The victory of dark horse Joseph Cao over the incumbent William Jefferson in a Louisiana Congressional race is instructive. There’s much consternation these days among Republicans, or at least Republican pundits, about “the future of the GOP.” There should be less God. No, the social issues are the one thing that is working. Republicans should return to “core principles” (which are?) ; no, we need to reinvent Republican ideology. We should get better technology; no, that won’t solve the problem. Meanwhile, Cao — like Saxby Chambliss — won. In Cao’s case, it wasn’t easy. And the Democrats did in fact pull out all the stops to save the indicted Jefferson.
Republicanism wasn’t reinvented by Cao, and Chambliss didn’t suddenly revolutionize the GOP’s technology. So why did they win, and what does this tell us about the future of the GOP? For starters, Obama wasn’t on the ticket driving the other party’s turnout sky high. But it also suggests that far too much time is spent chattering in the abstract. Sometimes the punditry is down right unintelligible — even with charts. Races aren’t won in the abstract, they are won by specific candidates, with identifiable issues, in real places.
So Republicans should start from the premise that they need attractive, viable candidates in all races–even ones in which the opponent is heavily funded. Then it matters what type of candidates the Republicans field. It is not that Bobby Jindal or Tim Pawlenty, to take two examples, are saying anything so different from John McCain. But they are saying it better, with more clarity, more persuasively. They are younger, more compelling figures. And let’s be frank — to compete for votes in an increasingly diverse electorate, Republicans need more minorities, entrepreneurs, women, and younger people to run for office.
That doesn’t mean the message or ideas aren’t important. They are, very much so. But we shouldn’t confuse intellectual banter and intriguing political discussion for effective electoral politics. The latter requires compelling ideas plus compelling messengers. Let’s remember that, without Barack Obama, the Democrats would have been running purely on failed McGovernism.
Which brings us to a final point: it helps if the other side screws up. Would we have had Ronald Reagan without Jimmy Carter or Barack Obama without George W. Bush? It’s questionable. (And as compelling a figure as Cao is, he likely wouldn’t have won if he hadn’t been running against an indicted opponent whose claim to fame was stacks of bills in his freezer.) If you illustrate the other side’s errors and refrain from blurring the differences or providing political cover, that helps. But sometimes there is little the other side can do if the the incumbent performs well. Eight years of a successful Reagan presidency delivered four more years of GOP rule, even with a Republican candidate who did not have superb political talents.
So while the Republicans are searching for good ideas and rebuilding their reserve of alternative legislative proposals, they should be searching for more Joseph Cao-like figures–and hoping President Obama resembles Carter more than Reagan.
Jonathan, hate to break it to you, but Obama does not intend to do anything about Iran’s nukes. He doesn’t care, and to those who do, he can blame Bush for the problem, with some credibility.
Its up to Israel to blow the nuke plant up, or Iran is a nuclear power. Simple as that.
I wish it were that simple, Les Grossman. Unfortunately, blowing up the plant at Bushehr won’t prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear power. The best Israel can do, strictly in terms of destroying Iranian capabilities, is delay Iran, probably for no more than 1-2 years.
Israel may come to think that is better than nothing. She’s probably pretty close to it now. (Although I have to say, the difficulty Israelis are having putting a new government together doesn’t seem to indicate focus or unity of vision.)
As I’ve mentioned before, Israel may ultimately consider a serious Hail-Mary her only option: attack Iran in the expectation that the US will have to come in and stabilize the situation with military force. Unfortunately, we haven’t elected a president whose advisors will think critically and with vision about that, or anything else in this scenario — and get out ahead of it. We can expect to be in reactive mode for the next four years, at least.
We may have to go to war down the road with Iran. If so, then doing this dirty business will be a lot easier once our commitment in Iraq is finished. We have to get the standing military freed up from this old obligation so that we have a free hand to tackle pending crises in the world to come. Fighting Iran won’t be as easy as beating down Saddam’s tired old military and regime. There will be serious casulaties in a Persian campaign. Therefore, we don’t need an additional rear guard action of having to deal with Iraq’s Shia population while engaging militarily with Iran. Perhaps we can do both, but I doubt any military planners find this scenario to be an attractive option.
Alas, Obama’s understanding of the nature of military force — the ability to project it a distance, the logistics involved, the complex chess game of resource allocation — is neatly encapsulated in his remarks on the campaign trail about “the bomb the Japanese dropped on Pearl Harbor.” It is evident that military history played no part in his formation — or rather, that he acquired a massive amount of misinformation about it along the way.
We are facing an existential threat in the twin forms of the Iranian nuclear weapons program and the Iranian multi-stage missile program.
The intent is not to incinerate Israel, nor even to incinerate an American city; the goal is to detonate a nuclear weapon in low-Earth orbit over the continental US, initiating an Electromagnetic Pulse.
This has been the plan all along, and we are fooling ourselves that this is Achmedinijad’s plan. This has been a Russian maskirovka plan. Vladimir Putin is the one who has been shovelling the resources into the Iranian nuclear program, all to use Iran as a proxy for an attack on the electronic infrastructure of the US.
And, you stop and ask yourself this question: What will this inexperienced BOY in the White House do when the Iranians pull this off?
Answer? NOTHING. Why? Because right at the time of the Iranian EMP attack on the US, he will be on the phone with Vladimir Putin, who will lay it on the line that a nuclear attack on Iran will trigger a Russian nuclear exchange with the US, and that if Israel hits Iran, Putin will declare it the same as an attack on Russia proper.
So you know what the VERY few people in the US with functioning electronics will see on the news? The Iranian EMP attack, followed up by an appearance by the Magic Muslim Messiah proclaiming that the US will NOT respond to the attack, and Israel will be under warning that if they attack Iran, the United States will attack Israel.
Putin is the one who will pull off the attack on the US that Lenin, Stalin, Kruschev, Brezhnev, Andropov, Chernenko and Gorbachev planned and planned but never attempted. Why?
Putin KNOWS there is a BOY in the White House.
And, with the above posting, I finally realize why President Bush never moved against the Iranian nuclear weapons program:
RUSSIA.
Putin laid it on the table long ago that an attack on the RUSSIAN nuclear weapons program in Iran would be considered an American attack on Russia. This is also why President Bush did not move to halt the Russian removal of Iraqi chemical and biological weapons and manufacturing assets into Syria during the lead-up into the Second Gulf War.
General Sada was absolutely correct that it was the Russians helping their former Soviet satellite get their WMDs out of the country.
President Bush accepted the role of scapegoat because he knew what damage Putin had in mind. Georgia was an additional warning. Russia will attack us, using proxies, just like they have done since the bad old days of the Soviet Union.
Putin is a Soviet dictator. Wanna come shoot me too, Vlad?
I wish to add a bit to what Mr. Seta wrote above.
About a decade ago, military planners considered the future to be one of the U.S. fighting two wars simultaneously. So, for a while, the plan was to have a military strong enough to do that. Unfortunately, two simultaneous wars became, in the planning stages anyway, too expensive. Military planners then adopted a fight, hold, fight approach. The U.S. would fight the first war, win enough to hold the enemy, and then fight the second war.
In a very real way, that’s what we have here. We have, for all intents and purposes, won in Iraq. We can hold our own there for now. What’s more, we are ideally located to fight Iran if need be. So, given the plans of the past, fighting Iran, while we are still in Iraq, should be do-able. I don’t see that the U.S. is not to the task. At least, we should be.
To add weight to my words, let’s recall a quote from Admiral Fallon about Iran (see http://www.esquire.com/features/fox-fallon):
‘ And if it comes to war?
“Get serious,” the admiral says. “These guys are ants. When the time comes, you crush them.” ‘
Iran is not a military problem for engagement, but it is a political problem for engagement, as others have noted.
As much as we’d all like to believe that Israel could deal a death blow to Iran’s nuclear ambitions, J.E. brings up- it’s a point, J.E., you’ve elaborated on in the past- that Israel will need the U.S. to get involved. Israel will have to, to be blunt, drag the U.S. in against its will.
Of course, with Bush in the White House such a shrewd and ruthless planning might have worked. J.E. wonders if Obama can be moved to see the imperative of getting involved in such a conflict.
Instead, Obama has chosen only to project power in Afghanistan, even if he doesn’t know how to accomplish anything there. For Obama, only the planning ground of the 9/11 attack(the only Islamist terror attack he seems to aware of) is a kind of consecrated ground on which the U.S.
can fight the war on – what is it now?- those who even ACORN can’t organize.
Basically Iran has free reign to do whatever it wants in the region. Obama has made it clear through his actions that Iran is a backburner issue and we will never go to war with them, unless the nuke something first.
Jonathan, where have you been?
“At some point … Obama is going to have to make a decision….” Newsflash old boy.
Obama MADE THAT DECISION a long time ago.
Don’t you recall Biden meeting with an Israeli GOVERNMENT delegation PRIOR to the election, where he unceremoniously informed them they had to reconcile themselves to the Iranian bomb.
Where the hell have you been?
All of us need to knock off the fantasy land dialogue about the Obama administration’s deliberations on the issue. They’re DETERMINED to allow Iran to go nuke. They see it as a national aspiration of the entirety of the Iranian people. They don’t even feel they have any moral right or standing to impede their pursuit of nuclear weaponry.
Not just are they going to stand on the sidelines as Iran goes nuke, they are going to move heaven and earth to make sure Israel doesn’t take any action to slow down Iran on their nuclear path.
It’s real simple here people.
Tehran is going to go nuke.
Europe isn’t going to do spit about it.
Obama’s administration isn’t going to do spit about it.
The Arabs aren’t going to do spit about it.
China and Russia are HELPING Tehran go nuke.
And Israel isn’t going to be able, on their own, to take down and out a Manhattan project spread throughout Iran.
Which means Iran is going nuke.
I think it is difficult to know exactly what Obama would do and I don’t take too much from what he has done so far to know exactly what we would do. I believe poster JP is a little too far out. Russia is not in that position unless they risk suicide – they might threaten and boast, but they aren’t going to do anything about it, because they are pretty hollowed out. If Iran did what was suggested – Iran would be done quickly, presuming our electronics are not as reliable that just means we hit everything that moves and then nothing is left of Iran. Russia wouldn’t llft a finger because what that means is we have a better excuse to do some military exercises with Georgia and Ukraine. Putin doesn’t want that, and his country is broke besides. Now could Obama be bluffed? My initial reaction is yes, but maybe not.
I can hope that Obama isn’t talking much about Iran precisely because he doesn’t want to draw attention to the subject. I don’t think we know enough to tell. He very well might want Israel to take it out so he can continue to vote present.
Well, if we are going to envision crazy scenarios how about this. The Iranians go nuclear. Obama, being the anti-Bush, withdraws from Iraq and peels away from Israel (though maybe he makes a Potemkin village show of Afghanistan). Iran menaces Israel, but mainly to cover her real intent which is domination of the Saudis and Gulf states and their oil wealth (not to mention Mecca and Medina). Russia cheerleads, thinking she can benefit as well.
What happens in the vacuum left by Obama? Do the Saudis and Gulf states just knuckle under? Is a tacit alliance between them and Israel with its military might an impossibility? On whose side does China come down? (Of course everyone would write off the Europeans).
Rick — there is no real vacuum left by Obama in your scenario. International power politics abhors a vacuum. Russia would be into it faster than you can say Do svedanya. Russia’s already hopping on one foot waiting for Obama to present her the vacuum, wrapped in a bow.
Obama is reflecting the american public for whom iran and their nuclear power plant is not at all an issue.
he is not reflecting certain lobbyists interests like the last president.
that’s what he is supposed to do
Lester, you only see what you want to see, which is why you are blind. If you think the US has no interest in Iran not going nuclear, you are a fool.
Just to probe one thing that Rick throws out, might some sort of tacit alliance emerge between Israel and the Gulf States? It seems that Obama isn’t all that spooked by the mullahs having a bomb, but the sheikhs have to be terrified, what with Iran’s interest in both their oil and in stirring up their Shiite populations. If the Gulf states had counted on the U.S. preventing Iran from getting the bomb, they can’t possibly detect Obama’s resolve, much less rely on it.
I think the Iranian issue is pretty much already decided. I think the most likely reason why Bush didn’t attack Iran or allow Israel to attack Iran was that Iran already has a WMD deterrent that could kill thousands of US troops in Iraq. I find it amazing that those who were all certain that Iraq had WMDs seem to not even think about the fact that Iran which hasn’t had weapons inspectors, or daily over flights of their territory by US planes, might have a WMD.
There really isn’t much that we could do even if we wanted to anyway. If we attacked Iran hitting enough targets to seriously slow Iran’s nuclear capability it would make Iran a failed state and send thousands of murderous Iranians into Iraq, doubtlessly pulling it down into the a failed state. If you think the economy is bad now, add $200 barrels of oil into the mix.
Kind of makes you wonder whether it was such a great idea to invade Iraq and threaten regime change in Iran, totally removing any deterrent to Iran’s ambitions to get nuclear weapons.
Don’t you guys get it?
The former President sold us collectively down the river.
The price for the success of the surge was a tacit, unacknowledged yielding on the question of Iran going nuke.
So for his personal legacy, so for his war in Iraq, THE WIDER issue, the issue of American security, which extends beyond the issue of Iraq, was compromised all towards the end of pacifying Iraq.
So the Iranians stopped supporting terror in Iraq as much as they might, and in return, they get to go nuke, ——————————— which puts New York City and Washington at risk.
That’s Bush’s legacy, and history is going to damn him far more than it ever damned Chamberlain.
Bush’s reputation before the bar of history is going to fall like nothing has fallen since the fall of Carthage, and deservedly so.
THE SOLE ISSUE that history is going to judge his tenure is the issue of Iran going nuke, and on that issue, he failed, FAILED MISERABLY.
#10 Dan: You have it totally correct.
The only hope of stopping Iran — and it was a small one at that — was the election of McCain. At a minimum, it would have made the Iranians think twice, and certainly would have deterred them from attacking Israel.
The horribile corollory is that, once armed, Iran will attack and destroy Israel. Obama knows that, and cares not.
Shame on all those who say they want Israel to survive but voted for him.
Dan – if you think that Iran wasn’t going to try and go nuclear if we had not gone into Iraq, I think you are a little off. No way to make that leap outside of a belief, and more indicators would suggest they were going to do regardless, albeit I will admit there is no way to know for sure.
Bush’s legacy, will be better than you think. He spent too much domestically, but was wise in foreign policy.
15- I don’t hear anyone talking about it at the water coolers or on tv or really anywhere except here and that’s because this is a far right pro israel site. commentarys concerns are not mainstream americas concerns anymore. deal with it