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Political Diary
May 15, 2008
James Taranto returns Friday. Click here1 to subscribe to Political Diary, our premium email newsletter.
Barr Sinister?
Could Bob Barr become this year's Ralph Nader, helping to "spoil" the White House ambitions of John McCain.
[Bob Barr]
The former Georgia Republican congressman announced he was seeking the Libertarian nomination for president this week, and immediately disputed that he is spoiling things for anyone. "The American voters deserve better than simply the lesser of two evils," he said as he outlined his platform to freeze discretionary spending and withdraw from Iraq.
Mr. Barr first has to win the nomination of the fractious Libertarians in Denver later this month. He faces opposition from 13 candidates, including former Democratic Senator Mike Gravel, an amusing oddity in this year's Democratic presidential contest.
If Mr. Barr wins the LP nomination, he would likely appear on some 45 state ballots and could tip some close races to the Democrats. "Barr obviously is dangerous. At least he negates any possible Nader benefit," says David Norcross, chairman of the Rules Committee at the GOP convention. Mr. Nader, widely credited with hurting Al Gore in the 2000 election, is running again as a liberal independent.
Still, Republicans claim they aren't concerned by Mr. Barr's possible appearance on all those state ballots. But they should be. You can bet cable TV producers who are backing Barack Obama will book the quotable Mr. Barr dozens of times. Don't be surprised if he even teams up with Mr. Nader for tag-team appearances, with the consumer advocate primarily blasting Democrats and Mr. Barr eviscerating Republicans.
So how should Republicans limit the potential damage Mr. Barr could cause them? For starters, John McCain should avoid giving unfortunate speeches such as the one he gave Monday endorsing the discredited cap-and-trade approach to limiting global warming -- a system that has flopped in Europe. Mr. McCain went so far as to say: "If the efforts to negotiate an international solution that includes China and India do not succeed, we still have an obligation to act" against global warming. Given the growth in carbon emissions of those two countries, that is a preposterous statement.
Mr. McCain may believe he can attract the votes of young people with his green street cred, but he would be advised not to go too far in alienating his conservative base. Mr. Barr will likely be there every step of the way exploiting conservative discontent with the GOP nominee.
-- John Fund
Tom Cole in the GOP's Stocking
Following the 2006 elections, Republicans faced a 30-seat deficit in the House of Representatives. With that number now grown to 37 seats, National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Tom Cole finds himself in possibly the most unenviable position in Washington. The Democrats' majority is almost sure to increase even more come November, leaving Mr. Cole, whose basic role is to help elect as many Republicans to the House as possible, facing what appears to be inevitable failure.
[Tom Cole]
Since Tuesday's loss in Mississippi's 1st District, Mr. Cole has spoken in rather blunt terms about the state of affairs of the GOP. It was the third recent special election defeat in districts the GOP once dominated.
"When you lose three of these in a row, you have to get beyond campaign tactics and take a long hard look, 'Is there something wrong with your product?'" Mr. Cole said yesterday in a conference call with reporters. "What we've got right now is a deficiency in our message and a loss of confidence by the American people that we are going to do what we say we're going to do. We're not winning in places that Republicans probably ought to win on the basis of just being Republican."
Still, Mr. Cole didn't sound totally defeated, noting that two Democratic special election winners in Mississippi and Louisiana ran on platforms so conservative that they would have been welcomed "to the Republican caucus with open arms." He conceded that the Democratic strategy of running more conservative candidates in Republican districts was proving successful in winning seats now, but he also maintained that it would not be sustainable over the long term. Unfortunately for Mr. Cole, he may not have his NRCC chairmanship long enough to see if that statement proves true.
-- Kyle Trygstad, RealClearPolitics.com2
Quote of the Day I
"Edwards stood next to Obama Wednesday night, basking in the applause of thousands of Michigan Democrats who were, for all practical purposes, cheering the end of the Clinton campaign.... No one missed the fact that Barack Obama and John Edwards looked right together. 'They looked fantastic together,' gushed Jill Zuckman, the Chicago Tribune's able political writer. 'They looked like a ticket'" -- The Nation magazine's John Nichols, covering yesterday's endorsement, in the future battleground state of Michigan, of Barack Obama by former rival John Edwards.
Quote of the Day II
"It is unusual for a single individual to hold the fate of an entire industry in his hand -- but that will be the case for the next president of the United States. He or she will have the power to enact unbearably strict fuel economy standards on the cars and trucks sold in half the country. By so doing, he could render vast swaths of the current car and truck lineup obsolete and doom their manufacturers to the scrapyard" -- Fortune Magazine's Alex Taylor III, on whether the next president will allow California and several other states to impose their own stringent CO2 emissions standards on automakers.
Steak Source
South Korea has been swept by mad cow fever in recent weeks, ever since President Lee Myung-bak agreed to re-open the country to imports of U.S. beef. Korea's protectionist farm lobby quickly mobilized in force, aided by a bizarre scaremongering campaign in the South Korean media. One TV documentary claimed Americans themselves don't eat American beef, preferring to import beef from Australia instead (not true: more than 90% of U.S. beef is consumed at home).
[Lee Myung-bak]
The same TV show also purported to prove that Koreans are genetically predisposed to contract the human form of mad cow, an odd assertion since no ethnic Korean has ever fallen victim to the disease.
But now an unexpected ally has leapt to the defense of American ranchers. From their U.S. homes, various Korean-American groups have entered the fight, with noticeable results. "We trust the American public health system," Lee Chang-yup of the Korean-American Chamber of Commerce of Los Angeles was quoted as saying in South Korea's Chosun Ilbo newspaper. Other groups have held their own press conferences and issued statements saying their members eat U.S. beef safely all the time and South Koreans should too.
Word from Seoul suggests the campaign is working. Passions have begun to cool as the scientific realities are given their due. Though the Seoul government just announced a 10-delay, President Lee insists the beef imports will eventually resume. If so, U.S. ranchers will have reason to thank Americans of Korean descent who defended American beef in its hour of need.
-- Joseph Sternberg
See all of today's editorials and op-eds, plus video commentary, on Opinion Journal3.
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