Jeb's Hail Mary

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There was a time when Jeb Bush was regarded as the Republican Party's front–runner for the 2016 nomination — a prospect that elicited groans across the political spectrum. No one, it seemed, relished the idea of another Bush–Clinton campaign — even though, to be old enough merely to remember the first one, never mind the issues of the campaign, I imagine one would have to be at least 30 years old.

Nor, for that matter, did many people seem to be enthusiastic about the prospect of a third Bush presidency.

But that was before Donald Trump came along, seized the lead and held on to it for months, defying gravity in a political environment that has long been accustomed to seeing a front–runner of the week in races for the Republican nomination.

Meanwhile Jeb has been sinking like a stone in a pond. The former front–runner has been mired in single digits in the polls for weeks now.

I continue to believe, as I always have, that polls conducted in the early stages of presidential nominating contests mean little. I have seen too many front–runners falter. Most of the time, the front–runner winds up winning ... but not always. That is why early polls mean little to me. They're usually about name recognition and little else (which makes it telling, I suppose, that so many Democrats choose someone other than Hillary Clinton, who was first lady for eight years, senator for another eight and secretary of state for four, or continue to say they are undecided when asked their preference in 2016).

It's what people do when they are in the privacy of the voting booth that matters.

So I prefer to wait until people actually start voting before I begin the process of deciding for whom I will vote. And, being an independent, I don't tend to vote in primaries, anyway. So I can wait until the parties have made their decisions before I choose a candidate to support — if I do.

But I'm in the minority on that one, I suppose. It never fails to amaze me — the faith that people place in polls conducted more than a year before an election is to be held and how so many things — chiefly financial and popular support — ride on something that can be as imprecise as public opinion polling.

Bush's latest move should come as no surprise. He is redeploying his resources away from ad buys and boots on the ground in Iowa and South Carolina and focusing on New Hampshire (where recent polls conducted by American Research Group and CBS News/YouGov show Bush in single digits) and some other early primaries.

(That's another thing about presidential politics that I have always found troubling — how something as important as a major party's nomination for the presidency of the greatest nation on earth can hinge on the electoral whims of the voters in a state — New Hampshire — with a total population that is only slightly larger and much less diverse than the city in which I live — Dallas. But that is another subject for another day.)

Bush's decision is a desperation move. You can call it that, or you can use other names for it — a "Hail Mary" or a by–the–seat–of–your–pants strategy. Whatever you call it, the Bush campaign is struggling and needs something to give it some juice. That will be easier said than done.

"The decision will keep Bush from paying for roughly $3 million of reserved TV time in January," explains Ed O'Keefe in the Washington Post, "a little more than $1 million in Iowa, just under $2 million in South Carolina."

See? It's a dollars–and–cents thing, pure and simple.

But South Carolina will be the second primary on the Republican calendar. New Hampshire votes in its first–in–the–nation primary on Feb. 9 a week after the caucuses in Iowa (where a Gravis Marketing poll shows Bush with only 4%); South Carolina (where the most recent CBS News/YouGov poll has Bush at 7%, far behind Trump and Ted Cruz) votes two weeks later. I presume that, if Bush rallies and wins in New Hampshire, he will re–redeploy resources to South Carolina.

That is the essence of the "Hail Mary" strategy. You do it, and, if it succeeds, you will probably have to do it again — and perhaps again. Football teams that have to go to the "Hail Mary" often need to make up more than one score. The romanticized vision of the "Hail Mary" is a single long pass, like the one Roger Staubach threw in the playoffs 40 years ago, but the realistic one is that it is more like the "domino theory" of presidential politics

That will be Bush's last chance to establish some momentum before the March 1 "Super Tuesday" primaries in 10 states — Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Georgia, Massachusetts, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont and Virginia. That is the big day, and my guess is that several campaigns will come to an end within days of Super Tuesday — unless each state votes for someone different, and that doesn't seem likely to happen.

But that suggests faith that the polls are right, and they may not be. They may be overstating Donald Trump's support (which may be made apparent as we move into the post–holiday phase when, per the conventional wisdom, voters start paying closer attention to the candidates), or they may be, as I wrote recently, understating it.

Even if Bush survives until Super Tuesday, he has other problems that he has to hope stronger–than–expected showings in New Hampshire and South Carolina will help to resolve. Polls in Super Tuesday states don't have good news for the Bush campaign — if they voted today. In Massachusetts, a Boston Globe/Suffolk poll has Bush in fourth place with 7%, 25 points behind Trump. In Oklahoma, the most recent Sooner Poll has Bush at 2%.

There are, of course, still three states that have not chosen dates for their primaries — Maine, North Dakota and Wyoming — but even if they schedule their primaries on one of the other days when multiple primaries will be held, there still will be no other day when as many states vote as Super Tuesday.

That will be the real Hail Mary for those who win — as well as those who survive — in New Hampshire and South Carolina.

The Real Domino Theory

When I was growing up, there was a lot of talk about the "domino theory."

It was the justification that was most frequently given when someone wanted to defend American involvement in Vietnam.

The belief was that, if one nation in that part of the world fell to communism, the others would follow in rapid succession, the same as what happens when one domino falls into another domino, which falls into the next domino, which falls into the next one ...

And so on and so on.

The domino theory is no longer used to justify American military activity. But, in the present economic circumstances, the theory might be due for a comeback.

Unless something really dramatic happens between now and November 2012, I think it is obvious that economic issues will dominate the next presidential campaign.

Possibly to the exclusion of everything else.

The evidence is all around us, and it just continues to accumulate. Gas prices are up roughly 25% in the last few months alone. When gas prices go up, the cost of everything else will go up, too, because gas prices affect the cost of transportation.

(Ordinarily, I like to include links to back up my observations — but I don't really have to do that on this one, do I?)

Sure, Americans still care about the war in Afghanistan — and American military activity in Libya. Yes, they still care about education and health care and all that stuff.

But the bottom line — in more and more households, even the ones that have not been touched by unemployment — is economic. Surely the recent battle over the budget that threatened to shut down the government was proof of that.

The last time gas prices were this high in America, in the summer of 2008, you could actually feel whatever political advantage the Republicans may have had up to that point slipping away.

You can make whatever argument you like about how much responsibility George W. Bush and the Republicans bore for the gas price increase. The fact remained that the Republicans were in charge when it happened, and their policies — rightly or wrongly — got the blame, especially after the economy collapsed and jobs were lost by the hundreds of thousands every month.

(Perception is reality.)

I hope that doesn't happen again. But, if it does — and even if it doesn't — the results of a recent Gallup poll suggest to me that voters may be inclined to make a different kind of decision in 2012 than they made in 2008.

And one thing I think voters will be looking for in their president is someone who has experience — and, preferably, a record of success — in dealing with budgets.

That may be a tall order in 2012 when practically every state has had to do some budget cutting, and it may be awhile before we know if those cuts have helped or hurt. But most modern governors can legitimately claim to have presided over the budget processes in their states from start to finish.

When the economy imploded in the fall of 2008, the presidential nominees were set. They were both senators. In fact, the only candidate on either major ticket with any executive experience in budgetary matters was Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.

I'm not saying that she

• was qualified to hold national office, nor am I saying


• she was qualified to be a "heartbeat away from the presidency."

But she was the only governor in the bunch.

According to Gallup, governors and business leaders are the ones Americans trust the most these days on economic issues.

That could be good news for Mitt Romney, who happens to have both on his resume.

Well, he isn't a governor now, but he was governor of Massachusetts for four years, and he organized the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. He's exploring the possibility of a run for the GOP nomination and is widely expected to be a candidate.

It might also be good news for Donald Trump, who was said to be "seriously" considering entering the race last October.

That doesn't necessarily mean either man is qualified to be president. But it is not too outlandish to imagine that an electorate that apparently thought less than four years in the U.S. Senate was adequate preparation for the presidency for Barack Obama, that a few years as governor of Texas (which, for the most part, is a figurehead position) was enough for George W. Bush, that a career mostly spent in front of movie cameras was enough for Ronald Reagan and a career mostly as a peanut farmer was enough for Jimmy Carter could be persuaded to give either man a shot.

There are other governors who have been mentioned as potential candidates, some of whom may be more likely to enter the race than others. But those findings could be encouraging for the likes of Palin, Mike Huckabee, Tim Pawlenty, Mitch Daniels, Haley Barbour and others.

I'm sure there will be additional issues to consider, but here are some of Gallup's findings that jump out at me:

• Nearly 60% of respondents said they had a "great deal" or a "fair amount" of confidence in their state governors on economic issues.


• Two–fifths of respondents said they had "only a little" confidence in their governors or "almost none." That seems like a high unfavorable — until you look at the unfavorables for the others. Then it doesn't look so bad.


• Business leaders got high marks from 54% of respondents and low marks from 43%.


• Obama broke even, 50–50, mirroring his approval ratings.

The rest came in under 50% in the "great deal" and "fair amount" of confidence rating — and a majority of respondents gave them high unfavorables. That isn't a very promising combination for other potential candidates, especially those from Congress.

Americans tend to put a lot of faith in governors. Four of the five men who were elected president between 1976 and 2004 had been governors, and nearly half of the men who were president in the 20th century had been governor.

The American experience with governors has been pretty good. They're familiar with the demands of an executive job, and they understand the need for leadership and compromise skills.

The big drawback for governors tends to be that they don't usually have much experience with foreign or military matters, but, as I say, it doesn't appear (right now) that foreign policy will play much of a role in 2012.

Of course, that could change if another Egypt or Libya pops up. With 19 months remaining before the voters go to the polls, anything could happen to change the dynamics of the race.

But, whatever else may be introduced into the mix, it seems all but certain to me that the economy will be the #1 concern for most voters. And Obama will be judged on how things look compared to when he was elected.

Pretty slogans worked in the last election. It's going to take more than that to persuade the voters this time.

The New World Order

Well, it isn't a new world order, I guess. More like a new American order.

But it figures to affect what happens in next year's presidential race.

And that is as worldly as most presidential aspirants probably care to be — at least until they can rightfully claim president–elect as their title.

But that new world order — if it is to come — is still in the future. I'm thinking about something much more immediate.

The new order of which I speak is the new Congress, in which Republicans control the House (by a pretty significant margin, too) and Democrats still hold the majority in the Senate (but by a greatly reduced margin).

This week marks the beginning of the first session of the 112th Congress, and I think it is safe to say things are going to be different in Washington in the next couple of years.

Well, I guess some things haven't changed — like the emphasis. Oh, the focus will remain on domestic policy, but I would have thought that, with unemployment entrenched above 9% and frustrated voters having just taken more than 60 House seats away from the Democrats and given them to the Republicans, job creation would be the top priority for lawmakers in both parties.

There may be some lawmakers for whom job creation really is as urgent as it is for rank–and–file Americans, but, as Paul Kane writes in the Washington Post, House Republicans are already plotting a vote to repeal health care reform next week.

Don't worry, Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson counsels supporters of health care reform. Repeal ain't gonna happen, he says — to be precise, he writes, "Just to be clear, there's no earthly chance that a bill repealing the landmark health–care overhaul could make it through Congress and be signed into law" — and he makes that assessment based on two factors, one of which seems far more likely (to me) than the other.

The first premise is that the Democrat–controlled Senate would reject it, but I am skeptical of that. It presumes that Democrats will stand resolutely against any efforts to repeal health care reform — but they were seldom that united when they had the allegedly filibuster–proof majority that they openly coveted.

With the Democrats' margin in the Senate reduced to 53–47 (and two of those 53 members aren't even Democrats — technically), all the Republicans need to do is persuade four members to vote with them (fewer if any of the Democrats are absent due to illness or injury).

Why would they be more resistant to Republican pressure than they were when the numbers were more favorable to them?

There are, as I observed in November, a dozen Democratic senators from states that voted for Republicans in the 2010 midterms who must face those voters in 2012. Some probably will be re–elected; others are not so certain, at least at this point.

As we get closer to the election year and opponents emerge on not only the Republican side but the Democratic side as well, some of those Democrats might look at the polls and decide that going with the prevailing wind and keeping their jobs beats tilting at windmills — or supporting a president who hasn't been particularly supportive of them.

That leads, I suppose, to Robinson's second premise, which seems far more likely to me, although it is hard to see how, if it comes to that, it can be of much benefit to the president.

That premise is that Barack Obama will veto any repeal that passes both chambers. It requires way more support to override a veto than Republicans can come up with under present circumstances. Consequently, Obama wins by default.

But he would still be put in the position of having to rally enough Democrats to his side to prevent the veto from being overridden. How hard that would be might depend upon how the Republicans package their assault — which provision(s) of the reform bill face a legislative challenge (and GOP lawmakers are already talking about challenging individual provisions) and that sort of thing.

So I suppose Robinson is right when he says "there's no earthly chance that a bill repealing the landmark health–care overhaul could make it through Congress and be signed into law."

Republicans have made repealing health care reform the centerpiece of their agenda. It is the #1 item on this generation's "Contract With America" — in no small part because it would deny Obama a signature legislative triumph when he is running for a second term.

But perhaps the symbolism of taking a principled stand against health care reform is what matters most as Republicans try to slither their way back into power. They promised to attempt to do certain things, but it doesn't take a mathematician to see that they simply don't have the numbers to insist on anything at the moment. Thus, the attempt itself may have to suffice for now.

That could change in 2012. Congressional Republicans need to conserve the mood of 2010 and prevent the pendulum from swinging back to the left as quickly as it swung to the right.

If nothing else, though, the Republicans are orderly — and patient. They have earned a reputation for giving their presidential nominations to whoever is perceived to be next in line. They seldom, if ever, proceed to item #2 until item #1 has been achieved.

One thing leads to the next in their philosophy. It was a Republican president, after all, who popularized the "domino theory" that was as responsible as anything else for America's tragic involvement in Vietnam.

As long as I can remember, Republicans have seen things in terms of keeping that first domino from falling — because, presumably, all the other dominoes are weaker. At least, they're too weak to resist when that first domino falls.

That doesn't strike me as a very promising omen of cooperation and bipartisanship.

In the next two years, I wouldn't count on making much headway in breaking the gridlock that seems to be a permanent fixture on Capitol Hill.

Each time the old pendulum swings — no matter in which direction — gridlock seems to tighten its grip. It tends to render the system less and less responsive to the people it is supposed to serve, less and less capable of meeting the needs of the citizenry.

Gridlock is a political tool, used (and nurtured) by whichever side it benefits at the moment.

That's the reality of the new world order.

The Domino Theory

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On this day in 1954, President Eisenhower put into words the philosophy that has guided American foreign policy for more or less half a century — the "domino theory:"

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"Finally, you have broader considerations that might follow what you would call the 'falling domino' principle. You have a row of dominoes set up, you knock over the first one, and what will happen to the last one is the certainty that it will go over very quickly. So you could have a beginning of a disintegration that would have the most profound influences."

Dwight Eisenhower

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This theory was certainly prevalent during the Cold War. The belief that, if one nation fell to the Communists, other nations in the region would quickly follow was a popular one. But it did not originate with Eisenhower. It has its roots in the early post–WWII era. Sir Winston Churchill warned, in his famous "Iron Curtain" speech in 1946, of the threat posed by the Soviets.

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The "domino theory" had not yet been given a name, but it had been given a face — communism and Stalin.

When I was a teenager, many of my friends laughed at the "domino theory," dismissing it as simplistic and ludicrous, but, secretly, we all worried that the war in Vietnam might not end before we were old enough to be pressed into service. The war had been raging since we were small and, when I was 13 or 14, it was not unrealistic to think the war might continue for a few more years, just long enough for us to be whisked away to the rice paddies and jungles of South Vietnam — making premature death a distinct possibility.

American involvement in Vietnam finally ended when I was 15, but not before two American presidents, Johnson and Nixon, had devoted much of their presidencies to promoting the idea that more and more Americans had to be sent there so the thousands who had already died would not have died in vain.

The same mindset permitted the American occupation of Iraq to continue, sucking up billions of dollars and thousands of lives — in spite of the assurances by those in power that the war would be over quickly and Americans would be greeted as liberators with flowers thrown at their feet.

Earlier this year, Barack Obama pledged that the American presence in Iraq would be over before Labor Day 2010. Opponents of the war would like for all Americans to be brought home from that country right away, but the realists understand that to arbitrarily remove all of our troops at this point would invite chaos to that war–torn land.

Cynics have observed that there are political implications in ending the American presence in Iraq a couple of months before the next election, but it is the only responsible way to handle the situation.

South Vietnam eventually fell to the Communist North, but the other "dominoes" in the region did not fall, as Johnson and Nixon and the many devotees of the theory expected.

Iraq, too, seems to stand as a testimonial against the validity of the "domino theory." The Iraqis may have cast aside the yoke of Saddam Hussein's tyranny, but that has not encouraged the other nations of the Middle East to follow suit and embrace democracy.

Hastily removing the troops from Iraq, however, might produce the domino effect in reverse. A chaotic Iraq, unprepared to defend its borders, might be prone to fall under the influence of its regional neighbors.

And that might trigger a fresh round of "domino theory" advocacy.