Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
On ABC's This Week, conservative David Brooks called Sarah Palin "a joke" but said newly elected Va. Governor Bob McDonnell is the future of the GOP because he's "serious" and "pragmatic."
She's a joke. I mean, I just can't take her seriously. We've got serious problems in the country. Barack Obama's trying to handle war. We've just a had guy elected Virginia governor who's probably the model for the future of the Republican Party, Bob McDonnell, pretty serious guy, pragmatic, calm, kind of boring. The idea that this potential talk show host is considered seriously for the Republican nomination -- believe me, it'll never happen. Republican primary voters are just not going to elect a talk show host.
Some of this is right and some of this is wrong. Yes, Palin is obviously a joke. As for whether the Republican party would vote for her in a primary, I think that depends on whether there are any sane, moderate people left in the party by 2012. If they keep up the "health care reform = Hitler" crap and keep chasing every moderate voice out of the party, there may not be anyone left but the kind of braindead ideologues who would vote for Palin.
But Bob McDonnell? A serious pragmatist who is easily distinguished from Palin? I don't think so. McDonnell is a hardcore religious right ideologue with a whole range of crazy beliefs that he badly wants to shape the law around. Remember, this guy's thesis at Regent University was actually titled The Republican Party's Vision for the Family.
You can read the whole thesis here (PDF). He favors a whole range of crazy authoritarian ideas, like the notion that the government should be allowed to ban the sale and use of contraception even for married couples. Yeah, that's an idea that's gonna go over like a lead balloon outside the theocratic right.
He also argued forcefully in favor of government punishment for homosexuality and pornography, saying that "man's basic nature is inclined towards evil, and when the exercise of liberty takes the shape of pornography, drug abuse, or homosexuality, the government must restrain, punish, and deter." Maybe that's why he actively opposed a rule in Virginia that the state government would not discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation.
Maybe it's also why he said in a Virginia Assembly hearing he chaired in 2003 that gays could not serve as judges because homosexuality was illegal in Virginia (a law that was rightly overturned a mere 6 months later by the Lawrence v Texas decision.
McDonnell and Palin are two peas in a pod, both hard religious right ideologues with a penchant for authoritarian policies. The only difference between them is that McDonnell managed to fool people into thinking he wasn't, while Palin isn't bright enough to do that.
Politics
Comments
The good news, and the bad news, is, Brooks is right. McDonnell ran a damn good campaign (or maybe he just looked good because his opponent, Creigh Deeds, was so lame). The one hope we had of beating him came when Deeds started talking about McDonnell's misogynist Christian-Reich thesis; but Deeds didn't capitalize on it enough, his ads got repetitive, and McDonnell's campaign kept their cool and handled it effectively.
People like us need to keep a close eye on people like him; and stop letting ourselves be distracted by people like Palin.
Posted by: Raging Bee | November 17, 2009 9:48 AM
McDonnell is my current governor. I truly hope that he never becomes president. He's so extreme in his views, but then he makes a commercial basically saying, "See? I let my daughter have a career, so I can't really hate women", and people fell for it. The problem is that reasonable conservatives are leaving the Republican party, leaving a base that really does agree with all the inane extremist things that Palin and McDonnell believe. McDonnell is much better at hiding his views from the non-extremists though, which is what worries me.
Posted by: catgirl | November 17, 2009 9:57 AM
RB: I think it's more that people like us shouldn't shirk from sticking in the knife and twisting when its warranted. As Mr. Brayton points out, there's plenty of questionable activity for someone running against Mr. McDonnell to latch on to, and as you've pointed out Mr. Deeds took too long to use and was too unconvincing with those arguments to be effective. There was a time when Dems didn't think that being steely with people who's ideas are a fundamental threat to the Union was a no-no; Johnson ran the daisy ad, and he ran it because he knew the future of the Union depended on it. We need that sort of steely resolve is support of openness, toleration, and cool-headed foreign policy again. Being the good guy doesn't mean you have to be a milquetoast.
Posted by: Julian | November 17, 2009 9:57 AM
While I obviously appreciate David Brooks stating the obvious here, I have near zero respect for Mr. Brooks as a supposed advocate of moderate conservatism but in reality little different than most neocons.
When the Republican party's leaders moved from tolerating its nuts to making them its leaders during the mid-90s but especially after the 2000 election, Brooks avoided the topic, except for an occasional column supporting gay rights as a method to enable continued government regulation/prohibitions regarding private morality. When the Republican party began to disregard both history and policies based on sound economic theory and instead relied on mere talking points misrepresentative of history, especially during Reagan's era - Brooks avoided the topic.
He's Peggy Noonan with chest hair, and William Kristol with a fact checker.
Posted by: Michael Heath | November 17, 2009 10:03 AM
Re catgirl
If Ms. catgirl thinks that McDonnell is bad, consider our new Attorney General, one Ken Cuccinelli. Mr. Cuccinelli is not only a moron but he is a nut case and a Glenn Beck wannabee who makes McDonnell and Palin look almost like sane sober individuals in comparison.
Posted by: SLC | November 17, 2009 10:11 AM
So, Ed, are you saying the only difference between Palin & McDonnell is... lipstick?
Posted by: Blondin | November 17, 2009 10:14 AM
When someone is republican and that vehemently anti-gay, its time to post lookouts with cell phone cameras at the gay bars around Richmond.
Posted by: MikeMa | November 17, 2009 10:29 AM
Nah, he'd just go to Arlington or DC. Or at least Charlottesville.
Posted by: Raging Bee | November 17, 2009 10:37 AM
There's a lot of time until the nomination fights in 2012. There's a lot of time for Palin, McDonnell, or someone we have never heard of to make a run.
Palin has the name recognition advantage (her book will help a lot there too) and Huckabee came in second, so he might see himself as a logical successor. Romney -- well, he spent $40 million but while he is a stronger candidate I doubt he would get the nod.
Also, Obama will be an incumbent in 2012. How many incumbent presidents have lost? Since 1900 (working back):
Bush I
Carter
Ford
(Truman chose not to run in 1952)
Hoover
(Coolidge chose not to run in 1928)
(Roosevelt Chose not to run in 1908)
The odds for an incumbent are therefore pretty good -- heck, even Truman managed to win in 1948, and even with strong challenger candidates it's a tough slog. Truman was weak, but Coolidge and Roosevelt were in good shape had they decided to run.
Bush I was a VP following a president and they don't have such a good record (the only ones that win seem to do so if the president dies in office).
All that said, the GOP field isn't all that strong for 2012, not yet. Again there may be others we haven't thought of. Jindal is a possibility. (Yeah, his last big speech out of the gate wasn't great but so what? He's at least not a frothing lunatic). Pawlenty? Possible too.
Posted by: Jesse | November 17, 2009 10:43 AM
Any strong GOP candidate will probably sit out 2012 and waith for the 2016 election. Not only will the field be more open nationally (assuming Clinton and Biden bow out because of age) but any potential sane GOP candidate will hope the the wing-nut wing of the party will have crashed and burned by then.
Posted by: Ericb | November 17, 2009 10:55 AM
Jesse:
A fair analysis, except that last bit. Jindal thinks he can excorcise demons--I think that goes a bit beyond the lunatice demarcation.
Posted by: democommie | November 17, 2009 11:02 AM
I just read the paper by McDonnell that Ed provided and a couple things jump out.
1. The guy likes church. Alot. He seems to see it as the answer to many social ills.
2. He doesn't seem to make a great argument at all past repealing and not permitting.
3. He seems to have completely bought into the 'traditional family' myth. This creature has never existed and I doubt it ever will. Families have always been more or less fluid in their structure and expecations from culture to culture.
4. He also seems, not suprisingly, to hold the position that marriage is religious first as in they invented the concept which is historically false as the first marriage contracts have no religious lanquage in them at all. I think this is his frame as he references Adam. All in all he wants way to much church involvement in government to make rationalists comfortable.
Posted by: JimC | November 17, 2009 11:09 AM
Ericb,
That would seem to be based on the assumption that Obama will not be vulnerable in 2012. That seems a risky proposition. Then again, I'm almost always wrong about politics.
Of course, there is a real possibility that there will be no strong candidates at all weighing whether or not to wait until 2016.
Posted by: heddle | November 17, 2009 11:25 AM
Which is considerably more Nazi-like than universal healthcare, at least from a historical perspective.
Posted by: Azkyroth | November 17, 2009 11:48 AM
McDonnell may also have an IQ slightly higher than his waist size in inches.
Posted by: abb3w | November 17, 2009 11:52 AM
Indeed, there is a very strong conform to what we think is best just because in his paper. Likewise plenty of demonizing humanism and the left as family haters.
Posted by: JimC | November 17, 2009 11:57 AM
I find it interesting how the further right a person gets, the more tightly they want to control other people's family life. Yet they claim they want less 'big government' and so less government interference in the private sector. Apparently, individuals and their families are not private. Conservatives have such funny idiosyncrasies.
Posted by: feld | November 17, 2009 12:01 PM
Palin's task for the GOP is to move the 'Overton Window,' that is, the range of accepted opinions, to the right. Any other GOP candidate will then appear more 'moderate' or 'middle-of-the road,' and the pundits on TV and even the so-called 'liberal' press will anoint that candidate as reasonable, no matter that his talent is only in better hiding his real intentions. (Remember Compassionate Conservatism?) And the American voter will fall for it, the same way they fell for Bush. And don't forget: the 'moderate' Republicans in Congress all voted reliably for all the bad things which happened during Bush's tenure; they way to think about them is as enablers of evil.
And the media still continued to label them as 'moderate.'
And look now how the health insurance reform is being discussed, as some almost 'socialist' scheme, when in fact, the bill currently would not even go so far as the Swiss health insurance scheme as regards regulation, private participation etc. If one is aware of this parallel (between proposed U.S. and Swiss health insurance arrangements), and hears the discussion claiming the proposed U.S. scheme is 'socialist' etc., one might imagine Switzerland being run by socialist bankers.
The 'left' in the U.S. needs badly more outspoken visible proponents of desirable social and economic policies, even if these are utopian in the current system, where it is accepted as a matter of fact that Congress is captured by (financial and other) industries, and any meaningful reform is impossible, and where the media are also owned by the same special interests, so that certain (especially economic) facts are never mentioned. Unfortunately, the latter fact also makes it impossible for a left answer to the various talk-radio and talk-show hosts to emerge. (But you can dream of a TV personality, who rails against the 'economic outrage du jour', shows the benefits of single-payer health insurance, explains the legal tax avoidance by the rich and growing inequality... every evening in prime time, and during your commute on the radio. And columns in the NYT and the 'liberal media' actually representing a liberal view, not just neocon pundits putting on pseudoliberal airs.)
Posted by: A | November 17, 2009 12:54 PM
Posted by: Chuck | November 17, 2009 2:27 PM
Sweet bastard, it's like the Republicans have an infinite supply of barbaric nutjobs/corrupt weasels, one after the other. But they are all really just the same being, like that scene in Matrix II where Neo has to fight hundreds of Agent Smiths.
Posted by: cm | November 17, 2009 2:56 PM
Whut?
This guy got a masters out of that pile of bullshitsu? His advisors signed off on THAT? Did he blackmail them? Was this one of those situations where the advisors were tenured profs who were pissed at the head of the dept and passed an absolute moron just to make the department look bad?
If this thesis is an example of all it takes, I could pull a master's-worthy thesis out of my ass right now and save myself the money and study time.
Anyway, if I were challenging this guy's thesis the first thing I'd point out is "..a decline in respect for authority and the importance of values, and an assault on the traditional family". You have any proof for this? Because if you do, I can disprove it by counter example. If you're going to establish a rule along the lines of "authority was more respected, traditional values were held more tightly, and the traditional family was stronger in the past", you'd better be prepared to refute people like Mark Twain and Charles Dickens who made a living telling stories of orphans, corruption, and child-abuse. Huckleberry Finn's father is a drunk, and his mother is dead. That's hardly a traditional family yet it must have resonated with a large portion of people at the time who knew people in similar situations. Charles Dickens' dad sold him out to child labor when he himself got sent to debtor's prison. Dickens later dumped his wife and mother of his children for his young mistress: a girl nearly 1/3 his age. His verbal abuse of his wife is the stuff of soap operas, and his fetishization of the young, pretty, not-so-bright but virginal Ellen Ternan scandalized England. If even the man who created Victorian England's idea of family values (and the one that conservatives still hold today) couldn't have an ideal family by the GOP's standards, what are the odds that people back then were somehow more virtuous than people today?
The Japanese have a word for this assumption that the past is some sort of untouchable rose-coloured fantasy. It's "mappo", a yearning for a golden past with the assumption that every generation becomes more degenerate and lackluster than its predecessors.
Posted by: scrabcake | November 17, 2009 7:11 PM
I only wish it were Mel Brooks telling a joke about Palin and how Ol' McDonnell* is future of the GOP. :( -DJ
------------
* EIEIO
Posted by: DingoJack | November 17, 2009 10:29 PM
Slow down there. It's Regent University, the "school" Pat Robertson founded. It's about as low a school as you can get and still be accredited.
Posted by: Shygetz | November 17, 2009 10:38 PM
Another difference between Palin and McDonnell is that one is a conservative Catholic and the other is an evangelical Protestant. It is interesting that we live in a time when that distinction matters much much less then it did 40 years ago.
Posted by: Cheddar | November 17, 2009 11:23 PM
Cuccinelli used to work down the hall from my doctor.
I had the distinct displeasure of having to see a bunch of boils on the ass of humanity walk down the hall working for this piece of shit as I was waiting for an appointment.
Posted by: Katharine | November 18, 2009 10:18 AM
McDonnell meets the definition of a pragmatic new Republican. All you have to do is be willing to hide your true beliefs during the campaign. The major question is whether or not he'll reveal his true colors once he's in office enough to alienate the Republican moderates and independents.
Posted by: Jim S | November 18, 2009 11:20 PM
The lessons of the election in Virginia (and in New York) seem to be lost on the Republican party; that in order to win, a Republican candidate has to position him/herself as a moderate centrist.
Instead they are betting the farm on the lunatic fringe.
Posted by: Shay | November 19, 2009 12:34 AM