The Democratic and Republican Parties have become merely opposite wings of the same bird, and it’s the American people who are getting the bird as our elected officials serve their corporate masters and the special interest groups that dominate both parties. ~Lou Dobbs
Can Pat Buchanan sue for copyright infringement over this “wings of the same bird” rip-off? In the original, it was “two wings the same bird of prey,” which was a much better way of putting it. It seems, as virtually everyone has already noted, that Dobbs is floating the idea of an independent presidential bid when he says:
I believe the person elected a year from now will be an Independent populist, a man or woman who understands the genius of this country lies in the hearts and minds of its people and not in the prerogatives and power of its elites.
And again:
I believe next November’s surprise will be the election of a man or woman of great character, vision and accomplishment, a candidate who has not yet entered the race.
Okay, I guess he really believes it (and he really believes that he has a book that you’d like to buy), but it’s still not clear to me why he believes it. Yes, foreign policy is a mess, the price of oil is staggering, the dollar is depreciating, people keep making unpleasant comparisons between the current state of the market and the autumn of 1987, and the economy may well be on the verge of recession. But why should we expect there to be another Ross Perot-like figure leaping into the mix? I’m not saying that it wouldn’t be a welcome development–it would be. But I expect that the candidate would have to be quite wealthy and capable of self-financing the entire campaign, and you just don’t have that many billionaires who get worked up about the evils of corporate influence and mass immigration. There is real support for strong restrictionist and “protectionist” policies out in the country (ground that the Democrats are already partly beginning to occupy on trade), but an independent who made his campaign primarily an anti-corporate, pro-sovereignty and anti-immigration one could not realistically expect a flood of large donations. Only a Giuliani or McCain nomination on the GOP side could trigger the kind of mass exodus of restrictionist Republican voters that the Independent Populist of Great Character would need to make his candidacy competitive. He would draw dissatisfied Democratic voters as well, but the core of this kind of independent bid would be Republican and independent restrictionists. And what would the Independent Populist of Great Character’s foreign policy look like? If it is deemed too “isolationist” by the great and the good (i.e., if it is sane on Iraq and Iran), he probably loses many of his nationalist, “Jacksonian” voters to the Republican, and if he is too jingoistic he will be even less popular than the Republicans.
P.S. The scenario imagined by Dobbs’ friends, in which he enters the race after a Bloomberg candidacy starts, is also highly implausible, not least since Bloomberg will almost certainly not be running. It also makes no sense–why would Dobbs wait until the man with virtually endless financial resources enters the race? Dobbs would not only be letting Bloomberg steal his thunder, but guarantee that his campaign would be outmatched in resources by not just two established party candidates but by a billionaire as well. The billionaire meanwhile frames his campaign around pragmatism and problem-solving and pulls away some significant portion of Dobbs’ protest vote (which is what some part of his support would be).
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November 17th, 2007 at 3:01 pm
Roach
Why the ardor for Paul–who is lukewarm on this important issue–and the animosity to Dobbs, who is one of the only popular mainstream media figures who is going out on a limb to keep this issue on the front burner?
November 17th, 2007 at 3:32 pm
Daniel Larison
Animosity? What animosity? Okay, my first paragraph was a little snarky. I appreciate that Dobbs is advancing the same critique of the major parties, and I can’t remember when I have ever expressed animosity towards Dobbs. Perhaps I was not clear when I said above that his candidacy would be a welcome one. I would welcome a Dobbs independent candidacy. I would probably cheer it from the rooftops. I imagine that I would support it here on Eunomia just as I have done with Paul. At the very least, it would give me someone to vote for.
I was trying to gauge the plausibility of an independent Dobbs bid and the difficulties it would face, which are, as always, considerable for a candidate running on these issues. In the title, I was trying to express my skepticism that a Dobbs candidacy would be able to prevail in a general election. I do not mean to discourage the candidacy, but I wanted to state plainly the potential weaknesses such a candidacy could have. I raise the problem of a populist’s foreign policy because it can be either a significant boost or an impediment to an independent populist’s candidacy. Since there are obviously military campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan still ongoing, an independent candidate would really need to be able to tap into discontent with the one and also present a credible alternative foreign policy that at the same time doesn’t drive away the nationalists and Jacksonians attracted to his domestic agenda. This balancing act is essential to a populist’s success, and I think we can all see how Paul has not been able to tap into what ought to be a natural “Jacksonian” weariness with an aimless war policy and a “nation-building” project. To be really competitive, an independent populist would need to advance a “Jacksonian” anti-Iraq war message combined with a reasonably hawkish anti-jihadism that does not degenerate into prattling about “Islamofascism,” which is a difficult thing to create and sustain. For my part, I honestly don’t know what Dobbs’ foreign policy views are except as they relate to trade agreements, so my question on this was one based in my own curiosity about whether Dobbs could tap into the same vein of antiwar sentiment that Paul is benefiting from right now, or whether he would put himself on the wrong side of public opinion in the same way that the Republicans are doing.
November 17th, 2007 at 6:58 pm
Roach
I guess I misread your natural pessemism for opposition. My apologies. I’d put an emoticon here to show my good cheer, and all, but that would be, ahem, lame.