“Is He The President?”

May 20, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under American Politics, Election 2012 | Leave a Comment 

The New Republic’s Zvika Krieger has a profile of Utah Governor — and newly nominated Ambassador To China — Jon Huntsman, and discussed this mans fortunate stall to higher office.

Precedents For The Huntsman Appointment

May 19, 2009 by Robert Nedelkoff | Filed Under American Politics, Barack Obama, China, Democratic Party, Election 2012, News media, Nixon Administration, Presidents, Republican Party, Richard Nixon, U.S. History, Vietnam | 2 Comments 

Yesterday Christopher Beam of Slate discussed some historical precedents for the action that President Obama took in recent days when he appointed Gov. Jon Huntsman of Utah, a prospective candidate for the GOP’s presidential spot in 2012, as Ambassador to China.

Beam refers in particular to the appointment made by President Kennedy on August 1, 1963, when he chose Henry Cabot Lodge Jr, the 1960 Republican vice-presidential candidate, to replace Frederick Nolting as American Ambassador to South Vietnam. At the time, Richard Nixon was still in the political wilderness after his defeat in California in 1962 and his subsequent “you won’t have Nixon to kick around” remarks, and Lodge was the favored figure among moderates who hoped to find a candidate for 1964 less polarizing than Gov. Nelson Rockefeller on the left or Sen. Barry Goldwater on the right.

Kennedy’s appointment of Lodge had a twofold advantage: it reminded the world of the Cold War maxim that “politics stops at the water’s edge” and it more or less confirmed Lodge in his disinclination to actively seek the Presidency in 1964.

Beam goes on to say that “after Kennedy’s assassination, Lodge came back and launched an unsuccessful run for the Republican nomination.” It sounds like the young reporter, three years out of Columbia, needs to sit down with a copy of Rick Perlstein’s Before The Storm. Lodge was never a declared candidate in 1964. After issuing nearly Shermanesque statements that he would not run or seek the nomination (though he did not prevent supporters from putting his name on primary ballots where his stated consent was not needed for that purpose) the ambassador won the New Hampshire primary in February 1964 as a write-in candidate, following a well-financed blitz by his Boston-based supporters. (Goldwater came in second in this contest and Rockefeller third, with Nixon, as an undeclared write-in candidate, finishing a fairly strong fourth.)

But even after similar victories in Massachusetts and New Jersey, Lodge remained in Saigon and made no concrete move to secure the nomination. He finally resigned his post at the end of June 1964 and returned to the United States, but by that time Goldwater had almost completely sewn up the nomination and desperate attempts by GOP moderates to deny it to him focused on Gov. William Scranton.

Beam also declares that “Nixon completed the process [of bipartisan support of the Vietnam War] by doubling down.” This is quite a mystifying statement. It was Lyndon Johnson, with the support of both parties in Congress, who escalated American involvement in Vietnam in early 1965. By contrast, Nixon was the President who completed, in phases, the process of de-escalating and concluding the conflict, in the face of resistance from a Democratic-controlled Congress which had many members who sought unilateral and immediate withdrawal from Vietnam. You have to wonder what the history books said in his classes up in Morningside Heights.

B.O. Defeating The Competition?

May 18, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Barack Obama, China, Election 2012 | Leave a Comment 

Jon Weaver, an aide to Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman, who has been nominated to become U.S. Ambassador to The People’s Republic of China, said that if the G.O.P. goes the way of Palin, Limbaugh, or Cheney in 2012, they will be resoundingly defeated:

The Republican strategist who helped Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman prepare for a possible presidential run says the Republican party is in for a devastating defeat if its guiding lights are Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh and Dick Cheney. “If it’s 2012 and our party is defined by Palin and Limbaugh and Cheney, then we’re headed for a blowout,” says strategist John Weaver, who advised Huntsman and was for years a close adviser to Sen. John McCain. “That’s just the truth.”

Huntsman, a favorite of GOP moderates, left the Republican presidential race last week after accepting President Obama’s offer to become U.S. ambassador to China. Before that, Huntsman appeared to be working hard on preparations for 2012. “He had not made a decision to run for president, but he had made a decision to prepare to run,” says Weaver. “We were probably a month away from announcing the formation of a political action committee, so we were pretty far down the road.”

Weaver is hardly the person the Republican Party should heed advice from. Aside from advocating for the eventual lackluster G.O.P. nominee, he was forced to resign from his post as top adviser when Senator McCain wasn’t carrying any traction on the trail, with campaign coffers so dry that the 72 year old Vietnam hero had to carry his own bags through airports. In any case, this is not to overlook Governor Huntsman’s credentials (and wealth), a combination that would have made him a very, very formidable candidate in 2012:

As a business executive, he was chairman of Huntsman Corporation, a multi-national petrochemical corporation based in Salt Lake City, and served as the first president and CEO of the Huntsman Cancer Foundation at the University of Utah. His public service career includes serving as a White House staff assistant to President Ronald Reagan. Under President George H.W. Bush, he was deputy assistant of commerce for trade development, deputy assistant secretary of commerce for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, as well as U.S. ambassador to Singapore (the youngest U.S. ambassador in a century). He is fluent in Mandarin. He also served as a deputy U.S. trade representative and U.S. trade ambassador under President George W. Bush.

Smart move by President Obama. Aside from the most obvious political considerations — and most importantly — the choice of Huntsman takes account of the strategic gravity placed on Sino-American issues. But the choice of Huntsman also puts another level of prestige, experience and expertise below Obama’s primary political nemesis, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Remember that it was Clinton who was supposed to compete for the China portfolio with the other Asian “expert,” Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner? It appears that Dick Morris was right,  all that stands between Clinton and her legacy is a glut of foreign policy experts and diplomats with cabinet level status.

The Quayling Of Sarah

May 15, 2009 by David R. Stokes | Filed Under American Politics, Election 2012, History, Sarah Palin, U.S. History | 5 Comments 

With Dan Rather-like subjectivity, Chris Matthews talked recently about Alaska Governor Sarah Palin’s new book deal.

“Plus, Sarah Palin – now don’t laugh – is writing a book. Not just reading a book: writing a book. Actually, in the word of the publisher, she’s collaborating on a book. I love the way that sounds. Does that mean that she answers questions of the writer, and then the writer writes the book? I guess the reason to have someone write a book for you and claim it’s your book is you get to do a nation-wide book tour, and act the part of a, of an author yourself.”

Well, in the famous laugh-words of Ralph Kramden: “Har-har-hardy-har-har.”

I’m sure some network executive was at that very moment picking up the phone and calling yet another NBC bigwig. The conversation probably went something like:

“Hey, did you just hear Chris – what’s his name? – Yeah, that’s him. Well, I was thinkin’ that we might want to review our plans about sending the dude with the floppy hair out to California.”

“You mean Conan The Barbarian?”

“No, his name is O’Brien, I think.”

“Whatever – I usually watch the Hannity encore on Fox News at that time.”

“Ok, Ok – not the point. What I am saying is – I think this Matthews guy may be pretty funny – and we could get him for less money for chin man’s replacement. He’s cheap and easy, I hear. Real easy, in fact, you just gotta make his legs tingle and you have him at ‘Hello.’”

Of course, the MSNBC host of Hardball wasn’t the only talking head trying to hide a smirk – the way disgraced former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich tries to hide his hair – when describing Palin’s multi-million dollar pact with publishing giant HarperCollins. The widely reported story received coverage from the mainstream media that was occasionally only dismissive.

That’s because most of the time it was outright derisive.

The “Dan Quayling” of Sarah Palin continues and this make-her-look-stupid-campaign testifies to the fact that she remains a formidable political figure. The irony of this is largely lost on most of the “beautiful” minds over at NBC, MSNBC, CNN, CBS, & ABC, where the teleprompters double as mirrors.

The charismatic Governor of Alaska draws enthusiastic crowds wherever she goes – even after the defeat of the Republican ticket at the hands of the yes-we-can guys. And the very idea that she can make millions with a book at a time when publishers are shy about taking many risks in these challenging economic times, suggests that the lady has not-too-shabby metaphorical legs, as well as real ones.

Any nine-year-old child or MSNBC show host (pardon the redundancy) understands that the idea is to vex and therefore hex Sarah Palin. The goal is to click repeatedly on her image and drag her into a folder marked either “too dumb to lead,” or “demonize by caricature.”

The problem is, all this will do is make her more popular with an important constituency – her core base, in fact – that could very well propel her to the Republican presidential nomination in 2012. Sure, it’s way too early. But did anyone really think a community organizer from Chicago, who had just been elected to his first term as a junior senator, would beat a presumptive nominee named Hillary, not to mention mop up the floor with a genuine American hero en route to the White House, way back in 2005?

For Matthews et al to mock Sarah Palin’s book deal in a way that suggests she doesn’t know how to write and therefore has to depend on a “collaborator” – that word used almost as a synonym for “sneer” by Chris Matthews – is beyond hypocritical.

It’s also stupid.

He apparently has so little respect for his audience that he assumes they won’t dig into this a little more. Or maybe Matthews has studied his show’s demographics and is therefore confident that his viewers themselves don’t read much beyond the titles touted on his show – and maybe those of Keith Olberman, Nora O’Donnell, and Rachel Maddow.

I write, you decide.

Chris Matthews is an all-things-Kennedy fan from way back (though as a kid, he wanted Nixon to beat JFK in 1960 and cried when RN lost), so while he mocks Palin he is, of course, aware that there is a ghost, or at least a skeleton, in the Camelot closet.

When I was a young boy, my dad gave me a copy of Profiles in Courage, written by none other than John Fitzgerald Kennedy. It took me a while, but I made my way through it and still have that copy in my library. It was a cool book about statesmen who had defied the political correctness of their day (another irony?) and did what they thought was right. It was as much a work about character as it was about courage.

I loved the book and the author became an early hero of mine. When he was killed, I cried.

Later, though, I learned – as most of us do when we grow up – that the story behind the story is often the real story. Discovering that the man who wrote about two important virtues and values seemed himself to be deficient in both was, well, a bummer, to say the least. He had a lot of girl friends, a practice that didn’t seem to reinforce the idea of sterling character. But, at least, I still had that courage thing to embrace.

Then I found out – oh, sad, sad day that it was – that the book I loved, that little bestseller that had won a Pulitzer Prize (which I heard was, like, a really big deal), had been written mostly by, gulp, someone else.

I must have spent days walking around in a funk, looking down at bells at the bottoms of my not-quite-long-enough-geek-jeans, for days.

A guy named “Theodore” had done most of the work, I heard. Theodore? The very name didn’t not bespeak, “cool” as Kennedy’s did. I had an image in my head of a bookish guy with old-man glasses. So, I looked him up in the library – and sure enough.

Then it got worse. You remember that Pulitzer Prize? Well, I came to find out that John F. Kennedy’s daddy – a pretty rich and powerful guy, I was told – got a buddy of his on the Pulitzer committee, New York Times columnist Arthur Krock, to champion his boy’s book. Originally, the book was not on the committee’s short list, one that had been submitted by some expert reviewers, but somehow it made it to that important table. At any rate, it wasn’t as “weighty” as prize winners usually turned out to be. But, before long “it came out of nowhere” and won the roses.

It was all pretty good publicity in the run up to the 1960 campaign. After all, though most candidates these days have books out while they run for the big office, Kennedy was one of the pioneers of the practice. And his had won a Pulitzer, which said that he was smart, erudite, eloquent, and therefore would make a good leader.

But his erudition and eloquence were implants.

So, Mr. Matthews – go ahead and make fun of Sarah Palin. Do your best to color her ditzy and as someone with no depth. But just remember, she actually has character and courage. And Americans will be seeing more of her graceful, politically popular, and winning profile for many years to come.

Gay Marriage Reaches The Crossroads

May 8, 2009 by Robert Nedelkoff | Filed Under American Politics, Barack Obama, Congress, Democratic Party, Domestic issues, Election 2008, Election 2012, News media, Obama administration, Presidents, Public Opinion, Republican Party, Senate | Leave a Comment 

The Obama Administration enjoyed a number of small triumphs this week.  The Dow stayed well over 8500. Despite an increase in unemployment, the overall economic picture has been showing signs of improvement.  The President announced some budget trims here and there, to the tune of $17 billion – just to make sure that the country understood that, when faced with an obsolete directional system, for example, he was not going to keep it around just because he’s a Democrat.

But on Tuesday an event happened that may well snowball into something that the White House, and Democrats on Capitol Hill, would probably not care to get involved with just yet. But more and more, it is becoming inescapable: after a Presidential campaign in which Dennis Kucinich and Mike Gravel (neither much of a mainstream figure) were the only candidates to support gay marriage, a situation is looming in which every Senate and House member may have to declare themselves on one side or another of the issue, and very soon.

Last year, there was talk about introducing a gay-marriage bill into the District of Columbia City Council. At the time, the capital’s newspaper for the gay community, the Washington Blade, argued that such a move was premature; it urged waiting until 2009. And so the proposal went unintroduced, as the nation elected a President who expressed support for the civil-union concept for gay couples, but drew the line at marriage.

This week,a few days after NBC News and the Washington Post announced poll results indicating, for the first time, that a plurality of Americans favor gay marriage (49%, with 46% opposed), the supporters of this legislation made their move, and so the City Council of the nation’s capital passed a bill recognizing gay marriages from other states, by a vote of 12 to 1.

The sole dissenting vote was cast by former Washington mayor Marion Barry. When it became evident that he would vote against the bill, this caused some surprise and consternation. For one thing, long before Barry’s drug use and lackadaisical administrative style gained him notoriety, he was one of the founders – indeed, the first chairman – of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Commitee and, in those days, fought for civil rights alongside the iconic John Lewis, who now, as a Congressman, is a vocal champion of gay marriage.

And there’s also the fact that in his early years as mayor in the 1970s and early 1980s, Barry was a friend of gay rights, and his administration’s tolerant attitude had much to do with making the Dupont Circle neighborhood as much of a magnet for gays as Castro Street or the West Village. He also was a firm supporter of the Whitman-Walker clinic in the early days of its fight against AIDS, and Jim Graham, the longtime executive director of the clinic and one of the two openly gay City Council members, pointed this out (as seen in this Youtube clip) as he expressed his disappointment with Barry’s decision against the bill on Tuesday. (Meanwhile, David Catania, the council’s other gay member, represented the no-compromise attitude of younger gays in his remarks to Barry.)

Barry had actually gone on record as a sponsor of the bill when it was introduced. In the Youtube clip he suggests that his staffers had somehow arranged for this without his knowledge, but what is more likely is that strong opposition to recognition of gay marriages from churchgoers and older voters in Ward 8, which he represents, caused him to change his mind.

The council’s vote was greeted with a furious response from several African-American ministers in the area outside the meeting room, and it took the police to restore order, as seen in the clip. But this was far from the end of the story. On Wednesday, Rep. Jason Chaffetz, a onetime Brigham Young University football star and convert to the Mormon faith (and also to the Republican Party – his Democratic father’s first wife, Kitty, later married 1988 presidential candidate Michael Dukakis), stated that he and other GOP lawmakers stood ready to challenge the new law within 30 days, as the Home Rule Charter provides.

Although the District’s representative in Congress, Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton, dismissed the idea that Congress will overturn the law, the situation is distinctly a worrisome one for the Democrats. It seems very likely that Republican lawmakers can garner enough support from their Democratic colleagues in the South and in the more conservative areas of the Midwest to force a vote.

And if the House votes to endorse the Council’s action, the next step for gay activists and their allies is plainly to seek the repeal of the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, which was passed by majorities of both parties and signed into law by President Clinton. Although voters, especially younger ones, seem to be steadily shifting toward support of gay unions, opposition still runs strong in a number of House districts that the Democrats only managed to recapture in the last two years, and in states, such as North Carolina, that were essential to Obama’s victory and which he would need in 2012. Therefore, both the White House and Congressional Democrats are walking a fine line for the next 18 months.

And the gay community is now determined to keep up the pressure, as shown in this editorial by Washington Blade editor Kevin Naff. He points out that President Obama, throughout his campaign, assured voters that he meant to repeal the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy for gay service personnel in place since 1993, and this language was repeated on the White House website after his inauguration. But then, the text was altered to refer to the President’s intention to change the policy “in a sensible way.” Following protests, this text was changed yet again, to state that the Admistration’s intention again is to repeal “don’t ask, don’t tell” – but, to the irritation of activists, the “in a sensible way” phrase was kept. Given the eagle-eyed attention directed at the website’s statements, it’s a sure thing that every statement Obama makes about the District’s new law, when it comes up for Congressional review, will be meticulously analyzed. This may be as thorny a situation as any Obama faces in his first term.

Michael Steele’s Moment

January 30, 2009 by Robert Nedelkoff | Filed Under American Politics, Barack Obama, Congress, Democratic Party, Election 2008, Election 2012, Obama administration, Political Philosophy, Presidents, Republican Party | 2 Comments 

“This is the moment,” President Obama was fond of saying many, many times on the campaign trail. (Although he would vary it from time to time by speaking, in vaguely Churchillian fashion, of a time when future generations would look back on the present and say that “this was the moment when we as a people” etc.)

Today, there came two moments of considerable importance to the United States. The first one was the announcement (in terms implying that he would accept the post if offered it) by Sen. Judd Gregg of New Hampshire, a Republican, that he is under consideration for Secretary of Commerce.  This decision in itself is not that surprising; Gregg was elected to his first term by a whisker and won his second mainly because he was running against the 94-year-old activist “Granny D” Haddock, and New Hampshire has become more, not less, Democratic in recent years.

What’s surprising is that President Obama’s transition team did not offer Gregg the job of, say, Secretary of the Interior when the Cabinet was being selected last month, and, at the same time, offer either of Maine’s Republican senators (Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe) high-ranking positions, thus making it possible for the Democratic governors of these states to name replacements and thus have a filibuster-proof majority in place before Obama’s inauguration.

Indeed, with Gregg in the Cabinet and a Democratic replacement in his old seat, if Al Franken wins his court battle, the filibuster-proof majority will be in place. But that’s still a big if. Are the Democrats really certain that Franken can prevail through all the court challenges to come? Is it desirable to have 59 Democrats in the upper chamber during at least the initial legislative battles to come, when bringing either Collins or Snowe into the Administration could bring the total to 60 and thus forestall all the trouble that could be stirred up when Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid gets into a scrape like the one earlier this month, when he drew one line in the sand after another and Sen. Roland Burris kept crossing them?  This is a question that may be pondered in the West Wing over the weekend.

Later today, the GOP took a big step in the right direction when, after a long, drawn-out contest between a half-dozen candidates, former Maryland Lieutenant Governor Michael Steele emerged as the first African-American chairman in the history of the Republican National Committee.  During the last half-dozen years, Steele has emerged as not only the successor to former Oklahoma Congressman J.C. Watts as the most prominent black Republican, but has consistently shown himself to be a forceful critic of his party’s complacency, and a strong voice for a more inclusive GOP.

The last election showed, once and for all, that the Republicans have to get on the right side of the immigration issue.  All over the world, people dream of coming to the United States.  And the life that they dream of making here is not one burdened with gigantic bureaucracies and oppressive taxes; that’s what many want to escape from in their own countries.

Last week I saw the acclaimed film Slumdog Millionaire and, as I watched the scenes of Indian life, thought to myself: Here are hundreds of millions of people who dream of a better life, a more abundant life.  If one-twentieth of them were ever to settle in the United States, the Republicans would win every election in the foreseeable future – providing they cast aside the anti-immigration rhetoric. Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, the son of Indian immigrants, exemplifies a generation of Americans from a multitude of different heritages and histories, all united by their readiness to embrace the economic and social vision that a Republican party under the guidance of Michael Steele could provide.

Many liberal commentators, last November, forecast the end of the GOP’s ascendancy, in terms almost as emphatic as were heard the morning after Election Day in 1964.  But as the months go by, and as the Democrats get to squabbling (as Democrats tend to do), we may see a different picture.  But that depends on the willingness of the Republican Party to reach out to those parts of the American electorate — including the newest Americans — most willing to hear its message.

Inside the Obama TENT of Rivals

December 12, 2008 by David R. Stokes | Filed Under American Politics, Barack Obama, Democratic Party, Election 2008, Election 2012, History, Nixon Administration, Obama administration, Presidents, Richard Nixon, U.S. History | Leave a Comment 

As President-Elect Barack Obama moves toward the transition finish line, he has been busy putting his cabinet together, collecting what is now routinely referred to as a “team of rivals.” But this may be more than a reference to the fact that he is trying to avoid “group-think.” The man seems, in fact, to be putting together a team of former-and-would-be pretenders to his political throne.

It is certainly understandable that the party out of executive branch power for the past eight years would find positions for the faithful. Though for a man who campaigned on yes-we-can change there is more than a little irony in many of Mr. Obama’s decisions since the election.

What I find curious is something few seem to be noticing. History tells us that accepting a position in the cabinet, though a great way to serve, is not at all a good move for anyone who has ultimate presidential aspirations.

The last man to move directly from a cabinet position to the presidency was Herbert Hoover.

Mr. Hoover was the long-time and highly effective Secretary of Commerce under Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge and by 1928 was widely seen as the inevitable Republican nominee. He probably brought the best resume ever to the White House. The rest is, as they say, history.

Across the pond in Great Britain, a cabinet post is not only prestigious – it is absolutely essential to anyone desiring to be Prime Minister. Since the days of David Lloyd George who molded the modern role of his nation’s PM during the demanding days of the Great War, all of the realm’s ultimate political leaders have come from the ranks of the cabinet. That’s the way their system works. A lot of real political power resides in the cabinet.

Nearly all British Prime Ministers, since the days of Sir Robert Walpole (c. 1741), have also held the title First Lord of the Treasury – the original designation for the PM’s role. In fact, 10 Downing Street is technically known as the residence of the person holding this title.

The point is that over there one must be a member of the cabinet of the party in power (and the leader of the shadow cabinet of the party out of power) to become Prime Minister. Most recent residents of 10 Downing Street have served as either Chancellor of the Exchequer (their big cabinet kahuna) or Foreign Secretary. Anthony Eden, who succeeded the retiring Winston Churchill in 1955, had been serving as Deputy Prime Minister – also a cabinet position.

But none of this transfers to American politics, due in large part to the fact that we have separate and distinct branches of government. For example, cabinet members in Great Britain retain their membership in the House of Commons.

In the United States, politicians tend to run for high office from the platform of a current (or previous) electoral position (or occasionally – as with General Eisenhower – from personal and heroic stature that transcends mere politics). In fact, history tells us that being a part of the cabinet du jour in this country is just about a sure ticket to the political graveyard.

If someone is in the Senate, or House of Representatives, or a Statehouse somewhere, they – even if in the same party as the president – can effectively mount a significant political challenge. But when you are “in” the government your hands are tied and any voice you might have is largely silenced.

For Hillary Clinton and Bill Richardson, this means that they are, for all practical purposes, out of politics for quite some time – maybe even for good. Perhaps this is a conscious choice – maybe they have made peace with the idea that Barack Obama will be a formidable president to oppose or follow.

Whatever the case, these savvy politicians have made a serious tactical mistake if they hope to succeed their new boss in the White House, either via a failed single term, or at the end of eight years of Obama. The cabinet is not a place for the politically ambitious – it is a pasture for the politically resigned.

The other observation I have about the make up of Mr. Obama’s emerging administration is one that has been covered to death by the pundits. But I can’t resist a comment or two.

Mr. “Change” has turned out to have only really thus far changed one thing – his mind. What should we make of the fact that his “new” administration looks a lot like the third Clinton term he derided while campaigning against Hillary? And what’s the deal with keeping some of the Bush people in key posts?

The answer is obvious. President-Elect Barack Obama is not a messiah, nor is he a man who will usher in a new golden era of non-political post-partisanship. The fact is that he is every bit a politician.

And he is a very good politician at that – at least thus far. He is showing himself to be much more pragmatic than idealistic. He may not be in bed with the bad stuff coming out of Chicago these days, but he did learn the game there.

In fairness, there is historical precedent for someone coming from a place where corrupt politics reigned, yet emerging untainted. His name was Harry Truman, who rose to power with the help of a notorious Kansas City machine, but who proved himself to be a man of courage and integrity. This reference point should be kept in mind before many rush to judgment and try to tie the president-elect to anything before all the facts come out.

One of Mr. Obama’s heroes – John F. Kennedy – campaigned in 1960 on the promise to get the country “moving again.” But among his first appointments after he was elected (much to the chagrin of many who had voted for his promise of change) were J. Edgar Hoover to remain at the FBI and Allen Dulles at CIA.

Putting a cabinet team together is harder to do than it is to promise. Most presidential victors realize this early on. A close look at new presidents putting teams together yields many stories about surprises and notable oversights.

When Jack Kennedy decided (strongly influenced by dear-old-dad) to appoint his younger brother Bobby as Attorney General (though RFK was anemic in the legal experience department), he knew it would be controversial. He joked: “Well, I think I’ll open the door of the Georgetown house some morning about 2:00 A.M., look up and down the street, and, if there’s no one there, I’ll whisper, ‘It’s Bobby.’”

The actual announcement was not made that way – but JFK did tell his brother to comb his messy hair to look more grown up before meeting the press.

When Richard Nixon was putting his first cabinet together, someone suggested the name of David Rockefeller for the treasury post – then immediately said, “but obviously we can’t have two Rockefellers in the cabinet.” This comment was based on the presumption that Nixon was going to give long-time rival Nelson Rockefeller a role in his administration. Nixon’s reply to the “we can’t have two Rockefellers” comment was: “Who says we have to have one?”

Nixon did, however, tap George Romney – the rival who just 18 months before was the number one contender for the Republican nomination – to serve as his Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. Romney accepted and faded away politically.

It will be interesting to see how the new Obama “team of rivals” fares. Lyndon Johnson used to say that sometimes it was better to “have someone inside the tent pissing out, than outside the tent pissing in.”

We’ll see.

Newt Laying Groundwork

November 26, 2008 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Election 2012 | Leave a Comment 

Kathryn Jean Lopez:

Sean Hannity just had Newt Gingrich on his radio show. He asked Gingrich if the former Speaker will consider running for president in 2012.

“Yes,” Gingrich replied.

It’s not shocking news by any stretch. But it was a refreshingly honest answer. There was no “that’s the last thing on my mind right now” dance. He obviously wants to run and has been laying the groundwork.

I think conservatives are more liable to look toward new blood next time — someone who has been on the national scene, who is working behind the scenes, or at home in his state, or as a “Young Turk” on the Hill in the future. But who knows.

Newt, by the way, also denied reports he is running for the RNC chair job.

Nixon In 2012

November 25, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under American Politics, Election 2012, Republican Party, Sarah Palin, The New Nixon | Leave a Comment 

The Obama Team Takes Shape

November 22, 2008 by Robert Nedelkoff | Filed Under American Politics, Barack Obama, Congress, Democratic Party, Domestic issues, Economic issues, Election 2012, International Affairs, National Security, Obama administration | Leave a Comment 

On Wednesday, the Associated Press sent out an interesting article listing the people who had either been confirmed for top Cabinet and staff positions in the administration of President-elect Obama, or were said to be among the ones being seriously considered by the President-elect and his advisors.

The first two to be named this week were Eric Holder as attorney general and former Senate Majority (and Minority) Leader Tom Daschle as Secretary of Health and Human Services. Holder, apart from his unfortunate stance where the pardon of arms dealer Marc Rich was concerned in the Clinton White House’s final days, has a strong record, and, as the first African-American in this position, will be making history in a major fashion. Daschle’s appointment is significant because it seems to indicate that the President-elect has a major health-care initiative in mind and has moved to ensure that the person in charge of it is someone with a lot of muscle on Capitol Hill.

Yesterday, just as the financial markets were set to tank for another day, word came of the President-elect’s choice of New York Federal Reserve Bank head Timothy Geithner to be Secretary of the Treasury, beating out Clinton-era Treasury head Lawrence Summers (who, instead, appears set to succeed Ben Bernanke as chairman of the Fed when the latter’s term expires in January 2010) and former Fed chairman Paul Volcker. This news sent the Dow right up past 8000 and inspired, at least for the weekend, a bit of confidence on Wall Street.  It’s interesting that Obama, for this job, chose someone almost exactly his own age, since most of his other selections are of people a decade or two his senior. (And it’s also worth noting that, once again, Christopher Hitchens has something to gripe about on the talking-heads shows next week: Geithner began his career as an employee of Kissinger & Associates in the 1980s.)

New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, at one time a prospect for Secretary of State, seems destined for the Commerce Department now; his experience as an international negotiator should be helpful when it comes time to do his part to improve America’s standing in the field of world trade. And Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano, with considerable experience in the field of border security, is a good choice to head the Department of Homeland Security.

Obama’s most interesting and surprising choices so far have been in the national security field. For the post of National Security Advisor (rather than former deputy NSA James B. Steinberg or former assistant Secretary of State Susan Rice, as the AP article suggested he had in mind) he is reported to have chosen four-star General James Jones, a 64-year-old onetime Georgetown University basketball star who has as extensive a range of experience as almost anyone ever selected for the post. For National Intelligence Director he is said to be favoring retired Admiral Dennis Blair, rather than former Indiana congressman Tim Roemer or Rep. Jane Harman as the AP article claimed. But the story did have one choice right – the President-elect is reported to want former National Couterterrorism Center John Brennan for the post of CIA Director.

When it comes to the selection of those who will represent his White House to the media and the public, today came the news that Obama has chosen Robert Gibbs, his campaign press spokesman, to be press secretary. Gibbs is a Southerner with very extensive experience on Capitol Hill working with politicians from below the Mason-Dixon Line, and conceivably can play a substantial part, come 2012, in improving the President-elect’s performance in Southern states. The choices of Ellen Moran, long an AFL-CIO activist, and Dan Pfeiffer to be, respectively, White House communications director and assistant communications director are also very significant. It’s evident that Big Labor will have some muscle in the executive branch to a degree perhaps unseen since the Carter years.

And still the question lingers about Sen. Hillary Clinton. It appears almost a done deal that a nomination for Secretary of State will be offered to her and that she’ll accept. But in recent days there’s been talk that former UN Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, the leading Democrat most experienced in the foreign policy field, will be offered the post of Deputy Secretary at Foggy Bottom. What could emerge from this synergy? I’ll look at that question tomorrow.

How Palin Becomes The New Nixon

November 14, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under Election 2012, Sarah Palin | 1 Comment 

A friend asked what I meant suggesting that Gov. Palin could be the new Nixon instead of the new Reagan. Here are the two scenarios:

New Reagan: Several weeks before the election, GOP insider Ed Rollins said, somewhat chillingly, that some didn’t think Sen. McCain was the right candidate to rebuild the party, an echo of those who felt the same about President Ford in 1976. During 1977-80, Jimmy Carter made such a muck of the economy and foreign policy that a Republican victory was almost inevitable. Having challenged and weakened Ford in the ‘76 primaries, Ronald Reagan earned the ‘80 nomination, which was tantamount to winning the election.

Palin and her advisers can’t help but have grasped the possibility that Obama will falter or that the sheer magnitude of our economic and international challenges will overwhelm him. Every leading Republican has as well. The internecine sniping at Palin has nothing to do with ‘08 postmortems and everything to do with ‘12 prepositioning.

The fallacy is that the party needs a new Reagan — a candidate with special appeal to social conservatives — to beat the new Carter. The moderate, pro-choice John Connally or George H. W. Bush would almost certainly have beaten Carter had one of them been nominated. For ‘12, the GOP doesn’t need a far-right champion. It needs an agonized reappraisal of what makes it necessary and viable. Delaying that work in order to coalesce around the present Palin would be a disastrous mistake, as would her hurling herself against an Obama juggernaut in ‘12 unless she had a reasonable chance of success. From the moment Lehman Bros. failed in mid-September, she and McCain became sacrificial lambs. One self-sacrifice per career is sufficient.

New Nixon: RN would begin with the assumption that Obama will probably not fail. An incumbent is likely to be reelected, and Obama will probably not make Carter’s mistakes. Because circumstances may nonetheless hobble him, however, Mr. Nixon would advise Palin to keep her ‘12 options open, but he’d urge her to fix her attention on ‘16.

As for the present Palin, he would have enormous respect for the potential she embodies. She has an astonishing reservoir of political capital. But he would have some significant concerns. And so he would almost certainly write her a “Dear Governor Palin” letter beginning, “I am sure you are receiving a great deal of free advice from well-meaning fans and self-appointed advisers around the country. While you are of course under no obligation to give it any consideration whatsoever, I have taken the liberty of enclosing a memorandum containing just a few…” In such circumstances, his insights were usually based in the reliability of his own experience. He would make points such as this:

Take some time off the national stage. The temptation will be to accept too many of the invitations that are flowing in and to go out and challenge her critics. We’ve probably seen too much of her already just this week. Better to be a little scarce and mysterious. As RN liked to say, it never hurts to leave them wanting more.

Get back to work. Her critics say she’s a lightweight fashion plate. Confound them by being an effective governor (or senator).

See the world and meet leaders. RN would consider this crucial — first, because she’s justifiably seen as weak in foreign policy, and second, because it would help her prepare to be in power.

Do favors. Some of RN’s most important political work was done in 1964, when he campaigned loyally for the hopeless Goldwater candidacy, and in the midterm elections of 1966, doing favors that were repaid in 1968. In 2012, assuming she doesn’t run, Palin should be the most loyal and committed advocate of whomever does. Purely in terms of her own political interests, the worst than could happen is that he would win and she’d have her pick of jobs.

Don’t let your enemies define you. Palin provoked panic among abortion rights advocates. The weekend after she was named to the ticket, Andrew Sullivan republished a lie about her son Trig’s parentage on his Atlantic Monthly-owned web site that obviously still rankles. Yet Palin would close herself off from growth as a leader by taking it personally. If some people despise her because of her pro-life views, what might she learn from their passion? Some women experience the possibility of restrictions on abortion as an existential challenge. She is comfortable seeing the issue almost solely in terms of the rights of the unborn. What about the rights of the half of the population that wasn’t permitted to vote until 1920? Hillary Clinton did herself a tremendous favor three years ago with a speech in which she spoke respectfully of those who hate abortion. Palin should consider making an analogous gesture, both on the abortion and the gay rights front.

Read and think. At least from afar, Palin doesn’t seem curious or self-critical. Confidence is good in a leader; smugness is not. Mr. Nixon read hungrily all his life and spent long hours in Socratic dialogs with experts, advisers, and aides. While his core principles didn’t waiver, his approach to great issues changed with the times. The anti-communist of the 1940s became the internationalist of the 1950s, the course-changing peacemaker of the 1960s and ’70s, and the elder statesman of the ’80s, respected by all his Democratic and Republican successors in spite of the circumstances of his administration’s end.

As Palin matures as a potential national leader, her views will, one hopes, become more moderate and nuanced. Her New Reagan advisers will caution her against permitting this to happen. Lost in the fantasy that Reagan’s conservative bona fides (rather than the “R” after his name) won him the ‘80 election, they’ll urge her not to tamper with the time-tested Palin brand. But if she thinks she’s fully formed and ready to be President, she’ll never make it. She’ll fade away prematurely or, at best, squander her potential on a quixotic ‘12 bid that would probably relegate her to oblivion and her party to another generation in the wilderness. If she uses the next eight years wisely, focused more on substance than on politics, she could truly be the new Nixon, and a winner.

The Republican Wilderness: Four Years – or Forty?

November 13, 2008 by David R. Stokes | Filed Under American Politics, Barack Obama, Culture, Election 2008, Election 2012, History, Political Philosophy, Republican Party, Richard Nixon, U.S. History | 1 Comment 

The Grand Old Party of Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, & Ronald Reagan, has entered the proverbial wilderness. It moves from the box seats to the cheap seats, or better – to mix the metaphor a bit – the backbenches.

How Republicans handle this exile, and just how long the era lasts, will depend largely on what is done with and in the wilderness.

The idea of a wilderness period as a picture of exile is actually much older than American politics, or even anything from our ancestors across the pond. It is a concept dating back to Biblical history and the frustrations and wanderings of the ancient children of Israel. Poised to enter the “Promised Land” of abundance and fulfillment following centuries of bondage and privation, and in the wake of the clearly providential exodus led by Moses, that generation fell tragically short.

They missed their rendezvous with destiny.

Entering the wilderness – a place, but also a process – they lived out a forty-year reminder of what had left been behind, while also grieving the loss of a compelling future. They had allowed short-term frustration to short-circuit long-held principles and dreams.

And the Lord told them in the book of Deuteronomy that the reason for the wilderness was, “to humble you and test you, to know what was in your heart.” In other words, the wilderness for them was a divinely ordained “time out” – the kind of thing my dad would do when he sent me to my room to “think about” what I had done (when it was really all my brother’s fault).

The wilderness was a time for purging and preparing. Attitudes, habits, and ambitions had to be dealt with, and priorities revisited and clarified. The duration of the wilderness depended on how well the lessons were learned. In that ancient case, a journey that should have taken no more than a year became a forty-year generational failure.

And something that was lost, forgotten, or just misplaced, desperately needed to be found.

As the Republican Party moves into its own desert of exile for a while, it is time for reflection. It needs to figure out what it really stands for and what it can offer the nation the next time it is called upon to lead. How it manages in the wilderness will determine whether it will come back in four years, or forty – if at all.

That another such time will come is, of course, almost inevitable – not just because of very real concerns about the capacity of recent victors to translate historically flawed policies into real success, but because of the inherent cycles of politics. What happened on November 4th was due nearly as much to the tendency of politics and history to repeat themselves and the public’s tendency to soon tire of anyone on center stage, as it was a mandate for real “yes, we can” change.

Writing in the book, In the Arena: A Memoir of Defeat and Renewal, the late and former president Richard Nixon dedicated a chapter to the phenomenon of the wilderness. He knew a thing or two about the ups and downs and ins and outs of political life. The period between his loss in the governor’s race in 1962 and the winning of the White House in 1968, is a textbook case of how to come back from the kind of defeat that tempts opponents to write someone off permanently.

Nixon mentioned something described by Arnold Toynbee in his, Study of History, described as “the phenomenon of withdrawal…a disengagement and temporary withdrawal of the creative personality from his social milieu and his subsequent return to the same milieu transfigured in a new capacity with new powers.” Throughout history, great leaders demonstrated this. Certainly Nixon did and clearly identified with others who went through deep valleys.

In the 1991 movie, City Slickers, Billy Crystal and his best friends head out west looking for adventure. Crystal’s wife in the film wanted him to, while moving cattle from point A to B, along the way find something. Something he had lost. Something he needed to recover. His smile. The movie ended happily with said smile finding its way back to Billy’s face.

For the Republicans, they do not need to find something as insignificant as a group smile. Rather, they should be looking for something much more vital if they are to have a real shot at coming back from this wilderness.

The key to this is found in another place where the ancient scriptures mention a wilderness. We learn about this from the writings of the prophet Isaiah, when in the 40th chapter of his book we come across the vital phrase, “the voice of one crying in the wilderness.”

No doubt Winston Churchill, another frequent wilderness wanderer, identified with this little phrase during his years as a political has-been in the 1930s. He had no power, no position, and no prospects.

But he found his “voice” – and began to warn his countrymen about Hitler and dangers to come. Later, when he once again found himself in forced exile, having been voted out of office in the Labor sweep just a couple of months after the victory had been won in Europe, he found his “voice” again. This time he did not speak in the House of Commons, but rather in the gymnasium of a small college in the American mid-west. From that unlikely pulpit in the wilderness he cried out about an “iron curtain.”

The Republicans have clearly found the wilderness. Now they need to find their voice.

The GOP needs to figure out what it wants to be if and when it grows back up. Are ideas like limited government, the free market, and at least an interest in understanding the relationship between the morality of personal responsibility and self-discipline and the ills of the larger culture – now officially gone forever?

The word paradigm comes from the Greek language and the word paradeigma. It basically means a perception, or frame of reference – a lens through which to interpret reality. Author Steven Covey in his book, The Eighth Habit: From Effectiveness to Greatness (hint: the eighth habit is “finding your voice”), insists that “if you want to make minor incremental changes and improvements, work on practices, behavior or attitude. But if you want to make significant, quantum improvements, work on paradigms.”

The time for tweaking is past. As the nation readies itself to enter a new era of “bold experimentation” under an activist Obama administration, it is time for the party now finding itself in the political wilderness to find what it has lost. By definition, something lost is not something new – it is something once possessed.

Republicans can find their voice during the wilderness period, but to do so will require a willingness to have the wisdom and humility to make a paradigm shift, one that surely involves a quantum journey back to the future. The must find what once worked – and has been lost.

And if anyone thinks that the idea of going to the past to find something that will resonate in the future is not politically feasible, please remember this: America just elected a guy who advocates policies and programs that failed 75 years ago.

Gearing up for 2012

November 10, 2008 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Election 2012, Republican Party | Leave a Comment 

The front runners emerge: Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, Alaska Governor and Republican VP Candidate Sarah Palin, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, and former Arkansas Governor and newly minted TV  talk-show host Mike Huckabee.

According to his aides, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich might emerge as a dark horse candidate; Mississippi Governor and former Republican National Committee Chairman Haley Barbour says naming and running candidates this early in the game is no way to rebuild a party.