2012: Heeeeeeere's Sarah

I don't often agree with Tony Blankley, but he's right that Sarah Palin is far from "washed up" despite her resignation as Alaska's governor (she actually got a boost among Republicans by quitting). While it's doubtful she will be the Republican standard bearer in 2012, with the inevitable talk show on Fox or CNN, a huge campaign chest, and hundreds of grateful GOP candidates from U.S. Senators to dog-catchers, she may be in position by then to determine who is.

From here, it's difficult to see how Palin has hurt herself, except with people who already disdain her. No longer "part of the problem" as an incumbent politico, she'll be free to scurry from fund-raiser to fund-raiser piling up truck-loads of dough as she rails against big government. Conservative candidates at every level will be indebted for the cash and attention she'll win them in 2010. In 2012, well-funded and with a hard-core following, she will be key to the success of the eventual nominee -- whether it's Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee or, as I fear, despite his high negatives, Newt Gingrich -- who will have to court her if he wants to hold on to the base. None of the other GOP presidential wannabes connects with the paranoid Right with the intensity of Sarah Palin. They adore her. As a result, she may more than influence the final outcome of the GOP competition; she may be the kingmaker.

For the nonce, a Rasmussen poll finds Palin in a virtual tie for Republican affections with Romney and Huckabee  (although her negatives are much higher than theirs). Romney is fully up to the job of sacrificial lamb, the next Walter Mondale or Bob Dole, but even though, currently, he seems to offend the fewest members of his party, it's difficult to picture him as the GOP standard bearer, if, as seems likely, the party appears to have a real shot at winning. Barring some unforeseen scandal, I think it will come down to Huckabee vs Gingrich; the former Arkansas governor wouldn't gain much from adding Palin to his ticket, but the slick ex-speaker sure would. And Palin's most likely path to the Oval Office is still through Number One Observatory Circle.

Gingrich-Palin 2012.* You read it here first.

Haven't had enough?: Part 2 of Sarah Palin's resignation press conference.

Update: another non-obituary of Sarah Palin -- She Broke the G.O.P. and Now She Owns It by Frank Rich (NYTimes).

Update: fortunately for us, we have Conan O'Brian and William Shatner to decipher Palin's speech:

* As a prophylactic, I thought I might register some urls. Guess what. Gingrich-Palin.com, GingrichPalin.com, GingrichPalin2012.com, and a host of other combinations are being husbanded by entrepreneurial types (or, possibly, political cranks)  in places like Tampa and Scottsdale. You've been warned.

2008: The case for John Edwards' universal health care plan

Of the Democratic candidates, John Edwards has offered the most thorough (this is drawn from a piece by Timothy Noah in Slate, with which I agree) -- and the most progressive -- program for achieving universal national health.

Paul Krugman, who showed in an essay in the New York Review of Books ("The Health Care Crisis and What To Do About It") how far the current health-care debate misses the mark, gave Edwards' health-care plan thumbs up in a February column in the Times ("Edwards Gets It Right").

When the Democratic presidential candidates gathered in Las Vegas in March to debate health care, Marc Cooper of The Nation reported that Edwards' speech was the standout (see also, Impractical Proposals, 2008: Seven Democratic Presidential Candidates Debate Health Care), showing up both Clinton's program to save the insurance industry and Obama's bland assurances that something would be done (Obama's eventual proposal, while an admirable effort at political counter-punching, is not very well thought out; meanwhile, the only candidate who actually endorses single-payer, the commonsensical approach to providing health care of our international rivals, is Dennis Kucinich, who typically is short on the nuts and bolts of making it work).

William F. Buckley doesn't like Edwards' plan, a further indication that Edwards is on to something.

With his focus on poverty, universal health care, and immediate and complete withdrawal from Iraq, Edwards is well to the left of the other major contenders for the Democratic nomination; this is why, I'm guessing, his is virtually the only name I hear when ordinary citizens discuss politics out here, 3,000 miles from the Beltway and the Manhattan media; the situation strikes me as very similar to 2004 when one candidate (Kerry/Clinton) had been anointed by the Democratic establishment because he/she "can win" (momentum? moderation? money? -- I forget now what the reason was) and another (Dean/Obama) had captured the imagination of the romantics in the party because he promised change without pain.

(While there's no likelihood Obama will implode in a fit -- of passion, exaltation, outrage or any other emotion -- as Dean did, he is also about as likely to become president as Kucinich; out here in the boonies, take it for what it's worth, there is a strong feeling that Sen. Clinton -- momentum, moderation, money and whatnot notwithstanding -- cannot win; it's not that we wish her ill -- we're as stupified as you are by the prospect that the Oval Office might next be occupied by Newt Gingrich or someone of his ilk; on the contrary, we long with all our hearts for a real Democrat, at long last; it's just that we think it has been clear since Reagan beat Carter that, with the exception of charismatic Bill Clinton's runs -- Elvis Presley cast against the political equivalents of Dennis Weaver and Walter Brennan, the Democrats can't win as GOP lite.)

Asides aside, when it comes to health care, Edwards' liberalism, in addition to the nostalgic bonus of causing Buckley, the WSJ, Forbes, et al, to see "Red," is good for the campaign. As Noah writes, this is one debate that needs to shift leftward.

Despite the fact that it will probably be seen only by Democratic primary voters -- if nothing else, that may have the benefit of making it harder for Sen. Clinton to bloviate about the issue, despite its merits Michael Moore's Sicko by itself won't be enough to do the job of forcing the next Congress to take up universal health care (partly because the movie doesn't engender sympathy for the program's natural political allies in the business community).

But at least Moore's movie will help to keep the issue percolating through November 2008. And it should help to forestall efforts by "moderates" in Congress to pass an industry-backed "reform" of the current health-care setup as a way to block the adoption of a truly universal single-payer system.

To get back to specifics, then, how does the Edwards plan measure up? Here, in Edwardscare: A Trojan Horse, is what Noah finds.

2008: Non-candidate Fred Thompson #1 with Republican voters

So shallow is the GOP bench that non-announced candidate Fred Thompson now leads in the polls. Thompson, sometime senator, sometime actor, sometime lobbyist, sometime simple country lawyer and all-time blowhard, has turned vaporous politics, folksiness and a non-threatening sex-appeal into a serious shot at the presidency.

Call him the Republican Barack Obama.

Rudy Giuliani still manages to grip second place with a campaign targeted squarely on appeals to the "be afraid" crowd. He's also holding his own in fund-raising, though its hard to see how an unlikeable, cross-dressing, thrice-married, baby-killing social moderate can last through the convention, no matter how many times he cites 9/11.

Cult member Mitt Romney edges out hapless John McCain for third place, but Romney has had to loan money to his campaign in order to stay viable, while cash-poor McCain is reduced to laying off staff and curbing appearances. McCain has apparently decided to revert to the Iowa-New Hampshire-South Carolina boost strategy that became moot the moment the big states moved up their primary dates to get in on all that campaign dough.

Likable Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee leads the also-rans and might even have a shot but for the prospect of late and later entrances by Thompson and non-stop speaker Newt Gingrich.

According to Rasmussen Reports:

After weeks of turmoil and change, the race for the Republican Presidential nomination has stabilized.

Former Tennessee Senator Fred Thompson remains on top in Rasmussen Reports national polling with 27% support. That's unchanged from a week ago. Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani is three points behind at 24%.

Thompson has a 16-point advantage over Giuliani among conservatives while Giuliani holds an even larger edge among moderate voters. However, in the race for the Republican Presidential nomination, there are always more conservative voters than moderates.

A separate survey found that Thompson is currently viewed as the most conservative of all GOP candidates. Giuliani remains the best liked candidate. Seventy-four percent (74%) of Republicans now have a favorable opinion of America's Mayor. Thompson's numbers among the GOP faithful have been moving in the opposite direction. Sixty-four percent (64%) of GOP voters have a favorable opinion of the actor while just 12% have an unfavorable view.

This week's national GOP poll also finds former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney with a one-point edge over Arizona Senator John McCain for the fourth time in six weeks. Romney and McCain were tied during the other two weeks. Now, the numbers are 13% for Romney and 12% for McCain.

Romney is viewed favorably by 58% of Republican voters while 30% have a less flattering opinion. McCain is viewed favorably by 55% and unfavorably by 40% of Republicans.

Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee is atop the second tier at 3%. Six other candidates--Senator Sam Brownback, Congressman Ron Paul, Congressman Tom Tancredo, former Governor Tommy Thompson, Congressman Duncan Hunter, and former Governor Jim Gilmore split 4% of the vote. Eighteen percent (18%) are not sure.

2008: Newt's a beaut

Since we can expect the Republican Party will find it expedient to look for its nominee outside the current covey of self-declared bush league White House wannabes, we should consider keeping track of Newt Gingrich and Fred Thompson. Here, to get us started, is a tasty bit of racism from this year's gathering of the Conservative Political Action Committee:

"How can you have the mess we have in New Orleans, and not have had deep investigations of the federal government, the state government, the city government, and the failure of citizenship in the Ninth Ward, where 22,000 people were so uneducated and so unprepared, they literally couldn't get out of the way of a hurricane."

Aside from what it suggests about how "uneducated" Newt is -- the people of the Ninth were not done in by wind and rain but by the failure of inadequately funded levees, the ex-speaker's remark is a classic example of the American ruling class' familiar stratagem of misdirecting attention from its own misdeeds by blaming the victims of its policies.

Because Gingrich appears loathsome to most progressives, they underestimate his chances. In polling at CPAC 2007, for example, even though Gingrich is undeclared, he came in a strong fourth, narrowly trailing Romney, Giuliani and Brownback. More interestingly, Gingrich tied Giuliani as the attendees' second choice. If the Democrats don't choose their candidate wisely, in 2008 he could be the nation's first choice.