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Saturday 21 November 2009

Holding out for a hero: GOP division.

Wednesday, 25th February 2009

I don't know why Bobby Jindal, the Republican party's Great Brown Hope, agreed to give the GOP response to Obama's speech last night. Supposedly a privilege, this more often turns out to be a fools errand. Indeed, the only successful opposition response I can recall in recent years was given by Senator Jim Webb. Generally, however, the poor sap offered the chance to go up against the President is on a hiding to nothing: the man in charge has the full majesty of his office behind him; the opposition spokesman sits in a wee room on their own waiting for their chance to give a speech no-one is very interested in anyway...

Even allowing for that, however, the reviews for Jindal are in and, eh, they're not so good. Brutal in fact. The governor of Louisiana might be well advised to keep to his promise of skipping the 2012 Presidential election. It would be silly to suppose that one poor TV performance - even a high-profile one - can damn him completely but worse than Jindal's delivery was his recitation of stale GOP talking points everyone has heard too often before and no-one wants to hear again.

So if wee Bobby is not the obvious GOP saviour - at least not yet - who is? Don't ask me, but I'd bet that the GOP can only be renewed in the states, not in Washington. This is not, I admit, an original thought. So step forward Jon Huntsman, former ambassador to Singapore and now governor of rock-red Utah. He is this week's trendy pick for Republican Renewal. And why not? Anyone who says stuff like this can't be all bad:

"I don't even know the congressional leadership," Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. told editors and reporters at The Washington Times, shrugging off questions about top congressional Republicans, including House Minority Leader John A. Boehner of Ohio and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. "I have not met them. I don't listen or read whatever it is they say because it is inconsequential - completely."

For sure and, as they say, for real. I'd also recommend this interview with Politico in which Huntsman talks about the importance of - gasp! -winning back the intelligentsia, as well as rethinking positions on the environment, science, gay marriage* etc etc. This is the sort of dangerously sensible thinking that can only lead the Republican party to recovery.

*Gov. Huntsman has endorsed civil unions for gay couples. In Utah. His popularity has, it's true, taken a hit: he now only has an 80% approval rating.

UPDATE: How bad was Jindal? Here's fellow Ragin' Cajun Rod Dreher:

Bobby Jindal was a total disappointment. He was badly over-rehearsed; Matthew, my kid, watched with me and said, "He sounds totally artificial. He sounds like a televangelist." I can't improve on that description. It sounded like that to me too.

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THX1138

February 25th, 2009 12:41pm Report this comment

I prefer Freddie - Another One Bites The Dust.

http://tinyurl.com/22rm57

It was truly awful, reminded me of that terrible McCain green screen acceptance speech he lost the election there and then.

Colbert in fine form.

http://www.comedycentral.com/videos/index.jhtml?videoId=180278

Conservative Cabbie

February 25th, 2009 1:42pm Report this comment

"also recommend this interview with Politico in which Huntsman talks about the importance of - gasp! -winning back the intelligentsia,"

What is the left's obsession with the intelligensia? It couldn't be, could it, that to justify their big government activism they need the ecientism of social sciences to interpret the world as needing activism. Or might it just be that in a world of falling sales for newspapers, journalists trying to make themselves more important than they actually are.

The left today are like pre-reformation catholics where only the 'intelligensia' (Bishops and priests) were able to interpret the will of God and subjugated the ordinary people to their will.

THX1138

February 25th, 2009 2:40pm Report this comment

I think my friend Cabbie is trying to change the subject from the excruciatingly bad performance of his man Bobby Jindal. So is your "early money" still on Jindal?

"What is the left's obsession with the intelligensia"

Cabbie I don't want to put words in Alex's mouth but he seems to me to represent the sane centre.

Craig Strachan

February 25th, 2009 3:10pm Report this comment

And what about Mitch McConnell sitting there like a stookie during the speech?

David

February 25th, 2009 3:13pm Report this comment

"What is the left's obsession with the intelligensia?"

Actually, the question is what do the right (as represented by the GOP at this time; the right in the UK and Europe do not for the most seemingly suffer from the same idiocy) have against intelligent people? They seem to think "university educated" is an insult. They consider science to be some sort of political conspiracy. That's very worrying.

"It couldn't be, could it, that to justify their big government activism they need the ecientism of social sciences to interpret the world as needing activism"

I would hope that those on the right would feel the need to justify their small government liberal approach to problems. I doubt one can do this in any meaningful sense (ie without recourse to "mom and apple pie") without reourse to people who have actually learnt things.

Conservative Cabbie

February 25th, 2009 5:27pm Report this comment

David

Thankyou for answering my question about the left's obsession with the 'intelligensia' because judging from your answer, it's about intellectual snobbery. I can't quite understand how you equate 'intelligensia' with "university educated"', those two things are entirely separate. The 'intelligensia' refers to an intellectual elite whose self proclaimed superiority is used as an "opiate of the masses" to persuade the uneducated commoners to their political agenda and to ensure that dissent is ridiculed by alluding to a lack of intelligence on the part of the dissenter.

The right have no problem with people being college educated, nor intellectualism, in fact, the American conservative movement since 1945 is primarily an intellectual movement, more so than in Europe. It's a movement based on the thinkings of Hayek, Friedman, Burke, Buckley, Strauss etc. Neo-conservatism originated with liberal intellectuals unhappy with the way the new-left, inspired by social science, mishandled LBJ's 'Great Society'.

At the core of right and left political thought, there is a fundamental philosophical difference. Left Wing thought, whether progressive or socialist, is entirely an abstract intellectual construct. Without the liberal philosophies of Locke, Rousseau or the historicism of Hegel and Marx, the left would have no underpinning base. Right wing thought however, whilst having been subjected to intellectual appraisal, derives it's philosophical foundations from it's heritage of the "democracy of the dead" and natural law. The right therefore value common-sense and judgement borne of experience as much as intellectual vigour whereas the left, dismissive of cultural experience can only confine themselves to intellectualism.

"I would hope that those on the right would feel the need to justify their small government liberal approach to problems"

You must be unaware of Hayek, Friedman, Nisbet, Nozick and a certain Adam Smith. That intellectual argument was made long ago. Hopefully you consider them "people who have actually learnt things". And no reference to Apple Pie either.

Hopefully, despite your "mom and apple pie" condescension, I have answered your questions.

ndm

February 25th, 2009 6:43pm Report this comment

-- So step forward Jon Huntsman, former ambassador to Singapore and now governor of rock-red Utah. He is this week's trendy pick for Republican Renewal.

A mormon son of a billionaire businessman. Woo hoo. Cry me a river, Mitt.

Wikipedia continues:

-- As governor, Huntsman lists economic development, health-care reform, education and energy security as his top priorities. He has overseen large tax cuts and has advocated reorganizing the way that services are distributed so they the government will not become overwhelmed by the state's fast growing population. Huntsman would like to expand health-care, mainly through the private sector, by using tax breaks and negotiation to keep prices down. He also advocates encouraging people with insurance to use it as preventive care. The governor also sees Utah as being uncompetitive with the rest of the nation in terms of securing the best teachers.

Seems all standard deadend Republican Party stuff to me. I particularly liked his thoughts on the expansion of healthcare "through the private sector" with costs contained by "negotiation to keep prices down."

What negotiation means in the private sector is that you get a letter through the mail informing you that Anthem Blue Cross understands you are concerned about rising health care costs so Anthem Blue Cross is doing everything it can to keep costs under control but unfortunately you will have a small premium increase of 30%. That is the reality of private healthcare in America today, not some fantastic Republican nirvana about "negotiation to keep the prices down."

ndm

February 25th, 2009 6:51pm Report this comment

The best comment I've seen about Obama's speech was from one of Andrew Sullivan's readers who thought at first that Obama was talking too fast then realised that Obama was talking normally and intelligently, not treating the audience as a bunch of morons.

Rod Dreher's kid nails it. Of course, if your party spends all day listening to the wildest fantasies of televangelists at some point your are going to start doing karaoke.

Craig Strachan

February 25th, 2009 6:59pm Report this comment

Yes, the Mormon thing doesn't play too well amongst the Southern Baptists who are the base of the GOP, these days.

They evidently find the notion of God inhabiting a physical body and living in conjugal bliss with his several wives on the plant Kolob to be unnacceptably heterodox.