Remember 1980? Unpopular incumbent Democrat (Carter). Democrats were thrilled that the Republicans were nominating an unelectable wing-nut (Reagan). That sure turned out well for the Dems. 🙂
Brendan Loy
I wasn’t alive in 1980, so, no. 🙂 But I take your point. However, whereas Reagan was a fantastic politician (if not a great leader, at least on fiscal matters) whose appeal was invisible to self-blinded liberal snobs, I think Palin falls under a different category. Her manifest lack of any sort of qualification for high office — intellectual, experiential, temperamental, moral, ethical — is apparent, at least to some degree, to all but her most ardent admirers, which is why her favorability ratings among the public at large have been consistently low.** She’s not literally “unelectable,” but she’s only electable in extreme circumstances — her opponent suffers a huge scandal, makes a career-ending gaffe… or is incredibly unpopular because of a terribly weak economy.
Ruh-roh.
As I’ve said before, I think Palin can win, if scenario #3 comes to pass (and assuming there’s no third-party challenge, which is a BIG assumption in that scenario of incredibly unpopular incumbent vs. incredibly divisive and unqualified opponent). Likewise, Angle can win, and very well may. But they’re both clearly the least electable of the available mainstream choices. If the Nevada GOP had made a wiser choice, that state would be sitting pretty alongside North Dakota, Arkansas and Delaware as certain or near-certain Republican pickups. Instead, it’s a dogfight. Likewise, even if the economy is absolutely terrible*** in 2012, Palin-Obama will be a dogfight, whereas Romney-Obama or Pawlenty-Obama or what-have-you would be a Republican cakewalk under those circumstances.
**Pre-rebuttal to stupid “OBAMA’S NUMBERS SUCK TOO!!1!” talking point: yes, they do, but Obama is the president, and he’s getting walloped primarily because of the economy, not primarily because of personal traits unique to him. His numbers were really high when he first came into office, but of course the bad economy has worn them down. Any president would be unpopular at this point, given the economic conditions. Don’t believe me? Look at Reagan’s first-term poll numbers. And this recession is worse than that one. Anyway, Palin’s numbers have been consistently bad from the moment the public got a reasonable handle on who she is. They’re not low based on external factors; they’re low based on who she is.
***One must be careful how we define “absolutely terrible,” because there is probably a tipping point of extreme awfulness at which Obama either pulling an LBJ (deciding not to run for re-election), or else facing a serious primary challenge (Hillary?) that he might lose, becomes a real possibility.
Joe Mama
Her manifest lack of any sort of qualification for high office — intellectual, experiential, temperamental, moral, ethical — is apparent…
I’ll give you temperamental, mostly because she resigned her governorship, which IMO is the biggest single obstacle to her getting elected to higher office (that might also be ethical as well). I’d also give you intellectual, at least on the basis of her poor interview with Katie Couric, but most of the other grounds that her harshest critics point to as proof of her stupidity tend to be vastly overwrought mischaracterizations (e.g., the Charlie Gibson interview, which was spun as a disaster when it really wasn’t) or complete myths (“I can see Russia from my house!”), and she more than held her own in the debate against Biden, who looked foolish by comparison. I might have also given you experiential before Obama got elected, but not now. As for moral, citations needed, as they say…
Sandy Underpants
I think the Tea Party nuts are going to help Obama and Democrats in the long run because their mobile base is a minority even in their own party, but they are motivated enough to get out the vote and push their candidates to wins in the primaries. Now the general electorate isn’t going to put unqualified douche-wads in office especially since Palin is endorsing them.
From what I’ve seen, Palin is clearly the front-runner for the GOP nomination in ’12, there’s nobody even close. She’s in the public eye daily and actively pushing candidates and winning, at this point.
As for Palin holding her own against Biden– are you kidding me? She didn’t know a damn thing and every time she was asked a question she would say, “I don’t want to talk about that, let’s get back to energy”. When asked about her lack of foreign policy experience she answered Charlie Gibson, “You can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska”, what’s the difference Joe Mama?
Sandy..that’s a fine example of whistling past the graveyard. I consider myself lucky to have witnessed it…it will go down in the annals……..
Alasdair
Kenneth Stern #1 – fortunately for the US, too !
We will *know* that the Doom of Carter has settled upon Teh One when Teh Brendan acknowledges that Reagan policies and tax cuts brought in more *actual* revenue and shows those graphs, rather than the much over-used graphs which show that Congress creates or fixes the deficits rather than the Executive Branch …
However, whereas Reagan was a fantastic politician (if not a great leader, at least on fiscal matters)
When are you going to retire this trope? That argument is complete bunk. Q.E.D..
dcl
Probably when history changes. Given that history hasn’t changed, the point remains true. I could link to some of my own comments and put Q.E.D. at the end to, but that seems silly.
If you compare the marginal tax rate on top earners to government debt one will notice that when Reagan slashed the rate is the precise moment that the national debt began to spiral out of control. The rate that Obama has proposed is far less than the rate under Nixon and massively less than the rate under FDR or even Herbert Hoover, Calvin Coolidge and the rest of the Presidents in the “Roaring” twenties.
You know how else we know the Republican meme about cutting taxes being good for deficits is utter and complete bullshit. If this were actually true Germany would have forced Greece and Spain to cut their taxes in the face of a massive budget crisis. Yeah, not so much. Q.E.D. as it were.
dcl, I went through those arguments in the linked comments and used hard data to back up my points. Your counterpoint offers nothing of substance that hasn’t already been rebutted. GDP growth exploded under Reagan’s tax cuts. Unfortunately, so did discretionary spending, and in each budget, the Dems packed far more spending into the budget than requested by the Reagan administration. Had Reagan’s budgets been implemented as proposed, the budget could have been balanced in 1989 or so.
The argument that the high rates of GDP growth in the 1980s weren’t due to the tax cuts is hard to sustain. Paul Volcker clearly helped stabilize the economy and beat back inflation by jacking up interest rates, but high interest rates do not propel economic growth. Volcker stabilized the patient and got him off the respirator; Reagan provided the healing medicine that got the patient up and moving again.
dcl
The income gap also exploded. Real wages for average Americans have been flat since the oil crises in the 70’s but real wages for the rich have exploded since the Reagan tax cut.
Your point is basically that a tax cut for rich people is good for rich people. Wow, rocket science.
dcl
Also, what does GDP growth mean to real people on the street? Seriously, why are Republicans so obsessed with GDP growth? The real question is what is the quality of life for the average American.
Alasdair
dcl #11 – high GDP and high GDP growth correlates V ERY strongly with increasing prosperity for pretty much *everyone* ! (There ! I actually typed “*everyone*” !) …
Falling GDP correlates with falling standards of living – and, when it lasts long enough (cf Great CDepression), usually hits the poorest members of society hardest (the rich can cut back on lifestyle – the poor end up having to cut back on food) …
Class envy says “The real question is what is the quality of life for the average American.” …
The rational question for us is “The real question is what is the quality of life for any and all US residents ?” (when we are considering the US economy – it does, however, scale up (cf Great Depression)) … the quality of Life for the average American has been going up and up and up, in terms of lifespan as well as in terms of health as well as in terms of availability of and access too material things …
One of the literally bigger indicators of increasing prosperity for US residents is the significant increase in obesity … in the US, it used to be that the poor were folk who were starving (and visibly so) … nowadays, US poor are those who can’t afford cable, who can’t afford a cell-phone, who can’t afford name-brand clothing …
In sub-Saharan Africa, the poor have to forage for enough to eat …
With a high GDP, a country can afford to subsidise necessities of life, like food … its prosperous members can afford to donate voluntarily to those less fortunate …
So – to answer your question directly … “GDP growth” probably means very little to “real people on the street” – whereas the effects of GDP growth mean all sorts of positive and desirable things to real people o the street – and negative GDP growth usually tends towards increasing hardship for real people on the street …
Could Reid in NV be a preview of Obama in 2012? Unpopular Dem grudgingly re-elected because GOP unwisely nominated a wingnut? #angle #palin
Remember 1980? Unpopular incumbent Democrat (Carter). Democrats were thrilled that the Republicans were nominating an unelectable wing-nut (Reagan). That sure turned out well for the Dems. 🙂
I wasn’t alive in 1980, so, no. 🙂 But I take your point. However, whereas Reagan was a fantastic politician (if not a great leader, at least on fiscal matters) whose appeal was invisible to self-blinded liberal snobs, I think Palin falls under a different category. Her manifest lack of any sort of qualification for high office — intellectual, experiential, temperamental, moral, ethical — is apparent, at least to some degree, to all but her most ardent admirers, which is why her favorability ratings among the public at large have been consistently low.** She’s not literally “unelectable,” but she’s only electable in extreme circumstances — her opponent suffers a huge scandal, makes a career-ending gaffe… or is incredibly unpopular because of a terribly weak economy.
Ruh-roh.
As I’ve said before, I think Palin can win, if scenario #3 comes to pass (and assuming there’s no third-party challenge, which is a BIG assumption in that scenario of incredibly unpopular incumbent vs. incredibly divisive and unqualified opponent). Likewise, Angle can win, and very well may. But they’re both clearly the least electable of the available mainstream choices. If the Nevada GOP had made a wiser choice, that state would be sitting pretty alongside North Dakota, Arkansas and Delaware as certain or near-certain Republican pickups. Instead, it’s a dogfight. Likewise, even if the economy is absolutely terrible*** in 2012, Palin-Obama will be a dogfight, whereas Romney-Obama or Pawlenty-Obama or what-have-you would be a Republican cakewalk under those circumstances.
**Pre-rebuttal to stupid “OBAMA’S NUMBERS SUCK TOO!!1!” talking point: yes, they do, but Obama is the president, and he’s getting walloped primarily because of the economy, not primarily because of personal traits unique to him. His numbers were really high when he first came into office, but of course the bad economy has worn them down. Any president would be unpopular at this point, given the economic conditions. Don’t believe me? Look at Reagan’s first-term poll numbers. And this recession is worse than that one. Anyway, Palin’s numbers have been consistently bad from the moment the public got a reasonable handle on who she is. They’re not low based on external factors; they’re low based on who she is.
***One must be careful how we define “absolutely terrible,” because there is probably a tipping point of extreme awfulness at which Obama either pulling an LBJ (deciding not to run for re-election), or else facing a serious primary challenge (Hillary?) that he might lose, becomes a real possibility.
Her manifest lack of any sort of qualification for high office — intellectual, experiential, temperamental, moral, ethical — is apparent…
I’ll give you temperamental, mostly because she resigned her governorship, which IMO is the biggest single obstacle to her getting elected to higher office (that might also be ethical as well). I’d also give you intellectual, at least on the basis of her poor interview with Katie Couric, but most of the other grounds that her harshest critics point to as proof of her stupidity tend to be vastly overwrought mischaracterizations (e.g., the Charlie Gibson interview, which was spun as a disaster when it really wasn’t) or complete myths (“I can see Russia from my house!”), and she more than held her own in the debate against Biden, who looked foolish by comparison. I might have also given you experiential before Obama got elected, but not now. As for moral, citations needed, as they say…
I think the Tea Party nuts are going to help Obama and Democrats in the long run because their mobile base is a minority even in their own party, but they are motivated enough to get out the vote and push their candidates to wins in the primaries. Now the general electorate isn’t going to put unqualified douche-wads in office especially since Palin is endorsing them.
From what I’ve seen, Palin is clearly the front-runner for the GOP nomination in ’12, there’s nobody even close. She’s in the public eye daily and actively pushing candidates and winning, at this point.
As for Palin holding her own against Biden– are you kidding me? She didn’t know a damn thing and every time she was asked a question she would say, “I don’t want to talk about that, let’s get back to energy”. When asked about her lack of foreign policy experience she answered Charlie Gibson, “You can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska”, what’s the difference Joe Mama?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXL86v8NoGk
Sandy..that’s a fine example of whistling past the graveyard. I consider myself lucky to have witnessed it…it will go down in the annals……..
Kenneth Stern #1 – fortunately for the US, too !
We will *know* that the Doom of Carter has settled upon Teh One when Teh Brendan acknowledges that Reagan policies and tax cuts brought in more *actual* revenue and shows those graphs, rather than the much over-used graphs which show that Congress creates or fixes the deficits rather than the Executive Branch …
When are you going to retire this trope? That argument is complete bunk. Q. E. D..
Probably when history changes. Given that history hasn’t changed, the point remains true. I could link to some of my own comments and put Q.E.D. at the end to, but that seems silly.
If you compare the marginal tax rate on top earners to government debt one will notice that when Reagan slashed the rate is the precise moment that the national debt began to spiral out of control. The rate that Obama has proposed is far less than the rate under Nixon and massively less than the rate under FDR or even Herbert Hoover, Calvin Coolidge and the rest of the Presidents in the “Roaring” twenties.
You know how else we know the Republican meme about cutting taxes being good for deficits is utter and complete bullshit. If this were actually true Germany would have forced Greece and Spain to cut their taxes in the face of a massive budget crisis. Yeah, not so much. Q.E.D. as it were.
dcl, I went through those arguments in the linked comments and used hard data to back up my points. Your counterpoint offers nothing of substance that hasn’t already been rebutted. GDP growth exploded under Reagan’s tax cuts. Unfortunately, so did discretionary spending, and in each budget, the Dems packed far more spending into the budget than requested by the Reagan administration. Had Reagan’s budgets been implemented as proposed, the budget could have been balanced in 1989 or so.
The argument that the high rates of GDP growth in the 1980s weren’t due to the tax cuts is hard to sustain. Paul Volcker clearly helped stabilize the economy and beat back inflation by jacking up interest rates, but high interest rates do not propel economic growth. Volcker stabilized the patient and got him off the respirator; Reagan provided the healing medicine that got the patient up and moving again.
The income gap also exploded. Real wages for average Americans have been flat since the oil crises in the 70’s but real wages for the rich have exploded since the Reagan tax cut.
Your point is basically that a tax cut for rich people is good for rich people. Wow, rocket science.
Also, what does GDP growth mean to real people on the street? Seriously, why are Republicans so obsessed with GDP growth? The real question is what is the quality of life for the average American.
dcl #11 – high GDP and high GDP growth correlates V ERY strongly with increasing prosperity for pretty much *everyone* ! (There ! I actually typed “*everyone*” !) …
Falling GDP correlates with falling standards of living – and, when it lasts long enough (cf Great CDepression), usually hits the poorest members of society hardest (the rich can cut back on lifestyle – the poor end up having to cut back on food) …
Class envy says “The real question is what is the quality of life for the average American.” …
The rational question for us is “The real question is what is the quality of life for any and all US residents ?” (when we are considering the US economy – it does, however, scale up (cf Great Depression)) … the quality of Life for the average American has been going up and up and up, in terms of lifespan as well as in terms of health as well as in terms of availability of and access too material things …
One of the literally bigger indicators of increasing prosperity for US residents is the significant increase in obesity … in the US, it used to be that the poor were folk who were starving (and visibly so) … nowadays, US poor are those who can’t afford cable, who can’t afford a cell-phone, who can’t afford name-brand clothing …
In sub-Saharan Africa, the poor have to forage for enough to eat …
With a high GDP, a country can afford to subsidise necessities of life, like food … its prosperous members can afford to donate voluntarily to those less fortunate …
So – to answer your question directly … “GDP growth” probably means very little to “real people on the street” – whereas the effects of GDP growth mean all sorts of positive and desirable things to real people o the street – and negative GDP growth usually tends towards increasing hardship for real people on the street …