Frank Rich Agrees with Me
On November 22, here on TMV, I riffed off of an insightful column by David Broder, saying that as US voters prepare to pick a new President in 2008, they, above all, are looking for grown-ups, explaining the recent surges of Senator Barack Obama among the Democrats and former Governor Mike Huckabee among Republicans. Near the end of the piece, I wrote:
Obama and Huckabee, in contrast, although obviously both committed to some core principles, also seem willing to look beyond the political cliches and work with others. Obama speaks eloquently about the need for compromise and cooperation. Huckabee describes himself as someone who’s conservative, “just not mad at anybody.”
Whether or not Obama or Huckabee are authentic or they can overcome the enormous money advantages enjoyed by Hillary Clinton, Mitt Romney, and Rudy Giuliani is anybody’s guess.
But that increasing numbers of Americans are alienated from the political process, as evidenced by their failure to vote, or that they want political leaders who cooperate, even when they disagree, is undeniable.
They want an end to what Broder calls, “a dysfunctional political environment…”
In his New York Times column of Sunday, Rich dismisses the conventional wisdom that Huckabee’s surge, particularly in Iowa, but elsewhere as well, is only attributable to evangelical Christians flocking to support him. In short, Rich agrees with me that Huckabee’s increased support is traceable to the same broad sentiment contributing to Obama’s recent uptick in the polls:
What really may be going on here is a mirror image of the phenomenon that has upended Hillary Clinton’s “inevitability” among Democrats. Like Senator Obama, Mr. Huckabee is the youngest in his party’s field. (At 52, he’s also younger than every Democratic contender except Mr. Obama, who is 46.) Both men have a history of speaking across party and racial lines. Both men possess that rarest of commodities in American public life: wit. Most important, both men aspire (not always successfully) to avoid the hyper-partisanship of the Clinton-Bush era.
Though their views on issues are often antithetical, Mr. Huckabee and Mr. Obama may be united in catching the wave of an emerging zeitgeist that is larger than either party’s ideology…
Read all of Rich’s column. Like him, I’m convinced that these two surges have to do with a bipartisan, nonpartisan yearning for politics that gets things done and for politicians who, even when committed to varied general ideological principles, want to work with others so that things do get done.
Americans want politicians who may have opponents, but not enemies. That isn’t a statement of idealism. Rather, it reflects the very practical assessment growing among Americans, even members of groups who have often been intransigent in their politics in the past, that the Red/Blue kabuki dance of recent years must go!
7 Responses to “Frank Rich Agrees with Me”
I’m a Richardson supporter, but if he can’t pull off an upset in the primaries, I would have very little problem voting for Obama or Huckabee. And the grown-up, common-sense, let’s all work together attitude that they share is a big part of why I feel that way. You get the sense from both Obama and Huckabee that regardless of their personal feelings on issues, they will listen to all sides and find a working compromise.
I couldn’t vote for Huckabee. Whatever else he says, the plain truth is that he supports the social conservative agenda of control of the personal lives of those who don’t follow their faith and I just can’t support that.
I was considering Huckabee until I read some virulently anti-gay statements (very typical of Baptist ministers) that he made in the ’90′s. WaPo reported today that he is standing by them. Also, I can’t get past the fact that he doesn’t believe in evolution. Our present-day anti-science agenda is holding us back in making needed advances in medicine and combatting global warming.
This is from Think Progress-
Mark is right that Huckabee and Obama are this year’s “un-politicians”. Neither of them are part of the current power structure that has created legislative gridlock. Both of them are young enough to have lots of fresh ideas about how to govern in a new way.
The Washington power establishment will never abandon the deep partisanship that divides our government, and it has worn down a great many presidential outsiders in the past. But more than the other candidates, these two at least seem to want to try a new approach, and I think that’s why people like them. Voters are tired of a government that doesn’t solve our country’s problems.
One politician won’t be able to reform the whole rotten system, any more than Jimmy Carter was able to restore clean government after Watergate. He ended up being isolated and ineffective, because he hated the Washington social scene and couldn’t work with the system the way it was.
1. Obama is the kid in this election, supported most by younger voters, not “one of the grown-ups”; the
politician favored by the 50-and-over Dem crowd is Clinton, while here in Iowa, Obama is supported by more young people than Clinton. Not elsewhere.
C. O. C. O. C. O.
50- IA 28%-34% NH 32%-20% SC 42%-38%
50+ IA 36%-16% NH 46%-17% SC 48%-23%
2. Huckabee is good, but although he’s doing very well here in Iowa (second at 24% to Romney’s 25%), he has much less support elsewhere. Not only is the Religious Right not the Leviathan mischaracterized by the opposition, but the vote is split because many are favoring Giuliani instead to “stop Hillary.”