Andrew Sullivan has greeted Arnold’s candidacy with a designation for social liberals/economic conservatives, which he has been pushing for months. He wants to call the SocLibs/EcCons “Eagles.” The reason this will fail as a partisan designation is that it lacks the self-mockery embedded in donkeys and elephants, the symbols of the existing major parties. Thomas Nast, who created the political creatures, was a Republican, but his cartoonist’s eye won out over his ideology, for while elephants have many virtues, they are also lumbering and funny-looking. Donkeys kick and bray. Iconic modesty reflects an important political virtue. In the 1976 election cycle, the Economist dryly compared the hoopla of American political conventions, including their animal imagery, with “the more mature demonstrations of the recent European past.”

The other reason “Eagles” will fail as a partisan designation is that there will be no such party.