Brain Trust - Hunter Baker

Hunter Baker is an Associate Dean at Union University, and a blogger at First Things. He joined The Matt Friedeman Show to discuss the presidential candidates. Here are the "CliffsNotes" of his interview.

What's your take on Santorum's Iowa win?

I'm not surprised. I think that he pretty much got the winner's treatment out of Iowa. He got to make a primetime speech, his campaign went from nothing to something.

Of course, he would have preferred that he be touted as the winner, but at the same time there are a lot of people who have done well in Iowa and gone on to be irrelevant.

I think it's a credit to him and his campaign that he has managed to stay in the mix. He's continued to be a player.

Predictions for Marianne Gingrich's upcoming disclosures?

In my darker moments, I wonder if the Romney campaign is behind this.

Marianne Gingrich did a long interview with Esquire Magazine in 2010. I've read that interview, and if that's all she says, it won't hurt Gingrich. It's negative, but not a killer.

But I hear from another source that she may say something new. If she makes this new allegation, then I think he would be sunk.

Is it unfair for the media to jump on this?

I don't think so. The media runs after the story. It seems newsworthy; it can speak to the character of the man.

I hope that they would do the same thing if we were talking about participants in the Democratic contest.

Does Gingrich have a real chance?

If Marianne Gingrich goes on TV and says the same things she's already said, Newt may have a chance of winning this SC primary.

Also, I have heard that Perry may drop out and play king-maker. He may support Gingrich and derail the Romney campaign.

If he does that and the interview with Marianne Gingrich is not as damaging as it could be, Newt really has a chance of winning.

Brain Trust - Hunter Baker

Hunter Baker is an Associate Dean at Union University, and a blogger at First Things. He joined The Matt Friedeman Show for the Brain Trust segment. Here are the "CliffsNotes" of his interview.

Who is your Person of the Year?

One name came to mind immediately, and that would be Paul Ryan. He stands almost alone among our elected officials in trying to find an answer to our fiscal problem.

Why all the backlash against Newt Gingrich?

Yeah, this is quite a striking development. I'm especially taken aback by National Review's move. They are basically saying there are only three acceptable people: Mitt Romney, Jon Huntsman, and Rick Santorum.

I don't know if listeners know this, but National Review declined to endorse Dwight Eisenhower, saying he wasn't conservative enough. And now they are pretty close to endorsing Mitt Romney.

The backlash against Gingrich is very interesting to me. I think there are a lot of people who are Washington insiders and Conservative insiders who are saying that this is a very bad idea. Obviously they have very bad memories of 1994.

What could be the repercussions of National Review's denial of Gingrich?

This was a very risky move for them. If Gingrich goes on to win the nomination, which really could happen, what is National Review going to do?

How are they going to recant their firm denial of Gingrich? And have they given free advertising to the other side with this?

Obama apparently thinks he has had an "accomplished presidency."

I was astounded by that. That quote about healthcare, that no one is going to go bankrupt because of healthcare, I was thinking that while no individual may go bankrupt, the entire nation might.

I don't see that he has made any tough choices. I really don't see that he has made up any solutions to problems. He simply delegated decisions to Congress.

Our economy seems like it's locked in ultra-slow growth mode, so slow that you can barely see it happening.

How would you rank Obama in the lineup of our presidents?

I think that he would like to be in the line of FDR and Johnson. The presidency that he had is not the one he wanted.

He wanted to be the third person in the trinity of the welfare state, starting with Roosevelt and going on to Johnson.

We may turn around and say that it's a blessing that these have not been great economic times, because who knows what he might have done if we had had money.

Brain Trust - Hunter Baker

Hunter Baker is the Associate Dean of Arts and Sciences at Union University, and a blogger at First Things. He joined The Matt Friedeman Show for the Brain Trust segment. Here are the "CliffsNotes" of his interview.

Would you have predicted the Gingrich/Romney match up at the top?

Not in a million years. Gingrich, a few years ago, went on Dr. Dobson's show, made his big mea culpa for the divorces, said he was a "new man".

In 2008, he raised no interest at all. I thought it would be the same this year. And yet here he is.

He has positives as well as negatives, though.

That's definitely true. On the positive side, he was a big part of the GOP getting Congress in 94. Also, some of the best policies we've seen in the last 30 years came when he was Speaker of the House.

The thing that really pulled him down was having an affair during the same time that Clinton was busy being impeached.

Explain the Herman Cain phenomenon.

First of all, this is the most unsettled field I have ever seen.

Basicallly, there's Romney, who has been running for president for about 6 years. He  sounds presidential, he looks presidential, but the Republican party is not satisfied with him.

So they're kind of cycling through the options. Almost everyone has gotten a chance on top.

Is Romney going to end up on top?

He has been very patient, he's done a good job of not getting desperate. I think one of the problems Michelle Bachmann had was that she got increasingly desperate and strident in her attacks on him.

What Romney would have going for him is that the sentiment against President Obama is completely different than it was 4 years ago.

What are your predictions for this race?

I think that Romney is ultimately going to win. There's no one else in the Republican field who is able to knock him off.

It's going to be down to Romney vs. Gingrich, and I think Gingrich's baggage will weigh against him.

But there are always second acts in politics. Gingrich may have a second act, and convince people that he is a new man.

Brain Trust - Hunter Baker

Hunter Baker is the Associate Dean of Arts and Sciences at Union University, and a blogger at First Things. He joined The Matt Friedeman Show for the Brain Trust segment. Here are the "CliffsNotes" of his interview.

Talk to us about the GOP debate: What's going on?

[Rick Perry] has a big advantage from being the governor of TX.

Mitt Romney looks better than him in the debates to me, but Perry has a huge advantage. Romney is still the one-term governor of Massachusetts.

We'll have to see. I thought Perry looked terrible in the first debate, but in the second he was stronger.

The word is that he's a fast learner. I'm looking for him to step up again in the third debate.

You can tell Michele Bachmann really has her eye out for her main chance.

She very briefly rose to the top of the heap, then Perry displaced her.

She's circling him like a shark in the debates now.

Does the New York Nine election tell us anything about the mood of voters in general?

I think it does. This is a district that has been Democrat for about a hundred years.

This was a very solid Democrat district. It's a very Jewish district.

I think [the Jews] are sufficiently alarmed about Obama's views on Israel that they are reconsidering.

Are there other people groups that Obama should be concerned about?

He probably is a lot stronger with American Muslims.

The big question is Latinos, and whether or not Republicans can win the Latino vote.

It's tough to say what their vote will be.

Is Obama staying in or going out?

If we get the right nominee, he'll probably be defeated. If not, he'll stay in.

And the right nominee is?

I think Mitt Romney can beat him. I'm not sure Perry can.

Brain Trust - Hunter Baker

Dr. Hunter Baker is the Associate Dean of Arts and Sciences at Union University and author of The End of Secularism. On the Matt Friedeman Show he talked about - among other things - Obama's recent press conference, the GOP presidential field, and same-sex marriage in New York.

It seems like Obama really knows how to say one thing, and reality is the other direction.

One thing that's kind of strange about him, really, was that he was elected to the presidency as a transformational leader.

This debt crisis is his opportunity to transform American. This is not the opportunity he wanted.

And that's why he's frustrated at this press conference?

That's exactly right.

These are not the times he wanted.

Tell me about the state of the Republican presidential field.

Well, I've been looking over it, and it's not terribly encouraging.

Unless Rick Perry gets in, it seems like Romney will win by following the normal Republican pattern.

Romney might actually be the best chance to beat Obama.

The only way we're going to win is to bring over independents, as happened in the last election.

I think that Romney might be the kind of guy who will appeal to independents.

I think a lot of people would say that Republicans do better when they are conservative.

I think that logic applies when you have the right candidate.

No matter how the left tried to paint him as a scary man...it just didn't take.

He was obviously very gifted in terms of being on TV, in terms of speaking.

A candidate like Reagan through sheer force of personality and in terms of gifts was able to move the bell curve over to the right.

Obama did the same thing to the left in 2008.

So you think it's more personality than positions?

I think so.

The tendency is to elect the politician who is most well liked.

It's happy for us when the best person is also the person most well liked.

Romney is all over the map on positions. I think a lot of conservatives would say, "I don't think so."

I'm very concerned about that myself.

At this point, I'm not sure Romney is who I'd vote for in the primary, but I'd go that direction in a hurry if my only other choice was the form of statism that we have right now.

Does Romney have a stable, steady sort of Reaganite record? No.

Basically a person displaying an unalloyed Reaganism would never get elected in Massachusetts.

Does that make him opportunistic? Yes.

Can congress meet the moral imperative of this debt problem?

There is a moral hazard inherent in holding public office.

That moral hazard is the incentive to just do enough to get by.

Unfortunately we have had that sort of logic in work in Congress, and really in the presidency for  a long time now.

The problem has grown to epic proportions.

And now we have come to the unthinkable which is running trillion dollar deficits...and still nothing has been done.

You see what happens when politicians do try to solve the problem.

We need statesmen who need to solve the problems.

What the significance of same-sex marriage being legalized in New York?

I'll give you the silver living, at least it happened by democratic means instead of by judicial fiat.

If the courts do not take this in their own hands.

You might remember that Roe. V. Wade happened in the wake of New York legalizing abortion.

If this does happen, it needs to be through democratic means. We do not need to have the court imposing this.

Is it likely to spread, especially in the northeast? I would say that's very likely.

Do people have a problem with conservative women?

Absolutely.

Democrats rely on women to vote for them.

If someone like Sarah Palin or Michele Bachmann was viewed favorably by women en masse, it would cause trouble for Democrats.

Brain Trust: Hunter Baker, Union University

Dr. Hunter Baker is the Associate Dean of Arts and Sciences at Union University, author at The End of Secularism, blogger at First Things and the 2011 winner of the Novak Award @ The Acton Institute.

Mess in Egypt. Is it looking brighter?

I am not very confident. The implication is, well we've had a revolution, everything is great, let's get on with life.

This happened in Iran in '79.

In Egypt now we have a nation that is under military control. And, you have the Muslim Brotherhood sitting in the background as an obvious political organizer.

They have an agenda, which includes reestablishing the Caliphate, which also restores Sharia law.

Do you appreciate president's leadership on Egypt?

I was watching Niall Ferguson talking about this...he said the White House was caught by surprise by this.

The Israelis have been preparing for this..we have not.

That may explain why it was sort of a random affair.

As far as the Middle East...I'm nervous.

Egypt has been a country that we have been closely involved with. We have given them quite a bit of aid...now that becomes an X factor.

Does Obama have Republicans right where he wants them on the budget?

The submission of his budget is really disappointing.

In president Obama's defense, he did not take over an America that he wanted.

On the domestic front he really wanted to increase spending, to increase taxes. His problem is his dream has met with reality.

Instead of stepping out and leading, he is playing this political game of kind of submitting this budget like there really isn't a problem.

Should governor of New Jersey Chris Christie run for the presidency now?

That is such a difficult question. On the one hand you can't help but be excited...he just takes the issues on in a very blunt fashion.

This guy is not a rich, white, Republican country-club guy. I would prefer that he stays in the governor's seat for one more term.