By the time I finish writing this, Huckabee will probably have announced his decision already, but I couldn't let the most recent FiveThirtyEight pass by without comment.
Mr Silver is apparently attempting to divine who benefits the most in the event that Mr Huckabee keeps his hat firmly on his head. He breaks down Mr Huckabee's appeal pretty well (SoCon, evangelical, Southerner, "outsider", runs well in Iowa, works for Fox News-- though he forgot "guitar BAMF" [I'm very partial to bassists] and "jowly as all hell"), but when he starts evaluating everyone else I started to get confused.
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| This may be adorable |
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| but he ain't got nothin' on Thad. |
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| As if I needed more reasons to hate Rachel Maddow. |
1. He seems to be reducing social conservatism to a vaguely traditionalist stance on marriage. If this is the metric, everyone but Ron and Gary is a strong social conservative! What about abortion and the drug war (which doesn't have to be a social issue, but would likely be spun as one if anyone came out firmly against it, Johnson's best efforts to sell it as a budget problem aside)? Gun rights? Prostitution? Sin taxes? The death tax (which Gingrich seems to be spinning as a social issue, which I think is kinda cool)?
2. I just want to register my immense frustration with the level of attention Herman Cain and Donald Trump have been getting by serious pundits while Gary Johnson and Ron Paul continue to be almost completely ignored. Really? Really? I can't even deal with you people.
3. Silver counts Daniels as an "evangelical Protestant". He's a Presbyterian-- you know, a descendant of Calvinism? Maybe I don't know enough Presbyterians, but Huckabee/Bachmann/Palin types they ain't.
4. He also counts Gingrich as an "outsider". In fact, the only people he doesn't list as "outsiders" are Romney and Huntsman. I'm sorry, but if Newt is an outsider, the inside must be somewhere literally up Reince Priebus's ass.
5. I get why people keep talking about Daniels-- they want him to run. Why are we still talking about Bachmann? Can we stop now? Please?
So, it's 8:07pm and Huck still hasn't announced. I've got my fingers crossed it's a big fat no-- here's hoping!
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1. Ron Paul and Herman Cain are serious candiates, bc enough conservative activists think so. Trump is not, bc he's strictly a media phenom, and Johnson is not, bc a pro-abort version of Ron Paul is a non-starter.
ReplyDelete2. Opposing the war on drugs cd be a SocCon issue, but you'll NEVER sell that to anyone outside the POR who lived through the 60s. Drugs were the emblem of the Counterculture, and many of us defined our conservatism in reaction against the Counterculture.
3. Prostitution LEGALIZATION as SocConservatism? Really? SocConservatism may be wrong on a given issue, but that doesn't turn the anti-Soc-Con view into the SocCon view.
may be wrong on an issue, but that doesn't turn the anti-
...the antiSocCon view into the SocConView.
ReplyDelete(Sorry for editing confusion.)
ReplyDeleteOh, I wasn't listing socially conservative positions, I was listing issues that there's a somewhat clear socially conservative view on. It's possible to make an argument either way for the drug war, though of course the obvious socon position is to be against drug legalization. I was listing prostitution merely as a question that isn't being asked-- I understand completely why it's not being asked (no one's made legalization their pet issue and given the current state of the country no one's going to for quite some time, if ever), but it's just another thing out there in the ether.
ReplyDeleteI think in context of the modern GOP you might be right about Johnson, although there are a lot of libertarians for whom pro-life candidates are impossible to vote for. Ron only gets out of this because he thinks it's a "state issue". But then again, the libertarians still haven't really coalesced into a solid enough block to push a pro-choice Republican very far into the primaries.
This whole post made me smile, laugh and cheer! Huck is not running, and Ron Paul is -- good day!!
ReplyDeletep.s. I just adore your tag "Politics is an art and you're using finger paint" -- love it! Great tags all around, I think it's a creative outlet I may need to start tapping into... one day. :)
ReplyDeleteMuch appreciated, Ms Robison. Tags are indeed a dying art form, invisible as they are in RSS feeds. Thank the heavens for stuffy reactionaries such as myself.
ReplyDelete