re: #17 Ming

I know Huckabee’s candidacy seems unlikely right this minute, but unfortunately, his potential appeal to “the right-wing base” is strong. Look how eagerly they embraced Rick Perry, before Perry’s awful debate performances. In Perry, the base was ecstatic to find a theocrat who (they thought) could beat Obama. The base remains uncomfortable with Mitt Romney.

After the revelation that she had sex with an African American, Sarah Palin is probably significantly tarnished in the eyes of the Tea Party. Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann have both had a few gaffes recently, and the Tea Party may be pretty close to giving up on them as well. At the moment, if Huckabee decides to run, the Tea Party may view him as a savior.

Tea Party will not flock to Huckabee. He pardoned some people based on his belief that NoTrueScottsman^TChristian would ever do anything so cruel as murder. They may have been lying—-it wouldn’t be the first insincere conversion. They may have been telling the truth, but changed their minds the next time they wanted money or got angry. Either way, a record of letting people out of jail because you’re a sucker for a sob story, and because you just can’t think ill of someone who (for the time being, and oh so conveniently) professes Christianity, will not sit well with the Tea Party.

Bob Shrum has an article in which he argues that in the end, Romney will be the nominee for the same reason that Nixon got the nomination back when—-faut de mieux.

Romney is the safe candidate. You can pretty much expect that he’ll stay focused, that he’ll be able to raise money, that he won’t blow a fuse and melt down during a debate, that he won’t say something so monumentally and obviously stupid that it sinks his campaign just like that.

The way things are going, that sort of a candidate looks like a winner in the general election, and according to Shrum, in the end, Tea Party or not, the Republicans will nominate somebody they think stands a chance in the general election. This leaves out the Newt Gingriches, the Ron Pauls, and so on.

As to Palin’s chances being shot, Republicans aren’t anywhere near as exercised about interracial marriage as you seem to think. Who’s their hero on the SC? Justice Thomas, married to a white woman. And if I needed more examples, they wouldn’t be that hard to find. Bill O’Reilly, married to an Asian. Phil Gramm, married to an Asian. Palin’s chances are shot but it has much more to do with the fact that she can’t make a clean kill of a moose than it does to do with her youthful love life. And more yet to do with the fact that she can’t say anything coherent about national political issues.