Monday, August 29, 2005

Duncan '08

The Sept. 12 issue of the American Conservative arrived and it is notable for having two Upstate New York Reactionary Radicals. James Howard Kunstler is the author of the anti-suburban jeremiad, Home From Nowhere and other books. His latest book and his TAC article argues for that we facing a bleak future of withdrawal from our oil-dependent economy. I don't yet buy into his bleak vision, but it doesn't sound as crazy as it would have a few years ago.

The issue also contains an article by the estimable Bill Kauffman. Kauffman, the author of Dispatches From the Muckdog Gazette, interviewed my congressman, Jimmy Duncan. Duncan is one of the handful of actual conservatives remaining in the Repulican party. He is one of the six who voted against the invasion of Iraq because, as he notes, Saddam "hadn't attacked us. He hadn't threatened to attack us," and "he wasn't capable of attacking us." Since the war has become a costly quagmire, he reports that some house members privately tell him the wish they had voted with him.

Kauffman prods Duncan to run for president in the next election:

I suggest to Duncan that he would make a fine antiwar candidate for the 2008 GOP presidential nomination. Surely there are still Republicans who care about limited, decentralized governance within a constitutional republic and who would rally to Duncan's blend of front-porch antiwar patriotism, Scots-Irish Presbyterian rectitude, East Tennessee pride, and taxpayer-watchdog populism.

I would like to think so, and he would have my vote, but I think Duncan is correct to predict that he would get "slaughtered." The loudest voices on the Republican Right want nothing to do with a conservative.

3 comments:

nenhum said...

I do not buy his Oil Peak theory, at least at short term. But James Howard Kunstler is a very inteligent guy and I think he is right when he talks about the suburbia lifestyle.

nenhum said...

I do not buy his Oil Peak theory, at least at short term. But James Howard Kunstler is a very inteligent guy and I think he is right when he talks about the suburbia lifestyle.

Kleinheider said...

Bill Kauffman, now there's a man who needs a blog. He doesn't seem to write for Chronicles and AMCON near as much as he should be. I guess he's working on his new book. He needs to get a site, though. Definitely.