Presidential Politics

It doesn't take much to determine which way the political wind is blowing these days. The president is unpopular, if his approval rating keeps dropping it will soon be in single digits. Now, logic will lead you a lot of places from that one piece of information. Next year is an election year and, while this president can't run again, he doesn't want to be a handicap for his party. Too late for that, obviously, he already is a handicap for his party so now it's time to limit that damage. The one thing he could do, barring win the war and bring all the troops home which is kind of outside of his direct control anymore, would be to actually get something done, ideally something important that would highlight a commitment to, or at least a passing interest in, domestic issues as well as foreign policy. That would explain his devotion to the immigration bill, despite his own party being, primarily, responsible for its demise.

There are conspiracy theorists out there who think that the republican party has some trick up its sleeve, perhaps some high level terrorist already in custody that they can stage capture of around this time next year just in time to resurrect their chances at keeping the white house. Dick Cheney's ridiculous antics lately (4th branch, man-sized safe, etc) don't do much to deter that impression. Speaking of which, if it's not true that they're hiding something big (something good), Cheney should really know better. When you've become such a national joke that Maureen Dowd joins John Stewart and Steven Colbert in making fun, well, it's a pretty bad sign. It's fairly clear that Cheney is hiding something and whether or not its something good that he's just waiting to reveal because he hopes it will be politically valuable or something bad that he's hiding because it would be politically detrimental (or potentially prosecutable) is irrelevant, at least to the pundits and comedians.

A quick glance at the front page of today's NY Times pretty much sums up the bizarre state of the republican hopes for a presidential win next fall. The top two headlines are "Bush commutes Libby sentence, saying 30 months 'is excessive'", and "Short on money, McCain campaign dismisses dozens". The first illustrates that Bush seems to have just given up on trying to limit the damage. He was likely to commute the sentence (or even pardon Libby) regardless, but the timing shows either an astounding lack of familiarity with political spin or resignation to the idea that spin will no longer help. The former might not be such a stretch, I've mentioned before that it doesn't seem like this administration has any idea how to highlight their accomplishments or cover their mistakes, but I'm inclined to believe it's the later.

That second headline is kind of sad actually. I know, I'm a fervent Democrat these days, so I'm reluctant to admit it, but I think McCain would be the most effective president of any of the current potential candidates (on either side). He's far more politically savvy and experienced than the rest. He knows the value of compromise, and spin, and he knows how to prioritize and actually get things accomplished. You can bet if McCain were president he would have been able to get the votes to move the immigration bill forward (if it was important to him). Though I doubt McCain would make it a priority, in the waning months of his term, with an unpopular war on, with such extreme division in his party over it. McCain would know enough to wait until he had something to rally people around (or something to hold over them) before he brought it to a vote.

McCain is losing this primary election though. He's losing because he doesn't appeal enough to the "base", he alienates evangelicals, he's too moderate. It's indicative of exactly what is wrong with many people's logic when choosing a candidate in the primaries. The general populace tend to be idealistic politically; which is to say that they have issues that they believe in passionately and they give their political support to candidates who share their passion. This is a perfectly reasonable position in a general election, but in a primary election you have to balance your desire to support candidates who share your passion, say for banning abortion and gay marriage, with the candidates ability to get elected (i.e. their appeal to swing voters). If your political party is doing well, and/or has a solid, popular position on an issue that's important to swing voters then it's less important and you can put up a candidate for president that appeals to your most polar ideologies, but if your party is unpopular you have to worry about electability more.

The electability issue is a fragile one for Republicans right now because they are indebted to their, largely evangelical, base for getting out the vote in the last election, but that's not who's going to win this election for them. In all likelihood they won't win this election, but if they do it will be because they put forward a candidate closer to the middle ideologically. One who appeals to swing voters.

I don't know why I care really. I can't vote in the Republican primary, as I am a registered Democrat, and I likely wouldn't have voted in the Republican primary anyway. I just find it odd that people don't seem to consider, what I feel, are two of the most important factors in choosing a candidate: electability and efficaciousness. I mean I'm as ideological as the next girl (maybe more so than most) but I don't see the point in voting for someone that can't get elected, or that won't be able to get things done if they were elected, just because they share my passion for certain issues.