Let's take a quick look at some potential nominees for '12, shall we?
In a time of unemployment hovering around 10%, Mike Huckabee says preventing gays from marrying each other is more important than being gainfully employed, and Rick Santorum says that the problem with Social Security is that we aborted all the workers. [Ed--Yahoo has completely changed the story at that URL since I read it. Anyway, here is coverage of the relevant comment.]
It's a shell game. If you get people lathered up about gays and abortions, they don't notice that you don't have a fucking clue about what to do with the economy or entitlement reform.
Meanwhile, Newt Gingrich says stuff like this:
"I am convinced that if we do not decisively win the struggle over the nature of America, by the time they're my age [my grandchildren] will be in a secular atheist country, potentially one dominated by radical Islamists..."
(Try reading that out loud with a straight face. Go on. I'll wait.)
The less said about Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachmann, the better.
Mitt Romney, probably the least awful Republican people actually talk about, is thought to be dead in the water with GOP primary voters because of the health care legislation he presided over in Massachusetts. Which is a convenient way to avoid discussing the fact that evangelicals in the South and Midwest will never, ever vote for a Mormon in large numbers. And you cannot win the GOP nomination without them.
I suppose Daniels or Pawlenty could stage a rally, but they'd better get cracking since no one who doesn't obsessively follow politics (i.e., most voters) have any idea who they are.
I'm glad I gave up on the Republican Party a long time ago. Because if I felt invested in their success, this would depress the shit out of me.
10 comments:
yeah, me too.
i didnt give up on the GOP as much as i've just given up on politics.
we've struck the iceberg.
and your santorum link dont say anything about abortion as it relates to social security.
Thanks...I'll fix that in a bit.
That's really odd. Yahoo had a completely different article at the exact same URL yesterday.
I'm a bit confused over why the media misses the real reason Romney has *zero* chance of winning the GOP nomination. B's comment about Romney's mormonism is spot on. My best guess is that a secular media just doesn't understand or appreciate how much evangelicals loathe mormons. But as someone who grew up in the rural south, let me emphasize ... the average southern GOP primary voter WILL NOT vote for Romney - even if he were Ronald Reagan reincarnated and was guaranteed to beat Obama.
very not true: most evangelical political leaders tend to be politically pragmatic. you get enough of them on his side, and the lay faithful will follow, but 'follow' is a wrong term, because leading evangelical is a lot like herding cats.
i been there. i done that. and we got them to support the mormon over the community favorite evangelical daughter.
romney has other issues, like changing his abortion position, and shit like that... that makes him untrustworthy in the eyes of many in the GOP, not just the evangelicals and prolifers.
you cant herd cats, but you attract 90% with a can of tuna. evangelicals are the same way.
That may be true in Cali, but things are different in the South.
In the evangelical community in which I grew up, national leaders matter a hell of a lot less than your own church. And the culture is deeply suspicious of Mormons (and Catholics, for that matter), because they are not at all "Bible-based".
Nobody cares what Pat Robertson says, but they care an awful lot about what their friends, neighbors, Sunday School teachers, and preachers say. And the meme that "Mormonism is a cult" won't go away just like that.
This is one of those things I'd rather be wrong about. Especially since it points to Huckabee as a front runner.
For Baptists in particular, rejecting the sort of centralized spiritual authority that exists in Catholicism (and in a very different form in Mormonism) is at the core of their theology and identity.
(That's probably the one part that actually stuck in my case.)
OK, time to post a picture of a pretty girl or something. It's too goddamn serious around here.
the EV's(new short for evangelicals) in my county are pretty hardcore. this kinda cowboy country round these parts, but i'll grant that the southern EV's may react differently.
round here, its much the same as leaders go. they dont follow the national guys, they stick with their own pastor, but they can be won over as well. sure, nationally, the game is a little bigger, less personal, but thats not romney's problem.
i'm pretty familiar with baptist thinking. i was EV before returning to catholicism, but kept all/most of EV friends when i made the switch.
i got a picture of adrian tatou you can borrow.
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