What's Wrong with Mitt Romney?

On Ross Douthat's blog today I read that Mitt Romney is the least popular of candidates with the Republican Party. This struck both me and my father as odd. He is the most mainstream Republican in the race. He is not a populist like Huckabee; he is not a pro-choicer like Giuliani; he is not lazy like Fred Thompson. The problem with him must be, then, that, as Frank Rich has pointed out, he is a follower, not a leader. Even though he wears a charismatic exterior, there is nothing new about him. He may be a perfect person to work with, but, in spite of what Governor Huckabee said, he is not the right guy to lay people off.

Six Word Autobiography

For one of my classes, I was asked to write my autobiography in six words. Here's the one that I ended up reading to the class:

Couldn't read; became an English major.

But I wrote another that may have been more appropriate:

Proletarian, non-Marxist elitist with traditional streak.

But the one that may have been the best of all is:

Can't write, but I haven't left.

Loser of the Year

I realize that I've been off recently. I was in California. Back to the old politics again.

I don't know who's going to win the presidential nomination at this point, but I can say that the man who should definitely win Loser of the Year Award this year (if such an award exists) is Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York. Fred Thompson comes close, but at least Fred Thompson announced and was able to run on a platform which was not particularly original but was sincere. Michael Bloomberg, on the other hand, has not appeared to be able to say anything other than that partisanship is bad and we need more centrist (translation: pro-choice) candidates to balance out the national divide. Why this New York mayor of no particular notoriety (apart from being slightly better than men like Dinkins) should think that he is at all representative or relevant to the national center is still lost on me. There is nothing about him that it particularly moderate. I would not be surprised to see him running as for the governorship as a Democrat in two years (after all, he's been a Democrat for a longer period of time than he was a Republican), but he will probably run as a Republican, because, if nothing else, it will make it easier for him to win the election against the Democratic incumbent Eliot Spitzer. But, as with Lincoln Chafee, Mayor Michael Bloomberg is a Republican whom I don't particularly mind in the party but also whom I do not particularly mind seeing depart.

What Huckabee's Victory Says

As any fellow traveler in the blogosphere can tell you, I am not any big fan of Governor Mike Huckabee. I am probably not going to vote for him in the primaries (if he is still in the running when the primaries make it to Iowa, which he probably won't be.) But I am still happy that he won last night.

This is because, if nothing else, it revealed the Ann Coulters, the Rush Limbaughs, the Pat Robertsons, the James Dobsons, the Phillis Shlaflys, the Clubs for Growth, the constructionists, the libertarians, to be the charlatans that they are. The old GOP alliance between evangelicals, tycoons and defense hawks is over (and it probably should never have existed to begin with.) Finally, a break in the coalition--and the break could not have occurred in a better location. Now, instead of the libertarians fleeing, leaving the social conservatives and neoconservatives on the same boat together, the social conservatives (if not their leadership) has jumped ship, leaving the remnants of the old coalition to face defeat next November.

Don't get me wrong. I don't want to be defeated by any means. I would rather someone like John McCain were in the White House by this time next year. But Huckabee's victory in Iowa sent out an important message to candidates: the old coalition is dead, and it is time for forwardness rather than backward thinking.

Giuliani for Presidential Loser?

Mike Huckabee appears to be, more or less, the winner of the Iowa caucases by a significant margin. But I doubt that he is going to go on to win the Republican nomination. The next few state primaries will probably look something like this (I'm not sure that the order is correct):

1. New Hampshire - John McCain

2. South Carolina - Mike Huckabee

3. Nevada - Rudy Giuliani or Mitt Romney (to close to call)

4. Michigan - Mitt Romney

5. Florida - Rudy Giuliani

6. California - Rudy Giuliani

7. New Jersey - Rudy Giuliani

This is to say that Giuliani is most likely going to be the presidential candidate, but is also probably going to lose the presidency in November. The reason is because he has been an effectively ineffective campaigner; the only candidate who has been as unimpressive is Fred Thompson. (I just heard that Barak Obama won the Iowa caucus for the Democrats, by the way; bad news from Giuliani.) Giuliani's campaign, so far, has been one of retreat. He may have polled well in New Hampshire, but he didn't capitalize; he may have done well in Michigan (though he probably would not have won), but, once again, he will probably fail to do even this. In spite of this, He started out as the front-runner and has not lost this position yet. But, for the presidential nomination, we cannot win with a candidate who spends his time running away.

Drones Predictions

I made my Drones predictions today. Here they are on my blog for anyone who is interested:

1. Dmitry Medvedev will be elected president of the Russian Federation

2. The Democrats will maintain control of the House and the Senate

3. The Republicans will nominate their first pro-choice presidential candidate (Rudolph Giuliani) since Gerald Ford

4. Ron Paul will not seek to be elected as a third-party candidate

5. Daniel Day-Lewis will win Best Actor at the Academy Awards for his performance in "There Will Be Blood"

Romney vs. Huckabee

Mike Huckabee, I think, took a shot at former governor Mitt Romney with a line that should be a classic if it isn't already:

"I grew up in a family where 'summer' was never a verb."

This is true. Using the word 'summer' as a verb is a privilege of only the upper-class bourgeoisie. His wit aside, I can't imagine that Mike Huckabee would be a good presidential candidate. That being said, I am pretty sure that he is better than Giuliani and Thompson and I haven't decided whether or not he would be better than Mr. Romney. (My faith in Sen. McCain as an ideal candidate has not flagged.)

Since the order runs something like this (McCain, Huckabee/Romney, Giuliani, Thompson) from best to worst, I think that I should explicate on why I don't go ahead and support Romney over Huckabee. After all, he has more experience, doesn't he? Well, maybe. We ought to look at their tenures as governor to figure out the answer to this question.

Both have attacked one another as fiscally undisciplined tax-hikers (in other words, Democrats in Republicans' clothing.) From their records, I would say that this is true in both cases. Taxes rose under the governorships of Mr. Romney and Mr. Huckabee, although they rose to significantly higher levels in Mr. Huckabee's Arkansas than they did in Mr. Romney's Massachusetts. But the charge that Mr. Huckabee's governorship had a deleterious effect on the economy (the reason that tax-cut fundamentalists always give for cutting taxes further) is unfair, given that the growth of Arkansas economy was slightly higher (albeit by about 0.2%) during his time in office than was the national average.

That being said, I am not a fervent believer in the belief of certain Republican fundamentalists that the only good tax is a cut tax. There are times to cut taxes and times to raise them. And, from this point of view, both governors may have been right to raise taxes when their states were deeply in debt and on the verge of introducing brand new, government-sponsored social programs. (Both states implemented health-care programs under the two governors' tenures and Mr. Huckabee also created a state park system in Arkansas.) From this standpoint, both of them appear to have been fairly successful. Messr. Romney and Huckabee left behind surpluses when they moved out of their governors' mansions.

If we consider their governorships in terms of popularity, Mr. Huckabee is clearly the winner. Both men served in highly Democratic states, but Mr. Huckabee managed to be reelected to office twice, whereas if Mr. Romney had run against Deval Patrick in 2006 he would almost certainly have lost (his approval rating was around 43%.)

On foreign policy, Mr. Romney is certainly more informed the Mr. Huckabee. Mr. Huckabee has a tendency to sound like a buffoon: "I don't think America should import our food from China, our oil from the Middle East and our weapons from . . ." (I forget the place he names.) Like Rich Lowry said, there is so much foolishness in that statement. But Mr. Huckabee has also made some observations that any buffoon would know but, somehow, the Republicans have failed to figure out. For one thing, he suggested that he supported resuming diplomatic talks with Iran before it was popular in the Republican field. Such statements, though, are more exception than rule with him. By this point, when asked about foreign policy, he more or less ignores it, saying more simply that we ought to be nicer to other countries if we want to be more popular in the world (we might have tea some time.)

Between the two of them, Mr. Romney seems to be the more adaptable candidate. The one who would be the most studious for on-the-job training. In short, there is no clear way to choose between the two of them, and I am convinced that we have a really bad Republican field this year (with the exception of Sen. McCain, of course.)