Blue Crab Boulevard

Reasonable People

Peggy Noonan looks at all the candidates currently scurrying around in Iowa scratching for votes and judges them on her personal standard for this election: Is the candidate 'reasonable?' As in a reasonable person. Her judgments might not really surprise you. Then again, they might.

This is my 2008 slogan: Reasonable Person for President. That is my hope, what I ask Iowa to produce, and I claim here to speak for thousands, millions. We are grown-ups, we know our country needs greatness, but we do not expect it and will settle at the moment for good. We just want a reasonable person. We would like a candidate who does not appear to be obviously insane. We'd like knowledge, judgment, a prudent understanding of the world and of the ways and histories of the men and women in it.

Here are two reasonables: Joe Biden and Chris Dodd. They have been United States senators for a combined 62 years. They've read a raw threat file or two. They have experience, sophistication, the long view. They know how it works. No one will have to explain it to them.

Mitt Romney? Yes. Characterological cheerfulness, personal stability and a good brain would be handy to have around. He hasn't made himself wealthy by seeing the world through a romantic mist. He has a sophisticated understanding of the challenges we face in the global economy. I personally am not made anxious by his flip-flopping on big issues because everyone in politics gets to change his mind once. That is, you can be pro-life and then pro-choice but you can't go back to pro-life again, because if you do you'll look like a flake. The positions Mr. Romney espouses now are the positions he will stick with. He has no choice.

John McCain? Yes. Remember when he was the wild man in 2000? For Republicans on the ground he was a little outré, if Republicans on the ground said "outré," as opposed to the more direct "nut job." George W. Bush, then, was the moderate, more even-toned candidate. Times change. Mr. McCain is an experienced, personally heroic, seasoned, blunt-eyed, irascible American character. He makes me proud. He makes everyone proud.

You'll have to go read for yourself her opinions on Obama, Clinton and her dodge on Giuliani. I suspect many voters not rigidly in lockstep with their party - or rabid ideologists - are actually looking for a reasonable candidate. While I would be in favor of one myself, I am not at all sure that reasonableness is going to be the deciding factor or not. There have been too many extreme positions staked out. (Some, like Clinton, are trying to stake all of them out at once, in classic Clintonian triangulation.) The irony here is that many states pushed up their primaries in order to challenge the primacy of Iowa and New Hampshire. That, in turn, has made both of those states even more important this year. The outcome of those early contests may send the races off in a completely new direction.

Politics | Gaius Friday, 28 December , 2007

By Anthony (Los Angeles), Friday, 28 December , 2007 @ 10:41 am

I’ve been a little wary of Peggy ever since she developed a “case of the vapors” after hearing Bush’s second inaugural speech. McCain has many admirable qualities, but he’s also the McCain of McCain-Feingold, Simpson-Mazzoli II, and the Gang of 14 deal, and he showed Grant-like bad judgment in the Keating 5 scandal. I can easily vote for him over any of the Democrats, but let’s temper our pride with a little realism about the man.
By Frank F, Friday, 28 December , 2007 @ 11:01 am

Peggy Noonan is right to say that Joe Biden and Chris Dodd are experienced, sophisticated and reasonable candidates for President. But that’s not why she likes them. She likes them for the same reason any loyal Republican foot soldier likes them: they can’t win.
By Quilly Mammoth, Friday, 28 December , 2007 @ 7:34 pm

Frank, you’re just wrong. I want a President I can respect _even_ if I disagree with him or her. Hillary, Edwards, Huckabee or Ron Paul would be a _disaster_ for America.

Every Right Thinking American should be looking at this as patriots and not as Fantasy Football. Which, Frank, you are doing.

It’s not about your side winning, dammit, it’s about our future as Americans. We shouldn’t nominate a scumbag for President just because we think they can win. If both sides thought that way we would have reasonable guidance in DC.

Right now the Nutzroots and Wingnuts-on-line are pushing an extremist agenda. This must stop. The threats from afar are too great to put our future in the hands of the people I’ve named as “not worthy”

The only predicament I can see is if it is Hi!!ary vs. Huckabee. Then I would vote for a third party as protest.
By martian, Saturday, 29 December , 2007 @ 1:39 pm

Quilly, I’m surprised you left Obama off the disaster list in your first sentence. That guy is a walking disaster hoping to happen in the White House. Just the thought of him winning makes my blood run cold!