John Dickerson’s piece on the difficulties Jeb Bush would face as a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination is perfect. What I mean is that Dickerson wrote everything that I would write but he did a better job of it than I could have achieved. I don’t really have anything to add, except to note that a Jeb candidacy would be even more divisive and disruptive to the conservative coalition than I at first anticipated.
What I think would be the most interesting part of it is that it would give the party base the opportunity to make an official break from the Bush family. In rejecting Bush, they could finally settle, once and for all, that they are the party of some mutant form of Reaganism and not aligned with the moderation associated with Poppy and to a lesser degree with his son, George.
It’s telling that the so-called “donor class” or Republican “Establishment” is ready to line up with Jeb as if they hadn’t been to this rodeo three times before, each time with worse results. If the base were to reject Jeb, which seems quite possible, it would also be divorcing its donor class. What would happen next would depend a lot on who the base chose instead. If they chose Rand Paul, much of the Republican Establishment would just support Hillary Clinton and we’d see a result like 1972 when a big chunk of the Democratic Establishment held its nose and supported Nixon’s reelection.
If the party base settled on someone more palatable, we might not see such an extreme fissure. In a way, I hope Jeb runs just so I can see how this all pans out. On the other hand, if he somehow wins the nomination, he might revive the Republican Party, which is something I at once dread and welcome.
Gawd it would be fun to go after another Bush.
Boo, I need you to stop pushing Hillary as the de facto Democratic nominee.
Seriously.
If it bothers you that I talk about Hillary as the presumptive nominee, maybe you need to look at her polling numbers with Democrats. 82% of them want her to run.
And the GOP were supposed to be the Royalists!!
Well, look, I am three minds about this.
Add to it that she’d be the first female president and you have quite an attractive package of assets.
Finally, the Clinton coalition overlaps significantly with the Obama coalition, but adds to it both in terms of demographic and in terms of what states they can put in play.
I may like other Democrats a whole lot better, but I can’t argue that any of them bring more to the table.
I’d rather have someone “new” – in fact that’s one reason I didn’t support her in 2008 – but at this point, she is moving to the left, as I expected, and the consequences of losing this election would be utterly catastrophic to our democracy. See: Hungary for an example of what can happen when authoritarians win too many elections. We could lose it all. She can win. My goals in these next two elections are Dem President, more democratic state leges.
Yep, moving to the left – who’s the Democrat pushing for a full-throated defense of Obamacare? Her hubby, Billy-boy.
I actually think Hillary is a great option for president. She and her husband have always been finger-to-the-wind types. She’s far and away the best at unifying the Democrats, and then once elected she’ll do whatever the Dem coalition wants.
If we get a decisive win in 2016, with the Millenials, the most liberal generation since the Greatest, fast becoming the largest group of voters, and with Obamacare becoming a national necessity, there will be a gale-force wind pushing the country to the left. Hillary will sail the ship of state along with that wind with nary a peep.
Political families aren’t a “royalist” phenomena. It just reflects that people like familiarity. Are you glad that Bobby and Teddy Kennedy didn’t become president because it would have created a royalist family? Personally I wish they had (either or both, actually).
In addition, an 8 year limit is pretty short in the modern world, with long life expectancies. For example, Trudeau was PM of Canada for 14 years. Is it any surprise the US population would be happy with 16 years of Clinton (pretty popular in his term), especially with the possibility of another blue dress incident off the table?
Curt Adams, huh? No relation to John (father) and John Quincy (son)?
Of course you don’t have a dynasty problem, you damn Federalist….
Lol. According to family lore (which I’ve never checked), I’m an extremely distant cousin. As in, last common ancestor before 1700, which would be something like 3rd cousin eight times removed.
That’s another example that dynasties aren’t necessarily bad. John Adams wasn’t too good, what with the Alien and Sedition Acts, but John Quincy was a real star of the antislavery crusade.
Makes me want to weep that the right-wing “think tank” constructed plan to further enrich US health insurance companies and increase their power and control of US health care would be considered “moving to the left.” Expect to see “Democrats” (Cuomo?) soon arguing that killing off public education is a liberal idea.
Sixty-five year olds with a long record of supporting neo-liberal and neo-conservative policy positions do NOT move left.
Well, more left would be better – but it’s quite substantially left of what we had. Roughly, it converts insurance to a regulated monopoly, while before we had a mix of unregulated de facto monopoly (because normal people couldn’t shop; you needed to be a serious wonk) and nothing at all.
It’s sad how far right the country has gone but that shouldn’t blind us to moves in the right direction.
Personally, it’s a huge improvement in QOL. My husband and I aren’t going to be shackled to our jobs until 65. He, in particular, has very good reason to retire early – and now he can. Probably for most Americans, it’s a substantial step forward. It’s vital for anybody who’s going to earn below median for any length, anybody who wants to work for a small business, anybody who wants to start a small business, and anybody who wants to retire early. Inter alia. That’s a lot of people!
–sigh — No it doesn’t. Insurance companies are licensed and regulated by the states. No change. It’s why there was never going to be a federal public option. It’s also why the health insurance exchanges are state based.
Setting broad minimum coverage standards for health insurance companies is good — but it’s not the insurance companies that will have to pay for it. They are guaranteed profit and overhead costs.
Profit is capped (technically overhead but that puts an upper limit on profits), minimum levels of service are required, and they have to serve all comers. That’s exactly what regulated utilities have to do. The fact that details of regulation are shared in a complicated fashion between state and feds doesn’t change the fact that insurance companies now have the same kind of strictures power and water normally do.
Is it more liberal than the status quo ante? Then by definition, when it becomes entrenched in society and impossible to repeal, it will be a move to the left. That’s not to say there isn’t room for further movement to the left, but we also should recognize it for what it is.
Not saying that a few million people won’t be better off with the PPACA. But there will be losers — such as poor immigrants who will have even more difficulty accessing health care services.
Will know the full cost in about three years. When the insurance companies will have the experience to adjust premiums. When the states will have to come up with the funds to cover the expanded Medicaid. etc. We know what happened in MA after the first two years — costs increased faster than projected; so, they cut off some beneficiaries and cut some subsidies. Not exactly a “liberal” development.
Like Poppy — list of job titles with no specific accomplishments.
Promoting Hillary because she’s a woman is sexist. (If I were a Brit, I wouldn’t have supported Maggie Thatcher either.) That’s only made worse by the fact that if not for her husband, she would be nowhere near consideration.
I wasn’t disputing your points. Just pointing out that Democrats appear to love dynastic families as much as the GOP does. And what would Clinton do that Obama hasn’t?
The same was true of Lieberman in 2002…
Not to that extent. Doing a bit of Googling, I came across this:
http://www.gallup.com/poll/8302/lieberman-leads-field-nine.aspx
Interesting in light of what ended up happening.
That was in 2003, when people were seriously looking at candidates. In 2002 there was a good deal of support for Lieberman. Granted, Hillary’s position in 2014 is stronger than Lieberman’s in 2002, but it’s still similar enough to at least caution some people about declaring anyone the nominee two years out.
Lieberman had 23% in that poll. Hillary was 68% in the last one I saw. That’s a world apart.
Can you name any major potential presidential candidate, ever, that consistently polled above 50% for their primary and still lost the nomination?
I can’t name anyone who wasn’t Vice President that ran the table from 2+ years out, ever.
One of the reasons I read Booman is that more than any other analyst in the blogosphere, he is a realist who actually looks at the way the system works and tells it as he sees it, rather than as he would like it to be. Hilary is the de facto nominee for exactly the reasons Booman sites. That a relatively small subset (see 82% support) of the democratic constituency doesn’t want it to be true does not make it less true.
Does that make me happy? Meh. I’m not a huge fan of Hilary, but I think she’s got the potential for the kind of coattails we’re going to need to get government moving again.
Is this dynastic? Sure. Is that good? No. Is politics inherently dynastic? Almost certainly. The people vote for the children and grandchildren of the names they know in virtually every democracy in the world, and that dynastic impulse probably represents a fundamental aspect of homo polticus. My favorite example of this is the Paulistas who simultaneously want to vote for Crown Prince Rand and claim to be free thinkers and great advocates of true democracy.
Wow. If I could rate this a 4 three times, I would.
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heh, AND I’ve read her books!
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She’s a he. And very good books they are.
😀
I always like to hear that.
Realism is just another word for hopelessness.
President Kucinich appreciates your enthusiasm.
Fuck that Bushian Kucinich.
Not particularly. It’s a set of criterion that allows a person to build hopes that have some chance of coming true. Hopes that can be realized lead to action and accomplishment. Hopes that can’t lead to heartbreak.
‘This group is also
variously referred to as the
establishment, Country Club
Republicans, and the moderate wing
of the party. These Republicans are
tired of being defined by the
unpopular Tea Party wing of the
party. ‘
Are they? Dickerson doesn’t provide any links. And no wonder.
Citation fucking needed.
Why? Because the Mitt candidacy shook things up? Seriously, Mitt was a much tougher sell to the christian-fundie, bagger base than Jeb will be. If they could stomach a Mormon, one-term, MA governor, they’ll accept anyone the GOP honchos nominate. Against another Clinton, they will not only vote GOP but show up in record numbers.
The political basis of the 2016 presidential election will be established by the 2014 midterms results. Scenarios in order of likelihood:
I find it difficult to see a Jeb nomination run – as such – shaking things up in the GOP under any of these scenarios. All I see is a continuation of the Same Things, unless Scenario 2 occurs in which case a GOP faction fight is almost inevitable. The intensity of the faction fight will be driven by existing trends within the GOP between the Money/Corporation Wing and their supporters and the TeaBaggers and their supporters with a Jeb candidacy as a topic of the faction fighting, not a cause of the fighting.
The Bush name does NOT stink with Republicans. The Clinton name does.
Yes.. my conservative, non-fundie relatives are STILL defending the War in Iraq and the Bushies. There is NO problem among lower level Repubs with the name Bush, and A LOT of them still think there were WMDs there and that Saddam had something to do with 9/11, even though I regularly forward that Bush press conference in ’06 when he admitted the truth. The Fox Noise/Rush constant screaming 24/7 drowns out little things like reality.
Amazingly stupid people. However, Democratic pundits that fail to acknowledge the existence of substantial numbers of amazingly stupid Republican voters also appear to be amazingly stupid.
Such as:
Clapper Confirms Snowden Files and admits to perjury
CIA misled on torture
NATO on the offensive
I just had to shake my head last night when Rachel Maddow had “Breaking News” about the leak of the coming Congressional report that the CIA had misled on torture after 9-11 and during the Iraq War. And she promised that “there was much more to come” on this “explosive report”.
Gosh, if only someone….maybe some intrepid bloggers, had revealed this fact, ohhh, ten or twelve years ago. If only someone had written endless stories, over a period of years, documenting all of the horrible lies being fed to us from the Bush Administration concerning their role in, and knowledge of, CIA torturing.
If only someone had said something waaaay back then……….
Gosh, if only someone….maybe some intrepid bloggers, had revealed this fact, ohhh, ten or twelve years ago. If only someone had written endless stories, over a period of years, documenting all of the horrible lies being fed to us from the Bush Administration concerning their role in, and knowledge of, CIA torturing.
Both Emptywheel(aka Marcy Wheeler) and Jason Leopold have been writing about this for a while. Maybe not 12 years but long enough.
Yeah, I know. There was tons of writing about it. I was being a facetious smartass. As usual, the DFH’s were all over it at the time. Everyone else was too busy jostling for rides in Humvees in Iraq and a chance to hang with Rummy and listen to his poetic waxing on the messiness of freedom.