High Noonan
Excellent column from Peggy. I agree with pretty much all of it.
The more I learn about Huckabee, the more awful he seems. Quite apart from our disagreements on the issues (which are manifold), he strikes me as fundamentally temperamentally unsuitable for the Presidency. Which is not the same thing as saying he’d be a poor candidate: I think he’d be a pretty strong one, almost certainly stronger than Fred Thompson or Mitt Romney, and just perhaps the strongest of the field. But I’m slowly coming to the conclusion that he’d be a disaster in office, and the Sam’s Club folks would do well to steer clear of this fellow who looks like he might be a plausible standard-bearer.
I also agree that the Clinton campaign is in potentially perilous condition. Daniel Larison is right that she doesn’t need to win Iowa to win the nomination. Indeed, if she does win Iowa, that’s probably all she wrote. But I think Obama has just crossed a crucial threshold, the threshold where ambivalent voters go from wishing they could support him to seeing him as a real, viable alternative. Winning Iowa could just seal the deal, particularly if Edwards comes in third and it’s clear that Obama is the alternative to to Clinton. I also wonder whether developments on the GOP side are making people re-think electability. If the GOP candidate is Huckabee or Romney, I think Obama is a stronger opponent than Hillary. (By contrast, if the GOP candidate is McCain, Giuliani or Thompson, Hillary might be a stronger opponent.)
And I agree with her about immigration. Immigration is just not one of my issues. I can have a pleasant conversation with a restrictionist and I can have a pleasant conversation with an immigration liberal. I think the immigration-liberal vote is essentially nonexistent, but I also think there are precious few people out there who will actually vote primarily on immigration restriction (certainly fewer than are single-issue abortion or gun-rights voters). Rather, immigration on the right is functioning in this election as a synecdoche of populism more than an actual policy debate. Which is why, I suspect, Mike Huckabee can obtain the endorsement of the founder of the Minutemen in spite of Huckabee’s history of being an immigration liberal.
For what it’s worth, at the current odds on Intrade, I would buy Obama as nominee and hedge by shorting Obama in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. He is currently favored to win Iowa and given a roughly 50-50 shot to win the other two contests. If he wins all three, he gets the nomination. If he wins Iowa, the odds of winning all three go way up – these are not independent variables. Yet he’s given only a 30% chance of winning the nomination. I think that should be closer to 40%.
Also, for what it’s worth, I would be shorting Giuliani in Florida and for the nomination and hedging by shorting Romney in Michigan and Nevada. There is no way Giuliani wins the nomination if he loses Florida. No. Way. He has got to win something before Super Tuesday, and currently he is polling fourth in Iowa, third in New Hampshire, third in Michigan, third in Nevada, and fourth in South Carolina. In the most recent poll Giuliani is well ahead in Florida, but he hasn’t yet lost everything prior. You can currently short Giuliani at 70% in Florida and 40% for the nomination. Those numbers should be, at best, 50% and 30%. And the likeliest scenario for Giuliani to win the nomination is for Romney to fail to become the anti-Huckabee after New Hampshire. If Romney can’t close the deal in Michigan, the momey guys will look for another candidate to be the anti-Huckabee, and the most likely candidate is (still) Giuliani (unless we see a surprising revival of the McCain or Thompson candidacies). So shorting Mitt in Michigan and Nevada, which you can do at 55% and 30% respectively, is a hedge for a Giuliani flame-out.
Commenting on my own post is maybe lame, but it’s probably too late to do the Florida trade: Rasmussen now has Rudy in third, behind Huckabee and Romney. http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/election_20082/2008_presidential_election/florida/election_2008_florida_republican_primary
— Noah Millman · Dec 14, 06:35 PM · #
Any post that uses the word synecdoche in passing and then discusses investment in the futures market is brilliant by my standards.
— PEG · Dec 14, 08:11 PM · #
I agree: Sam’s Club folks should steer clear of identifying with Huckabee, but also any particular candidate in this cycle.
— Reihan · Dec 14, 10:52 PM · #
Sorry Noah, you’re just absolutely wrong on two big counts.
One: Dems would love to run against Huck. Because he’s a very weak candidate. More pardons of murderers and rapists than a thousand years of Dukakis. Too much illegal alien pandering. Weak on defense and national security, verging on Kucinich territory. Imagine the worst aspects of Rick Warren, or any other televangelist. And that’s Huck.
Fred, Romney, even Rudy would be orders of magnitude more formidable against Hillary, Obama, or Edwards because they are serious adults with far more credentials in National Security, and the Domestic Economy.
Secondly, you very likely cannot understand what is happening to drive illegal immigration in this country because of social isolation caused by high income levels.
The average person is economically pressed by illegal immigration on all levels (that is “What’s the Matter with Kansas.”) The based forced the issue on Republican candidates not the other way around. This is coming from the bottom up and the Minute Man guy is getting huge flack from his Huck endorsement over that very reason.
Illegal aliens price blue collar workers out of the job market by flooding the market with cheap, exploitable labor. Living often 20 to a rented house, they will work in far more brutal, exploitable conditions for far less money than American labor.
Next, Illegal aliens form excluding social networks based on kinship and village networks. Examples being the Drywaller’s Union in Southern California. Where largely white American drywallers struck, were broken by illegal alien scab labor, and a new union formed around illegal aliens. Who admit only kin or people from villages in Mexico, mostly centered around Michoacan. This process is well known and understood by people excluded. Another example is the Black-Mexican struggle in LAUSD. Mexican parents tell Black parents “it is racist to speak English” at School board meetings. They want all meetings in Spanish. Blacks want them in English (they don’t speak Spanish). These are real problems not experienced in say, Marina Del Rey.
Next, illegal aliens profoundly change the culture of the nation, which puts natives at disadvantages. Those who don’t speak Spanish, are not Mexican, and don’t understand nor wish to understand Mexican culture are excluded from most aspects of social life in areas where Mexicans dominate or start to dominate. Since many people can be “stuck” with sunk costs of houses and businesses, they resent being made what is essentially a new underclass.
Also important is the message of exclusion and “deportation” made by Illegal Aliens with their La Raza banners, messages telling whites to go back to Europe, Reconquista messages, etc. The clearly understood message is that whites will be excluded or kicked out of all political power by the new Mexican based political machines that will explicitly punish them for being white.
Last, with a declining economy, falling wages, rising prices, and declining white share of the population, illegal aliens (nearly all of them Mexican) become instantly eligible for Affirmative Action which for working and middle class whites becomes a “Whites punished/excluded” measure. In California Whites are not the majority of the population but are excluded from say, University of California while Mexicans (who will soon make up the majority) get preferential treatment.
Add the tax burden, paying for illegal aliens health care, educational benefits, while excluding the white population, and working-middle class whites are very, very angry. They are economically pressed and discriminated against in all aspects of life. They are told they have no place in this country and “to go back to Europe.”
The only wonder is that this issue has not burned even heavier.
Nevertheless, there you have it. WHY Illegal Aliens are likely to be the central issue (as it was in California whenever economic downturns pressed the White majority, see anti-Chinese labor measures in the 19th and early 20th century, often led by unions).
— Jim Rockford · Dec 14, 11:40 PM · #