Monday, December 10, 2007

The Republicans Find Their Obama

I don't want anyone to think I've become a Republican (especially my Mom), but I'm just finding the politics of the Republican presidential race interesting and of course I'm against "Nixonian gloom and paranoia" everywhere.

Here's an excerpt from Frank Rich's column on the odd man out in the Republican race, Mike Huckabee. As usual, Mr. Rich is brilliant:
The real reason for Mr. Huckabee’s ascendance may be that his message is simply more uplifting — and, in the ethical rather than theological sense, more Christian — than that of rivals whose main calling cards of fear, torture and nativism have become more strident with every debate. The fresh-faced politics of joy may be trumping the five-o’clock-shadow of Nixonian gloom and paranoia favored by the entire G.O.P. field with the sometime exception of John McCain.

[But] Mr. Huckabee may well be doomed in the long term. He has little money or organization. He’s so ignorant of foreign affairs that he hadn’t heard of the National Intelligence Estimate on Iran a day after its release. His sometimes wacky economic populism riles his party’s most important constituency, Wall Street. And who knows how many other Arkansas scandals will be disinterred along with the paroled serial rapist who popped out last week? That Mr. Huckabee has gotten as far as he has shows just how in sync his benign style is with the cultural moment.

3 comments:

  1. His message is more uplifting? To whom? He is pro-war, anti-abortion, majorly homophobic, misogynistic and doesn't believe in evolution. And these are just a few of the things we know about. I'm also irked at Obama and Oprah in their latest Hollywoodesque shennaigans and of course Hillary with all her "suitcases". Let's just say I'm looking at this whole campaign with a little sketicism and a lot of fear.

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  2. I agree with you: They all suck. But that's because they are politicians...they can't help it. I think Frank Rich was saying that Huckabee's message was more uplifting when compared to the other Republican candidates. And I know, that's not saying much.

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  3. I'd vote for a Telletubbie before I'd vote for any one of the yahoos mentioned here.(including Oprah, Ugh!) Sadly, my belief is that anyone worth having as president (in my opinion, Dennis Kucinich), is either a person who would never want to be president, or a person who would run but never be elected.

    I used to have hope, now I think we're just screwed.

    Sorry.

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