Kristol Magick
Perhaps two or three valences of armchair wonkery deeper than the average self-reporting "media savvy" consumer normally bothers with, is the obscure morbid comedy of conservative columnists. The idea of a liberal media conspiracy always seemed funny; msnbc, for instance, is emblematic, as nobody has yet to explain how firing an anti-war liberal for poor ratings when he has the highest-rated show on the network and replacing him with a retired Republican congressman means the network just shifted even further leftward; for all we hear about the Gray Lady being in the tank, what are we supposed to think of Bill Kristol, David Brooks, and other prominent conservative columnists who have lasted years in allegedly hostile territory? It always seemed strange to me, when I was younger, how people lamented the "liberal media bias" when all the "serious" commentary in my local newspapers backed conservative politics, and anyone more liberal was a specialty writer. The internet generation is too young to remember, but there was a time when one looked forward to Dave Barry's semi-absurdist column because it was a break from George F. Will, Mike Royko, William Saletan, William Buckley, and others.
Bill Kristol was in government back then; he established his political and conservative bona fides as Chief of Staff to the Vice President of the United States, for which
The New Republic crowned him Quayle's Brain. Over the years, liberals have poked at his track record. The political brain of Vice President Potatoe? Between his time spent working for Daniel Moynihan and hanging out with Alan Keyes, guess where Kristol's political acumen landed him? Oh, right. We don't need to guess. It's a dangerous sport, though, laughing at a career built on being dazzlingly pretentiously wrong; Kristol is influential despite his poor track record.
Besides, in this cycle we're all trying very hard to not laugh at David Brooks, who appears to be suffering some manner of existential rupture, which in turn results in agonizing, nearly-delusional columns that tell us more about the author's state of mind than the ostensible political subject matter. It truly is an astounding meltdown; we should be cautious, though, because it simply isn't appropriate to laugh at human crisis.
Still, though, there is Kristol, who does not want to feel left out.
Steve Benen↱ explains the setup:
It was late last year when Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol, "a member of the Republican firmament," first started talking publicly about recruiting a Republican presidential candidate to run a third-party campaign against Donald Trump. There were all kinds of hurdles, but one in particular tormented the GOP pundit: finding a candidate.
Kristol wanted a national contender, but Mitt Romney said no. He would have settled for an experienced presidential candidate, but Rick Perry said no. He turned his attention to sitting senators, but Ben Sasse said no. He looked at former senators, but Tom Coburn said no. He eventually moved past elected officials and sought out a military leader, but retired Gen. James Mattis said no.
And so, Kristol lowered his sights just a little more―and found a political blogger who appears to have said yes.
This really has been a weird saga of
apparent political logic versus
observable market reality. That is to say, the idea isn't so awful in its abstract context, but, you know,
seriously? To the one, where are they going to find a candidate to draw off enough votes from Republicans? To the other, therein lies the question.
Robert Costa↱ of the
Washington Post described that the "campaign would almost surely be a quixotic endeavor that could draw pockets of Republican voters away from Donald Trump", yet also noted that, "Kristol and others remain convinced that many conservatives nationally are unwilling to vote for Trump or likely Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, and he has been searching for weeks to see if someone would step up and serve as their standard-bearer". It's well enough to draw off pockets of Trump's Republican support, but this really is just about stopping Donald Trump, which kind of makes for a hard pitch:
If you're a Republican who doesn't like Trump but won't vote for Hillary Clinton, vote for this blogger over here, which will help Hillary Clinton get elected but at least you didn't actually vote for her. Conservatives often show some trouble comprehending the basics of the
Rubio principle↱, so named for its particular iteration that, "In essence, not voting for it is a vote against it".°
In the end, it seems a weirdly aesthetic appeal; the idea is that one is okay with Hillary Clinton being president but afraid to admit it.
And this weirdness only grows as we consider the detail; Costa, for his part, ends up reporting on a colleague from his former job:
Tennessee attorney David French, who in recent years has become a prominent right-wing writer, is being urged by some conservative leaders to make a late entry into the 2016 presidential race as an independent candidate, according to two people close to him.
William Kristol, the editor of The Weekly Standard magazine and a former Republican White House official, is at the fore of the draft effort. A group of well-known evangelical leaders and GOP operatives is also involved in the discussions, the people said, requesting anonymity to discuss private conversations.
Benen sketches the overview:
We're a long way from the point at which French, a National Review blogger, might expect to receive endorsements―he hasn't officially entered the race―but Mitt Romney offered a hint of tacit support yesterday afternoon, saying via Twitter, "I know David French to be an honorable, intelligent and patriotic person. I look forward to following what he has to say." Conservative pundit Hugh Hewitt endorsed the sentiment soon after.
At the risk of sounding unkind, I think it's fair to say French is a presidential longshot. His party and political operation don't exist; he'll struggle with ballot-access deadlines for independent candidates; outside of National Review readers, he's largely an anonymous figure; though Kristol has extensive contacts in far-right fundraising, French has no campaign war chest; and he's appealing to anti-Trump Republican voters―a contingent that polls suggest is a tiny slice of the electorate.
Remember, for anti-Trump Republicans, the goal wasn't just to find any constitutionally eligible person to serve as a sacrificial lamb. If it were, Kristol and his allies could have just embraced Gary Johnson's Libertarian ticket or the right-wing Constitution Party.
What Kristol and his cohorts needed, however, was a specific kind of Republican: someone who could appeal to #NeverTrump neoconservatives and #NeverTrump evangelicals simultaneously. And by this measure, if no other, David French―an Iraq war veteran, neocon pundit, staunch social conservative, and former employee at a variety of far-right organizations, including TV preacher Pat Robertson's legal outfit―checks the appropriate boxes.
This is one of those times when we might pause to consider "conservative elitism". In a year finding little support, or even mere traction, for the GOP Establishment, an Establishment columnist thinks ... what? ... that he can sell Republican voters on an Establishment-backed alternative to the market resolution?
Many people on all sides of the proverbial aisle will testify to the necessity of stopping Donald Trump; it's just that Mr. Kristol's endeavor seems particularly futile except for the part where he gets to pretend he feels like a leader in conservative politics. For such pampered privilege as Mr. Kristol has enjoyed in the political marketplace, the sting of irrelevance probably hurts somethin' fierce. Still, Kristol's presumptuousness ought to mean something; it seems somehow demonstrative of an essential abstraction―the complications of cooperation among a league of competitive individualists.
It just seems that by the time we're down to an Establishment political blogger with military service credentials because even
Rick Perry said no, this is an exercise in petulance, not some well-crafted advice from a longtime political sage of alleged legendary prowess.
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Notes:
° There is a difference, for instance, between wilful abstention on the record and simply not showing up to work because you hate your job; that would be Mr. Rubio's deployment of the principle. In the U.S. Senate, refusing to advise and consent is asserted to be the same as hearing, advising, and explicitly recording a refusal of consent. And as much as we might question the validity of such iterations, they are far different from the practical reality that Mr. Kristol's third-party candidate is not going to win, and won't be drawing many Democratic votes.
Benen, Steve. "Bill Kristol finds his anti-Trump Republican". msnbc. 1 June 2016. msnbc.com. 1 June 2016. http://on.msnbc.com/25AFXMN
Costa, Robert. "Conservative Tennessee attorney David French is urged to enter presidential race as independent". The Washington Post. 31 May 2016. WashingtonPost.com. 1 June 2016. http://wapo.st/1t1tsJg
