Gregg Easterbrook

By Gregg Easterbrook
The opinions expressed are his own.

Conventional wisdom says the Republican presidential nomination will go to Mitt Romney or Newt Gingrich. This could change – don’t be surprised if it changes more than once. But suppose conventional wisdom proves correct. If you were Barack Obama, which would you rather run against?

A follower of polls might say, “Of course Obama wants to run against Gingrich.” An Obama-Gingrich race could end with a walkover for the incumbent, as happened in LBJ-Goldwater of 1964 and Nixon-McGovern of 1972.

Gingrich, some thinking goes, has a borderline personality. His past is full of strange diatribes on a weird range of subjects. As Ronald Reagan sometimes confused movies with reality, Gingrich confuses science fiction novels with reality. He threw a temper tantrum about his seat on Air Force One. Hardly anyone likes him personally. He was a transparent opportunist with Fannie and Freddie, organizations that voters hate. Gingrich is proficient at bloviating, and the one time in his life he held actual responsibility as Speaker of the House he did a terrible job. Would you trust the nation’s budget to a man who ran a $1 million tab at Tiffany?

Gingrich hectors others about their personal lives, while presenting himself as a champion of traditional values. Yet he admits betraying not one but two wives. Some kind of new low in politics was achieved when Gingrich formally pledged to stop committing adultery. Gingrich wears the letter H — for hypocrite — around his neck as Hester Prynne wore an A around hers in The Scarlet Letter.

These are sound reasons why Obama might prefer to face Newt. They are reasons the Republican National Committee is said to be feeling panicky about a Gingrich candidacy. Newt has the potential to lose by a spectacular margin, dragging Republican Senate and House candidates down with him. The Republican establishment has not forgotten how much damage he did to the GOP during his administration of the House. Run against a guy even your opponents despise? Sounds promising.

But, as you’ve probably guessed by now, there is a but.

Gingrich is a wild card. He probably would end up a flaming wreckage in electoral terms, but there’s a chance he could become seen as the man unafraid to bring sweeping change to an ossified Washington, D.C. There’s perhaps a 90 percent likelihood Obama would wipe the floor with Gingrich, versus a 10 percent likelihood Gingrich would stage an historic upset. In game theory terms, this invokes the minimax problem – should Obama maximize his chance of a huge victory or minimize his chance of a stinging defeat?

We must take into consideration that Gingrich can be vicious. He viciously denounced Bill Clinton and demanded his impeachment for having an affair, all the while, as we now know, Newt was busy cheating on his own wife. This shows Gingrich will say anything in order to serve himself. Of all GOP contenders, Gingrich seems the only one who might stoop to appealing to the very worst aspects of the American character — if he thought he would personally benefit.

Now consider Mitt Romney. He is perceived as being more appealing to independents than Gingrich. Romney possesses an air of maturity and reasonableness, qualities Gingrich sorely lacks. Also unlike Gingrich, Romney has been a success as an executive — running private businesses, the Olympics and the state of Massachusetts. There seems little chance Romney will stage a campaign that melts down and simply hands a reelection to Obama, which Gingrich might do. Because he is perceived as admirable, Mitt could help Republicans pick up House and Senate seats, even if they miss the White House.

Overall, in most respects, Romney is a significantly more formidable opponent than Gingrich. Yet there are reasons the president might prefer to run against Mitt.

His Latter-Day Saints faith could be a negative — one Obama need not even mention. Evangelicals normally turn out for Republican candidates, but they may be put off by the longstanding question of whether Mormons are Christians. As a churchgoer myself, I think Mormons have the same claim to be followers of Christ as anyone else does. But then I belong to an eccentric joint Christian-Jewish congregation that takes a broad view of spirituality. Many traditional Christians, however, are suspicious of the Mormon denomination. This could knock a couple of points off a Romney vote without the president having to do or say anything.

Romney’s other powerful negative is his background in private equity. Right now “Wall Street” is an expletive, and Romney is Wall Street up one side and down the other. His years running Bain Capital will be described in campaign advertising as vulture capitalism – corporate raiding, followed by layoffs and outsourcing with huge profits for wealthy insiders and average people out of work.

That may not be a fair charge, but it is a powerful one, with which Obama could pillory Romney. There is a clear political playbook to use against Romney.

This especially matters to the youth-vote/youth-volunteer equation. The young voters who enthusiastically supported Obama in 2008 now seem more turned off by him. But if 2012 pits Obama versus Mr. One Percent, young voters might get excited again. Obama would be offering them a chance to defeat Wall Street, at least symbolically.

Whatever other failings he may have, Romney has always comported himself with dignity. An Obama-Romney contest would be the kind of decorous, high-minded campaign at which the president excels. In an Obama-Gingrich race, practically anything could happen.

So forget the polls. If I am Barack Obama, I want to run against Mitt Romney.

Photo: Republican presidential candidate former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA) looks on as fellow candidate and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney (L) makes a point during the Republican Party presidential candidates debate at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa, December 10, 2011. REUTERS/Jeff Haynes

Increasingly, Mitt Romney seems the Republican candidate who has given serious thought to governing – to what specific policy actions he would take if he became president. The other Republican candidates seem mainly concerned with self-promotion and applause lines, while Newt Gingrich’s “Day 1 Project” seems more like a dress rehearsal than a real concept for governing.

If Romney is the serious challenger to President Barack Obama, then his fiscal policy speech a few days ago bears inspection. It was notably better than most campaign speeches, and contained both gold and dross. Here are some highlights:

Gold: “We cannot with moral conscience borrow trillions of dollars that can only be repaid by our children.” Reckless borrowing, with the invoice passed to our children – nobody in power in Washington right now will be asked to repay the national debt – is not just numbers, it is a moral issue. Romney recognizes this.

Dross: Obama is to blame for “massive defense cuts.” Democrats always accuse Republicans of wanting to despoil the environment; Republicans always accuse Democrats of wanting a weak defense. Neither claim is true. Converted to today’s dollars, the 2000 defense budget was $390 billion. Check Table 32-1 for the key Pentagon numbers under Obama. The 2010 defense budget, the first Obama fully controlled, was $690 billion, and this year’s defense budget is $708 billion. “Massive defense cuts” is not true. Although the White House does project a decline in defense spending to $620 billion in 2013, almost all the projected reduction stems from the expected ends of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Doesn’t everyone want those wars to end?

Gold: “I will make government simpler, smaller, and smarter.” In Romney’s case this is not just rhetoric, since he helped make Massachusetts government simpler, smaller and smarter. Compared to most other states, Massachusetts has a strong economy, good health care coverage for average people and a relatively small debt. If Romney could do for the nation what he did for Massachusetts, we’d all be happy.

Dross: Seniors should be angry at the White House because “it was President Obama who cut $500 billion from Medicare.” The essence of doubletalk is to say that federal spending must be reduced, and then denounce spending cuts. Equally important, Obama has not reduced Medicare spending, and Romney must know this.

The “$500 billion Medicare cuts” figure being batted around by Republican candidates is an estimate for 10 years of projected future reductions from unspecified future savings to be identified by the new Independent Payment Advisory Board, whose advice does not even start until 2014. Obama’s own actuaries have warned there is an “extremely low likelihood” many projected Medicare cuts will occur.

Twenty-four karat gold: Romney placed his hand on the third rail of American politics, by proposing Social Security cutbacks. He said, “I believe we can save Social Security with a few commonsense reforms. First, there will be no change for retirees or those near retirement. No change. Second, for the next generation of retirees, we should slowly raise the retirement age. And finally, for the next generation of retirees, we should slow the growth in benefits for those with higher incomes.”

The test of leadership is saying what your audience does not want to hear. John Kennedy proved he was a leader by telling the East Coast liberal establishment that the old Soviet Union was a dire threat, something it did not want to hear. Lyndon Johnson proved he was a leader by telling Southern states the Civil Rights Act must pass. Ronald Reagan proved he was a leader by telling conservatives the time had come for arms control.

Is Romney the one to tell America what it does not want to hear about Social Security? There simply is no escape route from the red-ink mess that does not include raising the Social Security retirement age (lifespans are significantly increased from when the system was created), slowing the growth in benefits and reducing benefits to the well-off.

The Social Security trustees report that the system can currently pay only about three-quarters of scheduled benefits. In 2010, the report notes, that system wasn’t even self-sustaining, having to draw on the federal debt. If benefits aren’t trimmed, either taxes must rise or the federal deficit must accelerate anew. Neither would be good for the country, and that’s assuming China would keep loaning us additional money, which may not be an accurate assumption.

Beyond that, Social Security is not and has never been an investment program: it is an income transfer program, taking from working-age people and giving to retirees. Many seniors need their Social Security checks, but those who don’t should no longer receive them. That average working-age people are being taxed to fund income transfers to well-off seniors is bad policy, and not moral. National leaders including President Obama strenuously avoid speaking the truth about Social Security, because that truth is so unpopular.

Should Romney reach the White House, a measure of his presidency will be whether he keeps the promises made in this speech.

Photo: Republican presidential candidate and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney listens as former New Hampshire Governor John Sununu speaks at a campaign stop in Exeter, New Hampshire November 3, 2011. REUTERS/Brian Snyder

When Al Gore was in the White House, global warming was a disaster of the first order. Republican presidential candidates are now saying it is anything from a fraud to trivial.

Both sides claim sound science, and both are wrong. In politics, “sound science” means whatever supports your preconceived positions.

For American voters, climate change is an issue offering lessons in how to reject political nonsense on the extremes, and find the middle. If we can’t find the middle of a generation-long concern like climate change, one where modest steps are sufficient for the moment, how will we ever tackle immediate issues such as jobs, debt and the looming retirement of the Baby Boomers?

First, here are the positions of Republican presidential contenders Mitt Romney and Rick Perry. (Herman Cain has not taken a position on climate change.)

Last June, Romney said in New Hampshire: “I believe based on what I read that the world is getting warmer” and that “humans contribute to that.” In New England, voters of both parties tend to support environmental protection. Romney’s June statement is similar to what George W. Bush said when he was president.

Speaking last month in Pennsylvania, a coal-producing state, Romney switched gears, saying, “My view is that we don’t know what’s causing climate change on this planet. And the idea of spending trillions and trillions of dollars to try to reduce CO2 emissions is not the right course.” Watch what he says here beginning at 2:17.

Perry, both speaking and in his campaign book “Fed Up”, has said climate change claims are based on “doctored data” and that “we are seeing almost weekly or even daily scientists are coming forward and questioning the original idea that man-made global warming is what is causing our climate to change.”

My guess is that the “doctored data” to which Perry refers is probably Climate-Gate – a real but trivial scandal which has assumed conspiracy-theory status on the right. The researchers who sent the Climate-Gate emails may have been nutty as fruitcakes, but do not represent the academic mainstream.

The “scientists… coming forward” to which Perry refers probably are in this petition, which Rush Limbaugh has talked up. Organized under the name of Frederick Seitz, a distinguished past president of the National Academy of Sciences, the petition, supposedly signed by 31,487 scientists, claims claims “there is no convincing scientific evidence” of imminent danger from artificial greenhouse gases. Seitz, who died in 2008, was 87 years of age when he endorsed the petition. The sample card appears to bear the signature of the late Hungarian-American scientist Edward Teller, who was 90 yards of age when the petition began.

To be listed as a “scientist” signer, you only check a box attesting that you are. No credentials or affiliations for the signatories are given. I pulled three names from the signature list at random — Robert Simpson Hahn, Cathryn E. Hahn and Gregory A. Hahn. None appear on any science organization membership list or academic directory that I could locate; a Robert Simpson Hahn published a chemistry dissertation in 1944. Whether the petition actually has been signed by 31,487 working scientists is anyone’s guess.

What does the science mainstream think? In May, the National Research Council warned the “risk of dangerous climate change impacts is growing.” Last month the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature study, led by Richard Muller, a prominent physicist and previously a climate change skeptic, concluded that “global warming is real”.

In 2005, the National Academy of Sciences joined the science academies of Britain, Germany, Japan and other nations in a joint statement saying, “There is now strong evidence that significant global warming is occurring.” And, in 2006, the federal Climate Change Science Program, under the direction of the George W. Bush White House, found “clear evidence of human influences on the climate system.”

Mainstream researchers could be wrong, of course. But it’s unlikely Rick Perry knows more about climate change than the National Academy of Sciences. Just as Gore’s Hollywood exaggerations about global warming made you wince, the right’s current fad for global-warming denial is also wince-inducing.

One aspect of that denial in the Republican campaigns may be a desire to create a bogeyman for the false notion that carbon dioxide regulations are to blame for unemployment rates. Michele Bachmann has called the Environmental Protection Agency the “jobs-killing organization of America”, for example. Since the United States currently has no carbon dioxide regulations, this seems fantastical.

A defensible fear is that the United States ratification of the Kyoto Protocol, or its successor treaty now under discussion, would give United Nations’ bureaucrats input into U.S. domestic energy policy. That would be bad for the American economy, while surely the United Nations would accomplish nothing at a great expense. Last year, I argued that the United States should drop out of international carbon negotiations and start its own greenhouse-gas reform program.

Republican candidates are well-advised to be wary of the Kyoto concept. But they’re wrong to pretend climate change is not a danger. Slowly rising global temperatures, and the accompanying climate impacts, are supported by a strong body of research. They won’t cause the doomsday that Gore so fervently expresses, but greenhouse gas levels could plague our descendants — and will be a lot cheaper to deal with now than later.

Plus, the initial steps that would be taken to moderate greenhouse gases – improved energy efficiency, more use of natural gas and uranium, less use of coal and oil – are in the interest of the United States, regardless of climate trends. And they may be a lot more practical than supposed. See that argument here.

Photos, top to bottom: People balance as they walk on a flooded railway in Bangkok November 2, 2011. Thai authorities tried to stem growing anger among flood victims on Tuesday as water swamped new neighbourhoods and the government began mapping out a plan costing billions of dollars to prevent a repeat disaster and secure investor confidence. REUTERS/Damir Sagolj; A boy swims in the murky waters of Manila Bay, in this file picture taken March 21, 2010. REUTERS/Cheryl Ravelo/Files

The Senate just rejected President Barack Obama’s proposal to raise taxes on millionaires in order to “create or protect 400,000 jobs for teachers, firefighters, police officers and other first responders.” Whether the country needs more teachers and police is a fair question for debate. But firefighters? Firefighting is already featherbedded.

With stricter building codes, built-in sprinkler systems and the near-universal use of smoke detectors, incidence of structure fire in the United States has declined dramatically in the past generation. In 1985, there were about 2.5 million reported fires in the U.S. Since then, fires have declined steadily, down to 1.3 million last year. The report also shows that fire deaths are down from 6,000 in 1986 to 3,100 in 2010. That’s a 48 percent decline in both fires and deaths caused by fires.

Over that same period, the number of career (not volunteer) firefighters has risen from 238,000 in 1986 to 336,000 in 2010. That’s a 41 percent increase in publicly paid firefighters during the same period that safety technology has been able to decrease the occurrence of fire.

Yet national politicians keep advocating for more firefighters. During the 2004 presidential campaign, a standard aspect of John Kerry’s stump speech was a call for federal funding for 75,000 more firefighters. Now Obama has joined this fray despite the fact that pay and retirement benefits for firefighters are high on the list of what’s causing local-government financial trouble.

What’s going on here: where’s the fire?

We all fear fire, as we should. Having more firefighters sounds like a good precaution. One factor at work is that the public does not know about the decline in fire incidence. National leaders may not know it, either. That many fire departments are overstaffed is rarely mentioned, especially by firefighters’ unions. Local politicians who bring this up — most firefighting employment is by city or county government — may be perceived as attacking motherhood and apple pie.

There’s no doubt that firefighters are heroic – this was true long before the noble sacrifice of New York City firefighters on September 11. Firefighters risk life and limb to serve the public. There is the lore of firefighting — shiny trucks and impressive uniforms — which is, in some ways, a similar calling to the military. At campaign appearances in 2004, Kerry often stood with uniformed firefighters behind him. After Osama bin-Laden was killed, Obama went to New York City to visit a firehouse and be photographed with those who lost comrades at Ground Zero. In politics, it is good to associate yourself with firefighters.

Career firefighters are mainly public-sector union members who may lend their support to whichever candidates advocate more money for them. In media symbolism, firefighters are said to represent the travails of government. A New York Times front-page article headlined “Struggling Cities Shut Firehouses in Budget Crisis,” presented the notion that fewer firefighters will mean a calamity. The 23-paragraph article never mentions that incidences of fires are declining. Nor does the article mention that the number of firefighters is up significantly, even post-recession.

Many cities have begun to use fire crews as all-around responders: taking medical calls and filling other roles. Recently there was a scandal in my county when it was revealed that union firefighters were collecting for charity while on duty – that is, billing taxpayers for wages while holding out boots to ask taxpayers for more. Firefighters were able to collect money while on the clock because they had nothing else to do.

Firefighters command the respect of the public, so there may be occasions when it makes sense to send them on smaller emergency calls. But is an enormous fire engine with a three- or four-person crew really needed to evaluate a sick senior citizen.

Beyond the fact that the number of firefighters has risen even as fires have declined, the economics of career firefighting have changed. A generation or two ago, firefighting was very dangerous and physically draining: the offer of a comfortable early retirement seemed a fair bargain for a firefighters’ peril. But deaths of firefighters have declined along with the numbers of fires. Seventy-two firefighters died on duty in 2010 — “the lowest annual total” since record keeping began, according to the National Fire Protection Association. With about 1.1 million total career and volunteer firefighters in the nation, a firefighter’s risk of death on duty last year was about one in 15,000.

Yet pay and pension structures continue to reflect the old assumption that firefighting is extremely dangerous and taxing. In New York City and Boston, firefighting jobs are keenly sought-after. California firefighters can retire at age 50 with up to 90 percent of their final year’s pay. In the November Vanity Fair, Michael Lewis details how pay and pensions for police and firefighters are a leading reason for the insolvency of many California cities. In San Jose’s budget, he writes, “the police and firefighters now eat 75 percent of all discretionary spending.”

There’s no doubt government budgets must shrink. A necessary first step is a forthright assessment of what the government really needs – and it does not need more firefighters.

Photo: U.S. Vice President Joseph Biden speaks at a rally for police officers, firefighters and teachers at the U.S. Capitol in Washington October 19, 2011. Biden called on Congress to pass a proposal awaiting Senate action that would provide funding to prevent teacher layoffs and keep police officers and firefighters on the job. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts

Tired of cookie-cutter political contests between hauntingly similar candidates? Then you’re going to like the upcoming race for one of the Senate seats in the late Ted Kennedy’s haunting grounds. Elizabeth Warren, best known for creating and fighting for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, is hoping to challenge Republican incumbent Scott Brown. They’re both qualified, but they couldn’t be more different — personally or politically.

Brown, a former member of the Massachusetts state legislature, won a 2010 special election to complete the remaining term of the Senator Edward Kennedy. He is well-known for having been named “America’s Sexiest Man” by Cosmopolitan magazine, this distinction coming in 1982, when he was 22-year-old law student at Boston College. Brown spent many years in the Massachusetts legislature, and before that was the New England equivalent of a town councilman. He is well-qualified to represent Massachusetts in the Senate. Brown is conservative on most issues, calling himself a “Reagan Republican.”

Warren, a former Obama administration official, has declared for the Democratic nomination and is the favorite. She has been a law professor at Harvard and at the University of Pennsylvania, and is the author of a highly regarded book about middle-class living standards, The Two Income Trap. Warren is also well-qualified to represent Massachusetts in the Senate. She is left-wing on most major issues, to the left perhaps even of much bright-blue Massachusetts.

In recent decades, U.S. Senate races have tended to produce similar candidates with similar platforms. Rare is the race that pits two qualified contenders with dramatically different worldviews. The 1994 Pennsylvania Senate race between Harris Wofford and Rick Santorum comes to mind (strong left-wing versus strong right-wing positions); as does the 1992 New York race between Robert Abrams and Alfonse D’Amato (insider versus man-in-the-street); or the 2006 Maryland race between Ben Cardin and Michael Steele (bland-to-the-point-of-invisible career pol versus loose-cannon movement conservative). But many recent Senate contests have offered a selection between me-too candidates.

That won’t be the case if Brown faces Warren.

When Brown became the first Republican in a generation to win a Senate seat from Massachusetts, pundits labored to interpret this as a repudiation of Barack Obama. More important was that Brown was the better candidate in the 2010 race. He squared off against a Democratic loyalist named Martha Coakley who, rightly or wrongly, could not shed the perception of being a party-controlled hack. Brown came across as self-assured and unafraid to advance views that are unpopular in his state (opposition to gay marriage, for example).

Though Brown has moderated some of his positions in hopes of continuing his appeal to a commonwealth that’s just 11 percent registered Republican, there is no reason a GOP candidate cannot win again in Massachusetts. Massachusetts voters have a Yankee independence streak, choosing Republican governors in 1990, 1998 and 2002. The 2002 Republican winner was Mitt Romney, who appealed to New England tradition as a competent conservative willing to speak his mind. Brown offers the same attributes.

For a state that admires those who speak their minds, Warren is eminently qualified to hold office. Beginning about a decade ago, Warren forcefully warned that too much wealth is being shifted from average people to Wall Street and the gated-community cohort. Warren’s 2003 book (mentioned above) cautioned that inflated-adjusted household incomes were declining — this was a minority view during that boom period, but turned out to be right. She also warned that a liars-loans housing bubble was in progress. The 2008 banking meltdown might have been headed off if Warren’s warnings had been heeded.

As an Obama official, Warren proved a polarizing figure, so much so that the president did not nominate her to be the head of the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau she championed. Considering Massachusetts is in better economic shape than much of the nation, her populist rhetoric may not match the state’s demographics. But with Warren, what you see is what you get. The fact that she says exactly what she thinks regardless of the political cost may prove appealing to Massachusetts voters.

Warren is very smart, and thinks on her feet. For those who are tired of politicians who stumble on softball questions, or are addicted to the teleprompter, Warren will be a breath of fresh air.

A Brown-Warren race, if it happens, won’t kick off till next year. But if you’re like me, you’re already sick of 2011 politics. The prospect of two skillful candidates with dramatically different views going at each other in one of the country’s most important states has a can’t-wait allure.

If you’re thinking the jumbled Republican presidential field does not matter because whomever gets the nomination can’t win – think again. A Republican could well take the White House in 2012.

At this point in the 1992 election cycle, the elder George Bush held an 89 a 66 percent approval rating (update: on October 13, 1991, according to Gallup data on the Roper Center website). Back then, Democratic figures including Mario Cuomo did not enter the 1992 race because they thought the elder Bush was “unbeatable” – just as today many Republicans are not entering the race, thinking Obama is unbeatable.

But Bush was defeated by Bill Clinton, who, a year before his victory, was a low-name-recognition outsider with personal baggage.

Clinton beat a popular incumbent with a fantastic approval rating. For the 2012 election, Barack Obama is just as vulnerable as the elder Bush, if not even more so. Obama currently has an approval rating of 23 percent. 40 percent (update: as of October 13-15, 2011, according to Gallup).

Upsets aren’t unusual. At this point in the 2008 election cycle, Hillary Clinton was viewed as having an insurmountable lead for the Democratic nomination. At this stage in 2004, John Kerry was thought to be running a vanity candidacy. By Election Day, a small swing in the Ohio count would have put Kerry into the White House. As for Ronald Reagan, at this point in the 1980 election cycle, he was the favorite to win the Republican nomination, but incumbent Jimmy Carter was expected to retain his post in the general election. Reagan ended up taking 44 states.

Carter had a rocky presidency, but the power of incumbency was thought to be too great for Reagan to overcome. Obama, despite having a rocky presidency, is expected by many to be reelected on the basis of incumbency. Yet two of the last five incumbents to stand for reelection were defeated. Obama could make it three of the last six.

Of the Republican field, those who have the best chance to unseat Obama are Mitt Romney, Rick Perry and Jon Huntsman, for a simple reason – governorship.

Four of the last six presidents were governors before ascending to the White House: Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. (The elder George Bush had been vice-president, while Obama had been a senator.)

Of the most recent six presidents, party doesn’t tell much, since three were Democrats and three Republicans. Other major distinctions don’t tell much either. Two were former members of Congress (Obama and the elder Bush). Two were former active-duty military (Carter and the elder Bush). One had held high federal government posts (the elder Bush had been CIA director and United Nations ambassador). Two had run a small business (Carter and the elder Bush). One had run a large business (the younger Bush). There’s no other factor among the most recent six presidents that leaps out like governor status.

Right now Romney seems to be the frontrunner, which, of course, is a mixed blessing. His aura of experience and reasonableness could prove quite appealing to voters.

Perry continues to have the potential to light a populist fire. But don’t sell Huntsman short because he is low in the polls – Obama had been at that point, too. But Obama took the White House in part on the strength of being Not Just Another Politician. Of all the 2012 candidates, Huntsman is the one who is Not Just Another Politician.

So why are governors so appealing as presidential contenders? Running a statehouse is the closest thing to running the White House. It’s a real job with executive authority, unlike being in Congress, where windbag behavior dominates. Americans seem to think more fondly of state governments than of the federal government, rightly or wrongly viewing states as better-run. Governors benefit from state finances containing a hefty share of bookkeeping illusion, while the fiscal recklessness of the Washington establishment cannot be disguised. And many widely admired former presidents – Reagan, FDR, Woodrow Wilson – were governors first.

Ideally, a presidential candidate is a former, not current, governor. That conveys the prestige of governorship, while leaving the candidate not responsible for whatever’s going wrong in his state right now. Romney and Huntsman can argue that they left Massachusetts and Utah in fine shape. Perry, still in office, must shoulder some blame for current defects of Texas public schools and health care.

So don’t assume Obama is a shoe-in for reelection. And of the Republican field, keep your eyes on Romney and Huntsman. They are the former governors who seek the White House, and a former governor is a fine thing to be.

Photo: Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney greets people in the crowd as he arrives for the third debate between US Democratic presidential nominee Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) and US Republican presidential nominee Senator John McCain (R-AZ) at Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York, October 15, 2008. REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton; Former Utah Governor Jon Huntsman during a break in a debate with other Republican presidential hopefuls at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, October 11, 2011. REUTERS/Scott Eells/POOL

In 2000, the Electoral College put the wrong person in the White House. Al Gore won the popular vote, but George W. Bush took the presidency. In 2004, this came amazingly close to happening again. Bush had a clear edge in the popular vote, but a slight difference in the Ohio outcome would have made John Kerry president.

Ah, the Electoral College. Because a Constitutional amendment would be required to abolish it, and the low-population states would never agree, we are stuck with this anachronism, right?

No. The next president might be chosen solely on the basis of the popular vote, without Constitutional contretemps. This is closer to happening than you – and politicians – might guess.

A nonpartisan organization, National Popular Vote,  has devised a clever end-run of the Electoral College. The Constitution specifies that each state controls the allocation of its electors. Suppose, the founders of National Popular Vote realized, states enacted laws promising to give their entire slates to the winner of the overall national popular vote.

Then whomever gets the most votes becomes president. A straight-up direct popular choice, the way governors, senators and representatives are chosen. No more putting the wrong person in the White House. No more national absurdities like the 2000 Florida recount-of-a-recount.

Just democracy.

Pie in the sky? The model legislation backed by National Popular Vote has already been passed by California, Illinois, New Jersey, Massachusetts and other states representing 132 electoral votes. That’s half what a candidate needs to become president. The new laws contain a clause saying that if states representing 270 electoral votes (the victory number) commit to this plan, then the laws becoming binding – and the next president would be chosen solely by popular vote.

Momentum is building. The people’s-voice appeal of the idea is very strong. As 2012 arrives and the public learns that a true popular vote for the president is within reach, there should be grass-roots support. Any state legislators, or national party officials, who come out opposed to a national popular vote  obviously will be trying to perverse a crony system controlled by insiders.

Consider how a true popular vote for the presidency would change the presidential campaign landscape. California, Texas and New York are America’s most populous states – yet in recent presidential elections, neither candidate spent much time in any of them. The “battleground states” got all the attention, because the quirks of the Electoral College downgrade some states while magnifying others.

In 2008, John McCain spent almost no time in California or New York, Barack Obama spent almost no time in Texas – both hit the battleground states of Florida, Ohio, Indiana and North Carolina over and over again. The Electoral College aspects of California, Texas, New York, New England, the Old South,  the upper Midwest and Pacific Northwest states were already in the bag to one party or the other, so popular vote totals in those places – two-thirds of the country! – didn’t matter. Only Florida, Ohio, Indiana and North Carolina existed. On a good day, Missouri existed.

The battleground-state nonsense focuses way too much attention on a few places, while depriving much of the country of its due. Campaigning is distorted. Republican candidates don’t need to learn the concerns of liberals in California and New York; Democratic candidates don’t need to learn the concerns of conservatives in Texas and Arizona. Candidates stoke their party “base” for funds, then pander away in a few battleground states.

It’s a satire of campaigning — and gets worse every presidential election cycles as tools such as ZIP code voting analysis are refined. The unintended, pernicious impacts of the Electoral College just lead to more cynicism about politics.

This was not what the Framers had in mind when they designed the Electoral College. The Framers were nervous about direct election of presidents and of senators, believing many voters lacked access to information about current events. That was a big concern once, but not today. Direct election of senators did not come until 1913, via the 17^th Amendment to the Constitution.

Popular vote for the Senate has been the rule for a century – but the antiquated Electoral College still chooses the president. The National Popular Vote idea ends this anachronism without a minimum of travail.

Check the states that have enacted National Popular Vote bills and you’ll see they were all carried by Obama in 2008. This is not because the organization backing the idea is Democratic. Far from it: the deep pocket of National Popular Vote is populist conservative Tom Golisano, billionaire founder of a payroll-processing company. Golisano thinks politics is corrupt, and that unfiltered popular sentiment is the solution.

If the 2012 election were held today, a popular-vote regime would favor Obama, since two of the three largest states are Democratic. But party affiliations swing in cycles: just a generation ago, California was a Republican stronghold. Think about 2004 – in that election, a national popular vote standard would strongly have favored George W. Bush.

In the current presidential system, many votes don’t matter, and the leading candidate may not win. In a National Popular Vote system, every vote counts and political insiders cannot manipulate outcomes. What’s not to like?

Photo: Ballots from the Electoral College are carried into the House Chamber for a joint session of congress to count the ballots on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, January 8, 2009. Barack Obama was confirmed as president-elect and Joseph Biden was confirmed as vice president-elect. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts.