The Straw Man

As is tradition at the Values Voters Summit, Presidential and Vice-Presidential straw polls are taken. This year Congressman Mike Pence of Indiana came out on top in BOTH polls.

Presidential Poll
1. Mike Pence (24%)
2. Mike Huckabee (22%)
3. Mitt Romney (13%)
4. Newt Gingrich (10%)
5. Sarah Palin (7%)
6. Rick Santorum (5%)
7. Jim DeMint (5%)
8. Bobby Jindal (2%)
9. Mitch Daniels (2%)
10. Chris Christie (2%)
11. John Thune (2%)
12. Bob McDonnell (1%)
13. Marco Rubio (1%)
14. Paul Ryan (1%)
15. Haley Barbour (1%)
16. Ron Paul (1%)
17. Jan Brewer (1%)

Vice-Presidential Poll
1. Mike Pence (16%)
2. Sarah Palin (15%)
3. Rick Santorum (10%)
4. Paul Ryan (7%)
5. Jim DeMint (6%)
6. Mike Huckabee (6%)
7. Marco Rubio (6%)
8. Bobby Jindal (6%)
9. Bob McDonnell (4%)
10. Chris Christie (3%)
11. Mitt Romney (3%)
12. Newt Gingrich (3%)
13. Jan Brewer (3%)
14. John Thune (2%)
15. Mitch Daniels (1%)
16. Haley Barbour (1%)
17. Ron Paul (1%)

For the time being, let's ignore the cast of characters. Going down that road would take too much time and would make me a bit crazy. But look over the names and try to get in touch with your own sense of what is evoked with the sight of each name on the list.

What does this straw poll result mean?

Well for starters it means people at this event REALLY liked Mike Pence. If they had their way we'd have a Pence-Pence ticket, or maybe a Pence-Palin ticket in 2012. I suppose that's possible, but we should also expect to see a real serious challenge from Romney this time around. The crazy has not rubbed off on him as much as some of the other contenders. Compared with the rest on the wanabee's Romney seems downright reasonable. This wasn't his base. Participants at the summit represent a narrowly focused demographic. This group is Mike Pence's wheelhouse.

Pence currently serves in the third highest-ranking Republican Congressional leadership position as Chairman of the House Republican Conference. He's been a vocal supporter of Israel, calling them "America's most cherished ally". That's what he's FOR. As far I can tell, that's it. It seems like on every other issue it comes down more to opposition than advocacy.

He does advocate extending the Bush tax cuts but that's really more of an opposition to tax increases. Pence doesn't offer a way to pay for lost tax revenue however. (check him out on Meet The Press last month NOT answering that question.) I suppose, like his colleagues, he believes the tax cuts will magically pay for themselves. This WOULD be magical given there is no evidence of this happening in history, EVER.

He's been opposed to the recent health care reform legislation (calling for a total repeal), birth control (as he said this weekend to the Values Voters crowd: "... let's deny any and all funding to Planned Parenthood of America."), same-sex marriage, stem-cell research, hate crime legislation, amnesty for illegal aliens, closing Guantanamo, setting a date for withdrawal from Iraq, the Fairness Doctrine for broadcasters, and online gambling. Just say no!

Pence is a self-described Christian-Conservative-Republican. In that order. His personal religious and moral views trump his political positions, and by extension may well outweigh his stance on constitutional protections established under current law. He holds firmly to the tenets of the 1994 Contract With America. So I guess in some sense he is FOR "the good old days". Remember to glory days of the mid-90's. The continuous skewering of the Clinton's. The government shut-down. It seems like only yesterday when Newt Gingrich was referring to Bill and Hillary as "the enemy of normal America". We don't have to try too hard to recall Newt's hyperbolic rhetoric, we're witnessing a virtual replay, hearing it all again with recent comments about Obama and his Kenyan anti-colonialism, whatever the fuck that means. But I digress. I'll return to the Newt-ster at another time. He deserves his own post. Hell, someone should write a biography on crazy-ass Uncle Newt.

In his speech to the Values Voter Summit, Pence makes the now tired argument opposing what he calls Obama tax increases. The fact is the Bush tax cuts were designed to sunset at the end of 2010. This does not equate to an Obama tax increase. Another obfuscation comes from Pence, or any of his Republican colleagues, conveniently omitting the fact that Bush didn't provide a way to pay for his tax cuts. The reduced tax revenue has contributed  to the deficit year after year. In addition, the tax cuts did NOT stimulate job growth during the Bush years, but again in some conjuring of magical tax-reducing power, tax cuts WILL lead to job growth now.

Pence attempts to saddle Obama with the creation of the, now historically high, gap between the richest and the poorest Americans. He doesn't say HOW it's Obama's fault. It just IS, okay! Obama made more poor people even poorer. When you say it with authority, people clap and nod. Throw a few Pelosi references in and you've got a winner! Run Mike Run!

With melodramatic, big-ending, flourish Pence engages the rapt and standing audience with a mythic tale of an America "engaged in a great moral battle for life, traditional marriage and religious liberty without apology." Wedgie! Values voters suck this shit up, with a straw, like the last bit at the bottom of the Slurpy cup, working to get every last drop.

There are two realities in play. The REAL reality, you know the one that's based on facts and the real world, and then there's the fantasized reality of a world Mike Pence and his supporters imagine to be lost, that must, at all costs be taken back. But there is an apparent contradiction in his closing remarks..."If we don't succeed in November, all that was once good and great in America could someday be gone!" WAIT A MINUTE! I thought it was already gone and that you had to take it back. Which is it? Is it gone, or not? Are we still good and great, or not? I'm confused!