Never Enough

By Ezra

In comments, Iron Lungfish writes:

If the bar's fallen so low that Huckabee is now the standard for what makes a grownup Republican, this is a hideous portent that there are no potentially tolerable Republican presidents.

But were there ever? We always say that the Republivan party of today is so much more unacceptable than the Republican party of yore, but I can't think of a single Republican president who Democrats held anything than broad antipathy for. Eisenhower was neither Republican and Democrat, he was some fourth-dimension political being who simply acted the steward as America normalized after World War II. But his VP? Well now...

The campaigns against Eisenhower, particularly against his reelection, were largely conducted against Nixon, the devilish lackey who was a heartbeat from the presidency. Democrats hated Nixon. Even Bush bashing looks light compared to the scorn, distaste, and revulsion we felt for the guy. Now, of course, we look back and wonder why we despised him so much. He created the EPA! Increased health spending! Enlarged Social Security! And if you switch out Bush for Nixon, EPA for Medicare Drug Benefit, and health spending for education spending, you get a taste of what the future liberal revisions of the Bush presidency may look like.

Reagan won some conservative Democrats, but the party's base couldn't stand the glib actor who wrapped radical conservatism in a genial, non-threatening package. Bush pere was no great shakes either. Moderate compared to his son, the 1988 election was a mish-mash of thinly-veiled racism (Willie Horton), cultural appeals through flag burning, and declarations that, in fact, atheists probably weren't true Americans. His ran against liberalism and we hated him for it.

For Democrats, as for Republicans (witness their antipathy towards Clinton, a moderate who spurned liberalism, shrunk government, reformed welfare, and balanced the budget), the other side never fields an acceptable candidate. Historical retrospect often changes the judgment, but those trapped in the present never evince that sort of moderation. So let's not play around. If Huckabee runs, we'll find plenty of reasons to oppose him. Nevertheless, he's quite the grown-up compared to the big-spending, tax-cutting incompetents currently populating 1600 Pennsylvania. Is he our guy? No, and if he runs, we'll unite behind the Democrat and tell the country that a Huckabee administration would do America all the good of a meteor impact. And will it be true? Sure. Maybe. At least to us, at the time. And in any case, it'll be no more false than the predictions of doom our candidate will be amassing across the aisle.