What a difference a year makes.
Last CPAC, the colony had no queen. The Movement soldier ants wandered around the Shoreham hallways witless, or sat in the main foyer flashing their Mac Book Pros at each other, looking for ways to die. Confusion and fear reigned. They still thought of themselves as ‘Movement’ but most by now had worked in the White House, for leadership on the Hill or been appointed to SES perk slots. Still, after McCain’s crash, these former campaign veterans sought each other at the Shoreham and vigorously shook hands. Some even hugged. A lot like old soldiers remembering those harrowing minutes on Omaha.
Meanwhile, wealthy plutocrats dined on overpriced average food in the lobby restaurant. They had cheque books at the ready for anyone who could convincingly launch immediate political suicide bombers. The plutocrats asked blunt questions. Was the canon fodder pipeline real? Were the political bombs ready? And they looked for any sign of flinch, of conscience about sending 20 somethings out to die politically with no reward (Carrie Prejean didn’t happen until later in June, so no one thought of that paradise for the departed). Finally, and most importantly, what was the profit margin per attack?
Now in 2010, the colony still doesn’t have a queen. But Obama’s inexcusably weak presidency has galvanized undeservedly the Movement. Instead of a queen, the Movement offers a conch – the conch of experience. It rallies the old soldiers and waived as a talisman to cow their own insurgency. The Movement Establishment rightly has been exposed as just another D.C. nomenklatura, rich and bloated. ‘Rich and bloated’, with a new jingle and website graphics, is peddled to the febrile tea partiers as magic ‘Experience’. So far, it is not catching on. Instead, the tea party influence at CPAC outside the now very dated old school scheduled events has the potential to wash like purifying acid over the rotten edifice.
The feeling is London, 1976. Both for what is and its potential denouement. Recall how 1976 began. British kids suddenly walking down the street with t-shirts declaring ‘I Hate Pink Floyd’ ignited a mass social movement based on angry rejection. They would smash down the out of touch, self indulgent sellouts and reclaim youth culture. Back to basics. Jonathan RIchman and his two chord classic ‘Roadrunner’. From them, the Ramones and the NY Dolls, London punk emerged to kick to the curb dinosaurs like The Rolling Stones and Zepplin. You know the story re Sex Pistols, The Clash, The Damned et al. And they did take over for a while, mostly in London. Americans remained skeptical. Like our politics, we then as now prefer both to be processed and manufactured.
Punk failed, of course. And there’s the analogy. Without anything to offer beyond rejection, they lost their audience after 3 years. Labels and corporations jumped at the opening and packaged New Wave and more marketable, malleable product to sell. If you lived through the 80s you saw the wreckage. One famous rock figure who just played a major sporting event, speaking of punk, could just as well be talking to Grover Norquist. ‘Punk scared all of us alot at first, but if one just stood there and took it, the abuse and the spitting, one survived.’
Movement figures have no where else to go. They must endure the spittle. And wave that shiny magic conch ‘Experience’. They infected, rode then depleted the Republican Party parasite for power and personal wealth. They left the parasite party, country and government in tatters. As with all institutions their ideology infects. The Republican Party is a non-existent player in these conversations for a reason, beyond Michael Steele.
Perhaps the tea partiers will learn from history and side step her trap. So far, they seem to enjoy merely singing ‘Smash It Up.’ One hopes Grover has a lot of kleenex.
Who said Obama didn’t create anything his first year?
Comment says
Leo – next year we’ll have to check it out ourselves – the last one we attended was with Savimbi (Psst: David Brooks says he was a cannibal, pass it on!) – But it seems Buckley and Tannenhaus disagree with you on the optics:
http://www.amconmag.com/larison/2010/02/losing-the-future/
Comment says
Btw – this is no defense of Hamas and we sorta resent having to issue such a stupid qualifier, but there is a difference between Qaeda and Hamas – Indeed, Boot may not want to admit, but Bibi’s own government negotiates with Hamas, while the ‘Marxist Muslim’ Obama certainly does not negotiate with Qaeda.
Comment says
Boot says no one objects – but he is wrong. No one who matters in his mind objects:
http://www.amconmag.com/larison/
Comment says
With the CCTV death of Bond – perhaps it will just accelerate the use of self-directed CCTV via drone missle attacks:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/7280578/Mossad-the-Keystone-spooks.html
Comment says
We always make that President’s typo for some reason when it should be Presidents. Oh well.
Comment says
Pawlenty’s jokes about Tiger were very much the kind small classless marker that all President’s avoid – Kicking someone when they are down – at best. It seems that all President’s in recent memory were gracious in public – even Nixon let discretion fight with nature.
Newt probably whines to himself that he is not allowed to be like Jack – forgetting that some people can get away with things that others cannot for reasons best left to art and speculation to figure out why.
Comment says
Yeah – that Gore Norwood-Dingell thing was almost impossible for non Americans to understand – There was nothing Gore said that was technically wrong, but it was just an abortion anyway. All code and symbols. Newt is looking for his Asteroids Hyperspace button to blot out all the irresponsible things that will unnerve money men – maintaining an RC pose (maybe he’s start quoting Chesterton) – plus his personal life (connected also to insecurity mixed with delusions of grandeur)
Btw – Pawlenty is too delicate in personal gait and manner to be making brie and chablis jokes.
Comment says
We were amused to read what Paulson said about Cantor – mocking him for his stupid suggestions during the meltdown – But ofourse Politico reported this with it typical high school mentality of just tracking polls.
Comment says
Yeah – we think Newt will run, but we think his preturnatural lack of grace and charitableness will sink him. He’s just not gentleman enough to be President. Neither was Rudy – people who applauded his sneering debate style voted against him. Newt and Palin and Romney are the front runnners and if we had to guess now we’d say Romney will get it and then lose to Obama in the general. Pawlenty is a joke and his Tiger Woods jokes were infra dig.
Dr Leo Strauss says
Pence is indeed a thin reed to grasp for Establishment Movement types. The line we heard at CPAC from a variety of sources is that Pence will make a move on Boehner or if necessary a rung or two below but supplant Cantor as a potential national ‘face’ of the Movement.
Newt is in many ways coeval with Clinton – both are undisciplined. You hit it on the head. Whereas Clinton’s excesses are external and involve engaging relationships, Newt’s are inward and destructive (even self destructive beyond Clinton’s recklessness). He is by nature an insurgent. There is nothing we know of him to suggest his ability to govern a White House would be any less chaotic and unsuccessful than his tenure as Speaker.
He would make an entertaining foil for Palin in debates though. Imagine him wandering off into some totally free form verbal mishmash of poorly understood history. She would just look into the camera with a ‘WTF’? And America would get it. Like W shooting down Gore and Norwood-Dingle.
Comment says
Pence is , at best, a poor man’s Jack Kemp – But he is really just a simpleton who earnestly thinks Ben Franklin and Thomas Jefferson were Christian fundamentalists.
Comment says
Speaking of inane – The Palinistas have not really been called on the fact that they’ve adopted all sorts of PC codes – the kind of stuff that used to get the movement up in arms. So this is a pretty funny:
http://www.balloon-juice.com/2010/02/20/early-morning-open-thread-crafty/
Dr. Leo Strauss says
DeMint would be a good accelerant for uncontrolled combustion. If ‘Axe’ was truly on the ball, he would be looking for the right third parties to goad subtly DeMint to venture beyond the stratosphere. ‘Epic’ as the kidz say.
Surprising my Movement Access Pass still works – at least in places – which just goes to show that the Community aren’t the only ones not able to connect the dots. Will report back later on this evening’s spelunking.
Dr Leo Strauss says
Well CPAC continues to fascinate. We noticed four amorphous but distinct groupings. (The new hotel around the corner from the Shoreham is definitely a step up). A) The Ron Paul types (sneeringly referred to as libertarians by the Movement Old Guard we spoke with); B) the chaotic ‘punk rock’ tea baggers who scare everyone because no one knows if they should suck up to them or not; C) the Movement Establishment continuing to assert their Washington ‘experience’ is valuable; and D) a vast, limitless sea of young extremely attractive, well dressed, vacant twenty-somethings there to be ‘seen’ and looking for ‘adventure’. The latter are far more numerous, upscale and consciously dressing provocatively than say 2009 or 2008.
The Movement Establishment types in public make nice to Romney but savage him brutally behind his back. Palin also gets the Washington air kiss back stab. A name that kept popping in conversation with veteran Movement Establishment figures was Mike Pence of Indiana. It’s not as far fetched as it sounds given that he is in the House Minority for Indiana. He is untainted by Bushism in many ways having stood his ground even under DeLay. They figure under their logic he’s one of the few Establishment figures that might buy off the ‘punk rock’ nihilism of the tea baggers on arcane policy grounds. But ask yourself when the last time a representative successfully ran for president.
We also hear rumblings that a certain former House figure of national stature is doing more than making verbal feints about a 2012 candidacy. He is investing in projects and putting time and capital into groundwork to smooth away the mountain to inconsistent statements that have accrued over the years. It’s not dispositive, but we sense this time there is more seriousness in exploring the possibilities.
Technologically, the Movement has largely if not completely caught up with Democrats/progressives, etc. The number of web savvy technology demonstrations for outreach was impressive. The difference between 2009 and this year really quite remarkable.
A few words we never heard: Jindal, Pawlenty, ‘let’s keep Boehner’, ‘McConnell is doing a good job’, ‘we defer to the military (re DADT)’.
Here’s the WaPo write up on Pence-mania:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/19/AR2010021902191.html?hpid=topnews
Comment says
If we had any chance to advise Obama – we would say that he should only do things or say things that make the CPAC types squeal and squeak and cry unfairness. He is far too nice right now.