With news that Long Island Congresman Peter King is thinking a run for president, a couple of questions come to mind. First, as we have discussed King’s record here recently, can a former terrorist be nominated to as the head of the Republican Party. I suppose it’s possible if the candidate overcompensates enough, and that is precisely what King plans to do. He wants to run to rebut Rand Paul’s isolationism and anti-counterterrorism policies.
“It bothers me,” King told Politicker. “Rand Raul is talking about running for president, doing filibusters on drones. The image of the Republican Party is that we’re more concerned about Americans being killed by CIA attacks at Starbucks. We’re more serious than that.”
There was one 16 year-old American who was killed by a drone at an outside cafe, but I guess I’d have to agree that it isn’t exactly a serious threat to most Republican primary voters.
What interests me more is the idea that someone might come along, not Rep. King necessarily, who has the ability to divide the Republican Party along regional lines. Imagine a candidate who won all the primaries and caucuses in Obama states while losing them in all the Romney states. Wouldn’t they be in decent position to win the nomination?
If you are inclined to answer ‘yes,’ please keep in mind that it wouldn’t be a slam dunk because the Republican Party uses a formula that rewards more delegates (proportionally) to red states than to blue ones. So, blue states are worth less and red states are worth more in the nomination contest than they are in the general election. Still, someone who could sweep New England, the Mid-Atlantic, the Upper Midwest, the Pacific Coast, and parts of the Southwest, would be in a position to contend, especially if the red states split their votes between two or more candidates.
I’m running out a really simple hypothetical here. For example, I don’t think a Republican candidate who had wide appeal in Vermont and New York would necessarily have much of any support in Nevada or Oregon.
I don’t know if it is still possible for there to be regional candidates anymore now that the right-wing operates like a Borg directed by Fox News and hate radio. Conservatives in Maine and Oklahoma are getting substantially the same messages. But I suppose it is possible for new regional fissures to develop over specific issues. Gay rights could be one. Environmentalism could be another. I suppose there could even be faint regional lines over terrorism policy dividing New York’s King from Kentucky’s Paul. But they would be the reverse of what you’d expect, with New Yorkers more sympathetic to Paul’s message and Kentuckians more supportive of King’s.
In any case, I expect Rep. King, if he runs, to be primarily concerned with supporting neo-conservative national security policies and, secondarily, with standing up for the regional interests of the Mid-Atlantic with regard to things like disaster relief. When Sen. Marco Rubio voted against a relief package for Superstorm Sandy, Rep. King told donors in New York not to give Rubio any money. That’s the kind of regional infighting that could conceivably make a Blue State Republican attractive in Blue States, despite the uniformity of the message coming from the Mighty Right-Wing Wurlizter.
