If Only It Were So, Joe
Joe Conason has a column about professional xenophobe Louis Dobbs who, in a spectacular demonstration of the truth that the incompetent don't even know they're incompetent, apparently intends to run for president.* (See also Digby's post below.) Conason writes:Having observed the former CNN anchor for many years, including a number of recent appearances on his nightly broadcast, I suspect that he may well nurture ambitions to run for president, as reported in the trade press -- and could mount a formidable campaign drawing upon the same resentful remnant that Republicans hope to mobilize in 2012. Except that he probably won't be running as a Republican.
And why not? Conason continues: It is true that LouDobbs.com provides much of the same right-wing rhetoric available from Rush Limbaugh or Fox News Channel, featuring guests such as Mike Huckabee, Bill Donohue and Frank Luntz. Glancing at the Web site or listening to him on the radio makes Dobbs appear to be a "lifelong Republican," as he has occasionally described himself in the past. He lambastes ACORN, the "national liberal media," Nancy Pelosi, "government-run healthcare" and, of course, Barack Obama, all in the usual frothing style.
Yet there is much about his fundamental outlook that simply cannot fit within the Republican party today -- and in no fewer than three bestselling books, he has poured scorn upon the GOP and its free-market idolatry. His skepticism of open borders has long extended to trade as well as immigration, and he has fervently denounced the corporate greed that led to the outsourcing and offshoring of millions of American jobs. That pugnacious attitude won him the George Kourpias Award for Excellence in Labor Journalism from the International Association of Machinists in 2004. ("We would canonize him if we could," said the union's president as he presented the award to Dobbs.)
He despises corporate lobbyists, complains about corporate tax evasion, and has supported public financing of elections. He blasted the banking and credit card industries for pushing through the bankruptcy "reform" that ruined families while fattening their profits.
As if Dobbs is somehow incapable of tailoring his "fundamental outlook" to please the boys with the bucks. In fact, as Joe Conason himself notes:In the past he has even criticized Republicans for promoting cultural warfare over abortion and gay marriage, although he recanted last September with a groveling address to the Values Voters Summit (another possible signal of an incipient candidacy).
So, Dobbs is, according to Conason himself, a duplicitous flippy-floppy far-right opportunist whose morals stink as bad as an industrial hog farm. In other words, he's just one more standard issue 21st Century Republican nutcase.
If he runs, he will want to win - no tokenism for Dobbs, ever. So while he surely is incompetent, he is, as Conason realizes, one cunningly nasty piece of work (Conason calls him "smart" but I think this is closer to what Conason means) and it takes hardly any cunning at all to know you don't win nothing running third party. You're gonna see Dobbs change his tune but fast. Oh sure, he'll probably have the GOP put in planks to the platform decrying "corporate greed," - using as examples prominent Democratic businessmen - but he'll privately assure America's Greediest they needn't fear him.
If Dobbs does get in the race, he will be a formidable opponent, not because he's qualified, of course, and not even because he's glib. He'll be formidable because he's One Of Their Own, the way Patrick Buchanan is. They're going to give "Lou" a free pass to say anything and be as ignorant and vicious as he can be, just as they treated "Pat." The difference is that Dobbs has a less deranged mien that crazy Buchanan. And so it will have a far greater impact than it did with Buchanan.
Another reason he'll run as a Republican: they got no one remotely as popular or likable. Tim Pawlenty? Oh, please.
*I try not to use diminutives, like "Mike" or "Lou" or "Arnold" for politicians class, or even first names: it creates a false sense of intimacy and I think it's importance to maintain a rhetorical, as well as a real, distance from these people, especially those on the far right. "Lou Dobbs" now is clearly a "Louis."