Robert David Sullivan 2

Palin's bad timing: The world is "too dangerous" for her right now

Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan has been getting a lot of attention for her post-election takedown of Sarah Palin as an intellectual lightweight. But Noonan, a former speechwriter for Ronald Reagan, is careful to avoid the implication that it's always been a bad idea to send ill-informed people to the White House. Here's her rationale for turning against Republican VP nominee Palin:

Here's why all this matters. The world is a dangerous place. It has never been more so, or more complicated, more straining of the reasoning powers of those with actual genius and true judgment. This is a time for conservative leaders who know how to think.

The world has never been more dangerous? Not even during the Great Depression or Cold War? Or the Black Plague? I'm open to the argument that human existence is at its most precarious because of climate change, but Noonan doesn't include that in her list:

Here are a few examples of what we may face in the next 10 years: a profound and prolonged American crash, with the admission of bankruptcy and the spread of deep social unrest; one or more American cities getting hit with weapons of mass destruction from an unknown source; faint glimmers of actual secessionist movements as Americans for various reasons and in various areas decide the burdens and assumptions of the federal government are no longer attractive or legitimate.

I don't see how Noonan's reasoning is any different than the cliche that each presidential election is "the most important ever."

I also wonder whether Noonan is giving herself room to back a Palin-caliber candidate in the future. The "prolonged American crash" probably won't last forever, and recovery is bound to bring another George W. Bush ready to run for president on the promise of tax cuts and more tax cuts. Noonan notes of Palin's national candidacy that "in another age it might not have been terrible." Will that "other age" be back in 2012 or 2016?

America is "right of center"

"McCain sees right-of-center nation as he moves against Obama" is the headline of an AP story, flagged by the Drudge Report, that begins:

WASHINGTON (AP) - Republican John McCain's game plan for beating Democrat Barack Obama rests on one huge assumption: Despite an unpopular war, an uncertain economy and the GOP's beleaguered status, the country still leans more to the right than to the left.

How can this be? The political center in the United States is, by definition, the point at which half the population lies to the left and half the population lies to the right. So how can the nation as a whole lean toward one side or another?

I think the reason this cliche endures is that "the left" commonly refers to the points of view that could be ascribed to the more liberal half of the country in the 1960s: more government spending, mandatory school busing to integrate schools, more regulation of monopolies such as the phone company and post office rather than more competition in those fields, huge public housing projects and other kinds of "urban renewal", income tax rates as high as 90 percent, etc. Almost no one clings to those ideas in the 21st century, so if they constitute "the left," then America certainly isn't a left-leaning nation today.

But the "America leans right" cliche seems to pit the 1960s left against the 2008 right. Though even liberal Democrats now agree that the free market system brings better service and more choice when it comes to phone service, this idea is considered "right of center." Same thing with the notion that there are better ways to increase affordable housing than by erecting huge public complexes; any idea to use the marketplace rather than direct government intervention is "right of center."

At the same time, I think that the right has been able to sever itself from the 1960s version of conservatism. So support for laws guaranteeing equal rights for African-Americans and for women is no longer a "left of center" view, though it surely was 40 years ago. Government regulation to reduce pollution was definitely "left of center" in the 1960s but the popularity of that idea is not cited as proof that America leans to the left today.

Once-popular ideas on both sides of the political spectrum have fallen out of fashion, and the definition of "left" and "right" is constantly changing. One can argue that America has shifted to the right over time, but it's logically impossible for the country to "lean right." The center is the center.

Vice-presidential picks don't matter

At Bloomberg.com, Al Hunt puts forth an impossible-to-prove theory as pundit wisdom:

Over the past 50 years, 17 men and one woman have been chosen by the major parties to run for the vice presidency of the U.S. Only one -- Lyndon Johnson in 1960 -- demonstrably affected the outcome of the presidential race.

This is worth remembering as the nation enters the quadrennial feeding frenzy over completing the tickets.

Journalists who want to seem more worldly than the rest of the press pack must periodically state that something that everyone likes to talk about means nothing at all -- and minimizing the importance of a running mate is one of the most popular ways to say that you know better than everyone else. But there's no way to measure the impact of vice-presidential nominees on the outcome of a presidential election. Maybe George W. Bush would have lost in 2000 had he picked another Dan Quayle; maybe Al Gore would have won had he picked a labor favorite like Richard Gephardt rather than the relatively hawkish Joe Lieberman. Maybe if Ronald Reagan had picked someone other than his chief primary rival, George W. Bush, in 1980, he would have beaten Jimmy Carter and John Anderson with 49 percent instead of 51 percent, and his status as a minority-vote president would have made Congressional Democrats less willing to work with him. How can anyone know for sure?

Hunt gives himself a little room by saying that Lyndon Johnson was the only VP pick with a "demonstrable" effect on an election, implying that one is free to believe that other candidates mattered (as long as you don't mind Washington sages laughing at your ridiculous theory). The truth is, no one knows whether the running mates will be important this year. And almost no one believes it will be the deciding factor, so there's no need to refute that notion. So when writing about the possible running mates in 2008, just dispense with the caveats and go right into the baseless speculation.