JONATHAN CHAIT MAY 16, 2011
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Like Ed Kilgore and Nate Silver, I think Mike Huckabee's decision not to run for president increases the chances that Michelle Bachmann could win the nomination. In my view, the three main contenders for the nomination are, in order, 1) Tim Pawlenty, 2) A party establishment-friendly Republican not currently running, such as Mitch Daniels or Paul Ryan, and 3) Bachmann. Everybody else, including Sick Man Of The GOP Field Mitt Romney, falls into the longshot bin.
Of the establishment-friendly potential candidates, the one most likely to pull the trigger at the moment seems to be Daniels. I think he could mount a serious bid for the nomination, but he's much more flawed than his Republican fans think, both as a general election candidate and as a candidate to win the nomination in the first place. Conservative blogger Jennifer Rubin, in a post begging Ryan to enter the race, fires this brutal drive-by attack on Daniels:
Ryan and his staff may think, “Well Mitch can do it, we don’t have to.” Whatever you think of Daniels, he’s no Paul Ryan. Candidates aren’t interchangeable, least of all these two.
It’s apparent that Daniels (most recently in suggesting he’d take the pro-choice, anti-Iraq surge, pro-North Korea engagement, pro-2006 Palestinian election, Condi Rice as a vice presidential choice) is hobbled, at the very least, by a tin ear and lack of sympatico with the GOP base. Daniels is older than Ryan (hence less attractive to young voters and less able to paint Obama as old-hat, the defender of the status quo) and less acceptable to hard-core conservatives. If he’s serious about cutting defense and pulling back from America’s commitments in the world, Daniels will (in a way the internationalist, pro-defense Ryan would not) take the party and potentially the country down a dangerous road. Daniels has already expressed a willingness to consider tax hikes; Ryan has ruled them out.
Obviously, If Daniels wins the nomination, Rubin would forget all about this. But it does give a sense of some wide-open liabilities that more conservative candidates could expose in a contested primary. Social conservatives, economic conservatives (defined as taxophobes) and foreign policy hawks all have strong reason to oppose him.
If no other establishmentarian Republican enters the race, then the field is fairly clear for Pawlenty. If he wins in Iowa, he can coast the rest of the way. If Bachmann wins in Iowa, the terrified party elites will probably rally to the side of the next most viable candidate, which will probably be him, assuming a second-place showing there. I assume that Pawlenty's establishment support would probably (but not certainly) allow him to defeat Bachmann.
But, if Daniels enters the race, it would create a very strong chance for Bachmann to capture the nomination. It could split the potential establishment alternative should she win Iowa. And if Daniels rather than Pawlenty emerges as the choice of the party elite, then Bachmann has an opponent she could beat. Pawlenty is perfectly acceptable to the most conservative factions of the party, and could hold his own with the extreme-crazy wing while dominating among the less-extreme-crazy wing. Daniels might simply face implacable opposition from the extreme-crazy wing.
Once again, there are so many variables at play that none of these projections should be considered too definitive. But I think Bachmann is a seriously underrated dark horse possibility. She raises a lot of money. She works the Tea Party circuit and has high-level communication skills.
Time pundit Mark Halperin tabbed Bachmann as a 10,000-1 shot to capture the nomination -- those odds are probably 1,000 times too low.
16 comments
Well, she would certainly be the nominee for those people who want the GOP to completely implode in a general election so that its right wing would never be able to dictate policy again.
- wildboy
May 16, 2011 at 12:25pm
You overestimate Michele Bachmann's chances at the nomination, and you underestimate Mitt Romney's. Romney is anathema to the Republican base but so was John McCain, and he got the nomination.
- liberalref
May 16, 2011 at 12:40pm
Jonathan, libref has been continually making this point. Could you explain why you think Romney in 2012 will not be a repeat of McCain in 2008?
- zardoz67
May 16, 2011 at 12:44pm
The Tea-Party succesfully got a witch on the ballot in Delaware because she would say the right things (in their point of view) and got a lady on the ballot in Nevada who longed for the old days when you could get health-care by bringing a chickent to your doctor. The only question in my mind is how far down the lunatic trail the Republicans will allow themselves to be dragged by the Tea-Party. I mean, I KNOW it's appealing to have an easily swayed group cheering your demagoguery, especially when they vote as a block. But when you go too far down that trail, even moderates that would LIKE to believe your demagoguery become disgusted and untrusting. And Republicans NEED those moderates.
- AllanL5
May 16, 2011 at 12:46pm
Good point, Lib
- Tristan
May 16, 2011 at 12:48pm
I think JC is making the mistake of old generals - fighting the last war. He treats the Tea Party movement as an immutable fact, whereas in fact it was a tsunami which came rolling in at the same time (coincidence? I think not) as the financial earthquake of 2008. Measure the 'zeitgeist delta' between the elections of 2008 and 2010. Now consider the possibility that it will be just as large from 2010 to 2012. I suspect that as the economy improves the TP types will be stranded on a shrinking sandbar; there will never be a day when the pundits agree that the day of the TP is over, there will just be fewer people coming to the rallies and they'll gradually recede into the background noise of regular winger craziness we've known all our lives. Bang/whimper. The point here is that if I'm right and the TP waters continue to recede, Mitt Romney may become viable again if he's the last sane Republican standing.
- boyski
May 16, 2011 at 12:50pm
Holy cow, I think Jennifer Rubin just sold me on Mitch Daniels!
- W_Bombay
May 16, 2011 at 1:05pm
In 2008, there wasn't a democratic incumbent whose single most unpopular move (with the GOP base) mirrored John McCain's position. That seems to me to be the big difference between Romney 12 and McCain 08. A second difference would be that McCain has/had a reputation as a truth-telling maverick, while Romney has a reputation as a spineless weasel. These two things together would seem to me to make Romney 12 less likely than McCain 08 (although I don't down grade his chances as much as JC does).
- miceelf
May 16, 2011 at 1:09pm
Consideration of Bachmann is going to vacillate wildly between amusement and horror over the coming year, but Romney will remain unpalatable forever. The whole business of his pathetic flipflopping about his healthcare initiative is just the most obvious, widespread problem, but focusing on it misses his unavoidably fatal flaw: he's a Mormon. Tea Party or no, the Christian Right will never approve of a Mormon candidate, and that's that.
- janus
May 16, 2011 at 1:14pm
yes, Janus, that's another point. McCain was hated by the base, but they didn't believe he was a member of a non-Christian cult.
- miceelf
May 16, 2011 at 1:17pm
I would not discount Bachmann in the Iowa caucuses - she is very appealing to young working class women, knows it, and is building the field organization to drag them in. She is not unappealing to the rest of the caucus going Republicans. Maybe reason will prevail in the next 9 months, but I wouldn't bet against her. Beyond Iowa - I can't see her winning nationwide. A Bachmann win in Iowa will motivate the remaining adults in the party to line up behind one or the other plausible candidates. That's how the Republican part works.
- IowaBeauty
May 16, 2011 at 1:37pm
Bachmann is a "main contender" for the nomination? I'm surprised at you, Chait! That isn't level-headed thinking at all. Sure, she has a (small) chance to win Iowa, but if she ever becomes a top-tier candidate, Republicans are going to rally around someone else.
- polcereal
May 16, 2011 at 5:26pm
I'm with Libref here. I don't see why Romney is not the prohibitive favorite, simply due to the fact that his opposition is so weak!!!
- MikeB.
May 16, 2011 at 5:46pm
Romney may be the best of a bad lot, but he's the Republican John Kerry. His entire career is "I was for it before I was against it" writ large. I can't see how they can win with someone as tepid as a bowl of cold oatmeal.
- zardoz67
May 16, 2011 at 6:03pm
Bachmann scares the establishment GOP to willies. They don't mind her rallying crowds, stirring up the
hatepassion and generally getting the blood pumping. But she's waaaay too out there for the insiders of the party. Without a strong rival, or an out-of-character meltdown, I can't see how Romney can be beaten. Phony or not, he's the "safe pair of hands", and will be the only one with the endurance (read: money) to stick it out til the end. Oh, I don't doubt that we'll see a Bachmann boomlet, just like the passing wind that gave us Trumpmania. Daniels gets the wonks excited, but noone else. Pawlenty? Yeah... great VP potential there. Huntsman isn't really in it for 2012 - he's establishing credentials for 2016. As I've said elsewhere, if Romney can finetune his message to be all about jobs and the economy, and make himself sound knowledgable and smart on the subject (which he actually can do), that's his winning strategy.- jcovell
May 16, 2011 at 11:46pm
Jonathan, I wonder if The Bachmann Opportunity is the Robert Ludlum novel you always wanted to write"
- ironyroad
May 17, 2011 at 12:39am