Republicans to try circular firing squad?

Right now the presidential campaign news is dominated by the Democratic race in general and the Obama-Clinton angle in particular, but I can see the Republican side flaring up and, for a change, becoming the more volatile race of the two. It certainly could be more fascinating because we haven’t seen a good nomination campaign on the Republican side in quite some time; at least as of now there is nobody filling the George W. Bush role from 1999, raising so much money compared to the rest that most of the other candidates who last until the primary are unrealistic oddballs like Steve Forbes, Alan Keyes and Gary Bauer. This time it wouldn’t be surprising to see a number of serious candidates staying in past the first couple primaries and caucuses, Giuliani, McCain, Mitt Romney, perhaps Pataki or Tommy Thompson, and whoever emerges from the conservative wing, whether it’s Brownback or somebody else.

Electoral cycles are quirky for a number of reasons. For the Republicans in many recent elections, they have had the luxury of railing against the Democrats' record in office, whether it was Congress before the Gingrich takeover or the Clinton presidency before Bush. Apart from Dole’s campaign ’96 or the 2000 race, the Republicans have usually had an incumbent or sitting vice president in the race. Now Republican candidates are in the unfortunate position of having to criticize their party’s own record if they want to lay out a unique set of proposals for the campaign; the Democratic Congress is unlikely to do enough in the next year for them to spin much campaign hay out of it. That creates a natural rift between whoever is crazy enough to stay loyal to the Bush record and others more openly critical of the administration's handling of Iraq, the budget, Katrina and other things. Plus, apart from Dole’s campaigns in ’92 and ’96, the Republicans have usually had an incumbent or sitting vice president in the race.

While the Democrats’ play out a tedious chess match over the minutiae of who opposes the Iraq war to what extent, the Republicans may soon take over the front pages once the candidates start to engage each other. For now, as Juan Williams suggested Friday on NPR, McCain may have a strategy of ignoring Giuliani in the expectation that he will turn out not to be a serious contender when the primaries approach, but as of now, that non-serious contender is leading in the polls in Iowa, ahead of, in order, McCain, Gingrich, Romney, and Hagel. And he hasn’t even set up a campaign in the state yet.

Guiliani, who is a pro-choice, thrice-married supporter of gun control and civil unions, is leading in the first event in a front-loaded Republican nominating calendar. (I have seen how he may be less vulnerable for those stances than is Romney for his own liberalisms, but perhaps more on that later.) McCain is not a tax-cut absolutist, he has lost his straight-talking cache, and he flirts with hypocrisy by kissing the ring of the same Evangelical leaders whom he accused of ‘intolerance’ eight years ago. And he still has problems with the conservative base; he skipped the CPAC meeting this past weekend, and apparently the crowd booed whenever his name was mentioned. The contenders disagree on ‘core’ Republican issues of abortion and the war, and the mainstream candidates may soon get savagely attacked from the right. Romney and McCain seem to worry about nothing more than inoculating themselves against the party’s conservative wing because conservative the base is up for grabs, but part of earning that support could be staying loyal to Republican leadership in Iraq, not ‘leaving before the job is done.’ So they may go for the base only to open themselves up to Hagel’s attacks for supporting a disastrous policy.

So I eagerly await the gloves coming off among the Republicans in a way not seen in many years, perhaps since 1980 (and my personal memory of that is frankly nonexistent). From a more academic point of view, I am particularly interested in the prospect of seeing a full-blown online campaign on the part of some insurgent conservative politician. Basically, I want to see the Republican Howard Dean. Who could it be, Brownback, Hagel, John Cox? I have no idea. I even question whether the demographics of Republican support even translate well into an online campaign, but that is not an idea I would bet on. It would be good to at least see online fundraising contribute to a more level playing field for Republicans to prevent somebody from scaring off the other serious candidates merely by flexing fundraising muscles, as Bush did in 2000. I hope so. After all, more fundraising parity is essential to the Republicans’ circular firing squad!

Letting the (duly arranged) facts speak for themselves

This AP story lead by Nedra Pickler is composed entirely in the language of facts, the natural idiom of the modern professional journalist:

"Democratic Presidential candidate Barack Obama wants to change the government's formula for giving states money for homeland security, with the early voting states getting a little extra."

This lead is also potentially overly interpretive, highly selective and loaded. Obama says he wants to redistribute federal homeland security funds to base them more on risk assessments (rather than whatever they are based on now, apparently late primary states). But that is not a salient enough point for the lead. No, the only thing the lead says is that the new formula would result in "a little extra" for the early primary states.

But still, wow, is that true? Is Obama really drawing up plans that just happen to favor early primary states? Why would land-locked Iowa face more risk than dozens of other states? Is Obama being as blatant as that? No, the redistribution guidelines are "also a recommendation from the commission that investigated the Sept. 11 attacks."

I understand that the AP reporter is constrained by the norms of professional journalism, but really, whatever! Read between the lines, people, the truth obvious enough: The members of the 9/11 commission are running for president, and Obama is stealing their thunder. "Audacity of hope" my ass! The only thing audacious is Obama's pretense that he is any less scheming than the rest of our political class.

And thank goodness for the oligopolists at the AP, exercising their vast reach with the profoundest solemnity of purpose. We can't leave our democracy in the hands of loose cannons such as the Union Leader (see below). Moreover, with this Obama scoop, the AP may have done the public more service than is already apparent. Since the consciousness of the modern journalist is enveloped by events of no older vintage than a week (9/11 commission, when the hell did somebody find the time for that?), it seems possible that these facts about the funding consequences of Obama's plan were brought to the reporter's attention by somebody working for one of the other presidential campaigns. And that's how the public can win twice: Duly arranging facts as suggested by an unmentioned campaign staffer is a fantastic way to cultivate a source for later in the campaign, thus laying the groundwork for future revelations vital to public understanding of the deeper meaning of electoral events.

(Usually) The Union Leader

Of course, in general The Manchester Union Leader is a guiding light in the universe of print journalism, but this paragraph by correspondent Kristen Senz in today's issue ("Biden lays out plan for Iraq") is not the paper's finest moment:

"Biden said his Iraq plan would cost about a fifth as much as the $8.5 billion annually that has been spent on the war in recent years."

If you think $8.5 billion sounds wildly off, that's because it is. In today's Houston Chronicle, courtesy of the AP, it says Bush's 2008 budget request "for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan" is $142 billion. So unless Afghanistan is costing us $133.5 billion and also twenty times more than we spend on Iraq, either the AP or -- perish the thought! -- the Union Leader is confused about decimal places or something ...although $85 billion a year still sounds really low.

But wait, isn't it also possible it was Biden who was wrong on the numbers? Nah, then we'd be reading about it in a Union Leader editorial, the only place opinion comes out in the publication. Except, perhaps, subliminally.