Obama. Huckabee.
Yeah, okay. Who would have imagined a skinny black kid with a funny name, and connect that meme with the one about the unrepresentatively rural and unrepresentatively White state, and…
John Edwards is toast. There is no room for a Southern White Male. Apparently.
I was thinking about the candidates appearances on the newly returned late night programs. Hillary Clinton did an awkward bit on the Union approved Letterman. Mike Huckabee crossed the picket line to appear on Jay Leno. I imagine that no Democrat would dare cross the picket line to appear on Leno, but Mike Huckabee’s explanation on appearing on Leno (and it is curious that guests on Leno are in the position of apologizing for being on the show) was that he thought Leno had struck a deal just as Letterman had. This ignorance would not have flied with the Democrats. But then again, what was Huckabee doing thinking he needed to explain this away — are the Unions going to cross over for Huckabee? I suppose there might be something in dicing and analyzing results. Huckabee dominated lower income Republicans — which probably largely simply overlaps his base in the arena of Evangelicals.
More impressively, the Youths pulled in for Obama, and so it is that the Kids Are All Right. Here I muse and note that there are no Youths in the Republican Party. A fun game to play is to look at the average age of registered Republicans circa 1994 and compare it to right this minute. If you want to argure the “If you’re 20 and aren’t a liberal — no heart; if you’re 40 and aren’t a conservative — no head” Churchill bit (I think that’s Churchill), I will point out that Reagan dominated the Youth Vote. But maybe that was a particularly Heartless Generation. Or maybe just one with only a memory of Carter to guide them.
I have a general idea that Election Results are something of a lagging indicator of where our society stands. The Elderly vote; the Youth do not vote. So it is that the worst message that came out of the 2004 elections was that the Evangelicals stampeded the Republicans to victory. A lagging indicator that moved the Republicans into an untenuable position — a position foreign to —
Maybe in a couple of posts I’ll get to a New Years Celebration Explanation to complete that thought. Maybe.
Mike Huckabee won the Republican Caucuses. In the arena of “winners” and “losers”, that makes him a winner. McCain is probably the other winner, just off the basis that Romney lost. Giuliani is probably a loser too, as we prepare to find out what the viability of his “Ignore the Earliest Contests” strategy. Ron Paul beat this guy. Ron Goddamned Paul.
And Fred Thompson. Fred Goddamned Thompson.
The immediate reaction of the Republican Intelligentsia, as hear on NPR from Jonah Goldberg, was the trumpetting of McCain. Huckabee frightens this crowd, as Goldberg referenced when he called him a “Right Wing Progressive”, additional comment “Not a good thing.” Somewhat familiar to Rush Limbaugh in either 1992 or 1996, after Pat Buchanan disturbed the party, coming on the air with the statement “You have been fooled. Pat Buchanan is not a conservative. He is a Populist.”
The Evangelicals. They have a mind of their own. Somewhere beyond the grave, William Jennings Bryan is smiling.
I get the feeling John McCain is the Republican nominee. And I have a sense of dejavu. John Kerry in 2004 was the front-runner at the very beginning, then fell off the perch completely, and came back… by default. By Default.
Liberman is stumping for McCain. A boost? Sure. Lieberman is a great hero of Republicans. Why, McCain may well tap Lieberman as his running mate! Speaking of lagging indicators, McCain / Lieberman ought to excite the Youth, correct?