The first category is what we might call the Mitt Romney group. These are the people that Republican bosses might sit around in smoke-filled rooms wishing they could nominate by fiat. They have track records as competent in government, and while they believe in solid conservative policies they also don't go around spouting crazy talk. They seem like they could be competitive in general elections. But unfortunately, because of their track records as competent and not crazy, they also don't seem sufficiently, well, crazy to fairly large sections of the Republican base. The goal of candidates in this category is to really seriously win elite support, and thus be able to survive the fact that the Tea Party groups are never going to like them even a little bit. Romney, obviously, is the exemplar of this category; Jon Huntsman and, apparently, Rudy Giuliani are also attempting to represent this faction, but I think neither of them has a shot and Giuliani is just the most pathetic person in the world. Look for this group to unite behind Romney.
The second group is the Sarah Palin faction. These are the candidate Democratic bosses sit around in smoke-filled rooms wishing they could trick the Republicans into nominating. They do not have anything resembling a record of competent governance. They are pushing the envelope of how conservative it is possible to be, and they like to accuse Obama of being a Communist/fascist/Islamofascist/whatever. Obama would demolish anyone from this side of the party. The goal of these candidates is to ride the wave of populist anger-y Tea Party enthusiasm so far that the party elites won't be able to get out long enough knives to stop them. And then to lose every state except, maybe, Utah. You'd think Sarah Palin would be the exemplar of this group, and I suppose she is since her phenomenon is basically the model for all the others, but I don't think she's the most likely champion for this group. Herman Cain's the one tapping into this kind of appetite for crazy (though, from what I hear, he's never really tapped into appetite for pizza...), Donald Trump spent a week as the white knight for this crowd a little while ago, and honestly Michele "Let's Revive HUAC" Bachmann is the most likely in this contingent to become a serious nomination contender.
But there's also a third model of candidate, and you'd sure think it would be the most likely to succeed. These are the "all things to all people" candidates. They have track records of successful government experience, but at the same time, they don't have that pesky "moderate" label that dogs Romney or Huntsman. They don't, perhaps, get as flamboyently crazy as Bachmann or Cain, but their actual public policy isn't appreciably less conservative than that of their more extravagant competitors. They probably join the Republicans' long-standing lack of caring about making policy with any basis in reality. The goal of these candidates is to have enough gravitas to attract elite support but also be able to win over the Tea Party types by, you know, agreeing with them. Mike Huckabee was a good model of this kind of candidate, but of course, he's out now; had be been in, I believe he would've won the nomination rather easily. I think that the idea behind the Gingrich campaign, which obviously turns out to have been a bad idea, was along similar lines, that he could be inoffensive to everyone. Unfortunately he ended up being just unattractive to everybody. But I think the obvious heir apparent for this kind of candidacy is Tim Pawlenty, who despite having been the reasonably successful governor of a rather Democratic state is also really, really conservative, and has no desire whatsoever to say things that make sense. So my guess is that the demise of Gingrich (if it is a demise; the same thing happened, I think more than once, to McCain in '07) is good news for Pawlenty.
[Side note: the fourth kind of candidate is the libertarians, Ron Paul and Gary Johnson, who are neither particularly conservative nor particularly established, and therefore have no appreciable shot to the nomination. Their goal is just to have a few people listen to them.]
The other obvious thing to say about the group currently appearing to be dominated by Pawlenty is that there are a handful of other figures who could probably move into this territory and take it over pretty effectively. Nate Silver mentions Rick Perry, and I've been hearing rumors surrounding Chris Christie. Both strike me as having a better combination of both gravitas and conservativism than anyone in the current field, given that Gingrich appears to be flopping in his attempt to play that role. Now, I don't think either of them would be able to beat Obama, or at least I think they'd give him a nice healthy handicap, but I think they might be formidable in the primary if they were to jump in.
My guess is that ultimately the fate of Romney's candidacy depends on whether he, as the representative of the moderate establishment faction, ends up facing someone from the crazy faction or the conservative establishment faction. I feel like, if it's Romney vs. Pawlenty, there's just about nothing (except raw electability, which I feel is overstated in Romney's case anyway) that would make Republicans prefer Romney. Ditto for Perry or Christie as his opponent. If it's Romney vs. Palin, or Cain, or Bachmann, though, I think a lot of the voters currently drawn to someone in the Pawlenty sphere would go to Romney, partially out of a modicum of saneness and partly because Obama really would blow any of the crazies out of the water. Now, if it's a three-way affair, Romney vs. Pawlenty vs. Bachmann, say, then I don't know how it would play out, and that might be the only path to getting an insane person nominated.
No comments:
Post a Comment