57 thoughts on “Will Sarah Run?”

  2. I like Sarah, but I’ll wait until early 2012 to see how the field has shaped up before I get excited about any single candidate. In the meantime, I’m more worried that the GOP leadership didn’t get the message in the 2010 election and return to their wandering & cheating ways. If Sarah plays a role keeping them on the straight and narrow path, that will be a big plus in her favor.

  3. Agree with mpthompson, I like Sarah, but she wasn’t my top choice in 2008. I want to see the other options for 2012. At the same time, a choice between Barack and Sarah is an easy one for me to make. It’s like choosing between Jimmy Carter and that former actor from California.

  4. Well, it’s true folks dismissed Reagan as some kind of Goldwater fringewacker, not a serious Republican like Bob Dole, Gerry Ford, or George Bush, Sr., until about 1979. We shall see. She would make a hell of a lot better President than Obum, since she has a good political ear, seems to pick her friends and employees wisely, and seems to manage quite well.

    Incidentally, I think Katzman has his head up his rear on that one: the evidence of her tenure as mayor, governor, and Veep candidate — all while raising a bunch of kids — is that she is very good at management and self-discipline. There seems to be almost no trace of disgruntled former supporters or employees, time-management screw-ups, financial goofs. I bet she’s never late to anything and her family hate her Blackberry with a passion.

    I think the only problem she’s really got — left, center and right — is gravitas. People just cannot seem to believe that she’s “Presidential,” with the gravity and weight of the office. (In contrast, about the only thing Obama had going for him was seeming Presidential: the manly baritone, the chiseled features, the excellent tone and cadence of his speeches, his thoughtful-seeming pauses that now – alas – seem more like cluelessness.)

    Why she has that problem I am not sure. It could be as simple as her accent, which to most ears sounds a little shrewish rednecky. It could be she’s a good-looking youngish woman, and we are still wired to think only of homely crones for leadership jobs when the sex chromosome is X. I know everybody who doesn’t like her has a theory about why they don’t — but usually when I listen to it, it sounds insufficient, full of special pleading, inconsistent, and I can’t help feeling that they constructed the theory to rationalize what is really a gut-level dislike from some other source.

  6. Carl Pham wrote:

    “Why she has that problem I am not sure. It could be as simple as her accent, which to most ears sounds a little shrewish rednecky. ”

    That’s a good part of it, if my lefty friends are any indication. The accent turns them right off. But that only applies (in the main) to lefties.

    For me personally I still have not seen her effectively articulate and debate Big Issues ™ in a forum that isn’t structured. That is to say, writing an article or giving a speech isn’t quite enough because that’s too structured. I’d like to see her debate big issues in a non-structured way so that I can be convinced she has the depth of knowledge that I’d like to see.

    Policy-wise she says all the right things and has done a bunch of right things as an executive in government. But I need that last bit of proof to know that she has studied up.

  7. Gregg also makes a very good point: if she can reveal an inner Chris Christie, that would go a long way to convince folks on her side of the aisle that she has was the Zero does not.

  8. While I’d vote for her over the Suit, I still am very uncomfortable with her as a candidate. The key reason is her resignation from the governorship of Alaska. I don’t buy that it was because of frivolous lawsuits. Second, I have to echo Gregg’s concern. She doesn’t seem ready to fight for the presidency.

  9. Another good Palin article is “Is Sarah Palin Too Dumb to Be President?” over at American Spectator.

  10. All I know, is if there is indeed a multiverse, I would much rather end up in the one with Sarah as President in 2013 than Obama. I’ve been to that one and it sucks.

  11. Actually, I followed the links to the article from this summer on Mitch Daniels, and I’m rather impressed.

    Although I was (and still am) perfectly fine with Sarah as VP–she certainly has more experience than 0ne ever did–I think she’s far more valuable where she is. As a formal candidate, much less POTUS, she would be forced into being something of an insider. She has proven this last year to be at her most powerful and influential as an outsider.

  12. Her resignation did the most to damage my support. I understand the points that she made regarding it, but that’s a political battle you fight. Having seen Murkowski’s political machine, perhaps Palin would have lost the fight with both Alaskan Democrats and Repulicans gunning for her. Still, if she doesn’t fight for herself…

    And to be clear, if I’d been in her shoes, I’d probably done the same thing. But I also would have enjoyed (afterwards) being a mover/shaker behind the scenes, rather than try to be top of the ticket.

  13. Looks like “Nehemiah Scudder” will get elected right on schedule, only RAH got the gender and state wrong 😉

  15. Hey everyone, Thomas M’s month-long sulking has paid-off: he’s gone from KĂźbler-Ross stage 1 to stage 2.

  17. For all the virtues of Reagan, and all the benefits of not Dukakis/Gore/Kerry, I’d have to say those periods of time were pretty awful specifically because of a knowledge/experience/values deficit.

    I know the perfect can’t be the enemy of the good, but I don’t want someone who will do for the left what Obama has done for the right. We don’t need Palin to beat Obama, and I doubt she’ll effectively pull off necessary change.

    My biggest problem with Palin is her pseudo-narcissism. On a personal level, I appreciate the fact that because the other side has made it about her, that she fights back. But a President can’t govern always on the defensive. I don’t think Palin might be experienced and educated enough, but even so, circumstances have nevertheless made her too iconoclastic. Not against status quo policies (which are awful), but against status quo sensibilities (which devolve into the worst irrationality if agitated). In other words, not necessarily her fault, but nobody deserves to be President. The job is meant for the person who might do the best job. Excusing Palin means granting a handicap, which is the last thing you should do in picking a President.

    All the times I had to defend Bush… he wasn’t as stupid as they made him out to be… but he was the source of all the material used agaist him. We didn’t have to put up with that.

    But heed: Republican voters vote status quo – terribly conservative in the persnickity sense. I mean, they picked McCain in 2008 (note – I speak of the critical mass of voters, not the whole). So I imagine they will shut down Palin as soon as an alternative emerges. Probably will be Romney (I think some Republican voters will have a secret fetish for his past healthcare indiscretions).

  18. I have serious reservations about Palin.

    Would I vote for her in November 2012 against Obama? Yes, without hesitation, but I’d vote for a tree stump over Obama.

    I think Palin would make a superb chairman of the Republican Party.

    Presidential nominee? There, I have doubts. First and foremost, I’m not convinced she could beat Obama. I would prefer a “safer” candidate (who has lower negatives with independents) to a higher risk of four more years of Obama.

    I also remember the VP debate. Palin could not beat Biden, even though Biden screwed up his facts, bigtime. (I caught several while watching). Maybe she’s changed, but anyone who can’t beat gaffemaster Biden in a debate worries me. (my dog probably could, and he’s been dead for years)

    I have other qualms. I’m a libertarian on many issues (by no means all) and I find the social cons as big a threat to liberty as liberals. I don’t know what Palin’s policies are, but if they are hardcore social conservative and would be part of her “agenda”, no thanks.

    I’m unlikely to make a choice until early 2012. Right now, except for “Hell no, not Huckabee!” I am undecided for the primaries.

  19. What the f*** is “pseudo-narcissism”? She speaks up for herself instead of just letting whom critics (most of whom are unhinged nutjobs with unresolved mommy issues, imho) slam her? Yeah, that would have impressed you gravitas-grabbing guys.

    Speaking of gravitas, there’s a concept I’d like to lay to rest for good. This isn’t effing ancient Rome, we aren’t electing Caesar. I’m sick of hearing about how we need a president with an impressive manner, because all that means is we are still willing to fall for another bullshitter like Obama. Jonesing about some dude’s “gravitas” is just another way to sigh “he’s dreamy!” only you get to use a Latin word and pretend you’re being all scholarly and shit. “Gravitas” is just a way for slightly more intellectual SWPLs to impress each other. Stop it.

    And by the way, I still can’t hear this “accent” everyone is talking about. Sarah Palin sounds like everyone I have ever heard on tv speak unless the show was set in New York. In other words, she sounds like everyone west of the Mississippi. It’s a standard American accent, not a “rednecky hicky icky” whatever your problem is. I’m from Miami, I got to grow up hearing all sorts of accents, including the dreadful grating, ear-scouring Northeastern varieties which I suppose are what we are supposed to prefer instead. The hell with that. I’d rather listen to icky rednecky hicks all day than Greta Van Susteren or whatever her name is, or any of the other screeching female bats that are all they have on tv these days. (I don’t have tv, but I’ve heard a few seconds — all I can stand, of yapping squawking women on news videos on the internet, and the McDonalds I sometimes stop at has two big screen tvs, one of which is always on CNN, and the other is on the Nickelodeon channel for little kids. Once I sat on the side with the CNN screen. I lasted five minutes. I moved around to the other side where all I had to put up with was some thing about cartoon dogs being nice to each other.)

  21. The choice is not, which candidate is perfect? The choice is which candidate will move us in the right direction.

    All RINOs (all of which seem to call themselves Reagan republicans) should be disqualified. Sarah is no RINO. She’s not perfect, but she will move us in the right direction. Her strongest point is sensible energy policy getting us out from under the stranglehold the left has us in there.

    I think her foreign policy instincts will serve America well. Trivial pursuit has absolutely nothing to do with the ability to lead. Those knocking Sarah for her lack of smarts are idiots. Why do they have any credibility?

    Many people think she should speak slower and lower her voice. I believe I agree with this. She has a tendency to want to answer every single slam and I think she needs to learn to resist this urge. The fact is they will always come in harder and faster than anyone could respond to. Gravitas means ignoring a lot of things that are of no importance while hitting a few issues very hard.

  22. Great comment, Andrea.

    Arizona CJ:
    I’m a libertarian on many issues (by no means all) and I find the social cons as big a threat to liberty as liberals.

    I’m a small-L libertarian too. I don’t much care for social conservatives either, but I think the rabid Marxists who are running amok are causing 10,000x as much damage to society as the social conservatives would. It’s not even close in my book.

  23. I think the “accent” people complain about may be what crops up in conversations when she tends to drop the “g” in words like “doing” or “having,” just lazy enunciation. GWB did the same thing, but had the added disadvantage of a very stilted manner of reading from the teleprompter. Sarah does that perfectly.

    I think she’s terrific, and a lot brighter than her detractors realize. She radiates such energy, optimism, and warmth that I’d rather see her as Secretary of State or Ambassador to the UN in the near term, as opposed to presidential candidate. She’d gain needed experience in world affairs and it would be fun to watch those middle-eastern hotpots drooling into their beards. She’s got plenty of time to run for President. Let’s save her for later.

  24. Secretary of State? Ambassador to the UN? Both of those institutions (the State Department and the United Nations) have long since passed their shelf life. The first one should be dismantled and its members canned so they can go on to more useful occupations, perhaps selling hot dogs from a stand or cleaning toilets, and as for the UN, we should withdraw from it, kick all its foreign members out of the country, and the building should either be converted to condos (the SWPLs in NYC will be great customers for the new United Nations Loft Apartments), or razed to the ground for something New York City actually needs, like a parking garage.

    Frankly I think the best place for Sarah Palin is as Secretary of the newly renamed War Department. Of course it will be renamed once President Cheney is sworn in. What? You do know that Dick Cheney is getting a new cyborg body to replace his old worn out one, and is running for president in 2012, don’t you? You didn’t know? Well where have you all been? He hasn’t chosen his running mate yet, but I’ve heard rumors that the newly resurrected Zombie Reagan has been approached and is considering it.

  26. I think we need a Department and Secretary of State. What we need is the ability to clean house of the bureaucrats that is at least as easy as cleaning house in the Congress. The career diplomats are the problem.

  27. Titus Qunin,

    [[[Thomas M’s month-long sulking has paid-off]]]

    Or unlike many here I have been busy on other things:-)

  28. Dennis,

    True, but someone with experience trumps both, which is why I voted for Senator McCain even though he messed up his VP pick. I still think if he had picked someone experienced in economics like Mitt Romney he would have won.

  29. Ken,

    You know what is so funny about the term RINO? Its that before Ronald Reagen the Republicans were viewed as the progressives. After all it was the Republican Lincoln who freed the slaves even though in theory he was stepping on state rights. And lets not forget the Republican Theodore Roosevelt who created the foundation for today’s national regulatory structure with his trust busting and establishment of regulation of the food and drug industry. He also promoted the idea of national health insurance. And lets not forget Republican Eisenhower’s national road system and massive funding of the nuclear power industry nor President Nixon creating the EPA.

    So if anything the Tea Party candidates, many of who were members of fringe parties before becoming Republicans that are the real RINO…

    So its really funny that the Tea Party, which are just recycled Libertarians and John Birch members who are now poising as Republicans to get the conservative robo-voters who always vote Republican, are calling true Republicans RINO. Mr. Orwell would be proud.

  30. Thomas M – I would like to quote someone-or-other, perhaps not entirely accurately: “My job isn’t to predict the future, it’s to prevent it”. Aldous Huxley and George Orwell both made their dystopias less likely; I sincerely hope that Heinlein’s dystopia is less likely because he wrote it. But the Moral Minority will never rest, and must probably be fought forever. I think it’s in the notebooks of Heinlein’s alter ego Lazarus Long: “Freedom begins when you tell Mrs. Grundy to take a hike.”

    There are far too many of Mrs. Grundy. Of both sexes.

  31. “So its really funny that the Tea Party, which are just recycled Libertarians and John Birch members who are now poising as Republicans to get the conservative robo-voters who always vote Republican, are calling true Republicans RINO. Mr. Orwell would be proud.”

    Hmmm. I’m trying to think of a response to this that would impress you all with its gravitas. Let’s see. I have it:

    “Go jump in a lake, Mr. Matula.”

  32. I don’t think so, Tom. Lincoln was indeed the original libertarian, because he believed passionately that no “good of the many” could ever trump the right of an individual man to be free. (The usual reason given for not being able to free the slaves w as the admitted massive disruption it would cause to trade and society in both the South and North.) That is the basis for his anti-slavery position, and it fits right in with a long solid tradition of classical liberal thinking — extended today by the followers of Hayek, Rand, Friedman, et cetera.

    TR was a RINO, save for his muscular foreign policy and private emphasis on rugged individualism. You do recall he labeled himself a “progressive” and adopted many bits of the Progressive platform? Nor was he super popular with the McKinley branch of the Republican party, which is why his later career was so chequered. I trust you recall he was not chosen by the Republicans to become President, but only did so by accident and an assassin’s bullet.

    Eisenhower’s Interstate program was simply a natural outgrowth of his military leadership perspective. It was designed specifically because of the strong impression Germany’s Autobahn system, and the mobility it gave the Third Reich’s military forces, made on his team. From his point of view, an Interstate system was not designed to ensure domestic prosperity — if it did, that was merely gravy on top. It was designed to satisfy the needs of national defense, a prime duty of the Federal government, and a very classically conservative position. It’s not very libertarian, but libertarians tend to be muddled on the issue of national defense.

  33. Carl,

    You do know that Mr. Lincoln was a member of the Whig Party, which was the forerunner of the Republican Party? You may recall from your history books that the Whig Party was created in opposition to President Jackson and the members of the Whig Party were considered “Modernizers” (the term Progressive was in the future) who felt that the federal government should take a bigger role in building the nation and that actions like closing the Second Bank of the United States were bad in that respect. And that Mr. Lincoln governed exactly like a “modernizer” when he took over, passing laws that created the land grant universities and to build the transcontinental Railroad. In short he expand the power, role and budget of the federal government, including enacting the first federal income tax.

    You are probably also aware that the Whig Party basically adopted the philosophy of the Federalist Party which was founded by Alexander Hamilton and favored a strong central government. A philosophy which was carried over into the Republican Party.

    The Progressive “tag” was only transferred to the Democratic Party when it was under Theodore’s cousin Franklin Roosevelt control when he out did the Republicans in exercising the power of the federal government during the Depression and World War II.

    So for the Republican party to return to its roots would mean they once again become Progressives, not Conservatives.

  34. Thomas, their “roots” also included a pro-business philosophy. To intimate they would have to return to todays Progressivism and its socialist bent is disingenuous especially as Teddy Roosevelt left the party.

  35. What’s being done here is highlighting the fact that labels are broad brushes that never clearly delineate. Abstractions are used to communicate ideas without all the fuss of going into details. RINO has a useful meaning but like anything it’s meaning can change over time. Thomas would like to get that started now by calling the tea party equal to RINOs. Good luck with that.

    People like to demonize, but in any ‘evil’ group you will find good hearted, well intentioned people. That’s the problem with the broad brush. 9/11 was a shock to some on the left that moved them to the right for example.

    As long as people understand what I mean by RINO I will continue to use the term. When that changes I’ll stop and use other words. It’s about communication which happens when people agree on the meaning of most words.

  36. “And at this point, any “conservative” who would prefer Barack Obama to her has to be an idiot in full blither.”

    Not just conservatives. Anyone of any political persuasion who would prefer Barry Lackwit to Sarah Palin has to be an idiot.

    That said, I hope Palin doesn’t run. For two reasons:

    1) I think she is doing more good right now, as a highly visible speaker and opinion-mobilizer.

    2) she is simply not electable. The media did too good a job of demonizing her during the ’08 election. She has too many negatives. Even though most of them are phony ginned-up claims by lying liberals, they got a firm grip on the public perception of her. She would have to play defense every minute on the campaign trail, and every day of her administration. She would wind up in the same position she was during her last months as Governor of Alaska: so much time spent fighting nuisance lawsuits and frivolous attacks that she would have no energy left for the actual work of the presidency.

  37. so much time spent fighting nuisance lawsuits and frivolous attacks

    Except, unlike governor of AK, a president can safely ignore this type of assault while in office. In AK, they had sticks and stones as well as words.

  38. Titus Says:
    December 3rd, 2010 at 11:03 am

    “Carl, you could make the choice really easy for us all by putting your name on the ticket with her.”

    I heartily second the nomination!

    Arizona CJ Says:
    December 3rd, 2010 at 7:56 pm

    “I also remember the VP debate. Palin could not beat Biden, even though Biden screwed up his facts, bigtime.”

    I thought she won handily. She just didn’t have Biden’s cheerleaders in the Press to pronounce her the winner.

    Biden didn’t screw up his “facts” because there weren’t any. He was just making things up as he went along. How does a Republican rebut a fantasy proffered by the other side without energizing the jackals in the media to misconstrue and reinterpret their words and focus on THEIR supposed ignorance while completely brushing the bone-jarring flight from reality of their standard bearer under the rug?

  39. wolfwalker Says:
    December 5th, 2010 at 6:37 pm

    “2) she is simply not electable. The media did too good a job of demonizing her during the ’08 election. She has too many negatives. Even though most of them are phony ginned-up claims by lying liberals, they got a firm grip on the public perception of her.”

    Those of us who were around at the time recall people said much the same thing about Reagan. So much so that a desperation third party candidate by the name of John Anderson briefly enjoyed a meteoric rise in support, largely from Republicans who were too easily manipulated into believing the “unelectable” story line.

  40. Eh…Tom, you’re oversimplifying to the point where what you say is essentially indistinguishable from noise, I think. Sure, Lincoln started off a Whig, but to understand his political philosophy I think we need to look at how he himself governed, not the planks in the Whig platform 40 years earlier. As I said, the stand-out characteristic of Lincoln was his uncompromising opposition to slavery. Indeed, this is why the Civil War started, right? The South feared that with Lincoln the old “gentleman’s agreement” that the North would not interfere with slavery where it was already established would no longer hold. (I note parenthetically that the South had already violated it with the Kansas-Nebraska Act, so too bad for them.)

    In short, Lincoln, whatever his antecedents, stood foursquare for the principle that the good of the one (e.g. a slave’s interest in his liberty) outweighs the good of the many (e.g. the economic interests of society as a whole). Whereas until that point Presidents and leaders had generally agreed that slavery, while deeply regrettable, couldn’t be abruptly dismantled for fear of the tremendous and widespread economic and social costs to white (and even black) society.

    No better illustration could be made of the uncompromising insistence of the classical liberal on the rights of the individual, regardless of what might be “good” for “society.” These days, the direct heirs of that attitude are the Tea Party people and Mrs. Palin, people who say I don’t CARE whether your statist centrally-planned economic or social machinery is good for people in general — it violates my individual right to be left the hell alone.

    I don’t disagree that Lincoln was ruthless in his pursuit of his goals, and to that end did a number of statist and oppressive things. Hey, he was trying to win a war, and he was being practical. We can, alas, say nothing about what he would have done afterward. Would he have kept the machinery intact? Used it to accomplish some other “noble” goal? We don’t know, unfortunately. It’s certainly true that the Republican Party as a whole did keep the machinery intact, and used it widely to interfere in the South in the interests of black (and to some extent, under Grant, Indian) civil rights, up until Reconstruction was abandoned to prevent the cynical Democrats from taking power.

    I’m certainly aware that the Whigs had nontrivial statist ambitions, including the BUS, Clay’s “American System,” and other such follies, and it is to the credit of the Jacksonian Democrats that they opposed such things on principle (although there is just as much chance that they did so out of regional self-interest, to prevent or at least delay the increasing dominance of the industrial North).

    Both Democrats and Republicans indeed have had periods of unpleasant central-power worshipping — you didn’t even mention Nixon and his wage and price controls! But I don’t know where this gets us, except a general contempt for and long-term distrust of both political parties (with which I agree). I’ve said many times here I long for a general housecleaning among Democrats, a purge of the Stalinists and 70s retreads, so that it can compete with the Republicans for the vote of liberty-loving Americans. It sickens me that the Democrats are now so corrupt, so much in the pocket of big wealthy donors and academic socialists, that I’m forced to vote Republican even if the Republicans nominate a pig.

  41. Carl,

    From the perspective of today President Lincoln’s actions may seem to be in line with the Tea Party, but you have to view them from the ever moving standards of history.

    In the 1860’s and even more so in the 1840’s, being against slavery was a progressive perspective because you were taking away the property rights of the owner.

    [[[ it violates my individual right to be left the hell alone.]]]

    Well President Lincoln sure did violate the “rights” of southern slave owners to be left alone, by taking their personal property (their slaves) without compensation. I wonder if any of the Tea Party folks, if they had been around then would have supported a “RINO” like Mr. Lincoln or would have considered his actions a form of government theft.

  42. Ken,

    I still think is funny that the libertarians invading the Republican party have the nerve to refer to True Blue Republicans (TBR) as “Republicans in Name Only”.

    The good news is that the True Blue Republicans are taking their party back from the Tea Party state by state. In Alaska, thanks to the courage of Lisa Murkowski to run as a write-in Joe “goon squad” Miller is out. It says something that a Palin Puppet couldn’t win in the state that knows her best.

    Of course being from the Tea Party Joe Miller will make the good folks of Alaska pay dearly by delaying Alaska representation in the Senate as long as possible, possibly costing them seniority on critical committees, but then that is the Tea Party way, to punish those who dare to disagree with them.

    I know in Nevada TBR are looking at how to make sure no future primaries are hi-jacked by out of state millionaires like Palin, Beck and Hannity for their national agenda. I am sure similar efforts are underway in Colorado and Delaware, states that would have had new Republican senators today except for the Tea Party.

  43. Wolfwalker,

    You actually have to feel sorry for Sarah Palin. If Senator McCain hadn’t selected her she would have probably completed her term as Governor, then probably run for the Alaskan senate seat that Mark Begich has and won. And she probably would have done a good job representing the state for many terms.

    As it is she will always be remembered as the Geraldine Ferraro of the Republican Party.

  44. Tom, intellectual consistency is the first requirement of a reasoned debate. First you say this:

    From the perspective of today President Lincoln’s actions may seem to be in line with the Tea Party, but you have to view them from the ever moving standards of history.

    Er, okay. But then you say this:

    In the 1860′s and even more so in the 1840′s, being against slavery was a progressive perspective because you were taking away the property rights of the owner.

    Dude, now you’re judging by modern standards! The notion that “progressivism” is antithetical to private property rights is a modern (1880s forward) notion. At the time (the 1850s) abolitionists founded their opposition to slavery largely in moral and/or religious principles of great age, and expressed positively medieval contempt for economic questions. The “progressive” point of view, to the extent there was one, was to examine the wide social and economic effects of abolition, note that they were horrific — as indeed they proved to be — and recoil, despite the moral imperative. They were then, as they are now, moral corner-cutters.

    Well President Lincoln sure did violate the “rights” of southern slave owners to be left alone, by taking their personal property (their slaves) without compensation.

    Nonsense. They gave up their right to be left alone by going into rebellion. You’ll note that Lincoln freed the slaves only in states then in rebellion. It took the 13th Amendment to abolish slavery generally.

  45. Carl, intellectual consistency is the first requirement of a reasoned debate.

    First you say this: “the stand-out characteristic of Lincoln was his uncompromising opposition to slavery.”

    And then you point out this: “You’ll note that Lincoln freed the slaves only in states then in rebellion.”

    Just teasing!

  46. What? I don’t get it, Bob. Lincoln freed the slaves only in states in rebellion because he believed that was as far as his consititutional authority stretched (and at that it was a damn longed stretch, as he himself admitted).

    When I said he was “uncompromising” in his opposition to slavery I did not mean to imply he was willing to use any means whatsoever to extinguish it. He would not, I think, have started the Civil War over it.

    See, that’s the thing about classical liberals. We are perfectly capable of any amount of wishing the ends while at the same time condemning various nasty means, even when those means would achieve our ends. It’s called personal ethics, Bob! Moral principle! And I don’t mean the kind of stuff that we distill from polls and abstract theories about the greater good. Bold, refreshingly clear statements like thou shalt not kill and a man’s home is his castle and whom God has joined let no man put asunder and so forth.

  47. I think Lincoln’s views were complex, evolving, and anything but clear; his public statements tended toward compromise given the necessities of electoral politics. I’m not particularly criticizing Lincoln, but I think you shouldn’t oversimplify his story.

    Even the Emancipation Proclamation, the product of one particular phase of Lincoln’s changing views, included exceptions that weren’t there because of Lincoln’s constitutional requirements but because of more pragmatic (compromised) concerns.

  48. I could be wrong about the following very narrow issue, so rather than debate, lets discuss: Stipulating that Lincoln did have authority to free the slaves in states which had left the Union, why was Tennessee exempted from the Emancipation Proclamation?

  49. Anyway, here’s one explanation: Lincoln freed the slaves in areas rebelling against the USA because he could claim it was a military necessity (and he did claim this). Since most of Tennessee was at least nominally under Union control, he couldn’t claim a military justification. But what about the legalities? Wasn’t the Federal military controlling Tennessee when the Proclamation took effect? Tennessee was not represented in Congress – it had seceded. So why couldn’t Lincoln use the same War Powers justification he used in the Proclamation to free the slaves in Tennessee as well? The answer in a word would be politics, and I don’t mean that in a nasty way, I’m just acknowledging that here, as in the rest of Lincoln’s political life, compromise on the issue of slavery was his way of getting things done. Someone who was uncompromising would have, at the very least, used “war powers” (which we stipulate to exist) to free the slaves in all confederate territory, retaken or not.

  50. Also, there certainly was a military justification — the Union army took possession of the slaves in Tenn and had them build fortifications. The argument for the proclamation was that promising the slaves their freedom would encourage them to work for the North however possible, including taking up arms against the Confederacy should they become free. This argument works well in Tennessee — those fortifications would surely have been better if they were built by free men for a cause they believed in. But here, my knowledge of history is stretched too thin to make a good argument — I’m sure there is really more to the story.

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