2012 Coming Up Soon
By historical standards the campaign for the Presidency has started much earlier than in the past. Reagan famously got into the race for 1980 on November 13, 1979, but this campaign has been much different:
President Obama has seemingly been running for re-election since the day he took office by taking deliberate attempts to shore up support with key constituencies (e.g., auto bailouts for union benefit, etc., passing a health care bill that his core supporters have wanted for the past 50 years, etc., etc.). In that sense, he’s been successful – Unions OWE him and have sought to repay that debt through money, organization and through strong arm tactics when needed. The radical left has been less appreciative, and perhaps Obama has found that enough is never enough with them. Indeed, the most energetic movement on the left in the past three years has been the “Occupy Wall Street” (along with accompanying protests in other major cities and locales). While not hugely successful in terms of numbers (Tea Party gatherings were much larger and with a much larger cross section of the country, for instance), these movements garnered a great deal of press — at least to the extent that we knew that there was a movement. It was the underlying support of the OWS movement that seemed to remain a secret to the press. Never mind that any cursory examination of the movement showed support from communist groups, anarchist groups and other such unsavory agencies. Once those supporters came to the forefront and once the movement started to implode due to it’s own intrinsic values (If an organization is made up of anarchists and communists is it surprising that it degenerates under it’s own fascist tendencies and descends into general anarchy?)
In any case, this remains Obama’s “Core Support” – Unions and the radical left. One can already see his campaign pivoting away from the 2008 campaign themes to ones designed to rachet of the level of passion among these groups. His themes (always centered around class warfare but coded in ways that don’t offend the “non-believers” among independents, for instance) are now more sharply worded and clearly stated attacks on significant portions of the population. If some commentary is to be believed, Obama has already dismissed the possibility of winning white working class voters this time around and will instead double down on the hard left that remains in his camp. Given the numbers that are available to vote within that constituency, he will have little chance of winning unless he is able to demoralize vast numbers of voters to keep them away from the polls. It promises to be a brutal election — one resembling the Meuse Mill of Verdun.
In that context, the Republican primaries start to make sense. The system was changed this year to make the primary less of a coronation and more of a long marathon designed to separate the strong from the weak by splitting up delegates differently (until April 1, all primaries will delegate proportionally rather than winner take all). Under the old system a candidate like Romney might have been able to pull in a couple of large wins early and put the other candidates into a situation of having to spend a huge amount of money to just stay in the race with little chance of catching up. In the new system, we are unlikely to see a winner until later than we’ve seen since, well, maybe 1976.
The “type” of candidate is also different this year. Perfectly acceptable candidates such as Pawlenty have fallen by the wayside. My opinion is that the Republican voters know that they need a ‘wartime’ candidate and not a business as usual candidate. Due to his having run for almost 8 years, Romney has the money, organization and support to hang in and keep himself near or at the top of the polls. Beyond that, there have been bubbles of types of candidates – the Tea Party seemed to jump on the Herman Cain bandwagon before his flaws came to light more vividly, and now they are searching for someone to support in this race. Perry had a burst and then fumbled the ball, but he’s a tenacious and tough candidate who has experience at running tough races – I suspect he’ll be in this for the long haul, and there’s already evidence that he’s pulling his poll numbers back up in Iowa.
The biggest anomaly, though, has to be Gingrich. Once thought to be forever through in politics, he’s surged into the lead in many polls. How could have this happened? I remember a conversation I had about Newt back in the ’90′s with someone who thought he was done forever. I reminded them of Nixon’s “Checkers” speech and of his loss to Kennedy. Despite the many obituaries for his political career (including his own “You won’t have Nixon to kick around anymore because, gentlemen, this is my last press conference”), it took him less than a decade to win the Presidency. How is that situation like Gingrich’s? Once again we have a President who has engaged in a political, cultural and economic war against his “enemies” (e.g., political opponents) within the country. Once again, we have a radical left that is willing to use strong arm tactics to undermine the functioning of government, and once again we have a brutal campaign that will require someone who wins to go beyond the normal press outlets and appeal directly to people while being quick-witted and capable enough to fend off direct media attacks.
Beyond the large number of candidates who are likely to remain in the race, we also have a large number of Republican constituencies who are looking for their place within the process. The Ron Paul wing with it’s libertarian views occupies a large and passionate part of the party. Moderates to more independent minded Republicans have long been aligned with Romney. The Tea Party has no favored candidate at the moment and some of their support appears to have been given to Gingrich after Cain suspended his campaign. Social conservatives seemed to initially support Bachmann, but now appear to have no apparent candidate to support. The positive is that there will be plenty of time for someone to forge a coalition to pull these constituencies together.
My view, as it has long been, is that Federalism is the best way for candidates to pull together the disparate wings of the party. In that social conservatives can be protected from the intrusions of the federal government, even if they can’t project their views upon others. Libertarians get control over their own lives on a local level while government remains small. And even the moderate/independent voters get to lead their lives as they wish on a local level. It isn’t a perfect answer, but it is a workable answer to the complexities and difficulties of government. As the campaign goes on, if Perry wishes to win, I suspect he’ll have to be able to make a compelling case for federalism as a way of governing what many consider to be an ungovernable country. In any case, it’s going to be a long haul to the nomination. Enjoy the fact that Republicans are actually having a debate about how the country should be governed and not just going through the motions and having a coronation for the front runner.
