A first(?) thread on 2008: McCain,Giuliani & the Republicans

I'll be travelling the Southwest and the South from April 20 to May 12 though. It's a beautiful afternoon in Munich too.

It's possible, but I doubt it. Unlike some simplistic political quizzes, Tabarok and Cowen are sharp-eyed and intelligent observers. I'm sure they noticed that mayor Giuliani's didn't govern like a libertarian, and that there's no reason a president Giuliani would rule differently.

I've said before that there is only so much money out there. And this race will end up costing something like a billion dollars in total (can that be right?).

Thomas--

Are you here? (In the states?) It is a GLORIOUS day. I literally stopped in my tracks on the way across campus and said, "My God, what a beautiful day!"

More fundamentally, congressional Republicans were knocked into the minority last November because voters had sickened of their lockstep support for Bush's war. Clearly, they will be knocked a good deal further into the minority if that support continues.

So what are they doing to respond to this dire state of affairs? They're continuing their support. And they're continuing, in the Senate, to obstruct popular and overdue domestic measures such as a raise in the minimum wage, though polling confirms not just overwhelming support for that particular measure but also growing concern over the rise of economic inequality and a growing repudiation of the Republican positions on both domestic and foreign policy issues.

What gives with the Republicans? How have they -- not just in the White House but in Congress, too -- become so detached from reality?

There are, I think, four possible, partial explanations. The first is Rudy-ex-machina-- the hope that the party will nominate somebody who is not perceived to be part of their current mess and who will sweep them back into power no matter how big a hole they may now be digging for him. The second is a strategy to make it impossible for the Democrats to pass any legislation, and then run against the do-nothing Democrats.

The third is that the alternative reality conveyed by the Republican media -- Fox News, Rush Limbaugh and their ilk -- has created a Republican activist base that is genuinely not reality-based, and from which the current generation of Republican pols is disproportionately drawn. And the fourth, pertaining specifically to the inability of the administration to stop politicizing government, is that good government is just not in their DNA. Bush and Rove are no more inclined to create a government based on such impartial values as law and science than they are to set up collective farms.

Meanwhile, if you hear something go bump in the night, it's the Republicans, sleepwalking.

On the other hand, Republican support is contracting to a base of about 25 per cent of the population whose views are getting more extreme, not merely because moderate conservatives are peeling off to become Independents, but also because of the party's success in constructing a parallel universe of news sources, thinktanks, blogs, pseudo-scientists and so on, which has led to the core becoming more tightly committed to an extremist ideology.


There's plenty to support this account outside the Pew survey. This Gallup poll shows that a majority of Democrats and a large plurality of Independents think that the US is spending too much on the military - hardly any Republicans take this view. The proportion thinking spending is too high is the highest since 1990 and one of the highest on record.

Looking at the Republican side of the aisle, Jonathan Chait points out (via Matthew Yglesias), that even as scientific evidence on global warming has become overwhelming and most of the oil industry has ceased to promote delusional thinking on this issue, the same thinking has hardened within the Congressional Republican party, to the point where Republican members of Congress who are qualified scientists (amazingly, there are some) are barred from sitting on committees where they might disrupt the anti-science orthodoxy. The position of rightwing blogs is even worse, with a recent survey 59-0 score in favour of the delusional position.

Quote:

There are, I think, four possible, partial explanations. The first is Rudy-ex-machina-- the hope that the party will nominate somebody who is not perceived to be part of their current mess and who will sweep them back into power no matter how big a hole they may now be digging for him. The second is a strategy to make it impossible for the Democrats to pass any legislation, and then run against the do-nothing Democrats.

blatham wrote:

Quote:

There are, I think, four possible, partial explanations. The first is Rudy-ex-machina-- the hope that the party will nominate somebody who is not perceived to be part of their current mess and who will sweep them back into power no matter how big a hole they may now be digging for him. The second is a strategy to make it impossible for the Democrats to pass any legislation, and then run against the do-nothing Democrats.

Both of which scenarios they might very well get away with..

The third is that the alternative reality conveyed by the Republican media -- Fox News, Rush Limbaugh and their ilk -- has created a Republican activist base that is genuinely not reality-based, and from which the current generation of Republican pols is disproportionately drawn. And the fourth, pertaining specifically to the inability of the administration to stop politicizing government, is that good government is just not in their DNA. Bush and Rove are no more inclined to create a government based on such impartial values as law and science than they are to set up collective farms.