda in the church newsletter, and thundered from the pulpit: "God damn America!" Obama's mentor's beliefs might have seemed normal in the faculty lounge or the offices of The New Yorker, but they were not commonly known to Christians, or even most secular Americans.
Our guess is that Bachmann's religious views will not end up weighing down her candidacy any more than Obama's weighed down his. Yesterday she made the rounds of the Sunday political talk shows, and David Gregory of NBC's "Meet the Press" aggressively questioned her on a couple of theological points. One was a statement that wives "are to be submissive to your husbands":
Gregory: Is that your view for women in America? Is that your vision for them?
Bachmann: Well, I--during the debate I was asked a question about this, and my response was is that submission, that word, means respect. It means that I respect my husband and he respects me.
Gregory: Right. Congresswoman, I didn't even have to check with my wife and I know those two things aren't, aren't equal.
If Gregory had any wit, he'd have added a punch line: "I submit to her, but I sure don't respect her!" Instead, the interview continued in earnest:
Bachmann: What's that?
Gregory: Submission and respect.
Bachmann: Well, in our house it is.
Gregory: OK.
Bachmann: We've been married almost 33 years and I have a great deal of respect for my husband. He's a wonderful, wonderful man and a great father to our children. And he's also filled with good advice. He--
Gregory: But so his word goes?
Bachmann: --he leads--pardon?
Gregory: His word goes?
Bachmann: Well, both of our words go. We respect each other. We have a mutual partnership in our marriage, and that's the only way that we could accomplish what we've done in life is to be a good team. We're a good team together.
Gregory also wanted to know if Bachmann would "take cues from God for decisions . . . that you would make as president." She answered that she "would pray and ask the Lord for guidance" as "presidents have done throughout history." He asked if she would consider gays or atheists for administrative or judicial nominations, and she replied: "My criteria would be first of all, 'How do you view the Constitution?' If you uphold the Constitution, if you're competent, and . . . if you share my views, then you can get appointed."
Bachmann, in short, came across as completely reasonable, and Gregory's line of questioning ended up seeming bizarre and irrelevant. (Did anyone ever ask Obama if he would nominate an atheist? Has he nominated any?) It looks to us as though Bachmann's religious beliefs and affiliations will cause her even less political damage than Obama's caused him in 2008.
The other big knock on Bachmann has to do with fiscal policy, and it does not come only from the left. Here is Paul Gigot, reviewing last week's debate:
Her admirers like her willingness to fight, but her claim that the Standard & Poor's downgrade of U.S. debt vindicated her refusal to vote for a debt-ceiling increase illustrates why voters will never trust her with the White House and I doubt even the nomination.
Had Republicans forced a post-Aug. 2 shutdown of government services and risked default, Moody's and Fitch would have joined S&P in downgrading U.S. debt. Either Ms. Bachmann knows this, in which case she is merely playing to the talk radio GOP base. Or she doesn't know it, which makes her unready to be president.
Bachmann's position on the debt-ceiling increase was indeed irresponsible, whether foolishly or cynically so. And she was not alone. To quote another member of Congress:
The fact that we are here today to debate raising America's debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. It is a sign that the U.S. Government can't pay its own bills. It is a sign that we now depend on ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries to finance our Government's reckless fiscal policies. . . . Increasing America's debt weakens us domestically and internationally. Leadership means that "the buck stops here." Instead, Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better.
As you might have guessed, that was Sen. Barack Obama, explaining his vote against raising the debt ceiling in 2006.
So, is Bachmann unelectable? Faced with weak opposition, Barack Obama had sufficient political talent to overcome similar deficiencies. Liberals are surely engaged in wishful thinking if they think such a feat impossible for somebody on the other side.
Then again, there's a big difference between 2012 and 2008. As The Wall Street Journal notes in an editorial, "Americans are already living with the consequences of electing a President who sounded good but had achieved little as a legislator and had no executive experience." That ought to give Republicans pause about the idea of nominating Bachmann.
But electability is relative to the opposition. Barry Goldwater and George McGovern were the most unelectable major-party nominees in recent American history. But if Goldwater had been nominated four years later and McGovern four years earlier, one of them would have become president.
Suppose Bachmann gets the nomination. She will be asking voters, in effect, to take a flier on a politically talented but inexperienced lawmaker with unusual religious views and a history of irresponsible statements. Last time they did that, they ended up with Barack Obama. This time, if they don't do it, they'll end up with Barack Obama.
Dvergar wrote:
and one who has spent since 2000 turning Texas into the embarrassment of the country it is now.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... rialPage_hMichael Barone wrote:
So what does the president have to offer the Midwest? The idea that the wave of the future is an ever-larger public sector financed by a more or less stagnant private sector looks increasingly absurd. The Midwest's public sector has, as Margaret Thatcher put it, run on "other people's money." Meanwhile, Mr. Obama's trip to the Midwest has been preceded by Texas Gov. Rick Perry's foray into Waterloo, Iowa. Mr. Perry points out that his state, with low taxes and light regulation, has been producing nearly half of America's new jobs. The Texas model may be sweeping the Midwest, not vice versa.
Nearly half of all new jobs? Yeah, I'd be embarrassed by that, too, if I were running for elected office.
Your Pal,
Jubber
