Comments on: A sympathy for statistics

By: John Emerson

John Emerson — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 11:05:01 +0000

It isn’t strictly a hypocrisy problem. A lot of Christian conservatives are very strongly anti-gambling. (Some of them recently got flimflammed by Ralph Reed, who got tons of money for getting them to oppose one group of gamblers for the benefit of a different group.)

By: TGGP

TGGP — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 13:34:26 +0000

Did Bennet ever actually say there was anything wrong with gambling? I guess I’ll have to read Jeremy Lott’s “In Defense of Hypocrisy”.

By: Phil Boncer

Phil Boncer — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 16:58:12 +0000

"What gambling bust? People found out he gambled, but he was never arrested or charged with doing anything illegal."

Not a bust in the sense of a legal problem, but a bust in a more colloquial sense of a discovery of hypocrisy and attendant loss of credibility. He was caught behaving in ways that he had made a career out of denouncing. Likewise with Senator Larry (who also had a legal bust involved); the real career problem was the discovery that he was a person of the kind that he had spent decades reviling. Another variant of the TV-Preacher syndrome.

PhilB

By: Icepick

Icepick — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 12:13:40 +0000

up until Bennett's gambling bust their personal lives were squeaky-clean....

What gambling bust? People found out he gambled, but he was never arrested or charged with doing anything illegal.

By: bioIgnoramus

bioIgnoramus — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 17:11:59 +0000

It would help if he’d a rich daddy to buy him Texas and Illinois too.

By: razib

razib — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 13:36:34 +0000

to some extent romney's problems as a mormon are sui generis. mormons not only believe themselves to be christians, but they believe that they are the true & restored church, and that other churches are in error. obviously other christians, and especially evangelical protestants disagree. not only do evangelicals disagree, but a substantial number don't even agree that mormons are christian! this is a different case than might happen if romney was an orthodox jew. evangelicals would think he was in error, but a jew can acknowledge that there are just fundamental differences of opinions regarding the facts. there is no disputing the nature of christianity from the point of view of a jew, but for a mormon to respond wholeheartedly to a christian they have to dispute the nature of christianity in great detail and in very deep ways. for example, mormons are not monotheists. they are monolatrous. they worship one god, but do not deny that there may be other gods. that's a big deal in terms of theological differences.

now, why the hell does this matter in terms of a political campaign? back in 2000 george w. bush named jesus christ as the most influential political philosopher because he changed bush's heart. the mixture of a religious understanding of the world and the inferences that one makes from those beliefs is just part & parcel of republican politics today, and romney's audience is just habituated to that. but i can't imagine that mitt will tell his audience that his loving and monogamous relationship to his wife is modeled by the precedent of the marriage of the heavenly father and heavenly mother! because of the differences in belief between mormonism and mainstream christianity mitt has tended to speak in more vague religious terms because that's what spans both religious spaces. but alas that is the tendency more appropriate for a democrat than religious right republicans, who demand a more sectarian discourse.

By: albatross

albatross — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 13:09:09 +0000

This seems like an example of how coalitions break up as they accomplish a broad shared goal and look for others. When you’re talking about a broad “culture war” (fighting abortion, gay marriage, widespread divorce / illegitimacy, obscenity on TV or in music or on the net), evangelicals, standard Protestants, Catholics, conservative Jews, and Mormons can all easily fit inside the same coalition. But of course all these religions have very different beliefs, and forming a broad coalition with someone isn’t the same as backing them for president, or otherwise dividing the power that your coalition has achieved.

Something similar happens with racial identity politics and coalitions, right? Blacks and Hispanics may group together on many issues, but I don’t think there’s a huge swell of Hispanic support for Obama, say.

By: razib

razib — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 10:32:44 +0000

bbart, yeah, i agree with that in general. though guliani is a more natural fit with some of the pragmatists. like i said, romney is marketing himself as a social conservative so that causes some issues re: his core audience and message.

this youtube is what i'm talking about
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-G9hydflwEQ

he is getting all pissed because the conservative talk show host is mischaracterizing his religion. and emphasizing that religion is private. i knew many mormons growing up and they were all socially conservative republican, but when it came to a small set of religious issues they often bucked the trend because they knew that they were religiously different and so would be marginalized. e.g., orrin hatch opposes school prayer. as a mormon friend of mine explained, "well, how are you going to agree on how to do the prayer?"

By: John Emerson

John Emerson — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 10:18:01 +0000

My guess is that Romney wouldn’t lose more than 1/4 of the evangelical vote. Giuliani might lose half or more.

Pat Buchanan and William Bennett were perfect on all the issues, and up until Bennett’s gambling bust their personal lives were squeaky-clean, but they have had evangelical troubles due to their Catholicism.

By: bbartlog

bbartlog — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 10:08:54 +0000

This is why Romney needs to win both Iowa and New Hampshire. There is an irreducible portion of the Republican base that will never support him; but if he can get a big enough head of steam by winning the first two states he’ll get enough votes from the pragmatists, and the people that just want to back a winner, that the lost evangelical votes won’t stop him. The person whose votes he needs to take is Giuliani, and I suspect he’ll be able to do that with back to back wins.

By: John Emerson

John Emerson — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 10:05:08 +0000

The weird thing about Thompson is that he’s marketed as charismatic but he actually looks like a horrible old molesting uncle. I just imagine him munching away on hardboiled eggs and sausages, working his flabby jowls and smacking his fat lips .

By: razib

razib — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 09:36:56 +0000

Romney has to do a Kennedy and quiet people's fears about his religion. If he does that, watch out.

but he can't do a kennedy. kennedy was in many ways a cultural catholic who placed his religion firmly in the private realm. when romney has tried this with the religious right they've gotten angry because they don't want a candidate's religion to be in the private realm. any move romney makes is subject to trade off. deemphasizing his religion turns off his target base because they think a candidate's religion is critical to his credibility, but in romney's case his specific religion undermines his credibility.

By: diana

diana — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 09:15:09 +0000

Razib,

Alan Greenspan thought that Clinton was the smartest of all the six Presidents he worked for. But smart as he is, he's not God and at the end of the day, Bill won't be enough to put Hillary in the White House.

Sure, religious hostility exists and people are very leery of Romney's Mormonism. Some of the hostility exists because of mindless prejudice
and some hostility exists because Mormonism is some pretty weird shit. Articles about stray polygynists in the press don't help, even if polygyny has been disavowed by the mainstream. Anybody who's ever dealt with a Mormon elder gets weirdo vibes. I've done so. It's a problem, alright.

That said, I think that Romney has a good chance of winning because his opposition is so poor. I can't believe that even Republican voters would vote for Giuliani or Thompson once a few facts are thrown in their way, because they are both so hollow and repulsive. Neither is intrinsically likeable, as Reagan was.

The Base WILL come out to vote for whoever the Republican candidate is. The Base is very disciplined. They like to win. They don't stay home like a bunch of petulant adolescents, as Dems and Independents do. In 2000, there was a lot of skepticism about Bush amongst the base. People don't remember - they thought he wasn't conservative enough. AFAIC, he did lose (by a slim margin), but if he didn't have The Base, he would have decisively lost.

Romney has to do a Kennedy and quiet people's fears about his religion. If he does that, watch out. He's Presidential looking and was governor of a blue state. And his likely opposition for Commander in Chief will be a woman. If he gets the nomination, he has a good chance of winning.

(You can save this and give me a nice ass-whupp in six months if I turn out to be totally wrong. It's just politics.)

By: John Emerson

John Emerson — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 08:41:02 +0000

Yeah, it does count for something. Nonetheless, Bush had a hand in both Waco and Somalia, and did Ruby Ridge all by his lonesome, but the Clinton-haters have forgotten that.

My guess is that Reno made the mistake of trusting the FBI et al, but it my be that Bush had been holding the FBI back. When the Republicans tried to make Koresh into a martyr, that was sick.

By: Barry Youngerman

Barry Youngerman — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 07:26:33 +0000

John wrote:
"the Waco assault was planned under Bush and executed 5 weeks after Clinton was inaugurated."

Lots of actions are planned and never implemented. Janet Reno was on the scene, and gave the go-ahead order. That must count for something.

By: John Emerson

John Emerson — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 06:55:40 +0000

For the record (because a lot of people misremember):

Ruby Ridge was 100% George H. W. Bush and 0% Clinton.

Bush sent troops to Somalia (after his election defeat) and Clinton got them out. I have never been able to think of a good reason why Bush should have done that.

The Waco assault was planned under Bush and executed 5 weeks after Clinton was inaugurated (Feb. 28).

By: John Emerson

John Emerson — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 06:46:48 +0000

Dodd has also come out unmistakably for withdrawal. The Dem leaders are all cautious.

Paul seems like a perfect GNXP candidate: right libertarian, anti-war, and nativist.

Clinton didn't really make a lot of mistakes. He was crippled by ferocious opposition and fake scandals, but was pretty successful nonetheless. Republicans hated him because he "stole their issues", and Democrats hated him because he was half-Republican, but no one really laid a glove on him except for the medical insurance issue.

As far as I'm concerned, the financial scandals and dot-com bust were bipartisan, as is globalization and, to a considerable extent, the Iraq War.

By: bbartlog

bbartlog — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 06:07:26 +0000

Yes, I’m also supporting Paul. As for intelligence, I think the bar you have to clear to be an effective president is not that high – but the job looks to be getting more intellectually demanding as time goes by. Eisenhower (let alone someone like Coolidge) didn’t have nearly as many things to understand and keep track of as our next president will.

By: PhilB

PhilB — Sun, 28 Oct 2007 22:29:19 +0000

Intelligence is a tool, and while it is generally beneficial to those who have it, it may or may not be beneficial to others depending on how it used and to what ends. Reagan was less intelligent than most Presidents have been, and was pretty much the opposite of a policy wonk, yet his Presidency had a lot of strengths. Clinton, as noted, was extremely intelligent, yet also exhibited some remarkably poor judgement at times, that really stunted his possible achievements. Nixon and Kissinger were both highly intelligent, yet that didn't do very much good for anyone else, now did it?

While being President of the U.S. is an extremely complicated job that having a high intelligence probably could help with, I think it is much more critical at this point that we elect people who are not morally challenged, and who care about the Constitution, the rights of the average person, and the principles this country was founded upon. And by "not morally challenged", I am not talking about either religion or sex; I am talking about not lying, stealing, abusing power, and that sort of thing.

The only candidate that I can put any trust in to not abuse his power and to pay attention to the Constitution is Ron Paul. So I'm supporting him. I disagree with him on a number of issues. There are even a few I think he's a little "out there" on. But he's honest, he doesn't think the government should be an instrument of oppression, he respects humans' rights, and he abides by the Constitution (and has a solid 20-year record in Congress that actually shows that).

As a further bonus, he is one of only two of the major party candidates that has clearly stated an oppostion to the war in Iraq, and an intent to end it ASAP. (The other is Kucinich, who in my mind has significant other drawbacks.)

PhilB

By: bbartlog

bbartlog — Sun, 28 Oct 2007 20:05:01 +0000

Huckabee is the only real RR guy but seems not to be going anywhere.

Huckabee has been trending upwards of late. I recommend checking out the graphs on pollster.com (look at Huckabee's trendline in Iowa polling as well as nationally). His anemic fundraising is really the main thing holding him back.
Mind you, while discussing the Republican candidates is more interesting in some ways (more of a horserace), it doesn't look like their chances are very good in 2008.
As for Romney, I think he's got a good battle plan to claim the Republican nomination. He seems to be a competent executive. I would like him better if he didn't have some creepy friends (like Mel Sembler).