Presidential Poll Results
Well, the results of this week’s presidential straw ballot were interesting. For the first time in our seven straw polls, Ted Cruz took the lead, with 30% of the first place votes, closely followed by Marco Rubio with 26%, and Donald Trump with 17%. No one else was chosen first by more than 6% of you.
Here’s the tally: the first number is the percentage of the ballots on which the candidate was selected for first place; the second is the percentage of ballots in which the candidate was chosen for any of first, second or third.
Ted Cruz 30% 66%
Marco Rubio 26% 60%
Donald Trump 17% 32%
Ben Carson 6% 28%
Chris Christie 5% 28%
Carly Fiorina 4% 32%
Mike Huckabee 3% 13%
Jeb Bush 3% 13%
Rand Paul 3% 10%
John Kasich 2% 10%
Rick Santorum — % 2%
What does it all mean? For what it’s worth, these straw poll results are more or less in accord with the impressions I formed from a day and a half in Iowa at the end of last week. I spoke and mixed and mingled at a GOP event, and spent some time with friends and political types from the state. My sense was that Cruz and Rubio were strong, that Trump had solid support but much less room to grow, that Carson was fading, Bush had faded, and that Christie probably had the best chance of moving up from the second tier as a long shot.
But my main takeaway from Iowa was this: It’s a fluid and volatile race; few Republicans have definitively made up their minds; and a lot depends on what the various candidates say and do, and the cases they make for themselves and against their rivals, in the weeks to come. I can also report that national security, as you’d expect after San Bernardino, was very much on people’s minds–and that voters seem to be paying attention to the Cruz-Rubio foreign policy and intelligence capabilities debates, and perhaps to claims such as Christie’s to be better ready to handle national security issues
By the way, perhaps the most startling thing I discovered from my brief sojourn in Iowa is that Iowans really are nice. On Sunday morning, after Iowa’s traumatic defeat by Michigan State in the Big Ten championship Saturday night, a loss that cost Iowa its first chance for a national title in ages, all the Iowans I spoke to were gracious about MSU’s victory, grateful for Iowa’s exemplary season, and looking forward to the Rose Bowl against Stanford. I expected Iowans to be morose and sullen, as we East Coasters surely would have been after such a turn of events. They were instead pleasant and upbeat. Weird.
One additional note about Iowa: The Machine Shed in Urbandale was memorable–though I was disappointed no one in our group had the nerve to order The Hungry Man’s Breakfast TM (#11 on the second page of the menu). In any case, here’s the menu. It’s a great country.
And nothing I saw in Iowa dissuaded me from the generally upbeat conclusion of my editorial in this week’s issue–that Republicans are in better shape for November than lots of people worried about the current shape of the race think.
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What to Rename the Wilson School
I asked you last week for imaginative suggestions to forward to the Princeton administration as they decided what to rename The Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. Here were a few of your most helpful ideas:
* It is obvious the name should be the Bill Clinton School of Public and International Affairs. Who has had more affairs than Bill Clinton?
* The clear choice: The Princeton School of Political Correctness.
* The Barack Obama School of Leading from Behind.
* The Alfred E. Neuman School of International Relations.
* The Rep. Joe Wilson School of Public Affairs. You can keep the letterhead and some of the brass plaques this way.
* The Mohammed School of Public and International Affairs. It has a nice international ring to it. And the PC Police could never criticize it.
* The School Formerly Known As the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs
* Why not cause their heads to explode? The George W. Bush School of Public and International Affairs.
I’m sure the panjandrums at Princeton will be very grateful for all your suggestions.
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Conversations with Mansfield
On the flight back from Iowa yesterday, I noticed the woman in the next seat was looking at me a bit oddly, and in particular seemed to be casting furtive and worried glances at the book I was reading. Then I realized: She was a bit uncomfortable to be sitting on a crowded plane next to a man reading a book with the title (emblazoned on a stark white and black cover) Manliness.
I handled the situation deftly, if I may say, I struck up an innocuous conversation about the weather, and then casually explaining that the book I was reading was a work of political philosophy by a Harvard professor, and that I was doing so because I would be conducting a filmed conversation with the author on Tuesday. I explained that the book is an intellectual work rather than some kind of manifesto–as Mansfield writes, Manliness is not “a let-me-help-you self-help book” but a “book for thinkers.” She seemed (somewhat) reassured that I wasn’t some aspiring-to-be-macho middle-aged weirdo, but just an editor with slightly odd intellectual interests, and our brief conversation trailed off. The rest of the flight passed uneventfully.
I mention this partly to encourage any of you with a taste for intellectual inquiry to read Manliness, because I’m struck how much the initial response to the book ten years ago–even from its friends and defenders–focused on its present-day and surface features and not on the book as a dazzling and deep work of political philosophy. But I also mention this because while you’re waiting for the Manliness conversation to appear, you have a chance to watch another new conversation with Harvey
In the Conversation, Mansfield suggests why we should consider Niccolo Machiavelli not only the founder of modern politics but also in a way a founder of modern science and economics. He also discusses the basis of Machiavelli’s critique of Christian morality and of rejection of the political teaching of the classical political philosophers like Plato and Aristotle. I think it’s one of the most stimulating Conversations I’ve done, of special interest of course to students of political philosophy and the history of ideas but not only to them. I hope you enjoy it–and that my seat mate is amusing her family tonight by telling the story of the wacky guy next to her on her flight to D.C.
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Summer Fellowships
Know a bright college student or a first-rate recent graduate interested in political philosophy, public policy, or grand strategy? He or she has a great opportunity to spend some time this summer, courtesy of the Hertog Foundation, learning from terrific faculty, including many who are familiar to WEEKLY STANDARD readers, such as Yuval Levin, James W. Ceaser, Fred Kagan, Peter Berkowitz, Diana Schaub, and many more.
Our friends at Hertog are offering three types of programs this summer: 1) a seven-week fellowship on Political Studies; 2) a two-week fellowship on War Studies at the Institute for the Study of War; and 3) several shorter seminars on a variety of topics. All come with housing and stipend. The deadline for applications is February 8th, 2016. More information about the programs and application materials can be found at http://hertogfoundation.org . Let young people you know and about whom you have a high opinion know about this opportunity. They’ll benefit, and ultimately the country will too.
