An Independent Candidate?
As I said to the Washington Post, the effort (of which I’m a small part) to recruit an independent presidential candidate is chugging along, and “these conspiracies for the public good are time and labor intensive.” So it’s nice to take a break from this cause to write this newsletter, and to discuss a few other things.
Like the week in baseball. On Saturday May 7, Mets pitcher Bartolo Colon, 42-years old and a 19-season major league veteran, hit his first career home run (watch it here). Then on Wednesday the Nats’ Max Scherzer became only the fourth pitcher in major league history to strike out 20 batters in nine innings, along with Randy Johnson, Kerry Wood and Roger Clemens (who did it twice!) (here’s Scherzer’s last strikeout). And then this past Saturday David Ortiz, the Red Sox’s aging slugger (who’s having an incredible season), hit his first triple in nearly three years (watch that here). So tell me: If all these things could happen within a week in 2016, is a path to victory for an independent candidate so impossible?
Oops–I was supposed to be taking a break from that…
Well, we did take a break last Monday to attend the Manhattan Institute’s 16th annual Alexander Hamilton dinner, honoring Bruce Kovner and Harvey A. Silverglate (here are some photos). It was a lovely evening (even though black-tie!), and I had lots of interesting discussions with conservative thinkers, activists, and donors about the political situation and various possible independent candidates.
Oops–there I go again…
Well, moving to the halls of academe: Later in the week, I attended (some of) a first-rate conference hosted by the MIT Benjamin Franklin Project on “Mastery of Nature: Promises and Problems.” It featured papers by such luminaries as Harvey Mansfield, Peter Thiel, Mark Blitz and many, many more (you can read a bit about the conference here). The papers are to be published relatively soon in a book edited by the conference organizer, Bernhardt L. Trout, professor of chemical engineering at MIT, and for those interested in such things, there will be much to read and ponder in that volume. I’ll keep you posted on that. Meanwhile, though I can’t say I diligently attended all the panels, it was good to catch up with many old friends from the world of political theory, and it was interesting to get their thoughts on the American scene, on possible independent candidates, and…
Oops…
In the meantime, Andy Zwick, the executive director of the Foundation for Constitutional Government, and I took advantage of Peter Thiel’s and Mark Blitz’s being in Cambridge to film a “Conversation” with each of them. I thought both very interesting, and we’ll be releasing them in the near future. Meanwhile, I should remind you to take a look, if you wish, at the newly released conversation with Harvey Mansfield, which marks the tenth anniversary of his important and provocative book on Manliness (you can order the book here).
In the conversation, Mansfield offers his account of manliness and its importance as a permanent, though problematic, feature of human nature. He explains how liberal political philosophers and liberal society have often been suspicious of manliness, details the consequences for our politics, and discusses contemporary efforts to transcend manliness through the creation of a gender-neutral society. Interesting stuff.
And by the way, if you’re in the D.C. area next Monday, do join us for a symposium to celebrate the tenth anniversary of Manliness, hosted by the Hoover Institution and the Foundation for Constitutional Government. The event, featuring a first-rate group including James Ceaser, Diana Schaub and Christina Hoff Sommers, will take place at the Hoover Institution in Washington on Monday May 23, beginning at 4:00 p.m. Click here for details and to RSVP.
And I promise there will be no discussion of independent candidates for the presidency. Unless they’re defenders of true manliness as opposed to Donald Trump’s manifestly counterfeit manliness…
Oops again.
By the way: do read in the new issue the somewhat contrasting editorials by my colleagues, Fred Barnes and Jonathan Last. And a well-reported piece by Daniel Halper on Colorado’s experience with drug legalization. And for something entirely different, take a look at an amusing send-up of earnest big-talk about philosophy by the Washington Post‘s Gene Weingarten.
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Added features at weeklystandard.com
Regular visitors to weeklystandard.com have probably noticed a couple of recent additions to the website.
The first is “Prufrock,” a daily curated collection of links to interesting articles on books and the arts by our new contributing editor, Micah Mattix. It’s a terrific guide to essays and reviews you might not have seen elsewhere–and (to return to a theme from earlier in this newsletter), a nice break from the question of an independent candidacy for president! Prufrock appears at weeklystandard.com every morning Monday through Saturday. You can take a look at past Prufrock posts here.
Also not to be missed is our newest podcast: The Weekly Standard Confab, hosted by managing editor Eric Felten. It’s a bit longer than our daily podcasts with Michael Graham, and it appears on Saturday mornings. Eric brings on our writers and editors to discuss a wide range of topics: from politics, policy, and international affairs, to arts and culture. I think you’ll find it great weekend listening–and weekday as well! Episodes of the Confab can be found here.
And while we’re on the topic of new features, over at the Washington Examiner, Jamie McIntyre has a fine new newsletter called Daily on Defense. The newsletter “provides important defense stories from Washington Examiner and from around the web along with a schedule of important defense policy events to help you keep up with the latest developments.” You can sign up for it here. It appears early every weekday, and I find it a very useful way to keep up with news and developments in this important area.
And it never mentions independent candidacies.
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Onward!
Bill Kristol
