Douthat Backs Brownback

The Atlantic's big government conservative—my pick for communications director in the inevitable Huckabee Administration—thinks Sam Brownback won the debate last night.

Brownback generally seems lost in the crowd during these debates, and from a tactical perspective he ought to be throwing more punches. (Or getting out of the race entirely.) But - but - what Brownback did, in his non-response to Paul, was offer an actual strategy for moving forward politically in Iraq, addressing the central problem of our occupation head-on in a way that almost nobody else did during tonight's debate. His plan for partition may be a terrible plan (or at best, a plausible endpoint of a "stay till it burns out" strategy), but it's an infinitely more substantive contribution to the argument over Iraq than, say, Rudy Giuliani's famous slam of Paul a few months back, and Brownback deserved better - as do we all - than to have his response scored a failure because he didn't use it to score cheap points against a fellow also-ran.

The "as do we all" link is to James Fallows' 11-year old piece about the fight-crazed, substance-poor political media. I'm sympathetic to this. Back when Brownback was contemplating the race the punditocracy was genuinely interested in his ideas, in his version of pro-life politics, etc. And now everyone's baying for him to quit the race.

But… Brownback should quit the race. There was a contest for the role of consistent, pro-life, "family friendly" conservative, and Mike Huckabee won it. If Brownback's substantive Iraq answer actually got the rest of the field to respond with their own substantive answers he'd be playing a useful role, but they didn't, so he isn't.

As smarmy and superior as he can sound, Newt Gingrich is actually on to something with these debates: They're only good when candidates have to engage an issue at length, to see if they can. Rather than praising Brownback I'd like it if the moderators could skip the stupid "would you nuke Iran if Lex Luthor and Magneto gave them the doomsday device?" questions and instead follow up with Romney or Rudy (or better yet the lightweight Thompson) until they actually answer an Iraq question substantively. If they can't do it, then we've learned something. Douthat's right that we don't actually learn anything when these guys just pitch applause lines.

Comments

[sixstring]

"They're only good when candidates have to engage an issue at length, to see if they can."

But that's not good theatre. It's no wonder Paul looks uncomfortable in the debates; his ideas are too articulate. How do you explain abolishing a whole governmental department (or 6) to the laity in 90 seconds or less?

I was really hoping that RP would call out Giuliani on his chuckling every time the questions were posed to Paul. (Does anyone remember Rudy's son Andrew at his mayoral inaguration? Apples and trees I guess.) Something like, "If you don't stop acting like a farting fourth grader, I'm gonna punch you in the nose!" And then hitting the sanctimonious bastard right between the eyes.

[ChrisO]

Is this the earliest that we've ever seen such intense focus on a presidential race? Thank the gods that football season starts tonight.

[John]

I object to the idea that candidates should always be expected to have a plan. Essentially Weigel is asking for the magic plan that will solve the problems in Iraq. Well, there isn't a magic plan. Whatever you do it will involve cost and sacrifices. The problem with all of our political debates be they on Iraq or Social Security or whatever is no one ever faces up to there being only flawed choices. Instead, candidates come up with bullshit magic plans that will never be implimented and walk around saying "if I were king, we wouldn't have these problems". Yeah right.

[robc]

no one ever faces up to there being only flawed choices.

Alan Keyes did in the 1996 debate. Lot of good it did him.

It went something like this:
Moderator: You talk a lot about problems America faces, but what is your solution?
Keyes: I dont have one, government cant solve these problems.

[lunchstealer]

the inevitable Huckabee Administration

translate: the coming Huckabocalypse.

[TrickyVic]

"""I object to the idea that candidates should always be expected to have a plan."""

They shouldn't. But they should have some knowledge of the subject. I'm not sure if people are looking for a plan as much as a sound bite.

These debates are lame as Weigel claims. But when do candidates want the tough questions? They probably think is stupid too but it's a break from hardball.

Keyes and Paul have the same electorial problem, they understand government and they admit it. The people would rather hear a candidate say "I will fix X, Y, and Z". Which they can't, our government is not set-up that way. They can, as Ron Paul has said, work with Congress to fix X, Y, and Z. I think this is viewed as weak. The people want superman to make everything alright, they are not concerned with the actual system of government.

[J sub D]

The people want superman to make everything alright, they are not concerned with the actual system of government.

"The people" were educated in the public schools and were nver required to learn American Government. I went to what is considered an excellent public school system and American Government (Civics?) was not a requirement for a HS diploma.

[Gene Berkman]

Interestingly, in the Fox News text message poll, Sen. Brownback received virtually NO votes - dead last after Tancredo & Hunter (2% each)

Mike Huckabee came in second with 18% - ahead of Giuliani (16%) McCain & Romney. Ron Paul won with 33%.

[James Hudson]

Is Reason a magazine that is suppose to be for Libertarians or for Conservatives? I ask only because Ron Paul doesn't appear to be the candidate of choice for the writers who are reporting on the site. I thought reason was a "libertarian" rag (not being derogatory) but compared to Lew Rockwell or Mises site there appears to me to be a definite conservative bent to your views about the candidates. I thought I may have been mistaken but I googled libertarian magazine and Reason was the top name. What gives?

[lunchstealer]

Hudson - not sure you've taken home the right message from the posts.

There's a great deal of Paul coverage, and it's mostly favorable, although being libertarians we just assume that he's going to lose in the end. But when Weigel mentions the inevitable huckabee administration, I think it's mostly becuase huckabee's such a funny name.

There's been a little bit of (baffling and undeserved, IMO) love for Brownback, and a great deal of handwringing over whether we can hold our noses and support any of the Team Blue candidates the way we used to hold our noses and support the likes of GHWB and Bob Dole, but otherwise, I think there's pretty much consensus that Paul's the best we can hope for (many if not most libertarians would also be happy with a more definitively pro-choice and less anti-immigration candidate, but we takes what we can gets).

[James Hudson]

Thanks for clearing the air on that. Ron Paul really is the best candidate out of the bunch it would be nice if the MSM wouldn't write him off for candidates as crazy as Ghouliani or Romney. The Republicans will wish that Bush hadn't expanded the President's power once President Hillary Clinton is using them. And in my opinion they definitely deserve a presidency from her as punishment for selling us out to the highest bidder. Hillary will do the same of course and maybe that will be enough to wake people up to how bad an idea it was to let government turn into a leviathian.

[James Hudson]

But I doubt it. I love these quotes from Mencken.

It is inaccurate to say that I hate everything. I am strongly in favor of common sense, common honesty, and common decency. This makes me forever ineligible for public office.

In the United States, doing good has come to be, like patriotism, a favorite device of persons with something to sell.

I believe that all government is evil, and that trying to improve it is largely a waste of time.

Amen

[Ourangoutang]

I don't see this as a critique of the Republican debates, but more of Douthat standing up for his pet candidate. I think Brownback was slammed because he did not commit himself to "we have already won" which is somehow a prerequisite to winning the Republican nomination.

Brownback may be more nuanced than his main competitor Huckabee, but I read it more as just Douthat cheerleading for his fellow SuperCatholic.