Party of Family Values and Dignity, So We Are Told
So. John McCain (adulterer, divorced & remarried younger heiress) now looks like a fool on Iraq, has flip-flopped on half the issues in an attempt to suck up to the religious right, and is doing dismally at raising funds for his campaign. Oh, and it looks like he approached several Democrats over the years, inquiring about becoming a Democrat.
Rudy Giuliani (adulterer, twice divorced & twice remarried, annulled his marriage to his second cousin, announced second divorce to the press before telling his wife) is getting less and less of a rosy image as people see how tissue-thin his real rep as “America’s 9/11 Mayor” is. His infidelity and dalliances, his associations with Bernard Kerik, his screwups in New York (like putting the emergency response center in the WTC after the WTC bombing), his history of backing the police on outrageously criminal violence cases, and his less-than-hardcore-conservative credentials (he supports public funding for abortions, as one example) are making him less and less appealing to Republicans.
And Newt Gingrich (adulterer, twice divorced & twice remarried, served divorce papers to his former wife when she was in a hospital bed suffering from cancer), aside from having past negatives far in excess of anything Hillary has to fight, is already botching up his chances before he even had had the opportunity to announce his intentions for running. His recent (and very belated) admission that he cheated on his wife and lied about it at the same time that he attacked Clinton for doing the same doesn’t help much, of course. However, more recently, he spoke out against bilingual education, saying that it encouraged “the language of living in a ghetto.” To clean up the mess, Gingrich denied that he meant Spanish (which is the obvious inference which he clearly did mean), and instead said that the word “ghetto” “historically had referred as [sic] a Jewish reference originally.” Well. That’s much better.
So far, Mitt Romney is the best candidate in the quickly-self-destructing GOP field, but his Mormon beliefs will likely keep the Christian right-wing core away from the polls.
But hey, Republicans seem to be forgiving of personal flaws. After all, they elected (kind of) a drug-snorting, drunk-driving, McCain-smearing, draft-dodging, hypocritical, cruel, bloodthirsty, perjuring, silver-spooned, and ultimately corrupt nitwit to the White House, at a time when “character” was supposed to be the most important thing in a president. So maybe there’s hope for the Scarlet Letter candidates after all.
The GOP’s shining hope? Actor Fred Thompson. Swell. Another actor.
As Obama, a natural, charismatic Democrat is the Republicans worst nightmare, Thompson is my worst nightmare.
He will blow away everyone he comes across in the GOP and will have full Republican funding in a general election. As a successful actor, he has been selling him self to America everyweek for years now. As an actor he knows how to project the persona that’s needed. If I were a betting man, I would put down all my money that he gets the nomination. Anything else is a republican surrender of the Presidency.
If I were a Republican, I would drop everything and throw my lot in with him. He’s the very image that Republicans have of themselves and the one they want to sell to the public.
An election between him and Obama would be a clash of the titans: the essentail Republican against the essential Democrat. The only true edge Obama will have is the fatique this country has with the Republicans.
I liked this article about Mike Huckabee’s campaign:
http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2007/03/31/a-very-spartan-operation/
It includes this wonderful quote:
“If Republicans in this election vote in such a way as to say a candidate’s personal life and personal conduct in office doesn’t matter,” he declared, “then a lot of Christian evangelical leaders owe Bill Clinton a public apology.”
Tim: Sounds right, but I hope you’re wrong.
K.: Normally, you’d be right, but we’re talking about the Republican Party here. Hypocrisy and double standards are second nature. Just this week there were three major hypocritical stances put forward by Republicans. From minor to major:
1. Pelosi wearing a head scarf in a Muslim country is horrendous and shows she’s in with terrorists (Laura Bush and Condi Rice both did the same thing, not a peep from anyone);
2. Democratic congress-people going to Syria is virtually treasonous (a Republican delegation was not only there at the same time, the White House helped them out); and
3. McCain said that strolling in Baghdad was safe, and to prove his point, he strolled in Baghdad with two gunships, three Blackhawks, a caravan of heavily armed and armored Humvees, and a hundred well-armed troops while McCain & Co. walked along wearing bulletproof vests.
Oh, wait– 4. Bush condemned Democrats for delaying an emergency funding bill (when Republicans had taken longer in the previous two years, twice as long one of those years) and blasted them for going on vacation while the troops were waiting–and then Bush immediately went on vacation himself.
That last one could count as two.
Note that while they were ear-deep in major hypocrisy, the “liberal” media took virtually no notice of any of it–instead, they went along with the Republican view and spin in almost every instance.
So, as I pointed out with Bush being elected, Republicans tend to accept hypocrisy as a logic all its own.
I can’t disagree with your points, Luis. I just found it amusing that Huckabee, a Republican, would actually have the chutzpah to call the Evangelicals on their hypocritical support of people like Giuliani. Of course, it won’t change the way Republicans act…
Oops. Missed the dimension of a Republican calling them on their own double-standards. But then again, if he is to be consistent, he should be calling them on all the other stuff. Of course, he’s not–he’s just pointing out the character thing to give his own campaign a boost. Not as brave or moral a stance if it is just self-serving…
Right – the Mormon is the only Republican with just one wife.