{"id":1035,"date":"2011-08-17T22:21:22","date_gmt":"2011-08-17T22:21:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/community\/diaryofawimpycatholic\/?p=1035"},"modified":"2015-03-13T15:04:32","modified_gmt":"2015-03-13T21:04:32","slug":"rick-perry-and-the-politics-of-treating-em-ugly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/diaryofawimpycatholic\/2011\/08\/rick-perry-and-the-politics-of-treating-em-ugly\/","title":{"rendered":"Rick Perry and the Politics of Treating ’em Ugly"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Even conservatives are coming down on brand-new presidential candidate Rick Perry for accusing Ben Bernanke of treason and declaring that Texans would treat the Federal Reserve chairman \u201cpretty ugly.\u201d \u201cThat is not\u2026a presidential statement,\u201d Karl Rove told Fox News.<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

In Tuesday\u2019s column,<\/strong><\/a> Ross Douthat called Perry \u201cthe conservative id made flesh.\u201d It\u2019s a brilliant turn of phrase, and nails Perry between the eyes. Douthat errs, however, in using it as a criticism. In this upcoming election, iditude \u2014 unbridled passion, rhetorical overkill \u2014 will prove to be a wash at worst, and quite possibly a selling point.<\/p>\n

In 2008, Americans were asked to choose between Obama, an apparently cool customer whose operating principle, according to his friends, was \u201cno drama,\u201d and a logorrhaeic bomb thrower, in the person of Sarah Palin. (Frank Rich correctly notes <\/strong><\/a>that John McCain occupied the top half of the GOP ticket in name only.) They picked the guy who sounded saner, and on the whole have lived to regret it. <\/p>\n

What\u2019s killed Obama isn\u2019t so much the policies he pushed \u2014 those didn\u2019t alienate anyone who wasn\u2019t alienated to begin with \u2014 as his inability to push back. To his base, the man seems to have compromise in his blood, and it shows in his speech. As early as 2009,<\/strong><\/a> Maureen Dowd tried to nag him into being \u201cLess Spocky, More Rocky.\u201d At the height of the debt-ceiling controversy, Salon\u2019s<\/i> Steve Almond listed every teachable moment Obama missed.<\/strong><\/a> No, by now, polish and poltroonery are indissolubly linked in the American imagination, at least for the foreseeable future. <\/p>\n

Papal elections are often said to follow a principle of passotempo, according to which the College of Cardinals will go out of its way to choose a pope who embodies all the qualities predecessor lacked. Comparing Carter to Reagan, or Bush 41 to Clinton, or Bush 43 to Obama, it becomes apparent that the American electorate isn\u2019t so different. There\u2019s as much contrast between personal styles as there is between policy preferences; voters sometimes see the first as a shorthand for the second. This would partly explain the surprise expressed by members of Obama\u2019s base when the 44th president maintained Bush\u2019s hawkish approach to the War on Terror. Obama simply didn\u2019t look or sound like a man who would increase drone attacks on targets in Pakistan, even if he said he would. <\/p>\n

The new preference for pushy ideologues over reflective pragmatists can be seen in last year\u2019s sweeping Tea Party victories. The only question remaining is whether Perry is pushy and ideology-driven in more electable ways than Michele Bachmann. He might in fact be \u2014 just yesterday, Politico reported<\/i><\/strong><\/a> that Perry excelled both Bachmann and Mitt Romney in a \u201cpassion poll.\u201d That is, Perry \u201chad a net \u2018positive intensity\u2019 rating of 23 among Republicans and Republican-leaning independents who recognize his name.\u201d Bachmann\u2019s positive intensity rating was only 20. <\/p>\n

Perhaps the numbers reflect the fact \u2014 which Tim Pawlenty pointed out, for all the good it did him \u2013that Bachmann lacks executive experience. Perry might also owe his numbers to his job-creation record, which is frankly impressive:<\/strong><\/a> under Perry\u2019s governorship, Texas accounted fr 37% of all jobs created over the past three years. But passion, whatever its ultimate source, has a life of its own \u2014 one I\u2019d like to explore in particular detail. <\/p>\n

In 2004, Jonathan Chait published an essay titled \u201cMad About You,\u201d<\/strong><\/a> in which he explored and explained the intensity of the hatred Democrats felt toward George W. Bush. He noted \u2014 correctly, I think \u2014 that it neatly matched the hatred felt by many Republicans toward Bill Clinton. What he didn\u2019t note, because it hadn\u2019t happened yet, was that Bush, like Clinton, went on to win a second term. I would argue that both men\u2019s hateabilty ratings had a hand in their success. Both, recall, played muse to a host of conspiracy theorists \u2014 Vince Foster deathers on one hand, 9\/11 Truthers on the other. Though John Kerry and Bob Dole both put a comfortable distance between themselves and the wing nuts in their parties, neither could entirely escape guilt by association. <\/p>\n

So in a sense, Rove and Douthat are right \u2014 swing voters are generally loath to enlist in the party of the rabid, even on an ad hoc basis. Under normal circumstances, Obama might be expected to benefit from this. But as we\u2019ve seen, whatever positive passion he once generated has by now burned itself out; his own base won\u2019t go to the mattresses for him. Perry\u2019s bluster, then, could end up working for him in two related ways. First, it\u2019ll rev up his own party\u2019s faithful. Second, it could inspire enough hysteria in the enemy camp as to make the Democrats look even crazier \u2014 in undecided eyes \u2014 than the Tea Party. <\/p>\n

At this strange point in history, treating people ugly might be an ideal career move.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Even conservatives are coming down on brand-new presidential candidate Rick Perry for accusing Ben Bernanke of treason and declaring that Texans would treat the Federal Reserve chairman \u201cpretty ugly.\u201d \u201cThat is not\u2026a presidential statement,\u201d Karl Rove told Fox News. In Tuesday\u2019s column, Ross Douthat called Perry \u201cthe conservative id made flesh.\u201d It\u2019s a brilliant turn […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":192,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[27,163,188,205],"class_list":["post-1035","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-barack-obama","tag-michele-bachmann","tag-politics","tag-rick-perry"],"yoast_head":"\nRick Perry and the Politics of Treating 'em Ugly<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Even conservatives are coming down on brand-new presidential candidate Rick Perry for accusing Ben Bernanke of treason and declaring that Texans would\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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