The Weekly Screed (#543)

Desperately seeking Ronald Reagan
by David Benjamin

BROOKLYN — According to the punditocracy, the surprising withdrawal of
Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels from the 2012 Republican presidential field
is a great clarifying moment, reducing the potential candidates to an
“electable” handful.

Unfortunately, none of this particular chosen few is going to win the
sweepstakes — for a simple, oft-cited reason. The demographic subgroup
likely to vote in the ’12 Republican primaries is the most extreme and
rabid micro-electorate since George Wallace’s racist splinter doomed
Hubert Humphrey in ‘68. These zealots will accept nothing less from
their hero than raw meat, war paint and rebel yells. But the
pundit-approved “front runners” for the GOP nomination — Romney,
Pawlenty, Gingrich and Huntsman — are various brands of vanilla
yogurt.

The lunatics running the asylum want someone else. Ideally, they’d
resurrect that past California governor who, when confronted by
protesters at UCLA and Berkeley, called out troops and declared, “If
there has to be a bloodbath, then let's get it over with.”

Today (and probably forever) in the Republican Party, the litmus test
for legitimacy is Ronald Reagan. And none of these shnooks, nor even
Ron Paul, Herman Cain or the Bachmann woman, resembles the Gipper.
Sarah Palin? C’mon! Reagan was likeable. The only folks who don’t
detest Palin are people even more hateful than she is.

The main problem with current GOP front-runners is that there isn’t an
upstart among them. Since 1960, when the primary election began to
eclipse the smoke-filled room as the birthplace of presidents, the
volatile voters of Iowa, New Hampshire, West Virginia, etc., have
shown a perverse affinity for long shots, underdogs and latecomers.

Why an upstart? Because the electorate is one gigantic, many-headed
Cyndi Lauper: they just wanna have fun. Pundits have argued for
decades over whether America is conservative or liberal, center-right
or center-left, elephants or donkeys. History suggests that, over all
this time, we’ve been split three ways — unevenly. The big third is a
huge muddled middle who tumble and roll back and forth, from election
to election, like a loose beer keg on shipdeck in a hurricane.

All that’s certain about the keg’s next move is that it will knock
some smug son of a bitch off the boat — like Rockefeller in ’68,
Kennedy in ’80, Gary Hart in ’84…

Among the pioneers of this upstart trend was Eugene McCarthy, who
forced LBJ’s withdrawal in ’68, after which Bobby Kennedy, the next
upstart in line, leapfrogged McCarthy. RFK would’ve done the same to
Dick Nixon (the ultimate non-upstart) if not for… well, you know.
Since then, the Oval Office has seen a veritable parade of guys who
weren’t even listed on the racing form at the beginning, from Jimmy
Carter to Barack Hussein. Even Ronald Reagan, despite 16 years as the
GOP’s most-feared stalking horse, was an upstart (if only because he
started his political career as a B-list actor, a Democrat, a HUAC
stool pigeon, a John Bircher and a Goldwater protégé).

Our next big surprise, like Reagan, will be a governor. Americans
prefer governors. He will have a record of being a cheapskate but a
friend of the wealthy and powerful. He will be white, with a gift for
frustrating minority constituents while simultaneously showing up in
photographs shaking their hands and posing with their adorable
children — whose feeding, housing and education he will ruthlessly
underfund.

But with a smile. What a smile. What a charmer.

Yes, he’ll be strangely charming, with a streak of candor that sets
him vividly apart from his cautious competitors. He’ll say things
like, “If you say I’m fat, I’m fat. Let’s go. Let’s talk about it.”

He will exult in having enemies. But he’ll be a genius, like Reagan,
at choosing foes who burnish his popularity.
Reagan, for instance, picked on the poor because they couldn’t talk
back. He invented the “welfare queen” and he counseled the public not
to worry so much about the unemployed. Wittily, he said, “Unemployment
insurance is a pre-paid vacation for freeloaders.” (Talk about a great
soundbite!) And he picked on students, who were, at the time,
spectacularly unpopular for raising hell over the Vietnam War, the
Draft and other stuff — so much stuff that they drowned out one
another in a Babel of rage. Reagan, on the other hand, had the bully
pulpit, a simple mind, an actor’s timing and a knack for one-liners.
Reagan was a cartoonist, and the kids at Berkeley were his favorite
‘toons.

Chris Chistie, the next Republican candidate for president, is also a
cartoonist. His ‘toons are teachers and public employees, who — he
says — are sucking New Jersey dry with their demands for princely
salaries, exorbitant pensions and luxury health care. Like Reagan,
Christie gets his photo opps with black babies but caters to white
fear about crime and drugs and the court-ordered school bus that
snatches up little Jennifer and hauls her into the ghetto.

Even though I live in the next state over, I’ve been avoiding my Chris
Christie homework. I know less about him than most of the other GOP
front-runners. But, grudgingly, I’m learning. I have to, because he’s
gonna win! Besides, he’s fun.

Christie is the ideal upstart. He’s loud, impetuous, combative,
physically distinctive and counterintuitively lovable while driving
his enemies into fits of sputtering fury. Even his name is fun to say:
Chris Christie Chris Christie Chris Christie for Christmas!

Above all, politically, Christie — like the Gipper — is more cunning
and ruthless than all of his opponents rolled into one.

Proof of this vital quality is the fact that he’s not competing at
all. He insists he’s not running for president. He knows the feckless
foursome ahead of him in the queue are dull. He sees that discussions
about them — on everything from “Morning Joe” to “Face the Nation” —
only expand and dissect their soul-crushing dullness. Christie knows
the longer he waits to save the GOP from these guys, the more
thrilling he will seem.

The political poster that captured the spirit of Barack Obama’s
campaign and perhaps won him the election in 2008 carried a single
four-letter word: “HOPE”

The word on Christie’s poster in 2012: “WHEW!”