James Joyner, earlier today:
George Will closes a subpar (by his standards, at least) column on the silly populism of Mike Huckabee and John Edwards with this praise for Barack Obama:
Barack Obama, who might be mercifully closing the Clinton parenthesis in presidential history, is refreshingly cerebral amid this recrudescence of the paranoid style in American politics. He is the un-Edwards and un-Huckabee — an adult aiming to reform the real world rather than an adolescent fantasizing mock-heroic “fights” against fictitious villains in a left-wing cartoon version of this country.
Will seems to be joining the growing chorus of Republicans, even conservative ones, who claim they would vote for Obama over Huckabee. Michael Totten is the latest blogger I’ve seen make that assertion. Stephen Green seems to be leaning that way (and may have stated so outright, although his archives are FUBAR as the moment). I’ve seen a handful of others in recent days, although their names escape me.
One wonders how many will actually follow through on this, in the unlikely event that Obama-Huckabee turns out to be the general election matchup? I suspect most partisans will ultimately find a way to rationalize holding their nose and voting for whomever gets the nomination.
Right now, Obama is drawing praise from the likes of George Will, Peggy Noonan, and Stephen Hayes. But Glenn Greenwald and John Cole figure that the Republican flirtation with Obama will dissipate and turn into rage quickly if he’s the nominee. While overstated, they’ve got a point: Both parties have a way of painting the opponent as devils and stoking the flames of fear.
Well, We’ve already discussed Greenwald and his paranoia. What we have NOT mentioned here as yet, is the Populism of Romney, and Huckabee and of McCain, as well. You see, the trouble of all this is that Huckabee and Romney are trying to stake out the same populist territory that Obama is trying to claim. McCain, meanwhile, with the exception of the war on Terror is trying to swing left of the whole lot of them. Unfortunately this goes to something that I have spoken to in the past. Namely, when Republicans try to play the populist, and in the doing, swing left into that which has traditionally been Democrat territory, why would people bother voting for Republicans at all?
And as for Will, he’s been on the edge of losing his conservative creds for some time now. Can we point to this column to suggest he’s lost them outright, now?
Tags: Barack Obama, BO, Campaign, campaigns, Clinton, Democrat, election, fight, General election, Greenwald, hope, Huckabee, Iowa, John Edwards, Jonah Goldberg, McCain, Men, Mike Huckabee, nomination, NY, Obama, politics, Republican, Republicans, Romney, Salon, UN, vodka, War on Terror
January 6th, 2008 at 13:11
I don’t know, Bit. This statement from today’s column would seem to show that, when it comes to Will’s conservative creds, the essential core remains firmly intact:
The way to achieve Edwards’ and Huckabee’s populist goal of reducing the role of “special interests,” meaning money, in government is to reduce the role of government in distributing money.
Nowhere in the column do I see any justification for Joyner’s claim that Will seems “to be joining the growing chorus of Republicans, even conservative ones, who claim they would vote for Obama.” Touting Obama as comparatively “cerebral” doesn’t constitute an endorsement or a claim of support. At all. The idea here – and I suspect with the other conservative columnists mentioned – is to elevate a less objectionable Democratic candidate over Hillary, and also to caution Republicans against falling for populism. I’ve seen Will try and pull self-styled conservatives away from the government trough and away from the temptation to brandish government “solutions” to their problems many times over many years. This smacking the stuffing out of Huckabee is very much in that tradition.
That said, I’ll share that my recent moment of supposing George Will was losing it came last week – week before? – when I heard him call Ron Paul “my man” on This Week. But I think the idea there was simply to offer up a bit of praise for the really very laudable goals that Paul professes – abolishing the vast number of government departments and etc. Maybe he also wanted to encourage some of Paul’s more enthusiastic supporters from liberal-land to begin to consider that they’re embracing true conservative values.
More than any other political writer among the scant few I was reading twenty-odd years ago, Will caused me to question and finally reject the frivolously liberal notions and causes that I had unthinkingly absorbed in adolescence.
I don’t read him as much any more and I don’t agree with everything he says by any means, but I definitely don’t think he’s losing it. I think rather that, as an educator first and foremost, he’s focused on passing it on.
January 6th, 2008 at 14:46
The reason I would support Barack Obama over Mike Huckabee is that while both are as liberal as the Sun is hot, only Obama admits it. Huckabee can’t do any interview without mangling the political lexicon.
January 6th, 2008 at 15:59
David; I yeild to that logic, having considered that very point about an hour ago.
Linda:
May I remind you that was the basis of mcCain/Fiengold, hardly a conservative bit of legislation?
I would certainly take that as an indication of his leaning toward a leftist populism, yes.
January 6th, 2008 at 23:15
Linda;
Misread your post, apparently, to mean reducing the role of money in campaigning. Sorry.
Then again, if we’re buying votes with welfare programs, that’s what we’re doing, I suppose.
Anyway,
But in promoting Obama, what he’s doing is promoting the biggest populist of the group, or so I would argue. What kind of honesty is it to smack Huckabee for brandishing government giveaways, when Obama, the guy he’s praising, here, is doing the same thing? I mean, granted, smacking Huckabee is fully justified…. but there seems little difference between the two men… you can’t fit water between the result of their taking office, frankly.
Consdier this quote from PowerLine, tonight:
So, explain to me in the end, how these two will differ…. I don’t see it. Thereby, I must question Will on the point.