The Dearth of Elephants in the Room
In comments to another post, readers ask who I think would be a successful Republican candidate in 2012. I take this to mean “someone who could plausibly defeat President Obama’s bid for re-election.”
My somewhat uninformed guesses: David Petraeus and Colin Powell (who’d have all kinds of difficulty winning the primary). These accomplished generals share one related trait: deep credibility as men who are serious about national security, enabling them to run as sane, experienced stewards, rather than bellicose idiots so desperate to seem toughest on terrorism that they spend the primaries calling for “doubling Gitmo” and competing to see who would torture in more contrived ticking time bomb situations.
They’re also both post-partisan figures of the kind that Americans seem to like, haven’t got long voting records to be picked apart, and can nevertheless credibly claim more executive experience than President Obama.
I’m sure there are other candidates who could also mount a credible challenge, though I don’t know who they are. Folks who can’t unseat President Obama, in my quite fallible opinion: Mitt Romney, who might actually make a good president, Sarah Palin, who wouldn’t, Ron Paul, who the American people would never elect, and Mike Huckabee, who would spend lots of money at home and abroad.
I agree with all of this, politically. (I don’t think a guy who endorsed Obama in ’08 could ever land on the Republican ticket.) My question is whether Petraeus’s relationship with Bob Gates would make it plausible that he would attempt a run ’12 rather than a much more attractive ’16.
— Freddie · Sep 29, 04:01 PM · #
What makes you think General Petraeus will take power in 2012 via election? After all, it’s not like we haven’t been warned.
— Noah Millman · Sep 29, 04:38 PM · #
Why would anyone think that Powell would even consider running for the Republicans in 2012? First, unless I’ve missed some recent appearances, I’ve heard no mention of Powell being unhappy with Obama’s performance. On the other hand, I have heard Powell express plenty of dissatisfaction with where the Republican party is now.
— 62across · Sep 29, 05:04 PM · #
Petraeus seems too smart to play the Primary Culture Warrior game. But who knows, you may be right. Republicans pretend to value military service, at least until someone with military service disagrees with them (see some conservative reactions to Powell’s endorsement of Obama, or for that matter, John Kerry.)
— tgb1000 · Sep 29, 05:14 PM · #
Noah! Thank you so much for this. The next time I see you I will, out of sheer gratitude, drop to my knees and blow you!
— Tony Comstock · Sep 29, 05:22 PM · #
Powell wouldn’t have a prayer. Nothing (statistically significant) to do with race. Everything to do with the fact that the Republican base is more “neo-con” than many folks think, and Powell served W. very poorly in the lead-up to the Iraq war, regardless of your opinion of the actual decision W. made. See Feith’s “War and Decision” for chapter and verse on Powell’s refusal to think strategically, and worse, his refusal to voice his disagreements and generally to play straight with the Bushies. And, no, if you (wrongly, IMO) think Bush made the wrong choice on Iraq, Powell doesn’t get creds for later changing his tune when he didn’t voice his opposition at the time. BOTH sides of the Iraq issue have to regard Powell’s performance on it as poor.
In 1996, it would have been a very different story, of course…
As for Petreaus, interesting….I haven’t a clue on either a) the man’s politics, or b) his political ability. Remember what an embarrassment Gen. Clark proved to be as a candidate/statesman? An extreme case, yes, but still, officer ability and politician ability are often two very different things.
— Carl Scott · Sep 29, 05:57 PM · #
Powell might be able to defeat Obama, if Powell can repair his image with the base, but he wouldn’t be much of an improvement over Obama as far as government over-reach goes. I believe a candidate will arise who is center-right/libertarian and will create a new Republican image that attracts indepedent voters. I’m not sure who that will be, but that is the type candidate I see winning.
— mike farmer · Sep 29, 06:00 PM · #
With Presidential elections, you always have to look at what people will be missing in the most recent President. Bush spoke poorly, blundered around aggressively in foreign policy, and was un-intellectual. Hence the Democrats nominated a speechifying academic with a modest view of America’s role in the world.
Obama’s flaws are turning out to be an overreliance on progressive dogma, specifically a Carteresque foreign policy and disregard of economic realities. He may also be exposed as a stuffed-shirt. So the Republicans will nominate an experienced, very aggressive defender of American Values with a pro-business deregulatory ethos. And someone who’s not afraid of being tarred as racist.
Guiliani for President!
— Andrew Berman · Sep 29, 06:16 PM · #
Neither Gen. Powell or Gen. Petraeus will associate themselves with the current instantiation of the GOP, ie, angry old religious white people you could meet at a Klan rally.
sowwy.
— matoko_chan · Sep 29, 06:43 PM · #
They aren’t even on the conservative bench, Conor.
— matoko_chan · Sep 29, 06:44 PM · #
Hmm, both generals would make formidable candidates and, probably, good presidents. But would either run?
Is there any evidence that Patraeus has political ambitions? I’ve never heard any. As for Powell, he apparently had ambitions once, but bottled it. If he was ever going to run, he’d have done it by now. I think he’s too much of a nice-guy.
— Adrian Ratnapala · Sep 29, 07:46 PM · #
For his mental health and ours, Tony Comstock should self-impose a moratorium on talking about oral sex. The first day would be hard, but, heck, after that its plain sailing.
— Adam Greenwood · Sep 29, 07:46 PM · #
Conor wrote:
So I guess this is your idea of good public discourse. Can’t you please use a little restraint in your characterizations? Because really this is getting pretty close to foaming at the mouth.
Seriously, why can’t you go back to cleaning up the public discourse by picking at Mark Steyn as you did earlier? Now there’s a guy who really needs your tempering influence on his raving lunacy, whether written or spoken. Thanks so much for attempting to put some polish on his rhetorical skills. Those of us who love words, whether written or spoken, can understand why you would want to purge a guy like Mark Steyn.
As to Colin Powell: He is the very definition of a moderate—no one knows where he stands on anything. But it got Obama elected, so I guess it could work with Powell.
— jd · Sep 29, 08:23 PM · #
TPAW w/ Bob Gates as VP. TPAW is plain (I was going to say vanilla but maybe not appropriate) and competent and not Mormon. Sub Gates for the Generals for the same reasons. Only can compete as “not Obama”.
— paddy · Sep 29, 08:45 PM · #
Nothing wrong with plain sailing!
But do yourself a favor and follow Noah’s link and read in it’s entirety!
— Tony Comstock · Sep 29, 09:52 PM · #
I just got mail from Dr. Frist. about his new website launch.
We usta talk when I was stupid enough to be a republican.
What about him Conor?
He was a decent guy.
— matoko_chan · Sep 30, 03:54 AM · #
I hear Petraeus’ name bandied about on the right all the time…
But there’s that small matter of him saying he will never run for high office. And then there is the inconvenient fact that there is not one solitary shred of evidence the man is a Republican.
But I guess if you just wish hard enough…
— dragnet · Sep 30, 06:02 PM · #
Powell can be dismissed off the bat. Even if he had the slightest interest in running for president (and there is zero indication he is) there is no chance he could secure the nomination. His moment, if it existed, has passed. The train left the station so long ago that the track is rusted.
Petraeus is a different story. I think there’s every chance he could someday become a credible presidential candidate — if he’s interested (and there’s little evidence he is). But not in 2012. To make a bid he’d have to start seriously laying the groundwork next year and as he is still busy fighting a couple of wars and all, there’s no chance of that. Plus the GOP is in the throes of a near pathology that he’d be unlikely to want any part of. Look at him for 2016 instead (if he’s interested). He’ll be retired by then and he won’t have to run against his old Commander in Chief, avoiding all sorts of awkwardness.
— Seth Owen · Sep 30, 06:08 PM · #
“These accomplished generals share one related trait: deep credibility as men who are serious about national security, …”
You did see Powell’s presentation to the UN making the case for war with Iraq, did you not? That was the day Powell’s credibility irrevocably was lost.
— tsg · Sep 30, 06:21 PM · #
…If in doubt pick a military man……mind you that didn’t work out too well with Wes Clark and that Admiral who was Perot’s vp pick did it?……When it gets down to the wire Generals aren’t a shoo in these days because they have to campaign, this is not 1952 when the Democrats had been in power for 20 years and Ike was of semi god like status. Who knows whether Petraeus could handle a campaign (forget Powell he’s anathema to the GOP base). The mere fact Friedersdorf is reduced to fantasising about Generals says all you need to know about the state of the GOP.
— John · Sep 30, 06:25 PM · #
Set aside, for a moment, the fact that neither of these guys is going to run. And leave aside the question of whether success in a uniform translates well to the campaign trail – despite the ample evidence that it doesn’t.
What does it say about the state of the contemporary GOP that your dream candidates are those who have been necessarily-estranged from partisan politics for the bulk of their adult lives? Are there no current office holders whose records and associations haven’t tainted them in irremediable fashion? Perhaps some <i>former</i> elected official prepared for another run? Or someone whose executive experience has been blended with some actual involvement with civil society?
I’m reminded of the left-wing dreamers who sighed after General Wesley Clark, for much the same reasons. They wanted to restrain American military involvement, and who better to make the case than a man with four stars? They wanted a candidate untainted by a long record or the party’s more extreme elements, and who better than a man who had no prior political involvements? The problem was that he also had no experience of politics.
I fail to understand the fascination with finding a rookie to take on the most difficult and extended campaign in the country. Politics is hard. It requires a blend of natural aptitude, experience, and work. In that way, it’s like most other professions. Conservatives and libertarians are forever reminding us that government bureaucrats are never as efficient at regulating or directing tasks as those who spend their lives performing them. That’s a valid insight. So why is it so rarely applied to politics?
Governance, of course, is another matter entirely. At that level, experience actually can translate fairly well. So while Mike Bloomberg – to seize an obvious example – ran an extremely poor campaign, despite surrounding himself with the best staff and advisers unlimited funds could buy, he’s performed brilliantly in office. He had the executive experience – he’s spent the last eight years trying to acquire commensurate political skills. So I’d suggest your dream candidates have the opposite virtues of the ones you assign them – they’re likely to be fairly good at governing, and fairly terrible at running for office.
— Cynic · Sep 30, 06:36 PM · #
I don’t know why all the hand wringing. Who expected Obama to emerge three years before the last election. It’s gonna have to be someone who didn’t run last time (what an uninspiring bunch), but it’s entirely possible someone charismatic and fresh will emerge (which eliminates TPaw).
— Gus · Sep 30, 06:38 PM · #
Powell is undeniably tainted by his association with the War in Iraq — a war he helped to start by telling a series of lies at the UN; a war that he could probably have forestalled by simply telling the truth. Whatever honor he once had was squandered by that supreme act of cowardice.
— theod · Sep 30, 07:44 PM · #
Obama = a poor man’s FDR, and Petraeus could = a poor man’s Eisenhower in 2016. But I think you’ll need more time for this to develop. 2012 is too soon. The hotheads in the GOP will get a false sense of confidence in 2010. They won’t retake the House, but they’ll win enough seats back from the great ‘thumpin’ of 2006 to give them the notion that being even more batsh*t crazy conservative is the key to success. So they’ll be more likely to run a hardcore so-con, teabag friendly candidate in 2012. After a crushing loss in 2012 it might start to gradually sink in that nuttier is not a winning strategy given the changing demographics. I think you also need to consider the trajectory of operations in Centcom. Look at average time in command and the likelihood of a resolution to ops in AF and/or an early resignation from P, and compare that to the amount of time required to build up a base of political support, and you’ll see that 2012 is just too soon for a Petraeus candidacy. No matter what happens, the GOP is going to need a ‘celebrity’ following Obama, and a right wing celeb just isn’t going to cut it with middle America. Petraeus might though. He’s the only one who came out of Iraq with an improved image, and he seems pretty politically astute from a DoD perspective. I concede John’s point above – the fact that you’re considering two Generals who have almost 0 connection with a run for the presidency in 2012 can be interpreted as evidence of how sorry the current field of GOP leadership is. But it’s an interesting thought – and it wouldn’t surprise me if Petraeus comes thru in 2016 to bring the GOP back.
— Walker Texas Ranger · Sep 30, 07:45 PM · #
Petraeus has about zero percent chance winning the primary, because the days when “Eisenhower Republicans” actually made a workable majority of the Republican Party are long, long gone. (There’s a decent argument to be made that Clinton and Obama are really Eisenhower Republicans- consider the highest marginal income tax rate in the 1950’s and the origin of the term “military-industrial complex”, plus his comments to his brother Edgar about Texas oilmen wanting to repeal the New Deal.)
Right now, the Republican Party is deep in the throes of kowtowing to populist and reactionary forces (angry right-wing talk radio and the fever swamp so aptly described by Douglas Hofstadter in “The Paranoid Style in American Politics”), and having decided to take a ride on this particular tiger by the ears, they dare not let go. I don’t think you’ll see “adult” candidates win in this sort of environment, which is why Multiple Choice Mitt is running as far away as possible from his record in MA, Mike Huckabee is turning into a shrill, doctrinaire right winger, and so on. I expect that whoever the Republicans nominate in 2012 will try to turn the Joe the Plumber know-nothing cries of “socialism”/“fascism”/“keep the Government out of my Medicare” dial up to 11 for the campaign. That isn’t an “I like Ike” style campaign that will nominate someone like Petraeus (and I’d argue that for a party that worships at the shrine of Reagan, they’re nuts if they think it will win presidential elections, but the Republicans will need this instinct of catering to their wingnuts to be beaten out of them by losing for a while, just like it took years for the Democrats to figure this out).
Powell has all these problems AND the additional factor that he voted for someone a third of the Republican Party views as illegitimate due to feverish conspiracy theory. So I’d expect the Republicans to nominate Satan first.
— eponymous coward · Sep 30, 07:56 PM · #
It may be true that only a general can save the GOP, but a party that needs a general as a candidate is a party in trouble. The Whigs in the 19th century did it several times because they were not a coherent political party. The Republicans did it in 1952 because someone who opposed the New Deal (which meant most elected Republicans) could not get elected.
— Mark · Sep 30, 09:13 PM · #
In addition to a completely different candidate, the Republicans are going to need a completely different electorate in 2012 – one that is whiter, older, and more male. They lose the women vote, the youth vote, the black vote, and the Hispanic vote. Knowing this, the base continues to piss off the women, young people, the blacks and the Hispanics. Way to go.
— BC · Sep 30, 10:03 PM · #
The perfect ticket: a man on a white horse, and a pony!
— Mike Schilling · Sep 30, 10:58 PM · #
Oh yes, let Powell run. I’m sure everybody has forgotten him at the United Nations, holding up a vial of fake anthrax and scaring the bejeezus out of America so he could help get us starting a war that he KNEW was “bullshit”, leading to a whole lot of people killed for no clear reason… And then we all found out that he knew most of the claims the Bush Administration was making were bullshit, but he gave that speech anyway and never spoke up to America to let us know it was bullshit. Indeed, his direct quote: “I’m not reading this. This is bullshit.” What happened next? He waived around a vial of fake anthrax to help start the bullshit war. Yeah, that is so very very courageous! Maybe even fit to be president!
Links about Powell’s knowledge that the Iraq War was being sold based on lies:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2003/jun/02/usa.iraq
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20030922/alterman
— Another Luke · Oct 1, 02:21 PM · #