Iowa's over, New Hampshire's on

[Ziggy Stardust]

No it isn't. Huntsman would cause the conservative branch to revolt, and it's not like Romney needs help getting Mormons to vote for him. Mitt's VP is going to be MORE conservative than him.

Please let it be Bachmann, please let it be Bachmann, please let it be ...

It won't be will it?

 

[IglooDame]

Please let it be Bachmann, please let it be Bachmann, please let it be ...

It won't be will it?

Politicians aren't the smartest critters in the world, but they aren't likely to make a mistake THAT big twice...

 

[downtown]

Please let it be Bachmann, please let it be Bachmann, please let it be ...

It won't be will it?

Nope . Possible candidates are Marco Rubio, Bob McDonnell, Bobby Jindal or the Gov of New Mexico whose name I cannot remember.

 

[luiz]

An interesting piece about the Republicans' dislike of Huntsman:

Whose side are you on, Jon Huntsman?

BEFORE it was clear whether Rick Perry would stay in the race or drop out, Erick Erickson, a conservative talking head for CNN and managing editor of Redstate.com, said, "If Rick Perry leaves the Republican race, there will not be a candidate in the field who authentically represents smaller government."

But what about Ron Paul?

For conventionally right-wing party stalwarts like Mr Erickson, Ron Paul doesn't count as real Republican, because of his principled anti-war stance. Of course, that makes him a more authentic representative of smaller government, war being the health of the state and all, but that's beside the point. The conservative tribe professes faith in smaller government, and it is membership in the tribe that determines the authenticity of one's devotion to the tribe's catechism. Ron Paul isn't really a member of the tribe, so he cannot "authentically represent smaller government". He may represent smaller government in fact, but not in the right way. As votes from the Iowa caucuses were being tallied, Mr Erickson saw fit to relate to his readers a rumour that "the Occupiers showed up for Ron Paul". You get the idea.

And what about Jon Huntsman? According to the Cato Institute's "Fiscal Report Card on America's Governors" in 2008, the last year Messrs Perry and Huntsman were graded together, they received identical scores, tying for fifth place. Pretty good, huh? Since Cato's report card "grades the governors on their fiscal performance from a limited-government perspective", one wonders why Mr Perry but not Mr Huntsman is considered an authentic champion of smaller government. Indeed, Mr Huntsman's classically-conservative wariness of foreign entanglements in general, and his case for ending the conflict in Afghanistan in particular, contrast dramatically with Mr Perry's eagerness to revive the American occupation of Iraq, and suggest a rather more principled commitment to smaller government. Again, it all comes down to standing in the conservative tribe.

Long ago, Mr Erickson said he won't support Jon Huntsman ever because...well, here:

"While serving as the United States Ambassador to China, our greatest strategic adversary, Jon Huntsman began plotting to run against the President of the United States. This calls into question his loyalty not just to the President of the United States, but also his loyalty to his country over his own naked ambition."
Whatever you think of this, it has nothing whatsoever to do with Mr Huntsman's commitment to smaller government, does it?

In the comments to a follow-up post Mr Erickson explains himself further:

"Loyalty is a primary issue for me and there need be no further evidence that he is disloyal.It’s not a big issue in this day and age when we turn everything into partisan issues, but I guess I’m a bitter clinger to the way things used to be."
According to Jonathan Haidt, a professor of psychology at the University of Virginia, in-group loyalty plays a much larger role in the moral judgments of conservatives than those of liberals. I don't mean to question Mr Erickson's judgment about Mr Huntsman's loyalty so much as point to it as a fairly representative expression of the conservative id operating precisely as Mr Haidt's studies describe.

Now, I doubt many conservatives think Mr Huntsman was disloyal to America, as Mr Erickson charges. But I do think he is widely seen as a man of questionable loyalty. If you're like me, Mr Huntsman's willingness to set aside partisanship and serve in a Democratic administration, in spite of his high political aspirations, argues in favour of his loyalty to the country. But if you're like me you're not a conservative, and you don't really care that much about loyalty. Rock-ribbed conservatives I think see it like this: By agreeing to serve as ambassador to China under Barack Obama, Mr Huntsman picked a side, and it wasn't the side of the conservative tribe. And then he flaked on the Obama administration in order to run for president as a Republican. This how I read Mr Erickson's denunciation of Mr Huntsman: "Are you crazy, Huntsman? You want back in? Now? No. Forget about it. You're dead to us."

This leaves Mr Erickson, and millions of like-minded conservatives, in the odd position of preferring even Newt Gingrich, a man who has been disloyal to more than one wife. Indeed, a latter-day Dostoyevsky would be hard-pressed to imagine a nakeder embodiment of ambition than Newt Gingrich. Still, he's an honoured elder of the tribe. Meanwhile, an experienced fiscal-conservative governor with an outstanding grasp of foreign affairs who would stand an outstanding chance of defeating Barack Obama in the general election languishes in the polls.

In other words, good work Mr President.

http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2012/01/republican-nomination-2

 

[Murky]

I have more faith in N.H. to pick a good candidate than Iowa even though the pickings are rather slim.

 

[Cutlass]

With the possible exception of Paul, none of them have "small government" cred to begin with. Virtually no conservative does. Small government is antithetical to what conservatism stands for.

 

[IglooDame]

With the possible exception of Paul, none of them have "small government" cred to begin with. Virtually no conservative does. Small government is antithetical to what conservatism stands for.

Social conservatism, I agree, fiscal conservatism, I disagree.

 

[downtown]

Huntsman has small govt credibility.

 

[Cutlass]

Social conservatism, I agree, fiscal conservatism, I disagree.

Not even that, really. How much does the "war on drugs" cost? How much does the "war on terror" cost? How much does the "war on illegal immigration" cost? How much does "three strikes criminal sentencing" cost? How much does gold plating the entire defense procurement process cost? And all of that is not even counting the penny wise pound foolish policies of crippling welfare and education, and then spending dozens of times more money per person later on for prisons. Bush's $6trillion in debt was a bit over 1/3 his tax cuts, and 2/3 his spending increases. And similar numbers were true of Reagan. And the only significant expansion of social programs under Bush was the Medicare drug benefit, which they declined to make provision to pay for. No one who is legitimately fiscally conservative is going to run up those deficits in the first place. Because then you're just adding interest payments on top of other expenses. Yet almost no one calling themselves fiscal conservatives are talking about how much they are going to increase taxes by. Even if you end all the programs they claim to want to end, they are not going to be in balance without tax increases.

I can't think of a single "fiscal conservative" in the Republican party who is actually planning to managing the country in the interests of the taxpayer in the long haul.

 

[kochman]

Not even that, really. How much does the "war on drugs" cost?

That's clearly social conservatism, not fiscal...

How much does the "war on terror" cost?

This is both bipartisan and not fiscally conservative... more Neo-con, which is, again, bipartisan.

How much does the "war on illegal immigration" cost?

Again, social more than fiscal.

How much does "three strikes criminal sentencing" cost?

I think this also falls under social more than fiscal... because its goal is to keep bad elements off the streets to further harm the general public.

How much does gold plating the entire defense procurement process cost?

This is bipartisan, not sure if I would call it fiscal conservatism... fiscal conservatism means spending as little as possible on only the necessary... this is about greasing palms, however either side paints it...

And all of that is not even counting the penny wise pound foolish policies of crippling welfare and education, and then spending dozens of times more money per person later on for prisons.

Ok, this is social conservatism...

Bush's $6trillion in debt was a bit over 1/3 his tax cuts, and 2/3 his spending increases.

You are clearly attributing some of Obama's debt to Bush... we don't have to use messed up stats to show that Bush was not a social conservative.

And the only significant expansion of social programs under Bush was the Medicare drug benefit, which they declined to make provision to pay for.

Because it was not fiscally conservative.

No one who is legitimately fiscally conservative is going to run up those deficits in the first place.

Bush wasn't, so you are right.

I can't think of a single "fiscal conservative" in the Republican party who is actually planning to managing the country in the interests of the taxpayer in the long haul.

Maybe Ron Paul... who I do not support... despite his fiscal conservatism... the insane parts of his ideas just freak me out too much.

 

[Traitorfish]

Picking apart "social" and "fiscal" conservatism like this, as if they were something that you signed up to independently, rather than something which derives from a more fundamental philosophical orientation, is a pretty useless way to analyse political orientation. They only function as abstractions, a conceptual distinction made between aspects of an ideological totality, not as intersecting essences. Frankly, the only function of this mode of analysis seems to be excusing a grudging alliance with blatantly repugnant entities. (And that's aside form the No True Scotsman character of so many discussions of "fiscal conservatism", in which it ceases to describe a conservative stance applied to fiscal policy, and becomes a specific set of policies that are related to conservatism as such only through a vague, limited, regional correlation.)

Point being, that Cutlass is making a criticism of conservatism as an existing political tendency, rather than as some abstract ideal that can be chopped up and rearranged as convenient. So all this "that's X not Y" stuff is effectively a failure, or perhaps a refusal, to respond to that criticism, rather than a genuine response.

 

[Murky]

Why can't you be a social conservative if you have conservative values but you don't see any reason to impose them on others? Nobody gets truly converted by force (they might say yes and really mean hell no). Why would you try to make your social values into laws?

 

[Cutlass]

Why can't you be a social conservative if you have conservative values but you don't see any reason to impose them on others? Nobody gets truly converted by force (they might say yes and really mean hell no). Why would you try to make your social values into laws?

There are people like that. Few of them are in politics these days.

 

[kochman]

Picking apart "social" and "fiscal" conservatism like this, as if they were something that you signed up to independently, rather than something which derives from a more fundamental philosophical orientation, is a pretty useless way to analyse political orientation. They only function as abstractions, a conceptual distinction made between aspects of an ideological totality, not as intersecting essences. Frankly, the only function of this mode of analysis seems to be excusing a grudging alliance with blatantly repugnant entities. (And that's aside form the No True Scotsman character of so many discussions of "fiscal conservatism", in which it ceases to describe a conservative stance applied to fiscal policy, and becomes a specific set of policies that are related to conservatism as such only through a vague, limited, regional correlation.)

Point being, that Cutlass is making a criticism of conservatism as an existing political tendency, rather than as some abstract ideal that can be chopped up and rearranged as convenient. So all this "that's X not Y" stuff is effectively a failure, or perhaps a refusal, to respond to that criticism, rather than a genuine response.

This is only right in a very small way...
People are not so black and white that they can only have 1 set of beliefs... another way of putting it... why would you expect people to be fully consistent? Do you find conservatism to be fully consistent anyhow?

It is very easy to pick apart social and fiscal conservatives.

Mike Huckabee was a social conservative, fiscal liberal (compared to the rest of the party anyhow), as was Bush...

Conservatives from the NE are often socially liberal (again, compared to the rest of the party), and fiscally conservative.

It is a perfectly fine dichotomy.

 

[Cutlass]

The point is that just about all the people claiming to be fiscal conservatives spend money like drunken sailors when they get the chance and run up deficits. So someone like Jon Boehner claims to be a fiscal conservative, but he worked to put $6trillion of debt on the books. And is still working to put debt on the books.

There is no circumstances under which a fiscal conservative would support continuing the Bush tax cuts. Much less even deeper tax cuts. So they prove that they are not really fiscally conservative.

 

[amadeus]

Huntsman has small govt credibility.

Utah state budget increased from $16.7 to $22.8 billion.

 

[NickyJ]

70% reporting.

Mitt Romney: 60,406 - 38%
Ron Paul: 37,402 - 23.5%
Jon Huntsman: 26,457 - 16.7%

Oh, yeah! "This is a wide-open race still." Yeeeaaah! You called it Huntsman. You really did. Yup.

 

[Archbob]

Paul is doing better than I thought he would. I had him at 18-20%.

 

[Ajidica]

Poor Santorum, doing worse then Newt.

 

[downtown]

Utah state budget increased from $16.7 to $22.8 billion.

Utah's population also spiked. It has remained one of the most "business friendly" states, and has succeeded in keeping payroll and benefits down for state employees, compared to it's peers.

Their refusal to spend comparable money on things like their university system is starting to come back to haunt them, but there aren't many other states that have a better budget/low spending record than Utah.

Huntsman is also dropping out tomorrow.