I could not bear to watch last night's debate -- that much crazy in one place is just too much for me at my advanced age. But I think I've gotten the gist by scanning the blogosphere and I think it raises this fundamental question: Just how utterly bloody minded is the Republican electorate?
It seems pretty shockingly clear -- considering not a vote has been cast -- that this thing is going to come down to Mitt Romney versus Rick Perry. Sensible people like James Fallows think that Romney carried the day last night, largely by avoiding saying things like "Social Security is a Ponzi scheme." I have a very high regard for Fallows as a journalist, but my gut reaction (and really, what is the more appropriate measure in this circumstance) is that he is wrong. Matt Yglesias also agrees with Fallows, based on the idea that Republican base voters really want to beat Obama and will thus choose the pragmatic route in pursuit of this greater goal.
I tend to see things more as Doug J and Elias Isquith do -- that today's Republican voter is first and foremost committed not to specific policy outcomes, but rather to signifying a series of attitudes with respect to politics, attitudes that by and large stem from a desire to shock and disturb those that they perceive perceive themselves as their cultural betters. In other words, in the end, for a huge chunk of these people, it comes down to voting for the candidate who would most piss off liberals.
It remains to be seen whether this tendency is actually a majority one within the Republican electorate. Again, I think that in the post-Obama world that it is -- indeed, even those who once had a veneer of respectability can now be seen embracing extreme doctrine as a rebuke to arrogant social reformers who think that the government should be able to have a say in things like the number of hours that can be worked or the age of the worker who might work them.
Perry is the perfect candidate for the ressentiment class -- like Palin, only with a penis and ten years as governor. The fact that he is willing to double down on denouncing America's most beloved social program -- it's a feature not a bug.
Until at least, the general election. Obama must be pulling hard for this guy.
