April 15th, 2010...
A Tea Party Turning Point?
Millions of Americans are paying their taxes (making Ron Paul look strangely appealing, if only for a day), and because of this, the Tea Party movement is holding events across the nation. For that reason, this day has much political import.
Today day is arguably more important for the Tea Party movement than any yet, given that a) it's the first to come together after the passage of ObamaCare, and b) it's probably the last group of widespread rallies until November. There's going to be plenty of media coverage, no doubt, which means that the image of the movement after today is going to be difficult to augment over the next 7-8 months.
We already know the tack that will be taken to define the Tea Party in a negative light: we've already seen many efforts to deflect attention away from complaints about spending and government overreach, and onto the demographics and racial attitudes of those attending the rallies. Some of these have been more subtle, and some have been anything but. Both, however, clearly mean to discredit the idea simply because it's coming primarily from white people, rather than through reasoned persuasion. The second source, by the by, neglects to mention the article's lead, which is that "Tea Party supporters are wealthier and more well-educated than the general public." The article's comments amusingly try to spin "supporters" into "financial backers," suggesting that the phrase refers to shadow puppet masters, even though there's no mention of this in the article and the context clearly suggests otherwise.
What people can't seem to explain is why this racism took so long to manifest itself this way. I'm pretty sure all these people knew Obama was black when he was inaugurated last January, or when he won in November of '08. Heck, I'd wager most of them knew he was black even before then. But since then and now, he's created a massive entitlement program with a teeth-skinning majority and spent trillions of dollars. So maybe -- just maybe -- that's the catalyst here.
But I digress. To this point, the Tea Party movement is still seen by moderate, sane Americans as a genuine populist movement upset about spending and government control. It has admirably resisted anyone who has tried to curtail or co-opt it, and it must continue to do so if it hopes to capitalize come November.
But all of that can be wiped out, silly as it seems, by a handful of angry protesters or even fake protesters planted there by an opposing organization. Any number of politicians, pundits, and media outlets are going to seize on anything they can to make the Tea Parties seem as angry and possibly bigoted as possible. They will not require much ammunition, so they must not be given any.
How the Tea Party appears to moderate voters at the end of the day will go a long way towards maintaining -- or damaging -- its collective credibility from now until Election Day.
Can Newt "Rebrand" Republicans?
Nate Silver over at FiveThirtyEight has an article up called "Newt Gingrich: Dominated Strategy?" wherein he speculates that Gingrich is outflanked as a potential 2012 candidate in terms of both personal appeal and perceived electability:
Nate Silver - April 12th, 2010 Basically, I think Gingrich is fairly close to being a dominated strategy. If Republicans just want to pick the candidate they like the best personally -- electability be damned -- they'll go with Sarah Palin. If they want someobdy who they think can win, they'll hold their nose and vote for Romney. And Huckabee, not Gingrich, seems to be their second choice in both those departments. Nor do I think that Gingrich can credibly be re-branded as a fresh face if that's the direction in which Republicans want to go; voters (both Republicans and the broader electorate) remember him pretty well, even though his peak of political activity came around 15 years ago. Finally, he's easily the least electorally accomplished of the four brand name candidates, having never been elected to an office higher than the U.S. House, and from an easy district at that.
Silver's perspective is solid reasonable, but I'll quibble with a few things.
First, I don't think Romney is necessarily seen as especially "electable," but whether he is or not, the shadow of RomneyCare hangs over his entire political life. It's horrendous luck for him as a candidate, but its similarities to ObamaCare would seem to doom him right out of the gate.
Second, real life is a tad more complex than all that. People don't necessarily vote based on one primary factor. It's entirely possible that many Republicans will settle on a mix of things. They may settle on someone who both embodies their populist anger and their idea of electability, and Newt fits quite nicely between Palin and Romney in this regard. It doesn't hurt that he's associated with the major Republican resurgence in 1994, either. People will still be angry when the 2012 campaign kicks off, but they'll probably have cooled down a bit from the level they're at now. That's probably good news for Newt, should he decide to run.
Third, regarding the re-branding Silver talks about. Call it a de-branding, instead: fair or not (I say not, for the most part), the idea that the Republican party is the party of anti-intellectualism is starting to gain some footing. Between the verbal gaffes of both Dubya and Sarah, and some fairly bigoted notions of "rednecks" and the South in general, it's not difficult to spin the idea that Republicans are ignorant and proud of it.
Gingrich, however, is the antithesis of this. Nobody can seriously challenge his intelligence or general competency. He has what Republicans have said they want out of a leader: intelligence without elitism. Newt can help counteract the growing perception that Republicans will always nominate the folksy over the capable.
Now, to invalidate this entire entry: I don't think he'll run. But I hope he will, and I think he has a genuine chance to win if he does.
Of All the Gin Joints in All the Internets...
They say, on the Internet, you can always go home again.
Actually, no one says that, but here I am all the same. Apparently people still visit this site. And apparently there's been some kind of "election" since I last blogged, and something about "health care" has caused many people to start drinking tea, or something. It's all pretty confusing, but I'll be back from time to time to sort it out.
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