Filibuster CartoonsTitle: Hair today, gone tomorrow for the Republicans (click to view)
Date: May 16, 2011
Since my last toon, which sized up the implausibly large and disparate crop of Republican presidential contenders, pseudo-contenders, and contender pretenders, there have been two major game-changing shakeups in the field.
First, Mike Huckabee, the man who seemingly had the most to lose from dropping his sweet job at FOX to leap into the great shark tank of primary politics, announced on Saturday that he would not, in fact, be running. And now this morning, we hear that the guy who often polled neck-in-neck with Huck for first place support among the party faithful, Donald Trump, has decided he too would rather do another season of his show than make a bid for the Oval Office.
Whatever you think of them — and I personally don't think much of either — the withdrawal of these two colorful characters will clearly make the remaining GOP race a great deal duller, but perhaps a bit more substantial as well. The candidates who are poised to gain the most, after all, are the two perennial Miss Congenialities of the Republican crop, Mitt Romney and Tim Pawlenty. Both are respected for their "seriousness" and poll reasonably well, but have been largely overshadowed by Trump's flamboyant headline-grabbing antics, and the engaging drama of Huckabee's stage-shy coquettishness. With those two pre-packaged narratives out of the picture, the media — and voters — will now be forced to care much more about what these two fairly uncharismatic, fairly middle-of-the-road, former governors are doing and saying.
Or, perhaps not. Some analysts have been speculating that the withdraw of Huck and Trump actually benefits the fringe candidates more than the serious ones, since both men had particular, rather than mainstream, appeals that could have conceivably led to vote-splitting had they remained in crowded field.
As the most ostentatiously Christian of the lot, the appeal of Huckabee — a former Baptist minister — was always primary to evangelicals and social conservatives. With him out, presumably the status of "most socially conservative / Christian" candidate is up for grabs, and it's a title neither Romney (who was a traditional Massachusetts liberal on social matters until suspiciously recently) or Pawlenty (another blue state governor who has a slim record of engaging with so-called "morals" issues) has much of a claim to. Providing she actually does decide to jump into the race, many are predicting that Minnesota Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann — a favorite of Huckabee and Glenn Beck and no stranger to fire-and-brimstone religious rhetoric — could move quickly to lay claim to that uniquely important segment of the GOP voting base.
Trump's appeal is a bit harder to quantify. Though some have rather politely suggested
The Apprentice host's appeal comes from his business background, a less charitable reading would probably credit his shamelessness, anti-establishment pet causes, and outsider-looking-in rhetoric — crass though it often was. If former Trump supporters are looking for someone else who fits
that mold, the most obvious choices would probably be one of the race's other eccentrics, like quixotic libertarian Ron Paul, or scrappy, sassy Herman Cain. If Cain were better-known, in fact, he'd be the obvious Trump successor, seeing as how neither guy has any experience in elected politics and claim political legitimacy simply from their respective successes in the private sector. But even then, it's equally possible that Trump's appeal was simply due to his own idiosyncratic "Trumpness" and celebrity status, none of which can be easily inherited by any other candidate.
While it's always fun to speculate on a race still in its most embryonic state, it's important to note that things
really shouldn't be this uncertain at this point. With so many significant candidates still undeclared, and those who
have declared campaigning in such a strategically quiet and cautious manner, the whole race continues to have a weird air of nervous precariousness to it, not unlike the so-called "phony war" phase of World War II. But the phoniness can only last so long. August 13 has now been set as the date for the Iowa Straw Poll, a symbolically significant vote that marks the first formal test of the campaign. Its results, which come seven months before the state's February caucus, and can provide a great deal of momentum to its winners, and lot of despair to its losers. So the clock is ticking.
By the way, alert reader "Psudo," whom we may recognize from the forums and comments, has created a nifty little guide to the GOP candidates that you can find
here. It aims to provide a complete breakdown of where everyone stands on every major issue, but obviously he'll need some help with this ambitious undertaking. If you know a particular candidate's stance on an issue you currently see marked blank, just post a reply to this cartoon and I'm sure he'll see it and add it post-haste. He's good like that.
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