The Audacity of Change

I’ve seen this show before.

A person is anointed and crowned. The Leader of the Free World is Chosen. It always happens this way. No matter what. New Hampshire did not make Bill Clinton the “Comeback Kid.” George W. Bush was never The Outsider. John Kerry was never going to be the President.

No matter the parlor games that are played inside the Beltway or in a studio or newsroom in Midtown Manhattan, people always know who is going to win, who will be president. Without a doubt, in 1992, George Herbert Walker Bush was not going to be re-elected to the presidency. Bill Clinton saw his meteoritic rise from the 1988 Democratic Convention where he was the keynote speaker to the 1992 Democratic Convention where he accepted his party’s nomination for president. He was unstoppable. He was never down and out. No scandal would stick. He was Teflon. He was Bulletproof. And he was going to dispose of Bob Dole in 1996 without breaking a sweat and speaking about building the bridge towards the 21st century. But people wanted others to believe that we had a real honest to God race out there. We didn’t.

In 2000, after eight years in exile, the Republicans crowned the heir apparent, the Governor of Texas, the son of the defeated ex-president. And no matter the insurgency that McCain would mount in New Hampshire, everyone knew that George W. Bush was going to be his party’s nominee. And going into election night, everyone knew that he was going to win, no matter how close the polls said the race was. During the post-election meltdown, everyone knew that no matter what the courts deliberated, they would always rule in his favor. Brokaw said on election night “George W. Bush is the president-elect.” And nothing was going to change that.

The same thing happens to those who don’t win the big prize. In September 2003, Time Magazine ran an article exulting Gov. Dean’s lead in Iowa. The Republicans kept on spinning knowing full well that there was no way in Hell that he was going to win this one. John Kerry, the junior senator from Massachusetts was dying a merciless death in the wheat fields. The Democrats were waiting for Gore to come back and challenge the presidential pretender. In January Dean howled and Kerry triumphed. And that was it, the end of the primary. The Bush camp dumped an immediate Ad War against Kerry framing him in the eyes of the voters: flip-flopping Liberal New England elite who married into money. And there was no doubt that no matter what, George W. Bush would accomplish the one thing that had eluded his father: re-election.

I’ve seen this show before.

***

The good old days never were.

The floor fights at the conventions never transpired. Lyndon Johnson announced in March 1968 that he would not seek nor would accept his party’s nomination for president. A month before the sitting president was defeated in New Hampshire by Sen. McCarthy who was running on an anti-war campaign. With Johnson out the establishment gave it to Humphrey, the sitting vice-president. Humphrey battled McCarthy and Robert Kennedy. History of course has a way of being cyclical. With Kennedy’s assassination in June, the stage was set for Humphrey’s coronation amidst the police riot in Chicago, in one of the most nauseating episodes in American political history. There was no doubt that Humphrey was going to win even though we didn’t wish for that. We wanted Bobby. We wanted what was taken away from us. He would bring us together. He would give us the audacity of change. Ted White and Kennedy myth-creator Arthur Schlesinger Jr., always argued that Bobby would’ve won it in Chicago and that the protests and Daly-terrorism would never have happened. The politics though would’ve given it to the establishment. Humphrey had the delegates and McCarthy was never going to quit. Kennedy would never have won a majority to break the stalemate, and the delegates would propel Humphrey to the top. When Bobby died in Los Angeles, Humphrey already had 150 more delegate votes than Bobby, and 300 more than McCarthy. Bobby wasn’t going to be president, assassins’ bullet or not.

In Miami Beach the Republican Party was coming around to the idea that the Southern Strategy would guarantee victory—Bill Clinton remains the only Democratic president re-elected since the implementation of the Southern Strategy. And there was a faux split that was being presented but was never actually there. The Liberal wing of the Republican Party headed by a Governor of New York and a Mayor of New York City—both running for president—battled California’s favorite sons, Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, for the direction of the party. This was a victory for the conscience of the Conservative. And no matter what happened Nixon was going to win. And he was going to win the presidency.

There’s no point anymore in thinking about counter-factuals. Even when we try to romanticize the what-ifs, the possibility of changes in history, we come back to the facts. Nothing was going to change it.

The good old days never were.

***

We now have the courage to pursue the audacity of change.

And that’s the real reason why this presidential race is so fluid. Take me for example, by this time in every presidential election cycle I already know who the winner is going to be. At this time during the 1992 campaign I wasn’t yet interested in politics, but by this time in 1996, I knew that Clinton was going to win re-election. Even though there have only been three presidential elections that I have followed and have correctly prognosticated who has won—this track record of mine is going strong now for a dozen years. And I’m at a loss right now. I just don’t know. Something tells me that Giuliani is going to emerge past Huckabee and Romney and confront the Clinton war-machine and win. Something tells me that this is what is supposed to happen and that it indeed will. The re-run in my head tells me that this is it, that it is indeed, déjà vu all over again.

This same show tells me that no matter how many Stadiums Oprah and Barack fill, the HRC Campaign will take it all and take it big. Don’t pay attention to the polls in Iowa, Hillary will win there. She’ll take New Hampshire strong and South Carolina and it’s on to Super Tuesday and she’ll win there. No matter what. Obama would make a good veep, but she’ll give it to Richardson. And it’ll be Clinton-Richardson (who were the not-ready-for-primetime players in the 90’s) against Giuliani-Huckabee.

On Sunday night when I attended the Univision debate held at UM I thought that for sure I was going to come out of there knowing who had won. I don’t know if anyone did. Ron Paul’s honesty and apathy towards pandering is refreshing. Huckabee spoke well. Giuliani and Romney didn’t do anything to take it out of the ballpark and McCain spoke truthfully and with his hand on his heart, but no one listened and no one will ever let him in.

A War Election? A Change Election?

I guess we’re coming to the conclusion that it really doesn’t matter who the president is. That no matter what they’ll follow the same long-term strategic goals and conduct business as usual. We placed our faith in the Bush Administration as being the first MBA Presidency. We placed our faith in this team as the self-anointed “Dream Team” of American Foreign Policy: Cheney, Rumsfeld, Powell, Rice. They were the grown-ups compared to Clinton’s kids who were running around the White House without knowing what to do next. And the Grown-Ups let us down. Those kids from the Clinton White House have come of age and are now the self-anointed Dream Team of politicos and policy-wonks. But I don’t think they’ve learned much since their first tour of duty during the 1990’s. At the end no one has the experience. No one has the courage to be a leader. It’s business as usual in America, and we lose sight of our dreams and aspirations in return for economic and social comfort. And no matter which party controls the White House after next year’s election, we may be a little better off than we are now…or we may not…this is the future status-quo.

But it needn’t be a fait accompli. Wouldn’t it be refreshing if Barack Hussein Obama became president of the United States? People from all over the world would see that the United States of America is not represented by another Old White Man. So what if he’s not experienced? So what if he hasn’t fulfilled his sentence in Washington? This man is our Bobby:

The pundits like to slice-and-dice our country into Red States and Blue States; Red States for Republicans, Blue States for Democrats. But I've got news for them too. We worship an awesome God in the Blue States, and we don't like federal agents poking around in our libraries in the Red States. We coach Little League in the Blue States and yes, we got some gay friends in the Red States. There are patriots who opposed the war in Iraq and patriots who supported the war in Iraq. We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the stars and stripes, all of us defending the United States of America. (Obama, 2004 Democratic National Convention.)


He’s young, he’s charismatic. And we project what we want to see in us onto him. He is our tabula rasa. He’s Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton in one. He’s change. He’s unlike anything we’ve ever had before. He’s presidential. He’s ready.


As a Republican, I support Barack Obama for the Democratic nomination for president.

As a Republican, I will most probably support Rudy Giuliani, the presumptive Republican nominee for President of the United States.



“All life is a preparation for something that probably will never happen.”

Unless we have the courage to pursue the audacity of change.

The Primary Election Campaign Season--The Republicans

It used to be that Labor Day signified the beginning of the General Election Campaign season. Of the election year.

Now, with Presidential Politics beginning earlier, and with this president being more and more a lame-duck everyday, Labor Day 2007 launches the Primary Election Campaign Season.

And as a sign of how much of a lame-duck the president is, apparently, he doesn't plan on being in the country much next year, as his replacements are vying for his job.

But it's starting to look like a campaign...

Fred Thompson gave his anti-climactic announcement that he's in on "The Tonight Show," while his opponents were debating in New Hampshire. The Honeymoon that the media gave him just three or four months ago is over. Indeed, what the media giveth, the media taketh away. Reagan speechwriter Peggy Noonan opined in the Wall Street Journal that his entering the race and using Jay Leno's stage was "rude" and she begged to ask the question: "Who are you? And the reason you're running for president would be...?" Others have already characterized him as lazy and detach. On George Stephanopoulos' show George Wil, Cokie Roberts, and Sam Donaldson were piling on him non-stop. What took you so long? And why did you even show up? And then again, these allusions to him being the "Next Reagan." By the time the media's done with him he'll be the Anti-Reagan. On Saturday the Washingon Post put out a column listing Thompson's insider bona-fides. Apparently he's more of a Washington Insider than Hillary Clinton, and the plethora of senators running in both parties. And he's lazy. The pundits can't stress that enough. Thompson trying retail politics is not a nice thing to see. And there's this feeling that he doesn't really want it. Ronald Reagan, before running successfully in 1980 ran in 1976, and before that was a chief executive as Governor of California. It seems to many that Thompson is doing it just to fill in a void.

I could just see a Lloyd Bentsen moment occuring in a Republican Debate with one of the candidates turning to Thompson and telling him: "Senator, I served with Dutch Reagan. I knew Dutch Reagan. Dutch Reagan was a friend of mine. Senator, you're no Dutch Reagan!" And that'll be the end of him.

Going back to what the media giveth, the media taketh away: a month ago, they were declaring McCain's candidacy on life-support. Yesterday, David Broder wrote an article in the Washington Post entitled, "McCain Finds His Footing." And he ends the column with juxtaposing how well McCain does at Retail Politics. Remember he beat Dubya in New Hampshire in 2000. And Broder advises Thompson to pick up a thing or do from McCain. This type of media mention, which of course was then regurgitated on the Sunday talkies, can propel McCain to be the anti-Thompson. And with Thompson currently in second place, McCain can quickly push ahead, especially if he ends strong in New Hampshire.

In National Polls, Romney has lost some traction and McCain and Romney are currently in a statistical dead heat for third place. If Thompson falters, which is likely, we'll see the Battle for New Hampshire play out between Giuliani, McCain, and Romney. Here Romney has a 12 point lead over Giuliani, and Giuliani, a 5 point lead over McCain, but this can all change soon, and all change fast. Especially when we get back from Iowa where Romney is clearly in the lead there. I believe that Giuliani and McCain will quickly change their modus operandi and switch over to NH since Iowa is lost, and they'll probably leave Thompson to battle Romney there, since he plays better in the Mid-West than he does in the Northeast. Appearances on "Law and Order" notwithstanding...

In an interesting sidenote. The Florida GOP Primary has Giuliani leading, with Thompson ten points behind, and once again Romney and McCain tied for third.

No wonder Romney was the first to disavow any connections with the shoe-tapper...

Soon: The Democrats.

Sinking

A couple of days ago, the NBC NEWS/WALL STREET JOURNAL poll was released.

On the night that the poll was released, the NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams' lede was "Angry America." What an apt statement about a mad country.

According to the results, 70% of Americans believe that the country is heading in the wrong direction with only 1 in 5 Americans believing that the country is heading in the right direction. The record high for "wrong track" number was 71% hit in July 1992, when the president's father was campaigning against then Gov. Clinton.

66% of Americans disapprove of the the job George W. Bush is doing as president. With only 29% of Americans approving, this is a new record low for George W. Bush.

Congress isn't faring that well either. 23% of Americans approve of the job Congress is doing, with 64% disapproving. The record low in this poll for Congressional approval was 15% held in April 1992. The Democrats kept the House in the 1992 election, but of course lost it an election cycle later.

Looking ahead to 2008: Clinton has increased her lead over Obama, with Clinton actually gaining traction following the debates and Obama losing some of it because of the debates. Inside the GOP: Giuliani's lead is much more fluid, with him also losing from the debates, and Thompson--who hasn't officially declared, and of course, hasn't participated in the debates--now #2 in the race. In a head-to-head, Clinton beats Giuliani (48-43), with the numbers reversing from three months ago(47-42), and Obama beats Thompson (50-31).

But what's going on here?

The Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll also released earlier this week has fascinating internals.

In the GOP, Thompson's surge can be seen coming directly from the Religious Right, with Giuliani holding slightly because of Independents. And while Giuliani got into a religious controversy a la John Kerry a couple of weeks ago, after Thompson, he is the RR's candidate of choice.

With the Democrats, Clinton is building a perfect trifecta, bringing in Independents, Moderate and the Liberal Democrats all together to propel her to the top. (Another interesting part of the poll is that Gore is #3 following Obama.) Clinton's mastery shows how she has the best politics people of the Democratic Party working in her camp. More liberal democrats are going for Clinton over Obama and Edwards, even though, arguably, she is the most hawkish of the bunch.

And now the issues: Republican primary voters are putting national security over social issues for 2008. Among RPV's 48% say that whether or not a candidate is for/against abortion is not a factor in their deciding whom to vote for president.

And here's the two big ones: Among all primary voters, 94% believe that Iraq is an important issue that will affect the way they vote, and 81% say Immigration is an important issue that will affect the way they vote.

(Breakdown: Republicans are more interested than Democrats and Independents about the Iraq issue: 97, 94, 91; the same is true of Immigration: 88, 78, 79.)

But really, what's going on?


Is Iraq that important of an issue? Sure it polls well. But really? I think that the majority of the people whom get contacted by these pollsters volunteer Iraq as the reason of why they're so unhappy with presidential/congressional job handling. But I don't think that that's the reason. I hold onto the theory that Americans are like a movie audience. And the reason that they don't like what's going on in Iraq is because it's been going on ad nauseum. Nothing's really changed, and they want this movie to finally end. The amount of reasoned, informed discussion of the situation in Iraq is minuscule at best. Rather Iraq is what ties the American people's dissatisfaction into one nicely, defined package. The amount of American families that are being directly affected by Iraq--in terms of loved one's there, etc--is an infinitesimal proportion of the population. But it is what the American people hear day in day out about the situation in Iraq that makes them so against the war. Conventional wisdom holds that Congressional approval is so low because the American people elected the Democrats in thinking that they were going to pull the plug on the war. And that didn't happen. And no informed person thought it was going to happen either. Reality hits. Anger foments. And disapproval ensues.

Same thing with immigration. Polls contradict each other. A majority of Americans are for granting some sort of permanent status to the illegal immigrants already here, knowing that deportation isn't realistic, yet they are against the Immigration Bill. They're against the bill, but doing nothing--which is the other alternative--creates a silent amnesty by maintaining the system in a perpetual, broken-down, status-quo.

And that's the problem. The American people are indecisive. Congress and the President in turn become indecisive because they don't know what the American people want. And, its surely been the case that at times, what the American people want isn't what's right for the country. Leadership is needed. People who know what's right for America should be standing up and persuading Americans to do what's right.

But nothing is happening. Not in Washington. Not in Iraq.

And the sinking numbers will continue.

Speaking of sinking, another thing that apparently is: The Jefferson Memorial.

Son of Reagan

They mentioned his name in homage twenty times. There were ten of them. You do the math.

Ronald Wilson Reagan really did something to this country. He really did something to the Republican Party. Republicans have made him a deity. And standing there with SAM (Special Air Mission) 27000 facing them throughout the debate, one couldn't but escape that they all lived in his shadow. That they all wanted to be the son of Reagan.

SAM 27000, better known by its call-sign Air Force One, carried Richard Nixon from Washington to California when he resigned the presidency in 1974. It served Presidents Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan and Bush (41). It was the plane that carried Reagan from Washington to Berlin where he implored Chairman Gorbachev to "tear down this wall!" And there it was, inside the hanger where the debate took place. The ten of them knew that they were in the presence of history.

And there's no better way to succeed in the Republican Party today than to look to the past, and to the presidency of Ronald Reagan. Everyone knows this. Stanley Greenberg, who used to spent his time in the 1990's serving as President Clinton's pollster wrote, The Two Americas, and in it, he clearly laid out the advantages to being the Son of Reagan. He argued--and I believe he is clearly prescient and brilliant--that Republicans must not fight the notion of "Two Americas," (in this sense taking another meaning from Edwards' worn-out stump speech) but rather embrace the Two Americas. We live in a divided nation. And all one party needs to do to win the presidency is to get the plurality. The Republican party is a party built on coalitions, but one thing that unites most all sectors, the economic conservatives and the social conservatives and the hawks, etc. is Ronald Reagan. Continuing with the metaphor that was used to death yesterday, he was the Republican Party's modern day messiah.

To be the son of Reagan means that you believe in Big Issues and a Sense of Purpose (see our current president). To be the son of Reagan means that you place an importance on the issue of faith and protecting religious practices. To be the son of Reagan means you believe in tax cuts and entrepreneurship and in business-led prosperity. To be the son of Reagan means you believe in a strong military and America's commitment to freedom.

And boy, they were all the sons of Reagan's last night.

Coverage today even took the position of who looked like Reagan the most. Alessandra Stanley bestowed that honor on former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, saying he had:

...the tan, the Brylcreem hair, the straight white teeth and a voice so smooth and friendly it sounds as if he makes his living doing voice-overs for car
commercials. After the debate, Mr. Romney was the first to bolt across the stage
to shake hands with Nancy Reagan.

At the same time I found it interesting that as much as everyone was thinking about Reagan, no one was thinking about Bush being the anti-Reagan in a sense. It's a weird fate for Bush. During the 2000 campaign pundits all said that he was more the son of Reagan than the son of Bush. Today with his approval rates sinking and he's seen as more and more out of step with America, I figure Bush is Carter. And it's 1980 all over again. The big thing about 1980 of course was the sense of malaise. Nothing was going right. And from the west Reagan came promising that it would be "morning again in America." John McCain tried hitting that scene when he kept on talking about optimism. So did Gov. Romney. But while they respected President Bush last night, they did that with a grain of salt. Sen. McCain is walking a tight-rope. He's one of the president's staunchest supporter on the war in Congress. So much so that the fictional character Denny Crane on ABC's Boston Legal surmised that "McCain speaks Bush now." And that that might hurt in the election.

It was a little scary, the debate, I'll admit. All of them, when asked if Roe v. Wade being overturned would be a good thing for America were in the affirmative. Sen. Sam Brownback (who's not going anywhere) said "It would be a glorious day of human liberty and freedom." And on it went. Romney and Giuliani were a little more tepid in their responses. Giuliani's response: "I'd be OK." To which he was asked to elaborate on what he meant, and what he said he meant went along the lines of this being a Federalist government, and that it's up to the courts to decide and he'd go along with whatever decision the courts would make. This coming from the man who while mayor of New York City supported public funding for Abortions. This point illuminates how difficult it is for the social moderates and liberals in the Republican party to capture the base.

Another scary moment came when former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, Senator Brownback, and Colorado Congressman Tom Tancredo (all three not going anywhere either), raised their hands saying that they don't believe in Evolution.

Sen. McCain and Rudy Giuliani were the only candidates who, with Nancy Reagan sitting in the front row, said that they would support federal funding for embryonic stem cell research. Something which Nancy Reagan advocates for, and something that drew this president's veto for the first time in office. (The other veto came this week when he returned to congress the Democratic War Spending Bill.)

On the issue of immigration, McCain also drew fire from his fellow presidential aspirants. It's popular in some parts of the Republican Party to refer to the comprehensive immigration bill which the President and Sen. McCain support as the "Kennedy McCain" or "McCain Kennedy" bill. Standing up there with Tancredo, the staunchest anti-illegal immigrants crusader in the presidential candidate field sure drew the ire of McCain. One of my favorite parts came up when they asked McCain if he'd be comfortable if Tancredo headed the immigration service. McCain's response: "In a word, no."

It was a pretty standard debate. No fireworks. No quotes that will be repeated for a couple more news cycles. Except probably, McCain's promise to "follow Bin Laden to the Gates of Hell." But it was a nice starter for the Republicans.

I'll leave you with this: It's been said that you'd have to be crazy to run for president. Apparently, Vanity Fair believes that Rudy Giuliani really is.