A Blogsensus? The Future, Almost, in Focus

Listen:

Until this gets settled for once and for all, Mitt and Rudy and McCain are top-tier competitive in states around the country and Huck and Paul are rising representatives of key new constituencies. -- Me

I don’t think Huckabee and Paul are the ideal candidates to jolt the GOP out of its ideological rut, but they’re better than nothing. -- Ross Douthat

I don’t like Huckabee, and I don’t want him to do well, but both he and Paul drive different parts of the establishment crazy and could throw the entire race into disarray, which would be a good thing for many reasons. -- Daniel Larison

[Huckabee] and McCain seemed like the authentic and comfortably principled candidates, and Huck was witty and quick on his feet as well. -- Peter Lawler

Huckabee seemed by far the most congenial candidate. Paul is much clearer; McCain soared tonight, in my view. -- Andrew Sullivan

This isn't any kind of representative sample, but it is a fascinating cross-section of a bunch of people all generally on the 'right' but with profound differences amongst them. Fascinating, that is, because on the basis of these observations some possible facts emerge:

(1) McCain isn't fading anytime soon, though he'll only win if the others kill each other off;

(2) Huckabee is for real because he has a real constituency -- Fred Thompson's plus Gersonites;

(3) The Ron Paul wing(s) of the Republican Party are now irreversibly present in GOP politics;

(4) Mitt and Rudy maintain their death grips on one another at their peril.

As I suggested some time ago, it's the Huck-Paul exchange on honor that really captures the major fissure in this race, in the GOP, and probably in the country -- and it runs right through both parties. (An amazing matchup from a dependent-variable/independent-variable perspective would be Huck and Obama -- both therapeutic candidates arguing over whether it's more therapeutic to bring the troops home to maintain our sense of honor or keep them there to maintain our sense of honor.) David Darlington agreed on Sept. 6:

I'm with James Poulos: FDT matters only to the extent he influences the line between Huckabee and Paul, the most important line in the GOP race this time around.

The big question to me now seems to be who's the anti-Huckabee, other than Ron Paul? It's not Fred; it's not Mitt (though he has time to turn that around); it's not McCain, because of the war thing and the nobility thing; and it sure as hell ain't Rudy, Huckabee's evil twin. As you can see, this poses a problem for people who want to elect a Republican president who isn't a Gersonite. Shockingly the choice would seem to come down to Mitt Romney or Ron Paul. And if Mitt can't get torture right, the anti-Huck crowd will remain fatally uncomfortable with him and split between McCain, who wouldn't know therapy if you strapped him to the couch, and Paul, who's the anti-McCain on the war. It ain't pretty.

Lots more to say but I'll pause now and ruminate for a while.

Comments

[Joe S.]

Paul and Huckabee both have a habit of making strong assertions. The difference is that Paul backs up his positions with facts and logic, while Huck simply argues from authority: "Because the President says so/Because Jesus says so/Because this Magic Sock Puppet with my hand stuck up its ass says so."

It's not how they define honor that separates Paul and Huckabee supporters. It's a conflict between those who want to think for themselves and those who want a leader to think for them.

[Jack]

But Huckabee has "better" voice than Paul and Huckabee is very experienced in using words "honor", "God", "hope" etc. which sent audience into ecstasies and Paul is too humble to play with audience with that tricks.

[Bruce Bartlett]

You are wronmg about the Ron Paul wing being a permanent presence in the Republican Party. I would say that 80% to 90% of his support comes from people not previously involved in politics. Once the primary season is over they will go back to their previous non-involvement in politics and the Paul Movement will fade from the scene like Ross Perot's followers.

[Jeremy]

Ron Paul's wing of the Republican party is bigger then the rest of the party itself. It is a permanent fixture. It's going to change things drastically very quickly. Since old media wont talk about Ron Paul, they use Huckabee to fill that niche. He's a diluted version of Paul. The sauce is week Huckabee!

[David]

Bruce Bartlett wrote:
"You are wronmg about the Ron Paul wing being a permanent presence in the Republican Party. I would say that 80% to 90% of his support comes from people not previously involved in politics. Once the primary season is over they will go back to their previous non-involvement in politics and the Paul Movement will fade from the scene like Ross Perot's followers."

You are right in your first sentence, but wrong in the rest. The Ron Paul supporters will most likely leave the party for good after the election if Paul doesn't get the nod. They see this as the last chance for the Party to once again embrace its true values. Without those the party will fall into disarray and a lingering death. But the Paul supporters aren't going away.

[Dan D.]

I disagree that the Paul wing of the Republican party is new. I think that it's basically the Pat Buchanan wing, but grown up 12 years. Consider: in 1996, 93% of Paul's biggest demographic, 18-30 yo.s was unable to vote. Now, they can. And they will. There's definitely some fraction of Paul's support that is ex-Democrats, but it's not all, I don't even think it's most, and there's a lot of young Paul supporters who will stick with the Republican party as long as Paul's calls for liberty do. If Paul wins the nomination, the debates against Hillary, Obama, or Edwards could really reshape how people view the parties.

[Michael W.]

Just came here from reddit, and I'm delighted by the level of discourse. I think Dan D. hits it pretty much right on the head; I'm not sure, though, why he calls it the "Pat Buchanan wing".

I think I fit the demo of Paul supporters pretty well, though I was just barely able to vote in '96. I think the tail end of Gen X, all of Gen Y and the first adults of whatever we're calling the next one, are, because of their familiarity with computer networks, aware of just how inept and outdated existing forms of government are. Ron Paul isn't our ideal candidate, but he's the closest I've seen since I began voting, both for his views, and his strategic position.

The GOP will adapt to us or be overrun. It will not necessarily be by us forming a third party, either; we could just as easily sidestep existing governments around the world with techno-anarchy.

[Jim March]

I came to political activism starting heavy around 1998, in California, in issues centered around less government control over our lives. At least in California, the Democrats were BY FAR more active in "social control at the point of a cop's gun".

The GOP was on average at least somewhat behind - at least back in that pre-9/11 period. (There were notable exceptions, such as Dan Lungren's bid for Governor in '98 that caused the California NRA network to rebel against NRA HQ's reflex support of a Republican.)

I gravitated to an organization within the GOP called the "Republican Liberty Caucus" or "RLC" - and we also called ourselves "Ron Paul Republicans". Which back then mostly got us funny looks...not now though!

So yeah, there's a ground shift going on.

A lot of it has to do with the violations of liberties experiences in the Internet realm, the sort of thing the Electronic Frontier Foundation fights. It even goes way back before Dubya into Clinton's time, with the Clipper chip, the prosecution of Phil Zimmerman and much, much more. There's a huge pool of "techies and geeks" who are just fed up and harnessed right, we have a huge potential audience online, at least collectively. Some of us (not me unfortunately) have boatloads of money. Go take a look at the writings of Neal Stephenson, "Diamond Age", "Snow Crash" and esp. "Cryptonomicon" for a look at part of the mindset Dr. Paul is able to tap into.

Jim March