A very brief political discussion on the Republicans

[rj1]

This is the first time I've been back since before Christmas, so I hope everyone here had a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

I'm asking this question on purely money and economic motives. So no war discussion, no religion discussion, etc.

What does everyone think about the Republicans and a populist, Mike Huckabee, running away with the Iowa Caucus yesterday?

The Republicans nominating a populist? It's possible. And would be earth-shattering for certain wings of the party if it occurred.

[Guest]

Re: A very brief political discussion on the Republicans

A surprisingly muted critique by CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS, an expatriate Briton, naturalized US citizen, and IMO one of the most trenchant journalist / (satirist) commentators in the US at this time.

E.J., with his avowed antipathy towards religious bigots stealthily attempting to blend their religious convictions into unconstitutional, proactive government policy, would find Mr. Hitchens highly gratifying on that topic. I pity the interviewee or any hapless politician caught under the 10,000 watt glare of Mr. Hitchen's careful scrutiny.

Mr. Hitchens is one of the best (remaining) journalists we have in the US - and it is a telling comment on the state of this country that he is originally British.

The Iowa Scam - The undemocratic caucuses are a terrible way to choose a presidential candidate.

By Christopher Hitchens
Posted Monday, Dec. 31, 2007, at 12:02 PM ET



Huckabee takes a morning run in Des Moines, Iowa


It is quite astonishing to see with what deadpan and neutral a tone our press and television report the open corruption—and the flagrantly anti-democratic character—of the Iowa caucuses. It's not enough that we have to read of inducements openly offered to potential supporters—I almost said "voters"—even if these mini-bribes only take the form of "platters of sandwiches" and "novelty items" (I am quoting from Sunday's New York Times).

It's also that campaign aides are showing up at Iowan homes "with DVD's that [explain] how the caucuses work." Nobody needs a DVD to understand one-person-one-vote, a level playing field, and a secret ballot. The DVD and the other gifts and goodies (Sen. Barack Obama is promising free baby-sitting on Thursday) are required precisely because none of those conditions applies in Iowa. In a genuine democratic process, these Tammany tactics would long ago have been declared illegal. But this is not a democratic process, and besides, as my old friend Michael Kinsley used to say about Washington, the scandal is never about what's illegal. It's about what's legal.


Every now and then, in the avalanche of tripe coverage that is provided by a mass media that (never forget) is the direct beneficiary of the huge outlays of money the candidates make, a sentence of ordinary truth shines through. Thus the following, from the bended-knee profile of Mike Huckabee, by Zev Chafets in the New York TimesMagazine, describing events in the last week in October, when:

[T]he Hawkeye Poll of the University of Iowa was published. Huckabee had 13 percent, in a virtual tie with Rudy Giuliani for second place, behind Mitt Romney with 36. At that point, the Huckabee bandwagon didn't seem all that amazing to Iowa veterans. "Actually, it is pretty straightforward," said Prof. David Redlawsk, director of the University of Iowa's Hawkeye Poll. "About 45 percent of 85,000 or so Republican caucus voters are evangelical Christians. Roughly half of them automatically vote for the most socially conservative candidate in the race, and it looks like they have decided that's Huckabee. The other half can be won over, too—if they think he's electable."

So, once you subtract the breathless rhetoric about "surge" and "momentum" and (oh, Lord) "electability," it's finally admitted that the rest of the United States is a passive spectator while about half of 45 percent of 85,000 or so Republican caucus voters promote a provincial ignoramus and anti-Darwinian to the coveted status of "front-runner" or at least "contender."





Now, something as absurd and counterdemocratic as this can be so only if the media say it is so, and every four years for as long as I can remember, the profession has been promising to swear off the bottle and stop treating the Iowa caucuses as if they were a primary, let alone an election. Credit Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post for being the first writer this year to try to hold his fellow journalists to that pledge:

Without that massive media boost, prevailing in Iowa would be seen for what it is: an important first victory that amounts to scoring a run in the top of the first inning.

"It stinks," says veteran political reporter Jack Germond. "The voters ought to have time to make a considered decision, and the press ought to be a little less poll-driven, and we're not." Between the coverage and the hyper-compressed campaign calendar, he says, "the whole system this year is absolutely a disgrace."

The term of choice for the more thoughtful reporters, in describing the Iowa rules, is "arcane." Kurtz used it, as did his colleague Dan Balz, in briefly telling the truth about the even more scandalous situation on the Democratic side:

With its arcane caucus rules, Iowa remains a small battlefield. Only 124,000 Democrats voted last time, less than a quarter of those eligible. So if Barack Obama, say, edges Hillary Clinton by 2,000 votes, he'll be hailed in headlines as a giant-killer despite the tiny margin.

That's true enough, but how can an establishment media critic be so absolutely sure that all his colleagues will, in fact, behave this badly? Can it be, as I hinted above, that the other "arcane" process (the arduous and dubious "money primary") is mainly determined by the imperative need to buy advertising spots in the same media that knowingly cover a phony process as if it were a real one?

It's only when you read an honest reporter like Dan Balz that you appreciate the depth and extent of the fraud that is being practiced on us all. "In a primary," as he put it, "voters quietly fill out their ballots and leave. In the caucuses, they are required to come and stay for several hours, and there are no secret ballots. In the presence of friends, neighbors and occasionally strangers, Iowa Democrats vote with their feet, by raising their hands and moving to different parts of the room to signify their support for one candidate or another. … [F]or Democrats, it is not a one-person, one-vote system. … Inducements are allowed; bribes are not." One has to love that last sentence.

I was in Des Moines and Ames in the early fall, and I must say that, as small and landlocked and white and rural as Iowa is, I would be happy to give an opening bid in our electoral process to its warm and generous and serious people. But this is not what the caucus racket actually does. What it does is give the whip hand to the moneyed political professionals, to the full-time party hacks and manipulators, to the shady pollsters and the cynical media boosters, and to the supporters of fringe and crackpot candidates.

It is impossible that the Republican Party could be saddled with a clown like Huckabee if there were a serious primary in Iowa, let alone if the process were kicked off in Chicago or Los Angeles or Atlanta. (Remember that not Iowa but its "caucuses" put Pat Robertson ahead of George H.W. Bush in the race for the GOP nomination in 1988.) The process might be a good way for Iowa to pick its party convention delegates, though I frankly doubt even that. It is an absolutely terrible way in which to select candidates for the presidency, and it makes the United States look and feel like a banana republic both at home and overseas.

[GRG55]

Re: A very brief political discussion on the Republicans

A surprisingly muted critique by CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS, an expatriate Briton, naturalized US citizen, and IMO one of the most trenchant journalist / (satirist) commentators in the US at this time.

E.J., with his avowed antipathy towards religious bigots stealthily attempting to blend their religious convictions into unconstitutional, proactive government policy, would find Mr. Hitchens highly gratifying on that topic. I pity the interviewee or any hapless politician caught under the 10,000 watt glare of Mr. Hitchen's careful scrutiny.

Mr. Hitchens is one of the best (remaining) journalists we have in the US - and it is a telling comment on the state of this country that he is originally British.

The Iowa Scam - The undemocratic caucuses are a terrible way to choose a presidential candidate.

By Christopher Hitchens
Posted Monday, Dec. 31, 2007, at 12:02 PM ET



Huckabee takes a morning run in Des Moines, Iowa


It is quite astonishing to see with what deadpan and neutral a tone our press and television report the open corruption—and the flagrantly anti-democratic character—of the Iowa caucuses. It's not enough that we have to read of inducements openly offered to potential supporters—I almost said "voters"—even if these mini-bribes only take the form of "platters of sandwiches" and "novelty items" (I am quoting from Sunday's New York Times).

It's also that campaign aides are showing up at Iowan homes "with DVD's that [explain] how the caucuses work." Nobody needs a DVD to understand one-person-one-vote, a level playing field, and a secret ballot. The DVD and the other gifts and goodies (Sen. Barack Obama is promising free baby-sitting on Thursday) are required precisely because none of those conditions applies in Iowa. In a genuine democratic process, these Tammany tactics would long ago have been declared illegal. But this is not a democratic process, and besides, as my old friend Michael Kinsley used to say about Washington, the scandal is never about what's illegal. It's about what's legal.




Every now and then, in the avalanche of tripe coverage that is provided by a mass media that (never forget) is the direct beneficiary of the huge outlays of money the candidates make, a sentence of ordinary truth shines through. Thus the following, from the bended-knee profile of Mike Huckabee, by Zev Chafets in the New York TimesMagazine, describing events in the last week in October, when:

[T]he Hawkeye Poll of the University of Iowa was published. Huckabee had 13 percent, in a virtual tie with Rudy Giuliani for second place, behind Mitt Romney with 36. At that point, the Huckabee bandwagon didn't seem all that amazing to Iowa veterans. "Actually, it is pretty straightforward," said Prof. David Redlawsk, director of the University of Iowa's Hawkeye Poll. "About 45 percent of 85,000 or so Republican caucus voters are evangelical Christians. Roughly half of them automatically vote for the most socially conservative candidate in the race, and it looks like they have decided that's Huckabee. The other half can be won over, too—if they think he's electable."

So, once you subtract the breathless rhetoric about "surge" and "momentum" and (oh, Lord) "electability," it's finally admitted that the rest of the United States is a passive spectator while about half of 45 percent of 85,000 or so Republican caucus voters promote a provincial ignoramus and anti-Darwinian to the coveted status of "front-runner" or at least "contender."







Now, something as absurd and counterdemocratic as this can be so only if the media say it is so, and every four years for as long as I can remember, the profession has been promising to swear off the bottle and stop treating the Iowa caucuses as if they were a primary, let alone an election. Credit Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post for being the first writer this year to try to hold his fellow journalists to that pledge:

Without that massive media boost, prevailing in Iowa would be seen for what it is: an important first victory that amounts to scoring a run in the top of the first inning.

"It stinks," says veteran political reporter Jack Germond. "The voters ought to have time to make a considered decision, and the press ought to be a little less poll-driven, and we're not." Between the coverage and the hyper-compressed campaign calendar, he says, "the whole system this year is absolutely a disgrace."

The term of choice for the more thoughtful reporters, in describing the Iowa rules, is "arcane." Kurtz used it, as did his colleague Dan Balz, in briefly telling the truth about the even more scandalous situation on the Democratic side:

With its arcane caucus rules, Iowa remains a small battlefield. Only 124,000 Democrats voted last time, less than a quarter of those eligible. So if Barack Obama, say, edges Hillary Clinton by 2,000 votes, he'll be hailed in headlines as a giant-killer despite the tiny margin.

That's true enough, but how can an establishment media critic be so absolutely sure that all his colleagues will, in fact, behave this badly? Can it be, as I hinted above, that the other "arcane" process (the arduous and dubious "money primary") is mainly determined by the imperative need to buy advertising spots in the same media that knowingly cover a phony process as if it were a real one?

It's only when you read an honest reporter like Dan Balz that you appreciate the depth and extent of the fraud that is being practiced on us all. "In a primary," as he put it, "voters quietly fill out their ballots and leave. In the caucuses, they are required to come and stay for several hours, and there are no secret ballots. In the presence of friends, neighbors and occasionally strangers, Iowa Democrats vote with their feet, by raising their hands and moving to different parts of the room to signify their support for one candidate or another. … [F]or Democrats, it is not a one-person, one-vote system. … Inducements are allowed; bribes are not." One has to love that last sentence.

I was in Des Moines and Ames in the early fall, and I must say that, as small and landlocked and white and rural as Iowa is, I would be happy to give an opening bid in our electoral process to its warm and generous and serious people. But this is not what the caucus racket actually does. What it does is give the whip hand to the moneyed political professionals, to the full-time party hacks and manipulators, to the shady pollsters and the cynical media boosters, and to the supporters of fringe and crackpot candidates.

It is impossible that the Republican Party could be saddled with a clown like Huckabee if there were a serious primary in Iowa, let alone if the process were kicked off in Chicago or Los Angeles or Atlanta. (Remember that not Iowa but its "caucuses" put Pat Robertson ahead of George H.W. Bush in the race for the GOP nomination in 1988.) The process might be a good way for Iowa to pick its party convention delegates, though I frankly doubt even that. It is an absolutely terrible way in which to select candidates for the presidency, and it makes the United States look and feel like a banana republic both at home and overseas.

Sorry Lukester, but I have little patience for this type of reporting on the state of democracy in the USA. Imperfect as the USA electoral process(es) may be, I don't see the author pointing to, or proposing, a materially better alternative. In the author's native UK (the oldest democracy in the world?), the "first past the post" electoral system may limit or eliminate "fringe and crackpot candidates", but it's just as subject to "moneyed political professionals, to the full-time party hacks and manipulators, to the shady pollsters and the cynical media boosters". And the party system creates the opportunity to have a head of government that wasn't elected to that position at all (I give you Gordon Brown as Exhibit 1).

There's no perfect system. Let's just hope the populations of two of the best democratic experiments in human history don't stop advocating improvements, instead of just criticizing what is.

[rj1]

Re: A very brief political discussion on the Republicans

Sorry Lukester, but I have little patience for this type of reporting on the state of democracy in the USA. Imperfect as the USA electoral process(es) may be, I don't see the author pointing to, or proposing, a materially better alternative. In the author's native UK (the oldest democracy in the world?), the "first past the post" electoral system may limit or eliminate "fringe and crackpot candidates", but it's just as subject to "moneyed political professionals, to the full-time party hacks and manipulators, to the shady pollsters and the cynical media boosters". And the party system creates the opportunity to have a head of government that wasn't elected to that position at all (I give you Gordon Brown as Exhibit 1).

There's no perfect system. Let's just hope the populations of two of the best democratic experiments in human history don't stop advocating improvements, instead of just criticizing what is.

Well one improvement would be to go to a primary and obsolete caucuses.

[Guest]

Re: A very brief political discussion on the Republicans

GRG55 -

You seriously mis-estimate Mr. Hitchens. He is acutely aware of the shortcomings of what are recognized as the "negative - landed or propertied elite - Hamiltonian" aspects of the British parliamentary system. He's a British expatriate - why do you think he came here and repudiated his British citizenship??

If you listen in on some of his discussions you'll recognize - you will not find anywhere a greater admirer (or a more caustic and erudite one!) of the American republic than Mr. Hitchens, and he's a very damned eloquent proponent of that. The man is a beacon of integrity to me.

I much appreciate the points you raise regarding the "relative" significance of this particular article's examination of American electoral flaws - and as an American I am also grateful for your implied vote of confidence in this wonderful legacy of our Republic. Coming from a Canadian it is doubly so. But I frankly wonder if it's any longer still merited. Apparently the iTulip editors also think that flame of genuine Republic is flickering out at this time?

Incidentally, you should know that as a matter of fact I am one of the few within your own camp around here on the resiliency of the American system - you'd be surprised how many others here flatly disagree with you on that. I'm not in the disagreeing camp, but my faith is getting stretched thinner by the day.

[Arnric62]

Re: A very brief political discussion on the Republicans

I am British, and have had the dubious pleasure of seeing Hitchens in the flesh.

He is a vile, drunken, war-mongering scumbag.

[Jim Nickerson]

Re: A very brief political discussion on the Republicans

I am British, and have had the dubious pleasure of seeing Hitchens in the flesh.

He is a vile, drunken, war-mongering scumbag.

I tend to agree with your sentiments here, Arnric62, if you cannot say something meaningfully negative about someone or something, then don't say anything at all. I think you could have left out that comma.

[Verrocchio]

Re: A very brief political discussion on the Republicans

I am British, and have had the dubious pleasure of seeing Hitchens in the flesh.

He is a vile, drunken, war-mongering scumbag.

Quite so (typical British understatement)!