believe it or not, i was standing around yesterday morning on the front porch of a (classic) general store in rural virginia, drinking coffee with a bunch of conservative old fuddy-duddies (their own self-description). this included some high-level tea party organizers, the occasional former cabinet secretary, recovering ambassador, federal judge. and one guy (whom i'm not quite naming because i didn't ask permission) who's an extremely well-known, pretty far-right political organizer/activist/consultant, famous for his mastery of direct mail in the campaigns of ronald reagan. i must say i found the atmosphere refreshing, since i live in a world of absolute left unanimity. (no doubt if i was around such people a lot, i'd launch. but meanwhile i was basically interested in listening.)
alright he was bummed, but not terribly bummed, that mitch daniels is out, and he seemed to take more seriously than most of the guys standing around the 'my wife said no' explanation. ('if mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy,' he very sensibly pointed out.) he didn't regard bachmann or palin as serious people, though i would think his politics lines up pretty well with theirs. he dismissed romney and huntsman as entirely, obviously unacceptable. on pawlenty, he was ambiguous. he waved him off by saying that 'these country club republicans are so over.' on the other hand, he didn't rule him out outofhand, which kind of backs up my argument that pawlenty might well be the last man standing as the only guy that no one among republicans just hates.
he was funny on newt: "we were placing bets on whether he'd self-destruct on monday or thursday. i had monday. i won twenty bucks!'
also there was universal reserved respect for ron paul, and my dude said that 'what people don't understand is that he doesn't want to be president; it's an educational effort.' of course, none of these folks is down with paul on 'social issues.' (personally i think people are going to be surprised at paul's traction over the next year.)
what might be newsy is that he was saying he's urging jim demint to run. and he says there are others doing the same. i haven't heard much noise around a demint presidential bid. he's perhaps the single most rock-ribbed conservative in the senate. the tea party guys were nodding along enthusiastically (though the ambassador and the cabinet secretary seemed less happy at the prospect), and i'd have to say that if palin doesn't run, and bachmann undergoes a much-deserved quick fade, it seems almost inevitable that someone will emerge from the right of the party to try to stop romney. nor do i think that it's impossible that someone like demint could be the nominee. (the wisdom is that pawlenty, romney, and huntsman have to 'swing right' to capture 'the base.' but the base, one would think, is opposed to swingers.)
meanwhile the tea party people are trying to figure out how to educate and mobilize what they described as a movement without leaders, a movement of people most of whom got into politics two years ago, and who don't know where to focus their dissatisfaction. one guy was talking about going with 'audit the fed and the pentagon.' 'tell these people that the pentagon has never been audited, and they go nuts!' another was pushing obama's abuse of the war powers act as an emerging central issue. i must say the anti-militarist angle is interesting, and it shows you the strangeness and ambiguity of the american political spectrum.
