In any highly fluid political situation, you will always find some observers determined to argue that it’s not fluid at all–that underneath the surface, the status quo prevails, and anyone thinking otherwise is naive or poorly informed.
Tuesday night, you just knew that Mark Kirk’s U.S. Senate primary victory in Illinois would be interpreted in some circles as proving that the much-discussed rightward trend in the Republican Party, sped along by pressure from the Tea Party Movement, was actually a mirage. And sure enough, Politico‘s Jonathan Martin published an article today entitled: “Tea Leaves: the Republican Establishment Still Rules.”
Aside from Kirk’s win (more about that in a moment), Martin’s main bits of evidence for his hypothesis are that the Republican National Committee recently rejected an effort to impose an ideological “purity test” on candidates seeking party financial support, and that recent GOP winners like Scott Brown and Bob McDonnell didn’t campaign on divisive cultural issues.
The “purity test” argument would be more compelling if not for the fact that many hard-core conservatives opposed it as insufficiently rigid, ham-handed, or unnecessary. Nobody, but nobody, in the conservative movement is more preoccupied with driving RINOs and “squishes” out of the Republican Party like whipped curs than Red State proprietor Erick Erickson. Yet he opposed the “purity test” as offering ideological heretics a phony seal of approval:

Rome long ago stopped selling indulgences, but conservatives keep right on selling them. Look, for example, at NY-23. The moment Dede Scozzafava signed ATR’s [Americans for Tax Reform] no new tax pledge, she was absolved of all her sins, including voting for 198 tax increases in the New York legislature.
Therein lies the inherent problem with candidates signing off on well meaning pablum — there are no teeth and the party will not serve as its own enforcer.
While I applaud the desire of conservative RNC members to try to put the train back on the tracks, I am afraid this will do what the ATR pledge did in Scozzafava’s case — give a lot of candidates cover to pretend to be conservative.

Plenty of other conservatives opposed the “purity test” on grounds that “grassroots Republicans” were best equipped to police candidates. Some interpreted such rhetoric as indicating a big-tent willingness to tolerate regionally important ideological variations. But as the recent DK/R2K survey of self-identified Republicans illustrated, “regional differences” in the GOP are pretty much a relic of the past in a monolithically conservative party. And nowadays the “grassroots” means conservative activists, who are indeed avid to conduct ideological purification rituals. If there is a significant body of “grassroots activists” fighting to protect the interests of Republican “moderates,” it’s an awfully quiet group.
In general, the “purity test” furor reminds me of a quip I heard during the Jim Crow era about the relative weakness of the John Birch Society in the South: “Nobody sees the point in joining an organization standing for things everybody already agrees with.”
The argument that the success of hyper-opportunist Scott Brown and stealth theocrat Bob McDonnell “proves” the ideologues don’t have much real power in the GOP strikes me as almost self-refuting. Sure, Brown had a “moderate” reputation in the MA legislature, but that’s not why he became the maximum hero of the Tea Party Movement, whose themes he adopted wholesale. By contrast, McDonnell didn’t need to reassure social conservatives of his bona fides by campaigning on “their” issues; he had proven himself to be “one of them” for many years.
As for Mark Kirk, it’s true that conservative activists don’t like him, and there’s even a chance his Senate campaign will be immensely complicated by a Tea Party inspired third-party effort. But it’s also true he spent much of the primary campaign tacking steadily to the right, flip-flopping on the Gitmo detainee issue, and more dramatically, promising to vote in the Senate against the climate change legislation he voted for in the House. He’s hardly a good example of the weakness of conservatives in the GOP nationally.
More generally, it’s increasingly obvious that what passes for a “Republican Establishment” these days is focused heavily on surrendering to the most immediate ideological impulses of Tea Party and conservative movement activists (who are in fact the very same people in many places) and then coopting them for the 2010 and 2012 campaign cycles. In attempting a takeover of the GOP, the hard right is in many respects pushing on an open door. The RNC chairman, supposedly a “moderate” of sorts, never misses an opportunity to identify himself with the Tea Party Movement. Sarah Palin, who was the party’s vice presidential candidate in 2008, has called for a merger of the Movement and the GOP. Republican Sen. Jim DeMint has argued that they have already more or less merged.
In his piece Martin suggests that the longstanding Republican pedigree of Florida Tea Party hero Marco Rubio somehow proves the “establishment” is still in charge. I’d say it shows that “establishment” is in the process of rapidly surrendering to the “conservative coup” that Martin scoffs at. Charlie Crist, whom Rubio seems certain to trounce in a Republican Senate primary later this year, was without question a major “GOP establishment” figure just months ago, and Rubio was considered a nuisance candidate. Now he’s the living symbol of a “purity test” being applied to Republicans by the “grassroots” to dramatic effect.
Yes, many Tea Party activists continue to shake their fists at the “Republican establishment,” just like unambiguously Republican conservative activists have done for many decades, dating back to the Willkie Convention of 1940. But with some exceptions, they are choosing to operate politically almost exclusively through the GOP, to the “establishment’s” delight.
The emerging reality is that the Tea Party activists are the shock troops in the final conquest of the Republican Party by the most hard-core elements of the conservative movement. It’s apparent not just in Republican primaries, but in the remarkable ability of Republican politicians to repudiate as “socialism” many policy positions their party first developed and quite recently embraced (Mark Kirk’s support for cap-and-trade would have been considered relatively uncontroversial just a few years ago). You can certainly root around and find a few exceptions to this trend, but they are few and far between. And the implicit assumption of Martin’s piece–that the “adults” of the Republican “establishment” will once again tame the wild ideological beasts of their party–is actually dangerous.

Gallup put out an analysis of daily tracking data this week that was designed to establish that Asian-Americans are the most liberal U.S. ethnic group. But as Matt Yglesias immediately noted, what the analysis really does is to call into question the entire “liberal-moderate-conservative” self-identification spectrum in public opinion research.
Gallup’s numbers for African-Americans show this rather emphatically: 24% call themselves liberals, 42% call themselves moderates, and 29% call themselves conservatives. By this measurement, African-Americans are a “center-right” bloc of voters. Yet the same survey notes that African-Americans self-identify as Democrats (or as Democratic “leaners”) by a margin of 83% to 8%. And despite many years of conservative hopes and dreams for a rightward trend among African-Americans, they consistently represent the most solidly “liberal” category of voters by any measurement other than ideological self-identification.
In other words, as many of us have been saying for years, the L-M-C typology for ideological self-identification is deeply flawed and of limited utility. Yet an astonishing edifice of “analysis,” commentary, and political rhetoric has been built on this shaky foundation, most recently the claim that Barack Obama is defying a “center-right nation” by trying to implement his campaign platform. It’s time to retire it or replace it.

Those who are interested in, and/or alarmed by, the Tea Party phenomenon often struggle to understand the welter of groups and individuals who seem to be influencing this movement. This has been particularly true during the controversy over the National Tea Party Convention that’s getting underway today in Nashville, which has been characterized by lots of insults thrown back and forth and by shifting alliances of various organizations. Who are all these guys?
Fortunately, TNR’s Lydia DePillis has put together a handy-dandy guide of key dates, individuals and organizations in the Tea Party Movement. Aside from improving your knowledge-base, her guide also implicitly shows the close and intimate links between the movement and all sorts of previously-disreputable right wing organizations.

With yesterday’s easy primary victory by Mark Kirk in IL, and with the news that former Sen. Dan Coats will leave his lobbying gig to take on Evan Bayh in IN, Republicans are now getting excited about the possibility of retaking the Senate this November.
They should probably chill a bit. Chris Cillizza of the Washington Post breaks down the ten Democratic seats Republicans would have to win–without losing any of their own–to regain control of the Senate. And while anything’s possible if this turns out to be a “wave” election, running this particular table will be very difficult.
To start with the least likely Republican victories, Chris Dodd’s retirement makes Democratic attorney general Richard Blumenthal a solid front-runner in CT. Republicans must negotiate a difficult primary and then take on one of the most popular politicians in recent Nutmeg State history. Similarly, CA Republicans must get through a tough primary before taking on Sen. Barbara Boxer, one of the more popular politicians in a state that really hates its politicians (in both parties) these days.
Bayh will hardly be an easy mark The never-defeated former Boy Wonder of Hoosier politics, he’s sitting on $13 million in campaign cash, and has a history of winning big in good Republican years. Meanwhile, Coats has to deal with bad publicity over his ten years of DC lobbying work, including representation of banks and equity firms. And he’s been voting in Virginia, not Indiana, all that time.
A lot of Republicans seem to be assuming that Mark Kirk will win easily in IL. Only problem is: he’s currently trailing Democratic nominee Alexi Giannoulias in early polls, and will also have to explain some major flip-flops he executed to survive his primary.
I’m probably not the only observer in either party who remains skeptical that former Club for Growth chieftain Pat Toomey is going to win in PA against the eventual winner of the Sestak-Specter primary. Toomey is certainly the kind of guy who will make sure that intra-Democratic wounds heal quickly.
And then there are states which are absolute crapshoots at this point, such as CO, where either appointed Senator Michael Bennet or former state House Speaker Andrew Romanoff will probably face former Lt. Gov. Jane Norton. The same is true of an open Republican seat in MO, where Democrat Robin Carnahan has been running essentially even with Roy Blunt.
Republican open seats in NH, OH, and KY are hardly safe for the GOP, either.
All in all, it would take a odds-defying “wave” indeed to deliver the Senate to Republicans. And by the very nature of Senate races, which match high-profile politicians usually well known to voters, “waves” are less likely to control outcomes than in House races. The only real precedent for what GOPers are dreaming of came in 1980, with Republicans improbably won every single close race.
In many respects, the Senate landscape will be much improved for Republicans in 2012. But then we will be dealing with a presidential year, different (and more favorable for Democrats) turnout patterns, and the little problem that the Republican presidential field doesn’t look that exciting (with the possible exception of Sarah Palin, who’s a little too exciting).

Yesterday’s Illinois primary produced intense competition in both parties, but no huge surprises. In the gubernatorial contest, photo finishes are occurring in both parties, with incumbent Pat Quinn holding a 5,000 vote lead over Dan Hynes (Quinn has declared victory, but Hynes has not yet conceded) among Democrats, and downstate conservative state senator Bill Brady leading his colleague Kirk Dillard by less than a percentage point.
The Senate races were less dramatic. The long-time Democratic front-runner, state treasurer Alexi Giannoulias, won by a comfortable margin over David Hoffmann, and Republican Rep. Mark Kirk won with a majority over three conservative rivals. For all the hype about Kirk nationally, Giannoulias actually leads him in the polls, and Kirk could still face a right-wing third party candidate.
There was one surprise in House races: Ethan Hastert, son of former House Speaker Denny Hastert, got waxed by conservative state senator Randy Hultgren for the GOP nomination in Denny’s old district. The seat is now held by Democrat Bill Foster. In a sign of the times, the more conservative candidate also won the GOP nod for the seat being vacated by Kirk, with Bob Dold beating Beth Coulson.

Please Democrats, read and understand Ian Millhiser’s article, “How to Kill the Filibuster with Only 51 Votes” in The American Prospect. If Millhiser is right, this may be our best chance to escape the hellish predicament of not being able to enact anything, even with 59 percent support of the U.S. Senate. As Millhiser explains,

With conservatives salivating, and progressives seriously questioning whether American government is too crippled to solve major problems, it’s difficult to imagine that Democrats won’t take additional losses next November. Even if they don’t, however, a minority bent on total obstructionism now enjoys the power to veto nearly any bill or nominee. With the exception of the annual budget, literally nothing is likely to pass the Senate for the next three years.
It doesn’t have to be this way, however. A long line of Supreme Court decisions forbid former legislators from tying the hands of their successors. Thus, although current senators may choose to impose a supermajority rule on themselves, they cannot impose such a rule on a new Senate. Under the Supreme Court’s precedents, just 51 senators will have a brief opportunity to reform or eliminate the filibuster next January — but this opportunity will disappear if they do not act right away.

Millhiser goes on to give an account of two U.S. Supreme Court decisions establishing and affirming the aforementioned precedents, and adds:

Taken together, these two decisions open a narrow window every two years, when the Senate’s newly elected members take their seats. During this time, only 51 senators (or 50 senators plus the vice president) are needed to change the filibuster’s 60-vote threshold, eliminate the 30 hours of delay that the minority is allowed to demand between a successful cloture vote and a final vote on a filibustered bill, or even eliminate the filibuster entirely.

Further, Millhiser reasons,

The reason why the filibuster exists is because the rules of the Senate say that it exists. Article I of the Constitution provides that “each House may determine the rules of its proceedings,” so the Senate is allowed to create a rule requiring 60, 70, or even 100 votes before it can proceed with any business.
What the Senate is not allowed to do, however, is tell future senators what rules must apply to their proceedings. Because Reichelderfer prohibits a previous Congress from tying the hands of a future Congress, the rules governing Senate procedure in 2010 cannot bind a newly elected Senate in 2011. The old Senate rules essentially cease to exist until the new Senate ratifies them, so a determined bloc of 51 senators could eliminate the filibuster altogether by demanding a rules change at the beginning of a new session. Once the new Senate begins to operate under the old rules, however, this can function as a ratification of the old rules — essentially locking those rules in place for another two years.

Yes, the reactionary activists of the Roberts Court could conceivably screw with any such Democratic initiative, as Millhiser considers. He adds, however,

Such a turn of events, however, is exceedingly unlikely. For one thing, if the Supreme Court accepts the continuing-body theory, it would do a whole lot more than simply lock the filibuster in place. Were the mere existence of a legislator who has not stood for election since a law or rule was enacted enough to prevent newly elected lawmakers from repealing a recently enacted law, then all federal laws could be enacted with a six-year shield of invulnerability — untouchable until the last senator present when the law was enacted stands for a new election. Nothing in the Supreme Court’s precedents suggest that erecting such a shield would be acceptable, however — indeed, they say quite the opposite. As far back as the Court’s 1810 decision in Fletcher v. Peck, the justices unanimously declared that “one legislature is competent to repeal any act which a former legislature was competent to pass,” acknowledging no exception for laws enacted within the last three election cycles.
There is also a profoundly practical reason why the Court is unlikely to undo a change to the Senate rules — it lacks the authority to do so. Under a line of precedents stretching back to its landmark 1803 decision in Marbury v. Madison, the Court will actually refuse to hear any case involving a matter that is “textually committed to the political branches.” In other words, if the text of the Constitution itself provides that a particular question must be resolved by the Senate, the House, or the White House, the Supreme Court won’t stand in that branch’s way…The Supreme Court would be grossly overstepping its bounds to second-guess the senators.

And lest we forget, we are one justice away from restoring a modicum of sanity to the High Court. Millhiser concludes:

Now that it has enough votes to sustain a filibuster, it is exceedingly likely that a Senate minority bent on pure obstructionism will have enough votes to block virtually all of the majority’s legislative agenda. Meanwhile, health-care costs will continue to grow at three or four times the rate of wage growth. Long-term deficits will continue to threaten the future of American prosperity. Largely unregulated markets will remain a time bomb that could trigger another great recession, and catastrophic climate change will continue to threaten the very existence of many island and coastal civilizations.
Fifty-one senators will have the power to change this outlook next January — but they get exactly one chance to act.

The downside of Millhiser’s challenge is that even under the best case scenario, we are stuck with the current mess for 11 months. However, that should not deter Democratic leaders from making use of the budget reconciliation process as much as possible in the interim, when the stark alternative facing them leading up to November is campaigning with zero Democratic reforms enacted between now and then.
To do otherwise amounts to a pathetic abdication of political responsibility, recalling a skit by one of the guerilla theater groups of the sixties, in which a group of protesters occupies the Dean’s office of a large university. When ordered to leave, they get down on all fours and crawl out of the building on hands and knees, chanting “Grovel, grovel, grovel. Who are we to ask for political power?”
So the question for Democratic leaders is, “do we have the mettle to act on our mandate?” The only acceptable answer for a political party that hopes to have a future is, “Hell, yes.”

Daily Kos has just released a large Research 2000 poll it commissioned to test the views of just over 2000 self-identified Republicans. Here’s Markos’ analysis of the findings, and here are the crosstabs so you can slice and dice the results yourself.
Markos calls the poll’s results “startling,” but I guess that depends on your expectations. Seems to me that it confirms the strong rightward trend in the GOP that its leaders have been signaling now for the last two years. Some of this actually represents a long-term trend that ‘s been underway since the early 1960s; some of it involves the shrinkage of the Republican “base” to a seriously conservative core from the party’s identification peak around 2004; and some is attributable to a conscious or subconscious effort to absolve the party from the sins of the Bush administration by treating it as too “moderate.”
In any event, aside from a general and rigorous conservatism, the two findings that are probably most relevant to the immediate political future, and to the relationship between Republicans and independents, are the GOPers’ exceptionally hateful attitude towards Barack Obama, and their unregenerated cultural extremism. The first factor will complicate any efforts in 2010 to go after congressional Democrats as a bad influence on the well-meaning president (who remains more popular among voters outside the GOP than either party in Congress). And the second undermines the media narrative that today’s Republicans are semi-libertarians who have finally sloughed off all that crazy Christian Right stuff and are focused like a laser beam on the economy and fiscal issues.
How much do self-identified Republicans hate Barack Obama? Well, this is hardly news, but in the DK/R2K poll they favor Obama’s impeachment by a 39/32 margin (the rest are “not sure”). Only a narrow plurality (42/36) believes he was born in the United States. By a 63/21 margin, they believe he is a “socialist” (tell that to his progressive critics!). Only 24% say Obama “wants the terrorists to win,” but with 33% being “not sure” about it, only a minority (43%) seem convinced he’s not an actual traitor. Only 36% disagree with the proposition that Obama is a “racist who hates white people” (31% agree with the proposition, and the rest are not sure). And only 24% seem to be willing to concede he actually won the 2008 election (12% think “ACORN stole it,” and 55% aren’t sure either way).
On the cultural-issues front, self-identified Republicans are divided only between the very conservative and the very very conservative. The number that jumps off the page is that 31% want to outlaw contraceptives (56% are opposed). But that’s not too surprising since 34% believe “the birth control pill is abortion,” and 76% (with only 8% opposed) agree that “abortion is murder.”
But it’s the homophobia of GOPers that’s really striking, considering the steady national trend away from such a posture, particularly among younger voters. It extends beyond familiar controversial issues like gay marriage (opposed 77/7) and gays-in-the-military (opposed 55/26) to exceptionally unambiguous statements of equality like the ability of openly gay people to teach in public schools (opposed 73/8). This last finding really is amazing, since St. Ronald Reagan himself famously opposed a California ballot initiative banning gay and lesbian public school teachers, way back in 1978.
The crosstabs for the poll break down the results on regional lines, and there are some variations; most notably, southerners are marginally more conservative on most questions, and really stand out in their incredible levels of support for their own state’s secession from the United States (fully 33% favor a return to 1861, as opposed to only 10% in the northeast). But by and large, the regional splits aren’t that massive; the old idea of the GOP as a coalition of conservatives based in the south and west and moderates in the midwest and northeast is totally obsolete.
The poll finds no real front-runner for the 2012 presidential nomination. Given eight options (about the only plausible candidate not mentioned is Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels), Sarah Palin tops the list at 16%, with Romney at 11%, Dick Cheney (!) at 10%, and everyone else in single digits. Fully 42% are undecided. Given the overall results of the poll, that almost certainly means the 2012 nomination process will exert a powerful pull to the right for all the candidates. I mean, really, in a scattered field, is it at all unlikely that someone will focus on that one-third of southern Republicans pining for secession and start channeling John C. Calhoun before the early South Carolina primary? Or might not a candidate seeking traction in the Iowa Caucuses, a low-turnout affair typically dominated by Right-to-Life activists, maybe call for banning those “murderous” birth control pills?
We’ll know soon enough how crazy the GOP crazy-train will get in 2012, I suppose. But it’s a lead-pipe certainty that the dominant right wing of the Republican Party won’t find any reason to moderate itself if the GOP makes serious gains in November.

Yes, sports fans, the 2010 election cycle begins today, with primaries in Illinois, including selection of candidates for governor and U.S. Senator.
The gubernatorial race on the Democratic side features a close battle between incumbent Pat Quinn, who succeeded to the post from the lieutenant governorship when Rod Blagojevich was forced out of office, and state comptroller Dan Hynes. The Democratic senate primary has front-runner and state treasurer Alexi Giannoulias trying to hold off former Chicago Inspector General David Hoffman, with Chicago Urban League chief Cheryle Jackson also a factor.
Ideology isn’t much of a factor in these Democratic primaries, but negative campaigning is, with Hynes using an ad with negative comments about Quin from the late, revered Chicago mayor Harold Washington, and Giannoulias’ rivals blasting him for the financial collapse of a bank in which his family has been heavily involved.
GOP primaries, by contrast, are mostly about ideology, with even well-documented “moderates” racing to the right and the Tea Party/conservative Republican coalition fighting stiff odds to defeat RINO candidates. In the gubernatorial primary, the designated right-wing candidate is Andrew Andrzejewski, though most observers think former state Attorney General Pat Ryan and former state party chair Andy McKenna are the front runners.
And in the GOP senate primary, U.S. Rep. Mark Kirk has had a big bulls-eye on his back from conservatives throughout this race, but after a campaign in which he has constantly tried to make himself acceptable to the Right, he is strongly favored to prevail over developer Patrick Hughes.
There are also a number of U.S. House primaries (notably the Kirk open seat, and GOP challenges to vulnerable Democratic Reps. Melissa Bean and Debbie Halvorson).
We’ll have full analysis of the results as they come in, for those of you not riveted to the Tube for the Lost Final Season Premiere.

In his latest ‘Public Opinion Snapshot’ at the Center for American Progress web pages, TDS Co-Editor Ruy Teixeira provides an important update on political attitudes toward health care reform. Teixeira explains:

…In a Kaiser Family Foundation/Washington Post/Harvard Public Health follow-up survey to the Massachusetts election, voters in that election were asked their views on the Massachusetts Universal Health Insurance Law, a law “assuring that virtually all Massachusetts residents have health insurance.” Massachusetts voters said they favored that law by 68-27, and even conservative Scott Brown’s supporters backed the law by 51-44. As for Obama’s claim that the public is not well informed about the health care reform bills and would support these bills more if they were clearly explained, he seems to be on very secure ground according to the latest Kaiser Health Tracking poll. In that poll the public’s reaction to 27 different elements of health care reform legislation was tested, and in 22 of those cases the public had a net positive reaction, with more people favorably inclined toward the measure than unfavorably inclined.

Teixeira then cites “the 10 most strongly supported features of the legislation,” including:

tax credits to small businesses (73 percent said they were more likely to support legislation with this provision compared to 11 percent who said were less likely); health insurance exchange (67-16); won’t change most people’s existing health care arrangements (66-10); guaranteed issue of coverage despite pre-existing conditions (63-24); Medicaid expansion (62-22); extend dependent coverage through age 25 (60-22); help close the Medicare prescription drug doughnut hole (60-21); increased income taxes on the wealthy (59-24); subsidy assistance to individuals (57-24); and reduce the deficit (56-20).

But Teixeira cautions “much of the public—exactly Obama’s point—does not know these provisions are in the reform bills that passed the House and the Senate,” and adds,

According to the same poll, among the provisions above that were tested, lack of awareness ranged from a high of 56 percent for closing the doughnut hole to a low of 28 percent for subsidizing individuals. For most provisions, around 40 percent or more of the public was unaware the provisions were in the legislation.

As Teixeira concludes, Republican charges that the public opposes the Democratic health care reform plan are groundless — as usual, and President Obama is right on target in citing the need to promote public awareness of the legislation’s components.

According to all the insider accounts, Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty was the finalist with Sarah Palin for the 2008 Republican vice presidential nod. He’s now generally considered a major player for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination. In both cases, Pawlenty’s major credential is that he doesn’t offend any significant conservative interest groups.
I’ve already written a couple of pieces suggesting that this guy is a less than a political fireball. But he really does seem to be positioning himself as the ultimate lowest-common-denominator candidate. Just today (via Matt Yglesias), I read a Tim Paw op-ed in Politico that was one of the dumbest, paint-by-the-numbers utterances on record.
This was presumably Tim’s response to the Obama budget, but it could have been written twenty or even thirty years ago, for delivery at some midwestern Lincoln Day Dinner that couldn’t attract a better speaker. Entitled “Ponzi Scheme on the Potomac,” the piece never bothers to explain its initial assertion that the federal budget is indeed anything like a “Ponzi Scheme,” and then descends into incoherent banality.
Pawlenty’s Big Idea, you see, is a constitutional amendment to require a balanced federal budget. This was a very popular idea a long, long time ago, until it became apparent that (1) it was a way for politicians to avoid talking about how, actually, the federal budget should be balanced, and (2) such an amendment would never, ever, be enacted, in no small part because it might require spending cuts and/or tax increases that a majority of politicians, and for that matter, a majority of Americans, would oppose.
Within seconds of wheeling out this antediluvian idea, Pawlenty calls for making Bush’s tax cuts permanent, and for additional tax cuts, which shows you why he favors a balanced budget only in the abstract sense of the term.
Tim Paw’s think piece wheezes to the finish line with a recitation of his proud fiscal record in Minnesota, capped by the boast that he “moved the state out of the Top 10 in tax burden.” Too bad that only 37% of Gopher State voters say they’d vote for him for president, according to a recent Rasmussen survey.
All in all, it’s hard to imagine Pawlenty outclassing Republican rivals like Palin or Huckabee, who, whatever their other abundant demerits, are interesting people who can light up rooms full of rabid conservatives. And it’s hard to imagine this plodding pol chasing Barack Obama around the ring in a general election debate. If this is the best the GOP can offer, please bring him on.